Commitee of Strategic Planning

[binTravkin]

Well, if out of 4 freely trading equally sized civs one stops trading the other 3 will be receiving 1/3 less commerce.
Thus, as long as the civ who stopped trading gets at least 2/3 of benefit (commerce, hammers, gpp) it had when trading freely, mercantilism is better for it.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Its been rather quite in here and its high time to change that. As we move into a new phase of the game we need to refine our plans for the near and long term possibly even end game strategy.

With the succesfull conclusion of our own war and the fall of Vox's capital they are clearly doomed and it looks like any plans for assisting Vox at this time would be futile. Thus were looking at the continent being at peace for the first time in millenia. The focus will defintaly be economic for some time but do we want it to have an eye one eventual conquest or on something else. As I see it we have a 2 victory paths available to us.

An imediate stab-in-the-back on Storm: Take our current army towards Storm instead of Vox and attempt to pillage their towns and/or capture a city or two. The economic hurt this would put on them would leave them weak enough for a subsiquent Maceman force to finish them off, economicly expanding to fill the entire continent will give us a mass that rivals any player on the other continent and push us so far ahead we can mop up or take a space race victory.

Alliance with Storm: Assist them in attacking Vox further and continue liberaly sharing techs in an attempt to become the biggest combo-dog on the block. With our strong position we would likley be the dominant partner in the alliance. So long as we maintaine a superior army and the other continent presents a credible threat GS will be forced to be loyal to us and we beat up the other continent untill its no longer a threat and try to win Domination or space race, hopefully without trading blows with Storm.

Ofcourse we can attack GS any time we like but after doing so were stuck with that war untill its over, the advantage of an imediate attack is the possibility of tactical advantage through suprise. Gaining more information about Storm troop placement would tell us how much we have to gain. More information on the other continent would help us asses how much of a threat it is. More information is a priority right now and as we collect it we should look at how it sheds light on this overarching choice.

[N35t0r]

Originally posted by binTravkin
1.Beijing - we are kinda going for it to be our GPP city, so the question is should we farm the grasslands near it and otherwise emphasize food (say windmills instead of mines)?

Aye on the cottage -> farm idea, but leave it sort of low on the worker-turn priorities. We will also want to ensure it will be able to grow by planning to hook up resources and build improvements to rise the pop and health caps as the city grows. Pop-whipping will grow less useful as improvements get more and more expensive, especially as citizens will become more productive. Which takes me to point 2: mines. We will want to get infrastructure up and running ASAP, so I advocate to leave at least 2 or even 3 mines until we really need the extra food.

Originally posted by binTravkin 2.Tassagrad - this city will have it's power in hammers (Heroic Epic), but has low food output atm. My proposal would be to build farms on grassland river tiles, and use windmills on hills for hammer sources, instead of mines.

Unless we get to the point in which we can build 1 unit per turn, we can't have enough hammers. Inland cities will have little commerce compared to coastal cities anyway, so windmills aren't that much better than mines, except on rivered hills as we get an extra commerce. If we have enough workers, it does pay to irrigate them to death to grow them up sooner, and then revert those irrigated tiles into watermills / workshops to stop growth and boost hammer production.

It does need much more worker-turns, but it often pays off handsomely. Hagia Sophia will come in really handy if we do decide to do these worker-intensive plans.

Same with the other cities.

Originally posted by binTravkin Those two decisions would practically decide what is the emphasis of the city (food/hammers/commerce)

I'd say we first decide what to emphasize them on, and then decide on the best terrain improvement allocation according to short and long term plans, and worker availability.

[N35t0r]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Some points about mercantilism versus free trading (meaning Decentralization not Free Trade civic):

1. It's not clear how soon we'll get contact with other civs than GS (which ain't keen on trading)

Wait until they finish the war.

Originally posted by binTravkin 2. It's not clear whether Sara and Mercs will trade with us. I expect, though, that Mercs won't have problems with it.

We will probably need astronomy to trade, so this should be replaced by 'if they trade with each other'.

Originally posted by binTravkin 3. Even if they do trade, it's not clear whether the benefit will be similar and which side will benefit the most if it is not.

As we will probably be concentrating on coastal cities, as long as we get them to grow, we will have the upper hand. A coastal city with a harbour counts as a city 1.5 it's size for the purpose of trade. If the other continent didn't follow a 'prioritize coastal cities' plan, we will probably end up with most of the better routes.

Originally posted by binTravkin 4.Then, we have to calculate the value of the trade routes gained. It is unlikely at the moment that we would be getting more than 10gold from each cIV, which currently is less than the estimated added benefit from free specialists (which is 40+ as a minimum). This is analysis of current situation, but it's reasonable to think that the balance will not change until late game, as, according to the trade formula on distances predicted between us and other continent, distance factor is an important factor on route's size and that factor will be constant, while the number ouf our cities grows thus directly adding to benefit from mercantilism.

The benefit of mercantilism does not scale as much as commerce does, as commerce bonuses keep to grow as cities grow larger and more foreign cities are founded. We will also be getting much higher bonuses at least until the lighthouse expires.

Originally posted by binTravkin 5.One must remember, that the total benefit from mercantilism in global politics is bigger than from equal trade as long as the commerce benefit is similar. That is because you deny other civs the valuable commerce they'd get from you while still having it yourself.

If we have the upper hand on trade cities, then going mercantilist will mean that we free up lots of foreign cities for them to trade in between, so their loss is less than what woud apparently be.

Originally posted by binTravkin 6.Mercantilism bears no additional cost of having to upkeep good relations in order to keep the trade routes.

Well, keeping up good relations is in our best interest not to get ganged up upon

Also, it goes both ways. Being availiable to trade will mean that it will be in the other civs' best interest to keep good relations with regards to us.

Originally posted by binTravkin 7.Low hammer (coastal commerce) cities benefit from the ability of the extra specialist to generate up to 2 additional hammers, which might even double the city's total output of hammers. One cannot build just with food and whipping.

we can always pull some citizens from the sea to work as specialists. As most of these cities will be commerce-heavy in the first place, 5 extra commerce (at least) will be much more profitable than 2 extra hammers. I'd much rather have them get those extra hammers by stalling growth for a while than by losing 5+ free commerce per turn.

[N35t0r]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Well, if out of 4 freely trading equally sized civs one stops trading the other 3 will be receiving 1/3 less commerce.
Thus, as long as the civ who stopped trading gets at least 2/3 of benefit (commerce, hammers, gpp) it had when trading freely, mercantilism is better for it.

No, they will be receiving slightly more, as the trade routes the fourth civ was using will be freed up for use among the other 3. I think it's closer to 1/5 or 2/7 than 1/3.

[binTravkin]

We will probably need astronomy to trade

And since Astronomy is a killer for our coastal cities the argument is even more important.

As we will probably be concentrating on coastal cities, as long as we get them to grow, we will have the upper hand. A coastal city with a harbour counts as a city 1.5 it's size for the purpose of trade. If the other continent didn't follow a 'prioritize coastal cities' plan, we will probably end up with most of the better routes.

Im more talking about proportion of the commerce gained.
E.g. if Sarantium has 2 coastal cities and we're trading with them, they get quite a lot of boost in those two cities and can be happy while out of our umpteen coastal cities only 2 get the bonus while others gain nothing, which is not the case with mercantilism.

We will also be getting much higher bonuses at least until the lighthouse expires.

Even if individual bonus is big, we're not likely getting many of them, since the other side is having less coastal cities.

If we have the upper hand on trade cities, then going mercantilist will mean that we free up lots of foreign cities for them to trade in between, so their loss is less than what woud apparently be.

If our coastal city count is anywhere near the planned, we'll be having as much coastal cities as Sara and Mercs together, so cutting all those routes from them will leave them trading 1 to 1, which will be less profitable per route than with us because of much less distance.
Distance and population are two main factors in trade route value.

Also, it goes both ways. Being availiable to trade will mean that it will be in the other civs' best interest to keep good relations with regards to us.

To my experience, while being a pariah, it only works one way.

I'd much rather have them get those extra hammers by stalling growth for a while than by losing 5+ free commerce per turn.

It's not either-or scenario here.
If you have to compensate for 5 commerce lost by cutting trade, make that free specialist a scientist or merchant.

No, they will be receiving slightly more, as the trade routes the fourth civ was using will be freed up for use among the other 3. I think it's closer to 1/5 or 2/7 than 1/3.

Distance reduction will give even more loss than the mathematical 1/3 of trade route count (which is also underestimation as we're going to have more coastal cities).

[N35t0r]

Is the formula for trade route yeld around somewhere?

Originally posted by binTravkin
It's not either-or scenario here.
If you have to compensate for 5 commerce lost by cutting trade, make that free specialist a scientist or merchant.

sure, but then the point is the yield of a specialist vs. the yield of trade routes, not the hammer issue

[binTravkin]

The hammer issue more shows the flexibility of a specialist, i.e. if I can convert 6 commerce into 3 commerce + 2hammers when there is a need for it, I will take it over just plain 6 commerce and maybe even over 7-8 plain commerce.

Formula:

[(1+F)*(5*(Pop-10))+100+Cap)* (Minimum ([T*50%], [D*70%]))*20%/100]

F is 150% (1.5) if it is a Foreign Trade Route, 0 if domestic
Pop is the Pop of the city Getting the trade route
T is the Pop of the City the Trade Route is With
D is the Distance to the City
Cap is 25 if one of the cities is a Capital, 0 if not
[] indicates rounding down

This is for Overland routes, no Harbors, Tiny map

The 69% for distance is Probably specific to Tiny maps

All the numbers (150% for Foreign, 5* population, -10 population adjustment, 25 for Capital, 50% for partner pop, etc. except the 1 and the 100 are in the XML files)

What this indicates is that on a normal map, once your empire is big enough, and the populations are about 20, then Domestic trade routes can make about 3 commerce, 2 quite easily. Foreign Trade Routes can get to 7 or 8 and don't require your empire to be big just to have sufficiently Distant and large-citied trade Partners.

edited from further analysis results

Checked World info for the other sizes too,

so for
Duel is 80%
Tiny 70% (I discovered I made a distance measuring mistake in my 69% calc, Credit to Roland: I would have missed that)
Small 60%
Standard 50%
Large 40%
Huge 30%

from

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/trade_routes.php

[N35t0r]

gah. damn ie ate my post. crappy browser.

in any case, my point still stands: the most effective specialist would be an engineer, since raw commerce cannot be turned into hammers except under universal suffrage. Engineers need a forge, and you can only have one engineer per city this way. This engineer can just as well be gotten by pulling a worker from the field.
So the value of mercantilism is eithe an extra specialist OR the output of the lest productive citizen, whatever is lower. That is what should be compared to the lost commerce.

Also, the trade bonus isn't equally distributed, like the mercantilism bonus, but it will actually be higher on our coastal, commerce-oriented cities, and our capital, which will have better commerce-oriented infrastructure (and a +50% bonus on our cap due to bureaucracy) and will thus have higher overall modifiers than the mercantilism bonus.

[N35t0r]

Also, for far away cities, only the size of your city, not theirs, counts, so them having small cities or a low amount of coastal cities doesn't matter (the latter actually helps us, since our harbour cities will have a greater chance of getting the juicyest trade routes).

[binTravkin]

So the value of mercantilism is eithe an extra specialist OR the output of the lest productive citizen, whatever is lower. That is what should be compared to the lost commerce.

Not really, I can pick that citizen up while running mercantilism too.
E.g. if I have a 2-0-1 tile and I decide I need more research, I can pick up a scientist for 0-0-6, which is obviously better compared with raw commerce than the former.

Also, for far away cities, only the size of your city, not theirs, counts, so them having small cities or a low amount of coastal cities doesn't matter (the latter actually helps us, since our harbour cities will have a greater chance of getting the juicyest trade routes).

Having a low amount can hurt, since they can have less cities than we're ready to trade with.

Also, your observation of far away cities is incorrect, as long as we think the formula provided is correct.

Minimum ([T*50%], [D*50%])

Above is our formula (percentage for Standard map added).
According to it, as long as target city's population is lower than the distance to it, population is gonna be the deciding factor, since on a Standard map both of those values have equal weight (as shown by equal percentage).


But what I was saying is that they would get much more commerce from our cities than from each others' due to difference in distance.


Anyways, this discussion is moot, if our caravels don't discover a coastal access to the other continent.
We're not going to give up our Colossus bonus to trade routes, are we?
Of course, there will be a moment when we will need to obsolete the Colossus, then we can switch to both Free Market (researched through Banking) and resume trade at earnest.

[PJayTycy]

a short build plan for Hong Kong :

100 AD = turn x

x : whip settler with 3 pops
x+1 : one turn of courthouse to capture overflow
x+2 till x+9 : library at 1 hammer/turn, untill it has 54/90
x+10 : whip library
x+11 : capture overflow in courthouse again

We might get too many people in Hong Kong for our happiness/health limits though, but I guess that won't really make a difference.

[binTravkin]

We should be hooking up more happiness resources asap:
- incense
- silver
- ivory
- gems
- dye

are all waiting to be used. Silver and Gems will give most of our cities a +2 due to forges.

Also - whaling boat is coming up soon.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Indeed Happiness will not be an issue until the Industrial age.

Due to some resent chats with GS we need to establish our research plans for the next few techs. GS has expressed a desire to go on a Liberalism b-line, we are interested in Banking b-line. They need our Civil Service to progress and wish to trade Philosophy for it. But Philosophy is of almost no use to us. They also expressed a willingness to research Feudalism for us as BT had been advocating. We should look towards an exchange plan that provides us with a mutual boost.

I'd propose that we offer them CS + Paper <> Feudalism (when they have it) + Education (later). We complete Paper and another tech such as Theology or Engineering as they do Feudalism. Then Finish Guilds and Banking to complete our b-line. They Finish Education gifting to us and then do Liberalism taking the bonus Tech. The Education gift should put us ahead on point and that will be considered our cut of the Liberalism bonus. GS gets to Lib faster then it could on its own and we complete our b-line while getting Education which will prevent us from falling behind in Tech.