SSE / WE Walkthrough for BtS (Immortal, HC, Insane Series)

[obsolete]

Guess thats your strat, and you're bias against cottages, but they aren't synonymous with lightbulbing. I NEVER NEVER NEVER waste GP on lightbulbing, but I do find cottages extreamly powerfull with a financial civ early on. I suppose if you decide to keep representation during the late game that a farm enables you to run another scientist giving +6 beakers, but still, 8 commerce from that town before modifiers is about +24 beakers not to mention that +1h with US (which after a certain point far outwieghs rep, unless theres nothing to worthwhile to build)

I'm also surprised you like building Oxford/Ironworks in your capital not getting national epic, yes NE gives that +1 Ga pollution, but I rarely have artists arrive my capital when I JUST build NE in it and save the parth, broadway, Rock'n roll, taj'mahal, etc for my other other cities. +100% GP rate is HUGE early in the game, especially with all those wonders, its like having 18 turns for a GP cut down to 12 turns (with the parthenon). If I do end up having a few Great Artists, I just burn em on golden ages (esp since you can start your 1st golden age with just 1 GP). You don't get Ironworks/oxford till later on (when you have a few other decent cities to build one of em in anyways) and a bonus earlier in the game >>> then later in the game. I dont use national part often (the game is already won or lost by the time it comes availible, and I usually cottage down all the forests anyways), and the whole concept of a GP farm outside your captial is forgien to me, since I wonderspam my captial from the getgo.

Oxford is pretty optimal when coupled with IronWorks in a SSE/WE system. You are hitting two birds with one stone in a very big way here. I used to couple the NE with the IW here back in some older games, but have resorted to Oxford instead. The G*s that arrive are a little less, but you get a large boost science wise here. The only trick, is to make sure you get at least SIX cities.

Not many believe just yet, but I guarantee you that no more is needed for beating deity with this strategy.

As for the National Park, I think it's one of the most over-rated national wonders too. However, in this game I was actually able to use it perfectly with the secondary capital. Coupling that with NE was optimal. Usually I only have one GP farm, but I think with BtS I will end up often having two of them now. There is a small G* penalty for it though.

 

[obsolete]

If new people really are to learn alot from this series it would help out alot if you did a more complete analysis of your starting position and your build order until 2000BC/(1000BC) or so... How you do the chopping/whipping to max out

I thought I took a shot of just about every wonder that was in production. The total # of screenshot posts in here was a lot, and I was already worried it was too much (bandwidth issues for people).

I suppose I could also include shots of every single trade attempt or transaction, but is that really needed, or worth the effort?

Things like chopping are sort of self explanatory as well. Even without mentioning them, one can see all the disapearing forests from wonder shot to wonder shot.

Unless, do you mean to ask if I specifically chop just before starting a wonder to max overflow, then apply that onto the wonder itself?

I will tell you this, I DO pre-chop a lot.

 

[ShredZ]

I think one of my main problems, perhaps the reason that Im still playing on Monarch, is b/c I concentrate on trying to beat the AI (in war or tech) and dont concentrate enough on slowing the AI down by keeping it at war with itself. If thats the case that you dont need to bribe the AI too often, would you say then that you concentrate on keeping their attitude toward you quite positive by giving in to their demands, possibly accept their state religion for 5 turns and then switch back to NSR or something along those lines?

 

[obsolete]

1900's late for space, normal speed on immortal???? I don't think so.

IndianSmoke has hit a key factor on the head right here. Epic and Marathon have such bias in the human player's advantage, that I refuse to waste my time with them.

There is another big issue though. When using a SSE, it is only common sense to push for the latest game as you can. It's a simple mathematics problem. Each specialist gets you a higher return on investment for settlement the more turns they gain. I'd be a fool not to maximize this, as ROI is what we are all trying to achieve with EVERYTHING!

The two main problems NOW, are avoiding the cultural vic, and space race vic by the other Civs out there.

Anyone who thinks otherwise, is analogous to the type who sets off his space ship with just one casing for a 20% survival chance, just to get brownie points. It's all great and he's a scoreboard genius when it works, and if it doens't work he just reloads and launches again, or complains he had some BAD LUCK.

P.S. Also, stealing every wonder in the game slows down the AIs as well. That's a good thing of course, but it also has some effects on you as well.

 

[Slade19]

I too have found myself using this Wonder Economy strategy whenever possibly since reading your Warlords walkthroughs.

It essentially limits your victory to the space route, but that's not the worst thing in the world. And even then it doesn't so much limit it to that, as make it sort of silly to do it any other way.

I too agree that if executed properly, it's basically unbeatable.


My most recent game, I did this with Caesar. I had an absolutely amazing starting location to do this in.

I had stone, pigs, cows, and 2 gold resources in my BFC. I had 10 hills and it was on a river. Over the course of the game, both iron and copper popped on my hill tiles which boosted production even more. (Those random mid-game pops... not the default ones with bronze/iron working)

I only had 3 cities for a majority of the game. I just built wonders and teched like crazy. Eventually, I was forced to mobilize an army and take out Mansa who was WELL on top of the scoreboard and my only real tech rival. I started cranking out 1-per-turn Infantry and cannons and laid waste to my Malinese friend. Taking 6 20+ pop cities from him, razing a few useless ones and eventually forcing capitulation. My spaceship victory came shortly thereafter.

It's not hard when you're cranking out spaceship parts in 1-3 turns each.

Can't do that with a CE. You might be able to buy your modern armor every turn, but you can't rush spacecraft.


Has anyone ever noticed that, unless you have more than one city making your SS Engines, it makes absolutely NO sense to make a second one instead of just launching with only one?

Even with my massive production capital, it took longer to make the second engine than the turns it saved in travel time. Without a 800/turn production capital, you'd spend probably 5 times longer making the engine than the time it saves you.

 

[Johan^^]

I thought I took a shot of just about every wonder that was in production. The total # of screenshot posts in here was a lot, and I was already worried it was too much (bandwidth issues for people).

I suppose I could also include shots of every single trade attempt or transaction, but is that really needed, or worth the effort?

Things like chopping are sort of self explanatory as well. Even without mentioning them, one can see all the disapearing forests from wonder shot to wonder shot.

Unless, do you mean to ask if I specifically chop just before starting a wonder to max overflow, then apply that onto the wonder itself?

I will tell you this, I DO pre-chop a lot.

Yes thats partially what i mean.

Ex. using slavery and chopping to create overflow which can be transfered to a wonder etc. Could be : Whipping 2 pup and chopping forest the same turn to finish something you get modifiers for, that might just need 31 hammers to finish....

Founding a new city --> Ex. "i founded it here due to the +2health from fresh water" ...etc

What i´m going at here is really... You must have a huge knowlegde of how all those "small" features like health etc., that in this case determind the location of a city. It could be how to get the maximum output of hammers etc... Techs to research for maximum techtrade with the AI...

And Ex. in this game you left 3 forest alone in the BFC of your capital hoping that some of the forest would regrow and therefor didnt make improvements on those titles. ( I guess ) ? I know you like those railroaded-lumbermills

Some people might not realize this and thus would learn alot from just reading your post besides your strategy.... I know that when i took up CIV4 again just before BTS was released i had forgotten about these small features. I went to the forum to read up. Found your post on warloards games and did pick up some of your strategy, though not all the little things that really can make the differens. In my opinion its the knowledge about the little things that determind, if you are able to move up a level or 2...

 

[obsolete]

I think one of my main problems, perhaps the reason that Im still playing on Monarch, is b/c I concentrate on trying to beat the AI (in war or tech) and dont concentrate enough on slowing the AI down by keeping it at war with itself. If thats the case that you dont need to bribe the AI too often, would you say then that you concentrate on keeping their attitude toward you quite positive by giving in to their demands, possibly accept their state religion for 5 turns and then switch back to NSR or something along those lines?

Often I do give in to demands if it isn't too costly, or mess up my civics too much. I'll do it much less so if they are on a seperate continent though.

Naturally, being spiritual is great to have when giving into a civic change demand, but even still I"ll refuse sometimes. If I'm researching liberalism and I feel im racing with someone, I'll often refuse the demand to switch out of representation, etc. Even though I won't have anarchy, I will be pumping less pill bottles, and that could force me into an extra turn... one that could cost me the race.

 

[obsolete]

Has anyone ever noticed that, unless you have more than one city making your SS Engines, it makes absolutely NO sense to make a second one instead of just launching with only one?

Even with my massive production capital, it took longer to make the second engine than the turns it saved in travel time. Without a 800/turn production capital, you'd spend probably 5 times longer making the engine than the time it saves you.

I found this out the HARD way. During that walkthrough, I checked the civopedia, etc trying to find info on how the space ship parts affected flight and turn length. I couldn't find anything. So I had no choice but to sort of guess by trial and hope I was doing things efficiently.

Just to be safe I waited until I was 100% completed the ship before I launched. This was ok, because I could see in the victory conditions screen that I was still ahead in cranking out parts like there was no tomorrow.

Looking back at the directory of shots I made, I see that only having half the SS-Engine power, only delays the ship by 2 turns (assuming everything else is complete).

So, I could have launched even sooner, but I had no way of knowing until at least playing my first space race game.

Next time, I'll know ahead and be ready.

Again, I apologize for things that were not tweaked to perfection here. It really was a learning process for myself as well.

 

[obsolete]

Yes thats partially what i mean.

Ex. using slavery and chopping to create overflow which can be transfered to a wonder etc. Could be : Whipping 2 pup and chopping forest the same turn to finish something you get modifiers for, that might just need 31 hammers to finish....

Founding a new city --> Ex. "i founded it here due to the +2health from fresh water" ...etc

What i´m going at here is really... You must have a huge knowlegde of how all those "small" features like health etc., that in this case determind the location of a city. It could be how to get the maximum output of hammers etc... Techs to research for maximum techtrade with the AI...

And Ex. in this game you left 3 forest alone in the BFC of your capital hoping that some of the forest would regrow and therefor didnt make improvements on those titles. ( I guess ) ? I know you like those railroaded-lumbermills

Some people might not realize this and thus would learn alot from just reading your post besides your strategy.... I know that when i took up CIV4 again just before BTS was released i had forgotten about these small features. I went to the forum to read up. Found your post on warloards games and did pick up some of your strategy, though not all the little things that really can make the differens. In my opinion its the knowledge about the little things that determind, if you are able to move up a level or 2...

Well as for slavery, i didn't even use it at all on the wonders this game, that's why none was mentioned. The problem is, switching to slavery takes a whole turn of production with this leader. It just didn't seem optimal in this case, especially with having more than one city early and busy trying to fight a war at the same time. If I had been spiritual, then that is another story.

As for descriptions of founding cities, I only founded one city that entire game. It was the one on the shoreline which appeared near the end of the game. The main reason for this was that I had two sea resources in my culture borders I wanted, and also some oil appeared there, which I wanted as well. Other than that, I wouldn't have bothered at all. I had more than 6 cities already at that point.


As for the trees near the capital, yes I was planning to eventually make them into rail-roaded lumber yards. I also don't mind keeping them idle because I was really starving bad due to health problems here. So having non-worked bare-forests actually is still giving you hammer production.

 

[jihe]

I don't know, in my immortal games stonehenge is gone around 2400BC, great wall 1800BC and oracle 1800BC, I just never get to build those wonders.

 

[0R4NG3]

Nice game Obsolete, just a couple of questions:
1) How come you were running an engineer specialist in your capital instead of a priest, considering that you had the Angkor Wat. I know 1 specialist didn't make much of a difference but still.
2) I missed the point where you were supposed to disprove the cavalry myth Did you use Cavalry at all?

I've been using your strategy on Monarch/Emperor with great success, however I found that I am only able to do so when I use Stalin(Agg/Ind) and have a decent starting location. When I tried your strategy with Catherine I failed pretty badly. So if you care to make yet another Impossible Walkthrough I'd apreciate it if you did it with Cathy, doesn't have to be Immortal, Emperor will do.

 

[Halt]

Always find your adventures enjoyable!

What is the difference between what you are doing and a SE with the hammers for all the wonders going into Military or Building Research?

Don't get me wrong I am not saying do not build any wonders.... But it would seem to me what you have truly proved time and time again is the flexibility and power of SE and Hammer economy.

 

[obsolete]

I don't know, in my immortal games stonehenge is gone around 2400BC, great wall 1800BC and oracle 1800BC, I just never get to build those wonders.

Speed is the essence. Though sometimes one of the AI's is industrious, has stone or marble right outside his capital, and is the type of leader who beelines for it. In that case, you will never beat him to stonehedge or oracle if he's far away out of reach from you. I've tried to work out many solutions in this spot, and you just can't beat a scenario like that on immortal/deity. However, it's unlikely they will beat you to EVERYTHING.

 

[obsolete]

1) How come you were running an engineer specialist in your capital instead of a priest, considering that you had the Angkor Wat. I know 1 specialist didn't make much of a difference but still.

Well, Engineer or Priest doesn't matter much to me either way Though if it was from a shot after the SoL it was most likely because the system I think selects engineers by default for free specialists, or at least when the city governor is set to production.

2) I missed the point where you were supposed to disprove the cavalry myth Did you use Cavalry at all?

Yes I did, they were the invisible ghost cavalry. Unfortunately they wouldn't show up in the screen shots.

I've been using your strategy on Monarch/Emperor with great success, however I found that I am only able to do so when I use Stalin(Agg/Ind) and have a decent starting location. When I tried your strategy with Catherine I failed pretty badly. So if you care to make yet another Impossible Walkthrough I'd apreciate it if you did it with Cathy, doesn't have to be Immortal, Emperor will do.

I"ll add it to the list of possible things to do. But next I really must get at least one of my deity games up, to protect the Wonder Economy legacy.

 

[obsolete]

What is the difference between what you are doing and a SE with the hammers for all the wonders going into Military or Building Research?

Most SE used in warfare, doesn't involve settling (or barely any at all). They are burned off for quick gains in tech in the short run, nothing in the long term. If you feel it will guarantee you victory in a war, then I suppose it could be worth it. That leaves you with only your tiles to generate production, etc.

Settling specialists in random cities, wouldn't be advisable. Also, making a super city, then devoting it to only military production would be very wasteful too.

 

[Halt]

Most SE used in warfare, doesn't involve settling (or barely any at all). They are burned off for quick gains in tech in the short run, nothing in the long term. If you feel it will guarantee you victory in a war, then I suppose it could be worth it. That leaves you with only your tiles to generate production, etc.

Settling specialists in random cities, wouldn't be advisable. Also, making a super city, then devoting it to only military production would be very wasteful too.

Oh don't get me wrong I agree with the Settling idea...

I guess what I am trying to say the main differences between the fantastic way you play and a traditional SE seems to be:

1. Wonder Spam instead of other options (more war/build research/wealth)
2. Greater use of the Iron Economy Strategy (more efficient to build wonders than build Research or Wealth)
3. The ability to make use of a low food capital early.

I think you have proven clearly the power of this strategy... I am just looking for tips to improve my play going from Emp to Imortal

 

[KMadCandy]

interesting thread as always, thanks.

one thing struck me as odd. in 850 BC you captured a Korean city with gems in the cross (altho they weren't yet mined). as late as 1020 AD they still weren't hooked up to your capital, which had a health cap one higher than happy cap, so having them online would have given you another body to put to work wouldn't it? also the copper/health resources there weren't connected to the other cities, but if you'd needed metals at your troop-making cities i'm sure you'd have taken care of it *giggle*.

maybe the forest chopping took priority for you, and since you weren't making units there you didn't need the faster travel the roads would have provided. it's not the way i'd have done it, so i'm curious about whether it was an oversight or a conscious decision and if so, why. maybe all the wonderspamming never gave you time to grow the pop in the first place.

 

[UncleJJ]

Most SE used in warfare, doesn't involve settling (or barely any at all). They are burned off for quick gains in tech in the short run, nothing in the long term. If you feel it will guarantee you victory in a war, then I suppose it could be worth it. That leaves you with only your tiles to generate production, etc.

Traditional SE does favour warfare but it can involve settling. Many of the more vocal advocates of SE thought that lightbulbing was the absolute best way to go at higher levels but I was not among them. I often settled scientists, merchants and priests in Warlords. I also used priests to found shrines ( I know that's a big no no for you ) and then spread the religion to gain a source of extra gold. I think the essential difference between your version and and the traditional SE is your reliance on hammers whereas they have a reliance on food. They need to expand horizontally to gain more sources of food.

I could characterise your "economy" as a hammer and GPP based one. You tend to build wonders that give either a GPriest or GE GPPs. So you are turning hammers into a source of GPPs. Then those GPPs generate a GP that generates more hammers. You have a sort of Vertical growth whereby your capital becomes more and more productive in terms of GPPs and in terms of hammers with one reinforcing the other.

My versions of the SE in Warlords often had some characteristics of your method but since I relied on food to generate most GPPs (I often used Alexander) that meant it was hard to generate GPs that give a lot of hammers. It is easiest to run scientists and merchants in a traditional SE whether running Caste System or using the library and market to give specialist slots and running Slavery (which was my favoured method). If I built or captured Angkor Wat and had a couple of religions than I would often run priests and generate GPriests.

The closest I ever came to making one of your super hammer cities was in Madrid - as Alexander . Izzy had founded Buddhism and built the shrine for me and Madrid was an excellent riverside city. Madrid eventually had Wall Street, IronWorks and 5 settled Gpriests and a couple of GMs and the riverside farms were turned to watermills. I can't remember what the total hammer output was and it was probably only half what you achieve in most of your games but I wasn't ever going for a Space victory and an easy Domination was the result. The city became my late game wonder factory (Pentagon, Eiffel Tower etc). I fully appreciated the part Madrid played in my victory but I also had several scientists settled in Athens with Oxford and a 4 monastries (from various religions captured or spread to my cities I didn't found any religions). Having two cities does dilute the hammer effort somewhat but does allow one city to specialise in gold and the other to specialise in beakers. Athens was a good, but not extremely good, hammer producer and built a few wonders. Both Athens and Madrid had plenty of food and often ran 4 food specialists before Biology and many more afterwards. Mercantilism and SoL gave more specialists in the middle game. In that game I tended to think of the food as the road to victory, and much food was turned to GPPs and the settled GPs gave beakers, gold and hammers to build more wonders and so on in similar way to your super city. It was just a weaker version split between two cities.

Settling specialists in random cities, wouldn't be advisable. Also, making a super city, then devoting it to only military production would be very wasteful too.

I agree, if going for a military based victory (domination or domination/ diplomatic through UN etc) a super city is best used to build wonders and only supplimenting the HE and other production cities when there is nothing better to build.

--------

Anyway that is all history now as I shan't be playing Warlords again, In BtS I feel that balance has been changed by the introduction of the Espionage system and spy specialists. Now food can be used to give beakers, gold and EPs. Also Golden Ages have changed the way a food based SE is run in the middle game. I haven't formed any firm conclusions yet but all my BtS games seem to end up as hybrid economy with a few wonders, some cottages (built and captured) and a lot of specialists. I never seem to get close to a pure SE. It almost seems as if the old CE versus SE ideas have been merged into two flavours of the HE depending on whether the player has more cottages or more farms and that determines what civics are run. Corporations have also affected the way a SE is developed making a choice between the various civics Mercantilism, FM, State Property and Environmentalism have a big impact.

 

[tucnymaster]

SSE/WE sounds good on islands.

Though i prefer my warring police state economy. At least somebody found that SP <3 all others.

 

[oldsaxon]

I felt it was a little silly using Huyana for a few-cottage strategy. OK, it proved a point, but... why intentionally restrict yourself?

I'd rather see you pick the leaders you think will compliment the plan. OK, so you've used Rameses and Gandhi a lot - pick a new one, but pick the ones that will help your style of play, not a Financial leader because you want to "prove a point."

Otherwise, though, great threads. I'm still more or less a 'newb' myself, so I'll certainly be trying out this style and seeing what I can take from it.