What's the best way to turn hammers into gold?

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Greetings Earthlings. So it's been almost a year since I had a serious crack at improving my game, but I'm back at it again. I'm currently struggling with an Immortal Cyrus game (despite getting great help on Discord). I may post it as a shadow game at some point, but right now I have a more general question:

What's the best way to turn hammers into gold? I'm not really sure about the mechanics behind the various methods, so I can't tell whether I should:
- Build Wealth (after Currency, obviously)
- Build Wonders for fail gold
- Stop working the mines and run Merchants instead (and is it worth building Markets so I can do it?)
- Do something else (I feel like I'm forgetting something)

I'm looking specifically at the earlyish game, say T100-150, so the cities in question will have a library, but probably not much else that would influence things. Also, how do Forges affect the decision? Or chopping, for that matter. I assume I'm better off leaving the forests until I've got something decent to build, but I'm happy to challenge all assumptions if it gets me closer to beating this infernal AI.

Thanks in advance.

 

[AcaMetis]

Failbuilding wonders, for sure. Building Wealth requires Currency, and bar Forges at Metal Casting (or UBs) you don't get any bonus to it until Factories circa Assembly Line. Wealth converts produced into , so only unconditional bonuses to boost it and only actual city production applies to it - you can't chop into Wealth directly. Running merchants requires way too much investment, unless you're actively trying to get a Great Merchant don't bother (being in Caste System would help, but at that point why run Market-less Merchants over Library boosted Scientists?).

Failbuilding is possible so long as you have a (non-Palace) wonder you can build, which are generally available at all points, and any bonus that applies to the wonder building will also boost the gold you get when the wonder fails. Worst case you get a 1:1 conversion, which is basically building Wealth without needing Currency, best case you get a 1:3 conversion if you've got the resource (+100%), are IND (+50%), have a Forge (+25%) and Organized Religion active (+25%). You'll generally get between a 1:1.5 and 1:2.5 conversion, but that's still better than building Wealth. Downside to failbuilding is that you need another AI to finish the wonder before you get your gold, but on higher difficulties it's more likely to turn into a problem of AIs finishing the wonder too early than too late.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Thanks. That helps. I wasn't sure if the extra hammers from having the resource (stone or marble) got factored out at the end, the same way that they do for overflow.

I've also learned today that if the AI really drags its feet building something, you can get fail gold for the same wonder in multiple cities (assuming you remember to switch the build before you finish it). That certainly feels like it could be useful if you have a few high hammer/low commerce cities and are waiting for a military tech.

 

[sampsa]

- Stop working the mines and run Merchants instead (and is it worth building Markets so I can do it?)

Mines are not great, because you stagnate growth. Mines can be good if you can fail gold a wonder that you have the resource to. Or if you actually build a wonder.

In general, running a small amount of specialists is not great and specialists should be ran in bursts during a golden age. There are exceptions, especially under rep. You should not build markets to be able to run merchants.

- Do something else (I feel like I'm forgetting something)

In general T100-150 my bread and butter strategy is to grow in anticipation of a golden age, then get out a bunch of great people.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Well, that highlights a few deficiencies in my overall strategy (balancing pop with unhappiness; teching so cities always have something useful to build; general whipping strategy; etc). Hmmmm... It might be better to look at specifics for addressing that. I guess it's time for a shadow game.

Edit: forgot to say thanks for your input. Thanks!