gmajor 5 walkthrough (epic, emperor, culture, arabia)

i've acquired a few resources in my puppet empire



i just recently have started getting oil and aluminum. although the AI recognizes an obsoletion point for iron and horses (when they no longer have trebuchets/longswords and cavalry), they don't recognize the uselessness of strategics for which they can't yet build units. an AI in the classical era is perfectly willing to buy oil... maybe for oil wrestling purposes.

one of the primary ways in which players overcome the handicap bonuses AIs get is via trade. i've used trades to both acquire RAs and most of my opponents' gold



i try to check every few turns to ensure the AI won't spend money on city states or RAs with each other.

damascus finally finished its public school, for a gain of a few beakers =/



i set it to build a lighthouse. note i'm still using the production focus with locked tiles for growth to steal 6 hammers.

mecca has been set up for a triple pop.



it's been targeted for a while, but since the fractional gpp points aren't visible always it's good to verify.

when my gold has reached the 1.5kish mark again, i buy my last broadcast tower in damascus.



it's only +16 culture due to lack of wonders and landmarks. meh.

on turn 302 i get my triple pop.



this increments the counter to next by 450, but it's worthwhile since i'll be using each of the specialists. the artist gets planted near mecca again, and the engineer heads over to damascus.

with the scientist i get mass media



it doesn't open anything beyond, but i still have 5 techs running so penicillin is my median for upcoming RAs.

damascus will finish sydney opera house eventually...



i will buy a factory there in a couple turns to speed that up, and i also will waste the great engineer there. in retrospect i should have gotten cristo redentor in the capital with the engineer, the +50% and +4 culture of SoH is only 800 culture over 30 turns since damascus' base culture is so low. cristo redentor saving 10% for two policies would be at least 1500 culture, not counting its own base culture and great artist points.

mecca finishes the taj, and i enter a 24 turn golden age. golden age lengths don't scale completely with game speed, they are relatively the longest on quick speed, where this would have been a 16 turn. comparative to quick most everything else is 2.25x length but golden age is 1.5x length.

i get one of those policies without cristo... had i cristo, this would be 750 culture cheaper.



i choose monarchy... i guess because i'm at the edge of unhappiness. i'm surprised i don't go for aristocracy first.

mecca starts on a hospital instead of cristo for some reason.



*shrug* it was late.
 

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sydney opera house production is going along. i haven't properly set up for it, and hadn't thought about it overly. currently i'm trying to produce population to make the engineer's more efficient. it's sort of a waste...



on epic speed, the formula for great engineers is 450 + 45 * population hammers. each pop adds 45 production, and as you can see, the growth point is at between 44 and 55 food (+11 food producing a citizen in 5 turns). so if i had set up enough mines, i'd get soh faster by converting that 11 food into hammers, especially since i have over a 50% hammer modifier.

mecca is cruising along, finally starting cristo redentor after the hospital.



cape town finally expanded to and improved its pearls, so all my cities hit wltkds. each population is production for utopia project, so growth is good.

on turn 317 i hit 13 population in damascus and finally fire off the engineer



sydney opera house will boost the culture per turn there by 32, and i'll get the capital growth policy in tradition with the free policy, putting me 4 policies from done.

on 319 i finish soh, and russia declares war on me. aroo?



that cancels my RA with them, 10 turns from firing =( oh well, i still signed enough to get solar power before utopia.

i guess i let my relative military power declined too much



catherine's not first in military but she's probably close to me in military might, given the average and how weak i know darius and wu are.

after an RA fires i got the rest of plastics and most of penicillin, and rush bought a hydro plant in mecca. additionally i finished off tradition for the 15% food empire boost.



there are 14 riverside tiles in radius so the hydro plant is a 14 production boost, pretty significant. cristo is also set to finish before my last 3 policies fire.

i move workers into position to chop forests for utopia, as there are some 5th ring ones south of mecca.



since it's going to take 3 turns, i could potentially prechop for 2 turns then cancel.

after finishing penicillin i rush buy a medical lab in mecca.



25% of 40+ excess food is 10+ per turn, a nice boost for all my next growth points.

on turn 331 i finish cristo redentor



it's in time for my last 3 policies. since i have piety finisher additionally, it's cutting 90% down to 80%, so it's really a 1/9th reduction. my 8800 policy cost drops to 7825.

mecca starts on the national treasury



... i'll explain later.
 

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it's been 7?ish turns since i began the plantation on the incense



since anything in an automated task doesn't do its work until the end of the turn (and this includes building improvements) i click build plantation again to force it to finish. note that workers say 1 turn left on both the turn before and the turn they can finish.

now that i've got a luxury i determine who to sell it to...

Didn't know about this one yet. Great insights in this thread for everyone hehe, gj!

Now, does an automated task finish before growth/production? = will that tile be worked with the unfinished or the finished tile improvement if the task is not finished manually like you did there?
Asking because this would be a lot of works to do for every farm, mine etc. For luxuries though the advantage is obviously that you can sell/trade it in this turn rather then in the next.
 
Now, does an automated task finish before growth/production? = will that tile be worked with the unfinished or the finished tile improvement if the task is not finished manually like you did there?

yes, automated tasks finish at the end of your turn, and those other things happen at the beginnings of turns.

another ordering fun fact is that cultural border growth or automatic citizen assignment happens after growth and production, ie if you have automatic assignment you won't get the benefits of a good new tile you expanded into until the next turn.
 
and finally...

on turn 303 my RA with darius fires, giving me most of ecology.



i have an upcoming RA with china that'll finish that off, making a solar plant available for purchase.

medina is almost done with brandenburg gate, whose GG will be used to spawn a golden age.



i am somewhat close to getting another gg, and have artists incoming as well.

mecca switched from producing national treasury to producing bank, and prior to completion switched from bank to statue of liberty...

on 343 i get my 2nd to last policy. educated elite, for the offchance of getting an engineer..



i would need to reach 936 cpt to get the next policy in 9 turns, and there's no way i'm going to be squeezing that much more culture out. i have my target utopia start turn of 353. i also burn my next artist to continue the golden age, since the +30ish of a landmark won't make a difference at this point.

i get statue of liberty almost complete and switch to a crossbowman, which costs 180 hammers and mecca is producing 178...



on turn 350 i complete crossbowman,
351 bank,
352 national treasury,
353 statue of liberty.

i nearly completed each of these beforehand to provide maximum hammer overflow.

the 170ish overflow per turn shaved down projected finish times by quite a bit.



circus maximus for example costs 637 hammers (same as national treasury) and is projected to finish in one turn.

i start my horde of workers on 4th and 5th ring forest tiles to chopping.



every bit could count...

after one turn all the overflow + 1 turn of hammers end up in the utopia project. i earned 668 hammers from overflow total. i also attempted to reassign citizens to maximize production, locking all tiles with higher than 2 production and unemploying or engineer specializing the rest.



with statue of liberty, each unemployed is 2 hammers. unfortunately it was very late at this point, and i missed the mine just south east of mecca, which would have been +3 raw hammers over an unemployed citizen.

i also didn't start chopping the lumbermill forest in time to actually have it count, and ended up 4.4 hammers short =(



fail. all that extra worker micro for nothing.

i win on 362.



here was my culture per turn:



hope you enjoyed the read.
 

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Thanks for the effort, hope to see more of these in the future!
 
Great job!! seriously, I think i learn more from your walkthrough posts than playing by myself in the last few months. Thanks!!

Hope to see more of this. Youtube screencast? :)
 
Would you make other walkthroughs, vexing? They are very useful stuffs.

i'll consider making a walkthrough for science or diplomacy. they're both just about RA setup and bulbing the end of the tree. it does take a lot of time, so no guarantees.
 
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