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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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I'm a big fan of both EU4 and Civ 4.

EU4 certainly is complex but a lot of the complexity is kept separate from each other part, like you're playing 10 little minigames.

In EU4, you start building workshops once you get admin 6. You build them on the highest production-value provinces, then you just spam them everywhere once you get more production efficiency. More money - more workshops - more money. All you need to do is go to the macro-builder and it will tell you exactly which provinces will profit most from a workshop. There's a synergy with manufactories in the sense that you always need a workshop to go with the manufactory. There's a synergy with the economic idea group that everyone ought to get (because it's the best even post-nerf I think) because one idea reduces construction cost for all buildings by 10%.

In Civ, you can build forges in your high production cities when you get Metal Casting (sooner if you choose to beeline it or later if you're focusing on other tech). Some leaders have the industrious leader trait that makes them cheaper, plus they're better at building wonders so forges become more a part of your playstyle. You need a Forge to build the Colossus in a coastal city, so terrain becomes an important consideration, especially on Archipelago maps where the Colossus is very strong from all that water. On the other hand, you might not have copper, so you probably won't get the Colossus and can prioritize other things. Forges let you get engineers, which are important for getting Great Engineers for wonder-building and eventually founding corporations. So there's also a potential synergy with the Philosophical trait, which lets you get more Great People. Forges give you more happiness from gold, gems and silver, so there's more geography to think about. But they also cause unhealthiness, reducing your maximum population. That needs to be countered with Aqueducts, farms and food resources, maybe trade. And of course, you need to get a certain number of forges across your empire to get the Ironworks for your most productive city! So you'll have to make some forges in worse cities by the time you get Steel to fill out the number.

Civ 4 links 6 or 7 things together in fairly sophisticated ways. There's always more than just raw cost-efficiency going on. You'll never see a Civ 4 tech that only grants +250 governing capacity. They all open up options that change a bunch of other things and lead to other techs.

EU4 has hundreds of moving parts that usually only add or subtract to a bunch of stats.