@FlyinJohnnyL small correction, the BAT mod 4.1 shows the bonus wealth from building a courthouse
Map size and difficulty level
- Thread starter King Younk
- Start date
ROI is the perfect word. Think of this Courthouse example. You're contemplating whether to build a Courthouse in a city with 10 hammers per turn that costs -8 gold per turn. A 120 hammer Courthouse will take 12 turns to build after which your civ will gain 4 gold per turn in saved maintenance. However, if you build Wealth you get 10 gold per turn NOW as long as you keep building wealth. Let's say the game goes for another 200 turns and you spend half the time in this city building Wealth and half the time units. Wealth will give you 100 turns x 10 gold per turn = 1000 gold. Whereas the Courthouse will save you 188 turns x 4 gold = 752 gold.
Therefore building Wealth in this kind of typical situation is FAR SUPERIOR not to mention that you will have some gold sooner before the Courthouse is even finished which may help reach a critical military tech. The early benefit can easily outweigh a later one. If the city was costing -12 gold per turn or you're playing an Organized civ or you captured an enemy city that is starving and you can easily whip a Courthouse... in these situations it can be profitable to build it but always assess the return that a building gives you. Of course with experience, you usually do this instinctively and don't need to do the kind of calculation I just did. Never make automatic decisions in civ 4.
What really separates good players from the best ones is that the best ones put a lot of thought into every move they make. In the current NC Napoleon game, I'm playing as Organized but didn't building a single Courthouse because it isn't worth it. Ton of players know a lot more than you (and I) on here. But playing slower and thinking more is the right mindset to master this very complex game. In fact the better you get in this game, the more of your own mistakes you will see. I look at my games now and see so many errors I made even in wins which flew right past me before.
Therefore building Wealth in this kind of typical situation is FAR SUPERIOR not to mention that you will have some gold sooner before the Courthouse is even finished which may help reach a critical military tech. The early benefit can easily outweigh a later one. If the city was costing -12 gold per turn or you're playing an Organized civ or you captured an enemy city that is starving and you can easily whip a Courthouse... in these situations it can be profitable to build it but always assess the return that a building gives you. Of course with experience, you usually do this instinctively and don't need to do the kind of calculation I just did. Never make automatic decisions in civ 4.
What really separates good players from the best ones is that the best ones put a lot of thought into every move they make. In the current NC Napoleon game, I'm playing as Organized but didn't building a single Courthouse because it isn't worth it. Ton of players know a lot more than you (and I) on here. But playing slower and thinking more is the right mindset to master this very complex game. In fact the better you get in this game, the more of your own mistakes you will see. I look at my games now and see so many errors I made even in wins which flew right past me before.
Hmm, I don't agree with the way you did this comparison. You might be right that building wealth is better, but it's not an easy comparison. The courthouse will be done after 12 turns, so after that you can build whatever you want. You can't compare 100 turns of building wealth vs 12 turns of building a courthouse.
The proper comparison is: 120 gold from building wealth, vs the 4 gpt you save from the courthouse. That'll pay off in 30 turns. It might or might not be worth it, it just depends on the state of the game.
Fippy
Mycro Junkie
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- Mar 17, 2013
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CHs (and partly ORG too) are downgraded by AI willingness to give out gold for old techs and gpt for resis.
Since they give an instant return they also should be whipped (usually).
Usually the main problem i can see in some games where peoples ask for help:
they are slow building.
We can use Oxford + Unis as example..if i need 30 turns to even get all required Unis built i prolly should have never started such a project.
But if i have the whipping power for fast completion and also prepared my Ox city with some overflow, forest chops etc this can be good.
So a general advice: look at your city & overall progress, estimate if you want a building now.
Check how fast you can get there and what tiles are given up by whipping.
This should give an idea if getting a building would be worthwile. Do not start buildings just cos you can (or even worse a city governor making that suggestion
)
Since they give an instant return they also should be whipped (usually).
Usually the main problem i can see in some games where peoples ask for help:
they are slow building.
We can use Oxford + Unis as example..if i need 30 turns to even get all required Unis built i prolly should have never started such a project.
But if i have the whipping power for fast completion and also prepared my Ox city with some overflow, forest chops etc this can be good.
So a general advice: look at your city & overall progress, estimate if you want a building now.
Check how fast you can get there and what tiles are given up by whipping.
This should give an idea if getting a building would be worthwile. Do not start buildings just cos you can (or even worse a city governor making that suggestion
)
Yep. Growing is very good because it allows you to whip later. Something like stagnating on specialists in a city that is very far from spawning a
is usually a lot worse. While are great, they should usually be produced in bursts during GA.
His problems stem from early great wall most games. Plus the issue he then goes on to get a great spy which he seems to use to scout out land.Where an academy from a GS instead in a commerce city running 6-7 cottages could really pay off.
Settler first on imperialist leaders is also a mistake. Especially on this start where at size 3-4 you could be running 2 decent food tiles and 1-2 very good production tiles. Coppper is great. Plus the bonus on chops for settlers.
Too many bad decisions early on are killing his game.
Settler first on imperialist leaders is also a mistake. Especially on this start where at size 3-4 you could be running 2 decent food tiles and 1-2 very good production tiles. Coppper is great. Plus the bonus on chops for settlers.
Too many bad decisions early on are killing his game.
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In your example, it will pay off in 30 turns AFTER building the Courthouse.. yes. But who's to say you won't continue building Wealth taking the Courthouse longer and longer to catch up.
EDIT: Never mind. I see what you mean now. You're looking at the opportunity cost of building a courthouse vs building Wealth so you're looking at the amount of time it takes to recoup the gold accumulated from building the Wealth just those 12 turns it takes to build the Courthouse. That's one way of looking at it.
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SnipedSoul
Warlord
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- May 30, 2011
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- 107
Barbs are an enormous problem on huge/marathon. There will be an endless stream of barbs, often stacks of 3+ archers at a time. Complete fog busting is impossible unless you have a ton of peaks/coast. I pretty much always chop out the great wall since it saves so many hammers on units. You even get a benefit of diverting barbs toward the AI. I have seen Monarch AI lose cities to barbs even without raging barbs on.
How does that analysis change if you're planning to expand? I like to preemptively build courthouses because maintenance costs go through the roof when I go from 8 cities to 20+ through war.
How does that analysis change if you're planning to expand? I like to preemptively build courthouses because maintenance costs go through the roof when I go from 8 cities to 20+ through war.
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If you have 20 cities, you are very close to winning the game (unless you play huge maps for some reason). When the end is so near, buildings have no time to pay back. Just build units and win the game. Realize that "economy" and the need to research ceases to exist.
I guess on huge map GW could have a use if there is likely a big barb issue. Of course you can delay building it a bit. Especially if you have stone. I try to stick it in a city where I know I won't use for great people. So likely I would plan a city for a library which could be up and running quickly. There I can run 2 scientists.
In my experience AI on emperor are slow to stuff like alphabet unless they have a strong start with gold or gems. Even on immortal level come 1200ad you should normally be 4-5+ techs ahead of the AI.
This is why posting a save at 1500ad tells us so little. We have no idea how he went about warfare but we can guess some elements of his game. With 26 cities there is no reason to be behind on techs. I put it down to too much effort on war. Too many city builds. Lack of focus on getting basic economy up and running. That and start going settler first.
In my experience AI on emperor are slow to stuff like alphabet unless they have a strong start with gold or gems. Even on immortal level come 1200ad you should normally be 4-5+ techs ahead of the AI.
This is why posting a save at 1500ad tells us so little. We have no idea how he went about warfare but we can guess some elements of his game. With 26 cities there is no reason to be behind on techs. I put it down to too much effort on war. Too many city builds. Lack of focus on getting basic economy up and running. That and start going settler first.
Well, it's the only fair way to do it. It's not like the city building a courthouse would just stop building anything else after it finished. It could also build Wealth, if you wanted.
But you're right it's 30 turns after the courthouse *finishes*, so 42 turns in total in this case. Or faster if the courthouse city starts building wealth as soon as the courthouse is done.
Sure... And there are also other alternatives to Courthouses and Wealth. If you have a large empire, your maintenance costs may be large but you have huge production and maybe should just keep spamming units and win domination ASAP. Gold you can gain through city capture isn't really irrelevant either.
It's hard to pigeonhole such a complex game. Rules have exceptions. Some starts you actually should NOT build a Worker first but until you become very good at the game, some rules are good to follow. Or at least make sure you have a very good reason if you don't. Ditto for buildings which apart from Granaries, Libraries, and maybe Barracks and Forges you should think hard before building. Something must be right about this advice because when I was building all buildings galore I was a Monarch player. Building fewer buildings pretty much moved me to Immortal.
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