More Balancing - Trait halfprice buildings

[DarkSchneider]

Another consideration when balancing the traits is to asses their half-priced buildings compared to one another. I have made a list of the half price buildings provided by each trait, followed by their cost, and how often each is built in one of my towns. Finally, it lists the number of hammers saved per town as a result. Note that most sea related improvements are not listed highly, as most of my towns are not built with access to the ocean.

Aggressive: Barracks (60, 70%), Drydocks (120, 20%) = 33
Expansive: Granary (60, 100%), Harbor (80, 25%) = 40
Spiritual: Temple (80, 100%) = 40
Creative: Coliseum (120, 40%), Theatre (50, 100%) = 49
Industrious: Forge (120, 100%) = 60
Financial: Bank (200, 65%) = 65
Philosophical: University (200, 65%) = 65
Organized: Courthouse (120, 100%), Lighthouse (60, 30%) = 69

By the look of it, Organized (the best half-price structures) provides approx twice as much benefit as Aggresive (the worst half-price stuctures) It should also be noted that Expansive, Creative, Industrious and Organized could be even more valuable, since their structures typically benefit the town more when built early.

 

[MrCynical]

While I agree with most of your ordering I think you've overestimated for the organized trait. Do you really build courthouses everywhere? I generally leave them till there's nothing else left to build, since they only save a couple of gpt and give no culture. May be due to my playing stlye, since I generally go for a few big cities rather than many small ones. Mind you, I build lighthouses in every coastal city as a top priority, and a lot more than 30% of my cities seem to end up on the coast, so maybe organized is still one of the strongest.

 

[petey]

I think it depends on your playing style. If you choose an Aggressive civ, you're likely going to be attacking someone early, so the cheap barracks come in useful when you don't have as much production built up. If you choose Organized, you're probably taking more of a builder route and the courthouses and lighthouses are generally built when the cities are a bit larger and there's more hammers anyways.

So, even though there's a big difference in the hammers saved, the time in the game when they are saved evens this out considerably.

 

[DarkSchneider]

Do you really build courthouses everywhere? I generally leave them till there's nothing else left to build, since they only save a couple of gpt and give no culture.

Yeah, I really do, most of the time I build them within the first five buildings. Most of the time, they are the first thing to be built when I take over an enemy town, since they almost always neglect to build them. The reason I like them, is that they are helpful regardless of the commerce generated by the city. It seems like a flat 5-10 gp per turn savings when you get a larger empire.

My first buildings are almost always Theatre, Granery, Forge and Courthouse.

 

[Shillen]

Your %'s are way different than how my games go. I don't build courthouses and temples in every city. I build far more universities than banks. (if your slider is 80% or higher then a university is more benefit than a bank). I don't build a granary in every city either, most of them, though. Courthouses are a pretty low priority, except in far off cities. Only 30% of your cities are coastal? (I'm assuming you always build lighthouses in coastal cities) Do you play on pangaea maps? On my continents maps i usually have like 70% coastal.

But yeah these numbers will change based on the game too. If it's a pangaea then you'll build more courthouses than harbors/lighthouses. If you're going for a space victory you'll build more universities than banks. If you're going for a conquest victory you'll probably build a lot more barracks and probably more banks/courthouses and fewer universities, etc. On higher difficulties you'll build a lot more granaries/harbors because you need the health. And on and on.

But in the end I don't think the hammer savings is a big bonus from the traits. Load up a late game save and count up the hammer costs for every building in some of your cities. Then factor in how much you saved from your half-priced university or barracks or whatever. It's quite trivial.

 

[MrCynical]

Granary and forge I always start with as well. Theatre i'll only build if i can't get a religion to the city quickly to build a temple. I guess it probably is the way I only build maybe 4 or 5 cities, plus a couple to grab resources (those do get courthouses fairly fast).

 

[Dorkus]

Early and late game benefits need to be distinguished.

A hammer 500 turns into the game is not worth nearly as much as a hammer early. What you really need to measure is "turns of production saved," not "hammers saved."

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think it depends on your playing style. If you choose an Aggressive civ, you're likely going to be attacking someone early, so the cheap barracks come in useful when you don't have as much production built up. If you choose Organized, you're probably taking more of a builder route and the courthouses and lighthouses are generally built when the cities are a bit larger and there's more hammers anyways.

So, even though there's a big difference in the hammers saved, the time in the game when they are saved evens this out considerably.

Actually if you are Organized you need to take an expansion route, (concentrate on more small cities v. few large cities either through settling or conquest) to benefit the most.

(Expansive is actually the opposite...it is the perfectionist builder trait, which means an early granary is important)