The Civics Thread

[sooooo]

So we're not really sure if we'd get a peace deal in-game with Imperio. We have to prepare for not getting one and also contrasting mercantilism vs decentralisation generally.

Note that currently we are 7 turns away from our next GP. Only after we have it will we be able to switch research away from paper. That 7 turns would be reduced by an extra specialist from mercantilism and if we start a golden age.

Here's what I predict we will hire with mercantilism specialists:

A1: Scientist
PD: Scientist
SF: Scientist
CB: Scientist
GA: Scientist
MY: Scientist
CT: Artist
BW: Scientist (Overflow from Taj should provide instant library)
RH: Scientist (Library whipped on same turn as revolution)
UB: Citizen
SOTB: Citizen (until forge or library built)
FC: Citizen
Jericho: Artist

So that's about 26 beakers from Mercantilism before modifiers until more city improvements are built. Our internal trade routes get us 26 commerce before modifiers.

What's the estimate for our external trade routes if we sign peace with Imperio? We'd get 26 trade routes: good trade routes with the 5 rabbit cities and 7 banana cities. Then 7 trade routes with the Imperio cities and 7 internal ones. If we estimate 5 for the intercontinental ones, 2 for the imperio ones and 1 for the internal ones, that's 81 commerce. Is this accurate in peoples' opinion?

I know it's not super-accurate to equate beakers with commece, but if we do so anyway then that's 52 for merc vs 81 for decentralisation.

Merc costs more but that cost is halved for our organised trait. We get the additional hammer and culture benefits of the non-scientist specialists and the flexibility to change them. And the GP points. And you have to assume that the 3 cities hiring citizens will get libraries soon.

EDIT: Changed some numbers

[sunrise089]

Don't we have to multiply the commerce numbers by our base science rate? I would think the comparison would be like (26 beakers + (26 commerce * 35%)) vs (81 commerce * 35%).

[sooooo]

But isn't our base science rate affected by our trade route income? Getting 81 trade route commerce vs 26 will raise our base science rate by quite a bit. But yes it should be included.

[sooooo]

OK, so say our commerce rate rises to 50% with external trade routes. That's 39 beakers (without modifiers) for merc vs 40 beakers (without modifiers) for decentralisation.

I'm pretty sure I'm missing something here. I think I'm including some positive feedback from trade routes to science rate that I shouldn't.

EDIT: Ah, got it. The trade routes from merc should be multiplied by the old 35% rate, so that's 35 beakers for merc vs 40 for decentralisation

[ruff_hi]

Its probably better to work with TOTALS and not INCREMENTs for the base science rate. For example (figures made up) ...

Current Commerce: 150
Current Expenses: 100
Science at 30% gives 105 gold and 52 beakers (assuming 1.15 civ-wide science mult)

Under Merc ...
Current Commerce: 150
Current Expenses: 100
Science at 30% gives 105 gold and 82 beakers (assuming 1.15 civ-wide science mult) ([150 x .3 +26] x 1.15)

With Trade Routes
Current Commerce: 150+81
Current Expenses: 100
Science at 43% gives 100 gold and 151 beakers (assuming 1.15 civ-wide science mult)

A pretty clear winner. Assuming my numbers are close to reasonable.

[sooooo]

We're probably all way out.

*waits for T-Hawk or timmy to show us how it's done*

[ruff_hi]

OK, so say our commerce rate rises to 50% with external trade routes. That's 39 beakers (without modifiers) for merc vs 40 beakers (without modifiers) for decentralisation.

I'm pretty sure I'm missing something here. I think I'm including some positive feedback from trade routes to science rate that I shouldn't.

The big thing that you are missing is that you are only including the beakers from the new commerce. If you raise your science rate, then you get the delta in the science rate on the existing commerce too.

EG: Assume existing commerce is 150. Moving from 30% to 50% gets you an additional 20% of 150 (30) beakers.

[T-hawk]

*waits for T-Hawk or timmy to show us how it's done*

heh. Your analysis looks fine to me. Really, the slider science rate doesn't figure here. Costs are constant, so any added commerce is functionally pure beakers. Civic upkeep is the only change to costs and that is simply subtractive. Ruff's analysis of totals minus expenses was correct and came to that same conclusion from another direction.

Decentralization is better than Merc, IF we have foreign trade routes available. This is pretty much always and intuitively true and doesn't need much numerical analysis. The complicating factors are going to be which foreign civs we can keep our trade routes with. Rabbits may not last long, and Banana may go to Mercantilism themselves.

Also, remember that Mercantilism denies other civs getting trade routes to us. This denial plays to the favor of the bigger civ, which is us. Pithy example: we can only have 5 trade routes to Rabbits but Rabbits can have 10 trade routes to us. However, we probably don't want to deny Banana trade routes to us even if they get more benefit than we do.

[Swiss Pauli]

Also, remember that Mercantilism denies other civs getting trade routes to us. This denial plays to the favor of the bigger civ, which is us. Pithy example: we can only have 5 trade routes to Rabbits but Rabbits can have 10 trade routes to us. However, we probably don't want to deny Banana trade routes to us even if they get more benefit than we do.

That's a good point to mention to Banana: tell them we're thinking about Merc (even if we're not), and ask how many trade routes he has with us. If it's lots then we say we will stay out of Merc if he does likewise, so as not to hurt his economy.

[ruff_hi]

Costs are constant, so any added commerce is functionally pure beakers.

Nice - I like this approach; clean & simple

[T-hawk]

Costs are constant, so any added commerce is functionally pure beakers.

Nice - I like this approach; clean & simple

That's why losing the trade routes hurt us so badly. We lost 30 commerce, but only at 40% science slider, that's only 12 beakers, right? Nope: costs stayed constant so that 30 commerce all got paid out of beakers.

The science slider dropped to accommodate that - but note that the actual numbers of the slider are nonrelevant to this effect. What matters is the -30 income.

[Sullla]

On a related note, if we can convince Imperio and Banana to Close Borders with PAL, we deny them an enormous amount of free Great Lighthouse income, essentially crippling their science rate. This should probably be our next diplomatic initiative, if we can get the current talks to go in our favor.

[mostly-harmless]

Just a quick correction.
Normal intercontiental trade routes get us 3gold (not 5 as mentioned above). We will get 4g and 5g from The two big Banana cities due to their size, but all the rest plus the Rabbits will only yield 3gold.

In reverse Banana also has 4 castles. I believe they give another trade route. 20 trade routes altogether. They could get 4 from Templars, 13 from us (+1g from A1's size) and 7 from Imperio. If we go Mercantilism, they go down to 11 intercontinental & 9 international, losing 9-10g per turn.

mh

[sooooo]

The idea that T-Hawk brought up of revolting back to bureaucracy on the last turn of the golden age is an interesting one. I quite like it - in some cities we could draft on T0 or T1 and T6 or T7 of the golden age and only have 3/4 turns of double-unhapiness. I think we could cope with that, despite losing the 2 hapiness from the barracks when we revolt out. It's a pain to cope with the unhapiness, but with judicious use of military police for those 3/4 turns I think we could get away with it. Hopefully the second round of drafing would coincide with banana's gunpowder gift.

Here's a suggestion that Sunrise won't like but I thought I'd throw it out there: Revolting to serfdom. I don't think we actually plan/need to whip anything for the next few turns, so may as well take advantage of some doubled worker turns? MY, RH and Jericho could be whipped next turn before the revolt. FC isn't whippable for about 7 turns. We do have the draft for any emergencies.

We really need an answer from Imperio this turn or next at the very latest. If we get the deal done then we don't go to mercantilism and draft oromos. If they refuse the deal then we have to draft macemen and should revolt to mercantilism.

[T-hawk]

The idea that T-Hawk brought up of revolting back to bureaucracy on the last turn of the golden age is an interesting one. I quite like it - in some cities we could draft on T0 or T1 and T6 or T7 of the golden age and only have 3/4 turns of double-unhapiness.

The original idea was Swiss Pauli's, to use the Golden Age for a quick trip into Nationalism while also utilizing Bureaucracy. The original idea was to take Nationalism/Mercantilism ASAP for 5 turns (this didn't happen because Banana waffled on supplying Banking), go back to Bur at GA start, then back to Nationalism at GA end. This plan is similar, though inverts our final landing point.

What's clearly sure is that we want Nationalism/Mercantilism next turn either with or without Taj, then we can decide later on going back to Bur and/or Decentralization.