Forge or Courthouse, which first?
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Dirk1302
Deity
You won't do it once, if it's not a hammer city (otherwise a forge is even better) you will probably whip multiple times and then those hammers really add up. The forge itself will be whipped too of course.
Shop forests to get courthouse in every new city ASAP otherwise your economy will struggle with expanding, I only build forges in city with decent number of hammers. What is the point of building a forge in a city with 6 hammers that will give me +25% = a grand total of 1.5 hammers
Forges are useful for several reasons besides simply boosting normal hammers.
a) They also affect whipping so I build forges in cities with 1 hammer but plenty of food. Making whipping 25% more efficient is a big boost
b) They also give extra happiness in combination with gold, gems and silver. That alone can be a reason to build a forge in some cities.
c) They allow an engineer to be run, again this can be useful in low hammer cities and also gives a chance of a GE in some cities.
Dirk1302
Deity
Ok, if you're in caste and don't have hammers the forge will not help you much.How do you get your infra in those cities in that case?
blitzkrieg1980
Octobrist
I'm not sure what this discussion about the "market in the capital makes up for maintenance". Market in the capital will net me an extra 7-8 
per turn at this point in the game. If that makes up for the maintenance costs of your REX, then you don't REX like I do. After my REX / early wars, I generally have 4 or 5 cities where the distance from palace and # of cities adds up to give me a 8 per turn deficit which totals a negative 32 or 40. That's only the most distant. I'll usually have 4 or 5 other cities with a 5 deficit. 7 - 8 more gold per turn isn't going to make up for that.
IF, for map reasons, my initial REX and early wars don't get me cities that are so far away and so plentiful, then I may forgo courthouses in the interior cities. However, the furthest cities always get courthouses.
When I read about market in capital > courthouses in outer cities, I wonder if we are playing the same game. Being on a lower level, you'd think I'd have less need for courthouses, not more. So what gives?
Now, when it comes to forge vs. courthouse, if I see that my city is a candidate for high
OR for whipping (high food), then I'll whip a forge in that city. If the city is very far away from the capital, I'll whip a courthouse first, regrow, whip forge. If I have a city that has very few matured cottages, I may whip a forge in that city as well. However, I see very little merit in using the whip in cities that are working matured cottages (IE villages or towns). Set build queue to build library/market/grocer/bank, go back and set it to build univ/observ later on. Set it and forget it.
per turn at this point in the game. If that makes up for the maintenance costs of your REX, then you don't REX like I do. After my REX / early wars, I generally have 4 or 5 cities where the distance from palace and # of cities adds up to give me a 8 per turn deficit which totals a negative 32 or 40. That's only the most distant. I'll usually have 4 or 5 other cities with a 5 deficit. 7 - 8 more gold per turn isn't going to make up for that.IF, for map reasons, my initial REX and early wars don't get me cities that are so far away and so plentiful, then I may forgo courthouses in the interior cities. However, the furthest cities always get courthouses.
When I read about market in capital > courthouses in outer cities, I wonder if we are playing the same game. Being on a lower level, you'd think I'd have less need for courthouses, not more. So what gives?
Now, when it comes to forge vs. courthouse, if I see that my city is a candidate for high
OR for whipping (high food), then I'll whip a forge in that city. If the city is very far away from the capital, I'll whip a courthouse first, regrow, whip forge. If I have a city that has very few matured cottages, I may whip a forge in that city as well. However, I see very little merit in using the whip in cities that are working matured cottages (IE villages or towns). Set build queue to build library/market/grocer/bank, go back and set it to build univ/observ later on. Set it and forget it.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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DaveMCW would say that working cottages in these types of low-hammer commerce cities is more important than putting up infrastructure anyway (he makes an exception only for the granary
).I don't know though. When I follow that advice I don't get much infrastructure in those cities (other than my capitol) until democracy, which doesn't seem to hurt much on immortal actually. Deity though? But then, is whipping away cottages actually better? Probably only if the building offers more benefit than the pop killed, right?
But I struggle with that, because caste is good for GPP generation, too, and that can overcome whipping benefits...sometimes
.It's a little easier with GPP and in strict hammer cities, and especially the latter gets a forge ASAP anyway.
The market isn't the only benefit of currency, but it's a good point because you would need to build MANY courthouses in cities that are likely to have other build priorities to match the 7-8 gold. But, especially if you are close to 10 cities, you're getting at least as many extra trade routes as you have cities, and those are all at least 1 commerce.
So now, just after currency is teched and you built one building in your city best equipped to do so, you're looking at 16-18 gold if you're low slider (possibly more with foreign trade, possibly not). It doesn't stop there. If you have expanded enough for this to matter, you also have the opportunity to sell resources for GPT, and sell techs for cash on occasion.
You're going to have a hard time matching that by trying to sink mass hammers into courthouses everywhere. You might get 20 GPT savings from courthouses after building them everywhere...many turns after or many pop less than if you went currency first.
8-10 cities by 1 AD is doable on immortal w/o courthouses, so it should be so on prince also. Maybe you want more cottages?
Deep_Blue
Knight
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I don't I just cottage them heavily and leave them until I get Mining Inc, after that I will start developing such cities. That is in case of having few number cities with low hammers, if it happened that most of my cities have low hammers then will I have no choice other than switching to slavery and start whipping everything.
mboettcher
General
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I have seen situations where the right resources means that forge whip economies are never unhappy
Also everyone seems to think that whip economies don't seem to work well with specialist economies. This is not true. Yeah you don't get caste system and you think you'd whip away specialists but in fact it enhances an SE. This is because a whip economy can allow you to whip out all the specialist buildings that not only allow you to quickly have specialist space but improve their production. The cities that usually see a lot of whipping are the ones that probably aren't going to be running a lot of specialists soon anyway. BY the time you run specialists you're probably done whipping in that city.
Also everyone seems to think that whip economies don't seem to work well with specialist economies. This is not true. Yeah you don't get caste system and you think you'd whip away specialists but in fact it enhances an SE. This is because a whip economy can allow you to whip out all the specialist buildings that not only allow you to quickly have specialist space but improve their production. The cities that usually see a lot of whipping are the ones that probably aren't going to be running a lot of specialists soon anyway. BY the time you run specialists you're probably done whipping in that city.
As someone will surely say "This is like anything in Civ, situational."
mboettcher
General
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Also the Eng that a forge allows you to run means that a 6-hammer city isn't a bad location for a forge because you'll probably want to run a engineer specialist there
Dirk1302
Deity
Mining inc?? , your cities don't have forges and useful buildings before. Don't you think in terms of commerce/hammers multiplied at all. Do you think Oxford uni is a joke. Do you have any idea of how much hammers/commerce you're throwing down the drain by just doing nothing hitting enter waiting for mining inc? Ok with me but just don't state this as any sort of universal truth, it's just severely suboptimal play.
Deep_Blue
Knight
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I mentioned that if I have few cities with poor hammers I leave them undevelpoed till Mining, that would be only 1-2 cities out of 12 cities stay undeveloped till Mining. That will not harm my game much on the contrary focusing cotteges on those poor cities make them useful in someway and provide decent income (rather than whiping the people that will be working those cottages).
Also I mentioned that if many of my cities are poor with hammers then I will have no option but to adopt slavery, and you don't know me with this, I abuse my cities with slavery to the extreme when I find my self in similar situation.
now who said Oxford uni is a joke and how is it related to this?
azzaman333
meh
Do I need hammers or gold more?
+1. In fact, I vastly favour this implementation of a specialist economy; the same land can go to pure specialist output or a very efficient mix of production and specialists. If needed, a massive burst in production is possible at a price.
I tend to whip moderately almost everywhere though - the cities that will be running many specialists will have enough base output that the multipliers are worth it.
Because of the early emphasis on production, Forges are invaluable. With regard to power REXing making this impossible: Maintenance and Upkeep depend on number of citizens. Cities that are repeatedly whipped down for infrastructure don't cost much.
mboettcher
General
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@Iranon
Obviously I totally agree. However, I do think there is still a good degree of leader dependence on this. You must also favor playing with Bismark as his traits make this method extraordinarily powerful.
Roosevelt is another great whipper with this method for his org trait and cheap 2 whip courthouses but I always miss those ONe chop granaries and cheap workers of Exp. (The extra hammers go a really long way when building workers).
Also Bismark starts with a scout. I don't think scouts get a lot of love lately on tehse forums cause they 'can't worker steal' but they do pop a lot of techs, grab a lot of hut gold, find and scout your enemies faster (which in turn allows more efficient later worker steals etc). I've used scouts to get a huge advantage early game and have still managed to steal 2 workers.
They also get better 'rolls' when hut popping which with out barbs can lead to sevral strong techs (I get BW at least in 50% of my games from huts) but with Barbs they are much less likely toppop a barb army from a hut.
All that said I think that Bismark would make a good early launch candidate (2nd probably still to darius). I launched ~1450 in a monarch game on Continents so I could only trade for two techs total ( I was essentially isolated having dominated all valuable land and super economy out pacing everyone). People who play early launch games know how early this is for pseudo iso. His super whip economy is really really powerful.
Obviously I totally agree. However, I do think there is still a good degree of leader dependence on this. You must also favor playing with Bismark as his traits make this method extraordinarily powerful.
Roosevelt is another great whipper with this method for his org trait and cheap 2 whip courthouses but I always miss those ONe chop granaries and cheap workers of Exp. (The extra hammers go a really long way when building workers).
Also Bismark starts with a scout. I don't think scouts get a lot of love lately on tehse forums cause they 'can't worker steal' but they do pop a lot of techs, grab a lot of hut gold, find and scout your enemies faster (which in turn allows more efficient later worker steals etc). I've used scouts to get a huge advantage early game and have still managed to steal 2 workers.
They also get better 'rolls' when hut popping which with out barbs can lead to sevral strong techs (I get BW at least in 50% of my games from huts) but with Barbs they are much less likely toppop a barb army from a hut.
All that said I think that Bismark would make a good early launch candidate (2nd probably still to darius). I launched ~1450 in a monarch game on Continents so I could only trade for two techs total ( I was essentially isolated having dominated all valuable land and super economy out pacing everyone). People who play early launch games know how early this is for pseudo iso. His super whip economy is really really powerful.
blitzkrieg1980
Octobrist
My last 3 games (over 125,000 score) I had about 14 cities in the beginning AD years and I'd say 4 of them were VERY far from the capital. They were bringing in about 5
while costing me 14 in maintenance. Courthouses made these cities much less painful to hold onto. In my last game, one was the Buddhist holy city with shrine, I wasn't getting rid of them . I will try currency first in my next game (which should prove to be my last Prince game) with a similar rush (map providing) and see how it works out. Since you guys are all higher level players, I trust I will be happily surprised.
The 14 cities early on is probably why I needed courthouses, though. I never used to expand so much so early, but I've been getting such ridiculous scores this way. It may not work so well like this on Monarch
Hereditary Rule
Warlord
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Scouts NEVER pop hostile barbs from huts. The worst they can pop is a map or EXP (which may not be all that bad). My favorite huts are techs, gold, and warriors.
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