bcool
Deity
I too like paper first even better considering that we can trade for maps.
Note for the unbelievers: slavery returns around 2 per once a granary is up. With Caste, a grassland workshop returns 2 per (one from another tile, one from itself) before Guilds. We have quite a few such grassland tiles around - four near Stone City, three near Gems City and two near Isengard. All have other plains tiles to use also. After Guilds, a plains workshop returns 4 per 2 and grassland tiles 3 for 1. As a side effect, we get to keep our population high to deter other AIs from war and help bolster our UN vote eventually.
Frogdude and I were looking at power and score graphs a few days ago. It seems Elizabeth recently whipped and lost a force that I estimate was about a single swordsman.
Courthouses are a long way away. We have lighthouses in most cities, forges, monasteries and missionaries to build, more scouts, perhaps replacement spies, and sooner or later universities. I agree that courthouses are nice, but so are lots of other things we want to be doing.
I too like paper first even better considering that we can trade for maps.
Mmm, so are you guys feeling war whipping right now? I am comfortable with the possibility of facing longbows, elephants, and crossbows. 6 out of 9 cities can field 4 units in a hurry using slavery and I like our chances while the AI is still expanding and throwing units away on barb cities.
Or are you feeling buildings? Forges, Courthouses, Aposolistic Palace, Temples, Monastaries, Barracks, Universities? Expanding out onto the hub peacefully?
I always favor war personally, earlier the better.
Even I favor war, but after seeing how fast they tech...
Mmm, so are you guys feeling war whipping right now? I am comfortable with the possibility of facing longbows, elephants, and crossbows. 6 out of 9 cities can field 4 units in a hurry using slavery and I like our chances while the AI is still expanding and throwing units away on barb cities.
Or are you feeling buildings? Forges, Courthouses, Aposolistic Palace, Temples, Monastaries, Barracks, Universities? Expanding out onto the hub peacefully?
I always favor war personally, earlier the better.
Is anyone having problems with the test game crashing as T122 changes to T123? My game crashes every time. I am also playing on a nearly brand new CPU and these are my first Civ IV crashes.
We will want to beg before we switch to Taoism and we lose our pleased status. We should beg for 100% of the AI's gold if they have less than 50 gold.
I can't even figure out exactly what proposition you are "hand wave proving".
You need to explain this better or provide a link to a thread that does so.
Whipping with a Granary does provide for a 2:1 to 3:1 ratio where a higher ratio come from whipping smaller population cities whose food requires for population increase is lower.
In general, whipping is for turning excess Food into Hammers. Assuming the excess Food is being lost without any benefit, it doesn't matter what the Food to Hammer ratio is; if the excess Food can no longer be efficiently stored as more Population, it can be converted to Hammers via whipping.
Workshops really aren't that useful until Guilds while running Caste System (for the extra Hpt). It does depend on how important Hammer output is for the current game situation, so a CS Workshop without Guilds could be a viable option.
Sun Tzu Wu
Very good point. I also might add (not related to beggings)the need to note down after religion conversion who are more angry than others (strating diplo hit) because we are running a heathen religion. The fact we have zealots may help us for identify the AI.
I strongly disagree with a strategy that delays Courthouses. We need the extra 2 Ept that Courthouses and -50% city maintenance. Also, we may want to run a Spy specialist in many of our cities with Courthouses for the additional 4Ept and 4Bpt (3Bpt from Rep) that a Spy specialist provides. We definitely want to keep ahead of all AIs in Espionage, except maybe Eastern Witches, whom we we kill sooner or later in any case.
A Granary and Lighthouse are the only buildings we may want to build before a Courthouse. A Forge possibly might be needed in some cities than a Courthouse, but city maintenance reduction of a Courthouse will usually give it priority over a Forge.
We are currently struggling to maintain a reasonable average Research slider. We want 100% Research slider, but that's only possible with nearly all cities having a Courthouse.
Sun Tzu Wu
Evidently Elizabeth failed to capture the nearby Barbarian city.
Perhaps we should go in and wait for Elizabeth to weaken the city defenders and capture the city before she can complete her own capture of it?
Sun Tzu Wu