War and technology

[asurob]

I absolutely love the game...but here is the one thing that really bugs me. (While talking to a friend who also has the game he brought it up and I agreed).


Going to war is the sure way of guaranteeing you will fall behind in the technology race.

It happened again to me last nite. I was well ahead of the world in technology and my ally (Montezuma dammit) asked me to join him in smiting our mutual neighbor. SO into battle we go...and with in a few turns I had gone from 1st place to 5 place in the technology and points race. I did well in the war itself and continue to drive my enemy before me.

Now I seem to recall from all those history books I love...war generally caused nations to advance their technological prowess and crazy rates...even nations who were losing the war (WW2 for example). In Civ...it causes you to slow down your scientific progress. Is this just me?

[Dr,ape]

It's exactly because you did well in THIS war.

If going into war you found out that your enemy has better weapons (or about to have better weapons) than you do, then you would really crank up your research gears, otherwise you would start losing the war. THAT's what drove real life nations to advance their techs through wars.

[-Ab-]

hes right you do just seem to fall behind if you go to war
i dont know what the maths behind it is but everyhting just seems to slow down for you
to make it worse if you got to war and do to well you end up with lots of citys and for some reason this means you lose money
the only reason i can see for this is that the game trys limit your civs size as just another way to restrict youR growth
unfortunately this makes war almost completely pointless above taking 1 or 2 citys

i dont understand why growing too big should start to cost you money tbh but perhaps it can be countered with civics?

[Bhruic]

Ok, I'm really getting irked with this 'you lose money' claim. You don't lose money. Yes, when you take over a new city, that increases your maintainance costs. However, the amount of money the city makes will easily make this up. What it won't make up, however, is the difference in funding levels.

To wit:

Let's say you have 90% research, 10% wealth, and you are making 100 income. That means (let's discount all of the extraneous details for now) you are making 90 RPs and 10 gold per turn. Let's say your maintainance costs are 9 gold, so you are netting 1 gold.

Now, you take a new city. By taking this city, your maintainance costs go up to 12 gold per turn. The new city is generating 10 income, so your total income is now 110. You are still at 90% research, so you are making 99 RPs and 11 gold per turn. Suddenly you are losing money!

But wait. You aren't losing money. The total income that you have is higher than you had previously. The only reason it looks like you are losing money is because most of that income is going into RPs. And that means you are actually researching faster than you were previously.

In general, new cities are almost always beneficial. The only times they aren't is when they make less money than your maintainance costs. That includes the early game, when you are just founding them, which is why this perception exists. But by the time you can take cities militarily, it generally doesn't.

So the net effect is that by taking cities, you may lower your gold per turn, but you will increase your research. By doing this, you can easily "make up" the amount that you lost by focusing on the war. So war, as long as you are victorious, is beneficial to you.

Bh

[Peets]

nicely said Bhruic, that's why I always take the bigger cities (around size 5 at least) but raze the small ones, cause they won't bring up enough commerce.

[-Ab-]

Bhruic what yoru saying is all well and good and i have no doubt your maths are correct
but when you play the game and every time you put a new city down you watch your income drop buy 8 gold it amounts to the same thing
If the tax slider goes much below 70% science your starting to lose the game yet if you put too many citys down you can end up with 20% science and still be losing money
I just played a game as aztecs and found the russians next door on a different land mass
mass jaguar invasion and all the russian citys are mine (6 or 7 citys mostly about 5ish) and wtf? im leaking gold
this to me just looks like the game is keeping your number of citys down so the AI can pwn you in the tech race
if you know what im doing wrong i would love to hear it cause it beats me atm
i find myself teching towards currency and then harbours and only once i got them built does my money start to come back
by then the game is usually lost cause 1100 ad rolls round and the rest of the world introduces itself and i find myself hopelessly behind in the tech race

[Bhruic]

That's not true at all, as my example demonstrated. Look, take the same numbers I used before. Before taking the city you were making 1g/turn. After, you are losing 1g/turn. So let's say you want to go back to making money, so you drop the percentage for research from 90 to 80%. Now you are making .2 x 110 or 22 gold every turn, with 12 going to maintainance, so you are netting 10g/turn. Your research is .8 x 110, or 88 - only 2 points less than it was before you took the city when you were at 90%!

In other words, dropping the percentage going towards research doesn't matter, as long as your income has gone up.

Are you going to get behind in the tech race by focusing on war? Of course you are! All that production you are putting into building military units could have been put into money and/or research producing buildings. So of course you are going to fall behind. My example was never meant to suggest otherwise. What it does point out is that because you have expanded your income level, you are in a much better position to play catch-up (and eventually overtake them).

Also note - your example is of an early rush. Yes, an early rush is going to be more costly because you are taking over cities that don't produce much income. Early rushing has always been a balance between acquiring land, while falling behind in tech. Whether it's worth it depends on how quickly you can pull your empire together.

Bh

[powder]

....and even historically war was good for war research but the greatest breakthrough imho have always been during long peace time....

During war the big scientist try to make the biggest toy (rush anyone? ) ...

[-Ab-]

yes that example is a rush but it applys if you expand too fast aswell
start a game and just expand as fast as you can see how long it is b4 your in broke
im only playing on monarch and i reckon i can get about 8 citys down b4 it starts to bite,ill have perhaps 400 gold and be on -3 a turn with land that i NEED to use up because the AI will if i dont
if i move that slider my tech turns will drop alot but the gold income will only go up a little

because you have expanded your income level, you are in a much better position to play catch-up (and eventually overtake them).

in practise it just doesnt seem to work like that
you go broke and stagnate and thats the end of that
this is really killing my games tbh

[duodecimal]

My science gets hurt because the AI jerks keep knocking over all my pretty little cottages.

Where are my recluse eccentrics going to live?

[Bhruic]

Originally posted by -Ab-
yes that example is a rush but it applys if you expand too fast aswell
start a game and just expand as fast as you can see how long it is b4 your in broke

Ok, that statement just proves that you don't understand what I'm talking about.

A new city that you create will have very little income. Generally they will have 1 income, although 2-3 is also possible, depending what squares get worked. City maintainance goes up faster than that. So of course if you are building new cities, then you will become broke very quickly.

But I said that in my post. We aren't talking about constructing new cities, we are talking about conquering existing ones. Because they are existing, they already have a higher level of income. They can work more squares, for example. They may have better trade routes, etc. Taking such cities over is going to give you enough income to offset the increased cost of maintainance.

Bh

[-Ab-]

i did try and understand your numbers
what does a new city have to support ?
if i build stonehenge do i then pay upkeep on the free obilisk?
if i put a new city down and it increases my income by 1 gold why do i get -5 or worse hit to my income?
i have played games where i have settlers in the correct places just waiting to make new citys but i cant because im trying to build my enconamy up enough to cover them

But I said that in my post. We aren't talking about constructing new cities, we are talking about conquering existing ones. Because they are existing, they already have a higher level of income. They can work more squares, for example. They may have better trade routes, etc. Taking such cities over is going to give you enough income to offset the increased cost of maintainance.

not in my game,the result was exactly the same as if i had built new ones

either way it doesnt seem right that you should be punished for expanding...surely you expand to increase your income not reduce it

[Bhruic]

Originally posted by -Ab-
what does a new city have to support ?

Ok, in Civ IV, to combat the ICS strategy, the introduced "city maintainance". Every city that you own increases the maintainance that you have to pay, as does the distance of the city from your capital. So with one city, you pay no maintainance. Build a second city, and you'll start paying maintainance (could be just 1g/turn, or could be more, depending how far it is from your capital). As you build more, your maintainance costs go up.

The same occurs when you capture cities. Each city you capture increases your maintainance costs.

if i build stonehenge do i then pay upkeep on the free obilisk?

There is no cost on buildings in Civ IV.

not in my game,the result was exactly the same as if i had built new ones

As I said, if you do an early rush, the cities you take over won't have had much time to develop. Plus, because it's so early in the game, you won't have many techs that help increase your income. So you may end up getting less income from the new city than the maintainance cost for that city.

That's why early rushes aren't necessarily a good strategy (although they can work fine if you are willing to be behind in tech for awhile).

either way it doesnt seem right that you should be punished for expanding...surely you expand to increase your income not reduce it

You expand to increase your potential income. It's the same way in the real world. When McDonalds builds a new franchise, it starts out losing money. As it develops, and more people start to use it, it'll pull even, and then (hopefully) start making money.

Same in Civ IV. A brand new city is more likely to be a drain than a contributor. But as you develop it, it will become more valuable, until it is earning more than it costs.

Bh

[Melboz99]

Best way to combat maintenance costs IMO is to found every religion you can, and then build Shrines, Cathedrals, and some of the WW's for them.


If you found a religion, and send missionaries to your neighbors, lets say you manage to convert 30 Cities to Judaism. Now you build a few wonders such as the Oracle and Stonehenge (both very easy) and you get a great Prophet.

Use the Great Prophet to build the Judaism Shrine, the Temple of Soloman. Now you get 30 gold per turn.

The neat thing is that cities can have multiple religions. So, Figure the AI Civ's have a total of 50 Cities, and you manage it get an average of two of your religions per city. Now you're looking at 100 GPT.

Now lets say you have Judaism as your state Religion. If there are 30 Cities out there with Judaism, and you build the Spiral Marinet, you get an additional 30GPT from Judaism.


From just Religion alone there is no reason you can't afford to expand.

Great Merchants do help. If you manage to get one, you can get enough gold in one Trade Mission to fund expansion of at least 5-10 cities. By the time the gold dries up your cities should be producing enough gold on their own.


A few things to note about Maintenace.

It's best to keep your cities from overlapping. The larger a city can grow, the more land it can utilize. Maintence is only per City, so if you have a size 16 city, it's far better than 4 size 4 cities, even though they work the same amount of land.

Likewise, you should only build where profitable in the early ages. My first 4-5 new Cities are almost always on a River or Coastal tile, especially if it is Flood Plain.

The only exception here is when you need to quickly aquire a strategic resource, such as Stone, Marble, Copper, or Iron. If it's a Luxury I would just wait until the culture of other nearby cities envelopes it.

Dan O.

[-Ab-]

ok i understand now
hmm come to think of it one of the wonders combats this doesnt it ?

time to start a new game