Noble Marathon Space Attempt

[pigswill]

ZPV. Its ok to be a downer, I'm still learning so I'm sure I'm not playing optimally. Adding a couple of grassland gems and wet corn to a starting civ would speed things up for sure (riverside plains stone would also help). On reflection I'm still transitioning from normal mode to HOF mode, I'm happy to select settings but balk at re-rolling (or world-buildering) a super-powerful start ..

I accept the point about waiting for an AI to build shrine (maybe even Stonehenge) even if it delays their acquisition by a hundred turns or so (marathon speed). Then krikav makes a contrarian argument ad hominem just to confuse me further .

Still not convinced about courthouses so I'll try to explain my position on that. In a big empire running SP city maintenance costs 6 gpt w/o CH, 3 gpt w CH. At 50 cities that's 150 gpt and when you're running 4-5000 bpt that's pretty small. On the other hand that's 150gpt every turn which adds up (15,000 g over a hundred turns). If you reckon that the cost of building a CH is a 2 pop whip then the cost is the time taken to regrow that two pop and its a one off cost. If it took eg 20 marathon turns to grow pop2 to pop4 then you could argue that's 20*12(2 rep sci)= 240 beakers (i.e. 80 turns at 3gpt). The calcs are obviously a lot more complex than that because city maintenance varies with city side and empire size etc. and it depends when you start running scientists (because specialists slow growth). Another comparison would be putting the hammers into failgold (90*2=180g as a one off benefit).

krikav. If you're going for big empires and milking the score then you want to grow your cities as large as possible.and lots of farms that can transition immediately between specs and growth is a good way to do that.

 

[pigswill]

Decided to play on a bit from the current 2000bc, Completed Oracle once writing was in, took CoL and switched to courthouses everywhere. The Oracle failgold is enough to power through Maths so that all CH chops will get the full 90 hammers (180 for CH ). before cities ready to (single) whip. After that its back to growing cities and marveling at the turbocharged economy.

 

[jnebbe]

Still not convinced about courthouses so I'll try to explain my position on that. In a big empire running SP city maintenance costs 6 gpt w/o CH, 3 gpt w CH. At 50 cities that's 150 gpt and when you're running 4-5000 bpt that's pretty small. On the other hand that's 150gpt every turn which adds up (15,000 g over a hundred turns). If you reckon that the cost of building a CH is a 2 pop whip then the cost is the time taken to regrow that two pop and its a one off cost. If it took eg 20 marathon turns to grow pop2 to pop4 then you could argue that's 20*12(2 rep sci)= 240 beakers (i.e. 80 turns at 3gpt). The calcs are obviously a lot more complex than that because city maintenance varies with city side and empire size etc. and it depends when you start running scientists (because specialists slow growth). Another comparison would be putting the hammers into failgold (60*2=120g as a one off benefit).

I think the point is that you want to expand as fast as possible. Courthouses might be nice later on but it will delay expansion a lot if you build them in the BCs. (assuming normal speed) 10 2-pop could instead be used for 10 workers or slowbuild for a few turns into 10 new settlers. If I were to replay my game I think see how close to +0pt at 0% I could get while still getting banking+economics in a reasonable time. It took a lot longer than I thought for my cities to grow and it would've taken even longer if I was building CHs as well

GL

 

[ZPV]

Still not convinced about courthouses so I'll try to explain my position on that. In a big empire running SP city maintenance costs 6 gpt w/o CH, 3 gpt w CH. At 50 cities that's 150 gpt and when you're running 4-5000 bpt that's pretty small. On the other hand that's 150gpt every turn which adds up (15,000 g over a hundred turns). If you reckon that the cost of building a CH is a 2 pop whip then the cost is the time taken to regrow that two pop and its a one off cost. If it took eg 20 marathon turns to grow pop2 to pop4 then you could argue that's 20*12(2 rep sci)= 240 beakers (i.e. 80 turns at 3gpt). The calcs are obviously a lot more complex than that because city maintenance varies with city side and empire size etc. and it depends when you start running scientists (because specialists slow growth). Another comparison would be putting the hammers into failgold (60*2=120g as a one off benefit).

Hmm, I guess that I'm only interested in building a building in the classical/medieval eras if:
1) It'll pay off before the industrial era (e.g. Granary, Monument if I reeeealllly need a border pop, Lighthouse, some Libraries, maybe a Market in the capital while on a 0% phase)
or 2) I'll want it anyway before the end of the game, and might as well start paying it off early (mainly forges, but also the rest of the libraries)
noting that 3) if there's something more important, I'm building that instead.

Organised courthouse probably does just about get there, under these tests, even on Noble. But I'm still not overjoyed to be building them. And I'm especially not overjoyed to have every single city governor hire a spy specialist whenever the city grows.

 

[krikav]

And I'm especially not overjoyed to have every single city governor hire a spy specialist whenever the city grows.

TBH, this is a great reason not to build courthouses.

 

[pigswill]

If you're playing HOF and not checking cities every turn you're not playing HOF

edit: jnebbe:: as I've said many times before expansion is limited by commerce not production, cutting costs increases commerce in the same as generating income increases commerce, obviously you aim to do both.

 

[pigswill]

Played on, up to 1620. As said got Oracle>CoL 1900, 400 failgold for Oracle so got Maths 1810, whipped and chopped courthouses everywhere. Playing silly games with Julius, captured two of his cities, gave one to Sury and another to Joao. His remaining city is on a hilltop with eight archers so that can wait a bit. Built a galley and found an island. Got Currency 1620. Currently 60% research, 84bpt +1gpt. Time for next expansion, four settlers being built, took peace with Julius for 40g so I'll use HAs/Immortals to hurt (hopefully annihilate) Justinian, only two cities but they're pretty good. Still building failgold from ToA, still waiting to collect it. Plenty of scope for expansion, none of my cities are building wealth at the moment so I'm a long way from broke (and ain't losing buckets of cash from city maintenance).

 

[ZPV]

edit: jnebbe:: as I've said many times before expansion is limited by commerce not production, cutting costs increases commerce in the same as generating income increases commerce, obviously you aim to do both.

Just to play devil's advocate on this one, the hardest part is getting to 20 cities. Once you're past that, the "Number of cities maintenance" is already maxed out in your larger cities, and then from about 23 cities it's maxed out in a size 1 city too, which means the marginal cost of new ones is much smaller, and they become profitable very quickly.
i.e. Once you get to 20, you can keep expanding forever, as fast as your production can keep up, until you run out of land.

20 cities on Noble/Standard in expensive civics costs around 240 in maintenance. (Less with ORG)
If you have two island cities, every city will have 2x 2 trade routes, plus at least one from the city square. That's already 100:
It's only 140 left to find - through whatever means you have available - commerce tiles (FIN helps a lot with this), extra Great Lighthouse trade routes, failgold, trades for gold, building Wealth, even building Courthouses.

The basic idea is that it isn't that hard to pay for your cities. And then even if you're only a little bit above breakeven, when you grow each city by one population, assume they're mostly on FIN coast tiles or better, suddenly you've added a whole bunch of research potential. At some point, you'll have Hanging Gardens to give you an extra boost, too.

 

[pigswill]

City number maintenance is maxed out at 6gpt iirc (+distance maintenance until State Property) , and yes trade routes offset that as does commerce from tiles worked but why pay full price maintenance when you can pay half price? I'm not claiming that Courthouses are a panacea (and I apologise if I've given that impression ) but I am saying that they are overlooked (if not outright condemned as a complete waste of resources).

I'm also not sure if the negativity towards courthouses is based on any evidence or if its simply assumed that they're rubbish. ( If an assumption becomes adopted widely enough it becomes accepted as a fact (even if it isn't)). Of course if its assumed that widespread early courthouses is a really stupid idea no-one ever tries it because its 'self-evidently' stupid..

I am also aware that my civ skills are intermediate rather than advanced and any attempted demonstration on my part will be weakened by my sub optimal implementation.

 

[ZPV]

City number maintenance is maxed out at 6gpt iirc (+distance maintenance until State Property) , and yes trade routes offset that as does commerce from tiles worked but why pay full price maintenance when you can pay half price? I'm not claiming that Courthouses are a panacea (and I apologise if I've given that impression ) but I am saying that they are overlooked (if not outright condemned as a complete waste of resources).

I'm also not sure if the negativity towards courthouses is based on any evidence or if its simply assumed that they're rubbish. ( If an assumption becomes adopted widely enough it becomes accepted as a fact (even if it isn't)). Of course if its assumed that widespread early courthouses is a really stupid idea no-one ever tries it because its 'self-evidently' stupid..

I am also aware that my civ skills are intermediate rather than advanced and any attempted demonstration on my part will be weakened by my sub optimal implementation.

They're not dreadful; I'll stop harping on about them
It's just the choice is usually between a courthouse and a settler, and the settler pays more in the long run.

 

[Anysense]

In most cities courthouse's value is negative, it is easily calculated. Most cities have just 10-14 maintenance (Deity), meaning that a CH would save only 5-7 per turn or ~3 per unit of population, assuming Organized. It means that you would do much better to leave that population working coast (particularly financial one) or a riverside cottage or mine. There is plenty of stuff more beneficial than courthouses, of which one of the most important things as ZPV said is settlers. Instead of trying to save small amounts you should expand and then develop your cities. As you know the best means of keeping afloat throughout expansion phase is Wonderbread, not courthouses.

 

[pigswill]

As I posted before you can't rely on noble AIs to complete wonders in a timely fashion, I suspect Deity is very different. In this current game I'm up to 1500bc, I've built SH and Oracle myself, the AIs haven't completed a single wonder. I have several hundred hammers/failgold invested in ToA and I'm still waiting. Another factor to consider is that Darius isn't industrious (my choice of leader). A third factor (also my choice) is that I haven't prioritised stone, there was no stone near my starting point (or any AI cities I captured early on). and I've only just settled a city to grab stone (?20 tiles from my capital). On noble at least Wonderbread is not a staple diet but a very occasional treat , you need something else. Maybe if I'd picked an industrious leader and industrious opponents and prioritised stone and marble early on Wonderbread might have been a reliable economic model, but I'm not totally convinced.

Meanwhile I've played a few more turns. Wiped out Justinian for another two cities and settled three of my own (including my first island city) for a total of 17 cities I've got two more settlers en route and three more being built. Only twenty workers so need a few more of those, I've researched calendar and IW (to chop jungle on top of gems and calendar resources). Economy is pretty good (50% for 113bpt +7gpt, 300g in the bank) so plenty of scope for settling more. Getting up to 25 cities by 1000bc should be easy, 30 is more of a stretch.
I've got the essential economic techs and my aim is Lib>Communism before 1ad. Really a question of research order which I'm still pondering.One of the side effects of building lots of courthouses is I'm generating significant amounts of espionage points so I'm thinking about how I could use them to my advantage.

 

[Anysense]

Why did not you make any failgold with the Oracle? It is one of the best early wonders for this purpose. Just put a chop or overflow here and there into the Oracle, thats a couple of thousands of just lying there, waiting for you. I'm still failing to understand why you picked ToA. It is fairly large, very difficult to make any use of and you will probably have to finish it yourself.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Why did not you make any failgold with the Oracle? It is one of the best early wonders for this purpose. Just put a chop or overflow here and there into the Oracle, thats a couple of thousands of just lying there, waiting for you. I'm still failing to understand why you picked ToA. It is fairly large, very difficult to make any use of and you will probably have to finish it yourself.

Played on, up to 1620. As said got Oracle>CoL 1900, 400 failgold for Oracle so got Maths 1810, whipped and chopped courthouses everywhere. Playing silly games with Julius, captured two of his cities, gave one to Sury and another to Joao. His remaining city is on a hilltop with eight archers so that can wait a bit. Built a galley and found an island. Got Currency 1620. maintenance).

It sounds like you could've delayed Oracle and COL a small bit, and gotten Civil Service instead.

Edit: Or Feudalism, or Machinery.

 

[pigswill]

Anysense: ToA was a mistake, no doubt born of inexperience with the whole failgold thing and yes I probably I will finish it myself and yes its a pretty naff wonder (checked the save coz I've just got alphabet, no-one has polytheism yet) On the other hand I didn't have stone and I wanted early Oracle>CoL for the whole CH spam thing.

Carpool Karaoke: no doubt I could have delayed Oracle by several hundred years and got CS no problem. But I didn't want to wait and I'm not that bothered about early CS. Bureaucracy is nice but not essential, won't need maces and workers are too busy to focus on chain irrigation at the moment.

 

[pigswill]

Played up to 1000bc, its taken a while, partly because its too blooming hot (in England anyway) to do anything and partly because I wasn't really sure what I was doing.

Spoiler Game summary :

Basically building workers and settlers, a few granaries and courthouses and trying to rex. Had a couple of small wars, reduced Portugal to the former roman city of Cumae, captured a Roman city because I could. Otherwise very quiet on the military front.

Got up to 28 cities, one more to be settled next turn. Economy is still healthy 259bpt -17gpt 348g in bank (currently saving c 70gpt from courthouses). So far I've built 20 CH (2 building),18 granaries (7 building), 3 libraries, 2 barax and a market in shrine city. Got 38 workers, still not enough but can't do everything

To my amazement I saw the first AI Wonder: Great Wall by Bismark c 1150bc,( obviously it didn't register there are no barbarians in this game).

My research path was quite rambling because I wasn't sure of priorities: alphabet, aesthetics, lit (NE, HE, Glib), construction (river crossing), monarchy, MC, feudalism.

I eventually popped a Prophet who founded Kong Miao in Madrid, slightly ironic that Isabella didn't found a single religion but Madrid is still a shrined holy city . Only +12 base gpt but that will increase.

I built/chopped HE fairly early in Lisbon because I figured I'd be needing quite a few mp units on top of any actual combat units and 25h archers are cheaper than 50h archers. My current army consists of 6HA and a GG medic which isn't that substantial really and will probably be augmented by stack defenders (axe/XB +spear/pike) and some siege units (cat/treb) depending on how I prioritise Machinery/Eng.

I've been building Glib (completes in 2 turns) instead of NE because without Glib it would be 150 turns for 3rd GP (GS), with Glib it comes down to 65 turns. Quite a saving. As I'm beelining Communism Glib will obselete fairly early so its best to maximise its benefits while I can (and no nasty GP pollution )

Completed Glight but I've only discovered two islands (both settled) so that's a bit disappointing.

Sury'g got 5 cities, Biskmark 3, Julius and Joao 1 each. Sury and Bizzy have got metal units by now so not complete pushovers.

Can't think of much else, if you're interested look at the save. I know that my worker management (and micro management in general) ain't that good but if you want to criticise the numerous faults feel free to do so.

 

[pigswill]

General question. Given that beaker costs are trebled on marathon what is the correct formula for beaker value of GS Bulbs:
i) 1500+3*pop?
ii) 4500+3*pop?
iii)4500+9*pop?

Wondering whether its worth completing Hanging Gardens before bulbing.

 

[Snowbird]

Bulbs are scaled properly.

3 (for marathon)x(1000+2xpop) for great person -- x1.5 if person is great scientist.

So iii).

 

[pigswill]

Tx Snowbird

Beginning to get a plan together: Communist Countries may be keen on Five Year plans, in Civ World I'm looking at a Thousand Year Plan.

Lots to try to fit together...

Spoiler Expansion :

I think that I really need to grow cities sooner rather than later and obviously settlers and workers stunt your growth. I want granaries and courthouses asap but the rest can wait a bit longer, I'll also be researching CS so I'm thinking that I'll be in slavery a bit longer but then switch to serfdom and bureaucracy. You really notice the difference in tile improvement times on marathon (10 turn farm instead of 15, 4 turn road etc) and you effectively turn 38 workers into 57.

On the other hand I still need to expand so I think I'll build up the army and pinch some cities from the AI.

Spoiler Research :

Two main components to libbbing Communism

Liberalism path: CS Paper Education Philosophy.

Scimeth path: either chemistry via machinery, guilds, engineering, gunpowder, milsci, or astronomy via machinery, compass, optics. Both paths require PP>scimeth. Also want music for free Great Artist.

Going liberalism path first gets a start on universities for Oxford: even with mass workshops half a dozen cottaged uni towns and maybe even bureaucratic Oxford have their place but there's no rush for philosophy. Going chemistry path gives guilds and chemistry which both add hammers to workshops. Going astronomy path means I get to explore the world and get some New World goodie huts which could (according to one list I saw) give me free music and astronomy.
I think I'm most tempted by astronomy path with a minor detour to CS giving something like: CS machinery compass optics (exploration) paper education PP philosophy astronomy lib-1 scimeth lib>communism.

Spoiler Great People and Golden Ages :

I should get a GS in 25 turns and a second GS 65 turns after that. When I research Music I'll get a free GA, when I get Communism I'll get a free GSpy. Its tempting in some ways to go for music earlier and use the GA for a GA for anarchy free revolutions, on the other hand my empire is still small (in terms of population and worked tiles) and I haven't built MoM yet. Its also true that Golden Ages become more expensive so despite anarchy I'll have a quick revolution first and leave my first Golden Age for the Great Leap Forwards when I get to Communism (state property etc). If I'm not using GS*2 for GA fodder then they can help bulb some of the more expensive techs: education, PP, scimeth

Spoiler Religion and civics :

I've got the Confucian shrine but at the moment Confu has only spread to six of my cities, ten other cities have a different religion leaving twelve with no religion. I haven't adopted a religion yet and adopting one outside a Gold Age will cost three turns of anarchy. I'm hoping that the shrine will help Confu spread to more of my cities. I could also use missionaries to spread Confu but if I'm building missionaries I'm not building something else.
In terms of civics I'm looking at switching to bureacracy and serfdom short term. Longer term (following the Great Socialist Transformation aka Great Leap Forwards I think I'll be running US (rushbuy w Kremlin), Bureaucracy (Oxford capital), Caste (so no slavery), State Property and Organised Religion. I'll use the Golden Age that ushers in the Great Socialist Transformation to adopt Confucianism and use OR to spread it further.

Spoiler Wonders :

There are a few wonders I was to acquire:

i) Pyramids for US (avoids delay and cost of researching democracy), I won't need this until Communism so no big rush, even better if an AI builds it for me so slow build it somewhere.

ii) Mausoleum of Mausoleus (sic). Obvious GA booster but not needed until I have a GA when I get to Communism so again no rush, no AI will build this first so have to do it myself.

iii) Hanging Gardens. This one is a priority for instant boost to city growth.

iv) Kremlin. Not available until Communism but I could do some pre-chopping

Its surprising how your priorities change if you don't follow the repsci orthodoxy.

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

You may be under-valuing CS. Bureacracy capital will be a big part of your research (The early production bonus is also nice) and it naturally lines up with maximizing failgold on the oracle. Check how long your CoL research time would have been without oracle, and see how many courthouses you actually statted / finished in that time. It seems unlikely the early start on the CH's outweighs the other benefits.