Aqueduct : What do to with that

[omnishakira]

Hello,

I was wondering what's your strategy regarding the aqueduct ? Do you build them on specific kind of cities, on all cities or rarely ?

Also do you build them usually fast right after you have researched engineering or not ? Is it an important building for you ?

thank you

 

[Irkalla]

Hello,

I was wondering what's your strategy regarding the aqueduct ? Do you build them on specific kind of cities, on all cities or rarely ?

Also do you build them usually fast right after you have researched engineering or not ? Is it an important building for you ?

thank you

You build them in cities where your growth has started to slow, if you're going growth. Also, if you're going 4 city tradition opener, you can just get them for free in your 4 cities from the finisher. I like to get them around size 7-10

 

[joncnunn]

Mine strategy is: first four cities : get them for free with Tradition
Any additional city built (if any):
If I have spare cash I tend to cash buy them; as it appears more cost effective to cash rush them compared to some other buildings. When hand-built, I tend to build before the other items costing the same hammers.

 

[Matthew.]

Build them (or get free from Tradition) if you want a taller, smaller empire. When to build them depends on how much excess happiness you have (or will soon become available).

If you are playing a wider, sprawling game they will only force you into happiness issues and can largely be ignored. They can still have uses in city locations with low food potential.

 

[ahawk]

It's a combination of happiness and raw food production. For me, I do what a handful of others have said, using Tradition's closer to get them, then buying or hard building them in whatever cities are slowing down, all this so long as I have happiness to spare.

I also do a couple of other things, though:

1) When a city that has been growing slowly is a couple of turns away from growing an extra pop, I'll sometimes buy an aquaduct before this happens just to cash in on having it there before it hits that next pop.

2) Sometimes I actually build them in cities that, rather than slowing, are growing rapidly. This is usually what I do when a city that didn't get an aquaduct from Tradition has multiple wheat bonus resources nearby and, again, I have happiness to spare. In this case, I'm helping the city to quickly reach the size of my first four cities.

Again, like others have said, the importance and build-order concerning aquaducts is widely variable. With any REX civ, I tend to build far fewer aquaducts and often only much later than usual (the Mayans being the REX civ I most often play as). And a lot depends on if you have Mercantile CSs to help with happiness and/or Maritime CSs to help with food: sometimes, it's probably better to buy off a Maritime CS than buy 2 or 3 aquaducts. And without Mercantile CSs, at the higher levels it might be hard to grow as tall as you want even without aquaducts, depending on the terrain and luxuries you have and the luxuries you can trade for from other civs.

 

[Zaimejs]

While we're speaking of aqueducts, I was wondering if the Tradition thing works with aqueducts the way it does with culture buildings. If I have aqueducts in all my cities, but I finish Tradition, will I get a Medical Lab or Hospital instead?

Shouldn't it be like that?

 

[Browd]

Nope. Your existing aqueducts (first 4 cities) just become maintenance free.

 

[FeiLing]

Be careful though about selling the existing ones before you take your free one's... I'm not sure if that breaks it but it sounds likely, since buying an aqueduct just 1-2 turns before growing will also not 'store' 40% of the next bucket; it only stores as much as has been accumulated in those 1-2 turns since it was built/bought.

 

[ahawk]

Be careful though about selling the existing ones before you take your free one's... I'm not sure if that breaks it but it sounds likely, since buying an aqueduct just 1-2 turns before growing will also not 'store' 40% of the next bucket; it only stores as much as has been accumulated in those 1-2 turns since it was built/bought.

Wow. Never realized that.

It's still effective to buy them before an extra pop comes out, though, because then the 40% bucket bonus will apply immediately after that to the next pop, rather than having to wait for after that next pop to start the bucket bonus. But yeah, after checking it looks like it doesn't retroactively apply the 40% bucket bonus to anything in the bucket before it was bought/built, and it looks like only after the first pop growth with the aquaduct in place does the bucket carry-over bonus apply.

 

[Seabastian Civ]

Be careful though about selling the existing ones before you take your free one's... I'm not sure if that breaks it but it sounds likely, since buying an aqueduct just 1-2 turns before growing will also not 'store' 40% of the next bucket; it only stores as much as has been accumulated in those 1-2 turns since it was built/bought.

Never realized this either, thanks for the heads up!

 

[Koiranputki]

But, of course, it is still beneficial to get the aqueduct earlier rather than later....it's just that you might have more pressing priorities than the "timed" immediate 40% carry-over benefit you might have been expecting....

 

[Tabarnak]

If you decide to go elsewhere than a Tradition finisher i suggest to build/ rush buy as soon as you hit 8-9 in low production but high food cities especially after running 2 scientists from universities(or it will be damn too slow). You can wait for fertilizer if you build them in average prod/food cities. Get them when you reach 40-50% food bar(to get full utility right of the bat for the next )...same for Trad finisher.

But...maritime cs ally>1 aqueduct rush buy for 4+ cities.

Best combination is 2 or 3 maritime cs, early civil service + Trad finisher...just...wow.

 

[Xahz]

Can anyone explain how Aqueducts work? Or other % based bonuses like Floating Gardens, Temple of Artemis, Fertility Rights etc...

I've heard people say they increase the amount of food in the city and I've also heard people say that they only increase the growth rate. Then there's base food vs. total food.

 

[FeiLing]

Floating Gardens, Fertility Rites, Tradition Finisher, ToA as well as We love the King is increasing the surplus of food that is produced. Your city produces +20 food per turn? With +50% bonus it will be +30 per turn.

Aqueducts/Medical Lab: Your city is at 100/100 food and therefore grows. Without Aqueduct you'll be for e.g. at 0/120 food for the next growth. With aqueduct it would be 40/120.

 

[joncnunn]

Unless going Cultural; its not worth delaying free aqueducts by a full policy if your first four cities are in bad places on their growth cycle. That is roughly thirtieth turns going scientific.
That's a lot of extra turns without both them [and the other direct growth bonuses from completing tradition]

 

[dashwinner]

what about clicking the 'avoid growth button' if for whatever reason you're low on and can't rush them. Let's say a size 5 city with only so-so , 3 turns away from popping another , but 7 turns from building that aqueduct. I find myself doing that alot, and im not sure if its worth it or not...

 

[Hpuk]

what about clicking the 'avoid growth button' if for whatever reason you're low on and can't rush them. Let's say a size 5 city with only so-so , 3 turns away from popping another , but 7 turns from building that aqueduct. I find myself doing that alot, and im not sure if its worth it or not...

If you choose avoid growth, the city can still gather food, and will continue to do so until it's one turn away from growing, unless you can stagnate it.
If you build an aqueduct when you are 1 away from growing, it won't give you the full benefits for the next pop growth.
So timing aqueducts just before population growth is pointless, you'll want to build them so that they have time to stockpile the food (50% to 60% to next population growth).

Of course, if you can stagnate the city yourself by moving citizens to production tiles or just making them unemployed, that is absolutely worth it.

 

[Browd]

Floating Gardens, Fertility Rites, Tradition Finisher, ToA as well as We love the King is increasing the surplus of food that is produced. Your city produces +20 food per turn? With +50% bonus it will be +30 per turn.

Agree, but with a qualifier. ToA and Floating Gardens apply to raw food production, while every other food modifier (Landed Elite, Tradition Finisher, Fertility Rites, Swords into Plowshares, WLKD, etc.) applies to food surplus. The UI is crap, and presents this in the least user-friendly way possible, as it appears to lump ToA and Floating Gardens in with the others, but if you work your way manually through the food numbers, it foots.

So, let's say you have a 6-pop capital with a granary, ToA, Landed Elite, the Tradition finisher and Fertility Rites that is producing 12 raw food from worked tiles plus 2 food each from the granary and Landed Elite, for a total of 16 raw food production. The UI will display that you have "Base" food that reads as follows: 6.4 (16-12). The game isn't incapable of doing basic arithmetic; it has lumped the ToA bonus into the raw food total, which makes the actual raw food production 18.4 (1.15 x 16).

The UI then shows all of the modifiers in the next set of lines, including the ToA bonus and Landed Elite (10%), Trad finisher (15%) and Religion modifier (i.e., Fertility Rites) (10%), but the ToA bonus has already been applied. In that case, your "Total" food (the excess that drives population growth) would be 8.64 (6.4 x 1.35).