I recently moved up to Prince and played a couple games, and just started playing a game with Lincoln, in order to try my hand at a SE.

Long story short, I axe rushed Pacal, failed at the Oracle/MC/Pyramids gambit to Sury but got a GE, and now that I've made my 7th city in the BCs: maintenance costs are KILLING me.

I'm researching at a dismal rate of 20%, and still in the red by -3 gold.In the early game, I was able to research at a deficit for a while (I playing on marathon with BTS 3.17, and one of their changes was goody hut gold scaled with speed), but now the only thing keeping me afloat is a single gem mine near one of my production cities.

My question is: How do you pay maintenance with no commerce? I've switched over a couple of farms to cottaged grasslands. I'm beginning to think that no matter what, you NEED cottages, even if you are running a SE.

Thanks in advance for answering :goodjob:

I've had some succes with running a SE. There are some good guides to be found here on the forum.
The trick is to build Libraries, run a scientist specialist or two. Once you see the time to research a Tech at 0% Research is less then 3 times the time at 100%, you're in the zone. By then you shovel in cash (or just keep the treasury from running low). Go for Alphabet early on, and with good realtions with neighbours, trade for the Techs you don't invent yourself. Also, you need copious amounts of food resources or farmable land. But you also need some source of happiness, or else those large and rapidly growing cities get red faces. Religion, a few happiness buildings, and resources in combination usually do the trick.

Mind you, I think I most often get away with chopping the Pyramids, and swithcing to Representation, thus making my Specialists more worthwhile. Also, once you get Code of Laws, you should switch to Caste System. In all my years of solely running Cottage Economy, I could never see the virtues if this Civic. But with a SE, it's finally something.

On the flip side, I've seen a few times, that my Se fails spectacularly. I'm so far behind in Techs, that the game was lost. All my neignbours wouldn't trade with me, and in the end boxed me in and/or declared war.

Gotcha. But what about, early on in the game, when the libraries aren't fully hooked up and you're relying on commerce instead of specialists?

Naturally, in the eraly game, you're in for a rough ride.
Until you have at least 3 cities with Libraries, you'll be running CE. I never build cottages, and I'm forced in most games, to lower Research a bit at a time, sometimes as low as 60% to avoid going into the red, during this transitional phase. Lower than this does not bode well for the game.
Hooking up a few Commerce resources is a good thing, gold, silver, gems, fur. But be careful not to expand to rapidly, or else your economy will surely fail.

Looks like I expanded too rapidly. I have 1 library hooked up so far, but w/o the Pyramids I'm thinking of doing a re-roll. Thanks everyone!

IMHO running a SE depends mucn on a good starting pos. Actually, any kind of strategy need this!

I prefer a coastal location, with good seafood resources. i like to start out with a fishing boat, because the city grows while building this, as opposed to a worker. Some sort of livestock or grain is also good. Also, some early farmable tiles, the best is grassland at the side of a river or lake. You need farms and food, to get enough specialists to make a good game.
An early hook-up of stone is a good help towards Pyramids. Coupled with a realtively early invention of BW means you can chop the pyramids. Within my first 3 cities, I also have the best results with an early luxury resource or two. Fur, gems, precious metals. Or Wine for mid-game happiness. Later on, with calendar, you should aim for some plantation-based resources.

See, I tried to get the Oracle, build a Forge and use a Engineer specialist who would create a GE who would in turn make the Pyramids, but I should have beelined to it, because Sury got it before me.

I think you should play a game where you never build wonders to see how your allocating your resources, I know it's Prince level but still, Building Wonders, expanding while building your economy at the same time is for me at least more or less quite difficult.

Anywayz, unless you want to challenge yourself and play a pure SE. Make sure you cottage your Capital because all the maintenance is gonna be paid by that City since it's gonna be running the Bureaucracy for extra commerce.

The key to running the SE is to generally Assign Scientist to produce GS to lightbulb techs like Philosophy, Paper, Education and sometimes Liberalism. You can produce other Great People to Lightbulb other keys techs if you prefer like Civil Service, but this requires a bit of technology manipulation on your part, you must have the right techs before your GS will for example will lightbulb Philosophy.

Yeah, I bet that's where you were overtaken, because the Pyramids are quite early.

The guide I úsed to start me out with SE called for making one specialized Science city, where you should go heavily for Great Library, use the first GS for an Academy, and settle the rest (unless they were of immediate use for popping a vital Tech).
And then keep one city for main production and commerce city. It's usually my capital, or else I build a Palace in it, to get full value of Bureacracy (sp?).
Alternatively, some time inot the game, when I have 5+ cities, I'll have one Science city, one Production city (possibly prepped for Iron Works in the future) and one Commerce city. Either of the last two in the capital. And the rest of the cities Science specialized.
I think the biggest difficulties, is to cultivate the right kind og Great Person. Sometimes, if my capotal manage to pull off Pyramids, and perhaps something else, of the nice early Wonders (Great Lighthouse, Colossus, Great Wall), it ends up producing Great Engineers or Merchants.
Although, with several other Science cities, you'll end up with quite a few GS, and once you start settling them, you'll turn the GP production around.

Also, in recent times I've begun to focus much on Espionage. With all the money not spent on the Science Sider, I can run some into Espionage. Coupled with my fondness for Courthouses, I can easily get enough points to steal techs from my enemies.

I think my problem is, I can't help myself as a builder. I have a hard time refraining from going for wonder, as I like most of them. Also, i want most buildings in my cities. Even though some Science cities aren't built for commerce, I want Banks, Markets and Grocers in them anyway. And Harbours etc. So I think that by not specializing, I miss out on some things.
Anyway, my games are rarely taken to the end. Either they start to suck big time early on, where I lose the race for all the vital Wonders and resources, or some vital strategic resource is missing completely, I expand too fast and bust the economy, or too slow and lose space and get boxed in, or I lose the Tech race and noone will trade me. Most other games, I get too good a start, and take off to space regarding the score. Things go well, untill war is declared. Either I wipe the floor and actually get so far ahead, that there is no point of going on. Or else I get pressed too hard. Not being a warmonger, I don't care for too much war. Either way, I always get some idea I want to try out, and start a new game.

Thanks for the info everyone!
I'll keep it in mind when I'm one-upping Monty with my supperior SE!:D:D

Have a look at NCIX (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=280595) (my game especially :P), and maybe even play it a few times.

One thing to do is Oracle Code of Laws and run Merchants. But that usually isn't feasible if you're REXing hard enough.

You really need to shoot for currency- you should probably go writing -> Pottery -> Alphabet -> Currency after worker techs- and if even some cities are on the coast, get SAILING.

You just really need to put down some cottages or work water tiles. Losing gpt at 20% is NOTHING :P.