Beginner and gut questions

[_BuRjaCi_]

I recently started playing cIV again after 5 or so months, and I realised that I don't have the slightest idea about some basic stuff, I think I don't have any real cIV skill and am just using my general civ and strategy skill to win at prince consistently (I get sqashed two levels up,and ocaisonaly win on one level up).

I usulay play on large or huge, terra or continent maps with epic speed and all civs active.

I was hoping for some answers to some basic and trivia questions:

1. When you produce GP the cost rises for the individual city (they cost more GPP), why does it then pay to build GP-pump cities and not just have a specialist or two in every city that way you get the GP a little later but they are cheaper and you can still turn a large city into a GP-pump. But thats beside the point if the cost rises empire wide. I'd realy apreciate some clarity and perhaps the formula by wich the game increases GP cots.

2. Does promoting into flanking pay?- I just can't help over-promoting into city garrisons, medics and strenght (I always want at least 7 or so units with the commando promotion).

3. How does the game calculate demographics (especialy the number of soldiers and the total civ pop- I know from the city screen that its not linear but once again I would apreciate the ecuation).

4. When I play as Rome or Persia I can't stop over-expanding, how do I make my empire stay in the green with 80% to science. When does it pay, if it ever, to increase your empire so much that even though you have higher support costs and a lower sicence %, you are still yanking out more beakers?

I look forward to and appreciate your answers.

[Thedrin]

1) Cost for GP rises in every city when you get a GP.

2) Flanking I use stables to give horse archers Flanking II. This gives them 50% minimum odds of surviving every attack. You need to keep some defensive units around though since the flanking promotions won't help there at all.

[ColdPhoenix]

4. If your empire's large then get courthouses built in each city as quickly as possible (and use a well placed forbidden palace and versailles if you can). Also build plenty of cottages. Having shrines and spreading the religions for those shrines is useful. As is building banks, grocers and markets (especially in the shrine cities). I also like building the spiral minoret and having the temples and monestries for my state religion in each city. If you manage that then running at 80% while making a profit should be doable.

If your empire gets very large then you may have to drop down to 70% or even 60%. In this case you should have a massive production base and the ability to conquer by force (which will gain you some cash) or build the space ship quickly. You can convert some of your large production base into research and/or wealth as required. With such a large number of cities you should be able to research more quickly than the AI even at 60/70% as long as you have the research boosting buildings and convert some production to research.

[couerdelion]

Flanking pays because it helps your units to survive a combat if it loses. There are usually better odds of survival that if the mounted unit took the combat promotion.

[Blake]

4. When I play as Rome or Persia I can't stop over-expanding, how do I make my empire stay in the green with 80% to science. When does it pay, if it ever, to increase your empire so much that even though you have higher support costs and a lower sicence %, you are still yanking out more beakers?

As long as you have Writing (run scientists), Pottery (cottages) and Bronze Working (slavery) then it pays to keep expanding as long as you have above 0% science.
Seriously.

Especially if you're organized since once you get Code of Laws it's very easy to whip courthouses into all cities and your sciecne rate should jump up to 50%ish.

It's better to have 3x territory and 40% science than 1x territory and 90% science... with 3x territory you'd have 33% more raw science, and 200% more production base, also more happy resources so even larger cities, meaning in effect it's even more productive than merely 3x.

expanding is ultra profitable.

[couerdelion]

I should have added something on the GP point if the earlier answer was not clearer.

The reason why people choose to concentrate specialists in one city is to speed up production of GPs

Take, two examples

1) City 1-4 all produce 10 GPP
2) Only city 1 produces 40 GPP

At standard speed, GPs will arrive as follows

In example 1,

GP1 will arrive in turn 10 (cities 2-4 will have 100 GPP stored towards next).
GP2 will arrive in turn 20 (cities 3-4 will have 100 GPP, city 1 will have 100)
GP3 will arrive in turn 30 (city 4 will have 300 GPP, city 1:200, city 2:100)
GP4 will arrive in turn 40 (city will have 300 GPP, city 2:200, city 3:100)

In example 2, the GP will arrive in following turns

GP1 in turn 3 (20 GPP stored)
GP2 in turn 8 (20 GPP stored)
GP3 in turn 15 (0 GPP stored)
GP4 in turn 25 (0 GPP stored)
GP5 in turn 38 (20 GPP stored)

Concentrating GPP accelerates the arrival of GPs and also avoids leaving a large “unused” stock of GPP in cities still saving for one.

It’s really like spending a few turns investing in one tech and then moving to others before you finish it. If you keep doing this then will spend a long time without any techs even though you might be researching rapidly. The sooner you get the techs the better and it’s the same way with GPs

[rah]

Blake as always, makes the best point. It's not what your science percentage is that's important (as long as it's not 0) it's how many beakers your getting.

[Jaybe]

Remember that flanking only has affect on the attack, not when defending. I consider it marginal, but leads to tempting promotions such as sentry (extra sighting range) and, for ground units, mobility (no movement penalty for hills/forests/jungle).

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by rah
Blake as always, makes the best point. It's not what your science percentage is that's important (as long as it's not 0) it's how many beakers your getting.

Yes, of course. I was just wandering if the support costs of a large empire dosen't cost more gold than you get beakers from it. Now I have the answer: Get a few critical techs and go on a fiendish warpath to conquer the world.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Remember that flanking only has affect on the attack, not when defending. I consider it marginal, but leads to tempting promotions such as sentry (extra sighting range) and, for ground units, mobility (no movement penalty for hills/forests/jungle).

I know what you mean. I "realy" like mobility in tanks but the flanking dosen't do much for me.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by Blake

As long as you have Writing (run scientists), Pottery (cottages) and Bronze Working (slavery) then it pays to keep expanding as long as you have above 0% science.
Seriously.

Especially if you're organized since once you get Code of Laws it's very easy to whip courthouses into all cities and your sciecne rate should jump up to 50%ish.

It's better to have 3x territory and 40% science than 1x territory and 90% science... with 3x territory you'd have 33% more raw science, and 200% more production base, also more happy resources so even larger cities, meaning in effect it's even more productive than merely 3x.

expanding is ultra profitable.

I like that.
But why is everyone always warning me not to over-expand (not just in the early game)?

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by couerdelion
I should have added something on the GP point if the earlier answer was not clearer.

The reason why people choose to concentrate specialists in one city is to speed up production of GPs

Take, two examples

1) City 1-4 all produce 10 GPP
2) Only city 1 produces 40 GPP

At standard speed, GPs will arrive as follows

In example 1,

GP1 will arrive in turn 10 (cities 2-4 will have 100 GPP stored towards next).
GP2 will arrive in turn 20 (cities 3-4 will have 100 GPP, city 1 will have 100)
GP3 will arrive in turn 30 (city 4 will have 300 GPP, city 1:200, city 2:100)
GP4 will arrive in turn 40 (city will have 300 GPP, city 2:200, city 3:100)

In example 2, the GP will arrive in following turns

GP1 in turn 3 (20 GPP stored)
GP2 in turn 8 (20 GPP stored)
GP3 in turn 15 (0 GPP stored)
GP4 in turn 25 (0 GPP stored)
GP5 in turn 38 (20 GPP stored)

Concentrating GPP accelerates the arrival of GPs and also avoids leaving a large “unused” stock of GPP in cities still saving for one.

It’s really like spending a few turns investing in one tech and then moving to others before you finish it. If you keep doing this then will spend a long time without any techs even though you might be researching rapidly. The sooner you get the techs the better and it’s the same way with GPs

Thanks, my question stemmed from not realy knowing wether the GP cost rises only in the city or civilisation wide.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Re: Beginner and gut questions

Originally posted by _BuRjaCi_

3. How does the game calculate demographics (especialy the number of soldiers and the total civ pop- I know from the city screen that its not linear but once again I would apreciate the ecuation).


I look forward to and appreciate your answers.

I would like to thank everyone. I can regularly beat monarch now, but it hasen't helped me one level up (2 games, 1 painfull death, 1 game where the AI builds the spaceshhip 3 frekkin turns before me.).

However I was hoping someone could help me with that trivi question in the quote.

[trev]

Total civ pop is the adding of all city population I think, and as larger cities tend to have much larger pop than smaller cities, a few large cities will give you a higher civ pop than many small cities.

The number of soldiers is dependent on total civ population, number of units, strength of units, and also i think the number of (military?) techs you know. The actual importance of each factor is a mystery, and can be misleading. I know in 1 multiplayer game an opponent had as many units in his attacking stacks as in my whole civ, yet I was told I had the bigger army, so in that situation it was very misleading, my whole civ was captured in about 10 turns I was so underpowered, yet I was told I was most powerful.

[Arrian]

But why is everyone always warning me not to over-expand (not just in the early game)?

Because you *can* overdo it, especially if you do not devote enough work to your economy (cottages, for instance), and in the early game that can just kill your research rate.

Blake's generally correct, but it's not really 3x territory, it's 3x commerce. You can, if you're inexperiened, easily get 3x territory without anything close to 3x commerce.

Blake knows what he's doing (really, really well) and thus doesn't tend to run into that problem.

-Arrian