National Wonder Synergy

[couerdelion]

I find it odd that people see a natural synergy in “additive” bonuses rather than “multiplicative” ones. When it comes to military units, there are two types of wonder improvements. Those relating to quality (extra XP or promotions) and those relating to quantity (production bonuses).

It makes more sense in my book to mix the Heroic Epic bonus with either West Point or Red Cross so that there are more units with the extra bonus. Personally, I would be more inclined to use the West Point bonus since this comes earlier in the game so I can combine the two sooner. And Red Cross would tend to go with something like Iron Works which would still give the same mix of quantity and quality improvements but that city would also spend time building things other than units and I don’t need 20% of my army to be a medic unit.

National Epic in the capital. My own view would be that it works if the capital has enough basic GP points from existing wonders and I do not have a suitable city to be a super GP farm. (ie able to support 8-10 specialists). The simple reason is that GP tend to units that are powerful around the early-mid game. So I want the National Epic up early to get the GP early. As a National Wonder it tend to pay dividends pretty quickly so my view is to get this sooner rather than later. If this means displacing one of the other wonders then that’s something I can probably live with because the benefits of later wonders are much shorter-lived.

[DirtyMartini]

I'd agree that ideally heroic epic and west point go together like burgers and fries. However, there (often)are a couple problems with that idea.

Firstly, I like having my heroic epic city go in a coastal city, so sometimes Moai statues makes sense, since you do sacrifice production by making the HE city coastal. Secondly, and more importantly, when West Point becomes available, I'm often at war or preparing for immediate war. If I have an engineer handy, I'll burn him on West Point in the HE city. Otherwise, I often can't tolerate the lost hammers and the lost units if I build something besides troops in the HE city. It hurts losing that +100% to build any building, much less a very expensive one. Therefore, West Point gets build in the cap or the ironworks city. Ironworks/West Point is also not ideal often, as Ironworks city should be pumping Wonders and spaceship parts.

Thanks all for the thoughts on the National Epic.

Regarding the Oxford/Wall Street pair in a shrine city -- I don't think it's ideal. IIRC, the income from a shrine is gold, not commerce. Therefore, you're not really gaining anything by making that city into a general commerce center. Just make it hammer heavy to slam down all the gold multiplying buildings and Wall Street ASAP. Use this gold to run a higher science slider empire-wide. Use your production power to pump out missionaries. Settle excess Great Prophets for great profits. If you make your shrine city do double duty, you have to build twice as many buildings (library, observatory and university) and you must build them while working cottages instead of workshops/watermills.

[darrelljs]

Originally posted by LzPrst
the National Park and Iron works is also a way to go if you have few health resources to get your production up (engineers, works crazy with German Assembly plants)

Doesn't the National Park remove access to Coal? That seems like a negative synergy to me . I like to put the National Park in my National Epic city, although it probably only happens in half my games since NE gets precedence and doesn't always come in a city where I have enough forests.

Darrell

[darrelljs]

Originally posted by couerdelion
I find it odd that people see a natural synergy in “additive” bonuses rather than “multiplicative” ones.

Well, there is synergy in both. I assume you are refering to Ironworks + Heroic Epic? For a city dedicated to pumping military there is no doubt that Ironworks will be put to good use, since you'll end up pumping out more units. The problem is that pairing it with Heroic Epic means that if you aren't using the city to pump out units (e.g. a Wonder), then you are now losing the value of the Heroic Epic! I always put Ironworks in my best production city (which in BTS is rarely coastal due to the levee). I tend to pair Heroic Epic with the Maoi Statues in my best coastal production city, so it can pull naval duty as well. I don't build West Point unless I have access to Stone, 800 hammers is almost 7 Calvary, and I know which I'd rather have . I can't recall ever building the Red Cross, do people find it useful?

Darrell

P.S. Always War games are an exception...I think for those you do want to pair Ironworks with the Heroic Epic.

[joncnunn]

National Epic & National Park is a very interesting combo.
The National Park there wll result in more GPs locally, but on the other hand it cuts off coal and so it slows down production of new local great wonders.

[joncnunn]

The combo I really like though is Heoric Epic + West Point, paticularly since I tend to build most of my offense units in one city.

[DirtyMartini]

Originally posted by darrelljs


Doesn't the National Park remove access to Coal?

Darrell

Good point -- I guess there's a reason I hadn't paired them before.

[Petrus2]

Recently, I have begun playing a hybrid strategy. Probably what I've done a long time, but now I do it intentionally and with a focus on not polluting cities with "other stuff" on the tiles. I also enjoy playing a builder, and getting to the end of the tech tree, then going to war. So I turn off several victory conditions (space race, culture, one or two others). With that in mind, and the effects of the above:

-One city will be dedicated to cash. It also is my GP pump. Therefore it gets a lot of cottages, National Epic, Wall Street. The GPpl produced are Merchants, resettled back for the cash. If I get two Grt Scientists, then the second is used to make an Academy here, since it has all those cottages and I'm typically running 80% research most of the game.

-Another city is a Production city, for those late game military units. It gets Heroic Epic, and either Iron Works or West Point. Obviously a military academy and a settled Grt General for the xp bonus. If I'm not fighting much so not getting a level 6 unit, I put Ironworks here. In fact, that's my typical anyway. This city builds my offensive military units since it builds so fast.

-A second city that happens to have good production (often a neighbor's capital now in my hands) will get Red Cross and West Point (or IW, if WP built in the first production city). This city builds my minimal-risk units like artillery since they get the healing trait for free, and aren't out there doing much battle.

-My best research city (sometimes the capital but typically not) gets Oxford and the first Academy.

-The capital gets whatever happens to work out. Often it focuses on the world wonders I feel I want.

-Moai Statues go where makes sense based on geography. Often the best research city, since that will be along rivers. Sometimes the capital. If Dutch, that research city on a river & coast can really pump out the military units late game too.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Originally posted by darrelljs
Always War games are an exception...I think for those you do want to pair Ironworks with the Heroic Epic.

How many good production cities do you have in an always war game?

If the answer is "one", and you can afford the temporary drop off in military production, then maybe you should pair them.

If the answer is "two" or more, its very hard for me to believe that they should be paired. You lose a not inconsiderable number of hammers invested in your military, you lose the flexibility of Ironworks.

What are the gains? You can settle all of your generals in a single location, you have a smaller critical footprint to defend (though if this is a concern, I wonder if you should be building Ironworks at all). You can maybe arrange a more efficient production schedule if you are trying to produce two different kinds of units (I'd want to see the math on that, but concede that it is possible).

[Quillan]

I almost always separate Iron Works and Heroic Epic. I put Iron Works normally in my highest potential production city, with the eye towards taking a good thing and making it better. Heroic Epic allows me to make another city a good producer of military units, and I'd rather have two than one. Further, it leaves me another opening for the Iron Works city. This will sometimes be West Point, but I prefer West Point in a coastal city so I can make high xp naval as well as land units and coastal cities tend not to have good production unless they're up in a fjord where there's only two water squares in their city radius.

[darrelljs]

Originally posted by VoiceOfUnreason How many good production cities do you have in an always war game?

Lots. But I have one "best" production city, and I want to maximize its potential for unit production.

Darrell

[jbp26]

Originally posted by VoiceOfUnreason


How many good production cities do you have in an always war game?

in an always war game, is everyone always at war with each other? or is it just, the AI is always at war with you.

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by jbp26


in an always war game, is everyone always at war with each other? or is it just, the AI is always at war with you.

ALL the AI's are always at war with you, not each other.

Too bad. A global war would be interesting. Make Gandhi fight!

[rah]

One combo I haven's seen yet that I use if my cap is a good beaker producer. Usually it's my best science city early when I pop the first GS so the Academy is built there. I'll prep it for OX. If I'm playing SP vs MP, I expect to be at war more, so I'll build the globe in my cap and sit in bureaucracy most of the middle game. This assures that my main city can stay 100% productive during extended conflicts. I'll whip the other cities down to combat unhappiness until I can get the civics and techs to handle them easier.

Since I usually don't go for the first two religions, I'll try to rig (time placing) my future money city for founding of conf. or taoism. so a shrine can be exploited by wall street.

My second city, since it will probably be placed to work copper is placed to hopefully be my production city. You have to have at least one early city cranking units.

I'm usually slow building NE since unless my cap is food heavy it, it take time to find the next food city for a GP pump. My capital with early wonders will usually fill the gap till I have the pump up and running.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by darrelljs


Well, there is synergy in both. I assume you are refering to Ironworks + Heroic Epic?

There is no synergy between Iron Works and Heroic Epic. If anything, there is negative synergy since the latter gives the city a relative advantage in military production which is lost for the whole time that Iron Works is being built. The synergy you are talking about here is a production heavy city and Heroic Epic and a production-heavy city and Iron Works.

Your comparison of West Point to Cavalry is a little too simplistic. Even though I can accept that West Point is a tad expensive, the argument here is much the same as the argument about barracks or not in the early game. Given that the city is a military one, it will be building units so the question is more about whether there will be enough units to repay the investment in West Point. More often than not, West Point will be the building that pushes new units from the Heroic Epic city into the Lvl 4 range – for mounted units this needs barracks, stable, vassalage, theocracy and a settled GG but for most cases WP does the trick. +100% production of Lvl 4 units is where synergy really kicks in. So if there is sufficient time left in the game, West Point will normally pay off comfortably.

But Iron Works gives +100% to any city so there is no reason why it is better in a city that has a relative military advantage – ironically, the +100% in this city only translates into a +50% for military production (if we exclude forges, factories etc) so the Iron Works actually reduces this relative value. Better to give Iron Works to a second production city and give it a pure production advantage – good for Wonders.