Gator02 - Learning to Walk

[Bezhukov]

We have a nice supply of seafood, unfortunately, the capital is not allowed to double those via harbor, being inland. We're missing two of the three granary resources, and I don't see many of the grocer ones either...

Food bonuses are great tiles to work, but just grow you into unhappiness/unhealthiness if you don't have the resoruces to support them. Using slavery judiciously lets you get full advantage out of all that extra food.

 

[Bezhukov]

With slavery, the cities grow twice as fast with whipped granaries (that's the first thing you whip in cities without border pressure, O/W theater). How else do you rush things? Chops can only take you so far, and I doubt you'll be researching democracy.

I'm getting a better idea what you're doing with CS - hiring merchants in conquered cities. Markets can usually be whipped with 4 pop or so, though I rarely do so as I'm doing other things with the citizens than hiring them as merchants, especially with a financial civ. If we take care to get granaries first, the pop should grow sufficiently to also whip granaries and have more valuable merchants hired in about 15-20 extra turns.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

The main reason I'd like to get monarchy is we're almost there already, having already researched priesthood.

Researching Mono first will knock another 90 beakers (20%) off the cost of Monarchy, so it will be a pretty cheap tech for us as well.

Re: Slavery
I am swayed by some of your arguements for slavery in this game. Going with Drama and rushing theatres, for instance, may well work and not delay our victory. It is obvious that you think the civic quite powerful, and I am curious, so I am willing to try it out as a result. I like to know all the strategies available and how they can be used.

To be perfectly honest, though, I don't think it is the way to a fast domination. In your arguements for slavery, you are talking about building theatres, granaries and markets. I just can't visualize how all those structures can be built in conquered cities and us reach domination in the same amount of time we can by not building them, jumping straight to military production, and going with Caste System. Now, if there is a strategy out there that uses Slavery but doesn't build all those buildings, that I could see as a good way to reach domination quickly. I would love to find that strategy.

I agree that getting 3 hammers for a food would be a good trade. But I am not sure the trade is going to be that simple. For example, if we take 3 happiness resources near the beginning of our war, we are looking at conquered cities that could support populations of around 12 people, all happy. If we used slavery in those cities, we would be killing off citizens that would otherwise be working AI-built cottages and such. I think most of the cities we take will be very happy ones like the ones I am describing, so I'm not sure how often we will be able to use the whip to our advantage without hurting our economy.

Taking a bunch of small, undeveloped cities that don't produce income will wreck an economy, and I fear that whipping a large productive city down to a small size will have the same result. The income from those large, productive captured cities plays a huge role in how I pay for the rapidly rising maintenance and civic costs that come with a quick domination.

So there is my long-winded-as-usual arguement. Do you think we can use Slavery and still reach domination in a comprable amount of time? For reference purposes, I am expecting us to win this game by turn 200, or 1400 AD. If you say "yes", then I really, really wan't to try Slavery in this game.

I actually would like to just try it out in order to learn Slavery's strengths and weaknesses regardless of whether it leads to fast domination or not, because you have convinced me it is something I need to learn how to use and you know how to use it. However, I also think Bede, Leif and Gator want me to show them the quickest way I know to reach domination, so I want to do that as well. I don't think I can do that if we go with Slavery or build lots of structures.

Edit:

With slavery, the cities grow twice as fast with whipped granaries (that's the first thing you whip in cities without border pressure, O/W theater). How else do you rush things? Chops can only take you so far, and I doubt you'll be researching democracy.

It is highly likely, however, that one of our first targets will be the Pyramids.

 

[Bezhukov]

Cash rushing is VERY pricey, and kind of defeats the purpose of running all those merchant specialists, doesn't it?

I can't really say how it impacts fast domination, as I've never done that myself, so I'll take your word that CS is good for that - I was actually wondering what it was for. I have no qualms with using it in this game, though I will be very impressed to see a fast domination win from an isolated start like ours.

The unhappiness of whipping is usually a non-factor, and if you take care to work high growth tiles after whipping the granary, you don't lose the pop for long, but I do use it primarily as a way to get new cities up to speed quickly and to get better (excellent, actually, whipping the National Epic, for instance) use out of island cities with seafood.

If we are going for the pyramids and planning to run CS, I'd think Representation would be the gov of choice, although that choice seems to me suboptimal for a financial civ with its unusually lucrative citizens.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

I can't really say how it impacts fast domination, as I've never done that myself, so I'll take your word that CS is good for that - I was actually wondering what it was for. I have no qualms with using it in this game, though I will be very impressed to see a fast domination win from an isolated start like ours.

[Pompous, Wine-induced Overconfidence]Then prepare to be impressed my fine Bezhukov. Prepare to be impressed indeed.[/Pompous, Wine-induced Overconfidence]

Actually, Police State will be the gov. of choice. Remember, with this gameplan science will likely be turned off at that point, or very close to being turned off.

 

[Obormot]

lurker's comment:
Very interesting discussion about slavery vs. CS. In my current game as the japanese i'm also at the point where i have to make such a decision. The problem is that i played many openings, but never completed a game of civ4 yet, so i don't really know how hard it is to keep the economy alive in conquest mode. Slavery without building many structures, but just rushing barracks and units seems to be the fastest way, but with lots of small cities and no merchants the economy is likely to collapse... Maybe i'll try that, but sounds a little risky (would have been pefect for conquest if we had the opportunity to abandone cities) As for slavery with lots of infra such as granaries and markets vs CS - i'll trust Bradleyfeanor that CS leads to faster domination (and that is my gut feeling too).

 

[Gaspar~]

Lurker comment:

Well, I'm sure the reason this is such a debate because I really don't understand the finer points of GOTM-style domination, but my thought here...

Slavery is not always the best option, but it is almost always the best option in the early game. Wouldn't the easier play be to use Slavery early to help get infra in your core cities, then switch to Caste when you go to war, where Caste System is definitely the best wartime choice (well, it is expensive, if its a late game war I'd just run Emancipation, but that's not what you're doing here.) I know you want to minimize anarchy, but you're likely going to be making a couple more civic changes along the way anyway and could just piggy-back that.

If caste is important in the peaceful run-up, I'd be especially curious to see that, I haven't seen much of it run heavy other than to pop borders and stave off bankruptcy when you overexpand.

 

[DJMGator13]

Good discussion. I wish I had something of value to add to it.

I haven't started to play yet. After the Gators lost I felt more like killing some thing so I played some in COTM21. I'll play these turns tomorrow.

 

[Methos]

lurker's comment: Though I'm also not that knowledgeable on Slavery and would enjoy learning more about it, I agree with going with Caste System. My reason is to learn more of Brad's war tactics. I'm not good at all with warmongering, so please feel free to explain as much as possible on your moves and motives.

Also please keep up the discussions as they are very enlightening. I'm really enjoying this game. And I also agree that maybe afterwards you all should start up a second game going a totally different route to explain and learn the differences.

Great game everyone, and excellent discussions!

 

[Bezhukov]

Before we decide, I'd like Brad to check one thing. Load up a save from one of your fast dom games, played with a non-organized civ, and note the upkeep cost of CS, then compare with slavery. Wonder if you're hiring merchants to pay for the privelege of hiring them...

BTW, slavery is even cheaper than the default civic, so can be worth changing to when making another civic change, even if you never whip.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

Slavery is not always the best option, but it is almost always the best option in the early game. Wouldn't the easier play be to use Slavery early to help get infra in your core cities, then switch to Caste when you go to war, where Caste System is definitely the best wartime choice

With everything I am learning about Slavery here, this sounds like it might be a strong option to me too. We might actually be able to get off this rock sooner if we use the whip: I can't say for sure though since I haven't played that way yet.

This is how I see it (and I hope others will chime in on all this, because I am in uncharted waters):

Since these cities will be needing a few more buildings than those we will be conquering offshore, and they will be gaining the benefits of those buildings for a long time, Slavery might work out well. Most of our cities on this continent will need a library, a lighthouse, a barracks, a courthouse, and a forge.

If we want the great 3:1 hammer/food return that Bez mentioned (and I think we do ), then we will have to add a granary to the list. But adding one 60 hammer building to what is already a pretty long list of structures is no big deal.

The problem is that the limiting factor right now on how quick we can reach the other continent/win the game, is research, not production. So we will need to be very careful with our use of the whip. Every time a player considers using it, he is going to have to ask "will using the whip in this case result in us getting more research and reaching the other continent sooner." I think in most cases that will mean that we want to take advantage of "overgrowing" our cities into unhappiness (see one of Bez's earlier posts for a description of that) and using those unhappy people for the shields. If we were to use the whip in cities that are not over the happiness limit and growing quickly, then we would most likely be losing citizens that would be working a lucrative coast tile or a cottage, and that would definitely hurt us in the long run.

I think the short term trade-off we will be making by going with slavery instead of caste will be about 10 beakers of research per turn (and I can break down were I came up with that number if you guys want me to), and around 6 GP points per turn, although it will be more than that if we continue in Slavery after the National Epic is done. Hopefully we can overcome that 10bpt deficit by using our "extra unhappy people" to get libraries up sooner. My biggest concern is that we will end up having less people total working the coast and cottage tiles, so we must be very careful.

I think we should try it. Slavery first, then switch to caste when it looks like it is time. I would really like to find out how often we can use the whip to our advantage. And if it doesn't work out, we can always switch over to caste at that point. One additional turn of anarchy wont kill us.

A very important question: Once we have forges, how many hammers would we get for a whip, 30 or 37?

Before we decide, I'd like Brad to check one thing. Load up a save from one of your fast dom games, played with a non-organized civ, and note the upkeep cost of CS, then compare with slavery. Wonder if you're hiring merchants to pay for the privelege of hiring them...

BTW, slavery is even cheaper than the default civic, so can be worth changing to when making another civic change, even if you never whip.

I can tell you what it will be without looking. Caste System will usually cost around 50gpt near the end of a game with a non-org. Civ on a standard map. Sometimes I will only be running around 15 merchants, so Caste would be costing me 5 gold, and other times I might have 40 merchants and turning a profit of around 70 gold. But the money from the merchants isn't the only thing that Caste System is doing for me at that point in the game. It has also been helping to generate Great People, and most important of all, it helps me to get each new city into troop production in the shortest amount of time. No theatres, granaries or stuff like that is required.

 

[leif erikson]

As I was reading your post, I came to the same conclusion you did concerning overgrowing our cities. If we use the whip the turn they go into unhappines, then I think it will be useful. Of course, this depend how many citizens get "whipped" and how quickly they can be replaced and how many turns they are not working a tile. Your caution about overuse is very valid, imho.

As this isn't a GOTM, I agree we should try it and evaluate the experiment. If we finish 10 turns later, we will know why and the principals we use will be the same and we will have learned them. Perhaps we will be able to apply them in another game, if everyone has the time.

@Brad - While you do not need to go through the whole explaination on my account of where we will lose the 10 Beakers per turn now, I would appreciate your keeping that in mind and, as we go, pointing out where we are losing them. It will be easier to see it then for me, if that is possible? Thanks...

 

[Bezhukov]

Its not something I actually have used extensively in cities that have hills to work, though maybe now that I look at the math I should. Where I do use it on pretty much every new city is in whipping the intial granary to double growth, and sometimes to whip the initial workboat to also jumpstart growth for a coastal city. In our case here, it may be worthwhile to whip libraries, then hire two scientists once the city hits its happiness limit to get science jumpstarted.

Depending on how fast the city can recover pop (a pig causes much faster growth than a farmed grassland, for instance), I will sometimes whip forges, as they speed the building of further units/infra and are not cheap themselves.

I'm really struggling to imagine how not going to CS now is going to cost us beakers. CS costs more in upkeep, and to get the benefits, you'd need to take citizens off the land who could be working finance-juiced cottages. Something isn't making sense here.

 

[Bezhukov]

BTW, its generally good practice to send along a worker with each settler to chop a new worker for each city to get its food bonus going quickly. The original worker can then road back to the network.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

@Brad - While you do not need to go through the whole explaination on my account of where we will lose the 10 Beakers per turn now, I would appreciate your keeping that in mind and, as we go, pointing out where we are losing them. It will be easier to see it then for me, if that is possible? Thanks...

That particular 10 beakers was very much a “guesstimate.” Let me explain where the lost beakers will be coming from, and then we can all track how many we may be losing.

The key thing to watch will be the science slider, and the reason we should watch it is because of the bureaucracy/library/academy in our capitol. Each commerce we earn in the capitol can be turned into 2.625 beakers. In our other cities (before libraries go up), 1 commerce = 1 beaker, of course. If we run Caste System, we can hire merchants in our “1 commerce = 1 beaker cities” in order to keep the science slider at 100%. If we go with slavery then we can’t do that.

Here is an example to show how using the slider will result in lost research:

Our capitol will be making over 45 commerce per turn very shortly (as soon as we build three cottages on the river, which we should do ASAP by the way). If we run the economy at 100% science (which we would be if we go with caste system/merchants), we will be making 118 beakers there. That is 73 beakers more than we will generate from the same 45 commerce in cities other than the capitol.

Right now, expenses will require us to run at 80% science if we use Slavery, because we won’t have access to merchants. I am guessing that will go to 70% as we continue to expand. That means the capitol will drop from earning 118 beakers to earning 81 beakers: a loss of 37 beakers. 23 of those beakers are our “bonus” beakers that come from bureaucracy/library/academy.

We won’t actually be losing quite that many though. The cost of running caste system has to be taken into account, as well as the lost city growth due to running Merchants. The latter would not be very much though on this map, because we have lots of food bonuses and cities will reach the happiness limit very quickly.

I have some errands to run right now, but I will try to come up with a formula we can use to calculate our lost beakers later.

 

[Bezhukov]

I C. Very interesting. How quickly do you think we can get Optics running this balls-to-the-wall research? Could be worth it if we can get tech-trading contact 500 years or so sooner than anticipated, as we can beeline up the drama/lit trade and trade for math/currency/metal casting.

I would like to get 4-5 core cities tricked out with infra after contact tho.

 

[DJMGator13]

Looks like a good thing I did not play yesterday, since we're now thinking about going with slavery.

Having not used it I have a question before I play. Looking at Cuzco there are 5 happy and 5 unhappy, we're currently running 2 scientist.

In this case using slavery to poprush will cost us beakers. But if we let the city grow to size 6, I assume that will create a situation were the number of unhappy people is greater than the happy. Does that unhappy person refuse to work or can he be turned into a specialist? If he refuse to work then rushing 1 pop point would not hurt, but if we can make another specialist it would reduce our research.

 

[Bezhukov]

I never whip my capital.

 

[DJMGator13]

We should have selected a Spiritual trait so that we could expirement with the different civics without having the long anarchy periods.

Now I see the discussion heading back to CS vrs Slavery. I think we need to stay focused on research and meeting the other civs in the game and from what I'm seeing that looks to be using CS.

I'll hold off on playing until later today to see if more discussion comes up.

 

[Bezhukov]

Where I'd anticipate using whips:

1. Granaries in all new cities on our continent, this is a big help, as it allows you to grow quickly up to max pop, then to waste minimal time in high-growth mode whenever new happiness/health is acquired, maximizing time in high productivity configuration, whether commerce/production.

2. Libraries in core cities. For a financial civ, limiting ourselves to one productive city just seems suboptimal, especially lacking many of the health resources as we do.

3. Getting seafood cities up to speed, including whipping workboats and lighthouses as necessary. The one SE of the capital most obviously, but as a financial civ, coastal tiles are very worthwhile to work.

4. Once commerce comes in, getting the very pricey markets will be much easier with whips to help, and if we're planning to run CS longterm, they'll pay big dividends, while also providing extra happiness.

I'm willing to go with CS now to see how it works, but I'll be lost without slavery to get new cities going.