"No such thing as a pure economy"

[Iranon]

@ Ibian: I rarely resign myself to a small empire unless going for an early diplomatic (in which case the question doesn't arise) or a cultural victory (in which case total cottage spam sucks) or I'm trying something unorthodox for fun.

From conjecture, I assume a conversion to 'all cottages' would be more rewarding for a small empire, since the output lost during the conversion doesn't translate into enough hammers to build a spaceship or an army to conquer the world.

 

[aelf]

I think you underestimate how many hammers you have to throw around with US even without rushbuying. I had 2 cities which could build a unit every two turns (one was my cottaged capital) and several that could build a unit every 4 turns. Cottage cities that had towns with levees or on plains or hills can get quite high production. My army was already #2 in power - but it needed a huge surge to reach #1.

Imagine if they were not fully cottaged. Some of your cities could be producing units in 1-2 turns normally. That's double the rate. And when you are researching for tanks, bombers or rifles, you might need to be building more infantry, tanks or grenadiers and cannons. I don't think you usually have enough of those already and just need bombers or tanks or rifles.

Building units at the same time also reduces the chance of getting screwed in the meantime by ensuring that you have some extra units handy there and then instead of in a few turns due to having to rush buy.

This game was with a financial leader - maybe that changes the risk/reward of a highly cottaged economy somewhat.

I would think so.

Didn't have Kremlin, didn't need it. 8-9 units a turn is plenty.

If with pure CE you take, say, 4 turns to research Radio and another 4 turns to build units, you can have about 20+ units (you need one turn to switch from 100% research to 100% wealth) at the end of it. If you do it with a mixed economy, and take 8 turns to research Radio while building units, you can have about the same number of units. The only weakness is you don't have bombers so quickly, but you have more of other units which you might need anyway, and you gain the advantage of relative security in the meantime.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Edge-out is not quite how I'd describe it. In the later stages of the game, you are going to find a lot of projects. And projects nerf cottages. Plain and simple. No matter how many Kremlines you have, no matter if you have an infinite amount of gold.... you simply can NOT gold-rush any of the projects.

It's not apples and oranges even, it's comparing infinity.

Projects are only relevant for a space win though - and are easily addressed by workshopping an ironworks city for max production. At the appropriate point your research can be downgraded and several of your cottage cities workshopped for the final spaceship parts.

For a military win you simply don't need to build any projects.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Imagine if they were not fully cottaged. Some of your cities could be producing units in 1-2 turns normally. That's double the rate. And when you are researching for tanks, bombers or rifles, you might need to be building more infantry, tanks or grenadiers and cannons. I don't think you usually have enough of those already and just need bombers or tanks or rifles.

Building units at the same time also reduces the chance of getting screwed in the meantime by ensuring that you have some extra units handy there and then instead of in a few turns due to having to rush buy.

During the course of my max speed research I managed to knock back Sitting Bulls attack, capture four of his cities and invade and vassalize the weaker AIs on the other continent. On immortal. So my army was big enough. Big enough for everything except Mehmed's gigantic stack - which had a power of over twice mine - he had also vassalized Sitting Bull.

Mehmed was never going to attack me - I was #2 in power and was more likely to attack one of the weaker AIs. And if he did come I was protective after all!

Yes I could have workshopped more cities and built more infantry. But then I would have reached tanks later and he would have more military techs too. As it was I was able to DOW shortly before he got infantry. If he had added rocketry and artillery while I teched slower it would have been a much harder war.

If with pure CE you take, say, 4 turns to research Radio and another 4 turns to build units, you can have about 20+ units (you need one turn to switch from 100% research to 100% wealth) at the end of it. If you do it with a mixed economy, and take 8 turns to research Radio while building units, you can have about the same number of units. The only weakness is you don't have bombers so quickly, but you have more of other units which you might need anyway, and you gain the advantage of relative security in the meantime.

Its more like a 20 or 30 turn lead though by the time you get all the techs required. Its not just the last tech that I need to research, its all of the preceding ones. And I don't need to rushbuy for 20 or 30 turns before DoW - in fact I was rushbuying for only 3-4 turns (aided by a Great Merchant who I had saved) before the DoW.

I could have prepared more but it was more important to me to let the war start before he had infantry - other games I might have done 10 turns of rushbuying - but that gets you an enormous army. I also knew I was going to lose at least one city initially as it was a captured city that was vulnerable and was determined to use my protective trait to make him pay dearly for that city. And I wanted to lure his attack stack into my territory while he thought I was still weak. Then I could cut it up with rushbought tanks and bombers whcih could be rushed in the right place depending on where his attack came.

Then my production just simply outmatched him. 8 or 9 units a turn is massive when those units also have a tech lead.

 

[Ibian]

Edge-out is not quite how I'd describe it. In the later stages of the game, you are going to find a lot of projects. And projects nerf cottages. Plain and simple. No matter how many Kremlines you have, no matter if you have an infinite amount of gold.... you simply can NOT gold-rush any of the projects.

It's not apples and oranges even, it's comparing infinity.

Thats what the one hammer city is for.

And i think some people are misunderstanding how this works. Its not "tech fast or buy stuff", thats just one option. Most of the time it will be more to the tune of "tech a little faster than a normal economy and buy just as much stuff as them".

My 2nd test game was succesful. 6 city space win on monarch with not a single lategame military unit built the normal way. Stalin was next door with twice my power rating or more at any given time. Still held him off the times he attacked while maintaining tech lead.

Its a solid economy. It just plays a little differently than the more standard kinds.

 

[aelf]

During the course of my max speed research I managed to knock back Sitting Bulls attack, capture four of his cities and invade and vassalize the weaker AIs on the other continent. On immortal. So my army was big enough. Big enough for everything except Mehmed's gigantic stack - which had a power of over twice mine - he had also vassalized Sitting Bull.

I think your geopolitical power contributes to this to a large extent. Perhaps unit spam as well

Yes I could have workshopped more cities and built more infantry. But then I would have reached tanks later and he would have more military techs too. As it was I was able to DOW shortly before he got infantry. If he had added rocketry and artillery while I teched slower it would have been a much harder war.

That is true. But sometimes you do need more infantry and such. It depends on the situation.

Its more like a 20 or 30 turn lead though by the time you get all the techs required. Its not just the last tech that I need to research, its all of the preceding ones. And I don't need to rushbuy for 20 or 30 turns before DoW - in fact I was rushbuying for only 3-4 turns (aided by a Great Merchant who I had saved) before the DoW.

Again, that is assuming you started off with a big army. It is also assuming that there are many more techs you must to research in order to win.

I could have prepared more but it was more important to me to let the war start before he had infantry - other games I might have done 10 turns of rushbuying - but that gets you an enormous army. I also knew I was going to lose at least one city initially as it was a captured city that was vulnerable and was determined to use my protective trait to make him pay dearly for that city. And I wanted to lure his attack stack into my territory while he thought I was still weak. Then I could cut it up with rushbought tanks and bombers whcih could be rushed in the right place depending on where his attack came.

Then my production just simply outmatched him. 8 or 9 units a turn is massive when those units also have a tech lead.

I really think it depends on the situation. It might work brilliantly for this game, but it might not turn out so well in another. It does seem to take more effort than a normal mixed economy, though, while carrying some extra risk. Maybe it's a risk-reward thing.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I really think it depends on the situation. It might work brilliantly for this game, but it might not turn out so well in another. It does seem to take more effort than a normal mixed economy, though, while carrying some extra risk. Maybe it's a risk-reward thing.

In games where I've played a mixed economy I've sometimes found myself in a situation where an AI (often financial) for some reason is just racing through the late game techs and doing it faster than I am. If they can sustain this then they will beat me to a space win. And attacking them I will be attacking with a tech deficit. So if they outresearch me on a mixed economy then I am essentially committing myself to invading a tech leader as the only hope of winning.

If I can out-research them, then I don't really consider the strategy carries any extra risk at all - in fact it is safer. If I have a tech lead then I have better troops plus better control of the diplomatic situation as I can use my tech lead to start or stop wars. And if military conquest looks too risky to attempt I am able to fall back easily to a space race.