I've been trying to play a few SE games and for the life of me I cannot begin to see how anyone makes it work. I always fall so hopelessly behind by 0AD its pathetic.

Apparently I'm missing something. I'm playing on Emperor by the way. By the time I get a granary and a library in each of my three or four cities, my two scientists could easily be outpaced by a couple of cottages. Even with the two scientists the majority of my research is coming from commerce. Is it entirely dependent on getting the pyramids?

The only other thing I can think of is that I'm not whipping efficiently enough. It seems that going primarily CE but throwing in a couple scientists here and there would be infinitely better.

So, what's the best way to learn this? Should I post a game or something? I've read the guides and view threads about games and it all seems to make sense. It just never works in practice for me. Time after time the AI has more units, more land, more research than me.

Or am I just panicking too much? I'm usually in the lead at this point (or near to it). In my current game its 200 AD, I have 590 points and I'm sitting in dead last. The next person has 880. The top person has 1200. This isn't typical for me.

You aren't being aggressive enough.

Kill everyone before their cottages grow into towns.

Ah! I was about to edit my original post and ask that. How does SE have such a supposed synergy with warmongering? All my city workers are on farms, making food to make more specialists. Where am I supposed to get all these units? Whipping them? I have to wait 10 turns between whips. I don't get it at all. Can you tell I'm frustrated? :)

You aren't being aggressive enough.

Kill everyone before their cottages grow into towns.

That's a general simplification of all playstyles.

What you should do, Cornhog, is designate a few cities to do nothing but produce units. Military units. These are production cities, and are part of city specialization. This goes hand in hand with an SE.

Lol Dave, that is kind of the reasoning behind SE...leverage the early advantages it offers into late game ones...but that doesn't really help me understand using it either! (not that I'd mind winning on emperor using any method short of cheating/WB).

Even in a SE there are a couple strictly unit production cities? And every other city is just "general purpose?"

What's a good leader to try this on. I had a semi-successful game with Peter. It started out quasi-SE then diverged into a universal suffrage/cottage game. I won, but not very SE like.

Then I had a Toku game that I lost when Gandhi and Mansu got together and teched my pants off. Actually it was De Gaulle that did it. He was between the two and apparently played off of them. I was surprised when he beat everyone to liberalism. And he loves to sneak attack. You wouldn't expect that. Apparently Firaxis managed to capture De Gaulle's douchbaggish nature in the game. I thought Toku would be good cause I could use an SE-ish approach until I got samurai. Even though I more or less beelined to it, the AIs beat me there.

Anyway, I'm trying it now with Pericles. I figure creative and philosophical would go well together.

Tokugawa works best when you cottage his capital - you can even research pottery on turn 1 if you get a floodplain start.

SEs can be tricky to get a good balance on. I suggest you move down to Monarch for a couple games, and pick a leader who has strong SE traits. PHI is the "Poster Boy" trait for SEs, since the most basic SEs rely on bulbed tech beelines to trade your way to tech parity. The more GPeople you can generate the easier the SE seems to flow.

Also, it can be a financial nightmare. Quite often I was forced to run mostly Merchant specialists just to stay in the black with the slider at 0%. Eventually I learned how to glean a few extra commerce or gold here and there to keep the economy afloat.

Warmongering is often a primary source of income for many SEs. You can REALLY make a bundle by carefully stripping out a bunch of the enemies improved tiles before razing their cities. Often, you cannot keep many cities in a war, either, you just cant afford them. Thats why certain techs are pretty critical to the system, CoL, Currency, etc. Be sure to pillage all the cottaged tiles right down to the bone before they flip into your culture if that is likely when you kill the city in question.

I dont know what your overall skill level is, but if you are trying to learn SEs at Emperor, you must be fairly experienced. CEs tend to be easier to play overall, because there is less micro-managing involved. With SEs you need to be conscious of every tile every city works. Check often, especially work those riverside food, that single coin is pretty large, LOL.

The Pyramids are not absolutely essential to running an SE, but to be perfectly honest, if you dont get them, its BARELY worth the effort to try, so why bother? With that in mind, the Mids become a pretty important target if an SE looks good on that map with that leader. Thats why IND leaders also make strong SE leaders. Stone in the BFC or close also makes the SE a much more viable option. Again, the Mids are NOT essential, but without them, why go with a weaker strat? Cottage up, farm a GP generating city, and play a CE.

I play SEs when circumstances warrant playing it. Force-feeding any strat just because you "want to play it" barely works at Monarch, much less Emperor. If you can get the Mids, either with Stone, an IND leader, a PHI leader and lots or forests, or even with an Oracle-MC-Forge-pop a GE slingshot, whatever, then sure, go SE. But it sounds to me like you are trying to run it under less than optimal circumstances at a pretty high level. One of the biggest things stronger players say about beating the higher levels consistently is the ability to mold your game-style to fit the situation.

Try a philosophical leader. Build an early wonder like Stonehenge or Great Wall and settle all your GPs into one GP farm (usually capital) Have your second city spam units and try to grab stone or marble with a third city. Having a start with plenty of forests is very helpful for me. I like to chop chop chop my way into wonders and more GPPs. I am still not a fan of whipping, but that's just me. Also, your difficulty level might hinder you if your trying a new strategy. Pull it back a notch until you get the hang of it. ;)

I actually found dedicated production cities less important in a SE, since cities with many farms are quite flexible... working hammer tiles or whipping isn't much much of aproblem if you need hammer rather than beakers in the short term.

Cottaging your capital might be a decent idea. Bureaucracy is a powerful civic if you get it early but it doesn't do anything for specialists.

Early Pyramids are of paramount importance... not that you can't play a SE without them, but they will affect the way you play. With them, you can be a scientific superpower and will probably want to settle your Great People for a permanent advantage.
Without, your main advantage lies in aggressive lightbulbing and trading: This allows you to keep up without actually doing much for the sake of science... attractive for warmongers.

I find it hard to run scientists really early, building libraries doesn't work well with REXing.

industious i find to be a better trait for the SE than philosophical. double speed to oracle for CoL, then go after pyramids.

bulbing techs is nice, but settling Gpeople has a greater long term payoff. only bulb for something really good. otherwise, settle in the capitol then hit bureaucracy for a big boost.

the SE lends itself to war. but only keep the best cities and raze the rest. currency is important to this approach. if you want to play nice, CE is probably better long term.

Maybe you don't hoard enough resources. Successful expansion = more resources to use or trade (for even more resources). If your caps are low and your SE cities are as big as your CE cities would've been, then what's the point to farm instead of cottage?

bulbing techs is nice, but settling Gpeople has a greater long term payoff. only bulb for something really good. otherwise, settle in the capitol then hit bureaucracy for a big boost.


In an SE a cottaged capital is usually going to be producing massive amounts of gold due to high slider rate you can dedicate when running specialists. This gold will significantly help fund you empire so you can run scientists instead of merchants in other cities. High demand for markets/grocers/banks coupled with less food for specialists (and no need for a library+) means settling a scientist in the capital is not a good idea. Bureaucracy DOES NOT affect settled great scientists; the only ones it affects are priests and engineers who generate hammers. Settle him elsewhere, yes, although if you are trying to catch up in technology to a couple of research fiends a well-planned bulb can be worth it both short term and long-term (a lonely great scientist now is worth two making out in the bushes when they get older).

Settled Great Scientists also produce 1 hammer. Just saying.

Touche

Now, aside from caste system the only way to run more scientists that early in the game is to build more libraries, which requires more cities. An SE almost NEEDS to expand until you are running 80-90% gold slider in order to have enough scientists to keep up in technology. If you are running 50-60% science slider you are more closely running a hybrid economy at that point, and an ineffective one if you are forgoing cottages in all but your capital.

Again, I must report a similar experience at a lower level. Even in Monarch, you sort of have to "max the slider" down almost to 0% research using Scientists just to get in range of trading techs.

The nice thing about running SEs, IMX, is that it trains you to look for gold every which way you can manage. Without Cottages giving you an easy out, and Grocers and Markets being inconveniently up the tree, you really get to value the +5 Gold that early Great Prophet can give you. When you switch back to using CE-leaning hybrids, you often find yourself tapping into the same resources and being able to max the research slider to 100% a lot more often.

The SE is good with warmongering because of your independence from the science slider. Thus, you can use the culture slider to combat unhappiness from war weariness. In my SE games, it's not uncommon for me to be have it at >50% during wartime. This, obviously, is only a good idea when you don't have commerce cities.

In my opinion, the most important techs for an SE game, after Writing, are Currency and Code of Laws. The extra commerce routes and lower city upkeep from Courthouses help keep your income on the plus side, since you aren't using commerce improvements on tiles. However, the more important thing is Caste System, which allows you to run more scientists than those two from Libraries. Finally, the ability to produce Gold that comes from Currency helps; I use it when I have trouble with upkeep. Better than running Merchants, IMO.

I rarely try to build the Pyramids; I use that time for aggressive expansion. Constitution is naturally a priority, though.

First you want to pick a good leader for SE. Cre/Phi/Ind/Spi/Agg/Cha are all good traits. Military and specialists.

You want to farm EVERYTHING in your empire. Exceptions are mines and other production tiles. Unless your capital is an amazingly food-heavy city you could cottage it for bureaucracy, but you don't have to.

The great library is an important wonder in a SE. Pyramids are handy (and easy to get if industrious) but not necessary.

In a SE you have military phases and research phases. During research phases you should be in slavery and whipping/building troops empire-wide. Then you should be taking out an opponent. Whenever you run into a military deficit (e.g., when your opponents get longbows) you will want to switch into caste system and go into a research phase and gun for the next level of military tech (bulb and trade or settle and self-research; on emperor probably best to bulb and trade).

Then switch back into military production.

You can see why a lot of SE experts like spiritual as a trait.

Hatty or Ramesses are a good choice when you are first learning. Gandhi is also very good.

I also LOVE Justinian due to the Hippodrome allowing MASSIVE cities. Also, Imperialistic for the edge on the early expansion where you REALLY need to go for it.

Also consider the Aztecs. The sacraficial altar is amazing!

I thought I'd relate how my SE Monarch attempt unfolded last night — not that anyone particularly cares but I'm at work right now and I'd rather write you a story than, ya know, work. I stayed up too late trying this specialist crap. I had specialists on the brain. I (seriously) dreamed that I should assign sleeping specialists to each of my pillows to help me catch up in sleep. It didn't work. I'm tired.

I tried again with Japan simply because I'm getting a kick out of the samurai. Drill promotions really turn those things into beasts. It turned out to be a really strange game though. I think I learned a bit about HOW an SE works, but everything was stacked against me. That it worked this well is nice. I might be able to recover.

It is an odd, standard-sized fractal map with five fairly large continents. Charlemagne and I share a large continent. Asoka, the Ethiopians and the Koreans each have their own continent, and I forget who Hammurabi shares one with. Unfortunately, my continent is isolated while the other four are within workboat distance of each other. What this ended up meaning is that those five civs shared technology and expanded rapidly without any real wars because the AI isn't too good with invasions — especially that early.

So, I met Charlemagne. He was my only friend for the longest time but he wouldn't trade with me. I figured I could get his early religion and we'd be good trading friends. Ironically, he didn't found one. I did! So I spread it to him. And he STILL wouldn't trade with me. At one point I had +10 (!) relations with him and he wouldn't trade Hunting for Machinery even. So I had to research EVERYTHING myself. We never made a single tech trade.

Since bulbing and trading wasn't really an option, I settled my GS and even *gasp* used one for a golden age. I needed that boost to get me to samurai. If Charlemagne wouldn't be a true friend, then he must die! And die he did. Like I said, samurai... I am a fan. As I was putting Charlie under the knife, I finally met the other civs and found that, to my surprise, I wasn't that far behind. To be sure, I was behind, but I think I will be able to recover. I probably could have gotten to liberalism first if I hadn't given up on it. I thought it was a lost cause.

It was getting late towards the end and I got a little sloppy. The computer started removing some of my scientist specialists and I didn't notice. Plus, I haven't switched to caste system. I like whipping people too much, but I think it will be a necessity to catch up with everyone else. And I think the Colossus and University of Sankore (the only wonders I managed to get) were VERY helpful. I think in more "normal" conditions, my SE would have thrived completely. I got to printing press all by myself without any trading or bulbing. Of course I skipped a lot of techs along the way. But if I coulda traded....

It wasn't a TRUE SE though. I had a pair of cottaged cites. Unless someone can explain the benefit, I see no reason to practice cottage-abstinence only. A cottage every now and again won't hurt you; just don't be a whore about it.

I've said a lot recently that a hybrid economy is the way to go if you want to play the map to its best potential. I see no reason to force a grassland-and-snaky-river-covered city into anything other than a commerce city, for example. There are games where I will do just that and completely avoid cottages, but that is when I have a specific gameplan in mind.

I decided to move up to Emperor AND try a pure SE (no cottages). To make up for the toughness, I played a philosophical leader. The main thing I want to try differently next time is NOT settle almost every GP I got in the capital. I cringed going through the years and looking at my extremely low beaker count (compared to a CE), but I think bulbing and trading techs would have worked out better.

I won a very close space race, mainly due to
1) pyramids
2) phi leader
3) strong / lucky diplomacy

I personally can't imagine a strong bulb/trade SE economy without a phi leader on Emperor or higher...

I agree with most responses that some sort of hybrid economy is almost always the answer.

I like lightbulbing only to kickstart heavy warmongering. If I plan to get all future techs (not Future Techs!) by extortion, I don't give a dodo dropping about the long-term prospects for my economy as long as I can pay the bills.

I like lightbulbing only to kickstart heavy warmongering. If I plan to get all future techs (not Future Techs!) by extortion, I don't give a dodo dropping about the long-term prospects for my economy as long as I can pay the bills.

If everyone else is dead, you are the tech leader :goodjob:. I like this approach.

I see FE/SE as a very spiked economy. Spikes in prod by whipping and draft, spikes in breakers by bulbing. Usually I don't build anything while I tech and I don't tech anything while I build.

Basically its: Whip & rush -> tech & bulb -> whip/draft & war -> tech & bulb -> whip/draft & war -> etc..


(also it's not rare to see "1 unhappiness for 50 turns" in my cities. :lol:)

The thing about a lightbulb-driven SE is that your goal is to be in perma-war pretty much come the renaissance era. So, you lightbulb through liberalism, backfill other necessary techs, hit renaissance military tech (drafting ftw) and then war like crazy. Once you have the largest empire it's not hard to become the tech leader :)

Running a SE is like riding a rollercoaster, your civilization will have its ups and downs but in the end it's a fun ride.

Just be patient if you fall behind at some point, that's quite natural. Stick to your game plan and keep a long term perspective and you'll do fine. It's still a true SE with a couple of cottages. The no cottage games usually aren't meant to be true SE games, but rather show that cottages aren't the only way to gain a lot of commerce. The most effective way is to capture matured cottages instead of growing them yourself.

As a big fan of SE I feel compelled to tack on a couple comments:

Micro-managing is key. You have to make sure you are maxing out food and hiring the intended specialists. This is important to producing the right GPs. You cannot just go autopilot like you can with piles of cottages.

Capturing cottages is definitely the way to go. They can allow a transition to a late-game CE/hybrid economy. (Though I think the viability of a fairly strict SE in late game is often underrated).

The discussion thus far has surprisingly not really emphasized Caste system. I think the more experienced players are taking it for granted but the OP sounds like he is running two scientists in cities intended to produce most of his science! In a serious SE it is not uncommon to run upwards of 6 or more scientists (given enough food and happiness) in a super science city (often the capital) with representation while slowbuilding stuff like universities. This is not to mention any helper cities working as many specialists as possible. You have to be willing to "ride the roller coaster" like others have pointed out and swap hammers for the food necessary to run scientists (or whatever specialist you need)

City specialization is key. This cannot be emphasized enough for any strategy but with an SE i think it is particularly important.

The only reason I see against hybrid economies is that most civics tend to benefit one more than the other and matching them in a way that is beneficial to a hybrid econ can be tricky. Still, this strat can be effective and some hybridization almost always occurs.

Hope this helps.

You're right, I more or less ignored Caste System. I almost always do. I need some way to rush buildings/units. Since I'm on either HR or rep, I need slavery, right? Plus, with all this extra food, isn't slavery a good idea?

I pretty much had two scientists everywhere. I couldn't make anymore than that for most of the time.

If you were running Caste System for huge numbers of scientist specialists, I'm willing to bet you'd get over the idea that an SE is only able to keep pace with CE by bulbing your way through the tech tree. On Emperor and below anyways, I find it fairly easy to power my way through the tech tree, using espionage and the occasional trade to snag any techs that I skip over. What I think some people fail to realize is that an SE takes some time to build up momentum, and must pull out the stops in the classical age to pull oneself up to tech parity by hook and by crook. From there though, it really gathers steam as the super science city begins to fill up with more and more settled scientists and spies, to the point that it begins to leave other civs in the dust. Take this example of an SE capital, emperor, circa 1900. I was playing Pericles of Greece and went on to win a space victory just as Lincoln (the only real contender left at this point) finally completed the Apollo Program.

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/4295/civ4screenshot0009lq6.jpg

Note that it has some pretty solid production as is (Mining Inc helps here of course) but when it comes time to build wonders, spaceship parts, anything really expensive and time consuming, I'll cut down the number of specialists, and send them to work in the workshops, mines and lumbermills... And if I run out of decent hammer tiles to work, I'll assign a few engineers, or early in the game priests, instead. This type of city is extremely flexible to the changing demands of your empire, although granted you only have really uber city like this per empire-- it gets the national epic and oxford, and a steady stream of settled great people.

Here are a couple pics showing this city's total science and espionage output:

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/4978/civ4screenshot0010ww9.jpg

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/3483/civ4screenshot0011us7.jpg

If it is the first time that you are running a SE, I find spiritual leaders to be the easiest. You need a lot of micromanagement. As BurN said, switch often between tech/bulb and draft/whip/build periods. With spiritual you can switch for free as often as every 5 turns.
The key is high food cities (actually the key to every economy).
With caste system and pacifism you can get great people faster. You could even starve a city to get a great person 2 turns earlier and then switch back to slavery to grow and whip.

Even in SE game it is many times beneficial to cottage a capital for bureaucracy+academy.
Actually I prefer the term food economy, since the economy relies more on food than specialists. In a long part of the game I find myself running specialists just in 1 city and growing/whipping constantly in the rest of the cities. It is important to get enough happiness to grow the cities to at least 7~8, so you can whip expensive building like courthouses. Early courthouses are very important for early expansion, and building them with mines is so inefficient.

You're right, I more or less ignored Caste System. I almost always do. I need some way to rush buildings/units. Since I'm on either HR or rep, I need slavery, right? Plus, with all this extra food, isn't slavery a good idea?

I pretty much had two scientists everywhere. I couldn't make anymore than that for most of the time.
You don't need to run 2 scientist everywhere all the time. Not every city needs to produce science. Most of the time, especially for new cities, it is better to grow faster with all people working farms or food resources, then whip. With all the extra food settlers and workers should be quick too.
Slavery is what I run most of the time in my games, but to use it to the max, don't run those scientists who consume 4 food.
Once you have built everything, you can switch to caste system. As I said, spiritual is best for that, otherwise you need to plan well longer periods of caste vs. slavery.

If you are not spiritual, prioritize the great library. You will be able to run 4 scientists even in slavery in 1 city. With NE you will get very fast great people from that city.

If you are not spiritual allowing you to swap back and forth between slavery and caste system then you need to have a plan in place. City specialization helps here. Let your production cities do your producing. Your specialist cities don't need buildings really beyond a granary--just lots of food. Caste system also improves workshops in BTS helping out with your production needs.

Early in the game I find I only really need two cities going hard on specialists, usually my capital and an enemy capital. Then around the time that rep and biology come into play the economy starts to lag and it becomes necessary to either transition to a CE or slap it in caste system full time and start running high levels of scientists (8++) in most of your cities (keep some dedicated production cities).

I had a game awhile back with Ramesses where I never built a cottage and went with a full-fledged SE late game with tons of scientists. I was impressed with how well I teched. Sushi (BTS) also helps to be able to run even more scientists.

If you are not spiritual allowing you to swap back and forth between slavery and caste system then you need to have a plan in place. City specialization helps here. Let your production cities do your producing. Your specialist cities don't need buildings really beyond a granary--just lots of food.

I really do not agree that specialist cities don't need buildings. On the contrary they do need the buildings that matches the type of specialists they run to make the most of their specialisation. So in the early game, and if not Spritual, I would not switch into Caste System until I had at least whipped in a library and a monastery or two into the cities I am working scientists in, and then once Education had been lightbulbed a university would be a priority. A city running priests or merchants needs a market to make the most of its output.

I really do not agree that specialist cities don't need buildings. On the contrary they do need the buildings that matches the type of specialists they run to make the most of their specialisation. So in the early game, and if not Spritual, I would not switch into Caste System until I had at least whipped in a library and a monastery or two into the cities I am working scientists in, and then once Education had been lightbulbed a university would be a priority. A city running priests or merchants needs a market to make the most of its output.

I agree. Courthouse is a must in every city, market is a must in every high commerce city, library is a must in every science city. Monasteries are important in high science cities.
The only time I would switch to caste BEFORE the infrastructure is read is when I need a quick recovery from a rush. At that point my economy might still lose money at 100% gold, so I need quick cash. I switch to cast to be able to get out of the mud, tech currency or code of laws, and then switch back.

Yes bear in mind that caste system is not the be all and end all civic, in fact in the game I posted shots of, I was already past the point of being able to use it as I was in emancipation. Early on though, you need to max out those specialists in a time when there are only a handful of buildings to open up a handful of specialist slots... It's in this interim period when you only have 1 or 2 specialist slots per class (library for 2 scientists, courhouse for 1 spy and so on) that caste system really shines. And again, unless playing a spiritual leader I'll usually wait to do any civics swaps until I can go into Representation (assuming pyramids which is really one of the clutch wonders for an SE), Organized Religion AND Caste System all at once. The next swap would be to Beurocracy and Pacifism, to power through the production of mid game wonders that can give you an edge like the Parthenon (the other *must have* wonder like Pyramids), and other less valuable but still handy wonders like Sistine Chapel (for culture strategies, or as a denial tactic against AIs fond of culture like Ghandi or Izzy), University of Sankore, Shwedagon Paya, etc.

@Catan_Settler: Pyramids are very nice to have, but definitely not a must for a food economy game.
Unconquered Sun demonstrated a deity game with no cottages, no pyramids and no Parthenon if I remember correctly.

I really do not agree that specialist cities don't need buildings. On the contrary they do need the buildings that matches the type of specialists they run to make the most of their specialisation. So in the early game, and if not Spritual, I would not switch into Caste System until I had at least whipped in a library and a monastery or two into the cities I am working scientists in, and then once Education had been lightbulbed a university would be a priority. A city running priests or merchants needs a market to make the most of its output.

*need* and *want* though are two different things. sure, i would want a library in my science cities, and in most cases I will have them. it is certainly optimal to have them. however, they are not necessary and if you have low production it can be painful in terms of anarchy to be swapping back and forth between slavery and caste system. in these cases at times i opt to slow-build the buildings you mention.

if you have high production in these cities then sure you can churn out the desired buildings, but i wouldn't necessarily sacrifice my beaker output for the buildings...it just depends.

what i would probably do is create the desired buildings at the end of a military/production phase before swapping back into caste system.

all i was trying to say is that i wouldn't sacrifice caste system just to get a library in place because 25% of two scientists isn't as desirable as having 8 scientists. that was really the only point i was trying to make.

I don't really understand these "phases." Obviously if you're spiritual you can swap back and forth at will — whip some things, switch to Caste, wait for angry faces to go away, swap back and repeat. But if you're not, how often do you switch phases? I thought part of an SE is being at near constant war so is there really a peaceful building period?

And does a SE favor a small, higher quality empire or a large, sprawling one? I seldom raze cities; I tend to go for State Property, and I eschew colonies and vassals as best I can. Or does size not matter?

When not Spiritual, I tend to not use Caste System very much. Early in the history of a city, slavery is highly efficient for getting the infrastructure up. Later, I usually have enough useful slots thanks to the whipping early on.

Spiritual allows many tricks that are cool at first, but quickly bog down in repetitive micromanagement.

I don't really understand these "phases." Obviously if you're spiritual you can swap back and forth at will — whip some things, switch to Caste, wait for angry faces to go away, swap back and repeat. But if you're not, how often do you switch phases? I thought part of an SE is being at near constant war so is there really a peaceful building period?

And does a SE favor a small, higher quality empire or a large, sprawling one? I seldom raze cities; I tend to go for State Property, and I eschew colonies and vassals as best I can. Or does size not matter?

You can't permawar early because the war weariness and economic costs will cripple you. Permawar becomes available post-fascism. During these earlier time periods you want some periods of production/warfare and some periods of peaceful teching (usually to next level of military tech).

Something like this:

-Axerush
-Tech through currency/col
-Another warfare of expansion, usually supported by catapults (unless you decide to tech to the renaissance)
-Tech through liberalism and possibly renaissance military tech unless you want to fight during medeival era
-Another warfare of expansion, usually at this point you will clear you continent if playing continent-style map
-Tech to industrial or modern era unless you think you can close out the game during the renaissance
-Invade other continent if going for domination or else tech peacefully for space race

Spiritual allows many tricks that are cool at first, but quickly bog down in repetitive micromanagement.


Surely you mean: Spiritual allows many cool tricks, and lets you do loads of highly enjoyable micromanagement. ;)

futurehermit:

Having enough food in one city to support 8 Scientists is itself map-dependent. For many maps, it's probably more effective to eschew Caste System early on in favor of many cities running 2 Scientists each. You grab more land, you develop vertically in a powerful way, and your capital can still be used as maintenance generator if it can profitably run Cottages.