SE/FE Walkthrough

[Oggums]

I read your entire post, but I still have no clue what SE/FE, HE or CE is.

 

[ShredZ]

Thx for the input.

Last night I continued my 'shadow game', Monty declared war on Lizzy which was perfect, I waited until I finished whipping the crap out of my cities to get some cats ready, then helped Monty (ie. helped myself). Took over 3 cities quickly, then back to peace - plenty of units to keep going but WW is rough... the nice part was I was still at 100% science and only losing -40 per/turn even in pacifism, I traded some techs to keep it going, I think I had 800gold at the time, no worries there.

The only thing I couldnt get to happen was create enough unhappiness to warrant using the culture slider past 10% even after maximum whipping. Im not sure exactly how it works, but instead of adding and extra unhappy person, the single unhappy person just stays unhappy longer...

Strange, I know you said you research tech across the top of the list, just assumed you went for Music too, doh. Well, I used the GA in my first conquerd city, no revolt, instant whipped courthouse.

Won the race to Lib no problem, researching Gunpowder now, should be ready for second war soon...


So what do you do at 1000AD, just retire the game and start over? What do you look for before calling it quits?

 

[Compromise]

I read your entire post, but I still have no clue what SE/FE, HE or CE is.

SE = Specialist Economy (much of your research is done with beaker-generating specialists)
FE = Farm Economy (you use lots of farms. Population is converted to research/gold via specialists or to hammers via slavery)
HE = Hybrid Economy (you use both cottages and farms where each will give you the best return. (E.g. cottage your capital so you can take advantage of Bureaucracy, but found at high food locations for good early specialists/production via specialists and the whip) (Edit: Not Hopeless Economy, Heroic Effort, Herculean Excrement, or Hillary's Election )
CE = Cottage Economy. (you plant lots of cottages and as they grow, they generate lots of commerce.)

 

[lilnev]

HE = Heroic Epic. Likewise NE = National Epic. You were thrown by the context, methinks.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Compromise]

Yes, that's the only thing I've seen HE mean, but I didn't quite see how it's the basis for an economy. Context indeed.

 

[30+]

Hybrid Economy.

 

[MKElderGod]

Okay i take back what i said, SE/FE is the best way to go in the start. At 680 AD i found my self 8 techs ahead of the 2nd best country in science with no old techs behind. With only 3 cities mght I add. I apologize for my ignorance. Who ever said they ccan get to liberalism at 100 ad PLEASE TEACH ME.

 

[Yva!n]

I have to thank 30+ for this walkthru, after they killed the CS slingshot, i needed another crutch. Seems to me that this tech path is pretty optimum for Peter to unlock his Cossacks. Tech to Liberalism, take Nationalism, hope that you are able to trade for music and horseback riding. Build horse archers while you are researching gunpowder and military tradition. Conquer the World!

 

[Skallagrimson]

I have to thank 30+ for this walkthru, after they killed the CS slingshot, i needed another crutch. Seems to me that this tech path is pretty optimum for Peter to unlock his Cossacks. Tech to Liberalism, take Nationalism, hope that you are able to trade for music and horseback riding. Build horse archers while you are researching gunpowder and military tradition. Conquer the World!

Fortunately or unfortunately, in Civ, military power is quality TIMES quantity, such that any time you are out-teched by an enemy, you can make up the difference by spamming out huge numbers. VERY unrealistically, I've been able to hold off swarms of Cossacks with even larger swarms of Pikemen, something which would never have been possible in the real world (how are you gonna pike a horseman shooting at you from RIFLE range, Mr. Sid Meier Genius sir?) Stacks of collateral damage units also accumulate to where you can defeat just about any high-tech units if you're behind but have hefty production power. And the losses on your land won't be as expensive WW-wise as the smaller losses he'll have on the same land.

MOST of the time my Liberalism slingshot is for Nationalism for the leap into Military Tradition (and Taj Majal for a nice Golden Age). Some situations, Astronomy makes better sense, to blast out Observatories and Galleons, to get science cranked up higher (works best in CE/HE) and enable oversea colonization before my enemies. It's usually a matter of whether I have neighbors to stomp, contiguous to my land (and the horses to enable it), or not.

 

[UncleJJ]

Stacks of collateral damage units also accumulate to where you can defeat just about any high-tech units if you're behind but have hefty production power. And the losses on your land won't be as expensive WW-wise as the smaller losses he'll have on the same land.

It is even worse than this, you will get no WW at all for any losses you take or attacks you make inside your own culture. Your WW only accumulates outside your own culture dominance (i.e tiles that have less than 50%of your culture). So the strategy of masses of low cost, low tech troops works well defensively. But it fails miserably when attacking as WW is built up very quickly by losses and merely attacking ... see this excellent article War Weariness Mechanics in Strategy Articles. I presume that low tech troops will need to attack each superior troop more than once to dislodge them so say 3 attacks and 2 losses to gain one win.

 

[Yva!n]

Fortunately or unfortunately, in Civ, military power is quality TIMES quantity, such that any time you are out-teched by an enemy, you can make up the difference by spamming out huge numbers. VERY unrealistically, I've been able to hold off swarms of Cossacks with even larger swarms of Pikemen, something which would never have been possible in the real world (how are you gonna pike a horseman shooting at you from RIFLE range, Mr. Sid Meier Genius sir?)

FWIW: Historical record may show that numbers have carried the day in several cases in the 1800's, British riflemen got massacred by masses of zulu spearmen at Isandlewana. Custer's 7th cavalry got massacred by horse archers at Little Bighorn.

 

[Wodan]

FWIW: Historical record may show that numbers have carried the day in several cases in the 1800's, British riflemen got massacred by masses of zulu spearmen at Isandlewana. Custer's 7th cavalry got massacred by horse archers at Little Bighorn.

I don't konw about Isandlewana. However, actually, I've read that the Indian troops facing Custer actually had better equipment: faster loading and more accurate rifles. Without a doubt, regardless, they did not have bows.

Wodan

 

[Skallagrimson]

FWIW: Historical record may show that numbers have carried the day in several cases in the 1800's, British riflemen got massacred by masses of zulu spearmen at Isandlewana. Custer's 7th cavalry got massacred by horse archers at Little Bighorn.

I dispute that numbers could be the deciding factor in those cases. At Isandlewana (sp?), the Brits were abnormally spread out, uncoordinated, ill-advised in their placement, and generally not up to snuff for their normal defensive posture when facing a numerically superior lower-tech foe (which became extremely routine for the British empire as they sailed around the world taking over lower-tech kingdoms and establishing colonies, e.g., the Raj in India).

A more typical outcome of the tech-difference for the British was at Rorke's Drift, where 200 Welsh supply troops, who weren't even mainline infantry (say, Riflemen with no combat promotions), were able to defeat 4,000 of those same Zulus who had succeeded so well at Isandlewana. They kept the ammo flowing, coordinated the rank-sequence firing line (essentially turning single-shot rifles into "machine guns" by staggering out the fire-reload orders of their ranks), maintaining position integrity, tight formation, and... holding out.

For Custer, most people misunderstand what he was up against. The Sioux weren't fielding "bows and arrows" against him there, but RIFLES, and much better rifles--more powerful and longer-range, than what Custer's men had. It was a massacre waiting to happen not only from a numbers dimension, but a tech dimension (picture 4 riflemen with Combat II and Formation, against... a single Cav with Combat II).

 

[Yva!n]

Well a quick google turned up this: http://rapidttp.com/milhist/vol032rm.html, a nice comparision of the two eeriely similiar battles. Note that the author doesn't share your opinion that the native units were better armed than their more advanced counterparts. Still looks like many impi/horse archers units weakening and then destroying riflemen/cavalry units to me. If Shaka had only whipped out a couple more impi he'd a been able to take out Victoria's defenders at Rorkes Drift too, sounds like they were down to just a couple of points.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Well a quick google turned up this: http://rapidttp.com/milhist/vol032rm.html, a nice comparision of the two eeriely similiar battles. Note that the author doesn't share your opinion that the native units were better armed than their more advanced counterparts. Still looks like many impi/horse archers units weakening and then destroying riflemen/cavalry units to me. If Shaka had only whipped out a couple more impi he'd a been able to take out Victoria's defenders at Rorkes Drift too, sounds like they were down to just a couple of points.

This statement here from your link is extremely inaccurate:

"There was a larger variety in weaponry available to the North American Indians, but none of it was really superior to that of the Zulu."

The Sioux *ORIGINALLY* had primitive weapons, but over time they acquired rifles which allowed them to hold their own far more often against the U.S. Cavalry, than before:

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/custer.htm

"As the Indians closed in, Custer ordered his men to shoot their horses and stack the carcasses to form a wall, but they provided little protection against bullets."

BULLETS. Not only bullets, but bullets which penetrated entire horse carcasses and KILLED the man hiding behind it. These were no ordinary bullets but highly powerful rifles firing them.

Another key clue from a Lakota account of the battle:

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/six/bighorn.htm

"The coming of the walking soldiers was the saving of the soldiers on the hill. Sioux can not fight the walking soldiers [infantry], being afraid of them, so the Sioux hurriedly left."

The "walking soldiers", non-cavalry, had as a part of their formations, small artillery guns, and much heavier, more powerful, longer-range rifles. This was why "Sious can not fight" them: out-GUNNED.

By contrast, the U.S. Cavalry was armed with the lighter Winchester rifles, less powerful, less accurate, and more geared for rapid aim-fire at closer range during a high-mobility charge.

The way the Sioux acquired rifles, over time, was largely battlefield capture. From the same link:

"These different soldiers discharged their guns but little. I took a gun and two belts off two dead soldiers."

Interestingly, another element the Sioux used to advantage at Little Bighorn, that I learned just now, is the element of stealth:

"The Sioux men took the clothing off the dead and dressed themselves in it. Among the soldiers were white men who were not soldiers. The Sioux dressed in the soldiers' and white men's clothing fought the soldiers on the hill."

So at some point in the battle Custer's men were surprise-attacked at close range by Sioux warriors dressed as U.S. Cavalry (and also armed by U.S. rifles taken off of fallen soldiers, both at the present battle and at previous battles). Interesting trick for "primitive plains Indians" hehe.

 

[Skallagrimson]

The bottom line of what I had been saying is that *IF* the only "advantage" the Sioux had against Custer were *numbers*, the Sioux would still have been ripped to smithereens. But that wasn't the only advantage. They had rifles, they had stealth, and they had a Custer on the American side who wouldn't listen to orders and wait for the arrival of the main force to back him up. A single "Cavalry" unit on a hill, and a field-upgrade of three "archer" Sioux units to "Riflemen", and, that's all she wrote.

 

[Yva!n]

I will concede the point that it is likely that the Sioux had superior firepower, if only because if only 1 in 10 had a rifle, given the number of Sioux at the battle, that still means that they had more rifles than the 170 that Custer had (ie every trooper was armed with one and they all were single shot carbines). But the the bulk of the indians were still Horse Archers.

 

[Yva!n]

Back to the Original Poster, (if it is possible at this late date), I have been experimenting with this build order, and have been pretty happy with the progress. I'm wondering about why you settled you first GS. Have you tried building the academy early? It seems like some of the tech you need to suffer through like civil service, could be expedited with it.

My findings thus far have been that with a philosophical civ you can burn off at least on GS on settling or lightbulbing math or whatnot, but with non-philosophicals you have to horde them for paper/education. But I was able to get gunpowder for Mehmed at around 400AD, tho my starting city was unusually good, grassland wheat (x2), cows, forested deer, marble (let me get the Oracle for COL), AND grassland iron.

 

[Wodan]

Back to the OP?!? What are you smoking?

Hijacking a thread is a venerable and honorable occupation, I'll have you know. How dare you interject such a plebian notion as rationalism and logic to the premise under which we are currently discussing? Our cognitive processes are much more intuitive and educated.

Wodan

 

[Skallagrimson]

I just follow a thread wherever it goes, myself, LOL.

Humans in a coffee shop don't say "STOP TALKING ABOUT THAT, WE WERE ORIGINALLY DISCUSSING SOMETHING ELSE!"

On the additional side-topic of the first GS, I personally build academies in the top-3 of my beaker-producers in most cases; sometimes more if I have a lot of commerce cities. In the mid-game I start to settle 'em in the top science city, and late-game usually lightbulb for beakers.