Why granaries don't work

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by DaveMcW
You should be shot if you don't build a granary here.

We prefer a tribal council (courtmartial) first, then an order for the convicted to walk off a cliff to an honorable death. But that's just us.

[joncnunn]

I usually wait to build Granaries until I have Hospitals. Most cities grow fast enoguh without them on the Emperor level.

With regard to that particlar start, if ever there was a calling postiion that called out for a Granery as the first city build as an expansiost civ, that is it.

[Egbert]

I build a granary as soon as possible. I want that population to go back up as fast as possible because I want high production to build other stuff such as temple, barracks, veteran spearmen and archers. There is so much to do at the beginning and so little to do it with.

There is no way in hell I want my city population oscillating between 3 and 1. I want veteran spearmen accompanying my settlers and I want some archers in case of early war. I want that temple very early. I want to able to produce trips quickly if I get into a war. (Umh, yes I want everything). A granary makes all that easier for me by boosting population and thus productivity. I am usually the last to found my second city but the extra production makes up for that.

This works for me at Regent even on a tiny crowded map. (If the map is that crowded then the granary makes the capital grow faster so I can pump out more troops to get someone elses city).

[Charis]

Granaries and Expansion

I'll start by saying that I never appreciated granaries and never built them before playing in a succession game with Sirian, where their virtues became *quite* evident.

Since there seem to be some math lovers here, I wanted to toss out an idea that might make sense. Civ 3 is all about growth. Folks on both side of this argument don't argue about that! Those who never use granaries avoid them so they don't slow down their 'growth', while those that use them do so precisely to speed up their 'growth'



The difference is the time frame they're looking at.
Consider this graph:



This is a plot of generic power vs the number of turns.
(It's not meant to give specific numbers, but show a concept!)
Going with a granary is definitely slower, as you delay getting more cities, no units, as you build the granary. But after that you can crank out settlers or grow in pop at twice the rate. So the curve illustrates a higher exponential growth coefficient but with a time delay added in.

In the early stages ('B') the granary approach is far slower, while after a long time ('C') the extra growth from having the granary blows away not using them. Somewhere in the middle is the break-even point, 'A'.
Those centered on short-term, early war, first few cities think of their civs like the curves at 'B' and think 'granaries suck'.
Granary lovers think in terms of long term expansion, look at not only the difference in y-value but slope at point 'C' and think "Granaries? Only a fool would neglect them!"

The reason why there is *NOT* a universal answer to 'granary, yes or no' is because it depends on many factors:
- In games with very early war the short term unit count rules, and the advantage at 'B' is quite necessary
- In small games where you only have room for a few cities, the expansion is over before you ever get to 'C', perhaps before you get to 'A'. Getting settlers out quickly is paramount, forsaking the granary
- On a large map with no neighbor close it's hard to imagine not choosing a granary
- In some cases you're not food limited but shield limited, and a granary does not double the growth rate but does keep the delay, and is a poor choice
- If you can capture a builder neighbor who builds the pyramids, you get to follow the no-granary curve at the start then get the granary-curve's slope when you capture the pyramid, for the best of both worlds.

So the question you need to ask yourself is:
Am I going to run out of space to expand, or get in a war with a neighbor, before or after 'A'. Too bad you don't know where 'A' is in a real game. But experience will be a good guide -- *IF* you make the effort to try out and use granaries if that's something you never do now. Otherwise you're stuck on the solid curve forever - good players will have a feel for both curves and know which curve to choose for their game depending on objectives, neighbors, and map conditions.

This curve is the same one of interest when businesses must choose between heavy R&D spending or going for short-term profits. Which gets chosen too often? Let's say that many execs never build granaries!

I hope this helps, rather than induce folks to...
Charis

[Arrian]

To boil it down to bare essentials, it all comes down to how much room you have to expand. If you have lots of room, build granaries - they're worth it. If you're relatively cramped and expect to start fighting pretty soon, getting a couple of cities down and barracks built is the top priority.

-Arrian

[ducki]

If you are Expansionist and follow Aeson's Scout-Scout-Scout early build queue, I'd imagine an early granary to be a great idea.

If you delay your second and third cities, you should be below the AI average, making you eligible to gain settlers and towns from goody huts while at the same time, gaining the granary-growth factor.

Yes, it's a gamble, but so is the Expansionist trait in general. For non-Exp civs, I usually play it by ear. If I feel I am shield-heavy, I'll knock out a granary to equalize food and shields. If I'm food-heavy, that granary is probably going to take ages to finish and I might be better off just squirting out workers and settlers once I found a productive town.


I used to hate Granaries because I didn't like micromanaging citizen moods, but the more experience I get, the easier it is to know ahead of time what to do. Granaries are just another tool, like temples or libraries or roads or horsemen.
If you need it, build it, otherwise make more troops. (That one's for you, Theseus. )

[joncnunn]

Also Granies don't do cities without fresh water access much good in the ancient era.

I also play on tiny maps, and so unless I'm in an isolated start, expansion to the bottlenecks will be in the middle of "B" when the military troops are thrown in.

In addition, difficulty level plays a factor. On the Emperor level, you don't want cities growing faster than you can build the happiness improvements.

[DaveMcW]

Originally posted by joncnunn
In addition, difficulty level plays a factor. On the Emperor level, you don't want cities growing faster than you can build the happiness improvements.

The luxury slider is a wonderful thing...

In the worst case you can create some entertainers to slow down growth and create happiness. Extra food is never bad.

[joncnunn]

Extra entertainers consume food; this bumps workers off of more productive tiles and into less productive ones.

The luxary slider is usually unaffordable in the ancient era and often inefficent because it helps the wrong cities.

[Mazarin]

joncnunn...you should use the luxury slider more Especially in the Ancient Era putting 10-30% into luxuries will help your growth and production..and it does not help cities that don't need it: a size-2town usually won't invest any money into entertainment with luxury at 10%...bigger towns will.

[Bamspeedy]

joncnunn-what Dave is saying is that the WORST that can happen is they become an entertainer. How else are you going to keep that person happy? What is the difference between a size 3 city with no entertainers and a size 4 city with 1 entertainer? It will still produce the same.

Here's a summary of a deity game I played where I built a granary early on and then was able to build a settler every 4 turns, allowing me to keep pace with the AI on deity in the land grab phase of the game.

Babylon's Deity Settlers

The surrounding terrain (outside the capital) did not offer much bonus resources (except for the wheat on floodplains to the north), so other cities could only produce a settler once every 20 turns. The capital with a granary producing +5 food/turn could produce settlers just as fast as 5 other cities (COMBINED) that are only producing +2 food/turn.

[joncnunn]

Bamspeedy, Your map had much more open territory than the maps I play on. If I stop to build a Granery, I won't get more than 4 or 5 ciites before being blocked in on my maps. (I play on tiny maps)

In the case of despotism with no bonus food tiles where a size 3 city is working a mined hill tile, if it grows to size 4 with the new citizen being an entertainer, it will strave back to size 3. To maintaign it at 4 it's production is worse with an entertainer than it was at size 3 because the worker that was working the hills has to be relocated.

Under despotism, most of my cities use warriors as military police, the 10% luxaries would also tax away gold from cities than are fine in addition to the one with the problem.

[DaveMcW]

Sorry for jumping on you joncnunn. In your original post you state that you don't use granaries to:

1. build settlers
2. speed up growth in cities without an aqueduct

So the only reason left is:

3. make cities grow to size 12 faster

You are correct that a single size 12 city will hopelessly unbalance a military powerhouse. So avoiding granaries is best in your case (tiny map, warmonger).

Everyone should state what their map conditions are to avoid conflicting signals.

[joncnunn]

I also build Graneries right after the Hospital so they grow to 18+ faster. (By then I have Temple + Catherdrial + Market Place + access to sufficent luxaries.)

I'm only a warmongler when my rapid expansion didn't give me enough high quality territory. (Most important feature for me is location of the rivers.) I play on the Emperor level.

The 3rd and 4th Settler I built in my most current game were to establish borders with the river on my side of the Irq border. (On tiny maps, 2 cities in most locations close by will create a chock point by the time both cities expand culturally.) The next few settlers were founded in an outside-in pattern.

I still had to build a lot of Jag Warriors in my current game just to keep the peace with my Irq neighbor when they had Mounted Warriors. Some of the Jag Warriors also carefully blocked the AI from sneaking a settler thru my territory. It was a success, the Irq didn't attack me until I had Infentry when Tanks were still a long way off.

Should the Irq make the same mistake now (I just now entered the modern era), they will be exiled to a small island.

In my previous game as the Chinese also on Emperor level I never went to war with the neighboring Japense at all. (5 cities on the river during REX, 8 cities with Harbors. Total of 10 cities, which is sufficent for the FP on tiny maps.)

During my Emperor level game with France though, I fought 2 ancient era and 1 mop up early middle age wars with England to grab the whole landmass. (Closest river was in London and continued in the far side of their starting location from mine.)

[Datajack Franit]

My capital produces about 3 settlers, then around 1400 BC I start building the Pyramids- if nothing happens I have double production and can start building the GL- if someone builds it before me it's ok as long I researched literature so I can skip to the GL