Turns lost to Anarchy in S.E.?

CityDontSleep

Chieftain
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Hello everyone,

I recently moved my way up from noble to monarch/immortal, and I am wondering how many turns are lost in a marathon game due to anarchy in a specialist economy (switching between say police state/slavery/theocracy or OR and representation/caste/pacifism)?

I have had tremendous success since checking out these boards and improving my SE play (pyramids, oracle if possible - code of laws/caste system, parthenon, great library, rush to liberalism - gunpowder or astronomy, then some conquest before refocusing on my economy). I always like a philosophical leader for GP, but I've noticed in some games where I wasn't phil but was spiritual instead, i actually didn't seem to be too far off my tech pace. Am I really losing that many turns to anarchy? Most notably i am comparing some of my Lincoln or Peter games to say Montezuma or Saladin. Looking for lots of opinions! Thanks!
 
0 if youre playing a SPI leader.

Also, the current zeitgeist is that we don't think in terms of "SE" and "CE". We build Cottages in a superpowered Bureaucracy-boosted Capital, and other than that we don't build them unless we need the commerce.
 
Interesting, thank you for the feedback. But I still want to ask my main question - Is it more efficient to run a specialist heavy economy (where one would switch back and forth between civics to crack the whip for +production) as philosophical or spiritual?
 
You would never switch in and out of a civic repeatedly without a spiritual leader.
 
Even on Marathon, you should carefully consider when to switch civics. Even though Mara doesn't penalize as heavily for swaps, anarchy is (usually) pretty painful.

In a non-Mara game, you usually go into anarchy for slavery and then for HR and that's it.

This is why golden ages are so powerful. Yes, the 100% GPP is good and yes, the extra :hammers: and :commerce: are nice, but neither benefit is as powerful as free civic swaps at the opportune time.
 
I would say, that the way Great people are generated, makes philosophical less good, than most people seem to think.

Philosophicals greatest strengths is early great people.

If you have your aim set for a specialist economy, beeing industrious is probably way more favorable, ensuring you can get the pyramids. :)


Oh, and...
"Don't neglect cottages, they might start out small, but once they mature you will be glad you built them."
 
0 if youre playing a SPI leader.

Also, the current zeitgeist is that we don't think in terms of "SE" and "CE". We build Cottages in a superpowered Bureaucracy-boosted Capital, and other than that we don't build them unless we need the commerce.

ot: Is this really a common expression in english? I'm just curious about germanisms. :)
 
ot: Is this really a common expression in english? I'm just curious about germanisms. :)

It is used but don't know about common. One I really like is weltschmerz which is a little less common but a great word.
 
Avoiding anarchy is definitely a useful boost in this game and strong for diplo. However, you can usually get by with more planning of revolts. Not to the same degree as you'd gain from SPI, but still decent.

Also, space elevator sucks ;).
 
I would say, that the way Great people are generated, makes philosophical less good, than most people seem to think.

Philosophicals greatest strengths is early great people.

I disagree (vehemently ~~), i've seen similiar posted quiet often now.

PHI allows switching out of Paci, and use OR (or rarely Theo) while still gaining GP points rather quick. Or generate the GP needed for your "grand" plans (~3-4 GS for bulbing Edu, Philo..easy example most know) fast with both bonuses, then look at buildings.

It also allows to get Unis faster/easier, as a result Ox as well.
All benefits combined make the profits FIN delivers look silly, if anything PHI is still underrated cos it is the prime economy trait by far. FIN, ORG...? It's not even close, it's light years...!
 
I agree with My...vehemently! ;)
 
Even if you have 2 engineers available to rush it?

If you get robotics from internet magically in time, have 2 engineers, don't need mining inc or anything else that would be useful (3GD? Mass media line wonder?), and the stars align...

It saves a few turns tops.

If you teched robotics to build it, even with 2 engineers, you lost.
 
Hello everyone,

I recently moved my way up from noble to monarch/immortal, and I am wondering how many turns are lost in a marathon game due to anarchy in a specialist economy (switching between say police state/slavery/theocracy or OR and representation/caste/pacifism)?

I have had tremendous success since checking out these boards and improving my SE play (pyramids, oracle if possible - code of laws/caste system, parthenon, great library, rush to liberalism - gunpowder or astronomy, then some conquest before refocusing on my economy). I always like a philosophical leader for GP, but I've noticed in some games where I wasn't phil but was spiritual instead, i actually didn't seem to be too far off my tech pace. Am I really losing that many turns to anarchy? Most notably i am comparing some of my Lincoln or Peter games to say Montezuma or Saladin. Looking for lots of opinions! Thanks!

If it's Lincoln and Peter against Monty and Saladin, it could be other factors that affect tech pace. Neither Monty or Saladin have any econ traits to speak of.

Compare Lincoln or Peter to Mansa Musa and the two Egyptian leaders for a fairer comparison.
 
0 if youre playing a SPI leader.

Also, the current zeitgeist is that we don't think in terms of "SE" and "CE". We build Cottages in a superpowered Bureaucracy-boosted Capital, and other than that we don't build them unless we need the commerce.

SE and CE are just overly obscure ways of saying to use the financial and philosophical traits properly. They don't exist in a strict sense in almost all games.

The current commerce zeitgeist is wrong anyway, more often than not. The cool kids want to go hammering, and feudalism > bureaucracy for making "effective hammers", mostly due to the extra catapult upgrade. Commerce isn't as consistently reliable when there is a potential runaway AI out there, especially on settings like continents. Muscles > brains. :mad: (ok, about 3/5 of the time)
 
If it's Lincoln and Peter against Monty and Saladin, it could be other factors that affect tech pace. Neither Monty or Saladin have any econ traits to speak of.

Compare Lincoln or Peter to Mansa Musa and the two Egyptian leaders for a fairer comparison.

The whole point of the comparison, indeed the thread is that Spiritual is a powerful economic trait when leveraged properly.

The Aztecs in particular benefit from Spi: the SA reduces cooldown times for slavery to the same as cooldown times of civic switches on Normal speed. You can switch from econ stuff to war preparations on a dime.
 
Over specializing your economy with this trap of the "SE" kills the potential research rate you could have gotten. The only true economy is the one where you can get enough beakers, it doesn't matter how you do it just that you do it, and can build units.
 
1 turn anarchy per civic switch on normal, plus 1 turn for religion switches. Can't remember the anarchy turns on marathon.

Typical game for me would include maybe 15-20 turns of anarchy, or more? That is a lot of lost production. So, SPI is effectively a game long mini-golden age. Yeah, that would help your tech rate and GPP.
 
^^ On Mara, you lose 2 turns to anarchy for the first switch (religion or civics) then iIrc it alternates between one and two for each additional civic. Since Mara is three times normal speed, it stands to reason that loss due to Anarchy is proportionally smaller. Coupled with the fact that GA's on Mara are much weaker proportionally, going into Anarchy as soon as you get the new civic is often the way to go.

You usually go through 15 turns of Anarchy on Normal? :eek: I'm not sure I do that even on Mara.
 
I haven't found any sort of quantification on the forums about the breaking point where a great person is better used on, or saved for a golden age, esp. if the primary intention is to swap civic(s). I'd be very interested in this if anyone has crunched numbers.

I usually run only Scientists and Merchants, and intuitively it feels like a waste to burn either one on a golden age until either A. my empire is maybe pop. 100, or more, or B. I have to do a mass civic swap in preparation for war. And even then, it often seems like a better idea to send the merchant on a trade mission in order to sustain a heavily drafted or whipped army (and just eat the turns of anarchy into Nationhood / Slavery, Police State / Vassalage, Theo).
 
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