Sorry for the massive delay. I opened our thread before I started and saw there were some thoughts about closing the game. The thought did cross my mind after I looked at the save. Someone else will have to call it though. I’ll play my turns. This is the first time I had a significant delay playing my turns. Without getting into personal details, there was a good reason for it, and I did ask for a swap/pass. Anyway, I think we can finish this with one more round of sets. We probably should have increased the number of turns per set to 15 or so when Grandad dropped out. Regardless, let’s get back on track.
Inherited Turn
I’ll be honest, the save kind of surprised me. Russia has spammed out over 25 cities and has cities right against most of our borders. I figured out that she did denounce us while we were still in a DoF. This probably occurred because we made a DoF with Egypt (a mistake, as Egypt can do nothing for us) and stole a tech from her after we promised to stop (another mistake – we should have either stopped or told her we wouldn’t stop). So I’m going forward assuming there will be a war with Catherine and possibly one with Liz. I planned on attacking Liz in my set but I think developments with Cathy make that a bad idea. The combination of poor infrastructure [we only have half the cities and production (MFG) of Russia and will soon be in the same position with military], shoddy diplomacy (game design and our own failures to deal with the game design appropriately), and problem-free AI expansion/growth might give us more of a challenge than we anticipated.
Some of our cities still seem in pretty bad shape. Onondaga only has 16 production, which is awful at this stage of the game. I moved two citizens from farms to a mine and a lumber mill in this city. We went with a windmill over a factory here, which doesn’t make much sense either. We’ve already built a public school in Onondaga and there just aren’t that many important buildings left that would make the windmill better than the factory. The factory brings us about 7 additional production in this city and the windmill only gives us 2 (or maybe 5 when constructing a building). We already have three turns of production into this building so I didn’t change anything, but Onondaga probably won’t build anything more than a windmill and a factory for the rest of the game. Building the factory first would have given us the option of building a unit there next.
Production is really a problem in most of our cities. We spawned in heavy grassland and jungle so that’s a big part of the problem, but it feels like we’re sacrificing too much production for growth (there’s really been a strange, almost counter-productive, obsession with growth in this game). We aren’t making matters much better by delaying production buildings, constructing the wrong production buildings, annexing production-poor puppets, and neglecting to build railroads. I don’t know how many turns we’ve had the Railroad tech now, but we don’t have a single city connected by railroad. Most of our workers are improving tiles that aren’t currently being worked or may never be worked. There’s not even a worker that’s working on railroads. I’m sure we haven't had the Railroad tech for long and there's probably good reasons for everything. I couldn't figure out what was going on though, and the railroads are pretty important. I stopped most of our workers from their current order, and I'll try to get as many as possible constructing railroads next turn.
I noticed a good number of our units were tied up trying to block foreign religious units. Like I said earlier, I just don’t think I have the patience to deal with this anymore. I’m more inclined to declare war on the whole world than play little 1UPT blocking games with the AI. I fully expected the AI to be uncooperative tools, but I tried a little diplomacy anyway. I told Hiawatha to stop sending prophets and missionaries to our borders. In keeping with the fine tradition of A-hole CiV AI, Hiawatha refused. He would apparently rather have more war and misery and face almost certain conquest than cooperate with the human playing the game. So be it. I denounced Hiawatha and will simply declare war on him anytime he sends a religious unit into our borders. We’re sandwiched between several AI, so I wouldn’t actually entertain the thought of committing a large force to conquering any of his cities (global happiness issues also make this a bad idea) but I will grab his prophets and make him give us gold for peace. I also moved a crossbow near Nantes to encourage Liz’s prophet to GTFO of our borders. We’ll see how that goes.
I bulbed Radar with one of our GS and next turn I will bulb Rocketry, followed by Satellites. On t224 I’ll start the Apollo Project in Dublin and the Hubble Space Telescope in Edinburgh. We entered the Atomic Era and I assigned our new spy to Brussels. In two turns I’ll put our next spy in Quebec City.
Turn 221
Liz built Big Ben.
We lost the culture quest in Genoa (by about 3000 points to Russia). Our influence with them is almost out but we have a spy there that might rig the election in four turns. Luckily Russia has been bullying Genoa all game, so they didn’t steal ally status from us.
I couldn’t figure out what our knight was doing in the ocean near Kathmandu, so I’m bringing him back.
Upgraded a musket to rifle.
Nantes finished a stone works. This city came along so late that I don’t think it will give us much in the way of production and another science building would also take too long to get on line. We should just build gold/culture/happiness here to get us through Rationalism. I start an Ampitheater.
Truro finishes a circus and starts a factory. Our next GS is coming out of Truro in 10 turns, so it doesn’t need the additional scientist slot. The research lab gives us about 40 beakers in this city but would take about 20 turns to build. We should be nearing the end of the tech tree around that time, so the return isn’t that great. My thinking is we need to concern ourselves more with industrialization now so we can kick out some military if things go crazy in the final turns. I’m really hoping Cathy doesn’t have 20 uranium in her borders. That’s the only game-changer the AI can actually execute.
Our final move for the turn is to bulb Rocketry. Two turns until we enter the Information Era through Satellites. I won’t bulb this tech after all. The timing lines up just right for Edinburgh to start HST on t224 and we can save the last GS for the more expensive techs.
Turn 222
Yaaayyyy… no delays for the AI to pop in and randomly insult us!
More dancing with the prophets. Hiawatha’s prophet is headed straight back towards our capital. I’ll declare war on him next turn.
Upgraded a great war infantry to infantry.
Turn 223
Liz finished up her little war with Hiawatha and immediately wanted to drag us into a war with Attila. Hiawatha apparently gave up an 11 pop city (Buffalo Creek) to Liz for no good reason. There was absolutely no damage done to that city and Hiawatha has riflemen running all over the place. Looks suspicious to me. Maybe she can snarl at Attila next and get him to cough up a few cities.
Attila renewed a trade for furs.
Catherine builds the Louvre. I want to play with AI bonuses just once so I can cover every continent with settlements by the early industrial era, build any wonder I want, and still have a powerful military and a crap bucket full of gold. Ah… it would probably get boring, but still – I want to do it just once.
Our new spy goes to Quebec City.
Upgraded a rifle to great war infantry.
We cleared a barbarian camp for Marrakech (+50 influence).
Turn 224
There doesn’t seem to be a good excuse for this little development. If Liz is going to attack Attila then why are her ships headed east? She could be going the long way I suppose… we’ll see.
Navigation is complete.
We lost ally status with Genoa, but the elections are in 2 turns.
We see Catherine’s first great war bomber in Yaroslavl. The diplomacy screen shows Catherine with 18 oil still available. I’m just going to assume there are a few other bombers in production and she’s possibly already upgraded a tank or two – maybe a battleship. I’m guessing she has at least 30 oil in that massive sprawl of land the game lets her settle. Anyone want to bet we don’t have more than a handful, or maybe even none at all? We find out in 4 turns folks… stay tuned!
Deleted our scout.
Upgraded a knight to cav and a great war infantry to infantry.
Edinburgh finishes infantry and starts the HST (10 turns).
Dublin finishes a hydro plant and starts the Apollo Program (11 turns). Dublin still doesn’t have a Market!
Turn 225
Take a look at the difference between the manufactured good value and the “busiest people” numbers. This game doesn’t offer a lot of clear/accurate information. I always assumed the MFG value was a per city average, but it obviously isn’t. Anyway, this makes me feel a little better about our production, although we do have 3 production powerhouses that are inflating our numbers a bit.
Upgraded a canon to artillery and a knight to cav.
Nantes finishes an Amphitheater and starts a Ceilidh Hall.
Cardiff finishes a Factory and starts a Research Lab (we might be able to squeeze another GS out of this city and it has an observatory… it might be a wasted build though).
Turn 226
Archaeology is done. Overflow cuts Biology down to one turn.
We successfully rig elections in Sydney, Genoa (back to ally status), and Brussels.
Upgraded a crossbowman to a gatling gun.
Nananantes finishes Public School and starts a Ceilidh Hall.
Turn 227
I’ve had enough. I declare war on Hiawatha and bring our old buddy Attila in on the action. Stupid AI.
Upgraded a gatling gun to a machine gun.
I hate to say I told you so, but have a look at all of our oil.
Yup, that’s it too - not a drop more just outside our borders. Ragusa has a 7 spot in their borders, but we lose our alliance with them next turn. All that area that Cathy settled to our east and southeast? Ya, that had a bunch of oil. This is another one of the aggravating side effects of global happiness. If the player struggles to expand and the AI expands recklessly, then the AI always winds up with tons of resources and has to be attacked. It's like a zombie game really. Anyway, no big deal. We’re going to space. We don’t need fossil fuels to go to space!??!? Wait..
Douglas finishes a University and starts on an Amphitheater.
Turn 228
We lost ally status with Ragusa. That’s -1 food in every city, -4 happiness (they were our only source of dyes), and access to oil (7) in the future. It would be nice to get them back. They want Christo Redentor (which Cathy will probably build in two turns) so our only option really is to buy influence and/or move a spy.
Upgraded a gatling gun to a machine gun and a cannon to artillery. Trying to modernize our military through upgrades is really costing us an arm and a leg. I’m going to stop here, even though there’s about 2,000 more in gold we could spend on upgrades (mostly crossbows and gatling guns). We can stack up this last little bit of gold from our GA and use it for Ragusa bribe money.
We killed another one of Catherine’s inbred spies in our capital. They must be easy to identify.
Turn 229
The war between Russia and the Ottomans is over and this is what remains of the Ottoman Empire. Nice job Sully. Too bad you’re not programmed to produce a new settler every 5 turns.
OK I lied. I upgraded a gatling gun to a machine gun.
Sydney started a culture quest last turn and, oddly enough, we’re ahead. Genoa now also wants Christo Redentor.
Turn 230
Brantford finally finished a workshop. I chose to build a university here for the Oxford instead of buying one. I still think there’s enough time to get a useful tech out of Oxford, but I could be wrong. If someone looks at it more closely and figures we should buy a university, that’s fine – we haven’t actually put any production in yet.
Onondaga finished the windmill and started a factory (although an amphitheater might be a better choice).
We get to choose a social policy. We take Humanism, which came just in time actually. We went from 6 happiness to 25 happiness. The bad news is the next policy (and the two tech finisher) is 21 turns away. We still have two more Ceilidh Halls and an amphitheater coming on line in the next few turns. That might be enough to get us to the finish line, but we may want to change the production in Onondaga to an amphitheater just to be sure.
Apparently Turkish spies are also easy to identify in Edinburgh. We just killed our fifth (is that right?) Ottoman spy.
Our golden age is over.
OK, that’s it! Railroads are coming along. I got almost all of the cities to our east connected but we still have to get the former Iroquois cities and Nantes connected.
We probably need some siege units (we only had two cannons) in case Cathy comes after us. We’ll have to bombard Chelyabinsk (near Truro with 7 oil) and Yaroslavl quickly and take them before her planes wear us out. She has four (two biplanes and two bombers) now. She also has another settler down by Cardiff… which is both hilarious and frustrating. Atomic Theory comes in two turns. If we have more luck with uranium than we did with oil, I’m all down for nuking the bejeezus out of Cathy right before we launch.
We get the two GS from HST in four turns (and they do move the great person counter up by the way) and one from Truro next turn. We can also faith-purchase one more GS. So, all together, that gives us about eight free techs (5 from Great Scientists, two from the Rationalism finisher, and one from Oxford) and only 13 techs necessary for a science victory. The only problem is getting to them (in the case of the Rationalism finisher) and lining them up right so we have a full tech to pick. There are some bottlenecks in the tree, so keep an eye peeled for those. I’d go with Nuclear Fission next or Ecology (depending on if we have uranium). I put a cap of the tech tree below with the techs queued up (and they’re that way in the save). If you do it this way you have the choice of Advanced Ballistics, Mobile Tactics, and Telecommunications with the free picks from Oxford (in about 15 turns if we slow build the university in Bradford).
I wouldn't bulb at all in the next set. This gives us time to build up total science (increased by the lab finishing in Cardiff) for stronger bulbs. Also, it’s not necessary to rush anything now as Apollo won’t even be finished for another five turns and that university in Bradford is holding up Oxford/Advanced Ballistics anyway. I’d start bulbing at about t240 to clear through Penicillin and Ecology. Then maybe hold the last two GS to clear Particle Physics and Nanotech.
In Edinburgh I’d build the Ironworks next (finally), then anything to keep it busy for three turns, then Oxford.
Let’s just make peace with Hiawatha when he comes crying. We could take that one city next to Onondaga. It has 8 aluminum, but no luxuries. I don’t think it’s worth it, but I don’t care either way. There’s enough units over there (unfortunately only one artillery piece on the way), to eventually wrestle that city away from him if we decide we have to have it.
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