CE GP farm

[The Rook]

I was curious to know how other people manage GP farms when running a CE? It seems to me that GP farms are infinitely easier to manage when applying a SE. If you don't build cottages, the amount of commerce generated tends to be negligible, so this in effect frees the economy sliders. So when Emancipation kicks, just push up the culture slider, and you can stay in the Caste System, no problem. Obviously using the culture slider is undesirable when most of your gold/research comes through commerce (unless playing for a cultural win), so Emancipation becomes a formality in a CE.

Another dilemma is what to do with the NE? In a SE, the National Park combines beautifully with the NE, but in a CE, post-Emancipation, you lack the specialist slots. Perhaps the most obvious solution would be to work out which type of GPs are most important to your game plan, and then pair the NE with a National Wonder that has some of those slots available. Of course, this approach tends to be inflexible, and you would have a hard limit on the rate you can generate GPs. Also, certain National Wonders don't lend themselves well to optimal food locations. For example, your Oxford city in a CE should be generating lots of commerce, most likely through towns. Cottaged cities grow slower than farmed cities, so assuming there is enough food to support all the towns AND fill the specialist slots, it could be a long while before your GP farm gets in to full swing. Alternatively, you could Wonder Spam a city with the NE, and so when Emancipation kicks in your GP points will mostly come through buildings, so less need to worry about the absence of specialist slots, although which GP you generate could be a lottery. Another option might be to build the NE very early in a high food location, generate as many GPs as possible pre-Emancipation, and then accept that it will be sub-optimal after emancipation. GPs are perhaps at their strongest in the early game anyway.

I'm not knocking the CE, I've used it in many of my games, but on reflection, I never seem to get as much bang for my GPs as when running a SE. Perhaps this is a price that comes with running a CE?

Any thoughts?

 

[Ibian]

The more i read and think about it, the more i become convinced that cottages are just a bad idea for any scenario that doesnt involve permanent world peace and a tech lead.

If the happiness slider is free then its possible to simply ignore emancipation and WW penalties. It simply makes the economy much more robust when those things happen.

My own experimentation recently has led me to the following model: As many hammers as possible in all cities, and enough settled specialists to pay the bills so i can keep the happy slider where i want it. Im leaning towards focusing on GM since food is what drives everything.

In the end this means that health is my main concern. Still working on that one.

 

[Leventis]

In short, maybe you are confusing what a GP farm should be when running a CE. My understanding is that the GP farm should be a rich city which is set up in a way which caters for a high number of specialists to be run throughout the game. You aren't looking to generate lots of raw or , because all this city is geared to do is crank out Great People--let the other cities take care of those things. The only infrastructure you really need in this city are those which open up the specialist slots, like libraries, markets, etc, and of course the NE. Therefore, it doesn't need to be high on either. You should have just enough to get these essential building up in a timely fashion (or else whip with granaries), while all flatlands should really be farmed. Later on, will be more of an issue than , but the value of the GP farm often dies off anyway.

I could be wrong, but from what you say in your post it sounds as if you are cottaging your "GP farm", which I think is your problem. Put down farms instead and grow to your and caps.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I think GP Farms are actually easier to manage in a commerce-based economy (CE included) than in a specialist-based economy.

Why? Because there's only one city making GPP.

Since your economy is based mainly on all of your commerce-heavy cities, you're more-or-less free to do whatever you want in your GP farm. If you need to run all priests or all engineers or whatever for one GP cycle to make a particular GP, you're free to do that.

However, in a specialist-heavy economy where every city has specialists (sometimes priests, sometimes engineers, sometimes whatever), you have to focus even more on your GP Farm to ensure you don't accidentally "play the lottery."

If I'm relying on cottages from early in the game, I typically pair the National Epic with Wall Street. Since the slider is usually at 80-100% , very little is converted to . This means Wall Street needs to depend on slider-independent Merchant Specialists. Since I'm already running Universal Suffrage, the Great Merchants go a long way (even more so if I'm hungry for Corporations).


That's my 2 .

 

[InvisibleStalke]

GP farm isn't a problem in a CE. The main difference is that you aren't going to run caste system much so you are dependent on buildings which means that you can't run all one sort of specialist and its up to chance what GP you will get. Early on I can guarantee scientists with the great library (if I can get it) and a library. But later I will have engineers and merchants running too.

Building the infrastructure is fairly easy. Usually the forests get chopped for the NE and everything else gets whipped in.

I rarely pair the NP with it - usually I create a second city for NP with lots of forests and not much else. But if there isn't a logical site then I might come back and give it to the NE city - it will still eliminate health problems and if you have a few forests give enough happiness for the city to grow really big.

It sometimes gets wall street - but thats usually because it might be my second city and I might have a religious shrine there too.

If it has really high food I might give it globe theater to allow it to grow bigger and double as an unlimited draft city.

Otherwise it will often have just the national epic wonder. It doesn't need another in a CE.

 

[Sjaramei]

Lots of golden ages. (i mean lots ) Founding corps, lots of stuff to do with GP late game. If you rely heavily on GP early game you will have a harder time getting them late game. (so much fun waiting looong time for a key Great Merchant and getting an artist ) So if you only get 1-2 scientists and a couple of other random ones early, you can get GP everywhere in your empire later. (Especially if you get Sushi, and start specialists with representation to add to your cottages) Golden ages also get insanely powerful then (because of 100% birth rate for GP)

Oh, and because of factories/industrial parks and the grocers/markets everywhere you get loads more engineers and merchants than you would have if you pushed for lots of GP early.

I've even waited building the NE (bad spots, couldn't decide/busy with other stuff ) for a city filled with forests, and getting NP there then. Get Kremlin and a couple of great spies and boom, espionage city

 

[Wodan]

I would challenge the notion that you want the majority of just one type of GP.

This used to be the predominant situation, because different strategies required a majority of great scientists (to lightbulb), or great engineers (to rush build critical wonders), etc.

Those strategies still exist, but now with BtS we have the golden age strategy, which is especially strong in a CE. A late game golden age in a CE is FRIGGIN' HUGE (to use a SNL joke). But, we need to realize that you need a pretty even mix of different types of GP, not all of the same type as with the previous strats.

One of the best ways to get your "fuel" for these Golden Ages is to have a GP Farm, and to rely upon blind chance to get a good mix. So, you don't want or need Caste System, you simply rely upon the buildings you have already... market, library, forge, theatre, etc.... and run a solid mix of specialist types.

By late game, you should have a solid core of 15-20 great people sitting there and ready to fuel 150+ turns of continuous golden age; all your cottages are matured to Towns and provide a hammer, plusyou have full commerce multipliers... the impact of the golden age is huge.

Or, you could use them sporadically through the game to allow you "free" switching of civics. Either way, the point is that you want a mix of GP.

Wodan

 

[The Rook]

@Ibian

Yes, inflexibility seems to come at the expense of all that nice commerce.

@Leventis

I think you have completely misunderstood the entire point I was making. Yes a GP farm should run lots of specialists, but post-Emancipation, in a CE it can't with any degree of focus. Obviously, a fully farmed city with NP+NE can run 20+ of your desired specialists in the Caste System. But in a CE, the Caste System isn't an option after Emancipation (unless you are playing for culture win). What is the point of having a fully farmed city for GPs when you lack the specialist slots? The best you could do would be build every building that will accommodate a specialist and settle for random GPs. This might not be a terrible compromise, but it would lack the flexibility of a GP farm run in a SE.

I used Oxford as an example of how you could generate extra specialist slots, but obviously Oxford functions well in a super commerce capital running Bureaucracy. The main advantage of Oxford is the +100% research bonus, the 3 specialist slots are secondary.

@OTAKUjbski

Wall Street could be a nice compromise when running a CE. As you say, assuming the science slider is near 100% it makes you free to farm the city without fear of losing commerce. However, when running an SE with NP+NE you could potentially have around three times as many Merchants, without even running a food corp.

@InvisibleStalke

Good points! As you indicate, the problem with the NP in a CE isn't just the lack of slots, but generating happiness too. Like you, I seldom have the forests/jungles by the time biology arrives, and without the preserves, Global Theater seems to be the easiest way to fix happiness. Of course, then you lose the chance to add the NE, so once again you have a compromised GP farm. If you aren't going for a cultural win, perhaps NE+NP + a bunch of cathedrals with incense could resolve happiness issues, and maintain a huge pop. But once again we lack the specialist slots so it could be a GP lottery.

@Sjaramei

I suppose leaving your GP generation until late does have the advantage that you might be clearer about which GPs you want to generate depending on how the game works out. Ironically, it might be easier for a non-Philosophical civ running a CE to generate a late GE for Mining Corp, than for a Philosophical civ running a SE. Unless the Philosophical civ can find a way to run 20 Engineers to pop GP number 30 . However, I still feel that GPs are strongest early on, before the human can manage their empire to counter the AI's bonuses. For many players corporations simply arrive too late to affect their game, and even then they can be situation dependent. Interesting points though. Golden Ages can be a good investment later in the game. Particularly powerful with a CE running Universal Suffrage.

@Wodan

Very Interesting. I must confess, I don't burn many GPs on Golden Ages in my games (probably between 1 and 6). In fact, I probably only generate 15 to 20 GP in total (and often less)! 150 turns of Golden Ages? 21 GP would make 6 golden ages. 6*8 = 48 turns on normal, with MoM that would be 72 turns. So I assume you play Marathon settings (144 turns?) . My hunch is that such a plan would work optimally with a large empire, on a huge map, with slower settings to maximize the length of the GA. It might help if the game doesn't finish too early too. Obviously MoM would be hugely important for such a strategy. But as you say US is a great civic to take advantage of the commerce and hammer benefits of a GA. One area a CE beats an SE from a GP perspective.

 

[madscientist]

My view is that you just make one city with alot of food the GP farm. Easy enough, build no cottages and farm like crazy. Build infrastructure buildings such as libraries, observatories, markets, forger, grocers, courthouse so you can max out specialists.

As far as cottages and war, I think you certainly can be a war-monger with a classic CE. You just need to spread it out a bit more and ensure no pillaging AIs get onto your land. Remember, towns get you that 1 hammer with US which can help build ALOT of military later in the game.

 

[The Rook]

My view is that you just make one city with alot of food the GP farm. Easy enough, build no cottages and farm like crazy. Build infrastructure buildings such as libraries, observatories, markets, forger, grocers, courthouse so you can max out specialists.

So would the NE+NP be your favoured combo?

 

[madscientist]

NE definitely. Probably NP or GT depending on whether happiness or health are issues. My guess would be happiness as you probably do not need a factory/plant but everygame is different.

On the other hand, Oxford, Wall Street, IW, GT all let you run some extra specialists, so that may enter into the case.

But the NE is early, so definitely THE national wonder for a GP farm.

 

[Verge]

Because there's only one city making GPP.

Exactly. I honestly don't see the problem with a GP farm in a CE, it's just a matter of a food rich city, National Epic, and another national wonder of your choice.

The more i read and think about it, the more i become convinced that cottages are just a bad idea for any scenario that doesnt involve permanent world peace and a tech lead.

A tech lead and a copious amounts of taxes is always a good thing for a large, warring military.

If the happiness slider is free then its possible to simply ignore emancipation and WW penalties. It simply makes the economy much more robust when those things happen.

Using the culture slider as a "happy slider" is generally highly inefficient, because it's a national solution to localized problems. In that sense, it's less flexible than a CE, since you're not fine-tuning at the city level; as you're alleviating happiness problems in some cities, others likely have superfluous happiness inputs that are going to waste.

My own experimentation recently has led me to the following model: As many hammers as possible in all cities, and enough settled specialists to pay the bills so i can keep the happy slider where i want it. Im leaning towards focusing on GM since food is what drives everything.

In the end this means that health is my main concern. Still working on that one.

Again, in this scenario, all of this is less flexible than a CE. If you're reliant on specialists (especially if you find yourself reliant on certain specialists) to pay the bills and further research, then the amount of generated gold, beakers, espionage points, etc. are essentially locked in. A CE, on the other hand, allows for excellent control of economic outputs; a peacetime civilization running at 100% research, for instance, can immediately adopt a war strategy by dropping the research slider and raising taxes. If more espionage is needed, then shuttling commerce to it is very easy. And of course there is the tactic to allocate commerce to culture in the pursuit of culture victories.

 

[Ibian]

A tech lead and a copious amounts of taxes is always a good thing for a large, warring military.

Point being, when a cottager goes to war he either loses working population, or loses science to the happy slider. Its one or the other. Other economies dont care much or at all about the science slider.

Using the culture slider as a "happy slider" is generally highly inefficient, because it's a national solution to localized problems.

Only if you dont grow your cities to the happy cap for whatever reason.

Again, in this scenario, all of this is less flexible than a CE. If you're reliant on specialists (especially if you find yourself reliant on certain specialists) to pay the bills and further research, then the amount of generated gold, beakers, espionage points, etc. are essentially locked in. A CE, on the other hand, allows for excellent control of economic outputs; a peacetime civilization running at 100% research, for instance, can immediately adopt a war strategy by dropping the research slider and raising taxes. If more espionage is needed, then shuttling commerce to it is very easy. And of course there is the tactic to allocate commerce to culture in the pursuit of culture victories.

My gold comes from settled specialists and my science comes from hammers. Specialists are really not worth even running in the mid game except to generate GP. They may be situationally useful with improved farms, but by that point the health cap becomes a real problem.

Hammer beakers dont get science multipliers from buildings, they get production multipliers, so i dont need academies. All i need are prophets and merchants.

A cottager who goes to war, as you said, needs to drop his research. I dont, because my research doesnt come from the science slider. War doesnt affect my economy at all except insofar as i spend some hammers on troops instead of beakers, but i find that i can build all the military i need in about a dozen turns with this setup, at which point i switch my production back to science and continue researching at full speed. This type of economy doesnt care how long the war lasts once it begins.

 

[DaveMcW]

cottages are just a bad idea for any scenario that doesnt involve permanent world peace and a tech lead.

You're mixing up cause and effect.

Cottages => Tech Lead

 

[Ibian]

Depends when the war happens. Those cottages need to grow and give you the tech lead first.

 

[DaveMcW]

Depends when the war happens. Those cottages need to grow and give you the tech lead first.

Which takes all of what, 10 turns? It's a long time before you get a tile that produces 2f 2h.

 

[madscientist]

I play marathon speed which puts cottage growth at a brutal triple the speed of normal, and I still say it can work in a war-mongers game. Especially when your capturing fairly mature cottages from an AI.

 

[Jet]

how other people manage GP farms when running a CE?

I run a mix of specialists or Caste System. Sometimes, temporary Caste System.

CE, post-Emancipation, you lack the specialist slots.

In my opinion you have plenty of slots, just not all of the same type. And in some games, you can stay in Caste System for a while after Emancipation.

I never seem to get as much bang for my GPs as when running a SE. Perhaps this is a price that comes with running a CE?

Yes. But I don't find the difference to be very great. And if you want to use a strategy that relies on scientists or merchants or artists, you can always run Caste System.

GPs are perhaps at their strongest in the early game anyway.

Exactly.

(Or early-mid-game, I'd say.)

 

[Sjaramei]

Depends when the war happens. Those cottages need to grow and give you the tech lead first.

I war all the time (domination addict), i cottage and almost never have a tech lead. (i play immortal... AI's tech way too fast ) Cottaging early is a must if you want to keep up in tech pace. (unless you get insanely lucky and find gold/gems all over the place) Lightbulbing works too of course, but it has a limited timespan. Either way works so i don't know why you don't like cottages..

GPs are perhaps at their strongest in the early game anyway.

Exactly.

Corps and golden ages make them just as powerful late game now. (Mausoleum + 3-4 golden ages in a row (Taj etc. is sick) (or maybe thats just late game for me )

 

[madscientist]

how other people manage GP farms when running a CE?

I run a mix of specialists or Caste System. Sometimes, temporary Caste System.

CE, post-Emancipation, you lack the specialist slots.

In my opinion you have plenty of slots, just not all of the same type. And in some games, you can stay in Caste System for a while after Emancipation.

I never seem to get as much bang for my GPs as when running a SE. Perhaps this is a price that comes with running a CE?

Yes. But I don't find the difference to be very great. And if you want to use a strategy that relies on scientists or merchants or artists, you can always run Caste System.

GPs are perhaps at their strongest in the early game anyway.

Exactly.

(Or early-mid-game, I'd say.)

Good responce except the last point. GPs can be at there strongest if they found a vital corp late in the game. The cahnce for +12 hammers per city, access to oil when you have none, or excess food to run more specialists can be an overpowered use of GPs and can turn a game.