How do they all tech like crazy ???

[Eul_Bofo]

Hi.

In my most recent BOTM (spoiled by the fact that the initial displacement of the AIs made it possible for even a dumb monarch/emperor player like me to get an easy victory), I saw that everyone reaching a space victory got it in the late 1800's/early 1900's. I was only able to obtain my space victory in 1986

In a report, I saw that one of the players was able to get more than 1600 (and about 3000 in a golden age) a turn in 1400 ! This I can't see how to obtain.

So my question : is it only a matter of building more cities (I read about 24 cities when I had only a dozen), and if that is the fact, how do they pay for the maintainance, or is there some magic stuff involved ? And if it's only cities, how can someone get 24 cities in the room I see fit for only half ? Do hundreds of crappy cities worth more than ten great cities ?

I would be grateful if you find me some tips on that point

\bye

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Most people use the hammer economy (build hammer multipliers and build wealth until slider at 100%, then build research) these days for space.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

For space race you need the basic set up with 1 SSC, 2 GC, 1 GPF, and then you just have a huge empire of concurred land that run workshops so you build gold/science and have a 100% slider so you are teching faster than the AI by a long shot. Also is quite good for defending against the AI PfW as you have quite a few cities that can pump units fast. Oh and by having a hammer empire when you start building your ship you can have multiple parts building quickly all over your empire.

 

[Shurdus]

I am unfamiliar with the BOTM sicne I do not play Civ to be competitive, so I cannot go into specifics. Please keep that in mind when reading my answer.

Organised leaders do of course help to cut into civic maintenance. There is also the forbidden palace wonder that helps cut maintenance. Also there is the state property civic that negates the distance from capitol. There are thefore ways to keep city maintenance in check. SP also helps with production since it makes workshops easier to support. This should make for an earlier finish date as well since space is related to production.

Getting more beakers per turn (bpt) is one thing, tehcing like mad quite another. The two are related of course but getting more bpt requires city micromanagement, teching requires good diplomatic skills - to get an AI to friendly to trade indefinitely - and a keen eye to spot opportunities. Both require practise and experience. Teching one tech yourself and trading it to an AI for a second tech, then on the second turn trading tech one + tech two for a more expensive tech 3 and then on turn 3 trading that more expensive tech around if you can can net you a stellar amount of beakers from a single tech. This of course is not very specific advice, but if there is a lesson here, it is that earlier finish dates usually means that the player traded more and therefore kept the pace of himself and the AI up high because the AI too can tech faster if you trade with it.

Getting more bpt requires good land. Grabbing 1600 bpt at 1400 AD is quite respectable, but I am not sure if it can be done every game. If you can have some well developed cottage cities and have lots and lots of land, then you can pull it off. I would not look at those games and see it as a good standard for things you should be able to achieve as it can be very map specific.

To answer your question then, getting less and better developed cities is usually better. More cities can be desirable in some cases - like when you are planning a drafting war - but in general I would advise you to develop cities into high quality ones rather than spamming them. Ten great cities are definitely worth more than a hundred crap cities.

Getting your tech rate up in terms of bpt requires good city specialisation. You should maximise cities for hammers or commerce, and really try to get max hammers from hammer cities and max commerce multipliers in commerce cities. This means you should try to not build too many buildings like aquaducts when you can just as easely trade for corn to get a +2 health bonus (with a granary).

Ao all in all there is no magic or anything, just good playing and questioning your every move. What really helps is to ask yourself every time if what you are doing is really the best thing to do. I used to play on the auto-pilot rather than thinking, but when I started to do things with a purpose it really pushed my game to new levels. Kossin has a DR series where he posts his games, you can ask him questions in his thread as well. I suggest reading the more recent ones as they are on deity and you can see what it takes to be a solid player.

 

[Eul_Bofo]

Most people use the hammer economy (build hammer multipliers and build wealth until slider at 100%, then build research) these days for space.

Hell, yet another economy I'm not aware of ! Just when I started mastering FE, SE and CE ! So that's one more thing I'll have to add to my game

One question : do you plan this kind of economy from move one, or do you beeline to the techs allowing you to convert into or , and THEN start converting cottages into workshops ?

I am unfamiliar with the BOTM sicne I do not play Civ to be competitive

I don't either play CivIV for competition, but comparing yourself to other players shows you best about what sucks in your game, so preset games enable those comparisons. I'm quite aware of all your other advices, even if I'm not sure I don't turn into a "End of Turn" clicking robot after a while

Kossin has a DR series where he posts his games, you can ask him questions in his thread as well. I suggest reading the more recent ones as they are on deity and you can see what it takes to be a solid player.

Thanks, I'll do that.

\bye

 

[Shurdus]

Cottages actually start out as weak tiles until they have grown a lot. So no, you will not want to run cottages first and convert them to workshops later. If possible you will want farms and run specialists, and whipping the excess pop away in order to be able to produce what you need. Work the specials and as much farms as you can and run enough specialists to avoid growth. Alternate between farms and mines if you must in order to avoind growing into unhappiness.

What you need to keep in mind is that if you run into your happy cap you can whip the pop away for a hammer boost, or you can run more specialists or you can work more mines. What you must try to not do is run suboptimal tiles.

 

[Eul_Bofo]

Cottages actually start out as weak tiles until they have grown a lot. So no, you will not want to run cottages first and convert them to workshops later. If possible you will want farms and run specialists, and whipping the excess pop away in order to be able to produce what you need. Work the specials and as much farms as you can and run enough specialists to avoid growth. Alternate between farms and mines if you must in order to avoind growing into unhappiness.

OK, so what if, say, at the beginning of the game, I can just run two scientist from libs, but no other specialist (temples need a religion, and currency is quite expensive...). What do I do ? Beeline to currency ? Whip till my hands bleed ? Is this all the CE/SE troll on once again , or is there something other here ?

I think one thing wrong about my game is that I don't plan my tech path to always have something interesting to build. This I can enhance.

What you need to keep in mind is that if you run into your happy cap you can whip the pop away for a hammer boost, or you can run more specialists or you can work more mines. What you must try to not do is run suboptimal tiles.

I see your point : I can clearly identify lots of suboptimal moves in my games. What I think is more difficult to learn is avoid suboptimal global plan !

Thanks for your help, by the fact.

\bye

 

[TheMeInTeam]

One question : do you plan this kind of economy from move one, or do you beeline to the techs allowing you to convert into or , and THEN start converting cottages into workshops ?

In a random game, no long term tile improvement setup is planned from turn 0, you have to see what's available to you first.

Workshops/mills are the fastest to set up cities and reach its potential, but has lower potential than other options. It's all about getting returns NOW. The only way I've seen this consistently accomplished is using GPP to vault up the tech tree ASAP to the point that hammer improvements make sense.

 

[Shurdus]

OK, so what if, say, at the beginning of the game, I can just run two scientist from libs, but no other specialist (temples need a religion, and currency is quite expensive...). What do I do ? Beeline to currency ? Whip till my hands bleed ? Is this all the CE/SE troll on once again , or is there something other here ?

I think one thing wrong about my game is that I don't plan my tech path to always have something interesting to build. This I can enhance.

You can of course still use cottages and such, but do not set them up if you do not plan on workshopping them over once workshops are useful. Like I said, cottages need to be worked in order to grow and they are suboptimal until later in the game where they are very very good. Working them as placeholders is inefficient so you can probably make more use of the pop and tiles available to you.

Currency is indeed expensive, but after writing you should either get alpha or a trading chip that will get you alpha. After that with the hammers you have maxed you can get libraries up and run scientists to help you researching and you can build beakers. It should help you get ahead and you can tech currency in a decent amount of time. Currency may be expensive but it also trades around nicely in most cases, or you can sell cheap techs for gold which allows your slider to remain high for quite some time after teching currency. This should really help you in keeping research going after getting currency.

Just keep in mind that you can specialise cities for hammers and that you can very well get your hands on alpha by researching it yourself or getting it in a trade. After that the hammers you have maxed out can get you quite some beakers in order to help out your research. It allows for more flexibility in the beginning of the game than cottage spamming since you can produce faster than with cottages alone, and you can whip more often. If you leverage the production bonus that you build up you can use the hammers to crush any opponent that you will, and then you can cruise to any victory you want.

So in the end focussing on commerce is one way to go, building wealth and commerce is quite another. Both can net you a victory, both are very viable, but in the end it depends on the map and the neighbors which approach is the most effective and the most productive. If you have a lot of river tiles, and green land, and food, and nice neighbors, then by all means spam cottages and run away with the game. If you have a neighbor that is very very aggresive you better set your cities up so that you can actually produce enough units to remain safe. Of course your cottage cities can whip units out but then the cottages remain unworked anyway, which delays the point in the game where cottages are king, reducing the efficiency of the cottages further.

Ok so I can drag on about this forever, but keep in mind that games can be won without ever producing a single cottage and you can still be fine in terms of techs. It may require a war or two in order to leverage your production advantage, it may put you in a late game position where an Ai will get more advanced than you are. Then again you will have the units and the production to stop that AI from getting ahead so that will not be a big problem for you. o in the end it may require a different approach but it can be done very very well.

 

[Deckhand]

For space race you need the basic set up with 1 SSC, 2 GC, 1 GPF, and then you just have a huge empire of concurred land that run workshops so you build gold/science and have a 100% slider so you are teching faster than the AI by a long shot. Also is quite good for defending against the AI PfW as you have quite a few cities that can pump units fast. Oh and by having a hammer empire when you start building your ship you can have multiple parts building quickly all over your empire.

Seems like good, concise advice. But some abbreviations I don't recognize.
SSC = Super Science City?
GC = Gold City ??
GPF = Great Person Farm.
PfW = Preference for War ????

 

[Xiao Xiong]

after writing you should either get alpha or a trading chip that will get you alpha

I almost never prioritize alpha since generally all my trading partners already have it. I prioritize other things. Eventually someone throws alpha into a deal to sweeten it.

The only exception is if I got great wall or have some other espionage advantage, then I'll get alpha so that I can build spies.

 

[Dr.Null]

I almost never prioritize alpha since generally all my trading partners already have it. I prioritize other things. Eventually someone throws alpha into a deal to sweeten it.

The only exception is if I got great wall or have some other espionage advantage, then I'll get alpha so that I can build spies.

I'm only a Monarch player, but some games it seems advantageous to nab Alphabet early:

- When only ONE of my trading partners has it, and is being a jerk about brokering tech to everyone else.

- When I'm going to kill a neighbor and he has some techs that he may be willing to trade for 10 more turns of life.

 

[adrianj]

Eul_bofo: the game you are referring to was a pretty special case. I'd like to go into more specifics, but I'm not sure it's appropriate for a currently running BOTM.

In general, a "hammer economy" is nice, but by itself it isn't the best. The key is to have many cities and unless you're planning on using Corporations the State Property civic is a must. But even though you have many cities, they shouldn't all be production cities.

The goal is to still have excellent cottage cities (developed from early on in the game) that efficiently convert into (ie, libraries, some academies, Oxford in one of them of course). The problem there is maintaining the slider at 100% to get best use out of the multiplier buildings - this is where the production cities come in. They require only a granary, forge, factory, power plant so are quite fast to set up in the mid-to-late game, especially with guilds/chemistry boosted workshops and biology farms - and then once set up they produce Wealth to cover the bills.

The truly remarkable space race games have victory pre 1500 AD - I've never achieved that myself. Still, my advice is to target key techs:

Early Game
It's all about the cottages here and claiming land. Key techs:
Worker techs obviously - Agriculture, Fishing, Pottery, Mining, BW (slavery is very poweful no matter whta play style you use).
Alphabet - use it to trade the other techs you've missed so far - pref. including Monarchy. On higher levels I've read of players researching Aesthetics instead and then trading Alphabet from someone else.
Currency - so many good reasons, the most important IMO is the ability to build wealth. If the only options your city has to build are temples, aqueducts or units think hard about what you really need. Do you really need a temple or an aqueduct this early in the game? If not, build wealth!

Mid Game
Hopefully still expanding. Hopefully you're in a race for Liberalism that you are hopefully winning. Key techs:
Code of Laws - Slavery is great, but one day you'll want Caste System. Courthouses are pretty essential for a large empire.
Civil Service - Bureaucracy is an excellent civic since chances are your capital is your best, most developed city. In many games I'll also have cottaged around my capital and it will become my Super Science City. Also, chain irrigating farms is an essential tool for making use of marginal land.
Philosophy - Paired with Caste System, Pacifism is a great way to get a bunch of great scientists for either bulbing, building academies, or settling in the super science city.
Education - Universities and Oxford Uni. Plus it's on the way to Liberalism, and you can part bulb it with a Great Scientist.
Liberalism - if you know where the other players are at, you could just research this to within 1 turn and then go off looking for something else. If it's a real close race, then Nationalism is available. Otherwise I like to try to get Chemistry or Astronomy depending on the map, or even further if the AI is really backward.
Guilds - Its not a top priority, but it makes workshops worth building at this point, so you can start setting up your production cities. With Caste System, your workshops are now as good as mined hills.

Mid-to-late Game
Expansion, expansion. By the proverbial sword if necessary, although you're probably better off using Rifles, Cannon, Cavalry or some combination thereof. If you're not planning on playing with a massive empire, then you shouldn't really be thinking about a hammer economy. By the end of this phase, if not already, you should be comfortably keeping the science slider at 100%. key techs:
Military tech - Eg, Rifling, Steel or Military Tradition - unless you can expand peacefully of course, in which case skip this one. But that situation is quite rare.
Chemistry - Better workshops is always nice. It's also required for...
Biology - +1 to farms is huge.
Communism - State Property is also excellent. If you're first to it you'll get a free Great Spy who might help launch a golden age for a free revolution (assuming BtS). Under State Property, not only are your maintenance expenses much less, you also get +1 from workshops, which means they now pretty much pay for themselves in terms of food. Consider getting this tech before Biology actually.
Assembly Line - Hopefully you are doing well and have many cities, half of which are production oriented. This tech alone can boost that production by 75% with Factories and Coal Plants. Coal Plants = ... pfff. Maybe now you can consider aqueducts or grocers since they are cheap. Or, if your cities aren't that big anyway it's not really an issue.

Late Game
The hard work has already been done. I'm still not sure of the best way to tech through here myself, but in general you want to focus more on teching and less on SS part building. If say you have 12+ excellent production cities it is more efficient to build all parts in all cities towards the end rather than one at a time in only a couple of cities. This is pretty much the opposite if you have a small empire with not many production cities though. Key Techs:
Industrialism - Reveals Aluminium. If you don't have it, seriously consider going to war for it. Conveniently, it also unlocks Marines and Tanks.
Superconductors - Lets you build Laboratories. If a city plans to build a SS part, put a lab there. Plus, your super science city might like one too.
Fusion - If you get there first you'll get a free Great Engineer. This might be just the thing you need for a final golden age, save until the last turns when many cities are producing SS parts. Also unlocks the SS Engines, which are quite expensive.
Rocketry - you'll need to build Apollo at some point of course, you just don't need it straight away is all I'm saying.
All the rest - Ignore Robotics unless you just happen to have a spare Great Engineer lying around for the Space Elevator, even then I'm not sure adding the extra Robotics tech is worth it. Unless you've traded for it of course. I usually save Ecology for last, since the SS Life Support is the cheapest part there is and you might be able to build it out of wood (ie, chop it out) in some tundra city or the National Park city.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Seems like good, concise advice. But some abbreviations I don't recognize.
SSC = Super Science City?
GC = Gold City ??
GPF = Great Person Farm.
PfW = Preference for War ????

SSC is your Super Science City where you only build Science modifiers, Libraries, Universities, Ect.; this city is usually working as many cottages as it can.
GC is the Gold City, it can be a Shined city or a cottage spammed one like the SSC, but instead of building Science modifiers you buy Gold modifiers like banks, markets, and what not. They help with maintaining a high Science slider so you can have more cities building units and research instead of wealth.
GPF is the Great Person Farm which is obviously for farming GPs, which I use to bulb techs which allows you to get a faster tech lead and get the Workshop/Watermill techs faster.
PfW is Preparing for War, when you notice an AI is switching into War Civics it usually means they are building to DoW on someone.

 

[Sydney Posada]

SSC is your Super Science City where you only build Science modifiers, Libraries, Universities, Ect.; this city is usually working as many cottages as it can.
GC is the Gold City, it can be a Shined city or a cottage spammed one like the SSC, but instead of building Science modifiers you buy Gold modifiers like banks, markets, and what not. They help with maintaining a high Science slider so you can have more cities building units and research instead of wealth.
GPF is the Great Person Farm which is obviously for farming GPs, which I use to bulb techs which allows you to get a faster tech lead and get the Workshop/Watermill techs faster.
PfW is Preparing for War, when you notice an AI is switching into War Civics it usually means they are building to DoW on someone.

I'm a bit confused as to why you have both a Gold City and a Super Science City. If you have the Science slider set to 100%, won't the income from the Gold City be pretty low, even with Banks, Markets, etc.? Or is it there just in case you need to switch to 0% Science and get some quick cash?

 

[adrianj]

I'm a bit confused as to why you have both a Gold City and a Super Science City. If you have the Science slider set to 100%, won't the income from the Gold City be pretty low, even with Banks, Markets, etc.? Or is it there just in case you need to switch to 0% Science and get some quick cash?

The Gold City has some unique features that allow it to generate even when the science slider is at 100%. Possibilities include:
1. A Religious Shrine
2. A corporation HQ (BtS only)
3. Lots of merchant specialists.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

I'm a bit confused as to why you have both a Gold City and a Super Science City. If you have the Science slider set to 100%, won't the income from the Gold City be pretty low, even with Banks, Markets, etc.? Or is it there just in case you need to switch to 0% Science and get some quick cash?

is not the same as Gold. Banks, markets, and what not are Gold multipliers not . For example a Shrine produces gold not , so even if you have a 100% slider you still be producing a ton of gold. Also GC allow you to make a ton of gold when you switch to 0% so you can save up to start rush buying an army if you go that rout. They aren't necessary but are good to have.

Oh one more thing GC are where Wall Street goes. So if you're putting some where else you are ruining it.

 

[evoke]

Having just done an early Space Victory just now, and generally in the habit of going Space, a few miscellaneous remarks I've not yet seen in the thread.

* (In Bts) Good use of corporations can be very helpful in attaining a 100 percent (or more) slider, and early victory times. Tangentially, it is quite possible that even with a positive cash flow at 100 slider you might still build wealth in some cities, btw, to flip it back into purchasing buildings/material under Universal Sufferage. Also, food corps let you work all the tiles even in cities with less than bountiful tiles or placements. (One may wish to read up on corporations on forums, preferably, when leveraging them, so as to appropriately build the headquarters in the Wall Street city, where possible, and on how to judge whether Sushi or Cereal is a better food pick for the allotment of resources of the overall world, and so forth. Corps are modestly subtler than just 'spam everywhere')

* Some of the Great People that seem to be, perhaps, looked down upon a bit, like Great Merchants or Great Spies, are actually better than you might think for getting you the wealth to keep a really high slider, or the espionage points to steal a hell of a lot of techs. If the game unfolds that way, don't be shy about taking what you might have thought was a non-standard great person, and leveraging them. Also, save your GP appropriately, later game golden ages accelerate harder than early game ones, all things being equal, if you can afford to forebear utilization until the ideal time.

* When going space, you're not warring mid/late game, so trade for gold-per-turn like a madman. Ideally, I get optics before the AI if I can, and get in on snagging everyone's resources before the AI trades with other AI. If you have a spare tech when shopping around techs, consider breaking apart AI traders and suck down both their resources / gpt. Set the Buffy mod timer to remind you when to negotiate and look for improved gpt deals. You can get a really solid amount of gold and health/happy boost this way. Enough to help influence bumping your midgame slider up a notch or half-notch. (I also like to build UN late game, to force economic choice globally, thus keeping or unlocking the AI civics to be open to corporations and trading freely, and bumping my gold/gpt, which typically also synergizes with GreatLighthouses extra trade routes, etc.)

* Good civics choices matter. Optimal choices and minimal anarchy from too many juggles is often a differentiator in lower and higher level play, insofar as intermediate players are often loosing double-digit gold or serious war prep / efficiency advantages to suboptimal civics or overly later civics switches. Imho, it is worth it, if your psychotype and willingness permits,to consider replaying one of your most enjoyable and interesting worlds 2-3 times, replaying either in whole or at an earlier save point, to experiment with other civics and improved tech paths, or different city orders and placements, taking what you learned in retrospect and applying a more optimized strategy. This lets you see just how good (or worse!) it would have been. It can be invaluable to see this on as close a comparison layout as you can get (the rng may choose DoWs or settler placement differently, alas, but still). You don't want to replay with foreknowledge cheese, of where a key resource is you couldn't have possibly known, you want to honestly and curiously investigate how a different strategy excells or falls face down in the cactus.

* If it keeps you from getting DoW inconveniently in the midgame, gift a junk city to the warmonger threatening you until you can redirect him elsewhere. Nothing sucks for speedy space like an inconvenient mid-game war.

* Although it is tangent to the main intent of space race economic setup, in my experience, for truly fast space race times, early and-or successful wars matter. You obviously do better, when you nab an opponent's capital and land/resources off a well-managed early war, particularly if you play a leader/traits with *non-war* or mid/late game traits and rely on human shrewdness to win an early war anyway, thus getting the best of both worlds, so to speak. For clarity, this is NOT necessary for a pre- 1900 time, but on the other hand, personally, I have not gotten a pre- 1750 time except when winning some wars. (It may be possible, as I'm not as fast as some of the ridiculous fast space times, merely remarking as a subjective data point.)

* Choice of leader can significantly influence win time. I happen, by happenstance personal preference, to enjoy playing the Dutch, and obviously Dikes (mid-game hammers) and financial trait are accelerants for space path. I find that humans don't necessarily need traits or early UU (unique unit) advantages to win an early war and the combination of an early war win and a strong leader/trait for mid/end game means fast Space.

* I find (at my preferred difficulty (Emp) and for my play-style (a couple wars then build)) it's easier to war for a religious capital or a key wonder than to slow your tech path researching religion. (Exception: I like Great Lighthouse wonder if acquirable / pertinent, as it's excellent with Financial trait.) I always find it a lot easier to trade for religion / tech it later, but then, I'm also usually whipping myself silly whenever the efficiency opportunity presents itself, so I tend not to need Monarchy for HR or the religious-related section of the early tech tree until later than, perhaps, some players / play styles. Miscellany: I've always got Schewda as a wonder possibility on the Aesthetics / opposite side of the tech tree, for opening religious civics, which seems to be something players often overlook. (Not that I necessarily or often take it, just that it's there if needed.)

* Players often wince at it, before getting experienced with it, but if you're going Space, it often plays to bribe one of the AIs into a war, to distract and hamper AI opposition. Your main judgement here is whether you are most ideal with a war going on, or retaining strong/undistracted AIs to trade with, or think you can pull off both at once judiciously. Note that your decision inputs benefit from detailed knowledge of the AI leaders/civs tendencies. And for clarity, as this is a Space thread, the point here is not, incite a war for conquest or just to hamper AIs. It's, incite a war when doing so gives you a clear and accelerated path to chase down Space victory. Inciting AIs that often suck mid/late game at teching anyway, is one of my personal preferences, speaking generally, since they'd be lousy tech partners for a decent portion of the Space path's tech needs.

You'll want to look at which AIs are likely to go in or out of other AI's favorite civics in the upcoming course of the tech tree unfolding, and whose the fine religious marshmallow peeps of whom, which AIs (consult the tables) have better chances to raze cities (negative modifiers) when warring, how likely the civ being incited is to immediate re-trade your bribery techs (though I often gift my bribery techs elsewhere to get friendlier tech traders amongst the non-warring), etc. Honestly, often it's true the general meta-picture will override some or even most of these finer-grain details and ideal micros, but they can sometimes assist very helpfully in picking the ideal pick(s) to incite to war. You want to be able to try and shape the war to lasting, or pulling in other AIs, as you need. You won't be able to fully control how it unfolds, but you can influence more than you think with deep background knowledge.

* If leaning Space from the start, I focus on balanced expansion vs religion/wonders/etc (aside: though it's often worth it to hammer a lost wonder for some failure gold), in the sense of maximizing momentum/efficiency. In contrast to generalizations, I'll take whatever economy the tiles are built for, which often means, say, a hybrid cottage/specialist economy, or something non-purist for which adjustments are required, or I'll place cities for splitting a food tile between two cities in a juggle that helps overall expansion momentum and growth.

I've found that I expand faster/better now that I've given up the natural impulse to try placing my cities 'perfectly' for abstract tile maximization or the endgame city perspective or so forth, and instead now place them ideally for the early to middle lifespan of the city. You're not going to be working every tile in the cross with a pop 15+ city for a gooood long time, at which point typically the game is quite won. Do your late game advantages of perfect placement for the long view REALLY outweigh the gains of advantages closer to now, that you can leverage for more advantages in the nearer term? As I novice, I strove for perfect long-view, now a days I strive for velocity/momentum and power/flexibility I can use closer to now.

If I place that early/mid city to truly be a purist farm city on totally flat land, forgoing shifting the placement a square to catch a hill, it will be because I sat there thinking it through, and have nodded to myself that I have an acceptable plan to whip the hell out of it, or a reasonable idea of what to bulb or slingshot with the resultant great person that makes it worthwild. I want to have a guage of how such a flatland city times against Guilds and methods of getting it enough hammers to have eventually have reasonable unfolding speed when the whip is relaxed, etc. Else I'll compromise the placement, and nab that hill or two as simply necessary.

Obviously, I advocate shift cities a square that is seemingly longest-view suboptimal, to have a stronger early/mid opening for the city, for better velocity/momentum, anytime it means subsequent key expansion grabs/speed or the tipping point help for a war win or a just-fast-enough key tech for shopping around....counterbalancing out the late game benefits with benefits now. (Misc: I find, with corporations giving food boosts, I'm going to be working all the tiles anyway late-game.)

Staring to really ramble. Hopefully a helpful tip somewhere in the above walls of text.
Good luck on your matches, and may the rng be kind to you.

-evoke

 

[Protozoan]

Hi.

In my most recent BOTM (spoiled by the fact that the initial displacement of the AIs made it possible for even a dumb monarch/emperor player like me to get an easy victory), I saw that everyone reaching a space victory got it in the late 1800's/early 1900's. I was only able to obtain my space victory in 1986

In a report, I saw that one of the players was able to get more than 1600 (and about 3000 in a golden age) a turn in 1400 ! This I can't see how to obtain.

So my question : is it only a matter of building more cities (I read about 24 cities when I had only a dozen), and if that is the fact, how do they pay for the maintainance, or is there some magic stuff involved ? And if it's only cities, how can someone get 24 cities in the room I see fit for only half ? Do hundreds of crappy cities worth more than ten great cities ?

I would be grateful if you find me some tips on that point

\bye

I use this strategy and it works very well for me. (It's the only strategy I use.) I'm up to Monarch, but can't play with any other leader than a financial when doing so. I haven't tried a non financial civ though so maybe that's why.

So basically start as Darius I. If you have a capital with a lot of food great. Your UU is killer early game and will set you up for a space race victory (or any kind). If your capital has food awesome.

Research animal husbandry the wheel and pottery. Send your scouts out, you might get lucky and pop some money and or a key tech which is awesome.

Cross your fingers and hope that you have horses nearby. 9/10 you do. Settle your second city near the horses. Hopefully you have some sort of food/rivers next to it, but if not no biggie.

Found a third city and cottage the hell out of it. If you have flood plains nearby for that one awesome, but have it be near a river. This will attempt to mitigate your losses when ReXing.

Now you want to get bronzeworking for slavery and then go for writing. Meanwhile whip barracks and at least 8-12 immortals. If you got lucky and popped HBR from a hut whip stables as well. Always be mindful of the overflow when whipping-you can usually whip 1 immortal into 2 from the overflow. If/when you get writing, whip libraries in your 2 production cities, and then run scientists. Turn your research all the way down to 0. Your cottage city will help you out a little bit here.

Then attack a nearby civ and take a capital. Early on, you wont get a big negative diplo when you attack. Raze everything except for the capital (and maybe if you have a good cottage city.) Repeat and rinse with 1-2 other civs.

Make sure you have a cash surplus while doing this and ensure that your slider is at zero. Whenever possible whip libraries and run scientists. If your cities get unhappy whip them away. Now when you have the land, with 2-3 capitals including your own, try and get CoL. As Darius, once you have it, the organized trait will help with the courthouses. Whip them, and then go for literature, and currency for the money.

If you have marble make a shot at the Great Library, but it in a food rich capital city. Around now you wanna switch to the caste system. Also see if you can make a gambit for the Pyramids. This is as important as the Great Library. If you get it run Representation.

Have 1-2 production cities build units to protect your massive land, and then backfill in cities to connect your empire up. Cottage the rest of the land. At this point you will have land with rivers and this should help out a lot for good cottaging.

Play diplo well now and just tech away like crazy. Your Great Person farm should now be getting you scientists. Build academies with them. I usually am also able to get the Parthenon as the AI doesn't try to get it. This will boost your scientist rate. Last when you get philosophy run pacifism.

Now you wanna run a hybrid of a lot of cottage cities, a few key production cities producing wealth to run your slider at 100%, and food cities to run scientist specialists. Darius I is awesome for this strategy because his fin trait maximizes your cottage output, and his organized trait minimizes your maintenance costs. Both are great, plus cheap courthouses makes you that much better.

With this I can get 3k-4k beakers easily by the 1300-1400s. In my last game with this strategy I managed to finish the tech tree by 1500 (just to see how far I could go doing this,) on a Large/Huge Pangea map of course. This is from building wealth and science in your ironworks city.

Mercantilism helps a bit as does the Statue of Liberty if you happen to get to it. Run caste system as long as possible till you no longer need the great scientists.

I don't wonder spam but key wonders are the 'mids, the great library, and Versailles (to reduce the maintenence costs). But don't go out of your way to get divine rights. SoL for the free specialists, and then you should have teched far enough to get all the late game wonder if you want. Corporations also help a loooooot. Mining Inc will give you a huge leg up on building for the spaceship parts, and depending on the map go for Sushi if you have sea food or Cereal Mills on a Pangaea Map. Run specialists and keep a good amount of cottages for your base economy.

I've tried this also with Lizabeth and it works really well, but you can really maximize this strategy with Darius I. The UU, and the traits are perfect for this.

 

[deathturnip]

The way I tech like crazy? Well, I have an unfair advantage being naturally batty.
End lame joke.