[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!

 

[Wednesday]

After Nationalism I spent several turns at 0% research because next techs are Paper, Education, Printing Press and Chemistry. Just watching GS bulbs grow. But from turn 233 and until Corporations its full steam and I may actually build research at some point. With roughly 7000 gold form Taj and NE and 5100 from trade mission its a lot of gold spend.

I did not know where Cyrus' last city was but I could afford afford ten tuns of peace with him. So I took his map and I was a little surprised by how hard these guys work to make life difficult for me.

Spoiler :

Turn 244. Frederick is back and either out of burning desire for revenge or in imitation of Frankenstein he created this little monster - Pacal. Another good thing about Nationhood is that you can draft muskets or maces (without gunpowder) to deal with such emergencies.

Spoiler :

 

[Wednesday]

1. Whip values for some spaceship related buildings with Kremlin: Notre Dame - 67 hammers, palace and Hermitage - 90.
2. No penalty for "you declared war on our friend" if the friend in question is someone's vassal.
3. Vassals can improve AI's attitude. Furious + cautios = annoyed and Mansa will trade techs, so long as you are not his worst enemy. Does not matter if one of your vassals is his worst enemy. Choose your first vassals carefully, if you still need tech trading.
4. A colony with Feudalism still gets warriors as default defenders. However, they get muskets with Gunpowder.
5. The more vassals an AI has the more reluctantly it will create new colonies.
6. In my tests I failed to make AI create a colony while it was at war. Though I did not try very hard.
7. Forts work for ships only in your own or in your vassal's territory.
8. When you destroy a civ the war weariness stays for one turn. Making peace with somebody forces the game to recalculate war weariness.
9. New civilizations do not necessarily drop to the bottom when you destroy them. I had Genghis Khan remaining on the top after all the original AIs were dead. I guess they are sorted by their (power?) rating at the time of death. If I remember correctly, GK had three vassals, that is probably what put him above everyone else.
10. City1 is processed sooner than City2. City1 has palace and City2 completes palace on the next turn -> City1 still gets the Bureau bonus this turn.
11. City revolt seems to have no effect on corporation spreading.

 

[Wednesday]

Fast forward to where we are now.
Turn 244. Steel.
Turn 247. Replaceable Parts.
Turn 253. Steam Power. Trade mission 5100 gold.
Turn 255. Liberalism, Railroads.
Turn 256. Economics.
Turn 257. Constitution.
Turn 258. Corporation. Mining inc. founded, 29 hammers.
Turn 259. Scientific Method. Domination limit 68%. Lack of cities suitable for new civs is making it difficult.
Turn 260. Mining 37 hammers.
Here I could see that I was going to be several hundred beakers short for t263 Communism even if I would have given up all food and built only executives and research. I also could see that my expenses would exceed commerce roughly by 1000 on t262. There is a simple solution: I go into strike mode on turn 262. No slavery until Communism, and yet there is a simple way of paying for 5 spreads on the next turn: chopping two forests into a scout results into 90*2 + city production - 30*2 = 121 or more overflow gold. Four chops make the required 250 gold quite easily. The cities I've recently taken from Mansa just happen to have some forests and workers.

Turn 262. The strike begins with 2499 bpt and -928 gpt.
Turn 263. Communism. Slavery + OR.
Turn 264. Kremlin, Iron Works (250 failgold).
Turn 265. Biology, Compass (free).
Turn 266. Found Mansa's last city.
Protected only by a longbow, but its size 2. Can't let him whip another defender (about 30% chance of success). Attack with the four units I have here from ships has 78% chance of success. The third galley is too far away, I do not have the time. So, a gamble is in order.

Spoiler :

Turn 267. Optics.
Turn 268. Caste + Free Religion. RIP Mansa.

Turn 273. Medicine. Sushi founded 20 food.
I need first Sushi spreads to be 100% success. Varanasi, Vijayanagara and Paris will get Sushi before Mining. Varanasi is prepared to build 3 executives, Paris - 2.
Turn 274. First spreading failure: Varanasi does get Mining this turn. Not a problem, but it must succeed next turn.

Spoiler :

Turn 276. Domination Limit 74%.
Turn 277. First Sushi spreading failure.
Turn 278. Assembly Line. Domination Limit 76%.
I've been stuck here for a week now. Several important decisions to make, lots of math and planning to do. It will probably take another week or two to finish this turn.

 

[Wednesday]

An average city may have a couple workshops or mines, though they are better than scientists only if that city has a factory and a power plant. With forge and the right religion (for OR bonus) factory plus power cost 758 base hammers or 948 beakers; without OR the opportunity costs are 1200 beakers. With 60 base hammers (Mining and a couple of workshops) they add 45 bpt. That is 21 or 27 turns to pay back. Whipping is better than just building. However, building factory in a small city takes too long, not worth it. Same for forge.

Small cities should get granary and library and skip forge. And that is a vast majority. Some cities will need forges for executives. Only a handful of cities will be getting a complete set of hammer buildings, most of them will be involved in construction of the spaceship.

 

[Wednesday]

I need more islands for spreading, as I'm running out of cities on the mainland, and I have to collect a large number resources. The problem is that most of these islands are too far away. It takes a very long time for workboats to reach them, and I need Astronomy for that. There are two huts, but before I pop them I should obtain the last tech which I may receive instead of Astronomy - Horse Back Riding. With HBR I will no longer be able to build war chariots to ensure the survival of workboats in neutral waters. How can I make it work? My 6-move galleys will become 8-move galleons. A chain of 4 or 5 such galleons can deliver executives almost anywhere in the world in one turn to spread Mining. And then I simply build workboats where I need them. This way it may be even faster than building workboats on the mainland and making them sail all the way across the ocean.

That limits my options for generation of overflow gold for spreading, which is a problem in itself as intend to keep spreading 9-10 corporations every turn. May be, I will use more than one religion for missionary gold.

 

[Mitchum]

Thanks for the updates. Does it feel like this game is ahead of your (and WT's) previous attempt? Can you compare this game to these other two games?

 

[Wednesday]

Thanks for the updates. Does it feel like this game is ahead of your (and WT's) previous attempt? Can you compare this game to these other two games?

Let's compare my 90 AD landing game on turn 287 (that is when I got Assembly Line) with current game (t278 AL).
Turns until launch 42 (for 90 AD landing) - 41 (for 10 BC landing)
Population 405 - 280
Workers 78 - 77
Mining (cities / hammers) 74/45 - 87/45
Sushi (cities / food) 7/23 - 17/21
Forges 42 - 30
Libraries 45 - 20
Land 72.47% or 1361/1878 - 68.01% or 1312/1929
Land to the domination limit 66 - 154

More than 120 pop is huge, but I'm ahead with corporations. Lack of whippable population is part of the problem: my resources are currently very limited and at least next five or six turns must be planned very carefully, I can't afford any missteps here. That could be a difference between 10 BC and 1 AD landing.

The extra 88 tiles to the domination limit are quite a handicap. No idea how much difference that will make though.

 

[Mitchum]

Thanks for the comparison. Shaving one turn off the landing is hard enough. Trying to shave 10 turns off is crazy hard. Good luck!!

 

[Wednesday]

How to handle the Assembly Line turn.
1. Corporation spreading; this includes settlers to fill gaps on the mainland. Prioritize cities that will build spaceship parts, they must have both corporations soon.
2. Gold for spreading. Plan first 2 or 3 turns, find resources for the next 3-4 turns.
3. Detailed plans for all spaceship parts from now and all the way to launch. Use these cities for building executives if possible. Update spreading plan.
4. Decide which cities will prepare missionaries and which will trigger the release of the missionaire gold.
5. Finalize plan for the next 5 turns of spreading. Put up signposts for new roads and railroads required for spreading.
6. Count worker turns required for key tasks. Build more workers if necessary.
7. Use remaining resources (cities which still do not have a job) to build more settlers. Cities that will receive Sushi soon should build granaries.
8. Move workers, galleys and other units.