TSG45 After Action Report

[Monthar]

Thanx for sharing.

I am curious about your use of great scientists.

You had some sitting around for 60+ turns IIRC. Is it really more beneficial to wait 60+ turns to bulb them than to plant them?

Without watching that video I can answer this. If one GS is planted for 60 turns that's only about 120-240 beakers after the multipliers. However, bulbing with that GS in the late game when your BPT is around 500 for the 8 turns prior to the bulbing you'd get around 4000 beakers from it. That's over 16 times the number of beakers.

In my games I tend to have around 800 - 1000 BPT at the time I bulb with my GS's, making them worth up to 8k beakers each.

 

[Browd]

Without watching that video I can answer this. If one GS is planted for 60 turns that's only about 120-240 beakers after the multipliers. However, bulbing with that GS in the late game when your BPT is around 500 for the 8 turns prior to the bulbing you'd get around 4000 beakers from it. That's over 16 times the number of beakers.

In my games I tend to have around 800 - 1000 BPT at the time I bulb with my GS's, making them worth up to 8k beakers each.

Not sure I track that arithmetic (although I probably agree with your conclusion).

If the context is a planned t240-250 finish and counting back roughly 75-80 turns (60 turns to bulb your GSs and then 15-20 turns to research Apollo Program, build SS factories and build SS parts), then you are talking about what to do with a GS that spawns at t170 or so. To be on that pace, you should already have the Rationalism opener and either have taken or be on the verge of taking Free Thought and Atomic Theory.

To the arithmetic: An Academy is 8 beakers base (10 beakers after Atomic Theory). If planted in your NC city, you get a 50% boost. The Rationalism opener, plus Universities and Free Thought, gives you another 65%, for a total multiplier of 115%. Arriving later are Research Labs, for another 50% and, although not relevant for this particular GOTM, if you also had an observatory, that's another 50%, for a theoretic maximum multiplier of 215%. (The Order policy, Planned Economy, can give you another 25% boost, but typically comes so late it mostly has an impact only on your final bulb-fest.)

But, to make the arithmetic easy, let's assume you have the Rat opener and Free Thought, but not Labs or Atomic Theory or an observatory or Planned Economy, for all or nearly all of those 60 turns (in reality, you might get Free Thought 10 turns or so in, and Labs and Atomic Theory will probably come on towards the end of the 60 turns, but let's make the assumptions as simple as possible). Academy plus NC plus University plus Rat opener plus Free Thought (total 115% boost) yields 17.2 bpt from the academy. 17.2 x 60 turns equals 1032 beakers, rather than the 120 to 240 beakers you estimated. If you threw in Atomic Theory and Labs (just for fun--I don't think the turn count makes that a strong possibility), you get 26.5 bpt from the academy, or a total of 1590 beakers.

Leaving aside the specific computation, you might think 1032 (or 1590) beakers vs. 4000+ beakers from late game bulbing leads to an easy conclusion - save to bulb. But, you also need to take into account all of the intervening RAs (presumably 2 waves of multiple RAs over those 60 turns) that the academy's beakers would contribute to. And, how quickly might you have gotten to key techs (like plastics for Labs or Satellites for Hubble) with the academy. And there's also the gpt maintenance cost of keeping the GS hanging around for 60 turns.

There was another great thread a couple of months ago (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=469679) that discussed all this in far more detail, but my rough takeaway was to stop planting GSs about the time I finish public schools and am bearing down on Research Labs.

 

[Bezhukov]

Turn 278 science win

The good:

4 cities by turn 58 - capital on dyes stealing horse for early income. Like to settle on lux so can sell before needing worker to buy worker/settler. Also grabbed some good future polder tiles that other locations wouldn't be able to reach. In this case, opened with monument, popped culture, so went Liberty free settler before free worker, research Calender/Sailing before worker techs to get cash flowing.

Build order: monument, scout, shrine, granary (helped by liberty production boost), work boat

City placement:

City #1 on dyes, #2 on furs, # 3 on NE flood plain, #4 by gems.

Bought workboats at city #2 and #3 to get crabs to all AI.

Midgame:

Lucky scout rescued worker for Spain, so early friend.

City #5 on eastern desert next to crabs and #6 on stone east of Cathy got her concerned, she DOW'd and tried to pick off escorted settler passing through her lands headed to found city next to Grand Mesa. Barely made it through, and took Moscow from east (getting Chitzen Itza and Stonehenge), but had to sidetrack to IW before Education.

Liberty ICS also made colosseums necessary before libraries, and beelined guilds, so late to Ed meant no early 200 win. Cathy got dogpiled and eliminated - razed her last two cities before France could grab them. France DOW's with ten early rifles, so again had to go mil before econ. Lyon (south of Moscow) ended up being amazing with Polders on FP's, as did marshtown west of Moscow.

Late game liberated CS's Isabella had conquered with Arties trained on France. Ended up with an extra Scientist and Oxford was late, so could have shaved 10/15 turns there. 2809 beakers at win.

Religion:

+2 faith from quarries (must on this map)
+2 gold per city (faster return than Tithe - Macchu Picchu + ICS + lots of Rationalism fueled trading posts + Oil everywhere = ended up rolling in the late game gold)
+ 15% production (needed lots of culture to make up for ICS)
+ 15% growth when at peace - bad on map with Nappy

Whole continent covered with help from Great Mosque fueled missionaries (lucky that Isabella didn't found a religion). Slow tech = cheap missionaries, so there's that.

UA - polders were amazing. Founded city west of moscow (citadel on Sidon's sugar) and Just SE of capital in midgame that worked almost all polders. This map seemed to have extra polder potential built in. Happiness from last lux also key to making ICS work while generating cash to buy sci buildings.

Policies: filled Liberty, then had to take two from Patronage due to slow early teching (used GE to get Nat Library very late). Took factories from Order, then barely able to fill out Rationalism with help from Sydney and CN Tower (built with GE's from faith)

CS's: mil CS's also meant conquest was on the menu. Built only three units the entire game - the rest from CS's.

Big mistake: friending weak Gustav prevented RA's with England and Rome, so only got 3 with Isabella, and one each with Celts and France.

Spies: got two techs from France with first spy, then he went couping and died on third one. Later spies trained in capital/gathered intrigue/rigged elections.

 

[Moriarte]

If the context is a planned t240-250 finish and counting back roughly 75-80 turns (60 turns to bulb your GSs and then 15-20 turns to research Apollo Program, build SS factories and build SS parts), then you are talking about what to do with a GS that spawns at t170 or so.

I think that turn 170 scientist you mention is better bulbed instantly for fast access to research labs. Getting them labs 10 turns earlier is worth more than 8k beakers, provided you have enough of GS in supply.

 

[Monthar]

Not sure I track that arithmetic (although I probably agree with your conclusion). ....

It's simple, I calculated it at 6 turns not 60 by mistake, probably due to to posting that at almost 3am. So, that should have been 1200-2400 depending on multipliers and and base yield. Still, when bulbing at about 800 - 1000 BPT that's 8k-10k beakers or completing a late game tech with some overflow per bulb.

As for the RA's, until the patch I'd avoid them because of the bug that can cause them to either double what they're supposed to give or in some rare cases give next to nothing. Then there's the whole formula involving your BPT and your RA partner's BPT to consider, so if theirs is significantly lower, you're not going to get much out of the RA anyway.

In any case I wouldn't make more than about 4-6 academies, depending on which civ I'm playing, how fast I'm generating GS's and the terrain around my primary science city. After those 4-6 academies, the remaining GS's get to sit around until time for the bulb fest.

 

[Browd]

As I said, I tend to agree that a turn 170 GS is probably best saved to bulb later, since you are so close to Labs at that point (although Moriarte's point about bulbing the GS to hurry getting to Labs is a good one). Just wanted to make sure we were thinking about the arithmetic correctly.

 

[tommynt]

I think a rule of thumb is that a scientist is best planted when there are more then about 80 turns to end and saved if u plan end before.
U definatly should not plant any more once u are at or close to public schools - from this point on the gain for your empire is just slim.

This rule might be different a bit on playstyle (in occ with lot RAs u r wanting to plant more f.e.).

I usually end up with 2 plants overall - 1. ll spawn dpeneding on civ at about turn 80-100 and another at about t110 with trying to end at about turn 200 +-20 plants after are just not worth it.
In endgame u ll get about 1 free tech - like 10000 bakkers for them so the overall numbers u get from planing are obviously way smaller but planting some helps u get important techs faster ...

 

[Moriarte]

Tommynt, when is your guide coming out? I mean, seriously, i saw two of your games (France and Maya) on youtube and they completely changed the way i play CiV. (300 beakers in BC, what?!?). Anyway, I still struggle with your approach on Deity, but it's getting better. If it isn't too hard for you maybe you could start a separate thread outlining necessary decisions for first 100 turns of the game: technologically, culturally, militarily and such. I am sure it will be immensely helpful for some of us. If you're not into this, well, your vid's are incredibly helpful too, appreciated.

 

[ense7en]

There was another great thread a couple of months ago (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=469679) that discussed all this in far more detail, but my rough takeaway was to stop planting GSs about the time I finish public schools and am bearing down on Research Labs.

Thanx for this. I had seen that thread before but didn't bookmark it.

I read thru that, well, skimmed.
Frankly, the math involved goes way over my head, but i get the general idea.

In vanilla, i used to always bulb scientists, but when they changed how they work for GnK i started planting them.
I just need to stop planting them sooner and save them up for keys techs (cultural/domination) or for the end (science).
I always save the last few, but i should be saving some of the sooner ones it seems.

 

[tommynt]

Tommynt, when is your guide coming out? I mean, seriously, i saw two of your games (France and Maya) on youtube and they completely changed the way i play CiV. (300 beakers in BC, what?!?). Anyway, I still struggle with your approach on Deity, but it's getting better. If it isn't too hard for you maybe you could start a separate thread outlining necessary decisions for first 100 turns of the game: technologically, culturally, militarily and such. I am sure it will be immensely helpful for some of us. If you're not into this, well, your vid's are incredibly helpful too, appreciated.

I might replay the deity science challenge with maya, my fav civ.
tried to get good video out of it but then its with map knowledge (thats what the challenge is about)

 

[deckerk]

Game:Civ5 GOTM 45
Date submitted:2012-11-01
Reference number:27572
Your name:deckerk
Game status:Science Victory
Game date:1936AD
Turns played:356
Base score:1222
Final score:1721

Note: reloaded from autosave on crash Turns 58 and 347 (AD 1927) .
Back due to Sandy, and having forgotten the 1000-year Roman War in GOTM 40

- Did you use your UU and how successful was it?
Not really, although I did make 3. One was stationed on the wrong coast in case Cathy came around to the multi-crabs there, one I had out exploring when Cathy backstabbed, and the other I constructed during the fight. I was JUST getting everyone in to have fun when she offered a sweet peace deal I couldn't refuse

- How did you use religion or spying to your advantage?
I really try to get a religion and tithe to shore up the money, and it worked here, but I was almost the LAST religion, barely made it. In other games I can often get a friend that way (converting them), but here I seemed to be surrounded by civs with their own home religions. Had all my city states in on it however.

I tend to only spy defensively (which never seems to work well) and to rig city states. I had many techs stolen from Amsterdam, even after the National Intelligence agency, constabulary, and police. Once the Great Firewall went up, however, it stopped. My spies were good at fixing elections, but never caught a single enemy spy...

- Was the Polder improvement useful?
I think so. I polder'd everything I could polder Some honking big cities for me, anyway. I did dump huge numbers of workers into specialist slots (even better after Statue of Liberty; I think that's the one that grants science for every specialist). I Did plan that the cities would have huge population, so worked on happiness techs and improvements, and mercantile city states. I do like William's ability to trade everything away and still keep 2 happy; worked well in the start along with a Tabarnak opening.

Game notes:
Assume a normal Tabarnak opening; I've had nice luck with William before (won a OCC culture game with nice defendable start); Emperor is at my ability level so will be a challenge. Will try for a religion as usual with Tithe.

Settling NE with crab, fish, sugar in 2nd ring.

50: Rotterdam near furs. Just taking out barbs, including the nearby encampment.

arrgg. Reload after crash turn 58. (too much switching out to the hurricane news….?)

Took Pantheon God of the Sea (lots of fishing boats it seems to me!)

61: Founded Utrecht on the Eastern Desert/Crabs Galore
63: Gronigen near the Dyes on the West Coast.

78: going for stonehenge to speed religion. That Boudicca beat me to…
missed GL, Got the Oracle, missed Colossus, missed Great Wall…

135: Guilds/Polders

Grabbed Terra Cotta in an off city with nothing better to do.
174 pop great engineer and build Ankor Wat

At some point here settle a fifth city on coast out near the diamonds and mountains. It does Observatory, Machu Pichu, Castle Neuf..etc over the course of the game.

Why does Caesar *gift* me 4 iron? For free. no trade. Is he hoping I don't attack him, I guess??? He does this for the rest of the game...

219 Cathy backstabs from Friendly I'm in the middle of the run through Rifling anyway, so..
War over about 230. Cathy offers two lux, 300 gold and 60 GPT! Now Friendly again

Reload after crash 347 (AD 1927)
Too Wonder-happy, I guess, hope there is no final surprise. First space part done and 4 more cooking, just need Nanotech. 875 beakers per turn now.

356:… and that's it. Not at all shabby for me, 1936 spaceship, although not as good as the professionals Too much wonder spamming, not enough focus, as usual.
Oh: full Tradition and Rationalism. 2 Liberty, Commerce opener.
Cathy, Isabella, Victoria and I were a happy bunch of friends, I DOF'd Napoleon for the RAs, and Rome pouted. Boudica died young at French hands, and I never found out the last civ