AG7 - Revenge of the Democracy

[Stapel]

got it. Won't play before saturday though. So feel free to shuffle stuff.

About the dotmap: I always favour to settle on money bonus. So rigth on silks or spices or gems, and so on.

 

[Aggie]

Welcome Stapel, I've shuffled it

ROSTER
-Aggie
-Jack Merchant
-CarlosMM --------> just played
-Stapel-------------> on deck
-Yom----------------> up
-Melifuous

 

[Stapel]

okidoki.

Now on the dotmap. Jack didn't settle on the silks. Why not?

I think we should change the white dot to the spices and change the tan dot to the silks.

 

[jack merchant]

I didn't settle on the silks as the spot where Philly is located will grab two oases after border expansion, which won't mean much under despotism but under Republic will give it 2 food bonuses allowing it to work the hills too and still grow.

I agree on the white dot, but settling Tan on the silks wastes several bonus grass tiles for that city which seems a bit of a shame to me.

 

[Yom]

Got it.

As to city locations, I also think Aggie's Western blue dot (the one that shares a wheat with NY and isn't on the river) should be moved SE one tile. Otherwise, it won't grow very much and even with Railroads won't be able to work many of those hills.

I have no problem against moving the white dot; in fact, it would probably be better since it reduces overlap. Moving tan dot, however, would create massive overlap with Atlanta (assuming it was founded according to Aggie's dotmap) with few benefits since Philly's silks will come online pretty soon.

 

[Yom]

Turn 0 - We can get a 2 fer of Math and Writing for all our gold or we can get Polytheism for 124 and 17 gpt (using taxmen to boost our income) and trade it around for Writing and Math, but we'd only be able to get a grand total of *7* gold and 0 gpt back.
I hold off on it to see if we can get a three-fer with Polytheism without spending all of our economic growth.
IBT - Silks road completes, English demand 25 gold. I should probably cave, but they're far away, so I call their bluff and they do nothing about it.
Washington's settler completes, bringing it down to size 1, I set it on a warrior for MP duty.
Atlanta:Worker->Worker
Turn 1 - Settler heads for SW Iron spot (they have another so it won't deny them, but it will be worth a lot if we want to trade it later).
IBT - Nothing
Turn 2 - Still no deals available. Raise Lux tax to 20% to keep NY happy.
IBT - Washington:Warrior->Warrior
Turn 3 - I notice Germany still has 2 workers in its capital. Perhaps there's a war going on that we don't know of (probably with Babylon). Also, China got Mathematics this turn, I can get Writing cheapest from France, but I buy from Babylon instead so that I can get my money back by selling him Mathematics.
162 gold and 6 gpt goes to Babylon for Writing.
Writing, 1 gpt and 2 gold goes to China for Mathematics.
Mathematics goes to Babylon for 162 gold (I considered using a peace treaty deal to get the gpt out of him, but I'm not sure if it would work; he's much stronger than us).
We now have 163 gold and make 2gpt.

I'm stopping here because I have a question about the rules. Now that we can research Philosophy and COL to give us a direct path to Republic, are we forced to change research? Do we even want to change research (13 turns have been invested in Polytheism. I would change but there may be a reason we didn't before.)?

 

[carlosMM]

Yom: man you have balls! I would NOT have dared to deny Egypts demands!



I'd stick to poly - we must go for Rep ASAP but NOT at a loss - that's how I understand the rules. As soon as possible - we do NOT have to commit suicide!

 

[Yom]

@Carlos: Normally I would have caved in, but we're in a pretty strong position and needed that money for a trade (England wouldn't have been a trading partner, so I wasn't that worried). It was probably foolish to refuse anyway. Changing from Poly to a different tech would be a loss, but 3 countries already have Polytheism and no civ has a tech that requires Writing. My guess is they're all researching Monarchy, Construction or Philosophy. Researching Philosophy would take 16 turns, so we wouldn't be the first to get to it, but we could just as easily research CoL at min. and trade for Philosophy when it comes in, letting us rush to Republic.

 

[jack merchant]

I think if we increase speed on Poly research we ought to be able to buy up the remainder soon. Probably go for CoL after that for variant reasons and because the AI tend to leave it until last in the Ancient Age.

So just keep at it .

 

[Yom]

We can't increase our speed on Polytheism much. At 80% (highest with our 20% lux tax) it will be 27 turns until it finishes (10 turns quicker) at -12 gpt. If there aren't any strong objections, I'm going to change research to CoL at 80.

 

[jack merchant]

No objections here .

 

[Yom]

Turn Continued:
Change Research to CoL at -12 gpt for 27 turns (we have 163 gold & will only get back 4 gpt in 7 turns, so we'll have to lower the rate sooner or later).

IBT - Seattle:Warrior->Worker.

Turn 4 - ??? Research time goes down to 24 turns (still -12 gpt) without anyone having learned CoL. Does anyone know how to explain this?

IBT - Washington:Warrior->Settler (won't coincide with growth).

Turn 5 - Again, the Time for CoL drops without anyone having discovered it (22 turns now).
Babylon comes up with Map Making (hasn't been traded around yet).

IBT - French are Building the Colossus.

Turn 6 - Nothing, but we surprisingly still haven't gotten the boot from England or Babylon yet.

IBT - Atlanta:Worker->Worker

Turn 7 - Settler in position to secure 2nd Iron.
MP in NY allows us to drop lux tax to 10% and raise science. CoL now in 16 at -12 gpt and 117 in the bank.
Babylon still has a monopoly on Map Making...

IBT - Nothing

Turn 8 - San Francisco Founded next to S. Iron. Our Scout in England notices something weird as 3 warriors are fortified right outside of English Territory. Could they be planning a sneak attack?
I notice another phenomenon as we apparently have ANOTHER iron, just NW of Aggie's original blue/cyan dot. I'm pretty sure it wasn't there before, so it most likely jumped from somewhere else.
Japan shows up with Map Making, but it did not get it from Babylon.

IBT - Seattle:Worker->Warrior (Might want to change that to a curragh if it seems that there's a lot of coastline left to discover.)

Turn 9 - Sure enough, the Germans and Babs are fighting. Our scout spots a bab Bowman fortified on one of Germany's wines, and an injured 2/5 elite German archer just outside of Berlin.

IBT - Reg. German Archer dies to Bab Archer and promotes it.
Babs come demanding 23 Gold. Since they're much stronger than the English and are in a golden age, I won't push my luck and give it to him.
Washington:Settler->Warrior
New York:Temple->Granary (we'll make another Settler factory and use it to fill in our Hinterlands. Can be vetoed to use NY's shield production to make troops for our cities.)
We get 4 gpt from expiring deals

Turn 10 - NY is now connected to the rest of the empire and has a temple, so I lower the lux tax to 0%. I change research on CoL to 100% and save a turn at a cost of 1 gpt (-9 gpt)

No changes on tech front. In hindsight, we probably should have researched Philosophy instead, but I was expecting all the AIs to be bolting for it (if they get it in the next 5 or 6 turns, then we were right to research CoL).

I left the Settler unmoved so that the next player can decide its destination. I would either settle S of the Silks, SW of the inland lake, or on the Southern horses (maybe on the hill west of it).

Let the people rule!

Edit: Forget the comment about a decrease in research time, I forgot about city growth .

 

[Aggie]

ROSTER
-Aggie
-Jack Merchant
-CarlosMM
-Yom----------------> just played
-Stapel-------------> up
-Melifuous---------> on deck

Meli hasn't checked in yet, otherwise I would have suggested a swap between him and Stapel...

 

[Yom]

*bump*

Trying to keep this from falling into the second page.

 

[Aggie]

Well, I assume that Stapel can play tomorrow. I don't know where Meli is though

 

[Stapel]

got it

 

[Stapel]

Pre turn; 1625 BC; I notice we have fair lands to expand. MM Chigaco & Washington.

I am a bit annoyed by the fact the settler near Washington has already moved in the wrong direction. I think it should go west, to settle near the iron and the wheat. There it is also closer to to the capital. Building far away northern cities is not good for anything.

IT:

Turn 1; 1600 BC; The settler, that was already going the wrong way, is on automove.
That is a big NONO. Man, It always takes me a lot of time to get into a SG. It is annoying the hell out of me, when this happens.

Originally posted by Yom
I left the Settler unmoved so that the next player can decide its destination. I would either settle S of the Silks, SW of the inland lake, or on the Southern horses (maybe on the hill west of it).

Well, you did send him the opposite direction

Ok to re-load?

 

[carlosMM]

stapel: yes. seems the goto was unintended anyways!

 

[Stapel]

Maybe I am a bit over reacting....

Other Q: Can I trade slaves now?

 

[Aggie]

Stapel, I think trading slaves is not in the spirit of this variant. But I haven't banned it until we are republic. We have to give the slaves back when we are republic, so I doubt whether they are worth the price.