CE vs SE Head-to-Head Experiment!

[Enigma256]

The same way you manage it with a CE.

don't tend SE cities to grow bigger than with a CE, where you aim at having that magic 20 population per city?

 

[UncleJJ]

Pure SE should never have any cottages. Ever. Even conquered cities that might have some cottages should be changed to farms. Exception in very few cases in a late game. All cities in SE except production cities should have some specialist assigned sooner or later.
If player has 25% cottage cities, that’s not pure SE but hybridE.

I don't agree with your view of what a SE is at all. Your view is simplistic and extreme. The corresponding purist view of a CE would forbid any use of specialists at all. That simply leads to a situation where nearly all forms of economy are classified (by you) as Hybrid Economy (HEc) and what use is that? You end up a large group of diverse economies that all are classified as hybrid.

If we had that purist method of classifying economies, this very large group of HEc needs to be broken down into largely cottage versions CE-HEc, and the specialist heavy versions, SE-HEc so we could analyse them further. But when you look at the SE end of the hybrid spectrum (i.e. a SE with a few cottages) you'll find far greater similarities with the pure SE than with the CE-HEc. The same is true for the cottage intensive end of the hybrid spectrum.

Sorry, but your simple approach is easy to advocate but useless since it doesn't get us any further on in the debate. I think Wodan has the definition of what a SE is (and is not) about right for the purpose at hand. We can analyse and re-define the SE, if necessary, in the light of the data we gain from this exercise.

 

[Wodan]

Sure I'm up for playing a game. My SE will only have cottages in the capital.

Awesome! I'll add you to the list.

I have an "Auto Log" txt File that Records events but it never record the number of hammers whipped and it also includes the AI events So How Do I include the Number of whipped hammers and Excludes AI Events on my "Auto Log"?

You can't, that I'm aware of. That's why we provided the Excel file and also asked for a text file (use Notepad to edit it).

don't tend SE cities to grow bigger than with a CE, where you aim at having that magic 20 population per city?

If you ever reach a size where a number of your cities are experiencing health problems, there are three options (under any economy). (1) Seek out something that will give added health, (2) utilize something you already have, or (3) do nothing.

For (1) this might be prioritizing research of a new technology (e.g., Refrigeration), declaring war on someone who has a couple of health resources you don't have, etc. For (2) this might be building something you haven't bothered to build yet perhaps because it is otherwise not worth the hammers (e.g., hospitals, recycling centers), switching civics (e.g., slavery, environmentalism), etc.

Early game, the answers are the same, only the examples are different.

Wodan

 

[InFlux5]

Does anyone know of a good thread that discusses how to set up a SE? Do you need to run Caste System for the whole game?

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Does anyone know of a good thread that discusses how to set up a SE? Do you need to run Caste System for the whole game?

Wodan started a good thread on that a few months ago. Make sure you the full thread, since if I remember correctly, some of the ideas in the initial post aren't exactly right and were corrected in some of the discussion.

HOW to run a specialist economy

Also search for threads started by futurehermit. There are several from this summer that were very in depth.

As for Caste System, no, you don't need to run Caste System for the whole game. In fact, although it might be useful at times, you don't really need to run it at all. It's often (mostly? always?) better to run Slavery.

 

[InFlux5]

Thanks for the link, Doc. I just tried a game as Ottomans where I started next to stone. I grabbed the Pyramids and switched to Representation. When I popped an Engineer I used him for The Great Library. Things were going ok but then I started to lose steam.

I noticed that fresh water becomes very important if you are going for a SE. At times I would forget that that was my goal and found a city without enough food/fresh water to support scientists and still grow.

Also, it takes longer to get a library up and running than to plop down a couple cottages. This is probably the main thing I didn't like about this strategy. Seems to me Caste System and Representation would be a very powerful combo. It was a weird feeling to drop the science slider down and have my research time stay basically the same.

In the end I am glad I ran this little "experiment"; it added an element to my gameplay that wasn't there before. (And yes, I realize the Ottomans are not ideal for this; it was all pretty haphazard.)

 

[acidsatyr]

I don't agree with your view of what a SE is at all. Your view is simplistic and extreme. The corresponding purist view of a CE would forbid any use of specialists at all. That simply leads to a situation where nearly all forms of economy are classified (by you) as Hybrid Economy (HEc) and what use is that? You end up a large group of diverse economies that all are classified as hybrid.

If we had that purist method of classifying economies, this very large group of HEc needs to be broken down into largely cottage versions CE-HEc, and the specialist heavy versions, SE-HEc so we could analyse them further. But when you look at the SE end of the hybrid spectrum (i.e. a SE with a few cottages) you'll find far greater similarities with the pure SE than with the CE-HEc. The same is true for the cottage intensive end of the hybrid spectrum.

Sorry, but your simple approach is easy to advocate but useless since it doesn't get us any further on in the debate. I think Wodan has the definition of what a SE is (and is not) about right for the purpose at hand. We can analyse and re-define the SE, if necessary, in the light of the data we gain from this exercise.

My view is extreme, because of what it is. Pure SE is called pure exactly because it relies on specialist only. Both commerce and research should come from specialist in this economy, never from cottage, absolutely never in the early game (pre civil service for example), and ONLY later in the game in special cases. In pure SE cottages are never built by player UNLESS later in the game you capture a city which has most tiles covered with mature cottages, and is detrimental for player to turn them back into farms. In all other cases, maximum growth of the city is favored and maximum number of scientists assigned.
Now, you can't and shouldn't mirror this with pure CE. A pure CE is an economy where you rely on research and commerce ONLY from cottages, and the only place where you can and should have scientists and other people is in a city with all farms, GP farm , or whatever you call it, where you try to maximize GPP to generate GP not for anything else.
ANY other variation of this is a hybrid economy. If you choose to build cottages in your capital in the beginning because of bureaucracy, you are effectively stepping out of SE waters.
And certainly, if Wodan's so called SE economy is allowed to have 35% cities with cottages, I’m sorry, but that is not SE at all, and it is in fact, hybrid.
Hence, for the purpose of this testing I would definitely change that as most people will end up with hybrid economies and there won’t be great different for whatever economy you go. This is my view of the things, but I am open to suggestions.

 

[Phrederick]

My view is extreme, because of what it is. Pure SE is called pure exactly because it relies on specialist only. Both commerce and research should come from specialist in this economy, never from cottage, absolutely never in the early game (pre civil service for example), and ONLY later in the game in special cases. In pure SE cottages are never built by player UNLESS later in the game you capture a city which has most tiles covered with mature cottages, and is detrimental for player to turn them back into farms. In all other cases, maximum growth of the city is favored and maximum number of scientists assigned.

Why on earth would you ever do that? I can't imagine a game where the optimal path would include NEVER building a single cottage. I personally would define a pure SE as where all RESEARCH comes from specialists, and the gold needed to run the empire comes from commerce, and specialists if needed.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

A pure CE is an economy where you rely on research and commerce ONLY from cottages

So you never work a river tile that has a farm on it? What do you do about food resources next to a river? Do they get a cottage too? And I guess you never work any plantations or horse or ivory tiles either? No gold, silver, or gem mines? And certainly no water tiles -- ever.

If "pure" means completely unrealistic utopian ideal, then I agree with you. Otherwise, I think you're being ridiculous.

Edit: Or maybe I'm being ridiculous by being too literal, but the point I'm trying to make is that there are perfectly legitimate reasons to build farms in any kind of pure or unpure cottage economy, and by the same token there are perfectly legtimate reasons to build the occasional cottage in any kind of specialist economy. What do you do with flatlands that can't be irrigated? Do you not work them? Do you not improve them, since you aren't allowed to build cottages? I'd call that a stupid specialist economy, not a pure specialist economy. Sometimes a cottage is the best available improvement. When it is, you should build one.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Doesn't all this argument belong in the thread where the rules of the test were negotiated, rather than in the test results thread? No? Silly me.

I'm hoping to contribute an entry....

 

[kniteowl]

Question

Captured Wonders: If I Capture The Piramids in my SE game, Am I allowed to Switch to Representation? Or Do I have to Wait for Constitution?

If I capture a Wonder in my SE game & Not capture a Wonder In My CE game because the AI didnt Complete it or another AI completed it before that AI, then should the games be allowed to be compared? Or would the results be too skewed? Especially wonders that change the face of the game like The Great Library. besides I wouldn't want to raze a City with a high population and good location just becuase of a Wonder there that would change the comparable results.

BTW about the Slavery Thing, It's 30H per pop right? and 60H if you include Forge or Organised Religion (for Buildings) because of the Slavery bug.

Is it the overall number of hammers? or is it Total number of Hammers Whipped Minus Overflow that I record on the Log txt?

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

BTW about the Slavery Thing, It's 30H per pop right? and 60H if you include Forge or Organised Religion (for Buildings) because of the Slavery bug.

Great question, but wasn't this fixed in Warlords?

 

[Samson]

My view is extreme, because of what it is. Pure SE is called pure exactly because it relies on specialist only. Both commerce and research should come from specialist in this economy, never from cottage, absolutely never in the early game (pre civil service for example), and ONLY later in the game in special cases. In pure SE cottages are never built by player UNLESS later in the game you capture a city which has most tiles covered with mature cottages, and is detrimental for player to turn them back into farms. In all other cases, maximum growth of the city is favored and maximum number of scientists assigned.

That really is an extreme version. Have you done any write-ups of games you have played this way? In particullar I wonder how you reaserch writing without cottages.

 

[MrCynical]

Captured Wonders: If I Capture The Piramids in my SE game, Am I allowed to Switch to Representation? Or Do I have to Wait for Constitution?

This was covered in the original discussion thread. If you capture the pyramids you may not use any of the advanced civics until you have the appropriate tech to do so anyway.

If I capture a Wonder in my SE game & Not capture a Wonder In My CE game because the AI didnt Complete it or another AI completed it before that AI, then should the games be allowed to be compared? Or would the results be too skewed? Especially wonders that change the face of the game like The Great Library. besides I wouldn't want to raze a City with a high population and good location just becuase of a Wonder there that would change the comparable results.

I wouldn't go that overboard, as whatever happens there will be a certain amount of divergence between the games. There are very few wonders with that great an impact (even the great library is far from stunning outside the GP farm).

BTW about the Slavery Thing, It's 30H per pop right? and 60H if you include Forge or Organised Religion (for Buildings) because of the Slavery bug.

Correct assuming you're running patch 1.61 vanilla. The slavery bug was fixed in Warlords.

Is it the overall number of hammers? or is it Total number of Hammers Whipped Minus Overflow that I record on the Log txt?

Include the overflow, since is still hammers that were produced by the whip rather than convetionally. (Anyway it's simpler just to multiply the number of pop whipped by the appropriate number than to mess around with not counting overflows).

 

[kniteowl]

Correct assuming you're running patch 1.61 vanilla. The slavery bug was fixed in Warlords.

Include the overflow, since is still hammers that were produced by the whip rather than convetionally. (Anyway it's simpler just to multiply the number of pop whipped by the appropriate number than to mess around with not counting overflows).

Really??? I didn't realize, So is it just 30H per pop??? Does it include Forge and Organised Religion Effects?

So instead of 30H per pop it'll be 38H per pop (With a forge or Organised Religion)

 

[MrCynical]

Personally I'm just recording it as 30 hammers a pop, since all the modifiers like forges and so on apply to conventional hammers as well as whipped ones. In any case, the main thing is to be consistent between the two games, to compare how effective slavery is under the two economies.

 

[slowcar]

there is a SG, saladin no cottages immortal, with no cottages whatsoever allowed.
in my opinion its an extreme variant and the pros and cons were discussed fairly well in the game thread.

i think the setup is quite ok, 35% cottages are too high for a SE economy imo, valid point by acidsatyr.

 

[Wodan]

Wodan started a good thread on that a few months ago. Make sure you the full thread, since if I remember correctly, some of the ideas in the initial post aren't exactly right and were corrected in some of the discussion.

HOW to run a specialist economy

Also search for threads started by futurehermit. There are several from this summer that were very in depth.

As for Caste System, no, you don't need to run Caste System for the whole game. In fact, although it might be useful at times, you don't really need to run it at all. It's often (mostly? always?) better to run Slavery.

Agreed with what Dr.EJ says.

Also, when reading that thread, please keep in mind that my goal there was to try to jot down notes on how to play your first SE or two. I should have stated that more clearly up front. You'll see when you read the thread. If I went back and did it again I think I would approach that whole thing a bit differently.

I noticed that fresh water becomes very important if you are going for a SE. At times I would forget that that was my goal and found a city without enough food/fresh water to support scientists and still grow.

Yep... when picking spots for new cities I beeline for rivers and lakes. Skip over otherwise tasty grassland areas (unless they have a couple of food resources)... if you keep closed borders you can settle them later.

And... even if you have open borders, you can always conquer them later.

Also, it takes longer to get a library up and running than to plop down a couple cottages.

Use Slavery to whip the Library. This should often be the very first thing you do in a new SE city, IMO.

Captured Wonders: If I Capture The Piramids in my SE game, Am I allowed to Switch to Representation? Or Do I have to Wait for Constitution?

MrCynical answered this already. He's exactly right... Please wait. It would bias the test.

If this test is successful, maybe we'll do another one later with Pyramids SE vs Financial CE. Who knows.

If I capture a Wonder in my SE game & Not capture a Wonder In My CE game because the AI didnt Complete it or another AI completed it before that AI, then should the games be allowed to be compared? Or would the results be too skewed? Especially wonders that change the face of the game like The Great Library. besides I wouldn't want to raze a City with a high population and good location just becuase of a Wonder there that would change the comparable results.

Good question. I'd say we leave this up to your judgement. Most of the time it should be okay to just go with the flow. But, if you have big concerns, it might be ok to go into WB and give the wonder to your CE game, or delete the wonder from your SE game and give it to that AI. I don't know how MrCynical or others would feel about using the WB for that. Regardless, it really depends and it's hard to give a "pat" answer that will work in all situations.

Keep in mind, though, that if you got the Great Library because you got maces earlier because your SE prioritized civil service (or something similar), then you are by all means entitled to keep it.

Regardless, you might make a note in your game log, so that people looking at the results can account for that, if they see the need. I wouldn't want someone to say "Well, his SE/CE was better simply because he got the Great Library." Then again, people who can't see beyond something like that will probably tend to search until they find justifications that prove their preconceived notions, regardless. I'm no different, I'm sure... it's human nature. Still, I'm hoping that we can minimize or avoid that kind of thing.

Doesn't all this argument belong in the thread where the rules of the test were negotiated, rather than in the test results thread? No? Silly me.

Not silly at all. In fact, I'm going to put my answer over there.

I'm hoping to contribute an entry....

Awesome... would you like me to add you to the list?

i think the setup is quite ok, 35% cottages are too high for a SE economy imo, valid point by acidsatyr.

You might be right, 20% or so might be better.

The thing is, there's a point of diminishing returns. If a SE player runs too many, then she's in fact hurting herself. The only purpose of a cottage city in a SE is to provide cash. Once you pay for maintenance plus upgrades, additional cash is hardly going to be worth the reduced science. In fact, I'm convinced that the best-run SE almost always has one cottage city only: the capitol.

Wodan

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Use Slavery to whip the Library. This should often be the very first thing you do in a new SE city, IMO.

I think I'd whip a granary first. Granaries make whipping so much more efficient that I don't think I'd ever whip something without building a granary first except in emergency situations like whipping military or trying to finish a wonder.

Edit: I'd also consider whipping a forge first for similar reasons, but that's more debatable.

 

[Wodan]

I think I'd whip a granary first. Granaries make whipping so much more efficient that I don't think I'd ever whip something without building a granary first except in emergency situations like whipping military or trying to finish a wonder.

Edit: I'd also consider whipping a forge first for similar reasons, but that's more debatable.

Good alternatives, I agree.

Whipping is good at two points, IMO. Small size (2-4) or near the health/happy cap (early game this will be 4-7, depending on skill level).

Wodan