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

[civtilidy]

Played civ4 for 5years and thought I knew all good strategies but the WBE seems to be very effecient and gamebraking, ty Wasting time! Two things I want to discuss:
1. Is civ 3 style ics (infinite citysprawl) back were more is always more? Now that every city can convert 1f=6g every city should be positive for economy, they have surplus 2f+ and ev some forest. I mean maybe you can rex like mad now even aim for settle CxxC. Could this be a viable (Even best economicaly) strategy going this extreme?
2. How good is wbe lategame? If 1basehammer becomes 3.75g is it ever worth it to gold rush vs hardbuild? (without kremling) I mean building failgold+buy unit vs hard build unit
With kremling: what about building failgold + buy vs hardbuild?

 

[RedKi-rr]

By the way, can this strategy be good for normal speed standard pangea map?
It is kind of probles that one can build a wonder only in one city. Hence, having 6-9 cities it is good just to whip whenever it is possible and put everything into a wonder?

 

[WastinTime]

Played civ4 for 5years and thought I knew all good strategies but the WBE seems to be very effecient and gamebraking, ty Wasting time! Two things I want to discuss:
1. Is civ 3 style ics (infinite citysprawl) back were more is always more? Now that every city can convert 1f=6g every city should be positive for economy, they have surplus 2f+ and ev some forest. I mean maybe you can rex like mad now even aim for settle CxxC. Could this be a viable (Even best economicaly) strategy going this extreme?
2. How good is wbe lategame? If 1basehammer becomes 3.75g is it ever worth it to gold rush vs hardbuild? (without kremling) I mean building failgold+buy unit vs hard build unit
With kremling: what about building failgold + buy vs hardbuild?

Glad you like the economy. I think you're right that more is always more because I'm expanding thru the most expensive # of cities. At some point, the # of cities maintenance caps out.
( and I assume by 2f+ you mean 2 food tiles, not just +2 food total.)

Late game should be good. 1food can be ~10g. And sushi brings in the food. I've never had a chance to try gold rushing because the only WonderBread game I played was hi score so I didn't want to whip too much. Population is so important to score. The thing is: by the time sushi has had a chance to grow my cities significantly, I hope to end the game, so I doubt I'll do rush buying. I probably will want to stay in REP, and what is there to buy late game anyway (after factory/power)? A couple labs?

 

[WastinTime]

By the way, can this strategy be good for normal speed standard pangea map?
It is kind of probles that one can build a wonder only in one city. Hence, having 6-9 cities it is good just to whip whenever it is possible and put everything into a wonder?

I don't see why it wouldn't help every game speed or map. It just won't work quite as well as marathon. Try it out and report your experience in a writeup thread.

 

[rah]

For me the main question is just how good it will be without overflow into gold. But I do want to give it a try on Pang at normal speed. Mainly because I want to try more expansion early and this way looks like an amusing way to support it. But of course I want to see how this one ends. The read has continued to be quite enjoyable and appreciated.

 

[Folket]

I don't see why it wouldn't help every game speed or map. It just won't work quite as well as marathon. Try it out and report your experience in a writeup thread.

So I guess you have been thinking more about it. Last time I brought up the issue you seem to think that normal had an advantage because of hammer costs.

 

[WastinTime]

So I guess you have been thinking more about it. Last time I brought up the issue you seem to think that normal had an advantage because of hammer costs.

I don't think I changed my point of view. Marathon will always be able to work this economy better, but I think I mentioned some nice things where normal speed does have a small advantage--like being able to easily set up 2-whip, max OF. It's hard to find things more than 112h (90h +forge) I'm doing some Xbows (120h), but that's not a great way to spend hammers. I'd rather do swords or Horse Archers.

 

[civtilidy]

Early rush would likely be Axe or Chariot with Liz.
But don't forget Warriors! Works well to get Copper or Horse and a nice AI city.
Hot Tip: Warrior rush on Deity. Take a stack of say, 10-12 warriors. Expect to lose about 6-8 taking an AI capital (not on a hill).
8 warriors only cost 240. Less than a settler. And I'm sure you'll pick up a free worker or two along the way.

Anyone has experience with this strategy? Sounds like a optimal way to start the game with any civ in most circumstances so why does it not seem to be very common? warriornright from start or worker first to chop? Barracks? Can you whip warriors or will you waste overflow? So much to learn from this thread. Amazing hottips

 

[WastinTime]

It's best on Marathon speed where 10 warriors = 1 settler (300h)
On normal speed, 7 warriors (105h) cost more than 1 settler.

Then there is also the problem of moving your warriors to their target. Again, marathon speed allows this to happen where normal is problematic.

Assuming you're on marathon, then you should be able to steal a worker instead of build one.

- Probably no time for barracks when you could have just had 5 warriors instead.

- whipping warriors is a fine idea for the early rush. Time your whips and chops so that you get 1 warrior every turn for like 6 turns in a row to form your final army of 10-12. This way you're not paying too much maintenance for too long. If you get some roads completed at the right time, the last few can catch up to the others for the attack.

 

[Powerfaker]

I've been following this thread from the beginning. Nice write-ups, easy to follow, interesting discussions.

One thing I wonder is where plain failgold play ends and WBE begins. is it about expanding to the maximal amount of cities you can handle with respect to raising the funds to keep science at 100% (from say 2000BC on)?
In an OCC you often run positve gold output from settled GP for example, no failgold effort required at all. The amount of cities needs to be at least .... challenging?
Actually I can imagine there is an optimum (range of) city count. If you go over it you keep finishing wonders in a hurry to get gold in time, missing a lot of potential and running out of wonders sooner than desirable.

I am busy trying a game this way myself at the moment and I must say it's quite an eye-opener (Settings include Inca, marathon and a rich start) . Currently passing 0 AD with 25 cities, communism, biology and nationalism in the pocket. That's far far better than anything I've ever done before. Things worth mentioning:
- It's tough in the beginning to get enough failgold in time. It gets easier later on. Right now I'm at a point where the pressure of finishing wonders is actually low (maybe I should expand). So I'm saying you don't have to build farms and farms alone to squeeze out every goldcoin you can. There's plenty of room to build cottages (I set up 5 cottage cities). It's still a game of balancing things.
- As has been mentioned it's hard to find something good to whip. Workers are pretty good though, and you need a lot of those.
- Something I just found out is that Kremlin seems to lower base h from whips (90h, marathon) from 2/3 (60h) to 1/2 (45h) for wonders. It makes sense in that Kremlin in combination with wonder multipliers would often make whipping wonders directly more efficient than whip overflow into wonders. With 2/3 base h it does, with 1/2 base h it does not. Nevertheless, it was a little disappointing.to find out.

Can hardly wait to try this on other civ's/leaders too.

 

[WastinTime]

I don't think Kremlin lowers the base h for wonders. Please provide an example.
For everything, it should raise the base h by 50%.

examples:
135h (instead of 90h) for normal builds that have hammers in them.
90h (instead of 60h) for things with 0h invested (like cold-whipping execs)
90h (instead of 60h) for Hermitage

 

[WastinTime]

One thing I wonder is where plain failgold play ends and WBE begins.

I would say it officially begins when you build 8-10 Oracles.
But it really began the moment you decide to put a floodplain-farm instead of a cottage in your capital or when you farm your first grass tile, or if you put early OF into a wonder that you would normally have used for a chariot or something.

RE: workers. I also see those as a good whip-able size (120h). I thought I would never build one. On my Huge game, I just kept war going non-stop and had almost 100 workers. This game I ran out of AI, and I'm short on workers, so I'm considering it. I need a fresh army first.

 

[Powerfaker]

An example of what I see happening now when I apply the whip to a wonder:

With Taj Mahal 1045 of 2100 invested, 185% multiplier (Forge/Ind/Marble/StateP) => 6 pop whip results in 2193 of 2100.

Each pop should yield: 60 base h => 90h with Kremlin => 90 * 2,85 = 256,5 Total
That would result in 1045 + 6 * 256,5 = 2584 h produced (or vice versa, I would have expected a 5 pop whip)

I did get from each pop: (2193 - 1045) / 6 = 191 h
191 / 2,85 = 67 h base + Kremlin
67 * 2/3 = 45 base h
Calculating back from exactly 45h you would get 2199 of 2100. That's because Kremlin is not applied to overflow h.

I also checked some earlier saves. I don't see this happening with just communism or StateP or anything. I'm pretty sure it's Kremlin where this comes from and only with wonders.
One last possibility is that this is just in the Civ+mod version I play. That is nothing special (how do I check?) so I would expect more people to get this.

 

[Powerfaker]

A small addition to previous example:

Note the phrase 90 * 2,85 = 256,5 => that is what you would get from whip overflow from something regular as well..........

Kremlin would upgrade 60h to 90h on wonders, but also get stripped from overflow of something regular from 135h to 90h (or an equivalent). There's no difference between whipping directly or putting overflow into wonders, except that whipping directly is much faster. So a downgrade from 2/3 to 1/2, being 45h on marathon, makes sense.

 

[WastinTime]

I don't think you get 60h base for wonders normally. That's only Hermitage and a few other National Wonders.
IIRC Moai does not get 60h base and none of the World Wonders do. I think they're all 45h.
Try whipping one before Kremlin. I think you'll see 45 base h before or after.

 

[WastinTime]

checking the XML...

Hermitage hurryCostModifier = 50 (along with NatEpic, Globe, NatPark, Palace)
Moai hurryCostModifier = 100

This is why I like Hermitage so much.

 

[Powerfaker]

You are right.

When I checked pre Kremlin it was with HE => 60 h result
Now I checked again with Taj Mahal pre Kremlin => 45h

I always thought the cost modifier as you say was 50 for all wonders, so 2/3 value. Something like that can linger on if you never see the proof that you are wrong apparently (ie, you never hurry a wonder).

......and I will pay more attention to Hermitage and others now, haha.

......and apologies for bringing to attention what appears to be just my learning curve.

 

[Folket]

I don't think I changed my point of view. Marathon will always be able to work this economy better, but I think I mentioned some nice things where normal speed does have a small advantage--like being able to easily set up 2-whip, max OF. It's hard to find things more than 112h (90h +forge) I'm doing some Xbows (120h), but that's not a great way to spend hammers. I'd rather do swords or Horse Archers.

I guess when you mention small advantages and not the disadvantages, it sounds like you are making the argument that it would be stronger on normal speed.

 

[civtilidy]

How often do you whip cities on average/rule of thumb? Im thinking that if its supposed to be a sustainable economy you need some regularity and system. Each city every 30 turns is the only sustainable (whipanger). You solve this by gifting right? Will the ai always accept cities?
Srry if you explained it already too lazy to go through whole thread again on my lag-pad

 

[WastinTime]

How often do you whip cities on average/rule of thumb? Im thinking that if its supposed to be a sustainable economy you need some regularity and system. Each city every 30 turns is the only sustainable (whipanger). You solve this by gifting right? Will the ai always accept cities?
Srry if you explained it already too lazy to go through whole thread again on my lag-pad

I don't even think about sustainability. I whip whenever the city grows enough. Each city is different. Some might have an Iron, or Marble tile that they should be working. And different # of food tiles so you could be whipping 4->2 or 6->4, etc.
Erasing whip anger sometimes fits in the plan, but often you can't make it work. I usually do this early and then never get around to it as often as I could. And if you built a library, then you'd lose that building. What ends up happening is you get luxuries and then +3 from Forge and then calendar luxuries and the REP happiness and you just let the cities build up a ton of anger.

Hot tip: then all your anger problems go away when you start creating vassals. (hint: 16 vassals = +16 happy)