ALC Game 17, Take 2: Russia/Peter (BtS)

This map doesn't really lend to any good colony sites (unless Sisiutil conquers lands on another continent). If you check the colony maintainence it is currently very low. Unless those far islands are a net drain on the economy (and they won't be after Forbidden gets done) then they should be kept.

pindicator said:

This map doesn't really lend to any good colony sites (unless Sisiutil conquers lands on another continent). If you check the colony maintainence it is currently very low. Unless those far islands are a net drain on the economy (and they won't be after Forbidden gets done) then they should be kept.

Click to expand...

I'm inclined to agree, especially as there's an essential resource on one. What I need to do is build up the garrisons over there to hang on to that island. It will look very tempting to Bizzy, Shaka, et al once they have Astronomy.

I'll play and post the next round today. I think I'm going to go take out Gandhi. Vladivostok is just too perfect as a launching point for invasion. And there's that copper quest to think of. Any excuse for a war and a chance to show off the UU, right?

Regarding corporations my estimations are similar with Validator's. They are going to be somewhat expensive, so spread them with caution. The two giving ones are well worth it either in high production cities, or financialy focused ones that need a boost to build infrastracture fast enough.
Mininc inc should be found but getting hold of a GE now may present complications. BTS seems less forgiving of wonder happiness thus, dont you think. Aluminium co could be a better option than a giving one depending on how things reveal themselves to be.

Sisiutil said:

I'm inclined to agree, especially as there's an essential resource on one. What I need to do is build up the garrisons over there to hang on to that island. It will look very tempting to Bizzy, Shaka, et al once they have Astronomy.

I'll play and post the next round today. I think I'm going to go take out Gandhi. Vladivostok is just too perfect as a launching point for invasion. And there's that copper quest to think of. Any excuse for a war and a chance to show off the UU, right?

Click to expand...

I ll note again that colonies are not as appealing as the game advertises them to be, and have little to do with securing resources with them.
I d advise making a colony of a mostly conquered opponent, Ghandi if he suits your liking. But do keep the 2-3 most appealing cities on the continent for yourself.
I am not fond of deploying GA just to encourage the war effort versus Ghandi. With airships and all...
A GA later will be more rewarding.
And focus your military development and production towards naval superiority to protect various cities here and there. It will prove much more cost efficient.

I'm a little confused. In one breath, you talk about saving a Great Merchant for Sid's Sushi. Then in another, you talk about one of the holy grails of the SE, Biology.

IMHO, SE's really lend themselves to Caste System. And Caste System really lends itself to State Property. And, CS/SP really lends itself to Workshops.

So the way I see it, Corporations and SE's don't mix.

I'm probably a little jaded by my love for CS/SP Grassland Workshops, but I'd really like to see you showcase the awesome power of Workshops to go along with your SE.

EDIT: Anthony van Diemen (Great Merchant) is worth 3150 in Ulundi. (No I didn't cheat or use WB, you can queue his movement and mouse over the button to check the value in various cities.)

OTAKUjbski said:

I'm a little confused. In one breath, you talk about saving a Great Merchant for Sid's Sushi. Then in another, you talk about one of the holy grails of the SE, Biology.

IMHO, SE's really lend themselves to Caste System. And Caste System really lends itself to State Property. And, CS/SP really lends itself to Workshops.

So the way I see it, Corporations and SE's don't mix.

I'm probably a little jaded by my love for CS/SP Grassland Workshops, but I'd really like to see you showcase the awesome power of Workshops to go along with your SE.

Spoiler 74 raw hammers (83 possible) from a converted GP farm with no hills!!! :

EDIT: Anthony van Diemen (Great Merchant) is worth 3150 in Ulundi. (No I didn't cheat or use WB, you can queue his movement and mouse over the button to check the value in various cities.)

Click to expand...

Why not have Corporations and workshops? Sid's Sushi for more food would actually enable him to work more workshops faster, along with more specialists, wouldn't it?

EDIT: Nevermind, I realized why... haha.

OTAKUjbski said:

IMHO, SE's really lend themselves to Caste System. And Caste System really lends itself to State Property. And, CS/SP really lends itself to Workshops.

So the way I see it, Corporations and SE's don't mix.

Click to expand...

Obviously you've yet to experience the power of corporations in BTS.

In my first BTS game, Sid's Sushi was generating +18/turn; that allowed me to build workshops over most of my farms while supporting a truly OBSCENE number of specialists. So I would say just the opposite, corporations & the SE have incredible synergy.

I must disagree about corporate costs, but that could be due to the fact that I'm playing with the patch that removes inflation from that equation.

I'm running beurocracy and the capitol has all financial buildings including wall street. every instance of mining INC is break even for me.. so 0 cost for its benefits. and every time I spread it to my vassal my financial situation improves. sid's sushi may be a different story since there is a bunch of fish under my control.

with inflation factored in you may not be able to spam it like I am, but if validator or sisuitil want to look at the save I'll find you a link to the mod I'm using so you can view it. the mod just has solver's unofficial patch and integrated late game stuff from the nextwar mod in it. other than that plays exactly the same. -corporate inflation though.

the beurocracy civic is why its being break even for me.. may change people's perception of running free speach.

more research on this is definately needed

NaZ

jerVL/kg said:

Obviously you've yet to experience the power of corporations in BTS.

In my first BTS game, Sid's Sushi was generating +18/turn; that allowed me to build workshops over most of my farms while supporting a truly OBSCENE number of specialists. So I would say just the opposite, corporations & the SE have incredible synergy.

Click to expand...

You must've had an obscene amount of seafood. I don't think there's 36 seafood resources on my entire map. In my current game, I'm trying for a Great Merchant so I can found Cereal mills, since I've got plenty of wheat and corn. It's only going to be able to produce +8 /turn, but it'll still be worth it, since I will be able to replace the farms in my three best production cities.

I already founded Mining Inc, which is producing +16 /turn in three of my cities. I'll be adding a fourth soon, so I can start building execs in two cities, rather than my wall-street city.

DarkFyre99 said:

You must've had an obscene amount of seafood.

Click to expand...

Well...yeah.

And I still haven't claimed every resource on the map yet.

It's bloody expensive to run at that size...most of my cities are getting Cereal Mills instead, which only adds +6 but has much cheaper maintenance. (The cost of a corporation scales with its power, evidently.)

or another almost COMPLETELY BROKEN way to look at this..

sid's sushi is totally affordable in just about every city.. why?? if you have say 8 extra food.. you can afford to run 8 plains cottages instead of 8 plains farms.. under emancipation those cottages will become towns in short order. so for lets say -25gpt net including earnings from headquarters, you are supporting say 4+ cottages pulling in atleast 5 more commerce a piece over what the farms produce. so the culture is free, the hammers from the towns are free..

without inflation (i'm playign solver's patch), I'm currently making a profit in every single city I add a corporation to. my econ has slingshot so fast that there is no hope for the AI to catch up to me at this point.. and its on monarch.

having your headquarters in your wallstreet city with all econ buildings makes it almost break even. with inflation though probably not but thats why the patch is there.

NaZ

Round 10: 1550 AD to 1780 AD, Part 1

This is going to be a long, long, LONG update. A lot happened with a lot of Beyond the Sword's new features coming to the fore, so I want to cover it all. It's going to take 4 posts, so be patient.

As the round began, Espionage allowed me to see that Gandhi would soon have Chemistry for Frigates, the Privateers' nemeses. So I figured I should get the most out of the Privateers while they could still operate in Indian waters and sent them after Gandhi's Caravels:



You know, racking up XPs towards a Great General, as well as depriving Gandhi of as many Caravels to upgrade to Frigates as I could. Plus it was fun.

Meanwhile, an interesting development occurred north of Moscow:




Well, that was just going to make the northern crab fishing village that much better, so I spent the cash since I had it to spare. There's also oil up there. I prioritized getting a Settler built and over there as soon as I could.

I quite like the random events, I have to say. A lot of the other BtS changes feel like a throwback to Civilization II, and that's not a bad thing, I loved that game and played it for over a decade. (And we'll see some of the things I'm talking about in this round.) But it's good to see something totally brand-new to the Civ series that adds a lot to the game.

I completed the final tech needed for Russia's unique Unit:



And I get Rifles in the bargain. It seems to me that we're not going to see Grenadiers running amok as much as we used to, and that, I think, was part of the reason for the changes--pushing Cavalry and Grens back in the tech tree so that they're available around the same time as Riflemen rather than long before.

Anyway, with Rifling in hand for two excellent units, I next went after Steel in order to have Cannon. I was still planning on a war against India, after all. In the meantime I built up infrastructure as much as I could in my cities.

Now remember I had that Great Scientist in Moscow, waiting to bring on a Golden Age. He was still there when I got my next Great Person out of Ruska (I got around to fixing the name later in the round).



Yes, another Great Scientist. I would have thought Ruska would have thrown a GE by now, but no such luck. That's what you get when you mix GP-producing buildings: a lack of predictability. Someone suggested settling the Great Scientists late in the SE, which I did, but it later occurred to me that that was a mistake. Electricity, which the GS would have partially lightbulbed, is on the path to Superconductors and the unique building, you see. D'OH!

Well, with Barracks and Stables in place almost everywhere, it was time to let slip the dogs of war. First off, I went to Moscow and burned the GS for a Golden Age:



I checked the power graph and was pleased to see that I was already ahead, though not by much:



That would soon change, however, as I had started building several units in my cities' queues. I prioritized Cossacks in the cities that had Stables, Riflemen in St. Pete to benefit from the added XPs of the Military Instructor there, and Frigates and Galleons in my coastal cities as well.

I added two more military techs in order to feel prepared for all-out industrial-era warfare:





Since Gandhi could now build Frigates, I wanted the anti-Frigate, the new Ship of the Line. I also built some of another new unit, Airships, to help them out. You'll see them in action shortly.

With several units in my cities' queues ready to go, it was time to change civics, anarchy-free thanks to the GA:



Good ol' Vassalage and Theocracy for all those additional XPs. I stuck with Mercantilism as almost everybody and his dog was running it now. I thought about changing to Police State, but I didn't want to lose the research benefit of Representation, so I stuck with it as well.

And yes, I started after Medicine, not only for Sid's Sushi Co., but for Hospitals. I was going to lose some happy and healthy resources from Gandhi for several turns and needed to compensate.

My next GP out of Ruska was a total surprise:



That from running a single spy specialist! I decided to settle him in the science city for the +12 espionage points and the 6 flasks. I suppose I could have sent him to infiltrate somebody, but no one (at this point) had any techs I wanted, and besides, this late in the game stealing techs is prohibitively expensive even with a Great Spy.

With one turn to go in the Golden Age I decided to change civics anarchy-free one more time:



Nationhood I adopted for the +2 happy from barracks as well as the espionage boost and the ability to draft Riflemen. Why Organized Religion? Well, I figured that with the loss of Gandhi's silk and cows, I'd need to build infrastructure like Markets, Grocers, and so on to compensate. As you'll see, I was more right about that than I imagined.

All the pieces were in place, so it was finally time to take on my only serious rival in this game and give the Cossacks a chance to shine:



Right away, I got a chance to highlight some of the new units. Gandhi had a couple of Frigates loitering near my territory. I first sent the Airships in to weaken them:



I really like these units, they're a welcome early addition that makes the naval game more balanced and gives you another good reason to go after the very expensive Physics tech.

The Airships' attacks were followed up by the new Ships of the Line:



The one-two combination of Airship and SotL was potent, but even so, I was glad I had several extra Frigates; once the Yakushev finished its attack, I moved a healthy Frigate onto the same coastal tile to protect it from reprisal. As you can see, Gandhi had several Frigates and Caravels around. Don't laugh at those Caravels. As some of my Privateers learned the hard way, a wolf pack of them can collectively bring down a much bigger ship, and the AI is willing to sacrifice some units for a larger objective.

I had been steadily transferring units over to Valadivostok, making me very glad I had claimed that city site on the neighbouring continent. I moved my stack against the first Indian city, Lahore:



Yes, a very Cossack-heavy stack. Since Gandhi lacked Rifling for their counter, I felt I could rely on them. Well, them and all those Cannon.

To be continued...

Round 10: 1550 AD to 1780 AD, Part 2

While the Cannons can't kill anything anymore, they were still very effective, especially against antiquated units like Longbowmen. As you saw, I made sure that I brought along several units to finish off what the Cannons started.



I razed Lahore. I saw no reason to keep it, since it claims no resources and I'll have extra maintenance costs for the Indian cities as it is, what with it being on another continent and all. As you can see, razing a city now generates another new/old feature: Partisans! Yes, just like in Civ II. Another welcome blast from the past, presenting you with another challenge. Or in this case, another chance for my Cossacks to earn XPs. I had several Cossacks with Flanking promotions, so I felt confident sending them after the Musketmen in the forest, even with 67% odds. They all won their engagements.

So the war was off to a successful start on the other continent. The same could not be said back home, however.



Yes, war weariness was getting bad very quickly. It was a good thing that I'd built so many units before starting the war, because I mostly had to build infrastructure back home to compensate for a number of things. First off, as you can see, I had to start building happiness multipliers. I also raised the cultural slider, but that put my economy in the red. It was a good thing I also had a lot of gold in the bank, but that wouldn't last forever. So I also had to build commerce multipliers like Banks, Markets, and Grocers. The latter also increased happiness and health, which were becoming problems, so they were also welcome. Good thing I'd switched to Organized Religion!

Even so, the culture slider had to jump to 40% almost immediately to keep my core cities productive. My income slumped well below -100 GPT. There was only one way to compensate:



Yep, merchants. I started shifting specialists in just about every city to merchants to compensate for all the income going into bribing the populace back to work. I suppose I should have taken more time before starting the war to have happy and health multipliers in place, but then the build-up would have taken forever. So I just had to manage as best I could. I did draft some Riflemen in cities where I could afford to--unfortunately that was mainly my smaller island cities, and was going to take too long to get their drafted units over to India. But at least I felt more confident that those isolated cities were well-protected.

The good news was that the military build-up, powered by the Golden Age, meant that I could indeed focus on civilian builds back home:



I do get a charge out of doing a multi-unit queue load and then seeing its effect, as above, on the power rating. Heh.

Gandhi, of course, tried to counter-attack, but the Indian just didn't have the units to manage it:



Yeah, Knights and War Elephants weren't exactly making me soil my shorts. My CR II Cannon survived a collateral damage attack on the Indian stack, then it was time for the Cossacks to perform mop-up duty.




Meanwhile, my research still hummed along, as even Merchants will produce 3 research points each thanks to Representation.



Now I just needed Corporation and I could found Sid's Sushi Co. It would have to wait, however; my next tech choice was Constitution, for jails for my uppity citizens. Some people just don't appreciate the glory of war. Sigh.

Meanwhile, I think Gandhi did some bribing to make the war more complicated for me.



That couldn't have been too hard. After joining Shaka a couple of times in phony wars against the German, Bismarck wasn't exactly fond of me.

Well, two can play at that game.



There, that ought to keep Bizzy busy.

Giving Shaka Education also opened up Economics to him. I'm looking down the road and hoping to run Free Market before too long, of course.

Even with the war going on and my economy threatening to go into the tank, I still managed to found another new city:



Crabs, oil, and uranium--not bad. It would also solidify my hold on that iron mine. And two of its tundra tiles can be irrigated. Not a bad city, overall.

The war was progressing against India. I was working my way across the north of the continent, heading west towards Goth and the copper quest.



I was starting to keep cities now since they had worthwhile resources in their BFCs. And goodies within as well.



Too bad Notre Dame's effects were limited to one continent. I could have used its benefits back home. The Spiral Minaret also did me no good, because I need to have Divine Right for it to work.

I also decided to keep the mature cottages around India's cities. Why not? As NaZdReG was pointing out, Sid's Sushi Co. could allow me to run specialists and cottages in several cities.

In another part of the world, that stupid little barb city finally grew to 2 pop so I could take and keep it.



That took way too long and tied down some of my best CR units. In retrospect, I should have just razed it and built a Settler.

My next Indian city was a mediocre one, but I kept in nevertheless.



Goth was up next. Getting a 2nd source of copper was going to be helpful. It meant I could keep that very lucrative trade for wine, sheep, and GPT going with Mao, and that I'd be able to accelerate production of the Statue of Liberty. After Corporation I planned to go after Democracy and the big copper statue, you see. Again, I was looking down the road towards leaving Mercantilism behind, but I wanted to keep those free specialists, so valuable to the SE.

Back home, with Corporation now in place, it was time to found my first corporation with the Great Merchant I'd saved since finishing Economics first:



So what effects did that have? Stay tuned, faithful reader!

Round 10: 1550 AD to 1780 AD, Part 3

Sid's Sushi Co. had--well, a mixed effect on Rostov:



The 11 food went up to 18 by the end of the round, meaning I could work all the hammer-heavy tiles and convert that one riverside farm to a cottage. The added culture was nice but not crucial. But -29 gold! Ouch! Especially right now, with the culture slider up to 60% (and sometimes topping 70%) to combat war weariness.

It was a good thing I'd built up so much gold in the turns preceding the war, or I'd be sunk. Also, I think if I was running a cottage economy I'd be dead. The only two things keeping me alive were my cash reserves and all those merchants. I had also generated another Great Merchant, this one out of Yaroslavl', and sent him on a trade mission to the Zulu capital, Ulundi. I would need the big boost to my bank account to keep financing the war.

Oh yes, and after researching Corporation I next, ironically, went after Communism--for the Kremlin and the free Great Spy, of course.

I got my next great person in the renamed Russka, another surprise:



I almost used him for another Golden Age but realized, just in time, that this would also consume the GM on his way to Zululand. So I set the Great Artist to sleep. I still have him as of the end of the round, and I have an idea on how to use him that I'll share with you later on.

I finally completed the copper quest:



As you can see, taking this city also earned me a source of cows and oil, so it was a very worthwhile accomplishment. Now it was time to turn the stack around and head south, to Gandhi's core cities.

My GM arrived in Ulundi, his Galleon having to nimbly evade Indian Frigate patrols at one point, and did very good business in Shaka's capital:



With the copper quest completed, I earned my reward:



4 Macemen? Oh, big whoop. Oh well, taking Goth was worth it for several other reasons I've already listed above. The Macemen also had no promotions, so I had them join the stack and start earning City Raider promotions, which the Cannons made easier if not certain.

I was very carefully and selectively spreading Sid's Sushi Co., given its costs:



I chose Yakutsk next because (a) it would allow me to convert farms to watermills and workshops and (b) the extra food would balance out the detrimental health effects of the Ironworks.

The next city I captured was a key one, Gandhi's capital, just south of Calcutta.





Wow--a double holy city! And with its Bank intact! First build: Wall Street! I was going to put it in Rostov, but come on. And look at all those wonders, including...

##$&%@!!!! The friggin' Statue of Zeus!!!! AAARRGGHH!!!

No wonder war weariness was so bad! Gang, here's a very important BtS lesson for all of us: we should have checked who had this thing before we even considered launching a war against Gandhi. And once we discovered it was his, I should have made capturing the city containing it my first objective of the war. And if this had been a warmonger game, I should have tried to build this thing myself, just to keep it from affecting me.

Oh well, lesson learned. On the next turn I was able to lower the culture slider a couple of notches and put myself closer to running in the black.

Meanwhile, Gandhi was ready to capitulate, and Tokugawa had joined in the fun. The good thing there was that Toku became pleased with me and was willing to trade things like dye to me. Nevertheless, I didn't want Gandhi suddenly becoming Toku's vassal, so I bribed him to make peace:



That was kind of costly, but Toku's so far behind that it's not a big deal.

I think several of you were correct about Toku; I should have been much nicer to him. I just get impatient with the guy early in the game and forget that he can come around after a millennia or two.

My next tech completed a little faster now, thanks to being able to lower the culture slider from 60% to 40%:



As with the previous Great Spy, I settled the free one in Russka for the +12 espy points and the +6 flasks.

I then captured my next Indian city:





Another holy city and another couple of wonders! Nice. Hey, I may even generate a Great Prophet out of this city for Rostov's Taoist shrine.

I completed another tech shortly after this:



Which meant that the Ironworks city, Yakutsk, was ready to roll over from building one wonder to another one:



Wow--only 18 turns for the Statue of Liberty! I don't think I've ever seen it built that fast on epic speed. I'm running about 4 engineers in Yakutsk, that probably helps.

I took one more Indian city before the end of the round:



I lost a Cannon in this battle--my first casualty of the war, if you can believe it, aside from maybe one Ship of the Line early on, I think. There wasn't much to this city, but it has rice right next door to it to augment Sid's Sushi Co., so I kept it. This also got rid of Gandhi's 2 Airships that had been harassing my warships around Russka.

And that's where I ended the round, more or less. The saved game file is below; a State of the World post will follow.

before you gripe too much about the cost of sid's sushi I must point out that it is almost nessessary to put it in the city posessing wall street. its the only real way to offset the costs of running it.

while it will be tempting to build wallstreet in that double shrine city, it will be FAR more profitable to build it in the headquarters of sid's sushi. not only will this offset the cost of running it signifigantly, but will further multiply the bonus effects of spreading it to another country.

NaZ

Its too bad you didnt found Sid's Sushi in Delhi, that city would've been money. I guess the timing was a little off.

The State of the World, 1780 AD
First off, the domestic advisor to have a look at what's getting built:



Check out Delhi, at 223 gold per turn!

Civics:



Once the war is over, I think a change will be in order. I definitely want to switch to Free Market to reduce the cost of running corporations. What about the other civics? Bureaucracy or Free Speech? I'll have a lot more cottages in former Indian territory, and Sid's Sushi might mean I can convert several cities to cottages and still run specialists. That would also argue in favour of Emancipation, though I think that might have to wait. And perhaps a switch back to Pacifism will be in order, despite all my military units and the elevated costs that will mean?

Yikes--we're talking about a 4-5 anarchy turn change there! Fortunately I have the Great Artist (though I'd like to use him for something else) and another Great Merchant. We could consider another Golden Age in order to make this big civics change.

Foreign Advisor, Relations:



Yeah, Toku couldn't contain himself and declared war again as soon as he was able. At least he did me the favour of taking one of Gandhi's cities on the far west coast, southwest of Delhi.

Actually, let's have a look at the map of India.



The city Toku took--I think he may have razed it--was right on top of that source of stone on that peninsula SW of Delhi. Madras is a bit of a pain, as it has ownership of one of Delhi's clam tiles. Besides it and the current Indian capital in the southeast, Gandhi also has a couple of crap cities on islands to the far southeast which are not visible.

I have 3 Galleons along with a Ship of the Line and a Frigate rounding the southern tip of Japan to get over to Madras. Frankly, taking down the last Indian cities is going to be a bit of a pain, but it may be a necessary one.

What do you think? I've taken Gandhi's best cities and made him a non-factor in the game--basically, I've achieved my war objectives. I'm now mopping up. Should I vassalize him? Or let Tokugawa vassalize him?

Foreign advisor, "glance":



Toku is pleased with me, but a some of that has to do with both of us running Mercantilism. Once I switch to Free Market, I lose that bonus with him and he may cancel our deals. Should I consider warring against him to get Dye, extra Gems, extra Rice, and Bananas, or is it not worth it?

Active trade deals:





Yeah, I'm trying to max out my benefits from Sid's Sushi. I have to remember to cancel that clam-for-gpt deal with Wang Kon.

Resources:



Info (trade routes and civics):



So none of the big players are running Free Market yet, but I'm hoping to change that once I change through bribes and maybe even espionage (to force civics changes).

Techs:



So Shaka has Steam Power on me but won't trade it. And I don't have nearly enough espionage points with him to steal it, though I am attempting to build them up:



Also on the tech side of things, I'm bee-lining to the Unique Building through Electricity (I used another Great Scientist to help out with it), Refrigeration, and then Superconductors. I could go through Radio and Computers instead. The path is longer, but it would allow me to access some nice wonders like Rock and Roll (for happiness and to trade for more of Sid's resources), Cristo Redentor (for no more anarchy), and the Eiffel Tower. But Computers would negate the Spiral Minaret before I've even had a chance to enjoy it. Then again, building the Internet would probably be the easiest way to get Steam Power, since Shaka has traded it to his vassal Saladin. Hmmm...

Before I go any further, I also want to point out that Bombay is going to have problems fighting off Japanese culture. I'm going to have to station a lot of troops there once the war is over. I think it's a definite candidate for Sid's Sushi. The food will fend off starvation from the lack of workable tiles, and the culture will help. This is also where I'm thinking of using the Great Artist--either to settle him or for a culture bomb. Changing civics to Free Speech will also help there, as will the Eiffel Tower. But if we decide to invade Japan next, the problem won't exist for long.

A look at a new advisor for corporations:



I have an executive in Moscow, but I think he'd be of better use over in Bombay. I think I also need to plan to expand Sid's Sushi internationally to offset some of the costs. Qin, Wang Kon, and Saladin, IIRC, are running either Free Market or Decentralization. Too bad Rostov, it's corp HQ, will no longer be the Wall Street city, but it should do well nevertheless.

Victory conditions:



I'd have a long way to go for a domination victory, but we were planning on space race from the get-go.

The power graph:




I don't think anyone will be bothering me anymore.

Demographics:



#1 in almost everything... except approval rate. Ungrateful peasants. I give you a glorious empire, and this is the thanks I get?

Maybe they just don't like Sushi.

Anyway, that's where things stand. We need to look forward to gearing up for the space ship next.

NaZdReG said:

before you gripe too much about the cost of sid's sushi I must point out that it is almost nessessary to put it in the city posessing wall street. its the only real way to offset the costs of running it.

while it will be tempting to build wallstreet in that double shrine city, it will be FAR more profitable to build it in the headquarters of sid's sushi. not only will this offset the cost of running it signifigantly, but will further multiply the bonus effects of spreading it to another country.

NaZ

Click to expand...

It's not too late, Wall Street only has a few hammers put towards it in Dehli. Should I switch and build it in Rostov instead? What would, in the end, be more profitable, and how would one go about determining that?

By looking at just the Domestic Advisor, I would say it might be better to build Wall Street in Delhi and Spread Hindu/Judaism. Spreading Sushi in Rostov would take more front end capital, each expansion costs gold and foreign branches cost more than domestic. Whereas missionaries can spread religion for free. You could try to spread Sushi and Taoism, but Hinduism seems to have such a large base already it would take you longer to catch up Rostov. Seeing as how the game will be closing up and your focus should be building the Spaceship, just double Delhi up and run away with the extra cash.

remember as some of us pointed out, the colony maintenance really shoots up when you have a group of cities on another continent, so now that you have Gandhi's cities check their colony maintenance after a while. But since you captured all those holy cities and some great wonders, it might compensate. Actually in some of my games I found it can really be a dilemma if you capture some good wonders but the maintenance is still killing you.

seems like you are rolling in this game... I didn't see a lot of blow-by-blow of your troops taking Gandhi's cities... did you take all those with that single stack? were his cities not that well-defended? (in BTS they don't seem to defend as well, since they send large stacks back at you now). or were you shuffling over more troops from the mainland?

also have you installed Solver's unofficial patch - that will take care of the corporation inflation thing.

Looking at the two cities:

Delhi has the potential for 9 towns plus 2 silk plantations at 5G (riverside) and 4G. If you cottage over one silk plantation, that will eventually be a town +1 gold. You could get a 10th town by cottaging over the windmill on the grassland hill.

Rostov has 10 towns grown or growing, plus a farm you could cottage over, plus a gold mine. You could chop a few lumbermilled forests after adding Wall Street to get more cottages as well.

The big difference is in the shrines. Delhi's shrines are worth 60 gold per turn right now. But 60 gold is only 12 cities with Sid's Sushi, so that could be made up quickly by a corporation. And with India out of the cultural race, you can spam sushi (sorry) to all neighbors without fear of a backdoor cultural victory.

Plus, if you run priests in Delhi, you could eventually get a prophet to build a shrine in Rostov and spread Taoism as well.

All things considered, I think Rostov makes more sense in the long run, and that's without considering Bureaucracy.