Police stations

[kaskavel]

How does the WW from police station reduction work? If a city is not worth having a courthouse (for example if the courthouse offers only one commerce) is there any chance that it may be favorable to build a police station (without the courthouse)? By the way, do you build courthouses in cities that will only gain 1 shield and 1 commerce early in the industrial age?
Republic. Assuming intercontinental wars with durations is a realistic senario.

 

[justanick]

How does the WW from police station reduction work?

War weariness is reduced by 25 percentage points. That may be 25 percentage points per relevant war, but i have no confirmation on that.

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Thread 'How does war weariness work?'

Aug 16, 2003

The study of war weariness goes on. I will thank Bamspeedy and DaveMcW (any other?) for their research, it really helped.

General:
We measure war weariness with wwp (war weariness point). Each civ have one wwp number against each of the other civs.

The different levels of war weariness:

Level   wwp
 -1:     -   0   wh (war happiness)
  0:   0 -  30   normal, no effect
  1:  31 -  60      
  2:  61 -  90
  3:  91 - 120
  4: 121 -

Effect of ww in war:

All government:
Level -1: 25% happy people

Republic:
Level 1: 25% unhappy people...

• Oystein
• Replies: 92
• Forum: Civ3 Strategy Articles

In a republic police stations do increase your resilience. But is that worth to pay 2 gtp? If you have few turns with war weariness, then it may not be worth it.

If a city is not worth having a courthouse (for example if the courthouse offers only one commerce) is there any chance that it may be favorable to build a police station (without the courthouse)?

The chance is quite low. The chance is even low if a courthouse is worth it, but a police station is not when at peace.

By the way, do you build courthouses in cities that will only gain 1 shield and 1 commerce early in the industrial age?

Possibly. You invest 80 shields, pay 1 gtp, get 2 beakers(lib+uni) and 2 shields(factory+powerplant). 2 shields equal 1 gold via wealth. On balance that is 2 beakers per 80 shields or a Return on Investment of 2.5% per turn. That is not above average, but not below average either. That is more or less exactly the average.

Republic. Assuming intercontinental wars with durations is a realistic scenario.

If you need to assume longer periods of war waeriness, then it is likely to be worth it. If you want to be on the "safe" side, then do build them. At size 16 you save 4 base commerce on the luxury slider, that will get you 8 beakers for 160 shields and 2 gtp. Again assuming 1 gold = 1 beaker = 1 shield that is a RoI of (8-2)/160=3.75% per turn of war waeriness. So you need 27 turns of war weariness to get back your investment. But do you want that many turns of war weariness?

In my opinion you should not count on war weariness to make police stations worth it. They need to be (almost) worth it during peace. That may be true for all but the innermost ~5 cities. Giving those 5 innermost cities also a police station for resilience can make some sense as it is reasonable cheap and does give peace of mind. Riots in the capital? No, thanks!

 

[kaskavel]

Thanks for the detailed analysis. What is that 2.5%? some magic number that makes an investment worth it if it is above it? Where does it come from?

 

[justanick]

What is that 2.5%?

80/2=0.025=2.5%.

It is a reasonable benchmark to see if an investment is worth it within a reasonable timeframe. But mainly it is a tool to compare different investments. You start with those investments with the highest RoI and slowly to work your way to those that remain with lower RoI.

 

[SayHayKid]

Police Stations also have the added benefit of reducing corruption. Which when they become available, your empire is probably at a size where reduced corruption can be useful in many of your cities.

 

[kaskavel]

80/2=0.025=2.5%.

Lol, that was not my question

It is a reasonable benchmark to see if an investment is worth it within a reasonable timeframe. But mainly it is a tool to compare different investments. You start with those investments with the highest RoI and slowly to work your way to those that remain with lower RoI.

That was my question. So, it is not coming from somewhere. It is an empirical number that seems to have served you well from experience when you need to decide if an investment is favourable or not?

 

[kaskavel]

Police Stations also have the added benefit of reducing corruption. Which when they become available, your empire is probably at a size where reduced corruption can be useful in many of your cities.

Well, I would probably use the reverse statement. "Police stations are courthouses that have the extra benefit of reducing WW at the cost of one extra gpt"
And my initial question was if it is possible that the WW effect may in some cases be more important than the corruption effect, to the extent that one would build a PS in some city, but not a courthouse. The answer seems to be negative.

 

[justanick]

That was my question. So, it is not coming from somewhere. It is an empirical number that seems to have served you well from experience when you need to decide if an investment is favourable or not?

The concrete 2.5% stem from someone else. But yes, it is a useful tool for arriving at a decision about in what order things should be done. Harvest the low hanging fruits first.

Well, I would probably use the reverse statement. "Police stations are courthouses that have the extra benefit of reducing WW at the cost of one extra gpt"

Indeed. It also needs to be mentioned that their corruption effect is lower than that of the courthouse. Of course, both buildings have the same effect, but once one of them exists the effect of the second one is smaller as corruption has been reduced already. This is most clearly seen in distance corruption. Rank corruption is a bit more tricky.

 

[kaskavel]

Communism corruption also seems like it was specificaly designed in order to give the player the maximum amount of headaches about the PSs.