Questions from a not so new player

[Ashurdan]

Hi CivFanatics, I come to you with a few questions any responses are welcome. Question 1: Who is the best SE leader for trying out that economy of the vanilla leaders? Question 2: Are lumber mills, after being railroaded ect that bad? or is chopping them and replacing them with something else earlier better? Question 3: When I am running a primarily(little to no cottages) SE should I run 100 science and add some merchants to make up or run 100 cash and have tons of scientists? Also, how many people actually run the 0% science tactic for cash the 100% science at a loss? How much cash do you want to stockpile before you go back to 0 and does switching work better in the early game, middle or late? Any responses are welcome as I am at a Monarch rut and want some advice. Thanks,

Ashurdan

 

[BurN]

1. Any leader with either phi or ind. Some that pop into my mind atm.. Peter, Elizabeth, Mao, Frederick, Gandhi, Roosevelt, Saladin?

2. Depends, not chopping early in game might lose you some wonders or strategic cities. I always try to keep 2 to 4 forests around my production cities if I can.

3. You don't need to have your science slider at a high %. It only affects the commerce->breakers. If you're running a pure SE game the difference between 0% and 100% won't be that high.
I usually run at 20-60% but it all depends really. If I "can" run 100% without a deficit, I would probably just do it unless I'd need money to upgrade troops.

Stockpiling cash and then run 100%? There's some info on that regarding lost breakers cause of rounding down with multipliers. I cba to do that stuff in any of my games so I can't help you on that sry.

Maybe a tip, if you want to run a pure SE game. If you want to go for scientists mainly, make a commerce/gold city because you will need it. If you run priests you can aim for no cottages at all.

 

[The Rook]

1. I recommend Ramesses for a SE (Industrial/Spiritual). Utilise the Industrious trait to obtain Stonehenge (for Obelisks), Pyramids (for Representation) and Angkor Wat (for priest slots and extra hammers). This combo will give you super priests (+2 Hammers, +1 Gold, +3 Beakers). The Obelisk is the replacement for the Monument, but it gives 2 free priest slots, so with Ramesses you can run a Priest economy! Spiritual is great to switch civics for boosts of synchronised production (Organised Religion for buildings, Vassalage/Theocracy for units). The SE tends to be more flexible for production. The specialists can move to mines or workshops. If you need a quick boost you can switch to slavery, cities tend to regrow faster than a CE, as tiles that would normally be cottaged are farmed.

2. Workshops are stronger in a SE if you run SP with Caste System (post Chemistry). Lumbermills with railroads are a decent improvement though, when you consider the potential health benefits. How many forests you chop in the early game may be situation dependent.

3. Ideally you want your empire to make virtually no commerce when running a SE. This means that you can take advantage of civics like Caste System by boosting the culture slider when the other civs adopt Emancipation. It is good to deal with war-weariness too. Caste System is very powerful in a SE not only for the specialists, but for the extra hammers generated by workshops.

 

[DarkFyre99]

Hi CivFanatics, I come to you with a few questions any responses are welcome. Question 1: Who is the best SE leader for trying out that economy of the vanilla leaders?

Industreous or Philosophical. I usually favor Philosophical over Industerious, but Industrious does give you an advantage in trying for Pyramids and other specialist enhancing Wonders.

Question 2: Are lumber mills, after being railroaded ect that bad? or is chopping them and replacing them with something else earlier better?

I usually keep two forests for each city for health, and chop the rest. Lumbermills with railroads give you three hammers and two food, or four hammers with one food.

Question 3: When I am running a primarily(little to no cottages) SE should I run 100 science and add some merchants to make up or run 100 cash and have tons of scientists?

Few or no cottages means that you produce little commerce, so diverting commerce into science isn't significant. In addition, an SE means large cities, and a lot of unhappiness (especially late game) so diverting commerce into culture (for happiness) is usually better than science. Finding a balance between gold and culture (and little/no science) is generally better than finding a balance between gold and science (and little/no culture) in an SE.

Also, how many people actually run the 0% science tactic for cash the 100% science at a loss? How much cash do you want to stockpile before you go back to 0 and does switching work better in the early game, middle or late? Any responses are welcome as I am at a Monarch rut and want some advice. Thanks,

Ashurdan

The 100%/0% tactic really doesn't yield much in the long term. Especially if you have more science multipliers than you do gold multipliers.

 

[oyzar]

Saladin is the SE master for vanilla as his traits are just the best..

 

[vicawoo]

In VANILLA, lumbermills are the best. Same production as workshops, plus a health bonus. Same goes with mines, unless you find some resource.

Don't know vanilla SA leaders, depends if you like being aggressive or not.

People tend to run scientists as much as possible, then if they're still losing money, run merchants. I suppose if a city had a lot of money multipliers you should run merchants.

Multipliers don't affect the 0/100%, since the ratio then gets converted into turns of each. I stockpile enough to get the tech I want, or part of the way. Turns to research under 100%/(deficit at 100% science)=gold you need.

 

[gdgrimm]

Since the OP mentions Vanilla CivIV....

I think the 100%/0% research slider trick is often called Binary Research. The very first release of CivIV tracked lightbulbs and gold at the integer level (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.). So the rounding down effect made Binary Research more efficient by an effective rate of 0.5 lightbulbs/turn. That's a pretty significant boost, especially in the early game when techs are cheap.

One of the early patches to Vanilla though (and all subsequent expansions) track lightbulbs/gold at the 0.01 level. Binary Research is still more efficient, but it now only gains you about 0.005 lightbulbs/turn, which makes the benefit insignificant, and I don't think anybody thinks it's worth the hassle anymore.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Hi CivFanatics

Hi!

Question 1: Who is the best SE leader for trying out that economy of the vanilla leaders?

My favourite has always been Gandhi (but probably more in his post-Warlords incarnation.)

As has been stated, any combination of Industrious, Spiritual and Philosophical makes for a great SE leader.

IMHO:

• For a peaceful SE, Philosophical + whatever.
• For a warring SE, Spiritual + whatever.

Question 2: Are lumber mills, after being railroaded ect that bad? or is chopping them and replacing them with something else earlier better?

Lumbermills are great as long as you're willing to wait half the game for them (I typically am not).

Whether or not chopping them early is "better" is a call you have to make situationally.

As a general rule (especially in BtS), I chop trees in an SE and leave them in a CE. (Based on the generalization that SE's are good early-game systems and that CE's are good late-game systems.)

Question 3: When I am running a primarily(little to no cottages) SE should I run 100 science and add some merchants to make up or run 100 cash and have tons of scientists?

I think that's a judgement call you can make based solely on your own preferences.

The thing to remember is that at 100% , +gold% buildings like Banks are virtually worthless unless Merchants are being run in the city.

Similarly, +science% buildings like Universities are virtually worthless when running at 100% .

BUT: Based on that information, you could deduce that 100% is better, because most +science% buildings do nothing more than boost science, while most +gold% buildings also boost and (and are thus necessary anyway -- regardless of the sliders).

Also, how many people actually run the 0% science tactic for cash the 100% science at a loss? How much cash do you want to stockpile before you go back to 0 and does switching work better in the early game, middle or late?

Because of Vanilla rounding errors, you can lose a fairly substantial amount of and running your sliders at anything other than 0% or 100%.

However, since all rounding was relegated to the Financial advisor in Warlords, the most you stand to 'save' running "binary research" in non-Vanilla Civ4 is 0.99 , 0.99 & 0.99 (in BtS).