Bureaucracy vs Free Speech in non-culture games

[lindsay40k]

Anyone got any rules of thumb or tree-counting formulae?

My general rule is if the capital has a wiggly river and four or more quarries or green hills and only a couple of trash tiles, I make it an OU+IW bureaucap and keep it that way, with US adding to hammer yield, and binge on late wonders.

No river, a couple of mines and several desert or water tiles, or not enough food to run every tile… I'll either go FS wide or relocate palace to a decent captured capital.

Interested to hear if anyone has a mathematical approach to work out optimum yield.

 

[Fractal Spiral]

Ok I looked at a couple games I had played,

one game: Darius, 22 cities end game Space Race, using Free Speech. Bureaucracy would have cost 15 gold or so extra per turn Upkeep, even with Organized. I don't think the upkeep is a deciding factor at all since I could keep slider at 100% either way most likely
In Free Speech, making 80 beakers per turn more than in Bureaucracy (over 3000 beakers per turn both ways). Not as big of a difference as I thought, and that was with my capital not developed that well for Bureaucracy, I purposely didn't think I should cottage every spot there since I had so many cities. My cap made about 580 beakers per turn in Bureau at maximum, seems weak / mediocre.

Another game: Willem van Oranje, 13 cities Space Race. In Bureaucracy all game, making about 50 beakers more than Free Speech would make. Better Bureaucracy capital, makes about 800 beakers per turn or so. Overall science / production though would be better with the 22 cities than the 13 cities. Running Free Speech instead of Bureaucracy with the 13 cities would have cost 18 gold less Upkeep.

I would say about the first game, I was trying to build alot of Workshops in the last 10 or so cities, I did not have as many cottages as I should. Was trying to learn about State Property strategies. I think Free Speech would have been even better if I would cottage spam harder and have more cities. But I think you have to get the cities fast enough to develop otherwise the returns from Free Speech come later, after Emancipation growth Towns. If the Bureaucracy capital is really good though, it could be worth 200+ more beakers (including I had multiple seafood and worked 7 scientist specialists) it seems hard to measure up to that except with 20+ cities and alot of full size Cottages.

I'm not sure, maybe someone who has more experience can tell about Free Speech vs Bureaucracy better, I just try to figure it out based on where I think each particular game will be late game.

 

[SpK]

In my opinion, it is map dependent.

Free speech is very useful if a neutral or friendly culture is near your conquests. Bureaucracy is great to push for wonders, but units win faster than wonders.
If you can keep your aggression going, Vassalage is more useful, imho, cause you can run more units.


If you are not going for culture and conquest/domination is out, then you need space or diplo. One city won't make or break a space race (unless your initial capital is truly inferior) and the extra happy from Nationhood (and therefore citizens) might swing a diplo vote.

It really depends on the map and the scenario. As for formula and whatnot, empire size /number of cities would have to be included somehow.

 

[Seraiel]

There are some good FS Spaceraces from kovacsflo in the HoF. He goes for early Emancipation and really "spams" Cottages, so every city 10-20 Cottages, not much else.

Burocracy is usually stronger though, especially in combination with Corps and Hammer-economy. At least the most #1 Space Races in HoF use that strategy.

There's a new approach from bcool, where he goes for early Democracy (because of Emancipation again) and still goes for Corps and Hammer-economy where needed. There's only 1 game with that approach, but it looks really powerful.

 

[lindsay40k]

I have something of a tendency to use city overlap to develop cottages all around the capital, so when I have CS and the happiness for it the full bureaucap is powerful. Though as my likely best hammer city, it does sometimes get a taste of the whip if someone else has Nationalism and marble.

If not that, then I tend to capture a fairly mature capital or two once Trebuchets are available.

 

[Seraiel]

I usually try to leave a forested city untouched to chop the Taj Mahal.

Basically, FS can be stronger if you have very very very many Towns, but really good games usually end before that, or only reach that with early Emancipation and even then it's still tricky. Buro is just the best Civic there is for maximum . Nationhood can be as efficient with very large empires, but as efficient means, that you'll lose the same amount of GPT-deficit as you lose BPT. Then the advantage of course is the possibility to draft, +25% + 2 extra , but for maximum research, it's Buro in 98% of the good games.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Hi Lindsay,

I don't know how simple you want your rule of thumb to be.
Essentially, the result you're looking for is a relationship between the number of towns you're working and the commerce your capital is pulling.
At the simplest, you just compare "number of towns" vs "base commerce of capital".

Trying to determine which civic nets the best output, I think the following is correct:

a) Take the number of Towns you have (stats menu)
b) Substract the number of Towns that are worked within your capital
c) Assess the gain in base commerce from Free Speech, outside of your capital (+2 per town)
d) Calculate the result within your capital, in base commerce (base commerce*1,5 for Bureaucracy; base commerce + 2*number of towns for Free Speech)
e) Compare

The above is accurate in base commerce only, discounting multipliers.

If you want more accuracy, then you need to factor in multipliers. This would get more messy, as every city has a different multiplier.
However, you can get an estimate if step e) wasn't precise enough.

f) estimate the average multiplier of your non-capital cities that work towns (+25%, +35%, +50%?),
apply to your gain in base commerce found in c). That number gives you the actual gain from Free Speech outside of your capital.
g) apply your capital's multipliers to the difference in base commerce found in d)
h) substract f) – g)

i) compare civic costs if you think the maintenance is relevant

Free Speech, should be good any time you aim to tech up and are heavily cottaged.
The civic will most commonly find its use in Space Races. However, Domination games on water maps also come to mind.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Now, for a real simple estimate, that takes into account the multipliers.

Assumptions:
- Capital has Oxford University
- Other cities have multipliers here and there (Libraries spammed and a combination of Universities, Monasteries and Observatories)

a) take the base commerce of your capital
b) take the number of towns you have, multiplied by 2

If b) > a), then Free Speech should be profitable (or close) compared with Bureaucracy.

Reasoning :

Spoiler :

Assumptions : except for Oxford University, your multipliers are comparable within and outside of your capital.

a) Bureaucracy bonus is 50% of the capital's commerce. Factoring Oxford University makes that bonus +100%
b) towns get +2 commerce everywhere. The extra commerce is multiplied better within the capital.
Maybe it's best to count the towns within the capital as +3 commerce rather than +2.
Not sure: simply counting them as +2 makes up for lacking multipliers (Universities, Monasteries) in your outside cities.
If your outside cities are very well developped, then you can probably count the capital's towns as +3 commerce.

 

[Mizar]

if you have enough towns (and villages as town potential) at the time FS becomes available, guesstimate how many additional turns the game might take.
If it's close either way, another factor is the status of your top-hammer cities, sometimes you need that extra powerhouse.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Why would you build IW in your science capitol? I almost always build that on a site with food enough to support all the workshops - if I can, also with a ton of rivers for levees.

 

[bhavv]

People actually use emacipation and free speech?

I thought those things and the other bottom options were just in the game for the unhappy penalty and united nations to troll the crap out of my glorious rep / caste / beureo / pacifism.

 

[Revent]

People actually use emacipation and free speech?

I thought those things and the other bottom options were just in the game for the unhappy penalty and united nations to troll the crap out of my glorious rep / caste / beureo / pacifism.

Emancipation when I can't deal with the unhappiness (it's costing more than the results of Rep. Free speech is good towards the end game if you have taken down an AI or two because they have LOTS of towns that can be worked.

 

[Seraiel]

People actually use emacipation and free speech?

I thought those things and the other bottom options were just in the game for the unhappy penalty and united nations to troll the crap out of my glorious rep / caste / beureo / pacifism.

There are various really good games, where players used those options. Some even go as far as using Lib for Democracy, which works very well for their heavily cottaged empires. FS needs even more Cottages, especially in other cities than the capital, but kovacsflo showed, that it's possible to be very competetive by that too.

 

[lindsay40k]

Why would you build IW in your science capitol? I almost always build that on a site with food enough to support all the workshops - if I can, also with a ton of rivers for levees.

Because of Bureaucracy synergy, especially if you've got a wiggly river, a bunch of mined resources and enough food to use all your tiles in spite of the pollution. In the mid-late game, it can throw out the wonders, in the late game it spits out SS parts, and when it's not doing anything it produces so much Wealth it can throw a significant subsidy at 100% research whilst everywhere else is catching up on new buildings.

If you don't have the river and you have a wide empire, then IW BC becomes less powerful and FS in turn has less of an opportunity cost.

 

[bhavv]

I've recently been putting oxford and globe theatre together if I find a nice river location. Like recently I got one with 4 riverside dyes, 2 gems, 1 banana, 1 rice.

Oxford & Globe in such a city = amazing.

Though I'm still not keen on using cottages, particularly because I play on marathon and they take ages to mature. Id rather stick to workshops with wealth.

 

[Pangaea]

Oxford and Globe in the same city sounds like a terrible waste.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Because of Bureaucracy synergy, especially if you've got a wiggly river, a bunch of mined resources and enough food to use all your tiles in spite of the pollution. In the mid-late game, it can throw out the wonders, in the late game it spits out SS parts, and when it's not doing anything it produces so much Wealth it can throw a significant subsidy at 100% research whilst everywhere else is catching up on new buildings.

If you don't have the river and you have a wide empire, then IW BC becomes less powerful and FS in turn has less of an opportunity cost.

I guess - it just seems like you are better off in a city with more workshops. I figure that with caste and a levee, I can get well over 80 basehammers without corps in a city with a fair number of rivers and workshops, where in the cap, I'm looking at 20-40 with cottages. The extra 50% bonus for the cap adds to the 100% for IW (as opposed to the commerce bonus, which multiplies for research)

 

[SpK]

I guess - it just seems like you are better off in a city with more workshops. I figure that with caste and a levee, I can get well over 80 basehammers without corps in a city with a fair number of rivers and workshops, where in the cap, I'm looking at 20-40 with cottages. The extra 50% bonus for the cap adds to the 100% for IW (as opposed to the commerce bonus, which multiplies for research)

doesn't it depend on where you are in the game? In particular, where you are in the tech race, if you are hopelessly behind who cares how much you can produce, no?

Certainly, mid to late game, (after guilds and scientific method) workshops can get a city going fast, but do they beat farms post biology for whipping production?

It all depends on your preferences, I suppose, I would think that once you have your research down, they don't hurt for building units or even spaceship parts

 

[bhavv]

Oxford and Globe in the same city sounds like a terrible waste.

Why? For high population and scientist specialists.

 

[Pangaea]

You can do that without Globe. Much better to use Globe for a city where you whip, whip, whip, and then whip some more, making the very high whip counter immaterial due to limitless happiness. Another similar but slightly different case is to put the Globe Theatre in a city with some good food tiles, and draft every turn, more or less. This stacks up unhappiness even faster, but that doesn't matter when the city has Globe Theatre. Huge waste to put Oxford and Globe in the same city. They don't exactly complement each other.