do workers cost upkeep money like troops do

[Ibian]

Ibian, do you caste system to spam merchants in your GP farm city?

Exactly. The only annoying part about that is that i cant use slavery, still getting things up and running by the time the first few prophets need some help.

I still will never be running at 100% long in my games though...I love warring too much. 100% means it's time to leverage a tech lead and money into the deaths of my opponents in my book

To me, it means i will be able to spam corps later on or simply buy techs instead of trade for them. As far as war, if i cant do that and still run 100% science (happy slider aside of course) something is wrong.

 

[oyzar]

For me a rule of thumb is that if i am above 50% science i don't have enough cities... Sure you can still trash the AI by running 100% all game but you aren't playing optimally and to me civ is all about that.

 

[Ibian]

Optimally as defined by which authority?

 

[oyzar]

Hof rules. Or rather faster finish higher and higher score in the end. If one line of action leads to less research and more production while another lead to more research but less production it is hard to say which is better and it probably depend on the situation, however if one line of action lead to more production and more research and another leads to less the line of action that leads to more can be said to be optimal.

 

[Ibian]

Why would i want to run 20 cities at 30% research when i can run 6 cities at 100% research and still win the space race? You only need as many cities as your goal requires, and i just dont care about time wins.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

More production in 20 cities perhaps?

I think you need a good 12+ cities for an early space finish on a standard map.

 

[Ibian]

A space win is either a production race (tech parity), or a tech race. If i got a tech lead, it doesnt matter if i only have one good production city. And if i dont have a tech lead, i cant very well afford to workshop over my towns.

 

[Revenant27]

Ibian what difficult and map size/# of opponents do you play with.

I play on prince, usually large size with default # of opponents and I don't see a space race happening with 6 cities the whole game.

btw i'm not attacking you or anything, I'm just curious, because last time I won space race was on noble, and I had well over 20 cities (almost domination)

 

[Ibian]

Prince, normal size and speed. I will play on monarch starting with the next game, who knows maybe a few things will change.

I typically end up with more than the basic 6 cities simply because im never alone on my landmass, but even then the first cities tend to be the research centers (what with great library and a few dozen settled GP and all). Additional cities are more important for the new resources they give me than for whatever production and research they might contribute.

 

[Revenant27]

that makes some more sense, it sounded like you were going the whole game with just 6 cities which seems a tad bit ridiculous, i usually have settled at least 6 of my own cities by 1000ad. Everything else i conquer

then again, im more of a warmonger, i don't usually go for space race

 

[Ibian]

It certainly can be done with just 6 cities, but that would require an isolated landmass with just the right amount of land.

War is a drain on the economy, no matter how its done. Each unit represents beakers you will never get.

 

[oyzar]

Why would i want to run 20 cities at 30% research when i can run 6 cities at 100% research and still win the space race? You only need as many cities as your goal requires, and i just dont care about time wins.

It is not about the victory condition time but to win faster(and also more ahead of the AI, though given the choice of slowing down the AI or speeding up yourself in this context it would be considered optimal to speed up yourself even if slowing down the AI would make the win more sure). I would much rather have 20 cities at 30% research pulling 300 beakers than 6 cities at 100% research giving 150 beakers... Point is slider doesn't matter one whit in the end, what matters is how many beakers you are making. And that does often increase while your empire expand even if the slider goes down. Most of the time going as far down as 30% could slow down your total beaker output but i certanly go under 60% without fear most of the time... There is no way a settled great merchant can ever keep up with the power of academy + burrecracy(even at 60% science or lower), most of the time settling is just not going to give as much output as the other options with great people and as such i find that i seldom run great people with the intention to settle them and hence merchants are also rather useless...

 

[Killroyan]

Has this changed in BtS? I am sure that I have disbanded like 10 workers in one time (warlords) to not see a change in upkeepcost. That made me think that workers do not have an upkeepcost.

 

[UncleJJ]

I Warlords you had to refresh the screen that shows costs for it to display the change. I used to open another screen and then go back to the one that shows unit costs. Try that and you'll definitely see an upkeep cost for workers in Warlords assuming you have more units than the number of free ones you get.

 

[Ibian]

most of the time settling is just not going to give as much output as the other options with great people and as such i find that i seldom run great people with the intention to settle them and hence merchants are also rather useless...

Your math is wrong.

A bulbed GP is going to give 1000 to 1500 beakers.

A settled merchant in a city with a bank is going to give 12 gold a turn. In a mere 100-150 turns he will have made up for the bulbed beakers, and from there its pure profit. Not to mention the food which itself represents more of whatever you want. It becomes even more favorable once wall street is built. And im even ignoring the beakers from representation just in case you are the type who doesnt like the mids. Its only near the end of the game i find it worthwhile to bulb.

Bulbing is for a good early start, settling is for a solid endgame. And its the endgame that counts for space wins.

Incidentally, your 20 cities vs 6 cities math also seems to be off. By quite a lot.

 

[oyzar]

I ment academies or shrines, only time i lightbulb is if the game is drawing to a close within the next 100 turns as you say or i would lose liberalism otherwise. Sure it isn't worth to bulb a scientist for 1800 beakers(100 total pop empire wise) but 4500 is starting to look much better given the free tech from liberalism. Often getting a faster tech advantage is better than the long run. As i mostly play MP aiming to go all the way to space is unrealistic at best. first 3-5 great people usually go to academies/shrines, then of course there are the corps to think about and between that and bulbing 1-2 for liberalism there isn't much room for settling(thats not to say i never settle mind you, just that there are very often other better oportunities and even if i do settle it is seldom enough to run 100% all game). It is pretty hard to do 20 vs 6 cities comparison when you don't account for any other factors...

 

[Ibian]

I think academies are overrated anyway, at least beyond the 1-2 biggest science cities. Its only a 50% boost when you dont have even a library, but by the time you have labs academies drop to an effective 25% boost. If you have labs and Oxford, 16.7%
Thats not to say i wont build academies if i have some scientists, they do after all bring in more than a settled scientist would, but i dont find it worthwhile to specifically go for them.

Empirewide, each academy is less meaningful the bigger your empire is. This also applies to Oxford, the more science cities you have the less of an overall boost it is.

The difference between Oxford and Ironworks and Wallstreet is that, at least in my games, i only have one wonder spammer and thats where i place Ironworks. The rest of my hammer cities produce troops just fine with basic buildings.
Wallstreet works the same way, i only ever have one gold city. Occasionally i have a shrine somewhere else, but thats kinda rare (need at least 8 cities with that shrines religion to make it worthwhile).
Science cities, on the other hand, tend to make up the bulk of my empire. By the end of my last game i was making 2400+ beakers a turn without having built Oxford (it conflicted with the national epics i already had in my top science city).

 

[ck07]

By experiment, workers do cost upkeep. Try deleting a few.

CK

 

[6K Man]

Damn that tricky Montezuma for leaving his workers unguarded, knowing full well I'd capture them and spirit them back home where they would crash my economy.

 

[cabert]

Damn that tricky Montezuma for leaving his workers unguarded, knowing full well I'd capture them and spirit them back home where they would crash my economy.

maybe that's why in warlords and BtS, the AIs destroy the workers they capture .