Learning Specialist Economy

I am please with my production, it could be a lot worse. I have many production/commerce hybrids. Is that okay? This give me both science and hammers, I just couldn't find a good spot for a 100% commerce farm. But some of the comes pretty close.
What do you say?

eXeel,

100% commerce farms shouldn't exist in a SE. Instead you want a 100% food city. This is the city where you should settle as many specialists as possible. You should farm or windmill every tile and assign specialists. In my games, when Biology comes around I'll even farm over Wineries and Plantations in that city for the extra food, because the post Biology Farm will produce more food meaning more specialists meaning more science!
 
eXeel,

100% commerce farms shouldn't exist in a SE. Instead you want a 100% food city. This is the city where you should settle as many specialists as possible. You should farm or windmill every tile and assign specialists. In my games, when Biology comes around I'll even farm over Wineries and Plantations in that city for the extra food, because the post Biology Farm will produce more food meaning more specialists meaning more science!

That makes sense. I'm close to Biology and I've spent the past turns since the peace treaty, to make sure every city had enough food to grow to max, and to give more food to my GP farm.

Do you also think, that my production cities should rather have Mines + Farms + Specialists instead of Mines + Cottages?
 
You should want both if you are playing optimally.


Boooo! Down with cottages! Get out of our thread, Dave!

heh j/k

I know you're right, but if someone is looking to learn how to use a SE, I say make them build zero cottages and struggle with that. Once they know how to use zero cottages, go for the hybrid.
 
You're confusing me :) Tell me more about it. I can farm all I want, and stay away from cottages, but what balance is preferred? After I've learned.
 
That makes sense. I'm close to Biology and I've spent the past turns since the peace treaty, to make sure every city had enough food to grow to max, and to give more food to my GP farm.

There is no such thing as a "max" size for a GP farm. You want them to be as big as possible to run as many specialists as possible.

Do you also think, that my production cities should rather have Mines + Farms + Specialists instead of Mines + Cottages?[/quote]

No cottages! Cottages are the devil! :mad:

Seriously though, for the first 2 months that I played a SE I didn't build a single cottage. I even farmed, mined, and windmilled over ever single cottage I captured. I also didn't bulb anything, I settled everyone except one Great Scientist one or two Great Prophets.

Oh, and make sure you get the Pyramids up and swap to Representation early on.
 
You're confusing me :) Tell me more about it. I can farm all I want, and stay away from cottages, but what balance is preferred? After I've learned.

I honestly don't know where the balance is, because it changes with every map. I'm tempted to take a map where I built a bunch of farms, then when I learn Liberalism, swap to Free Speech and Emancipation (but keep Rep) and cottage every tile until the city drops to size 20. Then starve my city down to the proper size. But that'll require more workers than I'm used to having at that time. Also, as a Marathon player once I get my empire setup I tend to move VERY fast. Usually I'm producing and moving units faster than I'm losing them, meaning my current workers are frantically cleaning up the new cities I just conquered. Also, a side affect of moving very fast is that cottages tend to not grow as fast as I need them to grow to keep up.

Also, I like Specialists because you can specialize the cities with only the minimal buildings necessary.

Think about it like this:

1 Scientist Specialist will net me 6 beakers. All 6 beakers are multiplied by the science multipliers.

A cottage producing me 8 commerce at 50% science 50% gold is only 4 science. This means I'll either only be getting 4 beakers multiplied by the science multipliers, or need to spend extra hammers to build gold multipliers in that city as well.

The other bonus for running zero cottages is the need to not run Police State while dealing with a really long war. With a Theatre and Collesium in every city one simply needs to tick up the cultule slider to combat with war weariness. Because of how little a zero cottage empire relies on commerce, you lose very very little science and can gain a ton of happiness with a very little science loss.
 
I don't agree with farming all tiles. In a gold city, perhaps, but 2 or 3 less science specialists won't make much difference by the time you're working all tiles. I would put workshops on the plains tiles (since they get an extra hammer) and even mine the hills. If you are making a specialist city, there should be plenty of grassland/food resource/river tiles to supplement 20+ citizens (plus once you get StateProp, you get back the missing 1 food from workshops) and caste system gives +1 hammers to workshops (according to the Civ IV info page and what I see in game).

The reason is that those low food tiles won't get worked when you have your specialists up and running, but when you need to add the +gold/+science buildings, having all farms/windmills will take FOREVER to get them up. If you take your specialists off and work those workshops/mines, those buildings will go up MUCH quicker especially since most of the buildings come after the +1 hammer boost to workshops from GUILDS. Then when you're done building the improvement, go back to working the city's specialists.

Oh, and your later cities should be getting cottages, but I wouldn't bother before other civs get constitution. It's when you need to switch to emancipation that the cottages really get you going. On levels higher than Prince, you might need to have a few cottage cities earlier on, but I find the pure SE much more efficient until the AI is threatening Democracy/Emancipation
 
I know you're right, but if someone is looking to learn how to use a SE, I say make them build zero cottages and struggle with that. Once they know how to use zero cottages, go for the hybrid.
Strongly disagree with this. The best way to learn how to run a SE is to run it without the pyramids. Skipping cottages is a bad idea--you should learn when to make them and when not to while you're at it. In some situations this could be never, but that's very rare (and if so you're capturing them). I don't support spamming cottages everywhere--I get very few personally, but they do have their place in an empire.
 
Strongly disagree with this. The best way to learn how to run a SE is to run it without the pyramids. Skipping cottages is a bad idea--you should learn when to make them and when not to while you're at it. In some situations this could be never, but that's very rare (and if so you're capturing them). I don't support spamming cottages everywhere--I get very few personally, but they do have their place in an empire.

Then tell me, what place? :) It is hard for me to work with something, without knowing the entirety of it all. With all inputs, it's easier for me to understand when and when not to use it...
 
Best place is on a grassland tile next to a river (gives an extra commerce point inherently) but only if you already have enough food to feed at least 20 pop. Second best is a regular grassland tile. Basically any 2 food tile is ideal since you can work it right away and not hurt the city's growth
 
Best place is on a grassland tile next to a river (gives an extra commerce point inherently) but only if you already have enough food to feed at least 20 pop. Second best is a regular grassland tile. Basically any 2 food tile is ideal since you can work it right away and not hurt the city's growth

Yeah, that's what I do too. But what situation is the best to use cottages over farms -> specialists? They mentioned it was based on the map, and I ask "what map kind would have cottages as the best, and what specialists?" to understand when and what situation they would use cottages over farms specialists :)
 
Then tell me, what place? :) It is hard for me to work with something, without knowing the entirety of it all. With all inputs, it's easier for me to understand when and when not to use it...

Some cities have many good tiles and other cities have few good tiles but plenty of food resources (fish, pigs etc).

The cities with many good tiles are cities where you're often better off making cottages because if you run specialists you miss out on those good tiles.

The cities with few good tiles but a lot of food are often better off running specialists as you'd be working a poor tile otherwise.
 
eXeel: Any land based map is good for whichever you choose. It's really on you whether or not you build cottages. I find that any game I play needs to convert to cottages later on (still keeping my specialists in main science city). Water maps are probably more conducive to not cottaging since you have little land and a lot of seafood
 
Okay :)
I still am a little uncertain of whether I understand the method of SE properly... Is it meant as the primary goal for all cities? Also production? Maybe except for the hills, am I still supposed to use specialists for that and if so, then which?

I found myself very dependant on the civic that gives unlimited specialists, not sure what it is called. That is a must, I suppose? At least for the GP farm.
I'm happy to be on my way to winning my first Monarch game, even with all the Civs at the same continent as I (Pangea).
With some focus on SEing at first and expanding and chopping, then a little defense and teching and then military and conquering a little and then peace, rebuild infrastructure and tech away... That worked this time, at least. Seems a little like a piece of cake from now on, as I have a clear tech lead, I have lots of friends and only one enemy that is behind in tech, and I have the most and best cities.
 
Some cities have many good tiles and other cities have few good tiles but plenty of food resources (fish, pigs etc).

The cities with many good tiles are cities where you're often better off making cottages because if you run specialists you miss out on those good tiles.

The cities with few good tiles but a lot of food are often better off running specialists as you'd be working a poor tile otherwise.

Thanks, makes sense :)
Then what about this question:

If I am running out of good room for new cities, do I make a city between others even if that means it only gets 3-6 tiles to work and it takes away a couple from another city?
And what if it is tundra and only a few ressources there and nothing more to harvest, could I make use of a city like that? I guess I could if water was nearby, but what if only tundra or ice surrounds it and then maybe 2 ressources that gives food and/or hammers?
 
Compared to Slavery :)whipped:), Caste System is a weak civic. My Noble games usually have me staying in Slavery for most of the game!

Also, one bit of advice from the first SE ALC was to not feed the primary GP farm with 3:food: tiles-4:food: is the minimum! As soon as I can with games consistently on Noble, I'll try that bit of advice out myself.
 
I think this thread goes to show how many different ways to run your economy there are. I do think getting pyramids every game is going to be a tough ask without stone unless you chop like crazy.

Without representation your scientist is left on +3 science beakers compared to the 6. +6 if you add a specialist to a city.

Hmmmm food for thought. :lol:
 
Gumbolt is wrong here. :(

For a Specialist Economy, you want to be running Representation. Representation helps with the early happiness issue. I will admit that HR helps with the happiness more than Rep, but you shouldn't be running Rep only for the happiness. You want Rep for the +3 beaker per specialist bonus. The extra happiness is just a bonus.


I normally go for GLH these days over pyramids unless i have a city that can build it in time. If you have Pyramids then rep is an obvious choice.

Which begs the question. How early do you build the Pyramids? Whats the latest you will leave it to if you have no stone. It is a good strategy for a early GE.
 
It all depends on the enviroment and what kind of wonders you manage to archive. In my last game, my economy first was based on TGL, then into a religious with a touch of specialists. Eventually I had a full SE going and it was pretty insane. A city was working two tiles and had, IIRC, 15 specialists thanks to sushi. Didn't build a single cottage. However, you are forges to micromanage more with a SE, especially since the computer LOVES spies...

And Gumbolt isn't wrong. You can run a SE without representation.
 
Top Bottom