Strategies for Great Persons?

[rah]

What speed do you guys play? My military city is usually cranking out 2 tanks every 3 turns or 3 every 4 turns. (but I guess that's because I build an academy. Normal speed)

[Theben]

I always play epic.

[DirtyMartini]

Originally posted by Theben
I always play epic.

me too. I've tried some of the tri-league tourney games that are set to normal speed and I just can't do it -- I don't instinctively know what is a long build/research time like I do on epic.

[Seedle]

Originally posted by Yosho



Oh, I disagree with that. It's certanly better to get an acadamy in your west point city then to settle a general somewhere; a lot more experenced units is better then a few more experence points on some units. And even after I do that, I would never settle a general in city that I didn't already have an acadamy in;50% more units is just better, IMHO; after all , then I'd expect at least some of them will survive long enough to get a few more experence point on their own, right?

You might be right. Heck, you are probably right. However, experience can give de facto production bonuses. If I build twice as many units, but 80% (random numbers to make my point) die from an academy city, vs. a instructor city that only makes half the units, but only half of its units die, I end up further ahead on the instructor city. This is not as unrealistic as it seems. The promotion chains get better has they go up. City raider one gives, what, +20% city attack? but city raider 3 gives like 40%, for a total of 85% i think. Units that start higher on the promotion chain have much greater survivability than units that start lower. I'm not saying this eliminates the advantage of academies, but it may not be as great as it appears.

Also, I get bored moving 80 billion units a turn. Having fewer, but more effective, units is more fun for me as opposed to having lots of weaker units, even if the latter is ultimately the better strategy.

Of course, I only play on Noble Marathon, it is amazing how moving up a level will reveal weaknesses in your strategy that you didn't even know existed

edit: Okay, went to the combat damage threadhere, and I think I understood it well enough to do some damage calcs, please correct me if I screw up.

I'll take a tank (str 28) and a defending infantry (str 20). The tank will have either city raider 2 (+45% i think) or city raider 3 (+85% in this case), and we assume a city battle. The infantry has +25% fortify and ambush (+25%)

With CR2, the tank has an effective str of 28, the infantry has (20*1.05)= 21. This gives the tank a (28/49)=57.1% of winning each round, and it can lose 5 rounds, whereas the infantry can only lose 4.

With CR3, the tank has an effective str of 28, the infantry only (20/1.35)=14.81. This gives the tank a (28/42.81)=65% chance of winning each round. In addition, the tank can now lose 7 rounds, and the infantry can only lose 3.

The extra promotion made a significant difference. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about probability to know exactly what this does to survival rates. Anyone inclined to help, please?

[Yosho]

Originally posted by Seedle

You might be right. Heck, you are probably right. However, experience can give de facto production bonuses. If I build twice as many units, but 80% (random numbers to make my point) die from an academy city, vs. a instructor city that only makes half the units, but only half of its units die, I end up further ahead on the instructor city. This is not as unrealistic as it seems. The promotion chains get better has they go up. City raider one gives, what, +20% city attack? but city raider 3 gives like 40%, for a total of 85% i think. Units that start higher on the promotion chain have much greater survivability than units that start lower. I'm not saying this eliminates the advantage of academies, but it may not be as great as it appears.

Also, I get bored moving 80 billion units a turn. Having fewer, but more effective, units is more fun for me as opposed to having lots of weaker units, even if the latter is ultimately the better strategy.

Of course, I only play on Noble Marathon, it is amazing how moving up a level will reveal weaknesses in your strategy that you didn't even know existed

Well, more experenced units are worth more then less experenced units, but 2 experence points isn't all that much, considering; they might start one level higher, which is useful in the first battle certanly, but if I'm producing more units I can afford to sacrifice a catapult or two in the first battle to soften up the enemy, and that seems to do a lot more for the survival odds of the rest of my army then another level of experence does. And after the first battle, when my units start getting experence of their own, that 2 starting experence matters less and less.

Although I guess I have a different playstyle then you. All else being equal, I'd really rather have a lot of less experenced units then a few experenced units. If you're counting on a handfull of experenced units, then a few unlucky rolls and you're suddenly in deep trouble; or if something unexpected happens it's easier to respond to it. I have more units, I basically have more options; I can have more variety in my units, and I can mix up my stratagy by also having smaller raids on outlying, weakly defended targets more often.

(shrug) If I get a LOT of great generals, I might end up settling a few of them, but usually only after all my major cities have acadamies.

[johnmcd]

More than twenty units in a war and I restart, life is too short.

I probably would enjoy the game more if I didn't play Marathon and Huge.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by johnmcd
More than twenty units in a war and I restart, life is too short.

I probably would enjoy the game more if I didn't play Marathon and Huge.

Lol...I tend to run what I think is a millitary-light stratagy most of the time, and I'd rarely make it past the middle ages without restarting if I did that.

[joncnunn]

Post Biology farms (at least on non-farm-resources) don't affect the food polarity if it's on an irrigation chain.

What does is Windmills & Workshops (if not running state property civic)

Originally posted by Yosho

joncnunn: Therre's usually nothing wrong with an odd number of food; that just lets you work another plains cottege or something.

[Yosho]

+1 food is kind of annoying, but so long as you have a granery, and so long as happiness isn't a problem, it actually is better then +0 food. Instead of having, say, 15 people permenantly staying in the city, you spend 20 turns with 15 people, then 20 turns with 16 people, then 20 turns with 15 people, ect. And having an extra specilist half the time is better then never having him, right?

Or, alternatly, you could just hit the "no population growth" button. In that case, it's also better having +1 food instead of having +0 food, because that way your food supply eventually maxes out, which can be useful later; if your city gets blockaded, or unhappiness caused by WW makes you lose some farmers, it dosn't starve as fast.

Either way, +1 food is always better then +0 food, right?

[wodan11]

I used to always balance my mix of mines and windmills so I always came out "even" with +0 food.

Then BtS came out. Now, I just get Sushi.

Wodan

[Seedle]

Originally posted by Yosho

Or, alternatly, you could just hit the "no population growth" button. In that case, it's also better having +1 food instead of having +0 food, because that way your food supply eventually maxes out, which can be useful later; if your city gets blockaded, or unhappiness caused by WW makes you lose some farmers, it dosn't starve as fast.

Either way, +1 food is always better then +0 food, right?

If the button works that way, yeah that's better, but I think the avoid growth button just makes the governor avoid food surpluses, it doesn't actually prevent growth. But maybe I just learned something new and useful.

This "problem" is certainly able to be worked around with improvements and such, but sometimes it leads to sub-optimal improvements just to even out the food. And yeah, I suppose in strategic terms having +1 pop sometime is better than no time, but it's the aesthetic of it...

Sort of on topic random statement: I always run State property rather than use corporations (such as Sids). Burning a great person, using hammers on execs instead of units, and running a civic that is in my opinion inferior to state property just don't do it for me. Even with sids, if you plan your cities properly, you most likely get more food from state property than the corp. Plus, I rarely need food to boost pop in the late game, I'm too busy trying to maintain my health as is.

I also edited my previous post about the great generals. Tried to do at least some of the math myself before asking for help.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by Seedle

If the button works that way, yeah that's better, but I think the avoid growth button just makes the governor avoid food surpluses, it doesn't actually prevent growth. But maybe I just learned something new and useful.

Yeah, it actually complelty prevents growth. Which also means that you need to remember that you did it, it's way to easy to forget and accidently leave prevent growth on long past the point where you would have wanted the city to grow, esecally if you just wanted to wait until you got another resource or something first.

[Seedle]

Originally posted by Yosho


Yeah, it actually complelty prevents growth. Which also means that you need to remember that you did it, it's way to easy to forget and accidently leave prevent growth on long past the point where you would have wanted the city to grow, esecally if you just wanted to wait until you got another resource or something first.

Nifty. I thinks it's a sign of a good, deep game when you can play for 3 years and still learn new things about it.