Thoughts on this comment

Oops, thanks TMIT, indeed I meant Obsolete not Madscientist...how did I get those two mixed up...

 

Sure, but when you are in a spot where you have a for sure win if you continue whipping, and producing units the draft is a bonus on the cake that makes you eat the cake a little faster. But when you are behind the draft coupled with the whip is one of the few things that will allow you to win.

 

A few BOTM ago, (as Joao) the map had very little fresh water resources and there was nearly no way to irrigate many of the tiles. The options were few. Cottages was the thing to do for the most part of the game and the whip was the best production option. Once State Property was available the grass workshops became good. But the since food is the power in this game, would a grass workshop be considered as a good improvement? With just one food, it is a weak option. I recall seeing a dry rice on that map and thinking I struck gold . I will take that 4 food tile with glee.

Communism, Electricity and Bio came a bit too late for many players.

 

I wondered about that too. When don't I care if my rifles get half XP? When no-one else has rifles at all.

 

Or when everyone else does, and you have cannons so it literally doesn't matter how many promotions you have....

 

That's actually eerily accurate in my opinion. I'm somewhere between 4 and 5.

Having said that, there's always going to be the map factor. I've been playing some Inland Sea maps recently and there's so much land available, and so much of it seems made for cottages, that I've been avoiding earlier wars and building a lot of cottages.

 

The way I see it - if you're going to be building a lot of cottages, you are probably better off with FS instead of Bureau, and US instead of REP, thus I would define that as a cottage economy. If, on the other hand, you are getting most of your science output from a bureau capital with settled specialists in it and running REP, that's a specialist economy, even with cottages in the capital - but I think you guys would define that as a hybrid economy, so then I'm with you on that one. No one should ever play the game without using specialists. Specialists are useful in every game. As for cottages, I'd say probably in 80-90% of games they should be built, but there are always those few games where it makes no sense to build even a single cottage.

 

CR III is pretty useful on cannons!

 

the same thought immediately came to me

 

I had Chemistry/Guilds and was very close to Communism so most new cities would get WS'. At this point in the game (1050-1100 AD) it's common to have most cities producing enough hammers to make 2turn Cuirs (use GMs or build wealth to upgrade to Cav 'cause it's quicker than straight building or whipping Cav). If I had the Mids and needed more units (didn't have the Mids nor need extra units) new cities would get either WS' for production or Farms to power research (Rep specialist).

 

I meant for the drafted Riffles. XD But yes CR3 cannons are pretty tits.

 

I was messing with you when I mentioned CR III on cannons (I knew what you meant obviously). That said, I DO often settle a few GG in the heroic epic city and then let it work on only cannons/arty, if the game is going that long.

 

>.> I forgot you are another troll. What is this, /b/ trolling Omegle which is really just trolls trolling trolls trolling trolls trolling trolls trying to troll a normal person.

 

If you've forgotten my fine tendencies, it really HAS been too long since I've posted videos. Might be time to change that soon, especially with holiday coming up...

 

It really has, Chris doesn't post many videos any more either.

 

The whole point is that you shouldn't get caught up in all of these abstract terms. What does specialist economy or cottage economy even me? If you run only specialists, or build only cottages, you're not running the most efficient economy possible. In a sense, all economies are "hybrid" economies.

But what should you build where? Like others said above, play the map, and count your food. What you tile improvement you build in each city depends on three things: 1) The amount of food the city has/the amount of food you need (present and future) 2) The map/your orientation on it 3) City specialization (what the purpose of the city is, present and future).

All these terms are really arbitrary, but keep in mind different approaches do have pros and cons. Often times if I know I'm going to be warring (#2 the map) due to close neighbours or resources or whatnot, I'll prioritize specialists because they're much more flexible with whipping and micro. Later in the game, the bonuses you gain for cottages often become too appealing not to convert.

 

SE rarely exists thou, if my Capi has no rivers for cottages but i have stone and Pyras, i often won't build a single cottage

CE also does with Fin i guess, mistake here would just be that you dun go for great peoples etc anywhere meanwhile. On easier diff. levels it's not needed thou, if you are Fin and have rivers..all you need for your "economy" are these cottages.

 

the terms do mean something and you can look at which civics you are running. A "hybrid" economy is NOT always the most efficient, not at all. Because you can only run 1 civic from each category at a given time, you cannot maximize the efficiency of all of your economic inputs at the same time.
Example - you are playing a financial leader and cottage spam almost every city. In this case, you want to run US/FS. You will have 1 GP farm and there isn't much point running specialists elsewhere, and no point in settling specialists, thus this is a CE
- you are playing a phi leader and have a small empire (6 cities) but with good land. The land is not good for cottages but it has lots of food and hammers. In this scenario you might build a wonder or two early game and get caste early, and start generating tons of GP. Now, this could go a few ways from here. You might bulb like mad and get a tech lead and then conquer the world with cannons and grens, without ever building a cottage - thus a SE. Or you might start settling all those GP in your capital and continue to develop and grab the occasional wonder, and then get constitution early and run REP. You never build a single cottage because you run REP, caste, and pacifism and use the slider to deal with emancipation penalties, again, no cottages, thus a SE.

 

You're not maximizing the efficiency in your case though because it wouldn't be efficient to build all cottages or run all specialists because you're not accounting for food, hammers, GP.

The point to take away is take you should always run a hybrid economy (at least until the late-game) because if you aren't running a combination of specialists and cottages (again, this doesn't mean a fifty-fifty split -- it just means you aren't running strictly either/or) you're being inefficient. Of course civics heavily influence the output your economy produces, and if you build all towns and run free speech, it will yield a better output than if you converted some of those towns to specialists. However, that is only if you use a "fixed-place-and-time" example. It's not accounting for food and hammers, what your economy looked like before you switch civics, and the flexibility of your cities. And I mean more than just the tiles you work when I reference food and hammers. It also incorporates the hammers required to set up your infrastructure to run your economy (buildings, workers -- CE needs commerce/science multipliers, a worker is mandatory. SE worker not mandatory all the time, only science multipliers needed, wonder considerations), the hammers you're missing out on when your workers are improving other tiles, flexibility of whipping/tile switching (inability to whip cottage tiles, hammers you're missing), tiles you could be working when you're running a specialists/growing your cottages etc. The game has a snowball effect, and the more efficient you are early on the earlier you can win.

I'm in a rush atm so I'll try to expand and give an in-game example later if needed. I still hold that until late-game (around Liberalism), the vast majority of optimal economies are "hybrid" economies. I just want people to understand that "economies" are a lot more than meaning you run predominantly specialists or cottages.

 

Rivers give a nice bonus for cottages but I don't think they are nearly as necessary as you are making them out to be. What else are you going to do with grasslands? nothing until civil service when you can irrigate or you count on having such a large food surplus that workshops are in? I don't dislike farms at all, seems that would be a huge plus for the specialist-focused pyramids economy and this has to be river tiles early on. I also hate ruining cottages that have developed into towns for watermills which I probably underuse. My first thought when I have rivers is how much should be farmed so that my food surplus is sufficient to work hammer tiles, run specialists, etc while non-river grassland is cottaged especially for a capitol, workshopped to a lesser degree, fin or non-fin