When to play as CE and when to play as SE?

[Gungalley]

So I've just won my first SE game via space race. Ended a little later than I liked after the year 2000, but then its space race and i was playing on continents.

And now I feel that I'm ready for a game where I incorporate both elements in. How do I decide which path to go? I've often heard that a mixed economy is best, but how do I know to which extent to go? To I base it on city location and the leader I choose?

Also, for flood plains, do I build farms or cottages then? I assume farms are for SE and cottages are for CE. What about my civics? If I go for a mixed economy, do I still use representation?

Thanks.

 

[Mantic0re]

I'm playing at lower difficulty level and still have much to learn but I think most higher level players play a mix.

I roughly put city sites into 2 categories. Those that can support large pops with mostly cottages (ie. lots of grasslands) and those that need farms or maybe will never really support large populations.

In grassland cities you want a few early farms to stimulate growths and then just cottage spam, as you need growth less (no whipping) you can cottage over the farms. This city gets gold boosting buildings and pays for empire upkeep (and if needed research)

In other cities I get the impression you basically farm/mine/workshop/etc to either a) work the hammer tiles or b) generate GPP.

It is possible to find a city that fits any of those requirements but I've had better results in my limited experience by simply specializing each city into either a cottage city or a farm+ city.

What I struggle with is the nuances of slider position and civic choice to optimize these city types. I think with 1 or 2 high commerce cottage towns you can keep your research slider high but I get the impression that with heavy SE cities you can run a 0% research slider and still keep a decent research rate. Of course at higher levels your research pace is a fraction of the AI's so maybe it is just that research isn't quite as important compared to production and diplomacy. This is all something I'm still learning and will be watching for more experienced posters answers.

I can't figure out how people get away from Slavery yet. It seems like you need more than just 2 hammer output in those cottage and 2nd tier cities in order to set up and really benefit from this strategy. The whip is overpowered for developing new or low output cities.

 

[tycoonist]

cottage everything you can work with the available food at the time apart from your highest food city (not your capital) which you can farm and run specialists.

the only exception is if you manage to capture the pyramids early on, or accidentally build them (probably through a misclick) in which case running rep + scientists may just about be worth it for until PP or democracy

 

[tycoonist]

oh and HE is in many ways a better civic than rep IMO (but please dont shoot me)

 

[Gungalley]

cottage everything you can work with the available food at the time apart from your highest food city (not your capital) which you can farm and run specialists.

the only exception is if you manage to capture the pyramids early on, or accidentally build them (probably through a misclick) in which case running rep + scientists may just about be worth it for until PP or democracy

So what you're saying is play it like I do in a usual CE game, except this time you have another specialized city specialising in great people? That city would be specialising in scientists I presume?

 

[DMOC]

oh and HE is in many ways a better civic than rep IMO (but please dont shoot me)

HR (I assume this is what you mean because you wrote "HE") is better than Rep in some situations and Rep is better than HR in other situations.


When incorporating CE and SE, GENERALLY, I think it's best to have 1 or 2 cities work farms and have specialists. Later on in the game, you can plow over those farms and build cottages. Actually, for a full-blown SE (with the Pyramids and Representation) you're probably better off farming everything until you get Democracy and then start cottage spamming.

 

[Joshua368]

Personally I never plow over old improvements... like ever, I dunno. Very rarely at least.

Mixed economy is best for sure, do it on a city by city basis. Usually a single GP farm is all your need, but if you have multiple high food resources, more can work I guess.

The best though is went you supercharge Sid's Sushi and every city can work fifteen towns and run a half dozen specialists. Run both Representation and Free Speech there for maximum science! It's okay to sacrifice caste system for emancipation, late game there are plenty of buildings to open up good specialists.

 

[Bleys]

Since moving up to Emperor, I notice every game I play is an SE evolving into a CE. I use the Library in the early game to create beakers since my gold slider is going to be strained by REX or Rush (lots of units outside your borders cost cash, as well as the cost of keeping AI cities). At Monarch and below, I would use a few scientists in high-food cities, but not make it a priority, since I could usually get by. In my Immortal attempts, I notice I have to try to squeeze a couple Scientists in every single city, or watch the AIs blow into the Medieval Age while I am still trying to tech CoL and Currency (and Compass if its a GLH game). City growth grinds to a halt, but I try to work as many cottages as I can, so that eventually, its worth it to pull the Scientist and stick it on a Village instead.

Of course, a lot of that is just my personal preference. I am not a big SE guy, I find it overly complicates what is otherwise a simple process, funding economic growth into research which nets me a stronger army to take more land. I can keep cottage cities at +6 food/turn growth, while my SE cities tend to be +2 at best. Even with PHI leaders, I tend to lean toward the CE, I just get to use OR instead of Paci for my GP farm. I rarely build the Mids anymore, unless I am IND and have Stone. With Stone only I go for the HGs instead, and with IND I go for the Aesthetic/Lit wonders (GL, Parth, HE/NE), as well as stuff like MoM and Taj, even without Marble. Its a solid strat that has served me well through the levels of difficulty. The Cottage is a very powerful game mechanic, if you can play through the "slow times". Once you start to turn that corner though, its hard to beat.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You will do much, much better at this game when you drop the concept of CE and SE, and start looking at what land yields offer the most potential for each city site and your empire as a whole.

Generally speaking though, pyramids/rep become a stronger play if:

1. You can build them more easily (stone, IND)
2. You're not getting wtfowned by barbs at very high levels.
3. You have enough land to expand even if you build them.
4. You have enough happiness available to you in the surrounding land to allow your cities to grow past the basic rep +3 limit. This 4th one is a hidden concern to beginners, even moreso than the first 3.

As those conditions weaken, mids become less favorable, and therefore you're going to need HR as representation won't cut it (or you won't have access to it).

Specialists are a very high yield option IF they are getting you great people, which have a lot of potential uses (bulbing and settling are the main 2 you want early). If you are not going to get a great person from that city, however, specialist yields are quite subpar. A cottage will outdo one pretty quickly after it starts growing (food to yield ratio). A grassland mine beats them (though is only important in hammer cities). Special tiles of course are best but you wouldn't work other tiles over these typically. However, crap tiles like desert and unirrigated tundra give you little other choice. Same with non-financial water and quite often plains tiles. In these cases if it comes down to running a spec off a food resource or working a crappy tile, run the spec.

Typically a mixture of cottages and specialists is the best route. Note that even if you want to run merchants, for an important piece of the early game all you're going to have access to is more commerce from pottery and whatever commerce resources are sitting available to you. Even if you want to fuel yourself mostly off specs, it may behoove you to cottage a city or two as as they and the city grows they'll essentially allow you to settle more cities sooner without strike. I'm sure you can think of ways to use additional cities. If you're keeping the slider low and running "SE" then just put markets in such cities and keep expanding ----> they can do whatever you want, though, depending on empire size.

One final thing, I think it was Mirth or Iranon that pointed this out:

Cottages are more pop efficient, specialists are more tile efficient. Considering this, if your land without war is extremely limited and you will have difficulty capturing more, cottages probably won't cut it over time. Lean on specialists, use the temporary advantage granted by great people, and try to gain an advantage that will allow you to capture more land. Where you go from there will depend on what you want to do with the game, but staying at less than 6 cities for very long isn't a great idea. Make that temporary advantage more permanent...

 

[Gungalley]

(lots of units outside your borders cost cash, as well as the cost of keeping AI cities).

Wait a minute, you mean units outside your borders incur a higher maintainence?



Btw, sidetracking a little, what does it mean if a farm is not irrigated?

 

[assass1n]

Wait a minute, you mean units outside your borders incur a higher maintainence?



Btw, sidetracking a little, what does it mean if a farm is not irrigated?

Means it has access to water and provides one more food then a farm on that resource without irrigation would provide

After CS
XXX
XFX
XXX
this is how a farm spreads irrigation
After Biology farms can be built without irrigation and provide +1 Food

You can click the $ icon and check how much your units are costing you
For supporting units theirs a cap which is significantly lower for supporting units outside of your cultural borders thus supporting units in a war costs you a lot

 

[Iranon]

Austere SE: Useful for high levels where achieving tech parity would otherwise be very difficult. Bulbing and trading allows a lot of backfilling, so we don't need to bother too much about our regular research - Pyramids are optional, as is most infrastructure.
As long as we get juicy techs to whore around before anyone else does we're good. Not needing much in the way of infrastructure means we can expand well.
Problem: Tends to run out of steam before Biology makes a SE competitive again. This one will probably shoot for a massive war with a monopoly on Renaissance units and / or a transition to a cottage economy because it sacrifices substance for a temporary lead.
Favoured traits: Philosophical.
Favoured situations: High levels, poor land.

SE with all trimmings: Lots of food enables lots of whipping, and as such excellent infrastructure to make Representation-boosted specialists and settled Great People even better. The solid production and tight city placement (more efficient whipping in smaller cities and to avoid trouble with the growth caps) makes this very suited to abuse per-city-bonuses like the religious wonders.
Transitioning to a Cottage Economy is usually not necessary... with the investment into long-term benefits, we should get Biology before the economy hits a brick wall.
Problem: City outputs are all over the place, and as such city specialisation isn't possible to the usual extent. New cities require a lot of infrastructure, and therefore time until they start contributing much.
Favoured traits: All civilian traits apart from Financial help, none stand out.
Favoured situations: Early stone for the Pyramids. Limited spots for production cities but plenty of food (Slavery).

Cottage Economy: This is mostly useful if we go for the long haul and wish to avoid replacing improvements in the midgame. While I think it doesn't quite measure up to specialists from the start for non-Financial leaders, there is something to be said for a solid and sustainable economy that doesn't require sinking early hammers into an expensive wonder. Other advantages are that that it requires a good deal less micromanangement and becomes the strongest economy that doesn't require bending over backwards to set it up.
Problems: Limited production potential in cottage cities makes opportunistic warmongering harder. Relying heavily on commerce means turning up the culture slider is not a particularly effective way to combat unhappiness.
Favoured traits: Financial
Favoured situations: Good mix of cottageable land and production.

 

[kvn_m]

Also, for flood plains, do I build farms or cottages then? I assume farms are for SE and cottages are for CE. What about my civics? If I go for a mixed economy, do I still use representation?

Thanks.

I think it's safe to say that as a rule of thumb, you lean to cottaging the floodplains, esp early in the game when the happiness caps are so low, you won't be able to utilize them for GP anyway (I mean not that you can't... but that you won't be able to reach the full population anyway, so... it's not going to be much as a farm compared to the later times). When the Caste System kicks, you MIGHT want to consider switching them to farming, but so early in the game, with how well your cottages are growing, it might be best to keep them as cottages, and get newly found/captured cities which are poorly cottaged to be farmed if they have floodplains... and use that as a GP farm instead, rather than the already cottaged ones.

Representation is very great early game, depending on how mixed your economy is, I still found out that the benefits for the beaker seem to be pretty great... But be on the lookout on how many towns you have, and then consider the benefits, and you might just get better research slider with money rather than the extra beakers. It's very situational... that's why it's called mixed economy.