So why is Phi/Ind forbidden when...

[Wodan]

You can contrive an example where it's better to have multiple GP producing cities. Just as I can contrive an example where it's better to have just one.

Depending on the game and your strategy, sometimes one is better, sometimes the other.

 

[Polobo]

Which is the whole point of my initial response since your analogy of how the GP system worked described a scenario in which only your examples were the only valid choices.

 

[Wodan]

Which is the whole point of my initial response since your analogy of how the GP system worked described a scenario in which only your examples were the only valid choices.

Did you even read the narrative which accompanied the analogy in the very same post?

 

[karadoc]

What you "take" from the other cities is the opportunity to produce a GP.

If City A is producing 108 GP/turn, and City B is producing 18 GP/turn, then City B will not produce a GP before the game ends. Not even one.

Certainly, City B gets the immediate benefit that the specialists provide. But that's not what is being discussed.

This is why Polobo said he sometimes purposefully does not build the National Epic in his GP Farm. That means his primary bank account has the full $1000, but he intentionally tells the bank to only give him 2.5% interest.

Anyway an analogy only takes us so far.

Obviously there is no point in having a secondary "GP farm" that is incapable of producing any GP, but that is rarely the case. It is true that whenever city B does manage to produce a GP, it becomes harder for city A to get the next one - but you still get the GP either way. The GP points in city A have not been wasted, they will go towards the next great person. More importantly, you have just made it harder for all of the other players to get their next GP. None of these strategy concepts are accurately reflected by the bank analogy. That analogy was complete trash. It could not possibly help anyone to imagine what having two GP farms would be like. It does not accurately describe anything to do with GP farms. There is not a well defined "pool of GP power" that can be spread arbitrarily across your cities (cf. the $1000). While some cities get more GP points per specialist (or wonder or whatever), it doesn't work anything like an interest rate. There are other important effects that are completely out the scope of banks and interest rates. You say that an analogy only takes us so far, which is true... but this particular analogy takes us no where at all.

Look, if you have one city that produces 100 GP points per turn (primary GP farm) that doesn't make it useless to set up another city to produce 50 GP points per turn (secondary GP farm). The second city won't produce as many GP as the first, but the total GP output will be higher than if the second city just focused on hammers or whatever. If you could roll it all together so that you had 150 GP/turn in one city then that would probably be better, but that isn't an option we have! The secondary GP farm can certainly increase the total output of great people. The only question is whether or not the extra great people are worth more than whatever else that second city might do instead - and that depends on all sorts of other things.

 

[Wodan]

More importantly, you have just made it harder for all of the other players to get their next GP.

What?

 

[karadoc]

Surely I don't have the wrong idea about this... every time any play gets a great person, the total number of GP points required to get another GP increases in all cities for all players. Is this not true? So if I get a GP, it makes it harder for the other players to get their next GP.

 

[Balderstrom]

@ Karadoc, I believe you are mistaken. When you get a GP - the amount YOU need raises. At a certain point - somewhere between 1500 and 2000 it will raise by 100 only for every GP attained.

 

[Wodan]

Obviously there is no point in having a secondary "GP farm" that is incapable of producing any GP, but that is rarely the case.

Agreed.

Unless, of course, one was using the strategy I was suggesting.

It is true that whenever city B does manage to produce a GP, it becomes harder for city A to get the next one - but you still get the GP either way.

Untrue.

There is not a well defined "pool of GP power" that can be spread arbitrarily across your cities (cf. the $1000).

Yes, there is, and yes it does. The cost to produce a GP applies to all your cities. If one city produces a GP, all your other cities have their cost increased.

Look, if you have one city that produces 100 GP points per turn (primary GP farm) that doesn't make it useless to set up another city to produce 50 GP points per turn (secondary GP farm).

Actually, a typical WE/GP farm will produce roughly 275 GPP/turn, 400 if running Pacifism. Meanwhile, a typical 2nd city might produce 50, if you're lucky. Yes, it is useless.

I think you're comparing the non-WE/GP farm situation, which is comparing apples to oranges.

If you could roll it all together so that you had 150 GP/turn in one city then that would probably be better, but that isn't an option we have!

Yes it is, to some extent. You can have the one city make more wonders, which does indeed "roll it all together". It doesn't share specialists, but the specialists in the second city are outstripped anyway so they will never make a GP.

oops gotta go

 

[karadoc]

Balderstrom, I'll look into that. Thanks for the info.

Wodan,
- When you said "Untrue" what are you saying is untrue? Do do get the GP if it is produced by either city, and if either city produces the GP it increases the cost for the next GP. So what is untrue?

- I only said 100 GPP/turn because that was (close to) the number used in an earlier post. In any case, the national epic only gives +100%. It seems unlikely to me that your primary GP farm will have 400 GPP/turn and that the second will only have 50 GPP/turn "if you're lucky". How the hell does your primary city get 8 times the points? That's just silly. Most of the points have to come from specialists; and the +100% boost from the national epic doesn't actually double your great person points anyway, because you have other +% bonuses.

- Putting all the wonders in your GM farm doesn't seem like a realistic option at high difficulty levels. You're lucky to get the wonders you want at all, let alone get them all in the same city - which happens to be a city surrounded by farms to support stacks of specialists. If you're getting all those wonders in the city of your choosing, then you don't even need a great person farm. You've won the game anyway.

Bah! Anyway, I'm finished here. Like I said, I don't really want to argue about strategies. I just wanted to remove that silly analogy. I've already said what I wanted to say. So I'll try to not get sucked into this strategy debate any more.

 

[Balderstrom]

I'd actually prefer a different GP mechanic. I've seen a few mods that run a "Global Empire GP pool" - that seems a bit excessive to me. Something that did come to mind though was to remove the RandomFactor.
IF You need 1000 PTS for the Next GP, and you have
700 - GProphet
200 - GScientist
100 - GEngineer
You would not get a GP until you had 1000 pts towards the relevant GP.
The system would allow you to "cash in" points towards another GP type at a given exchange rate. In the above case, You could exchange the 200 GScientist points for 100 more GProphet pts, and the 100 GE pts for 75 more GProphet...
Upping your total GProphet pts to 875

	    GSpy  GEng  GSci  GMer  GArt  GPro
GSpy	    100%   75%   75%   75%   75%   25%
GEngineer    75%  100%   75%   50%   50%   75%
GScientist   75%   75%  100%   50%   75%   50%
GMerchant    75%   50%   50%  100%   50%   75%
GArtist      75%   50%   75%   50%  100%   50%
GProphet     25%   75%   50%   75%   50%  100%

This could work alongside the current mechanic, by adding a toggle No Random GPs in the city screen.

If you extrapolated the idea further then it would need to replace the mechanic.
Each type of GP would increase in cost depending on how many you've gotten.
The cost of each GP might be (#Of_That_Type) + 1/2 (All_Other_GPs).
So if you've never gotten a Great Artist, but have gotten 5 Great Prophets, the cost for your first Great Artist - would be the equivalent of whatever the cost of the 2nd + 3rd GP is divided by 2. 0 GreatArtists + ( 5 GPs / 2 )

In general, I'd rather have less GP's but more control over what I get.

 

[Wodan]

Wodan,
- When you said "Untrue" what are you saying is untrue? Do do get the GP if it is produced by either city, and if either city produces the GP it increases the cost for the next GP. So what is untrue?

The assertion that you always "still get the GP either way".

How the hell does your primary city get 8 times the points? That's just silly.

Build wonders. Each wonder adds 7.5 GPP.

Putting all the wonders in your GM farm doesn't seem like a realistic option at high difficulty levels. You're lucky to get the wonders you want at all, let alone get them all in the same city - which happens to be a city surrounded by farms to support stacks of specialists.

You have to have a high food / high production city.

If you're getting all those wonders in the city of your choosing, then you don't even need a great person farm. You've won the game anyway.

Really? Wonders = win? I don't remember seeing that as one of the victory conditions.

Seriously, sure wonders help. But they're hardly a sinecure.

 

[jimbob27]

Seriously, sure wonders help. But they're hardly a sinecure.

It's all down to tactics though. Phi/Ind can be a guaranteed way to loose early; if you're concentrating on trying to get all the wonders, whilst monty or shaka is concetrating on building a huge army to come and take your undefended wonders.

 

[Wodan]

It's all down to tactics though. Phi/Ind can be a guaranteed way to loose early; if you're concentrating on trying to get all the wonders, whilst monty or shaka is concetrating on building a huge army to come and take your undefended wonders.

Sure. That's always true.

One advantage of using Phi/Ind with a wonder city is that you only have to devote one city to making wonders. It would be a nice "gut check" so you don't go overboard and start making wonders in too many cities, which as you rightly say can get you in trouble.

 

[TheDS]

e.g., if I have $1000 in a bank account drawing 5% interest, and I take $100 and put it in an account at 3.5%, was it a good decision? From a purely numerical standpoint, no. But what you're saying here is "the 3.5% account provided useful benefits".

You are making the mistake of believing it is possible to put all your eggs in one basket, and this is simply not the way it works. I see over and over again, almost every game, that even though I've got 20 Wonders and 10 Specialists in my NE city, I can STILL see MULTIPLE cities produce a GP, because they can ALSO have 10 Specialists. And the NP city can probably have 15-20 Specialists!

If I could pack all those extra Specialists into my NE city and have 100 Specialists, okay, you'd be right, but that's not how it works.

Philosophical, Pacifism, and Golden Ages only prove you even more wrong. As you said, the effects are additive, not multiplicative.

Simple experiment: build three cities under a non-Phi leader, Bio-farm the crap out of two of them and FP the other one, and give that one NP. In one of the other two, put 20 Wonders (including MoM) and NE. Now max everyone's population. Give yourself all the techs while we're at it, and emplace plenty of buildings for happiness/health/whatever. Put yourself in Caste System and assign all your spare Specialists to Merchants. Make your production Gold too.

Your two farm cities will have a population around 40, so you have 20 specialists. Your NP city should have a pop of about 20, with 20 free Specialists, so each city has an equal number of Specialists.

Okay, let it go 24 turns, sleeping GPs as they pop up.

Now, it's time to kick off 2 Golden Ages and go into Pacifism. Move all your current GPs out of the way so you can see the new ones popping up. We kick off 2 to use 1 GP from each city, and to give us 24 turns to match the pre-GA time.

Once your Golden Age is over, take note of the ratios.

Pre-GA, you probably had significantly more GPs from the GP farm, since 20 Wonders + NE = HOLY CRAP!

But during the GA, your GP Farm's production doubled, but that of the other two cities TRIPLED. If you have the Parthenon and Forums, the difference is even larger. If you are Philosophical, it's larger still. This means your non-GP farm cities produced significantly more GPs during that time. Not as many as the GP farm, but they got A LOT CLOSER to its production.

Now tell me how you could possibly have weighted your GP farm to take up some of those slack Specialists without diminishing your total GPs or gold produced.

I don't farm that much myself, but when Sid's Sushi comes along, you better believe I switch to Rep and assign all that extra Food to Specialists for the beaker boost, and I get a lot more GPs then too, and a significant fraction of them come from the non-NE cities.

 

[Joshua368]

I only play with certain leaders because I can only play certain strategies.
In fact, I don't play as anyone who isn't either Fin or Phi, really.
I just don't really know how to play as the other leaders right. Which sucks because I'd like to learn to get good at China, Egypt, Rome, and... >.> Napoleon or De Gaulle of France.

I play with a very mixed batch of leaders, I rarely play the same guy twice. Here's a tip for being good with the various traits: play them exactly the same as anyone else. Traits, while great and give you bonuses, aren't the be-all-and-end-all. You can still cottage spam and work coastal tiles without financial, you can still make a GP farm without philosophical, build wonders without industrious, build courthouses without organized, etc.

You can play other leaders right without doing some sort of crazy strategy to get the most out of their traits. Allow their bonuses to help you in their areas, and just play them normally. If its really hard for you just move the difficulty back a slot.

 

[Gumbolt]

I like the representation and specialist approach. The strategy can yield huge benfits to a science city with oxford uni. I also liked the approach to add GM to cities with the +1 food per specialist then adding Wall Street. Assuming the cities can cope with happiness and health issues and you have enough national wonders left to add. (2 is a bit limiting for me)

The argument seems to be focusing on whether the 2nd/3rd city add value. If a second city can produce great people at a rate of 1-2 or 1-3/4 compared to your main GP farm then this must add value? My objective would be to produce as many great people as possible under a Phil trait. The great people made from a second city could easily be added to the first city or used towards your goal be it science city, commerce, towards GA's or something else.

The same objective at start would be to reach philosophy and build national Epic asap. On my last game I set up a second city whipped library and set up 2 GS while my GP farm grew and built granaries etc.

I nabbed COL through Oracle and bulbed philosophy with GS. Advantage with GS is you get there much earlier. (wasnt playing a Phil leader though)

I am not sure about the Golden Age appraoch. Okay this increases your GPP base rate by 100%. Excellent!!!
Firstly you need MM to really add value. +50% to golden age length.
Secondly need Taj mahal for free golden age.
I might go for Statue of Zeus for the Colloseum quest. (creates a golden age). The option is there for the computer if you build it.
If your lucky the warning of invasion event that can trigger a golden age. (If your unlucky you might get invaded or just not get the event)

So cost of using a great person rises each time needing x different types of leader for each golden age. so 1,2,3,4,5. I would find it very difficult to mcro a city to make sure i had five different ones each time.

In fact its difficult to know which ones the computer will gobble up when you select a golden age apart from initial GP you select. Its not so easy to get certain types of Great people back. (Engineers) Caste system helps here. Targetted GP farms might help too.

I am also not sure what happens when you pass the 5 GA mark. (6 GP including 2 of 1?)

Asks the question when do you lose value in terms of spending great people fro GA's. 4-5 seems a lot for a golden age.

In terms of ind trait. i dont think its just the fact your building a wonder city. Its the benefits that all those wonders bring. Great wall, Stone henge, Mids, Notre Dame.

If I can built a non philosophical GP farm at 1500ad with 150GPPt. Your looking at 180-220 GPPT+ for Phil leader and thats before you factor in Suchi corp or other national wonders.

If you are bulbing early on the chances are your gonna hit 95% of the wonders first and be able to build them 50% faster and add 50% from each forest chop. Add stone or marble and thats a crazy result even for emperor level.


So the end result of all this is through bulbing or specialist cities you have a huge tech lead or your economy is in a GA for best part of 90-105+ turns. Have I missed something?

Done!!!!

 

[King Flevance]

Because it would break the game.

I disagree on this. Organized and Financial is freakin powerful, always has been. This is an economical combo just like Ind/Phi. So if combined with a miltaristic civ can be really powerful. Just like comboing an military combo with a militaristic civ. Persia is not that miltaristic honestly. I can't recall their UB atm though. What I mean by that is Rome IS a militaristic civ no matter what leader you run them with.
(Let's ignore traits for a second.)
Your praets are a threat for 2 ages because you get maces at swords. Gunpowder and Guilds effectively obsolete maces. That is alot of power for a civ's UU and UB to possess when you look at the selection available. England is pretty militaristic too commanding a long period of time with its UU/UB combo.
Now, lets look at Mr Hyuana. I bring him up because alot of people view him as the most OP'ed and I think he is a wuss. OK your UB is good with him. Kinda like a fee creative trait. But your unique unit obsoletes as soon as you discover a new melee unit. That means if you even want spears you just indirectly obsoleted your UU because now you can build axes. The incans are an econimal civ for the rest of the game based soley on their UB/UU.

I think it all depends on what leader is assigned these traits. Isn't Ind/Phi the last combo left unused? Anyways, it only gets "broken" with unrestricted leaders IMO. But alot of strange combos make/break stuff with that rule. I won't play a game of UL's because I honestly don't care. But those that do do so because its fun for them.

 

[Genv [FP]]

I disagree on this. Organized and Financial is freakin powerful, always has been. This is an economical combo just like Ind/Phi. So if combined with a miltaristic civ can be really powerful. Just like comboing an military combo with a militaristic civ. Persia is not that miltaristic honestly. I can't recall their UB atm though. What I mean by that is Rome IS a militaristic civ no matter what leader you run them with.
(Let's ignore traits for a second.)
Your praets are a threat for 2 ages because you get maces at swords. Gunpowder and Guilds effectively obsolete maces. That is alot of power for a civ's UU and UB to possess when you look at the selection available. England is pretty militaristic too commanding a long period of time with its UU/UB combo.
Now, lets look at Mr Hyuana. I bring him up because alot of people view him as the most OP'ed and I think he is a wuss. OK your UB is good with him. Kinda like a fee creative trait. But your unique unit obsoletes as soon as you discover a new melee unit. That means if you even want spears you just indirectly obsoleted your UU because now you can build axes. The incans are an econimal civ for the rest of the game based soley on their UB/UU.

I think it all depends on what leader is assigned these traits. Isn't Ind/Phi the last combo left unused? Anyways, it only gets "broken" with unrestricted leaders IMO. But alot of strange combos make/break stuff with that rule. I won't play a game of UL's because I honestly don't care. But those that do do so because its fun for them.

Ind/Phi would still break the game.

 

[Gumbolt]

Persia is not that miltaristic honestly.

I thought Persia had one of the top 3/4 best UU?

Incas unit is really unfair on higher levels. If the AI countered with warriors they would get early rushed by Quelchas. If they build archers they still get rushed by Quelchas. They have no real reply till axemen arrive.

No Ai is ready for an attack come 3000bc. By the time Axemen arrive the damage is done. A great general is born and the Incas have land to block off. The incas can still target the nations that has no copper/iron once axe and sword arrives. Prets I would of shaved to 7 strength.

You cant balance everything but you can mod other things. I think there a few unmatched trait pairs if i remember from reading the forum. Just because things can be paired doesnt mean you should!!! Unless your testing a game for balance and employed by one of the great game makers out there.

 

[AfterShafter]

Ind/Phi would still break the game.

Only if people play it. And people who play it would probably want to "break the game" in their favour. So, why exclude people who want that?

For me, I just want my pro/org