Late game SE or economic transition?

Capital size 6, 3 cities size 4. I am in caste though for the sake of scientists in the capital. And running rep.

Bottom line if you can't afford to run a high science slider, se wins easily in terms of breakers. Think of war or rexing. Get a library, run two scientists everywhere is all you need to keep teching early game.

Try it for yourself in worldbuilder and see it for yourself. Or better yet, play an early se game yourself sometime. Anyways I prefer hybrids, I'm not so much a fighter for pure economies, all is situational.

My cities.

That still doesnt tell us anything. Need the city screens.

Ibian said:

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.

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Well, the late game cost and the GP production probability is included in my example. Turns out it's still worth it even below the 1 GPP = 1 beaker point.

Ibian said:

Justify that statement.

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acidsatyr already did.

Ibian said:

You are also running triple digit deficit in that screenie and you are building research. Whats your sustainable empirewide research like?

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OK. City Screen Reading 101 starting now.

Down right: world minimap. Size is obviously standard.

Center up: food bar. Crossreference with city pop to find out game speed is obviously normal.

I've already said the game is on Immortal.

Center up again: technology bar. Seems research is enough for at least a third of Refrigeration/turn, possibly a lot more.

FYI, Refrigeration costs 7,000 beakers on standard size normal speed Immortal.

So you're looking at about 3k bpt.

Is it sustainable? Well, with more than 15 cities in the empire (look minimap) that bring in 3k bpt at 80% science rate I wouldn't be worried the least bit about 110gp deficit, even assuming the civ can't trade techs to the AIs for gold.

But let's say we drop the science rate to 70% to kill the deficit.

What happens?

What happens is cottages utility falls even more. Why? Because the FE Oxford city can run scientists only and the FE Wall Street city can run merchants only, but CE cities get whatever the slider gives them, no local optimization flexibility.

Ibian said:

That still doesnt tell us anything. Need the city screens.

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Well can't provide those for you. I more did it for myself then actually try to convince other people. But go ahead and mess around a bit for yourself, maybe you can convince me and many other people why CE > SE early game.

Well, the late game cost and the GP production probability is included in my example. Turns out it's still worth it even below the 1 GPP = 1 beaker point.

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Assuming a 50% science multiplier, 200% GPP multiplier and a 2400 GPP cost, as well as 1600 beakers from bulbing, (all of this being a fairly standard scenario in my GP farm)

2 biology farms, 2 scientists for a total of 18 beakers and 18 GPP which translates to 12 beakers for a total of 30 beakers.

4 towns at 5 commerce each (im a bureaucracy whore, shiny shiny wonders) for a total of 30 beakers.

But what i was objecting to was your "far more" statement as its completely wrong. The more SE cities you have the more GPP are going to waste.

Someone drew up a graph a while ago. The not to be discussed result was that if city A produces twice the GPP that city B does, city B is never going to pop out a GP.

Even with a smaller lead, there will typically only be 1-2 high food/wonder spammed cities that produce GP while the rest dont.

And in the unlikely event that all cities produce exactly the same amount of GPP, you will be accumulating an ever increasing stack of wasted GPP.

Its simply not worth it. A CE with a single GP farm is the best way to go if you wanna maximize your economy, especially the lategame economy.

acidsatyr already did.

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He is not even in this thread.

OK. City Screen Reading 101 starting now.

Down right: world minimap. Size is obviously standard.

Center up: food bar. Crossreference with city pop to find out game speed is obviously normal.

I've already said the game is on Immortal.

Center up again: technology bar. Seems research is enough for at least a third of Refrigeration/turn, possibly a lot more.

FYI, Refrigeration costs 7,000 beakers on standard size normal speed Immortal.

So you're looking at about 3k bpt.

Is it sustainable? Well, with more than 15 cities in the empire (look minimap) that bring in 3k bpt at 80% science rate I wouldn't be worried the least bit about 110gp deficit, even assuming the civ can't trade techs to the AIs for gold.

But let's say we drop the science rate to 70% to kill the deficit.

What happens?

What happens is cottages utility falls even more. Why? Because the FE Oxford city can run scientists only and the FE Wall Street city can run merchants only, but CE cities get whatever the slider gives them, no local optimization flexibility.

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...none of that even came close to answering the question. And there exists the possibility that you bulbed someone that turn (if it can be bulbed, i cant check right now).

One more time: Running at a net gold income, what is the number of beakers you accumulate per turn?

It doesnt need such a longwinded non-answer. Or a restatement of the question, really.

Ibian said:

And there exists the possibility that you bulbed someone that turn

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Bulbed beakers appear fully green.

So they do, forgot about that. The question remains unanswered however.

And a full SE that is worth a damn will be running caste system, not slavery.

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This is actually a good point and it is why spiritual is such a good SE trait. Being able to switch back and forth anarchy-free is a big deal for leveraging the flexibility of the FE.

The flexibility of the FE IS there and I think the arguments have been well made. If you want sheer beakers into the late game pop for pop I think it is hard to beat towns under the CE civics. However, this is well said:

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.

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p.s., @ Ibian, I have played many SE games and I can tell you from experience that if you run multiple cities with specialists you WILL get MORE gp EARLIER than if you have one dedicated gpfarm. How you leverage that is of course part of the bargain here, but good players imo know how to leverage those couple thousand early lightbulbed beakers into an advantage that they can continue to build on game-long.

Early game analysis in terms of resources consumed (i.e. happiness and food) versus resources produced:

Early game grassland town: -1 +4
Rep scientist: -1 -2 +6

Observation: representation scientists are a more efficient use of happiness.

3 towns: -3 +12
Rep scientist + 2 grassland farms: -3 +6

Observation: due to the poor to conversion, representation scientists are a poor alternative to towns when food is lacking.

Conclusion: In the early game, if you have representation, then to maximize +, you should use scientists to consume the food surplus from resources, and have the rest of your population work grassland towns.

Observation: the science slider, and the presence of a library and academy in any city doesn't affect these results: the first ratio will be between 4:6 and 4:10.5, and the second ratio will be between 12:6 and 12:10.5.

(Considering the worst case to be 0% slider, and the city has a library and academy)

the rep scientist is also giving gpp. the rep scientist can also be up and running in a new city much faster (especially assuming caste system) than a fully matured cottage.

futurehermit said:

the rep scientist is also giving gpp. the rep scientist can also be up and running in a new city much faster (especially assuming caste system) than a fully matured cottage.

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Agreed -- but I think there are a few people in the thread who haven't yet grokked this baseline comparison, which is why I wanted to present it.

Oh, and a little interesting point: there is a way in which towns are more flexible than specialists. Before caste system (or building an expensive market), you can't use specialists for gold.

MyOtherName said:

Early game analysis in terms of resources consumed (i.e. happiness and food) versus resources produced:

Early game grassland town: -1 +4
Rep scientist: -1 -2 +6

Observation: representation scientists are a more efficient use of happiness.

3 towns: -3 +12
Rep scientist + 2 grassland farms: -3 +6

Observation: due to the poor to conversion, representation scientists are a poor alternative to towns when food is lacking.

Conclusion: In the early game, if you have representation, then to maximize +, you should use scientists to consume the food surplus from resources, and have the rest of your population work grassland towns.

Observation: the science slider, and the presence of a library and academy in any city doesn't affect these results: the first ratio will be between 4:6 and 4:10.5, and the second ratio will be between 12:6 and 12:10.5.

(Considering the worst case to be 0% slider, and the city has a library and academy)

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Close, just a minor note.

If you have a gold city (my GP farm typically fills this role) its always better to get your gold from specialists and your beakers from 100% slider, no matter in which order you get science and gold multipliers. (unless you want an early academy of course, but that aside)

MyOtherName said:

Early game grassland town: -1 +4
Rep scientist: -1 -2 +6

Observation: representation scientists are a more efficient use of happiness.

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All analysis must be food-neutral. Getting that 2 going to cost you some .

DaveMcW said:

All analysis must be food-neutral. Getting that 2 going to cost you some .

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Read the next two-thirds of my post.

Ibian said:

Its only +6 food until you get the first scientist back. Then its +4, then +2, then nothing.

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My point was that its either food, or production, not both. If you wanted production you don't put the scientists back - you work more farms (or mines). If you want science you run scientists. But you don't (and can't) do both at the same time. Those that claim SE has higher production must also accept that in the phases when it does have higher production it has lower science. It is a very flexible approach though.

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.

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True, but usually a cottage city will use excess food for production, rather than specialists.

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.

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When a SE wants to sacrifice its science for production it will generate higher production, unless your CE converts itself into an SE.

And i am still ignoring GPP, yes, since they will be made at my GP farm regardless of what kind of economy im running.

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Philo leaders can quite easily get GP from more than one farm. But there are diminishing returns as more cities are involved. And usually an SE will run scientists earlier and get its first GP earlier. Which means an earlier academy or settled scientist which can help in the early game.

Essentially an SE is a style of play that is exploiting the fact that Great People are harder to get and have diminishing power as the game goes on. Front loading them by getting them earlier is a benefit.

But switching to cottages later - yes absolutely for a space race - maybe not otherwise. And can cottaging from the start compete effectively - of course. The cottage player exploits the fact that cottages will passively become more and more powerful as the game goes on and accept their slower start as the price paid.

When a SE wants to sacrifice its science for production it will generate higher production, unless your CE converts itself into an SE.

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Still dont know what the bloody hell you are going on about here. (note: cranky and slightly hungover, please dont mind the tone)

A CE and a SE have the same options for production: Mines and maybe one engineer or a priest.

Switching to slavery is not really an option for a SE unless you want all your cities to make use of it, and a CE can stay in slavery longer anyway.

And no food doesnt make a lick of difference. Until the city grows too big to have room for swapout improvements (say around size 15), they both have exactly the same growth and production options.

Ibian said:

Still dont know what the bloody hell you are going on about here. (note: cranky and slightly hungover, please dont mind the tone)

A CE and a SE have the same options for production: Mines and maybe one engineer or a priest.

Switching to slavery is not really an option for a SE unless you want all your cities to make use of it, and a CE can stay in slavery longer anyway.

And no food doesnt make a lick of difference. Until the city grows too big to have room for swapout improvements (say around size 15), they both have exactly the same growth and production options.

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Since SE has more farms, it's easier for them to work production tiles. A typical cottage town will have enough farms to be able to work all the plains cottages, plus a few mines or plains hills windmills. There's very rarely room for a lot of workshops because most of those tiles are cottaged. An SE has room for workshops, since a lot of the population exists as scientists, not working any tiles. So you can just farm the grasslands, and workshop the plains, since farming a plain is completely pointless pre biology. and when you need production you move the scientists to work the workshops.

Since SE has more farms, it's easier for them to work production tiles.

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If you are not working at least 2-4 mines/workshops at any given time with a +2 food surplus in your CE cities you are doing it wrong. Infrastructure is far too important to ignore. SE has no edge here.

Building infrastructure with a CE is better done with whipping than working mines. For most of the game cities are relatively small, if you're working 4 mines, plus 4 farms to work those mines, what's left for cottages?

Ibian said:

A CE and a SE have the same options for production: Mines and maybe one engineer or a priest.

Switching to slavery is not really an option for a SE unless you want all your cities to make use of it, and a CE can stay in slavery longer anyway.

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Slavery is fine for an SE until fairly late - I don't switch to caste system until I have nationalism. I always like to have one of slavery/nationalism/US for emergencies. Library + Market + Courthouse = 5 specialists. Of course my SE's also have cottages, just not as many as when I run a CE.

And no food doesnt make a lick of difference. Until the city grows too big to have room for swapout improvements (say around size 15), they both have exactly the same growth and production options.

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No - since we are using slavery for production, a farm can be used for either production or supporting specialists. Or it can support mines. To support mines you will need farms also - so lets discount any mines running and any farms supporting them. Whats left is either cottages or farms. And farms can generate either specialists which will start producing more science than cottages but lose in the long run, or excess food which can be whipped for production or used to run even more mines.

Ibian said:

If you are not working at least 2-4 mines/workshops at any given time with a +2 food surplus in your CE cities you are doing it wrong. Infrastructure is far too important to ignore. SE has no edge here.

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With a +2 food surplus you can work two grassland mines or 1 plains mine. Thats it.

SE does not have an edge in total production vs a CE. Scientists don't produce hammers and cottages don't either (at least until US). In fact a SE has average lower production because it uses surplus food to support scientists whereas a cottage is self supporting and surplus food can be used for production. But a SE is better at turning off its science altogether and devoting all its food towards production for a burst of production - eg every city drops its scientists and immediately whips three macemen as fast as it can.

Of course that flexibility comes at a price - your burst of production has destroyed your science base - but your cities do regrow faster.