[BNW] Building maintenance

[renton555]

I played a couple of liberty domination games recently based on moriarte's strategy, and ran into some issues keeping a good gold surplus. It seems that so many buildings are pretty much essential in the long run but I struggle with whether to build the following for maintenance and time cost reasons:

Shrine/Temple for non-religious goal orientation: I know it pays to accumulate faith if only for post-industrial, but I just can never find the time to build these and the gold costs seem so steep if you aren't getting some recompense from tithe.

Water Mill: man it really feels like I should be building this pronto in all my cities but the maintenance just hurts, is this something you specifically wait to build until you have a healthy gold surplus or what? Or are the growth benefits just worth any cost and I should build them immediately?

Market/Bank/S.E.: these don't have maintenance but they take time to build, what is your rule of thumb for putting these ahead in the build order? I basically need the city to be pulling at least 8 gold to justify the market, maybe thats too picky?

Stone Works: I basically build these 100% of the time that I can at a high priority, feels right, just running it by the group.

Stable: how many livestock tiles are required before this is mandatory? It seems like 3 is an easy call and 1 is a never build unless you're building an army.

Lighthouse/Harbor/Seaport: is one resource enough to justify the cost of these? I'm guessing that the lighthouse is an always build but you'd need 2 resources to justify the harbor/seaport.



To conclude this, as a general point how often are you opting NOT to build a useful building specifically because of its maintenance cost?

 

[joshua43214]

If its useful, its worth the cost.

Most of your issues would be solved by building those markets you postpone

Also, be tactical about your trade routes to assure they can run a maximal distance away from the battle field

 

[Lord Katana]

Why would a city need to have 8g revenue before you build a market? (to answer my own question)... it doesn't!

I find that once i build markets (and they are high prio for me) my money troubles are over. The flat bonus is good, the percentage mostly on your bigger cities and you'll need them for East India Company (national wonder) which nets 4g plus trade benefits.

And a hidden bonus... when you are building a market (which gives money) you're not building something which costs money!

hope it helps!

 

[renton555]

LK, so say a city is producing 3 gold (pretty common for a satellite city with only one improved luxury). What is the order that you'd build the following buildings in that city:

Market
Aqueduct
Water Mill
Workshop

 

[geolawyerman]

Aqueduct, workshop (if low production) or market, workshop/market (the one I didn't build already), water mill. However, I usually found cities early enough that the build order is basically whatever I unlock first.

 

[Lord Katana]

LK, so say a city is producing 3 gold (pretty common for a satellite city with only one improved luxury). What is the order that you'd build the following buildings in that city:

Market
Aqueduct
Water Mill
Workshop

I don't usually build aqueducts. i get them from tradition.. otherwise they are low prio for me in small cities. I usually build the watermill first if i have gpt to spare (and certainly in my cap and 2nd city). My tech order is mostly so that workshop's get researched after market, so usually i have the markets up first.

It also depends on proximity of neighbors (trade-routes or potential threat). If i have a good city with say 4 different resources and by a river or coast i usually make that my trading hub. There i also build my East India Company, so i need the markets for that. (most preferably my trading hub is my 2nd or 3rd city so the capital doesn't have to build all the buildings at once....)

Also i'm trying not to build all the buildings in all the cities. The builldings needed for national wonders usually get build, but by (semi)specializing cities you get the most for the least amount of gold.

This is on emperor difficulty so i usually go for some wonders like HG or Petra or Machu Pichu. They are all in the "market" line.

Hope it helps!

 

[MarshalN]

I find myself building markets/banks almost as soon as I research them, because if I don't I run into money trouble like you said. It's much easier working with a cushion of gpt than trying to recover from a deficit.

 

[Khaim]

Note that Banks have the same trade-route bonus as Markets, even though it isn't listed anywhere. That is, trade routes other players make to the city give +1 to them and +2 for you, for a total of +2/+4 with the existing Market. Stock Exchanges do not have this bonus (presumably because they get an extra merchant slot, although who wants merchants).

 

[renton555]

I find myself building markets/banks almost as soon as I research them, because if I don't I run into money trouble like you said. It's much easier working with a cushion of gpt than trying to recover from a deficit.

True but this game is about making tough choices between multiple thing you actually need. Yeah getting 3-4 gpt from a building is great, but if I haven't built an aqueduct, the adueduct is going first. And if the city has four livestock tiles i'm building the stable before the market also. And if I just teched education, well I'm building universities before markets again.

Very often this happens and its like t150 and i don't have a market, lol.

 

[KoKid90]

What about deleting buildings ? I find that late game above turn 200-250 makes it also difficult to get good gold input. Looking in the economic overview building maintenance gets very high.

Anyone deleting some useless building late game (like some +1 of whatever ressource) as a strategy to build up a lot of gold ???

 

[reddishrecue]

Reducing maintenace
- build walls and fortifications. These buildings are free.
- markets and financial buildings with a merchant specialist could bring in some gold
- trade routes also a good thing with a caravansary
- liberty worker quality will save up lots of gold since improvements cost gold but are worth it when you dont have excess sleeping workers

 

[Acken]

I played a couple of liberty domination games recently based on moriarte's strategy, and ran into some issues keeping a good gold surplus. It seems that so many buildings are pretty much essential in the long run but I struggle with whether to build the following for maintenance and time cost reasons:

Shrine/Temple for non-religious goal orientation: I know it pays to accumulate faith if only for post-industrial, but I just can never find the time to build these and the gold costs seem so steep if you aren't getting some recompense from tithe.

Water Mill: man it really feels like I should be building this pronto in all my cities but the maintenance just hurts, is this something you specifically wait to build until you have a healthy gold surplus or what? Or are the growth benefits just worth any cost and I should build them immediately?

Market/Bank/S.E.: these don't have maintenance but they take time to build, what is your rule of thumb for putting these ahead in the build order? I basically need the city to be pulling at least 8 gold to justify the market, maybe thats too picky?

Stone Works: I basically build these 100% of the time that I can at a high priority, feels right, just running it by the group.

Stable: how many livestock tiles are required before this is mandatory? It seems like 3 is an easy call and 1 is a never build unless you're building an army.

Lighthouse/Harbor/Seaport: is one resource enough to justify the cost of these? I'm guessing that the lighthouse is an always build but you'd need 2 resources to justify the harbor/seaport.



To conclude this, as a general point how often are you opting NOT to build a useful building specifically because of its maintenance cost?

Domination games don't really need wonders so getting a huge capital is not necessary and if you make enough cities you can start using your routes for external trade. That will help gold issues.

Skip shrines and temples... unless you have a very good religion to boost. Otherwise getting those happiness buildings will be a very good idea. You don't need to get huge fpt for domination so making these everywhere is not necessary if you can get enough faith to build your buildings anyway.

Water mill are a pretty essential building for Liberty, especially if you can afford it thanks to external routes.

Build gold buildings when you have time and in cities that can really use them. With multiple luxuries that you work for exemple.

Stone works are always worth it so you're doing the right thing.

Stables: if there are 2 (or more) pastures just make these. Liberty strength is to go higher production. Especially if you plan on late game domination. Make these. When there is only one pasture it's okay to do it early when you have nothing else urgent.

Lighthouse/Harbor/Seaport: Lighthouse are always good if you have sea ressources. Even if you have only one fish the lighthouse gives 2f 1H like a water mill. You have to work the tile though... so if you have one fish but way better tiles to work on the land then the lighthouse can wait. Harbors and Seaports are not interesting unless extreme conditions with full of ressources.

At some point you spoke of aqueducts I believe. They are top priority.

 

[beetle]

Keep in mind that buffs from improving a tile are all pretty marginal. You commit a worker for several turns to just get a plus one or two on the tile yield. So committing a city to a building for several turns to get extra yield just from one tile seems okay to me.

...but you'd need 2 resources to justify the harbor/seaport.

I feel like the main benefits harbor provides is the buff to external sea trade routes -- so number of sea resources does not matter. Harbor adds some gold to trades, but more importantly increases the range -- so better AI cities and more CS quest opportunities. On its face, the trade route buff is small, but I think it actually closer to doubling the trade route yield (better routes, and more gold on top of that).

You also need harbor to unlock seaport, and for a city connection if not connected by road.

 

[Acken]

Keep in mind that buffs from improving a tile are all pretty marginal. You commit a worker for several turns to just get a plus one or two on the tile yield. So committing a city to a building for several turns to get extra yield just from one tile seems okay to me.

A worker improves more than one tile. By comparison a stable for a single horse tile is a 100 hammer investment for +1 hammer. It's okay early and only if there are no more urgent matters.

 

[Finnagain]

Stable: how many livestock tiles are required before this is mandatory? It seems like 3 is an easy call and 1 is a never build unless you're building an army.

Recently I have been building these even at 1. Here's the thinking:

The 1 gold you spend per turn in maintenance is simply 1. The 1 hammer you get in return is multiplied by stuff like workshop, windmill, factory, and later solar/nuclear. It is more like 1.45, slowly accumulated over time, and depending upon what you are building. Hammers are more valuable than gold anyway. At a single pasture, if I do not have a lot of horses, I just wait until one of those times between important builds usually somewhere in the late industrial-early modern. If you have horses and will be building mounted units, it gains a good bit of priority.

 

[Sclb]

Now consider the hammer cost of building a stables and you'll reach a conclusion that 1 pasture isn't that efficient for building it, at least for a turn 2xx game.

 

[joncnunn]

What about deleting buildings ? I find that late game above turn 200-250 makes it also difficult to get good gold input. Looking in the economic overview building maintenance gets very high.

Anyone deleting some useless building late game (like some +1 of whatever ressource) as a strategy to build up a lot of gold ???

City connection & trade route income increase much faster than building maintenance does.
It's only early game that I personally have to watch building & unit maintenance.

In almost all cases, a building that would be worth scraping late game wasn't worth spending the hammers building it in the first place.

(The primary exception is building Barracks just for Heroic Epic and scraping the barracks in cities that will never build units immediately upon completing HE due to the 100% national wonder rule.)

 

[Redaxe]

Tradition does certainly give you a lot of early gold. You're looking at 8gp for the free culture building and Aqueduct, +4 (for free unit garrisons, this increases with time) and +1 gold/2 citizens in the capital. So by turn 80 you're probably saving 18gpt.

That is a big difference and Liberty will certainly make it harder to compete with early.
What you should remember is Liberty is best chosen for Civ's that have advantage to playing wide.
E.g. Unique buildings that don't cost gold or UAs that favor expansion and military- China, Songhai, Egypt, Russia, Celts, Maya, Inca come to mind...

Generally speaking if you play Tradition you want to head to Civil Service and Education asap (so the top of the tech tree).
For Liberty you generally want to focus on the bottom of the tech tree to get to Metal Casting and then Chemistry. You're going to have more small cities so the only way to compete with Tradition is via producion/hammers. So certainly Stoneworks/stables/workshops are the key. Trade routes you'll probably have to send to other civs or citystates for gold.

 

[Mahasona]

Don't forget that war mongering Libertarians can build Pyramids and make tons of money with the pillage/repair trick. It's saved my economy over and over.

You can pillage /repair a tile in one so take a few workers and pair them with military units.

 

[beetle]

...a stable for a single horse tile is a 100 hammer investment for +1 hammer.

Right, so if the game is going to last a hundred more turns, then the math works out on its face. And that ignores any % production boosts from SP or other buildings -- and assumes that you never build mounted units.