I've tried to compile some ideas on how we can progress as an early Republic, and how to deal with the threat of overseas invasion. We will become a republic on turn 102, and we will (probably) have peace at least until turn 129.
Let's discuss this!
Road network and troop positioning
I've tried to set up a military road net in this map:
The red roads are needed to connect our towns and two future ones, indicated by dark green and yellow dots. The cyan roads will speed up the movement of our units. (Some of the roads are under construction already.) Assuming all these roads are built, then a group of 2 move units (like horses) stationed at the lightgreen square (near The Treasury) can reach the area indicated by the lightgreen outline. This covers most of our important towns and I would make this the main army group. Two secondary defense groups stationed at the pink and orange squares would cover every other square. Of course, it may well be possible to find a better solution, for example where the most likely landing zones are covered by two groups.
Our warriors could be used to cover the high landing grounds, so that any attackers will be forced to land in the open. We have 8 coastal hill/mountain tiles, and 16 coastal forest/jungle/swamp tiles, so covering all this is a bit much.
Economy
Additional troops and other units require 2 gpt upkeep per turn. The best way to deal with this is to grow our towns to city size (i.e., at least 7 citizens). Each city supports 3 units for free, a town just 1. We need to be careful not to choke our economy with units.
Research
When we become a republic I would turn off research for a while, for two reasons:
- A cash reserve is quite useful in Republic and helps to deal with sudden threats.
- We will not be able to pour all income into research: some of it will have to go to tax to pay for unit upkeep. As we are still building some libraries, it is beneficial to postpone research so we profit as much as possible from the libraries.
I would try to time it such that we build up a bank account sufficient to fund full speed research (with deficit spending) up to Gunpowder or somewhat beyond.
Towns
Some suggestions for the role of each town. Towns in
blue can and should (IMO) reach city size without aqueduct. Towns in
red can reach city size without aqueduct, but their suggested role prevents that. All
green towns need an aqueduct to grow to city size. I have indicated the corruption percentage under republic, assuming there is an FP in The Silo (but not taking into account the effect of unfounded towns).
- The Chamber (corruption and waste 0%
: I think we no longer need this town as a settler pump and are better off using it to train units. It can do 15 spt at size 8 for a 2-turn horse/pike pump (e.g., work the cow, 2 bgs, 1 sugar, 2 mined plains, forest, mined grass). It might be beneficial to mine the cow, then we can work the floodplains instead of a regular grass. Of course it needs to build a rax first. We can skim off a worker every time The Chamber grows too large.
- The Admiralty (10%): because of its low corruption this town can use a library and an aqueduct soon. It will grow to size 7 in 30 turns, an aqueduct would take about 13 turns to build, a lib about 6. So we have some 10 turns to train units first, enough for 2 pikes/horse.
- The Gulag (12%): By borrowing the wheat every other turn it should be possible to make this a 4 turn settler pump (size 4-6 probably).
- The Bayou (13%): little corruption and excellent growth (+5 fpt pre-harbor), this town should probably start an aqueduct right away. Apart from that it can train some ships.
- The Treasury (17%): wonder construction. It would be helpful if we mine the hills and irrigate some of the grass, but this is fairly low priority IMO because of low gains and high worker investment.
- The Igloo (17%): With low corruption and decent commerce, this will be a good science town. I would finish the lib, after that no idea.
- The Ways (25%): galleys? Maybe a temple or market?
- The Pier (29%): Probably lib followed by aqueduct, maybe a galley, temple or market? This town will need some work.
- The Silo (16%): FP should finish in 3 turns after the anarchy is over. This town can easily do 10 spt at size 7, but I don't see how to get to 15 spt unless we invest in a courthouse as well (and even then it seems hard to accomplish). I would like to see a lib, a rax and train units. The lib can of course wait until we restart research.
- The Institute (28%): fairly corrupt but over time this seems an excellent production center to me. A court will be helpful to lower corruption to 20%, but a lib can wait. The forests can be chopped for a production boost. I'm not sure what to do here, perhaps first a courthouse?
- The New Yard (40%): needs a lib and court, and a lot of work.
- Chamsuri's Cove (32%): it should be possible to run this as a 4 turn worker pump at size 2-3.
- The Aerie (31%): needs a lib and court, and a lot of work.
- The Meeting Room (33%): needs a lib and court.
- The Arboretum (35%): needs a lib and court, and a lot of work.
- The Nursery (51%): don't know, a lib is always good in a coastal town to enhance vision.
- The Greenhouse (51%): id.
- Dark Green Dot (?): id.
In summary: The Chamber can be groomed as a military town right away and can be expected to produce around 10 units before turn 129. The Silo would probably do 6 or 7, if we postpone a library. The Admiralty 2, plus another 6 ACs. So these three alone will build 25 horse/pike, a rather respectable number. Note that we will need to grow 12-13 towns to city size just to support this! The list indicates that in the short run only about half a dozen towns will grow to city size, with another half dozen or so at a later stage. So it will not be easy at all to support more units, and more rax towns seems useless right now.
Another thing to keep in mind is that we'll need to start temples and cathedrals at some moment, in order to profit from The Chapel. Markets will also be useful.
