In most economic threads someone is going to remind everyone that "there is no such thing as a pure economy". Sometimes that someone is me.

But that got me thinking. Why cant there be?

As some of you know i am not a fan of US. But i took a second look at it and crunched the numbers again. What i found was that a pure CE where nothing but cottages is being built (aside from the odd farm to support plains and hill cottages), is theoretically viable.

Assumptions: Non-financial civ for the sake of example. The early game is played as usual in whichever style preferred, and we build the pyramids. When we get banks (which we build everywhere), we switch to US and cottage over every mine, workshop, mill, forest and most farms. One city will remain a normal hammer city for the sake of building wonders and eventually spaceparts if thats how you wanna win. Any GP farms will also be cottaged over as soon as the GP it is currently working on (as well as any GP you plan on using for corps) is finished.

Taking multipliers into account (25% hammer, 100% gold) and assuming we use gold for all production aside from wonders and spaceparts, production breaks down like this:

A mined hill gives 3*1.25=3.75 hammers. A hill town under US gives 2*1.25+(5*2)/3=5.83 hammers.

A grassland workshop of the same era is just like a mine. A grassland town gives 1.25+10/3=4.58 hammers.

What this means is that rush buying is actually a better option than building things with hammers. All of this is without taking FS and the kremlin into account, which we will have around the time railroads and SP arrive.

On the economy side of things, more cottages means earlier switch to FS, it would probably be worthwhile even in 6 city empires. Specialists lose half their beakers, something i was initially worried about since i settle most of my GP, but the extra beakers from cottage hills and the lower relative cost of building things ought to make up for it.

Potential problems: There is a lag time while cottages mature into towns. I dont know how much of a problem this is since i have yet to try it, but unless you are in constant war i expect it to be manageable. Since we are not running a GP farm, emancipation is likely the best civic.

Thoughts? And does anyone have examples of how other types of pure economies could be run?

What difficulty are you assuming? In higher difficulties, this would probably spell doom either in the early game, when there is no US and not many cottage bonuses yet, or during the transition between a normal mixed economy to a pure cottage economy. Not even Emancipation can buy you enough time to resume effective production unless you are extremely lucky and have wimpy neighbours.

Difficulty is more a function of player skill than anything else, so im not making any assumptions there.

I did, however, forget one assumption: That the pyramids are built. Would have to wait longer otherwise. Editing it in.

US is indeed very powerful.

I would still keep my GP farm, my Ironworks city and my HE city. But if I am running a cottage economy late game then everything else will be towns where it is viable to do so (a city with only fish and plains hills can't build cottages for example but might still do a good job producing your navy).

There really is no problem transitioning to this sort of economy either - early game you need more production, but once you have lots of towns then production just takes care of itself.

Even in constant war its manageable - those cottage cities now get their full infrastructure of happy buildings very quickly. Eventually in the late game I might flip between police state and US, but US is my favorite late game warring civic and I resent being forced out of it. So much so I usually build the CR wonder so I can switch in and out at will.

Once a big late game cottage economy switches off science totally and puts every coin into production there is nothing that can out produce it.

I don't think so, because difficulty affects AI behaviour. AI behaviour can be quite independent of even skillful diplomacy.

Difficulty is more a function of player skill than anything else, so im not making any assumptions there.

I did, however, forget one assumption: That the pyramids are built. Would have to wait longer otherwise. Editing it in.

You really don't need this. Run Hereditary Rules so you cottage cities get big. Research to Democracy which you need for emancipation anyway. Early game you don't have enough towns for US to matter and you are better off pursuing growth with a mix of specialists and cottage cities. Only once you get democracy is it worth switching to towns almost exclusively.

Maybe it depends on how big a transformation you need to make in switching to a pure CE. But pure CE is impossible in the early game.

Once a big late game cottage economy switches off science totally and puts every coin into production there is nothing that can out produce it.
This is what makes me so giddy about the whole thing. Even maxed SP workshops everywhere cant outproduce this kind of setup, and the entire production capacity can theoretically be focused in one place, and moved about with no need to change infrastructure or improvements. It also eliminates the need for factories.

Maybe it depends on how big a transformation you need to make in switching to a pure CE. But pure CE is impossible in the early game.

I agree - lets say you grow as follows:

- Cottage or farm capital depending on what terrain you get.
- Second city is unit production
- Maybe third too, but it can be switched later
- City four is a specialist city for early GPs/potential GP farm.
- City five is a cottage city since you are now hurting a little on maintenance
- City six is another specialist city - your science rate has dropped so running scientists with a library is more attractive
- City 7-9 are cottage cities as now maintenance is hurting.

And then just keep adding cottage cities with the occasional production city. I find if I REX rather than concentrate on vertical growth then cottage cities are increasingly needed to pay for the expansion. So it makes sense to build more of them.

Early on you mix it up, but when you get to cities 7+ they are pretty unlikely to grow a great person for you so putting them as cottage cities isn't forgoing anything - it means you can keep running scientists in your cities with libraries and at that time in the game you don't have any multipliers for cash anyway.

It isn't a pure CE - but when you want to cottage over some of the specialist cities later, you find you don't have that many that need to be changed. Its only in the early game that specialist cities are dominant - before your GP farm is setup.

This is what makes me so giddy about the whole thing. Even maxed SP workshops everywhere cant outproduce this kind of setup, and the entire production capacity can theoretically be focused in one place, and moved about with no need to change infrastructure or improvements. It also eliminates the need for factories.


Its a lot of fun - and you can direct the hammers into cities close to your opponent - great for invading a new continent. And put them into cities where the AI settled great generals.

Rushbuying 20 nukes on the turn after getting the manhattan project is kinda fun too.

But I think I spoke too fast. I imagine it would be possible to run a somewhat pure CE on a low enough difficulty with the occassional whipping for necessary production.

In any case, I don't believe that a rapid transformation into pure CE, even after Democracy, is generally a sound move. I would prefer a more gradual transition, keeping in mind that more traditional methods of production might be necessary in the meantime. I wouldn't do that either, though :p

But I think I spoke too fast. I imagine it would be possible to run a somewhat pure CE on a low enough difficulty with the occassional whipping for necessary production.

In any case, I don't believe that a rapid transformation into pure CE, even after Democracy, is generally a sound move. I would prefer a more gradual transition, keeping in mind that more traditional methods of production might be necessary in the meantime. I wouldn't do that either, though :p

I don't find that my economy goes through a sudden transformation into a CE. Its more that it may become more CE like over the course of time such that transforming it is a relatively small thing. (Or it may become more SE like in other games.)

Shrug. I've told you this also. You CAN run purer economies. It IS viable. You don't even need Pyramids at all. As InvisibleStalker mentions, if you're not running an excess of Specialists everywhere, getting the happiness cap off while improving your power rating with HR is a much better deal.

PS: You should still run at least 1 GP Farm. It's just too good to pass up in the early game. It doesn't need to run Specialists. It can run off just Wonders and it'll be fine. Lag time for Town maturation can be problematic, but you can stagger it to improve the transition, or simply wait for Emancipation to cut transition time in half.

Financial improves the setup enough that you shouldn't have all that many transition or maturation problems, and Floodplains or Food-rich sites can allow you to run enough food to get up the population while also running Cottages.

UncleJJ talks about an alternative setup: filler cities for working and improving Cottage tiles while the main cities are busy doing something else, like growing. There's no transition time because the Cottages are always being worked, even while the main cities are still running Specialists or Food. Once the mains take over, whip or draft away hungry pop points.

I'd recommend making the transition fairly gradual so the economy doesn't tank. I'd probably keep production cities also, as they add some flexibility and safety via building wealth or units.

But rush buying IS really powerful. I used it in one of the group games on this strategy forum to maintain an intercontinental invasion in the age of sail (had mids). Once I had a few cities on the new continent, barracks and units started coming really fast...this was on Monarch difficulty, but based on the ridiculous ease of doing this, I'd have to say it would work on at least emperor. Maybe that's a low difficulty to some people, but still.

Basically a strong CE with multipliers can get new units faster than drafting, and they're better units (or at least better-promoted). The ability to pump out new infrastructure is pretty useful also.

Still, earlygame specialists to get you some research and lib path bulbs, and making some commerce cities early and also keeping the GP farm makes sense. Also a specialist-heavy science city could keep you servicable in research speed (read: not 0 techs while rushbuying at war :)) even with a low slider.

I aim for this but my balance is off, which is why I'm still at monarch. Timing the switch and balancing the commerce cities with other types is starting to come to me though, so I'll likely jump to emperor shortly.

Edit: Ibian likely suggests the mids for 2 reasons:

1. When running specialists early in the game, especially the time period of using libraries, the mids are a huge boost to research.

but also

2. The mids opens up US long before it would be available normally. Also, having them means you can use a rush-buying strategy while going military techs like grens/cannons or rifles. This is a big deal, because skipping rep and democracy while still being able to rush buy heavily means attack windows come sooner and exist longer. You don't even need nationalism in this scenario!

I'd definitely recommend the gren/cannon line if doing a warmonger strat with this aspect of the CE. I still don't think PURE cottages beat other options that add a specialized city (or two or three). However, in theory the US CE rushbuy is damn strong.

Maybe it depends on how big a transformation you need to make in switching to a pure CE. But pure CE is impossible in the early game.

He is not talking about CE early in the game, he talks about full CE late in the game, and he is about 2 years too late for this to be new.

As most things, it depends on my goals and my playstyle. Late game production often means space-ship production which need the raw:hammers:

TheMeInTeam:

Does US beat Nationalism and is a great early game Civic?

I don't believe so.

Rushbuying units and buildings is cute, but without any other benefit before Towns, US just isn't that great as a generic Civic to use long-term. It's great as a dip Civic for Spiritual Civs that have Mids and are using Cottages heavily, but IMO, it's still no match for Nationalism (and it's not in the same Civic line anyway).

I even play on Normal speed where attack windows apparently are too narrow to play for some. Rushbuying grants you a few more units reinforcement if you tank your beaker output, but the anarchy to US and after it is just too costly for nonSpirituals, and its use for upbuilding buildings and such is too marginal in the early game, where I prefer using food for whipping and gold for teching.

The Mids are definitely a major factor for running lots and lots of Specialists in the early game, but I kind of was thinking that the point was running Cottages early and massively?

I have run a few RPCs that focus on specific economies, to the detriment of the game although victory was still achieved. Here are a few, and the games can be accessed via the link in my signature

CE only: "Persians in Space" I cottaged every tile except for resources, and hills pre-democracy. After democracy I cottaged the hills. The purpose was to use a strict CE game (cottages ASAP, US/FS civics ASAP) to launch a space race in with very limited warring, although I did allow one GP farm to obtain some Great Scientists. Space Race win although I am sure I could have launched earlier if I played a normal game.

SE only: It is very possible to win a SE only game, I did this in " Monty the Mad Scientist". Only scientist specialists were allowed until Biology, cottages were forbidden, captured cottages from AIs were pillaged to nothing and farmed over. We outteched several financial AIs including Willem/PAcal/Hyuna/Ragnar although it is hard to tech once your dead. Domination win

TE only: "SeaFaring Victoria", worked to get all commerce from trade route, sea tiles, and resources by claiming the ToA/GLighthouse/Colossus wonders. No cottages were built although we did stal some from another AI. Space RAce win.

Religious Economy: "Holy Sal!" Founding 6 religions and getting all 6 shrines to completely fund the empire. We got commerce from cottages but only ran priest specisilists.

NONE of these games were exceptional economies and would definitely have played out better with a Hybrid game. However, it is possible to stick to a strict "One type" economy, but i view it as more enntertainment value rather than the most efficient method of playing.

Regarding US, I rarely use it and if I do it's for the added hammer bonus on a very heavy river/cottage empire. i play marathon speed, so the costs of buying building/units never seams worth it.

He is not talking about CE early in the game, he talks about full CE late in the game, and he is about 2 years too late for this to be new.
Yah i know its not new new, but i have never seen it spelled out like this so its new to me. Prolly new to a lot of other newcomers too.

Anyhow, i went and tried it (monarch/fractal/normal). After punting the Dutch off my landmass i went and settled the 7 cities i had room for. No good place for a GP farm, so i ran several quasi-farms (quasi in that they ran exactly enough specialists to out-GPP the wonderspammer, and after the first GP they stopped). Got 3 scientists, a merchant and artist for corps before leaving GP production to the wonder city.

The terrain is pretty crappy, isolated for over half the game with all of 4 happy resources.

I started the transition too early, but i was impatient and wanted to see how much economic abuse i could get away with. Dropped the slider to 0% and started buying infrastructure while my workers cottaged everything (this was the first time i have ever cottaged a hill).

Within 20 turns i have all useful infrastructure and i met the rest of the civs at the same time. Net result, my gold income quadrupled and is still growing thanks to cottage growth and traded resources.

When i started the transition i was last in tech. Since my gold multiplier is better than my science multiplier and i dont have any techs to trade away anyhow, i did the next best thing: i kept the gold slider maxed and started buying techs, starting with the weakest guy.

Thats where i am now. My cottages will all be towns soon, and then i will see if i have enough of them to make the switch to FS (moved my bureau capital to my best cottage city). It looks winable.

Ibian, I wonder if HR first would not better and then move to US when the cottages are mature... this especially if you're :) deprived.

TheMeInTeam:

Does US beat Nationalism and is a great early game Civic?

I don't believe so.

Rushbuying units and buildings is cute, but without any other benefit before Towns, US just isn't that great as a generic Civic to use long-term. It's great as a dip Civic for Spiritual Civs that have Mids and are using Cottages heavily, but IMO, it's still no match for Nationalism (and it's not in the same Civic line anyway).

I even play on Normal speed where attack windows apparently are too narrow to play for some. Rushbuying grants you a few more units reinforcement if you tank your beaker output, but the anarchy to US and after it is just too costly for nonSpirituals, and its use for upbuilding buildings and such is too marginal in the early game, where I prefer using food for whipping and gold for teching.

The Mids are definitely a major factor for running lots and lots of Specialists in the early game, but I kind of was thinking that the point was running Cottages early and massively?

You wouldn't use the mids for US in the earlygame. You'd use it AFTER grabbing certain necessary techs, such as steel. That isn't the earlygame anymore. People often have fairly large empires by then, and the first core cities (and potentially captured AI cities) will all have towns easily by then.

Early in the game, you'd run rep while doing this, no need for US. During the period where you'd want military buildup, you'd switch to US (economy can likely support it, especially after liberalism). You'd then rush buy everything. While it's a different civic set than nationalism, the concept is the same to an extent. You'd get the techs necessary to field some decent military FIRST, then switch. What the mids allows for is doing this without going down the war tech-slowing rep-democracy path. Instead, you can win Lib and take something like printing press, astronomy, gunpowder, or even chemistry if you can swing it. The anarchy from switching to US would be no different than that of nationhood.

If you have the banks this flat out trounces nationalism, since you can rush buy more than 3 units in a turn, and potentially many more. Those units can be ANYTHING (even cannons or ships!), and come with full promotions. This does hurt tech, but so does draft anger (albeit barely if set up correctly). US rush buy for war isn't something you do with short or middle term teching ability in mind, however :).

As for cottaging massively, I'd do so, but not in the science GP farm city :p. Also, most CE players I know run scientists early regardless. If nothing else, it's :) too. There's still plenty of room to cottage outside the science city...

As you can tell, I do NOT advocate pure and only CE. However, I DO advocate using a CE variant to rush buy offensively in some situations. Doing so can be very powerful, and the mids open up a possibility of doing so with interesting timing...almost replacing rifle drafting with cannon/gren purchases (and cannons/grens can mop up pretty soundly until the AI's start picking up physics or assembly line)

Ibian, I wonder if HR first would not better and then move to US when the cottages are mature... this especially if you're :) deprived.
Yah, probably. Especially with no proper GP farm this time around. I just forgot since i rarely use it (prolly should).

He is not talking about CE early in the game, he talks about full CE late in the game

I don't see that discounted anywhere. And, like I said later, I think it's actually possible on lower difficulty levels. It's just not an optimal strategy.

TheMeInTeam:

I don't know about that. I've actually tried doing that and it never works out as "better" than Nationalism combined with draft tactics. Drafting massive amounts of troops is just better on many counts.

The possibility of doing it with Pyramids is interesting, and I've tried on occasion to work it in a number of circumstances. I'm a big fan of save-reloading games at particular points to try out wacky new strategy concepts.

The main trouble with rushbuying troops using US and a flat slider on Towns is that you utterly, utterly tank your science output. That's just terrible. No, no. Just engineer a Merchant and use it on a Mission to get the gold for rushbuying. That works out better.

Even with Banks, rushbuying newly queued units is prohibitively expensive and there's no hammer overflow to leverage like in whipping. You can only Draft 3 units a turn, but if you create 2 dedicated Draft Cities to absorb the unhappiness, you'll only draft once each turn out of 10 other cities to create a 30 unit Gunpowder Unit surplus in 10 turns in addition to whatever other units you've been building. Depending on your Draft City design, you can sustain drafting in one or two of your Draft cities indefinitely until your unit maintenance completely tanks your economy. If nothing else, after 10 turns, it's possible that you've cycled away unhappiness and pop hits in your first nonDraft city and can continue to draft 3 units a turn until your computer crashes from the graphics load.

Now THAT's a massive army.

I frankly don't see that massive and sustained a unit output from rushbuying. You're interfering with normal production queues so that's automatically hitting your production and it's costing you tech.

Unless you can rushbuy 60 Gunpowder units in 20 turns plus a core of maybe 18 (conservatively) other regularly made units (78 unit stack on Normal map!), it's just not going to compete.

At this point, you might be thinking that I'm the Shaka Aggressive AI. Since I can tank my economy on unit maintenance alone, you might have some justification for that.

I find that rushbuying units under US is best for supplying reinforcements on the field and with many Towns imminent or current. In fact, under US, I reserve my money not for rushbuying units but for rushbuying buildings in my new cities so I can get them online faster and not lose momentum in a war. Courthouse is a major building buy concern, as is Airport and Theater (for maximizing Culture and minimizing WW).

There's no reason you can't combine the two, either. Draft the units, rushbuy the buildings, leave additional money for upgrading your army in the field.

As far as rush buying goes, I usually have 10+ cities by the time it's reasonable to go US, but once in a rare while around 8 (even if this meant early war). I usually let the city put some minimal amount of production into the unit (and obviously favor cities with otherwise low production to rush buy), to avoid the penalty for newly queued units. This of course functions best with many cities.

You are, of course, correct that you can actually draft AND rush buy (comically, it's actually possible to have all 3 forms of rushing at once, though slavery usually isn't recommended that late, and it won't stack with rush buy). That means that with the slider off and a good globe city, one could conceivably get IMMENSE troop counts quickly (especially if chaining rush bought cannons with drafted muskets/rifles or something).

I've had situations with 10-12 cities netting me around 500 gpt at 0% science in the age of cannons. That DOES allow for sustained rush buying of 3 or more new units per turn, but it's better with more cities. IMO it might be a tad weaker than drafting with a good globe city in that scenario (as you do hurt science). However, as the empire gets larger, rush buying becomes more desirable for 2 reasons: 1. You're going to have more income (i've had well over 1k gpt with infantry...and at that point you can rush buy out QUITE a few infantry...check out my LHC game). 2. (and this is the big one for me): You're going for broke. If you have a big empire and a tech lead of some sorts (even if it's just military techs that you're ahead in), rush buying mobs of units every turn is basically a push to functionally or literally end the game.

I use rushbuying to finish my domination games. Once you hit industrialism, you don't need to research. Why would you? It'll be a century before any AI gets to robotics. The timeframe between industrialism and robotics is more than enough to get you a win on a standard size map and epic or marathon speeds.

Rushbuying is for your 20 city cottage empire in the age of infantry/tanks/bombers. Before then use drafting.

But your 20 city cottage empire can easily rushbuy way more than 3 units a turn. And if you have infantry, tanks and bombers, you need no more techs. You are on course for winning the game and can divert so much production that you become unstoppable.

And not to mention that every town contributing a hammer means you are still getting lots of units from regular production.

Workshops beat rush-buying in most cases.

An empire with towns almost literally everywhere (supported by a food corporation) is ridiculous. Not only does it have a ginormous output, it can decide at whim whehter to channel it into traditional commerce or production (even able to pick exactly where the production goes...)

Working towards that early on is unnecessarily difficult though, and going all-out later might take longer than winning with a less broken approach. Flashy, but ultimately it's a win-more approach.

***

Generally, I'd say the best approach is twofold: picking something to milk for all it's worth, but being aware when it's better to make exceptions.

Examples for typical cottage economies: GPP have huge initial payoffs (although rapidly diminishing returns). Even an economy totally optimised for something else should have a way to generate some (if you avoid specialists entirely, at least build a few wonders). Likewise, a few military cities that are never expected to shine can free the good cities to build infrastructure.

- Farm-based Economies struggle with the health cap as it is... if a city has 10 Flood Plains as well, something else might be in order. Bureaucracy is a strong argument against specialists in the capital. Not all cities might need the full getup of research/gold multipliers... some might be mostly for whipping/drafting.

I don't see that discounted anywhere. And, like I said later, I think it's actually possible on lower difficulty levels. It's just not an optimal strategy.

The OP states in his first post that he doesn't talk about the early game.

The OP states in his first post that he doesn't talk about the early game.

Whoops, missed that. Or it could have been edited in later. I don't remember. But, anyway, I think it's possible.

Workshops beat rush-buying in most cases.

Absolutely right.

Rush-buying is for finishing off a game you've already won. The big problem with it is that it costs 3 gold per hammer and those hammers don't get the benefit of hammer multipliers.

Workshops or Slavery (fueled by Biology or Sushi) can easily get +25% Forge, +10% SP and +25% Police State multipliers for late game Domination in every city. Some cities might have Factory (+25%) and few Coal Power (+50%) and some others a Military Academy or a Drydock. With those sort of multipliers a grassland is better used as either a farm or a workshop and supporting drafting, slavery and normal building.

Okay, so where did i get the math wrong? What is the meaningful difference between using half your commerce to buy stuff, and having half your cities build stuff?

Well... gold in the treasury is less than 1 from commerce/merchants you earn, because multipliers don't apply. With all improvements built, both production and gold have 100% multipliers (unless I'm forgetting something important) and production multipliers have negative externalities (unhealthiness) while gold ones have positive ones (health, free food).

With everything going for them, towns can beat workshops in production efficiency, never mind the flexibility of deciding what to build where.

The OP states in his first post that he doesn't talk about the early game.

"If I ignore the most important stage of the game a pure economy strategy can be viable!"

This topic is http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/7628/27200693us3.jpg

I don't get these "gold doesn't go through multipliers like hammer" arguments. Clearly, it does (outside the overflow and trait % nonsense). You have banks, markets, grocers, and (in some odd cases) malls, not to mention wall street, that all multiply hammers in a rush buy strategy. If you grab the kremlin (which I'm pretty sure can be bought :lol:) then you're looking at additional multipliers on top of the gold buildings!

It's just like invisible stalker said though, if you're turning off the slider to rush buy, either you're spiritual with money to burn and you want fast infrastructure, or you are buying units to functionally end the game at your current tech. Don't underestimate the latter though.

I'm not someone who can be bothered to do real number crunching here, but have a basic look (hopefully I don't gum this up, I'm tired):

7 commerce.
bank/market/grocer(not unreasonable if you're going to be doing this) +100%
14 gold.

That's just under 5 hammers per town in a turn, assuming 3 gold/hammer rush buy. Of course, if you're in US you'll be getting a hammer/turn also, and this DOES matter because it will reduce the cost of the purchase. If someone has the kremlin, this competes with any typical production tile easily.

It's already been pointed out that this gives a degree of versatility. You can make those units or buildings ANYWHERE, but it's hard to place a hammer value on that versatility.

When comparing rush buy vs workshops, you wouldn't cottage over workshops in the late game normally, so the question is when running a CE and trying to end the game with your tech, is it better to workshop over cottages for production?

The numbers above suggest probably not. Also remember that unless you have so many workers that they alone are costing upkeep, you're not going to workshop all of your current commerce cities INSTANTLY. It will take time, and this is another place where it would be hard to set a hammer value in the trade.

It seems pretty easy to choose if you have the kremlin though. 2 gold/hammer is cheap goods. The above setup would give 7 hammers...cities with just a bank would allow each town to basically give more than 5.

I say it again though...this type of maneuver is for either ending a game outright, or functionally doing so...

Actually, since every town is functionally a workshop when it needs to be, you might as well look at cottaging over workshops as an increase in peak teching. Unless you are running SP and caste system, a FS town will quickly make up for the time it needs to grow, even lategame.

And im having trouble seeing why this needs to be a finishing move, as long as there are enough towns to make up for the lost specialist beakers. The biggest problem for me is that i pretty much have to click each thing i want built twice.

The advantage of towns over workshops is that you can be putting 7 coins into beakers to race to the military techs you need while you still get a hammer to build any infrastructure you need. Then switch INSTANTLY to total production.

I wouldn't put towns over workshops and I wouldn't workshop over towns. You would probably run state property in this sort of end game and workshops are great too. But towns are by far the most flexible option.

I use rushbuying to get my war machine started, after that I start workshopping over my mature towns and switch to police state as the war weariness starts to become too much.

It's not necessary when fighting multiple small states. But if you're fighting a giant super power that took over his entire continent, Police State becomes a must. And while you can probably keep your war machine moving just by having your commerce towns produce garrison troops and replacement siege if you're running US, the loss of the 1 hammer per town when you switch to police state will severely reduce your troop production, so that's why i start workshopping.

"If I ignore the most important stage of the game a pure economy strategy can be viable!"

There is a point in this. If we're just speculating on the possibility, I agree with the thread. But I'm not convinced that it's really worth the effort converting your economy to a pure CE.

It's fun, yes, but it seems to hinge on getting the Kremlin to be really worth it. If you can match production with workshops, which do not need time to mature, then why not just build workshops? And this is assuming that you're just focusing on production. If you're still playing the game normally, a mixed economy seems to be the best option to me.

Moreover, late in the game, it seems that almost any method can work provided you have enough geopolitical weight to pull it off. I don't think it really matters whether you choose to have a pure CE or to build SP workshops over your towns. Or even go for Environmentalism and run a lot of Representation specialists, except maybe that this is not geared towards a domination victory. IMO it just comes down to preference.

It's fun, yes, but it seems to hinge on getting the Kremlin to be really worth it. If you can match production with workshops, which do not need time to mature, then why not just build workshops? And this is assuming that you're just focusing on production. If you're still playing the game normally, a mixed economy seems to be the best option to me.
The lategame production ranking goes like this:

Kremlin towns > SP workshops > towns without kremlin > workshops without SP. And this is assuming a 100% hammer multiplier at this point.

I lost my first test game due to an angry and much larger Ragnar with battleships and marines, but i was still able to fend him off with nothing but 7 fully cottaged cities on crap land. It is worth it from both a production and science perspective. It has the flexibility of a SE (i would actually say more) with more output and less MM and no need to change improvements to go from one extreme to another. The real question is if its something people can get used to.

The lategame production ranking goes like this:

Kremlin towns > SP workshops > towns without kremlin > workshops without SP. And this is assuming a 100% hammer multiplier at this point.

Yeah, but you admit yourself that SP workshops are better than non-Kremlin US towns. Switching to SP is easy (versus having to build a wonder that is available with the same tech) and workshops don't need time to mature. So, if you don't get the Kremlin, why not just use SP workshops? Or just run US and SP and use both US towns and SP workshops?

Yeah, but you admit yourself that SP workshops are better than non-Kremlin US towns. Switching to SP is easy (versus having to build a wonder that is available with the same tech) and workshops don't need time to mature. So, if you don't get the Kremlin, why not just use SP workshops? Or just run US and SP and use both US towns and SP workshops?

Flexibility - you will run workshops as well, but you can run max research and then switch to max production. And then back again if you need to.

And its fun to see your power accelerate like:

Flexibility - you will run workshops as well, but you can run max research and then switch to max production. And then back again if you need to.

And its fun to see your power accelerate like:

Aren't we assuming research is no longer being done? If it is, you can do equally well with a mixed economy considering you don't have to switch.

Police state/Organized Religion workshops > Kremlin towns

Aren't we assuming research is no longer being done? If it is, you can do equally well with a mixed economy considering you don't have to switch.

But a pure cottage/town economy will outresearch a mixed one in the late game. And then produce better than that mixed one will too - unless the mixed economy is entirely given over to workshops which takes time. So you research the late game military techs aggressively to get them before the AI and then capitalize on that tech lead as rapidly as possible by switching instantly to production.

The ability to switch back to research is a backup - maybe something goes wrong like the UN, or an AI reaches nukes.

Police state/Organized Religion workshops > Kremlin towns

Org religion is useless for making units, so I don't understand this post. Do you mean caste system?

But a pure cottage/town economy will outresearch a mixed one in the late game. And then produce better than that mixed one will too -

How is that? Let's say you want to build units (U) and research (R) at the same time, and let's look at two turns as example. How is (100% x U + 100% x R) more than 2(50% x U + 50% x R)?

unless the mixed economy is entirely given over to workshops which takes time.

But giving it over to a pure CE doesn't take time? It takes more time.

So you research the late game military techs aggressively to get them before the AI and then capitalize on that tech lead as rapidly as possible by switching instantly to production.

I give that to you, but that is assuming a very seminal military technology that will semi-obsolete all existing units is quite near.

The ability to switch back to research is a backup - maybe something goes wrong like the UN, or an AI reaches nukes.

That is true, but in that case why not just go for a mixed economy, since research is obviously not discounted?

How is that? Let's say you want to build units (U) and research (R) at the same time, and let's look at two turns as example. How is (100% x U + 100% x R) more than 2(50% x U + 50% x R)?


Lets say you could get to a key military tech after 10 turns of research at full speed, or 20 turns at half speed. Then you could produce 8 or 9 of those units a turn by switching to 100% production. By turn 20 one approach would have 80-90 units ready to deploy, the other would have none.


But giving it over to a pure CE doesn't take time? It takes more time.


Transition to a pure CE is done long before research is turned off. That can be done in the renaissance - and the rushbuy is really a strategy for the modern/late industrial era.

The transition I am thinking about here is from a Cottage heavy economy to a near pure CE (only the GP farm and the HE city wouldn't be running mainly cottages). I usually find that by midgame I have definite leaning between cottage heavy or specialist heavy and it makes sense by then to transition fully to one or the other as the selection of civics will only optimize one kind of economy. If my economy was specialist heavy I probably wouldn't be looking at this strategy. But I have more faith in the warring potential of cottages than many do I think.


I give that to you, but that is assuming a very seminal military technology that will semi-obsolete all existing units is quite near.


There is always one near. First to rifling. First to infantry. First to tanks. First to bombers.


That is true, but in that case why not just go for a mixed economy, since research is obviously not discounted?

I guess I'm focussing 90% on production and the possibility of future research is there for the 10% chance something unexpected happens. But I love the flexibility of being able to focus all my rush buying in the right place. Thats something workshops don't do.

BTW - the game I posted above was in response to your unit spamming thread where I focussed on keeping my power up more and running more military cities. It started with a successful axe rush, and then developed into a conquest game once I had rifles. Eventually went crazy with rushbuying when I took on the military superpower. I guess I've become somewhat more of a unit spammer thanks to you. And I think my game is better for it - although at one point in the game I was tearing my hair out because I really wanted Sitting Bull to attack me.

Yeah, but you admit yourself that SP workshops are better than non-Kremlin US towns. Switching to SP is easy (versus having to build a wonder that is available with the same tech) and workshops don't need time to mature. So, if you don't get the Kremlin, why not just use SP workshops? Or just run US and SP and use both US towns and SP workshops?
If i have the option between running SP or running sids+jewelers, im going with the corps. SP is the backup civic for me.

Also remember how much factories pollute. With just a 25% hammer multiplier non-kremlin towns still beat SP workshops.

Aren't we assuming research is no longer being done? If it is, you can do equally well with a mixed economy considering you don't have to switch.
Ill ask the same question i did earlier. What is the meaningful difference between using half your commerce to buy stuff, and having half your cities build stuff?

This way you can have 100% production, or 100% science, or any mix you prefer simply by use of the slider.

There's always one question we should ask ourselves when arguing for a particular type of economy:
Do we want beautiful screenshots of breathtakingly well-optimised cities/civs, to frame and hang above our beds next to portraits of Sid Meier... or do we want something that wins games on levels that actually challenge us?

I rarely have both: at emperor+, my games cease to be pretty. I'm compromising long-term city placements to get crucial resources earlier (first ring, sometimes settling on top). I often need to build units to stay alive when I'd much rather build infrastructure to unlock my longterm potential. Because of that, I'm pushing my economies to its limits so I have to 'optimise' for short-term gains there as well. Sometimes lightbulbing and trading is the most efficient way to get out of a tech hole, which too sacrifices long-term potential... in short I do what I have to, not what I want to do.

A total cottage spam is impressive... it can compete in terms of total output with any other economy model (usually surpassing them), and it can painlessly switch between being a production monster or a research monster. To reach epic proportions, it needs corporations and then some time until the hill/plains cottages mature though.
I played it; it's flashy, efficient and elegant. However, I always would have won earlier had I gone for the throat instead of playing with myself building up my economy. On a decent level, I can't even start to go broken before the game is mine anyway.

I have a similar experience, I must admit. By the time I'm switching to a Cottage-leaning hybrid, I'd usually have the game well in hand. You could say that simply the opportunity to terraform into such a format is a signal that you've essentially won.

Are both of you operating under the "war is good" maxim? Or is this for peaceful games too?

Believe it or not, I've actually won one game where I never had a war at all, ever. Not early, not mid, not late. Never. The best way to ensure you're never at war is to have a very powerful military, and excellent diplomacy.

Lets say you could get to a key military tech after 10 turns of research at full speed, or 20 turns at half speed. Then you could produce 8 or 9 of those units a turn by switching to 100% production. By turn 20 one approach would have 80-90 units ready to deploy, the other would have none.

...

There is always one near. First to rifling. First to infantry. First to tanks. First to bombers.

You are assuming that you don't want to build units in the meantime while waiting for, say, bombers. I find that is usually hardly the case. That might be the case for infantry. But for rifles, tanks and bombers? That is not a given.

Transition to a pure CE is done long before research is turned off. That can be done in the renaissance - and the rushbuy is really a strategy for the modern/late industrial era.

The transition I am thinking about here is from a Cottage heavy economy to a near pure CE (only the GP farm and the HE city wouldn't be running mainly cottages). I usually find that by midgame I have definite leaning between cottage heavy or specialist heavy and it makes sense by then to transition fully to one or the other as the selection of civics will only optimize one kind of economy. If my economy was specialist heavy I probably wouldn't be looking at this strategy. But I have more faith in the warring potential of cottages than many do I think.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying it's a matter of preference. It's not necessarily better or worse than any other methods. I just don't think it's really worth the effort, given the fact that a mixed economy is so much more natural while not being obviously inferior.

I guess I'm focussing 90% on production and the possibility of future research is there for the 10% chance something unexpected happens. But I love the flexibility of being able to focus all my rush buying in the right place. Thats something workshops don't do.

That is true. But you might still want workshops instead if you don't have the Kremlin and want to go for a domination push, right?

BTW - the game I posted above was in response to your unit spamming thread where I focussed on keeping my power up more and running more military cities. It started with a successful axe rush, and then developed into a conquest game once I had rifles. Eventually went crazy with rushbuying when I took on the military superpower. I guess I've become somewhat more of a unit spammer thanks to you. And I think my game is better for it - although at one point in the game I was tearing my hair out because I really wanted Sitting Bull to attack me.

:lol: So now you believe in unit spam? ;)

Ironically, I don't think I can heed my own advice very well.

I don't get these "gold doesn't go through multipliers like hammer" arguments. Clearly, it does (outside the overflow and trait % nonsense). You have banks, markets, grocers, and (in some odd cases) malls, not to mention wall street, that all multiply hammers in a rush buy strategy. If you grab the kremlin (which I'm pretty sure can be bought :lol:) then you're looking at additional multipliers on top of the gold buildings!



The problem with this is that although a CE can be competative with workshops in the late game it ignores or discounts the problem of actually getting to that situation. A CE needs a lot more than simply adopting US, it needs a full MGB gold generating infrastructure in all its commerce cities. The catch 22 is that MGB itself costs 500 hammers per city and CE cities are normally very poor hammer producers before US becomes available. Most commerce cities will have very little infrastructure unless you've delayed the cottage development to work mines or whatever production they can muster, in which case you have some under developed cottages or alternatively you will delay getting to Democracy.

So once you research Democracy with your CE that is when you begin the expensive task of building the MGB infrastructure in your commerce cities, not when you start magically summoning up your army. 500 hammers will cost 1500 gold and much of the commerce used will not have MGB multipliers. If the average city has say 10 towns and they produce 70 commerce that can be used for US hammers that will average say 100 gold during this phase. So something like 15 turns with the research and espionage sliders at zero is required just to build the MGB infrastructure. Now you are approximately equal to a workshop driven production empire... at least until war weariness forces you into Police State.

Building Kremlin with rush buying :lol: Are you aware that it costs 6 gold per hammer to rush buy a wonder? That's 800 hammers or 4800 gold at normal speed. Would you do that before or after you've installed the MGB infrastructure :mischief:

That is in contrast to the SE aiming to make war with workshops (newly converted from farms) where its cities that needs all of ... a forge! That's if the city doesn't already have one. The main problem for the late game SE empire is getting to Fascism for Police State, unless they take a shortcut and capture The Pyramids. Fascism is preferred because a true warring empire needs complete immunity from WW and that requires Mt Rushmore. Even with Police State and jails I have had severe WW in larger cities in the late game when fighting really tough non-stop wars on multiple fronts so I consider Fascism the ultimate war technology. After that it is all about production and nothing ... nothing can stand up to massed workshops working through forges while running Police State, Nationhood, (Slavery or Caste System), SP, (OR or Theocracy). As new cities are conquered just use workers to make workshops and watermills, build a forge (if not captured) and barracks and you're ready to go. It is an unstoppable wave of conquest, even if you're one or two military techs behind it doesn't matter as collateral damage and weight of numbers overcome anything. Only a fully nuclear response would stop the tidal wave and that's not happened to me yet. Besides the espionage infrastructure of jails and intelligence agencies makes stealing any important military techs fairly easy so you won't be behind for long.

Police state/Organized Religion workshops > Kremlin towns

Org religion is useless for making units, so I don't understand this post. Do you mean caste system?


:lol: Brilliantly succinct as ever, Dave.

I'm guessing he means that OR can be used to build any vital infrastructure in captured cities.

Or he could mean a missionary spam ;) which is an effective way to raise money once you have several shrines under control. Workshop cities with forge and SP can easily make a missionary a turn and they can be spread across the empire like a chain letter. Maybe Dave meant that :p

The only problem is the transition. It can be done all at once or gradually depending on circumstances, but it doesnt have to interrupt your flow either way.

Before the transition you have some cottage cities and some military cities. The troop cities can keep doing their thing while you switch. Having low gold multipliers for the 4 turns it takes to set up banks and any missing grocers is not a showstopper and is in fact very much like spending hammers on a forge.

After you convert the cottage cities you then convert the hammer cities. Since they need time to mature, you can do them one or a few at a time so you dont take a big hit in either research or production at any one time. Doing it gradually like that means your overall research and building power increases throughout the entire transition until its complete.

But before that, its important to know when to switch. The ballpark figures i have goes to the tune of, you need 4 towns for every settled specialist, and 2 grassland hills for every 3 settled specialists. As soon as those figures are reached its time to start the transition.

Not sure about WW. I dont go to war much so im not sure how high it can go, but it would seem to me it doesnt have to be a huge problem. Lots of war means more resources, and lategame its easy to have happy faces in the mid 20s, plenty for most cottage cities.

You are assuming that you don't want to build units in the meantime while waiting for, say, bombers. I find that is usually hardly the case. That might be the case for infantry. But for rifles, tanks and bombers? That is not a given.


I think you underestimate how many hammers you have to throw around with US even without rushbuying. I had 2 cities which could build a unit every two turns (one was my cottaged capital) and several that could build a unit every 4 turns. Cottage cities that had towns with levees or on plains or hills can get quite high production. My army was already #2 in power - but it needed a huge surge to reach #1.


I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying it's a matter of preference. It's not necessarily better or worse than any other methods. I just don't think it's really worth the effort, given the fact that a mixed economy is so much more natural while not being obviously inferior.


This game was with a financial leader - maybe that changes the risk/reward of a highly cottaged economy somewhat.


That is true. But you might still want workshops instead if you don't have the Kremlin and want to go for a domination push, right?


Didn't have Kremlin, didn't need it. 8-9 units a turn is plenty.


:lol: So now you believe in unit spam? ;)

Ironically, I don't think I can heed my own advice very well.

I'm not so certain its necessary - but having more production capability, especially early game, has given me a lot more options and reduced the risk I am running, for only a small cost.

The problem with this is that although a CE can be competative with workshops in the late game it ignores or discounts the problem of actually getting to that situation. A CE needs a lot more than simply adopting US, it needs a full MGB gold generating infrastructure in all its commerce cities. The catch 22 is that MGB itself costs 500 hammers per city and CE cities are normally very poor hammer producers before US becomes available. Most commerce cities will have very little infrastructure unless you've delayed the cottage development to work mines or whatever production they can muster, in which case you have some under developed cottages or alternatively you will delay getting to Democracy.


Whoa - once you have US this is very easy. Getting to 25 hammers a turn isn't unreasonable for a cottage city at this point in the game without rushbuying. So this expensive infrastructure takes you only 20 turns to build.


So once you research Democracy with your CE that is when you begin the expensive task of building the MGB infrastructure in your commerce cities, not when you start magically summoning up your army. 500 hammers will cost 1500 gold and much of the commerce used will not have MGB multipliers. If the average city has say 10 towns and they produce 70 commerce that can be used for US hammers that will average say 100 gold during this phase. So something like 15 turns with the research and espionage sliders at zero is required just to build the MGB infrastructure. Now you are approximately equal to a workshop driven production empire... at least until war weariness forces you into Police State.


Why would you rush buy infrastructure you can build so quickly?

War weariness isn't always as much of a killer for a cottage economy. Often the happy cap can be high above where any cities actually are. My late game war above involved destroying most of Mehmed's army on my soil, and only late in the war did I bother raising the happiness slider to 20%. I only decided to switch to police state once I decided I had enough troops and I could raise my score slightly by researching some more techs.

My biggest city was my capital but it had the Globe Theatre which let me shrug off the war weariness of earlier wars. Every city had theatre/colliseum/market/forge/jail. Some had cathedrals and temples. All those US hammers put to good use. Built Broadway and traded for rock and roll happy. Most other cities were around size 15-17 and had a starting happy cap in the late 20s.



Building Kremlin with rush buying :lol: Are you aware that it costs 6 gold per hammer to rush buy a wonder? That's 800 hammers or 4800 gold at normal speed. Would you do that before or after you've installed the MGB infrastructure :mischief:


Didn't bother with Kremlin. I was thinking of capturing it but decided I could take on the military superpower without it and speed was more important. But no reason that you can't have production cities. In fact a US cottage city with towns and settled great people can still pile in the infrastructure. My capital which had maybe 2 mines (one gold) pumped out Statue of Liberty, Broadway and Cristo Redentor. Ran a golden age for the SoL and switched to Bureaucracy and Org Religion during the golden age - so it took maybe 12 turns.


That is in contrast to the SE aiming to make war with workshops (newly converted from farms) where its cities that needs all of ... a forge! That's if the city doesn't already have one. The main problem for the late game SE empire is getting to Fascism for Police State, unless they take a shortcut and capture The Pyramids. Fascism is preferred because a true warring empire needs complete immunity from WW and that requires Mt Rushmore. Even with Police State and jails I have had severe WW in larger cities in the late game when fighting really tough non-stop wars on multiple fronts so I consider Fascism the ultimate war technology. After that it is all about production and nothing ... nothing can stand up to massed workshops working through forges while running Police State, Nationhood, (Slavery or Caste System), SP, (OR or Theocracy). As new cities are conquered just use workers to make workshops and watermills, build a forge (if not captured) and barracks and you're ready to go. It is an unstoppable wave of conquest, even if you're one or two military techs behind it doesn't matter as collateral damage and weight of numbers overcome anything. Only a fully nuclear response would stop the tidal wave and that's not happened to me yet. Besides the espionage infrastructure of jails and intelligence agencies makes stealing any important military techs fairly easy so you won't be behind for long.


I won't argue against that approach - it seems very powerful. I'll have to give it a try. All I can say is that the CE tech rush (which has me researching late game techs at one per 3-4 turns), resulting in a military tech lead and exploiting it with rushbuying is very powerful too.

The ultimate followup may well be to switch to workshops if war weariness becomes unbearable. In a game where that happened I ran police state for 3-4 turns and used CR to switch into democracy for 1 turn (at max culture), rushbought 20 odd units and switched back. That probably wasn't as efficient as running workshops - but at the point where war weariness is that telling the game is basically over. My war weariness is that extreme because I have killed so many units and captured enough cities that the AI cannot possibly recover.

One other use of the max cash slider is for upgrades. One other thing I did in this game was a lot of upgrades of outdated units that had been lying around. CG3 archers make excellent machine gunners!

Towns with Universal Suffrage + Free Speech + Kremlin
1h (US) * 2 (forge+factory+power) = 2h
7c * 2 (bank+market+grocer) = 14c / 2 (kremlin) = 7h
Total: 9:hammers:

Workshops with Police State + State Property + Caste System
4h * 2.35 (forge+factory+power+PS+SP) = 9.4h
Total: 9.4:hammers:

You forgot the 10% from SP.

So SP workshops edge out cottages in production, and cottages beat workshops in research.

But cottages+corps edge out workshops, without the factory pollution.

Edge-out is not quite how I'd describe it. In the later stages of the game, you are going to find a lot of projects. And projects nerf cottages. Plain and simple. No matter how many Kremlines you have, no matter if you have an infinite amount of gold.... you simply can NOT gold-rush any of the projects.

It's not apples and oranges even, it's comparing infinity.

@ Ibian: I rarely resign myself to a small empire unless going for an early diplomatic (in which case the question doesn't arise) or a cultural victory (in which case total cottage spam sucks) or I'm trying something unorthodox for fun.

From conjecture, I assume a conversion to 'all cottages' would be more rewarding for a small empire, since the output lost during the conversion doesn't translate into enough hammers to build a spaceship or an army to conquer the world.

I think you underestimate how many hammers you have to throw around with US even without rushbuying. I had 2 cities which could build a unit every two turns (one was my cottaged capital) and several that could build a unit every 4 turns. Cottage cities that had towns with levees or on plains or hills can get quite high production. My army was already #2 in power - but it needed a huge surge to reach #1.

Imagine if they were not fully cottaged. Some of your cities could be producing units in 1-2 turns normally. That's double the rate. And when you are researching for tanks, bombers or rifles, you might need to be building more infantry, tanks or grenadiers and cannons. I don't think you usually have enough of those already and just need bombers or tanks or rifles.

Building units at the same time also reduces the chance of getting screwed in the meantime by ensuring that you have some extra units handy there and then instead of in a few turns due to having to rush buy.

This game was with a financial leader - maybe that changes the risk/reward of a highly cottaged economy somewhat.

I would think so.

Didn't have Kremlin, didn't need it. 8-9 units a turn is plenty.

If with pure CE you take, say, 4 turns to research Radio and another 4 turns to build units, you can have about 20+ units (you need one turn to switch from 100% research to 100% wealth) at the end of it. If you do it with a mixed economy, and take 8 turns to research Radio while building units, you can have about the same number of units. The only weakness is you don't have bombers so quickly, but you have more of other units which you might need anyway, and you gain the advantage of relative security in the meantime.

Edge-out is not quite how I'd describe it. In the later stages of the game, you are going to find a lot of projects. And projects nerf cottages. Plain and simple. No matter how many Kremlines you have, no matter if you have an infinite amount of gold.... you simply can NOT gold-rush any of the projects.

It's not apples and oranges even, it's comparing infinity.

Projects are only relevant for a space win though - and are easily addressed by workshopping an ironworks city for max production. At the appropriate point your research can be downgraded and several of your cottage cities workshopped for the final spaceship parts.

For a military win you simply don't need to build any projects.

Imagine if they were not fully cottaged. Some of your cities could be producing units in 1-2 turns normally. That's double the rate. And when you are researching for tanks, bombers or rifles, you might need to be building more infantry, tanks or grenadiers and cannons. I don't think you usually have enough of those already and just need bombers or tanks or rifles.

Building units at the same time also reduces the chance of getting screwed in the meantime by ensuring that you have some extra units handy there and then instead of in a few turns due to having to rush buy.


During the course of my max speed research I managed to knock back Sitting Bulls attack, capture four of his cities and invade and vassalize the weaker AIs on the other continent. On immortal. So my army was big enough. Big enough for everything except Mehmed's gigantic stack - which had a power of over twice mine - he had also vassalized Sitting Bull.

Mehmed was never going to attack me - I was #2 in power and was more likely to attack one of the weaker AIs. And if he did come I was protective after all!

Yes I could have workshopped more cities and built more infantry. But then I would have reached tanks later and he would have more military techs too. As it was I was able to DOW shortly before he got infantry. If he had added rocketry and artillery while I teched slower it would have been a much harder war.


If with pure CE you take, say, 4 turns to research Radio and another 4 turns to build units, you can have about 20+ units (you need one turn to switch from 100% research to 100% wealth) at the end of it. If you do it with a mixed economy, and take 8 turns to research Radio while building units, you can have about the same number of units. The only weakness is you don't have bombers so quickly, but you have more of other units which you might need anyway, and you gain the advantage of relative security in the meantime.

Its more like a 20 or 30 turn lead though by the time you get all the techs required. Its not just the last tech that I need to research, its all of the preceding ones. And I don't need to rushbuy for 20 or 30 turns before DoW - in fact I was rushbuying for only 3-4 turns (aided by a Great Merchant who I had saved) before the DoW.

I could have prepared more but it was more important to me to let the war start before he had infantry - other games I might have done 10 turns of rushbuying - but that gets you an enormous army. I also knew I was going to lose at least one city initially as it was a captured city that was vulnerable and was determined to use my protective trait to make him pay dearly for that city. And I wanted to lure his attack stack into my territory while he thought I was still weak. Then I could cut it up with rushbought tanks and bombers whcih could be rushed in the right place depending on where his attack came.

Then my production just simply outmatched him. 8 or 9 units a turn is massive when those units also have a tech lead.

Edge-out is not quite how I'd describe it. In the later stages of the game, you are going to find a lot of projects. And projects nerf cottages. Plain and simple. No matter how many Kremlines you have, no matter if you have an infinite amount of gold.... you simply can NOT gold-rush any of the projects.

It's not apples and oranges even, it's comparing infinity.
Thats what the one hammer city is for.

And i think some people are misunderstanding how this works. Its not "tech fast or buy stuff", thats just one option. Most of the time it will be more to the tune of "tech a little faster than a normal economy and buy just as much stuff as them".

My 2nd test game was succesful. 6 city space win on monarch with not a single lategame military unit built the normal way. Stalin was next door with twice my power rating or more at any given time. Still held him off the times he attacked while maintaining tech lead.

Its a solid economy. It just plays a little differently than the more standard kinds.

During the course of my max speed research I managed to knock back Sitting Bulls attack, capture four of his cities and invade and vassalize the weaker AIs on the other continent. On immortal. So my army was big enough. Big enough for everything except Mehmed's gigantic stack - which had a power of over twice mine - he had also vassalized Sitting Bull.

I think your geopolitical power contributes to this to a large extent. Perhaps unit spam as well ;)

Yes I could have workshopped more cities and built more infantry. But then I would have reached tanks later and he would have more military techs too. As it was I was able to DOW shortly before he got infantry. If he had added rocketry and artillery while I teched slower it would have been a much harder war.

That is true. But sometimes you do need more infantry and such. It depends on the situation.

Its more like a 20 or 30 turn lead though by the time you get all the techs required. Its not just the last tech that I need to research, its all of the preceding ones. And I don't need to rushbuy for 20 or 30 turns before DoW - in fact I was rushbuying for only 3-4 turns (aided by a Great Merchant who I had saved) before the DoW.

Again, that is assuming you started off with a big army. It is also assuming that there are many more techs you must to research in order to win.

I could have prepared more but it was more important to me to let the war start before he had infantry - other games I might have done 10 turns of rushbuying - but that gets you an enormous army. I also knew I was going to lose at least one city initially as it was a captured city that was vulnerable and was determined to use my protective trait to make him pay dearly for that city. And I wanted to lure his attack stack into my territory while he thought I was still weak. Then I could cut it up with rushbought tanks and bombers whcih could be rushed in the right place depending on where his attack came.

Then my production just simply outmatched him. 8 or 9 units a turn is massive when those units also have a tech lead.

I really think it depends on the situation. It might work brilliantly for this game, but it might not turn out so well in another. It does seem to take more effort than a normal mixed economy, though, while carrying some extra risk. Maybe it's a risk-reward thing.

I really think it depends on the situation. It might work brilliantly for this game, but it might not turn out so well in another. It does seem to take more effort than a normal mixed economy, though, while carrying some extra risk. Maybe it's a risk-reward thing.

In games where I've played a mixed economy I've sometimes found myself in a situation where an AI (often financial) for some reason is just racing through the late game techs and doing it faster than I am. If they can sustain this then they will beat me to a space win. And attacking them I will be attacking with a tech deficit. So if they outresearch me on a mixed economy then I am essentially committing myself to invading a tech leader as the only hope of winning.

If I can out-research them, then I don't really consider the strategy carries any extra risk at all - in fact it is safer. If I have a tech lead then I have better troops plus better control of the diplomatic situation as I can use my tech lead to start or stop wars. And if military conquest looks too risky to attempt I am able to fall back easily to a space race.