When do I want to build a workshop?

[vale]

If those 11 cities are commerce cities, all you need is a granary and maybe a library.

And maybe some cottages, am I right? You don't get to worldbuilder those in, those have to be built. I gave you one worker. Is that enough? Maybe, maybe not.

 

[Kesshi]

Wow. All this arguing about which is better. And to think, I just got out of the "Which is your least favorite trait?" where people are discussing how useless the Spiritual trait, and it is one of the frontrunners in the poll.

With Spiritual I can have BOTH Slavery AND Caste System, and reap the rewards of both of them with minimal setbacks. In fact, I love it when I frequently swap civics. Since I can only swap every 5 turns (marathon), after I swap, it's 4 turns of peace and quiet from the AI civs demanding that I adopt their favourite civic.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Wow. All this arguing about which is better. And to think, I just got out of the "Which is your least favorite trait?" where people are discussing how useless the Spiritual trait, and it is one of the frontrunners in the poll.

With Spiritual I can have BOTH Slavery AND Caste System, and reap the rewards of both of them with minimal setbacks. In fact, I love it when I frequently swap civics. Since I can only swap every 5 turns (marathon), after I swap, it's 4 turns of peace and quiet from the AI civs demanding that I adopt their favourite civic.

Although doing so in order to get a diplo bonus has its advantages at lower costs, too! I love spiritual. I said that over there too. It certainly makes slavery/caste switches more viable. It's not like you'll whip more often than 10 turns on average anyway.

 

[Ibian]

They grow big faster by whipping. You see already the 2 turns of growth that whipping has gained on caste system just in getting the granary out. You think that will improve for caste now that whipping is more efficient? Not a chance. Working mines or workshops stunts the growth of a city in just a real and meaningful way as whipping. If you don't believe it test it.

They grow 2 turns faster if you whip a granary and then STOP whipping. Those 2 turns dont make up for the extra production in my core cities. Even some of my core commerce cities for that matter.

I've given you the challenge. Get to population 10 with 7 cottages available to work. You are given 1 worker to start and 1 improved tile (the pigs). Nothing else is improved. You can pick whichever civic you want for no anarchy at the start but once you pick it you CANNOT change.

Thats a meaningless challenge. The meaningful version is "get to size 10 with <list of infrastructure> and as much commerce as possible". And we will need a shared save to test that.

Or alternatively, again population 10 but with a forge and barracks out. No changing civics once you pick your poison.

Production city i suppose? You dont need to test that, simple math tells us that caste wins on the long term and slavery wins on the short term. But again, we need a save to have an accurate comparison. If you are interested in that.

 

[vale]

They grow 2 turns faster if you whip a granary and then STOP whipping. Those 2 turns dont make up for the extra production in my core cities. Even some of my core commerce cities for that matter.

You do realize that at population 10, workshops are only marginally better than whipping right? So you aren't killing your core cities.

Thats a meaningless challenge. The meaningful version is "get to size 10 with <list of infrastructure> and as much commerce as possible". And we will need a shared save to test that.

How is that meaningless? Cottages are infrastructure. Workers aren't free and you can't necessarily import them from other developing cities. You don't believe that? Tile improvements are the single most important type of infrastructure in the game.

Production city i suppose? You dont need to test that, simple math tells us that caste wins on the long term and slavery wins on the short term. But again, we need a save to have an accurate comparison. If you are interested in that.

So heres a crazy thought. Use slavery in the short term, then later switch to Caste System when it is at its caps. How is that SO hard for you to understand? This is a CLEAR example where slavery dominates caste system at that moment in time (with guilds available) and yet you still want to talk about long term. In the long term, civic changes can happen.

If you recall, you said that Caste System is always superior to slavery after guilds. Which was false. I have given you numerous counterexamples which you have refused to accept. I have also given you two concrete examples of cities with very specific lists of infrastructure (or improvements) that need to be build while growing to population 10. The fact that you claim they are meaningless doesn't make them so. They are both examples where slavery will destroy caste system. If an empire has many such cities, it more than makes up for a marginal loss of efficiency in one or 2 core cities that are devoted solely to production.

I'm done here because there really is no reason to belabor the point as you seem unable to comprehend it.

 

[Ibian]

You do realize that at population 10, workshops are only marginally better than whipping right? So you aren't killing your core cities.

Oh great, now its "only marginally better".

Its better, period, which is what this is all about. And the less hills you have (are we still stuck with 2?) the better it is. If you wanna argue that it takes "too long" for workshops to make up the difference, however you wanna define that, then attack it from that angle.

How is that meaningless? Cottages are infrastructure. Workers aren't free and you can't necessarily import them from other developing cities. You don't believe that? Tile improvements are the single most important type of infrastructure in the game.

Cottages are known as improvements. And its meaningless because we dont give a damn about how soon exactly 7 cottages are being worked, we care about the overall commerce output. And thats not something im gonna count by hand, so if you wanna continue the cottage angle go make a save so we can go head to head.

So heres a crazy thought. Use slavery in the short term, then later switch to Caste System when it is at its caps.

I have never said otherwise. What i have said is that its stupid to use slavery in small cities when you could have big cities instead with more output.

If you recall, you said that Caste System is always superior to slavery after guilds.

You can stop putting lies in my mouth now. I said that guilds+CS workshops are more powerful than slavery. And they are. With the assumption that you dont deliberately keep your cities small, which really should not need to be specified like this.

 

[obsolete]

Cottages are known as improvements.

They are known as production-blockers.

Sort of like, how starting with rolled-up Tens in 7-stud blocks most of the potential straights.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

They are known as production-blockers.

Sort of like, how starting with rolled-up Tens in 7-stud blocks most of the potential straights.

Cottages aren't intended for production though, they're intended for $$$. One wouldn't make them in cities meant for production or GPP, normally...

 

[brades]

Cottages aren't intended for production though, they're intended for $$$. One wouldn't make them in cities meant for production or GPP, normally...

Obsolete is making a joke if you ever read through his games you know his hate for cottages.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm well aware of his hatred for cottages, or rather the fact that they suit his play-style *very* poorly. If you're wonderspamming or looking to generate great spies ASAP, you'll need them less. Especially in the former case, where he usually only gets to around 6 cities for a good part of the game, cottages have less impact potential in such a scenario. I wouldn't run them either.

When you have 20+ cities, or even more than 10ish reasonably early, optimal strategy changes a bit. Workshops are a common improvement need regardless unless the map script just gives you TONS AND TONS of hills and just enough food to work them...

 

[zebomba2]

Wow. All this arguing about which is better. And to think, I just got out of the "Which is your least favorite trait?" where people are discussing how useless the Spiritual trait, and it is one of the frontrunners in the poll.

With Spiritual I can have BOTH Slavery AND Caste System, and reap the rewards of both of them with minimal setbacks. In fact, I love it when I frequently swap civics. Since I can only swap every 5 turns (marathon), after I swap, it's 4 turns of peace and quiet from the AI civs demanding that I adopt their favourite civic.

Now I'm gonna search for that, are these guys crazy? Spiritual is like several traits instead of 2, even though it does nothing early. For those who change civics often to take advantage of the situation, the turns gained from the trait can amount to dozens by the end of the game.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I think Ibian has a reasonable point.

If at size 10 a workshop with CS + guilds which equals a mine and is equivalent to slavery, then there has a good argument to run caste system when the following conditions occur:

- You have a health and happy cap based on resources or buildings you already have in most cities of 10+. (I say based on resources - if you have to build an aqueduct, harbour and grocer in every city before you get to your health cap of 10 then you are probably better in slavery until you have whipped out enough infrastructure.)

- You have teched guilds or chemistry (in the event that comes first).

- You aren't planning for a production surge for a war anytime soon.

In that case you can have caste system with little or no loss of production in any city that wants that production. And you have the other benefits of caste system:

- No chance of your capital running a revolt. And that ALWAYS happens at the worst possible time for me.
- Free border expansions in new cities.
- Better control of specialists in GP farm.
- More scientists in high food cities if you are running an SE.

I think the new city argument is a red herring except in times of war. In wartime slavery is superior in most cases because your captured city population are often going to starve anyway, so converting them to production is essentially free hammers.

But for peacetime new cities aren't really a problem for caste system. The goal should be to grow the city to its caps and working improved tiles ASAP and to do that only needs one building. Nothing other than a granary needs to be whipped - all other improvements can be built by working workshops when the city has grown.

The argument about whether I can get a granary one or two turns faster by whipping (without a granary in place) or by working production tiles is fairly irrelevant. Its close enough not to make a big difference and in practice I might often chop the granary first anyway.

 

[obsolete]

Now I'm gonna search for that, are these guys crazy? Spiritual is like several traits instead of 2, even though it does nothing early. For those who change civics often to take advantage of the situation, the turns gained from the trait can amount to dozens by the end of the game.

I wonder if one of those guys was the person who voted the Fast-Worker being worse than the ballista-elephant. This due to the fact that a fast-worker can not even win the battle between them. LOL

 

[vale]

I think Ibian has a reasonable point.

It is reasonable, but not ALWAYS true which is what he said.

Also, I'm like 90% sure that Chemistry requires Guilds but it might have an alternate path that I'm forgetting.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I wonder if one of those guys was the person who voted the Fast-Worker being worse than the ballista-elephant. This due to the fact that a fast-worker can not even win the battle between them. LOL

I love that "logic" - a ballista elephant should be better than a Quecha too then right? And equal to a Praetorian!

 

[7Fang]

By my count it goes like this:

With pigs+farms you end up with the following after 12 turns:
size 2, a granary, 11 food, 12 hammers and a frownie face.

If you work the pig and then mines with the next people you end up with the following after 11 turns:
size 2, 12 food, 5 hammers.

What does the frownie face matter if you have a 10 happy cap??

Also, I made the scenario but the upload thing isn't working right now.

 

[zebomba2]

- Free border expansions in new cities.
- Better control of specialists in GP farm.
- More scientists in high food cities if you are running an SE.

-If you run artists? Or have Sistine?
-I usually only need CS after size 20 but sometimes it might be good before that. Rarely though, in my experience.
-True. However Representation runs circles around the lots-of-scientists tactic alone.

I love that "logic" - a ballista elephant should be better than a Quecha too then right? And equal to a Praetorian!

Of course, the Praet can't even target mounted units first! Nerfest UU ever!

 

[obsolete]

I love that "logic" - a ballista elephant should be better than a Quecha too then right? And equal to a Praetorian!

Hmm, come to think of it... by using a little MORE logic, it would seem that the American leaders must be the ultimate militaristic leaders! How could you lose....

 

[InvisibleStalke]

-If you run artists? Or have Sistine?

You can run artists for a couple of turns to get free border expansion - much quicker than building a monument.

-True. However Representation runs circles around the lots-of-scientists tactic alone.

You can have representation AND caste system though.

Of course, the Praet can't even target mounted units first! Nerfest UU ever!

Not to mention you need Iron for Praets instead of dirt-common ivory.

 

[licker]

They are known as production-blockers.

Sort of like, how starting with rolled-up Tens in 7-stud blocks most of the potential straights.

10s?

Whats so special about 10s compared to 9s? Or 8s, 7s, 6s, 5s?