LP Deity challenge #5 Incas Science Victory (commented... somewhat)

Hello

Here are the 4 part let's play of my recent contribution to the deity chalenge #5 featuring the Incas for a science victory.

I'll be using my Freedom strategy for a fast finish.

Tried to comment it. Hard exercise... foreign language while playing at the same time. My microphone is rather bad too sorry. Hope you still can enjoy it (and understand me ).

Total length is around 5hours I think.

I miss the first 50turns on video but I made a 2min summary of it in part 1, sorry about that. I simply forgot to push the record button

Notes:
-I would have liked a 6th city but all the good spots were taken
-I fight 2 wars in this game, one against an angry Russia and one to Liberate Monaco
-I push culture a lot to get the policies I want
-The AI fortress bombed me like crazy, my 5th city was... you'll see
-Arts funding is passed and then repealed !
-We get almost zero we love the king day due to cusco asking for.... whales.


Link to video.

Link to video.

Link to video.

Link to video.

I'd be interested in knowing if commentaries were appreciated so that I know whether or not I should try to do them in the future.

I would be interested to hear your thought proces, go for it!

The other videos are private btw.

Thanks for posting. Your English is easily understandable. Much better than I expected actually. I'm only like 20 minutes into the first video, but I will definitely watch the whole thing. Your mic is fine btw. I've listened to some bad quality lp's and yours is not one of those.

This is a great LP mostly because there is not a whole lot of super optimal LP's out there. Tommynt has uploaded some stuff but it's mostly either back in gods and kings or lower difficulty. So watching a Science Victory done this fast on deity is something I'm very grateful for you doing. Oh and btw about the settling on bananas thing. The reason you didn't get 3 food even with the granary is because the bananas are on a hill. This means that with the jungle gone it's only a one food tile and then 2 food tile with granary. Since a city always has at least 2 food there's no improvement. Even on flat land, since jungle always reveals plains, you would only max it out at 3 with the granary so it's much better to work it unlike settling on say luxuries or on iron hill.

But overall this is very good stuff and my only serious complaint is that you need to un-private the other 3 parts. That was already mentioned but since I really want to see the rest I'd be cool for them to be un-privatized.

Also i subscribed and plan to look at your other stuff keep up the good work.

I've unprivate them, had forgotten.

jko1 said:

Oh and btw about the settling on bananas thing. The reason you didn't get 3 food even with the granary is because the bananas are on a hill. This means that with the jungle gone it's only a one food tile and then 2 food tile with granary. Since a city always has at least 2 food there's no improvement. Even on flat land, since jungle always reveals plains, you would only max it out at 3 with the granary so it's much better to work it unlike settling on say luxuries or on iron hill.

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Food doesnt seem to work same way as hammers. I once settled on 3 food wheat tile and city tile itself gave only 2 food like normally with no resources.

Are you sure ? I know that settling on cows give you 3 food.

Bananas are always on jungle which give 3 food normally(4 with granary). When you settle you remove the jungle thus loosing 2 food. When you build the granary you'll get +1 food making 3 food in the city tile.
Cattle is always on grassland which is 2 food, and the cattle is another 1 food, when you settle on cattle there is nothing to loose, nor anything to gain by building a granary etc.

When you were building the camp north of Olywhtatsitsname(the coastal city) you didn't remove the forest first. I find that forest doesn't get added in when you build a camp(or plantation).

Acken said:

Are you sure ? I know that settling on cows give you 3 food.

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Then it must have been bug. I settled wheat on flood plains and it showed only two food in city center it's also possible that I miss looked that tile.

I just finished binge watching the entire set of videos. There was some really educational stuff there. It's pretty interesting that you don't plant great scientist. Is that how you normally use them? Or was that strategy specific to this game? I'm glad you narrated the game too because you did a good job of explaining why you were taking the actions you were taking. Very helpful. I know Let's Plays can be time consuming, but I really hope to see more from you in the future. Also, Genghis is jerk. I can't believe he citadel bombed you three times.

hicks53081 said:

I just finished binge watching the entire set of videos. There was some really educational stuff there. It's pretty interesting that you don't plant great scientist. Is that how you normally use them? Or was that strategy specific to this game? I'm glad you narrated the game too because you did a good job of explaining why you were taking the actions you were taking. Very helpful. I know Let's Plays can be time consuming, but I really hope to see more from you in the future. Also, Genghis is jerk. I can't believe he citadel bombed you three times.

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I've never been sure about academies (unless the free one from babylon). Let's say you get one at T115, assuming ST at turn 150. Before modifiers, it gives you 8 for 35 turns, then 10 for 25 (before New Deal in Freedom), then 14 for around 25 turns. And finally 16 for the last 20ish turns with atomic theory.

With modifiers, assuming Free thought at 150 and labs at 175 it means you get total (let's also add a observatory and NC of course):
(8*35*2.33 + 10*25*2.5 + 14*25*3 + 16*20*3)*1.1 = 3615.7

So in theory I'd say an academy is at least better than bulbing for ST (or other stuff in that time period) in pure science. Since at this time you usually have only 2800 from a bulb. But that is not the whole picture.

If you don't plan to bulb ST anyway, it's highly questionable. Bulbing at plastic is around 6000 science, bulbing at the end is between 9000 and 11000 depending on your bpt.

The question would be then how much they accelerate the acquisition of plastics and scientific theory.

Using same numbers, you get a total of 717.64 before ST. That means you'd get ST only around 2 turns faster. Bulbing ST instead will give it around 6-7 turns earlier.
Between ST and plastics (25 turns) we are looking at a produced science of 687.5 from the academy. Which is probably not even a turn of extra science. After Plastics we're making 2211 science so it's worth around 2 turns. Overall we have won 5 turns plus whatever extra science getting ST and plastics a couple turns faster is worth.

Finally academies add another source of science, they make bulbs bigger. If we bulb 10 scientists the end game amount would be at best 16*3*8*10*1.1 = 4224. That amount is worth 3-4 turns of science so I'm getting back half of a bulb. But it's likely lower since you often bulb before atomic theory and sometimes you'll use one for plastics.

And I think I've used a base case scenario for academies: New deal, Observatory.

As a conclusion I'd say, make one if you want but don't bulb ST in that case. And no more than 1.

There is no doubt to me that making academies with every GS before ST is certainly a fallacy I've seen repeated on these forums.

Now I see where your beakers and impressive culture comes from. Thanks This should help my play.

I think your above academy analysis gives too much weight to "late" beakers when evaluating what an Academy is worth. Since beakers are roughly doubling every 25 turns early beakers are much more valuable -> you can approximate this effect with a ~25 turn half-life or similar discount rate. Bulbing into ST gives earlier schools, which then gives earlier Ideology & labs, etc. This only actually works if you can immediately build/buy the science buildings, obviously. (So WF timing can have a big influence here).

For Tradition games of this speed (or faster) I'm fairly certain all standard academies are misplays. (Babylon and Liberty* finisher Acads might be worth it. Perhaps a GL & Oracle accelerated GS is also an exception.)

* Another possibility for the Liberty finisher is to bulb into Education. That should net it 7/8 turns earlier ... almost certainly competitive with an academy.

Edit: The above is not very clear. As Acken argues bulbing ST is better than an Academy at getting ST quickly. If you don't have the infrastructure in place to build schools then you don't need the science yet anyways. The same argument holds for bulbing into Plastics. Bulbing at the optimum time for *your* game > Academies. (Except super early, maybe).

anyone for whales?

Acken you are the master of this game. First Babylonian blitzkreig and now Incan astronauts. Thank you so much for a brilliant demonstration, and clear and concise commentary. I salute you. You build civilisations that stand the test of time

Olodune said:

Now I see where your beakers and impressive culture comes from. Thanks This should help my play.

I think your above academy analysis gives too much weight to "late" beakers when evaluating what an Academy is worth. Since beakers are roughly doubling every 25 turns early beakers are much more valuable -> you can approximate this effect with a ~25 turn half-life or similar discount rate. Bulbing into ST gives earlier schools, which then gives earlier Ideology & labs, etc. This only actually works if you can immediately build/buy the science buildings, obviously. (So WF timing can have a big influence here).

For Tradition games of this speed (or faster) I'm fairly certain all standard academies are misplays. (Babylon and Liberty* finisher Acads might be worth it. Perhaps a GL & Oracle accelerated GS is also an exception.)

* Another possibility for the Liberty finisher is to bulb into Education. That should net it 7/8 turns earlier ... almost certainly competitive with an academy.

Edit: The above is not very clear. As Acken argues bulbing ST is better than an Academy at getting ST quickly. If you don't have the infrastructure in place to build schools then you don't need the science yet anyways. The same argument holds for bulbing into Plastics. Bulbing at the optimum time for *your* game > Academies. (Except super early, maybe).

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I noted that I was omiting the gain for earlier schools and earlier labs. However apparently these doesn't get acquired more than 2 turns earlier than without the academy. So the benefit of 2-3 turns earlier schools and labs is likely something like 1K5 of science.

Like I said the first academy seems alright and on par with bulbing at the end. After that first I'd vote against.

Acken -- what mod did you use to add all of that tasty stuff to the interface?

Enhanced user interface by bc1, it's available on this forum.

Commentary is like 50% (maybe more) of the value so definitely worth it .. if you keep at it you will not necesarily get much better at it but at least you will start to be at bit less nervous about it (speaking from experience)...

peddroelm said:

Commentary is like 50% (maybe more) of the value so definitely worth it .. if you keep at it you will not necesarily get much better at it but at least you will start to be at bit less nervous about it (speaking from experience)...

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Exactly right. All my favourite players to watch have thick accents, and I enjoy the game all the more for it.

Peddroelm, you have so much passion and aggression when you are cursing the AI and telling him you are going to destroy him, I love it!