What do Cottage/Specialist Economies represent?

Historically, what do the differences between specialist and cottage economies represent? I know that they are game mechanics and that Civ 4 is not a historical simulation, but rather a strategy game. Nevertheless, Civ 4 is loosely based on history and these two different economic strategies must at least vaguely represent something -just as everything else in Civ 4, from civics to wonder effects, are represented as some sort of abstraction. Would anyone please offer some ideas? Thanks in advance

Well for a CE the best civics are (situationally dependent ofc)

Universal Suffrage, Free Speech, Emancipation

The economic civic is very dependent on the situation as is the religious civic.

For SE

Representation, Caste System, Mercantilism

The legal and religious civics vary from situation to situation in terms of value.

So a CE society represents one ruled by the people with the most amount of freedom possible. The State i.e. You let the people run around doing their thing in towns and just taxing them to fund research.

A SE society lets people vote but only for representatives, and nobody says everybody gets to vote just look at the Roman republic. People are divided by class with the lower classes working farms or other food resources to feed other people to sit around and think all day. The society is also closed to the outside world in terms of economic trade.

And looking at the traits

SE favors Philosophical, Creative, and Industrious leaders
CE favors Financial

I'll let somebody else think about what that means

FrancisMarion said:

So a CE society represents one ruled by the people with the most amount of freedom possible. The State i.e. You let the people run around doing their thing in towns and just taxing them to fund research.

A SE society lets people vote but only for representatives, and nobody says everybody gets to vote just look at the Roman republic. People are divided by class with the lower classes working farms or other food resources to feed other people to sit around and think all day. The society is also closed to the outside world in terms of economic trade.

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I'm not sure I'd agree with this, but I guess you could look at it that way.

The way I see it, Specialists represent history up to around the Industrial Revolution. Throughout most of history, most people were peasants who farmed, and the surplus food allowed for a few people to specialize and be priests, artists, scientists, etc. In the middle ages, at least in Europe, towns were few and far between, though they grew increasingly powerful over time.

I think Cottages represent this gradual but powerful growth that came to fruition with the Industrial Revolution and the growth of industry and a large proletariat. They are certaintly more appropriate to the modern era.

I like the SE, both in terms of game style and because I feel it's more "authentic" than cottage-spamming in 2000BC. To me, the most "realistic" economy would be a transition from SE to CE around the Industrial Era -- which, conveniently, is a good time to do it. The programmers seem to have added features (steam power's worker bonus to help replace farms, emancipation's cottage bonus, etc.) to enable you to do it.

However, that's all just my theory. I'm all for playing the game the way you like to play it.

Marshall Thomas said:

Historically, what do the differences between specialist and cottage economies represent? I know that they are game mechanics and that Civ 4 is not a historical simulation, but rather a strategy game. Nevertheless, Civ 4 is loosely based on history and these two different economic strategies must at least vaguely represent something -just as everything else in Civ 4, from civics to wonder effects, are represented as some sort of abstraction. Would anyone please offer some ideas? Thanks in advance

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The growth of cottages reflects the growth of the urban, bourgeois-commerical middle-class. The economic endeavours of that class leads to the generation a GNP, which the society in question then through various processes (such as taxation) can allocate as saved money(gold), science and culture. Science and culture slider settings in this case are reflected by societal trends where free-market forces are driving the GNP into either research projects or media projects.

Specialists represent state employees who supply a fixed benefit to the state proportional to their speciality and who are insulated from the general economy and hence do not follow the societal trends represented by slider settings.

I agree with frob2900.

In general, Civ 4 simulates the distinction between public and private sectors poorly, but modding can make it a little better.

frob2900 said:

The growth of cottages reflects the growth of the urban, bourgeois-commerical middle-class. The economic endeavours of that class leads to the generation a GNP, which the society in question then through various processes (such as taxation) can allocate as saved money(gold), science and culture. Science and culture slider settings in this case are reflected by societal trends where free-market forces are driving the GNP into either research projects or media projects.

Specialists represent state employees who supply a fixed benefit to the state proportional to their speciality and who are insulated from the general economy and hence do not follow the societal trends represented by slider settings.

Click to expand...

I agree with your take on cottages (that's kind of what I was trying to get at), but not on specialists. The kind of economy you are talking about has existed only for a small portion of the history that Civ represents. There was no "general economy" with GDP and "free-market forces" in a world where the overwhelming majority of the population were farming peasants; therefore, no "general economy" that specialists worked outside of. When you build a library and start running two specialists, I cannot see them as supplying "a fixed benefit to the state proportional to their speciality and who are insulated from the general economy and hence do not follow the societal trends represented by slider settings." Maybe in a very strict economic sense, and probably true once you reach the modern age, but I just don't see it happening at 2000BC.

The problem is that Civ has to represent all of human history in one game. While they can adjust things like technologies and military units over time, they have to keep the basic game mechanics the same. You simply cannot represent pre-modern and modern economies in the same fashion. They chose to allow both cottages and specialists from the start. I think a better system would have been to delay cottages until later: Liberalism, perhaps, or even Guilds if you wanted the represent medieval growth of towns. You would thus have to start off with farms and use the surplus food to support specilized citizens, and you could only start creating a more modern, general economy when you reached the appropriate era.

prestermatt said:

There was no "general economy" with GDP and "free-market forces" in a world where the overwhelming majority of the population were farming peasants; therefore, no "general economy" that specialists worked outside of. When you build a library and start running two specialists, I cannot see them as supplying "a fixed benefit to the state proportional to their speciality and who are insulated from the general economy and hence do not follow the societal trends represented by slider settings." Maybe in a very strict economic sense, and probably true once you reach the modern age, but I just don't see it happening at 2000BC.

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People didn't have words for it back then, but that was what was happening

frob2900 said:

People didn't have words for it back then, but that was what was happening

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In a strict economic sense, I suppose. My brother is an economist, and he is a stickler for those kinds of things. I take the more general view of history.

My view is that specialists represent scholars who are directly patronized by high officials. The reason you need a library to run scientists, or a market for merchants is that these guys need a place to work. With the cottage economy, things are less centralized, and commerce takes place outside of the direct control of the nation's leaders.

Every once in a while, one of the state sponsored scholars turns out to be exceptionally good, turning into the great person.

Personally I love the idea of towns, as it allows something like suburbs and small cities that spring up around major cities. It seems more realistic than the old mechanism where roads generated commerce.

Well, specialist economy is a guild economy in the lobby meaning:

Lawyers represent an economic and political force (scientist)
Bakers were another one (merchant)
Blacksmith were another one (great engineer)
Clergy were another (great priest)
Theater actors too (great artist)
etc...

every job was very organised in a kind of lobby were rules applied to the whole group (a blacksmith should learn 3 years in "compagnonage" before earning the title of marster blacksmith...), and to practice a job, it was mandatory to belong to the lobby group (you couldn't be a blacksmith if you didn't belong to the blacksmith corporation)

This favors developpement of new techniques/idea/progress/school in a same group (a blacksmith having the idea of a new blending technique). Particulary with people with outstanding gift in what they do (Great people and lightbulbing, great work, settlements). However, there are several drawbacks: these new techniques are limited to the domain where they come from and the government have much difficulties to focuses on something (you can't decide which tech you lightbulbe)

Cottage Economy is much more what you got today in the west with a medium class whom the mass in the economy have a huge impact on all the other thing...