Lately I have been trying to become more experienced with this type of economy, but I have a few questions :

1.) Production is abysmal. I have to work food tiles to keep up with the specialists, and with Caste System I don't have the whip to fall back on to get needed infrastructure done quickly.
2.) Without Rep it seems impossible to research expensive techs on my own. Are the Pyramids almost necessary to run a successful specialist economy? Of course with the bulbing I could keep up with trades, but it grants me a lot less flexibility. For example, last game, Stalin was at my borders with a huge stack and I just knew it was a matter of time before he declared. I desperately tried to tech ANYTHING that I could bribe him to go war with someone else and so I ended up having to bulb compass (:crazyeye:).
3.) Abysmal income. I was making something like 12 income per turn at 0% science because of no cottages. I wasn't in the red, but it would be impossible to "drop the slider to 0% to get some cash for..." upgrades, bribes, etc. Again, that leaves me with much less flexibility.
4.) Good cottage land looks a whole lot like good specialist land to me. Rivers = early farms, or early cottages and it pains me to farm over that prime real estate.

It just seems like SE are just so much less flexible and there's nothing to fall back on. Can't whip some Longbows up in case of a backstab, can't drop the slider to 0 for some important upgrades, can't manufacture much throughout your empire, can't really choose what to research....

Maybe I'm just doing it all wrong.

BTW, last game I had a city that had iron, gold, gems, fish, and rice all in its BFC. Boo-yah. :D

1. Whip at first. I can't imagine infrastructure you'd actually need after basic pop, granary, courthouse, library, and markets in cities where you'd run merchants (if any). For large cities use hills or caste workshops.
2. Build research, or better wealth, other than in your best GPP cities. Why? Because the conversion rate is more favorable than specialists if you have a forge and some hammer tiles. Use the GP's generated to either settle or bulb as needed. I've gone massed spec w/o mids and gotten lib around 1000 AD w/o bulbing, so you definitely don't need them.
3. Try actually using cottages. Don't fall into the "SE" vs "CE" trap. The terms are garbage. If you need gold, you have 3 options: build wealth, merchants, or commerce. Pottery comes before currency or CoL, so if you find a good cottage site, use it and put your gold multipliers there later. Hamlets and better definitely outshine merchants at low slider %, and you'll get them first.
4. Good cottage land is green tiles. Good specialist land involves multiple high food tiles in the same city.

Specialize at the city level, and as you get used to doing that you'll notice yourself favoring certain tile improvements. Select your civics based on that (with a weight for diplomacy) and you're set.

Thanks for the advice. I think my main problem is with Caste System. I just can't seem to get over my slavery fallback. Is Caste really that necessary? I mean, if I were to specialize at the city level, I would think that slavery would be more useful empire-wide than Caste for a few select cities with high food.

By the way, moar you-tube walk-throughs!!! :D Or can you recommend other decent ones?

Let me fix my laptop, I've been meaning to finally do an immortal one.

Another somewhat unrelated question. How the hell does anyone keep up with some of the warmonger AIs in terms of power? For example, Shaka or Stalin. I could be producing units non stop and still not be equal to them in military (and of course I would tank my economy far worse than them). The result is, I always seem to be the juiciest target for those warmongers, diplo tricks notwithstanding.

Early in the game, keeping up in power is impossible. At least on immortal down though, you can defend your cities because the AI only hits with a fraction of its power.

Later on you get heroic epic and better hammer multipliers, and can leverage a tech lead to get enough land to keep up. If the majority of a 12+ city empire is set up for hammers, few AIs can match it, and fewer still can overpower it's output once human tactics are added to the equation. The actual challenge is defeating them before another AI finds a way to win or put you in a difficult position.

The only way to prevent declarations early in the game on emp+ is diplo manipulation, keeping enough power is absolutely out of the question.

@Freedom

I don't think you should keep up with them in power. Make sure you have enough units to kill their invading stack, but since you will have the defensive advantage and the computer is quite stupid that is a lot less units than trying to equal his force. Diplomacy also helps but shaka can be so unpredictable...

Spiritual is nice to swap between caste and slavery. Basically though, you want to cycle civics. Go in caste/pac when you need to tech. Go in slavery/org when you need to whip infrastructure. Go in slavery/theo when you need military. Then go back to caste/pac when you need to tech.

Later you can transition some cities to heavy production once workshops become a viable option (guilds/chemistry).

Don't be afraid to lay down some good cottage cities. A city that has 1-3 food resources and a lot of grasslands, especially with a snaky river running through it, should be cottaged up. Don't run specialists off of grassland farms unless the city is already clearly a specialist city with 3+ food resources. Running specialists off of biology grassland farms is ok though.

From midgame on you need a LOT, a LOT of specialists during your research phases. This means 1) large cities; 2) lots of cities; 3) caste system; 4) representation (prioritize constitution); 5) biology.

Also, if you are concerned about longterm research potential settle specialists instead of lightbulbing.

Some maps are not suited to running a SE. Don't force something onto a map. Play to what the map is giving you.

As TMIT said, specialize at the city level.

Lately I have been trying to become more experienced with this type of economy, but I have a few questions :

1.) Production is abysmal. I have to work food tiles to keep up with the specialists, and with Caste System I don't have the whip to fall back on to get needed infrastructure done quickly.
2.) Without Rep it seems impossible to research expensive techs on my own. Are the Pyramids almost necessary to run a successful specialist economy? Of course with the bulbing I could keep up with trades, but it grants me a lot less flexibility. For example, last game, Stalin was at my borders with a huge stack and I just knew it was a matter of time before he declared. I desperately tried to tech ANYTHING that I could bribe him to go war with someone else and so I ended up having to bulb compass (:crazyeye:).
3.) Abysmal income. I was making something like 12 income per turn at 0% science because of no cottages. I wasn't in the red, but it would be impossible to "drop the slider to 0% to get some cash for..." upgrades, bribes, etc. Again, that leaves me with much less flexibility.
4.) Good cottage land looks a whole lot like good specialist land to me. Rivers = early farms, or early cottages and it pains me to farm over that prime real estate.

It just seems like SE are just so much less flexible and there's nothing to fall back on. Can't whip some Longbows up in case of a backstab, can't drop the slider to 0 for some important upgrades, can't manufacture much throughout your empire, can't really choose what to research....

Maybe I'm just doing it all wrong.

BTW, last game I had a city that had iron, gold, gems, fish, and rice all in its BFC. Boo-yah. :D

1. In the early game, the whip is your friend. There are some games that I don't fully build a military unit start to finish until after an early rush. Afterward, your trade off is cyclical. Bigger populations mean more worked mines, AT THE EXPENSE OF YOUR SPECIALISTS. So, when you get to education, expect then, or shortly after, you'll be switching cities to working mines to build them quickly and get the scientists back. Either that or whip [which can be an expensive option at this time of the game].
2. I would argue, yes. The 'myds are pretty critical. Some people will tell you on higher levels bulbing is great because of the trading opportunities, but I'm always seeking out a tech advantage, and the raw beaker requirements always mean I need early rep.
3. Consider a few financial cities with cottages. Just because it isn't a cottage economy doesn't mean you're gonna need cash to support your empire. Either that, or run a city with only merchant specialists. Merchant specialist will only earn you +3gpt compared to the double or even more of fully mature cottages running at 0% science, but they come with the the added benefit of great merchants, which'll no doubt come in handy when needing to upgrade a unit to the latest and greatest in a hurry. Usually I've got one city running merchants, and however many more of cottages to keep myself afloat.
4. For me, my eyes light up with food resources now rather than floodplains. Pigs, fish, corn, and hills are my equivalent to cottages. You are right though, they are similar, but keep in mind, if you do find a site that just begs for cottages [gold+floodplains] don't force specialists there.

The SE is all about micromanagement, and it is a VERY different way of playing the game. Specializing your cities so that you spend less time building infrastructure, knowing how to cycle between production and science, when to plop down a city intended only for finance, what to do with those GPs when they do arrive can be tricky, but the payoff comes when you're able to slip into caste system at just the right time and all the sudden you've got some retarded research rates at the end of the REX or rushing phase of the game. That edge can propel you to the gunpowder units very quickly, and secure a victory.

Thanks for the advice. I think my main problem is with Caste System. I just can't seem to get over my slavery fallback. Is Caste really that necessary? I mean, if I were to specialize at the city level, I would think that slavery would be more useful empire-wide than Caste for a few select cities with high food.

I think this is SE blasphemy, but I very rarely run CS even when I am doing a full SE. With Slavery, you can whip your cities until they have the infrastructure to hire a decent number of specialists without CS. Of course, this has a few glaring problems:

A. You can't specialize your cities as well. With CS, you don't need to build Markets/Grocers in your science cities, or Libraries/Universities in your gold cities.

B. You get mixed GP's. I think this is the big reason people like CS, so that they can deliberately control what types of GP's come out, and plan for a Scientist when they need to bulb something. (This may well be why I am only a Monarch/Emperor player, but I have a "go with the flow" philosophy when it comes to Great People. I adapt my strategy to best use whatever it is that comes out of the city. They're all useful, even though you do sometimes really want a Scientist.)

C. You may occasionally not have enough specialist slots to use all your available food. But you are in Slavery, so you can do other things with that food...

But, as was said before, if you are Spiritual, you get the best of both worlds! Get in the habit of swapping civics for 5 turns before returning to periods of "normalcy".

And as for the Pyramids/Representation, I find they're more or less necessary to really have a powerful SE, especially at higher levels. You can still do okay without them (especially with good bulbing), but you're not going to be pulling off any Liberalism-to-Biology gambits.

Also, I'd try Ramesses II if you haven't ever successfully executed an SE strategy. Spiritual is great, makes it acceptable to try something out and then switch back if it's not working. Industrious will help you get your Pyramids done. War Chariots will keep you safe while you're teching religions/Masonry/Writing. Obelisks will give you some early priest slots. Priests are good with Rep, great with Angkor Wat, and very useful during the Slavery periods when you're lacking specialist slots. Great Prophets are great for early shrines, bulbing religions, or settling.

A Philosophical leader is probably better in the long run if you can get your SE running, but with Ramesses' traits/UU/UB, he's just begging to run SE!

Ramesses is one of the premiere SE leaders, hands down. Gandhi is also excellent. Hatty also good. Pericles very strong. Basically, any combination of spiritual, philosophical, industrious, creative is good. Louis is another of my favs. Expansive is not bad as well. Peter is a very strong SE leader, especially if you want to try for a SE-based space race.

Ramesses is one of the premiere SE leaders, hands down. Gandhi is also excellent. Hatty also good. Pericles very strong. Basically, any combination of spiritual, philosophical, industrious, creative is good. Louis is another of my favs. Expansive is not bad as well. Peter is a very strong SE leader, especially if you want to try for a SE-based space race.

Just curious, why exactly do you consider creative to be a particularly good SE trait? The cheap libraries?

The cheap libraries?

1. faster border pops which allow someone to claim stone faster/better city sites.
2. faster theaters
3. faster colosseums
4. faster globe theater because of #2.
5. quicker population because of #2 and #3.
6. quicker use of culture slider to negate mass whipping - assuming you early war.
7. quicker libraries is a huge benefit and w/out CoL can land you scientist 4-5 turns earlier. if you have the Mids that means every single city also saves 12Beakers X 5turns = 60Beakers in every city with a library.
7A. this can easily add up to the cost of a complete tech around 400-500 beakers in a very short time period. the quicker buildings in general save population and production as well - i.e., less citizens needed to whip or less forest needed to chop. obviously the more tiles you can keep working the better. obviously the more trees you can save for production on other items is better too.
8. in general, CRE saves around 90-120 (monuments) turns of loss production on a single tile at the earliest point in the game where it matters the most, i.e. not working a 4H tile for 120 turns is a huge amount of lost production.
9. if you factor in saved turns for a library, theater, and colosseum in each city - you could easily save an additional 300 + turns. So to those who think CRE is nothing more than border pops - think again. Who wouldn't wanna save potentially 1600+H of production by 1AD - 250 AD?

exactly what crusher said.

Except I am not entirely sure about industrious being a premiere SE trait. Sure, being able to build wonders helps, but anything past the 'myds is just icing on the cake (this includes the great library!!)

The biggies - quicker mids, parthenon, and GL. With 2 other very strong settler/worker/unit pumps the Capital can stay on full time Wonder production. A capital with Mids, parth, GL, SoZ, SP, HG, Maus, etc - non stop wonders makes GPP and settling sick. Obviously w/out the Mids you would be more selective about the type of early GP you generate - w/Mids you just settle, and eventually, with a good GPF in your capital you will start getting a few more scientist, to settle.

I used to be a big bulb fan, even with Mids and FE but not anymore, lol. By the time you reach Infantry your capital is producing 600+ beakers with settling and close to 1000 further down the road.

What Crusher said :lol:

After experimenting with SE for a bit, I figured a few things.

Pyramid building is only possible with stone, otherwise you lose the wonder race, period.

Without pyramids, a SE has to have a decent numbers of cottages cities to support it.

With pyramids, slider can be at 0% and the beakers generation can still be in a decent level. However, it is often impossible to REX hard while put away production to get the pyramid up.

@ Frodus

Some random numbers for thought:

An Industrious leader with 1 riverside wheat plains tile, 1 plain hill, and 3 grass hills and an Industrious leader with 1 fresh water corn, 2 plain hills, and 2 grass hills both produce 15:hammers: + 50% or X 1.5 (Ind) gives you 22 :hammers: rounded down.


W/out stone ramifications:

From 2000 BC to 1000 BC is 40 years a turn and translates to 25 turns. The Mids cost 500 divided by 22 :hammers: = 23 turns rounded up. Chopping 3 forest gives you and additional 90 (+50%) :hammers: which can then be subtracted from 500 resulting in an adjusted 410 :hammers: Mid. 410 :hammers: divided by 22 :hammers: = 19 turns rounded up. 19 turns X 40 = 760 game years.

This means you don't have to start building the Mids until 1760 BC to complete them no later than 1000 BC - my personal deadline which seems to work over 90% of the time on Emperor/Immortal.


Industrious leader w/ stone:

Same scenario above. 15 :hammers: + 150% or X 2.5 = 37 :hammers:. Chopping 3 forest now gives you 150 :hammers: so subtract 500 - 150 and we get an adjusted 350 :hammers:. 350 divided by 37 = 10 turns rounded up. 10 turns X 40 is 400 years.........so, you need to start the Mids no later than 1400 BC.


Non Industrious leader w/stone (a must!):

Same as the first 2. 15 :hammers: + 100% = 30 :hammers: a turn. Chopping gives 40 :hammers:. 500 - 120 (3 chops) = a 380 adjusted Mid divided by 30 :hammers: = 13 turns rounded up X 40 (years p turn) = 520 years. So, in this case you need to start the Mids no later than 1520 BC.

With any of the above scenarios you should definitely be able to pump out 3 settlers from your Capital before you start the Mids. I can usually get 5 cities by 1000 BC with any Industrious w or w/out stone. With IMP leaders and stone I can usually get 6 cities by 1000 BC. CRE becomes very powerful here because you save time in getting new cities online and also save valuable time and beakers with quicker scientist.

I just recently moved up to Emperor from Monarch and I am really feeling the difficulty shift, but in my current game I seem to have stabilized pretty well. I'm behind in the techs a bit but once my cities grow I should be able to compete pretty well. However, I've noticed that I'm not able to run really any specialists on the harder difficulty since I'm constantly trying to grow population and/or grow my cottages.

Without Representation, I really can't see a benefit to running a specialist over another tile except to get a couple of great people eventually. Once my capital grows a few more sizes (20ish turns on marathon) I can start running tons of scientists anyways since I have a lot of food there. It just seems like without the pyramids and without philosophical the idea of trying to run a SE economy is basically gimping yourself. Even with Philosophical I could only recommend running the specialists in one city, or running them only when you don't need production/growth.

On Noble-Monarch I used to run more specialists since I could almost always get the Pyramids, The Great Library, The Parthenon, and just more wonders in general.

Without Representation, I really can't see a benefit to running a specialist over another tile except to get a couple of great people eventually.

The key is more great people sooner. Cottages take time to mature (though you can still, of course, build some). GPP is valuable in the short term and gets less powerful over time. Cottages are less valuable in the short term and get more powerful over time.

Result? Spend time cultivating GPP early and transition to cottages more and more as the game goes on (though of course you can still work some cottages earlier on).

@ Frodus

Some random numbers for thought:

An Industrious leader with 1 riverside wheat plains tile, 1 plain hill, and 3 grass hills and an Industrious leader with 1 fresh water corn, 2 plain hills, and 2 grass hills both produce 15:hammers: + 50% or X 1.5 (Ind) gives you 22 :hammers: rounded down.


W/out stone ramifications:

From 2000 BC to 1000 BC is 40 years a turn and translates to 25 turns. The Mids cost 500 divided by 22 :hammers: = 23 turns rounded up. Chopping 3 forest gives you and additional 90 (+50%) :hammers: which can then be subtracted from 500 resulting in an adjusted 410 :hammers: Mid. 410 :hammers: divided by 22 :hammers: = 19 turns rounded up. 19 turns X 40 = 760 game years.

This means you don't have to start building the Mids until 1760 BC to complete them no later than 1000 BC - my personal deadline which seems to work over 90% of the time on Emperor/Immortal.


Industrious leader w/ stone:

Same scenario above. 15 :hammers: + 150% or X 2.5 = 37 :hammers:. Chopping 3 forest now gives you 150 :hammers: so subtract 500 - 150 and we get an adjusted 350 :hammers:. 350 divided by 37 = 10 turns rounded up. 10 turns X 40 is 400 years.........so, you need to start the Mids no later than 1400 BC.


Non Industrious leader w/stone (a must!):

Same as the first 2. 15 :hammers: + 100% = 30 :hammers: a turn. Chopping gives 40 :hammers:. 500 - 120 (3 chops) = a 380 adjusted Mid divided by 30 :hammers: = 13 turns rounded up X 40 (years p turn) = 520 years. So, in this case you need to start the Mids no later than 1520 BC.

With any of the above scenarios you should definitely be able to pump out 3 settlers from your Capital before you start the Mids. I can usually get 5 cities by 1000 BC with any Industrious w or w/out stone. With IMP leaders and stone I can usually get 6 cities by 1000 BC. CRE becomes very powerful here because you save time in getting new cities online and also save valuable time and beakers with quicker scientist.

Well I don't really mean that it is impossible, but its does more harm then good if you don't have stone, agree?

You do convince me that with industrious and creative, it may be a good choice to go for MIDs, since the new cities can be made useful more quickly to compensate for temporarily "unproductive" capital.

A quick note though, I don't priorize masonry unless I have stone.

3 settlers by 1500BC? I think that'd lead to a lack of military units and workers for improving the new cities (and a worker is suppose to be chopping the pyramids in capital).

If you power chop those settlers & units there won't be enough forests for the MIDs.

However, I think the point you tried to make is to say that it is possible, not that it is a particularly good play due to incorrect wording on my post. I think should change what I have said to "without stone it is detrimental to build the MIDs" instead of "it is impossible to build the MIDs."

I've spent countless hours on initial build orders because the earliest decisions have the most dramatic fact on the rest of the game. On my last Louie game (normal speed) my exact build order was worker, worker, warrior, warrior, warrior, warrior, warrior and hit 5 pop at which point it was 2520 BC. I then went settler with 2 chops, settler with no chops, settler with no chops, worker with no chops at which point it was 1760 BC. I had no stone.

The first 2 workers accompanied the 1st settler and made 3 improvements while that city went warrior, warrior, settler (finished at 1120 BC). The initial warriors already fog busted land and new warriors continue/replenish fogbusting. The 2 workers then move on to the other cities repeating the initial warrior order but then build either workers/axe/chariot etc.

The last worker made at the Capital chops 3 forest while building the Mids which finished exactly at 1000 BC. In my particular game, at 1000 BC I ended up having the Mids, 5 cities, 9 warriors, and 4 workers (with more being needed of course). I'll normally just stick with 5 cities until I complete currency, which is normally around 700 BC with the Mids - accelerated from 6-8 representation scientist + building research.

At this point every city works max tiles and produces settlers/workers until I get 10 cities, which is usually around 200 BC. I suppose what I'm getting at is as long as you are Industrious you can still, if you must, and love the Mids, do quite well in the long run due to the amazing early tech rate you get.

The cheap libraries?

1. faster border pops which allow someone to claim stone faster/better city sites.
2. faster theaters
3. faster colosseums
4. faster globe theater because of #2.
5. quicker population because of #2 and #3.
6. quicker use of culture slider to negate mass whipping - assuming you early war.
7. quicker libraries is a huge benefit and w/out CoL can land you scientist 4-5 turns earlier. if you have the Mids that means every single city also saves 12Beakers X 5turns = 60Beakers in every city with a library.
7A. this can easily add up to the cost of a complete tech around 400-500 beakers in a very short time period. the quicker buildings in general save population and production as well - i.e., less citizens needed to whip or less forest needed to chop. obviously the more tiles you can keep working the better. obviously the more trees you can save for production on other items is better too.
8. in general, CRE saves around 90-120 (monuments) turns of loss production on a single tile at the earliest point in the game where it matters the most, i.e. not working a 4H tile for 120 turns is a huge amount of lost production.
9. if you factor in saved turns for a library, theater, and colosseum in each city - you could easily save an additional 300 + turns. So to those who think CRE is nothing more than border pops - think again. Who wouldn't wanna save potentially 1600+H of production by 1AD - 250 AD?

So basically you just listed everything that's good about Creative for ANY game, yes?

I gave a some what descriptive answer why CRE is great for a FE.

Any game? NO - it shouldn't be hard to figure out why.

A lot of helpful advice in this thread. Thanks!

I gave a some what descriptive answer why CRE is great for a FE.

Any game? NO - it shouldn't be hard to figure out why.

CRE is good for pretty much anything, because it's versatile/solid. It covers holes in commerce games too, by getting you the scientist or two faster and blocking more successfully. I learned to appreciate the trait a long time ago but on the most painful of difficulties it has an even stronger case.

The cheap libraries?

1. faster border pops which allow someone to claim stone faster/better city sites.
2. faster theaters
3. faster colosseums
4. faster globe theater because of #2.
5. quicker population because of #2 and #3.
6. quicker use of culture slider to negate mass whipping - assuming you early war.
7. quicker libraries is a huge benefit and w/out CoL can land you scientist 4-5 turns earlier. if you have the Mids that means every single city also saves 12Beakers X 5turns = 60Beakers in every city with a library.
7A. this can easily add up to the cost of a complete tech around 400-500 beakers in a very short time period. the quicker buildings in general save population and production as well - i.e., less citizens needed to whip or less forest needed to chop. obviously the more tiles you can keep working the better. obviously the more trees you can save for production on other items is better too.
8. in general, CRE saves around 90-120 (monuments) turns of loss production on a single tile at the earliest point in the game where it matters the most, i.e. not working a 4H tile for 120 turns is a huge amount of lost production.
9. if you factor in saved turns for a library, theater, and colosseum in each city - you could easily save an additional 300 + turns. So to those who think CRE is nothing more than border pops - think again. Who wouldn't wanna save potentially 1600+H of production by 1AD - 250 AD?

Arguably #5 is also because of #1, getting the food in the outer ring up and running sooner.

Also #7, cheaper libs also means that the beakers from rep boosted scientists can get shoved through a multiplier earlier.

Minor points really, just thought they should be made...

Any game? NO - it shouldn't be hard to figure out why.

In a FE the slider will typically be zero - 30% therefore Drama/Construction and the happiness buildings are a must. If I'm running a CE with the same CRE leader I'll typically end up going Monarchy instead, and although I will eventually get theaters/col online, they will not be prioritized or nearly as important as with a FE - even though the benefits still apply.