Natural national wonder pairings?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Shr3dZ
if you need 200 GP points to complete your next GP, and 2 cities achieve it on the same turn, you will have produced 1 GP and will then have to wait another 10+ turns before the next city reaches 300 GP points (assuming you play at standard speed).

furthermore, if one of those cities was completely dominant at producing GP points, you would stop its production for one turn, let the other city get you a GP and then resume with the more dominant one.

At which point you may decide to cease all GP production from the less dominant of the two since it may take all game (or never) before it pops another GP.

It would prolly be best to have one city bear the brunt of all GP production, that way whenever you build something that increases your GP points/turn (parthenon? 50% GP points?) it increases a higher total amount.

how do you pause production of GP points ina city? is removal of all specialists the most that can be done? I suppose that only works if you ditch representation.

[binTravkin]

so multiple GPs produced in a single turn to beat the cap is feasible?

If by 'beating the cap' you think that you produce two or more GPs for the same GPP-box length, then no.
At the very moment a GP is produced, the GPP-box gets added 100GPPs(for normal speed games) and you again have to wait for them to fill, so if you had 3 cities each having 99/100 GPPs, the oldest of them will pop a GP and the box for others will be like (99+last turns GPP amount)/200, and once next GP is done, it will be like x/300 and so on..

x/y meaning x out of y here not divided by.

how do you pause production of GP points ina city? is removal of all specialists the most that can be done? I suppose that only works if you ditch representation.

You can manually make them work some tile, if you have any free tiles to work.

[rah]

but depending on how the cities are cycling.

one city at 1299 and goal is 1300
second city at 1250 but is cranking over 150 gpp.
if the first city gets a gp, the new goal is 1400 and your second city gets a gp also. as long as the city one is processed first in order.

[Blake]

To return to the topic of other national wonders...

While I say that in general the Forbidden Palace is useless it can be at times quite useful... like in a game as Alexander I just built a FP which caused somewhere around 40-50g/turn to be freed up.

Basically - a courthouse halves the upkeep in a city.
Being near the FP also - approximately - halves the upkeep in a city (generally distance upkeep is higher, but it's only reduce to 0 at the FP itself).
With both in effect, upkeep is quartered near the FP.

Now here's the thing. The courthouse alone is -50% upkeep. The Forbidden Palace alone is -50%. But once you have one, adding the other is only -25% - it really is only half as useful.

What this means is that the Forbidden Palace is most useful when placed near a bunch of cities which *don't* have courthouses, for example after capturing a very production-strong capital and quickly powering in a Forbidden Palace to mitigate the need for courthouses in all the other cities.
The main problem here is that it's much easier to just build courthouses everywhere and I find it's usually possible to be near State Property by the time a really good FP would really pay off (ie it would save you 50gpt your economy is probably already so massive that it can eat up the tech tree).

[Geronimo]

ouch, in state property the FP and versailles no longer confer any special bennefit?

[zeace]

Originally posted by binTravkin

Specialising is the key.
If you spread your GPPs over multiple cities, they are much less effective.
A simple mathematical example:
If you're having 3 cities 3 specialists, you are generating 9 base GPP in each of them or 27 in total.
If you now build National Epic in one of them, you generate 36 in total.

Now, with one city + National Epic you only need (36/2)/3 = 6 specialists to achieve the same GPP rate.

The idea of having 2 or 3 GPP cities is mostly when I get the pyramids and therefore have early representation. At that point I'd like to be running as many specialists as possible. But if I run a specialist in a city that will never produce enough GPP to catch up and create a GP, then the GPP from that specialist are wasted. So if I can bump up the GPP in a city to the point where it will be useful for making GPs then I've made another city where I can create a bunch of specialists.

Basically your argument is how to reduce the number of specialists needed to get a GP, whereas I'm trying to maximize the number of specialists whose GPP are actually going to be converted to GP. With Representation I'm likely to be running the specialists anyway, so I might as well make their GPP count.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Geronimo
ouch, in state property the FP and versailles no longer confer any special bennefit?

FP and Versailles reduce distance-from-palace city maintenance of nearby cities. With State Property, there is ZERO distance-from-palace city maintenance throughout your empire, though you lose your extra trade route from the free market civic.

As soon as you can, restore those high-commerce trade routes in your larger coastal cities with airports.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Jaybe

FP and Versailles reduce distance-from-palace city maintenance of nearby cities. With State Property, there is ZERO distance-from-palace city maintenance throughout your empire, though you lose your extra trade route from the free market civic.

As soon as you can, restore those high-commerce trade routes in your larger coastal cities with airports.

does your palace do anything besides reduce the distance penalty?

[Blake]

+8 commerce, +1 happy, it's the city where bureaucracy has an effect.

[binTravkin]

Basically, with Bureaucracy Palace becomes the best national wonder

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Basically, with Bureaucracy Palace becomes the best national wonder

it seems to be one of the exceptions to the maxiumum of two national wonders per city rule as well.

AFAIK no city ever has the option to build the palace grayed out or missing except for the capitol itself.

[MasterDave]

In Single Player games, my capital invariably is a Wonder city/ GPP factory; so I will build National Epic, and Globe theater, since it is also usually my largest city. If I have tons of happiness already through resources, I might replace the Theater with Oxford.

I like Iron works in a high hammer city whose sole goal is to build the very expensive and no culture creating wonders: Pentagon and Hoover Dam. Later on, this city will build the most expensive Spaceship parts.

Teaming up Heroic Epic and Westpoint (along with Great generals making academies and being installed as a trainer) is also a good idea, although it is hard to take time out building units in that city to make Westpoint.

I find that other National Wonders such as the Forbidden Palace and Hermitage can be very valuable just for the culture they produce when pursuing a culture victory.

Wall street combines will with a holy shrine, and I do not think that shrines count against the two National wonder limit in a given city.

[rah]

Correct, shrines are not considered National Wonders.

[Arrian]

I usually go with:

Oxford and National Epic in my capital. Another good combo I rarely use is Oxford + Ironworks in capital.

Wall Street + Ironworks. These two don't have any particular synergy, but then again I don't feel like it's a bad combo, like Wall Street + Heroic Epic. Plus, like Blake said, settled great prophets will provide hammers that get multiplied.

HE + West Point. Obviously.

West Point + Red Cross (not that I really ever build the RC).

-Arrian

[Yuufo]

Capital: builds wonders, National Epic, as many merchants and added supermerchants as possible (they bring food). Wall Street later. Only city to generate GPP

Good river city: Oxford with free speech

Farm - Mine city: Heroic Epic, west point if possible

Farm city: Globe Theater, use Nationhood to draft one per turn during war.

Spiritual civ helps to switch between Bureaucracy, Nationhood and Free Speech (and religious doctrines too)