Is financial+town spam still much more powerful than alternatives?

[mboettcher]

Look basically my complaint is this. I played Warlords a lot and obviously the most powerful form of government was to go democracy/free speech/emancipation and whatever else. Then use a financial char

Then as the game progressed just build as many god damn towns as possible (rotating in farms to grow the cities then slowly replace). To concentrate the map with cities So that every tile that was in your territory that you could build a town on was worked. Because the one town at 2 food was self sufficient and at 8 gold per turn after all the buildings would give a minimum of 20 gold per turn easily paying for that < 8 gold administrative cost for the additional city. Obviously you want to work every square with as few cities as possible. Think about this. At 80% research rate you get as much research out of a town (+6) as you do out of a farm and a scientist with the added bonus of money and even more production with fewer ppl to please.

On top of this any city anywhere could be maxed out quickly even with access to little resources to help itself. You can afford to pay for it. One turn of production to reduce costs then hurry. You could produce a new unit out of every city every other turn. Obviously the side effects would be your research rate was ludicrously high and your army and flexibility massive.

ANYWAY this thread is about the alternatives in BTS, if there are any viable ones, or if they just went ahead and made town spamming even stronger?

For one I tried to play a game as a complete warmongering douche as ?Darius? (imperialistic/char) and go the state property route and max out production. I obviously still put towns in support cities for research and just pumped out super high experience units almost every turn from my mega production cities (due to feudalism and theocracy).

This routes a dud. Mainly because you need caste system/police state to max out your production rate. Ok so if you have caste system with the large cities of this method you need heriditary rule to make your annoying peons happy. BUT now you get war weariness in the damn cities and need even more troops for that.
But if you don't have caste system all your workshops become much less useful (which is central to the method) and your stuck with a useless, forced on you civic which is designed for capitalism (emancipation).

PLUS the money mongering method got uber powerful with the addition of corporations. AND enviromentalism just got powerful with windmills now being very productive (5 gold for financial) and the much needed health (due to all the new and annoying unhealthiness bonus'. ?!?!?Power!?!?!? WTH sid? I don't think that many people stick forks in god damn outlets and toasters and I'm pretty sure hospitals and doctor's offices wouldn't be very effective w/o it? are you on crack sid?)

TOO MAKE A VERY LONG STORY SHORT is there any better gov system in the game? Or is it just too effective in BTS? Should Emancipation unhappiness not apply under state property? Should State property get the heriditary rule happiness bonus or some other happiness bonus to balance it (its a late civic and you have to side track for it anyway)? What can be done to give us some different options? Early and late there is nothing like the massive gold from town spamming for out teching everyone and paying for wars. I'm just sick of doing the same damn strategy or having to "challenge" myself otherwise.

 

[Diamondeye]

You keep writing Caste System instead of what I think you mean State Property. And I'm not good at SE, so I can't help you, but I am convinced that it is a viable alternative, although it gets harder after Emanci.

 

[mboettcher]

I mean caste system+state property together because caste system gives +1 hammer to workshop while state property gives +1 food to workshop and watermill. The 'obvious' symmetry being ruined by emancipation

PS what do you mean by SE?

 

[Diamondeye]

SE = Specialist Economy.
An economy either running at very low techslider with scientist for research, or very high techslider with merchants to pay upkeep and such.

 

[mboettcher]

AH specialist economy. ANother ruined method by emancipation. SE could be part of the caste system/state property approach. However, towns produce more total capital per tile than a specialist economy does. THats because you have to have a farm for every specialist to feed them and the individual town produces more capital and hammers than the 6 vials or 5 gold of the specialist. Granted you get a few more gp but you can get 90% of your gp from a gp farm.

 

[Diamondeye]

the benefit of SE is that you can run it relatively early (I'm no expert here), from libraries. Two food ressources and two scientist - with Mids for Rep, that's 6 vials per scientist. Add Sistine later for even better specialists... One scientist would then produce 2, 6, 3.
Being Philosophical improves this further. And! Farms don't take 70 turns to reach their max output.

 

[mboettcher]

the benefit of SE is that you can run it relatively early (I'm no expert here), from libraries. Two food ressources and two scientist - with Mids for Rep, that's 6 vials per scientist. Add Sistine later for even better specialists... One scientist would then produce 2, 6, 3.
Being Philosophical improves this further. And! Farms don't take 70 turns to reach their max output.

Good point on the rep gov. The 9 vials start to look pretty effective then. Will try this as it seems like a fun way to play.

Still not to push but do you think this is stronger than town spams?

 

[Diamondeye]

Depends. It requires abundant food - tends to do well with the Hub maptype, but that map is bunk... also, if running SE, do not go financial as you won't have any towns. Try out Lincoln or one of the greeks.

But mostly I run cottages or a kind of hybrid (mix)... Especially because I mostly play LAN with not-so-dedicated friend, who hates to wait for me microing

 

[Diamondeye]

Depends. It requires abundant food - tends to do well with the Hub maptype, but that map is bunk... also, if running SE, do not go financial as you won't have any towns. Try out Lincoln or one of the greeks.

But mostly I run cottages or a kind of hybrid (mix)... Especially because I mostly play LAN with not-so-dedicated friend, who hates to wait for me microing

 

[Johan^^]

Its a funny question, because i dont think cottages spam is a good strategy.

It makes you a very good target due to low production and good pillage. It has a very slow start compaired with SE.

In stead of going either one. A combination of them is very good. Running SE or hybrid SE/CE until Emancipation and them start to cottages up more titles.

With no cottages and lots of production it easier to grab Pyramids and go early Rep. which makes SE even more powerfull.


If you want to see an extreme game of SE, you sould read obsoletes walkthroughs. You can find them in the strategy thread, just search "walkthrough"

I´ll recomment something in between that strategy and expansion funded with semi cottages / SE economy.

 

[mboettcher]

Its a funny question, because i dont think cottages spam is a good strategy.

It makes you a very good target due to low production and good pillage. It has a very slow start compaired with SE.

I´ll recomment something in between that strategy and expansion funded with semi cottages / SE economy.

I agree with the viability of going pyramids but when I run town spam I never have trouble with my military. In fact I find it aids it. I usually don't have a problem producing enough troops as long as its steady, I run a few specialists early for the boost and all my early hills have to be mines.

ANYway I almost invariably go straight for oracle and writing. (the comp nvr chops oracle so its easy even on immortal). I get code of laws from oracle, found a religion, use the prophet from oracle to build the temple, get some religous friend(s) and use the towns and temple to pay for aggressive wars to solidfy my position.

So I guess what I mean by Town spam is use a little specialist economy to transition smoothly to towns.

 

[paulthebug]

Agreed. I no longer do CE anymore nowadays after I discovered that my little spy can sabo AI's town to nothing. SE is so much more fun.

 

[mboettcher]

Agreed. I no longer do CE anymore nowadays after I discovered that my little spy can sabo AI's town to nothing. SE is so much more fun.

Patch makes it step wise now. Plus your vassals don't do this anymore but your right. its still an issue.

 

[kniteowl]

SE is generally stronger then the CE in the early game as Cottages require time to grow, you can also over expand with the SE because you're using specialist instead of commerce from cottages, therefore you can run the slider very low, just don't run it lower then zero % lol. You also produce more Great People earlier in the game with the SE, generally used to light bulb techs, which gives you a free tech instantly which can be later used as trade fodder.

It's probably best to play a Transition economy with most leaders, SE pre Democracy and Emancipation then CE post Democracy/Emancipation.

 

[Tarew]

Well there is an alternative I tried recently. It's a bit late game but it actually worked very well.
It basically involves not chopping any forests from the start and farming the remaining tiles, then when you get scientific method, put forest preserves on every available tile. At one point I had a city with 9 forest preserves in its radius, National Park and National Epic in it and caste system on, then Environmentilism after Biology and I was churning out great people like crazy. The commerce is definitely less than what you get by spamming towns but added benefits include increased health and happiness in your cities, meaning they can supposably grow a lot bigger than by simple cottage spamming.

I'm not sure exactly how competitive this is yet as it is a late game strategy but it provided for a nice change.

 

[ese-aSH]

SE in the early game is awsome : you can let the slider down to 0% science with no consequence (good capitol with pyramids + GL + 2 scientists provides as much science as a full cottage empire up to 500 - 1000 AD).

SE allow bigger expansion (you have more taxes (science slider 0%) + the more city you get, the more scientists you can set up).
Cottage spamming reveal powerfull in the late game, if you really want to switch, wait for Emancipation and start cottage spamming.

 

[GT_OKEZ]

I opened a similar thread . See here.http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=248110

I am living proof that there are good alternatives to a CE/Financial leader . I was stuck on Financial because I became so heavily dependent on CE . Then I tried a SE to broaden my horizons and make me a more versatile player . And it WORKED . I can manage a SE just as good as a CE .

Don't get me wrong , Financial leaders still have a better commerce output but running a SE also covers your expenses . SE basically saves you the need to invest into beakers since you already have specialists assigned to take care of that for you .

Representation + Caste System is the best path to take with a SE . Even better if your a PHI leader and adopt Pacificsm during peacetime . Also gunning for those wonders that give you free specialists ( especially Great Library) only feeds your SE . Representation lets all your specialists produce beakers so that means you don't need to employ scientist specialist and you can focus on merchants or artists ( depending on what kind of game you want to play ). Having the PHI trait is just a great bonus since specialists increase your GP output . With a SE economy , all or most of your cities function as primary or secondary GP farms .

Ideally , for a Financial leader or a SE , you want to be by the sea but this is even more crucial with Financial/CE addicts . More coastal tiles means less needed cottages .

I don't play good ol Darius ( Fin/Org) as much as I play Pericles ( Cre/Phi) now . Don't get me wrong , Darius has some very powerful traits ( according to many , THE MOST POWERFUL traits) but if you can adapt to playing with someone like Pericles , he is also very powerful in his own right but obviously requires a different method of play .

If your going for a SE , getting CoL as early as possible is a mandatory must . Oracle is a nice slingshot for CoL . Building the Pyramids will help you in the early game too . Getting Representation gives you a huge edge in your SE . Representation was specifically made as a civic for SEs just as Universal Suffrage/Free Speech/Emancipation was for CEs .

 

[Diamondeye]

The difference is that SE requires a very lot of food. Everytime I start a game where I think "I might give SE a shot", I end up in a foodpoor area - once it was a tundra/ice island. I had 3 tiles worth 2 or more, with improvements. Run a SE here, please.

Post 666!

 

[GT_OKEZ]

Well taking the computer's suggestions on where to plot towns is actually benificial to a SE . The computer will usually give you areas near fresh water with access to at least one food source , many times two . Improving the cow , pig , clam , etc will give you those ' juicy' food outlets and let you take off blazing int he beginning . I try to CONSERVE space in my fat cross and only build on the resources at first . I add farms as they are needed and always make sure my fat cross has some access to fresh water . I know I will get civil service so I usually look in the beggining where I want to irrigate my farms .

I never really experianced a food shortage yet . The problems I need to address first are happiness and health usually .

 

[mboettcher]

SO basically Im getting that with SE you run farms and cottages with the obvious mines early for the production boost?