D'Artagnan01: Low-level Training Day

[D'Artagnan59]

Where's the save?

 

[Bede]

Attached to post #258

 

[choxorn]

Hey, why was there a black rectangle on the Iroqouis trading screen?

 

[CommandoBob]

…what is the next research task?

We learn Republic in 1 turn. What do we learn next?

First, I think we need to protect our cash, since we are running our economy in the red. Odds are, when we have only one turn until we learn a tech, we will have generated more beakers than we need on the last turn of research. Any excess beakers are lost. So we can turn the extra beakers into money by adjusting the science slider down, as long as we still learn Republic in one turn. For us, we can do this:

Minimum Research Rate to Ensure We Learn Republic in One Turn

We still learn Republic in one turn and add money to our treasury, which we may need for our next research project or perhaps unit upgrades.

Second, we need to know what we are currently researching at: that is, the number of beakers we are adding to our smart box each turn. And along with this, what are the costs of the techs we don’t know. This we can get from CivAssistII, on the Technology tab, shown below:

550 BC Current Technology Tab, CivAssistII

This tab also shows that we can only research 4 techs with our current knowledge: Mathematics, Literature, Horseback Riding and Mysticism.

Our Science Advisor shows the same information, just not as clearly:

550 BC Science Advisor

From CAII, we can also learn the beaker cost for the techs we can research, and then calculate how many turns it will take to learn the new knowledge. This has been done on the image below.

550 BC Beaker Cost and Turns Needed

Converting the raw numbers into useful terms, we can learn Math in 7 turns, Literature in 8, Horseback Riding and Mysticism in 4 each (game minimum).

So What?

Prebuilds. If we know that a tech lets us produce a new unit or building, we can start something else that is expensive, and when we get the new knowledge, change that build order to whatever the new item is.

Trading vs. Learning. Mysticism and Horseback Riding are cheap compared to Math and Lit. If we learned to count and how to make poetry, we could probably trade one or both of them for something of lesser value.

Better Information than the F6 screen. Some of the tech tabs are too small to show how long it will take to learn something, plus it does not show any overruns (potential cash).

Next Tech

While it is the most expensive tech, I think we need to learn Literature next. With it we can build libraries, which will help our research and culture. With libraries, we can learn Math a little bit faster (probably still 7 turns, but would have more overrun to convert to cash at the end) and the remaining techs more quickly also.

After Literature, I think we need to learn Math, followed by either Construction (aqueducts and larger cities, but if we have many cities on rivers it is not as important) or Currency (marketplaces and happier citizens when we get luxuries, but with only one luxury available to us, this may not as critical as it could be otherwise).

I think we can trade for HBR, Mysticism and Polytheism.

Negative Cash Flow

At 80% science, we run at -4 gpt. We have 149 gold in the French bank, so in theory we could go 37 turns at this research rate. If we drop science to 10% for the next turn and then move it back to 80%, we will gain 31 gold, giving us 180 gold total or 45 turns of research at -4 gpt.

 

[Bede]

Nice analytical work, Commando.

What about the revolt to Republic?

 

[Tribute]

I want a revolution! But of course that may screw up our settler factory.

We could probably ask England for whatever we need once they have stuff with the Republic.

And about this:

Trading vs. Learning. Mysticism and Horseback Riding are cheap compared to Math and Lit. If we learned to count and how to make poetry, we could probably trade one or both of them for something of lesser value.

We could do the trading thing or we could spend less on science and make money by following the AI on research until we are fully caught up after our revolution. Then we deficit research in the MA for something expensive and sell it at monopoly prices. Else, we can make embassies and have more options for wars. Like alliances or RoPs or even upgrades/unit support costs.

 

[CommandoBob]

...What about the revolt to Republic?

At work; no game; going from memory.

Two things to consider when moving from Depsotism to Republic.

One, a random number of turns of anarchy. Not sure how this calculated; that is, do more cities or citizens affect the number of anarchy turns? I just don't know. However, I have seen other SG where the players state that the anarchy will be 'x' turns, so either the game tells us or this is a way to find out. In PTW, you didn't know when anarchy was over until it was over.

No production in anarchy, so this would be a bad time for a Golden Age. It would be a great thing to inflict this (an anarchy Golden Age) on someone else.

Two, in Republic the government pays for unit upkeep. Right now, as despots, our citizens support our troops directly, based on the size of their city. Larger cities support more troops. Currently, we have 39 units, and can support 44. This includes military units (attacking and bombarding and all naval, air and missle units), home-grown workers and settlers. As a republic, the central treasury pays the units from the general income and taxation. Which means that even though Republic lets our people be freer and increases tile production, if we are not careful we could have a greater negative gpt in Republic than Despotism.

CAII has a tool that calculates this for us, so no need to get out the pencils and sliderulers.

Since our income obligations change dramatically in Republic, we don't want to change when we have too many cities that are less than size 3 or so. How many is too many? I'm guessing here, but I would think that depend on how many cities and their sizes. Maybe a % is not the answer, if it were I would suggest that anything over 33% means we need to wait for the cities to grow. If not a percentage, then perhaps when our average city size is over 3. MapStat can tell how many citizens and cites and the average would be easy to calculate. Or perhaps combination the two measurements.

 

[D'Artagnan59]

So, should we have a revolution or not? What should we research?

 

[Bede]

anarchy turns are influenced by the number of citizens and can be as high as seven. The game tells you when you go into anarchy how long it will last.

I am of two minds about this, the revolt. There will be a recession regardless, however recovery should come quickly. The scary thing to me is that without three luxuries the entertainment budget will explode. So, waiting until the wines are connected would minimize that pain.

Meanwhile keep researching towards Literature and equipping settlers out of Paris. Only train enough military to escort the settlers (archers or spears out of Orleans might be good as they will produce on a schedule that matches the setler training) Rheims could build a library (courthouse prebuild).

Lyons would be a good place for the Forbidden Palace, or one of the two towns in the center. I like Lyons for its commercial/scientific output, though the reduction in waste in the central area would be good too.

 

[SimpleMonkey]

lurker's comment: I find myself privileged to concur with the monk on the timing of the switch to Republic. The major consideration for me these days is happiness. Losing the use of MP's is pain, so having lux online to counter that is essential. I'm finding in my current games that the early switch, even if it means higher upkeep in the short run, pays for itself with greatly increased city growth and production. A switch when small means fewer turns of pain as well. These are good things. It may even pay to disband your warriors or other low level military whose only use has been MP duty. You'll rarely have the money to upgrade them, and probably not the need either, unless you're really in a slugfest. Bottom line from my point of view -- if you've got at least three lux hooked up, then switch as soon as you can.

 

[Bede]

it looks like it will be cold day in Cuba when we have three luxes, but having two, wines and silks will make up for the MP effectiveness, so once wth wines are connected go for it.

Having three or a temple is a almost a prequisite for growing past six.

 

[gmaharriet]

Two, in Republic the government pays for unit upkeep. Right now, as despots, our citizens support our troops directly, based on the size of their city. Larger cities support more troops. Currently, we have 39 units, and can support 44. This includes military units (attacking and bombarding and all naval, air and missle units), home-grown workers and settlers. As a republic, the central treasury pays the units from the general income and taxation. Which means that even though Republic lets our people be freer and increases tile production, if we are not careful we could have a greater negative gpt in Republic than Despotism.

lurker's comment: Keep in mind the difference in Republic's unit support between vanilla/PTW and C3C. In the former the government pays 1gpt for all unit support. In C3C there is some citizen unit support varying by city size...towns (pop 1-6) support 1 unit, cities (pop 7-12) support 3 units, and metros (pop 12+) support 4 units. Units above the citizen-supported number cost 2gpt each.

So the size of your cities can be a major factor in deciding when to revolt, preferably as several near size 7 or larger.

 

[SimpleMonkey]

lurker's comment: Well, yes, three is a bit of a wish list, but two is almost a must. Many a game I would almost rather have wine than iron. Almost.

 

[Tribute]

So we're building courthouses in an effort to make libraries as soon as possible. However, in The Republic, we need to actually have enough money for entertainment (as I only see 2 luxes and we're going to have many cities and faroff towns to entertain) and unit costs. So Currency is needed ASAP to counter the effect of the libraries.

Normally, I build marketplaces first so that the libraries can be used even better.

At any rate, holding off the revolt would be a really good idea. For the expansion halt/waste of turns, throwing off of the settler factory, high unit support costs, and happiness problems, The Republic would be better used with more luxuries, more cities, more settlements, and more infrastructure.

 

[Bede]

So we're building courthouses in an effort to make libraries as soon as possible. However, in The Republic, we need to actually have enough money for entertainment (as I only see 2 luxes and we're going to have many cities and faroff towns to entertain) and unit costs. So Currency is needed ASAP to counter the effect of the libraries.

Normally, I build marketplaces first so that the libraries can be used even better.

At any rate, holding off the revolt would be a really good idea. For the expansion halt/waste of turns, throwing off of the settler factory, high unit support costs, and happiness problems, The Republic would be better used with more luxuries, more cities, more settlements, and more infrastructure.

Here is where it starts to get really tricky. Marketplaces and libraries compete for the same budget dollar.The higher you set the science budget the less value you get from marketplaces unless you have at least three luxuries to get a happiness benefit too. And the more you spend on entertainment the less value you get from marketplaces. Unless your budget has free cash flow or you control three luxuries markets are valueless. To put it in slider terms if science is 70% and entertainment is 30% there is nothing left over for the markets to multiply. If science is 50% and entertainment is 10% then for every 10 net gold you will have 4 available and a market will get you 1 additional for no net gain after paying maintenance.

If your objective is fast self-research commerce multiplying buildings have little impact. If your objective is buying techs using a minimum/zero science budget then markets and other commerce multiplying buildings will have a major impact. So the notion of building anything "normally" gets another nail in its coffin.

Every action taken in the game is situational and related to the overall objective. There exist few, if any, norms or standards. The closest I can come to one is the Four Turn Settler Farm but even that one depends on circumstances. And in fact as I look over the terrain we have to work with I am not even sure it fits well here. Though as a training exercise it was worth the effort.

I base that assessment on my experience and the playing style that has evolved from that experience. Now, can anyone see the logic behind it?

This is a tough start for the game we are playing. That said we need to play the hand we have been dealt. But it is going to take some real thought to play it to the victory we are looking for. And I will learn once again that sometimes everything I thought I knew is wrong.

Holding off he revolt until we get the wines connected is probably the best play we have. Any longer than that we run the risk of getting too far behind the commerce growth curve. There will be a recession that has to be endured but there are tactics to overcome that. And the added commerce from those roaded riversides and the coastal tiles will go a long way in getting us over the hump.

 

[scoutsout]

And the added commerce from those roaded riversides and the coastal tiles will go a long way in getting us over the hump.

And the elimination of despotism penalties on tiles like food bonus on plains... and the added worker efficiency...and the ability to short rush with cash.. and... and...

 

[Bede]

D'Art - find the save yet? Need advice? If the answers are "yes" and "no", play on! If the answers are "no" and "yes", ask and you shall receive both.

 

[Ansar]

D'Art- the save is in post #258.

But Brother Bede, what if he said Yes and Yes?

 

[choxorn]

Or if he said no and no?

 

[D'Artagnan59]

no and yes

what are the archers for? Helping Iroquois or England?