SGOTM 07 - Smurkz

The cost of 120 isn't quite the truth considering we have +100% towards it for being Industrious. So the actual relative cost is only 120*(1.5/2.5) = 72.

The bonus also isn't +7 hpt, that would assume we were making 28 hpt base which we don't even do at full production emphasis. When emphasizing research and GPP we do 12 hpt base, meaning +3 hpt from Forge. When emphasizing production we make 24 hpt which means +6 hpt from Forge.

In other words, worst case we break even after 24 turns (24*3=72), best case half of that.

We have 28 base in the current save file. Why do you think we don't?

Ah, I was going by the spreadsheet further down the line. You're right, 28 hpt base when fully emphasizing production, so +7.

If we want +1 population to be equal to that, we need a tile that makes 2F 5H base, or 2F 3H to equal an possible expected average of +4.5 hpt from the Forge. That's obviously not going to be possible, so the reason would be to use a 2F XC tile instead, emphasizing commerce. After Oxford we do 300% base bpt, so a Village (2F 4C) means +12 bpt, a town (many turns to that) means +15 bpt. Do we find that more worth than the extra hammers? Normally I'd say definitely, but in our situation it's not totally obvious. I would think so though, we have a lot to build ahead of us.

It would be interesting to hear some well-based argument for the other side though, based with numbers and projections, too bad zyxy doesn't quite seem to have the time to do that...

The advisor returns

Great turns and discussion everyone, especially Niklas

catching up on the reading again, mad changes!

Forge is a must!!!
Forget the minus 1 health, its hammer time!

Looking long term, we will definately need to instigate some wars on our continent. Not being able to see the game I cant see the power ratings, but can we Knock out some of the weaker, unfriendly civs?

Thoughts on how to go about this, does attitude change waring options?

With some going to 'pleased' can we use this in anyway to knock out those lost causes to be left with 3/4 friends on our continent?

GNE

Well I have time for some comments and a bit of analysis

We have another 30000 beakers or so to research (I am assuming the AI will help up to Astro, but will not help after that - indeed, it is very likely to go towards the military stuff first). This will take another 80 turns or so, assuming we research about 20000 beakers at roughly 250 per turn, and get the remaining 10000 by bulbing or settling scientists. These are all very rough guesses, but give an idea of the range. Indeed, Oxford will increase beaker rate a lot (hence I took 250 bpt rather than the current 180 or so), the obsoletion of the GLib will decrease it, and the beaker rate depends quite a bit on whether we focus our citizens on hammers or beakers, how fast we grow and how far, and how much help the AI will actually be.

With a forge (and 2 chops) the max size of Beijing is 16. Without forge (but still with 2 chops) the max size is 17. So the difference of a forge is 1 citizen, not 0.5 citizen. This is because we have no food surplus, and there is no point in growing extra (unhealthy) citizens working farms because they produce nothing.

A base of 28 hpt is our max production, and I would expect that on most turns we will hire scientists instead of working the hills. This lowers base production to 20 hpt, and the forge benefit to 5 hpt.

In fact this decision could be a way to get some grips on the problem, though it is obviously not an analysis. If we value a scientist more than a hill - which we have regularly done in the past - then that means that 4*1.5 = 6 hammers is of lower value than 6*1.75 = 10.5 beakers plus 3 GPP.

Niklas is miscalculating the commerce bonus: Library + Academy + Uni + Oxford = 200% bonus, and the bureaucracy bonus is cumulative with that, so raw output has to be multiplied by 4.5. So a hamlet (3 cpt raw) has a net output of 13.5 bpt. A village (4 cpt raw) has 18 bpt net.
Over a time span of 50 turns the average raw output of a cottage is 3 cpt. Conclusion is that an average of 13.5 bpt for a cottage is a reasonable estimate.

Here are the hammer costs of the buildings Niklas has mentioned, calculated in terms of base hammers:

The bonus includes the Bureaucracy bonus (which in this case is additive, not cumulative). At 20 hpt base output, there is roughly 1 turn difference between the with and without scenarios (slightly less than 22 turns versus 23 turns). Most importantly, compared to the 80 turn estimate for our research, this is fairly low and leaves quite a bit of time to build ships and missionaries. (In fact, it can be lowered by another 4.5 turns because of the forest chops.)

Thanks for that discussion point zyxy, these kinds of posts are exactly what we need in order to improve our game!

Executive summary of what follows below: I still think that Forge is worth it, and that the difference up to Mass Media will be quite small in added beakers but quite large in hammers. But perhaps more importantly, I now strongly question our need for fast beakers, in particular beelining Mass Media, since we could likely have the UN in <80 turns but obviously not the support needed for the vote by then. So we should likely focus a lot more on generating support, and less on ultra-fast research, even though the second will likely help the former along.


Ok, here we go to refute what you just said. First of all, good catch on the Bureaucracy cumulative bonus - I knew that, I've been using it when doing the sheets, but I was too quick when I made my previous post.

Second let me correct the few errors you've made.

One only serves to further emphasize your point - the bonus for the Forge is 150%, not 250%, so its base hammers are 48 and not 34.3. This gives a total of 451.06 base hammers for the scheme with Forge first, so the difference is <10 base hammers over 23 turns. Not surprising, we already calculated that it would take some time to catch up. If we continue to produce 20 base hpt over the 80 predicted turns, the difference will of course increase, presumably by 5 hpt for ~300 hammers over the remaining 60 turns. Also the forest chops would be multiplied too, that's another 90*0.25=22.5 hammers benefit, so roughly 320 hammers benefit. But I find that rather high, I think we will spend a lot of those turns doing far less hpt, so maybe a 200 excess over 80 turns is more reasonable.

Second, I think you are counting far to low on our average bpt output. After Oxford we will make ~400 bpt when emphasizing research, and not much less than 350 bpt even when emphasizing production. We plan to have Oxford within 20 turns, and up to that we will average ~200 bpt. The loss of the GLib (30 turns from now?) will mean -36 bpt, so still well over 350 bpt, and partly offset by growing cottages. So a more accurate guess would be (200*20 + 350*60)/80 = 312.5 > 300 bpt.

Also, your 20000 doesn't take into account the +20% prereq bonus that we will have on each tech we research. I did my own count for total costs, and dividing the total by 1.2 gets us roughly at 27000. If roughly 1/3 of that is handled through GPs like in your analysis, that's 18000 left for us to research. 18000/300 = 60 turns, quite a bit less than 80.

So on the one hand, this means that the hammer advantage is only ~40*5=200 instead of 300 (still plus 22.5 for the forest chops, and I still think it's a bit too high so maybe 150 is more reasonable). But on the other hand, it means that there is less time to actually grow to the point where size 16 or 17 starts to matter. A generous guess would be 30 turns to size 17, before that there'd be no difference whether we build the Forge or not (except deciding when to build the Aqueduct). So for the remaining ~30 turns we'll have one more citizen to play with.

One citizen for 30 turns, working a cottage with average raw output of 3 cpt, net output 13.5 bpt, that's 405 beakers. That's just a bit over one turn difference in research over the next 60 turns. Not very impressive.

There are several other factors that also come into play. Oxford could be sped up by one turn (since we can't really start on it faster if we skip the Forge, the research of Education is the bottleneck), which means >100 beakers difference. This could be a red herring though, since it's possible to tweak the sheet to catch up that turn anyway.

I also counted an average of +3 cpt for a cottage even over only 30 turns, that's a bit too high, +2.7 is more like it. That's a 10% difference, or -40 beakers.

Growing from size 16 to 17 will cost us 117 GPP, and if each GS is worth 1500+ and the average cost of a GS is 800, that's a bit over 200 beakers lost. Of course we can't exactly count that way, since the GPs are discrete, so it's a matter of how much faster the next one comes. If that one GP makes a difference, it's +1500, otherwise nothing.

Hmm, thinking about it that way, with only 60 turns left, I wonder if it might not even be worthwhile to not even grow to size 16 and instead just emphasize our growth through GPs. One settled GS makes +1 hpt and +27 bpt after Oxford, quite a lot more than a citizen working a cottage. And if we use it for bulbing, it's an immediate 1500+ beakers (or 1250 when discounting the 1.2 prereq bonus), it would take a citizen working a tile with an average +4 cpt, net +18 bpt, 70 turns to catch that up. I need to make some projections on that...

So to summarize - One turn difference in research at best is IMO not worth the maybe 150 extra hammers generated during that same period. And I'm now actually wondering if we really should grow that aggressively at all - over 60 turns it might make more sense to maximize GPP instead.

==============================================================

But taking a step back, maybe this discussion is actually somewhat silly altogether. We don't seriously think that we will win this game in 60+(UN build time)+(time to election) turns right? We won't even meet the other continent until something like 30 turns from now, and to get enough of them to +8 in order to vote for us, that's not going to take only (say) 50 turns. So does it even make sense to beeline Mass Media? Seems to me that we should beeline Optics and Astronomy in order to make contact with the other side, but then play it cool, research some utility stuff, and improve relations before we cruise leisurely to Mass Media.

I think beelining Optics & Astronomy is the right course of action. After that, the more techs we can research to give to potential allies, the better.

I also agree with GE that we should try to trigger some wars. In fact, we might consider building our own military at some point. I'm not sure at Deity if it makes more sense to fight our own wars (getting better strategy and tactics while suffering from Deity military penalties) or gift units to our allies (avoiding the Deity military penalties but suffering as we watch the AI use our units less efficiently).

agreed, speeding to MM isnt the optimum path at this point.

Contact, diplomacy, war (either ourselves or AI v AI)

then on to MM.

Im lost at this level in terms of waring. What are the penalties incurred at this level?
How does attitudes, pleased/friendly change possiblities or waring with different leaders?

We can start with the analising our contient, our position with each leader, who we will want to knock out.

Why not build a small army, cats heavy, and help out whoever we want to win?

Thoughts.

GNE.

Warring is both dangerous and expensive, that's the problem. We probably want to do some warring for sure, but we should be very selective. In any case, Cho-ko-nus are better than Cats, so an army of chokos and maces could probably make a decent dent somewhere. That's a lot of hammers though...

I've decided to have a more thorough look at the full list of leaders, to see what we can expect in terms of befriending - how long it would take and what bonuses we can expect and hope for. It seems to me that we are at one of those points where the whole strategy of our game is to be decided, and we are close enough that we can actually look towards the end of the game and plan based on that. I'll post my thoughts in a while.

Just checked the game post-trades, and situation is (to me) tough.
I did not follow all the discussion on forge vs no forge (I would probably NOT build it, just because every pop point is useful for the vote, but that's just me. And I would farm everywhere in the end to increase our votes also, but in the end (Biology ?) only).

Basically what scares me the most is that before we meet the other continent, our competitor if we build the UN is Asoka . Getting over him will be difficult. Of course if he is 2nd in score, that's much better for us. In order to assess wether or not we can win the UN elections, we need to have a fairly good idea of who our main competitor will be. Right now, this is not good for us, and I do not see how we can get Julius/Lizz/Fred to pass over our best indian friend (note that there also was a Julius/Toku war, which is something interesting...).

I still wonder if getting PA with Asoka for a cultural victory could be doable. We could gift him GA if/when we get them hoping for a bomb, and use our slider.

In all cases, I agree we have difficult decisions to make that. I would ask for leaving the door open to another PA victory (culture or space ?), and also for getting some defense up. I have some doubts that we'll remain much more longer in a peaceful world (Surprisingly, no AI is dead, yet).

Here's a list of all the leaders in the game, with comments for our expected relations with them.

First of all, it seems obvious to me that we must adopt Free Religion at some point, the bonuses from shared religion with a few civs simply cannot outweigh the massive negatives we will get from everyone else. So I've disregarded all shared/heathen religion bonuses/demerits from my thoughts.

My tentative thought is to aim for a win in ~120 turns from now. If we meet the other continent between 30 and 50 turns from now, that means 70-90 turns to befriend them.

Alexander
I've already told you that I consider Alex a lost cause. Probably the biggest reason for this is that he is the worst enemy of too many others, so any effort we make to befriend him will hurt our relations with those others.

If we really tried, and got him to the point where we could sign an OB with him, we could perhaps expect to get the following bonuses: -1 base (that's iBaseAttitude - 1 (for Deity)), +1 years of peace, +2 OB, +4 for Fair Trade for a total of +6.

This assumes that we have a better rank than him, and that we are not both on the bottom half (seems like we're going to stay in the upper tiers for some time to come). +6 is not +8, and seems hard to find those final +2, not to mention this doesn't take any negatives like worst enemy trade into account. He would need 10 techs traded to him in order to give us a +1 shared tech bonus. There's bonus resource trade of course, but it still seems very hard to me.

Also, I'm willing to bet that Washington is planning a war against him. We would perhaps be better off joining that war instead of trying to please Alex.

Summary: Lost cause


Asoka
The modifiers we know and can count on are: +0 base, +1 peace, +2 OB, +2 bonus trade.

That's +5 before any Fair Trade bonuses are counted. He'd need 20 techs for a +1 shared tech so that's not really feasible. But getting to +3 Fair Trade doesn't seem impossible or even improbable. Asoka is the leader in rank (of those we see anyway), he likes those of higher rank a lot but it seems unlikely we would overtake him. No negatives for those of lower rank at least. We might go for US late in the game, so perhaps a +1 wise civic bonus or two.

Summary: Easy


Catherine
We don't know if she's in the game or not, could be Peter.

Base attitude is 0. She would sign OB already at Annoyed, so getting +2 OB out of her should be easy. +1 peace of course, and +4 Fair Trade perhaps (easier to get fair trade modifiers with those we haven't met yet). That's +7, not quite enough. We likely won't go for HR (and she will probably be out of it by then). She might make a good target for some bonus resources for an extra +1. She needs 7 techs in order to give a +1 shared tech modifier. She gets negatives towards those of worse ranks and no bonuses towards those of higher rank.

Summary: Potential


Cyrus
Base is 0. Cyrus would also sign OB at Annoyed so +2 OB should be easy. +1 peace as well. Also, Cyrus has the advantage of having a good favored civic, Representation, though with a cap at +3. If we stay in Representation to the end, and he does too, that's +6 before Fair Trade is counted. He could potentially give a (hidden) +1 for us being higher rank than him, but it would require that we are 10 ranks above.

Summary: Easy


Elizabeth
Our friend and neighbor. She loves Free Religion so depending on how early we switch, it should be easy to get her above the limit. More specifically, her base is 0, we get +1 peace and +2 OB, potentially +2 bonus trade, and likely +5 civic, for a total of +10 before fair trade. She doesn't care about rank at all. We probably don't need to supply her with resources, we'll get her there anyway.

Summary: Given


Frederick
The big problem here is of course his rivalry with HC. We need to balance on the knife's edge. What we know is that we'll have +1 peace, +2 OB and most likely +2 bonus trade as well. Base is 0, and he cares about rank as much as Cyrus, i.e. we need to be 10 ranks higher to get a bonus, not likely. Favors US which we may or may not want to switch to. So +5 before Fair Trade bonuses, and also before rival trade demerits for HC. The -1 "you refused to help us" will wear off before the end. Requires 7 techs for a +1 shared tech bonus.

Summary: Potential


Hatshepsut
Hatty signs OBs at Annoyed so same thing goes for her as for the others. Base is 0, +1 peace, +2 OB for a total of +3 before Fair Trade. Favors HR which we don't want. Dislikes those of lower rank, cares for those of higher rank as much as Cyrus, i.e. 10 difference needed. Needs 10 techs for a +1 shared tech. All in all pretty hard to please.

Summary: Difficult


Huayna Capac
Our buddy who is warring with Frederick, which gives us problems. HC's base attitude is -1 so a slight uphill slope from the start. +1 peace, +2 OB puts us at +2 total. Even if we got him to +4 Fair Trade, and with no rival trade demerits for trading with Frederick, that's still only +6. Cares little for rank, and favors HR. This guy won't vote for us without some other reason.

Summary: Difficult


Isabella
This is one nasty girl. She starts at base -2, and is generally unlikely to listen to anything we say. If we can get her to +4 fair trade, and +2 OB and +1 peace, that's still only +5 total. Where do we find the remaining +3 needed? She only really likes those of her own religion, and we won't be one of those. She favors Police State which we definitely won't choose. She needs 20 techs for a +1 shared tech, not feasible even if she's way behind.

Also, Izzy is playing OCC, and a rather low-pop one at that. That makes her vote worth less than half of that of the others.

Summary: Lost cause


Julius Caesar
Another friend of Representation. Starts at -1 base though, but with +1 peace, +2 OB and +4 civic that's +6 before Fair Trade is counted. Needs 10 techs for a +1 shared techs, no rank bonus.

Summary: Easy


Kublai Khan
The biggest problem with KK is that he likes Alex and dislikes Washington. He starts at -1, and we don't have an OB with him. He's rather backwards though, so it's not impossible that we could gift him a few techs to get his Fair Trade up, and get an OB for that. We don't know if he's the worst enemy of Lizzy though (or do we?). He needs 7 techs for a +1 shared tech. And perhaps most interesting, he'd give a (hidden) +1 rank difference modifier if we are 7 ranks ahead of him, +2 if we are 13 ahead. If we count +1 peace, +2 OB, +4 Fair Trade, +1 shared tech, +1 rank, that's +9. So unless this guy means to make trouble elsewhere, I don't see him as a lost cause. Though if we attack Alex, we will get a -1 with KK for that. And trading with Washington will keep racking up rival trade demerits.

Summary: Difficult


Louis XIV
We don't know if he's in the game, could be (hope for) Napoleon. King Louis starts at -1, dislikes those of worse rank, favors HR. He would sign OB at Cautious. -1 base, +1 peace and +2 OB means +2 total before Fair Trade. Needs 10 techs for a +1 shared tech. Hard to see how we would get him to the +8 needed.

Summary: Difficult


Mansa Musa
Everybody's best friend, potentially only rivalled in that regard by Gandhi who isn't in this game. Mansa starts at base 0, really likes those of higher rank (+1 if 5 higher, +2 if 10 higher, +3 if 15 higher), would sign OB at Annoyed, and only needs 5 techs for a +1 shared tech bonus, 10 techs for +2. He also favors Free Market, a civic we may well want to adopt later in the game. At +1 peace, +2 OB, +1 shared tech, +1 rank, at least +1 Free Market, that's at least +6 before Fair Trade.

Summary: Given


Montezuma
I guess it's no surprise that this guy won't be easy. He starts at -2, favors Police State, hates those of worse rank and doesn't care at all about those with higher. Needs 7 techs for a +1 shared tech bonus. Signs OB at Cautious. With -2 base, +1 peace, +2 OB and +1 shared tech, that's +2 before Fair Trade. I don't see how we could recover from that.

Summary: Lost cause


Napoleon
We don't know if he's in the game or not, but very much hope that he is, he's much better for us than Louis. He really likes Representation and will go up to +6 for it. He starts at -2 though, signs OB at Cautious. With base -2, +1 peace, +2 OB, +6 civic, that's +7 before Fair Trade. Will need 10 techs for a +1 shared tech bonus. Doesn't bother much about rank either way.

Summary: Easy


Peter
We don't know if he's in the game, could be Catherine, we don't particularly care. Peter starts at -1, signs OB at Cautious. He favors Police State. His main redeeming factor, if you could call it that, is that he will only need 5 techs for a +1 shared tech bonus, 10 techs for +2, like Mansa. He dislikes those of worse rank and likes those of higher like Cyrus, i.e. +1 (hidden) for 10 difference in rank. With -1 base, +1 peace, +2 OB, +1 shared tech, that's +3 before Fair Trade.

Summary: Potential


Saladin
Starts at -1 base, favors Theocracy. He likes those of better rank as much as Cyrus (+1 if 10 difference), and needs 10 techs for a +1 shared techs modifier. With -1 base, +1 peace and +2 OB that's only +2 before Fair Trade.

Summary: Difficult


Tokugawa
Starts at -2, favors Mercantilism (very unlikely). He will be very difficult to please, he would need 20 techs for a +1 shared tech, doesn't care about rank much. If we can get him to Pleased and keep him there, we might get the +2 for an OB. I'd rate that as unlikely though. I just don't see how we could possibly get him to vote for us. Like Izzy he has only one town, and a small one at that.

Summary: Lost cause


Washington
Starts at -1 base, and we also have a -1 close borders. He favors US, doesn't care about rank, requires 10 techs for a +1 shared tech bonus. That latter doesn't seem unlikely though, considering we've already traded him a few. At -1 base, -1 close borders, +1 peace, +2 OB, +2 bonus trade and +1 tech means +4 before Fair Trade.

Summary: Easy


Total summary:

- Elizabeth and Mansa will vote for us without a doubt, as long as we can avoid wars with them.
- Asoka, Cyrus, Caesar, Napoleon and Washington will vote for us with litte effort from our side.
- Catherine/Peter and Frederick will likely vote for us if we make the effort.
- Hatty, HC, Louis and Saladin could vote for us but will require some special effort.
- Alex, Izzy, Monty and Toku are lost causes.

The special measures we can also take that I haven't considered above are Defensive Pacts and Shared Wars, as well as quite a few Bonus Resources to some leaders.
- Defensive pacts give +1 per 12 turns up to +2 after 24. We can only have so many though before we start incurring negatives with everyone else. As long as at least 15 out of 18 civs are still alive, we can have 3. If 11-14 are alive we can have 2, 7-10 and we can have 1.
- Shared wars give a lot of bonuses, but only while the war lasts. And declaring war on someone incurs penalties with that civ's friends (pleased with or better).
- We will want to count on the Bonus Resource trades, to make sure that we send them to the proper places at the proper times. It's 50 resource-turns for a +1, 100 for a +2.


Then there's also the big issue regarding who would be our opponent. We would love for it to be someone on the other side, someone who has conquered some neighbor and grown powerful from that. Someone who is not so easy-going and likable, like Saladin or Louis or Monty. On our home continent, HC would be the best bet, if he can conquer some of the German lands...

Hi, I'm back. I see there's a lot that's been going on. On the major current debate, I favor building the forge. The diplo stuff is interesting. I wonder how much influence we'll be able to have on who our opponent is? That seems to me to be the biggest single factor in whether a diplo victory is do-able. Obviously we'd prefer it to be one of the warmongers, as most of the civs that will like us would not like them.

It seems discussion has died down.

I remain unconvinced about the forge, but apparently I am the only one, so I'll build it.

I propose that I play on from the latest spreadsheet. Gift unneeded luxes to Lizzy. Use worker to mine iron (?) and (pre)chop some forests towards uni.

Yes - it's time to mine the iron so we can gift it, also later we will want it for military building perhaps.

Go ahead from current spreadsheet is fine with me.

I think the reason the discussion has died down is that we're not quite sure what to discuss, rather than a feeling of having everything nailed down.

I'm fine with the spreadsheet up to Education, after that I'm not quite so sure. Seeing how close we are to the end, and that we will want to be in FR towards the end (and quite some time before that) makes me less inclined to rush for Philosophy. But that's something we need to discuss. So I wouldn't mind it if you played up to Education and stopped then.

I really think we should discuss a lot more regarding the overall plan. If we have potentially 120 turns left, what to do with them? Should we research Optics ourselves after Education, to get those Caravels out early? Or do we want to wait and hope to trade for it?

Chopping is a good idea, I haven't considered that in any plans. Not sure about the iron, but I think it may be just as well to have it done.

Personally I've been a bit short on time these past days, and it seems I'll have one of those extremely busy spells coming up within the next 2-3 weeks, meaning I might not post more than a line or two every other day. Who will pick up the discussion then?

I think we need to beeline Optics so we can start befriending people on the other continent.

Go ahead and play through Education, unless some juicy trade shows up and you want to discuss.

Ok, it's now official that have a paper deadline on June 26th. I will try to spread the work out as much as possible, to avoid a huge workload towards the end of that period, and to be available to as large extent as possible. It will invariably detract at least somewhat from my time here though.

An errata: Shared wars give bonuses after the war ends as well, though the memory decays. Still, that makes them more useful over a longer period of time. Also, another thing I didn't consider at all in my analysis above is the unexpected asking of tributes/help/religion or civic switches etc. The former two categories we can likely benefit from. The latter can only mean harm to us.

In order to get to the point where we can achieve the numbers I've outlined above, we need a few techs that aren't directly on the path to Mass Media. Liberalism for FR is obviously one that we will go for anyway. Economics for Free Market is another, to get the bonuses with Mansa. Constitution is a tech that we want certain others to have - Cyrus, Napoleon, Caesar - and the easiest way to achieve that is to research it ourselves. These techs also require Philosophy, Nationalism, Feudalism, Guilds and Banking. We will most certainly be able to trade for Feudalism, less certain about the others, in particular to get them in time. But we have quite some time for self-research, we just have to make sure we do it in the right order.

A very tentative timeline where we beeline Optics after Education:

10: Optics researched, first Caravel out.
15: First contact made overseas - likely Annoyed.
20: Liberalism -> Astronomy.
15-30: More contacts made, though likely not all on the other continent, since if it looks like ours then we can only reach some of them via sea.
30: First scout (or missionary?) arrives on the other continent, in the lands of someone who would sign an OB, to meet those who are further inland.
40: More contacts on the other continent.

60: We switch to FR + FM. From this point, further tech trades are likely only with Lizzy and Mansa. Most on the other continent should go at least Cautious with us due to the loss of Heathen Religion demerits, and thus sign OBs.
70: Worst case for last contact made.

110: Mass Media researched.
120: We win. +1 peace (immediately) and +2 OB (takes 50 turns) with all targetted contacts.

In case things don't quite work out for us, I think we should go for a PA space win. Culture seems very difficult considering we've emphasized generating GSs so much, so we could only generate so many GAs now.

I should have more time available after the next couple of days (not counting weekends, which will always be bad) -- my in-laws are coming for an extended stay, so I should have a bit more time to goof off.

I should probably get a job ...

Renata said:

I should probably get a job ...

Click to expand...

Most of my free time is at work, so yes. Granted, raising a kid is a job, just doesn't carry the perks.

OK, play through to Education and let's see what happens. Let's get this show on the road.