GPP City Specialization Strategies

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Originally posted by PaganPaulwhisky


Sure it does. If I have three religions in a city, then I build three temples and pop three priest specialists in my city. This gives me three priest sources and makes it extremely easy to produce that type of GP. For this reason I think they are less dependent on wonders as opposed to GE which almost require the pyramids. Of course Ankhor Wat is awesome for pumping out GP and some of the early wonders definitely help, but for the most part I rely on lots of temples to produce my GP.

Ok, I gotcha. But I wanted to make sure that nobody was under the mistaken impression that having religions or founding multiple religions is a direct source of GPPs.

You still must build the corresponding building, wonder, or add specialists in order to get the GPP.

You can found every religion possible, but if you don't build temples AND assign priest specialists, you won't produce a single Prophet.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: GPP City Specialization Strategies

Originally posted by Generaldoktor


Bottom line, I'm learning the basics of how to pop GP's, that are mostly my choice; which I could never figure out before. I'm also having a heck of a good time .

Excellent! That was my hope, to gain a better understand for myself and others as we try different techniques in order to get more of the 'rarer' GP and get only the ones we want.

The next step is to master a 'use' order for the GP. Do I use that GE to pop Machinery? Or do I hold onto him until I get Literature to rush the GL? Also.. How possible is it to get three cities out early enough so that you can actually build the Parthenon? Is it worth it, or should you just skip the Parthenon because you don't want it polluting your GS or GE cities?

..still working on those. As well as other questions such as what to do with the 'flood' of GS that you get with the GL and some Scientist specialists.

Well, RLM, you started this thread and seemed for awhile to like GPP specialization. In the last post you seem to dis it. I'm confused.

No.. no, not dissing it at all. I still like it and think when improved upon (as I mentioned above) and more hammered out.. especially as to what techs you want to discover in what order with the GS and GEs, it will be nice and powerful.

I was just pointing out in previous message that there is a down side to doing this.. just like every strategy. The downside to this can be rather costly.. happiness and economy both suffer. But, like I said, I think by mid-game as soon as your commerce cities 'come on line' it will more than compensate for it. At least that's what it appears so far.

My experience, admittedly on the low level, has been that one can force out most of what you want by doing as you suggested at the beginning with clustering the wonders, although it seems there will always be some pollution as far as types of GP's created.

Not sure what you mean by 'clustering' wonders? That's essentially the entire point. Clustering them into their own city by GPP type. The goal is not to simply reduce the GPP pollution, but to eliminate it completely. We can then form a strategy based upon what to do with the GP since we can now expect them.. not just hope for them.

Oh.. I also want to point out how remarkable it is that the strategy seems to work best with three GPP cities. And how three is also the number of Legendary Cities you need to win a Cultural Victory.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Pollution? What pollution?

Last night I had a 95% chance to get the Great Engineer that I wanted to pop the Pentagon. I'm now the proud patron of a Great Artist. I hate modern art.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Hermann the Lombard
Pollution? What pollution?

Last night I had a 95% chance to get the Great Engineer that I wanted to pop the Pentagon. I'm now the proud patron of a Great Artist. I hate modern art.

Well, that's pollution. Same thing happened to me with that GS I was expecting to get Machinery with in my GPP test game I was speaking of earlier. The percentages said I should get a GS, what I got was a GA, so, not needing border protection at that point, I used him to get Drama. But Drama isn't even supposed to be in the mix for the GPP strategy.

RLM, who started this thread, is optimistic such "pollution" can be eliminated and GP production controlled from a specialization standpoint. I am less optimistic it can be totally controlled and the game designers may not have wanted it so. What do you do if your largest pop city, when you have your three; a logical choice for your GPP city, is also a founder city for a religion, for example? If you do it there, you're probably going to pop a Prophet just from that; and once you put your "special building" in there, which nobody's going to refuse because of the potential revenue; then you can expect several Prophets on a regular basis.

Ditto for this Globe Theater thing, if you happen to get Drama, which in my test game just involved burning an unwanted GA (and yes, I got my Golden Age later anyway, because I was popping a lot of GP.) Your GPP farm is your biggest town, i.e. most potential unhappiness . It sort of makes sense to tolerate the pollution just to eliminate the possibility of drones (I like that SMAC reference .) But if you've got Globe, you're going to probably get some GA.

But I still wonder if some other unlabelled buildings or some randomization function in the game code is popping the oddballs too, because I got a Prophet and two GA's even before I built Globe Theater. Oh well , I got a lot more of the GS and GE I bargained for.

Originally posted by RancidLunchMeat

Not sure what you mean by 'clustering' wonders? That's essentially the entire point. Clustering them into their own city by GPP type. The goal is not to simply reduce the GPP pollution, but to eliminate it completely. We can then form a strategy based upon what to do with the GP since we can now expect them.. not just hope for them.

Oh.. I also want to point out how remarkable it is that the strategy seems to work best with three GPP cities. And how three is also the number of Legendary Cities you need to win a Cultural Victory.

Yeah, that's what I meant by "clustering." Making sure only certain types of Wonders and definitely those, get into a GPP city.

Regarding whether we can strategize what techs to select, that's going to take some work to determine the selection the games uses to offer you them with a given GP at a given time; which IS BASED ON WHAT YOU HAVE SELECTED FOR RESEARCH ON YOUR OWN .

For instance, I was offered at one point Machinery, when I got my GS, but I needed the Academy, so I deferred. Later, because of other research choices, I wasn't offered that. I forget what I was offered, but it was useful, I think GE and GS choices are not going to be bad for techs regardless; GA less so, I distinctly remember with those being offered Drama of course; and a percentage, but only a percentage, of Divine Right, which would have required me to backtrack somewhat on the tree to finish researching it. Of course that might be okay, some guys consider Divine Right to be important to their strategy.

Point being though, its going to take a lot of practical research to discover what techs you are going to be offered, through GP, at a given time based on your own research mix up to that point.

To Parthenon, or not to Parthenon? That is the question. And hence I now discover where my early GA's came from in the test game , because I built the thing in the GPP city, hence "pollution." Well, my preliminary answer to RLM's query as to whether it's worth having there, is yes, despite the pollution. Up to the mid-1200's AD, which is where I'm at in the game, the GPP city, which I probably should have mentioned is also my capital; has produced three GS, two GE, one Prophet, and three GA. A lot of pollution, but as an initial effort at GPP, which produced more GP than I've ever seen in one of my games before.

As caveat, this also did involve not sticking Hanging Gardens in the GPP city, an admitted mistake; and allowing a religion to be founded there and building Globe Theater. Take some of that deviance away in the next game and "the farm" is "the bomb."

[gentle]

Point being though, its going to take a lot of practical research to discover what techs you are going to be offered, through GP, at a given time based on your own research mix up to that point.

..or you look at this sheet:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952

getting used to posting this link

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by gentle


..or you look at this sheet:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952

getting used to posting this link

And who says CivFanatics aren't as clever as us?

Anybody looking at Gentle's link who is confused, the highest numerical value for the techs is the likelihood your next GP of the given type will offer you that tech. (This is explained further down in the CF thread.)

Now we can do some strategizing...

[Generaldoktor]

Correction time, (sorry about the double post.)

There is a caveat at the bottom of the CivFanatics chart where some guy suggests the numerical values are maybe only used internally by AI themselves and that "leader personalities" may also come into play. I don't know and nobody responded to him, it is possible still the initial poster is correct.

Clarifying how the initial poster thinks the chart should work; for as far as you've got in the tech tree, the next tech with the HIGHEST NUMBER for the given type of GP is the LIKELIEST one you will receive from the next GP of that type. Obviously the tech tree takes precadence too, you won't be offered assembly line if you're still down in the Renaissance era.

I suggest we try using it as the poster intended and see if we get results, as far as a predictable strategy for choosing techs from GPP.

Also, regarding my last post on my test game; I only two GA's, not three. I used one as a throwaway freebie way to get Drama, which is useful regulating happiness in large cities and the other one as part of a Golden Age, so I didn't find them all that useless, as long as I don't get too many more. (The Highlands map which I chose deliberately, makes it very hard at any level, with its mountain ranges and hidden Barb empires, for the AI to settle close to you, unless it's a game start fluke. "Culture bombs" are thus largely useless most of the game.)

Parthenon didn't have to be built in the GPP city. This is another example of me not reading the manual and/or published strategy guide carefully. Building Parthenon elsewhere and founding religion elsewhere; and maybe leaving out Globe Theater, (though I like that guaranteed "happiness",) seems to be the way to eliminate GA "pollution" in the GPP city.

[gentle]

to clear things up:
I am working with this sheet for quite some time and it is pretty easy.
A GP always (!) gives the tech with the highest value (must be available to research of course).It works the same like an Oracle Slingshot when it comes to availabilty of techs.
for example:
you want to grab Philosophy (scientist 8)
higher values for scientists:
- math 10
- writing 10
- education 10
later ones...

so, you must make sure that you either already have researched the higher ones or you are not able to research the higher ones.
example: you already have writing,alphabet and math but you do not have paper -> in this situation a GScientist gives you Philo.
It is like looking for a "hole" or "tech gap".
In case of a tie (several techs have same value), the GP will give you the one which is more expensive.

I used this sheet to create several Techburn paths like Liberalism,Philosophy;Astronomy and have tested them several times.
Started them in the culture thread some time ago.
Note that depending on which GP type you use (artist or scientist...) there are several ways to each tech.
Hope this helps

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Yes, it was gentle, and it was your culture thread that gave me many ideas for this idea as well as understanding how the graph comes into play in the Oracle Slingshot that made me want to pursue quick paths up the tech ladder using planned scientists and engineers.

Actually.. I believe it was the alternate CS slingshot burning a prophet to grab CS rather than using it as the free tech that made me realize the value of the GP graph and how you can actually plan to use certain GP of certain types at certain times to rocket through techs.

Because GS and GE give the best techs (IMO), I wanted some GPP specialization to get more GS and GE and less (or none) of the others.

Hermann: There's nothing worse than having that 5% chance come bite you in the butt. In fact, the 'Where the hell are all these GAs coming from?' is the reason I started looking up every thread on GPP generation.

General: See? There's no mystery. You built the Parthenon, you got artists. I almost never found a religion in my GPP farm, because usually my GPP is my capital. And unless you found a religion early (which you said you do), religions tend to shy away from being established in capitals... they'll pick another city. I'm not sure if that's been "proven" yet or if it's still just anecdotal. I just know that I've never founded a religion in my capital city if I had at least one other city elsewhere without a religion in it.

Also.. remember, you 'deviated' by getting both a religion early and drama early. Those two alone should solve any of your happiness problems, because I'm skipping them and happiness is an issue.. but nothing crippling.

I'm debating whether to include a deviation to drama or an early religion in my tech plan to help out on the happiness bit.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Rancidlunchmeat

General: See? There's no mystery. You built the Parthenon, you got artists. I almost never found a religion in my GPP farm, because usually my GPP is my capital. And unless you found a religion early (which you said you do), religions tend to shy away from being established in capitals... they'll pick another city. I'm not sure if that's been "proven" yet or if it's still just anecdotal. I just know that I've never founded a religion in my capital city if I had at least one other city elsewhere without a religion in it.

Also.. remember, you 'deviated' by getting both a religion early and drama early. Those two alone should solve any of your happiness problems, because I'm skipping them and happiness is an issue.. but nothing crippling.

I'm debating whether to include a deviation to drama or an early religion in my tech plan to help out on the happiness bit.

:

Besides only playing on Warlord, (though I plan to develop concepts I can take to higher levels,) I get a lot of benefit from being Gandhi, though if I keep on those huge Highlands maps I might try it with Asoka, (to get Organized, helps with the extra Barb-city conquests and other border-expanding earlier-than usual city growth,) also Spiritual. I had my religion (Hindu) on the first tech researched (Polytheism, more versatile then Meditation, IMHO.) That's how it ended up in the capital, as that was the only city at the time.

However, maybe because it was Warlord, my first city/capital, by the way, was the divine conception of a Wonder/GPP city, two rivers running through the fat cross and almost all forest/grassland. I got those Indian fast workers fast and, with Industrious, chopped my way to Pyramids and Great Library toot sweet. So you see, at least for a "test game" of GPP concepts, I really did skew the playing field with my custom game to make sure I was gonna git some bigtime GP points fast.

Drama, as I mentioned above, I got with an otherwise superfluous GA. Quick, efficient, might not have done it otherwise. But the religion, with Spiritual, was quick and efficient too and helped in all the ways religion does, with money from shrine, happiness (cheap temples, besides the theaters,) and a few more GP points, though in the capital, at least, they constitute the undesired "pollution."

Again, summarizing errors due to my early unfamiliarity with this technique; Parthenon to be built elsewhere next time, Hanging Gardens to be definitely built in GPP town and not elsewhere; (and I don't mind that extra pop when I'm trying to build specialists, don't understand why it is so hated unless by perpetual warmongers with happiness problems from Day One. )

I don't know about the early religion; if I've got one of the Indians as leader, or other Spiritual, (I also like Isabella; ) the religion is going to come early and probably in the capital and so are the early wonders, making it the GPP city. I may have to just tolerate that "pollution," at least for me while I'm using those leaders. Ditto for Globe Theater, I really like the blank slate on happiness for a GPP city.

Read a CivFanatics thread on this subject today and that insisted that National Epic, with its accompanying "pollution" was critical for a GPP city and there wasn't much sense in having more than one, or at most two. In my test game, I've got NE down in the antithetical second GPP city which is producing GA's; I also have a "culture" city to push out my eastern border, (I have game edge on my west, tee hee ,) that is rapidly evolving into a GPP GA city. The CF thread did some kind of math analysis and predicted that mostly your primary GPP city is going to put out all the GP's because of the escalating point scale required for each subsequent GP and the other cities would never catch up, making them useless in that function. Of course this is with National Epic in the primary GPP city.

I don't know, it seems for every season, there's an opinion.

[couerdelion]

GPP specialisation cities tend to rely on you having a non-capital GP farm. The simple reason for this is that you probably don't want to be appointing many specialists in your capital. For a start, your capital suffers the same health and happiness limits as your other cities and if you're running bureaucracy, the 50% bonus from tile working almost obliges you to use the tiles to the maximum.

Because of this, you will be relying on wonders for the GP points and here you suffer another problem. You can concentrate solely on wonders that produce the right type of GPP but it is likely that these will not be the best wonders for your particular empire. I would certainly choose the wonders first and would usually concentrate on building them in the city that had the best chance of completing it. As a result I will end up with a mixed GP farm and therefore lack the specialisation that is often desirable in a GP farm.

Note: I believe Angkor Wat may be an exception to the above rule and will often build this in a city where I want to generate Prophets. Probably high food/low production but with some way of generating hammers for the wonder itself.

Relying on one GP city is probably a minimum. Far better to run with one mixed (probably capital), one Prophet farm and one scientist farm. Unless, of course, you have a city with 4+ food specials which will do the work of two GP farms on its own.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by couerdelion
GPP specialisation cities tend to rely on you having a non-capital GP farm. The simple reason for this is that you probably don't want to be appointing many specialists in your capital. For a start, your capital suffers the same health and happiness limits as your other cities and if you're running bureaucracy, the 50% bonus from tile working almost obliges you to use the tiles to the maximum.

Because of this, you will be relying on wonders for the GP points and here you suffer another problem. You can concentrate solely on wonders that produce the right type of GPP but it is likely that these will not be the best wonders for your particular empire. I would certainly choose the wonders first and would usually concentrate on building them in the city that had the best chance of completing it. As a result I will end up with a mixed GP farm and therefore lack the specialisation that is often desirable in a GP farm.

Note: I believe Angkor Wat may be an exception to the above rule and will often build this in a city where I want to generate Prophets. Probably high food/low production but with some way of generating hammers for the wonder itself.

Relying on one GP city is probably a minimum. Far better to run with one mixed (probably capital), one Prophet farm and one scientist farm. Unless, of course, you have a city with 4+ food specials which will do the work of two GP farms on its own.

Well, opposing views are always welcome; you are, of course, disputing about everything that's been said in the thread so far, except the bit about not using the capital, which is ideal; but in my personal case, in the recent game I've used as example; I liked using Gandhi (Spiritual/Industrious) and getting Pyramids right away and once I was committed to that early religious interest and an interest in early wonders, using the capital became necessary and desirable. (I also got Oracle and Great Library, though again this was on only Warlord level, where AI intellect is presumably somewhat "neutered.)

The religion came early by default of using a spiritual leader, who did not have to research Mysticism. Early religion seemed desirable overall; I got the revenue and happiness benefits early on, as well as some foreign policy leverage. (Cyrus, one of my few neighbors and a powerful one, on the wild and woolly huge Highlands map; converted to my religion early, setting up close cooperation that probably kept others off my back. )

Regarding the early Wonders, doing them in the biggest production city at the time, coincidentally the capital, which also had profligate riverfront forest that could be chopped and replaced with farms for multidinous GP; more than made sense. I would do this again anytime, if I wanted to play a GPP-centric game and could tailor the custom game and leader in the same manner. In a truly random game, I would probably not use the capital if I didn't have a Spiritual (and particularly, Industrious) leader and had a less advantageous map.

That being said, we still have the problem posed by CivFanatics math expert, regarding your position that multiple GPP cities are desirable, if you're going to go with that strategy at all. The man's math does make sense, though in my game, I mitigated the effect by spreading some powerful, non-GE/GS wonders around elsewhere, (just got a GM out of my "GA" city last night. )

Reviewing, the premise is that because of the escalating scale of points required for each subsequent GP, only the city with dominant GPP production, is ever going to produce one, with a slight chance of maybe, occasionally, one other. The "Big Dog" GPP city produces one GP, then the price goes up; other cities accumulate GPP, but only Big Dog City is producing enough to get the new, higher, required total, so that city produces again; price goes up, others continue to accumulate GPP, but can never catch up to the required total enough to actually produce one. (I don't know how to do links on this board, especially from another forum, but if you poke around the CF site, for titles involving GP, you will find this discussion, which seemed plausible.)

Let's put this aside for a moment and consider your final premise that the type of wonder and making sure you finish it, takes precedence over trying to tailor GPP using a city production "pecking order" for Wonders. This is laudable and I followed such a viewpoint until last week, but found I was getting such GPP dispersion (and still missing some Wonders,) that I was getting no effective GPP production, compared to the AI, (let alone some of our zealots here, divinity help me in Multi-Player; ) and did I say I was still missing some Wonders.

In my test game, using a slightly-flawed version of the technique proposed most recently, through this thread, by RancidLunchMeat, Wonders are rolling and so are GP. (I've only missed Great Lighthouse, due in part to lack of ports on Highlands; and Sistine Chapel, this last a debatable goal anyway; this of course on Warlord.) When the vaunted day comes that I start playing above Noble level and/or multi-player, if I draw Wonder-friendly personality traits and a lot of woods/river city sites, I'm definitely going for this technique.

[Hermann the Lombard]

I had one recently where my secondary GP farm didn't get to produce a GP for a few hundred turns, as my primary GP farm (the capital) would spit out a new one and reset the target points every time the secondary one approached the threshold.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Hermann the Lombard
I had one recently where my secondary GP farm didn't get to produce a GP for a few hundred turns, as my primary GP farm (the capital) would spit out a new one and reset the target points every time the secondary one approached the threshold.

Yeah, that's a case study for the premise from the CF thread I've been quoting. The conclusion being, which I don't disagree with, that if you want to get best utilization of the GP points generated by Wonders, build the Wonders in just one, or at most two cites; the second city presumably to siphon off GA and Prophet points as we propose here. Obviously, Wonders with special requirements, like Versaillies (best used a certain distance from the capital as a "third" palace; ) and the Wonders requiring seafront (Colossus, GL; difficult on many Pangea/Highlands maps and maybe impossible on Great Plains or Oasis,) would require special placement.

[Generaldoktor]

Pardon double post again, National Wonders are limited to two per town, so in particular, your West Point/Ironworks, or Pentagon/Red Cross/Heroic Epic mix are probably going outside the main GPP city too. In the test game, I've got HE in a city surrounded mostly by mines, (yeah, I need those bananas, ) waiting for the others to come up. This may be desirable for some other NW's, I don't have the full list in front of me. I think Oxford should definitely go in the main CPP city.