Our UU, the Gallic Sword, a 3-2-2 unit, becomes available with Iron Working. It cost 40 shields, ten more than a normal Sword.

If we win a battle in a non-Barbarian contest, we start our Golden Age.

Which we could do rather soon, if we so desired.

But, do we desire or not?

This thread is in place to brainstorm about how we do want to set off our Golden Age and discuss some tactics and strategies on how to do that.

And don't forget, we could also trigger our GA with Wonders.

We hopefully can time this with our change to republic. We can build some swords before that to build up a suitable sized army, but we will need to keep them out of the fighting if we want to avoid a despotic Golden Age. Our mortal enemy is close and could settle our dyes before we can get there.

Why have a big party with so few people? We should build many more towns before trying to have a golden age.

In story terms, it make sense to start our GA by 'dealing' with Elizabeth.

In game terms, there is no need to rush. We can build some Gallic Swords and stuff them around the capital until we're ready for our GA.

Which sort of begs the question: what do we want to do with Elizabeth and her ilk? Stomp them into the dirt now or keep them around until the end? Or something in between?

I like a slow painful forced migration that takes centures, till she's stuck in the frozen north.

Expand in her direction, possibly stealing a few resources if we can get there fast enough. Then go through some cycles of taking the best cities and making her resettle further and further away, till she's down to a little resourceless corner.

A golden age timed with the first major annexation of English lands would make a good story and should be at a good time in the game too.

I can't help but think of the DG1 strategy for Immortals.

Once we get Iron, try to only hook 1 city up to it (with Barracks). Have the other cities mass produce Warriors and upgrade them at the Iron city. This greatly increases Swordsman (Gailc Warrior) production, however requires a strong economy to be able to support it.

Yep, I remember that, Falc. Then we sent about ten Immortals North to discuss assimilation of American cities into Fanatica with Abe.
:groucho: :ninja:

So the question is... do we want to try something similar with this DG and our Gallic Swordsmen?

yes. even though i came to civfanatics long after the first demogame, that still sounds like an amazing strategy.

I tried to answer to you last night, Falcon02, but my battery died and I crashed.

We have plenty of rivers and port cities to help the roading generate Commerce early on, but most of our gold will go into research. Of course once we become a Republic, things will improve. But then war will be different. :)

Keep in mind that Gallic Swordsmen are more expensive to upgrade to, as opposed to Immortals. It's a good plan if we have the gold. We do not look plentiful on luxuries at the moment. That may also come into play.

A Warrior upgrading to a regular Sword is 60 gold, so a GS will cost 80 (I think). We might be able to afford 10 if we become a tech broker. That will likely require some suicide Curraghs to contact the other continent. If we can get a Barracks town up to 10 SPT, thats one GS every 4 turns. We may need a combo of building and upgrading to get a nice stack.

I think the cost would be 90. If I remember right, the formula is 3*[difference in shield cost].

I believe that by deciding to build the Statue of Zeus, we have pushed our twenty turns of glee a little further down the road, CB.