So when running a SE do run every city with specialists, or just the ones that can support it and cottage the rest? Or do you do it by specialists, like one merchant city, one tech city, etc.

In a 'pure' SE every city will run specialists. Most of the time scientists, others if you don't have enought scientists slots (under Representation for the +3:science:) or for some special purpose. The Exception might be the capital, as specialist output does not get the 50% from Buerocracy, so sometimes you will cottage your capital for +50% :commerce: from Buerocracy.

There are hybrid economies however, where you might choose to run specialists in some cities, while running cottages in others.

What you choose might depend on your leaders traits, the land, ...

One kind of SE I often run is I use specialists and settled specialists in one city, and then the rest are often cottage or production based cities. With maybe one or two cities that help the specialist center with producing specialists.

Though it was a while since I played a full game of BTS, Fall from Heaven 2 is also fun to play with specialists. More fun actually. :P

Usually when I run a SE now it is a weak SE with 2 cities (usually my capital and an opponent capital) running specialists and the rest commerce or production. The very odd time I'll go pure SE but only if the land really, really dictates it. The SE just doesn't seem to be what it used to in BtS. Partly I think it has to do with the AI teching slower now.

Proving once again that the term SE has become so debased as to be meaningless.

Proving once again that the term SE has become so debased as to be meaningless.

Not really, it has always just meant an economy based on specialists. There are of course several different ways to do that... hence the questions and the discussions. BtS has added a few nuances that mean the discussions continue.

Not really, it has always just meant an economy based on specialists. There are of course several different ways to do that... hence the questions and the discussions. BtS has added a few nuances that mean the discussions continue.
Not even close. Neither of the economies futurehermit and Grey Fox describe can meaningfully be described as "based on specialists" with that few of them. Instead, "SE" has come to mean "any economy that uses specialists at all" which is, of course, all reasonable economies.

More precisely, both of the examples above *used* to be considered completely standard CEs - mostly cottages and production with one or two GPFs.

AS I understand a SE is a classic farm/production specialist game. Cottages are minimal or ignored. Farms are preferred so you can run more specialists to fuel research. The idea is to run AMAP specialists, preferrably scientists. Representation/caste system are the nuclear weapon civics, Biology the nuke of techs. Pyramids are one of the best SE wonder as you get very early representation and the oracle is a close second where you can bulb CoL for early caste system. It is also a military system, so plan on early and agressive warring, do not settle back for a peaceful with, exception cultural where this works well too.

People mention SE breaks down post-democracy, I tend to disagree especially with the options in BTS. If you have used SE correctly and expanded militarily pre-democracy the large amounts of land far outweigh the smaller CE AIs.

Also you can get ALOT of commerce from trade routes and resoruces if you play your cards right.

I am a typical hybrid player and rarely use a strict SE myself, but I have done it and posted a game on it.

That's the reasonable (and original) definition, yes. But the term is applied *far* more broadly these days.

When I do an SE its usually one city pulling most of the weight with the help of specialists. If I go Scientists, I can lower research and get gold from the other cities, if I go Merchants I can get a bigger city with more specialists, and/or more production from tiles (but less from great specialists), and I can research at 100%.

With both strategies, the rest of my cities can be cottages or food, or production or all three. The point tho, is that its the specialist city that is making it all happen.

The specialist city is often my second city, or my capital. I try to get as much food as possible in it, all grass or as much floodplain as possible.

Since I barely play BTS anymore, most of my experience is from Fall from Heaven 2, where you can upgrade the terrain with magic, get a wonder and/or spell that removes unhappiness, etc. There is a civic that makes farms give +1 food, the tech that gives +1 food comes decently early if you go that path, there's a religion with a civic where your citizens only eat 1 food. Etc.

Well, yeah, if you're playing an (effectively) completely different game things will be different. But then what's the point of bringing it up?

Cause I know the same strategy works in vanilla. Just making a note that my BTS experience is probably sub-par to some of the other posters here so take it with a grain of salt.

But if we are discussion what can be called an SE. Then yes, the strategy I described is definitely an SE.

If that's an SE, then nobody has ever played anything else.

If that's an SE, then nobody has ever played anything else.

Now that is just a wrong statement.

...the term SE has become so debased as to be meaningless.

Not really, it has always just meant an economy based on specialists. There are of course several different ways to do that...

Not even close.


But if we are discussion what can be called an SE. Then yes, the strategy I described is definitely an SE.

If that's an SE, then nobody has ever played anything else.

:rolleyes: Since you know what a SE is and none of us does... why don't you define exactly what a SE is such that it is no longer a meaningless term?

Madscientist said it quite well:

AS I understand a SE is a classic farm/production specialist game. Cottages are minimal or ignored. Farms are preferred so you can run more specialists to fuel research. The idea is to run AMAP specialists, preferrably scientists.

Which should in particular be contrasted with having one or a few cities that run specialists to produce GPs while the rest of the empire works cottages for commerce. If the terms are to have any meaning at all, that must be considered a CE - but these days, an awful lot of people call it an SE just because there are some specialists. :rolleyes: It's no more reasonable than saying "if you build even one cottage, it's a CE."

Since you know what a SE is and none of us does... why don't you define exactly what a SE is such that it is no longer a meaningless term?
__________________

SE, does that have anything to do with GPPs?

And lastly... what are cottages? I haven't been able to figure that one out yet.

Not even close. Neither of the economies futurehermit and Grey Fox describe can meaningfully be described as "based on specialists" with that few of them. Instead, "SE" has come to mean "any economy that uses specialists at all" which is, of course, all reasonable economies.


If you are getting the majority of your beakers from specialists/great people then it is a SE. Period.

In the example I described, I would be getting the majority of my beakers from the specialists (primarily through bulbing and trading, which provides a huge ton of beakers early-to-mid game) while the commerce cities are simply paying my huge maintenance bills from so much conquering.

SE is SE if you have none or only one cottaged city. More than one cottaged city means CE or hybrid IMHO.

It's not an SE if you have one city devoted to GP farm and the rest is cottaged. You should do that anyways! Even with two cities devoted to specialists, that's still just a bit more aggressive GP farming, which everyone should do (the at least one GP farm, that is).

An SE is when you run most, if not all, cities with farms and specialists. You barely have any commerce. Whereas you would pay maintenance and maintain research with the commerce slider, this way you do it with the various assignments of specialists. It should be a relatively frequent situation (especially when warring) to have a negative income with 0% science, but still tech perfectly well and then reassign specialists to merchants to pay the maintenance.

If you are getting the majority of your beakers from specialists/great people then it is a SE. Period.

In the example I described, I would be getting the majority of my beakers from the specialists (primarily through bulbing and trading, which provides a huge ton of beakers early-to-mid game) while the commerce cities are simply paying my huge maintenance bills from so much conquering.I'd still consider that a hybrid economy, since you're not getting almost all your research from specialists. If you haven't bottomed out your science slider, then you're running a hybrid.

A CE is a CE because you get almost all your beakers from converted commerce. Beakers from specialists are considered a byproduct of a GP farm. An SE is an SE because you get almost all your beakers from specialists. If you're getting any beakers from commerce, it's a sign you need to go to war again or you need to build a bigger army. :sniper:

I'd still consider that a hybrid economy, since you're not getting almost all your research from specialists. If you haven't bottomed out your science slider, then you're running a hybrid.

This is a poor definition of an economy. Why do you define it only in terms of beakers? What happened to gold, culture and EPs? Are they not part of any viable economy too?

If you are getting the majority of your beakers from specialists/great people then it is a SE. Period.

Futurehermit makes the same error. You have both, in my opinon, chosen an arbitrary definition. A lot of your problems understanding how to run these economies and their differences stem from that misconception.

An Economy drives your whole game, not just the research part of it. You have to consider gold and EPs as part of your economy and culture as well if you are going for a cultural victory.


A CE is a CE because you get almost all your beakers from converted commerce.
No, it is a CE because it gets most of its commerce from cottages and it runs civics to emphasise that. It has nothing to do with where the science slider is set. A commerce based cultural game would set the culture slider high. An espionage economy would set the the EP slider high. A CE simply uses a lot of cottages and emphasis the civics and technologies to do that efficiently.

SE is SE if you have none or only one cottaged city. More than one cottaged city means CE or hybrid IMHO.

This has given me some thought. I can't help it that the AI spams cottages all over (cause it's stupid). So, when I capture cities, even though my original are going 100% SE, I guess technically I am now running a CE or hybrid and not even aware of it.

All this time I've been misleading the whole community, and myself. No one will ever trust me again...

I view the CE vs SE question as more of a "slider" than anything black and white. I think almost every single game uses a hybrid of some form (other than the firm "no cottages on the map" ones). Most SE proponents will keep the "Economy Slider" down on the Specialist end, while the CE people will put them at the Cottage end.

So if you're planning to run an SE style game, that doesnt mean you cant benefit from some well placed cottages. Ignoring this powerful game feature is kind of like a self-imposed difficulty condition. By the same token, if you are planning to use cottages as the bulk of your commerce, smart usage of specialists is also a positive strategy move.

Even the extremes have a small taste of both, captured cities usually have a cottage or two, and I doubt there are many "strong" examples of CE games without a specialist or two in a few cities. Of course, as I said, players can purposely handicap themselves, pillage captured cottages, avoid specialists, whatever, but those examples are REALLY deep in the "curve" of the Economy Slider.

Before anyone asks, no, there is no "Economy Slider" in any version of the game, heh.

Futurehermit makes the same error. You have both, in my opinon, chosen an arbitrary definition. A lot of your problems understanding how to run these economies and their differences stem from that misconception.

An Economy drives your whole game, not just the research part of it. You have to consider gold and EPs as part of your economy and culture as well if you are going for a cultural victory.


Well, it depends on how you define "economy" as to whether I am giving out arbitrary definitions or not. I think of it in terms of beakers/tech but if you want to think of it in terms of gold/ep/culture then sure what I am describing is more of a hybrid economy. That doesn't mean I am giving out arbitrary definitions just that I am choosing a specific definition that is different than yours ;)

It would make more sense to define economies by what you are trying to leverage rather than imposing artificial and irrational restrictions.

I would keep it simple and say that the defining aspect of running a SE is to be as independent of commerce as practicable, using specialists to provide most of your basic needs.
This doesn't mean one can't build a single cottage. However, a big draw of the SE is the ability to crank up culture whenever you need happiness*. If you do so often, cottages won't pull their weight.
Nothing in Civ4 is tha simple though: Sometimes cottages are still a good use of the land. Large expanses of flood plains come to mind: they allow huge cottaged cities where specialist cities can't reach their full potential thanks to the health cap.


* Despite popular perception, the same does not apply to maintenance. Compared to a CE, a reduction from 100% science to an even split with gold will set back a SE less... but it will also generate a lot less additional gold so the comparison is unfair. In fact, since output per population point is lower, maintenance might hit harder... I haven't really done the maths to be certain though.

Well, it depends on how you define "economy" as to whether I am giving out arbitrary definitions or not. I think of it in terms of beakers/tech but if you want to think of it in terms of gold/ep/culture then sure what I am describing is more of a hybrid economy. That doesn't mean I am giving out arbitrary definitions just that I am choosing a specific definition that is different than yours ;)
Except that one definition makes sense and works, while the other does not. Specifically, if you swapped all your scientists for merchants and ran up the science slider instead, then by your definition that changes an SE to a CE - which makes no sense. Similarly, building courthouses so that you can boost the science slider would do the same thing.

Given that beakers/gold/EP/culture are largely convertible (via slider settings and specialist choice), the only truly meaningful thing to look at is the *total* thereof.

This is a poor definition of an economy. Why do you define it only in terms of beakers? What happened to gold, culture and EPs? Are they not part of any viable economy too?


Futurehermit makes the same error. You have both, in my opinon, chosen an arbitrary definition. A lot of your problems understanding how to run these economies and their differences stem from that misconception.I run my economies quite well, thank you very much. What's holding me back is I'm not a very efficient tech trader.

Anyways, the focus of an economy has always been about aquiring technology. You always need gold to pay your bills, but unless you've got a special purpose in mind (such as converting all those highly promoted privateers to destroyers) it's not the focus of your economy. You want just enough to pay your bills, and that's it.

Nine times out of ten, if you're touching the culture slider, it's for happiness not actual culture. The exception is when you're going for a cultural win, and you've got a ton of mature towns in the cities you're using. Most of the time, all the culture you need for the first border pop is produced as a byproduct of other things like religion or buildings.

Same way with espionage. Unless you're planning on a lot of spy missions, you get all the espionage you need as a byproduct of other things, like building courthouses.

Culture and espionage are rarely concerns. Even aquiring gold is a secondary concern. But aquiring technology... that's the primary concern.

An Economy drives your whole game, not just the research part of it. You have to consider gold and EPs as part of your economy and culture as well if you are going for a cultural victory.Of course you do. But it's aquiring technology that's the focus of your economy. In most cases, aquiring technology is about researching techs, and trading them. Research requires beakers and/or bulbing with Great People, which is why the CE vs SE debate has always focused upon the source of your beakers, as opposed gold, culture, and now espionage. Aquiring technology is the main focus of an economy. Everything else is in a support role, except in a few rare cases such as a cultural win.

No, it is a CE because it gets most of its commerce from cottages and it runs civics to emphasise that. It has nothing to do with where the science slider is set.Only in the sense that having 1000 commerce at 50% gives you more beakers than having 500 commerce at 90%. You're still getting your beakers from commerce, not other sources.

A commerce based cultural game would set the culture slider high.I assume you mean a game where you're trying for a cultural win, where you ran a CE until you're ready to make the sprint to Legendary status.

I've done something similar with an SE... only I turned my scientists into artists, rather changing my sliders. It made more sense than waiting for a ton of cottages to mature.

An espionage economy would set the the EP slider high. A CE simply uses a lot of cottages and emphasis the civics and technologies to do that efficiently.But it's still about aquiring technology. An EE steals techs from the leader then trades them. If you called an EE a CE, then a lot of people would be confused.

A CE is understood to be cottages and the technologies and civics that maximize them in which the focus is to aquire technology through research and trade. The sole exception is one GP farm which yields random Great People, used for bulbing, golden ages, or their unique functions.

An SE is understood to be specialists and the technologies and civis that in which the focus is to aquire technology through research, strategic bulbing, and trade. The sole exception may be the capital, for the purposes of maximizing the bureacracy bonus.

An EE is understood to be aquiring technology through the use of espionage and trade. Commerce is preferred over specialists because the buildings that allow spy specialists, except for the courthouse, come late in the game.

An economy's focus is aquiring techs. If you're getting them through the use of cottages, then you've got a CE. If you're getting them through the use of specialists, then you've got an SE. If you're getting them through the use of espionage, then you've got an EE.

If you're getting them through a mix of several methods, such cottaging most cities while running Caste System to generate Great Merchants in one city, and Great Scientists in another city, then you've got a hybrid.

Except that one definition makes sense and works, while the other does not. Specifically, if you swapped all your scientists for merchants and ran up the science slider instead, then by your definition that changes an SE to a CE - which makes no sense. Similarly, building courthouses so that you can boost the science slider would do the same thing.

Given that beakers/gold/EP/culture are largely convertible (via slider settings and specialist choice), the only truly meaningful thing to look at is the *total* thereof.

That's why I was saying that the focus should be what you are getting the majority of your beakers from. If you swap your scientists to merchants and crank up the slider, you are still running a SE because your beakers are coming from those merchants, just via the sliders, which does NOT make it a CE, which gets those same beakers through cottages.

TBH, I don't understand why people want such an extreme definition of SE and CE. Just because you have laid down some cottages to pay for maintenance doesn't mean imo that you aren't running a SE with multiple (2+) cities cranking out GSs to bulb and trade to--by far--bring in the majority of your beakers/technology. Some people like to include hammers in considering what makes an economy as well. Am I to say that I don't run a SE because I am getting some hammers from mines instead of from GEs and GPs???

By the exact same argument, in your example your beakers are coming from the cottages, being converted via the specialists. :rolleyes: Either it's about the beakers, or it's about the total of everything.

This illustrates exactly my original point - you're adjusting your definition based on the situation to ensure that, no matter what, it's defined as an SE!

By the exact same argument, in your example your beakers are coming from the cottages, being converted via the specialists

What? :confused:

For the reccord, IIRC futurehermit was one of the SE founding godfathers on the forum if you search back enough...

Just warning anyone incase they plan to get into a big heated arguement...

As for the 'Hammer economy' that sums up my strategy pretty much. Everything to maximize hammers. Which then I filter to commerce with currency when I need, or filter to beakers when i want science, and I filture to pure production for military/wonders. Most of that is fueled by the intense hammers as the raw source. However, I stopped calling it a hammer-economy when someone came up with the term WE for Wonder Economy. Which I realized sort of makes sense, and sounded cool. But since the settled specialists make up a big part, probably more than the running specialists, I tag on SSE instead of SE to make the big distinguishment. Of course I could say SSE/SE/WE but that's getting a little... too much. We know you don't HAVE to have SE to get a SSE, but common sense implies there will be a little SE in there at some points.

What? :confused:
You claimed that your beakers would still be coming from the merchants. The thinking apparently being that they were what provided the funds to allow a high research slider (if it was otherwise - and I can't begin to see any *other* argument - please explain).

By the same argument, I can say that the cottages in your original example are allowing you to run scientists instead of merchants and that therefore the beakers are coming from them. It's really *exactly* the same argument.

For the reccord, IIRC futurehermit was one of the SE founding godfathers on the forum if you search back enough...
Yep. And one of the worst about trying to win CE vs. SE arguments by redefining anything that performed better into an SE, whether it made sense or not.

To be honest, what difference does it really matter whether it's called an SE, CE or hybrid. The bottom-line is to win the game. An SE fueled with lot's of farms and specialists can still have some cottages, and I really don't see a problem with a hybrid or switching over. Seam's to me like there's too much bickering over semantics.

The difference is having clear, meaningful definitions so that productive discussions of strategy can take place. If person A says something about an SE on one definition, but person B would call that a CE, then effective communication has not occurred. Similarly, if all credible economies are classified the same way, then the definitions are useless because they don't distinguish between anything of relevance.

TBH, I don't understand why people want such an extreme definition of SE and CE. Just because you have laid down some cottages to pay for maintenance doesn't mean imo that you aren't running a SE with multiple (2+) cities cranking out GSs to bulb and trade to--by far--bring in the majority of your beakers/technology.
/concur.

One sure difference is in the choice of civics, if you never run Caste System/Representation combo, then its almost a given you have a CE, despite the probable presence of specialists in many cities.

By the same token, running that combination of civics isnt very strong if you dont have a lot of farms to feed as many specialists as possible. Sure, its likely you have a cottaged city or two, especially your capitol if you're a careful city-specialization planner, but I think Bureaucracy civic is powerful for both "economies".

But back to futurehermit's point, I guess I am not sure why its important to label things so definitively. If you actually pick them both apart, "economy" is the wrong word, especially in the case of the SE. Maybe we should call them "Tech Drivers", a Specialist based Tech Driver, or a Cottage/Commerce based Tech Driver. Because as it has been pointed out, thats the ultimate target of both techniques, research.

The difference is having clear, meaningful definitions so that productive discussions of strategy can take place. If person A says something about an SE on one definition, but person B would call that a CE, then effective communication has not occurred. Similarly, if all credible economies are classified the same way, then the definitions are useless because they don't distinguish between anything of relevance.

To be honest, that definitely has NOT been how I have read these forums the past year. I understand what you are saying, but it aint gonna happen.

Myself, I played the game about a year before finding this site and pretty much figured out the power and limitations of a specialist economy myself although these forums have improved my primitive SE game tremendously. SO from my first post I could figure out what a SE was, at when I got the abbreviations down.

I think each post whould be considered by it's own question. There is no real pure CE or SE discussed unless someone clearly states it.

Just because it ain't gonna happen is no reason not to observe and argue that it would be better if it did. I recognize that I'm not likely to change any minds, but that's not the point.

Exactly. Almost every economy is a Hybrid if we are gonna be picky. But to be able to determine what our economies are, we have to find out what is the engine behind it.

A civ that runs with max food, no cottages, and specialists in all cities is an Extreme SE. A civ that runs specialists in two cities, settles them all in the food richest city, and are having their economy basically run by these two cities are also an SE, just not as extreme.
A civ that uses cottages on most of their tiles and almost no specialists other than a few, and maybe a city with more specialists to use the National Epic's effect can be called a CE, maybe an Extreme CE if it basically tries to use cottages in all their cities on maximum amount of tiles.

It's all pretty basic actually and not very precise.

On another note. I've run a sort of Hybrid economy where I focused on wonders and specialists, with cottages/wind mills and water mills being the focus on improvements, to make every tile as Golden Age suitable as possible and then using as many golden ages as possible. That was fun.

Funny, lots of definitions here ;)

The purpose of SE was getting Great people quick and bulb and trade abuse yourself to the top right? So, if you do this and run appropriate civics you are running an SE, if you got a couple of cottages here and there, what difference does it make? The basics of the economy is whats important, CE generates Scientists and stuff for academies so why shouldn't SE get some cottages to help with the gold? :p In the end you pick the best from both to get the best result anyway, so in a sense almost everyone is running Hybrid E. anyway.... :p but that doesn't explain the basics of your economy so.... pick the one closest, "pure" SE and "pure" CE is handicapping yourself, so definitions shouldn't be those.

But i remember reading about the switch early-mid game SE, late game cottaging over farms and running emancipation. Because SE was weak late game, people switched, (or won.. :p) but with the introduction of food corps, representation and specialists can add quite a punch to your research rate late game too. Is it only me who runs representation and lots of specialists late game in BTS? Granted i use a lot of cottages too, but even with a small empire Sushi can bring 3-4 specialists to every city you have. I almost never used specialists in warlords/vanilla (well i sucked a bit too then, but... :D) while in BTS i'm using more specialists for research than ever, because of the easy food corp/representation combo. Maybe SE is moved to late game in BTS? :lol:

Funny, lots of definitions here ;)

The purpose of SE was getting Great people quick and bulb and trade abuse yourself to the top right? So, if you do this and run appropriate civics you are running an SE, if you got a couple of cottages here and there, what difference does it make? The basics of the economy is whats important, CE generates Scientists and stuff for academies so why shouldn't SE get some cottages to help with the gold? :p In the end you pick the best from both to get the best result anyway, so in a sense almost everyone is running Hybrid E. anyway.... :p but that doesn't explain the basics of your economy so.... pick the one closest, "pure" SE and "pure" CE is handicapping yourself, so definitions shouldn't be those.

But i remember reading about the switch early-mid game SE, late game cottaging over farms and running emancipation. Because SE was weak late game, people switched, (or won.. :p) but with the introduction of food corps, representation and specialists can add quite a punch to your research rate late game too. Is it only me who runs representation and lots of specialists late game in BTS? Granted i use a lot of cottages too, but even with a small empire Sushi can bring 3-4 specialists to every city you have. I almost never used specialists in warlords/vanilla (well i sucked a bit too then, but... :D) while in BTS i'm using more specialists for research than ever, because of the easy food corp/representation combo. Maybe SE is moved to late game in BTS? :lol:

I agree and definitely do this myself. BTS has greatly improved the late "SE" game allowing you to keep it up all game, as long as you have the availabble specialist options post democracy. Also I find representation can be very stronge late game, in addition to very high culture pressure from the Sisten Chapel.



Other SE friendly things for a SE besides corps are

random events that settle speciaists sometimes
Industrial park for a free engineer and the option to run 5 per city, 7 for iron works city.
National Park for gobs of specialist


Even without corps, state property has a production boost, plus the extra food which helps the SE economy.

Except that one definition makes sense and works, while the other does not. Specifically, if you swapped all your scientists for merchants and ran up the science slider instead, then by your definition that changes an SE to a CE - which makes no sense. Similarly, building courthouses so that you can boost the science slider would do the same thing.

Agree


Given that beakers/gold/EP/culture are largely convertible (via slider settings and specialist choice), the only truly meaningful thing to look at is the *total* thereof.

Well said, I find it hard to improve on that argument. :)

An economy in BtS is the total output of beakers + net gold (income minus expenses) + EPs each turn. Then you can add the effects of one-off items like a lightbulbed GS or the gold from a Wonder another civ finished. These occur in one turn but are accumulating over many preceding turns.

I run my economies quite well, thank you very much.

I am sure you do. I was addressing what you wrote not how you play.


Anyways, the focus of an economy has always been about aquiring technology. You always need gold to pay your bills, but unless you've got a special purpose in mind (such as converting all those highly promoted privateers to destroyers) it's not the focus of your economy. You want just enough to pay your bills, and that's it.

This is the wrong emphasis. The focus of my economy is winning the game and there are several ways to do that. An important part of the game is about acquiring the necessary technologies, however you do that - research, espionage, extortion, trading are viable options. But just as important is leveraging that technological advantage to win the game and to do that you need production, resources and population. For instance, it is quite possible to overwhelm a tech whore like Mansa with sheer weight of numbers even if he has a few techs on you.


Same way with espionage. Unless you're planning on a lot of spy missions, you get all the espionage you need as a byproduct of other things, like building courthouses.

That is one way to use espionage but please don't try to say that it is the only way or even the best way. I often build castles, jails and run Nationhood and some spy specialists in the middle game to get a significant advantage in EPs over my rivals. Those EPs that give me the advantage are part of my economy at that stage of the game, just as important as any extra technologies from beakers would be. They allow me do several things I would not otherwise be able to, like steal a tech, revolt a city and see where the enemy armies are placed. I have made an economic choice to favour EPs over beakers at that stage of the game as a key part of my overall game strategy.

Culture and espionage are rarely concerns. Even aquiring gold is a secondary concern. But aquiring technology... that's the primary concern.

Even if this is true that does not make it right to say that beakers = the economy. An economy consists of all its parts = beakers + gold + EPs at least.


Of course you do. But it's aquiring technology that's the focus of your economy.

Sometimes it is but that is certainly not always true or for the entire game. It really does depend on circumstances and they change over time. You presume too much.


I assume you mean a game where you're trying for a cultural win, where you ran a CE until you're ready to make the sprint to Legendary status.

Correct.


A CE is understood to be cottages and the technologies and civics that maximize them in which the focus is to aquire technology through research and trade. The sole exception is one GP farm which yields random Great People, used for bulbing, golden ages, or their unique functions.

First part in bold is correct, the rest is your limited interpretation of how the economy has to be run. The Economy in a CE is the total of the commerce from cottages, and other sources like trade routes, as divided by the various sliders and applied to building multipliers in each city to produce the output beakers, gold and EPs. The various other things you mention also contribute to that economy. The GP farm provides some beakers directly and GSs for lightbulbing and academies. Golden Ages boost the economic output for a period. Some buildings like temples produce beakers when paired with wonders like the UoS, other buildings like courthouses and jails produce EPs and all these are part of the Economy as well even if it is a CE. For me a CE is simply an economy where the bulk of the economic output comes from cottages.


An SE is understood to be specialists and the technologies and civis that in which the focus is to aquire technology through research, strategic bulbing, and trade. The sole exception may be the capital, for the purposes of maximizing the bureacracy bonus.

A SE is simply an Economy based around specialists. The decision to run one affects the technologies that are prioritised (e.g. Constitution, Biology) and the civics needed in the middle game (e.g. Representation). The economic focus may or may not be to emphasis research for periods during the game (e.g. win Liberalism race). My games often emphasise EPs as I outlined above and at other times I produce large amounts of gold to upgrade my HAs to cavalry, or macemen to grenadiers or frigates to destroyers. My economy is tuned to win the game and support my diplomatic and military situation and that varies as the game progresses.

I'm not interested in changing any minds either, I just give my opinion, which is that if the majority of your beakers are coming from specialists/great people then you are running a SE, regardless of whether you have some cottages paying maintenance bills or not. Some people would call it a hybrid, and they are welcome to do so. I don't really appreciate the fairly aggressive attacks on my position, but tbh I'm not going to lose any sleep over it as I know that there are quite a few who feel helped by my contributions to these boards.

I'm not interested in changing any minds either, I just give my opinion, which is that if the majority of your beakers are coming from specialists/great people then you are running a SE, regardless of whether you have some cottages paying maintenance bills or not. Some people would call it a hybrid, and they are welcome to do so. I don't really appreciate the fairly aggressive attacks on my position, but tbh I'm not going to lose any sleep over it as I know that there are quite a few who feel helped by my contributions to these boards.

I gotta say when I first joined the forum here about 6 monthes ago your posts were the very first that helped me out alot. You contributions still continue to elevate my game, many thanks.:goodjob:

Now, do you run a SE or hybrid?:D

Haha! No problem. I think the SE has lost a lot of steam in BtS. That's not to say variations of it aren't still effective, like Obsolete's. But, in general, at least on monarch and below where you have to research pretty much the entire tech tree yourself, running a hybrid is best, with a fairly heavy emphasis on cottages a la DaveMcW. I like to have 2 solid gpfarms early if possible with the SE civics then switching to CE civics later; and I still think that a transition economy is really ideal where you focus more on SE for the first 3 eras and CE for the latter 3.

I gotta say when I first joined the forum here about 6 monthes ago your posts were the very first that helped me out alot. You contributions still continue to elevate my game, many thanks.:goodjob:


QFT I have a lot of respect for Futurehermit, at least when it comes to civ :p , as well. He knows his stuff and gives solid advice. I find the attacks on views in this thread not only unjustified, but innappropriate for this website. This has to be one of the only boards I know where their is an atmosphere of repsect, most of the time, for other people. It's fine to disagree, but let's keep it mature, guys. I don't think any of us wants Civfanatics to deterorate into the garbage that is the WoW forums... :suicide:

Tbh, I was surprised to see such an aggressive attack on my perspective like I wronged some people in another life :mischief: I was trying to promote a "to each his own" perspective where I had my definition and perspective and others' had theirs, but apparently that wasn't ok for some :lol: It's cool though, I like to debate as well and like to have a go of it every once in awhile ;)

The focus of my economy is winning the game and there are several ways to do that. An important part of the game is about acquiring the necessary technologies, however you do that - research, espionage, extortion, trading are viable options. But just as important is leveraging that technological advantage to win the game and to do that you need production, resources and population. For instance, it is quite possible to overwhelm a tech whore like Mansa with sheer weight of numbers even if he has a few techs on you.Naturally, the "focus of [an] economy is winning the game," but that's the focus of every game. But I have yet to play a game where aquiring technology isn't a major part of the game, along with a military strategy, a diplomatic strategy, and a production strategy.

Where you and I apparently disagree is whether an economy is a form, or whether it's a strategy. As I've always understood the term, and as I use the term, an economy is a strategy - the strategy used in the aquisition of technology. This has been pretty much the definition I've understood since the CE vs SE debate began. The debate has almost always focused on whether or not cottages are more effective when it comes to aquiring technologies, as opposed to scientists + strategic bulbing.

You seem to be arguing that an economy is a form, what you use to aquire beakers, gold, culture, and espionage. A viable definition, I'll grant you, but one that seems to be outside the standard definition.

Given that the newer additions to the "economy" family, such as the espionage economy, are also strategies to aquire technology, rather than where you get your beakers, gold, culture, and espionage from, I'd say that "economy" = "technology aquisition strategy" remains the standard.

Tbh, I was surprised to see such an aggressive attack on my perspective like I wronged some people in another life :mischief: I was trying to promote a "to each his own" perspective where I had my definition and perspective and others' had theirs, but apparently that wasn't ok for some :lol: It's cool though, I like to debate as well and like to have a go of it every once in awhile ;)TBH, I like to debate as well, but I also like my definitions nice and neat.

An SE uses specialists to aquire technology, either directly via beakers, or through strategic bulbing of Great People. Commerce is either converted to gold, or converted into happiness via the culture slider.

A CE uses cottages to aquire technology by converting commerce generated by cottages into beakers. Specialists are run in a GP farm, which provides random Great People.

If you're not planning on bottoming out your science slider to get more happiness or gold, but are running a lot of specialists for the purposes of boosting research and strategic bulbing, then you're running a hybrid economy, not an SE or a CE.

In my current game, I drew a philosophical leader. To me, a philosophical leader favors either a SE or a hybrid. My immediate area was bountiful in both food resources, rivers, and commerce generating happiness resources. This favors a hybrid economy over an SE. But I also have stone, which favors a pyramids supported SE over a hybrid. I shared a religion with my three neighbors, and none of them were known backstabbers, so I decided to gamble on the 'Mids rather than building a large army.

I nabbed the 'Mids, so now I'm running an SE: I'm running scientists to bulb towards liberalism, and researching techs along the chemistry path while trading to backfill. I spotted two unclaimed huts in the island chain, so I'm hoping to pop astronomy, and use liberalism to snag chemistry for early privateers:mischief: Commerce is currently being converted to gold in preparation for my campaign against Saladin, and I'm approaching the point where I'll need to start converting it to happiness.

If I hadn't, I would've went the hybrid route: my best food city running merchants (and settling Great Merchants there) so I can maximise the science slider, my second best food city running scientists for the purpose of bulbing along the liberalism path, and the rest (except for my HE city) cottaged for research.

I dont get why people bulb so much, sure its nice, and I do it, but if you grab the Pyramids why not just settle them all in the same city? Thats +9 beakers before modifications, making it 15.75 :science: per turn with a library and an acadamy as well as +1:hammers:

Each great scientist is 31.5 :science: (unless my math is wrong) with all sci buildings, and oxford, excluding monasteries.

I agree with the great merchant city thing, I love doing that. :)

I have a headache now.;) I think that from everything I've read here, I always run a hybrid / transitional economy.... I can't say that I've ever had a game where it was PURE SE or PURE CE... but then has anyone? I mean seriously? If you're on a major SE strategy do you demolish established towns you conquer to convert to farms and stuff for SE? Surely that's just silly.

For goodness sake, what a load of histrionic nonsense, in the last few posts (#44 to #48). No one has been “aggressive” in this thread. Some language was forthright but not the least bit offensive. Everyone has addressed the points at issue until these last few posts. No one has made a personal attack on anyone that I can see (please show me where). So let’s cut out the childish accusations and people taking sides.

To those people who think futurehermit needs their support, he doesn’t. It is his arguments that need support. It doesn’t matter what he said in other threads or whether he has helped you or he’s a good guy or anything else as far as I’m concerned. Only what he’s saying here, in this thread, so let’s confine ourselves to that.

I want a mature debate on these topics. A mature debate consists of people putting forward opinions and then defending them when challenged. As far as I can see that is all that has happened in this thread. If you can’t or won’t defend your opinion it’s worthless. When people hold contrary positions and feel strongly about it there is going to be some exchange of views. Futurehermit could have handled this a lot better. Accusing anyone who opposes your views as aggressive is a weak debating position and does not address the points at issue. So shall we return to the debate?


Let’s be clear. There seem to be two main points at issue in this thread. I agree with futurehermit on one point and disagree with Beamup although accepting he’s technically correct, and I am against futurehermit on the other point and Beamup is with me.

Point 1
The first point is whether a SE becomes a HE (Hybrid Economy) when you put a few cottages in it. Beamup says that building a lot of cottages in a SE turns it into a HE and that can be true. It depends on the ratio of cottages to specialists and the civics being run. There is no clear definition and it doesn’t matter much. My position like many others is that (nearly) all Civ4 games are different flavours of hybrid unless you play a particular variant (like a no- cottage game).

Fundamentally, I think of all Civ4 games as being a type of HE on a continuum stretching between a pure SE (no cottages) at one extreme and a pure cottage spam CE at the other extreme and with a true HE fully mixed economy in the middle. The more farms that replace cottages on flat tiles the further the type of game you should play favours the SE approach. For me a properly run SE is a combination of running a lot of specialists (food, free and settled GPs) together with some of the civics that favour their use (e.g. Representation, Pacifism). Having a few cottages in some cities does not make it a HE. Having a lot of cottages in a lot of cities does make it a HE. And it is an HE running SE civics, which is fine. I describe that situation as a SE flavoured HE. However it is easy to see that at some stage, perhaps as the GPPs for the next GP get expensive or as the cottages in many cities turn into towns, it might be better to switch civics from SE ones to CE ones. When the player adopts FS and US instead of Representation then his HE moves from a SE flavoured one to a CE flavoured one. That is how I see it and it makes perfect sense to me. Other people have slightly different view on the topic and I make due allowance.

Beamup might be right technically but he’s fighting a forlorn battle against months of hundreds of people taking a simpler view (and to my mind more practical) of the type of economy they are running. If futurehermit calls his game a SE game with cottages in many towns I don’t leap to redefine his terms and insist he’s running a HE I just accept he means some point of the HE continuum biased towards the SE end. Insisting everyone is running a HE is pointless anyway as it doesn’t tell us much. I interpret futurehermit’s original statement as a HE where he’ll emphasise specialists and run SE type civics rather than optimise for his cottages. He might well transition that economy into a CE later in the game as I know that is one of his favourite play styles and long-term game strategies particularly suited to a Space Race.


Point 2
The second point is what constitutes an Economy in a Civ4 game. It seems pretty basic to me and you might wonder why I bother, but if you’re discussing the differences between a SE and CE and whether they actually are a HE, or not, you had better get your definition of an Economy right. The expression SE stands for Specialist Economy, and CE is Cottage Economy so what constitutes an Economy is absolutely central to the debate. Otherwise you can’t make a proper comparison or have a useful debate. Futurehermit has clearly got it badly wrong IMO and this misconception of his been perpetuated over hundreds of posts and many months on these boards. Hence the strength of my language over a point that has irritated me for a long time. His opinions on these matters and the whole SE versus CE debate that has raged on these boards for months is coloured by a serious misconception.

The statement that betrays his position is this

If you are getting the majority of your beakers from specialists/great people then it is a SE. Period.

He clearly implies that what defines whether you have a SE or not is where you get the majority of your beakers. That is nonsense; and it is easy to generate situations where a nearly pure CE would be defined as a SE according to this definition. Anyone who thinks about what the words mean sees that.

I called futurehermit on this saying he was in error and had a misconception as to what an Economy in Civ4 was. I explained my definition of what an Economy should be. He replied that it depended what you meant by an Economy (and indeed it does in a trivial sense) but what a pathetic counterargument. I expected him to justify his position which he did not or accept my criticism. Then we can move on.

Beamup intervened, and wrote

Except that one definition makes sense and works, while the other does not.

Which I agree with. He goes on to give a succinct definition of an Economy.

Given that beakers/gold/EP/culture are largely convertible (via slider settings and specialist choice), the only truly meaningful thing to look at is the *total* thereof.


Closing Discusion
So there we have it. The two points laid out from my point of view.

On point 1, I basically agree with futurehermit and I hope Beamup can agree that describing the HE as a SE flavoured one is an acceptable compromise.

On point 2 futurehermit has a position that is very hard to defend. He should either justify his statement (or qualify it adequately) or stop using it on these boards and misleading other players who look to him for advice (as several have vouched in this thread).

Whenever I read of, or talk about SE / CE I'm only really thinking thinking of beakers myself...

Just my :commerce::commerce:

On point 1, I basically agree with futurehermit and I hope Beamup can agree that describing the HE as a SE flavoured one is an acceptable compromise.
Since other than on this point, I don't really have anything to say that you didn't just say better, I'll hold myself to this.

But no, I can't agree with that. The original description was thus:

Usually when I run a SE now it is a weak SE with 2 cities (usually my capital and an opponent capital) running specialists and the rest commerce or production.
Assuming a typical number of production cities and total cities, then with only two cities running specialists the following will be true IMX:

1. Cottages are much more common than farms or specialists.
2. In most cases it will be more beneficial to emphasize cottages in civic and tech choice than specialists.
3. Aside from a typical baseline of bulbing, the bulk of gold, culture, EP, and beakers (individually and collectively) will be coming from cottages. (i.e. the amounts coming from bulbing and specialists will not be much more than those produced by a single GPF)

Which I maintain is a pretty textbook description of a CE. It's closer to the middle of the continuum than most (due to the second specialist city), but still well on the cottage-emphasis side of the average. Ergo, I would describe it as a CE or a CE-leaning hybrid. It needs a substantially greater emphasis of specialists relative to cottages for me to call it SE-leaning.

Funny, my next game after posting in this became SE :p

It still has potential thats for sure, lightbulbing key techs and trading paid off on my Immortal Pangaea at least :) (slider at 0% even, had too much land :p) (Earliest Domination win for me too :D)

But to be honest i only lightbulbed 3 times. Golden ages... are just too powerful now, anybody tried this out? (more GA instead of bulbing?) Maybe thats how you should run SE now with lots of Golden Ages. :p

Yeah golden ages are nice. I like using golden ages once I've built Water and Wind mills to maximize tiles affected by the golden age. Since you get +1 Commerce on tiles with at least one commerce, and the same with hammers.

So a good time to start is about when you get Liberalism, no more space to settle, and your cities are a decent size.

If you go for Nationalism with Liberalism you can start the golden age with that wonder, or start a golden age, build the wonder and time it's completion on the last turn of the golden age, or maybe finish it whenever. I'm not sure if it just adds the turns to the end of the current one or if it starts over.

But also, I love making super cities so I rather settle the specialists than bulb with them.

Naturally, the "focus of [an] economy is winning the game," but that's the focus of every game. But I have yet to play a game where aquiring technology isn't a major part of the game, along with a military strategy, a diplomatic strategy, and a production strategy.

Thank you for your reasoned reply, I appreciate your clearly argued points. :)

I accept that there are times in a game when research is the focus of my economy and I said that the Liberalism race is one such time. But there are other times when it is not like the middle of a war when gold and EPs are worth more than beakers. Hence my economy is about more than research and it is most definitely not properly defined by only considering the beakers it produces or the technologies I gain.


Where you and I apparently disagree is whether an economy is a form, or whether it's a strategy. As I've always understood the term, and as I use the term, an economy is a strategy - the strategy used in the aquisition of technology. This has been pretty much the definition I've understood since the CE vs SE debate began. The debate has almost always focused on whether or not cottages are more effective when it comes to aquiring technologies, as opposed to scientists + strategic bulbing.

Forgive me I am not familiar with the term "form" I suspect this is something like a subsystem. I was trained as a systems engineer many years ago :old: so I'll stick with my own terminology ;) I can't see how an economy is just a strategy and not a "thing" or subsystem that performs a task. It has inputs and outputs. My economy has its own "economic strategy" so it is an aspect of the game like diplomacy or the military which also have their own strategies.

My economy is based mostly on my cities and takes their tiles and population plus civics as its inputs and produces beakers, gold and EPs for global use and culture and GPPs for local use. Stricty it should also include hammers as well but let's leave that extra complication for now and discuss that later ;)

You seem to be arguing that an economy is a form, what you use to aquire beakers, gold, culture, and espionage. A viable definition, I'll grant you, but one that seems to be outside the standard definition.

I am indeed considering it as a thing (game subsystem) that outputs beakers, gold, espionage globally plus culture and GPPs locally. I think that is akin to the standard definition of a real economy in the real world. The US economy is quantified in terms of trillions of dollars of GDP but in real terms that is a host of manufactured goods and services along with small amount of research that is produced each year. The economy in Civ4 is a much simplified analog of that.

In my terms I use my economy to produce a mixture of beakers, gold and EPs depending on what I want to do in that game at that time, expressed in terms of my diplomatic, military and other strategies. I use an economic strategy to determine where the various commerce sliders should be and what specialists to run and also whether I should build courthouses, marketplaces or universities in my cities to boost one or other of the economic outputs from my economy in the longer term.



Given that the newer additions to the "economy" family, such as the espionage economy, are also strategies to aquire technology, rather than where you get your beakers, gold, culture, and espionage from, I'd say that "economy" = "technology aquisition strategy" remains the standard.
You seem to be defining what I would call only one part of my economy as the whole of your economy. Tell me what do you classify gold as? Is there a gold economy in your definition?

Beakers can only be used for researching a technology and so are the least flexible output of my economy but gold and EPs have a variety of uses. They can be used to acquire technology in certain special ways. With gold I can boost research by deficit spending or just buy a technology from another civ (if they're willing to sell). With EPs I can see what the other civs are researching and adjust my own research strategy and with enough EPs steal a technology. But both gold and EPs have other uses that affect the other important strategies in the game, my military strategy (unit upgrades, city revolts and seeing where troops are), my diplomatic (bribes and seeing what is researched).

You say "economy" = "technology aquisition strategy" is the standard :sad: That is a strange arguement. Looking at it the other way around it is easy to test your argument. My "technology aquisition strategy" includes gaining technology from goody huts, by self research (part of my economic strategy), by trading (diplomatic strategy), by extortion (military strategy) and by stealing (espionage strategy). I can see trading with other civs has an impact on the self-research strategy and thereby the economic strategy (since you don't need to produce those beakers) but it also has diplomatic and possibly military implications. Do you consider trading to be part of your own economy? I consider it external and outside of my control a bit like goody huts or extortion. Stealing a technology (via an espionage strategy) requires lots of EPs and so like research is part of my own economy that I can control to a considerable extent.

OK, here is my input.

First regarding my earlier post regarding Futurehermit. I was not taking any sides, please forgive me if it appears to anyone I was. I posted because it was obvious FH was put off by something (I agree, I did not se anything personal) and I was trying the break the ice a bit. Also seamed a good spot to thank FH for his help in the past, and again I say his posts are always informative. Again apologies to all for sending the thread off on a tangent.

Now regarding economy and how i view. To me it is about gold, pure and simple. Not commerce, gold. How you pay for your empire is the critical thing, the more efficiently you do that the more efficiently you free up the slider for other purposes most commonly beakers but not always

Examples
1) SE: The slider predominantly takes most commerce from resources/trade route/land and converts it into gold. This requires building lot's of farms to run specialists which generates your beakers for research unless you plan to pay in the stoneage. It can also work vice versa, running merchants while hiking the slider up.

2) CE: Excess amount of commerce which is appropriately balanced

3) TE: trade economy, where you get alot of commerce from trade route, sending great merchants on missions for large amounts of gold (to run at a gold deficit), or trade resources for gold. You generally get beakers from the science slider until your treasury goes broke.

4) RE: Religion economy. Where you have a well spread shrined religion which allows you basically do what you want. The Spiral Minerat helps get gold, the University of Sakore gets the beakers, the Sistene Chapel gets the culture.

5) EE; OK, I have a little trouble with this one as the emphasis is clearly beaker acquisition. The gold can usually be acquired from any of the above methods so I am not sure I consider it an "economy" although I will generally still consider it EE.

SO the bottom line, is the more money you have the better your civilization is. Just like history!!!!

OK, here is my input.

First regarding my earlier post regarding Futurehermit. I was not taking any sides, please forgive me if it appears to anyone I was. I posted because it was obvious FH was put off by something (I agree, I did not se anything personal) and I was trying the break the ice a bit. Also seamed a good spot to thank FH for his help in the past, and again I say his posts are always informative. Again apologies to all for sending the thread off on a tangent.

Now regarding economy and how i view. To me it is about gold, pure and simple. Not commerce, gold. How you pay for your empire is the critical thing, the more efficiently you do that the more efficiently you free up the slider for other purposes most commonly beakers but not always

Examples
1) SE: The slider predominantly takes most commerce from resources/trade route/land and converts it into gold. This requires building lot's of farms to run specialists which generates your beakers for research unless you plan to pay in the stoneage. It can also work vice versa, running merchants while hiking the slider up.

2) CE: Excess amount of commerce which is appropriately balanced

3) TE: trade economy, where you get alot of commerce from trade route, sending great merchants on missions for large amounts of gold (to run at a gold deficit), or trade resources for gold. You generally get beakers from the science slider until your treasury goes broke.

4) RE: Religion economy. Where you have a well spread shrined religion which allows you basically do what you want. The Spiral Minerat helps get gold, the University of Sakore gets the beakers, the Sistene Chapel gets the culture.

5) EE; OK, I have a little trouble with this one as the emphasis is clearly beaker acquisition. The gold can usually be acquired from any of the above methods so I am not sure I consider it an "economy" although I will generally still consider it EE.

I agree with everything except this last sentence. ;)

SO the bottom line, is the more money you have the better your civilization is. Just like history!!!!

Personally re: def'n of "economy" I agree more with Beamup and UncleJJ... the only meaningful definition is the total consideration of commerce/beakers/gold/beakers/etc. in regard to the input/output formula your empire is using.

Anything that affects the inputs or outputs of that formula would be a part of your economy.

I personally would not include culture in the formula, except so far as it may be affecting the output. e.g., if I put the culture slider at 10%, then the plain fact of reducing my commerce by 10% is part of my economy. However, the culture I gain thereby is not part of the economy, IMO. Another example: a culture-producing building is not a part of my economy (unless of course it also adds hammers or something like that).

Now, to some extent you guys are arguing about labels. What's in a name? Honestly. A "espionage economy" does NOT mean "you get the majority of your research from espionage". I'll disagree with that definition until I'm blue in the face. ;)

All it means is that you have an economy, and you are giving it a hefty supplement via espionage. You are thus characterizing your economy by giving it a label of "espionage economy"... this does not mean the added research is >50% of your economy, it simply is a distinctive feature of your economy.

When we talk about economies all we really care about is that makes your economy distinctive. Who cares if you have a couple of cottages in your SE? Not me.

The point of a label is merely a short cut to allow a meaningful and intelligent discussion to take place without you first having to give an essay saying exactly how you had your sliders and what all you were doing. Saying "espionage economy" or another label such as "CE-leaning hybrid" lets us proceed with the discussion without all the felgercarb.

Wodan

Now, to some extent you guys are arguing about labels. What's in a name? Honestly. A "espionage economy" does NOT mean "you get the majority of your research from espionage". I'll disagree with that definition until I'm blue in the face.

Well, to be honest. My BtS games (once we get to industrialism age) involve all tech from spies. I run the max (7 spies) in each city, all under rep. This researches tech for me, and at the same time I use their spy PTS to steal other techs.

Of course, if I build the internet and I'm behind, I often ride off that project for a while. But even with the internet I'm often still forced to use my spy-economy.

P.S. Just for the reccord, I'm not saying going for a spy economy turn 1 is a smart thing to do. I'm talking about late stage here.

I'd guess you get more research from your spies than from espionage. 7*4 is 28 per city, plus modifiers (say 100%) so about 50 per city. 10 cities is 500/turn.

A great spy / espionage gets you, what, 2500 points? That translates directly to the rate of a 5-turn spy getting beaker-equivalent tech, correct? If so, then that's only 5 turns of a 10-city empire.

Anyway, I defend your right to call it an Espionage Economy, whereever you get the majority of your research. ;)

Wodan

I only build 6 cities, anything else is a bonus. But the math doesn't work out right, because I crank up the spy slider which changes things a lot. Not to mention nationhood, etc.

I only build 6 cities, anything else is a bonus. But the math doesn't work out right, because I crank up the spy slider which changes things a lot. Not to mention nationhood, etc.
Sure, whatever. I agree it's a fun and viable strategy.

Wodan

Thank you for your reasoned reply, I appreciate your clearly argued points. :)

Thanks. Nothing's more fun than bouncing ideas off each other, IMO, especially when we disagree. Who knows when something good might be shaken loose?

I accept that there are times in a game when research is the focus of my economy and I said that the Liberalism race is one such time. But there are other times when it is not like the middle of a war when gold and EPs are worth more than beakers. Hence my economy is about more than research and it is most definitely not properly defined by only considering the beakers it produces or the technologies I gain.Oddly enough, I do the same at times. But I've always viewed it as "shutting down my economy," to produce gold, culture, and of late espionage. In other words, I'm sacrificing my long-term strategy to achieve a short-term goal. But it's always a temporary measure.

If I need 5000 gold to upgrade my units right before I invade, then I shut down everything (research, espionage, and culture) to produce the gold ASAP so I can return to my economy to normal. If I need 500 extra espionage points to ensure that my pair of spies in that border city with the castle can successfully perform the "incite revolt" mission, then I shut everything down to produce the espionage points... except for just enough gold so I don't go broke.

Gold and espionage are means to an end, not an end in and of itself. In the end, it's the techs you have that helps the empire grow... and wins the game.

Forgive me I am not familiar with the term "form" I suspect this is something like a subsystem. I was trained as a systems engineer many years ago :old: so I'll stick with my own terminology ;) I can't see how an economy is just a strategy and not a "thing" or subsystem that performs a task. It has inputs and outputs. My economy has its own "economic strategy" so it is an aspect of the game like diplomacy or the military which also have their own strategies.Subsystem is probably a better term. As I said before, we seem to be approaching the same thing from two different directions. You seem to be focused on the input and the output.

I seem to be focused on how the subsystem itself... what I use to turn the input into the output.

My economy is based mostly on my cities and takes their tiles and population plus civics as its inputs and produces beakers, gold and EPs for global use and culture and GPPs for local use. Stricty it should also include hammers as well but let's leave that extra complication for now and discuss that later ;) My economy is based mostly on the resources and land I have, and what strategy I should use to exploit them for maximum effect. Long before I settle my second city, I've already decided what tile improvements I'll be using and where, what buildings will be built, what civics I'll ultimately be running, which technologies will have priority, what specialists I will be running, and where cities will be founded and in which order. The dot-map of a future CE looks a lot different than the dotmap of a future SE.

And I agree that we should keep hammers out of this discussion. :hammer2:

I am indeed considering it as a thing (game subsystem) that outputs beakers, gold, espionage globally plus culture and GPPs locally. I think that is akin to the standard definition of a real economy in the real world. The US economy is quantified in terms of trillions of dollars of GDP but in real terms that is a host of manufactured goods and services along with small amount of research that is produced each year. The economy in Civ4 is a much simplified analog of that.Like I said, we're approaching it from two different directions. When I think of the US economy, I don't think GDP. I think of terms like "capitalist," "free market," or sometimes "Social Darwinism." The economy isn't about what you produce, but how you produce it (and how many people you step on to do so.)

In my terms I use my economy to produce a mixture of beakers, gold and EPs depending on what I want to do in that game at that time, expressed in terms of my diplomatic, military and other strategies. I use an economic strategy to determine where the various commerce sliders should be and what specialists to run and also whether I should build courthouses, marketplaces or universities in my cities to boost one or other of the economic outputs from my economy in the longer term.

You seem to be defining what I would call only one part of my economy as the whole of your economy. Tell me what do you classify gold as? Is there a gold economy in your definition?I classify gold as a necessary evil. :evil: When I need it, I get it. When I don't need it, I get enough to pay my bills. Keeping a treasury just doesn't make sense given the fact that we don't earn interest on our treasury... but we certainly have to worry about inflation!

That is an interesting idea, though, about a gold economy... after acquiring currency and alphabet, maximize gold output and buy your techs rather than research them yourself. It would certainly reduce the number of buildings you'd have to build, and has the advantage of flexibility as well. Given that there is no equivalent of Representation to boost the output of merchant specialists, this strategy almost requires cottages.

( Still wouldn't call it a CE though. :p )

Disadvantage is you have to have someone else research the tech, and they have to be willing to trade it to you. Unfortunately, you'll probably hit the WFYABTA wall fairly quickly.

Beakers can only be used for researching a technology and so are the least flexible output of my economy but gold and EPs have a variety of uses. They can be used to acquire technology in certain special ways. With gold I can boost research by deficit spending or just buy a technology from another civ (if they're willing to sell). With EPs I can see what the other civs are researching and adjust my own research strategy and with enough EPs steal a technology. But both gold and EPs have other uses that affect the other important strategies in the game, my military strategy (unit upgrades, city revolts and seeing where troops are), my diplomatic (bribes and seeing what is researched).All quite true... except I'd say culture is the least flexible output from commerce and specialists... and the one that gets wasted the most. Beakers may not be as flexible as gold or espionage... but if nobody has a tech you need, you can't buy it nor can you steal it. That leaves direct research or 'bulbing if you have the right Great Person.

Beakers may not be flexible... but IMO they are the most powerful.

As I said before, unless you're planning on a lot of espionage missions, you don't need many EPs. The cost for "view demographics" and "view research" passive missions are low, and usually within the reach of the EPs you get from courthouses... which are practically required buildings these days.

You say "economy" = "technology aquisition strategy" is the standard :sad: That is a strange arguement. Looking at it the other way around it is easy to test your argument. My "technology aquisition strategy" includes gaining technology from goody huts, by self research (part of my economic strategy), by trading (diplomatic strategy), by extortion (military strategy) and by stealing (espionage strategy). I can see trading with other civs has an impact on the self-research strategy and thereby the economic strategy (since you don't need to produce those beakers) but it also has diplomatic and possibly military implications. Do you consider trading to be part of your own economy? I consider it external and outside of my control a bit like goody huts or extortion. Stealing a technology (via an espionage strategy) requires lots of EPs and so like research is part of my own economy that I can control to a considerable extent.Goody huts are random, so you can't control them. They're not a strategy... just like hoping to get the Truffles random event isn't a strategy. Trusting to luck isn't a strategy. It's what you do when a strategy fails. :mischief:

Acquiring technology militarily is almost as bad IMO. You might get the tech you want. You might also end up with a vassal rather than the tech. You also might find yourself at war with your bigger neighbor because you refused to accept your enemy's capitulation without the tech, and your neighbor wasn't as picky :eek: I go to war to take the land I need. Getting a tech or two in the process is a bonus.

To trade techs, you need a tech that other Civs don't. And that means you need to acquire techs. You can't rely on goody huts, and acquiring them military is almost as bad IMO.

So where does that leave you? What are your options? research, buy, or steal

Researching a tech requires a lot of beakers... often to the point of neglecting excess gold and espionage. Your options for acquiring beakers are converting commerce from cottages (and other sources of commerce), scientists, and 'bulbing great people. The civic Representation boosts the output of scientists (and increases the beaker yield of other specialists) and the civic Caste System divorces the number of scientists, merchants, and artists a city can run from the buildings it has built. The civics free speech and emancipation boosts the output of cottages.

Buying a tech (without a tech of your own to sweeten the pot) requires a lot of gold... often to the point of neglecting espionage and research. Your options for acquiring gold are converting commerce from cottages, merchants, and Trade Missions from Great Merchants. Unlike scientists, merchants don't have an equivalent of Representation to boost their output, so cottages yield more gold than merchants... but merchants generate Great Merchants for Trade Missions. But if you want merchants, then Caste System allows you to have as many as you can kept fed.

Stealing a tech requires a lot of EPs... often to the point of neglecting research and excess gold. Your options for acquiring EPs include converting commerce, spies, and the "infiltrate city" mission of Great Spies. Spies are as bad as engineers: they aren't influenced by Caste System so you need buildings to run them, the buildings you need to run a lot of them come late in the game, and there's no Civic that boosts their output. Even more so than gold, cottages are the way to acquire EPs.

There are three different ways of acquiring techs through research. There's two different ways of acquiring techs through espionage. There's two different ways of acquiring techs through gold. Cottages are viable options for all three methods of acquiring techs. Specialists, as a method of acquiring techs, are a viable option only through research. Great People have utility as both 'bulbing and their special abilities.

Table 1 - Methods of Acquiring Techs vs Sources of "commerce"

cottages specialists 'bulbing mission
research good good good N/A
purchase good poor N/A good
steal good poor N/A good



As you can see, your definition of "cottage economy" doesn't tell anyone what your primary method of acquiring techs is, either for personal use or for trade. Are you building all those cottages to research the techs you need? Are you buying them? Are you stealing them? More information is needed to know what you're doing, as opposed to what your inputs are.

As you can also see, your definition of "specialist economy" really only suggests one method of acquiring techs: research. 'Bulbing using the output of a GP farm is random, so you can't plan for getting a specific type of Great Person, while 'bulbing using Great People generated by many cities running specialists is highly predictable, and thus can be part of a plan.

You don't need multiple cities running specialists to acquire Great Merchants and Great Spies for their missions requires a single city running specialists primarily for the purpose of acquiring a Great Person. The normal output of those specialists is incidental to their output of GPPs.

How you get gold doesn't tell us anything about your strategy unless you're buying your techs. How you get espionage points doesn't tell us anything about your strategy unless you're stealing techs.

But how you aquire techs? That can tell us a lot.

I'm fairly new to SE, but I usually have most of my cities running a specialist or two if they can afford it, but there is usually a small number of core specialist cities. Ususally, I'll have a Super Science City, a GP farm (that ends up putting out a lot of research, too, since for at least the first half of the game I mainly want Great Scientests to help with research) and a merchant city. This usually works pretty well with me, I've just moved up to Prince and already I'm having no trouble dominating in tech.

Well, I still hold to my weak debating skills and my trivial positions that there were aggressive attacks on my position and that defining the term "economy" is actually important. I agree with the position that, for me, economy means "how in the heck I'm getting my technology". However, if you want to include gold, culture, espionage points, great people points, hammers, and so on, then that changes the definition of economy (duh) and I would change my position accordingly. Some experts have argued quite convincingly that hammers are part of your economy, which I haven't seen anyone other than myself mention thusfar. Does that mean that I'm not running a specialist economy if I am getting my hammers from mines instead of engineers and priests?

For my economy, in the first sense, I only really care about technology, although of course I understand that paying the maintenance bills costs money which can be included in a definition of economy in a second sense. I was saying it is viable to consider economy in the first sense as a valid definition and some others vehemently disagree with that notion. That's fine, I understand your position and you are welcome to it. That doesn't mean that I'm fundamentally wrong and should immediately change my position, because I'm surely not the only one that holds it on these forums and many of these people are better players than I am.

For goodness sake, what a load of histrionic nonsense, in the last few posts (#44 to #48). No one has been “aggressive” in this thread. Some language was forthright but not the least bit offensive. Everyone has addressed the points at issue until these last few posts. No one has made a personal attack on anyone that I can see (please show me where). So let’s cut out the childish accusations and people taking sides.


Well, aside from the courteous comments you have made yourself in this statement, there have been things said like the following that I feel have been uncalled for in this thread:

And one of the worst about trying to win CE vs. SE arguments by redefining anything that performed better into an SE, whether it made sense or not

Thanks. Nothing's more fun than bouncing ideas off each other, IMO, especially when we disagree. Who knows when something good might be shaken loose?

I wholeheartedly agree. No point in discussing things we agree on.

Oddly enough, I do the same at times. But I've always viewed it as "shutting down my economy," to produce gold, culture, and of late espionage. In other words, I'm sacrificing my long-term strategy to achieve a short-term goal. But it's always a temporary measure.

I understand what you are arguing but think it is an inferior way of thinking about the problem. :p You seem to be neglecting important parts of the game with this approach. By including gold and EPs (at least) into your concept of an economy (i.e. total output from all your cities derived from their population working tiles) you have the ability to trade one commodity for another. You can also form an opinion of the "strength" of your economy, which is a sort of GDP (but not the Civ4 definition given on the graphs). For me the turn by turn strength of an economy is the beakers, plus net gold (income minus costs) plus EPs.

An important consideration when comparing beakers to gold to EPs is their relative worth. For instance take a simple case early in the game when your capital has an academy and you have libraries and a few monasteries in most cities but no markets yet. Your cities have good building multipliers for beakers but none for gold. That means that increasing the research slider will increase the beakers more than the decrease in gold. Say you get 15 beakers but lose 10 gold by increasing research slider by 10%. This means 10 gold is effectively worth 15 beakers for your empire at this stage of the game. That is your gold to beaker exchange rate (through commerce)

This is useful to know as it means that if you have the option of building either wealth or research with hammers, clearly you should build wealth for gold and then raise the research slider by 10% for every 10 gold you can build to gain 15 beakers rather than building research for 10 beakers. That is a net gain of 50% for doing it the right way over the wrong way. Also if you can sell an old tech to another civ for 100 gold you know that is actually worth 150 beakers to you if you choose to use it to boost research. I often use these techniques when in the Liberalism race.

Since we’re clearly exchanging one commodity (gold) for another commodity (beakers) we have something more than the simple research based economy you are thinking of. This is the central part of my argument for considering the economy to be the combined output of beakers, gold and EPs. They have different relative exchange rates which are affected by the various buildings you have in cities and by some civics.


If I need 5000 gold to upgrade my units right before I invade, then I shut down everything (research, espionage, and culture) to produce the gold ASAP so I can return to my economy to normal. If I need 500 extra espionage points to ensure that my pair of spies in that border city with the castle can successfully perform the "incite revolt" mission, then I shut everything down to produce the espionage points... except for just enough gold so I don't go broke.

You are just supporting my argument for looking at the economy as the combined output of beakers+ gold+ EPs. What you are really saying here is "I need gold so I will forgo the beakers I really value to get it". Effectively you're turning beakers (which you want) into gold (which you need) in your mind. That is an economic transaction. Maybe you didn't realise that is what you do. However, I consider that is thinking about the problem the wrong way round and it is really the beakers that come from gold and we'll get to why I think that way later.

Gold and espionage are means to an end, not an end in and of itself. In the end, it's the techs you have that helps the empire grow... and wins the game.

Here we part company, if anything gold is the most fundamental output of your economy. Your empire will survive with no research and without EPs but you need enough gold each turn or your army deserts and your neighbours take advantage of you :eek: . Gold is also the basic output from commerce and doesn't have its own slider. Any commerce not turned into beakers, culture or EPs automatically becomes gold. In that sense it is the most basic of the economic commodities.

I see EPs as another special form of gold that has a restricted use. It can be allocated towards other civs (by raising the EP slider turning what would be gold to EPs) but can't be recovered easily. It is valuable but has restricted use.

My economy is based mostly on the resources and land I have, and what strategy I should use to exploit them for maximum effect. Long before I settle my second city, I've already decided what tile improvements I'll be using and where, what buildings will be built, what civics I'll ultimately be running, which technologies will have priority, what specialists I will be running, and where cities will be founded and in which order. The dot-map of a future CE looks a lot different than the dotmap of a future SE.

This is a paragraph that I could have written. You clearly have an economic strategy for the development of that land, the placement of the cities and the tile improvements. That is a part of your future economy that you’re considering, each city you build and grow is part of your economy and its outputs are a contribution to beakers, gold and EPs (which are the commodities your economy produces and you need in varying amounts to play the game)

And I agree that we should keep hammers out of this discussion. :hammer2:

Fine, but I want to note that they really do form part of the economy in its fullest sense. Building military units are an output of your empire in the same sense that EPs are. You need both of them to defend against and to attack other civs. Also note that a SE with its many farms has a lot more food than a CE and can through Slavery produce a lot of hammers in a short time. That means a technology like Education is rapidly exploited by getting 6 universities for Oxford and a technology like Engineering can result in a large stack of trebuchets very quickly. Essentially a SE sacrifices its specialists ( who were producing beakers, gold, EPs and GPPs) in the short term for hammers. That is an economic and a military strategy. Let’s leave it there as hammers certainly complicate the discussion a great deal, but in principle they are same as the commerce like commodities.

Like I said, we're approaching it from two different directions. When I think of the US economy, I don't think GDP. I think of terms like "capitalist," "free market," or sometimes "Social Darwinism." The economy isn't about what you produce, but how you produce it (and how many people you step on to do so.)

You seem to be confusing several ideas and descriptions about what a real life economy is and what it does. A real life economy produces goods and services which are made by the workers and factories, mines and farms. The real US economy takes farmers, miners and office workers and pigs, hens, corn, coal mines, steel works and so on as inputs and it produces sausages, eggs and bacon, cars and skyscrapers and services like music, TV programmes, and insurance and so on. An economy is all the economic activities that take place. The GDP measures the strength of the US economy in terms of the value (in dollars) of the total output.

Capitalist and free market are terms that describe how the economy functions internally and with other economies around the world. They describe the type of the relations that are possible between the agents (farmers, factory workers, managers, supermarkets) that make the economy work. They are not the economy themselves but rather the type of economy it is like a CE is a type of economy that has particular relationships between its much simplified elements (e.g. Towns and Free Speech)

P.S. I am not an economist, perhaps someone reading this who is can help us understand any parallels between the economy in Civ4 and a real life one.

I classify gold as a necessary evil. :evil: When I need it, I get it. When I don't need it, I get enough to pay my bills. Keeping a treasury just doesn't make sense given the fact that we don't earn interest on our treasury... but we certainly have to worry about inflation!

This seems extremely neglectful. I hope you don’t treat your personal finances in such a cavalier fashion :P

Seriously, I think you’ll agree that gold in Civ4 has value. So a treasury full of gold is better than an empty one, if nothing else you can fund deficit research or deficit EP production which translates gold into other valuable commodities needed in the game. Gold is often a store of value. You can’t store beakers they have to be spent that turn on a technology that you might be able to get another way and in that sense they would be wasted.


That is an interesting idea, though, about a gold economy... after acquiring currency and alphabet, maximize gold output and buy your techs rather than research them yourself. It would certainly reduce the number of buildings you'd have to build, and has the advantage of flexibility as well. Given that there is no equivalent of Representation to boost the output of merchant specialists, this strategy almost requires cottages.

A pure gold economy has been done in the past, way back in vanilla I seem to remember reading somewhere. It relies on maintaining good diplomatic relations with the sellers. The AIs seem to have problems selling military techs

( Still wouldn't call it a CE though. :p )

You need to think why that is. I can’t see any good reason.


Disadvantage is you have to have someone else research the tech, and they have to be willing to trade it to you. Unfortunately, you'll probably hit the WFYABTA wall fairly quickly.

The guy running the gold only economy mentioned those limitations. I think you really have to run a combined gold and beaker economy to make a success of it.


Beakers may not be flexible... but IMO they are the most powerful.

I look forward to you justifying this opinion in all games and in all circumstances (you didn’t qualify your statement :p )



As I said before, unless you're planning on a lot of espionage missions, you don't need many EPs. The cost for "view demographics" and "view research" passive missions are low, and usually within the reach of the EPs you get from courthouses... which are practically required buildings these days.

Courthouses are pretty much essential in any city. But they will not be enough to keep pace with EPs in the late game when the costs of the passive missions can rise rapidly. Early on they’re all you have besides castles and raising the EP slider


Goody huts are random, so you can't control them. They're not a strategy... just like hoping to get the Truffles random event isn't a strategy. Trusting to luck isn't a strategy. It's what you do when a strategy fails. :mischief:

There is a strategy associated with goody huts. You can’t predict what you’ll get but with a scout it is always something good. Early game, build another scout and pop a few more huts before the AI get them. That’s a strategy. I often send an explorer with my caravel on the circumnavigation quest. Any huts he passes get popped and a couple of times it’s been Astronomy he discovered …a very handsome reward for my little strategy. The explorer can also help complete the circumnavigation quest so it is a dual purpose strategy. I admit it is not a major strategy or reliable but it is a way to pick up a technology you’d otherwise have to research.

Acquiring technology militarily is almost as bad IMO. You might get the tech you want. You might also end up with a vassal rather than the tech. You also might find yourself at war with your bigger neighbor because you refused to accept your enemy's capitulation without the tech, and your neighbor wasn't as picky :eek: I go to war to take the land I need. Getting a tech or two in the process is a bonus.

To trade techs, you need a tech that other Civs don't. And that means you need to acquire techs. You can't rely on goody huts, and acquiring them military is almost as bad IMO.

Actually, you can beg a tech from a friendly AI for nothing. That is counted as a trade but I’m not sure what the chances of success are. Also buying a tech with money which you describe below is also a trade and counts towards WFYABTA. In general trading for techs is based on trading your techs and gold for their techs and gold with an in built bias in favour of the AI, they always ask for a little bit more than a fair trade in simple beaker terms. It doesn’t matter how you acquired the techs you use in trade unless you set technology brokering on in a custom game (to stop AIs trading away your unique tech). I see each tech used in trade as a package of beakers which is comparable to the beakers your economy produces each turn. If you acquire a tech worth 2000 beakers and you produce 500 per turn the tech is “worth” 4 turns of research in some senses.


Stealing a tech requires a lot of EPs... often to the point of neglecting research and excess gold. Your options for acquiring EPs include converting commerce, spies, and the "infiltrate city" mission of Great Spies. Spies are as bad as engineers: they aren't influenced by Caste System so you need buildings to run them, the buildings you need to run a lot of them come late in the game, and there's no Civic that boosts their output. Even more so than gold, cottages are the way to acquire EPs.

Actually, the Nationhood civic gives a very nice +25% boost to EPs :) I think you’re making this sound more difficult than it is in reality. When I run a SE, without pyramids, I often beeline towards Constitution for its Representation and jails. I whip in the jails and then switch civics to Representation and Nationhood (during the Golden Age the Taj Mahal gave me :) ) Now my courthouses and jails give 6 passive EPs and a +50% EP to add to the +25% from Nationhood and sometimes the +25% from a castle. That +100% bonus suddenly makes a spy specialist very useful, giving 8 EPs and 6 beakers (with library and university) for just 2 food. My best cities are then running 3 spies and give 6 + 12 EPs with +100% EP = 36 EPs. At that relatively early stage of the game a few cities like that rapidly build up an advantage in EPs over the AI civs. With jails now in place and running Nationhood it is also a good time to turn some commerce into EPs at a good rate (1 commerce = 2 EPs). So my espionage strategy will often be delayed until this middle game stage and I’ll stockpile some gold beforehand in anticipation to finance deficit spending on EPs.



There are three different ways of acquiring techs through research. There's two different ways of acquiring techs through espionage. There's two different ways of acquiring techs through gold. Cottages are viable options for all three methods of acquiring techs. Specialists, as a method of acquiring techs, are a viable option only through research. Great People have utility as both 'bulbing and their special abilities.

Not sure quite what you mean here. I see only one way to gain technologies through using beakers (self-research) and one way through EPs (stealing). Gold can never give you a tech unless another civ trades with you for it in trade deal. For that you need good diplomatic relations. You could also trade your techs (however you gained them) for another civ’s techs or for a combination of techs and gold.

Table 1 - Methods of Acquiring Techs vs Sources of "commerce"

cottages specialists 'bulbing mission
research good good good N/A
purchase good poor N/A good
steal good poor N/A good



Interesting, but why can’t I use a combined research and purchase strategy? Using merchants and running Representation you could gain gold to buy some techs and self research others. The same applies to running spies and stealing. In fact I look to use all three in my economies :P


As you can see, your definition of "cottage economy" doesn't tell anyone what your primary method of acquiring techs is, either for personal use or for trade. Are you building all those cottages to research the techs you need? Are you buying them? Are you stealing them? More information is needed to know what you're doing, as opposed to what your inputs are.

I don’t see why it is important to tell anyone how I will acquire my techs. My intention is to build a powerful economy and I trust that economy will be able to do it one way or another. Instead of being already committed to self research (as you seem to favour) I can choose which method is best according to the strengths of my economy and who my AI opponents are and what they are doing. It seems mine is the superior approach since I can do anything you could do and have additional options as well and they might be better than self researching technologies in some games and at some times.


As you can also see, your definition of "specialist economy" really only suggests one method of acquiring techs: research. 'Bulbing using the output of a GP farm is random, so you can't plan for getting a specific type of Great Person, while 'bulbing using Great People generated by many cities running specialists is highly predictable, and thus can be part of a plan.

I don’t think that is my definition of a SE.

I seldom lightbulb more than 2 GS on the way to Liberalism and except for a GM needed for Sids Sushi (if I decide to go that way rather than State Property) other than that I don’t care much what GPs pop out. They all have their uses and can be burned in a golden age.



You don't need multiple cities running specialists to acquire Great Merchants and Great Spies for their missions requires a single city running specialists primarily for the purpose of acquiring a Great Person. The normal output of those specialists is incidental to their output of GPPs.

How you get gold doesn't tell us anything about your strategy unless you're buying your techs. How you get espionage points doesn't tell us anything about your strategy unless you're stealing techs.

But how you aquire techs? That can tell us a lot.

I don’t feel the need to “tell” anyone about how my economy acquires techs. Why is this a concern? The reason I define my economy in terms of beakers, gold and EPs is that is allows me to assess my Empire’s total economic power and the flexibility I have for exchanging one of these commodities for another. That allows me to use my diplomatic and military strategies with more confidence. I am essentially considering a greater level of detail than your approach and that gives me more options or at least better understanding of what is happening.

Phew… that took far too long to write. I guess you’ll be the only person to read it all.

UncleJJ,

Rather than do a point by point reply like last time (which would get extremely long) I'll just say this.

I don't disagree with anything you said, per se. I do just about everything you do...

But...

At the end of the day, it's still about acquiring techs. You may be in trouble if you run out gold, but you're also in trouble if you can only build archers, and your neighbors are building tanks.

Mischievious RNG gods not withstanding. :spear:

I said it before, and I'll say it again: we seem to be approaching the same thing from two different directions. It doesn't necessarily mean either approach is inferior, but it does mean that we'll disagree.

To me, my economy is about getting me the techs I need. Yes, gold and espionage are technically part of the economy, but I view them as a drain on the focus of my economy, rather than part of a whole. My army can't conquor if I'm bringing an oversized knife to a gun fight. I can't win a cultural victory if I don't know how to build cathedrals. I can't launch a spaceship if I haven't studied astronomy. I might not be able to get Sitting Bull's vote if I can't switch to Environmentalism.





And yes, I treat my personal finances a lot differently than I treat gold in CIV. After all, real life doesn't have a reload and a begin new game option. ;)

Alright, for some reason a couple guys are making posts so long here that I can't bare to read.

So I'll just say this. UncleJJ has been around for quite a while, and I've noticed always take some keen interest in SE threads. And since he has also pretty much been accurate to details with beaker math revolving around this area... if he says something I'll just assume he knows what he's talking about and move on.

That is, unless he tells someone don't listen to Obsolete, or something else against me. But I don't think we disagree on much... :P

At the end of the day, it's still about acquiring techs. You may be in trouble if you run out gold, but you're also in trouble if you can only build archers, and your neighbors are building tanks.
Actually, IMO, at the end of the day, it's about paying your expenses, and managing your income to pay all those expenses.

Advancing your tech research (however you go about it, whether directly or indirectly through espionage or whatever) is one of your expenses.

As is paying unit maintenance, funding happiness through the culture slider, paying city maintenance, etc.

To me, my economy is about getting me the techs I need.
Personally I think my economy is about managing my inputs and outputs. Getting the techs I need or want is a strategic goal. I use my economy to fulfill that goal (among others).

Just me. :)

Wodan

If you can't pay your bills you'll go on strike and lose the game. If you can pay your bills, you'll advance in technology and win the game. At the end of the day, it's the same thing, just a different point of emphasis in terms of definition and how you want to look at it. One way is technically more correct in that it is more inclusive, but the other is technically true as well as technology is a, if not the, primary focus/goal of an economy in civ4. Personally, I find myself more sympathetic to DarkFrye, but I don't disagree with the other camp either.

Where the other definition becomes hazy for me is when we start to get into "espionage economy" and other weirdness.

(Other = if my "economy" is defined as "how I get my research")

Under this definition, a valid economy is building a crapload of units (even if obsolete) and beating the stuffing out of AIs and forcing them to give me all their techs. Then, I let them live and beat up on a different AI. Later on, I go back to the first one.

You could literally do nothing but build units, and leave your slider at 0% research the whole game, and I bet you would almost certainly win the game.

So is "do nothing but build units" an "economy"? It just seems weird to me, especially when the majority of the player management in such a game would be dealing with unit maintenance costs, but by definition that is not a part of the economy.

The only way it works (for me) is to define an economy as everything to do with your inputs or outputs that modify commerce/beakers/gold. It's the big picture that is your economy, not simply the little facet that deals with techs. If you didn't have that big picture, then the tech aspect would fall apart.

Wodan

Where the other definition becomes hazy for me is when we start to get into "espionage economy" and other weirdness.

(Other = if my "economy" is defined as "how I get my research")That's the reason why many of us roll up "economy" and "tech aquisition strategy" into one definition... with the understanding that resources will be diverted to pay the bills and aquire information about other empires.

Defining an economy just by its inputs (specialists and cottages/commerce) and outputs (gold, beakers, espionage, culture) isn't nearly as informative as defining it by its inputs (specialists and commerce) and what you're doing with the outputs. Since you always have to pay your bills (lest your empire fall apart), and you always want to maintain an espionage level you find comfortable, how you use what's left (excess gold, excess espionage, beakers, and culture) determines your total economic strategy. Most people use what's left to drive research, which is why a lot of people view the generic Cottage Economy and Specialist Economy as being about research, and define non-research based economic strategies as ________ "economies."

Under this definition, a valid economy is building a crapload of units (even if obsolete) and beating the stuffing out of AIs and forcing them to give me all their techs. Then, I let them live and beat up on a different AI. Later on, I go back to the first one.

You could literally do nothing but build units, and leave your slider at 0% research the whole game, and I bet you would almost certainly win the game.

So is "do nothing but build units" an "economy"? It just seems weird to me, especially when the majority of the player management in such a game would be dealing with unit maintenance costs, but by definition that is not a part of the economy.What you just described is known as a "war economy." You bully other Civs for their technology, plunder their lands, and focus on gold for unit upgrades and upkeep. You don't destroy them or vassalize them, just ensure that they'll spend a lot of time recovering while you move on to the next victim. It worked for the Mongols, after all. :cool:

It's called an "economy" due to the fact that research isn't the focus of your economy. Driving the engine of war is the focus of your economy.

The only way it works (for me) is to define an economy as everything to do with your inputs or outputs that modify commerce/beakers/gold. It's the big picture that is your economy, not simply the little facet that deals with techs. If you didn't have that big picture, then the tech aspect would fall apart.

WodanWhat I find interesting is that we both feel the other side is "looking at a little facet" and not concentrating on "the big picture." The only way it works (for me) is to define an economy both by its inputs and by what you do with the outputs, after paying your bills and maintaining your espionage at a comfortable level, of course.

Where I'm getting my inputs from determines the types of improvements my workers build, what civics I run, and what buildings I use for happiness and, to a lesser degree, health. What I'm doing with the outputs, determines what types of multiplication buildings I build and which I give priority to.

If I'm running an Espionage Economy