Round 6 (to 1620 AD), Part 1: Diplomacy in the New World
Chance fights ever on the side of the prudent.
- Euripides
This was a big, long, eventful round, and it's going to take three posts to do it justice. So here goes...
As you might expect, the first part of the round focused on the "new world"--the other continent, its civs, and my relations with them. My eastbound Caravel, the Poseidon, spotted land first and made contact with the leader of Egypt:
Good ol' Hatty. She founded Hinduism and has a few techs I don't. I didn't trade anything at first though; I wanted to make contact with the other three remaining civs and figure out the lay of the land before making any diplomatic moves I might regret later.
Meanwhile, I took UncleJJ's advice to heart--he obviously put a lot of thought and effort into that post, it was the least I could do. In fact, I printed it out and tried to use it as a guide. For example, rather than running after research infrastructure in Corinth, I chose to do a different build that I thought the good Uncle would approve of:
This is the sort of whipping I know how to do: wait until a build is as close to completion as you can get it, make sure there's no remaining unhappiness from a previous whip, and then whip away one pop and let the overflow go into the next build. The whipping I suck at is trying to whip away two or more citizens, especially if I'm near the happiness limit. When factors like forges and Organized Religion get thrown in, I can't keep the calculations straight; I wait a turn too long and am faced with whipping away one citizen instead of two and keeping the city over its happiness limit. I usually just wind up throwing something into the queue that will put me well under the happiness limit and whip away a huge number of citizens in one fell swoop. I know it's not optimal, but like I've said in the past, I don't play with a calculator beside me.
Okay, that's a lie. I do now, but I mainly use it for calculating my next Great Person. Calculating the intricacies of every city's build is just a little too obsessive-complusive for me.
My other Caravel, the Hermes, met up with the next civ a couple of turns later:
Whoa, poor Cyrus isn't doing so hot this game! He has the same techs on offer that Hatty does... interesting.
In fact, ALL of the AI Civs have pretty much the same list of techs! Coincidence? I think not. It's obvious to me that most of the AI Civs have the same research priorities in mid-game.
I still had one more civ to meet. However, Cyrus and Hatty are usually easy to get along with even if you don't share their religion. As if to prove that point, I checked their relations and found them "pleased" with one another, with Open Borders and a couple of resource trades to back that up. So I knew I wouldn't be offending one by trading with the other.
So I went to poor ol' Cyrus with an offer he couldn't refuse:
That made Cyrus "pleased" with me too, as you can imagine. It also won me the circumnavigation bonus, thanks to his map:
Interestingly-shaped continent, no? And look, down in the southeast--is that a puke-green city with an unpronounceable name with an 'X' in it I see? Now who could
that be? We'll meet up with Mr. Charm a little later...
On the following turn, the techs from Cyrus opened up another valuable tech for someone planning on doing a little warmongering. This time I went to Hatty:
Cyrus had Feudalism too, but Hatty had some gold to offer, a complimentary world map, and I might as well try to make her "pleased" with me as well. Still, Hatty is my nearest competitor in some respects, so I tried limit the trades in her favour as much as possible.
I didn't change any civics. I was mainly building infrastructure; I was also going after Liberalism, then the free GM from Economics, and I didn't want those races interrupted by Anarchy. My plan was to attack Victoria quickly with the units I had (all the Swords and Axes upgraded to Macemen now), then sue for peace. I'll use Vassalage and Theocracy later on.
Back home, my next GP appeared: a Great Engineer in Athens. In a move that I'm sure will spark debate, I found an unusual use for him:
That's right, I settled him in Corinth, the science city. Hey, six flasks and three hammers for the rest of the game are not to be scoffed at. I've already got an impressive roster of wonders, and there were none appearing anytime soon that I considered vital, so I figured he might as well help out my hammer-poor science city.
Speaking of science and research...
Astronomy was a no-brainer: now that I had friends on the other continent and was about to lose one on my own, I needed resources to keep my people happy and healthy.
Shortly thereafter, I had my trades in place:
I later added Sugar from Cyrus as well. The poor guy had to rebuild his plantations because... well, I think you can guess why:
Well, howdy-do to you too, Chuckles.
Monty's attitude towards me is no surprise: he was at war with Cyrus at this point, and probably not for the first time (did you notice that Persian city on the map, Tarsus, coloured Aztec green?). So my trading with his "worst enemy" did nothing to endear me to him. So much for making
him my pet dog in this game. I guess I'll just have to, ah,
liberate those gold mines from his greedy grasp...
Nearly 100 years had past, and I'd built some more units, including reinforcing the prize city of Mecca and building walls there--just in case. I had my stack poised on English borders, just south of Baghdad. There was only one thing left to do...
To be continued...
in all cities on this continenet. Not bad. But the Great artist it generates are the reason I recommend it. It also gives out a pretty good 10 Culture.
From this city. Can turn 3 Citizens into Artists. Generates Great Artist Points.
My overall comments on your game are essentially the same as on ALC #7 at the same stage:
Have you heard of granarys? And the 
? 
1 pop = 30 base hammers and at size 5 (say) it only takes 15 food to regrow 1 pop with a granary (which is why it is the best building you will ever build in any city 
). So basically, 1 food = 2 base hammers and a grassland farm will give you 20 more food over 10 turns than a grassland hill - so you effectively gain 5 food - since the 30 hammers are equivalent to 1 pop (=15 food). From this I conclude the food / hammer part of your economy is running at about 75% efficiency and much less where you use plains hills. On Prince you are getting away with this, but at higher levels players need to be more careful.
Lets see you have Collossus and Great Lighthouse, yet you work almost no coastal sea squares... each giving 2 food and 3 commerce... basically an instant floating village. And harbours boost trade routes by 50% giving +6 base commerce in Athens and +3 in Beijing as well as the + 3 
. You will have to build harbours in these cities eventually anyway so the earlier you build them the better the return. Also if you get open borders with the other civs and Astronomy (from Liberalism) your trade revenues will skyrocket and compensate for losing the Collossus benefit.
A lot better is granary, lighthouse, (workboat for second crabs?) forge then Library, University and so on to a fully developed and very valuable asset. You need to 
and follow with granary, lighthouse, forge ... library and then whatever you like. Incidentally a harbour there will counter the floodplains bad health and once it grows it will be a great overseas trader. The 2 unimproved floodplains need farms = more food = very good. 
. No granary and working food specialists instead of growth. You didn't take my advice last time 
This city is not pulling its weight and it one of the best sites you had at the start. With hindsight it should not have been made the Science City but only a supporting city. I now think you should have made Athens your Science City... the Bureaucracy bonus plus the Great Library, plus some Towns and commerce from trade (with harbour) and Palace is a great combination of multiple synergies that poor underdeveloped Corinth can never get close to. Originally you might have wanted to keep the GPP pools pure but the NE ruined that and Athens is running food scientists anyway mixing the GPP. Corinth needs to work more farms (food = hammers) and to be 
