Nice turnset astre.
The Variant
I’m generally of the view that it’s the variant that’s holding us up, and specifically our need to pop a Great Spy or Great Engineer. The city best equipped to do this is Ankara, but it’ll be slow-going once we drop those ‘muddying’ Priests (something like 20 turns post-Golden Age, or 15-17 with another Golden Age now). We’d need to drop specialists in most cities to allow Ankara to get to the top of the queue, given Athens would be close on the tail of Ankara in terms of popping the next Great Person due to its passive
point generation through Wonders.
‘Plan B’ could be to tech’ through to Scientific Method and use Liberalism to slingshot Communism for the Great Spy (and State Property wouldn’t be too shabby either given K-Mod’s tweaked city maintenance rules for large empires).
‘Plan C’ might be to tech’ Constitution and start building Jails for the Spy slots. I think this is still a bit ‘iffy’ in terms of securing us the required Great Person, but still possibly worth consideration.
‘Plan D’ of course would be to hope for ‘Guns and Butter’ or some other event to kick in (refer Roy’s post on Page 2), which I think we agreed would be warmly received but shouldn’t figure in our planning (‘Plan D’ is no plan at all!).
Turnset Review
Generally I think that the turnset looks pretty good in hindsight. If you’re looking for ‘constructive criticism’ then I’d question;
Watermills replacing Cottages … while I acknowledge that Watermills are good late-game improvements, like Workshops, they are ‘so so’ if you don’t possess the booster technologies and civics (in Watermills’ case; State Property, Electricity, and Replaceable Parts – none of which we have). Sparta looked to me like a good Commerce Hub, so I’d not have put Watermills on those former riverside Grassland Cottages. This is one example of the ‘hybridisation’ of several of our cities, where sites that look like good Production Hubs or secondary Great Person Farms end up with Cottages, or Commerce Hubs that didn’t work their Cottages in the early game … likewise, muddled city improvements that don’t give the city a clear role.
Along the same lines of clear city roles; a Bank in Memphis but not Corinth?
Curious queued builds; a Pikeman in Ankara (I kinda understand this one for cheap but effective city garrison duty vs. Camel Archers on border cities I'm suspecting??), a Customs House in Elephantine, and a Harbor in Alexandria?
Priests in Ankara. As noted, this city in my estimation is our best chance for popping a Great Engineer or Great Spy, and we should not be reducing our %ges of that by running Priests.
There are other tiny micro points, such as; the wrong Desert Hill being worked in Heliopolis, or Argos needing restructuring so its food haul improves, that really won’t change anything. Likewise, our resource trades could get a review – see toward the end of this post.
From Here
I’m happy to take this next turnset if you guys don’t mind, as I’ve got a few free days on my hands.
Generally the planning should be pretty straight forward with the possible exception of (a.) our technology path and (b.) when to commence the next Golden Age – and if soon, are we happy with the civics that we have?
I’d use this last turn of the Golden Age to starve most of our
producers, but mindful not to let Athens get ahead of Ankara.
I think that we should continue to gear up for war (or go further to the war-prep’ extreme), and DoW Saladin once we’ve got Cuirassiers at our disposal and have those War Elephants upgraded. Therefore lots of ‘Build Wealth’ and run the commerce slider down.
As per above, the tech’ path can go several ways, and I’d be keen to get suggestions. I presume the #1 Plan is that we slingshot Military Tradition with Liberalism and turn off the slider completely, and slow-tech’ to Rifling with Representation-specialists (depending upon when we might want to switch to Police State).
One alternative strategy to this being to aim to slingshot Communism (free Great Spy and helpful State Property). We can look at Constitution and even Democracy (Spy slot city improvements). Furthermore, Physics (free Great Scientist) and Biology (food to support more specialists) also have appeal, although we could be just dragging this game out if we continue to follow these ‘very optional’ technologies.
Some of our trade deals could do with review. We’re still needlessly trading in Fur from Zara. There is a possible Gems deal with Napoleon that could be worth taking, although we’ve admittedly got no unhappiness issues.
Opinion(s) on next Golden Age? Now? Soon? Much later?
Best Civics?
....jk
could go on Napoleon rather than Saladin given that Arabia's kind of doomed and we've got no real hope of stealing Astronomy given its cost.
(your micro points are noted though)
effect from sleeping pills ... will review tomorrow.
