Born on the wrong continent

[wodan11]

Originally posted by couerdelion
On the whipping point, any which fails to improve tech in the long run is counter-productive in my book. You whip in key infrastructure or units so that you can improve your overall output. While it might appear rather hammer-centric it should, over the long run improve you overall science output.

Do you take into consideration that the overall science output is not the only desired outcome? For example, science now is worth more than science later. Otherwise, nobody would ever lightbulb... they would always settle.

And, the bigger question, how do you determine if it will improve the overall science output? (Not rhetorical, I'm genuinely asking.)

Wodan

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by wodan11

Do you take into consideration that the overall science output is not the only desired outcome? For example, science now is worth more than science later. Otherwise, nobody would ever lightbulb... they would always settle.

And, the bigger question, how do you determine if it will improve the overall science output? (Not rhetorical, I'm genuinely asking.)

Wodan

I would agree that commerce/science now is, in general, worth more than the same commerce/science later although I also think that overall science is the desired outcome – other things (like food, production, etc) being equal.

Arbitrarily, if I set myself a target of getting flight by 1800 AD, then it does not matter if I do lots of conquest early, but get slower research, and then speed up later to catch up with a comparable game where a faster start leads to conquests later and arriving at flight at the same time. If I take the 1800 AD snap-shot and see myself in the same position then the “speed” at which I get there is irrelevant.

What I think you are suggesting, however, is that a faster starting speed should naturally lead to techs being completed earlier which are then used as leverage to gain something else – eg territory, science improvements.

Which is a reasonable presumption. Higher early teching leads to me getting pottery earlier allowing me to build cottages and research writing allowing libraries and scientists (for academies etc). A virtuous cycle (or utopia for builders)

Slavery has a more direct purpose which is essentially to convert food into hammers. In some ways it benefits commerce since we do not have to rely on hammer tiles to build things but can use food instead. This means that granaries and libraries can be built and we can still work cottage tiles. Add to this a dedicated military city and were can build and research. Switch the building to a unit and we can whip an army to grab more territory to try to expand the empire profitably and further increase our tech rate.

Sure, we will be spending quite a bit of time while cities are growing back to size but we will also have our buildings finished sooner (or will have been working our cottages longer) if we whip rather than work forest and mine tiles.

As for how you determine is something improves things or not, I think this is as much a judgement as a science – that is unless you keep comparing your position to saved games. I have, in the past, compared a sort of aggregate output of production, science and gold (net of costs) to look at growth over certain periods. If the number is increasing in line with a target growth (1.5% per turn on Epic speed), then I think I am doing OK.

But even this is not a perfect measure since there seems to be a significant lull in development between early classical and early renaissance periods where improvements simply cannot keep up with the sudden growth of the early cities and the dramatic improvements that the renaissance and industrial techs bring.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by wodan11

Oh come on Snoopy.

Whipping is most efficient at low population, because it is dramatically cheaper (in terms of food) to regrow.

The cost of "1 pop" is different depending on city size.

Wodan

Cost to regrow pop point 2 (normal game): 22 food
Cost to regrow pop point 5 (normal game): 28 food
(I'm not 100% sure of these exact numbers, but it's approximately correct, in concept at least)

Imagining a city that has 1 food resource, and otherwise irrigated grassland (the situation that most favors your viewpoint)
Food output of size 1 city: +5 food (5 food tile + 2 for city tile, sum 7-2=+5)
Food output of size 4 city: +8 food (5 food tile, 3 3 food tiles, 2 for city tile, sum 16-8=+8)

Growth to size 2: 4.4 turns
Growth to size 5: 3.5 turns

Which is more efficient again? So long as you farm tiles, or otherwise have several higher food tiles, it is more efficient at a larger size (up to a point), because (food in) grows faster than (food req'd) does.

Certainly you sometimes want to whip at size 2 (Krill's example), but overall it is more efficient near or over the happy cap than at the low end; and it does far less damage to your tech rate (which is important of course). I might whip a granary at size 2, certainly, or an early worker, but otherwise I'm not going to whip much at size 2 barring an attack.