How good is Aristocracy really?

[vale]

How many specialist turns total did you run? Not many to be quite honest if I recall correctly. Enough to get your prophet and start on a sage but I don't think much beyond that. Claims to the contrary feel dishonest to me.

But to address other things:

1. Aristocracy farms are not different from other farms? That is a total reverse of everything you have said throughout this entire thread. Not to mention I certainly had more cottages in my empire than you just from my Capital alone as I am 99.9% positive that you built 0 cottages. I can look at my screenshot and see cottages in my Capital.

2. My post was in response to the perceived city specialization "problem" that Aristocracy will run into in the early-mid game. Your empire is very clearly an example of a degenerate case (all production cities) of a cottage economy. Running a few specialists throughout an empire (and you didn't run that many so again this needs to be spoken about honestly) is something that any economy will do when it is available. My mistake was going for trade after sanitation which was a waste of time instead of getting Mysticism and Elder Councils. Normally, I would have had Libraries (and some specialists) at Writing but I didn't even realize my mistake until I got there.

3. Are you claiming that once you had Warrens in a city you were running a bunch of specialists in lieu of working mines? I strongly doubt it and while I can't verify this by looking right now, if it is true that was a mistake by you. No, once you built the Warrens in a city I can almost guarantee you you were near maxing production for that city for the remainder. (i.e. treating the city as a strict production city). I can't verify right now, but for you to claim anything else is probably false. You are taking advantage of a CoE unique building yes. My mistake not to in my saves, but you were also very clearly specializing a city for production with both the improvements chosen (farms and mines over cottages) and then buildings in the city (Warrens).

The fact of the matter is that your empire stands out as a strong example of the prior posters "city specialization" cottage economy in which every city has been specialized for production. You may deny it but the facts tell the story. A few specialists do not change that fact.

You do tend to bend the math in your favor I've noticed (double counting Soldiers of Kilmorph hammers and not seeing the problem with it for example). This is another example. I think if you honestly look at your save (I can't look at it right now so I am going by memory) you will have to admit that your specialist usage was almost minimum especially considering how early you researched Mysticism. The almost exclusive focus of your citizens was to work farms and mines (and bonuses). I find calling what was demonstrated there a Specialist Economy or anything but an economy focused almost solely on production unbelievably dishonest.

If you had legitimately run a bunch of specialists throughout your empire, then it wouldn't be a good example to use as the "degenerate production only cottage economy" as it would really be a specialist economy. But you didn't, not by a longshot from what I remember.

 

[Nefelia]

Most of the commerce multipliers that do exist are less effective and more expensive.

There aren't nearly the same number of hammer multipliers and many of them come across the empire.

All the more reason to have a limited amount of cities burdened with such a task.

Of course, there is no reason not to have a select few cottage cities while running the rest of the empire on Aristograrian farms. Such cities can start with three farms for growth and cottage the rest. With Aristograrianism active, there would be little incentive to destroy the farm later.

Basically what we saw in the first comparison game from the God Kingers was an all out version of your described "cottage" economy with every city specialized as a production city.

That makes no sense. An empire under God King needs few production cities, the rest having a few farms or pastures along with plenty of cottages.

Besides which, why do you bring up God King? Production/Commerce specialization is not tied to any particular civic choice, and is a valid play style long after God King becomes obsolete.

There is no doubt that they outproduced Aristocracy. And yet there is equally no doubt that they lagged very significantly behind in technology to Aristocracy.

Perhaps. But then, not every civ benefits much from rushing to Aristocracy. I find myself out-teched enough on immortal difficulty. I cannot afford to make the situation worse by going after non-vital techs. Education bringe me both cottages and apprenticeship, without having to make large sacrifices to my tech path.

If you were to take individual cities in their saves and specialize them for commerce, you would definitely find that any production gap narrows significantly more than the research rate gap. This is especially true because of the lag inherent to cottages (they take at least 30 turns to catch up in total commerce to a farm ignoring the food bonus). Basically, the more those empires are specialized for commerce, the more favorable the comparison Aristocracy is going to look. It won't take many "commerce" specialized cities before Aristocracy has a higher:
MFG rate
Crop Yield
and
GNP
At which point there is no comparison to make. At least by specializing all production there can be some debate.

You seem to miss the purpose of specializing cities in FfH. It has less to do with the cost and effectiveness of multiplier buildings, and more to do with the need to build them in the first place.

My production cites, for instance, will not bother with Libraries. Similarly, my commerce cities will not be building Training Yards, since they will never be producing any military unit.

I know you are going to complain about the lack of Libraries for barbarian civs

What? I have never played a barbarian civ, so why would I have an opinion on that? You seem to be making assumptions about me and my playstyle that cripple your ability to discuss the topic effectively.

Add Libraries to your "commerce" cities and let Aristocracy have the same number of Libraries in its "commerce" cities and there will still be a huge disparity.

I see a disparity in the amount of Libraries that need to be built for each civilization.

I can't open up FFH or Civ right now so can't give all the details I want, but suffice it to say I don't really believe strongly in city specialization in FFH (I think it is slowly getting better with the building costs over time but it isn't there yet).

High building costs are a strong incentive to not building non-essential buildings, hence: specialization.

 

[vale]

Specialization is weaker is the whole point. You talk about falling behind in tech at immortal. There is no civic that helps with that more than Aristocracy. The initial push to CoL is painful yes, but it pays for itself almost immediately.

Makes sense has nothing to do with it about those comparison games.

God King has nothing to do with it you are right. But they were using "not Aristocracy" and running what is essentially a degenerate version of your "specialized" cities with every city specialized for production.

As I said, had individual cities been specialized for commerce with cottages instead you would find that the tech gap would narrow slightly, but the production gap would narrow much more. You are missing the point completely. The more "commerce" cities you make in the comparison cottage economy, the better Aristocracy will look.

High building costs are a strong incentive to not building non-essential buildings, hence: specialization.

This is backwards. If my economy can operate effectively in both production and research with almost no infrastructure investment and yours requires a significant production investment to do so, then even if you do enjoy an overall production advantage (debatable if you have many cottage cities at all) then it will be eaten up by the high cost of those buildings.

This is also ignoring the logistical nightmare of getting expensive commerce multipliers built in your cottage cities. The production is really killed by cottages for what amounts to a fairly huge commerce loss for the majority of the early game where it hurts the most.

You can get by with very few buildings in FFH at all. You are definitely (as most people seem to do) underestimating warriors as a core of early armies. Bronze warriors are great for a long time. If you go OO you can drown them on the cheap to get access to Iron and Axemen strength after building a single Temple of the Overlords in your entire empire and running the slider at 0 for a few turns (assuming you have the powerful commerce generation of Aristocracy of course). You don't need training yards in every city to make them effective producers of military units.

I'm also confused as to what seems to be the misconception that Aristocracy must involve a beeline to Code of Laws. Can you give me an example of a tech path that involves a serious hardship in terms of safety or whatever by going ???-Edu-CoL-??? instead of ???-Edu-???. Part of the problem may have been an early beeline to Education when it was a poor idea.

 

[Nefelia]

When words and logic fail to reach consensus, there is nothing left but to experiment in-game. As such, I made a point to tech to Aristocracy as quickly as feasible in two games (Immortal difficulty, Epic Speed, Kuriotates; and then Khazad).

Kuriotates: With an abundance of farms (lots of river-side grassland in my capital's fat cross) and no pressing priorities, I was able to make Code of Law a priority. I switched to Aristocracy right away. Rather than bee-line Construction to spread the farms to non-river tiles, I opted to build cottages. An era or two later, the villages/towns were feuling my economy well enough for me to abandon Aristocracy in favour of God King (lack of production was what ended up crippling me in that game. However, Aristocracy did prove itself immensely helpful in running my economy until cottages could take over on their own.

khazad: Code of Law had to wait for more pressing religious techs, but I had gems and gold mines to tide me over. With an abundance of production cities (farm/mine), Aristocracy was a great economic help. Since I do not turtle as the Khazad, I fould the reduction to city maintenance fees to be very helpful as well. Surprisingly, I did not feel the need to switch away from Aristocracy until late game, after which I switched to City States to better accomodate my sprawling empire.

After my two games, I have to conclude that Aristocracy is a hell of a lot more useful than I had thought. That said, I do completely disagree with your dismissal of cottages, as I find cottages far superior to farms for the core economic cities (the ones destined for Academies, Libraries, Money Changers, and the Bazaar of Mammon). Fortunately, Aristocracy farms to go well with cottages in commerce cities, and make up for the cottages' slow start.

 

[Storminator]

All the arguing in this thread got pretty annoying, but there's some fantastic info here.

Thanks yall, for pumping up my game.

PS

 

[Jarrema]

Yeah, super-necro

 

[Tasunke]

One thing of note, is that it is usually important to run God-king first, at least until you have enough cities/ production cities.

Sometimes I switch rather early, and other times I switch later ... just depends on how Vital Godking is.

 

[Senethro]

When and why would you go God-King? Before Education? Between Education and CoL?

 

[Tasunke]

Lol ... in quick-speed games it is usually always the best option to beeline Mysticism/Godking ... what happens after that is more varied, but generally you get farming and education (possibly calendar)

Again, slower speeds than quick might be a different ball-game entirely.

 

[Senethro]

Can you explain why?

 

[Tasunke]

What is your preferred economic strategy for quick speed games?

I feel like I am doing all the talking xD

 

[Senethro]

You might be able to work out mine from the first few pages of this thread!

Seriously though, given that production and research remain in proportion between Normal and Quick, why should changing speed make God King better?

 

[Tasunke]

God-king is useful for getting workers/warriors/settlers out faster, as well as starting your way towards first great person (sage or priest)

 

[Senethro]

But workers and Settlers don't need hammers to produce, you get more benefit from farms and Agrarian than from God King.

I'd also argue that as long as you have good forests around your capital then the ability to have 1 citizen working a farmed food resource and 4 working forested plains is better for warrior production than +50% hammers, especially with all the turns saved through faster growth and less time spent on settlers/workers.

 

[Tasunke]

Early game you need warriors more than you need workers and Settlers, and assuming you get calendar b4 aristocracy ... u are going to be losing food for such things when switching to Aristocracy.

Depending on your terrain, It is usually better to wait until you get 3-4 cities (just depends) before switching to aristocracy. Sometimes keeping Godking can help you to
1) invade
2) defend (like vs Orthus)
3) run pacifism while not crippling your military (for great sage/ etc)
4) build cohorts to protect your settlers from da BEARS

 

[Senethro]

Thats the thing that people didn't get earlier in the thread. Aristocracy doesn't mean you get less food, it means you get more. The -1 food per farm is insignificant beside the food surplus that comes from having 50% of your population working farms. Similarly more food means more citizens, more big hammer tiles worked and getting to the happy cap faster which is extra turn advantage.

Aristocracy does not suffer a production deficit.

 

[Emptiness]

I suspect that playing on Quick speed simply acts to hide the inefficiency of researching God King before Agriculture/Calendar. In a longer game mode that mistake would typically put you many turns behind, which would be easy to see. On Quick speed the difference might only be a couple of turns, which one might not notice (but which would be equally negative). Unless you are playing a Spiritual leader, though, I would think that it would be very important to avoid unnecessary civic changes, since the lost turns don't scale evenly (Quick speed is hit the hardest). Switching to God King only briefly before switching to Aristocracy seems like it would be wasteful.

 

[Tasunke]

Well .. ALSO worker speeds are effected far less, so you would have more opportunity to build farms at slower speeds.

 

[avalonnn]

I have a radical snarky suggestion -- give fully developed towns a +1 hammer with Machinery.

 

[Tasunke]

I agree ^_^

also, if you are Bannor ...