I only have about 20 turns left of spreading sushi. Then it should go fast. Just waiting for the score to peak.
G-Major 144
- Thread starter lymond
- Start date
Pangaea
Rock N Roller
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2010
- Messages
- 6,390
I'm unlikely to finish. Not played the game for a month or two, and have moved on to other ventures (currently playing Pillars of Eternity).
I'm on 40AD, chipping away a turn a day.
Am at 54% land out of 62% dom limit at the moment.
I expect to finish, lord willing.
My 2-person Golden Age will start in about 4 or 5 turns, so I should be able to afford more than +22
after that.My Sushi spread priority is any city that can spread in 1 turn first (island-city roads gogo), then 2 seafood cities, then cities on big islands, then cities with 1 seafood, then the rest.
Spoiler :
Looks nice Kaitzilla. Quick question though. I had planned on playing this a few months ago but as I mentioned back then the Marathon aspect of it was throwing me off. I did some calculations at that point and came up with the approximate number of cities I would expect to own by turn 350/1AD.
That number was between 185-200 cities. I notice you're at 173 cities at turn 354/40AD. Do you think my expectations where a bit high? So then to follow up on that thought, did you conquer the AIs as expected (are you content with 173) or did you have any issues? I have far less experience on Marathon so I'm trying to find some solid ground lol. I have no idea if my thinking is even valid (bad math!).
Anyways, just curious. I do plan to eventually play this out but it certainly won't be for this gauntlet. Just trying to plan ahead.
Cheers! Sean.
That number was between 185-200 cities. I notice you're at 173 cities at turn 354/40AD. Do you think my expectations where a bit high? So then to follow up on that thought, did you conquer the AIs as expected (are you content with 173) or did you have any issues? I have far less experience on Marathon so I'm trying to find some solid ground lol. I have no idea if my thinking is even valid (bad math!).
Anyways, just curious. I do plan to eventually play this out but it certainly won't be for this gauntlet. Just trying to plan ahead.
Cheers! Sean.
I'm at over 70% land. I have over 250 cities and I'm holding back settling until the sushi exec arrives (to avoid the dom limit), so I could have more cities. This also means that I have well over 200 sushi spread. I'm just shy of 4 million.
Spoiler :
The goal is Highest Score wins, which means huge population as fast as possible.
185-200 cities by Turn 350 is a nice goal to shoot for.
Mainly it is having enough cities to spread Sushi to without slowing down that is important.
I might have 173 cities, but only 120? have Sushi right now.
I like having lots of spread options.
Having every city whip Settlers and filling up the map with 300 cities back when only 50 cities had Sushi might be fun, but there wouldn't be much benefit.
Good luck on your High Score game when you attempt one Cseanny.
Don't go bigger than a normal sized map or you will burn out.
200+ Sushi cities in the BC years.
I thought my game was going good, but now I see I'm 45 turns behind the leader.
Thank you for reminding me how much I suck haha.
I've been playing a Deity, Standard, Marathon, Darius game for several months actually (since this challenge). I wanted to feel out Marathon and the pace of this type of game. That's another reason why I want you guys to finish your games!. I'd really like to dig into those saves.
I'm just under 30 cities a few turns before 1AD but at least I've started spreading Sushi. Tbh, I feel like I've played pretty poorly, especially since I've been following this thread and should have learned some tricks along the way. I tried a more vertical approach which ended up being very bad (low amount of cities). Additionally I'm just not used to Marathon. Whipping, tech pace, planning, etc. I'm way off.
I should finish before 920 AD with 3.3 million or so (a mere 8 million lower than you guys here, lol!). I think I've been trying to play much too fast (I play slow and wanted to speed up my pace). Having said that I'll STILL be over 120 hours when I finish (IF I finish)!! That's just silly. I'm burned out on a Standard map Kaitzilla ^^. If I played this game over I'm confident I could double my cities by turn 350 and score well over 6 million (one can hope lol!). Learn as you go right?
Anyways, for those actually playing this challenge please stop reading the forums!! Go finish your games
.Been a few weeks and I thought I'd post an update from my game (40AD to 230AD) since this G-Major will be over next month on August 24th.
My China was a bit harder to kill than I thought with City Garrison 3 Longbows on top of hills, but promoted Cuirassiers + Siege got it done.
Fail
from Versaille and Hermitage was a big help. (Takes 2 turns to get it all based on how cities are processed)
I made sure to finish Versaille on the western side of my empire at the equator to compliment my Forbidden Palace on the east. (Maximum coverage)
Fail from Hermitage was a bigger help. (Takes 2 turns to get all failure gold based on how cities are processed)
As soon as I got all the gold, I gave the city that completed Hermitage to France so I could build it again.
My economy was strong enough to handle going deeply negative in 110AD, so I DOW'd France to take back his eastern capital island leaving him with his Sushi iceball city in the south and the Hermitage city gift.
The return of 40-ish seafood that I've been gifting him to keep my expenses down came flooding back sending me immediately into -3000gpt.
My food jumped from +22 to +32 I think.
After building up enough population over many turns in my Heroic Epic + National Park city and making a Great Person plan, I triggered the 2-person Golden Age on T361/110AD.
Immediately I went down to -1500gpt, and the switch to Nationalism+Pacifism got my down to -1337gpt.
Gave my colonies 8 or 12 Sushi resources to get it down further to -800gpt since DeGaulle can't act as a Sushi dump while I'm at war with him and I was sure I wouldn't need the food for 10 turns.
My remaining Great Prophet was saved for a 4-person Golden Age since I'm sure I can get 3 more during the current Golden Age due to the Great Scientist from Physics.
Unlike Victoria whom I kept alive to whip down her cities and then gift away to immediately raze, I killed off China as soon as possible.
I needed a dead civ to free up room for my gamble.
My China was a bit harder to kill than I thought with City Garrison 3 Longbows on top of hills, but promoted Cuirassiers + Siege got it done.
Fail
from Versaille and Hermitage was a big help. (Takes 2 turns to get it all based on how cities are processed)I made sure to finish Versaille on the western side of my empire at the equator to compliment my Forbidden Palace on the east. (Maximum coverage)
Spoiler :
Fail
from Hermitage was a bigger help. (Takes 2 turns to get all failure gold based on how cities are processed)As soon as I got all the gold, I gave the city that completed Hermitage to France so I could build it again.
Spoiler :
My economy was strong enough to handle going deeply negative in 110AD, so I DOW'd France to take back his eastern capital island leaving him with his Sushi iceball city in the south and the Hermitage city gift.
The return of 40-ish seafood that I've been gifting him to keep my expenses down came flooding back sending me immediately into -3000gpt.
My food jumped from +22 to +32 I think.
After building up enough population over many turns in my Heroic Epic + National Park city and making a Great Person plan, I triggered the 2-person Golden Age on T361/110AD.
Immediately I went down to -1500gpt, and the switch to Nationalism+Pacifism got my down to -1337gpt.
Gave my colonies 8 or 12 Sushi resources to get it down further to -800gpt since DeGaulle can't act as a Sushi dump while I'm at war with him and I was sure I wouldn't need the food for 10 turns.
My remaining Great Prophet was saved for a 4-person Golden Age since I'm sure I can get 3 more during the current Golden Age due to the Great Scientist from Physics.
Spoiler :
Unlike Victoria whom I kept alive to whip down her cities and then gift away to immediately raze, I killed off China as soon as possible.
I needed a dead civ to free up room for my gamble.
Spoiler :
For a long time I wondered if I could make the AI quickly form a colony for me.
I would be annoyed if I gave away 6 cities and the AI just held onto them for dozens of turns, never forming a colony!
So, only really a gamble of 1500
and some minor annoyance.
Testing revealed that with 4 cities, it could be 1 turn or it could be 21 turns or even more.
I gradually upped the amount and 6 cities seems to be the sweet spot in my limited test runs.
With 6 cities on another continent, the test AI almost always formed a colony right away.
So in my real game, I signed a Cease Fire with France the turn after taking his lovely tropical island.
I then gave France 6 cities on an icy tundra island.
As predicted, he only took 2 of the 6 cities initially and needed a 60 per turn gift to take the final 4 cities.
This required gifting him Sushi resources again until I was positive gpt.
Unsure if being at war would make him hesitant to form a colony (I wanted my 60 gpt and sushi back right away!), I pressed next turn and prayed to see a new civ.
...
Success! ^_^
Welcome to party Gilgamesh!
War was declared immediately.
I could replace France with my own colony now and get 2% more dom limit.
Only 1 of the 6 ice cities made it to pop 2 before the gift, so I'd have to raze 5 of them, but I'd have no troubles retaking them them.
I forgot that one of the 6 cities was on top of Iron, so I'd face 12 Vultures instead of 12 Warriors.
My globe spanning Galleon Chain network would have to deliver some Cuirassiers from China and some drafted Muskets to quickly retake my gifted cities.
Once I retook the Hermitage gift city, I tried to steal France's gold and failed at 95% odds.
Stealing Vicky's gold worked thankfully.
Finally, after countless turns as a 2-city civ, France died.
As long as I stayed at war with Gilgamesh, no one could peace vassal him without DOWing me.
My power rating was too high for any AI to be able to do that.
Even without war, Gilgamesh Peace Vassaling isn't too likely, since like DeGaulle he also Peace Vassals at Friendly.
The plan was to conquer Gilgamesh down to 1 city, sign a Cease Fire, give him a city on the mainland, then DOW and retake his last island city.
I was curious if regaining my city with the Hermitage in it would give me failure in the cities where I partially built it a 2nd time.
It did! $_$
While all this was happening, my Musket+Catapult army arrived to the west of Mansa from the Vicky war since they couldn't all fit on the Galleons to China. (They wouldn't do good against hilltop City Garrison III Longbows anyhow)
They DOW'd Mansa from the west.
Freshly Drafted Muskets and more Catapults simultaneously attacked from the east.
I would be annoyed if I gave away 6 cities and the AI just held onto them for dozens of turns, never forming a colony!
So, only really a gamble of 1500
and some minor annoyance.Testing revealed that with 4 cities, it could be 1 turn or it could be 21 turns or even more.
I gradually upped the amount and 6 cities seems to be the sweet spot in my limited test runs.
With 6 cities on another continent, the test AI almost always formed a colony right away.
So in my real game, I signed a Cease Fire with France the turn after taking his lovely tropical island.
I then gave France 6 cities on an icy tundra island.
As predicted, he only took 2 of the 6 cities initially and needed a 60
per turn gift to take the final 4 cities.This required gifting him Sushi resources again until I was positive gpt.
Unsure if being at war would make him hesitant to form a colony (I wanted my 60 gpt and sushi back right away!), I pressed next turn and prayed to see a new civ.
Spoiler :
...
Success! ^_^
Welcome to party Gilgamesh!
Spoiler :
War was declared immediately.
I could replace France with my own colony now and get 2% more dom limit.
Only 1 of the 6 ice cities made it to pop 2 before the gift, so I'd have to raze 5 of them, but I'd have no troubles retaking them them.
I forgot that one of the 6 cities was on top of Iron, so I'd face 12 Vultures instead of 12 Warriors.
My globe spanning Galleon Chain network would have to deliver some Cuirassiers from China and some drafted Muskets to quickly retake my gifted cities.
Once I retook the Hermitage gift city, I tried to steal France's gold and failed at 95% odds.
Stealing Vicky's gold worked thankfully.
Finally, after countless turns as a 2-city civ, France died.
As long as I stayed at war with Gilgamesh, no one could peace vassal him without DOWing me.
My power rating was too high for any AI to be able to do that.
Even without war, Gilgamesh Peace Vassaling isn't too likely, since like DeGaulle he also Peace Vassals at Friendly.
The plan was to conquer Gilgamesh down to 1 city, sign a Cease Fire, give him a city on the mainland, then DOW and retake his last island city.
Spoiler :
I was curious if regaining my city with the Hermitage in it would give me failure
in the cities where I partially built it a 2nd time.It did! $_$
Spoiler :
While all this was happening, my Musket+Catapult army arrived to the west of Mansa from the Vicky war since they couldn't all fit on the Galleons to China. (They wouldn't do good against hilltop City Garrison III Longbows anyhow)
They DOW'd Mansa from the west.
Freshly Drafted Muskets and more Catapults simultaneously attacked from the east.
Spoiler :
Hermitage. I did one better. After giving away Herm I recaptured it to flush out failgold. No need to complete it the 2nd time
What gamble?
The time finally came to give Victoria some of her cities back so I could raze them to make room for more cities.
One of them I'd be keeping forever because I forgot that nearby Sushi cities pump in culture and I went way above 25%!
No way to raze that one.
Anyway, I gave Vicky back 2 cities, DOW'd her, razed them, signed a Cease Fire, gave her the Hermitage city so I could build it a 3rd time, gave her the island cities, razed them, and then finished her off for good once I no longer needed her culture to make a new Colony for 68% dom limit.
Gilgamesh received one of Mansa's conquered cities to become his new capital.
He was also given the Hermitage city so I could build it a 4th time and so my eastern cities would be within 10 tiles so I could gift them to him in the future.
My new plan is to give every conquered Mansa/Greek/Egyptian/American city to Gilgamesh along with any of my mainland cities to stay under the dom limit. ^_^
The large cities with improved tiles all on the same continent should keep his economy healthy enough to accept any city gifts.
Plus, he can defend them with any Vultures+Archers he manages to build and I can take them at the end of the game for extra population.
Just need to keep my main army intact to the end and DOW 1 or 2 turns before the end and moves forces next to each and every city.
They can all be stationed nearby as long as Giggles doesn't pop borders too much.
Mansa simply melted during the war.
Way too many units, way too many spies from my nearby capital Cuzco.
Once he was dead, I founded my 13th colony and raised the Dom Limit to 70%.
I decided to keep Mansa's capital city Timbuktu since it had 3 Sushi resources and lots of water tiles.
It had an irritating +4 culture Granary that would give a 2nd border pop after 6 turns with Buddhism, so I gave Timbuktu to Gilgamesh and retook it after a quick DOW.
The observatory was destroyed, but the +4 culture Granary easily survived.
Giggles didn't want to talk peace right away like France either, sigh.
Long term, it might be possible to work through the -10 for razing Gilgamesh's 5 ice tundra cities and the -9 from DOWing him 3 times to trade for his Sushi resources by conquering Mansa's gift cities and (Liberating) them back to him over and over 10? times, but once I give him a mainland Sushi city that would end the Sushi trade.
Not worth it.
After counting tiles, I figured I could live with the Timbuktu Granary.
Simultaneously to the northwest, yet another of my armies arrived with the first Cuirassiers to return from the China war.
Die, Greece, Die!
The 30-unit Greek army on the border wasn't nearly as intimidating as the 60-unit American army on their border.
Gave the conquered Greek border city to Gilgamesh when I gave him Timbuktu so he'd have a northwestern city I could give him at any time to accept nearby Greek cities and western empire cities in the future.
I reconquered it along with Timbuktu so he'd quickly talk peace and my supply lines wouldn't be messed up advancing into Greece.
West Point completing in my Globe Theatre city will allow 10xp 7-move Galleons and 6xp Muskets to be drafted every turn.
It also generated a huge amount of fail gold.
Generating about +38 at this point in Sushi cities.
One of them I'd be keeping forever because I forgot that nearby Sushi cities pump in culture and I went way above 25%!
No way to raze that one.
Anyway, I gave Vicky back 2 cities, DOW'd her, razed them, signed a Cease Fire, gave her the Hermitage city so I could build it a 3rd time, gave her the island cities, razed them, and then finished her off for good once I no longer needed her culture to make a new Colony for 68% dom limit.
Spoiler :
Gilgamesh received one of Mansa's conquered cities to become his new capital.
He was also given the Hermitage city so I could build it a 4th time and so my eastern cities would be within 10 tiles so I could gift them to him in the future.
Spoiler :
The large cities with improved tiles all on the same continent should keep his economy healthy enough to accept any city gifts.
Plus, he can defend them with any Vultures+Archers he manages to build and I can take them at the end of the game for extra population.
Just need to keep my main army intact to the end and DOW 1 or 2 turns before the end and moves forces next to each and every city.
They can all be stationed nearby as long as Giggles doesn't pop borders too much.
Mansa simply melted during the war.
Way too many units, way too many spies from my nearby capital Cuzco.
Once he was dead, I founded my 13th colony and raised the Dom Limit to 70%.
Spoiler :
I decided to keep Mansa's capital city Timbuktu since it had 3 Sushi resources and lots of water tiles.
It had an irritating +4 culture Granary that would give a 2nd border pop after 6 turns with Buddhism, so I gave Timbuktu to Gilgamesh and retook it after a quick DOW.
The observatory was destroyed, but the +4 culture Granary easily survived.
Giggles didn't want to talk peace right away like France either, sigh.
Long term, it might be possible to work through the -10 for razing Gilgamesh's 5 ice tundra cities and the -9 from DOWing him 3 times to trade for his Sushi resources by conquering Mansa's gift cities and (Liberating) them back to him over and over 10? times, but once I give him a mainland Sushi city that would end the Sushi trade.
Not worth it.
After counting tiles, I figured I could live with the Timbuktu Granary.
Simultaneously to the northwest, yet another of my armies arrived with the first Cuirassiers to return from the China war.
Die, Greece, Die!
Spoiler :
The 30-unit Greek army on the border wasn't nearly as intimidating as the 60-unit American army on their border.
Gave the conquered Greek border city to Gilgamesh when I gave him Timbuktu so he'd have a northwestern city I could give him at any time to accept nearby Greek cities and western empire cities in the future.
I reconquered it along with Timbuktu so he'd quickly talk peace and my supply lines wouldn't be messed up advancing into Greece.
Spoiler :
West Point completing in my Globe Theatre city will allow 10xp 7-move Galleons and 6xp Muskets to be drafted every turn.
It also generated a huge amount of fail gold.
Generating about +38
at this point in Sushi cities.Spoiler :
It took 12 colonies with no resources, but I gave away all my Iron and Bronze finally on T367.
No more Cuirassiers or Frigates, but I have plenty and now I can make Quechuas again!
With the Golden Age, any city can make one in 15 turns max, but I have 4 boxed in cities ready to whip them every single turn and make 70-ish fail gold.
I'm too busy spreading Sushi to important islands to spread any to good Quechua whipping candidates right now, so the 4 cities on the main continent with no room are it.
The cheap garrison units really free up the Longbows, Spears, and Axes to go help on the front lines.
I'll use them as STRIKE bait later too.
It of course blew up in my face 3 turns later.
I windmilled over an Iron mine and it canceled my Iron+Bronze gift to one of my colonies causing me to acquire Bronze in between turns and turn ALL my Quechua builds into Spearmen.
Make metal gifts to colonies separate!
Also, when you conquer a city on top of Iron/Bronze, I think you get the Iron/Bronze in between turns once it comes out of revolt. 
**EDIT**
Nope, you get the Iron/Bronze immediately once you conquer a city on top of some, so you just have to remember to trade it away to a colony quickly or you will see lots of dreaded Spearmen the following turn.
So if you are depending on overflow gold to fuel your infinite STRIKE Sushi spreading, be careful!
Maybe gift some gold to one of your colonies whenever you have some spare lying around, and then steal it with 2 or 3 spies if you don't get any overflow gold for one turn.
Or trade an AI for it.
As soon as China died, my Privateers moved to the waters north of Greece to blockade all American cities to slow down their teching towards Democracy and to kill any boats they found.
Since they can't bombard cities, it limits their options.
Will post the rest of the Greek war later, out of time right now.
Yes, still trying to beat WastinTime.
No trick left untried.
No city spot left unclaimed.
Certainly over 200 hours by now total.
Banking on simply having more sushi cities by the end than any other G-Major participant.
No more Cuirassiers or Frigates, but I have plenty and now I can make Quechuas again!
With the Golden Age, any city can make one in 15 turns max, but I have 4 boxed in cities ready to whip them every single turn and make 70-ish fail gold.
I'm too busy spreading Sushi to important islands to spread any to good Quechua whipping candidates right now, so the 4 cities on the main continent with no room are it.
The cheap garrison units really free up the Longbows, Spears, and Axes to go help on the front lines.
I'll use them as STRIKE bait later too.
It of course blew up in my face 3 turns later.
I windmilled over an Iron mine and it canceled my Iron+Bronze gift to one of my colonies causing me to acquire Bronze in between turns and turn ALL my Quechua builds into Spearmen.
Make metal gifts to colonies separate!
**EDIT**
Nope, you get the Iron/Bronze immediately once you conquer a city on top of some, so you just have to remember to trade it away to a colony quickly or you will see lots of dreaded Spearmen the following turn.
So if you are depending on overflow gold to fuel your infinite STRIKE Sushi spreading, be careful!
Maybe gift some gold to one of your colonies whenever you have some spare lying around, and then steal it with 2 or 3 spies if you don't get any overflow gold for one turn.
Or trade an AI for it.
Spoiler :
As soon as China died, my Privateers moved to the waters north of Greece to blockade all American cities to slow down their teching towards Democracy and to kill any boats they found.
Since they can't bombard cities, it limits their options.
Will post the rest of the Greek war later, out of time right now.
Yes, still trying to beat WastinTime.
No trick left untried.
No city spot left unclaimed.
Certainly over 200 hours by now total.
Banking on simply having more sushi cities by the end than any other G-Major participant.
Yes ai creates colony instantly if maintenance cost is high enough. No randomness or luck involved. I did it with 5 cities, but needed to blockade
georgjorge
Deity Wannabe
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2009
- Messages
- 921
I have no idea what you all are doing within this game, but it sure looks VERY impressive. This isn't the Civ I play on my computer anymore 
.
.Ok, this post brings me up to date.
With Greece's main army dead on the border, I gobbled up his cities with Cuirassier charges backed with spy revolts.
3 or 4 shiploads of troops easily conquered his islands except for 1 city which had to be invaded amphibiously.
Only the Chichen Itza with +25% defenses in Pericles' capital makes any impression by slowing me down a little.
My Mansa army is teaming up with eastern draftees to invade Egypt from 7 directions starting in 4 turns.
Oh ya, Gilgamesh Peace_Vassaled to Washington as soon as I wasn't at war with him!
Extremely unexpected.
I rushed to the relations screen to see how America could have possibly gotten him to Friendly, and I saw this:
Ya, that's right, -6 relations and Friendly!
The older version of Buffy would have shown +3 relations, but still how is that Friendly?
Not a huge deal, but America might give Gilgamesh techs and make him more of a pain to conquer at the end of the game.
The cities I've given him so far have come out of revolt starving, so I gifted Gilgamesh 8 Happiness resources, Literature, and Music so he can pop borders and work food tiles for me.
I'm ending Turn 373 (230AD) with 282 cities of which 196 have Sushi. (68% out of 70% dom limit)
I want to say I might be catching up, but 4 million score with over 70% land in 10BC implies WastinTime is still at least 35 turns ahead of me.
Some kind of outrageous 800BC sushi founding there.
My only hope is that the 370 cities total I've counted along with the expected +54 is more score at a later date.
Oh ya, if you want to save button clicks, hold down SHIFT to add things to the build queue once you found a new city.
I use Granary->Courthouse->Lighthouse->Forge myself.
Also, turning on "Emphasis Food Production" button tends to make the city pick the biggest food tiles when it grows a population, so it saves a ton of clicking usually.
With Greece's main army dead on the border, I gobbled up his cities with Cuirassier charges backed with spy revolts.
3 or 4 shiploads of troops easily conquered his islands except for 1 city which had to be invaded amphibiously.
Only the Chichen Itza with +25% defenses in Pericles' capital makes any impression by slowing me down a little.
Spoiler :
My Mansa army is teaming up with eastern draftees to invade Egypt from 7 directions starting in 4 turns.
Spoiler :
Oh ya, Gilgamesh Peace_Vassaled to Washington as soon as I wasn't at war with him!
Extremely unexpected.
I rushed to the relations screen to see how America could have possibly gotten him to Friendly, and I saw this:
Ya, that's right, -6 relations and Friendly!
The older version of Buffy would have shown +3 relations, but still how is that Friendly?
Spoiler :
Not a huge deal, but America might give Gilgamesh techs and make him more of a pain to conquer at the end of the game.
The cities I've given him so far have come out of revolt starving, so I gifted Gilgamesh 8 Happiness resources, Literature, and Music so he can pop borders and work food tiles for me.
I'm ending Turn 373 (230AD) with 282 cities of which 196 have Sushi. (68% out of 70% dom limit)
I want to say I might be catching up, but 4 million score with over 70% land in 10BC implies WastinTime is still at least 35 turns ahead of me.
Some kind of outrageous 800BC sushi founding there.
Spoiler :
My only hope is that the 370 cities total I've counted along with the expected +54
is more score at a later date.Oh ya, if you want to save button clicks, hold down SHIFT to add things to the build queue once you found a new city.
I use Granary->Courthouse->Lighthouse->Forge myself.
Also, turning on "Emphasis Food Production" button tends to make the city pick the biggest food tiles when it grows a population, so it saves a ton of clicking usually.
You need to learn shift + F1 and control + F1. Those will save an entire build Q and restore it when you get a new city
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