Cottages vs. specialists: Pre-analysis discussion

[MrCynical]

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

Deity and Immortal I consider too high to have any real shot at building the Pyramids (though I guess capturing them may be an option depending where they are). Emperor you might be able to build them, but I don't think you could rely on doing so.

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?

I've had a look at this, but I couldn't get it to work that well. Since the Free Speech bonus only applies to towns then until they actually reach town size you're a very long way behind on commerce output. Also emancipation isn't available till the invention of the Constitution, when the specialist economy is already looking strained. It might be doable, but it does make a rather bumpy ride for your economy. You'd have a nice boost through the Classical and Middle Ages, a bad downer through the Renaissance, and then pick up to comparable levels for the late industrial/modern age.

 

[cabert]

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

same feeling for me.

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?

yes! emancipation is the key for the transition!
if you get first to liberalism with your SE, you may manage a transition through emancipation. The key being (IMHO) a "per city" transition, starting with smaller cities first :
giving those low bonus cities a few cottages to work early helps a lot, your SE still on the way let's you tech fast enough, then when you have all smaller cities ready, it's great work time for your workers = science city.
You need to switch to emancipation as soon as your science city is cottaged up. If you're not spiritual, you'll need to change loads of other civics too, giving you some time to cottage up other core cities.
You'll have a few turns of low teching speed (anarchy, then +1 cottages ), but after that you've got a good hand on hamlets (you had more pop than a middle cottage economy anyway, so you can work and grow all those cottages fast.
Zombie69 did some calculation about cottages/emancipation (a thread about growing cities first then cottaging or just cottaging that i cannot find right now, sorry) that led to the key point : using emancipation, you get just as much grown cottages by growing cities first than by cottaging first.

 

[Calavente]

I'm also in favor of mixed econ..

Anyway : in most real game, no full cottage city will exist until very late game (some lucky starters may have it earlier), and no full 100% specialist eco will work 100% of the times. A full 100% specialist eco is as academic for me as the early full cottage city or the early ultra specialised cities, or the existence of sentient life on other star systems.

Futurehermit : saying "I think mixed eco works better than specialist eco" is IMO not an option for a thread like that. All gameplays will be adaptations to the situation and a mix of every technics. Almost no strat works all the time.

For me the interest of the threads is to show the power of scientist based economy. At first I thought to specialist were only for GP or when no interesting tile is present. I was wrong. I learn a lot, and when applying this startegyn I know I will never have a full scientist eco, only a mixed one, but the interest is that it changed me from running a full cottage + ressource oriented eco, with very few specialist out of my GP farm(s).

I learned that specialists can be used efficiently to boost and orient your economy, and that in some (not so few) cases, you can even play with very few (if any) cottages and still be in a very good position (save the towns you conquered).

So this thread rocks !!!

A strategy like this is not a 100% win startegy and (I think) never aimed to be one. It is only one more tools to play, enjoy and win at cIV. One more tool to take the full advantage of some more situations... One more tool to use the full potential of this great game.

It is so little... but at the same time so much...

Thx for your math and experiments Futurehermit

 

[Calavente]

1) pillaging towns
I think that pillaging towns of newly conquered cities is a wast especially to specialist econ: you have a +4c at min to a +8c +1h at max that is given as a present, pillaging all this hard work is a wast, putting one citizen on the tile will make you lose 0.5 to 1 specialist, but as the town is grown, it is almost worth it, at least in gold production +8c*1.5 (+25%+25% of market+grocer) gives you: 12gpt ==> hop you can transforme 2-3 former merchant + priests into scientist.

2) toward a mixed economy
I think that from the time of printing press: (and latter when Universal suffrage & free speech & emancipation arrives) you should begin slowly the transition from specialist to mixed econ:
-begin to keep the villages and towns of conquered cities
-begin to replace some non efficient tiles/ non worked tiles into cottages in order to start to grow them in non science cities.
-creating some crap cities just to grow the cottages tiles for the big science cities. (not sure if it is anti-gameplay or not, see with your ethic and/or with "anti-exploit hunters", furthermore you can't always afford the rise in city number maintenance.)
-stop working cottages tiles until you have free speech civic.

then it should be nice. (or not)

3) Cabret : study on a full cottage city : farming or cottage-work first?:
I also did some computation following the thread on cottage vs farms, :
my preliminary results are here in the 1st "Detailed analysis: # of specialist cities needed per era" thread

the conclusion of my little study was that effectively until reaching a certain (unknown, experiment with 2-7-12-max extra food) extra food per turn, it was more interesting to farm and put work on cottages only for extra workers until reaching pop limit.

so even if you have not free speech, you loose less by growing first and cottaging second. with free speech, it might even be as interesting to start as a specialist city running a maximum of cities to max pop, then when free speech convert most of them on cottage workers (on unworked tiles + some on former farm tiles), you are loosing 5 turns per cottage 10 per hamlet: then you have fast growing villages +4c, then 20 turns only until +7 towns

For every town thus obtained you saved 5+10+20=35 turn of cottage-work on the cottage-guy. Furthermore when full grown towns are worst than specialists (equilibrium at printing press) you were working the more efficient specialists. (on the other hand, during 35 turns all your cottages are poorly efficient at a time when you have most improvements so you are loosing much more than the raw commerce... maybe it balances s/o has to try it. )

4)to another guy: As a specialist economy works with focusing on ... specialists, scientifics even more, even without philo you can easily have obtained the 5 Great scientists requested by the strategy by the renaissance age.

 

[futurehermit]

@ mr cynical: you keep saying that specialist econ sux in the renaissance, but that's simply not true. the cottage econ is certainly on par with the specialist econ, but the spec econ can hold its ground in the renaissance, largely because of the super science city with oxford and settled great scientists + mercantilism and SoL.

so, i think that one could definitely speed toward the renaissance via specialist econ, then at democracy, transition to cottage econ w/emancipation. keep representation until a lot of towns have grown.

i would only do this, however, if going for a science victory. if going domination/conquest, i would use a GA from music on nationalism and use liberalism for military tradition. then, after researching astronomy, shut down research, increase production, and use cavalry to finish out the game.

thus, for domination/conquest i would say that spec econ (mixed with cottages on some grassland tiles) is superior, as long as you can pull of the pyramids (if you see stone, go for it!). it's also a good mix because pyramids also gives you access to police state, which you can use to start your military production post-pyramids and also whenever you have a tech lead over your immediate rivals (switching back when they start to catch up).

for science victory (e.g., peter, or if on small continent), i would consider transitioning to cottages post-democracy.

 

[DaveMcW]

Ok, here's another comparison game proposal:

Civ: Arabs
Goal: Discover Liberalism and Democracy as quickly as possible
Everyone plays the same start

Specialist Variant
No cottages can be built.

Cottage Variant
You may run specialists to get your first 100.
No specialists allowed after the first great person.

 

[Elledge]

I don't see why the restrictions have to be so strong. Nobody actually plays that way; why not get a picture of the sort of mixed economy that can actually do the best job?

 

[DaveMcW]

Well the title of the thread is cottages vs. specialists. If you don't have strong restrictions there's nothing to analyze.

I think that avoiding cottages at any point in the game is foolish, which is why I keep making challenges.

 

[MrCynical]

@ mr cynical: you keep saying that specialist econ sux in the renaissance,

No, I'm saying that it's the crossover point where it becomes worse than the cottage economy. It may have enough of a boost from earlier on to carry it through the Renaissance, but it's all downhill from there.

so, i think that one could definitely speed toward the renaissance via specialist econ, then at democracy, transition to cottage econ w/emancipation. keep representation until a lot of towns have grown.

I've tried in a couple of times, but I haven't got it to quite work. By the time I get to Democracy I tend to be losing what tech lead I've gained in the earlier phases. Then there's the horrible transition phase where you're waiting for the cottages to grow. Even with Emancipation I find the downturn is too long, and going into the industrial age is really not a good time to be behind on tech. On the plus side it wouldn't matter if you didn't get the Pyramids, so it might not suffer the same difficultly level problems that the pure specialist economy does, that is if it could be got to work.

 

[futurehermit]

well, if you didn't get the pyramids, you wouldn't be running a spec econ. in my experience with the spec econ, i am not behind on tech at all at democracy, and the math i've ran in other threads verifies that you shouldn't be behind. in renaissance you can tech better than 1/5 turns. the transition should be eased by continuing to run representation with emancipation--thus a mixed econ until the cottages are up to towns...

 

[UncleJJ]

Well the title of the thread is cottages vs. specialists. If you don't have strong restrictions there's nothing to analyze.

I think that avoiding cottages at any point in the game is foolish, which is why I keep making challenges.

But what you suggest is advantageous to the CE and severly restricts the SE and anyone who has built one would know this. If you are so sure the CE would win you should put more severe restrictions on it than the SE

The equivalent restriction to no-cottages-for-the-SE would be no use of farms on floodplains, grassland or plains for the CE thereby hampering it's ability to grow and be productive.

Also your challenge merely matches the SE against the CE where the CE is strongest, that is in straight research. It is sort of a mini space race. A SE would do better in a domination type challenge where it can use its inherent ability to produce units and buildings faster than a pure CE.

As it stands the challenge is very unfair.

 

[futurehermit]

i was thinking of a challenge:

ce: ragnar (agg, fin), can only use specialists in gpfarm.

se: alex (agg, phil), can only use cottages in capital.

2 goals: first to reach liberalism; and largest empire once liberalism is achieved.

thus teching and conquering simultaneously is important.

a lot of the ce supporters seem to feel that cottages are superior. however, i suspect that a se can support a domination victory while still teching at a rate better than the ce until renaissance.

this challenge would put that theory to the test. ragnar and alex are pretty equal, aside from phil and fin benefitting the respective econs...phalanxs are improved now that spears need to accompany axes early on, and berserkers are a very respectable medieval unit, although they come later.

 

[DaveMcW]

Liberalism and largest empire are rather arbitrary goals. How about Astronomy and ownership of your starting continent?

Would you allow Vanilla players to use Huanya Capac instead of Ragnar?

Other than that I think it's a fair challenge.

 

[UncleJJ]

well, if you didn't get the pyramids, you wouldn't be running a spec econ. in my experience with the spec econ, i am not behind on tech at all at democracy, and the math i've ran in other threads verifies that you shouldn't be behind. in renaissance you can tech better than 1/5 turns. the transition should be eased by continuing to run representation with emancipation--thus a mixed econ until the cottages are up to towns...

Here you and I part company. What you are saying is that a SE has to have the Pyramids and that is absolutely not true. It is perfectly possible to do well with specialists in the early game without building the Pyramids although you'd obviously need something else to leverage the SE such as Philosophical otherwise why go that way? A great deal of the early power of the SE comes from the GPPs and not the extra beakers Representation gives.

Obviously if I can capture the Pyramids I'll change to Representation and that will boost research but I sure don't have to build them. Building the Pyramids is a gambit.