Wonder-Bread Economy

[Hugethman]

Having seen Wastin Time's post on the WB Economy I decided to give it a go. Incas, Quecha rushes, 10 million scores? What's not to like?

I had a couple of issues when playing on normal speed, and similarly on marathon. These issues are as follows:

Normal

1. WastinTime talks about constructing the Oracle eight cities before its been built, and reaping a load of cash as a result. In Normal speed after the rush and I may have 4 cities max, marble barely hooked up, and the Oracle is usually built by someone else before I can even start it. I'm starting the build ASAP so after researching mining,BW,meditation,priesthood,masonry which is c. 50 turns. Usually gets built before t60.

2. early on before forges the bonus isn't huge from food. I'm converting bread to gold at a rate of 1 to 2.5 using industrious and resource bonus, in a very much sporadic and random manner. I find it is a good idea to run a few scientists/work a few cottages at this time to keep things ticking over?

3. It's not that quick. I like the idea of being able to found corporations by the BC's but in my game on normal I found I was a little slower if anything than my normal tactic (which would include a quecha rush and maybe another rush later on, with siege, using a specialised/cottage economy). I found I spent far too many turns researching nothing while waiting for wonders to be built.

Marathon

4. Distance maintenance is crippling! Was barely able to tech to pottery as my third tech to get out of the red zone. Even then, am unable to build any wonders as lack the funds to research the necessary techs!

5. Barbs! On Marathon not sure what was going on here but in my game I rushed two civs far away from my capital, around 15 tiles. Consequently there was a lot of land around so barbs started spawning. No problem - Quechas dispatch archers easily. However by turn 120 there were axeman and spearmen tearing me a new one? Perhaps I consider myself unlucky for not finding any copper? As there was no way I was gonna be able to research hunting and archery in time.


WB economy is a great idea though. Being able to convert food into gold at a rate of even 1 to 2.5 is huge.
It means a floodplains farm is now worth 11 gold/beakers! And with the next best alternative being a representation scientist (6beakers, 7 if you include the gold on the plain) that's a considerable gain early on.

This in mind, is a farm necessarily the best improvement ? Surely a cottage is better on a river tile. Because then you would get 3three food = 7.5 beakers and three gold = 3 beakers but in ten turns you'd be at 11.5>11 beakers? Not to mention the income stream from a cottage is much more stable. Sounds as if you'd be wanting to run a lot of cottages when river tiles are present?

 

[Anysense]

WB economy is a great idea though. Being able to convert food into gold at a rate of even 1 to 2.5 is huge.
It means a floodplains farm is now worth 11 gold/beakers!

I think you should count only food surplus rather than all food produced by the tile in question.

 

[Hugethman]

I think you should count only food surplus rather than all food produced by the tile in question.

It's more in reference to the marginal tile. So if you imagine that you have a city size 3 working one fp farm then there are two extra citizens. These are the citizens you are interested in - should they work farms for wonders, cottages, or be specialists? So it's implicitly assumed above that there is a food surplus.

 

[sampsa]

• Yes, there is no way to make it work exactly the same on normal speed. I'm assuming you are playing on deity as you didn't mention it
  
• WT describes in his thread the tricks needed to fund the expansion pre-alpha. Works only in BUFFY
• I don't think you should expect corporations in the BCs on normal speed
• they (HOF-guys) play with barbs off, of course

 

[Anysense]

Indeed a city working one farmed FP has 4 food surplus, but only 2 of the surplus is produced by the farm, while two more are produced by the central tile. You do not subtract food consumed by the citizen working that farm, and it leads to a wrong estimation of the tile's value. A FP farm is worth only 2 food and 1 commerce, a grassland farm - 1 food and 1 commerce, a cottage does not produce extra food, it is food neutral.

 

[sampsa]

Indeed a city working one farmed FP has 4 food surplus, but only 2 of the surplus is produced by the farm, while two more are produced by the central tile. You do not subtract food consumed by the citizen working that farm, and it leads to a wrong estimation of the tile's value. A FP farm is worth only 2 food and 1 commerce, a grassland farm - 1 food and 1 commerce, a cottage does not produce extra food, it is food neutral.

I think OP understands this, at least that's what I gather from

It's more in reference to the marginal tile. So if you imagine that you have a city size 3 working one fp farm then there are two extra citizens. These are the citizens you are interested in - should they work farms for wonders, cottages, or be specialists? So it's implicitly assumed above that there is a food surplus.

As long as we know how much one food is worth, comparing (4 vs 3) or (2 vs 1) leads to the same result, former is better by 1. Problems do arise when we start comparing tile values using %, like that 4 is 33% better than 3. Still, at size 1, it indeed leads to 33% more food.

 

[Anysense]

It is not clear what the OP meant but usually a city does not stagnate at level 1 and is not whipped on the same turn when it becomes level 2.
Edit: Why would anyone consider working food-low tiles at level 1?

 

[Hugethman]

• Yes, there is no way to make it work exactly the same on normal speed. I'm assuming you are playing on deity as you didn't mention it
  
• WT describes in his thread the tricks needed to fund the expansion pre-alpha. Works only in BUFFY
• I don't think you should expect corporations in the BCs on normal speed
• they (HOF-guys) play with barbs off, of course

- Yes
- I see much city gifting going on. is this one of the things you mean? And utilising goody huts to the max....
- no barbs for HOF...of course how could I forget

 

[Hugethman]

• Yes, there is no way to make it work exactly the same on normal speed. I'm assuming you are playing on deity as you didn't mention it
  
• WT describes in his thread the tricks needed to fund the expansion pre-alpha. Works only in BUFFY
• I don't think you should expect corporations in the BCs on normal speed
• they (HOF-guys) play with barbs off, of course

By the way, do you know why whipping more population gives you more overflow? I don't quite get that.

 

[sampsa]

It is not clear what the OP meant but usually a city does not stagnate at level 1 and is not whipped on the same turn when it becomes level 2.
Edit: Why would anyone consider working food-low tiles at level 1?

I don't think anyone suggested stagnating at size 1, whipping when growing to 2 or working food-negative tiles at size 1. I guess my last post was very unclear.

I agree that

Being able to convert food into gold at a rate of even 1 to 2.5 is huge.
It means a floodplains farm is now worth 11 gold/beakers!

is not entirely correct. Growing one size to work a floodplains farm is not worth 11 gold/beakers. For the same reason growing to work plains hill river gold is not worth 38, but -238 and if currently 2=5, the value of working that tile is 33. We also have a value to convert into , depending on stone/ind/forge/org rel.

However, if we misvalue every tile by +2 (the cost of working it) it doesn't matter, as long as we don't start comparing them "this tile is x% better than this tile". Sorry for the confusion.

 

[sampsa]

- I see much city gifting going on. is this one of the things you mean? And utilising goody huts to the max....

Putting more than twice the needed into a build (quechua) leads to generating in BUFFY. You can achieve this for example via chops, or almost completing a build and then whipping it. Also there is a missionary build trick that turns the directly into . https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...a-10-year-veteran.574724/page-7#post-14443946

By the way, do you know why whipping more population gives you more overflow? I don't quite get that.

Whip gives 90 per population point on marathon. Happiness penalty is the same no matter what, so bigger whips are better.

 

[happysheep]

Putting more than twice the needed into a build (quechua) leads to generating in BUFFY. You can achieve this for example via chops, or almost completing a build and then whipping it. Also there is a missionary build trick that turns the directly into . https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...a-10-year-veteran.574724/page-7#post-14443946

Whip gives 90 per population point on marathon. Happiness penalty is the same no matter what, so bigger whips are better.

I kinda feel like WT's WB economy was honestly a bit exaggerated. That time he got a 700ad science victory was way back in 2013, and the whole 90ad game was 4 years after that. Who knows how much the date could have improved by itself? Instead of whipping overflow into wonders, u could spend those pop working on tiles. Sure u could regrow the pop back but for example, u whip a pop and get 270 gold from it. Instead u could work on a 2f5c water tile and after 54 turns (18 turns on normal), u would get the gold back. WT himself mentioned the above. 18 turns on normal doesn't sound like a lot honestly if ur going to be whipping a lot

 

[Anysense]

Of course, when you are in GA with Colossus and Financial to boot, whipping for any purposes becomes rather less attractive. Also alot depends on what you whip. For example, whipping a catapult at 9/100 you effectively spend 1 pop to build a very useful combat unit an another to convert ~40 into 180 (assuming no Industrious or forge).

 

[krikav]

There is very few games where I don't whip some units or buildings that I don't really need right away, mainly to get overflow into a wonder to get the failgold.
Whipping is very very good.