EDIT: A Specialist-Cottage Super Economy Hybrid

Do you sometimes have moral qualms? Game mechanics-wise I should have invaded my two vassals and take their caps, but I just can't do it. They've been busy fighting the forces of darkness, led by Sh- and Ku-, for the last 5000 years and now that Sh- and Ku- are dead, I just can't bring myself to attack my friends!

Not that sort of qualm - they are just dice, after all.

But I won't throw nukes.
 
Awesome. Very glad to hear it. What exactly is wrong with hybrid?

1215 AD, the entire continent is mine with Curraissers. The remaining 2 civs are my vassals. Have Rifling. Next step: Economics, Corporation, then Astronomy.

My research slider is 30%, but that's perfect because of all the banks, marketplaces, and grocers I had whipped earlier. Also, with Emancipation, it means all my villages are rapidly morphing into towns. I have six GP, sitting around and doing nothing, who'll begin churning out Golden Age after Golden Age once the captured cities recover. The Statue of Liberty is being built, I've got a trillion cities, and I have a massive tech lead. I also have too many workers, that I don't know what to do with. I really don't see how I'm doing anything wrong this game. Granted, that it's Emperor, and it's easy-as-heck, but still. It seems like I'm playing optimally.

Question:

Do you sometimes have moral qualms? Game mechanics-wise I should have invaded my two vassals and take their caps, but I just can't do it. They've been busy fighting the forces of darkness, led by Sh- and Ku-, for the last 5000 years and now that Sh- and Ku- are dead, I just can't bring myself to attack my friends!


How do you invade vassals? can you even declare war on them?
 
Yeah, I admit I get a little queasy about starting an unprovoked war, lol. Part of the reason for my builder tendencies. That, and I honestly enjoy developing my economy more.
 
@AutomatedTeller: Make them an offer they can't not refuse :lol:
 
Can't play the map, don't have a starting (or early) save.

Oops. Ok.

It's on the thread: Marathon/Huge Guide (?).

It's the second Autosave_4000BC next to the Autosave_720BC.

I can't post the same save on two different places.
 
Going to post another thread. The topic:

Dealing with barbs without the GW. Immortal. Fractal.

You're Hammurabi of Summeria. See? Aren't I nice?
 
Aren't I nice?

No, you're still spamming.

Although I think you're right about the vulture thing: you can't use them to conquer the world on huge maps, because you can't pay the (city+unit) upkeep that early in the game. And if you just burn down every city you conquer, your best hope is that that barbarians will resettle all the available land before the AI does it.
- - -

I guess I won't have time to look at this save this week. :sad:
 
Did you just string together 5 buzzwords together without any thought to what they mean like some kind of deranged CEO?
 
To reiterate previous posters, hybridization of the economy is fine, unless you are Obsolete. Running lots of low size, but efficiently whipped cities good. Mixing heavy whipping with low workers and cottages is giving me hives. Whipped cottages are cottages that are not working and are not growing which pretty much ensures that they are not good. Late cottages, even if not whipped, are questionable. Without an abundance of time to grow alternate tile improvements start looking good quickly.
 
To reiterate previous posters, hybridization of the economy is fine, unless you are Obsolete. Running lots of low size, but efficiently whipped cities good. Mixing heavy whipping with low workers and cottages is giving me hives. Whipped cottages are cottages that are not working and are not growing which pretty much ensures that they are not good. Late cottages, even if not whipped, are questionable. Without an abundance of time to grow alternate tile improvements start looking good quickly.

You're whipping the specialists, not the cottages. On average, 6-7 cottages per cottage city. The other 2-3 pop points are specialists that exist in order to be whipped. When they're not whipped, they produce science.
 
You confused me there. I generally would not consider cities at size 8-10 either particularly small or heavily-whipped. I would also not consider 6-7 tile improvements as "low demand" per city.
 
You confused me there. I generally would not consider cities at size 8-10 either particularly small or heavily-whipped. I would also not consider 6-7 tile improvements as "low demand" per city.

I'm 2-pop whipping the buildings, with an occasional 3-pop. I let the city build the building up to a certain point (and let its pop re-grow and unhappiness to dampen down) before another whip.

I'm not heavily whipping. But I am whipping consistently to keep # tiles worked low. However, whenever I see a city with 2 or more tiles un-improved, I whip. Hence, my newer cities get whipped ASAP for granary and library. Once the library goes up, a city with 4 improved tiles can grow to pop 6 w/o any unimproved tiles worked. Furthermore, the two science specialists slow down the city's growth, meaning that I don't need workers.

As a result, with the Pyramids, each city is producing at least 15 science. 12 from specialists and +3 from library. Most of my non-specialist commerce is spent on city maintenance. My science rate is very, very fast once I have enough cities. Furthermore, the cottage cities are consistently working the cottages, meaning that once Renaissance hits, they become super-cities.

Since I have very few workers, my unit maintenance is very low. If I can keep my neighbors busy with each other, it also means a small standing army and a very fast tech rate.
 
Which is a bad idea. You want to keep your cities as close to your happy cap as possible. Sure, whips are less efficient, but that does not matter as you can generate alot more hammers and commerce by working alot of improved tiles.

Remember, the appeal of whipping is as a way of generating alot of hammers while your cities are small due to lack of technology and happiness resources. As you go through the game, as your happy cap rises and you unlock more improvements and infrastructure, artificially limiting your city sizes hurts you more than whipping "efficiently" helps you.
 
Which is a bad idea. You want to keep your cities as close to your happy cap as possible. Sure, whips are less efficient, but that does not matter as you can generate alot more hammers and commerce by working alot of improved tiles.

Remember, the appeal of whipping is as a way of generating alot of hammers while your cities are small due to lack of technology and happiness resources. As you go through the game, as your happy cap rises and you unlock more improvements and infrastructure, artificially limiting your city sizes hurts you more than whipping "efficiently" helps you.

It could be a quirk of Marathon/Huge, but it works really, really well.

If you think you can do better, go and play that save. Voice of Unreason linked to it above. Yes, it's Emperor, and the map is particularly nice, but it would be a good comparison to play up to around 1000 AD and compare it to my game.
 
Actually I think keeping cities quite small (6 ish) in the REX phase of the game often works quite well. If all cities have enough tiles to get a library and support a scientist or two they are pretty much making a full contribution to science and can do whatever else they like with the rest of their population. Especially with the pyramids which seems to be taken as a given here.

Perhaps on Huge the REX phase takes so long (more land) so this phase goes on longer, I don't know. Two things I would worry about, first is the temptation to whip unnecessary stuff just to get rid of the population. Second, war time could come and we might not have enough population to make a fast army (ideally 10+ pop in all cities).
 
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