[BTS] More questions about sushi, and an observation

[Fish Man]

So I still haven't gotten BUFFY working...and by now I've just decided to move on at least for the time being. This time I tried another old NC map with Hannibal on an archipelago map, on emperor, with the goal being sub-t300 sushi space. I got off to a promising start: GLH up early, took full advantage of the good start, and even popped astronomy from a hut . Founded sushi at 1300AD, libbing medicine, and that's where things began to stall...

I whipped some cannons to take over Darius, but by the time I had finished conquering him it was clear I was never going to finish under t300 (actually I didn't even finish but he had like half a dozen longbows left and I bribed Julius against him so he was as good as dead). I feel like I know SP space like the back of my hand by now, but a fast sushi win continues to elude me. My tech order is thus: after education, pretty much straight beeline to biology to lib medicine and get the most out of the free tech. The tech corp, and railroad for mining inc. In theory this would work pretty well...

Problem is, there's simply not enough time to do everything. On watery maps I have to conquer at least another landmass to get enough resources to finish fast, and whipping and researching military means that even in best case scenario a good cannon attack date is at ~1400 AD. What exactly is the tech and build order for sushi space games, if one is to maximize efficiency, and where does a rush (either cuirs or cannons) play into this? How do you find the time to build unis, observatories, courthouses, banks, wall street, and everything in between in a sushi game? How do you deal with the obscene amounts of whip anger from mass-whipping from the excess food pool? How on earth do you deal with the crippling maintenance, especially from not one but two corporations? Where do you find the time to fit a dozen x 2 execs into your build order - not building wealth sinks your economy even more? About how many cities should you have by 500, 100, 1500 AD in a fast sushi space game on a watery map? Should I finish off civs or vassal them? How do I find enough resources to compete with SP, considering how I get about 10 extra food and production per city except I have to bleed money to pay for those unlike SP?

One observation I've made, so far, is that land >>> infrastructure, most of the time. I went for the corp itself instead of cannons to conquer the resources consumed and paid for it (well, not really, but just a slower finish). Same last time with Rome, except the opposite - spamming cuirs really hurt my economy for a while, but Sitting Bull and Toku's lands more than made up for that in short time. Perhaps I should've libbed cannons instead of sushi?

I guess I'm looking for an example game, many of which I would have if only I got HoF to work ... But barring that, could anyone answer at least some of my questions or at least point me to article(s)/vid(s) detailing the process? And while we're at it...what am I doing wrong in the current sushi game?

 

[Pedro78]

I'll answer some of your questions. Please don't mind if my comments look a little rough, they usually are lol

the goal being sub-t300 sushi space

First off, there really is no such thing as "sub-t300 sushi space". On IMM & below, it's possible (not even hard) to win space pre-t300 on every single map. With a good start, a good space date should be sub-t230 or so, but on some maps you can even land much earlier. Then, sushi alone does not help getting a quicker space victory -- it does actually slow you down quite a lot. Sushi alone allows you to grow, but crashes your economy. You need to found Mining Inc. to pay for itself + Sushi. Otherwise just go SP, which is stronger than getting both corps on most maps (on normal speed).

I feel like I know SP space like the back of my hand by now, but a fast sushi win continues to elude me.

As a rough thumbrule, I'd say that if you have less than +30 and +20 from corps, these will never beat SP. Corps are just too expensive: it takes a lot of resources to get the Mining GE, to kill 2 GPs on founding corps, to beeline the otherwise useless corp techs, to build the missionaries, to spread the corps, to build courthouses, to build banks+Wall Street, and then to pay for the corp expenses. Therefore corps can only beat SP if you both have a lot of corp resources and you can get there early enough in order for Sushi to "pay for itself" (growing your cities to size 25-35 and working tons of specs). In a "good" game, you should be targetting T150 Sushi, not T190, and Mining shouldn't come late after that. This means that you should have a solid empire by then (say 30+ cities on a standard map). On most maps it's of course not possible.

Another thing is emancipation anger/happy cap. With sushi-grown size 25+ cities, you cannot afford any emancipation anger, and basically need the extra happiness from colonies/vassals. Now you understand why "sushi space" is not good on most maps.

Problem is, there's simply not enough time to do everything. On watery maps I have to conquer at least another landmass to get enough resources to finish fast, and whipping and researching military means that even in best case scenario a good cannon attack date is at ~1400 AD

On emperor, with such a good start and the GLH, you should have conquered at least most of the map by 800AD. Of course it does take a bit of micro, but it's pretty doable. Shouldn't even need any cannons, trebs should be the last invasion unit you even consider building. And even if you play all peacefully, a "good" cannon date on such a map, with the GLH, is no later than T150.

About how many cities should you have by 500, 100, 1500 AD

On a non-Archipelago, competitive map a guideline would be at least 20 cities by 1AD, 40 cities & Sushi by T150. Archipelago makes things a bit more compliced, but on Emperor fast conquest is hardly a bottleneck.

I think I have covered most of your questions here (even though I didn't directly answer all of them). Your main problem, I think, is that there are some game mechanics that you don't understand well enough, otherwise you should be getting much more convincing dates (especially with SP), even without being familiar with space. Maybe you should consider playing some forum games and writing-up, like you used to do at some point iirc.


If you're looking for an example of a great space game, normal speed, IMM difficulty, corporations (and great write-ups), here's one:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=490952

If you want to see how efficient SP can be on a more standard map, I've got a fairly good space date (T225) on the first game (JC) of this thread:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/52-shades-of-sid-a-story-of-deities.622334/
I still did a lot of mistakes there, but it can give you an idea of how SP-economy should be handled, plus there's a few saves attached that don't require any mod to open.


I hope this was helpful, and am looking forward to see you play more space games

 

[Fish Man]

I'll answer some of your questions. Please don't mind if my comments look a little rough, they usually are lol


First off, there really is no such thing as "sub-t300 sushi space". On IMM & below, it's possible (not even hard) to win space pre-t300 on every single map. With a good start, a good space date should be sub-t230 or so, but on some maps you can even land much earlier. Then, sushi alone does not help getting a quicker space victory -- it does actually slow you down quite a lot. Sushi alone allows you to grow, but crashes your economy. You need to found Mining Inc. to pay for itself + Sushi. Otherwise just go SP, which is stronger than getting both corps on most maps (on normal speed).


As a rough thumbrule, I'd say that if you have less than +30 and +20 from corps, these will never beat SP. Corps are just too expensive: it takes a lot of resources to get the Mining GE, to kill 2 GPs on founding corps, to beeline the otherwise useless corp techs, to build the missionaries, to spread the corps, to build courthouses, to build banks+Wall Street, and then to pay for the corp expenses. Therefore corps can only beat SP if you both have a lot of corp resources and you can get there early enough in order for Sushi to "pay for itself" (growing your cities to size 25-35 and working tons of specs). In a "good" game, you should be targetting T150 Sushi, not T190, and Mining shouldn't come late after that. This means that you should have a solid empire by then (say 30+ cities on a standard map). On most maps it's of course not possible.

Another thing is emancipation anger/happy cap. With sushi-grown size 25+ cities, you cannot afford any emancipation anger, and basically need the extra happiness from colonies/vassals. Now you understand why "sushi space" is not good on most maps.


On emperor, with such a good start and the GLH, you should have conquered at least most of the map by 800AD. Of course it does take a bit of micro, but it's pretty doable. Shouldn't even need any cannons, trebs should be the last invasion unit you even consider building. And even if you play all peacefully, a "good" cannon date on such a map, with the GLH, is no later than T150.



On a non-Archipelago, competitive map a guideline would be at least 20 cities by 1AD, 40 cities & Sushi by T150. Archipelago makes things a bit more compliced, but on Emperor fast conquest is hardly a bottleneck.

I think I have covered most of your questions here (even though I didn't directly answer all of them). Your main problem, I think, is that there are some game mechanics that you don't understand well enough, otherwise you should be getting much more convincing dates (especially with SP), even without being familiar with space. Maybe you should consider playing some forum games and writing-up, like you used to do at some point iirc.


If you're looking for an example of a great space game, normal speed, IMM difficulty, corporations (and great write-ups), here's one:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=490952

If you want to see how efficient SP can be on a more standard map, I've got a fairly good space date (T225) on the first game (JC) of this thread:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/52-shades-of-sid-a-story-of-deities.622334/
I still did a lot of mistakes there, but it can give you an idea of how SP-economy should be handled, plus there's a few saves attached that don't require any mod to open.


I hope this was helpful, and am looking forward to see you play more space games

This was indeed very helpful. The JC space game doesn't actually seem that far-fetched considering how I got a t239 space win with Huayna Capac and SP on noble - granted, a bit slower, but I didn't have high levels AI to nicely develop land for me and feed me techs. The China sushi game, though...that's incomprehensible - how do you even manage to steal 7 workers without the entire world coming after you in a bloody rage with an army of axes and chariots? Logistically...how do you snipe the workers before borders pop for the second time and they become out of reach of your warriors? So many questions...

Anyways, I did what you asked and started a shadow game here. Feel free to drop by and give these critiques. What you said wasn't too rough, it was exactly what I needed to hear.

 

[elitetroops]

how do you even manage to steal 7 workers without the entire world coming after you in a bloody rage with an army of axes and chariots? Logistically...how do you snipe the workers before borders pop for the second time and they become out of reach of your warriors? So many questions...

The AI won't send any units at you before they have strategic resources hooked up and they can't hook up their resources if you steal their workers. Early on it's also very easy to get a cease fire, as long as you don't allow them to kill your warrior. Reaching the workers is very map dependent. Ideally you get a WMII warrior that can snipe from 2 tiles away and find a nice spot where you can wait outside their borders for them to build more workers and grab them immediately. In the best case scenario stealing 7 workers from the same AI is very possible, if they keep building new ones to always send to the same tile. If the target is not liked by the rest of the world, then there is no negative effect from DOWing multiple times.

 

[Pedro78]

The JC space game doesn't actually seem that far-fetched considering how I got a t239 space win with Huayna Capac and SP on noble - granted, a bit slower, but I didn't have high levels AI to nicely develop land for me and feed me techs.

Lol. You're comparing a T239 noble-huayna space race to a T225 JC-deity game. I could fire up a game on Settler, land in 500AD and tell @WastinTime that his BC space race isn't all that "far-fetched"