Creative Construction FTW

[The Rook]

If you don't need the culture, cereal is sometimes better than sushi, especially when you take trades into account. A Grain will net more than a fish/crab/clam will on 1:1 basis using the respective corp. If the grains/seafood in your empire are roughly equal when converted into corporate , and you are able to trade for ten more resources of either type from the AI, cereal will net more than sushi and is the better corp on a pure basis. The downside is it comes a little later in the tech tree.

I use cereal a fair amount, and am no sucker

Just quickly do the math before you found the corp you can determine which will net more for the given game.

The main problems I seem to have with Cereal Mills as a practical food corp seem to be:

1. It arrives very late.
2. It comes up via a tech that often has marginal value compared to critical military/wonder techs of the modern era.
3. When I have a good quantity of cereal food, I normally have a large chunk of land. In this scenario, SP becomes very attractive way to enhance food. SP arrives earlier than corporations, requires minimal outlay, lowers maintenance, and offers a production bonus too. Whilst Cereal Mills may sometimes beat SP on paper, once the outlay is considered I normally find it more practical to go straight for the finishing line. In practice I find that SP competes less with Sushi, as often the maps where I have tonnes of seafood, I don't have much workshoppable/watermillable land.

I suppose Cereal would beat SP if you have committed to cottage spam though, or perhaps if you are going for space and don't have aluminum (making Aluminum Corp possible).

 

[mboettcher]

@The Rook

I most definitely see your point with SP vs Cereal Mills. SP is also very strong post significant land acquisition. I really only 'Cottage Spam' in my Core empire after the slavery/whip stage has completed in each respective city. This can mean only 5-10 cities usually with well developed towns. After this core the empire is really in some stage of whipped into shape, workshop, farm, specialist production which gets up to speed instantly. SP can definitely complete this transition pretty seamlessly and quickly add value to any new cities getting them production positive in a few turns as opposed to a 100. SP also doesn't affect the core cottage farms production

The Issue I have though, would be the loss of Mining Inc. If I can't get Sushi but I got mining I wouldn't want to waste it. It can produce a lot more hammers than the 1 extra food on workshops generally will. And It doesn't have to wait for the city to grow and work the land to be productive but can accelerate the city's growth instead.

 

[The Rook]

@The Rook
The Issue I have though, would be the loss of Mining Inc. If I can't get Sushi but I got mining I wouldn't want to waste it. It can produce a lot more hammers than the 1 extra food on workshops generally will. And It doesn't have to wait for the city to grow and work the land to be productive but can accelerate the city's growth instead.

Yes. In certain situations Mining Co can completely murder SP for hammers. In warfare, it's like the old snowball effect. As you acquire land/vassals Mining Co gets stronger and stronger.

Whilst I agree that Mining Co is potentially stronger than SP for hammers, it still requires a much greater outlay, not to mention a GE. Which option is more practical is likely to depend on the circumstances of the game, including your situation in relation to AIs.

Also, if you found Mining Co, but miss Sushi, then Cereal Mills could be a nice bonus corp to accompany it. In practice though, I tend to find that there is a greater danger that the AI will win the race to found Mining Co than Sushi, with GEs being difficult to dependably generate, and the AI's general tendency to neglect Medicine.

 

[Antilogic]

If you don't need the culture, cereal is sometimes better than sushi, especially when you take trades into account. A Grain will net more than a fish/crab/clam will on 1:1 basis using the respective corp. If the grains/seafood in your empire are roughly equal when converted into corporate , and you are able to trade for ten more resources of either type from the AI, cereal will net more than sushi and is the better corp on a pure basis. The downside is it comes a little later in the tech tree.

I use cereal a fair amount, and am no sucker

Just quickly do the math before you found the corp you can determine which will net more for the given game.

Or just swing your cursor over to the corporations menu.

Yes, the Sushi company will grant less food on a per-unit basis, but if you reread my post, I'm commenting that since seafood resources are more numerous (not to mention that rice also counts for both) than farm resources, Sid's Sushi usually benefits you more than Cereal Mills. And, just as you can trade for more corn, wheat, and rice, you can also trade for more crabs, fish, clams, and rice.

Maybe it's just the map scripts I'm using.

 

[Hereditary Rule]

Or just swing your cursor over to the corporations menu.

This will show the corp value of the food your empire currently has, but won't show food available from potential trades (unless the newest BUG allows this).

All I was trying to illustrate with my post is that if you do the math instead of beelining sushu because CivFanatics says it's the best, you'll find that Cereal will sometimes outproduce Sushi on a pure basis.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I dunno, man. I play hemispheres/continents/big&small/medium&small/fractal/arch/islands and it is incredibly rare for Cereal Mills resource gains to outperform Sid's resource gains. I mean extremely rare. Like I've never noticed it happen in games where I utilize corporations. That being said, I don't always use corporations.

 

[Antilogic]

All I was trying to illustrate with my post is that if you do the math instead of beelining sushu because CivFanatics says it's the best, you'll find that Cereal will sometimes outproduce Sushi on a pure basis.

Bolded emphasis is mine. I find "sometimes" to mean something like 20% of the time. The problem is, if you just go around the map and count up the number of seafood resources there are and compare that to the number of farm resources there are, N(seafood) > N(farm). Therefore, even if each individual unit has a smaller impact, Sid's Sushi can and does outpace Cereal Mills on food, not to mention the culture bonus. So, if we are talking about the theoretical maximum amount of food that can be gained on a map from Sid's Sushi and compare that to Cereal Mills, I've found Cereal Mills to be lacking.

Just open up a current save, and look at your current resource situation. I've found that you can find clams or crabs in small clumps on the map, 2-3 at the same city location. Then you have to add in the fish and rice. If you have even two cities like that plus some fish or rice, you have a total of 8-9 Sushi resources. In terms of farm resources, I typically have 2-4 at max, maybe more if I've done some conquering and got a breadbasket region. And, even if you don't directly control the seafood resources, the simple fact that there are more seafood resources means you have more opportunities to trade for them, and thus get a larger bonus.

EDIT: I'm not beelining Sushi just because the forum has said so. I have done the math and find Cereal Mills is lacking most of the time on a food basis alone (and we aren't even considering culture, which should also be part of the analysis and that puts Cereal Mills even further behind).

 

[Hereditary Rule]

....

You actually do the math! That's all I was trying to illustrate with the original post. I'd imagine alot of players just beeline Sushi without giving it much thought. Usually sushi is better, sometimes it's not.

I play huge maps exclusively so maybe that's why I'm finding cereal more productive than others have (more grains on the map than usual?)

With regard to trades, it doesn't matter if the AI's have 30 seafood and only 15 grains if I only have the resources/gold to trade for 10 max. 10 grains are worth more food than 10 seafood in that case.

And what good is lategame culture if going for a UN win or space?

Apologies to the OP (Now that we've officially derailed the thread and )

 

[popejubal]

I play huge maps exclusively so maybe that's why I'm finding cereal more productive than others have (more grains on the map than usual?)

Yay! I get to break out my Geometry Teacher hat and have fun with perimeter and area!

Perimeter is the distance around a flat shape. Area is, um... area. It's the big-ness of a flat shape. If you double the width of the shape, you double the area. If you double the length of the shape, you also double the area.

When you double both the length and width of a shape, you double it twice for a total of 4x as much area.

With perimeter, however, you add the lengths of all of the sides together instead of multiplying length times width as you do with area. That means when you double your length and width, you only double your perimeter.

That means huge maps will end up with a higher grain/seafood ratio than smaller maps with the same number of continents. This is because Seafood exists only on the perimeter of the continent (i.e. on the coastal shelf) while grains can appear anywhere on land (i.e. the area of the continent).

If you want to keep the grain/seafood ratio consistent, you need to play with additional continents so that you are adding areas and adding perimeter instead of multiplying area while only adding perimeter.


Interesting fact: This is also why the elephant is the largest land animal. Muscle strength is proportional to the muscle's surface area while the weight supported by that muscle is proportional to the volume. Surface area increases with the square of the animal's height while volume increases with the cube of the animal's height.

 

[Drake007]

If you really need border pops, use all the hammers from Mining Inc. to build culture.

you can only do that after rebuilding the courthouse that just got destroyed, unless you want to flush your economy down the toilet. you could always whip them i guess, but war + no emancipation may kill your cities' happiness. anyhow, in the end you will have a smaller city building culture, instead of a larger city building units.

the point of CC is SPEED, and i totally agree that if you're really ripping through civs late in the game on your way to a domination victory, it rules.

sushi + mining = twice the executives, twice the incorporation costs, and twice the maintenance... its just not worth it. i'll take more units.

 

[popejubal]

you can only do that after rebuilding the courthouse that just got destroyed, unless you want to flush your economy down the toilet.

...if you're shooting for a domination win and you need the border pops to claim land, then your economy is pretty much irrelevant. Just crank up the cash and culture sliders and ignore science and espionage during your final push and you get your land without any real thought to the economy.

If you're looking more long term, then the only border pop that really matters quickly is the first one. Just 1-2 turns of Mining Inc fueled Culture building will take care of that and I'm pretty sure your economy should survive 1-2 turns extra with no Courthouse.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

you can only do that after rebuilding the courthouse that just got destroyed, unless you want to flush your economy down the toilet. you could always whip them i guess, but war + no emancipation may kill your cities' happiness. anyhow, in the end you will have a smaller city building culture, instead of a larger city building units.

the point of CC is SPEED, and i totally agree that if you're really ripping through civs late in the game on your way to a domination victory, it rules.

sushi + mining = twice the executives, twice the incorporation costs, and twice the maintenance... its just not worth it. i'll take more units.

Unless you practically have no resources, mining inc. will build a border pop in 1 turn. I'm not sure what the issue is with 1 turn of building culture.

 

[Antilogic]

You actually do the math! That's all I was trying to illustrate with the original post. I'd imagine alot of players just beeline Sushi without giving it much thought. Usually sushi is better, sometimes it's not.

I play huge maps exclusively so maybe that's why I'm finding cereal more productive than others have (more grains on the map than usual?)

With regard to trades, it doesn't matter if the AI's have 30 seafood and only 15 grains if I only have the resources/gold to trade for 10 max. 10 grains are worth more food than 10 seafood in that case.

You got me, I'm a Small/Standard player. Ratio of land tiles to water tiles is probably the more relevant calculation, if we are talking about resource appearance rates. So do you play with low sea levels or high?

Also, if we are accounting for excess resources, I tend to have plenty to trade around. I'm a bit of warmonger, so I tend to have about half the world or greater under my control by the time corporations become a factor. Having the late-game culture wonders (Broadway, Rock 'n Roll, Hollywood) also helps because they give you extra unique resources to be traded.

 

[Lord Chambers]

Creative Construction FTW? Drop the creative part and I whole heartedly agree.

 

[Drake007]

Unless you practically have no resources, mining inc. will build a border pop in 1 turn. I'm not sure what the issue is with 1 turn of building culture.

more than one pop is often welcomed, especially near the poles. personally i tend to raze AI cities quite a bit too.

 

[Drake007]

...if you're shooting for a domination win and you need the border pops to claim land, then your economy is pretty much irrelevant. Just crank up the cash and culture sliders.

using the culture slider kinda sucks with production cities. plus, CC allows you to get one or a few techs instead for more points

 

[DaveMcW]

sushi + mining = twice the executives, twice the incorporation costs, and twice the maintenance... its just not worth it. i'll take more units.

using the culture slider kinda sucks with production cities. plus, CC allows you to get one or a few techs instead for more points

Now you're just being silly. If you cared about points, you would invest in Sushi.

 

[Stewie0416]

Creative Construction IMO can't stand up to Sushi/Cereal and Mining. Sushi itself gives some culture and even though Sushi Mining is more expensive then usual, the -> and -> rate can easily compensate for it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

more than one pop is often welcomed, especially near the poles. personally i tend to raze AI cities quite a bit too.

Not sure what your point is...you're not going to be pushing back established culture in the age of corporations...so why do you need multiple pops pronto again? The uses are niche at best.

Now you're just being silly. If you cared about points, you would invest in Sushi.

This is so true that BOTM 16 gave someone the "fish" award (instead of cow), for highest base score (or actually highest "milking" of sushi).

Creative Construction IMO can't stand up to Sushi/Cereal and Mining. Sushi itself gives some culture and even though Sushi Mining is more expensive then usual, the -> and -> rate can easily compensate for it.

If you have wall street in the corp city and courthouses elsewhere, corps will tend to MAKE you money unless you're in environmentalism.

Edit:...and mining will tend to get you the courthouse very quickly if it's got enough resources to be expensive.

 

[Antilogic]

If you have wall street in the corp city and courthouses elsewhere, corps will tend to MAKE you money unless you're in environmentalism.

Definitely; it's a matter of good planning. I think the shipped version was a little more punishing, although I don't exactly remember how.