Aristocracy Experiment

[EverNoob]

My computer just gets way too slow when I near turn 200 so I gave up. Instead I restarted another game to turn 150. When I get back home (to my usual computer) i may continue the games to turn 200.

Try 1

I beelined Education for cottages, then Mining, then City States​

Try 2

Mining first, God King, AV, then Aristocracy starting from turn 147.
Pre-Aristocracy I used a SE, so with all the farms it just made sense to go Aristocracy​

Ok so it looks like going for early cottages is less worthwhile than I initially thought. However early God-King/SE with a transition into Aristocracy seems good. Normally I'm used to transitioning to a CE/SE hybrid.

 

[EverNoob]

My previous assumptions about Aristocracy were based on beelines (or near beelines) to CoL. I was switching to Aristo too early I think, at least where the barbarian civs are concerned. It remains to be seen if that is true for the Elohim. Also, due to my play style I tend to research Contruction and Sanitation rather late. That was the reason why I found aristo-agrarian too restrictive research-wise.

City states is for the early warmonger who acquires a large empire. I kinda messed up my try#1 because of my "minimal AI interaction" rule Though that wouldn't exclude an eventual transition to Aristocracy.

The way I see it, as the game goes on, the more Aristocracy becomes worth it. New cottages take too much time to mature once later into the game, compared to farms. So maybe the question should be, "when is a good time for aristocracy?"

 

[vale]

Spiritual does make a difference in answer to that question in my opinion. If you are spiritual it becomes more likely that a detour to Mysticism before Code of Laws will show dividends. But for that to be true you need a very strong Capital. If not spiritual, then I think a semi-beeline to Code of Laws with an immediate switch is in order:

Calendar and Exploration are each usually required before Code of Laws.
Crafting and Mining are each sometimes required before Code of Laws.
No other worker techs are relevant. Animal Husbandry is much less important than in BTS.

Always hook up happy resources before heading to Code of Laws in my opinion. Happy resources almost always have a nice commerce bonus associated with them so they help you get there and allow more productive cities.

 

[EverNoob]

Spiritual does make a difference in answer to that question in my opinion. If you are spiritual it becomes more likely that a detour to Mysticism before Code of Laws will show dividends. But for that to be true you need a very strong Capital. If not spiritual, then I think a semi-beeline to Code of Laws with an immediate switch is in order

In general it mostly depends on what other short-term goal I might have. In the case of spiritual, it was getting a religion and priesthood. For a philosophical leader it might be heading for writing and build the great library.

But yeah there's alot of factors to take into account.

 

[schlalex]

Ok, i played a little bit and finally hit Turn 150.
Untill Turn 100 i researched (in this order) Agriculture,Ancient Chants,Mysticism,Crafting,Mining,bulbed RoK,Calendar,Exploration and need 4 Turns for Festivals.
Of course the holy City was not in my Capital . With a little more luck, it becomes obscene . Next Great Prophet comes in 20 Turns.
I just built my 3rd city.

Spoiler :

50 Turns later, i just founded my 5th city and have one more settler looking for a spot.3 Turns ago, i researched CoL, which will give me a big boost in a couple of Turns.
The Shrine is built, of course, giving 10 extra money
I researched (not in this order) Festivals, AH, Education, CoL, Masonry, Construction, Cartography and need 17 more Turns for Currency.
I own a small army of 14 Units and have build some more buildings like carnival, warrens and granaries in the 3 biggest cities. I also built the Ale-Nationalwonder in Renegade Hill.
Normally, of course i build the Great Library. No marble? No need, i have godking .
My cities can reach an appealing size of 13 (Capitol),12 the others.

Spoiler :

So in general i must say, it was a solid start. I could have done better of course, but it was ok. With the holy city in my capitol and more civs nearby, where RoK can spread to, it would have been much better. And i know why i play deity. The extra starting-settler and techs give the AI a big advantage. I didnt know it performs so poor at Immortal. No military,no techs, no land, no points.
So what about you? Where can i see your results, i am curious.
One last thing. This game was at normal speed and i never play it, i always choose epic. In epic your strategy is even worse, you will be in much bigger trouble. There is no beeline to CoL and expanding your empire to 4-5 Cities before you reach it. You will crash economically on your way, while the extra turns give me even more money.
If you make another discussion game, choose epic this time.

 

[vale]

Here is my info for turn 150 in my second try (mining first game)

Techs researched:
Agriculture - 124
Exploration -124
Crafting - 187
Ancient Chants -124 - came from a graveyard event so I am giving 2 totals - costs 25 gold
Calendar - 249
Animal Husbandry - 280
Horseback Riding - 561
Trade - 702
Mining - 312
Masonry - 218
Bronze Working - 624
Education - 436
Writing - 592
Code of Laws - 499
Sanitation - 998
Some overflow as turn 150 was the turn masonry completed but I see no way to figure out the amount of overflow
Total - 5906 beakers (6030 with Ancient Chants)

Production:
Granary x 2 - 240
Public Baths x 2 - 300
Training Yard x 2 - 200
Deruptus Brewing House - 240
Monument x 5 - 300
Courthouse x 5 - 600
Smokehouse - 120
Worker x 8 - 600
Settler x 5 - 1100
Goblin x 5 - 75 - 4 have upgraded to wolf riders but I list as goblins here
Rantine x 1 - 180
Warrior x 4 - 100
Incomplete Production -274
Total - 4329

Stats:
GNP: 134 (1)
Mfg: 74 (1)
Crop: 141 (1)
Population: 3398000 (1)
Soldiers: 85000 (4)
Land: 130000 (2)
Approval: 53 (4)
Life: 58 (4)

At 100% research I get 134 beakers per turn and lose 40 gold per turn. At 0% research I get 0 beakers per turn and gain 109 gold per turn. The breakeven point is at 73% where I get 98 beakers per turn.

By the way, that trade sideline was pointless. I can't even build libraries.

Here is my turn 150 information. Can you summarize your position in something of this nature?

 

[vale]

I can't guarantee this, but it appears your save is significantly behind Aristocracy at least in terms of technology completed and research rate at this point.

I'm interested to see your production numbers, including your manufacturing from demographics and what you have already built.

 

[vale]

Also, the holy city will almost never be in your Capital unless it is your only city. So that isn't bad luck its just what you have to expect.

 

[schlalex]

Of course, i cant , thats too much work.
Sounds, i cant reach all these stats,do u have some pics, i wanna see the empire.
You say mining 1st for gold&expansive trait? Maybe this works better.
Btw, as u wanted to be shown, it is easy to get RoK even with the Kazad in. Instead of giving me only 10 Gold, in a normal game it might have been much,much more.
And i must confess, i didnt know that all the techs are so easy to research in normal speed. As i said, u will have biggest trouble in epic while expanding so fast.
Maybe thats why people have such different opinions, since they play at a different speed.
If u are so convinced of your strategy try it there and be surprised.
But anyway, i think GK has still done a great job and brought me in a position, where i can easily win.
So your estimation, GK/Mystcism is so horrible should be disproved (again).
(Not to mention that CoE is one of the worst civs for a mysticism-beeline)

P.S. did you never hear anything about the edit-function? Its a great tool

PPS. You did not research festivals????

 

[vale]

Of course, i cant , thats too much work.
Sounds, i cant reach all these stats,do u have some pics, i wanna see the empire.
You say mining 1st for gold&expansive trait? Maybe this works better.

There is no maybe about it and it is very hard for me to judge how much of your deficit is because of the poor early tech path. I would recommend retrying with Mining before Agriculture (so either Mining-Mysticism or Mysticism-Mining as your initial tech path)

Btw, as u wanted to be shown, it is easy to get RoK even with the Kazad in. Instead of giving me only 10 Gold, in a normal game it might have been much,much more.

Explain this please. And thats fine. Founding RoK is not impossible. As I said in the other thread I even did it in the capital and had it shrined by about turn 100 in one of my attempts to make God King work. But it is also clear that your economy is significantly worse than Aristocracy.

And i must confess, i didnt know that all the techs are so easy to research in normal speed. As i said, u will have biggest trouble in epic while expanding so fast.
Maybe thats why people have such different opinions, since they play at a different speed.

I've played other game speeds and Epic would not change the gameplay nearly as much as you think. It is a straight 1.5 across the board. Marathon is quite different on the other hand. But slow game speeds really are exploits. The only thing Epic would have changed would have been if we were not barbarians.

If u are so convinced of your strategy try it there and be surprised.

I have, and I wouldn't really be surprised. It operates about the same way. Barring warfare, golden ages, or auto xp gaining units, Epic doesn't change a whole lot about the fundamental nature of the game.

But anyway, i think GK has still done a great job and brought me in a position, where i can easily win.

That isn't really the question. Anyone who participated here can finish their game with a win. That doesn't help at all with a comparison.

So your estimation, GK/Mystcism is so horrible should be disproved (again).
(Not to mention that CoE is one of the worst civs for a mysticism-beeline)

Explain your second statement. And unless you demonstrate that you have produced alot more stuff than Aristocracy you haven't disproved the statement that Aristocracy is better. Aristocracy has researched like 1600 beakers more worth of techs than you (like almost 40% more tech than you). You need to show alot of extra hammers out there to make up for that.

If Aristocracy has researched 40% more tech than God King AND has produced similar amounts of stuff, then I'm sorry but God King has performed horribly.

You even have had warrens to double some of your hammers so you should be able to show some serious advantage in hammers.

PPS. You did not research festivals????

No. It isn't necessary for an Aristocracy. My cities all produce more than enough commerce to pay for themselves and Markets would be low priority builds anyway (less important than monuments and public baths at minimum). Sanitation is much more important. Admittedly the trade detour was a total waste especially given the rules, but had I not gone for trade I would have gone after a religion and way of the wicked after Sanitation.

You can see pictures of my empire in my spoiler halfway down page 2. I have my best two cities pictured there and detailed information about my tech path.

Do one thing before you try another attempt. Open your turn 150 save and screenshot the economic advisor at 0% slider and 100% slider. Then revolt to Aristocracy and screenshot the new economic advisor at 0% slider and 100% slider. Then explain to me how God King is so great. I can tell from looking at your screenshots that your tech rate will be infinitely better. You will lose a small amount of production.

Also don't open borders with the AIs for comparison sake. Thats part of the minimal interaction.

 

[Senethro]

Would anyone be interested in playing another comparison game? (Should I start a new thread?) Since Decius and other factors got in the way of this one I've tried to create a really stripped down minimalistic game. Standard Pangaea, Normal Speed, Emperor Difficulty, No CPU players, No Huts, No Lairs, No Barbarians, tiles surrounding capital explored from start. Keeping with minmalism and no bias towards a particular economy - Mahala of the Doviello. If people like the map and the settings I could always change the civ though.

The game is on 40.z as I imagine games on 41 are at risk of becoming broken with patches. If you didn't keep your install then I could update it.

Here is a huge picture of the start. I've edited it to remove deserts and after playtesting I removed some Wines and Silks that gave too much early happiness. Its late now so I'll do my own comparison games tomorrow. I'll be doing a CoL beeline, a God-King --> Religion --> Military game and a heavy cottage game.

Edit: This is an updated version based on Vale's advice.

Spoiler :

Schalex: Why should Game Speed affect anything about the economy? Everything has its price increased evenly, so the only thing that really changes is how fast units move.

 

[vale]

I don't think another start with gold in the Capital is appropriate. A huge early commerce tile is always going to skew things badly.

I also think editing should be kept to a minimum. Deserts are problematic for a farm economy because they prevent spread of irrigation until spring is available.

 

[Senethro]

Is that Gold too close? What if we required everyone to found their capital where the Settler is standing?

 

[vale]

Is that Gold too close? What if we required everyone to found their capital where the Settler is standing?

I think it is automatic to settle 1W of the gold if there are no restrictions about it. Because of the starting settler bonus that is only a 1 turn delay to get the only 2 close happiness resources in the BFC and have a huge commerce bonus early.

If you do force people to settle in place then Aristocracy players have a huge advantage in that their second city will claim that awesome Capital spot and yet the God King players won't have that amazing spot boosted by their civic.

Wait...no CPU players? How will the game not be over the second we end turn?

Although I can guarantee Turin will be able to run wild with these settings if the game doesn't just end.

 

[vale]

Do one thing before you try another attempt. Open your turn 150 save and screenshot the economic advisor at 0% slider and 100% slider. Then revolt to Aristocracy and screenshot the new economic advisor at 0% slider and 100% slider. Then explain to me how God King is so great. I can tell from looking at your screenshots that your tech rate will be infinitely better. You will lose a small amount of production.

I really want to see the screenshots from this. Also screenshot your city advisor before and after so we can see how much production it is costing as well. I'm almost 100% positive your empire will be better under Aristocracy right now.

 

[Senethro]

I've edited a new version into my post Vale. Changes made: Changed the Gold to a Wine, put the Incense on a desert tile, move the Cotton north so it can't be in one BFC with Wine. The Settler also lacks the starting bonus.

 

[Grakor456]

I think a more controlled experiment would be more useful if you're looking for comparisons. The reason I didn't take part in this is that I thought the many external, random factors made the experiment valueless (the AI, the arbitrary rules.)

Of course, I've already updated, and I don't really see any point in backpedaling to .40z again. So unless the experiment is brought to .41, I probably will just watch from the sidelines again.

 

[Earthling]

Turn 150 Empire:

Spoiler :

Stats:

Technology:
Agriculture-124
Exploration-124
Ancient Chants-124
Crafting-187
Calendar-249
Animal Husbandry-280
Cartography-312
Mining-312
Masonry-218
Education-436
Mysticism-312
Bronze Working-624
Incomplete (Writing)-508

Also I'm quite close to a GS but it's not come yet
Total 3810

Production (Warrens adds so add about 2 settlers, 2-3 axes, 4 workers, I'm listing that separately below):
Axemen - 6 = 360
Goblin - 3 = 45
Settler -4 = 880
Warrior - 15= 375
Worker -10 = 750

Warrens -1 = 180
Elder Council -7= 420
Granary -7= 840
Monument -5= 300
Training Yard -4= 400

Warrens Production - 860
Incomplete Production -693
Total 6103


Demographics:
GNP-64 (2)
Mfg goods - 79 (1)
Crop yeild - 148 (1)
Soldiers - 102000 (4)
Land Area - 157000 (1)
Population - 1935000 (1)
Approval - 61 (1)
Life Expectancy - 70 (1)

**************************

Again, this was my first try through so things were definitely not optimal at the start. But anyway, it seems I have the most land, soldiers compared to Aristo saves. I'm quite ahead on production as well. I am a bit behind on research compared to some, but not all, saves though; for me it could have been better with an early religion or something. Still don't think this was a good comparison game, anyway, I'm probably going to 0.41 too for the future. Here's the save:
View attachment EarthlingAristoTurn150.CivBeyondSwordSave


Edit: I won't be playing any games remotely close to Senethro's new settings in the future. Very flawed imo. Removing opponents/barbarians etc... changes the game entirely - basically, it'll be about just REXing and getting city states. The whole point I'd think is to see which economy works in a realistic game.

 

[vale]

Again, this was my first try through so things were definitely not optimal at the start. But anyway, it seems I have the most land, soldiers compared to Aristo saves. I'm quite ahead on production as well. I am a bit behind on research compared to some, but not all, saves though; for me it could have been better with an early religion or something.

At least be honest about your evaluations.

If you are "quite ahead on production" then you are not a "bit behind" on research. It is a more than 2000 beakers difference at this point. As a percentage of total beakers you are further behind researchwise than I am behind productionwise. And while my MFG right now is very close to your MFG, your GNP lags extremely far behind. I won't necessarily catch up to your total production quickly, but I won't fall much further behind as I get warrens of my own up shortly. But the technology difference will get significantly worse for you before it gets better. Realistically you have traded a whole bunch of research for a whole bunch of production. Hammers are better yes. But your adjectives of choice are misleading at the very best.

Had I not been an idiot going for trade once my economy was in place instead of just teching masonry, much of the Warrens abuse could have been duplicated. Maybe not quite all of it, but a fair chunk to close the production gap to some degree. Quadruple settler production is really strong when you have 70% of a continent to yourself and although I didn't rush Decius in my game, I arrived at a position of that nature as well.

An early religion may have helped your economy, but it would have hurt your production or your rush almost certainly.

 

[Senethro]

I think a more controlled experiment would be more useful if you're looking for comparisons. The reason I didn't take part in this is that I thought the many external, random factors made the experiment valueless (the AI, the arbitrary rules.)

Of course, I've already updated, and I don't really see any point in backpedaling to .40z again. So unless the experiment is brought to .41, I probably will just watch from the sidelines again.

I've created a 0.41 version of the same map and also a scenario file that has a small selection of other civs (grigori, lanun, sidar, calabim, svart, khazad, Decius of the bannor, hippus). If you load this scenario not as the Doviello then you will need to open the world builder and manually delete the Doviello and place your units at their starting location - the South West of the continent.

Edit: Won't let me attach the same file twice even in different threads - link to 0.41 Doviello version: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8095042&postcount=115