Slider information 1872

[Kev]

OK, we have some choices here.

Right now we are at 40 tax, 30 science, and 30 luxuries. This gives us a profit of 1,227 every turn and techs every 2 turns along with zero elvis.

We could go to 60% science which would give us a tech every turn, but would mean a deficit or use of entertainers.

We could also go back to celebrating if you all wish.

My personal choice is to stay at 40/30/30 for a while. We can build and still get all of the techs fairly quickly.

Just my thoughts, but we need to hear from everyone if we can.

 

[duke o' york]

I am quite happy with the situation as it is. Since we will not be pushing for the future tech points then we can just move through the tech tree at our leisure. If I was playing for points then I'd probably still keep things as they are and then time frieght deliveries once airports arrive to get a tech per turn but it's all academic now as we don't really have any serious rivals. With God and Satan on our side then we can't lose!

 

[starlifter]

In a Democracy, I always use 30% Lux in late game, and Tax/Sci battle it out for the other 70%. This will keep almost any city growing, provided it has the basic happiness improvements commensurate with the difficulty level and city size. The object is for the city to reach it's production (shield) potential as quickly as possible (all my comments refer to whatever style and game situation is going on, e.g., none are ever blindly geared to achieve a score, as is the case in GOTMs... but many of the basic strategies are not altered at all for an all-out, down in the dirt Democratic war ).

So I see no reason in this game to leave Democracy, nor drop below 30% Lux (and keep the size 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, etc. cities going up to size 19 or 20, minimum). Citizens above #20 (assuming a city is using all 21 tiles) can often be better used as an Engineer instead of a taxman or scientist (except for the SSC, which usually needs all scientists and no engineers supported).

The remaining 70% should be determined by how much science remains before the next advance. Example, if 245 beakers remain, about 10% would probably do (use F5 and scroll to bottom to determine beakers necessary for the next advance, and compare it to the beaker output for a given slider setting).

If a sudden need for gold arises, just max it to 70% tax (e.g., a city bribe or essential rush builds)... the science can wait a turn or two.

Since the exact split of Sci/Tax is a turn by turn dynamic thing, my vote on that setting is whatever teh President decides as the turns are played. Plenty of turns remain (we're only in the 1800's), so my bias would be to keep taxes higher (based on what needs to be rushed and bribed), and deliver Freight to fund science at a somewhat leisurely pace.

Any Freights that are delivered should have SHs in the source city, and Airports in both cities... if not, wait a turn until those cities can get the improvements rushed... this combination will double the value of a delivery, which in turn doubles both the gold and beakers! This is typically where I usually spend vast sums of gold (rush buys) in a rapidly growing warlike Democracy.

 

[Zwelgje]

I like the pace of research and money flowing in. Once we've discovered the techs for all SS parts it's not that we will have to build the SS as fast as possible. We can let the fully developed cities build the SS parts and the other cities build improvements (rush them if production is very low). When the SS is launched all cities should be well developed, at minimum they should have all improvements to guarantee unlimited growth and happiness.

 

[duke o' york]

Don't say unlimited growth to starlifter!: Growth quiz

Don't forget that we need Fusion Power as well as all the SS part technologies, if only to get it there as quickly as possible.

 

[Kev]

While not the most efficient method by any stretch, I'd like to do as little as possible with the slider during the turns. We are such a sprawling nation right now, so I hope you'll all forgive if I end up being a bit lax in the micromanaging department.

This will hold true for other things as well. With trade, I know that all of those lovely arrow thingys like libraries, universities, superhighways, etc. and that having host and delivered city airport friendly will boost the trade dollars. But let's have a look at things. The game is ours. We probably don't even need to build any more militarty - just deliver the howies we have in the field to England and then Zululand and we're done. Being so precise with trade freight will surely give us oodles of extra cash, but to what end? We could rush-build all over the place, but that's even MORE micromanaging that I'm just not up for. The turns are taking a while now, so I hope you all won't mind if I just do my best and cover what the ministers ask for in the general sense of things.

Having techs every two turns (and I'll monitor the slider to be sure that we stay at this level - it could even improve once we start gifting) will get us to space flight and all of the SS techs before the 1900's which is pretty decent considering we were actually in a tech race for quite a while and had several mid-game wonder races as well (hence having to capture the Statue of Libery, Cure for Cancer, etc.). I can't remember the last time I came so close to losing Hoover! It was a fun time though

I think it'll be more fun if we speak about the things that provide more "hands on" opportunities. Things like building queues, attack plans, city sites, diplomacy, city/province naming, etc. gives everyone a chance to see their decisions played out in a very physical sense - and personalizes the game much more. Hence the fun. A person can say, "yeah, our strategy worked and those Mongols suffered!".

OK, I digress. Sorry. Just hope you realize the extent of each turn lately and that "simple is better" from my view.

So - to get back on topic - I'd like to set a rate that I can check over the next batch of turns and only adjust if we drop a turn in tech discovery or something drastic like that. At 30% luxuries, I'm sorry to say, precious few cities will continue to celebrate. Again, even though I've been playing a while, I've rarely had this phenomenon even in my better games. It is a true testament to the thought and planning that Starlifter does. However, our nation probably isn't geared like that and wasn't, really, from the start. However, we'll all be happy enough for the time being, and we can celebrate like mad soon enough when we have all of the techs we wish to have.

That's enough of my diatribe. Let's finish this "Italian Ice" thing and go after Hank and the English!!

 

[Leowind]

I agree about keeping simple. I have enough difficulty micromanaging my own games, without trying to do it for a game I never even get to see except through the occasional screenie Such micromanaging takes away some of the fun, IMHO (sorry Starlifter). I say keep the sliders as they are and be done with it for now.

 

[starlifter]

Such micromanaging takes away some of the fun, IMHO (sorry Starlifter). I say keep the sliders as they are and be done with it for now.

No worries at all ... A lot of the reason I write extra stuff is so that people have an idea what I'm personally thinking... it may not be practical, or we might even simply just not want to do it.... but it might give people ideas about how to help their own game when playing . I'm a big believer in spreading ideas around so people can add to their personal armory!

About the whole slider thing at this particular point in the game.... my main input is still for a bias to gold, & whatever the Pres sees fit during gameplay. Fixed or dynamicly adjusted, gold is really the "secret" to keeping a Democracy humming along... and a nice bank account could come in handy when conquering/bribing .....