Sub-200 Deity Spaceship redux

[Martin Alvito]

I've posted this sample game in response to various posters' claims that ICS is no longer the dominant, fastest approach. The truth of the matter is that you cannot beat the efficiency of specialists. Public Schools are an iffy build right now given the monstrous cost and tech delay before you can construct them, so you're strictly better off with a bunch of small cities stuffed with Scientists that don't produce much other than .

As with pre-patch, I expand to a city count in the low teens and then shut the expansion machine down. You could have a third expansion wave, but you run out of room on a Standard size map and it's not really productive anyway. The objective of the approach is to generate a lot of Great Scientists and clear the Renaissance as fast as possible, so that Research Agreements yield high-cost techs. After the Renaissance is cleared techs are so expensive that the preponderance come from Research Agreements and Great Scientists; adding 100 per turn is fairly pointless.

Siam is used because it's clearly the best civ in this patch for the approach.

Screenies and saves (turn 101 and final turn) are attached.

The approach is as follows:

1) Stay with just the capital and get the National College first. The fastest possible game settles a luxury that can be mined for cash, befriends a Maritime by turn 10 or so and allies it with another 250 before turn 18 (so that you still get the full 40 points for 250). This means selling the luxury for cash and gold per turn ASAP and then taking out loans as needed.

Food permits your capital to increase in size early, which increases its productivity. This is critical, because your capital is the Settler pump. Anything that accelerates this process is a good thing.

Tech order for this approach is Mining -> Pottery -> Writing -> Calendar, with the associated build order of Scout -> Worker -> Warrior -> Library -> NC -> Settler spam.

2) If you hit a Culture ruin, take Tradition, then Liberty. If not, take Liberty with your first pick. Tradition speeds up the early game a bit, but comes back to haunt you with increased SP costs later.

3) Once the NC is finished, spam Settlers in the capital. The first expansion wave should take you to around six cities. This seems to be the ideal compromise between bringing early Wats online and keeping SP costs manageable. Settling luxuries (especially multi-luxury sites) is a priority to keep the cash flowing for additional Maritime allies. You must have two. More is better.

4) Tech to Theology, and be sure to detour for Construction along the way. You'll want to start on Colosseums in satellites on the day you found them. Get the usual three Research Agreements ASAP (usually around turn 40) to open up the Renaissance later. Time your acquisition of your first Cultural ally so that you get your next SP on the turn the Renaissance opens. Take Freedom.

5) The build order after the NC for all cities is simply Colosseum -> Wat.

6) You should have some time to pump Workers in the capital between the Settler builds and a Colosseum timed to finish as Education lands. Buy Workers as needed in the interim to connect luxuries. Steal them if you can. By the time the capital starts on a Wat, you should have one Worker per city. Use them to hook up luxuries and mine. Don't bother with roads yet. The Wheel is an excellent choice as a blocking tech, and your finances should be fine.

7) Once you have a Wat in the capital, fill it and start Settler spamming again. Settle them after you take Rationalism; if a Settler or two must sit idle for a few turns, that's OK. Spam to cap. If you've been aggressive about CS alliances (don't neglect another round of RAs entirely, but don't max out either), you should end up with a city count in the low teens.

8) Divide up the second wave's build orders by location. Cities next to a Mountain should go Wat -> Observatory. Those not next to a Mountain should go Colosseum -> Wat. The screenie from turn 101 shows this approach in action.

9) Manage diplomacy, click end of turn a lot, and slog through some tediously slow turns. The capital can build Wonders for a while. Hagia Sophia and Porcelain Tower are priorities. Taj Mahal is also very, very nice if you can time its completion for Apollo.

10) Using Research Agreements and Great Scientists, get to Rocketry and start Apollo in the capital. Build a Factory the hard way first if you can. Buy it if you do not have time.

11) Click end turn some more. Identify secondary part cities. Hook them up with Railroads. Find Aluminum if at all possible (I did not have a source in the attached game and was only able to buy a Spaceship Factory in the bottleneck late, so all is not lost if you come up empty).

12) Move the parts to the capital and win. This game ended on turn 187. It would have been several turns better if I'd had Aluminum.

Quick note on diplomacy: an anti-Bismarck bloc quickly emerged and it was much better to be a part of it than go it alone. Joining the web of Declarations of Friendship secured the Egypt flank and guaranteed friendly opportunities to buy another DoW on Bismarck if needed. By the time he managed to attack me in the 80's, he was fighting a two-front war and badly mauled. His push was repelled with a couple of lousy swordsmen.

Also, quick note on city placement: Settle bravely. The DoFs let me aggravate Ramesses once early on without real consequences in order to scoop up Ivory and a bunch of Hills, and I grabbed the strong Sugar/Horses city south by Bismarck while his hands were full of Egypt and India. He complained and I told him where to stick it. Then I just backfilled the connecting spots during the second wave - which is actually quite nice, because you tend to hit your GA during that period and you want to get those cities online as fast as possible.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Reserved for the save files.

 

[Monthar]

Just think, after the patch you won't be able to put the cities as close together and you'll have even less happiness from the happiness buildings. Plus less money and production in those extra cities.

 

[Martin Alvito]

You don't need the fourth citizen to make this work. But you'll get it anyway; the SP rework will cover the Happiness hit to Colosseums. Meritocracy's GE will mean it will yield +1 again via the FP. Landed Elite will be a HUGE buff.

It's possible that Aqueducts will make a more vertical game where you ditch the second expansion wave (similar to HOF Beta 3) the optimal solution. That will require some testing.

 

[vexing]

nicely done. do you have the initial save?

 

[Pyrrho]

nice job, I really appreciate the detailed breakdown. How much of a difference do you find point #2 makes on average? I usually play with ruins off but I'm curious.

 

[Tabarnak]

Going early universities and early specialists is very strong in multiplayer as well. If you can resist longswordmen with weaker units since you make a detour to education, you gonna be rewarded later with a nice jump to rifles.

The good thing about this strategy is you continue to tech hard and keep a useful advantage for the rest of the game(infantry before turn 140 on quick speed, and not so far from nukes is awesome against human players).

Obviously, the diplomacy, CS interactions and the impossibility to RAs every industrial techs are from another world.

But the essence of this strategy(i go 4 city first instead of NC first tho) makes me win many games if they are going farther than turn 100(quick speed).

So i'm not surprised that this singleplayer strat is so strong for a science victory.

 

[biohazard72]

Nice job. I knew something great would come from Siam, and here it is. Quicker than I expected though, to your credit. Their CS benefits and especially their Wat are really out of whack with other civilizations at the moment - having a 2-slot building (and culture!) without having to build those dreadful Libraries is huge. I actually haven't touched Siam since the patch since they seemed so strong.

Questions... why Freedom before Rationalism/Secularism (assuming you grab Secularism, which you don't mention)? I guess you need that happiness boost with so many cities, but I'd be curious to your reasoning. Is it common to have space for 13 cities on Pangaea (I rarely play it, and commonly have room for a bit less on Continents)? How do you focus your filler cities after Wats go in? And finally, with Astronomy being far less useful on Pangaea, is that still your route to the Renaissance? I'm aware that the 2nd policy requires a speedy Renaissance in order to have it there.

Finally, I should mention that with any other civ I get science victories in the turn 250 +/-10 turns range. Do you attribute the huge speed increase with Siam to the Wats, making the Renaissance through Industrial much quicker to clear?

 

[Martin Alvito]

On ruins: I'm not convinced that it makes much of a difference. The ruin gives you a few free turns early on but you end up losing out on policies later, which delays the second GA. If I hadn't hit the Culture ruin, I'd have been able to pick up Humanism before pushing Scientific Revolution, and I'd have had a lot more turns of GA while building Apollo and parts.

On SPs: I don't want to take Rationalism right away because doing so screws up the GA counter. I want to take Rationalism on the turn that I get the first Happiness GA if possible. I do take Secularism on the way to Scientific Revolution, which is why I don't mention it. Secularism is more or less a wasted pick, since I'm such a Mine fanatic.

Astronomy is still the route to the Renaissance, because it's the only way to get there quickly. If you block The Wheel and Bronze/Iron, you can sign your RAs on the turn the NC goes up and expect to have everything in place to pop Astronomy with three RAs thirty turns later. If you have the funds for four RAs, you can push the bottom of the tree with and ignore Theology.

It doesn't really matter what you do with filler cities after Wats (and Observatories if possible) go in. I usually build Workers and military units in secondary cities after staffing the Wat.

I'm not entirely clear why the speed differential is so large. I'm working on a pure ICS India game that looks promising, and it will be interesting to see when that game finishes.

 

[Bibor]

Excellent thread, although it really depends on your neighbours. I tried this on a small map and Monty's capital was 8 or so tiles from my capital. DoW-ed me the turn I finished my first settler.

 

[Martin Alvito]

If you've got Monty all up in your grill, you can't play peacefully. It's times like that when I miss Warrior rush. If you'll recall, the original sub-200 game involved victimizing Monty with a rush.

The best thing you can do under those circumstances is spam a bunch of Scouts and steal all his Workers. A civ with no Workers ends up seriously declawed, and they'll usually make peace for cheap after you spend all your on RAs around turn 40.

 

[Buccaneer]

Seems like a lot of strategies depend upon not only having Maritimes, but discovering them quickly. I recall a standard size map that only had 2 Maritimes out of 16 and they were nowhere near me. Plenty of Cultured ones though.

 

[Martin Alvito]

You don't need an early Maritime to win, but you definitely need one for an unusually fast win. Early bonus in the capital is huge.

 

[biohazard72]

Every unusually fast strategy needs some luck. When I did 200 turns with France some time ago, my luck was having 3 pushover neighbours who all fell to a Horseman rush, giving me unfettered access to almost my whole continent.

If I remember right, Secularism is the +2 science from specialists, which would be worth at least 6 science per city after they have their Wats set up. It's just me, but I think it might be worth it to delay the happiness golden age to get that science boost earlier, allowing you to rip through the Renaissance faster. At the very least, I think it's not-trivial to test. Although I do see the utility of having that golden age when you do, because you're still building things almost everywhere (I save my happiness Golden Age for around when parts need to be made, and at that time many cities are on Wealth).

EDIT: The speed differential is so large IMO because other civs are so much slower through the Renaissance. Having to build Libraries before Universities is huge, as is the one slot which makes them less effective. Longer time to make cities functional, and less effective. Second-wave expansion cities also come online later due to that reason. Siam is better tailored to making Great Scientists which makes them better at clearing the last of the tree. They also have perfectly-timed culture without needing to detour from science focus, so they can pick up Rationalism through Scientific Revolution better than anybody. They are almost a perfect civilization at the moment.

I don't see how India will be close unless you can claim a very large expanse of land. Libraries and Universities suck compared to Wats. The only civ I see as coming remotely close is Arabia, who might benefit enough from Bazaar duplicate luxuries to afford full RAs with the entire pangaea sooner.

 

[Martin Alvito]

The only hope with India is to do it with raw production late. If you can build enough cities and grow them to obnoxious sizes, you can take advantage of the Library/University/Public School stack to plow through the tree in a hurry starting around turns 130-140. You can also get much better part production speed.

The problem I'm encountering is that the Meritocracy nerf and additional Banking prerequisites make early expansion a serious problem. The only hope is to get early Metal Casting, RA your way to Banking and slap up the Forbidden Palace quickly. Once the FP and Freedom finally arrive, you can finally run a solid surplus and go vertical.

I'd take Theocracy, but the boost from Meritocracy is critical early on and the Maritime nerf means that you can't really get enough to take full advantage of Theocracy. 16 city-states implies about five Maritimes, and that just isn't enough to simultaneously grow and get infrastructure in place.

 

[ImperialGuard]

Wow ! Amazing finish time !!!
Thanks for this excellent post and breakdown on how to accomplish, some great tips in there !!

I really hope that you revisit this approach "post-patch" and let us know what your thoughts on the effects of the patch.

 

[Bibor]

Question. How many Great Scientists do you manage to get per game? Rough estimate.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I really hope that you revisit this approach "post-patch" and let us know what your thoughts on the effects of the patch.

I plan to do so. This approach will work fine. You'll still be able to slap down ten or twelve cities before the AI gobbles up all the land. However, the patch may cause another civ or a more vertical approach to be more effective, given the introduction of Aqueducts and the changes to Tradition, Liberty and Universities.

Question. How many Great Scientists do you manage to get per game? Rough estimate.

I had eight or nine in that game. I know I burned four to get Rocketry, two on Satellites and Robotics, and two on Golden Ages. I don't recall if I had a ninth on the way to Particle Physics or not.

 

[Silverfuturist]

Great advice! I tried this out but a few things went wrong, and I ended up getting a diplo win on turn 225 - still a good finish for me on deity. I played Siam on the Earth map and started in southeast Asia. I only built 3 tightly packed cities on the continent and expanded to the islands and Australia to the south - the AI neighbors never got mad at me as I never expanded in their direction and I had 2 CS as buffers next to me - even Napoleon behaved (I guess he and Monty were too busy with their eternal war.) However Ghandi Dow-ed me twice in the game after being "Friendly!" The worker steal I did was from a CS he was protecting (I missed that) was part of it. His amphibious attacks on my islands were so pitiful they didn't impact my progress, and 3 of my allied CS next to him wreaked havoc because Ghandi was using longswords and catapults while they had rifles. The AI is so stupid it doesn't realize that when they are an age behind and I have a lot of cash and CS allies an age ahead on their borders, it doesn't matter how few units I have, they are still weaker than me.

Settling on gems and getting mining right away to buy a maritime was is an excellent idea, on the lower levels the AIs would not be rich enough that early in the game to buy my gems. My first few tries didn't work out, I was surprised Egypt and England went warmongering on me early in the game, I think it was because we were competing for the same land. I also restarted when the resource next to me required something other than mining.

 

[Silverfuturist]

I tried it again... and got a 197 diplo win! I coordinated the RAs better this time by not signing them as soon as I could in the Renaissance, but counting to where they would expire as my GSs became available. However I goofed by not timing to get the GSs all at once so I had to get 2 techs "the hard way" in the industrial era by doing research. It would have been better to place the specialists all at once in the Wats and Observatories so they are produced on the same turn. I just bought the observatories I didn't want to wait to build them.

I couldn't get the Porcelain tower, Alexander got it, and he was the biggest pain, bidding against my CS.

I was Siam on the Earth map with a Nile start... I settled on cotton and 1/2 thru the game I had conquered Russia who was also in Africa, those cities gave important gold.

Martin's technique shows the power of Siam - skip the library, get 2 GS slots and culture to boot (which gets your other policies) from 1 building plus fast growth from maritimes. I wonder if Siam works in MP, I guess your opponents would just destroy the CSs.