Late game SE or economic transition?

@DaveMcW

In the first 1/2 of the game you are focused on militaristically expanding your empire and the FE/SE helps here with whip/drafting, etc.

Since we are talking about whipping we'll drop the specialists and call it a Food Economy(City) vs. Cottage Economy(City)

I also intentionally do not consider bonus resources when I do comparisons, though I am open to reasons why including them is neutral. I also realize that the presence of resources will affect the decision to run a city food heavy or cottage heavy, which it partly why I ignore their presence.

Aside from heavy plains areas or waterless areas (in which case farms are not even an early possibility). And, even in plains, if water is present you can work plains food neutral and get the hammer so hpt is still greater.
 
There is nothing that stops a cottage city from working enough farms for whipping, and they will both have the same production if they know whats good for them. And in both cases, the whip cap is once every 10 turns after the first few uses.

Then you are really stretching the definition of Cottage Economy if you are not working cottages.

Again, I am a true believe of hybrids and looking at output on a per-city basis and what you just said turns your CE city into a FE city and thus supports the point made previously.
 
Food and hammers are needed before cottages or specialists are. Thats just the way it goes. That doesnt change how cottages compare to specialists.
 
Wouldn't the natural evolution of a Specialist Economy be a Hammer Economy rather than a cottage-based one? It retains the flexibility and suitability for warfare and reflects that Specialists stay the same while production-oriented improvements become better with certain techs.

It won't beat the research potential of a CE but retains the main advantages of a SE and there's no transitional period of suckiness.
 
Probably. If you are running state property. In that case you would need villages before they compare to maxed workshops.

But if you plan on running corps (or just dont like state property for some reason), cottages will catch up and surpass it quick enough.
 
2 cities, 4 population.

A) All 4 working farms
B) All 4 working cottages

City A can whip more effectively than city B by virtue of the additional 4 food.

2 cities, 4 population
A) 2 working farms, 2 working grassland hills
b) same as above

City A produces more hammers per turn than city B

City A will produce more hammers and less commerce/science. Where is the contradiction? An SE might have higher peak production, but it does this by sacrificing science. Which makes it flexible - but its steady state production is typically lower than an CEs.

A more typical case with happy/health cap of 7:

City A - "SE style"

Food Special - +3 food
Grassland farmx3 +3 food (another 3 don't get worked)
Scientists x3 - +9 (or 18 with pyramids) science -6 food

Or gets converted to production -

Food Special +3 food
Grassland farm x3 +3 food (plus three farms worked as grow)
Scientists converted into 90 hammers - regrow and repeat. What does +6 food equal? +9 hammers per turn? A little more in practice as we will get access to another three grassland farms as we grow. Probably around +12 hammers per turn.

City B - "CE style"

Food special - +3 food
Grassland cottage x 6 = 6/12/18/24 commerce depending on age of cottage
+3 food per turn of production = 4.5 hammers?

City A can choose to optimize either science or production but not both at the same time. It suits teching towards a military tech and then converting totally to production and then repeating. Note in the example involved it would require a civics shift to switch total science to total production. City A also stands a chance of greating a great person in the early game which further helps the science rush. If happy / health caps are high then more specialists can be run with caste system for more science.

City B quickly catches the science output of City A (less quickly if the pyramids are involved) and produces a high steady state of science and moderate continuous production. Its suited to longer peaceful periods where key buildings can be whipped in but maximum time spent on growing the cottages. Its easier to play (less micromanagement) and does better operating under low happy/health caps.

I don't argue that one is better than the other until the late game, where cottages should all be towns and +7 commerce and +1 hammer per tile is a better output per tile than any specialist could get from the same tile.

I think the decision for someone starting with an SE and deciding whether to switch to a CE is which victory condition are they playing for. If space then the CE will research more quickly. If diplomacy or domination there is probably no reason to switch.
 
The flexibility is what is the virtue of the FE/SE though.

You go max-production when you need production and you go max-science when you need the next level of military tech.

When your expansion needs are complete (if ever) you can settle down to growing cottages under the CE civics empire-wide.

I see it this way because the SE civics are available early (if you nab pyramids, which is easy to do on noble--the baseline for this game where AI = human bonuses; the fact that emperor+ changes this is a function of the AI bonuses, which alters the game imho), a nice transition civic comes mid-game (serfdom), and the CE civics become available a bit after serfdom (liberalism/democracy).

To me that corresponds to SE early around the same time that you also need to be expanding your empire (i.e., you need the flexibility to war and tech when needed). You need commerce (CE) to be churning once your military conquest is done (during which time you usually need to be cranking the culture slider to combat WW) so that you can zoom toward outerspace (if that is your goal).

I think the decision for someone starting with an SE and deciding whether to switch to a CE is which victory condition are they playing for. If space then the CE will research more quickly. If diplomacy or domination there is probably no reason to switch.

I agree with this and do the same in my games.
 
I fully agree with InvisibleStalke's analysis, assumptions and conclusions. Just recognize that time is not a component of the analysis (nor, for practical reasons, should it be).
 
What does +6 food equal? +9 hammers per turn?
Its only +6 food until you get the first scientist back. Then its +4, then +2, then nothing.

You could also, if you cared about efficiency, simply run 3 grassland mines or a few plains mines and end up with more total food/hammers/beakers in the end.

Also, the cottage city still has +3 food when the city is capped while the SE city has none. That means it can run 1.5 specialists instead of 1.5 cottages.

The bottom line is that food for food, cottages are going to beat specialists, either immediately or at most after 10 turns. Production is also exactly the same between them, since any city can build a few farms.

And i am still ignoring GPP, yes, since they will be made at my GP farm regardless of what kind of economy im running.
 
An extra early couple great people, however, can be a big deal, especially if it takes you to the next level of military tech, which can then be whipped-out empire-wide.
 
The flexibility is what is the virtue of the FE/SE though.

You go max-production when you need production and you go max-science when you need the next level of military tech.
A HE does this even better. 2 workshops producing 2 food and 4 hammers each that get converted to beakers beats a biology farm and a scientist. This is also around the time 100% hammer multiplier is available, while you are stuck with a 75% science multiplier for a while longer.

Of course, a SE has the option of running corps, but health is already a big problem by the time they become available.
 
Of course, a SE has the option of running corps, but health is already a big problem by the time they become available.
Enviromentalism.....
 
An extra early couple great people, however, can be a big deal, especially if it takes you to the next level of military tech, which can then be whipped-out empire-wide.
Sure, but that has a slightly different angle.

Exploiting an early advantage falls under gambit, but the beakers you get out of it falls under economy. If you had settled, say, an engineer instead of bulbing him, he would easily make up for the beakers in time. It might still be worth doing, just recognize that this particular GP is being used in an inefficient way from a strictly economic perspective.
 
Enviromentalism.....
...means that most corps either break even or work at a loss on the gold to whatever it produces conversion.

Thats ok if you have a lot of gold, but im under the impression that a lot of people dont have a surplus at 100% science(/culture for a SE i guess) for much of the game if at all.

Might still be worth it if you want a diplo or domi win, i guess, but not from a research perspective.
 
Since we are talking about whipping we'll drop the specialists and call it a Food Economy(City) vs. Cottage Economy(City)

Since we're talking about production I'll drop the cottages and call it a Food Economy(City) vs. Hammer Economy(City).

Seriously though, whipping and specialists have their place. And so do cottages. Don't get obsessed with using only one.
 
A HE does this even better. 2 workshops producing 2 food and 4 hammers each that get converted to beakers beats a biology farm and a scientist. This is also around the time 100% hammer multiplier is available, while you are stuck with a 75% science multiplier for a while longer.

Of course, a SE has the option of running corps, but health is already a big problem by the time they become available.

workshops don't get strong until the time when i'm talking about transitioning to CE.

plus, for the record, i just want to say that adapting to the map is the best move 100% of the time. i just wanted to say that the pattern of unfolding for the civics in this game supports SE early and CE mid-to-late. also, imo, there are a number of other factors favouring SE early, such as the early value of gpp and the flexibility afforded by a FE driving horizontal expansion. of course the sheer power of towns under CE civics blows a SE out of the water in beaker output mid-to-late game.
 
CE v SE threads spawn on a monthly basis I guess. Like 40% of them are propaganda and about 50% are either miscalculations or calculations irrelevant to any actual game situations.

Lategame FE (SE is only a facet of FE) can beat CE for space. Specialists are powerful and multiple cities running a dozen scientists each produce far more GPs than a single GP farm.

As always, the key is obtaining higher caps because a specialist + irrigation = 2 happy&health needed, compared to 1 for a town. However, FE has easier time capturing more resources than CE. Of course, if you play below your skill level/reload battles/cheat/etc you'll not notice the military advantage of FE, but it is there.

I prefer to back my statements with saves and screenshots from real games. Here's a post of mine out of an old FE v CE thread.

Workshops are not competitive with towns. Sure, running pure hammer economy the right way can win most difficulty levels, but immortal/deity are all about edges here and there. That's why old school FE players promoted it as the most adaptable economy, because adaptability is what you need to gain an edge when the chance arises.

I am undecided on the FE - CE argument, I prefer to see theory in action. Here I read about city planning to the 10th, spreadsheats, whatever; such greenhouse stuff does not belong to the high levels. There's aggressive settling, backstabbing wars, immense cultural pressure, and the need to expand more, usually thru war and despite higher maintenance, to counter the AI bonuses.

Moreover, the argument so far is missing on important issues, like trade routes, drafting, resources, buy v. whip, even on GPPs. Without such considerations, you'll never know what economy is better.

As far as the simplified town - specialist comparison goes, here's a real example of a real late game FE science city on BtS Immortal.



So, this city has exactly 12 irrigations and incidently runs exactly 12 scientists, so it's the perfect comparison for farms/specialists v. towns.
scientists = 12*6 = 72 beakers
towns = 12*7 = 84 commerce; also 12 hammers
84 commerce * 80% tech rate = 67.2 commerce for science, 16.8 for gold

net science gain from commerce for specialists: 4.8 beakers +225% = 15.6 beakers
minus 12 hammers + 100% = 24 beakers
8.4 less beakers and 33.6 less gold (16.8 +100%) for the specialists

That's 42 less science/gold per turn when running specialists instead of towns. However, this calculation does not include any number of factors:

- GPPs. The city will produce a GP in 20-30 turns, which is likely before the game's end. The GP will be a GS with 99% certainty and, at cost of slightly above 3000 GPPs, he will yield 2000-3000 beakers. If we count 3 GPPs equal to 2 beakers in this case we already have the specialists beating the towns in value.

- the specialists create 24 culture/turn (Sistine Chapel). While Free Speech will be as effective at some ~98 total culture/turn, running it will hurt Espionage, maintenance, and will eliminate the drafting option entirely.

- Counting in a supermarket in 3 turns, the specialist city will be at -2 food due to unhealthiness compared to a cottage one. Also, a cottage one will have enough free health to make Industrial Park viable. On the other hand, losing 12 size will dramatically rearrange trade routes and results in a loss of ~8 base commerce (26 science).

I'd say we don't have a clear winner so far.

But, 12 towns don't just spring out of nowhere. And there's also the flexibility of FE, should I decide to go for domination or build space component, the city can be workshopped in no time for nearly 200 hammers/turn. Citizens may starve, but they regrow faster than towns. Now I like this city as FE better.

---

So, what's the trick to run FE all the way to Alpha Centauri? It's managing the higher health cap (slider can help for the happy cap). In this game, I have literally all health resources and all my cities are on fresh water, sea, or both.
 
multiple cities running a dozen scientists each produce far more GPs than a single GP farm.
No they dont. A few more, maybe, but not "far more".

More importantly, with the cost of lategame GP its almost certainly not worth farming them, much less to run specialists for their own sake.

FE has easier time capturing more resources than CE.
Justify that statement.

You are also running triple digit deficit in that screenie and you are building research. Whats your sustainable empirewide research like?
 
Just did a little test trough worldbuilder using 4 cities.

Farms+scientists -> 83 :science:
Cottages -> 42 :science:
Villages -> 76 :science:
Towns -> 90 :science:

So now add in the fact that having towns early game is impossible, SE is more versatile, SE regrows faster after whip and SE isn't influenced by the slider that much. SE has its own advantages.

Of course if you play financial, things change. But let's leave financial out of this discussion.
 
Need more info. A lot more. Like, what it was you did for starters. And a full SE that is worth a damn will be running caste system, not slavery.
 
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