Point of Information: Organized Trait doesn't cut City Maintenance Upkeep by 50%
- Thread starter wc3promet
- Start date
fornost said:
In this debate the difference between commerce and gold is trivial and seems like misdirection. With a 0% slider its 3 gold, with a fast expansion you are looking at a very low slider. And the rest of your argument is misplaced, of course there are better tiles, or else why would you bother settling there? But do you have the techs to improve those tiles? Financial can sustain a fast expansion with cottages alone, organization cannot, and thus early game (and thus 90% of MP games) organized is pretty useless.
Also you aren't thinking very deeply, but you're not alone I've seen this linear thought in many posts. Just because there is a special purpose for resources doesn't mean you have to wait for it, or even use it. I drop cottages on pigs, cows and all sorts of other things, these can be temporary or not but they are still mighty useful early game.
Oggums said:
If you are using strong units that can survive counterattack, then you have a large advantage over your opponent and I question why you would want to string them along with bully tactics. If you are at tech parity then your units will get destroyed in a few turns sitting on undefensible terrain. I don't care about extreme cases, I'm talking about most cases. Your loss of 50+ hammers and a gain of a few gold taking a cottage down to 3-5g is a slight bump but nonproductive for you.
I'd be overjoyed if you enter my land with a stack of units and reside on my cottages pillaging. The lack of defensive bonuses and your stationary strategy is going to make my job of destroying your units much easier. And also commiting too many units to this behavior will not only make it more nonproductive, but also leave cities less than adequately defended, at least from counterattack so you are just letting your opponent know where you are and what you have.
obsolete
Deity
What you are forgetting, is that if you had organized trait, you'd be missing a GOOD trait, which means... you would be making less money money not having that other trait.
So what is better, making lots of money and paying a little bit... or making a little bit of money, and paying only half of a little bit..
AnotherJon
Chieftain
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- Jul 20, 2005
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wc3promet said:
The only no upkeep civic you can have is slavery. The savings on the rest must amount to something.
MrCynical
Deity
State property and pacifism are also no upkeep, and probably a few others as well.
@Shillen: How many cities do you have? I've rarely seen my civic upkeep get above 100gpt on large maps at Monarch! Even when I was on the brink of domination it was only about 150gpt. I admit organized might (just) be better than financial under these circumstances, but the numbers in my games simply don't match up to this. Financial should be making you at least 150gpt in the later game, if not considerably more. Remember it's commerce that financial gives, which is more valuable than gold. You'd only need around 60 to 70 tiles to give the bonus to make this much assuming you have Wall Street somewhere sensible, and given your civic upkeep you really ought to have enough cities for this (and more).
For arguments about pillaging cottages weakening financial, remember that not only do river cottages give the bonus, but also all sea tiles, which adds up to a lot.
@Shillen: How many cities do you have? I've rarely seen my civic upkeep get above 100gpt on large maps at Monarch! Even when I was on the brink of domination it was only about 150gpt. I admit organized might (just) be better than financial under these circumstances, but the numbers in my games simply don't match up to this. Financial should be making you at least 150gpt in the later game, if not considerably more. Remember it's commerce that financial gives, which is more valuable than gold. You'd only need around 60 to 70 tiles to give the bonus to make this much assuming you have Wall Street somewhere sensible, and given your civic upkeep you really ought to have enough cities for this (and more).
For arguments about pillaging cottages weakening financial, remember that not only do river cottages give the bonus, but also all sea tiles, which adds up to a lot.
....thats my point. Instead of rushing to pottery, you can get the techs that improve these tiles first.
Firstly, i've never dealt with a slider early game that's below 70%, and organized also helps with early expansion as you've seen how much gold even the low cost civics burn up. Plus, the more population you have, the more science you will create, 100% or 70%.
Secondly, i was reffering to your financial civ, which would be running 100% science, and therefore, your commerce is directly converted into science. Sadly, a couple extra science early game isn't going to give you a very big tech lead, or is it going to give you military advantage by getting those techs first.
Why?
I have axemen, you have the techs to build axemen and swordsmen, but you can't because your iron is pillaged and guarded. Lets see, the next resourceless unit that can beat my axemen is...catapults? your taking a chance. Longbowman? By that time you'll have no more tech lead because your cities wont be able to use any of their tiles to get commerce, and i'll be on top because of all the gold i pillaged from your cottages. You could try an all out archer attack...but then you're the one losing the hammers.
Not true at all. Financial can support a fast expansion with cottages, and organized can support a growing empire with less cottages and better civics.
I'd rather cripple someone beyond repair in a game than attack and potentially lose units and lessen my grip on them,. I might as well wait for catapults where i wont lose any units.
Nope, my axemen are screwing over the other civilization, so in a duel, it is completely productive already. Otherwise, i'm not losing my axemen, i'm infact reaping instand rewards in gold from them, and i can use them elsewhere later in the game.
Also, if i have axemen at your cities pillaging your lands, and you have no resources, counterattack? how?
In the early game, financial civs wont be making lots of money, while organized civs will still be making a little bit of money and only paying half. Plus theres lighthouses and courthouses, so yeah, organized is a far from useless trait. It may be useless to you, but that's because you've obviously already formed your stratagies around playing with financial.
I'm not trying to say that organized is any better than any of the other traits.
I think that they are all very balanced. Everyone will have their traits that work better for them...thats what makes the game fun, but i completely disagree with the people who are trying to say that financial is the be-all and end-all best trait.
fornost said:
Wont be making early money? As far as im concered Financial is ALL about the early money. After all when your getting 2C im getting 3C, 50% more than you. It becomes less effective when its 6 or 7, thats LATE.
Cheap lighthouses are good, but I'd rather pay a bit extra and get a permanant increase in water tile commerce.
The thing is, it will take your city a while to use the cottage for it to grow because there are other tiles that are far better for early game city growth than a cottaged square. Then you have to wait for it to grow. The only exception to this is starting near a river, and this is location specific. I'd say in at least 33% of my games i've started no where near a river, which may be unlucky, but i still wouldnt assume that you'll have river tiles to work with. A civ with a river is going to out tech a civ without a river period in the early game.
In one of my first games, i played mali on noble level, and started near a huge river. I cottaged up the whole thing extremely fast, but barely broke even on gold in the early game because of maintainance costs. Obviously in the late game, i was laughing, but "50% more" bonus or not, in all of the games with financial civs that i've played thus far, i've been doing no better science-wise in the early game than with other traits, and worse off than when i was an organized leader.
Good point. I often find that both the financial and the organized civs are awesome on water maps (and expansive to a lesser extent) but since most of the cities that i build lighthouses in are captured or late game cities, I'd rather get the lighthouse thing over with and start building harbors and marketplaces right away.
Looks to me like they struck a good balance. Neither of you are going to win the "my trait is better than yours" argument 
I don't think any one trait is any better than another, what makes one or another seem better is how you use them. You may be suprised to see that financial isn't as good as you think it is when the same tactic works just as well without the financial trait. You can cottage spam all you want, with financial you *might* (e.g riverside tiles) get an immediate bonus but then again you might not. But once you get to the point where you are getting a bonus on every single tile you're working and you're working enough to make that +1 commerce worth anything significant any civ with any trait would be doing well.
Don't fool yourself into look at percentages, they only make things look better than they really are. Yes, getting 3 commerce instead of 2 from a single tile is technically a 50% gain, but it isn't the same as being 50% better. When all else is said and done it's one extra commerce per turn, so even assuming a 100% research rate the best you'll see is a 30% decrease in research time. Early in the game that means you'll save a grand total of 1 turn on average per early technology. By the time tech prices have increased to the point where such an advantage would be really useful you're not getting 50% more than everybody else because by then you're all working towns, not cottages and now your +1 commerce per tile is pretty insignificant.
Anyway, my point is that it's not the difference between Organized and Financial that you guys are arguing, you're also arguing about different tactics at the same time. Seriously, you should go in and try your tactics using different traits, you just might be suprised at the results unless you deliberty try to fail. Yeah, financial is nice and so is organized, but then again the philisophical trait can come in pretty handy too and who can argue with creative, they effectively get a free obelisk/religion in every city without needing a wonder or any special technology to do it.
I don't think any one trait is any better than another, what makes one or another seem better is how you use them. You may be suprised to see that financial isn't as good as you think it is when the same tactic works just as well without the financial trait. You can cottage spam all you want, with financial you *might* (e.g riverside tiles) get an immediate bonus but then again you might not. But once you get to the point where you are getting a bonus on every single tile you're working and you're working enough to make that +1 commerce worth anything significant any civ with any trait would be doing well.
Don't fool yourself into look at percentages, they only make things look better than they really are. Yes, getting 3 commerce instead of 2 from a single tile is technically a 50% gain, but it isn't the same as being 50% better. When all else is said and done it's one extra commerce per turn, so even assuming a 100% research rate the best you'll see is a 30% decrease in research time. Early in the game that means you'll save a grand total of 1 turn on average per early technology. By the time tech prices have increased to the point where such an advantage would be really useful you're not getting 50% more than everybody else because by then you're all working towns, not cottages and now your +1 commerce per tile is pretty insignificant.
Anyway, my point is that it's not the difference between Organized and Financial that you guys are arguing, you're also arguing about different tactics at the same time. Seriously, you should go in and try your tactics using different traits, you just might be suprised at the results unless you deliberty try to fail. Yeah, financial is nice and so is organized, but then again the philisophical trait can come in pretty handy too and who can argue with creative, they effectively get a free obelisk/religion in every city without needing a wonder or any special technology to do it.
Saint_Saturn
Chieftain
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- Nov 15, 2005
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Rad Chris said:
So far, this is one of the only posts that I question its usefulness. In the beginning; yes, you do make an extra 50%, but what good is 3c as opposed to 2c? Maybe this is me, but the first time I start using money is when I'm upgrading my warriors to axemen - and that isn't very early on. Also, that upgrade costs me 85gold, so what real benefit is their to adding 1c every turn? This may slightly help reduce the overall cost of early civic costs, but not as much as the organized trait, which isn't helpful in thsi regard, since we're debating those two traits against each other.
Both traits are great, that's why Washington is in the game. Organized lets you focus on expansion, chopping and hooking up resources early and gets courthouses out faster, leading to getting your forbidden palace sooner, so you pay less maintenance earlier. Financial gives you the extra commerce from all the coastal tiles you're working with your cheap lighthouses, and then your cottages kick in when you're done expanding. Tech up, then crush the world with a superior military. I don't think the true power of these traits is unleashed unless you have both of them.
Thats what i was trying to get at...that all the traits are very balanced and are all useful depending on your playstyle. For example, i don't particularily like the creative trait because it hasn't help me in most of the types of games i play as much as some of the others, but the creative trait could be hugely beneficial to someone elses game and therefore be the best in their eyes. It is very pointless, i agree, to argue about what trait is better. What i was trying to do was show both sides of the story so people wouldnt be completely turned off of the organized trait...did i get a little sidetracked, perhaps...
I suppose my posts do sound a bit one sided, but thats because in the last little while i've come across tones of posts, mostly directed at people new to the game, that say that financial is the better trait in all situations.
I suppose my posts do sound a bit one sided, but thats because in the last little while i've come across tones of posts, mostly directed at people new to the game, that say that financial is the better trait in all situations.
Financial is a powerful trait, but i still completely disagree with the point that the power of financial is in the early money. As far as all of my experiences are concerned, financial does little to nothing in the early game. It, however, really makes up for this fact in the mid game...especially with half price banks.
fornost said:
Yeah. Who and what are you playing? I'm not going to learn animal husbandry in the early game to pasture cows, pigs and horses, I'm going to learn pottery and cottage all those spaces. I've already got bronze and am churning out axeman along with settlers and workers by chopping forests. Its not a question of having the population to spend on cottage spaces its explicitly placing the citizen on the cottaged space. If you want your cake and eat it too then you have to sacrifice early and cottage the floodplain, cow or pig to gain a little growth but also generate the money you need to maintain expansion.
You are acting like organized can outproduce financial and that financial has some achillies heel with respect to razing. But the simple fact is that the early and abundant cottages are not done to create a large tech advantage in the early game, its to offset massive early growth which in turn means production and thus axemen and swordsman. Which will eventually turn into a larger tech rate but for now all that gold is paying for upkeep.
Wrong. Organized does not produce any gold and it does not modify city maintenance so its of no help to early expansion. It does reduce civic cost which while not useless does not really matter much in the early game.
Which is exactly why no one is going to bother with this strategy. I'm not even sure what you are talking about here, I said cottages for early expansion and 0% slider, and you are talking about 100% and early teching? Financial is going to outcompete in the early game thru more cities which translates into more production. That more production is going to translate into real power by way of military units.
Why would your opponent tech to axes or swords and then not build any? I think in general assuming your opponent is an idiot is most likely a bad strategy.
Lets not create a scenario where the target has already lost. If someone lets their vital resource get razed then they've already lost. Lets start at the beginning, I believe you wanted to raze some cottages, so that means your axeman is standing within a couple tiles of my city on land with 0% defense bonus. At most I'll need two fresh axes to take that one out, either way one of my axemen will have 5 exp after this exchange and getting Shock will henceforth give that one a great advantage. This example can be drawn out in more detail but I'll leave that to you, I don't feel its a useful strategy to commit to on its own merits. As part of a general advance and city taking war, then sure, but in of itself its wasteful.
The thing is, if you use cottage squares early rather than food/production squares, you will be outproduced by civ's who chop immediately with their workers and build mines.
I guess you possibly could've assumed that i was talking about these squares, but i was reffering to farmed resourses and agriculture. And this is only after i would get bronzeworking since i would pick a civ with either mining or agriculture as their starting techs usually. I obviously wouldnt b-line it to animal husbandry even if i had a cow in my radius.
In my experience, people who play financial leaders cottage more than other civs in the very early game in hopes of getting a large advantage. Its not an achillies heel, because everyone can build cottages, but financial has the only major bonus that can be stripped from them by force (excluding water tiles of course).
Low cost civics do still cost when you're expanding fast, but you're right, it doesnt have much effect on the extremely early game...It does however come into large effect before financial does.
I assumed the reader would have enough sence to take out the major resources before pillaging the cottages. It is a good point that the financial and organized leaders, if having equal skill, will both be at the same level in military techs. However, to quote yourself
"If you want your cake and eat it too then you have to sacrifice early and cottage the floodplain"
I won't try to argue that financial cannot come into effect early on, but rather that if you want it to come into effect early on, then you will need to sacrifice...and a civilization that doesnt sacrifice may pay later on, but if they cripple you early on, they dont need to worry about a later on.
I never meant to say that pillaging was a useful stratagy on its on merits...ever. Its not even a stratagy, but rather a tool that can be used while you are doing other things...like a general advance. I meant to say that a financial civ who sacrifices early so that their trait can come into play early may fall prey to this more often than a civ who doesnt sacrifice early.
Smirk said:
After reading this, I don't think words will ever get the point across to you. You need to experience what really happens in a game against a competant player. You will not be "overjoyed."
What makes you think the pillagers are stationary? The whole point is to move and pillage, until they've thrown enough units to kill them off. Which, by the way, you are at a disadvantage with.
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