I have been experimenting with using dust in place of production, and it appears to work very well.



Basic goal: maximize dust production

• Put 75% of city workers on dust
• Put 25% of city workers on food
• Hire a hero for every city, hero should have dust efficiency 2 or 3, not dust boost.
• The same turn a city is founded, you should hire a hero to place in it.
• Pick hero traits that increase dust production
• Give hero the glassteel book that increases dust per worker
• Always use the 1st level economy civic that provides +3 dust per worker
• When it becomes available, use the 2nd level economy civic that reduces buyout costs
• When Era 2 is reached, 1st research the tech that reduces buyout costs by 25%
• Research level 2 armor to give heros the level 2 book that increase dust per worker
• Research and build buildings that increase dust production
• Do not ever research or build any buildings that increase production
• 
  
  

How to play:



The first 20 turns, use production instead as 1 worker will product 4 production or 4 dust, but buying items costs about 2.25x the production cost, so its more efficient to use production initially.



At turn 20, chose the 1st level economy civic that provides the extra +3 dust per worker, and city should already have a hero with dust efficiency 3, which provides extra +3 dust per worker. From this point on you switch to pure dust production in all cities for the rest of the game.



Don’t ever rely on production to build things, they will usually take an incredibly long time that way since you have no workers on production, instead, purchase every building and military unit you need.



Do not raze minor faction villages in territories you plan to settle, quest or bribe them instead, because rebuilding (buying) the village later is more expensive.



With +3 dust civic and a +3 dust efficiency hero with +1 dust from glassteel book, a worker will produce 11 dust per turn instead of 4 production per turn, which is 2.75x, and this is greater than the 2.25x cost increase of purchasing things, so it’s now more efficient to use dust instead of production.



After you research the era 2 tech that reduces buying costs, and start using the 2nd level economy civic that further reduces buying costs, purchasing will then be only about 1.5x the cost of production, and by this point in the game a worker should be producing around 13 dust per worker. As the game progresses, you will get to the point of producing 18 dust per worker.



By turn 150, you should be producing around 10,000 to 20,000 dust per turn from 8 cities. By turn 180 you can easily be making 40,000 dust per turn, you will have probably already won an economic victory.



If you play with custom factions, chose:

• -1 production on terrain
• +1 dust on terrain
• Level 3 businessman that provides +30% dust on cities
  
  

Downfalls: this doesn’t work on fast game mode because for some reason purchasing costs are 1.5x higher on fast, making purchasing to costly. Conversely, it’s even more overpowered on slower game modes where purchasing costs are reduced to 0.9x and 0.7x I believe.

Buyout costs are an exponential function of production costs-- something like I^1.25 (maybe something a little different, I've heard other numbers and haven't checked the raws). So buyout costs start at ~2.25x for things like empire mints and go up from there.

Its not exponential, its a fixed multiplier of the resource cost, starting out at 2.25x in the early game and dropping when you getting the right techs and civics that reduce it. I've played a couple games with this strategy, last game was on impossible difficulty and I utterly crushed the AI.

x^1.2, actually - but the multiplier is applied before the exponentiation.



According to the raws: "$(Input) * $Property(../ClassEmpire:GameSpeedProductionToMoneyMultiplier)) ^ 1.2"



So on Fast speed, it's (cost*1.5)^1.2, etc.



I'm not sure if the Empire Plan that reduces buyout costs by 25% or the tech, "Prisoners, Slaves, and Volunteers" are applied before or after the exponentiation. I assume after, since there doesn't appear to be a term for them inside that equation, but they might modify GameSpeedProductionToMoneyMultiplier.



...Either way, natev's point stands: In the late game, it costs much more than 2.25 as much dust. I used to do a dust-based economy, but I recently switched to an industry-based economy and I'm completing things 10 turns sooner than I was before.

Plus a dust based economy is inherently weaker in competing for legendary buildings. They all cost obscene amounts of dust to buy and you can't do much to speed that up while your competitors can do things like assimilating the urces or using industry stockpiles.

I just loaded a saved game where I used this strategy, normal speed, turn 186. To build a:

Era 1 Building: Empire Mint -> base cost: 75 production, actual cost: 51 production, purchase cost: 55 dust. Effective Cost Multiplier = 1.08x

Era 3 Building: Dust Refinery -> base cost: 600 production, actual cost: 402 production, purchase cost: 667 dust. Effective Cost Multiplier = 1.66x

Era 5 Building: Dust Revitalizer -> base cost: 2000 production, actual cost: 1340 production, purchase cost: 2829 dust. Effective Cost Multiplier = 2.11x



I didn't realize it was exponential, but still, it never goes above 2.11x for buildings, making it still on average efficient to use dust to buy vs production to produce buildings. In the late game, its much better to buy older era buildings than to produce them with production as you can gather dust more easily. Anyways, I just thought it was a fun strategy to try and something different.

since ES this strategy (final dust orientation instead production),unfortunately, best way for win in continious game

Possibility wrote:
I didn't realize it was exponential, but still, it never goes above 2.11x for buildings, making it still on average efficient to use dust to buy vs production to produce buildings. In the late game, its much better to buy older era buildings than to produce them with production as you can gather dust more easily. Anyways, I just thought it was a fun strategy to try and something different.

It really depends. If you invest in PSV, dust depository, and glassteel tomes, you get greater production, pop for pop, from dust-- when comparing to an unimproved industrial-based economy. But a more fair comparison might be to a city with a adamantium tome equipped governor, apprenticeship registry, and canals. Empire plan is a bit of a wash, because building cost reduction is flatly superior to building buyout reduction, although it affects both industry and dust costs. If you have enough influence for both, of course, an extra -25% cost reduction is pretty awesome.



Buyout based economies, as you acknowledge, are pretty inferior in the first tier. Buyouts don't really come into their own until t3 with access to a few good dust techs. The decision to invest in dust production is pretty specific to the faction and game. Anybody pursuing a military victory would be better off ignoring improvements at this stage and focusing on units and strategics. Cultists and WW should both have sufficient industry base to make buyouts unneccessary, although some techs like Dust Refineries are useful to address dust deficiencies. Peaceable BL and RC will probably be planning an economic victory, meaning that these are all essential techs and improvements. For Necrophages, AM, Drakken, and Vaulters, they could go either way. The fact that this decision is so complicated is a testament to Amplitude's talent for game design.



Finally, it should be said that dust and industry aren't an either/or proposition. Industry and dust can work in conjunction as well.

This idea is amazing, I tried it and it went much better than previously, but by turn 150 I was earning 2k, but with glassteel booster - 3000 Dust, I don't understand, how is it possible to "should be producing around 10,000 to 20,000 dust per turn from 8 cities.'' I have 8 cities from 9 to 18 population. Highest earning city is 650 Dust, Lowest 250. Most of the steps you mentioned I did, I did my best with hero skills, but some of heroes skills are ambiguous like ''dust on areas with anomalies/rivers/lakes, trade route dust''

some of the weird ones.

Nevertheless this is amazing guide, I'd never thought i'd be able to earn 3k dust.

Note that any ability that decrease industry cost of the items, like Urces faction trait or 2nd tier industry plan, directly benefit dust economy, since buyout cost is based on final industry cost of the item.