Deity/Domination or Violent Culture/Large Map

[Sir Bugsy]

Preflight - – 1600 BC – What a pain in the patoot getting this thing loaded. 45 Minutes later and we are finally ready to go. Plus it is a large map so that makes the loading up a bit longer as well. Last night I finished a brutal personal deity game (domination in 1941) that I ended up changing targeted victory three times. I got nuked four times. Yum!

That being said, I plan on providing a detailed turn log with my reasoning behind my decisions. If anyone sees any , please point it out to me. While I can win at deity, I am certainly not a polished deity player.

Looks like we have some stuff to do. We have a social policy. Since we aren’t building any wonders for a while (do you guys regularly try to build wonders on deity, or are you like me and don’t bother to try until you get a tech lead?) I go for monarchy (+1G and -1 unhappy for every two citizens). That will help our overall happiness situation since we are presently at -1.

We also need to select our next tech. We discussed heading toward education but at the moment I think some roads would help our military security. As consentient pointed out, warmongers like roads and I am a warmonger. Plus it is on the way to workshops so Storm Trooper will like that.

I go through the cities. I put them all on production focus and lock down what we already have. I’ll micromanage as we get new population. Boston is stagnant at pop 2 but a granary will come online in 4 turns so I let that be.

Looking at the map, I can see consentient’s point about scouting. We really haven’t done a good job. It has been so long since I played on a large map that I forgot exactly how big it really is. It is BIG! I think a trireme or two as Acken suggested may be in order as well.

Looking at the diplomatic situation, everyone is friendly towards us. Everyone has very healthy cash flow so as soon as we get some resources to sell we will shift some of their excess cash onto our balance sheet.

Everything looks ready to go – hit “Next Turn” – Note to the new guy: In SGs we don’t use go to orders or queue up build orders.

Turn 61 – 1560 BC – Catholicism was founded far away. We kill the barb outside Philly. Order a cheese steak sandwich to celebrate. Tasty! Hammer away at that barb holding a worker captive. I think we might need more help up there. Start our almost healed warrior that way.

Turn 62 – 1520 BC – The Parthenon and the Great Wall are built in faraway lands. Almaty rescues its worker from the barb camp. Too bad. Need to find another.

Washington: work boat => work boat (due in 4)

We’re presently at +5 happy with crabs online. If I sell the new crabs will our growth go negative in 4 turns? No. I go to Dido. I tell her these are prime Chesapeake Bay blue crabs and she gives her best price. I get 42G and 6gpt. I always try to maximize the upfront cash on a deal since the AI will give 240G upfront but only 7gpt plus 8G (218G total) on long term financing. The AI doesn’t make sense financially and the time value of money was never put into their programming.

Turn 63 - 1480 BC – Some faraway civ starts worshiping the Sun God. I’m wondering if Maria is thinking payback:



I start sending our lone warrior that way, as if one warrior could do much.

The Wheel is completed. I select Philosophy next because we want to go for the NC soon. (Due in 12)

Find another barb camp (about 12 north of New York) to train our troops.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Turn 64 – 1440 BC – Boston’s granary completes. It specializes in canned baked beans. Order up a library (due in 13). The timing will be pretty good to start the NC.

Turn 65 – 1400 BC – New York: Library => archer (Thought here is that we are far too weak militarily).

Our archer training up north promotes. I like to save up promotions and apply them as the situation warrants. We also bring another citrus on line. I try to peddle our wonderful oranges, but there is a glut on the market and everyone already has some. 

Turn 66 – 1360 BC – Ivory and crabs come online. Let’s see if I can sell any of those. Rama-lama-ding-dong doesn’t have either, but he has a decent amount of cash. Sell him the ivory for 240G and the crabs for 102G + 4 gpt. That’s all his money.

With our newfound cash (822G total on hand at the moment) I purchase a cargo ship. My intention is to have to go from Philly to Washington and bump up the capital’s population.

We are going to grow in Washington in 3 and NYC in 5. I select a circus in Washington (due in 5) to keep our happiness under control.

Turn 67 – 1320 BC – Have I mentioned how much I hate Steam’s screenshot methodology? I just tried to take a screenshot and the program dumped for a run time error

 

[Sir Bugsy]

While I wait for the system to come online again, how about a compromise on the number of turns we play. The first time around we all played 20. How about this time around we all play 15, then then 10 turns from there on out.

I won't get the remaining turns completed this evening, no matter what we decide. I really need to consider a hardware upgrade.

 

[stormtrooper412]

I'd much rather see another Cargo Ship right now to go from Washington to Philly before a Circus but maybe that's just me.

I'd also go for a Spear in New York after the Archer because that city seems the idlest when it comes to infrastructure.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

The circus was to control unhappiness.

Concur with the spear suggestion.

How about the turn set suggestion?

 

[stormtrooper412]

stick to the 20 for the time being, then go for 15 in the next round

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Turn 67 (con’t) – Maria and a faraway civ enter the medieval era.

Here is what I wanted to show you:



I will try to free that worker so he can work for us. Also a training opportunity for our troops.

Now our happiness is at +5. Where did that come from? Oh, our gems tile north of Philly is online. That is just inattention to detail on my part. Call it if you want. We lost one turn of production in the capital. I change Washington to a library since we will need it for NC.

Sending the cargo vessel back to Washington with food is not an option. Why not? No granary in Philly. I purchase a granary for 340G.

Washington has grown. It worked an iron tile and I leave it there.

IBT – Dido wants us to go to war with Rammy. Sorry my dear, that would break our declaration of friendship.

Turn 70 – 1200 BC – New York: archer => spear.

Interstate 95 between Washington and New York is 50% complete. We just have to build the Jersey Turnpike.

Turn 71 – 1160 BC – A forest chop completes Philly’s library. Select trireme next.

New York has grown. It works the iron tile.

Turn 72 – 1120 BC – Acken’s prediction is coming true I think.



Washington’s library completes. Since we are rapidly chewing through our happiness, I select another work boat to get another crab online.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Turn 73 – 1080 BC - Interstate 95 between Washington and New York is complete. It costs 4 gpt to maintain and presently yields 5 gpt and that will only get better with increased population.

IBT – We meet this fellow:


We sell him our citrus for 7gpt.

Turn 74 – 1040 BC – Our truffles are online. I sell our gems to Dido for full price – 240G.

Philosophy completes. I select mathematics since it is on the way to civil service.

Our warrior was attacked by a barb sword during the IBT.



We take the worker and 25G. The worker belonged to Bucharest, but we have much more to improve.

 

[Acken]

Can we really afford to sell luxs we have uniques of like Truffles and Ivory ? I don't remember us having a ton of hapiness in reserve.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

IBT – Our warrior survives an attack by the barb sword. Here is a report from Ptolemy:



Turn 75 – 1000 BC – Dido completes the Great Lighthouse. Our deals selling horses to Maria are up. Time to peddle some ponies. Dido will buy 2 of them. I do single deals and get a total of 4gpt. Rammy won’t give full price. Maria and Kamahamaha don’t want them. Maybe we’ll build some mounted units.

Boston’s library completes next turn.

Acken said that we should build NC in Philadelphia, but I’m not so sure. Here is our present picture:



I am inclined to build it in Washington. Thoughts?

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Can we really afford to sell luxs we have uniques of like Truffles and Ivory ? I don't remember us having a ton of hapiness in reserve.

We are presently at +1 happiness. I have been gingerly managing our happies and we haven't gone negative yet. Yes, that will be getting harder in the next 15 turns as both Washington and Philly will be growing. I have usually handled that with buildings. Is that a idea?

 

[Acken]

Have never said we should put the NC in philadelphia
Oh ok I see where it sounds like I did, just a writing mistake by "it" I meant a library not the NC.

If you can stay happy it's okay, I'm surprised we can grow on 4 cities without a mercantile CS and still sell unique luxs. And according to screenshot 2 those secondary cities are not growing, which is a problem.

As a note don't feel forced to cut your screenshot. I personally preffer complete screenshot so that I can see the big picture.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

OK. That sounds good. NC in Washington.

Bigger screenshots as well.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Turn 75 (con’t)
New York: spear => archer
Washington: Circus

For some reason I thought we could save unit promotions. I guess I was wrong. Promote our warrior to rough territory.

Turn 76 – 975 BC – Our barb fighting archer is attacked and promotes. The barb sword is dead.

Boston: library => water mill

Bring the crabs off the coast of Philly online. Happiness = +5

Shift Washington to NC (due in 13). If happiness becomes a problem, the circus will complete in one turn.

Send the new cargo ship to Philly for 7 food.

Turn 77 – 950 BC – Move workers to build the Interstate 95 extension to Philly.

Turn 78 – 925 BC – Someone faraway builds Chichen Itza. All our iron for gold deals with Rammy expire. Let’s see if I can sell some of them. Rammy bought 3 iron for 6 gpt in 3 separate trades. I sell Dido 4 iron for 8 gpt, again in 4 separate trades.

Philadelphia: trireme => warrior

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Turn 79 – 900 BC – Mathematics completes. HBR next (due in 4).

Dido founds Hinduism.

New York: archer => spear

Turn 80 – 875 BC – And here’s the situation:
In the west: Workers are building a road from Philly to Washington. This should be another profitable endeavor. There is a worker northeast of Washington. I thought we could have him mine the hill NW of the gems.



The warmonger in me has the worker east of NYC building a strategic road to get troops to the front quicker, because:



It appears there will be a front soon. Maria is friendly with us, but that won’t last. If she doesn’t declare on us, we might want to discuss the time of a declaration on her.

Our economy is strong. But we probably need to shift from a peddling economy to a trade route economy.

We will get the Tradition finisher in 6 turns. That will accelerate growth in Philly and Washington significantly. We will probably need some happy buildings then. The ivory deal with Rammy runs for another 16 turns.

We have five techs before universities. We may want to detour to engineering and pick up another trade route slot. Along the way we would get construction and we could upgrade our archers. If this was a personal game I would go for construction right now.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Since I'm next, but I haven't opened the save, here's my preliminary plan:

1. Shift focus on growth for both New York and Boston. Those numbers are awful. Probably buy the Bananas tile near NY first.
2. Our Military doesn't look too bad. In the event of an invasion, I think we'll be alright. But if you guys want more units, alright. Perhaps a pair of Horseman
3. I won't do anything in Washington until the NC is done, after that I'll be sending a settler up north.
4. Make a few farms around because we'll soon have Civil Service, best tech in the game :]

Oh, there's a white blob to the north already. Has our gold spot been taken?

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Yes. The gold spot was taken temporarily by Maria.

 

[stormtrooper412]

No point in building more settlers then, I'd presume

Initial: Switch all tiles to get more food. Spear and Water Mill is delayed by a turn which is not a big deal. I'm probably gonna start farming everything and get more troops out. The northern spot is no longer worth rushing, as its lux has been claimed

turn 81: Oracle built. Dido bullied a CS under our protection. Knowing it's a small diplo hit, I told her she'll pay for it. Exchanged embassies with Captain Underpants. He knows where we are anyway

first major decision before I continue. Speak up team:

Pros:

The war may take a while and might cripple them both in the long run.
Portugal may not be bribeable later

Cons:

War may be a dud
Our economy isn't the greatest

 

[Acken]

I wouldn't do it. Otherwise I'm not seeing the point of paying maintenance for all these new units.

 

[stormtrooper412]

The thing is, nobody wants Horses (we have 2) nor Iron (we have 11!), so that's a lot of money we're basically sitting on. Gold will be better once cities are bigger and roads are up. No more room for another city though, so I'm guessing this will have to do for the time being, right?