another hof spacerace start

[iggymnrr]

on noble difficulty it's very close call between state property and corps.

just scroll best dates on noble standard (I think it is) iggy and pollina have there some great competition between themself and iggy is more on the SP side now.

I don't think that on Immortal SP is viable the same way as corps due to the increased tech costs through difficulty.

Where as on noble you need (let's say) 5-6k beakers for 1t/turn you would need on immortal 10k... and SP won't give you 10k, but can give you 5-6k beakers with big empire on inland sea.

Another good thing about noble is that you can be very quick to workshop spam because everything is cheaper and you can run caste because you don't need to whip for military.

Not sure which path has the upper hand now, but it is very very close between SP and corps on noble

As the games speed and level go down the point when a speed of a tech per turn comes increasingly earlier. For example, if scientific method is the last tech before a tech per speed is reached ... why spend the time to spread a corp when state property can sustain that speed long enough?

 

[Snaaty]

i havent forgotten about this. i just didnt have lost of time to play and to do some writeups. but finally, i reached 1 AD, playing in 3 short, but timeconsuming, turnsets (each turn is taking some 15mins now). i will try to do the writeups within the next days, starting with the frist one right now:

to 300 BC:

Spoiler :

we have now enough units to split the army and are advancing with 2 armies on 2 ai´s in parallel. each army, with reinforcements is about 10-12 units, some 1/3 cats, 2/3 phants. with a first gg settled in the capital (which is pumping all the cats), we now can build precison cats and cr2 cats and walls and hill cities arent a problem any more.

army 1, advancing on the spanish capital (on a hill):


army 2, advancing on the first russian city (with city walls):


...

research:

here, i´m really undecided so far. i did put a few beakers at 0% research into nationlism (for the taj), then chanced to dr (for spiral). but since we can se mansas reasearch, i guess i will wait 2 turns more untill i start researching again. maybe he will research something usefull and i can trade a bit more with him.


since i want to get apo/sankore/spiral up, while running merk+rep, i need nat + const + guilds + banking. which order would be best... ...no idea. pp for more income from cottages and opening up the path towards the SoL (yes, i also want to gun for the SoL... ...so much for a hard-beeline towards corporations) and edu for oxford and lib also would be nice... ...ugh, hard decision...

i also opted for gifting all my techs to mansa, eli and dari to make them usefull a bit longer. spoints now are on dari, i want to see his research asap to better plan my own. eli is a bit of a dissapointment, she is simply to slow researching. so i guess she will be next on the "head on pole" list since she simply isnt usefull in any other way...

...

civil plans:

get 2-3 galleys out and settle some islands, plant a supercrap city on marble and start on some marble wonders. some settlers for some first filler cities are also planned. i have decided against building wealth btw. i figured that putting ov into some marble wonders in various cities via chopping and ov (plan is 100+ hammers / turn in 1 or 2 cities each turn) will result in more cash, because with marble, forge, org and ind, each prod.point is 3 hammers/gold. if i could manage to put ov in 2 cities into 2 different marble wonders (or national wonders) each turn, i can keep up research at 100% forever...

 

[soundjata]

@ Snaaty, may I request for a summary of whip anger in your core cities?

 

[Snaaty]

@ Snaaty, may I request for a summary of whip anger in your core cities?

in short:

for the first wave, i whipped in all 6 cities phants whenever possible. capital was building cats without whipping (had 7 cities in total).

after the first wave, i set 2 cities to build wonders and kept whipping in 4 cities (the ones with stables). now i tried to stay below 5 (50 turns in total) of whip anger. i stopped whipping 1 pop phants and did 2 pop whips, next phant with ov and so on.

cities and whips in detail (only cities that got whipped for both army waves):

Spoiler :

guanz: 22 turns, ready to whip again
shang: 44 turns, just whipped
hang: 29 turns, ready to whip
nanj: 36 turns, wait a bit with whip

at 300 bc, i already stopped building units execpt cats in capital, because i was close to 20 phants (more then enough). all cities are on civil projects already (mainly courthouses)

 

[GKey]

Regarding tech: Main reason I wanted to replay last turnset - I was undecided with research too. Went for music then for nationalism. That was wrong IMO. We can get Education and Oxford here really really early.

 

[Doshin]

My only bulb this game went into Liberalism. It later occurred to me that I should have bulbed into Education instead, for earlier access to Universities and Oxford (as GKey did, I think?).

 

[GKey]

I bulbed Edu in my previous try. The point was I went for Aest-LIt-Muz and only then got Paper, still relatively early somewhere around 600BC. The problem there - I was warring at that moment, could not afford to run scientists. So I stupidly postponed Education waiting when I will get a moment to get GS, so I finally can bulb it.
In my current try I teched Edu without bulbing right after Paper, and got Oxford 50AD (that stupid delay to get Music ... could get it some 15 turns earlier... oh well).

Still uncertain when to start Golden Age. Wait for MoM - ok, wait for Mids for Representation (means settle stone island) - um.. ok, wait for guilds - banking for mercantilism, etc.

Seriously, was it worth it to postpone GA that much? Such great start makes me feel obliged to get some good results, so I play unusually slow now.

 

[Snaaty]

well, i didnt beeline edu either (as i said, already reached 1 AD). i actually went down the same path gkey described:

musik-nat.

income was really bad around 1 AD in my game, break even around 20% slider, so not really sure that faster edu would have had that much effect.

...

will try to post the missing writeups asap so you can better compare.

 

[Snaaty]

@ gkey:

crosspost...

...

concerning your question about GA:

i havent started one so far. my plan is to start one asap once the MoM is done for the extra turns. Should be around 100 AD. Plan is to switch into merk+rep during this GA and to finish some wonders (Sankore, Spiral, Taj + HE). I als plan to start to build another wave of units, this time trebs+maces, to take eli and/or mansa out.

maybe i only leave dari alive. more cities = more good i guess.

 

[GKey]

@Snaaty Are you sure you need that many more units? Isa, Lincoln, Peter got 2 cities each. You can crush them already. You want kill more AIs? I think I will kill Mansa later on and let Lis and Darius live.

Did you get AP?
I have many cities with confu and decided this time to not spend hammers on spreading buddhism, that means I need get AP myself, not count on Lis.

 

[Snaaty]

@ gkey:

i guess i will kill all except dari. if needed to avoid dom, i will gift him cities. more cities captured = more plunder money. also, best way to avoid the ai to run emancipation is to kill them, no? and the HE i want to built anyways because i want to cash it in (starting it in various cities, then finishing it in capital)

i got ap around 200 bc. was crucial to my strat., and therefore top prio, because i already sent enough missionaries to dari to make him second canditate. now voting for him brought him to friendly

besides, i already started to built buddist monatries and temples whenever and wherever i could, so i really wanted that wonder (and only with mansa having stone, there wasnt much risk)

...

working right now on next update btw.

 

[Snaaty]

here we go, up to 150 BC (glh captured):

Spoiler :

we managed to get to the russian capital really fast. thanks to our brandnew precision and cr2 cats:


russia is no more, and the first american city is already taken.

...

stupid only that lincoln just reached feuda. capturing his 3 remaining mainland cities will be a lot more costly now.

i already might have mentioned this, but for his settling pattern, he needs to die. not only did he settle his mainlland cities the most crappy way possible, he also settled 4 island cities... ...and non of them has food, not a single seafood in bfc, nothing. i start thinking he did that on purpose to make my go mad... ...it is really, really hard NOT to have seafood in a cities bfc on this map...

...

speaking of islands... ...trading maps around showed this:



i need optics now asap and i need to get if before dari gets it. if not, the extra vision over sea would give him the circumnav. bonus. so i already started a trireme in the closest city, it will get whipped next turn and sail towards the english border. with nat. finishing this turn, the research ov should be enough to get optics in 1 turn (if not, i simply will put some cities to build research). like that, it will be exact timing, i can upgrade the trireme at the most extreme point of our territory exactly the turn we reach optics.

...

what else... ...maybe a shot of our capital at 100% research:



base research is around 100 beakers, so uni+oxford would be around 125 beakers. but we are talking here of 100% research. dropping the slider to 50% already makes it some 60 beakers, dropping if further down (break even at 1 AD is 20%, and still dropping with each new city i capture or settle), so we are talking more of 30 beakers.

so my thinking of planning the next research projects was the following:

->finish nat., then 1 turn optics
-> pp because some 25-30 cottages would be affected. with bureau and other boni it would be more like 50 commerce in total, independent of slider. so pp next seemed logic.
-> MoM will be finished in some 5-10 turns (depends how much turns i take my time to generate ov in other cities). so the first GA will start soon. during this GA i want to switch into Merk+Rep, so guilds-banking-const. are needed.
-> after pp const., hopefully dari or mansa research guilds, trade for it, switch research to banking, after banking back to const, switch civics asap.
-> only then edu.

i am thinking along the following line:
0% research -> 0beakers (seems logic)
100% research -> around 500 beakers

so each 10% i can raise the slider equals 50 beakers. if i now am able to raise the slider 20% thanks to banks, merk and const, it would bring the same as uni+oxford in capital, but only if research would be at 80% or higer. if research is lower then 80% banks, merk + const wins... ...is my thinking wrong here? or do i make some calculation errors?

also high prio. are spiral and sankore (mainly spiral, sankore is only a boni on research). with 20-25 temples and monastries, it should be around 100 gold extra, which are another 20-30% research rate... ...same as above... ...is my thinking wrong here? or do i make some calculation errors?

...

as you can see, votin for dari on the apo-elections made him friendly towards me.


now we have 2 ais which whome we can happily trade on a few turns more (i dont expect them to be usefull much more, maybe up to 500 AD). after that, it´s time to take most of their cities, because that seems the most usefull and logic to do... ...no?

you can also see that mali will provide us with dr in a few turns. dari... ...no idea, but we are working on seeing his research. most likely guilds or engineering (both we happily will take).

on city management:
cities that already have the apo-religion are getting monastries and temples up, all other cities are backfilling some basic infra/galleys/settlers...

 

[Snaaty]

concerning the discussion on bulbing edu:

i havent bulbed in my game (nor breeded a GS), for 3 reasons:

1. i havent priorized edu high enough (see writeup, might be wrong, but well...)
2. research was really good, so selfresearching seemed a better plan, saving the GP for later (GA)
3. i want a GE as next GP, for mining (already breeding one in the HG city)

...

all this might be wrong, but that´s what i did and why...

 

[GKey]

i guess i will kill all except dari. if needed to avoid dom, i will gift him cities. ... best way to avoid the ai to run emancipation is to kill them, no?....

I think Emancipation works through amount of population in civ running this civic. Rival civ runs emancipation having 1 city with 10 population, effect is going to be the same as if it had 2 cities with 5 population. Am I wrong?, because if am not gifting cities to civ will cause more emancipation penalty. That's why I think to let AI's have more territory on our land mass to prevent domination. Small islands have negligible effect on domination, so we can keep them to our self.

Where is the save, Maestro?
I wonder why UoS/Spiral make considerable difference in your game and made negligible difference in mine. My guess right now - many whips delayed cottages growth in your core cities. Plus excessive army costs. OTOH I think you are under impression these AW games of yours , where we got no foreign trade routs and UoS+Spiral really do the difference. In normal game having peaceful AIs with some 12-15 cities means having some 30-50 commerce through trade routes, therefor some 80 base from UoS is nice to have, but not really a must. 80 base on the other hand is huge, but requires beeline useless tech.

well, i didnt beeline edu either (as i said, already reached 1 AD). i actually went down the same path gkey described:

musik-nat.

Well, if I'd play this again, I would never go for Aest-Lit-Music path. To make these useful I needed marble, means kill Peter first (same for Nationalism). Going for Education instead would make me have Oxford in already. Now Great Artist slipping in capital for some 30 turns, because I am waiting for MoM to start GA.

Circumnavigation bonus is huge here, no doubt, need it at all cost. I buy maps every 3-4 turns and never sell mine. Lizzy needs to be friendly to sell maps . Speaking of friendly:

...
as you can see, votin for dari on the apo-elections made him friendly towards me...

Wish I could do that

Spoiler :

fricking -7 for attacking friends no idea how to deal with his WFYBTA.

...
i am thinking along the following line:
0% research -> 0beakers (seems logic)
100% research -> around 500 beakers

so each 10% i can raise the slider equals 50 beakers. if i now am able to raise the slider 20% thanks to banks, merk and const, it would bring the same as uni+oxford in capital, but only if research would be at 80% or higer. if research is lower then 80% banks, merk + const wins... ...is my thinking wrong here? or do i make some calculation errors?...

What are you going to get from golden age? I'd go mass GM's, so you will not have any slider problem for like 20 turns. 4 universities (beside capital) for Oxford + libraries and monasteries in you core cities means +60%. With not going mad on whips and with Oxford you can make some giant leap in research.

That's my plan. Have some caveats though:

Spoiler :

First I don't have AP. And for AP I need to switch into religion (surprise!). And I did not switch into OR yet (4 pop universities whips ). Wonder if it was worth it to spend 2 turns in anarchy.

Confu is dominant religion, but I don't have shrine yet. Milking GP in Delhi.

Spoiler :

Going to get AP in Delhi (more GP points), missionary will arrive there on the next turn, but MoM will take 2 turns, so I am going to whip it now. Next turn I fire GA, adopt confu and switch into... OR. Need it for efficient chops into AP in Delhi, plus I still need some whips. Means I will switch into cast+pacifism only 5 turns after that with only 7 turns of GA left. Will make GMs with starvation whenever I can and tech Guilds-Banking-Economics, chopping Mids in Bombay (will also get Hanging Gardens and Hagia Sophia there for GE points)

Spoiler :

Plan to adopt Free Market+Representation by the end of GA. Unlike AW games FM is better then Mercantilism I think. At least until I settle more islands.

On a side note I forgot to manage my spy points. nooby!

 

[Snaaty]

@ gkey:

some quick stuff:

1. dont forget that using ov for wonder fail gold brings more money thant building wealth (maybe even use mom in your game - each time you whip someting with max. ov, put it in the wonder). will delay the wonder a bit, but you can easily get 100+ gold each time you use this ov trick...

2. i count on the money from Spiral. UoS is a nice addition, but not really important. and i will be able to trade for DR at 25AD (i can see mansas research). will be really interesting what way if faster

3. mass gm´s during the ga... ...an interesting idea. i hadnt thought about that. might really work if you can manage to maintain the slider at 80% or higher (im loosing around 300gold at 100% research)

4. merk + const i think stronger then foreign trade routes, since the ai´s are not having really lots of cities with which to trade...

5. i have already a quite mighty shrine, so grocers and banks will provide another big boost to the economy. i again estimate this one higher or at least equal then unis+oxford

6. save... ...i will post the 1 AD save with the next update (i still have to write) once im back at my computer so you can compare

 

[GKey]

I have a question:

Which city would be better candidate to have Wall Street/corp headquarter?

I have two candidates:

Holy Buddha city Delhi, pure commercial city, with good food surplus, but not that strong on . I did not spread Buddhism since I already had Confu in my core cities. So now, If I want to make it Wall Street, need to spend some 1000 on missionaries. Worth it?

Spoiler :

Holy Confu city Shanghai, somewhat strong production city with average food. I got HE here (it was my best candidate then! ) Most of my cities got Confu and going to get AP monasteries and temples. Does not look like good Wall Street candidate but can build executives faster.

Spoiler :

Which one would you pick? And is it worth to spread two religions since I have two shrines?

Edit: By the way Merc seem to be stronger here then FM. AIs indeed got not that many cities for foreign trade routes.

Before and after:

Spoiler :

I wonder why does not BUG show from specs in financial advisor.

Also I would like to know about breakpoints of trade routs. At which city size trade rout get increased by 1? My GM trade mission nets 1100 gold (cap size 11 pop, target city size 15 pop). Will 1 more pop in capital increase it to 1300?

 

[Snaaty]

@ gkey:

1. if you have the hammers & time to do so, spreading 2 relis is great. you will get aprox. 80 gold via your second shrine (40*2 with bank, market, grocer). but you have to calculate the hammers invested like 1h=1gold, so how many turns will you have the income vs hammers invested...

2. delhi off course. get a levee up quick and the city will be a production powerhouse. add some workshops and it should even be able to produce corp.execs 1 per turn (if you start with mining, that is.

...

on to my game, up to 1 AD:

Spoiler :

actually, i´m quite surprided that i really managed to get to 20+ cities (21 to be precise) at 1 AD, even with starting the war that later (war was started 750bc). elepults did a good job, with few losses. the continent is alsmost cleared of 4 civs, only lincoln and isa each have 1 mainland city left.

lincoln´s city should fall next turn, isa´s city i will take on the way down to mansa, who is the next target.

here an ov over the core land (with lots of markers, so you dont really see anything...


most important are the relations with dari. after voting for him, we only had the +2 for 4 turns... ...now he dropped to pleased again, but only 1 point is missing for friendly... ...you also can see research at break even point, which is 150beakers and that we will get DR from mansa in 1 turn. that will help a lot, because we already have prechopped and prewhipped for a fast spiral in bombay.

the demo screen at 0% research:


and at 100% research:


we got the circumnavigation bonus btw. that will be of great use for settling all the islands.

...

the plan from here now is to finish lincoln, then isa, then mansa, then eli. research will go for printing press, then consitution. hopefully i will be able to trade for guilds around the time constitution is finished to go for banking asap.

with marble now the MoM will be chopped in Madrid. This will help against mali culture and be really fast with all the forests left there. A few cities will put OV into the MoM and later other marble wonders to cash in. That should help to bridge the critical point in this game:

I also figgured that the critical point in space-race-games is midgame (after searching the forum a bit on walkthroughs and well documented hof games):

expanding early to lots of cities is quite well documented (rushes with early uu´s mainly), but usually around 1 AD with 20+ cities you hit the point where your research drops below a critical point. if it isnt possible to maintain research above 500 beakers from 1 AD up to 500 AD and from 500 AD to 1000 AD above 1000 beakers per turn it simply doesnt matter how good early game is. too many turns are lost. lategame with corps is well documented again, but the span where the innitial conquering ends up to the point you start with corps seems a bit unclear to me...

...so i decided to experiment a bit with the reseach path and will try the following (most likely not very successfully, but hey, you have to try, no?):

1. rep+merk for a quick boost of research and prod (hiring engineers)
2. apo+sankore+spiral for another boost of research and prod, but mainly for the money. for that the reli buildings must be priorised
3. shirne and reli spreading. is needed anyways for point 2. getting wallstreet up quickly is another to prio.
4. SoL. although lots of people adviced a hard beeling towards corps, i still will squeeze in demo for SoL (some 5 turns if research can be maintained high enough). Unlike corps. SoL gets the boni right from the point you build it in all cities. With 30 cities we are talking of 30*6*1,5=270 beakers/turn. So getting it early enough and having it 30+ turns we should make a lot of profit (and with some planning, it can be built with wood and slaves...)
5. only then oxford. i want research rate up to 50% and stable before focussing on research buildings.
6. then on to corps...

ov research 1 AD:


Next is PP, then const, then banking.

save attached.

...

edith:
update finished

 

[soundjata]

20 cities goal achieved and overshot. Unbelievable O_0

Expecting a great victory date

 

[Manco Capac]

I think Emancipation works through amount of population in civ running this civic. Rival civ runs emancipation having 1 city with 10 population, effect is going to be the same as if it had 2 cities with 5 population. Am I wrong?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11931638&postcount=43

Lizzy needs to be friendly to sell maps

She never trades maps.

 

[kossin]

@GKey
IMO, Shanghai no doubt. Commerce is a non-factor for WS except for maybe 2~3 turns because your slider is at 100% research for the remainder of the game.

Great production to speed up Execs is a lot more important.