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

[krikav]

For the purpose of our discussion, I would like us for simplicity to presume 6 cities.

We want oxford, and the prereqs for oxford is 6 libraries and 6 universities.
Libraries are also a earlier building then market.
Market is more expensive, and is less likely to be built in every city.

Thus we (or at least I) find us in a situation where we have a collection of cities consisting of more +% science, then +% gold.

It then makes sense to keep the science slider up at 100%. And to do this you need wealth, building wealth is a option but I now assume that having a GPF with merchants is a more profitable solution.
A GPF where you pop a lot of great merchants, and you probably settle them there as well, and end up building wallstreet there.

This is one configuration of cities, are there others that are more/equally efficient?


How does the aquirement of great scientists for academies factor into these lines of thoughts? Should you run a couple of scientists in your other cities to get them?

 

[Habitus]

Its generally accepted that since you can get gold in other ways (trading, fail gold, trade missions, and building wealth) that aren't multiplied by the +% gold buildings that having a bias to the +% science buildings is best, with Oxford, Bureaucracy, Academy, Library, and University all powering science in your capitol the most common way.
Building science is the only way that +% science buildings don't affect your science since even in trades your multipling beakers that have gone thru the +% science buildings.

 

[krikav]

Well, if you can get gold from other sources to run deficit research, that is even better, but if you want a balanced economy that works everywhere, even in a isolated start, or in other extreme circumstances, you do want some gold generated, and I would suspect that gold is best obtained with merchant specialists, and probably in a GPF city.


One might also speculate how a totally reversed situation might look, say you have all of the happiness resources and health resources that benefit from the market/grocer.
In such a situation, you would probably lean more toward +% gold buildings, and thus your GPF would probably be designed to pump pure science?

 

[yanner39]

One might also speculate how a totally reversed situation might look, say you have all of the happiness resources and health resources that benefit from the market/grocer.
In such a situation, you would probably lean more toward +% gold buildings, and thus your GPF would probably be designed to pump pure science?

Be careful building these. I rarely build them. I'll have a market maybe in my cap, but that's it. I mean, if you have 2 or 3 of the resources, maybe...But you could probably get happiness elsewhere as well. Maybe building wealth would be a better alternative. I've read some players have a dedicated wealth producing city.

Also, as you move up in levels, gold is easier to come by.

 

[krikav]

I have not noticed gold being easier to come by at higher levels.
Are you speaking of quicker failgold due to AIs building wonders faster?

Markets are extremly expensive, and probably don't belong in most cities.
I was mearly pointing out one extreme scenario, in which a entierly different setup to the "standard" one might be more efficient.
"Play the map", is the axiom one should follow.

 

[ahcos]

If you are running the slider at 0%, and you have your 200 beakers/turn from specialists in your GPF, you don't benefit at all from libraries in any of your commerce cities and you could play more efficiently by focusing on other things than building them.
On the other hand, if you are running with a 100% slider, you benefit alot from libraries, and almost nothing from markets.

Copyed from here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=442892

But in order to maintain 200 beakers/turn you almost definetely will need libraries in the satelite cities Apart from that, i took the 0% slider as an extreme example. You'll rarely find yourself @ 0% slider for the time when oxford comes around, and even if, you've probably lost your game (or are running a extreme SE, in which case you'll still need libs etc.)

Overall, it did not want to put it like the slider has no influence on the gameplay, but it's fair to say that the slider is pretty much irrelevant when you get the science you need.

I have not noticed gold being easier to come by at higher levels.
Are you speaking of quicker failgold due to AIs building wonders faster?

You're able to sell ALOT more techs to the AI for a decent chunk of gold. Overall, the teching speed of both you and the AI is, in general, much faster on Deity than on the lower levels. So, when you see a deity player teching like crazy: don't freak out, they might be faster then you are on the lower levels, but they most likely won't be able to maintain their speed on lower levels. Made the same experience when i stepped up to deity. The techspeed that used to blow my mind got more and more "usual" as i got grip on that difficulty.


Regarding topic:

Don't settle merchants. In the case that you're isolated and can't send those merchants on a trademission, rather do everything to avoid popping a merchant Maybe keep that merchant around, use him for a golden age or even Sid's Sushi or so, but settled merchants are wasted potential in my book, although there might be exeptions i don't know of yet. In isolation, you generally have all the time in the world to settle the cityspots you want, so you can solely focus on teching. Therefore, you don't have to build much units and/or settlers/workers and can focus on building wonders to fuel your economy, mainly Pyramids and G'lib. This can also give you a lot of failuremoney.

 

[Gwynnja]

In order to (consistently and quickly) generate Great Merchants you need specialist job openings which aren't available until Code of Laws with caste system (which I personally value less than slavery at least until the renaissance and workshop boosting techs,) or Currency with (like the op mentioned, expensive) markets. IMO, you should generate at the very least one Great Scientist before then so you can have an academy in your Oxford city.

 

[krikav]

First of all, thank you for your expanded explanation of what you ment with the slider, and especially thank you for showing that you got my point of view, very refreshing!

Regarding topic:
Don't settle merchants. ...settled merchants are wasted potential in my book.

This is very counter-intuitive for me! If I could pick a great person to settle, I would pick a great merchant, the +5 gold is nice, and it will be siphoned through market/grocery/bank/wallstreet for 15 gold!
Also the +1food feels awesome, that makes it possible to run half a specialist.

Please put forward abit more of your thoughts about settled merchants.
What great people do you prefer to settle more, and why?


Utilizing failgold (especially if you can build with industrial-trait, or a wonder with a resource) is awesome to fuel deficit research, no question about it.
I'm playing on emperor right now, and it might be possible that the AI is building wonders to slow for me to feel comfortable relying on this as the major contributor to my economy.

 

[krikav]

In order to (consistently and quickly) generate Great Merchants you need specialist job openings which aren't available until Code of Laws with caste system (which I personally value less than slavery at least until the renaissance and workshop boosting techs,) or Currency with (like the op mentioned, expensive) markets. IMO, you should generate at the very least one Great Scientist before then so you can have an academy in your Oxford city.

Your point is that before you have a decent GPF, and have reached a point where you feel comfortable with swapping to caste system. One will focus mostly on running science specialists, and thus one will get enough great scientists to build the necessery academys?

I guess that if you have 3 cities of your core 6 cities that are heavy on commerce, you want academies in all of them, at least eventually.

Do you (and do others?) run 2 science specialists right after you have finished libraries at the beginning of the game?
Personally I am finding myself whipping too much to be able to support them food-wise while growing at a satisfactory rate. Perhaps it's a good idea to take it abit more easy with the whip, and let some cities build a great scientist early?

 

[AutomatedTeller]

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.

 

[yanner39]

I have not noticed gold being easier to come by at higher levels.
Are you speaking of quicker failgold due to AIs building wonders faster?

Markets are extremly expensive, and probably don't belong in most cities.
I was mearly pointing out one extreme scenario, in which a entierly different setup to the "standard" one might be more efficient.
"Play the map", is the axiom one should follow.

I've recently made the jump to Immortal. Because the AI is quicker at say getting the TofA or SofZ, then yes, failgold does come quicker. However, I have noticed that the AI has more gold to buy your techs or to give you.

In my current game, I've received alot of failgold from the TofA which allowed me to have I think my best game to date. I got CS in the BCs (never happened before) and was running at 140 bpt in the BC at 100%. Now mind you I did have one gold mine in a crappy city that stagnated at 6 and 2 gems in a jungle city. This definately helped my tech rate. However, I've had such games on Emperor but could never get my slider at 100%.

This game, my sources of gold were fail gold, selling techs, begging for gold, and building Wealth instead of building infra I don't need such as markets. I built one market in my cap because it was at size 14 and could build it is like 5 turns.

 

[krikav]

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.

I must say that I disagree. The burst you get from a golden age, or from bulbing, is only a momentarily advantage, that advantage will fade away.
A settled great person will continue to give your economy more momentum at any given time of the continued game.
I find this incredibly powerfull.

But aside from settling vs not settling, just comparing settled merchants with other settled great people.. Isn't the settled merchant the most powerfull?

 

[Gwynnja]

Your point is that before you have a decent GPF, and have reached a point where you feel comfortable with swapping to caste system. One will focus mostly on running science specialists, and thus one will get enough great scientists to build the necessery academys?

I guess that if you have 3 cities of your core 6 cities that are heavy on commerce, you want academies in all of them, at least eventually.

Do you (and do others?) run 2 science specialists right after you have finished libraries at the beginning of the game?
Personally I am finding myself whipping too much to be able to support them food-wise while growing at a satisfactory rate. Perhaps it's a good idea to take it abit more easy with the whip, and let some cities build a great scientist early?

I'm certainly not saying you need to take it easy on the whip, but you don't want to whip away the scientists that are going to generate a great person. And you don't need to have academies in all of your cities, but you definitely want one in your primary research city. The main point of my post is that great merchant farms aren't available for a while. They're fine in the medieval and renaissance but I'd rather send them on trade missions than settle them.

 

[Dirk1302]

I must say that I disagree. The burst you get from a golden age, or from bulbing, is only a momentarily advantage, that advantage will fade away.
A settled great person will continue to give your economy more momentum at any given time of the continued game.
I find this incredibly powerfull.

But aside from settling vs not settling, just comparing settled merchants with other settled great people.. Isn't the settled merchant the most powerfull?

As Snaaty once said the short term >> the long term. Bulbing things like Philo and Edu are also momentarily advantages as you will be able to trade for these in time. Civ4 is all about leveraging these momentarily advantages into more lasting advantages. Bulbing philo can be leveraged into a good trade position + 100% increase on gpp which can be leveraged into being first to lib. And finally that can be leveraged into a military advantage resulting in more land.

A GM can be leveraged by doing a trade mission and upgrading HA's to Cuirassiers or Cavs resulting again in more land. And more land >> 5 gpt from settled merchant. At least on deity one good resource deal with one AI already nets more than 5 gpt.

Markets/Grocers and Banks are all useful buildings but i tend to build them later in the game. Only capital should usually have these buildings asap.

 

[krikav]

I'm certainly not saying you need to take it easy on the whip, but you don't want to whip away the scientists that are going to generate a great person. And you don't need to have academies in all of your cities, but you definitely want one in your primary research city. The main point of my post is that great merchant farms aren't available for a while. They're fine in the medieval and renaissance but I'd rather send them on trade missions than settle them.

I see.
You mention that great merchant farms are fine in medieval and renaisanse.
Do you usually have a GPF with market/grocer/bank, and run soley merchants there?

If so, what changes after renaisance that make you shift to scientists?

 

[krikav]

As Snaaty once said the short term >> the long term. Bulbing things like Philo and Edu are also momentarily advantages as you will be able to trade for these in time. Civ4 is all about leveraging these momentarily advantages into more lasting advantages. Bulbing philo can be leveraged into a good trade position + 100% increase on gpp which can be leveraged into being first to lib. And finally that can be leveraged into a military advantage resulting in more land.

A GM can be leveraged by doing a trade mission and upgrading HA's to Cuirassiers or Cavs resulting again in more land. And more land >> 5 gpt from settled merchant. At least on deity one good resource deal with one AI already nets more than 5 gpt.

Markets/Grocers and Banks are all useful buildings but i tend to build them later in the game. Only capital should usually have these buildings asap.

What you are saying about gaining short term advantages that can be leveraged into long term advantages are certainly true, and whenever such a situation presents itself, one should clearly take that path. Bulbing philosophy when you have a good oppertunity to trade it for many other techs is such a example.
I find this abit situational though, and in most situations when I get a great person, I am in no place where a short term advantage can be properly leveraged on.
This could be lack of creativity on my part, or simply bad play.

But when I lack a clear plan on how to leverage such a short term advantage, I go for the safe long term advantage, which will provide me with a edge in the future, no matter what.


You mention that you want to have markets/grocers/banks in the capital, is there any perticular reason for this?
In my games, the capital is mostly running cottages, and the science slider is near 100% most of the time. In such a situation I don't have the use for +% gold buildings there.
What is it in your games that is different?

 

[Gwynnja]

I see.
You mention that great merchant farms are fine in medieval and renaisanse.
Do you usually have a GPF with market/grocer/bank, and run soley merchants there?

It doesn't necessarily have to run only merchants, but they're a good mid/late game GP.

If so, what changes after renaisance that make you shift to scientists?

This.

As Snaaty once said the short term >> the long term. Bulbing things like Philo and Edu are also momentarily advantages as you will be able to trade for these in time. Civ4 is all about leveraging these momentarily advantages into more lasting advantages. Bulbing philo can be leveraged into a good trade position + 100% increase on gpp which can be leveraged into being first to lib. And finally that can be leveraged into a military advantage resulting in more land.

A GM can be leveraged by doing a trade mission and upgrading HA's to Cuirassiers or Cavs resulting again in more land. And more land >> 5 gpt from settled merchant. At least on deity one good resource deal with one AI already nets more than 5 gpt.

Markets/Grocers and Banks are all useful buildings but i tend to build them later in the game. Only capital should usually have these buildings asap.

 

[Dirk1302]

@krikav
In capital the money building usually have by far the largest impact. It's not always possible to run at 100% research, Ais have lots of money early midgame but it tends to be less later on as there are not so many wonders to build. Also as your own empire expands trade deals don't cover all expenses anymore. On top of that happy and health of market/grocer are usually most needed in capital.

 

[vorlon_mi]

@krikav
In capital the money building usually have by far the largest impact. It's not always possible to run at 100% research, Ais have lots of money early midgame but it tends to be less later on as there are not so many wonders to build. Also as your own empire expands trade deals don't cover all expenses anymore. On top of that happy and health of market/grocer are usually most needed in capital.

One other point ... since many people like to run Bureaucracy, that magnifies the multiplier effects of buildings in the capital even more.

This discussion is interesting for me w.r.t. happiness. I'm playing at a lower difficulty level, but I frequently find that I'm short of happiness resources around the time I get Currency. This is especially true if I have not yet had my first war to take some territory (and their resources) from one of my neighbors. I find myself wanting to build markets to leverage the resources that I *do* have, and let them grow. Perhaps if I used the whip more often, I would keep my city populations well under the happiness cap.

 

[ahcos]

Please put forward abit more of your thoughts about settled merchants.
What great people do you prefer to settle more, and why?

The only time i'd settle a GM is in a SSE/WE (basicly: build all the wonders you can get your hands on and settle close to all GPs in one city. Obsolete wins like that on deity) or when the game is 100% won and i don't know what else to do with the guy.

Great Priests are usually a good GP to settle, the hammers are nice and so is the gold. But when you will need a golden age, i'd save the Priest for that ofc. But usually, when you get that Priests really early in the game, it's not too bad to settle him directly, for example if you know you'll need that Golden Age in ~80 turns... you should be able to generate another GP for that by then.

Great Engineers... well, i find myself to often settle GEs as they usually occur late in the game. That's the point where rushbuilding is weak, and so is bulbing. Earlier on, i'd use a GE in 99% of the time for rushbuilding, while the other 1% is to bulb machinery when i x-bow rush with Sitting Bull The other GREAT use for GEs are corporations, ofc. Mining Inc. is sick.

Great Artists are weak settled and for their "special ability", the culture bomb. Best used for golden ages. Ofc, when you're aiming for a cultural win, it's the bomb, but you won't see me going cultural often.

Great Scientists have the best bulbs and are tied for the best special ability with Great Engineers in my eyes, so it's one of those two. But when you're running Representation, settling them will give you 30 BPT in oxford + observatory, so that's sweet as those are hard beakers you'll always get no matter how low your slider is.

Great Merchants are the second worst GP to settle, their great strength are trade missions. Let's you fly through the midgame techs. Also, they're great for the best corporation in the game, Sid's Sushi, so it's worth holding on.

Great Spies are great for Espionage Missions... this can easily net you 2-3 major midgame techs for free. Settled they're rather weak, their special building is great for an espionage economy which i rarely use myself. I'd rather not settle them and use them for a GA.

So, basicly it's Priests i settle often. You usually get them early in the game, and that's when the +hammers/gold matter alot. All other GPs have a better use.

This discussion is interesting for me w.r.t. happiness. I'm playing at a lower difficulty level, but I frequently find that I'm short of happiness resources around the time I get Currency. This is especially true if I have not yet had my first war to take some territory (and their resources) from one of my neighbors. I find myself wanting to build markets to leverage the resources that I *do* have, and let them grow. Perhaps if I used the whip more often, I would keep my city populations well under the happiness cap.

On lower difficulties, i'd abuse the **** out of Hereditary rule. You don't pay that much upkeep costs there anyway... Works up to Monarch at least, and with Emperor you'll find the AIs hooking up happiness resources fast enough so you can trade for them relatively early in the game. You'll still want to abuse HR for your cap, though.