[Spoilers] Fintourist and Old Harry have nothing to see here

[Fintourist]

yay I get cookie! good stuff in thr whipping and meta analysis.

Amazing performance

We had a quick chat about great people where I couldn't spell formual and I might have convinced Fintourist to go all-in for GPs.

And Harry is feeling optimistic! But you know, I'm open to stuff. Below is a small exercise I did so that I could make up my mind. The consequence is that if Harry can convince me that those GPs can be used wisely I'm in.

Case example: Paficism specialists vs. GA-boosted tiles

GP:Agincourt 500 GPP Scientist
Born: EOT 153 (at the end of the GA)
Usage: Bulb

So let's set the start of turn 154 as "time 0"

If we would use the GS immediately we would get 1500 + 3*~100 pop = ~1800 beakers. Assuming that we use it for a tech that has 1-prereq, some of our opponents know it, and on average we get 15 % multiplier to our commerce from libraries it translates to 1800/(1.25*1.15) = ~1250 commerce

So what did it cost for us to get that 1250 commerce prize?
Seven opened that nice thread with following simplification:

1 food = 8 points
1 hammer = 5 points
1 beaker = 3 points

Now we are talking about size 14 capital so food is already less valuable, consequently I'm just roughly using this:
1 food = 7 points
1 hammer = 5 points
1 beaker = 3 points

and because or capital has library let's simplify further:
1 commerce = 3*1.25 = 3.75 points

So in order to produce that GS we need 55.5 specialist turns. If we would not produce a GP I would say that we would work 2/0/4 tiles (some of tiles would be 2/0/3 coast, some more valuable such as silver). And we remember that scientists also produce 3 beakers that get the library bonus meaning that they are currently as valuable as commerce. So I say that overall we pay 2 food and 1 commerce per scientist turn. If I use my random values from the above table and convert food into commerce I estimate that we lose 4.75 commerce per scientist turn. Overall this makes the cost of producing GS 4.75 commece * 55.5 specialist turns = 265 commerce If we assume switch into Bureaucracy that will increase the value a bit, but not dramatically

Ok that's a big difference (even if you finetune variables) that practically says that GA-Pacifism specialists are awesome (when forgetting the civic costs etc). However, we haven't considered the time value of commerce yet.

Seven and others use in the thread I linked a discount rate of 3.5 % for quick speed. Normal speed equivalent is ~2.3 %. Since those scientists turns are worked before the "time 0" (on average 2.5 turns earlier) the comparable value of that lost commerce is:

265 * 1.023^2.5 = 280 commerce

Ok, the difference is still big. But we are probably not using our GS immediately after it's born. So how late are we allowed to use our GS so that it's still makes sense to produce it?

The equation is: 1250/(1.023^X) = 280
and thus the X = ~66

So what this means is that producing the GS is solid as long as we can use it before 66 turns have gone since it's birth.

Ok, unless someone can point out that I'm missing something or some of my assumptions are totally off (and changing them affects the result siginificantly), I'm on board with abusing the pacifism as much as we can. Only worry is that if those hammers/commerce we are losing during the GA cause us to miss a certain extremely valuable target such as winning the war or winning a free great person or something, then the decision is of course wrong..

Here is the formula I found for GM at CFC:

great merchant trade value = 500 + 200*trade_value (also scaled with game speed)

trade_value is the trade route gold that would the other guy have with our capital

So feel free to harry repeat the exercise for GM or do some kind of a comparison whether we should produce scientists or merchants..

Cookies are offered here again..