Turnset 91 (T332)
T332 - Barbarians: No deaths.
Delhi popped borders again.
My 2nd Spy in Angkor Thom was captured and killed. (Will send in another backup!)
Israel completed Mausoleum of Maussollos. (+50% Golden Age Length)
Combined with Jewish Shrine, Hindu Holy City (great for Espionage purposes), and Chichen Itza (+25% city defense), Israel is starting to look like a delicious 6 city war target.
Japan demanded that I cancel my deals with his Worst Enemy
Egypt.
This is
just like Khmer on
T295.
After looking things over, I'm barely Pleased with Japan as it is, and -1 diplo might make the difference for me being able to war bribe Japan once his war with Khmer ends.
So I told Japan
YES.
Open Borders canceled with Egypt.
Egypt will no longer speak with me. (! mark on scoreboard)
=======================================
Civil Service discovered!
Now I just need to figure out the best time to revolt to Bureaucracy.
..
......
Gah!
Vassalage is offering +22 Free Units.
That is worth 22*2.6 = 57.2
per turn!
Plus, all my cities get +2XP for military units.
I'm not sure why Vassalage only offered
+8 Free Units back on
T201.
Maybe it scales with population and I never noticed before?
Anyway, those are some hefty benefits thanks to Giant Earth Mod's insane unit maintenance costs.
Let's look at Bureaucracy's benefits and compare.
My new capital Lahore currently is Size 7 and has 22 Commerce and 8 raw production.
When it grows to Size 14, it will have 44 Commerce and 12 raw production.
Add in Bureaucracy's +50% Commerce and +50% Production, and you only get +22 Commerce and 6 hammers.
It looks like Vassalage is > Bureaucracy on Giant Earth Mod until the capital develops and gets good multipliers like Oxford University and a Levee.
Both Vassalage and Bureaucracy cost an extra 9 gold per turn to run since they are high High Upkeep. (-50% off thanks to Organized Civ Trait)
Both are still superior to Barbarism.
Ok, I discovered Feudalism on
T330 and can make the switch, but should I switch a 2nd civic like Philosophy too?
It only increases the Anarchy from 3 turns to 4.
According to my Financial Advisor, it will cost me -89
per turn if I switch to Pacifism because of all my military units.
Even worse, the 30% Handicap might add on another -27 gold per turn.
On the plus side, Pacifism has no Civic Upkeep, so i save +22 gold per turn.
Eh, it might be nice to get Great People 50% faster in Biskek, but I'll lose all that nice +25%
to buildings in Hindu cities plus building Missionaries without Monasteries.
So, no Pacifism right now.
Maybe when I do a Golden Age, I can switch to Pacifism + Caste for a while.
Now to decide when to switch to Vassalage.
Looking over my empire, I think T334 might be best.
That gives me time to get all my builds out and Catapults whipped.
It seems a little counter-intuitive to whip a whole lot of military units before Vassalage takes effect, but I'd rather have them at the front lines 3 turns earlier than arrive with +2 more XP.
=======================================
Phew, moving on!
My plans to
bulb Paper with my Great Scientist in Lahore blew up in my face.
I forgot that Philosophy comes before Paper unless you avoid Meditation.
Mmmm, will save the Great Scientist to bulb Education then.
The plan remains to get to Engineering first,
so I need to stop teching and preserve my gold for the sprint to Engineering once someone trades me Machinery.
(Engineering costs 11700
)
I can also wait for Apostolic Palace to finish in Spain or Hungary and then trade for Theology.
Theology would boost my research bonus for Paper to +40% since it is a that leads to Paper on the tech chart.
Madrid in Spain has 6367
in the AP, but I'm too lazy right now to calculate exactly how many hammers it is from completion.
Now that Israel completed MoM, I can finally trade for Calendar.
Traded Construction + Metal Casting to Babylon for Calendar + 530
Calendar discovered!
Lahore and Hariharalaya were both built on Spices, so now I only need to complete plantations on Dye, Silk, Sugar, and Incense to get the full +5
from Calendar.
Three of those can be found around Pataliputra, and the other nearby one is next to Delhi.
Traded Metal Casting to Poland for 520
(Some civ players say it is a bad idea to accelerate the AI's tech pace like this, but I want money and Machinery!)
Traded Metal Casting to China for 460
My Spy has the option to do an
Assassinate Mission in Yashodharapura, but I don't see a cost and I'm afraid if I click it, a settled Great Scientist or General might die.
I don't have enough Espionage Points to inspect the city any longer to check, and it will soon be my city anyway, so there's no need to murder any Great People I'd say.
Time for some more fighting.
Shock Elephant
won against Sword 1E of Hariharalaya at 89.4% odds. (My Combat III Shock Axe wanted to attack Chariot first)
War Elephant
won against Chariot 1E of Hariharalaya at 98.8% odds.
This is a good time to talk about the Shock promotion (+25% vs. Melee) on the War Elephant.
It is good for killing Swords outside of cities that have defensive bonuses, but that is about it.
If you meet an Axe outside a city, you Chariot it.
If you meet a Spear outside a city, you Axe it.
A Sword on flatland also gets an Axe.
What about cities?
Most times you are killing units in a city, they have been knocked down to 50% hp by Catapults and collateral damage.
The shock promotion only removes the fortify bonus on a 3hp Sword, 2.5hp Axe, and 2hp Spear, and does nothing against Archers.
Now, would you rather have 0.5 to 0.75 less strength on a half hp melee unit, or +0.8 more strength on your War Elephant?
Combat Promotions are the way to go for War Elephants that kill cities!
At least until Macemen and Pikemen arrive, but even then Combat Promotions are only slightly weaker for melee units and way superior for Longbows + Crossbows.
TLDR;
Only promote Elephants with Shock if you need to kill full hp melee in the countryside.
Else stick to Combat I + II promotions.