Spaceports

[grumble]

I notice the AI civs often build more than one spaceport. Is the AI being silly or is there some advantage to having more than one spaceport?

[Maya-Neko]

For once you can divide the mars missions over different spaceports to speed up things for vanilla or R&F or do the laser-projects in multiple space ports in GS.

On top of that, just in case you loose a spaceport (either through a spy or in a war), then you can still revert to another spaceport without wasting tons of time rebuilding it somewhere else.

[Lemurian1972]

This is correct. Since the AI doesn't know how to build for hyper-production in 1 city and get short duration projects, It spreads the labor out across multiple cities.

In reality it also does this because the construction picker is bad at its job and it sets cities to building Spaceports because they don't have the population cap restriction.

It's two poor AI reasons in combination, but only one is defensible as a valid tactic.

[Evrach]

Originally posted by grumble:

I notice the AI civs often build more than one spaceport. Is the AI being silly or is there some advantage to having more than one spaceport?

If you play at high level and wanna win a science victory, you'll need multiple Spaceports to spam Lagrange/Terrestrial Lasers, or you won't win fast enough.

[plaguepenguin]

It is true that each of the main line projects can only be started after the last one is finished, so you can't get the last one, the exoplanet expedition, launched any more quickly by having more than one spaceport.

That said, the laser stations you build after the exoplanet expedition do not labor under that restriction, and you can work on as many of those at the same time as you have spaceports. Ironically, while the AI does indeed tend to build lots of spaceports, they don't tend to use the spaceports to do the laser station projects nearly as aggressively as human players.

There is also the problem of spies taking down your spaceports and the IZs in your spaceport cities. The AI does tend to do that, send spies to attack spaceports and IZs in cities with spaceports. Spare spaceports could help you with that, but counterspies, with the Cryptography card plugged in, are a better way to protect against AI spies.

The higher the difficulty the more vulnerable your space effort becomes to offensive espionage launched against it, so if I plan on a science victory in the end game, I choose the Intelligence Agency for my second tier govt plaza building in the mid-game. Getting more spies out earlier doing offensive missions gets them more promotions by the end game, some of which will end up being defensive promotions you use to protect your spaceport(s),
That said, some of the promotions are good on offense and will help you attack the AIs' efforts in case you get into a space race.

[grumble]

Thanks everyone for the responses. I can see that there are good reasons for having more than one spaceport - I will build extra ones unless I manage to conquer some!

[Lemurian1972]

Originally posted by Evrach:

Originally posted by grumble:

I notice the AI civs often build more than one spaceport. Is the AI being silly or is there some advantage to having more than one spaceport?

If you play at high level and wanna win a science victory, you'll need multiple Spaceports to spam Lagrange/Terrestrial Lasers, or you won't win fast enough.

Eh. That's debatable. With a bit of practice it's not hard to create a hyper-productive city where every project takes 1-2 turns and you can get that quicker by sacrificing Builders. It tends to be easier to defend from espionage, consolidate Trade Routes, and funnel Builders toward 1 location. I may built 2 cities with Spaceports if I have a big enough empire, but personally I go with 1 and devote my other cities to spamming Builders or Projects to earn great people and get all the good Space Race Scientists and Engineers.

[Evrach]

Originally posted by Lemurian1972:

Originally posted by Evrach:

If you play at high level and wanna win a science victory, you'll need multiple Spaceports to spam Lagrange/Terrestrial Lasers, or you won't win fast enough.

Eh. That's debatable. With a bit of practice it's not hard to create a hyper-productive city where every project takes 1-2 turns and you can get that quicker by sacrificing Builders. It tends to be easier to defend from espionage, consolidate Trade Routes, and funnel Builders toward 1 location. I may built 2 cities with Spaceports if I have a big enough empire, but personally I go with 1 and devote my other cities to spamming Builders or Projects to earn great people and get all the good Space Race Scientists and Engineers.

Even with one hyper-productive city, it would be difficult to win at some point. Let's say you make every project in like 1 or 2 turns and dedicate all your other cities to GP projets. Then you allocate no resources to defend the cultural victory. Hyper-production means a lot of production so you'll be in negative congress points and can't defend a Diplomatic and if all of your cities produces GP, you don't produce any military units and can be nuked easily.
With an hyper-productive city, you'll need 9 to 10 turns to complete the Exoplanet project. 10 turns during which you can lose by diplomacy, culture or military. With 7 or 8 spaceports spamming laser projects, these 9-10 turns become 3-4 turns. At this point of the game, in a very tight game, it's what make the difference between a defeat and a victory. I just can't see a game where your opponents just wait that long without nuking you.
Even in teamer where teammates can defend cultural/diplomatic for you, I can't see the point of losing ~6turns by doing useless stuff when you can accelerate your victory.

[Vote Quimby]

There is definately an advantage to multiple starports. Policy card for each city with starport +energy and +3 aluminium per turn. Not sure AI would consider it though, but IMO it's great bonus.

[Lemurian1972]

Originally posted by Evrach:

Let's say you make every project in like 1 or 2 turns and dedicate all your other cities to GP projets. Then you allocate no resources to defend the cultural victory. Hyper-production means a lot of production so you'll be in negative congress points and can't defend a Diplomatic and if all of your cities produces GP, you don't produce any military units and can be nuked easily.

At no point did I imply that's all you should be doing, come on man. Of course you have all the bells and whistles someone would normally have when going for a Science Victory, which is a significant trade network, several very good cities in addition to the one great city, and a fully up to date military that you'd have been using all along to keep other civs in check. Any decent Civ player doesn't ignore other win conditions and let opponents sneak up on them like that when they have the option, and the only time I've seen it happen is when folk are playing with Deity+ AI mods that juice the enemies capabilities beyond reason.

Of course you gain economy of scale with multiple spaceports, my point was that it's not a necessity to make a half dozen or more in slower cities when you can pretty easily pump out 1-2 booster projects each turn using an efficient pipeline.

I also maybe wasn't clear- a hyper-city where projects take 1-2 turns doesn't mean that you're only completing 1 project per turn, that's just your baseline. With a little practice, a steady pipeline of builders and Great People, you're usually completing 2-4. That compares with your multiple cities which are all going to be slower. Yeah you can add bigger chunks, but if it takes multiple turns to boost the speed, then you're probably going to end up taking just as long.

For what it's worth, when I play Science I usually do 2 or 3 spaceports, but it depends on map size. Ends up being best of both worlds.

[ACS36]

There is an advantage to multiple space ports as you can use them to make missions go faster and build multiple space missions at same time but for the most part the AI is just bad at building.

The AI cannot even win in less than 450 turns on emperor in most cases on standard settings. Player can play terrible for 300 turns and still beat the AI. Playing below emperor is all around pointless because the AI is that bad.

[Hat8]

You should have multiple spaceports. There are projects that boost the speed of your exo-project and your main spaceport may be sabotaged by a disaster, war or spies. Even being able to just do the Mars project in another city can be a saving grace.

[grumble]

The AI cannot even win in less than 450 turns on emperor in most cases on standard settings. Player can play terrible for 300 turns and still beat the AI. Playing below emperor is all around pointless because the AI is that bad. [/quote]

You are obviously very clever. I have just moved up to Emperor level and I am finding it very hard. At my fourth attempt I was doing very well but AI civ Babylon got a science victory in 1888.

[Evrach]

Originally posted by grumble:

The AI cannot even win in less than 450 turns on emperor in most cases on standard settings. Player can play terrible for 300 turns and still beat the AI. Playing below emperor is all around pointless because the AI is that bad.

You are obviously very clever. I have just moved up to Emperor level and I am finding it very hard. At my fourth attempt I was doing very well but AI civ Babylon got a science victory in 1888.

You just began the game recently, that's normal. Emperor is the first difficulty gap because of bot's second settler that give 'em a lot of tempo early game. But you'll learn and adapt, and soon it will be a joke to you.
Second difficulty gap will be deity, mostly because of the third settler. And again, after a few games, you'll beat it easily and you'll never ever see the yeat 1888AD because you'll always win far before that :) It's just a matter of time and training, not cleverness.

[Evrach]

Originally posted by Lemurian1972:

Originally posted by Evrach:

Let's say you make every project in like 1 or 2 turns and dedicate all your other cities to GP projets. Then you allocate no resources to defend the cultural victory. Hyper-production means a lot of production so you'll be in negative congress points and can't defend a Diplomatic and if all of your cities produces GP, you don't produce any military units and can be nuked easily.

At no point did I imply that's all you should be doing, come on man. Of course you have all the bells and whistles someone would normally have when going for a Science Victory, which is a significant trade network, several very good cities in addition to the one great city, and a fully up to date military that you'd have been using all along to keep other civs in check. Any decent Civ player doesn't ignore other win conditions and let opponents sneak up on them like that when they have the option, and the only time I've seen it happen is when folk are playing with Deity+ AI mods that juice the enemies capabilities beyond reason.

Of course you gain economy of scale with multiple spaceports, my point was that it's not a necessity to make a half dozen or more in slower cities when you can pretty easily pump out 1-2 booster projects each turn using an efficient pipeline.

I also maybe wasn't clear- a hyper-city where projects take 1-2 turns doesn't mean that you're only completing 1 project per turn, that's just your baseline. With a little practice, a steady pipeline of builders and Great People, you're usually completing 2-4. That compares with your multiple cities which are all going to be slower. Yeah you can add bigger chunks, but if it takes multiple turns to boost the speed, then you're probably going to end up taking just as long.

For what it's worth, when I play Science I usually do 2 or 3 spaceports, but it depends on map size. Ends up being best of both worlds.

Yeah, I understand what you mean, but you can only do that against bots. But you don't really need to do that against bots.