Vel's Strategy Thread, Volume II

[Forrester]

Originally posted by InThane


Probably not more than two turns, unless I plan to spend a LOT of time @ size 1. That extra hammer can add up over the long run.

Well, if you plan on building a worker starting turn 1, you'll do it in 12 turns instead of 15 turns if you start on a hill. If you plan on building a settler starting turn 1, you'll do it in 20 turns instead of 25 turns if you start on a hill.

Not sure what you meant by a LOT of time, but I guessed you meant more than just creating a single worker -- even there, you get 3 turns pure advantage by moving to a hill, just from your very very first build. And obviously, you get some advantage afterwards (and throughout the rest of the game).

I'm thinking that if your plan is to go worker-first (i.e., many Ghandi starts or Financial/cottage starts), a 3-4 turn sacrifice isn't actually silly. Usually that's not required, a 1-2 turn sacrifice is all that's needed, and that's just damn sweet.

EDIT -- the responses I've gotten so far from my idea suggest that in fact, most people do NOT make a point of it to start on a hill. Maybe a lot don't even realize you get that advantage -- I know I had to stumble onto it. But it's super nontrivial.

[InThane]

Remember, though, you do lose x turns of research for not immediately founding a city. It's not a "free lunch" proposition.

If I'm going to build worker-settler-worker-warrior-settler (not an uncommon build path for me at the level I'm playing on) then the hill makes a LOT of sense for me.

[Arrian]

One of my best games to date was as Japan, with a coastal start w/2 seafood resources. Workboat, warrior, workboat, worker... BOOM.

Good stuff, Vel. Incidently, I've yet to overcome my aversion to traits that are only useful for a portion of the game and then become largely useless... and have not yet played a creative civ. I have often hated them, though (Cathy in particular is my personal nemesis).

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

Re: Re: Re: Starting placement

Originally posted by Forrester
Just surprised I haven't seen this subject come up before, because it really is a monster advantage early on to have double production.

You might not have seen it but I think it does get mentioned in most CP discussions.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Arrian I've yet to overcome my aversion to traits that are only useful for a portion of the game and then become largely useless... and have not yet played a creative civ. I have often hated them, though (Cathy in particular is my personal nemesis).

I usually play random civs and make best of of whatever I get. Creative is not one of my favourites, but locking off the land with border expansions can win extra territory - and these effects are felt throughout the game if it means another few cities.

[Velociryx]

Not exactly sure what to classify this as, but I thought I'd post it here and roll it into the main body of Strat Thread III when we get to that point.

When managing the costs of a growing Empire, once you reach the point where you're out of room to grow, assess your situation and place your FP as close to the center of your territory *without regard for where your Palace is*. (this is less true if you plan a peaceful game, more true if you plan for conquest).

The reason for this is that you only get to build your FP once, but can hop your palace all over the map. Thus, the FP should be the "true" center of your government, and the palace can be built and re-built to get it centrally positioned, relative to your borders each time you expand.

This will allow you to get a lot more efficiency of of your empire as a whole, than if you left the palace in your "core" and built the FP in newly conquered territory.

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

Similar, if you recall, to the best FP placement strategy for warmongering/buildmongering in CivIII-PTW (not Conquests, though).

I'm not sure it's necessarily the case, though, if you've build some tasty things in your original capital. Basically, for the builder running Bureacracy, this is a mistake. For the warmonger - the FOCUSED warmonger - it is probably very good (I can't say, as I've not gone that route yet). I have, however, used the CS slingshot a LOT, playing "builder" style. I wouldn't want to move my palace - it's typically got some tasty wonders, great and national, that combine with the Bureacracy bonus to give me a monster city.

So, basically:

1) For the builder w/o the CS slingshot, this seems to be an ok idea
2) For the builder with the CS slingshot, it seems like a bad idea.
3) For the warmonger it sounds pretty good.

...

The other thing is that if you have not already done a bundle of conquering or overseas settling, I'd say the best thing you can do is to let an AI civ build Versailles. It's hideously expensive and will be of marginal benifit if you already have your palace & FP set up well (again, unless your empire is already huge). It's best captured late, I feel.

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

Good points.

I would say though, that by the time you need to bounce the capitol (palace), the 8gpt it adds to the "old" (original) capitol will likely not be felt all that much, and sometimes, the capitol is just plain in an unfortunate spot. True, you will lose the modifiers to the 8gpt that the palace gives you, but you'll be recouping all that money lost to distance from the cap. modifiers.

I've not checked this, but does the FP provide a gpt bonus at all? If so, and if your capitol is in a good spot, once you've got your "core" established, then it could be built "to replace" the old palace, but in any case, once you cross the distance threshold with a few cities (and it won't take many), the money saved by re-locating the palace starts looking attractive indeed, although I totally agree that the "FP at home" is definitely more geared toward warmongering, although it can apply to other situations. 'pelago starts, for example....your starting island is a known quantity, but there's no way to be sure exactly how the development of the other islands might fall (or even where they all are)....so if you build your FP "blindly" on one of them, you risk poor placement, whereas if you built the FP at home, you could adjust the palace position on an "as needed" basis.

-=Vel=-

[Dominae]

I think Arrian's point re: the original capital is that it likely has much more infrastructure than your relocated one (more time to build Wonders, Academy, etc.) and therefore gains more from Bureaucracy. +50% Commerce in a highly-developed capital offsets the possibility of less than optimal FP placement.

It might happen that your relocated capital site is stronger than your original; a conquered AI capital, for instance. Still, in my games I find my capital to be among the best in the world given the amount of effort of I put into it, and am loath to move it around while still in Bureaucracy. I must mention, however, that I play Small-Medium maps a lot, where Bureaucracy is the right choice for a majority of the game.

[xxFlukexx]

Nope, no bonus to gpt for the Forbidden Palace.
FP = +4 culture per turn and +1 Great Merchant
Palace = +1 happy, +2 culture and +8 commerce per turn

I mainly don't move my Palace because of Bureaucracy. On Larger maps, yeah you probably want to move your Palace at least once. But on Standard size and below, I always make my capital a commerce juggernaut and losing the Bureaucracy bonus is just killer, I'm talking 90 base commerce in my cap with Oxford in it, hard to make that up. *blows a kiss to Bureaucracy, I love you! *

You should really try out creative civs more, guys. Remember cutting off AIs in Civ3 with cities + borders? Well with Creative, it's baaaack.

[fed1943]

I believe changing the palace helps the warmonger,but not the builder,mostly because when conquest starts State Property is close.
Best regards,

[Blake]

In many games I don't even bother with Forbidden Palace, let alone moving my capital. This is because of State Property.

For example on a Terra map: Forbidden Palace would be really useful, you might say essential. BUT Communism is just 2-3 techs after than Astronomy (assuming Liberalism first and getting astro as free tech), you can certainly research 2-3 techs and switch to State Property long before you can get a new world colony and build the FP. In fact unless you use a Great Engineer you can piss around with other techs for a long time before getting Communism and it'll still come faster than the FP in a colony.

FP is probably (much) more valuable on smaller maps, where distance upkeep becomes a factor much earlier in the game (because of the unit movement disparity thing), which is actually kind of counter-intuitive in a way...

[Gray_Lensman]

This thread has an excellent synopsis. It should be stickied to the top.

[Velociryx]

Thanks Gray, glad you're finding it useful!



-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

bumping, as a reminder to me that I"m really behind and need to get my butt in gear and add the new materials!

-=Vel=-