Deity challengers

[shyuhe]

Since we're in 3.17, we can try to gold overflow some walls.

I would just go ahead and settle the GG. It'll give mounted 9XP (barracks + stable), 11 with theocracy. I'm not opposed to making a medic either though.

Pottery is definitely #1. I think alphabet is a reasonable tech here as we're quickly running out of builds for our cities because of the early war. Plus it'll help us tech faster towards currency. So is everyone on board for the gifting city plan?

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

It seems we haven't a consensus on the tech path... I can play till pottery is done and post the save to discuss more?

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Played till pottery.

Settled crab/deer and crappy now Aztec city... We killed 6 troops without loss and get peace with the gift plan
Libraries are up in Moscow and gold city, with two scientists in Moscow. Fur city is working on it too. Novgorod has a granary on its queue. Used the overflow trick to fund research of pottery. We still have 50 gold in bank but we are making 4 gpt at 100% taxe

Anyway, have a look, so we can discuss next tech I have played 7 turns, I might play a few more if that's OK with you

pics:

Spoiler :

 

[shyuhe]

We even got a free +1 diplo from Monty! I would definintely scout east for neighbors first. We need contact with more AIs for discounts on research. And we probably need to start cottaging to make some commerce. I still think alphabet is a reasonable tech here but depending on the neighbors, aesthetics may get better trade value. We should also try to disband unnecessary military units or go burn them on the barb city to the west.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Yeah, we have already started exploration in the east
I am not sure about disbanding units... perhaps we'll be at war again in 10 tunrs .
I would prefer finishing exploration in the west and going for the barb cities...
As for techs, I am still undecided

 

[muxec]

You should have renamed the gift city to Thatetentetet or something.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

As for techs, I am still undecided

I will play some more turns tonight, and will start aesthetics.

@Shyuhe: I am afraid will have zero trade value as Duckweed said, and we can still use a settler for the fish south of Moscow if we run out of build options. This city won't cost much in term of maint, and can quickly run 2 scientists.

Cheers

edit: iirc there are two other walls buildable... do I use again the overflow to generate cash? That would accelerate tremendously our next research...

 

[shyuhe]

The new HOF mode was released so I don't think there's any reason to stay with 3.17 now. I'll be switching over shortly, as I need to play around with the new version before SGOTM 10 starts. Hopefully it won't keep me from playing this game

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

OK, I played some more turns...
Bad news are that Monty is willing to attack again... hopefully, it will be this guy:

Spoiler :

Aztec SoD is moving east, so I bet a little and send our axes west to start grabbing the not so crapy barb cities...

AC has alpha so hopefully aesthetics will have some value

Monty's army:

Spoiler :

Roster:

Raskolnikov -> just played
Rusten -> up!
Duckweed -> on deck!
Mystyfly
Dirk
Shyuhe

Cheers,
Raskolnikov

edit: @Shyuhe: if the new mod is out, let's go with 3.19 from this round (I saw the new BUFFY mod yesterday , looks promising!)

 

[Rusten]

Got it.

I'm playing 2 pitbosses with 3.17 still, so preferrably my set can be 3.17 too before we switch. Might have to dual install at some point anyway, but I'd rather wait a little while longer.

 

[mystyfly]

Had a look at the save now.

There is Brennus reachable by WB most likely as AC is his WE. Finding him should be high priority.

Since monty moves his army away from us I expect him to attack AC. Our peace treaty expires in 3 turns btw.

We can gift deer to monty and trade wheat for rice with AC.

I don't think moscow should build a worker, I'd switch to axes with those MIs, we can use a little boost in the power rating and assault the barb cities for money and deficit research aesth. Should moscow continue on the worker, the citizen working the grass farm should be switched to the grass mine.

In 9 turns we get s GS, I guess he'll build an academy in moscow, after that we can turn up research. BTW I think we should whip more walls (good thing Rusten won't patch just yet ).

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

All good points Mysty... the worker was just a placeholder (so don't blame me for the micro )

 

[mystyfly]

After some discussion with ras (army being nicely easy now ) I have some more comments especially about our techpath. . .

The war vs monty surely set us back and we need to hurry if we want to be first to lib (or any key military tech). Our big problem is that we don't know good techers and thus lack trading partners. Also we need to recover, an easy way is with bulbs. Downside is, we won't be able to get lots of trades from our bulbed techs, upside is we don't help the AI teching much and thus create bigger windows of opportunity for attacks (that sure will come).

Our current research project is aesthetics, mainly because of its trade value and on an eventual path to NE. We should try to trade for alphabet, maths and IW. After aest I would tech CoL followed by CS. CoL gives us courts and should get us a few more techs like currency as well as some diplo pts. I would forget about the GL as I doubt our resources are sufficient and I consider our chances low.

However, we need NE as we desperately need GPs for our bulbs (note: I don't want to bulb our first GS (due in 9)). We might run pac as it' rather cheap (probably) and we have a SR anyway. Too bad we're not spiritual () so there won't be whipping/GP cycles...
As to getting literature for NE, I think we should focus all EPs on monty. He has the same SR like us and lit isn't expensive anyway so we shold be able to steal it fairly well. Later we can probably induce a revolt or three in monty's cities.. .

Oh and I wish some more participation...!

 

[shyuhe]

What are we planning on using our first GS for?

Aesthetics sounds like a fine plan. Hopefully we can meet more AI to at least get alpha + IW out of it. We're in a pretty big tech hole right now and it's going to be hard to come back from it. On the upside, we may be able to eventually backstab Monty to get his land.

Once we get the NE up, would it be worth it to burn a person to start a GA to swap civics? Hopefully it'll get up once we have philo (trading for CS) so that we'll have lots of civics to change. Where are we going to put the NE? I think St. Pete. Grasscow + 3 FP = 4 specialists @size 8.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

My vote is for an academy...
As for the NE, how about Novgorod... what I don't like with St pet is that means we pass on working valuable green tiles for most of the game (at least while running specialists)... it can run 4 at size 6, 5 loosing 1 food at size 7...

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

another thing: I definately like going in caste/pacifism to generate more GPPs... but with which GP we wanna do that?
first one -> academy?
second one -> philo bulb? edu bulb (assuming we can trade philo as per Shyuhe's post)? GA?

 

[mystyfly]

I considered ga as well but I'm not a big fan of early GAs... however I imagine one (probably 3rd GS) could be good. I'd use it to switch to HR caste buero and pac, and switch back to slavery in the end.

As for NE, st pete is far too food in commerce with cottages to build ne there... I lean towards Novgorod as we need the GPs fast and it's a typical GPfarm. Problem is getting it up quickly due to the lack of forests and marble. Are there any sensible alternatives to nov as main GPfarm? Well we can still amass whipping overflow by building wralth before we start on NE to help a bit...

 

[shyuhe]

Long-term, I'd stay in caste for this map. We have more food than hills, so workshops will be nice to compensate the lack of raw hammers. I'm also not a huge fan of whipping anyways, especially when we're trying to grow our cities bigger and our empire wider.

Our first GS should probably go straight to philosophy if possible. I think we're going to have to trade it around aggressively to get our tech rate back on track. Academy in Moscow with a near 0% slider is kinda useless. I also think we should cut our military size down. If we get declared again by Monty, throw in the towel - it'll sink our tech rate way too far to come back even if we don't fire our military.

I think we should pick a city that can run 3-4 specialists and has reasonable production. It's going to be hard getting NE built on this map with the lack of hills.

 

[mystyfly]

I think the lack of techtrading will lend to more tech selling (I KNEW I forgot something ras ) so we'll likely have a rather large slider I expect. Deity AIs usually have lots of gold around. Also we won't be able to bulb philo just yet, we need myst and medi first. Also, what use is philo just yet? pac increases maint atm I think and our GPfarm isn't set up yet.

 

[Rusten]

I agree with Novgorod as a GPP city -- but we don't have to stop at 1.

Don't want to give health resources to deity AIs -- especially when they have HR.

I don't think the academy in Moscow is worth it -- better to be ready for philosophy and then work on the education scientists.

P.S. I have a dual install now, so no whipping of walls for gold.