Vel's Strategy Thread, Volume III

[JackRudd]

There are two other possible starts if you start with Mysticism: Monument first and Stonehenge first. (I didn't say they were good starts.) Are there any situations where you might consider one of those?

[Velociryx]

Good catch! I hadn't thought of it, but you're right....since it is POSSIBLE (with tech), they should at least be discussed (although I'm not sure I could ever see a viable case for Monument first--Warlords Egypt being the Civ-specific exception)....I'll add both to the next round!

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Added the following notes to the master document:

Monument (formerly Obelisk)
Only available if you begin the game with Mysticism, this represents only one of two (non-Wonder) buildings you can potentially construct from turn one. Unfortunately, this building really doesn’t do a lot for you, so as a general rule, I can’t see this as being a terribly strong opening play for anybody (in the post-Warlords Environment, a possible exception could be made for the Egyptians, but we’ll cover this special case in the section on specific Civs). As a building, the Monument itself provides +1 culture per turn, but with your Palace already generating twice this amount, combined with the fact that you’ll get your first border expansion before the Monument completes, there are almost no cases in which this would be a viable first build. About all it does for you is allows your city to grow while the thing is being built, but if that’s all you want, then build a Barracks instead. Same effect on the city, and you’ll get more use out of it, by far.

Stonehenge
The only Wonder that’s available to be (potentially) built on the first turn of the game, this is actually an intriguing choice, depending on your aims and goals.

Like most of the other first turn options (everything but Settler-First and Worker-First), going with Stonehenge-First allows your city to grow while you build it, and it’s a cheap enough Wonder that, even if your Civ lacks the “Industrious” trait, you can, in many cases, finish the thing before “The Window” begins to close, so there’s relatively little danger to it, and completing it “centers” the world map, which is a useful bit of information. Not crucial, to be sure, but useful nonetheless.

It does have a few far-reaching strategic implications to consider, and we’ll touch on these briefly here, and then go into more detail about them later on. Briefly then, the major considerations are these:

• There’s not much of a downside to trying, because even if you fail, you’ll get a handsome sum of gold in your coffers that will enable you to run 100% research for relatively longer than you otherwise would have had the capacity for.
• Successfully completing it gives your Capital a pretty enormous cultural boost (faster and more frequent expansions, though this could also be a strong case for building it from your second city, since your Palace already provides good cultural output for the Capital).
• It also gives you a free Monument in every city you build, which essentially is a free +1 Culture per turn in all your cities (or a half-strength “Creative” trait until you research the tech, “Calendar,” which is generally more than enough time to develop a solid core of cities (this is neat, because if you’re not already Creative, it basically gives you three Traits during the early portions of the game).
• It will begin building up “Prophet Points” in your Capital. Could be a bad thing, if you want to put an early academy down, and at the very least, it will mean founding a second city, getting a Library built there and assigning two scientists in order to generate said Academy (you could try it in your Capital, but with the Prophet points beginning to accumulate from the turn after Stonehenge’s completion, it is overwhelmingly likely that your first G-Man will be from your Capital, and further, that he will be a Prophet…again, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s something to consider if you want an Academy sooner, rather than later).
• It can vastly speed up the process of executing a “CS Slingshot” (provided you don’t research Masonry, and use your Prophet to get “Code of Laws.”
• It can vastly speed up the process of getting your Great Temple built if you found or conquer a religion (use the first Prophet in this manner, and you will have a strong start to a stellar financial future).

Of all the possible “First builds,” this one is the one to consider most carefully. Depending on how you want to structure your game, it can be quite a strong beginning, but it is not entirely without risks. If your terrain is not exceptional (flood plains and forested hills), the extended period of time you’ll be running without a garrison and without any improved tiles can make this a somewhat dicey proposition on the opener, but this can be greatly mitigated by Industrious Civs, who get Wonders at essentially half price anyway….

OoO

[kbarrett]

Originally posted by Velociryx

kbarrett, do you mean workboats? Cos I just played a game where (Warlords) where I circumnavigated the globe WITH a workboat!

The latest patch caused Workboats to become unable to leave cultural boundaries ... when I got to the cultural boundary, I got stopped.

I suppose a free passage agreement might allow a workboat to continue on via someone else's territory ... I'll have to give it a try.

[Velociryx]

Hmmm....that's interesting. My wife and I are playing a multiplayer Warlords game NOW (well, not this very instant...we're at work, and while the office is pretty laid back, it's not quite THAT laid back)....but anyway, we've got a game in progress at home (Warlords) and I circumnavigated the globe with a Workboat....something strange here....

-=Vel=-

[Dominae]

Charistmatic leaders get +1 Happy from Monuments (apologies if you mentioned this already). I will sometimes build a Monument first as CHA if I know I want to grow and if it will complete before I need a unit for police duty. The extra Culture early on sometimes helps too.

[Verrucosus]

Great, another draft chapter to study this weekend!

Originally posted by Velociryx
The economy of Civ Four is comprised of a number of elements, that are all interrelated, and built one atop the other in layers (from most accessible to the player to least). These factors are:

Cardinal Resources
Food
Production
Commerce

Secondary Layer
Population
Units & Structures
Gold & Beakers

Tertiary Layer
Health & Happiness
Culture

Giving us a total of eight economic factors to contend with.

I'm uncertain whether it is helpful to consider culture as an element of the tertiary layer.

During the "Window" phase there is no way to argue against putting it into that category, because you need structures to generate it (creative trait & religion aside since they are not part of the "economy" in the proper sense). On the other hand, it seems that this section is meant to be the basis of your economic theory not just for the first phase, but for the entire game. If that's the case, my first impulse would be to argue for putting culture into the secondary layer because as soon as the culture slider is available, it can be a derivate of commerce just as gold and beakers are. Similarly, gold and beakers could be considered tertiary resources to the extent that their creation is affected by buildings. However, libraries for example do not "generate" beakers in the same manner as they generate culture. They merely enhance the beaker share of the city's commerce. From a strategic perspective that may be a crucial difference. Taking into account that the culture slider is not really the standard method of generating culture in most games, there could well be merit in putting culture into a different category.

I hope my comments are not too confusing, but I really haven't made up my mind yet. It's only a matter of terminology, but it seems that the three layers of the Civ4 economy will play an important role in the economic sections of the guide, so I thought I'd mention it.

Verrucosus

[kbarrett]

OK then. I was playing warlords, with the 1.61 patch.

I could only move the workboat into tiles inside cultural boundaries ... either mine, or any AI/Player I had an open borders pact with.

I could not exit the cultural boundaries into any tile, high seas or not ... but if the tile was inside a border I was allowed into, I could enter, even if it was a high seas tile.

[Velociryx]

GREAT comments all around! Dom, I'll include the bit about Charismatics in the doc tomorrow morning!

Verrucosus, I totally agree with what you're saying re: Culture (esp. culture, but to a lesser extent, the coin/beaker thing)....I had to wrestle with the notion for quite some time before committing pen to paper, and I'm still not 100% satisfied. I think I made the right call in terms of splitting culture out from beakers/coin, even though it eventually gets its own slider, but am certainly willing to be convinced otherwise.

My primary reason for doing it was that I view culture as primarily dealing with defense (the % bonuses) and border dynamics. The fact that you can exert some level of control over it via specialists, sliders, and buildings is, IMO, more of a neat side effect, but the main event (excepting for cultural victories, of course), is still at the macro-level...what culture does for you border and expansion wise, and at the city level via defense. Aside from those two features, culture itself (and the ability to manipulate/generate it) doesn't really do much at the margins (unlike beakers and coin, which can be critical at the margins)...so I split it out as a special case.

But definitely interested in holding long conversations about it!

kbarrett, the plot thickens. We're using the same version, and I can move my workboats in ANY coastal tile, but not a deep sea tile (even if it's inside my borders).

Curiouser and curiouser....

-=Vel=-

[Verrucosus]

Ahhh, I think I misunderstood the purpose of introducing the three layers and the criterion upon which the division rests.

I thought you were trying to explain how the various elements are derived from the cardinal resources ("built one atop the other in layers"). In that case, the secondary layer should comprise all those elements that can be derived directly from the cardinal resources. Under that definition, culture belongs into the second layer because it can be derived directly from commerce through the culture rate. It's true that culture can also be and usually is generated from other secondary elements (buildings), but that is also true of buildings and units (which can be created by spending population or gold) and even of population (if you count founding a city).

However, your reasoning in the last post shows that the idea behind the layers is to explain the extent to which the various economic elements are subject to micromanagement by the player or macroeconomic conditions that he can certainly influence, but has to accept in the short run. Admittedly, that idea is clearly stated in the draft text itself ("from most accessible to the player to least") ... I simply overlooked it. If that's the idea behind the three layers, I would agree that culture belongs into the third layer.

Verrucosus

(edited grammar)

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Verrucosus
If that's the idea behind the three layers, I would agree that culture belongs into the third layer.

Verrucosus

Ditto,

For me, culture is an "enabler" rather than something that itself makes things - except in the rare occasions that you culture-flip a city - it does no more than allow you to work tiles.

In the same way, health and happiness allow more citizens or save you food.

[Velociryx]

I think probably what led to the misunderstanding is that the text contains a bit of a mixed message. On the one hand, I spell out exactly that....most accessible to least, but then on the other, I refer to the items in the secondary/tertiary layers as being "children" which sets up a quite different dynamic than the one I originally wrote.

I'll go back and do some editing, so that this segment is more clearly focused in the next release...

-=Vel=-

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Velociryx
I think probably what led to the misunderstanding is that the text contains a bit of a mixed message. On the one hand, I spell out exactly that....most accessible to least, but then on the other, I refer to the items in the secondary/tertiary layers as being "children" which sets up a quite different dynamic than the one I originally wrote.

I'll go back and do some editing, so that this segment is more clearly focused in the next release...

-=Vel=-

At one level, gold/beakers are pretty much on a par with commerce, the only difference being multiplier and slider effects. What’s more, specialists - who are no different from any other city worker – produce beakers and gold directly, rather than commerce. So is this really a different level.

Buildings, for the most part, are preliminary outputs, designed to improve one or other area of a city. They are on a par with city workers in this respect. However units, are not quite in the same category. They can improve a city through their “insurance” value but their real value is their ability to capture more food/production/commerce etc. I tend to think certain things as fundamental “output” – techs, units and gold being in this group – while buildings, fall into the a middle category of “improvements”.

But then again, it could be argued that techs are just glorified “enablers” that allow you to build more “improvements” or better units.

I don’t envy you Vel since I can’t see any simple way of capturing all these flows. But my initial reading of the text has not caused anything to stick out. As usual, it’s spot on and I like some of the changes from your earlier guide.

[Velociryx]

I agree with you 100%! There's no absolute rules that govern the creation of the various factors of production (as you say, commerce is a naturally occuring thing, but can be split off by the player to create beakers/gold, while specialiasts don't create commerce at all, but either gold/beakers, depending on which specialist assigned.

This doesn't impact us in terms of using them, of course, but when attempting to codify everything into a cohesive, explanatory document, it DOES make it a bit tricky.

I'm definitley not gonna bill the new guide as the "final word" on any subject it contains, but my hope is that I'll be able to at least loosely codify/associate the various economic elements that make up the game to allow new players to come in, read the material, and feel like they've got a good handle on things.

If I can at least accomplish that much, I'll be happy, and I'm glad you're liking what you see so far! I think that's a very good sign....

-=Vel=-

[Cort Haus]

a) Food (represented by a sheaf of wheat/loaf of bread)

Isn't it a slice of bread for a single food, with the loaf for a fiver?