[BTS] Nobles' Club 185 - Suryavarman II of the Khmer

[Fish Man]

After careful and meticulous gameplay, I won a turn 269 science victory (1795 AD). It was honestly great seeing every piece fall in place, literally and metaphorically. I basically held hands with everyone and sang kumbaya in a circle, so no wars there. Maybe it's just me, but even though I could probably learn to win deity, I'd rather have a peaceful builder's game on a lower level (which was maybe why I stuck to, in the past when I was misguided, and still occasionally play V), with as few wars as possible, and just looking at the beaker counts and population go up and SS parts being built - even if the AI is terribad and can't tech to save their life on lower difficulties. I guess the beauty of IV is that it can appeal to all sorts of people, from the axe-crazy warmongers to the (relatively) peaceful expansionist empire-builders like me.

Some things that helped: a lot of vets posted advice on late-game strats and how to use state property effectively. Railroading mines shaved off at least 10 turns, as did workshop-spamming, mill spamming, and daisychaining golden ages with Taj Mahal + great people. Late-game cities (founded 1400s AD or even later) actually helped a bunch; all of them grew to respectable sizes and claimed a lot of valuable land (cottageable FP, biology farm plains, FISH, luxuries) that I might've otherwise ignored. The most important thing, though, was the teching order. This time, instead of going to composites or superconductors first, I rushed Apollo Program and went superconductors (for labs), fusion (to get two expensive engines and another part out of the way), genetics, robotics (for space elevator which I rushed with 2 GE), composites, and finally ecology for life support. Plastics was great for hydro plants, which helped healthiness a great deal; I figured blindly rushing coal plants wasn't the way to go, and I figured right. Along the way I popped a GA with all the "useless" GP I accumulated near the end, for a couple more turns saved.

My early-game strat was also pretty strong I feel, with Oracle->CS by 1080 AD or turn 73 , and pretty smooth oilephant rush. Strangely, I only ever whipped 3 times in this map; never saw a need to whip more, working scientists was more appealing especially after I stole mids from Korea, and whipping away cottaged FP would've probably hurt my research more than it helped. This was a very enjoyable game, to say the least; challenging as well, not in beating the AI, but in winning space as fast as possible, without even financial or philosophical this time.

 

[elitetroops]

After careful and meticulous gameplay, I won a turn 269 science victory (1795 AD). It was honestly great seeing every piece fall in place, literally and metaphorically. I basically held hands with everyone and sang kumbaya in a circle, so no wars there. Maybe it's just me, but even though I could probably learn to win deity, I'd rather have a peaceful builder's game on a lower level (which was maybe why I stuck to, in the past when I was misguided, and still occasionally play V), with as few wars as possible, and just looking at the beaker counts and population go up and SS parts being built - even if the AI is terribad and can't tech to save their life on lower difficulties. I guess the beauty of IV is that it can appeal to all sorts of people, from the axe-crazy warmongers to the (relatively) peaceful expansionist empire-builders like me.

Congrats on a great space game! Reaching Alpha Centauri during the 18th century is a very nice achievement!

Space victories can be very daunting with so many things that can be optimized in the later eras. The more you play, the more of these things will become automatic, which then allows you to focus more on optimizing other parts and improving even further. As you improve, you will eventually notice that this relaxed builder game with as few wars as possible also works very well on Prince, then on Monarch, then Emperor... Actually, some of the fastest normal speed space victories on deity in the HoF tables (1525&1530AD) appear to be totally peaceful builder games. Not saying that would be easy to do, very far from it, but at least it is possible.

 

[Fish Man]

Congrats on a great space game! Reaching Alpha Centauri during the 18th century is a very nice achievement!

Space victories can be very daunting with so many things that can be optimized in the later eras. The more you play, the more of these things will become automatic, which then allows you to focus more on optimizing other parts and improving even further. As you improve, you will eventually notice that this relaxed builder game with as few wars as possible also works very well on Prince, then on Monarch, then Emperor... Actually, some of the fastest normal speed space victories on deity in the HoF tables (1525&1530AD) appear to be totally peaceful builder games. Not saying that would be easy to do, very far from it, but at least it is possible.

Thanks for the compliments!

A sushi empire actually seems not as good as just going state property in this case, since there wasn't a lot of fish, I couldn't seem to pop a GM, I only reached the tech for sushi very late, and maintenance was already crippling me before state property.

A bit of an unorthodox choice: I grabbed ELECTRICITY with liberalism. It was the most expensive tech I had at the time that actually gave something (significant extra commerce) at that point, and also everyone was so behind, and I couldn't delay any more for communism which required me to "use" liberalism in the first place, so I was like why not. Though, this kinda led to the GL being actually useful for about 15 turns (seriously, I don't get why scientific method obsoletes it...science does not make reading obsolete, and GL isn't even that overpowered?).

I feel like those super-early wins were fueled by tech trading and/or civs with an even stronger trait combo and better starting land than Surry here (Lizzy with ultracorn doublegold flood plains start and pretty much lush resource-abundant grassland and FP extremely close by? idk). In this case, I couldn't get techs from anyone else almost at all since I virtually completely eclipsed them by civil service, and gave up trying to tech with vassals when it showed that Wang Kon would take more than 50 turns to research nationalism.

As usual, any ideas for improvements? Attached previously were the ending save(s) for your convenience.

 

[elitetroops]

I feel like those super-early wins were fueled by tech trading and/or civs with an even stronger trait combo and better starting land

Deity victories will always be fueled by tech trading. It's a totally different game when it comes to that. Thanks to tech trading, I think it is possible to achieve faster space victories on deity than on immortal or emperor. And needless to say HoF games are likely to have pretty decent starting lands. However, compared to solid strategy and good decisions, your starting lands are not really that important.

As usual, any ideas for improvements? Attached previously were the ending save(s) for your convenience.

The first thing I see when I open your save is the Space Elevator. This is the biggest hoax in the game, don't ever even consider building it. You are much better off not teching Robotics and instead spending the Space Elevator hammers on research or space parts. I don't care if you rushed it with 2 GEs, it's still a massive waste. Great People are way too valuable to blow on a useless piece of junk like the SE.

+50% space ship production might sound good. However, modifiers are additive. You already have +25% forge, +25% factory, +50% power, +50% laboratory, +10% state property and for many parts +100% from aluminum. At best Space Elevator turns your x2.6 multiplier into a x3.1 multiplier, for 19% boost. If your Iron Works city builds a part that benefits from aluminum, Space Elevator can only boost production by about 10%. That's rarely even enough to reduce build time by one turn. And in most cases this increase won't matter at all, since your finish date is only determined by the last parts you complete. Skipping Robotics to get started on those parts earlier is always better.

Other observations regarding wonders:
-Great Library was very late. You should aim to have it up around 1AD. Building it as late as 740AD is not worth it, as you also noticed. In any case, this is not a must have wonder. It can be nice in many situations, but it's not crucial in a space game.
-MoM is crucial in a space game. When you built TGL, MoM was still available. You should definitely have built that instead. If you have 4 golden ages, MoM earns you 2 extra golden ages, which is HUGE!
-Hanging Gardens is a very nice wonder for you to consider. It appears you had pretty much completed expansion by the time someone else built HG, and you were at around 15 cities? 15 pop, even if you just whip it out immediately, equals 450 hammers. Building HG with Stone is 150 hammers. That's quite a nice gain. On this map you probably wouldn't have wanted to whip them out immediately, but considering the slow growth rate on a map like this, getting an instant extra pop in all cities is even more valuable. Not to mention +1 health in all cities, which in a space game soon becomes +1 food in all cities.
-With a large empire Statue of Liberty is very powerful. You could try to adjust your tech order to have it up much earlier.

Which brings me to the tech order:
-The industrial era brings a massive production boost. Aim for that as soon as possible. In a State Property space game, even if I could still delay Lib for hundreds of years, I rather lib Communism as soon as possible to get workshops up and running. Then beeline Assembly Line for factories and Power Plants. The increased production by far makes up for the lost beakers from libbing a smaller tech. Physics and Electricity can wait (unless someone is about to steal your free Physics GS, which won't happen on noble).
-Biology should also come before Physics and Electricity for improved farms and National Park. Speaking of National Park, this one needs some planning. You want to designate a city with plenty of forest at a quite early stage (not one of your core cities, those you want to chop bare) and get those forest preserves up by the time National Park is done. A good NP city should have at least 8-10 free specialists, preferably even more. That makes for an awesome GP farm.

You mentioned that Plastics was nice for Hydro Plants. Hydro Plants are a very expensive form of health at -2 for 200 hammers. For example hospitals give +3 for the same price. Supermarkets +4 for 150 hammers. I never really build any Hydro Plants at all. Cities need coal plants for power asap, then there are more important things to build when Hydro Plants unlock. A bit of unhealthiness isn't even that bad. When you unlock those hydro plants you should be so close to launching your space ship that a tiny growth boost won't matter at all.

Your land improvements look better than in your last game. Your ratio of mines to windmills is still a bit high. Replacing mines with windmills for food allows you to convert farms to worskhops, which yields better results. Also, in case of non-riverside mines, they don't have any commerce at all to be boosted by Golden Ages, so here the Windmill adds even one more commerce over the ordinary.

But overall you seem to have a very good basic grasp of the game. All these points are already going into the territory of advanced strategy.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Dang sick, I didn't even have Rifling in the 1500's, much less 1700's Future Tech.

I'm happy with any kind of win in the 1700s, tbh.

 

[Fish Man]

Dang sick, I didn't even have Rifling in the 1500's, much less 1700's Future Tech.

I'm happy with any kind of win in the 1700s, tbh.

The secret is Oracle and oilephants

Also rifling is pretty useless in this map and difficulty; I think I didn't get it either until around t190-200 (1300s? AD), when I picked it up on the way to rocketry.

 

[Fish Man]

You mentioned that Plastics was nice for Hydro Plants. Hydro Plants are a very expensive form of health at -2 for 200 hammers. For example hospitals give +3 for the same price. Supermarkets +4 for 150 hammers. I never really build any Hydro Plants at all. Cities need coal plants for power asap, then there are more important things to build when Hydro Plants unlock. A bit of unhealthiness isn't even that bad. When you unlock those hydro plants you should be so close to launching your space ship that a tiny growth boost won't matter at all.

Yeah, I kinda messed up on beelining electricity; on second thought, assembly line or whatnot was probably more important.

Space elevator was probably a waste of time; building it probably COST me 3 turns more than anything else.

What I don't get is your critique on hydro plants. The way I see it, they're -2 for 50 hammers, since 150 would've been needed for a coal plant anyways - this is very cheap. And while my non-river cities were building coal plants, I needed to keep building wealth to keep my economy from tanking, so I wasn't really wasting those hammers anyway. +2 is IMO kinda like an extra pop, roughly, so I feel it was very worth it.

 

[elitetroops]

What I don't get is your critique on hydro plants. The way I see it, they're -2 for 50 hammers, since 150 would've been needed for a coal plant anyways - this is very cheap. And while my non-river cities were building coal plants, I needed to keep building wealth to keep my economy from tanking, so I wasn't really wasting those hammers anyway. +2 is IMO kinda like an extra pop, roughly, so I feel it was very worth it.

This might depend on your tech order. As I play it, I beeline Assembly Line, then I still want Biology, Democracy and Rocketry before Plastics, which leaves 10-15 techs in between. As soon as I hit Assembly Line, every city gets a factory and power plant up asap. This depends a bit on the situation, but often it means 5 turns in slavery to have those up in most cities (requires getting Kremlin up quickly after Communism).

The industrial revolution should not be underestimated. The extra +75% production you get at Assembly Line really is a high priority ad should be taken advantage of as soon as possible. Delaying it for some extra health is not worth it.

 

[Fish Man]

This might depend on your tech order. As I play it, I beeline Assembly Line, then I still want Biology, Democracy and Rocketry before Plastics, which leaves 10-15 techs in between. As soon as I hit Assembly Line, every city gets a factory and power plant up asap. This depends a bit on the situation, but often it means 5 turns in slavery to have those up in most cities (requires getting Kremlin up quickly after Communism).

The industrial revolution should not be underestimated. The extra +75% production you get at Assembly Line really is a high priority ad should be taken advantage of as soon as possible. Delaying it for some extra health is not worth it.

But the extra growth with the health can be used to work more mines, windmills, watermills, and workshop which speed up your research. After assembly line you still have roughly 1/4-1/3 of the tech tree to go, remember, so commerce is still very relevant, as are specialists. Building research/wealth is all well and good, but you don't want your research to tank because you stunted your growth once you get started on labs or SS parts, and I'm not sure +75% production towards building those two even outweigh the extra research from tiles or specialists if you grow more.

I was mainly delaying assembly line since constitution->corporation and chemistry->steam power took painfully long to research without the commerce boost from electricity. And besides, wouldn't you also want industrialism (which requires electricity) before rocketry? So you have aluminum and the Apollo Program doesn't take like 20 turns to build?

 

[Archon_Wing]

LOL for some reason I thought power plants required industrialism. I'm always worried about the plants killing off my population.

Really need to remember to build those things. I'm lucky if I remember to build factories.

 

[Fish Man]

LOL for some reason I thought power plants required industrialism. I'm always worried about the plants killing off my population.

Really need to remember to build those things. I'm lucky if I remember to build factories.

Yeah, factories are real important.

I cannot understate how you mustn't underestimate the unhealthiness cost, though. Even without oil, factories cost 3, coal plants cost 4 because power automatically gives 2, so you're looking at 7 over 10 turns or less...if you're not careful (for example, keeping your cap stagnant at around size ~20 as I've learned is good standard practice), you can starve your cities into the ground real quick, even with grocers or aqueducts (two buildings that you might not even have had the time to build).

 

[elitetroops]

But the extra growth with the health can be used to work more mines, windmills, watermills, and workshop which speed up your research. After assembly line you still have roughly 1/4-1/3 of the tech tree to go, remember, so commerce is still very relevant, as are specialists. Building research/wealth is all well and good, but you don't want your research to tank because you stunted your growth once you get started on labs or SS parts, and I'm not sure +75% production towards building those two even outweigh the extra research from tiles or specialists if you grow more.

To be clear, I'm explaining the strategy I've found to work best when aiming for 15xx space victory on immortal. After Assembly line and getting up the factories and power plants, if your empire is large enough, you can tech the remainder of the tech tree at very close to 1 tech/turn by building research and running specialists. The last 1/4 of the tech tree flies by in no time. For me, "large enough empire" would mean 30-40 cities. You had 17, so 1 turn/tech is probably not possible, but doing the last 15-20 techs at an average of 2 turns/tech should have been possible with optimized cities.

Starving your cities into the ground is impossible. The food bin of large cities is so big that even at a small food deficit, it can take dozens of turns for them to even shrink one pop. At the end of the game, when I see a city won't have time to grow or won't benefit from growing anymore, I might very well rework the tiles so that it works at a food deficit, if this allows it to finish whatever it needs to do faster. Wokshopping your pigs and corn for the last spaceship part to be out one turn faster is perfectly okay.

 

[Fish Man]

To be clear, I'm explaining the strategy I've found to work best when aiming for 15xx space victory on immortal. After Assembly line and getting up the factories and power plants, if your empire is large enough, you can tech the remainder of the tech tree at very close to 1 tech/turn by building research and running specialists. The last 1/4 of the tech tree flies by in no time. For me, "large enough empire" would mean 30-40 cities. You had 17, so 1 turn/tech is probably not possible, but doing the last 15-20 techs at an average of 2 turns/tech should have been possible with optimized cities.

Starving your cities into the ground is impossible. The food bin of large cities is so big that even at a small food deficit, it can take dozens of turns for them to even shrink one pop. At the end of the game, when I see a city won't have time to grow or won't benefit from growing anymore, I might very well rework the tiles so that it works at a food deficit, if this allows it to finish whatever it needs to do faster. Wokshopping your pigs and corn for the last spaceship part to be out one turn faster is perfectly okay.

Alright. I've never tried it your way so I'll take your word for it, I suppose. I guess I know what I'll be doing my next playthrough.

Another question: how do you expand to 30-40 cities and NOT get completely mauled by city maintenance? When the cities mature they'll pay for themselves but before that you'll be running in the red for a long while even with 0% research...and this is not to mention with an IMMORTAL AI that gobbles up land and spams cities like nobody's business?

 

[lymond]

Another question: how do you expand to 30-40 cities and NOT get completely mauled by city maintenance? When the cities mature they'll pay for themselves but before that you'll be running in the red for a long while even with 0% research...and this is not to mention with an IMMORTAL AI that gobbles up land and spams cities like nobody's business?

First, good to see you making progress Undefeatable...you will get scary pretty soon. The key to fast space is tons of land. Great players look to get close to the Dom limit in the game. 30-40 cities is no problem at all - i've had even more at times. It's not like you are going to have all those cities by 1AD. It's a gradually process..some early war..some later war. Meanwhile you are building an economy along the way, and later most of your newer cities...settled or captured...are likely converted into production cities. Cities with factories/power can churn out a tremendous amount of wealth, so you build wealth up to the point you are in the black, and then build research in the rest. That, combined with rep specialists, depending on the map, will likely have you putting out several thousands beakers per turn. Also, you should mainly be focusing on pumping Great Merchants late game for missions, and running merchants in rep late is ideal (balanced to gold needs, then scientists..possible a mix of specialists in some places to get different GPs for golden ages) Speaking of which, saving a few odd GPs is a good idea for late game golden ages, especially during parts building...but it also helps with the late game beaker output.

Workshops, watermills, windmills are so powerful late game, especially in State Property. Or map dependent food/hammer corps.

The bottom line is it is all about beakers per turn, and more cities simply means more beakers.

IMM AI spamming cities is just doing you a favor

 

[elitetroops]

Another question: how do you expand to 30-40 cities and NOT get completely mauled by city maintenance?

I think there are a few major factors that probably differ from your game:
-Getting to 40 cities on immortal requires a constant state of war, which means a constant stream of conquest gold from capturing cities.
-Immortal AI is capable of making decent sums of money, which I can get by selling them techs.
-Failgold. Lots of it.

Then there might be a GM trade mission or two.

I made a write-up of a space game last year in NC 177 Shaka. I decided to go for space quite late and it was my first space game in several years, so it includes lots of mistakes and finished 1655AD with 47 cities. You can see the ideas I've been talking about in play if you read the write-up, which is scattered throughout the thread. Among other things, I mention that after teching Edu I spent a long time with slider at 0% and still negative gpt. Ideally that should of course have been avoided, but if it happens, it's not necessarily anything to worry about. In the final post you can see some screenshots of what an efficiently workshopped empire might look like.

 

[lymond]

In the final post you can see some screenshots of what an efficiently workshopped empire might look like.

..and the beauty of all that glorious land

oh..and check out elite's bpts in the 3rd screenshoot....well, 2nd shot if you don't count the log.

 

[Gasp]

Hello,
I've been reading the forum for a while without being registered, it just changed !

First: thanks for the map!

750 AD Prince / Normal / Huts & Events

Spoiler :

i was lucky with the huts because I got Masonry and HBR very early.

I just got rid of korea, it was very easy (though I made a mistake and lost a few charriots), I won a holy city in the process.
At this point, my plan is to settle a new city East of the capitol, probably 1SW of my charriot. I am not too worried about my economy but I'll have to check everything and decide what to build in my empire soon.
Then I'll have to decide where to attack since I have a lead I should continue, I guess Ashoka is a nice target but so far I didn't visit much of my opponents to decide where to go.

I know I've made a few mistakes, especially waisting workers turn and didn't micro manage enough my cities but it seems to be OK.
You'll find my save attached.

 

[elitetroops]

Welcome to CFC @Gasp !

Spoiler :

You have resource bubbles turned off in your screenshot, but you do have them turned on when playing, right? At least this early the location of resources guides so many of your decisions that I would definitely recommend they are kept visible all the time.

The city location you propose, 1SW of chariot, seems to completely lack food. The most important thing in a new city is food. You want to settle with a food resource in first ring just about always. Now you are creative and might sometime get away with 2nd ring food, but first is still better. In that area, it's better to settle where your chariot is for some more 3 floodplains. It's also riverside and should be connected to your trade network even without a road if you trade for sailing.

Oh, and since you popped HBR from a hut, you could also just trade for archery right now, then build nothing but Horse Archers for the rest of the game and it is won.

 

[Gasp]

Thanks for the feedback elitetroops!

Of course I almost always have resource bubbles turned on when playing (I felt it would be too much bubble on my screenshot).

Spoiler :

Your comment on my next city location made me recall that at first I preferred to settle SW near the cows. I guess my mind changed because it's a bit far from the rest. Now I think I'll go for cows + horse + gems and it will also secure a large territory on the west side to expand when necessary.

HA is too obvious haha, I'll do some tech trading and hopefully wipe AI off the map soon.

I keep you posted how this goes

 

[Gasp]

Turn 170, 1100 AD, it looks like it's won already, I'm not going to play further.

Spoiler :

I followed elite's advice to rush with HA. My 1st target was Ashoka, funder of Judaism and Oracle builder. He had 2 cities "guarded" by Warriors and 1 axe... He died fast.
Then I went for Ashoka, took his 2 biggest cities (he funded Buddhism) before trading peace for Calendar and his gold. 10 turns later I DoW him again until his end.

My empire on turn 170, I'm a big tech leader, over 100 population and have 3 holy cities I took from Korea, India and Native Americans.
I have beautiful Dehli (not on the screen) with a population of 15 which I could make my GP farm, it has 4 wonders built.

Hatch is a good ally since she has a different tech path than me and is not completely left behind. She also kindly joined in the final war against Sitting Bull.

I recently got Civil service so I could upgrade some of my spears to maces before I go for Bismarck even though it's probably not necessary since I am way more powerful than him.

But the game keep on crashing (probably because of BUFFY...) and I don't see any interest in pushing further as everting is under control.

To me it is an interesting game because it went really well considering I don't play much and when I do I could lose at Prince level.