Factories

[DanielJ]

This is my first message. And I would like to simply state that putting Factories in every city before you build the Hoover Dam is essential. And build them during Republic because I find that Democracy doesn't work until you get the Woman's Suffrage. Unless you want Fundamentalism which is perfect, because your city will need production power to build crazy amounts of units when needed.

[SandMonkey]

Sound advice, in some ways. To get the most efficiency out of the hoover Dam you should build your factories... but it's not always only for units. Increased production can ease the production of a spcaeship.

It also depends on how large your civilization is... with a ton of cities, the maintenance cost of all those factories can add up quickly,.
[This message has been edited by SandMonkey (edited December 29, 2000).]

I always build factories asap. why would you not want to build one? I try to get them up asap, but sometimes my dam goes up first depending on what I research first.

[Laertes]

Unless I have loads of money for rush building, I usually go into Fundy to build my factories. There is nothing as painful as watching a 12 shield city, supporting 3 units, take 22 turns to build a factory.

I also try not to be building factories everywhere simultaneously, as this can leave you vulnerable to a sudden attack, and without a pipeline of freights dropping in every turn.

[Bohlen]

Yes, factories are great city improvements. Maybe one of the best in the game, and maybe under rated at times. Combine a factory with an offshore platform in a city that can take advantage of Hoover’s when it is built and you have a great late game city. If you need troops fast for that late game AI onslaught, factories are a must.

I’ve been a couple of games where Industrialization was key to winning. In one game, I had some units defending the border and needed more money and troops. The only way I could get it was to research Industrialization, build the factories, then switch to Democracy. It worked very well as the factories increased enough production in the two border cities to support my existing and new units, while giving me some more cash.

[La Fayette]

There is a thread named "overlapping..." in the archive. That thread was started by John Barbarossa (I suppose he is one of the great players at this game, since he states somewhere that he remains undefeated in MP!).
IMHO that thread is perhaps the most interesting one in the whole archive. I just reread it, because I had in mind that Mark Everson had given there some noticeable results about factories. I found them, and also found something else of great interest to me (and perhaps to you later on ).
1) Mark wrote that, studying investments with a method based on the payoff, he found out that the number of turns required to pay back the investment of building a factory was greater than: 400/p + 1 (p being the size of the city concerned). This means more than 40 turns to get your money back in a city size 8, which is far from brilliant. My own results are slightly different, but the conclusion is the same: "avoid building factories ASAP" (results whithin a few days on this forum).

2) John Barbarossa wrote:
"When your first city is in a low trade environment, with no rivers, fish or whales, it is important to make sure you have at least 3 trade, as this doubles your early science (assuming a 60% initial science rate)."
This is almost exactly the basic idea for my "3 arrows" strategy that I described a few days ago in another thread on this forum. I bow.

[Deity Dude]

The formula is great, but like so many other things, it can only be used as a guidline. First it assumes your city is static (i.e. what if when you start to build your factory your producing 10 shields from 6 squares and in the time you build it your pop grows to 8 producing 14 shields) in which case your formula would undervalue the factory. What if your gonna get Hoover's. What about the impact of rush buying if you are cash rich. The concept is good but it shouldn't be used as the final litmus test.

[Bohlen]

I would agree, DD.

Sure, this calculation makes perfect sense, but this game is full of the unexpected and immeasurable. OK, so it takes 40 turns to "pay off" a factory. What about the immediate benefits that one receives before the factory is "paid off"? Some of these benefits include: 1) the ability to support more troops in a non-fundy government, 2) better use of Capitalism, 3) ability to move workers to food and trade specials/terrain while maintaining or increasing production. The first cannot really be measured and the others actually assist in paying for the factory.

Some games you don't need factories, but some times they make a lot of sense. It really depends on your situation.

[Mercantile]

Bohlen I think the real strategy is to know which cities need the factories. Its all dependent on city size, resources etc. For instance if most of your land was grassland without the shield, you may not want the factory. Just like why build a harbour if you only have one ocean square. Each improvement requires the right scenario for it to be built or else your wasting your money, especially the expensive improvements. If you have alot of cities, 100 aquaducts, sewers, banks , cathedrals, etc adds up right quick

[Edward]

La Fayette,

Barbarossa's math sounds correct. The factory bumps up your shield production by 50%. Assuming that before the factory, your city is pulling in roughly 1 shield per worked square...

return = cost
#turns[benefit/turn] = 200 shields
t [50%(prefactory production in shields)] = 200 shields
t [.5 (population shields)] = 200 shields
t [.5 (p)] = 200
t = 400/p

For a size 10 city that's roughly 40 turns.
(Of course you can tweak the formula to include the fact that the city square itself is worked (400/(p+1)) and the fact that you lose 4 coins (about 2 shields worth? (400/(p+1-2))?) through upkeep but the formula remains roughly the same.)

It'll take roughly
400/(number of shields the city is currently producing) turns
for the factory to "pay off."

However, this indicates to me that the sooner you buy a factory, the sooner it pays for itself (as long as it's not later than 1960 or so). (I'd still be very leery of building one at any time in a city with less than 5 shield production.)

Fergus Horkan's caution on civ-wide factory making is also well taken.

[Bohlen]

I couldn't agree more, Merc. It all depends on the needs of your city and civ at the time. I just think the calculation described above doesn't take everything into consideration. I don't think any calculation could do that.

[Adam Smith]

I had a discussion with Mark Everson about this at one point, and here are a couple of factors that the formula does not take account of.

1. At 600 shields, the cost of three factories, Hoover is relatively cheap. The Factory + Hoover combination changes the calculation dramatically.

2. If you have a decent trading strategy, by the time you reach Industrialization you should have piles of cash laying around just waiting to build those factories in one turn. There are few things in Civ more fun than putting all those brand spanking new factories to work turning out tanks to smash the pesky Zulus.

3. Of course one needs to consider the opportunity cost of the cash you have laying around. The oppotunity cost might include bribing the Zulu cities, but that is not half as much fun.

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Old posters never die.
They justfadeaway

[Hawkman]

The only thing worth considering is whether or not you can immediately afford the upkeep on the factories. If you're worried about payback, then crank out a few trade units on each factory and send them to a distant city. That will keep your cash flow looking good.

Buying all the factories in one turn can turn your budget from a nice surplus to a nasty deficit, but the trade units will fix that.

[Matthew]

If you have good science and plenty of opportunities for caravans, don't waste time or resources with factories. The time between industrialization and launch should be so short that you'll never get much use out of your factories or hoovers.

As expensive as they are, factories should only be put where they will best serve you.

[SilexMT]

quote: Originally posted by Hawkman on 12-26-2000 03:34 PM The only thing worth considering is whether or not you can immediately afford the upkeep on the factories. If you're worried about payback, then crank out a few trade units on each factory and send them to a distant city. That will keep your cash flow looking good. Buying all the factories in one turn can turn your budget from a nice surplus to a nasty deficit, but the trade units will fix that.

Add to that the upkeep of all those mass transits and/or recycling centers...

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All the world marvels at our superior intellect, sire!

[La Fayette]

When I started reading the archive to this forum, a few weeks ago, I found out that many tricks I had had the pleasure to discover playing civ2, such as "2 continents trading" or "repeated commodity", were quite thoroughly described by people like Xin Yu or Adam Smith.
It was like discovering brothers after a long voyage across the ocean.
That is why it was my pleasure mentioning Mark Everson's formula to help stressing that I am not in favour of factories ASAP.
There are 3 main arguments against them:
1) Low return on investment
2) Pollution
3) High opportunity cost (1 factory=200 shields=4 caravans=almost certainly more than 2000 gold or science beakers, and also 1 factory=4 transports=a great help for large scale trading overseas).
But I strongly agree with Adam Smith when he states that HD radically changes the picture, with much better return and much lower pollution.
BUILD FACTORIES, Noble Leader! (but not ASAP)!

[Hawkman]

Factories are the best investment in the game. They give you 50% faster production and the sunk costs can be amortized in just a few turns when freight units can be built.

Pollution can be easily managed with Engineers.

Factories give you the edge that quickly defeats a player without them.

All the formulas about return on investment are bogus unless they target the true return that factories produce, more units, more infrastructure. That's what this game is about.

[SandMonkey]

but on the same thought, Hawkman, if you get a great deal of pollution from a factory, you have to waste precious turns using a settler/engineer to clean it up, when they could be building roads/mines/irrigation that could further your gains.

[Hawkman]

The pollution is a downer, I'll admit, but the gains far outweigh the negatives. Two engineers can wipe out a square of pollution in one turn, so the delay is more of a nuisance than a serious problem. By this time, there is a strong road net throughout the country which helps in moving the engineers around. And many of the cities are large enough to support two or more engineers. I usually assign two engineers to each city and they pay for themselves by quickly clearing some land to bring the food supply up to where it was before the assignment, then everything after that is gravy.

If I'm concentrating on building up cities, the factories are a must. On the other hand, I've found that manufacturing plants are not needed (although they are nice to have in a war). With a factory and manufacturing plant in every city, and Hoover Dam to help out, production is so high as to make the game boring.

[La Fayette]

Edward
The math was not Barbarossa's but Mark Everson's.
I mentioned Barbarossa because he started the thread and because he demonstrated that he was thinking the same way as I was when I started developing the "3 arrows" strategy. John, I salute you.
Mark Everson must be praised, since he developed a theoretical approach of many aspects of this game. Mark, I salute you.
But,
Hawkman,
I agree with you: it is not enough telling shields. It is also precious to take into account what one does with those shields. I ran a test last night, a small simulation comparing the results of a "no factory" strategy compared with a "factories ASAP" strategy. After 25 turns, the result was in favor of "no...", but rather slightly.
I hope to be back soon with stronger evidence derived from using the "di$counted cash-flow" method (look at my thread " true value of early trade" for details).
Happy New Year!