Running a SE in BtS

[futurehermit]

I'm thinking maybe because of the slow AI tech pace you don't worry about tech so much. Just get the tech you need to expand peacefully or with military early. Then run enough specialists to get you to the next military level. Then expand. Rinse repeat. Focus on expansion. Eventually you can either switch to CE and go for space or keep going for dom. I think it's probably better to go for dom. Whip/drafting is even more important for military victories now that the AI produces so many units.

But of course if you are ok winning a later dom win, it is relatively easy to get a large tech disparity later in the game and then mow through opponent empires with tanks/bombers/etc.

I don't know. The more I play BtS the more I am leaning toward more of a CE. I know from players like uber and snaaty that SE is definitely still feasible, but I can't seem to make it happen.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Funnily enough, someone somewhere (i know, much too precise, huh ^^) made the same kind of statements, except arguing that BtS was now much more profitable to a SE.
Truth lies in the eye of the beholder, i guess

Meaning me I guess ? Now I've actually tried some more BtS SE games, and seen how badly lightbulbing suffers from the poor AI tech pace, my opinions of the SE have fallen back to where they always have been. I'm still figuring out the late game hybrid economy.

I think he may have meant me ...

OTAKUjbski would you consider posting an example game of your strategy ? I'd love to see it in action. Done by someone who actually knows what he's doing, instead of by me

Sorry I didn't respond sooner. I didn't get much playtime this weekend, so I didn't read too much on the forums and certainly didn't play any games. I'll try to play a game tonight and SS the first 2000 years or so.

I typically play at Prince/Monarch ... is there a different difficulty you'd like me to play at tonight?

 

[Percy]

I typically play at Prince/Monarch ... is there a different difficulty you'd like me to play at tonight?

heh, i feel like i'm some puppet master or something =P

I've been winning a number of games at Noble trying out different strategies, so i'll be moving up to Prince for my next game. So i believe that Prince/Monarch/Emperor is close enough to not matter much. I tried to apply your strategy in my latest game, and won a military-enabled diplomatic victory (in that i conquered those who wouldn't vote for me ^^). And i applied it very sloppily, but the multitude of good production cities allowed me to simply drown the AI with Cavs when it still hadn't Rifles.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

heh, i feel like i'm some puppet master or something =P

I've been winning a number of games at Noble trying out different strategies, so i'll be moving up to Prince for my next game. So i believe that Prince/Monarch/Emperor is close enough to not matter much. I tried to apply your strategy in my latest game, and won a military-enabled diplomatic victory (in that i conquered those who wouldn't vote for me ^^). And i applied it very sloppily, but the multitude of good production cities allowed me to simply drown the AI with Cavs when it still hadn't Rifles.

Even sloppy win is a win ... so what do you need me for?

 

[OTAKUjbski]

@Percy

I played the first round of a game this evening for you.

I forgot to screenshot the settings, so: Big & Small / Standard size/ Prince / Epic / Random Leader (Gandhi of India).

I'll let the screenshots speak for themselves ... here are the major ones:

I settled in place, because that's just what I always do. First research is Poly for Hindu (and b/c it's a Lit pre-req) followed by Ag & BW. Fast Worker is first build to mine the bare Hill, farm the Corn then chop/mine the forested hills on Settlers.

Spoiler :

Lucky break. That hut in my BFC popped for Ag, so now my Fast Worker can Farm before he mines. Just under that tech splash is another hut that's about to pop 3 pissed-off Barbarian Warriors. Bye-bye starting Warrior.

Spoiler :

Like I said ... BW is always high on my list.

Spoiler :

Bingo! Copper! My first city is going to be either 1N of the Pigs or 1NW of the Copper. I can make a pop 5 city just like this:

City Center = 2 food / 1 hammer
Pig Hill = 5 food / 1 hammer
3 Grassland Hills = 3 food / 9 hammers
Grassland Copper = 2 food / 4 hammers
Total = 12 food / 15 hammers

Who knows what's in the fog ... but quite frankly ... I don't care. +2/15 at pop 5 ain't bad.

My other city will undoubtedly be somewhere around the Gold and all those Flood Plains as a farm.

BTW, since I'm Spiritual, I didn't adopt Slavery. The last thing I need is a revolt when I don't even need to be in Slavery.

Spoiler :

It gets even better with that Irrigated Corn up there, because even though there's a general lack of early game production tiles (all that Grassland will eventually be Workshops when I get around to CS/SP, though), I can whip down to 2 pop and grow back super fast with +9 off the Corn/Pigs.

I probably won't rush anybody, but who knows, eh?

Just east of the AI's recommended Settling spot will likely become my cottage-spammed Bureaucratic capital city shortly.

Spoiler :

I let Delhi grow to pop 4 before starting my 1st Settler for a reason, and this is it.

Now that I can whip the Settler for 2 pop, I'll switch into Slavery and rush it.

Spoiler :

2475 BC, and I have 3 cities: Delhi with decent hybrid /, Bombay with good and great whipping (and utterly amazing late-game CS/SP potention) and Vij with amazing food and decent swappable 11 .

I don't love this placement, but it's what I went with anyway. I'll eventually settle a coastal city SW of the Gold for +4 and plenty of coastline to work sometime down the road.

A Granary and Library are top priority in this city. I'll run Max scientists and the Gold mine when CoL/Library comes online.

I'm also banking on there being some decent land SE in the fog I can share the rest of those Flood Plains with.

Spoiler :

And here it is: 5 Pop with +2 food & 15 hammers. 16 raw turns for the Oracle isn't bad either. I use the Oracle on CoL and pop Confucianism, which I spread to a neighbor with the Missionary.

Since the Capital has decent production, I'll probably use the Corn to tag team running specialists and Workshops. I have plenty of resources around, so I'm going to skip HR ... it's health I'll need to worry about.

Spoiler :

I got damn lucky and found Iron in Delhi's BFC, so I diverted from a Library and started working towards Military instead. Otherwise, my idea was to have:

City Center = 2 food / 1 hammer
Oasis = 3 food
Grassland Farm = 3 food
Corn = 6 food
2 Grassland Hills = 2 food 6 hammers
TOTAL = 16 food / 7 hammers

That would run the 5 tiles plus 3 scientists ... the Iron just makes it that much easier to run scientists and still have half-decent production (5 hammers & 4 specialists).

Spoiler :

If this was a multiplayer game, I'd be dead already. But luckily I'm not. Delhi and Bombay are commited to Settlers, Workers and Axemen now; and Vij is keeping my research afloat (albeit barely...Delhi needs to turn on Scientists soon.) Bombay will build any Wonders I need.

Hammurabi just accepted Confucianism (I sent it to him), and you can see the gears already in motion to build my new capital up north. It'll have a consistent +5 food even while working those Gem mines, and the 3 Grassland hills will let me switch production on/off when necessary.

It's late, so I won't finish this game tonight, but I'll likely expand West and North into Hammurabi and Louis XIV then SE into whoever/whatever is down there.

My research rate will probably slump to 20% as I REX out, but I'll ensure every new city is built to run scientists to help compensate. Shortly after Louis XIV builds the Pyramids (you know he will, since he's the only Industrious civ in my game), I'll take it from him and say "Merci" as he cries for "Mercy".

Spoiler :

I'm not sure how helpful that was or how smooth/sloppy that was compared to your games, but this is generally how my games go in the beginning.

My general strategy is to peacefully expand towards my neighbors until there's no more land to obtain. Then I start evaluating my neighbors for conquest or whatever depending on the political climate and what victory I feel like.

20 hammers is a better goal for production cities, but that's hard to do with Grassland Hills -- despite the fact that GHills are more efficient than Plains Hills.

 

[Percy]

I'm not sure how helpful that was

Very.

or how smooth/sloppy that was compared to your games

You just gave a whole new sense to the word "sloppy".


That was very enlightening, and entertaining, thanks for having taken the time to do that. I'll try and take inspiration from that.

Just a couple of questions, regarding using scientists to keep your research afloat:
- what is your goal in beakers generation, depending on the time of the game ? How much is enough ?
- you say you will use scientists in newly founded cities. Do you wait for them to grow to the / cap while building a Library, and then use scientists, or do you go straight for the Library and then slow-grow it with scientists running ?

 

[OTAKUjbski]

BTW, with all that extra food lying around in Delhi & Bombay, I should've whipped the Settler/Axeman for my new capital.

Just a couple of questions, regarding using scientists to keep your research afloat:
- what is your goal in beakers generation, depending on the time of the game ? How much is enough ?

I don't know ... I've never really pay much attention to my net . I typically gauge my progress by where the other civs are relative to me and how long techs are taking to research -- with 20 turns at Epic being the beginning of "LONG". I think that equates to something around 40-50 beakers by 1 AD.

Ultimately, as long as you're keeping up with your neighbors, your tech rate is good.

- you say you will use scientists in newly founded cities. Do you wait for them to grow to the / cap while building a Library, and then use scientists, or do you go straight for the Library and then slow-grow it with scientists running ?

Both ... and neither.

I skip the Library and go straight for the Granary/Courthouse, because I run Caste System for REXing.

My baseline REX goal per new city is +2 while running 2 Scientists. The goal of REXing is not to grow up so much as it is to grow out, so if the city takes longer to reach the / cap, I personally don't care so long as I stake my claim to the land.

This could mean:

Pop 3:

• City Center = +2 food
• Irrigated Corn / Grassland Pigs = +4 food
• 2 Scientists = -4 food
• NET = +2

Pop 4:

• City Center = +2 food
• 2 Flood Plains = +4 food
• 2 Scientists = -4 food
• NET = +2

Pop 5:

• City Center = +2 food
• non-Irrigated Rice / Grassland Cow / Flood Plains = +2 food
• 2 Grassland Farms = +2 food
• 2 Scientists = -4 food
• NET = +2

In all of those situations, the +2 and both Scientists can be used to work any tile in the BFC for either production or growth, depending upon the current needs. Or, you could whip them away to finish off a Courthouse ... whatever tickles your fancy.

As far as when to move the Scientists out of the Farms and into the city, I'm not sure which is more efficient. I usually grow to the point where I can run 2 Scientists and then assign them. In high food situations [like the 3 pop city above], I'll run the first Scientist as soon as I hit pop 2.


--my 2

 

[Percy]

Thank you very much =)

 

[Polycrates]

I've been running an SE game with Monty on Emperor, and it has been going exceptionally well. Bit of early warfare and conquest, settled my first scientist, beelined Code of Laws and started whipping courthouses, running the third spy specialist when I was under slavery. Lo and behold, my second GP was a great spy! (this was admittedly more luck than planning). Sent him to a neighbour and plucked metal casting, feudalism, construction and monotheism at various points, which was very nice. Then I used the rest to incite a revolt in his holy city and pinch an extra 31 gold/turn.
Bulbed philosophy, was easily first to music and ran a massive CS/pacifism/golden age that netted me a horde of great scientists as well as advancing my normal research quite nicely.
Bulbed paper, educationx2, built an academy, then went liberalism (~900AD), free nationalism, constitution.
Met the tech leaders from the other continent, traded my way to guilds and banking, spent a couple of scientists bulbing astronomy (turned out to be a very good move - the foreign trade was lovely).

Somewhat scared off by some of the posts in this thread (and I really couldn't be bothered with domination), I ended up going on a whip frenzy to build masses of banks, universities, markets, grocers, observatories and jails, plus a whole bunch of workers to start retooling my empire into a CE.
Ran masses of specialists and rebuilt population while that was going on, then bit the bullet and switched to Emancipation. I ended up way ahead and could probably go for whatever victory.
But I couldn't help thinking that I could have (and probably should have) stuck with the SE the whole way through and still decisively won the tech race. So I went back to an earlier save and tried sticking with a primarily SE (the save wasn't perfectly timed, so it was a bit of a dog's breakfast) and it turned out very well indeed.
1) Biology is now even better for a SE person, since the National Park is crazily good if you plan for it. And you can still bulb a lot of the path with scientists.
2) Biology is even better because it allows Medicine, which lets you found the Sushi Co for a whole load of extra food (which is nicely independent of number of farms worked).
3) The SE beats the pants off the CE in late game espionage. Firstly, you're better placed to quickly produce jails, security bureaus and intelligence agencies (which, combined, produce 44 espionage points per turn). And secondly, spy specialists are fricking great in the late game. Under Rep, you're getting 2/3 of a scientist plus eight espionage points (with jail and int. agency built) from each spy you run, and you get points towards Great Spies, which are excellent great people. You get even more under Nationhood (which you're free to run since you don't need Free Speech).
Compared to this, running espionage under the slider is a frightful waste.
So what do you do with all this espionage? You can steal tech (though you pay a premium), but my favourite use is to send out masses of spies to destroy towns left, right and centre and cripple enemy economies, then harass the hell out of their major cities with poisoned water etc. The passive effects are really useful in themselves, too.

So yeah, SE still rocks!

 

[Norbert]

@ polycrates...your post, finally, has convinced someone who has now been a CE purist since unpacking vanilla a year ago, to try out a SE...I'll do it tomorrow.
Slightly off-topic, civ would you suggest for the first try?

 

[Polycrates]

@ polycrates...your post, finally, has convinced someone who has now been a CE purist since unpacking vanilla a year ago, to try out a SE...I'll do it tomorrow.
Slightly off-topic, civ would you suggest for the first try?

Heh cool! Glad to be of service
I'd start with Gandhi. He's philo so you get more GPs early (and I suspect you'd have a better chance of generating an early Great Spy too), plus Spiritual is a definite must for your first tries with an SE (because you have to be shifting civics a lot, and it definitely helps you play around with the options).
The fast worker is nice as well, and the Mausoleum is a good UB now that jails have gotten a big boost.

EDIT: just noticed...are you running vanilla? Because I think it's Saladin who has the magic Phi/Spi combo in Vanilla.

 

[Norbert]

Actually, no, I have BtS, so Gandhi is indeed the man...Thanks for the advice, btw. It's kind of a bummer that the only early wonder that generates GS points is the one I usually skip...(can you tell someone dosen't play with Raging barbarians?)

 

[gettingfat]

I don't know it's right or wrong, but from the limited number of BtS games I've played I find the BtS maps generally have fewer rivers, floodplains and way more deserts. Does it affect a SE? I simply find SE very slow before Biology even I have great pyramid

 

[Carnage04]

I'm thinking maybe because of the slow AI tech pace you don't worry about tech so much. Just get the tech you need to expand peacefully or with military early. Then run enough specialists to get you to the next military level. Then expand. Rinse repeat. Focus on expansion. Eventually you can either switch to CE and go for space or keep going for dom. I think it's probably better to go for dom. Whip/drafting is even more important for military victories now that the AI produces so many units.

But of course if you are ok winning a later dom win, it is relatively easy to get a large tech disparity later in the game and then mow through opponent empires with tanks/bombers/etc.

I don't know. The more I play BtS the more I am leaning toward more of a CE. I know from players like uber and snaaty that SE is definitely still feasible, but I can't seem to make it happen.

The thing with teching slow and trying to militarily dominate....you have to pic k your spots well, I think. Not to mention the change with the siege weapons. The way I see it you have...

1. Axes/Swords/Cats
2. Maces/Knights
3. Cavalry
4. Tanks/Planes

The Period between 1 and 2 isn't too bad, but teching slow can make it take a long time to transition from 2 to 3 and 3 to 4...allowing the AI plenty of time to catch up to you in strength of Military Units.

Actually, I've been popping Guilds off of Liberalism at time to get a jump start on attacking with Knights.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

3) The SE beats the pants off the CE in late game espionage. Firstly, you're better placed to quickly produce jails, security bureaus and intelligence agencies (which, combined, produce 44 espionage points per turn). And secondly, spy specialists are fricking great in the late game. Under Rep, you're getting 2/3 of a scientist plus eight espionage points (with jail and int. agency built) from each spy you run, and you get points towards Great Spies, which are excellent great people. You get even more under Nationhood (which you're free to run since you don't need Free Speech).
Compared to this, running espionage under the slider is a frightful waste.
So what do you do with all this espionage? You can steal tech (though you pay a premium), but my favourite use is to send out masses of spies to destroy towns left, right and centre and cripple enemy economies, then harass the hell out of their major cities with poisoned water etc. The passive effects are really useful in themselves, too.

Great point. It's not pillaging only now, it's sabotage too that hurts towns badly.

 

[Polycrates]

Oh yeah, the other thing I forgot to mention is that all the espionage buildings (courthouse/jail/security bureau/intelligence agency) let you run an extra 7 specialists without dipping into caste system (and as I mentioned above, they're really useful specialists too). So you're free to either stay in slavery and use the food from sushi to whip heaps of production or go into emancipation if the happiness penalty is giving you the blues.
By the way, the AI seems to have no particular interest in Medicine, so there should be no problems with founding Sushi, which is a fantastic corp.

I'm very keen on late-game SE in BtS now!

 

[Wodan]

I've been quietly listening to the discussion and have been experimenting as well. I think I agree about the diminished power of lightbulbing. However, I've been finding that early on I'm getting Great Spies anyway, so to a great extent espionage is replacing the lightbulbing. I'm still running an early SE, but looking for spies instead. Though, to be true, I still have to go out of my way to get a Great Prophet or two for shines, plus a Great Scientist to get an Academy in my super-science city. Varies from game to game, but that's what I'm seeing.

Something else, too... interesting last game. A ton of ocean resources all around, with many small continents. I ran an early SE "for free" because of the food resources, managed to get Pyramids. Planted a lot of cottages because I was financial. So, needless to say, both of these combined made my research go through the roof. I beelined Constitution and then used Liberalism to get Democracy. Switched to Emancipation and Free Speech, which bent me more toward the CE side of the hybrid I was running.

I then beelined Medicine to get the Sushi Corp and switched to Caste System to run a dozen scientists in each city. Representation, and still had Towns spammed in all my cities.

I think this game blew the socks off any previous game I have ever had, as far as research goes.

Wodan

 

[Sephlock]

I don't know it's right or wrong, but from the limited number of BtS games I've played I find the BtS maps generally have fewer rivers, floodplains and way more deserts. Does it affect a SE?

I'd like an answer to this as well. Don't you end up ceding a lot of great spots for cities?

And do people generally chop the forests near your initial city (presumably to make room for farms)? I've found that while I often start off with tons of forest tiles nearby, its not very common to find potential city locations that are also heavily forested.... should I just chop away and resign myself to getting little-to-no use out of my National Park?