Civ IV Economies

[ston]

Having gained a little bit of (vanilla) Civ IV experience now, it occurs to me that there are quite a few more economy choices than 'CE v SE':

Cottage Economy
Fairly straight-forward - build cottages and work 'em. Wait. Wait. Wait...
Works for the AI...it can work for you too!

Somewhat vulnerable (easily pillaged) but having said that, pillaging the food production tiles of a 'Specialist Economy' city would have a similarly negative effect.
The major downside is the (re-)development time of the cottage->town if it gets pillaged (Emancipation can help here!)

Sea Tile Economy
(esp. if Financial trait / GLH / Colossus)
Gone fishin'...

Trade Route Economy
Many buildings / civics can add additional trade routes to cities, boosting the economy. Foreign trade routes are especially rewarding.

Hammer Economy
Switch production->Wealth!

Specialist Economy
Work Merchants, Scientists and to a lesser extent, Priests.
Needs lots of food to work well, mercantilism, representation and the statue of liberty all help.

War Economy
Pillage improvements and capture/raze cites for financial gain!
Also, sue for peace and demand financial tribute!

'Improvements Economy'
Gold, silver, calendar resources etc. can all be worked for commerce.

Shrine Economy
Found religions, build shrines, capture holy cities and spread the word!!

Religious Building Economy
Knock up a quick Spiral Minaret (bish-bash-bosh) and spam religious buildings!

Great People Economy
Settle in cities for gold/research rewards.
Send Great Merchants off on a walkabout to far-away friendly capital cities for huge cash prizes!

I used pretty much all of the above to a greater or lesser extent in a recent Prince level game as Cathy.

Any other ways?

 

[kossin]

Espionage Economy notably.

 

[DaveMcW]

Don't be an economist! Support diversity of economic options within your empire!

 

[Learningciv]

Im fairly sure this post will just confuse more new players then actually do any good.

 

[Krill]

Just work everything.

 

[ston]

Im fairly sure this post will just confuse more new players then actually do any good.

Possibly...although in my own experience, the complication of the game itself is more than enough to cause confusion.

I made it for a few reasons, but the main one is that the impression I've got from reading these forums give is that there are two economic systems. That to me is what is confusing.

 

[Zeiter]

I wish I had a screenshot of my "Massive Settled Generals Under Representation in Oxford/Academy City Economy" (What I like to call the "Ms. Gurioace economy" (the "ce" is pronounced like "che") that I had going in a game a while back...

I had like 8 great generals settled in my capital, all producing 3 beakers under representation, multiplied by 255% by science multiplier buildings and civics (Free religion, academy, library, university, observatory, monasteries, oxford), getting me like 90 beakers per turn just from great generals in that city alone, lol! (And this was in the pre-scientific method phase of the game, when I was only raking in like 500 beakers per turn! So like 1/5 of my science output was coming from settled great generals )

That was an odd capital...Heroic epic + oxford (I also had some other specialists settled there). That was a crazy game in terms of warring (large/marathon/aggressive AI/raging barbs/barbarian civ/start as minor civs). I had the great wall, and I kept on getting attacked constantly in my own territory, and I kept annihilating those stacks. Then I went on a rampage towards a conquest victory, until the modern era when my computer started getting memory allocation failure crashes every 10 minutes or so, so I had to stop. I also had settled great generals from conquered cities producing beakers as well!

 

[DampRain]

Sea tile economy, war economy, improvements economy,shrine economy,religious building economy
aren't really economies in themselves, but really things that will support your main economy (although of course if your map is rather coastal, then i guess then your main economy is sea tile, but i just think of it as water logged cottages ).

Great people economy is more like a subset of Specialist economy to me.

Espionage as a previous poster mentioned.

Vassal economy (experimental and only works on higher levels).

Trade route economy seems is just one where they are heavily emphasised, although trade routes play a part of any economy.

Food economy (I had wrong definition, hopefully someone will put up a good one). I'll keep the obvious guess to myself? XD

And this was in the pre-scientific method phase of the game, when I was only raking in like 500 beakers per turn! So like 1/5 of my science output was coming from settled great generals )

I'd call that support rather than an economy , since economy is what you get most of your beakers/gold from ^^". More interesting (in economical view) is where the rest of the beakers is from? SE? Since I"m guessing you doing representation.

There currently appear to be two "main" economies which is CE + SE. FE, HE, EE just aren't as popular... yet .

 

[BaronVonCP]

Don't be an economist! Support diversity of economic options within your empire!

+1,000


I mean seriously, are you not going to shrine and spread that religion just because you are running a lot of cottages/specialists?
"Nope, i'm running a Cottage Economy!!! It's really cool!"

 

[Crusher1]

TRE are not FE. FE favor pop rushing, specialist and workshops.

 

[DampRain]

Zomg! I must edit immediately! But in an old thread I read, that TRE relies on having a very high amount of pop?

Actually for FE is there any definition for it except having lots of food? It seems to me then that FE is really alot like SE then... Elaborate please? Although I'm guessing that they just share elements?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Don't be an economist! Support diversity of economic options within your empire!

Wouldn't an economist actually support diversity of options in this context, given its efficiency?

 

[Crusher1]

@ Damp

Everyone has different ideas about what a specific economy actually is - they are nothing more than generalizations used so people can get a starting point as to where you are coming from.

On trade routes, here is Kirkstone: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=159047


FE is just what it sounds like, an economy where the most important item is the farm. More farms means quicker growth. More farms and quicker growth mean more production from the whip or more production from more mines/workshops. More farms can also mean more specialist or a combination of a few specialist while simultaneously providing the ability to whip or work other high yielding tiles.

When in doubt about what economy to use:

Build cottages.

 

[DaveMcW]

Wouldn't an economist actually support diversity of options in this context, given its efficiency?

Spoiler those who don't get the joke :

By adding an -ist suffix to "economy", I am comparing writers of "economy" posts to racists, sexists, supremacists, nationalists, etc.

"diversity" is a further hint, as it is one of the primary buzzwords used in teaching kids not to be a racist.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

. I see. That is actually pretty awesome. You'll have to forgive me for misinterpreting after getting so much graduate micro pounded into me.

 

[DampRain]

O hmmm, thanks crusher, I guess I'm too rigid in my thinking .

And that was a very good joke, too bad I didn't get it

 

[Zeiter]

I'd call that support rather than an economy , since economy is what you get most of your beakers/gold from ^^". More interesting (in economical view) is where the rest of the beakers is from? SE? Since I"m guessing you doing representation.

That's quite true. Overall, the economy was an SE, getting most of my beakers from conventional specialists under representation and mercantilism (along with a smaller supporting shrine economy to cover most of my gold needs, rather than having to run a bunch of merchants). Still, I was surprised to see how many beakers I could squeeze out of settled great generals, which were probably never originally intended to significantly contribute to a civ's research (isn't it the case that it was only with 3.17 or some other recent path that great generals became super specialists just like any other (and thus eligible for the +2 culture from the sistine chapel and the +3 beakers from representation)?

In any case, this thread goes to show why Civ4 is awesome--one is rarely running just one economy at a time. One is also often running some different supporting economy, and having to make a choice about which civics to run to address which economy...

I find that representation + free speech fits a hybrid SE/CE quite well if research is what you are going for. It is basically trading off 1 hammer for 3 beakers, assuming you have about equal numbers of cottages and specialists. It will give you the absolute highest amount of research possible in the game. But if production is your limiting factor, then universal suffrage will make more sense (the extra hammer, plus rush buying).

 

[Crusher1]

Land is paramount but I still try to incorporate Leaders traits whenever possible into my strategy. If I happen to be an Industrious leader I really like to get my "shineys', even on higher levels and really want the Mids. However if there is no stone around then I need to have some very good production in the Capital (15+) to warrant building them.

In cases where the Mids aren't the best decision I still will use their traits to fuel my economy. I.E., with Industrious leaders I'll shoot for an Oracle sling shot to CoL and take MC or CoL and bulb MC with a GM. From their the goal always becomes a strong Bureaucracy Capital (cottages are your friend!) and forges/mines/work shops/mass hammers everywhere else which lead to great flexibility and early game breaking production. It also leads to a faster Oxford and other nice "Shineys".

But yea, agreed with the previous post, the game is very complex and a huge variety of styles, economies, etc can and should be explored/used.

 

[nanomage]

the types listed in the OP aren't really "options" in the sence that they require choosing one from them. They complement each other, and you can still combine, say, working high commerce improvements, Rep-boosted merchants and razing enemy cities to gain gold.
The only fundamental options to choose between still are SE, CE and HE, as running them simultaneously would demand different improvements on the same land and running different civics at the same time.
EE, TRE and others only act to complement one of hte fundamental types.

 

[Learningciv]

the types listed in the OP aren't really "options" in the sence that they require choosing one from them. They complement each other, and you can still combine, say, working high commerce improvements, Rep-boosted merchants and razing enemy cities to gain gold.
The only fundamental options to choose between still are SE, CE and HE, as running them simultaneously would demand different improvements on the same land and running different civics at the same time.
EE, TRE and others only act to complement one of hte fundamental types.

Early game would you still consider SE and HE fundamentally different? Before health/happyness allow your cities to really grow and you don't have a full selection of civics to choose from you are only going to be working a limited number of farm tiles and the choice to run specialists verse mines is still very much open. Of course once infrastructure to multiple hammers/gold/beakers is established the choice is easier but due to the cost and lateness aquiring these you can keep yourself open for a fairly lengthy period of the game.