Why does a SE work?

[futurehermit]

@op: In your initial analysis you are assuming 100% science slider, which is usually not possible through the early-to-mid phases of the game. A town at 70-80% slider is only 3 beakers not 4. Also, you forget that a specialist is also giving you gpp not just beakers which translates into many beakers when lightbulbed or settled over the course of the game.

Why does the SE work?

1 word: Flexibility

You can transition your entire empire from mass research production to mass whip/draft-driven military production. Use your specialists to get to a military tech then use your whole empire to quickly pump out your new units. Then expand your empire. Rinse, repeat.

In this way I see SE as best for domination/conquest games and not overly ideal for a space race. A CE will pull away later in the game in sheer beakers produced and after levees, US, etc. can start to match production, but the early game production a SE generates can translate to a larger empire overall earlier which imo is quite important.

 

[r_rolo1]

Why does the SE work?

1 word: Flexibility

You can transition your entire empire from mass research production to mass whip/draft-driven military production. Use your specialists to get to a military tech then use your whole empire to quickly pump out your new units. Then expand your empire. Rinse, repeat.

I would add: it works because of the cascading effect.... if you shave a turn or two in one of the earlier techs (like a early SE vs a early CE ) it could multiply in several turns of advance later in some more critical techs ( CS, Education, Astro... ) even without considering bubling.

 

[redmosquito]

You can transition your entire empire from mass research production to mass whip/draft-driven military production.

As far as i understand from this statement, if you run SE you do it in at least majority of your cities. Then I am confused because I dont understand how can you do this without spreading irrigation. it looks impossible to me probably because I havent tried yet

 

[Spaced out]

A SE works because it can use the culture slider throughout the game. It never has to stop growing due to unhappy citizens.

Newly conqured cities aren't starving off 3-4 populations due to unhappy citizens. A size 17 city loosing 1 pop is huge for a CE as they don't have much surplus food it will take a long time to grow back up.

Not to mention that brand new city with only 8 workable tiles can run a lot artist specialists (all giving +3 science) to get the border pop quickly. A CE may not be able to run any. True with only 8 workable tiles that city will starve off some population but at least those citizens will have an impact before they go.

I've noticed in BtS the AI is much more likely to settle Great People. Under rep. those all add science, even the generals.

 

[madscientist]

A very simple view of SE for me is this. It allows me to build a large army while teching towards the best early military techs. AT that point I am very happy to seize AI cities that have fairly mature cottages, slave some courthouses. At that point I let the captured AI cities to help in tech while I rebuild the core empire towards a SE economy.

The biggest reason for me to switch off a SE is emancipation. Help in cottage maturity, but also forces you out of caste system and limits the number of scientist specialists you can run.

 

[Ultimocrat]

As far as i understand from this statement, if you run SE you do it in at least majority of your cities. Then I am confused because I dont understand how can you do this without spreading irrigation. it looks impossible to me probably because I havent tried yet

Yes, eventually you need chain irrigation, and the SE truly takes off in the later game once you tech to biology for +2f farms. Biology is to a SE as Emancipation is to a CE: vastly accelerated growth.

Another point to note in terms of SE flexibility is that specialists can be exchanged 1-1 for mined plains, desert, or tundra hills -- giving a nice ability to toggle between production and science/beakers/culture/whatever you want.

Furthermore, I still think an underrated aspect of the SE is the much larger population, which leads to larger trade routes and easier diplomatic victory, especially the classy unilateral diplomatic where you have enough population to vote yourself victor, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks.

 

[CivCorpse]

You think an SE is strong, try one with Obsolete's method. He basically plays the capital with a wonderspam, settling all Great People and producing an uber city.

And he always plays a philosophical or industrious civ. He also did these playing Warlords where you get a GE from the Great wall. I would honestly like to see him do this strat with a non-philo or industrious civ that has no stone playing BtS. And playing AggAi kills this as well. I an a builder by nature and have switched to AggAi to force me to build units rather than wonders.
Like all starts his is very situational. It is a great way to leverage those traits, but if he starts a game with an Ai that is industrious and also has stone, he will miss a lot of those early wonders. It's like playing the Dutch on an islands map or playing the romans on a pangea with balanced resouces selected to ensure iron nearby. Ever notice noones plays Rome on an islands map?

The strength of a CE lies in the happy cap. Pre-biology you need 3 citizens to run a single specialist 2 to work the farms and one as the specialist. At size7 I can work 7 riverside hamlets for 21commerce. At 70% science rate that is 14.7 beakers and 6.3 gold per turn. A SE can work 4 farms and run 3 scientists at 70% research that is 11.8 beakers and 1.2 gold per turn. And that is when they are hamlets. 20 turns later they are villages which adds 7 more base commerce while the SE hasn't improved. The GPPs help balance things in the SE's favor as will the Mids. Especially with a Philo leader. But a Financial leader gains an extra 7commerce from those cottaged tiles and with a good GPfarm can get a good chunk of Gps as well. I think that is why Lizzy is one of the easiest leaders to play. Lots of loot from cottages and lots of GP's from being philosophical.
The map really dictates what economy I play with. Few rivers really hurts a SE because you can't get that many farms before civil service.A CEwithout rivers after 20 turns you are at villages which brings you right back to the base 21 commerce for a non-financial civ. Also cottaging pays off as soon as you have pottery and build a cottage. With a SE you have to research writing as well then build a library to be able to run scientists, and you can't run more than 2 scientists until CoL. Also you need to run merchants to provide gold, and that cuts into your science slider as well unless you have the Mids. With an SE you need to run CoL to get the maximum specialists, so you lose the ability to whip. I'm not an expert on SE's by any stretch of the imagination, but they seem more geared towards warmongering on faster speeds where you're planning on being in an overwhelmingly dominant position before the later games when towns become powerhouses. A riverside town running Universal sufferage/free speech with printing press and a levee is an 8C2f2h tile. And you don't need a huge population to run it.
Personally I prefer to run an HE with a heavier emphasis on cottages. And of course Lizzy is the best leader for that. The english UU and UB are absolutely awesome.

 

[madscientist]

And he always plays a philosophical or industrious civ. He also did these playing Warlords where you get a GE from the Great wall. I would honestly like to see him do this strat with a non-philo or industrious civ that has no stone playing BtS. And playing AggAi kills this as well. I an a builder by nature and have switched to AggAi to force me to build units rather than wonders.
Like all starts his is very situational. It is a great way to leverage those traits, but if he starts a game with an Ai that is industrious and also has stone, he will miss a lot of those early wonders. It's like playing the Dutch on an islands map or playing the romans on a pangea with balanced resouces selected to ensure iron nearby. Ever notice noones plays Rome on an islands map?

As someone who just used his strat in a RPC game with an Industrious leader and early access to marble, I fully agree with you.

I play all the leaders on a rotating basis, so when an industrious leader's turn shows up I generally will try this strat. Not with a Philosophical though.

The strategy works very well but generally requires an Industrious leader AND a landlocked capital.

 

[shyuhe]

I think the SE was much more effective in vanilla/warlords. I am playing the current major and the AI normally finishes liberalism by about 300-500 AD. Compare this to the finish dates of about 1000-1300 AD on BtS and you can see why early beakers help so much in pre-BtS. My favorite pre-BtS bulb was philosophy, which can normally be traded around for CS + machinery + feudalism. In BtS, a philo bulb just isn't worth as much early (the AI will maybe have CoL, currency, machinery).

In addition, the BtS AI isn't swimming in cash either, so it's harder to replenish your treasury by brokering old techs to backwards AI. Of course this problem applies to both CE and SE...

To be honest, I don't see the point of running an SE at noble-monarch. It requires a lot more effort to run well compared to a CE. If you can trade bulbed techs for 2-3 near equal value techs, then the SE will have more value. Philo, educ., and PP are the three main techs that come to mind for this.

 

[Cleverbeans]

I think the SE vs CE debate has little to do with worked tiles or specialists and more to do with leveraging leader traits and civics. Any player can build a GP farm, or make a city full of cottages, so the choice has little to do with the types of cities you build.

In a SE game we'll see a large super city based on the Industrious and Philosophical traits and the representation/bureaucracy/caste system/Mercantilism civics. By building wonders and generating great people which are then settled/lightbulbed to create an advantage. Clearly this strategy not work nearly as well with Mansa Musa running the Hereditary Rule/Free Speech/Emancipation/Free Market civics.

Leaders like Ghandi seem to lend themselves to a hybrid or transitional economy, where they can use a SE early to gain an edge then their empire grows switch to a CE and take advantage of mature towns and late game civics since the value of the philosophical trait loses power as the game matures and spiritual allows easy civic switching to ease the transition. A flexible SE early opens certain strategic opens while the style of victory has yet to be determined, then a switch to a CE gives more power after the type of victory to be pursued has been established.

However both cottage cities and specialists cities are powerful enough to justify their use. I don't feel as though cottages and specialists are mutually exclusive option and depending on starting conditions and leadership traits should be mixed and matched to varying degrees for maximal impact.

 

[Polycrates]

I think the SE was much more effective in vanilla/warlords. I am playing the current major and the AI normally finishes liberalism by about 300-500 AD. Compare this to the finish dates of about 1000-1300 AD on BtS and you can see why early beakers help so much in pre-BtS. My favorite pre-BtS bulb was philosophy, which can normally be traded around for CS + machinery + feudalism. In BtS, a philo bulb just isn't worth as much early (the AI will maybe have CoL, currency, machinery).

On the other hand: BtS has made the SE immeasurably stronger in the late-game, so that you don't even need to transition over to cottages. Spy specialists become MONSTERS, and you can get up to 7 of them in each city - which also means you're not bound to Caste System. You can also run more engo specialists if you're so inclined. And Sushi comes on the tech just after Biology too, which is a lovely boost to a SE (you can also whip in commerce/espionage buildings until your whipping hand is raw).

 

[vicawoo]

it's pretty unfair to compare pre-biology farms with universal representation, printing press towns. And towns take 40 game turns.

I think 3 is a reasonable amount for a CE tile, which is similar to a representatio scientist. Also, CE's will run hereditary rule and not representation to fluff out their towns. I don't count gold/science slider without multipliers, but in long wars, you might use your culture slider, which would devastate a CE, but do little to an SE.
Also, SE's don't have to build libraries and markets, which is hammers (pyramids is 3 markets worth) and they can spend them on units.

 

[Silence101]

SE's lean more toward an expansionist strategy in the early/mid game as your tech rate isn't dependent upon your commerce with an SE. Having to ability to expand to a much greater degree can have an exponential impact on all aspects of your CIV in the late game. It seems to me that the early/mid game advantage clearly lies with the SE unless you're not running pro-expansion strategy. (ie: Cultural Victory / Diplomatic Victory / OCC)

 

[JackOfClubs]

OTAKUjbski ran the numbers a while ago. His conclusions:

The SE is far more competitive against the CE than most CE proponents have given it credit for. This is primarily because of its early rapid generation of Great People and strategic timing of the lightbulb.

This in no way is to say Great People are exclusive to the SE. However, they are virtually exclusive to running specialists. Therefore, every economic model should incorporate some strategy for generating Great People (often called the "GP farm").

Because of the early bonuses and facilitation of the SE (Great Library, Parthenon, Pyramids, Caste System, Pacifism, etc), it seems CivIV is geared towards running a specialist economy for the early periods of the game.

In the end, this baseline comparison seems to show SE as a short-term winner, CE as a mid-term winner and both being equally viable in the long-term.

Both economic models have strengths and weaknesses. It's ultimately up to the player to understand and levy them to achieve victory.

There are some ambiguities in his analysis -- you could argue, for instance that a cotage should be compared to 1/3 specialist (based on 3 population required) rahter than 1/2 specialist (based on 2 tiles required) -- but on the whole it is pretty solid.

The thing that has to be settled before we can answer the OP's question is what do we mean by "work". If we mean "surpasses the research of a CE without paying attention to civics or other factors" it is clear that an SE doesn't "work" in this sense. A basic cottage (with no advantageous civics or Leader traits) surpasses the value of a specialist after 20 turns.

But if we let "work" mean "takes advantage of certain civis and leader traits that are available early in the game" then it works because of the flexibility that Futurehermit mentioned (and also because of the stupidity of the AI that DaveMcW mentioned). I consider GP farms to be essentially a mini-SE so the fact that people running a CE often use them is misleading; they are actually running a hybrid economy. Unless, of course, they primarily use wonders to power the GPP, which takes a long time to set up and is inferior to the SE version in both cost and reliability.

 

[Gliese 581]

As someone who just used his strat in a RPC game with an Industrious leader and early access to marble, I fully agree with you.

I play all the leaders on a rotating basis, so when an industrious leader's turn shows up I generally will try this strat. Not with a Philosophical though.

The strategy works very well but generally requires an Industrious leader AND a landlocked capital.

The strategy actually works better with a philosophical leader IF you quickly find a resource or better yet both of course. Ideally stone first and later marble with philosophical.

 

[noto]

One thing I have noticed in my games is that I usually make a decision early on in the game, depending on my land, resources, traits, neighbours, etc, on whether or not to build cottages. When I first started playing the game I thought cottages were the only improvement really worth building, and the others were just niche fillers. Now I realize that one can play a very good game, with a tech lead, without building a single cottage. To me, the main strength of not building a single cottage is that it frees you to pump the luxury slider as high as you want, which means that you don't have to worry about emancipation ruining your economy later in the game.

 

[Roxlimn]

SEs work because you get your tech NOW, not later. Technology begets power and more power. The effect, therefore, is a cascade of tech into tech that inevitably leaves CEs well behind unless you work the CE with various tiles and traits to take special advantage of the Cottage. Even then, you're well advised to run a GP farm and possibly another Specialist City or two anyways.

You CAN work a CE into a bigger advantage early game but that generally requires one of 2 things: Financial or good CE tiles (eg flood plains). An SE is not as fickle and generates its results quickly and dramatically.

Perhaps the greatest effect of SE can be generated through either the Pyramids or with Philosophical. Pyramids multiplies the output of each Scientist to really crazy levels (can lead a tech race on 0% research slider). Philosophical allows you to generate a GS incredibly early - a Settled GS in the Classical or pre-Classical Age is simply incredible for Science leaping.

 

[Spaced out]

In obsoletes defense you don't have to have phil/ind to run his type of game. Just can't be that extreme.

I'm playing a SE game right now with the Zulu (cre,org), Prince level. My capitol started with 3 clams and a banana, 3 mines, 1 horse. Even w/o stone i managed to get the GLH, mids, HG, GL, AP, SM, US in that order. Due to the mids and HG my early great people were all engineers. Just entered the renaissance era with 6 settled GE, 2 settled GS, 1 settled GM, 2 scientists from GL and 1 more scientist from a quest. Capital is making over 125 science/turn, and i'm just running 2 specialist priest. No universities yet.

The capital has a base production 50+ and it even has 6 water tiles i'm not working. SM and US were each built in 6 turns. I couldn't run org religion for the 25% bonus till philosopy. The taj will be done in 10 turns(no marble). Built angor wat, and parthenon in other cities to avoid the GPP polution.

So not being ind and phil you can still get a good production capital. Just focus on the GE wonders. I never rushed a wonder. Didn't get forges till after the AP. My tech tree was pretty messed up and i think I should have tried for the oracle(for MC), but i'm slowly getting better at this game.

Now to work on that blessed sea quest, only 14 more landmasses to go...

 

[Rub'Rum]

Noob question here, but does the game's automation ever decide to run a SE? Like, if I set myself in Caste System and I have a huge amount of food and not much else in a city, and I tell it not to grow past the happy cap, does the city governor run a bunch of science specialists? I'm not a huge fan of selecting the tiles that are worked myself, since I always forget to go back and change things, I don't know how far I can get into the game by relying on the city governor, hehe.

 

[King Jason]

If you hit the beaker button (emphasis science) with caste system on, food permitting, the city will usually spam scientists. Even despite total beaker output. I've done this and have had instances where I coud've rearranged specialists and tiles and produced a better science output for the city (usually only by a few point) yet the automation still prefers the specialists.

So technically, yea, the auto will run a SE. Atleast in my experience.

Oh, the above scenario is also assuming representation is on aswell. I'm not sure what the auto would do in a if Rep wasn't picked. Probably emphasis high commerce tiles instead. So I guess it depends.

This also assumes the city is tailored for SE in the first place by the way. As I highly doubt a city spammed with Towns under free speech and such would spam specialists instead. Though if the city is comprised primarily of farms, you'll likely run alot more specialists. So basically, the auto should sort of follow what you're doing to a point. It functions based off of your actions - spam cottages, it'll work the tiles for it's science. Spam farms, it'll run specialists.