Commitee of Strategic Planning

[Lacero]

"50/50 is the most effective allocation just because you have use of economy improvements that way and can grow."

You mean 100/0 and 0/100 right?

[binTravkin]

Yes. In essence in BtS you can run 50/50 and be happy because it uses fractions.
In vanilla one should alternate between 100/0 and 0/100 if that's possible. The gain from that is up to +2 modified gold per city.

The whole Guilds->Banking stuff revolves around idea of having a couple major commerce cities like Beijing and Hong Kong have +100% economy (bank+market+grocer) and upkeep a row of developing cities.

I showed in an example above that if we have 60 raw commerce in Beijing (we have 30+ now already) and it's 50/50 and we have +100% economy, means we have +60g per turn.
Assuming older and production cities have courthouses, a new city costs around 10g in upkeep.
That means by having a single major commerce city having +60g, we can upkeep 5-6 more cities.

Now, if we add to that fact that those cities will be producing +5 commerce right away, without even working a tile (+1 base, +4 trade routes), we can make quite a boom in city count, kinda like ICS 2.0
Mercantilism adds to this as each new city is getting +1h and +3beakers, aiding furthermore both to upkeep it and develop quicker.

[Kataphraktoi]

Name the immediate short-term benefits of ANY tech besides Code of Laws. IMO after Code of Laws there isn't any tech we really need right now. So we might as well get two techs for the price of one, and deny other civs a free great artist and religions (and make free religion civic better later on).

QFT. I havnt seen anything to contradict this yet.

This is funny. Why people keep repeating that we should be running anything else than 50/50?
Is there any objective reason why commerce maths are different in cIV and SMAC in this regard?
I see none.

SMAC has strong incentives to maintain 50-50, including the fact that money in SMAC is much much more valuable than money in cIV. You would never blow money down the hole to run a higher research rate like in cIV.

60% science rate can beat out a 0-100 scheme.

Also, bear in mind, going for Banking/Gunpowder is likely to be later than most other b-lines unless GS is researching Feudalism now.

More QFT and i think you answered yourself handily.

Ill have more detail and bigger arguments later, i hope.

[binTravkin]

I havnt seen anything to contradict this yet.

Then read more carefully.
I'm tired of repeating same examples over and over again.
I'm not supposed to prove there are such techs anyway, it's you who need to prove that the ability to have +3 happiness in short time (needed to build plantations) is not immediate benefit, not even naming others.
Obviously, CoL is immediate neither, as courthouses mostly take longer than plantations.

SMAC has strong incentives to maintain 50-50, including the fact that money in SMAC is much much more valuable than money in cIV. You would never blow money down the hole to run a higher research rate like in cIV.

And the obvious logic that at 50/50 you can use both research and economy improvements at the same effectiveness?

60% science rate can beat out a 0-100 scheme.

[Kataphraktoi]

And the obvious logic that at 50/50 you can use both research and economy improvements at the same effectiveness?

Thats not why at all.
Nor had that even crossed my mind until i read this thread. It certainly never was a consideration when i played smac.

I think we should just hold the poll and see what the people think.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by binTravkin
CS - Bureaucracy
Calendar - plantation (yes, it's pretty immediate)
Optics - +1 sight range

I see the value in these. And find them decent research options.

Civil Service sounds decent to me. Though the question to ponder is if getting Bureaucracy some turns earlier outweighs not getting a free tech and religion at all.

Calendar: sounds good, but only if we focus more on growth (eg cottaged grasslands or perhaps a couple farms thrown in) - otherwise all that extra happiness is useless in the short term.

Optics - sounds good too, but you didn't reply to my query regarding that land to the west. Might that not be the other continent? If so, Caravels would not be such a pressing priority IMO. How about trying to find that out first?


The other techs you list I find crap choices however.

Engineering - +1movement on road

What do we need that for right now? Is getting faster roads a bit earlier better than a free tech and religion, or better than bureaucracy, plantation or caravels?

Banking - mercantilism (by current values mercantilism is better than decentralization)

This alone is IMO not worth spending lots of beakers on right now, compared to the other options.

Gunpowder - units

Some of our cities are unguarded or only guarded by warriors. What's the point of researching better units if they aren't built.

Chemistry - frigate

This also required Astronomy IIRC. Something which we probably don't want to rush to.

Steel - cannon, ironclad

This is thinking a bit too far ahead IMO. Would you research Steel before Calendar, Civil Service, Optics...?

It will be useless if our health is insufficient.

I agree with this in the short term, regarding happiness from extra religions being irrelevant. On the longterm I still think extra happiness from religion can be useful though. On the short term there's denial plus free tech/religions. So a question is: how soon will we need extra health?

They're better than monasteries at 40% economy rate or more. I don't think they cost that much and even if they do, it's little problem for us with +50% hammers for buildings and heavy whipping.

That's a non-argument. Question is not if Banks are too expensive, but if there are better things we can build with the same hammers, or, even if banks are better than other options, if they're sufficiently better to spend research on.

This is funny. Why people keep repeating that we should be running anything else than 50/50?
Is there any objective reason why commerce maths are different in cIV and SMAC in this regard?
I see none.
50/50 is the most effective allocation just because you have use of economy improvements that way and can grow.
Using 70+/30- all the time is just shooting your leg by slowing expansion.
...
And the obvious logic that at 50/50 you can use both research and economy improvements at the same effectiveness?

As Kataphraktoi mentions, money is useful in SMAC. Hurrying two credits to get one mineral is a good conversion rate. You can never have enough money in SMAC. In Civ4 however hurrying three gold for one hammer is a bad deal. The only reason you need surplus money in Civ4 is upgrading troops, and perhaps some spare cash for tech trading. In Civ4: the higher your science rate, the better. Simple as that. Considering we're Financial, after the biggest part of our expansion phase is over, we'll most likely be able to support our empire with less than 50% taxes, no matter how fast we try to expand. Meaning building banks are useless. We'll probably be running a high science rate, meaning we only need to build the science buildings, and skip the gold-modifying buildings.

If there are any other arguments backed by facts, let's bring them up, I want to make a poll on this over weekend.

How will you poll? Personally if I could make a list of preferences from high to low instead of just voting for one thing, I'd put Banking last.

[Kataphraktoi]

Civil service, the music plan, and optics all seem reasonable.

Besides we dont know what GS is up to yet due to their diplo skills or lack thereof.

Id rather spend those bank hammers on a strike force to whammy sarantium for instance. Grabbing optics then civil service then outfitting some fleets would rock the socks off banks. Im starting to question the need to 'trade techs like a madman' when we could just be killing everyone like madmen.

[binTravkin]

Ok, first I will answer some points that just cry for an answering. Later I will post a fact sheet and a writeup, for everyone to make informed decision on this matter.

I think we should just hold the poll and see what the people think.

Certainly, when people get the full information about it.

Civil Service sounds decent to me. Though the question to ponder is if getting Bureaucracy some turns earlier outweighs not getting a free tech and religion at all.

A free useless tech at the cost of another useless and one marginally useful tech that goes by the price 858b (Music) + 429b (Drama) = 1287b?

Religion has some uses.
Neither of those are immediate, crucial or irreplaceable.
Most of those are easily replaced or even multiplied by other techs.

Calendar: sounds good, but only if we focus more on growth (eg cottaged grasslands or perhaps a couple farms thrown in) - otherwise all that extra happiness is useless in the short term.

Our coastal city program will run into happiness problems before we can possible get Calendar even if we do it next after CoL.
For example, Hong Kong will have +10 food surplus once lighthouse is built there (in next 10 turns).

And another point - please be consistent in your arguments.
You said just a few posts ago there can never be enough happiness.

Optics - sounds good too, but you didn't reply to my query regarding that land to the west. Might that not be the other continent? If so, Caravels would not be such a pressing priority IMO. How about trying to find that out first?

I agree, caravels are not pressing.
At this point the only pressing thing is courthouses.
Economy boosting is the long-term goal and we're searching here for the best candidates for the job.

What do we need that for right now? Is getting faster roads a bit earlier better than a free tech and religion, or better than bureaucracy, plantation or caravels?

It is just one of the options named, and, if you check the savegame you'd see it's more like long-term one.
And yes, +1 road movement plus pikemen plus ability to build Hagia Sophia, a decent wonder, for a cost of ~1500b are certainly more than a 'free' religion for a cost of 1287b.

This alone is IMO not worth spending lots of beakers on right now, compared to the other options.

Right now and for the next 15 turns we won't be spending anything on Banking and we won't be doing it until GS does Feudalism for us.
After that Banking is at least as good in beakers per benefit ratio as Calendar. Numbers will come in a separate post.

This also required Astronomy IIRC. Something which we probably don't want to rush to.

Engineering. That's why it was also listed.

This is thinking a bit too far ahead IMO. Would you research Steel before Calendar, Civil Service, Optics...?

It was named as a future extension of the Banking/Gunpowder route.
Chemistry and Steel provides immense naval advantage.

I agree with this in the short term, regarding happiness from extra religions being irrelevant. On the longterm I still think extra happiness from religion can be useful though. On the short term there's denial plus free tech/religions. So a question is: how soon will we need extra health?

As stated, that religion will cost us 1287b in total and having to research 2 techs (Drama and Music), we run a serious risk of being late to it.
And that is for:
- denial of a religion to a single civ - Mercs, who almost surely don't care any bit about it by going Drama->Philosophy (popped by GS) as we speak.
- religion, that only kicks in around Liberalism if ever

Extra health - we are already taking measures to sustain growth and full usage of available happiness resources in Beijing, by building a farm to hook up the wheat resource in the north.
We will need to raise our health standards again in approximately 20 turns from now (which coincides with finishing Calendar if we go for it after CoL) as Hong Kong will reach 9 citizens.

That's a non-argument. Question is not if Banks are too expensive, but if there are better things we can build with the same hammers, or, even if banks are better than other options, if they're sufficiently better to spend research on.

Yes, it's actually a fact.
IF banks cost 200h and monasteries 60, then, you get:
1% commerce increase per 6h with monasteries
1% commerce increase per 4h with banks
Now, if a city has both monastery and bank, their effectivenesses match at 60/40 science/economy.

As Kataphraktoi mentions, money is useful in SMAC. Hurrying two credits to get one mineral is a good conversion rate. You can never have enough money in SMAC. In Civ4 however hurrying three gold for one hammer is a bad deal. In Civ4: the higher your science rate, the better. Simple as that. Considering we're Financial, after the biggest part of our expansion phase is over, we'll most likely be able to support our empire with less than 50% taxes, no matter how fast we try to expand. Meaning building banks are useless. We'll probably be running a high science rate, meaning we only need to build the science buildings, and skip the gold-modifying buildings.

And how does 2 gold for one hammer sound? 1.5 gold for one hammer? *hint* Modifiers. *hint*
Where do you get the idea of rushing/upgrading anyway?

We are currently running an empire whose 'GDP' (In game GDP is measured as total output - expenses) is half of it's total commerce output, meaning that if we didn't have that loot, we'd be 60/40 at best.
If we go by the current plan of rapid settlement of available coasts, we will not be able to run anything higher than 50/50 starting from the next city (settler near rice) until we fill the void down to GS and quite a time after it.

And again I repeat:
WHY do we need to run anything more than 50/50?
Is there any reason whatsoever to?
It totally stuns me how people stick to this misconception that more allocation = more science.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=169124

The CS Slingshot appeals to the "noobly" instinct to keep your science rate at 100%, for some reasons players tend to fear their economy dropping to 0% (heck, some fear it dropping below 80%). It seems to take many players a long time to understand that 3x the cities at 30%, researches the same speed as 1x cities at 100%

The gold is for more cities and more gold, and more cities and in the end for best research and production capacity and to kill everyone with that!

Id rather spend those bank hammers on a strike force to whammy sarantium for instance. Grabbing optics then civil service then outfitting some fleets would rock the socks off banks. Im starting to question the need to 'trade techs like a madman' when we could just be killing everyone like madmen.

Let me just point out, a few things:
- transporting troops with galleys takes ages and might not even be possible
- we are not going to get galleons, because it will hurt our economy too much
- the other continent is likely to be defending as one.
- Mercs and Sara will have an experienced army once Horde is done
- Mercs and Sara are 2nd and 3rd in hammer output
- you are at the same time saying that we should attack other civs an denying that we need a top-notch military (Gunpowder, Chemistry, Steel) or navy (Chemistry, Steel)
- you are also saying that we should get less cities (50/50 economy + banks = more cities), which means less production

[N35t0r]

I agree with BT on the science rate issue. While the actual ideal rate is never the same, being financial means that we'll be able to support a greater amount of cities before they stop to be profitable. If the difference between running, say 80/20 and running 60/40 is enough gold to support enough cities to make up for that difference in commerce, then 60/40 is ages better, since you also get a couple of extra hammers to go with it.


Also, extra religions aren't that good for happyness... those temples are damn expensive...

[Mart]

what is our "capacity" for cities now? I mean for settings: 50/50 or 70science/30gold, how many cities can be maintained, someone did the estimate for now? If not, I can take a look.

[Maniac]

A free useless tech at the cost of another useless and one marginally useful tech that goes by the price 858b (Music) + 429b (Drama) = 1287b?

First, you mention yourself now that besides Code of Laws there is no pressing tech we need. So all techs are useless or marginally useful at the moment.
Second, there are no useless techs, unless you plan to skip them for the entire game. Else it's just a matter of when to research the tech, not if to research it. So... do you plan to skip Theology and Music for the entire game?? This could be done for Theology, but Music is an AND-requirement for Military Tradition. Do you want to skip that tech forever?

Our coastal city program will run into happiness problems before we can possible get Calendar even if we do it next after CoL.
For example, Hong Kong will have +10 food surplus once lighthouse is built there (in next 10 turns).

Should we not research Calendar after Code of Laws then, and not Banking?

And another point - please be consistent in your arguments.
You said just a few posts ago there can never be enough happiness.

I mean one rarely has too much happiness in the long term. Anyway, you've also changed some accents, causing minor inconsistencies, during your argumentation. This is only a normal reaction to a discussion - else the discussion would be pointless. So please drop the hostile tone (at least my perception ).

And yes, +1 road movement plus pikemen plus ability to build Hagia Sophia, a decent wonder, for a cost of ~1500b are certainly more than a 'free' religion for a cost of 1287b.

We already have a unit of around the same strength as Pikeman. And Drama/Music/Theology/(Philosophy) gives much more wonders. :shrug:

Engineering. That's why it was also listed.

Frigate requires Astronomy, not Engineering.

It was named as a future extension of the Banking/Gunpowder route.
Chemistry and Steel provides immense naval advantage.

Do you propose not delaying the research of Astronomy?

Yes, it's actually a fact.
IF banks cost 200h and monasteries 60, then, you get:
1% commerce increase per 6h with monasteries
1% commerce increase per 4h with banks
Now, if a city has both monastery and bank, their effectivenesses match at 60/40 science/economy.

Question is not if Banks are too expensive, but if there are better things we can build with the same hammers, or, even if banks are better than other options (ie buildings), if they're sufficiently better to spend research on.

I'd suggest to focus on a comparison between banks, bureaucracy or calendar.

And how does 2 gold for one hammer sound? 1.5 gold for one hammer? *hint* Modifiers. *hint*

That's offset by the hurried hammers not getting the modifier from forge, factory... Or do they? That would be different from SMAC, and would drastically change the value of hurrying.

WHY do we need to run anything more than 50/50?

Why do we need to run 50% tax if we could support our empire with less than 50% tax?
Do we have any estimates how much our empire will cost in maintenance when we'd research Banking, either before or after researching Calendar, Civil Service and Optics?

[N35t0r]

Originally posted by Maniac
Why do we need to run 50% tax if we could support our empire with less than 50% tax?
Do we have any estimates how much our empire will cost in maintenance when we'd research Banking, either before or after researching Calendar, Civil Service and Optics?

The key is, as I mentioned, finding out when an extra city will not be beneficial in the long-run and adjust accordingly. Not choosing a certain percentage and sticking to it.

[binTravkin]

First, you mention yourself now that besides Code of Laws there is no pressing tech we need. So all techs are useless or marginally useful at the moment.
Second, there are no useless techs, unless you plan to skip them for the entire game. Else it's just a matter of when to research the tech, not if to research it. So... do you plan to skip Theology and Music for the entire game?? This could be done for Theology, but Music is an AND-requirement for Military Tradition. Do you want to skip that tech forever?

I also mentioned we need economy improving techs. Music, Drama and Theology are hardly such.

There are useless techs. We can totally skip Theology and forget about it. We can skip Music until we have a real need for it as prereq for mil tradition.
You don't just research techs because you'll need them some day, or because they can be researched, you research first those techs, which can benefit you most or soonest or ideally both.
Neither Theology nor Music nor Drama are such techs.

Should we not research Calendar after Code of Laws then, and not Banking?

I never stated the opposite. Calendar is obviously more short term as we can't get Guilds before we have Feudalism and I'd rather have GS research it.

We already have a unit of around the same strength as Pikeman. And Drama/Music/Theology/(Philosophy) gives much more wonders. :shrug:

Firstly we should stop dreaming about Philosophy. It is likely a top priority for both Sara and Mercs and they must be on way to getting it as we speak. They can also get it way faster by popping with GS.
Secondly - wonders given by music/theology is basically a non-argument.
Hagia Sophia, which gives +2 engineer points and +50% faster worker actions is clearly superior.
Thirdly we don't have unit in the same strenght as pikeman.
Please don't mix different unit classes in comparison.

Frigate requires Astronomy, not Engineering.

Oh, ok Ironclad doesn't and makes up for excellent coastal defense.

Do you propose not delaying the research of Astronomy?

No, I missed that frigate requires Astronomy.
That doesn't void the argument, however, as there are yet grenadiers, cannons, ironclads and drydocks to consider.

I'd suggest to focus on a comparison between banks, bureaucracy or calendar.

Banks come with mercantilism, which makes them clearly superior in that comparison, yet they are harder to get.

hat's offset by the hurried hammers not getting the modifier from forge, factory... Or do they? That would be different from SMAC, and would drastically change the value of hurrying

There's no offset for upgrading. If you get 2 gold for 1 and upgrade by 3 gold per hammer difference, means you invest 1.5g raw in 1 raw hammer, plus you can thus upgrade your best troops, so the investment is more worth than that.
I hope we're not considering switching to universal suffrage until we switch away from mercantilism.

Why do we need to run 50% tax if we could support our empire with less than 50% tax?
Do we have any estimates how much our empire will cost in maintenance when we'd research Banking, either before or after researching Calendar, Civil Service and Optics?

Did you completely miss the point about commerce improvements being ineffective?

1.To support another city
2.To upgrade best units
3.To support an army (vs GS)
in that historical order

We're currently able to run 60/40 without loot, which will drop to 50/50 once settler near rice is settled.
Then there will be short period during which no settlements are made while we build courthouses.
During that we could be rising back to 60/40 for a while.
After Tassagrad and Xian have courthouses, REX begins in earnest.
If we go Calendar after CoL, we're likely to have 40/60 when we finish it.
20/80 is likely the lowest we will get, but with institution of Bureaucracy we should be able to maintain 40/60.
If we focus on commerce improvements in major commerce cities like Hong Kong and Beijing, we'll be able to keep ourselves rather stable at one allocation level (40/60 or 50/50), with Banking and mercantilism that task should become much easier and we will be able to huge empire with likely total science output in the best 3, even with low allocation.

The key is, as I mentioned, finding out when an extra city will not be beneficial in the long-run and adjust accordingly. Not choosing a certain percentage and sticking to it.

QFT. And we have a LOT of city sites worth settling ASAP.

[Impaler[WrG]]

In reality we should be thinking in terms of 'Repayment time' for each new city. A city costs a known amount of hammers/food from one of our existing cities for the Settler and we would also want to factor in Workers that are diverted away from other projects temporarily. These costs are easily understood, but the other half the commerce cost is not so obvious.

Initial every city will have some negative drain on our effective net commerce rate, the city increases total maintenance by an amount greater then it produces in valuable outputs such as gold or research. After enough growth the city can bring in enough commerce to turn a net profit and that profit can continue to grow for the remainder of the game. By adding up the total costs before the break even transition we get the total commerce cost of the city and by tallying net commerce profits after transition we can see establish when that surplus has been sufficient to fully repay the dept. Thus establishing our total repayment time. With our numerous advantages a coastal city starts with a smaller negative effect and grows in profitability more rapidly for a considerable reduction in repayment time.

By using the maintenance cost calculating spreadsheet we can accurately predict total maintenance cost ingresses per city, combined with growth and building plan forecasts we can determine the commerce income at every step and see the break even and repay times. Its then a simple matter to build in the locations that provide the fastest repayments. The rate of expansion would be determined by how much we are willing to invest which will be determined by how secure we feel we feel needs to be devoted to military (defense or aggression) and to Technology.

[binTravkin]

It's hard to compare hammers/food invested in settlers with commerce, so I'd rather divide repay time in two:

- commerce balance time, which is the most important to us as we have no problem with hammers, while our finances could be better. Balance here means that city starts to give us more commerce than it takes in added upkeep.
- production repay time

There two will mostly be quite different, but for situation of coastal cities, the first will be very short, as they gain immediate +4 (+5 after currency, +8 with mercantilism, +9-10 with shrine) on settling and once they start working sea, each tile gives another +4.
Currently an extra coastal city is giving us more than taking at mere 2 coast workers. That will rise to 3 and eventually to 4 with our expansion, but it doesn't seem so much either and courthouses will help us with this.

Production repay time could be rather slow or never as coastal cities will mostly be working to improve themselves due to little hammer output.