on cottage vs specialist economies

[penco]

Which type of economy is most standard for high-level gameplay: specialist, cottage, or hybrid? From what I can tell, cottage is the way to go, but I seem to do very well in specialist games (I am only up to monarch, though).

Even when I try to run cottages, I usually end up having to spam some scientists in the early game because I tend to over-REX and run out of money to spend on research.

If my goal is eventually to reach upper-level gameplay, should I just make myself get good with cottage economies, or should I stick with specialists?

Also, how far along should I be before I start building cottage cities? Second city? Third? How does it differ depending on whether I try for peaceful expansion or early rushing?



edit: last question. Is a specialist economy at all compatible with the Slavery civic, which most players swear by for upper-level play?

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Never focus your economy with tunnel visions otherwise you will end up in ruins. Have specific cities do different things but over all hammers are the most important.

 

[Ataxerxes]

I wouldn't go a "Specialist economy." The main benefit from specialists is GP and one or two GP farms should produce all of your GP. Bureau capital and see what you want in the outer cities. After you get to SP workshops and watermills become great improvements.

 

[coanda]

An emphasis on specialists will (usually) give more immediate yields at the start of the game due to great-person generation. An emphasis on cottages will (usually) perform better late in the game. Focusing on one to the exclusion of the other is (always) a bad idea.

 

[CaF]

I usually play with 1 cottage bureau capital and the rest of my cities often is non-cottaged, focussing on workers, settlers, some specialists, military, missionaries land grabbing, building wealth. The reason being that I just hate non-riverside cottages so I avoid them at all costs. Sometimes I have a couple of other cottage cities. Mainly when the land is good and I overexpand and/or block a lot of land aggressively.

In my experience it comes down to the land you have and whether bureaucracy can be beat. Lots of riverside green + tons of happiness + you are financial? -> free speech might be better than bureau here. Sounds like cottage paradise.
Few riverside terrain but stone, tons of food and hills -> now Representation sounds very good and your bureau capital can focus on hammers.

I think I have never played a pure economy successfully and I see absolutely no sense in it. My cities have jobs based on their land and what I need. Period. In fact, whenever I try to "cottage spam for the heck of it" I find myself behind in land, military and production. If the AIs love each other I even fall behind in tech. I obviously suck at it!

The problem I have with cottages is not just how long they take to be useful. They also slow down the infrastructure of a city in the very beginning when are unable to whip it. For me its often a choice between slavery or cottages and you just can't whip cottages. Whipping specialists after a great person is no problem, but cottages? You also can't build anything with that city. Wealth is weak, buildings take ages, workers take 20 turns, at borders you get culture pushed because you can't build anything.

As I said: I obviously suck at it.

You might what to check the videos of AbsoluteZero. He shows a strong style that is focussed on 2-3 core cities and the rest just gets whipped to death.
(http://www.youtube.com/user/Chris67132)
If you check the games of TMIT then you see something that tends to be more based on whipping stuff early and then grow almost everywhere, sometimes with cottages, sometimes with specialists.
(http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMelnTeam)

Your main question can't be answered. If you do it right and the map is right, then it will work. There is also stuff beyond specs and cottages. Like wonderspamming, trade route and Collossus coastal economies accompanied by the Great Lighthouse (island maps mainly) and religious economies around mostly captured shrines.
In the very late game you also often switch into a hammer economy with Workshops and Watermills (mostly with State Property) if you go for space, modern war or nuke war.

And I usually play Emperor and smash it solidly, rarely Immortal.

 

[Kid R]

should I just make myself get good with cottage economies, or should I stick with specialists?

Definitely neither - mix and match as the situation demands. Having said that many good players never build a single cottage, whereas you can't really play well without using specialists. Not sure if that means anything

Is a specialist economy at all compatible with the Slavery civic, which most players swear by for upper-level play?

Cities set up to run specialists will have more food than cottage cities, and more food is an advantage for slavery.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

If my goal is eventually to reach upper-level gameplay, should I just make myself get good with cottage economies, or should I stick with specialists?

You should turn your weakness into a strength. Specialist management and cottage management are two skills that are useful in high level play. The most straightforward way to learn each is to choose one, turn the dials up to eleven, and experiment to learn the strengths and limitations of each.

Also, how far along should I be before I start building cottage cities? Second city? Third? How does it differ depending on whether I try for peaceful expansion or early rushing?

My habit is that my second settler will go to a production location and my third to a commerce location. The most common exception is when a space is likely to be contested. Early rush usually means the third settler comes later, but doesn't change the mission.

edit: last question. Is a specialist economy at all compatible with the Slavery civic, which most players swear by for upper-level play?

Back in the day, there were all sorts of arguments that the "specialist" economy should more rightly be called the "food" economy for precisely this reason. Your basic city cycle would look like Grow -> Hire specialists -> Whip -> Grow..., ideally in a sustainable 10 turn cycle. Always work the high food tiles, whip to avoid feeding an angry citizen, hire specialists in the middle.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Back in the day, there were all sorts of arguments that the "specialist" economy should more rightly be called the "food" economy for precisely this reason. Your basic city cycle would look like Grow -> Hire specialists -> Whip -> Grow..., ideally in a sustainable 10 turn cycle. Always work the high food tiles, whip to avoid feeding an angry citizen, hire specialists in the middle.

Fast caste is an alternative, and an interesting one because you can directly trade off growth vs running specs now based on the tile value of a growth (and caps). You lose out some on production (whips, chops) but gain a lot of early GPP. Infra can come later once the specs get you to something more appealing like bio farms or boosted workshops.

 

[vranasm]

I mostly play "tech trade" and "play the map" economy... seems to work best

 

[ABCDPuppies]

Specialists are great early, but as others have said the problem is they have diminishing returns in the long run, particularly after Liberalism or so. Having a good Bureau capital with Oxford at this point can help to compensate, but probably you are going to want something else.

One thing that has helped in some of my recent games, is to switch a couple other cities to cottages around this time, and run Emancipation to get them up to par -- particularly if I'm facing happiness pressure to switch to emanc anyway. I'm curious if others have tried this, and whether they think it is an effective strategy.

 

[shyuhe]

You can win through immortal on cottage spam. To win on deity, you will have to learn to manage specialists. I would learn to manage diplomacy before you worry about tile management and economies -- it's more important in the long run.

 

[Agramon]

In most cities I will use the whip extensively and I will have only few cottages except in Capital. Most of the time I try to gather money by trades. Hired scientists come in handy when overexpanded. I will always aim for a short window of cannons and get some neighbours land

 

[penco]

Thank you all for the good tips.

Definitely neither - mix and match as the situation demands. Having said that many good players never build a single cottage, whereas you can't really play well without using specialists. Not sure if that means anything

How do you run an economy that isn't pure specialist without cottages? Just rely on random resources and river tiles? I know late game you can make decent money off mechanical improvements, but really not until Electricity. Do you just build Research and Wealth with hammers?

 

[ABCDPuppies]

How do you run an economy that isn't pure specialist without cottages? Just rely on random resources and river tiles? I know late game you can make decent money off mechanical improvements, but really not until Electricity. Do you just build Research and Wealth with hammers?

Well, trade routes.. hammers.. corporations.

But I think his point was just that specialists are probably more important to high level play. You can get by without cottages, but not without specialists. And ultimately you probably shouldn't think of yourself as having a 'pure' economy of any stripe.

 

[babar]

SE vs CE depends a bit on your long term strategy.

I think an SE favours early aggression. It's simply not true that specialists are not good unless they produce a GP; early on they research better than cottages, particularly if overextension is forcing your slider down. So it makes sense to make the most of them, and the better production, before they fall behind. If you are going to build the Pyramids your empire will likely be too small without war as well. I always did better in 'SE' games when the capital was heavily cottaged though.

However on higher levels in BTS (not vanilla or warlords) it is often easier to play peaceful until gunpowder. You get a bigger peaceful empire than a pyramid builder would, and keep up in tech with lower maintenance costs, less war expenditure, and more friends. Then you liberalism-slingshot to some gunpowder unit advantage, at which point your cottages are mature and better than specialists, and start killing your erstwhile buddies.

'Hybrid' economies are all the rage, and it does make sense to cottage riverside and work specialists off food. But they are a bit harder to manage, and less streamlined than heavy SEs.

 

[Evil4Zerggin]

I'm not that good at this game, but for me hybrid with city specialization is definitely the way to go. Since the GPP target is shared between all cities, there's really not much reason to have more than 1-2 GPP farms IMO (I'm guessing a National Epic city with farms early and a National Park city with Forest Preserves later? I would make them the same city except National Park doesn't come until really late in the game and I don't want to leave unimproved, unchopped forests for that long.)

 

[AutomatedTeller]

You can win without a cottage or a single specialist (well, I'm not much of an immortal or deity player), by basically just building units and razing cities.

 

[ABCDPuppies]

You can win without a cottage or a single specialist (well, I'm not much of an immortal or deity player), by basically just building units and razing cities.

I'm curious how you're managing to keep conquering opponents after maybe the first or second, when they start getting way ahead of you in tech?

And if you raze a bunch of cities, the other AIs will just snatch the land up, and get even further ahead.

 

[penco]

Haven't had time to catch up on some of these posts. About to eat dinner. Just wanted to throw these up real quick.


Here are some screenies of my starting game. I just switched to slavery, explored a bit, and have my first settler ready to move.

(De Gaulle, Monarch, large, 9 players, fractal)

Spoiler :

Questions:

1) What should I run in my capital? It looks like a good candidate for specialists, but maybe cottages too since there is so much river around.

2) Where should I go with my first settler? Second?

3) If this were your start, what kind of victory would you shoot for? How would you generate most of your gold and beakers?




Here's my off-the-cuff initial strategy. Please critique:

-settle first thing by the gem/river area for a strong economy town
-settle near the elephants with settler 2 or 3, preparing to elepult rush Freddy to the NE
-beeline for construction
-domination/space race win




Gotta go eat. Be back soon.

 

[Ghpstage]

It would be ok with cottages, but nothing particularly special, especially as you aren't Financial. To me that capital screams wonderspaming GP farm as it has hammers, marble, food AND you are Industrious.

Too early to tell what VC is best but I prefer military if possible.
Cow gems seems good as a blocking city, but you have to consider that the gems can't be used till Iron working. Another possibility is the corn-gold site to get early commerce to race for wonders.