Hagia Sophia Better Than Expected

[iggymnrr]

I thought I'd try the large settler marathon map instead of standard size. Mainly I wanted to see how much a person could over extend himself and how fast recovery would be with faster workers from the Hagia Sophia. So I got a game that did exactly this. Badly overextended and still killing AIs. But I got to theology with the Hagia pre-chopped. I was close to bankruptcy. But it was remarkable how a smattering of courthouses got chopped out quickly with a sprinkling of faster cottages. Then the game went Godzilla holy Moses Batman nutso. Electricity at 830 BC with 122 windmills already up as well as 70 watermills. Launched the ship at 240 BC.

No pain no gain? Or the Hagia?

 

[GGracchus]

Another HoF game? It sounds good, but I almost never tech theology and by that time, my workers are winding down, waiting for SP to come in.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Theology's just too far out of the way, plus there's another godly wonder (AP) that matters a lot. Also expiring at steam power kinda blows.

 

[vranasm]

Another HoF game? It sounds good, but I almost never tech theology and by that time, my workers are winding down, waiting for SP to come in.

on marathon?
I can see the logic here... times on marathon are long, very long. On Settler you have bigger happy cap and iggy certainly came to all resources very quickly (due to the number of settlers he scouts out and gets from AI's).

The question remains if serfdom under such circumstance wouldn't be good too.

 

[Windsor]

Isn't this like saying praetorians are useless and referring to an always-peace game as proof?

 

[GGracchus]

on marathon?
I can see the logic here... times on marathon are long, very long. On Settler you have bigger happy cap and iggy certainly came to all resources very quickly (due to the number of settlers he scouts out and gets from AI's).

The question remains if serfdom under such circumstance wouldn't be good too.

I don't know about any game speeds besides normal, that's the only thing I use. On marathon I imagine that the workers would be done faster, but I wouldn't know. Serfdom+Hagia Sophia might be good, but I've never tried it.

 

[vranasm]

I don't know about any game speeds besides normal, that's the only thing I use. On marathon I imagine that the workers would be done faster, but I wouldn't know. Serfdom+Hagia Sophia might be good, but I've never tried it.

the improve turns on marathon are brutal from my few tries on marathon speed... even chopping is something like 9 turns...

so cutting the time without increasing the costs too much (workers cost money in the end) can skyrocket developement times of cities.

It seems to me that the slower the speed is the bigger impact correct number of workers has

 

[Um the Muse]

Yeah, I can definitely believe this. I routinely play Marathon, and I normally build more than 1.5 workers. Sometimes, it feels like that is a bare minimum. I always double up my workers for the first four improvements or so. I can just imagine how helpful an early GP for theology or oracling feudalism for serfdom could be.

 

[coanda]

I would ballpark Hagia Sophia's practical improvement in worker efficiency as about 20%, plus 10% per game speed above Quick (30% on Normal, 40% on Epic, 50% on Marathon). This reflects decreased rounding losses and less worker time spent moving from place to place relative to time actually working.

For the cost of Hagia Sophia, you could build anywhere from 3.7 to 11.5 workers instead (depending on what production modifiers you have).

So some roughly ballpark figures for break-even for Hagia Sophia... and note that these are just ballpark figures. A lot of game conditions can change them.

• You have Marble, are IND and not EXP: Have at least 19 workers already on Quick, at least 13 workers already on Normal, at least 10 workers already on epic, or at least 8 workers already on Marathon
• You have no marble and are not IND or EXP: Have at least 46 workers on Quick, 31 on Normal, 23 on Epic, or 19 on Marathon.
• Generally, increase the numbers immediately above 25% if you have EXP, decrease it 35% if you're IND, decrease it 50% if you have Marble.

Which means on Quick and Normal speed, or if you have no Marble, you usually shouldn't even think about building Hagia Sophia. But on Epic and particularly Marathon, if you have Marble and are doing all right otherwise in the game then it's worth considering.

 

[elmurcis]

I really don't know why, but very often I take this wonder only if I'm in big tech lead... Just because there is better tech to get before this one... But in general - if I'm able to build this in 1 of my 2 GPP cities, I will do it... Atleast AI will not get it and if I discover some nice land to take, than... its worth of hammers and citiziens

 

[vicawoo]

Actually, since workers cost less on marathon, Hagia Sophia is probably devalued.

The problem is people have a hard time scaling their waiting periods.

 

[MarigoldRan]

He said "better than expected." Doesn't necessarily mean "good."

 

[Peregrine]

I play marathon consistently. After an early, successful war, or series of wars, there can be a LOT of land that requires development, including not just tile improvements but also roads so that occupation troops can march to newly-conquered sites. Going into serfdom and building the HS can tremendously speed up these efforts. On Marathon, the period before acquiring Steam Power can be lengthy. No short window there before HS goes obsolete. It's always a consideration when the first GP appears, whether to shrine it or use it to bulb Theology and build the AP and HS.

 

[MarigoldRan]

The problem is that self-building it yourself is a bit of a pain in the butt, since it requires Theology.

Granted that getting it through capture is sweet at Marathon, especially since my worker count is generally low, but the opportunity cost, I feel, is always too high.

In my newly captured cities I generally just run slavery a lot to rebuild infrastructure and get rid of the silly malcontents.

 

[Um the Muse]

We have no idea where his numbers came from. Did he account for anarchy? Maintenance costs?

I would think it would always be worthwhile for the Indians or somebody with lots of jungle.

 

[coanda]

We have no idea where his numbers came from. Did he account for anarchy? Maintenance costs?

I would think it would always be worthwhile for the Indians or somebody with lots of jungle.

If "his numbers" referred to my ballpark figures earlier, no I didn't consider anarchy or maintenance (what does anarchy have to do with it, by the way?). I also didn't consider the cost of getting Theology for HS, nor did I consider the marginal benefit of getting a few workers built quickly (if it takes 20 turns to build Hagia Sophia or build 5 workers, by choosing the workers you at least finish one worker in just 4 turns). Nor did I consider the flexibility of being able to build just a few workers, then more later as they're needed, instead of Hagia Sophia providing a big boost all at once. Nor did I consider the obsoleting of Hagia Sophia with Steam Power, or the impact of potentially running the Serfdom civic. Nor did I consider the risk of failing to get Hagia Sophia when an AI beats you to it.

That's probably not even a complete list of potentially relevant things I ignored. It was never intended to be a precise piece of analysis, just some back-of-the-envelope math to get a sense of roughly how Hagia Sophia compares to just building workers. My figures are also badly off for Marathon because I forgot about the (relatively) cheaper units at that speed which Vicawoo pointed out. (Marathon is not a game speed I have much experience with).

Here's the thought-experiment I was running to get ballpark figures...
Consider a typical worker action: move onto a forested tile, chop the forest, build a farm. On Quick speed, that's 5 turns without Hagia Sophia, 4 with; it's 9 vs. 7 on normal, 13 vs. 9 on Epic, and 25 vs. 17 on Marathon. And the numbers will vary a fair amount depending on what exactly your workers are doing. So I just roughed it at nice round numbers of 20, 30, 40, 50%.

As far as number of workers built vs. Hagia Sophia, that's simple math. Add up bonuses to worker production and bonuses to Hagia Sophia production, and compare base hammer costs.

 

[iggymnrr]

That's probably not even a complete list of potentially relevant things I ignored. It was never intended to be a precise piece of analysis, just some back-of-the-envelope math to get a sense of roughly how Hagia Sophia compares to just building workers. My figures are also badly off for Marathon because I forgot about the (relatively) cheaper units at that speed which Vicawoo pointed out.

I did do the math either but there seemed to be a snowball effect working with the Hagia: Building more workers than normal. As the game starts to race more workers are needed to keep pace. By the 830 BC date I had 100 workers and finished with over 130.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

If the Hagia did what you might think it would do (cut worker time in half), it would be one thing. But you are basically just saving a turn on everything, 2 on stuff like watermills on snow. It's useful, but not gamebreaking or anything. Engineer points are good, though.

 

[iggymnrr]

If the Hagia did what you might think it would do (cut worker time in half), it would be one thing. But you are basically just saving a turn on everything, 2 on stuff like watermills on snow. It's useful, but not gamebreaking or anything. Engineer points are good, though.

I wouldn't call it game breaking. Developing a strategy for an HoF game (any level) is a different story. Early tech speed isn't so crucial to a fast space finish at settler. As a contrast, in a rainforest a person may well tech music early to be able to border pop cities. Change the map to a highlands things change. I'm trading early music for theology and using some of highlands trees for stonehenge. Unlike jungle tiles, forest tiles yield hammers. Might as well convert the lumber that has to get cleared into something useful. I can usually pull Hagia by 2150 BC with an empire that is already global on large or huge maps with 40-50 workers already out the door. The Hagia is early enough to have a big impact. And I STILL need more workers. 3-4 per city by game's end never seems to be enough. It's virtually impossible to get more than that, but very easy to speed everybody up.

 

[Um the Muse]

@Coanda: yeah, I figured as much, but didn't want to assume. I also wasn't sure if you considered these numbers good for serfdom as well (since the discussion originally covered both possibilties). That's why I threw the civic change in there.

In general, average total costs converge toward average variable costs the larger your operation. That means comparing setup costs isn't all that useful, though looking at the opportunity cost is. Hopefully, though, you're not using your worker-pump to build wonders.

This does bring up a good point, though. What date are we talking about here, in broad terms? Would it be reasonable for someone to build this with a GE in the very early game if they lacked marble?
I guess so, looking at iggy's times there. Whoah! 2150 BC? With 40-50 workers?!?