Yelü Chucai's surprising ascent

Not a lot to add ...

I'd personally 'stick to our guns' and hold out for a Metal Casting <> Alphabet trade, whip the Forge in Karakorum, and run an Engineer there to pop our next Great Engineer, which theoretically would set us up for The Great Library. This is my preference. If we want to self-research Archery in the meantime, that's fine by me.

Alternately, we can trade away Metal Casting for Maths + Iron Working, and run Scientists in Karakorum toward Construction. This should get us the tech' in around 15-ish turns. We'd run the risk of popping a Great Scientist, which would start to make The Great Library look very much like a distant hope, but it would at least give us the compelling option of a Karakorum Academy.

I think we should make a call on this (or other alternatives) one way or the other now.

I would prefer to see a dedicated Great Person Farm rather than using Karakorum because of the Bureaucracy civic, where the capital is handsomely rewarded for :commerce: and :hammers: (but not :gp: especially). Alternatives could be; to shift the capital, or we could just concede that we're not going to get much leverage out of Bureaucracy if we wanted to run loads of specialists in Karakorum (even though this is quite well Cottaged now). This city will probably yield a few more Great People anyway by virtue of its Wonders plus there'd be a chance that from time to time we could just want to run some specialists there in addition to working developed tiles.

My vote would probably be to have Uzbek earmarked for a Great Person Farm, convert Cimmerian into a unit pump, and have Karakorum as our Science Centre. I'd pair The Great Library and The National Epic in Uzbek, but wouldn't greatly object if The Great Library ended up in Karakorum instead, assuming we're still going to pursue this Wonder.

Pigswill - three and a half days since "got it" ... are you OK to put up a PPP soon?
 
Currently our next Geng is due in 27 turns, however at current research alph>lit will take 60 turns!
Further expansion will of course slow this further (until we start running scientists) and without IW gems city is a non-starter. If we delay gems city the site will be taken by an AI. So a few challenges here.

I would take the MC trade suggested by vranasm, get forge in Karakorum to run an eng then build settler in Karakorum. All other cities build a worker. Move chariots towards barb city. At some point another AI will be willing to trade alphabet if we don't get it ourselves.
 
@pigs

I think your commerce will go up once you connect your cities and hopefully towards some AI

I would strongly advise against whipping capital, you need it to produce beakers/commerce now and be it big.
I checked that those 2 wonders produce 6 GEng points, you can add next turn 6 GSci points and get 7 fixed bpt at 0%.
In this configuration you will have ~60% chance for GE compared GS, both you need.

fixing land and employing good citizens is biggest prio for pigs TS and maybe the TS after with only 3 workers, 5 cities and hopefully some to come.
 
We're getting nowhere slowly atm. I reckon we'll get MC>alphabet trade anyway. Karakorum to build forge, Beshbalik to build/whip settler for gems on hitting pop 4. Going to start playing.
 
Its better to be lucky than good ;).











Karakorum worked on forge, 3 pop whip in 325bc, allocated eng, GE due in 7. By coincidence lit due in 7. Non-one on our continent has lit yet. Building archers.

Beshablik built chariot to pop 4, build settler, double whip in 275bc, heading towards gem site. City building archers.

Uzbek whipped a worker, whipped a library, building LH, pop 4 next turn ready for 2 scientists.

Cimmerian built/whipped worker, building granary.

Turfan built/chopped worker, building granary.

We've added three workers and a bunch of techs. However we have no metal at all.

Chariots are near barb city. Saladin has stack of sword/2 axe nearby:


Save:
 
Thanks for the report pigswill - nice work on the trades. :thumbsup:

I've had a lightning look at the save and it's really encouraging i.m.h.o.

I guess my great concern was that Peter might have handed Metal Casting around before we had a chance to do our brokering, but instead it has worked well ... albeit later than planned.

Shame about Iron popping up in 'close but not close enough' spots.

I'm somewhat relieved that nobody's WHEOOHRN still.

Surprised that we've still not met Asoka.

FiveRings
pigswill
woopdeedoo << Up
Cam << On Deck
 
Sincere apologies for the delay. We are in the middle of a 5 day long weekend in SA and I haven't had time to go online since Thursday. I had a look at the save. The aggressive settle of Cyrus by OUR iron will not go unpunished. I want to take the Eastern barb city and settle the gems site. Also need some more workers and then a elepult army is to be built. The GE won't be born during my TS. I am also unsure of tech as I had only a cursory glance at the save. Input from the roster would obviously be appreciated on that front. I will wait until tomorrow to play the TS.
 
Should get GE and lit in seven turns. I'd reckon construction is the next tech to aim for, particularly if we can build eles and cats given our lack of metal.
 
So a PPP of sorts. Finish Lit and build GLib (Where? Cap?). Tech Construction. Get barb city and also settle Gems. Some more workers are needed and also improvements to cities, esp gems once settled.
 
:undecide:

'Yes' to completing The Great Library with the Great Engineer. I would be happy with either Karakorum (capital - Oxford in waiting) or Uzbek (proposed :gp: Farm, National Epic in waiting).

Happy to pursue Construction after Literature - check trade opportunities each turn given it's already acquired by China and researchable by everyone else. What :science: rate given our nice :gold: reserve?

I'm concerned that we've not got the firepower to take the Barbarian city - but you may be luckier than I am.

Settler on hand to take Clam-Gems-Gems ... I assume 'the more inland' tile?

No issue with more Workers - it's been a bit problematic for much of this game.

So - which city's going to be building what then? Also - are we prepared to take a diplomatic hit by refusing to adopt Judaism if asked? There's a Sugar <> Wheat deal that we could make with Cyrus ... interest?
 
1. TGLIB - preferable in Cap in combo with the OU, but have no issue with don't mind if the majority tilts towards Uzbek.
2. I usually go for trades that get me a luxury for health. In our case it might be short-lived, but also mitigate refusal to adopt Judaism (IIRC that the request might come from Cyrus)
3. I am also in favor of the "more inland" for the Gem city, i.e. 1E of the Eastern Jem.
4. I am almost positive that we don't have enough army to conquer the Barb city. I'd like to have (a very) close to 2:1 ratio of Chars/Archers at the worst. Don't want to lose the whole army for somebody else to conquer it later.
5. Due to 4 above, I'd rather go for chars in the stead of workers, where rational.
Good luck, W!
 
I'd prefer Glib outside of capital because you really want to run a couple of normal scientists with it which doesn't really help optimise bureaucracy.

Maybe keep chariots near barb city, iirc Saladin has a stack of sorts heading that way, hopefully he won't capture it first turn and we can nip in. If he does then reinforcements would be too late anyway.
 
This issue with the placement of The Great Library is a bit of a tough one, especially given that Karakorum is already churning out quite a few :gp: points courtesy of the two World Wonders there already, while Uzbek isn't the most brilliant food-rich site I've ever seen and will also need some time to get The National Epic up. Generally in other games under not dissimilar circumstances; I'm inclined to go with rushing The Great Library in the :gp:-Farm and then walk the popped Great Scientists around to the capital for merging into that city when running a Representation-based set-up. I'm still quite undecided here, and OK to go with the group vote.

Cyrus is Buddhist. If we're going to be asked to adopt Judaism, it will have to come from Saladin unless an AI changes its faith.

I like pigswill's suggestion re. taking our chances with an AI's stack hitting Visigoth and doing the bulk of the work before we pinch it for ourselves. Our Chariots have some decent XPs, but I still feel it's too risky to attack this city right now with what we have there.
 
On one hand, I am happy for the GP points in Cap to spit out a lot of GPs but I also see the merit of spreading our wonders/GP points to another city, such as Uzbek. I would like to also get more feedback as to settlement of gems. I prefer the hill to get clams and gems in 1st ring whereas FR has mentioned 1E of Gems but that moves clam to 2nd ring. Some more input from roster would be appreciated.

I can play until the GE pops and we decide where to put GLib...
 
My preference on the Clam-Gems-Gems is the tile immediately east of the Gems.

It's quite right that we'd need a border pop to get the Clams, but you're giving up five Grasslands (one of which being a Silk) for Coast and Ocean - much of which is culture-pressured from what I assume is Saladin's Jewish Holy City.

It's also true that settling on Grassland rather than Hills will also lose that natural defensive bonus, but this city having an extra Grassland Hill to work might not be such a bad thing anyway, as it looks pretty :hammers: poor, even though it looks like a really good :commerce:-site. I find it handy to be able to flip some citizens in :commerce:-cities onto Mines in a city's early growth stages to get up basic buildings. Grassland Hills can also be Cottaged up if food allows*.

To me, the 'short term pain' of having the food resource on the outer ring is probably outweighed by the 'long term gain' of having much better tiles to work.

My 'two cents', but I won't be too distraught if we settle on the Hill instead.

(* That riverside Grassland Hill in Karakorum could potentially be Cottaged).
 
Ok. South of the hill it is. I will play in the next few hours since this game seems to be stalling. I will play until something comes up that requires team discussion or the GP is born etc.
 
I have played until the GE came in. I made the Sugar<>Wheat trade with Cyrus. The plan to let Sal suicide his stack worked and we got Visigoth for the loss of a single chariot:



We also settled our Gem city as per plan:



A trade was proposed by WK and accepted:



And a demand by Peter denied, dropping him from Pleased to Cautious:



In retrospect I should probably have let him have it but it is also a handy bargaining chip to get some tech out of him. I am hoping Construction.

Anyways, all in all everything went according to plan and I am relatively happy. Let the GLib debate begin. Incidentally, my vote is for the cap...
 

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