A Metro Question?

[Demetrias]

Hello I was reading the beginning of the space race Metro versus CxxC thread and the person running it said that the only Wonders he was going to build were the UN. Theory of Evolution and Hover Damn. This raised a question in my mind of how many Metro players don't build the Sistine Chapel Wonder and or the J.S. Bach wonder or Cure for Cancer. I generally try to have all three and I never miss building all of them. So my question was how many other metro players play that way and if they don't play that way how do the manage all the unhappy people in there Empires?

 

[eldar]

There are good reasons for not building all three of them:
- JS Bach's and Cure For Cancer require techs (Music Theory and Genetics respectively) that are no use to building a spaceship. So the player won't research them. Cure For Cancer in particular comes along very late, and if you're building a spaceship, the high-shield cities where you would've been building wonders will now be building the high-shield spaceship parts. If the AI ever researches the techs and the human player buys them, they might build those wonders (JS Bach's in particular).
- The Sistine Chapel is no use to anyone if they don't build Cathedrals. You'll read a lot of threads here that advise players not to build Temples, let alone Cathedrals. So for players who follow that style, the Sistine Chapel is a serious waste of shields!

But what about the happiness issues? Well, the same players who advise you to not build Temples, will tell you to build Marketplaces and secure luxuries instead.

Admittedly those same players will probably never build a metro in a SS game because to do so require Sanitation which is an optional tech and so a waste of 4 turns of research. Having said that, there's nothing wrong with purchasing Sanitation from an AI, and building a few Hospitals where there's food going spare.

Here's a comparison of the two styles, assuming Republic or Democracy as a govt. (i.e. no MPs).

Temple + Cathedral + Sistine + JS Bach's + Cure For Cancer
Cost: 60+160=220 shields/city, + 600 for Sistine, 600 for Bach's, 1000 for Cure
Upkeep: 3gpt per city with both Temple+Cathedral
Benefits: 10 unhappy citizens converted to content per city (8 in cities not on the same continent as Bach's)
Culture: 2+3=5cpt, +6 (Sistine), +6 (Bach), +3(?) (Cure)

On Monarch, those 10 unhappy citizens converted to content will give 12 content citizens per city - but note that the 10th comes very, very, late in the game, so essentially it's 9 (11 in total) for most of the game. Therefore in the figures below I'll be discounting Cure For Cancer.

However a Metro has 13+ citizens, so there'll be at least two unhappy citizens. These must be balanced out with "Happy Faces", which turn content citizens into happy ones. There are four sources of Happy Faces:
- Luxuries. Each luxury hooked up generates 1 Happy Face. Marketplaces multiply the effects with more than two luxuries.
- Entertainers. Each citizen turned into an entertainer generates 1 Happy Face.
- Luxury Tax. One gold generated by the Luxury Tax generates 1 Happy Face.
- War Happiness. Provides 1 Happy Face per 4 citizens per AI that declares war on you, up to a maximum of 4.

There is another way to remove unhappy citizens:
- Turn them into specialists, as long as there is enough food to support the population.

For a size 13 city, with 11 content and 2 unhappy citizens, 2 happy faces are required. That's 2 from luxuries, or 2gpt from Lux Tax, or 1 entertainer (1 unhappy becomes the entertainer, leaving only 1 Happy Face required), or 1 war declaration (13/4 = 3 rounded down), or any combination of all four.

For a size 16 city, with 11 content and 5 unhappy citizens, 5 happy faces are required.
That's 5 from luxuries (either 5 different, or 4 with a marketplace), of 5gpt from Lux Tax, or 3 entertainers, or 2 war delcarations (3 * 2 = 6).

Marketplaces
Cost: 100 shields per city
Upkeep: 1gpt per city
Benefits: +50% tax income, multiplies the effects of luxuries for each connected resource after the 2nd.
Culture: None.

Back to Monarch, our size-13 Metro now has 2 content and 11 unhappy citizens. To stop the city rioting, 11 Happy Faces are required. (Each unhappy citizen requires 2 Happy Faces to make it happy. Happy Faces make content citizens happy first, so those 11 Happy Faces will give 2 content->happy + 5 unhappy->happy = 6 happy + 1 content + 6 unhappy citizens.)

Where do we get those 11 Happy Faces from?
- 6 luxuries (each Marketplace will generate 1+1+2+2+3+3=12 Happy Faces)
- 11gpt from Lux Tax
- 5 entertainers (meaning 26 food from 8 citizens plus city centre - good luck!)
- 4 war declarations
- Some combination of the above.

For the size 16 city (2 content + 14 unhappy), 14 happy faces are required:
- 7 luxuries (1+1+2+2+3+3+4)
- 14gpt from Lux Tax
- 7 entertainers (32 food from 9 citizens plus city centre!!)
- 4 war delcarations

Conclusion
The first style requires fewer luxuries to be hooked up. This means less pressure to secure sources through trading or war. It costs more in terms of shields and per-turn upkeep. Most cities will probably have Marketplaces anyway.

The second style relies heavily on luxuries, and early on, Lux Tax. This means more trading, or, perhaps more likely, war in order to secure those luxuries. With 8 luxuries (=20 Happy Faces from a Marketplace), a Monarch metro can reach size 22 without the need for additional input in the form of Lux Tax, entertainers, Temples, Cathedrals, etc.

 

[Spoonwood]

The Sistine Chapel is no use to anyone if they don't build Cathedrals.

Absolutely. But, if you *do* build cathedrals, The Sistine Chapel can give your cities a "We Love the Leader Day" effect. You might need a coloseeum also, along with a marketplace. Maybe not all that useful, but it's something. Building it can also help to kill wonder cascades... so you can build Copernicus's Observatory. It definitely had a lot more power in civ II.

 

[Xethorsiph]

Why not build temples and Cath's? Don't you need at least SOME culture to avoid flips?

 

[vmxa]

"This raised a question in my mind of how many Metro players don't build the Sistine Chapel Wonder and or the J.S. Bach wonder or Cure for Cancer. I generally try to have all three and I never miss building all of them. So my question was how many other metro players play that way and if they don't play that way how do the manage all the unhappy people in there Empires?"

I don't know about the metro thing as I am not likely to build many or maybe none. However, if you play above emperor you learn to get along without those wonders as you won't be having many.

Cure for Cancer, I do not want the game to last that long, unless it a conquest game. even then, I hope to not get that far, but I may.

"Why not build temples and Cath's? Don't you need at least SOME culture to avoid flips?"

Again these are questions for lower level games, because a temple is not going to give me enough culture to avoid flips. I am not building cath. The way I avoid flips is to raze their towns.

They will have temples sooner than me and nearly all culture structures and many wonders, so I am going to be at the end of the line in culture. No need to worry about it.

Well I am worried about losing to a culture win, but it should be handled.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Why not build temples and Cath's? Don't you need at least SOME culture to avoid flips?

Libraries, and later maybe even Universities, in the core provide a decent amount of culture already. They are also superior to Temples and Cathedrals both in the total amount of culture that they provide:

3 (Lib) + 4 (Uni) = 7
vs
2 (Temple) + 3 (Cathedral) = 5​

as well as the culture per shield ratio:

Lib: 80/3 =26 2/3
vs
Temple: 60/2 = 30
and
Uni: 200/4 = 50
vs
Cath: 160/3 = 53 1/3​

Not to speak of the higher usefullness of Libs and Unis.

 

[Spoonwood]

However, if you play above emperor you learn to get along without those wonders as you won't be having many.

*scratches head* I just finished a standard sized map demi-god game where I built The Colossus, the Museum of Mausollos, The Statue of Zeus, The Great Library, The Heroic Epic, Sun Tzu's Art of War, Knights Templar, J. S. Bach's Cathedral, Shakespeare's Theater, The Military Academy, Universal Suffrage, Theory of Evolution, The United Nations, The Internet, and The Cure for Cancer. On top of that I didn't have any hills or mountains. Did I have an untypical experience here? I also captured The Pyramids, The Temple of Artemis, and The Hanging Gardens fairly early on... o.k... that seems less typical.

Again these are questions for lower level games, because a temple is not going to give me enough culture to avoid flips.

I don't know man. Check the total civ culture here http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=182991&d=1216086497 I didn't take an AIs town in that game. If you check the thread that comes from here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=281173&page=2 you can see me talking about my Maya winning territory culturally (not a city... some squares) from The Aztecs. Note: it's a Deity level game.

Concerning temples and cathedrals, I'd think something like 99%+ of players would build BOTH of them in quite a few places for the map for the Spanish game here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=283144 I didn't edit the game for that sort of map... I just ended up with it.

Excellent point Lord Emsworth.

 

[vmxa]

Doug.Lefelhocz I don't read your threads as you abandon so many games and SG's when you started, that I cannot see the point in it.

 

[Spoonwood]

VMXA,

I don't see the relevance there. My threads consist of solo games.

 

[vmxa]

VMXA,

I don't see the relevance there. My threads consist of solo games.

Did you not post links to some of your games for me to look at? If not then there is no relevance. In any event I never meant to imply nor did I state that one could not build wonders or culture, only that you see them in middle or lower level games.

Like I said I do not read your threads any longer as you were posting a few games, then not finishing them and you dropped from the two SG's, so I figure if you were not going to be bothered to finish, why should I bother to try to follow them?

Anyway I think I have thread jacked this one more than enough, so I apologize to the thread owner for going way off subject.

 

[Spoonwood]

If not then there is no relevance. In any event I never meant to imply nor did I state that one could not build wonders or culture, only that you see them in middle or lower level games.

Like I said I do not read your threads any longer as you were posting a few games, then not finishing them and you dropped from the two SG's, so I figure if you were not going to be bothered to finish, why should I bother to try to follow them?

The solo game threads I've finished or will finish. One of the SGs actually that I dropped... I only ended up dropping as an SG. My partner and myself ended up finishing the game out as a solo game each on our own. The Demi-God and Deity game links posted illustrate that you DO find wonders and culture in higher level games, as long as we basically agree on the following breakdown Chieftain/Warlord-lower levels, Regent/Monarch/Emperor-mid levels, Demi-God/Deity/Sid-higher levels. Both of those games I finished.

 

[Sweetchuck]

All pissing contests aside.....

If I can't build wonders that will shut the people up, I'll do short, strategically planned wars to occupy space that has luxes near my boarders if they're occupied by the AI.

Count the turns to peace if necessary, but an extra lux or two keeps 'em happy.

 

[Spoonwood]

Sweetchuck,

Sounds like a decent plan for a lot of maps. However, for an 80% archipelago map, you might not really manage that until Navigation. The Spanish game refenced gives you an example, unless of course you either use ship-chaining... which I don't know if you could really have done that there all that well... or you send out suicide galleys *with* units on them. That doesn't sound fun.

 

[ZzarkLinux]

Doug, your Demi-God comment is interesting.
My guess is that wonder building is strongly affected by map type and # of opponents

Arpelago vs. Others landforms
The AI sux in island games. No contacts. No trading. No beeline MapMaking. No strong invasions.
I think the community frowns on island games because of the AI helplessness.

Number of AIs
The more AI enemies you have, the more wonder-builders you have. They'll steal all the wonders...

Easy games = few civs and islands
Tough games = lots of civs and large connected landforms

EDIT:
So I guess the "Game difficulty" depends on more than just the "difficulty setting you pick".
It depends on opponent quantity and map-type as well.

 

[Spoonwood]

Thanks for your response Zzarklinux. I'd think that number of opponents and type of map affects the tech-pace which in turn affects wonder building. Water percentage, temperature, and climate also probably affect the tech-pace although probably in a more complicated and perhaps subtle way. I don't know of anyone frowning on island games. After all, the highest HoF games come on archipelago maps (from what I know of them) and trading for luxuries and/or resources in island games can prove a royal pain in the rear, even in some 60% water maps. You also have to support more ships to land an invasion well and you'll have a bunch of unproductive squares in your cities until Miniturization (o.k.... neither of those work out as a big deal). I do think it harder to build wonders on a huge map with max opponents, but on such maps on Deity I've managed The Great Library, Newton's, and Smith's in one game, and The Great Library, Newton's, Smith's, and Shake's in another game, as well as the industrial ones and some modern wonders. I think I could manage J.S. Bach's, The Sistine Chapel, *or* Copernicus's... maybe even 2 or 3 of them... if I pre-built well in the middle ages, but admittedly that's just theoretical so far. I know Moonsinger managed to build J. S. Bach's in a HoF Sid game.

 

[Sweetchuck]

Sweetchuck,

Sounds like a decent plan for a lot of maps. However, for an 80% archipelago map, you might not really manage that until Navigation. The Spanish game refenced gives you an example, unless of course you either use ship-chaining... which I don't know if you could really have done that there all that well... or you send out suicide galleys *with* units on them. That doesn't sound fun.

That would be a problem on archi.

 

[timerover51]

It would depend on the map that you get in archipelago. Some maps have enough islands so that you can have a nearly continuous strip of sea connecting most of the islands. You do need Mapmaking and the Great Lighthouse, but with those, you can navigate over most of the map. You may also have sufficiently narrow strips of ocean to get away with running a galley across without loosing it. Just a matter of keeping the galleys moving, and maybe having a couple of units on them to pop goody huts if you have barbarians set.

 

[Northen Wolf]

Archipelago Maps
Ai always fails to attack you while human can easly make great invasion fleets.

About metros - My metropols ain't bigger than size 14-16 (unless city is near floodplains). I do like Bachs cathedral, but it is not hard to manage towns without it.

I don't build cure for cancer - my games rarely go so far in tech. Altho most of my victories are conquest type.

Sometimes making specialists is what I do (irrigate few tiles to get +2fpt and make 1specialist).

 

[Bartleby]

Some wonders (Colossus, science wonders) you want to have in your core, others (like Sistine and Bach) work just as well if they were built in an AI's core.

Although it sucks if Bachs is on a small island.