I have checked number of turns to next citizen both before and after building a granary. Normally it just reduced by one (the turn taken).

Until now I have not considered the effect of granary as important. Using the PW are - imho - more usefull. Pls tell me if I have overlooked an effect?!

I may be getting the conversion mixed up, though...

Thx.

quote: Originally posted by Krzysztof on 09-12-2000 11:43 AM Three most important strategy elements at start: I vote: 1) Exploration [by Warior units] 2) "Slaves politics" [Slaver units] 3) "Grow" Settlers and Garnaries.

I've never used a slaver unit myself, but I'd say avoiding the effects of the opponents slavers is pretty important.

I'd definitely agree with the other 2.

Not only do you get free population points, but the slaves don't consume gold (wages) and they only eat half rations. And they don't contribute to your city's unhappiness! You'll leap forward in production, growth and gold (which means science) over your non-slaving opponents.

I'd say gold, the accumulation of, is of prime importance...it solves many problems straight up: need to churn a few units in a hurry, buy 'em, ai gonna beat you to the Edison Lab, buy it, need a quick happiness fix in city with without hiring Fred Astaire, buy a coliseum. You get the picture.

Slaves are the most expediant method of getting the gold...if it's a moral issue, I suggest you buy the Emancipation Act as soon as you can, you'll feel so much better when those black pajama'd suckers are manumitted.

Hard hitting units: marine, war walker, infector (yes!), pikeman, mounted archer...this is the best way to rebuff the ai; by attacking a belligerant's units in the open with minimal loss to oneself you can prevent or delay massed attackes on cities (though they will eventually be attempted)

Before War Walkers, just use whatever units you've got. You won't be able to take too many cities until you get some bombardment units (either Cannons or Ships of the Line). A good stack of Musketeers+Cannons can often take a city that's been softened by bombardments by Ships of the Line and the Cannons.

Before Cannons, you should focus more on enslaving the enemy than on conquest. Defense is much more powerful than offense in the early game, and a walled city is going to to cost you way more than it's worth.

There are two aspects to worry about:

1) Any city with slaves gets a one-time unhappiness penalty of about 5, which lasts a few turns. Then it goes away. You don't suffer this penalty if you build the Emancipation Act -- only if someone else does.

2) When the slaves become normal citizens, all of a sudden they contribute to city unhappiness, which they never did before. Your city now has a larger population, so you get more unhappiness points for overcrowding; and if your wages/rations/workday sliders are set to give a net negative happiness, you'll get much more of this unhappiness.

If you've saved up enough gold, you can wait out #1 by raising the wages. This means you may lose money (or just not make as much of it), and your science output will suffer.

For #2, you may need to build more happiness city improvements, especially the ones that counteract overcrowding. (You probably already have Aqueducts, so this means Hospitals.) Build some Coliseums and Cathedrals in the worst cases.

Something else to watch out for -- now that your slaves are free, they eat twice as much. You may need to divert more production to public works, and build more farms and fisheries (and upgrade existing ones). In some cases, you may even have to terraform land so that you can put farms on it.

However, I find Slavers and Growth were the best long term solutions. Granted I would get behind in tech but that was easily, WAY TOO easily solved with the P. Stone. This whole drive for war walker? Even on diety my games don't get to war-walkers... everyone was dead by then. I often got to but rarely got past the tank. Of course with all the mods I play with now it is much harder.

Oh and BirdMan. I think you overlooked an effect.
Granaries to not produce more food. The flag for granaries is:
IMPROVEMENT_FLAG_SILO 50
Which means it consumes only 50% of stored food when your city grows. I think there have been misleading manuals out there that tell you they produce more food but as you stated they do not. They also give you the time to fix the fact that this new pop cannot produce enough food to feed itself... and build a farm.