Delayed Caste System

[Artichoker]

Its important to understand all the potential strategies, my first thoughts were the GPP as you said since you can stay in slavery and just pop into caste/pacifism and bust out a bunch of GPs, but as you play you kind of half run into other strategies that would have worked better if you planned them earlier based on your map.

Right now the GAs I get every game are from music and then from building the Taj. All my strategies revolve around civic switching at those points in the game. A recent game I had a city that at 1 AD could run 8 specialists, but wanted to stay in slavery. I busted out several golden ages and only ran caste during those times - and managed to pop out a lot of great people.

The combo can be very strong indeed...one thing I like to do is run Pacifism anyway, even when I'm in Slavery. During the period before the Golden Age, a Library provides 2 scientists slots and I can get a 3rd slot from one of several buildings.

I find that with typical food levels, however, running 4 or more specialists will tend to stunt growth. With Pacifism, you don't need a spectacular GP Farm to generate enough great people. With 3 specialists in 3 or more cities, you can really get a lot of great people.

As for the choice of the 3rd specialist, I am leaning toward the spy (unlocked by the Courthouse). The 1st non-scientist great person you get can be used on a Golden Age, but the 2nd one is more problematic. Using a spy as your 3rd specialist solves this problem completely since you can use the Great Spy to infiltrate and gain some extra techs.

 

[Artichoker]

I find that with typical food levels, however, running 4 or more specialists will tend to stunt growth. With Pacifism, you don't need a spectacular GP Farm to generate enough great people. With 3 specialists in 3 or more cities, you can really get a lot of great people.

Fine-tuning the number of specialists you run before the Golden Age is really the key. You need to strike a balance between gaining the extra +100% bonus from the Golden Age itself, and having enough accumulated GPP before the Golden Age in order to pop another great person in time.

At the moment, I think 3 is the magic number. For a Philosophical leader, 2 might be better because they will accumulate your pre-Golden Age GPP faster, allowing you to allocate more of them to the Golden Age (you will need to have enough food to run extra specialists during the Golden Age, so holding off on the specialists before then allows you to do it more easily).

As for the choice of the 3rd specialist, I am leaning toward the spy (unlocked by the Courthouse). The 1st non-scientist great person you get can be used on a Golden Age, but the 2nd one is more problematic. Using a spy as your 3rd specialist solves this problem completely since you can use the Great Spy to infiltrate and gain some extra techs.

The downside is the lower return from the Courthouse building itself. I think it's a tough choice between Temple, Forge, and Courthouse. The Temple unlocks the priest specialist, which is usually the worst choice...but with the AP bonus the Temple is a bargain. The Forge is somewhere in the middle...popping a Great Engineer is usually not as good as a Great Spy, but usually better than a Great Priest.

 

[Artichoker]

Fine-tuning the number of specialists you run before the Golden Age is really the key. You need to strike a balance between gaining the extra +100% bonus from the Golden Age itself, and having enough accumulated GPP before the Golden Age in order to pop another great person in time.

At the moment, I think 3 is the magic number. For a Philosophical leader, 2 might be better because they will accumulate your pre-Golden Age GPP faster, allowing you to allocate more of them to the Golden Age (you will need to have enough food to run extra specialists during the Golden Age, so holding off on the specialists before then allows you to do it more easily).

Actually, it's simpler than that, now that I've thought about it again. All you need to do is ensure that your food bin is at near maximum when you start the Golden Age.

Once your food bin is at near maximum, then you can run as many specialists as your food supply can support, without sacrificing high-yield tiles. Remember that a specialist that is run during Pacifism, even without the Golden Age bonus, is already a very strong use of your population.

 

[champ82]

Captain Obvious says:

Caste System can be nice when you take over a city. All those unhappy people can be turned into artists, build culture, and starve off.

Or if you build a new city you don’t necessarily need a monument, library, or theater if no foreign cities are nearby, you just use an artist for a little while. Saves .

 

[bestsss]

Caste System can be nice when you take over a city. All those unhappy people can be turned into artists, build culture, and starve off

I'd rather have slavery than caste, all those people are whipped in the biggest possible building (or unit) and everyone else learns to shut up.

 

[champ82]

I'd rather have slavery than caste, all those people are whipped in the biggest possible building (or unit) and everyone else learns to shut up.

Fair enough, and I won’t tell you who to sock it to .

BUT if it’s a rather desperate cultural situation, and say it’s a city of 10 or more, the short term cultural power of 5+ artists will be more powerful than whipping libraries, theaters etc.

 

[Artichoker]

Fine-tuning the number of specialists you run before the Golden Age is really the key. You need to strike a balance between gaining the extra +100% bonus from the Golden Age itself, and having enough accumulated GPP before the Golden Age in order to pop another great person in time.

At the moment, I think 3 is the magic number. For a Philosophical leader, 2 might be better because they will accumulate your pre-Golden Age GPP faster, allowing you to allocate more of them to the Golden Age (you will need to have enough food to run extra specialists during the Golden Age, so holding off on the specialists before then allows you to do it more easily).

Using the 3-specialist approach for pre-Golden Age specialist assignment significantly reduces the demand for winning the Music race, since it requires the use of 1 non-scientist specialist.

When a clear winner for the AP religion is evident, and that religion is available in your cities, the AP Temple becomes the #1 choice of building between Temple, Forge, and Courthouse. We can then wait until after the Golden Age is over, when we have switched to Organized Religion, to build the remaining two buildings.

Using an Organzied leader, one should always prefer the Courthouse over the other two buildings, as popping a Great Spy allows for an alternate usage of the great person besides a Golden Age. This special case keeps open the option of going for the Music race.

With multiple cities running specialists, care should be taken to minimize the risk of popping a non-usable non-scientist great person. This risk appears when multiple cities are running a priest or engineer specialist as the 3rd specialist. It helps to categorize your GP farms into major and minor.

Major GP farms run 3 specialists pre-Golden Age, while minor GP farms run 2 specialists. Both types of GP farms run 2 scientists in additon to the 1 optional non-scientist specialist. If Courthouses are up, then 1 spy specialist can be substituted for either a scientist or non-scientist specialist, depending on whether the GP farm is major or minor. This assumes, of course, that you can make good use of a Great Spy, assuming it comes up.

 

[Artichoker]

Major GP farms run 3 specialists pre-Golden Age, while minor GP farms run 2 specialists. Both types of GP farms run 2 scientists in additon to the 1 optional non-scientist specialist. If Courthouses are up, then 1 spy specialist can be substituted for either a scientist or non-scientist specialist, depending on whether the GP farm is major or minor. This assumes, of course, that you can make good use of a Great Spy, assuming it comes up.

If there is a very high-food city that can act as a super GP farm, then building a Market is a good way to open up 2 quick specialist slots during the pre-Golden Age period. This works especially well if the city has a decent amount of commerce or happiness resources to provide additional benefits.

 

[Artichoker]

To summarize, the 3 categories of GP farms are characterized as follows:


Super
2 scientists in each city
2 or more non-scientists in each city*
library, market/Great Library/AP temple+courthouse/AP temple+forge**

Major
2 scientists in each city
1 non-scientist in each city***
library, AP temple/courthouse/forge**

Minor
2 scientists in each city
library


* If the Great Library is in this city, then 4 scientists can be used (in addition to the 2 free scientists) instead of 2 scientists + 2 non-scientists.

** For Spiritual leaders, a non-AP temple can be used instead of an AP temple, courthouse or forge.

*** If there are multiple Super or Major GP farms being used, only one should be using a non-scientist, non-spy specialist.

 

[DaveMcW]

It's a lot easier to set up a super GP farm if you don't delay caste system.

 

[Rittmeyer]

my problem with caste system is that I believe you have to run slavery at least until you whip universities to get a fast oxford. in my games, soon after that i'll be running into emancipation unhappiness. I usually see people advocating late caste system here in civfanatics, so I'd ask: how bad does the emancipation penaties get? what would be the best way to avoide that? SE/culture slider? free religion and spreading all possible religions everywhere?

 

[UWHabs]

my problem with caste system is that I believe you have to run slavery at least until you whip universities to get a fast oxford. in my games, soon after that i'll be running into emancipation unhappiness. I usually see people advocating late caste system here in civfanatics, so I'd ask: how bad does the emancipation penaties get? what would be the best way to avoide that? SE/culture slider? free religion and spreading all possible religions everywhere?

Emancipation unhappiness can hit hard. Beating it depends on the game. Sometimes, it's easier to just adopt it yourself. If you're lucky in your land, you might actually have enough happy resources to defeat it. Or enough happy resources + representation/HR. Natiohood (+2 from barracks) can help too, as can free religion if you have access to religions. I mean, a simple empire could see the following:

representation +3
Nationhood/barracks +2
resources +6-8
coliseum +1
religion/temples +4-6 (FR + 2-3 temples per city, if you're lucky)

Right there you have about +16-20 happiness, which can go a long way if your cities are only in the size 12-15 range. You only need maybe 4 happiness resources, which isn't that hard to get in a decent empire (not counting trading for them too). You can also get more for having vassals, being charismatic, UB giving extra happiness.

It's enough to last a decent time even with emancipation. I think I've lasted until I've gotten like +6 unhappy from "We demand emancipation", but then it starts getting tough. You either need lots of land (and lots of resources) or have a really good reason to be avoiding emancipation to stick with it at that point.

Or the best way is that sometimes, your opponents won't even head too much down the emancipation path, and you can safely avoid it for quite a long time. Or you can also try using espionage to revolt people out of emancipation when they switch in, although I haven't tried that myself yet.

 

[Artichoker]

It's a lot easier to set up a super GP farm if you don't delay caste system.

True...but then you often must decide between an early Academy and an early Philosophy bulb.

Without Philosophy, you can't run Pacifism (unless you have S. Paya), and it is difficult to trade for Philosophy early. Researching it yourself is usually expensive, and the bulb is the most convenient way to get it.

Building National Epic can help, but it requires a lot of hammers (especially without Marble). Chances are that it won't come into play until a bit later in the game.

By delaying Caste System, you ensure that you already have Philosophy (nearly guaranteed), and therefore can also run Pacifism, thus boosting the efficiency of your specialists...without sacrificing an early Academy.

 

[jmas]

To summarize, the 3 categories of GP farms are characterized as follows:


Super
2 scientists in each city
2 or more non-scientists in each city*
library, market/Great Library/AP temple+courthouse/AP temple+forge**

Major
2 scientists in each city
1 non-scientist in each city***
library, AP temple/courthouse/forge**

Minor
2 scientists in each city
library


* If the Great Library is in this city, then 4 scientists can be used (in addition to the 2 free scientists) instead of 2 scientists + 2 non-scientists.

** For Spiritual leaders, a non-AP temple can be used instead of an AP temple, courthouse or forge.

*** If there are multiple Super or Major GP farms being used, only one should be using a non-scientist, non-spy specialist.

I'm a little confused by this post, since you seem to be specifying the buildings that allow the specialists you enumerate (therefore I assume you are providing this information for the period prior to the use of Caste, since in Caste scientists, merchants, and artists yuck are unlimited)...yet a library only allows 2 scientists, so how could you have 4 (non-free) scientists "in addition to the 2 free scientists" in the Great Library city? Could you explain?

 

[Artichoker]

I'm a little confused by this post, since you seem to be specifying the buildings that allow the specialists you enumerate (therefore I assume you are providing this information for the period prior to the use of Caste, since in Caste scientists, merchants, and artists yuck are unlimited)...yet a library only allows 2 scientists, so how could you have 4 (non-free) scientists "in addition to the 2 free scientists" in the Great Library city? Could you explain?

As I understand, the Great Library has the special property of providing 2 additional scientist slots. So, if you wanted to, you could assign 2 scientists from the library, 2 scientists from the Great Library, and you would gain an additional 2 scientists automatically--for a total of 6 scientists, before using Caste System.

 

[jmas]

As I understand, the Great Library has the special property of providing 2 additional scientist slots. So, if you wanted to, you could assign 2 scientists from the library, 2 scientists from the Great Library, and you would gain an additional 2 scientists automatically--for a total of 6 scientists, before using Caste System.

I just checked my last game (BTS 3.19 with the unofficial 3.19 patch). The Great Library was giving +2 Great Scientist and 2 free scientists, but no scientist slots.

Oxford University provides 3 scientist slots. Maybe you were thrown off if you looked at a city that had both Oxford and the GLib?

 

[pi-r8]

I like this idea. I must admit that I rarely use caste system, and as a result seem to get fewer great people (or at least later people) than a lot of the games I see in this forum. My main problem with using caste system is that I very rarely have cities with enough excess food to run more than 2 specialists, so what's the point? But I can definitely see the appeal in running a brief 8-12 turn burst of specialists while starving the city. One question- would you do this in more than one city? Or just do it in one city with a lot of food and maybe the national epic? I don't think you'd be able to get more than 1 great person from one golden age, but I guess you could set it up so you'd get another soon after with the regular 2 scientists.

I've been able to use state property + caste system + workshops to good affect, but I feel like this is really an end game strategy. It hurts your tech pace so badly, that it only seems worthwhile if you know that you'll be able to win a domination/conquest victory with the tech you already have.

 

[Artichoker]

I just checked my last game (BTS 3.19 with the unofficial 3.19 patch). The Great Library was giving +2 Great Scientist and 2 free scientists, but no scientist slots.

Oxford University provides 3 scientist slots. Maybe you were thrown off if you looked at a city that had both Oxford and the GLib?

I must have confused the two wonders...

In that case, if you have enough food for 4 or more specialists, either the Market or a combination of an AP Temple and Forge or Courthouse remain good choices for providing the 3rd and 4th slots.

Just remember, however, that the goal is to continue increasing your food supply and population in preparation for the Golden Age.

This can be tricky considering that your food bin drops to half-full after each new pop. It's like timing a wave that goes up and down, but climbs up gradually. You still want your city to grow in size, but you also want it to grow in food as well.

I like this idea. I must admit that I rarely use caste system, and as a result seem to get fewer great people (or at least later people) than a lot of the games I see in this forum. My main problem with using caste system is that I very rarely have cities with enough excess food to run more than 2 specialists, so what's the point? But I can definitely see the appeal in running a brief 8-12 turn burst of specialists while starving the city. One question- would you do this in more than one city? Or just do it in one city with a lot of food and maybe the national epic? I don't think you'd be able to get more than 1 great person from one golden age, but I guess you could set it up so you'd get another soon after with the regular 2 scientists.

The key here is to build up enough GPP before the Golden Age starts so that those cities can indeed pop a new great person. But, of course, don't overdo it because you also want to gain the extra +100% bonus from the Golden Age.

A main factor that must be considered is the use of Pacifism. Considering the potential of this civic, it would be a shame to limit its use to only the Golden Age...unlike Caste System.

To plan for extended Pacifism, I think it's better to use it before, rather than after, the Golden Age. This is for a few reasons: 1) you want to generate an extra Great Person to start the Golden Age, 2) you want those Great People to come in time for the Liberalism race, and 3) you don't want upkeep costs to rise too high.

With that in mind, it is quite possible to pop multiple Great People during the Golden Age. I recommend using 3 or more GP Farms with this strategy...sometimes 4, in cases where no one city stands out from the rest.

I've been able to use state property + caste system + workshops to good affect, but I feel like this is really an end game strategy. It hurts your tech pace so badly, that it only seems worthwhile if you know that you'll be able to win a domination/conquest victory with the tech you already have.

The main focus is the Golden Age. That said, the Anarchy-free properties of the Golden Age allow you to transition into mid-game Caste System, if that is the plan you have in mind.

 

[Artichoker]

With more relaxed requirements for the types of great people generated, you will have more options for your Super and Major GP Farms.

In the recommended buildings I listed, I assumed that Great Scientist and Great Spy were the most desirable great people, and that other types were only allowable to a maximum of one great person.

This is not a hard-and-fast rule, to say the least. For example, if you are equally fine with a Great Merchant as a Great Scientist, then the Market becomes an excellent option of building that you can use in multiple Super or Major GP farms.

A cottaged flood plains city is a prime example of this. Such a city can double as both a commerce city and a GP farm, and the Market will provide the trifecta of benefits: a +25% bonus to gold, a chance for extra happiness, and 2 merchant slots.

 

[Grashopa]

Heres my GP farm during my music golden age in my current game. The PYL game.. I am using the GA to generate 3 Great Scientists for use to bulb education and liberalism. Post golden age I will be in slavery for war purposes, but after the war will take the anarchy hit to go back to caste after farming this city and workshopping everywhere else.

I am just starting a war so I'm not going to stay in pacifism. If I wasn't I would stay in caste/pacifism so this city could put out a few more scientists. You don't need slavery for Universities and Oxford if you build caste workshops even at 1f 2h. And education can usually trade for engineering and guilds for the extra hammer. This would have guaranteed me liberalism->steel in this game because i could bulb chemistry but I am busy whipping units out right now and didn't prep for workshops by building more workers.

Edit - I'd appreciate if people posted more screens or saves. I'll add my save here as well.

Edit2 - the music GA also is good for switching to bureaucracy. In this game I actually had no civic or religion switch until this GA where I just went into Judaism and caste, vassalage, HR and pacifiism. At the end I'll be in HR, bureau, slavery, OR (to help me get in universities - oxford, theaters - GT)

Spoiler :