Round 5: 305 BC to 625 AD (62 Turns)
I started the round not by making a research adjustment, as in previous rounds, but a civics adjustment:
It was a difficult choice, but I went with HR for the round, though in retrospect I probably could have gone with Representation. The thing that scared me off of Rep was the price tag--medium upkeep versus low upkeep (for HR). My economy was in very rough shape and even 1 or 2 GPT could have broken me. I spent pretty much the whole round getting things back in shape.
I managed to get a little more gold in the treasury by razing another barb city. It also gave me an opportunity to get some use out of my weakest military units by suiciding them rather than simply deleting them to save on their maintenance costs.
Yep, +1 GPT at 0% on the slider. I focused almost exclusively on infrastructure this round. I couldn't afford any more military, and could barely afford the ones I had. Ziggurats were a priority, but they alone didn't save the day. I would up cottaging everywhere I could as well, while growing my cities to their happiness caps to max out the number of cottages I could work. Once the Chariots were done with this barb city, I distributed them through the empire to raise the happiness cap in each city. All the while I kept my fingers crossed that Washington would not declare war on me.
What with claiming Metal Casting from the Oracle, I couldn't resist another wonder:
And it did help and continues to do so, as I work several water tiles to take advantage of the Colussus.
My Great Spy appeared and I sent him on a tour of America. Washington, as you'll see, has been expanding like crazy, including into the jungle area that we coveted. But what could I do? I couldn't afford any more cities. Anyway, once I knew more about the map, it was time for my GSpy to infiltrate an enemy city:
That did wonders for my Espionage standing versus Washington:
Wow. That's a lot of EPs! Add in the Ziggurats and the fact that I only have one rival civ against whom I can direct my EPs, and I have a very high ratio versus America. In fact, even
before I did the infiltration thing, Washington's research was visible to me.
All I needed was one more tech to put everything into place...
That's the one.
It turns out Washington did, indeed, have several techs worth stealing:
I started producing several spies in my cities and sent them all at San Francisco, the city just north of Lagash which the espionage screen revealed would be the cheapest place to steal technology. I managed to steal everything you see on the list, as well as Calendar, and I still have tons of EPs left over.
Even so, there are other civs out there who are more advanced than George and I:
Meanwhile, the wonders in Nidaros helped produce my next Great Person:
Yep, a Merchant, from the Colossus, obviously, because I didn't have Markets nor Caste System yet to run merchant specialists. I'm not sure how to use him, so I've left him in Nidaros for now. I guess I could save him for Sid's Sushi Co., but that's a long time to leave a GP sitting around with nothing to do. A Golden Age seems like a waste of a GM (not to mention premature). I don't have a shrine city to settle him in, and I'm not sure if a trade mission to America would be all that lucrative (1350 gold--I checked).
He would have lightbulbed Currency at this point, which I was almost finished, so that seemed like a waste. But once Currency was done, his next tech to lightbulb is none other than Code of Laws. That's the tempting option right now, frankly. Caste System would be very useful with Representation. The only snag is that it's too late to found a religion. It's currently 10 turns to research it, maybe a little less when the libraries are done.
Once I finished researching Currency, I ended the round. I selected Construction as my next tech. I'm building up an army of Vultures, and it makes sense to start focusing on military again. Besides, once Washington finished Calendar (which I promptly stole from him), he began researching... Currency! The putz. So I'm beginning to think Dubya has outlived his usefulness.
At any rate, here's a look at the city builds:
I'm planning on using a couple of Triremes out of Nidaros to go exploring and see what's on those islands off the coast. Who knows, I may even manage to contact another continent. I played an off-line hemisphere map a while back and wound up in contact early on with another continent via several islands, so it is possible with this map type. But I'm not holding my breath, since no one else has come by. Cheap libraries are also on the way, along with a Vulture and a Market.
Since the economy was the big concern going into this round, here's a look at the financial advisor:
Now check out the religion advisor! All but one religion, which will be founded via Divine Right, are on the other continent. I doubt I'll have a religion until I have contact with the other land mass.
The power graph:
It's finally starting to come up for me, and a darn good thing too. I didn't want Washington to get cocky.
Top 5 cities/wonders:
As some of you have noticed, no one's gone wonder-crazy. Well, except maybe me. But check out the size of that Great Lighthouse city compared to anything George and I have.
And finally, here's a look at the map:
By the way, there's a big chunk of land in the north that is still uninhabited. That's right, Washington has ignored it in favour of snuggling up against me. Annoying. And look at that barb city he captured way down south! The nerve.
As you can see, Iron Working was one of the techs I stole. You'd
think, with Gilgamesh's Creative trait and all, and five cities, that
one of them would have iron. But
NOOOOOOOOOOO...
There are four options to acquire iron, all of them posing challenges.
The spot NE of Uruk is closest, but would require an awkwardly placed city with no food source. Uruk's next border pop is many, many turns away.
The iron source on the desert island to the SE would require a Galley and a new city, and I have no idea if there's any food over there.
The spot to the far west would make for a decent city. I was thinking a good spot would be 1 NW, 1W of the iron (1 SE of the cows). It would claim cows, iron, fish, and bananas, though the wheat would, unfortunately, go to waste. I don't see a way to avoid that, what with those desert tiles to its south. But it's awfully far away, requires me to settle another city, and with the way Washington's been expanding in my direction, I wouldn't be surprised if he beats me to it.
The best spot, to my mind, is the former barb city of Zapotec, which is now American. Besides the iron, it has cows and fish, and the mine and, it looks like, the pasture will already be in place. The crabs are wasted; I could raze it and re-found a city 1 NW, though the iron would then need a border pop to be claimed.
Obviously, though, that would require a military build-up to take on Washington, who would probably be a little cheesed at me and might just counterattack my northern cities. So I'll need a lot of Vultures, and not all of them can take part in the attack on Zapotec; many will have to defend my core cities. I'm especially concerned about the sugar and dye getting pillaged, since those happy resources will be supporting my growth.
Oh, I also think it's time to change civics to Representation. And what should be researched after Construction? Maybe it's time to go after Aesthetics and Literature and try for the Great Library? Then after that (or instead?) it's Compass, Machinery, and Optics to go find the other civs out there.
We also need to talk about what to do with all those EPs I have on America. I still have 3364 EPs versus George!
I was thinking that rather than take him out all at once, I could conquer him in a series of wars, periodically stealing techs from him along the way. Another use of the EPs would be to position 2-3 spies in all of his cities just before declaring war, and then going on an espionage blitz, causing happiness and health problems throughout his empire. And then there's the ever-popular 1 turn of revolt to remove the need to bombad the city's cultural defenses away.
So... do ya still want to see the Vultures in action or not?
Aarrrgghhhh...
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