National Epic Dilemma

[Philobulbus]

So I guess the National Epic is very good to have in the main GP farm; but the dilemma I always have when deciding where & when to build it is:

Building it can actually slow down the process of generating GP because of the need to generate hammers to build it, either through working mines or whip overflow.

Should I continue to attempt to generate GP points while building it? This will mean working almost entirely food tiles to run the specialists, so I will have very few hammers and it will take forever to build. Meaning that by the time it is finished I am past the point of the game where GP are especially valuable (eg for bulbing to Liberalism)

On the other hand, if I go all out to build it fast by working hammer tiles, this may pay off in the long term but in the short term I am not generating GP points and may miss an important opportunity like bulbing Philosophy or getting an early academy.

Also, related question: is the NE always worth building, even without marble?

 

[Virupaksha]

Inho NE is alawys worth building. I would rephrase the question to something like "if I have a GP farm with very little production should I build the NE in a different city?".

I think it can be worth doing this and will sometimes build the NE in the capital just to have it early when great people make more difference, depends on map. If building great library (normally in capital) just that and the NE will produce a lot of great people and another GP farm can be used to generate extra.

 

[DrCron]

I agree with what Virupaksha said. Just wanted to add that if your main GP farm doesn't have hills, you might want to consider keeping 1 forest to chop and help with the NE. Also, if you have a lot of food, whipping some of it won't hurt you for very long. Consider all the available options and decide based on each map.

 

[MegaLurker]

Whether it's worth it or not is entirely situational. But it's not always worth it. How late did you get Lit? How many GPs have you already produced? How quickly can you get into a winning position?

I have often had games on Immortal or Deity difficulty in which I built the NE only to realize that it slowed me down more than it helped. There is a large opportunity cost if those hammers could accelerate a major military breakout. And it's not just the hammers the NE itself costs. Consider that a high-food city can whip out a lot of units. That sacrifice is often worth it.

There are situations where not building the NE means a faster and more successful war, which can yield you a lot more than an extra GP or two in both the short and long-term. You don't need that extra bulb if you can get techs for peace or a good vassal. GPs get less valuable as the game goes on, while production costs go up making hammers ever more important.

If the NE will be built after you've reached the tech that puts you in a dominant position it will only push back your victory date. The longer the game will be the better an investment the NE becomes at any given completion date. On a pangea map it can often be a wasted investment. That's much less likely on a continents map. If you're going for a culture victory you of course need to build it.

 

[Lexicus]

Whether it's worth it or not is entirely situational. But it's not always worth it. How late did you get Lit? How many GPs have you already produced? How quickly can you get into a winning position?

This. NE is basically a frippery if you've already "broken out." I usually research Literature even before going for CS. I will start warring aggressively if I get Maces before my neighbors do (even better if I get Maces before they get Longbows), or I'll go for rifles and cannons which I can basically always get before the AI.
At any rate by this time I always have NE built. If you've timed things such that the NE is being built right at the point where you have a military advantage, it's better to use the resources that would go into the NE to build some more units to leverage that advantage.
I can't think of the last time I played a game where the NE wasn't built in time to get good use out of it.

Philobulbus for help with this specific situation I'd advise posting a save so you can get specific advice.

 

[MegaLurker]

THere are a few common siuattions where the NE would get put off until it's no longer worth it. These all assume Immortal or Deity difficulty, lower than that bulbing and golden ages are less about keeping/catching up and more about staying ahead. IE you bulb a tech because the AI is behind and it's the fastest way forward in the tech tree, instead of bulbing a tech to trade for other techs.

1)HA or Construction rush out of a boxed-in start. An HA rush can drag on an unexpectedly long time, Construction breakouts are fairly slow by nature and need a big early hammer and beaker investment. It's quite common, then, to not have Lit or an appropriate city with nothing more important to build (or to have neither) early enough to make a big difference. They can also be successful enough to start a snowball effect to make the NE unnecessary anyway.

2) The exact opposite situation, in which there is a lot of land up for grabs. If you put too much into wonders early and not enough into expansion, you can be handing the game to a runaway AI. If you don't deny the AI enough land they will bulldoze you with their lower maintenance costs/high number of worked tiles/hammer discount.

3) Renaissance war, particularly any sort of Engineering rush, will require all your production right around the time you would otherwise be thinking about the NE. And to get to Engineering as quickly as possible you might be ignoring the Aesthetics line entirely until you get it in trades or as a peace settlement.



Now if you can peacefully expand to 6-9 cities and have a good shot at winning the Music race, there is a huge synergy in triggering the first golden age right after completing an early NE. And this also aligns quite favourably with a Cuir breakout. You need Music anyway, and the philo->paper->Lib bulb path (and variations of that, including PP+physics to transition to Cavalry/Airships) is very powerful. So producing as many Great Scientists as possible in a fairly compact empire is ideal.

If you have a lot of forests in a good GPP city, it becomes more attractive just like if you have marble or are Industrious.

 

[Lexicus]

Well, I'm a Monarch player so I guess none of those situations applies to me

For my part, I'm not skilled enough at the game to precisely calibrate the finish times on key techs, GP generation, etc. which can all have an effect on whether to build the NE.

Actually a fairly frequent scenario in my games is that my GP farm lacks the hammers or chops to finish the NE in a timely manner, then I get attacked in the Renaissance by mean AIs and am forced to whip units instead of building the NE, thus sometimes the NE will be delayed until the Industrial Age, after I've won a serious war, when I don't really need it.

On a related note, do you have any particular advice to make it easier to bulb Liberalism? I almost never seem to be able to do it...in a recent game I was able to bulb it with a GS but that's the first time I ever remember it happening (usually I still have Compass and Optics to research by the time I've hit Lib). Do people usually use GS for that, or do you use different kinds of GP?

 

[Philobulbus]

I think to bulb Liberalism, you have to avoid having Machinery.

 

[MegaLurker]

I think to bulb Liberalism, you have to avoid having Machinery.

This is the answer.

For me the ideal route is:

-use the first early GS for an academy (assuming strong bureau capital location...hey, I said ideal didn't I?).

-go down the aesthetics->lit->music path, often building the Great Library if possible. Even in the same city as the National Epic if I expect a short game (ie. Cuir rush to a dominant position)

-time the golden age with the GArtist to allow the switch to Bureaucracy/Caste System/Pacifism (if lucky enough that it's not too risky to adopt a religion that's been spread to the GPP cities). Pump out a number of GScientists.

-bulb Philo before anyone else has it, not having the religion available discourages AIs from going down the Liberalism tech path early.

-distribute bulbs as I see fit between paper, edu, and Lib, and then perhaps a GMerchant or two to upgrade some stockpiled units into Cuirassiers

Sometimes I actually bulb compass or optics if it can be traded around sufficiently. It's not uncommon to get them first and be able to get 3-5x the amount of beakers back. Compass can be particularly strong if you expanded a lot and are having trouble keeping up with the global tech pace. It can get you right back into the game.

 

[6K Man]

Well, you should have your first Academy before you have NE built, IMO, unless for some reason you have beelined Lit or get Writing unaccountably late. Yes, there is an opportunity cost to building NE. However, I take the view that because each specialist is more efficient (6 GPP instead of 3) after NE is built, I’d rather run no specialists for 10 turns and get NE built fast, as opposed to running few/some specialists and slow-building NE over 20+ turns. Once built, you can make up for lost time fairly quickly.

The other thing is that if you are running slavery (you mentioned whipping, so I guess you are), you’re only going to have the 2 specialists for the Library and perhaps one for a Forge. So, whipping away 2 specialists (or sending their population to work in the mines) isn’t that big of a deal in a food rich locale, like a GP Farm.

 

[TalladegaKnight]

I generally build NE with whip overflow and forest chops. With marble it is not an expensive building.

 

[MegaLurker]

You want to make sure that whipping away population for the hammers doesn't actually get your next GP slower because of the turns needed to regrow. Obviously having a granary up already skews that toward whipping, so whipping the granary into the NE makes a lot of sense.

It's not efficient to beeline the NE, really, because it only becomes powerful when you caste system. And unless you're spiritual you're usually not adopting it as soon as you get CoL anyway, because using slavery for early expansion and infrastructure is so much more important.

Keeping in mind that if you're not creative or industrious the real cost of the NE is actually 340 hammers. And the city you want your NE in generally gets very little from the library's beaker bonus.

 

[Lexicus]

It's not efficient to beeline the NE, really, because it only becomes powerful when you caste system. And unless you're spiritual you're usually not adopting it as soon as you get CoL anyway, because using slavery for early expansion and infrastructure is so much more important.

Well, I always put the GL, NE, and Oxford in the same city (I realize this is not optimal play, but it does allow me to run 7 scientists in one city without forgoing slavery).
To me a game without wars is a boring game so I never really switch out of slavery after I switch into it. Now I think on it, it probably would be good to switch to castes at the beginning of GAs and then back into slavery at the end...

 

[Virupaksha]

TBH I don't really get this. NE for double the rate of great people seems more important running slavery than caste system. How many great people do we need? Three GS (academy in the capital, philosophy, most of education) and one, preferably two GM for upgrading troops. No problem to get these five running caste but running slavery hard without NE. Prophet for a shrine if applicable but caste doesn't help with this.

I am playing on emporer and I try as far as possible to avoid war so ok if not building NE gives a winning lead pre Liberalism through war fair enough but otherwise 340 hammers seens a small price to pay for 2500 beakers and 2600 gold.

 

[Lexicus]

TBH I don't really get this. NE for double the rate of great people seems more important running slavery than caste system. How many great people do we need? Three GS (academy in the capital, philosophy, most of education) and one, preferably two GM for upgrading troops. No problem to get these five running caste but running slavery hard without NE. Prophet for a shrine if applicable but caste doesn't help with this.

We literally cannot have too many GPs. If you play it right you can have GS account for the majority of your (pre-Industrial) beakers simply through bulbing and tech trading. Bulbing a tech that the AIs like and then trading it around for several different techs means you can get 5 or 6 times as many beakers as the "face value" of the bulb.

If all you're getting is 4 or 5 GP in the course of an entire game, you're not managing your specialists very well at all.

EDIT: The above comes across as kind of mean, I don't want to imply that you should change your gameplay style if what you're doing works for you, but optimizing GP management is kind of essential to advancing in difficulty level and becoming a better player. It's definitely one of the weaker areas of my game.

 

[Virupaksha]

@Lexicus

Sorry if my post wasn't clear, the four or five great people was meant as pre-liberalism.

While great people are always useful its in the early game where they can be potentially game changing, such as bulbing philosophy/education to win the race to liberalism or a great merchant just as macemen become avaiable to facilitate war.

 

[Lexicus]

While great people are always useful its in the early game where they can be potentially game changing, such as bulbing philosophy/education to win the race to liberalism or a great merchant just as macemen become avaiable to facilitate war.

Oh I see.

All right, yeah, I generate about that many pre-Lib as well...though I usually put all the points in GS and ignore GM. Gold is always easy to come by through trades with the AI and slider manipulation (in a pinch).

Typically, when I play a PHI leader I can whip universities very quickly after discovering education, and have Oxford in the NE city to generate some quick scientists handy for bulbing things like Scientific Method and Physics, the latter obviously gives you a free GS if you win the race to it.

 

[Testhero]

I pretty much always end up whipping NE in a grassland city and accepting the wait to regrow the city's population.

 

[Lexicus]

I pretty much always end up whipping NE in a grassland city and accepting the wait to regrow the city's population.

Hmm, do you usually have marble when doing this? I don't think I've ever managed to whip the NE without marble. And even then I usually whip less than half of the hammers--just never really have the population to whip the whole thing.