Orion's Home School 2: Nobles in Space

[Nickzilla]

I gotta say, I do like the idea of the espionage city. It's something I never thought of personally. I just used to stick Intelligence agencies and Security buereaus in every city that was making any espionage at all.

[eewallace]

Orion71: Looks good. You are certainly using more workers than I've ever used. Did you automate them to do the railroads or did you micro-manage them? (The only thing I ever trust them to do automated is trade networks after railroad--they screw everything else up if left to their own devices.) Also, do you have your workers working in pairs/groups?

Privateers: Are you automating them, or do you have them set to guard your coastline (if so, you must have a huge number of them...)?

Last question--at about this stage of the game, I often am running at 100% science, with several cities set to produce "wealth" in order to keep a decent income. Or alternatively, sometimes I drop the science down to 70-80% and set my science cities to producing "research." Do you ever do this?

[Orion071]

Originally Posted by eewallace

Orion71: Looks good. You are certainly using more workers than I've ever used. Did you automate them to do the railroads or did you micro-manage them? (The only thing I ever trust them to do automated is trade networks after railroad--they screw everything else up if left to their own devices.) Also, do you have your workers working in pairs/groups?

Privateers: Are you automating them, or do you have them set to guard your coastline (if so, you must have a huge number of them...)?

Last question--at about this stage of the game, I often am running at 100% science, with several cities set to produce "wealth" in order to keep a decent income. Or alternatively, sometimes I drop the science down to 70-80% and set my science cities to producing "research." Do you ever do this?

Ugh. I still don't have enough Workers even though I think I have more than I've ever had before. Major cities like Rome still don't have optimal improvements. Oh, well. I never automate Workers for any reason. I don't trust them. I usually have groups of 3 Workers building Railroads. I send 3 or so of these groups around and their job is to connect all of my cities by Railroad. The rest of the Workers go from city to city en masse and improve everything possible. I think there's at least 20 in that group. There's a few more scattered about doing individual tasks, but I can't really keep up with it all.

I really still don't have much of a navy just yet. I think I have 3 Privateers and 3 Frigates. I just finished researching Combustion so I can get some Oil hooked up. Once that happens, I'll put up a wall of Destroyers to keep an eye on the other side. My Privateers will stay behind the wall and sink any Caravels that wander by.

I'm almost to the point where I'll start building wealth and science. I have a few wonders that I want to finish first. As you can see from my city screenshots, I'm making a very healthy profit at 90% science. Even at 100%, I'm only losing ~75 gpt. I'll have enough cities produce wealth to even that out, and then the rest will build science.

[BrianJ]

I was wondering, is it necessary to cover all land in railroads in Civ4? I have a habit of doing that from Civ3 and earlier but I get the impression it only helps certain types of land now.

[Orion071]

Originally Posted by BrianJ

I was wondering, is it necessary to cover all land in railroads in Civ4? I have a habit of doing that from Civ3 and earlier but I get the impression it only helps certain types of land now.

It gives a +1 hammer bonus to Lumbermills, Mines and Quarries. So no, you don't need to cover up everything with railroads.

[EDaddy]

I have read both of your articles and I find them very useful, especially for beginning players. I have been playing Civ4 since it first came out and in the vanilla game, I was so good, I was able to constantly win Prince games!

I just got BtS last week and the game is MUCH, MUCH harder and the AI is WAY smarter than before. The game was so difficult, I had to step down from Prince for a while and go to Noble. Boy can the AI kick tail on Noble. Noble was a push-over in vanilla, and now the AI can hold their own!

I am currenly playing a Noble game and had a good tech lead in the beginning, but near the middle, the AI caught right up to me! I am planning to win a Space victory, but I believe i am already in the 1800s and the AI is not so behind in tech at the moment.

Now I have some questions for you. What's the point of building windmills when you can build a mine for more production? And what's the point of building watermills when instead you can build a farm or cottage? I get why you want to build a lumbermill -- to add production. And I get why you should build cottages obviously.

Which leads me to another question. Where is a good place to build the National Park National Wonder? I have never built it ever before, because it elimintes coal from that city.

Thanks and please continue your series. I enjoy it immensely!

[ParadigmShifter]

You can only build mines on hills though
Watermills get better with techs also, and with state property they get +1 food. When you get biology you don't need as many farms in a production city.

[ConanDBarbarian]

Orion, Thanks for all the hard work.

I play this game on Prince and Monarch, with many a win under my belt. However, my own self-taught strategy was nothing like yours. I had never won via space race because I had no chance against the AI, it would have taken me probably until 2100 AD.......so id go for the cultural/conquest/diplo win.

Just reading the first 4 pages of this thread, I was able to win space race on Noble in 1970, and Warlord in 1930, which is a pretty big accomplishment for me.
(you mean you can get future techs by the year 2000! wow!). Kudos.

[McGoo]

First of all - Thanks for posting your game. I love reading your decision making processes.

I have a question - how are you using your great spies? I noticed you do not seem to be settling them like I have been doing lately. I just recently got BTS so I am still trying to figure out the best way to use them.

[Orion071]

Originally Posted by McGoo

First of all - Thanks for posting your game. I love reading your decision making processes.

I have a question - how are you using your great spies? I noticed you do not seem to be settling them like I have been doing lately. I just recently got BTS so I am still trying to figure out the best way to use them.

I'm pretty sure that I haven't received a Great Spy in either of my games. Or do you mean Great People in general? I've settled 1 Great Prophet and used 2 others for Shrines. I believe I used a Great Scientist for most of Scentific Method and 2 of them for Academies. I've used other GP's for Golden Ages, but those were free GP's from researching techs.

If I did get an early Great Spy (through the Great Wall for example), I would probably settle him somewhere. I would only inflitrate another civ if they had a bunch of techs I could steal. In this game, I stole some techs from France, but they were so few and so cheap that I didn't need the EP's from a Spy to do it.

[McGoo]

Originally Posted by Orion071

I'm pretty sure that I haven't received a Great Spy in either of my games. Or do you mean Great People in general? I've settled 1 Great Prophet and used 2 others for Shrines. I believe I used a Great Scientist for most of Scentific Method and 2 of them for Academies. I've used other GP's for Golden Ages, but those were free GP's from researching techs.

If I did get an early Great Spy (through the Great Wall for example), I would probably settle him somewhere. I would only inflitrate another civ if they had a bunch of techs I could steal. In this game, I stole some techs from France, but they were so few and so cheap that I didn't need the EP's from a Spy to do it.

OK - I was thinking that Paris must have pumped one out at least once. In my current game I have a very similar situation...a captured capitol that became a spy center. The difference being that it started with the great wall. It has pumped out 3 great spies and I never know what to do with them. I infiltrated with the first one (which enabled me to steal a couple of techs), built scotland yard with the second, and settled the third.

[Orion071]

Originally Posted by McGoo

OK - I was thinking that Paris must have pumped one out at least once. In my current game I have a very similar situation...a captured capitol that became a spy center. The difference being that it started with the great wall. It has pumped out 3 great spies and I never know what to do with them. I infiltrated with the first one (which enabled me to steal a couple of techs), built scotland yard with the second, and settled the third.

Oh, I see what you thought. Actually, I only set up Paris that way for that screenshot to demonstrate an espionage city. I don't plan on keeping it like that. I'm so far of everyone in techs that I don't need any more EP's.

If I did get some Great Spies out of Paris I would build Scotland Yard with the first and settle the rest. In the more modern ages, Infiltrate won't get you as much as it does in the ancient age. Settling the Spy enables you to spread the EP's out to whomever you want instead of forcing you to use them all against 1 opponent.

[semirami]

Thank you for the topic. It's really wonderful!

I have a question too:

Do you plan to go for robotics and SE(it seems like you dont need Mech I or Internet), or you'll just skip it? It will cost you 5-6 turns for researching robotics and is useful only for engines and SC, because you'll probably have the rest. Not to mention, that you must build the elevator, using city with high production for it. And what about Three Gorges Dam?

[Cleverbeans]

I <3 Three Gorge Dam in my space race victories. After you rocket off into space I'd like to request a Cultural win next!

[Orion071]

ROUND 8 (1704 AD - 1842 AD)

I'm in the home stretch. The modern age is upon me and I'm ready for the final push into space. I've got the dominating lead in land, cities, power, tech, GNP, production... well you get the idea.

Turn 363: Many of my cities are building things because they can, not because they really need them. Ah, the curse of being a builder. I'm switching all of these cities to building Research or Wealth. I'll still have a city or 2 update my troops, and of course I'll continue building all of my shiny wonders. Must... have... shiny... wonders...

Turn 365: Aksum completes the Kremlin. The city will now build my one and only Coal Plant. I plan on having the city build the Three Gorges Dam to power the enitre continent.

Turn 366: Radio is done and the modern age begins. Now I can build the Eiffel Tower and the Cristo Redentor. Next is Plastics and the Three Gorges Dam. Paris starts the Eiffel Tower and Rome starts on the Cristo Redentor.

Turn 367: I get an event that puts me 2000 beakers closer to Plastics. Nice, but that's less than 1 turn of research.

Turn 368: More shiny wonders are complete (Spiral Minaret and Broadway). Yeah, I don't know why I built the Spiral Minaret either. I'm in Free Religion and it won't do anything. Well, that's 2 more cities building Research.

Turn 369: Plastics is done and next is Refridgeration on the way to Superconductors. Superconductors unlocks the Laboratory for even more research so it's usually my first modern beeline. A couple of my cities have health problems so the supermarket will help too. The more modern health boosts like the Supermarket and the Hospital are much more important in BtS. Factories and Oil in general cause a lot of unhealthiness in cities.

Turn 371: My civ joins modern times and finally hooks up some Oil. Now I can make some modern ships. Unfortunately, the Oil is another +2 unhealthy to every city. Good thing that Refridgeration is done next turn.

Turn 372: Refridgeration is done and Computers is next. I've got to obsolete the Spiral Minaret I just built.

Turn 373: My GP Farm produces a Great Merchant to go with the Great Engineer I already have. I'm going to try and get a 3rd GP for a final Golden Age. I don't think I've ever done a 3 GP Golden Age and I don't think I can recommend it as a good idea in general. But I have them, so I'll try it. My cities are full of specialists and they're pumping out the Great People at a pretty good rate. The next one will come from Aksum in around 15 turns and has a high probability of being a Scientist.

Turn 375: Computers is done and Superconductors is next. I guess I need to go back to Rocketry eventually... OK, after this one.

Peter is doing pretty well for himself, relatively speaking. He's managed to snare a tech I've neglected:



With Defensive Pacts enabled, I sign one with Hannibal and Peter. Only Kublai Khan is left out (Sitting Bull is Peter's vassal). Well, I guess there won't be any more wars in this game.

Turn 377: Rome finishes the powerful Cristo Redentor. With all of the specialists I'm running, it makes sense to go back into Representation. The switch adds over 300 beakers/turn to my total. I lose the extra hammer from Towns, but my production is pretty high anyway. If I need to rush-buy something for some reason, I can always switch back for 1 turn.

Turn 378: Superconductors is done. I need Flight in order to get to Rocketry. Every city that's not building a wonder switches to a Lab.

Turn 379: Somebody just traded around Banking because the other civs are switching into Mercantilism. This is wrecking my profitable overseas trade routes. I start selling them enough techs to give them all Economics. I know that Hannibal will switch into Free Market because it's his favorite civic. If the others won't switch, I'll bribe them into it.

Turn 380: Paris finishes the Eiffel Tower. This wonder isn't too useful to me in this game, but I love it for modern-day Domination Victories. The free Broadcast Tower lets you assign 2 Artists to newly-captured cities. When the city comes out of revolt, the Artists will pop the borders in 1 turn. Very useful. Plus it's a quick +3 happy in every city once I get Rock N Roll, Broadway and Hollywood.

Turn 382: Flight is done. Now I can build Airports for the extra trade route. I'm going to research Artillery next, even though it's not really necessary. It's only an optional prerequisite for Rocketry.

Turn 384: Artillery is done and Rocketry is next. I'm able to bribe Hannibal into Free Market, but Peter refuses. It's against everything that he stands for. Whatever.

Aksum produces the desired Great Scientist. Now I can launch a final Golden Age. This will probably get me through most of the rest of the tech tree.

Turn 386: Rocketry is done and Satellites are next. Rome will start on the Apollo Program.

Turn 388: Satellites are done and Robotics is next. Robotics will let me get the Space Elevator. Every little bit towards building those spaceship parts counts.

Here's a shot of the domestic advisor so you can see how productive I am in this Golden Age:



Yeah, that's almost 4300 beakers/turn. And thanks to a few Merchant spacialists, I'm only losing a handful of gold at 100% science. Some of my cities are unhealthy and losing food, but some Supermarkets will take care of that.

Turn 391: Robotics is finished. Fission is next on the path to Fusion. Adam Smith, the Great Merchant, is born in Paris. Maybe I'll use him to start a corporation. Yeah, let's bring Sid's Sushi into the world.

Turn 392: The Merchant arrives in Addis Ababa. You need to build the corporate HQ in your Wall Street city. Actually, on this continents map, there really isn't that much seafood around. Cereal Mills actually gives you more food per resource too. So...



Hmmm, only 4 gold/city now? Is that to offset the new lower maintenance? I really haven't worked much with corporations before.

Turn 393: Fission is done. Fiber Optics is next and then Fusion.

Aksum finally finishes the Three Gorges Dam. Man, that thing is expensive.

Turn 396: Lots going on here. Fiber Optics is done. I realized that I forgot about Composites. You need it to build the Casings for the spaceship. So I start on that.

Rome finishes the Apollo Program. Paris is building the Space Elevator and I'm saving my big production centers (Aksum and Rome) for the tougher parts to come. So I assign the next best cities to start on the 5 Thrusters, the Docking Bay and the Cockpit. In 2 turns when Composites is done, then I'll assign 5 more cities to work on the Casings. If you can spread out the construction like I'm doing, then the whole ship will come together much faster. It doesn't matter if a city can't build the Casings or Thrusters very quickly. All that matter is that they finish before the rest of the ship is done. I still have Composites, Fusion, Genetics and Ecology to research to enable all of the spaceship parts. Not to mention I still have to build the parts those techs enable. That gives me plenty of time for a slower city to build a Casing in 15-20 turns. It will still be done in time.

Marata (my GP Farm) pops out a Great Scientist. Well, I don't need the corps that he can found, and he'll lightbulb the useless Laser tech for me (and only about 1/5 of it), so I'll use him for an Academy in my next best science city. Seems like kind of a waste this late in the game.

Turn 398: The Golden Age is over and everything slows down. Fusion will be done in 3 more turns. I'm only producing 3800 beakers/turn now.

Turn 401: Fusion is done. Genetics and Ecology are the last 2 I need to launch. Aksum receives the free Great Engineer from Fusion. He'll go to Paris to finish off the Space Elevator. That will free Paris up to work on the Stasis Chamber once Genetics is complete.

Rome and Aksum will work on the Engines as soon as they finish the Casings they're working on. You only need 1 Engine to launch, but if you can build 2 of them, the ship will arrive faster. It's not much faster (only 3 fewer turns or so), so if a second Engine will slow you down considerably, then forget it.

Turn 402: My Great Engineer arrives to hurry the Space Elevator.

Turn 403: The Elevator is done and Genetics will be done next turn.

Turn 404: Genetics is done and Paris starts on the Stasis Chamber. Rome finishes my first piece, a Casing. It will now work on an Engine.

With only 1 tech left, production is more important than research. So I switch into Universal Suffrage and State Property. It's time to get these pieces done.

Turn 406: Aksum finishes a Casing and Gondar finishes a Thruster. Aksum will work on the other Engine, and Gondar will wait 1 more turn until Ecology is done and then build the final piece, the Life Support.

Sitting Bull is the first one of the other side to Chemistry and Frigates. He sinks one of the 3 Privateers that had been harassing the other coastline. They sat there while 3 different cities produced Caravel after Caravel. My Privateers ate up ship after ship. Nice to see that their reign is finally at an end.

Turn 407: Ecology is done and I start my last spaceship piece, the Life Support. The Life Support will actually be done 1 turn before Rome finishes the Engine. Aksum's Engine is 2 turns behind Rome's, so I'll speed it up the old-fashioned way, with a forest chop! There's a couple of forests near Aksum outside of everyone's BFC and the hammers will go to the capital.

2 more Thrusters are finished. All of my cities will just produce Wealth when they're done with spaceship parts. I just want to get through these last turns quickly.

Turn 408: Fascism is done as I start backfilling techs. My last 2 Thrusters are done as well. 1 chop is in at Aksum and 2 more are on the way.

Turn 410: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! It's 1800 AD and I'm still on this stupid little planet. Not even finishing Mass Media can cheer me up. At least this means we won't be having any more AP elections. I was the leader of the AP for almost 700 years but I couldn't put forth a single resolution because I was in Free Religion the whole time.

Well, all of this is getting a little boring. Techs were researched, spaceship parts were built, the other civs were completely oblivious... You get the idea. Where's that fast forward button...

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...

...

Turn 417 (1814 AD): Finally the ship was ready to launch:



And there it goes:



I think this part is kind of dumb. Now what? I have to sit here 15 more turns while nothing happens. I'm in a Defensive Pact with all 3 other civs, so no one could attack even if they wanted to. If everyone declared war on you as soon as you launched, then that might be exciting. Instead, I get to hit "End Turn" 15 times.

Where's that fast forward button again...

...

...

...

Finally...



The final demographics tell the story:



Yeah, a complete whitewash. I was even able to sweep the Top 5 City list:



My 2 main production centers filled with wonders, my crazy Double-Holy-Corporate HQ-filled-with-wonders-money-city, my GP Farm, and Lalibela, which was my 3rd city and a pretty crazy science center in its own right.

And the final score:



Not bad for a Spaceship Victory. Of course I did have a ton of land and a crazy amount of population. That always helps. Plus I built practically every wonder from the Great Library on to the Manhattan Project.

Here's the final save:

Zara Yaqob AD-1842.CivBeyondSwordSave

[Orion071]

Originally Posted by semirami

Thank you for the topic. It's really wonderful!

I have a question too:

Do you plan to go for robotics and SE(it seems like you dont need Mech I or Internet), or you'll just skip it? It will cost you 5-6 turns for researching robotics and is useful only for engines and SC, because you'll probably have the rest. Not to mention, that you must build the elevator, using city with high production for it. And what about Three Gorges Dam?

Ha. You underestimated my research capability. Robotics only took me 3 turns, but of course I was in the middle of a Golden Age. I think it's dumb that you can skip Robotics completely in the space race. If you don't need the Mech Infantry, then I would skip it completely. The Space Elevator is an overrated wonder that maybe will cut 1 turn off of your total spaceship time. It was easy enough for me to build with the Great Engineer from Fusion though.

Originally Posted by Cleverbeans

I <3 Three Gorge Dam in my space race victories. After you rocket off into space I'd like to request a Cultural win next!

I do like the Three Gorges Dam, but it is soooooooo expensive. Honestly, I think a couple of Coal Plants in your production cities is just as good. On a map with a lot of islands, the Dam won't even help you all that much since it's limited to 1 continent.

Hmmm, a Cultural win. That would be really, really, really, really boring to read, wouldn't it? I'll have to think about it. It would be a nice wrap-up to this series though.

[Deriem]

What an emotional ending! But seriously, all I can think of right now is, "How many cities do you need?!?!" I just got my first Noble win*, and I had about 10 cities. I thought I did ~meh, and then I take a look at your minimap and BOOM! makes me feel like an idiot. 3 turns for Robotics? Sure you were in a GA, but it took me 6 in my game... and I was playing it on quick! Once again you have me amazed at how much I need to learn

About how many cities SHOULD I have? Enough so that no tile goes unused in all of my empire? I seem to have this problem where I feel like putting things where even 1 tile overlaps in the BFC is a terrible crime. But what ends up happening is that I have enough space so that someone can come along and plant a city on my continent, and be just outside Culture Flipping Range. Mayhap a Tiny map with 4 AIs will teach me land management .

On the subject of a culture win, that would make for a very boring game! I did a 1800AD (sad, I know) culture win in about two hours. "Final Round:4000BC - 1800AD" wouldn't make for the greatest n00b thread. Perhaps you could try and win a Diplo victory on a larger-than-average map? Show us how to suck up like the best of them.

Can't wait for the next (final?) installment!

*The win was a cheesey, "Oh crap 50 turns left and my third city can't get enough culture because I didn't decide on a victory early enough. Hey Hatty, wanna Defensive Pact?" 40 turns later... "Hey Hatty, wanna have a Permenent Alliance when you're one turn away from a spaceship victory? Cool!" On the plus side, I was running 100% culture and got modern techs in ~7 turns!

[Cleverbeans]

Originally Posted by Orion071

Hmmm, a Cultural win. That would be really, really, really, really boring to read, wouldn't it? I'll have to think about it. It would be a nice wrap-up to this series though.

Well, since I can consistently get domination/space race wins on prince but I can't get a cultural on Warlord, I could use one!

[semirami]

I would like to see diplomatic victory, instead of cultural.

[cripp7]

it's amazing how much research you can get being in the 1800s. how about a global domination war