Why is ancient era stalling?

[planetfall]

First half of ancient era goes fine, but the game is stalling in the last half. Don't know what questions to ask to help figure out what is going on.

Settings: regent, default corruption.

Stalling symptoms:
1. happiness drops to 65-72%
2. Have to slide 20-30% for happiness
3. tech research drops from every 5-10 turns to every 15-24 turns
4. build queue become: temple, colluseum, some library.

Normal game environment:
1. republic
2. avg military
3. 10-13 workers
4. 1 luxury
5. other civs unknown across the sea
6. middle to end of civ pack
7. Just ended territory expansion by eliminating one civ about 12 turns ago
8. selected location for FP but unable to start build orders yet

Is this normal, or is there a better play strategy?

thanks

-PF

[Theseus]

That's odd... Post it.

[Jaybe]

Two guesses:
It's just this game, due to luxuries available -- (damn! I hate it when there are just two luxuries on my whole continent).

I thought people wanted more to the ancient era in 1.21

[alva]

you shouldn't need to your happiness slider in the ancient age to much (max 10%)
are you irrigating alot and therefore alowing your cities to grow to fast?
Let your biggest cities build a settler and try to expand and build more mines (better production, slower growth, more happiness)

btw: you say you have no contact with anyone?? (maybe you still at war with someone and forgotten all about it )

[HazieDaVampire]

Ancient era is boring, i'm peaful in ancient era! How the hell you supposed to act like a Rome when theirs so little time to create an early empire!
I actualy hate the ancient era and would like to see it be as short as possible! But for all you people probubly think its to short!

[planetfall]

Originally posted by Theseus
That's odd... Post it.

You got it.

[spy14]

Not much time but - you're in republic, a government with no martial law and fussy citizens, you have barely any happiness buildings such as temples and you have only one luxury type. Also your economy is very weak, consequently as your civ has grown a general feeling of unrest is growing. Trade more luxurys and build happiness improvements earlier

[planetfall]

Originally posted by spy14
Not much time but - you're in republic, a government with no martial law and fussy citizens, you have barely any happiness buildings such as temples and you have only one luxury type. Also your economy is very weak, consequently as your civ has grown a general feeling of unrest is growing. Trade more luxurys and build happiness improvements earlier

I'm wondering if corruption is killing me. England has 2 luxuries but does not want to trade for less than 2 techs, 150g, & map. They kept me in a long war and all I got out of it was 3 cities they had planted and 1 tech. Oh, did get an army victory and heroic epic. Can't trade with anyone else because they are in the water fog. Only see their presence on F11 and GW's disappearing as they are completed somewhere in the mist.

Maybe I need to build temples, etc before switch to republic. Have not tried it that way. To get the economy strong need to go to republic. To get happiness strong need temples. Ugh, do either other and fall further behind in the tech race.

[Jaybe]

Referencing spy's post (I haven't dl'd your game), unless I have plenty of luxuries I'll build temples and cathedrals (and hopefully Sistine's Chapel and/or Bachs) to support sizeable cities, especially for Rep/Dem governments.

Even WITH abundant luxuries, you still need those cathedrals as your cities become metropolises. You have to have balance to your growth. If you need to trade an arm and a leg for more luxuries, it MAY be what you need to do -- how valuable are those luxuries to YOU??

Bottom line: Experience to find what balance works with different situations.

[spy14]

Default corruption probably will kill a game of that size. I always have a strong economy but never touch republic, I always go with monarchy.

[XarXo]

I agree

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by XarXo
I agree

Quite a spammer, ain't ya?

[planetfall]

Ok with a bit of research found the answer to the stalling problem. If you are going to war in ancient era you need to delay govt change in order to build infrastructure.

Here are the details.
Enjoy.

--PF

Sample cost of ancient era war
Prewar Net	53% of gross income
Ancient War Data
Ancient War Years	900bc..450bc [Turn 84..105]
Ancient War	21 turns
Wartime Low Net	26%
Wartime High Net	44%
Wartime Avg Net	33%
Gross during war years	701
Opportunity cost of wartime	140
Avg cost/war year	7
Pre-Ancient War Years	1075bc .. 925bc [Turn 77..83]
Pre-Ancient War High Net	62%
Pre-Ancient War Low Net	46%
Pre-Ancient War Avg Net	53%
Post-Ancient War Years	430bc .. 500ad [Turn 106..165]
Post-Ancient War High Net	67%
Post-Ancient War Low Net	45%
Post-Ancient War Avg Net	54%

Despotism vs Republic Governments: Year 710, turn 186
Item	Despot	Republic
Basic data
Cities	24	23
Happy citizens	61	71
Financial data
A. Gross Income	172	211
B. Entertainment	10	27
C. Corruption	54	75
D. Maintenance	33	18
E. Unit Expenses	0	57
F. Operation Subtotal [d+e]	33	75
G. Expenses [b+c+f]	-97	-177
H. Net Income [a-g]	75	34
I. Percent Available [h/a]	44%	16%

[Arrian]

PF,

Ok, you lost me with those charts, but my general rule of thumb is that I need temples, 3 luxuries and marketplaces before republic is really worthwhile.

Switching before that is brutal, because all of a sudden your military costs you money and no longer combats unhappiness.

Basically, I use 1 of 2 possible approaches:

1) Warmonger. Kill all civs on my continent. Despot -> Monarchy. No Republic until the killing is done.

2) Builder. Fight only in self defense, or if a great opportunity falls in my lap. Priorities include building roads to other civs so I can trade luxuries with them. Try for Great Library, shut off science, use surplus to buy city improvements and save up for unit upgrades.

-Arrian

[planetfall]

Originally posted by Arrian
PF,

Ok, you lost me with those charts,

Switching before that is brutal, because all of a sudden your military costs you money and no longer combats unhappiness.

Basically, I use 1 of 2 possible approaches:

1) Warmonger. Kill all civs on my continent. Despot -> Monarchy. No Republic until the killing is done.


-Arrian

I don't see any advantage of monarchy over republic.

Ok, more explanation. Table I is first chart and Table II is second chart.

Table I is a summary of the results of Table II.

Table II is the results of a spreadsheet where data from each turn was stored. Table II explanations:
Cities == just a count of number of cities
Happy citizens == is count of happy citizens in all cities. {Have to either use F1 or go thru each city to get count, there is no summary count provided by firaxes}

Gross Income == Income available in F1 screen
Entertainment == not slider % but cost of entertainment. Didn't record % only cost.
Corruption == corruption listing from F1 screen
Maintenance == maintenace from F1 screen
Units == units costs from F1 screen
Operational expenses == a subtotal of maintenance and unit costs. Wanted to track these costs apart from entertainment and corruption.
Expenses == all costs: entertainment, corruption, maintenance and units.

Net Income == Income minus expenses
Percent available == available net income divided by income.

Bottom line: you lose more than 1/2 of income if have ancient era war and switch to republic before end of ancient era.


Now back to table I.

Averages:

• Prewar 53% of gross income available for building
  
• 21 Turns of war: 33% of gross income available for building
  
• post war: 54% of gross income available for building

Thus cost of war is lost income during 21 turns. 53% minus 33% equals 20% lost production during war years. Cost of war is 20% times gross income, or 701. 10% of 701 is 70 and thus 20% is 140. Pretty cheap for getting 7 cities and more land.

Post war data shows recovered back to pre war production levels even though running depotism government. Basically just documenting your statement "military is brutal as costs money and does not help vs unhappiness"

BTW, I did not have 3 luxuries, only 1 was available on continent and England, the only close neighboring continent, did not want to trade.

--PF

[Arrian]

Personally, I think the opportunity cost of ancient era warfare makes it pretty attractive for most civs. Your analysis doesn't take into account the potential bonuses:

Great Leaders
resource and luxury gains
technology gains, and gold gains due to reduced science rate (why research when you are gonna beat tech out of the AI anyway?)
gold gains
map gains
any new (productive) cities - this primarily applies if you can get a forbidden palace down
damage inflicted on AI

oh - another negative for ancient war: the reputation hit. I try to avoid this by wiping out my neighbors. Once civs learn that you attacked and destroyed other civs... they won't like you much.

-Arrian

[planetfall]

Agreed, never used to use ancient war, but now it seems dumb not to. The benefits are just too great to miss out on. My "opportunity cost" was just the lost production of moving from builder to build-war-build method. What I learned is if not builder thru the ancient era, then must adjust government and not switch to monarchy or republic too soon. You have more gross income but the expenses are so high you loose out on some wonders and momentum. Before I used to beeline to republic, now I will change my research path as it is not necessary to get republic early. More important is to build up enough military to wipe out at least one civ before communications are established. Doesn't sound like 1.29 will change this.

--PF

[Fitz]

Monarchy has no war weariness (like Despotism) and outstrips Despotism in most other areas. If you have both Monarchy and Republic, the choice should be between Monarchy and Republic, not Despotism and Republic.

[planetfall]

Originally posted by Fitz
Monarchy has no war weariness (like Despotism) and outstrips Despotism in most other areas. If you have both Monarchy and Republic, the choice should be between Monarchy and Republic, not Despotism and Republic.

Thanks for the clarification. Even though it costs 4 turns, looks like will have to go despot->monarch->republic. That is better than going despot to avoid WW and much better than communist.