Pacifism/Philosopical Questions

[zeace]

The longer you run Pacifism, the less it's worth since the value of GPPs diminishes. I will usually not focus on GPs until there's a moment of peace (say I take control of the continent, or finally get Monty off my back). Then, because I haven't generated many GPs yet, it takes a very small number of GPPs to generate them. A well timed Merc/Pac/Caste for 50-100 turns (on marathon) can generate 4 or 5 GPs. But by then the cost to generate new ones is huge, so eventually I'll switch to military civics and rebuild my neglected army.

Unless you're intentionally trying to play a GP only game, the pacifism is only useful in limited uses.

Ze Ace

[couerdelion]

I think Vel mentioned that the benefit of Pacifism/PHI is not the extra GPs - in fact you don't get that many more over the long term. It is in the turn-advantage gained from having a GP earlier than you would otherwise.

In fact, the case in point can be superbly illustrated from earlier in our SPDG game where we popped a GS one turn after another had appear and one the same turn that Taoism was discovered. Having continued more since that point and remaining sans-religion up till Astronomy, it doesn’t take a genius to see how that one-turn would have cost us.

Take the simple example of a quick Academy in a city earning 20 beakers (base). A PHI civ can crank out a GS in 13 turns on Epic while a non-PHI civ takes 25 turns. So the first GP alone will generate an extra 12 turns of academy yields an extra 120 beakers. Your second GP can then be generated 25 turns earlier (using base of 2 specialists) for an even bigger turn-advantage.

PHI also makes it easier to generate GP when you don’t have much food to support specialists. In those situations, you might need to stop city growth to finish a GP. The PHI trait makes this less of a burden.

Finally, there is the symbiotic relationship between PHI and Wonders. If you can get some early wonders up then you won’t even have to force out GPs, they’ll just appear.

Unlike the financial trait, you need to actively exploit the benefits of PHI and if you know how to use GPs and can set up a decent enough farm (see Strategy thread) then it can be a very powerful trait over the longer term.

On the mixing GPP side, I tend to find that I want to run with 2 GP producing cities. One will be wonder heavy (typically a capital with Great Library) and another will be food-rich. Other specialists might be appointed purely one a specialist v tile comparison (or if city has reached happy/health limits) but those ones are unlikely to generate any GPs.

The first question, though, has, I think, been answered. Even if the GPP are only produced in one city, they will still be worth a lot there. When GP are relatively cheap, I think of GPP as being worth something in the region of 5-10 gold each.

[OutsiderSubtype]

This is all good stuff. I hadn't considered Philosophical from a turn advantage perspective, but it matches some of my experiences in game. Say I use the Oracle to grab Code of Laws. If I'm not Philosophical, I always find myself wishing for that Prophet a little sooner.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by OutsiderSubtype
This is all good stuff. I hadn't considered Philosophical from a turn advantage perspective, but it matches some of my experiences in game. Say I use the Oracle to grab Code of Laws. If I'm not Philosophical, I always find myself wishing for that Prophet a little sooner.

My favourite trick with Philosophical is to use the Oracle to get Metal Casting and rush out a forge and then appoint Engineer specialists to get a quick GE to rush Pyramids. With representation and PHI the specialist economy can work wonders.

Would be a lot harder now. Forests take longer to chop (33%?) and generate 33% less production but you need to get the forge finished very soon after the Oracle (and in different city) or else your first GP would be a Prophet.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Dominae
Generally speaking, you should not using the city governor (i.e. the emphasize buttons) if you want to micromanage something. Use the +/- buttons instead.

This can be incredibly time consuming in a dedicated Specialist Economy, especially late on, where every few turns each city switches between research and production - with perhaps 10+ Specialists being set or unset.

It's especially infuriating not to see how many are set in the city screen too once its above six. The F1 screen now shows how many are set, which is good, but you can't manage the tiles at the same time from that screen. (The numbers of super-specialists is now shown through, which is welcome.)

The SE game I just played was at a low level so I could afford to use the governer buttons to emphasise research or production, and only manually change it when it was miles off what I wanted. Otherwise I would have spent over 20 minutes every few turns fiddling with the +/- buttons and never finishing the damn spaceship!

[Thrak]

Originally posted by couerdelion


My favourite trick with Philosophical is to use the Oracle to get Metal Casting and rush out a forge and then appoint Engineer specialists to get a quick GE to rush Pyramids. With representation and PHI the specialist economy can work wonders.

Would be a lot harder now. Forests take longer to chop (33%?) and generate 33% less production but you need to get the forge finished very soon after the Oracle (and in different city) or else your first GP would be a Prophet.

With warlords, you can combine this trick with the great engineer points from the great wall - but I don't find this strat that handy at all.

I prefer to get stonehenge and a religion, use the great prophet to grab code of laws (while I research mathematics).

During this period I will be pre-chopping.

As soon as code of laws is done I research Masonry -> Org Rel, then finish off Mathematics.

Then I finally finish my chops, using the Org Rel / Mathematics bonus to chop out the pyramids.

If you only start chopping when you calculate you can finish the pyramids in 1-2 turns, its actually a pretty low risk strat.

of course if there are no trees anywhere things get a lot trickier

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Thrak
of course if there are no trees anywhere things get a lot trickier

Which is where the Great Wall comes in handy to get that Great Engineer.

In fact the GW is a superb wonder, as without the barb problem the first military threat is moved further down the line, allowing time for another wonder, or perhaps a bunch of missionaries to convert the neighbours before getting a military together.

If stone is nearby, then with a settler out before starting the GW can build Stonehenge in the second city, giving a GE in the capital for the Pyramids and a Prophet in city 2.

[Thrak]

Well, my main issue with Great Wall/Great Engineer is that in order to actually build it you have to research masonry, which locks out you great prophet from discovering Code Of Laws.

I just really love the ability to spend that long period you would spend doing code of laws grabbing mathematics and/or alphabet.

Last game I sent an early first settler into the middle of forest to build pyramids and it worked, but the GE points just can't compare to my GPP city , so I'm thinking generally I will make my capital a GE/GP place, using the Forge/pyramids to give me a decent chance of producing an engineer while I use 300000 priest specialists which are easy to get

Basically if you are producing a lot of great people engineers are hard to get specifically. you just have to be tricksy and play the odds.

[Cort Haus]

I'd rather discover Civil Service with a prophet rather than CoL if I was going down the Masonry-avoidance route.

I gather the designers didn't really intend that avoiding Masonry could give such a powerful GP slingshot, but the GW has beefed up Masonry to counter it.

[Thrak]

Agreed but delaying the oracle any further than that is tricksy indeed on Monarch imo

Although I also find building Stonehenge and Oracle a lot easier in Warlords as the AI are pre-occupied with the great wall

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Thrak
Although I also find building Stonehenge and Oracle a lot easier in Warlords as the AI are pre-occupied with the great wall

Yes, I noticed this. Oracle Slingshots just got easier with Warlords, it seems.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


Yes, I noticed this. Oracle Slingshots just got easier with Warlords, it seems.

I've seen Oracle finish earlier on Warlords than in any of my vanilla games but it's perhaps too early for me to have any clear view either way. The one time I managed it was around 700-800BC but this was in a Raging Barb game and I don't know if Raging barbs has a serious impact the timing of AI Oracle builds.

But I suppose it makes sense the GW can distract AIs away from the Oracle leaving slingshot possibilities. Perhaps Artemis' Temple might do the same.

[Arrian]

I typically produce GPs from 2 cities. Maybe 3. That's it. I may run specialists elsewhere, but it's typically 1 per city (or two if I have the Statue of Liberty + Mercantalism).

My capital will produce GP mainly on points gained via wonders. Another city will be geared toward a particular type of GP that I feel the capital will not produce enough of for my purposes (or is unlikely to do so). Typically that's a great merchant, but can also be great prophet or great scientist. Particularly if I can get a coastal city to build the Great Lighthouse and Colossus... and then get a market up and run a merchant or two. Mmm, money.

I've gone back an forth on whether I prefer Org Rel or Pacifism. I started likely Pacifism, then went with Org Rel, and am currently trending back to Pacifism. A lot of it depends on how I feel about my empire's production. My last game, as an industrious civ, featured a production - heavy empire, so I really didn't need OrgRel as much as I would with a more hammer-challenged empire. I did run OrgRel for a while, but once I discovered Philo I switched over.

-Arrian

[Thrak]

Well yeah, thats (more or less) my revised strategy after my pure GE test failed miserably.

My specialist city will always concentrate on priests for several reasons; but mainly cos they are easy to get. Temple is 1, Shrine is 3, oracle, stonehenge etc etc.

Other reasons include the production rocking with Angor Wat, the superb cash/production from super-specialist priests, and my general religion-cash based strategy (I often use GPs to grab divine right and spiral minaret, this is even more attractive if combined with Sankore).

But I will try and mix up the priests with the odd engineer from now on for wonder rocking, and if I play a spiritual chap I might even use caste system to pop out the odd great scientist as well.

Great people generation - I'm lovin it

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Arrian
I've gone back an forth on whether I prefer Org Rel or Pacifism.
-Arrian

I like the SPI trait so I can flip between these two at will. Also, flipping between Slavery and Caste System is handy too. Grow & whip with Slavery & Org Rel, then run loads of specialists under C. Sys & Pacifism.