Why does a SE work?

[noto]

Alright, let me start off by saying this - I know the SE works. About 2 months ago I had never tried it and I was very sceptical when I read about it. Now I use it about half the time I play, and I know it really does work. If I play it right I can often get a significant tech lead right into the industrial era, and then, emancipation doesn't bring me down because I don't need the slider to pump out research and instead I max out the luxury slider so that I can stay in Caste System. So yes, I know it works. What I don't understand is why. Think about the math behind it. You could compare it on a specialist vs town basis. If you did that, you would say

no representation, scientist = 3 beakers
rep scientist = 6 beakers

early game town, leader not financial = 4 commerce (4 beakers)
late game town, financial leader = 8 commerce (8 beakers)

so by looking at it this way, I would conclude that a SE without pyramids will only out perform a CE very breifly, until the towns get up and running, and then it will lag behind. Or, you could say that if you get the pyramids a SE will signifantly outperform the CE until free speech and printing press.

This is the way I've seen many people compare the two on this forum.
However, the math I used above is false. You cannot compare 1 specialist to 1 town. The reason is because to turn a citizen into a specialist, you must first use a citizen to produce extra food, and thus you are actually forgoing two town tiles. For simplicity sake, let's pretend the city is surrounded by nothing but grassland, and you can irrigate all the tiles. In order to get one scientist, you must work 2 farmed grasslands. Therefore, you use 3 population to generate 3-6 beakers. So in a SE, each tile would yeild 1.5 beakers to 3 beakers. In a CE, the tile yeilds 4-8. Now, before some of you say "oh, but that's for grasslands, what about higher food tiles??" well, if I cottage tiles like flood plains and have surplus food, I can run a CE AND run scientists at the same time, so it's mathematically the same story. So, although I admit I can keep up in tech in games where I play a SE, I have no idea why. Theoretically, a SE should not be able to compete with a CE, even if you get the pyramids and representation early, and this is even more true when you consider a financial civ can build 5 commerce towns early on, and even more true when you add in the fact that a town gives you a hammer under universal suffrage.

Then there are people who will argue that the reason you can keep up is because a SE will give you a lot more great people, that you can settle or light bulb, to even the scales. However, a CE with a really good GP farm will produce almost as many great people as a SE. In my mind, it's the philo trait that gives you faster great people, not the SE, even though the two are often combined which might be what is confusing people. If you play with Elizabeth, however, you will see that a CE with a really great GP farm will give you a lot of great people.

So, can anyone explain to me, and perhaps using some math to do so, how a SE can possibly keep up with a CE?

 

[DaveMcW]

SE works because the AI is stupid.

You get your GPs earlier than a CE, and don't need to wait for cottage growth. This gives you plenty of time to steamroll the weak AI military. In addition, the AIs you didn't kill will happily trade for your bulbed techs.

 

[King Jason]

It works because of it's instantaneous and consistent nature.

Let's say theoretically speaking you're able to assign 1 scientist or build 1 cottage at the start of turn 1.

Cottage = 1 Commerce for 10 turns
Hamlet = 2 commerce for 20 turns
Village = 3 Commerce for 40 turns
Then it becomes a town, which acts as 4 commerce (in the beginning).

The total commerce for those 70 turns of progression is 170 commerce. Which, if you ran 100% science for that entire time it's 170 beakers.

A scientist = 3 beakers

For the same length in time (70 turns), the scientist nets you 210 beakers. Not to mention, his contribution is independent of the science slider. Where as cottages are entirely Dependant upon it.

You're right in that a CE eventually takes over the SE in the late game. Which is why there are plenty of people who switch economies during prolonged games. The thing about the SE though is that you get instant returns on your investment, which if done right (like you said), means you can jump ahead in tech significantly.

SE is a boon in the early game due to the instant returns, the ability for a tech lead, and the decreased dependency on your science slider. Freeing up your treasury for quicker expansion, a greater military, espionage, and more. Not to mention great people, which come much earlier under an SE. Which, if you're settling the GPs, then their bonus is worth more the earlier they arrive (in grand scheme of things). Plus, bulbing can accelerate your tech lead even further.

You can't just look at the end result of something and assume it's better. A Town is an excellent improvement. But it requires the time being a Cottage, a Hamlet, and a Village before it can become a town. A Scientist is roughly the equivalent of a Village (depending on the circumstance) in beakers the moment it is assigned. Also, you need to remember that not everyone runs 100% science in the first place. So a Village with it's 3+ commerce doesn't always equal 3+ beakers. A regular Scientist always equals 3 beakers.

Let's take a village by a river (4c) and a scientist comparison. Let's say the you can only run 1 or the other, and you only have 1 pop to work with. Let's look at the science slider's effect. So the commerce we have in total is going to be 8 from the palace, 1 from the tile the city is on, and then either 4 from the village for 13c total (CE), or just the beakers from the scientist for 9c total with +3 beakers (SE).

(The numbers are the beaker output of the city)

Silder - CE - SE
100% - 13 - 12
90% - 11 - 11
80% - 10 - 10
70% - 9 - 9
60% - 7 - 8
50% - 6 - 7
40% - 5 - 6
30% - 3 - 5
20% - 2 - 4
10% - 1 - 3
00% - 0 - 3

So in this particular example, a Village by a river is only better than a scientist if the slider is ran at 100%, at 90% or below, the scientist is either the same, or better. Now, one may wonder why I'm talking about villages and not towns. Well, because it goes back to what I mentioned about instant returns - if you cottage spam, as your city grows and begins to work the tiles, you'll need to account for the growth of the cottages as well. If you're running an SE, every scientist assigned is essentially the same as instantly adding another village to your city. No Growth required. No Slider dependency.

 

[Meserach]

It's simply because while towns are an awesome improvement, you have to live with them as cottages first.

 

[Darth Meanie]

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.

 

[Gliese 581]

I think comparing scientist specialists to just the commerce income from cottages is simplifying things a little to much. Working that cottage is also giving you food and/or production which means growth and/or production. Also you can't run an unlimited number of scientist specialists wo caste system which has it's own implications. These have an effect on science but in a way that is harder to measure, growing your city means you could work more tiles to bring in more commerce etc.

I don't think a SE would be so strong without the bulbing and tech-trading possibilities. Still viable depending on the situation, but certainly nothing like what is.

 

[seizer]

Comparison of working scientists vs cottages with representation, not financial, no printing press, no free speech.

1 6 food tile, 2 scientists vs 3 cottages
12 vs 3/6/9/12

1 4 food tile, 1 scientist vs 2 cottages
6 vs 2/4/6/8

1 3 food tile, 0.5 scientists vs 1.5 cottages
3 vs 1.5/3/4.5/6

Using King Jason's numbers for total commerce of cottage growth, that gives you:

6 food tile will be ahead by 330 until printing press or free speech.

4 food tile will be ahead by 80 after 70 turns, and will get even after 110 turns, after which the cottages will be more profitable.

3 food tile will be ahead for 40 turns, after which the cottages will be more profitable.

 

[Levgre]

Perhaps the reason it works is if you have a good amount of science, it doesn't make too much of a difference if you have a somewhat greater amount.

Here's my point:
a tech takes 1000 bulbs to research

Time taken to research, with different productions:

10 bulbs = 100 turns
20 bulbs = 50 turns
30 bulbs = 33 turns
40 bulbs = 25 turns
50 bulbs = 20 turns
60 bulbs = 16 turns
70 bulbs = 14 turns
80 bulbs = 12.5 turns
90 bulbs = 11 turns
100 bulbs = 10 turns
110 bulbs = 9 turns
120 bulbs = 8.3 turns
130 bulbs = 7.7 turns
140 bulbs = 7.1 turns
150 bulbs = 6.7 turns
160 bulbs = 6.25 turns


A SE economy has quite modest output, let's say 110 on this chart. However, a well ran CE economy, undoubtedly edges over it, but not by THAT much. Let's say 130.

That only makes a difference of 1.3 turns for a pretty long tech. By liberalism , through raw research, this may only account for a CE being 1-1.5 techs ahead.

The CE breaks past the point in level of beakers, where falling 20 behind could be devastating. If the CE had 80 output, and the SE had 60, that would make the SE 3.5 turns behind, not 1.3 turns behind, like with 110 and 130.

But then you have to account for the SE's extra great people(even if it is just one or two) the SE's extra flexibility in fighting wars, adjusting the science slider, being able to whip better, not having to build as many buildings, not being vulnerable to pillaging, and the SE can remain very competitive.



Also, keep in mind that a SE economy will almost always have someone with the philosophical trait. This has the best possible synergy, also helping put the SE slightly more closer to the CE.
So it's all these little things that lessen the gap.

 

[Gliese 581]

Getting the pyramids costs alot of hammers, and there's still no account for growth. But never mind, I'm not sure I would have the patience to read through a really thorough comparison, it would basically have to involve all of the game mechanics and strategies that you can think of. I just wanted to point out that one should keep in mind that it's more complex than a simple beaker/commerce comparison.

 

[MyOtherName]

Let's consider a situation: your cities have libraries and markets. They are not happiness or healthiness-bound. You do not wish to grow your city more. You do not have food to burn from special tiles. You do not have representation. You do not have to wait for your cottages to grow to villages. I believe each of these conditions benefit cottages over specialists.

Using 3 cottages allows you to produce 11.25 +
2 farms and 1 scientist allows you to produce 3.75 3

What are you going to do with your scientist? Bulbing a 600 beaker tech with your first scientist (or 1200 :beaker towards a tech with your second scientist) is a 1 gpp --> 3 beaker conversion. Therefore:

2 farms and 1 scientist allows you to produce 12.75

So even in this situation that heavily favors cottages, specialists still yield superior + if the go towards your first or second GP.


What if you use your great person for an academy? What's +50% science worth? Let's say 300 . (2 * cost of Observatory) Let's use our third specialist for an academy, so that's a 1 gpp --> 1 hammer conversion.

1 mined plains hill allows 2 --> 4
1 scientist specialist allows 2 --> 3.75 +3

Well, let's throw in some cottages to make the comparison more direct. Let's use grassland hills too, because they're better, and make it easier to compare.

2 farms 2 mined grassland hill, 2 cottages produces 6 7.5 +

4 farms 2 scientists produces 7.5 +6

Okay, working on your third GP to be an academy is even with using tiles. But -- you can build the academy in any city, not just the one with the specialists. And, of course, in real life there isn't an option to build an academy for 300 .


Remember; all of this is in situations that favor cottages. If we were running representation, or if the science and gold multipliers in our cities were unbalanced, or if our city has a big food surplus from special tiles, or if we have the parthenon, if we have the national epic, if we're philosophical, ...

And I didn't even consider the value of other specialists and great people!

 

[noto]

hey, wow, thanks everyone for chipping in here. Seizer, thank you very much for that breakdown. That makes a whole lot more sense to me now...now that I'm thinking of it in terms of how many turns it takes a cottage to grow, I can see that the specialists, especially with representation, will outperform at least for a while. The only thing I might mention about your analysis is you assume that the city can grow that big. Working 3 cottages requires 3 population, but working 1 tile and and then feeding 3 specialists requires 4 population. If you have no health or happiness cap, this doesn't matter. But what I'm wondering is - how does your analysis change if you are limited to a maximum population? Then you might have to measure per population instead of per tile. There is always a pop cap, so we need to think about that too.

 

[stormyorky]

High food tiles favors SE in early-mid game, but as time goes and happy cap goes up and cities grows larger, im inclined to believe cottages will make out for the bulk of the economy.

The real hard problem in early game seems to choose wither to run specialists or mines from the high food tiles. I often find myself to favor cities with high production to win those wars and grab those wonders.

 

[stormyorky]

double post

 

[noto]

@myothername: I don't understand why you are assuming that a CE has no GP farm. Have you ever played with a CE? I ALWAYS have a GP farm EVERY GAME, whether I'm Lizzie, Julius, Hannibal, Bismark, Boudica, Genghis, whatever. In fact, because great people are worth so much more if they come early, I usually try to make sure I have a GP farm within my first 3 cities. That is regardless of whether I'm following a SE or CE or military production economy. To my understanding, the difference between a CE and SE is in a CE I will have a GP farm (or two, if I want to make a science farm and then an engineer farm, for example, and if I have enough land to do so) and I will have some production cities, but the rest of my empire is commerce cities. With a SE, on the other hand, I never build a single cottage. If one were to play the game without assigning any specialists and thus never generating great people, that would be a shame indeed. I guess, what it comes down to is that when I'm running a CE I am relying on my cottages to generate the beakers and gold (and culture and espionage points). My GP farms in those games are purely that - to generate GPs. The difference is that in a SE I am not using cottages to generate all that stuff, I'm using artists and buildings for culture, workshops, watermills, mines, windmills for hammers, spy specialists for esp points, and then merchants and scientists for beakers and gold, and then the slider is just a tool to make happy faces.

 

[Belisar]

...now that I'm thinking of it in terms of how many turns it takes a cottage to grow, I can see that the specialists, especially with representation, will outperform at least for a while.

First, I want to state that I get a bit tired of the endless SE - CE discussions.
Not to offend anyone but I suggest a forum search first before starting threads over and over without the necessary background knowledge.

On topic: Seizer's post gives some general rule of thumb (even new player learn intuitively):
excess food (food ressources) -> specialists = good
no excess food (only +1 farms) -> specialist = not-so-good

However, I wouldn't compare a SE-biased situation (representation) with no-printing press, no-free speech, no financial because that would mean pyramids and relying on a wonder doesn't help a general analysis.

Great people points make the analysis even more complex. The first great scientist are worth way more in the early game where they can bulb expensive techs for the cost of 100, 200 GPPs BUT these kind of things don't scale. If you assign 10 instead of 2 scientists your beaker output from GPPs doesn't increase 5 times.
Early, representation powered specialists in high food cities and late-game riverside towns with financial bonus are just extreme examples that you should think about and incorporate in your strategic "box of tricks".
When you start thinking about the CIV-economy as a dynamic system depending on time, terrain, traits... you will get beyond general, rigid concepts like "CE" and "SE"

 

[overdose]

Ya endgame bulb for 1700 beakers isn't that much when you get 1k beakers a turn... I've always ran a hybrid eco. But then again I'm a Prince-Monarch player (even though I'm heading towards my first ever Emperor victory with Lizzie.. Yay!)

 

[redmosquito]

I dont understand how you run SE in every city that you own, even in the ones that have no access to fresh water. you can spread irrigation very late in the game. does SE stretegy require that you should run an absolute SE in every single city

 

[Kennigit]

I'm ignorant of a SE, but since it can outperform a CE in the early game, its easier to abuse a weak AI and conquer it. This turns the SE into a hydbrid, because conquered AI lands will have cottages for the new cities to work. I think it would be silly to base every city off of specialists- maybe 1-3 core cities running a lot of scientists, but I don't think restricting exterior cities to specialists is a good idea and wouldn't be profitable. A good example is Snaaty's Don Deity game in Stories&Tales, where after a somewhat lucky beginning (popping BW from a hut, getting copper, etc), he used his capital to pump out Great People and eventually got a strong calvary rush off.

Somewhere there was a graph and extensively done math of how 1 GP farm outperforms other cities (in terms of producing great people), and it would take some 100 turns for a 2nd minor GP farm to finally overcome and produce a great person for itself. Keeping this in mind, a CE can have a GP farm.

One last note: On obsolete's game (atleast the Egyptian game), he works his wonder-spam stratedgy well but seems to produce late end dates. His Ramses game on immortal ended with a 1969 or something space race, on immortal for vanilla/warlords .

 

[noto]

Belisar, I was just trying to be polite, I'd obviously already considered the fact that cottages start off as, well, cottages.

 

[Zanttu]

I dont understand how you run SE in every city that you own, even in the ones that have no access to fresh water. you can spread irrigation very late in the game. does SE stretegy require that you should run an absolute SE in every single city

Does CE require that you should cottage spam every city?

Answer for both: Absolutely not. In both economies you will need production as well, won't you?