[Spoilers] Noble Intentions: Thessalonica of the Elohim starts her quest!

[Northstar1989]

If you don't want advice, stop asking for it.

I definitely want advice. That doesn't mean I'm going to be 100% in agreement with every suggestion. But like I said, a second Worker is already high in my priority-list (right up there with additional Settlers...)

On any less fertile start, I would have much more incentive to build early Workers- but as is I'm struggling just to expand the happy-cap as quickly as my population, and the most useful improvements I could normally be building would be Farms- which will only hurt my hammer/commerce production (through switching off lake tiles and Agrarianism) while providing me with angry citizens who refuse to work...


Regards,
Northstar

[Mardoc]

You should be able to work aristofarms and mines at this point of the game, rather than lakes and forests. Those are basically double the net production (once you subtract the 2 food cost for a citizen to work the tile). Cottages aren't the worst thing either; assuming you expect the game to last more than 20 turns they're better than lakes.

Even lumbermills aren't 'mere 1 hammer', but instead basically double production, once you account for the food. Takes a grass forest from 1 net hammer to 2.

[Northstar1989]

You should be able to work aristofarms and mines at this point of the game, rather than lakes and forests.

Let's see- a riverside aristofarm will give me 3 commerce and 2 food on Grassland- which is only 1 commerce better than a lake tile (but vulnerable to pillage and costs Worker-turns). On Plains (which are all I currently have available without more chopping) it gives 3 commerce, 1 hammer, and 1 food.

Additionally, Aristocracy means I have to give up God King- which is still a huge bastion of my economy (currently giving 6 hammers and 2.5 gold already).

Mines help make up for the lost hammers, but once again they require me to freeze growth at my capital and require a considerable hammer-investment in Workers. What's more, there's no reason I can't currently combine Mines with Agro-farms and God King- which is in fact precisely what I plan to do...


All in all, I'm aware of the economic benefits of Mines and (to a lesser degree, considering the benefits of God King) Aristofarms. But they haven't been worth the delays to city-growth or founding new cities just yet. That's about to change as my maintenance costs start to limit my expansion, however...

Those are basically double the net production (once you subtract the 2 food cost for a citizen to work the tile). Cottages aren't the worst thing either; assuming you expect the game to last more than 20 turns they're better than lakes.

I'm aware, but once again- return on investment. Very few things match the ROI of a Settler and a new city in the long run... New cities not only provide the bonuses from the city tiles and the buildings the cities hold, they also provide strategic/defensive control of terrain and access to new resources... (resource-tiles are generally the most productive tiles you can work) All my cities thus far have been situated to gain access to and utilize one or more new resources (Gold, Rice, Dye, Marble, etc.) in the long run...

Even lumbermills aren't 'mere 1 hammer', but instead basically double production, once you account for the food. Takes a grass forest from 1 net hammer to 2.

The marginal improvement over the forested hill tile is only 1 hammer. If you switch over to working that tile from a different tile, you did it because that small marginal improvement made it a better choice than what you were working before, but meant that without the lumbermill the other tile was a better choice- meaning the marginal benefit must be *even less* than the value of 1 hammer on average...


Regards,
Northstar

[Northstar1989]

So it begins...



The Orcs took the bait, and attacked my Scout (I say "bait" because I intentionally placed the Scout on terrain where his odds of winning in defense would be just under 50%- so that if Q attacked and lost my Scout would gain enough XP for another promotion...) Unfortunately for me, they won the fight...

My Thane of Kilmorph will not rest until he exacts revenge, though. By the way, does anybody know how much XP wining a fight at just over 50% odds on the attack grants? (so I know how many promotions the Orc Warrior can now buy...)




I also founded my next city- Slane. Whereby will lay, hopefully, the slain corpses of many enemies unwise enough to attack a city on a hill within range of Odio's Prison...




My Worker has completed the road to my next city-site. I will need to decide whether it makes more sense for him to chop the forest before I settle there, or to just move on and start quarrying the Marble right away (my next build after the Temple of the Overlords will be the Heron Throne- following which I will be able to finally achieve some serious hammer-throughput at my coastal city...)




My capital will complete its Settler (it has *precisely* enough production to finish in 5 more turns with no overflow) and then grow to size 8 (3 turns, no overflow) before I relinquish the Wheat Farm to my new southern city. Which is fine, because I want it to produce an Elder Council before it gets to work on a Pagan Temple (to raise the happy-cap for the new population it will be growing) anyways...




Meanwhile my 2nd city will border-pop in 3 turns: after which it can accelerate its next growth to as little as 5 turns by moving citizens from forests to lake tiles. I will need to carefully balance the two so that the city grows and completes its Pagan Temple at exactly the same time...




The Lizardman also decided to move towards Slane- but for whatever reason hasn't attacked yet...




Finally, here's a look at the Demographics. My GNP took a rather large hit from the additional maintenance costs...



I'm OK with that, considering I still have a bit of treasury to draw on. Nonetheless, I will be wanting to churn out lots of Workers soon- so I can start better developing my economy... (Mardoc, this was always part of the plan- just not quite as soon as you might have done it. Once again, normally I would have had a head-start with Industrious if not for the free starting Worker...)


Regards,
Northstar

[The Black Sword]

Very few things match the ROI of a Settler and a new city in the long run

This is rarely true in FFH. A settler is a massive 145h, a new pop is only around 20f. Therefore it's usually a lot better to grow all your pop before building a settler. And since working improved tiles around doubles their value, you need to have enough workers so you're almost always working improved tiles. And of course unlocking techs for those improvements.

[Northstar1989]

This is rarely true in FFH. A settler is a massive 145h, a new pop is only around 20f. Therefore it's usually a lot better to grow all your pop before building a settler.

Far from it. The key to victory is resources. Copper for Bronze Weapons, for instance. How do you expect me to arm my soldiers with better weapons if I just stick to a handful of cities near the start?

Also, see the 7 benefits of new cities I listed below...

And since working improved tiles around doubles their value,

Do you remember what the terrain on this map actually looks like?



Farms increase food production by 1 (2 with Agrarianism- but then they produce 1 less hammer) and I don't need more food that badly anyways, Lumbermills hammer-production by 1 (Workshops also increase hammer-production, but require cutting down forests and losing food production) but the tiles I would be working already produce 2 hammers. The only improvement that "doubles" production is a Mine- which increases hammer production by 2.


Additionally, you're forgetting about the following factors:

(1) New cities acquire new resources- which are generally the most valuable tiles around to work.

(2) Each city gets a certain number of free health and happiness points. Raising the health and happy-caps of a larger city is one of the greatest expenses you can incur, and with enough resources in the trade-network is often more expensive per health and happy-point than founding a new city...

(3) Each city gets free food, hammers, and commerce from the city tile

(4) The food costs of each new population point increase as cities grow. The first population-growth only costs 13 or 14 food. The 8th costs 22 food.

(5) New cities have strategic/defensive benefits for controlling terrain. They provide line-of-sight, defensive benefits on the city tile, and faster healing- all of which benefits on the frontiers ultimately help to protect the cities at the core of your empire.

(6) New cities can build buildings that older cities have already constructed- like an Elder Council or Market...

(7) The maintenance-costs of a city increase exponentially with population-size. Thus a size 8 city may cost more than twice what a size 4 city costs in maintenance. This is a hidden costs many players are unaware of (although it can be modified by Civics that affect maintenance costs...)



Reasons #1 and 2 are the single greatest driving-factors for my pattern of expansion rather than improvement. If you doubt the value of expansion, then just look at the Clan (who are radically overpowered and win far more than their share of multiplayer games). One of their single greatest strengths is being able to rapidly churn out a huge number of Settlers and spread across much of the map at minimal cost. Between this and their ability to turn the extra hammers they get this way into twice as many military units, a competent player with the Clan can usually count on winning... (which is also why I'm so annoyed that Clan was not banned in this game, as it should have been- the Discovery starting era just made the Clan even more over-powered than it already was, by negating their main disadvantage of being slow to get the starting-techs...)

you need to have enough workers so you're almost always working improved tiles. And of course unlocking techs for those improvements.

And there's another hidden cost to growing your cities bigger by improving the tiles around them- you need to research more Worker techs, which incurs an opportunity-cost vs. researching other techs (such as founding new religions or getting free Great People from being the first to certain techs). This is less of an issue in Discovery Era (which is messed up balance-wise for a lot of other reasons- for instance the Clan doesn't start out with a tech-disadvantage and starts with a decent number of Worker-techs right off the bat), but still something you need to consider...


Regards,
Northstar

[Northstar1989]

Also, another question for you LURKERS out there:

Does the Clan's Barbarian trait mean they can freely move their units through the same tiles as barbarian units? I.e. will the Clan be able to simply ignore the fortified Lizardman+Ruins at each of my borders- thus being able to attack while being completely safe from any counterattack? (which would make the Clan even more ridiculously/unfairly overpowered on this map, besides the late starting-era already taking away their normal tech-disadvantage just getting to Worker techs and Bronze Working...)


Regards,
Northstar

[DaveV]

From the tech/setup thread:

3. Hand place a few ruins at choke points. The ruins will have Held, Hidden Nationality units on top, to prevent Barbarian civs from moving through them.

[The Black Sword]

Resources and defense are obviously important, but the point is that growth is almost always the best economic choice in FFH. So you grow to your happy cap, then you build a settler to claim the resources.

Improvements do generally more than double a tile's output. You want to be working improved 4 yield, riverside tiles whenever possible(mines, grass agri-farms). Subtract out 2f and 0.5g to maintain the tile and those improved tiles give you 2f/h and 0.5g. The best unimproved tile is generally a grassland forest, giving 1fh and -0.5g per turn.

Regarding some of your other points:

-Happy/health resource don't matter unless you've already grown to their caps.

-the maintenance from a new city tends to be pretty big, worse than growing

-non-doubled buildings aren't great, better to grow, or build a settler to allow for more growth

[Northstar1989]

Resources and defense are obviously important, but the point is that growth is almost always the best economic choice in FFH. So you grow to your happy cap, then you build a settler to claim the resources.

Exactly.

Improvements do generally more than double a tile's output. You want to be working improved 4 yield, riverside tiles whenever possible(mines, grass agri-farms). Subtract out 2f and 0.5g to maintain the tile and those improved tiles give you 2f/h and 0.5g. The best unimproved tile is generally a grassland forest, giving 1fh and -0.5g per turn.

Oh to be sure... Plains/Forests are also pretty nice if you have enough food to play with that you can already reach your happy-cap fairly quickly...

-Happy/health resource don't matter unless you've already grown to their caps.

Not at all. They achieve maximum benefit at their caps, but they start providing benefit from the moment they allow you to support more population than if you stuck to you capital.

I'm already at that point- my capital would have a maximum happy-cap of 13 with Sugar, a Pagan Temple and Temple of the Overlords (the last of which would require my building a Zealot at my coastal city- which I'm already planning to do...) My total aggregate population between all my cities is already 15. So, at least a couple additional cities would have been in order. I'm going for more than that because I'm thinking long-term, of course (if the Clan doesn't wipe me out with a huge horde in a few turns... Q is kind of a prick like that- he loves to stomp on builder civs just because, even if it loses him the game.)

Speaking of the Clan- they could derive no possible benefit from invading me except wiping out a potential rival (and they have to know I'm the lowest threat-level of all their rivals at this point). All they could do is burn my cities- my high culture levels and distance from the Orc homeland makes holding onto my cities a completely delusional idea...

-the maintenance from a new city tends to be pretty big, worse than growing

Indeed. But the food+hammer benefits tend to be worth it.

-non-doubled buildings aren't great, better to grow, or build a settler to allow for more growth

Not when you take the maintenance costs of new cities into account... Then buildings and improvements start to become a better option than even more cities still...


Regards,
Northstar