I don't know if it's me, or if it's how BtS plays with the slow tech pace, or what, but I've become a converted CE player I think. I know there are a variety of ways to play that do work. And I still think that when going for early dom victories FE/SE can work wonders. But overall I just think that, for the most part, commerce is the way to go. With a large empire humming along churning out huge amounts of commerce you get a nice tech lead disparity that grows more pronounced later in the game. At that point you can go space or you can use your tech lead to trounce opponents and pull off a bit later, though thoroughly enjoyable, dom win.

I'd love to hear thoughts from people who are running a SE successfully in BtS. I've tried a few times with Pericles. I really thought I would enjoy cre-phil and running a SE. But I find I flounder in the tech dept time and again (of course that means I am just on par with the AIs...). I find you can go this route and whip piles of units and fight the AI at tech parity. It is definitely possible to do this, but I feel like it wracks up tons of war weariness and the wars take forever, further stagnating your econ. In contrast, with a tech lead wars are decisive and short, minimizing WW and leading to a better sustainable tech pace. If you are on a large continent I still think it is possible to run piles of specialists and gun for say cavalry and win earlyish dom victories, but with the lack of trading opportunities (slow AI tech pace), etc. this isn't as straightforward as it once was. Of course if you are able to get the pyramids then this changes things somewhat.

Thoughts?

Interestingly enough, I've abandoned the CE for a while in favor of the SE/hybrid - that's in the months before BTS was released. Not because I don't like the CE (I do!), but because I would like to be better and more accomplished running a pure SE.

My first BTS game was with Boudica and I tried the SE approach. The game started out fine (war, war, war), but from the late midgame and onwards, I was completly outteched by 2 major civs sharing religion on the other continent. The most advanced was 6-7 techs ahead of me and that showed in their military units composition as well.

I lost in the end. I'll keep at it though - I've tried a couple of other BTS leaders and won on Noble/Prince - right now I'm trying out a leader I'm very familiar with - Elizabeth - wanna get really deep into the new features, so I play someone I know from the inside out.

I agree with our mainpoints about the slower techpace being a challenge for the SE model. But we like challenges here, don't we? :lol:

Never mind. :)

Interestingly, and contrarily to what i've been mostly reading here and there, i find that CEs require MUCH more micro, and thus i'm naturally leaning towards a SE.
I know that most see cottages as a "lay and forget" thing, but... In every single city you have to build a lot of infrastructure, both money- and science-generating. And either you just work cottages and it takes forever (and a day, sometimes), or you juggle between cottages and production/food combos (grassland workshop+farm for example) and it requires even more MM.
I've just played a game as the Viking (Agg/Fin) where i completely conquered my own continent steadily from 2000BC to 1000AD, and i ended up with 23 cities. Going through each of them every turn to ensure they were not doing something stupid like growing into unhappiness or not taking 130 turns to build a library was a real pain, and was taking forever (the game does take a big performance hit past the 1000AD...).

Sorry, but I disagree. I've played a lot of SE games and am logging my fair share of CE games now and SE definitely, definitely requires more micro. This is indicated in terms of the length of my SE and CE games. Constantly making sure the governer is not misassigning specialists, etc. is a very tedious bit of business.

I never claim to be a CE or SE person, using what I get and a hybrid most of the time. A few points that I have considered for later game SE in BTS

1) not dependent on early pyramids, you can wait until constituion.
2) NAtional parks in a highly forrest preserved area can bring a load of beakers, especially if oxford is there (7 scisntists alone x 200%), all potentially FREE.
3) Free engineer from industrial parks.
4) Mercantilism has a corp benefit now so the free specialist has a little more appeal at the loss of foreing trade routes.
5) Lot's of extra from sids or cereal corps frees up more specialists per city.

Now improvements to increase commerce

1) Customeshouse
2) I think that's it.

The thing is though I am talking about running specialists in every city. CEs get national park, industrial parks, and can run specialists from corps. People have been talking, for example, about having pure cottages in wallstreet and then running a pile of merchants from the surplus food from corps.

I would say also that it is dependent on pyramids for teching early cuz the AI techs so freakin' slow that bulbing and trading is just painful. The base tech pace without pyramids using specialists is ok earlyish but gets painful when you start researching medieval techs unless you've conquered a large empire and are in caste system and have the surplus food to run a pile of specialists in each city.

I don't know, maybe I have to revisit how I am playing a SE but I can't seem to get a respectable tech pace with it anymore. Researching techs like metcast, machinery, cs, etc. with specialists is just becoming painful.

If you have pyramids that changes things quite a bit of course, but they are situational, as always.

I know that most see cottages as a "lay and forget" thing, but... In every single city you have to build a lot of infrastructure, both money- and science-generating. And either you just work cottages and it takes forever (and a day, sometimes)
The only infrastructure you need in a pure cottage city pre-democracy is a granary (and possibly a courthouse). Once you get democracy and Universal Suffrage you can get all the infrastructure you want, in no time at all.

So CE=very little micro beyond seeing that cottages are worked and that there is some food surplus to grow to the current happiness cap.

The only infrastructure you need in a pure cottage city pre-democracy is a granary (and possibly a courthouse). Once you get democracy and Universal Suffrage you can get all the infrastructure you want, in no time at all.

So CE=very little micro beyond seeing that cottages are worked and that there is some food surplus to grow to the current happiness cap.

Yeah, I keep expecting to see DaveMcW come to this thread.

DaveMcW: "Cottages. Commerce cities should work cottages. Cottages. All they need is a granary. Cottages. Just grow them and work more cottages. Cottages. You should, cottages. Cottages."

@Madscientist - You've neglected that the extra food from Sushi can be just as useful to a CE, since cities which would normally have to run farms to be able to use all tiles can now have them ripped out and replaced with more cottages. It also further strengthens a GP farm (and a CE will now normally run two to take advantage of the national park, further eliminating any gap there was in GP output).

Others points for CE - golden ages. These have always been more beneficial to the CE, simply because it has more commerce and hammer generating tiles. With more abundant golden ages, and potentially them being 50% longer, this is a major boost.

Finally, one of the old complaints of the CE - you need gold and science producing buildings everywhere, is eliminated. Why on earth would you be running below 100% science now corporations are available?

Yeah, I keep expecting to see DaveMcW come to this thread.

DaveMcW: "Cottages. Commerce cities should work cottages. Cottages. All they need is a granary. Cottages. Just grow them and work more cottages. Cottages. You should, cottages. Cottages."

He's very right, though. In a sense. What he doesn't mention is that you need quite a few cities to be able to be brave enough to leave some cities as "pure cottage-cities". Because you also need/have:

1 capital (production is often paramount here, in addition to commerce. Probably have either Ironworks or Oxford)
1 :hammers: military city (Heroic Epic + Military Academy)
1 great person farm (National Epic + Globe/National Park)
1 auxilliary production city (for getting wonders + extra military units when necessary, possibly Ironworks)
1-2 drafting/whipping posts that you mistreat and beat to beef up your SoDs :) (one possibly with Globe for drafting)


[EDIT] I loved acidsatyrs comment in the CE/SE comparison game thread you ran around Christmas: "The only thing this showed is that Dave needs to learn to build Courthouses in those cities that have 11:gold:/turn maintenance" :lol:

Hmmm, ok, you guys are the good players after all. Well, i'll give it a try then. Thanks =)

Sorry, but I disagree. I've played a lot of SE games and am logging my fair share of CE games now and SE definitely, definitely requires more micro. This is indicated in terms of the length of my SE and CE games. Constantly making sure the governer is not misassigning specialists, etc. is a very tedious bit of business.

... not to mention the warmongering part of the SE - you have to change constantly between hiring specialists (and what type+numbers when running caste system), drafting troops, whipping and reassigning the remaining population or perhaps working resources etc. Very timeconsuming with +15 cities. I sucked at the warmongering part of the SE at first, but I'm getting there. :)

In some regards I might like it better than the typical CE because it's a greater challenge to me.

In some ways BTS is actually promoting the SE - Sid's Sushi can work wonders for you with all those extra specialists, if you know how to use coorporations to your advantage (which I'm learning the hard way). How coorporations work with the CE, is something I look forward to trying out.

BTW: based on your experiences sofar, who would you call the best BTS leader (considering traits, UU/UB's etc.) to manage a SE at Prince level or above and why? :)

@Madscientist - You've neglected that the extra food from Sushi can be just as useful to a CE, since cities which would normally have to run farms to be able to use all tiles can now have them ripped out and replaced with more cottages. It also further strengthens a GP farm (and a CE will now normally run two to take advantage of the national park, further eliminating any gap there was in GP output).

I do run alot of cottages, but my point was that alot of the BTS additions are benefitted by running representation, an extra 3 beakers per specialist. If you stick with representation in a CE economy, then fine, but don't most CE economies use universal sufferage if available? Then your industrial parks/national parks have the added advantage of +3 beakers. CE and universal sufferage is only benefitted from the customehouse I believe, which is limited to costal cities and only trade to other continents.

Now regarding the corps I will refrain from comment there as I have already made so wrong and embarressing statement in another post. But to me running 2 farms and an extra engineer during representation gets me science and production which the cottages gets me only commerce.

More cottages early will fuel the tech pace and give you a lead. I dont think it's right to run too many specilists early on when you have a low happy/health cap. I think its better to have them working tiles unless you have a really food food rich city. My problem is I will eventually hit a wall in my expansion with 4,5 or 6 cities and not may troops to wage war. Unless I push out, then the ai will catch up because my cities are capped at aroung 7 or 8.

He's very right, though. In a sense. What he doesn't mention is that you need quite a few cities to be able to be brave enough to leave some cities as "pure cottage-cities". Because you also need/have:

1 capital (production is often paramount here, in addition to commerce. Probably have either Ironworks or Oxford)
1 :hammers: military city (Heroic Epic + Military Academy)
1 great person farm (National Epic + Globe/National Park)
1 auxilliary production city (for getting wonders + extra military units when necessary, possibly Ironworks)
1-2 drafting/whipping posts that you mistreat and beat to beef up your SoDs :) (one possibly with Globe for drafting)


[EDIT] I loved acidsatyrs comment in the CE/SE comparison game thread you ran around Christmas: "The only thing this showed is that Dave needs to learn to build Courthouses in those cities that have 11:gold:/turn maintenance" :lol:

Rofl @ acidsatyr. That's priceless. But I agree that you need those cities you mentioned. I've started games where I focused on cottages to the exclusion of 1-2 production cities early and got killed...not by military or barbs, but by the inability to expand. Cottages don't produce any hammers and trying to build workers/settlers with a bunch of grassland cottages is just...painful...not to mention that this slows the growth of these cities.

Now, I've been having much more success focusing on securing at least one strong production city early that churns out military units, as well as workers/settlers while the commerce cities just focus on growing as large as possible under hereditary rule. When they're capped by health they build workers and settlers if necessary, but most of the time they focus on slow-building first a granary and then courthouse and then science buildings or market.

Hmmm, ok, you guys are the good players after all. Well, i'll give it a try then. Thanks =)

Do not include me as a good player. I am still working on my game to compete with these guys.

Now, I've been having much more success focusing on securing at least one strong production city early that churns out military units, as well as workers/settlers while the commerce cities just focus on growing as large as possible under hereditary rule. When they're capped by health they build workers and settlers if necessary, but most of the time they focus on slow-building first a granary and then courthouse and then science buildings or market.

Yep. War and Great people are the wildcard in this. Imagine you have conquered your entire continent or have an isolated start. Then Dave's advice with a dedicated GP farm is probably the best. Nothing beats Universal Suffrage+Free Speech+Printing Press towns. Just look at the figures:

2 empty grassland tiles. Do you farm the extra grasslands or cottage them? Ignoring :gp: points (assuming that your GP farm is drowning out this particular city)


US+FS+PP Cottages: 2:hammers: 14:commerce:
Biology Farms: 4 extra :food:, allowing 2 representation specialists

Engineers 6:science: 4:hammers:
Scientists 12:science:
Merchants 6:science: 6:gold:
Priests 6:science: 2:gold: 2:hammers:
Artists (only relevant for border culture or cultural victory imho)



So in raw yield, assuming :gold:=:science:=:commerce: and 1:hammers: = 3:commerce: the cottages are 20 yield, whereas the specialists are 12-18 yield. In war you value :hammers: higher, and of course, it is very possible that in your particular game the :gp: points from that city may count, making the specialist option better.

[EDIT] Also, importantly, Biology is more important for the specialist option than either FE, US or PP are to the cottage option.

Yep. War and Great people are the wildcard in this. Imagine you have conquered your entire continent or have an isolated start. Then Dave's advice with a dedicated GP farm is probably the best. Nothing beats Universal Suffrage+Free Speech+Printing Press towns. Just look at the figures:

2 empty grassland tiles. Do you farm the extra grasslands or cottage them? Ignoring :gp: points (assuming that your GP farm is drowning out this particular city)


US+FS+PP Cottages: 2:hammers: 14:commerce:
Biology Farms: 4 extra :food:, allowing 2 representation specialists

Engineers 6:science: 4:hammers:
Scientists 12:science:
Merchants 6:science: 6:gold:
Priests 6:science: 2:gold: 2:hammers:
Artists (only relevant for border culture or cultural victory imho)



So in raw yield, assuming :gold:=:science:=:commerce: and 1:hammers: = 3:commerce: the cottages are 20 yield, whereas the specialists are 12-18 yield. In war you value :hammers: higher, and of course, it is very possible that in your particular game the :gp: points from that city may count, making the specialist option better.

Bear in mind I have no preference one way or another but will use which ever is useful at the time. A few comments supporting the specialists, GP points being a no issue.
1) 12 commernce could mean science/culture/gold/EP. Meaning every city is stcuk with that ratio.
2) The specialists offer greater versatility.
3) Once you have the town, it is succeptible to espionage and if it goes ALOT is lost. A farm is easy to replace.

1) 12 commernce could mean science/culture/gold/EP. Meaning every city is stcuk with that ratio.
Your culture rate is most often lower in a CE due to the fact that your cottage tile is producing the yield that you would need 2 population to do with an SE (1 farm + 1 specialist). Therefore your cities are smaller and the :) cap doesn't give need for raised :culture: on the slider. So assuming :gold:=:science:, this argument isn't as strong as it might seem!
2) The specialists offer greater versatility.
Not really. Often you want your entire empire geared to either :gold: or :science:, so it doesn't matter which city it comes from. With US you can buy :hammers:, so after that point this argument fails completely (earlier on there is also no reason you can't have some spare farms in your CE cities, to which you can switch when you need farms+mines, for e.g. war)
3) Once you have the town, it is succeptible to espionage and if it goes ALOT is lost. A farm is easy to replace.
Now this may be a good point. I'm not sure, since I haven't played that much BtS. If town desorying espionage is as common as some posters imply, then this bears thinking about!

... and you have influence over what kind of GP's you want the city to generate, using specialists/Caste system. Not so with a CE but then again, how many cities does the typical CE player really want to generate GP's? 2-3 at most? :)

... and you have influence over what kind of GP's you want the city to generate, using specialists/Caste system. Not so with a CE but then again, how many cities does a CE really want to generate GP's? :)
The :gp: issue is of course, very important. E.g. if you are philosophical and running pacifism then having a few extra specialists becomes much more attractive.

1) 12 commernce could mean science/culture/gold/EP. Meaning every city is stcuk with that ratio

True, but less of an issue than previously since the gold can usually be set to 0%.

2) The specialists offer greater versatility.

Arguable, you're either stuck with Caste system or having to deal with a mix of specialists due to availability of slots from buildings.

3) Once you have the town, it is succeptible to espionage and if it goes ALOT is lost. A farm is easy to replace.

Solver seems to think that the complete destruction of towns by espionage is a mistake, and hence it'll be changed to be like pillaging. I'll wait and see on that one. Not an issue in a single player game anyway.

Solver seems to think that the complete destruction of towns by espionage is a mistake, and hence it'll be changed to be like pillaging. I'll wait and see on that one. Not an issue in a single player game anyway.

A pillaging-like effect seems much more realistic. At least up until someone has built the Manhattan project! :lol:

Your culture rate is most often lower in a CE due to the fact that your cottage tile is producing the yield that you would need 2 population to do with an SE (1 farm + 1 specialist). Therefore your cities are smaller and the :) cap doesn't give need for raised :culture: on the slider. So assuming :gold:=:science:, this argument isn't as strong as it might seem!

Not really. Often you want your entire empire geared to either :gold: or :science:, so it doesn't matter which city it comes from. With US you can buy :hammers:, so after that point this argument fails completely (earlier on there is also no reason you can't have some spare farms in your CE cities, to which you can switch when you need farms+mines, for e.g. war)

Now this may be a good point. I'm not sure, since I haven't played that much BtS. If town desorying espionage is as common as some posters imply, then this bears thinking about!

Something doesn't quite make sense to me. With a CE you are saying 1 gold = 1 beaker which is 100% science slider. Now if Production is not an issue since US can but the required itemt o be built, where does the gold come? That has always been my biggest probelm with US. Also, and I am not 100% sure, but since I play marathon speed doesn't everything cost 3 times in hammers, thus I need three times the gold to buy something? I have played Marathon for so long I forget what any costs are in normal speed.

Something doesn't quite make sense to me. With a CE you are saying 1 gold = 1 beaker which is 100% science slider. Now if Production is not an issue since US can but the required itemt o be built, where does the gold come? That has always been my biggest probelm with US.

Your problem with a CE and US is lack of gold? :confused: Just run the slider at 100% :gold: for a few turns. You should be swimming in it! (with a proper CE you can have so much money that Great Merchants seem paltry by comparison)

With corporations, gold in the modern age is ridiculously abundant - one of the reasons I'm so reluctant to use representation, even though even the CE has a lot more specialists than before.

When you've got a 5 figure tresury and hundreds of gold coming in per turn even with 100% science rate, you may as well do something with it...

True... In the game where micro was so tedious, i had about 20 cities and generated +1500 gold at 100%, in 1800AD. I did that for about 8 turns, then mass-rushed a tank in every city, loaded them on transports, and explained to Monty that being rude was not always a good idea ^^

But in this game, i was so bored of managing the cities that i put all of them on Research and simply rushed people with Tanks. I simply don't get how you manage going through 15-30 cities...

True, but less of an issue than previously since the gold can usually be set to 0%.

So where does gold come from in a CE?



Arguable, you're either stuck with Caste system or having to deal with a mix of specialists due to availability of slots from buildings. Sometimes. You can run 6 engineer in any factoried/industrial park city, plus get a free one from the industrial park. That's 12 hammers and 18 beakers with representation. You get 3 more in the ironworks city. Oxford allows 7 scientist with a lab/observatory/library.
[/QUOTE]




Solver seems to think that the complete destruction of towns by espionage is a mistake, and hence it'll be changed to be like pillaging. I'll wait and see on that one. Not an issue in a single player game anyway.

I agree, it is broke big time. To much to lose because of one EP attack. But if you invest more hammer in EP protection (spies, jails, EP buildings) you can limit that.

Your problem with a CE and US is lack of gold? :confused: Just run the slider at 100% :gold: for a few turns. You should be swimming in it! (with a proper CE you can have so much money that Great Merchants seem paltry by comparison)

Huh, never thought of that. Essentially you throw your self into science anarchy for a few turns to get money. I could completely upgrade my military in s few turns also. Well, guess that's why I am an average player, it's these type of things that I miss.

Also, The Kremlin allows an extra 2 spies so you can run I think up to 7 spies in one city, for 4 beakers and 4 EP each if running representation. Another is ankot wat allows 2 hammer per priest and 1 gold (+3 beakers in running representation), allows 3in addition to each temple. Wall street can run 7 merchants. My point is you can have alot of different cities running 6-7 if the same specialist to specialize them.

Also, The Kremlin allows an extra 2 spies so you can run I think up to 7 spies in one city, for 4 beakers and 4 EP each if running representation. Another is ankot wat allows 2 hammer per priest and 1 gold (+3 beakers in running representation), allows 3in addition to each temple. Wall street can run 7 merchants. My point is you can have alot of different cities running 6-7 if the same specialist to specialize them.

Not only that, but if you have - say built GA generating wonders in a city and would like to have GS's instead, you hire a lot of scientists to increase the odds of generating a GS instead of a GA. You don't have the same flexibility within the CE - you need to be more careful which wonders you place in which cities, because your options to influence what GP's are generated are very few.

BTW, specialists such as engineers are harder to come by, but that goes for both the SE and CE. :)

As someone said before, who needs Engineers when you can have Priests ? =)

So where does gold come from in a CE?

As in any economy now, corporations. I'm sure I've said that at least twice in this thread alone.

Sometimes. You can run 6 engineer in any factoried/industrial park city, plus get a free one from the industrial park. That's 12 hammers and 18 beakers with representation. You get 3 more in the ironworks city. Oxford allows 7 scientist with a lab/observatory/library

I'm pretty sure it's 5, not 6 engineers, and that's including the free one from the industrial park. National wonders are localised, and hence not really pertinent to the discussion, as the CE can use them as well. If you're running mostly engineers, how are you going to match the CE research pace anyway? Even allowing for your free engineer (which appears pretty late, and costs you health) you're only getting 12 research from 8 food, which isn't a very good conversion rate.

BTW, specialists such as engineers are harder to come by, but that goes for both the SE and CE. :)

Only until industrialisation. Then you have more than enough engineers, especially if your German.

As someone said before, who needs Engineers when you can have Priests ? =)

Someone who would like to generate a GE instead of a GP...? ;)

Only until industrialisation. Then you have more than enough engineers, especially if your German.

True, but depending on the victory you pursue etc., those GE's might be a lot more valuable in the early/mid game than in the late game, if you see my point. :)

And yeah, the Germans just got everything going for them, don't they? ;)

As in any economy now, corporations. I'm sure I've said that at least twice in this thread alone. I see the return of corps but settling each in a new foregin city is costing 200-250 gold a pop. It's getting the startup cash. Also it's unpredictable, you may have spread a corp to 20 cities but the AI suddenly goes mercantilism or more frequestly state property your not getting the money (I think).




I'm pretty sure it's 5, not 6 engineers, and that's including the free one from the industrial park. National wonders are localised, and hence not really pertinent to the discussion, as the CE can use them as well. If you're running mostly engineers, how are you going to match the CE research pace anyway? Even allowing for your free engineer (which appears pretty late, and costs you health) you're only getting 12 research from 8 food, which isn't a very good conversion rate.
1 engineer fro a forger, 2 from a factory, 2 from industrial park, a free from industrial park, 3 from iron works (one city only), 3 more from an assembly plant if your German. 6 minimum. Commerce comes from trade routes, appropiate resources, cottages (yes I build alot of them but not on every tile), specialists. Also the extra commerce does come all at once and the tiles have to be worked (faster with emancipation)

I am really trying to say is I stay balanced and prefer flexibility. I do use alot of cottages, but I run as many specialists as I can.

SE is very map dependent now imo. If you can't get Pyramids, and if you can't setup cities with 1-2 5+ food sources, it becomes much less attractive.

Personally, I'd love to see a nerf to cottages since I hate CE, but that would kill the AI tech rate even further.

Another thing I have been thinking about, unhealthiness is a much bigger issue now than ever. I was thinking of trying for lower polulation in cities. Get cities to 15-20 pop, build all health building as I go along, but Biology comes along and we got alot of excess food so maybe I should run more specialists later in the game to minimize population growth. I could replace farms with cottages at that point but they mature slowly, although workshops are becoming more and more attractive. When I start with too many cottages I find my cities do not grow fast enough.

Remember my initial post on this thread was that using a late SE may be more useful in BTS than it was in warlords.

Another thing I have been thinking about, unhealthiness is a much bigger issue now than ever. I was thinking of trying for lower polulation in cities. Get cities to 15-20 pop, build all health building as I go along, but Biology comes along and we got alot of excess food so maybe I should run more specialists later in the game to minimize population growth. I could replace farms with cottages at that point but they mature slowly, although workshops are becoming more and more attractive. When I start with too many cottages I find my cities do not grow fast enough.

Err... How is a specialist city ever going to have a lower population than a comparable output cottage city? By it's nature all the specialists are on top the normal population (which is working farms). Increased unhealthiness and unhappiness has always been an SE disadvantage, now more than ever.

I see the return of corps but settling each in a new foregin city is costing 200-250 gold a pop. It's getting the startup cash. Also it's unpredictable, you may have spread a corp to 20 cities but the AI suddenly goes mercantilism or more frequestly state property your not getting the money (I think).

If they fix the AI, it MIGHT be an issue. As it stands though, all you need is a seed executive to each civ. Mercantilism isn't an issue, since it doesn't prevent you getting income (it just stops them paying maintenance). I haven't checked State proprety yet, but I suspect its the same. In any case, the AI tends to run enviromentalism and stick there (and indeed can be forced to do so).

I actually find SE almost micromanagement free, if you just stick in representation, and settle whatever GP you have in the capital. The Obsolete way. No need to switch the specialists around, since you don't really care what comes out. Actually I usually build the oxford in the capital, and run mostly scientists there, and merchants everywhere else. in the early game, getting pyramind helps a LOT, so i usually aim for that.

The thing with cottages that requires micromanagement is in production. you just don't get enough of it in the early games. so the cities are smaller, production is no good, which means not a lot of units and a low place in the power graph. So i have to constantly remind myself to check the relations, to build troops, to change the lots being worked on and stuff, but with SE, i don't really care that much other than if a city is near happiness cap, whip, or run a specialist. I am never too worried about my place in the power graph because I know i can easily whip up an army. So at least i don't need to micromanage mentally :)

I do want to play more of a CE next few games tho, try something other than whip and conquer :)

Err... How is a specialist city ever going to have a lower population than a comparable output cottage city? By it's nature all the specialists are on top the normal population (which is working farms). Increased unhealthiness and unhappiness has always been an SE disadvantage, now more than ever. Again I am thinking mostly later game. Build farms to ramp up population to happiness max, then switch it to sepcialists. Just a thought though.



If they fix the AI, it MIGHT be an issue. As it stands though, all you need is a seed executive to each civ. Mercantilism isn't an issue, since it doesn't prevent you getting income (it just stops them paying maintenance). I haven't checked State proprety yet, but I suspect its the same. In any case, the AI tends to run enviromentalism and stick there (and indeed can be forced to do so). In most of my games in BTS so far the AI has switched to state property early and does not switch to environmentalism until fairly late. State property says corps have not effect, I am pretty sure I had a corp spread and as soon as an AI switched to state property my income tanked. This is my experience although I do not see it written anywhere.

Yep. War and Great people are the wildcard in this. Imagine you have conquered your entire continent or have an isolated start. Then Dave's advice with a dedicated GP farm is probably the best. Nothing beats Universal Suffrage+Free Speech+Printing Press towns. Just look at the figures:

2 empty grassland tiles. Do you farm the extra grasslands or cottage them? Ignoring :gp: points (assuming that your GP farm is drowning out this particular city)


US+FS+PP Cottages: 2:hammers: 14:commerce:
Biology Farms: 4 extra :food:, allowing 2 representation specialists

Engineers 6:science: 4:hammers:
Scientists 12:science:
Merchants 6:science: 6:gold:
Priests 6:science: 2:gold: 2:hammers:
Artists (only relevant for border culture or cultural victory imho)



So in raw yield, assuming :gold:=:science:=:commerce: and 1:hammers: = 3:commerce: the cottages are 20 yield, whereas the specialists are 12-18 yield. In war you value :hammers: higher, and of course, it is very possible that in your particular game the :gp: points from that city may count, making the specialist option better.

[EDIT] Also, importantly, Biology is more important for the specialist option than either FE, US or PP are to the cottage option.

Another bonus is levees or dikes adding 1:hammers: to river tiles (and sea tiles with dikes). Works for both your cottage cities and a handy boost for your production cities.
A heavily rivered cottage town could pull 20-50% (50-100% without US) increase to raw hammers.

Another bonus is levees or dikes adding 1:hammers: to river tiles (and sea tiles with dikes). Works for both your cottage cities and a handy boost for your production cities.
A heavily rivered cottage town could pull 20-50% (50-100% without US) increase to raw hammers.

This makes sense. 1 leveed Farm plus 2 engineer equals 5 hammers. 2 US leveed cottages net 4 hammers and alot more commerce than the 3 beakers. This way seams to favor the cottages (which should be mature by the time of levees). I think you mean 50-100% WITH US.

One thing to remember about the comparison between 2 cottages, and 2 biology farms supporting 2 specialists is that it takes 4 pop to run the 2 specialists, but only 2 to run the towns.

One of the things that pushes me towards a specialist economy is having 2 or 3 cities with abundant food. Really abundant food. I'm talking about 10 surplus food from 3 tiles. Philisophical is nice, but pacifism (and if fortunate, parthenon), compensates. Spiritual really shines in the specialist economy.

Running 2 or 3 cities at size 8 with 5 (pyramid helped) representation scientists is a lot of beakers, and a lot of GS. Settle all the scientists in the best food city, putting oxford and NE there. Each settled scientist is better than a US town. Either phil or spir work well here. Spiritual is really great for switching between caste/pacifism and Slavery/OR.

Pre-biology, I don't like supporting a SE with just flood plains, and think flood plains are better suited for cottages or supporting mines.

As said before, it all depends. It's hard not to eventually go cottages with a financial leader, but I've had several starts when financial that the best choice seemed to be a colossus/specialist/limited cottage hybrid was the best, planning to transition to more cottages after Democracy.

You just have to look at each city and decide how best it can be developed for maximum contribution to the empire.

I think you mean 50-100% WITH US.

No, he means that if you have already US, then the extra hammers from a levee are only about 20-50%, while if you don't have US and the extra hammer it provides, then the boost is even more dramatic.

Yep. War and Great people are the wildcard in this. Imagine you have conquered your entire continent or have an isolated start. Then Dave's advice with a dedicated GP farm is probably the best. Nothing beats Universal Suffrage+Free Speech+Printing Press towns. Just look at the figures:

2 empty grassland tiles. Do you farm the extra grasslands or cottage them? Ignoring :gp: points (assuming that your GP farm is drowning out this particular city)


US+FS+PP Cottages: 2:hammers: 14:commerce:
Biology Farms: 4 extra :food:, allowing 2 representation specialists

Engineers 6:science: 4:hammers:
Scientists 12:science:
Merchants 6:science: 6:gold:
Priests 6:science: 2:gold: 2:hammers:
Artists (only relevant for border culture or cultural victory imho)



So in raw yield, assuming :gold:=:science:=:commerce: and 1:hammers: = 3:commerce: the cottages are 20 yield, whereas the specialists are 12-18 yield. In war you value :hammers: higher, and of course, it is very possible that in your particular game the :gp: points from that city may count, making the specialist option better.

[EDIT] Also, importantly, Biology is more important for the specialist option than either FE, US or PP are to the cottage option.

I can't accept that it is fair to compare the options in this way. Firstly, assuming you did just build 2 cottages on the 2 grasslands you would be getting 2 commerce and NOT 2 hammers and 14 commerce (until they'd grown into towns, takes 35 turns at normal speed with Emancipation). The specialist will be there as soon as they've grown and giving their beakers and GPPs. So you have a very significant time lag to account for.

You can't dismiss extra GPPs in such a cavalier fashion in BtS. I am regularly producing my 20 odd GPs from as many as 8 different cities. The effect of GAs and the switch to Caste System + Pacifism makes it possible for many cities with large GPP pools to catch up on the city with the NE and pop at least one GP late in the game.

Also a properly run SE will have installed all relevant infrastructure using either Slavery (or now Caste System and workshops plus SP). A CE will be not have many science, espionage or gold multipliers while I'd expect a SE to have most of them. Putting 14 commerce through say just a library (=17.5 beakers) doesn't pay as well as putting 12 beakers (from 2 scientists) through LUO (library, uni, observatory) (= 21 beakers).

That is quite apart from the advantage a SE has of chosing which specialists to run where to take advantage of the best multipliers. Why run merchants in a city with a market but without a grocer and bank? Better to run spies to take advantage of the jail and intelligence agency (+ 100% EPs) or scientists with LUO (+75% beakers). That gives an additional level of efficiency a CE can't match unless somehow it runs the research slider at either 100% (expensive) or 0% (very slow research).

In the late game assuming 1 commerce = 1 beaker = 1 gold = 1 EP might be true for a CE (although I think you are being unfair to the CE here) but it certainly is not true for a SE. My core cities (who have commerce from trade and some tiles) would get 1 commerce = 2 gold = 2 EPs = 1.75 beakers.

Summary : your analysis falls down by ignoring GPPs (may or may not be true depending on other factors in the game) and by not making realistic assumptions about the differences in the infrastructure. You are comparing a DaveMcW CE city with a DaveMcW SE city and not an UncleJJ SE city :p By that I mean one with almost no infrastructure with one that has a lot of "Smart infrastructure" and that runs the specialists matched to the infrastructure modifiers. It makes a world of difference to the maths.

I can't accept that it is fair to compare the options in this way.
No it isn't really. You are quite right. But it still says something about the endgame (early industrial age forwards)


Firstly, assuming you did just build 2 cottages on the 2 grasslands you would be getting 2 commerce and NOT 2 hammers and 14 commerce (until they'd grown into towns, takes 35 turns at normal speed with Emancipation).

Yes. Good point, and one I've been anticipating. I think I'll do some rough numbers with growth taken into account (e.g. for x hundred turns with civics coming online at given turns, will SE or CE give more benefits)


You can't dismiss extra GPPs in such a cavalier fashion in BtS.

I never meant to dismiss them in a cavalier fashion, hence I stated caveats.


Also a properly run SE will have installed all relevant infrastructure using either Slavery (or now Caste System and workshops plus SP). A CE will be not have many science, espionage or gold multipliers while I'd expect a SE to have most of them.
...
In the late game assuming 1 commerce = 1 beaker = 1 gold = 1 EP might be true for a CE (although I think you are being unfair to the CE here) but it certainly is not true for a SE. My core cities (who have commerce from trade and some tiles) would get 1 commerce = 2 gold = 2 EPs = 1.75 beakers.

Yep. I shall try and include rough estimates of this when I get around to doing the numbers. Again, if you want to discuss superiorty, I think e.g. DaveMcW is your man :)


That is quite apart from the advantage a SE has of chosing which specialists to run where to take advantage of the best multipliers. Why run merchants in a city without a grocer and bank? Better to run spies to take advantage of the jail and inteligence agency (+ 100% EPs) or scientists with LUO (+75% beakers).

The trick is not to build any percentage boosters in "pure cottage cities", rather focusing on cottage growth until the advent of democracy.


Summary : your analysis falls down by ignoring GPPs (may or may not be true depending on other factors in the game) and by not making realistic assumptions about the differences in the infrastructure.

Answered above ;)


You are comparing a DaveMcW CE city with a DaveMcW SE city and not an UncleJJ SE city :p By that I mean one with almost no infrastructure with one that has a lot of "Smart infrastructure" and that runs the specialists matched to the infrastructure modifiers. It makes a world of difference to the maths.
:lol:

I can't wait until Dave sees this. :lol:

There are several other advantages a SE city has over a CE city, though I'll mix and match between them quite happily.

1. Farms create growth faster. It's incredibly obvious, of course, but this means that farming over everything and sprinting towards each max pop cap at every instance is faster with SE than it is with CE. That's because you can take a Scientist and set him to produce food. You can't do that as easily with a CE.

2. Specialists don't work tiles. Again, incredibly obvious, but this means that if your early cities are sharing a food resource on a corner for growth boosts, A SE city will feel the pinch quite a bit later than a CE does, which depends on tiles. The fact that you need less tiles also means that you can spend less on worker time to get SEs up and running.

3. Specialists can shift work. I'm really Mr. Obvious today. What this means is that you can shift your workforce to do what you need in a SE. If you just got Banks, you can shift your Merchants to Priests (boosted by Angkor, if possible) to help bring the Bank online faster. If your economy is crashing from conquest, you can shift a few Specialists here and there to tweak the Science rate very closely so as to eke out every last few gold you can muster.


futurehermit:

I'm sure you're playing at the Monarch level or so. Obsolete's preferred method of settling has great appeal for SE against a laggard bunch of AIs around this level. The walkthroughs he posts show a relative lack of broad tech base, but really, this is only true because he neglected up his Empire so much. He really could've done much better.

Of course, I don't use an exclusive SE myself, nor do I see any real push for it. I run the SE where I think they're great, and cottages where I think they're great. Representation, Angkor Wat, and Sistine Chapel are key Wonders for SEs. The Sistine, in particular, is extremely powerful for cultural pushes or wins using plenty of specialists.

Should be interesting indeed. For the fun factor, but also because discussion between you guys are almost guaranteed to be enlightening.

1. Farms create growth faster. It's incredibly obvious, of course, but this means that farming over everything and sprinting towards each max pop cap at every instance is faster with SE than it is with CE. That's because you can take a Scientist and set him to produce food. You can't do that as easily with a CE.
A cottage produces 2 :food:, a specialist none. So running 1 farm and 1 cottages spurs growth faster than 1 farm and 1 specialist. Don't make the mistake of thinking CE=no farms.


2. Specialists don't work tiles. Again, incredibly obvious, but this means that if your early cities are sharing a food resource on a corner for growth boosts, A SE city will feel the pinch quite a bit later than a CE does, which depends on tiles. The fact that you need less tiles also means that you can spend less on worker time to get SEs up and running.

Why would a CE "feel the pinch" earlier?


3. Specialists can shift work. I'm really Mr. Obvious today. What this means is that you can shift your workforce to do what you need in a SE. If you just got Banks, you can shift your Merchants to Priests (boosted by Angkor, if possible) to help bring the Bank online faster. If your economy is crashing from conquest, you can shift a few Specialists here and there to tweak the Science rate very closely so as to eke out every last few gold you can muster.

Nothing gets your bank built quicker than rush buying ;) Which is only really, really powerful with +500 or more gold per turn, which is easy to achieve with a CE around the mid renaissance.

This makes sense. 1 leveed Farm plus 2 engineer equals 5 hammers. 2 US leveed cottages net 4 hammers and alot more commerce than the 3 beakers. This way seams to favor the cottages (which should be mature by the time of levees). I think you mean 50-100% WITH US.

No I meant without US you'll see a bigger boost as you'll have few hammers being produced. I gave a poor example though...
Worse case only your city is producing any hammers so you'll see 100% increase or every 2 river tiles...

Having a couple river farms and running plains cottages would give an increased productions above pre BtS setups.
Trade off is 1 hammers for about 7 commerce per tile...

assuming levee, US, PP, FS and Bio
plains town = 1f 7c 2h
plains river town = 1f 8c 3h

grassland town = 2f 7c 1h:
grassland river town = 2f 8c 2h:

grassland hill town = 1f 7c 2h
grassland hill river town = 1f 8c 3h

grassland farm = 4f 0c 0h
grassland river farm = 4f 1c 1h

Figuring 3 tiles...
2 plains or grass hill cottages + grassland farm = 6f 14c 4h
2 plains or grass hill river cottages + grassland river farm = 6f 17c 7h
3 grassland cottages = 6f 21c 3h
3 grassland river cottages = 6f 24c 6h

So with 50% river all grassland cottages @ pop 20 = 40:food: 150:commerce: 30:hammers:
say 10 plains non river tiles grassland rivers fully cottaged and farmed @ pop 20 = 40:food: 115:commerce: 40:hammers: (think thats right...)
50% rivered all grassland farms @ pop 20 = 80:food: 10:commerce: 10:hammers: so 10 specialists gives you 40:food: 5:commerce: 5:hammers: + see below

* Biology Farms: 4 food extra , allowing 2 science representation specialists
o Engineers 6 science 4 hammers
o Scientists 12 science
o Merchants 6 science 6 wealth
o Priests 6 science 2 hammers 2 wealth
o Artists (only relevant for border culture or cultural victory imho)

unless I'm off somewhere
commerce city running 90% science gets 103-135 science * multipliers and 11-15 wealth * multipliers
compared to
SE = (all scientist) 125 science * same multipliers maybe 5 wealth * multipliers.

Haven't really done much SE so I'm probably missing something.

unless I'm off somewhere
commerce city running 90% science gets 103-135 science * multipliers and 11-15 wealth * multipliers
compared to
SE = (all scientist) 125 science * same multipliers maybe 5 wealth * multipliers.

Haven't really done much SE so I'm probably missing something.

The numbers I gave assume that gold and beakers are equally worthwile. Happiness from culture is ignored since SE cities generally suffer more from unhappiness.

Just do both! Run specialists in the early game when they really provide a big advantage because techs are cheap, and then make the switch to cottages later when the specialists don't proportionally provide such a big boost to your research. Or, just run specialists in a few cities and make everything else cottages, or do both at the same time. Why do one or the other exclusively all the time?

Just do both! Run specialists in the early game when they really provide a big advantage because techs are cheap, and then make the switch to cottages later when the specialists don't proportionally provide such a big boost to your research. Or, just run specialists in a few cities and make everything else cottages, or do both at the same time. Why do one or the other exclusively all the time?
( Sssh! Don't tell them the secret ;) )

Just do both! Run specialists in the early game when they really provide a big advantage because techs are cheap, and then make the switch to cottages later when the specialists don't proportionally provide such a big boost to your research. Or, just run specialists in a few cities and make everything else cottages, or do both at the same time. Why do one or the other exclusively all the time?

What else are you gonna do at size 6-7 capped out with a library in each town with not much to build? :D

whip to size 4 or run two scientists...

Yeah, hybrid is usually the best. But the thing is with CE, you pretty much have to use universal suffage and emacipation, while SE means representation and caste system. Under hybrid some of the cities will not be able to take full advantage of those civics and that kinda sucks. It would be nice to have a federal-state style civic system, where one could change the civic for each individual city. Yeah, local sliders would be great too.

Well I think the reason you wouldnt want to run them both at the same time is b/c of things like civics, you run Rep but only cities with specialists gain any benefits right. Pacifism is the same deal, why just have 1 city gain the benfits? etc etc~

*someone beat me to it*

local sliders would be great too.

True city specialization, but would be game breaking i would think. Using one slider at the loss of others balances out the need vs want.

Imagine if you will...
3 100% culture cities,
2 100% science cottaged heavy +science cities
2 100% wealth cottaged and :commerce: resources with wallstreet and some shrines.
2 :hammers: cities just to round out your 9 shrines for cathedrals and troops...

700+ :science: per turn
500+ :gold: per turn
300+ :culture: per turn in 3 cities

Pacifism is the same deal, why just have 1 city gain the benfits?
Why would pacifism only benefit one city in a hybrid economy?

Imagine if you will...
3 100% culture cities,
2 100% science cottaged heavy +science cities
2 100% wealth cottaged and :commerce: resources with wallstreet and some shrines.
2 :hammers: cities just to round out your 9 shrines for cathedrals and troops...

There should be a "local government center" building which allows you to run the city with a +-10% difference to the empire-wide slider settings (but not below 0%). Perhaps the vassalage civic should allow this to go to +-10% without the building and +-20% with it.

There should be a "local government center" building which allows you to run the city with a +-10% difference to the empire-wide slider settings (but not below 0%). Perhaps the vassalage civic should allow this to go to +-10% without the building and +-20% with it.

they do :mischief: Monastery +10% science, bank + 50% gold... no civics required :D

they do :mischief: Monastery +10% science, bank + 50% gold... no civics required :D

You know what I meant ;)

I think both economies have gotten more flexible and powerful with BTS - and it may take a while before we understand all of the impact. (Certainly for me anyway).

I've played two Monarch games both to Diplomatic wins - one with an SE and one with a CE. Both played very differently than my warlords games, but both found new options in the late game.

Some of my discoveries:

- Just how powerful a levy can be. My ironworks city in my last game was a fully cottaged city with a couple of food specials. I had lots of plains cottages next to a river that wound past nearly every tile. I hadn't planned it as a production city and was astonished late in the game that it beat every single one of my production cities once I built the levy. Most tiles were getting three hammers and all were getting at least two. Add in temples and cathedrals I had built for the Apostolic Palace bonus and it was my best production city.

- How powerful the national park is. I build this in a city with 4-5 food sources (floodplains or fish) and 10+ forests. Its not unusual to have 15-20 specialists which means that this city is either a very powerful second GP farm or a super-monster-NE/NP-farm. Add a food corporation into this and you can grow this city huge - near unlimited happy and health.

- How much the trade multipliers for international trade affect things. In my latest game I rexed over lots of small islands that had just a couple of seafood and a few plains for cottages. Gold-rushed a couple of workboats, a granary and a courthouse and left them. Not too long later they are size 10 and pulling in 24 commerce a turn from just trade alone. I had cities all over the globe and basically ignored the distance. The extra six commerce from free market easily covered the savings I would make from state property. In Warlords I would have felt compelled to switch to State property.

- How powerful Corporations can be. In SE I tend to ignore them because of the Caste/System + State Property combo for awesome production and high GPP growth. But with the CE they allow me to craft monster cities that are super specialized.

[Duplicate removed]

frob2900:


A cottage produces 2 , a specialist none. So running 1 farm and 1 cottages spurs growth faster than 1 farm and 1 specialist. Don't make the mistake of thinking CE=no farms.


Not at all. I don't assume that a CE has no farms. It's just that with tiles taking up what they do, SE cities usually have more tiles available for farming for city growth purposes.

This is why a CE would "feel the pinch" earlier. It uses tiles to work population, so if your cities are sharing squares, the CE will hit the pop limit for working tiles sooner.


Nothing gets your bank built quicker than rush buying Which is only really, really powerful with +500 or more gold per turn, which is easy to achieve with a CE around the mid renaissance.


An SE could have money as well, with Merchant Specialists and Merchant GPs. US, of course, is best for buying stuff, but you can't do that for every improvement. Having the flexibility to shift science to production is a definite advantage.

frog2900:

I'm not a "frog", I'm a "frob" :)


This is why a CE would "feel the pinch" earlier. It uses tiles to work population, so if your cities are sharing squares, the CE will hit the pop limit for working tiles sooner.

The :food: -> :gold:/:science: conversion ratio is poorer for an SE (i.e. you need more tiles to get equivalent yields). Hence an SE city needs to work more tiles, and needs to be larger. So the pinch argument doesn't work.


An SE could have money as well, with Merchant Specialists and Merchant GPs. US, of course, is best for buying stuff, but you can't do that for every improvement. Having the flexibility to shift science to production is a definite advantage.
An SE doesn't have as much money as a post democracy CE. No matter how you swing the numbers, the cottage economy wins by leaps and bounds.

Why would pacifism only benefit one city in a hybrid economy?

B/c the benefits of pacifism is GPs. You prolly wont be able to overcome the speed of yer main city in more than maybe 1 or 2 other cities if yer lucky, hence all those other GPP are wasted.

I suppose the other side effect of pacifism is no upkeep, but thats prolly negated by yer military expense.

Altho that sounds good on paper, I generally end up falling into the same trap, Ill run pacifism for a bit and have only 1 city prosper the most even running a SE, especially playing with obsoletes method.

Being philo, running pacifism & in a GA is fun times~ :gp:

I'm not a "frog", I'm a "frob" :)


The :food: -> :gold:/:science: conversion ratio is poorer for an SE (i.e. you need more tiles to get equivalent yields). Hence an SE city needs to work more tiles, and needs to be larger. So the pinch argument doesn't work.



An SE doesn't have as much money as a post democracy CE. No matter how you swing the numbers, the cottage economy wins by leaps and bounds.

I think one other thing you have to keep in mind thru all this, is that playing a SE you have cities that produce WAY more :hammers: than in a CE, then later in the game you make your cities produce research and the SE wins by leaps & bounds.

B/c the benefits of pacifism is GPs. You prolly wont be able to overcome the speed of yer main city in more than maybe 1 or 2 other cities if yer lucky, hence all those other GPP are wasted.

You can adjust the GPP rates to make sure each city is generating a great person. If you can manage getting great people regularly from 3 cities, then that is very valuable and not to be scoffed at.


Altho that sounds good on paper, I generally end up falling into the same trap, Ill run pacifism for a bit and have only 1 city prosper the most even running a SE, especially playing with obsoletes method.

With obsoletes method you only have one city :mischief:

Being philo, running pacifism & in a GA is fun times~ :gp:
I had forgot about the BtS +100%:gp: boost during golden ages. Thanks for reminding me, that's something I'll have to try out :goodjob:

I think one other thing you have to keep in mind thru all this, is that playing a SE you have cities that produce WAY more :hammers: than in a CE, then later in the game you make your cities produce research and the SE wins by leaps & bounds.
Are you seriously suggesting that a late game SE outsciences a late game CE?

frob2900:


The -> / conversion ratio is poorer for an SE (i.e. you need more tiles to get equivalent yields). Hence an SE city needs to work more tiles, and needs to be larger. So the pinch argument doesn't work.


Huh? That's patently not true.

Let's say you've got Pyramids so you have a choice between US and Rep. Let's further assume that you've got Free Speech from Liberalism, but no Printing Press yet, and assumed Towns

Each Town under US/FS would yield 1 :hammers: +6 :commerce:, and in the case of grasslands, +2 "food:. This would be worked by 1 pop.

Total is 9 "resources" for 1 pop, working one tile. If we get 4 pop
8 :food: (4 :food: net)
4 :hammers:
24 :commerce:

Now, if we build Farms and Specialists instead, working 3 grassland tiles only
9 :food: (support 5 specialists for 4 :food: net)
30 :science: (5 science specialists)
GPP points.

The SE is more pop intensive, but there is absolutely no question that the CE is more tile-intensive.


An SE doesn't have as much money as a post democracy CE. No matter how you swing the numbers, the cottage economy wins by leaps and bounds.


It depends on what you've been using the GPs for. I'm not advocating a pure CE or a pure SE. I'm just comparing an SE city and a CE city. Post demo, the CE is definitely winner for gpt, but in earlier periods, the SE definitely has great advantages. Transition is what I do, but even when I do, sometimes I find that keeping a few Specialist intensive cities is advisable.

Now, if we build Farms and Specialists instead, working 3 grassland tiles only

Working 3 grassland tiles gives you +3:food: (one for each farm, since they produce 3:food: but 2 is consumed by the farmer).
That means you can support 1.5 specialists (which consume 2 :food: each)
So you get 9 :science: (1.5 x 6:science:, since we are running scientists under representation)

I think one other thing you have to keep in mind thru all this, is that playing a SE you have cities that produce WAY more :hammers: than in a CE, then later in the game you make your cities produce research and the SE wins by leaps & bounds.


How so? Early game I agree you will get more hammers from a SE because you have more farms to whip from. But later in the game the CE will produce more hammers due to US town bonus and cash rushing.

Production cities will be fairly equivalent. State Property and Caste System might help an SE, but Corporations can make that up for a CE.

Your research cities in a SE produce few hammers at all. (You have the flexibility to convert research cities into cash or production cities - but either of these produce less science even when building research).

Your research cities in a CE are now hammer monsters - getting +15 hammers per turn from towns means they can build all the infrastructure they ever want and quickly too. Then they can build research, meaning that the town is effectively producing 8 science per turn (before multipliers).

Didn't i just do that break down last page? :confused:

My bad. Wrong calculation. So 4 Towns don't produce excess food at all.

Hm... This means that working the identical 4 tiles would yield only 12 :science:.

That would probably explain why I keep getting forced to shift strategies around mid-renaissance. That's quite interesting. Thanks.

Well cottages take forever to grow, plus if the AI was smart(er), it would destroy all your precious cottages the second if goes to war with you via air power or missles or spies or paratroopers (huuuullo stone age).

What is the difference between a cottage at 7:commerce: and a forge at 5:hammers:? In a city that has forges everywhere (running caste/sp) you can build almost any building/unit in 1 turn (normal speed), then just go back to building research again, meanwhile an all cottaged up city needs to spend more time building something, or rush buy it but usually you wait thru the first turn so it at least takes 2, and if you dont have the money you just hafta wait. Also with a forged up city you can easily switch into war mode and produce units faster, sparing you the preparation you need to take vs. all cottage.

The one thing I keep seeing people mention is theyre making over 100:gold:/turn even at 100% science now that corps are here, if thats the case corps either sounds OP or youre just playing at noble level where thats not that hard to do. I dunno, I havent tried corps all that much, mostly b/c they sound broken right now.

What is the difference between a cottage at 7:commerce: and a forge at 5:hammers:? In a city that has forges everywhere (running caste/sp) you can build almost any building/unit in 1 turn (normal speed), then just go back to building research again, meanwhile an all cottaged up city needs to spend more time building something, or rush buy it but usually you wait thru the first turn so it at least takes 2, and if you dont have the money you just hafta wait. Also with a forged up city you can easily switch into war mode and produce units faster, sparing you the preparation you need to take vs. all cottage.
Do you mean Workshops?

I haven't really tried them. Could be interesting, but I still doubt they are better than towns.

What is the difference between a cottage at 7:commerce: and a forge at 5:hammers:? In a city that has forges everywhere (running caste/sp) you can build almost any building/unit in 1 turn (normal speed), then just go back to building research again, meanwhile an all cottaged up city needs to spend more time building something, or rush buy it but usually you wait thru the first turn so it at least takes 2, and if you don't have the money you just hafta wait. Also with a forged up city you can easily switch into war mode and produce units faster, sparing you the preparation you need to take vs. all cottage.

The one thing I keep seeing people mention is they're making over 100:gold:/turn even at 100% science now that corps are here, if thats the case corps either sounds OP or youre just playing at noble level where thats not that hard to do. I dunno, I haven't tried corps all that much, mostly b/c they sound broken right now.

problems with SP
you cant run corps.
a decent size empire will make more in free trade then SP saves you in maintenance.

good things about SP
watermills +1:food:
workshops +1:food:
no maintenance cost for distance


Workshops are a bit costly in anything but SP. needs 1 farm on grassland and 2 on plains. you'd need sushi to balance it i'd think. Not to sure haven't gotten much of a feel for corps yet myself...

If your running cottaged cities for :commerce: your probably running a mined/lumbermilled/watermilled city for :hammers: for troops. Very possibly a very specialized one pumping out units with 3-4 promotions at twice the rate.

CE isn't just the :commerce: cities there is production it's just in its own place. Very possibly in SP with a workshoped/watermilled grassland valley with an assortment of national/world wonders and settled GG.

What is the difference between a cottage at 7:commerce: and a forge at 5:hammers:? In a city that has forges everywhere (running caste/sp) you can build almost any building/unit in 1 turn (normal speed), then just go back to building research again, meanwhile an all cottaged up city needs to spend more time building something, or rush buy it but usually you wait thru the first turn so it at least takes 2, and if you dont have the money you just hafta wait. Also with a forged up city you can easily switch into war mode and produce units faster, sparing you the preparation you need to take vs. all cottage.



A workshop makes 4 hammers. Your town makes 7 commerce and 1 hammer. If you wanted to devote your commerce to producing hammers for rushbuying you can get all the buildings you need very quickly and easily match the hammer production of the workshop. But usually your 1 hammer from each town suffices for building production except where you need a lot of the same building quickly - eg universities, leaving the commerce for science.

If you build science then your workshop can produce only 4 science before multipliers. Your town can produce 8.

If you want a production boost you set science to zero and rushbuy. 10 turns of this is enough to buy any wonder, get an instant army or upgrade all your units. I've built the manhatten project and rush bought 8 nukes on the very same turn.

The other cool thing about US is that the city you produce the gold in isn't the city you need to spend it in. Your commerce cities in the heartland produce gold which gets insta-rushed in cities nearer the front (or new cities starting up in times of peace).

Some new things in favour of a late-game SE:

1) The SE player is going to be beelining Biology after Constitution (and can use scientists to bulb themselves an advantage towards getting there). Biology is now very much nicer. First, there's the National Park, which can be crazy if it's been well prepared-for.

2) Second, it allows for Medicine, which in turn allows for SUSHI. Sushi allows for maybe 3-4 extra specialists in every appropriate city, or a veritable frenzy of infrastructure whipping THEN 3-4 extra specialists. Whipping the executives out from a small rubbish city is also a very quick and effective way of spreading them.
As a minor point, the extra food, hospitals and environmentalism can also help with running more industrial parks for engo specialists.

3) Espionage. The SE wins hand-down in late-game espionage, because the relevant buildings (and spy specialists) are so efficient. Whipping jail+intelligence agency+security bureau gives 44EPs, and lets you run 7 spy specialists for a total of 100EPs (150 with a Scotland Yard) + 28RPs (multiplied by any science buildings, of course). And Great Spy points too!
It's much more efficient than using the slider. It's probably actually the most efficient way of generating commerce.
A CE may, of course, set up a dedicated farm city for espionage, but it will be less efficient in itself, and it can't easily be extended to more of the empire.
The great thing for an SE here is that an established science city can whip in the spy buildings and, without caste system, run 3 scientists and 7 spies for 3/4 of the beaker yield of 10 scientists, and also gain a mass of EPs.
And just whipping all round is a nice way of getting those buildings in a large number of cities to be producing 44EPs even without spy specialists.

And the best way to spend all that espionage? Massing a whole load of spies and going and obliterating all of an opponent's hard-won towns. It's cheap, it's effective, and it's lots of evil fun (and it's probably due for a change in a patch). It doesn't matter if your tech rate is a little slower than it would be with cottages, because everyone else's tech rate is way in the hole too.
And you can then follow it up with lots of poison and unhappiness and other nastiness, or just incite lots of revolts and use an army of cavalry to blitz through an enemy's weaker cities.

On the flipside, the SE is much less vulnerable to espionage. Destroying 10 towns is a pretty big setback, destroying 10 farms is an utter waste of EPs. Plus the food surplus means that poisoned water/foment unhappiness don't actually do terribly much - you have to run a few less specialists for a few turns, perhaps, but you won't lose hard-won population. Or you can whip population away and know that they'll regrow nice and quickly.


As a side note, an early-game SE is slightly benefitted by espionage, since an early Great Spy (though difficult to get) is VERY useful, and the courthouse lets you run a third useful specialist when you're under slavery. At that point, courthouse-generated spy specialists are also comparatively efficient commerce-generators anyway.

Yes. Good point, and one I've been anticipating. I think I'll do some rough numbers with growth taken into account (e.g. for x hundred turns with civics coming online at given turns, will SE or CE give more benefits)

Someone already did this some time ago. And I'm sure someone else will do the same in a few more months ;)

All this to say that perhaps you can search for it instead or doing again all the work :)

Whats the deal with all this ''late game'' talk? By the time corporations and such roll around its all over anyway. Im playing prince\arboria\huge and have have 800 gold per turn from a pair of wall street corporations....it only represents about 15% of my cottage econ at that time. Also i ussualy use the unused grassland from earlier(when i couldnt support size 20) to make farms and get plenty of specalists....4-7 spies\engineers per city. The AI ussualy preferss these specalists when the pop goes up and its too much pain to micro myself. So you could say i run hybrid cities...500-1000 EP per turn is a number im seeing in alot of my games.

I dont use production cities, its all cottages except for the odd hills(ussualy run 1 farm per hill) All river grasslands are cottaged and with levees are putting out 2 hammer\9 commerce...i have had no problems fighting wars(aggressive AI on) although i only conquered one civ, i have a gigantic tech lead(modern armour versus infantry and some AIs are crippled by my corporations)

I think alot of the confusion in this thread would go down with some saves posted, though. I normally play deity but we play all our LAN games on noble\prince so i am running on those levels(training\practise)

Workshops are not competitive with towns. Sure, running pure hammer economy the right way can win most difficulty levels, but immortal/deity are all about edges here and there. That's why old school FE players promoted it as the most adaptable economy, because adaptability is what you need to gain an edge when the chance arises.

I am undecided on the FE - CE argument, I prefer to see theory in action. Here I read about city planning to the 10th, spreadsheats, whatever; such greenhouse stuff does not belong to the high levels. There's aggressive settling, backstabbing wars, immense cultural pressure, and the need to expand more, usually thru war and despite higher maintenance, to counter the AI bonuses.

Moreover, the argument so far is missing on important issues, like trade routes, drafting, resources, buy v. whip, even on GPPs. Without such considerations, you'll never know what economy is better.

As far as the simplified town - specialist comparison goes, here's a real example of a real late game FE science city on BtS Immortal.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/106800/SE.jpg

So, this city has exactly 12 irrigations and incidently runs exactly 12 scientists, so it's the perfect comparison for farms/specialists v. towns.
scientists = 12*6 = 72 beakers
towns = 12*7 = 84 commerce; also 12 hammers
84 commerce * 80% tech rate = 67.2 commerce for science, 16.8 for gold

net science gain from commerce for specialists: 4.8 beakers +225% = 15.6 beakers
minus 12 hammers + 100% = 24 beakers
8.4 less beakers and 33.6 less gold (16.8 +100%) for the specialists

That's 42 less science/gold per turn when running specialists instead of towns. However, this calculation does not include any number of factors:

- GPPs. The city will produce a GP in 20-30 turns, which is likely before the game's end. The GP will be a GS with 99% certainty and, at cost of slightly above 3000 GPPs, he will yield 2000-3000 beakers. If we count 3 GPPs equal to 2 beakers in this case we already have the specialists beating the towns in value.

- the specialists create 24 culture/turn (Sistine Chapel). While Free Speech will be as effective at some ~98 total culture/turn, running it will hurt Espionage, maintenance, and will eliminate the drafting option entirely.

- Counting in a supermarket in 3 turns, the specialist city will be at -2 food due to unhealthiness compared to a cottage one. Also, a cottage one will have enough free health to make Industrial Park viable. On the other hand, losing 12 size will dramatically rearrange trade routes and results in a loss of ~8 base commerce (26 science).

I'd say we don't have a clear winner so far.

But, 12 towns don't just spring out of nowhere. And there's also the flexibility of FE, should I decide to go for domination or build space component, the city can be workshopped in no time for nearly 200 hammers/turn. Citizens may starve, but they regrow faster than towns. Now I like this city as FE better.

---

So, what's the trick to run FE all the way to Alpha Centauri? It's managing the higher health cap (slider can help for the happy cap). In this game, I have literally all health resources and all my cities are on fresh water, sea, or both.

Well, my current game as Roosevelt has truned out be a late game hybrid. Sid's Suchi is apread throughout (no power yet since I have no coal by hydropwer is almost there). Without screen shots (the game is at home) how some of my cities have developed

Washington: Mega productions capital (1 or 2 towns), has national epic and ironworks, running Beuacracy. Currently running I think 7 engineers. Building Cristo wonder so I can switch back and forth to US to turbo buy, then flop back to representation.

New York: Espionage capital with 2 shrines and home to the Sushi corp. Running 7 spies, has 2 settled great spies and scottland yard. Have not built Wall street yet as I need one more city to build a bank (almost there). May switch to 7 merchants with wall street as I have ALOT of EP points against everyone and I am not doing spy missions (I prefer to keep the EP edge over all AIs). The city has three towns all on flood plains.

Boston: Heavily forrested with forrest preserves. Built National Park and Oxford here. Running 7 scientists and 3 engineers, it is producing more science beakers than any other city and it does not have an academy yet. I think one lone town. One note on national parks, I think it's a waste to build the globe theater in teh same city. The power of a national park is the free specialists fro forrest preservse which also give you 1 happy per preserve. 7 preserves is 7 happys, so globe theater is wasted. I think Oxford is the correct choice.

Philadelphial: Only major costal city I have Moari statues (worthless now, I am not working sea tiles, but was big early on) and heroic epic (and drydock) to mass produce my navy. I think there 1 or 2 towns, one is on a flood plains.

Atlanta: Was a cottage farm from day 1 and took a very long time to build it up. In restrospect I wish I had farmed it until democracy, then built the cottages. I play Marathon speed so it takes 100+ turns to mature a cottage to a town.

Other cities were all essentially costal cities that I cottage spammed as much as possible. They are maturing and adding commerce.

So back to the origional thread post. I think in BTS the early strongest cities benefit most from the SE, with the national park, espionage, and corps plus the old items they can be real powerhouses. CE is real powerful later in the game for non core cities. I have played a peaceful defensive game (I think 11 cities, and plan 1 more to get aluminum), but if I had conquered alot of cities I expect I would be converting as many as I could to CE cities late in the game.

One final note, I think the Cristo Redentor is a big boost to a hybrid economy, you can mass buy what you need with US for one turn and switch in one turn to representation. Absolutely brutal, better than a spritual leader for late game. I would now rate the cristo redentor higher than statue of liberty and pyramids.

Yep. War and Great people are the wildcard in this. Imagine you have conquered your entire continent or have an isolated start. Then Dave's advice with a dedicated GP farm is probably the best. Nothing beats Universal Suffrage+Free Speech+Printing Press towns. Just look at the figures:

2 empty grassland tiles. Do you farm the extra grasslands or cottage them? Ignoring :gp: points (assuming that your GP farm is drowning out this particular city)


US+FS+PP Cottages: 2:hammers: 14:commerce:
Biology Farms: 4 extra :food:, allowing 2 representation specialists

Engineers 6:science: 4:hammers:
Scientists 12:science:
Merchants 6:science: 6:gold:
Priests 6:science: 2:gold: 2:hammers:
Artists (only relevant for border culture or cultural victory imho)



So in raw yield, assuming :gold:=:science:=:commerce: and 1:hammers: = 3:commerce: the cottages are 20 yield, whereas the specialists are 12-18 yield. In war you value :hammers: higher, and of course, it is very possible that in your particular game the :gp: points from that city may count, making the specialist option better.

[EDIT] Also, importantly, Biology is more important for the specialist option than either FE, US or PP are to the cottage option.

This is a good comparison but it's forgeting the one major asset of running the SE, and that is the continuous stream of Great People produced. This more than balances up for the differences highlighted. A good SE will churn out a Great Person every 6-15 turns, particularly if with the Parthenon and under Pacifism.

Getting the Pyramids really does help, as without the early Representation one is kind of running at half speed for rather too long. Given that Representation is usually followed by someone getting Democracy and adopting Emancipation, it's not long before one has to forego Caste System. Still, by that time one usually has enough of the specialist creating buildings to compensate. If you are running a SE then Biology should be the main target of that era.

I don't know why someone earlier suggested that the CE is more dependent on buildings that boost science or gold... these such buildings will also boost the beakers and gold produced by specialists.

If you include the GPP advantage in the most straightforward way possible, that's a straight +1 :hammers: and +9 :science: for a settled GS. The comparison is skewed because even the most rabid CE enthusiast is really a hybrid player. NO one in his right mind will neglect to make even just one GP farm.

Even so, my experience has been that poor GP candidates (tertiary cities) don't really produce enough GPP to make much of a difference against a dedicated one. The Empire-wide nature of GP production means that SE cities will be remarkably beneficial for a small Civ, with each additional city diluting the comparative benefit of running an SE in that city. We see this marked power of a single SE in a VERY small Civ in obsolete's walkthroughs.

Once we reach peripheral cities, the value of GPP in those sites is almost nil.

If you are running a SE then Biology should be the main target of that era.
.

Yes, but not just for the farms. Biology opens up medicine and refrideration which open the 2 food corps.

Running SE, I usually have three decent/good GP farms (not equally strong, but they all produce plenty GP). I hope that people will stop assuming that All SE players use 1 GP farm.

I find that 1 great GP farm is good for the beginning, but after liberalism (or even earlier) it's certainly better to have as many GP farms as possible.

1 GP farm is not what a SE is about. Plus 1 GP farm doesn't produce nearly as many great people as a well engineered SE would (i.e. every 6-15 turns or so).

Someone mentioned espionage and destroying towns. Whilst this is a currently an extremely valid and (over)powerful tactic just now, it has been changed in Solver's patch and therefore will undoubtedly be changed in the official patch. It's still powerful, however.

This is a good comparison but it's forgeting the one major asset of running the SE, and that is the continuous stream of Great People produced. This more than balances up for the differences highlighted. A good SE will churn out a Great Person every 6-15 turns, particularly if with the Parthenon and under Pacifisms.

Yes. I did say that, however. You also seem to be missing the fact that I gave the SE biology, which is a HUGE advantage.

Yes. I did say that, however. You also seem to be missing the fact that I gave the SE biology, which is a HUGE advantage.

But you also did assume Universal Suffrage+Free Speech+Printing Press towns ;)

But you also did assume Universal Suffrage+Free Speech+Printing Press towns ;)
Biology is a much, much larger advantage, no matter how you spin it, so youre missing the point.

Take away US and Printing Press and towns are still much better than non-biology farms+specialists. Free speech is debatable, but on the other hand it comes with Liberalism which is a rather early tech.

I'm not missing the point. I think if you're going to say that "advantage for farm" is a "much, much larger advantage" than "advantageS to towns", then it warrants some number crushing instead of just stating it.

DrJambo and OKScientist:

Actually, I was saying that all players produce a GP farm regardless of whether they declare themselves "SE" or "CE" so in that sense, everyone's really playing a hybrid economy. It's just that some people skew one way and some people skew the other way.

Therefore, the difference between these strategies isn't how much a pure SE differs from a pure CE, but how much the skews differ from each other.

Specifically, given that even CE enthusiasts can be counted on to create at least 1 or 2 GP farms, how much more GP will an SE-intensive economy produce, and will it be enough to offset the Town advantages under the right Civics for each?

frob2900:


Take away US and Printing Press and towns are still much better than non-biology farms+specialists. Free speech is debatable, but on the other hand it comes with Liberalism which is a rather early tech.


WITHOUT US and Printing Press and Free Speech? That's a bit much. Under those conditions, Towns only produce 4 :commerce:. A Rep Scientist's 6 :science: easily trumps that plus the GPP, and the Scientist doesn't need to be grown.

Free Speech also isn't as universal as you might think because it DOES rather conflict with other powerful Civics like Nationhood and Bureaucracy. The sheer hammer power of optimal Draft conditions can't easily be made up for. Yes, you can shift Civics around, but at the very least for that duration, the FS bonuses don't contribute.

I rather think that US and Printing Press, as well as FS, are rather central to the advantages a Town provides.

Roxlimn,

Yes, you're correct in what you're saying. It's true to say that most people playing SE will have some cottage based cities (probably through conquest) and vice versa.

frob2900,

yeah, the post of yours I quoted was from the first page. Didn't read the in between pages. :o

Having played both SE and CE strategies, I prefer the SE more, mainly because recruiting tons of GP is fun. More GP leads to a greater chance of getting one or more of the corporations and those cottages are just too damn vulnerable. Bombers, pillagers, spies, it's a costly and time consuming process to lose a cottage, whereas a farm or a mine is so easy to replace. Plus, until US comes along, production in cottage based cities can be extremely hard to come by and those are the cities in which you really need the various commerce, science and gold buildings and the growth. Having said that, without the Pyramids and Representation, the SE can struggle a little.

I guess there's just no right option, which is why Civ 4 scores so well overall.

WITHOUT US and Printing Press and Free Speech? That's a bit much. Under those conditions, Towns only produce 4 . A Rep Scientist's 6 easily trumps that plus the GPP, and the Scientist doesn't need to be grown.

Er, Frob2900 said this was PRE-biology, so the the comparison is two towns to one specialist, hence 8 to 6 in the CE's favour. The GPP value is minimal - from running SE games I know the increase in the number of GP over a CE with one or two GP farms is; A) very limited, and B) almost exclusively in late stages of the game (when they're less important anyway).

In any case, assuming representation pre-biology means you have to get the pyramids. Easier than in warlords it's true, but by no means guaranteed at emperor+.

The GPP value is minimal - from running SE games I know the increase in the number of GP over a CE with one or two GP farms is; A) very limited, and B) almost exclusively in late stages of the game (when they're less important anyway).

Erm, less important in the late game, when everyone says that it's bad for a SE that Corps are harder to use?
And as far as the GP farms are concerned: how are you going to be even close to the generation potential of a SE if you are not using Caste, for example? I'm really asking, because i'm interested in both systems myself =)

It's not nearly so straightforward.

There's terrain to be considered, the tile allocations, worker time and maturation time for the Town. Before Free Speech, that's actually a pretty darned long time.

You have to consider that a Town takes up one pop and one tile. That means that a worker has to work that tile, and the pop also has to work that tile. Specialists do not require tiles. They require buildings - which is also a factor to be considered.

Two towns to one specialist is not entirely a fair comparison because you're giving the towns 1 extra pop, two extra tiles, and the build time for free.

The GPP value is minimal - from running SE games I know the increase in the number of GP over a CE with one or two GP farms is; A) very limited, and B) almost exclusively in late stages of the game (when they're less important anyway).


That's nonsense.

Beelining Democracy is marginally faster than beeling Biology. Two towns v. one specialist never happens in real games, as a matter of fact getting one 70-turns-town per one specialist by the time of Democracy and Biology is doubtful.

Erm, less important in the late game, when everyone says that it's bad for a SE that Corps are harder to use?
And as far as the GP farms are concerned: how are you going to be even close to the generation potential of a SE if you are not using Caste, for example? I'm really asking, because i'm interested in both systems myself =)

Sorry, but I really can't make sense of your first comment. Are you saying that an SE has a better chance of a having the right GP to found a specific corp? I've never had any trouble with that in a CE.

As for the caste system issue, with a GP farm (or in BtS two GP farms), you have to take a certain amount of potluck. By the corporation stage though you have enough specialists slots for a certain amount of tuning. A well run GP farm will generate GP fast enough that it will take a long time for your 3rd, 4th, 5th cities to generate a GP, and most won't generate one at all. I've never understood why people keep suggesting Caste System for a CE. It's the second most useless civic on the board.

You have to consider that a Town takes up one pop and one tile. That means that a worker has to work that tile, and the pop also has to work that tile. Specialists do not require tiles. They require buildings - which is also a factor to be considered.

You've missed the point that a specialist requires a farm to produce the food to sustain it, and hence requires TWO pop and a worker - and that's post biology. Specialists require tiles just as much as towns, you're just having to add the specialist population on top of the normal 20.

Two towns to one specialist is not entirely a fair comparison because you're giving the towns 1 extra pop, two extra tiles, and the build time for free.

By your (rather unnecessary pop/worker rambling), a specialist requires 3 pop - two to work farms and one for the actual specialist, and two tiles. The two towns need only two tiles and two pop, certainly not more. I;'ll grant you the build time, but towns should be up and running pre-biology.

That's nonsense.

You have of course played both as SE and CE on the same map and compared output in order to come to this brilliantly argued conclusion? I have. The SE managed about 4 extra GP, all post industrial age - and that was before we had the national park and corporations to further boost GP farming.

Not to belabor the point, but late game BTS alot of late specialists can come freely, with a sustainable farm. Supermarkets give 1 free food, the national park gives free specialists per forrest preseve, industrial parks give you 1 free engineer, the two food corps give lot's of free food. No farm or tile required.

I have always played a hydrid economy, although I swayed towards one or the other depending on the game. But with BTS seams like a SE can be maintained throughout the game because of the free specialists and availability to more free food. Has a CE been improved on with BTS? Maybe levees.

Not to belabor the point, but late game BTS alot of late specialists can come freely, with a sustainable farm. Supermarkets give 1 free food, the national park gives free specialists per forrest preseve, industrial parks give you 1 free engineer, the two food corps give lot's of free food. No farm or tile required.

All of which are equally true in the CE.

I have always played a hydrid economy, although I swayed towards one or the other depending on the game. But with BTS seams like a SE can be maintained throughout the game because of the free specialists and availability to more free food. Has a CE been improved on with BTS? Maybe levees.

Same old list;

Customs house, more and potentially longer golden ages. The food benefits the CE just as much as the SE. I can turn a plains city into a full cottage city now, just as easily as you can run those extra specialists. A CE GP farm benefits from the extra free food just as much as the SE - and I don't need to stick the corporation in every commerce city, with the associate maintenance costs. The national park favours the GP farm style more than widely distributed GP production, and hence is also in favour of the CE.

The SE got a significant penalty as well - unhealthiness is now more relevant, and an SE invariably has a higher pop and hence more health problems than the CE. When you need 3 food a specialist, things start to look a bit less favourable.

MrCynical:


You've missed the point that a specialist requires a farm to produce the food to sustain it, and hence requires TWO pop and a worker - and that's post biology. Specialists require tiles just as much as towns, you're just having to add the specialist population on top of the normal 20.


That's actually not true. Let's take a very common variable - food resources. Everyone gets food resources of some sort in their tiles because food resources are great to get, and east to acquire.

A food resource boosts your City growth and the amount of non-food producing guys you can run. Grasslands cottages produce their own food, but they do impact city growth in that you have to work them and they don't produce surplus.

You don't usually Cottage a food resource, so it's a "forced-farm" and the Specialist you can work from that will only be working off of that tile. While you can also use this to create a fast-growing Commerce City, it's also true that it'll take more tiles.


By your (rather unnecessary pop/worker rambling), a specialist requires 3 pop - two to work farms and one for the actual specialist, and two tiles. The two towns need only two tiles and two pop, certainly not more. I'll grant you the build time, but towns should be up and running pre-biology.


The issue isn't when they get operational but the time it takes for them to get there, and the production they create until they do. As long as you have a food surplus, you can create as many specialists as your buildings or Civics allow you. It's not the same with Towns. You only have as much as your tiles allow you, and they take time to grow, during which you're obliged to generate only as much as a Cottage, Hamlet, and Village allow.


You know what? Instead of sounding all superior and all that, why don't you just please relate your experience without denigrating anyone? That seems to work better, I think.

No one in their right minds ignores the production of a GP farm, I think, so that rather puts the lie to every "CE" allegation there ever was. Everyone plays at least a hybrid economy. The question is, when does it benefit a city to concentrate on Towns, and when on Specialists?

You don't usually Cottage a food resource, so it's a "forced-farm" and the Specialist you can work from that will only be working off of that tile. While you can also use this to create a fast-growing Commerce City, it's also true that it'll take more tiles.

Why is this a problem though? As you point out, the CE economy is still going to be farming bonus food tiles, and hence can either grow faster, or run plains cottages. Until a city hits size 20, using extra tiles isn't a problem. Indeed from a cottage perspective, if I have the countering food tile, it's preferable to run two tiles giving 1 food and 2 commerce each than one giving 2 food and 4 commerce, as it matures the cottages fatster.

The issue isn't when they get operational but the time it takes for them to get there, and the production they create until they do. As long as you have a food surplus, you can create as many specialists as your buildings or Civics allow you. It's not the same with Towns. You only have as much as your tiles allow you, and they take time to grow, during which you're obliged to generate only as much as a Cottage, Hamlet, and Village allow.

But in the early stages there is a similar delay on specialist output. Barring Pyramids you've got a wait for representation, and similarly a wait for biology to run comparably 1 specialist to 1 town. A cottage/hamlet may not compare well to a representation scientist, but to a non-rep scientist needing two farms (OK a bit less allowing for food resources), it's not so bad. Plus you also need Caste system for more than two scientists, clashing with slavery, or forcing non-science producing specialists.

You know what? Instead of sounding all superior and all that, why don't you just please relate your experience without denigrating anyone? That seems to work better, I think.

I have simply related my experience of playing both economies. I was someone sarcastic at someone who's entire response to my argument was "That's nonsense", as I have no patience for those who refuse to provide even the most basic counterargument. It was somewhat difficult not to appear superior in response to that.

You, until this point have provided arguments. I don't agree with all of them, but I'm more than happy to debate points with you. I am interested in determining the relative strengths of CE and SE. I'm not here for a personal argument, but I'm all too familiar with the rows that tend to blow up over this subject. That is why I get irriatated when someone does not provide an argument and evidence, merely an insult. The debate becomes about personal victory, not what is actually true.

No one in their right minds ignores the production of a GP farm, I think, so that rather puts the lie to every "CE" allegation there ever was. Everyone plays at least a hybrid economy. The question is, when does it benefit a city to concentrate on Towns, and when on Specialists?

I have never suggested that any player should never run a single specialist or a single cottage depending on the choice of economy. A better view on the dichtomy is, all other things being equal, do I farm the tile or do I cottage it? I have specialised cities for commerce or GP countering the rest of the economy in each case, and only a very foolish player would not run them.

Let's get back to a proper debate, with number and evidence and civilized argument, not unsubstantiated comments about "lies" and "nonsense", OK?

I love SE, but from late renaissance era to end-game a CE will crush it anyday.

Scientist = 3:science: (6 with rep) and -2 food.
Town (without financial/PP/FS/US) = 4:commerce: and supports itself on a grassland tile.

Let's take for example a city with 20 pop, all grassland tiles. Now let's give the SE representation AND biology, but no bonus for the CE. 10 citizens will have to work the bio farms to support the 10 scientists, thats 60 science. While 20 citizens working the towns will yield 80 commerce, that can be converted to 80 science or gold. And they're not even upgraded with US/PP/FS/Financial.

So, a scientist needs at least a 4-food tile to support itself and the working citizen else the city will stagnate, so you could work two cottages instead of scientist+farmer. Of course cottages need time to grow, let's calculate the growth time, along with the :commerce: a growing cottage would give us compared to a scientist: (without Emancipation or Financial trait)


10 turns working 2 Cottages to become a Hamlet: 20:commerce:
10 turns running a scientist and a bio farmer to support it: 30:science: + 30GPP (60 under rep)

20 turns working 2 Hamlets to become a Village: 80:commerce:
20 turns running a scientist and a bio farmer to support it: 60:science: + 60GPP (120 under rep)

40 turns working 2 Villages to become a Town: 240:commerce: (160:commerce: with PP)
40 turns running a scientist and a bio farmer to support it: 120:science: + 120GPP (240 under rep)

70 turns 2 Cottages to Towns: 340:commerce:
70 turns scientist + bio farmer: 210:science: + 210GPP (420 under rep)

And just for the hell of it:
10 turns working 2 Towns with NO BONUSES: 80:commerce:
10 turns running a scientist and a bio farmer to support it: 30:science: + 30GPP (60 under rep)

10 turns working 2 Towns with PP/FS/US/Financial: 20:hammers: + 160:commerce:
10 turns scientist + bio farmer with rep: 60:science: :lol:


Then again, you can run an extra scientist in your cities thanks to the +2 food from the center tile (This will stagnate your city though). But this won't make a big difference.

It is clear that middle-game and late-game a CE is WAYYYY better than a SE, I only use SE from the beginning till mid or late renaissance era and then switch to CE when I get Emancipation (around that), as the SE will be worthless as the game advances, even with bio and rep, and lightbulbing becomes less and less effective. But of course I still want the great people so I keep a GP farm. Never keep a SE once you enter industrial era, itll freaking take you 10-15 turns for every tech when you could get them in less than 5 turns with a CE (depending on empire size). I was a CE hater once, no more. Oh and unless its a SSC or Wall street city, don't spam 20 cottages/windmill in every city, keep yourself some production tiles and switch between them just like a SE would when they need it.

It is clear that middle-game and late-game a CE is WAYYYY better than a SE, I only use SE from the beginning till mid or late renaissance era and then switch to CE when I get Emancipation (around that), as the SE will be worthless as the game advances

Yep. 100% Agreed. :goodjob:


But of course I still want the great people so I keep a GP farm. Never keep a SE once you enter industrial era, itll freaking take you 10-15 turns for every tech when you could get them in less than 5 turns with a CE (depending on empire size).
I know of one excepion: Frederick of Germany (Phi/Org/Assembly Plants :eek:). All those engineers really do make a difference.

Never keep a SE once you enter industrial era, itll freaking take you 10-15 turns for every tech when you could get them in less than 5 turns with a CE (depending on empire size).

What speed game are you talking, in my latest normal speed game, when I switch my cities to build research, you can get late game techs in 4 turns. And thats not even tweaks all specialists to scientists.

I agree CE is probably more powerful than SE in the very late game, but unless yer going for a SS win, the game is over before you cottages fully mature.

Also, with the latest patch, all a spy/plane/missle/paratrooper needs to do is strike your town twice and it gets none of its awesome bonuses. The vulnerability is quite high, especailly if the AI was smarter.

I know of one excepion: Frederick of Germany (Phi/Org/Assembly Plants :eek:). All those engineers really do make a difference.

You can get all those engineers in BTS now with industrial parks.

MrCynical:


Why is this a problem though? As you point out, the CE economy is still going to be farming bonus food tiles, and hence can either grow faster, or run plains cottages. Until a city hits size 20, using extra tiles isn't a problem. Indeed from a cottage perspective, if I have the countering food tile, it's preferable to run two tiles giving 1 food and 2 commerce each than one giving 2 food and 4 commerce, as it matures the cottages faster.


That's not entirely true. Extra tiles are always a problem with me because of tile quality. You really should only establish the best cities you can, but there are times when your technology and your tile placement and city placement aren't really all that optimal. Sometimes, you've got a city harvesting pigs, cows, and two spices. That's 4 tiles gone right away. And what happens when the rest of the tiles are jungle and you just don't have the workers to spare, or if they're hills and you still need extra research?

I'll have to say here that in my experience, especially past Biology, working on less tiles with more pop is more doable with SE.


But in the early stages there is a similar delay on specialist output. Barring Pyramids you've got a wait for representation, and similarly a wait for biology to run comparably 1 specialist to 1 town. A cottage/hamlet may not compare well to a representation scientist, but to a non-rep scientist needing two farms (OK a bit less allowing for food resources), it's not so bad. Plus you also need Caste system for more than two scientists, clashing with slavery, or forcing non-science producing specialists.


Absolutely. Would you agree that there's a great incentive to push for more SE cities if you happen to build the Pyramids and can use Rep? HR itself isn't so bad for SE because it relaxes the happy cap and SE, as we know, is pop intensive.

In early parts of the game, Caste System would indeed be a great thing, but I don't think that running SE throughout most of your Empire is really the point of doing that. Mostly, I would do that to push the GPP production in my main GPP farms, which I would do even if I were mainly CE. Given a Caste System change, even many of the smaller cities wouldn't even begin to support one or two Scientists anyway, so between that and a Hamlet, I rather think that the differences are minor on the face of these variables alone.

Now, if I were running Rep AND Caste system, for reasons relating to my GPP farms, wouldn't you say that there's a definite push for a greater SE focus in my secondary cities?


I have simply related my experience of playing both economies. I was someone sarcastic at someone who's entire response to my argument was "That's nonsense", as I have no patience for those who refuse to provide even the most basic counterargument. It was somewhat difficult not to appear superior in response to that.


If the comment was idiotic and groundless, then I see no point in referring to it or in discussing it at all. I certainly didn't. Why should you?


I have never suggested that any player should never run a single specialist or a single cottage depending on the choice of economy. A better view on the dichtomy is, all other things being equal, do I farm the tile or do I cottage it? I have specialised cities for commerce or GP countering the rest of the economy in each case, and only a very foolish player would not run them.


Ah, but where's the break point for each and the factors that promote one over the other, eh? There's the rub. :)

The thing with Specialists is that you CAN have too much of a food surplus at times such that it overwhelms your building capacities, and this is especially true before Renaissance and without Caste. I think everyone's had, at one point or another, had the opportunity to settle a Flood plains rich site, and that's always got lots of food.

To me, floodplains are a definite push towards cottaging, particularly if it's not my capital city. Even in my capital, I tend to cottage such tiles anyway. The health limits can lower your total max cap (although that's debatable) and the food excess makes up for not farming it.

Too, grasslands without fresh water access are really mostly useless in the classical era if you're not going for the Cottages, and in that instance, I usually try to arrange for some fresh water tiles or a food resource.

The things that would encourage me to go for Specialists is a site with lots of Forests (for increasing the health cap) lots of fresh water, and lots of grasslands, or limited tiles.

Thoughts?


There are other developments in BTS as well. I gather than some improvements now grant you free specialists. While a CE can get these as well as an SE can, if you've geared your Civics and wonders to promote Specialists, why then free Specialists are more of a boon to you than otherwise, no?

One other factor: people keep assuming that you'll use a GP to lightbulb. Why not settle it? A settled GS provides 1 :hammers: and 6 :science: forever, free! If an SE intensive economy can get this sooner and has more, wouldn't this is a major benefit, especially with the right Wonders and under the right Civics?

Pacifism, as well, would boost an SE's primary and secondary GP farms.

You can get all those engineers in BTS now with industrial parks.

Believe me, you can get them even better with frederick and his assembly plants. It's just even more powerful now with industrial parks :)

That's not entirely true. Extra tiles are always a problem with me because of tile quality. You really should only establish the best cities you can, but there are times when your technology and your tile placement and city placement aren't really all that optimal. Sometimes, you've got a city harvesting pigs, cows, and two spices. That's 4 tiles gone right away. And what happens when the rest of the tiles are jungle and you just don't have the workers to spare, or if they're hills and you still need extra research?

Well, jungle makes an excellent cottage site when it's cleared, and I'm never that desperately short of workers. A city with all hills (plains I assume, so they can't be cottaged) aside from those food tiles, I'd probably turn into a production city in either economy. It's a fair point that there are sites where running off a tiny number of tiles would be necessary - say if they were all tundra or desert, and so genuinely useless. Then I probably would run the city as specialist regardless of the economy I was running, since there's no real alternative. I just don't find sites like that are particularly common.

I'll have to say here that in my experience, especially past Biology, working on less tiles with more pop is more doable with SE.

Doable? Certainly. But I'm still not getting why you see it as inherently advantageous.

Absolutely. Would you agree that there's a great incentive to push for more SE cities if you happen to build the Pyramids and can use Rep? HR itself isn't so bad for SE because it relaxes the happy cap and SE, as we know, is pop intensive.

Certainly if you DO get the Pyramids, it's fair enough to run a specialist heavy economy in the early game, though I'd still be running it with an eye to a conversion to a CE at about the Democracy point, unless I was going for an early domination win. I just don't find it practical in most games at the levels I play at.

In early parts of the game, Caste System would indeed be a great thing, but I don't think that running SE throughout most of your Empire is really the point of doing that. Mostly, I would do that to push the GPP production in my main GPP farms, which I would do even if I were mainly CE. Given a Caste System change, even many of the smaller cities wouldn't even begin to support one or two Scientists anyway, so between that and a Hamlet, I rather think that the differences are minor on the face of these variables alone.

Even as CE, I generally find Caste System's only use to be in assisting generation of specific GP types, not in increasing their overall output. I've never seen a situation where I couldn't run more specialists in the GP farm because I was out of specialist slots. I have to take pot luck on the GP type as a CE, but I don't find it that disadvantageous.

If the comment was idiotic and groundless, then I see no point in referring to it or in discussing it at all. I certainly didn't. Why should you?

I always try to stamp on misinformation when I see it, and the misconception that an SE produces a lot more GP than a CE is a very long running piece. I have no interest in discussing it further either, as I've corrected the error. :)

The thing with Specialists is that you CAN have too much of a food surplus at times such that it overwhelms your building capacities, and this is especially true before Renaissance and without Caste. I think everyone's had, at one point or another, had the opportunity to settle a Flood plains rich site, and that's always got lots of food.

I know what you mean, though I can usually keep things in check with judicious use of slavery. :whipped: The loss of that is the main reason I avoid Caste System so much. That flood plains site takes forever to build anything without it, even If I run an engineer and a few priests.

Too, grasslands without fresh water access are really mostly useless in the classical era if you're not going for the Cottages, and in that instance, I usually try to arrange for some fresh water tiles or a food resource.

The things that would encourage me to go for Specialists is a site with lots of Forests (for increasing the health cap) lots of fresh water, and lots of grasslands, or limited tiles.

Thoughts?

My thoughts on this are much the same as yours. Floodplain says cottages to me - the unhealthiness tends to make large amounts of it problematic as a GP farm. Non freshwater grassland again says cottages, since a specialist economy can't do anything with it till civil service (or possibly even later).

For specialists - seafood sites are generally a good start, as are cities with two or three high food tiles, and not an excessive amount of plains or worse. Grassland and freshwater can go either way, and is the classic case for the debate - personally I prefer cottages, except maybe with a philosophical leader.

Limited tile sites tend to end up as specialist sites through lack of other options as I've said. Cottage cities tend to be best on generic, but abundant grassland or plains.

There are other developments in BTS as well. I gather than some improvements now grant you free specialists. While a CE can get these as well as an SE can, if you've geared your Civics and wonders to promote Specialists, why then free Specialists are more of a boon to you than otherwise, no?

The only one I can think of is the industrial park, which gives a free engineer. I find it appears a bit late to have that drastic an impact though, and it comes with a hefty health penalty. Yes, representation will boost it somewhat, but by the time industrial parks are around I'm very reluctant to lose the ability to cash rush. I'm experimenting with running representation as a CE, somewhat augmented with Sushi specialists and flipping occasionally to universal sufferage with the assistance of Cristo Redentor, but I'm still not too sure if the extra science is worth the loss of town hammers.

One other factor: people keep assuming that you'll use a GP to lightbulb. Why not settle it? A settled GS provides 1 and 6 forever, free! If an SE intensive economy can get this sooner and has more, wouldn't this is a major benefit, especially with the right Wonders and under the right Civics?

Actually I do assume settling early GP in an appropriate site most of the time. Lightbulbing has been badly weakened by the slower AI tech pace, and their reluctance to trade. The SE does do better there of course, since the rep bonus would push that up to 1 hammer 9 science. I count that as one of the SE's edges. There's nothing to stop a CE settling its GP, they're just going to end up with 3 beakers less from each one unless they decide to run rep.

Pacifism, as well, would boost an SE's primary and secondary GP farms.

It does help, but again the CE can run pacifism to boost their GP farm(s) as well. Much as it might seem like you should get more GP, I just don't find it's the case when I try it, especially now you can run two GP farms. The secondary cities take most of the game to catch up with the leader. It takes till the industrial age for the other cities to catch up. (Philosophical and Pacifism does make some difference to GP output for the SE over CE relatively early, so I might run an SE and go for an early win as a Phi leader).

Never keep a SE once you enter industrial era, itll freaking take you 10-15 turns for every tech when you could get them in less than 5 turns with a CE (depending on empire size).

Go to page five of this thread.

Look for a big city pic.

In the upper part of the pic, you'll find a green bar.

There's a word on the green bar. Refrigeration. It's a late game technology.

There's a number on the bar. Together with overflow, the entire tech took two (2) turns to research. I didn't have one cottage in my empire.

You have of course played both as SE and CE on the same map and compared output in order to come to this brilliantly argued conclusion? I have. The SE managed about 4 extra GP, all post industrial age - and that was before we had the national park and corporations to further boost GP farming.

How many GPs in total?

Do you consider yourself a master SE player? What games have you won with SE on deity? On immortal?

Nice argument you have going on here:lol:

...

Something to make that matter even more complicated:

CE is better compared to SE when you calculate down and compare the pure science output... ...BUT... ...there is this thing with the trade routes... ...bigger city, more revenue for each trade route... ...when having 4 trade routes this boni is multiplied with every trade route... ...a costal city with harbour gets another bonus so the overal bonus increases even more and in BtS finally, the custom house adds still more... ...which makes it in the end really debatable, if a CE is REALLY better then and SE in numbers (trade routes are that powerful that it is even possible to play a game without cottages and without specialists until every city tile in every city (except GP farm) is worked thanks to the trade revenue (Trade Route economy))

I don't know. You get a bit more out of your trade routes (and pay a bit more in city maintenance for size) but I consider having size 25 cities a disadvantage in practice. It's a lot easier to manage health and happiness caps with size ~20 cities and emancipation than size ~25 and caste system. Unless you conquered 2 other civs and have tons of resources. In which case it's fairly irrelevant what type of economy and civics you are running because you are winning anyway.

I agree with uberfish. Smaller cities is the way to go for a SE. That helps in many ways. It means you can avoid switching to Emancipation and run the Caste System or Slavery much longer and maybe right into the end game. It also means you can use factories and assembly plants without getting slaughtered by unhealthyness (although Coal Plants is usually a step too far).

So these comparisons by some CE advocates between a CE city and SE city where they say 1 town (needs 1 citizen) = 1 farm + 1 specialist (needs 2 citizens) are invalid if the SE splits the area up in a different way and uses more cities than a CE would. Each city gets its own happiness and health budget. Running SP means an extra city only costs 3 in maintenance witha courthouse and its trade routes pay that and more. So adding extra cities in the late game is useful particularly in conquered lands.

In my recent game (Pericles, monarch, Continents) I've found that size 22 for my capital is fine and I have a couple of other cities the same size. I have 4 religions and those "big cities" need several temples and the the state cathedral to maintain their happiness while I run Rep, Nat, CS, SP, (OR, Theo or Pac) and it is not worth building factories in them. They concentrate on size (useful for internal trade) and making GPPs.

Then I have a whole host of second tier cities around size 12 to 16. They don't have happiness problems and work a mixture of food tiles and hills and workshops and some specialists (for hammers or gold plus Rep beakers). Many have forges, factories, airports or drydocks and do not suffer any unhealthiness despite me having coal and oil and I've not had to build hostpitals or supermarkets. That means I get a huge production boost and can churn out bombers, tanks, marines at a high rate. Drafting is easy since I have Happiness headroom and they suppliment their hammer production with draft infantry. Needless to say they have built the entire suite of espionage buildings CJIS and are making a significant passive contribution to that aspect of the game.

Then we get to my tier 3 cities and these include some newly conquered cities and mini infill cities squeezed between the gaps. These don't need much infrastructure and they don't work many tiles and most tiles are second rate at best and include rubbish like plains farms and windmilled plains hills. These get worked along with a couple of grassland farms and maybe a grassland workshop. What use are these? Well they struggle towards size 8 with granary, courthouse and barracks and I draft if they have adequate food supply and they steadily install the espionage suite. Under SP these tier 3 cities are worth the trouble and make use of tiles that are usually ignored. Once they have the espionage suite they can run spy specialists (with 100% bonus) or they can produce units, or draft or the hammers go to wealth or science. They don't need to waste 1000s of hammers building other infrastructure for happiness or science (although a library and university are cheap for Pericles so I make an exception for him) or gold that would be a waste since they can never grow much or expand. These mini cities are fantastically productive under Rep and SP considering the junk tiles they can work.

To be fair a CE would be able to make something like my tier 3 city using a corporation like Sid's Sushi to inject lots of food. It would produce more but would have much higher costs and require far more investment in terms of gold (for corporation and for US to rush vital buildings). That would work as well if the CE has loads of surplus gold, the question would be "is this the best way to spend gold when there are so many other options" In the case of the SE running SP the tier 3 city is a no brainer; it only costs 100 hammers for a settler and is essentially self financing thereafter.

I don't usually run tier 3 cities. I have lots of tier 2's though. Many of my cities in-game are between 13 and 20 in size, depending on food sources, with most cities being around 20 or so due to health and happy caps. I have a few tier 3s, but usually those are forced or are mainly to access awkwardly placed resources (for culture border, basically).

I think that it remains uncontested that cottaging implies a certain amount of tile dependency. If you don't have tiles, you have to run specialists, in much the same way as if you don't have freshwater, you'll almost have to run cottages.

It's more a tile-specific decision, I think, than most people are willing to admit. To a certain extent, it's a Civ-based or City-based decision, but if you've only got lemons, you can make only lemonade.