Switching between SE and SE

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

I've spent the last little while bettering my game thru learning the mechanics of the SE recently, but upon reading a number of threads here, it seems that thru raw beaker output, the SE cannot keep up with the CE in the late game. I've played a number of games myself, and I've found I peak in science around astronomy and liberalism, but begin to lost pace after that. If indeed that claim of CE being a stronger late game economy is true, is it possible, or more importantly, viable to switch between the two types of economies? If so, when? What about the question of science infrastructure, seeing as in an SE, my science cities will all be farmed, the initial change would mean I've gotta wait for those cottages to grow before I see significant results. Or is the most effective way to capture cottaged cities and change them over to science powerhouses? If this is the case, am I not wasting those university/oxford/library/observatory builds in other cities?

I do prefer the SE for it's benefits [additional GP points, more flexible cities, more cash for unit upgrades, synergy with warmongering, unlimited happiness etc], but I find myself continually frustrated with a slowdown in the renaisance period, and almost as frustrating, the city governor's inane choices when the city becomes of an appreciable size to hold a significant number of specialists. So again I ask, does anyone make make this large of a fundamental change in their economy? And if so, what do you keep in mind while doing so, what type of slowdown am I expecting and for how long?

EDIT:

Thread should be titled as between SE and CE, obviously

 

[Collier20]

The switch isnt always better. It make a CE ecomony strong, you have to give up bureaucracy and representation. If you have a very small empire, losing the 50% bonus in the capitol is murder (a SE is the best on an OCC), but square for square a maxed out town is better than a maxed out specialist.
Think of it this way, if you farm a grassland you can support one worker and one specialist. With representative (+3 beakers) most specialist give you 5 or 6 icons, a town can give you a max of 8 (4 gold basic, +1 pp, +2 free speech, +1 us).

I find the best time to switch is around biology. Your farms start producing more food, so you can turn every other farm into a cottage and still keep specialists around to run your economy while your towns develop. Also you want to run emancipation to make things grow faster.

When I have one town for each specialist, I make the switch. I go from Rep, Bur, and Merc to US, FS, and SP. When electricity comes around I get rid of my mines and replace them with windmills and use the extra food so I can afford to raze a few more farms. My population per city usually peaks around this time. Since you no longer need a worker and a specialist around, you just need a worker, you can afford to have a smaller city. This is also an advantage because you dont have to worry about unhappiness and unhealthiness as much.

 

[futurehermit]

It is certainly possible to switch. I usually consider a switch the best idea in the following condition:

-You start off on the smaller continent (2-3 total civs with 4-5 on the other continent). You start with FE/SE to drive your early research and to allow whip/drafting to take over your continent. You've taken over your continent and either don't want to or feel you can't really (diplomatic relations + power differential...) invade the other continent in pursuit of a domination victory. So, you transition to a CE for a space race push. Best time to transition is post-democracy (for emancipation to grow cottages) and after you've cleared your continent (so you can focus 100% on economy--using navy for defence of course...)...

 

[InvisibleStalke]

A couple of tips:

- Prepare for a switch by having some cottage cities in your SE empire. You will want one for bureaucracy (otherwise its almost wasted) and cities that have grass and not much food should build cottages anyway. If I am running a specialist economy that almost always means my starting capital is a GP farm - which often means when bureaucracy comes about that I want a new capital.

- As you get AI cities, decide whether they will run specialists or towns based on the infrastructure and the terrain. As you go on the proportion that run towns should increase as you capture more developed towns and the new cities are unlikely to ever pop a great person.

- Go to emancipation as soon as you have both stopped expanding geographically (ie wait until you have conquered everyone you are going to on your continent) and have democracy. No point in switching to free speech and democracy until you have a lot more towns. But that won't take too long with emancipation.

- Since you won't be running caste system any more, you will probably be limited to specialists from libraries and markets. Your bigger cities will probably not be able to run all the specialists they used to so make sure they have some cottages to work already made. Then start terraforming the rest of their land and gradually wind down the number of specialists in favor of cottages.

- You want a lot of workers - at least one per city you are switching and probably two for your most important cities - if you don't have enough I would construct more in advance of the switch. Don't bother with serfdom though - better to just have more workers.

 

[futurehermit]

if you're spiritual, don't forget the most underused civic in the game: serfdom. can help a LOT when making an empire-wide change from farms to cottages...

 

[LuckyAC]

You definitely gain in science, and lose whipping/drafting flexibility but I think GP generation loss is overstated, one focused GP farm is very efficient) of course, once you get to Universal Suffrage, you can use your superior commerce to buy-rush.

 

[futurehermit]

by the time democracy rolls around lightbulbing becomes much less efficient and golden ages become much more powerful. this is why if you are planning on playing into late industrial/modern era a planned transition to a CE can be a very good idea...

 

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

thanks for all these tips folks, democracy is something I usually don't prioritize in my games, or at least haven't in the past, as I'm usually too concerned about getting myself to artillery or infantry to tighten my grip on the last few civs [anyone else notice it's harder to wage late wars in warlords? Not that I'm complaining, I'd rather have the challenge than a flat out slaughter for the last few wars], serfdom I've never used, mainly because I haven't played around with the SE->CE switch much. That being said, I love the spiritual trait, so serfdom does seem pretty viable under that particular case. Universal Sufferage is a no-brainer and beaurocracy is a no brainer, they're pretty much designed for the CE. All this logic seems sound tho, so I'm gonna have to chew on some of this and make some choices come the next game.

As for Lucky's comment, I don't think the loss in GPs is understated, GPs are an integral part of the SE, it's just that somewhere before the industrial era I always seem to have the GP pool run dry from escalating points required to get them. Biology is only a temporary fix, and a short lived one once a city reaches the health limit. This is also part of the reason why I wanna try the switch, having those GP points amount to nothing seems like a little bit of a waste in the late game, but I wouldn't want to trade those points earlier on. Squeeze every last free beaker before the cottage outruns you.

 

[LuckyAC]

As for Lucky's comment, I don't think the loss in GPs is understated,

Neither do I, for that matter I think it is OVERstated, at any part of the game. A CE with one focused GP farm won't lose a huge amount, since it is so efficient. But hey, I am a confirmed financial CE player, so I am biased.

 

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

^^^
touche.

 

[futurehermit]

The SE is not so much about more gp per se (although it WILL generate more), but about the ability to transition your whole empire pretty much from research to military production in the blink of an eye pretty much. You will still have some city specialization, but really in every city you will have: forge, market, theatre, barracks, granary, courthouse, library (the first 3 moreso for than anything else), maybe a few other buildings, but those are the core ones imo. With just those buildings in place you can transition between economy and military easily whereas with the CE you really need to be firmer with your city specialization putting all of the commerce/science buildings in your cottage cities and all of the production buildings in your production cities with a dedicated gpfarm.

I'm not saying one is better per se, but I would say the CE is MORE suited to cultural/science victories whereas the FE/SE is MORE suited to conquest/domination victories...