LAKE VICTORIA versus KING SOLOMON'S MINES

[El Caballerion]

EDIT: I JUST CREATED A NEW THREAD ABOUT THESE TWO IF YOU ARE PLAYING AS SPAIN. HENCE, FOR THIS THREAD, WHICH IS BETTER IF YOU ARE NOT PLAYING AS SPAIN?


Through exploring the map in the first few turns, which one of these lucky NWs is better to settle your capital next to in the gamE?

For those who may have forgotten:
• LV gives you +6 food
• KSM gives you +6 production

For a while, I was gung-ho about starting next to KSM, but have found that settling next to LV is perhaps better bc of the increased science that comes with a large capital (especially if you go down TRADITION first).

THOUGHTS?

 

[Greizer85]

Lake Victoria. It effectively lets you work two extra mines (or 5 as Spain! ), so that's King Solomon matched, and then there's the science, as you said. If you've got Monarchy (as you should), then you get some gold for that extra pop as well.

EDIT: Ofc in most games you won't have to make the choice... But if you do, then well... All I can say is I wish all our problems in life were like this.

EDIT2: Hmm I discounted the fact that it takes some time to get equivalent hammers from the LV-added extra pop... Especially with Spain, with its whopping 12 hammers from KSM. It might be better to use that ginormous production to build all the early game wonders... Maybe there should be two options: one for Spain and one for all the other civs?

 

[Matthew.]

I'd actually go with the mines, I think. There comes a point where +6 food isn't all that much. Growth is exponential so to go from, say, 39 to 40 pop, you are going to need a lot more than +6 food. And the difference between 39 and 40 pop is marginal.

But production... if you get too much production, it ends up breaking the game. Not only do you get food buildings and such out quicker, but wonders become instant-grabs, and you no longer need to play triage when it comes to build order, you can have it all.

Looking back, the games that felt the most overpowered to me were the ones that gave massive production without sacrificing too much growth. Yes, growth lets you indirectly get more production and it is still important, but in the big picture I think 6 production will go further than 6 food.

 

[That Other Guy]

I voted LV, but I might've changed to KSM if it wasn't the first city. Growing your first city is a lot harder than later cities in my experience, and anything that helps with that is fantastic. Later cites can feed off the techs and workers already produced by your capital.

 

[Matthew.]

Yeah, thinking about it more, I agree with you Mr. Other Guy. Having the growth in the initial city would probably be better, but I'd prefer the production in other cities. First, growth isn't as important in secondary cities (assuming NC is in the captial, in which case each citizen is worth more than cities without); second, no access to monarcy; third, the heavy production can help when needing certain wonders or units, such as naval, that cannot be built in the capital.

 

[El Caballerion]

I'm playing as Spain (my favorite CIV) on Marathon Immortal. I noticed that the game where I had KSM, I was doing GREAT in the first 3 eras, but then really fell behind tech-wise. The game where I had LV, I was doing good but kept current with the other civs in tech.

 

[Greizer85]

I'd actually go with the mines, I think. There comes a point where +6 food isn't all that much. Growth is exponential so to go from, say, 39 to 40 pop, you are going to need a lot more than +6 food. And the difference between 39 and 40 pop is marginal.

I still think there should be options for both Spain and all others... I would take 6 food over 6 production, but 12 production over 12 food, because of this very thing. The more pop you have, the more difficult it becomes to get more, diminishing the impact of extra food... While production costs otoh raise linearly. I'm not sure where the cut-off point is; it's very hard to decide between e.g. 8 food or 8 hammers. 20 production on turn 1 otoh is vastly better than 20 food. I actually think it might be fairly well balanced atm (if 'balance' and +12 anything can be mentioned in the same sentence! ).

EDIT: I should just play a game with Spain and test this... Edit in the wonder and see which start is better after 100 turns or so.

 

[Matthew.]

Yeah, hard to say. The part throwing me off is partly Spain and first city. In most situations, especially in BNW with such easy access to extra food through trade and religion, I'd take the extra production. The difference is so significant when comparing two high pop. cities, one with hammers and the other without.

But 12 food right from the start...

 

[Atinuviel]

Lake Victoria, no contest. It's just a fact that early game growth is simply to important to give up, and when in early game your city may have only ~5ish citizens, having to dedicate one citizen to working that awesome hammer tile will probably slow down your growth noticeably.

This is especially compounded by the fact that you don't get that many good food tiles early game. You get maybe a wheat or cow or two, and then the rest will be 3F or 2F+1H tiles until you get Civil Service. Until those 4Food tiles start kicking in, I'd rather have Lake Victoria and have a few extra citizens to work improved mines than vice versa.

 

[Atinuviel]

Lake Victoria, no contest. It's just a fact that early game growth is simply to important to give up, and when in early game your city may have only ~5ish citizens, having to dedicate one citizen to working that awesome hammer tile will probably slow down your growth noticeably.

This is especially compounded by the fact that you don't get that many good food tiles early game. You get maybe a wheat or cow or two, and then the rest will be 3F or 2F+1H tiles until you get Civil Service. Until those 4Food tiles start kicking in, I'd rather have Lake Victoria and have a few extra citizens to work improved mines than vice versa.

 

[Smokeybear]

Mines. I far more often have plenty of food but not enough production, so the mines would be a huge boost early on. Especially since the @#$%!@%#$ city governor massively neglects hills in favor of any craptastic flat ground with one (or even zero) food on it, forcing you to waste scarce early gold to buy production tiles with.

 

[Ninakoru]

Depend of the city, but if we are talking in absolute terms, lake victoria because simply growth > production.

 

[Greizer85]

Especially since the @#$%!@%#$ city governor massively neglects hills in favor of any craptastic flat ground with one (or even zero) food on it, forcing you to waste scarce early gold to buy production tiles with.

This is a huge fault that gets mentioned very rarely. In fact I can hardly recall seeing it (and yeah, guilty as charged. Somehow it's always escaped my mind when I've meant to complain about it. ). They really, really, really really really need to fix this. Like *really*.

 

[Smokeybear]

This is a huge fault that gets mentioned very rarely. In fact I can hardly recall seeing it (and yeah, guilty as charged. Somehow it's always escaped my mind when I've meant to complain about it. ). They really, really, really really really need to fix this. Like *really*.

Oh, I've had some pretty lengthy arguments about this subject before, on here. Some agree with my view, some just say "it's a built-in game mechanic", intended to force you to use gold to buy production tiles. While I can buy into (heh) that argument to some extent, when I'm broke early on, and the city governor keeps snaking out long arms to acquire utterly unneeded 1-food tundra and zero-food desert tiles over DESPERATELY NEEDED production tiles.. I just want to strangle something. Before BNW, when early gold was much more common, this was a smaller annoyance. Now, it can be quite a bit more debilitating if you have a low-production stating site.

 

[Pythakoreas]

Food is more versatile than hammers, take your free Hanging Gardens to grow or to work hills and that's +6 production anyways. Especially for land-locked cities who can't receive food cargo ships.

 

[lymond]

What's the deal with Floating Gardens not having and affect on LV? Just noticed that the other day. I'm sure it's been brought up before. Strange to me that Spain's unique adds to it but Aztec's does not.

 

[Scott Jegg]

What's the deal with Floating Gardens not having and affect on LV? Just noticed that the other day. I'm sure it's been brought up before. Strange to me that Spain's unique adds to it but Aztec's does not.

Spain's UA is specifically designedto affect wonders.

Floating gardens really should affect LV imo, but since it isn't coded as a lake in the game, it doesn't. All wonders are actually coded as mountain tiles.