Adv28 -- Muaziz loses faith in missionaries

[Muaziz]

Actually I think you were correct to stick with Artists over river towns, this is because your "max output" is not done sustainably. So that farm supporting a specialist up until 1898, actually turns into 2 artists for the last turn, clearly better than one riverside town.

The ideal situation would have been to have Farms for growth and then spawn insta-Towns in their place. Of course, since Towns take a real long time to mature, that was not an option.

I am now pretty convinced that River Towns were the best choice, especially with Dikes which give you an extra little boost.

Here is the detailed math on Town, River Town, and Artist Specialist. I will assume Dike, Forge, Factory, and Power.

River Town: 10C, 4H
Town: 9C
Artist: +1B, +4Cu

Since the cultural percentage modifier is the same for Commerce as it is for Culture, 1C = 1Cu. However, the multiplier does matter since the delta is being multiplied.

Here are the numbers for a "lowly" city with no Cathedrals and no special science buildings. It has +150% Culture (+100% from Free Speech and +50% from Broadcast Tower), and +110% Science (+25% from each of the 4 science buildgins and +10% from Free Religion). These numbers are for beakers + culture combined:
River Town: 29.00
Artist: 23.40
Town: 22.50

In this case, the Artist will beat out everything except the River Town. Actually, I think a Gold Mine still comes out ahead, and perhaps a couple of other improved tiles (Gems?).

Now let us look at a well established city with all 7 Cathedrals and a Science Academy. It has +500% Culture (same as above + 7 x 50% from the 7 Cathedrals), and +160% Science (same as above + an extra 50% from Science Academy built be a Great Scientist). These numbers are for beakers + culture combined:
River Town: 64.00
Town: 54.00
Artist: 46.40

In this case, the Town also comes out ahead of the Artist. However, the deltas we are talking about here are pretty small, but I am glad to see that if you invested that much into Cottages, that the math really does pay off.

Edit: Corrected Science bonus from Free Religion, not Pacifism. I'm glad timmy827 is around to correct all my insane blabber!

[timmy827]

Were you in Pacifism or Free Religion at the end (you listed the former but the bonus for the latter)? I was pretty convinced that the +10% science wouldn't beat the sistine bonus, but maybe it would if one was running a lot of artists.

[T-hawk]

Very well done! Similar game to mine, and even though my economy seemed superior (Future Tech 14 to Future Tech 2), you came out ahead, 51k to 40k culture and 11k to 2k science.

Although we both came right up to the domination limit, you had more cities, about 41 to my 33. And I see exactly why: my empire shape was inefficient. I had land borders with all of Babylon, Portugal, and the Celts, which made for a lot of 3rd and 4th ring tiles counting towards the domination limit but not being worked for culture. By conquering Babylon and Portugal instead of me conquering the Vikings, you had a nice compact empire, with much less wasted fringe space. Also, I never got the seventh religion.

The disparity in science is more striking - how did I miss out on that much? - but easily explainable. Never occurred to me to found and spread Aluminum Co for the science.

Congrats on what's looking like a likely win!

[Muaziz]

Were you in Pacifism or Free Religion at the end (you listed the former but the bonus for the latter)? I was pretty convinced that the +10% science wouldn't beat the sistine bonus, but maybe it would if one was running a lot of artists.

Oh oh... I didn't even think about Free Religion taking that away. I assume the +2Cu per Specialist is still active, but you lose out on the +5Cu from each State religion building. Somehow I doubt the +10% science makes up for that. Will have to check later today and report back.

[Muaziz]

Very well done! Similar game to mine, and even though my economy seemed superior (Future Tech 14 to Future Tech 2), you came out ahead, 51k to 40k culture and 11k to 2k science.

I was running 100% cash for a long time since I went on a total buying spree. I switched to Universal Suffrage for a long time so I could rapidly develop all of my cities with the goal of growing them as fast as possible (buying Groceries and Supermarkets) and also building all of the religion buildings in each. I also made the bone-headed move of going all the way to Fusion thinking I would want that Engineer for the GA. In the end, I ended up getting two extra non-Artist Great People so had 2 extras which I settled on the last turn. Not sure I could have matched FT14, but would certainly have been a lot closer than FT2.

Although we both came right up to the domination limit, you had more cities, about 41 to my 33.

I was worried about that for a long time which is why I never attacked Ragnar. I was convinced I would take at least two of his border cities with culture, but that never happened. I think I ended the game with around 59% territory. So Domination was never as close as I had feared.

And I see exactly why: my empire shape was inefficient. I had land borders with all of Babylon, Portugal, and the Celts, which made for a lot of 3rd and 4th ring tiles counting towards the domination limit but not being worked for culture. By conquering Babylon and Portugal instead of me conquering the Vikings, you had a nice compact empire, with much less wasted fringe space. Also, I never got the seventh religion.

The 7th religion came pretty late, and it was also the one that was the most painful to spread (Hinduism) taking 74 missionaries to spread to 38 or 39 cities. But that seventh religion does add 13 cathedrals (I was 1 city short of being to have a 14th at the end). That's a lot of extra culture getting multiplied.

The disparity in science is more striking - how did I miss out on that much? - but easily explainable. Never occurred to me to found and spread Aluminum Co for the science.

I think Aluminum Co was generating +15B per city, so +30B with the building bonus. Times 40 cities is only +1,200B. So not sure that accounts for enough of the difference. I will double check those numbers since they could be off. You were running Representation at the end for the +3B per Specialist correct?

Congrats on what's looking like a likely win!

My first one I think, if it holds up.

[Muaziz]

Somehow I doubt the +10% science makes up for that. Will have to check later today and report back.

I did confirm that Free Religion was a dumb move. You lose the Cultural bonus from not only The Sistine Chapel, but from the University of Sankore as well.

In my capital, that translated to a loss of 6.5 Beakers and 107 Culture. Granted, the impact would have been much, much smaller in most other cities.

I think Aluminum Co was generating +15B per city, so +30B with the building bonus. Times 40 cities is only +1,200B. So not sure that accounts for enough of the difference. I will double check those numbers since they could be off. You were running Representation at the end for the +3B per Specialist correct?

I did confirm that I was only getting +15B from Aluminum Co.

My "average" city was generating about 270B, and only about 200-220 for some of the newer ones. So having an extra 10 cities accounts for another 2,700 or so Beakers.

So those two things account for 3,900 of the Beaker difference, but that difference is 8,800 so there is something major missing here.

Looking at your cities screenshot from your report, if you exclude your two biggest science cities, your average beakers per city is around 100. I suspect that is due to your smaller cities (many with pop in the low to mid 20s, whereas mine where mostly in the upper 20s) and probably also the fact that I starved all my cities for the reporting turn (although that was not as smart as working River Towns).

[T-hawk]

Yeah, most of the science difference must have been the specialist count. We can figure this from the GP production in my domestic advisor screenshot - approximately 60 GPP per city in golden age, so about 10 artists per city instead of your 25+. I had every possible tile towned, so had most population working tiles instead of specializing.

Your approach, and Olodune's pithy summarization of it, was absolutely correct. One farm makes for two artists on the critical date, by running food shortage, which is superior to one town. Well done!

[Muaziz]

One farm makes for two artists on the critical date, by running food shortage, which is superior to one town. Well done!

River Towns were still better than farms as my later analysis shows (the one that uses correct numbers!). But with a no "starvation" rule, I think the totals would have been much more in line with each other since I would have been forced to work more of my zero commerce farms whereas you might have been working more non-River Towns and Windmills.

One thing is clear though is that I did reach a much higher average pop despite the fact that you had FT 18 which meant no Health issues in any cities. Although, I had bee-lined to Genetics very early to try and grow as rapidly as possible. I didn't get FT 1 until 10 turns remaining or so. I was also using Universal Suffrage to buy all of the growth buildings asap for my newer cities: Granary, Grocer, Supermarket.