We Love the ***** Days

[Marquis de Sodaq]

When you raise the luxury rate, the people get happy. After they begin celebrating, you can lower the luxury rate a bit - Basically, the celebration causes more arrows to be produced; It is against this new total arrows that the lowered luxury rate is calculated. So, to make up some numbers for an example,

City A produces 5 arrows with 5 citizens. At 10% luxury, this gives zero goblets. Nobody is cheered by this. You raise the luxury to 80% - 4 goblets result, making 3 citizens happy (with temple, etc). They celebrate!

As a result of celebration, those 5 citizens grow to 6 and produce 12 arrows. You only need to keep 4 happy to prolong the celebration, which you can do by setting luxuries to 50%. At size 7, they produce 14 arrows - you can lower to luxury rate to 40% to keep the celebration going.

The numbers are fishy in this example, but that is how it works.

[Campo]

Thanks, I understand now.

I never realized the underlying mechanism, although I do fiddle with the luxury rate when I'm doing WL days. I tend to err on the side of too high though, because it's a waste to put luxury to (for example) 40% and have cities drop in and out of celebration. I'd rather go to 50% and keep them in it.

Of course it's also a shame to have it higher than needed.

[DrFell]

Originally posted by Campo
Of course it's also a shame to have it higher than needed.

I try to keep it at 20% or so (in republic celebrate your cities then turn down the lux so the cities don't revolt).

[Campo]

Your cities are celebrating at 20% luxury? I've never gotten widespread celebration at less than 30%, and it's more often 40% or 50%. And that's with HG plus Mich's and/or JSB. I wonder why the difference. I usually have temple, marketplace, and 3 trade routes per city by then.

[DrFell]

Nah, I celebrate at 30-40% but turn back down to 20 or 10 to keep citizens happy.

[Verrucosus]

Hello,

It took me a while to finish the game I started following Scouse Gits' post about fundamentalist celebrations, but I must say that I am extremely impressed with the results.

Playing on Emperor level, I was ready to start celebrating in 640 AD when the Statue of Liberty was finished. By that time I had secured my continent and filled it with 14 cities (minimum overlap). Infrastructure was limited to temples and marketplaces as I had concentrated on settlers, guards and caravans for the Great Library and Leonardo's Workshop.

As soon as the Statue was finished, I sponsored a revolution in favour of Fundamentalism and set the luxury rate to 80 %. This was enough to throw almost all cities into party mood; in three minor cities I had to create entertainers to get them celebrating.

There was one minor irritation at this point: Although the trade bonus had kicked in and the luxury rate was still at 80 % there was no additional happiness in my cities. I know that happy citizens beyond those needed for the celebration are important for scoring purposes only, but as a benevolent High Priest of my empire I want to see as many happy faces as possible!

The good news was that my happy citizens stayed happy after I had reduced the luxury rate to 50 %, so I had created the self-sustaining celebration that I was looking for. After rushing marketplaces and banks in all my cities, I was able to lower the rate to 30 % and later (with stock exchanges) even to 20 %. In the end, the celebration created a net benefit of 60% more trade available for taxes and research.

I know I could have improved things even further by sending out more caravans, but instead I decided to use the main advantage of Fundamentalism and went to war. In doing so I gave priority to well-developed areas, where cities immediately joined the party - after I had rebuilt the marketplace or bank, if my troops were careless enough to damage it.

I believe the crucial mistake I made in my earlier post was to put all the "lesser" forms of government into one basket. (Can you say that in English?) The lack of unhappiness and corruption under Fundamentalism makes celebrations very worthwhile, and it's easy to imagine that under Communism's enhanced police powers, celebrations are only a little more difficult and (without the research penalty) certainly more profitable. I am still unsure about Monarchy. The Pyramids may overcome the size-3-limit for celebrations, but not the problem of corruption and lack of roads at the fringes of an expanding kingdom.

Regards,
Verrucosus

[Scouse Gits]

Add one more convert!

Did you get the happy wonders?

Mike's provides 3g / city in tithe -- a wonder indeed.

Glad you enjoyed it ..........

SG[1]

[Scouse Gits]

Slightly surprised you went for the Library - I think the consensus on these boards is that it hinders your research more than it helps -- any comment?

SG[1]

[La Fayette]

There is one place where the Library is OK...
Namely Alexandria in the Rome scenario

[Verrucosus]

Being only an infrequent visitor here, I have not taken notice of the forums' consensus on this respect. I suspect the notion of the Great Library hindering research is explained in one of those threads about research costs I have not studied yet.

My decision to build the Great Library was made when I realised that I was alone on my continent. My overall objective was to get Democracy, the Statue of Liberty and, as a result, access to Fundamentalism as soon as possible. Democracy requires Banking and Invention, two lines of research which do not have too much in common. My first plan was to go for Banking first and trade the researches acquired along the way for those on the Wheel-Invention-line. However, by 2000 BC it was clear that there were no continental neighbours to trade with. At that time, I considered waiting for Trade and building Marco Polo's Embassy, but Literacy came up earlier so I went for the Great Library instead. It saved me from researching the early part of the technological line of research towards Invention and it gave me quick access to religious and naval advances which I had neglected completely.

Being able to build the Statue of Liberty in the 600s was a record for me, so I considered myself rather lucky in that game as far as research is concerned. Of course, I shall be glad to stand corrected (because that would allow me to build it even faster in my next game).

Verrucosus

P.S.: I didn't build them, but I made a point of capturing both Michelangelo and Bach very soon. Afterwards my empire was a tax-free zone for quite some time.

[La Fayette]

If you don't know why, ask DaveV

[La Fayette]

More seriously, Verrucosus
Have you read the 2 threads started by samson, named 'the cost of research explained' and 'the key to tech gifting'?
Someone has bumped them recently and you can find them easily, close to the top of this forum.
THOSE THREADS ARE WORTH READING AND REREADING for anyone willing to master research in civ2.
To make it short:
1)The more techs you own, the more costly the next one will be to research (and the GL often gives you unneeded techs that hinder your own research).
2) You can find out exactly how many beakers you need to next tech (very helpful if you use one time trade bonuses for research).
3) If you gift techs to your 'keyciv' (purple if you are supreme), you may minimize the cost of your research).

[debeest]

:quote: Although the trade bonus had kicked in and the luxury rate was still at 80 % there was no additional happiness in my cities. :unquote:

Nothing in the manual or Civilopedia will tell you this, but any luxuries beyond two per citizen have no effect. This is important because it can make it difficult for cities with an odd number of citizens to celebrate; they'll need a happy-making Wonder (not a content-making Wonder), a courthouse under democracy, or those lovely outraged citizens.

:quote: In the end, the celebration created a net benefit of 60% more trade available for taxes and research.:unquote:

I don't see how this could be. Let's assume that celebration increases trade under fundy or commie by about 80% (one-trade squares increase by 100%, while multi-trade squares increase by 50% or less). Then even if you can maintain celebration with as little as 20% devoted to luxuries, your non-luxury trade is still only 180% x 80%, or 144%. So it seems to me that the greatest increase you could possible hope for is about 44%. If you need 50% luxuries, then you'd actually be reducing your non-luxury trade (180% x 50% = 90%). It's not that I don't think celebration under fundy/commie would be useful, but I think it must be far less valuable than this thread seems to indicate.

[Scouse Gits]

Originally posted by Verrucosus
... Afterwards my empire was a tax-free zone for quite some time.

[IMHO]

AAAAAaaaaaaargh!
Don't forget that in Fundy not only is the Science rate capped at 50% effective (you can push the slider further, but it does not contribute anything), but you only get 50% of the Science you research. this makes the maximum research rate under Fundy 25%!!! With this in mind, my strategy is to set the Science rate never above 10% (normally 0% with a couple of Eins in one of my larger cities). This has a number of side effects.

1. All research is performed by Caravans and Diplomats
2. Marco's is a very desirable Wonder
3. Absolutely no Science improvements need ever be built - and those captured can be instantly turned into Gold

You do not need to be ahead in technology if you can field ten identical units for each one of theirs. The AI cannot mount a convincing attack in Democracy (?at all?) and any civ not in Demo can be bought....
Fundamentalism - even celebrating Fundamentalism - does not think about AC -- only Total Conversion to The Faith!
* Peals of mad cackles of laughter to a background of Bach Toccatas *

[/IMHO]

SG[1]

[Scouse Gits]

Originally posted by debeest
I don't see how this could be. Let's assume that celebration increases trade under fundy or commie by about 80% (one-trade squares increase by 100%, while multi-trade squares increase by 50% or less). Then even if you can maintain celebration with as little as 20% devoted to luxuries, your non-luxury trade is still only 180% x 80%, or 144%. So it seems to me that the greatest increase you could possible hope for is about 44%. If you need 50% luxuries, then you'd actually be reducing your non-luxury trade (180% x 50% = 90%). It's not that I don't think celebration under fundy/commie would be useful, but I think it must be far less valuable than this thread seems to indicate.

Your calculations omit the enhancement of the value of trade routes to and from the celebrating cities. I would say that 60% was close to a theoretical maximum - I would normally reckon on no more than a 50% increase, but I tend to play fairly ICSish and verrucosus seems to have adopted a more perfectionist style which might have allowed even more advantage ... I can't say for sure.

SG[1]

[Straybow]

I have experimented with Fundies. It drove me nuts that my large cities would actually drop out of We Love the Guy in the Funny Hat Day. Probably that odd-numbered-citizen thing. Even returning to 80% Lux couldn't pump them up for the ol' Archbishop.

Anyway, Fundies robs the game of challenge and reduces it to just pumping out military units and pounding your opponent. Who is probably Fundie as well. You don't have to balance malcontents with happy campers; there is no unhappiness. You don't have to balance maintenance of a standing army with production levels; it takes gross incompetence to have any maint cost. You don't need to worry about money; your Temples, Cathedrals, and Coliseums earn money for you while only the one requires upkeep. Even the 50% research penalty isn't too bad as others have pointed out.

Change free support limit to zero and it becomes almost balanced.

[Verrucosus]

Hello again,

Thank you all for commenting my attempt at celebrating Fundamentalism. I certainly feel and enjoy the attention that missionaries show towards a lost soul showing interest in conversion, but I'm afraid it will have to be gradual process rather than a Damascus-like experience.

Leaving strategy aside for a moment, it is amazing how much there is to learn about the hidden rules of the game. Both the 50 % science rate cap for science under Fundamentalism and the limit to luxury effectiveness were complete news to me, and the concept of the "key civ" is something I still fail to see the rationale behind. I can understand that the game wants to make it more difficult for those who are ahead in technology to expand their advantage than for those who are behind to catch up, but I have no idea why this factor of calculating the cost of research should be based on comparing my level of technology to that of a single opponent (however weird the method of determining him).

As far as the net benefit of 60 % of tax/science I claimed in the report posted earlier is concerned, I have to admit that my approach to the game was less scientific than warranted by the nature of our discussion. The figure was based on the 20 % luxury rate and the assumption that celebrations under Fundamentalism increase the gross trade income by 100 %, which - as was pointed out - is only true if a lesser increase on some squares is balanced by enhanced trade route income. Since I had quite a number of squares producing more than one trade arrow (prior to celebrating) and trade routes only in the cities on my original continent, the actual benefit must have been lower than 60 %.

The question of the research rate in a celebrating Fundamentalism is a choice between maximizing strengths or minimizing weaknesses. Scouse Gits' point about the impressive treasury that can be built is valid, of course. However, bribery does not work with Democracies and when I am fighting those, I still prefer a superior army moving swiftly along railroads and crossing the seas in large transports over moving nine musketeers all over the map and watching them die (even if I know that the tenth one will capture the city). Maybe I'll change my mind if I play be next game with Bach Toccatas as background music.

Well, I guess I will read a bit more in this board's Great Library to find out more about other aspects of the game well-known to the natives, but surprising for the more casual player.

Verrucosus

[Scouse Gits]

Originally posted by Verrucosus
Thank you all for commenting my attempt at celebrating Fundamentalism.

You are most welcome

Originally posted by Verrucosus
...and trade routes only in the cities on my original continent,

See my first note: All research is carried out by Caravans and Diplomats - to reap the rewards you need to continue trading throughout the game - (you do realise that the one-off trade gold bonus is matched by an equal beaker bonus?) Your big celebrating cities lead to fat bonusses on delivery and your actual research rate continues quite satisfactorily

Originally posted by Verrucosus
I still prefer a superior army moving swiftly along railroads and crossing the seas in large transports over moving nine musketeers all over the map and watching them die (even if I know that the tenth one will capture the city).

Eh!? That's what vet Crooks are built for - after the 'Clads and/or dips have softened them up. You only need suffer these 10 to 1 attrition rates when they have fundamentally better defence units than you are fielding - and the Dips make sure that that does not happen! Democracies are not immune to tech theft.

Keep on civin' SG[1]