BTS-Beta 4

[Andrei_V]

I tried to delay this 1st (and only) war til I have Alphabet and traded with my victim the turn before attacking. Is this delay too long?

No, I think it's OK. Sometimes I do, too.

Hmm, Peter has half-production granaries I assume

Yes, he's expansive. Also, when you build Workers, try to max hammers, not food, since you have the expansive benefit only from bare hammers, not from hammers converted from food. However, this bonus applies to the overflows from whips, so it's a good idea to apply that overflow to Workers. In many cases, after you whip a Settler, you can have a Worker on the next turn.

So as soon as you start to work unimproved tiles you run them as scientists?

Yes, that's true. And when you have 2-3 cities working unimproved tiles, you must switch to Caste System, even if some of them have not completed Libraries yet. The point is to generate GSs as fast as you can, which you can settle as SS in the capital with Academy and everything.

I normally use Oracle for Education never thought on lightbulbing with GS. Thanks for this hint

Yep. It only takes 1 GS.

What is the reason for the palace switch? No idea here!

To make good use of Bureaucracy civic, otherwise it is completely wasted. You won't have much production in the former capital anyway, since you're interested only in farms and specialists. The only thing after National park which needs to be built in the Oxford city is Lab.

Of course, this is applicable only to SE, not to CE, where you're interested in maxing capital's commerce, not just hammers.

Some more questions:
- How can you afford 100% science the whole game? With only 1 trading partner I never achieve this.

I normally don't as I play SE economy (no cottages). However when my cities have absolutely nothing to do, I set them to build wealth, while max scientist specialists, of course. The few hammers converted to gold help raise the science slider.

- Are you going to squeeze each sciene point out of your science city, includung monastries?

I rarely build monasteries, just to be able to spread religions for happiness (temples) while running Pacifism.

- Are you improving all other cities for production and built "research" or are you cottage spamming?

I play specialists. In any case, I don't build research if I am not at 100% science. It's better to build wealth and raise the science slider, this way releasing some tile commerce which is converted into beakers at a better ratio.

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

Thanks for your time - this answers a lot of questions I had when playing. I will try a testgame as Peter now and see if I can improve my play in direction of Space Race

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

@Andrei_V

After starting a new game on "Inland_Sea" and being very very lucky (2 Settlers , 1 Worker from Hut) I have 2 more questions:

- How much cities are you normally going for? Currently I am targeting 4-5 on duel map, just to keep the upkeep low
- So when you are going no cottages (other than capitol) how do you improve your other cities? Farms+Mines or Mills+Workshops?

 

[Andrei_V]

- How much cities are you normally going for?

As many as I have good spots, on GPlains usually 6-7, but on Inland Sea there can be more. My first wave of expansion usually is limited to 4-5 cities, but then I add more, as soon as I have a chance.

Currently I am targeting 4-5 on duel map, just to keep the upkeep low

That's fine, but after you assign enough scientists, you can build more cities. Once your initial cities hit happiness/health cap, stagnate them by building more Settlers and Workers.

- So when you are going no cottages (other than capitol) how do you improve your other cities? Farms+Mines or Mills+Workshops?

If I am going no cottages, I mean just that -- no cottages. Especially around the capitol.

If I lack gold, I'd build 2-3 to pay the bills, but someplace else, not around the capitol, where I am interested in max food for max specialists and max gpp. Once you have like 19 specialists, you need no cottages.

Here are some screen shots. There are 2 cottages on the first one. I popped 2 Settlers in this game, but the AI capital I rushed was razed, so I had to build my own. The Settlers were popped far away, so after I settled them my research dropped to 20%, and I had to build a couple of cottages before I built that gold city on the left.
Screen 1
Screen 2
Capitol

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

As many as I have good spots, on GPlains usually 6-7, but on Inland Sea there can be more. My first wave of expansion usually is limited to 4-5 cities, but then I add more, as soon as I have a chance.

That's fine, but after you assign enough scientists, you can build more cities. Once your initial cities hit happiness/health cap, stagnate them by building more Settlers and Workers.

If I am going no cottages, I mean just that -- no cottages. Especially around the capitol.

If I lack gold, I'd build 2-3 to pay the bills, but someplace else, not around the capitol, where I am interested in max food for max specialists and max gpp. Once you have like 19 specialists, you need no cottages.

Here are some screen shots. There are 2 cottages on the first one. I popped 2 Settlers in this game, but the AI capital I rushed was razed, so I had to build my own. The Settlers were popped far away, so after I settled them my research dropped to 20%, and I had to build a couple of cottages before I built that gold city on the left.
Screen 1
Screen 2
Capitol

Oh well, I really have to throw away my "cottage" thinking when targeting fast teching. I still cannot imagine to move the science slider to zero and get enough beakers to tech fast. I have to be disciplined in focusing on SE and only SE - nothing else.

Thanks for the help and the nice pictures.

I'll try my best now to keep the SE line...

 

[Peluin]

My best time with Liz has been 1540AD, but I just managed 1480AD with Peter (both on Great Plains). I wonder how much of a difference the two settlers from huts made oh, and I launched the ship short a casing because of some questionable production management. Boy were my fingers crossed!

I'm not sure whether Peter or Liz is better. I usually look for the starts on the west side of the map with precious metals, so financial is applicable right from the get-go, but Peter uses the expansion cities better and has the research lab boost at the end. It's close.

I need to build the pyramids for earlier representation (at least I think that will help?), and more workers in general.

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

I wonder how much of a difference the two settlers from huts made

I cannot tell you, I saved the game yesterday at 11xxBC with 4 cities and regenerated a new game today ... and then I recognized that my starting save file was gone

 

[Peluin]

Ooo, I think I raised the bar this time:

Peter on great plains, regenerated the map until I got a nice start on the east side with 3x corn. Not many forests and no river, but that didn't wind up making much if any difference.

Beelined education, used the oracle to get edu itself. Productionwise, got out second city early that wound up being the key, I think: it was surrounded with cows, which usually I more or less avoided (researching AH + no corporation benefits) but this spot was too good to pass up. The city never grew past size 9, but it pumped out settlers and workers to make the rest of the empire go.

The other key city was a gold/floodplains city on the west half of the map. I moved my capital there to take advantage of bureaucracy, while Moscow built Oxford+National Park.

Since I had plenty of decent production spots (cowtown, goldville, original capital, and a fourth city with hills+spices+wine), I got the universities and forges for national wonders built right quick. I think I had Oxford done in the BCs, a first for me.

Next order of business was straight to superconductors for the Research Labs. I used Liberalism on superconductors itself. With my decent production base, the labs were out in short order.

Having marble was nice. I didn't research anywhere near the Great Library, but the Mausoleum of Mausollos is critical to a fast time. I took calendar earlier than usual this game and started the chain golden ages earlier as a result. National Park + caste system == choose-your-own great person, + free great person rewards from techs (music, fusion, economics, COMMUNISM!) == ~40ish turns of GA or more.

I usually go Rocketry, Industrialism, (Superconductors if not done yet), Fusion (the engines take so long to build), Composites (there are so many casings), Genetics (health bonus), Ecology. I haven't thought of a reason to deviate from that yet.

Touched down in 1340AD, which is turn 127. Actually, I'm sort of confused, since the "turns to victory" counter disappears seemingly one turn too soon? Maybe you win at the end of the 0th turn *shrug*

I'm pretty contented with it , but given enough games someone could certainly do better. For once I didn't make any mistakes with forgetting to build the Pyramids, or forgetting to switch civics, or researching out of order, but I did get a map from a goody hut

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

Ooo, I think I raised the bar this time:

Peter on great plains, regenerated the map until I got a nice start on the east side with 3x corn. Not many forests and no river, but that didn't wind up making much if any difference.

Beelined education, used the oracle to get edu itself. Productionwise, got out second city early that wound up being the key, I think: it was surrounded with cows, which usually I more or less avoided (researching AH + no corporation benefits) but this spot was too good to pass up. The city never grew past size 9, but it pumped out settlers and workers to make the rest of the empire go.

The other key city was a gold/floodplains city on the west half of the map. I moved my capital there to take advantage of bureaucracy, while Moscow built Oxford+National Park.

Since I had plenty of decent production spots (cowtown, goldville, original capital, and a fourth city with hills+spices+wine), I got the universities and forges for national wonders built right quick. I think I had Oxford done in the BCs, a first for me.

Next order of business was straight to superconductors for the Research Labs. I used Liberalism on superconductors itself. With my decent production base, the labs were out in short order.

Having marble was nice. I didn't research anywhere near the Great Library, but the Mausoleum of Mausollos is critical to a fast time. I took calendar earlier than usual this game and started the chain golden ages earlier as a result. National Park + caste system == choose-your-own great person, + free great person rewards from techs (music, fusion, economics, COMMUNISM!) == ~40ish turns of GA or more.

I usually go Rocketry, Industrialism, (Superconductors if not done yet), Fusion (the engines take so long to build), Composites (there are so many casings), Genetics (health bonus), Ecology. I haven't thought of a reason to deviate from that yet.

Touched down in 1340AD, which is turn 127. Actually, I'm sort of confused, since the "turns to victory" counter disappears seemingly one turn too soon? Maybe you win at the end of the 0th turn *shrug*

I'm pretty contented with it , but given enough games someone could certainly do better. For once I didn't make any mistakes with forgetting to build the Pyramids, or forgetting to switch civics, or researching out of order, but I did get a map from a goody hut

Nice date Congratulations

Are you following Andrej_V advice to go SE? And in which city did you build Mids? And what is you final number of cities?

 

[Peluin]

Yeah: I put some thought into it and decided SE is the way to go. The bureaucracy-powered capital was taking too long to ramp up, even with financial, and resulted in lousy Oxford dates. And of course, a scientist specialist = 6 beakers == a riverside financial village, but lots sooner. By the time the CE has towns, the SE has a stack of great scientists to lightbulb hither and yon. Thinking back on it, I accidentally did a really good job using those scientists. I put an academy with Oxford, settled a bunch until lightbulbing was more profitable, lightbulbed bits of a half-dozen techs and used three at the end for golden ages. I think a second academy might have been called for in my new capital (after moving the palace). Maybe I can trim a turn!

I had 5 cities at the end. I was five tiles away from accidental domination. I could have gifted a city to the AI to avoid that, but obviously that would hurt the time. There was probably room to squeeze another one or two in, but there's a trade off somewhere between science and massive production base (edit: I suppose, in the endgame you could starve out the ancillary cities to bring the main burgs back to full strength) for cranking out the parts. By the end they were all ~20 pop and building casings in 2 or 3 turns (praise Mining Inc!). On a side note, I think it's important to ignore the inevitable health problems caused by factories and power. Is a turn of building research better than +2 health from a grocer? I think so, but I'm not sure.

I built the 'mids in my 2nd city with its impressive production (and stone). I thought about trying to get a great engineer to rush them, but it sounds like more trouble than its worth. I actually spent a pretty good clip up time ramping up the economy, instead of trying to leap out the gate. I think I had 4 of my eventual 5 cities when the pyramids finished, and I did a 4x civics change to rep-bureau-caste-pacifism at that point, which still only cost one turn of anarchy.

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

Yeah: I put some thought into it and decided SE is the way to go. The bureaucracy-powered capital was taking too long to ramp up, even with financial, and resulted in lousy Oxford dates. And of course, a scientist specialist = 6 beakers == a riverside financial village, but lots sooner. By the time the CE has towns, the SE has a stack of great scientists to lightbulb hither and yon. Thinking back on it, I accidentally did a really good job using those scientists. I put an academy with Oxford, settled a bunch until lightbulbing was more profitable, lightbulbed bits of a half-dozen techs and used three at the end for golden ages. I think a second academy might have been called for in my new capital (after moving the palace). Maybe I can trim a turn!

I had 5 cities at the end. There was probably room to squeeze another one or two in, but there's a trade off somewhere between science and massive production base for cranking out the parts. By the end they were all ~20 pop and building casings in 2 or 3 turns (praise Mining Inc!). On a side note, I think it's important to ignore the inevitable health problems caused by factories and power. Is a turn of building research better than +2 health from a grocer? I think so, but I'm not sure.

I built the 'mids in my 2nd city with its impressive production (and stone). I thought about trying to get a great engineer to rush them, but it sounds like more trouble than its worth. I actually spent a pretty good clip up time ramping up the economy, instead of trying to leap out the gate. I think I had 4 of my eventual 5 cities when the pyramids finished, and I did a 4x civics change to rep-bureau-caste-pacifism at that point, which still only cost one turn of anarchy.

This sounds really good. I currently always missed the Mids because of lack of stone, and reaching this 4-civics-change point is really a nice target.

I normally focus on the "levee" to (and therefore try to place my cities on rivers) but I am not the number cruncher to give a proofed analysis, if this is necessary for an early date or not.

Nevertheless your success is impressive

 

[Peluin]

Funny you should mention levees:

I was hooked on them too. Probably came from a combination of too many games as Willem van Oranje and some mathematical intuition that "+8 hammers from levee * aluminum * bureaucracy * factory * lab = AWESOME?!?!" but in this most recent effort, I only had one riverside city. Maybe they should be viewed more as a nice-to-have than a need-to-win?

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

Funny you should mention levees:

I was hooked on them too. Probably came from a combination of too many games as Willem van Oranje and some mathematical intuition that "+8 hammers from levee * aluminum * bureaucracy * factory * lab = AWESOME?!?!" but in this most recent effort, I only had one riverside city. Maybe they should be viewed more as a nice-to-have than a need-to-win?

So it's really only the absolut minimum necessary to get a nice finish. Only granaries, sciene-buildings and forge. The rest of the time workers,settlers research or wealth (I still haven't got the point why "wealth" is more efficient than "research").

 

[Harbourboy]

This looks like an excellent arena in which to attempt my first ever game of Beyond the Sword! So far so good, I think I have managed to install everything properly. Everything looks a bit nicer, and some new map options. I am trying Napoleon on hemispheres. So far, cannot work out work out what hemispheres actually means, but otherwise haven't noticed much difference from the previous versions. Clearly, I have no idea what I am doing, but surely even I can't stuff up on Settler level.

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

This looks like an excellent arena in which to attempt my first ever game of Beyond the Sword! So far so good, I think I have managed to install everything properly. Everything looks a bit nicer, and some new map options. I am trying Napoleon on hemispheres. So far, cannot work out work out what hemispheres actually means, but otherwise haven't noticed much difference from the previous versions. Clearly, I have no idea what I am doing, but surely even I can't stuff up on Settler level.

If you are interested on the new features you should play some of the scenarios. For this gauntlet (space race) I learned to honor the coorporation feature to get access to "aluminium" even without having it in the cultural border. I think this is why it is called "beyond the sword" ...

 

[Peluin]

(I still haven't got the point why "wealth" is more efficient than "research").

Wealth is more efficient than research, assuming of course that you aren't naturally running at 100% science and have a typical city-improvement scheme.

Neither wealth nor research production is modified in any way -- that is, the produced coins or beakers are independent of the slider, libraries, markets, etc. It's just hammers straight to what-you-want.

The reason wealth is better is because a Civ IV empire typically has more science multiplying buildings than coin multiplying ones. Building wealth doesn't get the bonus multiplier from market/bank/grocer/etc, but lots of the time (and definitely in this gauntlet!) you don't have many of those anyway. The extra income, though, lets you raise the science slider, which acts on raw commerce, and IS multiplied by the libraries/universities/etc.

I wrote more but I've been up for awhile and am getting rambly, so I decided to cut myself off there and deleted the run-on. If that explanation is insufficient I will try again!

edit: For further evidence, compare your "net economy" (coins + beakers) at 0% science vs. 100% science. 100% science will generally score better, giving more bang for your buck.

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

Wealth is more efficient than research, assuming of course that you aren't naturally running at 100% science and have a typical city-improvement scheme.

Neither wealth nor research production is modified in any way -- that is, the produced coins or beakers are independent of the slider, libraries, markets, bureaucracy, etc. It's just hammers straight to what-you-want.

The reason wealth is better is because a Civ IV empire typically has more science multiplying buildings than coin multiplying ones. Building wealth doesn't get the bonus multiplier from market/bank/grocer/etc, but lots of the time (and definitely in this gauntlet!) you don't have many of those anyway. The extra income, though, lets you raise the science slider, which acts on raw commerce, and IS multiplied by the libraries/universities/etc.

I wrote more but I've been up for awhile and am getting rambly, so I decided to cut myself off there and deleted the run-on. If that explanation is insufficient I will try again!

Thanks for the explanation, so you got an indirect benefit through raising the research slider ... good night

 

[Harbourboy]

Cool. Just got a win in my first BTS game. A stunning 2016 AD space ship victory should be enough to get on the table. Not sure I really got the hang of the spies and corporations, but all those random events were kind of fun. This new game will take some getting used to.

 

[Andrei_V]

Touched down in 1340AD, which is turn 127.

Congrats. Have you tried Gandhi? He's also good, since you can switch civics as you wish. Like, you can go for Banking before SM->Biology, and get 1 free specialist from Mercantilism sooner. Also, one extra hammer for Workshops from Guilds.

 

[Shudd]

I'm so in awe of the 1340AD result.

I've been trying as Peter on hemispheres or Big/Small (as I thought it would be useful to maximise the Moai Statues / Colossus in one of my non-SE cities). My latest game I tried the Oxford / National Park combo in capital with a flood plains city as my national wonder city. I thought building the Parthenon as well as Pyramids would be a good move, so had been trying to find a map with marble and stone (didn't want to chop rush capital for wonders).

Best time so far is about 1815. A problem I have noticed is that with so many specialists I fly by the techs required for the spaceship but then it takes too long to build the thing. Do any of you switch to US nearer the time to 'buy' parts of the spaceship in the end game?

It seems from the posts here that I'm doing the following wrong:

- sea tiles are overrated;
- Colossus and Moai Statues not worth prioritising;
- building the Parthenon is not required;
- Great Library is a 'nice to have' rather than a necessary wonder;
- the above would mean I move away from my reluctance to research astronomy / SM too early to obsolete the wonders;
- each city should build: Granary, Forge, Library, University ASAP (unless building key early wonders such as Mausoleum, Pyramids)
- have plenty of workers and as many cities as possible without a domination victory;
- beeline to Education, then beeline to superconductors ASAP;
- fill in the 'slack' to get to rocketry ASAP;
- find a way to get Aluminium whether from tiles or corporation;
- I suppose it's worth keeping the 'free' great people obtained from techs (i.e. music, communism, fascism etc) for golden ages?
- try to golden age constantly towards the end.

I would be grateful for any input: I've been playing Civ 4 since it came out and, while I seem to get the game pretty well, I can't seem to get the big scores or the crazy early wins.