Economy but not "that" question

[johncross21]

Some questions about managing the economy

This is largely a result of huge confusion as a result of reading various threads about SE and CE - so its not "that" question

to have lots of specialists do you need a great people farm or do farms create sufficient gp points (my farms don't seem to produce many GP points)

when people run specialist economies do you assign specialists from the population or rely on GP (whenever I try assigning specialists food quickly becomes short) .

I don't understand the mathmatics of slow build - surely a mine producing market, grocer, bank, library produces significant benefits

when is the best time to start spamming cottages (or how long can you safely live without them)

why build the pryamids (what is the main economic reason for it)

 

[itsnotmeee]

Some questions about managing the economy

This is largely a result of huge confusion as a result of reading various threads about SE and CE - so its not "that" question

to have lots of specialists do you need a great people farm or do farms create sufficient gp points (my farms don't seem to produce many GP points)

when people run specialist economies do you assign specialists from the population or rely on GP (whenever I try assigning specialists food quickly becomes short) .

I don't understand the mathmatics of slow build - surely a mine producing market, grocer, bank, library produces significant benefits

when is the best time to start spamming cottages (or how long can you safely live without them)

why build the pryamids (what is the main economic reason for it)

Great People Farm means running specialists in your city. Specialists produce Great People Points. Each specialist produces 3 points. You need certain amount of points and certain specialists in order for a certain great person to be born. You need food to support specialists. So, that means you need special food resources and of course, farms to support them. Each specialist consumes 2 food. So, lets say you farm a floodplains and have a citizen work on that tile, you'll have 4 food surplus coming in. Once your population grows to the next number, lets say from 2 to 3, you can convert that next citizen to be a specialist. Therefore, the 4 food surplus you previously had will be reduced to 2. I hope this makes sense to you.

 

[Norton II]

To answer your last question, the main economic reason for building the Pyramids is to switch to Representation early, thus getting 3 extra beakers per specialist and extra happiness in your cities (you'll probably have less than 5 cities when you build the 'mids). It's not needed for a specialist economy, but it helps.

 

[mudphud]

As libraries, banks, markets, ect. are % based they don't do a whole lot in city that doesn't produce much research/gold. If work a cottage or have a scientist/merchant you will often make more beakers than if you worked a mine to build the building faster. You have to have at least 12 base beakers for building a library to give you as much research as a scientist (unless you are under representation - of course if you aren't on the caste system you need a library to run that scientist) or if you are going with cottages working the tile allows it to improve. Once a city is larger and making more commerce than the building bonuses are more important.

As for spamming cottages, that clearly depends on if you are running a SE or CE or something else. You can do fine without building cottages (although generally you will want at least a few even if you are doing a SE if you are doing space race). It is hard to say exactly when to build them. Some people focus on the specialists early and then switch to cottages. If you are a finical leader you will probably stick with cottages more to get that benefit.

 

[sunrise089]

The short answer from what I've been able to gather is that with the Pyramids, a farm and specialist based economy will generate enough science PLUS great scientists to better the science production in the early-mid game (through Liberalism) compared to a cottage economy. It will never equal a cottage economy by the end game, but of course you can transition. The main criticism is that in order to buff the SE you want Industrious or Philosophical leaders (no leader has both), and if you are going to allow that you might as well pick a financial leader and run a CE with a higher end-game science rate than even a converted over former SE.

Many SE players then attempt to offer arguments without the Pyramids and other optimal circumstances, but all tend to create a smaller tech rate than a CE (often they are able to keep up through Liberalism however using their great scientists to pop and trade techs).

The huge side benefit to the SE however (since lets face it, it has several disadvantages: either trait/wonder dependent, more micromanagement, requires a transition in the mid-game which results in a time with lower science than a CE would have) is that it's emphasis on population makes it MUCH more appealing for lots of waring on higher levels, for a few reasons.

First and foremost the large amount of extra food allows you to whip out population quickly when needed, and deal with a lot of unhappiness.

Second, the huge side benefit is that war weariness is dealt with by the culture slider - which gives happiness at the expense of science rate not net science output. Therefore, if you can divorce the rate from the actual science, you can run a high culture slider WITHOUT actually having your research go down much at all. To me, this is the most compelling advantage - Imagine in the mid-late game, along with drafting, how much more waring you could continuously do if you could run a 70% culture slider all the time.

 

[futurehermit]

A farmed floodplains only gives TWO food SURPLUS. The gross food is 4, but the net surplus is only 2 because you need 2 to work the floodplains tile itself. So when you work a farmed floodplains + a specialist for 2 pop the net surplus is ZERO.

Just wanted to clear up this potential source of confusion above.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

I don't understand the mathmatics of slow build - surely a mine producing market, grocer, bank, library produces significant benefits

Now always. Let's look at building a grocer in a science city for example. It gives you +25% gold and +health with the right resources. If you don't have high enough base gold output and still have a while before you run into health problems, there is no need to hurry the grocer. It's not that you are intentionally building it slowly, but rather that you have more valuable uses right now for the resources you need to expend to speed up the building. (In effect, you are probably trading science from a cottage or a specialist to use the mine.)

You can even question whether you even need to start that building before you reach the health limit of that city. You might want to build science for awhile.

 

[itsnotmeee]

A farmed floodplains only gives TWO food SURPLUS. The gross food is 4, but the net surplus is only 2 because you need 2 to work the floodplains tile itself. So when you work a farmed floodplains + a specialist for 2 pop the net surplus is ZERO.

Just wanted to clear up this potential source of confusion above.

True, but you get a base 2 foods from the city tile itself. So, when I said 4, really meant 2+2. Of course the citizen is consuming 2 foods just as the specialist is doing. Perhaps I should've been clearer in the post. Sorry!

 

[DaveMcW]

when is the best time to start spamming cottages (or how long can you safely live without them)

After you build 3 cities you should cottage spam one of them. Build an academy there with your first Great Scientist.