Money Does Grow on Trees: How to Convert Forests into Lots and Lots of Gold

[MarigoldRan]

If you build wealth, 1 hammer = 1 gold. Not very efficient.

Fail-gold is better. These are the Ingredients:

1. Get Math for 50% better chops from forests. At Marathon speed, this means every chopped forests generates 90 hammers instead of 60. At Standard speed, chopped forests generate 30 hammers instead of 20.

2. Get Organized Religion. Wonders build 25% faster with it.

3. Get the appropriate resource. Some Wonders like the Temple of Artemis build 100% faster with a special resource (in this case, Marble).

4. Get some workers to chop forests.

5. If you're IND, extra bonus to you! IND means 50% faster production of Wonders.

This is how to do it:

1. Build the Wonder in your most production-heavy city.
2. Locate all of the forests you have access to. Chop them.
3. The moment a chop comes in, on that turn with building queue management, SWITCH THE WONDER-BUILDING CITY TO THE CITY THAT JUST GOT ITS FOREST CHOP.
4. On the next turn, switch the Wonder-building back to your most production-heavy city.

Consider:

Each chopped forest with Math generates 90 hammers at Marathon, 30 hammers at Standard .

Organized Religion adds 25%
Marble or Stone (or gold, or copper, or Ivory, depending on the Wonder) adds another 100%.
If you're IND, add another 50%.

In other words,
For IND civs: 1 forest = 90 hammers = 90 *2.75 = 246 gold.
For non-IND civs, 1 forest = 90 hammers = 90*2.25= 201 gold.

At Standard speed:
For IND civs: 1 forest = 30 hammers = 30 *2.75 = 82.5 gold.
For non-IND civs: 1 forest = 30 hammers = 30 * 2.25 = 67.5 gold.

In other words, with fail-gold, 8 forests = 1600 gold at Marathon speed. In other words, 8 forests = 1 Great Merchant.

This is an effective strategy regardless of speed, but it becomes extremely useful at Marathon/Huge. The reason is because it's much easier to generate hammers (more land, more forests) at Marathon/Huge than it is to generate commerce.

[civvver]

Nice maths! I have utilized this myself on some huge maps. I knew it was good but never did the math. For example when I had marble and extra forests I put hammers into sistine chapel in three different cities. I didn't want the wonder since I wasn't going for a culture victory, but a few turns later India built the thing and I pocketed 1000g.

[Kid R]

Yes I suppose wonder tech monopolies last longer on marathon, and on huge maps you've got more cities to cash in. For micromanagement heaven put whip overflows in there too for similar amounts of gold - and food doesn't run out like forests do!

[K.Murx]

Originally Posted by Kid R

Yes I suppose wonder tech monopolies last longer on marathon, and on huge maps you've got more cities to cash in.

For better control, use the moai statues with stone. I usually use those as money generators before rifles.

[Htadus]

You can build the wonder and still get fail gold. Just stop it in one city and start on another. You can do this in as many cities as long as the wonder is around and nothing better to build. For some reason, the Hanging Garden seem to work the best since it seem to be neglected by AI.

[mtr12]

Statue of Zeus if you have Ivory is another great choice.

[AutomatedTeller]

I generally do this with wonders I don't want, rather than the queue switching that MarigoldRan mentioned, just because I'd prefer to get the wonder a turn faster.

but yeah - you can get a ton of gold this way...

[TheMeInTeam]

Think failaxis patches this out too ? They certainly didn't like trees = gold for overflow, so why is trees = gold for wonders different?

So sad.....

[MarigoldRan]

I've been thinking about this.

Except for the GW and the Pyramids, it might be a better idea NOT TO BUILD ANY WONDER AT ALL and instead rely on the thousands of fail-gold you get instead. The gold is more useful because it allows you to get to the important techs like Lib faster.

I'm doing this in my Mehmed game in the other thread where I'm converting forests into gold. Take a look at the picture and look at the GOLD VALUE at the top left corner.

I'm rich. RICH!!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! And I'm not even IND!!!!

This is definitely idea for an HOF game. You know, start with Ramsessess (however you spell it- SPI, IND), WC rush, then rely on IND, forests, and fail-gold. SPI also allows Serfdom.

[ecuwins]

I'm seriously considering editing all of the wonder resources out of my xml files because this whole fail gold thing is way OP.

[obsolete]

Errmm...

Big problem with that, I don't know any deity player that thinks it's better to go after lib without building wonders like the Great Library, National epic, Parthenon, etc....

[MarigoldRan]

The issue is this:

Is the GL better, or is (however many hammers=fail gold you can get from the GL) better?

Even with Representation, GL produces 18 science per turn in an Academy city pre-University. And the GL goes obsolete with Scientific Method, which is a pretty important tech for Biology and Communism.

Would you rather have that, or lots and lots of instantaneous gold at a time when you're racing for LIB?

EDIT: This also means that you can skip Bueracracy and run Vassalage, if you have enough land and forests, and instead rely on fail-gold to get you to Lib and Beyond.

[NapoleonThePig]

The best part about The Great Library is the 8 scientist points per turn. The beakers are nice, but the gpp is the best part. (no, that's not a solecism)

Also, Rhino did an excellent series maybe two months back about running a failgold economy. It's great that you realized its power, but Rhino beat you to it. See http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=438558 .

[MarigoldRan]

I read it.

It seems like my idea is similar, but with one major difference:

I convert FORESTS into gold.

This makes the fail-gold economy significantly stronger.

Like, I would make crap cities IN ORDER TO GET MORE FOREST TILES.

Because after all "money grows on trees."

[ahcos]

Hmm... used that before, but didn't do the math. So i guess the thread has some value. Still, i'd rather get some critical wonders for myself, as the AI techs slower without wonders and i'm teching faster. I also often don't have the time to build wonders too much, but it depends i'd say. Sometimes, failgold can be really, really huge for your game.

[MarigoldRan]

All threads have value, oh smug one.....

ENTERTAINMENT VALUE!!!!

(Why else are you reading these forums?)

[ahcos]

Value - for me. Forgot to add that.

[TheMeInTeam]

Originally Posted by obsolete

Errmm...

Big problem with that, I don't know any deity player that thinks it's better to go after lib without building wonders like the Great Library, National epic, Parthenon, etc....

Added to the fact that more than one will deliberately ban GLH because it makes it "too easy" .

Still, there are a lot of fairly junky wonders, and moai is ALWAYS available for this with stone. Experienced players know tradeoffs here and would use it properly, but I personally am thankful that this kind of thing wasn't popular while patching was still busy addressing nonsensical things while leaving broken features untouched, or this would definitely have gone the way of wall whip overflow.......

[obsolete]

Even with Representation, GL produces 18 science per turn in an Academy city pre-University.

You missed a major part there entirely.
Not to mention, the MORE wonders you are willing to build, the greater the Library gets...

[nfw]

From axe wielding dudes to spaceships, is there anything trees can't make?