Ulti_mecia
Chieftain
Greetings fellow fanatics,
[TL/DR]: Build the science buildings, DO IT!
[Disclaimer]: I know my formatting on the numbers is terrible, but I have no idea how to include clean 'tables' here as per excel, apologies.
I've been lurking quite a long time now (special props to obsolete's and MadScientist's play write-ups, very educational and entertaining) and starting the new CiV with much enthousiasm.
So much enthousiasm in fact that I quickly relapsed into my builder's complex I picked up in CIV. Result: A dead economy by the late middle ages due to maintenance costs.
Conclusion: One needs a better planning/specialisation per city this civ round. No mindless spamming of every building available. I've also found that 'useless' cities, built just for land grabbing, seriously bite you in the behind as they block your national wonders out and increase SP cost (the only upside to this city spam is trade route gold)
Action: Excel madness, obviously.
The following overview is a representation of the goods (be they food, production, science, etc etc) per gold invested (maintenance cost).
Example: the culture tree
(Building name): (Culture) (Upkeep) = (Gain/Cost ratio)
Monument: 2 1 = 2 (what this means is, you built yourself a deal, giving 2 culture per turn for 1 gpt)
Temple: 5 3 = 1.67 (Note upkeep=3. Seeing as the monument is a prerequisite, I did all calculations stacking all the prerequisits together; so the 5 cpt vs the 3 gpt is actually the effect of a temple + monument)
Opera House:10 6 = 1.67
Museum: 15 9 = 1.67
Broadcast Tower:+50% 12 = 1.875
Culture conclusion: I'd say the culture tree is fairly cost effective, netting you more culture than gold invested (especially compared to the production and happiness trees, they almost never get over the 1 mark -- meaning you less than one happy face/hammer per gold of upkeep), with the real kicker being the broadcast tower because of the percentage increase.This means the tower also indirectly improves the quality of your Great Artist land improvement and culture specialists.
So now that you get the drift, I'll show you the most interesting one: Science
(Building): (Upkeep) (Science Gain/Cost Ratio @ 1 Pop) (@2 Pop) (@5 Pop) (@10 Pop) (@20 Pop)
Library: 1 0 1 2 4 5 10
So basically, I'd say the turning point is 4 pop (2 science gained for 1 gold). This tells me to build Libraries all over (netting the National College to boot)
University: 3 0.16 0.83 1.83 3.33 4.16 8.3
Again we're assuming the library is in place, and we're still compounding their science increases and upkeep costs. As you can quickly establish, Universities are awesome.
Public School:6 0.16 0.67 1.5 2.6 3.3 6.67
This seems underwhelming, compared to the University, however you can't forget that these +50% boosters are amazing for your Acedemies and Specialists (more so with Secularism)
Research Lab:9 0.22 0.78 1.78 3.11 3.89 7.78
Observatory:2 0.25 0.5 1.25 2 2.5 5
The observatory isn't part of the whole Lib-Research Lab Chain, so I didn't include it. But again, this thing is a beast (same effect as a National College, basically)
According to Mr. Excel, a size 36 city with all these improvements, employing all science specialists will make a whopping 237 beakers
Even a size 6 city running these buildings with all science specialists in Secularism will gain 102 beakers
Conclusion: (I mapped out all buildings but really I just wanted to demonstrate the power of the science buildings here)
- Library tree of buildings start being more efficient at converting gold into goods than any other tree at Pop4: start cranking out them Libraries!
- Happiness buildings become very inefficient after the Colloseum: Build only Colloseum/Circus if you can.
- Culture buildings are fairly efficient as well, don't skimp on at least the Monument everywhere!
- Always biuld the Market/Bank/SE whenever you can, they have no upkeep and will give you an edge (especially so in coastal cities with those lovely 4f, 3c fishies)
- Hammers are precious, build whatever production improvement you can untill you have basic infrastructure down. You can always farm them later when you have your basic buildings.
Because I like hammers I really, REALLY like is the Mercantile Navy SP (+3P in coastal cities)
Needless to say my first few games my weak point was economy (building spam), weak culture (big ass empire
), weak GP farm (too much hammer emphasis to satiate my biulder's obsession) and happiness (big ass empire).
So, in my next game there will be bigger emphasis on culture/science, and less on land grabbing as an unspecialised city is just getting in your way. Example: my capital was giving me 50% of all beakers; and my gold city was producing +50gpt, wheras other cities barely broke even with themselves.
I hope this helps a bit in finding the efficiency sweet spots; and I hope the many, many better players out there will point out any flaws in my otherwise cunning plan
Ulti
[TL/DR]: Build the science buildings, DO IT!
[Disclaimer]: I know my formatting on the numbers is terrible, but I have no idea how to include clean 'tables' here as per excel, apologies.
I've been lurking quite a long time now (special props to obsolete's and MadScientist's play write-ups, very educational and entertaining) and starting the new CiV with much enthousiasm.
So much enthousiasm in fact that I quickly relapsed into my builder's complex I picked up in CIV. Result: A dead economy by the late middle ages due to maintenance costs.
Conclusion: One needs a better planning/specialisation per city this civ round. No mindless spamming of every building available. I've also found that 'useless' cities, built just for land grabbing, seriously bite you in the behind as they block your national wonders out and increase SP cost (the only upside to this city spam is trade route gold)
Action: Excel madness, obviously.
The following overview is a representation of the goods (be they food, production, science, etc etc) per gold invested (maintenance cost).
Example: the culture tree
(Building name): (Culture) (Upkeep) = (Gain/Cost ratio)
Monument: 2 1 = 2 (what this means is, you built yourself a deal, giving 2 culture per turn for 1 gpt)
Temple: 5 3 = 1.67 (Note upkeep=3. Seeing as the monument is a prerequisite, I did all calculations stacking all the prerequisits together; so the 5 cpt vs the 3 gpt is actually the effect of a temple + monument)
Opera House:10 6 = 1.67
Museum: 15 9 = 1.67
Broadcast Tower:+50% 12 = 1.875
Culture conclusion: I'd say the culture tree is fairly cost effective, netting you more culture than gold invested (especially compared to the production and happiness trees, they almost never get over the 1 mark -- meaning you less than one happy face/hammer per gold of upkeep), with the real kicker being the broadcast tower because of the percentage increase.This means the tower also indirectly improves the quality of your Great Artist land improvement and culture specialists.
So now that you get the drift, I'll show you the most interesting one: Science
(Building): (Upkeep) (Science Gain/Cost Ratio @ 1 Pop) (@2 Pop) (@5 Pop) (@10 Pop) (@20 Pop)
Library: 1 0 1 2 4 5 10
So basically, I'd say the turning point is 4 pop (2 science gained for 1 gold). This tells me to build Libraries all over (netting the National College to boot)
University: 3 0.16 0.83 1.83 3.33 4.16 8.3
Again we're assuming the library is in place, and we're still compounding their science increases and upkeep costs. As you can quickly establish, Universities are awesome.
Public School:6 0.16 0.67 1.5 2.6 3.3 6.67
This seems underwhelming, compared to the University, however you can't forget that these +50% boosters are amazing for your Acedemies and Specialists (more so with Secularism)
Research Lab:9 0.22 0.78 1.78 3.11 3.89 7.78
Observatory:2 0.25 0.5 1.25 2 2.5 5
The observatory isn't part of the whole Lib-Research Lab Chain, so I didn't include it. But again, this thing is a beast (same effect as a National College, basically)
According to Mr. Excel, a size 36 city with all these improvements, employing all science specialists will make a whopping 237 beakers
Even a size 6 city running these buildings with all science specialists in Secularism will gain 102 beakers
Conclusion: (I mapped out all buildings but really I just wanted to demonstrate the power of the science buildings here)
- Library tree of buildings start being more efficient at converting gold into goods than any other tree at Pop4: start cranking out them Libraries!
- Happiness buildings become very inefficient after the Colloseum: Build only Colloseum/Circus if you can.
- Culture buildings are fairly efficient as well, don't skimp on at least the Monument everywhere!
- Always biuld the Market/Bank/SE whenever you can, they have no upkeep and will give you an edge (especially so in coastal cities with those lovely 4f, 3c fishies)
- Hammers are precious, build whatever production improvement you can untill you have basic infrastructure down. You can always farm them later when you have your basic buildings.
Because I like hammers I really, REALLY like is the Mercantile Navy SP (+3P in coastal cities)
Needless to say my first few games my weak point was economy (building spam), weak culture (big ass empire
), weak GP farm (too much hammer emphasis to satiate my biulder's obsession) and happiness (big ass empire).So, in my next game there will be bigger emphasis on culture/science, and less on land grabbing as an unspecialised city is just getting in your way. Example: my capital was giving me 50% of all beakers; and my gold city was producing +50gpt, wheras other cities barely broke even with themselves.
I hope this helps a bit in finding the efficiency sweet spots; and I hope the many, many better players out there will point out any flaws in my otherwise cunning plan
Ulti
