Deity Isolated = Nightmare?

[shakabrade]

@Shaka

I had wondered which would be stronger:

-Communism, workshop/watermill everything (granted, there aren't a lot of river tiles for us here)

-Economics, ride those extra Free Market overseas trade routes as long as possible

In the end I took to long to decide and was forced to go for Communism because I'd been beaten to Economics already. Then I couldn't decide what to do with the GSpy. Is it even worth doing any espionage when you're the tech leader in the game? Probably not. Probably a golden age, then. Extra production into building wealth vs. more mature cottages...long term I bet cottages win out. Assuming they're worked for >100 turns.


You know, on second thought I might re-load this game and play to a space victory. Just to say I once had a Deity win where I didn't have a single farmed tile the entire game Pretty unusual map to even allow that to be practical. The dilemma is...if I re-load far back enough to avoid war, do I still get my sweet sweet silver and iron?

Communism workshops are my new love. Sick tiles in Caste system. Also, it is very easy to make new cities useful. You only need a granary, factory, coal plant and forge. At size 8 you can produce 70 bpt just from hammers. I wouldn't bet cottages win. Only in Bureau capital. Elswhere they are too slow. Maybe with Financial.

 

[Fippy]

State Property is stronger than free market if you struggle for gold
(imo pretty common around 500AD, AIs with not much gold to trade).

Usually there are not many workshops built yet to make SP great "early".
Also free merchant from economics..

Of course SP is awesome once you go war.
Talking economy and building

This kind of stuff made me stop my game tbh, i could freely decide which i pick and..ugh i do not like having much freedom in Civ..am i weird? probably

 

[MegaLurker]

Communism workshops are my new love. Sick tiles in Caste system. Also, it is very easy to make new cities useful. You only need a granary, factory, coal plant and forge. At size 8 you can produce 70 bpt just from hammers. I wouldn't bet cottages win. Only in Bureau capital. Elswhere they are too slow. Maybe with Financial.

You're probably right, but consider that:

-you've already built libraries all over, and at least 6 universities
-factory+coal plant is a lot of hammers (assume every city builds a Forge regardless for the additional +3 happiness)
-Universal Suffrage is the best government civic for quite a while at the end in a peaceful game
-In this case you're going for space with no conquest at all, so only one new city past ~800AD or so, and that city is a 1-tile island that contributes nothing but commerce

Full disclosure: I have little experience with the space race because it's the boring-est So I don't really know how hammers compare to commerce in the very late game. With rush-buying, even without the Kremlin, I imagine that 1:1 commerce is better than hammers.

 

[Fippy]

Yep it's all boring for me, this type of end game.
Exciting when Civ4 was new, and now..well i saw these things.
You get a victory screenie, against AIs..not humans..well..

 

[MegaLurker]

State Property is stronger than free market if you struggle for gold
(imo pretty common around 500AD, AIs with not much gold to trade).

Usually there are not many workshops built yet to make SP great "early".
Also free merchant from economics..

Of course SP is awesome once you go war.
Talking economy and building

This kind of stuff made me stop my game tbh, i could freely decide which i pick and..ugh i do not like having much freedom in Civ..am i weird? probably

We could do some math...but ugh...math.

How long can you efficiently put off obsolescence of the Great Lighthouse in a space race? That's a big factor. An extra ~5+ commerce per city for free, instantly vs. eventual hammers that will (down the road) be multiplied by factories+coal plants, coming online gradually as you put in the worker turns for all those workshops and watermills. Subtract the hammers those cost from your gross gain, then don't forget to factor in unhealth. Keeping in mind that we're spiritual, so we can efficiently switch into Emancipation to max out any cottages that are lagging in the mid-late game.

State Property + workshop spam would easily be stronger were you to do any overseas conquest. Free market + cottage spam arguably wins in this specific scenario where you are limited to ~15 cities, have the GLighthouse, etc. Also we have to consider the unusual situation of not having Agriculture until Optics or later, meaning you have no better use for all available riverside or grassland than cottages....

Had I played more efficiently from about turn 100 onward, I probably end up winning the race to both Economics and Communism quite easily, which eliminates the question of which free GP is better at that point.

 

[georgjorge]

Do most people on here have the Tectonics map script installed? I started a Deity map with that script which I find quite interesting - maybe not the hardest but not too easy either - but won't bother posting it if nobody can play along for lack of that script...

 

[Fippy]

I think you can load save games without map scripts installed?

 

[shakabrade]

You're probably right, but consider that:

-you've already built libraries all over, and at least 6 universities
-factory+coal plant is a lot of hammers (assume every city builds a Forge regardless for the additional +3 happiness)

Yeah, but it pays for itself in 13 turns (ok, let's make it 15 - 16T for opportunity cost) for +30 base (8 workshops). So, if you still have 30 turns to play, it is a good call to invest in them. Of course, you will grow past size 8, but let's say that this is some mid size you'll reach quite quickly.

-Universal Suffrage is the best government civic for quite a while at the end in a peaceful game

I actually ignore the existence of this civic. I'll try to leverage it in some of the future games, when I get the chance to build Kremlin. Somehow it always seemed obvious that Kremlin whip is better than Kremlin rush buy, but never actually tried to make US useful. One challenge remaiiing is how to deal with the loss of representation bonuses in old cities or Hereditary Rule if you whipped too much.

-In this case you're going for space with no conquest at all, so only one new city past ~800AD or so, and that city is a 1-tile island that contributes nothing but commerce

Why not take land from Sitting Bull and Ragnar? When you already have a huge tech lead over them, the war isn't expensive. If you want a quick Space race. If you won't take any land when you can, then it is more of a sandbox game.

Full disclosure: I have little experience with the space race because it's the boring-est So I don't really know how hammers compare to commerce in the very late game. With rush-buying, even without the Kremlin, I imagine that 1:1 commerce is better than hammers.

You can't rush buy space parts, right? Hammers can build both research and Space parts with the same infrastructure.

With communism workshops, you can set up new cities after 1000AD and still get a net gain. they also make a lot of hammers and grow in parallel (of course you will have couple of Biology farms to speed things up, depending on worker count). When you are doing space race, you actually produce more beakers in the last fifth of the game than in the 4/5 before that, when you can produce 100 from size 9 city for 30 turns, it is huge. Also, timing GAge when some of them mature is sweet too.

Since we are already discussing Space colony worth mentioning is that it is more quick to build research to get to Fusion as soon as possible and then start producing space parts (if you have enough cities) than to produce parts as soon as you can (if you don't have workshopped super production cities, you have to build them slowly to catch up with a few good production sites). SS engine timing is always a limit.

 

[shakabrade]

I am playing this one again. This time as a wonderwhorer.

Anyway, just wanted to see how far it can get.
Got Henge around 2500BC, GLH at 1640BC (no Math chops though) and Colossus at 550BC. All dates would give you good chance on getting those wonders in any game. Sitting on 7 cities and building settlers. Great Prophet was settled as it will be contributing for at least 120T and it makes early game faster, which is huge.
Oh that double gold in the capital.

Barbs have too much success (I want to say that statistically I should have lost fewer warriors) again and I had to research Archery.

However, I will go back and skip Colossus as plan is getting fast Astro and it will obsolete so it is pointless. Also, it will make Delhi too fast with GPP. I just wondered can I build it.

Spoiler :

Izzy stands no chance this time.

 

[georgjorge]

While playing a couple of other rounds I have also discovered the advantages of Caste workshops over heavy whipping for army buildup. A bit slower but much more sustainable, which is needed when you can't Cuir rush most of the map. So thanks to shakabrade for making me question my dogma of "I have to whip heavily to match the AIs unit-building".

 

[shakabrade]

While playing a couple of other rounds I have also discovered the advantages of Caste workshops over heavy whipping for army buildup. A bit slower but much more sustainable, which is needed when you can't Cuir rush most of the map. So thanks to shakabrade for making me question my dogma of "I have to whip heavily to match the AIs unit-building".

Yeah, always after hiatuses person can get the fresh look at the game.

There are a lot of dogmas and rules of thumb in civ people just don't question. Like worker first. For instance, if you start with 3 floodplains and are expansive, it is better to grow to size 4 and whip a worker, maybe a 1 whip is okay too. If you have double wet corn, though...
I mean, this game is filled with variety but people seem to try and confine it.

One more example: for this game I had 2, later 3 (okay fast) workers on 10 cities (I believe Fippy also had the same or similar number), while people mention 1.5 workers per city. I mean, 1 per city is already over the top.

Or people trying to make a HA rush, but don't work coastal 12 and work 21 tile instead as they heard that coast is a bad tile even with Lighthouse. Yeah, my total economy is a bit lower but my HAs face Archers and not Spears and Swords behind walls.

One thing I love about civ is that there is no "build". This is the game of adaptation.

 

[Fippy]

Yep i agree, on island maps i need much less workers anyways.
Fast ones are great and you might need 1-2 more without them, but there are always some cities with very low or even no need for them.

Like traderoute isles, or cities with seafood that might as well work lighthouse sea (another great example by Shaka) instead of cottages not on rivers.

If we get 2-3 rather early, and skip improvements we can live without (mines in cities where the plan can be whipping first, then running specialists or food for growing i.e.), they rarely fall behind.

Whipping vs. Caste workshops, in my last game i had SP + workshops + Slavery.
While 1 hammer more from shops would have been nice, i needed whipping for food cities without production. Would have been too slow without the quick initial army.

Workshop cities often used overflow after whipping for building 2 units with 1 whip, worked very well for me.
3 cities or so also had many shops and not much food, they stopped whipping.

Slavery keeps all cities useful for war, and those with many shops can spare the couple extra hammers from Caste. Was my conclusion at least
(full war thou, Caste esp with Rep would be awesome for teching and building simultanous)

 

[shakabrade]

I will blatantly use this opportunity to present a game recently played.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=14338751&postcount=89

Workshops + Caste also yield more GPP and you get more Golden Ages.
If you ever manage to scroll to the pic with statistics, you'll see how much army can be produced without whips in he ADs. Cities who can place only 3 workshops, can produce less expensive stuff like galleons and Airships.

What I want to emphasize is that you not only get food and hammers, but also GPP.

Best play, I agree is to include some whips occasionally to speed things up. That should be carefully planned if not Spiritual.

Of course, the map must be set-up in a way to provide opportunity for workshop play, but if there is one, maybe it is worth considering over our typical whip to the ground. I only considered it due to ability to maintain Golden Ages, but then tried it on other maps and it worked well too.
I'd dare to say that it works well for every army after Cuirs.

Golden age for a small 6-7 cities empire is a waste in mid game.

 

[shakabrade]

On this game

I played with Henge + GLH and got Astro at 425AD (bulbed). It seems Henge has slowed me down when I look at Fippy's save. No wonder that I never try to build it.

I mean, I like my position, but I like Fippy's more.

One more dogma to question: Why is it ok for a person to come to the office and not work, even it is ok to let the person post on forums, and it is not ok to let person play civ at work?
We just moved and I have no means to do what is my job, why, oh why am I not playing civ right now!?

 

[MegaLurker]

Whipping out an army too late in the game I find leaves you too slow to recover on Deity, unless of course you're about to win. Being Spiritual of course leaves the option open to do some light whipping, in this case. Caste/SP workshops and water/windmills everywhere is certainly the best way to keep up with the Deity AI bonuses. I had just thought a commerce civics combination might be better in this particular game if you never war and go to space. Granted I've never actually tried to build the spaceship parts with mostly rush-buying. Then again, maybe once you obsolete the Great Lighthouse it makes more sense to switch to a hammer-based model.

 

[georgjorge]

One more dogma to question: Why is it ok for a person to come to the office and not work, even it is ok to let the person post on forums, and it is not ok to let person play civ at work?

The answer is simple: If it were allowed to play Civ IV instead of working, mankind wouldn't exist much longer because nobody would provide the resources necessary for us to survive any longer. Everybody would play this isolated Deity start and other rounds 24-7.