CE vs SE Head-to-Head Experiment Part II

[futurehermit]

I would like to say that it would be nice to see acidsatyr play this game and see how he would do. I would like to see a top player show a fast FE/SE spacerace victory.

P.S., I forgot to say in my other post that my teching was SERIOUSLY hampered for a lot of the early game by a lack of trading opportunities. That really hurt Even at pleased Rosy and Wang wouldn't trade much, if anything with me. I think if we had picked emperor that they would've had more to trade and been more willing to trade (with better techs faster they would've parted with lesser techs sooner). But, oh well

 

[uberfish]

Well running all farms isn't an efficient way to do things. Even in an economy where most of the research is done by scientists, building some cottage cities to pay the maintenance bills still works better than merchant specialists.

Also, grass farms are for enabling growth bursts and working mines in low food cities, not trying to force them to become whip cities that they aren't suited to. Slavery is for cities with food specials, and emergency defence/getting rid of unhappy citizens during wartime.


PS - Acid stop posting here and play your SG turns...

 

[cabert]

But isn't part of the question if whatever turns out to be the optimal space race economy is the optimal space race economy for all difficulty levels? So it would get tweaked by map and settings somewhat, but it'd still be a basline to work from.

no
Every difficulty level is a different game.
Of course there are some things that are "universally" correct, but look at those very simple differences :

Units :
- settler level : the AI won't attack you. Defensive units are worthless.
- deity level : if an AI gets up in a bad mood, you're dead. Defensive units can help detering a random attack + you will be stormed by barbarians = defensive units are required.

techs :
- settler level : the AI will be miles away behind you. No tech trade opportunities. Alphabet is a useless trade, lightbulbing is a waste.
- deity level : the AI will be miles ahead of you. No tech trade opportunities unless you can be first (or even second) to a tech. Alphabet can save your life early, or be useless if the AIs go for it soon (warlords better AI). Lightbulbing is almost your only hope to be first to a tech, and such it's almost the only way to win.

Between those 2 situations, you have the whole panel of difficulty levels. Each has it's own "better moves".

Let's just say someone comes up with some dynamite nonFE economy on Prince that gives a space race win 100 turns earlier than any prior method. Sure, higher levels you'll need more production and that would likely lessen your 100 turn lead. But if you knew this particular economy worked so well, wouldn't you try to work around it first rather than dump it as Prince only?

sure, but anything relying on
- tech beeline
- wonder
- number of cities
- population size
will be harder to do on higher levels.
So almost any level N strat is bound to fall flat on level N+1 (and sometimes on level N-1!)

Also, you dismiss much of this because it's discussion about a Monarch level game. But since you can rocket ahead on Emperor, shouldnt the lead be even wider on Monarch?

No, because lightbulbing will open only moot trading opportunities.
If you manage to keep up the higher level AIs, the space race ends faster on emperor than on prince (you can trade earlier/more = tech faster).

*Since none of us who tried the SE approach managed to do so, we wished to discuss it. You've shown it's 100% doable for domination. It's the space race bit that seems to be sticking.

so true, even with russia!

 

[futurehermit]

^^^I believe the Research Institutes come too late to be of much use. This was the first game I built them. I had more hope for them. But even with the beeline--and computers is VERY expensive--it's first of all hard to get them up and running because they're very expensive hammers-wise and second of all once the specialists are up, they're a nice help, but lightbulbing is less effective, so you're mainly counting on beakers/turn. Helpful, but worth it? I don't know...

 

[uberfish]

no
Units :
- deity level : if an AI gets up in a bad mood, you're dead. Defensive units can help detering a random attack + you will be stormed by barbarians = defensive units are required.

You can never build enough units on deity to deter random attack, and maintaining enough to defend kills your economy in production, maintenance and upgrade costs = defensive units are still worthless. I only build offensive units unless I am certain I'm going to be attacked.

Diplomacy is the best defence.

 

[Phyacis]

I gave this one a shot using an FE/SE. I'm a longtime supporter of FE's, normally play immortal/diety.

I got to around 1200ad, at which point I owned the whole continent. Yeah, I know the goal was to eliminate an opponent, then get lib, then space race. Well, I had cossacks and the best defense I saw anywhere was maybe 3 longbows and a pikeman. The temptation was just too much.

Amazingly, Washington declared on me after I killed Wang and Ramses, and invaded me with *drumroll* 1 macemen and a treb. Versus 70+ cossacks at that point. It wasnt a pretty war, his empire lasted maybe 15 turns. I was around 5% short of a domination victory and couldnt be bothered to load them all onto boats, or re-tool for science. I wouldnt like to say I could of beaten a 1730 space victory as I really dont have much patience or experience with space wins, but I know I could of got a domination way earlier than that. I was the first to circumnavigate and the other continent was even more backwards than ours was as it looked like they had been fighting a long time between themselves.

Observations:
1) This map totally favored a CE in my opinion. Tons of grassland/rivers, very few locations with multiple food resources, and the most perfect GPP farm (starting position) ever. Normally I'll raise most if not all of the cottages I find, but the majority of the cities I took just had no other use (if a location doesnt have 2+ good food squares and at least 2 hills its junk and not worth micromanaging - best to just cottage it and forget it). With that said I didnt build any cottages of my own, in the spirit of the test.

2) Wow - you really dont need much of a military at this level! I seriously think a warrior could have guarded most of my cities the entire game! Again, this blatantly favors a CE - whose weakness is the lack of decent production. You just dont need much production when your opponents main attack force will be 3 units! Try getting invaded by 50+ units regularly on the next comparison and lets see how efficient cottages are. I can see why some folks defend CE's so vigorously. I would of preferred playing this map with a CE. Do the next test on a deity/pangea/always war for an equivalent idea of why some people defend SE's so rigorously.

3) Playing a FE/SE without being spiritual is ridiculously ineficient. It's like running your car without oil. It's really painful to have to keep evaluating if x turns of anarchy are worth the enhanced benefit of a given change. It felt like I spent most of the game in anarchy, and didnt make half the changes I considered

4) Whatever level this was, it was worth playing just to watch your scout actually win against animals. This game should have been called "scouts revenge". I cant remember the last time I had a scout alive by 1ad - I swear he actually killed a bear at one point!

 

[acidsatyr]

I said this before, the fact that you might have a few cottages running throughout your empire doesn't stop your economy from being FE/SE. Not only that but you WILL end up running cottages at some point in game, not because you built them but because AI built them. Its' what you do with those cities later. In my cases they are mostly farmed over and turned into slavery/drafting unit production powerhouses, and only few are actually left to enjoy cottages.

You are asking me to play the save futurehermit ; I did in fact took the save file the first day it was posted and played it just for kicks since i can't remember how Prince level looks like. Built only one wonder in game, GL and did it manually, never built pyramids, because i never do. Axe rushed half continent, the rest was catapulted pretty soon. Pretty much concentrated on slavery/military production all game if you will….
Owned whole continent probly around 1000AD, never waited for space race, wasn't interested whether Ill lunch in 1500 or 1800. When you own whole continent you can choose which win you want to go for.
The point is that FE/SE will work on ALL levels, on one better than the other. But it will work. CE will not work on high levels most of the time. This is personal experience and simple logic, and I leave you all to figure out by yourselves in time. I think this is something that should be the topic of discussion, one solid strategy that exploits the game to its maximum. If you are arguing whether one can lunch space ship a dozen turns faster than the other, then this is not topic for me and I won’t say anything else. But when you do argue over which one is better, do it in such a manner that implies that you do recognize the fact that this is something that doesn’t work on high levels.

 

[tibbles]

no
Every difficulty level is a different game.
...
anything relying on
- tech beeline
- wonder
- number of cities
- population size
will be harder to do on higher levels.
So almost any level N strat is bound to fall flat on level N+1 (and sometimes on level N-1!)
...
No, because lightbulbing will open only moot trading opportunities.
If you manage to keep up the higher level AIs, the space race ends faster on emperor than on prince (you can trade earlier/more = tech faster).

Ok, I guess with the jumps between the higher levels that much larger, I can see that. I just picture some of the threads I skimmed on this forum that went like:
Here's a super opener
Oh, but it won't work past Prince
Wait! Here's a way to rush it and beat the AI even on Emperor

Is the strat still worth it? Maybe, maybe not, but if it was that good before, seems worth trying.


As to the bulbing for trade bit, I'm still not clear on how this affects SE more than CE on lower levels. Whether by bulbing or by cottaging, you are outteching the AI and have few trades possible.

And if a particular economy can't compete without trades, then doesn't that answer which one gives the best research economy at these settings?

If I recall, the original question was something to the effect of:
Can farms + scientists, faster growth, and more infrastructure generate as much research as cottaging? And from this test it appears the answer is no.

 

[uberfish]

But when you do argue over which one is better, do it in such a manner that implies that you do recognize the fact that this is something that doesn’t work on high levels.

Really? I win consistently on immortal with hybrid style building more cottages than farms... With proper city specialization you don't need to whip all your cities to fight a war, not even on deity.

 

[acidsatyr]

right, but your admiting you'r utilizing hybrid economy, not CE, which i think is being disscussed here ce vs. fe/se
Whipping all your cities doesn't mean all you'r whipping are units it means you get your infrastructure up and running faster then CE and earlier adventage is better
Again, there doesnt exists something as pure FE/CE, because you will end up running cottages at some point in game

 

[Unconquered Sun]

CE wins Immortal consistently from my experience. So does SE. Immortal is just not hard enough to gauge, and the level this challenge was played on (Prince?) even more so.

 

[acidsatyr]

Im not saying a good player cannot win immortal with CE i used to do ce all the time; its that FE is stronger.

 

[DaveMcW]

I suspect CE is still stronger for immortal space race.

 

[tibbles]

Well, I guess the contest on this particular map is pretty much over, but I figured I'd mention I tried FE/SE again here and launched in 1850. Still no 1730, but it's my personal best on monarch and beats the hell out of my 1929 ending

Extra expansion really helped, in retrospect I should have taken better advantage of my early production and attacked even more. Even the captured cities I was too lazy to micro and just ignored on emphasize food+research still brought in a solid 75 beakers each.

I also probably could have placed several cities closer together for more research in the same land area. I'm used to leaving cottage space, but other than the few citites working tiles for production, most cities didn't even use more than 1/2 to 2/3 their fat cross.

 

[uberfish]

Yes, pure FE is "stronger" at production bursts. Being weaker at research than hybrid/CE and thus having less up to date units is the price it pays for that though.

 

[acidsatyr]

It is not weaker researchwise, it just doesn't work lineary like cottages.
As for production, don't look furthur than our current SG, if we had cottages not farms how do you think process of massdrafting wouldve turned out?
If we had cottages, we would still got our rifles after shaka but with far less production capabilities

 

[uberfish]

Properly set up cottage cities can easily support rifle draft, it's much more efficient than slavery. CE certainly does not imply running ALL cottages in cities with no food specials, even the dedicated CE fanatics will have 2-3 farms there to speed growth and/or work mines.

 

[DrSpike]

You are asking me to play the save futurehermit ; I did in fact took the save file the first day it was posted and played it just for kicks since i can't remember how Prince level looks like. Built only one wonder in game, GL and did it manually, never built pyramids, because i never do. Axe rushed half continent, the rest was catapulted pretty soon. Pretty much concentrated on slavery/military production all game if you will?.
Owned whole continent probly around 1000AD, never waited for space race, wasn't interested whether Ill lunch in 1500 or 1800. When you own whole continent you can choose which win you want to go for.

The point is that FE/SE will work on ALL levels, on one better than the other. But it will work. CE will not work on high levels most of the time. This is personal experience and simple logic, and I leave you all to figure out by yourselves in time. I think this is something that should be the topic of discussion, one solid strategy that exploits the game to its maximum. If you are arguing whether one can lunch space ship a dozen turns faster than the other, then this is not topic for me and I won?t say anything else. But when you do argue over which one is better, do it in such a manner that implies that you do recognize the fact that this is something that doesn?t work on high levels.

Well this is an early landing challenge thread, which you have chosen to post your strong opinions in.

So as a relative outsider with no bias towards any of the participants I would have to say I find that part of your argument unconvincing. Although I accept and agree with your points about the relative merits of the strategies on higher levels this game isn't being played on one of those. No one is arguing that FE/SE is not powerful - the question is under what circumstances can it beat CE, and the difficulty level is part of that question.

I have some sympathy with the arguments that it wasn't really a CE Dave played. He played a sensible game, within the rules laid down though. If you think that an earlier landing could be achieved by running SE with FE rather than a CE switch then prove it! Personally my prior would be that Dave's game cannot be improved on that much.

Either way I do agree (with Acidsatyr) this 'proves' little about CE and FE generally, as the difficulty level is key, and also in practice if you are playing optimally all games are hybrid to a degree.

FWIW if I were running a comparison game on this I would probably remove the restrictions - it's just better to get a insight into how players build hybrid economies, and what weights they choose for farms and cottages on various difficulty levels and under various other circumstances you could change. Granted this gives a weaker answer to the underlying theoretical question posed here, but I would argue that a stronger answer to the real practical question of relevance is better than a stronger answer to a hypothetical question - that just leads to more discussion about the construction of the experiment than the outcomes!

 

[BCLG100]

ok, i am finally ready to sit down and have a crack at this, can the save be played with the HOF mod?

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

There is one thing I don't understand: in a FE a lot of your production comes from Slavery, but if you have Slavery you don't have Caste System, without which you are limited to just 2 scientists per city until Astronomy/Education. How do you get enough research out of a FE without Caste System?