Lightbulbing vs Settling

[darrelljs]

Originally posted by CyberShy
I'm almost always the first to liberalism and education.

That might be true, but it doesn't mean you wouldn't have gotten there sooner by bulbing . I think one of the great benefits of settling (or more often in my case is building multiple Academies) is flexibility. You can go Guilds/Banking or Liberalism, whereas with a bulbing strategy you pretty much have to go for Liberalism. Likewise in the Industrial Era if you are still bulbing (and I often am) you can go down the Scientific Method/Physics/Biology path, but Steam Power/Assembly Line is not viable.

Darrell

[Robert]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by darrelljs


Except that early in the game you aren't likely to have Representation, a University, an Observatory, or Oxford University.[/q]

1. I always build the pyramids
2. that's why I said that you have an avg 200 turns of that ammount of beakers

quantify is whether the short term advantages you gain from bulbing can be parlayed into other advantages which will more than overcome the numerical settling edge.

I think that on a quite short time I am able to get the same advantages, because of my scientific advantage I am first to many of the tradable techs.

It will come down to how you are playing a specific game, i.e. what victory condition you are shooting for, what type of economy you are running, what your traits are, etc. That's why these debates never end .

I think that in the end it's more a matter of ballancing.
Great Scientists are important for almost everybody. The other GP may not matter that much for some tactics.

And the ballance is of course in which tech you bulb and which not. Never bulbing a tech is not a good idea, imho. But bulbing all techs isn't either.

That might be true, but it doesn't mean you wouldn't have gotten there sooner by bulbing .

I used to be a bulber, and I discovered that I got liberalism earlier and about always first when I stopped that :P

[Robert]

Just for the record, right now I'm playing with a city that creates 900 beakers per turn, total civ = 1740 beakers per turn.

That's about 2 lightbulbs per turn.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by darrelljs

Hmm...I'm not sure I understand this . If I lightbulb Philosophy and trade it for Machinery and Civil Service, I've gained three techs for the price of one GS, while the AIs have gained one tech from my GS. I'm up two techs net.

Two situations:
1) You trade Philo
2) You don't trade Philo

Well, you have an asset, X, which in this case is a tech (Philosophy), which you will then use to gain some other assets. Perhaps those other assets are Machinery and Civil Service. Perhaps they are Y. Doesn't really matter.

1a) First off, your opponents gain some advantage, represented by Xa, which is that they research X at a discount, merely because you have X.

1b) You gain Machinery from Civ 1. Yes, you gain Machinery; however, Civ 1 gains Philo. Thus, Philo is now at discount x2 for all civs. In addition, Civ 1 can now research Y.

2a) Your opponents now research Philo at some discount

2b) You see where I'm going here....

[wodan11]

ps Cybershy: When in your game are you?

Who cares if you're at 1900 AD and about to win. e.g., after you've launched, who cares what research or production you have?

OTOH, depending on when in your game you are, this might matter a huge deal....

Wodan

[Blake]

There are more reasons to prefer settling...

What I usually find in my games, is that between training armies and infrastructure, my build queues are damn busy until industrial, when factories and coal plants allow infrastructure to be completed quickly.

What does this mean?

it means in the early-mid game, I'm not limited by things to build - I'm limited by time to build them! What is the use of getting Universities when you still have Banks to complete (or vice-verca). I prefer settling because it gives me permanent trickle income which will also help later in the game, when I'm actually limited by tech rather than things to build. I also like settling because it gives me targetable beakers (exception here is merchant cash bomb, which is highly targetable also) - to put it simply, the majority of the time I'd rather head up the Guilds/Banking path, over the Liberalism path. This path gives me ample things to build (like banks) along with ample units to train. The liberalism path gives little to build (in all honesty, universities suck) and no units to train. I mean sure liberalism has a nice bonus, but you go through a fair bit of low-yield tech getting there!

While lightbulbing up the liberalism path does get you those techs faster - actually having those techs doesn't necessarily help your game a whole lot!

By the way universities DO suck. Monasteries are better :P. Universities are such a low yield build that if you have any production backlog you don't really want to be building many universities. There is an obvious exception for Philo leaders.

Now, the way to deal with a production backlog is to either research techs which give inate these are techs which increase improvement yield (Printing Press, Biology etc), or have Civics which you want to run. Techs with high yield buildings (like Banks) are good, or techs with upgraded units (like Knights) so you can get more value from each hammer. Making a longer backlog - adding low yielding buildings, is not useful.

One problem with Liberalism is it's difficult to use the free tech in such a way which doesn't just increase your backlog - but an excellent example of a good use of Liberalism is Astronomy on a watery map. Astronomy immediately gives huge advantages in every way possible (especially in free money from overseas trade, and free happy/healthy from resource trades). So you can justify investing in Liberalism to pick up Astronomy. It wont get you Astronomy faster, but you clean out the Liberalism line for a low cost...

Uses for Liberalism other than Astronomy on appropriate maps, tend to be more marginal. The main use is probably getting to these techs faster:
Representation
Communism
Biology

Since those techs give decent innate bonuses. A push for communism isn't bad - ie Liberalism is needed for Commies, and you can pick up Printing Press which is needed for Scientific Method.

But I still think that most of the time, Liberalism is more a red herring than not.

[darrelljs]

Originally posted by CyberShy
1. I always build the pyramids

Okay, but now we have to take into account the opportunity cost of always building the Pyramids. That is a lot of Hammers . Early in the game is when you have the most needs and the least means, and there are bound to be times when a stack of Axeman or an extra couple of Settlers/Workers will have the better long term payout.

Originally posted by CyberShy
And the ballance is of course in which tech you bulb and which not. Never bulbing a tech is not a good idea, imho. But bulbing all techs isn't either.

Now that's something even I can agree with . Actually, I can pretty much agree with everything you are saying for a large range of game templates, but I think there is a good chunk where a bulby approach is the best one.

Darrell

[darrelljs]

Originally posted by wodan11
2b) You see where I'm going here....

Yes, I think so. The basic principle is that spreading around a bulbed tech makes it cheaper for everyone, so you are getting a diminishing return on the bulbing. I wouldn't characterize that as a net neutral affect to bulbing/trading though, simply becaues the discount is never 100%, and often the civs that benefit from the discount are irrelevant. Bulbing Philosophy and trading it to the top two civs for Civil Service and Machinery (or whatever) is still giving me a 2 tech advantage vis-a-vis those civs.

Darrell

[darrelljs]

Originally posted by Blake
There are more reasons to prefer settling...

The calculus has changed somewhat with the Grenadiers change in BtS. A Liberalism -> Chemistry slingshot beeline used to be fairly easy to manage, you just needed Engineering and Gunpowder, and once Liberalism was in the bag Education was more than enough to net those. Now it is a bit fuzzier although Nationalism and drafted Musketmen is still a good option. I think most of the techs you listed are out of reach in all but the most exceptional situations. What do I build while waiting on Liberalism? Granary/Forge/Courthouse/Barracks/Troops*.

If I had the bulb path to Guilds/Banking I'd probably be inclined to take it more often than the Liberalism path, but I don't. It really is the single biggest deficiency in that approach. It doesn't mean that it is not the optimal one in certain situations, specficially early Domination games. It can work at other times, but then I no longer see it as the best method.

Darrell

[Blake]

You're absolutely right about the grenadier nerf being a big blow to liberalism. It's basically no longer viable for domination games - should I say, it wont help a domination game (you could still do it, but you wouldn't be helping your game).

With the techs I mentioned... I don't mean actually using Liberalism for them, just to get closer to them. Like using Liberalism on Nationalism brings you closer to Constitution...

[Robert]

Originally posted by wodan11
ps Cybershy: When in your game are you?

Who cares if you're at 1900 AD and about to win. e.g., after you've launched, who cares what research or production you have?

OTOH, depending on when in your game you are, this might matter a huge deal....

Wodan

Well, it's obviously late in the game.
I wasn't winning yet (that's not that easy on Emperor )
As a matter of fact, I lost the space race

Earlier on I was on 1400 (when it mattered more) but I built the OXfort University too late.
New game has started (my 400th game, btw)

[Indalecio]

Originally posted by Blake

By the way universities DO suck. Monasteries are better :P. Universities are such a low yield build that if you have any production backlog you don't really want to be building many universities. There is an obvious exception for Philo leaders.

I thought universities gave the same boost as libraries to science production. Or is it just the cost of building a uni that makes them bad?

[Blake]

Yup the cost.

A university costs 200 and gives +25% science and +3 culture.

3 monasteries cost 180 and give +30% science and +6 culture :P. They also have incremental build benefit (you get the first 10% after only investing 60h)

Usually the correct number of Universities to build is enough to get Oxfords university, because Oxfords is great, in an appropriate city it'll provide more benefit than the universities required to unlock it .

You might build more universities out of boredom, but they aren't great builds.

[Indalecio]

Originally posted by Blake
Yup the cost.

A university costs 200 and gives +25% science and +3 culture.

3 monasteries cost 180 and give +30% science and +6 culture :P. They also have incremental build benefit (you get the first 10% after only investing 60h)

Usually the correct number of Universities to build is enough to get Oxfords university, because Oxfords is great, in an appropriate city it'll provide more benefit than the universities required to unlock it .

You might build more universities out of boredom, but they aren't great builds.

Ok, but what about maintenance costs? Wouldn't three monasteries cost more to maintain than a single university? Or am I making the wrong assumptions?

[Lorizael]

Er, buildings don't have maintenance costs in Civ 4. Only cities do.