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

[Kaitzilla]

T277
Prepare to enter an alternate reality
Up is down, left is right.

I'm going about -1800 this turn and it will put me in strike.

All Commerce is now worth exactly zero.
trade routes: zero
A gold mine is just 4h and zero. worse than a plainshill-Mine (5h)
Spices is 3food and zero
water tiles are 2food and zero. like unimproved grass tiles

BiZzaRo WorLd ~Civ
Even the Building choices in new and old cities get weird.

The economy revolves around theft, embezzlement, Libraries, Observatories, production boosters, Scientists, Engineers, Corporations, shrinking militaries, and crippling debt for future generations.
Sort of like real life.

The most recent XML has Trireme's default to ATTACK_SEA (not ASSAULT_SEA)
That makes it 0 (instead of 5) on your list which is why triremes die first.
Also explains why caravels are last to die.

Wow, always wondered why the invisible Strike Monster always ate Triremes first.

 

[WastinTime]

Breaking the 4000 bpt mark on T280 let's me make tiny adjustments to my plans.
I'm very happy to have sushi set for T284. Furthermore, I've determined that T283 is impossible so I can relax a bit and let my citizens have a sandwich. They've been starving in the name of research.

 

[dutchfire]

Bah, sandwiches, they'll be eating sushi soon!

 

[Kaitzilla]

T282

4700 bpt

That is simply light years ahead of my 600AD space game.
I didn't even have Constitution or Scientific Method yet.

Spoiler :

 

[WastinTime]

End of the turnset. Report is updated.

T284

Medicine
Sushi

Assembly Line shows T290, but I'm sure I can get T289.
But that tech is no good to a city that is too small to whip a factory, so I'm prioritizing growth in some cities now that Sushi is done.

 

[WastinTime]

I'm on a roll. Which is usually a sign that I need to stop and look for ways to improve...but I can't help myself.

Turnset Report T285 - 289
(goal: assembly line)

-4150gpt
+4800bpt

T285

-4700gpt
+5300bpt

Peace with Hanni & Isa. I forgot to give her an island city before the last war, so we're going to have to rinse, repeat.

3 mining and 1st sushi spread: 200.
At the beginning of the turn, I have 193.
Trade Alex my map for 10.

Mining is up to +36h

286
blah, blah

287

Cyrus lives. Zara, his master

6000 bpt

I've reached the point where I'm only starting the turn with 4 mining execs.

My obsessive compulsive spread of corps had a small snag.
Sushi was going to hit 5 execs this turn, but one of my 3rd ring chops goes to a different city than I was planning on. If I had known last turn, of course there were ways to fix it--chop something else.
I labeled the forest with the city, but that must have changed. The city in question does happen to be my gift-steal city.

I still have to squeeze my empire: AssemLine shows 3 turns, but just by a hair. I'll make it 2, but it takes some mm. I even built research instead of Ironworks. I was planning to finish IW the exact turn I get AL so I could start a factory. Not important, but elegant.

Give Hatty 20 gold

288

One workboat overflow : 243
Capture gold : 4
Capture gold : 4
= 251

289

Assembly Line
with zero overflow

Rifling is technically 2t, but I'm going to stop building research, then drop caste next turn. The dark age begins. It's time to invest in my future and let research suffer. Mucho planning.

A possibly important forest grows at Maastrict. I add it to my space planning.

I use 350 for 7 corps this turn.

A GM is born. (I have the GSpy still)
When I get back to caste I'll be able to pop out 2 more scientists.
And there will be the Fusion GE.
Their destiny is unknown.

End of turnset

 

[Anysense]

Although I understand (at least I think I do) the principles involved, the way you manage it all is beyond me, not to mention the precision and timing. But at least I got one thing right (about half a year ago): you are going to finish this game as a twelve year veteran.

 

[Bandobras Took]

At what point do you break the fundamental laws of the universe and start going backward in time?

 

[WastinTime]

Bah, sandwiches, they'll be eating sushi soon!

You're right! I took away the sammies. Turns out, I'm gonna need some Triremes for sacrifice. I'll run out of queucha and cats in about 4 turns already . I kept prioritizing research over building sacrificial units. So I had to go thru all cities (again) and move people from farms to scientists. Otherwise, I'll miss AssemblyLine 289.

Important note on sacrificing units: The STRIKE monster never eats anything that was just built.
So you have to have all your Triremes built 1t before they're needed. And then sail them to neutral territory.

 

[elitetroops]

Did you mention how many turns you plan to feed sacrificial units to the STRIKE monster? How many turns until you wouldn't be able to keep your workers and other important units alive?

 

[WastinTime]

Did you mention how many turns you plan to feed sacrificial units to the STRIKE monster? How many turns until you wouldn't be able to keep your workers and other important units alive?

I was kinda planning to keep workers alive forever, but that needs to be revisited.
I'm currently planning to build Triremes until my army is done, my fish are netted, and my transports all have a settler on board.
Then I can build the cheaper workboats on the coast and explorers inland to keep my workers/execs alive.
I'm keeping an open mind tho. If I conclude that scientists (with library, uni) are better or almost as good as a new workshop, then maybe workers can die. Especially when you consider the value of the work they can accomplish vs. the cost of 20, 30, or 40 workboats per turn. 2400 hammers. Hmm. When I say that out loud, I'm realizing that I should let workers die. So maybe it's not too early to prep the forests for the final space parts. And get railroads in place so late workers can be born and move to the forests. Oh boy. This is getting complicated. Thanks for the wake up call, elitetroops!

Maybe I let my galleys die too and just drop all the settlers somewhere with seafood.
I'll have to calculate when it's too late to settle a new city and get corps spread there and get a return on investment. I feel like they will pay back quickly even if they never get a factory.

 

[WastinTime]

Post Assembly Line

I hadn't put a lot of thought into what I'm researching after Assembly Line. Anyone?
I figured instead of looking back at some old games, I'd just re-invent late game. But now I looked at the tech tree, and unfortunately, I kinda want Astro next but only cus I want the Physics path. Again, I can't take Astro or my army & transports get erased.

Rifling leads to Rocketry, but also needs Physics to go any farther.

Combustion. Does what?

Conclusion:
After Assembly Line (289), I need to build like 400 triremes!
At least I don't care if I have to pay maintenance on those
Let's see...I'm sacrificing 6 per turn at T289. If I want to buy myself 30 turns to get my house in order, I'll need ~400.
That's 40,000 hammers. Kinda like one huge tech.

Maybe 30 turns is too many. 5 turns to get ready for Liz. 10t to kill Liz (I'm still moving units across the ocean)
5-10 turns to transport the army back for MP duty? maybe just let them die.
I also need the army to do the vassal creation business, recapturing, etc.

I could be brave and do only 20 turns of triremes. That's 220 triremes.

Is there a Safety net?
So I try 20 turns of trireme protection, but do I have any backup plan?
Checking the sacrifice priority....
If it came down to saving my transports, it looks like the cheapest unit is knight.
I believe new knights would get picked before my experienced army knights overseas. Not sure tho.
I guess if they all die, I'd have to ship muskets over to finish the fighting, but those types of military all die too unless I make galleons (160h) to sacrifice.

So I guess I can manage one way or another. I don't see the point of putting 40,000 hammers into Triremes.

- Still thinking out loud...
How long will it take to get 220 triremes?
Every coastal city with Mining Inc can make one every other turn.
I currently have ....(counting).... 39 coastal cities with Mining--adding more for a while yet, but let's go with 40.

It would take ~11 turns to make 220 triremes. Some more cities will join the 40, but some will need to also build sushi execs.

Maybe I should let Assembly line slip to T290 so I can start now?
Well, 40 cities building triremes instead of 50 research means I lose 2000bpt

I'd like to invest food instead of hammers
I'll probably take slavery, OR: T289.

- I could try to whip triremes. One whip is 168h which puts me way over. I'd just end up making overflow gold.
50 hammers in, whip, another 50h when it resolves = 268/100. But you'd make 3 triremes over 4 turns.

- An idea I had last night was to cold-whip them (at 0h). A whip is only 112h then + 50 organic hammers = 162.
I would produce a 2nd trireme with the overflow. One every turn if I whip every other turn. That's only 2-3 whips cus now 40 cities can do 200 in 5-6 turns.
Saves me 10,000 beakers.
Small snag here is that a lot of my islands are size 1. And some others may not want to whip for that reason. Sushi spread also gets in the way. So figure at least 6 turns.

Conclusions
I'm going to continue my plan to get Assembly T289 and make just enough Triremes to survive.
Then go crazy on tri's for an undetermined amount. I was just planning to revisit my sushi spread plan today, so now is the perfect time since I can try to get sushi to the coast first.

 

[Swordnboard]

Pardon me if this question is off-base, but why is subjugating Liz worth the humongous investment? Just for domination limit? Or does she pose some sort of threat that MP units and strike proof boats can't fend off?

 

[WastinTime]

Pardon me if this question is off-base, but why is subjugating Liz worth the humongous investment? Just for domination limit? Or does she pose some sort of threat that MP units and strike proof boats can't fend off?

That's good thinking. Just today actually, I contemplated leaving her alone, but the advantages keep piling up.

The investment isn't so bad. I already had the army. I need to keep my boats alive anyway. It's not many more turns to finish her off.
In hindsight, I probably should have figured out how to kill everyone by now. Strike started a good bit sooner than I expected.

1. She has a bunch of mining resources and I want them. This is by far the #1 reason.
2. She's like -40 furious with me so she won't trade me even her excess rice.
3. I have to assume she'd attack me with that attitude, I have only my 1 MP unit defending.
4. I get conquest gold for exec spread
5. She should be a pushover. Mansa was twice large and he was a pushover.
6. every city increases bpt. And having them all one one landmass means I can spread corps faster.
7. 76% land limit.
8. I wanna use my cannons

 

[WastinTime]

why is subjugating Liz worth the humongous investment?

Another way to look at it is that I need to sacrifice something anyway just to save my execs, workers, and workboats. Even if all my transports had settlers.

So if I left Liz alone, I would still need 200 something. And what is cheaper than Trireme? Only explorers at 80h.

And to make me feel even better, take this example: a crappy island city does 50hpt with mining. So whether I build a Tri or an Explorer, it's 2 turns and a loss of -100bpt

 

[Kid R]

Would it be possible to somehow defer worker strike death by gifting them to an adjacent AI? And capture back later to do one final turn of work on chopping the spaceship or completing a workshop, before they finally did finally disband.

 

[WastinTime]

Would it be possible to somehow defer worker strike death by gifting them to an adjacent AI? And capture back later to do one final turn of work on chopping the spaceship or completing a workshop, before they finally did finally disband.

I like how you think
However, when you capture a worker, it can't move that turn. I'm pretty they all die before you can use them.

 

[Kid R]

Looks like they won't necessarily accept a huge number of gift units anyway so maybe not a strategy that could be relied on. I guess it hits their maintenance eventually. You could gift a ton of scouts and just watch all their top military guys disband from strike

 

[WastinTime]

The most recent XML has Trireme's default to ATTACK_SEA (not ASSAULT_SEA)
That makes it 0 (instead of 5) on your list which is why triremes die first.
Also explains why caravels are last to die.

Couldn't sleep when I realized that I hadn't checked for post-astronomy units with ATTACK_SEA. Like the Frigate which Triremes upgrade to.

Spoiler :

There are none.

Then I thought, What other types have a value of 0 besides ATTACK_SEA?
ESCORT_SEA

Spoiler :

There are none.

RESERVE_SEA

Spoiler :

Frigate! (180h)
Ironclad! (200h) (didn't see that coming) This is pre-Astronomy. 200? Who would build one of these for 200?
and oil units: destroyer and sub.

So Frigates are another way to protect my army after Astronomy, but they're 180h. Still, I was considering knights in an emergency, so same diff.

And then I decided to read deeper in the code.
I found another case. PIRATE_SEA
Privateers are only 160h.
I think I've explored all options now.

P.S. Testing confirms this

 

[WastinTime]

I'm going to continue my plan to get Assembly T289 and make just enough Triremes to survive.
Then go crazy on tri's for an undetermined amount.

I guess with the discovery of Privateers, instead of prepping 30 or 20 turns of trireme sacrifices, I'm thinking only about 10 turns.
That's less than 100 triremes. I've got a lot of other stuff I want to whip/build T289--factories, power, settlers, workboats, so it will be nice to lighten up the demand for triremes.