When is a good time to build courthouses?

[uberfish]

I don't go by the numbers, but in general my good cities build courthouses late and the mediocre cities build courthouses early. My reasoning is that productivity buildings are percentage bonuses to city production and courthouses aren't. Also they're a high priority when consolidating early conquests since the economy tends to be rather fragile then.

Either way I aim to have most cities with them by the midgame before the next wave of expansion, since the amount saved per turn just goes up when I capture more cities or build resource colonies/fishing villages in marginal terrain.

[Velociryx]

Either way I aim to have most cities with them by the midgame before the next wave of expansion, since the amount saved per turn just goes up when I capture more cities or build resource colonies/fishing villages in marginal terrain.

This is my exact reasoning, also. Any time you add a new city to your roster (either by peaceful settlement or by conquest), that new city not only brings with it a maintenance cost, but it seems that the maintenance costs of some of your other cities rise as well. Which cities? I've not been able to pick up on a pattern yet. Or perhaps what I'm seeing is related to city size, and it just HAPPENS to be in tandem with the addition of a new city (but based on the stuff I've read at CivFanatics, I do not believe this to be the case). In any event, I view CH's as a measure of PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE as much as outright maintenance. If I build it before my economy is "in trouble" as it were, then I never even INCUR the higher costs, so I generally shoot for building them the moment I can save at least 1gpt by doing so, because that savings will only grow in time. It's one of those buildings I just gotta have everywhere, and due to my typical research order, I GET CH's at a time when I don't have a big roster of buildings to build, so it's usually pretty automatic to just start putting them in place (I get courthouses WAY before I get Markets, for example). I regard them as both an integral part of my overall strategy, and the perfect compliment to worker terraforming actions, aimed at improving the state of the economy in general.

-=Vel=-

[unamablebuiler]

Courthouses do one thing increase the money/commerce available to by reducing your maintence costs.

there are 4 things that can be done with this commerce

1) increase cash flow and liquidity for unit bulding and city founding

2) use the gold to trade for resources, gifts, tribute or bribes

3) Upgrading units in your army

4)increasing your science or cultral rates

often CH's come just as my econ is strained (see my thread in stratgey) and markets come about 20-30 turns later. As they are they are a must get tech. When to get it depends on circimstances. They are a saftey valve for when your econ is strained it's best to try to get it before then. It frees your civ up

[Martin the Dane]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Any time you add a new city to your roster (either by peaceful settlement or by conquest), that new city not only brings with it a maintenance cost, but it seems that the maintenance costs of some of your other cities rise as well. Which cities?

To quote the greate library:
"As you add cities to your civilization, the cost of managing EVERY city increases. Thus, as your civilization grows, adding new cities will quickly drive up your city maintenance costs. For instance, let's assume that the first city costs one gold to manage, and every new city increases the cost of managing your cities by one. So you pay one gold in management expenses when you have one city. When you build another city, you are now paying two gold PER city, so your overall costs goes up to four. Adding a third city will increase your maintenance costs to nine, and so on. (Note that these numbers are for example only; the actual formula for determining maintenance is more complex.)"

[joncnunn]

On Dirty Martini's post analysis of satelight cities Court Houses vs Libaries vs Market Places, it confirms what I had intutively felt about civ 4.

I'm never building Market Places outside my capital for cash unless it's a holy city. They are instead built for happiness reasons with the resources.

I'm also building Monstaries before Libaries unless I'm wanting a structure that needs the Libary.

[Hauptman]

Originally posted by Velociryx
As soon as I get the tech. But then, I play with BIG empires, and not nearly as interested in the hammer:coin ratio as I am in meeting the minimum requirements to lay down a forbidden palace. Even the capitol gets an early courthouse, cos that's one closer to FP, and an easy doubling of the size of my holdings.

CH's are among the best building in the game, IMO.

-=Vel=-

HARBORS!!!!!

[Willem]

Originally posted by joncnunn
I'm never building Market Places outside my capital for cash unless it's a holy city. They are instead built for happiness reasons with the resources.

I don't see why not. As long as a city is producing 4 gold, the 25% bonus is going to help you out.

I'm also building Monstaries before Libaries unless I'm wanting a structure that needs the Libary.

That doesn't make sense either. You need to be producing 10 beakers for the Monastary's 10% beaker bonus to take effect, as opposed to 4 with a Library's 25%.

BTW, can someone tell me whether these building bonuses accumulate, or are they only added to the base amount.

[Hauptman]

They combine together, then add to the base amount...

100 base commerce would be 145 beakers with a library and 2 monestaries.

25 + 10 + 10 = 45. However capital bonus adds to commerce FIRST. so in the capital it would be 100 x 50% = 150 x 45% = 217.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Hauptman
They combine together, then add to the base amount...

100 base commerce would be 145 beakers with a library and 2 monestaries.

25 + 10 + 10 = 45. However capital bonus adds to commerce FIRST. so in the capital it would be 100 x 50% = 150 x 45% = 217.

Hmm, it would be nice if there was some seperation in the beakers, coins etc. which clearly showed how much the base amount was, as opposed to showing the total amount with other buildings. It would make it easier for example to determine whether it was worthwhile building a Bank in a borderline city that already had a Market. So far I've been looking at the total, instead I should be trying to calculate the effect having the Market has and subtracting it. It's kind of an awkward way of doing things.

[Martin the Dane]

Originally posted by Willem
Hmm, it would be nice if there was some seperation in the beakers, coins etc. which clearly showed how much the base amount was, as opposed to showing the total amount with other buildings. It would make it easier for example to determine whether it was worthwhile building a Bank in a borderline city that already had a Market. So far I've been looking at the total, instead I should be trying to calculate the effect having the Market has and subtracting it. It's kind of an awkward way of doing things.

Well there is a way of getting this info, thoug I agree that the info should be available at a glance. The way to get to tye info is to hover the mouse over the relevant icon on the totals list, same with many other info details, just hover the house over a number and in a list of details will show up. Sort of stupid, when you think of all the space taken up by bars, icons, etc.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Hauptman



HARBORS!!!!!

Harbors are a bit overrated. I try to build one harbor in my capital or best coastal city ASAP. Beyond that they often wont be useful early on. You pretty much need to be trading with cities size 9+ to get benefit from harbors (otherwise it's 2 trade -> 2 trade), count up the number of foreign size 9+ cities you can trade with, divide by the number of trade routes in each of your cities and that's how many harbors you need. In most cases in the early game it'll be one or two, unless you have many open borders. (Great Lighthouse means you need less harbors, but the first one is an even better investment)

That doesn't make sense either. You need to be producing 10 beakers for the Monastary's 10% beaker bonus to take effect, as opposed to 4 with a Library's 25%.

Monastaries are cheaper, produce as much culture and allow you to train missionaries (non-org religion). It often makes sense to build them first. Not in your science cities - but in your fringe cities and such which tend to pick up odd religions and getting the +2 culture faster is a Good Thing.

edit:

I don't see why not. As long as a city is producing 4 gold, the 25% bonus is going to help you out.

This is the kind of logic that only works for "Nothing better to build". There is always oppurtunity cost. Marketplaces are crazy expensive and nothing reduces their cost, you could build (nearly) 4 missionaries for the cost of 1 market, bringing in 4 gold a turn (or lets say 3 if one fails).
Good Economic strategy basically comes down to figuring out whatever is most profitable to build, not what will merely be profitable...
Of course it becomes very complex when considering things like building an army (which drains gold) to conquer another civs holy city (which will give gold). This is why CIV is a strategy game .

[joncnunn]

New cities have rounding benifits from Monstaries and in addition can get them built much faster. Plus todays 3rd rate foreign religion might one day post Scientific Method be one of your internal religions (via conquest.)

New cities also need culture.
Multiple types of monstaries are cumulative like the other science structues.

On Harbors worth, it depends upon what your current trade routes are yielding. The more they are yielding, the more a double in value is worth it.

[Blake]

New cities have rounding benifits from Monstaries and in addition can get them built much faster. Plus todays 3rd rate foreign religion might one day post Scientific Method be one of your internal religions (via conquest.)

Not actually. Cities need 10 raw beakers to get a science bonus from Monastaries.

I don't think i've EVER trained a non-state religion missionary post-scientific method, despite often running Org.religion at that point, there are simply more profitable/essential things to build by them. I'll continue to spread my state religion if I have one, but the only reason I'd build a missionary of another religion is for the free religion bonus (and I hardly ever run FR).

[joncnunn]

Blake, my point is that you might conquer a shrine post Scientific Method and therefore it's now an internal religion to be spread to every city within your empire for the cash bonus reqardless of weather your running Free Religion or not.

[trev]

Courthouses must have a greater priority than marketplaces and libraries, rapid expansion is the key to success particularly at higher levels, with enough couthouses, instead of building 6 cities as in the example, you may be able to move to 10. Libraries will not give you that option and courthouses are considerably cheaper than marketplaces.