Behind the schedule

[Fire.Soul]

I'm in need of some advice.

It's common to see people winning the space race very early in the game around here. Yet, and despite winning, I get very close to the time limit every time. I'm on Prince, BtS, Shuffle Standard maps most of the times, Normal game speed, all victory conditions on and no special options enabled.

Playing as Huayna Capac of the Incans, I usually take advantage of the financial trait, creating specialised cities with tons of cottages and merchant specialists (also scientists, although not as first choice). In those cities I usually build Markets, Grocers, Banks, Libraries, Universities, etc. -- all the buildings that max out both research and income. I usually have the research slider at about 70%, not investing much on espionage and not investing at all on culture. I usually bee-line to techs that offer other techs and always go for the Oracle for its free tech.

What I'd like to hear is some advice as how I can win a considerable edge in research. Usually I'm just at the level of most my opponents in this difficulty level. Thanks in advance.

 

[oyzar]

land land land land land... oh and science buildings > gold buildings when running slider over 50%.

 

[Tennyson]

Trading, Oracle, Lightbulbing Great People, and either founding new cities or taking them from your opponent. Science specialists, Representation, have Vassals research techs, have some production cities build science.

One thing I wonder about - Merchants don't add to your base commerce, they add to your final cash calculation - right? So they are not generating ANY research points for you, they are just allowing you to take a bigger percentage of a small research pie. Switch your cities to science first/merchant second, and then see if your tech time drops.

Also, if your slider is 100% research (because merchants make up your cash deficits) then your banks/etc are only cashing up your merchant take. So set your sliders to 50/50 (or even 70/30) and THEN rebalance your specialists to get the desired total breaker count vs. cash flow.

 

[r_rolo1]

Well Fire.Soul , space race has two big components: The Production part, that is the SS production in itself and the Science part, that covers the necessary research. The production part normally is well covered ( IW, Moai, Factories + power, TGD,... ) so normally the big problem is the research.
I realized some time ago ( still in Warlords, while trying to save a almost lost game with a Hail-mary beeline to Fiber optics ( for Internet ) and then go to the Stars ) that the most obvious route for tech research for the Space race ( Rocketry and then the SS parts techs ) can take longer than a a less obvious beeline to computers. Why? Because the Labs give bonuses to both the SS production and the tech research. Researching Industrialism before rocketry is also a good idea ( alluminium + labs = 25% + 25% discount in all SS parts and in Apollo ).
Another thing to have in atention is to have ASAP the techs that enable the heavier parts ( like Fusion for the SS Engine(s) ), because that ones will be the ones that can make you loose more time.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

What I'd like to hear is some advice as how I can win a considerable edge in research. Usually I'm just at the level of most my opponents in this difficulty level. Thanks in advance.

If you are hoping for a fast space win, you probably don't want a large edge in research.

First person to build the last part; Pull everybody up the tech tree together, then beat them on the sprint to the finish.

Brush up on your tech trading and diplomacy, and figure out what sorts of trades you can make to accelerate the AI's research speed.

But that's sort of gamey, and probably unnecessary. Playing at prince level, you should be able to launch in the early 1900s with general good play.

My immediate guess would be either that (a) you aren't establishing a sound economic base during the ancient era , or (b) that your focus is on commerce when it really needs to be on research.

Oh, and less focus on The Shiny! would also be good. Quick sprints to intermediate milestones is likely less important than establishing a sound base.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

First person to build the last part; Pull everybody up the tech tree together, then beat them on the sprint to the finish.

That's a great article well worth the time spent reading it!

Brush up on your tech trading and diplomacy, and figure out what sorts of trades you can make to accelerate the AI's research speed.

At least in BtS, the AI simply will not trade spaceship part-enabling techs to me. So, I don't count on the AI anymore for Space Race help.

BtS also shuffled the Space Race techs around a little bit, so tech orders changed a lil in BtS.

This being said, my Space Race tech order is usually the same (BtS):

• Industrialism. Aluminum. Not so coincidental is that this tech enables Tanks, so if it turns out you don't have Aluminum, start building tanks.
• Rocketry. Start Apollo in your best city.
• Superconductors. Build labs in your best & cities.
• Satellites. Space Elevator pre-req.
• Composites. Start building Casings in decent cities.
• Robotics. Enables building Space Elevator.
• Fusion. Start building Engine (the biggest component) in your best city. Use the Engineer to finish the Space Elevator/3GD or to start a Golden Age. Either way, start a GA now!

-- my 2

 

[Fire.Soul]

Thank you very much guys! Fantastic help. =)

 

[Cer]

I think production can be a big part of the problem.

The AI goes for rocketry early and builds Apollo Program about as quickly after rocketry as it can. (smart moves so far.) What you don't want to do like the AI is fail to start building almost every single spaceship part within a couple turns of it being available to build. Pre apollo program, you can set up a bunch of cities with as much commerce as you can manage (but still, enough production to get bank/library/univ/observ quickly). Those commerce/cottage cities will be slow builders, and you'll set them on spaceship casings right away after apollo. Your high production cities build em too, and then when the need-lots-of-hammers parts come available your high production cities work on those. A big empire with a mix of slow- and fast- production cities will have it done in no time. Also, if you know a turn can be your last turn of spaceship building if you just chop down your forests, by all means chop. Don't be afraid to ruin a beautiful lumbermill-production-city, because the point of those lumbermills was to help get you to spaceship-launch.

For a human player, it's possible (if you agressively trade techs in pre-gunpowder times) to research your way to gunpowder very early and still research to rocketry from gunpowder in just a few turns. (well, maybe 20 turns on normal speed). Doing mostly your own research in the middle to late part of the tech tree can work very well on Prince and lower levels as long as you have a big empire with lots of cottage cities.

Oh, and less focus on The Shiny! would also be good. Quick sprints to intermediate milestones is likely less important than establishing a sound base.

I agree, although a sound base only needs to include techs that help you get a large empire and techs that help you run a powerful economy in your large empire. Banking, currency, code of laws, education, astronomy... all are a big help. To get a big portion of the map early, bronze working (if you do an axe rush) and construction (catapults) will do wonders.

 

[Cer]

By the way, with a large empire you don't want to build labs much (not necessarily any at all) because they don't save you any hammers unless you build several parts in one city. Space elevator has its own problem... if you build most of your SS parts after space elevator's tech is available you've waited too long to start, and if you only have a few more parts to build by the time you can get space elev. done, then space elev. uses up far more hammers than it can save you.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

figure out what sorts of trades you can make to accelerate the AI's research speed.

At least in BtS, the AI simply will not trade spaceship part-enabling techs to me.

Then I likely wasn't referring to part-enabling techs?

I think production can be a big part of the problem.

It certainly could be, but until the AI demonstrates the ability to generate a real production powerhouse to finish the big parts, I'm going to assume otherwise.

 

[xanadux]

Also remember that if you have 15 or 20 workers sitting around, you can turn a megacommerce city into a 100-120 hammer production powerhouse in under 10 turns by replacing all those cottages with workshops. Not always important or necessary, but can be a key play with an empire a little short on the production.
Late game with SP, pretty much any land city's production is only limited by how many mountain, dessert, and lake squares it has.