Bronzeworking - Too important?

[Diadem]

Originally posted by Drachasor

On Monarch I have gotten best results by total deforestation. You get a worker, and use that worker to chop for another worker or two. Then Chop for a Settler. Then you chop for Stonehenge (the great prophets from this are invaluable). Continue chopping for settlers and workers in new cities. Chop for the Pyramids, Chop for the Oracle, etc.

This is the only strategy out of the many I have tried that gives a decent chance to be ahead of the AI on Monarch. It also guarantees the gain of several wonders (Stonehenge always, essentially, the Pyramid and Oracle are a bit up for grabs). It is also the only way to keep up with the AI's rapid expansion capabilities due to the bonuses it gets.

I've been able to reliable do all this and more on emperor without cutting down a single forest. Like I've said before. Chopping is overrated.

Some say that lumbermills are a great improvement, but they are hundreds of turns away.

Even without an improvement, forests provide +1 production though. That's the same bonus as farms. And farms don't get upgraded until biology, which is further away than lumbermills. Workshops start by giving you a total bonus of zero. With guilds that's 1 bonus, and by chemistry they give 2 bonus. But by that time you have replacable parts as well, giving your lumbermills. And railroads comes before communism.

[Diadem]

Originally posted by Blake
It's a myth that chopping your forests will impair hammers.

Here's the FACTS.

A state property Workshop has exactly the same stats as Forest+Lumbermill+Railroad, minus the health benefit ofcourse.

You are wrong here. Workshops also provide commerce. And the health benefit is not to be sneezed at. And let's not forget the happiness bonus.

However, Workshops are better because they require far less investment in technology

Again, you are wrong.

Early on, workshops have a total bonus of 0, while forests give +1. Once you discover guilds workshops are +1 as well. Chemistry upgrades workshops to +2, but by that time you have replacable parts as well (which is in fact slighly earlier in the tech tree), giving your forests workshops for +2 production. And communism comes after railraod, so your forests will be on +3 earlier.

To get full-powered forests you additionally need railroad and to locate coal, and to seperately build the Lumbermill and Railroad upgrade - which takes time.

Workshops come around a time when your workers are busy building other stuff. And they are very bad in the beginning, they only become worth something with guilds. Lumbermills come around a time when your workers are usually sitting idly in your cities. It's not a problem to build them at that point, all other tile improvements will be long done. Same with railroads, which you want everywhere anyway.

State property is (probably) the best economic civic in the game and there's no reason not to run it.

Only if you have a lot of watermills. Otherwise Environmentalism is simply better. State Property + workshops means you're only slightly worse off than you'd have been with lumbermills. Needless to say I'd rather run environmentalism then, and have a free +3 pop in all my cities.

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Diadem


I've been able to reliable do all this and more on emperor without cutting down a single forest. Like I've said before. Chopping is overrated.

I'd love to hear your strategy that gives you tech advantages, most of the early wonders, and a civ of the same size (or larger) as the AI throughout the BC era without cutting a single tree.

-Drachasor

[Diadem]

I did not mean to say I get "most of the early wonders". I meant to say I get all of them.

There is no 'trick' I have to achieve this. There is just a strategical mistake I do not make that is made by almost everybody else. This mistake is building a settler very early in the game. Doing this delays you too much.

I usually start by teching towards animal husbandry. I do this via agriculture or hunting, depending on what resources are around. I build a warrior and a worker once my city reaches size 2. Usually that means 1 or 2 turns of having nothing to build, which can be spent on starting a second warrior. My worker is usually done around the time animal husbandry is researched. It immidiately starts upgrading any resources within my fat cross, then any other tiles. Meanwhile my city finishes the 2nd warrior. I continue with stonehenge, then pyramids, then oracle, while teching for early religions, the necessary techs for pyramids and oracle, and some more worker techs if I need them.

I keep an eye on my city. As soon as it reaches its growth limit (due to hapiness) I let it build 2 settlers, to continue with whatever wonder I was building before.

When you build a settler early it takes 30 turns and you loose a lot of growth. When you wait like I do, you build them in 5 turns and you loose no growth. That's a major difference.

And because I won so many turns, and started on the world wonders so early, I get them all with ease.

[Drachasor]

What settings do you play on?

[Sauron07]

Maybe it is my own deficiencies as a player but I have difficulty keeping up with the AI in both tech and expansion (I can keep up on either front but not both) on monarch if I don't research bronzeworking early and either chop forrests or pop rush settlers, workers and/or infrastructure. I too would be interested in seeing more strategies that don't utilize the chop on higher difficulties, particularly diety.

As for "flattening" out the tech tree, that is not my objective in the slightest. I merely want the game to provide several viable opening strategies rather that forcing everyone down the same path in order to be competitive. I see bronzeworking right now as the "most successful path" and hope (but am somewhat skeptical without changes) that this will change over time. I must give credit to firaxis in that civ IV doesnt' seem to have a dominant overall strat like ICS in Civ III. CIV seems to have several viable ways to approach overall game strategy (rushing, cottage spam, cs slingshot, gp focus etc) its just that almost all of them rely on getting bw early.

I think the power of bronzeworking will become more evident in single player tournaments and multiplayer (where it my understanding that the early rush is already the dominant strat in all but team games). I will be pleasantly surprised if the top scores in the single player tournaments do not make heavy use of chopping or pop rushing and make bronzeworking one of their first few techs This month's religious city grab tourney will likely prove me wrong but is a rather unique case and also a great idea to use different victory conditions.

Great discussion so far btw, now I will quietly wait to hear more about these non-chopping strats on emporor....

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by MoonWolf
So, you actually want techs to be balanced? Some stuff in the game will of course be stronger than other. That's how it is, how it has been and how is always will be, in games and real life.

Bronze Working is important, yes, but too? No, think not. So, if you research this fast, other important techs will suffer. If you postpone agriculture or animal husbandry, your growth will suffer as you can exploit these resources that fast. And if you adopt Slavery and use it to pop-rush buildings/ units, your growth will again suffer and is really not a good idea unless an enemy knocks on your door and you don't have any proper unit(s) in the city. To let your cities grow to optimal sizes is extremely important in the early stages...

Please don't try to "flatten" out everything. If all techs and aspects of the game get "equal", it will get boring, and I feel it's balanced good enough already when it comes to tech-choices; some sacrifies must be made if you want to reach certain other goals.

Not much I can improve on here. Bronze working is powerful, especially for rapid city expansion and axemen for early conquest (me ). But I could see how it might not be a priority at all for a Civ pursuing a religious strategy. Likewise, if there are key resources inside the city, how could one pass up aimal husbandry, hunting, or farming? There are costs associated with each choice. I only used slavery once, so I don't think it's worth the cost, unless an emergency situation arises. I usually chop in some libraries, especially if I'm not creative, to expand my borders and promote science.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Diadem
You are wrong here. Workshops also provide commerce. And the health benefit is not to be sneezed at. And let's not forget the happiness bonus.

Don't argue with me if you're wrong :P. The stats end up identical. Workshops don't negate the +1 commerce from rivers, but lumbermills add +1 commerce on a river so it ends up identical. The health bonus is sometimes not to be sneezed at, but often it doesn't actually matter for hammer cities.

Early on, workshops have a total bonus of 0, while forests give +1. Once you discover guilds workshops are +1 as well. Chemistry upgrades workshops to +2, but by that time you have replaceable parts as well (which is in fact slightly earlier in the tech tree), giving your forests workshops for +2 production. And communism comes after railroad, so your forests will be on +3 earlier.

Communism can be researched much earlier than Railroad, all you need is Scientific Method and Liberalism, since they are both keystone techs this is no biggy. You can even research Communism before Replaceable Parts and get +2hammer workshops when forests are still un-improvable (this beeline is a little extreme, but I do it sometimes!).
The only case where you should delay Communism significantly is if you are deliberately avoiding researching Sci.Method. So well, it is possible to research Railroad first, but given the power of Kremlin and State Property I don't think it wise.

Workshops come around a time when your workers are busy building other stuff. And they are very bad in the beginning, they only become worth something with guilds. Lumbermills come around a time when your workers are usually sitting idly in your cities.

You're missing the point. You don't build workshops as soon as you can (that'd be self-defeating), you build them as soon as they become useful - that is come State Property (or Chemistry perhaps), and by that time workers certainly will be idle. Sometimes I replace forest with Workshop as part of a Kremlin Chop - since I often research Communism before Replaceable Parts it only makes sense to upgrade the forest tiles.

Only if you have a lot of watermills. Otherwise Environmentalism is simply better. State Property + workshops means you're only slightly worse off than you'd have been with lumbermills. Needless to say I'd rather run environmentalism then, and have a free +3 pop in all my cities.

Environmentalism is much later in the game and it's value is questionable at best, if you do have outrageously high food you probably have some nice river systems....
State property will at least sometimes be better in absolute terms than Enviro, that is for a sprawling empire which isn't really stressing health/happy limits, and the completely negated distance upkeep and "no upkeep" represent considerable savings (even over Free Market). And Enviro is High Upkeep! State Property will usually free up at least 10% commerce allocation in comparison with Enviro.

If however you do have a small empire and no rivers you'd probably want to rethink planning your midgame around State Property, I'm not saying it's a miracle cure-all (Even if I might seem to be), but in most cases it is a Good Thing. The games where I don't feel inclined to go commie are quite rare and I'll almost always beeline Communism anyway for the Kremlin, since if i do have a small crummy empire I darn well need that +100% buying power!

The cincher for going commie and staying commie is that there are always more ways to get health while it's much harder to massively cut expenses. I'd rather build hospitals that have no expenses attached than change from a No Upkeep to High Upkeep civic, after all I can always just lower my science %age a hair and buy the hospitals, while Enviro results in a constant and permanent drain on my income.

The thing ultimately is, State Property is so good for the expense reduction that the food bonus is just gravy.

PS. I'm not a locust, but I am a commie-fanatic. Often Lumbermills and Workshops co-exist in my empires. I may not actually appreciate the full power of locust strats, but I certainly do appreciate the power of State Property.

[Velociryx]

Good discussion here.

I think Bronze is a rightly powerful tech, and among my favorites in the ancient age. Too powerful? I don't really think so. It mostly depends on what you want and what you value.

For example....Masonry could be considered equally empowered, given that it provides the key to TWO hugely powerful and important wonders in the ancient age.

Writing, likewise, could be considered "too powerful" given that it unlocks the door to Libraries, Open Borders, Scientists and the Academy.

Post patch, Animal Husbandary has taken on an intensely more valuable position....and so forth.

I think though, that in the final analysis, each tech is only as powerful as you make it. If a tech blends well with your preferred style or strategy, it will become all the more powerful because you USE it well.

A successfully executed CS Slingshot may make Priesthood seem overpowered, but I think it is not....just that different techs, and different ways of approaching the tree provide dramatically different, quite useful abilities to those who prefer that particular beeline (which translates directly into a style of play).

The discussions that have followed re: deforestation (with workshops making up the mid-game production) vs. arbor-husbandary for lumbermills later is a case-in-point. Depending on your POV and play-style, either could be right...or neither. I like that. Makes for compelling gameplay.

Another example: Diadem has a particular style of play that concludes that an early settler is a bad idea, and FOR HIS STYLE OF PLAY, he is not wrong.

My style of play is somewhat different. I celebrate the early settler because of the raw turn advantage it creates, and because of the way that growth occurs in cities in this game (it's faster to grow from size 1 to 2 than it is to grow from size 10 to 11....thus, two cities will have a higher aggregate growth rate than one, to say nothing of the fact that your worker-turns are more efficiently spent modifying terrain that will be used NOW vs. modifying terrain that will be used 20+ turns from now...etc).

Both are correct. Sounds like he's got his strategy pretty refined, which is a good thing. It's firing on all cylinders for him. So when he says that it's too slow to build a settler early, he's right. When I say I "pah! I can chop rush a settler in something like ten turns" --comparable to his faster build times later....I'm right too.

About the only thing I outright disagree with in his assessment is that chopping and pop rushing are "useless." They are not.

If you consider that, on average, an early game city has MAYBE 6-8 hammers of production, a single slave rush or chop = three turns (or more) of turn advantage. Multiply that out over several chops/rushes, and you get extreme turn advantage....the kind that lead to runaway victories.

Of course, it sounds like he's already got that covered, so again, for him, they are pretty useless, if he can do it without pop and chop.

-=Vel=-

[cal_01]

Originally posted by Blake
It's a myth that chopping your forests will impair hammers.

Here's the FACTS.

A state property Workshop has exactly the same stats as Forest+Lumbermill+Railroad, minus the health benefit ofcourse. However, Workshops are better because they require far less investment in technology, you only need to get Communism and Chemistry and you have the full +3 hammer Workshops, you can pre-build the suckers too and they auto-upgrade come the techs. To get full-powered forests you additionally need railroad and to locate coal, and to seperately build the Lumbermill and Railroad upgrade - which takes time.

State property is (probably) the best economic civic in the game and there's no reason not to run it. For any remotely large empire the savings seem to surpass Free Market's income, so the massive +food benefits are pure gravy.

But then again if you make Communism a priority and build Kremlin it's not like it matters how many hammers your cities prouduce...

Woo, more communists!

For me, I tend to leave a token number of forests in order to get the health benefit. Sometimes, especially in bigger cities, the health benefit is critical.

So, I guess it really depends on the city. I once had a city on flood plains, and totally regretted cutting down a lot of the nearby forests in the mid-late game.

[Blake]

Yeah, I usually find myself leaving 3 forests at most cities just for the +1 health, and since the city wont be working all tiles (passive bonuses are nice!). But they often get the chop-o come Communism if I'm happy with my health and would rather hammer-heavy tiles NOW, and my cities often seem to growing above size17 around about then and thus need to work all the tiles...

The basic beeline I use to communism looks like this:

I start by heading to Liberalism via Civil Service.
I then head to Chemistry and grab Printing Press, this provides the pre-requisites to Scientific Method (note: No astronomy, so assume a map where I'm happy with galleys for transport)
Once I have scientific method all that remains is researching Communism. (and I've grabbed Guilds too since it's cheap and a loaded tech)

At this point the techs remaining to get full-powered forests:
Banking, Replacable Parts, Steam Power, Steel, Railroad.

On the other hand if you get full-powered forests first, the techs to communism are:
Liberalism, Scientific Method, Communism.

This is what I mean by full-powered workshops requiring less investment in technology. Also once you have Communism you are only 1 tech from Biology to complete the holy-grail of food production, while with Railroad you're still a couple techs away. While I used to do the Railroad beeline first I've concluded that the Communism beeline packs more power per beaker - in terms of military units, in terms of tile productivity, in terms of civics, and none of it is dependent on getting Coal.

Another interesting tech to communism (which leaves you without strong workshops or units) is via Astronomy (which you can might grab for free with Liberalism), this sets you up to quickly grab Physics for the free Scientist then Eletricity for mill bonuses and Broadway. It's an interesting tech because it completely neglects so much stuff, yet it ends up working quite well, in particular the windmills and watermills are nice, and you can sell Broadway to everyone for cash, it's something I do on watery maps with financial civs. But you end up so far behind on techs towards improving forests that you may as well just chop them all and replace with cottages and windmills.

To tie this remotely back into Forests, what I'm saying is that being indifferent towards forests can be liberating because there are very viable tech paths that neglect lumber mills and railroad, because it takes even longer to maximize forests you're even more justified in cutting them for whatever reason.

[AgentTBC]

Diadem's strategy is workable, but I reject the idea that you can get all the wonders "with ease" while producing 2 settlers once you reach pop 5 and without chopping any forests. Especially given the recommendation to produce pyramids and THEN oracle.

That's flatly impossible in most games on Monarch level or higher. It's just impossible in most cases. The AI will usually produce the Oracle in something like 600 or 800 BC and sometimes significantly earlier if the AI finds marble right at the start.

There simply isn't time to produce two settlers, Stonehenge, Pyramids, Oracle before the AI beats you to Oracle if you're playing at Monarch or higher. Occasionally you'll even miss Pyramids if the AI gets lucky and starts on top of stone.

It's just not possible to do it consistently.

[Diadem]

Originally posted by Blake

Don't argue with me if you're wrong :P. The stats end up identical. Workshops don't negate the +1 commerce from rivers, but lumbermills add +1 commerce on a river so it ends up identical. The health bonus is sometimes not to be sneezed at, but often it doesn't actually matter for hammer cities.

No I'm right, I just put it down wrong AI wrote 'workshops' but I meant 'lumbermills' of course. Since I was arguiing in their favour

Communism can be researched much earlier than Railroad, all you need is Scientific Method and Liberalism, since they are both keystone techs this is no biggy. You can even research Communism before Replaceable Parts and get +2hammer workshops when forests are still un-improvable (this beeline is a little extreme, but I do it sometimes!).
The only case where you should delay Communism significantly is if you are deliberately avoiding researching Sci.Method. So well, it is possible to research Railroad first, but given the power of Kremlin and State Property I don't think it wise.

I usually do not want to beeline straight for sci.method. It negates too many bonusses. And railroad is a very valuable technology, which you usually want to priority anyway.

Communism however is mostly useless. It's one of those techs on par with divine right. I don't get them until I finished The Internet. The Kremlin you say? Only useful when you run Universal Suffrage. But Representation is much better in the games I play, which tend to be specialist-heavy. Besides you can't buy spaceship parts.

You're missing the point. You don't build workshops as soon as you can (that'd be self-defeating), you build them as soon as they become useful - that is come State Property (or Chemistry perhaps), and by that time workers certainly will be idle.

Allright, agreed. So there's no difference here between workshops and lumbermills

Environmentalism is much later in the game and it's value is questionable at best, if you do have outrageously high food you probably have some nice river systems....

There's no such thing as 'outrageously high food'. There's not even such a thing as 'enough food'. The only time you can have enough food is when you have happiness problems. So solve those



But, I guess, in the end, it is all strategy dependent. I can see the advantages of the strategies you are giving. It's just that i do not play that way.

[Diadem]

Originally posted by Drachasor
What settings do you play on?

Monarch or Emperor usually.

Originally posted by AgentTBC
Diadem's strategy is workable, but I reject the idea that you can get all the wonders "with ease" while producing 2 settlers once you reach pop 5 and without chopping any forests. Especially given the recommendation to produce pyramids and THEN oracle.

That's flatly impossible in most games on Monarch level or higher. It's just impossible in most cases. The AI will usually produce the Oracle in something like 600 or 800 BC and sometimes significantly earlier if the AI finds marble right at the start.

Allright. It's flatly impossible on Monarch. However testing has shown it to be very well possible on Emperor

Believe it or not, but my strategy works.

Of course, it is map dependant. If you play tiny islands it will obviously never work. You won't have enough production in your city. You need at least a few hills to mine, some good resources (like cows!) are also nice.

And yes, I have done it without chopping down a single forests, multiple times, when there were no forests to chop. Of course if there are forests to chop outside my fat cross, I take 'em down. I'm not going to turn my back on free production. But I don't priority bronze working that highly.

[Blake]

Well they say that once you got commie you never go back, I guess you just havn't gone commie.

And I can't concieve of anything more powerful than Suffrage+State Property+Kremlin, the synergy is awesome.

And spies... wow... they are awesome. And I'm talking about information gathering, next research/progess, commerce allocations, wonder progess etc. Now Communism might be a marginal "Divine Right" tech if it only had one of Kremlin, State Property or Spies, but with the whole package it's far from marginal, and it's one of the few dead-end techs I delight in researching.

I used to be leery of Sci Method because it negates monastaries and great library, but since I've been blasting through it and to the yummy techs just beyond (like Electricity) I've been having more success and fun.

I also have the solution for buying spaceship parts, firstly rushbuy the elevator. Next pave over a couple of cities with workshops and watermills to get crazy hammer output. As always, state property has the solution .