[Spoilers] Banzailizard's Wurst Thread

[Banzailizard]

Right so took a turn yesterday, not much to report, other than most people settled but Rowain and Pindicator did not do so until turn 3. I hope that move was worth it because its pretty far.

Turn 3 was uneventful, sent my warrior south to explore a bit, and hit next turn.  Similar for turn 4, however I took the time to do some planing. I can see the edge of what looks like a financial city state near my warrior.  Going to go try and meet it next turn and get an envoy.  Gold is not bad and financial cities states are one of the types I want to keep around so its not really a conquest target.


Did some planning like I said.  Dot map is below


The exact configuration might vary a bit on scouting, but this is the general idea. Some of the spaces will be filled in with Aqueducts and encampments to make it more defensible. Control of the hills to the north east and west will be critical. City 2 will go just south of the river and near the mountains so I can eventually put down a campus.  Probably will need to harvest the wheat. City 3 will get the hill by the river which should make it fairly defensible.  It needs to guard that Narrow pass.  Looks like more rivers beyond. Might be more room to settler there too.

When all is said and done I'll get numbers that look like this for the Hansas:

Capital: 1[tea]+2x2(com dis) +0.5*2(adjacency) = 6
City 2: 1(stone)+2x2(com dis)+0.5*3(adjacency) = 6.5
City 3: 2x2(com dis) + 2*0.5(adjacency) = 6

And for commercial districts:
Capital: 2(river)+3*0.5= 3.5
City 2: 2(river)+ 5*0.5= 5.5
City 3: 2 River + 2*0.5 = 3


Depending where I build the other campuses, theaters, and encampments I can maybe squeeze 1-2 extra gold/production out of these districts.  It also depends what is west of city 3.  If there a good t river set up I can maybe force 4 cities in and boost more.  On the other hand, this area is 1. more defensible, 2 quicker to get up and running.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Therefore, I want to prioritize building districts, and their techs as much as is reasonably possible. Hence I started with pottery, it goes towards writing, currency, and apprenticeship; the three techs for the three districts I want most. I may wish to hold a bunch of techs 1 turn from completion as well.  This has the added benefit of obfuscating how well I might actually be doing from other players. 

Be careful about unlocking too many districts. The formula for a district discount is dependent upon how many types you have available. The more district types you can build, the more actual districts you have to build in order to trigger the 40% discount. I can never manage to line the damned thing up myself, but as Germany with your extra slot you'll have more opportunity than the other players to exploit this mechanic. 

I think the rough way to understand hte discount is that you need to have COMPLETED as many districts as you have types unlocked to trigger the discount. IF that is true, THEN when you build a district that you have a below-average amount of, then you get 40% knocked off the price.

[Banzailizard]

Therefore, I want to prioritize building districts, and their techs as much as is reasonably possible. Hence I started with pottery, it goes towards writing, currency, and apprenticeship; the three techs for the three districts I want most. I may wish to hold a bunch of techs 1 turn from completion as well.  This has the added benefit of obfuscating how well I might actually be doing from other players. 

Be careful about unlocking too many districts. The formula for a district discount is dependent upon how many types you have available. The more district types you can build, the more actual districts you have to build in order to trigger the 40% discount. I can never manage to line the damned thing up myself, but as Germany with your extra slot you'll have more opportunity than the other players to exploit this mechanic. 

I think the rough way to understand hte discount is that you need to have COMPLETED as many districts as you have types unlocked to trigger the discount. IF that is true, THEN when you build a district that you have a below-average amount of, then you get 40% knocked off the price.

Wait is there a separate discount mechanism? The formula for cost scaling says I should want fewer techs to prevent the cost from increasing.  I know there is a 25% discount based on the number of districts other people have built compared to the number you have built.  Is there another one involving the number you have unlocked?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

From Civ Fanatics' thread:

It shall satisfy the following conditions.

1: a=number of tech/civics you have researched that allows you to build a district (except Aq/Sp/Ne)
2: b= district you have built (require full district instead of district bases, except Aq/Sp/Ne)

Condition:

1: b>=a, if a>b no discount is applied.
2: b/a> your total number of that type of district(include full district and district bases)

Under such circumstances the cost is discounted for a certain type of district. (except Aq,Sp,Ne)

Also, a and b are refreshed if and only if you finish a tech or civic. 

Let's break it down real quick, since I've been struggling with this for months and I still can't hardly wrap my head around it. b>=a, this means that you need to have completed AT LEAST as many districts as you have unlocked to get a discount. So if you grab writing and astrology, a=2. Then if you build 2 holy sites, you get a discount on your first campus.  However, if you research Writing, Astrology, and Currency, then a=3. So you need to build at least 3 holy sites to get your campus discount. 

Second part: This determines how many districts you can build before you get a discount. So let's say you've researched Astrology, Writing, and Currency, and you have 3 holy sites down. b=3, a=3, so condition 1, check. b/a = 1. Thus, you can build ONE campus with a discount, and ONE commercial hub. Then, if you build another holy site at that point, you'll have 6 districts done (4 HS, 1 C, 1 CH), so b/a=2. Then you can build a SECOND campus or Commercial hub at 60% cost. 

So basically, you want to only unlock new district types when you need them, because unlocking new types makes it harder to build at a discount. It gets complicated keeping track of multiple district types later in the game, so I actually stuck an in-game pin on the map to represent variable A and another to represent variable b (only I labeled it "C" to represent "completed districts"): 




See the pin on the lake in the middle? A=8, meaning I have 8 types unlocked (probably Campus, Entertainment, Drama, Encamp, Commercial, Holy, Government, and Harbor), while I've finished 7 districts (1 HS, 1 Government, 1 Encamp, 1 ED, and 3 Campus). So I know when I finish one more district, I can place my first discounted Commercial Hub, Harbor, and Theater Squares. 

To sum up:
1)You need at least as many completed districts as you have district techs to build at a discount - so don't unlock too many district techs. 
2)You need lots of 1 district in order to trigger discounts for others. As Germany this probably means lots of Hansas down the line.

[Banzailizard]

Hmm ok so there is an optimization problem here for sure. I will want to research the fewest techs to keep the scaling down, while still avoiding researching district techs (meaning I will have to research more of other techs first). I do not think this changes my plans to an extent. I will still make writing a priority and start slapping down campuses on clear spots. I think I will need to get back to this with a table latter.

[Banzailizard]

Turn went around quickly and there was another one today.  City state was Lisbon.  Another move had me meet Hong Kong and Valletta.  I did get envoys at Valletta and at Lisbon, but not at Valletta. That means someone is on the other side. I forgot to take a screenshot but basically they are laid out with Lisbon in the North, Hong Kong to the southwest of that, and Valletta to the southeast.  That is the direction I should go to maybe meet someone.

Still I now get +2 production in my capital for districts and +4 gold.  Not bad at all.

[Banzailizard]

Ok so first up will be taking care of the campus I think and writing. At wring my cost is:

=floor(54)*1+[9*2[techs]/67) = ~55.27 which we will round up to 56.

Now because I will have unlocked 1 district type I will get a discount of 40% after I build my first campus in full.  That means the second campus will cost 22.4...assuming I do not unlock any other techs which of course I will.  Rather than recalculate every time let's use some math.



Sulla actually posted a nice table in the mod suggestion thread.  Turns out the cost of districts is a linear equation (well in retrospect duh ) with a slope of 7.25. (ok technically 7.25373134 etc but let's round)  In other words my district cost will increase by 7.25 per tech I unlock! yikes. Still much easier to calculate.  Our new formula looks like this:

Base cost + x*7.25

Where x is the tech's unlocked.

For civs using the same method (and keeping in mind the denominator is 50) we get a formula of:

Base cost + y*9.72

where y is the number of civics unlocked.

That should make sense since the smaller denominator means a larger number we are multiplying by, and hence a steeper slope. Now the question becomes what happens if you have equal techs and civics.  If I am reading it right its the max of the formula not the max of the x or y values.  In other words, if civics=tech it will take the civics # because that will be higher. Interesting side note, this means its better to be a bit ahead in techs than civics from a district cost standpoint. More pertinent for this game, it means Rome and Greece might actually be hurting themselves with more expensive districts from early extra culture. On the other hand, early governments are so useful might be worth that trade off.

Ok so far so good, now onto the discounting.

I will pick up animal husbandry, mining and irrigation at a minimum post writing, which brings my base cost to a maximum of 90 production, or 36 after the first campus is done. Even 3 civs done at this point would only be 83.16 and as I discussed I believe it is taking the higher number so trying to hold all those techs 1 away from completion might not be of significant benefit.  In this case I can only assume so much about the game state. Hopefully by that point I will have a third city out too and can get two campuses placed for 36 each.  I will then need to chop (probably with 50% military policy card slot) to get both out with some overflow to spare.

At that point I should unlock currency and the commercial districts. I will still only have 2 types unlocked but 3 districts. I will want to get those commercial districts placed asap. Even if it is only my 6th tech (and it may not be) that means 6 techs or a district cost of 97.5 discounted by 40% is 39 production. No reason not to plant all of them. I can then research bronze working which will need to have been held off until this point because of the encampment district. Not sure if that is too dangerous, depends who my mystery neighbor is.  Worst case scenario, I research bronze working first, build a discounted encampment, and then research currency, Actually I almost like that idea better for the GG points. Choices, choices, play it by ear.

With 3 commercial districts 3 campuses, and a possible encampment I will have 6-7 districts with a maximum of 5 unlocked types (theater and entertainment districts will come online). And I will also be expanding, building new districts in new cities for more discounts. With my new understanding of the full discount mechanism german's ability is even better than I thought.  More districts means you are more likely to get the discount. 

Then it will be time to get hansas and build them all at a 40% discount.   Now they are not 50% cheaper but their base cost is. Does not change the slope of our line, just the intercept, moving it down 27 production points (at least if the information on the wiki is correct.  I might run some tests to be sure).  Still, let's say I pull this off at minim techs I listed and bronze working for good measure. We are looking at 10 techs so our final formula for district cost will be:

27+75.5*40 = 41 per hansa, not substantially more expensive than my originally discounted campus.  At around 6 production each, they will pay themselves off in about 7 turns. For comparison, anyone else, even using the discount mechanism fully like this would be paying 68 per industrial district.  Even assuming they could approach the same production (and they could only do that by building them on a space surrounded by 6 mines/quarries) , it would take 16 turns to pay off - half the rate of ROI.

Well that was a fun post, now I feel like I have a real plan in place.

[Ichabod]

You won't get a discount on the second Campus due to the second rule on CMF's post.

[Banzailizard]

You won't get a discount on the second Campus due to the second rule on CMF's post.

I think I misunderstood then. I looked back at the original source as well. I would get the discount for the third campus though correct?

[Ichabod]

If you have only one district type available, you'll never get discounts. You need at least two types, and you'll get discount on the least built one.

The first discount possible is on the 3rd total district you build. You need two of one type, so that the first of a second type gets it.