Advice needed: Wall Street, Corps, better city?

[blitzkrieg1980]

This will confirm my inexperience, but I was running bureaucracy but changed to Free Speech in order to get the +2 commerce from my towns and increase my culture.

Well... hold on a second. If you are a) going for a culture victory or b) have a lot of cottage spammed cities that have matured to towns, then Free Speech may be better. I've switched to Free Speech in several of my games if I have a large empire that has TONS of towns. After all, if you can grab +2 on 100+ towns (let's say 15 commerce cities with average 7 towns each) later in the game, then you'll definitely see a huge benefit from Free Speech over Bureaucracy. However, from what I've read, FS is mostly a boon for culture vics (due to the fact that you'll be running +2 with a high slider in the end run which then gets the +100% from FS)

BUT for your current situation (not much in your land), it sounds like you should be in Bureaucracy and maximize the hammer output of your capital.

 

[yanner39]

So, you don't actually have the shrine yet, which is interesting. Also interesting is the settled merchants in the capital. That is 18 Gold per turn to be multiplied, which works exactly the same way the shrine would work.

You mentioned other holy cities. Do any of them have shrines and how much GPT is each shrine producing? If you've got a mega-shrine in one of the other cities, then that will also be something you should consider.


Damn warmongers completely screw up my warmongering plans. I actually find Monty much worse to deal with than Shaka. Shaka is like a mean dog who's gonna attack somebody, but can be pointed in the other direction if you are careful. Monty is like rabid dog who just needs to be put down as soon as possible.

Thanks again. yeah, I just haven't been able to generate a Great Prophet yet that holy city.

In terms of the other holy cities, I must admit I haven't checked. I have just conquered them and was mostly looking to expand their borders. But, yes, I will consider that.

 

[SeptimusOctopus]

This will confirm my inexperience, but I was running bureaucracy but changed to Free Speech in order to get the +2 commerce from my towns and increase my culture.

This isn't always (or even usually) a bad idea. I find myself leaving bureaucracy by the end of most games. The +2 from every town can give you an advantage if you've got enough cottages built.

 

[yanner39]

Well... hold on a second. If you are a) going for a culture victory or b) have a lot of cottage spammed cities that have matured to towns, then Free Speech may be better. But for your current situation (not much in your land), it sounds like you should be in Bureaucracy and maximize the hammer output of your capital.

My goal is the space race, so production will be key. I do have alot of cottage spammed city, which will be turning into towns. THis is what I noticed the other night - it seemed I had too many commerce cities, not enough production city. BTW, I am using Hannibal which is why I have been focusing on the economy part.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

My goal is the space race, so production will be key. I do have alot of cottage spammed city, which will be turning into towns. THis is what I noticed the other night - it seemed I had too many commerce cities, not enough production city. BTW, I am using Hannibal which is why I have been focusing on the economy part.

While it is definitely good to abuse the FIN trait if your land has a lot of attractive cottage real estate, if you want to go space race, you will need production sites. While you will be able to beeline the Space Ship parts techs, you still need to build them. Where is your Ironworks at? This is a clutch national wonder for the space race since you'll want several cities building parts as quickly as possible.

Can you post a screenshot of your cities or maybe a save game? I would love to give you advice on how to increase production in this production poor empire, but I would have no idea how to go about it without a point of reference. Workshops are a good way to increase production where hills are sparse. As long as you have enough food (post-biology farms are good for this), perhaps putting workshops on non-riverside grassland and plains tiles is a good idea for newer cities whose cottages have not yet matured very much. There are several threads that feature mostly grassland city sites that have massive capability simply due to the fact that grassland workshops (not in State Property) provide 13 which is roughly the same as an un-railroaded grassland hill (IE making hills where there was once flatland). With State Property, you get a 10% boost to production and those grassland workshops are 2 3. So a self feeding grassland hill. You could literally put a workshop down on any grassland tile with State Property.

Without a screenie or savegame that's all I got.

 

[JBossch]

This isn't always (or even usually) a bad idea. I find myself leaving bureaucracy by the end of most games. The +2 from every town can give you an advantage if you've got enough cottages built.

Agreed. The huge maintenance cost of bureaucracy becomes counterproductive when your Civ gets big enough and you get enough matured cottages. With a low city count however, I would stick with Bureau in most cases.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

@JBossch:
He also has very little production in his empire and probably needs his capital to serve as a production site for spaceship parts. Would you advise him to stay in Bureaucracy for the 50% bonus?

@yanner39
Is there a possibility that you could achieve a different victory? Perhaps a quick chop/whip/draft army and start conquering? Are you at tech parity, superiority, or inferiority? How is your power situation? We really need a save game to give you specific advices on how to proceed.

 

[yanner39]

While it is definitely good to abuse the FIN trait if your land has a lot of attractive cottage real estate, if you want to go space race, you will need production sites. While you will be able to beeline the Space Ship parts techs, you still need to build them. Where is your Ironworks at? This is a clutch national wonder for the space race since you'll want several cities building parts as quickly as possible.

Can you post a screenshot of your cities or maybe a save game? I would love to give you advice on how to increase production in this production poor empire, but I would have no idea how to go about it without a point of reference. Workshops are a good way to increase production where hills are sparse. As long as you have enough food (post-biology farms are good for this), perhaps putting workshops on non-riverside grassland and plains tiles is a good idea for newer cities whose cottages have not yet matured very much.

I'm not too sure how or what you would like to see. How should I do this?

I do not have Iron Works yet. Good advice. I have to say that I getting some good info here. Thanks again. I try and post up pictures.

 

[peppe1]

Oxford and Wall Street city choices can sometimes be tough decisions.

Most games we end up biasing the gold vs. science slider toward science. If you can run 100% science, usually you do, or at least I do...

With a cottage dominated economy running high science slider then you would look to place wall street in a:
a) shrine city
b) corporation hq city
b1) Corporation hq should go in shrine city
c) Great Merchant Farm city.

It takes some luck to have the shrine city be a good food location to run merchants, but you can still settle great merchants here and probably run a few merchants.

Oxford comes earlier and usually goes in the Bureaucracy capital. Most games you will be in Bureaucracy most of the time (jumping out for drafting/vassalage during war prep). The empire will need to grow fairly large for the free speech +2 commerce bonus per town to beat the capitals +50% base commerce per tile. So most of the important part of the game your capital will be the highest commerce and thus highest beaker output city deserving oxford over wall street.

In a specialist dominated economy it depends greatly on your needs and the map. I usually run a low science slider setting by mid game and late game diverting 10-30% to culture for happiness. So the Bureaucracy capital becomes a strong gold producer. Usually the original capital becomes the oxford/scientist city, and the capital gets moved to a good commerce/cottage city that may be a shrine city if my neighbor was kind. Then corporations get founded there and I run low science sliders while getting science from specialists.

If you don't go conquer some land with the early specialist tech advantage your tech lead will peter out as others get towns+printing press online and free speech or a big Bureaucracy capital. I am too lazy for this, but along with conquering some land with ready made towns you can trim back the specialists to just 1-2 GP farms and run emancipation to convert former farmland to fast growing cottages.

I like to just go conquer more land and re-tool my core cities to have more workshops/hammer production and turn out a swarm of units. If it becomes a space race then these cities can build parts quickly, or build wealth/research with +100% multipliers (forge, factory, power).

 

[yanner39]

@JBossch:
He also has very little production in his empire and probably needs his capital to serve as a production site for spaceship parts. Would you advise him to stay in Bureaucracy for the 50% bonus?

@yanner39
Is there a possibility that you could achieve a different victory? Perhaps a quick chop/whip/draft army and start conquering? Are you at tech parity, superiority, or inferiority? How is your power situation? We really need a save game to give you specific advices on how to proceed.

Actually, I have been thinking about it. I have already moved on a seperate continent. I have alot of cashin the treasury and I am running Universal Suffrage so I could by units. Something to think about.

 

[JBossch]

@Blitzkrieg: Its hard to tell for sure with no save but with a low city count and low hammers I would stay in Bureau. It sounds like the capital is really good and will get a lot from the multiplier.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

To post screenshots, in the game, hit SHIFT+PRINT SCREEN and name the shot. It saves to Documents/MyGames/BeyondTheSword/Screenshots

I use Imageshack to upload and then use the

 

[yanner39]

[BUMP]

So I took the great advice from this thread and I applied it. Things were going really well. I had a very strong economy, I had 3 production city, etc...

Then, like some of you predicted, Shaka declared war on me. I was scambling at first, but my Destroyers are taking care of his Frigates. He manage to unload troops once, a s**tload of trebs and Grenadiers but I quickly took care of them with my canons, Grenadiers and Infantry.

Question: Is he going to keep throwing stuff at me for the rest of the game? The year is 1900. I was going for the space victory. I had already incorporated mining Inc and was trying to incorporate Sid's Sushi.

Any advice? Should I just keep producing Destroyers, keep teching military techs, and nevermind my spaceship techs until the war is over? Will the war ever end? I tried communicating with him but he is not happy. Maybe I should convert to his religion?

I like the empire-building/management of the game more than the warring, although warring is pretty fun when you are winning.

Any advice on how I should proceed from here would be great.

BTW, I protected my Wall Street city pretty well. He hasn't even had a sniff of it.

 

[brianb1974]

I would just about always put the wall street in your shrine city. At the end of the day, hopefully, your wall street city will be kicking in enough gold that you can keep your slider pretty low, so having the shrine (and corps) there is much, much more important than commerce.

Consider also that you only get 2 national wonders per city. If you have a great capital, there are a lot of things you might be putting there. Maybe national epic if you are wonderspamming. Maybe oxford if it has a ton of cottages. Maybe ironworks if its production is through the roof. Situationally, maybe even one of the others. So anytime it's a close call as to build a national wonder there in that all-around great city or somewhere else, choose somewhere else to keep your options open for other wonders.

 

[yanner39]

I would just about always put the wall street in your shrine city. At the end of the day, hopefully, your wall street city will be kicking in enough gold that you can keep your slider pretty low, so having the shrine (and corps) there is much, much more important than commerce.

Consider also that you only get 2 national wonders per city. If you have a great capital, there are a lot of things you might be putting there. Maybe national epic if you are wonderspamming. Maybe oxford if it has a ton of cottages. Maybe ironworks if its production is through the roof. Situationally, maybe even one of the others. So anytime it's a close call as to build a national wonder there in that all-around great city or somewhere else, choose somewhere else to keep your options open for other wonders.

If my best production city, I have my Ironworks and Heroic Epic, hence alot of my military is produced there. In my shrine/WS city, I also built the Moai Statues so that city has also good production. I built a drydock and I am producing a naval fleet. I probably should have a production city building on the coast building ships.

 

[MrCynical]

Then, like some of you predicted, Shaka declared war on me. I was scambling at first, but my Destroyers are taking care of his Frigates. He manage to unload troops once, a s**tload of trebs and Grenadiers but I quickly took care of them with my canons, Grenadiers and Infantry.

Any advice? Should I just keep producing Destroyers, keep teching military techs, and nevermind my spaceship techs until the war is over? Will the war ever end? I tried communicating with him but he is not happy. Maybe I should convert to his religion?

If you have this kind of tech lead, he doesn't present a serious threat. Converting to his religion (unless you would have done so anyway) is fairly pointless. Your options are:

1)Wait for the war to end - the more units he loses the greater your relative power lead, and the more likely he'll be to accept peace. All you have to do is be patient.

2)Take advantage of your tech lead, and take the fight to his territory. Destroyers vs. frigates and infantry vs. rifles should be fairly one sided. Grab some more land for yourself.

3)Maybe you want a peaceful space race win, but that doesn't mean you should turn down free xp for your units from Shaka's cannon fodder. Refuse peace, focus on the space race (you pick up enough military tech on route you won't have a problem), and collect lots of promotions on your units.

 

[yanner39]

If you have this kind of tech lead, he doesn't present a serious threat. Converting to his religion (unless you would have done so anyway) is fairly pointless. Your options are:

1)Wait for the war to end - the more units he loses the greater your relative power lead, and the more likely he'll be to accept peace. All you have to do is be patient.

2)Take advantage of your tech lead, and take the fight to his territory. Destroyers vs. frigates and infantry vs. rifles should be fairly one sided. Grab some more land for yourself.

3)Maybe you want a peaceful space race win, but that doesn't mean you should turn down free xp for your units from Shaka's cannon fodder. Refuse peace, focus on the space race (you pick up enough military tech on route you won't have a problem), and collect lots of promotions on your units.

This is what I was thinking of doing. I offered Shaka peace, he took it. So I kept focusing on the space race (never checking the power ratings ). All of a sudden, he declares war on me again, and I see 20-25 Frigates and Galleons heading towards one of my coastal cities. I sent my battleships, destroyers and fighter jets to take care of him. I destroy all the ships and then check and see if he wants peace. He accepts.

Is this a mistake? Will he just keep building his army and attacking me? My concern is that eventually, he will get destroyers and battleships and eventually, he'll finish me off. Is the fact he's constantly building an army and attacking means his tech rate his slower? Should I take advantage of this? I trying to focus on the space race, but it's difficult when I am using my top production cities to build military units.

Maybe I should just nuke him?

As a second part question: Do the AI Civ traits determine or influence what type of victory I should go for? Right now, I am only playing at Warlord level, but I can imagine that an opponent like Shaka could be a real pain in the ayss when I play noble. I getting better at warring, but it's still not the strongest aspect of my game.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Is this a mistake? Will he just keep building his army and attacking me? My concern is that eventually, he will get destroyers and battleships and eventually, he'll finish me off. Is the fact he's constantly building an army and attacking means his tech rate his slower? Should I take advantage of this? I trying to focus on the space race, but it's difficult when I am using my top production cities to build military units.

In this situation, his tech rate will suffer a bit especially from the he gets when continuously declaring war on you and losing all those units. I would, personally, sink a few turns into building a bunch of battleships, DoW on Shaka, and simply blockade his major port cities. Any ships that come out of those cities will be spotted by your superior battleships and you can sink them before they even get close to your landmass. Also, the blockade will further hurt his economy and coastal cities slowing his tech rate.

Or, you can bribe one of his land-neighbors to DoW on him.

Maybe I should just nuke him?

This gets negative modifiers from ALL leaders, and if you nuke enough times, you may hurt your diplo enough for another former ally to declare on you (seeing that your space race is coming too). So I'd say forget nukes. He's already tech backwards in comparison to you. Utilize your conventional weapons tech advantage.

As a second part question: Do the AI Civ traits determine or influence what type of victory I should go for? Right now, I am only playing at Warlord level, but I can imagine that an opponent like Shaka could be a real pain in the ayss when I play noble. I getting better at warring, but it's still not the strongest aspect of my game.

Judge your victory style by the map your dealt in conjunction with your traits. Mainly, the map should determine a lot of your play style. By the map, I mean the land in your empire, the neighbors, the diplo situation, how the religions are spread out, and especially the resources you have. Next thing to do is judge how to best utilize your leaders traits/UU/UB with the map you have. The big thing with the Warlord -> Noble jump is specializing your cities, manually assigning all worker tasks, and adjusting to new maintenance levels. Have enough workers to improve your cities fast enough (advanced players say about 1.5 workers per city on average).

 

[yanner39]

In this situation, his tech rate will suffer a bit especially from the he gets when continuously declaring war on you and losing all those units. I would, personally, sink a few turns into building a bunch of battleships, DoW on Shaka, and simply blockade his major port cities. Any ships that come out of those cities will be spotted by your superior battleships and you can sink them before they even get close to your landmass. Also, the blockade will further hurt his economy and coastal cities slowing his tech rate.

Or, you can bribe one of his land-neighbors to DoW on him.


This gets negative modifiers from ALL leaders, and if you nuke enough times, you may hurt your diplo enough for another former ally to declare on you (seeing that your space race is coming too). So I'd say forget nukes. He's already tech backwards in comparison to you. Utilize your conventional weapons tech advantage.


Judge your victory style by the map your dealt in conjunction with your traits. Mainly, the map should determine a lot of your play style. By the map, I mean the land in your empire, the neighbors, the diplo situation, how the religions are spread out, and especially the resources you have. Next thing to do is judge how to best utilize your leaders traits/UU/UB with the map you have. The big thing with the Warlord -> Noble jump is specializing your cities, manually assigning all worker tasks, and adjusting to new maintenance levels. Have enough workers to improve your cities fast enough (advanced players say about 1.5 workers per city on average).

Thanks again for the advice. For the jump to noble, I have already been manually using my workers and I am getting better at city spec. I think that should be fairly ok when I move to noble. I was more concern about dealing with aggressive Civs when they have the same techs as me. I was thinking that early in the game when you see that Shaka or Monty are in the mix, never mind a Diplo or space race win, I'd be spending my time defending myself.

I like your advice about the blockade. In order for it to work, I just have to station a ship right in front of their port, and click on the blockade button? So this will affect his economy but my ships won't automatically attack? I'd have to keep my eye on the blockade and attack when a new ship is produced.

Also, war weariness will also be an issue his I have ships stationed in his territory, correct?

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

For the war weariness, you will only get a small amount from stationing the ships in his borders. You won't be losing them, though, (or taking cities) which is where the major WW comes from. I usually station small stacks of 3 tech superior naval units in between each of the coastal cities to provide the maximum blockade coverage. You can set 1 of the ships in each stack to "patrol" duty (CTRL+P)which will awaken them whenever an enemy ship is inside their sight range. So you don't need to keep checking the ships with that option.

As to the early game, if you are spawned near to Monty/Shaka/Genghis/etc., you should definitely rush them. You usually won't be able to befriend them (even with shared religion) and if they are neighbors, they will target you sooner or later. When I see one of the war monger leaders or the religion zealots (like Izzy) next door, I usually celebrate since I will soon have 2 capital sites (mine and his ). On Noble, you may consider rushing 2 neighbors no matter what the diplo situation since 3 capital sites and 3 empires worth of land will secure the rest of the game for you early on. But for higher levels, rush nearby warmongers and placate to easily befriended fast techers like Mansa Musa to open up tech trading with them.