Empire tab sliders

[Alex]

Out of curiosity, how do you play with the sliders (Workday, Wages and Rations) during the course of the game? Do you have any specific strategy or you just do what you think is more appropriate for any given moment, according to your needs?

Do the sliders have any strategic importance in the outcome of the game or are they fairly useless?

Let's debate strategy.

[child of Thor]

Well i use the sliders most of the time, depending on my aims and the government type i'm running.
In the early stages of a game i'm concerned with Production most, to get units and buildings finished as quick as i can. I will max out the production slider and increase either food or gold to keep people happy(ish).I sometimes cancel all Public Works to increase my production further.
Once i've got a healthy empire(6-8 cities,a few size 8+), then i relax on the production slider to give my people a well earned rest(you try working 14hr days for all your life!), and try to rely on city improvements(mines etc) to increase production in specific cities.
I don't think i've ever maxed out the gold and food slider for any reason other than to try and bring a revolt under control.

[Martin Gühmann]

It depends on the mod that you are using: In the original game, ApolytonPack and still in GoodMod it is always good to max them all out and exploit your people, use entertainers to controll than the unhappiness, in the early GoodMod game it is even a need to do this as the AI is doing the same thing. In Cradle and MedPack2 the loss of happiness is although so high that you can't compensate it with entertainers.

-Martin

[Pedrunn]

About the same as Child of Thor. But i very oftenly increase the gold slide to boost science. Mostly when i have the buildings i consider important in the most important cities.
In my point of view scince comes first them military.
Food only to keep my cities safe from starvations. I rather use specialist to increase growth than the sliders.

[Alex]

I rather use specialist to increase growth than the sliders.

I have to agree, specialists only alter the balance in a single city, not in all your empire. And when you have an empire well established, with good production and science levels, it is not wise to change global settings without being sure of its effects.

Martin, good point about the mods. When I play with Cradle, I really find harder to change the sliders without massive riotings and unhappiness. Once I even had to turn all my workers into entertainers to try and control a severe riot! Couple this with a persistent warring situation with all nations and war discontents and you have a very poor player... me. Well, that was my first Cradle game, so I was learning the ropes, I guess. The harder way.

[Locutus]

I usually max out production when at war, science when at peace. Sometimes if I'm way behind on the AI in average city size, I max out food (did so just yesterday, after 2 plagues in quick succession on a Cradle game), but that doens't happen very often.

Specialists would indeed be a better way to tweak resource collection but I can't be bothered with cycling through all my cities every other turn to adjust those settings. If only those could be changed from the city manager or something...

[Eagle]

Locutus,

True what you say, but that's what I do.

I spend a considerable amount of time every so many turns, going through all my cities, checking for the queue, checking the status, adjusting the specialists, ...

It does take a lot of time, but I like doing it. Would be nice though, like you say, to be able to change this in the national manager or so.

Strange thing sometimes with the specialists though. Sometimes when I increase for example the laborer to one, the production will actually go 'down' ... ??? This even happens in bigger cities, I can understand this in a small city, but in a big ??

[Pedrunn]

Originally posted by Eagle
Strange thing sometimes with the specialists though. Sometimes when I increase for example the laborer to one, the production will actually go 'down' ... ??? This even happens in bigger cities, I can understand this in a small city, but in a big ??

That is because the decrease of workers also decreases the Efficiency factor. Wich sometimes (mostly when you have too few percent of the pop being workers) this penality is bigger than the bonus from the specialist.

[Eagle]

Hmmm ...

Sounds logical !! Tnx !!

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Eagle
It does take a lot of time, but I like doing it. Would be nice though, like you say, to be able to change this in the national manager or so.

Well, I too wouldn't mind doing it if it wasn't so much work, being able to do it from the national manager (and for multiple cities at a time, like with build queues) would definitely fix this for me.

Strange thing sometimes with the specialists though. Sometimes when I increase for example the laborer to one, the production will actually go 'down' ... ??? This even happens in bigger cities, I can understand this in a small city, but in a big ??

In addition to what Pedrunn said: if you put a laborer to work, you'll have less people working 'in the field'. If the terrain surrounding your city has a very high production value (lots of mountains, mines), then the amount of production the laborers give you (which, aside from efficiency and crime factors, is a fixed amount) could actually be lower than the amount of production a worker in the field collects.

This is in fact the most important factor in deciding when to use specialists: using farmers in a city surrounded with grassland with Adv. Farms will give you very little to no extra growth, but using them in a city surrounded by mountains and deserts will tremendously boost your city growth (which would be very slow or non-existant without the farmers). So specialists aren't always necessarily useful for maximizing the output of something, but also (and even more so) for compensating for the lack of it. Sliders *are* intended solely for increasing the output of their respective resource (but at a price, of course).

[Eagle]

Locutus, good explanation. Tnx !

Am experimenting more and more with using the sliders in my game, also those at the empire manager.

Tnx !

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by Locutus

Well, I too wouldn't mind doing it if it wasn't so much work, .

This is in fact the most important factor in deciding when to use specialists: using farmers in a city surrounded with grassland with Adv. Farms will give you very little to no extra growth, but using them in a city surrounded by mountains and deserts will tremendously boost your city growth (which would be very slow or non-existant without the farmers). So specialists aren't always necessarily useful for maximizing the output of something, but also (and even more so) for compensating for the lack of it.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. I guess I "knew" this but sometimes I get confused in the heat of city-management battle. All these d*mned games end up as micromanagement exercises, at least for perfectionists...like me Oh, I wish I could trust the "mayors" but they're all on the take, I think.

[Alex]

Locutus, thanks for the explanation...

I never understood why my cities were not growing significantly when I used farmers... on fertile land.

I think that most of the city growth has to come from farms and granaries, except if your city is in bad terrain. In this case, using farmers will actually allow it to grow. Hmm...

[Locutus]

What I do when I want to maximize something (but usually I'm more interested in finding a balance of some sort), is add a farmer/labourer/whatever and see what this does to the output of that resource for that city. If it increases the output, I add another farmer, and another, and another, etc. until it no longer increases (even decreases) the output. In some cities you can make all units farmers/labourer to maximize output but in other cities, cities that already produce a lot of food/production, there's usually a maximum output somewhere in the middle (usually with 40-60% of the population specialist, but the exact number depends on a lot of factors of course).

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Alexnm
I think that most of the city growth has to come from farms and granaries, except if your city is in bad terrain. In this case, using farmers will actually allow it to grow. Hmm...

Exactly, farmers *can* usually help, even in cities on fertile ground, but the more food the city collects from the surroundings, the less effective farmers are. That's the essence of managing specialists in CtP2: to find a balance between land exploitation with workers and 'artificial' creation through specialists, not just for different types of resources (more farmers => more food => less production/commerce), but also with the same resource (more farmers is not always more food).