To Mikes or Not to Mikes

StrategicKingMi · May 24, 2002, 21:55

I had an interesting conversation the other day. I had a big lead in a 4 way game and one of the contestants said I sould have built Mikes. But as I posted earlier, in 2 x 2 king, wonders are obsolete, here is why Mikes is obsolete.
Simply put, Mikes is way too expensive to build.
The cost of Mikes is as follows: 2 techs(poly and mono) which equals 1500 beakers..next 8 caravans which properly turned into routes will yeild 1900 gold and 1900 beakers. Thus the total cost is 3400 beakers and 1900 gold.
Now if you build 20 temples and 20 markets the resource cost of this is 120 x 20 = 2400. By raising taxes, you can convert the 1500 beakers that you save from not going for Mikes to gold yeilding 3400 gold or 1700 resources. Thus the cost of 20 markets and 20 temples is 700 resources or 1400 gold. Thoose 8 routes will yeild 12 additional trade bonus at 5 each = 60 per turn which at 50 tax per turn will pay 400 of that 1400 in 10 turns. The markets will pay ( from a city with three bonus and 7 people) 14 gold per turn each or 280 or in 10 turns 2800 gold. Thus you make about 180 gold a turn profit. Not to mention that the extra bonus in your citys will help your citys celebrate much easier.
After the 10 turns, now you earn expotentially.
Mikes in a 40 city civ does not really give you much more of an advantage then a temple + a market does. If you decompartmentalize your citys, in otherwise make 10 citys (never growing more then 3) produce settlers. Another 10 producing ships and units and not growing. Then that leaves you your 20 citys that trade with one another. And sine 20 citys are kept small, mikes is uneeded as it is surpurfalas.

SlowwHand · May 24, 2002, 22:16

What is surpurfalas?

Smash · May 24, 2002, 22:59

what happens when all those temples and markets get sabotaged?

winzity · May 24, 2002, 23:02

Of course you don't need Mikes if you play King. Wonders are for Deity players...

StrategicKingMi · May 25, 2002, 00:26

Well, most players dont sabatge citys. And even if they do, they will still have to get there with at least 3 diplomats per city. As the first eliminates the production, lets say 20 resources, then the temple which is 40 resources, thats 60 resources or the exact cost of 2 diplos. The third one really hurts, 80 for 30. Good Luck getting 3 diplos to my citys.

StrategicKingMi · May 25, 2002, 00:29

Oh, and by the way, my mathmatical equation works even better on 1 x 1 deity as trade routes will still produce decent revenue and you have far fewer citys.

Smash · May 25, 2002, 04:16

A dip will always sabotage at least 40 sheilds unless nothing else is left.30 invested.At least 40 sabotaged not to mention the effects of removing infastructure.Its also very demoralizing.I don't know what most players do,but I sabotage like crazy.

Getting 3 dips in is no problem.More like 30 most likely.

If you had a chance for Michs you should take it.Take em all if you can

atawa · May 25, 2002, 05:49

I'd rather spend my 400 shields on statue then mike's, with temples/markets and routes in every major city its not hard to get the same tech in commie.

Besides, you eliminate corruption and get a free 3 unit support per city witch by then should be at least another 75 shields per turn.

DrFell · May 25, 2002, 07:44

You're forgetting that if you're guaranteed such high payoffs as 1900 gold, you can BUY mikes for 1600 or less gold, or buy caravans in cities with no good trade commodities and send those to build it (which is even cheaper, about 125 gold per caravan, 8 caravans are 1000 gold). Then you have the cost of having your lux so high, which is taking away sci and tax every single turn. When you get mikes and theology, you can celebrate your cities up to maximum size, ever new city has a free cathedral in it no matter how corrupt it is, and when you get your cities up to size you turn down the lux to 0. And don't forget that few people build temples etc. until late on, so it's good to have the wonder simply to take away from an opponent.

In true strate style, here's an example of how it should be done, bear in mind I was fighting a two front war against the Americans and Spanish early on, and this was an early 4-way of mine where I was still trying out strats, which is why I don't have steam engine right now. I am the celts in this one:

StrategicKingMi · May 25, 2002, 08:31

You are forgetting Fell, that you must have the tech before you can buy mikes. And against good players that means you will probably lose Mageleons which is far more important thn mikes is.

DrFell · May 25, 2002, 12:00

The lux saved from having 0% lux rate can go into science, which will get you to navigation quicker after you build mike's anyway.

atawa · May 25, 2002, 16:34

But with the sience from the 8 caravans AND without the 2 extra techs you'll get there a lot sooner

StrategicKingMi · May 25, 2002, 19:59

Also, you cant celebrate with 0 lux.
By the by, communism really sucks. There is nothing you can do in a communistic government that you cant do in fundy. And there are many things you can do in fundy you cant do in commie.
1) celebrate easier cause of no unhappiness.
2) virtually no support for any units.
Now, if you are concerned about the draw back which is half tech. Then just deliver caravans exclusively for tech. Science rates too high are why most players lose to me now as after trade I rarely go above 20%. Can others say that?

DrFell · May 25, 2002, 20:29

All you need is 3 warriors in a communist city and you can support a size 9 city on king (and there is no riot factor). So I don't see why you hate communism so much.

And you do the celebrating in 'batches' ceebrate up as many cities as you can in one go then turn the lux down as far as you can handle (hopefully back down to 0).

rah · May 26, 2002, 02:34

Yes, people sometimes underestimate the power of Communism. If you get skunked on all the happiness wonders, it's a great alternative. You can develop sciences every two turns (not including caravans) and the batch celebrating the Dr mentioned is quite effective.

RAH

StrategicKingMi · May 26, 2002, 16:23

Please tell me what you can do in Communism that you cant do in fundy? Nobody has answered that question yet. Communism sucks.

StrategicKingMi · May 26, 2002, 16:24

Also, the most cost effective unit is only available to a fundy government and that is fanatics at 20 resources each.

Smash · May 26, 2002, 16:38

well you can build vet spys for one.

I suggest you re-examine Communism.If you think Fundy is good then you will grow to love what can be done with Communism

How does a corruption free Republic with no Senate inteference and no science penalty sound?

atawa · May 26, 2002, 17:38

I'd have to agree with Smash here, spies are much more cost effective then fanatics.

rah · May 27, 2002, 02:23

Playing all the MP, I've gotten out of the habit of having mics. If it gets handed to me, I'll build it. But usually I'd rather shoot for sol for early communism. With a little celebrating the science is quite good and the extra production helps building the caravans to make the difference.

StrategicKingMi · May 27, 2002, 11:12

The game rarely gets to spies first off. Even if it does, vet spies are a small advantage over non-vet spies. Now as far as the ONLY other advantage, your tech rate not being halfed. I must stress this, if your science % is over 20% after you get trade, you are being wastefull. To be full effecient, 90% of beakers should be produced by caravans and caravans ONLY! For a 50 resource unit, you can produce 200 beakers of tech not to mention 8-16 extra trade per turn. In terms of gold, the cost, assuming a city that produces 10 resources a turn, is 75 gold and 2 turns of production. Thus you profit from a van, 125 gold and 200 beakers of tech. When your science rate is high, 75 trade that goes to science, is still , any way you slice it, 75 beakers. But if, instead of science, 75 trade goes to taxes. Then you can get 200 beakers and 200 gold. Why on Earth would you want to still keep your science rate over 20%?
Bad supply and demand? Then keep taxes high and start plunking down 1 person citys and see what the supply and demand is. With good supply and demand, now build 2 more settlers into that city and start trading with it.
Again, there is nothing you can do in Communism that you cant accomplish in Fundy.

Dank · May 27, 2002, 12:34

His thinking is made very clear after playing some test games by myself........I must agree that with the trade working for ya at it's fullest advantage why would you need to keep science high....no reason

Smash · May 27, 2002, 14:52

well it you aren't getting to Espionage for spys then you ain't getting to Fundalmentalism to get fanatics(No fanatics just from SoL)

The Commie civ will be delivering camels also..duh..probably for higher bonus as well.Big difference is the Commie can also generate trade arrows much better than the Fundy civ.I get my tech from camels and I get another one on raw beakers.

I've always found Fundy more of government for the beginner.

DrFell · May 27, 2002, 14:58

Unless you deliberately avoid navigation and invention, the caravan bonus is going to drop considerably unless you have absolutely huge cities. I'd be suprised if you can get 200 gold every caravan, delivering enough caravans for 1 tech per turn all game. Hard enough to do even if you have an ally.

StrategicKingMi · May 27, 2002, 15:07

Again, I posted on this as well. Apearently you were not paying attention. Trade routes are progressive. you do not get half when you get navigation and invention. The pot is just reset and you must work your way back to where you were before. After delivering a few below average pay offs, the payoffs will get back to where they were before. I get 500 + bonus routes from trading with other civs long after i got both invention and navigation. These routes do not normally pay 1000 gold, so the theory of half payoffs is shot completely out of the water.
As far as fundy being for a rookie, if you are keeping your science rate that high, then your the rookie, or you are playing with bad players that will let you get away with that. if i get to fundy. you will be fighting an extremely agresive 200 + unit army. The only way to respond to it, is with a 200+ unit army of your own, and since you will take casulties every turn numbering in the many hundreds, if not thousands of resources, the only way to replace them is to buy them, which requires gold which equals gold from taxes and gold from routes. And go ahead, try to do 2 techs a turn, before you can gain any advantage from them, i will steal them and thankyou for them with many dead units of yours.

Smash · May 27, 2002, 15:59

ok I see it all now.I should know better than to question the greatest player ever.
You seem to have a different version than mine.Good thing I didn't waste your time with a game.

Eyes_Of_Night · May 27, 2002, 21:44

Guys you can't argue with the 8 time gameleague champion. I mean come on, he's been at number 1 on gameleague 8 times!! That's a total of 23 hours at number 1!!! That's amazing!

War4ever · May 27, 2002, 23:29

LOL @ EYES......Strat you make it sound like you can do this every game....impossible even for the greatest players to do every game....keep in mind that while your trying to perfect this strategy, some of us will be knocking on your door with troops , caravans, dips of our own....

while i don't doubt that what you say can be accomplished by playing on the world map in SP mode

, i question you being able to do this on tiny rock worlds on a continuous basis during mp

Alexander's Horse · May 27, 2002, 23:41

If you want to see the value of wonders, play a duel at deity level with no wonders. Markusf and I just did that. It means cities almost permanently in disorder, almost impossible to stay in democracy. Huge corruption and production losses even in monarchy during the expansion phase etc. etc. Its really challenging.

markusf · May 28, 2002, 00:44

Quote:

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
If you want to see the value of wonders, play a duel at deity level with no wonders. Markusf and I just did that. It means cities almost permanently in disorder, almost impossible to stay in democracy. Huge corruption and production losses even in monarchy during the expansion phase etc. etc. Its really challenging.

bs. It was your **** map,only being able to build size 3 cities and the fact i was fielding 4 crusaders a city in republic.

Strat is an idiot, he can't accomplish any of what he says in a mp game, and has to resort to playing newbies who don't know that he takes a half hour for a turn. Hell he still hasn't figured out that demand goods mean absolutely nothing, and how to reset routes.