Deity Spaceship in under 200 turns - a brief guide

[Gus_Smedstad]

What ends up happening is you get Construction a couple of turns later, but get stuff like Calendar that you want on the ground much earlier.

It sounds like you're talking about the free Great Scientist you get as Babylonians, since you're not going to get a Great Scientist normally for at least 17 turns after you build a library.

Also, how aggressive are you about building settlers? I usually stop when I hit 3 happiness, because that means the new city will grow to size 2. I understand some people push into serious unhappiness, living with a bunch of size-1 cities until they build Colosseums.

 

[Martin Alvito]

It only takes 9 turns to generate the first GS as the Babs. So you'd need 26 total turns of a full Library to have what you need to accelerate Astronomy. That costs you some productive time in the capital, but I tend to overshoot in the capital by a wide margin anyway. Also, the Library gets online much, much earlier this way, which helps with your tech micro quite a bit. In a sense, you burn the GS to undo the damage to your research you did by beelining Writing. Then you pick up a bunch of turns with the extra micro and the +5 Science per turn.

I tend to avoid pushing much past -4 Happiness. Anything worse kills the first GA, and the timing on that is critical. If I didn't care about the GA, I'd max out unhappy. Size 1s will grow to size 2 even working Hills in unhappy; it just takes longer. So as a rule you're better off maxing out laterally.

However, Freedom lets you aggressively go vertical. You want to keep slapping up Libraries and half-filling them to keep growing, then fill the Universities to keep the small cities growing. Timing the GA so that it helps you pound out the Libraries and Universities enables you to keep growth from outpacing Happiness, which then maximizes Hammer output where you still need it.

 

[Gus_Smedstad]

Sounds like an early Great Scientist isn't really a strategy for anyone but the Babylonians. I don't have that civ myself, since I didn't buy the deluxe version and can't really swallow paying extra just to get one more civilization.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Sorry, again a lack of clarity on my part. I thought that was self-evident. You'd never want to build an Academy with anything but the Babs' free GS under any possible set of circumstances. Even the turn 20 Academy is somewhat questionable; I'm still sorting through its value.

 

[HermannLombard]

Lately I've been messing around with a straight Writing beeline for an Academy in the opening. (It works best on a tile like Cows that you always want to share early on.)

So you're building the Academy on a Cows tile? Don't the classrooms smell bad? I kinda thought you were an academic. More seriously, that foregoes the +1 Production you get with a pasture, albeit for a bunch of Science.

 

[Gus_Smedstad]

So you're building the Academy on a Cows tile? Don't the classrooms smell bad? I kinda thought you were an academic. More seriously, that foregoes the +1 Production you get with a pasture, albeit for a bunch of Science.

It's still a good trade. Consider, it's usually worth it to hire a scientist just for his +3 science output, never mind his Great Scientist points. So if trading a whole tile, say 2 food and 3 gold is worth it for +3 science, then trading 1 hammer for 5 science is definitely not much of a drawback.

If it weren't for the fact that Bulbing free techs for 1000+ science is so much better, Academies would be by far the best specialist improvement. There are few things that give Science, and +5 is quite a lot. By contrast, the Engineer and Merchant special improvements are barely better than regular improvements.

 

[Martin Alvito]

So you're building the Academy on a Cows tile? Don't the classrooms smell bad? I kinda thought you were an academic.

Correct. But since I don't have to lecture in them...

More seriously, that foregoes the +1 Production you get with a pasture, albeit for a bunch of Science.

Which isn't a great trade, but it's the best place to stick the thing. Consider:

- The Academy needs to be placed on a tile that you always want to work.
- If you plant on a 3F tile, you know you're not covering another resource. Worst case scenario it improves with a Hammer; best case scenario it improves with Food.
- Any other non-resource tile you could plant on is either going to cost a Hammer or compel you to work a suboptimal tile later.
- You want to share maximum Hammer tiles as critical infrastructure completes.

If you have Sheep and lousy capital tiles, put the Academy there instead of the Cows. But in most cases you'll find that you won't want to work the Sheep until after Hills are exhausted, and you'd have been happier with the Academy on the Cows after about turn 55-60.

 

[pi-r8]

So you're building the Academy on a Cows tile? Don't the classrooms smell bad? I kinda thought you were an academic. More seriously, that foregoes the +1 Production you get with a pasture, albeit for a bunch of Science.

Talk about a cow college.

 

[Monthar]

So that college's team is either the Cowboys or Longhorns?

 

[Paeanblack]

I like how you're launching your space ship without the knowledge of combustion.

He's using Nitrogen Tetroxide and Hydrazine as fuels

 

[Paeanblack]

@Martin

I haven't been civving for 2 weeks (vacation), so I've got a few questions about where things stand with the Martin plan.

-What's your success rate with the <200 SS goal?
-How often do you bail out of the game, and at what points? If you get ambushed on your weakside during the warrior rush, do you pull back the attack and ride out the slow opening or do you press on hoping that city shots and rush-buying defenders will be enough (and sometimes lose)?
-What are the other key times where <200 SS suddenly becomes impossible?
-What's your best date with the Babs, with France, and with anyone else you've had a very successful game with?
-What maps/sizes are you rolling?

 

[Paeanblack]

It's a question of order. After connecting luxuries, Paeanblack's Worker sequence goes Roads -> tiles, while I have had more success with the reverse even under Meritocracy. Keep in mind that the roads are more or less revenue neutral until you grow past size 2, which typically happens around when I'm hooking up roads aggressively anyway.

A big reason I go roads-first is that I do a ton of partial-builds to save worker turns and road maintenance costs. I really don't like paying the hill/forest MP cost more than once per worker. Building mines and then returning to build roads makes me cringe.

Also, at size-2, an ICS lattice city will produce 2.25 in trade income and costs 1.33 in road upkeep.

 

[HermannLombard]

He's using Nitrogen Tetroxide and Hydrazine as fuels

Maybe electricity & copper & platinum waste. Out and back in an hour and a half in your Skylark, that's why you win instantly.

 

[jorissimo]

Dude, paeanblack is serious Found out in a chemistry test I had today.

 

[HermannLombard]

Oh, I know, hypergolic fuels are amazing...and very, very nasty stuff. "Doc" Smith's fuel was about ten orders of magnitude more powerful.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I haven't been civving for 2 weeks (vacation), so I've got a few questions about where things stand with the Martin plan.

Yeah, I feel you on the IRL thing.

-What's your success rate with the <200 SS goal?

Honestly, I've been working on other projects:

a) Trying to get a Police State/Communism game to launch before 200 for the French. (The approach is to settle just two cities, let the AI go hogwild settling and developing land, cripple AIs, burn what you can't hold and let the AIs resettle, then spend SPs and mass annex at Dynamite.) Haven't quite managed it yet. Potent approach, though. Shame it's getting nerfed into oblivion; it's a lot more fun than puppeting everything.

b) Alternative opening strategies with the Babs. I've been playing around with beelining Writing and less aggressive openings (such as building only two Warriors, wasting a city-state with them, and going Settler in the capital earlier). These tech (much) faster but struggle to get enough Workers on the ground, losing steam between turns 70 and 80. I've tried blending this with a quick Iron rush to seize Workers, but Colosseum timing gets screwed up.

-How often do you bail out of the game, and at what points? If you get ambushed on your weakside during the warrior rush, do you pull back the attack and ride out the slow opening or do you press on hoping that city shots and rush-buying defenders will be enough (and sometimes lose)?

I generally just gamble for resurrection. If you've committed to the rush and you boot it, you haven't lost the game but you've lost a turn 200 launch. The extra Settler pump saves a lot of turns.

-What are the other key times where <200 SS suddenly becomes impossible?

The primary cause of turn 200 failure is the inability to get Hammers online fast enough in enough cities to deploy your Universities. This can happen for a variety of reasons. Alex is probably the most severe cause. Fighting off a Hoplite swarm requires ridiculous resource expenditure. But getting squeezed spatially by anyone will do in the turn 200 goal. That's the primary reason for the early rush of an AI; it pretty much guarantees you the ability to settle prime real estate without problematic diplomatic consequences.

-What's your best date with the Babs, with France, and with anyone else you've had a very successful game with?

196 Babs, 208 France (alt strategy), haven't fiddled with other civs. Luddite likes Siam, but I haven't given them a go. Romans and Indians are the only other civs I think have a snowball's chance in Hades.

-What maps/sizes are you rolling?

I've been playing Standard. My sense is that Small (especially Continents) is seriously biased in my favor, and Large is seriously biased in favor of the pure ICS-er.

I've been playing Pangaeas of late, as I believe that the criticism that Continents is biased in my favor is uninformed. Given the choice, I'd strongly prefer to push Banking and Printing Press rather than Astronomy. Further, you can get safe Research Agreements on a Pangaea. You just need to make sure you have some buffer states.

 

[Slick_]

Are you sure about small maps beeing biased in your favor? After all more civs equal more RA and sold luxuries.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Reliably having a very close neighbor strongly benefits a Warrior rush approach. The Small map size tends to generate a situation similar to the posted game on Continents. The typical 3/3 civ distribution yields a nearby neighbor, a distant adversary that poses comparatively little threat, and several civs on the other continent that are safe RA partners posing no challenge.

The less common 2/4 civ distribution means that crippling your rival gives you unfettered access to your continent, which lets you ignore military techs entirely. 4/2 isn't a good thing, but such potentially threatening distributions are much more likely on a Standard map.

The calculus changes somewhat on a Pangaea, but the ability to defer the top portion of the tree compensates for the need to push lower techs.

 

[luciol]

hello

I have just tried your strat, not as fast as it should be, but this is my first time doing ICS . I'm encountering something weird when I build a space ship part in a non-capital city :

In Babylon :

1000 / 79+ overflow = 12 turns > no problem

In a non-capital city :

1000 / 62 + overflow = 16 turns when it says 21

Do you guys know if it's a bug or do I miss something

 

[Grey Cardinal]

hello

I have just tried your strat, not as fast as it should be, but this is my first time doing ICS . I'm encountering something weird when I build a space ship part in a non-capital city :

In Babylon :

1000 / 79+ overflow = 12 turns > no problem

In a non-capital city :

1000 / 62 + overflow = 16 turns when it says 21

Do you guys know if it's a bug or do I miss something

This is screen bug, do not take 50% bonus from the railroad