G-Major LIX

[Cromagnus]

I was hoping to understand Bleidraner's statement...

Technology's price increases the more cities you have....?? Meaning your "Threshold" for Science TRULY increases - OR,...

Does he just mean "The price of upkeep" (Maintaining a thriving city) purchasing science building, limited caravans, etc.....??


++++ (Did some testing)

So, it "Truly" does increase.....How much?.....is it a %,....OR.....???

AND, what about gifting or losing cities,.....Does it go back down again if you decrease....???




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Base price of a tech is 100%. Add 5% per city, including the capital. With 5 cities, the cost of a tech is 125% of the listed price in the civilopedia. Less on larger maps.

 

[vadalaz]

Interesting, so OCC doesn't benefit the culture game all that much. Another problem with OCC-like approach is faith. If you start your expansion late, your fpt will be low and pagodas will cost too much. 600-800 faith per pagoda at 50-60fpt (assuming CS allies) is painful.

I think I've made the decision to just go for World's Fair asap in my game, have it on T280-300, temporarily stop my cities' growth and get a TON of Settlers and hopefully put most of them in position while World's Fair is active, then expand like crazy. If I do this right, I should be able to found all my cities by t330ish. That's 170 turns to grow to size 30. With the right build order, this should be doable. I think.

 

[chuckh89]

Base price of a tech is 100%. Add 5% per city, including the capital. With 5 cities, the cost of a tech is 125% of the listed price in the civilopedia. Less on larger maps.

Excellent,

So I guess it would be wise to get rid of any low contributing cities mainly late game, and especially before bulbing for a Science Victory,....Right?







-

 

[zenmaster]

Interesting, so OCC doesn't benefit the culture game all that much. Another problem with OCC-like approach is faith. If you start your expansion late, your fpt will be low and pagodas will cost too much. 600-800 faith per pagoda at 50-60fpt (assuming CS allies) is painful.

I think I've made the decision to just go for World's Fair asap in my game, have it on T280-300, temporarily stop my cities' growth and get a TON of Settlers and hopefully put most of them in position while World's Fair is active, then expand like crazy. If I do this right, I should be able to found all my cities by t330ish. That's 170 turns to grow to size 30. With the right build order, this should be doable. I think.

You guys are the best. I absolutely love the threads that accompany Time gauntlet games. Have not been able to start my game yet, but will do so soon.

On the Tiny and Small maps, going small for a long time and then exploding after World's Fair is incredibly good. Have to amend that gameplan a bit maybe on a Standard map. Vadalaz' progress thus far may be ideal to keep the cities churning out at a measured pace.

Cromagnus' calculations are awesome and I am following them closely. After I get some game in, I will contribute something.

 

[vadalaz]

Yeah, this has been a lot of fun. Much more interesting than I expected a Time game to be.

12 turns of World's Fair and 8 Great Writers later, I have full Commerce, 3 in Honor, 2 in Exploration, 4 in Piety and 5 in Freedom. The only happiness policy left is the Patronage one, so that's the next target I guess. Double resources from CSs is also pretty nice because that could help get enough coal for Factories in every city. There are still 8 turns of World's Fair to go, but I think I'm ready to start expanding like a mad man.

I'm still in Modern Era and teching quite slowly, but I should get some research labs soon. Might faith-buy a couple GSs and a GE to speed up Neuschwanstein and do the same for CN Tower later.

edit: aaand it crashed on turn 296 after I settled like 25 new cities. Strategic view time.

 

[Cromagnus]

Excellent,

So I guess it would be wise to get rid of any low contributing cities mainly late game, and especially before bulbing for a Science Victory,....Right?

-

Ditching cities doesn't do you any good unless they were puppets.

The tech penalty is based on your peak # of fully controlled cities, which is defined as one of the following:

1) You annexed it
2) You built it yourself
3) You selected "Stop Razing" on a city that you Razed during capture

I suspect #3 also applies to cities you sell after you start razing, but I've never tried.

It does however help to ditch a city before capturing or spawning one.

Example: You have 5 cities. You're about to capture a juicy wonder-filled capital and you don't want to up your city count. You decide one of the expos you built isn't as good, and decide to ditch that instead. You must sell it or *finish* razing it before annexing the new city. I'm not even certain that's good enough. You might need to sell or finish razing the other city *prior to capture*. (Which is what I usually do)

This way, your city count is at: 4(max5) before capture, so the capture leaves you at 5(max5)...

Make sense?

The same thing applies to culture costs. The cost increase is permanent once you "own it", but as long as you sell a city before you get another one, your "max" doesn't go up.

 

[Cromagnus]

Yeah, this has been a lot of fun. Much more interesting than I expected a Time game to be.

12 turns of World's Fair and 8 Great Writers later, I have full Commerce, 3 in Honor, 2 in Exploration, 4 in Piety and 5 in Freedom. The only happiness policy left is the Patronage one, so that's the next target I guess. Double resources from CSs is also pretty nice because that could help get enough coal for Factories in every city. There are still 8 turns of World's Fair to go, but I think I'm ready to start expanding like a mad man.

I'm still in Modern Era and teching quite slowly, but I should get some research labs soon. Might faith-buy a couple GSs and a GE to speed up Neuschwanstein and do the same for CN Tower later.

edit: aaand it crashed on turn 296 after I settled like 25 new cities. Strategic view time.

Interesting approach, vadalaz. The double resources from CS is a good point. It's impossible on this map to get a factory in every city but you could get closer at least. (I'm capped at like 90 factories right now, and the double coal from CS would give me an extra 25 or so)

What about Rationalism though? Future tech is a non-trivial component of final score. I mean, way less significant than population, but more significant than anything else that isn't a no-brainer like getting every Wonder. I've been focusing on Rationalism instead of Patronage to try and get max benefit from that, but at t400+ it seems somewhat moot. With my focus being on happiness buildings, my bpt is crappy even with 100+ cities.

But, my point is, the extra 30 or so happiness from Patronage is worth like 300 pts, which is the same as 30 future techs, if I recall correctly. You might lose 30 techs by going that route, and you may find yourself growth-bound anyway. Tricky right?
I should just restart, but I'm way past the point where even the strategic view isn't tolerably fast enough. I can't stomach starting over lol.

 

[vadalaz]

Yeah, good point about Rationalism and future techs, I've been ignoring science so far, which is why I think I'm like 15-20 turns behind a really good schedule. I should get Secularism first, that will pretty much double my science output. With 200 turns left I should be able to get both Secularism and the Patronage policy, I think. There's also the +25% gold from temples, that would really help right now as there's so much to buy. Maybe I'll just forget about Patronage and finish Piety instead.

Actually gold IS the biggest problem right now, I'm not making enough gpt (~1300) to expand as quickly as I want, so I think I'll take the Piety policy next and then go for Secularism. I'm on 70 cities now and there are probably about as many city spots left to settle. Getting all the cities up by t330 will be quite the challenge.

 

[Morcar_olmig]

I will try to skip Aestetics at all and take "to the glory of god" reformation belief - that will allow to buy GP of any type.

 

[Cromagnus]

Yeah, good point about Rationalism and future techs, I've been ignoring science so far, which is why I think I'm like 15-20 turns behind a really good schedule. I should get Secularism first, that will pretty much double my science output. With 200 turns left I should be able to get both Secularism and the Patronage policy, I think. There's also the +25% gold from temples, that would really help right now as there's so much to buy. Maybe I'll just forget about Patronage and finish Piety instead.

Actually gold IS the biggest problem right now, I'm not making enough gpt (~1300) to expand as quickly as I want, so I think I'll take the Piety policy next and then go for Secularism. I'm on 70 cities now and there are probably about as many city spots left to settle. Getting all the cities up by t330 will be quite the challenge.

Don't feel bad, it's looking like I won't have every spot settled until t420.

Also, I must be mis-remembering the score value of population. I had remembered it being 10, but maybe that's only on small maps. It looks like more like 5 or 6 based on what happens to my score when my total population goes up by 20 in one turn.

With 105 cities (damn that late expansion!!) I'm at around 2000gpt, but that's including the golden age I've been in since about t300. Exploration and Commerce really help with GPT. I think I have somewhere around 500gpt in maintenance cost just from workers alone though... hopefully I can delete them all soon.

I think I should just restart.

Molcar_olmig, the reason to open Aesthetics isn't the faith-purchasing, it's everything in the first 4 policies. IMHO. But it may be overkill. I just got my 48th policy, which is most definitely more than you need. If I didn't open Aesthetics or Piety, that's 9 less policies. And I probably didn't need Rationalism or 2 of the Freedom policies I took. So I probably could have gotten by with 33 total policies (by end-game) and I'm fairly convinced now that if you're careful about timing your expansion, get early Hermitage, WF before expansion, etc. than that's not hard to achieve. When I think about typical Science Victories where I don't go for Hermitage or Broadcast Towers, I can usually complete 3 trees + 3 Commerce + 6 Freedom policies without even winning world's fair. So, 6 more policies with world's fair and extra culture/turn seems like a no-brainer. That's definitely the approach I will take if I make a second attempt. (Big if)

 

[Morcar_olmig]

Don't feel bad, it's looking like I won't have every spot settled until t420.

Also, I must be mis-remembering the score value of population. I had remembered it being 10, but maybe that's only on small maps. It looks like more like 5 or 6 based on what happens to my score when my total population goes up by 20 in one turn.

With 105 cities (damn that late expansion!!) I'm at around 2000gpt, but that's including the golden age I've been in since about t300. Exploration and Commerce really help with GPT. I think I have somewhere around 500gpt in maintenance cost just from workers alone though... hopefully I can delete them all soon.

I think I should just restart.

Molcar_olmig, the reason to open Aesthetics isn't the faith-purchasing, it's everything in the first 4 policies. IMHO. But it may be overkill. /shrug

In my first game every citizen brought me approx 2,5 score points.

What comes to Aesthetics - i know you try to maximize the culture output before WF... but you are spending 4 policies for that... hard to evaluate, but in the end game when every policy costs around 50k culture and we multiply that by 4 = 200k culture - are those policies able to compensate that even with WF - probably not... hapiness policies might be more useful and faith purchased GWs could do the neccessary work after WF.

 

[Cromagnus]

Ok, random thoughts about policies.

Policies that can be skipped:
* Universal Healthcare - At +11 global happiness, this is by far the worst happiness policy. With 150 cities, this buys you roughly 0.07 extra population/city, and is worth less than 50 pts in the final score. #yeahno
* Creative Expression - This is overkill. It doesn't generate as much culture as it costs you to make up that extra policy.
* New Deal - Nice to have, but not necessary.
* Organized Religion - You want temples anyway IMHO, so you might as well take two policies in Piety. But it's not a must-have. You can win without it.
* Reformation - Not necessary.
* Patronage - If you're lucky, someone else builds Forbidden Palace. If not this becomes a must-have!
* Cultural Diplomacy - Nice to have. It can equate to 30 extra Factories, or 30 extra happiness, and until the end-game, gives somewhere around 24 extra happiness from the luxuries. But, 50 extra happiness for the 4 policies it takes to get this? Not worth it.
* Protectionism - It's only about 46 extra happiness. The gold for the closer is nice but not necessary, especially with farms being so important.
* Entrepreneurship - Again, the gold is nice, but ultimately not necessary.
* Wagon trains - Nice to have but you can ditch your roads eventually. Not necessary.
* Treasure Fleets - The closer is nice to have for late-game culture but not necessary. Which saves you the worthless Navigation School as well.
* Aesthetics - Nice to have, but not necessary.
* Humanism & Free Thought - Nice to have, but not necessary.

Must-have policies:
* Capitalism: Any policy with +happiness/city is a must-have.
* Universal Suffrage: The best happiness policy, bar none. ~5.5 Global Happiness/city.
* Urbanization: +happiness/city is win
* Avant-Garde - Nice to have, and probably buys you a few extra GW/GA/GS, but necessary? Only to get the above policies.
* Civil Society: This is a must have *eventually* but not early in the game. It could be a policy you pick up *after* you start your expansion if it wasn't for the fact that you need 2 lvl 2 policies to get Universal Suffrage and Urbanization
* Military Caste: I hate to spend 3 policies on this, but it still averages out to +50 happiness/policy, +150 total, which is ultimately worth it and probably adds 400 to your final score. Still, this can definitely be a LATE policy, because it's the weakest per-city policy and requires you build a crap-ton of units. Spamming landsknecht late once you have mad gpt is the way to go. So this one is post-expansion IMHO.
* Piety - You really need this to get those temples up fast.
* Mercantilism - Just too valuable to miss out on this. There is SO MUCH rush-buying in a Time game.
* Naval Tradition, Maritime Infrastructure and Merchant Navy - Awesome on Terra.
* Sovereignty - Extremely valuable on this map: +600gpt!
* Secularism - With Freedom, this is just too valuable. But it can be a post-expansion policy
* Theocracy - Really nice to have. But essential? Maybe not. Not sure about this one.
* Legalism - Extra growth in the first four cities? No need. Free Aqueducts while you're on the warpath? No need. Those first 4 cities are going to be capped out because of happiness for the majority of the game... The faith-purchased engineers are nice though... and the early-game growth is necessary for the science snowball if you don't go wide. This policy is probably the last one to go.

To this adds up to:
6 Tradition
6 Liberty
5 Freedom
4 Exploration
3 Commerce
3 Honor
3 Piety
3 Rationalism
1 Patronage (Maybe)

Total: 34

I think given that Reformation is only 2 extra policies is probably worth going for that too. Faith-bought GW will result in at least 4 extra policies eventually, the faith bought GS are necessary if you don't finish Rationalism, and the faith bought Great Artists are also pretty awesome.

So, 36 if you can swing it. Still a lot of policies to amass by t250 without an amazing culture start.

 

[vadalaz]

The policies that really matter are the happiness and gold ones. I settled 26 new cities from t302 to t317, so I'm going a bit slower than 2 cities a turn. Happiness is good but I'm gold-bound. 1850gpt now, would've liked to have 2500+. At this pace I think I should get all the cities out by t340ish I think. Not bad but there's a lot of room for improvement.

I agree with Cromagnus' policy choices above for the most part, except I would also prioritize getting full Commerce. Every hill is going to be a trading post so the extra gold is pretty significant. 40+ happiness is also good, it might not seem like much but I really like it because 1) it doesn't require you to build or buy anything, and 2) all excess happiness contributes towards faster expansion, because you can delay buying happiness buildings and get settlers out first.

To the Glory of God really helps to get all the policies you need. I faith-bought 4 GWs during World's Fair, each one was worth 22k culture, one and a half policy at the time. Definitely worth it to spend some points in Piety.

Speaking of policies, I feel like I'm never going to get my next one. The cost has already gone up from 30-something to 80k.

 

[Cromagnus]

The policies that really matter are the happiness and gold ones. I settled 26 new cities from t302 to t317, so I'm going a bit slower than 2 cities a turn. Happiness is good but I'm gold-bound. 1850gpt now, would've liked to have 2500+. At this pace I think I should get all the cities out by t340ish I think. Not bad but there's a lot of room for improvement.

I agree with Cromagnus' policy choices above for the most part, except I would also prioritize getting full Commerce. Every hill is going to be a trading post so the extra gold is pretty significant. 40+ happiness is also good, it might not seem like much but I really like it because 1) it doesn't require you to build or buy anything, and 2) all excess happiness contributes towards faster expansion, because you can delay buying happiness buildings and get settlers out first.

To the Glory of God really helps to get all the policies you need. I faith-bought 4 GWs during World's Fair, each one was worth 22k culture, one and a half policy at the time. Definitely worth it to spend some points in Piety.

Speaking of policies, I feel like I'm never going to get my next one. The cost has already gone up from 30-something to 80k.

Yeah, I see your point about trading posts. I convert my mines to trading posts after my cities have all their happiness buildings, but there's almost always a new city in the area who wants mines even after that city is done with them and it's too much micromanagement otherwise.

IMHO mines are still better than trading posts even with a golden age and commerce.

A university is 390 gold vs 160 hammers. A mine is 4 hammers (effectively 5 with the GA production bonus), and a trading post is 3 gold with GA and full Commerce. So that tile can either build you a university in 32 turns, or buy you one in 130 turns.

This is why I don't value trading posts (or the Commerce finisher) as high. For most of the game I prefer mines.

Now of course, after a tile is only reachable by cities that are done with production, you can switch it to gold, but really, those cities should be making settlers/archaeologists/workers/units/etc./worldcongress projects for a while after they're done making buildings. So, really, those trading posts shouldn't come into play until much later. IMHO.

 

[vadalaz]

Yeah, I see your point about trading posts. I convert my mines to trading posts after my cities have all their happiness buildings, but there's almost always a new city in the area who wants mines even after that city is done with them and it's too much micromanagement otherwise.

IMHO mines are still better than trading posts even with a golden age and commerce.

A university is 390 gold vs 160 hammers. A mine is 4 hammers (effectively 5 with the GA production bonus), and a trading post is 3 gold with GA and full Commerce. So that tile can either build you a university in 32 turns, or buy you one in 130 turns.

This is why I don't value trading posts (or the Commerce finisher) as high. For most of the game I prefer mines.

Now of course, after a tile is only reachable by cities that are done with production, you can switch it to gold, but really, those cities should be making settlers/archaeologists/workers/units/etc./worldcongress projects for a while after they're done making buildings. So, really, those trading posts shouldn't come into play until much later. IMHO.

Gold is more flexible though. You can buy whatever you want and wherever you want, which is particularly useful in a Time game. Hard to say which approach is better. I just prefer trading posts personally.

Trading posts are 4 gold actually, 1 base + 1 economics + 1 commerce + GA. So in your example, the trading post tile buys a university in 98 turns, and as it still has the 2 base hammers (2.5 with golden age), it also builds one in 64.

edit: It's also worth mentioning that gold gets a larger modifier, 83% or 108% with Theocracy in every expo, 108% and 133% in the capital respectively. Hammers get 10% from workshop, 10% from factory, 5% to buildings from liberty, 10% to buildings with windmill (won't be in every city) for a total of 35%, and there's also 15% to wonders, and 100% to faith and culture buildings. Solar and nuclear plant become available too late to make a difference, sadly.

 

[Cromagnus]

That is definitely true. The flexibility of gpt is huge. And you're right about the math. Maybe it evens out? I dunno, I haven't crunched the numbers, but I suspect that production has a slight edge in the end. With Order I think trading posts have the edge, but that's moot I suppose.

In any case, since I went for a gold founder belief, I haven't found the need to build trading posts. My biggest and really my only issue was starting my expansion too late. I'm going to submit this though, just in case I don't have the energy for a second attempt.

 

[vadalaz]

Just curious, how much gold are you getting from Tithe? Also, trading post vs mine is actually closer than I thought. Ignoring the base tile yield of 2 hammers, a mine gets you an additional 2 hammers, while the trading post gets you 4 gold. With modifiers:

Mine:
2 hammers * (100% + 10% Workshop + 10% Factory + 10% Windmill + 5% Liberty + 20% Golden Age) = 3.1 hammers per turn, or an extra university in 52 turns in that city.

Trading post:
(3 gold + 1 Golden Age) * (100% + 25% Market + 25% Bank + 33% Stock Exchange) = 7.32 gold per turn, or an extra university in 54 turns in any city.

 

[Bleidraner]

Just curious, how much gold are you getting from Tithe? Also, trading post vs mine is actually closer than I thought. Ignoring the base tile yield of 2 hammers, a mine gets you an additional 2 hammers, while the trading post gets you 4 gold. With modifiers:

Mine:
2 hammers * (100% + 10% Workshop + 10% Factory + 10% Windmill + 5% Liberty + 20% Golden Age) = 3.1 hammers per turn, or an extra university in 52 turns in that city.

Trading post:
(3 gold + 1 Golden Age) * (100% + 25% Market + 25% Bank + 33% Stock Exchange) = 7.32 gold per turn, or an extra university in 54 turns in any city.

Vadalaz is the hammers calculation right for mines? After Chemistry isn't it higher? Feels like 6.2 hammers to me.

 

[vadalaz]

I'm only counting the improvement bonus, which is 2 base hammers after Chemistry. Both trading post and mine keep the base 2 hammers from being a hill tile, which is another 3.1 with modifiers. The total yield of a mine is 6.2 hammers yes, and total yield of a trading post is 3.1 hammers & 7.32 gold. Theocracy increases that to 8.32 gold, Commerce bonus in capital plus Theocracy makes it 9.32.

It's turn 329, almost finished expanding and it looks like I'll have ~125 cities in total. edit: nevermind, I calculated wrong, it'll be 161 cities actually. Will place the last one on t335. I have 2500gpt and a ~30 happiness safety net. Things are looking good I think. The only problem is science, but it should be very good by t400.

 

[Mesix]

I'm having a lot of fun with this game. I didn't get an optimal start, but I am really steam rolling towards the finish. My early was a bit because I wared early and kept too many puppets (should have only kept capitals). I conquered all by Sweden by about turn 150-175 IIRC. I played with 4 cities and a bunch of puppets until about turn 250 when I expanded to 8 built cities and annexed 2 of the better puppets. I really started expanding between turn 300-350.

At turn 350, my policies are Full Tradition, Liberty, Piety, and Commerce. Opened Rationalism and Patronage. I have 5 policies in Freedom.