(November 4th, 2018, 14:33)Rusten Wrote: HE and NE are not really late game though, and having 1 extra of those early on is a big deal, IMO.
What's the point of PHI now, with 2 NE available for IND? Yes, you get the super early academy, but that's not enough to justify it.
Interesting point about HE though: assuming it is already unlocked via XP, I think in most cases it will be a question between 60 hammer forges via MC, that could give an unknown amount of happy plus 25% production for everything, and Aesthetics+Lit that gives wonder builds and the HE/NE pair that aren't going anywhere. In what circumstances would it make more sense to prioritise getting HE and NE down, than getting forges in most cities? I'm not sure, because building four 200 hammer national wonders is going to take most of a players production out of play for a while, and even then, to use NE effectively, you are going to not work hammer tiles. So it's almost like the two HE will cover the two NE (and then some, because the cities that build HE should be better hammer producers than the NE cities), so total hammer output will not massively rise. The real gain would be to grab the extra great people quicker, to push onto the next level of units, but the Medieval era units aren't really bulbable. But that leaves open a much larger window than just cramming down the forges everywhere, which allows vertical growth, which are more easily staggered between cities and other priorities and can contribute to buildings, units and worker, settler expansion.
I don't actually know how this is going to work out. I see an awful lot of ways for things to go wrong for IND. I'm not even sure how to value it versus other late game stuff like ORG (you get a second FP, but do you have anywhere high cost to build it? If so, if you've got a good land amount, are you winning? Does it become a win more trait?), or against FIN (Sure, get a ton more commerce from otherwise junk coastal tiles, but IND has teh extra single 100% gold and beaker output in a second commerce city. But there is only one Bureau capital and Bureau is high cost.)