Nobles' Club 318: Huayna Capac of the Incas

Spoiler T209 (spaceship victory) :
After Oxford, I did everything I could to maintain 100% research for the rest of the game. It was possible thanks to selling techs, 3k failgold, and 4 Great Merchants. Forbidden palace was also super important - it saved me about 50gpt.
I decided to go straight for Biology. Libbed it T141. An alternative was to lib Democracy for SoL, but I consider it as a weaker play. And I could postpone Constitution anyway, because I already had mids.
141 lib.png

T151 I researched Assembly Line (and communism). I believe, trio AL - Communism - Biology is an important checkpoint. After that, it is easy to maintain 100% research. Also, Great Scientists again becomes better than Great Merchant.
In my previous spaceraces I built worksops on every tile and built factory coal plant in every city. But it was always painful to see those sea cities with two or three workshops. So I've tried new late game strategy. This time I chose 14 strong production cities and built factories only in that cities. The rest commerce cities got farms, built library - observatory (and some universities) and were working scientist. I built Kremlin and whipped whole infrastructure in 5 turns.
After that, game went relatively easy. BPT capped at 4.8k with no golden age. That is the problem of this relatively small map. But the start is insanely strong, so you save many turns until the end anyway.
Sury was friendly in diplomacy chart, but he wasn't acting like that at all! Right after I started to build spaceship parts he adopted emancipation and 5:o appeared in my production cities - so I had to build temples and theaters. Note to myself - never sell nationalism and constitution to opponents.
What is even more malicious - he destroyed one of my spaceship parts (Thrusters). I didn't even know AI might do that! Luckily, my IW city had spare time to build 6th Thrusters, so it didn't really affect the launch date. What affected the launch date is that I prepared overflow in 3 cities to finish two engines and life support next turn after research finished. But I didn't think about stasis chamber - and of course it was two turns too late (not even one). So, despite the fact that research was finished T196, spaceship launched only T199.
stasis chamber(((.png

victory.png

One improvement for my future space games is courthouses. I didn't build anything other than the 6 needed for the Forbidden Palace, because I thought "they will give almost nothing after state property, so it is better to build Wealth now". But now I think, that even after communism, courthouse makes sense - it pays off in 22 turns and there are 40 turns for them to pay off. So I will build more of those in my next games.
 
Spoiler T202 conquest (immortal) :

My apologies for thread bumping but holy cow. I had tried quechua rushing on the lower levels as a child just for sh*ts and giggles, conquering everything but then going on strike and losing everything again. This is the first time after more than 15 years that I tried it again, this time on immortal, a level at which I am not quite comfortable yet. It really does feel like you're playing two levels or more below the one you're actually playing at; HC is completely broken if you have close neighbors. The strategy I followed was more or less based on Absolute Zero's (especially Deity 33), working a plains hills forest tile and forgoing growth while spamming Qs every three turns. Tech order: mining and then beelining priesthood, building the Oracle when I got there while researching writing and then taking CoL as a free tech. Ended up founding both Buddhism and Confucianism Around 3000 BC I had destroyed the Carthaginian civilization and by 2000 BC I had taken Paris (had horses hooked up) and Orleans. Nappy settled two more cities, which I conquered around, respectively, the 1600s and 600s BC only using Qs (and two chariots for the latter city, but it made no difference). I never made peace but just kept choking him until I could safely take the remaining cities. I got excruciatingly close to a strike once but managed to avoid it by working the yummy lake tiles and running some merchants with CS. The rest was just recovering from the slump, backfilling until I had 13 cities while spamming wonders and GP (including 2 GEs and no less than 3 great artists, crazy RNG, which I used as a weapon by culture bombing cities immediately after conquering them) and then cheesy cuir/cav stomp to finish it off. While building up a cuir force I actually managed to tech to rifling as my tech rate was just completely insane, so I switched to building cavalry. I then vassalized Washington, Sury and finally Pacal in that order (Sully peace vassaled to me before the wars, believe it or not). I was less than a percentage point away from hitting the domination threshold after I vassalized Sury, so I had to attack Pacal and he vassalized in the couple turns it took to conquer two of his cities. 1420 AD conquest victory.

It really felt like playing on sandbox mode, building loads of wonders including the Mids, having so many GPs spawn (and I never even ran Pacifism) and being so overpowering that I could just use them at random, like instantly building non-essential wonders such as the Sistine Chapel, or culture bombing conquered cities, and just being an entire era ahead of everyone else. I played it out in about 7 hours, which is actually kinda fast for my standards, especially considering the very labor intensive early game. This was definitely a lot of fun!
 
Question for the vets here. I agree this was a great map - won a domination victory on deity by 1100s. But the early game was a bit strange. My plan was to whip quecha and later elepult (since the elephants were so handy) but all my big cities (cuzco - carthage - Paris) were surrounded by dense forest so I was mixing the odd whip with chopping and straight production (all the forest tiles!). But the problem (I think?) of this mixed approach is its a bit messy. Beacuse of all the forest production, and all the whipping, I didnt create the mass of open land cottages that HC is great at. So for a long time in the mid ancient period I had a big empire but was absolutely broke, constantly near zero with 0 or 10% research! But weirdly enough I was still doing decent slow research at 0% beakers - didnt know that was possible. Rest of game teched forward relatively steadily at 10 or 20% research.
Another thing I learned was the importance of friendship for tech trading. Early on I has to attack carthage and France, Find, I crushed both. But I also attacked a US scout and Sury's scout for some easy XP and to hobble them. Very bad. They hated me for ages and I could not tech trade. Sury was so bad he actually invaded me, some 20 turns after I killed his scout, refused to sign a ceasefire. I had to pile troops in to my attacked city (Orleans) and only got peace after his invasion collapsed. But the big bummer was everyone hating on me and no trades for a lot of turns. I also think adopting Buddhism (from Suleiman) was a mistake since Sury, Pacal, and the Yanks went for a different religion. But its a tough call. You want a religion for the benefits, but you have to wait and not take the first one if you want to be in a popular one. But the wait costs you. Any suggestions?
 
Beacuse of all the forest production, and all the whipping, I didnt create the mass of open land cottages that HC is great at
On fast and water maps (like this one) I don't think you need that many cottages, ESPECIALLY when you are FIN. They take too much time to grow. Colossus coast and oceans are a much better source of commerce in my opinion, especially at the Golden Age.
So I prefer to build farms and mines, so the inner cities become production hubs and can produce units/workers/missionaries/great people. Coastal cities grow faster on FIN and can build infrastructure at the same time. Floodplains might be an exception, though.
You can also abuse failgold mechanics and keep the economy afloat by chopping/whipping into wonders to.
But its a tough call. You want a religion for the benefits, but you have to wait and not take the first one if you want to be in a popular one. But the wait costs you. Any suggestions?
Usually this is a tough call and you can't get both, so it's all about priorities. That's what makes CIV so interesting. Still, at the Golden Age (or if you are SPI), you can temporarily switch religions, trade and adopt your religion back. Works better with favourite civics.
 
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