Oxford & Wall Street

[Akadah]

Is it a wise move to build Oxford and Wall Street in a cottaged Bureaucracy capital? I generally run a binary science slider as well.

 

[Kullervo]

I find that Wall Street is always best built in your religious shrine city. If you do not have one, then build it in a fairly decent production city with the best revenue (Wall Street takes a VERY long time to build.) I am not certain what influences revenue, though.

As for Oxford, build in in the city with the most in the fat cross. Do not build it wherever the Great Library is unless it's the same city, because the GL bonus expires with Scientific Method.

 

[Orzio]

Wall street is for shirne/Hq city.

 

[lymond]

I wonder about this myself and actually tried it a couple of times in a bureau caps. I frequently move the slider up and down to increase beakers/gold and for specific reasons - e.g., running binary. Obviously, the boost is great to beakers/gold as you move this slider to 0 or 100 percent. I think this is quite effective if you work things this way.

However, I do agree that shrine cities, plus Corp Hq, are best because that gold boost is static. That is, one receives the effect of that gold constantly regardless of slider position - of course, lowering the research slider increases the gold output. Conversely, for Oxford, in cities like GP farms running buttloads of GSs the effect is also static. Commerce (cottages/trade), while indeed great for either one and there should be some of that regardless, is not static - relying on the sliders themselves.

The bottom line is most of this is situational. I do think there are cases where an Oxford/Wall Bureau Cap is quite effective (besides an OCC). I think I've run this well once or twice but it's generally not something I shoot for from the start. The main issue I see is losing the "residuals" in either beakers/gold as you lower/raise the slider.

Interest in what other's think about this.

 

[Windsor]

In most games I don't build Wall Street. I have a few games where I combine Oxford+WS. Those are mainly rushbuy games with the bottom line civics. Then I'll need gold once I reach the desired tech and oxford-city will often be the best place. At the same time I usually have enough other cottage-cities so I don't have to build banks just to unlock WS.

Binary research really doesn't affect anything here.

 

[lymond]

In most games I don't build Wall Street. I have a few games where I combine Oxford+WS. Those are mainly rushbuy games with the bottom line civics. Then I'll need gold once I reach the desired tech and oxford-city will often be the best place. At the same time I usually have enough other cottage-cities so I don't have to build banks just to unlock WS.

Binary research really doesn't affect anything here.

Wow....Wall Street is very powerful. Only reason I would never build it is if I expect to finish the game before it is even unlocked which is usually very not much the case. I usually make it one of my top priority NW.

 

[JammerUno]

If you're playing well, your slider should be high on average, that means cottages don't do much for WS. Put it in a high food city and run merchants. That will give you good revenue from it, and GMs usually outperform GSs at that point in the game. WS/NE is a good combo.

 

[Polobo]

If you are going to run binary put them in different hybrid food/commerce cities and run specialists in the city running 0% on the slider.

 

[Fleme]

I used to build them in the same spot but then realized the flaw in that.

Sure, a Bureaucracy capital with both those buildings is "nice" by all means but in the big picture, it's not an optimal strategy by any means.

1) Your taxes will more often than not (or atleast should be) directed at science. This favors a heavy science city - often your capital
a) It's also likely that your capital will have the Great Library and followed by that, the National Epic. This synergizes perfectly with Oxford.
b) Focusing on either gold or science allows you to dedicate specialists accordingly.

2) Your capital is rarely a holy city. It doesn't receive benefits from a Wall Street in a meaningful way. If I do not have a holy city of my own, it's not uncommon for me to wait until I capture one before building a Wall Street because it's impact is otherwise rather uninspiring - atleast in most cases.
a) If you want to use Corporations, you should locate Wall Street in the city you'll want to have these in. I personally feel that a food-heavy city is an excellent HQ for corps as later on when even more food comes in from Sushi (yes, always Sushi) it'll allow me to run merchants in that city (I stay in Caste as long as humanly possible). Merchants + Market + Grocer + Bank + Wall Street = Not too shabby.

To put it simple: It pays off to specialize cities - you get higher returns.

 

[PartAnon]

Sure, a Bureaucracy capital with both those buildings is "nice" by all means but in the big picture, it's not an optimal strategy by any means.

Is it reasonable to suggest that even though it may not be optimal, sometimes it's best to put both of them there anyway? Maybe when you can build it there more quickly, you have merchants or priests to settle, etc...? Also, can you still set up a corp HQ in that city?

 

[Kullervo]

a) It's also likely that your capital will have the Great Library and followed by that, the National Epic. This synergizes perfectly with Oxford.

Like I said, though, TGL expires with Scientific Method. I generally build Oxford only after I research SM, so that I canget a clearer view of which city would be best. Generally, it's a city with massive towns all around.

And yes, specializing pays off, but the problem is, TGL throws that off by adding in two GS which dissapear with SM. I generally try to get as many GE's as possible, so I build NE in the city with the 'Mids and Hagia Sophia, and then also build TGL in there for the GP points. So I get both scientists and engineers from that city, and then build oxford wherever I have most commerce.

 

[Soirana]

If you run slider at 100 or close [which is rather norm], why you should Wall street have anything to do with Bearaucratic cap?

The only reason to build both i can imagine is having oxford to tech to military edge and switching to mass rushbuy. Unluckily i more often place dome rubish NW like HE or Ironworks in the capital...

 

[Redflag]

You get the most benefit out of Oxford when you hire a bunch of scientists to work in your Oxford city. Same with Wall Street and merchants. It's rare that I will have a city that can work all of its commerce tiles, and max out on both scientists and merchants. So for that reason I usually build them in different cities.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

On very rare occasions I've had oxford/wall wind up in the same city. It usually involved tooling up for a $$$ rush war and having a national wonder slot left in my best commerce city.

 

[mirthadir]

It works great if you are going to swap over to a gold based war machine - either rushbuy or mass upgrading are viable; if oxford is going to obsolete because I'm going to turn off science, then by all means WS wherever works best.


Generally though even with binary research I get more mileage out of having WS at a holy cite and if possible, getting some food to run merchs. NE + Oxford, Oxford + IW, and Maori + Oxford (with Col) are all far better options.

 

[Oggums]

It's rare, but I just played a game and put Wall Street and Oxford in my cottage capital. I had built the Great Lighthouse, and my first GP was a Merchant, so I just settled it in place.

I was on an island, and didn't found a religion, so I wound up just plopping a bunch of settled Merchants in the capital to generate gold. The extra food from the merchants made it an even better Oxford capital than it would have otherwise been.

Other times, a settled Priest approach will put you in the same situation where it makes sense to put both of them in your capital. Whenever I built that wonder that gives you three priest slots, I tend to use them (I don't recall which one it is), and if there's no shrine to build or religion to bulb, I prefer to settle them over saving for a GA. Settled Priests are awesome imo.

 

[mirthadir]

It's rare, but I just played a game and put Wall Street and Oxford in my cottage capital. I had built the Great Lighthouse, and my first GP was a Merchant, so I just settled it in place.

I was on an island, and didn't found a religion, so I wound up just plopping a bunch of settled Merchants in the capital to generate gold. The extra food from the merchants made it an even better Oxford capital than it would have otherwise been.

Other times, a settled Priest approach will put you in the same situation where it makes sense to put both of them in your capital. Whenever I built that wonder that gives you three priest slots, I tend to use them (I don't recall which one it is), and if there's no shrine to build or religion to bulb, I prefer to settle them over saving for a GA. Settled Priests are awesome imo.

Settled priests often make a better case for IWs. It comes earlier, the get the B muliplitier, and hammers are easily worth 2x gold.

 

[PartAnon]

Other times, a settled Priest approach will put you in the same situation where it makes sense to put both of them in your capital. Whenever I built that wonder that gives you three priest slots, I tend to use them (I don't recall which one it is), and if there's no shrine to build or religion to bulb, I prefer to settle them over saving for a GA. Settled Priests are awesome imo.

WS also requires quite a few hammers, so there's the issue of WS taking too long to build in production-poor cities. Settled priests help with that as well. It may not be ideal but sometimes that's the best available option.

 

[Infantry#14]

I usually build the mining corporation then the WS in the city to speed up production

 

[Woodreaux]

I usually avoid colocating Wall St. and Oxford, mainly because the extra specialist slots would likely go used. Regardless of whether or not either go into the capitol, I usually put each one in a city with enough food to max out the specialists for the flavor, after they're full I put the rest working cottages. I try to make these 2 cities the generate the majority of my points, settle them in their home cities. The Wall St. generated Great Merchants are really nice because their added helps the population work more cottages.

I agree about the settled Great Prophets (their are nice, and add more profit). For this reason, I try to settle Great Prophets where I plan to build Wall St. Similarly, I build Scottland Yard in the Oxford city and settle remaining Great Spies there as well.