[BTS] An attempt at 15XX AD Deity Space

Anysense

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The title sounds rather puny next to BC Deity Space, but its standard speed, standard size and no cheating with the Inca!
In a recent NC game I managed 246 launch and now I'm aiming at pre-230 turn launch or pre-220 launch for 15XX landing. I need some benchmarks to aim at. As I'm going to use caste-SP hammer economy, the key one seems to be Assembly Line, because hammer economy explodes with factories and power plants. In the game which resulted in T246 launch Assembly Line was T194. That is, for pre-1600 AD landing I need Assembly Line around T170 or 1100 AD! In my last game with a typicall HOF-like start (pigs with triple commerce) I managed T177, so T170 is definitely possible in better circumstances and with better play.

Game settings: standard speed, pangaea, standard size, temperate, low sea level.
Options: no random events.
There is no Civ without barbs, unless you play for HOF.

Leader - Catherine.
Why Cathy? Getting better dates for Space or whatever is about getting a whole lot of stuff earlier. The most imortant and expensive things you build over first ~60 turns are settlers and libraries and Catherine gets huge discounts on both.
Free border pops are very handy in the early game and extra GG's are a nice bonus too.

AI's:
Mansa.
Gandhi. Quiet fast techer, safe worker stealing, easy to cap, makes useful vassal.
Pericles. Excellent trading thresholds: 22 techs, 10%.
Elizabeth. Decent techer, not agressive, although can plot at pleased.
Augustus. Trading threshold is 22 techs. Relatively easy to get to friendly with Representation.
Frederick. Another "easy to get along with" guy.
Note: number of tech trades before WFYABTA isn't precisely 22 for those guys and its a bit random. Probably, because it fades randomly.

The start. Looks familiar... Yeah, the same double cows and PH as in the NC game mentioned above, except there is a hut on that PH.
Spoiler :
Civ4ScreenShot0000.1521548806.jpg

Actually, I've already played to 101 turn, so there will be a short write-up on the first 100 turns, covering only main points.
 
My first big goal has usually been lib->Communism. At that time the empire should already be getting close to domination limit, so getting rid of distance maintenance is a massive boost. Also allows you to switch to all out hammer economy, which usually is the strongest at that time, even before factories/power plants.

At best I libbed Communism T136, Assembly Line T161 and launch T203 (immortal/standard/normal). That's 10 turns less from AL to launch than in your example. This is one thing to keep in mind when comparing benchmarks. If you achieve the benchmark faster, then you are likely to do everything after the benchmark faster as well.

My general advice is to expand as rapidly as you can, and if possible peace vassal Mansa.
 
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The start did not look very impressive yet I decided to have a go.
Turn 14. I've Just finished AH and worker starts on pasture. Horses in the BFC are always welcome. However, here horses are not very important, because I will have more that enough early warriors to cope with barbs.
Scouting revealed a lot of abundant land, but what am I going to do with the capital so low on food?
What to research next? Obviously I need Agriculture and, probably, Fishing. The Wheel would not hurt either.
Spoiler Turn 14 overview :

14overview.JPG

 
@elitetroops Thats an interesting idea. I played only to turn 101, so it might be possible to try and implement it in this game. I think we will discuss it later once I'm through with the write-up.

Forgot to mention that I'd received 100 gold from huts. Well, you don't always get BW for free.
T21 Agriculture
T29 Wheel
T39 Writing
Further scouting revealed more fish and some riverside with forests in the west and nothing of the interest in the east.
Spoiler :

36west.JPG

39east.JPG

 
City 3 was founded on turn 40. Cows were improved beforehand and a worker was in place, ready to start farming rice. The timing is not perfect, though.
Tver may look pathetic, but its actually a very good settler pump.
Spoiler :
40city3.JPG

T42 Fishing.
I played first 40 turns rather hastily and I was bit sleepy. I stopped here and did some planning next day.
I think that such an early GS was a mistake. I could afford to delay him by 6 turns and build worker at size 2 then continue building library.
Spoiler :
42plan.JPG
 
Sounds like a fairly tall order on Deity, and the start doesn't look like much, but I wish you good luck :) Will be interesting to follow. I'd echo elitetroops in that it's important to grab much land early. Thing is, ofc, this is rather more tricky on Deity compared to even Immortal.

A look in the HoF, and not many have achieved 15xx Space on Deity. Hope you succeed! :)

Edit: Looking at the xpost update, is Mansa (and Gandhi) near? Peace vassaling Mansa would be great.
 
@Pangaea Mansa is far away. Gandhi is close enough, but Augustus settled between me and him. Settled 3W of the tile where the settler is. Later he settled another city to the west of this one. Makes achieving Land Target status with Gandhi more difficult. Besides, I need 1.5 power ratio (do I?). Thats not that easy on Deity. Probably, too late in this game; I'd have to expand more aggressively than I did.
Spoiler :

53Augustus.JPG



T57
About to settle cities 5 and 6 (both at T57). I was leaning towards grabbing that juicy spot with cows, forests and riverside once I'd scouted it, but my scout got killed by a barbarian archer a coule of turns later. Still fish+gold city seems to be poor choice. Why not to settle 1SW of fish? A lot more productive city, commerce is fine with riverside and forests would be great for failgold.
Spoiler :

54city6.JPG

 

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Besides, I need 1.5 power ratio (do I?). Thats not that easy on Deity.
Think it's actually lower for Gandhi, and possibly Mansa too (it's 1.5 for most, but a few are higher or lower). You're totally right that it's not easy on Deity though, especially the power rating. Deity AIs tech so fast, and before you know it they are amassing longbows and maces, which boost power quite a bit. Then Knights with 10-strength...

What's the plan going forward here? Who will you declare on, and with what?
 
T57 Mansa got Currency. Begged 30 gold.
T58 Aesthetics. I had to put 2 turns of research to trade Aesthetics to Alpha.
T60 Trades:
Aesthetics->Alpha with Frederick;
Aesthetics->Sailing with Augustus (still cautious);
Aesthetics->BW, Masonry, Mysticism with Mansa.

T61
61tech.JPG
Trades:
Alpha->Polytheism with Augustus (finally pleased);
Alpha->Pottery, Meditation with Gandhi;
Alpha->IW with Pericles.
Got 9 techs in trades so far.

T64
Iron was revealed near the cows-riverside spot and I went there, but Gandhi beat me to it. I settled on a hill 2W of the cows, something I would not have done without creative leader.
64city7.JPG
 
T69 Drama. I mean I finished researching Drama.
I have 8 cities and Moscow has grown to size 4:banana:
Doing 112 bpt at 100% with -44 gold per turn; or 36bpt +24gpt at 0%. The maintenance would not be a problem should Mansa trade Currency around or if I had something to trade against Currency. With Mansa's bening sole possessor of Currency my ability to procure gold is very limited.
I'm mainly building research, for buildings and units I have chops and :whipped:
Spoiler T69 overview :

69overview.JPG



T72
Finally, Math is available for trading. Conveniently enough Liz lacks a bunch of techs that other civs already have. Now I have math chops.
Spoiler T72 tech situation :

72tech.JPG

 
T76
Mansa got Calendar. Bad news is that he's also got marble. All in all tech situation is ok. In fact, so far I've been teching faster than in the game with the triple commerce start mentioned in the OP. I think I'd be better off if I had sacrificed a bit of research in favour of further/earlier expansion and better city development. That would yield better results in the long run.
Spoiler T76 tech :

76tech.JPG


I use 1-pop whips because for instance 2-pop whip granary is way too slow and I need my cities set up much earlier than usual. So I make granary in a new city 2->1 whip with a chop and "slow" build library with a chop. That's easily done because creative library is only 45 base hammers.
I prefer doing calculations in base hammers because its simple. You only calculate building's cost in base hammers once and the rest of the math is just adding/deducting. If you do math in actual hammers you have to covert base hammers and overflow into actual hammers and vise versa many times. Plenty of room for mistakes, particularly when you calculate chain overflow from building with different multipliers.
Some cities skip granary. For instance Novgorod has been stagnant for quite a while running scientists. Now it whips a worker whith max overflow into GL, builds it and runs scientists again. Just no point in building granary now.
Yaroslavl (northeast from Moscow) is very similar: only 4->3 lighthouse and library with a chop and overflow.
Moscow puts some hammers into GL for failgold; I wish I could add chops but I'm really short on worker turns now.
Spoiler T76 Overview :

76overview.JPG

 
I need Currency to trade for gold and extra trade routes in 8 cities. Mansa wants Literature and Drama + 30 gold... I put 30:science: into Currency and traded it on turn 79. Now I can get some gold and research Music.
As I did not expect anything good from that game in the beginning and played first ~40 turns hastily I forgot to focus espionage on Mansa. So I can see Gandhi's research (met him earlier than Mansa). From what I've seen he's been doing ~50 bpt lately, pretty meh fpr a deity AI at this point. It seems that Mansa isn't doing much better, may be 100bt. He is also busy researching something, which means that my bid on Music is fairly safe.
From that point onwards I keep slider at 100%:king:
I also bulbed Philosohy. Planned to research it because with Drama and CoL its only 968:science:, not a very big bulb. But I need something to trade for Calendar ASAP, otherwise Mansa may steal MoM and he is on the other end of the world.
Spoiler T80 Tech situation :

80tech.JPG



T82
Music expected on T84 and MoM with 4 chops is finished opn T89 (13 turns after Mansa got Calendar:dunno:)
Look at the forests around 1 size cities. There are 10 (TEN) of them, 3 in Rostov and 7 in Tver. Thats 600:gold: literally growing on trees. If only I built a worker in Novgorod in the very beginning I would have enough worker turns to transform all those forests into failgold. And if I researched Literature before Drama I could have that failgold between turns 75 and 80. Not so urgent now as I have other means of procuring gold.

Spoiler T82 Overview :

82.JPG

 
T89
Built MoM and started building a cottage. Yep, no cottages. So far I only had worker turns for improving food, gold, marble, some roads and for chops, of course. Still, 178bt in 650BC. Not bad for a start that "doesn't look like much", considering how poorly I played it out.
Spoiler T89 :

89.JPG



So far it all was about getting basic stuff. Now I have a free GA from Music to start Golden Age, MoM to make it 12 turns long, Philosophy for Pacifism. CS is coming in 2 turns, then I start GA, switch civics and religion. Thats next? I need a long term plan. The original idea was Lib->MT for early Cuirassier Rush and beeline Communism. Estimated dates in this game:
T91 CS
T102 Nationalism
T105 Paper
double bulb Education
part-bulb Lib
T108 Lib->MT
T114 Gunpowder. BC Cuirs? Cheers:goodjob:
T122 Chemistry
T125 Printing Press with a part-bulb if nobody researched it
T127 Scientific Method with a double bulb
T140 Communism. Not so far from T136:)
The estimates were rough though. Yes, they were. Actually I finished Nationalism on turn 101 and thats where I stopped. I chose my old estimates to show how I thought and what I expected, what benchmarks I kept in mind while planning the game and why I did what I did.
You can see that I need 6 GS's for that plan and I already had one. So its 200+300+400+500+600+700=450*6=2700 GP points. I made a GP plan and know where I get 5 Great Scientists, but 6th is a bit tricky to get in time for SM double bulb.
 
T91 CS
I started GA, switched civics and bpt jumped from 161 to 215, next GS in 5 turns instead of 9. Wait a moment, thats too slow! Oh, I forgot to adopt a religion. Gandhi, Augustus and Elizabeth are all in Buddhism and would like to adopt it too, but none of my GP farm cities has that religion. So I adopt Judaism for the time being. Now next GP comes in 3 turns.
I considered using Organized Religion and decided that loss of GP points > hammers spent on a monastery and there was no city that could use OR bonus for failgold. Besides, I'm going to beeline SM which obsolets monasteries, and I want to have one built before SM to be able to spread my religion without OR.
Chopping NE St. Petersburg and in the meanwhile Vladimir puts overflow into NE for failgold. NE T99 is very late; can't blame anyone but myself for that fail:(
Kiev is slowbuilding a settler, because I forgot to whip before switching into caste:hammer2:

Increasing whipping potential.
I'm going to settle 2 more cities. Their purose is purely military - whip cuirs. Kiev isn't good for whipping, so I'll make it stagnate working gold building research. The fish will go to a city 3W of Kiev. That city will work fish, a couple of grassland farms and a mine. Very good for whipping cuirs but I have very little time to set it up.
Another city will borrow cows from Novgorod and also work a couple of farms and a mine.
Spoiler :

91GA.JPG

 
T97. Moscow has grown to size 5:banana:
It's currently generating 94:science: per turn. Roughly one third of my total bpt which raised to 281:science: per turn. I'm still in GA, so its not a big deal. I think that Moscow will build granary soon and start growing at a normal pace. No MC to build forge, would be great to have it before Taj Mahal.
All of the religion spreads succeeded and now I can convert to Buddhism.
Only one gold is connected.
I've just noticed that Augustus is still protecting his cities with ordinary archers.:lol: He is also building roads through my territory. Thanks, Augustus, I'll use those roads well.
Spoiler T97 :

97.JPG



T99
Traded Music+CoL to Metal Casting with Frederick. Moscow starts on a forge. Not many other cities will have forge, no time for that.
That was 20th technology received in trade and Gandhi already fears that I'm becoming too advanced. Strangely enough Frederick doesn't, even though his threshold for WFYABTA is only 15 techs.
Finished NE in St. Petersburg. Got 118:gold: in failgold in Vladimir on the next turn.

T101 Nationalism
Traded Philosophy against Theology with Augustus. Good timing! Now I have 40% boost towards Paper.
Spoiler T101 :

101diplomacy.JPG

101tech.JPG

101overview.JPG


Attached GP plan. As mentioned above, first 5 GS's are easy, while getting the 6th one in time for SM may be complicated.
I'm switching to slavery at the end of the current GA to whip granaries and barracks. Then back to caste once Taj is built and 5 turns later again to slavery to start whipping cuirrasiers.
That is all assuming that I proceed with the original plan, i.e. ~1AD Cuirs and researching Communism around T140.
Different plan, involving Lib->Communism around T135 seems feasible. I need to think it over though. The main problem is that I haven't expanded enough, which makes Cuirs more attractive than a bigger Lib.
 

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I estimated Communism T140 when I was at turn 89. Now that I'm closer to the goal I can evaluate an achievable date more accurately and I want to look at Lib->Communism first.
Let's count the beakers.
Bulb on normal speed is 1500+population*3. Thus my bulbs will be 1500+50*3=1650 on average.
Liberalism with 1 bulb is (2366-1650)/1.2=597:science:
Printing Press with 1 bulb is (2704-1650)/1.2=879:science:
Scientific Method with 2 bulbs is (4056-3300)/1.2=630:science:
Two more bulbs go to Education; all in all six bulbs.
I've got 2 prerequisites for Paper 1014/1.4=725:science:
I doubt that I will have guilds soon enough so Gunpowder is 2028/1.2=1690:science:
Chemistry - 3042/1.2=2535:science:
Assuming that I can trade Machinery and Engineering in time I need 597+879+630+725+1690+2535=7056:science:. Lets make it round 7000 because I've got some overflow from Nationalism.
For T136 Lib I need 7000/(136-101)=200:science: per turn. But I expect average bpt of at lest 250, probably 300. With 250bpt Lib is exected in 7000/250=28 turns, with 300 bpt its 7000/300=24 turns or T125 Lib->Communism:eek:
 
Communism T125 is great, but what use is it for an empire of ~10 cities? Time for peaceful exansion is past, so I need Cuirs first. If I research MT it pushes Communism ~9 turns farther, still good at ~135 turn.
Another option is Lib->MT. I'd have to research Paper, Gunpowder, double-bulb Education, research Liberalism with part-bulb and trade for Compass (it has higher bulb priority than Lib). Alltogether I need 725+1690+597=3012:science: or ~11 turns of research. Thats T112 Cuirs, about 7 turns earlier than if choose to research MT and Lib->Communism.
What is the point in the latter then? It wins (4732-3380)/1.2=1127:science:. That is nearly as much as a GS bulb which is 1650/1.2=1375:science:. Basically, Lib->Communism compared to Lib->MT is almost like getting a free GS.
There is a problem: Lib is unlikely to be available around T135 (500AD). It means that I can't research MT and Lib->Communism.
 
T104 Paper, Education.
Traded Paper for 130 gold and a map to Pericles and for Compass to Mansa. Also traded map around for ~60 gold in total.
My main concern is to prepare for Cuirs. There is no point in getting techs early while being unable to leverage it. Therefore I stop building research and start building granaries and barracks in every city that will whip cruirs. Novgorod and Yaroslavl are particularly troublesome because I need them to keep working scientists almost till Cuirs. Probably will add a chop or two in Novgorod; Yaroslavl has one forest 24:hammers: worth; that will be enough, but alas, no build research.

I marked hill cities on the maps.
Spoiler Maps :

104Mansa.JPG

104Gandhi.JPG

104Liz.JPG

 
T105
St. Petersburg produced another GS (94%), a Great Artist would be unwelcome but next GS is scheduled to T112, which is accetable and it will be 100% GS.
I bulb Liberalism and trade Philo+Compass to Machinery+70:gold:.
Traded Compass to other civs for 50-60:gold: each. No point in keeping it as they will simply trade with each other if I don't.

T106
Suzdal got another forest after a border pop:banana:
Naturally, I chop it right away. Vladimir 7->4 whips forge. Suzdal 2->1 whips granary, a bit late.
Kiev will 4->2 whip a cuirassier, population working grasslands is useless, anyway.
Spoiler :

106.JPG

 
T107 Lib->Military Tradition.
I expect T114 Gunpowder. May squeez a few more beakers, finish it on T113 and have my first cuirassier on T114 (25BC), just for the hell of it.
Elizabeth asked Theology. I gave it and she's friendly now. Dunno how much use it is.

T111 Taj Mahal, was a few hammers short to complete on turn 110:(
I switch into Caste and pillage iron to build some warriors for military police. In the meanwhile Novgorod will hire 5th scientist.
Spoiler :

111.JPG

 
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