Guide: Building Wide

[MadDjinn]

Not being able to launch those Solar Collectors is a pretty rough penalty. That much extra income is basically the difference between being able to borrow enough to buy a Trade Depot/Worker and not, which has a significant impact on how quickly early growth unfolds. You'd much rather have the routes going to the capital rather than from, and we all know how useful an extra worker is.

On these notes:

Loss of units starts at -5 energy/turn (with 0 energy stored). In CivV that was much further away. So you have to be a bit more careful. You still use science to replace the energy deficit, but the game doesn't care anymore about how much science you're losing to it.

and I prefer early routes from the capital to the new cities first (can switch after the first route comes back) as the receiving city gains far more food/production. Which means you can fast hammer the Trade depot and OER or a few trade routes and not always rely on energy gains.

 

[Martin Alvito]

don't forget the culture ones also get the +1 health/city, which is far more useful than +2 science per city.

OK, but the scientists can literally be the difference between Academies now and Academies 30 turns from now if you neglect other key infrastructure techs. Admittedly, this condition doesn't occur in most games, but I don't regard this as a settled question when it comes to fast finish times.

Loss of units starts at -5 energy/turn (with 0 energy stored). In CivV that was much further away. So you have to be a bit more careful. You still use science to replace the energy deficit, but the game doesn't care anymore about how much science you're losing to it.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. Are you talking about unit maintenance? If so, you'd need to show that the marginal cost of the additional unit outweighs the marginal productivity. At -5 GPT a Worker would take a long time to pay off indeed, but I'm not seeing anything like that kind of maintenance price when I build one.

and I prefer early routes from the capital to the new cities first (can switch after the first route comes back) as the receiving city gains far more food/production. Which means you can fast hammer the Trade depot and OER or a few trade routes and not always rely on energy gains.

Completely disagree. Big food/production in the secondary cities means that you bring them online as productive entities far more rapidly. Not to mention that the early builds are always the most efficient ones, so you want to get basic infrastructure online across the entire empire ASAP.

Think about the problem as a question of minimizing the turns per build and growth step function across your empire, and the solution is pretty obvious. The marginal productivity of additional / in your satellite cities is always going to demolish the marginal productivity of the same amount of / in the capital even if the cities were building things of equivalent quality, which they aren't. That's simply due to the fact that the capital has the Headquarters and has already racked up a bunch of growth steps by the time a new city comes online.

The only exception to that rule is if you're in a Wonder race with the AI, where the penalty for failure is not completing the build at all. That's far less likely to obtain in this game than it did in Civ 5, though, since you have a 10+ turn head start on most AIs.

 

[Browd]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. Are you talking about unit maintenance? If so, you'd need to show that the marginal cost of the additional unit outweighs the marginal productivity. At -5 GPT a Worker would take a long time to pay off indeed, but I'm not seeing anything like that kind of maintenance price when I build one.

He is referring to the point when units start to be auto-disbanded by the game, due to your running a persistent gpt (sorry, ept) deficit with 0 treasury.

 

[alpaca]

Completely disagree. Big food/production in the secondary cities means that you bring them online as productive entities far more rapidly. Not to mention that the early builds are always the most efficient ones, so you want to get basic infrastructure online across the entire empire ASAP.

The city that receives the trade route gets the bigger yield, so you should send trade from your capital to your satellites. I think this is what you're arguing here, so maybe you just have your directions messed up

What do you mean by leveraging pods for academies? Do you mean popping them and hoping to get the tech? Or do you mean the Gift From Home quest?

 

[MadDjinn]

Completely disagree. Big food/production in the secondary cities means that you bring them online as productive entities far more rapidly. Not to mention that the early builds are always the most efficient ones, so you want to get basic infrastructure online across the entire empire ASAP.

Think about the problem as a question of minimizing the turns per build and growth step function across your empire, and the solution is pretty obvious. The marginal productivity of additional / in your satellite cities is always going to demolish the marginal productivity of the same amount of / in the capital even if the cities were building things of equivalent quality, which they aren't. That's simply due to the fact that the capital has the Headquarters and has already racked up a bunch of growth steps by the time a new city comes online.

The only exception to that rule is if you're in a Wonder race with the AI, where the penalty for failure is not completing the build at all. That's far less likely to obtain in this game than it did in Civ 5, though, since you have a 10+ turn head start on most AIs.

Are we agreeing here?

Trade route from your Capital to a satellite:

Capital gets 2-3 food, 2-3 production (depending). (and +1 production from the trade route booster building quest)
Satellite city gets 5-8 food, 9-10 production.

meaning the Satellite gets a multiple of 5-10 production and therefore gets a trade depot up faster, which means getting trade routes out of there faster, which means 2x trade routes at 7-7 (depending on coastal or not) faster. Or sending to other internal routes faster.

and yes, when building wonders, it's better to mass trade routes to the wonder building city (nominally the capital. but not always).

Usually the trade routes end up as:

Sender gets 1/3 of the trade route value
Receiver gets full value.

(give or take actual math and resources connected/etc etc)

 

[Martin Alvito]

The city that receives the trade route gets the bigger yield, so you should send trade from your capital to your satellites. I think this is what you're arguing here, so maybe you just have your directions messed up

Is it that direction? If so, I'm doing it that way and what MadDjinn is saying is obviously correct. It also follows that all early should be thrown at the most efficient use: colonists.

What do you mean by leveraging pods for academies? Do you mean popping them and hoping to get the tech? Or do you mean the Gift From Home quest?

Pods give you 20% of the tech currently being researched. This is obviously much, much more valuable when used on a third-layer tech than a first layer one. So what we want to do is switch research to the third-layer tech before running over pods, then switch back to the cheap tech (Pioneering, Chemistry, etc.) you're actually researching.

It also follows that what we want to do is leave pods on the map for as long as possible. The value of the Gift from Home quest also increases as time passes, so in general the plan should be to pop three pods that are fairly distant from home to clear the first tech, then start abusing the way research pods work. It's also best to leave nearby pods laying around for a late Explorer to scoop up, unless an AI happens to spawn nearby early.

What I've been doing in recent starts is clearing Genetics first, then trying to land research pods on Cognition. Getting it for free/nearly free is going to happen in a distinct minority of games, but it will happen given enough attempts since the late AI arrivals make it really bad at devouring all the pods, unlike in previous Civ installments. Delaying Chemistry kind of sucks since you can't sneak the Recycler in before the Trade Depot builds, but given expeditions it's probably the case that you get a better expected return on an Explorer build at that point anyway. One extra expedition has an expected return of something like 20 extra production in addition to the other possible bonuses, so I'd expect that on average you come out better off going that direction.

Another possible approach would be to push for Computing and go down to intrigue town early with the ARC. That would make them much more efficient at clearing the earlier techs than everyone else, although I'm not sure that the price of foregoing a free outer web tech will turn out to be worth it. I'll eventually get around to testing that.

Explorers are just stupid good right now and you should pretty much spam them (other than the OER build) until Trade Depots become an option. My basic reroll strategy is to spin the wheel a few times until I get a decent food/production/energy start, then throw the game back if an AI lands nearby early. I'm also running down the left side of Prosperity for Gift Economy (picking up more or less infinite Expeditions along the way) after getting the colonist. The expedition strategy is similar to the pod strategy: steal an expedition that's near each distant AI that it's possible to steal from, then work back inward toward my landing site.

Last note: the +2 colonists/city virtue in Prosperity is more or less rubbish because of trade routes. The early growth steps are easily cleared without it, and the value of that bonus very rapidly diminishes to well less than a single pop point. You want to hammer your way down the left side of Prosperity ASAP to break health with the obscene Joy from Variety.

He is referring to the point when units start to be auto-disbanded by the game, due to your running a persistent gpt (sorry, ept) deficit with 0 treasury.

That's irrelevant, though. It means that I can't run energy/turn right down to zero, but I can always turn any energy surplus above and beyond the margin for error into 25.5 energy right now. Which should always, always be done the moment you can make efficient use of it - ie: the moment you can safely rush the next colonist.

 

[alpaca]

For cross-reference purposes: check out my test of internal trade route yields http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=537038

Basically, the only relevant variable is the difference in base yield (terrain + buildings, no percentage modifiers, no trade route self-feedback). It's more or less a logarithmic growth rounded to the next integer. The problem is that this rounding creates thresholds, which means you want to micro-manage your yields if you want to get most out of your trade routes.

For instance, going from a food difference of 3 to a difference of 1 means that the receiving city loses 2 food from trade routes, so putting a citizen on harvesting a 2 food tile actually gains you nothing in the receiving city and costs 1 food in the sending city. This is really terrible micromanaging.

 

[alpaca]

Pods give you 20% of the tech currently being researched. This is obviously much, much more valuable when used on a third-layer tech than a first layer one. So what we want to do is switch research to the third-layer tech before running over pods, then switch back to the cheap tech (Pioneering, Chemistry, etc.) you're actually researching.

I see. This might make the scientist colonists more interesting compared to the artists because it unlocks genetics faster.

Have you looked at knowledge for wide empires? It has some very interesting virtues. First of all, the 40% reduction in marginal cost of techs and policies per city as well as 0.25 science and culture per pop. It would also work well with your academy rush by unlocking an additional +2 science. I find that health isn't as big of an issue as I expected. Throw some production at it and you can get +5 health per city just with a clinic and apharmalab. With the artist colonists this is enough to keep you afloat for a while.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I see. This might make the scientist colonists more interesting compared to the artists because it unlocks genetics faster.

It's the only reason that Scientists may be viable. They're probably not strictly optimal, but they should decrease the number of games you need to spam to obtain the result. I haven't pulled off the Academy with the culture setup yet; I did manage a layer three tech (Bionics) with a Scientists setup in the original test run to verify that it's possible to pop science five times.

Have you looked at knowledge for wide empires? It has some very interesting virtues. First of all, the 40% reduction in marginal cost of techs and policies per city as well as 0.25 science and culture per pop. It would also work well with your academy rush by unlocking an additional +2 science. I find that health isn't as big of an issue as I expected. Throw some production at it and you can get +5 health per city just with a clinic and apharmalab. With the artist colonists this is enough to keep you afloat for a while.

The question on that one is whether or not it's worth passing on the free colonist. In principle, I'd rather have more early Academies than fewer, more efficient ones. Once you go three into Prosperity, I think you have to at least run down to Gift Economy for additional colonist spam/rush builds. Otherwise, the Academy maintenance pretty much precludes that.

 

[Iskiab]

This is a good thread, I agreed with everything written right up until the Virtues section.

In my experience the best path to go down are knowledge and production. Progressing down primarily knowledge will get you virtues faster then any other path. At the end of my last game I had completed both knowledge and production, and was a bit into military, without grabbing all the bonuses from knowledge and military I don't think it would be possible to have 50 virtues.

I should add the best late game virtue for health is definitely the military one where you get health per military unit. In my last game I had just wiped out another civ and was down to -20 health (about 5 newly taken cities) and then I grabbed that virtue and instantly went up to 40.

The other thing is I think building wide is a waste of time. The game is very easy on Expert (whatever it's called now) without going so wide, and going wide won't accomplish anything for you. Military strength is mostly about science or your affinity level, it takes science to get ahead number in affinity. For trade route spamming, it's easier to expand at a normal pace and then take surrounding civ's cities. As long as their city had a trade depot you can set the taken city up with 2 (or 3 if you chose that path) caravans and they can start trading almost right away. I just don't think you're getting anything out of spamming cities.

There are also 2 uses (in general) for trade routes. One is for production and growth, the other is science and energy. If you use your trade routes externally for the science you'll progress far faster through the technologies. What I typically do is spam new cities and my wonder cities with trade routes, the rest I turn external so I can research techs more quickly.

The biggest reason I think it's a poor choice to go wide, is all the trade routes drive me nuts! Almost all your time playing is spent renewing the trade routes instead of playing the game.

 

[Martin Alvito]

So I finally got a game where I landed early Cognition...and it isn't as hot as one might think. The basic problem is that you end up killing early energy production, which slows the REX down bigtime. That's a problem because it delays getting the trade routes up, and those things are just so overpowered right now that it's crazy not to pursue them. I ran down towards the Academy policy in Knowledge after taking the free Colonist, and the was going to be pretty solid, but it was obvious that a bunch of extra cities and external trade routes would have been more efficient during the early period. The extra energy would have accelerated the trade route snowball, and those trade routes would have pumped out about as much early .

So what I think I'm going to do is try going for Computing with the ARC. In principle I should be able to get a ton of free techs during a period when the opponents are defenseless, and it's on the pathway to the Supremacy win anyway. You could also use the pods as a way to get to Robotics quickly for the Autoplant quest. That also accelerates the Planet Carver slingshot by a good bit, as well as setting up taking the Purity Gate with a free Kozlov/Elodie tech (which should be the priciest research needed by a good ways).

 

[alpaca]

I find gambling for cognition isn't really probable enough to build a strategy around, but it's still a nice thing to sink those pods into. I pick up the pods as soon as I can, though, because I, too, find the academies a little lackluster compared to just plopping down more cities.

Completely ignoring health and going down knowledge seems quite strong. Sure, your cities don't grow much beyond 4 pop or so, but trade routes are your major source of yield anyways, the population is negligible. Knowledge reduces number of cities penalty to both tech and culture, so it's as strong as you imagine. This version definitely works better than trying to offset your health by going Prosperity. I usually pick up the free colonist and the worker speed, then go knowledge.

 

[MadDjinn]

Nothing special is required for FI to get the purity gate. They've got lots of time to get into robotics.

The only reason to early Rush cognition would be if you go supremacy and can get supremacy from expeditions and early quests. You need level 4 to use the science side Firaxite building. The culture one isn't worth the rush, nor is getting academies too early.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Nothing special is required for FI to get the purity gate. They've got lots of time to get into robotics.

No, but it's a real convenient place to dump that free tech at 10 Virtues since it's max cost and you need it if going that route. That's going to save time on the back end. Makes a lot less sense to take the approach with Kozlov, obviously.

The Robotics idea is primarily for the Autoplant quest. Could be wrong, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if you push it through in that time period when you're just building Depots, trade routes and Colonists (and that one Ultrasonic Fence), you're pretty likely to pop the quest due to the way the mechanics work on that.

The possibility of getting even more research pods after popping a key tech is also kind of scary. In the Elodie Academy game, I actually went three research pods past Cognition (took everyone forever to land and they did so in spots that made me happy). If that had been Kozlov on the Planet Carver beeline... *shudder*

The only reason to early Rush cognition would be if you go supremacy and can get supremacy from expeditions and early quests. You need level 4 to use the science side Firaxite building. The culture one isn't worth the rush, nor is getting academies too early.

The only way to figure out that turn 25 Academies was suboptimal was to try it. For all I knew, I wasn't really going to feel the expansion slowdown and the gambit would pay off bigtime in the 80s. While it does pay off, it feels like slamming out bases (especially by getting them in before -20) is going to pay off a lot more in the limit.

I find gambling for cognition isn't really probable enough to build a strategy around, but it's still a nice thing to sink those pods into. I pick up the pods as soon as I can, though, because I, too, find the academies a little lackluster compared to just plopping down more cities.

It's certainly not probable enough to call it a pure strategy; in most games it's more of a micro tip. What I'm trying to figure out is whether there's an approach where it gets obscene if you pull the lever and hit the jackpot. It's one of the sketchier mechanics right now; it's not a good idea to give me control over the number of beakers I get from a pod. The whole scheme is nowhere near the power of trade routes, obviously, but you can take advantage of it without affecting that gameplay.