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Okay, so we have a big domestic question on our hands. Through a lot of careful testing and adjusting, I'm now sure we can manage to get a maximum of 11 cities out in time for a Hanging Gardens build on turn 88. (Three cities built on turn 86; two built on turn 87.)
The question is, do we want to do that? One downside is that it'll temporarily drag us down to 10-20% on the slider... although that will rapidly improve considering we'll be going into a huge cottage push immediately afterwards, plus we'll get Silver and another Gold after border expansions (teching Currency would help massively too).
Another potential downside is that it'll probably immediately put us at least a couple of dozen points in the lead, and make us a big topic of conversation (16+ pop points and 5 cities gained across 3 turns). However, on the plus side we do have a large sea to our east and a friendly neighbour to our west, so hopefully there'd be no immediate threats around us. Also, if we can secure a long-term NAP with Plako like we're intending, then this should fairly much eliminate any threat to the south.
Pretty much the only definite downside, aside from potential talk behind our back, is that it'd diminish our chances at getting a religion or any wonder immediately afterwards, due to our temporarily poor economy.
What do people think? Should we go for the all-out 11 city plan for the Hanging Gardens? Or should we cut back a bit so as not to overly drain our economy and make a target of ourselves too much?
Any thoughts would be appreciated. 
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Are you going to have enough workers to build the improvements needed to support the sudden extra population in 11 cities? What I've found (with the Calabim worldspell in ffh rather than the hanging gardens mind you) is that it's all well and good to spam cities just beforehand, but if they all grow to work unimproved tiles because you've been spamming out settlers and not workers then you end up backwards from where you'd have been working improved tiles at lower population.
If you don't get Code of Laws, you're not likely to get a religion at all I'd say. How much that matters is another issue though. Is Judaism gone yet by the way? Not suggesting going for it, just curious.
If you have the workers though, then I'd still say go for it.
March 21st, 2011, 16:56
(This post was last modified: March 21st, 2011, 17:20 by Lord Parkin.)
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Very valid point, Irgy. We'd have 10 Workers for the 11 cities on turn 88, quickly increasing to 11 and 14 over the next two turns in this particular sim of mine. (Obviously a bit of a Worker spam would be necessary after the increased focus on Settlers.) So I'm not so concerned about improving land immediately after turn 88, that'll naturally come quickly.
The main difference of an 11 city turn 88 build of HG compared to a more relaxed build at a later time or with fewer cities, is that the capital distinctly lacks cottages until post turn 88. This doesn't affect the times it takes to get to Maths and Masonry (just), but it will affect the times to later techs. However, I'm not sure if there's any way around this - if we want to be working cottages, we can't be working mines, which I'm pretty sure delays HG extra turns.
I'll have to do some tests of how fast the economy recovery is from the 11 city option, and decide whether it's really worth it. I'll also compare with a "max research" strategy to see relatively speaking how far behind we are after a few dozen turns between the two options. That should go a lot of the way towards deciding which one's best for us.
Oh, and for the record, not getting to COL first doesn't necessarily deny us a religion, especially since we're the about the only civ that can get regular Great Prophets. A Theology bulb could be a very decent option later, depending on where we are in tech at that point. It would require the researching of Meditation + Priesthood in addition to Polytheism + Monotheism first, though... mostly cheap techs, but quite a few of them.
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Maybe you can get theology, but you have to agree it's a big detour given the usefulness of those techs and having to burn a prophet to do it. Those techs don't give you much, though Meditation is a prerequisite for Philosophy and therefore Liberalism. Theology itself is ok if you want to build the AP though, and will at least speed up research into Paper.
My point about workers was probably a little mis-explained. It's not really the workers as such that are the problem, but the improved tiles. Here's a better way of putting it:
One citizen working an improved tile is worth two working unimproved tiles. Actually more, since not just does he produce twice as much over his food costs, but he costs less maintenance and doesn't inflate your score as much to do it. So a city at population 1 working an improved tile is better than a city at population 2 working two unimproved tiles.
What that says is that if there's any unimproved tile you're going to be working anywhere in your empire post-gardens, you're better off building one less settler and improving more tiles instead. One settler costs about 4 extra workers in terms of short term productivity, because you can produce 2 workers for the same cost and you free up two other workers who'd otherwise need to support the extra city.
Obviously cities usually need to work unimproved tiles when they're first settled, but otherwise any unimproved tile you're working anywhere is bad planning.
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Irgy Wrote:Maybe you can get theology, but you have to agree it's a big detour given the usefulness of those techs and having to burn a prophet to do it. Those techs don't give you much, though Meditation is a prerequisite for Philosophy and therefore Liberalism. Theology itself is ok if you want to build the AP though, and will at least speed up research into Paper. The AP is certainly the main factor in why we might want to rush for Theology, IMHO. It's a crazily powerful wonder simply due to the very cheap +4 base hammers per city it allows from Temples and Monasteries of its religion. The founded religion itself would be somewhat incidental compared to the AP, although still useful for the holy city of course.
It is quite a costly route though, burning a Great Prophet and researching four techs we don't really need at the time (though the ability to build religious buildings along with Organized Religion would quickly become very powerful after Theology and the AP). I think the main argument against it is the opportunity cost against early Bureaucracy - we'd get it faster if we didn't spend time on Theology.
Then again, Meditation and Priesthood would be the minimum needed to research (or at least get max speed on) COL anyway, so the Theology route actually has a decent amount of synergy with the Bureaucracy route, as long as we're not spending too many turns researching Theology itself. And not many (if any?) turns will be spent researching Theology if we burn a Great Prophet. Sure, we lose out on the hammers and commerce we'd get from settling him, but I think guaranteeing a holy city + the AP would be worth the cost.
Anyway, something to think about. I'll have to test in my sim how many beakers a Great Prophet would give towards Theology in this game (or if he'd research it instantly).
Irgy Wrote:My point about workers was probably a little mis-explained. It's not really the workers as such that are the problem, but the improved tiles. Here's a better way of putting it:
One citizen working an improved tile is worth two working unimproved tiles. Actually more, since not just does he produce twice as much over his food costs, but he costs less maintenance and doesn't inflate your score as much to do it. So a city at population 1 working an improved tile is better than a city at population 2 working two unimproved tiles.
What that says is that if there's any unimproved tile you're going to be working anywhere in your empire post-gardens, you're better off building one less settler and improving more tiles instead. One settler costs about 4 extra workers in terms of short term productivity, because you can produce 2 workers for the same cost and you free up two other workers who'd otherwise need to support the extra city.
Obviously cities usually need to work unimproved tiles when they're first settled, but otherwise any unimproved tile you're working anywhere is bad planning. Thanks for your thoughts, good to be reminded of the opportunity costs we're dealing with here. Maintenance is certainly a very big concern, and you're right that in general 2 citizens working unimproved tiles are inferior to 1 citizen working an improved tile. There are exceptions, of course, like for instance flood plains, oases, and other resources which may tip the scales a bit.
I guess the main thing you haven't taken into account in this specific situation is the "acceptable" delay between founding a new city and improving its tiles when the Hanging Gardens is in play. How many turns of delay are acceptable in improving the resources at a new 2-pop city, compared to the same city founded later with only 1-pop but a Worker around from the get-go?
My gut feeling is about 5-10 turns; if you can get Workers to the new cities in that time frame, then it's worth building those cities before the Hanging Gardens so that they begin with 2 pop (rather than building the cities after the Hanging Gardens with only 1 pop and Workers immediately available). That's only a feeling though; I haven't worked out the actual numbers there. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that.
I think in most cases we can get Workers to all the new 2-pop cities within 5-10 turns of founding them, so if it works out that this is indeed more profitable than the alternative of founding them later with only 1-pop, then it seems we should go ahead. Need to do that analysis first though.
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Theology: 500 Beakers * 1.5 Huge * 1.15 Monarch < 1000 beakers. All non-GSci bulb at least 1000 beakers.
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Cyneheard Wrote:Theology: 500 Beakers * 1.5 Huge * 1.15 Monarch < 1000 beakers. All non-GSci bulb at least 1000 beakers. Thanks Cyneheard, good to know.
Hmm, so we can get Theology instantly if we research Meditation, Priesthood, Polytheism and Monotheism - assuming we get a Great Prophet as our second Great Person, but that's fairly likely. We'll get our second Great Person in the capital sometime in the turn 97-111 range with the 11 city plan... very likely earlier rather than later, which'll be in plenty of time to bulb Theology. (And if we don't get the Great Prophet, we'll be getting a Great Scientist or Great Engineer, either of which are probably even more awesome for us.)
So, two to three out of those four techs that are necessary to bulb Theology we'll almost certainly want in the near future for our intended mid-term plan anyway (COL -> Civil Service). Plus Monotheism gives quite a nice bonus for a large empire that we can pick up along the way (OR), assuming that we can found a religion - which we pretty much 100% will if we get that Great Prophet and use him for bulbing Theology.
In fact, I don't think anyone else in the game can possibly beat us even to a turn 111 Great Prophet (let alone turn 97), considering Luddite's emphasizing his Great Engineer and everyone else is hugely unlikely to be building temples just for the Priests right now. (Is there anything I missed?)
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Out of curiousity, does someone have a link to the exact formula for how many beakers a specified great person gives towards a specified tech, in any given situation?
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Here's a simple simulation of city growth with floodplains. I'm guessing from memory that the food requirements for growth on quick are 14, 15, 17, 18, but I can't remember them exactly. I'm also guessing 4 turns to farm floodplains on quick? Maybe it's 5? It shouldn't make that big a difference to the point I'm trying to make though.
To avoid the complication of calculating flow-on benefits of having extra food/production leading to more food production later, I find it simpler to work in terms of the number of turns to reach a particular milestone. This is true in general for civ's exponential growth. Pure hammer/food/beaker differences only make sense in the short term, more difficult comparisons work better in turns.
Found the city population 1, worker available immediately:
Reaches pop 5 with 64 food total in 12 turns.
Population 1, worker delayed 5 turns:
Pop 5 with 66 food total in 14 turns.
Population 2, worker immediately:
Pop 5 with 65 (51 + 14 free) food total in 9 turns.
Population 2, worker delayed 5 turns:
Pop 5 with 65 food total in 10 turns.
So it works out that a 5 turn worker delay puts the city's development about a turn behind for a 2-pop garderns-boosted city, and about 2 turns behind normally. The gardens themselves save about 3 or 4 turns, depending on whether a worker is available. So according to that, getting one less city with the gardens in order to get a worker arriving on time to 3 or 4 other cities is about an even trade.
I could be out by a factor of 2 here either way, but hopefully I've at least explained my point.
My guess is 10 cities rather than 11 will be the sweet spot. But that's only based on stuff you've said, I have no direct knowledge of your game situation and micro.
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For the record, we're on normal speed here, not quick. Will check through the rest later. 
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