+% Gold and +% sci buildings, how to set up a efficient configuration.

[kossin]

Early: science [cheaper, gold available vs. empire cost is huge]
Middle: gold [since you now have so many science multipliers, you get to a point where 1g has more value than 1b as 1g gives more commerce than 1b through your multipliers]
Late: equal, pick the best return on your hammer investment. [or hammer multipliers... much better]

That being said, if you can keep your slider at 100%, only science. The moment it goes down, gold becomes better.

 

[uat2d]

%sci buildings are, IMO, more often than not more important than %gold.

I often try to get all science and at least banks in my strongest commerce cities. Markets and Grocers are also useful, specially when you decide to shut your slider down to rush out troops like there's no tomorrow.

 

[RJM]

Actually, its the other way around -- if your is mostly +% modified, that's precisely the time that sources of raw are most useful.

Yes - I realised after I posted that the raw commerce being high or low in the two cities doesn't have an effect on the analysis. As Dirk132 pointed out, the important thing is being able to raise the slider as a result of the extra gold from the merchant. The scientist in your library+academy city is worth about 5 before representation. Your total commerce across your empire has to be pretty low (certainly below 50, perhaps below 30) if this is more than the from a 10% increase in the science rate.

 

[MyOtherName]

Yes - I realised after I posted that the raw commerce being high or low in the two cities doesn't have an effect on the analysis.

It does if the modifiers are different in the cities -- where the is affects whether your empire's modification is skewed towards +% or +%. If you're skewed towards +% (as in your example), then sources of raw are relatively more valuable to you than sources of raw .

That said, I think more often than not (and possibly always -- I haven't done the calculation), if you're considering scientists vs merchants in your best +% city, you go with the scientist. And in your best +% city, you go with the merchant. (unless the difference in is a dominating factor)

As Dirk132 pointed out, the important thing is being able to raise the slider as a result of the extra gold from the merchant. The scientist in your library+academy city is worth about 5 before representation. Your total commerce across your empire has to be pretty low (certainly below 50, perhaps below 30) if this is more than the from a 10% increase in the science rate.

If one merchant is worth an entire 10% raise, then your commerce is pretty low. If you want to see the effects on a macroscopic scale, you have to consider more macroscopic trade-offs, such as a lot of merchants vs. a lot of scientists, or building wealth vs research in a major production city.

 

[RJM]

(The commerce rate)matters) if the modifiers are different in the cities -- where the is affects whether your empire's modification is skewed towards +% or +%. If you're skewed towards +% (as in your example), then sources of raw are relatively more valuable to you than sources of raw .

That said, I think more often than not (and possibly always -- I haven't done the calculation), if you're considering scientists vs merchants in your best +% city, you go with the scientist. And in your best +% city, you go with the merchant. (unless the difference in is a dominating factor)

If one merchant is worth an entire 10% raise, then your commerce is pretty low. If you want to see the effects on a macroscopic scale, you have to consider more macroscopic trade-offs, such as a lot of merchants vs. a lot of scientists, or building wealth vs research in a major production city.

All of which persuades me that building early markets may be more effective than building early libraries once currency has been discovered, but before CoL. (Yes, I know it's a lot more complicated than that - but markets will now have a higher priority as far as I'm concerned.) This in turn helps address the questions raised in the OP's question.

 

[Dirk1302]

^I doubt that:

- library can run scientists which are more useful early game
- Markets are much more expensive, you really need big cities to build them (and make a profit)
- You can run 100% slider between 1 AD and 1000 AD pretty often on failgold and tradegold.

 

[krikav]

The idea is, that you can have one town assigned to wealth, right from when you have researched currency.

In this town, you can skip library, and every other +sci % building.
You instead focus on building only +% gold buildings, and you run merchants there.

The idea with such a city is to keep up at times when failgold/trades/etc is insufficent to keep deficit research going.

 

[vranasm]

The idea is, that you can have one town assigned to wealth, right from when you have researched currency.

In this town, you can skip library, and every other +sci % building.
You instead focus on building only +% gold buildings, and you run merchants there.

The idea with such a city is to keep up at times when failgold/trades/etc is insufficent to keep deficit research going.

sorry but this is nonsense... if we're talking about BtS once you assign building wealth you want to maximize hammers worked. Forget any other multiplier buildings.

@market x library (not probably directed at you)

150H against 90H is big difference. If you're creative you're comparing 150H x 45H even worse.
That's why people always mention you will have more science multipliers then gold, because the game is set up that way with hammers and techs needed for respective building.

 

[krikav]

sorry but this is nonsense... if we're talking about BtS once you assign building wealth you want to maximize hammers worked. Forget any other multiplier buildings.

@market x library (not probably directed at you)

150H against 90H is big difference. If you're creative you're comparing 150H x 45H even worse.
That's why people always mention you will have more science multipliers then gold, because the game is set up that way with hammers and techs needed for respective building.

I don't really understand your answer "once you assign building wealth", since I did not say anything about building wealth,
I did however say: " one town assigned to wealth", and I think this was unclear.
what I mean with this, is to have one town assigned to producing wealth, one way or another. The aproach I presented was by having a market and run two merchants.

I assume that you misunderstod my latest post and I'll try to clarify:

To be more certain, that you will be able to keep up wealth, and to be able to run the science slider at 100%, thereby utilizing your libraries in other towns.
To be sure that you have a sufficient ammount of wealth flowing in, if failgold/trades and the likes are insufficient.

To achieve this, one possible solution (probably inferior and/or uneccesery... but still.), is to have one city assigned to wealth, right from when you have researched currency.
In this city, you can ignore commerce alltogether, and build only +% gold buildings, farm the tiles and run merchants.
This specialization enables you to ignore all +% science buildings in this perticular city, saving you hammers spent on infrastructure.


I also want to second your opinion about the price of markets and libraries, libraries cost 90 hammers and markets 150 hammers, a huge differeance.
Writing also comes before currency, and pursuing a lib-race universities often comes before grocers/banks.
The academy is also worth mentioning. A +50% science building from a great scientist.
The great merchant does not have a similar building.

So yes, I think everyone can take this to heart:
In a regular game, where nothing extraordinary is happening, you WILL have more science +% multipliers, compared to +% gold multipliers. This makes you have a preference for building wealth, above building research.

 

[krikav]

All of which persuades me that building early markets may be more effective than building early libraries once currency has been discovered, but before CoL. (Yes, I know it's a lot more complicated than that - but markets will now have a higher priority as far as I'm concerned.) This in turn helps address the questions raised in the OP's question.

I second Dirks opinion here RJM.
Building alot of markets early will in most realistic settings be a sub-optimal aproach.

 

[vranasm]

@krikav
then we're just basically misunderstanding what one of us means with "town assigned to wealth".

You have to count in the cost of the market into balance sheet. Thus you look at 150H investment without much commerce thus you multiply only the assigned merchants (did I understand you right?), after having market you assign the production queue producing (ideally) 1H/turn.
Did I get you?

you have to compare then with running mines, running Merchant spec is equivalent of running 1 plains mine, so you compare 3 gold from merchant x 4H->4g from plains mine.
In theory you could run grassland hills which are 1F3H thus you get equivalent of 1 merchant in gold, but let you still grow.

Running wealth can be done without further investment after reaching currency. Merchants can be reached through CoL without markets, but if you don't Oracle Col you will typically get Currency before CoL.

There is a lot of variation, so we probably should lay the case. I will go back to the "build market and run merchants from it" scenario.

You have to realize that spending 150 hammers on markets has to be paid back and bring more then just straight building the wealth.

2 merchant specs with market will produce 7.5 gold/turn.
Running 2 plain hills mines on building wealth will produce 8 gold/turn. So in this scenario building market even can't catch up the straight building wealth!
Running 2 grass hill mines produces 6 gold/turn and at the same time 2f/turn. In theory you could get back the initial investment, but those 2f/turn can mean another spec or running another plain hills mine. So in reality you can't catch up here too.

You could have access to forges meaning that those plain hills mine produce 10 g/turn. How can you match up this without running commerce in the city?

The market can pay back it's cost actually only in real commerce cities, which get those science multipliers first though.
So I just don't see here room for "assigned wealth non-commerce city running merchants" as substitute for "hammer cities running building wealth on mines/workshops".

There is one other case which is pretty good for gold multipliers and that is shrined cities with settled GM's, other then real commerce cities.

You could get better gold multipliers before hammer multipliers sooner (banks+grocers x factory+CP), but not sure how to fit it in here.

There is additional benefit of market with happy faces, which can be pretty good, but somehow still aims towards cities with a lot of cottages to have big happy cap to work them all.

Sorry this is a bit longer then I though. I hope you will understand what I had in mind. Maybe you can lay your case after this message, so I can get to you somehow, since I am still not sure if we're comparing apples to apples.

 

[krikav]

@krikav
then we're just basically misunderstanding what one of us means with "town assigned to wealth".

Yes, my wording was indeed poor, not sure how to phrase it though.

You have to count in the cost of the market into balance sheet. Thus you look at 150H investment without much commerce thus you multiply only the assigned merchants (did I understand you right?), after having market you assign the production queue producing (ideally) 1H/turn.
Did I get you?

I think so! The initial hammer investment is interesting. And yes, the only thing that will get multiplied by the market is the assigned merchants.

you have to compare then with running mines, running Merchant spec is equivalent of running 1 plains mine, so you compare 3 gold from merchant x 4H->4g from plains mine.
In theory you could run grassland hills which are 1F3H thus you get equivalent of 1 merchant in gold, but let you still grow.

Sounds about right. The grassland hills are awesome.
(Great People Points are a bonus for the merchants however, but more about this later.)

Running wealth can be done without further investment after reaching currency. Merchants can be reached through CoL without markets, but if you don't Oracle Col you will typically get Currency before CoL.

The ability to produce wealth from hammers, is probably the most awesome technology bonus in the entire game.

There is a lot of variation, so we probably should lay the case. I will go back to the "build market and run merchants from it" scenario.
You have to realize that spending 150 hammers on markets has to be paid back and bring more then just straight building the wealth.

2 merchant specs with market will produce 7.5 gold/turn.
Running 2 plain hills mines on building wealth will produce 8 gold/turn. So in this scenario building market even can't catch up the straight building wealth!
Running 2 grass hill mines produces 6 gold/turn and at the same time 2f/turn. In theory you could get back the initial investment, but those 2f/turn can mean another spec or running another plain hills mine. So in reality you can't catch up here too.

You could have access to forges meaning that those plain hills mine produce 10 g/turn. How can you match up this without running commerce in the city?

This can't be cought up with. It's impossible.

The market can pay back it's cost actually only in real commerce cities, which get those science multipliers first though.

So I just don't see here room for "assigned wealth non-commerce city running merchants" as substitute for "hammer cities running building wealth on mines/workshops".

The market can pay back it's cost in commerce cities IF you have the slider lower than 100% research.

There is one other case which is pretty good for gold multipliers and that is shrined cities with settled GM's, other then real commerce cities.
You could get better gold multipliers before hammer multipliers sooner (banks+grocers x factory+CP), but not sure how to fit it in here.

This fits like a glove. This would be a ideal spot for me to build a market asap, since I know I will need it eventually in this city.
This would be a good example of a city where I would run spec merchants. And this would be the place to settle Great Merchants as well.
Even if you don't have a shrine, this would be the idea. Settle great merchants here (if possible). Build all +% gold buildings and eventually wallstreet.

This also paves the way for a nice corpration headquarter.
And since all focus is on wealth in this city, there will be little commerce and all +science buildings can be safely ignored, saving hammers.

There is additional benefit of market with happy faces, which can be pretty good, but somehow still aims towards cities with a lot of cottages to have big happy cap to work them all.

From experience, I have seldom had good use of the market as a happy-building.
One game I had all four resources, which made things interesting, but other than such extreme examples, the happy bonus is just a bonus, imo.

Sorry this is a bit longer then I though. I hope you will understand what I had in mind. Maybe you can lay your case after this message, so I can get to you somehow, since I am still not sure if we're comparing apples to apples.

I am glad that it is longer than you thought. Longer usually leaves less room for missunderstandings. I think I get your point. You are making a strong case for hammer-economy with forges and building wealth.
Such a setup is probably in most cases more profitable and efficient compared to specialist merchants, AND it adds more flexibility, since you will have a few production monsters, which can crank out troops and wonders, when there is need for this.

 

[vranasm]

I consider +3 happy faces from market as ok and worth the build in situation when the city is already at size 10 and could move to size 13, since at that point you usually have already that big production that it is relatively painless building (maybe not optimal ;-), but surely painless).

GM GPP's are usually done through caste in burst GA's.

You will run 0% slider for short amount of times (binary research) so building it in "some" commerce cities should offer long enough time to payback.
Of course the matter is more complicated, because you can limit the 0% slider turns by tech selling, trade missions and military gold.
I would say if you build markets in some 10+ commerce cities you won't hurt yourself much.
But as you can guess, we don't talk here about the time you acquire the technology for markets, but more like 500-1000 AD.

 

[krikav]

I consider +3 happy faces from market as ok and worth the build in situation when the city is already at size 10 and could move to size 13, since at that point you usually have already that big production that it is relatively painless building (maybe not optimal ;-), but surely painless).

GM GPP's are usually done through caste in burst GA's.

You will run 0% slider for short amount of times (binary research) so building it in "some" commerce cities should offer long enough time to payback.
Of course the matter is more complicated, because you can limit the 0% slider turns by tech selling, trade missions and military gold.
I would say if you build markets in some 10+ commerce cities you won't hurt yourself much.
But as you can guess, we don't talk here about the time you acquire the technology for markets, but more like 500-1000 AD.

I second all of your opinions.

I still have too little experience in GA-bursting of great people. Have to play around more with this.

 

[ReyLuis]

the problem with settled merchants is that it's generally not the biggest bang for the buck. trade missions can easily give 1500, even on pangea maps. On continent or arch maps, I've gotten 2700 on emperor.

it takes 100 turns for the settled merchant to catch 1500 in gold, though the calculation is more complicated than that, because of the food and any rep beakers you get.

I almost never settle GP - prophets (and generals, of course), but I have found that the bonuses from Golden ages or even bulbing outweigh the settling.

Just my quick 2 pence worth: I agree with the bulbing - I used to settle all my GS in my Cap/Oxford City but find that bulbing is much more effective, especially at the higher levels. To a degree the GM gold sums above can generally translate over to GS (albeit of a lesser scale until you get too 1500+ beaker techs). Also, as mentioned above, saving a GM for Sid Sushi (if you can spare or wait that long LOL) is a very VERY good thing to do

For me, generally, seperate science and gold cities work vey well indeed - although there's nothing wrong with having a combined gold and science monster city if the map dictates so.

 

[MyOtherName]

From experience, I have seldom had good use of the market as a happy-building.
One game I had all four resources, which made things interesting, but other than such extreme examples, the happy bonus is just a bonus, imo.

It's worth comparing to the other options though. If you're going to build a building, then a market with just 2 resources is still more -efficient than temples (without spiritual) or colosseums (0% slider and without creative). With 3 resources, a market isn't much more expensive than Spiritual temples and Creative colosseums.

 

[Gwynnja]

It's worth comparing to the other options though. If you're going to build a building, then a market with just 2 resources is still more -efficient than temples (without spiritual) or colosseums (0% slider and without creative). With 3 resources, a market isn't much more expensive than Spiritual temples and Creative colosseums.

Strictly for the added happiness, sure. But temples and colosseums don't add +25% to the gold slider.

 

[goldys_lackey]

Is it more efficient to run priests (for hammers+coin) in your shrine city (or soon to be shrine city) while building wealth?

Or inversely, if there is a shrine across the map, run merchants in a GP farm and do trade missions there?

 

[krikav]

It's worth comparing to the other options though. If you're going to build a building, then a market with just 2 resources is still more -efficient than temples (without spiritual) or colosseums (0% slider and without creative). With 3 resources, a market isn't much more expensive than Spiritual temples and Creative colosseums.

Quoted for truth, one have to weight all benefits against costs. If market is the most cost efficient way to gaining happiness, then that is the way to go.

 

[krikav]

Is it more efficient to run priests (for hammers+coin) in your shrine city (or soon to be shrine city) while building wealth?

Or inversely, if there is a shrine across the map, run merchants in a GP farm and do trade missions there?

From what I have understod about trade missions, it doesn't matter if there is a shrine in the target city. What matters is how big the target city is, and how far away from your capital (?) it is.

Running priests will probably be less efficient, in almost any situation. 1 hammer that gets convertet to 1 gold is 2 gold.
2 gold is less than 3 gold.