BTS-Beta 4

[Peluin]

Congrats. Have you tried Gandhi? He's also good, since you can switch civics as you wish.

No, I haven't. The fast workers would be a pretty considerable advantage on quick game speed as well. My original doubt about Peter was that expansive wouldn't be a great trait for this, but I came to appreciate the +health in particular more than I expected I would. I don't have class tomorrow, maybe I will sneak a game in after the Yankees...

 

[Peluin]

I've been trying as Peter on hemispheres ...
I would be grateful for any input:

I tried one game on Pangaea just to see what would happen, and it wasn't encouraging. Great plains is just so brokenly stacked with resources and largely jungle/desert/ocean free, just changing map types would probably trim hundreds of years off your time.

If you stick with hemispheres then it sounds like you need more workshops. In the Ironworks city throughout the game I keep it more or less surrounded, and use it to build Apollo/MoM/Taj/sometimes Notre Dame and whatever else. In the endgame it usually has some of the bigger spaceship parts to focus on while the other cities keep research up. Then as the final techs start coming in I workshop over the farms in the specialist cities. There's a nice synergy between Caste+Cereal Mills corp+Mining Inc so I don't use state property, and you can't buy spaceship parts with US.

The only caveat is that I rely heavily on the corporations, and corporations are practically made for Great Plains: there's scads of gold and silver in the mountainy west of the map, and the only food resources are sheep, deer, wheat, and corn, which gives you multiples of the cereals. Okay, I guess there's seafood too, but I don't go near those useless ocean squares

Yes, I keep the odd free great people (artist, spy) for golden ages. The merchant almost always founds Cereal Mills for me. I use my Pyramids/Hanging Gardens/Ironworks city to get one great engineer for Mining Inc. Scientists lightbulb or settle and any accidental artists or prophets are golden age fodder. If he comes early enough I'd settle the prophet for +5 gold +2 hammer, which isn't THAT bad.

I would suggest playing one game where you do everything in your power to get Oxford as quickly as possible. Pump out 3 settlers or conquer an AI early, get enough workers to develop the land, prioritize acquiring stone. When you are on such a small map, nearly doubling the science of your best city is a huge deal. Then after you power through the techs, build workshops to make your ship.

 

[Andrei_V]

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?

The parts cannot be 'bought' under US or whipped. No point to switch to US at all if you play SE. After you set up Oxford and National Park in the capitol, most of the other cities can focus on production. Usually you can time up building labs then factories in those cities with your main production city building Ironworks, then Apollo.

Golden Ages are of great help, of course. Even Moai Statues do not look so bad if you have like 10 water tiles for 2 hammers each. That's 20 hammers. You can build them early enough. Also, after Biology, try to build workshops on Grassland tiles, and farms on plains. It's identical foodwise, but you'll get an extra hammer from each tile from Golden Ages.

If you don't have enough forests around the capital, try Cereals Inc, or what is its name. The one that can be founded by a GM from Economics. +20 or something food will kinda make it up to the lack of free specialists from forest preserves. You can also spread it to your Ironworks city, and replace all farms with workshops.

 

[Shudd]

Thanks guys, that's really useful. I started workshops in my latest game and the hammers are huge, granted.

Another potentially stupid question, but whenever I generate a map on duel / quick it's only one opponent. On the basis that capitals are usually in prime locations, how can I go about starting a map with 2 opponents, i.e. to take out one prime spot? Is it possible?

I will try on great plains, beeline to Oxford Uni tomorrow (perhaps late tonight depending on the amount of red wine drunk over dinner!), workshop spam and cereal mills...

Just to finish - BtS is fantastic. Such an excellent expansion. Can't wait for BtSOTM!

 

[Peluin]

I think the only way to get 2 opponents on Duel size is to use the "Custom Game" option. Make sure you get all the settings right, in case you rock the show

 

[Shudd]

You learn something new every day! The custom game function looks like just the thing. I reckon Mansa and Gandhi as AIs so that I can trade the techs I don't research to get me to Rocketry quicker (as my problem has been getting to Superconductors quickly but then having to fill in gaps to get to the Industrialism branch of the tree).

I plan to try tonight... will report back over the weekend.

Just to confirm, I will obviously conquer one of MM or Gandhi!

 

[Methos]

The v.3.13 patch has been released, but this game can only be played with the v.3.03 patch. I would suggest either holding off of patching, or do a dual-install. Also note, as has been mentioned in this thread, the latest patch appears to also modify some non-BTS assets, so I would suggest you complete all ongoing games prior to patching.

 

[ArcadicGamer]

Interesting Fact, i was playing this game with 2 opponent civs, and actualy lost a to an AP diplo vote.

I played with Capac and Ghandi, for good trades, and manages to trade ~25 techs for cheap. The one i won was in late 18th century.

Having played both this and gm23, i can say the ai is a hell of alot smarter and "harder" @ BTS settler than before. They just only got 1-2 cities a piece, and had no military.

 

[Harbourboy]

I had another go and got 1944 AD with Pericles. Once again, there is some sort of massive gulf between what I can achieve and what you guys manage to do.

 

[BLubmuz]

Bah, i already said i don't like speeds faster than Epic, and the duel map is a nightmare.
I was in very good shape in a Great plains with Fred, 5 cities, carefully placed along the map borders, and i hit the Dom limit.

Oasis gives more room, but the resources are completely crazy.
I think it's BtS, in Warlords they are better distributed.

Well, submitted a 15xx victory as Peter on Oasis... don't know how it is, it's my first "real" game on BtS, played only 1 for test, using WB before.

 

[Dracandross]

1450 peter gplains. Im done this is too boring to run again. Theres few turns here and there I could shave possibly. If I try I go for gandhi+highlands but it sucks for SE and CE is too slow it seems.

-Dracandross

 

[Shudd]

Getting lower - now did 1700 ish with Peter on Great Plains. Will keep trying...!

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

AAAAHHHH - Domination Victory 1530 - 2 turns before touch down ...

 

[Peluin]

AAAAHHHH - Domination Victory 1530 - 2 turns before touch down ...

AHHH NOOooo!
Happened to me once, then I figured all kinds of mechanisms to prevent it from happening again.

1) When considering placing another city I would check how many more border expansions I planned to get in my core towns, and also the status of the border-culture-wars: when you mouse over the tile and it says 55% Russian, 45% Malinese. I'd monitor it for a few turns and decide how quickly I was overtaking the computer and make a guess at how many tiles I would get like that.

2) I don't think it's enabled by default (?) but the HoF mod has an option to report your domination status (including tilecount and target) as soon as you start getting close to it.

Combining 1+2 I arrived at 3, aka "desperate times call for desperate measures"...

3) If your nice game is going to be foiled by accidental domination, gift cities to the AI that's a surefire but last-ditch effort to reduce your land area!

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

AHHH NOOooo!
Happened to me once, then I figured all kinds of mechanisms to prevent it from happening again.

1) When considering placing another city I would check how many more border expansions I planned to get in my core towns, and also the status of the border-culture-wars: when you mouse over the tile and it says 55% Russian, 45% Malinese. I'd monitor it for a few turns and decide how quickly I was overtaking the computer and make a guess at how many tiles I would get like that.

2) I don't think it's enabled by default (?) but the HoF mod has an option to report your domination status (including tilecount and target) as soon as you start getting close to it.

Combining 1+2 I arrived at 3, aka "desperate times call for desperate measures"...

3) If your nice game is going to be foiled by accidental domination, gift cities to the AI that's a surefire but last-ditch effort to reduce your land area!

Thanks for your advice, I got the "domination" message for over 1000 years and where at the "press continue" phase and not watching at anything then. I built several wonders not verifying where they are built.
And I think building too much wonders at the end causes fast cultural expansion and thus exceeding the domination limit.

I don't check the cities at the end because i made several mistakes during game. I got early Mids and made the 4 civics change but forgot to built more cities before. I then where really late with oxford. Representation alone helped me to fly through the tech-tree. Ironworks tooks too long to build (no trees left in prod-city).

I think I will give this gauntlet a last try and ... I love these simple looking gauntlets. You can learn a lot more about clean tactics than in tough ones.

 

[Andrei_V]

Sometimes it makes sense to gift a GA to the AI. They'd culture bomb one of their cities, this way pushing back your cultural boundaries.

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

Sometimes it makes sense to gift a GA to the AI. They'd culture bomb one of their cities, this way pushing back your cultural boundaries.

Very good hint But in this gauntlet I only got 1 GA from Music which was used for Golden Age asap. All others were GS.

 

[Andrei_V]

All others were GS.

Well, it's easy to generate one under Caste System + Pacifism.

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

Well, it's easy to generate one under Caste System + Pacifism.

Hmm - but I don't know if enough time is left to generate one when you recognize, that you should grant one to your neighbor immediately.

 

[Andrei_V]

Hmm - but I don't know if enough time is left to generate one when you recognize, that you should grant one to your neighbor immediately.

How about thinking of it in advance?