We'll need to look at the choices, but I would like it, yeah.
Paths of Civilization
- Thread starter Academia Nut
- Start date
- Original
Horologer
Incertae sedis
- Location
- a risen sea
I think I'm going to disagree with the efficiency argument.
We're about to enter a Golden Age, and people are urging us not to buy a Culture and/or Mysticism innovation because we need those stats to prop up Tech. So overflow has plenty of inefficiencies– it forces us to limit our expenditures on other stats, cramping our ability to act.
And none of this really an argument against Industry passives. It's an argument that GP would be better– well, maybe, but a GP doesn't actually change the fact that our Tech income is negative, it basically just gives us a delayed Tech discount. It's also an argument that Support Artisans is horribly inefficient– which is true, but that's something I already agree with.
So yes, we should get a Governor's Palace, but I don't see why we wouldn't want to get Industry policies as well.
It's not absolutely critical to have this second, but it is important and would be great to have finish earlier. When my options are switch off MPS or make our GA pick less efficient but get the GL earlier, I am going for less efficiency. My priority is finishing the Megas we need. Saving actions at the cost of that does not address my goals.
Fine. Then go on Trade Policy. It typically generates stats, and/or sends trade and diplomacy missions to improve our relationship with neighbors. If we have extra actions, that is what we should be spending them on instead of getting nothing out of them save for faster MP construction.
Or we could go on Connection Policy instead of MP Support (or trade), and have our provinces build it.
If you like to "get things out of the way whenever possible", then why did you vote for MP tracks, which are explicitly slow-and-steady, leave-us-alone-and-we-will-finish-your-MP solutions?
No, it doesn't anymore. At least not unless we're willing to spend boatloads of Econ and EE to get it, which is something we're actually short on at the moment, and I'm certainly not willing to skirt that problem.
Passives are cheaper, and I hope that the patricians are more likely to grab a GP with their passives if we're saying 'we'd really like it if you built this thing you want to build anyways and have the passives to do so with'.
I mean, they certainly could show themselves to be idiots there, but I'm hoping their not, because we're going to have problems if they are.
How does this contradict the statement you quoted?
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That isn't fair. Yes, it limits your expenditures today, but it means you have more stats to spend tomorrow.
For example, look at our last golden age. We didn't worry too much about overflow, and spent 15 culture on a Hero. Great. Except this turn, instead of being able to use overflow to fill up mysticism and start flowing into Tech, we end up with mysticism only half-filled and tech completely empty. Yes, we got to use more stats earlier - but that means we had less stats later. If we had chosen to "cramp our ability to act" back then, we wouldn't have cramped our ability to act now.
Industry policies wouldn't change the fact that our tech income is negative, either - at least unless we took a bunch of them.
Switching the forestry passive we're doing to an industry passive would deal with 40% of our tech going into the negative. That's not trivial.
Our forestry passive costs us 3 tech. If we turn them all off(not necessary recommended), our tech will be -2. If we replace them with Industry policies, we should be getting one tech per turn.
This is only true if you believe that is the only way to use Mega Tracks. At minimum, starting the GL on a track has provided us 3 progress more than we would have had otherwise, maybe four due to our Culture Hero giving us a bonus progress again. By that metric, it was amazing for rushing the project.
Tracks are only slow and steady if you want them to be. They can also be about getting everything done as fast as possible.
Is not having our economy come to a screeching halt of your goals? What about making progress on? If so, please consider switching to Trade Policy so it can help generate the stats we need and send out trade missions.
Is getting a GP up one of your goals? If so, consider switching to Connection policy so that our policies can finish a GP for us.
Is getting Libraries and an Academy part of your goals? If so, consider switching to Knowledge and Spirituality policy; it should build up a bunch of those, and generate stats for more if it gets stuck.
Point is - actions may not be a terminal goal in-and-of-themselves, but they are of great use in actually getting the things we do want.
Two of those are controlled by the Yeomen so we don't actually have the ability to do all of that, sadly.
I suppose it doesn't, if you were willing to pay 12 mysticism worth of resources and a GA purchase for all of 2-3 mains worth of progress. (In practice we got more, but only because a Hero doubled progress there, and I don't believe that had been predicted.)
I would happily vote for such a switch - but I challenge the premise that it is going to play a leading role one way or another. We spent a good 20 tech this turn, or 10 if you consider refunds; cutting 2 tech out of that is nice, but it isn't going to be a gamechanger.
Two of those forestry passives aren't under our control; we can't turn them off. Only the factions controlling them can do that.
By the way, I've been meaning to ask. What are the chances of Symphony triggering between province actions and a megaproject support track @Academia Nut ?
If our actions are constrained enough that we can't use them to generate necessary stats, then I will consider switching off MPS as per usual. That is not apparent yet though, and will not be apparent until the main turn rolls around and we can take stock of the situation.
GP has a couple options still. Reaction votes in the mid turn, Connection Agenda, manually starting and letting Admin Passives finish, etc. I'd like to get it done, but switching off MPS is not the only way to do so. Ditto for Academies.
As I said, my goal is to finish the crucial megas as soon as possible. If reality asserts itself and makes staying on MPS nonviable, then I will vote to switch off, but only then.
At all costs? It seems strange to prioritize the speed of this one thing, when we have other massively important projects that need to get done as-fast if not faster, as well as projects that would otherwise not get done at all (e.g. diplomacy).
Anyways. If we have the stats for it, I would support starting on the Lowlands Canal. However, I've done the math, and at least to a first approximation it doesn't look like we are going to have stats to spare.
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I mean, he answered that question for you.
Trying to stay on MP support policy if possible is not 'at all costs'.
And there is such a thing as future proofing as opposed to putting every single ounce of energy you have to solving problems now, especially when many have given means of both solving said problems and achieving their goals.
We're not getting, nor do I honestly think we'd want to have, more than one GP next turn.
Not at all costs. I did say I'd switch off it if needed. While it is likely that staying on MPS will stop us from doing something, opportunity costs and all that, society isn't going to grind to a halt if we stay on it. Just this last turn we used our reaction votes for Diplo Missions. I laid out ways we may get a GP or Academies done. Hopefully we won't have to spend 90% of our actions completing faction quests this time, and they can be used on other things.
Yes, I am prioritising the crucial megas, but not unreasonably so. Our Policy choice doesn't represent the whole of our actions. They don't even represent the majority of them. When factoring in reactions, PSN and parliament actions, they don't even represent a very large portion in a given turn. Barring explicit need to do otherwise, I am comfortable using our Policy to focus on this important task.
When used colloquially, "If possible" can mean any number of things. It can mean anything ranging from "if it isn't inconvenient" to "as long as even the slightest chance exists".
It very well might. If we can't get our tech back up and e.g. start a turn with all of our tech committed via repeated action, MP tracks, and so on, we are going to see ourselves unable to make any progress on many of our primary goals, and with no good way to recover Econ either. I wrote up a whole post on it earlier.
Even more likely then that, we are going to find ourselves without the Tech to build Block Housing and Ironworks for our Guild Quest. And we know the penalty for failing these is an economic shutdown.
Our policies represent SIX secondaries. That is as much as we get to do with king actions. They are absolutely a big deal.
There are plenty of ways to finish the Guild quest no matter what. If the Guilds decide to make zero progress towards it with their four mains for some reason, or we don't have the tech this coming turn, then there is always Support Faction. We're nowhere near the Do or Die point for it.
Six secondaries represents a fair number of player controlled actions, but directly player controlled actions only represent a portion of the total action economy now. Let the Guilds help on their quest. Society will not grind to a halt if we don't manually complete every single task that comes up.
We are at 1 Tech right now. After refunds, we will be at 12, with a scheduled income of -5. Block Housing alone costs 9 income, and Ironworks costs another 12. The math does not work out in our favor.
Six secondaries is still a lot. For reference, it is half of what we would need o finish our Watchtower network, or as much as we need to build a Lvl3 Library somewhere, or enough to put Lvl1 Markets in all of our cities for an extra 12 Wealth/turn. (The least two would require a significant amount of stats as well, but still.)
Yes, we don't have to handle everything manually, but that doesn't mean we should be willing to lose actions by spending them on something that will get built anyways.
Faction Policies: Admin Infrastructure x2, Trader Infrastructure x2, City Support x1, Forestry x2
Player Policies: Hygiene Infrastructure x4, Skullduggery x1, Forestry x1, Vassal Support x1
We do not have any policies dedicated to supporting urban and industrial infrastructure policies needed to make progress on block housing and ironwork level 4.
Player Policies: Hygiene Infrastructure x4, Skullduggery x1, Forestry x1, Vassal Support x1
We do not have any policies dedicated to supporting urban and industrial infrastructure policies needed to make progress on block housing and ironwork level 4.
That's where we differ. I am entirely willing to use actions to speed up this process if possible. If we can start the Canal and let MPS work on that instead, then that's fine too. If we don't have the stats to do it, then we don't. Until that is apparent, minor increases in efficiency are not a compelling argument for me. Preferably, we use our midturn vote to overflow tech and go from there. We shall see.
Again, six actions isn't "minor". Unless you think e.g. the difference between 3 Stability and 0 Stability is minor? Because typically a Major action is more than enough to restore 1 Stab.
6 secondaries represents 30% of the projected 20 actions we're likely to have in a turn with King actions, React votes, PSN and parliament votes, and far less of our total action economy with factions. Even in this worst case scenario, that is a bearable cost.
As I said earlier though, my ideal situation is that we start the Canal and it can work on that. If not, hopefully our Hero continues boosting our progress and it use as little as two secondaries on progress, then using the other actions for stats. There are plenty of ways this can still be efficient, and I am fine with the worst case. If we are forced of MPS due to other circumstances, then that is one thing. Otherwise, I think I have made it clear what I am interested in pursuing and that I am willing to pay for it. These projects are important.
