NE and Globe in same city?

Izuul

Level 86
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Jan 26, 2012
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Lately I've become a big fan of Nationhood and drafting rifles. When I pursue this strat, I generally take one food-rich city and turn it into my NE GP farm, and then later build Globe in the same city and convert it to a draft city.

Of course this causes the city to lose most of it's value as a GP farm, but my logic for putting them in the same city is basically:

1) Losing GPP doesn't seem like a huge deal at that stage in the game
2) I'd rather use the food that would be needed for a separate Globe drafting city on 1-2 commerce/production cities.
3) It's really convenient since the city is already farmed out

Is this ideal? I know this could vary with land available, but lets just assume we are average size, don't have gobs of cities, and a perfect location for a separate Globe drafting city often isn't available. (I'm playing on Emperor, if it matters.)
 
I often thought about this, using the former GP Farm after it has produced a certain number of GPs, and then transform it into a GT Draft / Whip city. Problem is normally, that the GT is available a lot earlier then the time the GP Farm becomes ineffective.
 
Just a guess, but if the drafting of the troops will lead to the end of the game, it's worth it. It might not be optimal in terms of GP production, but that doesn't often matter to me at that point. My GP farm is used to propel my economy and research into the era where I choose to make my warfare stand. Once I'm there, I should be transitioning from setting myself up in a winnable position to winning from that position.

To put it another way: are you going to be bulbing any important techs while your drafted army stomps the world to a Conquest victory? If no, the GP farm is moot anyway, and you should probably just pick the best city for the Globe.
 
My problem with this setup has always been that 6 theaters and the GT are expensive and give little benefit besides this, and drafting is only good at rifles. Maces aren't very interesting to draft, neither are musketman (perhaps the oromo) and beyond rifles it's 2pop per unit and then it's only one unit every 2 turns assuming massive surplus food, which I could probably get without drafting anyway what with factories and the like being available at that point.

Drafting a rifle could be a 30:hammers: whip (37.5 with forge), so you spend 32.5:hammers: (since that pop could be working a 0F4H tile) on a rifle, which is good. That saves you 77.5:hammers:

Infantry however is a 2pop draft. With power, a factory, and a forge you could just whip 2pop for 60*2 and save only 20:hammers:. Then you factor in the hammers you lose from not working hammertiles (16:hammers: +8:hammers:) and suddenly you're looking at a net loss in productivity from drafting vs. whipping.

What's more, I'll whip my cities down anyway, leading to massive surplus happiness and I'll presumable be gaining happiness resources in the war as well, so empire-wide rifle drafting doesn't have a big impact on happiness anyway.
 
My thought is that the best draft cities are usually small and high-food, since smaller cities require less food to grow a pop, and the important part is the growth rate, not total food. A couple of seafood and a couple of farms can do a nice job, drafting every other turn.

In contrast, a great GP city usually has lots of farms. Sure, it brings more food in, but it's also bigger, so it grows more slowly.

I think you can get a good globe-draft city while still keeping your GP farm, and as long as you build happiness buildings at the GP farm, you probably don't need globe there.
 
I agree with KP that this can work well if you're entering the final phase where you've got the techs you need to win by conquest or domination. The other thing you need is sufficient hammers to build the GT in your GP farm city in a timely manner.

I would disagree with JU that drafting muskets is uninteresting. Drafting muskets in your GT city while the rest of your empire builds cannons can easily conquer the world. When I do this I'm libbing one of Nat/Chem/Steel.
 
Not if you don't have horses!
 
My thought is that the best draft cities are usually small and high-food, since smaller cities require less food to grow a pop, and the important part is the growth rate, not total food. A couple of seafood and a couple of farms can do a nice job, drafting every other turn.

In contrast, a great GP city usually has lots of farms. Sure, it brings more food in, but it's also bigger, so it grows more slowly.

I think you can get a good globe-draft city while still keeping your GP farm, and as long as you build happiness buildings at the GP farm, you probably don't need globe there.

I do actually prefer to put the globe in a separate city when everything works out ideally. The small city with multiple seafood resources you describe is definitely a better pure drafting city, I wouldn't dispute that.

^Nat+GP puts you one tech away from curies, which are far better at conquering worlds than cannon+musket.

I didn't intend for this to be a Cuirassier vs Rifle/Cannon debate.
 
To me, a great person is pretty incredibly valuable. I wouldn't do that, no. In fact, I'd probably work on creating more secondary GP farms to get more GP for golden ages ;)
 
If you are heading to a cultural VC then it a great way to get your GP farm to grow well above the number of happy before you go 100% culture. The problem with this and bulbing plan is the GA's that tend to show up with the GS's.

Of course on a war game GA's are great. After taking out an AI and their super capital or other super Cities, wait untill turn before it come out of Revolt or after peace/conquest, which ever comes first, Culture bomb the city. Size 20+ cities with mature improvements/Towns. Sweeeeet.
 
I've done this when I had to. It might not be so bad to temporarily lose your GP farm for 40 turns for a Rifleman war.
 
Converting a GP farm to a draft city sounds like an elegant way to switch a city from a peacetime tech machine to a wartime unit factory. If you're building an economy from settled great people then Nationalism is a bit early to shut down your GP farm, but if you were only producing tech bulbs then it's a fair time to phase out GP. You can even switch back to farming GPs if your war isn't all-in.

Setting up role swaps for your cities like this is good way to get more mileage from less land, which certainly comes up as you climb past Emperor. Specializing an empire across time is trickier than specializing cities across land.
 
My problem with this setup has always been that 6 theaters and the GT are expensive and give little benefit besides this, and drafting is only good at rifles. Maces aren't very interesting to draft, neither are musketman (perhaps the oromo) and beyond rifles it's 2pop per unit and then it's only one unit every 2 turns assuming massive surplus food, which I could probably get without drafting anyway what with factories and the like being available at that point.

Drafting a rifle could be a 30:hammers: whip (37.5 with forge), so you spend 32.5:hammers: (since that pop could be working a 0F4H tile) on a rifle, which is good. That saves you 77.5:hammers:

Infantry however is a 2pop draft. With power, a factory, and a forge you could just whip 2pop for 60*2 and save only 20:hammers:. Then you factor in the hammers you lose from not working hammertiles (16:hammers: +8:hammers:) and suddenly you're looking at a net loss in productivity from drafting vs. whipping.

What's more, I'll whip my cities down anyway, leading to massive surplus happiness and I'll presumable be gaining happiness resources in the war as well, so empire-wide rifle drafting doesn't have a big impact on happiness anyway.

You need 6 pops to draft, draft 3 rifles in a city and with war weariness your unhappiness will be sky high. Theaters are cheap and great with the culture slider to keep on drafting.
 
My take is that generally you would not combine the two, but it might be feasible under certain conditions. Primarily that you are a) rather small with limited options for Globe anyway b) going for an earlier military type victory.

Point A is often a rare case. Point B has merit if you use the NE city to burn out some quick GPs for a bulb plan to military superiority and then use Globe draft/whip to the end the game, at which point GPs hold less value. In contrast, if you for go longer term victories like space and such you are going to want to continue producing GPs for key bulbs, rushes and golden ages. You are not going to want to nerf your GP production in that case. Globe cities are high food 2ndary military cities that have little else going for them (resources - other than food, or commerce) that you are going to ravage by drafting and whipping - with no remorse - when you prep for war. (Although, in peace time, globe cities can grow and perhaps produce a gp or 2 as well).

The land/resource requirements for NE/Globe are interestingly and logically almost identical. At least 2 or 3 good food bonus resources (more the merrier), the potential to farm most of the other land tiles, and maybe 2 or 3 mines to get in key infra, although you can whip most of it in. Globe city needs very few buildings - granary, forge, theatre, and whatever military bonus building you need. You don't even need great people slot buildings if using as secondary gp production as you can simply run temp caste.
 
In warlords NE/globe used to be the way to go. People used to tech drama more for trade bait, and relying on culture slider for happiness was more common (base happiness was one less too), so theatres were kind of worthwhile.

Davemcw had a catapult/overflow to globe theatre strategy, when catapults cost 40 hammers, weren't flanked by horse archers, and could kill units. You never became unhappy because hereditary rule, and when you completed globe you moved out the catapults to somewhere else.

Now globe is a pretty low priority. It feels like it's good in your second or 3rd food city for drafting wars, because you only need break a certain food to pop threshhold anyway, and it's a lot easier to spread out 2 drafts over the rest of your empire than 3 drafts.
 
i don't see a problem in converting a NE city into a draft city as long as the war will be game-ending.

Normally I just put the Globe in a small, mediocre city with just enough food to grow every turn. Like Rhino said, a couple seafood and some farms and you're set.
 
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