I've heard the terms "cottage economy" and "specialist economy" across the forums. I feel I understand a CE, which I frequently use and love. I want to try new things, but I am a little confused on how to set up a specialist economy. Could you guys give me some tips? I know that philosophical is the specialist economy counterpart to financial for CE's, and that instead of cottaging the crap out of cities, you farm? An explanation would be nice.

A specialist economy basically get's techs from scientist specialists. There have been many walkthroughs, and several of my classic RPCs used a SE (Montezuma to the first that comes to mind).

General principals

1) As you said, farm most tiles. Grassland riverside are the best, non riverside can be exploited with civil service.

2) Run scientists once you have libraries. 2 per city with a library means 7.5 beakers per city. Later you can add other specilists

3) The pyramids helps alot as you cna run early representation. Myself I usually only use the SE when I can get the pyramids.

4) Code of Laws early for caste system. The more scientists you can get out, the stronger your game.

5) Biology is the Nuclear bomb of the SE while Democracy (specifically emancipation) is the Se plague. The more food you get, the more specialists.

6) Commerce is important and you can get them from resources, trade routes, miscelanneous tiles.

7) Here is the tricky part, use bulbing with you Great people and trade techs. Bulb Philosophy and trade it around. Similar education (once liberalism is locked up), printing press etc... This is an important part of the strategy.

8) in Vanilla and Warlords it was tough to stay in an SE after democracy, but not so in BTS. Indistrial parks, national parks, corps, supermarkets (+1 food) can all get you more food and specialist slots. Often I find myself adopting an SE based game post Constituion.

The classic SE involves no or little cottages (the CE). However, I do not recommend that myself and prefer a hybrid economy using both cottages and specislists.

Also understand that the SE vs. CE question is apt to open up a slew of very emotional responses on this forum, or it used to.

^^That is ,at most , a scientist SE :p

I would also like to know what is a SE , please :D But please explain in a shorter time than the one you can stand in one foot :p

Wait so do you use great people to tech, as in bulbing techs? Is that the focus of a SE?

Wait so do you use great people to tech, as in bulbing techs? Is that the focus of a SE?

That's something that is often done with any economy - bulb techs that haven't been researched and trade it around to backfill key techs. The common thing is to bulb with GS's down the Liberalism line. Running an SE it is easy to produce lots of GS.

Mad's summary has some good tips. I'd also add that the SE does well for maps with high food but poor cottage land. If you want to try it out I'd play a game where you can't build any cottages - it's quite fun.

In the end it is best to adapt your economy to the map and most of the time a hybrid economy works best. A cottaged bureaucracy capital with academy and oxford is tough to beat. If you have a city with plenty of food but not too many tiles, consider running specs there.

Wait so do you use great people to tech, as in bulbing techs? Is that the focus of a SE?

you can, but the GS's gained can also be settled into your oxford city to create an SSE [super specialist economy], where the vast majority of your science output is from that city. Combine that city with a national epic, GS built academy, high food yield to support as many scientists as possible, the GL [if you can build it], and you'll be surprised how many beakers you can generate. A settled GS under representation nets +9 raw beakers before modifiers.

So how you use your GS's is up to you, personally, I'll usually bulb only if it's a critical tech in the early game [philosophy, paper, education are most prominent in my mind], and bulb more often in the later game, but this is because I'm still more inclined to research things myself rather than trade for them, while stealing techs to back fill.

Biology is great for the SE, but so is sushi and cereal mills.

Furthermore, if you're running an SSE more often than not, you'll come to a crunch point where you have to switch out of slavery into caste to maximize the potential of that city. In a traditional SE it's not as important as you can often get by on the scientist slots available via buildings, but the switch from slavery to caste can be tricky to time without practice.

The culture slider becomes your way of adapting to emancipation, which is why it's often regarded that creative is a top tier SE trait, cheap theatres and libraries. And why Justinian's UB is great in an SE as well [double happiness theatres]

Industrious is also a great SE trait as it gives you a fighting chance at the 'myds without stone, which essentially makes the SE most viable anyway.

Spiritual is another great SE trait as it can allow you to flip between slavery and caste, as well as pacifism and theocracy when cycling between production and science.

On hybrid economies:
Because your cities are food rich, commerce poor, you will need some kind of economic-based cities to support a large empire. Whether this be with with a few cottage cities, or a hybrid hammer-based [a very nice option with caste workshops in the mid-late game] or some combination of, something will have to be generating money for you. Just remember, that if you are in an SE, you're science slider will be running much lower and the cottage cities will benefit most from markets, banks, and grocers, so your cities become more specialized with a clear distinction between wealth generating and science generating.

Pros of an SE:
-Can expand faster, as you're less worried about keeping your science slider up in the early game because you're offsetting the difference with scientists, and can delay the building of pure financial cities longer because of it.
-More specialized cities mean less building per city.
-It tends to 'take off' faster than a CE, because each scientist is of larger start up raw beakers than most cottages.
-More GS's mean more bulbing options, or the SSE city [consequently better trade bait, or even more beakers]
-flexible in productive capabilities and cycling through war time production [setting those Specialists to work mines and workshops, and peaceful scientific research
-EDIT-
-easier to rebuild after being pillaged

Cons:
-No HR to grow your cities, so happiness can become a factor
-Loses out in raw beaker output to fully mature cottages
-emancipation hurts every SE in time
-micromanagement intensive, and the city governor often doesn't do a good job
-no slavery in caste.
Personally, I prefer an SE to a CE, but I'm finding it's much more situational than a CE. It's great for warring, and it's rare that I'll go for any other victory than domination or cultural with it, because enduring the late-years for a time or space victory is painful to watch.

5) Biology is the Nuclear bomb of the SE while Democracy (specifically emancipation) is the Se plague. The more food you get, the more specialists.Democracy is the death of the scientist driven SE.

But at the same time you're forced to drop Caste System for Emancipation, you open up a bunch of spy slots via buildings.

Generally speaking SE is very viable if you play a PHI type leader because of the % increase of great people, you start pumping out scientists and prophets like nobodys business, and especially once you snag Oxford in your major science city, you start researching techs FASTER in some eras than a CE economy, even with a Financial type leader. Ultimately endgame (and some disagree) a financial boosted CE economy researches techs faster, but the main benefit of a SE is that you can adjust the science slider low, mainly to fund war efforts and troops without crashing your tech output. Religious leaders work aswell to use it, or a hybrid system of it using cottages and specialists for tech, because of the gold output of a religion, especially in your capital with bureaucracy, to fund war efforts and then specialists for techs, monty works great for it from a warmongers perspective, Alex aswell is my favourite SE warmonger. SE's real benefit comes from when someone DoWs on you and you have cottages all over with a financial leader, and all of a sudden theyre pillaging your cottages, costing you 30+ turns to try and build them up again to where they were, there goes your economy! For a SE, its a 5 turn (less later on) farm thats right back up, and your city wont starve until then anyways. You basically have one major science city that you settle your first GS in, and build an academy with your second, have one engineer city that builds things like pyramids, gardens, etc, one city that builds your gold wonders for prophets and merchants to fund everything, and one GOOD production city to start, really you only need four cities to begin your wars with, and can conquer the rest since youll need about 7+ come the medieval age.

A specialist economy is an economy that is driven by specialists. That means most sliders are at 0%, and only specialists are generating raw science and gold. This, with lots of wonder grabbing, net you a lot of GPP and make it so that you can bulb techs, rush wonders, or settle as a super specialists, which under a Pyramid driven Representation, is a lot of beakers. That, and the +3 happiness you get from Representation means early-game you can launch ahead, but later in the game the SE starts to lack, around Democracy time.

3) The pyramids helps alot as you cna run early representation. Myself I usually only use the SE when I can get the pyramids.



IMO if you're playing on Emp and higher, or monarch if you're new to the strategy, and you dont end up building the pyramids.....capture them within an age or two or you're done for. A common strat is to build them in your original capital, then transfer the capital later on to your commerce city for bureaucracy.

Hmph. The SE and CE thing should have died years back. They're garbage terms and they mislead people learning.

You optimize every city based on how it best contributes to your empire. Sometimes there will be more or less cottages, mines, workshops, farms, etc. Early on, it's a mish-mash of the best outputs you can get. Later on, you will probably want to convert to one major improvement set (keeping the national wonder cities in their specialization only) such as cottages, farms, or workshops. Do whatever you want then. Run rep specs for science or use commerce.

But you don't get a magic wand. You still have to pay for your new cities and you still have to find a way to climb the tech tree.

Also, heavy GPP and bulbing can lead to some very fast initial tech ----> enough to hold a military tech lead and take advantage. Mids are not necessary there though if you can get them without trading away several cities in the process they do help.

:thumbsup: @ TMiT, nice summary

Sly, I would add that it's easier to recover from pillaging.

Personally, I go mostly based on a city by city basis.

I have a couple questions to add:

lets say you are running a hybrid economy, where some cities will have cottages, and others have farms+specialists, how do you decide which cities will be which depending on the terrain?
for example, I understand that cities beside lots of grassland with rivers will become specialist farms, but most of the time the terrain is very mixed. What is the best terrain for cottages anyway, do cottages work best with plains, non-river grasslands, something else?

secondly, if you are creating a city that will become a specialist farm, do you begin building libraries right away from turn 1 size 1 in that city? After you get the libraries, or assuming you have caste system, at what size population do you begin making citizens into specialists, size 4, size 6, size 8, OR is it dependent on the happiness? If you play on the easier difficulties, the happyness cap is very high, so it would be good to know a general size city size where you start running specialists. Do you try to run a surplus for city growth AND run specialists at the same time OR do you run as many specialists as you can and make growth 'stagnate'? If you don't stagnate, how much city growth do you want to have?

If you are running a specialist economy, with your sliders all near zero, than that means you should also be generating a ton of money. Does this mean all your specialist cities need to build all science and money buildings to get the most out of your specialist scientists and your sliders effectively being 100% money? If you have mostly specialists, this means most things are farms and that you aren't working as many tiles as you could, which means you aren't producing as many hammers as you could. So how can you afford the time to build these buildings and build other things like new settlers, army, wonders, other buildings, etc.?

Lastly, the great people you generate. Generally speaking, i like to settle my great people into great people cities, and almost never bulb techs. But it appears i should be bulbing more often. Out of your first, say, 6 great scientists/people, how many do you settle and how many do you bulb with? Also, do you build an academy first, then settle gs in it, or the other way around?

Lastly, sorry so many questions, assuming you had 6 cities in a se/hybrid economy, would it be correct to have: 1 specialist super science city, 1 all engineer specialist city, 1 specialist money city (or is it a cottage city for the money city?), 1 production city (farms and mines, no specialists or cottages), and 2 generic specialist science cities?

thx in advance,
veqryn

for example, I understand that cities beside lots of grassland with rivers will become specialist farms

For me I see that as a cottage city, riverside grassland offers +1C to inital cottages and grassland tiles will help the city steadily grow and work as many cottages as possible (its nice to have atleast 1 food source around aswell)

Specialist cities (atleast in the early game) need a concerntration of food. So say a pigs, irrigated corn and a fish would be nice because working those 3 tiles at size 9 would allow you to run 6 specialists.

secondly, if you are creating a city that will become a specialist farm, do you begin building libraries right away from turn 1 size 1 in that city?

I'd normally build monument during the earlygame (assuming you need the urgent borderpop), then granary then library, and don't forget if your running more food it makes sense to use the whip.

If you are running a specialist economy, with your sliders all near zero, than that means you should also be generating a ton of money


I wouldn't actually say to myself "I'm running a specialist economy I'll just put my slider to zero" but generally speaking as you expand and the fact your not running many commerce tiles your slider will naturally drop. Its wise to have one cottaged city even in a full on specialist economy to help generate some cash.

Out of your first, say, 6 great scientists/people, how many do you settle and how many do you bulb with?

Generally speaking I'd acadamy first, depending on how soon you get your second I'd settle in the acadamy city or bulb philosophy if available. I tend to use 1 or 2 more scientists for bulbing education and thats about as much as I bulb.

a specialist economy is a fiction created on the board

there are however "specialists" and you can assign them in cities.

you can assign a merchant specialist in a city with a market, bank and settled great merchant- ect.

Hmph. The SE and CE thing should have died years back. They're garbage terms and they mislead people learning.

.

Yeah I agree with this.

One other point from the Vanilla days which is not that important in BTS, the AI rarely pillages in wars now. Before your great cottage empire could easily be torched by an enemy while the SE is easier to rebuild because farms do not require time to regrow.

However, one point about SE I have found, it is a fun challenge to run games without cottages occasionally!

Not building cottages is a totally viable on any difficulty, and often I don't build 'em.

Hmph. The SE and CE thing should have died years back. They're garbage terms and they mislead people learning.

You optimize every city based on how it best contributes to your empire. Sometimes there will be more or less cottages, mines, workshops, farms, etc. Early on, it's a mish-mash of the best outputs you can get.

I agree. I was just a little confused on what exactly a SE is. I find myself having some cottage cities, some hammer cities, and 1 or 2 GP farms. So I guess I use a hybrid economy?

Sly, I would add that it's easier to recover from pillaging.


you sir, are correct, and oversight on my part to be sure.

I just want to say don't go into a game thinking your going to go SE without even looking at the map. If you get loads of jungle that begs to be cottaged but you still want SE then you need to adapt

Sly, I would add that it's easier to recover from pillaging.


this is a pathetic argument. if the enemy is pillagins your cottages OR your farms, and you can't stop him, you lost the game pal. there's no such a thing as a sucessfull game in which you hide inside your walls while everyone of your cities are pillaged and you still end up with a win. if you are an experienced player, try to think a bit more before posting advisement to the begginers based in false notions such as this one. really, I mean no disrespect. But I've seen this posted in this boards so many times, and it's such an absurd that it makes me want to throw up. don't go repeating stuff as if they are absolute truth without testing/thinking it through. it just spreads ignorance. and in this case it spreads where it's less wanted: in people who are starting to understand the "hardcore" part of the game.

A big problem I've had with SE is city sizes. Happiness and Health really seem to bite in the rear end every time i try a SE. More Pop= More specialist but happiness really seem to slow you down....

I was all set to answer your question until I saw it contained the word "exactly".

this is a pathetic argument. /rant (with some valid points) :p

I think there need to be some common sense rules applied here. If you have a city with a lush grassland right next to a moody warmonger type, don't necessarily start slapping down cottages all over the place. I agree that if war must happen it should be on the player's terms, but even wars on your terms may extend into your lands (and this may not be a bad thing either if you are prepared).

I was all set to answer your question until I saw it contained the word "exactly".

Nice cop out. :lol:

Nice cop out. :lol:

I was being serious, since there are different ways to run what is called a "specialist economy".

Not building cottages is a totally viable on any difficulty, and often I don't build 'em.

When I go without them usually GLH or strong commerce tiles/resources are available. In one game I went w/o them using FIN, due to water volume and having colossus.

Indeed w/o GLH/Pyramids or at least Colossus that's not so easy unless going for early rush (BC) and get the cottages pre-grown for you.
FIN w/ river side hills also works well.
Basically if one can get away w/o building them the game flows easier than having them.

i dont build cottages at all if im running with a PHI leader personally, unless its liz but she's my least favourite, i just dont have that many tiles to work until much later on in the game, if ever. Make sure i grab a couple production cities to spam troops and build my HE and other wonders, and find my squishiest opponent.

Hmph. The SE and CE thing should have died years back. They're garbage terms and they mislead people learning.


It gets even more confusing when terms such as Hammer Economy, Food Economy, Wonder Economy, Trade Economy and Religion Economy are thrown into the mix along with Cottage Economy and Specialist Economy. I think the terms can have some vague descriptive value, but when people try to strictly categorise and separate them the problems and contradictions begin.

Let's say that you do go up to ~ 1000AD relying entirely on specialists/great people, and never building a single cottage. What do you do then? Seems like at that point you've gotten so many great people that it'll be really difficult to get more. Do you start making cottages after getting democracy, or do you just rely on representation + biology to make your scientists good enough on their own? Or switch to SP + workshops and steamroll everyone with pure production?

Let's say that you do go up to ~ 1000AD relying entirely on specialists/great people, and never building a single cottage. What do you do then? Seems like at that point you've gotten so many great people that it'll be really difficult to get more. Do you start making cottages after getting democracy, or do you just rely on representation + biology to make your scientists good enough on their own? Or switch to SP + workshops and steamroll everyone with pure production?

You definitely can play successfully without ever buildign a cottage even after Emancipation if you have Biology and representation. A library and observatory are three scientist. Add an engineer from a forge, then a few merchants, and spy specialists get 4 beakers and 4 ep under representation. That's alot of specialists. All those additional Great People you should be getting can/should be used towards coprs or as you said SP abuse workshops/watermills.

@pi-r8
depends on the plan and both are viable. Capital even w/o cottages but w/ settled GS/GE can provide over 600beakers/turn after oxford.
Bio-repr spec work just fine, so does the espionage if you are lagging behind.

Still the standard is mass cavalry taking over the world. Having cavalry around 1000AD is almost sure win. Throw in SP if you have to to make the deal firmer. You don't need to race to the stars and if you really need cottages for some odd reason they can be captured just fine.

Few bonuses about the <SE>: it's not greatly affected by the slider, so running culture for happiness doesn't hurt too much. Can use the draft and slavery more efficiently than so-called 'CE'; again overbuilding cottages is one of the easiest ways to lose a game.

As you have heard there is no such thing like CE/SE or anything, one shall use what's the best for a particular city... but most of all actually should have a plan.

Edit: Later windmills are great improvements and under the weird eco-gov can be a bliss: no real health problems which is the bane of the AL, good commerce and it's UN-proof... still provides very good commerce and doesn't have to 'grow'

You definitely can play successfully without ever buildign a cottage even after Emancipation if you have Biology and representation. A library and observatory are three scientist. Add an engineer from a forge, then a few merchants, and spy specialists get 4 beakers and 4 ep under representation. That's alot of specialists. All those additional Great People you should be getting can/should be used towards coprs or as you said SP abuse workshops/watermills.

Do you still get a lot of great people from that point on though? I was just thinking that if you've gotten so many from the first part of the game, it would cost a huge amount of gpp to get more.

Just finished an emp game with rome, not even a PHI leader and had one popping up about every 20 turns into the modern era. Wonders provide a lot, theocracy if you need it, plus theres a good 5 specialists atleast per city, they come often enough :)

Received wisdom tells me that there comes a point in the later game when the so-called "cottage economy" will inevitably produce more science (and other commerce) per turn than the "specialist economy".

Presumably, you either:
- win before then, or
- have so many settled GP that it doesn't matter.

Presumably, you either:
- win before then, or
- have so many settled GP that it doesn't matter.

This is just it. Your economy can take off and if you exploit your tech advantage, no one will catch you.

Also, after emancipation, or even before, the workshop is the equalizing improvement. Such massive production for food neutral tiles [on grassland] can mean you can build wealth/research to great effect. Or you could just build more units.

I think there need to be some common sense rules applied here. / extremely weak argumentation


not building cottages at the last line of a city that makes frontier with Montezuma is one thing. Not building cottages at all, taking as one of the reasons the fact that it's easier to rebuild a farma then rebuild a town is another thing entirely. Whoever keeps this argument going in favor of SE is making a big fool of themselves. It can fool a beginner, which is a shame, and is cowardice. But it won't fool Emperor+ players, I believe.

You definitely can play successfully without ever buildign a cottage even after Emancipation if you have Biology and representation. A library and observatory are three scientist. Add an engineer from a forge, then a few merchants, and spy specialists get 4 beakers and 4 ep under representation. That's alot of specialists. All those additional Great People you should be getting can/should be used towards coprs or as you said SP abuse workshops/watermills.

Now, that could be a reason to run especialists. In fact, I think both estrategies end up having some balance. Especialists should give more production early in the game, since you can work only mines/farms. CE should give you more production later on, when you have US. But even then, one could argue with workshops later in favor of especialists...

One way or the other, I believe this discussion misses the point. You have to out-tech or out-produce some AI at some point of the game. That's the only thing you have to do at all to win Civ, at any difficult level. Even deity: if you out tech one single civ to rifling and take over all their land, you'll probably be strong enough to get to space before everyone else. To learn how to do that, I'd recomend Snaaty's guide to higher levels. That's what teached me how to play serious Civ4.

urgh.. not another SE vs CE thread.. hehe.. anyway, TMIT and Mad seems to have summed it up already.. cheers.. :)

Just finished an emp game with rome, not even a PHI leader and had one popping up about every 20 turns into the modern era. Wonders provide a lot, theocracy if you need it, plus theres a good 5 specialists atleast per city, they come often enough :)

You mean Pacifism, + 100% GP generation, correct?

not building cottages at the last line of a city that makes frontier with Montezuma is one thing. Not building cottages at all, taking as one of the reasons the fact that it's easier to rebuild a farma then rebuild a town is another thing entirely. Whoever keeps this argument going in favor of SE is making a big fool of themselves. It can fool a beginner, which is a shame, and is cowardice. But it won't fool Emperor+ players, I believe.

You seem to be very passionate about this subject: I don't see where words like "shame" and "cowardice" even belong in this discussion. It's a simple fact that replacing a pillaged farm can be done instantly. Someone (TMiT?) has mentioned a strategy where you allow the AI to invade and attack a heavily defended city that neighbors the AI and hopefully suicide a lot of its troops against it. I know that cottages are a great improvement, I get that and I think most people do too. But you would be a fool to choose an economic approach without weighing all of the pros and cons, however slight you may feel them to be.

"Only build cottages on hills "- from "Attacko's Strategy Guide"- May 19, 2008, 03:18 PM


The reason is three fold

- Green hills tend to be on a river (close by), old units atop of hills have good defense making a pillager think twice or pay the price.

-desicion of where to build a town is easier and later you can automate wrkers to fill in for your bias and/or tactical oversight

-the AI does it, Attacko does it, i say that is good enough for me

the evidence is clear- cottage on green hills-in multi-player or single player- this is the superior

You seem to be very passionate about this subject: I don't see where words like "shame" and "cowardice" even belong in this discussion. It's a simple fact that replacing a pillaged farm can be done instantly. Someone (TMiT?) has mentioned a strategy where you allow the AI to invade and attack a heavily defended city that neighbors the AI and hopefully suicide a lot of its troops against it. I know that cottages are a great improvement, I get that and I think most people do too. But you would be a fool to choose an economic approach without weighing all of the pros and cons, however slight you may feel them to be.


Just look at what you are saying... that's the kind of thing that makes me react. If you are building a city to provoke the AI into suiciding, then you will NOT cottage this city. Not because CE is more vulnerable to pillaging then SE, but because this city in particular is not a good choice for being a commerce city in a CE. So no, pillaging is not an argument in favor of SE. Anyone sustaining that is being either a fool or a liar. Advices come for free, but even then, people should consider wheter to remain quiet instead of giving flawed advice. That's my point.

Received wisdom tells me that there comes a point in the later game when the so-called "cottage economy" will inevitably produce more science (and other commerce) per turn than the "specialist economy".
Late game production is way more valuable than pure commerce, though.

Food / scientists early on academy bureau capital or academy SuperScientist city. Bulb liberalism techs (except Paper depending on level which is cheap and a waste of a GS imo), settle the rest of the scientists in academy city.

During early phases (once Caste online and super science city in swing) low science slider, lots of war for conquering. Utilize bonus resources and trade for :commerce: for :gold: (low slider).

During wars, you will invariable capture AI cities that are cottage spammed. Assuming the AI hasn't cottaged a perfect specialist site (2+ bonus food resources/lakeside grassland), keep the cottages. Generally speaking, I never have to BUILD cottages in my core empire when utilizing an SE. Cottages and lux resources gained from conquest are enough. A hybrid emerges from this strategy.

Emancipation comes online, cottage over farms on riverside tiles (except possibly in Super Scientist city depending on size of empire and improvements) and replace scientist specialists in those secondary specialist cities with merchants (usually many more slots available). At this point, popping out merchant specialists and alternating settle in Wall Street/trade mission to keep as high a slider as possible.

Haven't played an SE in a while. That use to be immense overkill on Prince level. Monarch it probably is VERY powerful as well.

I find the terms helpful not in absolute terms, but as relative indicators. SE = farm more. CE = cottage more. SE requires more micro and planning to be effective. CE is easier to play from a micro standpoint but is less flexible until you have rush buy and emancipation.

An example of an SE game: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=323521

Yes, I'm aware that the Oxford city in that game ran a bunch of cottages. But if you look at when we made our renaissance push, a vast portion came from whipping.

In my opinion the most important aspect of a specialist-driven economy is that yield per tile worked is decent but yield per population point is rubbish.

If you are restricted by land, all is good: a lategame farm feeding a specialist can compete with a cottage. If you are restricted by happiness and need to leave good land idle, you could have 2 cottages instead of a farm feeding a specialist... this does not sound too appealing even if you don't bother with cottage civics.
Something similar applies to the early game although it's not quite as drastic (is the alternative to 2 farms and a specialist 2 or 3 cottages?

Which of these applies depends on your land and settling pattern. If you like to claim as much land with as few cities as possible, relying on specialists will lead to a lot of wasted potential unless the land is unusually poor.

Food / scientists early on academy bureau capital or academy SuperScientist city.


a capital focused on food to support especialists will not benefit a lot from bureaucracy. Which another questionable aspect of a pure SE. At least the capital should be cottaged, in order to benefit from bureau. Note that you will have no use for free speech, so bureau is your long term choice. So you should either have a cottaged capital (I vote for this) or one that is totally focused on hammers, otherwise you waste the bureau benefits.

a capital focused on food to support especialists will not benefit a lot from bureaucracy. Which another questionable aspect of a pure SE. At least the capital should be cottaged, in order to benefit from bureau. Note that you will have no use for free speech, so bureau is your long term choice. So you should either have a cottaged capital (I vote for this) or one that is totally focused on hammers, otherwise you waste the bureau benefits.

A hammer cap is fine in some games.

Also, IMO the end-game civic when not spamming cottages is not bureaucracy but rather nationhood: you pay no upkeep on the civic, you can draft if you want/need to do so, and you get +2 :) from barracks (can be nice to offset emancipation or just war somewhat). Also sometimes espionage can give ridiculous returns like a tech costing 1/2 or less in EP as it would in beakers, and nationhood will help there too.

Just look at what you are saying... that's the kind of thing that makes me react. If you are building a city to provoke the AI into suiciding, then you will NOT cottage this city. Not because CE is more vulnerable to pillaging then SE, but because this city in particular is not a good choice for being a commerce city in a CE. So no, pillaging is not an argument in favor of SE. Anyone sustaining that is being either a fool or a liar. Advices come for free, but even then, people should consider wheter to remain quiet instead of giving flawed advice. That's my point.

Ok, well maybe that was a poor example for proving my point, but just because I am struggling to prove it doesn't mean it isn't so. ;)
Admittedly it's not a criterion that I've had to use, but then I haven't played a whole bunch of civ either.

i was more interested in getting help with both rather than a fight about which was better....

well anyway, i gave SE a shot with Pericles and it turned out to be pretty awesome. I only played on a small map with 4 AIs, so that might have influenced it? I dunno. I played on Prince, Medium&Small and was able to get a tech lead while still putting out a decent army and building about 1/3 of all wonders (the good ones of course :). When I went to war with my closest AI, we had about equal troops, but of course my human advantage meant i kicked his ass pretty bad. From there out, i had a population and manufacturing advantage on everyone, which translates into advantages in all other areas including science, so I could not tell how well SE was working vs cottage because either way it was just mopping up / waiting to get a victory condition. I eventually won with a space ship, but was close to also winning with domination (i always turn off cultural and diplomatic victories, since i don't like winning before modern times [cultural] and i can't understand why the AIs always like each other so damn much [diplo][they never make demands of each other])
If I had the time, i would go back to my first save and do it all again with cottages just to compare the two, but i don't have time, so w/e. I have to say i like both methods. SE requires a lot of micro, but cottages does too, just a little less. Overall I wish there was a method that requires zero micro, perhaps it is called playing on noble?

I find the terms helpful not in absolute terms, but as relative indicators. SE = farm more. CE = cottage more. SE requires more micro and planning to be effective. CE is easier to play from a micro standpoint but is less flexible until you have rush buy and emancipation.

Agree. So much hate for terms that can be simply used as time-saving non-absolute generalization terms. I remember getting shot down a while back for saying what you said :lol: This subject seems to be the "Should Hitler have been included in Civ4" of the S&T forum.

Though I also agree the usage of the "economy" terms has gotten way out of hand. Trade route economy? Hammer economy? Right. Maybe it's better to just throw improvement names instead. WE/SSE is the only one I see consistently used without someone raising hell about it ;)

Ok, well maybe that was a poor example for proving my point, but just because I am struggling to prove it doesn't mean it isn't so. ;)
Admittedly it's not a criterion that I've had to use, but then I haven't played a whole bunch of civ either.

His point, and it is a TRUE point, is the fact that farms are replaced more easily than cottages is functionally irrelevant in a real game, at least until nukes.

If you're getting your FLATLAND tiles pillaged and you can't instantly kill them for wading there, you're not going to be around to replace them, farms or otherwise.

Conclusion: don't let yourself get pillaged to hell :p.

When deciding how to run my empire's economy, the single most important factor is the makeup of my empire itself, including the land, the second factor is probably my leader traits and civ unique building/unit. I'll just give you a basic example: let's say I'm playing as Peter and I get stuck between powerful neighbours and only get a 6 city empire...or let's say I'm playing Peter and I start near stone and thus decide to build the 'mids and because I put all that production into them I only get 6 cities down. With that small empire and Peter's philo trait, I'd be tempted to run a lot of specialists. This is, of course, assuming I have high food yield tiles. I could set up a super science city and run bureaucracy and out-research empires that are more than twice my size.
Then again, let's say I'm playing someone like Hammurabi with the org trait, or Hannibal, with the fin trait, and I start with the ability to expand a large empire. If I'm going to build an empire with 10-15 cities on a standard map fairly early in the game, the only way I'm paying for it is with cottages. I generally find that specialist focused economy works well for a smaller empire and a commerce focused economy works well for a larger empire, but that's just my 2 cents :)

a capital focused on food to support especialists will not benefit a lot from bureaucracy. Which another questionable aspect of a pure SE. At least the capital should be cottaged, in order to benefit from bureau. Note that you will have no use for free speech, so bureau is your long term choice. So you should either have a cottaged capital (I vote for this) or one that is totally focused on hammers, otherwise you waste the bureau benefits.
When I run SE heavy, I'm usually utilizing the Bureau bonus for :hammers: and ignore :commerce: for the most part. If I can get decent trade routes in the capital, then those benefit from bureau. However, I'd rather be in Vassalage (earlier eras) with free unit support since war is the likely state of the SE empire and Nationhood in the mid/later eras (for everything TMIT said). If I have plenty of food and a lot of production (this includes plains flatlands for workshops) in the capital, I'll still run bureaucracy to max out hammers. In this case, the capital is NOT the Superscientist city. Although it may act as a Wonderspam in some games.

Huh, bureau + cottages / boosted coastal tiles (Fin/Colossus) is soo nice tho!! :cringe:

nt know about you, but in my latest game my first 3 citys were on lots of floodplains.. i just farmed every thing and not use much specialist early and i ran away with game in tech on monarch

1 other use of a SE that I think warrants mention = it has some synergy with a later game war production economy. Now, I rarely run absolutely pure economies, but sometimes I'll decide to focus a lot on food tiles in the early to mid game, spamming farms everywhere. This allows me to whip for production and run specialists for economic output and GPs. In this case I'm likely warring. As the game moves past the midpoint and into the lategame, this type of economy will not be able to compete with a fully functioning cottage economy, but not to worry. At that point what I often do is switch to SP and turn the farms into watermills, workshops, etc. Remember you don't even need tech parity to win a war, as you can be behind in overall tech but at parity for military tech, or it can be even more extreme if your rivals are way ahead in techs and building modern wonders but you still have more advanced military techs. At that point I use my massive hammer output to end the game in a domination push. So I'm just saying, if you do happen to go food and specialist heavy in the early game for whatever reason, you still have many options in the late game.

nt know about you, but in my latest game my first 3 citys were on lots of floodplains.. i just farmed every thing and not use much specialist early and i ran away with game in tech on monarch

Did you mean to say you cottaged everything?

Yes, I was going to ask that as well. If you farmed everything and didn't use specialists, you would be in big trouble techwise on Monarch lol.

Huh, bureau + cottages / boosted coastal tiles (Fin/Colossus) is soo nice tho!! :cringe:
Oh, don't get me wrong, a cottage spammed bureau capital with FIN colossus and Oxford is pure utopia tech-wise. But then you'd want an extremely high science slider for Oxford to be most effective. In a mainly Specialist economy, this is the opposite of what's regular. The hybrid specialist-cottage econ works well with this, though, as your specialists will be merchants and Great Merchants get sent on trade missions to keep your slider at 100%.

It doesn't require many Farms to run a strong SE. The key elements are strong bonuses, strong Food resources, and many cities.

Strong bonuses are most easily gained by running Pacifism and starting a Golden Age at the time when your cities are most focused toward GPP generation. GPP enhancing wonders such as the Parthenon and National Epic are helpful, but not necessary.

Having many cities run specialists will often enable you to overcome a deficiency in total food potential, since it is not the food surplus that is most important, but rather the food supply. Food supply can be temporarily increased in time for a Golden Age, and it only takes a few high-food tiles to maintain a passable food intake while making a Golden Age-powered run for GPP. The more cities that can pull off this feat, the better, because proper planning will enable all of those cities to generate a Great Person.

Agreed. There are many threads that state that 1 GP Farm is more efficient, however, I enjoy seeing multiple GP pop in high frequency from multiple cities.

Oh, don't get me wrong, a cottage spammed bureau capital with FIN colossus and Oxford is pure utopia tech-wise. But then you'd want an extremely high science slider for Oxford to be most effective. In a mainly Specialist economy, this is the opposite of what's regular. The hybrid specialist-cottage econ works well with this, though, as your specialists will be merchants and Great Merchants get sent on trade missions to keep your slider at 100%.

My approach might be suboptimal but I've been experimenting with a similiar economy to what you described with binary research. It has been managable without GMs due to sheer empire wide commerce --> money, and of course my bureau city can pump out a ton of cash while I'm at 0% slider.

It doesn't require many Farms to run a strong SE. The key elements are strong bonuses, strong Food resources, and many cities.

Strong bonuses are most easily gained by running Pacifism and starting a Golden Age at the time when your cities are most focused toward GPP generation. GPP enhancing wonders such as the Parthenon and National Epic are helpful, but not necessary.

Great points.
GP are a fun addition to civ, I like the added strategy considerations. :)

Agreed. There are many threads that state that 1 GP Farm is more efficient, however, I enjoy seeing multiple GP pop in high frequency from multiple cities.

I like that approach as well. :thumbsup:
At least if I don't have a wonder spammed city, and before it becomes near impossible for multiple cities to accumulate the necessary GPP.

My approach might be suboptimal but I've been experimenting with a similiar economy to what you described with binary research. It has been managable without GMs due to sheer empire wide commerce --> money, and of course my bureau city can pump out a ton of cash while I'm at 0% slider.
I like binary research methods as well. But when doing binary research, it's important to remember to count the turns spent at 0% slider along with turns spent at 100% slider. Utilizing the Great Merchant trade missions and tech trade for gold, you can keep the slider up at 100% without dropping to 0 to accumulate funds.

Yeaaah... I'm keeping up with the AI's somehow, even if my approach isn't the best as the human I can still even the odds by trading techs and generating great people.

nope i havent bult but a few cottages. . and none of my other citys have many of them either most are all mines and farms.. i dont even got 1 work shp or wtermill or windmill. it was able to keep me expanding to 13 citys before i decided to stop.
i ws able to run high tech sliders and by the time i was able to build banks i just put sci at 0 and made 1k-1.7k money a turn. 1k starting and 1700 when i had rush by every thing even with out a turn into them.

took like 40 yrs to do it all but i was still ahead afterwards...i was also able to get so many generals from sea battles half the citys got military accadimy..
being duch and having all but 1 city have alot of water and the dike=powerhouses

the citys that do have cottages are those left from wars. and just now my 100 tanks roled over egypt and arabia in like 15 turns. my 33 destroyers ruled the sea, but when egyp and arabia showed up with some i had to put them down.
btw this is the monarch, standard big and small map and marathon speed

nope i havent bult but a few cottages. . and none of my other citys have many of them either most are all mines and farms.. i dont even got 1 work shp or wtermill or windmill. it was able to keep me expanding to 13 citys before i decided to stop.
i ws able to run high tech sliders and by the time i was able to build banks i just put sci at 0 and made 1k-1.7k money a turn. 1k starting and 1700 when i had rush by every thing even with out a turn into them.

Farms + mines is great for production, but you are forcing the question: where does your cash come from?

prolly the fact most citys have half the cross as water tiles. and the 3 starting citys are along huge flood plains with rivers going though atleast half the cross

Fair enough, water tiles have a rather low output in the grand scheme of things but they are abundant and "food neutral" and thus I find them to be quite useful in the early to mid game.

As for your flood plains, a lot of people on here actually find it beneficial to cottage them, possibly because a lot of flood plained farms can cause your population to skyrocket to unsustainable levels, due to factors like unhappiness and sickness. What was your strategy to keep this in check (if you care to share it of course ;)) ?

my strat was to whip it good... get alot of pop so fast and you dont have to worry bout the unhappiness. i have found that if you whip like 3-4 pop at a time or actualy go below the pop needed for the unhappyness to show up you dont have any.

many times i had them go from 7or8 pop down to 4 building things and i noticed fast that the extra unhappyness just doesnt exist when you go below the usual pop happy capp.

i let the unhappy build up to 2-3 over what the happy cap is. they may not make any production but they allow you to kill and still be productive.