SE question

[madscientist]

Funny, lots of definitions here

The purpose of SE was getting Great people quick and bulb and trade abuse yourself to the top right? So, if you do this and run appropriate civics you are running an SE, if you got a couple of cottages here and there, what difference does it make? The basics of the economy is whats important, CE generates Scientists and stuff for academies so why shouldn't SE get some cottages to help with the gold? In the end you pick the best from both to get the best result anyway, so in a sense almost everyone is running Hybrid E. anyway.... but that doesn't explain the basics of your economy so.... pick the one closest, "pure" SE and "pure" CE is handicapping yourself, so definitions shouldn't be those.

But i remember reading about the switch early-mid game SE, late game cottaging over farms and running emancipation. Because SE was weak late game, people switched, (or won.. ) but with the introduction of food corps, representation and specialists can add quite a punch to your research rate late game too. Is it only me who runs representation and lots of specialists late game in BTS? Granted i use a lot of cottages too, but even with a small empire Sushi can bring 3-4 specialists to every city you have. I almost never used specialists in warlords/vanilla (well i sucked a bit too then, but... ) while in BTS i'm using more specialists for research than ever, because of the easy food corp/representation combo. Maybe SE is moved to late game in BTS?

I agree and definitely do this myself. BTS has greatly improved the late "SE" game allowing you to keep it up all game, as long as you have the availabble specialist options post democracy. Also I find representation can be very stronge late game, in addition to very high culture pressure from the Sisten Chapel.



Other SE friendly things for a SE besides corps are

random events that settle speciaists sometimes
Industrial park for a free engineer and the option to run 5 per city, 7 for iron works city.
National Park for gobs of specialist


Even without corps, state property has a production boost, plus the extra food which helps the SE economy.

 

[UncleJJ]

Except that one definition makes sense and works, while the other does not. Specifically, if you swapped all your scientists for merchants and ran up the science slider instead, then by your definition that changes an SE to a CE - which makes no sense. Similarly, building courthouses so that you can boost the science slider would do the same thing.

Agree

Given that beakers/gold/EP/culture are largely convertible (via slider settings and specialist choice), the only truly meaningful thing to look at is the *total* thereof.

Well said, I find it hard to improve on that argument.

An economy in BtS is the total output of beakers + net gold (income minus expenses) + EPs each turn. Then you can add the effects of one-off items like a lightbulbed GS or the gold from a Wonder another civ finished. These occur in one turn but are accumulating over many preceding turns.

 

[UncleJJ]

I run my economies quite well, thank you very much.

I am sure you do. I was addressing what you wrote not how you play.

Anyways, the focus of an economy has always been about aquiring technology. You always need gold to pay your bills, but unless you've got a special purpose in mind (such as converting all those highly promoted privateers to destroyers) it's not the focus of your economy. You want just enough to pay your bills, and that's it.

This is the wrong emphasis. The focus of my economy is winning the game and there are several ways to do that. An important part of the game is about acquiring the necessary technologies, however you do that - research, espionage, extortion, trading are viable options. But just as important is leveraging that technological advantage to win the game and to do that you need production, resources and population. For instance, it is quite possible to overwhelm a tech whore like Mansa with sheer weight of numbers even if he has a few techs on you.

Same way with espionage. Unless you're planning on a lot of spy missions, you get all the espionage you need as a byproduct of other things, like building courthouses.

That is one way to use espionage but please don't try to say that it is the only way or even the best way. I often build castles, jails and run Nationhood and some spy specialists in the middle game to get a significant advantage in EPs over my rivals. Those EPs that give me the advantage are part of my economy at that stage of the game, just as important as any extra technologies from beakers would be. They allow me do several things I would not otherwise be able to, like steal a tech, revolt a city and see where the enemy armies are placed. I have made an economic choice to favour EPs over beakers at that stage of the game as a key part of my overall game strategy.

Culture and espionage are rarely concerns. Even aquiring gold is a secondary concern. But aquiring technology... that's the primary concern.

Even if this is true that does not make it right to say that beakers = the economy. An economy consists of all its parts = beakers + gold + EPs at least.

Of course you do. But it's aquiring technology that's the focus of your economy.

Sometimes it is but that is certainly not always true or for the entire game. It really does depend on circumstances and they change over time. You presume too much.

I assume you mean a game where you're trying for a cultural win, where you ran a CE until you're ready to make the sprint to Legendary status.

Correct.

A CE is understood to be cottages and the technologies and civics that maximize them in which the focus is to aquire technology through research and trade. The sole exception is one GP farm which yields random Great People, used for bulbing, golden ages, or their unique functions.

First part in bold is correct, the rest is your limited interpretation of how the economy has to be run. The Economy in a CE is the total of the commerce from cottages, and other sources like trade routes, as divided by the various sliders and applied to building multipliers in each city to produce the output beakers, gold and EPs. The various other things you mention also contribute to that economy. The GP farm provides some beakers directly and GSs for lightbulbing and academies. Golden Ages boost the economic output for a period. Some buildings like temples produce beakers when paired with wonders like the UoS, other buildings like courthouses and jails produce EPs and all these are part of the Economy as well even if it is a CE. For me a CE is simply an economy where the bulk of the economic output comes from cottages.

An SE is understood to be specialists and the technologies and civis that in which the focus is to aquire technology through research, strategic bulbing, and trade. The sole exception may be the capital, for the purposes of maximizing the bureacracy bonus.

A SE is simply an Economy based around specialists. The decision to run one affects the technologies that are prioritised (e.g. Constitution, Biology) and the civics needed in the middle game (e.g. Representation). The economic focus may or may not be to emphasis research for periods during the game (e.g. win Liberalism race). My games often emphasise EPs as I outlined above and at other times I produce large amounts of gold to upgrade my HAs to cavalry, or macemen to grenadiers or frigates to destroyers. My economy is tuned to win the game and support my diplomatic and military situation and that varies as the game progresses.

 

[futurehermit]

I'm not interested in changing any minds either, I just give my opinion, which is that if the majority of your beakers are coming from specialists/great people then you are running a SE, regardless of whether you have some cottages paying maintenance bills or not. Some people would call it a hybrid, and they are welcome to do so. I don't really appreciate the fairly aggressive attacks on my position, but tbh I'm not going to lose any sleep over it as I know that there are quite a few who feel helped by my contributions to these boards.

 

[madscientist]

I'm not interested in changing any minds either, I just give my opinion, which is that if the majority of your beakers are coming from specialists/great people then you are running a SE, regardless of whether you have some cottages paying maintenance bills or not. Some people would call it a hybrid, and they are welcome to do so. I don't really appreciate the fairly aggressive attacks on my position, but tbh I'm not going to lose any sleep over it as I know that there are quite a few who feel helped by my contributions to these boards.

I gotta say when I first joined the forum here about 6 monthes ago your posts were the very first that helped me out alot. You contributions still continue to elevate my game, many thanks.

Now, do you run a SE or hybrid?

 

[futurehermit]

Haha! No problem. I think the SE has lost a lot of steam in BtS. That's not to say variations of it aren't still effective, like Obsolete's. But, in general, at least on monarch and below where you have to research pretty much the entire tech tree yourself, running a hybrid is best, with a fairly heavy emphasis on cottages a la DaveMcW. I like to have 2 solid gpfarms early if possible with the SE civics then switching to CE civics later; and I still think that a transition economy is really ideal where you focus more on SE for the first 3 eras and CE for the latter 3.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

I gotta say when I first joined the forum here about 6 monthes ago your posts were the very first that helped me out alot. You contributions still continue to elevate my game, many thanks.

QFT I have a lot of respect for Futurehermit, at least when it comes to civ , as well. He knows his stuff and gives solid advice. I find the attacks on views in this thread not only unjustified, but innappropriate for this website. This has to be one of the only boards I know where their is an atmosphere of repsect, most of the time, for other people. It's fine to disagree, but let's keep it mature, guys. I don't think any of us wants Civfanatics to deterorate into the garbage that is the WoW forums... :suicide:

 

[futurehermit]

Tbh, I was surprised to see such an aggressive attack on my perspective like I wronged some people in another life I was trying to promote a "to each his own" perspective where I had my definition and perspective and others' had theirs, but apparently that wasn't ok for some It's cool though, I like to debate as well and like to have a go of it every once in awhile

 

[DarkFyre99]

The focus of my economy is winning the game and there are several ways to do that. An important part of the game is about acquiring the necessary technologies, however you do that - research, espionage, extortion, trading are viable options. But just as important is leveraging that technological advantage to win the game and to do that you need production, resources and population. For instance, it is quite possible to overwhelm a tech whore like Mansa with sheer weight of numbers even if he has a few techs on you.

Naturally, the "focus of [an] economy is winning the game," but that's the focus of every game. But I have yet to play a game where aquiring technology isn't a major part of the game, along with a military strategy, a diplomatic strategy, and a production strategy.

Where you and I apparently disagree is whether an economy is a form, or whether it's a strategy. As I've always understood the term, and as I use the term, an economy is a strategy - the strategy used in the aquisition of technology. This has been pretty much the definition I've understood since the CE vs SE debate began. The debate has almost always focused on whether or not cottages are more effective when it comes to aquiring technologies, as opposed to scientists + strategic bulbing.

You seem to be arguing that an economy is a form, what you use to aquire beakers, gold, culture, and espionage. A viable definition, I'll grant you, but one that seems to be outside the standard definition.

Given that the newer additions to the "economy" family, such as the espionage economy, are also strategies to aquire technology, rather than where you get your beakers, gold, culture, and espionage from, I'd say that "economy" = "technology aquisition strategy" remains the standard.

 

[DarkFyre99]

Tbh, I was surprised to see such an aggressive attack on my perspective like I wronged some people in another life I was trying to promote a "to each his own" perspective where I had my definition and perspective and others' had theirs, but apparently that wasn't ok for some It's cool though, I like to debate as well and like to have a go of it every once in awhile

TBH, I like to debate as well, but I also like my definitions nice and neat.

An SE uses specialists to aquire technology, either directly via beakers, or through strategic bulbing of Great People. Commerce is either converted to gold, or converted into happiness via the culture slider.

A CE uses cottages to aquire technology by converting commerce generated by cottages into beakers. Specialists are run in a GP farm, which provides random Great People.

If you're not planning on bottoming out your science slider to get more happiness or gold, but are running a lot of specialists for the purposes of boosting research and strategic bulbing, then you're running a hybrid economy, not an SE or a CE.

In my current game, I drew a philosophical leader. To me, a philosophical leader favors either a SE or a hybrid. My immediate area was bountiful in both food resources, rivers, and commerce generating happiness resources. This favors a hybrid economy over an SE. But I also have stone, which favors a pyramids supported SE over a hybrid. I shared a religion with my three neighbors, and none of them were known backstabbers, so I decided to gamble on the 'Mids rather than building a large army.

I nabbed the 'Mids, so now I'm running an SE: I'm running scientists to bulb towards liberalism, and researching techs along the chemistry path while trading to backfill. I spotted two unclaimed huts in the island chain, so I'm hoping to pop astronomy, and use liberalism to snag chemistry for early privateers Commerce is currently being converted to gold in preparation for my campaign against Saladin, and I'm approaching the point where I'll need to start converting it to happiness.

If I hadn't, I would've went the hybrid route: my best food city running merchants (and settling Great Merchants there) so I can maximise the science slider, my second best food city running scientists for the purpose of bulbing along the liberalism path, and the rest (except for my HE city) cottaged for research.

 

[Grey Fox]

I dont get why people bulb so much, sure its nice, and I do it, but if you grab the Pyramids why not just settle them all in the same city? Thats +9 beakers before modifications, making it 15.75 per turn with a library and an acadamy as well as +1

Each great scientist is 31.5 (unless my math is wrong) with all sci buildings, and oxford, excluding monasteries.

I agree with the great merchant city thing, I love doing that.

 

[Maestro_Innit]

I have a headache now. I think that from everything I've read here, I always run a hybrid / transitional economy.... I can't say that I've ever had a game where it was PURE SE or PURE CE... but then has anyone? I mean seriously? If you're on a major SE strategy do you demolish established towns you conquer to convert to farms and stuff for SE? Surely that's just silly.

 

[UncleJJ]

For goodness sake, what a load of histrionic nonsense, in the last few posts (#44 to #48). No one has been “aggressive” in this thread. Some language was forthright but not the least bit offensive. Everyone has addressed the points at issue until these last few posts. No one has made a personal attack on anyone that I can see (please show me where). So let’s cut out the childish accusations and people taking sides.

To those people who think futurehermit needs their support, he doesn’t. It is his arguments that need support. It doesn’t matter what he said in other threads or whether he has helped you or he’s a good guy or anything else as far as I’m concerned. Only what he’s saying here, in this thread, so let’s confine ourselves to that.

I want a mature debate on these topics. A mature debate consists of people putting forward opinions and then defending them when challenged. As far as I can see that is all that has happened in this thread. If you can’t or won’t defend your opinion it’s worthless. When people hold contrary positions and feel strongly about it there is going to be some exchange of views. Futurehermit could have handled this a lot better. Accusing anyone who opposes your views as aggressive is a weak debating position and does not address the points at issue. So shall we return to the debate?


Let’s be clear. There seem to be two main points at issue in this thread. I agree with futurehermit on one point and disagree with Beamup although accepting he’s technically correct, and I am against futurehermit on the other point and Beamup is with me.

Point 1
The first point is whether a SE becomes a HE (Hybrid Economy) when you put a few cottages in it. Beamup says that building a lot of cottages in a SE turns it into a HE and that can be true. It depends on the ratio of cottages to specialists and the civics being run. There is no clear definition and it doesn’t matter much. My position like many others is that (nearly) all Civ4 games are different flavours of hybrid unless you play a particular variant (like a no- cottage game).

Fundamentally, I think of all Civ4 games as being a type of HE on a continuum stretching between a pure SE (no cottages) at one extreme and a pure cottage spam CE at the other extreme and with a true HE fully mixed economy in the middle. The more farms that replace cottages on flat tiles the further the type of game you should play favours the SE approach. For me a properly run SE is a combination of running a lot of specialists (food, free and settled GPs) together with some of the civics that favour their use (e.g. Representation, Pacifism). Having a few cottages in some cities does not make it a HE. Having a lot of cottages in a lot of cities does make it a HE. And it is an HE running SE civics, which is fine. I describe that situation as a SE flavoured HE. However it is easy to see that at some stage, perhaps as the GPPs for the next GP get expensive or as the cottages in many cities turn into towns, it might be better to switch civics from SE ones to CE ones. When the player adopts FS and US instead of Representation then his HE moves from a SE flavoured one to a CE flavoured one. That is how I see it and it makes perfect sense to me. Other people have slightly different view on the topic and I make due allowance.

Beamup might be right technically but he’s fighting a forlorn battle against months of hundreds of people taking a simpler view (and to my mind more practical) of the type of economy they are running. If futurehermit calls his game a SE game with cottages in many towns I don’t leap to redefine his terms and insist he’s running a HE I just accept he means some point of the HE continuum biased towards the SE end. Insisting everyone is running a HE is pointless anyway as it doesn’t tell us much. I interpret futurehermit’s original statement as a HE where he’ll emphasise specialists and run SE type civics rather than optimise for his cottages. He might well transition that economy into a CE later in the game as I know that is one of his favourite play styles and long-term game strategies particularly suited to a Space Race.


Point 2
The second point is what constitutes an Economy in a Civ4 game. It seems pretty basic to me and you might wonder why I bother, but if you’re discussing the differences between a SE and CE and whether they actually are a HE, or not, you had better get your definition of an Economy right. The expression SE stands for Specialist Economy, and CE is Cottage Economy so what constitutes an Economy is absolutely central to the debate. Otherwise you can’t make a proper comparison or have a useful debate. Futurehermit has clearly got it badly wrong IMO and this misconception of his been perpetuated over hundreds of posts and many months on these boards. Hence the strength of my language over a point that has irritated me for a long time. His opinions on these matters and the whole SE versus CE debate that has raged on these boards for months is coloured by a serious misconception.

The statement that betrays his position is this

If you are getting the majority of your beakers from specialists/great people then it is a SE. Period.

He clearly implies that what defines whether you have a SE or not is where you get the majority of your beakers. That is nonsense; and it is easy to generate situations where a nearly pure CE would be defined as a SE according to this definition. Anyone who thinks about what the words mean sees that.

I called futurehermit on this saying he was in error and had a misconception as to what an Economy in Civ4 was. I explained my definition of what an Economy should be. He replied that it depended what you meant by an Economy (and indeed it does in a trivial sense) but what a pathetic counterargument. I expected him to justify his position which he did not or accept my criticism. Then we can move on.

Beamup intervened, and wrote

Except that one definition makes sense and works, while the other does not.

Which I agree with. He goes on to give a succinct definition of an Economy.

Given that beakers/gold/EP/culture are largely convertible (via slider settings and specialist choice), the only truly meaningful thing to look at is the *total* thereof.

Closing Discusion
So there we have it. The two points laid out from my point of view.

On point 1, I basically agree with futurehermit and I hope Beamup can agree that describing the HE as a SE flavoured one is an acceptable compromise.

On point 2 futurehermit has a position that is very hard to defend. He should either justify his statement (or qualify it adequately) or stop using it on these boards and misleading other players who look to him for advice (as several have vouched in this thread).

 

[Maestro_Innit]

Whenever I read of, or talk about SE / CE I'm only really thinking thinking of beakers myself...

Just my

 

[Beamup]

On point 1, I basically agree with futurehermit and I hope Beamup can agree that describing the HE as a SE flavoured one is an acceptable compromise.

Since other than on this point, I don't really have anything to say that you didn't just say better, I'll hold myself to this.

But no, I can't agree with that. The original description was thus:

Usually when I run a SE now it is a weak SE with 2 cities (usually my capital and an opponent capital) running specialists and the rest commerce or production.

Assuming a typical number of production cities and total cities, then with only two cities running specialists the following will be true IMX:

1. Cottages are much more common than farms or specialists.
2. In most cases it will be more beneficial to emphasize cottages in civic and tech choice than specialists.
3. Aside from a typical baseline of bulbing, the bulk of gold, culture, EP, and beakers (individually and collectively) will be coming from cottages. (i.e. the amounts coming from bulbing and specialists will not be much more than those produced by a single GPF)

Which I maintain is a pretty textbook description of a CE. It's closer to the middle of the continuum than most (due to the second specialist city), but still well on the cottage-emphasis side of the average. Ergo, I would describe it as a CE or a CE-leaning hybrid. It needs a substantially greater emphasis of specialists relative to cottages for me to call it SE-leaning.

 

[Sjaramei]

Funny, my next game after posting in this became SE

It still has potential thats for sure, lightbulbing key techs and trading paid off on my Immortal Pangaea at least (slider at 0% even, had too much land ) (Earliest Domination win for me too )

But to be honest i only lightbulbed 3 times. Golden ages... are just too powerful now, anybody tried this out? (more GA instead of bulbing?) Maybe thats how you should run SE now with lots of Golden Ages.

 

[Grey Fox]

Yeah golden ages are nice. I like using golden ages once I've built Water and Wind mills to maximize tiles affected by the golden age. Since you get +1 Commerce on tiles with at least one commerce, and the same with hammers.

So a good time to start is about when you get Liberalism, no more space to settle, and your cities are a decent size.

If you go for Nationalism with Liberalism you can start the golden age with that wonder, or start a golden age, build the wonder and time it's completion on the last turn of the golden age, or maybe finish it whenever. I'm not sure if it just adds the turns to the end of the current one or if it starts over.

But also, I love making super cities so I rather settle the specialists than bulb with them.

 

[UncleJJ]

Naturally, the "focus of [an] economy is winning the game," but that's the focus of every game. But I have yet to play a game where aquiring technology isn't a major part of the game, along with a military strategy, a diplomatic strategy, and a production strategy.

Thank you for your reasoned reply, I appreciate your clearly argued points.

I accept that there are times in a game when research is the focus of my economy and I said that the Liberalism race is one such time. But there are other times when it is not like the middle of a war when gold and EPs are worth more than beakers. Hence my economy is about more than research and it is most definitely not properly defined by only considering the beakers it produces or the technologies I gain.

Where you and I apparently disagree is whether an economy is a form, or whether it's a strategy. As I've always understood the term, and as I use the term, an economy is a strategy - the strategy used in the aquisition of technology. This has been pretty much the definition I've understood since the CE vs SE debate began. The debate has almost always focused on whether or not cottages are more effective when it comes to aquiring technologies, as opposed to scientists + strategic bulbing.

Forgive me I am not familiar with the term "form" I suspect this is something like a subsystem. I was trained as a systems engineer many years ago so I'll stick with my own terminology I can't see how an economy is just a strategy and not a "thing" or subsystem that performs a task. It has inputs and outputs. My economy has its own "economic strategy" so it is an aspect of the game like diplomacy or the military which also have their own strategies.

My economy is based mostly on my cities and takes their tiles and population plus civics as its inputs and produces beakers, gold and EPs for global use and culture and GPPs for local use. Stricty it should also include hammers as well but let's leave that extra complication for now and discuss that later

You seem to be arguing that an economy is a form, what you use to aquire beakers, gold, culture, and espionage. A viable definition, I'll grant you, but one that seems to be outside the standard definition.

I am indeed considering it as a thing (game subsystem) that outputs beakers, gold, espionage globally plus culture and GPPs locally. I think that is akin to the standard definition of a real economy in the real world. The US economy is quantified in terms of trillions of dollars of GDP but in real terms that is a host of manufactured goods and services along with small amount of research that is produced each year. The economy in Civ4 is a much simplified analog of that.

In my terms I use my economy to produce a mixture of beakers, gold and EPs depending on what I want to do in that game at that time, expressed in terms of my diplomatic, military and other strategies. I use an economic strategy to determine where the various commerce sliders should be and what specialists to run and also whether I should build courthouses, marketplaces or universities in my cities to boost one or other of the economic outputs from my economy in the longer term.

Given that the newer additions to the "economy" family, such as the espionage economy, are also strategies to aquire technology, rather than where you get your beakers, gold, culture, and espionage from, I'd say that "economy" = "technology aquisition strategy" remains the standard.

You seem to be defining what I would call only one part of my economy as the whole of your economy. Tell me what do you classify gold as? Is there a gold economy in your definition?

Beakers can only be used for researching a technology and so are the least flexible output of my economy but gold and EPs have a variety of uses. They can be used to acquire technology in certain special ways. With gold I can boost research by deficit spending or just buy a technology from another civ (if they're willing to sell). With EPs I can see what the other civs are researching and adjust my own research strategy and with enough EPs steal a technology. But both gold and EPs have other uses that affect the other important strategies in the game, my military strategy (unit upgrades, city revolts and seeing where troops are), my diplomatic (bribes and seeing what is researched).

You say "economy" = "technology aquisition strategy" is the standard That is a strange arguement. Looking at it the other way around it is easy to test your argument. My "technology aquisition strategy" includes gaining technology from goody huts, by self research (part of my economic strategy), by trading (diplomatic strategy), by extortion (military strategy) and by stealing (espionage strategy). I can see trading with other civs has an impact on the self-research strategy and thereby the economic strategy (since you don't need to produce those beakers) but it also has diplomatic and possibly military implications. Do you consider trading to be part of your own economy? I consider it external and outside of my control a bit like goody huts or extortion. Stealing a technology (via an espionage strategy) requires lots of EPs and so like research is part of my own economy that I can control to a considerable extent.

 

[madscientist]

OK, here is my input.

First regarding my earlier post regarding Futurehermit. I was not taking any sides, please forgive me if it appears to anyone I was. I posted because it was obvious FH was put off by something (I agree, I did not se anything personal) and I was trying the break the ice a bit. Also seamed a good spot to thank FH for his help in the past, and again I say his posts are always informative. Again apologies to all for sending the thread off on a tangent.

Now regarding economy and how i view. To me it is about gold, pure and simple. Not commerce, gold. How you pay for your empire is the critical thing, the more efficiently you do that the more efficiently you free up the slider for other purposes most commonly beakers but not always

Examples
1) SE: The slider predominantly takes most commerce from resources/trade route/land and converts it into gold. This requires building lot's of farms to run specialists which generates your beakers for research unless you plan to pay in the stoneage. It can also work vice versa, running merchants while hiking the slider up.

2) CE: Excess amount of commerce which is appropriately balanced

3) TE: trade economy, where you get alot of commerce from trade route, sending great merchants on missions for large amounts of gold (to run at a gold deficit), or trade resources for gold. You generally get beakers from the science slider until your treasury goes broke.

4) RE: Religion economy. Where you have a well spread shrined religion which allows you basically do what you want. The Spiral Minerat helps get gold, the University of Sakore gets the beakers, the Sistene Chapel gets the culture.

5) EE; OK, I have a little trouble with this one as the emphasis is clearly beaker acquisition. The gold can usually be acquired from any of the above methods so I am not sure I consider it an "economy" although I will generally still consider it EE.

SO the bottom line, is the more money you have the better your civilization is. Just like history!!!!

 

[Grey Fox]

OK, here is my input.

First regarding my earlier post regarding Futurehermit. I was not taking any sides, please forgive me if it appears to anyone I was. I posted because it was obvious FH was put off by something (I agree, I did not se anything personal) and I was trying the break the ice a bit. Also seamed a good spot to thank FH for his help in the past, and again I say his posts are always informative. Again apologies to all for sending the thread off on a tangent.

Now regarding economy and how i view. To me it is about gold, pure and simple. Not commerce, gold. How you pay for your empire is the critical thing, the more efficiently you do that the more efficiently you free up the slider for other purposes most commonly beakers but not always

Examples
1) SE: The slider predominantly takes most commerce from resources/trade route/land and converts it into gold. This requires building lot's of farms to run specialists which generates your beakers for research unless you plan to pay in the stoneage. It can also work vice versa, running merchants while hiking the slider up.

2) CE: Excess amount of commerce which is appropriately balanced

3) TE: trade economy, where you get alot of commerce from trade route, sending great merchants on missions for large amounts of gold (to run at a gold deficit), or trade resources for gold. You generally get beakers from the science slider until your treasury goes broke.

4) RE: Religion economy. Where you have a well spread shrined religion which allows you basically do what you want. The Spiral Minerat helps get gold, the University of Sakore gets the beakers, the Sistene Chapel gets the culture.

5) EE; OK, I have a little trouble with this one as the emphasis is clearly beaker acquisition. The gold can usually be acquired from any of the above methods so I am not sure I consider it an "economy" although I will generally still consider it EE.

I agree with everything except this last sentence.

SO the bottom line, is the more money you have the better your civilization is. Just like history!!!!