Life After Death: SE After Missing the Pyramids

[lilnev]

I'm a big believer that even a CE should run scientists in a couple of cities early on. As UncleJJ lays out, those first GSs are the biggest bargain in the game. In general, I haven't had good success with a SE when I try for and miss the 'Mids (I've tried a SE without even attempting them). But if seems like that has more to do with the opportunity cost, 400+ hammers that could have been workers and settlers or a stack of axes.

peace,
lilnev

 

[xanadux]

An early Great Scientist has huge power for a CE game. See my prince level walkthrough on the CE:

CE walkthrough

 

[Bureaucracy]

But he is not running a SE, since he he has few if any food specialists.

I don't understand this. Since when is a Specialist Economy restricted to only Food specialists? If you look inside his capitals, he has more specialists in there than anyone has ever placed in that city, and this still holds true when he isn't running any because so many are settled.

If you were to strip away all those settled GPs, his science would take a tremendous hit.

 

[vicawoo]

No, it's not a correction. Obsolete has demonstrated his strategy can work without the pyramids. The focus of his strategy is production primarily and beakers only secondarily. If he wanted beakers primarily he would focus on generating scientists, but he focuses on generating GEs and GPs. Of course pyramids are handy, and he can usually get it (because he sacrifices expansion), but he has demonstrated that his approach can work in a variety of ways and I believe he could and also has demonstrate that his approach can work without the pyramids.



This statement shows some inexperience with a SE. A SE will get MORE gp EARLIER than a CE with a gpfarm. Perhaps not more overall in the long run (though I still think that will be the case, but the gap will lessen), but in the short term, which is vastly more important, a SE will get more faster because non-gpfarm cities WILL contribute gp. So a SE will have 3-4 when a CE w/gpfarm has 1-2. Those 1-2 more gp can be 1-2 more lightbulbs earlier that you can leverage to your advantage. For the liberalism race this is a big deal with SE hitting it faster getting the free tech faster that they can leverage faster. Are you seeing what I'm getting at here? Getting things x turns faster in Civ is a big deal so with a SE getting more gp faster is a big deal.

Link for that obsolete game? I can't find it among his first 4 games, not sure about incan game.

Obviously it can get 2 GP earlier, but probably not more than that before national epic or great library unless you're philosophical or you skip literature. But a few things to note: your lightbulbs are limited that early unless you get lucky. Scientists cannot beeline much early except philosophy, as you have to research col and cs. Unless you have a special civ, you cannot run 2 priests or engineers. You can save them (you only need 3 more GS for liberalism beeline, to actually bulb liberalism you have to finish religions with great priest or skip some sea techs with GS), or you can settle a couple, like priest for hammer poor GP farm.

I'm not big into beelining paper or double education unless I'm very behind, due to beaker waste. Then again, you're getting constitution fast.

 

[Ultimocrat]

Nice analysis, UncleJJ. I agree wholeheartedly that the main point of the early SE is the great people, not the extra beakers from representation specialists.

I've played a few strong SE games on vanilla civ now at Monarch (one using Obsolete's wonderspam strategy), and in both I've missed getting the Pyramids. In both I've also been able to get the GL/NE combination, which strikes me as much more important than the 'mids -- it's +16 scientist GPP/turn in a single city (12 for sci specialists, 4 for GL). Assuming you can afford to run the 2 library scientists, too, that's 28 scientist GPP, and a total of 30 GPP/turn (the 2 artist points from NE pollution). Once this is running, you're talking 1000 GPP in 34 turns, so you'll get 4 Great People, with 83% scientist odds each, in a maximum of 34 turns. That's pretty huge if you ask me, and the ~6000 beakers they get from bulbing, or +27 beakers per turn if you academy-settle-settle-settle in GL city are massive over the course of the game (as they get transformed to +40 with representation, and then +67 with Oxford).

So, my answer is: try and nab GL+NE if you miss the 'mids and you look to have a SE map, or your leader is Philosphical -- it's a strong play.

 

[UncleJJ]

I don't understand this. Since when is a Specialist Economy restricted to only Food specialists? If you look inside his capitals, he has more specialists in there than anyone has ever placed in that city, and this still holds true when he isn't running any because so many are settled.

If you were to strip away all those settled GPs, his science would take a tremendous hit.

I guess it depends what you define as a SE. There is no universally accepted definition of what a SE is. If you want to you can call what obsolete does a special version of an SE, then fair enough, but I wouldn't.

As I see it his basic economic strategy is to grab nearly all the wonders that generate GE and GP GPPs and then settle the resulting specialists. In this way he produces a production monster city that can build the following wonders and eventually spaceship parts very quickly. Furthermore he beelines the technologies that allow such wonders. But he runs few if any food specialists, even ones that add his preferred GE and GP points. Almost all of his GPPs comes from wonders. He avoids the use of religions (mainly for diplomatic reasons) and hence cannot run Pacifism (which could help speed up GPP generation) and does not use Caste System (which would give the wrong type of GPPs).

You are right to observe that he uses Representation and settled specialists to generate a significant part of his research beakers for most of the game. That is why he considers The Pyramids to be so important that he used a GE in one game (I forget which) to build them. He didn't use a GE that way for any other wonders and normally considers it a waste of the GE's long term production potential. I am not sure what people call the type of economy obsolete runs but it is not a typical SE, hence my comment.

 

[UncleJJ]

Nice analysis, UncleJJ. I agree wholeheartedly that the main point of the early SE is the great people, not the extra beakers from representation specialists.

I've played a few strong SE games on vanilla civ now at Monarch (one using Obsolete's wonderspam strategy), and in both I've missed getting the Pyramids. In both I've also been able to get the GL/NE combination, which strikes me as much more important than the 'mids -- it's +16 scientist GPP/turn in a single city (12 for sci specialists, 4 for GL). Assuming you can afford to run the 2 library scientists, too, that's 28 scientist GPP, and a total of 30 GPP/turn (the 2 artist points from NE pollution). Once this is running, you're talking 1000 GPP in 34 turns, so you'll get 4 Great People, with 83% scientist odds each, in a maximum of 34 turns. That's pretty huge if you ask me, and the ~6000 beakers they get from bulbing, or +27 beakers per turn if you academy-settle-settle-settle in GL city are massive over the course of the game (as they get transformed to +40 with representation, and then +67 with Oxford).

So, my answer is: try and nab GL+NE if you miss the 'mids and you look to have a SE map, or your leader is Philosphical -- it's a strong play.

Thanks for your kind comments Ultimocrat. It is along time since I played vanilla, but you seem to be playing a very similar game to what I remember doing . My personal favourite for a SE was Alexander. He had the perfect traits to allow military expansion and generating plenty of GPPs. I often did what you suggest and beelined to the Great Library, but avoided the NE until later in the game for fear of the artist pollution (at least until I had won the Liberalism race). I found that with Philosophical and Pacifism, the NE did not add much in the early game. Most often I used to (and still do) build the NE in an enemy capital with some wonders so they could compete with my original cities in GPP production.

Now I only play BtS and so a stray artist is not such a disaster as it can be used to start a Golden Age. And Golden Ages are very useful now for a SE and much cheaper as the first one only costs 1 GP. They allow anarchy free civic switches (like Spiritual) and they give 100% GPP production. So an artist that pops up in the race to Liberalism can be "re-invested" in a GA to speed up research and converted to the GS needed for lightbulbing a key tech. I often switch civics for the period of the GA adopting Pacifism and Caste System and that accelerates the generation of GS GPPs enormously, making the next GS pop out very quickly. Each scientist gives a basic 3 GPPs plus 100% for the GA and +100% for Pacifism = 9 GPPs per turn. That makes running a SE without being Spiritual or Philosophical much more practical than in vanilla. I recommend you try BtS

 

[vicawoo]

Obsolete doesn't run food specialist (except priests and engineers if he's food porr) when he's in a wonder race. Otherwise he will, scientists included, often max engineers and such.

 

[UncleJJ]

I now agree with you, having just read his latest thread. I might be wrong, but as I remember this is the first time when he's run a lot of food driven specialists. Anyway; I posted a note in his thread admitting that the latest game could easily be classified as a SE, although one that gets most of its GPPs from wonders.

 

[vicawoo]

I've been thinking about the best way to do a no pyramids SE. Maybe bulb philosophy, paper, education, tech nationalism, liberalism, pop constitution.

Skipping alphabet literature, I'm not sure about. On one hand, you save tech time, on the other hand, maybe you'd get more GS (you need 4 maybe?) through GL NE. Also, possibly war a lot and grab a lot of nice land to run scientists. I oracled to go for fast literature, but barbs gave me problem since I lacked roads. Or you could build research with alphabet, which is sadly more food efficient with mines than running scientists.

Did a trial game with ghandi, crashed my economy with 3 cities since I refused to cottage. Stupid small maps. It might be better to just oracle CoL so you can skip libraries and build axes instead. Funny thing is, if you skip cottages, get fishing so you can get some water tiles. And you can skip early monarchy.

 

[DigitalBoy]

I've been thinking about the best way to do a no pyramids SE. Maybe bulb philosophy, paper, education, tech nationalism, liberalism, pop constitution.

I very much doubt Liberalism is worth it. You want Constitution ASAP and going for Liberalism adds about another 2500 beakers of research getting there. 800 (Paper) + 2500 (Education) + 2000 (Liberalism) - 2800 (Constitution as free tech) = ~2500

Besides, what does Liberalism do for you in the short run? Gives you two civic options: free religion, which is OK but maybe not the best option that early in the game, and free speech, which benefits a CE way more than a SE (I'd take nationhood instead as a "replacement" for slavery after I adopt caste system). I don't think Liberalism is a very crucial tech for a SE, and I think researching a tech you don't need just for the luxury of a free tech or great person isn't worth it.

 

[Bureaucracy]

I checked the ghandi game, his capital had no production (only 2 forests and some incidental hammers) after he chopped his first few wonders. He had to use his GE to get pyramids. So in BTS, where you get great spy points, that would not work.

Fair enough, I forgot about that GE --> Pyramids trick

But I believe it is still possible to get it without Stone/Industrious.

I might be wrong, but as I remember this is the first time when he's run a lot of food driven specialists.

I am pretty sure he used to run a lot of 'food' specialists. Didn't he go crazy running priests after making the Ankor Wat? I remember that because people used to give him some flack about it.

 

[vicawoo]

I very much doubt Liberalism is worth it. You want Constitution ASAP and going for Liberalism adds about another 2500 beakers of research getting there. 800 (Paper) + 2500 (Education) + 2000 (Liberalism) - 2800 (Constitution as free tech) = ~2500

Besides, what does Liberalism do for you in the short run? Gives you two civic options: free religion, which is OK but maybe not the best option that early in the game, and free speech, which benefits a CE way more than a SE (I'd take nationhood instead as a "replacement" for slavery after I adopt caste system). I don't think Liberalism is a very crucial tech for a SE, and I think researching a tech you don't need just for the luxury of a free tech or great person isn't worth it.

But unless you don't research currency or sailing (it's weird, but doable with GM) you can't bulb mercantilism, whereas you can get at least 4 GS before you finish teching nationalism.

I guess you could save all that for biology, but representation should boost your research by maybe 50-75%.

 

[DigitalBoy]

But unless you don't research currency or sailing (it's weird, but doable with GM) you can't bulb mercantilism, whereas you can get at least 4 GS before you finish teching nationalism.

I guess you could save all that for biology, but representation should boost your research by maybe 50-75%.

So you're saying save a few Great Scientists and lightbulb Paper and Education? I suppose that would close the gap, but I'd rather build some academies instead. With Representation, an academy gets you 3 extra beakers from each scientists. It's like super Representation.

 

[vicawoo]

If you have a library and 2 scientists, an academy increases you from (6*2)*(1+0.25)=15 to (6*2)*(1+0.25+0.5)=21, well, 3 per scientist, whereas settling a great scientist would get you. This doesn't include commerce.
(6*2+9)*(1+0.25)=15+11.25. So you need a base of
(x+9)*(1+0.25)=x*1.75, 9*(1+.0.25)=x/2, x=22.5 beakers before an academy is better than settling. If you have a university, it's 9*(1+0.5)=x/2, x=27, etc. Unless you have a ton of food in a lot of cities (9 rep scientists worth of beakers), it's better to settle at oxford.

 

[Ultimocrat]

This doesn't include commerce.
(6*2+9)*(1+0.25)=15+11.25. So you need a base of
(x+9)*(1+0.25)=x*1.75, 9*(1+.0.25)=x/2, x=22.5 beakers before an academy is better than settling. If you have a university, it's 9*(1+0.5)=x/2, x=27, etc. Unless you have a ton of food in a lot of cities (9 rep scientists worth of beakers), it's better to settle at oxford.

This is a little confusing due to the formatting. The added value of a settled great scientist depends on the multipliers already present in the city; assuming the maximum practical multiplier of 3.5, a settled representation GS is worth 30.5 beakers. The added value of an academy is 0.5 times the base beakers, from both specialists and slider-modified commerce.

The academy option is often technically better for several cities late-game, but rarely so earlier on. Also, the settled GS gives the added benefit of +1h, and is never unhappy or susceptible to the slider in wartime.

 

[Gliese 581]

Also, settling a GS might be something you regret later on, when you fail to ever pop a new GS. Depends on what kind of gp-farm you're runnning..

 

[DigitalBoy]

Unless you have a ton of food in a lot of cities (9 rep scientists worth of beakers), it's better to settle at oxford.

This is usually the only scenario I ever try for a specialist economy, but your point is well taken. (The game where I tried for a SE, I never actually got around to building Oxford and hadn't yet researched Astronomy, so it only took a city with six scientists for an academy to be equal to a super specialist.) On the same note, would it better to settle those great scientists instead of bulbing them for the Liberalism race? Settling them would help you get to Constitution faster and although you'd get to Education slower, your science city would be a monster once it built Oxford with all the super specialists it already has.