Vel's Strategy Thread, Volume II

[Ithkul2]

Originally posted by teaster
New poprush fan here,

I had done very little poprushing before but in my current game I started alone on a continent with a long windy river and a LOT of flood plains. My first 3 cities are mostly flood plains and hills, very few trees I have basically 2 terrain improvements, mines and cottages, great money making cities with good production and fast population growth. Unfortunately all 3 of them are under an orangey haze with green sickly faces so I've been using poprushing to keep the populations down. It turns some great moneymaking cities into good production cities as well.

Some day I hope to be able to get enough health improvements to keep them healthy then I can switch to a civic allowing rushbuying to spend some of the cash instead of the people.

when facing foodplains are you using an expansive civ? are you looking for +health trade agreements? maybe you can take a city or two that has the +health that you need? there are more options than just civic's and buildings you know

[teaster]

Good suggestions, Ithkul2

I'm playing arabs and unfortunately have very little to trade, my continent is fairly poor in tradeable resources, lots of silver but it's in the tundra requiring my culture to expand before I can get some to trade. I was gathering a hoard to invade the mainland to try for some cities with +health as you suggested but my exploring caravels discovered a small continent with only barbarians and resources so I've loaded the hoard onto my new galleons and have sent them there instead. Can't resist that carrot dangling in front of my nose

Any other suggestions or is there a research path you would recommend?

[Ithkul2]

Cottages and poprush seems like a good idea. And taking those barbarian villages. Just keep an eye on the maintainance cost when you capture the cities. I favor new cities over "oh no i cant take another city, it just costs to much"-tactic. Just dont over do it.

Because cities will grow and will provide a profit in the long run. Still there is a limit to how many cities you should have. The number of cities you should have increase as your tech increase.

Also consider to place a forbinen palace or wonder on the new continent if its huge enuff and if the distance to your capitol is far. Remeber that you only got 3 such buildings (palace, forbiden and wonder) so think before placing one. If someone else builds the wonder you can simply take that city later on, depending on how agressive you are.

Other than that, follow your own path. If you can aford giving some tech to your opponents consider to trade if for maps+ gold. Good to know where to stike next. Good luck!

Edit: Comment on the amount of cities you should have before stop the expandig... I love new cities so my cap is around 60% res. when I have to lower reseach down to 50% to have a profit i stop expanding. I know many will disagree with me, but having many cities just makes you that much powerful when they grow

[Blake]

You can also build the Versailles just anywhere in your core, and later move the Palace.

[Ithkul2]

Originally posted by Blake
You can also build the Versailles just anywhere in your core, and later move the Palace.

Great idea. I'm so behind. Thanks for the headsup.

[teaster]

I have pretty good intelligence of the mainland continent next to me thanks to Hinduism. There is a 3rd continent across the ocean and fortunately for me buddhism and judaism were founded there allowing my religion Hinduism to spread without competition, I've helped it along with some missionaries as well. Good point about Versailles, maybe I'll hold off until someone builds it and let that decide who my target for invasion will be.

Moneywise I shouldn't have too much trouble supporting more cities as well as a fairly large army thanks to the terrain around my main cities (lots of rivers/cottages) and 1/2 dozen port cities, actually I only have 2 landlocked cities. I'm playing on a huge map so even my small continent can support a decent number of cities making me #3 in nation size. I'm currently at 80% research with spare cash comming so I can upgrade units and I agree if it drops to 60% that would be a good indicator that it's time to slow down and consolidate.

Now I just have to wait until I get off work and try it out.

Thanks

edit:That's an interesting idea to build Versailles then move the Palace I'll have to consider that as well

edit 2 : I'm playing on Prince so that puts me a level below what most folks posting here are playing. If all goes well it's monarch next game

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Velociryx
DeepO speaks the truth about the power of specialization, but IMO, by specializing out to a very large degree, you wilfully "miss out" on a large part of the productive capacity of the land you're on.

Yep, you do. Or rather: I set aside that part of production you would consider lost to only producing commerce buildings in commerce cities.

Specialization does not mean you can't use hills, as there are grass tiles you want to put a cottage on instead. No, in my games I will always make sure I've got enough food, and at least some production in every city.

But, if I find myself in hill country, and can't use 5 barracks cities in my empire of 8, I will willfully put some of them on commerce: build cottages, build windmills, and avoid building farms or mines. (or workshops, obviously). For food purposes, a farm/mine combo makes as much as a cottage/windmill combo early on. Commerce cities will go for the second option in most cases.

And the land around a city may or may not be well suited to specialization. If it is, then GREAT! Specialize away. But often (frequently, in my experience), the best city sites (the ones you would naturally gravitate to), are pretty well balanced. That being said, if you go against the grain of the land and specialize the city anyway, then you are throwing away a large chunk of the productivity of the terrain.

I'm not sure on that. Great land will be great for all purposes, bad land will only allow a few options.

Consider the following example: grass land, a few hills, a fresh water lake or a river, and a couple of plains.

In this city, many players will take a look, spot the hills, and say: Aha! Production here!

But why? Commerce is just as viable. instead of putting a couple of cottages into your production city (creating all kind of problems as you need to build the buildings to give you more gold/beakers for your commerce), consider the city a commerce city, which naturally gets some production. I've read before cottages on plains are no good, and I can't understand that statement. Cottages on plains are excellent, and in many cases better than cottages on grass. They provide just enough food and production to let you play with all the commerce, and do something meaningful with it.

My feelings are thus: Specialize when and where you can, but few things can top the sheer versatility of a good, balanced city. Run a small empire (say, 5-8 cities), and the worst happens and you lose your "commerce city" and YOU ARE TOAST.

Never put all your eggs into one basket in CIV. And cities should be changeable too: when your situation changes, it's relatively easy to put 10 workers on a city, and completely change its characteristics around in less than 10 turns.

Versatility is indeed important, but efficiency as well. I do this on an empire level, and not on the city level. This is something I learned, BTW, it didn't fall from the blue sky. I learned that if I put commerce in production cities, I never can build enough libs and units, I always end up with lower numbers on either of those two. Now, with specialization, I put aside my commerce cities for commerce buildings, and barracks cities for units... as a result I very rarely have too few commerce buildings, and am no so lacking in my military force either. The reason is simple: my land will generate a fixed number of shields over a certain period of time. If I choose not to spend those shields on more than 4 barracks, and not on more than 4 libs, instead of building 8 barracks and 8 libs, I'm gaining. Or better, I don't need to invest as much to get (nearly) the same benefits... so higher returns.


Of course, at the time of war, commerce cities build units too. And if you are very playing a very peacful game, barracks cities tend to build libs faster too.

Specialization holds one big disadvantage, and I want to be honest enough to mention it: civics. These in general apply to specific types of cities (e.g. Org. rel. providing a 25% to buildings). If you switch civics a lot, balancing your empire could become a bit more efficient again, as you are able to build in all cities exactly that type that you are receiving a bonus for.

OTOH, the rel civics also require your state religion in a city, and especially early on you don't want to put that in all cities as missionaries cost effort to build, Specialization lets you prioritize your missionary use too.

PS: Further...ALL cities are gonna generate some commerce. All of them.

I've never SEEN a city that didn't have at least some.

Markets provide a 25% boost to g in a given city. That means a city that's making 4gpt will make 5 after the market goes into place.

Hold on, Vel... markets are the perfect example, one that needs specialization.

especially in smaller empires, but in well-run larger ones too, you will get to 80% tech on the slider or higher. In order to get any bonus from a market, you need a city to generate 20 cpt.

20cpt * 20% = 4 gpt. +25% for a market gives you 5 gpt.

Any city below 20 cpt will not gain anything from a market.

Now, what is the effect you'll be seeing in a balanced empire? All your cities will be around that 20 cpt. Many of your cities will be below it, especially those not on the coast (and thus not getting enough trade routes). Building markets in there is a waste. You won't have 40 cpt cities either, so you won't get to the next boundary (the one that gives a market a +2gpt).

Compare this to a specialized strat. Half your cities aren't even close to the 20 cpt, and thus would gain nothing from a market. You don't build it either. OTOH, a couple of your cities are well above 40 cpt, some maybe at 60 cpt, or even higher. One little market costs the same, but will give you +2 or +3gpt.

So, in total over your empire, you're making more money, and have spend fewer hammers on markets...

Markets are extreme, with libs this effect isn't so pronounced. It is still there, though: you will get more research with libs in a few cities than you will get with libs everywhere.

NOT building markets in any city where they would be profitable simply makes no sense to my brain. That's as good as leaving money on the table.

Bah... you're not thinking economically sound. It's not because I could see a use for a TV in every room of my house, that I'm willing to buy 10 TVs... I just have one, and watch TV in one room (well actually, I've got more TVs, but that's besides the point )

Now granted, there's a priority system in place....a city making 50gpt is gonna see more benefit to a market than the city making 8gpt, but that don't matter, because the two are not mutually exclusive....just because city A is building a market does not somehow mean that city B cannot....

Sorry, but that's not true in an empire. You still need units. More markets means less units. Sure, you can build markets in multiple cities at the same time, but that also means that multiple cities aren't building units at that time. Whether it can happen simultaneously or not hardly matters (barracks cities and specialization requires more planning and foresight, that's true), it's the combined cost over several turns which does matter.

But what if, in your financial calculations, you arrive at the conclusion that you need at least 26 fully developed cottages?

You just gonna dump 21 of them into your specialized commerce city and forget the others, or are you gonna build a few elsewhere, let them help bump up the profit margins of some of your other cities?

Hold on, I don't want to say I have cottage-only cities, although in some situation it will come close. Instead, if I got to distribute 26 cottages to become economically viable, I will put them in coastal cities as much as possible, while keeping inland hills cities for pure production. Putting a cottage there is a waste. Or at least, there are more efficient uses for it.

Building cottages, WHEREVER you build them (all in one place or spread out), certainly won't HURT your game....it's just a question of how you want to structure your empire.

Ah, but if cottages are used in commerce cities, they will get all the nice bonusses from e.g. having 3 monasteries in there (together with all other modifiers). Putting cottages in barracks cities will only give their base value, without, or with very few modifiers. Those 26 cottages you calculated, might become 30 cottages spread out, while only 20 cottages in the right places....

I treat the empire as a business, and each city as a separate business unit.

I like ensuring that all my business units have at least SOME profitibility, tho it is understood that some will have higher profits than others...

-v.

You know why many BU approaches fail, right? Because their managers tend to see their BU as an island, outside of the supporting structure from the larger whole. Sure, you will get a minimum efficiency going, and are able to get rid of the bad apples more easily, but you can't ever beat a centralized approach.

In economics, there is something else at work, though. Your dealing with humans, and humans in large organizations tend to lose their motivation (communism is the extreme here). Smaller BUs will mean they feel more connected to their company, and thus are better motivated. And more motivation means more production, which can offset the efficiency hit you'll be receiving from running a decentralized system.

Luckily, though, CIV deals with AIs, and cpu-cyle citizens. they don't mind if you put them in unbalanced situations

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Heroes


Hehe, I know you won't agree ...

Doesn't matter, its all about the debate. Not who is right and who is wrong

Now assume representation is available, and you don't have trouble with happiness or health. A specialist needs 2 food to support, therefore 1 food = 3 gold.

The problem here, is that you're talking about specific situations. I try to have a ratio depending on no special playstyle, and early in the game. I don't like rep that much as normal: sure, it's powerful, but in many instances I need her. rule more.

The moment you hit biology, everything changes again. Food will become less important. The moment you add more trade routes to cities, the commerce value goes down. And consider the importance of a single hammer when industrious and building a wonder, and you will also get to other numbers.

To determine whether a tile is worth working, you compare its output with the 6 gold + 3 GPP from specialist and 30 hammer from pop rush.

So what conclusion do I get?

1. A tile with >= 3 food is always worth working, because that's worth >= 9 gold.

2. A resource with proper improvement is often worth working, but NOT always. For example, a fur on ice generates just 4 gold, an incense on desert gets just 6 gold. Both are too few.

Woah! 6 gold! before any multipliers, in a spot where you won't have food for specialists anyway! You always have to play the situation handed to you, but incense is one fo the few attractions deserts are getting...

3. A tile with < 2 food has problem, because it delays growth. Unless you have some really good reason (it's a gold mine, for instance), it's better to work high food tiles first.

4. A tile with 2 food becomes interesting. A river grass (2/0/1)? 7 gold > 6 gold, but the excess 1 gold is too little comparing with 3 GPP. You should make a farm or cottage on it before working. A sea tile (2/0/2)? Hard to say, but it can't grow more, so if you have a cottage somewhere else, work the cottage. A forest grass (2/1/0)? Also not quite good. Better off chopping the tree and make some improvement.

5. A general conclusion is that a tile without improvement is almost never worth working, -- the same thing as civ 3!

You would probably agree with these conclusions even if without agreeing foodgold = 3:1.5:1.

Nope. Not at all

You see: what base value a tile has has very little importance in CIV. a 0 fpt tile is as good as a 1 fpt or a 2 fpt tile, as long as you can compensate the food from somewhere. The typical example here is a fp site: in many cases fps are in an area with desert hills, deserts, and at most plains. Your strategy would ask to windmill those desert hills, and watermill those fps... a good use, but depending on where you are in the tech tree, mined hills and farmed fp will be better. (well actually, it's especially the mine which is important: fp don't get any special bonus from having a farm. It's +1 food like everywhere else)

It's improvements that will decide what bonus you'll be getting from your land, and not the underlying land... but of course, a purely flat land can't build mines.

And in that sense, I personally rate 1 extra gold about as high as 1 extra food or hammer in the early game. you don't need to grow, or to produce a lot if your commerce situation stinks so hard that you can't reach any techs in time...

DeepO

[teaster]

Wow, my little post seems so insignificant next to yours DeepO

I have a question for you and the other specialist experts out there

I have been trying with varying degrees of success (none of them great I'm afraid) at specialisation but I seem to keep reverting to more generalised cities. Any suggestions for those of us that are trying to specialise more? What do you look to specialise in, how many specialised cities and what building groupings, specialists, National Wonders for each specialist type.

I realise you have gone through this already but a quick learners guide version would be nice.

Thanks

edit: Vel if you would like to provide the learners guide to your version of the more generalised city building approach that would be good too, it is your thread after all

[Arrian]

We need to look at this sort of thing in-depth... AU-style. I know we've played one AU game, and DeepO did write DARs for it... but I forget if they really showed in detail his concentration on specialization.

/me goes to check.

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Velociryx
We all agree that gold is important, and given the above two statements, why is it such a stretch to make the same generalized statement about gold...that every city should at least be able to pay its own way, and thus, the monies generated from your commerce city are truly and 100% PROFITS that can drive the Empire as a whole?

I contend the three statements are all really the same thing. Thus if one is true, all are true.

No, you're comparing several things which aren't of the same nature. Thus, you can't make general assumptions on them: what's true for one type is not true for the other.

Food is a pure city thing, and has nothing to do with your empire. Every city needs food, every city needs to be selfsufficient in that regard. You can't use an abundance of food either (except for settler or GP pmups, but both are specializations). So you need some moderate, balanced food.

Production is half city, half empire dependent. Sure, every city will need some production, or it can't build anything (although rushing strategies do work). But the empire use of production (units and wonders) are better off if you put as much production as possible into one city. Wonders obviously: one city going for wonders will mean you can make sure it is ideally placed to use them too (GPs, IW, settling GPs, etc.)

Commerce, OTOH, is a pure empire thing. You don't need any commerce on the city level, as all commerce is added to the empire treasury (and beakers sink), and every city is 'paid' from that. There is no gain at all by letting a city be selfsufficient, goldwise. Instead, maximum efficiency is reached when you bundle as much commerce together as possible: you only need to build on market, one bank, and one wall street.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Velociryx
From a hammers spent perspective, it's certainly CHEAPER to go the highly specialized route, but not necessarily more profitable/productive. If maximum efficiency in all hammers spent is the goal, then of course, the highly specialized approach is superior, but the end result is not necessarily so (there's a tradeoff to be had...the highly specialized approach will yield greater returns for the hammers spent, while the MRC approach will yield greater TOTAL returns, but at the expense of additional up-front outlays). Both work well, and that means that players have options....always a good thing...

-=Vel=-

This is true, by specializing you will lose your flexibility, and are taking a more planned approach. I find that in my religuos games I don't specialize a lot (I'll always have one barracks and one gold city, but I can be more balanced in everything else). Changing civics on the fly can be a lot more efficient. You want units? change to Vassalage for 5 turns, and let all your cities build 2 units. Than switch back to something cheaper, and build some infrastructure everywhere...

As to greater returns on hammers spent: If you play it this way, you can use the extra hammers (those you have not lost due to inefficiency) on disaster recovery plans... in my case this nearly always means more units, as I am a builder at heart. Have some reserve ready, and you regain the flexibility you lsot by specialization.

Of course, there are more options in CIV, and this is simply one of them. However, without any specialization I would find it very hard to beat Monarch, while with specialization Emperor is okay. The games where I've got problems are those where I can't specialize... might be my playstyle, I'm sure, but in my playstyle specialization is very powerful.

DeepO

[Arrian]

One thing that tends to hamper my specialization:

I often found my religion in my 2nd or 3rd city. Sometimes, it's great city to specialize for gold - floodplains and such. Sometimes, however, it's set up to be a production monster, and thus it becomes a hybrid city - some commerce, some production (I tend to be fairly active in spreading my religion - which is ironic given my views IRL - and thus get a good amount of income out of the shrine).

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Originally posted by teaster
I have been trying with varying degrees of success (none of them great I'm afraid) at specialisation but I seem to keep reverting to more generalised cities. Any suggestions for those of us that are trying to specialise more? What do you look to specialise in, how many specialised cities and what building groupings, specialists, National Wonders for each specialist type.

I realise you have gone through this already but a quick learners guide version would be nice.

The very quick guide to specialization? Sure, here's one in 3 easy steps:

1. Early on, pick some specific uses. You will have your capital being a wonder builder / unit builder city, so leave that one out for the moment. Other than that, you need 1 or 2 barracks cities, and some 4-5 commerce cities if aiming for 6-8 cities around 1 AD. Make a list of what you want.

2. Second, assign tasks on that list to specific city sites. Inland cities? Barracks. Coastal cities? Harbors and commerce. I found it helping to change the name of my city to whatever its task is, especially as games tend to take forever to finish, and I want to remember what I did last week. Put cottages in commerce cities, put hills and farms in production cities. Try to see if you can have a good GP city as well (high on food).

3. Have discipline. Even if your empire is well defended, keep your barracks cities on units. You will need them later. Similar, don't build barracks in commerce cities, nor work too many mined hills there. It doesn't matter it will take 40 turns to build that lib, if there is nothing else that can be builty in the mean time... slowly getting there will be good too.

If you try these rules, you can have a good specialization. Of course, you need to adjust to the given situation (e.g. on islands all your cities are coastal but you need barracks somewhere anyway), and if something is not working correctly changing a city to some other type (or go for a more balanced approach) might be needed.

Also, don't expect any city to become the best specialized city you have ever built, but focus on a few important ones. E.g. assign 1 barracks, 1 wonder, 1 gold and 1 science city in a 8-city empire, and run the rest balanced.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Arrian
We need to look at this sort of thing in-depth... AU-style. I know we've played one AU game, and DeepO did write DARs for it... but I forget if they really showed in detail his concentration on specialization.

* Arrian goes to check.

-Arrian

Hum, my game is only half way yet, but the more I post here, the longer it will take

In there, I do use specialisation, and I intend to use some more. There is a fp city site, but these only become good GP pumps after biology (and I'm not there yet). I've got plenty of commerce sites, and a barracks city (a second one just starting, and a third one near). The problem is that my best gold city is also my barracks city... there was no other option in my game, as my second city has the best production, and also founded 2 religions. I try to avoid that, but couldn't here... the sad thing is my barracks city also has 3 wines

I'll try to focus on it a bit when I play further. But atm, my cities have either barracks or libs, not both. And I'm perfectly happy like that

DeepO