questions about se, comparison: se to ce, ind to phi.

Hello.

I have a few questions about SE, which i am trying to learn atm.

We are playing BTS with my friend on my pc regulary, with looking at each other's turns, giving advices etc. Its might seem stupid to some, but fun enough . We are playing on prince, and find it fairly simple to pwn ai. Though, i fail constantly in developing compared to my friend. The only thing i seem to be good at comparing to my friend is war - i can basicly steamroll the whole planet with axe, swords etc. Which is not a big achivement imho

But every time i fall behind in tech, city development, battling unhapiness and such.

The problem is that i am trying to learn SE which i find much more fun than CE. It doest seem effective enough, compared to CE. I am qutie sure its due to my incopetence. + my friend is a wonder whore and always plays as industrious. He just builds em all for fun basicly. I understand that if we go to monarch it will be harder for him, but i still would want to outcompete him at current difficulty.

If you would be so nice and answer my questions, i would appreciate it greately.

1) SE seems to rely a lot on Pyramids and GL. Whats the best/safest way to get them? I will never build em faster than industrious leader the straight way, if i dont have stone. So it leaves me 2 choices i know of: Oracle/metal casting/forge or chopping. This basicly cripples my early expansion as ill be busy prechopping, building workers etc. Ive also read a strategy from a russian civ "guru", and he suggests researching metal casting manualy and building two forges for 2 engineers to build pyramids and GL. When i tried to do it myself it seemed impossible due to huge research time :S. Am i doing something wrong?
Is there any more efficient way out of it ?

2) Ive read a lot of anlysis of ce vs se, written by ppl much more smart than me it seems. I cant get the following : how come se generates more great people if the ce has 1 great people farm and generates basicly same amount there? Seeing CE can have fin/phi and fin/ind leaders, can build pyramids, choose pacifism civis too i guess - i dont understand how se generates more people at all.

3) Phi trait. I have read on this forums that Phi trait gives aprox 20% more great people, which seems to me a very minor effect, comparing to other traits. I suppose it quickens first few great people a lot. The only reason for wanting them quick, that comes to my mind, is the oracle/forge gambit. Otherwise 12 or 6 turns difference (i dont remember exact numbers), when i put 2 scientists in lib, doesnt seem very important to me.

Wouldnt it be better to take Industrious instead of it? I would get some extra GPP from extra wonders and it would help getting pyramids/gl a lot. Pyramids being very important seem to make Industrious huge to me.

4) I also cant get the idea that SE should operate at 0% slider, and use cash to upgrade and rush, i am also supposed to cottage and build gold multiplying building at capital and avoid building sci generating ones. Is this true? If so, then why am i not transfering those gold into bulbs for faster research even ? o.0 Whouldnt it be better to build just enough cottages to fuel expansion, and farm everything else for more specialists/mines?

5) Its easy to get a tech lead compared to ai on prince, then sell all techs and with help of a flow of Golden ages, run at 100% slider for SE and CE both. Wonder whoring generates aprox same amount gpp aswell. This seems to eliminate most of the SE advantages, making it close to useless. Does it mean its innefficient at this difficulty and will get better on higher or i am just dumb idiot who failed to run in ?

6) It seems to me that that spending tiem to build pyramids slows down early expansion a lot, making those marginal advantages of SE (if any) get overwheighted. am i wrong here again?

I apologised for my wierd english and if i messed up lots of deffinitions, acronyms etc.

Thank you for you help in advance i might not be able to check back for a while :S

A lot of questions, some answers:

The true power of SE over the CE and its GPfarm is, not just more and earlier
GP, but you can choose the type of GPeople and you can't in the GPfarm.

And you can have a slider at 0%; it's not necessary or desirable.
Remember you can have GScientists or GMerchants,so slider...
Some Wonder are good to SE and CE, just Pyramids (actually Representation)
is much better to SE.

Nobody presented evidence that one economy is better than the other.
Just let the Leader - Fin or Phi - and the Terrain ( that is distribution of food)
guide you.

Best regards,

fed1943 said:

but you can choose the type of GPeople and you can't in the GPfarm.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry, I don't understand why you say that you can choose GPs in a specialists-based economy and not with a simple GP farm...

@ Juju: depends on the nature of the GP farm; if it depends as much on wonders as specialists you get a mixed bag while in a SE you have control over at least half of them (all if you don't build wonders).

***

@KJIOYH

1.) The most efficient things for chopping are workers and settlers, since food is worth more than hammers. Also, snowball effects mean that earlier hammers are better, hence pre-chopping is wasteful (you also waste worker turns building roads/moving on and off the squares). If you need to pre-chop for wonders, you are investing a lot, probably too much. I would take my chances and change to another economy if I lose the race and can't conquer the 'mids.

2.) A SE doesn't create many more GPs, but gets them earlier. At high levels, this might mean the ability to bulb yourself to equality and then keep up via trades while a cottage player might have to self-research most things. If you could keep up even with a CE, the edge is fairly marginal.

3.) PHI insn't really all that economy-specific; ORG is more of a SE trait than PHI although that's not as intuitive (equal size empires will have more/bigger cities in a SE and thus higher maintenance; the difference to a CE is larger than the number of GP generated).
The nice thing about PHI is flexibility - you can bulb&trade yourself out of a hole as well as mimicking a more general edge by settling GPs, and it's a 'lump sum' edge that doesn't scale much with empire size.

4.) The idea is that you only build multiplier buildings that actually help you. If all your other cities have libraries supporting scientists and you rely on your Bureaucratic cottaged capital to pay the bills, you can put off markets and grocers elsewhere for a while. The idea is getting the most out of your infrastructure, but in the long run you want most things anyway... outside the capital there's incidental gold from trade routes even if you pursue a '100% gold, scientists only' approach.

5.) If you don't have to bulb yourself out of a hole, the prime advantage of a SE is flexibility: Via slavery, a football field full of farms (do I get a cookie for the nice alliteration?) can be a production powerhouse or a research city, depending on what you need.
I do agree that a CE is probably superior on levels below Emperor though; you simply don't have a strong need for the early hammers/Great People.

6.) Depends how you look at it. On a map with a few continents, I'll conquer my starting one anyway; the true lategame rivals are overseas empires. There are only 2 ways of slowing down overseas rivals in the early game: One is avoiding religions hoping for religious wars elsewhere, the other is hogging wonders (they really do matter for an AI's success. I've heard countless complaints that Huayna Capac on another continent grew into a monster. Well, I'm the bigger wonderwhore, and in my games he usually is a non-factor after losing a few early races.
On the other hand, grabbing all the land you can afford is usually strong and can beat a compact, wonder-oriented approach (especially if you conquer the wonders anyway). Judgment call, depending on map and opposition.

I think he means that the GP farm spams wonders and so there's a mix of GPP, and you can't be sure which GP you'll get, for example: engineer 25% prophet 40% artist 10% spy 25%, you can't be sure, but most probably (and that isnt even 1/2 of the GPs you'll get) it'll be a prophet.

Thank you for your answers. Ive got some questions left though.
@Iranon
Without prechoping i dont think its possible to build a forge in 6 turn period after i have built the oracle. And if i dont i will get a prophet instead of an engineer. I also prechop for oracle, just to get it faster than my industrious friend.
I do understand though that choping workers and settlers or military units in some cases might be more usefull, but without pyramids its better to just forget about SE and build some cottages.
Thats the dead end, i cant find a way out. I either throw it all into building pyramids one way or another, leaving myself without any forests and having less cities/workers than i could, or i forget about SE.
The only solution i see is getting industrious myself instead of PHI to even things out. Or pray that he wont build pyramids, which is just dumb imho. I would build em if i was doing CE just to screw all those SE dudes, especially if you build it in 20-30 turns and its not a complete waste anyway.
I dont really understand how SE works in multiplayer with many human players. Say 4 players choose CE and 4 choose SE, theres gonna be a massive competence for pyramids then. What do other SE who dont get pyramids do? Quit the game? Change for CE? Use underachieving specialists?

Why does SE generate GP faster? The only thing that comes to my mind is PHI trait which can be used by both economies for equall benefint, as both economies generate GP in one city usually. Maybe Great Library aswell, which is more usefull to SE, but if bulbing is so important at higher difficulties, then nothing prohibits a CE build it aswell.
The main difference of SE comparing to CE, i think, is that you have scientists in every (almost) city instead of cottages everywhere; and as the GPP pool is different for each city, it doesnt make GP appear faster as far as i see. I dont think SE gets better control over GP till Caste system, and Caste system is usually adopted later than its researched due to usefullness of slavery, as i got it.Then, CE can put same 2 sientists in their GP farm and basicly do the same things SE can. Why does GP farm have to spam wonders? Here comes one more question! How does GP farm spam wonders if its supposed to feed all kinds of specialists o.0 I always thought GP farm is high food city. Is it high production one then ?


ORG. I used to underestimate ORG trait. It seemed completely useless, now i think its just a bit worse than best traits. Civic upkeep is huge indeed, but it gets huge later in the game, and as i noticed the earliar you get a bonus the more importance it plays in the end. I dont understand what you mean by .I dont understand what you mean by "the difference to a CE is larger than the number of GP generated". I also think i read somewhere that SE civis are cheaper. anyway i think the "cultural" (i play Russian version of civ) is better than ORG for SE, due to faster construction of usefull buildings, free culture, power rating and maybe something else.
Moreover i still cant get whats good in beelining to courthouses besides getting a religion, which is arguably any good even, and i doubt you would go for beuracracy straight away aswell. Say my city costs 10 in upkeep being fairly far away, then with ch i get 5 gold right? thats like working 2 cottages or 1 scientist. Say i build courthouse 4 turns with 4 people working some kind of mines (pure assumption). Thats 16 turns of cottaging wasted, if each cottage generated 3 gold then its 16*3=48 gold. Courthouse will pay it back in 48/5= 9 turns. I hardly get 10 upkeep cities when i rush to Courthouses even, its usually around 6-8 max. This might be because i fail expanding while building Pyramids or because i play on prince though, and you have 20 city upkeep o.0 Thats just crazy though :O.

aBout cash making capital. Just one question . Whats better - a) cottage everything, make horsehockyloads of cash, run 0% and spend it on whatever you want. b) cottage, make cash, run 70% or smth like that so i make 0 profit but get better research. c) run 0%, cottage just enough to balance on 0 (or having some to survive few turns of war till i can pillage some cottages, or for some culture slider) and farm the rest for mines, specialists.

aBout building only usefull buldings. I usually build a library quite quickly, and build it everywhere. I also build universities, because i want to build Oxford as soon as i can. I build markets etc. in capital almost exclusivly unless for health. +2-3 gold from some city with gold or river, is not good enough imho. Its better to cottage more in Capital or make one more fin city.

I lost your point at number 6 :S. What i wanted to say is - building pyramids w/o stone and/or industrious is a pain in the ass. I am not sure about ai on high levels, but i am quite positive that humans will steal your pyramids if you dont build em asap.
I agree Conquering the first one is always nice or at least cripling him. Its not guaranteed he will have pyramids though. as i got it diplomacy wise its better to make long worth relations with a group of people and kill others one by one. Not really nessecary on prince though.
I dont get Wonder building to cripple computers aproach. It seems to me that its more efficient to build units to cripple em straight o.0. Well as you said basicly. Nothing beats satisfaction from loads of useless wonders which where important for someone else though

To conclude all this newbish attempts at analising, my main problem is building pyramids and expanding at the same time. I know the adv/disadv of both economies, though i am starting to suspect SE goes to hell with all its UBER goodness because of pyramids I am gonna try industrious instead of phil. Ind seems better and better the more i think bout it, as it lets you build the "wonder that gives you extra water trade routes" and colossus if you need em. Plus it works good too if you still use Oracle>forge>pyramid gambit, because forge builds faster o.0.


Some offtopic questions -

What good are holy cities for? If you spread your religion in your own cities only then you get like 10 gold per turn, which isnt really great, its better to research some tech and get something like 1500 bulbs which is 150 turns of 10 golds. If you have 30 cities e.g. i dont think you will need the holy city really. If you spread to other countries, then you couldve beuilt military instead and plainly own them. Is it only good for rare cases when you capture a holy city of a religious block you are in yourself and for using up random prophets or i miss something?

Isnt Huayna Capac OP with FIN+IND + uber granary and some early rush UU?

My apologises.

I did reply to fed1943 partly in my post.

The Terrain thing is genious! It might be the key for me. Though i would choose FIN or not FIN before i see terrain :S

I am thinking of some IND/smth else dude, being more flexible.

To be honest, though, if i played for the win i would go with FIN because CE doesnt depend on so many random factors as SE does, and FIN seems to be very important for CE, esp. early.

PS. I dont pretend to know much about civ4. What i said are my observations from a point of a view of an unexperienced player+ what i read on forums. Dont be afraid to prove that i am just a newbie I really hope you do that and find where i screwed up with my SE understanding.