Understanding civic combinations (elves), or, scholarship vs. consumption

[akatosh]

I'm playing a marathon Warcraft scenario as Svartalfar (night elves) and I want to understand a little more about optimal civic choices for elves in the mid-late game. I have been playing FFH for several months and am an Emperor/Immortal level player on Tholal's mod.

Elf economy usually relies on city states+GoN+forest cottages. With unlimited happiness aristocracy isn't generally needed. My question is, what should I do with the cultural values and labor categories?

Labor

Arete is out. Since the elves have a more slow-growing, non-farm based economy, Slavery is less useful. That leaves apprenticeship, military state, caste system, and guilds.

My sense is that guilds isn't great because again, you are looking at 3x20+2=62 food=31 pop cities. 20 of those 31 will be working the fat cross and generating 1 surplus food, 1 production, and 4 commerce--much better than they could achieve as a Guilds specialist. The remaining 11 can probably find enough specialist slots through buildings.

In a warfare situation, I am not sure if military state is better than apprenticeship. Clan might favor military state because half of their units won't benefit from apprenticeship anyway, but for most other civs, you want upgrades. I guess it depends how far behind you are militarily anyway.

The last option is caste system. This looks like a decent choice to me in peacetime because most older cities will have some specialists. If you combine it with cultural values/scholarship...

Cultural Values

Options here are religion, pacifism, nationhood, consumption, scholarship, liberty.

Pacifism mostly sucks. Liberty is very strong in combination with caste system for a cultural victory, otherwise useless.

Religion is a potential +6 happiness if you have access to 5 temples (I say 5 because it's hard to get order and veil in the same city). A 31 population GoN city probably won't need the extra happiness from religion, though--forests get you 20, Leaves gets you 1, you start with about 5, and the remaining 5 you can get from a combination of resources, carnivals, tiger cages, and public baths. No problem hitting your cap.

Nationhood seems ok, stacks with military state or offsets the production penalty from apprenticeship.

Consumption is +3 happiness and +20% gold. Seems OK to me. Scholarship seems more interesting. If you stack it with caste system, you have +2 science per sage. That means a full cottage city is producing, with 31 pop:

21 pop working tiles: 21 production, 20x5+2=102 commerce, with scholarship multiplier
10 sages: 50 science, with scholarship multiplier
Total: 21 production, 167 science at 100% slider

An elf city using all sanfarms would produce 102 food, for 51 pop.
21 pop working tiles: 21 production, 2 commerce
30 sages: 150 science, with scholarship modifier
Total: 21 production, 167 science at 100% slider.

Pretty cool, didn't realize they were identical. The cottage strat is more vulnerable to pillaging, while the farm strat has to figure out how to get 51 happiness without religion.

So then what civics should a mature elf civ use in the labor and cultural values categories? Nationhood + apprenticeship/mil state? Scholarship+caste system? Or consumption+something?

 

[akatosh]

Also, just a side idea. One of the reasons Sac the Weak is not as overpowered as it looks is that it is in the same civic category as scholarship and liberty, meaning you have to use guilds to get unlimited sages at a meager +3 science each. (The second reason StW isn't overpowered is that it's hard to get to a 40+ happy cap without GoN or Social Order.)

But--What if you rely on Theocracy instead of Guild for your unlimited specialists? Priests are the weakest specialists unless you have Altar pieces, at which point they become equal to or better than Engineers. How would this civic combo work:

Theocracy+Sacrifice+Caste System+Agrarianism

With 3 altar levels (using 3 priests) each priest is producing 2 hammers, 1 gold, 1 science, and 2 culture (pretty useless). A city with 8 farms could provide 42 food = 42 population minus some for the health cap. With gambling houses, you could probably get to close to 30 happiness if you have some luck on resources.

A 9-square, 30 pop city would be producing:

8 pop working farms = n/a
1 pop city square = 1 hammer, 2 commerce
21 priests = 42 hammers, 21 science, 21 gold

Perhaps the answer is to have a normal sized city using cottages instead.

21 tile city, 20 grass cottages = 42 food, 100 commerce

21 available for priests if you can get enough health and happiness = 42 hammers, 21 science, 21 gold

Seems like this strat would be weak on science because you're running the slider at 0% for the extra happiness. 42 hammers per city is a lot of production though, goes up to 63 if you can get 2 more priests for Altar V.

 

[akatosh]

Since I'm on a roll, another thought exercise...

Calabim: Veil or Order?

Calabim has two core mechanics: feasting/vampirism and governor's manors. Both of them encourage maximizing food.

Let's consider an ideal Calabim city--20 grassland agrarian farms. Note that I am assuming infinite health and commerce = science = gold just for the sake of simplicity.

Without Aristocracy: City States+Scholarship+Caste System+Agrarianism

102 food = 51 pop
51 pop = 52 hammers, 2 commerce from base city
30 surplus population that can serve as specialists. Assuming you have the happiness (a big if), this is theoretically 30x5.5+2 = 167 science with scholarship and caste system.

Realistically you will have 5 happiness base, +1 state religion, +10 gambling house, +1 library, +5-6 from resources, +1 carnival, +3 public baths, plus a few others I'm missing. Let's call it 30 happiness even. So actually 20 of your specialists will be unproductive, meaning you only generate 57 science instead of 167.

So total output is 52 hammers, 57 science.

Aristocracy helps you by letting you convert some of the food to commerce when you're happiness restricted. Same setup

20 farms + city = 82 food, 42 commerce
41 pop = 42 production
20 specialists, of which 10 are productive, producing base 5 science each.

Total output: 42 production, 101 science.

Now let's consider City States+Social Order+Guilds+Agrarianism.

102 food = 51 population, all working.
51 pop = 52 hammers
30 specialists = 90 science, +2 from city.

Total output: 52 hammers, 92 science. Probably stronger than the aristocracy + no social order setup.

Aristocracy+Social Order+Guilds+Ag

20 farms + city = 82 food = 41 pop, all happy
20 farms + city = 42 commerce
41 pop = 42 production
20 extra specialists = 60 science

Totals = 42 production, 102 science

10 Hammers is probably better than 10 science. But under the social order scenario, I'm not taking into account the upkeep costs of 10-20 extra units per city.

Now let's consider Aristo+Sac+Guilds+Ag

20 farms + city = 82 food
Theoretically 82 population.. but I'm ignoring unhealthy for all of the above calculations as well.
82 pop = 83 hammers
20 farms + city = 42 commerce
only 30 happy, so you'll have another ~10 specialists under guilds: 30 science

Total output: 83 hammers, 72 science

I think these numbers are interesting. It appears that social order is helpful for Calabim, but not very much. Really the use of Social Order depends on how far away you are from the magic 42 happiness cap, and probably a little less if you take ill health into account. What really kills Social Order is that its specialists are less productive--if you take away scholarship, you force guilds, yielding +3 commerce per specialist. Even though a non-Social Order player has fewer specialists, they are stronger at +5 science per specialist. An aristocratic+scholarship+caste system player has a good setup at 0% slider because aristocracy is providing gold while the specialists are providing science.

I think Veil is a more interesting setup for Calabim. StW supercharges the Governor's manor for warfare, and is better for mass feasting too. The science output is certainly weaker because you are using guilds.

Just as a thought exercise, let's see if Malakim can match Calabim output using Theocracy.

Civics: Theocracy+StW/Order+Caste System+Ag
Assume 3 altar levels.

Social order example:
20 farm city = 102 food
51 pop, all happy
30 priests = 60 production, 30 gold, 30 science, plus 1 prod from city and 2 commerce

Total output: 61 production, 62 commerce. Not bad without a governor's manor. Of course, you have to eat higher upkeep costs. If you can scrounge up 2 more altar levels, this goes up to 91 production.

StW version
102 food = 102 pop
Realistically only 30 is happy
so 10 specialists = 20 production, 10 science, 10 gold. Not worth it. StW produces way more food than you have the happiness to take advantage of.

So Theocracy+Order+Caste System+Ag looks like a theoretically strong combination. Let's compare it to a standard aristofarm economy without governor's manors. Amurites, Elohim, Malakim, whatever.

Running Aristo-Scholarship-Caste System-Ag
20 farms+city = 82 food
20 farms+city = 42 commerce
82 food = 41 pop, 21 of which is using the fat cross, and 10 specialists
10 sages = 50 commerce

So total output of
1 hammer, 101 commerce

Of course, there's 10 wasted pop, which means that we have too many farms. If we convert some farms to mines, workshops, and cottages, enough to get to a 30 happy cap, the city looks better:

31 happy cap = 62 food needed = 2 provided by city, so 15 aristofarms needed
Leaves 5 for plains mines = 20 production

15 aristofarms + city = 32 commerce
20 production from mines
10 specialists = 50 commerce

total output
21 production, 90 commerce

Conclusion

Assuming the AC is under control, it looks to me like Veil is the clear winner for Calabim.

For other civs, it looks to me like using a specialist priest economy might be viable in the late game once Altar pieces and requisite techs are in. At this point you have most of the military techs you need, and you just need production to get a winning army out.

You can also get quite a lot of priest specialists just from building temples. Assume you have Runes+OO+Leaves+empy+Order+Pagan temple = that's 6 priests right there for 12-18 production depending on Altar levels. Maybe some kind of hybrid strat, staying in Aristocracy but utilizing some priests to juice production, can work.

This tactic might be stronger for Basium, if he can have Kurios or Lanun prebuild 2-3 levels of the Altar in the Mercurian Gate city.