Organized better than Financial?

[couerdelion]

Finally did the numbers on that game I’m playing. The logic I am applying is to target a certain gold level with my financial civ. I then “convert” it to organised and calculated the science rate which would give the same gold. Comparison is then made in the total beakers.

For each city I will give the total beaker/gold figures for fin v org at the 100% science and 0% science levels. Numbers in brackets are the tiles worked which generate +1 gold for the financial civ.

City (No of 2 commerce tiles) - Beakers/gold at 100% science for fin v beakers/gold at 100% science for org

Beijing (4) – 135/0 v 124/0
Shanghai (5) – 25/0 v 19/0
Guangzhou (3) – 52/0 v 47/0
Philadelphia (2) – 16/0 v 13/0
Boston (2) – 15/0 v 13/0
New York (0) – 5/0 v 5/0
Mycenian (?) – 12/0 v 12/0

Total at 100% science is (Fin) 260b + 0g v (Org) 233b + 0g

Now at 0% science

Beijing - 22/61 v 22/55
Shanghai – 0/20 v 0/15
Guangzhou – 21/18 v 21/15
Philly – 0/13 v 0/11
Boston – 0/15 v 0/13
New York - 0/5 v 0/5
Mycenian - 0/12 v 0/12

Total at 0% science is (Fin) 43b + 144g v (Org) 43b + 126g

Note: I am sure I missed at least one Mycenian tile so have overestimated the gold/beakers of that city under Org by 1 gold/beaker.

The final piece of information then is the total expense of 50 of which civic upkeep cost which is 17 (Fin). I will assume this falls to 8 under Org and treat the rounding effect as the allowance for inflation (which was small).

One more thing. Under financial, I will assume I run at 60% science rate. I can calculated my science and gold by interpolating between the 100% and 0% science rates to give

Science: 173 beakers
Gold: 58 gold
Net Surplus: 58 gold – 50 costs = 8 gold.

Switching to organised, expense fall by 9 gold to 41g. It just happens that, if we select a 60% science rate we get

Science: 157 beakers
Gold: 50 gold
Net Surplus: 50 gold – 41 gold = 9 gold.

So simply looking at beakers and gold the effect of financial is +16 beakers and –1 gold. I can even correct for my error above wrt Mycenian to cancel that gold difference and so it appears that my Financial trait is giving me around +10% greater science investment.

Finally I need to look at the extra production I would have gained if I had the Organised trait. In these cities I have built 3 lighthouses, 3 courthouses and have 96 hammers invested in current builds in two other cities. Org would have given me +45 hammers for each lighthouse and +90 hammers for the courthouses(Epic speed). So with the Organised trait I would be +491 hammers.

Now this sounds a lot but is really only the equivalent of five granaries, four harbours or three libraries. I would be surprised if this would make up the beaker shortfall that the analysis suggests.

Conclusion for this game is that Financial traits is currently outperforming the “Organised-equivalent” trait.
And I'm quite happy because I have that trait

[Shaka II]

Nice work! It looks correct as far as I can tell. I think the heading for the two columns should be Financial and non-Financial, instead of Financial and Organized, right?

Also, there appears to be 43 beakers coming from specialists in Beijing and Guangzhou of scientists from GL? These are really an offset, so should probably be subtracted from the totals, but I don't think it changes much, except the relative percentage gains.

In determining the civic effect of organized, I wouldn't truncate until after the effect of inflation is consider, though it may be rather low still (750AD?), probably around 20%. But inflation should be considered. So, the reduction in civic costs would be 8.5 gold times (1 + inflation rate). So, about 1.7 gold for inflation. Call it 10 total, which is still quite a bit less than the 18 gold savings (144 gold - 126 gold) at 0% science. You don't seem to have any financial multipliers yet, but do have libraries. I suspect inflation tracks these multipliers in some way, so it might be pretty small. Either that or they track population.

I would expect financial to do better on a coastal map as you have, but I think having only 7 cities isn't enough to show the benefits of the organized trait. I'm not sure what effects on civic costs there are due to the number of cities, perhaps it tracks total population?

As far as weighing the cost savings of courthouses and to a lesser extent lighthouses, I suppose one could consider the case where each city builds a courthouse and half of the cities build a lighthouse on a coastal map. This results in an average savings (on normal speed) of 60 + (0.5*30) = 75 hammers per city. This represents the equivalent of 1.25 free granaries per city or 0.83 free libraries per city. In the early game, these are large benefits, as it takes many turns to make these buildings.

Alternatively, one can compare the organized benefit by the effect of only being able to build half as many courthouses and lighthouses. Certainly we can't overlook the need for libraries, while we're building courthouses, so this might be more realistic. The non-organized civ will most likely build fewer courthouses. So look at total costs for this case and see how much maintenance cost there is (having 3 courthouses) and how much the maintenance cost would be if you had all 7 courthouses. Add the savings onto the 10 gold that the civic cost reduction yields, and it should be much closer to the 18 savings of being financial. The larger your empire and the greater the number of cities, the larger this effect becomes because of the distance effect.

I would say if you never get many more than 7 cities, financial is probably going to look much better than organized, and you made a good choice. If you have over 20 cities on a standard map, organized will look much better. For me Mao is the better Chinese leader, for you, Qin is the better leader.

[Aeson]

You have to include difficulty played for a comparison to really make any sense. Civic Upkeep costs scale by difficulty.

[Shaka II]

I forgot about the difficulty factor. I've been playing on emperor, and I think Coerdelion usually does too.

Regarding the courthouse effect and maintenance costs, they're steep functions of distance and number of cities, so for the expansive case, with many more courthouses, the savings add up. Granted, many captured cities retain their courthouses. So we can't quite assume a 1:0.5 ratio, but a 1:0.75 ratio of courthouses for the organized civ vs. courthouses for the nonorganized civ might be a realistic ratio. When I'm back in my civ environment, I'll try this ratio on an a expansive example or two to see what that cost benefit is. And then there are banks, and lighthouses, which I'll call about even for the coastal map.

It's good that Coerdelion has presented a strong case for financial, since I don't have any games like that. But it would also be interesting to see how his game changes as it progresses.

Both traits seem to have playing styles that allow maximizing their benefits. Organized is stronger for expansive empires, while financial probably wins for smaller empires (builders) with more developed cities, and extending into the modern era, where the value of cheap banks can be felt.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Shaka II
Nice work! It looks correct as far as I can tell. I think the heading for the two columns should be Financial and non-Financial, instead of Financial and Organized, right?[

Correct, although since we are comparing one versus the other, the implicit assumption is Org = Non-Fin

Also, there appears to be 43 beakers coming from specialists in Beijing and Guangzhou of scientists from GL? These are really an offset, so should probably be subtracted from the totals, but I don't think it changes much, except the relative percentage gains.

Pyramids and Great Library so I'm running Pacifism and Representation which make GP farms tidy little science generators in the early game. Can't quite work out how it I managed to get 43 though.

As it happens the analysis effectively offsets these since they produce the science whatever the traits/slider rate.

In determining the civic effect of organized, I wouldn't truncate until after the effect of inflation is consider

At this stage inflation was low and most of the inflation costs were from the unit costs of running pacifism

You don't seem to have any financial multipliers yet, but do have libraries. I suspect inflation tracks these multipliers in some way, so it might be pretty small. Either that or they track population.

Financial multipliers start arriving later with the cheap banks.

I would expect financial to do better on a coastal map as you have, but I think having only 7 cities isn't enough to show the benefits of the organized trait. I'm not sure what effects on civic costs there are due to the number of cities, perhaps it tracks total population?

Later in the game I had 13 cities and some quite well developed ones. I could look at this to see the effect

Alternatively, one can compare the organized benefit by the effect of only being able to build half as many courthouses and lighthouses. Certainly we can't overlook the need for libraries, while we're building courthouses, so this might be more realistic. The non-organized civ will most likely build fewer courthouses. So look at total costs for this case and see how much maintenance cost there is (having 3 courthouses) and how much the maintenance cost would be if you had all 7 courthouses. Add the savings onto the 10 gold that the civic cost reduction yields, and it should be much closer to the 18 savings of being financial. The larger your empire and the greater the number of cities, the larger this effect becomes because of the distance effect.

Hammers was the easiest measure I could think of. This is a difficult issue since the question really is dependent on the situation and the various "investment options" open to each city. Organised makes the investment return on courthouses higher so pushes them up the build order. Not only do they get built sooner because they are cheaper but they also get sooner because they pay-off more quickly. A non-org civ might prefer to build a granary, library or some other building ahead of a courthouse. It is conceivable that org will almost have a permanent cost saving from city maintenance relating to the effect that some cities would have courthouses in org but not in non-org. This short of analysis was too much to figure out so I fell back on simple hammers.

[Shaka II]

Thanks for the reasoned analysis, and of a good case for financial, since I was showing good case(s) for organized. Was this on emperor or monarch?

I'm sure Firaxis and play testers went through the numbers many times before settling on trait benefits. But it's still fun to try to figure out the relationships, which is better, under what conditions, what leader, map, etc. For the player who is torn between these traits, they'll just have to play as Washington.

Another component to the courthouse savings for the organized player, in addition to the 60 hammers on normal speed, is the maintenance cost savings for the additional turns that would have occurred to produce 60 hammers. This can add up if it's an outlying city, which in extreme cases can add the equivalent of 90 gold or 30 hammers onto the savings, but usually it's more like 30 gold or 10 hammers.

In general, I take care of the outer cities first. I scroll through the city screens to check these costs and the big hitters get courthouses, while the core cities hold off for the more important buildings, or units. When there's a lull in building activity, I'll put them in my core too, partly in preparation for the time when I'll need to build the FP, which comes suddenly in conquest type games, when expansion costs suddenly go through the roof, and having the six courthouses already built allows the FP to go up quickly. Maybe my next stop will be Versailles.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by Shaka II For the player who is torn between these traits, they'll just have to play as Washington.

Very American: "The War Between the Traits"

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Shaka II
Thanks for the reasoned analysis, and of a good case for financial, since I was showing good case(s) for organized. Was this on emperor or monarch?

The game was Emperor/Epic/Huge/Continents

One thing I would suggest is that the benefit gained from having courthouses earlier is the same as the hammer benefit from making them cheaper. It's just that the gold benefit is a pure output variable while the hammers are "interim" output. Of course, an earlier courthouse may also mean an earlier granary/library/etc but even these are interim outputs. If we value the cost saving from a courthouse, we should also be valuing the gain from more rapid growth, extra science.

The hammers while being a bonus are a means to an end and not a pure profit alone.

[Blake]

One thing is that Financial is nearly completely settings non-dependent.

There are 3 factors that IMO make organized stronger:
1) Difficulty Level.
2) Less crowded. The more cities you can found, the more upkeep ramps up.
3) Smaller maps. On smaller maps, upkeeps ramp up much faster. (this is mainly cheap courthouse benefit, rather than civic)

I believe that 1 and 2 will be fairly intuitive to most people, but 3 is fairly uninitutive. Organized is best with a relatively larger empire - the more of the map your empire covers, the more organized helps.

[LzPrst]

oy veh! I have only one comment though. 30 cities!??!?

are you crazy? I like to keep my civs even on large maps at 10-12 cities. of course I hardly ever try to take over the world in that manner (just take valuable colonies like european colonial powers )

of course with lots of conquering\a large empire, organized is probably better. for a small compact civ financial is definatively da roxxor

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Blake
One thing is that Financial is nearly completely settings non-dependent.

There are 3 factors that IMO make organized stronger:
1) Difficulty Level.
2) Less crowded. The more cities you can found, the more upkeep ramps up.
3) Smaller maps. On smaller maps, upkeeps ramp up much faster. (this is mainly cheap courthouse benefit, rather than civic)

I believe that 1 and 2 will be fairly intuitive to most people, but 3 is fairly uninitutive. Organized is best with a relatively larger empire - the more of the map your empire covers, the more organized helps.

For the benefit of newcomers (not you Blake), the difference between upkeep and maintenance terms: Civic upkeep is 1/2 for organized trait, and courthouses reduce city maintenance by 1/2, being produced twice as quickly by the organized trait.

I'm not sure how civic cost is calculated, but it appears to track overall population, and probably inflation too, which adds to that cost savings.

I know empirically that maintenance distance cost is a function of both city population size and city distance, which makes sense. Added to this, is the number of cities cost, which appears to be independent of population.

Regarding 2) and 3) above, can't it be stated that civic cost and inflation are a function of total population, while city maintenance cost is a function of city population, the city distance (from palace, FP, and Versailles), and the number of cities? The number of cities and distance should be proportional to the map size, otherwise organized would be better on a particular map size. I've only tried a huge highlands once, but I think it's all ratiometric.

Originally posted by LzPrst
oy veh! I have only one comment though. 30 cities!??!?

are you crazy? I like to keep my civs even on large maps at 10-12 cities. of course I hardly ever try to take over the world in that manner (just take valuable colonies like european colonial powers )

of course with lots of conquering\a large empire, organized is probably better. for a small compact civ financial is definatively da roxxor

I agree, organized is better for the sprawling civ that eventually spans most of the known world. The maintenance costs are a function of the number of cites and the distance from the nearest palace, forbidden palace, or Versailles. So, if you can build the FP and capture Versailles, you've got it made. But the cheap courthouses allow the steady progress of expansion usually by pop rushing courthouses after theaters into captured cities to cut the costs.

Non-organized civs have twice the expense for courthouses, so it's often too large a population cost, of course one could go the Universal Suffrage route and buy rush them, but then you can't have Police State. 30 cities plus a few is what you need for domination on a standard pangea map. 10 to 12 cites is not a strong case for organized, since organized savings are proportional to population and size of the empire. The bigger the better, that's why it seems the better choice for domination.

Financial would also seem to be good with a fairly large civ, since the benefit of extra commerce generated increases proportionately with empire size (more cities) and population size (more tiles generating extra commerce). But it doesn't do well with stunted, captured cities on the perimeter, starved down by culture border shrinkage. It's typical that you have ten of these on the outskirts of your civ in a domination game. So, it's typical that you have 15 strong, well developed cities, and 15 undeveloped cities. Financial should have all well developed cities with lot's of extra commerce generating tiles per city.

So, it's not that clear, which is better for a particular condition (they're both strong traits financially), but I think organized wins for the domination player, due to the cheap building of courthouses in captured cities, that courthouses are amortized and more useful in a shorter, domination type game, while banks must be amortized by playing into the modern era. So, the extra tile commerce may balance out the civic cost reduction, but the courthouse (together with lighthouses) win against banks in the shorter domination game. Banks may cancel out the organized benefit in the longer game.

BTW, In real life, I'm really not that dominant. Care for some salad, I made it myself?

[fed1943]

Now I see the question:the new conquered cities.
I play usually creative,so the tiles of said cities come quick to play,"enhancing" finantial.
About civic cost there is a formula in the Fanatics site;it's heavy mathematic(for me)but it seems the cost comes from the chosen civics,population and cities.
Best regards,

[Shaka II]

Thanks fed1943. I found some very good work over there, probably the thread you saw. To demystify the maintenance costs, I'll post this estimate of the formula for distance maintenance and number of city maintenance cost derived by Krikkitone. I think it's V1.52, but not sure. The main thing is to understand the variables and roughly their effect. I presume size is in to keep things proportional, not to imply that one can do better on a certain map size. The main thing to keep in mind is that it's a linear function of distance and population, and also increases with difficulty level (as Aeson mentions). Excerpts from Krikkitone's post:

Distance Maintenance
[Difficulty % * Size % * Distance * (Pop+7?) / ((Grid Width+Grid Height/2))]

Difficulty % are
45 (Settler)
55
65
75 (Noble)
85
90
95
100
100 (Deity)

Size % are
50 (duel)
60
70
80 (Standard)
90
100 (huge)

The Heights : Widths are
10:6 (Duel)
13:8
16:10
21:13 (standard)
26:16
32:20 (Huge)

Number of City Maintenance
[Difficulty% * Size % * Number of cities + (This city-1)/Number of cities]

For city number maintenance
Difficulty%
40 (Settler)
50
60
70 (Noble)
80
85
90
95
100 (Deity)

Size %
45 (Duel)
40
35
30 (Standard)
25
20 (Huge)

- Krikkitone

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=138473&page=4

But this was the post that captured the essence of the maintenance problem facing the expansionist.

Test 4 Conclusion:
- It seems that the distance cost goes up with size and distance, and that a combination of size and distance makes the cost go up faster. Not surprising really, but it suggests a large empire will get exponentially more expensive, and it also explains why capturing a distant enemy capital early on can be so crippling to one's economy for a while (actually, twice now I have found that early capture of an enemy capital has ruined my economy so much that I could not win the game). - Yehbo

The expansionist's lament. My exact feelings after walking into Paris. But capturing the Pyramids made it all worth it.