CE vs SE war

[vicawoo]

@Unconquered Sun

What are your thoughts on riverside plains cottages, capital or not? Dave's declared his disdain for them repeatedly in favor of specialists, but near max size vs a non-riverside grassland cottage or a far far off great person...

 

[yanner39]

Quoted for truth.
If you expand until 0% on Deity, you'll fall hopelessly behind.

So is it safe to say that as one moves up a level, more control needs to be placed on REXing? I don't know how applicable at say Monarchb, but you can't REX the same on Monarch as you do on Noble? Is this right?

Deity's an another world for me so not really applicable.

 

[mariogreymist]

So is it safe to say that as one moves up a level, more control needs to be placed on REXing? I don't know how applicable at say Monarchb, but you can't REX the same on Monarch as you do on Noble? Is this right?

Deity's an another world for me so not really applicable.

That's true. As you move up in levels, maintenance costs increase, meaning new cities are more drain on your research than at lower levels. Of course, the more you move up, the more important it becomes to grab the land you'll need to compete later, so it's a bit of a conundrum at first. The real trick is learning how to expand properly. Having pre-built roads for new cities so the trade routes come up right away helps, as does having workers ready to improve tiles right away. At noble you can pretty easily cottage your way out of any expansion mess you create. At monarch, you can overdo it and kill your game, but it requires extremely aggressive settling to do it. At emperor/immortal/deity, it's very easy to expand yourself into a hole you will never get out of.

 

[Iranon]

@ yanner39: On Immortal, I prefer a a hard REX: I'm confident I can turn a moderate size advantage into a victory but I need to hurry up to beat the AIs.
On Deity, out-expanding the AIs is difficult in the first place and likely to make me fall back so far that I can't equalise through shrewd trading.

Hence, my rough expansion goal for 1AD changes considerably - 12 cities for Immortal, 6 cities for Deity.

*

Improvement choice is mostly contingent on the local food situation for me. Whipping is the most efficient method of production early on, even more so in long cycles. As such I want an average food surplus of around 2-3 food. Grassland cottages + the food from the home tile will give me that.

Plains cottages, mines and specialists that won't spawn a GP soon are all just ways for me to burn off excess food. Grassland mines often get the nod because production can' be had more efficiently elsewhere - you can't mine food sufficient tiles.

 

[yanner39]

That's true. As you move up in levels, maintenance costs increase, meaning new cities are more drain on your research than at lower levels. Of course, the more you move up, the more important it becomes to grab the land you'll need to compete later, so it's a bit of a conundrum at first. The real trick is learning how to expand properly. Having pre-built roads for new cities so the trade routes come up right away helps, as does having workers ready to improve tiles right away. At noble you can pretty easily cottage your way out of any expansion mess you create. At monarch, you can overdo it and kill your game, but it requires extremely aggressive settling to do it. At emperor/immortal/deity, it's very easy to expand yourself into a hole you will never get out of.

Great tip here. Something I definately have worked on these last few months. I try and not waste worker turns and building roads is something I think newer players don't do (I know, that use to be me).

 

[Yesod]

I saw that Unconquered Sun said it wasn't worth it to build cottages on a plain grassland tile without Financial. Now, I understand that on Deity your economy is mostly based off of bulbing and brokering Aesthetics, Philosophy, etc., but even if running cottages is inconsequential, I wouldn't say it takes a while for them to pay off. The civic upkeep per population point is gonna be a minimum of 0.16 and a maximum of 0.44 (someone else's numbers). The only formula I was able to find on city upkeep per population point was taken from the code and "simplified" to some Calc II nonsense, so I'll just go with what I've observed: A city growing a population point doesn't always result in my /turn decreasing.

Now if you can wait ten turns for the cottage to grow then even if you're at size ten and approaching the unheathiness cap you should be breaking even if you don't have a commerce multiplier built.

Id say the laissez-faire attitude comes from the fact that your raw tech rate is insignificant on Deity and you're gonna use tricks to stay competitive. But on other levels, where you can't piggyback the AI, cottages should be a lot more effective.

Then there's always those few games posted on here where somebody managed 200 per turn or something crazy like that...

 

[DampRain]

I saw that Unconquered Sun said it wasn't worth it to build cottages on a plain grassland tile without Financial

He is talking about when you at happy cap and in HR and deciding to build another unit to work another tile by raising happy cap. If it is "free" happiness, by all means do whatever with it.

 

[Mutineer]

There are no such thin as a free happiness.

Every use of available happiness carry an opportunity cost. Unused (Free) happiness could be used for one more whip, converting food to production at 1 to 2 rate. If you add opportunity to multiply this conversion by building wander with resources for fail gold... it could bring many more gold = research then cottage.

 

[DampRain]

Sorry mutineer, the definition of free happiness I was referring to was the
inherent cap + happy resources (from another post in thread). Ie. one that doesn't require another unit to lift cap.

Aside from that, I have no problem agreeing with your post. Apologies for any mix up.

 

[Yesod]

Even if the extra population costs 1.5, is it still not worth it for a cottage tile that will give at 1.25 (w/library) and reach 3.75 in short order?

 

[DampRain]

@Yesod

I'm basing on the assumption you are using HR to increase happy cap to work said cottage.
I believe this answers your question.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9107239&postcount=19

 

[Yesod]

On marathon speed, Philosophy costs 4000. After bulbing that with my first great scientist, I can sometimes trade around and broker that for 20,000 total. Now, On marathon speed, 1 A.D. is turn 350. Discounting the first 100 turns spent researching bronze working and other worker techs, 20,000/250 = 80/turn. The AEsthetics brokering I probably pulled a bit earlier only adds to that.

My point is, the cottages in the measly 6 cities you were lucky to get up on Deity aren't gonna make much of an impact. Playing at that level requires that you streamline the rest of your game to focus on the game breaking mechanics that the level was de-facto-designed around. Perhaps waiting (by his estimates, anyway) 45 turns (135 marathon) to get strong cottages up is a bad investment, but that's not due to the intrinsic nature of cottages, but to the fact that investment itself has little value in that scenario.

Now, if you drop down to immortal, it's viable (for me at least). If you drop down to emperor, it works wonderfully. On emperor, when you tech AEsthetics, the AI will probably still be trying to grab Alphabet. The lower levels force you to actually do most of your won research. So if that's true, is it correct to tell people that cottages are useless unless you're a financial leader? The hierarchical mentality on these forums dictates that the lower levels aren't real levels, just a compromise till you get better. But assuming you accept deity as it's own thing, maxing your cities out with Hereditary Rule and getting up towns in the early A.D.'s is an art in and of itself.

I'm not saying that cottages are necessarily better than specialists, of course. But they have their own merit, and not just with financial leaders.

 

[DampRain]

I am confused, first I thought you were arguing for cottage spam, then you've done an about turn? O_o. I have a feeling we are not on same page here.

His arguement (as I interpret) that using HR to increase happy cap to work more cottages, requires some 100 (my impression only, but I can't be bothered mathing it atm, I personally consider it to be perhaps far longer situation pending due to opportunity costs) turns or so to make a return. If your opportunity costs aren't very high and you expect to have a long period of time to achieve victory, by all means, go ahead.

However, a result of going this root means pacifism is a civic you can't use just as effectively, since your profit from switching to it will be far less.

Actually I'm convinced we are almost taking two completely different things from what is being said :\. It isn't stating cottages are useless (far from it), just they aren't an immediate win. You are absolutely right about the hierachial mentality, except I don't really believe it applies here.
I guess best sum it up as, if you mindlessly HR cottage, don't expect a huge an amazing immediate boost unless its a bureau/acad cap . Exception with financial where the return kicks in much earlier. Missing out a ton of other variables but thats tooo arrrrghghgh.


Ignore the spoiler, was going into a small math tangent, but if discussion gets to that point I might finish it . But repeats alot of the US post.

Spoiler :

A population lets say cost 0.5 gold from civics upkeep. The unit costs 1 gold a turn in upkeep.
So 1.5 gold upkeep. At this point it may or may not be unreasonable to suggest that your capital provides 75% of your research, and may/may not have academy + bureau. I'll take the case though that you do have bureau acad cap. Each commerce your cap gets becomes 2.65 beakers roughly. At this stage you may/may not have gold multipliers, assuming you don't, then 1 gold = 2 beakers.

A hamlet gives 1 gold. So for first 10 turns you are behind 0.5 gold = 1 beaker. After 10 turns, you make up a beaker profit of 1. So 20 turns after you are now in the even.

 

[budweiser]

Emperor player here so I guess I can just cottage up and be'OK' because I have to do 'most' research myself.

The question for me becomes what is the 'game breaker' that I should be practicing so that I can take on Immortal and can I even practice that on Emperor or do i have to play Immortal to see the effects?

I would think that having learned an Immortal trick that I could take that back down to Emperor and have a more successful game than if I just cottage up.

 

[DampRain]

As I understand, (correct me if I'm wrong), some of the game breaking mechanics are

Monoply techs that you can get and trade around that the Ai doesn't prioritise. Examples of this are philosophy, aesthetics , compass , music , liberalism. Normally selection of these techs depends on bulbing, whether or not an AI has it, or you think the ai will get it (situation pending). If your tech rate is very high you may get these after your basic eco techs, but these come in handy after a hard rex/rush. Since you get them, and trade to back fill (beware WFYABTA).

I wouldn't call such mechanics game breaking, as they give you a chance to win against overwhelming AI bonuses. Under that definition, already things like drafting, golden ages, tactical nukes, external diplomacy (you change AI civics, send them into wars, etc.).

I'd think you'd find alot of these you could see on Emperor quite easily, its just that you don't require them to win (arguably some not on deity either), but you could finish your game alot faster.

 

[Iranon]

Well, maybe gamebreaking is the wrong term... but there are things in a typical high-level game plan that are much more urgent than growing cottages.
Delay expansion and you may not claim enough land to compete without an early war. Delay a planned lightbulb and you may miss opportunities that multiply its value. Delay a high-impact wonder you built your strategy around and you risk missing it.

If you can stay in the game while making long-term investments like infrastructure beyond the basics or growing cottages, great.
I suppose much depends on whether you think stripping your gameplan down to the essentials is good practice... I have always tried to avoid that.

 

[Yesod]

Well, maybe gamebreaking is the wrong term... but there are things in a typical high-level game plan that are much more urgent than growing cottages.
Delay expansion and you may not claim enough land to compete without an early war. Delay a planned lightbulb and you may miss opportunities that multiply its value. Delay a high-impact wonder you built your strategy around and you risk missing it.

If you can stay in the game while making long-term investments like infrastructure beyond the basics or growing cottages, great.
I suppose much depends on whether you think stripping your gameplan down to the essentials is good practice... I have always tried to avoid that.

This is basically what I was getting at. But I wouldn't consider it "breaking gameplay down to essentials". The "essentials" on higher levels, to me, seem to be the well-known gambits that a lot of us use. You don't necessarily deprive yourself by growing cottages early on, you still get the same GPPs from your GP farm.

I was making more of an argument that Deity is really something in and of itself, and the bonuses are so ridiculous that only what essentially amounts to hacks will let you pull through. A lot of people won't consider brokering GP-bulbed techs "hacking" but at the very least you got to admit that the fact civilizations can "trade" techs is a bit iffy. Add in the fact that you can broker them amongst civs and it's even more over the top. From a simulation standpoint. Of course, most people like the game as a strategy arcade game, so to each his own. I'm just pointing out that Deity level Civ IV is based around finding weaknesses in the game design that the designers left in, probably because they knew a lot of people would have fun manipulating and optimizing. They left options to turn it off if you feel like it. If you play on lower levels, even immortal, then the original post I was arguing isn't necessarily valid.

For the guy that had asked about brokering on Emperor, you definitely can. If you're challenged on Emperor then you'll probably find that you can grab beeline AEsthetics and Philosophy and back fill a lot of techs once you get the hang of it. If you're just playing on Emperor, but should really be playing immortal, you might grab the same techs and find that you need to wait for the AI to catch up.

 

[budweiser]

This is basically what I was getting at. But I wouldn't consider it "breaking gameplay down to essentials". The "essentials" on higher levels, to me, seem to be the well-known gambits that a lot of us use. You don't necessarily deprive yourself by growing cottages early on, you still get the same GPPs from your GP farm.

I was making more of an argument that Deity is really something in and of itself, and the bonuses are so ridiculous that only what essentially amounts to hacks will let you pull through. A lot of people won't consider brokering GP-bulbed techs "hacking" but at the very least you got to admit that the fact civilizations can "trade" techs is a bit iffy. Add in the fact that you can broker them amongst civs and it's even more over the top. From a simulation standpoint. Of course, most people like the game as a strategy arcade game, so to each his own. I'm just pointing out that Deity level Civ IV is based around finding weaknesses in the game design that the designers left in, probably because they knew a lot of people would have fun manipulating and optimizing. They left options to turn it off if you feel like it. If you play on lower levels, even immortal, then the original post I was arguing isn't necessarily valid.

For the guy that had asked about brokering on Emperor, you definitely can. If you're challenged on Emperor then you'll probably find that you can grab beeline AEsthetics and Philosophy and back fill a lot of techs once you get the hang of it. If you're just playing on Emperor, but should really be playing immortal, you might grab the same techs and find that you need to wait for the AI to catch up.

Nowadays, I can beat the AIs to alpha on Emperor if I want to and then I still have to wait for them. I think Alphabet is underrated by the human players around here and the whole aesthetics thing is a bit of a design flaw. A good hammer capital even at size 5 can pump out quite a bit of research under alpha compared to your base beaker count at that point in the game.

There are constants that enable/restrict the human player which span all levels. Great Person Production Points, Cottage growth, archery, Diplomacy.

Did you know 6 or 8 archers can fend off a diety SOD early on? In theory, this gives you some control over who you want to war with.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Nowadays, I can beat the AIs to alpha on Emperor if I want to and then I still have to wait for them. I think Alphabet is underrated by the human players around here and the whole aesthetics thing is a bit of a design flaw. A good hammer capital even at size 5 can pump out quite a bit of research under alpha compared to your base beaker count at that point in the game.

There are constants that enable/restrict the human player which span all levels. Great Person Production Points, Cottage growth, archery, Diplomacy.

Did you know 6 or 8 archers can fend off a diety SOD early on? In theory, this gives you some control over who you want to war with.

8 non-protective archers will not always fend them off. I have seen them switch target cities also, forcing any fortification bonus away.

The real problem with those early wars is getting out of them though. The AI will insist on a city since you won't have any tech to give and probably don't have access to gold yet.

 

[budweiser]

8 non-protective archers will not always fend them off. I have seen them switch target cities also, forcing any fortification bonus away.

The real problem with those early wars is getting out of them though. The AI will insist on a city since you won't have any tech to give and probably don't have access to gold yet.

I was thinking of as hill city.

Probably early on, your best weapon against another civ would be bribing someone else who doesnt like him. That would probably get you out of a war on favorable terms.