Question regarding luxury slider

[arnoldvsgooch]

I usually play now at regent level. In most cases I switch to Republic and stay unless I am religious, in which case I become a Democracy. Usually I stay at 0% during despotism and up it to 10% for republic or 20% for democracy. I know it is probably circumstantial and game specific for luxury rate, but does anyone have a kind of rule of thumb for the different governments. I never go beyond 20% at regent level, but for the harder levels should I consider raising the luxury rate? Any input on this subject would be appreciated.

[joncnunn]

On Regent level, that's excessive use of the luxary slider.

Acquire and trade for luxaries instead combined with Temples and Market Places everywhere. Later on add Catherdrials and evenually Colosumuns.

0% luxaries is the normal rule of thumb in Civ III, except in special cirumstances. The only one that might apply on Regent level is insufficent luxaries advaible, in which case 10% may be needed as a stop gap while preparing to annex some if you can't trade for them.

[alva]

Use it as you need to, to prevent cities going into disorder..
Try to stay away from using specialists as much as you can (until later in the game).

I often set it on 50%(emperor or higher), it's still a better choice in the long run, you have to make sure your cities keep growing.
Afterall, money isn't that important in early stages of the game.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by joncnunn
0% luxaries is the normal rule of thumb in Civ III, except in special cirumstances.

In PBEM games I'm involved that are Monarch difficulty, I'm using the Luxury slider 90% of the time. It's easy to say "acquire more Luxuries" or "build more Cathedrals", but that's not always possible and/or the best course of action.

The Luxury slider can be used effectively (and efficiently!) without going out of your way to keep it at 0%.

[Theseus]

I am almost always at 10 or 20%, sometimes 30% if I've had more than usual disadvantageous warfare, or am truly short on lux.

At 40% and higher, I usually re-assess what I am doing and make drastic changes.

[EDIT: To clarify, I almost always play at Monarch or Demi]

[Modo44]

I would say the rule of thumb is to pursue a 0% lux slider setting (Was it Theseus saying: "Get all luxuries" ? ). Whether you trade or conquer the luxuries, having them all will be great to your empire. While quite doable up to some level (player-dependant), it sure becomes difficult as you move up.

[arnoldvsgooch]

Ok, so if I can get all or most luxuries I should probably be able to run at 0%-10%? If I am missing luxuries and/or have civil disorder problems it wouldn't be a bad idea to bump it up to 20%-40%. Thanks for the reply's.

[joncnunn]

More like 0% is normal, especally on a level so low as Regent.

On Regent level:
3 citizens are naturally content. (By comparsion, on Emperor and above only 1, and on Monarch 2)

The 4th either needs any of 1 luxary, a Temple, 1 MP, or a Tax Men / Scientist

The 5th without either luxaries, Temples nor MP would need that Tax / Scientist converted into an entertainer.

Specalists are stop gap for an indivudal city with problems.

The luxary slider is a stop gap with there are lots of cities with problems.

The real solution is getting sufficent luxaries. 3+ unique types since that's where Market Places start helping.

Extra luxaries via slider do no good whatsoever unless sufficent to bring about a WLTPD, and even then the WLTPD only matters away from the core because the effect of WLTPD is reducing corruption [shields only] in Civ III and not pop boom like Civ II / SMAC.

For the same reason, be careful about decisions to buy luxaries if you already have 4 types. There are curcumstances where a 5th luxary does no good whatsoever unless you also have a 6th.

Having only one unique luxary type (or NONE! ) are really the cases where a rush (ancient era war) against your neighbor with them is called for, and if it's taking a while building up for the war and aquiring the luxaries, that is when 10% luxary slider may be needed. But also note that if you are not under a representive govt, being at war gives you negative WW. (Happiness goes up by 1 person in each city!)

[Solomwi]

My philosophy, in a nutshell, is to, as Modo says, pursue a 0% lux setting, through happiness improvements and luxes. However, I recognize the lux slider as a tool at my disposal, and a pretty efficient one at that, most of the time, and won't hesitate to use it to keep cities out of disorder or to bring about WLTKD. One thing to look for regarding WLTKD: even in your innermost core, it can be the difference in getting to the next production platform, for instance 50 raw shields instead of 49, and saving on turn on future builds. It's not always going to happen that way, but it's something to look for.

[Jaybe]

Regent level still has 2 cits content, same as Monarch.

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by Modo44
I would say the rule of thumb is to pursue a 0% lux slider setting (Was it Theseus saying: "Get all luxuries" ? ). Whether you trade or conquer the luxuries, having them all will be great to your empire. While quite doable up to some level (player-dependant), it sure becomes difficult as you move up.

This is my philosophy. When running Republic, I often need a 10% luxury slider to keep the population in line.

I do try not to go above 10% for too long. Sometimes I need to temporarily, while I acquire luxuries or build markets, but it's not something I like to do as a permanent part of keeping my empire happy.

[cousLee]

It depends on what your civil disorder problem is. If you only have 1-3,4 cities with problems, it's better to use specialists and build some happiness buildings imo. I tend to use the lux slider more for maintaining WLTKD. If you have a genuine disorder problem, then get some goods asap. Every % on the lux slider is handicapping your science/gold production, esp is you have science and gold buildings in place.

[vmxa1]

Re: Question regarding luxury slider

Originally posted by arnoldvsgooch
I usually play now at regent level. In most cases I switch to Republic and stay unless I am religious, in which case I become a Democracy. Usually I stay at 0% during despotism and up it to 10% for republic or 20% for democracy. I know it is probably circumstantial and game specific for luxury rate, but does anyone have a kind of rule of thumb for the different governments. I never go beyond 20% at regent level, but for the harder levels should I consider raising the luxury rate? Any input on this subject would be appreciated.

First if you can get by with 0 lux, you either have way to good of a start location or on too low of a level. I cannot do that for long.
Well I guess you could keep the cities pop down, which is often a method at the 1 content levels.

Second, the thing I look at is the ratio of happy to unhappy. If it is not balanced or not more happy than sad, I need action. That action is often to use the slider. It is nearly always better to do that than a specialist in the early game.

IOW I am happy to do it later with larger cities that are mostly corrupt. So what are my needs and what is my cost. Which method yields the best results.

I was actually looking at a game last night that was on Demi (iirc) and had 5 happy and one content or unhappy, I forget which one. Anyway I was testing the value of taxman and changed a citizen to a taxman and actually ended up with only 4 happy citizens. The net gold came up one, but commerce was down and of course the city no longer grows and a shields was lost.

So it is plain to me, that one size does not fit all.

[Dimitrius]

Lux slider...MMmm before end of turn sneak a peak at F1..it will tell you (show you) which cities will go into disordr next turn. Adjust slider accordingly..if its too high convert citizens with little production tiles until these tiles are improved. There is no "set" value for Lux..too many factors so.....proper micromanagement every turn is best way to get the most out of your civ (production wise, gold wise, expansion wise). This game is all about micromanagement and adapting your startegies to fit the present situation.
So in other words stay one stap ahead of your people.

[joncnunn]

This whole thread started out with someone on Regent level. The early game 10% luxaries when a city hits pop 2 is much more of an Emperor level+ stategry that's unneeded (and conterproductive) on Regent level.

It should be no problem whatsoever on Regent level to have built the first garrison as police before reaching size 3, the second garrision as police before size 4 and still have sufficent units exploring.

Chances are on Regent level that you can connect a luxary before any city reaches size 5 as well, so you don't start needing actions until the first of cities reaching size 7 or declaring a revolution, and so the Temple builds are really primarly as preparition for switching to Republic. (While on Emperor+ actually needed to keep order)

There seems to be a rationship between quality of players starting location and difficulty level on random maps as well. (Much more likely to have 3+ nearby diffierent luxary types on Regent than Emperor+.)