[BTS] Fast Science Victory - How To?

[Fish Man]

UPDATE: I have started a new game. If anyone wants to give me further advice step-by-step, go to https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/nigerian-prince-help-walk-me-through-a-game.614854/

 

[Fish Man]

OK, after retrying this map, I managed a CS oracle slingshot by about 1000 BC.

Thoughts?

 

[Anysense]

Good job with Oracle. I think 1000 BC is perfectly safe on prince and it did not slow down you too much, 5 cities by 1000 BC is ok.
City placement is horrible though. Kumbi Saleh should be 1N for 2 hammer central tile. Gao also 1N to have deer in the 2nd ring. Djenne MUST have pigs in the first ring, food almost always must be in the first ring unless the leader is creative. That city would be best placed 2E on a desert hill, with pigs and 4 riverside grasslands in the 1st ring that would be an excellent second city. I would probably settle Walata 1W so that pigs were in the 2nd ring but you will need it for another city anyway.
Stonehenge seems quite useless, but failgold would come in handy. Just put some hammers into it from time to time and let AI finish it. You need to expand. Your maintenance is very low so you can afford at least 5 more cities without currency. I think about 15 by 1 AD will be good.
I don't think iron working is a worthy next tech. First, you don't really need it. Second, AI's tend to tech it early. Aplhabet seems the most reasonable choice as it enables tech trading and makes currency cheaper. Other high priority techs are monarchy and calendar.

 

[Fish Man]

Good job with Oracle. I think 1000 BC is perfectly safe on prince and it did not slow down you too much, 5 cities by 1000 BC is ok.
City placement is horrible though. Kumbi Saleh should be 1N for 2 hammer central tile. Gao also 1N to have deer in the 2nd ring. Djenne MUST have pigs in the first ring, food almost always must be in the first ring unless the leader is creative. That city would be best placed 2E on a desert hill, with pigs and 4 riverside grasslands in the 1st ring that would be an excellent second city. I would probably settle Walata 1W so that pigs were in the 2nd ring but you will need it for another city anyway.
Stonehenge seems quite useless, but failgold would come in handy. Just put some hammers into it from time to time and let AI finish it. You need to expand. Your maintenance is very low so you can afford at least 5 more cities without currency. I think about 15 by 1 AD will be good.
I don't think iron working is a worthy next tech. First, you don't really need it. Second, AI's tend to tech it early. Aplhabet seems the most reasonable choice as it enables tech trading and makes currency cheaper. Other high priority techs are monarchy and calendar.

Darn, I was off by one tile for all of them.

For Djenne, I wanted to settle the luxury resource and also have access to 2f3c lake for extra early commerce boost. For Gao, I wanted access to better tiles south, and also the hill wine (I didn't think deer was that worth it). For Kumbi Saleh, I didn't notice the plains hill for some reason (it was forested, thought it was grassland maybe).

For Henge - does it give free monument in only existing cities or all cities hereafter? I was under the impression that it would enable me to expand to the fat cross for ALL my cities in 10 turns with the monument once I build it.

 

[Pangaea]

Stonehenge gives a free monument in all cities, also future built or captured ones -- until Astronomy is unlocked. It can actually be a good build on huge and slow maps, but on normal settings it's generally not worth it. Especially as early on you have so many important things to build. It's important to get a good start, and Stonehenge doesn't really give you that. Its best use is probably as a source of failgold (you get hammers invested into a wonder transformed to gold when an other AI builds the wonder). Not sure how long that would take on Prince, though.

 

[Fish Man]

Stonehenge gives a free monument in all cities, also future built or captured ones -- until Astronomy is unlocked. It can actually be a good build on huge and slow maps, but on normal settings it's generally not worth it. Especially as early on you have so many important things to build. It's important to get a good start, and Stonehenge doesn't really give you that. Its best use is probably as a source of failgold (you get hammers invested into a wonder transformed to gold when an other AI builds the wonder). Not sure how long that would take on Prince, though.

I was building henge so Djenne could compete better with Antium for borders, and also because I wanted the new city down south to expand to pigs and wine ASAP. IMHO henge is 120 hammers while 2 monuments which I kind of needed were 60 hammers total (the value of the food tiles is probably much more); additionally, the +8 culture allowed me to push back against France and the GPP allowed me to generate GS about 5-6 turns early for academy.

The result: t295 (1850 AD) science victory. Librushed cannons but didn't even need them to pound Rome to the ground (trebs were enough, free expensive tech was nice though). Not sure if conquering America would've led to a further launch, but decided against it. I feel like my tech rate really slowed down late game. I think I have a vague concept of how to play the bare basics of the early game now, but I still have a lot to learn about, well, everything.

 

[Anysense]

You ignored fish 5N of Kumbi Saleh That is why you are so late. A city 1S of that fish could produce decent amount of beakers and whip enough axes to conquer France. Conquest gold would help to fund research for a while and with bigger empire you could win earlier, about 1750 I think. That golden fish could make your dreams about 17XX victory come true but you just ignored her!

 

[elmurcis]

Chop ALL forests that gives any hammer also outside city working radius (I usually don't have any forests left soon after Mathematics is online - Settler.. unit.. stuff... every little bit early can give much more later )... atleast can use for Space Ship parts

 

[Pangaea]

Congratulations with the win

Small note: It's not called a science victory, but space race.

There is a lot to learn in this game, and it's not really realistic to manage to take it all in on the first attempt. Back when I was new to the game, I made threads like this too, and all the advice made my head want to explode. It seemed impossible to do everything people said. Too much info, too many tasks. But eventually you will learn to take more of it on board, and to make use of more pieces in your games.

 

[lymond]

Actually, it's called Space Colony

That's a pretty good win there, undefeated. gratz. Looks like you are picking up some of what we are shoveling.

 

[Pangaea]

Haha, touché

 

[elmurcis]

Thats actually "Screw this planet, lets go home!"

 

[pigswill]

I suspect the reason for tech rate slowing down late game (and not getting earlier star trek victory) was that your empire was too small, not enough pointy stick expansion.

 

[Yin Cognito]

I did it in 1606 AD, playing as Qin Shi Huang of the Chinese (Noble/Marathon) in BTS 3.19 with K-Mod 1.44b (a mod that improves the AI, among other things) on a slightly customized (start position) 'Gigantic Accurate Earth Map (232x112) for Civilization IV' version 1.0 created by Laskaris. I also played with a few self-imposed limitations:
- no slavery/whip for my free citizens, no pacifism either (I see them as game exploits for the human player, just as higher difficulties are bonus driven exploits for the AI)
- no offensive war, except 2-3 small bursts of blitzkrieg to secure 1-2 previously voluntary vassals for Mining Inc. in the late game by capitulation
- all cities conquered in the above blitzkrieg bursts were 'liberated' to the original civilization once the vassal was secured after a couple of turns
- all the traded techs and corporation resources were always secured through fair negotiation and not by intimidation or threats
- no techs were acquired by forcefully instruct vassals to research them

I did, however, have a great start (Gold, Silver and plenty of food in my capital BFC) - as I should have had as the Chinese - and obviously a good knowledge of the map, bar where the resources were precisely located (since it was the actual Earth's map and geography is one of my hobbies).

As others have mentioned, the key is a well planned tech path, near perfect city positioning for optimal food/hammer/commerce (I prioritized food and commerce in this) and synchronizing tech discoveries with relevant building/wonders/etc (building Pyramids - 1970 BC in my case - and the Oracle slingshot from Code of Laws to Civil Service - 1720 BC - are the perfect examples of this technique, to quickly switch to the Representation-Bureaucracy-Caste System combo; then trying to get to either Organized or Free Religion, or even making a transition from Organized to Free Religion after completing critical buildings later on in the game). Corporation choices (coupled with useful vassals for them) is also important late in the game - Mining Inc. and Cereal Mills were spot on for me on the played map - since it opens up a lot of possibilities in terms of production/food surplus related specialists, without neglecting the long term cottage economy where appropriate.

That being said, I would be interested in how much a more aggressive approach to gameplay (e.g. slavery/pacifism/great people/vassalage tech-ing, but no offensive wars) would improve the date when space victory is achieved on this map and at this difficulty level. I say no offensive wars and same difficulty since, despite the drawback of waging wars and playing at deity, these two come with great benefits as you can get already made cities/wonders and already discovered techs by the bonus driven AI if you win your battles and/or expertly manipulate the diplomacy to your advantage.

 

[Anysense]

We know that on Marathon with no restrictions (no offensive wars etc) it is possible to win Space before Common Era on any difficulty level. Since Noble AI is very slow to expand, it probably won't change much, particularly if you implement new peace vassaling techniques. Thats in normal Civ, I have no idea what is it like with K-Mod.

 

[Yin Cognito]

We know that on Marathon with no restrictions (no offensive wars etc) it is possible to win Space before Common Era on any difficulty level. Since Noble AI is very slow to expand, it probably won't change much, particularly if you implement new peace vassaling techniques. Thats in normal Civ, I have no idea what is it like with K-Mod.

I would like to clarify this a little bit in my head though, if you don't mind: you say that it's possible to win in the BC era on any difficulty level with no restrictions at all, right? If that's so, I already know it as well, I checked Seraiel's and WastinTime's games a while ago - they're impressive. What I meant is that I would like to know/see the difference when someone plays with some of the restrictions I mentioned earlier (like: no offensive wars, no bullying the AIs in trades, no capitulated vassals unless voluntary first, no vassalage directed tech research), but not all (e.g. slavery/pacifism/voluntary vassalage allowed). If I get things right, both records (Seraiel's and WastinTime) were achieved partially by conquering other civs or chunks of their territory and directing vassals to research other techs than they were - my idea was to avoid that entirely and see when the space victory is completed. In other words, I would be interested to find out how much things are improved on Noble by employing slavery and/or pacifism (since I'm no expert in these), but while relying mostly on the human player's own work/skills and much less on the work of the opponents (e.g. cities, techs, wonders, etc.) - except for the usual voluntary tech trades.

Well, I have no idea how plain BTS is (I know, right?), because I started playing using K-Mod right from the start and never looked back. The thing is that everybody back then sort of complained about how easy/stupid was the AI in certain situations, so there were a couple of mods that tried to address the issue (e.g. Better AI, BUG, BULL, BAT, and so on). I liked K-Mod because apart from taking some ideas on how to improve the AI from other mods, it also made other slight changes/corrections/improvements to the game itself without changing it significantly. So, I don't know exactly how different it is from plain BTS.

By the way, what would you consider a "very slow expansion" of the Noble AI? Like, how many cities does it have to own (or conquer) at a particular date or era to be considered "very slow" in expanding? If you can give me an estimate based on your experience, I could compare it to my (latest) game to see if K-Mod improved that aspect of the game or not...

 

[Anysense]

If you ignore several of the most important game aspects and some of the most powerful game mechanics, your game will suffer. If you want to find out what a player can do without AI, then you should play with one AI isolated on single tile island. Of course, your game will suffer if you don't use the most powerful civics. That might be even heavier blow than no free workers and cities from AI.

I don't like lower difficulty levels, prefer Deity. Immortal AI is already annoyingly slow for HoF games, requires adoptation, that is you have to give AI time to develop. On Noble it might even be possible to expand to the domination limit without capturing or razing any cities.

I don't see why one should not use conquering, slavery or vassals, anyway. After all, AI abuses all of the three.

 

[Anysense]

You need to be more specific to get the answer, vague "what if one of the following..." is... too vague. Anyway, who would take their time to do the research? May be, if you suggest it as a BOTM game there will be some interest in it.

 

[Yin Cognito]

I don't see why one should not use conquering, slavery or vassals, anyway. After all, AI abuses all of the three.

I fully agree with all that you said (although I didn't have the chance or interest to observe the slavery abuse by the AI more closely). I'm not saying conquering, slavery or vassals shouldn't be used by the human player though, just that their abuse could be avoided. I personally don't like to 'cheat' (ok, maybe too strong of a word) or be cheated on, whether it's about game exploits of the human or unfair AI bonuses. I'm exaggerating a bit for the sake of argument, but this is like asking yourself why one should not take bribe throughout life, when, after all, everyone else takes it. Whether or not going on that path makes one a fool or an honest man, that's up for debate, depending on which side one 'activates'.

I used to play all the games - not just the previous Civ versions - at the highest level possible right from the start, and I agree, that's a great way to become a much better player really fast. I grew tired of doing that lately though, since it's clear to me that the supposed "AI" is not playing better on its own merit, but rather by getting hardcoded advantages while the human player is hampered by various "disadvantages", in order to simulate the 'difficulty'. Mainly, I'm growing tired of seeing games or "apps" simulate difficulty not by making the AI better, but by forcing the human to become worse. I don't know if this makes sense to you, but although I have no problem winning (many times big) in most games at the highest level, it's boring to see the same old lame story all over again: the AI doesn't improve its game on higher difficulties, it's just the effect of the handicap on the human player that creates the illusion of difficulty. I don't know about you, but different standards (as opposed to different quality) in the same environment for opponents doesn't make much sense to me.

Bottom line, slavery and even GP abuse in Civ 4 is a bit too powerful for my taste. Halving the period required to win the game just by aggresively using them creates an unbalance in the game, IMHO. It seems there are checks against it (efficiency droping with time, various penalties, specific random events), but they're easy to workaround.

 

[Yin Cognito]

You need to be more specific to get the answer, vague "what if one of the following..." is... too vague. Anyway, who would take their time to do the research? May be, if you suggest it as a BOTM game there will be some interest in it.

I know, I was just asking for an estimate, based on the player's experience. And yeah, a BOTM game was previously suggested to me on this. I'm not sure it would generate much interest though, as everyone seems to like playing a certain way. I know when I'm in a minority on things...