Organized Leader OR Ralithus

[wolfblue]

just wondering what leads to the lowest maintainance cost?

a normal Organized leader with a courthouse.

or a non organized leader with a holy roman ralithus.

 

[Ataxerxes]

just wondering what leads to the lowest maintainance cost?

a normal Organized leader with a courthouse.

or a non organized leader with a holy roman ralithus.

Organized with courthouse. Organized is 50% with another 25% for the courthouse (which is cheaper). But Organized helps with Civic costs.

Rathaus is an excellent UB. But very few, if any, UB's are as good as a trait.

 

[lymond]

Yeah, I think you have to consider what else the Org trait does for you. Now an Org leader playing HRE is another story

 

[Tlalynet]

Organized only cuts the cost of civics, Rathouse cuts all maintained costs (including corps)

It depends largely on how expensive you're civics are. Lots of high-mid cost civics favor organized. A large, expansive empire favors the Rathouse since org gives no distance savings.

Post corps the Rathouse is the hands down winner, before that its situational.

 

[Iranon]

ORG savings for a given city with Population x are roughly:

1+0.2x for default civics.
1.25+0.3x for medium-cost civics.

There's also some fluff to prevent huge jumps from rounding, typically ORG will save 2-5 gold less than this for the whole empire.


Shouldn't be too hard to compare this to the savings of Rathice on top of regular courthouses.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

ORG savings for a given city with Population x are roughly:

1+0.2x for default civics.
1.25+0.3x for medium-cost civics.

There's also some fluff to prevent huge jumps from rounding, typically ORG will save 2-5 gold less than this for the whole empire.


Shouldn't be too hard to compare this to the savings of Rathice on top of regular courthouses.

At least not until you get into time-value calculations, the fact that ORG courthouses are cheaper, and opportunity costs of playing/not playing HRE .

Even if one or the other outperforms in the absolute sense, time to get there matters a lot.

 

[Tlalynet]

Shouldn't be too hard to compare this to the savings of Rathice on top of regular courthouses.

But it is, since the UU gives an extra 25% off four variables, while Org gives 50% off of one potentially high (1.8 gold per pop) but also potentially low one (.6 gold per pop).

Fewer, larger, more centralized cities will have higher civics maintainence and lower distance and # of cities costs, while a large, spread out empire of smaller cities will have high # of cities and distance maintainence compared to their civics cost.

Also, since High cost civics are 2x the cost of low cost civics what civics you choose to use are important here. Vassalage, Bureaucracy, Police state, and OR all crank up the value of org pretty quickly, while no upkeep civics like nationhood and pacifism cut its usefulness down.


I should note, in communism the org trait wins, and I already said with corps the UU wins.


TMIT
If we're talking playing the HRE Imp gives half off settles (and double GG points) while Org gives half off courthouses, lighthouses, and kicks in right away. Imp saves you hammers earlier but Org saves you money earlier, enough to pay for 1 city per 8 you settle running basic\low civics IIRC. Still, the half off settlers lets you either expand faster or have more turns doing something else in your capital. That's not a terrible opportunity cost tradeoff.

 

[Ataxerxes]

But it is, since the UU gives an extra 25% off four variables, while Org gives 50% off of one potentially high (1.8 gold per pop) but also potentially low one (.6 gold per pop).

Fewer, larger, more centralized cities will have higher civics maintainence and lower distance and # of cities costs, while a large, spread out empire of smaller cities will have high # of cities and distance maintainence compared to their civics cost.

Also, since High cost civics are 2x the cost of low cost civics what civics you choose to use are important here. Vassalage, Bureaucracy, Police state, and OR all crank up the value of org pretty quickly, while no upkeep civics like nationhood and pacifism cut its usefulness down.

I should note, in communism the org trait wins, and I already said with corps the UU wins.

TMIT
If we're talking playing the HRE Imp gives half off settles (and double GG points) while Org gives half off courthouses, lighthouses, and kicks in right away. Imp saves you hammers earlier but Org saves you money earlier, enough to pay for 1 city per 8 you settle running basic\low civics IIRC. Still, the half off settlers lets you either expand faster or have more turns doing something else in your capital. That's not a terrible opportunity cost tradeoff.

But the benefit of Org also occurs earlier, which is a big break. I admit that if you have Corps and aren't running SP the Rathaus would be better at that point. But the game up until that point would still be an advantage to Org and the early advantages are the most important. Admittedly I'm biased because I run OR and Bureaucracy quite a bit and am quite fond of SP in the late game.

Even if we assume Rathaus roughly equals Org, TMIT's opportunity cost of playing HRE still holds up. Imp is a good trait, so we won't downgrade that. But your UB now makes up for a trait, leaving you with Protective and the Landy as your other benefits. Landy isn't even a medium level UU and I can think of a number of UB's I'd rather have than being Protective. So the HRE is still weak.

 

[Tlalynet]

Pro>Agg in any siege heavy war (since the drill promo line shines in that case), but the Landie doesn't really have any redeeming qualities.

The immediate and early advantages of the organized trait certainly outstrip the UU by itself, like you said

Very few, if any, UB's are as good as a trait.

I tend to run OR a lot myself, though I don't run Bureaucracy much.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Pro>Agg in any siege heavy war (since the drill promo line shines in that case), but the Landie doesn't really have any redeeming qualities.

The immediate and early advantages of the organized trait certainly outstrip the UU by itself, like you said



I tend to run OR a lot myself, though I don't run Bureaucracy much.

Pro only beats AGG in siege-heavy war post-gunpowder/rifling. Before that any field battles will tend to favor the stronger base STR melee even with siege in the equation. Human-human wars are very different than wars vs the AI though.

 

[Tlalynet]

Wouldn't steel be the turning point rather than gunpowder\rifling?

It's more getting more collateral that makes the difference than the base str of the assist units. I can understand catapults being a bit weak but even then cats+tribs+lbows and a couple xbows and a pike makes a better midevil war stack than using a lot of macemen doesn't it? Its cheaper too.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Wouldn't steel be the turning point rather than gunpowder\rifling?

It's more getting more collateral that makes the difference than the base str of the assist units. I can understand catapults being a bit weak but even then cats+tribs+lbows and a couple xbows and a pike makes a better midevil war stack than using a lot of macemen doesn't it? Its cheaper too.

No. It's rifling. Before muskets/rifles, the only units that resist collateral are miserable in the field: longbows and xbows. Why does "in the field" matter? Because competent human beings will use collateral defensively.

 

[Tlalynet]

But machine guns are the only units that naturally resist collateral, and the collateral resistance of the drill line is pretty paltry in and of itself (a single unit barrage equivalent resistance, and barrage is a questionable promo even when it hits 5-7 units), even with drill IV it would normally only take one extra siege unit to hit the collateral cap. I'm not sure why you're saying that's the important factor in the protective advantage.

Plus, if you're going against a competent human I'd think you'd be fawning out with multiple mini stacks and actually getting into a tactical metagame.

As it sits against AI or incompetent humans its the first strikes of the drill line that pay off in better odds and reduced recovery time, and they pay off fine vs any kind of siege weakened unit even if its just drill II longbows going in to finish the job.

 

[bobbyboy29]

Personally, I think that Ikhanda>Rathaus. Just putting it out there, Ikhanda+courthouse saves 5% less upkeep than rathaus and costs a bit more hammers. However, they cme so early on and with shaka's Agg they are dirt cheap. Furthermore, you can put them in cities that normally wouldn't need/bother/couldn't afford the hammers to build a courthouse and save extra maintenance there. So even though the saving per city is less, I feel that it's a stronger UB overall.

You could potentially make the same argument for zigs, but I prefer the Ikhanda.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

But machine guns are the only units that naturally resist collateral, and the collateral resistance of the drill line is pretty paltry in and of itself (a single unit barrage equivalent resistance, and barrage is a questionable promo even when it hits 5-7 units), even with drill IV it would normally only take one extra siege unit to hit the collateral cap. I'm not sure why you're saying that's the important factor in the protective advantage.

Plus, if you're going against a competent human I'd think you'd be fawning out with multiple mini stacks and actually getting into a tactical metagame.

As it sits against AI or incompetent humans its the first strikes of the drill line that pay off in better odds and reduced recovery time, and they pay off fine vs any kind of siege weakened unit even if its just drill II longbows going in to finish the job.

Okay, and how exactly are you saying that PRO has any offensive field fire power pre-gunpowder era? They might go guerrilla II longbows for some fork/choke on hilly terrain, but even that can be blocked easily enough by one's own longbows, forcing them onto flats.

PRO has no offensive power at all against competent opposition until they have units that don't bend over the instant they stand on flat ground.

While drill II/III longbows are fine after collateral, it takes a LOT of collateral to make them competitive with a stock CR I or II SWORD, let alone mace, treb, etc. They're bad against horse archers/knights (which ignore FS) and even weak vs maces (requiring a lot of collateral to be reliable). Longbows are not field units. They are def terrain/city units, and competent players aren't going to be allowing that to be used offensively.

Edit: Yes, the ikhanda is better than the rathaus. Actually, everything about Shaka is better than the burger king.

 

[Tlalynet]

Which is the difference between playing AI and playing a higher level human opponent isn't it?

If we're talking AI you can use the CG bonus with forts (or just in a city, worst case) to deal with their stack, then take those same drill longbows out with siege to start taking cities. You need lots of siege for midevil wars anyway, you might as well have cheap units to finish off siege weakened units. Drill lets them take less damage and be ready to continue marching faster. Throw a couple stack defenders in just in case and you're good to go.

But against another human there are naturally more considerations.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

High level AI has lots of knights/mounted. If you're fighting in that era you better have a lot more than longbows.

 

[G-Max]

You're all wrong.

Praetorians beat everything.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Hey G-Max, where's your Israeli Civilization 4 and the bombarding missile UU?

 

[G-Max]

What the hell are you talking about?