More talk of specialists...

[Blaupanzer]

Emphasize hammers for builds except for the food specials which permit specialists. With enough merchants in rapidly growing cities, you can run research at 100 per cent almost all the way to drama. In that timeframe you'll need 10 % culture and 10 % economy. Light bulb with all but great merchants (of which you should get several). With them go for distant big cities to pay for necessary unit upgrades.

Be aggrssive enough to take all the luxury resources you can for trade and for the money. Expand at the edge and on the coast, fill in later. The coastal cities will make you rich, the luxury resources will make you happy -- health is an issue at Noble and above, not one I can always solve satisfactorly without just ripping folks off productive squares to slow or stop growth.

I don't always win, but I stay in the race so that a run for the internet brings me back in line. I usually go for a Space Race win, but try, through trade to have positive relations, to keep the UN in my pocket just in case. Also, if one of the AIs starts to break away, I buy allies and we go kick their *ss.

[Quillan]

I think you're missing the point. Take a city as an example that has no river and no cottages. How much commerce (raw) does it generate? I'd guess no more than 10. If you have research at 100%, none of that 10 is generating money. Up to drama, all you'll have is a library and monastery to modify research, so that 10 will produce 13.5 (not sure if it rounds up or down) beakers of research. That's not much. One single town along a river would generate 5 commerce. So how do you manage to generate a tech lead without any commerce? Are you confining your building areas to places where there are commerce generating resources? Going heavy on windmills and watermills for commerce? Lots of coastal cities that can work sea squares for the commerce?

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Your response has only served to confuse me more.

The MS only help indirectly with research output, because they provide gold and not commerce.

So while they allow you to run at 100% research, they don't boost your beaker output.

Gold doesn't produce beakers, commerce produces beakers.

If you aren't building any cottages, how are your cities generating the commerce required to produce beakers of research?

If you have a city that makes 10 commerce and you run at 100% research, that city will produce 10 beakers. If you assign a merchant specialist, they add nothing to that 10 beakers of research. If you run at 0% research, that city produces 0 beakers.

If you added a scientist specialist, and ran at 100% research that city would make 13 beakers. If you run that city at 0% research, that city would produce 3 beakers.

So the question is, with no cottages and assigning Merchants, how are you getting commerce that is required to be turned into research (depending on your research slider)?

Edit:

I guess the key to what you've said is 'expand on the edges along the coast'.

So you're getting all your commerce from working coastal tiles.

[fed1943]

Chances of each kind of GP

So far as accepted each source of GPP counts as one

point.

And this point adds each turn needed to pop up the GP.

(To put it clear, both Stonehenge and scientist count as

one point by turn; if Stonehenge is there 3 turns and

scientist 1 turn, then the chances must be 75% to GP

and 25% to GS).

I cannot grant that, but it looks is so.

But I have no idea if all this is erased to start fresh when

the GP pops up.

Can someone, please, tell me?

[fed1943]

Far from sure, but I feel the decisive point to make a

decision about cottages/specialists is the nature of the

terrain of early cities, mostly the capital.

Food to specialists, is well known.

Hammers to cottages, sometimes forgotten.

But this is very few, someone can say more and better.

Best regards,

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Fed- It's all erased when a GP is born.

Also you might want to make note of the fact that it's averaged across turns. So if you have 1 GE for 99 turns and 1 GP for 1 turn, you'll still have (albeit small) a chance of getting a GP.

However, if you run PS for 100 turns and pop a GPr, then run ES for the next 100 turns, you won't get any comingling of prophet points in your engineer run.

As far as starting position goes in relation to running a specialist or cottage based economy.. remember that both economies require food. And in most cases, the cottage based economy will be more 'available' because any given specialist requires two food and they work no tiles. Whereas, if you cottage a plains tile, that citizen will still require two food but he will provide 1 food plus the commerce from working the cottage (so he essentially only requires 1 'extra' food, as opposed to the specialsit that requires 2 not matter what.. unless they are 'free')

I've been working with specialist based economies with little to no cottages, and I've found that it is a viable strategy. You can win that way, especially if you're spiritual and can switch back and forth from slavery to caste system without anarchy.

However, while I've been able to win using the strat, I find myself lagging behind where I would normally be with a more natural economy.

So.. I'd say it's viable, it's just not optimal.

[fed1943]

Rancidlunchmeat: Thank you for your information.

About the cottages/specialists question:

Specialist takes away two food;

Cottage do not take away anything but avoids food and

hammers improvements in its tile.

So, if a city has good food but poor hammers, specialist

may be safer.

Otherwise, cottage is better.

Cottage is slow, but specialist even slower.

So, IMHO, if not a clear reason to go specialist, go

cottage.

And, I also think, the question is to be decided city by

city and not to the whole civ.

Best regards,

[SirIlya]

I just played Saladin using this strategy exclusively. I agree on the city-by-city concept is probably the best pracitcal application, but I just went empire-wide so that I could more easily gauge the differnces.

As it happened, my neighbors were Ghengis, Alexander, Montezuma and poor nice-guy Asoka. I found that in this sort of a heavy hostility environment having a specialist-based economy made my empire very resilient to warfare and invasion.

Might be a good economy for warmongers, since all you need are farms and mines and settling the prophets lets you keep expanding during a phase of the game when the cottage economy isn't really fully rolling yet. And it turns your capital into a very hammer-heavy city while still letting it pump out good commerce.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Originally posted by fed1943
Rancidlunchmeat: Thank you for your information.


Specialist takes away two food;

Cottage do not take away anything but avoids food and

hammers improvements in its tile.

I think you're look at this wrong, as any tile that is worked takes away two food. Also, cottages can provide hammers if built on grassland hills.

Otherwise, cottage is better.

Cottage is slow, but specialist even slower.

It's really more complicated than that. And specialists are actually much faster early game (especially SS) than cottages are if have representation (Pyramids) and aren't financial.

And, I also think, the question is to be decided city by
city and not to the whole civ.

Well, the problem with that is that it takes away from the 'power' of the specialist economy if you don't run the majority of your cities the same way. The power comes from the fact that you can maintain your tech leader while running at 0% research. This of course requires lots of cities with lots of specialists.

[fed1943]

Rancid: my words were not clear enough (English).

Sure, every pop unit and so every tile to be worked, spends 2

food/turn; but, if I work a fish, I can think it gives the city 3/4

food output/turn.

If I look to an unimproved tile I see the commerce, hammers and

food ( real food-2) it gives the city; if I decide to put there a

cottage, food and hammers shall remain the same forever, so

positive, neutral or negative food output as it was.

And, unless challenging myself, I can make a city heavy

specialists and other with lot of cottages, without conflict.

Thinking big, one can have five cities running with a lot of

specialists each and all other cities, but two or three, with

plenty of cottages.

Best regards,

[Common Sensei]

I started a game to try this last night using Roosevelt. There was Stone nearby, so getting the Pyramids combined with that and Roosevelt's Industrious trait was not a problem.

I put farms down everywhere I could. Plains or grassland, it didn't matter, unless it was a resource tile or a hill, or the city in question was completely blocked off from irrigation chains. Despite having no flood plains, this method functioned pretty well.

I found that keeping the units upgraded and up to date was easier, because of the cash coming in from having the Science slider low.

By the end, with 10 Great Scientists settled in it, the capital had over 700 beakers and five cities had over 100 each. The capital would probably have had around 800-850 or so with a Philosophical leader.

There is a great deal more micromanagement, however, than the Cottage Economy. You have to keep checking the cities to keep the specialist types you need assigned to avoid improper auto-assigning.

All in all it is an interesing and fun take on the tech race. I'll try it again with a Philosophical leader. Personally speaking, this isn't something I would press the issue with every game, though, as without Stone or Industrious, I wouldn't risk depending on the Pyramids.