Apples to Oranges, Gold to Beakers, CE to SE?

[Airefuego]

commerce isn't beakers
on settler, you can count on 2 beakers per commerce
on deity, you're lucky to get 1 beaker per commerce (maintenance is real, there, so running 50 % is really good already)

Can I ask you to clarify? Are you suggesting that if I run 100% science slider on Deity, I'm NOT getting one beaker per commerce ???

My understanding is that it is always one-for-one at 100% slider, and maintenance is a gold cost not related to commerce, but instead to city size / number / distance etc...?

 

[popejubal]

Can I ask you to clarify? Are you suggesting that if I run 100% science slider on Deity, I'm NOT getting one beaker per commerce ???

My understanding is that it is always one-for-one at 100% slider, and maintenance is a gold cost not related to commerce, but instead to city size / number / distance etc...?

I think that what he's suggesting is that city and civic maintenance will force you to run less than 100% science on Deity.

 

[cabert]

I think that what he's suggesting is that city and civic maintenance will force you to run less than 100% science on Deity.

exactly
I can manage (through pillaging/extorting/selling techs) running 100% science all game long at settler. This is not happening at deity.

 

[Airefuego]

Ok that makes sense. I've never played settler... I guess on settler you also get a bonus, so that:

on settler, you can count on 2 beakers per commerce

...?

 

[Quechua]

Cabert,
I don't think you're looking at this the right way. If you give up 6 commerce for the sake of 6 beakers, the city gains some beakers and loses some gold. You must make up the lost gold in your other cities by dropping the slider slightly. This loses you some beakers in your other cities.

The reason I was talking about your 'best science multiplier cities' is because if your local beaker to gold ratio is higher than your empire-wide ratio, then the beakers gained directly are greater than those lost to the lower slider. Likewise, if a city's local ratio is lower than average, you prefer gold to an equal amount of beakers or commerce. If a city is completely average (like if you have the same multipliers in every city) commerce, beakers, and gold are equally valuable.

 

[cabert]

Can I ask you to clarify? Are you suggesting that if I run 100% science slider on Deity, I'm NOT getting one beaker per commerce ???

My understanding is that it is always one-for-one at 100% slider, and maintenance is a gold cost not related to commerce, but instead to city size / number / distance etc...?

I think I was going out of topic, sorry about this.
I'm not going any further. My point was just that 300 commerce empire wide isn't exactly extraordinary. Sorry for taking 3 lenghty posts to say this.
To answer this as fast as possible, it's about building all modifiers.
At settler you can pretty easily build libraries, universities, ... all around the place.
At deity, you'd better build some units.
This was my idea, just to clarify. Maybe some don't agree, but please don't continue off topic.

Cabert,
I don't think you're looking at this the right way. If you give up 6 commerce for the sake of 6 beakers, the city gains some beakers and loses some gold. You must make up the lost gold in your other cities by dropping the slider slightly. This loses you some beakers in your other cities.

The reason I was talking about your 'best science multiplier cities' is because if your local beaker to gold ratio is higher than your empire-wide ratio, then the beakers gained directly are greater than those lost to the lower slider. Likewise, if a city's local ratio is lower than average, you prefer gold to an equal amount of beakers or commerce. If a city is completely average (like if you have the same multipliers in every city) commerce, beakers, and gold are equally valuable.

About me looking at it the wrong way, I guess you're using the wrong vocabulary.
Commerce is the base thing. It gets divided into gold, beakers, culture and espionnage.
I'm not giving up commerce for beakers. I may be giving up gold for beakers, if I have enough options to get gold from :
1) selling techs
2) building gold
3) asking politely my friends
4) pillaging.
Are commerce, gold and beakers equally valuable? No, not at all. Never.
If you want to run for cultural, you can use 1 commerce to get 3 or 4 cpt. You cannot use gold for this, nor can you use beakers for it.
You have numerous options to get the gold for funding your empire and run culture as high as possible.
Settling a few great artists can be enough at lower levels (low maintenance).
OTOH, when you're running for space, you don't care about gold. You need the techs.
If you're trying for domination, you need money for $rushing more than tech.

My way to look at it is to focus on what you need most. Running 100% gold to 2 turns before you finish the laboratories (andd possibly $ rushing the labs) is certainly a way of getting more beakers.


About multipliers, you're totally right. That's why there are gold specialized cities, and science specialized cities in the end game. Merchants assigned in gold cities, scientists assigned in science cities.

One small note about this : in vanilla, you get 1 base gold for 2 base hammers when you build gold.
In Warlords and BtS, you get 1 final gold for 2 final hammers.
Meaning that in vanilla you really should build gold in cities with markets, grocers, banks, while in warlords and BtS, you should build gold in cities with forges, factories, power, ...

 

[Quechua]

Obviously gold, beakers, and culture have different strategic uses. I wasn't talking about that, and I don't think anyone else was originally either. The original question was is the 6 commerce you get (from say three grassland hamlets) completely equivalent to 6 direct beakers from specialists. I gave my answer.

About multipliers, you're totally right. That's why there are gold specialized cities, and science specialized cities in the end game. Merchants assigned in gold cities, scientists assigned in science cities.

Yes, this is pretty much valid. But here's a question for you. Say you have a library in every city, but in the capital you also have a market and an academy. Do you want to run gold, beakers, or commerce in which cities? I'm talking about research here, don't bother with culture or rush-buying please.

 

[kakitadairu]

exactly
I can manage (through pillaging/extorting/selling techs) running 100% science all game long at settler. This is not happening at deity.

Strange. I have an easier time running at 100% Beakers on Deity since the AI has a lot more money to trade, and a lot more money to pillage.

Cheers,

Dai

 

[cabert]

Obviously gold, beakers, and culture have different strategic uses. I wasn't talking about that, and I don't think anyone else was originally either. The original question was is the 6 commerce you get (from say three grassland hamlets) completely equivalent to 6 direct beakers from specialists. I gave my answer.



Yes, this is pretty much valid. But here's a question for you. Say you have a library in every city, but in the capital you also have a market and an academy. Do you want to run gold, beakers, or commerce in which cities? I'm talking about research here, don't bother with culture or rush-buying please.

This isn't a very good question, sorry.
It depends on
- the relative weigh of the capital : does your capital generate half the commerce of your empire or more, or is it just one good city among many others?
- what civics do you run / are available? (bureaucracy? representation?caste system?)
- your level of $ in the bank + what options you have to get some (are you at war? do you have techs to sell?...)

edit :
Let's take a more precise example.
You have exhausted your $, have 6 cities generating 8 commerce each, except the capital generating 40 base commerce, + what you said.
You don't have bureaucracy yet, but the pyramids allow you to run representation.
You have currency since you have a market (duh), say you don't have code of law.
You aren't at war. You're breaking even at 40%.
(Not the best example, because I didn't open the game to get real numbers)
The best would be to drop your science rate to 30%, assign 2 merchants in the only city where you can (the capital) and assign scientists everywhere else. If you build gold somewhere (in the capital if you're playing vanilla, anywhere if you play warlords or BtS), you break even and have 25 more beakers.

 

[Quechua]

No, running gold in your library cities will let you raise the slider so you get more research out of your capital. Running beakers in your capital will let you take advantage of the academy, and let your library cities support the maintenence.

Size of treasury doesn't matter. Percentage of commerce of the capital doesn't matter so long as you don't run so much gold to get a surplus at 100%.

But how you can easily convert commerce to an equal amount of direct beakers or gold isn't clear. And that's why this thread is sort of silly, imho.

 

[cabert]

No, running gold in your library cities will let you raise the slider so you get more research out of your capital. Running beakers in your capital will let you take advantage of the academy, and let your library cities support the maintenence.

Size of treasury doesn't matter. Percentage of commerce of the capital doesn't matter so long as you don't run so much gold to get a surplus at 100%.

But how you can easily convert commerce to an equal amount of direct beakers or gold isn't clear. And that's why this thread is sort of silly, imho.

I edited my post, sorry.
Size of treasury certainly matters. If you can afford to run 100% science, why wouldn't you do it?

 

[CivCorpse]

What happens to the SE after emancipation is forced by the U.N>? and you go to war? No caste system and war weariness eats into your slider. If you switch to police state then you have basically cut your research in half from representation? I have read obsolete's threads and find them very educational. But he seems to play either industrious or philosophical leaders. And finds stone most of the time. He never seems to get beaten to the Mids even on high difficulty. I am a wonder monger and get beaten to wonders all the time on Monarch. Would he do as well playing Agg/Ai? All those hammers spent on wonders means a small military.

 

[seizer]

Since you're not getting much research from your commerce, you can use the slider to generate culture for happiness if needed in a SE. 100% culture = 25 happy faces IIRC.

 

[linfeixb27]

i think when i run SE,i dont need to build grocers and banks in a specialized city.they only produce beaker.citys with many cottages bulid grocers and banks.then run the research at 0%.
when i run CE,i need to build both libraries and grocers in citys.and i think it is a kind of waste

 

[Quechua]

I edited my post, sorry.
Size of treasury certainly matters. If you can afford to run 100% science, why wouldn't you do it?

You can run deficit research either now or later, you'll get the same amount of beakers when you burn through your treasury. If you run gold in your library cities rather than beakers you will get less beakers per turn when you run deficit research, but you will be able to run it for longer. If you need to maximize your immediate beakers per turn, sure run beakers in your library cities, this may be useful. But once the treasury is spent you'll find that this hurt your overall research rate. And if you don't have a treasury to spend, it hurts your research period.

I even took your suggestion and updated my article with a picture.

 

[cabert]

You can run deficit research either now or later, you'll get the same amount of beakers when you burn through your treasury. If you run gold in your library cities rather than beakers you will get less beakers per turn when you run deficit research, but you will be able to run it for longer. If you need to maximize your immediate beakers per turn, sure run beakers in your library cities, this may be useful. But once the treasury is spent you'll find that this hurt your overall research rate. And if you don't have a treasury to spend, it hurts your research period.

I even took your suggestion and updated my article with a picture.

It's much easier to read through now.
And also a bit less theoretical, with real values.
Now, I'd be curious to see typical gold/beaker ratios for different times in the game.
I guess the ratio is somewhere between 1 and 2 for all game long but seeing where you stand at various moments. It's game/strategy dependant certainly but I guess most players will see where they stand.

I guess you will see the time where libraries get build, the time where you get your first GS if you build an academy, the time where you get markets online, ...

 

[Ultimocrat]

What happens to the SE after emancipation is forced by the U.N>? and you go to war? No caste system and war weariness eats into your slider. If you switch to police state then you have basically cut your research in half from representation?

Few people talk about the late game SE as you are suggesting, but I think, after playing one quite successful game with it, that the appropriate thing to do is to make a shift in the way the SE supports itself. Once you're forced into Emancipation, either by the UN or by happiness problems, you have a lot of spare specialists who used to be scientists -- convert them into merchants and raise the slider as much as you can -- perhaps to 100% science if happiness and monetary concerns permit. Trade routes are huge for a late-game SE, since populations are so high. Leverage that commerce into beakers and you can stay (relatively) competitve with a CE.

Dealing with late-game war is trickier. The draft button can convert your war-weariness to soldiers, albeit at the price of your economy. Or move the slider -- your economy will take a hit, but not as big a hit as a CE would take from a slider shift. You're right, though -- the CE has the luxury of swapping to police state, which would be deadly to the economy of a late-game SE.

 

[lukep]

You're right, though -- the CE has the luxury of swapping to police state, which would be deadly to the economy of a late-game SE.

hmm, not really. police state can be used without much problems. You loose on research by going out of representation, but you suffer less than a CE who rely more on slider