How can you build all the Spaceship parts in 20 moves?

[Kolyana]

I've just got through playing a game against the AI: Highland map, Noble difficulty. I keep losing here, but I keep going back in with a new strategy and renewed vigor ... and this time I really thought I had it.

I was way ahead in the culture and technology game right from the get go and held it - and a point lead - for 90% of the game. I noticed that coming into the 1900's, one of the AI started to run ahead of me in points (he was somewhat larger in land mass), but I was pushing for tech and the space race victory.

I told all cities to concentrate on science, I kept my science high (90%), and even when he was 500pts ahead, I kept on pushing.

I built the Apollo Program waaaaaaaaaay ahead of anyone else and started churning out parts eons before the AI thought about it and coming into 2030 I was the ONLY one producing parts.

With 3 pieces to go I allocated them to my highest 3 producing cities and calculated that I'd have everything with 8 turns to go. I maxed out production in these cities (using the auto preferences, not manually).

And with 20 turns to go, the largest AI finally researches the Apollo Program; way too late, right?

Well apparently not, because he built EVERYTHING ... despite a research deficit ... 11 turns later. EVERYTHING, engine and all.

He beat me by 1 part ... how? How could his production be so high that he can do this? Does the space elevator make that much difference? (Yes, he had it).

What did I do wrong? What should top-notch cities be producing near the end of the game? 90 hammers? Way more? What civics should I be on? Is it okay to change civics during a race like this, or will the uprising delay things too much?

 

[remconius]

Did the cities have forge, factory and powerplant?

And did you have laboratories in the cities producing parts? They add 50% to spaceship production.

 

[vinstafresh]

Have lots of productive cities, go for Rocketry to build the Apollo Program, go for Robotics to enable construction of the Space Elevator (50% production of all parts in every city) and build this in your most productive city. You need to have finished the AP to begin construction of the SE (if I recall correctly). By then you can only build casings or thrusters anyway, you don't need a highly productive city for those!) SE is a big help, but not extremely critical.

Go for a source of aluminum to speed up construction even more. Build the casings in the least productive cities and only research techs that will give you spaceship parts. Fill your inproductive cities with specialists until growth is stagnant (in order to research other techs faster). NEVER EVER trade techs to build space ship parts to rivals involved in the space race. In stead, give them to the weaker civs to pursuade them to go to war with your rivals. It will give them something more to worry about than building space ship parts!!

If someone declares war on you, don't let him distract you, defend your productive cities and let him have your border cities if you can not defend them (it won't have a big impact on your score apparently). Try to beg for peace, but don't actively fight back by producing units in stead of parts. Your main focus is launching the space ship. I had Napoleon (technologically backwards, but he had 200 cavs or so) take out almost my entire empire, but he settled for peace when I gave him democracy and some other old techs. I did loose the race, but that was because I missed the SE by 2 turns and I had been trailing Mansa the entire game.

 

[Batvanio]

depends on number of cities nothing more.
if the AI had say 15 big cities with 12 of them good production cities and oreders one part in each city it should not surprise you.
with space elevator and the labs I can do it even for 7-8 turns.

If the AI had only 5 cities that that would be surprising.

So the solution is: keep every AI smaller than you

 

[Stuporstar]

I played one game where the space race was getting critically close. It was neck and neck the whole way. I was counting on this so I had saved up two great engineers to build the AP and SE. I had my research cranked up to 90%. I pre-built labs in all my production cities, had factories and power plants built long before, and secured a source of aluminum. I pulled off a win myself in 20 turns. This was on Noble.

 

[blueinf]

depends on number of cities nothing more.
if the AI had say 15 big cities with 12 of them good production cities and oreders one part in each city it should not surprise you.
with space elevator and the labs I can do it even for 7-8 turns.

If the AI had only 5 cities that that would be surprising.

So the solution is: keep every AI smaller than you

Try to do this since the beginning There s nothing more enjoyable than bashing a civ higher in score than you with only half of your cities producing military units !

 

[jodok]

(This is from my experience on Prince. I don't know how it will be on higher levels)

If you believe that you are facing a space race, I would spare as much forest as possible around your main production citites until after you have started producing the expensive spaceship-parts (Engine, Cockpit, Stasis Chamber, Launchbay).

In the cities producing these parts, chop down the forests around them, and whoooaaa... You complete these parts in 4 turns instead of 15. (You don't need the extra production capabilities after you have won anyway )

I usually consider a city with more than 40 hammers as a pretty good production center. That said, your best production city, should easily get at least 60 hammers...

Also, IMO, you just cannot win a space race victory without aluminium and laboratory in your biggest cities...

 

[NuWorld]

What did I do wrong? What should top-notch cities be producing near the end of the game? 90 hammers? Way more? What civics should I be on? Is it okay to change civics during a race like this, or will the uprising delay things too much?

I finnished noble game yesterday, managed to built Apollo and all parts in 15 turns. Had all top civics except free religion. OTOH, capitol was at 98 hammers, 2 others were 80-ish, 5 or 6 others had 60 or more. Didn't have space elevator (because it would take to long to build in available cities), and yes, it has quite an impact because of 50% faster SS production. 8 turns is not bad for most expensive modules, but if you're pushed by other civs, you should aim for 5 turns. Try to setup a "space rush", all single modules in a seperate cities, 10 turns or less needed, casings and thrusters in minor cities, 3-4 turns per SS part. Take them by surprise.

 

[Volstag]

Well apparently not, because he built EVERYTHING ... despite a research deficit ... 11 turns later. EVERYTHING, engine and all.

It's theoretically possible (I think). If he has cities fully upgraded for SS production (factories, forges, laboratories, etc), access to aluminum, and the space elevator -- you could build SS parts pretty darn quick. There's also the possibility he was rushing SS production with GEs and/or cash (can you "cash rush" SS parts)?

 

[Kolyana]

Did the cities have forge, factory and powerplant?

And did you have laboratories in the cities producing parts? They add 50% to spaceship production.

Thanks for the feedback guys. It seems like I made a couple of core mistakes.

To begin with, my GNP was not great amongst the civs in general, so even though my largest production was 90 hammers (raw value, according to my advisor), perhapsI was a little weak here.

I did try and spread production out across my major producing points, producing the more intensive parts after forge, factory and such ... but maybe not all had a powerplant: first mistake.

Labs: Second mistake ... I got to building parts *before* the labs; I didn't realize that they had this impact.

Third Mistake: Never built the elevator.

Fourth Mistake: I possibly could have saved enough money to hold the AI back one or more turns through the use of spies, but felt it was unnecesary because I had such a charging lead into the space race (I was soooooo much ahead of everyone else). So I guess I was complacent ... I won't do that again

 

[Shadowlord]

I actually had a space race victory in my first game (Continents;Standard size;Noble;Normal speed) by multitasking spaceship parts through most of my empire. Let's see if I can put together a timeline...


Apparently the game doesn't keep track of when projects were built - No date is shown in the list of completed projects. I don't know when I finished the Apollo Project or the various spaceship parts.

What I do know:
1960: Completed the Internet, got a boatload of techs I needed for the space race (I was beelining for Fiber-Optics and then Genetics).
1966 or so: Finished researching Genetics.
1967: Completed the Space Elevator
1978: Isabella invaded (and failed to take any cities)
1982: Won a Space Race victory

I remember that I completed the Space Elevator only a few turns after the Apollo Project, and that I rushed the SE with a Great Engineer. After that I was churning out spaceship parts in most of my cities.

 

[Vizzini]

He beat me by 1 part ... how? How could his production be so high that he can do this? Does the space elevator make that much difference? (Yes, he had it).

Factory(+25%) + Power (+25%) + Laboratory (+50%) + Space Elevator (+50%)? That's 150% production not counting Forge and other production enhancing stuff, like the Civics the AI had chosen.

This city with 40 base production when building a space ship part? Now has 140 hammer production. A 1200 hammer part would cost all of 9 turns to make.

+25% from Civics? Now say.. 7 turns to make that part. The AI can do this in however many cities have Labs. The kicker of course is the AI has a natural production advantage over you, but I don't know that percentage. Figure 5 turns or less, tops for most AI cities per part. Lotsa cities? You're toast.

 

[Kolyana]

Oh man, I never looked it that way before ... going into a race level pegging is probably a sure fire way to lose, but even going in with a strong lead is no guarantee.

As an aside, I had no idea that the AI had a bonus to production .. I'll not be thinking i have the win nailed again by any stretch!

 

[sgrig]

I played about three games on Prince level, where I keep losing the space race quite narrowly - by at most 1 or 2 components. I just can't keep up with the AI production. Also since I'm slightly behind in tech, I usually don't have all the cities with Labs before starting the spaceship.

On Noble and below I usually win quite easily.

 

[Gungalley]

Or if those in the space race are your allies, you can try asking them to declare war against their neighbours or others in the space race.

 

[NuWorld]

There's also the possibility he was rushing SS production with GEs and/or cash (can you "cash rush" SS parts)?

Nope, you can not rush SS parts.

 

[Kizor]

Spies are your friend. Failing that, if you're narrowly losing cutting AI production capabilities may be enough - try ICBMs.

 

[Blazer6]

Have the spy destroy shield producing plots and not the production itself, which has a high failure rate.

 

[Kolyana]

Good idea, this last point.

Wanted to thank everyone who posted in this thread ... finally won on this map (Noble setting), by taking all the advise I've seen ... building laboratories and ensuring that I grabbed the Space Elevator: with this, I didn't worry even when the AI started building well before me.

And - using some of the other advice given here - when my closest competitor was dragged into a war *cough* it ensured that he was distracted and never got to build another piece of the Space Ship ... victory was quite sweet