Starting location is as much a factor in difficulty as the difficulty level you play

[civac]

Plains river sides are worth cottaging if you have the food imo.

Plains without river are indeed better left alone for most of the game. Also GPP are less valuable if you play without tech trading since early tech advances cannot be leveraged as easily (of course there are still numerous advantages to reaching certain techs quickly).

 

[Seraiel]

Agree on the plains-riverside Cottages, at least on maps with lots of plains. Anyhow, without knowing if my game was optimal, only working grassland tiles and whipping everything into units works like a charm.

 

[damerell]

Agree on the plains-riverside Cottages, at least on maps with lots of plains. Anyhow, without knowing if my game was optimal, only working grassland tiles and whipping everything into units works like a charm.

Clearly. But, if I may say so, the question that sparked this was "is it better to work two plains tiles or appoint a specialist"; you've slipped around that question by advocating a third approach (which I'm not complaining about - if the third option's best, why not?)

 

[Seraiel]

Clearly. But, if I may say so, the question that sparked this was "is it better to work two plains tiles or appoint a specialist"; you've slipped around that question by advocating a third approach (which I'm not complaining about - if the third option's best, why not?)

Hmm. I'm sure somebody already did Math on it, but shouln't be too difficult:

A Specialist is 2 plains Cottages. The Specialist giving 3 , the plains-Cottages giving 4 and 2 , that's a lot more. Actually I'm a little bit surprised that it's that much, but I may be underestimating the value of . Thing is: 1 Specialist, or lets say 2 create lousy 6 , on Marathon I need 300 for the 1st GP, 600 for the 2nd, 900 for the 3rd, getting 900 already takes 150 turns, that's too long, games are decided before that imo, and units like the OP-phant live forever and kill anything up till Rifling, for what do I need tech?



No idea, but I find outproducing the AI a lot easier than outteching, besides, Trebs / Cannons + any STR8 units win everything, I mean really everything.

Btw., I do not even work Specialists outside the GA-Chain (except scientists if I plan to run Buro and need an Academy) , I even find non-riverside grassland tiles worth working, all those could be units conquering huge AI cities that have nicely grown Cottages because AI whips to little.

 

[damerell]

Hmm. I'm sure somebody already did Math on it, but shouln't be too difficult: A Specialist is 2 plains Cottages. The Specialist giving 3 , the plains-Cottages giving 4 and 2 , that's a lot more.

I did the analysis upthread, but I made the specialist an engineer - that way, the hammers come out even. But, er, 8 commerce (eventually), 10 if riverside, surely?

 

[Jastrow]

That analysis ignores growth time...

Take a city at turn T=0, which is currently working all its specials and grassland and mine tiles, and has one extra citizen to place, who is eating the last two food being generated. You can make him a specialist, in which case you are food neutral, or you can let him work a plain, in which case you gain 1F per turn.

If you start working a plain now, you invested 4 worker turns to cottage it. Assuming non-riverside and non-financial, collect 1H and 1C per turn for the first 10 turns. After that, 1H+2C for the next 20, and then 1H+3C for the subsequent 40.

At around 20 turns in, your extra food will allow you to grow in size, and work a second plain to be food neutral. It can also be cottaged.

So, after 10 turns you have 10H+10C
20 turns: 20H+30C
30 turns: 40H+60C-10C extra upkeep = 50C
50 turns: 80H+ 160C-30 extra upkeep = 130C
To get the above, you invested 8 worker turns.

If we compare that to a scientist/merchant, returns are:
10 turns: 30C
20 turns: 60C
30 turns: 90C
50 turns: 150C

So, if you factor in the invested worker turns, at turn 30, the specialist is probably still a bit ahead, whereas by turn 50, the plains are doing better (if the GPP points are worthless… In cities where they matter, the specialists improve massively.) The above assume that happy/health caps are not an issue. If they are relevant, than that too helps the specialist.

 

[civac]

See Tmit's post why this kind of comparison is naive. The specialist does a lot better than it seems.

Edit: Xpost
I was replying to Seraiel and damerell.

 

[plasmacannon]

Jastrow,
It depends on what the city is building and what specialists are generated.

Consider
The same city trying to build a wonder and combat units.
It also generates a Great Merchant and a Great Engineer as the two Great people.

The Great Merchant 3000-8000 Gold, depending on the map size and other factors. Far more than the cottages. Permitting you to keep your research at 100%.
The Great Engineer will build most wonders in one turn. Where the same city without a resourse will be much farther behind.
The city builds units the whole time, until it has to switch to the wonder and finish it in one turn.
Then back to units.

In this scenario, I'll take the specialists. Especially, if the leader is PHI.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

See Tmit's post why this kind of comparison is naive. The specialist does a lot better than it seems.

Edit: Xpost
I was replying to Seraiel and damerell.

Naive or practical, depending on game stage and other factors.

If you're not generating GPP, you better be running Representation.

 

[Jastrow]

Jastrow,
It depends on what the city is building and what specialists are generated.

Agreed... That is what I said at the end. The above assumes the situation is such that the GPP are useless. If the situation is such that the city can generate a great person, this favors the specialist massively. Take a fairly neutral example, where the city will generate a GP at ~1500 GPP, and that the GP is worth say 3000 C (Either as a trade mission, or as a scientist+bulb trade value)... Then each GPP is worth about 2C, so the scientist are generating an effective value of 9C per turn, and the planes will never catch up. I cannot imagine that situation is even worth discussing... You ALWAYS take the specialist if you can make use of the GPP.

My point was that, EVEN in the situation where the specialist GPP are wasted, the specialist are still quite a bit better short/medium term, as even then, it takes some 50 turns to get return from working plains, and that only when the caps are not relevant.

 

[noto2]

sure, 50 turns sounds about right. If I'm still in the early expansion phase of the game it's probably between turn 100 and 150, so a 50 turn payback is fine.

 

[vranasm]

If you're not generating GPP, you better be running Representation.

representation changes the dynamics a lot... for one it makes scientist better then cottage (even if food here is a bit constraint the output of 6*1.25 bpt is better then 3-4C from typical cottage tile at the time).

 

[Seraiel]

Representation? What is that, I only know Police State .

Just kidding, both are imo no argument, as they require the Mids or the game is decided before them.

 

[civac]

Naive or practical, depending on game stage and other factors.

If you're not generating GPP, you better be running Representation.

I didn't say the specialist is necessarily better. Only that comparing the output of one scientist to that of two plains cottages is overly simplistic. You are neglecting the time to grow (which is a huge problem), the added maintenance and so forth.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Representation? What is that, I only know Police State .

Just kidding, both are imo no argument, as they require the Mids or the game is decided before them.

This is obviously a tangent, but, Rep is a huge factor in my games without Mids. :/

In the past arguments have tried to compare maximum yields; Rep specialists versus Free Speech, Universal Suffrage towns. While this method of comparison is flawed, it does establish cottages as having a higher absolute yield. Other important considerations are the dependence of cottages on sub par civics (personally, I favor Representation, Bureaucracy/Nationhood, and Slavery), the synergy between Rep specialists and Oxford University, the need to always work cottages and the time it takes them to grow.

It's a whole can of worms.

 

[Seraiel]

I didn't say the specialist is necessarily better. Only that comparing the output of one scientist to that of two plains cottages is overly simplistic. You are neglecting the time to grow (which is a huge problem), the added maintenance and so forth.

I compared Specialists to non-grown riverside Cottages, still they were "better" and Specialists also add up to maintenance, cause it's the pop that makes the maintenance, not which tile is worked.

My argumentation against Specialists was, that most times, from them don't matter because the NE or NP city will easily outproduce the other cities, and as long as no GP appears, the are simply wasted.
I do run Specialists in other cities than the NE or NP city, but only during GAs or when running PAC, and only if the city has a chance to ever create a GP.

This is obviously a tangent, but, Rep is a huge factor in my games without Mids. :/

In the past arguments have tried to compare maximum yields; Rep specialists versus Free Speech, Universal Suffrage towns. While this method of comparison is flawed, it does establish cottages as having a higher absolute yield. Other important considerations are the dependence of cottages on sub par civics (personally, I favor Representation, Bureaucracy/Nationhood, and Slavery), the synergy between Rep specialists and Oxford University, the need to always work cottages and the time it takes them to grow.

It's a whole can of worms.

Questions: Are your games decided by late-coming REP? Have you ever tried whipping / drafting down your whole pop to simply stomp everyone?

 

[TLF]

It's getting to the point where the acronyms are making posts unreadable.
Even the common acronym page on the website doesn't help because people seem to be making up their own personal acronyms.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Sorry, mate. I'll just blame Seraiel for this!

Mids- Pyramids
Rep- Representation

NE- National Epic
NP- National Park

GA- Golden Age
PAC- Pacifism

Just glancing at the last posts.

 

[Cole98]

If you cant find a good enough city plot, the Barbarians may wipe you out before you even start my solution.......... THE ALMIGHTY WORLDBUILDER

 

[Pangaea]

It's getting to the point where the acronyms are making posts unreadable.
Even the common acronym page on the website doesn't help because people seem to be making up their own personal acronyms.

Hail, hail brother!

I've been here for a couple months now so most of the acronyms are familiar to me, but even now there are times I'm going "Okay, WTH does that mean??" and virtually tearing out my hair.

It gets even more confusing with terms such as GA as that can mean both Great Artist and Golden Age.

As I experienced this frustration myself not very long ago, I think the very heavy use of acronyms is a huge stumbling block for people to understand what the experts are talking about. At times I looked favourably upon reading declassified military documents again...