Education too powerful?

[Maniac]

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.

How do you get the gold to pay for city maintenance? I once tried to bypass Education for a long time and go for Mysticism. Even with two specialists per city, I couldn't support my expanding empire, and was running into a deficit even with 0% science spending. I also had nothing useful to build after the first couple buildings - building more settlers or conquering cities would be suicide.

 

[Kasdar]

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.

See the problem your having is that your not taking into account the great people.

 

[Zechnophobe]

See the problem your having is that your not taking into account the great people.

Why do you assume that? I mentioned an academy up there did I not?

 

[Mailbox]

If you're not planning on going down the arcane path, then settling those scientists will give + 9 science in a city with an academy. As for merchants, you can get those via markets at festivals (and markets do their fair share of econ support).

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Did you know a CE can also generate great people?

 

[Mailbox]

And a SE can build cottages in some of its cities. Most people mix economies.

 

[Uberness]

If the starting tech costs weren't so expensive, education wouldn't be so important to actually get anything faster then 20-40 turns.

And as sheaim I expanded to 4 cities and managed to keep my economy afloat at 0% using scientists in every city and researching happiness increasing items at around 30 or 50 beakers a turn, but education helped bring it back up to 30-40%

 

[Zechnophobe]

If you're not planning on going down the arcane path, then settling those scientists will give + 9 science in a city with an academy. As for merchants, you can get those via markets at festivals (and markets do their fair share of econ support).

+9 science in a city with an existing academy is rarely as much as +50% more science in a second city.

Anyway, we really aren't arguing here about Specialist's vs Cottages, really. We are saying that the tech that grants cottages, gives too many perks. If you are arguing that specialists are 'better' than cottages... what other tech path are you suggesting, that doesn't involve education as one of your earliest techs, if not a complete beeline. Mysticism gives you some specialist help, but other than that, are you really not going to get education?

 

[Mailbox]

I'm definitely not arguing against the fact that Education is a strong technology. I was just defending specialist economies in general. I think that Apprenticeship and City States are both very powerful civics (City States does need some sort of nerf), and gaining cottages is more important than in vanilla or BtS because FFH techs are much more expensive.

I feel like Warfare is in the same boat for having two powerful civics at the same time, especially combined with the CR and CG promotions.

 

[Roghar]

I think the main problem with City States is how early it comes, would have thought it should have been Philosophy or something of that ilk based on both what it represents and how strong it is. In later parts of the game it isn't as powerful in that the war weariness penalty hurts more and there are other ways to reduce maintenance, plus your economy can better handle city expenses.

Shift City States and Education becomes quite reasonable.

 

[Zechnophobe]

I'm definitely not arguing against the fact that Education is a strong technology. I was just defending specialist economies in general. I think that Apprenticeship and City States are both very powerful civics (City States does need some sort of nerf), and gaining cottages is more important than in vanilla or BtS because FFH techs are much more expensive.

I feel like Warfare is in the same boat for having two powerful civics at the same time, especially combined with the CR and CG promotions.

The difference though, is that Warfare is just that, completely war-time based tech. Education helps with War (Apprenticeship) growth (City states) AND economy (Cottages).

Hard to equal all those when taken as a whole.

 

[smusebaer]

I think that most players aim für City states and Agriculture. I think both civics are too strong compairt to the other. God King is an option for small empires. Guardian of nature is an alternativ for elfs. Foreing trade and conquest is anoption for the lanun. To republic you get forced. For most players, there is no option to city states and Agriculture...

 

[smusebaer]

Aristrokatie could reduce the upkeep cost for Military units.
Theokratie tempels could reduce upkeep.
Republik is ok.

Conquest could reduce the upkeep cost for Troops outside your cultural borders.
Merkantilism could produce food per spezialist (Merchant for example).
Foreign Trade could grant a fixed foodbonus.

Just a few ideas, to improve the flexibility of civics.

 

[Uberness]

It would be good if the agriculture line had some civics that could compare with +1 food +1 health or FoL only civic

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Personally I rarely run City-states, but then again I play on Prince/Monarch and only found maybe 2-3 cities of my own and run God-King. By the time I've expanded enough via conquest that maintenance is an issue, I've usually got at least 2-3 holy shrines keeping my economy afloat. Sometimes I'll go Republic late-game for the GPP bonus and to get rid of that annoying happiness penalty, but at that point it really doesn't matter.

 

[Arilian]

"It would be good if the agriculture line had some civics that could compare with +1 food +1 health or FoL only civic"

I use Foreign Trade or Agriculture most of the time with FOL. I change only after i can terraform and i can have real super cities.

 

[Humakty]

I agree agriculture and city states are the must have civics for an healthy early game. Later on you may have more flexibility (if you have many gold% buildings/ 2 or 3 shrines).
It would be really nice if the other civics in the category of agri and CS got some love.
I use mixed economy, and can't see the point of an all farm empire, as to be viable you would have to use aristocracy, and get wacked by upkeep (if you have 5+ cities).

 

[Zechnophobe]

Y'know, I think there really is a lot of harm done to the game via city states. The more I think about it, the More I see this trend:

1) CS is nigh on required for empires of more than 3 or 4 cities.

2) This almost never becomes un-true during the game, especially on maps with multiple islands.

3) This pushes other civics in the same branch down in value, greatly limiting the use of other potentially interesting civics, like Aristocracy.

 

[daladinn]

maniac ...

lets assume your running godking out of your capital. you have to remember that your getting a +50% to hammer and a +50% to "gold" . if your trying to run a full research load your going to inherently lose. however , just adding one great profit to the city will result in a net bonus of 3 hammers and 7-8 gold.

the next thing you need to look at is the financial techs. getting trade and currency and mathematics results in a good amount of gold to offset your upkeeps. NEVER underestimate trade routes. also the building that gives your happiness for every 10% to gold is a godsend.

the key thing to wrap your mind around is the understanding of where all the math works out and how.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

City states is rape if you're warring, even 25% extra WW kicks the crap out of your cities due to how WW tends to be in this mod. You want republic during an intense mid/late war. CS is awesome for rebuilding after the war is over, though.

And yeah, I go GK early. CS doesn't happen till after my first war.