Ce / Se

[r_rolo1]

@Sephlock

Check the Great People tech Preferences article in the Strategy Articles sub Forum by DaveMcW

 

[qwertz]

Is there a flow chart or something of which techs are lightbulb-able by which Great People? I know that certain techs can be bulbed by more than 1 type of GP, and certain techs which are not explicitly marked as such can be bulbed.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/gp_tech_pref.php

the spy eco sounds quite fun, i'll have to try it out

 

[Cvntpumeler]

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/gp_tech_pref.php

the spy eco sounds quite fun, i'll have to try it out

Wow, I just learned how to bulb Civil Service with a great prophet. Thats the most valuable peice of information I have ever picked up. I'm going to be able to beat the game on Diety on a consistant basis using that little gambit I bet... I love an early beaurocracy .

edit: damnit, i also just learned it got nerfed before i know about it...

 

[DarkFyre99]

Unless I have the ingrediants for an excellent SE (Lots of Excess Food; Industrious Leader and/or Stone nearby... or even better, both ), I usually go with a hybrid economy. That way, I can still heavily specialize my cities without losing losing either research or Great People.

Unfortunately, you don't have that option in your poll.

 

[Underdawg]

I would vote for hybrid economy, no option though

I voted "don't know" because I always use a hybrid economy with highly specialized cities -- some are cottage farms, others use specialists.

I would also vote hybrid since in a lot of cases it depends on the city whether it is cottaged or I hire specialists.

No "both , depending of traits and terrain" option ?

This poll really needs to have an option for Hybrid economies....

Hybrid. Didn't vote.

If you're got to pick one, the CE has a slight edge over the SE (particularly if you don't get the Pyramids). BtS has rather blurred the SE/CE distinction in the later phases of the game though, and the best strategy is usually a hybrid economy.

Unless I have the ingrediants for an excellent SE (Lots of Excess Food; Industrious Leader and/or Stone nearby... or even better, both ), I usually go with a hybrid economy. That way, I can still heavily specialize my cities without losing losing either research or Great People.

Unfortunately, you don't have that option in your poll.

Are these enough quotes?

 

[Roland Johansen]

I've tried spy economy before, and it seems almost impossible. Getting a modern tech pretty much emtpies the entire pool. I had several thousand, but perhaps that's not enough. I definitely didn't focus on one Civ.

That game was on monach difficulty.

Spreading your spy points over several civilisations would be similar to spreading technology points over several technologies, researching several technologies at the same time. That would of course be very inefficient. There is another inefficiency since the spy missions become cheaper if you have a spy point advantage compared to your competitor.

I must say that I don't use the spy economy. But I've read a bit about it and in theory it should work. You of course have to focus on very different buildings and the best spy buildings arrive a bit later in the game. The Great Spy is however at its best at the start of the game which compensates for the late buildings a bit. You should also leave the spy in the opponents city for 5 turns to get the maximum discount of 50%.

The main disadvantages of such an economy would be that you can't get ahead of all the other civilisations and you have to be very careful in picking the technology leader (on whom you focus your technology points). A great advantage would be that you can pick a technology that can be used for optimal technology trading at that moment. When you research a technology, you have to guess which technology will be good for trading once you finish the technology research.

 

[weregamer]

I like the idea of SE, but it's a lot of management and by the time I have a serious specialist farm to compete with what I can do starting early with hybrid cities and wonders, the game is all but over.

Then again, I'm still down in the Noble+/-1 range where I can win a lot of wonder races. Without the wonders I'd probably need the SE to get GP.

 

[SwordofStriker]

I have only just started really trying out the SE tactic. Honestly, I love it and the number of great people it generates is amazing. I am not however a purist as far as the SE goes. I don't regularly go for the pyramids, I tend to not use caste system, and I often allow my specialized cities to do other things if it's important that they do so. These are all big no-no's as far as the SE goes, but it works for me as it's a blending of SE and my own playstyle.

You do however have to really be able to deal with a lot of micro management and my turns have started taking a VERY long time as compared to my normal play. I would say go hybrid with the SE as I love it, so I voted SE.

 

[ShadowKatana]

Hybrid -

REX a bunch of cities, chop/whip libraries and run a bunch of scientists.

Then grow in cottages with a few farms.

 

[robcheng]

Spreading your spy points over several civilisations would be similar to spreading technology points over several technologies, researching several technologies at the same time. That would of course be very inefficient

Not really...partial progress towards a tech gains you nothing, but a percentage of your EPs being allocated to multiple civs will eventually gain you demographics, city visibility, reduced mission costs/better mission defense, etc. for all of those civs.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Not really...partial progress towards a tech gains you nothing, but a percentage of your EPs being allocated to multiple civs will eventually gain you demographics, city visibility, reduced mission costs/better mission defense, etc. for all of those civs.

Yes, ok. But we were talking about what it would do for research. Not what is would do for other things.

 

[Sephlock]

Ignore me, I'm an idiot

 

[darrelljs]

Here is an SG where all techs came from theft. In general if you look at the math a thief economy is more efficient. First off, lets analyze the cost of a tech in EPs vs. beakers. There is a 50% premium you pay, so a tech that would cost 100 beakers to research costs 150 EPs to steal. To combat that, your spy gets several discounts (in particular a 50% discount for being stationary for five turns) and in practice the EP cost of a tech is less than the beaker cost.

Now lets look at the generation of beakers vs. EPs. Converting commerce to beakers or EPs via the slider is probably slightly in favor of beakers in the early game due to the Library. Once you get access to Jails, Security Bureau and Intelligence Agencies that will change. Not only do you get +150% per turn, you actually get +20 EPs native. Imagine a University giving +8 EPs! Specialist based generation is even more heavily weighted to EPs. EPs are treated the same as culture, with +4 per Spy and a whopping +12 for a Great Spy. The Great Scientist lightbulb is worth far less than the Great Spy infiltration. Finally, Scotland Yard is worth +100% vs. +50% for the Academy.

The negatives are hammer costs of building the spies (many of which will get caught) and negative diplomatic modifiers. I think the negative of not being able to take a tech lead is a chimera; you can use EPs for the bulk of your research and run deep beelines when you have techs you want.

Darrell

 

[onedreamer]

there are no such things as CE and SE economies. You have to build any and all improvements and use at best any and all features of the game (includes specialists) if you want to play the game in a decent way.

 

[ushram]

/ag hybrid economy is best

 

[Silence101]

Hate to sound like a broken record here, but I think the Hybrid Econ is the way to go.

 

[axident]

Spreading your spy points over several civilisations would be similar to spreading technology points over several technologies, researching several technologies at the same time. That would of course be very inefficient. There is another inefficiency since the spy missions become cheaper if you have a spy point advantage compared to your competitor.

I must say that I don't use the spy economy. But I've read a bit about it and in theory it should work. You of course have to focus on very different buildings and the best spy buildings arrive a bit later in the game. The Great Spy is however at its best at the start of the game which compensates for the late buildings a bit. You should also leave the spy in the opponents city for 5 turns to get the maximum discount of 50%.

The main disadvantages of such an economy would be that you can't get ahead of all the other civilisations and you have to be very careful in picking the technology leader (on whom you focus your technology points). A great advantage would be that you can pick a technology that can be used for optimal technology trading at that moment. When you research a technology, you have to guess which technology will be good for trading once you finish the technology research.

The trick is to use spies sparingly--maybe 1 or 2 infiltrations, steal what you can, then let your SE or CE power you the rest of the game. While stealing AI techs, tech towards stuff that the AI doesn't tech to as quickly. See the Immortal Dutch Domination thread for an example.

If you mean HARDcore spy economy where you basically don't research anything past Alphabet, there is a succession game (Thief Economy) that successfully does that.