From: hhuang@athena.mit.edu (Han-Young Huang)
Subject: Re: CIV: Ratios - Help a beginner, please!
Keywords: civilization, civbeginner
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 19:59:25 GMT

In article <29JUL199210345798@zeus.tamu.edu> mrh0631@zeus.tamu.edu (Mark Hesidence) writes:
>In article <1992Jul29.021058.12136@news.cs.indiana.edu>, ekolar@kiwi.ucs.indiana.edu (Erik S. Kolar) writes...
>>Having just put my first 20 hours into this game only to discover my nice
>>empire beginning to crumble from within, I have a few questions.
>> 
>
>>3) One thing is that I've been strapped for cash pretty much the whole game.  A
>>   friend of mine told me to keep my luxury rate at least 60% to keep my people
>>   happy all the time.  I did this for the few thousand years or so, having a
>>   6.2.2 ratio.  People musta liked it, they've been throwing me parties...
>
>        60% luxury, NO NO NO.  You only need enough luxury to keep 
>        happy people >= unhappy people.  Early in the game you don't need any
>        because you don't have any unhappy people.  When you start to get
>        unhappy people build a temple.  After your cities gets to big for 
>        just a temple to keep them happy then you may want increase luxury.
>
>        Of coarse, there are lots of other ways to keep people happy.  I
>        try to use these and save my trade for cash and science.

Right.  It costs 2 trades (less if with marketplace/bank) to keep
a person happy.  So the take is that if a new population can
produce at least 2/(1 + 0.5 * (marketplace + bank)), then it has
"earned its keep."

The difficulty with raising the luxury rate to handle more
population is that invariably there are diamonds wasted
elsewhere.  The best solution is to build the temples,
cathedrals, colloseums.

M = (1 + 0.5 * (marketplace + bank)) assuming that you don't keep
any elite citizens (usually best to put them back to work).

If you create taxmen or an entertainer, then they produce 3
coins/diamonds with only a marketplace, and 4 coins/diamonds with
a bank (regardless if the marketplace exists).

A temple helps 2 to be happy, saving 4/M diamonds, costing 1/M
coins, profit 3/M trades.  A bargain for 40 resources.  A
cathedral save 8/M, at a price of 3/M, for 5/M profit costing 160
resources.  With Michelangelo's, that becomes (12-3)/M for 9/M.
A colloseum gives 6/M - 4/M for 2/M trades for a cost of 100
shields.  Get the cathedral.

Of course, in despotism, monarchy, communism, up to 3 military
units perform this profit-making task, for much fewer resources,

>>4) Basically I need to know what people feel is the best development ratio in
>>   the early stages of the game.  I've built many irrigation ditches, roads,
>>   mines, wonders (Library, Wall, Observatory, Gardens, Colossus, Pyramids,
>>   Oracle), etc. and kept relative peace throughout my reign, yet I still can't
>>   seem to make my cashflow begin to surge.  I've never had more than 300 in
>>   my treasury.

On v3.0/4.0, the cashflow is less powerful.  It takes 4 coins to
buy a shield, under any circumstance.  The coins are thus only
useful to support city improvements and to bribe the enemy or
incite revolts.  Until you are done with the technologies,
remember that every coin is like a wasted light bulb.  If you
have a lot of light bulb boosters, and comparatively fewer
coin-boosters, the every coin is worth greater than one light
bulb.  For example, if you have one of the bulb-boosting wonders,
or if you have more libraries/universities than
marketplaces/banks, then every trade spent on coins could produce
a greater return on light bulbs.

>         I had this problem when I first started playing, thats when I 
>         went straight for Rail Road.  But I've found it best to
>         go for religon first to get JS Bach's Cathedral (2 less unhappy
>         people for each city on the content and never goes obsolete)
>         and Michelangelo's Chapel (increase effects of cathedral, obsolete
>         when communism is developed, so I just don't go for communism)
>
>         So now I can keep my people happy with out using as much
>         trade on luxury, thus better science and cash.  Since I go 
>         straight for religon I don't build the oracle, because religon
>         cancels the oracle.
>
>         Plus remeber you need trade to make cash, so put roads in plains
>         and grassland as soon as possible. Also switch the goverment to
>         republic as soon as possbile (usually you can't wage war effectively
>         with republic, so kill off any rival civilizations on your 
>         content first)

Don't forget that once you have the railroad, a mined railed
desert square gives 3 shields/1 or 2 trades depending on
government.  It would take 11 turns to completely develop this,
vs. 10 for a hill (1 food, 3 shields).  Consider it.

>         City improvements cost money to maintain, so I build a market
>         place early because it increases cash and luxuries by 50%.
>         This is the order I ususally build improvments in, of coarse
>         it varies depening on city location.
>
>           |------->  Barracks       (remember to sell before just before

This becomes less feasible in 3.0 with barracks costing 1 coins
for Prince/King, 2 for Emperor.  More often, I build the phalanx
first.  I sometimes build a high attack unit first (legion
perhaps) unless the enemy has cavalry, chariots, knights aplenty,
in which case they can come in quickly and kill the high-attack,
low-defense unit.

>           |------->  Defensive unit                    to goes obsolete)
>           |          Granary
>           |          Temple              < - - - -|

Depends.  In a republic/democracy, defensive units don't repress
unhappiness.  At Emperor, especially, the 3rd citizens go
unhappy.  Often, it takes too long to build the granary, and
often the population is getting out of control to be successfully
pacified, so it's another reason why I often build the temple
first.

>           |          Market place                 |
>           |          Library                      |

I find it more necessary to build marketplaces first at Emperor,
because it's much less worthwhile to try to beat the computer
opponents on technology development.  A chariot (knights if you
can get them, but takes so long) and luxury/coins strategy is
much better.  At lower levels, it's usually better to build the
library, since 70+% is going to science anyway.  Also, by this
time, your city improvement costs will begin to necessitate a tax
rate, which would necessitate the marketplace.

>           |       Cathedral or Bank               |

If I'm looking for rapid population growth under
republic/democracy, I may build the cathedral right after the
temple.  If I have Industrialization, I may try the factory,
especially if the shield production looks promising.  If the
shield possibilities around the city look anemic, well...
Then I may up the luxury rate to have we love the president days,
and then fall back.  Then I have a mandatory luxury rate, and
often a high tax rate, so then it's often a better idea to get
the marketplace, which will also pay for itself, unlike the
library.

Remember that you should only build the bank after the
marketplace.  So it will give a 0.5 bonus to 1.5, for a 1/3
boost.  Since the bank costs 3, you want (coins + luxuries) > 9,
so that your profit on luxuries or coins exceeds 3.  You often
need to have a big city before you start producing this many
trades, hence I'm almost always building the cathedral first
(unless I want to just use the bank to maintain the luxury rate,
and make some extra coins, and *then* build the cathedral).

>     I try to start cities          some where in here I build a settler
>     with a defensive unit built    to build roads, mines, irrigate; and
>     by another city, in which      an offensive unit of speed 2 to chase
>     case I home that unit and      down barbarian leaders.
>     don't build the barracks 
>     until after the granary.
>
>
>     One big help is to be creative with your resorces.  You want
>     JS Bach's Cathedral as soon as possible, therefore start building
>     another Wonder serveral turns (20 or 30 it may be hard to time)
>     before you can start building JS Bach's Cathedral. Then when you
>     can build it just change from the old wonder to the one you want.
>
>     A second way of being creative is with caravans.  Carvans can add
>     their resorces to a Wonder.  You can have a city change to building
>     a Wonder, have the caravan help build the wonder, then change the
>     city back to what ever it was building.  Poof, instant plus 50 
>     resorces :-)

The coins/shield rate is so prohibitive that this is mandatory to
winning at the high levels.

>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>| You have reached an imaginary number, please  | Mark R. Hesidence     |
>| rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.   | mrh0631@zeus.tamu.edu |
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