[BTS] Need to compare my viewpoint with yours

[0rion79]

hello,

after so many years playing Civ IV (BTS), I still have some "doubts" about the game mechanics. I've been able to achieve good victories at Prince level but I've found it extremely difficult for some reasons.
In Noble level, I've been able to use more or less each civilization and win (usually space race) but there are some things that are not clear to me yet.

In prince level, I've seen that there is the need of:
- a good starting point (enough resources and not being closed in a corner by another civ)
- not too many AI tribes (I usually play on smaller maps)
- good combinations of leader traits, that are not all equal
- a very good starting, where it is a "must" to get the best wonders before the AI.
- time.

I think that time is the most important thing because, especially if the player is aiming to use corporations, there is the need to build 6 strong cities, one for each kind of great people (engineer, mercant, priest, scientist, artist, and spy) but it is simply not possible to build more than 3-4 cities at the beginning of the game, where economy is still poor and population is small. So, I know that there is the need to concede something to the AI (for example, I think that, during the bronze age, it is possible to live even without the Great Lighthouse, Artemis Temple, Stonenge and the Great Wall - even if they are all useful especially to gain some more coins at the beginning of the game) while the Colossus can provide a great boost if used together with Mohai statues and a harbour. But they give important bonuses for the production of great people. Also, I'm not so sure about the values of pyramids. For sure, it is a great deal to be able to pass to Representation because, at least for science purposes, it is the best government ever but, in the early stages of the game there are not so many specialists yet so I wonder if it is something really essential.
Then there are other "wonders" that are not that good anyway. Apostolic Palace, Shwedagon Paya, Statue of Zeus, Sistine Chapel, Chichen Itza, The Kremlin.
Almost all the others are a "must have" especially Angkor Wat that is outstanding because all temples will work as additional hammers for production.

Now, I have other doubts about other possibilities in the game.

About leader traits, I've seen that I can win only with the civs that have the following:
- Financial (so great for economic and scientific output: faster I discover wonders and technologies, more chances I have to build them before the AI)
- Industrious (or the AI will build 50% of the wonders before me), also great with "Organized" trait because the speed in building up the Forge and the Factory will make a tribe a super-builder (and in fact USA are very strong in Civ IV!)
- Spiritual, because it will allow to save many turns before the building of Cristo Redentor (that I don't want to leave to the AI) and will allow a full use of almost all government types.
Only after, I feel confident with Philosophical and Charismatic: the first is quite obvious and I can use it in combo with Pacifism, but has the backdraw that it is useless in the very first game steps, that (imho) are the most importants. Charismatic instead is a very good deal to be used during peace times (people happy in big cities is very important) and high-quality units all at once, but it is possible to live without especially for a pacifist as I am.

Now, corporations. I know that Sid Sushi is the strongest, but much depends from availeable resources. I've completed the last game using Aluminum, Inc., Cereal meals, Civilized Jewelers and Creative Constructions in all my cities because, without considering inport-export, I had more resources of that kind. And I've won by cultural victory (that I hate). Instead, I can't find a way to use Standard Ethanol Co.: since it goes in conflict with food, I always prefer to use food except if I'm so unlucky to be in a map without oil. The only problem is that corporations require time to spread, are expensive and do not fit very well with "green" economy.

The trouble come when United Nations are built and the AI almos alwyas win elections (don't know why, coalization against the only human player?). Often it forces me to choose for global Environmentalism. Does it have any effect on global warming?
Anyway, it is a problem because those global "styles" can't be undone and I hate not being able to turn into Vasalage, Theocracy and Police State when I'm in war times.

Also, I've seen that in BTS there have tried to enhance Environmentalism, but is it really worthy of? I have tried to use it and, effectively, if all forests (if any is left) are turned into Forest reserves and all mines are replaced with mills, there is a strong science output for the last scientific research rush, but there is a drop in production too. Maybe it is convenient only when the player has chosen to using only 2 coprs (Sid Sushi and Mining inc.)

And now the last point: civics. Skipping warfare ones, why do you think that Slavery is that strong? People gets angry and cities are halved. Even more, they need time to grow back to their original size, so I don't see any clear advantage in it.
About governments, I've seen that I NEVER use Hereditary Rule because I have Representation from pyramids and also I see Universal Suffrage as a second good choice but not as good as Representation because, if I lower my research rate, I will loose advantages against the Ai and, also gold for production is good only later in the game while the +1 shield from villages is something that depends a lot from villages conditions.
About Legal Civics, I don't understand the benefits of Nationhods except if the player has missed some important wonder that give happyness while Free Spech, even if so powerful, too many times causes cultural victory that I don't like (also because I don't know when I'm next to win) so Bureaucracy becames my best choice in non-custom games. About Labor, the only one that is worthy a revolution are Caste System and Emancipation (that I can accept as global civic)
Then about Economy Civics, that are the ones that make the greatest difference imho, I always use Mercantilism until when I start to build Corporations, then I switch to Free Market. State Propriety is great for very large empires and for warmongers but I think it is worst than having Corporations. About Environmentalism, I've already spoke about that before. can't understand how really good it can be.
Least, about Religion Civics, Organized Religion is a "must have" when state religion has spread among the empire and I never do switch to Pacifism or Free Religion until when I have Angkor Wat and its twin wonder for science. Only when they turn obsolete I can do the change also for international relationships but I think it is much stronger.

So, as you can see, I think that my game is quite "rigid" and that, at the end of facts, there is not that freedom even in the tech tree, where there are some must-do steps (as to discover Liberalism and aim to techs with specialist). Maybe, just to try something different, I could ingore many of the wonders and try to concentrate only on building a high-quality empire, and to skip Angkor Wat and set immediately to Free Religion to save time, but I'm not sure about the result. For sure, I would not have the "risk" of a cultural victory but I think it would be quite a worst game, then.

Sorry for writing so much, so please quote only the part that you want to comment.
Thank you!!

[Iranon]

Great People: This depends heavily on what I'm intending to do with them. Often enough I only want a couple of scientists... one for an academy, then bulb to liberalism and beyond for trade bait; this allows me to focus my output on something other than science to consolidate my position.
At others, I only care about volume and will settle them all in a super city anyway; preferably milking Representation from the Pyramids.

Traits: A few things change with difficulty level. I prefer ORG over FIN at higher levels because the former is in full effect while I'm abusing my economy in order to claim more land. Pre-Renaissance war can become risky because the AIs will have a ton of obsolete units they can upgrade almost for free once they catch up in tech so the ability to go overboard with production/expansion in the early game without crashing the economy becomes a valuable asset.

AGG and PRO I consider junk on lower levels because I don't need them if the situation looks good for war and I'd rather have a lasting economic edge. On high levels, enticing the AIs to waste their bonuses in futile assaults against my cities becomes worth considering (to the point where I'll declare war without intending to invade anyone) and I might need any help I can get to make an early rush worth the investment. IND is great if it's just the edge you need to reliably win with a wonder-based economy even on little/poor land; on levels above that it takes a huge plummet.
I find the leaders more balanced on Deity than any other level; below I'm grumbling any time I draw someone like Gilgamesh or Sitting Bull.

Corporations: The most important to me is Mining.Inc. Can be had early, gives a huge bonus that doesn't require me to build additional cap raisers like the food corporations. Sushi is great, but sometimes it simply requires too much investment while I have more important things to do (like eat a neighbour or two).

Civics: Nationhood gives you tremdendous military potential that's completely independent of production multipliers. If you ran an austere, infrastructure-light economy and bulbed towards Rifling/Nationalism (a fast-teching economy that doesn't require much investment in science infrastructure... note the pattern) you have a huge time window to take over the world before you'd have gotten there with a more staid approach.

Universal Suffrage requires a heavy emphasis on towns to be worth it over Representation, but with rushbuy mature towns outperform any production improvement in the game. I don't like Hereditary Rule too much myself, but sometimes the Pyramids are simply too much of an investment (e.g. when the delay on settlers would cause you to be boxed in on insufficient land with too little production to break out).

Environmentalism is a niche civics for small empires in my opinion: Both State Property and corporations scale nicely with empire size, Environmentalism doesn't. The commerce bonus to national parks is particularly interesting if you only have a handful of cities and your best one is a National Park monster with more than a dozen forest preserves.

Slavery is the single most powerful civic for me. Food for slavery can more than match production improvements in the early and late game (not too attractive in the midgame - no food overflow from Biology and corporations and no Kremlin yet, but cities are large enough to make workshops/mines more competitive) and it gives you a great deal of flexibility. Especially useful if you need to get strong production going before you've grown to your caps (since you'll be working more useful tiles faster compared to stifling growth in favour of direct hammers).

*

It seems you're playing at a level where a steady, long-term approach is guaranteed to get you to a win, so there is no reason to take chances pushing your empire to its limit. On levels where you struggle to win at all, you will cherish any tool that allows you simplify the game and trim away any fat that isn't needed to achieve your short-term goals.

[0rion79]

Originally Posted by Iranon

It seems you're playing at a level where a steady, long-term approach is guaranteed to get you to a win, so there is no reason to take chances pushing your empire to its limit. On levels where you struggle to win at all, you will cherish any tool that allows you simplify the game and trim away any fat that isn't needed to achieve your short-term goals.

This is probably the most interesting note ever. What can be other victory conditions?
As a paradox, my highest score has been with Tokugawa in 1 vs. 1 game, where I've defeated my opponent in a very SLOW game, thanks to Samurai. But I've set the game to a speed that could give more advantage to me, since Japan is stronger in medieval times.

[Ghpstage]

In prince level, I've seen that there is the need of:
- a good starting point (enough resources and not being closed in a corner by another civ)
- not too many AI tribes (I usually play on smaller maps)
- good combinations of leader traits, that are not all equal
- a very good starting, where it is a "must" to get the best wonders before the AI.
- time.

I think that time is the most important thing because, especially if the player is aiming to use corporations, there is the need to build 6 strong cities, one for each kind of great people (engineer, mercant, priest, scientist, artist, and spy) but it is simply not possible to build more than 3-4 cities at the beginning of the game, where economy is still poor and population is small. So, I know that there is the need to concede something to the AI (for example, I think that, during the bronze age, it is possible to live even without the Great Lighthouse, Artemis Temple, Stonenge and the Great Wall - even if they are all useful especially to gain some more coins at the beginning of the game) while the Colossus can provide a great boost if used together with Mohai statues and a harbour. But they give important bonuses for the production of great people.

Most of the corps compete with something and some of them are rarely worth building, the 2 I (and most) prefer are Mining Inc and Sushi's and if I can get both and have oil and aluminium in my lands (which these will likely help get anyway!), then I won't bother with others, its just a waste of and Great People.
Artists suck unless your going for a cultural win anyway and spies need you to know how to use espionage effectively (with wars etc), Prophets becomes less useful as the game goes on.

Thinking of wonders as "must have" is not very helpful imo, the Great Lighthouse (GLH) is only going to help if theres lots of coast, the Mids if it doesn't slow you down and you have a lot of food.
I never bother with the Temple of Artemis, I consider it a very weak wonder, a mixed Great People Points (GPP) pool is rarely desirable, the bonuses are mediocre and the AI prioritizes it heavily .

Wonders all have a cost and its often very large, a non Industrious Pyramids without stone for example costs as much as 5 settlers! Some wonders can offer a large benefit if you use them well, but sometimes getting it really isn't worth giving up more land, or building an army. You can always take wonders that the AI builds for you

Also, I'm not so sure about the values of pyramids. For sure, it is a great deal to be able to pass to Representation because, at least for science purposes, it is the best government ever but, in the early stages of the game there are not so many specialists yet so I wonder if it is something really essential.

The Pyramids are a hotly debated wonder, while they are incredibly strong they cost a tremendous amount. I won't go for them if I don't have Stone early.

Then there are other "wonders" that are not that good anyway. Apostolic Palace, Shwedagon Paya, Statue of Zeus, Sistine Chapel, Chichen Itza, The Kremlin.
Almost all the others are a "must have" especially Angkor Wat that is outstanding because all temples will work as additional hammers for production.

You managed to list the 2 wonders I consider by and far the best in there

-Chicken Pizza just sucks, I never build it
-Sistine is only good for culture wins
-Shwedegon is a rare one for me to build, only for Free Religion and only if there are many different religions near me.
-S of Zeus I only build to deny AIs, I still rarely build it but the city its in becomes a target for
-I would also add the Hagia Sophia as a marginal wonder, a huge price tag and its only worthwhile contribution is the Great Engineer Points .
-Ankore Wat I like, but I prefer Great Scientists in many games so using Priests is something I often avoid doing, obviously making the wonder pointless.


The AP is a whole different kettle of fish however,
It is in my opinion the games best wonder, and by a clear margin!
It gives +2 to buildings of the AP religion (temples, monastery, shrine, cathedrals, this is for all AP buildings worldwide, doesn't matter if you built it or not
Opens the earliest (and cheesiest) peaceful victory condition,
Manipulates war and diplo in incredible ways,

It is in fact, so powerful it can get the Tokugawa AI to Open Borders!
In my last Emperor game I used it and its religion to boost the Toku AI. A lot. It made friends, traded and became a very effective attack dog


The Kremlin is my vote for second strongest, increasing the efficiency of buying and slave rushing by such a huge amount leads to truly enomous military buildups. It also comes a time that the draft is weakening and can even build non draftable units! A very strong wonder that is higly rated on these forums


Both of these wonders get more useful on higher levels however, diplo itself becomes more important as you go up, and the extra options the AP allows can be abused to great effect.
The Kremlin is better when you know how to manage your economy and production in different ways and when building an immense army fast is the best course of action.


You clearly have the dreaded wonder addiction disease!
The fastest cure for this is to play a game where you ban yourself from building wonders, this will show the holes in your basic play, make you re-evaluate wonders and probably make you more of a warmonger

[0rion79]

Originally Posted by Ghpstage

Most of the corps compete with something and some of them are rarely worth building, the 2 I (and most) prefer are Mining Inc and Sushi's [...]

Well, I don't always use civilized jewels. I've seen that much depends from the quantities of goods that I own, that may give a different bonus/cost ratio to corporations. Only in rare cases I use a 4 corps. combo but almost often I'm for Sid Sushi and Mining inc. only, too.

Thinking of wonders as "must have" is not very helpful imo, the Great Lighthouse (GLH) is only going to help if theres lots of coast, the Mids if it doesn't slow you down and you have a lot of food.

The Mids?

a mixed Great People Points (GPP) pool is rarely desirable, the bonuses are mediocre and the AI prioritizes it heavily .

I agree.

-Ankore Wat I like, but I prefer Great Scientists in many games so using Priests is something I often avoid doing, obviously making the wonder pointless.
The AP is a whole different kettle of fish however,
It is in my opinion the games best wonder, and by a clear margin!
It gives +2 to buildings of the AP religion (temples, monastery, shrine, cathedrals, this is for all AP buildings worldwide, doesn't matter if you built it or not
Opens the earliest (and cheesiest) peaceful victory condition,
Manipulates war and diplo in incredible ways,

Sorry, but is it Angkore Wat or the Apostolic Palace that turns all holy buildings into hammer-producing facilities? I thought it was A.Wat but, if it is the Apostolic Palace, then I've made a huge mistake and I can live without Angkore Wat too, because I don't love priest either.
Anyway, how do you get elected? Just by building it or do you have to have enough population too?

The Kremlin is my vote for second strongest, increasing the efficiency of buying and slave rushing by such a huge amount leads to truly enomous military buildups. It also comes a time that the draft is weakening and can even build non draftable units!

In my run for space race, I almost never have enough gold to spend in such matters. I often use it to upgrade my existing units. Is it a mistake?

You clearly have the dreaded wonder addiction disease!
The fastest cure for this is to play a game where you ban yourself from building wonders, this will show the holes in your basic play, make you re-evaluate wonders and probably make you more of a warmonger

Probably But it is clear to me that not all wonders are worthy of being built and that this must be a condition for high-levels playing. Anyway, if you play to Emperor level, then it means that it is possible to compete even with a "cheating" AI (that has extra hammers and economy bonuses) but I don't know if I shall try it: I like relaxed games, else I got too much stressed :P

[Iranon]

Originally Posted by 0rion79

This is probably the most interesting note ever. What can be other victory conditions?

I'm not sure I understood your reply. I'm not referring to any specific victory condition; most of my games are won by economic dominance where I could go for almost any victory in the endgame.

What I meant is that a steady playstyle which focuses on long-term effects in everything ('build my cities up nicely, settle Great People and win because my long-term investments into permanent gains will pay off') is not the only viable approach (although I prefer it myself if I can afford it).
You could simply push hard for a game-breaker without heed for long-term consequences. The example I gave above ('sod sustainable research, I can lightbulb -> sod sustainable production, I can draft') will result in an unhappy and underdeveloped core empire... but you get a shot at pitting riflemen against longbows very early for some easy conquest. The conquest gold and sheer size (especially with all the later espionage buildings) along with a little extortion can get you from from 'ailing economy about to run into a brick wall because I sacrificed everything for a short-term edge' to 'tech leader and 3 times everyone else's output' quite quickly.

*

Regarding the Kremlin: Projects can't be hurried, wonders can't be hurried cost-effectively. You might want it in Space Race games, but it will be for overall infrastructure/an army rather than directly helping you to win faster.

About never having spare gold for rushbuying... imagine for a moment you have no production cities but the ones with special modifiers (like Ironworks, Heroic Epic+Military Academy) and instead you covered the world in towns. With the appropriate civcs and the Kremlin, those produce 1 hammer locally and 3.5 to be spent wherever you want on 100% gold; that puts State Property workshops to shame never mind mines/lumbermills.
You might not be on 100% gold for extended periods of time, but all this means is that your cities can change from research powerhouses to production powerhouses or anything between instantly.

If you aren't used to this, it can feel strange at first ('but I don't want to give up my absolutely awesome research for production via rushbuy!') but once you get a hang of an economy that can fix anything with enough money, it rocks.

*

Regarding wonders: AI denial remains relevant on higher levels. I will slow down my own development by going wonder crazy compared to staying with the basics, but it can eliminate one problem: runaway AIs on another continent.
If we settle the mixed back of specialists instead of lightbulbing and whoring monopoly techs around, we will further slow down global tech pace to our advantage.
My last 3 losses at Immortal have been to someone far away who got an excellent start, collected all the early high-impact wonders and ran away with the game never looking back.

[0rion79]

Yes, it does make sense but it is really too far away from my perfectionist style. Civ IV is a game and the true goal is having fun from it so, if I have to go too much against my perfectionist nature, then I don't get any fun from it So I prefer to play at average levels :P
Anyway, since english is not my mother tongue, I'm sorry to say that I've not be able to understand the last point of your previous post. Can you repeat it using other words, please? This discussion is very interesting for me!

[Iranon]

I'll try

You have many tools to keep nearby AIs down. You can conquer them because they are not very good at waging war. You can set up a beneficial diplomatic situation in many ways (setting some up as permanent allies, plunging everyone into a costly war that will allow you to overtake them, making sure that your biggest competitor is hated by everyone else and so on).

Unless they catch you unaware early on, you have many tools to control your neighbours. This means the true opponents for the endgame will often be far away. If a far-away AI has a favourable start and gets all the good early wonders they might be too far ahead by the time you meet them and can do something about them.
Building the high-impact wonders yourself and avoiding founding the majority of religions yourself are some of the very limited ways in which you can hurt AIs you haven't even met yet. The latter works because it's more likely that there will be holy wars on the other side of the world instead of brotherly love all around.

*

Somewhat related to this is your use of Great People. Getting many of them from wonders means you can't easily control which types you get, making elaborate lightbulb strategies towards a game-breaking tech more difficult.
On the other hand, you get a fair amount of them, and if you have the Pyramids settling those you have no immediate use for is strong. If you go for permanent gains instead of 'lightbulbing' a monopoly tech and sharing it with everyone, you slow down the AIs a lot... possibly more so than yourself.

For these reasons, going heavy on wonders will probably *hurt* a goal like 'I want to have game-breaking tech x by year y' but is likely to help a goal like 'I want to have a higher sustainable output than any competitor by year x'.

[Berba]

Good writing and good strategy!
I have some agreements and questions

And I've won by cultural victory (that I hate).

A: Indeed, if I win that way, I feel like I haven't done anything lethal to my hostile civs. Plus, the Time victory, (witch I hate) has same explanation.

...and all mines are replaced with mills...

Q: Do you mean that mills have the same effect as mines, or do they the same service as the workers improving the cows with forts?

And now the last point: civics. Skipping warfare ones, why do you think that Slavery is that strong? People gets angry and cities are halved. Even more, they need time to grow back to their original size, so I don't see any clear advantage in it.

A: Neither do I, when drafting, if neccesary, I prefer Universal Suffrage

Tip: When in need of money, and with a surplus of , you can, after a while, start constructing a unneccesary wonder and when the lost hammers are converted into gold, you have money!
Warning though: This strategy actually sucks and shouldn't beeing used, but in case of emergency it's acceptable

...and I never do switch to Pacifism or Free Religion until when I have Angkor Wat and its twin wonder for science.

Q: Hmm.. I looked in the online civliopedia after a wonder as Angkor Wat, but with engineer benefits. But I couldn't find one, Which one do you mean?

Thnks and goodbye, for now

[0rion79]

@ Berba, I ment the The Spiral Minaret. As Angkor Wat, it affects priests and it may be a very good deal if you have a lot of them: the extra coins that it provides may be helpful in keeping scientific research at 100% for a quite long time.
Still, I have had to reconsider those wonders because, now that I know that it was the Apostolic Palace that was turning all my temples & stuff into hammer-providing facilities, and not Angkor Wat, I see them as much weaker and I would, instead, aim directly to the Apostolic Palace together with University of Sankore, that will boost scientific research in all temples and stuff. I would build the other two only if reach them and the AI has not build them yet.
I just would like to know why the A.P. ability is not described in the civilopedia: it just talks about elections and conditions for building it, but there isn't anything about extra production!! Maybe it is a bug of italian verison.

Also, when I ment about replacing mines with windmills, I was taling about the Environmentalism civic: in BTS, it gives +2 GOLD from forestal reserves and windmills and they may be really cool but I'm afraid that such a boost does not compensate the lack of production. I mean, if you have already built a mine on a hill and you try to replace it with a mill under Environmentalism you shall have -2 HAMMER but +1 FOOD and +4 COMMERCE total. As well, if you are going for Environmentalism, then you MAY want to turn your Sawmill into Forestal Reserve and again, doing so, you would trade 2 HAMMERS for 2 extra COMMERCE plus happy people in the nearby city, and a chance that the forest will expand, that is good mainly in arctic areas.

PS: iranon, thanks a lot for anwers. I've red them but I have nothing to add for now!

[Ghpstage]

The Mids?

Sorry about the abbreviation, The Pyra'Mids'

Sorry, but is it Angkore Wat or the Apostolic Palace that turns all holy buildings into hammer-producing facilities? I thought it was A.Wat but, if it is the Apostolic Palace, then I've made a huge mistake and I can live without Angkore Wat too, because I don't love priest either.

The AP is what gives the to temples etc but only of the AP religion, even if someone else builds the AP in Judaism while you run Hinduism every Jewish building you build gains 2. Its a weird wonder that you don't need to build to get the benefits but often takes up a lot of my games playing around with

Ankore Wat makes all Priest specialists a lot better and gives 3 Priest slots. Having Priests (2, 1 with Ankore Wat) that are stronger than Engineer specialists (2) is actually a pretty good bonus, you do have to weigh it against other considerations however.

Anyway, how do you get elected? Just by building it or do you have to have enough population too?

2 civs are picked as candidates for the Residency (leadership) vote, the AP owner regardless of religion, and the civ with the most AP religion population while running the AP as state religion.
The number of votes any civ has is equal to the civs population of the AP religion.
The vote number is doubled if the civs state religion is the AP religion.
Civs will vote for the candidate they like most (pleased/friendly) if they like neither, they abstain.
These rules make it incredibly easy to abuse to make you the only candidate and be guaranteed victory amongst other things

The winner of Residency gets to propose any valid resolutions that they choose, if all civs have at least 1 city with the AP religion one of these possible resolutions will be for a diplomatic victory.

The biggest problem with the AP is that it is poorly explained in the manual and Civilopedia, and this, combined with its massive gamechanging ability makes it clumsy (and sometimes catastrophic) for people who don't know how it works. Luckily like everything in life, this site has a guide on it AP guide
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a guide on AP abuse that isn't on cheese wins.
There are far more abilities that are very useful than just winning like that

Probably But it is clear to me that not all wonders are worthy of being built and that this must be a condition for high-levels playing. Anyway, if you play to Emperor level, then it means that it is possible to compete even with a "cheating" AI (that has extra hammers and economy bonuses) but I don't know if I shall try it: I like relaxed games, else I got too much stressed :P

I think Emperor is the last level where the AI stupidity outshines its bonuses by a big margin, so after getting used to it a bit it doesn't take too much effort to do decently on it. Its also the highest level I don't struggle on so its a nice testground for doing things I wouldn't risk trying for the first time on Immortal, like creating Super-Tokugawas!

@ Berba, I ment the The Spiral Minaret. As Angkor Wat, it affects priests and it may be a very good deal if you have a lot of them: the extra coins that it provides may be helpful in keeping scientific research at 100% for a quite long time.

When considering University of Sankore (+2) or the Spiral Minaret (+2) you have to take into account that unlike the AP swapping your state religion will swap what buildings have the bonus, and changing to Free Religion prevents any religious buildings having the bonus. In the case of the AP the religion that gets the bonus is locked to the religion the AP was built under and Free Religion doesn't remove it.

I just would like to know why the A.P. ability is not described in the civilopedia: it just talks about elections and conditions for building it, but there isn't anything about extra production!! Maybe it is a bug of italian verison.

I think it was an oversight, and a bad one at that! The AP would still be my candidate for strongest even without the though . The do get a very small mention in my Civ 4 complete manual that I only saw recently

[Crusher1]

Universal Suffrage requires a heavy emphasis on towns to be worth it over Representation, but with rushbuy mature towns outperform any production improvement in the game.

This isn't true. I've made numerous WB games (one posted in these forums) and fully loaded workshops outproduce fully loaded towns. Of course, towns do supply superior teching assuming you have an equal number of towns to workshop ratio.

[Iranon]

What's there to test in worldbuilder? The mechanics are straightforward enough that looking at the theory seems a lot easier and less likely to introduce an element of human error... unless you have some hard evidence that the mechanics don't work as advertised.

[Crusher1]

Perhaps a fairer statement would be fully loaded towns don't always out produce fully loaded workshops. In my WB test workshops did much better. Of course, towns can rush buy anything they want in any city instantly but that's a different issue. Actually, every single WB test I have ever done has fully loaded WS coming ahead of fully loaded towns - in terms of raw production.

I used 8 cities @ 10 pop, with each method producing as many Infantrymen as possible in 20 turns (w/ identical infrastructure).

The Towns scenario built wealth for 10 turns then proceeded to build Infantryman/Rush buy on turn 1 for maximum numbers while the workshop method simply built non stop Infantry for the whole 20 turns.

In the end, as you can see below, the fully loaded workshop scenario produced 4 more units. The original link is somewhere in the forums.........

[Iranon]

Rushbuying on the first turn a production item is in the queue is an inefficient use of towns though, as is building wealth if you could build the desired item directly. The former because it gives you a worse conversion rate, the latter because you lose half of your direct hammers (hammers are turned into gold 1:1, then you need to pay 2 gold per hammer).

You aren't building gold with your workshops for the heck of it, so the comparison strikes me as not quite fair... or am I missing something?

[Crusher1]

I realize its not the best conversion but to wait for the most efficient use of that gold, 1 turn, Towns fall even further behind - in terms of raw production. So what happens when a CE slaps down filler cities? As you well know, HE usually have more cities to begin with because its part of the settle super close and maximize cities to work a few tiles. This means even after a CE puts down filler cities it's still behind in terms of raw production.

After all, a fully upgraded HE city at size 6 can produce Infantry every 3 turns. Just think how many more units a HE with 30 cities can produce than a CE with 30 cities - honestly, it's not even close.

You aren't building gold with your workshops for the heck of it, so the comparison strikes me as not quite fair... or am I missing something?

Why would they be? They don't need to rush buy units, the Towns do. Do towns produce more gold? Yes. Do towns produce more research? Yes. Do towns produce better production with Rush Buy? No (exception nukes!).

Of course, this type of comparison is flawed, you are right. After all, Towns have the ability to instantly get infrastructure up in any new city they found while a HE takes a few more turns. I'm just pointing out that when you measure them heads up in raw production potential fully upgraded WS outproduce fully upgraded towns.

The HE will have to carefully balance tech, infrastructure, and units but has much better potential for an ongoing war machine in terms of raw production.

[Iranon]

Well, my point is that you have no incentive to build wealth in either case.

Assuming +100% multipliers for everything, towns go from 9 effective hammers under ideal use (building infantry directly, spending money to hurry: 2 hammers directly, 14 gold which is converted into 7 hammers) to as little as 5.3 hammers for what you're doing (16 gold building wealth, divided by 3 for rushbuying with the markup for instant hurrying).
CS/SP workshops will be in between at 8 effective hammers.

After all, a fully upgraded HE city at size 6 can produce Infantry every 3 turns. Just think how many more units a HE with 30 cities can produce than a CE with 30 cities - honestly, it's not even close.

In a fully upgraded city, 6 towns will produce 36 hammers and 252 gold over the course of 3 turns; that's enough to finish rushbuying that infrantry with 44 gold left over, or 22 hammers worth as opposed to the 4 spare hammers for the workshops (both in addition to whatever external surplus you have... home city tile, possibly something from base terrain since on grassland both cities would continue to grow).
Interestingly, they would break even if the cottage city had no production multipliers at all; something as modest as a forge puts it ahead.

Workshops can conceivably come ahead for pure unit production when they will be able to produce more than 1 unit every 2 turns because cottage cities will pay the markup for instant rushbuying at least some of the time when left to their own devices. This is usually easy to circumvent by shuffling things around: you could use the money to buy big objects elsewhere and use those cities' production capability on units instead.
Workshops, however, remain attractive if we're dead set on producing a unit every turn in a particular city... say because it has military wonders or a few settled Great Generals. In those cases it's also likely to have a military academy, which gives direct production another edge.
The example you gave seemed to concern generic cities in a case of total mobilisation though, and here towns simply work better.

*

Soft factors are hard to account for. Yes, cottages require time to mature... but you can get full gold multipliers a lot earlier and they increase your caps instead of wrecking health. Yes, the Kremlin comes late and requires an investment... but it becomes available with the same tech as State Property and forcing you into that civic might be a sacrifice as well if you are in the position to set up powerful corporations. Individual playstyle also has something to do with it... for example, my city layout isn't very different for a HE compared to a total cottage spam; tech path might well be though.

[Crusher1]

Workshops can conceivably come ahead for pure unit production

They do - that was my point. The ability to leverage that potential is a whole different story. I've replayed games on the same map/same leader with different methods for comparisons and my typical CE powers tech a bit quicker but units a bit slower.

I'll have to find a comparison game I made where the HE produced 725 units at the same point in time the CE produced 220, or maybe it was 320? I forget.

[TheMeInTeam]

Originally Posted by Crusher1

They do - that was my point. The ability to leverage that potential is a whole different story. I've replayed games on the same map/same leader with different methods for comparisons and my typical CE powers tech a bit quicker but units a bit slower.

I'll have to find a comparison game I made where the HE produced 725 units at the same point in time the CE produced 220, or maybe it was 320? I forget.

Are you seriously just ignoring the reality here? 100% gold towns with the proper civics are going to beat 100% hammer workshops with the proper civics. Waiting 1 turn to avoid the rush buy penalty does not put you behind, it puts you ahead.

What you quoted from Iranon was a situation in where a military city can make 1 unit/turn, where hammers are better because you can't sink a turn into production for rushbuy to match 1/turn. However, if you can't produce 1 unit/turn in your cities (quite likely outside ones with hammer national wonders), then what you're saying is wrong.

[Iranon]

Please don't truncate my quotes in a way that reverses the meaning; the conditions I stated will not apply to the majority of cities.

You misused towns horribly in the comparison you gave above and as for 'real' comparison games... I've had some of my games I played twice from the same save turn out very differently without any effort of my own. Civ is complex enough and so many things can happen that we'd need ridiculous sample sizes to prove anything... and that's after we agree on the exact implementation of each strategy.