City orders, 200 BC

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

200 BC Report:

We have a net income of 17 g, based of 32g income and 15 g expenses (9 Temples, 6 Barracks). We also have 854 g in reserve

We have net science output of 12 beakers/turn, and we need 899 beakers for the next tech.

Disorder is becoming an issue. Without happiness wonders, we can only keep the peace by taking workers off the land, or buying Temples (which cost money + upkeep).

The Science Minister wants Science and the Minister of War wants units

The City Planning Ministry suggests:

Designate 3-5 'core' cities as science/trade cities. These would be cities far from the front lines (therefore, any units built there would take a long time to be of use) and fairly large, so that we can hire scientists or tax collectors ('Xinning'). Also, these cities should have some decent terrain around them to facilitate growth. These cities would be:

Imperialis (grows to size 5 in 2 turns, has Library in production, but no trade specials)
Newton (2 trade specials, but needs lots of Settler work. Library in production. Also, previous poll affirmed that this should be a science city, so we must grow it)
Majestica (size 4, no trade specials, Library building)
Enron (size 3, on river, one trade special, Library building)

We'll need to grow these cities to size 5 and rushbuy Libraries (which we have the cash for) as soon as size 5 is achieved - then we 'Xin' them.
Supporting these cities would be:

Pax Apolyton - feeder city, builds Settlers for Newton/Majestica
Dominion - feeder city, builds Settlers for Newton/Majestica
Misery - feeder city, build Settlers for Enron/Newton
Glorificus - feeder city, build Settlers for Newton/Enron

As noted, civil disorder is an issue. These eight cities would find disorder to be lessened - the 4 'science' cities would have no unrest while Xinning (having scientists/taxmen rather than working the land), and the 4 'support' cities would stay small due to building Settlers - once our 4 science cities are up and running, they could go back to building units.

Once we have the 4 cities Xinning with libraries, they should produce 88 beakers/turn - more than 7 times what we are currently producing. The tax rate could be left alone at 70% with no impact to the Xinning cities. Moreover, if we need more cash in future, we could always chance the scientists in the Xin cities to taxmen.

The remaining cities should build Barracks or units - there is a separate poll for Barracks.

[shade]

One little question though:
Xinning=use specialists
or is this more extensive...if so ...could tough please inform your king?

Shade

[Ben Kenobi]

*deputy reports



That's an excellent plan, STYOM. Increasing science by 7x will make further scientific progress possible.

What about marketplaces? With 70% tax, I think we should start considering constructing marketplaces to increase the tax and luxuries garnered.

One of the problems with Xinning, is that science comes at the expense of tax. Do we want the tax to go into science improvements or to churning out crusaders and barracks?

Granted, some cities will be far from the front, but this impact becomes far less once we improve our road infrastructure, radiating outwards from the center of our empire.

Shade:

Xinning just involves creating 5 specialists, with a library to drastically increase science production. The city starves during the Xin, and has to alternate between Xinning and food production.

During the turn that we stop Xinning, we need to produce 1 food to counterbalance the loss during the Xinning turns, staving off starvation.

[atawa]

Excelent idea

Why not Xin our core and let the outer ring build units?

As we expand so does the number of city's Xinned. I wonder if we can get to 1 tech/turn with this, has anyone ever calculatded this?

[cavebear]

If you look at the cities closely, I think you will discover that you can't turn very many workers into scientists. The food production is too low.

[Ben Kenobi]

During the turn that we stop Xinning, we need to produce 1 food to counterbalance the loss during the Xinning turns, staving off starvation.

Cavebear,

We can alternate turns Xinning indefinitely. So long as we have 1 food in the bin, the city will not starve. That's the whole purpose of the trick!

Try it, exactly as STYOM has suggested, and you will see.

An alternative option is to look for the no-science succession game where we achieve 1 tech/turn while keeping science at 0% for the entire game. Of course, we did have camels.

[CannonFodder]

INGENIUS!

Sounds like a good idea to me...

[Hydey]

/me minister of WAR

I support this idea as long as a constant supply of vet troops is sent to the front/fronts to continue our destruction of the evil AI.

[Sparrowhawk]

In principle I like the plan, I just don't like using Settlers to get cities to size 5. I would prefer to grow cities normally, and use all settlers to develop land/roads, and to found new cities. I think our growth, however slow it may be now, will come in time, and I think it is a waste of settlers to get them to size 5.

However, as this will result in increasing our science rate regardless of whether we add the settlers to the existing cities or if we do as I suggest and found new cities, I am going with the plan in hopes that new cities will be founded with as many settler as possible (without ICSing, which is against the rules of this game ).

Sparrowhawk
Science Minister

[cavebear]

We have 2 size 4 cities (most likely to grow to size 5). Imperialis will grow to 5 next turn. If you take only 2 workers and make them scientists, you will be in a food stortage when there is no reserve. Majestica has only 1 food gain per turn so changing a single worker from there will cause a shortage and it has no food reserve (even if you add a settler to the population to make it a 5).

I think people are having a hard time getting used to the fact that we have no surplus food supplies nor trade or science Wonders.

If the larger cities that could get to size 5 were in better shape for food, it would be different. We could science them one turn and recover the food the next and stay even on that. But you are going to have to wait a bit to get a surplus to use as a cushion. And if we switch back and forth, we are not going to get the research gain that you are counting on.

Just some food for thought...

[MrWhereItsAt]

Well why not put some scientists into play for Imperialis now?

[Hydey]

you only need 1 surpluss food for zinning to work.

1 surplus puts one in the food storage, next turn you turn all workers into scientists, this will empty the food storage, next turn put all workers back and you get the 1 food in storage again, you can continue this pattern for as long as you want/need. The city will stay at size 5 and you get the science every second turn .

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by cavebear
We have 2 size 4 cities (most likely to grow to size 5). Imperialis will grow to 5 next turn. If you take only 2 workers and make them scientists, you will be in a food stortage when there is no reserve. Majestica has only 1 food gain per turn so changing a single worker from there will cause a shortage and it has no food reserve (even if you add a settler to the population to make it a 5).

But you are going to have to wait a bit to get a surplus to use as a cushion. And if we switch back and forth, we are not going to get the research gain that you are counting on.

Just some food for thought...

Not quite so. obiwan explained, but let me clarify, if I may:

So long as there is one food sheaf in the storage box, the city won't starve (meaning, lose a population point) when in a food deficit - even if the deficit is 20 sheafs or more. This means, we can Xin one turn, and then replace the workers next turn, putting at least one surplus sheaf in the box (easy enough to do, with all the grassland terrain we have), Xin the turn after, and so on, indefinitely.

Granted, we'll have to alternate Xinning and non-Xinning. But at the very least, we'll be getting science (and taxes, if needed) a lot faster than otherwise - probably in the range of 14 turns/tech, down from the current 75 turns/tech, or 30 with science at 70%. And in the non-Xin turns, the cities involved will be adding shields and regular trade - so it's not as if they're a dead loss on those turns. The only thing the cities can't do is grow naturally - and we don't really want that anyway, unless we plan on building Colosseums all over the place.

@MWIA - scientists and taxmen can't be created if the city is smaller than size 5... thus the need to add Settlers to the cities in question with the 'join' command.

@ Sparrowhawk - I grant that this is an unorthodox strategy. However, when you say that growing cities by 'join'-ing Settlers is a waste of Settlers, I disagree. One could say that it's more of a waste to create a lot of small cities that will require martial law units + temple to keep order, but won't produce enough tax or science to earn their keep.

[Hydey]

This game is unorthodox with the restriction we have put on ourselves, I think it requires some unorthodox thinking for us to succeed and as a democracy we have the right to vote on whether or not to procede with any unusual plans.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by atawa
Excelent idea

Why not Xin our core and let the outer ring build units?

As we expand so does the number of city's Xinned. I wonder if we can get to 1 tech/turn with this, has anyone ever calculatded this?

That's the plan!

There was a succession game a while back in the General forum that had a rule requiring the science rate to be kept at 0% ( 'No Science Succession' was the thread name). IIRC we had a huge science lead most of the game - we had size 18 cities Xinning with Universities, producing huge amounts of beakers.

Of course in that game, we were allowed to Trade, eventually... but in this game, we don't need to stay at 0% science. Consequently, once we have some better governments (Communism, say) and our cities get better developed (libraries, marketplaces, universities, terrain improvements), it would probably be feasible to hold celebrations and boost our science/tax revenues that way, rather than Xinning.

The core concept behind Xinning is that a taxman produces 3 coins/turn and a scientist produces 3 beakers/turn - and this production is immune to corruption. To get that much production from working a tile, you'd need 3 arrows in that tile - and not many tiles have that many arrows in Monarchy, even before corruption is taken into account! With a library, that's 4 beakers per scientist (rounding), or 9 beakers per 2 scientists.

Xinning is less useful in Republic/Demo because most tiles produce 2+ arrows, and the extra tax/science doesn't really offset the loss of food and shields in those governments. Plus, shield support in Rep/Demo makes it hard to pull workers off tiles (shield deficits=disbanded units).

[Zedd]

What an informative thread! I had allways thought Xinning was changeing as many workers to scientist as possible while haveing no food loss or gain. I can see how this will benefit in monarchy. But If you have only one food in your box and your are running a 3 food deficit, won't one worker starve?

I think this is our best option, Even if we somehow get out of our growth slump, with a conquest game we should really have a couple "super science cities" and let the rest produce vet units.
As far a food shortages, can't we have some settlers irrigate an make roads before becomeing scientist? We have 4 grass w/roads, oil, and ore w/mine in majstica, thats more squares to work than citizens. Once the two settlers there have fininshed what they are doing have them team up and irrigate from that pond. within 6-8 turns we could have 2-3 irrigated grass and food shortages will be solved. Enron also could use some irrigation on the rivers. Imperialis COULD be irrigated but it would take time.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Zedd But If you have only one food in your box and your are running a 3 food deficit, won't one worker starve?


As far a food shortages, can't we have some settlers irrigate an make roads before becomeing scientist?

To answer

No to point one. The food box is strange that way. Even if only one food is in the box, the city won't starve (shrink), regardless of the amount of the production deficit.

As to point two - we certainly should have settlers irrigating/roading around our science cities. But I would say that we should do that after the cities have been enlarged to size 5. We need the science soonest - and besides, while Xinning, a city's surrounding terrain has no effect on production (since no tiles are being worked). Improving the surrounding terrain will help when we start alternating Xin/non-Xin turns, and of course it'll help down the road as well.

[cavebear]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man


To answer

No to point one. The food box is strange that way. Even if only one food is in the box, the city won't starve (shrink), regardless of the amount of the production deficit.

NOW I get it! I hadn't realized that about the food box. I was logically assuming that a food supply of 3 and a deficit of 5 would cause a population reduction. I gather that it would cause a problem on the second turn, though, because we need to alternate scientists and food production.

Very neat trick!

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

This poll is now closed (should have closed today, not tomorrow ), as is the Barracks poll.

The Ministry of City Planning thanks the populace for exercising their franchise, and the results will be speedily sent to M. le President!

[War4ever]

xxxining is always a good idea...especially in a game like this....do the core, we need to contnue the expansion