G-Major LIX

[Cromagnus]

Yeah, I'm in agreement about Aesthetics. Looking at the vanilla social policy chart (which might be out of date for BNW) I see the following. Let's assume a typical growth and policy pattern: 1 tradition+3 liberty with one city. (free settler)

4 policies with one city:
25+45+90+160: 320

Then let's assume you get 4 more policies with only 2 cities (because you capture 2 capitals but don't annex until after you have 4 more tradition policies)

4 policies with 2 cities:
320+450+605+775: 2150

Then let's say you annex those two (to plant universities) somewhere around t120.

4 policies with 4 cities:
1190+1445+1725+2020: 6380

(This would give you all of Liberty + Tradition + 1 Commerce from Oracle)

Then let's assume you capture 4 more capitals. (Total = 2 built, 6 annexed)
4 policies with 8 cities:
4530+5180+5865+6585: 22160

(This gives you 2 more Commerce IE Mercantilism + 4 Freedom from Modern)

Let's assume you get 4 more policies free from the games, the fair, statue of liberty, and Sydney opera house, getting you 3 exploration policies, and 1 more Freedom policy.

So in total you got 4 free policies and earned 16.

Total culture requirement: 31010

So, what's the total culture yield from 4 policies investment in Aesthetics?

Let's assume the happiness culture is trivial. So +33% from world wonders.

Culture in most cities is +20% from Sistine Chapel.

1.53/1.2 = 27.5% more culture.

Improved building speed makes it much easier to get Broadcast Towers in every city by World's Fair. But total benefit is roughly +28%. At an investment of 4 policies.

6 GW = 2100 pts:

Default rate is 7pts/turn, so 300 turns.
With National Epic, Garden & Pisa: +75%
12.25/turn = 171 turns

With Aesthetics: 14/turn = 150 turns. (from the time you complete Writer's Guild)

This yields almost, but not quite, one extra GW.

Getting a 6th Great Writer is unlikely by t250 World's Fair without Aesthetics, but by then it's not quite worth one extra GW, really only 1/2 an extra GW.

So, let's assume you hit world's fair with your 8 cities and roughly base 200 culture/turn. 2x = 400/turn. x8 = 3200.

However, you've got a ton of bonuses in there, from Sistine to Alhambra, etc. etc.

So, in reality, the bonuses from the +33% diminish to more like +20%.

So, instead of 200/turn, you're at 240/turn. 40 x 2 x 20 = 1600 (for 20 turns WF)
40 x 2 x 8 x 6 (6 GW) = 3840. Total extra culture = 5440. In order for those 4 policies to break even, however, you need 32000 extra culture. Even if you had 400/turn base, it wouldn't come close. You'd need at least 1000/turn *base* culture not counting bonuses, for it to break even *in time for an early World's Fair*.

So, it's not worth it for a T2xx world's fair.

However, it probably IS worth it for a t350ish world's fair... by then aesthetics gives you at least 2 free GW, and the total culture bonus from 30 cities with a wonder + broadcast tower is probably massive. But IMHO, you can't get away with a T350ish World's Fair on a Standard Map. There are too many cities to still be placing cities that late. Maybe there's some scenario that works, like 50 cities all kept small enough to break even on happiness, but all with broadcast towers, with all landmarks worked, etc..

By then it works out, because your base culture/turn is well over 2000! So the extra policies you got for 32000 don't seem so bad. But how much is a new policy with 50 cities and 20 policies (you'd have 20 by then)

...
well, if that chart is to be believed, it's 58000 culture roughly. For ONE new policy. So, how much would our World's Fair have to generate to generate even 4 extra policies? Well, 2k/turn with bonuses is roughly 3k... x2 = 6k/turn. x20 turns = 120k. *8 per GW * 10 GW: 480,000. So, the total bonus is 600k, which at that point buys 8 more policies.

This late World's Fair might net you a few more policies, but I think that really only works on a Small Map. (Where you can make up the difference with cargo ships when you plant cities between t350 and t410)

With a Standard map there are just two many cities to play catch-up. It's IMHO better to be missing a few happiness policies at the end and have peak population in every city.

Maybe.

 

[vadalaz]

The chart is indeed out of date, I'm pretty certain the first 4 policies at one city cost 25, 30, 60 and 105 culture, so they're cheaper than the chart says. On the one hand that does work in favor of Aesthetics because you'll need less extra culture to break even, on the other hand it means that getting all the policies you really need is easier anyway so Aesthetics could be overkill. Didn't you have like 48 policies in your game? I had 38 at the time I quit I believe. Despite a 10-city start and ~40 cities by t250. To be fair I did have Pagodas though, I'd say they played a bigger role than Aesthetics.

 

[Mesix]

I keep reading about delaying World's Fair, but to me it makes sense to take World's Fair as early as possible, preferably before expanding. The more cities you control, the more expensive social policies become, so the benefit of delaying is offset quite a lot. I think an earlier World's Fair with only four cities (plus AI capital puppets which do not raise the cost of policies) is probably better than putting it off.

I'd be curious to know how many policies people are getting by the end of the game with different approaches.

In my case, my not so optimal game has resulted in full Tradition, Liberty, Piety, Commerce, and Rationalism along with 7 policies in Freedom and the openers of Patronage, Exploration, and Aesthetics (to build the wonders) by turn 430. I should get probably 2 more policies in the last 70 turns of the game.

 

[vadalaz]

I agree the World's Fair should come early, but not as early as possible. After playing this game, I think that a good way to approach it is to play it like warry Diplo, except with unfinished Rationalism, some more focus on culture and policy management, a somewhat delayed World's Fair, and rapid expansion after it's finished. That's how I'll play the next Time gauntlet, provided it's not a Standard/Standard one or I get a better computer.

Assuming T140 Printing Press
+ 30 turns to pass culture from world wonders
+ 25 turns to pass culture from landmarks
+ 20 turns to pass World's Fair
+ 20 turns World's Fair is active. Burn GWs, get all the policies.
(+ some turns for the voting and era changing)

= ~T215 is when you can get a very juicy World's Fair, on T235 it ends, and this is probably when you want to start the "real" expansion. You could pass natural wonder culture first too, but even if you have one in your borders, it's not that much culture. Not even close to what world wonders and landmarks give you. So it just delays the World's Fair and your expansion for a negligible amount of culture. That's another mistake I made in my game.

If you have 10 cities when you start expanding on T235, and go at a rate of 2 new cities a turn, you'll have 160 cities by T310. So you get another 190 turns to grow them all. That's more than enough time for that. 2 cities a turn is pretty fast though, but even if you go at 1 city per turn you'll have 160 cities on T385, which isn't optimal but should still be good enough to grow all the cities to a respectable size.

By T235 you can have most (or all) of the tech tree finished, at least the important techs for sure. Which policies to get before the World's Fair is a more interesting question, clearly you want fast Secularism for a good PP time and just good science in general. Full Tradition also benefits science. Liberty's most useful policy pre-WF for a tall game is probably the -33% off the social policy cost increase for expanding. Universal Suffrage obviously. Commerce is good, Exploration is good, maybe finishing Rationalism too. You also have to make sure you can get Reformation during the World's Fair, so that you get the ability to buy more GWs.

Actually maybe you don't even need the landmark culture. I suppose it's a very good idea to get it if you plan to have the Universal Suffrage expansion stage to ~20 cities like Cromagnus suggests. If you stay on 10 cities, I dunno. Might not get that many sites within your borders. Though Great People improvements also work.

 

[Cromagnus]

Ok, I've looked around and I can't find an updated culture cost chart anywhere, so I'm making my own by creating a scenario where you start with 200k culture/gold.

Yes, I was proposing a post-Universal Suffrage expansion to 20 cities with the idea of capturing 20 landmarks. This would roughly double culture output with the +culture from landmarks. This might delay technology too much though. But you need to expand to the new world with multiple cities ASAP anyway to a) secure all luxes, b) do more CS quests, c) get religion spread going.

So it's probably worth expanding at least 2 cities (ie size 10) to the new world.

Anyway, as soon as I can get this stupid scenario to load correctly I'll provide an updated policy chart with 1,2,4,6,8,10,20,30 and 50 cities.

I agree that Secularism is very valuable. I'm not convinced on Piety, but even so, I'm still not sure one can afford to take Secularism before the expansion begins... I mean, 2 policies of Rationalism + 4 of Piety, that's the difference between having every good happiness policy and not having them. Can't you make up the tech later? This is why I obsess over the optimal World's Fair. You need way too many policies to just do it ASAP. But you still have to do it ASAP.

EDIT: Ok, I can't do it all right now but here are a few of the charts:

All of the below are for 24 policies:

1 city (not taking Representation) =
25/30/60/105/170/255/355/475/615/775/955/1150/1365/1600/1855/2125/2415/2730/3055/3405/3755/4160/4565/4990
= 40990 culture

2 cities (no Representation) =
25/35/65/115/185/280/390/525/680/855/1050/1265/1500/1760/2040/2340/2660/3000/3360/3745/4150/4575/5020/5490
= 45110 culture

4 cities (Placing 2nd city after free settler than taking Representation ASAP, then placing 2 more cities) =
25/30/60/105/185/280/420/565/730/915/1125/1355/1610/1890/2190/2510/2850/3220/3605/4020/4450/4905/5385/5885/6410
= 54725 culture

As you can see, the total culture cost increase per city for 24 policies is ~11% per city with Representation.

The total culture for the last 4 policies (assuming you needed 4 extra due to Aesthetics) is 22585, which is 41% of the total culture needed. So it doesn't double the culture cost, but that's still a lot of culture to break even from taking aesthetics.

My takeaway from this: Going wide = good, Aesthetics = bad.

If memory serves, once you have Representation, the culture penalty per city is 10% vs 15% without Representation. That math kind of works out. For the 24th policy, the base cost with 1 city (4490) = .7 * the base cost with 4 cities (6410)...

However, the math shouldn't quite work out that way. A ratio of 7:10 is just wrong. With 3 extra cities, the ratio should be either 10:13 or 11:14.

With technology, even the capital counts towards the "extra" cost. IE, cost with 1 city = 105% of base. Cost with 4 cities = 120% of base.

With culture, if it were like that, then cost with 1 city would be 110% of base, and 140% of base with 4 cities. If, alternatively, the first city doesn't count, then the cost with 4 cities should be 130% of base. Which would result in a ratio of 10:13 or 0.76, not 0.7.

It *looks* like with a ratio of 7:10, then the cost of each additional city is 14%. (Total cost difference with 4 cities is 42.8%)

So, maybe the online info about it being 10%/city is no longer true as of BNW. (Base 15%, 10% with representation)

Looking at the difference between the policies without Representation for 1 and 2 cities, it looks like the increase is more like 10% per city *without* representation.

Yet the difference is clearly *more than 10%*.. because *with* Representation, that 4th city takes the cost up 33% or 11%/city.

So I'm thoroughly confused. Also, keep in mind culture costs are rounded to a multiple of 5. So that skews some of the percentages. Still, by the time you get to 50k spent, it tends to average out correctly.

I think I need to go back and test the cost of policies with Representation and ONE city, and 2 & 4 cities WITHOUT representation. Hopefully to isolate the ACTUAL cost of an additional city, because that definitely determines the optimal number of cities.

Just like with science, going wide eventually loses steam the wider you go but adds value for quite some time.

Each new city has to contribute an amount = to the total tech/culture cost increase.

The 21st city takes your tech cost to 205%. But that's only an increase of 1/40. Assuming you capital generates 2x the tech of every other city, the 21st city contributes 1/22 your total tech. (2/22 for the capital, 1/22 for existing cities)

Since 1/22nd is more than 1/40th, that new city is profitable *once it's up and running*.

Similarly, with culture, assuming a 10% increase per city, the 11th city takes your culture cost to 210%. That's an increase of 1/20. Now, with culture, your capital generates way more than 2 other cities. It's probably more like 5. (Guilds + more Wonders)

So, assuming the capital has a value of 5, then your total culture output is 15, with the new city providing 1/15th of your total culture. Which is more than 1/20th.

This continues to be valuable for a while. With Science, at 41 cities, the cost is 305%. (300->305 is increase of 1/60, 40->41 is an increase of 42->43 or 1/43)

So each city is continuing to add more science than the penalty, but that value is diminishing as you add more cities. By 40 cities, it's not quite adding more value.

With culture, 21 cities is an increase from 300%->310% (or 1/30), but the 21st city is taking total culture from 24->25 for an increase of 1/25th. By that time, we're close to the break-even point, and given that (for a while) new cities generate negative policy growth (until they're as productive as existing cities) I would say that 20 cities is too much. I would wager that somewhere between 10-16 cities, the new cities stop adding value.

And in the context of a Time game, there's only so much time to plant cities and get happiness + science + culture buildings up before you need to pull the trigger on World's Fair.

However, with landmarks in every city and a World Wonder in every city, new cities have a better culture rate when compared with the capital than they do without those two things. So MAYBE Aesthetics works with like 16 cities. But, I think really that's just to break even. I don't think it ADDS free policies at that point.

I'll have to generate more charts, but I'm thinking the optimal number of cities for a World's Fair is somewhere between 8-12.

 

[vadalaz]

I think whether to expand or not depends on the capital/expo cpt ratio.

Say, you have n cities and get all your (n-1) expos to generate x culture. Your capital generates k times the culture your expos do. Your policy cost penalty is (1+0.1n)

So you could say your actual culture generation is (kx+(n-1)x) / (1+0.1n).

Set x = 1, we get the function (k+(n-1))/(1+0.1n).

I'll believe WolframAlpha which tells me the derivative of that is (110-10k)/((n+10)^2). Obviously that's positive at k < 11, 0 at 11 and negative at k > 11. So the function is increasing at k < 11, or in other words the new cities you settle will be adding value as long as your capital isn't outputting >11 times the culture your expos do.

Expos don't generate a ton of culture. There's the liberty opener, monument, pagoda, and potentially a landmark. With Sistine and landmark culture passed that's what, 13-14 cpt? So it seems that if you have a capital with >150 cpt, you shouldn't be expanding to get the most policies out of WF, not even to antiquity sites. Unless you can quickly get all culture buildings up quickly or something.

Maybe getting the Honor policy early isn't a terrible idea. It's 2 culture per city, and you want that policy for the happiness anyway, so it's not like Aesthetics. Makes the expos a bit more useful culture-wise.

 

[Cromagnus]

Landmarks might make it worth expanding a ridiculous amount right before World's Fair.

If you aggressively build archaeologists early, you know where all the good landmarks are before t250. If you then move settlers to those locations and wait to plant them until world's fair starts, you can immediately start working those landmarks.

A landmark in the info era averages 7 culture. +4 for historical landmarks = 11. +4 for New Deal = 15. (Arguable whether New Deal is worth it)

Ok, so let's say you're at 8 cities. (6 annexed capitals, 2 self-built cities)

If each city has full culture, without wonders, you're at:
2 (monument) + 1 (amphitheater) + 1 (opera house) + 1 (museum) + 1 (broadcast tower) + 1 (liberty)
= base 7 * 1.53 (sistine + broadcast tower) = ~10

Assuming a culture cost increase from 8 cities to 16 from 170% to 250%, your net cost increase is 47%.

However, your new cities average 16 + 20% = 19 culture/turn immediately even without a monument.

Now, let's say for the sake of argument that all your existing cities had a wonder (for +2 culture) with an average of +2 culture/wonder base, and don't have landmarks. (Often the case)

So the existing cities had 11 *1.5 = 16 culture/turn. So your new cities immediately generate as much culture on average as your existing cities. (except for the capital)

Let's also assume that the capital was running much higher culture:

culture buildings = 7 culture. 3 guilds = 18 culture. 10 wonders ~= 40 culture. hermitage + sydney opera house + broadcast tower + sistine = +153% culture.
Total = 64*2.5 = 160. You capital is generating as much culture as 10 expos.

However, you're also getting 78 culture/turn from Cultural CS on average.

So with 8 cities, your total culture is 16*7 + 160 + 78 = 350.

Your new cities generate 8*19 = 152. For a 42% increase in total culture. And policies are 47% more than they would be prior to the expansion. So at best we break even.

Now, IF we delayed world's fair until all 8 new cities had broadcast towers and a wonder AND we took 4 pts in aesthetics... (This would be a significant delay)

At this point the capital is generating 192 culture, and your original cities are generating 20, for a total of 192 + 140 + 78 = 410. Your new expos are generating 30 * 1.86 = 56 culture, for a net difference of 446, an increase of 109%.

So, with all the culture policies, a wide empire outpaces the cultural cost of expanding, which *might* make up for wasting policies in Aesthetics. But at what cost? This is 6 culture buildings/expo on top of the science and happiness buildings. How long would this take? I think it puts too much pressure on the build queue and delays World's Fair too long.

So, I conclude that it's best to stay at 8-12 cities until after World's Fair and skip Aesthetics entirely.

Or, "what vadalaz said".

 

[vadalaz]

Does New Deal really work with Landmarks? I thought it was for Great Person improvements only.

Anyway, my calculation for expo culture was a bit off then. I estimated landmarks at 5 culture and thought historical sites was +2... But if a landmark is ~11 culture, and you add a monument, pagoda, liberty, plus Sistine's 20%, you get a city with 19 culture pretty much instantly, even without New Deal. Throw in the Honor policy, that's 22 culture. Pretty good.

The CS allies and puppets don't increase the policy cost penalty so their cpt can be added to the capital's for simplicity. So, assuming a 22 culture expo, the capital+puppets+CSs would have to be generating at least 11*22=242 culture for the expo to not be worth settling. Which they probably will, unless you get no cultural CSs or have trash puppets or a weak capital I suppose.

But yeah, few self-founded cities with a kickass capital, some nice puppets, no Aesthetics. Seems to be the way to go. Culture-wise, at least.

 

[Cromagnus]

Does New Deal really work with Landmarks? I thought it was for Great Person improvements only.

Anyway, my calculation for expo culture was a bit off then. I estimated landmarks at 5 culture and thought historical sites was +2... But if a landmark is ~11 culture, and you add a monument, pagoda, liberty, plus Sistine's 20%, you get a city with 19 culture pretty much instantly, even without New Deal. Throw in the Honor policy, that's 22 culture. Pretty good.

The CS allies and puppets don't increase the policy cost penalty so their cpt can be added to the capital's for simplicity. So, assuming a 22 culture expo, the capital+puppets+CSs would have to be generating at least 11*22=242 culture for the expo to not be worth settling. Which they probably will, unless you get no cultural CSs or have trash puppets or a weak capital I suppose.

But yeah, few self-founded cities with a kickass capital, some nice puppets, no Aesthetics. Seems to be the way to go. Culture-wise, at least.

Yeah, I know that landmarks in my last game were spitting out 14+ culture, because I was planting a city, rush-buying a landsknecht and seeing base 17cpt immediately. (1 for city, 2 for landsknecht, 14 for landmark).. with the 20% in all cities from Sistine Chapel, this gets boosted to +20 immediately... which is pretty awesome)

New Deal is Landmarks + Great Person Improvements, and just like Historical Landmarks, it's +4.

Regarding puppets: Can you really afford to wait to annex that long? I mean, you run the risk of hotels getting built, you lose some key happiness and tech buildings, not to mention all the culture buildings...

I guess if you time it right, you can bulb Penicilin + Ecology and use a GE to rush Sydney right at the start of World's Fair, and then you aren't at risk of your puppets building hotels before you annex. And you can live without Stadiums and Medical Labs until then. But I think annexing as soon as you have all the National Wonders is probably the right call... you want pagodas, Wonders, you need to limit growth to the supported happiness...

I mean, I see your point though. 6 puppet capitals are saving you +60% culture cost... even if you started with 4 cities, that's going from 130% to 190%, which is a 46% increase in culture costs, and there's clearly no way those puppets will generate that kind of culture once annexed, especially when your capital and CS are generating most of your culture.

I just don't know if it's wise to delay annexing that long... I mean, it really limits how fast you can build all the wonders, spit out archaeologists, etc. etc..

EDIT: Also, as a side note, archaeological sites are great way to start the mass expansion IMHO, and a great target for cargo ships. You want those sites to grow faster because their cultural boundaries expand rapidly. Normally a city will outgrow its boundaries if you send a cargo ship. Or at least it'll outgrow the useful tiles.

AND IMHO there's a real benefit to distributing your first wave of new cities evenly around the world. Those fast growing cities will cap out first and make great bases of operations for spawning settlers, workers, units and work boats without paying for long travel times. And because at first each new city is producing high culture, they don't slow policy gain as much. This is especially useful if you complete Exploration, because you can get the equivalent of GW out of the hidden sites.

In fact, now that I think about it, completing Exploration prior to World's Fair leads to about 2-3 free policies... which pays for itself. Hmm. That may be a worthwhile investment. Only 2 of the policies are really wasted, so it probably ends up equating to a free policy, and leaves you with more options for planting cities that don't slow policy gain.

 

[vadalaz]

I think you're right. Annexing does give you more control. The captured capitals were among some of my best cities, they all grew to pop 25 pretty quickly. Puppeting is better culture-wise, I think someone got a Time victory as Venice in the Strategy&Tips deity challenge not too long ago and they had every policy in the end. But culture isn't everything and you don't need that many policies anyway.

 

[Cromagnus]

It just occurred to me that Indonesia would be great at Time Victories. The Candi doesn't require water access, so can be built in every city, in addition to the extra great person bonus and 4 faith. So +2 Happiness/city at zero faith cost.

 

[Bleidraner]

I am not sure I will finish my game, I have not played optimally the first 200 turns, it is clear that you need to tech faster and especially get nice culture going faster. I planted 6 cities and annexed another 4 so with 10 cities you are already impacting a lot of stuff. On the other hand, the wonders that are at risk at the beginning need at least 3-4 planted cities and a captured 4th, with 2 cities only you will lose some early wonders. And it is no good saying I will conquer them when I get then caps, as in my current game there is already a wonder I will lose, as I cannot conquer all the other caps, I need to leave one alive. So I would probably go for a 4 cities + 2 annexed until I am at ideology, do world's fair a little after then and after that conquer by 220 and expand, start by 240.
Another thing that Inam seriously thinking about is to beeline the liberty less culture per new city while doing a 1 city NC or something like that.

In my current game, I struggle with happiness all the time, and tech and culture are slow with the 10 cities. It just does not feel right, but restarting after 200 turns is tough. Although if what you guys are saying about 4 turns per hour is right, I doubt I would finish the game. The only option I see is to move the game to a secondary computer and just play 1 turn every half an hour while I work or take care of the kids or whatever, I cannot afford to put 50 hours in a game.

Seriously I love the discussion in time games, but HATE playing them, but I desperately need a time result for VVV. The only thing I have is a tiny, duel, quick game that was incredibly boring to finish and it is a disaster of a result. If I have this one in, I will probably never play a time game again.

 

[Cromagnus]

I am not sure I will finish my game, I have not played optimally the first 200 turns, it is clear that you need to tech faster and especially get nice culture going faster. I planted 6 cities and annexed another 4 so with 10 cities you are already impacting a lot of stuff. On the other hand, the wonders that are at risk at the beginning need at least 3-4 planted cities and a captured 4th, with 2 cities only you will lose some early wonders. And it is no good saying I will conquer them when I get then caps, as in my current game there is already a wonder I will lose, as I cannot conquer all the other caps, I need to leave one alive. So I would probably go for a 4 cities + 2 annexed until I am at ideology, do world's fair a little after then and after that conquer by 220 and expand, start by 240.
Another thing that Inam seriously thinking about is to beeline the liberty less culture per new city while doing a 1 city NC or something like that.

In my current game, I struggle with happiness all the time, and tech and culture are slow with the 10 cities. It just does not feel right, but restarting after 200 turns is tough. Although if what you guys are saying about 4 turns per hour is right, I doubt I would finish the game. The only option I see is to move the game to a secondary computer and just play 1 turn every half an hour while I work or take care of the kids or whatever, I cannot afford to put 50 hours in a game.

Seriously I love the discussion in time games, but HATE playing them, but I desperately need a time result for VVV. The only thing I have is a tiny, duel, quick game that was incredibly boring to finish and it is a disaster of a result. If I have this one in, I will probably never play a time game again.

The first 200 turns is like 10% of the total playtime. If you're going to restart, it's not that much of a waste. But I feel your pain. Hence my whining about the 1x multiplier in VVV.

 

[vadalaz]

It just occurred to me that Indonesia would be great at Time Victories. The Candi doesn't require water access, so can be built in every city, in addition to the extra great person bonus and 4 faith. So +2 Happiness/city at zero faith cost.

Well that's true, plus they get the unique luxuries for another 12 (18 with Commerce) global happiness. But UBs with a direct bonus to happiness are better because you can still get Pagodas and Temple happiness anyway, so they get more happiness than Indonesia in the end.

I was thinking about doing a Time game for the Deity freestyle sometime, not next month though. Maybe a Quick/Small/Inland Sea, something like that.

 

[Cromagnus]

Well that's true, plus they get the unique luxuries for another 12 (18 with Commerce) global happiness. But UBs with a direct bonus to happiness are better because you can still get Pagodas and Temple happiness anyway, so they get more happiness than Indonesia in the end.

I was thinking about doing a Time game for the Deity freestyle sometime, not next month though. Maybe a Quick/Small/Inland Sea, something like that.

True, The Celts would be better, because they get a 3 happiness building and they don't need a faith pantheon. All that tundra forest is just going to equate to extra faith from trading posts in the end-game. Satrap's Court is probably better than either though... because an Opera House isn't in the build order for all cities, but a Bank is. Plus, Persia is bad-ass at Domination, and fast domination is going to be a key component of a Deity Time game... Assyria might have the best UA for multi-tasking tech + domination on Deity though.

 

[Cromagnus]

Follow-up: Representation doesn't help with one city, so that confirms that the equation is 100% + (X * N) where X is the per-city increase and N is number of cities *not including the capital*.

So with 4 cities, 100% + 3X. But X is not 15/10 like it was in Vanilla.

By comparing the 2-city and 4-city cost to 1-city cost, we can derive the actual cost.

6485 vs 4990 = 1.2999% or 30% increase for 3 extra cities. (4 total)

That's *without Representation*

WITH Representation, the cost increase is 5885. (for the 24th policy)

5885/4990 = 1.179% or 18% increase for 3 extra cities.

So the Vanilla equation doesn't apply. It's 10% per city without Representation, 6% per city with Representation.

6% increase per city means that going wide stays profitable much longer than I thought. It's roughly equivalent to the tech increase cost of 5%.

With 11 total cities, the 24th policy is 7985. 7985/4990 = 160%, as expected.

So, logically, for it to be profitable to expand from 4 cities to 11, those 7 additional cities have to generate 160/115 or 40% of your previous culture. Which isn't unreasonable. If the capital generates 150 culture, and the first 3 expos generate 12, and CS generate 78, the previous total would be 264. it's not unreasonable for 7 expos to generate 106 culture. That's only 15 culture, which is basically automatic with a landmark.

Of course, that's to break even, but I think it's worth it for other reasons to be able to expand to 11 total cities prior to world's fair.

To expand to 17 cities before World's Fair is also reasonable.

With 17 cities, the 24th policy would be 96% more, or roughly double. But it's only 196/160 compared to 11 cities, or 22.5% more. So, compared to 11 cities generating 369 culture, you'd only have to generate 452 culture, or 83 more, which would be 83/6 or 13/city.

Based on this, I'd say it's absolutely worth doing a post-Universal Suffrage expansion to at least 15 landmark cities, possibly 20, with the goal of getting Broadcast Towers in each expo before World's Fair. It might be tricky, but it would be a HUGE headstart over a city that hit World's Fair with only 4-8 cities. The tough part would be managing the build order and growth of those new cities. You need culture, science, happiness and specialist buildings up ASAP. This might be the only limiting factor on it. You can't rush-buy it all, and focusing on happiness will delay getting culture and science buildings up. Not taking at least 2 pts in Aesthetics will greatly slow those culture buildings going up. With a smaller empire, say 10-12 cities, you might have enough happiness cushion to beeline the science and culture buildings before happiness & specialists.

I'm going to have to try this out of curiosity, but I will likely not be making an actual submission either way.

 

[vadalaz]

I see. Changing the penalty to (1+0.06n) means a positive derivative at k < 17.6, so the (capital + CS + puppets (if any)) would have to be generating roughly 18 times more culture than a landmark expo for the expo to not be worth it, or 360 for a 20 cpt expo, which takes no time at all to develop: monument + pagoda + liberty + landmark + Sistine's 20% = 19.2 cpt.

 

[Bleidraner]

OK screwed up. Obsessed with the fact that there was 1 wonder I did not have, I went to liberate Amsterdam from Attila, and forgot that you win domination the instant you conquer all cap, does not allow you until the end of the turn to liberate. Anyway, I think I was not playing this optimally, so may restart, I am not very motivated by the culture game in the minor. And I think there is enough time. Maybe.

 

[Cromagnus]

Ouch man, I've wasted an attempt that way myself, when I incorrectly thought I had already gifted Attila another capital, and then captured Attila's Court.

(I had a spy in his capital and I was capturing to interrupt/prevent him from building a wonder I was delaying... Globe Theatre, to maximize # of great writers)

 

[Mesix]

I played up to turn 450 now and the score is really starting to snowball.

I am generating about 1200 gold per turn, 2400 culture per turn, 7000+ science per turn, and 450 faith per turn IIRC.

I have settled every usable spot on the map and have started to send settlers to one tile islands for extra cities. I rush buy production buildings because then build growth and happiness buildings very fast (cheaper than buying growth and happiness buildings). Happiness is not a problem at all as I am hovering around 100 happiness (sometimes down to 70 sometimes up to 110) as I settle/conquer cities and build happiness buildings. My population increases in about 30 to 40 cities each turn (rotating of course). My faith has been enough to get Pagodas in most cities shortly after religion spreads.

I have started to conquer the CS at turn 430 (4 captured at this point and am currently at war with 4 more). I took the military cities first, now the religious and the cultural. I am saving the happiness and growth CS for last.

After a slow start with research, I was able to finish the tech tree by about turn 350 and have been getting FT every 6 turns or so since then.

Sweden is the only remaining AI player. He has 3 wonders IIRC. Gifting him a different capital to take his city with 3 wonders would probably net a lower score than just letting him keep them at this point.