quote: Originally posted by Hasdrubal on 06-13-2000 07:09 PM I also usually build factories ASAP. Or rather, about half my cities will, the others must wait 'till this first lot is (nearly) completed. It's too risky too have all your cities engaged in building factories at the same. Mafufacturing Plants are also build ASAP.

I'm with Hasdrubal. I don't wasnt all my production tied up in long-term things like factories. Make 'em one or two at a time.

Jim W

But when I discover factories the first place to get them is the front lines. Maximum production near the combat zone. Then my core cities and so on.

Is this what is called "incremental buying". I've heard of this tactic (sounds like too much micromanagement for my personal taste) but don't know how it works.

I think military units (and wonders?) cost more coins per shield to rush buy. I can see how first rush buying a cheap city improvement then switching to an expensive military unit (now with some cheaply bought improvement shields in the pot) and finishing the rush buy will save coins.

How can rush buying a cheaper building (or two) lessen the cost of the final expensive building? And how does rush buying for a number of turns help?

If you try to purchase a factory when you have no shields, it takes one turn and the cost is

4*200 = 800 coins.

If you construct the factory for one turn and then purchase the remaining 180 shields the cost is

2*180 = 360 coins.

This method takes two turns and costs 360.

Suppose you construct a factory for one turn, puchase the remaining 140 shields for a university, and then switch back for two turns to complete the factory. This takes four turns and the cost is

2*140 = 280 coins.

As you can see the biggest improvement in out of pocket expense is using two turns. But notice the over 20% reduction in cost if you are willing to take four turns rather than two. If you need to build lots of improvements, this is a good way to stretch your money.

When you are purchasing shields for buildings once there is at least one shield in the box, all shields cost the same, two coins per shield. Units behave differently. If you try to buy 10 shields the cost is 25, if you try to buy 20 shields the cost is 60, if you try to buy 30 shields the cost is 105. If you have no shields in the box the cost is doubled. Notice that the cost of an extra 10 shields increases.

Suppose it is early in the game and you want to get a diplomat. To make things easy I will suppose the city produces 10 shields per turn. Buying the diplomat out right will cost 210 coins. If you purchase a warrior for 50, switch to and purchase a phlanx for an additional 25, and then use production shields to complete the diplomat the total cost is 75. If you are willing to wait two turns you can use one turn to get 10 shields, purchase a phlanx for 25 coins, then use production shields to get the remaining ten shields for a total cost of 25.

THE BASIC RULE OF THUMB: When you are buying shields for a unit, purchase as few shields at any one time as possible. This is tedious if you are building an aircraft carrier.

Note: if you are planning on using a cities normal production to complete the construction of the unit, make sure you position you workers so neither the AI nor barbarians can interfer with your production of shields. If you need a unit so bad that you have to rush build it, you might not want to take that chance. Construction of caravans may be a common exception.

Wow! This is a whole new world of bargain hunting I didn't know about.

I already knew about the double shield cost if there are no shields in the box. I usually wait one turn, then rush buy. From your diplomat example, I can see where first buying a cheap item (of the same kind) at the inflated double cost, then buying the rest of the shields at normal cost can get you a deal and still build the needed item in one turn. Great for real emergencies where you have to have it now.

You also showed that if you have three or more turns to buy an item, you should make sure that your rush buying is not on the last turn. You can do this by buying a cheaper item (of the same kind), thereby allowing you use the city's shield production on all of your turns.

E.g. Using your example of a city which produces 20 shields, has no shields in its box, wants a factory (200 shields), and can afford to wait a few turns:

Plan A:
turn 1: have 0 shields, work on factory
turn 2: have 20 shields, work on factory
turn 3: have 40 shields, buy factory for 2*(200-40) = 320 gold, now have 200 shields
turn 4: factory built, on to new project
cost = 320 gold

Plan B (using your wonderful incremental buying):
turn 1: have 0 shields, work on factory
turn 2: have 20 shields, switch to university, buy university for 2*(160-20) = 280 gold, now have 160 shields, switch back to factory
turn 3: have 180 shields, work on factory
turn 4: factory built, on to new project
cost = 280 gold

In plan B, we save the 40 gold. It wasn't that university shields cost any less than factory shields. The savings is from getting to use those 20 shields the city produces on the final turn. It also doesn't matter when you buy the cheaper item, as long as you don't buy it on the last turn, nor do you buy it when you have no shields in the box. I bet the savings really pay off in the end game when cities can be producing 60 or more shields.

I had no idea about the ever increasing cost for unit shields. The more unit shields you buy during a given transaction, the greater the cost per shield. It looked like there was a formula for unit shields:
10 shields cost 2.5 gold/shield
20 shields cost 3 gold/shield
30 shields cost 3.5 gold/shield
Is this correct? Does it keep spiralling up at this rate? Ouch!

Your rule of thumb is great. For units, keep buying the cheapest unit (that costs more shields than are in the box) until you finally buy the unit you want.

For any city there is usually a trade off between shield production and money and science production.

I will built factories in the cities that can produce them within 20 turns. Mostly my core cities to start with. When I have the money I'll buy them after a few turns.
The same goes for manufacturing plants.
In my shore cities I will build off-shore platforms ASAP.
I don't rushbuild shield improvements for small cities

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Frodo lives!

If you take the point of view that I do, namely that caravans or freight units are the most important item to produce, then you may wish to maximize their value. This means a city should be as large as possible at least up to size 20. This requires maximizing food production and, if you are in Republic or Democracy, WLT? Days. The items that really help for creating such a situation are harbors, refrigeration, and superhighways. Depending upon the situation you may also need some temples, marketplaces, etc. Once you get engineers transforming deserts, swamps, jungles, and forests to plains and grasslands is also important. Transforming hills and mountains is useful but they seem to take a long time. Do the fast transformations first.

Also don't forget to build those caravans or freight units as nonfood items become available. If you have airports and a reasonable number of cities you can deliver nonfood freight units every turn. In this situation factory production is not so important. If you REALLY need something RIGHT NOW, you can buy it.

Man, the more I play this game, the more I marvel at Sid and the thought that went in to producing the game in the first place.

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Frodo lives!

If you are delivering several caravans every turn, then you will get a new technology just about every turn even if your science rate is 60%. Unless you can get more than one science per turn, set you science rate a a point so that with the help of your caravans you fill out your science graph every turn. It is not always easy to guess the value of caravans so leave a margin of error.

Note: If your science rate is 0%, you will never get another science, regardless of how many caravans you deliver.

If you are delivering lots of caravans, you will have sufficient money that you can choose to set your tax rate to 0%. Should you do this, it is important to know how much money you will need to cover your end of turn costs.

The result is that there is no problem with setting a luxury rate of 30% or even 40%.

Once I get a factory I try to keep the shield/food balanced so that I can get the max possible production from the city. I also try to do a city management tour at least once every turn so that excess production can be changed to gold or science, units in production can be upgrade due to better technology, etc.

A factory costs something like 200 shields or so, doesn't it? If shield production in a city isn't high enough that doubling it (assuming you have hoovers) will pay for the factory during it's lifetime, for example, why bother? Also consider opportunity costs. Given the choice I would probably build Freight items that are in demand by some large distant forign city first, provided I think the bonus will be high enough.