It's more "cheating" to play immortal with a non-financial leader than deity with a financial leader. I'm sure you were joking anyway.
All truth about slavery/whip/overflow
- Thread starter gavenkoa
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pigswill
fly (one day)
It could also be more "cheating" to play a philosophical leader given the importance of bulbing at higher difficulties.
Snowbird
Prince
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Pretty much any typical city with good food surplus once you factor in worker turns (essentially 60 hammers or more doing noth but cottaging) and resources spent on happiness (warriors at the best case).
I've seen some skeleton economies on immortal (outside of cap is literally nothing except granaries, cottages and military police for HR happiness). These tend to -
a) being unable to do much if anything before liberalism/rifles
b) even then had some problems to get going (drafting riffles is okay but you need somewhat good amount of land to go from that).
Now, libraries tend to be way overrated by monarch/emperor players, but I don't think wasting time on mass cottages is a real alternative.
Tobiyogi
King
"Cheating" might not be the appropriate word. Financial makes it very easy sometimes. I don't realize the same thing with PHI. So Liz would be the ultimate cheat leader? I thought HC.
pigswill
fly (one day)
Probably still HC because of quechas and terraces.
So what's your alternative? I was using slaved-libraries vs cottages to make an apples-to-apples comparison about slavery and research. Maybe it's better to build an army or something, but that's hard to compare. Running specialists might be better, but only if it will actually produce a great person, so you get diminishing returns with more cities running specialists.
Tobiyogi
King
Guys, you can look forward to the next NC game where whipping will be dramatically reduced due to an extra challenge. That should end all discussions and give the poor slaves some rest 
Tobiyogi
King
Do you have also "Decathlon" outdoor shops in U.S./ England? I realized today that most of the products are branded "Quechua"
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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Also worth noting that in very early game turns are tight and whipping competes with unimproved tiles until you get enough workers + worker turns to create an alternative.
It's true that advantage from whipping vs not varies significantly depending on terrain. Food poor with lots of green mines otherwise will see a lot less benefit than a mostly flat island with a bunch of seafood.
Philosophical is OK with first 10 Great Specialists. Then it slows down two times:
https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Person_(Civ4)
Code:
Great Person Threshold
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Quick 67 134 200 267 334 400 467 534 600 667 800 934 1067
Normal 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1200 1400 1600
Epic 150 300 450 600 750 900 1050 1200 1350 1500 1800 2100 2400
Mara. 300 600 900 1200 1500 1800 2100 2400 2700 3000 3600 4200 4800First 10 GP costs: 1000*1100/2 = 5500 gpp, 5500gpp / 6gpppt = 917T of single Great Scientist. It is 2F*917T = 1833F. This food is converted to 10*1500B = 15000B. Or 1F => 8.1B.
At same time all each GS produces research at speed 3bpt.
The quickest way to pump 10 GS is to take 10 cities and run 2 GS. Then each 100/12 = 8.33T you will have 1 GS. After producing GS city is switched to other activity.
1city: 9T*2unit*3bpt = 36B, rest 9*9T work on 2 River Towns (with +5C) = 9*2*9*5C = 9*90C
2city: 2*9T*2unit*3bpt = 2*36B, 8*90C
...
9city:9*9T*2unit*3bpt = 9*36B, 1*90C
10city: 10*9T*2unit*3bpt = 9*36B, 0C
Total: 36*(1+2+...+10) = 36*10*11/2 = 1980B from GS, 90*(9+8+...+1+0) = 90*9*10/2 = 4050C from 2 Town tiles when GS are useless to run, and 15000B from bulbing.
Total of total: 15000B+1980B ~= 17000B, 4000C.
Bonus from Financial is constant and doesn't distract you from Food tiles. With 10 cities each running on 2 River Towns (+6cpt) for 10*9T it gives us 10cities*10*9T*2towns*6cpt = 10'800C.
Of cause we need to convert saved 2tiles*2F*10cities * 10*9T = 3'600F into something. Imaging we put it into green mines and have Currency, conversion rate 1F => 3H => 3G.
So 3'600F*3 => 10800G. And remember our 10'800C. Seems that Financial and Philosophical are equal in mental experiment.
Industrious gives +50% for Great Wonder. So 1H converts to 1.5G. Saved 3'600F with green mines (1F=>3H) can be converted into 3'600F * 3H/F => 10800H * 1.5G/H => 16'200G.
Industrious lags behind Financial and Philosophical. Of cause we need to add Forge and Marble/Stone. It changes multiplier from 1.5 to (1+50+100%+25%) = 2.75, and totals is 10800H * 2.75G/H = 29'700G.
So Industrious / Financial / Philosophical are somewhat equal in my pure mental experiment.
Reality is such that Financial works out of the box regardless map.
Industrious requires catching every Wonder (your research path is dictated by trait) and swap them between cities. It is impossible to load 10 cities with Wonders ))
Philosophical relays on Food surplus.
Other traits are not directly convertible to B/G/C.
ArchGhost
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It isn't much food surplus though. A single Clam/Crab/dry rice or even working 4 green farms at size 6 can support two scientist specialists. You just need 4 food surplus, a Library emplaced, and at least 3 pop. If you do that in a few spots, that's all you need to get a powerful advantage through PHI since it progresses the GPP curve and there's a ton of value in tradebacks at high difficulty. Admittedly certain map settings would be more adverse like Dry climate or Highlands, but the really great thing about PHI is not that it requires some amount of food surplus to give an advantage -- it ONLY requires food surplus, you don't even need land! PHI can enhance fishing cities as much as it does anywhere else.
The diminishing returns past 10 and 20 GP seem like they would be a big deal, but not really in practice. The double GPP rate you get from PHI is not actually required to gather up enough GS to make a run on either Lib or Astro since they are somewhat exclusive in most maps (you either need Astro..or not), so you end up not even needing that many Scientists, just 3 or 4. The difference that PHI can make in that situation is that you shave up to 9 turns per GS actually required -- which can be a HUGE deal with the snowball effect of getting their value earlier.
PHI is also heavily abuseable in Golden Ages, stacked with Pacifism, or both, in timing windows where you run Caste and as many specialists as possible. It enhances the effect of this tactic by a good degree and bring more flexibility to what you use it for -- farming out Merchants for trade missions, getting the next GP type out to trigger the next GA, or simply doubling down on more Scientists to get up through PP/Chemisty/SciMeth faster.
I 100% agree with your assertion of FIN just always working for the player though. It's a blanket trait that is pretty much always gonna be good for you in typical maps.
The more I play/muse about the game, the less I think of IND frankly. These days I definitely rate it below PHI or FIN. It requires fail-gold abuse to get the most out of it, which can be further enhanced (or not!) by what access to the proper building resources you have, the pace of the game, and whether one has the commerce available to make use of that raw gold anyway. It's much more situational than the other two though the potential economic strength is great. If anything, I'd put it at the level of CRE trait and then I would probably still prefer CRE instead, as the advantages you get from it are also pretty much universal in application in any game: faster border pops, settling cities for 2nd ring resources, keeping control of 1st ring resources with more certainty, and the much easier to build libraries.
The diminishing returns past 10 and 20 GP seem like they would be a big deal, but not really in practice. The double GPP rate you get from PHI is not actually required to gather up enough GS to make a run on either Lib or Astro since they are somewhat exclusive in most maps (you either need Astro..or not), so you end up not even needing that many Scientists, just 3 or 4. The difference that PHI can make in that situation is that you shave up to 9 turns per GS actually required -- which can be a HUGE deal with the snowball effect of getting their value earlier.
PHI is also heavily abuseable in Golden Ages, stacked with Pacifism, or both, in timing windows where you run Caste and as many specialists as possible. It enhances the effect of this tactic by a good degree and bring more flexibility to what you use it for -- farming out Merchants for trade missions, getting the next GP type out to trigger the next GA, or simply doubling down on more Scientists to get up through PP/Chemisty/SciMeth faster.
I 100% agree with your assertion of FIN just always working for the player though. It's a blanket trait that is pretty much always gonna be good for you in typical maps.
The more I play/muse about the game, the less I think of IND frankly. These days I definitely rate it below PHI or FIN. It requires fail-gold abuse to get the most out of it, which can be further enhanced (or not!) by what access to the proper building resources you have, the pace of the game, and whether one has the commerce available to make use of that raw gold anyway. It's much more situational than the other two though the potential economic strength is great. If anything, I'd put it at the level of CRE trait and then I would probably still prefer CRE instead, as the advantages you get from it are also pretty much universal in application in any game: faster border pops, settling cities for 2nd ring resources, keeping control of 1st ring resources with more certainty, and the much easier to build libraries.
@gavenkoa , can you write that out in more detail, maybe with some pictures? I'm interested, but I'm having a hard time following all the numbers you're throwing around. (might be worth a new thread)
It seems like you're trying to prove that Phi=Fin, and I don't think it'll work, because the timing is different. Phi gives you a huge boost for your early great people, but does nothing before you can work specialists, and runs into diminishing returns later in the game. Fin is always there, always useful no matter what. It changes coast and non-river grass tiles from "ok, i guess" to "actually pretty good".
It seems like you're trying to prove that Phi=Fin, and I don't think it'll work, because the timing is different. Phi gives you a huge boost for your early great people, but does nothing before you can work specialists, and runs into diminishing returns later in the game. Fin is always there, always useful no matter what. It changes coast and non-river grass tiles from "ok, i guess" to "actually pretty good".
@gavenkoa
One scientsts produces 3gpp/turn not 6, assuming that you are calculating the effect of Philosophical rather than total production. Besides, you need to take into account other multipliers. And 10 GS is a few too many, if we are talking about early bulbing.
Not sure I understand your assessment of Financial.
You can't convert 1
int 3
for failgold. Even if you use 1-pop whips its still 2.5h/1f st best. Working mines isn't 1->3 either; you need to grow to work those mines and regrow ever time you whip something. On the whole straight hammer ecomomy is ineffcient until at least Chemistry, and normally you can't put more than just 3-5 wonders into construction, anyway.
It would be helpful to define certain conditions before making calculation. Otherwise the result, however carefully calculated, may have nothing to do with reality.
One scientsts produces 3gpp/turn not 6, assuming that you are calculating the effect of Philosophical rather than total production. Besides, you need to take into account other multipliers. And 10 GS is a few too many, if we are talking about early bulbing.
Not sure I understand your assessment of Financial.
You can't convert 1
int 3 for failgold. Even if you use 1-pop whips its still 2.5h/1f st best. Working mines isn't 1->3 either; you need to grow to work those mines and regrow ever time you whip something. On the whole straight hammer ecomomy is ineffcient until at least Chemistry, and normally you can't put more than just 3-5 wonders into construction, anyway.It would be helpful to define certain conditions before making calculation. Otherwise the result, however carefully calculated, may have nothing to do with reality.
Isn't final number for PHY GS 6gpp/t? 100% multiplier is here... I included it from the beginning.
It is beaker's rate stays the same: 3bpt.
https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Scientist_(Civ4)
I assumed that we have Currency:You can't convert 1
I agree that you need Slavery before Currency.
I wanted rough but direct comparison of traits assuming available mid-game conversion rates.
If Industrious was 100% not 50% it would be noticeably powerful than other traits.
The main idea is to discuss what can be done by using 4F surplus with Industrious / Financial / Philosophical.
To pump GS each 9T you need to work on them in each city and switch to something else as you get one. By "Something else" I assumed working on non-Fin riverside Towns (somewhat realistic?).
For Ind/Fin you just need to convert 4F surplus into Gold/Beakers reasonably well within the same number of turns and cities.
Of cause in a short run (first 5 GS in 5*9T) Philosophical trait is the most profitable. Unless you put it into something cheap (Mathematics??).
As traits are more or less "equal" they can't be abused to break game balance. Small decisions make the win, not a selection of trait. Game is balanced (unless you go for Protective).
Aren't Financial + Industrious or Financial+ Philosophical too powerful?
https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Leader_trait_(Civ4)
https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Leader_trait_(Civ4)
Right. No coincidence that Elizabeth is #2 after Huayna as the most popular leader in HoF. Gandhi good 3rd (fast worker best UU). Others not close.
http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/stats_civ.php?show=leaders
The trouble is, its too rough. The marging of error may even exceed the value you are trying to estimate. For one thing, you want both specialists and cottages, regardless of leader's traits. Then you need to take into account the effect of Financial on every tile producing at least 2
. Growing 10 cities to work 4 more mines would cost roughly 1000 (and that if they were small). You can hardly expect more than 5000 failgold in a regular game (HoF is a different matter), of which only about 1000
is brought by Industrious. That is 10800 can be converted into ~15000, not 29700. You forgot about spare food in the experiment with Philosophical (1800!).I still claim that Romans can beat anyone in Space/UN/Culture, except perhaps Inca. And it has very little to do with Financial. Quechua and Terrace are much more important. Proving it will take a while. Too many are entranced by Financial and Philosophical, so it will have to come through my effort, which already made Rome second only to Inca on Deity. Not that it proves much.
http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/stats_civ.php?show=ones
Anyway, HoF is a different game. For example, Philosophical is so popular because its number one trait for Culture and Diplomatic games, hence such games are nearly always played with philosophical leaders.
Also, the traits in themselves doesn't do much if you don't know how to leverage them properly.
I seem to have a very hard time getting good results with financial, which many seem to love.
It goes rather much against my style, I find it hard to lay down the cottages, I often want farms riverside, workers busy chopping and cities are often whipped.
I often get much more utility with things like agg, imp, exp, although I can't deny that I like phi too.
I seem to have a very hard time getting good results with financial, which many seem to love.
It goes rather much against my style, I find it hard to lay down the cottages, I often want farms riverside, workers busy chopping and cities are often whipped.
I often get much more utility with things like agg, imp, exp, although I can't deny that I like phi too.
City should be size 5 with 1 Food +4 title and 4 mines. 22+24+26+28 = 100F. 10cities * 100F = 1000F. I missed that initial investment, sorry.Growing 10 cities to work 4 more mines would cost roughly 1000
That shows that Industrious is more weaker than I assumed in comparison to Financial and Philosophical.
All other your points are right.
Also it is hard to estimate Creative:
If you lose food / happiness resource due to culture border it is significant loss.
Religion and libraries can emulate Creative trait to some extend but at cost of Hammers / Beakers.
Library costs 90H, obelisk - 30H. Stonehenge - 120H (same as building Obelisks in 4 cities). Rushing Stonehenge gives something from Creative delaying your early growth....
To make rough estimate I'd take something generic, like typical 6-8 cities setup for cuirs breakout. Say you have NE city running specialists and 6 cities working various tiles and perhaps some specialists as well. Let the maximum number of tiles with 2 and more worked by those cities be 60. What can the median be? Say 30 tiles on average over 100 turns (40t->140t?). That is 3000 in total from Financial; add some 20-30% for libraries, academy etc.
Assuming that the pattern is the same, Philosophical will increase total amount of gpp produced by 30-50%. That will bring one or two more GS, that is some 1700 or 3400 beakers.
and more worked by those cities be 60. What can the median be? Say 30 tiles on average over 100 turns (40t->140t?). That is 3000 in total from Financial; add some 20-30% for libraries, academy etc. Assuming that the pattern is the same, Philosophical will increase total amount of gpp produced by 30-50%. That will bring one or two more GS, that is some 1700 or 3400 beakers.
