Implementation of a specialist based economy.

[Nubclear]

Perhaps its just me, but I'm not able to see at all the benefits of a specialist-based economy. It just seems like, every time I try it, I fail miserably...whereas a cottage economy seems to generate far more science and money.

So, how does one get a specialist economy working? And is it worth the lack of cottages?

Also: What are the happiness caps for the various difficulty levels?

[Jaybe]

Happiness caps (iHappyBonus), from HandicapInfo.xml:
Settler & Chieftan: 6
Warlord & Noble: 5
Prince & Monarch: 4
Emperor thru Deity: 3

Re specialist-based economy, I wouldn't know. I'm sure even those that do use cottages, if less than we do. After all, a town is worth up to 6 commerce.

[Chaos Theory]

As far as I can tell, farms simply don't cut it until Biology, except in special cases. Farms and cottages are pretty much the only choices for flat terrain for a while, hence cottages win by default.

[rjmatsleepers]

Re: Implementation of a specialist based economy.

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
Perhaps its just me, but I'm not able to see at all the benefits of a specialist-based economy. It just seems like, every time I try it, I fail miserably...whereas a cottage economy seems to generate far more science and money.

So, how does one get a specialist economy working? And is it worth the lack of cottages?

1. With bureaucracy you get a bonus in your capital for hammers and beakers. It makes sense (to me) to specialise your capital for one or other of these. My choice is always beakers, but others go for hammers. Building lots of cottages, a library, a university and Oxford gives you a science specialised city which will generate hundreds of beakers per turn.

2. A city site with food bonuses, flood plains, grassland can be developed to generate a large food surplus. This can be used for specialists who will generate GPPs. This is the obvious place to build the national epic.

3. A city site with hills and grass can be developed so that the farms on grass give you the food to use mines on the hills. This is a good place to build the iron works, etc.

4. A similar site to 3 can be used to build the heroic epic and churn out good fighting units.

5. The city where you build your state religion's special building deserves to have a market, grocer, bank and Wall St.

That's how I would build a specialist economy. I would expect to get far more beakers, hammers, gold and fighting units from this than if I built all improvements in all cities. That's why I think it's worth the lack of cottages.

RJM

[couerdelion]

An early game specialist economy usually needs Pyramids for representation. Otherwise, cottages should give you a better return

[Thedrin]

1. With bureaucracy you get a bonus in your capital for hammers and beakers. It makes sense (to me) to specialise your capital for one or other of these. My choice is always beakers, but others go for hammers.

Bureacracy gives a bonus for hammers and commerce, not beakers. Running scientist specialists in your capital is a terrible waste.

[fed1943]

I never played a true specialists economy.

Just early specialists for a very temporary and circunstancial goal

(like an Academy,Shrine or Wonder);

And mixed economies: one/two GPP; one/two mixed cities.

So, cottages as the bulk of commerce/science/gold.

That's my way and,it looks, the common way.

But two or three posts from Aeson show that the profits of spec.

added to the permanent profits of GP plus the instant from GP can

get the upper hand, if the player knows what is doing...

But I don't.

Best regards,

[Cort Haus]

There are a ton of threads on CFC about this. There were even some comparison games being set up at one point.

[binTravkin]

You are persuading Tassadar to join the Fan..Fallen ones!

[Diadem]

A specialist economy is not that hard to setup. First of all you find yourself a city with a very good food production. Spam this city with farms, and throw the national epic in it. If you don't have enough happiness resources you could build the globe theatre there as well. Now, get specialists there. Lots of 'em.

You can build two cities like that if you want (and have 2 good food cities), but more than that is not really useful.

Now find another city in a good location. This will be the city where you add your great people as super specialists. Except the few you might use for academies or shrines. Usually this is your capital, but sometimes another city is more suited (or you already use your capital for GPP production). In that case, move your capital to this city.

To this city add all great people. In this city you build oxford. Depending on the situation you can build wallstreet here, or your shrine city. Best of course is if that's the same city. If you don't build wallstreet in this city, go for the ironworks.

Terrain improvements around this city should be cottages and perhaps some mines. Build enough farms to reach the population you need to work all productive tiles, but no more. Ideally that's only 2 farms on the corn and wheat in your fat cross

For civics, run pacifism and representation. These are the two most important. Another good synergy is with mercilantism. Bureaucracy is of course a good choice as well. Top it off with caste system if your GPP producting cities can't run enough specialists without that. Otherwise slavery because without global suffrage you need that to rush buildings.

Now your set. The rest of your cities you can leave largely untouched. Except that with representation already up, you probably want a few more specialists than you'd normally use. You will almost always choose specialists over coastal tiles now, for example.

[Quillan]

A scientist generates 3 base beakers of research. All specialists generate another 3 beakers if you're running Representation. In order to generate 6 beakers of research base, a tile needs to generate 6 points of commerce, after factoring in modifiers for Bureaucracy if the capitol and your science rate. Full towns can generate as much as 7, 8 along a river, and 9 if playing a financial civ. However, the stages before town don't generate nearly as much, plus it's a lot faster to farm a square than it is to build a cottage and have it develop to a town.

I don't generally run a specialist economy, but I do use it occasionally. In my last game (my first at Prince level) I ran Representation for a while after I got Constitution, since I made a few other stops before going for Democracy. During that interim period, science specialists in cities that didn't have a heavy town presence really helped my research rate. Also, you can run science specialists as long as you have food in the early going, providing you've developed Writing. That's what makes Writing such a key tech for early warring. If you run your economy into the dirt, you can recover, as long as you can run scientists.

[fed1943]

Right now I play a game (SPDG) with many of the elements Diadem

tells. When I told a specialists economy was a situation all or almost

cities run specialists.

Best regards,

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Thedrin


Bureacracy gives a bonus for hammers and commerce, not beakers. Running scientist specialists in your capital is a terrible waste.

Why do you consider running scientist specialists in the capital to be a mistake? Surely it depends on the alternative. If there's a good tile to use instead, fair enough. But I often find myself hitting the growth ceiling so a specialist prevents unwanted growth. Do you mean you'd choose a different specialist?

RJM

[binTravkin]

Why do you consider running scientist specialists in the capital to be a mistake?

Because beaker bonuses dont get multiplied by bureaucracy.

[Diadem]

Well there are two reasons to use specialists: For their beakers (or gold, or hammers) and for their GPP points.

The second reason is important in your GPP pump city. Sometimes you can have two cities pumping GPPs, but more than that is not really effective. In these one or two cities however, the GPP are very significant, and you should run as many specialists as you can, and in fact build farms so you can run more.

For all other cities, specialists are just there for the bonusses they give. If you're running bureaucracy and representation then a town is 0/0/5 after printing press. That means a science specialist is better.

A beaker is equivalent to a commerce point after all. There are no multipliers on commerce, except in your capital. Commerce can be used for gold as well, true, but you can always run science specialists and then decrease your slider, for the same effect. So beakers and commerce are worth the same (except in your capital).

Towns take a long time to develop. Of course if you have a farm you need to wait a while as well for your city togrow so you can run a specialist from the food. But not as long as it takes a town to mature.

So in a specialist economy you'll be mostly using farms and mines as improvements, and running specialists for your commerce.

Except in your capital, where you do build lots of cottages. Your capital doesn't have to produce GPP, and because of bureaucracy towns are worth more than specialists. Besides since your capital is your oldest city, those cottages will have been up there for the longest time, and they'll probably be villages at least by the time you can even get to representation.

This calculation is true only for a post-biology area, where a farm gives a full population point of food. Pre-biology a farm gives only half a population point, which is half a specialist. That's still 3 commerce though, against 1 for a cottage, 2 for an hamlet and 4 for a village. Besides there's always prophets with ankhor wat (sp?) which give 2 hammers, 1 gold and 3 beakers.

As you can see, a specialist economy starts with getting one or two very good GPP pump cities, and one city, which is your capital, to recieve the great people as super specialists. Once however you have geared your economy and civic choices towards that, then specialists become very attractive in other cities as well.

With mercilantism and the statue of liberty you have 2 free specialists in every city. I once, as an experiment, used to worldbuilder to ICS the entire map with cities. Each city size one without any buildings, using his 1 pop as a third specialist. I was making a profit. ICS can work even in civ4, if you have a specialist based economy