Specialist economy > cottage economy before emancipation?

[akillias]

By far the most efficient or not? And why?

[CCRunner]

Good god man, this is like your tenth thread today! Just post them all in one general help thread or something next time please.
An SE can be more effective but it's a lot easier to screw up and requires much more micro. It also loses effectiveness once cottages mature. I generally use a CE the entire game.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=246918 SE after emancipation

And some general reading that will hopefully help you.

Spoiler:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=158482 Specialization and Improvements
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632 General Strategy
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=182895 Another .Pdf, medium level strategy
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=241565 Hybrid Economy
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=163885 Slavery
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=158633 City growth

[Iranon]

A cottage economy isn't any worse for your tech rate (better if Financial) and will pick up steam on its own accord.
The big draw with farms + specialists lies in flexibility.

- early Great People. On high levels, the AIs are likelely to run away. A judicious bulb or two can translate into many techs from trading rather than being left in the dust. If you're doing just fine, you can settle them/turn them ito speciality buildings.

- Slavery. Football fields full of cottages produce nothing for a long long time. Football fields full of farms ar reasonable production cities if you need them to be. This means easier expansion, better infrastructure and faster military buildup if you need it.

- An easy way to combat unhappiness. Since you don't rely on commerce, you can turn up the culture slider and wage lengthy wars with far less strain on your economy.

[Orzio]

Without pyramids SE is kinda hopless. With mids a combination of se/ce would often be the best. Rellying on a full SE will get you into troubel late game wher the CE is allot better.

[akillias]

I have no idea how you put into place a SE. I seem to believe it's not even feasible since you need buildings.

[TheDS]

Dude, you'll learn a lot more by just playing the game than asking tons of questions. A thorough guide to this game would make an unabridged dictionary shudder, so just play the game and then you will understand a lot more than any amount of explaining we could do.

And feel free to read the Civopedia too: it's got a LOT of useful information. Concentrate on the Concepts categories first.