Where to build National Epic?

[Tengfred]

Hmm I haven't looked into the math but it seems that you may be right in which case all of my games except the last 2, were doing the 'right' thing by putting the NE in the highest-GPP-producing city. Although, the tandem method isn't necessarily that much worse, especially if you need the national wonder slot open for something other than the NE (Moai, National Park, or whatever).

I'm not one of those 'math' people like VoU on CFC; I play a lot and go on intuition, so thanks for your clarification!

And, welcome to CFC!

True, the difference is not really that big, since GP production scales roughly like the square root of the number of GPPs produced ( In this example, with one city producing twice the amount of GPPs, the difference approaches approximately 12%). Given the complexity of the game, such a difference could easily be compensated by some other consideration.

I guess it shows the difficulty of using maths to make decisions in a game as complex as Civ.

 

[OKScientist]

True, the difference is not really that big, since GP production scales roughly like the square root of the number of GPPs produced ( In this example, with one city producing twice the amount of GPPs, the difference approaches approximately 12%). Given the complexity of the game, such a difference could easily be compensated by some other consideration.

Agreed. By taking down notes during my games, I actually find that I am always doing better GP-wise when using 2 or 3 GP farms, with NE in 2nd best GP-city. Then I tried to prove it to me mathematically, but miserably failed.

So I guess it has to do mostly with the need of the GP farm to have some production, change of civics, date of founding, micromanaging of cities and other stuff. Still, using philo leaders, I keep doing best with 3 GP farms.

 

[MrFrodo]

I was thinking about this thread because in my last game I had a super productive capital city with cow, pigs on hill, marble, lots of other hills, etc. So I had built Great Wall (woot @ first GP= Great Spy!), Great Library, Temple of Artemis, and a couple other wonders there pretty early. Also I had no real good candidate for my National Park. So I decided to put National Epic in my capital as soon as I got it and take advatage of all the wonders I had built there. It really worked nicely at first and I think it helped a lot to establish myself in the game and allow my warmongering trait leader, Boudica, to build a strong economy after she had conquered a lot.

However, when Great Library was obsoleted in the late game and I was in no position to use a lot of specialists in any city, my great person production flatlined completely. Fortunately, by then I didn't care because my whole focus as to beeline to tank and complete my domination of the map, so it worked out well in the end.

So ya, like most things, and what makes Civ a fun game, the best thing to do varies a lot with what territory you are given, you leader's traits, what your enemies are doing and so on.

For a Cultural of Spaceship Victory, having a crazy NE/NP city with 16 Forest tiles, come online right about 2/3 into the game, right before you want to turn your culture to 100% and go for the win, or start producing spaceship parts, is pretty good timing. With Representation/Caste System/Mercantilism/Pacifism you can really do well. This type of GP farm is also completely controllable in terms of what GP you will get, so if you need a tech or two before you go for 100% culture you can do that, and then switch to Great Artist spam.

For warlike victories, or when you just don't have a good National Park city, it is probably better to put NE in an early productive city that has lots of wonders.


The two GP farm thing is interesting. Might have to try that out...

 

[Belisar]

True, the difference is not really that big, since GP production scales roughly like the square root of the number of GPPs produced ( In this example, with one city producing twice the amount of GPPs, the difference approaches approximately 12%). Given the complexity of the game, such a difference could easily be compensated by some other consideration.

I guess it shows the difficulty of using maths to make decisions in a game as complex as Civ.

You have identified the main problem, it's not about maxing the total amount of GPs but maxing the total amount of GPs that you want (fit in your strategy)
Therefore, always put the NE in the city that produces/will produce the most GPPs of the type you want to max.

 

[gdgrimm]

So, mathematically, building the NE in the city that produces the most GPP will give the best benefit, i.e. it will generate the most GPP's for you. And I usually end up going that way about half of my games.

The other half usually end up with the original Capital building a range of wonders, which means I have no control over the GP produced. But I'll have some other city that is set up well for producing an arbitrary type of GP, but needs the NE to keep up with the GPP production of the Capital.

In that second case, I might not be getting as much mathematical benefit from the NE, but being able to ensure I get a Great Eng. to complete the SoL to synergize with my Republic/Mercantilism empire is probably more important for me winning the game than getting an extra Great Prophet or two earlier in the game.