First try at an SE

[TheMulattoMaker]

So I'm finally getting around to trying out a specialist economy. I read a few strat articles that were helpful, but there's a couple things I'm not sure about. I've got the hang of city specialization in a CE, but I don't know what I need to unlearn for SE.

First, should any of my cities get cottages? Does my burcap still need them? What about my main beaker/main money cities?

Second- and this ties in with the first one- which NWs should go where? I figure a SE unit pump will work the same as a CE unit pump. But should Oxford go in my highest-food city? In a CE, I'd usually pair NE up with Globe or NP, and put Oxford in my highest commerce city. Should I pair up Oxford with NE and just have that city run a ton of scientists?

Thanks- and sorry if these questions have been answered a million times already.

 

[Choggy]

Your capital should definitely get cottaged, irrespective of what economy type your running (SE, CE, Espionage Economy), there are simply too many advantages a cottaged capital gets in terms of civics (Bureaucracy), NW's that are best suited to a cottaged capital such as Oxford and GP buildings like Academies or Scotland Yard. The way I've always run SE-type empires is by setting the science % as close to zero as possible with my capital (and maybe another cottage city or two) using the resulting 100% gold rate to support my economy while my remaining cities run as many specalists as possible.

 

[sampsa]

Running specialists does your empire good mostly because great persons (GP from now on) are very powerful. With representation, a scientist gives 6 per turn but running it loses 2. Excluding the parts of the game where you want to quickly research a key military or economy tech, and the very early parts of the game where you lack the happy cap to benefit from , that -2+6 per turn is unfortunately not that great. Without representation (=mids) it's even worse of course. Thus you can conclude that you shouldn't be aiming to run specialists for the sake of specialists, but for the sake of GP. If a city won't be able to produce a GP because it's not generating enough -points compared to your other cities, running specialists there is not optimal. Sorry if all this was obvious to you.

Since you talk about Oxford, I must assume you want to play for either space or another late victory. In games that last long (turn-wise), cottages are good. I don't think that it makes any sense for you to try to "run SE", but if you lack good cottageable land, certainly specialists must play a bigger role.

I know this wasn't answering to any of your questions, but I think those articles that you have read misled you to ask the wrong questions.

 

[Macksideshow]

Running specialists does your empire good mostly because great persons (GP from now on) are very powerful. With representation, a scientist gives 6 per turn but running it loses 2. Excluding the parts of the game where you want to quickly research a key military or economy tech, and the very early parts of the game where you lack the happy cap to benefit from , that -2+6 per turn is unfortunately not that great. Without representation (=mids) it's even worse of course. Thus you can conclude that you shouldn't be aiming to run specialists for the sake of specialists, but for the sake of GP. If a city won't be able to produce a GP because it's not generating enough -points compared to your other cities, running specialists there is not optimal. Sorry if all this was obvious to you.

Since you talk about Oxford, I must assume you want to play for either space or another late victory. In games that last long (turn-wise), cottages are good. I don't think that it makes any sense for you to try to "run SE", but if you lack good cottageable land, certainly specialists must play a bigger role.

I know this wasn't answering to any of your questions, but I think those articles that you have read misled you to ask the wrong questions.

This is pretty much what I think on the matter. Pure SE is not really feasible, unless you had a ridiculously food rich map, with stone and you built the Mids. Even then I would still do some cottaging.

If there are some good food specials and you can get the Mids and kick into Rep then it can work to run the science slider at zero and generate beakers from specialists. This will make lots of GPPs so obviously PHI is desirable. Often several cities can share the food specials around such that they can take turns running specials and working hammers. This can, in the right circumstance, be effective but starting a map with the intention of doing this often results in failure (I learned this the hard way). A Rep Scientist is 6 beakers immediately and doesn't need to grow like a cottage but it does need a food special to feed it so typically can't be spammed in the same way a cottage can.

You either need infra (too much imho) or run Caste which means you can't whip, again too much of a sacrifice I think (or be SPI) .

This is all looking at an early to mid game (typically where it counts) SE. Looking outside that box, once Sid's Sushi, biology farms, higher happy/health caps, large cities and emancipation anger become factors perhaps a SE can become dominant.

Certainly Sid Sushi to run specialists on top of what a city is already doing is very powerful. Running a biology farm + specialist vs. 2 towns is pretty hard to justify though, unless like sampsa says, those GPPs will make a GP one day.

Maybe University of Sangkore, Angkor Wat or even that other one from Divine Right which gives per specialist could help but they themselves come with hefty opportunity costs.

 

[Aje]

So I'm finally getting around to trying out a specialist economy. I read a few strat articles that were helpful, but there's a couple things I'm not sure about. I've got the hang of city specialization in a CE, but I don't know what I need to unlearn for SE.

First, should any of my cities get cottages? Does my burcap still need them? What about my main beaker/main money cities?

Second- and this ties in with the first one- which NWs should go where? I figure a SE unit pump will work the same as a CE unit pump. But should Oxford go in my highest-food city? In a CE, I'd usually pair NE up with Globe or NP, and put Oxford in my highest commerce city. Should I pair up Oxford with NE and just have that city run a ton of scientists?

Q1) As allready stated above, most people agree that a hybrid is much more effective than a pure SE or pure CE. My suggestion for a normal game is to cottage the capital & the obvious cottage city locations. My suggestion for trying/learing is that you choose a food rich map and wow not to build a single cottage. It works ok/well(with Mids) up until you have won the lib race and are using the GP to bulb along the right path. From that point you have go for a Conq/dom win with your choosen unit.

Q2) Put NE in a city that can run a lot of specialists. Put HE in a city that makes a lot of hammers. Oxford isn't interesting, you have allready won the game.

Good luck, I had a lot of fun when I first tried this tactic out.

As allready pointed out:
Mids makes & breaks this tactic.
PHI leaders will give you a boost.
CRE lets you build cheaper libraries (if/when not running Caste or to get extra )
This would suggest playing Pericles, but he is a really slow starter due to his techs.
It think Gandhi could work well for you (if you find stone)
Ramesses is an even better choice even if you don't find stone.
SPI shines when used together with Mids.

 

[Aje]

You could try this map with Ramesses: (with stone & IND/SPI leader)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=498192&highlight=Ramesses

Or this with Monty: (without stone & SPI/AGG)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=490378&highlight=Nobles+club

 

[cseanny]

First, should any of my cities get cottages? Does my burcap still need them? What about my main beaker/main money cities?

Unless you have multiple gold and or gems you're going to need a way to pay for civic cost and maintenance cost. So Yes. In most cases you'll want a cottage city. If your Capital is a good cottage spot then go for it. If you have no rivers and poor commerce (in Capital) then cottage a better spot.

Ok then. I piggy back what everyone has said, especially Sampsa. I'll add that with the MIDs, some food, a Library, and 2 scientist most any city can bring in 20-25 per turn (or more when also emphasizing building research). In this case all cities but your cities (1-2 is more than enough..more than enough hammer cities) will pull their weight. Basically saying all these cities will excel at bringing in I bring this up because otherwise you're much more dependent on utilizing GS via bulbing to do the majority of the heavy lifting.

A SE (if such a thing even exist! HE man^) w/out the MIDS is still possible but more challenging. IMO either a SPI leader or PHI is a must. You're going to need to generate more GPs (bulb) to make up for the lack of empire wide OR utilize SPI in conjunction with whip/caste cycles, plus GPs to get you where you need to go.

Ramses, Ghandi, and Hatty would be my suggestions. Rammy, even w/out MIDS gets TGL/MoM fairly easy, not to mention NWs so your great person potential climbs rapidly. Hatty's quick Libraries gets research and scientist rolling in fast and Gandhi speaks for himself.......and of course they can all freely swap between slavery/caste.

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

Good advice all around, thanks everybody. I guess I should have been a bit more specific- I had already started the game, I was IND with Stone, and there's food resources and grassland rivers everywhere. So I built the 'Mids and figured this would be a good chance to finally see how an SE works. Then I got to late-Classical-era-ish and realized I had no idea which cities should do what.

One thing that obviously didn't occur to me was that I wouldn't really need Oxford. Usually that would be my second-highest-priority NW after National Epic. But I think with the map I have (I've got three or four cities that could be GP farms in any other game, and three or four cities that could become cottage monsters) a hybrid will work just fine.

 

[Nexlev]

My capital is usually the only city I cottage, and perhaps 1 or 2 others if the right situation is there like I capture a shrine or city that's already heavily cottaged.

Most games I run an economy heavy on the SE side. Mids give it a huge boost but I wouldn't call it a must. I do prefer Philo leaders though, so that factors in.

As far as the late game, I typically try to transfer from a caste system / specialist economy to a nationhood / espionage / specialist economy.

 

[MegaLurker]

I wonder if Philosophical would be stronger than Industrious for this sort of gameplay if you have early stone.

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

I wonder if Philosophical would be stronger than Industrious for this sort of gameplay if you have early stone.

Oh, I'm sure it is. Most of the articles I read said that PHI is the best trait for an SE, and IND is a "well, if you can't have PHI, make do with this" kind of trait.