Usefulness of Police Station and Courthouses

Oh really. How... original... of you. Cough cough.

Though I must admit, I seriously doubt you'll keep to your word...
 
There's an old saying in my country, that translated in English "as is" would probably be meaningless. A saying that would preserve its meaning would be something like "here's a skunk complaining about stink".

The English version might be "look who's talking"; same implication of one guilty of something themselves complaining of it.
 
Buttercup said:
I stated quite clearly what the objectives of Police Stations are and why "I'm not sure that anyone's ever really got excited about their effect" which is a heck of a long way from the concept of 'never'.

Alright, let me put it to you this way. I had already indicated that I had gotten excited about the effects of police stations, by the first post I made in this thread (the intended victory condition is NOT relevant, as the OP does NOT specify what victory condition you aim for). So, when you said "I'm not sure that anyone's ever really got excited about their effect" you had either ignored information in this thread, or you implied that I lied. A bigger problem here comes as that you don't seem to have looked around for more information before giving your reasons:

Buttercup said:
1. If your empire is so in need of 3 or 4 extra beakers from a handful of distant corrupt towns then it's unlikely you would have got to the stage of conquering them in the first place.
2. If your distant corrupt town can produce more than one shield per turn then, surely, there are better buildings/units it could be producing in the time it takes to build the Police Station. And, if you're rush-building Police Stations then surely there must be a better use of money than using all your cash to generate an extra 20 or so Beakers.
3. Police Stations are on a dead tech tree and will rarely be a priority discovery.
4. They come quite late in the game and, as so many here are obsessed with boasting, many games don't even last far enough into the Industrial age for them to be part of a long-term strategy.

You've merely engaged in a priori reasoning here, at best. It comes as quite easy to test the effect of police stations and courthouses in games thanks to the HoF, to see if anyone else has gotten excited about them. The highest scoring game of all time got played by Moonsinger. Did she get excited about police stations in a non-communist government?

Well, she ran a Republic as her save indicates. If we open the save I've linked to above, don't mess with the luxury slider, and take a look at Bhaal Beach we notice it has a police station (and courthouse, though not shown in this screenshot) and looks like this:



If we sell the police station it looks like this:



The implication here comes as that Moonsinger "got excited about the effects of police stations enough to make them a promotable option".

On top of this, non-histographic games, such as this very impressive small Deity spaceship game by archpheonix used police stations extensively, or my huge Deity spaceship game. Other significant games exist which have used police stations, such as Elear's Huge Sid diplomatic game. Now none of these saves indicate those players excited about police stations in quite the same way as Moonsinger's save does for various reasons, and perhaps they could have done better using their shields (some of archphoenix's police stations may have gotten captured instead of built) to make something else. However, it's not easy to explain away the fact that they did have police stations in a research-oriented game, and they have number one positions on their tables.

Please do your homework, before trying to reason a priori, as you did above.

Also, even though there do exist significant differences between HoF-type and non-HoF type games... whatever this means exactly... these differences don't matter here.
 
i build courthouses if they will leave a city with 2 or 3 red shields. if a city already has 1 or 2 red shields then i don't bother unless its a forbidden palace city because the effect is too little; i'd rather build a marketplace/library/barracks/troops etc.

also, if a city has 4 or more red shields then i don't bother building one there either because it won't see much effect, if any. the exception is if the shield ratio is something ridiculous, like 4 red shields - 12 blue shields, then i'll build one because it'll benefit from it.

e.g: if one city has 5 red shields and 4 blue shields, and another city has 3 red shields and 6 blue shields, then i'll build a courthouse in the 3 red - 6 blue city, because it will see more of an effect.

badly worded, but it works. someone else can explain it more gracefully.
 
You seem to be missing the point as per usual spoonwood.

My sentence ran: "In terms of helping to reduce Corruption for non-Communist government types I'm not sure that anyone's ever really got excited about their effect enough to make them a promotable option for the following reasons:"

However, when you take offence at this sentence you only quote "I'm not sure that anyone's ever really got excited about their effect" from me and then give an example of how Police Stations can improve Happy Faces for a Bigger Score.

You completely ignore the rather crucial aspect of my sentence which states: "In terms of helping to reduce Corruption"

I am at a complete loss as to how your brain cannot read and understand this.
 
Buttercup said:
However, when you take offence at this sentence you only quote "I'm not sure that anyone's ever really got excited about their effect" from me and then give an example of how Police Stations can improve Happy Faces for a Bigger Score.

You completely ignore the rather crucial aspect of my sentence which states: "In terms of helping to reduce Corruption"

No, I haven't ignored this at all.

1. I've already said "On top of all this, the worth of police stations/courthouses in a histographic game DOES lie in reducing corruption, because of the effect that reduced corruption can have. You reduce corruption, and consequently, you have more uncorrupted commerce available for the luxury slider for more happiness (or buying desired buildings like markets and hospitals). Courthouses and police stations do NOT affect happiness directly. They only affect corruption (and war weariness) directly."

2. Look at the screenshots above. The first screenshot has 30 corrupted commerce (the red commerce icons). The second has 35 corrupted commerce. In terms of helping to reduce corruption, the police station has helped.

3. I referred to 3 other games, which did NOT get played for maximum possible score. The police stations helped to reduce corruption there also.
 
Sponwood, i think you should stop replying to Buttercup as well. It's clear to me that he's just a troll.

There's no way any sane person on earth can possibly behave with a complete disregard of even the most basic principles of courtesy without being aware of what he's doing. So all this comedy must be done on purpose. Hopefully, in due time the forum staff will get rid of this pest. Meanwhile, the best thing to do is just to ignore him. Because trolls, on top of all, crave for attention.

If you see it around again spouting nonsense you can simply point out that this guy is a troll, and warn them to not take seriously anything he says and to not respond to his provocations or insults. A link of his past history of posts may be useful in this case, so people can judge for themselves:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/search.php?searchid=1843063
 
Sorry tricky, but your link didn't work for some reason. How about this one?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/search.php?searchid=1843236

I have to agree that I feel him as a troll also. It comes as one thing to act differently than most of the community. This can result in people thinking of you as a troll. However, without question Buttercup has acted uncivilly on a number of occasions. So even if he believes what he writes, and doesn't intend to provoke people, he surely ends up doing so.

I would have no problem with his silly behavior on this forum if he did not use vulgar language, and make inciteful comments like that of post 21. People who end up dead wrong, but will stubbornly stick to their incorrect position, often can help things along by giving others motivation to provide reasons as to why something does not hold, and why something else instead does hold.
 
Sorry tricky, but your link didn't work for some reason. How about this one?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/search.php?searchid=1843236

No, it doesn't work either. I just realized that a list of previous posts is basically a search on the forum db, and the id of the search changes every time, so all those links work only once.

The correct link should be this one:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/search.php?do=finduser&u=219743

because, instead of the search id, uses the user id and an action tag.

About what you say, i agree that his offensive language is undefendable and you have all the rights to be upset. I am as well. However, i also think that those insults are not the effect of a wrong attitude or a bad mood, but they are used on purpose, to cause anger in the offended and annoy the others.

IMO, the only useful thing to do, apart from exposing the troll, is report to the mods his offensive behaviour by using the 'contact us' link at the bottom of every page. One can add a permalink to the individual post in which the offenses take place, for good measure.
 
To be brutally honest spoonwood, no, your first post did not sound like you were in the throws of wild excitement.

Your examples of wild excitement have arisen because you saw a post by me which you rather psychotically believed made you a liar. I can't even begin to understand the state of paranoia needed to make that particular leap.

If you like I shall reword my offending sentence to something more to your liking:

"In terms of helping to reduce Corruption for non-Communist government types I'm not sure that anyone apart from spoonwood has ever really got that excited about their effect enough to make them a promotable option."

There, ya happy now?
 
You should have taken the discussion between myself and tricky not to use offensive language like "... psychotically (emphasis added) believed made you a liar" and "I can't even begin to understand the state of paranoia (emphasis added)..." Even if you are a licensed professional psychologist competent to diagnose such states of mind, this isn't the place to do so (and I doubt any competent professional psychologist would act quite so cavalierly). I have reported your last message.

Your re-worded sentence indicates that you've ignored the saves I've already referenced. I see no reason to repeat myself. That is all.
 
Hey, Buttercup and tR1cKy! And Spoonwood too!
:nono::nono: Arguing, please! Stop!
I think a lot of people would agree that Courthouses and Police Stations are useful, but only if used correctly.
I use Communism a lot; so they work for me.

Although the People's Empire of Constantinople sounds a bit of an oxymoron... surely an empire is ruled by an Emperor?:confused::crazyeye:
 
i build courthouses if they will leave a city with 2 or 3 red shields. if a city already has 1 or 2 red shields then i don't bother unless its a forbidden palace city because the effect is too little; i'd rather build a marketplace/library/barracks/troops etc.

also, if a city has 4 or more red shields then i don't bother building one there either because it won't see much effect, if any. the exception is if the shield ratio is something ridiculous, like 4 red shields - 12 blue shields, then i'll build one because it'll benefit from it.

e.g: if one city has 5 red shields and 4 blue shields, and another city has 3 red shields and 6 blue shields, then i'll build a courthouse in the 3 red - 6 blue city, because it will see more of an effect.

badly worded, but it works. someone else can explain it more gracefully.

Actually, I don't see how this makes sense. I think the exact opposite is true. The more corruption the city has, the more it will benefit from a courthouse. In your example, the city with 5 red shields and 4 blue will see more shields change from red to blue upon completing the courthouse than in the city with 3 red, 6 blue. Thus, the return is better. I am currently playing a game on Emperor difficulty. I am in early to mid middle ages. I had outer cities with a production of something like 8, and yet they were still getting only 1 blue shield! Ridiculous. As soon as I completed (with rushing) a courthouse, my blue shields jumped from 1 to like 3 or 4. That's a huge difference. In cities closer to my capitol, I might have like 10 production and only 2 of those shields red. Building a courthouse would at most convert 1 of those red shields to blue. That's not really worth the bother if I have more pressing things to build like libraries and aqueducts.
 
As soon as I completed (with rushing) a courthouse, my blue shields jumped from 1 to like 3 or 4. That's a huge difference. In cities closer to my capitol, I might have like 10 production and only 2 of those shields red. Building a courthouse would at most convert 1 of those red shields to blue. That's not really worth the bother if I have more pressing things to build like libraries and aqueducts.
It is a huge difference but is it a worthwhile difference? A city that nets 3 to 4 sheilds per turn won't be building anything real quickly.

Instead of spending gold to rush a courthouse, it might have been better to make that city a science/tax farm.

In Richie0's example of two cities, 5 Blue and 4 Red vs 6 Blue and 3 Red, both would benefit from a courthouse. But without any more details (terrain mostly) it is hard to determine which city would benefit most.
 
It is a huge difference but is it a worthwhile difference? A city that nets 3 to 4 sheilds per turn won't be building anything real quickly.

Instead of spending gold to rush a courthouse, it might have been better to make that city a science/tax farm.

I think it is a worthwhile difference. You can at least build aqueduct in a reasonable amount of time after completing the courthouse. And then, happyfying improvements like the marketplace. A science or tax farm will both be more effective with more people in the city, right? But you need those improvements first to sustain growth and to keep them happy.
 
I think it is a worthwhile difference. You can at least build aqueduct in a reasonable amount of time after completing the courthouse. And then, happyfying improvements like the marketplace. A science or tax farm will both be more effective with more people in the city, right? But you need those improvements first to sustain growth and to keep them happy.

But you can rush those improvements in the city, and not use any money on a courthouse.
 
True. Wouldn't it cost more that way? Hmm...

You would use extra money or turns by building/rushing courthouse but then save money or turns on the following improvements, as a result of having the courthouse. Which route is better? It sounds to me like, on balance, the courthouse route is better in most cases but I don't know for sure.

Well, we could probably quantify it. In my example, I had a city go from having 1 blue shield ---> 4 blue shields. I think. Let's just use that as an example. Then, we know that every shield counts for 3 gold, yes? So... if I go from 1 shield to 4 shields, that means that every turn I am now effectively saving 9 gold compared to having no courthouse. That is, let's say I wait for something like the aqueduct to build for 10 turns, and then rush it the rest of the way. In the case of no courthouse, I only build 10 shields. In the case of with courthouse, I built 40 shields, worth 90 gold difference. When I rush, it would be 90 gold cheaper if the courthouse is built. Correct? If we analyze this further, we could come up with some kind of result for how many turns it takes for the courthouse to make up for its build cost so that you break even, and compare it to how far you are along building the things you would want to build anyway at that point. Then, if it made up for its own building cost before you are finished with those other improvements, then we can conclude it is better to build courthouse in that scenario. If not, then we can conclude that it's not worth building.

I don't really want to analyze this further, though... lol. Not right now, anyway. Maybe someone else would like to try following this train of thought and get some real numbers with some improvements that are likely to be built.
 
True. Wouldn't it cost more that way? Hmm...

You would use extra money or turns by building/rushing courthouse but then save money or turns on the following improvements, as a result of having the courthouse. Which route is better? It sounds to me like, on balance, the courthouse route is better in most cases but I don't know for sure.

Well, we could probably quantify it. In my example, I had a city go from having 1 blue shield ---> 4 blue shields. I think. Let's just use that as an example. Then, we know that every shield counts for 3 gold, yes? So... if I go from 1 shield to 4 shields, that means that every turn I am now effectively saving 9 gold compared to having no courthouse. That is, let's say I wait for something like the aqueduct to build for 10 turns, and then rush it the rest of the way. In the case of no courthouse, I only build 10 shields. In the case of with courthouse, I built 40 shields, worth 90 gold difference. When I rush, it would be 90 gold cheaper if the courthouse is built. Correct? If we analyze this further, we could come up with some kind of result for how many turns it takes for the courthouse to make up for its build cost so that you break even, and compare it to how far you are along building the things you would want to build anyway at that point. Then, if it made up for its own building cost before you are finished with those other improvements, then we can conclude it is better to build courthouse in that scenario. If not, then we can conclude that it's not worth building.

I don't really want to analyze this further, though... lol. Not right now, anyway. Maybe someone else would like to try following this train of thought and get some real numbers with some improvements that are likely to be built.

Yes but if you already rushed the courthouse you used gold to get it. Gold you could have just used to rush the aqueduct and market, getting them up that much faster. Also, you would have to work tiles with shields to get the benefit from the courthouse, which prevents a lot of food which can be use to grow faster and get the science farm up and running. You have to factor in all the gold you lost from not having that up as well. The courthouse has maintenance as well. in most science farm you won't even need a market or aqueduct anyway, so you don't need to rush anything.
 
I think it is a worthwhile difference. You can at least build aqueduct in a reasonable amount of time after completing the courthouse. And then, happyfying improvements like the marketplace. A science or tax farm will both be more effective with more people in the city, right? But you need those improvements first to sustain growth and to keep them happy.
For either farm, a market is not needed. Helpful, but not needed. If you have unhappy citizens, you just make them tax collectors or scientists. This may happen a bit earlier that expected, say at size 8 or 9 instead of size 12, but that doesn't really matter. The extra food was going to go to specialists anyway.

But I may have misread your example. If your city went from 1 good shield to 4 good shields, that doesn't sound like a farm city. It would depend on the game situation.

For that matter, why rush a courthouse in a designated farm city? Just rush the aqueduct instead.
 
IF your government is Republics/Monarchies, courthouses and police stations fail to accomplish any of it´s potencial, now IF your government is Communism, ohh my friend, pack in Police Officers/Civil Engineers specialists (not to mention Factories, Coal Plants, Offshore Platforms, Secret Police HQ plus Mobilization) and your outer ring just turned into a new core!
 
Top Bottom