warrior city

[templar_x]

The tech is cheap and it significantly increases your research output. Hospitals before factories makes perfect sense. At Sid this may very well enable an earlier modern victory(space race or UN).

Usually it is clear before entering the industrial age that victory will occur.

But the question was: Hospitals before Rails and Double Worker Speed. And there, the answer is very clear: never!

I could imagine to adjust to hospitals if it is someone´s free tech. But since you´re mentioning Sid games... why would you research a 1st tier IA tech, which the AS is supposed to contribute?? I cannot see any strategy, and especially NOT that fast Sid research game, where this could make any sense.

But I stand to be corrected! So... did ever a successful run in a Sid research game for the tables employ this strategy?

t_x

 

[kaskavel]

Well, you would need to know in advance where and when pollution will strike.

I meant cases that pollution strikes before the last round of the project. I am now 2 shields behind so I dispand the warrior very favorably compared to some random other situation.

My guess is that simply allocating slightly more production than would be needed is more expedient.

I want to work on that a little, but noone seems to know with certainity the chance of pollution striking. There is some vague idea of it being 1% per pollution icon, but noone verifies it.

Production and disbanding means a loss of at least 75% of shields, so usually that is no good idea. It is a decent idea is you build where shields are plenty and disband where shields are scarce. Your suggestion is the opposite case.

That is true in general, but perhaps this is an exception. I find it difficult to imagine a better way of disbanding absolute units. Even if one has taken precautions against pollution (+4 shields for example), pollution will eventualy strike a hill or a mountain (you do not really take precaution against that, do you?) . The return of investment then is much bigger than any kind of mass disbanding units in some corrupted island city that struggles to build its courthouse or platform or something.

In later stages of the game it can make sense to produce wealth in a city with very high production. Wealth does not suffer from pollution. In extreme this may mean that any harbourless city producing significantly more than 40 shields may produce wealth.

Why harbourless? Because ships offer more flexibility? 40 shields is related to modern armor? With 50 shields a bomber can be produced. With 55 a mech infandry is possible (I know you do not like them from a different thread). For me it is the area between 70-99 shields the most irritating case, especially after fighters have become absolute.

 

[justanick]

That is true in general, but perhaps this is an exception. I find it difficult to imagine a better way of disbanding absolute units. Even if one has taken precautions against pollution (+4 shields for example), pollution will eventualy strike a hill or a mountain (you do not really take precaution against that, do you?)

Well, if the goal is to prevent a loss, then you need be prepared for the worst case. So yes, my implication of "If your metropolis produces 120 shields even with the best tile polluted" is to be prepared for the loss of the best tile.

The return of investment then is much bigger than any kind of mass disbanding units in some corrupted island city that struggles to build its courthouse or platform or something.

I doubt that. But i am also unsure how to sensibly calculate that in the first place. Usually changing a few tiles between mine and irrigation does suffice, so there is no need for disbanding. Sure, there may exist such a situation, but most likely that is at time when you have replacable parts and thus are unable to replace warriors.

Why harbourless? Because ships offer more flexibility?

Yes, 200 shields for a battleship may matter.

 

[justanick]

But the question was: Hospitals before Rails and Double Worker Speed.

Yes, there it is much less clear. Say you have a nonindustrial tribe, 4 workers per metro and after subtracting coastal tiles and city tiles 12 tiles per metro. It takes 6, 12 or 18 worker turns per railroad, maybe 9 on average. That is 108 workers turns without RP and 54 with RP. That takes 27 turns or 13.5 with RP. If 12 turns pass between steam power and RP, the later saves 15/2=7.5 turns. Is that a good deal?

And there, the answer is very clear: never!

Never say never. Say it is a huge 80% water archipelago at Sid. You secured your home continent, everything else is so far away that you would rather wait for combustion engines and your continent is large enough for 50*(16+1)=850 usable tiles and thus 50 metropolises at an average size of 16. Then the incentive for hospitals is rather large as even in the case of metros there will be around 50% rank corruption and around 60% total corruption at the metro with the highest rank.

 

[Lanzelot]

Starting let's say at Demigod, you can count on one of the stronger civs to come up with Sanitation, while I do the required techs. Once Sanitation is on the market, I trade for it and build Hospitals in some of the 1st and 2nd ring cities along the coast (which usually still have a few coastal tiles that could not yet be used at size 12).
This sometimes makes the difference between 5-turn and 4-turn research of some of the more expensive late IA or MA techs.

So I think, that yes, Hospitals can be very useful for science games at the higher difficulty levels, but I never research Sanitation myself, because the AI usually contributes it. (And in those games, where the AI doesn't manage to research it, I usually don't need Hospitals for maintaining 4-turn research.) So in both cases, researching Sanitation myself would be a waste of 4 turns. (Why research something, that the AI will contribute in time, or why research something that is not required for the desired victory condition?)