Food Economy Test (SSE/WE Immortal)

@Wodan

Well in that case, dont put the 8 city limit, let both players to take over their continents and play out the game using the 2 different approaches, then compare the results at check points. Both players should be able to clear their continuents within reasonable time on Immortal.

So when the comparison are run they should have similar amount of land (the same continents). And then the economic output of the 2 "economies" will be able to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know.

ABigCivFan said:

@Wodan

Well in that case, dont put the 8 city limit, let both players to take over their continents and play out the game using the 2 different approaches, then compare the results at check points. Both players should be able to clear their continuents within reasonable time on Immortal.

So when the comparison are run they should have similar amount of land (the same continents). And then the economic output of the 2 "economies" will be able to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know.

Click to expand...

Okay and then someone will say that X went on the attack too soon, or that Y didn't do it soon enough. No matter how we look at it, these things will be second guessed.

And again, that's just one such issue. There are many many others. Just off the top of my head: random events, random AI DOW decisions, random AI diplomatic decisions, random spreads of religion, player idiosyncrasies, different player strategies that have little to do with the economy, different versions of the different economies, etc.

And all of these have the "butterfly effect"... a simple religion spread early game may mean a border pops early which means the AI doesn't settle 3 away which means no culture pressure which means no war in the Middle Ages.... potentially a huge change.

I'm not dissing the test, I'm just saying no bottom-line conclusion can be drawn like that. The comparison is valuable, but not for that reason.

Ultimately there is no one best way to play. Ultimately it depends on player decisions, and the great thing about CIV is that there are many viable ways to succeed in the game. I think it will be a sad day if I win a game and look back on it and don't think I could have done better. And that decision point is almost certainly NOT "I should have run a CE" or whatever. It will be fine tuning of my chosen strategy rather than that I should have run a totally different strategy altogether.

Just me. YMMV.

Wodan

CE =/= Micro nearly as much as there is for SE.

CE wins for me . I love obs' games though. He does his write-ups well, and the strategy is somewhat unique and an interesting variant on the game.

@ Dave's game

3960 BC
Popped the hut for 37g.

3920 BC
The stone looks like a good site to build my second city so I can get the Pyramids for HR. So my starting Quechua is free to go make contacts.

I send the Quechua south along the coast. Exploring along the coast has two advantages: it halves the number of directions barbarians can come from, and the coast can be used as a trade route after you discover sailing.

3400 BC
Oh look, Hammurabi has an undefender worker. I steal it.




3320 BC
I use the worker as a decoy to distract Hammurabi's bowmen while my Quechua pillages.

2960 BC
Fortify the Quechua on the hill NE of Babylon. AI workers and settlers are paralyzed if there is an enemy unit next to them, so this effectively stops Hammurabi's expansion.




2280 BC
Add a second Quechua to boost the choke defenses.

800 BC
Third Quechua added to the choke stack.

650 BC
Hammurabi tries attacking the stack, but gives up after the first bowman dies.

625 BC
Fourth Quechua added.




350 BC
Two swordmen join the stack.

250 BC
Discover construction and whip 6 catapults.

25 AD
Final assault on Babylon begins. The city falls a turn later and the Babylonians are destroyed.

Meanwhile, on the homefront.

I started by researching Mining, Bronze Working, The Wheel, Masonry.

2280 BC
All three of my expansion spots needed a border expansion to claim food resources, so I built Stonehenge to do it quickly.




I completed the set of worker techs with Pottery, Fishing, Writing, Iron Working, Hunting.

Then I went for Construction (catapults) and Code of Laws / Civil Service (courthouses for the southern continent, and bureaucracy).

100 BC
The capital is growing nicely with Hereditary Rule and cottages on every grassland. I built the Pyramids for HR. And I built the Hanging Gardens because it was cheap and on the way to catapults.




225
I am in a hurry to get my last 3 settlers out and claim the fertile land in the southwest. The sooner my cottages start growing, the longer I will have to enjoy them as towns. So I don't care what it does to my research rate in the short term.

Hinduism spread to Brennus a couple turns before my Confucian missionary got there. So I adopted Hinduism too. Soon we will have +7 from shared religion and Brennus will be my best friend forever.




250
Unfortunately, Brennus has other plans!



To be continued...

I can’t relieve this, ain’t you going to cottage over all those cities? Are you crazy? Can’t you see that your cities won’t be able to get any infrastructure in time? You won’t have a decent army and your life expectancy will be too low, you won’t make it to liberalism before the 1400 and that will cripple your game so much! Don’t you know that all the best players have already understood that SE is so much better than CE? Haven’t you elevated your play style yet? This is suicide I don’t want to look!

danieldaniel said:

I can’t relieve this, ain’t you going to cottage over all those cities? Are you crazy? Can’t you see that your cities won’t be able to get any infrastructure in time? You won’t have a decent army and your life expectancy will be too low, you won’t make it to liberalism before the 1400 and that will cripple your game so much! Don’t you know that all the best players have already understood that SE is so much better than CE? Haven’t you elevated your play style yet? This is suicide I don’t want to look!

Click to expand...

Thing is he does have pyramids, has plenty of food around and running SE with cottage here and there would be 10 times better. But I won’t go into that. Spamming all those cottages around is as pointless as having a no single cottage in a game.

Also, I don't know whets the reason for posting another game in this thread and effectively hijacking it? Not really cool. Quencha rushing one civ and being left with only one near you is a laid back game; the point was to show it that you can win a space race with no single cottage ever built.
For best result I wouldn’t do what either one of them is doing, and most of you see that.

The sooner my cottages start growing, the longer I will have to enjoy them as towns. So I don't care what it does to my research rate in the short term.

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what?

This thread is a continuation of discussion in another thread. Its not a threadjack, its a contribution to what this thread is about in the first place.

And yah, short term economic loss for long term economic benefit. Thats how cottages work.

Acid, since you have your own ideas about how to make it work, maybe you should post a game too?

If you ask me, Dave has every right to post his game here, this a forum, not Myspace.
Yes, the Quecha thing was a very smart move on Dave’s side. Obsolete focused on building every single wonder in the early game, Dave had other priorities (fewer wonders, worker techs first, killing Hammi). Comparations are unavoidable. Obsolete claims that denying all the wonders to the AI’s is very crippling for them. For the time being Hammy seems more crippled in Dave’s game, but we will see soon how getting to build all the wonders Dave missed affects the remaining AIs.

AI plays very poorly if they don't have access to wonders.... I remeber a SG ( from the DMI series ) where the map maker putted all wonders in one barb city surrounded by moutains ( hence inaccessible until paras ), and even considering that it was in Deity dificulty the SG team made a walk in the park ( Ok, they had NE and HE right out of bat , but that does not explain it all..... )

Now regarding this game, quechua rushing Babylon will make a huge diference in game.... besides being a nice exercise, it will be hard to compare ( as usual, I must add.... )

ThreadjackerDaveMcW in full flow. Too ignorant or too dumb or both to open his own thread.

Had you, Threadjacker DaveMcW run another FE without the SSE/WE elements that would have been another matter. That, however, would have been beyond you.


Ibian "
This thread is a continuation of discussion in another thread. Its not a threadjack, its a contribution to what this thread is "

your logic is flawed. A thread stands on its own. This thread is not a contiunuation of anything. It's obsolete response to your challenge to win a space race with 8 cities in total and not build a single cottage. What level do you play at? Oh that's right at Monarch. Obsolete chose to do it on Immortal.

The proper place for ThreadjackerDaveMcW's game is in that other thread or in its own thred and most assuredly not in this thread.

You might have come by to actually congratulate Obsolete on winning your challenge. You have even started a thread to explore the there's no pure economy statement that you usually use. Quite why surprises me. Obsolete has long ago conclusively shown that you can, since he does.

Wth is myspace; anyway,
these two games are played with certain limitations to show different aspects of the economy. The problem is, neither of these two games are optimal, because of these constraints, and that is expected.
However obsolete is showing that it is quite possible to win space race using no cottages, while dave is showing what exacltly? That is possible to win spacerace with ce/financial, being relatively isolated on the continent?

And yah, short term economic loss for long term economic benefit. Thats how cottages work.

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yes, that's exaclty how they work. And thats exaclty the problem, whether or not Dave uses representation (and he did put an optional constraint not to use it), using scientists this early to get raw +3 beakers and early GPP generation for lightbulbing is the best deal in the game. Even though he is financial spamming cottages is hardly the best course of action. Still, with only one AI left on his continent he can get away with it.

Both games started differently, for example what would ve happened if Obsolete went for the same quencha rush? Therefore comparison of years when spaceship is lunched is absolutely irrelevant here, but that's what Dave wants to show, that he can lunch ealier, playing ce with financial , against an opponent who plays for m of fe , and is not being philosophical. ....ok..

And yes this is a thread hijack to show something irrelevant. Only to show he can lunch faster than Obsolete. For that, he shoudve made his won thread.

As for me playing a game, i might do just that when I'm done with my midterms.

I have to agree that this new direction is not very productive. Obsolete chose Financial to essentially eliminate one of his traits (as he's not building cottages) for an additional handicap. Dave's playing with an advantage, not a handicap.

Regardless all that it is good to see Dave posting more than a short paragraph per post... it has been a while

Just to add fuel to the fire, on this topic.

I actaully followed Obsolete's example in a lonely hearts game for the month of April, with A FINANCIAL LEADER MANSU MANSA

View attachment 173952 here is a shot of my island home, only room for 8 cities really, well, I planned 10, but a few were rubbish, and I didn't go ahead with them. 8th city I planned for national parks with forest preserves, but wasn't worth it, had 4 mountain peaks, and 4 shared forests, better placement was to the SE without knowing about coal/oil events, better food/growth potential.

NOW. This was on Monarch at Epic speed, but the princeples apply to what Obsolete is explaining.

You CAN have excellent financial health, UBER research, and growth potential only limited by you cities health, under heriditary rule.

I really only fully understood what I was trying to emulate, at the end of my game, and as such I've just played on after winning a space race to see it full potential.

Here's a shot of my Wall Street city, Complete with Sids Sushi, and Mining corp. Engineer was from 300 AD. (really worried about popping another, which I didn't) and Merchant from Economics (AGAIN, NO MERCHANTS).View attachment 173953

I've moved my capital Inland, NOT BECAUSE of the sea start, but so not to lose the space ship due to a sudden offshore invasion.View attachment 173955

Here's my starting capital, all done WITHOUT Stone/Marble. View attachment 173956

Civics are heriditary Rule, Nationalism, Caste system, Enviromentalism, and Free Religion. Making money with NO MEDIA WONDERS (I said I only got it at end of game)

few Notes for Obsolete, 6 court houses unlock the Forbidden palace on a Normal map, not 8 (that's a huge map), -1 'we demand military potection' DOES INCREASE, I had a -5, but high as -8, and gunships/planes/fighters/bombers don't count either, Neither do ships, as they can't defend, but a gunship can defend??

Oh yes, I followed instructions and had a warrior guarding my capital 3 or them actaully, but needed more troops under heritary rule

P.S. What is the first thing the AI does once it attacks you cities....Pillage isn't Gunships are a favourate are they not, 1. move, 2. Pillage, 3. move, 4. Pillage. So 4 gunships=2 towns turned into grasslands

acidsatyr said:

Only to show he can lunch faster than Obsolete.

Click to expand...

Sorry but this made me

I have a mental picture of Dave and Obsolete at one of those eating contests... sitting side by side, each with a bib on, and a hugemongous plate of hot dogs in front of each of them....

Wodan

I don't care if people think MCW is thread jacking or not. It does interest me, and it has SOME relevance to Ibian's post. Also, it's rare that I see such a dedicated cottage player succeed on immortal (and I want to learn how, as cottage take less micro). Plus, seeing a choke in action at high levels is cool.

@ Ipex

That was a fun game! I used the mids + CE to rush buy death + destruction (also at monarch + epic). I wound up winning in an interesting way, given how I was playing the game...

Edit: I wouldn't call that a Quecha "rush". If THAT's a "rush" then archer and even warrior "rushes" are viable options. All you have to do is park in high defensive terrain near the capitol and choke them. Those quecha's could just have easily been a few archers. Dave sat there until swords and catapults...

Wodan said:

Sorry but this made me

I have a mental picture of Dave and Obsolete at one of those eating contests... sitting side by side, each with a bib on, and a hugemongous plate of hot dogs in front of each of them....

Wodan

Click to expand...

I agree that is funny

Roxlimn said:

Obsolete chose Financial to essentially eliminate one of his traits (as he's not building cottages) for an additional handicap.

Click to expand...

And made his other trait Industrious, which provides a huge advantage to a WE.

Who cares if its in another thread or not? - I really want to see Dave's game. At the end of the day I don't think either Obsolete or Dave will have proved anything other than they are both very good players and that everything is possible for a good player. Both are playing under handicaps too severe for any meaningful comparison of SE vs CE. The CE is hurt badly by being restricted to 8 cities too.

But even if there is no conclusion, I still expect to learn a lot from Dave's posting. Why not lets see the alternative to Obsolete's strategy? And it looks like a good read so far.

BTW for those criticizing Dave about hijacking the thread, I haven't seen one post from Dave being critical or unfair to Obsolete.