Calling all CE enthusiasts

[Unconquered Sun]

I've played past the 1000 AD checkpoint (will post saves/pics later today). Domination is at hand, however I'll show a FE space as many players have trouble with successful FE in late game.

Also, with so many participants, I'm starting a database.

Spoiler :

2000 BC
Driftwood

1000 BC
r rolo1
Agent Cooper - Four cities ~1000 BC.
frob2900

1 AD
Dirk1302 - early-to-mid war with Roosevelt.
uberfish - four cities ~1000BC. Early war v. Roosevelt.
DaveMcW - early Calendar. Early-to-mid war with Gandhi. Highest research at 1 AD.

500 AD

1000 AD
U. Sun (the CE game) - early-to-mid and mid-to-late conquest of Gandhi. GL in 75 BC. First to Liberalism 640 AD.

1500 AD
U. Sun (the FE game) - axe rush on Cathy. Five cities ~1000 BC. Early-to-mid conquest of Roosevelt and vassalization of Cathy. GL in 125AD. First to Liberalism 1060 AD.

FINISHED
futurehermit - peaceful start. Mid-game war loss to Roosevelt.
InvisibleStalke - early-to-mid conquest of Roosevelt. Mid-to-late conquest of Cathy. Late conquest of Gandhi. Domination thru vassalization of Mansa 1680 AD.
Jet - early-to-mid conquest of Roosevelt. Mid-to-late conquest of Gandhi, Cathy. Domination thru colonization of Barb Isle in ~1900AD.
SpockFederation - peaceful start. First to Liberalism 840 AD. Mid-to-late conquest of Gandhi. Spacerace in ~1950AD.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Update for 1 AD, 500 AD, 1000 AD.

Spoiler :

I declared on Roose and quickly took the bronze city north of my russian possessions and the city in the middle of my empire. Further progress on New York stalled due to my warriors' reluctance to assault the sacred Stonehedge, where the Americans hid. So I made peace with Roose. Just in time, as Cathy backstabbed me with a stack of chariots. She managed to briefly hold on an empty Rostov before losing the chariots, Moscow, and the war.

Fun on the battlefield was not over: one turn after making peace with the Russians, Roose backstabbed me with a stack of *gasp* archers! This time around I got some catapults and left him a couple of backwater cities, keeping him alive for tech trades (a good idea). I also got Theology with the peace.

Nidaros built the GL (125AD), the national epic and academy. Upsalla built the Heroic Epic and had my second great general settled. Also, I found Taoism but sticked to Christianity for diplo bonus. Since Cathy and Roose DoWed me the second time around, the spreading faith in Christ helped me to achieve positive relations with everybody which I used for some tech trades, ok routes for an inland empire, and, eventually, vassalizing the six city Cathy. Gandhi vassalized Roosevelt.

Wartime closeup

A farming heartland

Nidaros growing for 100 GPP/turn

 

[InvisibleStalke]

InvisibleStalke - details sketchy. domination thru vassalization of XXXX
~1700 AD?

Sorry if the details are too sketchy. It was domination in 1680AD. I posted some updates on the strategy and some savegames, but no pics sorry. Let me know if there are any more details you want. The strategy was essentially near-non stop war from construction to take around 90% of the main continent, vassalize the last civ, then an intercontinental invasion.

My invasion stalled at first with the first wave of 18 soldiers just holding on to one city. The second wave got me to around 40 soldiers in theatre and demoralized my opponent so that he vassalized and gave me enough land for the win.

It definitely wasn't an optimum game at all. By around 1000AD I had pretty much stopped micromanaging my cities and I could probably have shaved 100 years off by playing more carefully.

 

[uberfish]

1 AD update

Alphabet (trade Maths), Literature and Calendar have been researched. Nidaros has built+chopped the Great Library while my other 3 core cities keep training swords. I don't have construction and do not care.

Viking swordsmen have captured 3 cities, capturing Roosevelt's bronze and iron sources in preparation for a move on Washington.



New York contained Stonehenge + Temple of Artemis, which is extremely random as that city site isn't even a good production site.

In other news, I have cottages now and +2 happy from dyes and silk coming in 3 turns to deal with the war weariness.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

@InvisibleStalke - I haven't looked up your saves as many of them are quite advanced. I'm looking for time periods in which you defeated the AIs on our continent; time being defined not only by year but by military techs used in the wars.

Other interesting if relative by themselves benchmarks include: GL year, first to liberalism year; number of cities/highest research/highest mfg at checkpoint, and victory type/date.

Finally, I'm looking for perhaps the most useful reports: strategy. This includes uncommon approaches as Dave's early Calendar and uberfish' early expansion. It also includes starting build sequence.

 

[Jet]

I second US's interest in any strategy commentary that people want to offer.

Let's remember that FH originally asked about production. If you have a save it's pretty easy to infer what cottages have been worked for how long, but it can be harder to tell what has been produced where, and how. (Did you whip every city down to 1 pop building Catapults for Gandhi? etc.) Personally I'm particularly interested in the strategy, timing, and means of production for Courthouses, Universities, and Banks.

I look forward to catching up on the saves. I'm enjoying how this is turning out.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I think my spoilers give those kind of time periods. Liberalism was between 1000 and 1100 AD - I delayed it to take Chemistry. By 1100 AD I had conquered Roosevelt completely, Catherine was down to two cities and I had just started in on Ghandi.

My strategy was:
Early:

Spoiler :

- Early cottages. Pottery first.
- BW / AH, then archery since I didn't find anything close.
- Masonry, build city for marble
- Priesthood, tech for writing
- Build oracle for COL.
- Tech to alpha / literature
- Build GL while trading for ironworking and teching for construction
- Get some swords online - have three cities at this point. Once GL is built I am whipping swords in all cities. 2 pop whips.
- Declare war while first cats are being built. A bit premature but I thought Roosevelt was ripe for the taking.
- Took one city but waited for cats as axes started appearing.
- Rolled over the remaining cities with cats. Meanwhile teched to Monarchy and then Civil Service. tech rate from early cottages+academy was insane.
- Teched to machinery while hunting down Americas last cities. Scored Great wall, pyramids, temple of artemis, parthenon from America.
- Used military police in capital which was doing all the research. Other cities just kept whipping units, including conquered cities as they came online.
- Setup GP farm in captured washington.

Midgame:

Spoiler :

- Attacked catherine with beserkers and cats.
- Self researched towards engineering while I lightbulbed Philo, Paper and Education.
- Had HE online piping a steady stream of CR2 beserkers.
- First great general used for a medic 3 catapult.
- Second used for instructor in HE city.
- Third used for acade.my in Moscow and fourth as instructor in moscow
- Fourth as instructor in Moscow.
- Took cathies cities steadily. Left two weak ones alone so I could coerce some techs from her - a mistake as she vassalized to Ghandi.
- Got liberalism, took Chemistry. Dropped science to upgrade, but because my science rate had already fallen to 30% I wasn't generating much cash anyway and I decided to press on. Attacked Ghandi.
- Initial progress was good. Took Ghandi's capital. But I kept losing units steadily and lost the capital back to Ghandi. Meanwhile I killed Catherine which was greatly needed due to WW. Police State helped control it, but it was becoming a bit of a slog at this point.
- Moscows production and other captures started to come online and with police start production bonus and most cities producing units the tide started to turn. I took Ghandi's capital back and five more cities. But then he started to show up with Grenadiers too.
- Decided to vassalize him at this point. I needed to invade the other continent anyway for the win.

Late game

Spoiler :

- Teched towards Astronomy and started stockpiling units.
- First galleons took some settlers and grenadiers up to the barbarian isle.
- Built 6 galleons and loaded them up with grenadiers. Should have built more.
- Invaded Mansa, took two cities. Should have stuck at one because his counter attack with knights took one of the cities back. Other city had a great artist dropped in it and for some reason he decided not to attack it even though he could have easily taken it.
- My fleet sailed back while I teched for Railroad to get machine gun defenders.
- My fleet returned with around 30 more cannon and grenadiers. Retook the city I had held before briefly.
- Mansa lost his bottle and capitulated.
- Raised culture to 70% and waited for border pops to win.

 

[uberfish]

I am not whipping military units, at all. It would be counterproductive for me. Only Nidaros and Uppsala have sufficient excess food to whip sensibly. Nidaros wants to grow cottages. Uppsala has too high production to do 2 pop whips, and 1 pop whips are worse than just working a plains hill mine at pop cap. (on Epic you get 45h from the whip and lose 60h for not being able to work the mine for 15 turns.)

I don't have a particular strategy for courthouses. They go up after granary and culture source. If a different building such as a forge, library or market would provide a return worth more than half the city maintenance it goes up first.

I try to get 6 universities relatively soon after education because oxford is worth 80+ beakers per turn. I don't mind whipping a couple of cities that are lagging behind when everyone else has finished, or making a production city build one.

I don't have a macro strategy for banks. They are better in SE because your science percentage is lower. In CE with high science slider, commerce cities should build science improvements first and they usually get market and grocer earlier too because of the +health and happy. The sort of city that would want a bank first would be a Merchant farm, a Shrine city or a production city with no urgent duties that is going to build some Wealth.

 

[Jet]

> courthouses ....go up after granary and culture source.
To me that begs the question, do you mean before barracks and units? But all that is a bit laborious to talk about absent the context of a game, and here we are focusing on a particular game anyway. Personally in this one I built Courthouses almost everywhere with pretty high priority as soon as I had CoL and the prospect of 8 cities, and a war was winding down. I think that's why I put my Forbidden Palace in a poor spot; I was very eager to get it built and done to make room for more expansion and to clear my build queues for more units. However I had pretty good production in most cities and just OK food, and the different Courthouses got started at slightly different times, so I don't think I whipped many of them.

> I don't have a macro strategy for banks ... In CE with high science slider
For warring empires I hope to see either how they keep the science slider high while fighting and expanding, or when/why/how they build Banks.

> bank first ... build some Wealth
Why? They don't stack.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Banks were actually a big part of my game. The science slider was usually below 50% and they game better returns than anything else. I also had the confucian shrine and captured the buddhist and jewish shrines.

Courthouses got whipped in long distance cities early. I delayed forbidden palace until one of Cathies cities looked like a good site - but it was well past when I had grenades that it was built. Building it earlier would have been helpful.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

To answer the original questions:

Production:

Mainly though whipping. I didn't run democracy until very late in the game when I used it to develop the barb island quickly and rush defenders into my bridgehead city on the other continent. I never ran emancipation at all. My cottage cities would usually whip once all their cottages and specials were worked.

Military production came initially from my HE city. In my first two wars casualties were light - beserkers are a superb unit and I was well stocked with cats. Later on I started another military city and I also had several other hybrid cities at the end just pumping out units.

Universities and banks were almost always whipped. But I had enough cities that having one drop heavily in pop for 20 turns or so until it recovered wasn't a bit deal. I didn't whip lots of them - just enough for Oxford and Wall Street. Both were fairly late too - I was far too focussed on military.

Expansion:

Through war - I only built two settlers. I used cottages to finance everything - the science slider often dropped quite low, but the sheer size of the empire and some strategic lightbulbing kept science going rapidly.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

For warring empires I hope to see either how they keep the science slider high while fighting and expanding, or when/why/how they build Banks.

The income from taking cities helps, but part of it is to accept that the science slider can drop - letting it drop to 30% is not a bad thing if you are taking cities. Your empire expands and continues to research. Also you can use lightbulbs for research.

I also had two great merchant trade missions.

 

[Jet]

^^^ Well yeah. But with a low slider and a cottage economy, Banks are obviously pretty strong. So I'm just saying that in that case, I'm interested in case studies

of when/why/how our Vikings got Banking (were they pursuing something else first, like Liberalism or Oxford or Grenadiers? did they have partners with which they were willing and able to to backfill Guilds and Banking? were Banks even considered important? was Mercantilism?),

and when/where/how they built their Banks (did they time their warfare to pause and build a lot of Banks? did they start them promptly, but only in a few key commerce cities? did they wait for Universal Suffrage?)

 

[uberfish]

Banks don't stack with wealth? I thought they did Anyway, building banks is extremely low priority for me so I usually get the tech from trade.

 

[Jet]

Only production bonuses affect building anything. I had several Wall Streets in production cities before I found out.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

^^^ Well yeah. But with a low slider and a cottage economy, Banks are obviously pretty strong. So I'm just saying that in that case, I'm interested in case studies

of when/why/how our Vikings got Banking (were they pursuing something else first, like Liberalism or Oxford or Grenadiers? did they have partners with which they were willing and able to to backfill Guilds and Banking? were Banks even considered important? was Mercantilism?),

and when/where/how they built their Banks (did they time their warfare to pause and build a lot of Banks? did they start them promptly, but only in a few key commerce cities? did they wait for Universal Suffrage?)

I didn't build a LOT of banks. Initial banks were in capital (which had good production and probably just built it - I was running bureaucracy most of the game) and holy cities (which whipped them). I probably captured enough for Wall Street.

I didn't aim at banks specifically - I think I probably traded Education for Guilds before attacking Ghandi and may have self researched banking. Not long after the other continent showed up so I might have traded with them instead.

I did run mercantilism - noone left on my continent to trade with. Eventually switched to state property as I prioritized communism.

The other thing was that my capital produced a high proportion of the commerce - with bureaucracy and globe theatre so it wasn't suffering war weariness. So it got all the commerce buildings and all the science buildings.

One thing to remember is that although I had a lot of cities, most were < size 10 for my main warring period. War weariness was a factor, and a lot of the cities only had 6-8 good cottages and a special or two - beyond that unhappy citizens just got whipped away for units or buildings. A lot of the cities I captured in the war with Ghandi had to be whipped down to around size 10 from size 18 or so anyway - which gives plenty of production.

 

[uberfish]

I think we probably ought all to update through 1AD and maybe 500AD and discuss the different approaches; we'll get to see more of people's priorities in building city improvements later.

 

[futurehermit]

I agree. I like what's developed so far. It would be great to see more

 

[Unconquered Sun]

That would be nice, but I doubt it's viable with a few of us already finished and several not being heard from.

I'm satisfied with my FE performance, in spite of the financial leader and map. In fact, the Shadow Empire is the research leader in the games played so far. I did miss Creative in my early game, I do miss Spiritual in my late game, and I've been missing Philosophical all over. For example, for a FE, Spiritual > Aggressive, the reason being that a FE has far more benefit from spreading one religion for Pacifism than a CE (which in fact researches best under FR). So, a spiritual FE can switch painlessly to Theology at a moment's notice and get an extra promotion for all kinds of units, which alone is comparable to the main plus of Aggressive, despite being only a fraction of the Spiritual power.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Update for 1500 AD

Spoiler :

First off, a full-fledged SE is in place now, after the discovery of Constitution and Biology. If you want to learn how to play successful post-Liberalism SE, take a look at the save.

Lots of minor things happened. I was first to Liberalism in 1060 and chose Nationalism over Astronomy. Uppsala built the Taj and once the GA was over I switched to Representation. Got Astronomy first and set up some resource trades with the other continent. Then Cathy renounced the vassalage as she felt powerful again, so I bribed her to DoW Gandhi. She managed to capture Lahore, however her army got decimated and she begged for re-vassalage. I saved her in a lazy cavalry war, destroying USA and capturing Madras in the process. Gandhi managed to get rifles and instaupgrade, so I let him live...for a century or two.

Research-wise Biology was the priority, however I made a detour to Democracy for the SoL, which I built some time after this save. Also, I get to Physics first and pop Electricity from GS only. Lots more happens in the 1500s, but this will be covered in the next update.


Life in 1500 AD = dull.