Commitee of Strategic Planning

[Kataphraktoi]

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.

The reason why we are starting to grow restless with the poor state of diplomatic affairs (not meaning poor relationships, but lack of communication) is that the teams on the other continent are quite obviously cooperating.

These are funny statements, but i guess the intelligence services have their heads turned off Anyone that knew the history of all three groups know they arnt cooperating. Ahh, but kata, they are trading techs, are they not? They ARE trading something....oh yes, and mercs have allied with sarantium...its oh so obvious silly kata...

you are also saying that we should get less cities

Wrong

Optics, calender, civil service, are among others, techs we should get before researching banking.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by binTravkin
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.

Neither seems Banking to me from what little data I have.

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.

So Currency->Code of Laws->Calendar then?

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.

Why is the Hagia Sophia clearly so superior? In my games without exception from the midgame on, my workers have done everything they can do, meaning they - and any wonder that boosts their speed - are useless. How is +1 happiness in all cities, +2 culture for every specialist (would go well together with mercantilist ) and a city without unhappiness worse than higher workers speed?

Thirdly we don't have unit in the same strenght as pikeman.
Please don't mix different unit classes in comparison.

They both have strength 6. Sure, Civ4's combat system is rock-paper-scissors, meaning more than one unit of the same strength but with a different bonus has some use, but the use decreases with each similar-strength unit.
Besides, do we have any concrete plan to make use of such a unit?

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

I don't see why that's so clear. Facts & figures?

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.

Not sure what you mean with the sentence "There's no offset for upgrading." But I remember now hurrying in Civ4 immediately buys all the required hammers, meaning hammer-modifying buildings have no effect. So if your gold is doubled, but you're spending it in a city where the hammers are also doubled, you're basically paying 1.5 gold for half a hammer.

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

I did apparently.
With "commerce improvements" do you mean banks or cottages?
If you mean banks, that they seem ineffective to me, is what I'm saying.
If you mean cottages, then I don't understand why they're ineffective to support other cities, upgrade best cities and support an army.

Btw, how does a Civil Service->Paper->Printing Press b-line compare to Feudalism->Guilds->Banking?
Note that the cost of Feudalism should be counted in the cost of a Banking b-line. If we don't get Feudalism from GS, we could trade something else instead.

How long btw before the extra hammer from town becomes more valuable than +3 research from a specialist?

[binTravkin]

These are funny statements, but i guess the intelligence services have their heads turned off Anyone that knew the history of all three groups know they arnt cooperating. Ahh, but kata, they are trading techs, are they not? They ARE trading something....oh yes, and mercs have allied with sarantium...its oh so obvious silly kata...

Go check intelligence up to now, it shows quite well they are trading tech.

Also there's nothing funny about getting Philosophy asap for philosophical civs. Have you been playing any?

Neither seems Banking to me from what little data I have.

See, I don't care what it seems to you, for what I read you don't care to read the data and analysis provided, not even talking about doing some yourself, all you do is repeat phrases 'it doesn't seem; that doesn't convince me, I disagree' and so on.
Most of your arguments and questions can be answered by a single look at savegame, yet you obviously haven't done it. You think I should take them seriously then?

So Currency->Code of Laws->Calendar then?

We have to decide between Calendar and CS for the next immediate tech and that requires knowledge of GS status and update on their willingness to cooperate.

Why is the Hagia Sophia clearly so superior? In my games without exception from the midgame on, my workers have done everything they can do, meaning they - and any wonder that boosts their speed - are useless.

If you just opened the save and thought about it a bit you'd clearly see that more worker power will never hurt us until maybe when we're victorious. Having extra engineer points is also helpful.

How is +1 happiness in all cities

For 1287beakers + 500+ hammers? That's the most expensive +1 happiness you have proposed.

+2 culture for every specialist

Yeah, clearly worthwhile and better than +50% worker speed. Especially for 1287beakers + 500+ hammers.

and a city without unhappiness worse than higher workers speed?

You said banks are too expensive. Now, you say building 8 theatres + one Globe Theatre is worth it. Kinda strange.
Anyways, this is the only real benefit from the entire Drama->Music->Theology line and it is darn expensive.
Besides, we don't really have a good candidate city for GT.

They both have strength 6. Sure, Civ4's combat system is rock-paper-scissors, meaning more than one unit of the same strength but with a different bonus has some use, but the use decreases with each similar-strength unit.
Besides, do we have any concrete plan to make use of such a unit?

Yes, GS Elephants.

I don't see why that's so clear. Facts & figures?

Last two pages. Go read. I'm not paid for informing people who don't want to get informed.

Not sure what you mean with the sentence "There's no offset for upgrading." But I remember now hurrying in Civ4 immediately buys all the required hammers, meaning hammer-modifying buildings have no effect. So if your gold is doubled, but you're spending it in a city where the hammers are also doubled, you're basically paying 1.5 gold for half a hammer.

The text is about upgrading, there's not a single word about rushing. Is it so hard to read past first sentence?

If you mean banks, that they seem ineffective to me, is what I'm saying.

Yeah well, Universities are as well.

Btw, how does a Civil Service->Paper->Printing Press b-line compare to Feudalism->Guilds->Banking?

It's slightly less expensive and much less beneficial.
We haven't been doing any cottage spam.

How long btw before the extra hammer from town becomes more valuable than +3 research from a specialist?

We now have 3 cottages, 1 of them town, 1 of them about to become a town and one 10 turns from hamlet.
Should be enough for an answer.

[N35t0r]

Banks are extremely useful if you're running anything above 30% tax (and in cities with gold-producing buildings). That said, banking is a long way away.

Maniac, I don't care if by the time you get hagia sophia, in your games there's nothing left to improve... Look at our game We'll be REXing soon into the bannana side of the continent, so we will be needing tons of worker turns to make those cities productive ASAP. With HS, we'll need 2/3rds the amount of workers (or we'll manage to do it in 2/3rds the time) hardly something to scoff at...

As for the switching to universal suffrage, I'd say that we need much more towns than we have ATM. Also, when we've got enough large cities for the happiness bonus to be useless...

[Lacero]

It's not a matter of running > 30% tax or not, we will always run 100% tax or 100% science because it makes the most of the bonuses (we don't lose comerce to rounding). It's a question of how many turns we spend on tax and how many on science. The quesiotn of what tax rate to run is a non question to me, the only question is how can we maximise the difference between our upkeep costs and our commerce.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I favor CS after Col regardless of GS's plans. It provides access to a unit which is more powerful then any currently in existence and access to the Bureaucracy Civic which will provide a huge bonus to our Capitol. The Irrigation chaining effect isn't that important now but eventually will be important. Ideally we will be able to pop it with Merchant but if get another GP type we should research it outright.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by binTravkin
See, I don't care what it seems to you, for what I read you don't care to read the data and analysis provided, not even talking about doing some yourself, all you do is repeat phrases 'it doesn't seem; that doesn't convince me, I disagree' and so on.

If a plan can't survive some basic questioning, it isn't much of a plan.

Most of your arguments and questions can be answered by a single look at savegame, yet you obviously haven't done it. You think I should take them seriously then?

I last looked two turns ago. I assume nothing dramatic has changed since them. Especially since we're talking long term here.

If you just opened the save and thought about it a bit you'd clearly see that more worker power will never hurt us until maybe when we're victorious. Having extra engineer points is also helpful.

Besides the wonder itself, there's also the cost of researching towards Engineering. I'd value that tech lower than Civil Service or even Banking.

Yes, GS Elephants.

Might chuks plus spearmen not suffice? Or Macemen or musketmen if we go that route?

Last two pages. Go read. I'm not paid for informing people who don't want to get informed.

You mean this?

But the whole idea under this is to have +economy improvements.
Why can be explained by a single example - let's imagine Beijing has 60commerce/turn by the time we arrive there, which is easily doable as it has 30+ now already and growing.
Now, if we had +100% gold there and were running 50/50, we'd be having +60g per turn. With courthouses in the old cities that is enough to support 5 new cities.
And that is only for Beijing (and without Bureaucracy ), Hong Kong is likely to have very similar gold figures soon and other coastal cities will be no weaklings either.
Also, bear in mind that with Mercantilism + GL + Currency those new cities are gonna bring in +8 commerce/turn (3 of which will be raw beakers), kinda paying for the expansion.

I'd like to protest again against your hostile tone btw. If you don't want discussion or think you're a much better player, you shouldn't play a DG. Want me to start saying "lol you didn't even know banks cost 200 hammers or frigate requires astronomy - you obviously haven't bothered to inform yourself before making some vague plan LOL"?

The text is about upgrading, there's not a single word about rushing. Is it so hard to read past first sentence?

Oh right now I get it. Anyway, it all depends on what our tax rate will be (with which I obviously mean how high a percentage of our turns we'll be running 100% tax). You don't tell how you got to these figures, so I don't know if it's some wild estimate or a careful analysis.

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.

Yeah well, Universities are as well.

I'm glad we agree researching towards Universities isn't a high priority.

We haven't been doing any cottage spam.

Which we should, at the very least on the non-coastal cities.

[Kataphraktoi]

Also there's nothing funny about getting Philosophy asap for philosophical civs. Have you been playing any?

Thats a funny statement addressed to a guy that can beat deity. You seem to be in a constant hurry to start a dick measuring war.


I have information that could blow your mind, speaking of which keep an eye on the main AC forum, for my thread there in coming days-just waiting for confirmation from solver ATM. Someday you might come to realize that when i say something, there really is a good reason. After all i spend way to much time digging-you should know that.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Kataphraktoi
Thats a funny statement addressed to a guy that can beat deity.

Cool. On what map size, game speed and with how many opponents?

[Kataphraktoi]

Teh Inquisition

Ok, Warlords. Huge map. Pangea. Normal(there are other gamespeeds?). Whatever number opponents Huge provides. I have just two wins;conquest and cultural. (i only played two games deity ) I used cottage spam in both(take that SE) The cultural win(my first game of deity) i was just playing to see what deity was like. I got a gold+floodplains start and got both start religions, no reloading and i didnt rig the ai civs I decided to play it out. The conquest one i went with rome. GG

But that was just to make sure i could use the ''i beat deity'' line. To be honest i hate deity or even emporer. Im playing against the damn bonuses

I normally play Noble. Why? We play our LAN games on Noble and i like both practising econ strats and just RPing\diplogaming Yes, in my own mind...

[Impaler[WrG]]

Lets cool our jets here people, I think we have mulled over this enough for now, were debating tech plans WAY too far into the future if you ask me. We already have the next tech very well established and only need to decide the tech after CoL with appropriate backup for each possible Great Person pop, and even that is 11 turns away.

I think focusing on the final conquest of Bananas should be our main focus right now, their large chariot force is a bit unexpected and though not insurmountable deserves study and planning to avoid unnecessary losses.

[Kataphraktoi]

Its been remarkably civil considering the people involved

This is the committee of strategic planning. It is especially relevant to long range tech choices and less relevant to bananas. Your misplaced effort to diffuse the situation is to be commended, however

There is little we can do on the banana front besides moving up all our forces in concentration and taking the city. Casualties, if taken, should be minimal.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
Lets cool our jets here people, I think we have mulled over this enough for now, were debating tech plans WAY too far into the future if you ask me.

I agree. There are way too many variables involved to make a decent prediction for the long future. I'd suggest to stick to determining the tech right after Code of Laws. Eg Calendar vs Civil Service. I assume those are two techs of which the effects can be determined very precisely. A good baseline for comparison.

Teh Inquisition

Ok, Warlords. Huge map. Pangea. Normal(there are other gamespeeds?).

That's what I thought. The smaller the map and the more opponents, the more difficult the game becomes, so just stating a difficulty level doesn't mean anything.

[Kataphraktoi]

The smaller the map and the more opponents,

Did you really just say that?

if anything the game becomes easier on smaller maps.
i wonder if you are just yanking my leg now

[Maniac]

What, don't tell YOU are being serious?

My reasoning: the human player is better than the AI at micromanagement/bean counting err I mean "builder strategy". So the more room the human is given to develop in peace and quiet before he needs to face the AIs, the easier it is for the humans. Therefore larger maps (builderfests!) are easier than smaller maps.
Anyway, just play on a small map with 18 opponents as a test I guess. Preferably with Blake's AI.