Heroic Epic and Military Academy: Do they stack?

[smbakeresq]

Large or Huge maps, Marathon

I never thought that an academy with the Epic made sense, it seems to me better to have two cities making units, one a +%100 and one or 2 others at +%50. On Marathon the build times get short enough that I believe it is more effcient to have more cities with a bonus then one city loaded, although this is not as efficient when its comes to settling great generals.

I never combine Heroic Epic and West Point either, since West Point doesn't matter were it is placed. I instead put the Red Cross there, so my biggest producer of units gives most unit the medic promotion. Also, since on the bigger maps you need more than once city making units, I put academys in one or two other cities, then each city can produce a different type of unit. Later on with 2 generals in there you can get 11 XP unit with the free medic promotion in the Epic City.

I could be wrong on this though.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by smbakeresq
since West Point doesn't matter where it is placed.

I could be wrong on this though.

[The Priest]

Completely agree that they do stack, but its worth noting that the effect isn't as good as you might think initially.

The multiplication is of the base hammers, not the total production it is just before you build.

So if you have a city turning out 60 production when building units, adding an academy isn't going to mean it turns out 90 production (+50%). Because that 60 is likely to be say 30 base hammers with +100% of multipliers. So once it has the academy it will be 30 base + 150% = 75.

This is true of all multipliers. The one which always catches me out is the customs post (or whatever it is called - +100% foreign trade). You look and you have say three trade roots worth 5 commerce each and you think 'great, build one of these and i will add 15 commerce). In fact, each of those trade roots is just 1 commerce each with lots of multipliers so the addition in fact will just be 3 commerce.

[Willem]

Originally posted by The Priest
The multiplication is of the base hammers, not the total production it is just before you build.

So if you have a city turning out 60 production when building units, adding an academy isn't going to mean it turns out 90 production (+50%). Because that 60 is likely to be say 30 base hammers with +100% of multipliers. So once it has the academy it will be 30 base + 150% = 75.

Ahh, so that's why I haven't been seeing much of a difference after creating a Military Academy. I was under the assumption that it was tied to total production.

[joncnunn]

Heroic Epic & the Military Academy indeed stack. In fact they stack so well that if attached to a forge + factory + power even the most expensive units get built in only one turn.

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by snoopy369
First off, you're incorrect - the earlier post was correct.

If you produce 10 hammers, and have it doubled to 20 hammers via HE, and produce a unit with 12 of those hammers (8 overflow), the 8 are then downconverted to 4 hammers before being applied to the next build. They would be 8 if you built a mil unit, or 4 if you didn't. That was fixed in one of the first Civ4 Vanilla patches (it didn't work right at first, was always intended to work this way but not fully implemented).

Whoops! Sorry about that.

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Iron works and Moai souns rather a waste... no way a city that is actually taking adequate advantage of Moai will have enough hammers to take adequate advantage of IW.

You and Ming indicate one strategy for the Maoi -- desperate production introduction. However, another approach is to pump up the productive shore city without money. The sea provides funds and (with Maoi) hammers too in the period of expansion when money gets tight. Maoi may be a waste when used to beef up an otherwise unproductive city. Enhancing good production and using IW to pump up that city seems more useful than leaving one moderately productive city and one anemic city, neither worth the IW.

Either slave out the unproductive city, or let it be a $/GP pump, depending on the available food specials.

[snoopy369]

I think you fail to understand my point Moai does not create a good production city, under any definition of the term. It produces only a single hammer per tile, and a city of 21 hammers (one tile island with moai producing +20h) is not an adequate hammer producer for IW. I'd expect at least 40 h/t raw from a city I would consider adding IW to. Perhaps if you had a city with three fish tiles, five or six plains hills including a copper or iron, and rest coast/ocean, I'd consider it; but that's about the only time i'd consider it, any other city would be either too few hammers or too few ocean/coast to justify the moai.

Ultimately, the Moai produces (20h)*(Percent of tiles coast/ocean). Even in a full city (pop 20), that's 20h. IW doubles that, sure, but that's just another 20h; most times IW should be doubling a city with much more hammer output.

Don't think about these questions in terms of 'what sounds good together'; think of them in terms of the cities they are built in. IW would just as well be built in a city with all grassland forest pre-lumbermill, as a moai statue city; add lumbermill and railroad, and it's three times as much as it is...

The point of using Moai on a city that is mostly ocean/coast and relatively few hammers, is not 'desperation', but using it to produce something in a city that would otherwise not produce much, but will use lots of ocean/coast tiles. Basically, the only city that will use a lot of 2/1/x ocean/coast tiles would be a $ ocean city; any other city will consider them inferior to the other available tiles in the city. Therefore, the only city that will productively use the tiles pre-moai is the $ coastal city; thus, you should use Moai in that city (as it gives benefit without costing you anything).

[Slade Wilson]

Perhaps if you had a city with three fish tiles, five or six plains hills including a copper or iron, and rest coast/ocean, I'd consider it; but that's about the only time i'd consider it, any other city would be either too few hammers or too few ocean/coast to justify the moai.

Maybe the city has a half dozen whales as well

In other words....Maoi+Ironworks=cold day in hell

[snoopy369]

I don't think i've ever used a whale tile. I so rarely find them, and on top of that so rarely bother going to ... what is it, compass? astronomy? ... in any event, indeed a cold day in hell

[MoonWolf]

I've played around a bit with IW + WP and HE + WP. If I have a pretty peaceful first half untill IW is available (or close to), I pair IW with WP simply because IW will make the city a lot faster to develope with future, needed buildings like hosptial, factories etc.

On the other hand, if I start early with heavy warfare, I build HE and then head for WP to build in that city. In my current game, I found quite early a nice spot for my primarly military pump of high XP units-city (coastal). This was close to my capital on the northern part of my continent. Later on, I found an even better place for this down in the south and found a city there (also coastal). The former will have IW + Red Cross when available giving me a nice navy-pump. I might also add a Great General to that city if I have enough of them before Pentagon comes around.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by MoonWolf
I've played around a bit with IW + WP and HE + WP. If I have a pretty peaceful first half untill IW is available (or close to), I pair IW with WP simply because IW will make the city a lot faster to develope with future, needed buildings like hosptial, factories etc.

My take on the IW + WP vs HE + WP is based more on theory than on a large sample of empirical evidence. In this theory, cities that specialise add more to a civ than those that do not because there are always opportunities to take advantage of relative competitive advantage.

In the case of HE, it is clear that the city has a relative competitive advantage in units against all other cities. So a building like WP improve that advantage: not only will that city build units more quickly but all of those units will be stronger.

By contrast, the IW improves all production which gives that city a relative advantage in NON-military builds. Building West Point here will reduce the relative advantage.

As an analogy it’s a bit like building Oxford University and Wall Street in the same city. In most situations, you don’t want to do it although there are times when it might be the best options.

By the same theory, a military academy increases relative advantage for military unit builds so building one in a city with a relative advantage in military units will increase that advantage.

Which is a good thing.

[MoonWolf]

Yes, and I mainly agree. However, as a military pump with WP and a few GGs should have high enough production to spam lvl 4 or higher units, it shouldn't spend too much time building necessary production, health and happiness buildings. Or military buildings like drydock and airports. Hence, giving that city IW, would boost the building time for these buildings leaving more available production time for units later. During wartime, you might just need a few happy-buildings to keep war weariness down and production up.

But I don't wait to build HE if it's available early and I have a city suitable for fast production of military units.

[couerdelion]

Last game I finished, there was no benefit from the two buildings because I failed to build a single unit after building a Military Academy – already had 2 instructors. What’s even worse was that West Point was completed and I only then managed to build a single cavalry unit before building a factory and coal plant. That unit never made it into combat and besides, I already had enough units from everywhere else to finish things off.

[Maniac]

How do you get cities with 40 raw hammers?
I rarely have cities which produce more than 20 raw hammers. And I put mines on every hill. (Rarely use workshops though)