Another form of SE? Brainstorming

[occam]

Do you like the techs that GMs unlock? Do the AIs pay well for them?

- O

 

[MT5678]

Wait...
Do merchants generate commerce or gold?

 

[Hackapell]

Wait...
Do merchants generate commerce or gold?

Commerce, gold, means the same thing.

Do you like the techs that GMs unlock? Do the AIs pay well for them?

- O

Don't know. Not many people bulb techs with great merchants. Most are fixated on the massive amounts of money
However, I have heard that you can use GM's to lightbulb liberalism the southern way(not sure what that is, but I assume it goes through guilds and banking). But seriously, you use GM's to get money for two purposes: upgrading your units, or maxing out your science slider.Maxing out your science slider= more techs faster.More techs faster=stronger and better equipped army.Stronger and better equipped army= more pointy stick research, and even more techs. In summation, tech=...

well, just read my sig.

 

[JujuLautre]

Commerce, gold, means the same thing.

Not at all. If you think this, you got it all wrong.

Commerce commerce: ) is generated by tiles worked by your citizens (cottages, water, near rivers, resources...). Science ( ), gold ( ) and culture ( ) are generated by buildings (mostly for culture), specialists, and all the commerce is transformed into one of these via the sliders.

So no, a merchant will never produce on its own, only if you're running representation if I'm correct. But its three will remain , not becoming

Do you like the techs that GMs unlock? Do the AIs pay well for them?

GM's main purpose is to give you huge money, not techs. As I said, this is not a classic SE, the goal is not at first to generate GP tu bulb your way.

It's an interesting strat only markets, grocers, banks are extremely expensive.

Actually you're right. Hackapell's counting is biased by the fact that he includes laboratory, which should not (comes long after, and we already have before 100% ultipliers). This is one of the main reason I thought of a transition scientist economy > merchant economy. Libraries come always faster than markets. But also later, grocer allow two erchants where observatory allows only 1 scientist.
Otherwise, if you can get Caste System easily, you can start running merchants asap. But as in classic SE, it conflicts with slavery

After a month long analysis of the SE i came to the conclusion a specialist economy suck and isent better then a CE in the short or long run..
And everyone who claim it is better for war mongering is wroung

Please, please, please... I don't want this thread to be turned into a new CE/SE debate. I just created it to share some ideas and improve myself. I don't care if people think one of these economy is better than the other, I don't want to convince anyone. Only share my ideas. For lots of people, including me, Civ is not only about winning every game in the most efficient way possible, it's also about discovery, experiences, and having fun

 

[JackOfClubs]

Commerce, gold, means the same thing.

No, they are different. Commerce is generated by tiles and can be redirected to either research, culture or gold by manipulating the sliders. Gold is produced by such buildings as Markets, Grocers and Banks and only affects the amount of money you have to spend (ie can't be used for research or culture).

Try this: in a cottage spammed city, build a bank then set the research slider to 100%. You will note that the bank did not increase your research, but you still have a surplus of gold left over (assuming you are not running at a deficit due to other factors).

I believe that the Merchant specialist produces gold rather than commerce but I am not sure. I am pretty sure a bank will multiply the income produced by a merchant, but that the sliders will not affect it.

 

[Hackapell]

Actually you're right. Hackapell's counting is biased by the fact that he includes laboratory, which should not (comes long after, and we already have before 100% ultipliers).

The only reason I added Labs was that in more peaceful games(esp. space race) you may want it just to push your science to the last level or to add the final scientist to your city in a pure SE

No, they are different. Commerce is generated by tiles and can be redirected to either research, culture or gold by manipulating the sliders. Gold is produced by such buildings as Markets, Grocers and Banks and only affects the amount of money you have to spend (ie can't be used for research or culture).

Try this: in a cottage spammed city, build a bank then set the research slider to 100%. You will note that the bank did not increase your research, but you still have a surplus of gold left over (assuming you are not running at a deficit due to other factors).

I believe that the Merchant specialist produces gold rather than commerce but I am not sure. I am pretty sure a bank will multiply the income produced by a merchant, but that the sliders will not affect it.

Interesting. Whenever I build a bank, I can move my science slider up. I may have to do some research on friday on this and the economy itself. I'll be quietly dropping out of discussion until I can get that info. Until then...

 

[Winston Hughes]

A neighbour building the Temple of Artemis is a major bonus (don't go to war with this guy!); the GMs you generate can easily score large profits from their trade missions without having to travel halfway around the world.

As Mutineer suggests, the merchant SE does suffer in comparison to the scientist approach: you won't get as many beakers in total, the lightbulbing opportunities are less helpful, and it tends to require more buildings.

But if your capital looks like turning into a commerce monster and your neighbour builds the ToA (ideally in their capital - big city equals big profits), then the merchant SE can be a very strong strategy.

I won one of my few victories on emperor using this method, albeit from an excellent starting position with floodplains, fish and stone, playing as Gandhi (the king of Specialist Economics).

Spoiler :

For another interesting take on the SE, you might want to try an Angkor Wat powered priest economy (also with Pyramids for Representation - priests yielding 2 3 1 are not to be sniffed at).

Research/gold is a bit harder to come by, but you'll be amazed at the amount of hammers you can produce, especially if you settle most of the resulting Great Prophets in your chief production city.

Gandhi is the daddy here once again, not least because he has a good chance to pick up an early religion or two; shrines are perfect for this strategy, allowing more priests to be assigned whilst helping to pay the bills.

 

[occam]

GM's main purpose is to give you huge money, not techs. As I said, this is not a classic SE, the goal is not at first to generate GP tu bulb your way.

A 'classic' SE already suffers in the tech deptartment; and requires accurate lightbulbing and active trading to compare to a CE. If you are foregoing techs for money, you will compare unfavorably to both.

A pile of cash is only semi-fungible with other advantages you might want, and techs are worst.

If the above remarks seem unconvincing to you, start a game at your normal difficulty -- then open worldbuilder and give yourself 1 million gold*, and all the other civs will get the techs up to oh, say, Liberalism. Then try to win a space race. Or survive. Just getting to 1000BC will be educational.

And it gets worse! Give yourself 1 million gold -- and the AIs 20 macemen. Then try to reach 1000BC.

Piles of gold are only useful to a developed empire. In my evaluation, it is much better to be a developed empire working on cash management than a fledgling empire with piles of cash.

- O

* or even more gold - ironically, despite the intuitive feel that gold is a very linear and discrete resource, once you have a sufficiently high amount more is useless (you can't run science slider at more than 100%; nations fear you are becoming too advanced and won't sell further techs; etc.)

 

[Hero]

I want to try this out in my next game with Ragnar. I just finished one this morning where I had vassalized every opponent except Asoka, who was isolated on his own island. I had serious military superiority anyway, but I noticed that I could still build Berserkers after I got Chemistry. If I had unlimited cash, I could crank out a handful of them every turn, promote them to CR2 or CR3 and upgrade them to amphibious, city-busting Grenadiers right out of the box.

 

[Hackapell]

A 'classic' SE already suffers in the tech deptartment; and requires accurate lightbulbing and active trading to compare to a CE. If you are foregoing techs for money, you will compare unfavorably to both.

Suffers in the tech department? I've heard of Deity players actually keeping up with the AI until LIberalism and actually getting it in 500 AD!

A pile of cash is only semi-fungible with other advantages you might want, and techs are worst.

Money makes the word go round! Haven't you heard of that?!? Don't make me repeat that equation I gave you a few posts back.

If the above remarks seem unconvincing to you, start a game at your normal difficulty -- then open worldbuilder and give yourself 1 million gold*, and all the other civs will get the techs up to oh, say, Liberalism. Then try to win a space race. Or survive. Just getting to 1000BC will be educational.

You're asking the impossible, since the world builder gives you a max of 5000 gold. But obvoiusly, If your opponents are miles ahead of you in tech, you're dead. Space race, Impossible! Surviving on the other hand, shouldn't be too hard; remember all those powerful unit cost a lot of hammers. no matter how advanced, size always wins.

And it gets worse! Give yourself 1 million gold -- and the AIs 20 macemen. Then try to reach 1000BC.

well, in that case, you're dead, but explain to me why in any stretch of the mind, you would WANT to do this to yourself?

Piles of gold are only useful to a developed empire. In my evaluation, it is much better to be a developed empire working on cash management than a fledgling empire with piles of cash.

Developed empires building cash managemen buildings provides a tasty treat to aggresive AI's. Fleging empires with piles of cash ensure that their growing military is well armed and supplied and can handle a campaign far from home if the need arises

- O

* or even more gold - ironically, despite the intuitive feel that gold is a very linear and discrete resource, once you have a sufficiently high amount more is useless (you can't run science slider at more than 100%; nations fear you are becoming too advanced and won't sell further techs; etc.)

You can never have too much money. Upgrading units, maintaining infrastucture, civic upkeep, waging war, rush-buying infrastucture, and sometimes getting a tech for money that you will slowly steal back are just a few perks of having a large treasury.
I can see that you seem to be more of an CE guy, which is fine because most of my greatest victories are based on CE's. In the early game though, It's not the greatest economy and SE's are better for the early game. Still remember we're dealing with a slightly unorthodox strategy here that is also interesting. Be open, and remember winning's not everything. Sometimes, Losses are far more instructive.

 

[JackOfClubs]

Interesting. Whenever I build a bank, I can move my science slider up.

Yes, it might, because the bank gives you more gold that can be used to offset maintenance costs. So, if you were operating at less than 100% (and aren't we all? ) the bank will indirectly allow you to increase your research rate. But the income derived from the bank does not go directly into research as, for instance, the income from a cottage does. If you have the slider at 100% and build a bank, the for that city will not go up, but if, under the same setting, you have two or three cottages mature into a hamlets, it will go up.

 

[JujuLautre]

- cut -

Thanks for all your comments. But one time again, I'm not trying to convince everyone that gold is the super power and that this strategy is the ultimate strategy, because it is not (in my opinion, there is no best strategy). I know that tech is usually far superior to gold. However, you cannot deny what I said: GM main purpose is to generate cash, not bulb techs

After saying this, I was just trying to consider situations where a huge pile of gold is really usefull:
- compensate deficit of a huge science slider or war: well, actually this merchant economy is all about running a huge science slider. And in any case, everyone already uses gold from capturing cities in war to fuel the war
- diplomacy: bribing, tech exchanges: I must say I'm not experienced here so I won't say anything. But it seems to me it's not the best purpose
- upgrade: ah! We have something here ! I don't think anyone would say no to a mass upgrade of troops (city raiders macemen to grenadiers anyone? )

So it leads me again to my thought of not using this kind of strategy from the beginning, but as a continuation of a scientists economy. As you pointed out, scientists and GS are far better in the early game because you need to tech. But are far less valuable after a certain point. On the other hand, GM are really valuable later, when you want upgrades and going to war in general. Or actually, it seems to me. Moreover, because the cities are bigger, they are more effective.

Any new comment about it anyone? All thoughts are welcome

I won one of my few victories on emperor using this method, albeit from an excellent starting position with floodplains, fish and stone, playing as Gandhi (the king of Specialist Economics).

Could you please tell us more how it went? The way I presented first, or another way?

I also saw someone speaking about the priest economy somewhere, but did not remember about it I must say. I should try it someday, should be fun

 

[Spammurabi]

This seems more like a supplementary strategy to me than a main one- having more than one city working on GPP doesn't really benefit you that much. However, it may be a good strategy to have your GP farm run a ton of merchants. Other than that, I'd run either SE with scientists or CE.

 

[Winston Hughes]

@ JujuLautre: Your description of the merchant SE is pretty much how I've worked it in my games, although I started laying down cottages in all of my newly built/captured cities after Liberalism (in preparation for a switch to CE as Emancipation comes online). The ratio of different city types would tend to be 1 cottaged: 1 pure production: 3-4 merchant. With Representation the merchant cities can produce a fair amount of research to complement the cottaged city, and, as is typical for an SE, they were also used to poprush units for wars of expansion.

Having a spiritual leader is even more important here than in a scientist SE: Caste System is a must, but so is Slavery; Representation is a must, but Universal Suffrage can sometimes be used to rush a few extra units. Generally, when possible, I would run Rep-Bur-Caste-Pac 3/4 of the time and US/PS-Vass-Slav-Theo for the remaining 1/4 (with occasional switches to OR for a quick burst of building whipping).

By the time of the switch to CE, I would hope to have conquered at least 2-3 rivals whilst keeping up in tech, allowing pursuit of either Space Race or Domination in the late-game.

As I said, the scientist SE is stronger in most cases, but who wants to play the same old strategy over and over? A healthy civ diet includes a range of different economic strategies, imo. In fact, and this may be why many people dismiss SEs despite expert testimony from the likes of Mutineer, the main drawback of SEs of any type is the level of micromanagement they demand if you want to get the best results. Cottages can just sit there and gradually earn you more commerce as the game goes on; in a properly run SE you need to manage your empire much more closely.

ironically, despite the intuitive feel that gold is a very linear and discrete resource, once you have a sufficiently high amount more is useless

Two words: Universal Suffrage.

 

[JujuLautre]

This seems more like a supplementary strategy to me than a main one- having more than one city working on GPP doesn't really benefit you that much. However, it may be a good strategy to have your GP farm run a ton of merchants. Other than that, I'd run either SE with scientists or CE.

What you say seems really odd to me: is not one of the point of an SE to work GPP in more than one city? This seems to me the main reason why a scientists SE can pop great scientists so often.

@ JujuLautre: Your description of the merchant SE is pretty much how I've worked it in my games, although I started laying down cottages in all of my newly built/captured cities after Liberalism (in preparation for a switch to CE as Emancipation comes online).

So it seems my intuition about working more cottage cities was not completly wrong. Good to hear that
Thanks for all of your help btw; also I must say that I really often under-estimate pacifism, but in the context of a non-philosophical-but-spiritual SE it seems to be a very good way to go.

As I said, the scientist SE is stronger in most cases, but who wants to play the same old strategy over and over? A healthy civ diet includes a range of different economic strategies, imo.

Glad to read that I' not the only one who enjoy changing and twisting strategies

Two words: Universal Suffrage.

And I forgot this one in my previous post... Shame on me

 

[Mutineer]

I have a little time and will try to explain in more detail start I use for isolated start on immortal.

Situation:

When one alone on small contimnent there useally max 1 precalendar happiness resource and may be 1 max 2 callendar happiness resource.

So, happiness cup is very low. In addition when people discussing specialist economy they forgetting one more factor: wokers actions.

Wokers actions are expencive. It take a long time to improve a lot of cities for use for cottage economy. On other hand, food economy tend to be easy.

Improve food resource and any other special resurce and you set.
There will be some grassland forests/warter food neitral ties for juest regrow.
On other hand if you max city is size 4-5 you can not do max regrow.
In isolated start one can not have foreign trade as additional source of commerce no tech trade to lend you hand.

As result how to beat immortal AI and still be able to expand enogth to have enogth cities in coming renesance age?

My solution, Sci capital with Max sci % modificators one can get + a spawn of small cities.

One can get enogth workers actions to cottage capital fast and get first GS for academy using this first librsry in capital. In addition HR is easy acivable and not to far along the path to Col.
So, I research to HR and growing capital and mach as posible using cheap warriors and military police. At the same time I use all other cities to produce workers, settlers to epand as mach as posible. One need just one food special resource and grow city to size 3-4 to set up 1 food worked + 2 merchants under castle system to support 100% science in my empire.

As land improve more and more I can gradially grow them more. This citie sinitially produc eonly 2-3 commerce max, no point to build and sci % buildings. My capital produce 80-90% of total commerce of my empire and it go try max sci % I can provide library then academy then burocracy.

This strat let me useally beat AI to liberalism in isolated immortal start.

Why this is not a good long turn strat? Efficiency of strat come formt he fact that outside cities can be undedevelop, but still self supporting. As they get improve and grow efficiency of strat fail. One commercial suppercapital can not carry civ mach pass renesance age. Runnign specialists or even building wealth to support empire come from cost of production.

With coming of astronomy foreign trade posible and most cities startting to get more and more commerce. Resource trade increase happiness cap.

One need to expand or to tech if full speed for victory. For expand useally Nationalism + slavery are the best solutions, for teching Coottage economy civics and now all cities improved become best choise.

So, one invide oversea with Nationalism or run space race with cottage economy after that.


In no isolated start there no mach point of running merchants.

One can get money from:
War, begging demanding from AI, selling tech for money. If not isolated making army and go kill somebody tend to be safest cource of action. If you do not build army you risk AI crushing you and if you build army and do not use it you waste hammers.

so..

 

[JujuLautre]

In no isolated start there no mach point of running merchants.

Actually there is

Experimenting, trying, having fun, all these are good reasons. But the most important for me: I really like merchants and great merchants

 

[GoodGame]

I've tried something similar to the original post. In the end I only won by diplomacy. The key benefit of GP is strategic lightbulbing techs in my opinion. What this GM idea is, is a variant of cottaging in my opinion.

And consider, if a GM trade mission is ~3000 gp sometimes, does settling the 6 gp/turn plus economic building modifiers (say ~ 9 gp / turn on average) really compensate for that? I think the trade missions / economic tech lightbulbing might be more valuable, but would tend to lead to gold glut at even 90% research, and mediocre research generation.

 

[Hackapell]

So, after a long hiatus, I have gotten to the merchant SE to explore it, and I came up with this(I was Saladin[vanilla] on Warlord[testing purposes only]):

1. The Merchant SE does produce gold, so each merchant adds +3 gold to your income. Thus it allows you to raise your science slider by indirectly increasing the flow of gold into the treasury that then can be converted into either gold, reseach, or culture via the sliders.
2. Representation is quite useful(thanks Oracle-MC gambit!) as each merchant also assits with science, thus feeding both your treasury and your beakers. The Parthenon is helpful, but not essential. GM bulbs are also somewhat obscure, so stick with making lots of cash to run the science slider at max.
3.The cash influxes never last very long, as they are used primarily for upgrading defensive and offensive troops and for maintaing cities; secondarily for paying for the science slider, buy-rushing, and keeping your troops in the field.
4.Civics are important; however, with the 'mids, slavery becomes a non-factor and US becomes just as good. Also, letting your cities grow with this economy is crucial; stick with caste system all the way until Emancipation.(but by then you should have some markets in place.Right? )
5. A super-science city running several scientists should suffice for raw beakers. You may also want your capital heavily cottaged in Breaucracy to assist. Both cities should have acadamies.
6. The rest of your cities can vary; an HE is well-suited to this.

Any comments are well appreciated.

 

[UncleJJ]

1. The Merchant SE does produce gold, so each merchant adds +3 gold to your income. Thus it allows you to raise your science slider by indirectly increasing the flow of gold into the treasury that then can be converted into either gold, reseach, or culture via the sliders.
2. Representation is quite useful(thanks Oracle-MC gambit!) as each merchant also assits with science, thus feeding both your treasury and your beakers. The Parthenon is helpful, but not essential. GM bulbs are also somewhat obscure, so stick with making lots of cash to run the science slider at max.
3.The cash influxes never last very long, as they are used primarily for upgrading defensive and offensive troops and for maintaing cities; secondarily for paying for the science slider, buy-rushing, and keeping your troops in the field.
4.Civics are important; however, with the 'mids, slavery becomes a non-factor and US becomes just as good. Also, letting your cities grow with this economy is crucial; stick with caste system all the way until Emancipation.(but by then you should have some markets in place.Right? )


Any comments are well appreciated.

Two comments

If you are going to run merchant specialists in a city then build a market, grocer and bank as soon as you can. With Saladin in vanilla he's spiritual IIRC you can switch into slavery and whip the said building in and then recover the pop and run the caste system again. The disruption is worthwhile since the merchants produce more gold in the long term and the buildings are useful for other reasons.

Using gold under US to buy hammers is not very efficient. It costs 3 gold per hammer which means that a merchant specialist is producing enough gold to buy only 1 hammer per turn (although that can be in another city of course). Running a priest or engineer is a better way to generate hammmers in terms of food to hammers conversion rate The 2 food used to run the specialist each turn can be turned to hammers using slavery and this has conversion rates ranging from 2 hammers per food at city size 5 to 1 hammer per food at size 20. Therefore it is generally inefficient in a SE or HE to use food to make specialists and gain gold and then run US to convert the gold to hammers.

I do use US to rapidly accelerate one or two particular cities into a productive state but not to improve a lot of my cities. If you have a lot of fully developed towns in a HE or CE then the extra hammer from US can be a major reason to use it but if you have a lot of specialists (as in a SE) then the loss of Representation probably makes that too expensive as a long term option.