The Luxury Slider

[Pentalog]

Well, I guess I'm going to show a little of my "newb-ness" through this question/request, but I would like to know how you all use the luxury slider. I was reading Vulture's posts in the AU 207 thread (very good posts, btw!) and he mentioned that he moved the luxury slider back down to zero...which obviously meant he'd had it greater than zero at some point .

I have NEVER used the luxury slider in Civ 3 (used it some in Civ 2). I usually play on Monarch, but if I want a game I'm going to lose, I play on Emp. Whenever I have civil trouble, I simply turn a worker to an entertainer and everything is happy. Occasionally, this causes the city to drop a population point, but, HEY!, if they are unhappy because of overcrowding, one way to deal with it is to starve some citizens (God - sometimes I just feel completely heartless when I play this game).

So...how/when/where/why do you use the luxury sliders...or do you ( should be followed by a "mwhahahahaha")?

Pent

[vulture]

May I recommend that you look at a thread - The Power of the Luxury Slider - which for some reason I couldn't find in the list of 'must read' threads at the top of this page...

My synopsis: as long as you are up to date on developing your tiles with workers (roads on every tile you are using as a minimum) then it is almost always better to let cities grow and use the luxury slider to control them than to limit their growth using specialists (btw since when you make a specialist, an unhappy worker is always turned into a content specialist, you usually do better to make taxmen or scientists than entertainers). There is a slight balancing act between having excess luxuries produced in a city that doesn't need them vs using population as specialists in other cities to keep them happy, but even in despotism it is better to have size 6 cities and the luxury slider at 50% than size 3 cities with the luxury slider at 0 (worst case scenario: you get the same cash flow, but have the population ready for when you get some temples built or an extra source of luxuries connected - and usually you get extra shields from the extra population as well).

Size 3 city - 3 gold (or science), 3 shields.
Size 6 city (luxury slider at 50%) 3 gold/sci, 3 luxuries, 6 shields.

Under republic or democracy it is even more advantageous to have big cities.

[Arrian]

which for some reason I couldn't find in the list of 'must read' threads at the top of this page...

Definitely an oversight. The lux slider is extremely important, and tends to be one of those things that people need to learn to use to jump up to the higher levels of play.

I will use it early on to allow all of my original warriors to go explore, leaving my capitol empty. When it hits size 3 (Monarch level), I have to use the slider. Later, when I've stopped REXing, I will use the slider to allow me to boost the size of my cities so I can either build wonders, troops, or perhaps both. Later still, I will use it to get cities to celebrate "We Love the President Day" which cuts down on shield waste, making my empire more efficient.

-Arrian

[Pentalog]

Thanks for the responses - I'm reading the other thread as I type (well...not exactly, but you get the point).

It seems to me that an OCC AU game would be very timely (at least for me) because it would entail extreme micromanagment, which would help me understand the underlying mechanisms of the game better.

Furthermore, it might be fun to play through the game a couple of times, trying different strategies, which would be very feasible given the short nature of OCC games...

Thanks

Pent