Let's Play: Deity BC Space: Strategies from a 10 year veteran

[Mitchum]

Hmmm... I have trouble believing that 40 turns of Sushi with +20 fpt equates to 400,000 gold, especially this late in the game (edit: by late in the game, I mean close to launching. You're still WAAAAY early in the game in terms of the year). First, I'm not sure that all of those pops can be converted to WBE gold. However, I do think that in order to build spaceship parts in a timely manner you have to either a) not over-whip your part-building cities or b) use Sushi to grow them quickly to max hammers. I guess a) goes against the WBE strategy so maybe b) is the only option.

How big do you expect your part-building cities to be on the turn you learn Sushi? How many part-building cities do you plan to use? Do you expect to be at one tech per turn on Marathon? If so, is that building Research or could you also do it by building Wealth?

Thinking about it some more, I think the only reliable way to grow your part-building cities to ~20 pops so early in the game is with Sushi, even if you didn't whip them too hard. It's hard for me to think in terms of this game because I typically don't have to think about growing my cities until ~1000 AD. You have to do it pre 1000 BC!!! So maybe Sushi is a must just to be able to build the space ship in a timely manner but how much you end up spreading Sushi could be open for debate/optimization.

 

[fjordan]

I do believe you can get failgold from spaceship parts. Most of them come with a bonus and you can build them simultaneously so the WBE (with Sushi) should shine even more here.

 

[Mitchum]

I do believe you can get failgold from spaceship parts. Most of them come with a bonus and you can build them simultaneously so the WBE (with Sushi) should shine even more here.

In my best space race games, I finish all space ship parts on the final turn of the game which is one turn after research has completed. In other words, getting fail gold on spaceship parts has never been an option for me.

Having said that, if it is possible to get fail gold from spaceship parts, it may make sense build Casings in several cities and then to complete them all a bit sooner than the final turn of the game to cash in on the ones that don't finish. Of course, that fail gold would have to come in soon enough to help during the research phase of the game... which is questionable. If you truly are hitting one tech per turn during the end game, there won't be much opportunity to use spaceship parts for fail gold unless I'm missing something.

 

[fjordan]

For getting 1 tech/turn on Marathon without a lot of mature cottages I figure you need to build research in stead of wealth. In that case tens of thousands of gold by bee-lining casings or thrusters and finish them when you are going broke may help a lot. There is no reason all parts should finish on the last turn. Having said that, I have no idea what the empire will look like by then.

 

[WastinTime]

Thx for all the thoughts on late game. Back to the present...

Marble Start Turnset 132 - 141

Lincoln has, not one, but 3 workers roading to my gift cities . 2 archers are also wandering thru to defend.
I'll probably leave him alone until I can give him Iron Working and he mines the gems for me.


NewYork gets judaism

Vicky captures Philly already!



Roos' captial is next in line, and it's building GWall 443/450h !
No reason to panic. It's complete next turn and the AI will not switch to building defenders, etc when there is 3 turns or less, IIRC.

Istanbul (Sule's capital) goes down: 136g and a free Terrace
This might be the forge/Colossus site. Who would have guessed, that I could build Colossus in a city on the complete opposite end of the main landmass.

T133
Awaiting the msg "Roosevelt has completed the GW"


<-- Great Wall

No completed GW message.
He could not have switched to an Archer could he?
His capital is Washington in the SE corner of this screen:

Spoiler :

He built something for 450h.
Deity AI gets no discount on World Wonders, but they get the usual 60% cost for National.
Doh! Moai is 750h. 60% of that is 450h.

Well, now I need GLH just to prevent STRIKE. Whatever, back to the Oracle failgold...

T134
I put a little too much in Cuzco's Library. The only way to not complete the Oracle there is not work both golds
I'll try not to make the same mistake in Paris.

T136
Ankara (NW of Istanbul)
My Q that got the free Leadership promo is 40xp and 95% odds on the top defender.
I breeze thru the 3 defenders. 159 gold, but I lose the Terrace
2 workers

That's 18 workers, 18 cities (two gifted to Lincoln)

I've been maintaining about -30gpt and 300 or so in the bank, but now that I'm whipping so much and still conquering I'm at a surprising -61 gpt at 0% research.
5 turns before strike!
GLH won't even get me back to even.
So I'm going to work a few more water tiles and little less food.

T137
Even now that I have to pay ~14g for Istanbul's maint cus it's out of resistance. I've brought my deficit to only -45gpt.

T138 Great Lighthouse
Still -26gpt
settling an island T140 will help only a small amount. Most TRs are foreign.

Since Darius got Currency, I can get 130g for Poly.

139
Vicky is building something with Stone in York, size 7. It's over 100h so far.

I decide that Suleiman will die instead of keeping him around for city gift tricks.

After much contemplation, I'm gathering my army to hit Lincoln next. He does not have any horse or metal and does not have slavery. He does have Fur. Not sure I can afford to keep FurCity tho. I'm dreading more -diplo, but it's a necessary evil.
The only other option was Roosevelt. His cities are pretty bad except for the capital (40%, hill) I'd rather wait and see if Vicky will take it.

140
Settle 1st island.
- this causes the 6 trade rts that were +1 to be +2 (others are foreign)
- The city itself gets three +3's for foreign, overseas TRs.
- instant fish nets
- brings empire to -22gpt at 0%

141
With Ankara (Suleiman's northern-most city. See screenshot above) out of revolt...and some other changes/whips to the empire, we're back to -39gpt
I may have to whip a Terrace there. Wait 1 turn for culture to be added. Whip again down to size 1 (overflow into wonder) and give it away.

Possible good news: Vicky's York is now size 8 and can 4-whip the GreatWall (or Moai ) I'm hoping Roosevelt did Moai to go with his StoneHenge, but maybe the AI is not that smart.

Mansa also has ~230h in something.

End of turnset

 

[georgjorge]

I will be highly interested to see the Wonderbread economy turning a -60 gold per turn deficit into permanent 100% research (probably at something like -700 gold per turn).

Seeing that you want to take Metal Casting from Oracle anyway, and that you are already making sacrifices for staying out of strike (such as working coast instead of food), at which point do you decide to cash in on your wonder so you can have some turns of research again? Only when you can't stay out of strike by any other means, or before that?

Also, what do you think of first putting overflow into a wonder, and the next turn whipping it again to completion - and then taking it out of the queue before it can be built, thus getting max hammers for it? Do you ever do that here?

Really bad luck on Moai though...

 

[WastinTime]

I will be highly interested to see the Wonderbread economy turning a -60 gold per turn deficit into permanent 100% research (probably at something like -700 gold per turn).

Some things can lower this and keep us from getting to -700 too soon.
We're so early in the game that we can't build courthouses (or get them free after capturing a city)
I'm also usually able to get my hands on a shrine to bring down the deficit.
Then there are resource trades too.

Seeing that you want to take Metal Casting from Oracle anyway, and that you are already making sacrifices for staying out of strike (such as working coast instead of food), at which point do you decide to cash in on your wonder so you can have some turns of research again? Only when you can't stay out of strike by any other means, or before that?

I've decided to be brave not make those sacrifices (working coast instead of food). I was only doing it in a couple places anyway.
I debated triggering the Oracle early, but I've decided to just play efficiently. If Great Wall comes along, I can start research early. If not, it starts with Oracle (as usual) I'm going to delay Oracle as long as I have a whip/chop to put into it every. single. turn. (see the Oracle Plan) I'd prefer to stay at 100% after Oracle rather than starting research earlier and running out of money. Now is a better time to be at 0% (almost no libraries)

Also, what do you think of first putting overflow into a wonder, and the next turn whipping it again to completion - and then taking it out of the queue before it can be built, thus getting max hammers for it? Do you ever do that here?

I do that, but it is a rare case. Many wonders don't give a very good conversion ratio. I'll discuss exactly when/why to do this when the time comes.

 

[WastinTime]

Darius has Currency
(as he tends to research)
and he'll trade 130 gold for Poly.

Stealing Currency now becomes possible, but I'm not sure it's worth the trouble. I get 40% bonus on it using beakers.
Stealing needs a spy, the spy has to move, then it has to sit for 5 turns. NOT get caught, and then actually succeed in the steal mission.

 

[Izuul]

Hey that's like 5-6 turns of not going broke. I doubt it's worth stealing Currency either unless you intend to do more stealing. I'm guessing a lot of your EPs are on Mansa.

 

[ikotomi]

Is this a case for industrious being the best trait in the game for Deity Space? Inca clearly has a ton going for them, but how viable do we think this is for non industrious leaders?

 

[georgjorge]

Industrious gives you 25% more gold than just Marble/Stone (multiplier of 250% instead of 200%). After Organized Religion and Forge - which don't come that late - it only gives you 20% more gold (multiplier of 300% instead of 250%). Quite a bit, but if that strategy is as strong as WastinTime thinks then you should still be able to exploit it even with non-Industrious leaders.

I'm currently doing some test runs with it on Noble/Prince, and it's clearly not as strong as on higher difficulties but still rather nice. You can REX to 12 cities before 1AD and still have a strong techrate. Tech paths become more interesting, for example I sometimes find myself going for Calendar or Literature after Code of Laws rather than Civil Service just so I can get another failgold wonder that I want to build myself.

 

[Mitchum]

I may have to whip a Terrace there. Wait 1 turn for culture to be added. Whip again down to size 1 (overflow into wonder) and give it away.

Huh? You can put OF hammers into a wonder, gift the city away and still get those OF hammers when you take it back??? Or are you overflowing into a wonder just because you won't be able to complete anything so the hammers are lost no matter what you do?

 

[WastinTime]

Huh? You can put OF hammers into a wonder, gift the city away and still get those OF hammers when you take it back??? Or are you overflowing into a wonder just because you won't be able to complete anything so the hammers are lost no matter what you do?

Right, you'd lose any partial hammers and gpp points. In this case, I'd maybe put the OF into Oracle and cash in first, but maybe I'm better off just building another Quechua for MP duty. Thx for the reminder about hammers getting lost on gift.

 

[ikotomi]

Industrious gives you 25% more gold than just Marble/Stone (multiplier of 250% instead of 200%). After Organized Religion and Forge - which don't come that late - it only gives you 20% more gold (multiplier of 300% instead of 250%). Quite a bit, but if that strategy is as strong as WastinTime thinks then you should still be able to exploit it even with non-Industrious leaders.

I'm currently doing some test runs with it on Noble/Prince, and it's clearly not as strong as on higher difficulties but still rather nice. You can REX to 12 cities before 1AD and still have a strong techrate. Tech paths become more interesting, for example I sometimes find myself going for Calendar or Literature after Code of Laws rather than Civil Service just so I can get another failgold wonder that I want to build myself.

He's already cutting it really close economically though, and Industrious halves the cost of forges which I'm guessing is a core part of the strategy, for which he has relatively very few turns to actually have everything pay off. It pushes things to an extreme where I have trouble seeing this actually working for weaker trait combinations without drastically toning down the early conquest.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

The WBE should work for any Leader and Civ. It just works best for the Inca Empire. The Terrace is the best unique building by a wide margin; how can one beat a Granary with 2 Culture per turn that survives friendly (100%) and unfriendly (67%) conquest; normal culture buildings never survive any conquest. The Inca Empire also has arguably the best unique unit for Monarch difficulty level and above; it would be difficult to capture as many cities very early using other unique units as compared to the Quechua. Huayna Capac has the Industrious and Financial traits, arguably the best pair of traits of any Civ IV BtS leader.

 

[georgjorge]

Of course, if you want to launch in the BCs like WastinTime here, not having Industrious could break the whole game. But you will hardly ever have a game with so many cities so early (15 before 2000BC), especially if you're not playing Inca and can't make units for conquest starting with turn 1. So you will have less upkeep early on, and more time for the strategy to pay off.

 

[elitetroops]

It's interesting how this strategy forces you to rethink almost every aspect of the game. So far I've thought of failgold as a bonus that can help research every now and then. However, if we assume we can generate enough failgold to keep up research at all times, then things change a lot. For example, GM trade mission becomes quite weak. 1900 gold is 950 failgold hammers, 760 if IND, only taking resource bonus into account. Using the GM for one of your golden ages frees up a GS to bulb for 2000+ beakers, assuming a decent sized empire. Or actually, not 2000, but 1667+ raw beakers when we take prereq bonus into account. But 950 hammers for 1700 beakers is still a pretty good deal. If you're IND, you get a very good deal.

 

[ikotomi]

The earliest deity non inca space colonies are around 700 AD, which are still ridiculously fast. These were done with Darius. It makes me wonder whether using Ramesses instead, (also early combat unit) might actually be stronger if the early economy can be completely retooled this way.

I unfortunately don't play at this level and can't execute well enough to test myself, but I'm specifically wondering about the games where we are reaching huge extremes like this game and not more "normal" scenarios.

 

[WastinTime]

It's interesting how this strategy forces you to rethink almost every aspect of the game

I'm so glad I'm not the only one that sees this as bigger than just wonder-failgold.
At 100% research, market, grocer, banks are not very useful (except in a shrine city) until much later. Here's another example of a change I consider that would never have crossed my mind in the past:

Gold tiles are awesome up to this point in the game (up to Oracle). They provide critical research on the way to Math, and then critical wealth to survive until Wonder Bread delivers its first cash bomb.
But now, I don't prioritize more gold tiles, and I consider stopping working existing gold tiles--at least for several turns.

Recall my formulas 1f=7c, 1h=3c
A gold tile is something like 3h x 3 + 9 = 18c
A riverFarm is 3f x 7 + 1 = 22c (better than gold!)

Even if you use pre-forge, no OrgRel.... 1f=6c and 1h=2.5c
Then goldRiver = 16.5 and riverFarm = 19c

Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to work lots of gold tiles, but not if they cripple city growth. A lower food city would work a couple extra farms first and then add gold as citizen #4, 5 or later.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

According to the analysis in the post above, even a Lakeside Grassland Farm is 21c, still better than a Plain Hill Gold Mine (18c).

The assumptions regarding growth seem suspect to me. The 2F per citizen to sustain the population can't really be generating 2 x 7c. Isn't it just excess food that generates wealth? Of course a Gold Mine's citizen depends on other citizens to provide the 2F it needs to survive; that has to be taken into account in some way. I'm not sure how to do that; I'm also not satified with the analysis (or lack of analysis) of this in this thread so far.

Also, we must be careful to distinguish commerce generation and wealth generation. They are not interchangeable. Commerce goes through the slider and (100% - (research slider + culture slider + espionage slider)) becomes wealth. Of course when the research slider is 100%, the wealth "slider" is 00%. I'm not saying that treating commerce the same as wealth in this analysis is necessarily incorrect; I do think it may lead one to incorrect conclusions though.