STR-06: 3CTCC goes Monarch

[Pvblivs]

Nice set Pvblivs. Haven't hit Renaissance this early in quite a while.

Neither did I. I assume Mr. Faraday helped a lot. I always wonder how easy it is to keep up a high technology pace when you do not concentrate on expansion. Even if this time our isolated start helps a lot.

 

[blid]

Nice turnsets guys . Liberalism should be next, it's not only a matter of loosing the race but free speech would be unlocked too giving us the culture multiplier boost.

 

[pholkhero]

great set ~ it seems everyone gets wonders in their sets but me it seems now that we're moving away from wonders in the near-term, and focusing on the smaller culture bldgs. How much culture were we producing in the last game at the end of it all?? I guess i could look, but i'm on my way out in a few

also,

Thext GP could come from Corinth

I think i'm going to use this new word from now on for "the next" ~ i really do like it alot

I was drunk last Friday night and fell off my bicycle

first time, i think, i've ever read/heard that sentence (but then again, I'm american, and bikes are against the law here since they don't consume gas). glad you're okay, Strauss, but (and i'm sorry) I laughed out loud ~ for some reason, an image of a man toppling off one of those large-front-wheeled ol' timey bikes ~

 

[Pvblivs]

also, I think i'm going to use this new word from now on for "the next" ~ i really do like it alot

Uh no! Thext player should pay more attention to correct spelling

 

[ungy]

OK--got it for Monday--a little jammed here.

Basic plan is lib-nat. Nat will also open up Hermitage. Build Taj when available. We could go for Versailles but kind of a longshot so not sure if worth it--can't be built in capital.

Take Free Speech when available. Hold off on Free Religion. We'll need this one pretty soon but better to keep OR as long as possible. I think we're OK with Mansa.

Trade Mansa sheep for clams--get some relations help and when we get harbor in Athens another health. I'm thinking send WB down to the whale--I think we'll have optics by then. Although it is nice to get a look at Mansa--maybe build a galley and send over a couple of warriors to scout. I think Athens should get HE--not that we want to build too many units but we can't neglect totally.

Universities are a priority as we get them 1/2 off.

I just now noticed how good the odeon is for our VC!

 

[ungy]

Meh.... I was drunk last Friday night and fell off my bicycle, and decided to fall face-first on the concrete.

when I was a kid my dad made me wear a motorcyle helmet (yeah I'm old it was 40 years ago--no bike helmets then). I proceeded to do the face plant--still have the scar on my chin. Hope you're doing OK

 

[ungy]

. I don't understand as well why the Apostolic Palace should be an option - except for peace keeping, if we had other followers, but we don't. It generates prophets and 4 cpt.

Well the AP also generates 2 hammers for each religious building for the owner even if they give up the religion. That is pretty good since that would have been 4hpt in each city and 2 more in one. There's pretty good denial value in keeping that away from an opponent--and others could get the hammer bonus as well. Granted the culture is weak and prophet useless at best but it was still IMHO a pretty good option--most likely better than the one we took. The problem with the U of Sankore is that we lose the bonus when we take free religion, which we will have to do when we meet the other AI to help avoid unwanted wars and to trade.

 

[GreyFox]

Well the AP also generates 2 hammers for each religious building for the owner even if they give up the religion. That is pretty good since that would have been 4hpt in each city and 2 more in one. There's pretty good denial value in keeping that away from an opponent--and others could get the hammer bonus as well.

If that is true, it is far more important than the UN functionality IMHO. The Info Center etc should stress this. Assuming someone has 3 religions, that is a potential of at least 12 free hammers (temple + monastery).

EDIT: Strange that even Civopedia does not mention it.

 

[Pvblivs]

EDIT: Strange that even Civopedia does not mention it.

I never heard that either. I built the Apostolic Palace twice, but I never noticed this, neither did I look after its effects.

 

[ungy]

If that is true, it is far more important than the UN functionality IMHO. The Info Center etc should stress this. Assuming someone has 3 religions, that is a potential of at least 12 free hammers (temple + monastery).

You get 2 hammers per building in the AP religion if you build the AP OR if you have the AP religion as your state religion (if I'm understanding it correctly).
Religious buildings in other religions count nothing.

 

[ungy]

OK here goes:

Inherited turn: send WB back home, MM a bit (research to 0 for a couple of turns since we're going to have uni in Athens).
Trade Mansa sheep for clam.

1305 Athens forge-uni, Corinth con. academy-uni.
1310 Sparta Odeon-uni. We could have gone for Versailles but at 45 turns I thought better build some useful buildings much quicker--then run more specs.
1315
1320 Patton BIDL Mansa has edu.
1325 Athens uni-galley.
1335 Athens galley-mon.
1340 Athens mon-harbor.
1345..
1350.
1355 Lib in we take Nat. Start researching optics.
Athens harbor-Taj.
Revolt to Free Speech. I decide to hold off on Free religion--it won't save us a turn anyway.
1360...
1365..

IBT Mansa want to trade for some our horses. Not a chance.

1370 Sparta uni-mon.
Trade Mansa sugar for wine. Don't know what I was thinking to do that--we need his fish. Next up should adjust my trades when able. GG born away.
1375 All quiet and ready for the next monarch.
All of our cities are over 200c/turn.
We're one turn from optics.
I suggest taking a breather from the Taj and building a couple of caravels in Athens.

I did not start the Hermitage, we should decide where to put it and start it--maybe in Sparta?

 

[ungy]

save is here:

 

[Pvblivs]

Good set. I hope we can finish Taj Mahal. If we get a prophet within the next turns, as I said, we might want to trigger a golden age to ensure we build it more quicker. An engineer would be a no-brainer as well. We could use the golden-age then for any further revolts. That's what golden ages are for

Just two other remarks:

I suggest taking a breather from the Taj and building a couple of caravels in Athens.

Considering our game goal. Would we have any use for that? I know it is something really really great to prove the world is round. But does it excuse to hold off a culture-rich, Great Artists supporting unique building we have to race for even for as few as 5 turns? No.
There's only one valid point: Make contact to other civilizations to take advantage from tech trades etc. But the downside is: Making contact gives all possible diplomatic problems a lot of time to develop (give me technology x, give me money, stop trading, declare war, if not; I won't like you any more).
Let some other religion spread to us? I doubt some will spread, not before Astronomy and even then most probably never. Auto-spread with already 2 or more religions in a city is very unlikely.

So you see, I'm not a fan of building any caravel in the near future. Indeed I prefer to be discovered instead of discovering myself this time.

I did not start the Hermitage, we should decide where to put it and start it--maybe in Sparta?

What speaks for Sparta, and what for Corinth? I'm just asking because I'd like to know about any thougts about where to build a culture-doubling building - obviously you already made some.

 

[ungy]

Considering our game goal. Would we have any use for that? I know it is something really really great to prove the world is round. But does it excuse to hold off a culture-rich, Great Artists supporting unique building we have to race for even for as few as 5 turns? No.
There's only one valid point: Make contact to other civilizations to take advantage from tech trades etc. But the downside is: Making contact gives all possible diplomatic problems a lot of time to develop (give me technology x, give me money, stop trading, declare war, if not; I won't like you any more).
Let some other religion spread to us? I doubt some will spread, not before Astronomy and even then most probably never. Auto-spread with already 2 or more religions in a city is very unlikely.

So you see, I'm not a fan of building any caravel in the near future. Indeed I prefer to be discovered instead of discovering myself this time.

You make some good points. I think either of two paths has merit:
1. Build two caravels and find the other continent. Research astro and take free religion. Trade appropriately.

Upside: Mansa is currently in mercantilism (but likely not for long) so we're not getting overseas trade. Resource trades will be useful, world is round less so. Tech trading will be useful--I think Mansa is likely our long term competitor so useful to trade techs away.

Downside: contacts are a two way street, and delaying the Taj has some risk.
To trade overseas we'll have to dump the religion, and that will cost us culture (due to sistene) and hammers (OR).

2. Skip the caravels until Taj completed. Research out to democracy and try for Statue of Liberty (we'll likely need engineer as we have no copper).
We should get GP from each city next set or close to it--whether we pop an engineer could determine path.

As for getting religion--we won't get natural spread so we don't need to find them--we might get Mansa to spread to us (he's the AP holder). If so we should priroritize further spreading to avoid an AP accident.
Not sure what our research path should be--we should definately get ourselves to rifles to shore up our defenses at some point.

What speaks for Sparta, and what for Corinth? I'm just asking because I'd like to know about any thougts about where to build a culture-doubling building - obviously you already made some.

Actually was exactly the opposite --was getting really late and I hadn't given it any--hence postponed the decision. However here's a few thoughts:
Ideally we want all 3 of our cities to go legendary on the same turn --minimizing the total amout of culture we need. We also want to put maximum multipliers on our best cities and use late artists to catch the laggards up. However reality intrudes on that theory. Athens is our best producer so it makes sense to give it the late wonders.

I guess I'd probably lean to Sparta as it is a better base culture than Corinth and Corinth already has a multiplier building but I think it's close. Sparta also has the multiplier on the artist point. Downside to Sparta is that we can more profitably run specs there so maybe we shouldn't be running hammer tiles. It should be started this turn tho.

By the way there is an exploit that I recently became aware of: if you trade tech on first contact with the AI you get an immediate full +4 trade relations bonus. You can still take the hit for trading with worst enemies tho. Not sure if we consider this an uufair exploit or not.

 

[pholkhero]

By the way there is an exploit that I recently became aware of: if you trade tech on first contact with the AI you get an immediate full +4 trade relations bonus. You can still take the hit for trading with worst enemies tho. Not sure if we consider this an uufair exploit or not.

it's not just techs ~ i've given AIs as little as 30g and gotten the bonus (30, though, is the limit).

i, too, think we should hold off on caravels, unless there's nothing else culturally we need to build in Athens. Even for denial purposes, I don't think sending out the caravels justifies stopping production on such a good wonder as the Taj.

re: late-game wonders ~ ideally, if we prioritize the techs there, we should have free range to build those wonders. I would say hermitage in our third-culture-producing city, and then play it by ear a bit to decide on any late-game wonder placement. I agree on Rifling, so maybe beeline that, and then start to head for Electricity, Radio and Mass Media.

 

[Strauss]

Roster:
1) Strauss
2) Pvblivs
3) ungy --> just played
4) blid --> UP, overdue for 'got it'
5) pholkhero --> on deck
6) GreyFox

I also think we should hold off on Caravels and focus on building cultural buildings, for reasons already mentioned.

I agree with pholk on the Mass Media route, with perhaps a quick grab of Democracy and the SoL.

 

[pholkhero]

@ Strauss ~ if you want, i'll have time later tonight to play and post ~ shall I??

edit: didn't see blid was on ~ waiting patiently

 

[Strauss]

Since blid is actually overdue for a got it, unless he posts before you do, play when you have the time.

 

[blid]

A got it, report post. BTW, I still have more than 5 hours before the overdue point

I start by switching citizens from mines to farms in Sparta, anticipating better health when we get the fish from Mansa. Optics gives us the whale which further improves our happniess cap. I select printing press next on the way to both rifling and scientific method. I don't know which one we should pick yet.

Corinth gives us an artist. I am in favor of putting the hermitage here, since the base culture value is quite close between Corinth and Sparta and like Ungy pointed out, Sparta is better using artists then building stuff. So I send the artist to settle in Sparta

A great engineer is born in a far away land... Is our Taj in danger ?

Sparta gives a scientist. I decided first to keep him, since we can't trade for guilds with Mansa (he wants nationalism for that, no way) and our research paths would be closed if we get PP.

We get this funny message from Herodotus




N°2 in land ? things must be crowded in the other continent

Just after that message, we met Willem. I greet him of course




I played like I would do in a normal game. I don't like exploits and I wouldn't have traded if the thing was not so juicy. The screenshot has missed the most important tech, which is guilds. This changes the situation. I rather burn the scientist on PP and see if we can trade for banking next. I pick astro temporarily. I did take archery and HBR since I WFYABTA would probably not hit us anytime soon.

Willem also gave us his world map. First, I see we are not the only civ playing 3CC




Well, he probably built some junk cities in the tundra NW, but he got badly boxed here.

And here's the southern part of the continent




Sorry for the unreadable city names, but it's hard to crop widescreen shots to fit in 4/3 without loosing too much quality. You got the Incans, Byzatines and Chartaginians

Bankink was indeed available next from Mansa. I traded him philo for that. Then I figured I rather continue on astronomy and hope to trade for replacable parts later. The AI used to prioritize it and rifling highly on vanilla and warlods. Not sure it's still the case with BTS though. My experience stops at one SP game and a couple SGs and RB events.

Then came the depressing event of the set




That was 1 turn from us completing the Taj I chopped a couple forests to speed things up but didn't whip it

No need to keep nationalism anymore. It is already known on the other continent and we have the opportunity to get astro from a trade




Notice that with Mansa world map, we were able to prove the world round. But Willem already circled the world the turn before. Yes, it was definitley a bad turn.

I started scientific method next.


Nappy, the golden age stealer shows up and immediately asks for a pig tribute. I can't refuse him that, first we are weak as a baby and second I can't imagine the french living without "Saucisson". Just kidding, cancel at first chance.

We get 1035 gold from the Taj abandoned project. Quite a lump sum, we can run 100% research for a long while now.

I replaced the wine with fish. That bug showing you fake deals where you can give a civ a resource he already has is quite annoying. Can't imagine how they missed that after such a long wait for the patch.

Civs are popping up every turn now. This time, it's Capac who shows up. Already at -6 for religion difference and trading with his worst enemy, obiously Willem.

There is an available trade for corn with him. I didn't made the deal since it was my last turn but I suggest to take it. He's probably at war with Willem but I don't think the penalty with the dutch would have too negative an impact.

You can switch to replacable parts and rifling if you think we won't get RP from a trade soon. We need to build some military anyway or demands for tributes would start coming no stop. Next GP coming from the capital. We may be able to finally launch that golden age. Free religion is no brainer I think. Only the capital would loose some the Sistine chapel culture points, the other two are holy cities for other religions and this gives 5 culture pts. Also, depending on how many civs are running merc, we can choose to adopt it too.

Here you go

 

[pholkhero]

well, that clears that up ~

tough break for us on the Taj ~ shall i burn any other GP but a GA or a GE on a Golden Age?

i will take the Free Religion route

btw ~ in the screenie where Nappy gets the Taj ~ is our worker jumping into the ocean in despair?

anyway, i've got it, but will wait a bit to play until later so we can get some other thoughts in