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

[Old Harry]

Turn 209

Todays foreign news is that Mack launches his 3-man golden age and revolts to State Property, Free Religion and Representation. I wonder if at the end he'll revolt to Emancipation or if he doesn't think the happiness penalty will be a problem? The good news is that his great artist has gone. The bad news is that we're the obvious target once his golden age is over...


Ichabod still hasn't upgraded his galleys and still hasn't got the money to do it. I'm expecting his privateer to kill our galleon this turn, then we'll kill it back with a frigate.


We got graphs back on Ichabod, so here they are, hopefully next turn we'll get them on dtay...

Demos

[Fintourist]

Have I stated often enough that I love the fact that our tech pace has reached the next level. I think Steam Power after Rifling and Steel is a pretty clear choice for multiple reasons (improved known-tech bonus being the economic one, Levee in Jamestown sounds nice as well). I don't think that in our position Communism/Physics/Biology are attractive enough or how do you see it?

[Old Harry]

For us State Property loses to Free Market economically and I doubt that the food bonus on workshops and watermills will counter that (would need to calculate how many extra specialists we'd support and how much more trade income we'd get). Similarly Biology would let us run more Rep specialists, but probably not enough to pay for it. Physics gives airships, which are great for reconnaissance, but we don't really need them with our open borders with our neighbours.

So yeah, I like Rifling->Steel->Steam Power, and I'd then be tempted to get Assembly Line before Railroad for draftable Infantry and factories.

[Dhalphir]

Draftable infantry are great on the defense but I'm not sure you're going to make any headway on offense with 1movers against either dtay or mack, and you'd need to be quick with 2movers against ickybod. I'd be more in love with getting some factories up and running soon so you're not falling further behind your neighbours on production

[Fintourist]

To be honest, it is more likely that our future wars will be defensive so infantries are maybe a decent choice.. And also, I need to check the correct number in game, but I think we have now ~40-50 knights/cuirs that can be upgraded to cavs if we want. That is a decent basis for the initial strike if we ever get an opportunity for offensive. Cannons+rifle/infantry/trash/(machine guns) can be a decent follow-up force after the surprise is gone while cavs still can fork cities. Hopeful thinking! But yes, I think we would be happy to build tanks as 2-movers but we still need a while to get there...

[Old Harry]

We're chatting about this now, I guess that Rifles + Machine guns + cannons do a similar job to Infantry + cannons, but it just seems a waste to spend 2 pop on a rifle who could be an infantry!

I may have convinced Fintourist that further offense is possible. Watch this space...

[Fintourist]

Just did a quick math exercise for you Dhalphir

Factory, 250 hammers
Coal Plant, 150 hammers

Let's assume we have forges in place and build infra using OR civic.
Factory cost: 250 / 1.5 = 167 base hammers
CP cost: 150 / 1.75 = 86 base hammers

That's (167 + 86) * 1.25 = 315 hammers that could be units.

So when has Factory+CP paid itself back?

x * (2 - 1.25) = 315
-->
x = 420

So if we produce more than 420 base hammers in the city after we have built factory + CP we end up with profit (if we forget the time value of hammers).

It seems likely that many of our cities never manage to produce those 420 base hammers in this game (or during a reasonable time frame), but at some production sites, which make 15/20+ base hammers per turn factories might be a decent investment if we believe that we survive long enough..

[TheHumanHydra]

Aren't factories supposed to be the tipping point where you go from Slavery being most efficient to natural production being most efficient (in base BtS; I'd assume all the more so in RB Mod since it nerfed Slavery)? As one of the most transformative economic techs in the game, then, in addition to its notable military benefits, wouldn't it make sense to go for it as early as possible? I remember someone in 46 telling me I should have built factories then run wealth/research builds everywhere to catch up to you in tech rate, Old Harry. Just a thought.

[Fintourist]

Aren't factories supposed to be the tipping point where you go from Slavery being most efficient to natural production being most efficient

Hmm, I can't really see how factories would have a major impact when it comes to overthrowing Slavery, because the hammer multiplier affects similarly both whipped hammers and natural production. If we simplify, one switches out of grow-whip-grow-whip-mode when "stagnating" at higher size and working tiles becomes more profitable: This situation is created a) through growing to higher sizes, which makes food-to-hammer ratio worse and b) getting better production tiles online such as Chemistry/Caste-boosted workshops in base BTS. I can't see how factories would really make slavery so much worse than natural production..

So, I don't really see factories as game changing builds at least in our position. That said, our approach will pretty much beeline Assembly Line anyways unless we get lured by Railroad, which would be a very useful tech as well. And of course, I don't want to sound too negative, factories are decent builds, the above calculation shows that in really good hammer cities they can be awesome builds and can have a very short payback time. If we are still alive and kicking in 40 turns something has gone wrong if we don't have at least couple of factory+coal plant combos working.

[TheHumanHydra]

Fair enough. I could have sworn someone knowledgeable told me that and/or I read an article about it, though.

Regardless, for the record I do prefer Assembly Line to Railroad as a tech. Infantry can attack and be drafted, Machine Guns can't, and the production benefit from Factories and Coal Plants always seemed to me more substantial than that from railroads - but I could be wrong on that, and there is the opportunity cost to consider.