Favorite civics?

[wodan11]

It's one time I reset maps, if I start with no fresh water for the capitol.

Strange. Unless you often do a SE?

[Blaupanzer]

I always do an SE to each city that can possibly sustain it. I go for production and food early with a few cottages in each city. You taught me the cottage part of that. Vast fields of grassland for a city definitely gets an early CE.

[wodan11]

Oh, makes sense. Though, your capitol is a great place to cottage to pay for your SE, then go for Bureaucracy. So if you have grass but no fresh water, cottage it, and SE your expansion cities.

[Blaupanzer]

I'll try that, but I'll miss that early health. I'm quite sure.

[Theben]

Hmmm, my food + production in my capital is normally so large that it begs to be my GP farm.

[Ming]

I'm with you... the "majority" of the time, my Capital usually has above average food production, and usually becomes my GP farm and sience center. It's rare that I find a killer SE city early, because my first few cities usually are covering strategic resources. Later I can find a few locations for both GP farms and SE usage.

But early on, the GP in my capital with the appropriate multipliers are key to my early science growth.

[wodan11]

If you're doing a "parallel" SE, you don't *want* a GP farm. For a "serial" SE, you do, and the capital may be a good spot for it, but probably not if you don't have fresh water, which is what we're talking about.

Regardless, farming over your capital all but ignores at least half of your Bureaucracy benefit. Unless you're going a GP farm with cottages?

[Theben]

Farm 1st, cottage later.

And it'll still have a couple of cottages early on.

[rah]

A always, it depend on the land. If there's gold, silver, or copper on a hill I'll want a few farms so I can work them.

[Blaupanzer]

Don't use Bureaucracy all that much as I want the two points from Vassalage so I can stick with OR. Hence the use of the Capitol as the first SE city. A lot of my CE cities are that by default because the AI goes that way and I take his cities to gain the benefit. I'll bite on the clue, Wodan, what are the strategies related to parallel and serial SEs? I could guess but you have clearly thought this out.

[wodan11]

Farm 1st, cottage later.

And it'll still have a couple of cottages early on.

Well as we said there's the challenge of what to do if there's no water. At least that's what I thought we were talking about.

Don't use Bureaucracy all that much as I want the two points from Vassalage so I can stick with OR.

Yeah it really depends on what you want to do. Bureaucracy though can be such a huge benefit that even if you plan to be a warmonger it may be well worth while. A solid cottage capitol brings in mad commerce under Bureaucracy. If you're high slider under CE you get mass research, low slider under some types of SE you get mass gold.

Hence the use of the Capitol as the first SE city. A lot of my CE cities are that by default because the AI goes that way and I take his cities to gain the benefit.

There is that. A warmonger almost inevitably turns into a hybrid economy, whether he started as CE or SE.

I'll bite on the clue, Wodan, what are the strategies related to parallel and serial SEs? I could guess but you have clearly thought this out.

You have no idea.

Anyway, in a nutshell, you're generally aware that each successive GP costs more GPP? (If not let me know and I'll explain.)

This naturally encourages a GP farm mentality. So in a CE you usually want one (and only one) GP farm, and your other cities are production- or cottage- specialized.

There are many types of SE... it's quite varied, even though people (especially on CFC) tend to toss out the "SE" term indiscriminately.

When I said "serial" SE, I meant the 2 or 3 solid SE strategies that utilize a GP Farm. Other cities are production or other. If you're running Caste, the other can be specilialists and can generate quite a bit of research. However, you expect few if any GP. The GPP income is a non factor... you're really running the specialists for the research (or gold if merchants). Even without Caste (maybe you're running Slavery) you can run 2-3 scientists and 2-3 merchants per city. With Representation, that's quite a bit of neo-Commerce coming in.

Anyway I diverge. Consider a SE without a GP farm, where you spend some effort to manage GPP income such that you generate as many GP as possible from multiple cities. In "parallel" as it were. This allows you to minimize the GPP loss because you have no GP Farm outstripping other cities. Also, it allows you to run multiple cities each generating different types of GP. Say you want two (and only two) prophets, perhaps because you're planning ahead to conquer Hatty and building up your military. It would also be prudent to plan ahead and generate the prophets to spawn the shrine. Or perhaps your tech path will get you Taoism so you want to plan on the prophet for that. Regardless, you might want a merchant, but not now, much later, for Sushi. An engineer for the 3 Gorges. etc. With practice you really have a huge amount of control over it.

Then the question becomes "what do I do with a city once it has generated the GP I wanted?" Several options. One is to convert it to a city where you don't expect another GPP. Perhaps it made a prophet, so now convert it to scientists to generate research.

Another option is to do a SE->CE conversion. With Emancipation cottage maturation is quite fast, actually. So, as each city makes a GP, you send in the workers and cottage over the farms. (Aside: this strat is one of the best places to really leverage Serfdom, though it's not necessary.)

This type of game strat is really quite elegant to see in execution, actually. And, it doesn't take that much micromanagement.

[Ming]

I've always found Bureaucracy a better option than Vassalage. My Capital is usually killer, and the increases make it an even better city. Most times, my Capital is driving the empire. Vass on the other hand doesn't seem like a fair exchange. The bonus it offers really isn't all that much. I think people over value a single extra promotion. Yeah, the unit is better, but units are meant to die and they do. Even great generals bite the dust (unless you reset), so frankly, I would rather have a much better city.

[Theben]

When that promotion is a Drill IV Crossbow (native) or CR II Maceman then yes Vassalage can be quite nice. Unfortunately with the anarchy issue switching back and forth isn't a good idea unless Spiritual.

But yeah, Bureaucracy is probably better. And it also works with a capitol GP farm since the extra help wonder production.

[Ming]

I'm not saying an extra couple of experience points isn't good... but the early level promotions can be made up quickly. Sure, it's an advantage, but I think the bonus to the capital usually outweights it

[Blaupanzer]

I usually run an SE strategy similar to the one Wodan described as a parallel SE. I minimize most cities' growth past 10 or so to 2 extra food and suck up the rest of the food, such as it is, by using specialists. Further, I specialize most of my cities to focus on science or currency. Later I include specialized spy and hammer cities. I use civics to further emphasize culture, science, and hammers. I stay in CS as long as I can. When finally driven to Emancipate, I cottage over some of the cities, especially ones with lots of flood plains. As noted, all cities get two or three cottages minimum with those tiles having the highest priority, except during emergencies where hammers and whipping/chopping take precedence.