Late game SE or economic transition?

SE vs CE .. Science slider? Whip? Versatile? Just some things to consider, figure out the answer yourself.
Im not good with riddles. Could you make your question/statement/whatever a little more clear?
 
omg... I was once at this ce > se all the time thing... funny times :p

but post democracy, there's little point in not transitioning; and transition will always be slow enough not to whack your econ. - it's not like you have infinite workers...
 
but post democracy, there's little point in not transitioning; and transition will always be slow enough not to whack your econ. - it's not like you have infinite workers...
There are some good points to not switch ( of course the real in field situation may make this arguement stronger or weaker ):
- You can easily get Biology before democracy, and it gives a SE a whole new breath
- There are some good options in specialist slots/ free specialist in the endgame ( like the industrial park...ppl undervalue them a lot or a NP/preserve combo ( not that hard to get 12 free specialists ))
-GAs are a worthwhile option for the GP in endgame
- A cruise missile attack can be devastating for a late CE ( I've been once in a situation that I had a huge barrage of cruise missiles in a late game war.... being hitted by a 10/15 missiles per turn , even for a short while , can be pretty devastating for any economy ,but for a full CE can be a death blow in the winning chances ( thank god I was using a hibrid, more oriented for a SE .... )
-and more important than that, you can hit the food cap of a city pretty soon in a SE ( not considering corps... not all maps are full of seafood )... converting farms to cottages can lead to a big famine and those pop points are hard to regain

@Ibian

You're right to say that a full CE pwns a full SE of the same size..... and that a CE eventually will outrun a SE in the long run ( But ,as Mark Twain ( IIRC ) said : " In the long run, we're all dead"....unless you disabled time victory you have a limited ammount of turns to play ) . But you're not considering some factors:
-first of all the game has a global positive feedback effect: a small advantage in early game normally ( not always.... ) leads to a bigger advantage as the game runs... having a 4th city 50 turns earlier can lead to a huge diference in the 1900ishs
- You're not considering all the SE bonuses and some of them are very subtle... IMHO the more powerful one is specialist settling
-another factor is that CE in early game is more constrained by city maintenance, since it forces to split your cash between science and city maintenance... a SE can hire merchants/priests to pay her debts or simply remove the cash issue from the research equation and get a earlier 5th/6th city, that can lead to a big diference
- CE is more affected by the happy cap ( and the HR solution has the troop maintenance handicap.... ), since early game ( until Calendar/Dram/music ) has few ways of managing :) besides :whipped: and HR


P.S. I'm a CE fan... but i reckon that the SE early advantages can be used to get a edge, that properly worked, can lead to a huge end advantage
 
lol @ people debating pure economies as if anyone runs them anymore.
 
You're right to say that a full CE pwns a full SE of the same size..... and that a CE eventually will outrun a SE in the long run ( But ,as Mark Twain ( IIRC ) said : " In the long run, we're all dead"....unless you disabled time victory you have a limited ammount of turns to play ) . But you're not considering some factors:
How is this at all relevant?

-first of all the game has a global positive feedback effect: a small advantage in early game normally ( not always.... ) leads to a bigger advantage as the game runs... having a 4th city 50 turns earlier can lead to a huge diference in the 1900ishs
This has nothing to do with CE vs SE.

- You're not considering all the SE bonuses and some of them are very subtle... IMHO the more powerful one is specialist settling
Not only am i considering it, i covered it already. GP farms are not unique to SE. Past the first few GP, the farm will typically supply all of them. That is if its a good farm.

-another factor is that CE in early game is more constrained by city maintenance, since it forces to split your cash between science and city maintenance... a SE can hire merchants/priests to pay her debts or simply remove the cash issue from the research equation and get a earlier 5th/6th city, that can lead to a big diference
Using part of your specialists to pay the bills or using part of your commerce to pay the bills has no meaningful difference. Either way, what could have been beakers is being turned into gold.

Incidentally, it is always merchants that pay my bills. Even in a CE, yes.

- CE is more affected by the happy cap
Yah, but each person is also worth more beakers and you cant eliminate the health issues a SE runs into. And by endgame i never seem to have problems getting 20-25 happy faces anyway so its only an issue early on.

P.S. I'm a CE fan...
Im not. Im simply being objective about the fact that cottages are > specialists when it comes to research.

but i reckon that the SE early advantages can be used to get a edge, that properly worked, can lead to a huge end advantage
My thinking goes more along the lines of, CE early on, then transition to HE once state property comes. At that point working workshops and turning hammers into beakers gives a better return than scientists but slightly less than cottages while being able to use the happy slider, say to defy UN resolutions that would kick your civics in the nuts.
 
How is this at all relevant?
Simple... SE starts are normally stronger than CE ones in terms of prod and beakers.... if you're smart, you can leverage that advantage until the end of the game. A CE will steam up ,but as the game doesn't last for ever ,it may not surpass a SE before the game ending, even if the game ends in space
My thinking goes more along the lines of, CE early on, then transition to HE once state property comes. At that point working workshops and turning hammers into beakers gives a better return than scientists but slightly less than cottages while being able to use the happy slider, say to defy UN resolutions that would kick your civics in the nuts.
A valid aproach.... but just a thing about UN: a SE will always have more pop than a SE in the same ground ( farms produce food ,cottages don't.... ) ... A SE , even without the famous "storm early, capture lots of cities, run merchants to pay debts" will have a good chance of controling the UN, or atleast to block votes... You can check my version of Pericles LHC for a example.
 
Simple... SE starts are normally stronger than CE ones in terms of prod and beakers....
For about 10 turns. Its not a meaningful argument unless you plan on bulbing a few times, and the more you bulb the more you hurt your lategame.

And prod? No it doesnt.

if you're smart, you can leverage that advantage until the end of the game.
People keep saying that. Care to demonstrate how?

A CE will steam up ,but as the game doesn't last for ever ,it may not surpass a SE before the game ending, even if the game ends in space
10 turns. More if you bulb, but that advantage is caught up to by midgame.

A valid aproach.... but just a thing about UN: a SE will always have more pop than a SE in the same ground ( farms produce food ,cottages don't.... ) ... A SE , even without the famous "storm early, capture lots of cities, run merchants to pay debts" will have a good chance of controling the UN, or atleast to block votes... You can check my version of Pericles LHC for a example.
Problem is im not a warmonger unless im forced into it. Last game i had 6 cities on an isolated island, SE wouldnt have stopped anything. And if i have enough land to block votes on my own, im probable running hammer cities anyway in order to get to that point.
 
Agreed. But transition from what to what?

For example, a small non-financial empire often gets more beakers out of bureaucracy than whatever the one that adds 2 :commerce: to a town is called (yah i use that civic so often i dont remember its name).

That leaves me with 5 commerce towns. With improved farms a SE could beat that, if health allowed me to have 40 people. It never does.

Hence, my opinion is that specialists are for specialized situations. Mostly limited to GP farms, excess food, and the occasional gambit.
 
For about 10 turns. Its not a meaningful argument unless you plan on bulbing a few times, and the more you bulb the more you hurt your lategame.
And prod? No it doesnt.
10 turns. More if you bulb, but that advantage is caught up to by midgame.

Problem is im not a warmonger unless im forced into it. Last game i had 6 cities on an isolated island, SE wouldnt have stopped anything. And if i have enough land to block votes on my own, im probable running hammer cities anyway in order to get to that point.
1- For cottages you'll need pottery, that it isn't a game starting tech... For a SE you only need Agri or Fishing
2- SE are not restricted to scientists ones.... For a example if you play one of the Egypt leaders you can have a really strong priest SE ( even without mids )....hammers and money really soon
3- This game is not just about pure science.... and I bet than you can put a library down easier with a farm + mine combo than with a cottage ( yes they will be cottages ) +farm one
4- I'm not a warmonger myself... and if you care to check the above quoted game you'll see that I had a skeleton army, was isolated, didn't conquered a single town and my island was half desert/tundra ( to get things worse it was cut in half by a mountain ).... oK ,I had 8/9 cities, but that ,combined with good diplo ,was enough to be UN chairman and to never call the problematic votes....

My point is that I could put a full SE in space before Monarch AI ( maybe even emperor ), mainly because I could put science multipliers in cities far faster than I could put with cottage cities... and had education when other AI was reaching me with caravels ( not bulbed... bulbing is a waste most the times, and not worth the trouble in almost all the rest )
 
I tried a space race victory with Peter of Russia running a SE.

My experience was that, between unhappiness from emancipation that required culture slider investment and +1:hammers:+7:commerce: towns, SE seems to fizzle out starting somewhere in the industrial era (earlier if your rivals tech democracy ahead of you). Biology will give you a nice boost for a while, but SE still seems to fade as the late game progresses.

I imagine a transition of sorts would be the best bet, but since I try for military victories, I prefer to just try and win the game before it becomes a problem.

Do you really need caste system that late in the game? If you're still running rep I don't think you do. Lots of buildings allows you to assign specialists. Just how many specialists can you support in a city anyway? Are the 4 beakers lost from running 2 merchants instead of 2 scientists so bad? IMO, I'll take a 4 beaker/SE city loss if it means I don't have to deal with -6 happiness due to emancipation!!! Of course, that only counts for cities in which you can actually assign enough specialists that you're limited, so it probably won't be 4 beaker/city...only in your more highly fed cities. There's NO WAY caste system is still cost effective in this kind of situation. You can make up 4 beakers pretty quickly with such a drastic happiness variance. Hell, you will probably manage to recover that in commerce just by working tiles with the formerly angry citizens instantly in some cities...
 
1- For cottages you'll need pottery, that it isn't a game starting tech... For a SE you only need Agri or Fishing
2- SE are not restricted to scientists ones.... For a example if you play one of the Egypt leaders you can have a really strong priest SE ( even without mids )....hammers and money really soon
3- This game is not just about pure science.... and I bet than you can put a library down easier with a farm + mine combo than with a cottage ( yes they will be cottages ) +farm one
1 - So run specialists until you get pottery. That tech doesnt come late enough to make it a meaningful issue, and im usually busy building wonders and settlers by the time i get it anyway.

2 - Mine and merchant > 2 priests. Also requires one less farm to support it if its grassland hill. Priests suck until you build angkor wat, and even then they are only really worth it if you want some faster prophets (or am on the coast with no other way to get hammers).

3 - Stop reaching. Its getting annoying. Production has nothing whatsoever to do with CE vs SE.

My point is that I could put a full SE in space before Monarch AI
Im planning to do it with hammers in my next game. Just because something works doesnt mean its optimal, or even a good idea.

mainly because I could put science multipliers in cities far faster than I could put with cottage cities...
How?
 
I'm not seeing a production benefit to either earlygame economy. You can whip out libraries/etc or you can whip out workers and spam cottages...earlygame food is going to be primarily from resources while cities are that small. Happy cap is low anyway without modifiers...

The one thing I like about running early scientists is that it lets you take classical techs much more quickly than using the slider. Ultimately, currency/CoL allows for more cities, regardless of whether they're attained via warfare or settlers. More cities = more cottages or specialists, in other words in the very early game it would be difficult to match running a few scientists.

I don't think a pure SE is optimal late, or even mid game. There are just city layouts with enough food/commerce potential from towns to build cottages. But some EARLY great people are certainly helpful, as is anything that assists the early land grab or war phase. An example of how the SE provides that early advantage:

Bulb a tech lead, use it to wipe out a nearby AI, run merchants so your economy doesn't bleed to hell, and then start spamming cottages. Now, thanks to SE, you have an empire with 2x the size of anyone around you, and once the economy catches up to speed 2x the science output, too. Early advantage leveraged. It's oversimplified but you get the idea.
 
Agreed. But transition from what to what?

For example, a small non-financial empire often gets more beakers out of bureaucracy than whatever the one that adds 2 :commerce: to a town is called (yah i use that civic so often i dont remember its name).

That leaves me with 5 commerce towns. With improved farms a SE could beat that, if health allowed me to have 40 people. It never does.

Hence, my opinion is that specialists are for specialized situations. Mostly limited to GP farms, excess food, and the occasional gambit.

Transition from rep/nat/caste/merc/pac with specialists providing beakers and great people either bulbing or settled to us/fs/eman/fm/fr with cottages providing beakers and great people triggering golden ages. If you are spiritual, or tolerate the anarchy, you can engage in more civic swaps than this. If you are spiritual, serfdom can help with transforming your empire. 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. In the latter half, your main production cities handle the military and your economy has stabilized and your gpp slows down, and the CE civics become available, so you can transition out to a more traditional CE at that point.

p.s., it's not about pure beakers early game it is about PRODUCTION/MILITARY so you can handle your expansion needs. cottages provide no production, so that is why i think FE/SE is stronger early game as you can swap between production and specialists/beakers as your needs change. once you've claimed your land, THEN you can settle down to growing your cottages.
 
A SE is not any better at production or whipping than a CE (nevermind that slavery is only useful for so long in either case). Where do you people get these ideas?
 
A valid approach.... but just a thing about UN: a SE will always have more pop than a SE in the same ground ( farms produce food ,cottages don't.... )

Farms produce food but specialists consume food, cottages are food neutral, and until you get to the larger city sizes a cottaged city can have as many farms as a food/specialist city so when growth is desired the growth rate for both are equal, it is only the opportunity cost of that growth which will differ (stopping cottages vs. stopping specialists).

Generally I would agree that a SE will have larger populations (at least during the time of the UN since an SE is more likely to have cities over 20 pop while a CE will be less concerned with doing so since their per/tile output has a higher maximum.
 
A SE is not any better at production or whipping than a CE (nevermind that slavery is only useful for so long in either case). Where do you people get these ideas?

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
 
2 cities, 4 population.
A) All 4 working farms
B) All 4 working cottages

That's very unrealistic. More common is:
A) 1 food resource, 3 specialists
B) 1 food resource, 3 cottages

Both are equally good at whipping.
 
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.
 
Top Bottom