A Detailed Analysis of the Specialist Economy in Three Parts

I apologise in advance for the incedible length of this post

PART I) Introduction

There has been a lot of discussion of the relative power of the specialist economy vs. the cottage economy in a number of threads. For those who have an interest in the subject some of the most interesting threads are:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=177506

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=178800

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=179035

and

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=158437&highlight=specialists

I also should note that I owe a lot to evYl and futurehermit for my understanding of specialists. But while many of there discussions have focused on very specific numbers and comparing them to the cottage economy there is I think a lack of overarching analysis that I aim to fix.

I'm going to begin with a series of claim about the specialist economy that I hope to prove, or at least provide some strong evidence for, in the remainder of this post. Then I will delve into a discussion of some of the more specific strategies for individual leaders. Finally I will end with a very detailed discussion of the specialist economy as applies to Russia.

1) The specialist economy while not better overall then the cottage economy is superior early and not as bad as is commonly thought late.

2) The specialist economy is much stronger in wars the cottage economy.

3) One of the greatest strengths of the specialists economy is rather paradoxically it's ability to generate much more money then the specialist economy.

4) Another one of the strengths of the specialist economy is that players have the ability to use more expensive and powerful civics then is possible or practical under the cottage economy.

5) The Philosophical trait is to the specialist economy what the financial trait is to the cottage economy, essential. You can run a specialist economy without it but you're really running, or should be running, more of a mixed economy at that point

6) The specialist economy, especially when paired with the Philosophical trait, will not only produce more great people then a cottage economy, but will produce better great people then a cottage economy, and utilize them more efficiently.

7) In online play where the early game is more crucial and there is an enormous amount of both war and improvement razing the specialist economy is even more robust then it normally would be.

8) In the specialist economy the fact that many of your cities have low hammer production is not actually a significant disadvantage since there are very few buildings that need you will need to build.

9) The specialist economy was actually intended and planned by Firaxis and given more power in the expansion pack.

10) The specialist economy is very reliant on only a few leaders in the game, and totally reliant on a few wonders.

11) Failing having the philosophical trait, your leader must have the industrious trait. In fact this can be a strategy if you are worried about picking up on the key wonders.

12) Given these previous ideas the specialist economy is superior not just to the cottage economy, but to the mixed economy as well.

Well that's what I'll aim to prove. I'll be using this numbering system throughout so if you post a response using the same system would be appreciated. Before I begin though a quick definition of a specialist economy.

A specialist economy is one where the tech slider is set VERY low at 0 or maybe 10%


PART II) The Specialist Economy

1) This is probably the most important part of my analysis. If as I claim the specialist economy is in the neighbor hood of the cottage economy under optimal circumstances and better in suboptimal circumstances then it makes sense that players use it regularly. If the cottage economy is simply much better then there's no point in the specialist economy. This raises the question: "Under optimal circumstances how good is the specialist economy?"

The answer to this question is very difficult to answer. Exactly how many beakers you're going to be producing depends heavily on the number of cities you have, and exactly what your target is. The best answer to this question was given by futurehermit in this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=178800
I will assume for the rest of this thread that you have read at least the first post in that thread. Actually this thread is the only reason why I though the specialist economy was possible in the first place. As has been said before his ideas awakened me from my dogmatic slumbers.

This analysis provides us with several interesting pieces of data. It shows that the specialist economy can generate techs at the rate of 1 per 5 turns, given a certain number of cites etc. The rate of 1 per 5 turns is fairly random, but I would find it hard to argue that that is a least a very good tech rate even if it is less then the perfect. I believe that this post demonstrates that the specialist economy can indeed be very strong. That being said I would like to add a few points to futurehermit's analysis:

A) Maybe the best way to conceptualize the specialist economy is when considering the different eras. In the classical era it's very hard to argue with the specialist economy. Cottages are in there infancy and specialists just get rolling quicker, especially if you make a B-line to the Great Library. In the Medieval Era things slow up a little bit as you still don't have Civil Service or some important civics. That being said neither do the cottages so I think it's still pretty even. The Renaissance may be the period of greatest strength of the specialist economy. With Oxford gotten and cottages still maturing, the specialist economy requires very few cities to be powerful. The Industrial Era though is when things get dicey. Cottages are becoming very powerful and the specialist economy is the same. There's just no getting around that at best specialist are a little less powerful then cottages.

It looks like in the modern era things go to hell in a hand basket. No matter how you stack it up needing 41?! scientists not in your super science city is a lot right? Now here is where I disagree with how futurehermit has set up his analysis. Assuming one super science city is correct but assuming that all other scientists must be in science cities is flawed. First with Mercantilism and the Statue of Liberty you can have 2 free scientist per any city. So if you have enough cities none need focus on science. Second, futurehermit assumes only 9 scientists in his super science city, I think he's still trying to use slavery, If you use Caste System by the end of the game 10-15 scientists isn't that hard. Now that we see that the specialist economy is strong in the beginning and weaker as the game goes on, though not disastrously weak, what about cottages?

B) When cottages mature completely they are definitely stronger then specialists. You have more of them in a city, due to food limitations, and they produce more commerce, 7 versus 6. That being said it take a long time for cottages to mature and even when they do they only beat specialists when you run at a high science %. An exact analysis of this is nearly impossible since it is hugely variable when cottages mature and how many cities you have. Now many people have pointed out that considering science at less then 100% unfairly penalizes cottages, I quote myself restating some one's point from another thread

Counting the science % as lower then 100 incorrectly penalizes the cottage economy because in a situation where that was necessary, i.e. where more money was needed, the specialist economy would also need additional specialists to be running as Merchants. In effect the since slider for a specialist economy is what % of the total specialists are scientists. IE if there are 10 specialists and 9 are scientists and 1 is a merchant the specialist economy since % is 90.

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The problem with this logic is that the pure specialist economy actually has an economic advantage, see question 3, so that the specialist economy is always running at 100% science specialist while the cottage economy never runs at 100% science. This allows the specialist economy to average a better outcome even while not being as powerful per se. This brings me to war.

2) War wrecks a cottage economy. As the costs mount the science slider slips lower and lower killing you slowly even as you defeat your enemy. The specialist economy has no such trouble. Because of the ability to use things like the culture slider, which can be used in a specialist economy since you don't get science from the science slider, and the ability to generate more money, again part 3, the specialist economy can run just as efficiently during war as during peace. The implications of this are huge. In an average Civ IV game you spend a large amount of time at war and when your tech slider is forced down you have trouble preparing for your next war. With the increased money and happiness of a specialist economy you are able to preserve your tech during a war leading to an easier time in the next war.

The other big advantage a specialist economy has over a cottage economy is since your generating more money you can pay for upgrades easily which then allow for you to keep your armies longer and more easily transition from one war to another.

3) Well I've referred to this section numerous times and it is in fact fairly central to my whole agreement. It seems very counter intuitive to say that a specialist economy is better at producing money then a cottage economy. After all when you look at those cities you see all those little pictures of money bags and coins, but in the end your eyes are deceiving you. All those little coins you see and in fact tech beakers since in a cottage economy you are running a very high science %. Let's stop and review here for a moment my definition of a specialist economy. A specialist economy is one that runs a very low tech % like 0 or 10.

Now when the tech slider is at 0 the finance slider is usually at 100. This has several very important consequences. First, all the commerce you generate from trade routes or resources turns directly into money. At 90% tech only 10% of it turns into money. Second, and this is where the real incite lies, in a specialist economy you can build a hugely more efficient commerce city.

In a cottage economy whatever city has Wall Street and all the banks and other money boosting improvements still has one central problem, you're only counting a small % of the base commerce towards your wealth. In a specialist economy you can count 100%. The trick is to use COTTAGES. Yes that's right a specialist economy can make key use of cottages, what separates it form a cottage economy is that none of that commerce is going to tech. Instead you have a city that has a large number of cottages and all the wealth buildings. This city can generate enough money to account for a huge wealth lead.

Think of it this way in an in Civ IV we all know how powerful city specialization has become, this is another way to take advantage of that. The wealth city can also gain another enormous boost if we make it the capitol and run Bureaucracy. With that on to civics.

4) The civics you use with a cottage economy are fairly forced and not always as good as they could be. Moreover due to financial constraints you sometimes have to use less expensive civics then you want to. In a specialist economy you have more choice, and the few you are forced to use are better. Here's a breakdown by category:

Religion: No real requirement for either economy here the pacifism bonus stacks nicely with the philosophical trait but that's expensive even for a specialist economy. Organized religion is expensive, but that is affordable.

Economy: Cottage economies are forced to use free trade and then state property late to pay for conquests. Cottage economies also can't use mercantilism since they need the trade for the crucial use of science. Since specialist economies don't use commerce for science they are free, actually required, to use mercantilism which can be really powerful. A free specialist in every city is a way to generate a lot of commerce without really trying. Moreover since you don't have foreign trade routes you don't have to let the AI spy on you with open borders.

Labor: Both economies can use slavery early and it really is a push to who uses it best. The specialist economy must transition to caste system later but at this point slavery is too expensive to use. Emancipation only give a bonus if you rely on lots of cottages, and the unhappiness is late and easily countered.

Legal: Ah, here the cottage economy is caught in a bind. They must either use Bureaucracy to bump up a super science capitol and sacrifice science production elsewhere, or give up that to finally pass science specialists in beakers. Specialist economies have the run of the place though with four very powerful civics. This alone is one of the reasons you might want to use a spiritual leader aka Gandhi.

Government: Specialists get Representation and they get it early. They are absolutely forced to stay on it, but with the early happiness bonus that's not so bad. As for cottages they like Universal suffrage but have a hard time paying for many rushes. Sort of a devil's choice here, money and less ways to spend it, or no money and more options.

5) The Philosophical trait is unbelievably crucial for the specialist economy because of how the specialist economy uses Great People. In the cottage economy great people are tangentially useful to finish a building or research something, but in a specialist economy great people are your lifeblood. You will never never be able to keep a specialist economy super science city at a comparable rate to a cottage super science city without a large number of science specialists parked in the city. These are so crucial to your tech rate especially in the middle of the game that I would have a hard time thinking it wise to play without one. This brings me to great people in general

6) I said before that a specialist economy will generate more great people. The reason is the heavy use of science specialists. These specialists give you a larger pool of gpp then a cottage economy will naturally have access to. The real, and less obvious, advantage of a specialist economy is in what kinds of great people will be produced. Of the five types of great people two stand head and shoulders above the rest, engineers and scientists. Profits are close to useless after the first one, Merchants only bring a one time windfall, and Artists well they just blow. Engineers though can get you any wonder and scientists can enormously boost your science rate, especially when paired with Bureaucracy. In a specialist economy since you generate so many gpp by scientists most of your great people will be scientists, and since you have the pyramids early the rest will be engineers. Therefore a specialist economy will generate more and more useful great people then a cottage economy.

7) This one pretty much speaks for its self. In online play there are so many wars that cottages are a liability since they will get raised. Moreover the problems with the cottage economy and war that I listed earlier come into play. Finally the focus in MP on early games gives an early game strategy like specialist economies more of a boost.

8) Many people point to the fact that cottages generate hammers and allow more easily for mines to be worked as another advantage of the cottage economy. But in reality the different nature of the specialist economy makes this not really a problem. Lets take a look first at what your most important production cities are. In a Civ IV game you tend to have one city that is responsible for most of your unit output, with things like west point built in it, and another for wonder building, with things like the iron works or three gorges damn. These cites in either economy have basically no science output, well some with mercantilism, and are focused only on mines and production. In both economies these are basically the same.

The difference comes when considering cites that aren't as specialized, aka you average city. In a specialist economy these still have some specialists and thus less hammer production, in a cottage economy more cottages and more hammer production. But the real difference here is what needs to be built. In a cottage economy you need to build basically as many buildings as possible, to increase the science, and gold, output and reduce war weariness and costs. In a specialist economy you really only need science buildings, which are much cheaper due to the philosophical trait. You don't need banks since you produce little commerce. You don't need courts or jails since the economy is strong. You don't need very many happiness building because you can use some culture. This means that while the hammer production is low it is not really a disadvantage.

9) This one is more of a point of interest since at some point when developing this I started to feel that I was going against the game, which is never really where you want to be. Then I noticed a few interesting similarities. When ever I would come up with a different specialist strategy I would find that some leaders were much better for it then others. Further I would discover that there UB would also hold some help. This leads me to believe that some of these strategies were planned all along, which is really quite remarkable.

Let me illustrate the point as follows: Since specialist economies require either Industrious of Philosophical to work I looked at what leader had these. I noticed that only two civics had two leaders with one of these traits, Germany and Russia. Then I looked at what there unique building was and I saw they were two of the ones that gave specialist bonuses. This just seems to me to be too much to be a coincidence.

10) This one is a disadvantage. A specialist economy absolutely requires the pyramids and needs the great library and statue of liberty to boot. Beyond this it needs either Industrious or Philosophical to get the full bonus of its tech strategy. These tough requirements mean that if you want to use a specialist economy you better be prepared for a lack of early game flexibility.

11) This one is pretty self explanatory. The Industrial trait allows you to pick up more wonders and thus have more gpp making up for some of the loss of philosophical. Still I'm not sure I'd recommend it.

12) I believe I've demonstrated how a specialist economy is superior to a pure cottage economy, but invariably many people will counter dismissively by saying that they'd rather run a mixed economy anyways. Therefore I'd like to note some of the unique disadvantages of a mixed economy, think some specialists and a target tech rate around 50%. First, there are incompatible civics used by both economies. There is no way to run both universal suffrage and representation for example. Moreover this strategy still looses the wealth cities that make specialists so powerful. The only possible exception to this I can think of is Elizabeth

Well that's all for my analysis of the strength of a specialist economy in Part III I'll show how it relates to various leader ending with a detailed analysis of Peter.


PART III) The G8

Ramses II-Egypt) Ramses is really well situated for an early attack he has Industrious and Spiritual so he can get the Pyramids quick, hmmm. Moreover his UB come immediately and gives him access to a very good all purpose specialist in the priest. The spiritual trait and need to change civics also comes into play early so you can have a rocking economy right off the bat. Where his level of synergy gets scary though is with the UU this powerful early rusher got more powerful in the expansion and with all his traits and UB and UU working together with an early focused strategy he should wipe off 3-4 civics in one felt swoop.

Louis XIV-French) The French are always really snobby about their culture and Louis is no different. He may be perfectly aliened to set speed records for a cultural victory. From his Creative and Industrious traits to his UB witch give a free artist were talking some serious culture here. What's even better is his middling UU got a slight bump in the expansion as well, though I'd still only trust it so far.

Bismarck-Germany) One of the only two civics to have both a philosophical and an industrious leader Germany is well designed for the specialist economy. The Bis has Industrious and expansive, hmmm and expansive German, and really come into power when he gets his UB. With his sopped up factory he can now convert 5 people into engineers. With this you can take a science city and all of a sudden flip it to +10 base hammers while loosing only a little tech. This also come right around the time of Germany's UU the Panzer. Blitzkrieg anyone?

Qin Shi Haung-China) The Q-man has a nice UB as it is useful for both happiness and culture and his UU is still one of the tops, more tops now that England and Russia got hit by the nerf bat. Protective is a nice trait but doesn't really add anything to the specialist economy. In the end he somewhere in the middle of specialist leaders.

Alexander-Greek) Alexander is another early game specialist. With aggressive and an early UU he's ready to roll. Actually aggressive is one of the better traits to use with specialists since the whole strategy is based on lots of wars. Moreover he had philosophical which is still better then industrious. Alex's UB can also turn people into artists though it's not quite as good as China's

Gandhi-India) The Mahatma has a really, really powerful trait combo going and arguably the best UU. Spiritual can allow for some really nasty moves without loosing any time. The UB basically stinks but nothings perfect. In the end with spiritual and philosophical looking for Gandhi to be wielding those nukes in no time, spinally when paired with nice starting techs.

Stalin-Russia) The iron man may beat out Alexander for best war leader with a strong trait combo, still a fairly good UU, nerf incoming!!!, and the best UB in the game. I'll have more to say on the UB in a minute but Stalin cuts an imposing figure in the game and can largely back it up

Peter-Russia) They call him great for a reason. Before I said that under optimal conditions the specialist economy can't beat the cottage economy, now I'm going to take that back. With Peter and his terrifying UB there's a real threat of beating the cottage economy in every stage of the game. What makes that all the more likely is that Computers is an oddly placed tech and while technically modern I designed a tech order that get's it relatively fast. Ok 31st tech isn't fast but put it in yourself and see how many techs can be bypassed to get it. With the +2 FREE scientists, can't breath, having one of these in all your cities make you a tech god. Say hello to 4 FREE scientists in ALL your cities 2 form UB 1 from Mercantilism and 1 from the Statue of Liberty. 4 free scientists makes you able to create science at a really unholy rate. With a strong trait pair to go with it Expansive for increased health and population, and Philosophical still kicking ass, Peter gets a little scary. Even if you don't go with my crazy tech order, it's mostly just to make a point, you can still grab Computer's very modern making Peter strong early, strong late, and not to shabby in the middle. That friends is what we call game over. Here's the tech order:

1)Bronze Working:to chop rush Pyramids
2)Masonryyramids
3)Wheel:Connect cities
4)Agriculture:Build more pop
5)Fishing:Had to get it somewhere
6)Myst:for GL
7)Potery:why does writing require pottery?
8)Write:Tech on!
9)Alphabet:to trade for the tech not on list
10)Sail:required for some reason
11)Poly:again GL
12)Iron working:now some armies
13)Lit:GL!
14)Math:I wasn’t good at Calculus
15)Metal Casting:Expensive
16)Compus:who likes boats?
17)Calander:nothing to say here
18)Currency:wealth city
19)CoL:everyone's favorite tech
20)Machinery:again look at the cost
21)Optics:Lot's O Boats
22)Civil Servie:The Specialist Economy favorite tech
23)Paper:wait what were we writing on?
24)Education:Oxford huh?
25)Gunpowder:Not really required but we need an army
26)Printing Press:Al Gore invented this to
27)Astronomy:Start building observatories
28)Scientific Method:I think you get something for getting this
29)Physiscs:Let Newton Be
30)Electrisity:and Franklin
31)Radio:100 year jump
32)CPU:another 100



Well that's all for the analysis. I just would like to request that people keep the discussion civil. I've seen the cottage specialist things get out of hand.

3) One of the greatest strengths of the specialists economy is rather paradoxically it's ability to generate much more money then the specialist economy.

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I presume one of these should read cottage economy? There's no real difference between gold and science for the purposes of comparison, except for remembering that representation only boosts science.

4) Another one of the strengths of the specialist economy is that players have the ability to use more expensive and powerful civics then is possible or practical under the cottage economy.

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This is factually wrong. As I've pointed out above the specialist economy does not produce more gold than the cottage rate, and will be worse on this score for much of the game (don't confuse having a lower science rate with generating more net gold, they don't go together when comparing specialists and cottages). In any case with a specialist economy you have larger cities, which will increase your civic upkeep costs, making the more expensive ones less desirable.

The problem with this logic is that the pure specialist economy actually has an economic advantage, see question 3, so that the specialist economy is always running at 100% science specialist while the cottage economy never runs at 100% science. This allows the specialist economy to average a better outcome even while not being as powerful per se. This brings me to war.

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But the point with a specialist economy is that it makes very little difference where your science sliders are set. As a specialist economy your commerce output is far lower than that of a cottage economy, and you tend to run mercantilism which harms your commerce output still further. In terms of raw output of comparably sized civs I don't think 100% on a specialist economy matches up to more than about 20% of a cottage economy.

2) War wrecks a cottage economy. As the costs mount the science slider slips lower and lower killing you slowly even as you defeat your enemy. The specialist economy has no such trouble. Because of the ability to use things like the culture slider, which can be used in a specialist economy since you don't get science from the science slider, and the ability to generate more money, again part 3, the specialist economy can run just as efficiently during war as during peace. The implications of this are huge. In an average Civ IV game you spend a large amount of time at war and when your tech slider is forced down you have trouble preparing for your next war. With the increased money and happiness of a specialist economy you are able to preserve your tech during a war leading to an easier time in the next war.

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You're building a lot on esily your weakest (indeed it's downright wrong) statement - number 3. You're not thinking in terms of the final output. Consider if a specialist economy is putting out 100 commerce from land/trade and 400 science from specialists and a comparable cottage economy is putting out 500 commerce. The specilist can stick science to 0% for 100 gold, but then they have to switch specialists, which owing to representation is much less efficient for gold generation. A cottage economy only has to drop to 80% to generate the equivalent amount of gold. You're confusing slider position with raw output. A cottage economy can shift to generate gold in warfare if anything better than a science specialist economy.

I don't have time now, but I'll address the rest of the post later.

i'll admit to not reading the whole post.. but explain to me in a teamer game how someone will have enough free time to build the pyramids and rely on a specialist econ. the reality of it is that you MUST pop rush in order to keep up with military production.. lest you be steamrolled by a neverending stream of units. w/o representation specialists are useless.. so you go with farming and mining instead of cottaging and you use whipping to keep up so its even tough to find the time to work cottages at all.

try it in MP and see how well you do then report back here

NaZ

i've pulled it off in mp before, although i got pyramids after getting some units out and after the pyramids became a little cheaper (i.e., got some production and population going in my capital). admittedly, i wasn't playing against the best players.

Well, I'm still looking for a persuasive analysis. This wasn't it, I think because the wrong question keeps getting addressed with the wrong tools.

OK, objection #1 - commerce, of itself, means nothing. The proper measures are gold and research. The comparison should probably be something like Value (and we need some reasonable definition here) at a fixed income.

Value must include GP points in some reasonable fashion, while keeping in mind that the value of a GP is a function of the time in which it is generated, and that GP points have no value if they don't actually produce a GP.

Objection #2 - more attention to specific eras (is there really a difference between a specialist economy and a commerce economy prior to Writing? The culture slider isn't even available until Drama, the gold multipliers available until Currency. What civics are available). Naturally, both strategies will lean to shorten the eras in which they are weak.

I dunno - maybe somebody can persuade me these haven't been problems.

As a high-end MP player with a lot of experience I can say two things:

1) Specialist economies can do just fine if you can grab Pyramids, and without an industrious leader, that is a really huge IF. Great Library is an even bigger if. It's very, very difficult to put yourself in a position to grab these reliably every game.

2) When you are actually obliged to make money for rush buying or for bolstering your culture slider, it can be hard to do it effectively on a timer. This is basically an interface problem; when you reassign specialists, the game is very bad at figuring out what you're trying to do, and will screw up your tiles/specialist count repeatedly as you subtract from your scientists and add to your merchants. Doing this in multiple cities on a blazing or fast timer is extremely difficult.

More comments later perhaps but those jump out at me when people start talking about the strength of a specialist economy in a warlike MP environment.

One more point begins to be addressed by MrCynical above: A specialist economy can't at all make more gold, until Wall Street perhaps comes into play. The problem is that you have a significant portion of beakers coming from representation that can't ever be changed into coins, even if all your specialists are merchants. It's like a cottage economy where the tech slider sticks at 30% and won't go any lower.

MrCynical said:

You're building a lot on esily your weakest (indeed it's downright wrong) statement - number 3. You're not thinking in terms of the final output. Consider if a specialist economy is putting out 100 commerce from land/trade and 400 science from specialists and a comparable cottage economy is putting out 500 commerce. The specilist can stick science to 0% for 100 gold, but then they have to switch specialists, which owing to representation is much less efficient for gold generation. A cottage economy only has to drop to 80% to generate the equivalent amount of gold. You're confusing slider position with raw output. A cottage economy can shift to generate gold in warfare if anything better than a science specialist economy.

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There is no reason to switch specialists. The specialist guy producing 100 raw commerce will get 100 gold at 0% while continuing to use scientists. For the second half, you should have said that the cottage guy needs to drop to 80% for the equivalent base commerce to convert to gold. Circumstances are always going to vary no matter how you work these numbers, but we can assume that specialist guy at least has Libraries. We can then be fair and assume that cottage guy at least has Markets. So the 80% slider is giving cottage guy 125 gold over specialist guy's 100. We'll produce equal amounts of gold only if we have the same sets of buildings. The OP puts forth that specialist guy and cottage guy by their nature won't have the same sets of buildings.

I'd urge anybody experimenting with specialists to jump in with advice into the ALC #7 - Frederick thread, which is being specifically run to try and have an optimal specialist economy. This is exactly the kind of 'hard evidence' thread that many people involved in these discussions have been asking for.

Couple of thoughts I've had today:

1) Spec econ starts to fizzle out around the end of renaissance. People around these forums keep mentioning that this is about the time that a good domination/conquest game is wrapping up. Spec econ supports a war-mongering player better than a cottage one (a reason for this not mentioned above is the high-food econ allows for better growth after whipping). Coincidence? If so, a fortuitous one, I would think.

2) I'm thinking Peter's UB would only come into play in a space-race game (see point 1). So, the question is, would it be more effective to maintain a specialist econ while leveraging this building, or would it be better to transition to cottages post-democracy and still leverage the building?

3) The weakest era for Peter's spec econ, relative to a cottage econ, imo is industrial. So why not skip it? Sci method->Phys (Free sci)->Elec->Radio (now in modern)->computers (uber UB). Then return and leverage the UB to speed through the industrial techs at a much better pace relative to the cottage econ (although see 2).

I'd love to hear peoples' thoughts on these points...*trots off to the ALC thread*

I don't really like the beeline for Peter to Computers. Missing out Biology (for more pop/specialists), Banking/Democracy (Statue + Mercantilism gives two specialists per city much earlier than the UB will), Military Tradition, Music, Nationalism (getting cossacks and capturing more cities will beat beelining to a late UB), Drama (keeping happiness up).

Some of these can be traded for, but if you are going for an early tech lead it will be quite late before you can trade for some of the better techs.

My thoughts on the whole specialists vs cottages thing is as follows:

- Both are viable on Monarch at least. Philo+Specialists can't touch Financial+Cottages - I played games comparing Peter vs Victoria and Victoria teched much faster. The big differentiator is optimizing play for the cottages. Most cottage vs specialists comparison threads assume optimal conditions and wonders for the specialist economy and don't really optimize the play for the specialist economy.

For example if you have financial then a fairly natural strategy on monarch is the CS slingshot. The limiting factor is research and a financial leader has enough of this to pull off the CS Slingshot 100% on monarch. Getting bureacracy in your capital where you have the most developed cottages will produce more science faster than a specialist economy with the pyramids. And get you macemen earlier to get more cities quicker...

So forget the most optimal cases. For a financial leader its pretty clear - use cottages. For a philosophical leader, I think a cottage heavy strategy would be limiting the amount of fun you have - someone like Mao could support an awesome rapid growth engine using a specialist economy. For other leaders that have neither philosophical or financial, I would recommend the cottage based economy:

- You can forgo the early wonders and concentrate on expansion. That big investment in the pyramids can build a lot of axemen.
- You can run slavery to get infrastructure in quickly - of course you'll need more infrastructure as happiness is harder to manage.
- You can avoid tech paths for wonders you don't need. For example if you forgo the CS slingshot you might be able to avoid the whole religion branch and concentrate on capturing a holy city instead.

One other sort of economy is what I'd call a sea-trade economy. It needs wonders too - Great Lighthouse and Collosus and really shines on island maps. I find with these wonders you can essentially REX with no upper limit - everywhere I see a fish/crab/clam I build a city. Use slavery to build everything and the city is generating enough income from trade and working the sea tiles to be profitable almost immediately. Extra bonus for financial, but no need to build cottages or wait for them to grow.

so part of the consensus is that in SINGLE PLAYER the specialist strategy has an advantage for a philo leader because it lets them keep up (somewhat) with the financial leaders.. however it does rely on getting the pyramids NO MATTER WHAT in order to generate a similar # of beakers.

the drawbacks I still factor in are:

inability to upgrade troops quickly (all a cottage player has to do is drop the slider 20-30% for a couple of turns)

not being able to farm tiles away from rivers limits upper population until civil service

someone focusing on a pyramid build won't be working on a cs sling .. see above..

inability to use population for whipping over and over because you need to maintain a certain pop to work specialists


as far as MP.. even in a FFA its one hell of a gamble.. the sling to metal casting might be impossible (i think korea might be able to starting with myst and mining.. but why not just sling to CS then?? they're financial anyway)

and wasting that many turns to build it outright will probably see your city razed by oncoming troops. also see the whipping problem above.

also as posted earlier.. on blazing you have to be very quick about everything.. there isnt time to convert specialists back and forth between scientists and merchants to keep up with your expenses.

not to say I dont run specialists.. when pop reaches a good level and i'm done whipping to death i'll put 2 scientists up with a library to augment my research through the financial bonus of cottages.

I still think it has potential.. but more in the relm of beancounters and expert players who are able/willing to focus that much effort every single turn to make sure the ai doesnt screw up your specialists.

but hey if you can make it work more power to ya

NaZ

I think people are missing the point when it comes to #3 and money. I quote Eggman quoting MrCynical:

Quote:
Originally Posted by MrCynical
You're building a lot on esily your weakest (indeed it's downright wrong) statement - number 3. You're not thinking in terms of the final output. Consider if a specialist economy is putting out 100 commerce from land/trade and 400 science from specialists and a comparable cottage economy is putting out 500 commerce. The specilist can stick science to 0% for 100 gold, but then they have to switch specialists, which owing to representation is much less efficient for gold generation. A cottage economy only has to drop to 80% to generate the equivalent amount of gold. You're confusing slider position with raw output. A cottage economy can shift to generate gold in warfare if anything better than a science specialist economy.

There is no reason to switch specialists. The specialist guy producing 100 raw commerce will get 100 gold at 0% while continuing to use scientists. For the second half, you should have said that the cottage guy needs to drop to 80% for the equivalent base commerce to convert to gold. Circumstances are always going to vary no matter how you work these numbers, but we can assume that specialist guy at least has Libraries. We can then be fair and assume that cottage guy at least has Markets. So the 80% slider is giving cottage guy 125 gold over specialist guy's 100. We'll produce equal amounts of gold only if we have the same sets of buildings. The OP puts forth that specialist guy and cottage guy by their nature won't have the same sets of buildings.

I'd urge anybody experimenting with specialists to jump in with advice into the ALC #7 - Frederick thread, which is being specifically run to try and have an optimal specialist economy. This is exactly the kind of 'hard evidence' thread that many people involved in these discussions have been asking for.

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Both these posts though miss the point I'm making in #3 wich is that first it's easier to get 400 specialist beakers with a specialist economy then it is to get 500 commerce in a cottage economy. Second, assuming that it is equally difficult to generate 400 beakers and 100 commerce in a specialist economy as it is to generate 500 commerce in a cottage economy, here I think the specialist economy might actually have the easier time, the specialist economy still wins. While the cottage economy has a large number of markets, say in every city, allowing for 125 wealth total, in the specialist economy you only need 1 market since almost all the commerce is generated in one city. What's more when this city gets Wall Street it will generate 125% of it huge base commerce, beating the cottage economy.

People keep suggesting that a specialist economy generates less money while it can actually generate more. What's more when you need to merchant specialists are plenty efficant since they still give 3 science.

Some people have also suggested lack of whipping as a problem but with the focus on food you can regenerate thoes people lost to whipping pretty damn quick espeshally with Peter who gets cheap graneries to.

Finally, people have pointed out the difficulty in managing this economy in MP. I don't have as much experience whith that as some but at least after the expansion the CPU seems pretty good at managing cites when focus on science is turned on and the tech rate is 0%.

Very interesting indeed. Even if the specialist strategy is inferior, I think it would probably be a lot of fun and definitely worth trying.

The expansion did seem to make some changes to the AI specialist allocation, and to what immediately happens when you allocate/deallocate specialists or work/unwork tiles. I guess that's sort of up in the air.

Some people aren't so hot on the expansion but I really like that it seems to have improved the AI so much

iamdanthemansta said:

People keep suggesting that a specialist economy generates less money while it can actually generate more. What's more when you need to merchant specialists are plenty efficant since they still give 3 science.

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I think you've hit the nail on the head by saying it can generate more. Numerical comparisons fail us here since you can cook the books either way depending on what you want to illustrate. Quantitative analysis goes as far as to show that specialists are adequate enough to support your play if you don't want to be forced to cottage every single game, and that's about as far as you can really take it since anything else relies too much on circumstances that are going to vary based on how you choose to play the game.

Both these posts though miss the point I'm making in #3 wich is that first it's easier to get 400 specialist beakers with a specialist economy then it is to get 500 commerce in a cottage economy. Second, assuming that it is equally difficult to generate 400 beakers and 100 commerce in a specialist economy as it is to generate 500 commerce in a cottage economy, here I think the specialist economy might actually have the easier time, the specialist economy still wins. While the cottage economy has a large number of markets, say in every city, allowing for 125 wealth total, in the specialist economy you only need 1 market since almost all the commerce is generated in one city. What's more when this city gets Wall Street it will generate 125% of it huge base commerce, beating the cottage economy.

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You're still not getting the point here. Firstly comparing base beakers and gold from a specialist economy to commerce output of a cottage economy, the cottage economy wins. It's a straight piece of maths and is not debatable. Secondly you're assuming you can run 100% gold, whereas in practice the specialist economy tends to need a significant culture rate to balance its higher population (which is also increasing your maintenace costs). The specialist economy cannot be described in any way as generating more combined base beakers, gold and commerce, and that's the number that matters.

You also seem to be implying that the speciliast economy can more easily switch to gold production during a war, which is inherently false. A specialist cannot produce more than three base gold and three base science per turn. Effectively they're jammed at the 50% mark at science rate, and can't go any lower even if you need to. You also seem to be isaying that you'll only build gold boosting improvements in one city, which makes it even worse to swap over to merchants.

MrCynical said:

You're still not getting the point here. Firstly comparing base beakers and gold from a specialist economy to commerce output of a cottage economy, the cottage economy wins. It's a straight piece of maths and is not debatable. Secondly you're assuming you can run 100% gold, whereas in practice the specialist economy tends to need a significant culture rate to balance its higher population (which is also increasing your maintenace costs). The specialist economy cannot be described in any way as generating more combined base beakers, gold and commerce, and that's the number that matters.

You also seem to be implying that the speciliast economy can more easily switch to gold production during a war, which is inherently false. A specialist cannot produce more than three base gold and three base science per turn. Effectively they're jammed at the 50% mark at science rate, and can't go any lower even if you need to. You also seem to be isaying that you'll only build gold boosting improvements in one city, which makes it even worse to swap over to merchants.

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First, the cottage economy doesn't come that close to the specialist economy in terms of commerce(cottage economy) vs. beaker and gold(specialist economy) untill the middle of the industrial era. This also comes after the Renaissance where the specialist economy just dominates. See futurehermit's famous post. When you add in the super wealth city, wich is much more powerfull in the specialist economy, the specialist economy wins on all fronts. By the industrial cottages have gotten way more powerfull, though the specialist economy can still generate a huge amount of gold by using beaurocracy. At this point I still believe that the specialist economy will generate more gold+science(at least at 100% gold) then the cottage economy will generate commerce. That being said the cottage economy is still superior here since more commerce is better then more science + gold. When you get to the modern era specialist come closer in terms of science with biology, and with Russia you may pass cottages altogether.

As for your point that the specialist economy is less flexable since it can't run at 0% tech. That is true, but there are two caviots. First, the specialist economy produces more gold normally so this is less of a problem. Second, I have serious problems with the idea of ever reducing your tech rate to 0% in a cottage economy. That always strikes me as a good way to win the war and loose the game.

First, the cottage economy doesn't come that close to the specialist economy in terms of commerce(cottage economy) vs. beaker and gold(specialist economy) untill the middle of the industrial era. This also comes after the Renaissance where the specialist economy just dominates. See futurehermit's famous post.

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I'm well aware of the post you're referring to, and many more on the subject. The cut off point of rthe specialist economy is around Liberalism; i.e. in the Renaissance. This brings the Free Speech bonus, and towns really ought to be reaching maturity at this stage. It would require great incompetance from the cottage economy to shift the cut off to the late industrial age.

First, the specialist economy produces more gold normally so this is less of a problem.

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You keep restating this and basing vast chunks of argument on this, but this point simply isn't correct. The absolutely only edge that specialist has in generating gold is the idea that Wall Street is more effective because you'll be running a lower science rate. You may also be running Bureaucracy to boost it. While this may look reasonable at face value, it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Firstly for Wall Street, you're running a single commerce city in a specialist economy. It is therefore operating in suboptimal conditions. Its towns will only be generating 5, not 7 commerce. Its trade routes will be crippled. Not all of its commerce will go to gold in any case since you have little choice but to run a reasonably high culture rate. To cap it all a specialist economy costs more gold in maintenance anyway.

At this point I still believe that the specialist economy will generate more gold+science(at least at 100% gold) then the cottage economy will generate commerce.

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As I've said, cottage maturity arrives before the industrial age, but assuming you mean at maturity this is very doubtful. I'm still extremely dubious that you'll get more gold at all from your one commerce city, and you'll be more than 10% down on science production.

I usualy go for the specialist economy for a good reason: too many enemies, if you are isolated mercantilism don't do much harm and you don't have too think too much before starting a war.