The great person thread

[regoarrarr]

Thought I would write a thread on our great people, so we can best plan them. Specifically I wanted to run some numbers and see if it was viable to get our first GP in China Beach (before it is overwhelmed by the capital)

I mentioned this in the turnplayer thread but it was mentioned that China Beach needed to make workboats for our new cities. I'm not saying I disagree, but I thought it would be worth crunching some numbers so that we have a better understanding of our opportunity cost here.

Some assumptions, which may or may not be true:

* We research Aesthetics in 4 turns (T96) with 22 gold left in the bank (90 - 4*17)
* We have zero beakers overflow into Lit (false but I don't know what it will be)
* Literature costs 286 of our beakers (200 base)
* We are currently at 53 [64] bpt at 100%, with -17 gpt, or 1 beaker and +30 gpt at 0%
* Airstrip One has 0/100 GPP
* China Beach currently has 12/100 GPP (running scientists for 2 turns - I can't remember - need to check this)
* We manage to pull off building TGL on the turn we discover Literature.

So, at that rate, we should be able to do Literature in 5 turns after Aest, plus 2 turns of 0% (this is a rough guess but probably fairly close).

So in 11 turns from now we will be generating 6 GPP/t in A1. Meaning we will hit 100 on turn T+28 and 200 on turn T+61.

If we manage to get a Scientist from China Beach before T+28, then our first 2 GPPs will be at T+20(ish) and T+45 (11 to build TGL and 34 to get to 200 in the capital).

This of course ignores the possibilities of hiring additional scientists in A1.

So after running these numbers, I would like to re-propose that we try to get the first scientist out of China Beach. Every Great Scientist in our game 16 turns earlier!!!

And it can still build some workboats. We just need to be running 2 scientists 14 of the next 27 turns. Caveat that we make sure to check my assumptions and build a buffer turn or 2 into the calcs because we can't "un-hire" the GL scientists. If it makes sense, we could even hire 1 scientist only for more turns - we just need 28 (or so, depending on the current GPP balance in CB) scientist-turns

[Dreylin]

Won't A1 be generating 8gpp/turn - 6 from the 2 scientists & 2 from GL itself?

That gives A1 a GS on T+24.

I think CB only has 6gpps from running a single Scientist for 2t. If we started running 2 after pop increase in 2t, I think that gives us a Scientist out of there at T+18. Then A1 would pop the second out on T+36.

[Sullla]

Dreylin is right - China Beach indeed has 6 Great Person points in the bank right now (all from Scientists).

Assuming we can swing it correctly, we definitely should try to produce one Great Scientist out of China Beach before Airstrip One. This would also help us research to Literature faster. Assuming we land the Great Library in Airstrip One, it will produce a Great Scientist 13 turns after the wonder completes (100/8 = 12.5), or in X+13 turns to use Ruff's notation. Since we're at least 10 turns away from Literature and completing the wonder, we have about ~25 turns to get a Great Scientist out of China Beach.

China Beach only needs 16 more turns to get that Great Scientist (running two specialists), so we should be able to build another work boat (4t) with time to spare. This is basically an elaborate post agreeing with regoarrarr, in other words.

[mostly-harmless]

It is late and my brain if fried from too much pre-xmas work, so I am very happy you put that last sentence in!

mh

[regoarrarr]

Okay. So let's talk about what we are doing with our GS, who is on track to appear in 11 turns (T114 I believe). The 2 options are academy and Philosophy. There has been talk about an academy, which is a strong play no doubt, but I thought I would run some numbers just to make sure what the 2 options are.

Philosophy is 800 raw or 1144 adjusted beakers.

In full commerce mode, it looks like A1 is making about 27 commerce:

8 for the palace
3 for the trade route
4 for one hamlet
4*3 for four cottages

We'll add a few more commerce for cottage maturation and increased size - let's say 35 commerce per turn. While we do have a library and will (hopefully soon) be running bureaucracy, those factors are not multiplicative. But we will also soon have 2 scientists there for another 12 bpt.

On the con side, we can't afford to run 100% science all the time. I mean we're no PAL or Imperio!!! :-). Our last 2 turns have been 0% gaining 24 gold, and 100% losing 28 gold. So we'll round it off and say that we are averaging about 50% science.

So, that means that we will have 1 turn of 0% science, where A1 contributes 12 beakers (from the 2 GL scientists) and 1 turn of 100% science, where A1 contributes 47 beakers. So an average of 30 beakers (29.5 but work with me folks!). These are "raw" beakers and do not consider the library, any monasteries or bureaucracy.

So an academy should net us about 15 bpt. Certainly nothing to sneeze at, but not compared with an 1144 beaker tech.

Our 2nd scientist will come out of A1 34 turns after the GL is built, or about T137. Assuming we use him to build an academy if we bulb Philosophy first, that is 23 turns without an Academy, or about 350-400 beakers, depending on cottage maturation / growth. Actually it's only 22 turns because if the scientist is the first one, it takes an extra turn to move him to A1

Also keep in mind that there is a decent chance that we found Taoism, which has huge benefits also. I believe the religion tends to go in your largest non-capital city, but what if we could figure out how to get it in Cape Town! That would be huge.

[Swiss Pauli]

There was a GS born overseas on this turn, so we'll have to see how that is used (and by whom, if he's bulbed) before anaylsing the Philo bulb fully.

As I see it, the key short-term advantage is that we can use Philo to trade in big ticket techs like CS and Feudalism, which would be handy given the apparent threat we face from Imperio.

[T-hawk]

As I see it, the key short-term advantage is that we can use Philo to trade in big ticket techs like CS and Feudalism, which would be handy given the apparent threat we face from Imperio.

I'm no multiplayer veteran, but does this work? Would our rivals really give up big military techs for Philosophy? I doubt anyone is interested in Angkor Wat or Pacifism, so Philo does nothing except springboard Liberalism which is quite a ways away.

[regoarrarr]

It always works with the AI

[sunrise089]

Do you guys think human opponents will want to trade for Philo?

EDIT: Left the window open too long and T-Hawk beat me to it.

Medi tech path FYI, to give you an idea of what humans prioritize (at least in always war): Feudalism, Civil Service, Machinery, Guilds, Music...

[Swiss Pauli]

I'm no multiplayer veteran, but does this work? Would our rivals really give up big military techs for Philosophy? I doubt anyone is interested in Angkor Wat or Pacifism, so Philo does nothing except springboard Liberalism which is quite a ways away.

Well, we'd have to tie up the deals in advance to be sure, but PAL was happy with Aesthetics, Literature and Drama, so I don't see that it can't work, especially as Liberalism is such a tempting target.

[mostly-harmless]

Hmm, and would we give up Philosophy to PAL if they could beat us to Liberalism? Surely not.
And would PAL be interested in trading for Philosophy if they have no chance of being first to Liberalism?

My feeling is, to go for the academy.

mh

[Zeviz]

Who would buy Philosophy from us?

Imperio is refusing even strongly lopsided trades, while pushing military techs and building roads towards our border.

Templars, Rabbits, and Banana are falling too far behind to be viable trading partners.

So we are left with just PAL. Which means that at best we'll get Philosophy's number of beakers worth of another tech that we have little control over.

[Sullla]

Put me in the Academy camp as well. The biggest reason is that this just isn't a Single Player game; Philosophy is practically useless to us, and it's not as if we can reap 1000+ beakers worth of value in trades from it. Humans are not AIs. Better to increase our own research, and push towards genuinely useful techs faster, IMO.

Also, there's a mathematical argument for doing so as well. regoarrarr, the one thing you left out in your analysis was the fact that we're currently in a shield-heavy, commerce-poor setup to build the Great Library. Our economy is doing better than the numbers right now make it look; by moving Airstrip One back to its normal commerce setup, we go up to +35gpt (instead of +24gpt), so that's about 50% higher in terms of gold production than what the current numbers suggest. In our commerce config, the break-even research rate is at 60%, so that's a little bit better than what we were expecting.

Airstrip One currently makes 25 base commerce at 100% research, and 31 beakers (with library added). Two of our cottages are 1 turn away from upgrading there, plus we will grow to size 6 and connect the 4 commerce wines, so that's 31 base commerce right there. Even with no additional growth or additional trade routes, we would get +50% base commerce from Bureaucracy (46.5 commerce) plus 6 beakers from Great Library for a grand total of 52.5 base beakers. Then add in the +75% from library and Academy, and we reach 92 beakers/turn just in the capital at 100% science. And every size we grow higher, we add another cottage and two more base commerce. Since we are struggling to manage 75 beakers/turn right now for our whole civ, that represents a massive increase.

I don't know how scientific this post was, but my feeling is that the Academy is a better bet. It's not just about the raw beakers, it's about getting to key techs FASTER too.

[sunrise089]

I agree Sullla. Also remember that we can always bulb Philo if we want with the second scientist. Since we probably can't trade the tech anyways, we definitely make more beakers over the course of the game by going Academy->Bulb Philo than the other way around.

[regoarrarr]

The boni from Bureaucracy and library / academy are not multiplicative, right?

Your example has 31 commerce * 1.5 (bureau) + 6 beakers = 52.5 * 1.75 (academy / library ) = 92 beakers @ 100% science

When shouldn't it be 31 commerce + 6 beakers = 37 * 2.25 (academy / bureau / library) = 70 beakers @ 100% science?

You are correct that I did not account for the fact that our increased commerce would allow us to research at higher than 50% but neither of us accounted for the fact that as our cities grow the maintenance costs increase and we are planning on having at least 1 new city in the near frame.

Sunrise brings up a good point which is what are we going to do with the 2nd scientist. Going Academy->Philo vs. Philo->Academy gains us about 350-400 total beakers.

I've never played MP so obviously I am ignorant as to what the true value is of Philosophy. But it certainly seems like founding a religion (if that is still on the table) is at least in the ballpark, from a value perspective.

I'm by no means married to this idea. I am probably a much worse civ player than most of you. But I just thought it was worth considering, just so we're aware of the options. We don't want to go for the Academy just "because", if the numbers don't justify it. And if they do, and we decide that those extra beakers are worth more than philo and/or religion, by all means let's go for it.