Oxford University and Wall Street

[lauralaura]

Short version: Is it a good idea to build both Oxford and Wall St. in the same city?

Long version: I'm playing a game as Washington (huge cold archapelago, 15 civs on marathon) at prince level. I've got a good-sized rock all to myself, and sited Philadelphia in the midst of a HUGE expanse of flood plains surrounded by grassland (9 flood plains and probably 9 grasslands in the fat cross). Great, so that's my science city, and Oxford will go there. I've got a few other sites that have decent commerce potential, but nothing *that* good on my island or nearby ones.

So, planning ahead, I'm trying to decide whether to put Wall Street in Philadelphia as well. I'm already planting the national epic in my hugely seafooded and cowed GP-farm capital, and, apart from that, no other national wonder seems to harmonize particularly well with a hugely commerce-intesive city. Given that, unlike a military city, I don't have to keep building a specific sort of thing in the city to take advantage of its, well, advantages, and that there's so much commerce there, it will be getting a market, bank, etc. anyway, so Wall St. seems like a good choice for a second national wonder.

Am I missing something?

Oh, also, might Philly be a good choice to make the capital of my empire? It's fairly centrally located within my primary island.

PS, in case it matters. I just discovered education, and will almost certainly be the first to liberalism in ~25 turns, so this is advance planning. Philly is size 13 with a great many developed cottages and an academy. I've got 9 cities, there's room for probably 5 more on my island and an equal number on nearby islands. Going for eventual domination victory, but don't plan on doing any conquesting until cavs, given the vast amount of uninhabited land at my disposal and lack of nearby opponents. I'm easily keeping up with Mansa in tech.

 

[jerVL/kg]

Wall Street is always best to place in a holy city. If you don't own a holy city, go capture one.

I like to pair Oxford with the National Epic to speed up the output of Great Scientists, especially if I get the Great Library in there as well.

 

[jkp1187]

In the right circumstances, anything can be appropriate. In this case, I don't see any reason why this would be a bad idea, given that this meshes with your other plans.

Do you have plans on where you're going to locate the Ironworks, though?

Instead of moving the Palace to Philadelphia, however, perhaps it would be better to build the Forbidden Palace (or Versailles) there? That way, you would have reduced maintenance throughout your core cities now, and in future (if you conquer some distant continent,) you can always just move your actual Palace to the new territories and still have a centrally located Forbidden Palace keeping maintenance in check in the original core.

It's a little hard for me to advise on that without eyeballing the map, though.

 

[Norton II]

If you're running max science and don't have a holy city, the best place for Wall Street would probably be your GP farm--just run as many merchants and priests as you can (if you're in caste system, just use merchants).

Also, since Philadelphia is your science city, moving the palace there at some point is definitely a good idea (for the +8 commerce). Otherwise, I wouldn't worry about it unless you're planning not to switch to state property when it becomes available.

 

[Jet]

When your research slider is high, Wall St goes best in a city with a shrine and/or one with a lot of food, to run the maximum number of merchants. If you're going for domination, you ought to capture some. You'll have to analyze when that would happen and how good the shrine would be.

On the other hand if you're going for domination your slider is likely to get low (maybe to 50%, but on your settings I don't know). In that case Wall St in your top commerce city is a fine idea.

Another issue with Wall St is that it takes a lot of hammers.

The main other issue is whether you'll need Globe Theater in your capital to mitigate war weariness. If you don't know based on other games in the style of this one, I suggest assuming you won't and learning the hard way if necessary.

 

[DaveMcW]

Wall Street / Shrine / High Food / National Epic is a pretty sweet combo. Run merchants and prophets, and settle them in the same city.

If you don't have high food in your shrine city, it's probably better to group Oxford and Wall Street together.

 

[bode404]

What bothers me most about Wall Street is that it's usually built on a city so devoted to commerce that the few hammers available takes looooong to build something that big.

 

[futurehermit]

I like rush-buying Wall Street myself. I think it cost around 1100 or so.

 

[jerVL/kg]

I like rush-buying Wall Street myself. I think it cost around 1100 or so.

It's a National Wonder, so the cost is more like 10,000.

But a GE can always rush it in one turn.

 

[popejubal]

I like rush-buying Wall Street myself. I think it cost around 1100 or so.

I like rush buying Wall Street too.

I just buy it with the crushed souls of my fallen countrymen.


If I'm building Wall Street, I'm probably building it in a Shrine city that I've captured. Shrine cities are usually well developed and have pretty good food and hammer values since they're early and significant cities in an AI Civ's development. That means I have lots of population to whip and it will grow back (relatively) quickly. I also lose a significant amount of production and/or commerce from that city, but if I am getting an extra 20-50 gold per turn from the shrine now because of Wall Street, I'm thinking it was worth whatever lost work I'm now not getting from those dearly departed citizens.


Another trick I like to use is to spread my religion to a remote city that is size 8 or better (maybe size 10, I don't have my notes here), capture the city and rush Versailles in the city with a Great Engineer. The city gets more hammers from the Engineer because it is larger and then I can whip Versailles to completion with those same citizens. Voila, insta-Versailles!

It's especially nice to do this when you take the first city of a foreign nation that isn't especially close to you since you now get 10 culture per turn to hold back enemy culture and you have nice low maintenance costs for the future cities that you are going to collect.


Have I mentioned yet that I love seeing Buddhism or Hinduism founded in a coastal city even if it's far away from me?

 

[lauralaura]

Thanks for the replies.

To answer your questions and fill you in:

I have one holy city -- Taoist, which is located in a tundra/forest/hills area of the map. Not a great location for commerce, but decent for military. Other holy cities are a heck of a long way away, held by strong civs, or both. Due to diplomatic concerns (state religions are all over the place and the AIs are at each others' throats because of it), I went straight from atheist paganism to free religion once I got the tech, and religious spread has been pretty minimal.

I've got an excellent site planned for ironworks -- nice hills with copper, plus some floodplains and grassland to support the population -- it's my wonder city, putting out military units when I don't have an available wonder that I want. Heroic epic is going into a similar city, but coastal and slightly less impressive, so that I can crank out naval units, which are kinda important on an archipelago map.

Oxford is being built, and I've decided to put Wall St. there too. I'm out of caste system now, so my specialist money potential is pretty limited (I'm running primarily CE with all the goody-two-shoes money generating civics, US, Free speech, emancipation, free market, free religion), and there's just nowhere else tempting to put it.

Just discovered steam power. Still close to Mansa in tech (1 behind atm), I've got a nice big pile of cavalry running all over Japan and slaughtering his longbows, and will soon take his coal, and then, his island.

 

[obliterate]

Just put Wall Street in whichever city is producing the most gold

 

[futurehermit]

It's a National Wonder, so the cost is more like 10,000.

But a GE can always rush it in one turn.

Just build it for a couple of turns and the cost drops to around 1100.

 

[gettingfat]

I also don't think it's a good idea to put the two together. By doing so you lose the gold multiplier effect of Wall St when you increase the research slider. It's preferrable to have your Wall Street built in a city with income sources not affected by the slider (Holy shrines, merchant specialists, great merchant). I usually put Oxford in my biggest commerce city, and Wall St at a Holy shrine city with most food sources for merchants.

 

[jerVL/kg]

I've got an excellent site planned for ironworks -- nice hills with copper, plus some floodplains and grassland to support the population -- it's my wonder city, putting out military units when I don't have an available wonder that I want.

NE + Ironworks is a good combination, especially if you're getting most of your GPP from wonders instead of specialists.

Oxford is being built, and I've decided to put Wall St. there too. I'm out of caste system now, so my specialist money potential is pretty limited (I'm running primarily CE with all the goody-two-shoes money generating civics, US, Free speech, emancipation, free market, free religion), and there's just nowhere else tempting to put it.

I would still recommend putting WS in the Taoist city. Wall Street only multiplies gold, not commerce, so if you run a high science slider you won't be making much gold at all. A holy city w/shrine, however, produces straight gold no matter where the slider is. It doesn't matter what state religion you have or the AI's have, it's always the same amount of gold. You even get the gold during anarchy periods.

Set the slider at 90% and compare the gold output between your Taoist holy city and your Oxford city -- you'll probably be surprised. And that's just with passive spread...you can always spam missionaries everywhere, which will raise the gold output even higher! Heck, that's what holy cities are for, you might as well leverage it.

Just discovered steam power. Still close to Mansa in tech (1 behind atm), I've got a nice big pile of cavalry running all over Japan and slaughtering his longbows, and will soon take his coal, and then, his island.

Good to hear. If you're waging a long-distance war and still keeping pace with the tech leaders, it means you're doing just about everything right.

 

[Morgrad]

If I have a monster cottage city (say 17 cottages, 1 production tile and 2 food resources), I'll often put both in the same city.

Considering that I usually run about 60% science, my big cottage city always produces a ton more gold than any captured shrines or GP farms. Even if I bump up to 80% research this is usually still true.

 

[UncleJJ]

It can be a good option. Usually it is best to specialise the Science City and Wealth Cities (based on a shrine). One problem with building both is that the city needs to build a lot of supporting buildings for it to make sense, Wall Street needs banks and markets and grocers and Oxford needs the science buildings and some of these are discovered in quick succession. Your city can then be tied up building wonders and the other buildings for a very long time, so it needs to be productive with plenty of hammers.

But I remember way back, in my first game on Warlords, I played Rameses (Industrious, Spiritual) at Prince level. I had 2 Holyshrines in my capital and loads of wonders of all sorts although not Pyramids. With settled Scientists, Priests and Merchants and loads of gold it made sense to build Oxford and Wall Street in the same city. The extra food and hammers helped build all the wonders and buildings and the beakers from Representation helped. The city had 4 floodplain cottages too - it was was one messed up capital - but very productive in beakers and gold.

I can't imagine that rush buying Wall Street could pay off As a wonder it costs 6 gold per hammer (and 4 with Kremlin). The gold income from Shrines, or whatever, would have to be astounding to make that worthwhile. Much better to keep the gold and build Wall Street in slow time unless the production is very low. It is generally a bad idea to buy economic buildings (those that give gold and science multipliers) on strict economic grounds as the pay off times are just too long. With US each town gives a hammer and it's better to use that along with factories and coal to build economic buildings. Do the sums and you'll soon see that converting gold to hammers (through rush buying) to build an economic building (which gives a return in extra beakers or gold) will usually be a losing proposition, economically - of course you could have other reasons for rushing them in which case it is harder to argue against it. Better to keep the gold and run the research slider a notch higher while the buildings get produced naturally.