help with an HE

[Hackapell]

I've been playing noble for a while and I have 70% victory odds. I've already mastered the CE and understand what makes an SE tick, so my question to the more experienced guys out there on the forum is, What is a Hybrid Economy, exactly? Is it just some cities with specialists and some with cottages or is it something else, and where can I learn more about it?

 

[Ecofarm]

HE means having more than 1 GP farm.

 

[oyzar]

He is running sevral cities that expect to generate multiple great people and sevral cities with cottages. This is somewhat reliant on the slider but not fully.

 

[futurehermit]

Basically, a hybrid economy is a mix of specialists and cottages (sorry for stating the obvious).

When I run a HE I usually have mixed land. I'll have some grassland cities with a river going through it with limited food specials. I'll cottage those suckers up as specialists are going to be quite inefficient. Then I'll have my capital and an enemy capital that have tons of surplus food. I'll run a lot of scientists there.

Then there's captured cities. If they have a lot of developed cottages, then no problem, cottage cities. If they have a lot of food specials and potential for irrigation then I'll run specialists.

 

[Irish82]

A great leader to use is Elizabeth. She's financial (great for cottages) and philosophical (more GP).

She'd be a great leader to try this out on.

 

[futurehermit]

Yes, I always run a HE with Elizabeth. She's great because she can adapt to pretty much any map. Going for CE with limited grasslands and rivers isn't so hot. Going for SE with limited food specials isn't so hot. Rarely if ever however will you have both these situations, so Liz can nicely adapt her early game one way or another. If you have both then you can have the best of both worlds.

 

[UncleJJ]

When I run a HE I look carefully at the cities where I intend to run specialists and particularly the state of the GPP pool in those cities. Since I get plenty of commerce from the cottage cities the main reason I run specialists is for their GPPs rather than than their beakers or gold.

That might mean that I have farms in a city rather than cottages until it pops out its last GP. Then I'll cottage over the floodplains and grassland farms I used for extra food. Alternatively in the late game I might convert farms to workshops and watermills when there is no chance of another GP from the city.

In my version of the CE I'll run with just one GP farm most times and that will churn out the first few easy GP. Very few if any specialists would be run outside the GP farm and even then usually just to prevent too much growth in cities with a lot of food tiles.

In a SE I'll run specialists from good food tiles and supplimented by grassland farms in most cities. I'll rush my research to Constitution for Representation and then to Biology. Specialists are important for the beakers from Representation, the normal specialist output of beakers, gold, hammers and even culture, and importantly in some cities the GPPs.

So I would characterise my version of an HE as intelligent use of specialists (supported by farms) where they are most productive and the use of cottages in other locations. That situation changes over time as it gets progressively more difficult to make the next GP.

 

[Hackapell]

I figured that Lizzy would be best for this...

anyone else one uses this with? Civics, tech goals,etc.?

Thanks for your help so far.

 

[Xyqtt]

My reserach order mostly with lizzy is: agri/animalhusbandry/hunting depends on waht resources are near my captial. Then bronzeworking and then to alfabet. After that to civil service. Sometimes s tour trough music and then librelism. And then trading in the missing techs I need.

For civics:
Bureucracy
Slavery/caste system (depending on how much specialist I need and war time based)

 

[Ecofarm]

financial = CE
philosophical = SE

anytime you lack both of these, HE might be most efficient

 

[Dan Quale]

The hybrid economy that I run tends to be far more complicated, than just ce/se. Sure cottages and specialists, are a very important part of an economy, but so many other factors tend to come into play.
1) food/infastructure/diplomacy, sure having 1 gold trade routes between your cities is nice, but imagine having huge revenue 5-9 gold each in all your cities, its a big help.
2) Not only relying on specialists/cottages for research, production cities should be turned to research/gold at times, this boost will help a lot(warlords only). Mfg determines the outcomes of wars, why not use your mines for research some of time.
3) Several amazing tricks/possibly exploits can also help you greatly in the early game. So you've overexpanded, dont have alphabet/currency and have massive production, are industrious, and have access to stone or marble. Build wonders but dont finish them. For example, with industrious/stone pyramids cost only a fraction of the 1500 gold=1500 research you gain from nearly completing, then stopping construction. Do this in multiple cities, micromanaging to negate decay, and you can then use dave chapell's saying " Im rich !". Using multiple cities with this tactic on multiple wonders you find useless, hugely efficient research can take place from the most unlikely sites.
4) Selling resources using the resource subsidy method is a great way to make some early cash (after currency).
5)When obtaining specialists early consider the value of settling them(especially on marathon). Do the math and you will find that their lightbulb is far less valueable than their aggregate contribution over the ages.
The most important thing to remember is micromanage then micromanage more, if every citizen of your empire meets his/her full potential, then the world will be in the palm of your hand.