Round 5: to 1330 AD
I begin by taking. I shall find scholars later to demonstrate my perfect right.
- Euripides
The round began with a recommended civics change:
As you'll see, that really raised the GP output. Between Philosophical, Pacifism, and the Parthenon, that's a 250% GP bonus--once I completed the National Epic in Corinth, a whopping 350% GP bonus in that city alone!
Sure enough, only a few turns later, my first GP of the Pacifism era appeared--my second Great Scientist out of Corinth:
I used him for the Academy, and was gratified to see 1 turn removed from Engineering's research time immediately.
I was, however, not playing the game like a pacifist--oh, no, not me! The war against Saladin remained "hot". First, I spotted a Settler colonly (1 Settler, 1 Archer, 1 Spearman) trying to sneak by Medina on the way to Kufah--no doubt to repeat his attempted settlement north of Athens in the previous round. I destroyed the 2 defenders and obtained another worker.
I was all set to continue south, but this incident made me realize that I needed to clean up my back yard first:
I kept the city, as it's one of the ones sigmakan's dotmap specified. Nice of Sally to build it for me.
Then I got my next great person, another Great Engineer out of Athens, in spite of my running two scientists there:
I set him aside for awhile. Contrary to a post above where I claimed to not have a use for him, I'd forgotten that I did indeed use him, and rather quickly--as you might guess by what I was researching.
As I conquer territory--especially in that jungle--I'll have a lot for my workers to do, so this is a very useful wonder. It also adds to Athens' growing GE points.
And a little while after that, I got
another Great Person! Beijing finally produced its long-promised Great Merchant, again in spite of running 1 or 2 scientists for most of the last several turns:
I dithered for awhile over his use. I eventually sent him north to Shanghai and settled him there. It's the Confucian holy city, of course, so it gets all the commerce multipliers--but it was the food that convinced me, as the city is a little short of sources of it, and I'm loathe to turf those maturing cottages in favour of farms.
I should take a moment to comment on a related topic, my economy. If you look at all the screen shots, you may notice my research rate fluctuating a great deal. What I'm doing is taking the notion of a hybrid economy quite literally. On the one hand, the specialists allow me to lower the research slider and generate more gold; on the other hand, unlike a pure SE, I can't really go all the way to 0%. I'm using Eggman's tech-turn guideline of 5-10 turns per tech to determine where the slider should be. Even though he specified that range for pure SEs, it's working out well for me. I adjust the slider when beginning to research each tech, trying if I can to research it in 5 turns while maximizing income. For Education, I needed the help of another GS from Corinth, but as we all know, that's an expensive tech anyway; he took it from 15 to 5 turns at 20% on the slider with about a +50 GPT profit--perfect!.
In the war against Arabia, I captured Mecca, electing to keep it and gaining an Academy there for my trouble. Its countryside will be farmed for eventual science specialists. I continued south along Arabia's west coast:
Now I started razing cities. Damascus fell to the torch. It was just too close to English territory, as you can see. The maintenance costs would have been painful, and with so little production (as I suspected, England's borders claimed that mine and forest on the next turn) that it would have taken forever to build a courthouse there. I already had fish from Kufah and the new city of Delphi (SW of Beijing), and I'll get dye from another source, as you'll see.
Shortly thereafter, I finished researching a very important tech:
I immediately started building two Caravels, one in Athens, one in Beijing. Time to go meet the distant neighbours...
After I captured and razed Najran (another Arabian city whose ruins are visible in the screenshot below), Saladin was nearly done. I decided to send my Flanking I/Sentry Chariot into English territory to scope out the opposition:
Hmmm, Longbows. I'll have to stock up on Catapults. I cancelled my horses-for-furs-and-gold trade with Vicky very early in the round. Trading military resources just didn't sit well with me, regardless of all the Phalanxes I pumped out before Engineering came along. I instead focused on getting some other resources on-line (clams, gems) to trade for her luxury goods. Which I will soon be taking for myself, bwa-ha-ha-ha...
Now, every time I took one of Saladin's cities, I went to see him. Would he cough up a tech or two for peace?
Nothin' doin'! I trimmed it down from 3 techs to 2 to 1, and he still wouldn't go for it, no matter how many cities he lost. Frustrating, especially since I didn't want to trade with Vicky, my next victim, and won't have that option anyway once he's gone (remember civs won't trade techs unless they're incontact with at least 2 other ones). Oh well, thanks Optics and its Caravels, I'll soon have contact with the other continent's civs and I should soon be able to tech trade with them. I may still be able to extort techs from Vicky, if she still has any that I want.
Saladin's recalcitrance in that regard had an inevitable result:
And Arabia is no more. I kept Baghdad; not only will its revolt end a lot sooner than the one going on there right now, it also gives me access to dye. And I now have a nice little string of Arabian cities across the middle of the continent to act as bulwarks against the English when I attack them.
The northern half of the continent is now entirely Greek:
Some things are imminent.
You can see the lighted squares around my two Caravels, the Hermes and the Poseidon. One or both should spot land soon, and then I should be able to tech trade again. I expect to win the circumnavigation race too, since I haven't seen any other Caravels yet.
I also expect to win the Liberalism race. I'm currently 10 turns away from it, and I'll likely choose Astronomy as my free tech for the Observatories (another scientist in my science cities) intercontinental trade, and Galleons.
Victoria dies next. As you saw above, I'm facing Longbows. I will likely take the 10 turns that Liberalism requires to solidify my gains and stock up on Catapults, as I mentioned, as well as some Macemen. Then, with Liberalism obtained, I'll lower the slider, stock up more gold, and upgrade my stack from Axes and Swords to Macemen (which I didn't need against Saladin's pathetic Archers).
My next GP will come out of Athens in 5 turns and has a 61% chance of being a GE, 38% of being a GS. If it's a GS, he'll get settled in Corinth; Athens' base rate of 36 research points/turn at 50% on the slider (where I'd currently break even) doesn't really warrant an Academy, not with the 100% boost from Oxford on the way in Corinth.
If, as seems likely, the next GP is a Great Engineer, however... Okay, I don't want to go counting chickens, but what do I do with him? IIRC, he'll pop techs along the Monarch-Guilds path. Blah. Building Angkor Wat in Sparta doesn't exactly get my tray in the upright and locked position, if ya know what I mean. (Vicky built Chichen Itza, BTW--for all the good it'll do her against my 4 accuracy Cats.) What's coming up on the wonder list? I guess I could go after Music and Notre Dame, the extra happy might be good versus war weariness.
Just watch: we'll all dither over how to use him, and I'll get a GS.
Aside from that, another thing I'd appreciate some advice on is warring against Vicky. You can see from the map that she went city-crazy, and she's got Longbows in all of them. I'll probably raze several since I don't want to be slowed down putting garrisons everywhere. Should I divide my stack in 2? If so, I'll likely need another set of 4 accuracy Cats. Maybe I can get Feudalism and/or Theology from the other continent, run Vassalage or Theocracy for awhile, and build another 4 1-turn-defense-stripping Cats.
What about civics? I don't anticipate using either of Liberalism's "Free" civics right away, if ever. Maybe FR, but only if I need to abandon Representation for PS (war weariness) or US (rush-buying). I guess a lot there will depend on what techs I can snag from the other continent. I'd prefer Vassalage to Theocracy; I'm loving Pacifism, and Vassalage would offset the unit cost to an extent.
Any comments on the hybrid economy? Any tiles/cities you think I should change (cottages to farms or vice-versa)?
Anything else? Fire away!
... and I mean that literally ... it is a game full of wonders 
and this is turning into another cakewalk, so perhaps you should move up to Monarch, although I'd like a migration to Warlords as well so maybe one Warlords game at Prince level and then introduce a bit more of an AI challenge for you.
) there before a granary, forge and 2 monasties ... or running scientists with so much happiness to grow. It needs farms fast not mines and food + granary + forge = lots of 
into shape 
and it can churn out beakers and GS for lightbulbing Education and then dash on to to Liberalism for another free tech.
I mean Chichen Itza and Angkor Wat. You probably don't actually want to build them for real but they are a great source of gold. You need to be sure the AI beats you to them and then you get a nice haul of gold so slow down construction if they near completion. With stone, a forge and OR you can raise 5 gold for 2 hammers which is an astonishingly good rate, and given your financial situation few things could do more for raising the research slider.
)
"To sum all of it : 
Look how quickly and easily you are going through the game now. Up your difficulty by two degrees the next time. Warlords Monarch, anyone? Get used to playing Warlords on prince first in your private games, Sisiutil.
