Return to Civ3: Advice on game

[tjs282]

Is the effect of Marketplaces scaled down on higher difficulty levels? Trying to figure out why I'm even building these now..

I look in the city and it's barely making a difference

Barely making a difference to what exactly? Your question suggests that you don't quite understand how some of the game-mechanics work. Markets have two 'multiplier' effects: a Tax-multiplier, and a Lux-multiplier, which are separate from each other, and neither is diminished at higher difficulty levels. However, the Tax-multiplier effect is vastly diminished in corrupt '1-shield towns', so I'll talk about that first (defining terms for clarity; apologies if you know any of this already):

(As I understand it) a city's net commerce per turn (CPT) is the raw total of all the 'gold-piles' shown on the city-screen (obtained from roading and then working the surrounding tiles), minus any lost to corruption. This net CPT is then run through your Empire-wide slider settings (Tax% = 100% - Sci% - Lux%), and rounded down to the nearest integer values to give 'base' output values of Tax (gold per turn, GPT), Science (beakers per turn, BPT) and 'Happy faces' for that city, at a direct 1:1 ratio, e.g. in a city producing 10 uncorrupted CPT, at a T:S:L ratio of 4:4:2, you will get base values of 4 GPT, 4 BPT, and 2 Happies. The GPT (and also BPT) value is then increased according to any 'multiplier-building' augmentations applicable in that city (Markets+Banks+StockExes for GPT, Libs+Unis+ResLabs for BPT).

Spoiler :

Finally, the additional outputs from any Specialists are added to the augmeted values (1 Happy per Clown, 2 GPT per Taxman, 3 BPT per Scientist, 2 SPT per Civil Engineer; Policemen effects are slightly different). But that's not really relevant here, either.

A Market increases a city's Tax (GPT) output by 50%, so its Tax-multiplier effect only becomes noticeable to your Treasury if your city is getting at least 4 GPT Tax income from the CPT-conversion. This is because the Market will turn the 4 CPT into 6 GPT, from which the Market's maintenance cost (-1 GPT) is than deducted, leaving you a whole +1 GPT better off than you were before you built the Market (although this still doesn't take into account the shields/ gold/ whipped citizens it took you to build the Market in the first place!).

Spoiler :

So in a city making 10 CPT, you would need at least 40% Tax (Sci% + Lux% ≤ 60%) to see any effect from a Market. A Tax-rate of 20-30% would only allow you to break even (2CPT @ 20%Tax * 1.5 = 3 GPT, -1 GPT Market-maintenance = 0 GPT net after the Market is built vs before), and Tax% = 0-10% would result in a net drain on your Treasury, because the Market-maintenance would cost more GPT than the Market was actually producing.

To put it another way, if your Sci+Lux spending = 100%, with all CPT converted to Beakers + Happies, building Markets (and later Banks + StockExes) will do your income no (direct) good in any city -- rather the opposite!

And by the same token, even if 100% of your city's CPT is going to Tax (i.e. Sci+Lux = 0%) building a Market in a 90% corrupt 1-shield town would be nearly pointless, at least from the point of view of increasing GPT. Since such towns are usually left small -- building an Aqueduct (-1GPT maintenance) to get the city beyond Pop6 would also represent a net drain on Treasury -- even with all 6 citizens out working the tiles, corrupt towns will rarely if ever produce more than ~20 raw CPT. At90% corruption, 20 CPT becomes 2 CPT net; at 100%Tax 2 CPT => 2 GPT, which a Market would convert to 3 GPT, so a Market in such a town would only just pay for itself. However, you might consider building Markets in captured 1-shield towns which will reach Pop7+ because they've been built on freshwater, or which have Aqueducts already (which you can't sell), because...

The Luxury-multiplier effect increases the number of Happy faces produced by your available Luxes:

Before you build a Market, you only get 1 happy face per hooked/imported Lux-resource type. So even with all 8 standard Luxes available (Incense, Dyes, Silks, Spices, Gems, Ivory, Furs, Wines), you'll never get more than 8 citizens happy per city. With a Market, the first 2 Luxes each make 1 person happy, the 3rd and 4th Lux each make 2 people happy, the 5th and 6th each make 3 people happy, and the 7th and 8th each make 4 people happy. So if you have all 8 Luxes, a city with a Market could have up to 2 + 4 + 6 + 8 = 20 happy citizens, barring War-weariness, etc...

Spoiler :

The Lux-multiplier effect has now become the main reason I build Markets in my core towns, since Markets are hugely more cost-effective than Temples, Cathedrals and Colosseums at producing Happiness. (I like building the Spaceship, which is a high-tech, long-game VC -- so I am usually running my Sci% at a high level to get through the tech-tree ASAP, and earning cash by selling obsolete techs, rather than increasing GPT from Markets+Banks).

This effect is also why it gets more and more expensive to buy Luxes from the AI as your cities get bigger/more developed -- the AIs look at the total number of your people that each additional Lux will make happy across your entire empire, taking all Market-builds into account, and then raise their prices accordingly. Although it seems like an exploit to me, some CFCers have actually recommended to sell off Markets in high-shield core-cities/metropolii (where the extra Luxes will have the greatest effects) before making late-game Lux-import deals, so as to artifically lower the AI's asking price. Once the deal is done, they then immediately rebuild those Markets, and reap the Lux-Happiness rewards for the next 20T. (A town producing 50 SPT could rebuild its Market in 2T, or -- if the Treasury is healthy enough -- even 1T by disbanding a cheap mil-unit to put some shields in the box, then cash-rushing the rest).

... even though I've got 5 luxuries connected.

As stated above, the Luxury-multiplier effect only applies if you have 5 different Luxuries! Holding the global monopoly on e.g. Ivory won't make your citizens extra-happy, because only the first Lux of each type produces happiness (although the remainder are available for trading to the AIs, perhaps in return for their excess Luxes).

TL: DR

Don't build Markets in small corrupt 1-shield towns, or in any towns under Pop6 unless Tax% is >30-40% and/or you already have ≥3 Luxes available and Happiness is a problem. Markets are a much more efficient use of shields than Temples for making people happy, especially if you have ≥3 Luxes.

 

[NoAnswer]

Barely making a difference to what exactly? Your question suggests that you don't quite understand how some of the game-mechanics work. Markets have two 'multiplier' effects: a Tax-multiplier, and a Lux-multiplier, which are separate from each other, and neither is diminished at higher difficulty levels. However, the Tax-multiplier effect is vastly diminished in corrupt '1-shield towns', so I'll talk about that first (defining terms for clarity; apologies if you know any of this already):

(As I understand it) a city's net commerce per turn (CPT) is the raw total of all the 'gold-piles' shown on the city-screen (obtained from roading and then working the surrounding tiles), minus any lost to corruption. This net CPT is then run through your Empire-wide slider settings (Tax% = 100% - Sci% - Lux%), and rounded down to the nearest integer values to give 'base' output values of Tax (gold per turn, GPT), Science (beakers per turn, BPT) and 'Happy faces' for that city, at a direct 1:1 ratio, e.g. in a city producing 10 uncorrupted CPT, at a T:S:L ratio of 4:4:2, you will get base values of 4 GPT, 4 BPT, and 2 Happies. The GPT (and also BPT) value is then increased according to any 'multiplier-building' augmentations applicable in that city (Markets+Banks+StockExes for GPT, Libs+Unis+ResLabs for BPT).

Spoiler :

Finally, the additional outputs from any Specialists are added to the augmeted values (1 Happy per Clown, 2 GPT per Taxman, 3 BPT per Scientist, 2 SPT per Civil Engineer; Policemen effects are slightly different). But that's not really relevant here, either.

A Market increases a city's Tax (GPT) output by 50%, so its Tax-multiplier effect only becomes noticeable to your Treasury if your city is getting at least 4 GPT Tax income from the CPT-conversion. This is because the Market will turn the 4 CPT into 6 GPT, from which the Market's maintenance cost (-1 GPT) is than deducted, leaving you a whole +1 GPT better off than you were before you built the Market (although this still doesn't take into account the shields/ gold/ whipped citizens it took you to build the Market in the first place!).

Spoiler :

So in a city making 10 CPT, you would need at least 40% Tax (Sci% + Lux% ≤ 60%) to see any effect from a Market. A Tax-rate of 20-30% would only allow you to break even (2CPT @ 20%Tax * 1.5 = 3 GPT, -1 GPT Market-maintenance = 0 GPT net after the Market is built vs before), and Tax% = 0-10% would result in a net drain on your Treasury, because the Market-maintenance would cost more GPT than the Market was actually producing.

To put it another way, if your Sci+Lux spending = 100%, with all CPT converted to Beakers + Happies, building Markets (and later Banks + StockExes) will do your income no (direct) good in any city -- rather the opposite!

And by the same token, even if 100% of your city's CPT is going to Tax (i.e. Sci+Lux = 0%) building a Market in a 90% corrupt 1-shield town would be nearly pointless, at least from the point of view of increasing GPT. Since such towns are usually left small -- building an Aqueduct (-1GPT maintenance) to get the city beyond Pop6 would also represent a net drain on Treasury -- even with all 6 citizens out working the tiles, corrupt towns will rarely if ever produce more than ~20 raw CPT. At90% corruption, 20 CPT becomes 2 CPT net; at 100%Tax 2 CPT => 2 GPT, which a Market would convert to 3 GPT, so a Market in such a town would only just pay for itself. However, you might consider building Markets in captured 1-shield towns which will reach Pop7+ because they've been built on freshwater, or which have Aqueducts already (which you can't sell), because...

The Luxury-multiplier effect increases the number of Happy faces produced by your available Luxes:

Before you build a Market, you only get 1 happy face per hooked/imported Lux-resource type. So even with all 8 standard Luxes available (Incense, Dyes, Silks, Spices, Gems, Ivory, Furs, Wines), you'll never get more than 8 citizens happy per city. With a Market, the first 2 Luxes each make 1 person happy, the 3rd and 4th Lux each make 2 people happy, the 5th and 6th each make 3 people happy, and the 7th and 8th each make 4 people happy. So if you have all 8 Luxes, a city with a Market could have up to 2 + 4 + 6 + 8 = 20 happy citizens, barring War-weariness, etc...

Spoiler :

The Lux-multiplier effect has now become the main reason I build Markets in my core towns, since Markets are hugely more cost-effective than Temples, Cathedrals and Colosseums at producing Happiness. (I like building the Spaceship, which is a high-tech, long-game VC -- so I am usually running my Sci% at a high level to get through the tech-tree ASAP, and earning cash by selling obsolete techs, rather than increasing GPT from Markets+Banks).

This effect is also why it gets more and more expensive to buy Luxes from the AI as your cities get bigger/more developed -- the AIs look at the total number of your people that each additional Lux will make happy across your entire empire, taking all Market-builds into account, and then raise their prices accordingly. Although it seems like an exploit to me, some CFCers have actually recommended to sell off Markets in high-shield core-cities/metropolii (where the extra Luxes will have the greatest effects) before making late-game Lux-import deals, so as to artifically lower the AI's asking price. Once the deal is done, they then immediately rebuild those Markets, and reap the Lux-Happiness rewards for the next 20T. (A town producing 50 SPT could rebuild its Market in 2T, or -- if the Treasury is healthy enough -- even 1T by disbanding a cheap mil-unit to put some shields in the box, then cash-rushing the rest).

As stated above, the Luxury-multiplier effect only applies if you have 5 different Luxuries! Holding the global monopoly on e.g. Ivory won't make your citizens extra-happy, because only the first Lux of each type produces happiness (although the remainder are available for trading to the AIs, perhaps in return for their excess Luxes).

TL: DR

Don't build Markets in small corrupt 1-shield towns, or in any towns under Pop6 unless Tax% is >30-40% and/or you already have ≥3 Luxes available and Happiness is a problem. Markets are a much more efficient use of shields than Temples for making people happy, especially if you have ≥3 Luxes.

No need for a tl;dr my friend! =) I appreciate that you took the time to write it out and explain it to me so well, so I definitely have the time to read it!

Haha yeah I know that it means different luxuries. I do have different ones of course, but the way it shows it in the city display is misleading, however. I have 5 luxuries, which, according to your calculations should be giving me NINE happy faces. Still, even in cities with a marketplace I'm only getting 5!!!

Just to be clear that i'm not insane, I have Wines, Ivory, Dyes, Incense, and Spices. All 5, hooked up, none of them traded away, or disconnected, and all appear in the city display, with MULTIPLE happy faces on numbers 3, 4, and 5, as you said. Even still, only 5 of my citizens are happy, 1 is content, and 5 are unhappy.

I'm not at war, I haven't pop rushed, i'm in Republic, on Emperor difficulty, in C3C.

As for tax= I'm going for a space race and I'm ahead in tech so I have absolutely 0 use for the tax bonus from marketplaces. Building these was a complete waste since the happiness thing isn't working. I should've just built cathedrals??

 

[justanick]

(As I understand it) a city's net commerce per turn (CPT) is the raw total of all the 'gold-piles' shown on the city-screen (obtained from roading and then working the surrounding tiles), minus any lost to corruption.

The commerce from tourism due to very old world wonders is counted in aswell.

This net CPT is then run through your Empire-wide slider settings (Tax% = 100% - Sci% - Lux%), and rounded down to the nearest integer values to give 'base' output values of Tax (gold per turn, GPT), Science (beakers per turn, BPT) and 'Happy faces' for that city, at a direct 1:1 ratio, e.g. in a city producing 10 uncorrupted CPT, at a T:S:L ratio of 4:4:2, you will get base values of 4 GPT, 4 BPT, and 2 Happies.

Actually it is just rounded, so that raw commerce after corruptions equals the sum of the 3 base output values before multiplyer buildings apply.

The GPT (and also BPT) value is then increased according to any 'multiplier-building' augmentations applicable in that city.

Those increasements from marketplces etc. are rounded down to integers. In theory there could be similar multiplyer buildings for the base output of happy faces which would then give what is called happy faces. Some mods may use those buildings, but standard C3C does not.

Just to be clear that i'm not insane, I have Wines, Ivory, Dyes, Incense, and Spices. All 5, hooked up, none of them traded away, or disconnected, and all appear in the city display, with MULTIPLE happy faces on numbers 3, 4, and 5, as you said.

This means your market is working fine. You get 9 happy faces from your 5 luxuries.

Even still, only 5 of my citizens are happy, 1 is content, and 5 are unhappy.

At emperor level and above you have 1 content citizen before everything else applies. All other citizen start at unhappy. As long as you have unhappy citizens content faces(orange) from temples and military police in some governments are used to make unhappy citizens content. Once all content faces are either used up or wasted happy faces(yellow) are applied. Happy faces make content citizens happy. Once no content citizens are left happy faces can also be used to make unhappy citizens content.

So making unhappy citizens happy citizens costs 2 goods faces from which at least one needs to be a happy face.

Under normal circumstances your aim is to have as much happy citizens as unhappy ones. If you have more unhappy ones you will get riots. If you have more happy citizens you could lower your luxury sliders and increase research instead. Pay as much for luxury sliders as you have to but not a penny more.

I should've just built cathedrals??

Temples, colloseums and cathedrals are much less efficient than market places. Temples and colloseums costs as much gtp in maintenances as they save you at the luxury sliders, so their net gain is zero. Later in the game building them can still pay off because saved luxury can be used at tax or research instead and those use multiplyers from markets and banks etc..

 

[NoAnswer]

So making unhappy citizens happy citizens costs 2 goods faces from which at least one needs to be a happy face.

THANK YOU So much for this info! That explains the whole thing haha.

OK! thanks! And yeah based on that Marketplaces are definitely superior. I'd hate to think how my cities would look right now without this access to 5 luxuries.

 

[NoAnswer]

Hey guys, I've decided to play another Deity game, and I was wondering something.

Is the Republic slingshot possible on Deity? or getting Poly? And I mean like, without sacrificing building Settlers and rapid expansion?

I know Philosophy can be gotten first, but is there time for Code of Laws - or even Poly if the map has no luxuries? or should I just use the free tech on something stupid like Lit or Maps.

=)

I know that optimally you wouldn't be fighting for techs in a Deity game, but I like the financial aspect of this game far more than anything else.

 

[justanick]

Is the Republic slingshot possible on Deity?

It is not impossible. It rather much depends on the size of the map. On a huge map it might be possible even at Sid, albeit not very likely. The bigger the map the higher the research costs. The less contact between Civs there less tech trading. At deity your research costs will be 66.67% higher then for AI, at Sid it is 150% higher than for AI. Sp the risks are relativly high, but the posssibility exists.

 

[Lanzelot]

My rule of thumb is: with a good start position (1-2 food boni for rapid expansion, 1-2 luxuries and lots of rivers for high commerce) I usually take the risk and go for the full slingshot. With a bad start position I play it safe and go for Philo directly. Then take CoL as freebee and research Republic with a lone scientist. Or take Literature as freebee and go for the Great Library. Or take Literature as freebee, build a handful of libraries while waiting for CoL to become available, trade Literature for CoL and then research Republic at full speed, using the boost from the libraries. Or just play it by ear...

Of course it also depends on which contacts you have and what techs are available for trade. If there are a lot of AIs already, which have Writing before I do, then I also play it safe.

 

[NoAnswer]

My rule of thumb is: with a good start position (1-2 food boni for rapid expansion, 1-2 luxuries and lots of rivers for high commerce) I usually take the risk and go for the full slingshot. With a bad start position I play it safe and go for Philo directly. Then take CoL as freebee and research Republic with a lone scientist. Or take Literature as freebee and go for the Great Library. Or take Literature as freebee, build a handful of libraries while waiting for CoL to become available, trade Literature for CoL and then research Republic at full speed, using the boost from the libraries. Or just play it by ear...

Of course it also depends on which contacts you have and what techs are available for trade. If there are a lot of AIs already, which have Writing before I do, then I also play it safe.

Thx bro I appreciate it.

I duno about the great library man. I had a pretty successful run with it as Japan (mass build Horsemen, then upgrade them all to Samurai because by that time I have anywhere between 4,000-8,000 gold on a standard map).

I'm just not sure if it's a legitimate strategy. It feels like a bit of a cop out to me and leads to a boring game. If I'm on a continent with only 2 other civs, it definitely ruins the game. :/ It takes absolutely forever to get to the point where you can send ships out to meet other civs, which really becomes boring. Fighting only 2 other civs is lame, especially when you hear about other civs already building the Sistine Chapel before you even get Monotheism.

I guess the great library is a bit of an easy, if not optimal win, that is especially suited for Domination/Conquest. I personally enjoy the challenge of a Science Victory more because I'm obsessed with economical micromanagement and optimization.

Anyhow, I went for the slingshot and failed !!! =) Like I said, I've only played Deity once before, and it's actually kind of nice to NOT get what I want all the time like I'm used to I thought I'd be fine because I was keeping close tabs on the research of my neighbors, but I guess someone on a different continent got it first.


Ty again for your advice. I do love building libraries, so that's what I'll be doing then. Luckily I have 4 resources within reach, so that should be enough to make for a comfortable Republic, not having to depend on the MP from Monarchy. I really hope I can score a Leader and put up a FP to start aiming at 4-per turn research, which I think should be doable as France.