economies
- Thread starter jake2007
- Start date
I'm not going to explain them really here (it'd take a lot of work to explain them), but at least cover some basics about some types.
Pre-BTS usual division was CE vs SE - Cottage Economy vs Specialist Economy. Later on those definitions have been further refined divided - I think Snaaty's use of Food Economy was one of the points where the definitions were reconsidered.
BTS introduced Espionage, and with it came Spy Economy or Espionage Economy that relies on stealing technologies.
I'll include BTS in consideration from now on.
Essentially any Economy explanation considers how does one get technologies. Production is sometimes considered (eg. it's noted that Food Economy can use whipping more easily than Cottage Economy for production of hammers), but more often than not it's assumed that you get production roughly the same way in all cases: specific production cities further dividing into military and wonder producers as deemed necessary.
Similarly Culture is not considered. Cultural victory examples most often imply heavy commerce (
) cities and slider to culture, with cultural and artist wonders, religions for cathedrals, and so on. This all goes outside the consideration of economy.
So, Economy generates Technologies. Gold is required to cover the bills (maintenance expenses from civics, cities, and military), with excess sometimes generated for upgrading or rushbuying when running Universal Suffrage. Gold does not give technologies, so it too falls outside the scope. Funny, isn't it?
For as long as we agree on focus of Technology generation, we can further divide Economy types fairly easily. What are the direct sources of technologies?
1) Gained from other civs via diplomacy screens (traded, extorted, begged for, gifted)
2) Gained from other civs via espionage screens (stolen)
3) self-research with beakers
4) lightbulbed with Great People
5) gained from one-shot races like Oracle and Liberalism
6) popped from tribal huts
Huts and one-shots aren't viable for sustained economies, so we'll leave them out here. All other are possible to repeat.
Trading requires something to trade with. Most technology trading is done with technologies, so most trade economies generate technologies for trading purposes using other means. Trade technology that does not generate technologies by other means has to generate lots of gold and still has WFYABTA troubles - this has been successfully demonstrated by Kylaeran in an extreme variant. Still, as an extreme variant it does not fall within the scope of basic economies.
What we can conclude at this point is that any economy type must have sustainable source of technologies but may further enhance the economy by means of trading and by one shot deals like racing for Oracle or Liberalism, or by good luck with huts. Therefore, the basic division of Economy types here could be: self-research with beakers, lightbulbed with Great People, and stolen from other civs. GP bulbing generally generates very valuable technologies and benefits greatly from trading. Self-reserch has to dedicate to beelines to get monopoly technologies that generate high value from trades. Stealing obviously will never generate monopoly tech, and trade values thus tend to be fairly low.
Self-research means beakers. Beakers can further be gained by very few methods: from commerce via slider, and from specialists. Generally specialists need representation to back them in beaker generation - running specialists without representation is generally done to generate great people for lightbulbing and trading with minor self-research only.
Commerce for slider can again be generated from working commerce heavy tiles, and from trade. Tiles will outproduce trade if wanted, but that comes at the cost of population working those tiles.
So, there are some major economies with supporting economies. Major ones are:
1) Cottage Economy
Heavy cottaging leads to high commerce, but population is tied to working those cottages. Generally city growth is slower than in other economies, and whipping is not as beneficial. Cottage economies start slow but in late game they're often the best - Printing Press and Free Speech are major boons, with Universal Suffrage providing additional production, Emancipation boosting growth of newer cottages.
Great people are generated by specialized GP Farm city that has lots of foods and only runs specialists - lots of them.
Production is by specialized production cities, eg. Heroic Epic city for military, possible Military Academy city for secondary military, and Iron Works city for heavy late wonder production for example.
Gold is generated often by running slider at below 100% - it's often assumed that slider at 60% or higher represents reasonable minimum for stable CE. Gold can be generated by having dedicated Merchant city (essentially GP Farm that runs merchant specialists), running a merchant or two in many of the minor cities, or by the luck of having Shrine of major religion.
2) Representation Specialist Economy
The first thing to do: build the Pyramids. That gives access to representation civic early. This way scientist specialists generate six beakers each. Also, by running specialists in many cities great people will be born more often. GP's provide secondary economy, but may as well be used only for bulbing key technologies (most common is Philosophy, Paper, Education in Liberalism race), rest used for Academies, settled, or other abilities.
As said, Great People are generated naturally as byproduct of research. Additional GP's can be generated by specialized GP Farm, but this is not necessary.
Production as with CE, except any city that has hammer-tiles can become temporarily a production city by whipping and moving specialists to working mines.
Gold is usually generated by keeping the science slider low - even at 0% - with commerce thus becoming gold. Commerce comes in small amounts from many sources, but main source is usually one or two cottaged cities - often capitol is one for Bureaucracy civic boost. Trade economy support can also be used to generate significant commerce for gold. Shrines and Merchant specialists are possible as with CE.
3) Great People Lightbulb Economy
GPLE is a subset of Specialist Economies in that specialists are in key role. Here Pyramids (and thus representation civic) are not assumed, and thus actual beaker production of scientist specialists is not enough to make up a full economy. Beakers are rather commited to cheaper old "backfill" techs as well as prerequisites that allow Great People to lightbulb specific important technologies. These lightbulbed techs are further traded for many others, as they are assumed to be highly valued monopoly techs. Techs gained from trade can further be traded for even more (assuming no No Tech Brokering option), leading often to GP providing 3-5 times the beakers of the technology bulbed directly.
Otherwise as Representation-SE.
4) Espionage Economy
Main point is generation of Espionage Points against other civs to allow for stealing of technologies. This can be achieved by running slider high on Espionage, but in itself that is fairly inefficient. To make EP generation more efficient, you want to generate Great Spies to build Scotland Yard (+100% espionage) in high commerce city, settle in Scotland Yard city, and possibly to infiltrate target civs for instant beaker gain (similar to lighbulbing).
Further you need Alphabet tech to train spies who will then go do the dirty work.
Overall there are many similarities to CE, with focus on EP's instead of beakers.
There are many things one could write about regarding these economies, including introducing other economies to complement them. But I'm not doing that today (if ever), so I hope you can find more information from other sources.
Pre-BTS usual division was CE vs SE - Cottage Economy vs Specialist Economy. Later on those definitions have been further refined divided - I think Snaaty's use of Food Economy was one of the points where the definitions were reconsidered.
BTS introduced Espionage, and with it came Spy Economy or Espionage Economy that relies on stealing technologies.
I'll include BTS in consideration from now on.
Essentially any Economy explanation considers how does one get technologies. Production is sometimes considered (eg. it's noted that Food Economy can use whipping more easily than Cottage Economy for production of hammers), but more often than not it's assumed that you get production roughly the same way in all cases: specific production cities further dividing into military and wonder producers as deemed necessary.
Similarly Culture is not considered. Cultural victory examples most often imply heavy commerce (
) cities and slider to culture, with cultural and artist wonders, religions for cathedrals, and so on. This all goes outside the consideration of economy.So, Economy generates Technologies. Gold is required to cover the bills (maintenance expenses from civics, cities, and military), with excess sometimes generated for upgrading or rushbuying when running Universal Suffrage. Gold does not give technologies, so it too falls outside the scope. Funny, isn't it?
For as long as we agree on focus of Technology generation, we can further divide Economy types fairly easily. What are the direct sources of technologies?
1) Gained from other civs via diplomacy screens (traded, extorted, begged for, gifted)
2) Gained from other civs via espionage screens (stolen)
3) self-research with beakers
4) lightbulbed with Great People
5) gained from one-shot races like Oracle and Liberalism
6) popped from tribal huts
Huts and one-shots aren't viable for sustained economies, so we'll leave them out here. All other are possible to repeat.
Trading requires something to trade with. Most technology trading is done with technologies, so most trade economies generate technologies for trading purposes using other means. Trade technology that does not generate technologies by other means has to generate lots of gold and still has WFYABTA troubles - this has been successfully demonstrated by Kylaeran in an extreme variant. Still, as an extreme variant it does not fall within the scope of basic economies.
What we can conclude at this point is that any economy type must have sustainable source of technologies but may further enhance the economy by means of trading and by one shot deals like racing for Oracle or Liberalism, or by good luck with huts. Therefore, the basic division of Economy types here could be: self-research with beakers, lightbulbed with Great People, and stolen from other civs. GP bulbing generally generates very valuable technologies and benefits greatly from trading. Self-reserch has to dedicate to beelines to get monopoly technologies that generate high value from trades. Stealing obviously will never generate monopoly tech, and trade values thus tend to be fairly low.
Self-research means beakers. Beakers can further be gained by very few methods: from commerce via slider, and from specialists. Generally specialists need representation to back them in beaker generation - running specialists without representation is generally done to generate great people for lightbulbing and trading with minor self-research only.
Commerce for slider can again be generated from working commerce heavy tiles, and from trade. Tiles will outproduce trade if wanted, but that comes at the cost of population working those tiles.
So, there are some major economies with supporting economies. Major ones are:
1) Cottage Economy
Heavy cottaging leads to high commerce, but population is tied to working those cottages. Generally city growth is slower than in other economies, and whipping is not as beneficial. Cottage economies start slow but in late game they're often the best - Printing Press and Free Speech are major boons, with Universal Suffrage providing additional production, Emancipation boosting growth of newer cottages.
Great people are generated by specialized GP Farm city that has lots of foods and only runs specialists - lots of them.
Production is by specialized production cities, eg. Heroic Epic city for military, possible Military Academy city for secondary military, and Iron Works city for heavy late wonder production for example.
Gold is generated often by running slider at below 100% - it's often assumed that slider at 60% or higher represents reasonable minimum for stable CE. Gold can be generated by having dedicated Merchant city (essentially GP Farm that runs merchant specialists), running a merchant or two in many of the minor cities, or by the luck of having Shrine of major religion.
2) Representation Specialist Economy
The first thing to do: build the Pyramids. That gives access to representation civic early. This way scientist specialists generate six beakers each. Also, by running specialists in many cities great people will be born more often. GP's provide secondary economy, but may as well be used only for bulbing key technologies (most common is Philosophy, Paper, Education in Liberalism race), rest used for Academies, settled, or other abilities.
As said, Great People are generated naturally as byproduct of research. Additional GP's can be generated by specialized GP Farm, but this is not necessary.
Production as with CE, except any city that has hammer-tiles can become temporarily a production city by whipping and moving specialists to working mines.
Gold is usually generated by keeping the science slider low - even at 0% - with commerce thus becoming gold. Commerce comes in small amounts from many sources, but main source is usually one or two cottaged cities - often capitol is one for Bureaucracy civic boost. Trade economy support can also be used to generate significant commerce for gold. Shrines and Merchant specialists are possible as with CE.
3) Great People Lightbulb Economy
GPLE is a subset of Specialist Economies in that specialists are in key role. Here Pyramids (and thus representation civic) are not assumed, and thus actual beaker production of scientist specialists is not enough to make up a full economy. Beakers are rather commited to cheaper old "backfill" techs as well as prerequisites that allow Great People to lightbulb specific important technologies. These lightbulbed techs are further traded for many others, as they are assumed to be highly valued monopoly techs. Techs gained from trade can further be traded for even more (assuming no No Tech Brokering option), leading often to GP providing 3-5 times the beakers of the technology bulbed directly.
Otherwise as Representation-SE.
4) Espionage Economy
Main point is generation of Espionage Points against other civs to allow for stealing of technologies. This can be achieved by running slider high on Espionage, but in itself that is fairly inefficient. To make EP generation more efficient, you want to generate Great Spies to build Scotland Yard (+100% espionage) in high commerce city, settle in Scotland Yard city, and possibly to infiltrate target civs for instant beaker gain (similar to lighbulbing).
Further you need Alphabet tech to train spies who will then go do the dirty work.
Overall there are many similarities to CE, with focus on EP's instead of beakers.
There are many things one could write about regarding these economies, including introducing other economies to complement them. But I'm not doing that today (if ever), so I hope you can find more information from other sources.
Ah, forgot to note that running a "pure" economy is an exception - most people run hybrid economies. That means that they combine aspects from more than one economic model and when they state the economic model they use, they state the main model.
Eg. I most often run cottage economy. Still, I run quite a lot of specialists, and my economy is actually a hybrid with CE being the most important component.
Eg. I most often run cottage economy. Still, I run quite a lot of specialists, and my economy is actually a hybrid with CE being the most important component.
popejubal
Emperor
...in cities that are appropriate for each.
What exactly does that mean, though? That's really still up for debate.
Here's a few thoughts on the Cottage Economy. Most of what I say is also appropriate for a Specialist Economy as well, but there are significant changes between the two (most notably the sacrifice of cottages for specialists)
I find that there are two main components to what I look for in a city:
1) how fast will it grow?
2) what will it produce?
If a city will not grow at all, then you'll only ever work the city tile and whichever tile/specialist you get for your 1 population. That's a pretty cruddy city. You want your city to grow so that you can actually get something worthwhile from it.
- You get 2 free food from your city square, so working a 1 food tile will mean 1 surplus food per turn for the city.
- Working a 2 food tile will mean 2 surplus food. That's a 100% increase! Never work a 1 food tile when you can work a 2 food tile early in a city's growth unless you absolutely can't avoid it.
- Working a 3 food tile is a 50% increase over a 2 food tile. Flood Plains 4 teh win!
Long story short, you'll grow at 2 food per turn if you cottage up a ton of Grasslands. You'll grow at 3 food per turn and then 4 food per turn, then 5, etc. if you put cottages on Flood Plains. That's tremendously faster than a Grasslands cottage city. If your city has Flood Plains, put cottages on the Flood Plains unless you have a truly compelling reason not to.
If you're going to cottage up a grassland city that has no food resources, putting 1 farm in to replace 1 cottage will make your city grow 50% faster. That may well be worth the "loss" of a cottage. Cottage cities grow very slowly unless they have a good food resource, even with a single farm.
Production cities want to work as many Mines/Watermills/Whatever as possible to generate as many hammers as possible. That means you don't want to "use up" food tiles with cottages. Put only Mines and Windmills/Watermills/Workshops in the city for production and Farms in the city to feed enough population to support those Mines, etc.
Obviously, it's almost always worthwhile to hook up special tiles with the corresponding improvement. This is especially true of food specials since that will take care of the city growth for you and you can concentrate the rest of that city's tile improvements on either commerce (i.e. cottages) or production. If you have a generous number of food specials in a city, you might want to consider making that city a Great Person Farm. Here you just make as much food as possible, build buildings that let you run specialists (temples, library, marketplace, etc) and try your darndest to keep the
cap and 
cap as high as possible since there will be a lot more people in this city than in most of your other cities. Even if the city isn't producing a ton of science or cash on its own in the beginning of the game, don't worry. This is its own type of city and the Great People it produces will more than make up for any percieved lack it otherwise has.Bullet points:
- cottage cities grow very slowly unless you have a food resource, flood plains or a farm or two.
- don't forget to make a couple of production cities (at least). Being 15 techs ahead of your neighbors isn't going to do you any good if it takes you 50 turns to crank out a unit to defend your cities.
- special resources are always worth more than cottages. They are often worth more than Towns. Don't forget to trade (especially your for their ) resources with your neighbors
- Don't neglect Great People entirely. Cottage Economies can be very powerful. Specialist Economies are also powerful. Cottage Economy + Great People = win.
absimiliard
Warlord
Very nice job pulling it all together at an overview level. In particular I liked the top-level tripartite division of economies. You are sort of re-defining the word economy, but it's a useful definition and leads to interesting analytical positions.
-abs
-abs
In cIV context the term "economy" has to be defined before it can be used. Basically in cIV there are two products: technologies and hammers. Converting gold to either is always last resort method due to inefficient conversion rate (rush building under US civic is done only where absolultely necessary), so having gold over expenses is useful only in limited quantities.
As covering expenses is generally small part of the overall production, I prefer dropping gold from the explanation if I don't have time or energy to write full essay where I can cover minor aspects (eg. that gold and expenses) too.
I believe it's easier to understand the underlying economic models when we are clear on what we want to produce: technologies. No, we aren't producing "commerce" as end result (it's just an intermediate step). No, beakers aren't enough. Great people aren't end result (they're just means to an end, be that lighbulbed tech or faster teching by increased beaker production due to Academy, or whatever). And so on.
As covering expenses is generally small part of the overall production, I prefer dropping gold from the explanation if I don't have time or energy to write full essay where I can cover minor aspects (eg. that gold and expenses) too.
I believe it's easier to understand the underlying economic models when we are clear on what we want to produce: technologies. No, we aren't producing "commerce" as end result (it's just an intermediate step). No, beakers aren't enough. Great people aren't end result (they're just means to an end, be that lighbulbed tech or faster teching by increased beaker production due to Academy, or whatever). And so on.
absimiliard
Warlord
Oh, I definitelly agree with you re-defining "economy". It very usefully makes the point that thinking about commerce is not actually the right answer. Instead you need to think about technology and that opens up avenues to new ways of looking the game.
As an example, I have always thought of this from a commerce or specialist viewpoint. Cottages vs. farms if you want to make it simple. However by dropping that paradigm I'm considering a more hybrid empire with more types of city than before. That helps me be better at specializing my cities.
So I like the way you're thinking. It makes me think more.
-abs
As an example, I have always thought of this from a commerce or specialist viewpoint. Cottages vs. farms if you want to make it simple. However by dropping that paradigm I'm considering a more hybrid empire with more types of city than before. That helps me be better at specializing my cities.
So I like the way you're thinking. It makes me think more.
-abs
ParadigmShifter
Random Nonsense Generator
Could you elaborate on this a bit please? I always work high hammer tiles when building a work boat or a granary (since they help growth later), would you say that is a bad plan or not?
EDIT: Actually, I'm thinking growth and whipping a granary or workboat might be better now... assuming this is after slavery revolt. I still think getting a workboat out as fast as possible is better for a coastal capital pre-slavery.
working a 3+ hammer tile while building a WB is certainly better than working a 2F0H or 2F1H tile.
You get the WB before you would have grown to size 2.
For a granary, it's different. The point of the granary is to grow fast, but it costs too much (except expansive) to be worth stopping growth to get it faster.
madscientist
RPC Supergenius
ANother type of economy not mentioned much at all but I have used (It would need to be replaced by a CE later though) is a seafaring economy.
1) All costal cities
2) Sailing early for the Great Lighthouse
3) Get Oracle and slingshot to metal casting for a very early colossus.
4) Remain diplomatic to maximize foreign trade routes.
5) Compass early (worth using a GS for bulbing) for harbor.
6) Beeline economics before liberalism for the customes house.
7) Emphasize Great Merchant (GL and Colossus) produciton for trade missions and cash.
8) Works best with financial leaders to maximize working the sea tiles This is especially true for Hannibal (UB).
9) Build Maori statues in a costal high production city with HE, have a second high production city for westpoint and ironworks and drydock for massive late game navies.
10) Limitations: Need to build few landlocked cities. Difficult to maintain during war. Maintenance could be a big issue if you have alot of non-continental cities and will need to produce colonies. Typically you civlization will be smaller than usual and victory is generally by space or UN.
This is situational but it is successful.
1) All costal cities
2) Sailing early for the Great Lighthouse
3) Get Oracle and slingshot to metal casting for a very early colossus.
4) Remain diplomatic to maximize foreign trade routes.
5) Compass early (worth using a GS for bulbing) for harbor.
6) Beeline economics before liberalism for the customes house.
7) Emphasize Great Merchant (GL and Colossus) produciton for trade missions and cash.
8) Works best with financial leaders to maximize working the sea tiles This is especially true for Hannibal (UB).
9) Build Maori statues in a costal high production city with HE, have a second high production city for westpoint and ironworks and drydock for massive late game navies.
10) Limitations: Need to build few landlocked cities. Difficult to maintain during war. Maintenance could be a big issue if you have alot of non-continental cities and will need to produce colonies. Typically you civlization will be smaller than usual and victory is generally by space or UN.
This is situational but it is successful.
Where do the techs come from in your example, madscientist? I would like to categorize economies based on that, as it keeps the focus.
Now, based on GLH and Colossus it seems to me that it's based on self research, beakers from commerce which again comes from working coastal tiles and from large number of traderoutes. With Great Merchants producing gold, it's possible to keep slider higher than if expenses would need to be covered completely with slider.
Thus, the economic model is:
- Self research with beakers
-> beakers from commerce with slider
--> commerce from working coastal tiles + from large number of traderoutes
- resembles: Cottage Economy with traderoute support
You consider other issues as well, but the above is what defines the economic model in the system I presented above.
Problems in the coastal economy is that the coastal tiles won't develop and colossus and GLH will eventually obsolete. You will be left with very weak economy at that point, and have to supplement it somehow. Eg. with transition to cottages with Emancipation.
Now, based on GLH and Colossus it seems to me that it's based on self research, beakers from commerce which again comes from working coastal tiles and from large number of traderoutes. With Great Merchants producing gold, it's possible to keep slider higher than if expenses would need to be covered completely with slider.
Thus, the economic model is:
- Self research with beakers
-> beakers from commerce with slider
--> commerce from working coastal tiles + from large number of traderoutes
- resembles: Cottage Economy with traderoute support
You consider other issues as well, but the above is what defines the economic model in the system I presented above.
Problems in the coastal economy is that the coastal tiles won't develop and colossus and GLH will eventually obsolete. You will be left with very weak economy at that point, and have to supplement it somehow. Eg. with transition to cottages with Emancipation.
madscientist
RPC Supergenius
Techs come from trades and self research with strategic bulbing (Phil, compass as I mentioned, education). Since the strategy relies on good diplomatic relations, trades are encouraged witht he more partners the better. If I have Ragnar, Monty, or Shaka as neighbors chances are I would never pursue this economy.
The slider should be as high as possible with gold coming from trading techs, and great merchants. As the empire is not typically sprawling, maintenance costs are less.
Yes the economy does weaken over time and needs to be altered mid-game, I believe I did mention going to a CE later, which would be post-democracy as you mentioned.
A few ideas on the late seafaring economy and stretching it out
1) The Great lighthouse obsoletes at corporation which can be delayed (as long as you can live without the assembly line for a while). Running Free market (alot of AI's will go SP or Merc) and beelining combustion/physics to take flight very early for airports helps alot. I am pretty sure you can get flight without assembly line but not 100%.
2) Corporation obsoletes the GL but gets you 1 trade route. If you got stuck with a landlocked city this helps here. Also you only lose 1 of the GL's 2 trade routes.
3) Astronomy obsolets the colossus but also opens up intercontinental trading. If the customehouses are in place (as they should be with this economy) you will a much smaller drop than you think.
4) GPs and goldenages. Build the Mausolem an target the Taj. Tech astonomy just before the Taj finishes. The taj GA is 24 turns (that's marathon speed which is what I play at), followed by a 1 GP GA, then a 2 GP GA. 72 turns or GA will smooth the transition.
Now these are alot of What ifs type of things and none of this ever goes the same way, but it is a strat and not the cassic AI tech path so it's not out of the question.
It's very situational like I said. Sort of similar to getting a high production/well fed landlocked capital and going for the wonderspam/settled GP appreoach that OBSOLETE uses.
madscientist
RPC Supergenius
I 'm not trying to 
but thinking about this type of economy more
It's dependent on trade routes plus resource commerce (mines, plantations). The reason costal cities are preferred is that they get better yields from foreign trades as well as buildings (harbors/custome houses).
A trade route economy (TE?) is dependent on diplomacy but cannot be pillaged (you need a good navy for this economy) as opposed to a CE (very succeptible to pillaging and spies) or lesser extent SE (farms are easy enough to replenish. War with one AI is acceptible as long as there are other good trade partners.
Health is usually not as much of a concern because of the harbor.
Costal cities can be better defended from an AI attack (providing you have an adequate force).
You can get away with pretty cheap civics: Monarchy/Nationalism/emancipation or slavery/Free Market/Free Religion. That's alot of happiness, low upkeep, plus additional health from the harbors.
Finally, and not for the faint of heart, you cna minimize the number of roads as all cities can trade via the ocean. You only need roads to resources and railroads for mines/lumbermills.
Please understand I do not do this type of game very often, I am a hybrid player. But when the situation arises this is a very playable strategy, especially if you find yourself with the coasts but minimal rivers.
but thinking about this type of economy moreIt's dependent on trade routes plus resource commerce (mines, plantations). The reason costal cities are preferred is that they get better yields from foreign trades as well as buildings (harbors/custome houses).
A trade route economy (TE?) is dependent on diplomacy but cannot be pillaged (you need a good navy for this economy) as opposed to a CE (very succeptible to pillaging and spies) or lesser extent SE (farms are easy enough to replenish. War with one AI is acceptible as long as there are other good trade partners.
Health is usually not as much of a concern because of the harbor.
Costal cities can be better defended from an AI attack (providing you have an adequate force).
You can get away with pretty cheap civics: Monarchy/Nationalism/emancipation or slavery/Free Market/Free Religion. That's alot of happiness, low upkeep, plus additional health from the harbors.
Finally, and not for the faint of heart, you cna minimize the number of roads as all cities can trade via the ocean. You only need roads to resources and railroads for mines/lumbermills.
Please understand I do not do this type of game very often, I am a hybrid player. But when the situation arises this is a very playable strategy, especially if you find yourself with the coasts but minimal rivers.
Sure, trade economy is a valid economy. Not as easy as eg. Cottage Economy, as it does indeed require more thinking, planning, and diplomacy. For endgame most secondary economies must transform to something else - usually to CE - and I believe traderoute economy falls into this category.
I have run coastal + traderoute economy as Hannibal on archipelago map every now and then. Pre-BTS, but the basics should still be the same. Portugal with Feitoria is a good other candidate - especially with Financial leader using Unrestricted Leaders option. Similarly Dutch can do it, as they can rake in the hammers when they get Dikes online in Industrial era. Any other Financial leader is possible candidate, and of course any leader can do it even if it becomes harder without the Financial nor UB potentials.
I have run coastal + traderoute economy as Hannibal on archipelago map every now and then. Pre-BTS, but the basics should still be the same. Portugal with Feitoria is a good other candidate - especially with Financial leader using Unrestricted Leaders option. Similarly Dutch can do it, as they can rake in the hammers when they get Dikes online in Industrial era. Any other Financial leader is possible candidate, and of course any leader can do it even if it becomes harder without the Financial nor UB potentials.
madscientist
RPC Supergenius
It is defeinitely harder than a CE. I can think of 2 games I have played where it worked exceptionally. One predictably was Hannibal in warlords that resulted in a diplomatic win. The other was Mansa Musa where I started on the coast and had absoltuely no rivers, a few lakes, and blocked to the south by Agustus. I came very close to winning the Musa game via space but lost from a military invasion by Cyrus (economy was fine, but diplomatically I chose Agustus who was eventually defeated by Cyrus).
2 games with a trade economy in one and a half years. Rare indeed. I still prefer hybrid.
2 games with a trade economy in one and a half years. Rare indeed. I still prefer hybrid.
a massive trade route economy is certainly doable on water maps
it works a bit like CE, since trade routes generate commerce and a bit like SE since you want your cities as big as possible.
To achieve this, you build mostly units, improve mostly farms and run Hereditary Rule.
it works a bit like CE, since trade routes generate commerce and a bit like SE since you want your cities as big as possible.
To achieve this, you build mostly units, improve mostly farms and run Hereditary Rule.
Tusk
Chieftain
Try it with the Dutch and having Huayna Capac (Ind/Fin) as leader on unrestricted leaders - coastal economy can work quite well on water maps, with very good production capacity from dikes, and you can still have a GP farm in a wonder city (industrial trait and high production/food city needed). With a lighthouse/dike/financial trait combo, each water tile produces 2F/1P/3C and doesn't need to be improved by workers (time consuming) and cannot be pillaged/occupied. Haven't actually tried such a full-on coastal economy but might try one soon.
r_rolo1
King of myself
There is another option ( hard and difficult to apply, not very popular and that leads to very unusual ( and interesting games ) ) : hammer based cities set on research.
It ressembles SE in some points ( all or most of the money goes to maintence and/or upgrades ) but it it better in hammer heavy maps ( like great plains )
It ressembles SE in some points ( all or most of the money goes to maintence and/or upgrades ) but it it better in hammer heavy maps ( like great plains )
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