[BTS] Notes on marathon Space Colony

[Mitchum]

Turn 192. Finally, Caste and Rep. For the first time in last 90 turns bpt exceeds expenses. Amsterdam is a beast.

That must feel good. I looked at your last save and things were looking bleak at that point with respect to your expenses. I guess if you're used to playing on the edge like this (which is required to finish Space so quickly), it's expected/normal. What a micro-management nightmare it is to pull this all off. Keep up the great work!

 

[Wednesday]

That must feel good. I looked at your last save and things were looking bleak at that point with respect to your expenses. I guess if you're used to playing on the edge like this (which is required to finish Space so quickly), it's expected/normal. What a micro-management nightmare it is to pull this all off. Keep up the great work!

That was a save from the 90 AD game, can't upload any saves from this game until it is accepted in HoF. This time I made more failgold, oracled a bigger tech (Feudalism) and my GP farms are much bigger. I did better job with GE and still get a GP for golden age by t200 (was 210). I also will get Banking t200 (was 223), may be even t199. Then I get two more great persons - two merchants, one for bulbing and one for trade mission - and this rather ambitious GP plan is to be fulfilled 10 turns sooner than in the 90AD game. So this game so far looks much better, though I am not quite certain yet whether I can get a BC landig with it.

 

[Wednesday]

Turn 199. Banking. Mercantilism. Golden age.
Beaker output soars over 1200 for a few turns as I still have some gold from MoM, then drops to 800-900.
Mansa is teching Theology next, at least it can save a few hundred beakers on Paper.
Growing Thèbes for its GP duty and a trade mission later (they depend on the size of your capital).

Spoiler :

T200. Literature. Mansa would not give CS for Machinery+Literature, so I just sold Lit for 450 gold.
T201. Drama. Civil Service (trade). Drama returns 2/3 of its cost through bonuses towards Music and Philosophy. Elizabeth's got HBR, now with Drama the only tech I can get from a hut (I found two more) is Astronomy. And Drama is also a good trading chip to get some extra gold from AIs.
T203. Music.
T206. Philosophy.
T207. Domination limit rises to 52%.
T208. Theology (trade). Next tech from Mansa is Compass.
T212. Engineering.

 

[Wednesday]

First thing to plan is the spaceship.

Stasis Chamber
Delhi will build Ironworks, Sushi headquarters, one Thruster and Stasis Chamber.
1) Prepare Thruster
2) Finish lab with 250 overflow (whip)
3) Finish Notre Dame with 470 overflow (whip)
4) Finish Thruster with 600+ overflow (800 base hammer cost)
5) Build Stasis in 2 turns with 2 chops.
This leaves plenty of forests for other purposes.

Spoiler :

Docking Bay
New York will build Docking Bay. Need about 130 hpt and 4 forests.
1) Lab with 300 overflow
2) Hermitage with 450 overflow
Satellites+0: put overflow and 4 chops into DB.
S+1: build overwhipped Industrial Park (IP)
S+2: DB
S+3: overwhipped Hospital
S+4: DB

Casing 3 (to be settled) will need 84 hpt, 3 forests, 375 overflow from lab and overwhipped IP.

Spoiler :

Engines
Thessalonique and Pasargades will build these in 6 turns.
Thessalonique needs 150 hpt, 3 forests and 375 overflow.
Pasargades - 100 hpt, 6 forests and 375 overflow.

This is a bit more complicated.

Fusion+0: Bureaucracy, Pasargades uses it.
Fusion+1: Nationalism, to avoid overflow reduction in Thessalonique.
Fusion+2: Bureaucracy, Thessalonique uses it from now on.

Pasargades
1) Whip palace and lab
2) Finish palace (must not be in Bureau).
3) Finish lab with 375 overflow (still must not be in Bureau).
4) Put overflow and 6 forests into Engine with Bureau boost and build Engine.

Thessalonique
1) Build lab with 375 overflow
2) Put overflow into Engine (no chopping yet)
3) Finish palace with 240 overflow (must not be in Bureau)
4) Put overflow and chops into Engine with Bureau boost.

Spoiler :

The rest of the Casings are built in the same manner as the third one. This way I mostly keep for the spaceship forests which I cannot use now anyway. I will probably reconsider using Tours for this reason and use a new city for Casing 5 on a 3-forest spot to the east of Tours.

Spoiler :

 

[Wednesday]

Next step is to plan early Mining spreading. I need to know what resources I need for important tasks - such as the spaceship and corporation spreading - in order know what overflow or chops I can drop into Taj/NE.

Just when I had it all figured out, Sitting Bull decided to become Mansa's vassal. Suddenly I am at war with Mansa and his vassals, and have to redesign my plan with the slavery window starting much sooner than the originally intended 225-230. There are also six angry faces in Berlin, something I can't tolerate for a very long time. I allowed it to grow to 18 too soon, staying at size 17 for a while would have been much less trouble and 18 does not do much at the moment, only a few cities have a 4 commerce trade route with Berlin.

Spoiler :

That I have much less time to prepare everything, means that I will have to do it in less optimal way. For example, some cities which whip courthouses will not be able to get enough overflow for executives, hence they will not receive Mining early. It will cost me a few hundred gold in corporate expenses during first 5 or 6 turns of spreading. Another problem is that I will not be able to whip sufficient number of settlers, I will have to build some without whipping.

I need at least 17 executives prepared for the first 5 turns (1+2+4+5+5), or 22 for 6 turns, and a few to spare in case something went wrong and I need an alternative. Then I switch to slavery, build Kremlin and everything becomes very straightforward.

Black - city builds an executive this turn.
Purple - builds an executive later.
Red - dead end.

Spoiler :

I like the plan in the bottom better: I get to chop all 5 forests in Calcutta into failgold and Thebes gets Mining 1 turn sooner. Red - turn 1, blue - 2, violet - 3, black - 4, white - 5, gray - 6. Lyon will make 250 gold with Heroic Epic for spreading.

Spoiler :

 

[Mitchum]

I'm impressed with the level of planning that goes into this game. Keep up the great work!