So where is Copernicus' Observatory?
And that passable defense force is resting on its heels in Orleans, they need to spread around a little so Hiawatha doesn't drop a Mountie in our laps.
Detailed Instructions for the next player: we still have a shot at Copernicus' Observatory in Paris. Start it there and rearrange the citizens to get max shields there. Lyons can start Magellan's Voyage as a prebuild for Newton's University. The cascade may kill us on Copernicus but Newton's is yet to be won. Do this before pressing enter as one turn's delay will surely lose it for us.
Start reassigning tax collectors to scientists, raise the lux tax and put the citizens in the core back to work. We have a ton of money coming and lots in the treasury so tax collectors aren't needed but every beaker helps in solidifying the tech lead. Take a clsoe look at the corrupt towns and if the citizen is working a low food (two or less) field set him to a beakerhead. We can sacrifice a little growth in those burgs to keep the science push going.
We do not want to sacrifice growth in the core towns by hiring specialists.
Peddle the world map around and also see if can't pick up iron from someone. Maybe giving Guns to Hiawatha will get us iron and get him to connect his saltpeter so we can buy some.
In five turns or so see if you can't bribe Abe to declare on Ragnar (yes I have changed my perspective on who should punch who, but it really doesn't matter, it just appears that we may have a little more leverage with the Abester, or need what he has more than we need what the Ragnar has.) after declaring on him yourself. Ragnar owes us a chunk of change yet so we
don't want to mess with him right now but we do need to put a muzzle on those other guys soon.
I admire the agressive trading but would have done it a little differently. Picking up obsolete tech like Monarchy and Chivalry is generally bad business, especially since there is no iron to build knights.
It was a good move using Chivalry to acquire luxes from Korea but again I just might have handled it a little differently as I state below.
Getting the luxuries is good business but I would have used gpt or luxiries in return to those two sellers rather than techs they can't trade. Gold per turn or luxuries would have bolstered their economies and possibly have made them stronger competitors to the the two big dogs. Untradeable techs that have military implications generally influence the AI to do something stupid, like declare war on the biggest guy on the continent.
Of course I can't recreate your position at the time those deals were made so maybe they wouldn't have touched our money but my gut feel says it is unlikely and we are certainly not short of money or silks/wines to trade.
Bede's Three Rules of Tech Trading:
1) Do we need it
2) Can we afford it
3) Can we peddle it somewhere else
The answer's break out a little like the old horse dealers rhyme:
One white foot, buy him
Two white feet try him
Three white feet pass him by
Four white feet feed him to the crows
but in this instance go the other way - if the answer to all three is yes, do it and do it now. if the answer to only two is yes, think about it some more, and if the answer to only one is yes, forget it.
Now I would never trade luxuries or gold per turn to Abe or Ragnar. Military resources (of which we only have horses) I would not hesitate. But luxes and gpt only make the strong stronger and what we want to do is weaken them. Military resources will often encourage them to overbuild their military and eventually wreck their economies.
All that said we are where we want to be, though we are not really leading the tech race, we are doing a good job keeping pace, though.
But basically, if you dont have have military, you are eventually going to get attacked by another nation, so better be prepared.
it seems easier, doesent it?![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
