The problem I always had with the Industrious bonus, is that it is 50% on top of any other bonuses you already get. The early wonders I generally build only if I have the building material (IE Marble or Stone) So the 50% bonus means that it's completed only 10% faster than it would have been otherwise. Later in the game, you should be getting a 25% production bonus from the Forge and a 25% bonus from Organized Religion, and in your capital, a 50% bonus from Buerocracy.
People think that getting an early shrine is good, 1 extra gold per city. How does that compare to getting an average of 8 extra commerce per city?
Yep I agree, it usually takes me forever to build West Point and Wall Street, and exactly when I need them too.
Plus, consider that wonders are "more benefit the longer you have them". e.g., if you get Wall Street or Pyramids earlier, then you get its benefit for more turns, thus its value is more.
Wodan
The problem I always had with the Industrious bonus, is that it is 50% on top of any other bonuses you already get. The early wonders I generally build only if I have the building material (IE Marble or Stone) So the 50% bonus means that it's completed only 10% faster than it would have been otherwise. Later in the game, you should be getting a 25% production bonus from the Forge and a 25% bonus from Organized Religion, and in your capital, a 50% bonus from Buerocracy.
The thing that I think makes Financial so strong, is that the extra commerce is mutiplied by any other bonuses you have. People think that getting an early shrine is good, 1 extra gold per city. How does that compare to getting an average of 8 extra commerce per city?
No, if I have access to stone and industrious I get 150% hammers. If I have a forge and OR, it's 200%. If I have civil service it's 250%.
An early shrine get's multiplied by 25% for markets, 25% for Grocers, 50% for banks, 100% for Wall Street.
8 commerce per city is almost the same beakers as 1 sceience speciaist if you got the pyramids and run early representation. More since you have the extra +3 happy and can build the city faster.
I am not arguing against Financial, I love the trait. IN fact I love them all, even protective. My point is that Industrious is very powerful, as powerful as Industrious in my book. I rated ORG tops because of a personal preference.
I'm saying that if you already have a +100% to +150% boost, the extra 50% doesn't mean as much in terms of reducing the # of turns it takes to build.
And 8 extra commerce is generally around 12 extra science since you should have at least a library in every town, and a university in most towns. So even with representation, you need two extra science specialists per town to equal what you are getting passively from Financial. And there's nothing saying you can't run specialists with financial anyway.
I'm saying that if you already have a +100% to +150% boost, the extra 50% doesn't mean as much in terms of reducing the # of turns it takes to build.
And 8 extra commerce is generally around 12 extra science since you should have at least a library in every town, and a university in most towns. So even with representation, you need two extra science specialists per town to equal what you are getting passively from Financial. And there's nothing saying you can't run specialists with financial anyway.
50% production saves you the same number of hammers regardless if you have stope or marble.
This is not true.
1000 Hammer Wonder with no modifiers: 1000 hammers
Industrious: costs 2/3 * 1000 = 667, save 333 base hammers vs. non-Industrious.
With Stone, no Industrious: costs 1/2 * 1000 = 500 base hammers.
With Stone and Industrious: costs 2/5 * 1000 = 400, save 100 base hammers over Stone, not Industrious.
Industrious is not nearly as beneficial if you have other bonuses to stack. That's why stacked "penalties" are so much more significant than stacked bonuses. An unique building that gave an extra 50% discount on city maintenance in addition to the courthouse would make the city maintenance free in every city that had both buildings. Compare that to a building that gives an extra 50% bonus to production and you see only a 12.5% reduction in the number of turns to complete a space ship part from your fully furnished Iron Works building (which starts at 3.5 x normal hammers for space ship parts IIRC.)
100 Hammers is still 100 Hammers. That's around 2.5 turns in an average beauracracy capital, even more turns in a normal city.
Also your math ignores the fact that the 100 hammers you are saving from IND + Stone are worth more actual hammers than that of just Stone, ESPECIALLY if its Hammers from a Beauracracy capital (which is where most Wonder building generally take place).
Cheers,
Dai
What??
100 hammers is certainly 100 hammers, but it's not 100 hammers vs. 100 hammers. It's 100 hammers saved with Industrious + Stone vs. non-Industrious Stone by itself compared to 333 hammers saved with Industrious without Stone vs. non-Industrious without Stone. Here's a breakdown.
Building a 1000 hammer wonder that gets a +100% production bonus from Stone.
No bonus: at 20 hammers per turn, completes in 50 turns.
Costs 1000 base hammers.
Industrious, but no Stone: at 20 base hammers per turn, completes in 34 turns.
Costs 680 base hammers and Industrious gives 340 hammers. (with 13 hammers of overflow for the next turn)
Non-Industrious with Stone: at 20 base hammers per turn, completes in 25 turns.
Costs 500 base hammers with Stone giving 500 hammers.
Industrious with Stone: at 20 base hammers per turn, completes in 20 turns.
Costs 400 base hammers with Stone giving 400 hammers and Industrious giving 200 hammers.
In the last example, it looks as if Industrious gave you 200 hammers, but it really only gave you 100 hammers because it stole 100 hammers from what you would have gotten from Stone.
To sum up: Industrious gives 333 free hammers to the wonder if you do not have Stone. Industrious gives only 100 free hammers to the wonder if you do have Stone.
Industrious gives a large bonus to early wonders where you do not have the appropriate resource (or where no such resource exists). Industrious gives only a small bonus to early wonders where you do have the appropriate resource. Industrious gives only a tiny bonus to late game wonders.
Consider the Statue of Liberty with Copper, Forge, Factory, Power and Organized Religion:
Costs 1500 hammers.
City has +200% bonus to SoL from the list above, but no Industrious bonus.
At 20 base hammers per turn, the city is generating 60 hammers per turn toward the SoL and will complete the wonder in 25 turns.
That's 500 base hammers with 1000 free hammers from Copper, Forge, Factory, Power and OR.
With Industrious, the 20 base hammers per turn are made into 70 hammers toward SoL. That means the SoL will complete in 22 turns with 11 base hammers of overflow. Those 11 hammers will be turned into 22 hammers from the Forge, Factory and Power on the next turn.
That's 440 base hammers with 880 from Copper, Forge, Factory, Power and OR. You get 220 free hammers from Industrious, but remember that you're losing the free hammers from Copper, etc. by doing that. This means you are only picking up 60 base hammers which translates to 120 hammers with Forge, Factory and Power.
That's only 120 free hammers from Industrious out of an entire 1500 hammer monstrosity like the Statue of Liberty AND I'm even counting the "worth more actual hammers" bit that you claim I neglected. It not any better with Bureaucracy, but I'm leaving that analysis out since this post is already too long as it is.
Industrious is a nice trait. It gives you flexibility in the early game when that flexibility matters most. It translates to a real bonus of about 10-15% rather than the listed 50% bonus on most of the wonders of the game, however. The real bonus is in the cheap Forges and in the ability to consider building an early wonder without the bonus resource. It's more like Jaguar Warriors or Holkans than Praetorians.
I'm still at a loss as to how a SE is supposed to work. The city specialists themselves are much less efficent then just running a lot of cottages. Every GP that you produce makes the next one that much more difficult, so they provide diminishing returns as the game goes along, whereas cottages grow into towns that provide even more commerce.