Nobles' Club 278: Huayna Capac of the Incas

@Fish Man
Spoiler :

A second capital with Corn, FPs and gold mine. A nice Quechuas rush! :goodjob:

That Saitama Quechua has potential to receive the legendary Combat X promotion and eliminate all enemy units in one turn . <--just joking:lol:

I have a question about your choice of target: What decided you to go after Charlie instead of Mansa? Just because you met Charlie earlier; or because you preferred to keep Mansa alive for tech trading?

In my game I went after Mansa, because I met Mansa very early and couldn't see Charlie's border for a long time (Monarch AIs expand much slower than Deity AIs). Admittedly, Charlie's capital is farther but much richer than Mansa's one.
 
@Fish Man
Spoiler :

A second capital with Corn, FPs and gold mine. A nice Quechuas rush! :goodjob:

That Saitama Quechua has potential to receive the legendary Combat X promotion and eliminate all enemy units in one turn . <--just joking:lol:

I have a question about your choice of target: What decided you to go after Charlie instead of Mansa? Just because you met Charlie earlier; or because you preferred to keep Mansa alive for tech trading?

In my game I went after Mansa, because I met Mansa very early and couldn't see Charlie's border for a long time (Monarch AIs expand much slower than Deity AIs). Admittedly, Charlie's capital is farther but much richer than Mansa's one.

Spoiler :

Two reasons why I didn't go after Mansa:
1. On deity he is an absolute GOLDMINE. He will give you everything and anything as long as you keep him happy and got something in return. In this game, I got currency and metal casting from him, alongside alphabet of course. I would've never gotten either of those things that fast if it wasn't for him.
2. Skirmishers are so OP that I'd rather swallow pro hilltop archers than them. At least with the latter...not every city is on a hill, and if you bait them out of cities they're basically free quecha chow. I did the calculations, and even with a city on a hill with 20% culture bonuses, pro archers are only 4.35 against quechas. OTOH, skirmishers on a flatland city, with only 20% culture and no protective, are already 3.81 against quechas! This is not even taking into account if there's hills, holy city, promotions, and of course the possible extra first strike, etc. And outside the city they turn an almost certain victory, into basically a luckshot. Never ever rush into Mansa unless you have elepults or something. Just...don't.
 
Spoiler T106 :


I figured I would at least try out some workerstealing, I didn't go full tilt with Quechas though. I built one while growing to pop2.
This would have delayed a worker of my own by 8 turns, but I would also gain 2 turns while building it, so back 6 turns.
I thought this was better than building one Quencha in 3 turns with the forested hill and then continuing.
I get a worker 3 turns slower but I also get some coins and get to pop2 in the deal.
Turns out I didn't have to build my own worker though. :) Found a grassland in his culture that I know he will farm sooner or later.
He roaded it a few turns later and I snatched it.
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Was just waiting around, choking abit when the roading bacame irresistable for the second worker.
Once I took this once, I got a ceasefire and went peacefully on with the game. (for a while!)
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After Oracle, I chopped out two more settlers to get up to the 5 decent cities I had then cottaged what I could.
Alpha from Mao of all people at T70, gave him MC for that.
Traded for Monarchy, Sailing and IW the following turn.
Got this Guy at 70+% odds, a GProphet would have done a GA.
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After this bulb, I could finally trade for math. :)
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I traded for copper T82 and built colossus, I thought they would be faster to build it.
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Did a revolt to Police State and Vassalage and started whipping.
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Knights are cool!
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This guy is a notorious mercenery, if you don't bribe him your target will. :D
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Spoiler T158 :


For a long time, I was hoping I could strike Mansa before longbows since noone had feud, but in the end he got there.
No walls anywhere though, and culture was 40% in almost all cities, although Timbuktu jumped up to 60% the turn I took it.
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Mao declares on Charly, I take Gao and then get Philosophy for peace. Mansa has one city left on that island.
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Forgot to screenshot that it seems, but I killed Maos stack in Charlys territory, and rode around and took a few cities from Maos western side too.
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After declaring Sully sniped one of the cities I took from Mao, but other than that smooth sailings.
He is the last easy target, Pretorians behind walls is no joke. And Sitting bull is packing all of his cities full with pikes too.
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Charly too, has some punishment brewing. He hates Mao and isn't too happy about me either.
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After waiting for him to declare though, I lose my patience and declares on him instead.
Oh, all cities I take from Mao/Sully I more or less treat the same. I whip them down to the ground to get units. First knights then a few Quenchas. :)
When they are pop1-2 and the forests are gone, they get their cities back.
Here Mao got Nanjing back once Chendu fell, to trap Charlys stack there a few turns.
I got Augsburg and Aachen before a AP vote put an end to the war.

Somewhere after I finished Nationalism I started growing cities and T145 I finish Taj in capital and swap to rep+bur+cast+banking+pacifism and tech MT.
Had to wait a few turns for Mao to finish gunpowder too.

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I had my knights standing around inside August territory in a war for ages. Killing off stray units and waiting for opportunities.
I was hoping to snipe Arretium once Mao softened it up enough, but when he got it, I rode down to Edirne to upgrade knights->cuirs.
I rode straight past Neopolis and for rome which had MoM.
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The turn I got Rome I started GA #1 and GA#2, stacking up 24 turns of golden age.
Then
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Spoiler T178 :


I even gifted Sully 1000g T159 or something to help him speed up RP by a turn or so, but I think he spent the gold hiring in someone to polish his marble gargoyles.
Money wasn't much of an issue as I had a steady stream of GMerchants marching toward Istanbuls ToAr.
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Once I had enough merchants to upgrade all cuirs I swapped to policestate+vass+slavery+freemarket+theo and whipped everything to the ground. Moooore units!
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Sitting Bull Capitulating, not somehthing you see every day.
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Basically all GGenerals where used with 7 knights/cuirs at 7/10 xp, bumping up 6 of them to 10/10 xp.
a pair of them I attached the general to a 2xp unit, giving that unit +xp promotion.
Had two super medics in the end, the rest of the attached ones had the +movement promotion so that they could easier snipe stray units.
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Attachments

@konata_LS
Spoiler :

Nice game there! I like your strategic choices.
Losing units is no big deal when you have more comming. You learn alot about how to conserve them by experience.
When I first started to engage in warfare habitually, I lost a crapton of units because I didn't really know how/when/why the AIs moved around on the battlefield.
Sticking with either medieval doomstacks (tons of xbows, a bunch of maces, some pikes and siege both cata+trebs), or rifles+cannons helps alot. It's way harder to lose units with those weapons as they are so incredibly sturdy.
HAs/Cuirs are more fragile unless you can really catch the AI with their pants down.

It's not only that you lose units, but you also get worse war success, making ceasefires/capitulation much harder and you can lose alot of time.



@CarpoolKaraoke
Spoiler :

I don't know much about how the AIs move their workers, workerstealing is generally way too risky for my liking. But I do know that when they are roading to a target, they will continue to road even if that means they put themselves in danger. This is also true of our own workers. If you command them to road from city A to city B, they will gladly step infront of a barbarian and die.
Getting 4 workers was very ambitious, makes me feel I was too restrained.


@Fish Man
Spoiler :

I figured Mansa was too stiff to try and rush, but I didn't think of moving on to another target. Also I didn't do very much scouting early on as I was preoccupied choking and stealing from Mansa.
But thats a very nice rush you got there. Securing Charlys land not only got all those yummy resources, but it also prevented him from becoming a problem.
Losing pyramids was a bummer, I went out of my way to get them very early as I saw Sully build both SH+TGW early on so I figured he had stone.
But even my T57 was too late in your game it seems.
 
A question for IMM/DEI players who start playing this game:
Spoiler :

With capital stone and IND, do you consider building the Great Wall and stealing techs from your neighbour Mansa?

On Emperor and below, there is usually nothing to steal when people play as FIN leader, and the barbs are not very aggressive. But on IMM and DEI, Mansa is often a juicy target for EE.

Spoiler :


No, thats not something I considered.
Capial stone does raise the question of TGW, but to fool around with espionage I generally want something more.
Here is a game where I think something more is present:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/nobles-club-219-gilgamesh-of-sumeria.653952/
Gilgamesh UB is a courthouse thats abit cheaper and accessable at priesthood.

But whats most compelling toward espionage though, is a PHI leader. Without PHI, the first few spies come out annoyingly slow.
But with Phi, you can first settle one spy (preferably with representation!) and then do a scotland yard with another one not too long after.

Espionage is usually something I turn to later in the game though, if I'm severely behind, and especially if I have gotten my hands on some holy city.
Then you can set up a spy city and load it up with spies and then steal your way back to relevance.

And as already mentioned, Mansa isn't really a good target, as he will give you his tech anyway. :)
It's better if you can steal from someone else, then flip your stolen tech to Mansa for other monopoly techs for further trading. :D

 
@CarpoolKaraoke
Spoiler :

I don't know much about how the AIs move their workers, workerstealing is generally way too risky for my liking. But I do know that when they are roading to a target, they will continue to road even if that means they put themselves in danger. This is also true of our own workers. If you command them to road from city A to city B, they will gladly step infront of a barbarian and die.
Getting 4 workers was very ambitious, makes me feel I was too restrained.

Spoiler T70: :


I think I figured out some of the AI worker + defense logic. Here are my guesses.
1. If you have a unit that threatens to hit the city, the AI will maintain a minimum (3?) number of units in the city.
2. Worker defense (bodyguard unit, or take back attempt) does not consider unique units.
3. AI will only check if it can kill the unit if it can directly hit it.

Which means if no Quechua threatens the city immediately, and the AI thinks it can take the worker back, it'll send it out... I think. At least the above has been true in this game. By any rate, I re-declared war right after the teleport cease-fire, and continue farming Mansa for workers.

After reading @Fish Man 's note about Mansa being a gold mine for tech trading, I'm a little regretful because I realized Mansa won't be able to tech with how far I've set him back already.

I want to speed to Masonry for the Pyramids too, but am paying quite a bit for 3 extra Quechua and *cough* the now 5 workers I've captured thus far. I pre-chop to fight for the Pyramids, but get well denied.


Oof. Oh well. The fail gold helps me immediately tech to Priesthood, where I use the rest of the pre-chops and a whip to 1-turn the Oracle for Metal Casting. This gives me the trades for Alphabet with 1 person and Iron Working + Sailing with another. I want Sailing now for immediate trade routes and Moai Statues for fail-gold. Maybe two trades will cause me to lose the Colossus, not sure.


I'm up to 6 workers stolen now, and realize that it would probably be better to take over Mali at this point. I start building cover-promoted Quechua with a plan to fork the cities and draw out Skirmishers. I receive an unexpected surprise...


Mao comes to the party! Except he brings 1 sword and like 5 archers, scares Mansa's stuff indoors, proceeds to slam, and gives most Skirmishers in Djenne the city defense promo. Thanks Mao. I ignore him and move to Timbuktu, and take it, losing 5 Quechua.


To summarize the game up to now, I've effectively traded 8 Quechua for 8 workers, and 1 city with improvements.


Here's an image of the current map:


This game-play style makes me feel dirty. Not sure if I'll continue.

 
@Fish Man
Spoiler :

Thanks for your explanation! Yes, keeping Mansa alive has certainly apparent advantages, especially on higher levels when tech trading becomes more important.

Looking forward to seeing how your game will be going:). It seems you're planning to conquer the whole continents with Cuirs/Cavs.
Or you're aiming for sub-T250 Space on Deity this time :D


@krikav
Spoiler :

Wow, Guilds in 352 BC! :wow: It's really something extraordinary I've never seen:clap:. But attacking with Knights is less common than Elepults or HAs rush. What decided you to using Knights instead of HAs or Elepults?

Making peace with Mansa and conquering Mao seemed a really wise choice. You prevented Charling from getting a vassal.

The screenshot in 100 AD shows that you didn't go Aesthetics-Music. This looks a little unconventional for a Cuirs/Cavs-based attack. Which factors led you to give up GLib and the free GA from Music?

Whipping newly conquered cities to pop 1 then gifting back to vassals is brilliant. :satan:

Thanks for your advice. I think I need more practice to get experience and learn how to reduce the loss of units. Attacking with mounted units often suffers more loss than attacking with sieges, but the former goes much faster than the later. Mobile Artillery's 2 :move: is tempting but comes too late.

That Giggle game is a nice example of EE. Resource, cheap castles and UB support TGW. I noticed you stole techs from Saladin and JC, then traded the stolen techs to Mansa.


@CarpoolKaraoke
Spoiler :

8 workers and a capital is already a huge boost :goodjob:!

With four food resources, Timbuktu might be a good GP farm during peacetime, or a military base for whipping/drafting when you go to war. Plus the extra -:) from Sugar.
 
@konata_LS
Spoiler :


Attacking with knights isn't that common, but I figured I could get away with it here when things where running so smooth. (Two stolen workers, pyramids and oracle MC), then financial cottages too.
But even with all these windfalls I couldn't finish the game with Knights. In "normal" games, the window of opportunity is simply too narrow to act inside.
I almost always try to push the limits and try out unusual things when I can, even if it can sometimes be at the detriment of the game. :D

I didn't go the aestethics route because I had all tradebait I could ask for after getting MC and later brokering around with Mansa.
I also didn't go for an Cuir/Cav attack, I went for knights.
Between T102 and T147 (when finishing Taj) I barely teched anything. I was just in police state/vassalage and whipped knights. :D
Didn't do much of GPeople generation at all.
There where plenty of opportunity to get the whole aestethics line in trades.
I also didn't have much use for a GArtist. I had a prophet, and later a GSci and a GArtist who where just standing around for ages, waiting for me to get Rome with MoM a quickie.
Had I gotten Music, the guy from music would have also just standed around for a long time.

The strength from the music GArtist is that you are speeding your way along a bulb-path, and the GA you can run with that guy accelerates that path alot.
Here I wasn't on that path at all.


I'm not sure I agree that siege is necesserily slower than mounted attacks... On paper ofcourse 2 moving is faster than 1 moving. But when taking into account having to bypass, stand and lure out and fork cities, replenish units etc, then it isn't as obvious anymore.
Having engineering is really important to speed up movement though, and likewise bringing along 2-4 workers to lay down roads where they are missing. There are also tricks to close borders with civs to teleport your stack that can be used sometimes.
But yeah, a smooth 2-moving campaign will always outshine a siege based one.

 
t154 update

Spoiler :


Going for a sub-t250 science win, since any other victory would be trivial at this point! But instead of just a regular cuirstomp, I actually libbed steel.

The reason I decided to go for a cannon attack was because:
1. This map is so small that 2-move units won't make much of a difference despite being faster.
2. I was so dominant and the global tech pace so slow, even if I didn't necessarily blitz anyone, probably nobody would reach rifles or even grens by the time I got to my last targets.
3. Cannons are a major hammer save when going against medieval units - in the entire war against Mansa I lost one cannon, and I definitely would've lost 5-10 the amount of cuirs...this is not even considering the pro Sitting Bull next up on the chopping block.
4. If you can get away with it, I've been realizing how much further ahead libbing steel instead of MT gets you in the space race. if you're in a spot where nobody will get rifles for a long time. Steel path gives you chemistry which is 3000 beakers ahead on the road to the holy grail of communism. Also, while MT is a dead-end tech not needed for the spaceship, steel is needed to progress past AL/mid industrial. So you are saving 4700 beakers when you lib something that's actually needed later on, and shaving an extra 5-10 turns from your communism date by going chemistry, not nationalism. Cuirs usually conquer faster, but on tiny maps like these where their speed advantage is more neutered, you're better off just methodically grinding down people with siege.
5. Mansa! He was the deciding factor on this map. Because I could rely on him or the almost-as-friendly Augustus to feed me the engineering path, libbing steel is virtually cost-identical to going for MT. You need gunpowder + nationalism as prereqs for cuirs, but gunpowder + chemistry as prereqs for steel...the same beaker cost, if engineering is easily traded for. Furthermore, I gambled on him to tech nationalism and give it to me so I could have my cake and eat it too...which he did, saving me yet another 3000 beakers, and giving me the lock on Taj. Going for cannons instead of cuirs has saved me 7700 beakers towards the space race thus far.

So I capped Mansa one turn ago. He survived because I bribed Suleiman on him + Augustus immediately after declaring, and he took back the western city that was stormed by the Ottomans a few thousand years ago. At the end he gave me guilds in the capitulation offer too - such a nice guy :D. On that note, Sillyman is a rather silly man for building mids 2200 BC and then immediately plotting on someone with the best defensive UU halfway across the map, but it worked out in my favor. You know what else worked in my favor? SB declared on Augustus a few dozen turns ago and they've been slugging it out, with neither party making much progress and slowing down their economies in a mutually destructive conflict. Meanwhile, having captured Timbuktu containing the Colossus while in a golden age, I once again got to catch a glimpse of the rare and fabled bags-of-money-in-water economy.

Two turns from communism, and I think I can make it pre-t250 despite the abysmal number of land tiles (750 or so...that's half of some B&S/fractal standard size maps!). My army of cannons is ready for more medieval chow.
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@Fish Man
Spoiler :

Lib Steel on Deity, wow that's really impressive :wow:! More than 800 :science: per turn in a Pangaea map before 1000 AD is almost miraculous :worship:!

Your reasoning of going for Steel instead of MT is clear and solid. Having Mansa as vassal would also help you in research towards Space.:clap:

Would you mind explaning a little about your current civics, please? Are you in HR or Rep? Do you plan to adopt SP + Caste after Communism? Will you adopt US when most of your cottages become towns?

Do you plan to generate more GPeople for more GAges? IIRC, you built MoM in your post on #20, so 12 turns of GAge would be a big boost for a large empire like yours.
 
@Fish Man
Spoiler :

Lib Steel on Deity, wow that's really impressive :wow:! More than 800 :science: per turn in a Pangaea map before 1000 AD is almost miraculous :worship:!

Your reasoning of going for Steel instead of MT is clear and solid. Having Mansa as vassal would also help you in research towards Space.:clap:

Would you mind explaning a little about your current civics, please? Are you in HR or Rep? Do you plan to adopt SP + Caste after Communism? Will you adopt US when most of your cottages become towns?

Do you plan to generate more GPeople for more GAges? IIRC, you built MoM in your post on #20, so 12 turns of GAge would be a big boost for a large empire like yours.

To finish, part 1.

Spoiler :

Oh, you think 800bpt is a lot? You haven't seen anything yet.

Sitting Bull, as I said, was preoccupied with his catfight with Augustus, and I was pretty sure from the amount of great generals Rome has gotten, that his offensive stacks had all sac'd and died trying to attack Roman cities. That left his meager defenses wide open for this:

Spoiler :

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Almost 40 units, about half of them cannons, all of them ready to completely annihilate everything in their path. You may be wondering why I built so many horse archers when things like maces are better on the attack, and the answer is - after you start your initial attack with cannons, you usually want to build 2-move mounted units as non-siege reinforcements so they can reach the front lines faster. I just traded for guilds so from hereon out I'll be whipping knights, which are far better. But really, after medieval garbage has been chewed up by half a dozen city raider cannons to 20% health, even warriors and axes can clean up without a sweat.

I split my stack in two, one smaller force to go after Mound City, and the central attack targeted towards his core. As I said, after just a few cannon attacks and collat, even CG3 longbows were easy pickings...that's how outmatched even the toughest medieval units are against a 12 strength siege unit.

Spoiler :

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I took all but 2 of his cities before he was willing to give in. This is actually a good thing, because when going for space, you want as much land as possible under 64%, so you can work the most tiles to boost your GNP/hammers to the most ridiculous levels possible.



Afterwards, I noticed something interesting...before he capped to me, SB peaced out with Augustus and gave him Snaketown in the deal. For a single turn, that city was left undefended...so naturally, I took full advantage of that fact, and declared war, charging in with a knight followed by the rest of my army for a free capture.

Pictured on the bottom right is the full Roman army...sounds scary, but actually that entire list is just free war success. He can't even reach me in a single turn because he pillaged the road on that tile like a moron in his war against SB, and if he tried to approach, I would tear him to absolute shreds with my cannons.

Spoiler :

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The next turn he didn't move NE like I wanted. He didn't even move at all. So I took matters into my own hands, and moved my entire stack to 1 SW of the city. I expected him to either retreat or go around me, though either way I would still attack and kill him with overwhelming force, but instead he did the most idiotic thing of all:
Spoiler :

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That's right - he slammed his outdated medieval junk, across a river, into combat 3 knights and cannons, and lost everything while inflicting only minor damage that would be healed in a single turn by my medic 3 + woodsman 3 ultramedic. What drives the AI to do these things, I have no idea - I thought Augustus would have low attack courage compared to people like Shaka or Ragnar. But maybe he saw the war as a lost cause and just wanted to get it over with :crazyeye:? Either way, that's exactly what happened, and in a few short turns I captured 4 more cities and signed his capitulation.

Now, finally, after over 25 turns of warring, I had enough land to really run away with the game. You'll notice that I'm up to assembly line and making over 1300 beakers/turn before 1200AD...this is just the beginning!
Spoiler :

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To the finish, part 2

Spoiler :

So let's talk some other strategy stuff - just theoretically speaking, for now; I'll show my actual game later. In a space win, if you want to win as fast as possible, the goal is to get to communism and state property as fast as possible while conquering your way up to about 30-40 cities and 60-63% land area at the same time. I've covered the conquest, and I've easily gotten to communism pretty quick this game, so now let's get on to my civics, teching, and tile improvement choices lategame.

In terms of civics, I immediately switched to state property and free religion after the Taj golden age coincided with unlocking SP. However, I'm waiting to switch to rep and caste system until the next golden age. I only got constitution from Sitting Bull after the GA ended, and I need to whip a few more things regardless...no sense in spending 2-3 turns in anarchy; that's a huge loss at this point in the game. Representation is FAR better than universal suffrage because you won't have many towns, but you are guaranteed to have many many specialists by the end of the game.

The reason SP is so vital and I ignore stuff like universal suffrage or emancipation, is because the way to win space fast on standard speed/size pangaea maps, is the hammer economy. You adopt SP and SPAM workshops/watermills/windmills everywhere. With caste, SP grassland workshops give 2f4h, which is basically a plains hill mine that feeds itself. Meanwhile, fin watermill yields can get as ridiculous as 3f4h5c with a levee and golden age (yes, a TWELVE yield tile without even any resource on it...all you need is a river). Then you build factories and power them, to turn those 4 hammers into 8.5 from the production bonuses, before converting hammers into whatever resource you need (units, buildings, wealth, and of course research). This vastly outshines towns because, even with emancipation, it takes a ridiculous 50 turns to grow a cottage into a town, and all the while you will have to build all the science AND money buildings to make that commerce as flexible of a resource as a yield from just workshops. By covering the land with them and then giving a factory to every city, I can quickly increase your beakers/turn by thousands in just a handful of turns, especially as my new conquests come online.

Now for techs - usually, you want to go AL or electricity, and only after getting both do you go railroad. Afterwards, it's straight for plastics for the Three Gorges Dam, superconductors for labs, fusion for a free Great Engineer to start your last golden age, rocketry for Apollo, and composites to genetics to ecology, to round out your last few spaceship techs, finishing your teching and wrapping up your building as the last golden age ends. You want 4 golden ages ideally - 1 from Taj, 3 from 6 assorted great people. In this game, I was lucky to get quite a few techs from other AIs, despite eventually leaving them all in the dust. Starting with Renaissance techs, I got: nationalism from Mansa; constitution, democracy, and biology from Sitting Bull; and astronomy and rifling from Augustus after capping him. In this case I went AL before electricity because I wanted to milk the ridiculous fin + Colossus combo for as long as I could. I traded for democracy just to build Statue of Liberty, which when combined with rep + caste gave me an extra 250 beakers/turn immediately from 30 cities on the continent...not bad!

A word on improvements: as much as it hurts to do, besides your buro/Oxford capital or some other highly cottaged cities you care about, you must ruthlessly bulldoze even villages and towns to make way for workshops. With the factory and power bonuses, as well as forge + SP - like I said, workshops actually outperform towns by a sizeable margin. And remember - you can't build spaceship parts with commerce, no matter how much of it you have, which is what the final dozen or so turns of the game comes down to.

On a more miscellaneous note, you may be asking - why TGD? Well, simply put, it's more efficient in a variety of ways. Coal plants cost an extra +2 unhealth for power, which means that they essentially limit your city size to 1 less than they could be. A missing grassland workshop being worked in every city is a pretty big loss that adds up quickly. Second, hammer-wise, coal plants for about 30 cities costs 4500 hammers, while TGD costs just 1750 hammers. But - and I've been thinking about this after being asked by several other forum members, about why that wonder just seems so dam good (ha) - the actual cost is far less. See, when you're building TGD, you ideally want to either build it in your buro capital or Ironworks city, and in a place that already has coal power. That means that the "hammers" you spend towards that wonder are +100% or even +150% more effective than the hammers you spend building power in each city individually. If you're industrious, like I am this game, that bonus further increases to +150% or up to +200%! What this means is - and I think the math works about this way - when building TGD in Cuzco like I do this game, every hammer is worth +210% (forge + factory + state property + buro + coal power + ind) instead of +60% (forge + factory + state property). With these bonuses in mind, 30 coal plants would cost 4500 / 1.6 = 2812.5 base hammers, but TGD is just 1750 / 3.1 = 564.5 base hammers. That means that TGD is FIVE times as hammer-efficient as coal plants, and saves you 2248 base hammers, which when multiplied back with 1.6 would give you a net savings of 3600 hammers - more than a late-game great scientist bulb, and nearly equal to 1 entire turn of research if hammers = beakers.

Oh, right - by the end, we'll be making well over 3600 beakers/turn. Screenshots and the finale, putting all this into practice, coming up :).
 
To the finish, part 3 - t239 and 1645AD space win!

Spoiler :

Plastics and >2500 beakers/turn before 1400AD, without a golden age or so much as breaking a sweat...
Spoiler :

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I start the golden age to quickly build TGD, and here you can see the true power of the hammer economy - the difference in "total commerce" vs beakers top left means I'm deriving roughly 1400 of my about 2800 beakers/turn from hammers alone. That's 50% of ALL my beakers just by building research, and all before the +50% hammer bonus from power!
Spoiler :

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Fusion, and I immediately start my last golden age. This gives me over 5000 beakers/turn by the time I approach rocketry, 1520AD.
Spoiler :

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Four-turn Apollo in my Ironworks city. I usually put my IW somewhere besides my capital...because a buro cap should have many cottages, but that conflicts wit what you want for an IW city, which is mostly workshops; and because there are many spaceship parts to build which are expensive, splitting the heavy-hitting hammer modifiers like buro/IW, makes it so your last part finishes earlier, which is always the determinant of how fast you can launch.

Spoiler :

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After that it's just a matter of queuing the parts in the right cities. Make sure to build observatories + labs ASAP in at about 16 cities, since there are 16 spaceship parts. Build the thrusters/casings in your "lower" hammer cities (except maybe one in a high-hammer city), the cockpit in the "weakest" city, the 1 docking bay/2 engines in your #4, #3, and #2 highest hammer cities, the stasis chamber in your highest-hammer city (usually the IW city) since the tech comes in late, and the life support in that high-hammer city that should've finished its casing or thruster at this point. If you do this right, most of your casings/thrusters should finish with each other. Then your engines and docking bay should complete, and finally at the very end your stasis chamber and life support should finish as close to each other as possible, perhaps even on the same turn, as they did here. Have a look at my build queues to see what I'm talking about.

Spoiler :

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We have t229 liftoff...
Spoiler :

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And t239, 1645 AD science victory!!!
Spoiler :

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Some afterthoughts, and the ending save attached...

Spoiler :

Of note is that the AIs were more behind this game than I've ever seen on deity. Mao didn't even enter the Renaissance by the time I entered the modern era via plastics...and at the end he still wasn't in the industrial when I was 3 eras ahead of him, in the future era. Nor did he have rifles (or RP...or printing press)...and nobody else so much as had infantry or even steam power. I think Mao only got machinery and his medieval UU 1000AD...on deity! What an unusual turn of circumstances...maybe to be expected, given how completely mediocre everyone else's starts were, besides the late Charlie's and mine (and even then they were a far cry from "great").
Spoiler :

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I was also the first person to reach all the appropriate great people-giving techs: music, economics, communism, physics, fascism (after launch), and of course lib which kinda counts in my book. I don't think I've ever done that on deity...usually, by 900-1000AD, I can count on some people reaching and feeding me economics and/or physics while I'm busy trudging my way to communism, but here people were just so slow. If you played 1000 deity games on normal maps, I don't think you'd see a single one where some AI didn't reach economics by the date I did.

If you look at the stats, I killed over 150 units easily, but lost only around 12...4 quechas, 8 cannons. As fast as cuirs are, definitely nothing can beat cannons in terms of hammer efficiency vs medieval units. I usually still go cuirs because libbing steel is a fair bit harder, and also speed is an issue because you want to get your massive horde of 30-40 cities under your control and pumping out research ASAP for space wins. There's also the problem of finishing up your conquests before any of your enemies get rifling, otherwise things become far more complicated and difficult; which cannons struggle to do, them moving at a snail's pace in comparison. Luckily, again because of map size and tech pace as bad as some monarch-level games I've seen, those weren't issues here.

I founded 2 cities in Sitting Bull's former territory since I realized he wasn't making very good use of his land - and since he didn't have much food there, more smaller cities could more easily work all the tiles instead of fewer, bigger ones that I'd struggle to grow. I put my NE in Poverty Point, and with 14 surplus food from fish + fish + pigs, it ran enough specialists to give me 3 GP in just the last 50 or so turns of the game, IIRC.

I named this game and GGs to honor a good friend of mine, as per custom.

All in all, very very fun game, and I liked the start not being too broken to give quecha rushing some meaning, as well as making the fast space win a challenge, especially given the low number of land tiles. It's been a while since I've gotten to enjoy some OP quecha madness and the absolutely dominant position that comes afterwards, much less put it to good use in a tight game (regarding my standards for space colony win date). Very satisfying, and thanks again @AcaMetis! Hope everyone else watching and reading along found it entertaining and/or educational as well.

PS - crap, I forgot that in binging this game I'd forgotten to watch yesterdya's AI survivor or even submit my predictions. I guess I'll try to email Sulla and see if he can make an exception for a post-live prediction this time, seeing as how I've been busy with work and...not-work, the past few weeks, and of course since I haven't even seen it yet (no spoilers pls).
 

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Nice game there!
Me personally, I'm rather clueless about how to really get to space fast, so having these posts is really nice for me.
Any chance of seeing some corporation attempt anytime too? I'm even more at loss about how to get that functional.

@Fish Man I also forgot to watch Sulla and submit predictions. :(
 
Nice game there!
Me personally, I'm rather clueless about how to really get to space fast, so having these posts is really nice for me.
Any chance of seeing some corporation attempt anytime too? I'm even more at loss about how to get that functional.

@Fish Man I also forgot to watch Sulla and submit predictions. :(

Thanks, glad you liked it!

In terms of corps...there's been exactly one successful deity game I've managed an early space win with using corporations, and I already wrote about it here. However, looking back, I made some mistakes things that I've since improved on a lot, including not wasting golden age turns, not starting a 4-person golden age when I could've just done 4 bulbs, and in general fixing up the lategame teching order. Still, t549 space win on marathon (that would be t183 normal speed, in comparison), is as far as I've cared to push it, and it's for sure faster than state property on some maps including the one I played sushi out on.

If you're asking for advice on ancient dark magicks like wonderbread + strike economy...then sorry, for the most part, those are a mystery even to me right now. I have a lot of patience but I suppose learning that stuff is just beyond what is relaxing/comforting for me, at least for now. To read on that sort of stuff, check out @Anysense 's thread here, though I'm sure you already have.

In general, I just find state property far easier to carry out and wrap my head around, than corporation strategies or "advanced" corporation techniques that I said I hadn't bothered with so far. Everything involving corps does take more effort to carry out than I'd like, especially after a long day/week. Also, of course, corps are for sure slower on 99% of maps/speeds, and this pangaea map, needless to say, didn't have nearly enough resources or land tiles to make them worth it.
 
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@Fish Man
Spoiler :

Congrats on your win! T239 Space on Deity is impressive indeed!:clap:

Thanks for your explanation about the civics, improvements and research. The detailed write-up is really informative and helpful. Grassland workshop under SP+Caste becomes especially attractive for a faster Space victory, because unlike military units or buildings, Spaceship parts cannot be rushed with gold.

Your gameplay makes me reconsider the importance of MoM. This wonder is often overshadowed by Oracle and GLib when there is marble nearby, but for a long game (like Space, or Conquest in a huge Continents map) and 15+ cities, 12 turns of GAges are evidently powerful. TGD is mediocre when the player only has 8 or 9 cities, but it becomes definitely much better when the player has 20+ cities in a continent.


@krikav
Spoiler :

Corps are fun at lower levels, but Deity inflation and maintenance penalty are very high, maybe that's why people often find corps at loss on Deity. For trying corps on Deity, as @ Fish Man did it in his Deity Marathon Space game, Charlie is a good choice, because Charlie's UBs cut 75% maintenance. Another candidate on Deity would be Shaka, also due to his UBs.

Space victory can be achieved without corps, even with a non-FIN leader. At least I saw it in a Continents map:
The leader in the video happened to be Kublai. As you're "warming up" for the upcoming Kublai NC, a Space win with Kublai might give you some inspirations.
 
@Fish Man
Spoiler :

Congrats on your win! T239 Space on Deity is impressive indeed!:clap:

Thanks for your explanation about the civics, improvements and research. The detailed write-up is really informative and helpful. Grassland workshop under SP+Caste becomes especially attractive for a faster Space victory, because unlike military units or buildings, Spaceship parts cannot be rushed with gold.

Your gameplay makes me reconsider the importance of MoM. This wonder is often overshadowed by Oracle and GLib when there is marble nearby, but for a long game (like Space, or Conquest in a huge Continents map) and 15+ cities, 12 turns of GAges are evidently powerful. TGD is mediocre when the player only has 8 or 9 cities, but it becomes definitely much better when the player has 20+ cities in a continent.


@krikav
Spoiler :

Corps are fun at lower levels, but Deity inflation and maintenance penalty are very high, maybe that's why people often find corps at loss on Deity. For trying corps on Deity, as @ Fish Man did it in his Deity Marathon Space game, Charlie is a good choice, because Charlie's UBs cut 75% maintenance. Another candidate on Deity would be Shaka, also due to his UBs.

Space victory can be achieved without corps, even with a non-FIN leader. At least I saw it in a Continents map:
The leader in the video happened to be Kublai. As you're "warming up" for the upcoming Kublai NC, a Space win with Kublai might give you some inspirations.

Spoiler :

Usually I don't even build MoM, because around that time I can go after the far more effective wonder known as "10 cuirassiers" and then take the MoM from one of my next-door neighbors who has built it. But this game, since I wanted all my golden ages to be max length AND I was ind + had marble + everyone else was super slow and bogged down in wars, I built it myself. When all was said and done the wonder barely cost me over 160 base hammers, and let me have one or two longer golden ages.
 
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