What makes a good Hybrid?

[Sir Derf]

So, I've come up with another blind spot in both my personal thought process and what I am aware of in the available discussion and information. How does one evaluate, compare and contrast, the efficiencies of hybrid Pop/Cult buildings?

Obviously, when looking at head-to-head numbers (and by numbers, I mean per-square numbers, not just the overall number), bigger numbers are better.

But the real question is, where in the spectrum of good-better-best is the boundary between wasteful and useful? What efficiency does a balanced pop/cult need to have to be competitive? What is the trade-off between Pop and Culture that describes the curve that separates must-builds from should-disenchants?

More to follow...

 

[Sir Derf]

Let's start at the beginning by describing our basic tentpoles, Lava Codex and Residence.

Now, as with other musings, I'm doing work for my information, so will work things out based on my circumstances, an early Chapter 18 player. My numbers might not match with your circumstances, but the process should allow other players to reach appropriate conclusions in their situations.

For Culture, I pick Lava Codex, as it appears to be the top easily obtainable Pure Culture building. There are other sources of Culture, but most of them are either unique or hard to obtain, so are not really a consideration for continuing additions. At 2x2 squares and 8,900 Culture, Chap18 Lava Codex has a 2,225 Cult/sq average.

Similarly, for Population, I pick the basic Residence. The peak Chapter 18 Residence, Level 41, has a footprint of 4x5 and gives a base Population of 11,100, for an unadjusted Pop/sq of 555.

I say 'unadjusted', because of course we have to take into consideration that a Residence also requires a Road connection and Culture. Let's estimate the Residence has a 4 square Team Street against it's side, and so claims 2 squares worth of footprint and 2 squares worth of 1,040 Culture. The Residence also requires 6,674 Culture, or 5,634 after accounting for the Team Street. In Lava Codexes, that's 2.53 of them, or roughly 10.12 additional squares. All together, that means that a Level 41 Residence has an adjusted footprint of 20+2+10.12=32.12, providing 11,100 Pop, for an adjusted Pop/sq of 345.58.

Notice that while this combo has a net 0 Culture to the rest of the city, it does represent an increase in both the Total and Required Culture of the overall City, which does have exploitable effects with other considerations, such as Ancient Wonders.

Speaking of... I started to include an analysis of the inclusion of the Ancient Wonders that would apply here, namely the Thermal Springs of Youth and both the Watchtower Ruins and Martial Monastery. I acknowledge their existence and their potentially powerful effects, but ask that we hold off on considering their effects at this stage, as they multiply the different scenarios to consider as we go forward.

Is there anything else to consider about our starting point?

 

[Jake65]

Following.....
I've wondered this myself although never figured out how to put it into numbers.

 

[Jake65]

I think for some (all maybe?) pop culture buildings the appeal depends on how it addresses your current needs.
An igloo festival has very similar pop/square to a magic residence. It has a relatively small amount of culture as a bonus but it doesn't produce coins. A residence needs a street connection whereas the igloo can be placed in a far corner as a gap filler.
Thinking aloud, a formula would almost need a 'weighting' variable to allow for "I need pop, culture would be a bonus" or "I need culture, pop would be a bonus"

This seems to read a bit disjointed, sorry.

 

[Silly Bubbles]

So, I've come up with another blind spot in both my personal thought process and what I am aware of in the available discussion and information. How does one evaluate, compare and contrast, the efficiencies of hybrid Pop/Cult buildings?

Obviously, when looking at head-to-head numbers (and by numbers, I mean per-square numbers, not just the overall number), bigger numbers are better.

But the real question is, where in the spectrum of good-better-best is the boundary between wasteful and useful? What efficiency does a balanced pop/cult need to have to be competitive? What is the trade-off between Pop and Culture that describes the curve that separates must-builds from should-disenchants?

More to follow...

I use hybrids for population. Personally, I don't care about culture or coins as I have heaps of them so that leaves me with just population per square calculation. I like Calligraphy Class the most because not only it has nice population per square (not best) but also looks good in my city as I don't like mixing winter stuff with greenery. I think that they're much better than standard residences not only from efficiency point of view but also esthetics. Also, they're easy to get as events and Magic Academy provide a good supply.

 

[Sir Derf]

Sneak peaks...

Going to discuss Magic Residences, but I figure that since you mostly don't plan on getting them, whereas you can always decide to build a new residence (resources and time allowing), I think it reasonable to consider the standard Residence as, well, the standard.

Population and Culture are, in and of themselves, meaningless. They are the resources needed to support all of the other buildings. That, plus the ways the AWs work, and how powerful they are, I think what you refer to as the "weighting factor", or what I describe as the curve between must-have and should-disenchant, will be based on the Working Population and Required Culture numbers that you decide on for the rest of your city.

Non-sneak unpeak...

As stated, this will be an efficiency discussion. In the terms brought up in a different thread, I intend this to be a Facts discussion, not an Opinion discussion.

Non-sneak peak

Just for curiosity, since it was brought up, a Chapter 18 Calligraphy Class is 3x3 squares, gives 8,200 Pop and 1,820 Culture. 911.11 Pop/sq and 202.22 Cult/sq. Sure seems great compared to the adjusted or unadjusted base numbers mentioned above. How great, I'm not yet sure...

To be continued...

 

[Sir Derf]

Where to go next?

First, I think I need to adjust my definition/focus. Because what I should have realized from the start, I pictured an incorrect/incomplete spectrum.

Cult
^
LC
|
| H1
| H2
|
+--------------R----MR-> Pop

Because Residences aren't pure Pop. They require Culture. They have negative Culture. They are hybrid buildings. This is a closer representation, I think...

                                Cult
                                  ^
                                  LC
                                  |
                                  |    H1                         H3
                                  |           H2
                                  |                                             H4
                                  +-------------------->  Pop
                                  |
                                  |
        WS                        |                   R
  M                               |                                  MR
                                  |
                                  v

After that, I think there are at least three ways to consider what is a good exchange.

1. What is the boundary for better/worse equivalent of a Residence? This is probably a bad question, given the differences of +Cult vs. -Cult.
2. I want to add a building to my existing city, what's the most efficient way to add the population and culture to equal my new building?
3. My current city has production buildings requiring x Working Pop and y Required Culture, what's the most efficient way to provide that x and y.

 

[Stucon]

Ow!

 

[Silly Bubbles]

What is the boundary for better/worse equivalent of a Residence? This is probably a bad question, given the differences of +Cult vs. -Cult.

In regards to positive vs negative culture, I'd look at hybrids giving additional culture of itself and add the negative residence culture as well to get the full advantage of hybrid over residence. So the difference between the two is the sum of their culture absolute values.

I want to add a building to my existing city, what's the most efficient way to add the population and culture to equal my new building?

For my city, the most efficient way to save space is to have pop and culture buildings cover the exact needs of the city. That is, not to have any additional pop and culture that is not required. This might not be a very good strategy for supplies hungry cities that rely on culture bonus for additional supplies. But even in this situation there's no need for more culture than it's needed to provide just enough supplies to meet the city needs.

My current city has production buildings requiring x Working Pop and y Required Culture, what's the most efficient way to provide that x and y.

Because it constantly changes when we like building things, I'd aim for most flexible way of adding culture and pop. I always have spare hybrids in my inventory that I can place to meet my needs at that time. I also place the worst hybrids first because I don't care about deleting them when I need to restructure for a new chapter so there's not much of cost of adjusting pop. My best hybrids need teleports so I only place them when I know I'll keep them for a while.

 

[Far Reach]

1. What is the boundary for better/worse equivalent of a Residence? This is probably a bad question, given the differences of +Cult vs. -Cult.
2. I want to add a building to my existing city, what's the most efficient way to add the population and culture to equal my new building?
3. My current city has production buildings requiring x Working Pop and y Required Culture, what's the most efficient way to provide that x and y.

Given a specific (already fairly optimised) city, we can calculate the cost (in terms of fraction of a square) of each unit of culture by considering the effect of the least efficient dedicated culture buildings. Using that culture value, we can now calculate the corresponding cost for each unit of population from residences. Using these two values we can now directly compute the square value of each pop/culture hybrid building. If that exceeds the square cost (from the building footprint) then the new hybrid is an improvement and should be swapped in (replacing the least efficient pop and culture buildings).

The ratio between the population and culture costs will vary between players though and I don't see a way to evaluate the effectiveness of a hybrid without taking these values into account.

Of course, there are other things which we should consider too, such as coin production and rankings point value. The importance of those factors is also player specific. They introduce another layer of complexity though.

Perhaps the simplest approach is to consider some common types of cities, and then ordering the hybrids by effectiveness in each case (using the ratio of square value to square cost as the score). I've never done that formally, but for my current main city I'm pretty sure that only high pop low culture hybrids (such as Goblin Gift Shops) would be worth considering. I've opted against those for other reasons.

 

[Sir Derf]

Question - I've just started Chapter 18. In this or the later chapters, is there any penalty for having Pop or Culture over Required levels?

 

[Silly Bubbles]

Question - I've just started Chapter 18. In this or the later chapters, is there any penalty for having Pop or Culture over Required levels?

Yes, there is. Less space for more important things unless they are very important to you.

 

[Sir Derf]

I think you left out the smiley... Any other, more direct penalties for Pop or Culture over Required levels?

 

[Jake65]

I think you left out the smiley... Any other, more direct penalties for Pop or Culture over Required levels?

Do they have any impact on tournament/spire difficulty?

 

[Silly Bubbles]

I think you left out the smiley...

I've run out of smileys here, I need to recharge somewhere else to get them back again.

 

[Sir Derf]

Why do you need Pop/Cult?

​

Because you want to support Buildings that require Pop & Cult.

So, what Buildings are there to support in Chapter 18?

​

Building​	Pop​	Culture​	Pop/Cult Ratio​
Main Hall (Lvl 41)	58,107	65,497	88.72%
Trader (Lvl 7)	9,000	9,000	100.00%
Magic Academy (Lvl 5)	0	0	0.00%
Barracks (Lvl 40)	13,218	36,759	35.96%
Training Grounds (Lvl 31)	14,771	38,001	38.87%
Mercenary Camp (Lvl 23)	15,033	38,540	39.01%
Required	110,129	187,497	58.74%
Workshop (lvl41)	14,569	10,626	137.11%
Marble (Lvl 32)	16,794	5,863	286.44%
Steel (Lvl 32)	16,794	5,683	286.44%
Planks (Lvl 32)	16,794	5,683	286.44%
Crystal (Lvl 32)	27,000	12,300	219.51%
Scrolls (Lvl 32)	27,000	12,300	219.51%
Silk (Lvl 32)	27,000	12,300	219.51%
Elixir (Lvl 32)	34,300	12,250	280.00%
Dust (Lvl 32)	34,300	12,250	280.00%
Gems (Lvl 32)	34,300	12,250	280.00%
Armory (Lvl 40)	10,582	26,173	40.43%

Did I miss anything?

 

[Sir Derf]

Three different profiles:

Building	Count	Pop	Cult
Workshop (lvl41)	2​	29,138	21,252
Marble (Lvl 32)	1​	16,794	5,863
Steel (Lvl 32)	1​	16,794	5,683
Crystal (Lvl 32)	1​	27,000	12,300
Scrolls (Lvl 32)	1​	27,000	12,300
Elixir (Lvl 32)	1​	34,300	12,250
Gems (Lvl 32)	1​	34,300	12,250
Armory (Lvl 40)	2​	21,164	52,346
	Subtotal	206,490	134.244	153.82%​
	Required	110,129	187,497
	Total	316,619	321.741	98.41%​

Building	Count	Pop	Cult
4 WS, A 2 each Manu	Subtotal	412,980	268,488	153.82%​
	Required	110,129	187,497
	Total	523,109	455,985	114.72%​

Building	Count	Pop
6 WS, A 3 each Manu	Subtotal	619,470	402,732	153.82%​
	Required	110,129	187,497
	Total	729,599	590,229	123.61%​

Not counting other factors, the above three profiles show the target Pop/Culture mix is from 1:1 to 1.25:1.

 

[Sir Derf]

Mischievous Therapy, Chapter 18

Building	Size	Pop	Cult	Pop/sq	Cult/sq	Pop/Cult
Creepy Clinic	4x2	1900	2500	237.50	312.50	76.00%
Disturbed Resting Place	3x2	3000	5900	500.00	983.33	50.85%
Scream of Halloween	5x4	12900	12900	645.00	645.00	100.00%
Anima Dolls	2x4	1900	2500	237.50	312.50	76.00%
Headless Halloween	3x5	10200	10900	680.00	726.66	93.58%