Ecofarm
Deity
1) I'm at 100% tech rate. No gold.
2) I'm working food and commerce (to make settlers and workers while teching education then mystic). No hammers.
I find that getting mystic after education is the best way to go 90% of the time.
Education too powerful?
- Thread starter Yong
- Start date
1) I'm at 100% tech rate. No gold.
2) I'm working food and commerce (to make settlers and workers while teching education then mystic). No hammers.
I find that getting mystic after education is the best way to go 90% of the time.
Tarquelne
Follower of Tytalus
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2001
- Messages
- 3,718
Why not improve the other civics to compete with CS?!
Because it'd require more work.
I do think that'd be better, though. For the LAN mod we kept tweaking civics until we started using more of them. Though I don't think we ever touch the Compassion line - didn't care
.
You know I can't recall the last time I built cottages and I don't take the citystates civic either. I actually stopped using automatic workers because they wanted to fill up my map with cottages, that and forts of course but thats another story.
Ringtailed
Anthropomorphic Lemur
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2006
- Messages
- 247
What do you use instead?
Zechnophobe
Strategy Lich
The shortest point between where you start, and any other tech, is via education.
Also, Kael, consider that you also get apprenticeship, which will give your units an additional promotion.
Compare a strength 3 Warrior with combat one (3.6) vs a strength 4 axeman (4.0). Even worse if it's in an aggressive civ.
The only real exception to this, is with Tasunke, who can literally conquer everyone on his landmass once he gets horseback riding.
Lastly, consider the amount of science it takes to research even the cheapest two religions (RoK and OO, on average, though obviously it depends on starting tech). The raw cost of these religions would require an amount of research only available via cottages or better.
Zechnophobe
Strategy Lich
Yeah, but do you normally play on Noble or worse difficulty?. If Bronze Working costs 620 beakers by itself (Plus 300 for mining and 195 for crafting) that's going to take you a rather long while at 10 science a turn.
Maybe you were insinuating that you always aggressive-apprenticeship rush, which I can see, but then I can't imagine you not using city states.
Zechnophobe
Strategy Lich
Done and Done. I played 110 turns with Dain the caswallan, as he gave the greatest boost to the specialist economy (Starts with ancient chants, and is philosophical). I actually did this before you even suggested it.
The Education build, since it gets agriculture, managed about 280 points, and had three cities that were already decent size, and more infrastructure due to having gotten workers earlier, and more often.
The Specialist econ had 250 points, having the same cities, but not as large (No farms) but had two academies in the two most major cities. It had managed more research by about 300 beakers (Not unimpressive).
So, I figure this is a pretty darn good excersize, and am glad someone happened to ask about it, because I had the answer handy
. Some big notes here:1) The pair of academies offered by the great sages were likely going to keep the science output of the specialist civ higher than the education one for a while, though after a little longer the education one will also get an academy or two, matching the output.
2) the growth rate of the education based one was noticeably faster, partially due to maxing it's cottages earlier, and having more of them, but mainly due to having farms ASAP. Farming 5 squares allowed workers and settlers to be built quickly while on the route to education.
3) Take a grain of salt here, in that Dain is very much predisposed to this route. I could have, for instance, used my first great scientist to bulb KoE, something the amurites would generally like. He is the exact right mix of civ, traits, and starting tech, to make this strategy worthwhile. Further testing on other leaders would be required to make a more difinitive statement, and there is no arguing that start is a factor. If you have no where to put cottages, that's just not going to be a good way to go.
westamastaflash
Lord Commander
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2007
- Messages
- 933
I love specialist economy... I usually go for mysticism then one of the religions for that 2nd sage (AV or OO...)
I go for a specialist economy, and try to rush Drama and Medication. large cities with lots of farms provide alot of specialists to power your economy.
I usually play on imortal or diety, and once in a while emperor.
And I tend not to be very aggressive, so not a whole lot of armies to support at the beginning.
slowcar
King
specialists are limited at the beginning. and cottages mature twice the speed compared to vanilla. due to agriculture you can get a lot more food, too. i think you can very well mix the single sage with a few cottages in most cases.
city states is indeed too powerful - because maintenance cost is too high.
i usually only change to republic in the later game with versailles/forbidden palace in place and courthouses everywhere. most of the time i lose research/money nontheless but as citizens demand republic...
if i start with an accessible gold (or wine) i start with crafting/mining, in nearly all other cases i go for education first. even with only two cities city states is worth it most of the time.
city states is indeed too powerful - because maintenance cost is too high.
i usually only change to republic in the later game with versailles/forbidden palace in place and courthouses everywhere. most of the time i lose research/money nontheless but as citizens demand republic...
if i start with an accessible gold (or wine) i start with crafting/mining, in nearly all other cases i go for education first. even with only two cities city states is worth it most of the time.
Not necessarily. Courthouses and - to a lower extent Money Changers - also solve this problem.
Ringtailed
Anthropomorphic Lemur
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2006
- Messages
- 247
That's what I was thinking. One sage specialist from elder council isn't very much. Even if you're going primarily specialists, getting education quickly for some cottages while you work on getting more specialist slots opened up is extremely beneficial. It's also the prereq for writing, which gives libraries and the great library...
Maniac
Apolyton Sage
They become available much later than Education.
Ringtailed
Anthropomorphic Lemur
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2006
- Messages
- 247
I disagree strongly. Kandros is financial; for him towns end up yielding 6 commerce per turn with Taxation, 5 without. That's a lot of commerce. I'd even use some with Arturus, though: a grassland cottage is self-sufficient for food whereas every specialist requires a farmer. Early, when happy caps are low, this is significant. With a pop 8 city for example, you could use either 8 cottages or 4 farms + 4 specialists. The specialist route yields at best 16 beakers with sages + great library [I'm ignoring the fact that getting 4 sage slots with RoK is difficult]; the 8 cottages end up yielding 32 at town level (40 for financial). Granted, the cottages must grow to towns in order to yield that much, but cottage growth rates are x2 in FFH as compared to vanilla and you only need to reach hamlet level to break even (5 turns).
Later when happy caps are high enough that you can work every tile in the city's radius and then some, running an only-specialist economy is more feasible.
Zechnophobe
Strategy Lich
More important, education is a prerequisite to the techs that enable both money changers and courthouses.
sadly under the current mechanics a specialist economy wins hands down vs a cottage econ. let me explain how and why i come up with this.
assume a city cap pop of 8 workable tiles. plan on any extra pop to go to specialists. you really have to have this in your head at the start. now, in the above example someone stated they skipped agriculture. You NEED farms for a specialist econ , agriculture is a must.
so , if we look at the tech path of agriculture -> mysticism (going with that free tech in the way) [fyi if agriculture is your free tech your kinda better off ] . with mysticism you get to use 2 specialists both of which come in very handy. if you get a sage you can make and academy or join for beakers , if you get a priest you can get a religious wonder or join for hammers and gold. both of these option are very useful.
after that if your looking at a rush for an early religion your looking at it being 3 more techs (whether RoK, FoL , or OO) then you get to add 2 more specialists per city based on your temple. odds are you might have the ability to build the holy shrine granting you more specialists.
what you find is that since your running specialists you should expect a smaller number of workable tiles (pop gone to specialists) and therefore plan on smaller and closer cities.
this also works very well into a trade based empire later.
NOW for the laugh .... try this...
as the luichirp on turn 1 join pop your spell and join the specialist to your city. then rush to get sailing while expanding as you can (coastal cities preferred). pop the first great engineer you get for the great lighthouse. then head for mysticism and the OO as your religion. after that , push for construction , then elementalism , then all the way to engineering.
assume a city cap pop of 8 workable tiles. plan on any extra pop to go to specialists. you really have to have this in your head at the start. now, in the above example someone stated they skipped agriculture. You NEED farms for a specialist econ , agriculture is a must.
so , if we look at the tech path of agriculture -> mysticism (going with that free tech in the way) [fyi if agriculture is your free tech your kinda better off ] . with mysticism you get to use 2 specialists both of which come in very handy. if you get a sage you can make and academy or join for beakers , if you get a priest you can get a religious wonder or join for hammers and gold. both of these option are very useful.
after that if your looking at a rush for an early religion your looking at it being 3 more techs (whether RoK, FoL , or OO) then you get to add 2 more specialists per city based on your temple. odds are you might have the ability to build the holy shrine granting you more specialists.
what you find is that since your running specialists you should expect a smaller number of workable tiles (pop gone to specialists) and therefore plan on smaller and closer cities.
this also works very well into a trade based empire later.
NOW for the laugh .... try this...
as the luichirp on turn 1 join pop your spell and join the specialist to your city. then rush to get sailing while expanding as you can (coastal cities preferred). pop the first great engineer you get for the great lighthouse. then head for mysticism and the OO as your religion. after that , push for construction , then elementalism , then all the way to engineering.
Zifnab
Warlord
I'll second this opinion. Most of my games I try to rush for a religion, while at the same time picking up any techs I need for any essential improvements, depending on what resources are around my capitol (ie. farms, pastures, mines). I switch to god king and usually agriculture as quickly as possible, get a second city where I can get a lot of food, and once the city gets up to size 3-4 pump out settlers to settle in places that will be good cities, but also to expand culturally quickly, and block off areas from my opponents for future settlement. I usually only switch to city states if I haven't been able to keep up in building markets/elder councils in each city or if I need to let my cities grow to allow for specialists.
But then again I almost never build cottages unless playing as cardith lorda, the bannor, or one of the elves. I guess how powerful education is depends on the economy you prefer. I usually pick it up after around 6-7 other techs.
Zechnophobe
Strategy Lich
I hate to say it man, but what you are talking about there, just doesn't work that well. 1 Sage gives +3 science, another +2 from the Elder Council is 5 science... AKA one towns worth of GNP.
So with your capital, your elder council and your specialist, how much sci are you making? 20-24? Academy 15 to 35 turns later makes it 36? If you'd built 2 or 3 cottages, you'd be outproducing this rather nicely, and allow you to work more production squares too, raising your MFG. Limping up the tech tree to a religion this way will likely take longer than if you were producing more raw science via cottages. You might get there a bit faster, but you'll be down a good bit of total science, stunting your growth.
Anyhow, we are talking hypotheticals now. If you have some great save games (.32d or .32e) that show a specialist economy around turn 200 (Where I normally benchmark games) that'd be a good talking point.
FFH SE with full support civics/infrastructure/wonders produces more output than CE given the same number of tiles, but requires higher health and happiness caps.
In the early game you are bottlenecked on how many sages/merchants you can run due to lack of buildings, and therefore should build some cottages even if you plan to play in a primarily SE fashion later.
In the early game you are bottlenecked on how many sages/merchants you can run due to lack of buildings, and therefore should build some cottages even if you plan to play in a primarily SE fashion later.
