"Lazy Space Victory"?

[shpeka]

BAT mod. Immortal. Custom Continents. Normal Speed. No huts.

The map is pretty easy - good Bureaucracy Cap, zealot neighbor, easy block, etc.

It seems that Custom Continents creates somewhat bigger landmasses with enough space for an average of 10-12 good cities for everyone. So after I capped 3 of my opponents I am left with 30+ cities and am pretty even on tech with the rest of the AI's.

My problem is as follows: how do I win the game? I know that good players mention the "lazy space victory" but it seems impossible for me - even if my total production is higher - the AI cities have higher individual production and I am sure to lose the space race.

How do you win space?

 

[sossos]

Corporation is the key.

The Statue of Liberty and the Three Gorges dam are also very helpful.

After you get the bonus of 100% hammer and 100% beakers, I think you can easily get 10K+ beakers per turn. The space ship can be launched in 30 turns after the corporation headquarter is founded.

 

[barbertje]

Corporation is the key.

The Statue of Liberty and the Three Gorges dam are also very helpful.

After you get the bonus of 100% hammer and 100% beakers, I think you can easily get 10K+ beakers per turn. The space ship can be launched in 30 turns after the corporation headquarter is founded.

The only interesting corporation, is cereal mills, mining inc has gone and sids sushi gives only 3 food. Refrigeration can be teched in 2 turns, and there's already a merchant on ice. I doubt that it's worth it. The extra population will need more health and happiness, and more specialist slots. Caste system will take care of the specialist slots, but you'll get even more unhappiness. You'd have to use the culture slider and change all your tile improvements from cottages to farms and workshops.
you'll also get 2 turns of anarchy, and it will become hard to be certain of a 3rd golden age.

Another problem is that there are NO factories, and no ironworks. The 3 gorges dam might have been good, but I don't think there's much chance of getting it.
It takes 28 turns at the moment in the best production city.

The main thing to turn this around is stopping building an army and switch to infrastructure and then wealth and research. The hard part is finding out for each and every city wich buildings are still worth it, and when to switch to wealth or research.

The placement of wall street in the capital is pretty bad. With your slider at 100% it produces 1 extra gold (from a priest)

There's also still some happiness and health to trade for.

 

[CreeDakota]

how about trying to win diplomation if/when the Incas build the UN?

 

[Htadus]

Annex the Mining inc.

But seriously, when Mining inc is not available, then the next best option is to run State Property. Then convert all your non-cottaged cities (any city that does not have towns by now is a non cottaged city or cottage cities without libs/unis/obs too) and convert them to workshop based production cities. (remember to balance the food and hammer to maintain pop) make sure all these cites have a factory and powerplant. 3 Gorg Dam is too little too late. Then build wealth until the slider is 100% and sustainable. Then start building science.

Prep about 5 cities to be you part production cites. They need obs and lab. Claim aluminum. Start Apollo. Start parts. Win.

All the buildings that each city need is granary, CH, Forge, Fact, Power plant and needed happy/healthy to maintain the desired pop.

 

[shpeka]

The problem with this game is that I do not have enough experience at the later stages of the game. At this point of the game it has always been either game won or game lost.

I have tried playing the game to the end peacefully but there is no way I can compete with the AIs SS construction speed.

I'm pretty confident I can overrun them by military means of course.

I was just curious what are the specifics of the Lazy Space.

p.s.: Yes, TGD and SoL are as good as lost in this game.

 

[Doshin]

A "lazy space" victory, in my book, occurs when you are ahead of the AI in just about every regard, but don't want to perform an invasion to win.

Here you are clearly the dominant power, but you are also behind in tech. Arabia will build The Internet before you, if they haven't already, so you can't catch up that way. If you do win, there will be no laziness involved

I'm not great when it comes to Space victories, but here I think you need to beeline Rocketry and then Computers ASAP. Don't let the Byzantines tech Rocketry for you. 12 turns is way too long. Have them research Ecology instead.

Without the Apollo Program, you can't build any spaceship parts. So build the Apollo Program in your highest production city (you do have the Ironworks, right?) and, after you reach Computers, build Laboratories in the next best five (maybe even six/seven?) production cities. When the Apollo Program is done, build a Laboratory in that city too. Switch into Communism for extra production. Build expensive parts in the IW city and your Bureaucracy enhanced capital. Build the cheaper parts elsewhere.

Use your other cities to build Gold and Research to speed your teching. However, if you are sure that you can't beat an AI to space, use your smaller cities to build a navy and send an invasion fleet that you think will be able to capture the space leader's capital. After they launch, you have at least 8 turns to take this city. Once captured, their space mission is aborted, meaning that they have to rebuild from scratch.

If another AI is also about to launch, rinse and repeat.

Mech Infantry are very useful for invasions of this sort, as are Fighters and/or Cruise Missiles. If your target has an inland capital, you will probably need nukes.

 

[cseanny]

To throw in my 2 cents, your overall research is very low. With 30cities you should already be bringing in around 3000 per turn around 1600 AD (and already started The Apollo)......

I haven't done space in a while but teching Industrialism (Aluminum) > Rocketry to immediately start Apollo > Refrigeration > Superconductors (Laboratory +50% space/5thrusters) > Plastic > Composites (5casings) > Radio to unlock Satellites (docking bay) > and the remaining space techs and parts in any order you want.

If I knew I was going for space I would have already had work shops and IW set up a long long, very long time ago and would already have Factories, coal plants, and the appropriate health modifying buildings. Plus getting power earlier really skyrockets your research. My point is I would already have power in literally 10+ cities by the time I got to plastics therefore no need for Gorges Dam.

Also, I wouldn't even bother getting Computers. Refrigeration is cheaper and could add some needed health benefits. Imo computers is only good when your behind.....and finishing The Internet will catch you up. The space elevator takes to long to research imo and you could finish your space ship quicker just avoiding it.

 

[shpeka]

Thanks for the input everyone.

 

[The Oz-Man]

I'm not an Immortal player, but I would go for Diplomation here. Look at how behind--and close--Tokugawa is. Ragnar's not in much better shape, either. With a concerted effort to building lots of stuff, you should be able to get them both on your side, which should be enough for the win.

 

[SrslySirius]

How the heck do you get 10k beakers per turn? My personal record is 3k, and I certainly didn't get there by 1600 AD.

 

[MrCynical]

I would definitely say a military approach would be better than going for space here. Space race is only the "lazy" approach if you're ahead on research. Production isn't actually the problem - the delay is getting the necessary tech, and both the Inca and Arabia are way ahead of you. They don't have flight yet though, which would give you an edge if it came to warfare. Ragnar and Tokuwaga would be easier targets though, and might be enough to get you to domination.

If you're winning the tech race then space does become the "lazy" option. If you just keep going you'll almost certainly beat the AI to it, and it doesn't require as much effort and real time as a late game invasion. In that situation there's no doubt you're going to win, and you can probably get most of the victory types, but space doesn't involve so much management as the others.

 

[Htadus]

How the heck do you get 10k beakers per turn? My personal record is 3k, and I certainly didn't get there by 1600 AD.

Large empire and most cities building wealth/science. Need factories, power plants and corps or SP. For example a city with 10 grassland workshops will give 66 H {(3x10)x2x1.1} in SP. And it only get better from there. 100 H from a city is not that extraordinary. So you are only limited by the size of the empire.

 

[RJM]

I've played this game to a conclusion quite a few times and not yet managed to achieve a "lazy space race" win. The closest I came is to lose the race by 3 turns. I continue to suspect that it should be possible to win a space race by discovering techs in an optimal order and then building the components efficiently (but I never managed to do this). It is probably possible to win a space race more easily if you use military power or espionage (or both) to disrupt the AI's space ship construction.

There are a couple of principles which will help - specialise cities (particularly science and production) and only focus research on required technologies.