Morocco SG

[Tiberiu]

Hello. This is a game to be played in 4 players or even 5 if somebody wants to join me, @Mizzenmast and @so_what to try to join our forces to create a strong empire together.

By the looks of it, SGs tend to be a bit too easy or at least not very challanging because people brainstorm, exchange ideas, plans, and try to perform well for the team.

As a result, my idea for this game is to choose a mediocre civ, on a non-ideal map, against strong rival civilizations. I am confident and hopeful you guys agree that a challanging game is more fun than shooting ducks, so here came up my idea to choose Ice age (Wide continents landmass) with Sparse resources.

here are the full settings including rival Civs (don't look if you don't want to have the mystery of what civs are in the game spoiled)

Spoiler game settings :

And here is the start we were given by the RNG.

While obviously not great, it could have been much worse, I would say. There is some potential in this start. I like the harsh environment myself and keep in mind the rival civs should also be cursed with similar starts.

We will now wait a few days to see if anybody wants to join us and in the mean time I ask @Mizzenmast and @so_what to share thoughts, if they like the game and if they have a plan in mind for the general strategy. I'll share mine after that.

 

[so_what]

Looks interesting. What kind of victory types do you guys look for? I noticed that you guys tried DomV and DipV so I think we can do either a SV or CV this time.

Edit: @fiddlesticks joined and his other game is going towards a SV. I would propose we can try a CV this game.

 

[fiddlesticks]

I’ll play. 3 Granary tiles and a coastal hill start definitely has potential.

 

[Tiberiu]

Welcome onboard fiddlesticks!

While we are preparing to start, let's talk out a few ideas so that we can have a good idea of what we want to do. Our principle has been to be chill & relaxed and the player in command to be able to take the decisions he considers are the best, but knowing what others are thinking is important to create a coherent plan. I'm open to playing for a CV like So_What suggested.

my general ideas for this start are:
- we should first move warrior to the S to see if there is anything there (maybe a floodplains river with a wheat/cattle or something that might make it better to lose 1-2 turns to move there.
- we might have option to use either dance of the aurora/desert folklore pantheons for faith but goddess of the hunt for 5 food in the SIP capital is also interesting. But overall, we should keep in mind the chance for a religion is low unless we invest heavy in getting one or we get lucky with some NW.
- Pottery with 3 granary resources is obviously a good idea but I'm also a fan of quick Archery and ToA especially on coastal start. I am sure we could get it on time, but we would have to sacrifice 1 or 2 forests which would lose 1-2 production permanently and there is also the opportunity cost of delayed granary and shrine, and the need to get a quick worker and mining, so I don't care strongly for it. Regardless of that, we should get reasonably fast Trapping after just so that we can improve and sell our only luxury.
- Hanging Gardens would be nice for a garden but I wouldn't try it unless we have information about the civs and their policies, maybe we can get lucky.

I'll take the initiative to set up our order so that we can get started tomorrow if you guys agree.

1. So What
2. Fiddlesticks
3. Mizzenmast
4. Tiberiu

 

[fiddlesticks]

Culture Victory sounds good.

I’d keep those forests intact for the production throughout the game since we’re lacking nearby hills.

We’ve got some very religious civilizations on that list so getting and keeping a religion will be tricky unless we get lucky with a NW nearby. Goddess of the hunt would be a good pick unless our expansions have obvious faith generating land.

 

[so_what]

I will wait for tomorrow to start playing to give some time in case a fifth player want to join.

On high level, I'm planning to go with either a 2x scout-shrine OR scout-monument-shrine start, hoping for a goddess of the hunt pantheon.

I have played sparse resources before and from my understanding there is very little happiness and gold. Therefore, Tradition is probably the preferred policy. Liberty will struggle unless there is an abundance of faith resources to start a religion.

As for ToA, I might consider it if there are good worker steal opportunities.

 

[Mizzenmast]

Looks fun, thanks for setting up the map T. Based on the AI list (which is well-picked to be intimidating!), I agree that gunning for a religion is high-risk barring the discovery of a Faith NW. Even if we get one, we may miss out on powerful beliefs. But, I still think we should rush the Shrine ASAP, because Goddess of Hunt will be a massive boost if we get it. And if we miss it, we can still take God-King or something to pay off the investment. Desert Folklore could be good if we find a strong Desert location and maybe found the religion there.

I have played sparse resources before and from my understanding there is very little happiness and gold. Therefore, Tradition is probably the preferred policy. Liberty will struggle unless there is an abundance of faith resources to start a religion.

Good thinking, but I believe happiness will not be majorly affected, based on this handy table from someone on Reddit who tested out the different resource settings. It turns out that Sparse setting reduces Bonus and Strategic resources (especially Iron), but total # of luxury deposits stays fairly constant across the settings. What changes is the variety of luxes, and it's opposite what one would expect: on Abundant, there are more copies of a smaller # of lux types, but on Sparse, there are fewer copies of a greater # of lux types. So there will be less food/production/gold because of fewer bonus resources, but happiness should stay the same, and maybe even increase compared to the average game. (Assuming self-reliance; this doesn't take into account swapping luxuries with the AI, which will be easier if they have many copies of their "main" resource.) So, I think Liberty could still be strong here. But, we can take the Tradition opener regardless.

My question for the group is, given the rarity of Iron (about 50% compared to Standard resources, while Horses are 75%), do we think it is more or less important to get Bronze Working quickly for settling knowledge? You could look at it either way, but I would tend to say it's more important. Being able to field Frigates in the mid-game could open our strategic options immensely. It was the key to dominance in the last two games we played. Especially if we go for CV, we will need to be able to knock the wind out of [redacted] who will probably have massive Culture. Also, CV might be tough if we lack a religion, don't get many wonders in the Capital, or have few CS allies to pass our proposals, which seems likely given the presence of certain AIs in the game.

 

[so_what]

Here we go.

T0 - Move warrior south, settle in place as there isn’t a better place.

T1-2- Exploring with warrior

T3 - Population ruin!

T4 - Scout completed, Start work on Monument

T5 - Meet Cahokia

T6 - Scout gets upgrade ruin

T8 - Scout gets Map ruin. See Wittenberg in the distance (not met yet)

T9 - Finish Pottery, start on Animal Husbandry

T10 - Monument completed

Analysis
- The northern part of the continent seems to be covered by snow. Let's finish exploring the temperate zone for settling spots before going into the snow zone for ruins.
- We can meet Wittenberg for +8 faith.
- I did not go for archery yet. Personally, I would only go for ToA if I can get a lot of early workers. Workers will be problem since there are no nearby AI and both CS are ocean lux (so workers will be slow), and there are a lot of snow to spawn barbs who may kidnap workers.

Spoiler T10 Screenshot :

 

[Tiberiu]

Good 10 turns!

a few comments:

-The presence of Wittenberg increases our chances for a religion significantly. I see a barb camp near them and they should give barb quest soon enough. Maybe they can lose their worker there too for us to rescue. I think their faith is worth more than workers for us, we should steal from Cahokia instead.
- great to see there one more deer in the capital. We have limited good lands otherwise, but a good thing is that since we seem to be isolated, we won't have to worry about defending our cities, only barb control.

My question for the group is, given the rarity of Iron (about 50% compared to Standard resources, while Horses are 75%), do we think it is more or less important to get Bronze Working quickly for settling knowledge?

I would delay it and assume that we don't have iron and then hopefully be pleasantly surprised later. I would try to catch the Oracle instead, or create opportunity for Petra in case nobody has desert near their capitals to take it fast. If we get lucky we could get it in a city near the desert.

 

[fiddlesticks]

T11:

• Warrior finds ruin
  
• Scarcher meets Wittenberg. PoP
• Finish monument, start Shrine

T12:

• Ruin yields 20 culture - open Tradition
• Meet Lhasa (Friendly, Pearls) +8 faith! PoP
  
• Buy Deer tile because Marrakesh has grown

T15

• Meet LaVenta (Neutral, Pearls) +8 faith.
  
• Adopt Oligarchy
• Finish Shrine, start Settler

T16

• Pantheon - Goddess of the Hunt
• We have horses - work for settler
• Finish AH, start Trapping

T18

• Wittenberg produces a worker and we steal with Scarcher

T19

• Hand-Axe blocking path home

T20 Interim

• Good and blocked by that hand-axe. Suggest we peace Wittenberg and retreat/shoot to clear path home for worker.

 

[so_what]

Hmmm... at T20 I think we have enough information to discuss the overall strategy. We have an isolated start, means that we will be short on science from trade route/discounts, workers and trade opportunities.

My suggestion for the game is:
Early game - go for a 4-5 city tradition. We can settle 4 cities first with Oracle/NC and settle a fifth city for iron if needed (see suggested locations below)

Spoiler City locations :

.

The situation at Wittenberg is unfortunate (I.e we might need to make peace and that prevents us from stealing more workers). Due to the lack of AI Civ/CS to steal workers, we would probably have to go with a worker heavy build anyway. Another archer would be necessary to do barb quests - hopefully can even give rise to religion. Given that this an continents map with extended land mass, we would also want to build a trireme to explore the seas if they connect to another continent.

Mid game - we can try to enter Renaissance via Astronomy>Navigation, upgrade 5-6 Galleass to Frigate. We can then bribe warmongers to attack the other civs and then take down the capitals of the warmongers. Ideally, we should expand to 7-8 cities, make a few civs irrelevant and make 1-2 allies via "fight a common enemy" buff.

 

[so_what]

Noticed there isn't an update yet. In case you guys havent started playing, my suggestion regarding T20 is
- archer to retreat towards the back of Lhasa
- worker to retreat to the back of Wittenberg
In this case the City States will help us kill off the hand-axe, which ever way it goes. The warrior can move south to help escort the worker home after the hand axe is dead.

 

[Mizzenmast]

Good and blocked by the Hand-axe indeed, but I think it would be a shame to peace Wittenberg this early. With no other civs around, this CS will be our only option for XP and Workers, and has a Hostile nature. It does have unique Whales, but my thinking is that we are better off fighting the CS for XP and using our first General to just steal the Whales. So I dallied a bit with the Worker but ultimately got him home by the end of this session. I did make a few decisions which may be controversial (took Honor and went for Granary after the first Settler) but to me they seemed like the best moves.

20: Changed our citizens from 2f/1p tiles to Fur tiles, 4 gpt seemed better than 1 production from excess food.
23: Two more pantheons founded.
26: Took Honor opener to give us some flexibility and safety. It got our Scarcher/Warrior team out of a tough spot this turn, and let them start farming the camp. You all may disagree but I think it's no big deal to delay the Tradition finisher here, because the lack of luxes and neighbors means at some point we will be growing faster than we have happiness for (I'm guessing), especially in the capital.
27: Someone got Stonehenge. First Settler finished; I sent him towards the CS area to settle where @so_what indicated. (I like all your spots by the way, but I think the Western city might as well move one tile to the left, no?) I went for a super-Granary now instead of another Settler, there's not a rush for land and we need some time to improve our few luxes. The Granary will increase our Settler production too when we resume them. Trapping finished; went for Writing, so we can get a Library in our fast-growing cap.

Notes
With Honor taken, there is the option to take the Generals policy to steal Wellington's Whales early on. That would also let us take the XP policy when we get serious about Ranged ships.
There's a Hand-axe near Lhasa; once it's been killed we can move the Scarcher back into position to steal Workers from Wellington. Right now both our units are healing up a bit.
We could get a couple Scouts out sooner rather than later. Survivalism will be strong with Honor especially if we delay BW and have no Spearmen for a while (which I support).

Spoiler :

 

[so_what]

Great work getting the worker back without having to peace with Wittenberg.

(I like all your spots by the way, but I think the Western city should might as well move one tile to the left, no?)

That spot looks good too.

Took Honor opener to give us some flexibility and safety. It got our Scarcher/Warrior team out of a tough spot this turn, and let them start farming the camp. You all may disagree but I think it's no big deal to delay the Tradition finisher here, because the lack of luxes and neighbors means at some point we will be growing faster than we have happiness for (I'm guessing), especially in the capital.

I am ok with taking honor opener for safety and easy of barb quest to spin off into a religion(which has high chance given the number of religious CS on the continent). I would still recommend a fast Tradition finisher compare to General policy as that will guarantee a strong Navigation timing and pretty much seal the victory for the game.

Sharing a game that I saw online, where a very good player played a very similar map with Ice Age/Huge Archipelago/Korea on a snow capped start like this and won a T236 Science Victory here. While there are some differences in that he is playing Korea, standard resources and going for a SV, his strategy of Tradition finisher/NC into Navigation can definitely apply to our game.

I know that we lack happiness, so I recommend that we take Sailing before Philosophy and build a trireme to explore the shallow waters first. Since this is extended landmass there is a high chance that the shallow water are connected to the next continents and that will have potential to give us trade partners. Lets take General policy only if we really can't connect to anyone.

 

[Tiberiu]

Game continues. I can't say I am a fan of the Wittenberg move since it can make the difference between having a religion or not, while same could have been achieved by Cahokia instead, but hopefully we can get a religion without it if we're lucky.

31- first religion goes but no good beliefs are taken.
32- Found Rabat near Wittenberg for faster healing and to prepare Whales stealing. A few turns of unhappiness but seems better than waiting.
33- second religion goes and Mosques are taken.
34- switch to Mining. Building a settler. There isn't an easy way to steal from Wittenberg with a barb spawned that is creating ZOC and the camp has a worker that needs to be captured or rescued if it's Lhasa's.
35- the barb moved away and Scarcher steals Wittenberg's worker.
36- Another pantheon goes and it is desert Folklore, making it unlikely to have a religion unless we manage to ally La Venta and Lhasa in time. It also makes Petra unlikely to happen.
37- We are happy again and I stop the settler to build a Warrior and grow. We need this warrior to be able to clear more barbs. We will need Calendar for the Cocoa and there's no time to tech Archery.
38- La Venta now has barb quest for their own camp. I'm sending the units there.

notes:

-A barb just pillaged Wittenberg's Wheat, so the first worker that spawns will first try to move on that tile to repair. If we build a Scout after the Warrior, it should reach in position right about in time for the steal.
-There is a barb to the West, hanging around our borders, he came from Cahokia's camp.
- We have some production put into the settler but I'd delay it a bit still until we get pop 5 and also get another Scout.
- I've marked down my city placement ideas (the difference of the Marble city compared to So_What is to try to get more ground covered for strategic resources opportunities. Same for my preference of the western city a bit more to the West.
The second Cocoa city could be kept for last when we have enough happiness for it, maybe even after NC.
- A policy is coming and I'd steal the Whales with the Honor General but @so_what can decide how he thinks is best.

Spoiler :

 

[so_what]

T40 - Cahokia issue barb quest. Change to research Archery, chop forest in Rabat

T42 - Warrior completed. Build worker in Marrakech

T43 - Adopt Legalism. Shrine in Rabat completed, follow up on granary.

T45 - Archery completed, back to researching Calendar. Switch to archer in Marrakech. Cleared barb camp and become friends with La Venta (+2 faith)

T46 - Lhasa issue barb quest, moving units down

T48 - Archer completed. La Venta issue trade route request + defend against barb quest. Either there is a barb camp in the North West OR barbs are running over from the camp near Cahokia. Be careful before sending the trade route quest!

T49 - Killed the invading barb

T50 - La Venta removed the defend against barb quest. Since we have Honor opener, we should fully explore the continent so all barb camps are alerted.

Spoiler T50 :

Analysis and suggestion
Here we have a few quests at hand, which should resolve our happiness/religion problem if we do them right.

- Ally with Lhasa by returning, that would give us Pearls (+4 happiness) and a religion. Connect with Cocoa to give other +4 happiness. We have +8 happiness coming soon so we can start preparing our 3rd settler.

Cahokia is another opportunity (+3 happiness for friend or + 7 happiness for ally), if we can get an ally status I would recommend building the 4th settler.

Religion - Allying with Lhasa should be sufficient to secure a religion, La Venta quest is tricker as there are barbs around, but it is another opportunity for enhancement.

- I've marked down my city placement ideas (the difference of the Marble city compared to So_What is to try to get more ground covered for strategic resources opportunities. Same for my preference of the western city a bit more to the West.

@Tiberiu I'm okay with the northern city location. For the South west, I'm not sure if there is enough room/happiness for 2 decent cities. I understand that you want to cover more tiles for iron/oil/uranium. However, I would still recommend placing cities at the best growth locations base on current knowledge and adjust the plan accordingly once we have bronze working / biology. After all, the growth of city are also very important as CV requires Science and Production.

 

[fiddlesticks]

51 - Terra Cotta built far away
52 - Calendar done, start Sailing
- Worker done, start Caravan
- Barb Horseman shows up, kill with Archer and Warrior. Archer has to take insta-heal
53 - Clear camp for Lhasa, return Worker, Ally (100/60)
54 - Clear camp for Cahokia, friends
- Eastern Orthodoxy enhances
57 - Hanging Gardens built far away
- Building a Settler in Rabat. Quicker trip to settling location, less opportunity cost in food.
58 - Caravan done, start Cargo Ship
- Sailing done, start Writing
59 - Ally LaVenta
59->60 - Finish Writing

Thoughts:
-We're in great shape to found a religion.
-Wittenberg has a Composite Bow in the city so be careful
-Policy is up next turn. I'd take happiness over growth because it will buy us time for city 3 to grow to Marble as well as researching Masonry. Marrakesh will grow fast once the Cargo Ship from Rabat gets going.
-We'll need the Wheel soon too because our workers will run out of useful tasks pretty soon.
-I'd stick with 3 cities and then start capturing as soon as possible unless we find an amazing location overseas. Right now I wouldn't put another on any of the nearby options.
-I'd build a Trireme as soon as possible to explore south. I think we're near the north end of the temperate belt so most civs will be south of us.
-I'd buy the deer tile this turn.

 

[Mizzenmast]

Nice rounds everyone, we are in a strong position now with our 2 allies, and Lhasa's NW quest ensures we will keep its Pearls for a long time.

60: Bought the Deer tile. Writing finished, went for Philosophy to prepare for Oracle in the cap. (Wheel would be handy, but I had our Workers chop some hill forests for now.) I did check the AI list again to make sure none of the Oracle-favoring civs are in the game...
61: Policy: Monarchy.
63: Discovered a barb camp in the NW with 2 Archers guarding it. Our 2 Warriors + Archer should be able to lock it down easily unless a strong unit spawns too early.
64: Someone got Colossus.
66: Cargo Ship in capital finished, started a Library.
68: Settler finished in Rabat. We hit 220 gold this turn, so I bought a Trireme and started building a Scout. The Scout can take the place of our Scarcher to steal Workers from Wittenberg, so we won’t risk losing a nice unit and can use it productively elsewhere.
70: Trireme is ready to meet an island City-state this turn. Great Wall built. Another religion enhanced, and Reformation belief taken. We are 3 turns behind on our own Prophet, sadly.

Notes
The NW camp is under control for now, we are just about to pick off its recently-spawned Horseman. Cahokia and La Venta might both put out a quest for this camp, which would be fantastic. We should maybe bring our Scarcher there so we have more ranged firepower to pick off units and leave our Warriors as fortified blockers, since something strong like a Pikeman could spawn relatively soon.
Radaring shows there is some barb unit roaming the NE, but it also suggests there is no encampment in the undiscovered tiles (unless our continent stretches much further East than I suspect.)
I think a second Trireme in Rabat could be a good build. This one can maybe go East and pillage Wittenberg's Whales along the way. Radaring suggests there is another CS (or a camp with several units) to the Northeast.

Spoiler :

 

[Tiberiu]

Hey.

70. We meet Almaty (hostile, pearls) for 30 gold, they give Comanche Riders.
71. Our Prophet is born and we found our religion with Tithe and Religious Community. Cathedrals were available but I just think that this helps us most overall even for the Cultural Victory. (and I would have taken Cathedrals but RC will also apply for Oracle to drop maybe 1-2 turns, this was my reasoning. There will remain other useful belief anyway. Hopefully you guys won't be disappointed. I notice Almaty already has put out a barb camp quest on their island. I build another Trireme quickly because that annoying camp is close to us and a galley would surely pillage our sea route. I build one more Archer in Rabat, and together with Scarcher, maybe we can kill Almaty's camp after Optics.
72. We meet Siam who also seems to be isolated (only knows us), and sell a Furs and a Horse. Siam has a very tasty capital and GL + Hanging Gardens, and it is flatland and exposed. I suggest we try to help him initially, so that he builds some more wonder for us. His capital is in sea route range too so maybe first a friendship to get loans is nice. And strike him down after Navigation. Need open borders to scout more. No sea route to pillage.
Found Fes on the Hill. This loses the windmill but gains hill advantage and a little extra food and one extra tile for hidrocentral later.
73. Siam builds The Great Lighthouse. How fortunate.
74. Siam failed to get a religion since somebody else founded the 5th. His faith from tundra was not good enough because AI didn't really know how to use it - he kept forests for production, serves him right. This is good for us, more Tithe gold and positive diplomacy from religion in the future.
75. Almaty cleared their camp... not bad, the trireme can scout instead of guard. And one extra trireme has been build for production overflow for Oracle which we now start. Start bronze working, maybe we have iron for extra production in capital.
76. Cahokia desires horses... La Venta wants our religion. There's a ruin near Almaty that Siam neglected. Maybe we can catch it for something useful. I buy a tile for Fes... good gamble for 65 gold. I'd like to buy the 2 other tiles we have contested with LaVenta while we have time. Steal a worker from Wittenberg.
77. Basic scout was destroyed after Wittenberg spawns another CB. (2 CB in city +city attack). A good trade off regardless, we keep the worker. Pillaged the Whales but Trireme can't pass as it might die, so just wait for Lhasa to kill 1 CB.
78. We have 4 Iron immediately, turns out I settled Fes on it, and there is an extra single iron in 3-tile range also in Fes. No other iron in sight anywhere, but at least we have some... We meet Sidon (Friendly, Gold, Hussar).
80. Byzantine meets us and I sell the Furs and the Iron. Theodora is doing very well, she has 6 contacts and is first in score. Nothing scary, though, and she only built Collosus.

notes:

- Not much to say, maybe we can get that Ancient Ruin. i hover mouse in the screenshot below with it (not sure if we have a chance for weapon upgrade, or if it's even worth building a scout and hoping for it).
- Scarcher should be careful vs the camp near Fes, maybe don't even go alone in case there's a Horseman. Bring a Warrior to it instead to help?!
- if we need emergency happiness, we are rich enough to buy an expensive lux, but we just need a Horse for Cahokia and we'll be ok.
- We should buy the Library in Fes to get the NC after Oracle. If we catch Oracle I think we're doing good. Even if we fail it we should do ok.
- I'm not sure it's even good to found one more city now... getting quick and cheap National Wonders seems to be a good perk of just staying on these 3.
- We could do something crazy and Oxford Navigation, if we get the gold ready to upgrade/buy 5 frigates and storm Siam, it might be worth it.
- If there's extra gold after buying the library, maybe buy those tiles for Fes near LaVenta
- Edit: I forgot to say, maybe peace Wittenberg to try to explore more beyond it? We don't need more workers and the benefit of staying at war seems marginal. It's fine either way by me.

Spoiler :

 

[so_what]

T80 - Make peace with Wittenberg, use Trieme to scout East of Continent

T81 - Wittenberg issues a barb camp quest. Send archers to Fes barb camp, Laventa back to friends status. Switch to masonry

T82 - East route blocked by Byzantine, needs open borders, Rabat is running out of tiles to work on. We might eventually still want a general to steal land from Wittenberg

T83 - Discover Mt Kil. Meet Samarkland and Belgrade.

T84 - Finish Masonry, Start Wheel

T85 - Parthenon has been built in a far away land.

T86 -Oracle completed - Finished Tradition, Clear barb camp to get above 400G. Friends with Wittenberg. Buy Library in Few, Marrakech start work on NC, Rabat start work on Temple

T87 - Meet Celts, blocked. Wheel completed, Tech towards Construction

T88 - Opened border with Byzantine for 1G, Celts do not have Civil Service yet.

T90 - Teodora built Borobudor. Fes is ready for new project

Spoiler T90 :

Next steps:
- Marble can be finished on the next turn to give +4 happiness.
- it is worth exploring taking the barb quest near Samarkland and Belgrade. That will give us enough happiness for the 4th city.
- We can explore more land from Byzantine's Open border. If theres nothing there, then let's try to buy open border (if reasonable price) from Celt or Siam.
- I have left the research Optics/Construction at 1T for beaker overflow, feel free to finish them.
- As more AIs have research Open borders, we might just want to clear out the camp on the West in case stronger barb units start appearing.

Mid term strategy discussion:
- We probably have 2 more policies before Renaissance. Perhaps we can still take General policy because Rabat is running out of useful land. This city will not be useful as there are limited tiles. We can still take a general to steal the whale+3 more tiles from Wittenberg when it is no longer a friend. The faster experience policy can help to get 3 range frigates too.
- I am tempted to settle 1 more city as mid game tech might be slow with 3 cities alone. However, it would depends on how well we can resolve happiness issues.
- Lets find opportunity to get DoF, would love to get loan from someone to upgrade frigates before declaring war.