Stalling in mid-game at Noble

[elmurcis]

I agree about Markets... Even I build them only in biggest cities... And I play Huge/18 civs no-tech trading games last 4-5 months where time lines for everything are much later so also longer time to pay back any investment (can't base all game on few bulbs and tech trading if I need something, I must get it by myself).
Still if can get 2 OR+Forge whips with max overflow and has atleast 2 of 4 Market resources... it will pay back pretty fast and Wealth won't be better

 

[vorlon_mi]

OK, thanks, everyone. Especially for the comments on Markets; they are less powerful than their counterparts in Civ3 or Civ5. I will also significantly back off on the defensive espionage, since that is certainly acting as a speed brake on my economy.

I had read this in the Apostolic Palace Guide about religious buildings:
"--- Bonus Hammers
Temples, Monasteries, Cathedrals and Shrine belonging to the AP Religion each generate +2 for any Civ. This bonus is generated even if that Civ is not running a State Religion."

Does this still apply? Would it make sense to build some religious buildings in the production cities, since temples and cathedrals never expire?

 

[Lexicus]

I really don't focus on Espionage at all before getting Constitution, Democracy, and Communism. I will put all my points into one AI so I can get some use out of them (with less than 20-30 per turn they seem completely useless if you spread them out among the AIs), but otherwise I don't build or specialize Spies until after I have access to the real espionage buildings, and even then I only build two or three Spies in a typical game.

EDIT: though, for some reason, the automated governor LOVES to run spies, and I'm pretty sure that even now when I always turn automated citizens off, my cities will still run spies against my will sometimes.

I will occasionally do Counterespionage if the AIs are really annoying me by blowing up my resource improvements, but poisoned wells while annoying are not enough to justify any focus on espionage IMO.

Spies can be very useful when you're in the awkward position of having Riflemen but no Cannons. I favor using spies to foment revolt over using trebuchets with rifles.

 

[6K Man]

I had read this in the Apostolic Palace Guide about religious buildings:
"--- Bonus Hammers
Temples, Monasteries, Cathedrals and Shrine belonging to the AP Religion each generate +2 for any Civ. This bonus is generated even if that Civ is not running a State Religion."

Does this still apply? Would it make sense to build some religious buildings in the production cities, since temples and cathedrals never expire?

Monasteries and Temples pay back their hammer investment pretty quickly, I think – 24 turns for a Monastery, 32 for a Temple (assuming Forge in the city). Temples are a much better build if Spiritual (18 turns w/ Forge). I’m less convinced re: Cathedrals/Mosques/etc. Also, even though the buildings don’t expire, the AP bonus does (at Mass Media).

The problem is opportunity cost. Building a Temple in your Heroic Epic city would mean not building 2 Macemen or (almost) 2 Trebuchet in the same timeframe. Production cities should be kept lean ‘n mean. For that reason, I build Monasteries in my high-research cities only and a Temple(s) in my Capital (maybe a handful of other cities if Spiritual).

 

[Paperbag_Hobo]

Monasteries: I build them for the science, mostly. They give 10% boost (half a library), are available earlier than libraries, and let me spread the AP religion faster than the lazy AI are spreading it to me. You make a fair point, that I may have built too many. I do always build one monastery of each non-AP religion that gets spread to me, so that I can add a second religion to my cities when I eventually go to Free Religion, on my own terms.

It's very rare that you should have monasteries available. Unless you're specifically going for an early religion (which in most, but not all cases not the best idea because it's much easier to let the AI waste the hammers spreading their religion to you) or early Oracle, you should almost always have writing before meditation. Writing/pottery are the two main early commerce/science techs, and you should generally choose one or the other to get your research moving through either scientists/libraries or cottages, respectively. The choice usually depends on the land around you, with a very general rule of thumb being to use pottery/cottages when you have commerce heavy land (e.g. flood plains, grassland river, or even just a ton of grassland), and writing when you have a lot of food to support running specialists (e.g. lots of food resources, grassland, a small amount of floodplains surrounded by hills/plains).

Remember the building modifiers are great, but unless you're working high quality tiles, you're adding 10% or 25% of a tiny number of beakers to your total.

Also don't bother spreading religions yourself unless for a specific need. Unless you're very short on happiness, spreading religion for Free Religion really isn't worth your hammers, and you can usually get better results using Monarchy/Representation to bump your happiness if needed. Make sure to trade for happiness resources with any extra resources you have. Treat religion as a helpful tool, but definitely not a necessary one to succeed in this game (unless you're going for cultural/diplomatic win).

 

[Testhero]

Walls: I try to only build walls on my frontier in the early game, or to defend cities that have been attacked. I have been attacked in this game, but I may have too many of them.

AS you prefer to win by space race some walls may be usefull as the only way to stop your spaceship once it launches (asuming all needed modules) is for your enemy to invade and take your capital. The AI always stops to reduce fortifications before attacking those walls could provide a brief respite when you need it most.

Monasteries: I build them for the science, mostly. They give 10% boost (half a library), are available earlier than libraries, and let me spread the AP religion faster than the lazy AI are spreading it to me.

Remember no religious buildings effect auto-spread apart from a shrine so unless you are building Missionary's in a particular city the only benefits you are gaining is a measly 10% science untill Sci.Method and A.P. hammers (if you have the A.P. religion) untill Mass media. So as long as you evaluate them on those criteria you won't build too many. Being available just prior to libraries is a good point for spiritual civs.

You make a fair point, that I may have built too many. I do always build one monastery of each non-AP religion that gets spread to me, so that I can add a second religion to my cities when I eventually go to Free Religion, on my own terms.

One city that can train a missionary per turn is probably all you need for a moderately sized empire.

Army Abroad: I had read here that it is easier to bribe an AI to declare war on another AI, if you have already started the war. My enemy is the HRE, but I don't share a border with them. I really wanted Sumeria to start fighting them, but Gilgamesh was not interested. My goal was to go up to cowardly Netherlands (he lost one city after Charlemagne attacked, and capitulated to him); start a war by taking a city, and then bribe Sumeria to join in. I could withdraw back to my territory, while all the fighting took place on Sumerian land. Alas, my plan failed. Sumeria would not declare, so I sued for peace.

There is an Illustrated guide to the leaders it's link is in Seraiel's signature among other places it goes into which leaders are easiest to bribe into a war among very many other things

Happiness: This was a challenge for me in the medieval period. As my cities grew to size 6 or 7, I didn't have enough happiness resources to keep them from going red. I built temples to get the happy faces. It didn't seem to make sense to grow them even larger, if the citizens weren't going to work. I throttled my growth, but did not remember to un-throttle once I had the happiness situation more controlled. Are temples not as cost-effective for providing happiness, compared with coliseums? Why not build temples? And markets are far from useless ... they pay for themselves, especially in generating commerce long-term and providing merchant specialist slots.

Don't be afraid to trade (usually health resources) for happiness resources to get your happy cap up. Wine carries a bonus of health and incense gains an extra happiness with some religious buildings like dye does with theaters.

City Placement: Yes, I have planted a few cities just to fill the map. Which brings up a couple questions:

1. I sometimes need to plop another city down, to get a seafood resource. Perhaps I should have razed the conquered city, if it's not optimal?
2. I get that resources which are in my empire, and improved, will benefit the empire even if a city is not working them. But cottages will not grow into hamlets or towns, unless a city is working them. Spare grassland does me little good, right?
3. Is it not a net benefit to my empire to have some small cities (size 4-6)? Do they not generate commerce, which leads to science and gold, at a net profit?

1) yeah the AI can chose very poor city locations so weigh up what a better location is worth Vs what city infrastructure is likely to survive the conquest If you have spare productive capacity nearby to build a settler Razing becomes more appealing.

2) Citys founded directly next to your capital overlapping its BFC can help by working the Capitals cottages untill the Capital has sufficient population to work them itself.
and they suffer no distance maintenance so will become sufficient almost immediately even if they don't start in the black

3)If you are running a trade economy (relying on trade routes, free trade civic, the great lighthouse etc) small citys on the same continent usually pay their own maintenance so anything they can build or switching them to research or cash is a net gain. Even if they only break even, the whip will turn up 30 or 60 hammers every time they regrow.

You don't lose that much in most situations when your water's poisoned. Sometimes you lose a population or two, but everything goes back to normal after a few turns. Stolen technologies don't really harm you that much at all, as it is only slightly less expensive than the AIs deciding to research them.

You're losing around 50 science a turn because of your espionage rate, and 10 gold a turn on maintaining the spies in your cities. That adds up to almost 1/4 of your research. That is really worth it. If someone is doing tons of espionage missions on you, the best way of dealing with it is just to focus espionage on them and do a counterespionage mission every 10 turns, and this is only necessary in extreme situations.

Neinet is right here turning down the espionage rate will boost your tech rate more than the benefit in protecting your tech lead will. As you already have all those spys built I would continue using them. 10 gold a turn isn't too bad but Consider disbanding them if you move into pacifism for a long period of time.

Vorlon, I haven't seen the game (I'm not home right now), but judging by your last comment I have a couple of suggestions:

- Improve your diplomacy. As a general rule you should always be doing more offensive than defensive wars (that's why everyone's telling you that walls are useless). If the AI DOWs you when you weren't ready it usually means you are not keeping an eye on diplomacy, or need to handle it better. Are you using religion and trades to maintain the peace with the CIVs you want? Is your military strong enough so you don't look like an easy pray? You should always be considering this stuff.

Apart from reading the leader guide and any diplomacy guides in the S&T library you fancy you should consider installing the BUG (BtS Unaltered Gameplay) Mod it tells you the true situation in the diplomacy screen there are a ton of hidden diplomacy modifiers that you can figure out or calculate using all the screens in standard BtS but Bug puts them all in one place with handy mouse over saving you tons of time and aggravation. there is also the handy whip calculator so you never need miss another 2POP again

- The happiness problem you were having should be solved by whipping (hence staying on slavery for longer). If you kill 2 citizens with the whip and only 1 of them gets angry for 10 turns, you have the happiness issue solved unless you grow 2 new citizens in less than 10 turns (if that's happening, just put some specialists on your library so you don't grow so fast, also... great scientist generation is good).

- Bribing: on noble you really shouldn't need it. If you tech faster and focus your army more, you'll just crush everyone without needing any help. If your main competitor doesn't share a border with you, invade someone else, vassal them, get a huge experienced army, and then go and destroy them when your land is close enough (and you have 1-2 vassals to help).

- The only buildings you should have in every city are granary and library. Monasteries are ok, but keep in mind they become obsolete with Scientific Method (and if you play your commerce correctly, your tech should get there rather soon). Unless you are going for a cultural victory you hardly ever need temples. After calendar you should have enough luxury resources, and Monarchy or Representation also help.

- Barracks should be built only in cities with good production, which will be the ones building units. Stables? You might win the game building only one in your Heroic Epic city, or maybe not even that one. If you have time/production to build more, that's ok, but they should be built only in the cities with high production.

Any city that can whip (or chop) a barracks would be a good candidate to build one unless you have a huge balance of force in your favour. then in an hour of need and lets face it a lot of Civs are helplessly belligerent you can whip or draft an army that will win enough xp for a promotion if the win their first combat (and provide healing if damaged) rather than having to win twice that will increase their survival greatly.

- Someone said you are running Caste System. Unless you are a spiritual leader or want to play an old school specialist economy, it might be better for you to only change to Caste System during golden ages (Caste System + Pacifism, run as many specialists as your food can handle, and thus get 1-2 great people before the end of the golden age). Otherwise, stay with slavery (especially if you'll go to war) until the late game, when you might be forced to get emancipation.

A new city raises maintenance costs for ALL cities. This is why you need to be careful about expansion.

There are two parts of maintenance number of city maintenance which depends on map size and distance maintenance that depends on distance to the capital or other administrative center like Hidden Palace or Versailles They have silver stars besides their name on the map like the gold star next to the capital.

Regarding happiness:

Happiness is mostly a problem pre-monarchy and pre-calendar. Prior to these techs it is pretty much compulsory to stay in slavery, which is anyway the best civic to be in in the early game as you need infrastructure in your cities so they contribute to your empire rather than drain it. Every city needs a granary and a forge, enough need libraries for Oxford, barracks also help and you need troops. Whip when the city is at its happiness cap or one below it if the city has lots of food. If you get out of sync stop growth by building an extra worker,(or settler) almost impossible to have too many in the early game.

building roads to calendar (plantation) resources and chopping them if needed will speed up acquiring happy once you have calendar

Once you have some cottages and want to grow science cities research or trade for monarchy and adopt hereditary rule and you can use troops to manipulate your happiness. However, unless spiritual think very carefully before switching out of slavery. It makes no sense to grow onto unworked unimproved tiles and whipping the universities to build oxford leads to a big research boost.

Additionally hook up or trade for available happiness luxuries. Also try to spread your religion to your main cities. Unless going cultural I probably won't build a temple the whole game. The only times I might build one are whipping one in the capital in the early game or very late in a size 15+ city. Don't think I've ever built a coliseum.

Even the special Colosseum for civilizations that get them are not often built.

There is a guide in the reference section Ways into happiness that gives you all the ways to get happy.

Just a note: Markets do not create extra commerce , they create extra gold (the icon is very similar and easy to confuse). If you convert commerce to gold via the slider then yes markets are useful and are producing extra gold for your empire.

Binary economy; When you run at either 100% commerce or 100% science on the slider makes more use of your Commerce buildings
it is explained in the illustrated guide to economy and plenty of other places.

If you are running the slider at 100% science, ie. converting commerce into beakers. Then your markets are doing very little. (a common scenario) Non commerce sources of gold that I am aware of are: Merchant specialists, Shrines, Corps. Priest specialists, Harbours

Markets do also produce extra happiness with certain resources and allow for 2 merchant specialists and since it is common for the slider to stay at 100% research this is often their main usefulness and since the market is an expensive building there are often better alternatives.

I personally find markets to be rarely useful. They can be good in a decent shrine city or corporation HQ. I will occasionally build one for the happiness in my capital (all other cities would be whipped instead) It is extremely rare to build one for Merchant slots but not impossible I suppose.

As you like to win by space your other big production cities that you develop to build the ship components are good places to build markets as you won't be whipping them down untill the space rush is on.

Always remember that your city could just build wealth (gold) with the same hammers it used to build the market and that gold is available for you to use much earlier than the extra gold the market would produce

And you can switch instantly to science or esp if you need to.