[BTS] Space Race Deity/Epic/Small

[Anysense]

Never played at epic speed, so I thought I'd try it instead of beating my own records. Did not waste much time on mapfinding, just got an ok map (corn, double gold, lots of FPs and forests). First attempt, which was supposed to be just a training session to get used to epic, went surprisingly well. I managed to steal 5 workers in total (first one on t7) and took a city with just two warriors and a chariot...
Not much luck apart from that and Mansa was very disappointing, the only useful tech I received from him was Feudalism, but on the whole it was alright.
Its turn 138 (550 BC) now. I have 17 cities and maintenance really hurts my research rate. Epic speed enables one to conquer more cities over the same stretch of time, but then you have to adopt to managing a very large empire early, something I haven't figured out yet.
I assume t138 Epic equals t92 Normal, compared to results in those Normal speed games my research is ok but unless I improve soon I'll start falling behind the schedule. On the other hand, around t90 I used to have just 10-12 cities instead of 17, thats some difference! Hope it will translate into something good later.
Another problem is Small map size. With only 7 AI's in the game trading opportunities are pretty thin. In particular, it makes makes getting enough gold to keep teching at 100% rather difficult. It seems that quite soon I'll have to drop the slider for a while. On the bright side, there is little competition, and once Mansa is under control, I might be able to Lib pretty much anything, even AL or Railroad.
Not sure what to expect from this game, but pre-1300AD landing seems feasible. I still need to workout how to leverage that overly successful conquest and one-turn executives on this game speed, then the parts are going to cause a lot of pain too.

Spoiler Pics :

I'm nearly done with Liz. Just take Hastings and Canterbury and vassalize her, I suppose. Wiping her out won't be worth time and effort. May be take peace (and Compass) and finish her off later?

I'd rather not kill Mansa but it's unlikely that he will capitulate with more than 6 cities. Not sure how much use he will be then. He's got some good land though, well worth conquering. Another question: should I complete the HG (3 turns left) or let Mansa do it? It seems a very good WW at 17 cities, but I really need gold.

Tech situation.

 

[Swordnboard]

I would complete the HG. 17 pop = 765 hammers at the minimum, which is a good bit better than the 450 gold you would get for letting the failgold happen. Plus the engineer points and health are significant benefits as well.

Compass and/or capitulation is probably good enough for peace, no need to totally destroy liz at the moment.

Is this terra or B&S? And which corps are you planning to found? Haven't done too much analysis, but I'm very suspicious about mining inc on its own on epic speed compared to just communism, and sushi of course has its own issues with massive maintenance and such.

Pre 1300-AD seems quite ambitious, but maybe possible if you can keep the research rate up. 1300 is T280, so you'd need a launch of pre-T265.

 

[Fish Man]

Hmm...based on prior experience I’ll say the finish date is unreasonable, unless you use strike and wonderbread. On deity maintenance is a black hole and any conquest means barring lots of failgold you’ll have to run 0% slider for at least about 20 turns. There’s also the small issue of “sushi costs 50 gpt per city” and the possibility of just not enough mining resources to go around. You might have a shot on marathon where the conquering and economic pain that comes with it passes relatively quicker.

 

[Anysense]

@Swordnboard
Yeah, 765 vs ~440 is a good deal. Besides, I can have that failgold from Mansa. I finished the HG and traded Paper for HBR and 410 on the next turn.
Liz made a nasty twist and created a colony of 3 cities (Roosevelt) when I was about to take her last city on the main land. Well, I just took that last city, Roosevelt has all of her techs anyway, so I can have them a bit later. He would speak after I captured one of his cities but won't capitulate. What does he mean by "Surely, you must be joking..."?

Spoiler Roosevelt :

This is Terra, so it's rich in Mining resources but getting Sushi strong may be a bit of problem. I doubt there will be enough time to make use of Sushi anyway, so its only Mining again.

@Undefeatable
Not unreasonable. I did land once in 1380 AD with a worse start, meaning that landing around 1300 AD is possible, although actually doing it is not going to be easy.
I know there are enough Mining resources on Terra to go about, its amount is very stable on this map type.

 

[Anysense]

Something very odd has just happened: Mansa capitulated even though his power is well above average. I suppose it has something to do with the fact that he is at war with everyone but Darius.

Spoiler pics :

Apparently this was the last straw.

Mansa has 544000/1.3566=401000 soldiers, that is 60% more than AI's average.

 

[Anysense]

I had to halt research for ~5 turns in total over last 32 turns due to lack of gold, still my research rate seems to be good enough.
T146 Education
T157 Gunpowder
T166 Engineering
T173 Chemistry
T178 Economics
Darius stole the Music's GA but I got GM from Economics (for the second time in my life). I will use him to start Golden Age, but before I do that, I need MoM, and I'd better hurry up. If I want to launch pre-265 it leaves little time to use Golden Ages. I want one from Taj and three from GP. Thats 4*12*1.5=72 turns of GA, so I have to start the first one on 265-72=193 turn. Only 15 turns left!

Spoiler MoM :

Peter has just built MoM. That should not be difficult, just some lonbows and elephants.

 

[Anysense]

Domination is not a problem, but I must not forget to leave someone free and alive!

 

[Anysense]

T187 Steel
Apparently it was a mistake to task Mansa with Printing Press. I don't really need cannons, as the fighting is about to end, so Steel is a major detour from Lib->AL which I planned. Mansa will finish PP in 2 turns, which gives me just enough time to accumulate some gold before I start researching RP. For AL I also need Nationalism, Constitution and Corporations. Lib Railroad instead? But Railroad isn't much use without Corporations either...

Spoiler A bit of statistics :

I have 21 workers of which I built none, so they don't appear on the info screen when sorted by 'built'.

 

[Swordnboard]

On epic speed, a GA with the MOM is only 15 turns, so 60 turns for the 4 of them.

 

[Anysense]

On epic speed, a GA with the MOM is only 15 turns, so 60 turns for the 4 of them.

Yeah, I noticed. One GA used a bit too early does not hurt, I don't even know whether it is early, that will become clear later. I wonder, does GP cost scale up properly or is there a surprise like the one with GA?

 

[Swordnboard]

Yeah, no big deal on one early GA. I'm pretty sure GP cost scales like you will expect it to.
150, 300, 450... 1500 for the first 10, Then 1800, 2100, 2400...4500 for the next 10 is my recollection.

I guess another consequence of epic speed is that the extra GA turn from completing Taj matters a little less on the whole.

Are you planning to send some units over to the new world to hut astronomy? Or is that another one the AI will be researching for you?

As for liberalism, AL is a bit more expensive/better value, but RR could be better to develop early since Mining corp will help you build factories/plants. As you mention, both basically require steam power and corporation (at least for railroad to be of much use). Either is probably OK.

 

[Anysense]

T206 (490AD) Lib -> Assembly Line.

Spoiler :

The earliest AL I ever had! For comparison: 500AD is t135 on Normal; in 1380AD game on a large map at this moment I was researching Steel at ~700bpt; AL was t160 (1000 AD)
In short, I'm far ahead and bpt is more than two times bigger. There is nothing left to conquer though, nothing worth conquering, anyway; The only good land which is not mine belongs to Mansa. I will settle in the new world, of course, but I will hardly have more than 50 cities in total. That's a bit underwhelming. The research cost is ~15% lower on Small compared to Large, which sort of makes up for lack of land.

Two explorers are looking for Astronomy, but so far no luck.

Mining inc. would be 38 (25 res) if founded now. Not too shabby. I have a GM to spare, may be I will use Sushi too. That would require accurate evaluation though, I have no idea whether I will have enough production to spread both corps quickly enough.

 

[Fish Man]

That's pretty good. I wonder though, how you're going to get the rest of the techs in less than 50 turns. I played a deity marathon corps game and was in about the same position as you at this date, but no matter what I couldn't land earlier than 1450AD. Perhaps my land was a bit lacking?

 

[Anysense]

@Undefeatable
I think the key is that you did not use all the land available and spread corps too slow. Only 48.58% out of 60% allowed and you have large gaps, while I would normally have my cities packed as tight as posssible. You also seem to be playing too fast - only 5 hours to play from 340 AD to 1240 AD! For me this is the most time-consuming part of the game, which usually takes about 20 hours to play.

 

[Fish Man]

@Undefeatable
I think the key is that you did not use all the land available and spread corps too slow. Only 48.58% out of 60% allowed and you have large gaps, while I would normally have my cities packed as tight as posssible. You also seem to be playing too fast - only 5 hours to play from 340 AD to 1240 AD! For me this is the most time-consuming part of the game, which usually takes about 20 hours to play.

Those are fair points. Though in this map conquering was harder since it requires shipping troops to the other continent, and vassal mechanics make the AI think it’s “doing fine on its own” while down to 3 cities because there are a couple backwards vassals on the map dragging the power rating down.

What tech order do you recommend, from say after civil service to the end?

 

[Anysense]

What tech order do you recommend, from say after civil service to the end?

beeline Steel, but if I don't need it for military purposes I'd go straight for AL/Railroad. AL then Steel->Railroad appears somewhat better, as it gives you time to get ready to start spreading corps.
I dislike Cuirs because Nationalism+MT is a big detour and I don't build Taj that early. Normally I don't use Golden Age until I'm done with whipping units, its just too wasteful.

Edit: Next priority after AL and Railroad is Biology. After that... I don't know, there aren't any really important techs, just make sure you can build Apollo in time.
Typical order is something like: Computers, Superconductors, Fiber Optics, Fusion, Satellites, Composites, Genetics and Ecology.
A lot depends on what you vassals can research for you.

 

[Anysense]

Played on till t215 (625AD).
T210 Railroad
T211 Scientific Method, obsoletes a bunch of wonders
T215 Biology
Still no Astronomy May be Medicine and then Astronomy if no luck with huts? I still have a spare GM. My core cities will be ready to start spreading Sushi in 5 turns. In fact, in a few turns some will have nothing to do but to build wealth/research. I need to figure out whether those hammers are better invested in or Sushi.
One-turning executives on Epic turned out to be quite easy; all you need is 35 base + 40 from mining and x2 multiplier (forge, factory, coal plant). AL first seems to be the right way to go about the problem with spreading, no need for overflow, chops and meticulous planning for every executive.

Spoiler Overview :

 

[Anysense]

T245 (1000AD)
Looks like t257-259 launch, don't know what years those are.
Mining is getting really good at 47, spread everywhere. Sushi helps the key cities to grow to get enough production for parts. Some will peak at 140-150 base.
The most difficult part will be Stasis Chamber, because Mansa is researching Ecology, so Stasis is going to be the last one and has to be built in one turn in Delhi (IW+5 chops). Assuming that researching Genetics will take 2 turns, 5 Casings must be built in 3 turns; of which 4 will be built in my core cities and 1 in a size 1 city with 9 forests on the other continent. Who would have thought that space race may be fueled by wood?

Spoiler :

 

[Anysense]

Finished and submitted.

Spoiler :