Baseline Questions for the 'sperts

[Rancidlunchmeat]

I'm still trying to get ahold on the complexities of the CivIV economy, and I've got some questions about baselines or rules of thumb.

I guess you can imagine a 9 city civ for the purposes of answering the questions.

First.. where do you go to see the exact cost of your empire in terms of gold?

Second.. how much gold per turn is needed to maintain an average empire? Can you get enough gold per turn from a single city focused on gold production? (Say Shrine plus market, grocer, bank and maybe a couple merchant specialists?)

What happens in the rare case that you are producing more gold per turn than you use on all costs and are running research/culture at 100%? Is that extra gold that is created just 'lost'?

How many beakers of research empire-wide would be a nice goal for this civilization? Is 300 beakers a turn enough? (A capitol plus two research focused cities) or should it be more than that? Each extra research city obviously supports but replaces potential production cities.

What is an acceptable rate of production pre-industrialism? Or are you all so busy pop/chop rushing during the opening phases of the game you don't rely on basic city production?

Thanks in advance

[Mr Justice]

1.

the exact cost is shown in the financial advisor screen (press F2)

the different costs are

units cost
unit supply
city maintenance
inflation.


my limited understanding is that unit cost got to do with the size of ur army.
unit supply is their location ??

city maintenance is related to the number of cites and distance of those cities from your capital.

inflation is some magic number that ive no idea how its calculated.

(note u can mouseover on shome of those costs and a little more info is shown)

in total i find that my maintenance and infation are roughtly equivilent. unit costs are determined by my army (ansd weather im at war ect), and i usualy set a gold limit to how much im willing to spend on units.

2.
yes, tho bigger the empire its harder, but for sure u can max out the gold multiplier to +300%

earn 80gp and it becomes 240gp

in ur example no, 9 gp from shrine + 3*6 specials = 27
+100% from buildings = 54. not enuf id imagine

3.
it goes onto your balance, u can accumalate as much gold as u want.

4.
dont listen to hype. choping and poping have their uses, but normal civ sheild production produces the vast majority of builds over the entire game. acceptable rate? stick to the demographics screen (info screen (F9 i think, then click ddemographics at bottom of screen))
dont be last. stick with mid table or better, it is after all who u are competing with in that game.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Thanks!

RE: #2, I was using 9 city size just to try to give an example of empire size in case somebody could say 'Well, a 9 size empire that is pretty closely together with an average sized military will cost about $75 gp per turn in upkeep"

Not sure if anybody can give those types of estimates, but that why I supplied the number 9... not to indicate that only 9 cities have my religion. Hopefully, it would be all 9 plus a maybe twice as much from another civ or two.

#4: Sure, I know can I see where I compare to the other AI's, but the other AI's suck. How can you dominate somebody if you are using them as the baseline for success? My cities don't normally really kick into being nice and productive until after State Property and I start putting down factories (and then soon after that power plants).

But by that time, the game is pretty much already over. Either I've won, lost, or it's going to be essentially a stalemate.

What I guess I'm looking for is what is 'good' production for a city pre-machinery? post-machinery?

Is it possible to bee-line to State Property? Is it possible (realistically) to bee-line to Ironworks?

Every time I try to bee-line deep into the tech tee, I end up getting screwed by neglecting valuable techs. So when I try to get a big production or research boosting tech, I bypass important economy techs and then grind to a halt usually with the tech goal insight.. yet, unreachable.

[Blake]

It is quite possible to get State Property in time for it to make a difference.

The AI aren't too bad a comparison. You should have about twice the production as the AI, maybe three times. The AI have really bad production.


Difficulty level has a HUGE effect on costs.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Originally posted by Blake
It is quite possible to get State Property in time for it to make a difference.

Care to give a brief outline on how to do so?

The AI aren't too bad a comparison. You should have about twice the production as the AI, maybe three times. The AI have really bad production.

So they're a useful comparison as long as I'm out producing them by three or four fold? And if I'm doing that, I can assume I'm doing fairly well (productionwise)?

[rjmatsleepers]

Re: Baseline Questions for the 'sperts

Originally posted by Rancidlunchmeat

How many beakers of research empire-wide would be a nice goal for this civilization? Is 300 beakers a turn enough? (A capitol plus two research focused cities) or should it be more than that? Each extra research city obviously supports but replaces potential production cities.


Thanks in advance

It rather depends on the date and your strategy, but 300 beakers from a capital and two other research focussed cities sounds very unambitious to me. Post scientific method, I'd be looking for at least 600 beakers from my capital and over 200 from any other research city. I'd want at least 1,000 beakers in total from a nine city empire and probably a lot more.

If you have a tech lead, you can sell techs to the AI which enables you to maintain a high research rate and keep your tech lead.

RJM

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Thanks RJM! That's exactly the sort of baseline help I was looking for.

So after scientific method, I should be pumping out at least 1000 beakers per turn. Very helpful.

[PaganPaulwhisky]

It rather depends on the date and your strategy, but 300 beakers from a capital and two other research focussed cities sounds very unambitious to me. Post scientific method, I'd be looking for at least 600 beakers from my capital and over 200 from any other research city.

Holy crap. This is massive overkill IMO. I'm happy with around 300 beakers in my capital, but I tend to use beuaracracy for the production bonus as much as the science bonus. I will often build oxford in another city. I f you are going for domination then you do not need such high output science cities since you can get a similar effect by sheer number of cities. 600 beakers is awfully hard to get unless you have a great captial site and plan it from turn one.

Second.. how much gold per turn is needed to maintain an average empire? Can you get enough gold per turn from a single city focused on gold production? (Say Shrine plus market, grocer, bank and maybe a couple merchant specialists?)

A shrine city can easily support an empire of nine cities. Just spread your religion to enough cities, settle extra prophets here, and get those multipliers in place. Once state property and Wall street come around, your shrine city can support a much larger empire. Just place the required banks in your large commerce cities and let the shrine city do the rest. I commonly get well over 100 gpt with state property, wall street and the minimum number of banks and I usually have very large empires (note: I do not keep science at 100%).

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Well, I guess the question then is what do you keep your research funding level at to say that 300 beakers in your main city (plus X number of beakers from other contributors) is good enough, while RJM thinks you need 1000 at what funding level?

If you raised your funding to 100%, would your empire approach his 1000 beaker baseline? (So you are choosing money/culture over research) or do you think that even at 100% research you don't need 1000 beakers?

I guess the question then is what is a good baseline not for beaker production, but for beaker potential if you ran 100%?

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by PaganPaulwhisky


This is massive overkill IMO. I'm happy with around 300 beakers in my capital, but I tend to use beuaracracy for the production bonus as much as the science bonus. I will often build oxford in another city. I f you are going for domination then you do not need such high output science cities since you can get a similar effect by sheer number of cities. 600 beakers is awfully hard to get unless you have a great captial site and plan it from turn one.

If you're building Oxford in another city then my 600 beakers in the capital becomes 300 - so we're saying the same thing. I was thinking of 100% science. If you had a lower figure in mind, you may be setting a more ambitious target.

I like to have the research bonus from Bureaucracy in the same place as the Oxford bonus, but if you're not running Bureaucracy or if you're treating your capital as a production centre, things are different.

BTW, 600 beakers is not hard to get, nor does it require a great deal of planning. You simply build the research buildings, choose appropriate civics and spam the cottages around your capital. If you have a great capital site, you can get over 1,000 beakers per turn. from your capital. Solo posted an example in another thread recently and even that site was not ideal.

But you are quite right that whether you need to get lots of beakers from a single city, depends on your play style and the type of win you are going for. I don't usualy bother with any other science cities, so I try to get as much as I can out of my capital. And the OP did specify a 9 city empire.

RJM

[PaganPaulwhisky]

If you're building Oxford in another city then my 600 beakers in the capital becomes 300 - so we're saying the same thing. I was thinking of 100% science.

True, but I very rarely get 300 beakers. It's usually more like 200. I had no idea it was even possible to get 1000+ beakers in a single city. I don't think I've even broke 500 yet. Maybe I should try a game like this and see what I can get. I imagine you would have to settle a ton of scientists (which I don't like doing).

[Rancidlunchmeat]

[padillah]

Can you build more than one Academy?

Tom P.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Originally posted by padillah
Can you build more than one Academy?

Tom P.

You can build as many as you want. Only one per city though.

[cynyck]

Originally posted by PaganPaulwhisky


I had no idea it was even possible to get 1000+ beakers in a single city.

Check out the thread "How do you get "hundreds" of beakers per turn" about 15 to 20 down from the top. Solo posts a save showing over 1000 per turn with settled scientists. I did not post a save, but described a save with a city with 600 per turn and I had not settled any scientists.