Cutthroat Culture

[Grendeldef]

It's a fine city for Petra no doubt - my issue is more of a lack of optimism in nature The risk/reward ratio isn't to my liking in this case. The other minor issue will be the cost of buying those lovely hills. The Mayor won't be very keen on expanding to hills which don't lead to another friendly city though a GG could get 4 of them for free. The city also needs to be running quite a few non-Petra tiles ie Lighthouse Fish to support the hills & grow fast or it needs a food TR which raises an interesting question - what do we do when a food TR target outgrows or is about to the sender city? Just halt growing?

Low pop NC doesn't have much value on its own but it has to built at some point and hopefully quickly if possible. GE helps with narrowing the timeframe to one turn but if there's a long enough natural gap between last settling & first razing this is irrelevant. As I said early I'd be also fine using the GE for CI but I doubt we'll make it to CS in time anyway.
For timing of NC I'd rather build at least Monument before Library in every city and take an extra policy before Liberty finisher. This should still give us pre T100 NC which is fine and at least half of the cities should be able to manage Granaries before Libs.
And if the GE is used for NC we could even buy Granary in the Silk city on settling & build NC there. Growing that city purely for NC would free Rio to use the Coppers all the time. Getting Petra in Spain city would make it a proper hammer city leaving Rio fo NC I assume. The mountain cities would have hard time hard building NC. I could even go Monu-Gran-Lib in every city, GE Petra & hard build NC if it can still be finished by ~T115.

Interesting game.

 

[vadalaz]

What do we do when a food TR target outgrows or is about to the sender city? Just halt growing?

Letting target city outgrow the sender would defeat the purpose of the rule we have. Avoiding growth sounds fine to me. So if the two cities are very close in population, target is forced to work hills so that it doesn't grow, kind of making it a hammer trade route before those are actually available. I like this.

If we do decide to go for engineering Petra in Spaincity, perhaps we should consider settling it where the warrior is on the screenshot, as @beetle suggested. With Petra production that city could potentially hard-build Machu Picchu. That spot does lose the third Fish though which is annoying me way more than it has any right to.

If we decide against Petra, then I agree we should take an extra policy before finishing Liberty. Lots of good options available, Tradition/Piety/Patronage/Aesthetics all have strong openers. I don't think there's really a wrong choice there.

Silk city (Blue) does have a mountain and lots of jungle that I assume we'll keep, so NC there would be really strong after universities. This does seem like a good and safe option. Settling Silk city on flat grassland one tile NW gets three more jungle tiles but heavily overlaps with Gems city.

Reposting raider's map on this page for convenience:

Spoiler Map :

 

[beetle]

IMHO, if a TR pumps up an expo so it is now larger than the cap, fine. Just don’t renew the TR. It is a one time thing. Point is not to exploit TR from smaller cities to larger cities, not to be sticklers about the rules we are setting for ourselves.

I could even go Monu-Gran-Lib in every city, GE Petra & hard build NC if it can still be finished by ~T115.

This sounds good to me. I did Watermill instead of another Settler.

• T050 Terracotta Army goes; Riga’s camp quest expires; buy Wheat tile for Sao Paulo so it has a good tile to work; PoP all the CS (most have Barb Camp Quests), revoke PoP from Kiev and Vilnium
• T051 Hanging Gardens goes
• T052 The Wheel researched, start on Mathematics; clear Sri Pada camp; kill Spanish Archer; Archer out in Rio, resume Setter
• T053 kill another Spanish Archer; settle Brasilia and buy Sri Prada tile
• T055 meet Hiawatha, trade him Copper
• T056 meet Pachacuti; settler out, heading south; Rio starts on Watermill
• T057 kill Spanish Scout; Buddsism goes; Bogota camp quest expires
• T058 GPr born; found 3rd religion: Catholicism, Tithe, Pagodas; Isabella gifts us a Settler
• T059 Elizabeth finds us, just one AI left to meet

Screen shot under spoiler.

Spoiler :

 

[raider980]

Oops, I didn't get to go. I played part of it last night. I'll play T60-69 then.

Given the tech path and the location of the settler I assume that means we're going for Petra? Those are some mighty long build times for Water Mills, we don't need anything else that takes less time?

 

[Grendeldef]

Did I miss something critical which explains why Rio is building WM instead of Settlers when we're still 3 of them short?

We got Pagodas so we should be planting cities even if that wasn't the plan. I'd kick out few units before WMs - that's still a lot of unclaimed land between us & the rest. Sao Paulo camp still exists and Vilnius has another one in place which could also be the wet dream Incense city later still leaving room for one for the Ivory though I'm expecting Hiawatha to breed like a rabbit towards us now.
WM in Salvador doesn't make any sense to me & I'd switch that to Granary & unit(s). Sao Paulo might as well finish the WM as it's faster than Granary now, then units.
Since there's Hiawatha with religion in the north I'm back to original plan (well, my plan anyway) of settling the northern city where the Archer currently is.

 

[raider980]

Gren and beetle you all seem to have diametrically opposed views/playstyles . But the Path to Petra seems set so:

T60. Found the mediocre city of Fortaleza which will become amazing when we get Petra. Moving troops toward q camp.

Interim. Maria asks for DoF, we accept.

T61. 1560BC

• Discover Math, start Currency.
• WM finished in Rio, start Settler (it does shave off a turn). Fortaleza can work Oasis now.
• Adopt Representation, Carnivale!

Interim. Great Wall built in a far away land.

T62. Mmm.

Interim. Kiev seeks England.

T63. ---

T64. We meet Washington. Camp cleared for Vilinus and LaVenta.

Interim. Isabella asks for peace, we decline.

T65. Settler finished in Rio, hmm, start Settler. WM finished in Sao Palo, start Spearman.

T66. 1360BC

• Isabella has horsemen.
• Find Cahokia, Merc, Friendly. Find Old Faithful. (Both up north in Iroquois land).
• Trade Copper for Sugar with Pacha; Vilinus wants Sugar.

Interim. Sugar connected for Vilinus and Melbourne.

T67. CB and Archer heading east to help with Sao Palo camp.

T68. Settler finished, Settler started. See an Iroquois city south of the mountains.

T69. Uh oh, let the Hiawatha city spam begin. A settler looks to be headed toward the iron near our Incense.

Wrap-up.

• Two settlers are out, one being built. One is up near the former q camp; next can decide whether to try and squeeze two cities in there south of Branford. Or build the city north of where the settler is standing, on the hill in range of the Dye, Copper and Cocoa. The other settler is still near Rio poised to either go NW or NE toward Gems.
• The Scout up near the Iroquois settler is fortified, waited to see what the settler did; it moved east two tiles in stead of heading south, hence why I think he's going for the iron.
• Warrior and Archer down near Spain are running for their lives. They both got hit by a horseman.
• Kiev wants us to find England. And Bogota wants us to find Portugal.
• The worker near Brasilia is building a farm because he can't build camps or quarrys yet. Those should be the first two techs after Currency is done I would think.
• Somehow we are very happy. That'll change when we build these next 3 cities.

Spoiler T20 North :

Spoiler T20 South :

 

[vadalaz]

I'll play my turns later today. Looking at the save here's what I'm thinking:

- Road for the GE to Fortaleza would've been helpful. Petra is now even riskier but there's no turning back
- Need reinforcements on the Spanish front
- Plant where the settler is - it's in range of religious pressure from Brasilia and Rio and most of the good stuff is in 2nd ring. Misses Wheat, Deer and Dyes but we already have enough cities that need to buy tiles and we're getting Dyes from Hiawatha anyway
- Move Petra caravan (assuming we get it) to that city, send to Hiawatha and hopefully become friends
- Settle OrangeGems and BlueSilk. This misses a Copper but otherwise looks good to me
- Buy missionary, spread to Brasilia and Sao Paulo, putting +12 pressure on all the new cities
- Currency - Writing - Guilds for MP in Fortaleza? Could spend a couple of turns on Masonry too. Not essential though, just 3 quarries
- Need to spam workers. Rio, Sao Paulo and Salvador can afford to build at least one each
- Brasilia doesn't have the production to build anything but the essentials, so switch to Granary -> Library
- GG soon, best use is probably to citadel 5 Petra hills (again assuming we get it)

 

[Grendeldef]

Gren and beetle you all seem to have diametrically opposed views/playstyles .

Yup, I've noticed that occasionally, too but that's not really a novelty or unique in any way - I've never claimed to be a mainstream player, hunting for fast VCs or having sensible ideas Hopefully we can still offer justified options for everyone's entertainment and I wouldn't change this group for one where one has absolutely no views on anything and rest always fully agree with that.

For those who are familiar with Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear/The Grand Tour/etc I think I may have replaced his universal solution to everything "Pooweeeerr" with "Mooore Citiiiess"

----
Specifically to that Salvador Granary issue. One of those glorious, true WTF moments when one wakes up & starts reading the report still in semi coma in desperate need of coffee and finds something that doesn't quite compute properly. Reads again and in this case also loads the save, thinks that understands what's going on and then gets the WTF kick in the nuts. It's hilarious.
I didn't get or still do why Salvador was building WM instead of Granary when it's 15 hammers more to build & double the maintenance for one unbuffed hammer while the city has 3 Bananas: I was rather keen on getting Granary aka growth going on and then start kicking out units, any sort of units.

 

[Grendeldef]

** Settling

Northern city where the Settler currently is, Gem city by Gems & 2 Cows, Vilnius is very unlikely to take take hill where Spearman currently is, Silk on a hill by a mountain, I'd still prepare for Incense city if that camp spot stays free. It'd be lovely to control both of the mountain passages I but wouldn't to give Hiawatha a free Protestantism city. Pacal's survival mission to stay away from religion business amazes me. There's also a decent Sugar spot near Tikal for a frontline city before taking Pacal. Hiawatha will likely get the northern spots soon and that lonely isn't able to block him forever. Right now I'd move him on Deer to make Hiawatha Settle or start a detour.

** Units

Fortalezza needs Spearmen and some eyes - I'd take a CA as HoRi isn't in high prio atm - Gem city can manage without Stable for a while. Much easier to pillage Panama's tiles and get some Workers with a CA as well. More Archers when few hammers can be spared, same goes with Spearmen in the north. My trust in peaceful Hiawatha without DoF is limited. Pacal is so incompetent that a Scout with evil eyes & bad attitude can scare him off. Spain will remain as a main xp source with Panama.
More Workers is & will be needed - build few if that's the only option.
I'd like to get out a Trireme as well but I don't see it happening anytime soon but we can't lose The NInja at this point. I might even buy the CA in Fortalezza and if Spain is still with very limited options sending TRs to Panama it may pay itself back fairly quickly. Another obvious target would be the Sevilla's Horses but that looks a bit too optimistic.

** Happiness

The +26 is ridiculous, sell the Silk & fortcoming Copper after the Riga q is done. We'll still have Gems, Cocoa & Citrus as new luxes to connect and more Copper, Cocoa & Silk coming before Pagoda spam will begin. Brasilia is & Salvador & Silk city will be Circus cities so happines should be under control for now.

** Other stuff

We don't have Worker to pre-build roads anywhere, road to Fortalezza comes too late but might be tactically justified soon(ish) - even better if has Petra & starts properly growing. Sao Paulo can chop riverside forests to direct border growth after next tile which will be Citrusside hill. Brasilia's main function is to keep the Pantheon & get a Lib out in time. With Granary Salvador looks ever more likely place for Guilds - it even has hammers to build but don't chop those forests yet North city can chop the Vilnius side river forests for Monu, maybe even Granary but I'd kick out a couple of Spearmen there pretty quickly and time Lib only for when it's needed for NC. Gem can work its way to Lib without a hassle but Silk city needs a Worker to chop Silk & riverside hill and for a pasture. We might also have to buy that Citrus eventually.
I'd also sell all the Horses as have a fairly solid source in Vilnius.

--
Forgot to support Vada's Missionary plan.

--- 2

Now it sounds like I oppose everything in Vada's plan apart from the use of the next 200 Faith so let's just assume I support everything in the plan unless specifically opposing it somewhere

--- 3
Apparently nothing on tech so far so

** Sci

Writing next seems not to have a serious contender as I'd hate lose Kiev for not having Writing by T75 unless going for illiterate game which this surely isn't. After that it's more of a toss up - I can see some in value in everything but I really would like some CBs when even the barbs are getting Horsemen, Trapping will get a much needed hammer in Brasilia and some later happiness but that's not enough to prio it, an extra TR would be useful and Lighthouses essential later but Sailing & Optics are still off path to CS, HoRi just for one Stable isn't good enough either.
Guilds at this point is more than a bit of a stretch - MP while being awesome in wide games looks even less likely when Pacha is in the game nor can we fully utilize it in ages. Maybe I'm just overestimating AI and/or lacking optimism again.
I'd like to get D&P by the time Salvador is done with Lib & unit(s) but overall I think the key here is to get Philosophy when the Libs are ready. Everything else is white noise to some degree.

 

[vadalaz]

Basically did everything according to the plan outlined above:

T70:
- Settled Belo Horizonte, started Monument, bought a Copper tile to work as I want the city to stay on 1 pop for a little bit and flip to our religion quickly
- Brasilia switches to Granary
- Sold 4 Horses for 6 gpt, Silk for 7 gpt

T71:
- Statue of Zeus goes
- Carnival ends
- Hiawatha plants a city right where the settler was
- Riga is happy we have Copper
- Sold 2 Coppers for 14 gpt, we're up to 37 gpt from AIs, era cap is 40
- Salvador finished Granary, started Worker

T72:
- Bought a missionary
- Finished Currency, started Writing
- Rio finished Settler, started Worker
- Isabella is building Petra in Barcelona, not too concerned about this though because that city has low production. Pacal's building Oracle in his desert city

T73:
- Pacal founds Confucianism
- Sau Paulo finished Spearman, started Worker

T74:
- Monte founds Hinduism
- We finish Liberty, take GE

T75:
- Pocatello builds Pyramids
- Killed a Spanish spearman
- Met Monaco
- Finished Writing, started Guilds
- Exchanged embassies with England for Kiev's quest
- Spread Catholicism to Brasilia
- Settled Manaus, started Monument

T76:
- Fortaleza finished Granary, started Library
- Rio finished Worker, started Library
- Spotted a Spanish caravan to Panama

T77:
- Portugal discovered for Bogota
- Pacal builds Oracle
- Used GE on Petra
- Great General born in Rio, Florence is happy about this
- Moving GG to desert hills
- Belo Horizonte switches to growth, if I'm correct it should flip to our religion just before growing to pop 2. Might be wrong though cos Hiawatha already converted his stupid city and we're in range of that
- Founded Curitiba, started Monument
- Spain is willing to give us 4 gpt for peace

T78:
- We get Petra!
- Isabella builds Colossus in Seville
- Moved Caravan to Belo
- Fortaleza resumes building a Library

T79:
- Vilnius wants a trade route
- I send one to Hiawatha instead though
- Citadel five Petra hills
- Met Cape Town

Interim: plundered Spanish caravan
Screen:

Spoiler :

@Nizef, will you play T80-90?

Notes:
- Hiawatha went from Neutral to Friendly so maybe we can get a DoF with him soon. If he doesn't offer it we could try gifting him something.

Edit: may or may not be fake friendly. Pacha believes we're building cities too aggressively. The penalty doesn't appear on Hiawatha's screen. Both accept default friendly trading prices. Bright red penalty with Pacal for building a wonder he coveted. So basically all our neighbors hate us. Isabella was willing to pay for peace so that's an option if things start looking bad.

- Belo Horizonte should be close to converting to Catholicism but I think Hiawatha's city messed up the timing. We might need another missionary
- I did go for Guilds in the end. MP is great and I think we have a decent chance with production from Petra hills and the forest chop
- Warrior fortified between Barcelona and Panama was there to plunder a caravan but he should probably retreat to Kiev now. We don't have an answer to Horsemen near Spain yet

 

[Grendeldef]

I played the next 10 turns so I won't comment on anything but unless there's some signs of life from Nizef I'll post this after 24hrs from Vada's T80. I can also switch turns with Nizef if that suits him better.

 

[raider980]

I continue to be amazed at how the games are going so well despite looking so similar to my own games where I usually fail miserably. I guess it comes down to the details. For example, it never would have entered my mind to build a road to a pop 1 city just so that a GE could get there to build a wonder. Heck, I never even attempt Petra, or most other wonders. Mostly because if I fail to get it I will just end up quitting the game because it seems pointless to continue after such a setback. I just wouldn't want to slog through all those turns. Which is one reason why I like these succession games so much. We can have setbacks and I don't have to slog thorough fifty or a hundred turns. I can play 10; and that is doable.

 

[beetle]

Nice job everyone on the Petra gambit! Definitely not something I would have tried on my own!

Did I miss something critical which explains why Rio is building WM instead of Settlers when we're still 3 of them short?

I was not clear on how many cities we wanted before NC, and I figured pop6 w/ Granary or WM is not much of a delay (as compared to pop5 cap w/o Granary/Watermill).

Also, because it generates hammers, WM >> Granary. Only real advantage of Granary over Watermills is (1) is unlocked earlier, and (2) allows internal TR.

Oops, I didn't get to go. I played part of it last night. I'll play T60-69 then.

Yikes! My apologies for that! I will try and pay more attention to the turn order.

 

[raider980]

Yikes! My apologies for that! I will try and pay more attention to the turn order.

Well it worked out because I did not play to attempt Petra. I didn't head for Currency and founded Fortaleza on the forested hill.

I'm going on vacation next week starting Saturday so won't be able to play during that time so you all can skip me. I imagine it will be done when I return but I'll be ready for the next one.

@beetle can we go back to the original order (me after Gren) so I have a chance to play one more round before I go on vacation?

 

[Grendeldef]

I was not clear on how many cities we wanted before NC, and I figured pop6 w/ Granary or WM is not much of a delay (as compared to pop5 cap w/o Granary/Watermill).

Also, because it generates hammers, WM >> Granary. Only real advantage of Granary over Watermills is (1) is unlocked earlier, and (2) allows internal TR.

I still take Granary's +1f for Bananas, Wheat & Deer as a noticeable bonus over WM And the smaller upkeep if/when one is poor.

@T60 Slavador had 3.15 hammers which in Gran vs WM means 5 turn difference or prolly only 4 if it starts working that Copper with 4 pop. By the time Gran finishes the city has expanded to 2nd Bananas & Salvador will do 16f more than if it where still building MW - that's also 4 turns worth of hammers put into something else. To keep it simple as I can't be bothered to do this in absolute terms that extra food should give an extra pop relatively soon which could be running the Copper so Gran gets effectively same food, +2 hammers, + 3 gold, +1 Faith & +1 beaker over WM - or just more f/h when WM can also run the Copper. The difference is even greater if/when city gets that 3rd Bananas. Also with the growth Salvador is the only city that can feed Rio for more pop within our rules. Same goes with Fortaleza is we so wanted. So I still don't get the WM over Gran part.

Rio WM vs Settlers. I don't remember us anywhere agreeing to stay with just 5 either and I thought the consensus was to get more cities but that's partly irrelevant - to stay with just 5 cities would've been a bad decision anyway. We got religion, we got Pagodas, we should get the most out of those which means cities.
Still keeping it simple, WM in Rio takes 5 turns to build, offers only limited hammers to Rio if it's building Settlers and +2f/1h if something else. For Settlers let's say it'll save a turn from the 2nd & 3rd and has +2f/1h over Settlers first -way for ~2 turns while costing 30G for having it for 15 turns.
The difference in Rio are miniscule either way but that's a loss of production over 5/4/4 turns respectively for the new cities and lots of lost religious pressure while our cities are growing and Hiawatha is about to start spamming Piety boosted cities so he'll have enough Missionaries to convert a city on settling. We'd like to use our limited Faith on Pagodas or even spreading rather than defending.



T80-90 played two days ago, huah

T80

- Rio starts Granary
- Sao Paulo starts Archer
- Salvador starts Spearman
- bought Horses in Manaus
- bought a CA in Fortaleza

T81

- DoF with Hiawatha
- converted Sao Paulo
- Belo H adopts religion

T83

- Rio starts Worker

T84

- rip Horseman & Spearman
- met Ur
- Panama has a Worker on a platter but can't take it

T85

- Brasilia starts Library
- Sao Paulo starts Granary
- Fortaleza starts Archer

T86

- Embassy to Washy
- Guilds, bought a Mountain @Forta & switched to MP - 24 turns
- renew Copper-Dyes with Hiawatha

T87

- rip Archer & return Kievan Worker
- Piety opener for kicks
- Rio starts Shrine
- 2/3 Incan cities without a mountain
- pillaging Barcelona Wine

T88

- met Valletta which offers Impis
- Masonry finished, starts Construction
- Rio starts Caravan, Salvador Library
- Washy has identity crisis & founds Islam
- Lizzy builds Borobudur

T89

- rip Archer & keep Spanish-Kievan Worker assuming Isa ran out of nearby Horsemen
- Riga wants America & appreciates Faith so I'll buy embassy

Spoiler pix :

- Maria & Isa are willing to DoW each other for semi-reasonable price
- Monte isn't gathering friends, we had offers to co-DoW him from Lizzy & Washy
- Pacha isn't too happy with us
- we really need Spearmen/Pikes on the Spanish front before Conqs arrive and one-shot everything
- I'd like to get to CS faster rather than later to avoid the Theo game situation where I felt that I was in a cult seriously avoiding CS
- city build queues are a bit of mess as I have Libs everywhere to keep timing easier - I tend to switch the order quite a bit so stuff in queue may or may not have hammers put on it. Viewer discretion is advisable
- Panama units inc. Workers are popping in & out but even taking pot shots without tanks feels risky
- Isa has at least one Caravan to Panama from somewhere through that mountain passage
- rather than buying a Pagoda I've been saving for a Prophet to enhance shortly
- Rio has few options, kick out a fast unit & or two & then grow and get a Market before NC or just focus on growth before NC
- Salvador is getting Lib out of the way to start WG/AG
- Brasilia has a lot options after LIb LH being one of them but I'm a bit hesitant to detour Optics atm - I'd rather beeline CS or if it's very peaceful on the Spanish front take Sailing
- Fortaleza's immediate future is tied to MP and if it fails I'd kick out some Spearmen first & CBs after that
- Belo H has lots of hammers in forests which are fine to chop now when we're sort of friends with Hiawatha - either units or a Guild
- Manaus would be lovely for NC but it'd need some serious help with that. TR would help with pop but it's still short of hammers and those will take some time
- Curi can chop those off-border forests to catch the others with Libs if we'll have Philosophy in time, otherwise I'd clear that Cocoa jungle and build a pasture or the other way around
- I'd still prepare dropping that Incense city before Hiawatha comes as I'd rather take Pacal before Pacha though Cusco is in the easiest spot to take in my Pacha games - no hills, nice river & no mountains to see so far. I think Pacha was dropped on his head & kicked around for few turns after birth.
- if we go for Pacha before Pacal a city on any of the riverside by Wheat tiles would function well. Also it'd make the Incense city less mandatory
- Hiawatha wasted hi Reformation but Pacal took JE which leaves TtGoG still available so next policy could be Organized Religion as Monte is mixing Piety with Liberty. After that properly going for Reformation or just opening Aesthetics for safety. As Vada said earlier pretty much all the available policies are lovely to a degree. It's a matter of how many we think we can get in the end or pre-ideologies anyway

 

[raider980]

I'll play tonight. Comments and questions:

• Definitely agree with going for CS, Panama has Pikes, Isabella's got to be getting them soon.
• Do you actually have queues set up in the cities? I can't see them when I load the game but sometimes I realized one thing would be finished and it would automatically start building something else.
• Religion enhancer: I can't read that Faith display in the screenshot, it looks like it says 0 faith available, how much do we have? If I'm going to be enhancing, I assume one will be the one that spreads farther. And Cathedrals if its available, but probably not. If not, do we need food, happiness, Hermitage bonus (I don't play for CV so I don't know if this is good or bad), production from followers (might be good because some of our cities lack production right)?
• I do still like that incense city. But that would be after NC right?
• Speaking of NC, what is our timing goal? Do I need to do anything during the next 10 turns to set it up?

 

[Grendeldef]

In response to Raider so I try to follow the order

- Isa already has Pikes - I'm not worried about those. They can't one-shot but Archers and can't create unescapable flanks. Conqs are totally different, though. They can see everything, one-shot anything what we're now throwing back, surround anything beyond escape and any unhealthy combo of those

- some cities do, some don't - might be an issue with EUI if you're not using it while I am. Sao Paulo should at least have stuff queued up

- it shows 17ftp, 0 (zero) turns to next possible Prophet spawn. Currently we have 306 Faith.

- I prefer faster (RT) over further (IP) spreading as the latter screws up Caravans without roads or Caravansary but it's not a biggie either way; before counting local city distancies anyway. Passive happiness is always useful as are hammers (RC) and cult (CM). I think we'll be building Temples soon enough

- post NC would be preferable if Hiawatha stays away but if it can hard-build even just a Lib in time I'm fine with pre-NC as well. If we have to buy the Lib it's far less tempting but still acceptable/ish as long as we have decent gpt. It's/will be purely tactical city for long so it's usefulness is highly dependable on how we continue but before or by the time of DoWing Pacal or Pacha we should have city closer to the target than we do now. I assume it's not a surprise at this point that I'm advocating more cities. Maybe before next game we could do weighted dice roll before start to decide a target # between 3 & 30. Incense city may also need a Missionary on settling which is a drawback. Two Scouts there could prevent Hiawatha settling any cities between Vilnius, Canandaigua & Manaus since there're very few suitable tiles. Pacal could settle on this side of Tikal but that'd be much less annoying. Happiness may also play a role and I wouldn't dip into negative because of settling this one - the exact timing isn't that important, the sooner the better obviously but it only 'needs' to be there when the war starts. Pacal already dislikes our # of cities while Lizzie & Maria only have 3 each so they should build more before we plant another one.

- well, asap is good but in this case as I said I'd be tempted to beeline CS even if it postpones NC few turns. I feel so much safer defending with Pikes than without them this late especially when the opponent has a Knight UU and the riverside cities would benefit from the growth so in terms of beakers I think the options are roughly equal. Big part of me often using GE for NC is the 1-turn build time in a city of my choosing rather than the need to get beakers from it quickly


---

I had to load the save to be sure but there's no way the Incense city can hard-build Lib in time so the options are blocking Hiawatha with Scouts or whatever while walking a Settler to the crime scene while building NC and if something unexpected happens hope to have 400G in bank or just scrap the plan.

 

[vadalaz]

A few thoughts. Spanish front:

- There's a Madrid - Melbourne caravan apparently, currently two tiles NW of Seville. Could try to sneak in a unit to Melbourne and plunder the caravan
- I'd gift Riga 250 gold next turn to stay allies, the food is nice and it's a distraction for Isabella
- We're on 9 workers and 8 cities, so can't steal from Panama anymore

Cities:

- Fortaleza needs to steal the mined desert hill from Rio and grow to it next turn. We could also stagnate the city at pop 6 to get MP pretty fast, though it doesn't seem like we have much competition on this map, so that might be overkill
- I'd personally tech Sailing first and build another caravan in Rio. We really need more gold here for unit upgrades and tiles, and if we send a TR to an AI we'll get some science as well, it's a 1 turn delay to Civil Service at worst

Irrelevant:

- Strange performance from the AIs, four of them are still on 3 cities, annoying because this makes us reckless expanders. Not sure why Hiawatha didn't care about this, we expanded as close to him as we did to Pacha
- Our lands are so good Washington covets them from the other side of the map apparently

 

[Grendeldef]

- We're on 9 workers and 8 cities, so can't steal from Panama anymore

Yeah, I know - it's been bloody annoying the whole time so the rule is working as intended. Hard to lure anything out of city's range and going inside would've been suicidal.

 

[raider980]

Not sure why Hiawatha didn't care about this, we expanded as close to him as we did to Pacha

Hiawatha was like, "Ah, a leader after my own heart", so he loves us.