Emperor Difficulty Succession Game -- Cuban Isolationists (RBD7)

Sirian and I wanted something to fill in the gaps between the other games
without overtaxing our teammates, so we're staring a 2 person SG with
some restrictions. (Actually due to the extreme nature of one restriction,
it will allow a replay of the game under a different ruleset I have in
mind regarding Communism - hence the Cuba name, but more on that later!! The
idea is to see how much the starting map affects the outcome vs what the player
does or doesnt do)

Cubans (Babylonians: Sci/Rel), Emperor, Huge map, small landmass arch, 11 rnd opps
Space, Cultural, Diplo victories ONLY. (Almost random, Russia will be in)
Raging Barbarians to give us SOME combat. Random climate conditions.
Turns: 10 per round after first round.

Restrictions for this breed of Isolationists
- No shipbuilding, never move off your original island
- No map trading (neither give nor take)
(It should have the 'feel' of a five city challenge game, but with more cities
and less initial contact)
This also means that by end of game you will ONLY see your own island. Should
make the replay interesting ;p

--- Starting Turn - Charis ----

A superstitious but very curious group of people were tired
with the Nomadic life and start to look for a place to settle. They are led
by a young man, Fidel Charistro, who has tremendous ambition and drive,
and seeks to one day very soon become King.

4000 BC (0) - Well they don't have to look far! A very nice spot indeed,
right on top of wheat, next to wheat, and on a river, next to a hill.
Founding on the hill looks attractive BUT that loses the fresh water!
Can shift one SE from Wheat to plain flood plains - that picks up two more
floods and a hill at a cost of plains desert and mountain, a great deal.
Founding on the hill would trade three desert square for three hills (nice)
but at the cost of the river. Gah! Possibly making a bad choice already,
Charistro chooses the hill (will blame reading the Jungle Rumble story if
this is bad!). Staying on wheat square costs a ton of food, moving to floods
loses a lot of shields, while moving off river looses "quick 12", ability
to make a hydro or Colossus, but gives defensive bonus. If we end up going
for culture, more production will help and we'll crank out settlers rather
then grow to 12, until construction.

On the hill top the settler sees there is ANOTHER wheat in range, wowza!
Also not one but two golds. We look to be four squares off the coast.
Maybe share a wheat and get a city on the coast and river asap. Worker
stays in place to irrigate. Warrior started - we'll need him asap on
Emperor. Planning to get Monarchy asap, and hope we're alone on an island.
With no feel yet for Emperor, I turn aside thoughts of Pyramid rush ;p

3950 BC (1) - Found Havana on the Hill, and start researching Warrior Code.
Did I say two gold? Make that *four*!

3700 BC (6) - Size 2, already need to push luxury rate to 10% (I hear Jungle
Sounds, but I don't see any jungle!)

3650 BC (7) - Crud or yay, depending how you look at it. With warrior one
turn away and road done, it's safe for the worker to hit the hut. It's a
Bantu settler! I'm already feeling like this start is too strong. And yet...
on Emperor I'm gonna take what it gives. In a non-variant Monarch game
it would be "all over" already. Down to the shore he goes to settle Babylon.

3600 BC (8) - Ok, all traces of guilt are gone. "The citizens of Havana are
dying of disease. They think conditions in the surrounding flood plain may
be unhealthy (!) 8-\ Bantu sees a dual-whale spot but it too is off
the river. Gah! Another river decision. Normally I jump at these but the
river spot is SO close to the capitol. Move one away to snag both whales,
or stay on river, crowd the capitol, and laterfound another fishing city
for the second. Charistro must feel supersititious, he avoids the river.

3550 BC (9) - With the extra settler, gold and food, gonna start a very
early temple in Havana. (Rush? We'll see soon) The warrior is going to
take just a few rounds to scout, given the setback to population due to
disease. We need recon!

3500 BC (10) - Atop the mountain we see cattle, some grassland, and tundra.
(Hmmm... a small patch, or a vast Greenland???)

3450 BC (11) - Havana borders expand. Did I say four gold, I mean SIX! That
says something about the age of the earth here. Ah, a fresh water lake to
our West. Nice. No barbarians or Jags yet, so far so good.

3350 BC (13) - Coast found a bit north of cattle. That's 8 squares across at
this point. How small IS this island? Next turn 30% luxury as Havana hits 3.

3250 BC (15) - Ok, no whipping, as we shift briefly from wheat to gold hills.
Second cattle and fish seen, and spot on river AND coast identified to
hit all three. When Babylon finishes his warrior next turn, will send him
scouting too, since luxury rate high already. (Whale seen but can ONLY
be reached by settling ON the cattle). Near Babylon he sees another whale
right next door. I can already see I don't like that spot.

3050 BC (19) - Tundra game seen to NE, with some bonus grasslands.

3000 BC (20) - History of the world shows some of our future foes are:
Zulu, Aztec, English, Japanese, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, and we're
actually on the eighth slot (of 11). And that game... make it three.

2900 BC (22) - No wait, four game. Havana starts on Settler.

2800 BC (24) - We now see that South of Havana are a cluster of mountains,
ONE ugly spot with at least some fish to found there.

2710 BC (26) - Nubian tribe teaches us pottery, as they point out more game
in the tundra (the tundra is starting to look a little extensive.)

2630 BC (28) - First barbarian sighting, up north. They attack between rounds
and we survive with 1 hp.

2550 BC (30) - Settler pops out, and we hit a hut for Masonry.

EVIDENCE of the PUNGENT WEED! I just now notice that: i) it's 3 a.m. and
ii) there is a goody hut I missed right nearby that looks rather too much
like the gold. (Which is itself so numerous I can't count 6 vs 7) Next turn
the warrior diverts to go hit it.

2510 BC (31) - Settler nears place to found, our wounded warrior thinks he
better rest and heal before proceeding. Our next settler heads for the
game cluster near us to the east.

2310 BC (36) - Warrior code learned, Mysticism started. With NO other tribes
seen, this is surely an island. Our northern explorer finds more shore,
although not sure if he's at furthest extent yet. We defeat a Barbarian
up North and find a camp, and that hut near us... gave the Wheel. (Hmmm, uh,
no horses in sight)

2270 BC (37) - Havana starts another settler. (If there ARE foes around, we
do have no military. We can now start Bowmen, but if they fight we get
a way-premature GA. Also, would probably want a Barracks first.
More weed... duh... of course no horses had been in sight. Now that we
have wheel I look again and see at least two :)
Ninevah founded with access to FOUR game, a coast, and bonus grass.
We defeat the Bar camp (next to the horses which we now recognize)

2230 BC (38) - Babylon prepares to rush a barracks.

2110 BC (41) - Horseback riding and Alphabet from huts to north, sweet!
Island is almost fully mapped out -- Time to turn over the reigns. :P

I look forward to the colored dot analysis :)

Take as many turns as seems appropriate at the time for this first round, then
we'll switch to 10/round.

Good luck :)
Charis

Attached is the map after the first round (~40 turns) in 2110 BC.

I took a screen shot and threw out a very rough look at city placements, but
it wasn't with the careful consideration some do this :P
0- Where we started in 4000 BC (not a future site)
1- These sites aren't in order. 1 is an outpost near lots of gold.
2- Coastal spot with some game. Could go North one spot if less overlap
needed with Ninevah (they don't look like food powerhouses though)
3- Couldn't edit with my simplistic program, I would move one West onto the
coast, and leave the other game to '9'
4- Catches horse and gold, but some fog left, might not be 'best' spot
5- The only habitable spot in the Southern tip, catching 2 gold.
6- Game in reach, and closing the coast border
7- There or south one spot to be about right distance from 1.
8- From location on map only, a good general area for the FP for a nice
dumbbell empire. May be a better spot nearby
9- Filling in gap, and catching a stray game
A- Fishing village, and where I wish I founded Babylon
(Speaking of which, we might want to rename the Bablyonian city names with
Carribean/Cuban city names)
B- Filling out the border, can't see enough for exact placement.
Depending on FP placement will probably jam in another 1 to 3 cities up there.
(For 16 to 18 total cities)

Since this island will be our ONLY source of cities, do NOT take these
pungent weed first thoughts as anything more than pungent visions. Feel free
to point out bad choices or improved locations. Your turn will likely decide
the destiny of most founded sites. Decent chance for oil with the tundra, but
rubber and aluminum might never show up.

Hmmmm.... we're isolationists in this game... the drive for coastal cities
isn't AS great as normal, I now realize...

Charis

Too bad you can't attach a file in an "edit". Save attached here.

The weed has started already?! :smoke:

Charis

Haha! Cuba? Greenland is more like it! An isolation variant and we get placed on a snowball. Welp... I'll see what I can do.

I find it humorous that you have a large patch of desert, then a very small swath of grassland, and then frozen tundra. What a weird island.

Good luck on this variant, guys!

If we want "challenge", Charis, you can dial that up rather handily, I see. However, for nonhogtied starts in terms of terrain, you're fired. ;)

What we got here, is a double variant: the one we picked, plus the Eskimo Gambit (carve your homes from the very ice itself, my people, for we have nothing else!)

In "Rumble" I did move from flood plain to hills, but the hills were still on the river. I'd NEVER move my capital off a river. :smoke: You say "until we get construction", but unless some other civ paddles by in a galley, we're not going to get Construction for millenia. So your "we'll just pump settlers" plan was adopted. Everything else you did looks quite good from here. Well, considering this terrain.

While I would still have preferred to be on the river, at least the location you moved to is otherwise superior in every way, and will get us many more shields in the way distant future. My hopes for this game are, frankly, not high, but we'll see what we can do.

Inherited turn: increased science rate, whipped temple at Babylon. Babylon set to build workers next. Click next turn and our warrior is attacked from the barb camp, wins with no damage.

First turn: attack barb camp, razed, 25 gold.

Early turns: complete exploration of our land. Marvel at how much tech we have (all those came from huts, you say? Nice). Whip temples at Ur, Ninevah after they complete warriors and grow to size 2.

I veto "Plan Nine From Outer Space" and found Ashur one square southwest of Charis's 9 spot, which would have wasted a flood plain. My location is also closer to the capital, has no more overlap, and can borrow that upper cattle from Ur at times to vastly speed growth/production. Ashur starts a warrior.

Middle turns: One of our two roaming warriors returns to meet up with settler for sixth city. Other warrior patrols for barbarians, finds one, fortifies in hills, then LOSES in combat. (Welcome to Emperor). Our last remaining spare warrior is dispatched. More work on the gold hills is undertaken, while some irrigation of flood plains is started.

While 9 was slightly off, 3 is a complete disaster waiting to happen. It's landlocked, for starters. Also, it's landlocked, has no access to the sea, can't build a harbor, and is landlocked. :eek: That might not be so bad, except 60% of its land is ice and half the rest is overlapped. 3 gets the veto stamp, and our sixth city is founded one square to the left.

Our reinforcement warrior defeats the barbarian and heads north into the mountains. A barbie horsie is spotted, so I fortify our unit on a mountain. Um... guess she was pissed at Ken or something, because barbie rolls right over our mountain fortified warriors without taking damage. Our "patrols" are now both dead, and Sirian has failed miserably with the military side of his turn, but what can you do when the dice roll up bad for you in the early game? I had the high ground in both these fights and the "odds" were in my favor each time. Oh well. :( (And it's going to get worse before it gets better, folks.) :(

Barbie says, "Ken you bad bad boy, you." :splat: :spank:

Granaries are whipped in Ur, Ninevah, and Ashur. Havana once again suffers disease, and drops from size 4 to size 2 AND failed to grow as expected because the PATHETIC automated worker distribution in cities vetoed my assignments when the city size was shrunk. Fearing that we'd drop a third time, to size 1, I look at our 22 shields and whip that granary out. Blah. So now Havana has a granary, and has been whipped. This will mean extra luxuries at times, but I thought it was the best move. Not only do we get a fat ball of ice to live on, but somehow get slapped with all the stored up bouts of disease from other RBD games that we never got hit with, and over what? Like 4 or 5 flood plains? Brutal.

Babylon makes three workers but then grows too large and I end up building a regular bowman there to keep the peace. while a taxman sits around a few turns.

Late turns: Ur builds a settler and founds Akkad. Ninevah whips a barracks, starts spearman. Barbie continues her rampage as she rolls over yet another of our troops and raids Ninevah for 9 gold. (Sheesh.) I have a warrior moving in that direction. Ashur also whips barracks, as it too is on the front line. These warriors ain't cutting it, I've lost 3 of 5 fights with them. I want to see some vet bowmen and spearmen.

Havana builds settler and Cove is founded. Writing is due on the next turn, I urge we head for Literature after that, so we can whip a lot of cheap libraries asap.

Status: 1250 BC.

We have temples in our first 6 cities, 5 or 6 workers, a settler due next turn. We have 8 cities, half of them have granaries. The two new settlements are building warriors (for martial law, and because they are safely on the back side away from barb raids). They can whip temples soon. Havana is building a bowman, as it needs more troops to keep order.

I rate our chances at building an ancient wonder to be less than zero. All we can do is expand quickly and whip temples/libraries as the chance presents. Oh yeah, and we need to build some military to fight off those barbarians. Never have they given me more trouble. Usually the AI's are around to clean up any camps I don't manage to take out quickly, or I win SOME of the battles and use troops garrisoned in the wilds to keep all area visible and prevent more camps from popping up.


Now for my thoughts on settlements. When dealing with frozen land, there is one, and only one concern: FOOD. Everything is about scrounging more food, because it's in such short supply.

Here's how it works:

Need 2 food per population. You get 2 free in your center square, so that leaves room for up to two tundra/forest/hills. That means cities are limited to size TWO without better food sources.

There are four possible food sources: game squares, water squares (with harbor), fish tiles and whale tiles. That's it. And three of those are in the water.

Each square with 2 food can add ONE size to your city's potential. Each whale can add TWO size to your city (the whale gives 3 food with harbor, which can pair with an extra forest/hills). Each fish tile can add THREE size to your city (4 food, plus two extra forest or hills). Tundra/forest/hills are mostly useless, unless you have a lot of fish, or a couple nonfrozen land tiles in range (grass is best, but plains or even desert can add to your eventual max size).

For this game, other than at cities already founded on the edge of the tundra, all remaining cites we can settle are entirely frozen, thus they are all "fishing villages" dependent on the sea for size, and destined never to be high producers. What they can do is boost trade, boost score, boost territory, boost culture (a little) and perhaps build support of various kinds. For that kind of scenerio, the priority is to build everything as close to being IN the water as possible.

I drew up the following plan, which shows not only locations, but the full maximum potential population/coverage of each city. Maxing food is the top design priority here, but there is the secondary consideration of maxing shields to the best possible degree also (meaning hills are preferable to forest).

I found six good locations capable of producing genuine "half-cities" that can grow to size 12 or nearly. These are marked in red and green. The purple city is the site for the forbidden palace, picking up three game squares and two hills, which means more shields than ANY other city in the north, plus it's centrally located up there. One small problem: on a huge map, we need sixteen cities (16!) to qualify for Forbidden Palace, and we only have eight right now. That means we have to settle all the red and green locations, plus purple, plus one more (the white dot above Babylon), before we could even start constructing the FP.

The yellow location is on fresh water, can grow to size 7 and, with a granary, then crank out workers at the pace it's able to build them, without having to invest in an aqueduct first. The other white dots are "size 7" locations that can also crank workers, or, if need be, supply continual draftees in the late game. The two blue dots are "plug the holes" mini-cities able to get two hills apiece into action. They are the lowest priority. We could build eight or ten of them, but that would be counterproductive as we'd eat into "too many cities corruption".

Also note that Cove will be limited to size 12, that's 11 water tiles and one gold mine mountain. And 8 useless mountains, although maybe one of them will turn up a resource later.

The worst part of all of this is that we have zero luxuries on our landmass. We have nothing to trade! Except maybe horses or other strategic resources we can't yet see. That's Not Good.

We should have been called "Eskimos". :whipped:

You're up, C. Good luck.

Holy crow, talk about miserable terrain! Looks like the game is out to get you guys and then some this time... "You might be good enough to take those silly Variant rules into Monarch games, but you're on Emperor now, and I'm playing to win. Bite me!" :lol:

Good Luck, Cuba. The Game dealt you a crappy hand, but you can salvage it... maybe.

This game should be fun to watch

Our luck has been coming in chunks of "extreme" so far.

- The terrain has led to aspersions of Eskimo ancestry, not Cuban.
- But that rock is ours, ours, ours. We no share! Ours ours ours!
(If you think of Emperor+ games as "holding on for dear life" until you reach Cavalry or Industrial, that's gotta help)
- Havana area is food central and by (questionable) choice stuck at 6, while food is SCARCE elsewhere
- I don't think I've ever seen such a "good" set of goody huts
- I don't think I've seen this much disease in all my other Civ3 games combined

Yet, there is ONE thing that gives me hope...
... if the world is nasty and cold for us, maybe it is worldwide, maybe we're in fact on an ice planet?! :crazyeyes

One other key thing comes to mind, Sirian, as I ponder our future. The "no ship" rule could mean auto-death. At some point we'll be tartgetted by one, maybe many foes, and they have the option of simply bombarding us back to the stone ages, and there would be absolutely 100% NOTHING we could do about it. We can hurt but not sink the ships with artillery. Gonna have to amend that to "no *transports*, and naval defense ships may not leave our own 'coastal' waters for any reason. That gives us some meager defense even vs a large fleet against us, if we pump artillery to weaken and just 'finish' off with frigates or such.

To foster more hope, I'm trying to think of endgame scenarios where we have a shot. Lucky lucky endgame resources give a space option, cultural is a thought but with the odds projected for early wonders, ouch, and for diplomacy we'll need to practice the art of bending over backwards. Do you consider a "human" wall (or cats) on the entire coastline as clever or AI exploitation, challenging them to build a marine force? I've used that in one naval game where I started on a dinky little island and was able to keep a razor thin defense force at home while my man-o-wars went to conquer other islands. Just stretching here to think how we can hold on :P

Charis

PS In the "parallel" universe, I have to think the mid game will look very different, with a key priority as "getting off our ice rock" by pre-building a invasion task force to let loose when we can sail. Alas, that will be too slow with isolated contact.

When I read the game rules, I thought the idea of not building ships was to make it hard in the case of the AI declaring naval war on you. The way I figured it was you were restricting yourself to buying other AI civs to fight the war for you, thus wearing down the opposition and getting them into a position where peace is possible.

At least that's how I'm planning to play it if the situation arises in a similar style game I'm playing. Iwanted to see if I could build every great wonder whilst stuck on an island by myself and not leaving it (monarch difficulty though) ... I may adopt the map rule though, we'll see what happens when other AIs get over here. So far so good for me since I've gotten all 7 of the ancient wonders ... :D

No ships == No ships. We'll make do. Artillery can chase them off, and unless they are an immediate neighbor just across the bay, we won't hear from them again for centuries. (You know how many turns it takes at 3 or 4 movement per turn to cross a huge map?) And as for late game ships, we can use Cruise Missiles to target ones with 2 hp left, if the missile hits both of its "shots" the vessel will be sunk. (Can't target ships with 1 hp left, game bug).

I don't at all mind fortifying our shores. Think occupied France: historically it HAS been done, and HAS required marines to punch through. But... that's a lot of units at 1gpt each. We have a lot of coastline. I think you are also overestimating the threat levels. The AI's mostly come after you for resources, or if you are just TOO weak militarily. Well... we ain't got no resources! :( So why would the AI's WANT to take this rock away from us? :)

No ships. Of any kind. It can be done. :) And... I'm also looking to maintain a low diplomatic profile, which means NOT penny pinching trade deals no matter how much they are ripping us off (take the deals they offer, continuously, except ones where they offer maps, just pull the maps out of the deal and substitute something else, just not making them pay full market value) and maybe even sucking up a little, if somebody's F8 charts look too daunting -- two things I NEVER do normally. (Usually I am seen by the AI's as the world's most diehard miser. And they aren't shy about letting me know it).

Diplo win is the one thing I've never accomplished, because I tell uppity civs where to stick it and don't back down from fights. This is a prime chance to go for one. Or... space. We can forget cultural, for that you must grab ancient wonders. If we are the darlings of the world diplomatically, that should lessen our chances of being attacked as long as we aren't so militarily thin as to hold up a sign saying, "Come Spank Us!: :spank: :eek:


- Sirian


EDIT: one more note. I've noticed that AI's typically ask for, and offer, 10% +/- the market value. That is, you can always offer them 10% less than they ask and they'll take it. You can ask for 10% more than they offer and they'll pay it. (And it may come out to more in some deals, as past a certain point they only offer cash in chunks of 10, so they may offer 20 gold for something worth 32, because 10% less would be 29 and they won't offer that). SO... in order to figure out HOW to offer them "diplomatically pleasing" deals, find the full market value then knock off 10-11% of the price. They'll be pleased as punch.

Oh yeah, and those "give them 1 gold" deals you like doing... they don't care. That's negligible, unless it's extremely early in the game. Now giving them 10 gold, or 20, early enough, that can buy a lot of favor. Later you need to give 50, or 100, or a free RoP to some weak civ or a low cost resource to a large civ. As much as the idea of this PAINS me, that is the path to a diplo victory. Penny pinching kills Gracious relations. Hanging up on someone without making a deal is not a penalty action. They don't care. We can probably still make some money off of some civs by offering the small fry continuous RoP's at 15% below market value, for which they will view us as generous. :lol:

Second round lets both take 15 rather than 10, it's pretty quick going.

1250 BC (0) - Everything looks in fine shape, except change one city with
Spearman order to Bowman.

1225 BC (1) - Start on Iron Working (toward Construction and to see if we have
any Iron or not ;p)

1200 BC (2) - 1175(3) - Not much, micromanaging turns

1150 BC (4) - Aztecs finish the Colossus (so quick it's scary)

1100 BC (6) - Holguin is founded on Green dot.

1050 BC (8) - Barbarian horsie wants to lay down some smack. Warrior
is on the hill, fortifies, and grabs his ankles. Good thing they're
only 'conscript' strength ;p This is repeated in 1025. "Hills good!"

1000 BC (9) - Settler now in Ashur area is 'goto' to the FP purple dot.
The other one is near the east red whale dot. The settler near Ur is
heading for horsie red dot on west coast.

950 BC (11) - Cardenas founded at the eastern whale red dot.

925 BC (12) - Ugh, thought our scouts time was up. Fortied in mountain
this time to give good vision, it went 2hp-vs-1, then 1-vs-1, then the
horsie fell (phew!)

900 BC (13) - Another settler born, at Bablyon. He heads toward blue/purple
areas, for our next leader to redirect to a red or green.

850 BC (15) - Happiness starting to get more problematic (well duh Charis,
build more military!)

No whipping this turn, so feel free to get it out if needed. :hammer:
We're razor thin on military, but have gotten a very good jump on settlers. You get to pick our next tech next turn as well (Guessing Literature for Library)

Good luck with the ice rock!
Charis

EDIT- Roger on the "no ships" :eek: In one game I've had they did NOT turn away the ships just when injured, the pounding was continuous and unabated. City improvements and population went poof. I was picturing that here and it wasn't pretty ;p
As for the silver dollar thing, I've got no hard data either way. It was rather effective in a couple of games I've had, but I am thinking very early game, so that's consistent with your comments.

Iron Working? :( :(

Iron is useless to us for the following reasons:
1) We don't need swordsmen to take out a few barbarians. All we need is a couple of veteran troops.
2) We don't need swordsmen AT ALL. Ever. They are a dead end unit and we should be well past them before any hint of threat arrives (and even if not, horsies are better for defense, they will retreat, can reinforce faster, upgrade, etc etc).
3) We are a long long way from Feudalism and Chivalry.
4) The sooner we connect to iron, the more chances for it to vanish on us, even worse when we have no use for it. (If all the iron on our island goes away forever, we're toasty. We can't pick up and go get any more, and with a map blackout, we MAY even not be able to trade with anybody until AIRPORTS come online, if a map line of sight is required for harbors).
5) "To see if we have iron or not" might scratch an itch of curioisity, but is otherwise of no practical use. Even if we have none, we can't do anything about it, and either way it won't affect anything we're doing in the short term.

Those are turns lost where our core cities could have had libraries to boost our culture and research. Or... harbors. Or courthouses. Or SOMETHING of shorter term use.

My conclusion: Iron Working = :smoke: :smoke: :smoke:

:)


Anyway... Yes, I opted to research Literature next. After that, PLEASE don't go for Construction as we have no use for aqueducts yet (and can't afford colleseums) until we first have courthouses and harbors so that we can have more than three cities MAKE IT to size 6. :)

We had 10 cities when my turn began. I settled 10 more. There are only 2 sites left to get, and we need to get the light blue dot to be sure that no curious AI's plop down up there.

In 690BC, Egypt build the Pyramids (and entered their golden age, if they hadn't already). China got the Oracle the following turn. It's POSSIBLE, on an archipelago map, that not enough AI's got together by this point to have traded up to having Literature or Mapmaking, so it could be that this ended the cascade. In any event, I committed us to pursue a world wonder. Ur is building Palace (at 700 shields to complete, currently, so we have plenty of time). Ideally, we want the Great Library. That would catch us up instantly on tech when we make contact with 2+ civs, even if that doesn't take place for 1000's of years, as the library won't go obsolete until WE get Education. Secondarily, take anything else we can get, even the Lighthouse if that's the only option. Sistine would be the one we would most want but we may not get that far in time to get it with this attempt.

I used Havana to crank 4 more workers, so we now have 9 total. Most are in the Ur area, improving to speed the wonder construction. Havana is at max size and could be running one wheat and 5 hills, if more hills are mined. Both Ashur and Ninevah badly need mines. DO NOT connect the iron, for reasons I listed above.

I urge you to think long term. All these ancient wars in the other RBD games may be skewing your perspective. Spears can upgrade all the way through. Bowmen are dead end. Now that all the barbs are eliminated, never to be heard from again, warriors are only useful while we remain in despotism, or if we get Monarchy before Republic. Better a warrior than a city sitting around with entertainers and taxmen at size 1-3, but try to build veteran spears where possible.

Granaries are MOST urgent in cities that will be scrounging for food their whole existence. These will vastly speed growth, which will boost trade. Harbors, courthouses... the trick to them is a whip-wait-whip. You can get 1 shield going, whip a barracks, flip it to courthouse/harbor, wait another turn for it to go to 41, then whip again. Bang, 80 shields, only 2 pop whipped, 2 extra turns taken. We'll have to do some of this in the north. All those red, white and green dots need the harbor first, too (as much as it pains me to delay courthouses). Another trick is to get 1 shield, whip a barracks, then flip to granary or courthouse/harbor. This is the best plan for cities with a single game in range, as they crank more food per turn at size 1 than they do waiting around on size 2. The trick is this: whip at 39 shields needed (29 for temples), so that the max number of shields are gained. Do this by any means necessary and available. It doesn't pay to get only 20-30 shields out of a whipping. You'd do better to build a warrior in that time, you see, get the warrior "free" or with 1 turn delay, and whip a larger amount of shields.

On emperor, you also NEED a troop in the city, as a whipped city with no troops in it and no temple is unhappy at SIZE ONE. So we either have to send troops from other cities, or let a city build a warrior before we do anything else. So what I've done is this: all the cities with a troop already in place are set to build granaries. (This doubles the rate at which future whippings could take place). All the cities where a troop couldn't be spared were allowed to build their own temple naturally (if they could muster 2 shields per turn) or have been set to build a warrior first, then to whip the temple as soon as they grow to size 2. You can rearrange the plans all you like, but if you completely ignore the whip on your turns, our growth curve is going to suffer. On the other hand, we don't want to whip any of these cities more than about 4 total times. That's one for temple, one for granary, one or two for harbor, and then maybe one more (toward courthouse or library). As to what to build first, I had choice of only granary or temple. If harbor were an option, I might choose that, too. I'd definitely opt for courthouse in Ice Palace (purple dot).

Cove and Akkad ended up building their temples the normal way. They are both set to whip granaries soon, Cove in 3, Akkad in 6. I urge that Havana be left at size 6, use it to build barracks and crank the vet units, since it has no access to placeholders, and if you keep shrinking it to make settlers/workers, we lose gold, with our economy kind of weakish. Ur is going to be stuck a long, long time with no library (wouldn't have had to be that way if Literature were done first -- poke, prod, wink ;) -- but too late now). But that was our ONLY hope to grab a wonder, and I'm determined to get something for us. Ur is our only southern city on fresh water, although with our happiness situation the way it is, seems kind of doubtful we can grow it to 7 without more improvements.

My biggest concern right now is what the dark map will do to us. I didn't quite think it through in terms of it preventing us from doing any trading at all, ever. If that's the case, we really bit off a lot here.

Oh one more thing. You took 41 turns the first time, and 16 this time. I took 29 last time to even it out, but this time I said fooey and left you to fix it. :) Thus 530BC. Our situation is looking more and more bleak the more I think about it. Good luck with squeezing milk out of THIS fuzzy coconut. :)


- Sirian

Here's a fresh pass at the settlement plan. Nothing major has changed, just shuffled control of a few squares around. Got a hills for San Cyreno. Swapped some game around. This is the "at the end of the day" outlook. I expect lots of temporary borrowing and shuffing back and forth. The one place we should NOT borrow is at Guantanamo Bay. It should keep its grimy hands off the forest-game squares needed by Ice Palace. Every round we have the Forbidden Palace will be a round with much extra bounty of trade and production, so everything else in the north must bow to the need for Ice Palace, wherever there is conflict.

The south, too, has a lot of sharing. This sort of game is NOT one where Cy would thrive, as zooming the cities and micromanaging "borrowed" terrain to see which city has a more urgent need at any given period is not something he would undertake. :) There were literally times when I would have that third wheat for Havana one turn, for Babylon the next, Havana, Havana, Babylon Babylon. Occasionally they both really needed it and I had to choose (Havana, usually). Same with Ur and Ashur, that one gets flipped around a lot on my turn, and now also Ur and Akkad. That's probably the worst part of a game with packed cities, the extra work of managing the overlap efficiently. If left to the devices of the automated selection, nothing short of complete disaster would ensue. :eek:


- Sirian

Originally posted by Sirian
The trick is this: whip at 39 shields needed (29 for temples), so that the max number of shields are gained.

Actually, I believe you get 40 shields per whip, so long as you have at least one shield invested. So for anything that costs more than 40 shields, you should whip when 40 shields remain, not wait for 39 (and for your harbor/courthouse trick, you should be able to do the second whip immediately, without the wait turn between).

Also, I'm curious, are you going to allow youselves to build embassies? Or will the automatic reveal of the foreign capital location contravene your 'no maps' rule?

--
Jaffa

I just love the names of the new cities!!

:hammer: Cetacean Observatory -- San Cyreno -- San Charisso -- El Chuca :hammer: and of course...

Guantanamo Bay :tank:

Jaffa... not quite on the whipping. The number of citizens is [ #shields / 20 ] which is ROUNDED DOWN and has a minimum of 1. It's also doubled iirc if you have NO shields in the box yet. So 1..39 is one citizen, 40..59 is two, 60..79 is three if done in one pass, better to do as shift-to-39, whip, un-shift-to-now-40, wait one turn, whip to completion.

| EDIT- Ah, one point where I got confused on this. I had like 8 turns to do something with 5 shields per turn, so I figure 40 shields. Yet it was only one citizen to rush. Ah!! You can do 40. In reality there were 38 shields left, which do take 8 turns at 5/turn |

Good question on the embassies. I imagine that they will choose to build embassies with us, which we can't stop. That will also show their capitol. Can't do anything about that. Now will we use espionage? Wasn't disallowed, too early to tell if/how useful.

Sirian... yes I've already been "swapping" tiles between cities on occasion, sorta of a macro-micromanagement :cool: Now *THIS* is a builders game!! (When you only have straw and mud to build your castles) It's up my alley (for temperament anyway, I'm improving on figuring out what needs to be shifted)

Now tundra improvement into better terrain was a CivII only feature, eh?

Charis reviews the charges of illegal use of pungent weed on the Iron Working and his decision is... guilty as charged! :eek:

I must have been feeling a combo of the following at the time: i) Sirians reports of barbarian brutality sound really nasty, we better develop a counter, ii) if there are no horsies and no iron on this rock, we can pack in it right now, iii) i must cover up a bad decision not to start on a river by getting an aqueduct!! :smoke:
It must be the same advisor who 'counts turns' who made this science decision. (Still, we had no idle time for libraries in that phase anyway, I don't think the damage was extensive.)
Roger on avoiding Construction until later, in any case, and not connecting the iron. (Can we hide it from the AI's?!? :scan:)

> We had 10 cities when my turn began. I settled 10 more.
Excellent

> I committed us to pursue a world wonder.
This may turn out later to be a "MVP move", time will tell. I like it. (A little surprising after the "chance at a wonder is less than 0%", but maybe that was referring to ancient wonders.)

> Sistine would be the one we would most want but we may not get that far in time to get it with this attempt.

By the time the shields are ready Fission will be known (j/k)

> I urge you to think long term. All these ancient wars in the
> other RBD games may be skewing your perspective. Spears can
> upgrade all the way through. Bowmen are dead end.

Good point, I should have realized this. (Playing at 2am I do miss somethings I shouldn't) I was paranoid about the Barbarians. The horses especially cry to BE attacked rather than wait to be attacked, and Bowmen are better suited for that. It was a mix of flashbacks from the ancient wars and from the one or two emp/deity games I've tried where if you don't make the BEST units you can RIGHT NOW, you'll never live to see even Monarchy.

> Granaries are MOST urgent in cities that will be scrounging for food their whole existence.... the trick is to whip-wait-whip.

Good tip, I'm all over that. In fact I just finished writing up that key trick in a "Micromanagement Guide" I'm working on :king:

> On the other hand, we don't want to whip any of these cities more than about 4 total times. That's one for temple, one for granary, one or two for harbor, and then maybe one more (toward courthouse or library).

One for courthouse, one for library, one for barracks, one for... oops, no, bad me.

> I'd definitely opt for courthouse in Ice Palace (purple dot).
Although you don't need one once FP built, 80 shields vs 300 shields means that when corruption in FP site is more than 4 of 15 lost, that's the better choice. (We're probably losing half shields?)

What is the whipping 'memory', any more info? I was under the impression it's 20 turns per item whipped. If not cumulative, that would mean an insignificant impact if whipping was once per 20 turns. If cumulative, your fourth whip is remembered for 80 turns, etc... So the cumulative memory effect is 20, 60, 120, 200, 300...

> I urge that Havana be left at size 6, use it to build barracks and
> crank the vet units

Sounds about right. I wonder what's about right to keep the AI from thinking "FRESH MEAT!" 3 top-defense units per city? (Us having a key resource they lack not withstanding)

> My biggest concern right now is what the dark map will do to us. I didn't quite think it through in terms of it preventing us from doing any trading at all, ever.

Oh the AI will find us, and once one finds us, they'll sell contact and we're "in the loop".

I'm feeling less overwhelmed with bleakness for some odd reason at this point, now that the rock is a full fledged nation :)

Charis

I've got a glimmer of hope for you - you CAN trade with people without seeing the city you're trading to. I thought you couldn't for a few turns until Germany popped up on the list ... perhaps it was because they got the requisite advance (Navigation), but I have a feeling that maybe it was also since they had LOS to me that was enough.

So there is light a long way down the tunnel. ;)

530 BC (0) - Everything looks fine. Watching the in-between turn it's funny...
The Barbarian armada is our "coastal defense" right now :P

510 BC (1) - Notice no settlers for the last two spots around or in progress,
so put set up Ashur and Bablyon to do this before getting back to vet
production.

490 BC (2) - Ashur and Cardenas expand borders. Ice Palace gets noticed as
in need of a granary whipping in two turns, which will help it grow faster.

470 BC (3) - Literature is complete. I choose Map Making!
Just kidding, no. I take... Code of Laws. Courthouses are needed, certain
advisors point out. Plus opposite choice of Monarchy first wouldn't work
if you plan to whip a courthouse or two. Ur hits size six and is looking
less happy. Sliding luxury to 30% gives +8/turn, while making a tax collector
out of a food square leaves us at zero food surplus (alright since at size 6)
and +11/turn, so we do that. Cove at 39 gets granary whipping.

450 BC (4) - Havana starts a Library. Santa Rosa starts a Granary. The Cove
a Warrior (consider switching). I mine the leave the horse near Ur but
leave it unconnected, about to connect the horse near San Charisso.


430 BC (5) - The domestic advisor reminds Charis that Map Making is not JUST
for ships, but also for Harbors. :blush:

His confidence goes down and instead of whipping the Ice Palace, switches
to temple which will complete in 4 turns, the same time it will grow to
size 3. :confused:

410 BC (6) - Ninevah whips library, Akkad a granary, El Chupa a temple.

390 BC (7) - Settler up from Ashur, goes to white dot.

370 BC (8) - Settler up from Bablyon, heads to blue dot. (Both now back on vets)
Ashur is unhappy, and a food worker is made tax collector (which puts it
at zero growth for the moment)

350 BC (9) - Havana finishes on library, starts vet Spear. San Cyreno
Cardenas whips its granary now with 38 left (it needs a warrior there asap)

To even out year (and count) I'm turning over now. Akkad can either whip its
library this turn, or you can switch. Due for whipping soon: San Roberto (g4),
(OR switch to temple and plain build), San Rosina (g5), Cetacean (g2). Ellipi
can finish it's library, switch to a military unit or something else (it may
get unhappy when it hits 3). To point out what the 'governor' does, he tried
to steal the Ice Palace's game for El Chupa. Feel free to vary any production
orders (and continue to clue me in better choices). (I'm sorta expecting the "well it would be nice if I could build HARBORS which we desperately need" and weed accusations, but you will be able to get to FP via courthouse quicker)

Good luck,
Charis

While I thought Literature was the best choice after writing, a case could have been made for maps or laws, as those offer some short term options. The iron didn't offer us anything in the short term for this scenerio.

Three defenders per city? Well, see, we have two conflicting interests here. First, we need enough force to deter aggression, or to fight off an invasion. Second, we need as much science as we can muster, which means we can't afford too much military. I would be sorely tempted to gambit for one (1!) defender per city in the north, with a force of horsies and catapults at Ice Palace to respond to any landings. Two defenders in the south, at our more vital (and appealing) cities, with a horsie-catapult force at Havana. Go as thin as we dare. Once contact comes, we will have to beef things up a little.

Now this IS a little risky, but I pretty much think we should be disbanding all those warriors sooner rather than later. On the other hand, if contact is slow in coming, we're going to be sitting around doing not much of anything waiting on tech, at times, and might as well build units when that's the case. I'm a TOTAL opponent of wealth "building" in the early game as even one shield per turn is worth more, and it really is usually good to build more military if all the infrastructure options are complete, until perhaps the industrial age when more and more units are just budget busters if your strategy is peaceful victory.


- Sirian

Iif you want to make the game more accurate you should build all the sanitation and education improvements, Fidel always reminds the worls that although all of the flaws of Cuba, his educational and sanitation sistems are one of the best in the world in his everlasting speeches with his statistics.

Inherited Turn: observe that Ur is at size 6 with a taxman. This COULD BECOME size 7 with an entertainer. So it must be done. Ashur says byebye (quite likely permanently) to the shared cattle, and Ur is set to grow in five turns.

I look over the land, ready to crack my whip, and find that we are not as sad on shields as I anticipated. Ah, the joys of a huge map. Corruption still bad at our far end but not hopeless as this would be on a small map. I decide to spare many cities. Babylon, Ellipi and Akkad, all are set to build libraries and allowed to do so normally. Havana is cranking the troops (I overlooked that I could have had it at 10 shields per turn by taking over the horsie, but so it goes. One turn lost on military production! I fixed this after the next unit was built). I believe I whipped a library at Ninevah, and would soon at Cove. Santa Rosa was MEANT to whip its temple and then a granary, at least that was my plan for it. Charis changed that to granary after the warrior was built... and lo and behold, I find that with two forest squares, this town can get to 3 shields per turn! I swap it over to temple and let it build normally, then it can whip the granary later. A similar decision by Charis at Ice Palace receives a thumbs up. :goodjob:

In the far north, whippings will take place on schedule. Granaries we shall have. However, I note no troop at Guantanamo, so San Cyreno is sacrificed. It starts another warrior.

Then I look at the workers. Uh... why are they mining normal hills in the south, instead of hills with gold deposits. :smoke: Haha! I was thinking I had nothing but praise to offer for this turn, but nope, found some little thing to nag about. :spank: ;) And look! Workers mined the square with horses then left without connecting them! I'll end up spending a worker turn moving back into that square. (Was there a reason for that? I don't think horses -- and rubber -- ever vanish, and we could stand to build some horsies at some point. Plus we are already connecting the other one.) OK, got my nits in, now I feel better. ;)


330BC: As much as we could use more vet spears for martial law, I swap Ninevah and Ashur (half of our barracks towns) to workers. The Age of the Whip and Scythe has dawned.

310BC: Ellipi reaches size 3, is unhappy. I swap around to one coastal and one forest tile, now cranking 4 shields per turn, content, but break-even food. *shrug* Much micromanagement of shared tiles.

290BC: Vet spear from Havana heads to Ellipi. Havana swapped around to get 10 shields per turn, now cranking troops every other turn. Cove library whipped. (Or was that last turn?)

270BC: Cetacean Observation borrows grassland w/ shield from Ninevah. Other shared micromanagement continues. San Tamarino founded on coast.

250BC: UR GROWS TO 7! I zoom the city, note that at our current rate of 20% lux, enough trade can be brought in to get another happy face going! Worker joined to Ur! UR GROWS TO SIZE 8! Now cranking 13 shields per turn (one lost to waste, so 12 net), break even food, one entertainer, and the Great Library due in 20 turns!

I check F11 and we are #1 in the world in literacy! :jump:

I have a warm fuzzy feeling all over. :love: :love2: :D

We are also #4 on territory, #3 on population, high ranking in several other categories, and (heh, no surprise) dead last on military-to-population ratio. We also have all the territory that we ever will, so I expect to see our ranking decline over time. This is good news for now, though. We may just have a shot here.

230-190BC: Granary whippings in the north are undertaken. Infrastructure and worker progress in south is coming along. More troops from Havana shuffled around. Temples and libraries NOT whipped are completed all over the place. I run a deficit (ouch) to speed Code of Laws one turn so that it will be done on my turn.

170BC: Science returned to normal rate. Granary whipped in Ice Palace, and BECAUSE I had slowed its food production, it's set to grow again AFTER the granary is completed. This is a most urgent point: city growth or shrinkage (due to disease) is handled before production. So if you grow on the same turn as a granary is built, you DO NOT get the benefit of the granary (unlike in Civ2). Thus it may save food (and time) to SLOW food growth so that a city will be timed to grow on the turn after granary construction. I've also done this down at Cetacean Observation.

This is also why the worker factory at size 6-7 works so well. City grows to size 7, THEN the production is handled, and if a worker is completed, the city is then shrunk back to size 6, but because of the food peculiarities of granary particulars, is ready to grow again on the next turn. You can crank a worker per turn without your city shrinking. It's all because the food is handled first, the shields second.

This is also a way to squeeze FREE SHIELDS out of cities about to grow. If you are micromanaging tiles within the city, running high food on some turns and high shields on others, you run the high shields FIRST, then run the high food on the tail end, and when the city grows, you get an extra square of shields anyway. (I'm sorry if you don't follow that, that's the best I can explain it. One of my more useful efficiency tricks).

150BC: All is well in Cuba. I may have been wrong about us getting an ancient wonder: at the time I said that, I didn't think we could get Ur to size 7 -- yet now it's at 8! Cross your fingers. This baby may even net us more than one wonder, as it can hibernate on placeholder for extended periods.


Charis: I'm glad you chose Code of Laws. Harbors would have been useful in some situations, but Code of Laws hurries our Forbidden Palace, which is surely the most urgent task in front of us. Ice Palace is ready to WWW its courthouse (whip-wait-whip) and then start on the FP already! Way to go. :goodjob:

I chose mapmaking next. Our economy is now teetering under the cost of granaries. That's always the price of whipping: early production means early maintenance and slower research. I think, generally, it's a good investment, which explains why the AI's do well in ancient research (they build so little, except for settlers) then falter later as their infrastructures fail them. One thing you can do to help is swap Akkad from mined hills to gold hills next turn, after its library is done. This will pick up 2gpt. (Ahem, if that gold hills had mined first...)

Cetacean is ready to whip in 2 turns, and AFTER that it can borrow the grassland again, unless you think Ninevah would benefit more. Chupa and Rosa are set to whip in about six turns I think. They are on high shields now, should be swapped to high food after granaries are whipped. I decided to let Guantanamo build its temple naturally, after which you can sort it out. San Cyreno and San Martino are TOO FAR from Havana to get to 2 shields per turn, so I urge you to whip their temples out at the next earliest opportunity (even if only 25ish shields are whipped, in the one case). Why? Well, keep in mind 1000 year culture bonus, and also that we will eventually swap out of despotism, so it's better to have some whippings on the back end, where they will fade away by the time things get rolling in Republic. If a town can muster 2 shields per turn, less whipping is needed (and less should be done).

GOOD EYE on the eventual low value of courthouses in the north. I agree, skip them everywhere but Ice Palace, get harbors, granaries, temples instead. I think we'll get our fp early enough that it would ultimately cost more than its worth to whip those cities that much.

As for the south, don't whip anybody who can muster 4+ shields per turn. Cove might warrant one more to get a harbor, or maybe not, it's got 3 per turn going now and has been whipped 3 times. Cetacean is probably good to go with 1 whip for granary and 1 for harbor.

The worker in the desert is set to build a road, and bring some irrigation to cetacean. I'd also like to see a road from Ninevah across to the west and started one worker on that assignment. As for roads in the north, it MIGHT be more useful to get mines going, too, as more shields in key cities might reduce how much whipping we would do. We still need more workers, as there is a lot of lengthy work to be doing in the north. Babylon looks like a good site to provide them, or you could crank more from Ninevah and Ashur as I did throughout my turn.

Chin up. I think I see rays of hope for us.


- Sirian

- comments below, I'm about to start turn now... -

I'm feeling a TON more chipper about this game after your report, woo! :hammer:

{The loquacious one also discerns the increased tension of the weedy one with
regard to 'making the right move', and heaps on abundant positive comments
as well - :D - MUCH appreciated}

A brilliant stroke with Ur! :hammer: :goodjob: The thought had occurred to me that if we're
not contacted for, oh, another millenium, we'll never research anything before
the wonder is done and end up with new Palace in Ur. I'm hoping the AI isn't
teasing us, and planning to finish the GL in 13 turns!

> Santa Rosa was MEANT to whip its temple and then a granary, at least that was
> my plan for it. Charis changed that to granary after the warrior was built...
> and lo and behold, I find that with two forest squares, this town can get to 3
> shields per turn! I swap it over to temple and let it build normally, then it
> can whip the granary later. A similar decision by Charis at Ice Palace receives
> a thumbs up.

8-}


> Then I look at the workers. Uh... why are they mining normal hills in the south,
> instead of hills with gold deposits. Haha! I was thinking I had nothing but
> praise to offer for this turn, but nope, found some little thing to nag about.
> And look! Workers mined the square with horses then left without connecting them!

> I don't think horses -- and rubber -- ever vanish, and we could stand ...

Would have seemed an imposter if no nits... but see, even there the border of
ignorance is driven further back. I didn't know horses and rubber didn't
disappear. I just know most of the other good ones do, and too often.

> I swap Ninevah and Ashur (half of our barracks towns) to workers. The Age of
> the Whip and Scythe has dawned.

:hammer: !!! This age was very effective for rbd1 India. Hmmm... ya know...
the thought does occur... A double gambit... an "Economic Worker Crusade" as
it were. Part A: Set up about three-four worker farms, cranking them out every
1,2 or 3 turns. Forgo granaries and use these workers to grow the little cities
to their maximum size straight up. Savings in maintenance, shield cost or whipping
angst, letting them all build libraries instead, perhaps under their own new shield
power. Part B: Forgo military (not totally, but largely), and instead have a
massive, long term whip and scythe program where we work the bloody tar out of
our rock. Spend maintenance costs for units on something productive instead of
on mil units that might not see battle for several hundred years. This long term
thought stems from severeal things: If they come now or real soon with real
military, we're toast. If we get embroiled in a defensive military bog, all our
production and cash and maintenance will get pushed to that, and even if we
survive, we lose, long run. If we *DO* get the GL, we can push the economic
aspect further by no spending on science. Instead build libraries and have a
massive road network and harbors to increase commerce. When the time does
eventually come that the world is all in contact, we can buy the last few techs
cheap that didn't make it through library, and be in a position to try to race
AHEAD on tech. In other words, since the AI really only counts UNITS for military
might, let them count warriors (and workers?) and when we actually FIRST SEE BOATS
swimming by our shores, only then get modern units, whatever that is at the
time. Plus the time from "first sighting" to "capable invasion" will be quite
a while.


> UR GROWS TO 7! ... UR GROWS TO SIZE 8! Now cranking 13 shields per turn
> Great Library due in 20 turns!

Wow... I'm waiting to be floored (still not overhoping cuz it will hurt to lose
it 15 turns from now)

> I check F11 and we are #1 in the world in literacy!
> I have a warm fuzzy feeling all over.

Wow! Double that! :blush: Such warm bubbling over on the ice rock?!

> We are also #4 on territory, #3 on population, high ranking in several other
> categories, and (heh, no surprise) dead last on military-to-population ratio.
> We also have all the territory that we ever will, so I expect to see our ranking
> decline over time. This is good news for now, though. We may just have a shot

F11!!!!! Ah! That's how to find out more about folks even in darkness.
Uh, is that list in order? Are we in some way on top for Havana? In any case,
look at Thebes! Size 2!!! Is our rock a tropical paridise compared to theirs??

Our high literacy, our high GNP and land area suggest that the AI's are in as
bad shape as we are, if not worse! F7 shows only 3 wonders complete, so I'm
thinking there is no contact, no tech trading between them. Until Magellans is
done (or a few hundred years after that), things will stay the same. If we're
ALL in the same low resource, low tech quagmire, the "Economic Worker Crusade"
is even more golden with a 'late contact date'.

> Granary whipped in Ice Palace, and BECAUSE I had slowed its food production,
> it's set to grow again AFTER the granary is completed. This is a most urgent pt

Very good info!!

> This is also a way to squeeze FREE SHIELDS out of cities about to grow. If
> you are micromanaging tiles within the city, running ...

Gotcha. But explain this. That "extra shield" or tile that it works is one that
the COMPUTER/Governor chooses, and it's (from what I've seen) food-centric.
Let's say I'm on a turn about to grow, but two shields short to also finish
the unit. If **I** got to pick that extra tile, I would pick a forest or hill
and ka-ching! I'm done my unit early. But... the computer picks a grassland with
a mine, and gah, I'm stuck with one shield short. I've tried (only sorta) to
go into governor options and tell him "focus on production", but I can't seem to
tell him: "Grab as many shields as possible subject to non-starving" Any ideas
how to do this? It would be a micromanaging coup.

> Charis: I'm glad you chose Code of Laws. Harbors would have been useful...
> but Code of Laws hurries our Forbidden Palace, which is surely the most urgent

Aye... ready to WWW the house and go FP. If the game beneath him isn't already
mined that's going to be a priority.

> I chose mapmaking next. Our economy is now teetering under the cost of
granaries

Worker farm??? Let's see... 14 cities have granaries, 7 don't. Those that
don't could easily be fed by workers I think. Or some subset. Do you tend to
always have granaries for every continental city? I often do, but probably
not more than 3/4 of cities.

As you note, temple whipping (and libary) benefit from the 1000 yr bonus nicely,
and will be targets for the whip. One important note on whipping, according
to some tests lately. Either whip a city boom-boom-boom and be done with it,
or have a 20 turn gap between whippings. The worst thing you can do is to
whip one, wait about 19 turns, then whip, and repeat. (Detailed post later)

> I think I see rays of hope for us.

If the AI isn't just toying with us, I think those rays are quite true,
and quite bright! :lol:

Gonna start my turn now :P
Charis

I see the granaries as must-get in every coastal city, for a couple of reasons.

1) The small fry exist to feed the big fish, not the other way around. (Don't focus too much on improving the fishing villages).
2) Even the worst of these cities are set to do well for us later. The trick is not to rush the population growth. Until the FP is built, the ONLY thing these cities are good for is growing their own food, so let's get the harbors and granaries in place.
3) Hostile enemies can occupy water tiles. It's always a good idea to have the granary food storage, for this and other reasons.
4) As for which cities will do the 6-7 worker dance, it's likely to be different ones at different times. A lot also depends on happiness limitations. Are you confident you can look into the future? See which cities we can afford to never grow on their own? We have a lot to do in order to make these locations viable. We want libraries, markets, universities, cathedrals in EVERY one (except Fort Knox and Chupa, perhaps). Why? To get more population with more coastal tiles into play. More culture, more research, more total power.

We WILL have to do the worker dance, but even the smaller cities are set to grow to size 7, which with no luxuries on hand means a cathedral in each. And we can't afford to buy these off, so they have to build them for themselves.

The granary in Chupa might be extraneous. But then again, with it limited to size 3, what would it matter if it's whipped a bit? The cost per turn is the only thing in question. Cathedrals at 80 shields are affordable and boost culture. We could then whip it all we please, within its population limits, if it had enough pacification. That's perhaps the main reason for the granary in some instances: to do exactly what you suggested: whip several times as closely together as possible, then stop. That's how it's happening at Ice Palace.

The cities can grow on their own in just five turns with granaries and harbors, up to size 7. Isn't that painless enough? Get some there, have them build more and more workers, and we can rejoin workers to size 7+ coastal cities as the worker tasks dry up or happiness slots come open. I just don't see it as worth our time to join workers to cities less than size 7. Let them work the land sooner, and save up a bunch of them, then join them to size 7+ cities later, where the value in food-saved for each is doubled.

I've done quite a bit of these low-food fishing village scenerios (AP4, Desolate Japan, Rumble in the Jungle, and some games you haven't heard about). In situations where a new colony is built too late to benefit from the whip, and must go without a granary, it's often more urgent to get a courthouse going than anything else. This won't be like that, with this FP right there. But I have seen low-food cities and come to the conclusion that I will NEVER choose to build an aqueduct and grow to size 7 without first having a granary, in a city that lives off the sea. It just hasn't been worth it. Growth completely stalls and threat of starvation is too high. Now a higher food city (especially with rails and 6+ extra food) can do it, but that's not what we have going.

Perhaps the main benefit of the granary is keeping 20 food in storage at size 7. This even puts the option of negative food on the table for URGENT projects, and even right now we have a problem with barbarians wandering our waters. Those will cause us no end of grief in shuffling around our city tile assignments once we have harbors online. I find lack of granaries just too constricting. Fort Knox doesn't need a granary, but Chupa depends on what we do with it. Could go either way. If you want to skip it there, I have no objection.

Summary: below size 6, granaries allow speedy city growth. Above 6, they keep that vital food storage.

Is that worth the production and the maintenance? Well... keep this in mind. A city with an extra water tile in place under republic, once the FP is in place, has extra trade coming in which can pay for the granary. If the granary then keeps our average city sizes at 1 higher than they would be without the granaries, I think the best move is to build the granaries asap (behind temples, in some cases). How are we even going to get cities large enough to build the workers in the first place, without the granaries?

And then there's one more point: what use is it NOW to not be on max food production??? The hills haven't been mined, there are no roads, and corruption is out the yingyang. Now maybe once the FP comes online, and we have mined some hills, some of the better cities up there could be switched semi-permanently to break even food. EVEN THEN, it's to our benefit to let them grow on their own from size 6 to 7, with granaries in place, once they have built aqueducts, because 100% of the food that is so painfully gathered is preserved and kept in storage.

That's my take, at least. If you still think otherwise, persuade me. :)


- Sirian

Culls notes above for a todo list...

* Get mined gold hills online ;p
* Watch Ceta and Ninevah and others to see if swapping needed
* WWW Courthouse in Ice Palace
* Whip Cetacean in 2 then borrow grassland
* Whip Chupa and Rosa in about 6, then go high food
* Let Guantanamo build temple naturally
* Whip Cyreno and Martino temples
* Build road and irrigate to Ceta, then Ninevah to the west
* Need more workers (Babylon, Ninevah or Ashur)
- Finish mapmaking and get harbors out soon (not quite)
- Mines in key spots up north (didn't quite reach)

150 BC (0) - I count about 17 mil units short of '2 per town' for happiness
and plan to build NO MORE mil units after that for the next 500 yrs :P
There are 5 mils queued up.
Ellipi? With 4 shields that barracks looks natural.

Cove courthouse with no corruption? Must be a harbor placeholder.
But that's not due for 18 turns, and shields will be wasted. Let's
slip in a worker as an intermediate :P Holguin and Cardenas seem to
have placeholders for Harbor.

130 BC (1) - 'W' for Ice Palace. ALMOST forget to take it off barracks ;p
Trips the middle w for one turn improvement: I disband the warrior for
2 shields, allowing an immediate second whip of 38 shield. His shields
will be bought back first round Palace comes online.

110 BC (2) - Whip Temple in San Cyreno, granary in Cetacean. Toy with
whipping in a Library in Ice, but it's had enough! On to the FP!

90 BC (3) - Cyreno starts on a granary (swap if needed, same for Guantanamo's
granary started next turn). The new units and structures are strapping us,
Maps will take a little longer now. San Martino whips temple.

70 BC (4) - Santa Rosa and Chupa whip their granaries. Cetacean whips his
Library. Rosa and Ceta get Courthouse placeholders for Harbor.

50 BC (5) - Quiet turn. Went whale watching!

30 BC (6) - Couple of more workers show up. Mining the iron, but not
planning to connect it. Gold mined hills online :hammer:

10 BC (7) - San Cyreno expands. (Quiet turn if that's the news!)

10 AD (8) - A new Millenium! Celebrations ring throughout the land!
But... folks are encouraged to stay off the weed during this party!
Martino and Guantanamo party so hard they expand. To try to get Maps
on time before Harbor placeholders finish, Akkad goes wealth. (Stop
gap measure, I don't care much for wealth usually.) Micromanaging Ellipi,
I get a zero net loss gold for now. Cardenas hits three and short a second
military police. Make a tax collector there for one turn til help arrives.

30 AD (9) - Managing...

50 AD (10) - Great Library should arrives in 5 turns! :hammer:
Appropriately, on Sirian's turn. You might get some better tiles
or intracity sharing, or even better, an extra dollar or two. It's
tight, now at -1 gpt, Treasury at 16 and Map Making due in 11.
Notice in the latter half nothing got whipped. Well, the cities that
need it are size 1, but good thing anyway, maintenance-wise. (Roberto
and Tamarino are near size 2 and will probably want a temple whip)
The Ice Palace and Chupa grow next round. Make sure Palace gets choice
game square if needed.

Good luck,
Charis

PS Just saw your response as I'm posting this. Skimmed, and seems all granaries all around is way to go. No problem them, finish them up as maintenance cost allows.

Inherited Turn: I take those production cities OFF wealth. The sad thing about wealth in the ancient age is that you need NINE shields per turn to get TWO gold per turn. Any less and you only get one. So... some hopelessly corrupt city can sit on wealth with little pain, but 3-5 shields per turn for just one gold? That's desperation. :)

OK, so what to do? First up, Fort Knox. Until such time as the FP is completed, no sense letting this outpost grow to size 2. I flip it to a taxman. That's costing us... zero. I swap Ellipi and Babylon around for max gold configs, and while this nets zero gold, it does add 4 science per turn. Deficit now at -2 and I place my faith in providence and click next turn.

70AD: Swap Ashur to library. MMOW. Babylon grew to 6, deficit down to -1. Worker force of 6 in the north is moved onto the iron to mine.

90AD: Temples whipped at Roberto and Martino (or was that last turn?)

110AD: Roberto and Martino put on wealth. (They are due for harbor whippings anyway, so once again, these bits of wealth are costing us nothing). This is the last shot for the AI's to steal the wonder from us. My hand hovers over the mouse button...

130AD: AI's run through their turns, nobody completes any wonders. IT'S OURS!

150AD: Ur completes library. (Of the great variety). Starts another. ;)

170-190AD: Various whippings. Cities in the north on and off of wealth.

210AD: China completes the Great Lighthouse. :eek:

We beat them to the GL by just THREE turns. [dance] Don't ask me how we pulled this one out of the hat, as I honestly have no idea. :lol:

Science boosted to 40% for one turn, running -10 deficit with 13 in the treasury... to speed Mapmaking by one turn.

230AD: Ur finishes library (again?), starts harbor. Cove harbor whipped at 38 shields. Placeholders galore switched to harbor all across Cuba. Fort Knox swapped from taxman to alchemist, science dropped to zero, Babylon and Ellipi configured to high shields. Chupa riots (oops) and I redirect a spare warrior toward it. One turn of zero science nets us 18 gold, reviving our treasury off of the respirator.

250AD: The people celebrate the end of my reign by expanding the palace and throwing a huge celebration!

[party] :love:


San Charisso is set to finish temple on its own. If the mine can get it to 3 shields it would be best left unwhipped. If not, I don't know. It's running 2 per now, which ain't bad.

Roberto and Martino (or is that Lola? I forget) are set to WWW. Martino/Lola(?) needs a second troop. Rosa and Holguin should not be whipped. DO NOT let Chupa grow past size 3. Cyreno is kinda fubar, it's the most backward village. At this point, I'd rate the harbor more urgent, so what you can do is wait for the optimal moment to whip the granary, do so, then swap to harbor and let it finish in 20.

Because Ice Palace was whipped three times in about six turns (granary, www-courthouse-dotcom) it will riot if it grows past size 3, so I waited for the iron to be mined, then swapped it to max shields, break-even food, and let Guan borrow one of its game. We are just going to have to wait ~50 turns now. At least we know what the timeframe will be. There's no way to speed FP construction, the game ignores disbanded units and lumberjacking for all wonders, greater or lesser, and there's no way to increase the shields any further. We'd have been worse off without the courthouse, so this is the best we could hope for.

As a result, our science situation is the next "groundbreaking" decision to be made. I see a couple of options:

Plan A: Research Philosophy at our fastest available pace, then swap to zero science, run an alchemist beaker out of Fort Knox, and pull in Republic 40 turns later (unless AI's show up off our shores to GIVE it to us via the GL first).

Plan B: Research Mathematics at full tilt, then Construction OR Currency at 40 turns.

Plan C: Research Polytheism at full tilt, then Monarchy at 40.

Plan D: Stop researching right here and now and wait on the AI's with what we have going.

Plan 9 From Outer Space: continue full research indefinitely.


I'm in favor of Plan A because it ensures us Republic option right about the time the FP comes online, no matter what our opponents are up to, and most if not all the whippings we're doing RIGHT NOW will have worn off. (We need to lay off the whip once the harbors in the north are completed or given a boost -- we can handbuild libraries quickly enough once the FP is online). Monarchy would be a different form of goverment, same corruption benefits as Republic but less trade, but... we'd have a shot at the Gardens. Construction could let us build not only aqueducts but also colleseums. Currency would let us build markets to increase our profits in a different way (but remember, the luxury part of markets is probably useless to us this game). A difficult choice... and it's entirely in your hands now.

The choice will be yours to make. If you opt for one of the research plans, think about what I did on my last two clicks: I ran higher science at a deficit one turn, zero science the next. Net result, breakthrough one turn early, and +12 net gold after 2 turns. Now why did this happen? It's the peculiarities of libraries under weak/corrupt economies, with no marketplaces in effect. If you go in on inherited turn and slide science to 60%, you'll note that it says Philosophy in 4 turns. But the deficit is such that you'd have to run TWO turns of ZERO science in advance to build the treasury high enough to stand that deficit. So total turns taken would be 12. Compare that to steady running at 20%, which would take 15 turns. (Yeah I know this is REALLY pushing the micromanagement to squeeze blood from a turnip, but we are pretty hard up against it. Think about if we had been just 4 turns slower on the Great Library, or had not researched Literature in time). Harbors coming online and cities growing will throw a wrench into any long term plan you make, but consider the ultra-micro management of surplus-deficit seesaw research and see what you come up with. (Just don't go :smoke: for a turn and let the treasury be bankrupted!) :)

As for the economy, you can pull more gold by swapping Ellipi and Babylon back to max trade configs, IF you see a greater need for trade over quicker harbor production. Cove is on wealth while it runs max food to grow to at least size 3. (Need a spearman down there for martial law, the city has been whipped several times, although only once lately). Guantanamo is on wealth pending a chance to whip more toward its harbor. Might sqeeze some cash out of some other cities, but try not to put our major players on wealth if you can avoid it. Babylon can better spare the shields than Ellipi, as it's maxed out and has plenty of other food, while Ellipi is more in need of its harbor. Ur can be put on the fish once its harbor is done (we DON'T want it to grow again, but it wouldn't hurt to store more food when the shields aren't running). After the harbor, it's got nothing left to build, so maybe try for another wonder there? It can hold out over 50 turns, I think. Worst case, shields that would have gone to wealth or military units go to waste.

China having the Lighthouse, if they are near us we can expect contact soonish. If not, who knows. I spotted sea currents west of Ellipi my last reign but forgot to mention it. Looks like ocean everywhere else.


Good luck with the harbor building. :fish:

- Sirian

On wealth, I'm not a big fan, but I didn't like the possible flip side. Saving a
few shields in a petty town costing us a lot of wasted shields in more productive
towns when the timing for harbor was thrown off. Sounds like you did great to
shift thing around and guide us into Harbor making :goodjob:

> 150AD: Ur completes library. (Of the great variety).

Woo!!! :hammer:

> Starts another

:lol: LMAO! Well... why not? Oh wait, I thought u meant started another
placeholder for a wonder, not library. (BTW I don't value the chances, or
the utility of Gardens much in this game)

> 210AD: China completes the Great Lighthouse.
:eek:

> Fort Knox swapped from taxman to alchemist, science dropped to zero
oh good, oh first read I missed this and thought "now he DID make a scientist
if he set to zero, right??"

I like the tip on max sci then zero sci. I thought I noticed that happening,
but wasn't sure if it was an optical illusion or what. As for trying to squeeze
blood from a turnip... that's my vocation!

TODO from notes:
* San Charisso is set to finish temple on its own
* Roberto and Martino set to WWW
* Martino/Lola needs 2nd troop
* Spare Rosa and Holguin the whip.
= Don't let Chupa grow past size 3
- Cyreno, use a granary whip to speed up harbor
- Ice Palace stuck at 3 due to rioting that would occur
- Harbor for Ur then and start another wonder
- Think over science choices: zero now, or gun Philo (to Repub), Math (to Constr
or Curr) or Polytheism (to Monarchy)

Other thoughts...
- I'm going to *hope* that the lack of contact and us getting GL is a sign
that the AI is scraping, and may not find our ice rock for many years yet to
come. That means no military beyond MP, pushing gold, not relying on GL to
kick in until it FLOODS in much later, and it means researching our own next
line of govt. Having that online around same time as FP would be good.
If and when "first contact" is made it will call for a full scale re-evalution
and rapid response.
- Which govt? I don't think the corruption factor will really matter, since
we're talking post-FP, and all our cities are on one island, never to build
more in far-off lands. Both are pay-rush, 100% efficiency, an irrelevant draft
rate (for now... we ARE religious and could switch fast if needed)
Monarchy has MP 3 and 2/4 unit support for our small/size7 cities. That's
versus Republic with 1 extra commerce on each square already producing one.
The math on that... with 21 cities, extra cash would be about sum(sizes)+nCities
with roads on all worked squares (which they should be but aren't quite yet).
That value is 85, and doing an actual count with current squares is 75
(Missing: Ellipi 2, Cardenas 1, Rosa 2, Chupa 1, Lola 2, Cyreno 1, Tamarino 1)

Number of units, which would all cost under Republic, is 66. Allowed under
Monarchy would be 44. The cost difference in maintenance is 22. We would need
to keep THREE extra citizens content, with no cathedrals for a looong time to
come I think. How to calculate that? I'm not sure 8-\ Playing with the
slider suggest that's about three 'notches' on the luxury slider, which for us
now has a cost differential of 35 gold per turn (49 vs 15).
Revenue of 85 balancing 35 extra luxury costs + 25 main costs leaves Republic
out ahead by a good bit right now, decreasing as number of units increases.
But... as number of citizens increases, the extra commerce squares are pure
extra bonus in republic. Before doing the math I though Monarchy would win.

Viva la Cuban Republic! Here's the turn...

250 AD (0) - The party atmostphere continues, and the Mayor of Ur is
sent off to a well deserved vacation. In hit stead they bring in,
oddly enough, a Fisherman to run the nation for the two hundred years.
He finds all is in splendid order on his arrival. ("Oh great, a perfect
situation where the only noteworthy thing I can do is screw up!")
Hmm... our 'max rate' for steady-state science is merely 20% (15 turns vs 39)
We push to 40% then will back to zero and cycle...

260 AD (1) - Ninevah pops Spearman, starts Worker. We have 41 mil units and
need 44 for 2 per city. That leaves Havana to pop us 3 more.
Cetacean whispers... "psst!! 38 shields, whip me!" But the fisherman is
appalled! "Whip you?? So you can build what, wealth?? That will only stunt
your growth and is unneeded. Build my child, build!" Cardenas also beckons
with 21 turns to harbor. But... it's got everything else it needs, and will
take 50 for FP so why rush? Let it heal! Roberto and Martino, otoh, have seen
less of the whip and can stand ONE more, with it's one shield output. Rosa is
spared only by request. It's 3 shield output save it. Later on, compare
happiness of Rosa and Roberta, who differ in one whipping right at this
juncture.

270 AD (2) - Cyreno grows, what to do. The plan of whip-granary-switch to
harbor sounds good, frontloading the whipping, with no more to be done,
letting the city complete the harbor in its own time. Roberto and Martino,
done with the whip, now kicks back to complete a library on their own in
forty yrs. The extra horses in Havana are dispatched for MP duty.
I almost miss Ninevah being unhappy.

280 AD (3) - MMOW. Ninevah and Ur swap a shield.

290 AD (4) - Cyreno WWx done. He has 20 years both to grow and finish
the harbor, so that will erase memory of latest whip. Ninevah-Ceta
ping pong continues, as does the bloody turnip science drill.

300 AD (5) - Ur about to finish harbors, takes in some extra food. The
mine does NOT take Charisso to three shields (corruption) and so it
decides to a half-whip of the harbor instead (switch, whip library, switch back)
Decide to start a half-whip of Guantanamo's harbor too. (Lola will get
same after her temple done.)

310 AD (6) - Ur finishes harbor, starts... placeholder :p (Keep at 8, eh?)
Fort Knox finishes Temple (finally!) and starts granary.

320 AD (7) - Fishing vacation.

330 AD (8) - Ellipi finishes harbor, and with zilch left to build, considers
wealth to ease the crunch but interjects a worker order first.

I 'investigate' the sadness at Ice Palace. By sliding MP out,
cranking down luxury, the sliding back to restore, I can see that Ice Pal
has memory of TWO whippings at this stage. Pop 4 would be 3 due to size,
two for the whips, vs the temple and two MP, and one from luxury. Can't
quite cover it with our going 20% luxury rate. We can in fact handle it at
size 4 now with our going 20% luxury rate. I let it grow. I also see in
this test that Akkad has no memory of whippings (huh?!) Ceta has a memory
of 1 whip, Holguin has none. Rosa and Cardenas have forgotten.

Anyway, the quick test to see if you can rise a size w/o unhappiness
is to slide one MP out, see if any unhappy faces, and return him (it's
via road obviously).

340 AD (9) - More fishing.

350 AD (10) - Lola finally finishes her temple, and begs the next leader
to whip her in WWW fashion! Cetacaean also finishes its harbor.
Treasury at 21, expenses net 20 with 'up' sci rate of 40% (darn, 2 turns
if we could only sustain it). At zero sci though it's 29 turns. Hmmm, that's
only ten turns less than it was 10 turns ago. Ah, sweet, it's only
4 turns away at 'Steady-state', 20%. So over this reign the flipping
saved one turn (14 vs 15 turns). The turnip bleeds, just one drop :hammer:
Actually, very good chance that that '4' will turn into 3 as you almost
always get to drop back at that last turn when it's due. Soon... (well, 40 yrs)
the Republic!

EVERY city now has two MP units stationed in it (Knox's is on the way)
There's just one 'extra' unit which can be stored in Ur or Havana,
or replace a warrior. Havana and Ninevah are producing one extra for
Havana and Ur. Until contact is made, that should be enough.

The amount of whips left, overall, is small. Most have had their 'three'
and need to heal for a good while. The only ones left I see are Lola's
and Tamarino's harbor, and Knox Granary.

I know you'll check out the cities, Ur will need definite attention (and Ninevah
might if it reaches 6), but this turn its generating the cash to keep us positive. You can probably eek out some more cash over the rock.

So, do we see a few hundred years of peace or does someone land on our shore
next turn? (I SURE hope the former) Does us getting the GL in any way
"announce" us to the world?

Good luck,
Charis

Here's the situation in 350 AD, as we sit in perfect isolation, awaiting our Forbidden Palace 36 turns from now :hammer:

Charis

One thing I intend to do with military is continue to build spears at Havana. These will continuously be sent around to replace warriors, which can be trucked to some needy village and disbanded for 2 shields. What else is Havana going to do? Build wealth? Workers? We will have the economy to pay for some troops. I'd rather build infrastructure than troops, but I'd rather build more troops than sit on wealth in major cities. Worst case, build spears and send them around to be disbanded for five shields in needy locations. That's only if lack of contact drags on and ON, though. I don't think it will come to that. The AI's are so expansionistic, somebody ought to find us by the time our FP comes online. This IS, after all, an 80% water map, so they won't be endlessly occupied like they were in RBD3.

Some more tips: check the advisors. Science advisor will tell you if you are "technologically advanced" "moderately advanced" or "as backward as a pushcart going the wrong way down a one way street". :lol: Trade advisor will clue you in to who would want to trade for luxuries/resources we have sitting around. Military advisor can let you know what government each opponent is in.

Oh, and good one with the "move the military out to have a look" trick. I've done that on scattered instances, but not quite for the same purpose. I'll keep an eye on our whipped cities and see what comes of it.

- Sirian

Inheritance: Nothing significant to report, all is well in Cuba. Previous Leader left nothing to nit over. (No, really!)

360AD: MMOW

370AD: MMOW.

380AD: After 30-0-30 science, we discover Philosophy, drop to zero research, send a small team of elite alchemists to Fort Knox to mull over possibilities for improving our government.

390AD: MMOW. Yawn. Click next turn, expecting five more turns of MMOW. A galley moves into our area via sea currents from the west. Um... it has more than two hit points.

Still in between turns, we THEN get news that the Zulu have completed the Great Wall. (Wow! The Zulu?? Oh man).

Wait! Still not done! One of "our" four barb galleys attacks the German "intruder" and gets slaughtered.

400AD: A new era has dawned! We are too poor to establish embassy, but time for some intel gathering. F8 yields cultural dominance for us (no surprise), also score dominance, but they have been slowly catching up since that last flurry of settlers in the north. It does appear they may one day pass us.

Now the bad news: we are also the first civ THEY have contacted, and we need two contacts to make the Great Library active. Also, they have every tech we have, so we can't sell them anything, and we also have every tech THEY have. Nothing else I can do.

410AD: Establish embassy in Berlin, it is QUITE some bit of distance away, and landlocked. Looks to be on a river, was size 8 I think. 9 culture per turn, every improvement we have plus courthouse. Only about 350 total culture? Most of those improvements are recent, I would suppose. I am dismayed to find market value for RoP at only 30 gold to us. I ask for 20 and they agree without complaint. Attitude improved to polite.

420AD: MMOW.

430AD: Second of "our" galleys attacks. German ship now elite.

440AD: MMOW.

450AD: Third galley goes down. Still not a scratch on the Germans. (If you think the fourth and final galley will take out the Germans, I have some tropical beachfront property to sell you in Santa Lola. :lol: ) My turn ends.


I built a lot of walls in the south, had most of them going before the Germans arrived. Their galley is circling us clockwise, and let us pray they find another civ soon. Wouldn't it be ironic as all get out to have company, but just ONE other civ until way way late. Gah. Pray it ain't so!

San Cyreno could whip toward a granary, either front or back end, your call. I'm astonished to say it, but we have almost completed work on our island. (How can this be?? We seemed so far short not all that long ago!) What we will do with all those extra workers when we switch govt, I have no idea. :) There's not much sense mining the tundra (in most cases). We'd only plant over it anyway.

I built a number of spearmen. Disbanded four or five warriors, have others moving toward the disbanding area. Cyreno was helped by this process. The Germans have made me nervous, a militaristic civ. I think we should run 3 spears and a horsie in Ur, just to make sure they understand it's defended. Holguin actually looks like a possible courthouse candidate! Maybe it will shape up when the FP comes in, it IS a little closer, but I have some doubts. Ellipi may also want for a courthouse at some point, it can lose between 20 and 34% of shields, but maybe both of these will ease up with change of govt. The rest all look OK.

We sure could use more tech, to get started on infrastructure improvements. Pending such, just keep moderning the military, and wait and see what the AI's do. Check with Germany often.

One very good sign: "These guys are weak compared to our military!" Hahaha! :lol:


- Sirian

I would say "build some catapults" but... we don't have the tech. :cry:

I just hope more good things happen before FP time and revolt to Republic. If not, we could be in for some hard choices. I think we've done quite well so far, but there are difficult times ahead, it seems.


- Sirian

The best thing is...

One very good sign: "These guys are weak compared to our military!" Hahaha

:hammer: all right! My worse fears of being "discovered" by knights that made our military look like boy scouts, is dashed!

> I would say "build some catapults" but... we don't have the tech.

At one point mid-last turn I sort of startled myself and thought, "oh my, why aren't we preparing catapults", then I remembered that Mathematics had escaped us. It is kinda funny too we're their first contact. What I find REALLY odd though is that their techs are *identical* to ours! Pretty low odds I'm thinking. Question: if they offer a tech trade, decline on basis we'll get it via Library, or take it so we can build something (alas, then so can they). I would guess that if we're hunting for decent choices to use shields on go for it, else not. OTOH, we would expect to pay almost whatever is asked for more contact, because that's how we'll get GL techs.

On the Spearmen at Havana, good idea - I meant to suggest that, replacing the Warriors. Using them as a "shield caravan" is actually a great idea too. As for leftover workers... once we get the ground worked over enough to cover their max sizes, once we switch to Republic and get FP, many workers can join the small cities and get them to max and productive size instantly.
They can be built later at less cost than the shield gain, and with no maintenance in between.

Extra military in Ur, Havana and in 'resource' cities is a must.

Now it goes from a 'pure' building game to diplomacy.
Charis

Looking to...
- develop good relations with Germany giving nothing away
- get Republic in 40 turns
- finish any city improvements left
- get a few extra defenders in key cities
- get some walls up
- consider a Cyreno granary whip

But to start with, I thought very long and hard to squeeze more blood from a
different turnip.

I checked the Ice Palace at the beginning of the turn and saw that it now
only has one whipping memory left, no longer two. At size 3 that makes for two
unhappy due to size and one to whipping, taken care of by two MP and the temple.
At size four we would need a smiley face due to luxury revenue IN the Ice
Palace. At present we have commerce of 3 per turn, minus one corruption.
Moving a worker to a square with gold, we get 4 per turn but two corruption.
With one more worker, all on gold squares, it should be 5 commerce and
two corruption. Three net times 20% luxury gives 0.6 smilies, which are
rounded up. At size four we CAN handle the sadness of the whipping if
we have the workers each on a square with commerce. We can get the same
shield production, or maybe (?!) one more shield, with our choice of from
-2 to +1 excess food. Net difference?? When all is said and done, with no
other changes, not TOO much. I think we get one extra gpt, and an extra food
squares (2.2.1) for Guantanimo Bay, and when FP is done, Ice Palace is size 4.

But there's ONE extra thing to try. This too will be seen as utterly weed
induced or a picomanagement stroke of genious?! There IS a way to speed up
FP production by *four* whole turns... Hook up the iron for the next
20 turns! i) Bringing a commerce point to that square lets us stay content
at size 4 using the square, ii) that runs 10 shield production, with six
instead of five 'actual' shields. That's a 20% bonus cutting the time to
the fp by 4 turns. That's a lot. iii) It let's us make at least ONE swordsman,
and I think (??) the AI's ask the question: what is the maximum attack value
unit they have, when considering a nation's strength. ("The xyz's fear your abc")
iv) We can 'pillage' the road after the FP is up and de-connect the iron.
v) Germany has Iron and won't see us as unwilling to 'share' something we have
and they need. The only downside (if of course I've not messed up the math)
would be if the iron were to run out. Frankly one can't be blamed for that.
It's a low, low probability event (which some of us HATE and others think is
good), which could happen if it's connected now or connected later. Whenever
we hook it up to stay, we're toast if it dies within 20 turns anyway.

The plan is executed!!! (The question is... will Charis be executed?!)

450 AD (0) - Ice Palace takes back a 2.2.1 square from Guantanimo to grow
to size four in two turns, same shield production. Three workers who just
started tasks next to the iron move over to start road next turn.
(Holguin has no whipping memory, so the Library is whippe... no wait.
We COULD, with no problem, but there's actually no gain. We're running no
science, it has nothing better to make, and it would result in a maintenance
cost. Nevermind.)

In between turns, we get this unexpected report...

No weed, at least not yet :P

English destroyed eh?


460 AD (1) - Ellipi grows unhappy and finishes a spearman, so we start a
worker. Cove finishes walls and we start a "cash-horse" (one we will disband
elsewhere for shields). Chupa starts cash horse too. Lola grows to size 2,
should the harbor be whipped? She has memory of one whipping, and is likely
close to forgetting about it. Why reset their memory timer and add a second
unpleasant memory. There are four warriors standing in the middle of nowhere.
They yearn to help complete an important project. So they are sent to Lola.
San Roberto, now size four and with memory of two whippings, is unhappy.
The unhappy whiner is put on tax collection duty.

470 AD (2) - Bablyon finishes Spear, starts Spear. How many more do we need?
With 28 Spears and 22 cities, a lot more. 14 to build, at least, replacing
about 13 warriors. For workers finishing roads in tundra, I mine spots
which could be chosen by two cities, for flexibility, and leave others
to wait for forestry. Ice Palace is now size four and shifts citizen from
iron square to a forrest with road for the commerce. Phew! We ARE content
with that maneuver. 25 turns from FP, let's get that road online!

Cyreno grows to size two and is at 38 shields. (Is that asking for a whipping
or what? A granary is needed, and is a logical choice. Front whip or rear
whip? Depends when last one was done- if very recent, whip now, if >10 turns,
back whip. It has memory of one right now. The annals report a temple whip
in 110 BC, and partial harbor whip in 290 BC twelve turns later. That was
18 turns ago. Ah, excellent! Should be erased in about 2 turns, we'll whip then)

480 AD (3) - Between turns the Chinese city of Xinjian completes the Hanging
Gardens. The iron road comes online and instead of 24 turns to the FP, now
we're 20 turns away! :hammer: (Odd minor point... the road appeared right
at the start of the turn. Perhaps automated worker improvements are
factored in before happiness calculations. Sorta like food before production.
Hmm... would an automated irrigation set to finish kick a city one food
short up to a new size? I'll have to test that). We start to make our
four requested swordsmen. (Can sell 'em later ;p) BTW that's three wonders
for China, one each for Aztecs, Babs, Zulus and Egpyt. Seems a half-military
half-builder game. Our ranking is 1000 compared to Germany's 757, nice.
F11... whoa!! Ur is in the top five! :hammer: We're up in approval, pop.

490 AD (4) - Cyreno? Tada! The annals are correct, it has this turn lost all
memory of earlier cruelty. So we whip it! (via barracks toward granary)
Quite conventiently, 20 turns left to finish granary, so when it's done...
so is the memory of THIS whipping. San Rosa has a little party, as three
brave warriors give their all for 6 shields toward her harbor.

500 AD (5) - Havana, our beautiful capitol, expands its influence. At this
the people expand the palace. All else is quiet.

510 AD (6) - Santa Rosa expands. MMOW. Decide to let Knox grow one to get
a whipping in now. (Prolly should have done this much earlier)

520 AD (7) - The Germans sail away! Good, now stay away until you meet someone
else to introduce us to!

530 AD (8) - Knox gets its half whip. That effect will be 'over' when the
granary is complete in 20 turns.

540 AD (9) - The German scientists finally come up with something we don't
know... Mathematics. World Map and 300 gold??? HA!! No thanks, we'll get
it for free as soon as you get your little rubber dingie ship off to the
west somewhere and MEET somebody! What else do we learn? They fear our
"swordsmen" (hehe) and are equal in science and military. (Mil advisor says
compared to these guys in Despotism we have a strong military) In fact we're
at 86 of 88 'free' troops. (Well... they count workers as troops :P No wonder
the Germans fear us! Our shovel patrol could STOMP them!!! :hammer:)

550 AD (10) - San Charisso reaches size 2. You can go for growth in five
turns, or build library in 20, but not both. It's currently set in between.
You can also if desired whip the library (for culture sake and now that it
can grow to six via harbor). In 300 AD it was whipped last, so it's over that.
Hmmm... actually, he's got a warrior sitting there. I disband and whip right
now. :P There is a spearman en route from Havana for San Charisso.
Holguin and Ashur are one food short of growing which would make them
unhappy so I rearranged them to zero growth. Akkad is on high commerce and
one shield, so he's on wealth for one more gold. Cardenas same way.

I see no more whippings to do, unless a courthouse is needed. This is good,
it's only 13 turns before the FP comes online, 22 til Republic. Exceptions:
Tamarino and Knox, our latest built cities will need the whip yet.

We have at this point 7 warriors left, to cash in (or to upgrade for 40 gold
to Swordsmen, not the best use of cash although they would cash in then for
more shields). There's one extra warrior now in Ashur which still has a move
this turn. Send him to a needy project or upgrade.

I don't think I've **ever** seen a road network or such total mining/irrigation
of usable squares by 500 AD. :P

Good luck!
Charis

Not much to report this turn. MMOW.

I managed to sneak some walls in on a few towns (noticed that all walls I'd left unfinished last turn got the veto stamp.) :)

I took your advice with disbanding troops. Rather than build them and disband, however, I disbanded ones already in position then replaced them. All warriors are now history. All nonvet units are history.

Good move with the iron, and the swords. I don't object, just didn't want to start placing it at risk until we could get something useful out of doing so.

I left all cities with 1 shield on wealth. Some libraries got worked on in cities with more shields. Libraries already under construction got boosted with disbanded units, as did granaries.

Reconfigured Ellipi to sustain size 6. Started it on a courthouse, as I think in this location it will pay for itself, and then some, over time.

Germans were quiet. I THOUGHT I was being clever in trying to sell them some of our extra workers, but the option wasn't there. Guess a viable trade route is needed for that.

I urge the German RoP just be left alone. Asking for more cash from them might not be the best plan, diplomatically, and they would only cough up chump change, if that. We're sliding in the F11 stats, but sitting idle will do that. Germany now has both math and Republic, and have completed their revolution. They now seem to be making bookoodles of gpt. One of their cultural borders is peeking from the fog, so they have at least one city just off the edge of our vision. No sign of anybody else, no world news. FP due in 3 turns.

Just be careful with the horsies from Cove, they are not veteran, so those can't "replace" others you may disband. Also, we are just one unit under the maintenance cap. I actually PAID some maintenance on my turn before all the surplus units reached target sites and were disbanded.

I wanted to start building some fortifications, but... we don't have that tech yet either. So for lack of something to do, I mined a lot of tundra. Go ahead and build libraries everywhere in the north once the FP is online. I suggest no more whippings, we're too close to the revolution now.


- Sirian

:sheep:

650 AD (0) - All looks fine. Ninevah tentatively moved to Courthouse.

660 AD (1) - Cyreno size 2 and 39 shields to Library, ready for a whipping.
Checking the records and double-MP-walkout shows we should wait 3 turns
for previous memory to fade. Lola starts a Library in prep for whipping soon.

670 AD (2) - :party: Forbidden Palace is now online! :hammer:
Our excess gold jumps from 35 to 61, a not-insignificant jump!
Ice Palace can now crank a waste-free 10 shields per turn (at no-grow).
That will do it's Library in 4 turns. Guantanimo gets waste-free 5/turn
as it sits now. Decent!! Wait til Republic! (10 more turns) Going to aim
for production of real units to finish in 10 turns or less.
Lola, still at one shield, whips her library. Tamarino starts a library,
we may send him some 'shield-horses' to help it complete.
Ninevah with two waste and two corruption decides to proceed with its
courthouse.

680 AD (3) - All pause to meditate on the awesome wonder that is the Forbidden
Palace. All vow to commit themselves to education and the glory of Cuba!

690 AD (4) - Cyreno forgets what it is like to be whipped. We remind him :hammer:

700 AD (5) - 720 AD (7) - MMOW.

730 AD (8) - Cove takes up science duty for a few turns so Knox can whip
a Library.

740 AD (9) - Germany remains polite, with 45 gold, and the same two techs,
Math and Republic. Oops, can't whip Knox which is only size one. Start
growing it.

750 AD (10) - Ur and Lola expand. Knox and Tamarino finish Library.
1289 gold in treasury +63/turn. Anything built is due in 3 or less turns,
Republic due in 3. The scientist is now in San Martino. (He thought it was
San Martini!!) At this rate wall street would be nice :P Speaking of which
Ur is at 24 turns. We may not research anything by then. But when we do start
researching our own, **EVERY* city has a Library now!! On the Demographics
chart, Thebes zooms to first place (up from 2 to 12 in size) and we're at 3 and
5 with Havana AND Ur. Germany is NOT on the list, but China and Aztecs are.
Our approval rating continues to climb, we're still top in Literacy, and
holding solid in the middle in other categories.

The only real question coming up is which tech next? Actually just two
choices Mathematics and Polytheism. One gives catapults and leads to
Construction, and Currency, the other to Monarchy. Hmm, no choice at all
is it? (Especially with Hanging gardens already built by ) E=mc2!

Usher us into a new government of excellence! (Preferably without revolt.
Mouse click on center square right arrow key combo does this quickly ;p)
Although... we'll only be out of commision 1 turn being religious :hammer:
I think I predicted about 30 extra gpt under republic, but we've bloated up
to about 30 extra units to support, so our gold may not increase much.
OTOH, our science/beakers should go way up. If we're 11th in getting these
last ancient techs, we might care to research our own, maybe in 4 to 8
turns each without much deficit at all, I'm not sure. If not we'll have
nothing whatsoever to build until German contacts someone.

Oh, I hope you like the arrangement of the idle workers up North. Muhahaha!
Under republic with no MP we have the option of moving the second mil unit
to the coast and being unassailable pre-Marines!

Let me toss out a long shot that goes against the "ride-the-GL". what if...
the others STILL have not found each other? If they haven't by now, they
won't until Astronomy! What if we go for break-even science research for the
last three techs in our era at 6-7 turns each for 20 turns. We enter the
Middle Ages, and *we're scientific*. That free tech advance and one more we
research, mean we might (???) get SunTzu or Leo's with good denying power, or
the most excellent Sistine's. We could slow Ur's shield rate down to JUST
make this time frame. In any case, snagging Math and even currency at break
even research rate would give us something to do and keep this route open.
If still no contact by then, we might get a second 'miracle' wonder?!
This seems too low probability, wastes our first wonder, and burns our
cash reserve, so I'm not suggesting it, just tossing it out. If we DON'T
research more actively and no new contacts, Ur will complete the Palace
long before a wonder-tech is learned.

Good luck,
Charis

looking at your world map, I see one thing that you may consider doing. And that is moving the palace to Ashur. It looks to be a rather good site for a palace, and is more central/productive than Babylon.

Anyway, have fun :)

Actually their capital is Havanna, just south of Ashur, which has some decent terrain in the form of flood plains and hills (i.e. makes a good no-corruption city) and is in a reasonably central location already. Probably not worth moving the capital into the middle of the desert...

I came up in several games at once, so... I'll get to this one when I can. I've done RBD3 (that one's going to start taking quite a bit longer to play 10 soon), need to do infantry, got 5 brewing, and maybe more (need to check). Depending on how long those go, I'll fit in another turn here sooner or later.

:fish:

- Sirian

Good deal, this one is meant to be 'filler', behind the others in priority. I just finished a *rousing* rbd3-builder turn :hammer: which took most of the eve.

Oh NO, 3am?!?! Not again! :eek:

Charis

PS Mrs C is gonna lay down the hammer... :hammer:

Charis:

My actions are fairly self-explanatory. I independently came to pretty much the same conclusions you posted and was already planning to get at least math and currency. So on inherited turn, I swapped every city to max shields and put em all on courthouse placeholder, gambiting in the direction of marketplaces.

After 5 turns, our revolt was complete, I bought Math off Germany for 410 gold (barely above market value, but they wanted maps as part of their offer). They then had construction on hand, and I spent the rest of our treasury plus a few gpt for that, and looked at our dismal happiness situation. We lost martial law, so... a lot of cities had to start some entertainment. I saw that collesseums MUST come first before aqueducts everywhere but Havana.

I swapped Ur to high food, it's now growing, and on min shields. I saw more holes in your shore blockades than a sieve, so I just vetoed that and built forts on our two irons, with units on both, and mining the ice "to create jobs" for our people in a New Deal sort of useless make-work way. I merged one worker into San Charisso but we should hold off until cities grow on their own to size 7 before merging more anywhere, IMO. That means running max shields until they have collesseum and aqueduct, then max food until they grow to 7, then back to max shields and fold in what workers we can afford to, happiness-wise.

We can run 20% science at ~break-even. Yet that was onl