[BTS] Building Wealth vs. Building Research

[Bibor]

Sorry for being so harsh - was having an off day. But as others have stated building wealth and science are the best mechanisms for expanding windows of opportunity, barring stuff like wonderbread and failgold. They're also the best mechanism for sustaining your economy, whether in space or conquest games. The metagame that you mentioned was considered the norm maybe 5-10 years ago, but now it's almost indisputably out.

I'm not the best player by any means so don't take me as the absolute authority for this but if you're not willing to take my word for it then look at some of the most recent fast wins I've done.

Hi there. The metagame I posted was for chill Monarch games I played back then. Obviously it's out for quite a while

I looked at your saves. I discarded the noble games by default, not because it's on noble, but because you can conquer the whole world with 15 knights (exactly as you did), which kinda makes the whole point of building anything other than research or gold pretty moot, as you don't need units and you certainly don't need neither happy or health, as you have them all anyway and your sole aim is to get as much research/turn as possible, as fast as possible.

The deity game was far more interesting. Again, I get the whole point. The capital was carrying the brunt of research while other cities were busy whipping those ridiculous numbers of cuirassers / cavalry until the world decided to break under all that hoof. There isn't much time or point to build anything when you're unit-whipping your cities to the bone anyway.

***

Yes, the whole point of building research and/or gold is to compress turns. Why invest 1000 hammers into city buildings when you can have the same amount of beakers/gold?
Well here's the logic. If a market costs 150 hammers, you build it only if you can get 3-4 extra happiness out of it that you would otherwise have no way of getting and that extra happiness can be put to good use.

The return of that investment needs to take into account:
a) what else could've been build during that period and would that other build return the investment faster?
b) how long does it take for those 3-4 pop to grow so the market actually starts paying itself off?
c) once that extra population starts producing, how long will it take to return the investment and start turning a profit?

If 3 extra pop can work 3 plains mines (which is a big IF considering it also requires 6 surplus food that can't be used otherwise & 3 surplus health), that's 12-16 extra base production every turn, so it would take:

cosidering 6F surplus at size 11 w/granary I think the math would be: 4+6+11 turns = at least (probably more than) 21 turns to grow by 3 pop, not counting any health issues.

During this time you'd get around 64 hammers back, so paid off 30% of the investment. The remaining 90 hammers would be hammered out in 7,5 turns for a total of around 30-ish turns.

Considering an existing base production of 10-15 hammers, that would make it 40-45 turns for the investment to start paying itself off.

Now, if you get currency at around turn 100, spend at least 50 more turns acquiring the 3 resources to make it worthwhile, and add those 50-ish RoI turns into it, you're looking at T200 it starts paying itself off.

So, is the marketplace a good investment? It depends! In your Germany game certainly isn't as the game ended by turn 195

 

[Fippy]

Well here's the logic. If a market costs 150 hammers, you build it only if you can get 3-4 extra happiness out of it that you would otherwise have no way of getting and that extra happiness can be put to good use.

If you have so much food in one city that you need even more happy from a market, you should whip that thou
I can see cases where Bur Caps want markets, but with +50% hammer bonus (and usually forge before market too) it's no biggie whipping and doing something else with those hammers.

Also to consider..if you work mines for those market slow-build hammers, you also lose food.
Maybe not exactly as much as via whipping, but usually close.

 

[Gumbolt]

The happiness gains from market does require certain 3-4 resources. Happiness can also be obtained from trading with AI for resources. Don't forget the HR and rep civic for happiness too. Sometimes heading for calendar could add more happiness than a market. (Or trading for calendar.) Forge/bureau in a capital gives production bonuses of 75%. So base hammers of 85 before bonuses. If you add in a chop that could easily add 52 hammers towards the build. If you whip the forge it could add 52 OF too. So I can see how in a capital a market could be reached easily.

Every game is different. If a capital has a big food surplus then more whips make sense. Especially if your whipping away unhappy people. A low food but high pop capital may not be worth whipping if the grow back time is many turns. Sometimes HR defenders can be better value.

The issue is you have to get a return. How many games do I really struggle with happiness in my cap? Most games by trading for resources or using HR civic I have no issues. As you clearly state for many the games can be over by T200. Some immortal games if on contintents could be over 30-50 turns sooner.

So running wealth/research still holds good value if a build won't return it's value.

Some of the recent SGOTM games have shown that builds like forges or even wonders can be a distraction to the fastest finish.

 

[Bibor]

So... I just tested out the "no buildings/build wealth strategy" on a pangaea map with Willem. Conquest victory @T200. No mids/gold/gems, just a generic start.

It's not that different from what I usually do in my games. "Build wealth/science" still relies on either early/constant aggression or unitspam (HR) until you're over the "happiness hump".
My overreaction about building wealth/science was just that, but, for any game featuring pre-cuirassier conquest, it's hard to spare cities to build wealth until enough units are built/whipped. With gradual phasing to building wealth, it most certainly helps reaching rifling super-fast. I can see how it can work for non-aggressive space race victories, but I still think aqueducts and marketplaces, perhaps even grocers should make an appearance on higher difficulties (depending on available production tiles), as late game still favors more pop per city to make full use of the production multipliers (factories, levees etc.).

I'm not so sure about science multipliers anymore, though. I guess they make sense if you have 6 cities that can really make use of them.

 

[Gumbolt]

Early libraries are useful for culture in places.

T200 is meaningless. What difficulty level was this on? On immortal T200 should be possible on a pangea map if you chain vassel. T125-T150 can be possible if you go to war early. A save would of been nice.
What turn/date do you normally finish your games?

Not really sure we are adding that much value to this thread now.

 

[gaash2]

So... I just tested out the "no buildings/build wealth strategy" on a pangaea map with Willem. Conquest victory @T200. No mids/gold/gems, just a generic start.

It's not that different from what I usually do in my games. "Build wealth/science" still relies on either early/constant aggression or unitspam (HR) until you're over the "happiness hump".
My overreaction about building wealth/science was just that, but, for any game featuring pre-cuirassier conquest, it's hard to spare cities to build wealth until enough units are built/whipped. With gradual phasing to building wealth, it most certainly helps reaching rifling super-fast. I can see how it can work for non-aggressive space race victories, but I still think aqueducts and marketplaces, perhaps even grocers should make an appearance on higher difficulties (depending on available production tiles), as late game still favors more pop per city to make full use of the production multipliers (factories, levees etc.).

I'm not so sure about science multipliers anymore, though. I guess they make sense if you have 6 cities that can really make use of them.

I don't get it. Wealth/science should be more useful for fast conquest games relative to buildings which take a longer time to pay back the cost. Also, sometimes wealth is absolutely necessary to avoid strike if you are warring early and expanding quickly. I do agree aqueducts and grocers are very useful in late games (space, etc.).

 

[Bibor]

T200 is meaningless.
...
Not really sure we are adding that much value to this thread now.

This place got very rude over the years. Who are you to judge what's meaningless and what isn't and whether we contribute to this thread or not?

Undefeatable said my argument was terrible (and he's right) and he posted several saves in which he showcases:

In most space games in most cities once I get granary forge and factory it’s straight to wealth and research".

Two of those games were Noble, one was Deity, I personally play on Emperor, so difficulty doesn't seem to be important that much.
The T200 is a reference to Undefeatable's saves, where he completes the most interesting game at T195.

And yes, this discussion does tie in to the original question, in a sense it expands upon the question of whether to build wealth or research, as Undefeatable presented an extreme variant of it, which was new, unknown and interesting to me, so I tested it out and made a post about my observations.

 

[Fippy]

Two of those games were Noble, one was Deity, I personally play on Emperor, so difficulty doesn't seem to be important that much.

Deity is 3x as difficult, strats working on Emp might not work well at all on Deity.
Many here can play very lazy on Emp and still win, so differences between opinions also result from difficulty & skill level variance..

 

[Gumbolt]

Agree with Fippy.

I could easily post on here saying I used wealth on a game and finished at x date T150 conquest. T100 conquest. Without knowing difficulty level, the map or skill level it proves nothing. Just building warriors on Noble can allow an early rush.

Try posting a starting game on immortal and set up a game where players can't use wealth or research. Then you can start to see the challenges of this. Also how people would use different strategies to get gold/research. E.g Trade routes, specialists for science and fail gold.

This would add more value to the debate. Of course you could argue people would use a mix of both of these alternative strategies on a normal game. So merely removing one will only slow down a finish date. The question is by how much? Again this will depend on the players skill and the difficulty level.

Far too many variables to prove this based on one unseen game.

 

[Bibor]

Sorry for being so harsh - was having an off day. But as others have stated building wealth and science are the best mechanisms for expanding windows of opportunity, barring stuff like wonderbread and failgold. They're also the best mechanism for sustaining your economy, whether in space or conquest games. The metagame that you mentioned was considered the norm maybe 5-10 years ago, but now it's almost indisputably out.

I'm not the best player by any means so don't take me as the absolute authority for this but if you're not willing to take my word for it then look at some of the most recent fast wins I've done.

@Fippy , @Gumbolt I'm refering to this post by Undefeatable. It has nothing to do with my own testing game that I did to test out his concept. I looked at his saves, their finish dates and their difficulty levels and metioned them in my post. My own finish date or difficulty level isn't relevant at all, I just drew a parallel to his own saves.

Considering the tone here, I have a feeling I'm "not contributing" to some sort of super-very-important-competition for the earliest finish date or something.

We all play this game as we damn please, with these forums giving us new ideas on how to play. At least that was point of this forum a long time ago. Perhaps that changed.

 

[Fippy]

Bibor imo you dun need playing morale apostle, your posts are fun and add something here while there's some less activity lately (still better than V or VI thou ~~).
Gumbo i.e. always posts like that lol, playing games like Civ usually comes with strong opinions and..well not sure what i should add, other than everyone is welcome.

 

[lymond]

Gumbo is the Master of Diplomacy

Nah Bibor, you are most welcome in these parts. Good to see you around again after quite a long time.

It's worth discussing these strategies as you never know what you or others might learn. Absolutely, anyone can play as they please. However, most folks around S&T focus on things that improve one's game, enables escalation of difficulty, and overall geared toward better game results.

IMO it is all about establishing a baseline or goals. You are new to the game and want to win on Noble - spend some time on S&T learning some basics. Want to move up difficulty, learn some advance tips here. On the other hand..say a player is fine with being an Emperor level player - they have achieved their goals but just want to focus on other things like different mods or doing there own thing basically. I'm presenting some hypotheticals, but the point is that S&T is about learning to do things the right way and then can take the game wherever they wish. (Or like me..I just stick around here for 10 years still trying to learn the right way )

Soooo..ultimately all discussion is good.

I will say this though. I recall @Duckweed who was one of the best IV players to breath, mentioning once that players should ideally not be building wealth or research. He did not go into detail though so I never understood that point. Wish I pushed him then to expound further on his point.

 

[Gumbolt]

Perhaps I will should book some diplomacy lessons from Lymond?

At times you forget that not everyone on here is playing at deity or immortal level. This is a community and I guess we need to make it inclusive so everyone feels they can come on here and feel welcome.

 

[sampsa]

I will say this though. I recall @Duckweed who was one of the best IV players to breath, mentioning once that players should ideally not be building wealth or research. He did not go into detail though so I never understood that point. Wish I pushed him then to expound further on his point.

Despite being a strong player, he was not always right. General understanding of the game concepts has improved tremendously since those times.

 

[Fish Man]

Despite being a strong player, he was not always right. General understanding of the game concepts has improved tremendously since those times.

Yeah, the meta's always changing. Just 2 years ago, in competitive TF2, virtually every pocket ran shotgun. Now all higher-level teams who have players worth their salt have a pocket scout specifically for denying roamers and go gunboats pocket for max aggression. The same holds true for civ; I remember a particular egregious example being @TheMeInTeam stating that slavery isn't worth using in most cases because it's inefficient (no offense to anyone involved), though that was a looong time ago and people were just discovering the game mechanics beyond a surface level.

 

[lymond]

Despite being a strong player, he was not always right. General understanding of the game concepts has improved tremendously since those times.

aha..I found that post by Duck..here :

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/when-to-stop-producing-units-buildings.560240/#post-14096726

Kinda similar thread to this one and just less than 3 years ago. I misrepresented his comment a bit in that he was not saying never build wealth or research, but rather that it is more of a last resort. Also, I think an important point in his statements is that he was referring to a specific timeframe (pre-Renaissance). My guess is that, from Duck's perspective - he was a big rexxer type - cities should be producing something toward building your empire larger..and whipping, ofc. He produced phenomenal results, both in SGs and standalone, but I agree that he may not always be right...or at least he did some things differently and did those things well.

Anyway, to be clear, I was only bringing that up as food for thought, not averring that point of view myself. I certainly build wealth a lot, even early.

Interestingly, he was not a big fan of the Mids.

Yep, it is interesting to think about how the strategies and stuff evolved over the past, what...13 years, although I don't think there has been much evolving in the last few years. Part of that is probably due to the first few years transition from the changes to the game made by the expansion/patches. @TheMeInTeam certainly warmed up some to slavery, but he was also a very fast player and not much into the micro game. You have things like the whole CE v. SE economy argument that went on, when now pretty much hybrid economy is the standard goto.

 

[Fippy]

Most of Duck's mentioned buildings ideally get whipped,
unless in cities with special prod tiles like Iron, Copper, stone and not so much food.
Or many forests and free workers.

Very often it's just better whipping away regular mines and small prod tiles (we also see this as advice regularly, dun build many mines early game ),
and we get more return from cities usually if we can switch them back to wealth i.e. afterwards.

Also worth mentioning, Turbo Ants and their clones did bring the "forges and other expensive, but usually fairly high rated buildings, are not needed here or now" strat to new levels. Building wealth ofc gets replaced by units & wonder failgold usually on those easier diff sgotm maps.
But similar concept, builds that pay off quickly are better for snowballing games, and imo wealth belongs there as well.

 

[dutchfire]

In general, as people have been getting better and better at the game, it ends earlier and earlier, making the time for investments to pay off shorter. I would say that this is a major factor in the reassessment of certain strategies.

 

[Gumbolt]

Been playing a game today. One area wealth works really well is holding hammers from chops to use for fail gold later from wonders. Over 2 turns and with a lot of preparation I grabbed nearly 1400 fail gold. This is at 475ad albeit on a large map. This will give me 14 turns of 100% tech outside of a golden age. I have chopped quite a bit of forest to do this.

It would take many turns with 13 cities to recoup this kind of gold.