Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
I think of economies as three possibilities. Which one we decide to pursue at the start of the game depends on our playstyle (tall/wide/conquest) and circumstances of the map terrain.
Gold Economy
Production Economy
Specialist Economy
Gold Economy
A gold economy is fantastic for coastal empires because coast tiles generate a lot of gold. We have an inherent advantage there which the Commerce policies boost further. Gold economies are also very good for conquest victories. We get gold from policies in the Honor tree and puppet states have a built-in gold focus. The Commerce finisher is also very powerful for warmongers who have claimed lots of luxury resources but have few trading partners.
Production Economy
A production economy is the main economy in vanilla Civ 5. Relying on villages or specialists as a main source of revenue is usually not an option in vanilla. In the Vanilla Enhanced Mod, it's basically a fallback position for wide empires (where specialists aren't as useful) if we don't need to get the Commerce tree. This is most likely applicable to highly expansive Science-victory empires. Scientific empires are very flexible and could reasonably select from any of the three economies.
As a side note, production is local and doesn't require policy investments to be viable, so one or two cities are usually production-based in any game. These are cities where maximum production speed is desirable and the item is expensive to purchase, or cannot be purchased at all. This is useful for cities building wonders or military units.
Specialist Economy
An economy which relies largely on Specialists for yields like and has powerful flexibility. We can instantly change yields across our empire (unlike with tiles). Individual specialists have a lower yield than most tiles until later in the game, but are valuable for making Great People in the early game. Specialist economies are particularly useful for Culture Victory games. Artists are a strong source of culture, and if we're going to have Artists it makes sense to support them with policies. Specialist economies are also valuable in other circumstances:
Gold Economy- Construction is global (gold from one city can build stuff in another city)
- Village priority.
- Commerce tree priority.
- Specialists contribute to 0-2 cities.
- Strong for Conquest games and Coastal empires.
Production Economy- Construction is local.
- Mine/mill priority.
- Flexible policy strategy.
- Specialists contribute to 0-2 cities.
Specialist Economy- Construction can be global or local.
- Farm priority.
- Specialist policies from each tree.
- Specialists contribute in some way to most cities.
- Strong for Culture games.
Gold EconomyA gold economy is fantastic for coastal empires because coast tiles generate a lot of gold. We have an inherent advantage there which the Commerce policies boost further. Gold economies are also very good for conquest victories. We get gold from policies in the Honor tree and puppet states have a built-in gold focus. The Commerce finisher is also very powerful for warmongers who have claimed lots of luxury resources but have few trading partners.
Production EconomyA production economy is the main economy in vanilla Civ 5. Relying on villages or specialists as a main source of revenue is usually not an option in vanilla. In the Vanilla Enhanced Mod, it's basically a fallback position for wide empires (where specialists aren't as useful) if we don't need to get the Commerce tree. This is most likely applicable to highly expansive Science-victory empires. Scientific empires are very flexible and could reasonably select from any of the three economies.
As a side note, production is local and doesn't require policy investments to be viable, so one or two cities are usually production-based in any game. These are cities where maximum production speed is desirable and the item is expensive to purchase, or cannot be purchased at all. This is useful for cities building wonders or military units.
Specialist EconomyAn economy which relies largely on Specialists for yields like
and has powerful flexibility. We can instantly change yields across our empire (unlike with tiles). Individual specialists have a lower yield than most tiles until later in the game, but are valuable for making Great People in the early game. Specialist economies are particularly useful for Culture Victory games. Artists are a strong source of culture, and if we're going to have Artists it makes sense to support them with policies. Specialist economies are also valuable in other circumstances:- Tall empires with 20+ citizens per city. These cities tend to run out of tiles to work.
- Tall empires usually have more National Wonders, which feature extra specialist slots.
- Cities in arctic or desert areas, or on coastlines and islands, run out of tiles quickly.
- Gandhi can get very high populations for use with specialists.
- Suleiman's trait improves all specialist yields.
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