The Deity Challenge Line-up #28 - Russia

[redrum68]

@vanatteveldt - Interesting as I hit plastics almost the same turn (173 for me) but I finished at turn 220 and I consider late game to be a big weakness for myself. I think it usually takes me about 50 turns after plastics to finish the SV. I'd have to imagine you either just don't have enough scientists or aren't bulbing optimally.

I guess one question is were you waiting for techs towards the end or waiting on finishing building the parts?

 

[vanatteveldt]

I bought all parts - I had enough money on hand for 3 or 4 parts and could easily borrow the rest, so I didn't even try building single parts and instead built research - a horribly inefficient way of converting cash into beakers, but still yields some.

I'll try to replay today from schools, and will do a couple things better (policies, bulbing, RA's) and see if that allows me to finish 10-15 turns earlier.

Do you remember how many scientists (on hand and in faitth) and raw beakers you had around plastics? What would you consider a normal bulb value (I think I bulbed around 9k beakers per bulb)

Are there any other late game tips to maximize science yield? Do people aggressively replace farms by trade posts for the extra beaker in the last 40 turns?

 

[NiSaSh]

Buy every building that has specialists and fill them. You should have like 5 GS at 173.

From Plastics to finish, if I remember correctly it's 140k-160k beakers(depending on last rationalism and Oxford), so when you got a Scienceoutput of 1250 at turn 170 you would need 11(2 from hubble and 2 from fait so 7 base) GS to finish sub 200. 30*1250 + 11*10000 = 147500. So for you to finish at 240 with a 173 plastics you must've done something really wrong.

 

[stormtrooper412]

How on earth did you calculate a science output of 1250 at turn 170

 

[vanatteveldt]

Okay I guess here is part of my problem:

t180 I had 986 research working all specialists, 390 from capital (32 pop), 222 from St. Pete (18 pop, 5 jungles, guild specialists), 152 and 132 from others (20 and 15 pop).

As far as I can see, the only "mistake" here might be putting guild specialists in a secondary city, since now those 6x2=12 science is not multiplied by NC, but that's not a game breaker. So, apparently I simply need more population if I want to have >1000 science @ t175?

I had 4 GS, with two more that would be born soon (7 turns and 8 + 4 turns), so in total 4+2+2+2 = 10 GS.

Filling this into your formula gives me 30*1000 + 10*8000 = 110000, so 40k science short.

Of course, I would bulb at turn 210 or so rather than at turn 180 to get a t220 victory, and my sciecne at t210 was indeed 1280, so the formular is more like 30*1000 + 10*10000=130000, which puts me a lot closer mathematically. Maximal research at t240 is 1459 (120 from city states), so there is certainly room for improvement there.

I built two academies, which might be a mistake, but (a) I'm not sure the math is that conclusive, from the recent thread, and (b) even if it is it should be a couple turns rather than 10-20 turns, since the earlier academy is probably also what helped me get to plastics in good time. I might have bulbed once to get to schools but I'm not even sure.

I'll replay this twice, probably, once from plastics to make sure I optimize bulbing (and given my culture I will get 8 turns of max cs allies and building research before starting bulbing), and if I have time once from schools to optimize mid/late game choices.

(edit: I've attached saves to the original screenshot post)

 

[Sclb]

How on earth did you calculate a science output of 1250 at turn 170

plastics with cash bought labs

 

[stormtrooper412]

That still can't possibly add up to 1250. It's 900-1000-ish surely?

 

[NiSaSh]

Sorry last I played was Korea, so that was slightly to high make it 1000 point still stands tho. I don't understand why you guys are always nitpicking about the numbers. For example a GS never gives the full amount as well(it's like a 5% derivation down), it's just about giving guidance so you can check for yourself. It should be entirely obvious that you don't take my numbers, but rather your own numbers that you got ingame.

Tl;dr with a 170 plastics you should probably never finish later than 220.

 

[vanatteveldt]

Yeah 1000 sounds about right. Currently replaying, 1250 science @t204, will start bulbing somewhere around t210 I guess, and we'll see how far I get. I have 5 RA's coming in as well, stupidly enough I didn't time well so they are coming in before the ratio finisher...

Edit: Question: does patronage ally science count towards beakers for GS bulbs? It's now 8 turns later but my GS are at 9000 rather than the ~10000 I expected?

 

[stormtrooper412]

Sorry last I played was Korea, so that was slightly to high make it 1000 point still stands tho. I don't understand why you guys are always nitpicking about the numbers. For example a GS never gives the full amount as well(it's like a 5% derivation down), it's just about giving guidance so you can check for yourself. It should be entirely obvious that you don't take my numbers, but rather your own numbers that you got ingame.

Tl;dr with a 170 plastics you should probably never finish later than 220.

Yeah that sounds about right

 

[NiSaSh]

Edit: Question: does patronage ally science count towards beakers for GS bulbs? It's now 8 turns later but my GS are at 9000 rather than the ~10000 I expected?

Acken in another thread just answered it it's city science, not Rationalism policies etc.

 

[NiSaSh]

Started playing and going for a SV, gonna be pretty interesting. It's kind exhausting with all the ressources you got and have to sell + all the tiles you have to buy etc.

T91:

Spoiler :

Haven't scouted the map properly as I was busy doing CS-Quests and had a war.

Getting Mercantilism in 3 turns

Spoiler :

Didn't get a Religion, got hagisophia mainly because Prague wanted a great prophet else I prob wouldn't have gotten it not sure I got so much production

 

[vanatteveldt]

t227 SV - 17 turns less than previous attempt and 53 turns after plastics (so there should be some room for improvement)

Spoiler :

Shaved 17 turns of victory by restart from plastics. Focused completely on getting more science through specialists, trade posts, etc. I did build broadway, christo, and neuschwanstein, maybe I should have built science instead of the latter (two?). I bulbed all my scientists one per turn at around 9k science.

I did mess up the timing of finishing rationalism by going for patronage science first, which lowered RA but I also ended up getting satellites too late, so I was waiting for Apollo in the end (this cost me 3 turns or so, I think, so nothing too major). I ended up buying the whole ship in two turns since science was done the turn before apollo was.

Not sure whether ratio science is worth it. It was giving me 200 science in the end, so nothing to sneeze at, but I also finished freedom only a couple turns before finishing so I guess I can't improve it much more without either getting a lot more culture, or skipping the patronage science.

(edit: replayed and bulbed sattelites so I could start hubble+apollo earlier, using ratio finisher on nanotech. Strange enough, science was the bottleneck this time, I had to wait four turns in the end to finish particle phys. No idea why, I think I played the same for the rest, maybe I wasted beakers by bulbing "cheap" techs?)

Edit: final replay of the last 10 turns. I did indeed make a mistake bulbing penicillin while it was only 1 turn to research, skipping that shaved 2 turns off. There's not a lot of room for optimizing, since space procurement came in only 3 turns before finish, and you need two turns to buy parts in 4 cities. In fact, hubble, appollo, procurement, and the final tech all came in at more or less the same time, so I think the only way to improve now is to start from even further back and make some fundamentally different choices (ie go order, skip patronage), and I don't really want to do that anymore I think.

Spoiler t225 sv :

Anyway, I'm very happy with my t225 SV and with goving from 70 to ~50 turns between plastics and victory, so thanks to all for the comments and feedback!

 

[stormtrooper412]

Started playing and going for a SV, gonna be pretty interesting. It's kind exhausting with all the ressources you got and have to sell + all the tiles you have to buy etc.

T91:

Spoiler :

Haven't scouted the map properly as I was busy doing CS-Quests and had a war.

Getting Mercantilism in 3 turns

Spoiler :

Didn't get a Religion, got hagisophia mainly because Prague wanted a great prophet else I prob wouldn't have gotten it not sure I got so much production

Impressive. When is the Renaissance being timed?

 

[NiSaSh]

I think I got Acoustics 10 turns after the Screenshot

T137 Publicschools:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Pretty interesting that he managed to get Publicschools at T138, I guess he either doesn't have some techs I got or he stole some with spies, I'm only missing a publicschool in Rostow as I didn't have any more money. My Spies are in Prague and one is one the way to Vaticancity. With my current faith output I get to 3155 faith at turn 200, which is enough for 2 gs and 500 faith over, so I want to get 500 faith more till then. I actually haven't decided if I wanna go Order or Freedom prob gonna calculate what is better getting 2 GE +1 GS or 2GS +1 GE is def really nice

 

[Sclb]

@vanatteveldt
What I've found that if you're pushing fast finishing times such as sub 220, culture is often a bottleneck as you might not have enough to finish rationalism or freedom. It is essential to finish freedom and highly recommended to finish rationalism so that you can buy GS, and if you can predict you don't have enough culture, it's best to skip commerce/patronage or whatever your immediate one is. For example on my Korea game, I was stuck waiting for the last tech because I couldn't finish rationalism in time for the free tech/GS buy. That's easily at least 10 turns wasted.

 

[NiSaSh]

Spoiler :

Yeah I went order and that damn Shaka city next to me has taken the coal, now I'm waiting fml prob gonna reload and go freedom

 

[NiSaSh]

Spoiler :

Finished at 204 with Order,I had the science at 198 but not the parts I think I can go sub 200 with Freedom gonna try

 

[fimbul]

@vanatteveldt
i loaded the save - some possible areas:
- not all spec buildings built (banks, stock exchange) in cities, better to have more spec slots
- spies in allied CS, should send to faith CS for 2500 faith (dont think can get 3 GS)
- rostov - no sci specs used(build sol in capital better imo) lacking in GS points. although i am not sure if you can get an extrax GS from rostov in time?
- 700 to next gs with 2 acad and 3 gs waiting - 1 bulbed? this will prolly bottleneck you waiting for last natural gs
- covert action as freedom tenet?

 

[vanatteveldt]

T137 Publicschools [...]
Pretty interesting that he managed to get Publicschools at T138, I guess he either doesn't have some techs I got or he stole some with spies

Am I "he"?

I noticed that you have much better pop than me and the extra observatory, so you should indeed be ahead of me (more than one turn). I don't think I really stole any techs, but I can't quite remember. I did plant a second academy, so that should improve my early tech rate a bit at the expense of a late game bulb.

Congrats on the win btw, sub 200 would certainly be "crazy good" in my book You think the quicker procurement beats the factory science and extra GS?

Edit:

@vanatteveldt
i loaded the save - some possible areas:
- not all spec buildings built (banks, stock exchange) in cities, better to have more spec slots
- spies in allied CS, should send to faith CS for 2500 faith (dont think can get 3 GS)
- rostov - no sci specs used(build sol in capital better imo) lacking in GS points. although i am not sure if you can get an extrax GS from rostov in time?
- 700 to next gs with 2 acad and 3 gs waiting - 1 bulbed? this will prolly bottleneck you waiting for last natural gs
- covert action as freedom tenet?

Which save did you download (ie plastic or schools?)

- re spies: I got Lhasa in time for 2500 faith. I had enough money and spies to get almost all CS allied by the end.
- re covert action: yeah, I didn't like any of the tier 1, but I guess even the 1 culture per great work would have been worth more.
- I should probably prioritize specialists more, although I find it hard to know when to focus on growing / building and when to assign max specialists. My rule of thumb is to (almost) always assign science and culture specialists, and only assign the others when I run out of good tiles or when growing is no longer useful; but I probably need to assign more specialists earlier, especially in freedom.
- yeah I think I spent one scientist too many in the early/mid game, should probably be more frugal. Not sure what I bulbed, maybe even bulbed schools? Is that ever a good idea?