The 'help the dyslexic Newbie' thread

[frogbeastegg]

Well, maybe not such a newbie. I have had the game since a few days after UK release. I also played civ 2, 3, call to power 1 + 2, and AC. Badly.

I'm dyslexic; seemingly a very er, interesting dyslexic, in that I can write with very few problems, read better than most people I know, and am randomly either decent or utterly useless with numbers. Civ is a number game.

I'm frustrated. I'm fed up. I'm finding myself feeling really very stupid sometimes. Why? Because I just can't manage to understand half the concepts in this game I want to. No matter how hard I try, or how many times I read threads on them. I can't learn it all myself from my own experience; I don't have much time to play, and civ is one very big game.

I can come here and read entire strategy threads, and leave without having learned anything, because at some point or another (as they must, to prove points) the vast majority of them devolve into "If I do this I get a 3 turn advantage, which gets me 5 * 2 extra gold per turn, across five cities, for a grand total of 280 gold. This then allows me to rush Y and gets me another turn advantage, meaning the overall profit is 385. Unless I get B terrain, in which case it is more like 23 * 4, or am a P civ, with their bonus of 2." Which to me really means "Gibberish!"

I don't want to be botching my way along on noble! I don't want to be sat here half the time wondering why something is happening, or what I should be doing! I want to understand. I did best with AC because of Velo's wonderful guide. Alright, parts of it went right over my head, but it allowed me to move up several difficulty levels and stop feeling entirely clueless. That is why AC is the only game in this series I didn't drop after a couple of months of frustration.

So I'm looking for answers to questions, tips, and advice, but in a slightly different format to the usual. I want you to tell me, to describe with words, not prove with numbers. There are some things I want very simple rules of thumb for, because I can't do the calculations other players talk about. That said, as long as the numbers come in small parties and at critical points, I'm fine with them. So tell me I need X food for my city to work all its squares and that is not a problem. Tell me I need X food because it is [insert nasty formulas here, and a few examples just to demonstrate how it all works] and my eyes start spinning.

I have ... entirely too many questions. So I'll start with a few of the more pressing ones, and add others over time as existing issues feel resolved (and as I remember what exactly I wanted to ask ). Any help will be appreciated.

1. How much food does a city need to work every single tile in its radius? This one is simple. It's the number of squares times 2, I think, but I could be wrong and I can never remember how many squares there are in a radius anyway.

2. If you need 2 food per square for your city to keep on growing, how much food do you need to break even for stagnant growth, and what is the point it begins starving?

Those two I am asking because without some idea of how much food I need I can't plan my terraforming. I do what is required with my special titles, put mines on hills, cottage floodplain and most grassland, and then .... er, well sit back and wait until something goes a bit wrong and my city growth stalls. At which point I work on a city level by city level basis, adding in whatever is needed to get it to the next stage. That is inefficient in many ways, and sometimes means I have to rip up existing enhancements.

3. Why oh why oh why does the city governor keep moving my workers about when I do not give it any instructions, thus leaving it turned off? I do not want a person taken off the land and turned into a scientist specialist, or the citizen specialist who only puts out a single hammer bonus! If I wanted that, I would order it myself. No, instead I want my people working the nice land titles, such as the one with the gold mine. Another variation on this issue is the way the governor keeps shuffling about the squares being worked, so the end setting is rather at odds with what I wanted. How can I stop this? There is little point in micromanaging my cities so they are all nice if my work is undone seemingly at random towards goals I can’t see.

4. City maintenance. Oh ... God what a mess of a subject! Alright.

a) Other than building a new settler and plonking down a city, is there any way to tell how much it will cost me?

b)Is there a set scale for maintenance costs? Like the capital is free, the next 3 cost 1 gold, the next 4 increase costs to 2 gold, and so on? Or is it all one of those dynamic changy-things which depends on many factors, so I've probably no hope of ever understanding it?

I'm currently trying the 'build it and see' method, which involves expanding until I'm going bankrupt, then spending ages trying to fish myself out of the ensuing mess. I'm fond of the 'paranoid granny' method, which involves building 4 cities and that it is until much, much later, when I have cash pouring out my ears. If I get cash pouring out my ears.

c) Failing nice answers to the above, how many cities should I aim for roughly at the various points of the game? I see people talking about empires of more than 6 cities; it's rare for me to go past 5. I understand that 6 cities allows you to build 6 something-or-others, which ten allows some wonder, but there must be more to it.

d) Can anyone explain the distance factor of maintenance costs? Is it a set amount per title (like +1 per tile) or something more awkward? Er, and if it is one of those nice formula answers, can I have a small summery instead, or a general rule of thumb about how far is too far.

e) Er … at what point is it cost effective to build a courthouse? If a city costs 2 gold then the reduction will actually do something, as there seems to be no such thing as half a gold in this game. So I suppose any city costing 2 or more needs one? Or is that not so effective as it looks, for some reason I can’t see.

f) For the sake of knowing in case one day I actually get to use them, the forbidden palace and Versailles …er, how many squares away from your capital do they need to be for best effect, roughly speaking?

5. Do workers and settlers count as units for upkeep purposes, or are they ‘free’?

6. The academy you get from a scientist GP. It gives a 50% bonus. Easy. But yesterday I saw a discussion of whether more than one academy is good. It got … confusing The answer seemed to be to examine the science output of the second city, do some maths, then compare the answer to something else. That would then give a number which told you whether it was good or not. Me no follow. So, in general, broadly speaking, what is a good amount of science for a city to have before building an academy in it?

6. I could also use some general advice for the early midgame and onwards. I can do a decent start thanks to the chop strategy, but past the initial expansion and research I drift with no real idea of what to do most of the time. I don't know what techs are best for what paths, what wonders I want, or what I should be doing, except continuing to consolidate my empire. The only game where I have felt I have a strong idea of what to do was a duel map I played yesterday morning. That was simple: kill everyone :P I won that easily, on noble, with an Augustus rating, which surprised me. I'm a peaceful builder type, and hardly understand war. I think my playing as the Romans may have had much to do with it; the praetorian is so powerful.

7. An MP question here: I play direct IP connection with someone else. They host. They get their units automatically selected and cycled through each turn. I don’t. Why? I do in SP mode. This means I keep forgetting to move some units.

8. Another MP question: If I make a mod (I had a modified epic speed mode, to slow research but make units build a bit faster than normal speed) and put it in the correct custom asset folder so it loads automatically each time the game starts, will this cause trouble in MP even though I don't host?


I think that will do for now. Money, great people, civics, great people farms, specialist cities, wonders, and so on can wait for a bit.

EDIT: Oh - one last question! Aside from reaching the second culture level, is there any other way to open up the 'fat cross' for your city to work?

[Velociryx]

Hullo Beast! And I'm glad you enjoyed the SMACX guide! Yayyyy!

I'll give some of your questions a go, and do my best to avoid numbers....(I'm dyslexic too, btw....interesting!)

1. How much food does a city need to work every single tile in its radius? This one is simple. It's the number of squares times 2, I think, but I could be wrong and I can never remember how many squares there are in a radius anyway.

Gotta hit you with numbers after all. The answer to the question is 42. Generating that number of food will allow you to work all (21) tiles in the city's "fat cross."

2. If you need 2 food per square for your city to keep on growing, how much food do you need to break even for stagnant growth, and what is the point it begins starving?

The 2 food per square you mention above IS the break even point. Well....that's not quite accurate, and here's why. A size one city is really working two tiles (the city tile itself, plus one other one). So in the case of a brand new city, you've only got one population point, but are really working two tiles. If they're both generating two foods, then you are generating four, feeding two to the population, and growing by two foods a turn. You will keep that same growth rate each time the city grows, IF you make sure that every new population point also starts working a two-food tile (a farm on a plains tile, for example). Control the growth rate by controlling how much food a single tile generates

(Example (more numbers, sorry!): If you have a farmed wheat tile, it will generate six food. Your city tile is generating two. Total of eight, right? Take two off to feed the people in the city, your total growth is 6. Or, looking at it another way, this means that your city can grow three more times (from pop 1 to pop 3) EVEN IF you don't invest in any more farms at all. The next two population points can work mines (to generate pure hammers and increase your production), and you're still okay).


3. Why oh why oh why does the city governor keep moving my workers about when I do not give it any instructions, thus leaving it turned off? I do not want a person taken off the land and turned into a scientist specialist, or the citizen specialist who only puts out a single hammer bonus! If I wanted that, I would order it myself. No, instead I want my people working the nice land titles, such as the one with the gold mine. Another variation on this issue is the way the governor keeps shuffling about the squares being worked, so the end setting is rather at odds with what I wanted. How can I stop this? There is little point in micromanaging my cities so they are all nice if my work is undone seemingly at random towards goals I can’t see.

The city governor means well, but is very linearly focused. If you are a micromanager, your best bet is to relieve that drooling psychopath from duty and do it yourself. Probably what's happening is that you've got it selected to maximize hammers, and if that's the case, and you've got a lot of farms, it could be that the best case is to make a few specialists, even tho they only generate a single hammer per turn.

I've seen the governors do some pretty wonky things too, and only rarely play with them (sometimes in the early stages of a city, I'll set them to max food and grow like weeds for a while, but that's about my only use for them).

4. City maintenance. Oh ... God what a mess of a subject! Alright.

a) Other than building a new settler and plonking down a city, is there any way to tell how much it will cost me?

I am sure there's a formula at work that drives this, but I do not yet know what it is. At present, I just watch my gold per turn, and when it starts getting in the negative, I start asking myself how much more I can afford. Depending on what's happening in-game, that answer will vary, of course.

b)Is there a set scale for maintenance costs? Like the capital is free, the next 3 cost 1 gold, the next 4 increase costs to 2 gold, and so on? Or is it all one of those dynamic changy-things which depends on many factors, so I've probably no hope of ever understanding it?

I know that at least part of it is tied to difficulty level, and part of it is tied to city size (in addition to being tied to number of cities and distance from the capitol), but how it all meshes together, I'm not sure at this point. I know that it's NOT a fixed cost, but floats based on the factors above. I also know that on Prince I didn't feel the pinch (focusing heavily on gold production), until something like 18 cities, and my first 4 didn't cost me hardly anything at all. On Monarch, I only get two free cities....

c) Failing nice answers to the above, how many cities should I aim for roughly at the various points of the game? I see people talking about empires of more than 6 cities; it's rare for me to go past 5. I understand that 6 cities allows you to build 6 something-or-others, which ten allows some wonder, but there must be more to it.

No right answer here either, I'm afraid. Land is power, so I build as many cities as I can afford, and the way I play, I can afford a LOT of cities. If you like bigish empires, build TONS of cottages. After they develop, each cottage on the map produces as much as a gold mine....they're hands-down the most powerful terrain improving you can do! Any time you're running a deficit, that's your civ trying to tell you that it needs more money. And you've got a tool in-hand to do something about that. The cottage. (or, you could drop research by 10%, but if you're already running 50-60% (which is where I like to be), then that's not a good plan.

d) Can anyone explain the distance factor of maintenance costs? Is it a set amount per title (like +1 per tile) or something more awkward? Er, and if it is one of those nice formula answers, can I have a small summery instead, or a general rule of thumb about how far is too far.

I have not delved too deeply into the formula, so I don't have an answer for this one.

e) Er … at what point is it cost effective to build a courthouse? If a city costs 2 gold then the reduction will actually do something, as there seems to be no such thing as half a gold in this game. So I suppose any city costing 2 or more needs one? Or is that not so effective as it looks, for some reason I can’t see.

Go ahead and start building them in cities with 2 maintenance, and yep, it is cost effective, in that you'll recoup your investment at the rate of at least 1gpt. I say "at least" because the 2gpt maintenance cost you see when you start building the courthouse WILL GROW as the city grows. If you're at peace, build it early and nip the expenses in the bud. Of course, if you have other cities where the maintenance is higher, it makes sense to give them courthouses first/earlier, if possible, but depending on what's going on in-game, and where they are located, this may not always be a doable deal.

f) For the sake of knowing in case one day I actually get to use them, the forbidden palace and Versailles …er, how many squares away from your capital do they need to be for best effect, roughly speaking?

The rule of thumb I use is to build them at least three "layers" away from my capitol. So I've got my capitol, and then a city....and then another city, and then the FP city. I tend to build my cities 4-5 tiles apart, which would make the FP roughly 12-15 tiles from the capitol.

5. Do workers and settlers count as units for upkeep purposes, or are they ‘free’?

They count as units for upkeep purposes. Fortunately, the number of free units you get is tied to the total number of population points you have in your empire, and this will grow over time, giving you more free units before you start paying upkeep.

yesterday I saw a discussion of whether more than one academy is good. It got … confusing The answer seemed to be to examine the science output of the second city, do some maths, then compare the answer to something else. That would then give a number which told you whether it was good or not. Me no follow. So, in general, broadly speaking, what is a good amount of science for a city to have before building an academy in it?

Rule of thumb I use is that if a city has at least 20 beakers of science and is still growing (and thus, this number is likely to increase further), then I'll consider putting an academy there. Otherwise, I'm going to add him as a super specialist to the city that already has an academy.

6. I could also use some general advice for the early midgame and onwards. I can do a decent start thanks to the chop strategy, but past the initial expansion and research I drift with no real idea of what to do most of the time. I don't know what techs are best for what paths, what wonders I want, or what I should be doing, except continuing to consolidate my empire. The only game where I have felt I have a strong idea of what to do was a duel map I played yesterday morning. That was simple: kill everyone :P I won that easily, on noble, with an Augustus rating, which surprised me. I'm a peaceful builder type, and hardly understand war. I think my playing as the Romans may have had much to do with it; the praetorian is so powerful.

This one is a really open-ended question. Too many possibilities to give you a decent answer, so I'll just describe what I do and you can see if you like it....

After demolishing the ancient age (also with chop), I head up the literature/music path of the tree, cos I want the great library in my capitol (where I recently built an academy ). That's gonna give me two free scientist specialists, and of course, this rocks.

I also want to be the first person to Music, so I get a free Great Artist. I usually hold onto this guy for quite some time, because having him available gives me options. If I get into a war, I can use him to quickly establish a new perimeter (and combat the heavy cultural influence in captured territory), OR I can use him to bomb cheese cities off my land (you know how sometimes the AI will sneak onto "your" territory and plant a sleezy city or two? Yeah, well I freakin' HATE that...good use for the artist for me then, is to have him bomb them right into my hands. Free city or two, no more border shenanigans. I like it!

Once I've done the music gig, then it's straight to Liberalism.....why? FREE TECH! (and more research boosters). I take nationalism as the freebie tech, not only because it's the most expensive one on the pick-list, but also because I like the civic....free troops each turn? Hell yeah!

My next stops on the tech tree are: Gunpowder, Military Tradition, and then Replaceable Parts (for Lumber Mills), and Railroad.

That's usually enough to win the game, and if not, Communism gets squeezed in there somewhere for the Kremlin, and then it's really over.


7. An MP question here: I play direct IP connection with someone else. They host. They get their units automatically selected and cycled through each turn. I don’t. Why? I do in SP mode. This means I keep forgetting to move some units.


I play Civ with my wife on our network at the house, and see the same thing sometimes. I think it's just lag. If I hit "W" (wait), it'll somehow shake it off, and start giving me my next unit again. Not sure why it does that tho.

8. Another MP question: If I make a mod (I had a modified epic speed mode, to slow research but make units build a bit faster than normal speed) and put it in the correct custom asset folder so it loads automatically each time the game starts, will this cause trouble in MP even though I don't host?

Haven't messed with mods yet...not sure about this one!

EDIT: Oh - one last question! Aside from reaching the second culture level, is there any other way to open up the 'fat cross' for your city to work?

Nope, but there are a variety of ways to go about doing this (creative trait, rush build a cultural improvement, get caste system and "force" an artist). But the borders must expand before you can work the tiles.

-=Vel=-

[Quillan]

Well, I had a nice long reply ready to go, but I updated the thread and see Velo covered pretty much all of it, so I'm not going to be redundant. By the way, are you the same Frogbeastegg who did the various guides over on the totalwar.org forums? Welcome to the forums.

[Blake]

The govoners work fine.

If you want them to act as normal, but (almost) never create specialists, just assign to Maximize Food, Hammers & Commerce.

They will still create specialists if there is nothing better to work (ie engineer vs unmined desert hill), but otherwise they assign workers.

Distance Upkeep:
State Property completely eliminates it, that's all I need to know .

And if you do go commie to solve your upkeep problems it's worth noting that Forbidden Palace no longer serves any purpose, if you beeline to Communism (which is now my standard strategy) you don't even need to build the Forbidden Palace.

[Krill]

1. How much food does a city need to work every single tile in its radius? This one is simple. It's the number of squares times 2, I think, but I could be wrong and I can never remember how many squares there are in a radius anyway.

Acutally, Vel is wrong here. The city square gives 2 food, and does not require a labourer to work the tile. Hence there are 20 tiles that can be worked by labourers, ergo you need 40 food to feed all of the population and work all 21 of the tiles within the fat cross.

So the Ultimate is not 42. Adams got it wrong

[Kaze2564]

Those 2 extra food are to bribe people like you to keep your mouth shut about the number actually being 40. It is a weird case though. The number 42 exists only to protect itself by having the 2 extra unessacary yet much needed food.

[Calvin Vu]

Originally posted by Velociryx
yesterday I saw a discussion of whether more than one academy is good. It got … confusing The answer seemed to be to examine the science output of the second city, do some maths, then compare the answer to something else. That would then give a number which told you whether it was good or not. Me no follow. So, in general, broadly speaking, what is a good amount of science for a city to have before building an academy in it?

Rule of thumb I use is that if a city has at least 20 beakers of science and is still growing (and thus, this number is likely to increase further), then I'll consider putting an academy there. Otherwise, I'm going to add him as a super specialist to the city that already has an academy.
-=Vel=-

My rule of thumb is much higher, more like 40 base beakers before I consider adding an academy in another city. Jowever, I'm too lazy to calculate the base beakers so I just look at the current beakers (after all improvements) and only consider adding an academy if the city produces at least 80 beakers .

You can compare by drawing two charts for the benefits of the two approaches. The chart for the SS approach looks rather like a staircase, starting at 6 beakers (or 9 with Representation), and goes up every time a research improvement is added (Library, University, Observatory, Lab). It maxes out after all the research improvements have been added (the best I get with adding a SS to a city is around 40 beakers). The academy approach is a relatively smooth line which increases with the city population and the gold increases for your cottages. It starts out at zero (with a theoretical city of size 0) and its slope depends on the rate of growth of the city and the number of cottages being worked on (ignoring special resources). It stops increasing when you have worked all the squares and all your cottages have turned into towns. I don't know what the max benefit for this is but I have never been able to get much more than 30 by adding an academy, even to a city which is already producing 140+ beakers (after all improvements and existing specialists, not base research gold.).

If you overlay the two charts on each other, at some point the "academy benefit" chart will beat the "SS benefit" chart so your decision will depend on the time period.

It's also easier to compare if you use a discounted future. Let's say you are considering what to do with the 2nd GS. If you use him as an academy now and use the 3rd GS (when you get him) as a SS then, after getting the 3rd scientist, that will be the same as using him as a SS now and use the 3rd GS as an academy. With this comparison then you can discount everything that may happen after getting 3rd GS when you are deciding what to do with the 2nd GS.

If you draw some vertical lines for the average years when you expect to get the GS's into the overlay chart which compare the two approaches above then you can get a pretty clear picture about which approach is better at certain period of time for a particular scientist.

I really doubt that adding an academy can beat adding a SS until some time after getting Astronomy (and adding an observatory to the first city).

[xxFlukexx]

Huh, Calvin Vu? I don't get it, it's not that hard. A Great Scientist super specialist gives +6 science. The choice is to either: build academy #2 or put him in your city with a library+academy. If you settle him in the city with the academy+library, he will get you 10.5 rounded down to 10 science. Making academy #2 will be better if you have a city with 20 base beakers as that will get you 10 science and whenever that city grows with more base beakers the academy will be even better. Observatories and laboratories come so late in the game any increased benefit on specialists is not noticeable(only 1.5 science)

I don't think you should give people advice when you don't even know what you are doing. We don't need any charts or weird graphs that don't accurately reflect normal gameplay. Simple rule should be that an academy is better than a super specialist if you have 20 base beakers in a city.

However, instant technology vs an academy, that's a differet story, much harder to quantify that.

[Calvin Vu]

Originally posted by xxFlukexx
Huh, Calvin Vu? I don't get it, it's not that hard. A Great Scientist super specialist gives +6 science. The choice is to either: build academy #2 or put him in your city with a library+academy. If you settle him in the city with the academy+library, he will get you 10.5 rounded down to 10 science. Making academy #2 will be better if you have a city with 20 base beakers as that will get you 10 science and whenever that city grows with more base beakers the academy will be even better. Observatories and laboratories come so late in the game any increased benefit on specialists is not noticeable(only 1.5 science)

I don't think you should give people advice when you don't even know what you are doing. We don't need any charts or weird graphs that don't accurately reflect normal gameplay. Simple rule should be that an academy is better than a super specialist if you have 20 base beakers in a city.

You don't ever use Representation ? Odd !! That's what I use for most of the game, at least for most of the critical periods. Maybe I will figure out how to load a saved game sometimes so you can see for yourself how much you can get by adding a SS. It's definitely not 12 beakers max after all improvements have been added.

You also forgot the extra hammer from the SS, BTW .

[MadDjinn]

Originally posted by Krill

1. How much food does a city need to work every single tile in its radius? This one is simple. It's the number of squares times 2, I think, but I could be wrong and I can never remember how many squares there are in a radius anyway.

Acutally, Vel is wrong here. The city square gives 2 food, and does not require a labourer to work the tile. Hence there are 20 tiles that can be worked by labourers, ergo you need 40 food to feed all of the population and work all 21 of the tiles within the fat cross.

So the Ultimate is not 42. Adams got it wrong

if all the tiles are getting worked, who's minding the shop? the extra 2 food pays for that

but... yeah, *if* you have no specialists, then you need less food... I think...

[xxFlukexx]

*Sigh*
I went over representation in another thread. 1st representation comes late unless you grab the pyramids(hard to do on high difficulties without stone) 2nd, the +1 hammer is pretty trivial, especially when talking about science output, academy gets +4 culture which is also pretty trivial and rarely mentioned.

Still Representation is a temporary bonus that you might not use very much. Still a settled scientist under representation will generate 15.75 rounded up to 16 science with a library and an academy so if you have a second city with 30 base base beakers it is better for an academy, otherwise, settling is the way to go.
I don't usually add in stuff with representation because it should be very obvious that if you like representation you should settle a lot of your great people, that should go without saying, but oh well I'll say it if you want to hear it.

By the time you get observatories and laboratories up, a settled great scientist will net you 9*1.75(obs+lib+lab) = 15.75 = ~ 16 science. With an academy you will get 21 science. Not much when techs of that era cost over 4000 beakers. By that time it is much better to use the instant tech ability and gain around 1600 beakers instantly(normal speed)

[frogbeastegg]

Yes, I’m that frogbeastegg. I have the worn out typing fingers to prove it.

Thanks, all, for the welcome.

Velo: I didn’t just enjoy your guide – it saved the game from being dumped on the pile with the others in the series after a couple of months of frustrated play.





I shall answer from top to bottom, but where relevant bring up things from later posts early.

Gotta hit you with numbers after all. The answer to the question is 42. Generating that number of food will allow you to work all (21) tiles in the city's "fat cross."

Contained numbers like that are no problem

From Krill: Acutally, Vel is wrong here. The city square gives 2 food, and does not require a labourer to work the tile. Hence there are 20 tiles that can be worked by labourers, ergo you need 40 food to feed all of the population and work all 21 of the tiles within the fat cross.

There seems to be a general agreement that this is correct? So it is definitely 40, or do we now need to go off and be complicated?

The 2 food per square you mention above IS the break even point.

Yes. Obvious, when you think of it. I forgot the city square is worked and for ‘free’. Oops.

(Example (more numbers, sorry!): If you have a farmed wheat tile, it will generate six food. Your city tile is generating two. Total of eight, right? Take two off to feed the people in the city, your total growth is 6. Or, looking at it another way, this means that your city can grow three more times (from pop 1 to pop 3) EVEN IF you don't invest in any more farms at all. The next two population points can work mines (to generate pure hammers and increase your production), and you're still okay).

I think I get that. Or at least, deep down and in principle I do, even if I had to read this bit a few times to grasp it. Nice to know I’d spotted this for myself; I just wasn’t able to apply it on a basis beyond a handful of tiles at once. Now I can, because I know the overall food target. Thanks.

The city governor means well, but is very linearly focused. If you are a micromanager, your best bet is to relieve that drooling psychopath from duty and do it yourself. Probably what's happening is that you've got it selected to maximize hammers, and if that's the case, and you've got a lot of farms, it could be that the best case is to make a few specialists, even tho they only generate a single hammer per turn.

That would make sense, but I have never, not once, in any game at all, touched the governor settings. I’ve pop rushed, and gold rushed, but that is all for the buttons in those boxes. It’s why I don’t understand why the drooling psycho keeps on interfering. Unless the governor starts the game defaulted to on, and the button does not light up or otherwise look different from all the others ….

Hehe, my problem is usually not enough farms and too many cottages.

From Blake: If you want them to act as normal, but (almost) never create specialists, just assign to Maximize Food, Hammers & Commerce.
I might try that, to see if it stops the irritation. Thanks.

I am sure there's a formula at work that drives this, but I do not yet know what it is. At present, I just watch my gold per turn, and when it starts getting in the negative, I start asking myself how much more I can afford.
Well, in that case I shall keep with my existing strategy, and try for fewer “D’oh!” moments as I place once city and suddenly discover my treasury has gone from +1 to –5.

From Blake: State Property completely eliminates it, that's all I need to know
I seldom get so far into the game, having either won before the renaissance (duel maps) or having built an empire I hate, lost direction, obviously lost and can never catch up at all, (or all three!) and decided my time is better spend starting again and avoiding the mistakes I noticed. I get a bit further with each attempt, and my position on entering the troublesome mid-game is better each time.

Lol, I do find that a very large part of my inability to stick things past the renaissance comes from the fact I like ancient and medieval history, not more modern stuff, so at this point the game setting loses all my interest. It gets hard to play, even in those games where I’m clearly winning and will keep on dominating (er, that would be me on an easy difficulty level, just before I decide to move up one). The same applied to all the other civ games.

Go ahead and start building them in cities with 2 maintenance, and yep, it is cost effective, in that you'll recoup your investment at the rate of at least 1gpt. I say "at least" because the 2gpt maintenance cost you see when you start building the courthouse WILL GROW as the city grows.
Maintenance costs grow; I knew that. Honest! :tries to look believable: I just have absolutely no idea at all how, when, why, or by how much (although I suppose 1 gold is about the norm). Which makes a new question, if anyone knows the answer.

The rule of thumb I use is to build them at least three "layers" away from my capitol. So I've got my capitol, and then a city....and then another city, and then the FP city. I tend to build my cities 4-5 tiles apart, which would make the FP roughly 12-15 tiles from the capitol.
Very helpful; thanks.

They count as units for upkeep purposes. Fortunately, the number of free units you get is tied to the total number of population points you have in your empire, and this will grow over time, giving you more free units before you start paying upkeep.
Thought so. Nice to have that confirmed, and thus concrete.

Rule of thumb I use is that if a city has at least 20 beakers of science and is still growing (and thus, this number is likely to increase further), then I'll consider putting an academy there. Otherwise, I'm going to add him as a super specialist to the city that already has an academy.

:broad grin: Excellent! That is memorable, simple, and workable.

[iMid-game[/I]
Hmmm, thanks. Certainly something to try out, and better than wandering aimlessly in every respect.

You aim for conquest or domination victories with this, I take it?

I play Civ with my wife on our network at the house, and see the same thing sometimes. I think it's just lag. If I hit "W" (wait), it'll somehow shake it off, and start giving me my next unit again. Not sure why it does that tho.
I’ll try that; thanks.

Nope, but there are a variety of ways to go about doing this (creative trait, rush build a cultural improvement, get caste system and "force" an artist). But the borders must expand before you can work the tiles.
As I expected. I wanted to be sure I had missed nothing.

The great SS/academy debate
You’ve lost me

Can someone put the bit about representation in plain English, please? I have seen so many discussions about this civic, and tactics involving it, and not understood a one of them sufficiently.


Now, time for a few more questions.

-Can someone do a ‘Great People farming for dummies’ type explanation of the subject, please? I think I have the basic idea, but … er, well let’s say I feel I don’t quite have it fully grasped. Because usually the discussions about it degenerate into formulas about this, that and the other.

I just started to toy with this yesterday in a game. I managed to generate some GP fairly decently, of the right type and at good times, which is far better than the lottery approach I had before (I didn’t try; I wanted to get other aspects pinned down first). But still … specialists do not feel like much of a bonus to my city.

Which leads to number 2:
-Can anyone provide a ‘specialists for dummies’ guide? I don’t really see why these people are so desirable, except the GPP they generate. 3 beakers, 2 hammers, 3 gold, whatever – it does not feel like much, unless the land about the city is bad, in which case specialists probably cannot be supported. Worse, they take up food and stop my city from growing, or slow growth. If I have the food bonuses to support specialists then often I can rake in the cash (and thus research or gold) better by growing the city, working the land and covering it in cottages.

There has to be more to specialists than generating GP.

[Quillan]

Sorry to bring up numbers, but it's a case of multipliers, usually. The specialist by itself doesn't really give you a huge benefit, aside from the great person points. But, whatever they do give in the way of hammers/gold/research/culture is modified up by all the buildings in the city that affect that particular area. Let's say you have Ankor Wat, which makes priest specialists generate an extra hammer. An engineer specialist or a priest specialist would generate 2 hammers. Not much, right? But if the city has a forge, a factory, and power, all those bonuses affect the bonus hammers provided by those specialists. So do the national wonders like Iron Works, Wall Street, Hermitage, and Oxford University. If you plop a great scientist down as a super science specialist in a city that has a library, university, academy, observatory and Wall Street in it, you're going to get a LOT more than 3 beakers a turn out of him.

[frogbeastegg]

Makes sense, Quillan. Except ordinary tiles get those same bonuses. So the advantage works out the same, I think. 50% of 2 hammers is always the same, regardless of the source of hammers. The difference to me seems to be in the other things you get with those 2 hammers (GPP, food, gold), or in any bonuses which apply to specialists only (like the representation +3 beakers). So I still don't really see the point, except for generating GPP.

Super specialists are another matter - I love them. Unless a GP has a clear use, like founding the religious centre, I superspecialist them. :cough: But a good chunk of that attraction comes from the fact they do not take away a point of working population, and that their bonuses are much larger.

[Quillan]

Well, the primary use of the pure specialists would be to generate great person points, and to try to influence what type of great person is produced. But, say you have a city that is hacked out of jungle, so the entire city radius is grassland. That city will have a whopping production of 1 hammer, until you can build workshops on the grassland or watermills if you happen to have a river running through the radius. If you don't have the tech to build those, then you get basically no production out of the city. But, if you have a temple, you can make a priest which will give you 1 hammer. An engineer will give you two. In other citys, once you've used up your hills, about all that is left is tiles that generate food. You can use some of the population as specialists to generate hammers instead of just growing more food. If you need to generate culture NOW, you can make an artist. If you're running Representation, you'll get a little bonus research for every specialist.