A Few "Not To" for Building Addicts.
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sylvanllewelyn
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So am I about to start a thread about the usefulness of courthouses?
People don't really do the math when they build things. Courthouses don't seem to save a lot of gold, but they're still the most profitable building when compared to other things you can build.
Markets produce 25% extra gold. 25% of WHAT?! And don't just count up the commerce in the city and divide by 4 either: most people don't run 100% gold on their sliders either. Say your city has 6 maintenance, 2 from number of cities and 4 from distance. Courthouses save 3 GPT a turn. With 70% science slider, a 30% gold slider, you need 40 commerce for the same effect. Or if you want to build a library, you need 16 commerce from a city for it to pay off. And that's assuming you can grow your population quickly enough, have the hapiness resources to keep the citizens working, can find that many cottagable tiles, have the time to let them grow, and can do all that while still having enough hammers or food for a military or those buildings themselves. Most of your research and gold comes from your palace and your gold mine in that backwater 4th city. Or specialists.
Forges too: what's the payoff period of the 120 hammers? If my military city can generate 16 hammers a turn (a stretch), I need 30 turns for the forge to pay off! You know what? I want those 5 chariots NOW, and attack the idiot that spent the time building a forge instead. Even if the math works out that you should build the library in your bureaucracy-powered capital, the Nash Equlibrium is still units rather than buildings. Civ 4 is a game.
People don't really do the math when they build things. Courthouses don't seem to save a lot of gold, but they're still the most profitable building when compared to other things you can build.
Markets produce 25% extra gold. 25% of WHAT?! And don't just count up the commerce in the city and divide by 4 either: most people don't run 100% gold on their sliders either. Say your city has 6 maintenance, 2 from number of cities and 4 from distance. Courthouses save 3 GPT a turn. With 70% science slider, a 30% gold slider, you need 40 commerce for the same effect. Or if you want to build a library, you need 16 commerce from a city for it to pay off. And that's assuming you can grow your population quickly enough, have the hapiness resources to keep the citizens working, can find that many cottagable tiles, have the time to let them grow, and can do all that while still having enough hammers or food for a military or those buildings themselves. Most of your research and gold comes from your palace and your gold mine in that backwater 4th city. Or specialists.
Forges too: what's the payoff period of the 120 hammers? If my military city can generate 16 hammers a turn (a stretch), I need 30 turns for the forge to pay off! You know what? I want those 5 chariots NOW, and attack the idiot that spent the time building a forge instead. Even if the math works out that you should build the library in your bureaucracy-powered capital, the Nash Equlibrium is still units rather than buildings. Civ 4 is a game.
It sounds like you play as a warmonger. And if 5 whole chariots will win a game for you then you must be playing on a small or tiny map. Most likely Pangea. Most of us builder types (for whom this thread was started) play marathon speed on huge maps so we have lots of time and space to build. Forges are a must build for me. They cut my production times for those juicy buildings. And libraries are my life's blood. How are those 5 chariots going to get over to my continent? Perhaps when you FINALLY finally have galleons you can upgrade them to cavalry and come attack me. My forge produced tanks will be waiting. I don't build bigger armies I build better ones.
The greatest place for warmonger strats should be here http://www.microsoft.com/games/empires/
CIV games contain a military element, but are not war games as much as strategy games. I play a lot of war games. Going back to the Avalon Hill bookcase game series. Panzer Leader rocked. The combat resolution for civ is too random and way too simplified. Because CIV is a builder game. War Mongers aren't successful because they are great military minds, they are successful because they BUILD military units. I have yet to hear a warmonger talk about a archipelago game or an island game. I would love to hear the story of the warmonger that played archepelago on a huge map and got a domination victory. LOL, I bet the save would show LOTS of buildings built.
If you run 70% science most of the time, you should expand some more
I build markets over courthouses every single game because:
- happiness boost
- courthouses don't pay for units
- courthouses don't pay for civics
- great merchants are great indeed
- 2 merchants give 6 gold > 3 saved gold.
- I don't need markets everywhere (only commerce or holy cities), whereas you need courthouses everywhere to have an effect
TheRealCzar
Chieftain
I'm involved in a veeerry long running PBEM game, started 11 months ago. I've been at war now for 7 of those months, the first blow stuck with a axe, now we've got grenadiers. My empire is a sprawling mess of hell holes, no right thinking parent would bring a child into it, for they'll be whipped to death or drafted before the age of ten.
I'm currently murdering some 120% of my growth due to unrelenting war weariness, and I'm trying to get pop down below the threshold, size 6/7 for most cities, depending on garrison.
We're constantly either trying rush a new attack force into readiness, or assemble a militia to drive back our foe(s). The only buildings built are granaries, barracks, courthouses and forges. Once the granary is built, the rushing begins. Once forge is built, its frigates, grenadiers, cannons and cavalry all day every day.
Now THAT's a waraholic build plan.
I want to be a builder!! I want to be nice, and have artists and kittens. Better an ineffective empire of libraries and temples than the grim dystopia my bloodlust has created. I need help
I'm currently murdering some 120% of my growth due to unrelenting war weariness, and I'm trying to get pop down below the threshold, size 6/7 for most cities, depending on garrison.
We're constantly either trying rush a new attack force into readiness, or assemble a militia to drive back our foe(s). The only buildings built are granaries, barracks, courthouses and forges. Once the granary is built, the rushing begins. Once forge is built, its frigates, grenadiers, cannons and cavalry all day every day.
Now THAT's a waraholic build plan.
I want to be a builder!! I want to be nice, and have artists and kittens. Better an ineffective empire of libraries and temples than the grim dystopia my bloodlust has created. I need help
Remember that forges give you an extra +1 happiness for each of these if you have them: gold, silver, gems. Markets give you a +1 happiness for four or five other things.
Those happiness bonuses can allow you to grow your cities bigger, which in turn allows you to build a whole bunch of other things (including units, if that's what you want).
Those happiness bonuses can allow you to grow your cities bigger, which in turn allows you to build a whole bunch of other things (including units, if that's what you want).
I want to be a builder!! I want to be nice, and have artists and kittens. Better an ineffective empire of libraries and temples than the grim dystopia my bloodlust has created. I need help
It's okay. The first step is admitting you have a problem. I'd prescribe a course of isolated starts, cultural victories, and bromide to calm your vapours.
(NB. All medical advice given by this poster should be ignored. Despite his claims to the contrary, he is neither a medical practitioner nor a trained psychologist.)
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Exactly. Whether you're playing CE or SE, you need your cities to grow; you need citizens to either work the cottages, or work the farms/become specialists. So you need to raise the happiness cap.I am very forge happy too. More so if I'm industrious.
In the early game, you cannot have too much happiness
I like forges because they're one of those buildings that provide a double benefit, like markets, grocers, harbours, and so on. And I'll go out of my way to settle/acquire/conquer the precious metal resources to obtain their benefits.
Okay, I guess this didn't get my point across very well.
I certainly didn't mean "Don't build forges unless you need the happiness". Rather, I meant "Don't build forges for the happiness bonus unless you need, or will soon need, the extra happiness". To which I might have added "And make sure you've actually got/can get access to the requisite resource(s) if you build the forge for happiness reasons".
Of course, you can never have too much happiness. But you can prioritise happiness-giving buildings when other builds would be more useful.
To clarify my general anti-buildoholism remedy:
Buildings are good. In fact, all buildings can be useful on certain occasions (yes, even castles). Some buildings are helpful in almost every situation, others in some situations, and some are rarely helpful at all. But...
It is not necessary (or sensible) to build every building in every city. Indeed, it's not always necessary to build any particular building in every city. Every building has its uses, but, equally, every building has its cost (that being primarily the opportunity cost of choosing that build over the other available choices for your city).
So, the key to overcoming builditis, imo, is to recognise the opportunity costs of a building, to consider whether you actually need the benefit(s) you will gain, and to ask yourself whether some other option could prove more useful to your chosen strategy.
(This is undoubtedly complicated by the multiple benefits given by many buildings. But that does not diminish the value of the maxim "Don't need it? Don't build it." It just makes it harder to judge which building is most useful in a given situation.)
^^winston hughes, I'm sorry it's getting very confusing.
I'm not a builder anymore, and in some given situations you may find it better to completely leave out even forges (like in slow growing cities).
But some buildings are just better than others. And forge belong to the most useful ones.
I put granaries on top of my wishing list when I capture a city, and just behind that I put forges.
I even trade away MC early to let my neighbours(=targets) the time to build them for me
I'm not a builder anymore, and in some given situations you may find it better to completely leave out even forges (like in slow growing cities).
But some buildings are just better than others. And forge belong to the most useful ones.
I put granaries on top of my wishing list when I capture a city, and just behind that I put forges.
I even trade away MC early to let my neighbours(=targets) the time to build them for me
sylvanllewelyn
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In my previous reply(replies) to this post, I did mention the buildings that I do build. OBVIOUSLY, if you're industrious, forges are worth it in some cities. You play to your leader traits. What I am trying to say is, a game with one winner is like the classical game theory problem of the catepiller decision tree. The equlibrium is to take the money immediately (as in, build units). Empires are not built in isolation, but rather next to each other.
The real reason why people build buildings at all are:
- they pay off quickly enough
- if A attacks B, C might attack A
- by the time your units get there, I'll be more developed
- I don't know whether you're strong or not
- city defense, war wariness, healing speed in cultural boundaries...
I strongly feel that many people highly underestimate the value of courthouses. There are many styles of play, but I just don't see anything wrong with barracks, courthouses and jails in every city (and mount rushmore, in the rare occasion that it gets to that point). It's okay to be a builder, it's just that for every decision you make, it must be weighed, and to the best of your ability you consider that to be the best decision to help you win the game, peacefully, warlike...
The real reason why people build buildings at all are:
- they pay off quickly enough
- if A attacks B, C might attack A
- by the time your units get there, I'll be more developed
- I don't know whether you're strong or not
- city defense, war wariness, healing speed in cultural boundaries...
I strongly feel that many people highly underestimate the value of courthouses. There are many styles of play, but I just don't see anything wrong with barracks, courthouses and jails in every city (and mount rushmore, in the rare occasion that it gets to that point). It's okay to be a builder, it's just that for every decision you make, it must be weighed, and to the best of your ability you consider that to be the best decision to help you win the game, peacefully, warlike...
futurehermit
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the murder-suicide comment had me rofl!!!
I agree that some buildings are better in most cases. Perhaps we should start a thread on what buildings are almost always useful (forge and granary being my choices too; although sylvanllewelyn makes a good case for courthouses), paying particular attention to those occasions when they aren't actually very helpful. Something like: "Which buildings do you usually build? And when do you not build them?"
I'm sure that many new players find it hard to know which cities will actually benefit from a certain building; I know I did, and it led me to build almost everything in my first few games. I often still have trouble deciding whether a weak city will get enough use out of a forge to justify whipping away some of its slow-growing population to build it.
Any thoughts?
VoiceOfUnreason
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It might be easier to go the other way around, first identifying the buildings which are useful only in limited circumstances (Aquaducts, Banks), and working upwards from there.
I'm having a hard time imagining a city that doesn't want a Granary. I guess I sometimes postpone it for a while in a super-crazy-food capital, just because I'll be regrowing to my happiness cap in almost no time anyway. But even that's just a postponement, and not for very long.
Barracks: Almost all of my early cities get barracks, unless it's truly the Grassland Special. Almost every city I build has either surplus food or significant production, and therefore contributes to the early war(s). Later acquisitions may very well never build a unit, however, and so might not get a barracks.
Libraries: Probably 60+% of my cities get these early, and 80+% get them eventually.
Courthouses: Seldom in the capital, sometimes not in the closest cities, but most other cities will get one. It's a good first whip for large captured cities, killing off 4 red-faces to save perhaps 5 gpt. In the late game, they become a bit superfluous again, as my economy booms to the point where small fixed costs don't much matter.
Forges: Most cities will get one, except the most hammer-poor. Though they often have to wait until after a significant war of expansion.
Theaters: At least some of these get built in most games for culturally-pressured borders and/or cheap happiness (with Dye).
HE and NE: Every game.
Those are the ones I always build at least some of. Others are situational, depending on needs and chosen victory condition.
peace,
lilnev
Barracks: Almost all of my early cities get barracks, unless it's truly the Grassland Special. Almost every city I build has either surplus food or significant production, and therefore contributes to the early war(s). Later acquisitions may very well never build a unit, however, and so might not get a barracks.
Libraries: Probably 60+% of my cities get these early, and 80+% get them eventually.
Courthouses: Seldom in the capital, sometimes not in the closest cities, but most other cities will get one. It's a good first whip for large captured cities, killing off 4 red-faces to save perhaps 5 gpt. In the late game, they become a bit superfluous again, as my economy booms to the point where small fixed costs don't much matter.
Forges: Most cities will get one, except the most hammer-poor. Though they often have to wait until after a significant war of expansion.
Theaters: At least some of these get built in most games for culturally-pressured borders and/or cheap happiness (with Dye).
HE and NE: Every game.
Those are the ones I always build at least some of. Others are situational, depending on needs and chosen victory condition.
peace,
lilnev
I'm sure it would be easier, and I don't doubt it would be very helpful and interesting. But I think it would also be good to identify those cases in which the 'best' buildings are not really that useful.
A lot of the advice given by experienced players takes the form of "build this" or "don't build that". Of course, those players know that there are cases when their advice doesn't apply, and have learned to identify such situations. But for new players the advice can be quite confusing; for example, when two or more experienced players offer wildly conflicting suggestions.
To give an example, when I first started reading threads on this forum, I saw a couple of players suggest building libraries in every city, and I followed that advice. More recently, however, I've read posts pointing out that the cost of whipping libraries in slow growing cities can actually be a reduction in research in the short-medium term.
The general advice (build libraries to increase research) was sound, but needed qualifying with more specific advice as to the hidden costs of building libraries in certain situations.
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