Except when gunning for early domination wins, I think I've become a CE player

[Unconquered Sun]

The GPP value is minimal - from running SE games I know the increase in the number of GP over a CE with one or two GP farms is; A) very limited, and B) almost exclusively in late stages of the game (when they're less important anyway).

That's nonsense.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Beelining Democracy is marginally faster than beeling Biology. Two towns v. one specialist never happens in real games, as a matter of fact getting one 70-turns-town per one specialist by the time of Democracy and Biology is doubtful.

 

[MrCynical]

Erm, less important in the late game, when everyone says that it's bad for a SE that Corps are harder to use?
And as far as the GP farms are concerned: how are you going to be even close to the generation potential of a SE if you are not using Caste, for example? I'm really asking, because i'm interested in both systems myself =)

Sorry, but I really can't make sense of your first comment. Are you saying that an SE has a better chance of a having the right GP to found a specific corp? I've never had any trouble with that in a CE.

As for the caste system issue, with a GP farm (or in BtS two GP farms), you have to take a certain amount of potluck. By the corporation stage though you have enough specialists slots for a certain amount of tuning. A well run GP farm will generate GP fast enough that it will take a long time for your 3rd, 4th, 5th cities to generate a GP, and most won't generate one at all. I've never understood why people keep suggesting Caste System for a CE. It's the second most useless civic on the board.

You have to consider that a Town takes up one pop and one tile. That means that a worker has to work that tile, and the pop also has to work that tile. Specialists do not require tiles. They require buildings - which is also a factor to be considered.

You've missed the point that a specialist requires a farm to produce the food to sustain it, and hence requires TWO pop and a worker - and that's post biology. Specialists require tiles just as much as towns, you're just having to add the specialist population on top of the normal 20.

Two towns to one specialist is not entirely a fair comparison because you're giving the towns 1 extra pop, two extra tiles, and the build time for free.

By your (rather unnecessary pop/worker rambling), a specialist requires 3 pop - two to work farms and one for the actual specialist, and two tiles. The two towns need only two tiles and two pop, certainly not more. I;'ll grant you the build time, but towns should be up and running pre-biology.

That's nonsense.

You have of course played both as SE and CE on the same map and compared output in order to come to this brilliantly argued conclusion? I have. The SE managed about 4 extra GP, all post industrial age - and that was before we had the national park and corporations to further boost GP farming.

 

[madscientist]

Not to belabor the point, but late game BTS alot of late specialists can come freely, with a sustainable farm. Supermarkets give 1 free food, the national park gives free specialists per forrest preseve, industrial parks give you 1 free engineer, the two food corps give lot's of free food. No farm or tile required.

I have always played a hydrid economy, although I swayed towards one or the other depending on the game. But with BTS seams like a SE can be maintained throughout the game because of the free specialists and availability to more free food. Has a CE been improved on with BTS? Maybe levees.

 

[MrCynical]

Not to belabor the point, but late game BTS alot of late specialists can come freely, with a sustainable farm. Supermarkets give 1 free food, the national park gives free specialists per forrest preseve, industrial parks give you 1 free engineer, the two food corps give lot's of free food. No farm or tile required.

All of which are equally true in the CE.

I have always played a hydrid economy, although I swayed towards one or the other depending on the game. But with BTS seams like a SE can be maintained throughout the game because of the free specialists and availability to more free food. Has a CE been improved on with BTS? Maybe levees.

Same old list;

Customs house, more and potentially longer golden ages. The food benefits the CE just as much as the SE. I can turn a plains city into a full cottage city now, just as easily as you can run those extra specialists. A CE GP farm benefits from the extra free food just as much as the SE - and I don't need to stick the corporation in every commerce city, with the associate maintenance costs. The national park favours the GP farm style more than widely distributed GP production, and hence is also in favour of the CE.

The SE got a significant penalty as well - unhealthiness is now more relevant, and an SE invariably has a higher pop and hence more health problems than the CE. When you need 3 food a specialist, things start to look a bit less favourable.

 

[Roxlimn]

MrCynical:

You've missed the point that a specialist requires a farm to produce the food to sustain it, and hence requires TWO pop and a worker - and that's post biology. Specialists require tiles just as much as towns, you're just having to add the specialist population on top of the normal 20.

That's actually not true. Let's take a very common variable - food resources. Everyone gets food resources of some sort in their tiles because food resources are great to get, and east to acquire.

A food resource boosts your City growth and the amount of non-food producing guys you can run. Grasslands cottages produce their own food, but they do impact city growth in that you have to work them and they don't produce surplus.

You don't usually Cottage a food resource, so it's a "forced-farm" and the Specialist you can work from that will only be working off of that tile. While you can also use this to create a fast-growing Commerce City, it's also true that it'll take more tiles.

By your (rather unnecessary pop/worker rambling), a specialist requires 3 pop - two to work farms and one for the actual specialist, and two tiles. The two towns need only two tiles and two pop, certainly not more. I'll grant you the build time, but towns should be up and running pre-biology.

The issue isn't when they get operational but the time it takes for them to get there, and the production they create until they do. As long as you have a food surplus, you can create as many specialists as your buildings or Civics allow you. It's not the same with Towns. You only have as much as your tiles allow you, and they take time to grow, during which you're obliged to generate only as much as a Cottage, Hamlet, and Village allow.


You know what? Instead of sounding all superior and all that, why don't you just please relate your experience without denigrating anyone? That seems to work better, I think.

No one in their right minds ignores the production of a GP farm, I think, so that rather puts the lie to every "CE" allegation there ever was. Everyone plays at least a hybrid economy. The question is, when does it benefit a city to concentrate on Towns, and when on Specialists?

 

[MrCynical]

You don't usually Cottage a food resource, so it's a "forced-farm" and the Specialist you can work from that will only be working off of that tile. While you can also use this to create a fast-growing Commerce City, it's also true that it'll take more tiles.

Why is this a problem though? As you point out, the CE economy is still going to be farming bonus food tiles, and hence can either grow faster, or run plains cottages. Until a city hits size 20, using extra tiles isn't a problem. Indeed from a cottage perspective, if I have the countering food tile, it's preferable to run two tiles giving 1 food and 2 commerce each than one giving 2 food and 4 commerce, as it matures the cottages fatster.

The issue isn't when they get operational but the time it takes for them to get there, and the production they create until they do. As long as you have a food surplus, you can create as many specialists as your buildings or Civics allow you. It's not the same with Towns. You only have as much as your tiles allow you, and they take time to grow, during which you're obliged to generate only as much as a Cottage, Hamlet, and Village allow.

But in the early stages there is a similar delay on specialist output. Barring Pyramids you've got a wait for representation, and similarly a wait for biology to run comparably 1 specialist to 1 town. A cottage/hamlet may not compare well to a representation scientist, but to a non-rep scientist needing two farms (OK a bit less allowing for food resources), it's not so bad. Plus you also need Caste system for more than two scientists, clashing with slavery, or forcing non-science producing specialists.

You know what? Instead of sounding all superior and all that, why don't you just please relate your experience without denigrating anyone? That seems to work better, I think.

I have simply related my experience of playing both economies. I was someone sarcastic at someone who's entire response to my argument was "That's nonsense", as I have no patience for those who refuse to provide even the most basic counterargument. It was somewhat difficult not to appear superior in response to that.

You, until this point have provided arguments. I don't agree with all of them, but I'm more than happy to debate points with you. I am interested in determining the relative strengths of CE and SE. I'm not here for a personal argument, but I'm all too familiar with the rows that tend to blow up over this subject. That is why I get irriatated when someone does not provide an argument and evidence, merely an insult. The debate becomes about personal victory, not what is actually true.

No one in their right minds ignores the production of a GP farm, I think, so that rather puts the lie to every "CE" allegation there ever was. Everyone plays at least a hybrid economy. The question is, when does it benefit a city to concentrate on Towns, and when on Specialists?

I have never suggested that any player should never run a single specialist or a single cottage depending on the choice of economy. A better view on the dichtomy is, all other things being equal, do I farm the tile or do I cottage it? I have specialised cities for commerce or GP countering the rest of the economy in each case, and only a very foolish player would not run them.

Let's get back to a proper debate, with number and evidence and civilized argument, not unsubstantiated comments about "lies" and "nonsense", OK?

 

[Hassar]

I love SE, but from late renaissance era to end-game a CE will crush it anyday.

Scientist = 3 (6 with rep) and -2 food.
Town (without financial/PP/FS/US) = 4 and supports itself on a grassland tile.

Let's take for example a city with 20 pop, all grassland tiles. Now let's give the SE representation AND biology, but no bonus for the CE. 10 citizens will have to work the bio farms to support the 10 scientists, thats 60 science. While 20 citizens working the towns will yield 80 commerce, that can be converted to 80 science or gold. And they're not even upgraded with US/PP/FS/Financial.

So, a scientist needs at least a 4-food tile to support itself and the working citizen else the city will stagnate, so you could work two cottages instead of scientist+farmer. Of course cottages need time to grow, let's calculate the growth time, along with the a growing cottage would give us compared to a scientist: (without Emancipation or Financial trait)


10 turns working 2 Cottages to become a Hamlet: 20
10 turns running a scientist and a bio farmer to support it: 30 + 30GPP (60 under rep)

20 turns working 2 Hamlets to become a Village: 80
20 turns running a scientist and a bio farmer to support it: 60 + 60GPP (120 under rep)

40 turns working 2 Villages to become a Town: 240 (160 with PP)
40 turns running a scientist and a bio farmer to support it: 120 + 120GPP (240 under rep)

70 turns 2 Cottages to Towns: 340
70 turns scientist + bio farmer: 210 + 210GPP (420 under rep)

And just for the hell of it:
10 turns working 2 Towns with NO BONUSES: 80
10 turns running a scientist and a bio farmer to support it: 30 + 30GPP (60 under rep)

10 turns working 2 Towns with PP/FS/US/Financial: 20 + 160
10 turns scientist + bio farmer with rep: 60


Then again, you can run an extra scientist in your cities thanks to the +2 food from the center tile (This will stagnate your city though). But this won't make a big difference.

It is clear that middle-game and late-game a CE is WAYYYY better than a SE, I only use SE from the beginning till mid or late renaissance era and then switch to CE when I get Emancipation (around that), as the SE will be worthless as the game advances, even with bio and rep, and lightbulbing becomes less and less effective. But of course I still want the great people so I keep a GP farm. Never keep a SE once you enter industrial era, itll freaking take you 10-15 turns for every tech when you could get them in less than 5 turns with a CE (depending on empire size). I was a CE hater once, no more. Oh and unless its a SSC or Wall street city, don't spam 20 cottages/windmill in every city, keep yourself some production tiles and switch between them just like a SE would when they need it.

 

[frob2900]

It is clear that middle-game and late-game a CE is WAYYYY better than a SE, I only use SE from the beginning till mid or late renaissance era and then switch to CE when I get Emancipation (around that), as the SE will be worthless as the game advances

Yep. 100% Agreed.

But of course I still want the great people so I keep a GP farm. Never keep a SE once you enter industrial era, itll freaking take you 10-15 turns for every tech when you could get them in less than 5 turns with a CE (depending on empire size).

I know of one excepion: Frederick of Germany (Phi/Org/Assembly Plants ). All those engineers really do make a difference.

 

[ShredZ]

Never keep a SE once you enter industrial era, itll freaking take you 10-15 turns for every tech when you could get them in less than 5 turns with a CE (depending on empire size).

What speed game are you talking, in my latest normal speed game, when I switch my cities to build research, you can get late game techs in 4 turns. And thats not even tweaks all specialists to scientists.

I agree CE is probably more powerful than SE in the very late game, but unless yer going for a SS win, the game is over before you cottages fully mature.

Also, with the latest patch, all a spy/plane/missle/paratrooper needs to do is strike your town twice and it gets none of its awesome bonuses. The vulnerability is quite high, especailly if the AI was smarter.

 

[madscientist]

I know of one excepion: Frederick of Germany (Phi/Org/Assembly Plants ). All those engineers really do make a difference.

You can get all those engineers in BTS now with industrial parks.

 

[Roxlimn]

MrCynical:

Why is this a problem though? As you point out, the CE economy is still going to be farming bonus food tiles, and hence can either grow faster, or run plains cottages. Until a city hits size 20, using extra tiles isn't a problem. Indeed from a cottage perspective, if I have the countering food tile, it's preferable to run two tiles giving 1 food and 2 commerce each than one giving 2 food and 4 commerce, as it matures the cottages faster.

That's not entirely true. Extra tiles are always a problem with me because of tile quality. You really should only establish the best cities you can, but there are times when your technology and your tile placement and city placement aren't really all that optimal. Sometimes, you've got a city harvesting pigs, cows, and two spices. That's 4 tiles gone right away. And what happens when the rest of the tiles are jungle and you just don't have the workers to spare, or if they're hills and you still need extra research?

I'll have to say here that in my experience, especially past Biology, working on less tiles with more pop is more doable with SE.

But in the early stages there is a similar delay on specialist output. Barring Pyramids you've got a wait for representation, and similarly a wait for biology to run comparably 1 specialist to 1 town. A cottage/hamlet may not compare well to a representation scientist, but to a non-rep scientist needing two farms (OK a bit less allowing for food resources), it's not so bad. Plus you also need Caste system for more than two scientists, clashing with slavery, or forcing non-science producing specialists.

Absolutely. Would you agree that there's a great incentive to push for more SE cities if you happen to build the Pyramids and can use Rep? HR itself isn't so bad for SE because it relaxes the happy cap and SE, as we know, is pop intensive.

In early parts of the game, Caste System would indeed be a great thing, but I don't think that running SE throughout most of your Empire is really the point of doing that. Mostly, I would do that to push the GPP production in my main GPP farms, which I would do even if I were mainly CE. Given a Caste System change, even many of the smaller cities wouldn't even begin to support one or two Scientists anyway, so between that and a Hamlet, I rather think that the differences are minor on the face of these variables alone.

Now, if I were running Rep AND Caste system, for reasons relating to my GPP farms, wouldn't you say that there's a definite push for a greater SE focus in my secondary cities?

I have simply related my experience of playing both economies. I was someone sarcastic at someone who's entire response to my argument was "That's nonsense", as I have no patience for those who refuse to provide even the most basic counterargument. It was somewhat difficult not to appear superior in response to that.

If the comment was idiotic and groundless, then I see no point in referring to it or in discussing it at all. I certainly didn't. Why should you?

I have never suggested that any player should never run a single specialist or a single cottage depending on the choice of economy. A better view on the dichtomy is, all other things being equal, do I farm the tile or do I cottage it? I have specialised cities for commerce or GP countering the rest of the economy in each case, and only a very foolish player would not run them.

Ah, but where's the break point for each and the factors that promote one over the other, eh? There's the rub.

The thing with Specialists is that you CAN have too much of a food surplus at times such that it overwhelms your building capacities, and this is especially true before Renaissance and without Caste. I think everyone's had, at one point or another, had the opportunity to settle a Flood plains rich site, and that's always got lots of food.

To me, floodplains are a definite push towards cottaging, particularly if it's not my capital city. Even in my capital, I tend to cottage such tiles anyway. The health limits can lower your total max cap (although that's debatable) and the food excess makes up for not farming it.

Too, grasslands without fresh water access are really mostly useless in the classical era if you're not going for the Cottages, and in that instance, I usually try to arrange for some fresh water tiles or a food resource.

The things that would encourage me to go for Specialists is a site with lots of Forests (for increasing the health cap) lots of fresh water, and lots of grasslands, or limited tiles.

Thoughts?


There are other developments in BTS as well. I gather than some improvements now grant you free specialists. While a CE can get these as well as an SE can, if you've geared your Civics and wonders to promote Specialists, why then free Specialists are more of a boon to you than otherwise, no?

One other factor: people keep assuming that you'll use a GP to lightbulb. Why not settle it? A settled GS provides 1 and 6 forever, free! If an SE intensive economy can get this sooner and has more, wouldn't this is a major benefit, especially with the right Wonders and under the right Civics?

Pacifism, as well, would boost an SE's primary and secondary GP farms.

 

[frob2900]

You can get all those engineers in BTS now with industrial parks.

Believe me, you can get them even better with frederick and his assembly plants. It's just even more powerful now with industrial parks

 

[MrCynical]

That's not entirely true. Extra tiles are always a problem with me because of tile quality. You really should only establish the best cities you can, but there are times when your technology and your tile placement and city placement aren't really all that optimal. Sometimes, you've got a city harvesting pigs, cows, and two spices. That's 4 tiles gone right away. And what happens when the rest of the tiles are jungle and you just don't have the workers to spare, or if they're hills and you still need extra research?

Well, jungle makes an excellent cottage site when it's cleared, and I'm never that desperately short of workers. A city with all hills (plains I assume, so they can't be cottaged) aside from those food tiles, I'd probably turn into a production city in either economy. It's a fair point that there are sites where running off a tiny number of tiles would be necessary - say if they were all tundra or desert, and so genuinely useless. Then I probably would run the city as specialist regardless of the economy I was running, since there's no real alternative. I just don't find sites like that are particularly common.

I'll have to say here that in my experience, especially past Biology, working on less tiles with more pop is more doable with SE.

Doable? Certainly. But I'm still not getting why you see it as inherently advantageous.

Absolutely. Would you agree that there's a great incentive to push for more SE cities if you happen to build the Pyramids and can use Rep? HR itself isn't so bad for SE because it relaxes the happy cap and SE, as we know, is pop intensive.

Certainly if you DO get the Pyramids, it's fair enough to run a specialist heavy economy in the early game, though I'd still be running it with an eye to a conversion to a CE at about the Democracy point, unless I was going for an early domination win. I just don't find it practical in most games at the levels I play at.

In early parts of the game, Caste System would indeed be a great thing, but I don't think that running SE throughout most of your Empire is really the point of doing that. Mostly, I would do that to push the GPP production in my main GPP farms, which I would do even if I were mainly CE. Given a Caste System change, even many of the smaller cities wouldn't even begin to support one or two Scientists anyway, so between that and a Hamlet, I rather think that the differences are minor on the face of these variables alone.

Even as CE, I generally find Caste System's only use to be in assisting generation of specific GP types, not in increasing their overall output. I've never seen a situation where I couldn't run more specialists in the GP farm because I was out of specialist slots. I have to take pot luck on the GP type as a CE, but I don't find it that disadvantageous.

If the comment was idiotic and groundless, then I see no point in referring to it or in discussing it at all. I certainly didn't. Why should you?

I always try to stamp on misinformation when I see it, and the misconception that an SE produces a lot more GP than a CE is a very long running piece. I have no interest in discussing it further either, as I've corrected the error.

The thing with Specialists is that you CAN have too much of a food surplus at times such that it overwhelms your building capacities, and this is especially true before Renaissance and without Caste. I think everyone's had, at one point or another, had the opportunity to settle a Flood plains rich site, and that's always got lots of food.

I know what you mean, though I can usually keep things in check with judicious use of slavery. The loss of that is the main reason I avoid Caste System so much. That flood plains site takes forever to build anything without it, even If I run an engineer and a few priests.

Too, grasslands without fresh water access are really mostly useless in the classical era if you're not going for the Cottages, and in that instance, I usually try to arrange for some fresh water tiles or a food resource.

The things that would encourage me to go for Specialists is a site with lots of Forests (for increasing the health cap) lots of fresh water, and lots of grasslands, or limited tiles.

Thoughts?

My thoughts on this are much the same as yours. Floodplain says cottages to me - the unhealthiness tends to make large amounts of it problematic as a GP farm. Non freshwater grassland again says cottages, since a specialist economy can't do anything with it till civil service (or possibly even later).

For specialists - seafood sites are generally a good start, as are cities with two or three high food tiles, and not an excessive amount of plains or worse. Grassland and freshwater can go either way, and is the classic case for the debate - personally I prefer cottages, except maybe with a philosophical leader.

Limited tile sites tend to end up as specialist sites through lack of other options as I've said. Cottage cities tend to be best on generic, but abundant grassland or plains.

There are other developments in BTS as well. I gather than some improvements now grant you free specialists. While a CE can get these as well as an SE can, if you've geared your Civics and wonders to promote Specialists, why then free Specialists are more of a boon to you than otherwise, no?

The only one I can think of is the industrial park, which gives a free engineer. I find it appears a bit late to have that drastic an impact though, and it comes with a hefty health penalty. Yes, representation will boost it somewhat, but by the time industrial parks are around I'm very reluctant to lose the ability to cash rush. I'm experimenting with running representation as a CE, somewhat augmented with Sushi specialists and flipping occasionally to universal sufferage with the assistance of Cristo Redentor, but I'm still not too sure if the extra science is worth the loss of town hammers.

One other factor: people keep assuming that you'll use a GP to lightbulb. Why not settle it? A settled GS provides 1 and 6 forever, free! If an SE intensive economy can get this sooner and has more, wouldn't this is a major benefit, especially with the right Wonders and under the right Civics?

Actually I do assume settling early GP in an appropriate site most of the time. Lightbulbing has been badly weakened by the slower AI tech pace, and their reluctance to trade. The SE does do better there of course, since the rep bonus would push that up to 1 hammer 9 science. I count that as one of the SE's edges. There's nothing to stop a CE settling its GP, they're just going to end up with 3 beakers less from each one unless they decide to run rep.

Pacifism, as well, would boost an SE's primary and secondary GP farms.

It does help, but again the CE can run pacifism to boost their GP farm(s) as well. Much as it might seem like you should get more GP, I just don't find it's the case when I try it, especially now you can run two GP farms. The secondary cities take most of the game to catch up with the leader. It takes till the industrial age for the other cities to catch up. (Philosophical and Pacifism does make some difference to GP output for the SE over CE relatively early, so I might run an SE and go for an early win as a Phi leader).

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Never keep a SE once you enter industrial era, itll freaking take you 10-15 turns for every tech when you could get them in less than 5 turns with a CE (depending on empire size).

Go to page five of this thread.

Look for a big city pic.

In the upper part of the pic, you'll find a green bar.

There's a word on the green bar. Refrigeration. It's a late game technology.

There's a number on the bar. Together with overflow, the entire tech took two (2) turns to research. I didn't have one cottage in my empire.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

You have of course played both as SE and CE on the same map and compared output in order to come to this brilliantly argued conclusion? I have. The SE managed about 4 extra GP, all post industrial age - and that was before we had the national park and corporations to further boost GP farming.

How many GPs in total?

Do you consider yourself a master SE player? What games have you won with SE on deity? On immortal?

 

[Snaaty]

Nice argument you have going on here

...

Something to make that matter even more complicated:

CE is better compared to SE when you calculate down and compare the pure science output... ...BUT... ...there is this thing with the trade routes... ...bigger city, more revenue for each trade route... ...when having 4 trade routes this boni is multiplied with every trade route... ...a costal city with harbour gets another bonus so the overal bonus increases even more and in BtS finally, the custom house adds still more... ...which makes it in the end really debatable, if a CE is REALLY better then and SE in numbers (trade routes are that powerful that it is even possible to play a game without cottages and without specialists until every city tile in every city (except GP farm) is worked thanks to the trade revenue (Trade Route economy))

 

[uberfish]

I don't know. You get a bit more out of your trade routes (and pay a bit more in city maintenance for size) but I consider having size 25 cities a disadvantage in practice. It's a lot easier to manage health and happiness caps with size ~20 cities and emancipation than size ~25 and caste system. Unless you conquered 2 other civs and have tons of resources. In which case it's fairly irrelevant what type of economy and civics you are running because you are winning anyway.

 

[UncleJJ]

I agree with uberfish. Smaller cities is the way to go for a SE. That helps in many ways. It means you can avoid switching to Emancipation and run the Caste System or Slavery much longer and maybe right into the end game. It also means you can use factories and assembly plants without getting slaughtered by unhealthyness (although Coal Plants is usually a step too far).

So these comparisons by some CE advocates between a CE city and SE city where they say 1 town (needs 1 citizen) = 1 farm + 1 specialist (needs 2 citizens) are invalid if the SE splits the area up in a different way and uses more cities than a CE would. Each city gets its own happiness and health budget. Running SP means an extra city only costs 3 in maintenance witha courthouse and its trade routes pay that and more. So adding extra cities in the late game is useful particularly in conquered lands.

In my recent game (Pericles, monarch, Continents) I've found that size 22 for my capital is fine and I have a couple of other cities the same size. I have 4 religions and those "big cities" need several temples and the the state cathedral to maintain their happiness while I run Rep, Nat, CS, SP, (OR, Theo or Pac) and it is not worth building factories in them. They concentrate on size (useful for internal trade) and making GPPs.

Then I have a whole host of second tier cities around size 12 to 16. They don't have happiness problems and work a mixture of food tiles and hills and workshops and some specialists (for hammers or gold plus Rep beakers). Many have forges, factories, airports or drydocks and do not suffer any unhealthiness despite me having coal and oil and I've not had to build hostpitals or supermarkets. That means I get a huge production boost and can churn out bombers, tanks, marines at a high rate. Drafting is easy since I have Happiness headroom and they suppliment their hammer production with draft infantry. Needless to say they have built the entire suite of espionage buildings CJIS and are making a significant passive contribution to that aspect of the game.

Then we get to my tier 3 cities and these include some newly conquered cities and mini infill cities squeezed between the gaps. These don't need much infrastructure and they don't work many tiles and most tiles are second rate at best and include rubbish like plains farms and windmilled plains hills. These get worked along with a couple of grassland farms and maybe a grassland workshop. What use are these? Well they struggle towards size 8 with granary, courthouse and barracks and I draft if they have adequate food supply and they steadily install the espionage suite. Under SP these tier 3 cities are worth the trouble and make use of tiles that are usually ignored. Once they have the espionage suite they can run spy specialists (with 100% bonus) or they can produce units, or draft or the hammers go to wealth or science. They don't need to waste 1000s of hammers building other infrastructure for happiness or science (although a library and university are cheap for Pericles so I make an exception for him) or gold that would be a waste since they can never grow much or expand. These mini cities are fantastically productive under Rep and SP considering the junk tiles they can work.

To be fair a CE would be able to make something like my tier 3 city using a corporation like Sid's Sushi to inject lots of food. It would produce more but would have much higher costs and require far more investment in terms of gold (for corporation and for US to rush vital buildings). That would work as well if the CE has loads of surplus gold, the question would be "is this the best way to spend gold when there are so many other options" In the case of the SE running SP the tier 3 city is a no brainer; it only costs 100 hammers for a settler and is essentially self financing thereafter.

 

[Roxlimn]

I don't usually run tier 3 cities. I have lots of tier 2's though. Many of my cities in-game are between 13 and 20 in size, depending on food sources, with most cities being around 20 or so due to health and happy caps. I have a few tier 3s, but usually those are forced or are mainly to access awkwardly placed resources (for culture border, basically).

I think that it remains uncontested that cottaging implies a certain amount of tile dependency. If you don't have tiles, you have to run specialists, in much the same way as if you don't have freshwater, you'll almost have to run cottages.

It's more a tile-specific decision, I think, than most people are willing to admit. To a certain extent, it's a Civ-based or City-based decision, but if you've only got lemons, you can make only lemonade.