Cottages vs. specialists: Pre-analysis discussion

[futurehermit]

mid game, the SE will have a harder time (no benefit from printing press, ...)

mid-game the SE has SoL and mercantilism, as well as caste system and irrigation.

 

[DaveMcW]

Since you're looking for testing parameters, here you go:

Map: Pangea
Victory: Solo Diplomatic (vote yourself in with 60% of the world's population)
Everyone plays the same start.

Specialist Variant:
One cottage city allowed - Wall Street and/or Oxford University
No building cottages anywhere else
All captured cottages must be pillaged

Cottage Variant:
One specialist city allowed - National Epic
No hiring specialists anywhere else
Statue of Liberty and Mercantilism are not allowed

Does everyone agree that is a fair test?

 

[UncleJJ]

I don't see what this proves or how it sheds much light rather than make more heat

However, it is unfair to exclude a major tile improvement from one side and not the other... so cottages should not make farms outside the GP farm and are forced to pillage any farms they capture. That should slow them down a bit

Oh, and no Great Library for the cottagers either

 

[Betafor]

Dave - need to fix some more variables - Civiliation? leader? traits? kinda hard for everyone to play a posted savegame if the cottages start w/ financial and so do specialist - though it may be good to have Elizabeth (Phi/Fin) if we need to have the same leader, both varients get bonus trait

 

[DaveMcW]

Banning GL in the cottage variant sounds fine.


For those who like specialists AND cottages, I give you the...

Zero Science Variant
Unlimited cottages and specialists are allowed
Science must be set to 0% after discovering Code of Laws


I guess to make it really fair, we should avoid financial, industrious, and philosophical. Does Caesar sound like a fun leader?

And since this is a test of commerce, not trading, should tech trading be disabled?

 

[Petrucci]

If wanting to do an experiment comparing Specialist Economy against a cottage economy I would think eliminating all variables including opponents would be the thing to do. Just go into world builder and save that file, run a 10 city empire through 2050 taking notes where you stand every 50 or 100 turns or so. Set up 9 cities around your capital from the start.

Then again cottages aren't around from the very beginning, so whoever was doing this experiement would need to find some approval from all parties to how many cottages on average a person may have running at any point in time. Maybe start laying them down after 30 turns or so and say 70-80% of grassland and floodplains will be cottaged. It would take an honest person however to do this! Report would need to be posted! Also should mention that an average date that representation would come into effect would need to be implemented.

This isn't nearly as fun as an actual game, but I would think it would be the best way to do it with a non biased person running the test.

~edit: Also so mention that variables will never be taken out of the game so things may be slightly inaccurate and unfair, but any glaring or even strong advantages of using a specialist econ would be evident using this method!

 

[iamdanthemansta]

Do you think that running a game will get a more accurate result then some of the other methods described here?

 

[malekithe]

Why would the cottage economy not build the Great Library? In many ways it is more valuable to it than for the specialist economy since its GPPs can generate a couple of GS that are particularly valuable in a low food economy. The Pyramids based specialist economy has already used up several of its valuable cheap GP slots (one or two depending on which variation). The ability to make a GP with only 100 GPP and then the next at 200 GPP is just as much a valuable resource that the Pyramids gambit squanders as the forests that it mows down

Oh, it can, but, from the perspective of per turn income, it's only half as effective. For most of this analysis, we're discounting Great People. That's not completely accurate, but, the truth is, a cottage economy can achieve almost the exact same number of great people over the course of a game by running a single great person farm.

I'm unsure if, in a cottage economy, it's worth building the Great Library as early as you would in a specialist one. If you're looking to get a great scientist or two, it's probably more cost-effective to just run a couple of scientists in one of your high food cities. Really, the cottage econ won't benefit greatly from the Great Library until after a great person farm has been established to contain it. The two econs are building the great library for two expressly different purposes. The specialist econ wants a source of more beakers and the GL is cheaper than getting a new city set up with a library and enough population to run some scientists. The cottage econ wants a source of GPP. I'd argue there are better ways of attaining this goal in the short term.

 

[Araqiel]

The cottage econ wants a source of GPP. I'd argue there are better ways of attaining this goal in the short term.

You neglect to mention the fact that the GL allows you to have four scientists in a single city, without abandoning slavery. That gives it quite a lot of utility depending on your leader. You need quite a lot of academies to get the most out of all of your towns.

 

[Eqqman]

I guess to make it really fair, we should avoid financial, industrious, and philosophical. Does Caesar sound like a fun leader?

I could be mistaken but I think Philosophical is expected to be required for the specialist economy since you're relying a lot on the science from settled GSs, plus an Academy or two.

 

[malekithe]

You neglect to mention the fact that the GL allows you to have four scientists in a single city, without abandoning slavery. That gives it quite a lot of utility depending on your leader.

True, but then you're getting into great person farm territory. I specifically said that, once you've got your great person farm, you would benefit by putting the great library there. If you have marble or are industrious, it may be worth it to build in just any old city. But, if you're not, it may be better to wait till you know where your great person farm is.

 

[Murky]

Couldn't you just play a hotseat game vs. yourself? Play one civ as a cottage based economy and the other as a specialist based and see who wins. Just use a balanced duel map to simplify things.

 

[Elledge]

Here's what I suggest: One-player game, maybe Duel or Tiny Pangaea map (enough for you to get 20 cities or so I'm thinking), (almost) no restrictions on civ traits or leaders (why wouldn't you pick whatever complemented your strategy the best?) and no weird restrictions except in the "cottage" game you're not allowed to get Pyramids, and in the "specialist" game you're not allowed to use a Financial leader. I think those simple restrictions make it clear which "sort" of economy would do better on either given game. Earliest game date to research every tech on the tree wins.

I'll be happy to play the cottage side.

 

[Araqiel]

True, but then you're getting into great person farm territory. I specifically said that, once you've got your great person farm, you would benefit by putting the great library there. If you have marble or are industrious, it may be worth it to build in just any old city. But, if you're not, it may be better to wait till you know where your great person farm is.

By the time you have literature discovered why in the world wouldn't you have already selected the site for your GPF?

 

[uberfish]

A city with great library + national epic IS a GP farm in itself - and you don't need caste system to run it.

 

[yavoon]

By the time you have literature discovered why in the world wouldn't you have already selected the site for your GPF?

I often dont. u can make atleast 2 GP's just by running library+2 scientists somewhere in ur empire(or at 2 separate places if u want). so u dont need a more concerted effort until u want the 300 guy IMO. and if ur philo u can wait till the 400 guy.

 

[futurehermit]

I just wanted to let people know that I've toned down my feelings toward the spec econ. I still think it's powerful, and I think pyramids and early representation is great, but based on what people have been saying, I've changed my mind on the following things:

1) Unless industrious, don't go for pyramids unless there is stone.

2) Don't stagnate at low pop to run 2 scientists. Only run scientists off 4+ food sources. If this means less than 2 scientists in a city, that is ok.

3) Don't avoid cottages. Cottage grasslands and work them while growing your city.

4) Transition to a full-fledged cottage econ in renaissance--too many cottage-benefitting things here to ignore. Still consider using mercantilism and statue of liberty to run 2 scientists per city with representation (or, possibly, other specialists).

The result is more of a mixed econ, true, but the scientists with representation will still be better than cottages early in the game, so getting as many of them as you can early on is important, if possible. However, I've come to believe that it's also necessary to grow your cities to the happiness limit--where you can work scientists to stagnate if you want or else use slavery.

I've got a game going right now with Napoleon (I love char + org, and his starting techs rock). I wasn't planning on going spec econ, but I had stone in my second city, so I built the pyramids. I'm only running specialists off of 4+ food tiles and am using cottages as well. It's going well so far. I'm making save games and taking screen shots. I'm thinking of posting the game in a thread to add to our discussion of cottages and specialists.

I don't think I'll run a cottage vs. specialist comparison myself (I put a lot of work into the other threads and feel a bit worn out tbh). But I hope you guys follow through doing a comparison, I'd be interested to see it.

One note: Don't compare two different players running the two different econs, cuz they might be different quality players. Also, you'll have to be honest with yourself if you're comparing them both yourself, since you might be better suited to running one of the econs and not the other.

 

[UncleJJ]

Oh, it can, but, from the perspective of per turn income, it's only half as effective. For most of this analysis, we're discounting Great People. That's not completely accurate, but, the truth is, a cottage economy can achieve almost the exact same number of great people over the course of a game by running a single great person farm.

I'm unsure if, in a cottage economy, it's worth building the Great Library as early as you would in a specialist one. If you're looking to get a great scientist or two, it's probably more cost-effective to just run a couple of scientists in one of your high food cities. Really, the cottage econ won't benefit greatly from the Great Library until after a great person farm has been established to contain it. The two econs are building the great library for two expressly different purposes. The specialist econ wants a source of more beakers and the GL is cheaper than getting a new city set up with a library and enough population to run some scientists. The cottage econ wants a source of GPP. I'd argue there are better ways of attaining this goal in the short term.

Discounting the high value of great people is one of the major reason this analysis is going astray For the cottage economy, an early academy in the embryonic Science city can go a long way to offsetting any advantage from Representation. If that Science city is the capital the concentration of commerce from maturing cottages and palace working through higher building multipliers (library and academy plus monasties) will get an appreciable boost from Bureaucracy. Compare that with Representation and specialists that are distributed over many cities which have lower multipliers. Obviously a lot of cities with library + 2 scientist + Representation (= 15 beakers) are required to match the cottage's Science city

I'd say the cottage economy wants the Great Library just as fast as the SE if not sooner. The cottage economy gets high leverage from having academies in its best high commerce cities (i.e. in addition to the Science city) so all methods of generating GPP are valuable and particularly those that don't cost food. If you can get those GS for academies early and without running the caste system so much the better.

The cottage economy has two good candidate sites for the Great Library. It will do well in the capital as it gets the benefit of better science multipliers there which will eventually include Oxford University. It would also do well in the GP farm which will run the NE to boost GPP production. Two different uses, one for higher beakers and lower GPP and the other vice versa. It would depend on Leaders traits, but with philosophical I'd put the GL in the capital. Also the capital, if running Bureaucracy at that stage, could probably build the GL a lot earlier thereby increasing the benefit and decreasing the chance of being beaten to it.

 

[MrCynical]

Cottages vs. specialists has already been debated on numerous occasions, and the same conclusion is always reached. The specialist economy is a decent alternative until around the invention of Liberalism, as long as you manage to build the Pyramids. After that the specialist economy falls behind very rapidly, and is very inferior.

Specialist Economy Pros:

1)Gets up and running more rapidly than cottages. Certainly for the first age or two you may get some research boost compared to a cottage economy.

2)More great people, though not as many as you might think. Up until Liberalism you might get about 4 extra great people over a cottage economy.

3)Less vulnerable to pillaging.

4)Easier use of slavery? I'm unsure about this one and would need to do some number crunching. In any case slavery is less attractive now Warlords has fixed some of the exploits.

5)Easier to run a higher culture rate.

6)Slightly more trade from trades routes due to larger cities? This advantage however tends to be destroyed be the use of high culture rates and Mercantilism in the specialist economy.


Specialist economy cons:

1)You MUST have the Pyramids. You're falling behind from virtually the start of the game otherwise. As a result this strategy is unlikely to be viable at all at high difficulty level since you simply cannot rely on getting the Pyramids.

2)After Liberalism (by which stage cottages should be reaching fully mature towns) specialists simply don't generate as much research. Even with biology you're only getting 6 beakers per grassland instead of 7 or 8 for a cottage economy. Also Biology appears after the cottages have reached maturity, and up till then it's nearer two cottages to one specialist.

3)The speciaist approach requires higher populations than the cottage economy. This creates some happiness isses, though these can be compensated by it being easier to run the higher culture rate. You will however be running a substantially higher maintenance cost due to the larger cities.

4)The finanicial trait is almost completely wasted in a specialist economy and hence civs with this trait should not use it.

5)Stuck with Representation even when Universal Sufferage is available, so buying units is problematic.

6)Similarly no hammers from farms whereas towns would give one.

As always it comes down to the same conclusion. The specialist economy is good for games where you aim to have either won, or are close to winning, a military victory by around the Renaissance (Liberalism). If there is a cottage economy of even close to your size by then though you will rapidly fall behind in the tech race. Specialists are also not viable at high difficulty level due to the unreliability of getting the Pyramids.

 

[futurehermit]

What level do you consider to be "high" difficulty level? Besides that, I'd say you summed it up nicely.

Do you feel that someone who has gone specialists pre-liberalism, can use emancipation to transition to a cottage econ fast enough to match civs that started with a cottage econ later in the game?