Help me refine my SE

Thawn

Chieftain
Joined
Aug 16, 2007
Messages
1
So I’ve been trying a specialist economy and it has been going pretty well but I know I am doing things very inefficiently and I am sure there is plenty of things I am missing. What I am hoping is I can detail my strategy here and get some feedback on it. There are some specific things I do not take advantage of.

The early years, my first 3 cities.

First off, my capital is almost always setup as my production city and cottage spammer because I switch to bureaucracy as soon as I get it. Question 1, what if your Capital isn’t founded in a high production area? Is it ever a good idea to move it?

My second city is my primary building city, preferably built with some number of grassland hills around it. The problem with this city is that it is often stuck at size 8 until Civil Service and even then it is fighting just to maintain its population instead of making hammers. Question 2, what is the “soft requirement” good players put on a city before founding it? How much food SHOULD it be able to produce and how many hammers does it need to be considered a good production city? Finally what are the most important buildings for the production city?

I also fight to build the Pyramids here. If I fail to build them should I move to a Cottage Economy?

My third city is designed to be my super science city, so I have to found it on a river. I prefer to get flood plans and deal with the unhealthiness. If possible I try to get 2 or more food resources here but that is the only real restriction I have on the city. Question 3: What is the best build order to get your super science city up to snuff? At what point do you stagnate the growth of the city and focus on specialists? How many scientists do you settle in the super city? I usually drag all my scientists there and settle them after building the academy. I also work hard to put the great library in that city.

After those two cities complete I build similar cities where ever I can, going with quality over quantity. Almost all my specialist cities focus on building scientists for the research bonus and I always settle them instead of running golden ages or lightbulbing techs.

A big issue I run into is where do you put your national wonders? Even at the end of the game I almost always have most of those buildings remaining. What research path do most people use? I figure the two most important techs for a specialist economy are Civil Service and Biology. Finally, what is the best leader for a war mongering SE civ?

That is all I can think of for now. Any help would be awesome!
 
Q1: I never move my capital though I sometimes move my settler if I can spot a better location that I can get to without wasting more than 1 turn. If your capital is not high in production (but it generally will be pretty good), use it for something else like a science city or GP farm.

Q2: That is too general a question to get a reliable answer. For production cities, the rule of thumb is you want just enough food to be able to work all of the mines. If you can build your top military unit in 1-2 turns in every era, you are doing pretty good. For a science or commerce city there is no upper limit to the amount of food you want.

Q3: Take a look at the guide in my sig for some general suggestions on build order and research. Generally I try to settle one scientist per era (after building the Academy, of course) and use the rest for lightbulbing. If the lighbulb doesn't give me anything spectacular, I will usually settle, especially early in the game when lightbulbing is less efficient. If you rarely use the lightbulb, you are probably wasting precious time and that is the single most important change to improve your game.

National Wonders are a topic unto themselves. There is a great article in the War Academy about where to place them and in what combinations. Generally I build the Heroic Epic in the city that has the highest production at the time when it becomes available and build West Point there later. Globe theater should be in a place with a high food output for use in slavery and/or drafting. This also works for maxing the population and running specialists.

Civil Service and Bio are very important for running an SE, but don't forget about Writing and Code of Laws without which you won't be able to run scientists.
 
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