Slavery good? Wonderbuilding bad? Confused!

[TheMeInTeam]

I get non spiritual causing downtime in anarchy. Unless I'm in an early war, or far behind the AI in expansion or tech, I dont bother with slavery at all. So I dont have double anarchy going to slavery then going to serfdom. usually I just wait and jump straight to serfdom. Define 'enough workers'. Maybe that's where the disconnect is. I have 2-3 workers per city usually. Is this alot or a little or exactly what you meant by enough. To me, 2 workers per city is NOT enough without serfdom because they take too long to improve things. MORE than 3 workers per city is 'too much' to me because of all the time my cities would spend not growing while they build multiple workers.

Unless you're automating workers and managing them very poorly, 1.5-2 workers/city should easily cover all your tiles without any need for crappy serfdom. I'm not sure what you're doing with your worker micro, because even in my shoddy micro games I can improve tiles faster than cities reasonably grow onto them with 2 workers/city. Not only that, but marathon should make worker micro more efficient...you're definitely doing something wrong if 2/city is slower than your growth.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

If you don't like Space victories, don't attempt to win that way. Don't nerf the AI by turning them off though.

 

[o1derfull1]

By the time you've discovered Feudalism, you should have discovered Code of Laws, so you should generally be running Caste System. Slavery only if you still have a lot of expansion/warfare to do.

Someone said something like this earlier. I dont get it. Code of Laws and Fedualism are early medieval era techs. Why would you be running caste system if your city wasn't over 20 in size? If it's less than 20, you have no idle pop available for specialists. If it's over size 20 when you have excess population to make specialists with, please tell me how you have multiple size 20+ cities so early on. My cities are barely hitting 20 pop when I get to the industrial era.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

What? You don't run specialists until your city reaches size 20? Yikes.

 

[o1derfull1]

Unless you're automating workers and managing them very poorly, 1.5-2 workers/city should easily cover all your tiles without any need for crappy serfdom. I'm not sure what you're doing with your worker micro, because even in my shoddy micro games I can improve tiles faster than cities reasonably grow onto them with 2 workers/city. Not only that, but marathon should make worker micro more efficient...you're definitely doing something wrong if 2/city is slower than your growth

I do not automate. I plan every improvement in advance. I just started a random game, on a huge map, with 3 opponents on pangea/temperate, Classical start to give me the improvement techs like animal husbandry and agriculture etc. Within one square of my starting location I had access to a BFC that included 5 hills, 1 floodplains, 1 cow and 1 rice.

I used world builder to make my city lvl 5 and improved two tiles (to make the city be about where it would be in gowth/improvements had i started on ancient). One a grassland farm and one a farm on the rice. At that tech level, with no wonders, starting civics, with my population working the highest growth tiles, and two workers available it would take 9 turns to get to pop 6.

It would also take
9 turns to build a pasture and a road on the cow.
10 turns to build a farm and a road on an empty grasslands tile.
14 turns to build a road and a farm on a forest tile
10 turns to build a mine and road on a bare hill
11 turns to build a windmill and road on a bare hill
13 turns to build a mine and a road on a forested hill
14 turns to build a windmill and road on a forested hill

The city would grow even quicker with a smaller population. Once I build a granary, going from 6-7 would take even less time.

two workers per tile cannot keep up with city growth when cities are smaller than 10.

 

[o1derfull1]

If you don't like Space victories, don't attempt to win that way. Don't nerf the AI by turning them off though.

I'm not nerfing the AI any more than i'm nerfing myself, if its a nerf at all. whoever wins the game has to win it by the same methods. level playing field = fair and balanced (omg fox news) that's why i dont play higher than monarch. the AI gets what I get and vice versa in my games.

What? You don't run specialists until your city reaches size 20? Yikes

.

No i dont. Why would i, as I mentioned earlier have a engineer specialist that provides 2 hammers, when I could work a tile with that same population point and get 1 or more food AND 3 or more hammers if it has a windmill/watermill/workshop/mine/lumbermill on it. Same goes for a merchant specialist. 3 gold is nice. but I'm sacrificing 2-4 food, and 1-3 hammers and 0-2 commerce by having that specialst instead of working a watermill/fish/farm+river tile. I dont do culture wins so artists are useless. Priests are worthless as well. The only argument I see for having a science specialst up before pop 20 is in your science city OR if you're way behind on tech and cant keep your tech slider at 80% or better.

 

[Absolute Zero]

It would also take
9 turns to build a pasture and a road on the cow.
10 turns to build a farm and a road on an empty grasslands tile.
14 turns to build a road and a farm on a forest tile
10 turns to build a mine and road on a bare hill
11 turns to build a windmill and road on a bare hill
13 turns to build a mine and a road on a forested hill
14 turns to build a windmill and road on a forested hill

Why do you take roads into account? They don't affect (early) city growth. The important thing is the improvement (pasture/mine/farm), which changes the tile yields food://).

In fact, why are you building roads on improvements without resources? Roads are built to connect resources, so why build them on resourceless tiles? (Except to connect cities, but that's a different matter.)

 

[o1derfull1]

Why do you take roads into account?
In fact, why are you building roads on improvements without resources? Roads are built to connect resources, so why build them on resourceless tiles? (Except to connect cities, but that's a different matter.)

because I connect my cities, connect to sites where i will have future cities, want to be able to move those workers around faster, want to have a centralized miltary (early on) so I can have 3 units defend 4 cities by keeping them centrally placed but with fast access to a city that is threatened by barbs on my culture borders.

but i take your point. I dont need to build a road everytime I build a tile improvement, especially in the early game. it makes sense not to actually, and i suppose I always had been out of habit and foresight (I'm gonna want a road there eventually, why not build it now while i'm here).

Good point. I'll tweak some of my early improvementing in future games

 

[Ghpstage]

I'm not nerfing the AI any more than i'm nerfing myself, if its a nerf at all. whoever wins the game has to win it by the same methods. level playing field = fair and balanced (omg fox news) that's why i dont play higher than monarch. the AI gets what I get and vice versa in my games.

Actually you are, AIs don't know how to win by domination, conquest or diplo, only ever managing any by stumbling into it accidentally, and they will still attempt culture and space with them turned off. Also noble is the difficulty where AIs are most equal to players, Monarch has a few bonuses.

No i dont. Why would i, as I mentioned earlier have a engineer specialist that provides 2 hammers, when I could work a tile with that same population point and get 1 or more food AND 3 or more hammers if it has a windmill/watermill/workshop/mine/lumbermill on it. Same goes for a merchant specialist. 3 gold is nice. but I'm sacrificing 2-4 food, and 1-3 hammers and 0-2 commerce by having that specialst instead of working a watermill/fish/farm+river tile. I dont do culture wins so artists are useless. Priests are worthless as well. The only argument I see for having a science specialst up before pop 20 is in your science city OR if you're way behind on tech and cant keep your tech slider at 80% or better.

Great People Points, and by just considering the 2 from an engineer you are seriously underrating it.

For a slightly over the top example lets consider a sole Engineer being run for your first Great Person. Running this Engineer for 100 turns on marathon will net you 200, which isn't particularly impressive, but if the Great Engineer produced is used to build the Pyramids (1500) that lonely Engineers total output is 1700 or 17/turn. Ignoring the effects of GPP is always going to lead to massive underestimation of specialists.

Other specs aside from Engineers and Merchants are also good, Great scientists form the backbone of high level play through early Academies and the power of tech bulbing, Prophets build Shrines that can be fantastic and if you have Ankore Wat then Priests have better outputs than Engineers (+2, +1). Though which is most useful depends on situation and individual preference.

 

[Esham]

Man, i run specialists as soon as possible. tech writing > libraries in GP farm cities. slavery whip that library, grow back the pop fast since any specialist city will have tonnes of growth from farms and resources.

Slap representation civic on asap and you get 3 beakers per specialist PLUS the other benefits.

at this point your GPP is through the roof and you can monopolize GP production for free techs that can be traded to the AI. 1 bulbed tech traded 3 ways is well worth it. But this is after my first GS has created his academy in my science city.

And the reason i can dedicate people to specialists is because its a specialist city. I don't need to spend turns on making buildings that won't effect the city at all. Just + %beaker buildings for the science city and + %production for my production city (which pumps out units non stop throughout my game).

Once i found out about specialist economies it really change the entire point of view i have this game. Civics i thought were useless become powerful and the same for wonders. Don't build them all, build them for specific needs.

Ironically at the same time conquest/Dom victories become very easy to pull off since SE caters to war mongering.

Just my 2 cents on the enlightenment of going outside of your normal strategies. Now when i play i HATE isolated starts (i loved them before) and more civs the merrier. I can't stand huge maps for this reason as well.

 

[o1derfull1]

Great People Points, and by just considering the 2 from an engineer you are seriously underrating it.

For a slightly over the top example lets consider a sole Engineer being run for your first Great Person. Running this Engineer for 100 turns on marathon will net you 200, which isn't particularly impressive, but if the Great Engineer produced is used to build the Pyramids (1500) that lonely Engineers total output is 1700 or 17/turn. Ignoring the effects of GPP is always going to lead to massive underestimation of specialists.

I've seen this theory once before somewhere on the forums. I'm not sure I buy it. I think it's too deconstructionist. Instead of looking at the benefits of use in terms of actual output, look at it in terms of percentages. You can use an engineer once for 100% construction bonus. Or you can use him indefinetly for a 2% production bonus (assuming a city with an average of 100 hammers of production on any one turn) This of course would be greater if you take into account things like forges and factories and powerplants and civics like organized religion.

I think of it like the lottery. Would I rather have one lump sum now at a loss and be done, or would I take the annuity and know I'm set for regular payments for a long time to come.

I'm not sure how many turns a game goes through from ancient start to 2020, but I have to think its more than 750. If it is more than 750 then that 1500 your engineer was worth to build the pyramids was just eclipsed by the 2 per turn using your own actual output valuation.

AIs don't know how to win by domination, conquest or diplo, only ever managing any by stumbling into it accidentally, and they will still attempt culture and space with them turned off.

Are both these claims factual? I hadn't known or heard this. Can you point me toward your substantiation? If the second one is true, thats absolutely ridiculous.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

They don't even attempt culture wins on warlords expansion.

The only real way to be beaten by the AI on warlords (unless they chain vassals and win domination, or eliminate the human ending the game) is through space. Peaceful AIs are especially nerfed by turning space wins off.

 

[o1derfull1]

I'd still like to see some sort of official comment or documentation regarding that. I can't believe they'd design a game with 5 methods of victory and only program that AI to attempt 1. Thats beyond counter-intuitive. Thats irrational and absurd. Talk about me gimping and nerfing the AI? If this is accurate they were handicapped out of the box.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Well turn all the victories on and see for yourself. Don't go for space or culture yourself if you don't like it.

 

[o1derfull1]

Well turn all the victories on and see for yourself. Don't go for space or culture yourself if you don't like it.

I'm looking for confirmation from an official source that the AI only can pursue space victories. Turning options on wont confirm anything for me

As far as not liking it goes, I don't like that the game is OVER when there's no reason for it to be. No matter who builds Apollo. To me this game isn't about winning with points, this game is about winning because your civ is so big and powerful and dominant it cannot be defied. You win Civilization when you build the best and biggest and most rich and most powerful CIVILIZATION. Not when you make a spaceship.

The Soviets didnt win history when they launched Sputnik. The US didnt win the world when we landed on the moon. Tech/Space is just one small integral part of world history, civilization success, and global influence and dominance. To have any accomplishment in that venue imply any sort of hegemonic victory is facile.

 

[Pinstar]

Opportunity cost. You can be building something else that gives more benefit. In many cases, even something like wealth soundly beats building a market when the city has tons of but almost no .

Wouldn't the market increase that city's gold intake by 25%, therefor making the choice of building a market a short term sacrifice of (as the city uses its hammers to build the market) to yield a greater amount of later? (as the build wealth is now yielding 25% more ?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

In warlords, no.

In warlords and BtS only hammer multipliers affect building wealth, culture or research. It was different in vanilla, unless this was patched at some point.

 

[o1derfull1]

I'm no expert for sure. But I dont believe markets affect building wealth. From what I understand wealth ONLY converts hammers to gold. If a city has 100 hammers and no market and you build wealth, you will get 100g from that city from building wealth. If a city has 100 hammers and a market and a bank and wall street and a grocher, you still get 100g from that city from building wealth. Markets, grochers and banks increase how much gold you make from commerce. Wealth simply converts hammers to gold.

 

[Ghpstage]

I've seen this theory once before somewhere on the forums. I'm not sure I buy it. I think it's too deconstructionist. Instead of looking at the benefits of use in terms of actual output, look at it in terms of percentages. You can use an engineer once for 100% construction bonus. Or you can use him indefinetly for a 2% production bonus (assuming a city with an average of 100 hammers of production on any one turn) This of course would be greater if you take into account things like forges and factories and powerplants and civics like organized religion.

I think of it like the lottery. Would I rather have one lump sum now at a loss and be done, or would I take the annuity and know I'm set for regular payments for a long time to come.

I'm not sure how many turns a game goes through from ancient start to 2020, but I have to think its more than 750. If it is more than 750 then that 1500 your engineer was worth to build the pyramids was just eclipsed by the 2 per turn using your own actual output valuation.

Actually it was just a counterargument to the underestimation of specialist output. What you speak of here is the debate of settling vs bulbs/rush wonder/trade missions etc

For this consider that both choices give some kind of interest, which can vary tremendously..... a Merchant trade mission could allow you to upgrade trebs to cannons and double the number of cities you have, a bulbed tech could yield 2-3 times its value in trades while allowing you access to powerful things like Pacifism and Oxford earlier and wonderbuilding gives great person points, denies the AI of a wonder and gives the wonders bonus which with the Pyramids means access to Representation a few hundred turns before usual. I don't think there is any way the total effects stemming from a single Great Person can be quantified, but experience tells me that quite often having things now will snowball so much that settling will never catch up. For the record the usefulness of tech bulbing varies a lot based on difficulty, the higher the level the more trades you will have avaialble.

Are both these claims factual? I hadn't known or heard this. Can you point me toward your substantiation? If the second one is true, thats absolutely ridiculous.

Its something I saw quite a long time ago and it has been mentioned numerous times since, unfortunately the forums search function refuses to find the 'AI' in 'AI victory' as it has too few characters in it...

It is supported by common sense however, after all if they planned for military wins they would immediately attack anyone weaker than them (making the higher difficulties impossible) and diplomacy would mean nothing. In practice they don't just atatck all the time and diplo can be used to make yourself safe against a civ armed with tanks and nukes while just having 1 Warrior.....
Also try an always peace custom game, you will find the likes of Shaka, Monty and Ragnar will still build huge militaries but be able to do almost nothing useful....

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I think the Better AI for warlords thread discussions (which eventually made it into BtS) nailed some of the more serious AI problems.