SGOTM 21 - Xteam

I'm still of the opinion that we should do a 3 pop whip of the customs house. Doing a 2 pop whip will cost 52-60 (dependent on OR) gold. I do not see the 14th pop producing 52 gold during the few turn it will be gone before growing back.
We'll be at Size 13 at the start of the Golden Age.

I'm suggesting that we spend the first 3 turns of the Golden Age making 22 final Hammers per turn, growing roughly 1.5 population points, and whipping down to Size 12, which is our desired minimum population size to maintain in X-ops.

If we wait to 3-pop-whip, we'll have to wait even longer to get our Customs House.


I'm also thinking that we'll be completing the Heroic Epic in Surfin' Turf one turn before the Golden Age so that we can overflow Hammers into a one-turn Confucian Missionary built in Surfin' Turf at the start of the Golden Age when we're back in Organized Religion, for Hippos.

But, even if we don't do so, then Gems can build the Heroic Epic when X-ops isn't building it.


If we really want to overflow Hammers from population points into Failure Gold, please plan to do so in a City that IS NOT our capital, such as in Gems, or in another City for a World Wonder. Citizens in our capital are incredibly valuable and the goal should not be to whip them away for Failure Gold.


@CP: Yes, you are correct. That's what you were already doing earlier in the game.

I'm not quite sure who to blame/praise for introducing that technique to the SGOTMs, but I think that it probably came from Murky Waters. I think that a decision was made that it was one of those tactics that is too hard to enforce, so it was decided just to inform all teams about it so that everyone could equally make use of it. The same reasoning is used for many behaviours that we take as common-place now, including seemingly-fundamental tactics such as pre-Chopping, joining in on "fake wars" with AIs where you don't lift a finger but still get Diplo credit, and countless other tactics.
 
I was not talking about whipping into overflow gold. But we have to put 60 hammers into the customs house to prevent a 3 pop whip which we could have turned into 52/60 gold instead.

But I realize now that we have 4 war unhappiness. Once the war is over it does not make sense to whip population.
 
I find it amazing that Elizabeth has not built a single unit.
 
PPP
Sell theology to China.
Keep track of nationalism progress for Mansa. Trade SM for nationalism as soon as it is completed.

war stuff
Amphibious invasion of the huns? China has been attacking them and are probably lurking in the vicinity.

Hastings:
drop two more catapults next to Hastings. 147
drop 2 more WEs, 148
capture, 149

London:
drop Horatio and pick up WE,
drop 5 catapults next to london, 148
Drop 1 mace and 3 WEs, 149
Capture, 150
Attack London with 4 least hurt catapults, 6 WE, 1 mace and Horatio

Plan involves leaving Nottingham empty on turn 146 and Hastings empty on turn 148. Should be fine as Elizabeth no longer has any HAs.

What is the plan for Warwick?

cities
Finish NE in Utrecht. Then harbour for whip chain, (34 hammers).
Build failgold in Surfin' Turf and X-opolis.
Setup buildings to whip into the Kremlin. Starting with Harbour with up to 34 hammers.
The Hague could continue with missionaries, perhaps 2 pop whiping one in 2 turns.
I would like a drywhip of a catapult/maceman in york. There is no other way top prevent the loss of our people.
Build wealth and grow in size.
 
Some nice things:
- Mansa will give us Liberation credit for the City that got settled next to him

- Elizabeth still only has 3 City defenders at London


Some things that seem to suck but aren't that bad, as there are solutions to the problems:
- Mao being a pain and researching Theology... if he goes into Theocracy, we can probably still gift him Confucian Missionaries and get him to spread Confucianism on our behalf

- Our Galleons at Hastings seem to have arrived slower than hoped and don't really have the movement points that were expected of them. For sure, we'll move them 1NW out of the City this turn, so that Elizabeth's Triremes don't trap our Galleons in port. But, we're probably going to have to have the "stack" that is SW of London defended by only 2 WEs and form a new stack of Catapults 1E of London which only gets defended by Horatio

- We hardly captured any Buildings in Hastings, but again, that fact just further justifies the-Elizabeth-as-a-Voting-Buddy plan, as we really have hardly anything to lose and a nice backup option to gain. It would such to be at a point where Mansa Requests a tech and we have to turn him down, and another negative Diplo item or two making him not vote for us

- At last, no one likes Shaka, so we won't anger anyone for declaring war on Shaka, but we're not really in a position to fight Shaka

- We thought of the Stone Fort idea too late and our Stone Resource will be delayed, but at least we don't have to wait until Stone City gets settled before starting on the Fort. In fact, perhaps after Galleon 4 drops off Horatio at 1E of London, Galleon 4 can take 1 more London Worker to the Stone


Something that is potentially concerning:
- We were assuming that we could Galleon-chain units to Catherine, but Mansa has revealed a lot of Peaks in a seeming circle of Peaks. I really hope that we won't be forced to march troops across land just to get them to arrive in her capital, or find a really horrible situation such that if we don't capture one of her Cities, troops cannot even march to her area due to her capital being surrounded by an inland sea. If something really, really lame like that is set up on the map, then the map highly-unfavourably favours warmongering. That's probably a worst-case scenario, but we won't know ourselves until we drop off a unit to explore Catherine's area or pass an Airship over her area, as she will only trade World Maps at Friendly (i.e. she won't give us her World Map even if we meet her)

Assuming that our tech path is going to be: Communism -> Physics, we should be able to build an Airship, rebase it to Toku's eastern City of Tokyo, use it to recon at Catherine in order to meet her, get Open Borders with Catherine, rebase our Airship into one of her Cities, then recon the rest of her lands. Doing so is probably going to be just as fast or faster than sending a unit on a boat

If there's an overland path to her capital, we'll be set. If her capital is 7 squares away by Road via the nearest port, our Workers can build a partial Railroad from said City to her capital

If there is no purely-over-land path, we'll have to fight a war with Catherine, but we won't really know that until we're engaged in a war with Shaka



China went to war with the Zulu
How do we take advantage of this fact without dying ourselves?

We weren't able to bribe Mao into a war with Shaka as Mao didn't like us. I wonder if giving Mao Astronomy did it or if Louis bribed Mao.
EDIT: Louis bribed Mao to attack Shaka... Shaka has "-2 You brought in a war ally against us!" toward Louis

Anyway, at least we won't upset Mao for declaring war on Shaka, but we're likely to upset Louis and/or Mao for refusing to join the war until we're ready to fight Shaka.

Are we going to be ready to attack Shaka in the next 10 turns?

If we think that we can be, I suppose that we'll just have to accept the negative Diplo.

If we think that it will take us 10 turns to get ready for the war (that would probably be some pretty bad logistical planning) or if we simply want to wait 10 turns so that our Workers don't have to fear Shaka's units, we could consider Demanding a small sum of Tribute Gold from Shaka to avoid war for 10 turns.


Let's try and count things out:
T147: Land Catapults
T148: Bombarding, possibly landing other attackers
T149: Probably capturing London and Coventry at the earliest
T150: Wait a turn for Elizabeth to stop being the AP Resident
T151: Hope that Mansa is still at war with Elizabeth otherwise we might have to delay these steps until we can get Mansa into Taoism so that he hates Elizabeth: Cease Fire with Elizabeth, Liberate Cities to Elizabeth, recapture Elizabeth's Cities
T152: Load our units that captured Elizabeth's Cities onto boats
T153 - T154: Sail and be in position to attack Shaka
T155: Maybe by now most of our units have been healed and some have been offloaded to defend The Hague and Hippos, while other units are ready to attack Shaka's Cities

That's almost 10 turns, so perhaps it is worth Demanding Tribute from Shaka, to avoid angering Louis and/or Mao for not joining in on their war against Shaka right away.



Other overall concepts:
- Capturing Hun (at Mao) isn't just about getting troops there, but it is also about getting Workers there (probably 2 or 3 of the ones from around London). So, we can unload HA 1 and WE 9 this turn and have Galleon 5 plan to meet up with another Galleon who chains some Workers for Hun. Ideally, we'll do:
Chop 2 Forests into a Settler on the turn that Hun comes out of City Revolt
Whip the Settler on the next turn
Liberate the City to Mao on the next turn

Marble City was Liberateable to Mao with 2 of our Culture in it, but not with 6 of our Culture in it, so 4 of our Culture is really going to be pushing the limit

If we rush to capture Hun, we probably will be unable to whip a Settler out of there, so rushing to capture the City is a dangerous proposition. Instead, our Galleon 5 should be heading back as soon as possible to bring some Workers on the scene


- The whole point of Chopping into the National Epic this turn was so that our build queue would show: Culture -> National Epic. I don't see a Culture build there

- Similarly, York should show Culture -> Catapult

- It is easy to forget that Cities can share darkened squares. Gems could be working a G Farm that is shared with Surfin' Turf in place of the Windmill, to grow Gems 1 turn faster

I'll be making additional micro comments shortly.
 
Can you explain the culture bug?
 
Culture build item
When you build Culture, the game converts Hammers into Culture.

If your City's Cultural Borders expand at the end of a turn when you are building Culture, the Culture build item gets removed from the build queue, to conveniently remind you that your Cultural Borders have expanded and letting you know that you probably now want to build something else

Someone discovered that if you have a build item in the build queue after the Culture build item, that build item appears at the top of the build queue when the Culture build item disappears. In addition, that build item gets all of the Hammers that went into the Culture build item

So, we get out Hammers going into both Culture and the build item that we place in the build queue after the Culture build item

If you fail to put a second build item in the build queue after the Culture build item, then you don't earn the extra Hammers



Amphibious invasion of the huns?
We can't do that. It takes 5 turns to Chop a Tundra Forest (1 turn to move there and 4 turns to Chop). A Size 6 City will be in City Revolt for 5 turns (confirmed via the World Builder with a mighty Lion).

What we need are 3 Workers: 1 for Stone and 2 for Hun

With Galleons 5 and 4 working together, we might just be able to make it on time to get our 2 Forest Chops at Hun as soon as the City comes out of City Revolt, with help from the Worker inside of Hun. If the Forest Chops come any later, we will be unable to risk getting a Settler out of Hun before Liberating the City to Mao


Hastings:
drop two more catapults next to Hastings. 147
I'm going to assume that you mean Coventry and not Hastings.


London:
drop Horatio and pick up WE,
We're going to have to be tricky here, as Galleon 4 will also be needed for transporting 3 Workers, so we'll have to pick up and trade off the War Elephant


drop 5 catapults next to london, 148
There's no reason that we need to wait until T148 to do what we can do on T147.


Plan involves leaving Nottingham empty on turn 146
I'm not sure why we would need to take this risk. If Elizabeth sends her Mace S + SE to the GH Mine Road that is 2NE of Nottingham, what will we do? We'll cry.

Having to recapture Nottingham would be a royal pain in the butt. Plus, then Elizabeth would be encouraged to build another City Defender in London due to having moved her Maceman away, which then defeats the purpose of using 1 more attacking unit as it means that she'll get 1 more unit of her own while probably also capturing Notthingham, which will not be convenient to retake... before we can stop her, she could whip a couple of Longbowmen in the City.

Please don't take this risk.


and Hastings empty on turn 148.
Again, there shouldn't be a need to do so. With the massive reshuffling of units on the Galleons in this City, though, we'll be leaving 2 War Elephants in the City, WE 5 and WE 6. WE 6 can stay in the City to heal. WE 5 will be able to join in the assault on Coventry as follows:
T147 WE 5 moves SE, S from Hastings to end up 1NW of Canterbury
T148 WE 5 and probably Longbowman 1 (in Canterbury) move to the GH Iron that is 1SW of Coventry, blocking the only Road out of Coventry
T149 They help in the attack on Coventry, if needed, or the War Elephant kills a Horse Archer who moved 2W or W, SW out of Coventry, while Subutai kills a Horse Archer who moved W, NW out of Coventry


Should be fine as Elizabeth no longer has any HAs.
Elizabeth has access to Horse and thus could build a Horse Archer at any time.


What is the plan for Warwick?
We don't want to put any Culture into the City, otherwise, we might miss out on +2 Diplo credit with Elizbath for the City not being Liberateable. A Size 2 City will be in City Revolt for 3 turns. Ideally, we'll remain at war with Elizabeth until we're ready to Cease Fire with her, so as to encourage Mansa to stay at war with Elizabeth.

If Mansa stops the war with Elizabeth, he'll likely go back to being Pleased toward her due to no longer being in a Heathen Religion, so we don't want to take that risk. If that situation occurs (Mansa making Peace with Elizabeth), we'll have to bribe Mansa into a Civic other than Free Religion (Organized Religion would not be a good choice as we don't want him further spamming Hinduism), so we'd need to be in Pacifism ourselves.

Thus, for fear of Mansa messing things up, we shouldn't capture Warwick until the turn where we are ready to Cease Fire with Elizabeth. That turn will be on the turn after we've captured Elizabeth's land Hindu City (her last 2 Hindu Cities are Coventry and London). But, if Mansa is Pleased toward Elizabeth due to ending the war with her, then we'll delay the capture of Warwick even further until we have gotten Mansa into Taoist Pacifism and can then afford to Cease Fire with Elizabeth, Liberate her Cities, and immediately redeclare war on her to recapture the empty Cities.

The biggest problem that I see with this approach is Elizabeth getting a City Defender... how will we kill it? Her City is at Size 2, so she can whip a defender at any time. Our Galleons are all pretty busy and we've emptied the nearby area of Military Units. So, when's the earliest, in the best case, that we can capture Warwick? Assuming that we can capture London on T149, then wait until T150 to perform the Cease Firing, then we'd have 3 turns prior at the earliest in the best case that we can capture Warwick. That would be next turn, T147. So, I suppose that we can be prepared to potentially capture the City starting next turn if she whips a defender (she can't whip a Longbowman but could whip a Chariot or an Archer). If she makes a Chariot, no worries. If she makes an Archer, then we may have to attack and just hope that we can capture London by T149.

One alternative option is to leave Elizabeth with both Warwick and Queen's Palace on the turn after we captured the last of London and Coventry. Then, even if Warwick gets a City Defender, as long as we have a boat nearby (Willem Galleon, perhaps?), we can capture Queen's Palace once it has grown to Size 2. Queen's Palace should reach Size 2 on T151.

The important point is that we end one of our turns where Elizabeth owns 0 Hindu Cities, and Hinduism can't auto-spread, so it's fine if she still has both Warwick and Queen's Palace at that time and we can then decide which City to capture (although we cannot capture Queen's Palace until T151 at the earliest, and not until T152 if she goes into Anarchy again, say, due to switching to Confucianism as her State Religion).


Finish NE in Utrecht. Then harbour for whip chain, (34 hammers).
Have the build queue show the following on T146: Culture build item -> National Epic build item

I thought that we discussed the build items in Utrecht and it was shown conclusively that a Harbour is not in any way justifiable. How do we work 2 Deer, 3 Mines, and hire 5 Specialists if we're whipping there?

If we also worked 4 Farms/Watermills, we would be losing 2 Food per turn.

That's a Size 14 City. It's not feasible for us to grow to Size 14, but I think that the point is clearly illustrated that it's not a place to Whip Buildings.

The only reason why we've chosen to Whip the Odeon is because we cannot grow the City to Size 14, so the City will have to hire only an Engineer while working the Mines and growing, then whipping the Odeon to complete The Taj Mahal, then switching the Mines to Artists, completing a Theatre afterward manually so that we can hire another 2 Specialists.

It is arguable that maybe we shouldn't even whip the Odeon.

If we want a build item to build in which to "park Hammers" after completing the National Epic, it could be a partial Theatre while we focus on City growth and hiring 1 Engineer.

If we WERE going to whip another Build item, it would be a Hindu Temple, not a Harbour, as at least a Hindu Temple would contribute base Hammers to The Taj Mahal, but we lack the population points to whip another build item and we don't want to slow-build a build item because we want to be massively growing this City

As for the Watermills at Utrecht, we'll want them:
1SE of Utrecht
2S of Utrecht
SE + S of Utrecht (must be built after the Watermill that is 2S of Utrecht)
1E of Utrecht (yes, over top of the Hamlet)

I'd complete the Farm at 1S of Utrecht before working on the Watermills, though, since we need to grow the City and the Farm can be completed reasonably quickly


The Hague could continue with missionaries, perhaps 2 pop whiping one in 2 turns.
Why would we want to whip a Missionary? There are several nice squares to grow into, such as Grassland Workshops, which are stronger than Whipping.

Consider: GH Mine = about equal to whipping, and it provides 1 F + 3 H
A Workshop at the start of our Golden Age = 2 F + 3 H

We definitely don't want to be whipping in The Hague as we get more Hammers by growing the City and working more Grassland Workshops

Other than Piscatorium, we don't want to spread Hinduism in any more of our own Cities, otherwise we risk being unable to win by AP Victory.

We eventually want to get Hinduism into Marble City and Stone City, but what's the rush? Our Galleons are all pretty busy right now.


I would like a drywhip of a catapult/maceman in york. There is no other way top prevent the loss of our people.
Anything above Size 1 is not really "our people" to begin with. ;)

But, let's say that we want a Maceman instead of a Catapult (that's a good idea).

We either get:
75 Hammers from 3-pop-dry-whipping
bringing us down to Size 3

Or, we get 17 Culture and 17 Hammers
We shrink 1 population point
We then get 75 Hammers from 2-pop-regular-whipping
bringing us down to Size 3

So, which would you rather have?
75 Hammers
OR
17 + 75 = 88 Hammers plus 17 Culture?

I think that there's a clear case against dry-whipping.

The extra Culture also gives Nottingham more squares to work once London falls and Nottingham comes out of City Revolt

We don't want to put too much of our Culture in Elizabeth's Cities that didn't have a lot of Culture in them, but York had a ton of Culture in it, so there's no fear of putting too much Culture into York


As for the units in Hastings:
We want one Galley to be dedicated to use at Coventry, which shouldn't be Galleon 7. So, Galleon 7 should not be the Galleon with the full-health Catapults on it and thus we're going to have to do some shuffling of units in the City

Galleon 7 should be dropping off Cats 1E of London and then rejoining the boat-killing action

Galleon 6 should be be used for dropping off 1 Cat 1E of London and then holding War Elephants to be dropped off later

Galleon 8 should get 3 Cats (2 of the ones from Galleon 7 plus Cat 20) for use at Coventry

The City Raider III Cats should go to London, since we may actually have turns to heal them there, whereas we won't have turns for healing Cats at Coventry


Happiness:
We currently have these Happiness Resources:
Dye, Gems, Ivory, Spice, Sugar, Wine, and Whale

Well, 2 of those Resources, Ivory and Whale, will become obsolete

If Mao ever gets Silver connected, we could get one in trade from him, but it probably won't be until we get him 2 Settlers that he'll connect one up

The only way to get Gold is if we pop it, Toku pops a 2nd one, or Mansa pops a second one

At least we'll get Incense from Stone City, so that'll help

Louis has 2 unconnected Silk Resources, so we'll have to keep an eye out for him to get those connected so that we can get one of them in trade

We also are giving away all of our Fur Resources, which is an opportunity for us to get +1 Happiness now by taking a Fur back from Mao and giving him a Corn in return



Suggested PPP
T146, 720 AD
Sell Theology to Mao and pray that he finally picks Gunpowder

Demand Gold Tribute from Shaka

Cancel this trade:
Wine from Mao <-> Fur

Trade:
Wine from Mao <-> Corn

Liberate All Hail Astro! to Mansa

Mace 1 stays inside of Nottingham


In Hastings:
Galleon 7 unloads all 3 of these units:
WE 3
Cat 16
Cat 19

Galleon 6 unloads these 2 units:
Cat 17
Cat 21

Galleon 8 unloads all 3 of these units:
WE 2
Cat 8
WE 6

These units load onto Galleon 7 (they will be dropped off 1E of London so that this Galleon can continue fighting Elizabeth's boats):
Cat 17
Cat 21
Cat 8

These units load onto Galleon 6 (the Cat will be dropped off 1E of London, while the WEs will stay on board):
WE 3
WE 2
(Cat 5 is still on board)

These units load onto Galleon 8 (they will be dropped off 1NW of Coventry and then the boat can be free to pick up other units for Coventry, if we so desire):
Cat 16
Cat 19
Cat 20

Wake up Galleon 6 (in Hastings) and move him 1NW
Spoiler :
We don't want Elizabeth to trap our fully-loaded Galleons in port and then have to dare to fight Triremes with 3 land-based units at stake


Wake up Galleon 8 (in Hastings) and move him 1NW

Galleon 4 moves 3N (2W of London)... not N, N, NE as there is a Trireme there

WE 8 (1SW of London) promotes to Combat I
WE 1 (1SW of London) boards Galleon 4


Galleon 5 (near Hun) unloads HA 1 and WE 9 1NW on the T For that is SE + E of Hun


Wake Spear 6 in The Hague and move him toward Warwick... the soonest that we should capture Warwick is on T147, assuming that we can capture London on T149


Spy 3 (2N of Canterbury): We don't need her visibility, so we might as move her to sit inside of Hastings

Gems: Switch Windmill to SW + W G Farm to grow 1 turn faster

Surfin' Turf: Switch 1 GH Mine and the Engineer to 2 G Riv Farms to grown 1 turn

EDIT: Hippos: Switch Fur to Coast to earn 10 final Hammers in the Forge

Utrecht: GH Mine -> SW + W Deer
Utrecht: Queue up Culture then National Epic

Canterbury: Coast -> Corn for 1 turn for the extra Hammer
Canterbury: Build Spearman, which we can whip after 3 turns
Spoiler :
If we Liberate a Size 2 City, it will become Size 1, so we might as well plan to whip before Liberating the City


York: Build queue should show Culture then Maceman
York: Spy Specialist -> Engineer Specialist


T147, 740 AD

Galleon 6 tries to end up 1N of London to meet up with Galleon 4, but will meet up with Galleon 4 at 1NE of London or NE + E of London if Elizabeth's Triremes are blocking those squares

Galleon 4 joins Galleon 6, preferably 1N of London, next best 1NE of London, next best NE + E of London

Galleon 4 manually only unloads Horatio 1E of London (don't click against the shore as we don't want to unload WE 1 onto the shore)

Galleon 6 unloads Cat 5 at 1E of London

WE 1 transfers from Galleon 4 to Galleon 6

Galleon 6 should now have 3 WEs on board and Galleon 4 should be empty

Galleon 4 moves to pick up 3 Workers from 1SW of London

Galleon 4 then moves north-westward so that it makes its way both toward Galleon 5 and Stone City with every move


Galleon 7 unloads its 3 Cats at 1E of London and plans to rejoin the fighting alongside of the QE Galleon


Galleon 8 unloads its 3 Cats 1NW of Coventry


Galleon 5 (near Hun) moves 1SE and then heads south-westward, with the plan of meeting up with Galleon 4 to take 2 of Galleon 4's 3 Workers


WE 5 (in Hastings) can move SE, S (to 1NW of Canterbury)

WE 6 can stay in Hastings to heal and guard the City in case Elizabeth builds Horse Archers in London

EDIT: Hippos: Switch GH Mine to Coast to earn 7 final Hammers in the Forge

EDIT: Utretch: Build Theatre but focus on City growth while hiring 1 Engineer Specialist

The Hague: I'm fine if we keep building another Hindu Missionary for now, in case the Piscatorium one fails to spread, but after that we may want to build a Mace for the war with Shaka

Canterbury: Corn -> Fish

York: 2-pop-whip the Maceman
 
So, what's left to do in the game, big-picture-wise?

Well, if we could accurately predict our Victory Date, we could plan to capture the last Hindu City of Elizabeth's on a certain date. If we knew when our competitors would finish, we could try to make the AP Vote come up on the same turn as when they finish and then if we're not ready to win at that time, we'd at least have had a chance to win at the right time.

The trouble is, I have no clue as to how long it's going to take to finish teching.


Switching into Communism is going to throw things off, but in our favour.

Massively selling techs to many AIs is probably going to help funding us with larger and larger piles of Gold.


Shaka has to die at some point, since he has so many Hindu votes that won't go our way. It might as well be after Elizabeth with our current tech level.

Fighting Shaka will allow us to finish off the Elizabeth #1 task.


Catherine doesn't really have to die and in the worst case, we have to capture 2 of her Cities on either side of a canal of water, then manage to get Open Borders with her again.


We're soon going to have Isabella in Hinduism, which will prevent Elizabeth from voting to stop trading with Isabella.


Whether we get 3 Great People or 1 Great Engineer for Isabella probably won't really matter... if it's a Great Engineer, our Great Scientist from Physics might be used as an Academy or might get used for Lightbulbing, pretty much offsetting the extra tech (Radio) that we'll have to learn.

I suppose that it will be possible to get yet another Great Person, but we might end up with 1 Great Engineer, 1 Great Scientist, and 2 Great Artists, still not giving us a 3-Great-Person Golden Age (seeing as how the Great Engineer would be used on Rock N Roll).


Or, maybe when we capture the Sheep + Whale City from Shaka, we'll have enough Forests to Chop into Rock N Roll and we won't need to use a Great Engineer to complete that Wonder, allowing us to run yet another Golden Age.



Then there's the whole Religious Civic situation... Free Religion is probably actually going to be our best long-term bet, even if it means not really getting a Shared Religion bonus with Elizabeth. Organized Religion won't help us too much if we're not going to bother building Factories and Coal Plants, which are probably not going to be worth building.

Pacifism for 1 City isn't really going to be worth it.

So, while Organized Religion at the start of the Golden Age and Pacifism likely partway through the Golden Age will be a good way to play, Free Religion will probably be our end-of-Golden-Age Religious Civic choice.

In fact, Elizabeth loves Free Religion, so she's likely to run that Civic anyway, and like us for doing so.


We'll want to stay in State Property once we switch into it and stay in it until the end of the game. Hopefully, Mansa won't beg us to switch to Free Market. One solution is to sell him Communism and hope that he switches into State Property or use Espionage to switch him, although Espionage Missions have a chance of failing.


It would be nice to capture the Barb City by Mao and the one by Louis, to help with getting them to like us more.


Catherine loves Hereditary Rule, so she's probably going to love everyone whom she meets who is running that Civic. Similarly, Louis will like her for certain, due to their shared Favourite Civic causing them both to be likely to always be running said Civic and therefore likely to maximize the Favourite Civic bonus with each other.



It's not clear if we'll be able to settle a gift City near Catherine or if we'll just have to spread Hinduism to one of her smaller-sized Cities.


At some point, we'll need a gift City for Toku, as well.


Oh, State Property gives us +10% Hammers, so our whipping-overflow calculations are probably all garbage.

That's a factor that's worth revisiting.



After the war with Shaka is over, our warring will probably be over and we can even consider disbanding large parts of our remaining army.


The Kremlin should make it easy enough to Whip Galleons and Tanks.

Musketmen could technically even be Drafted if we get a 3-Great-Person Golden Age, otherwise could be Whipped cheaply enough.


It would be nice to have Louis and Mao being Friendly toward us, especially if they could help us out with a tech or two here or there along the way.


Things are starting to resolve themselves. We just need to make sure that we reserve enough time to complete the turns. I think that after Folket's next turnset, if he isn't able to play a turnset soon after that, we should have someone else tag-team play a couple of turns, then hand it off back to Folket if he's available or to someone else if Folket's not available.

Although we're getting in some very efficient turns here, soon it will become a race against the clock if we don't find a way to increase the number of turnsets that we play.
 
Library
With Org Rel + State Property + Forge
14/90 Hammers in a Library is too many and the Library becomes a 1-pop-whipping action
12/90 (or less) Hammers in a Library will make it a 2-pop-whipping action
But, we already put 14 Hammers into Hippos' Library

With a Forge + State Property (or Org Rel + State Property)
18/90 (or less) Hammers in a Library will make it a 2-pop-whipping action

So, what are our options?
1. Don't Whip a Library in Hippos
2. Whip the Library when we have Org Rel but don't have a Forge
3. Whip the Library when we have a Forge but don't have Org Rel


Forge
With Org Rel + State Property
80/120 (or more) Hammers = Forge is 1-pop-whippable

With State Property but no Org Rel
With 88/120 (or more) Hammers = Forge is 1-pop-whippable


Odeon
With Org Rel + State Property + Forge
4/80 Hammers in an Odeon is too many and the Odeon becomes a 1-pop-whipping action
2/80 Hammers in an Odeon will make it a 2-pop-whipping action


Harbour or Hindu Temple
With Org Rel + State Property + Forge
32/80 (or less) Hammers will make it a 2-pop-whipping action


Theatre
10 final Hammers -> + 5 base Hammers made after 1-pop-whipping = max of 19 overflow Hammers
13 final Hammers -> + 4 base Hammers made after 1-pop-wihpping = max of 19 overflow
 
Some conclusions:
It's not worth whipping in Utrecht just to earn 19 extra overflow Hammers from a Theatre, and we can't whip an Odeon there anymore

Let's think about it:
We can already earn 21 base Hammers from:
City Centre 2
GH Deer 3
G Deer 2
3 GH Mines 3 * 4 = 12
Engineer 2
2 + 3 + 2 + 12 + 2 = 21

If we can make 21 base Hammers per turn, and whipping can make us at most 29 base Hammers, it's probably better not to whip there at all, as we need citizens for Specialists

Thus, for Utrecht, we go:
Culture -> National Epic
Slow-build a Theatre while focusing on growth
Slow-build an Odeon while focusing on growth
Start on The Taj Mahal somewhere while building Theatre and Odeon once Nationalism is learned


What about Hippos?
Well, this City grows really slowly, so I say that we just let the Library go

As it stands, we only have 2 population points that we can whip, maybe 3 if we grow another City Size, without taking away from working Hammer-earning squares during our Golden Age

During a Golden Age, we could earn:
City Centre 2
Deer 3
Whale 2
Horse 4
GH Mine 4
Fur 3
2 + 3 + 2 + 4 + 4 + 3 = 18 base Hammers

We're definitely going to want to whip our Forge, but it seems silly to whip it out of Organized Religion just to cater to the extra Hammers in the Library

It also seems ridiculous to try to only earn 2 final Hammers in an Odeon in a City where most of its good squares offer some Hammers

We could plan for a Harbour, but then after whipping, we'd only be growing at +1 Food per turn while working all of the Hammer-earing squares, so that's kind of silly to do, especially since we'll eventually get Watermills to work and at most we'd get The Kremlin 1 turn sooner by 2-pop-whipping prior to completing The Kremlin. Why not just get the Kremlin at the same time or 1 turn later and have the extra 2 population points to whip after having The Kremlin?

Thus, I would say that we only plan for Whipping a Forge in Hippos and nothing else

After that, we can dump Hammers into a Library, as cheap Libraries are something worth striving for in all of our Cities, seeing as how this game is a teching game

If we have Stone connected but don't yet have Organized Religion, we can dump Hammers into The Kremlin unless the Library is almost complete, in which case we could just finish off the Library first

If we WERE to try to whip the Harbour, we'd earn a maximum of 29 base overflow Hammers, which isn't a whole lot compared to a base of 18 Hammers per turn and we'd have a really tough time regrowing those population points

At best that's 1 turn saved on The Kremlin, but it's not a Wonder that we're in competition for.

It will be better just to save our population points for future whipping after we have The Kremlin, or to simply increase our Commerce rate


So, the question becomes... when should we whip the Forge?

I'm actually thinking that we can whip the Forge at the start of the Golden Age so that if we do have Stone connected, we can start slow-building The Kremlin. Also, if Organized Religion fails to spread, we won't sit around delaying the Forge forever


Thus, we need 88 final Hammers in the Forge and we have 71 final Hammers in the Forge now.

So, we do something like make 10 final Hammers on T146, 7 final Hammers on T147, then resume slow-building the Library on T148 and T149, finally whipping the Forge on T150. Then, we can begin work on The Kremlin as soon as Stone is available, rather than the alternative approach of waiting until T152 at the earliest to whip a Forge, T153 at the earliest to whip a Harbour, and T154 at the earliest to start on The Kremlin... the whipping of Buildings other than the Forge in this City just doesn't work, as we end up delaying when we start The Kremlin for just over a turn's worth of extra base Hammers.
 
"Things are starting to resolve themselves. If true, that should facilitate . . .

a way to increase the number of turnsets that we play." I'd prefer that some other members of the team participate, but I should be able to take some turns when Folket is ready to pass off. Tag teaming would seem inefficient, though, so hope Folket can continue for a while.
 
turn 147
sold theology to Mao for 10 gold and world map.
Demanded 40 gold from Shaka, who caved in.
Canceled fur/wine trade with China and started a wine/corn trade.
Liberated All Hail Astro!
Updated city micro.

IBT
Spearman in Canterbury got production destroyed by spies.
Revolt in York.
Mansa got a GE. Is there any chanec he will be used for the Taj Mahal?
Louis Finished the Hagia Sophia.
Archer has been whipped in Warwick.
China started to research gunpowder.

Spoiler :
Here is your Session Turn Log from 720 AD to 740 AD:

Turn 146, 720 AD: The enemy has been spotted near York!
Turn 146, 720 AD: X-opolis has grown to size 13.
Turn 146, 720 AD: Gems has grown to size 4.
Turn 146, 720 AD: Surfin' Turf can hurry National Epic for 4&#8692; with 22&#8484; overflow and +1&#8676; for 52 turns.
Turn 146, 720 AD: City 4 will become unhappy on the next turn.
Turn 146, 720 AD: Hippos has grown to size 7.
Turn 146, 720 AD: Hippos can hurry Library for 2&#8692; with 32&#8484; overflow and +1&#8676; for 10 turns.
Turn 146, 720 AD: Utrecht has grown to size 7.
Turn 146, 720 AD: Utrecht can hurry Odeon for 2&#8692; with 31&#8484; overflow and +1&#8676; for 13 turns.
Turn 146, 720 AD: Sleepy Sheep has grown to size 4.
Turn 146, 720 AD: The Hague can hurry Hindu Missionary for 1&#8692; with 32&#8484; overflow and +1&#8676; for 10 turns.
Turn 146, 720 AD: York has been pacified.
Turn 146, 720 AD: Nottingham has become happy.
Turn 146, 720 AD: The borders of Athens are about to expand.
Turn 146, 720 AD: The borders of Utrecht are about to expand.
Turn 146, 720 AD: The borders of York are about to expand.
Turn 146, 720 AD: Pericles's War Elephant 3 (Hippos) (9.60) vs Elizabeth's Horse Archer (1.07)
Turn 146, 720 AD: Combat Odds: 100.0%
Turn 146, 720 AD: (Extra Combat: -20%)
Turn 146, 720 AD: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 146, 720 AD: (Combat: -50%)
Turn 146, 720 AD: Elizabeth's Horse Archer is hit for 35 (0/100HP)
Turn 146, 720 AD: Pericles's War Elephant 3 (Hippos) has defeated Elizabeth's Horse Archer!
Turn 146, 720 AD: Your War Elephant 3 (Hippos) has destroyed a Horse Archer!
Turn 146, 720 AD: You have captured Hastings!!!
Turn 146, 720 AD: Your Catapult 14 (Surfin' Turf) has reduced the defenses of London to 56%!
Turn 146, 720 AD: Your Catapult 13 (Sleepy Sheep) has reduced the defenses of London to 52%!
Turn 146, 720 AD: Pericles's Queen Elizabeth (Galleon) (4.00) vs Elizabeth's Trireme (2.40)
Turn 146, 720 AD: Combat Odds: 96.2%
Turn 146, 720 AD: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 146, 720 AD: (Plot Defense: +10%)
Turn 146, 720 AD: Elizabeth's Trireme is hit for 25 (75/100HP)
Turn 146, 720 AD: Elizabeth's Trireme is hit for 25 (50/100HP)
Turn 146, 720 AD: Pericles's Queen Elizabeth (Galleon) is hit for 15 (85/100HP)
Turn 146, 720 AD: Elizabeth's Trireme is hit for 25 (25/100HP)
Turn 146, 720 AD: Pericles's Queen Elizabeth (Galleon) is hit for 15 (70/100HP)
Turn 146, 720 AD: Elizabeth's Trireme is hit for 25 (0/100HP)
Turn 146, 720 AD: Pericles's Queen Elizabeth (Galleon) has defeated Elizabeth's Trireme!
Turn 146, 720 AD: Your Queen Elizabeth has destroyed a Trireme!
Turn 146, 720 AD: Clearing a Forest has created 30 &#8484; for Utrecht.
Turn 146, 720 AD: All Hail Astro! has been founded.
Turn 146, 720 AD: City 4 will become unhappy on the next turn.
Turn 146, 720 AD: You are the worst enemy of Elizabeth, Shaka.
Turn 146, 720 AD: Mansa Musa is the worst enemy of Louis XIV, Mao Zedong.
Turn 146, 720 AD: Elizabeth is the worst enemy of Isabella.
Turn 146, 720 AD: The borders of Athens are about to expand.
Turn 146, 720 AD: The borders of Utrecht are about to expand.
Turn 146, 720 AD: Elizabeth will trade Divine Right
Turn 146, 720 AD: Mansa Musa will trade Engineering
Turn 146, 720 AD: Isabella will trade Copper
Turn 146, 720 AD: Mansa Musa will trade Pig
Turn 146, 720 AD: Will Trade Map: Elizabeth, Louis XIV, Mansa Musa, Mao Zedong
Turn 146, 720 AD: Will Sign Peace Treaty: Elizabeth
Turn 146, 720 AD: Deal Canceled: Fur to Mao Zedong for Wine
Turn 146, 720 AD: In a gracious act of generosity, Pericles has liberated All Hail Astro!, which passed under Malinese control.
Turn 146, 720 AD: City 4 will grow to size 6 on the next turn.
Turn 146, 720 AD: Athens will grow to size 6 on the next turn.
Turn 146, 720 AD: New Amsterdam will grow to size 6 on the next turn.
Turn 146, 720 AD: The Hague will grow to size 6 on the next turn.
Turn 146, 720 AD: York will shrink to size 5 on the next turn.
Turn 146, 720 AD: X-opolis celebrates "We Love the Monarch Day"!!!
Turn 146, 720 AD: The borders of Athens have expanded!
Turn 146, 720 AD: The borders of Utrecht have expanded!
Turn 146, 720 AD: You have constructed National Epic in Utrecht. Work has now begun on a Odeon.
Turn 146, 720 AD: The borders of York have expanded!
Turn 146, 720 AD: Louis XIV has completed The Hagia Sophia!
Turn 146, 720 AD: All Spearman progress in Canterbury was destroyed by enemy infiltrators!
Turn 146, 720 AD: John Roebling (Great Engineer) has been born in Timbuktu (Mansa Musa)!
Turn 146, 720 AD: A English revolt has taken place in York!

Turn 147, 740 AD: The enemy has been spotted near Nottingham!
Turn 147, 740 AD: City 4 has grown to size 6.
Turn 147, 740 AD: Athens has grown to size 6.
Turn 147, 740 AD: Piscatorium can hurry Settler for 2&#8692; with 33&#8484; overflow and +1&#8676; for 35 turns.
Turn 147, 740 AD: Utrecht can hurry Odeon for 2&#8692; with 30&#8484; overflow and +1&#8676; for 12 turns.
Turn 147, 740 AD: New Amsterdam has grown to size 6.
Turn 147, 740 AD: The Hague has grown to size 6.
Turn 147, 740 AD: York has shrunk to size 5.
Turn 147, 740 AD: Mansa Musa has 60 gold available for trade.
Turn 147, 740 AD: Mansa Musa is the worst enemy of Tokugawa.
Turn 147, 740 AD: The borders of York are about to expand.
Turn 147, 740 AD: Mao Zedong will trade Spices
Turn 147, 740 AD: Your Catapult 14 (Surfin' Turf) has reduced the defenses of London to 49%!
Turn 147, 740 AD: Your Catapult 13 (Sleepy Sheep) has reduced the defenses of London to 45%!


http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG021_AD0740_01.CivBeyondSwordSave
 
I'm not comfortable with leaving 3 cats in the open next to London and let Elizabeth start to kill them. Perhaps we should onload 1 WE there and load 2 WEs into Galleon 4.

I will be gone now for 30 hours so it is a good time for someone to take over.
 
I'd prefer that some other members of the team participate, but I should be able to take some turns when Folket is ready to pass off. Tag teaming would seem inefficient, though, so hope Folket can continue for a while.
Okay, so Folket isn't available for a while. Does that mean that you'll be ready to play today or were you only going to be ready if Folket had continued for a while?

Can we get a clear statement from someone saying that they are going to take the next turnset?

I'll be looking at the saved game shortly and provided suggested plans.
 
Med bara sex dagar kvar så är det nog viktigt att vi rullar spelet vidare. Om ingen svarar inom ett par timmar så är det bäst om du spelar några rundor.


Skickat från min iPhone med Tapatalk
 
Excellent work! After very determined effort, you got Mao to go for the tech that we wanted him to learn! It seems that China will take 16 turns to learn Gunpowder, though, which will take a while.

It's unfortunate that we couldn't whip a Maceman out of York, but we at least got our Culture there, which will make a noticeable difference for Nottingham if London has fallen by the time that Nottingham's City Revolt is over (i.e. if London falls on or before T150). So, that's great, because we at least got something for our efforts at York!


One area where we are currently hurting pretty badly is Happiness, in that some of our Cities may soon have Unhappy citizens.

Part of the reason is that we've fought the entire Elizabeth war against The Statue of Zeus, which is located in London.

Our War Weariness is up to 392 and will continue to climb a bit higher over the next few turns.

So, we'll probably need to temporarily delay growth in a couple of Cities (Gems, Surfin' Turf, and City 4)



The timing of when we capture Elizabeth's last Hindu City plus leave her without any Hindu Cities for at least 1 turn will determine our finishing date.

The worst thing that could happen is that we somehow hope to win at a time when AP Resident elections are the subject of the next vote (i.e. when no AP Resolutions, including the AP Victory Resolution, can be proposed), for a maximum of waiting about 19 turns to win the game after completing all of the Ladies' tasks.

The second worst thing that could happen is that we cannot complete all 3 Ladies' tasks until 1 turn after a Resolution's voting results could occur, for a maximum of waiting 9 turns to win the game.

Does anyone want to venture (even somewhat at random) an ending date? Folket made a prediction, but I believe that he was simply following the existing voting cycle... we could aim to maintain that voting cycle or we could aim to reset the voting cycle; it is our choice. A third choice exists, that of maintaining the voting cycle for now and then disrupting the voting cycle after we Cease Fire with Elizabeth, Liberate Elizabeth's Cities back to her, and recapture Elizabeth's Cities, so that we reset the voting cycle to a different set of turns, probably, say, a cycle of 5 or so turns after the cycle that we could start up by taking Elizabeth's Hindu Cities on T150 without giving any of them back to her.

What I am not sure about is whether Folket did an indepth analysis of how many turns it would take for us to learn all of the techs needed to complete the game or whether he only looking at voting cycles.


How many more techs are needed to win?

1. Communism (will learn by T150)
2. Nationalism (hopefully in trade) 2513 Flasks (we've got partial Research in it)
3. Physics 6500 Flasks
4. Electricity 7312 Flasks
5. Gunpowder (hopefully in trade) 1950 Flasks
6. Engineering (hopefully in trade 1625 Flasks
7. Chemistry 2925 Flasks
8. Steel 4550 Flasks
9. Replaceable Parts (maybe in trade) 2925 Flasks
10. Steam Power 5200 Flasks
11. Railroad 7312 Flasks
12. Combustion 5850 Flasks
13. Constitution (maybe in trade) 3250 Flasks
14. Corporation (maybe in trade) 2600 Flasks
15. Assembly Line 8125 Flasks
16. Industrialism 10562 Flasks
Maybe 17. Radio (possibly for Isabella) 9750 Flasks
Maybe 18. Fascism (possibly for a Great General and possibly for Police State if we somehow have too many Flasks or chose not to go for Radio and instead gifted 3 Great People to Isabella) 3900 Flasks

For reference, we make about 880 final Flasks per turn, and that number will climb over time.

After learning those techs, let's say that we had 12 Cities spend 1 turn building a Tank, 1 turn Whipping a Tank, then 1 turn moving 6 of the Tanks to Catherine, then another turn moving 6 more of the Tanks to Catherine.

So, we could win 4 turns after finishing those techs, with a bit of dependency in this 4-turn claim on whether we include Radio and Fascism.


What does "resetting the AP Voting Cycle" really mean?

Let's call Turn 0 the turn where we capture all of Elizabeth's Hindu Cities. For example, that turn could be Turn 150.

T151 If Elizabeth was unable to recapture her Cities
Spoiler :
Willem was recapturing his Cities, which not only didn't reset the countdown but after a couple of attempts seemed to make him remain as the resident even with 0 AP Religion Cities, likely due to some bug that I ran across to do too many times losing all and regaining at least one AP Religion City

then we'll see this info on the F8 MEMBERS -> Apostolic Palace Resident tab:
Turns until next Vote: 0
Votes until next Election: 0

T152 would then be the turn where a new election occurs
We would then also see:
Turns until next Vote: 9
Votes until next Election: 4

So, assuming that there was always a valid Resolution to propose, we would then get the chance to propose a Resolution on these turns:
T162, 1020 AD
T172, 1120 AD
T182, 1220 AD
T192, 1320 AD
(T202, 1420 AD Cannot propose a Resolutoin as a new election occurs)
T212, 1510 AD
T222, 1560 AD

On the other hand, if we don't alter the current voting cycle, we would then get the chance to propose a Resolution on these turns:
(T148, 760 AD Cannot propose a Resolution since Elizabeth proposes)
(T158, 960 AD Cannot propose a Resolution since Elizabeth proposes)
(T168, 1080 AD Cannot propose a Resolution as a new election occurs)
T178, 1180 AD
T188, 1280 AD
T198, 1380 AD
T208, 1480 AD
(T218, 1540 AD Cannot propose a Resolution as a new election occurs)
T228, 1590 AD

Note that we would win the game on the turn after a successful vote on an AP Victory Resolution.

Also, it's possible that at some point, no Resolution can be proposed, which dramatically alters the Resolution cycle, so we'd have to make sure that a Resolution can always be proposed. One possible method could be to leave Shaka with an inland Hindu City (uMgungundlovu) and stay at war with him so that we can keep proposing to Stop the War against Shaka and then always vote "No," to keep that Resolution available for the next time. It's kind of a junky City anyway and that City would be stealing some Chops that could potentially be used in Shaka's Tundra Forest City of Nongoma for possibly Chopping Rock N Roll as an alternative option to using a Great Engineer to complete that Wonder.
 
Using the simplest of math, assuming that we can get in trade all of the techs that we want to get in trade, and assuming that we have to tech Radio but not Fascism, we have another 68 000 Flasks to go after Communism.

Using a really simplistic and easily-beatable model of saying that we can research 1000 Flasks per turn, that's 68 turns after T150, so, T218, 1540 AD.


Let's say that instead we went with a more aggressive model, where we say:
T150 = 1000 Flasks per turn
T160 = 1200 Flasks per turn
T170 = 1400 Flasks per turn
T180 = 1600 Flasks per turn
T190 = 1800 Flasks per turn
T200 = 2000 Flasks per turn

Then, we'd reach our target Flasks on T199, 1390 AD.


Or, an even more aggressive model, where we say:
T150 = 1000 Flasks per turn
T160 = 1400 Flasks per turn
T170 = 1800 Flasks per turn
T180 = 2200 Flasks per turn
T190 = 2600 Flasks per turn
T200 = 3000 Flasks per turn

Then, we'd reach our target Flasks on T192, 1320 AD.


Now, we might not get all of those techs in trade, or these models might be completely wrong. If we can do considerably better than all of those models, say with help from Golden Ages, captured Cities, and spamming cheap Libraries + cheap Universities, we could plan to reset the voting cycle and thus hope to win 1 turn after T182, 1220 AD or T192, 1320 AD (but then only be able to win 1 turn after T212, 1510 AD if we messed things up).

Or, we could content ourselves with maintaining the existing voting cycle, trying to win 1 turn after T188, 1280 AD, and then having two backup options of 1 turn after either T198, 1380 AD or T208, 1480 AD if we messed up.

A third option would be to have a voting cycle similar to the "reset" voting cycle, except occurring roughly 5 turns later per Resolution, where we "reset" the voting cycle after the second war with Elizabeth.


We'll probably be able to make the most informed decision on T150, once we're in our Golden Age and Communism, so that we can see how many Flasks we'll be earning when in our Golden Age. Assuming that we capture London on T150 and not on T149, then that's the turn where we need to make the decision anyway. Thus, we should plan to capture London on T150, to allow us more information in making the Victory Date decision.
 
Warwick (Elizabeth's latest City): To capture or not?

We only have 30% odds of capturing it, although we could potentially win a second battle using a wounded Spearman to win the fight for Warwick.

Also, Elizabeth doesn't have much Culture in Warwick, so we'd have to Liberate the City back to her on T150 at the latest.

So, we might try and still fail, earning even more undesired War Weariness.

Instead, we can just leave Warwick be until the next war and plan to capture Queen's Palace with help from our William Galleon.

Queen's Palace cannot be captured until T151 at the earliest, though, and possibly not until T152 if Elizabeth goes into Anarchy (say, to switch into Confucianism).

Or, we could simply not capture either City in the first war.

So, I am going to say: "No, let's not capture Warwick for now."

Once we've captured Elizabeth's main Cities, we'll have more forces free to be able to effectively capture Warwick in the second war.


3 Wars for Elizabeth
Are we going to need 3 wars against Elizabeth (counting the existing one)?

Maybe "need" is too strong of a word... but, I think that we should have 3 wars against Elizabeth, so that we have the chance to Liberate her Cities back to her twice and then still keep her Cities in the final war.

We just told Shaka that we won't be attacking him for 10 turns, so we've bought ourselves the time.

At stake are a few population points and only a couple of Buildings.

In the grand scheme of things, I believe that it will be worth it to have this third war.

An alternative option is just to Liberate and allow Elizabeth to keep some of her Cities after a second war, but that option sounds less desireable, as we want to keep her Cities, right?

Instead, it would be good just to keep her Cities for the long term and then gift her a couple of Hindu Cities (possibly a couple of her own Cities) near the end of the game once she's in her Favourite Civic of Free Religion.


Mansa
How much should we cater to Mansa?

For example, if he Requests Scientific Method, should we give it to him? I think that the unfortunate answer is going to have to be "no."

We don't want to give him Communism for Nationalism, only to have him beat us to completing The Kremlin.

Fortunately, Mansa has no Worst Enemy and we're already involved in his only war, so I can't think of other ways that we might have to anger him with refusals in the short term.


Settlers for Mao
While we don't need a lot of Settlers for Mao, it would certainly be nice to get him up to Friendly status, so that we can get Gunpowder out of him.

Let's say that we will need 2 more Settlers produced from our homelands. Well, that's a lot cheaper than self-teching Gunpowder.

City 4 could be a good spot in which to build him a Settler.

Maybe we could whip another one from Nottingham.
 
Are we going to keep settling City locations?
Once we're in State Property, each new City should more than pay for itself.

For example:
Triple Clam Island
Dual Fish + Dual Whale Island to the south of Shaka
A City 2W of the Corn
A City by the unused William's Gems + Clam after we've Chopped out The Taj Mahal
A City by the partial Fort after we've Chopped out The Taj Mahal

It would be nice to have Piscatorium grow a bit more after its current Settler, but after we've grown a bit, perhaps we can resume building Settlers there, while planning on having a Galleon or two nearby to shuttle the Settlers.

Cities which need Work Boats would also try to have at least 1 Work Boat built for them by another City close to the time of being settled.


We also have to remember to settle a gift Hindu City for Toku.

It also looks like the island to the north-west of Catherine could be within reach of settling a gift Hindu City for her, too.
 
PPP
Diplo Policies:
Pretty much unchanged...

Give the AIs what they Demand/Request, with only a few exceptions:
- Don't give into their Demands/Requests for techs that we plan to use for trade or use for building the related Wonder that we haven't completed (Nationalism and Communism come to mind prior to building the related Wonders)

Don't switch Civics or Religions upon Demand/Request

Don't stop trading with someone's Worst Enemy


Don't sell these techs (it's okay to give any of them except for Nationalism prior to building The Taj Mahal) as part of a Demand/Request:
Feudalism
Civil Service
Philosophy
Divine Right (if we get it--and we should NOT take it in Peace from Elizabeth)
Nationalism


Watermills to be built:
Surfin' Turf:
NW + W
2N

City 4:
SE + E
2E
NE + E

New Amsterdam:
1S

Hippos:
1N
1W

Utrecht:
1SE of Utrecht
2S of Utrecht
SE + S of Utrecht (must be built after the Watermill that is 2S of Utrecht)
1E of Utrecht (yes, over top of the Hamlet)


Unknown turn:
When Mansa learns Nationalism, buy it from him for Scientific Method
Capture Hun (Barb City near China) and do our best to Chop 2 Forests there by the time that it will come out of City Revolt
See if we can get some Military Units headed toward Phrygian (the Barb City by Louis) for City Capture Gold and Liberation credit


T147, 740 AD

WE 1 loads onto Galleon 4

WE 8 Promotes to Combat I so that his healing can begin

Galleon 6 moves to 1N of London to meet up with Galleon 4

Galleon 4 joins Galleon 6

Galleon 4 manually only unloads Horatio 1E of London

Galleon 6 unloads Cat 5 at 1E of London

WE 1 transfers from Galleon 4 to Galleon 6

Galleon 6 should now have 3 WEs on board and Galleon 4 should be empty

Galleon 4 moves to 2W of London to pick up 3 Workers from 1SW of London


Galleon 7 unloads its 3 Cats at 1E of London and plans to rejoin the fighting alongside of the QE Galleon


Galleon 5 unloads units by Hun and then heads southward to meet up with Galleon 4
Spoiler :
In future, let's remember that a Galleon that has multiple duties can save time if he drops off his cargo earlier and allows the cargo to walk part of the way


X-ops: Sci -> Cot
X-ops: Customs House
Spoiler :
Just like how it's good not to whip here, it's good to put Hammers here toward the build items that we want to complete, allowing another City to get the Failure Gold

Before, we were desperate for Wealth and Failure Gold everywhere, but now that we're not quite that desperate, we can have key Cities build the important build items while other Cities build Wealth and Failure Gold


Gems: Heroic Epic
Spoiler :
It may still be worth delaying the completion of the Heroic Epic for a number of turns and building Barracks in other Cities to take advantage of the Heroic Epic... that's a decision which still can be made


City 4: Settler, emphasize Mines over Farms

Hippos: Forge


T148, 760 AD

Workers 12 and 7 near Santiago build a Road

Settler settles on that Roaded square

Spread Hinduism to that new City

Liberate/gift that City to Isabella

Workers near All Hail Astro prepare partial Roads for the next Settler, who will settle a 2nd City for Mansa

Galleon 4 heads toward Galleon 5

Load the 2 Spears from The Hague onto William Galleon

Bombard at Coventry and London

X-ops: Check if we still need 3 Sci

Surfin' Turf: Build the Catapult to within 1 turn of completion



T149, 780 AD

Once Galleon 4 and 5 meet up (likely this turn, but possibly next turn), have 2 Workers go on one Galleon toward Marble City and the third Worker go on the other Galleon toward the Stone... which Galleon depends upon how many turns are needed to arrive in place

Unload the 2 Spears at Queen's Palace

Unload all units on boats near London

Capture Coventry

Bombard at London

X-ops: Check if we still need 3 Sci

Surfin' Turf: Complete the Catapult in order to overflow into a Confucian Missionary



T150, 800 AD

X-ops: Fire the Scientists

Capture London with MoM in it before even considering launching a Golden Age

Use our 2 Great People to launch a Golden Age

Switch Civics to State Property + Organized Religion

Surfin' Turf: Build a Confucian Missionary

New Amsterdam: Build a Buddhist Missionary (for Piscatorium getting another Temple)

This turn is where we'll need to decide:
Do we reset the voting cycle or do we maintain the current voting cycle?

Maintaining it would involve Cease Firing with Elizabeth this turn and Liberating at least one Hindu City to her (say, Canterbury, Size 1 at the south-east of her original core area)
 
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