BOTM 176 - Russian Emperor Stalin ... Final Spoiler
Tell us all about your game.
Was State Property Useful?
Did the AIs appear to have any advantages from Free Market?
Did you have fun?
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I went to space so state property was certainly useful. I had Kremlin in the BCs, but been too attached to my caste and communist workshops to make much use of it. So basically just used it for a late game round of levee and factory whipping. AIs had no noticeable advantages from FM. I did miss the GSpy and GM from communism and economics, so couldn't get enough/right great people for the 4-man golden age. Still a sort of decent landng in 1645AD. Thanks for the game Pangaea and DH!
I certainly enjoyed the game, especially the BCs when I sprawled out like crazy chopping and whipping settlers and workers like wildfire.
I was going to try some other VC, never won a religion one so planned to do that, but Churchil stole the AP from me, bad planning on my part.
So I just killed everyone with cuirs and later cavalery.
Joao did a smart thing and peacevassaled before the blood started to flood.
I really had use of the Kremlin when whipping cuirs, basically had to forget about 2-pop whipping and did alot of 1pop whips, so had some happines issues in some cities after that.
I did not notice the AIs getting much benefit from FM, I ran away from them shortly after 1AD.
My very first game at Emperor I was slowly falling behind the AIs and the game was heading to a loss...
...I have played some 50 complete Civ4 games so far, but I have never attempted a cultural victory. I have recently read some general guides on how to play for cultural win, but this state property game did not seem to be the right occasion...
But in 1170 AD it was clear that I will not win the game in any "standard" way, so I completely switched focus and gave russian culture a try
I had 4 religions spread in all my cities, and was lucky to get a fifth religion soon after, so I went CS+Pacifism, built all the necessary temples, cathedrals in two cities, hermitage (lost Sistine Chapel to the Dutch by a couple of turns), switched to culture (70% most of the time), gathered 9 GAs in my GP farm and made it just in time (6 turns before the Dutch would have won Cultural )
Was State Property Useful? not sure, I have a strong distaste for anything related to communism, I have never used it in Civ before, so I probably don't know how to get the most of it Did the AIs appear to have any advantages from Free Market? no idea Did you have fun? yesssssssss, and I won, hooray (even though such victory feels a bit undeserved, most of the AI empires are just better in almost every possible meaning of the word )
Was State Property Useful? not sure, I have a strong distaste for anything related to communism, I have never used it in Civ before, so I probably don't know how to get the most of it
If you don't like using stuff in Civ that you find distasteful in real life... I hope you've never run slavery, and never whipped population to build stuff
I used WT's Wonderbread economy so much on this map, I built Research instead of Wealth until 10 turns before launching.
Kremlin was outrageously useful for making workers, settlers, knights, and gobs of fail gold from wonders.
Eventually had 101 Workers, the most I've ever had on a map I think.
Had a 90% chance to get a 4 person golden age after fusion, but spawned a 2nd Great Scientist instead of an artist, so I double bulbed Fission.
Has to be some kind of speed record for space finish on normal speed.
I used WT's Wonderbread economy so much on this map, I built Research instead of Wealth until 10 turns before launching.
Kremlin was outrageously useful for making workers, settlers, knights, and gobs of fail gold from wonders.
Eventually had 101 Workers, the most I've ever had on a map I think.
Had a 90% chance to get a 4 person golden age after fusion, but spawned a 2nd Great Scientist instead of an artist, so I double bulbed Fission.
Has to be some kind of speed record for space finish on normal speed.
Jeez, you have 17T better space date than my last game. Did AIs trade anything in the BCs? Yeah, Kremlin plus Industrius plus BUFFY is perfect for wonderbread.
I wasnt able to participate in this one as business tends to go crazy before holiday season but what you did is truly inspiring. Free Communism and early workshops are such an early game advantage that even an Inca game would have problems with competing. This is probably THE record to stand forever. Feel free to feel proud, empty and devoid of motovation.
Jeez, you have 17T better space date than my last game. Did AIs trade anything in the BCs? Yeah, Kremlin plus Industrius plus BUFFY is perfect for wonderbread.
I wasnt able to participate in this one as business tends to go crazy before holiday season but what you did is truly inspiring. Free Communism and early workshops are such an early game advantage that even an Inca game would have problems with competing. This is probably THE record to stand forever. Feel free to feel proud, empty and devoid of motovation.
Later I was able to get Compass, Optics, and Economics since I left Joao alone all game.
He built Sistene's and made sure my borders didn't expand too far.
Infinite wonderbread yes.
Every large whip overflow had 3 chops going along with it into some wonder every turn.
Usually 3 different wonders got multiple chops at the same time.
Cashed one in every time I was about to run out of money.
The slow emperor AI were wonderful about not building any wonders quickly.
At the start with State Property (+10%) was max overflow Axe whips, with Kremlin after 200BC it was max overflow Worker whips, and after Kremlin+Forge was built in a city it was max overflow Knight whips.
Also, the barbarians were extremely useful too.
Not only did they never attack, they founded plenty of cities and kept them defended for me through the whole game somehow.
Spoiler:
Polynesian - National Park city (13 Forest Preserves), both Bananas got forest preserves, the pigs both were pastured
Hannibal's army stayed there, and I got the fat barb city haha
The only time my empire went pure military was from 375AD to 500AD when Police State and a whole lot of whips produced 35 Knights to help me quickly reach the dom limit.
This is probably THE record to stand forever. Feel free to feel proud, empty and devoid of motovation.
I used WT's Wonderbread economy so much on this map, I built Research instead of Wealth until 10 turns before launching.
Kremlin was outrageously useful for making workers, settlers, knights, and gobs of fail gold from wonders.
Eventually had 101 Workers, the most I've ever had on a map I think.
Had a 90% chance to get a 4 person golden age after fusion, but spawned a 2nd Great Scientist instead of an artist, so I double bulbed Fission.
Has to be some kind of speed record for space finish on normal speed.
Wow! Just wow! I was feeling moderately good about my early 19th century space win... until I saw your result! Clearly I have some a lot more learning to do.
Wow! Just wow! I was feeling moderately good about my early 19th century space win... until I saw your result! Clearly I have some a lot more learning to do.
It is a way to run 100% slider the whole game by putting enormous amounts of chops and whip overflows into World Wonders that get a 100% production bonus from a resource.
It is done in multiple cities, and then either the AI completes the wonder or the player does to reap a massive amount of gold.
If I simply told you in 5 words or less what the basic tactic is, you'd be unimpressed. It's like being told about how the Culture Espionage mission can help win a culture game. You'd be like: Ya, I know about that. It's not until you take the culture mission to the extreme and adjust your whole game to amplify it that you make it game changing. Focusing on Wonder Bread affected my whole game. Tech path, tiles worked, improvements I prioritize, buildings I build and which ones I skip--including skipping many wonders (national and world) that used to be must-haves.
Note: discussion uses Marathon speed numbers.
LC's reasoning is sound, but I don't just want to survive REX. In my new economy, my goal is also to run the research slider at 100% the entire mid-game! To do that, you need $$$ (as LC correctly concluded), so I started to think how to get tons of gold, and how I would play differently if I had that gold.
The search for unlimited wealth production:
If you're interested in my lengthy thought process, these are the things I considered:
Spoiler:
I started by imagining that I could begin the game with infinite gold. How would that make me play differently?
- never make a GM for trade mission. With unlimited gold, you'd want GS bulbs.
- never build wealth.
- get mids and run Universal Sufferage all game? Finish every build by rush-buying it for 3 gold/hammer (until Kremlin)
In the real world, you can't get infinite gold. Maybe someone can get a wealth-machine running that can afford to pay for U.Suff, but I ruled this strategy out . 3g is just too much to pay for 1h, and Representation's +3 can't be ignored. Maybe I'll re-visit this after Kremlin
- ignore smaller wealth generation tactics which usually have a large cost (example: shrine needs a GreatPro and lots of missionaries)
But what if you could make a realistic amt of gold--enough to pay for REX and 100% research. Let's go thru the options:
Limited gold sources:
- hut gold (great for the start of the game. best if it can hold until your first conquest)
- capture gold: nice, but limited to 100-200 per city and there are only so many cities available.
- GM trade mission. The problem here is: every GM you cash-in has a cost I equate to the loss of a GS bulb. The beakers you get are greater than the cash. So you need to ask yourself if that's a good value.
- Shrine gold:
a) you've got to get the AI to build it or else include the cost of the GPro (-7000 beakers) to the value the shrine provides
b) you've got to spread the religion (or get the AI to spread it)
c) You've got to build market, grocer, bank
Shrines are nice, but they certainly take a lot of investment/time to pay off. And you'd be lucky to get one by turn 200. By the time you get the bank, you're already close to getting Sushi. Maybe shrines are better for a longer game like Space.
- The Religious trifecta
This is the combo of Sankore, Spiral, and AP. You build temples everywhere. Possibly even monasteries and cathedrals.
So you get +happy, +2h, +2g, +2b, sometimes +10% research.
a) goes best with a shrine and comes with some of the same costs above
b) temple cost (Spiritual civ works best here)
c) possible cost of 3 wonders (ideally have the AI build the AP--you don't need to own it. then capture the other 2.)
Problem is waiting for the AI to get DivRight and build those wonders.
Again, probably a strategy for a longer game than Score.
- Spy gold (steal). The AI only has so much money in the early/mid game. Also, you can't steal all of their money until you beat them down to 1 city. Another big problem is that you don't have a lot of free EPs built up. Running the EP slider just to steal wealth seems counter-productive.
- trade tech for gold
Nice supply of gold, but still quite limited--especially in the BC years and worse when you're killing all the AI
- gpt resource trades
A slightly frowned on strategy. (banned in SGs) It's overrated and did not need to be banned. It's not very powerful when you play really fast games and finish research in the BC years. You also can't get the income until you have an excess of resources you don't need. And again, you're killing a lot of AI and even the ones alive aren't very big. The amt of gpt you can get increases with their population. Every bit counts, so I'll probably do it , (update: I didn't use this tactic) but it doesn't solve the cashflow problem by any means.
Limitless gold supplies:
- build wealth:
This has always been a go-to method to keep the slider at 100% research. But if gold can be gathered some other way, then any city that has the time to build wealth could be building research instead. So you're losing 1 beaker for every 1 gold you generate. The whole point is to get the highest bpt rate and then find a way to pay for it. Build Wealth had a direct negative effect on bpt.
- warrior whips
This works best on marathon because a whip is 90 and warrior is 30. On normal it's 30 and 15. At least this method is limitless. Best if you can put 29/30h into each one before whipping. Or chain two whips. I use it to survive until I get Alphabet in trade. This method can become more efficient later with multipliers like forge and/or Police State, but isn't ideal once you have enough warriors/quechua.
- missionary failgold
Unlike warrior whips, you don't need to produce so many units. Due to the 3 unit limit, missionaries can make more gold than warriors and again, it is a limitless supply of gold. Biggest problem here is that you can't get multipliers other than forge. OrgRel and Police state don't work here.
- Wonder failgold. Finally! a limitless source that has several possible multipliers
After granary, forge, IND trait, Kremlin, Stone/marble/etc and OrgRel bonus. One whip OF could be about 270g! or 405g with Kremlin! And the cost of re-growing that one population starts as low as 33 food! (realistically closer to 40).
The Wonder Bread Economy
The entire game, post-Alphabet, focuses on food (bread) for both production and generating gold by putting overflow and chops into Wonders. And obsessively repeating that process.
In case you skipped the 'Search for Wealth' above, the conclusion was that food is king , and it can be converted to wealth using Wonders at a rates of:
Note: If not IND leader, then subtract 1g. Still not bad, but IND is even more important to me now)
Mid-game, on average it takes ~38 food to grow 1 population. The 90h from that pop being whipped becomes ~270g with all the bonuses.
After Kremlin
Spoiler:
~40f whips into 405g, so 1f = 10g
however, 1h still = 3g
I've yet to explore post-factory/power. HiScore games don't build those.
In the process of converting food to hammers (with whip) and then to gold means: 1 hammer = 3 gold
Spoiler:
For non IND trait leaders, 1 hammer = 2.5 gold.
This is also true earlier in this game when I don't have OrgRel+forge yet.
(One reason why you wouldn't want to use Universal Sufferage to buy 1 hammer with 3 gold)
Trying to make the most of 1food -> 7gold affects all aspects of the game:
- Production,
- what tiles to work,
- which improvements,
- when and how to use forests,
- tech, etc.
Production:
Since 1h = 3g, every hammer you put into a non-wonder has to be monitored. It's best if you don't cross the next whip barrier. In other words: always whip every non-wonder for the max population you can. So it's OK to put 89/180 into a lighthouse. Or 44/180 if you have OR+forge. But don't cross whatever barrier that would make it a 1-pop whip. Instead, do the 2 pop whip and always put overflow into a wonder. And try to chop that same turn too! The biggest exception to this rule of thumb is the Granary. You need to chop/whip that ASAP and ideally when you have a half full granary.
Tiles and improvements:
So with 1f=7g and 1h=3g and 1c = 1g, value tiles like this:
riverCorn (6f1c) = 43g
grassRiverMine (1f3h1c) = 17g
grassFarm (3f) = 21g
My past SGotM teams might remember how I used toresist making a grassriverFarm, and if anyone farmed a non-river grass tile, I was afraid my head might explode . Now, I value a grassFarm over a grassRiverMine
Warning:
The hard part about the Wonder Bread Economy is that you need wait to build up food (grow pop) first, then invest it into wonders and wait again until the payout. You've got to plan ahead, way ahead.
Whip anger
I covered this earlier, but since this economy relies heavily on whipping, I'll mention it again so this post is a more complete plan. Anger can be erased with gift/recapture of cities. I do it in the early game in a couple cities, but is often not necessary later when multiple happy boosters come in.
Note: The previous owner(s) of the city has to either be dead or not have culture there. You need at least 1 culture in the city so it won't revolt on recapture and buildings survive. You lose the food in the bin and partial builds and culture buildings (so one reason to skip the library.) Terrace is of course an exception.
Example:
You might get some gold on Henge and/or GreatWall, but Oracle is where it all begins.
In my 10 million score game, I suddenly had 3500 at 2000 BC because I partially built Oracle in 8-10 cities. Even early in the game with no forge and no OrgRel bonus--just marble, you can put 449/450 into Oracle with just 1 population whip + 1 chop.
You can attempt to run 100% research from then on if you continue to work hard on Wonder Bread, but 3500 goes faster than you might think, so stay focused. Good Luck!
Some may protest that they've been doing this for 10 years, but WastinTime ended up proving that with huge amounts of food and whipping with Industrious leaders and forested maps (or just industrious leaders on Marathon speed), space finish dates could be dramatically accelerated by constantly focusing on squeezing out of partially completed wonders.
Think of a map covered entirely in farms (or 3 watermills).
I protested that reducing hammers from military into fail gold would ultimately give a slower result, but the years since have proven me wrong.
The increased tech rate does seem to outweigh more armies, and I'm still not sure why.
Perhaps constantly being a few turns faster than the AI doubles the time the player gets military supremacy?
Anyway, it takes a lot of skill with the smaller military and planning to make shine, especially on normal speed.
Wonderbread works even in unmodded civ 4, but it must be kept in mind that any overflows beyond the build cost of the unit/building vanish instead of converting to gold.
It is a way to run 100% slider the whole game by putting enormous amounts of chops and whip overflows into World Wonders that get a 100% production bonus from a resource.
It is done in multiple cities, and then either the AI completes the wonder or the player does to reap a massive amount of gold.
The increased tech rate does seem to outweigh more armies, and I'm still not sure why.
Perhaps constantly being a few turns faster than the AI doubles the time the player gets military supremacy?
Anyway, it takes a lot of skill with the smaller military and planning to make shine, especially on normal speed.
Could it be because the increased tech rate means you're more likely to be going to war with stronger units than the AI? It seems to me that makes a huge difference over time in how the war goes. For example, if the AI has only axes and spears, and I'm using maces, that means that as long as I'm careful how I move them, my units are almost invulnerable while they are marching to the cities to attack, and I can take multiple cities while losing almost no units (maybe a few sacrificial cats). Over time the impact of this really starts to show because I don't have to invest hammers in my own cities building replacement units for the ones that are lost. I don't waste turns moving replacement units to the battle front. And I get highly promoted units more quickly. The first few cities I capture in the first war, this makes little difference. But after that, I'd say the cumulative impact is very large - and I can progress wars much more quickly with a given number of units.
Although I think many top players prefer to us mounted units more (which I've never really done) - possibly my reasoning doesn't apply so much in that case because mounted units are always vulnerable to spears, elephants and (later) pikes, even if you have a very big tech advantage over the AI.
In this game I tried to take advantage of the available marble and stone to Oracle Civil Service, and use the pyramids with loads of scientists to get very quickly to engineering, in the hope of attacking the AI with maces and trebuchets quite early on. Didn't completely work because the AI teched faster than I expected and got longbows quite early on.
Could it be because the increased tech rate means you're more likely to be going to war with stronger units than the AI? It seems to me that makes a huge difference over time in how the war goes. For example, if the AI has only axes and spears, and I'm using maces, that means that as long as I'm careful how I move them, my units are almost invulnerable while they are marching to the cities to attack, and I can take multiple cities while losing almost no units (maybe a few sacrificial cats). Over time the impact of this really starts to show because I don't have to invest hammers in my own cities building replacement units for the ones that are lost. I don't waste turns moving replacement units to the battle front. And I get highly promoted units more quickly. The first few cities I capture in the first war, this makes little difference. But after that, I'd say the cumulative impact is very large - and I can progress wars much more quickly with a given number of units.
Right, not losing any units because they are vastly stronger than the defender means a gigantic gain vs. cost.
Just heal up the injured stuff and keep going.
Although I think many top players prefer to us mounted units more (which I've never really done) - possibly my reasoning doesn't apply so much in that case because mounted units are always vulnerable to spears, elephants and (later) pikes, even if you have a very big tech advantage over the AI.
In this game I tried to take advantage of the available marble and stone to Oracle Civil Service, and use the pyramids with loads of scientists to get very quickly to engineering, in the hope of attacking the AI with maces and trebuchets quite early on. Didn't completely work because the AI teched faster than I expected and got longbows quite early on.
Mounted units are extremely strong because they simply avoid fortress cities and gobble up stuff that is lightly defended.
Of course, they stop shining on a map that is simply loaded! with forests and jungle.
Longbows aren't too bad except on hills.
I only really fear castles myself.
If you don't like using stuff in Civ that you find distasteful in real life... I hope you've never run slavery, and never whipped population to build stuff
I get your point, but I guess it's only natural that people are more sensitive to things that have affected them personally than to something they only know from textbooks...
and yes, I do use the whip in Civ4, but for example my son refuses to do that
Mounted units are extremely strong because they simply avoid fortress cities and gobble up stuff that is lightly defended.
Of course, they stop shining on a map that is simply loaded! with forests and jungle.
I get your point, but I guess it's only natural that people are more sensitive to things that have affected them personally than to something they only know from textbooks...
and yes, I do use the whip in Civ4, but for example my son refuses to do that
Haha, that's very true. I have to admit though that when I first started playing Civ4, there were a couple of months when I was very reluctant to use slavery because it felt somehow unethical. Then at some point my emotions caught up with the fact that it's not only a game, but almost like a find-the-best-solution mathematical algorithm without any actual people involved - and now of course, I use slavery all the time. Although I'm sure I still tend to hamper my victory dates a lot by playing the way I like playing, rather than following the advice for how to get the fastest victories.
Well, I did it... 1540 AD Domination... having launched my spaceship in 1530 AD ... eeow
I don't think I played nearly optimal but it was a very nice map and I had a great time, going full on Emancipation cottages. About 250 towns at the end of the game.
I killed Willem, Joao, Darius and Churchill. Churchill was tough, PRO/CHA is a nasty combo and I was busy building infrastructure, not units... So I lost my horde of axemen to his city garrison III longbows. I finished him around 1200 AD with infantries.
In retrospect, I could have gone from Darius to Hannibal (instead of Churchill) and have an easier time warring. But it didn't cross my mind. I had had my eyes on Churchill's riverside for a while.
Kaitzilla kept his 20 turns advance on me, apparently. GG, well played !
I don't think I was prepared for the production there was on this map. Stalin has never felt so close to Huayna.
A few cool pictures :
Spoiler:
... Good thing I got my Elizabeth Taylor avatar for this game. Didn't have the 4th golden age, rushed the Space Elevator with the free Engineer from Fusion, used 16 cities to build the space parts because I completed the Appolo Program extremely late (lacking only 2 techs for space parts).
... Built the Shwedagon Paya shortly before 1300 AD. Those AIs never built anything. I should have pressed production and failgold and wonder resolutions a lot more (starting in the BCs with Parthenon and stuff).
I know you're joking, but technically, you can only research 1 tech per turn (plus a couple extra if you bulb) That would make it likely impossible to get more than ~350 future techs (normal speed).
Now that I think about it, It'd be an interesting challenge to get the highest ever future tech.
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(even though such victory feels a bit undeserved, most of the AI empires are just better in almost every possible meaning of the word 
Did AIs trade anything in the BCs? Yeah, Kremlin plus Industrius plus BUFFY is perfect for wonderbread. 
) was max overflow Axe whips, with Kremlin after 200BC it was max overflow Worker whips, and after Kremlin+Forge was built in a city it was max overflow Knight whips.
![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
. 3g is just too much to pay for 1h, and Representation's +3
can't be ignored. Maybe I'll re-visit this after Kremlin 
, (update: I didn't use this tactic) but it doesn't solve the cashflow problem by any means.
Finally! a limitless source that has several possible multipliers
![[pissed]](/images/smilies/pissed.gif "Pissed [pissed]")
. Now, I value a grassFarm over a grassRiverMine
at 2000 BC because I partially built Oracle in 8-10 cities. Even early in the game with no forge and no OrgRel bonus--just marble, you can put 449/450 into Oracle with just 1 population whip + 1 chop.
watermills). 
