Dr kossin #1

Round 4
A rather short update but there are many possible paths ahead.

Currency came in the very next turn. I opted for CoL next as the religion wasn't yet founded and Courthouses would be nice for my stretched empire. We got the religion and it went in Memphis.

Saladin was being Saladin and sent me 2 Missionaries early in the round. I converted as soon as they spread their faith.



I looked at my neighbors for extra means of getting gold such as this:

It may not look like much but after 50 turns it's a lot.

In 250BC, at 50% odds we got a nice surprise:


Needless to say I sent him here:

It instantly gave this 5gpt. The shrine is currently at +8gpt even though I have yet to build 1 missionary.

225BC A nice trade. We have several Calendar resources and extra gold is always needed.


The only City I built this round, the pigs were improved on the same turn it was built. I probably should have gotten a few more, but a lot of infrastructure was needed: libraries, granaries, lighthouses and courthouses.


100BC I checked the Wonder Screen and notice that the Hanging Gardens have not been completed, so...


Resulting in:

For a nice empire-wise boost!

Finally, the last tech of the round:


Current trades, and possibilities:


Tech screen. Looks in good shape.


I switched to OR a few turns ago stupidly so I can't switch to Bureau just yet. Capital is building Chitchen Itza for failure gold.


The tech tree. I'm guessing Paper next but anything is fair game at this point I guess.


Demographcis.. first in land and first in GNP at 0%


What I built... 12 current workers... 0 cottages.


The empire - north


The empire - south


I need to finish filling the land and need a few more workers. Monarchy I can't trade for yet so I'll try putting 1 turn into it for a trade with Saladin. I'm also expecting another GP soon from Thebes. 69% GS or 31% GE. If it's a GE, should I make a detour via Litterature, keep him for the Taj Mahal or a Corporation?
A GS I might keep to bulb part of Education since we'll be there before I can get another one although I could always use an Academy somewhere.

Next round will be tomorrow!

What victory are you looking into?
I'm pretty sure you can manage a nice religious win here (needing optics isn't that bad).

I'd cottage up your capital and run Bureau. Added to that, I'd cottage Adrianople and your NW city, to get a little more research. Specialists in all the other cities will do. Your game looks good.

Once Brennus is at pleased you'll be safe, which won't take long now that you're running OR and share hinduism with him. The game is pretty much in the bag at this point.

Just looked at the save and i have a couple of questions,

Why are you researching monarchy? You can trade it with Sal if you want to right now. It's worthless as well atm since you'll be running rep for quite some time. No marble so paper seems the way to go but i would understand something like compass. If you do go monarchy be sure to research priesthood first, don't know if you traded for col, if you self researched it you threw some beakers by not researching priesthood first.

Most of your cities are way under the happy cap, i think you should grow them and either whip them for buildings that can sustain specs (and then grow them again) such as market or go caste and assign as many specs as you can once the cities have grown to happy cap. You have cities now that have a few specs assigned but can't have more because many farms aren't worked. They're really far too small atm.

I'd make haste settling the cities near banana and silk as well.

I hope you start chaining irrigation... And Adrianapolis should work farmed FP instead grassland farm.

Monarchy is not worth it despite any amount of wineries. Your workers should be busy chaining for a while. I do imgaine you building chitza for cahs so trading arround CoL for faster cashing in would not hurt.

Overall you are in wining position. Good work for not needing cats to finish job.

@cabert
I believe I can pretty much aim at any VC from this point so making up my mind would be nice. I would need to build the AP for a religious win and spread Buddhism some more to my religious friends so I may opt to go in that direction, it will be also easier if the hidden AIs aren't Theocracy lovers like Isabella.

@kadazzle
Running cottages while in Representation seems counterproductive. It could be useful with Bureaucracy granted but how much time will it take to be better than Representation Scientists?

@Dirk
Monarchy was just a placeholder. There's 3 Wine in our borders that could be improved and traded for money/other resources. I had tried trading CoL to Saladin a few turns ago but he wouldn't take it, is he willing to now? Most cities have just recently been whipped for Courthouses and such so I'll take your advice and grow them back first before assigning more specialists. Settling the 3 last cities will be a priority in the next round, they are really strong sites as you say.

@Soirana
Yes, CS came in the turn I stopped so it is time to start chain irrigation. Good catch on Adrianople, I'm completely ignored the fp fo some excuse I can't make up. Trading CoL around seems like a good thing to do as you say since gold is pretty low in the coffers as well.

Comparing grassland farm/rep specialists to cottages, you have:

to feed 1 specialist, you need 2 grassland farms. Thus, 3 pop = 6 beakers. Each cottage gives +1 (since we still get commerce from riverside farms in either case), so 3 cottages will give 3 commerce at the start, which isn't as good as rep scientists. But then after 10 turns, they become equal, once the cottages grow. And after another 20 turns, they become better (especially with PP).

Not, that ignores a few things. Specialists are better in that they are nicer to whip away if needed, if you quickly don't need production they're a bit more versatile, and I have completely ignored the GPP (which depending on your game, may or may not matter. What are the odds that a random city running 2 scientists will let you pop an extra GP in your game that you would normally otherwise not have?)

Mainly, if you plan on running bureaucracy, may as well get the most from it and get the commerce bonus, so cottaging your cap makes sense. And I usually find it's useful to cottage another city as a sort of gold farm as well, to power your economy.

Round 5a

I played 3 turns to the next GP and the result is:


So far, I set the cities to mostly grow, revolted to Bureau/Caste (for hopefully a GS soon) and workers have been irrigating. 1 settler is already done and another on the way as are extra workers.

I can detour to Literature in 2 turns, settle him, or keep him for a future use. The AP is also a possibility I would suppose (4 turns to Theology).

Thoughts?

GLH in MEMPHIS? if you are planing to settle all your marks it will pay off. And you will certainly earn style points by obtraining GLH in AD's by GE

If you want to run say a cottaged bureaucracy Capital, would it make sense to shift to the shrine city? For all the commerce infrastructure should probably be built there anyway. Or does City upkeep and trade routes overcompensate the advantages?

@Soirana
Nice idea, that's 12 extra trade routes and makes the clams/wine city much better than what it looked like at first.

@Agramon
City upkeep would be similar I believe. Bureaucracy has no effect on the shrine income and the city isn't as food rich as Thebes hence I would not go that way. Constantinople would be a good candidate to get the Forbidden Palace though.

Round 5b
A longer playset this time, but there was not much to report. I was also distracted and forgot to check for assigned spy-specialists a few times.

The tech path was Paper>Education>Philo>Liberalism (1 turn from completion).

I finished building the proposed cities and added a few workers. The land is mostly improved at this point so I did not need much more workers. There was some bad luck as I popped a Great Prophet instead of a Great Scientist (while in Caste System) for an Academy. I settled him in Constantinople to use the modifiers.

As per Soirana's suggestion, I moved the GE to Memphis.


After checking the Wonders tab, it is time to build The Great Lighthouse. It made the new coastal cities instantly profitable so it was a good idea.


I made a few trades this round, mostly backfilling techs, resources for gold and old techs for gold.


Fast forward to 620AD, Brennus finally completes Chitchen Itza.


It gives us 472 failure gold the next turn.


After part researching Philosophy (Saladin got the religion in his 1-tile island city ) we trade for:


Saladin is now at Friendly so I can trade for as many things as I want from him

I then use Philosophy to trade with Hannibal:


I built Universities in my top 6 hammer cities as soon as Education came in with the help of the whip. The end result is that Oxford University is 5 turns from completion. I can also 4-pop whip it, taking away mostly mines but I'm not sure this is such a good idea.


Bringing us to the end of the round overview.




Liberalism is 1 turn from completion. I would like to get a deeper tech since nobody seems that close, all lacking Education and the last 2 civs don't seem like they have any research power.



I am thinking going Pacifism+Caste System will allow me to generate some fast Scientists at last.


It seems pretty late now but a Biology slingshot ala Rusten would be quite nice. Then again I could go for a Cavalry war and Capitulate the whole continent.

I'm thinking of wrapping this game soon as the position is quite strong and there isn't much need for discussion to ensure a win anymore.

Anyway, I await your thoughts and suggestions.

Decide on victory. If gunning for space, then going for Bio would be strong. If going for war, then maybe grabbing Steel for free, and mowing everyone down with Cannons would be good.

I'd go gunpowder> chem and take steel. An alternative would be nat> music (or music >nat if you think the GA is still available) and take mil trad, > gunpowder (cuirassiers).

If you want some nice tech from lib, I suggest astro first (build ships), find out what your neighbours are doing, then scimet, and get physics from the lib.
You can bulb the free scientist for a good part of biology (or for chemistry if you don't have it at that point).
It's a bit overambitious at that level, but you have all the tools in your hands.

Looking good. When you meet the other Ai you will have so many techs to trade to back fill where needed. A lot of them can prolly be bypassed. Ox uni before 1000ad is impressive considering start.

Which VC arte you going for. Is the religious option open or do you just want to bash a few AI around.

Another mids and GLH save. Ackkkk have we taught you nothing here!!! hehe

I think I'll go for a military approach and then build the UN.
The problem with the Religious Victory is I haven't built the AP and Brennus is larger than me and will likely not build it.
If I capitulate the whole landmass, Diplo Victory is assured. But then again, chances are the other 2 civilizations out there will likely be backwards so I could as well finish them.

I usually dislike 1-movement wars, especially on Normal but in this case I can likely take Steel from Liberalism for a Cannons+Musket war while teching towards rifling/artillery/Infantry, build 1 massive army and steamroll the continent. Once Brennus is capitulated (he will be hardest because of long border and power), the rest should be easy.

So, plan is Steel from Liberalism I think. 3-fish city looks like a good Globe Theater candidate so maybe a quick detour over there will be warranted.

I'll try to get a round up to Steel, or up to whatever happens before, in a few.

Round 6
I set out to execute the plan I proposed.

I set research on Engineering at 0% while Oxford finished.

Meanwhile, the religious victory approach was burried.


Hannibal and Brennus kept moving in/out of Friendly during the round, I took the opportunity to make these 2 trades:


Sending Hannibal into Slavery made him lose 1 turn of Revolt but sadly not a second as he did not revolt back. Still, less Great People for him.

Once Oxford was completed, I made a civic switch:


I then assigned 2 cities to generate a few Scientists. The first one was used in a Golden Age to generate more and help in war preparations. I did not bulb him as he would have researched PP which was not urgent.



In 1060 AD, I finish Liberalism and select Steel.


Here is the still small army that I started building


Saladin has just researched Education so I did this trade, on the path to rifles.


My power went considerably up even though I'm still far from Brennus. He won't have a stack to counter mine in a few turns though...


Demographics look fine, but second in production (Brennus is also in a Golden Age).


Techs... I might be able to trade for Guilds next turn so I'll put the slider at 0% and send the research overflow somewhere else, possibly Scientific Method.


Cities overview.


Since I've not used the whip so much in this set, cities are ripe for building masses of canons in the coming turns. Unless Saladin makes magic rifles, this looks in the bag.

I've got some unhappiness in a city, since it isn't garrisoned. There's a unit moving in that will be there next turn though.

Here's a look at Brennus' land.


I will probably march towards his Capital, taking his cities on the way as that is probably the fastest way to get him to Capitulate. I will need to post a few defenders in my border cities as he will undoubtedly send pillagers.

Any advice going forward?

I don't understand why you don't garrison your cities.
It's a bit odd to allow useless unhappiness.
+ You didn't build the HE. It's really a bad idea, when you'r egoing full out units to not build this one. Thessalonique would be a good candidate (highest hammer output).

On the science departement, I would go astro before scimet, because of the discount you could get. Other than that, don't delay the war, brennus is ripe.