Deity Spaceship in under 200 turns - a brief guide

[LordTC]

Can't this be done without a warrior rush? A lot of people seem to have trouble with it. I rolled like six starts last night, doing the exact same thing you said, and I just can't pull it off. Isn't it much faster to build a warrior until size two, then start a settler, and steal workers from a militaristic or hostile CS? A settler is 89 hammers, a bit more than two warriors (40 hammers each) that you'll lose anyway with a rush (IF you can pull it off). Further, an early attack will cause some DOW's later on, which is another drawback.

You often won't have the early techs to get luxuries from a settled city so you usually want to get them through a peace treaty, going for no warrior rush early usually hurts you a lot.

 

[Jeddius]

See attached thumbnails.

Settings: Standard Continents, standard rule set. Used Babylon. You could use the French and get the +50% GPP policy in Freedom if you don't have Babylon, but it will take longer. If you play flawlessly, the French probably can do it in under 200 turns. I botched several things in this game, and still finished on 196.

The approach:

1) Build cities three tiles apart, but don't go for pure ICS spacing. Plant where you can add Hills to the tiles you control. If that means 2 roads to hook up each city, too bad. In practice you'll probably run 1.7 to 1.8.

2) Don't build Settlers right out of the gate. Build four Warriors and rush your nearest neighbor. This gets you living space and a city. Annex the city and spam Settlers. Burn the captured city down when Happiness becomes a problem, replacing it with the last Settler it builds. Meanwhile, take the AI's peace deal. You should get any luxuries it has and all of its gold. Plan to run surplus luxuries as much as you can. You want to fill the Happy bucket for a Golden Age (GA) around turn 90-95.

I am in turn 40 and followed your advice, just took out Napolean. I am not able to spam Settlers because his city only had one person...also he had not other cities so I wiped him off the map and there was no peace deal to accept. So I'm now unhappy by 2 and I would have to wait 28 turns to finish a colouseam. EDIT: I may have answered this, it sounds like I need to pay on Diety?

Also if I understand the initial research you take the tree all the way to constuction and then switch to get Writing? What is the advantage of going to construction first? Isn't it better to get the free writing bulb faster?

And last, do I leave my capital at population 2? I'm just a little confused as to what cities should be left at 2 and until when.

Thanks for your guide and thanks anyone who can help!

Jed

 

[Martin Alvito]

Also if I understand the initial research you take the tree all the way to constuction and then switch to get Writing? What is the advantage of going to construction first? Isn't it better to get the free writing bulb faster?

No, you want to save that bulb. You can play a variant where you beeline Writing, slap an Academy on a tile you want to work but not improve (Cows/3F Wheat is best if you micro settlement and growth right) and then push luxury techs. This works out particularly well if you need Iron Working in a hurry to deal with neighbors.

And last, do I leave my capital at population 2? I'm just a little confused as to what cities should be left at 2 and until when.

The "Avoid Growth" box was new when I wrote this, and I was manually microing growth. As a rule, the capital should be +/- size 4. It often will not get past size 3 while you build Settlers, but will grow to 4 during the Colosseum phase due to Maritime food regardless of when you start cranking out Settlers.

You can make it larger if you have the tiles for doing so to make sense. Since you can ally multiple Maritimes using "Avoid Growth" without wreaking havoc on Happiness, it is possible to have a larger capital. Other cities should hold at size 2 unless you have an excellent reason to let them grow to 3 (eg: three mineable luxuries within range).

As you noted, Warrior rush is currently much stronger on Deity than other difficulties. If you do have the problem where you inherit a size 1 city (it happens), either puppet until it reaches size 2 (if it will work a food tile) or annex and build something else (if it insists on working a mineable luxury or some such).

 

[Jeddius]

Thanks for the help Martin, you are miles ahead of me in this game. Can I ask what the advantage is of stopping growth in your cities? It doesn't seem to make sense to me, is it because the extra people take up all your happiness?

Also in your strat you talk about pumping out settlers from the city that you warrior rush, but you also mentioned creating them in your capital. Are you creating settlers at the same time in both? Is the immediate goal to get your city count up to 15 after your warrior rush is done?

Thanks again!

Jed

 

[Martin Alvito]

Thanks for the help Martin, you are miles ahead of me in this game.

An exaggeration. I am a micro monster, for sure. Otherwise, you can easily recreate what I do.

I spam Settlers from both cities until I start wrecking Happiness. It's best not to go below -5, and if you dip that low you should hunt for an extra luxury so you can grow the most recent settlements. Size 2 cities with 2x Hills > two size 1 cities. While the latter produces more Hammers, the former pushes the cap quicker (especially if you properly focus on weak links with Mines). That lets you get your 15 cities in the second wave online faster.

 

[Jeddius]

Martin,

Are you using the free writing bulb on theology, so you can get open border treaties then?

Also I have one more question in regards to happiness. Right after my warrior rush my happiness goes to -3. Am I making a mistake here? I have never quite understood happiness in the game and it seems like settling one more city would bring me to at least -5 right away...how do I pump out settlers if I'm already behind the 8 ball 50 turns in? Are you buying a colusseum in your capital?

Thanks!

 

[Martin Alvito]

On Continents, the free Writing bulb goes on Education and the first produced GS pops Astronomy.

You have more flexibility on Pangaea, but also different needs. If you have lots of neighbors, the best plan is often to beeline Writing and slap up an Academy (on a 3F tile if possible). That lets you get to Iron Working without sacrificing luxuries. You will generally be a few turns later to Education (because you have to research it the hard way), and you get to the Renaissance via Acoustics.

 

[LordTC]

Any ideas on what changes you'd make to deal with cities of size 2 not paying for themselves in terms of happiness?

 

[Martin Alvito]

I grow them all to 4 after Colosseums start going up, so the change has little meaningful impact. It will mess with GA timing a bit.

 

[LordTC]

I grow them all to 4 after Colosseums start going up, so the change has little meaningful impact. It will mess with GA timing a bit.

The bigger question is does it mess with settler timing? Getting +4 happy in a size 2 city goes a large way towards building another city. When that's now +2, empire wide you can easily be losing 20 happiness before you grow to size 4.

 

[Martin Alvito]

You got the Happy surplus that let you get to +/- 8 cities from luxuries, and you're going to run a Happy surplus after the Colosseums from luxuries. You have base +6 Happy. The existing 8 cities need two luxuries to be Happy neutral. After that, you're paying for cities via luxuries and Freedom.

An extra seven cities require 28 Happiness (6 more luxuries) to be happy if capped at size 2. You should have around 4 luxuries your from dirt and two from Maritimes. Once you hit Renaissance, you'll be able to activate the Cultural allies you've been deferring. That and a luxury swap with an AI should do it.

 

[biohazard72]

IMO, the only meaningful change that happiness restriction on population will cause is trading luxuries for luxuries early on, rather than cash. Once the cities grow up, you can then trade luxs for cash like normal.

P.S. Ran my first fast Deity space game (no Warrior rush - no enemies nearby), took 229 turns with France. Could possibly have been a lot faster IMO if I didn't get Citizenship and Meritocracy, because it delayed Democracy a lot. France seems to play a lot differently - you can't lean as much on GSs, but have much more culture to draw from for SPs. What differences do you find in strategy?

 

[Jeddius]

On Continents, the free Writing bulb goes on Education and the first produced GS pops Astronomy.

So you are saying to defer the free writing bulb until you get to Education? Or are you saying "towards" Education. Obviously after you get Writing you are not to Education yet.

Secondly, I still am wondering about my happiness. Immediately after I take the city from my warr rush my happiness goes to -3. Right at that time how do I fix that? Should I be building a colusseum in my capital? Or should I just have my workers work on resources to boost it right away? Basically after producing my 4 warriors I produced two workers next (one still being made as I quit to wait on this answer).

Gold also is a huge issue lol. I kept playing the game just trying to experiment and I'm in turn 160 now and losing 9 gold a turn. I can't afford 1 city/state alliance let alone 3...sucks.

Thanks,

Jed

 

[biohazard72]

Just finished a 200 turn France Spaceship game! Used a lot of what you preach here. Thanks for making this thread!

 

[mindzor]

Hey, can anyone provide a Replay of using this tactic so I can follow some guidelines?


Thanks in advance.

 

[vexing]

Hey, can anyone provide a Replay of using this tactic so I can follow some guidelines?

no, as this thread is a year old its tactic is no longer viable. the game has changed significantly since then.

 

[RedRover57]

Hey, can anyone provide a Replay of using this tactic so I can follow some guidelines?


Thanks in advance.

This is a 2010 strategy. ICS like this is no longer possible. Some threads, although really helpful at the time, are best left buried in the time capsule.

However, there are strategies to achieve an early science win using the newest patch. Search for these strategies instead. (Hint: Settle at least 4 good production city sites, beeline Education, use the HS - PT - Astronomy sling, produce many GS and save them until later, sign several waves of RA's and properly play the median shift game, blast your way through the final techs with GS's and your last wave of RA's, build the AP and parts and win).

 

[ShahJahanII]

This was from more than a year ago?
I guess vexing's record applies better here.