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

[WastinTime]

T269, 810 BC
Liberalism, Railroad, Scientific Method

Mining Inc founded!

Warning
Don't press 'r' to road if you really want a road, otherwise you will do a railroad.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Zomg

810BC corporation, and not the easy Sushi either.

 

[Ozbenno]

Warning
Don't press 'r' to road if you really want a road, otherwise you will do a railroad.

Once you can build railroads, are you able to just build a road instead?

 

[WastinTime]

Once you can build railroads, are you able to just build a road instead?

Oh yes. 4t road (because of steam power) instead of 6t railroad. Critical in several places in my game that I get the quicker-built road.
Just press the road button.
That makes logical sense too. Imagine our planet covered in only railroads.

 

[WastinTime]

Hot Tip: With lots of important forest and road completion timing coming up, it's good to cancel all worker actions. Hold <ALT> and press the cancel button. Pretty obvious tip since the mouseover tells you that, but I've found many experienced players don' t know that--or forgot.

 

[WastinTime]

(at T269) I hope I'm not being lazy. Right now, my plan is to forget about the nearly impossible T274 Communism and just set the slider for 80% to get T275 Communism.

Let's see my gold situation:
1000 in the bank
200 steal (could fail)
500 conquest (estimate)
140 AI trade
------
1840

Costs for 5t communism
-------
-850 corp spread
-2500 (-500gpt) for 100% slider
This is already way out of control and I haven't added the cost to keep mining resources. I sorta need most of them for the first 5 turns if I don't do Bureau. And recall: Bureau costs me -100gpt (-500)

Costs for 6t Communism
---------------------------
-1100 corp spread
-600 (-100gpt) for 80% slider
Then I will lose some gpt if I prep 6 missionaries each turn instead of wealth in those cities. Hard to say how much. Maybe as little as...
-200
---------
-1900

That's close enough that I could make it, but I still have the issue with mining resources
Then I forgot about the loss of hammers on workshops when I leave caste in 2t.

Mining
-------
If I connect or take back most of the ones I have access to rt now, costs increase each turn:
-50g
-100g
-200g
-300g
-400g
-500g
--------
-1500
I guess I know that I don't have any extra gold to play with, so I should just gift away coal, gold, silver too (save 1 gold/silver for happy)

But now I have to build my execs without those mining hammers. I kinda was counting on some. I'll need time to go thru the entire plan...

Looks like I need 3 turns of max resources. Costing me -350g total.
Execs built t4 and beyond have the advantage of whipping something first before they're assigned an exec (or two).
I can dig up 350g somewhere.

In fact, I remember I have a small gold boost coming. Maybe +50gpt. See next post.

 

[WastinTime]

Hot Tip: I've been growing 2 island cities--seems like forever--, and they both grow to size 14 in 2t. Each of those cities will provide +3 instead of +2 trade rt to many cities. Not all. IIRC, the cities have to be more than 14 tiles away.

For calculating TR, it uses base profit. which is the smaller of population/10 or distance/10.
We're shooting for a base of 1.4.

P.S. Size 18 would be +4 Trade Rt, but in a short while, I won't care about this kind of income in strike mode.

 

[WastinTime]

Here's Mansa's main empire before I took cities there. T264.
Our relationship is a bit strained . I have +11 diplo, but -37 negmods



Notice how every city can be surprise attacked from 4 tiles away. Even the capital! Knights in Atlanta (far north, colossus) can hit Timbuktu.
Mansa will have no chance to whip. He's still building a bank, a grocer, and A.Wat.

The thanks goes to putting wonders in those 2 northern cities (Paya and Taj in Boston). (I forgot that I built Paya this game to get early Pacifism. That was soooo long ago.)
Normally, I expect to lose the culture border battle with any AI on Deity.

 

[gaash2]

this is insane ...

 

[WastinTime]

this is insane ...

Which part?

 

[WastinTime]

How many mining resources to keep?

Of the 4 cities that need to perform exec duty during the 1st three turns,
Hamburg, my 2nd exec city, is the most short on hammers, so I will need virtually all of my metal back T270 and T271 and work max hammer tiles. I remembered to calculate the loss of caste-workshops on T271. (edit: No, Hamburg is way ahead. Not sure what I calculated before.) I should be all set! On T272, I'm betting that I'll want to give away the majority of mining (to 5 or 6 AI). Recall: I will DoW 5 or 6 AI to get them back when I want.

Cuzco was going to be able to just squeeze out 4 exec with no metals, just +15h mining.
Oops, bad math. Cuzco will also need the extra metal resources T270 and 271.

I can play a turn now.

 

[WastinTime]

810BC corporation, and not the easy Sushi either.

Amen brother. I'm sure I wrote this already, but before my 10 million point game, I'd never cracked T310 with any corp. Then I got T281 sushi in that game, but as you said, that's the 'easy' one. I'm hoping to have sushi again by T281, but this time, with 50 mining corporations!

Not sure I can pull off T281 tho. Medicine is a lot larger than Communism. And I need optics too.

 

[gaash2]

Which part?

basically everything lol

 

[Pedro78]

I'm not sure I've understood the domination limit thingy correctly. Basically for 76% limit you "only" have to push out every original AI away from the scoreboard -- the newly created AIs don't have to be your vassals?

 

[elitetroops]

I'm not sure I've understood the domination limit thingy correctly. Basically for 76% limit you "only" have to push out every original AI away from the scoreboard -- the newly created AIs don't have to be your vassals?

The domination limit is determined by how many leaders are on the scoreboard, that have been there since the beginning of the game. It seems like a design bug to me. I suppose the designers didn't want new colonies to decrease the domination limit, so they implemented the check for original AI only, but didn't take into account that original AI can be removed from scoreboard. And why it simply isn't locked at the start of the game is beyond me...

 

[WastinTime]

Right, they don't have to be mine. And at first, I thought that was a really great idea--to not have vassal land count (50%) towards my dom limit. Instead, just create independent, opponent AI--Remember, I kill the master, so I end up with all free civs. I would probably do that in a hi-score game.
But then I realized that I probably will take 16 vassals and leave one enemy AI. Why?

Benefits: +16 happy! That will be essential when sushi makes my cities size 20+.
I can trade garbage resources, that I have a dozen of, for the metals and seafood my vassals have.
I have several islands planned where I settle right on top of a coal, copper, iron, or silver. I'd put a vassal there and get capitulation.
They won't have time to build a settler and galley to add to their land and mess up my dom limit.
Hot Tip: And if they do, there is a solution for that...privateers! I can kill my own vassal's boats without declaring war.

 

[Pedro78]

I have several islands planned where I settle right on top of a coal, copper, iron, or silver. I'd put a vassal there and get capitulation.

So basically you settle a city on a corp res, gift it and then cap the AI? How can you be sure that the AI accepts the city gift -- is there a trick for that?

And only half of a vassal's land is counted towards the dom limit, right? In this case it's a very cheap +1 happiness.

Another thing -- I guess there's a lot of free 1 tile islands left on the map (even without any res). Once you switch to Strike mode, settling here will pay off very quickly (assuming that you can spread corps early enough), and they would only add a few land tiles. Do you plan to settle there? (would certainly be a real micro nightmare to settle them quickly AND spread corps)

 

[WastinTime]

How can you be sure that the AI accepts the city gift -- is there a trick for that?

They'll accept any city as long has they have 3 or less.

half of a vassal's land is counted towards the dom limit, right? In this case it's a very cheap +1 happiness.

True, but you also have -diplo penalties. That might have mattered to me earlier, but now I use middle-finger diplomacy.

Once you switch to Strike mode, settling here will pay off very quickly (assuming that you can spread corps early enough), and they would only add a few land tiles. Do you plan to settle there?

Even without strike mode, those cities can pay off, and I probably will do anything that adds to my research rate. No sense being lazy now.

 

[Bandobras Took]

True, but you also have -diplo penalties. That might have mattered to me earlier, but now I use middle-finger diplomacy.

This is another phrase I'm going to have to remember.

 

[WastinTime]

I found some more money! Forgot about pillaging. Mansa has a dozen cottages/hamlets