Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Takhisis]

I usually go with a library to pump my science numbers.. is this folly?

Hmmmm, actually, no.
Libraries give you faster expansion and if you have the Internet you're just one more building away from a science bonus. Luxuries can more than make do for a temple if you have a marketplace (or really that many luxuries) and they don't.
Temples do enable Cathedrals which are overpowered with the Sistine Chapel (all in all, seven faces two rushes away). It really depends on your finances and your traits… and also on how many rebellious/unhappy citizens you have to keep happy.
For a religious civ a library costs as much as a cathedral. For a scientific civ a library costs 2/3 of what a temple does. (also, do you have the Oracle?)
If you're Babylonian, boost both!

 

[justanick]

I likely play a very different style, or maybe below my true difficulty, but late game I am often running huge profits (1000gpt+) and will be rushing buildings all over the place, especially in newly conquered towns just to get them up and running.

This seems like playing severely below your true difficulty setting and expanding too slow.

For a surplus of 1000 gtp at 100% research you need to get most of that surplus (or more) from other civs, so that is much territory you did not conquer, yet.

If however you fund your research with less then 100%(or at least less than 100% minus luxury slider) than this would indicate that reserach is cheap due to the low difficulty setting.

 

[Takhisis]

Expansion can be weird. In my current game (continents) as the Byzantines there were two small islands out in the middle of nowhere that had never been settled because I had secured both the Great Lighthouse and later Magellan's Journey and -surprise, surprise!- neither island had any barbarians or goody huts whatsoever. I discovered it because I sent out two dromons to explore the other main continent.
Logically I sent out four settlers on the next few available ships and now there are four productive cities there, but that was weird. I'm used to not building almost any wonders until the modern ages and this time I have snagged a round dozen by the time I've discovered the Refining tech (which means a war for oil, either north or south, simply has to happen…).

Dangit, I need to do a write-up.

 

[justanick]

Expansion can be weird. In my current game (continents) as the Byzantines there were two small islands out in the middle of nowhere that had never been settled because I had secured both the Great Lighthouse and later Magellan's Journey and -surprise, surprise!- neither island had any barbarians or goody huts whatsoever.

I would like to point out that this should not be a big surprise. New barbarian camps only spawn close to civilized settlements and as far as i can tell only on the same landmass as those civilized settlements.

If there are 2 continents and only one contains civilizations, then no barbarian camps will spawn on the other continent. But once the first settlers arrive in the new world and found a settlement things change.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

This seems like playing severely below your true difficulty setting and expanding too slow.

For a surplus of 1000 gtp at 100% research you need to get most of that surplus (or more) from other civs, so that is much territory you did not conquer, yet.

If however you fund your research with less then 100%(or at least less than 100% minus luxury slider) than this would indicate that research is cheap due to the low difficulty setting.

I often play Monarch or Emperor, on a Wet, Old, Archipelago, Huge map. A few big powers I find are useful as having money to trade with, but I will still beat to Space.. or bribe everyone into attacking them and waste their units attacking each other. Usually I don't have to 100% to get 4 turn research anyway so im running surplus at say 60-70% and trading my lead tech for 250gpt per civ.

I am sure im totally rubbish by this forums standards, but I enjoy it. I think harder is just too much like work/stress! haha

 

[vmxa]

Sounds like you are ready to turn it a bit. Keep the same settings, but make the map a std size. The bigger the map and the more water the better for the human.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

The bigger the map and the more water the better for the human.

Better, as in easier with a larger map & more water (e.g., Large map 80% water)? Why is that?

 

[vmxa]

Because the human will do a better job settling on Emp or lower and having his cities better managed. This will be less so as you go up to DG and on. Their discounts will offset your better management. Making it harder.

For instance, players will build more workers and have them doing useful things on the correct tiles. Players will (hopefully) do a better job of trading and timing of trades. They will manage and time new settlers better.
You can see the AI making a settler in the capitol at size 1 or 2 and not going to get to 3 for a time. Even, if their food is not that good, they still fire up a settler. The player will strive to get extra food to grow faster. Maybe set up a settler pump and a worker pump on a larger map. Maybe switch building settlers to a different town, if one has bonus food. Will ensure citizens work the correct tiles for whatever is needed, be it workers/settlers or units.

The larger map, tends to give the player plenty of time to gear up and not have to go to war. The human will be aware that it needs to get a buffer between towns and the fog. Maybe put a spear out to bust that fog.
Keeping barb spawns down to areas farther out.

I guess I should say a few words about settling to make it clearer. AI have cost factor of 9 on Monarch, this is not that much of a boost. So they pay 10% less than the human for things. This also means they grow a bit faster.
They trade 140, you 100. So they get a nice discount to trade ai to ai. They get many discounts and start with more units. They also have 4 extra free unit support.

These are not much, but will hurt a bit. The bump to Emp is CF 8, so 20% and growth is faster than humans and can be noticed. You have only 1 citizens born content.The extra units helps them, they get 4 def and 2 off units extra. The offense types are tied to
that civs starting techs. So Germans start with BW and WC, so they get spear's and archer's, iirc. Probably do not want to rush them right away, lol.


Type 1 and type 2 starting units do not apply to Mon, but does to Emp. They get a type 2 unit extra to start. At Emp you start with only 1 citizen born content. So the hole is a bit larger turn 1, but not large.

As to water, well the AI cannot invade over water, even on deity. On Sid they are no better, but crank out units and ships to the point that they can swamp you in the first age on islands, if they find you quickly. I had a stream of over 26 galleys coming my way on Sid, bit of a problem. On the flip side, I was in a Sid island SG with Handy iirc and we were the Byz and just kicked their butts. Dromon have lethal bombardment, just plain cheating that early in a game.

 

[vmxa]

I maybe should have mentioned that the cost factor is used in the research formula.

Research Cost = [MM * [10*COST * (1 - N/[CL*1.75])]/(CF * 10)] - Research done so far

MM = map modifier(tech rate on world sizes tab in the editor)
Tiny 160
Small 200
Standard 240
Large 320
Huge 400

CF = AI cost factor(as on the difficulty tab in the editor)
For the purposes of the research cost formula, CF has a maximum value of 10 for the player.
Chieftain 20
Warlord 12
Regent 10
Monarch 9
Emperor 8
Demi God 7
Deity 6
Sid 4

COST = technology cost as on the civilization advances tab in the editor.
N = number of civs on the diplomacy screen that have discovered the tech.
CL = number of civs left in the game
There is only one part of the formula that varies during the game: (1 - N/[CL*1.75]). There are two ways in which you can increase it to lower tech cost:
1. Increase N by exploring and buying comms to add civs to your diplomacy screen.
2. Decrease CL by eliminating civs.

 

[justanick]

Better, as in easier with a larger map & more water (e.g., Large map 80% water)? Why is that?

Larger maps means that there is more space, which makes you less vulnerable in the early game. In the later game this is also still a bit true as you have more territory to risk loosing without loosing the game.

Larger maps mean more AIs that you can steer against each other.

AI is more poor at dealing with water than the human player. Therefore archipelago tends to be easier than pangea. And 80% water tends to be easier than 60% water.

They have 2 citizens born content, you have 1.

Actually, that is not true. Emperor and above has one free citizen, Monarch and Regent 2, Warlord 3 and Chieftain 4. AI plays as Regent and thus 2.

At Monarch both human and AI get 2 citizens born content.

 

[justanick]

I maybe should have mentioned that the cost factor is used in the research formula, so they get a discount on the amount of beakers needed for a given tech.

It is more the other way around there. The human player gets to pay more beakers per tech while for AI it is always as on regent. On Sid you need to pay twice the beakers per tech as on Emperor and 2.5 times as much as AI.

 

[vmxa]

Thanks, I typed in content part while looking at the wrong line in my notes..

"It is more the other way around there. The human player gets to pay more beakers per tech while for AI it is always as on regent. On Sid you need to pay twice the beakers per tech as on Emperor and 2.5 times as much as AI."

I do not see the difference. If I pay 500 beakers and they 250 that looks like a discount from my perspective. You can also say I paid double, both are valid. The point is all other things being equal, they will research faster.

 

[Takhisis]

Of course, you might play a Continents map and get to start on an island where all but two of the tiles are desert and you can fit in maybe four cities and there's no water as happened to me recently.

 

[justanick]

I do not see the difference.

The difference is that AI will not research faster because techs become cheaper at higher difficulty setting. Those costs stay the same for AI.

Of course one can look at it saying that the discount compared to the increasing costs paid by the human player increases, but as the result stays the same this seems like an unconvenient way of conveying the facts.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Is there any advantage or disadvantage to using "accelerated production"?

 

[vmxa]

justanick, they research faster than me at Sid, not because of any price they pay for techs, but because of the other things they get, such as extra settlers, workers and units. So they routinely beat me to techs by a full age and more. Till I can get large and have lot of science farms going. So I say they research faster than me. I would say that my still not being out of the AA, while they enter the IA, is them researching faster than me.

 

[Takhisis]

Is there any advantage or disadvantage to using "accelerated production"?

Well, the game probably ends earlier. Why would you want to play less Civ?

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Well, the game probably ends earlier. Why would you want to play less Civ?

More games?

 

[Takhisis]

Go on…

 

[tjs282]

Is there any advantage or disadvantage to using "accelerated production"?

Maybe you overlooked this...?

(As I've noted before) This mode is intended primarily for multiplayer games, but it can/will be unbalancing in single-player, mainly because (AFAIK) the Worker-turns required to complete any job are not halved in parallel with the doubled growth-rates that AP allows, i.e. your towns will tend to grow (much) faster than the tiles they are working can be fully improved.

Also, based on what I've seen of your games (specifically that Mongolian Pangaea Regent (or Monarch?) game that @CKS and I both played out a while back), and perhaps because of the above Worker-turn mismatch, using AP seemed to have taught you poor tile-improvement habits — too much irrigation, too few mines — at least, compared to those habits required to win non-AP/ higher-level games.

Edited to correct error, and allow for the possibility for improvement