Hammurabi - Immortal Cookbook

[GKey]

@Yamps AI demands to stop trade with its worst enemy only, yes. OB do not count towards "you've traded with our worst enemy", but can cause you been asked to stop.

 

[GKey]

And I would love to have discussion on plans before we play 3rd round.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

@Dhoomstriker many implications there about OB...

Also, are AI demands to stop trading limited to worst enemies only?

The short answer is: yes.

So, technically, you can have Open Borders with every AI and never get asked to Stop Trading with their Worst Enemy if no AI has a Worst Enemy.

A Worst Enemy situation will exist when an AI feels worse than Cautious (Annoyed or Furious) about at least one other Player. That other Player could be you or it could be another AI.

If all AIs are Cautious or above with everyone else, then no Worst Enemies will exist and you can Open Borders with everyone without worrying about being asked to Stop Trading with someone's Worst Enemy.

In most games, that ideal situation of all-around Cautiousness (or better) won't happen.

The main reason not to open borders with civ A is that you prevent your friends that hate civ A to ask you that. (If you refuse, your friends won't like it and if you do, civ A won't like it even more.)

That reason is indeed a reason.

Essentially, it helps to figure out who has who as a Worst Enemy and also to predict future changes. For example, if an AI recently founded a Religion and converted to it, who they treat as their Worst Enemy and who treats them as a Worst Enemy may change over time, as religious hatred builds up, so it's important to watch for these potential shifts in diplomacy and hence the shifts of who is whose Worst Enemy.


Those of us who kept Alex alive have a good situation, as many of the AIs in our game hate Alex and thus as long as we don't trade Open Borders with Alex, as you suggest, those AIs will not ask us to stop trading with their Worst Enemy.


What I am saying is that the converse is true--if, for example, no one treats Saladin as their Worst Enemy, you could feasibly Open Borders with Saladin, since no one will complain to you about the fact that you have done so.

HOWEVER, you will have then let Saladin into "your club." If Saladin has a Worst Enemy, Saladin will now be free to ask you to stop trading with his Worst Enemy, who just might happen to be another AI that you are trading with. BUT, if you don't even Open Borders with Saladin, when his programming tells him to randomly talk with you, he will be far more likely (I won't say 100% likely, but anecdotal evidence states that he is much more likely) to ask you to Open Borders with him, rather than asking you to stop trading with his Worst Enemy.

As long as you can get sufficient Foreign Trade Routes from other AIs, then you can keep your borders closed with Saladin. Since he will be far less likely to complain to you about Trading with his Worst Enemy, he won't get angry at you over time for that fact. Getting positive Diplo modifiers for Opening Borders is quick and can be done at a later time. However, getting rid of negative Diplo modifiers for having traded with an AI's Worst Enemy takes a LONG TIME to wear off, and chances are that they'll ask you a second time before the first negative Diplo modifier has worn off.

You won't get the negatives for trading with worst enemies from open borders, that's worth almost nothing for that.

What you're talking about here is a different, although also important, concept. What we were talking about above is negative Diplo modifiers for:
You refused to stop trading with our worst enemy.

What you are talking about now is a different negative Diplo modifier:
You have traded with our worst enemy.


Those two negative Diplo modifiers can co-exist side-by-side, further increasing the level of hatred that an AI feels towards you.

As you said, though, this second negative Diplo modifier isn't generally associated with Open Borders but tends to be more associated with tech trades. That said, it is possible to accumulate this second negative Diplo modifier if you have considerably more Cities than the AI that you Open Borders with if that AI is the Worst Enemy of another AI at the time that you start the Open Borders agreement. Consider this point more to be an exception to the rule, though, that might not be worth worrying too much about--if you're that far ahead, chances are that you're already winning anyway.

I'd assume that each demand has its frequency (probability each turn) independent of other demands, but that's sth to check in the code.

Sure, if a code-digger wants to prove me right or wrong (and even teach us where to look in the code), I'm all ears. My comments are based on anecdotal evidence from having played many games.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Dhoomstriker: Total war. (Well, almost total ). Amazing performance, you should place your turns on youtube.
Don’t understand what your plan was. War to the end, while we don’t have siege and sufficient production at home?

Not total war, and on purpose. We have Foreign Trade Routes with Saladin and can get more with Zara once Currency comes in, one turn from now.


Peter, Alex, and Darius are completely marginalized. At best, they'll build a couple of more Cities each, which will serve to:
a) Block Zara and Saladin from getting too large
AND
b) Give us potential locations to capture or raze later, for additional Gold, additional experience for our more advanced Armies which we will build at some point in the future (we'll be able to build War Elephants thanks to owning Ivory, for example), additional free Workers, and potential enemies to get positive Diplo modifiers with Zara or Saladin, by asking one of those two AIs to join in the war


From here, we can purpose pretty much any victory condition--even Cultural is not out, since there will only be 2 AIs that will be seriously competing for Wonders, which will allow us to build some of our own.

Cow/copper site not settled, so all units will come from Babylon, but it needs to work cottages to keep us afloat.

Have you seen some of the other locations? Cow + Copper seems to be a pretty junky location compared to the others that we have. For example, we can resettle Darius' old capital 1W to get his Riverside Cow, his Cottaged Dyes, and a GOLD Resource.

We also have two sources of Iron (Iron + Fish and Moscow), so there isn't much need for a Copper Resource, anyway.

Babylon could go back to working Mines instead of Cottages at any time, but I decided to work the Cottages for now so as to grow the City into its Happiness cap.

We are set up with many Cities which COULD stay on an economic path or COULD switch to building a Barracks and more Military Units. The economy has been balanced and will start to take off after a turn, once Currency is in.

By hitting Peter and Darius you secured to yourself half of the continent.

Indeed, and it is an area that is well-blocked-off from both Saladin and Zara. That's partially why Peter still has a City--if I razed that City, Saladin would just settle there. We can instead capture or raze and rebuild (in a slightly different location) that City later, once we've built a couple of Courthouses in our other Cities.

Peter is essentially a "placeholder" for saving us that area to settle one decent City or two acceptable Cities (one for the Fish and another for the Horse + Sheep + Stone).

Your save would be the best if you did not attack Justinian after that. My guess you got no choice: needed gold from pillage/city capture.

Indeed, we needed to pillage Justinian's lands just to stay afloat. However, it was a temporary measure, and with our large number of maturing Cottages, Currency in the bag, and Code of Laws coming up soon, we no longer are required to keep pillaging Justinian's lands.

Crippling Justinian's fieldable armies to be just Archers and taking down his capital have made him very weak. The plan would simply be to stay at war with him only and slowly eat away at his Cities using the odd Swordsman and our remaining Chariots. There is no rush to capture his Cities, but we'll want to stay at war just to avoid him reconnecting his Horse Resource or settling by and connecting-up another Strategic Resource.

Constantinople with 2 workable tiles, surrounded by enemy territory – not worth it IMO even with 5 gold shrine.

It's pretty great. It gives us The Great Walll, so Barbs are no longer a threat to our relatively-AI-free eastern area.

It gives us the Buddhist Shrine, which means that the City provides more income than it costs our empire in Maintenace Costs.

It comes with a Lighthouse and an improved Clam, so it's got some decent Food that can help to whip out some buildings.

We're making 6 Culture there per turn, mostly thanks to Buddhism having been founded there, so those "only 2 squares" will quickly expand to multiple squares within a short period of time.

Justinian is still strong and way more advanced then we are, so we need keep pumping troops and send them there to defend city and attack Thessalonica, with all tiles pillaged. Signing peace at current situation would not be good too IMO.

While I agree that Peace is not a good choice with Justinian, I do not see how his tech level will help him, unless he gets Feudalism.

Until he gets Feudalism, all of the tech in the world won't help him out, as his Ivory and Horse have been pillaged, his Iron has been captured (although it is still within his borders, he won't build a Mine there, since it is within our City's radius), and even the Barbs are harassing him now that he lost The Great Wall.

If anything, we can just continue to pick away at his Archers in the open on flat terrain, racking up Great General points and more "credit" for us to be able to get better techs from him for Peace in the future. That means that it is actually a GREAT THING that he is a bit more technologically advanced, as we can count on getting a good tech or two out of him in the future when we finally sign Peace with him.


I see no reason to spam troops at an AI that can only field Archers--we simply just have to keep an eye on his Strategic Resources every few turns, make sure that Workers aren't improving said Strategic Resources, and then pick off his Archers in flat terrain every few turns.

At worst, he'll start fielding some Catapults. If we can get Horseback Riding in trade, then Catapults will become a joke, as a Chariot or two that get upgraded to Horsemen will eat Catapults (and Archers in the same stack) alive. Even having the odd Swordsman will marginalize the value of any Catapults that Justinian will be able to field.

Almost all techs we can trade now – for peace. Forget about tech trading after that.

Not true. While trading with Peter and Darius won't happen, they only have 1 City each and thus they aren't going to be good long-term tech-trading partners.

If we capture all of Justinian's Cities but one of them (instead of razing some of them), then we'll only have a -3 Diplo modifier with him, since we didn't declare war on any of his friends. -3 is easy enough to overcome, so he'd even be willing to trade with us in the future after a war.

Zara and Saladin are still on good trading terms with us and they are going to be the tech leaders in the medium term, so we're set up well in that regard.

After all this hard work you have done, I don’t see advantage of situation besides having St.Petersburg and Moscow – 2 excellent cities and Peter and Darius been crippled.

You don't see the advantage of only having 2 main opponents that are capable of beating us but who are also on reasonable terms with us and will trade with us?

You don't see the advantage of controlling enough land to settle a total of more than double the number of Cities which the next closest AI competitor will have room to build?

You don't see the advantage of owning The Great Wall under such circumstances, so that the Barbs don't come back to bite us for leaving a lot of land unsettled until we can get some Courthouses built?

Btw Athens is even better city (and closer to our capital), if it could use its pigs.

Meh, Alex built us yet another City that we can capture relatively easily. It's in a nice location and doing so would give us our Pig back.

In fact, we can declare war immediately, if we wanted to do so, but I was waiting until we got Currency, so that we could get Peace with the others, so that the combined War Weariness would not affect us adversely. It won't be "combined" War Weariness once we get Peace with both Darius and Peter.

May be earliest possible conquest/domination is possible here

I really think that any victory condition is quite possible. Then again, I would say the same for all victory conditions from anyone's save after this round, with the exception of early-game Cultural for the other saves.

As I see it, we got no choice but keep fighting without sufficient income and production.

I see no need to keep spamming troops and I think that it would be a mistake to do so.

Now is the time to keep moderate pressure on Justinian, so that he doesn't connect any Strategic Resources, but otherwise, we can ignore him.

We should focus on the economy with our other Cities, so that we can get to a sufficient tech level to be able to take down Zara and Saladin easily. Or else keep them alive as great tech trading partners and go for one of Space, Diplo, or Cultural Victories.

This save is no doubt a most interesting one.

I think that it will be fun for me to continue from someone else's game (it looks like it will be yours) and see if I can't create yet another "interesting" position over the course of the next turnset.

 

[Fierabras]

@Dhoomstriker

Can you explain why I don't have foreign trade routes? Is it because I opened borders rather late?

 

[Yamps]

@Dhoom

So many words to read...you'd be welcomed in my sgotm team anyday!

@drlake

- I am not sure that I understand why you have Open Borders with everybody. Opening Borders with an AI should be a strategic decision, not something that gets done automatically as soon as you or they learn Writing. In this game, you have "picked sides" by going Buddhist. That's fine, but it means that you should probably close your borders with any AI that has a Buddhist AI as their Worst Enemy. Yes, you won't get +2 over time for sharing Open Borders, but you also won't be accumulating so many negative "You Traded with our Worst Enemy" Diplo modifiers. The only "good" thing that has come out of the situation is that you are now the Worst Enemy of THREE AIs, so they will stop asking you to stop trading with someone else--since they don't hate anyone more than they hate you! Of course, that means that you are Public Enemy #1 for those AIs...

I took it from here that you meant that OB cause "You've traded with our worst enemies!"

Getting positive Diplo modifiers for Opening Borders is quick and can be done at a later time. However, getting rid of negative Diplo modifiers for having traded with an AI's Worst Enemy takes a LONG TIME to wear off, and chances are that they'll ask you a second time before the first negative Diplo modifier has worn off.

You repeat it here as well, you probably mean the "You refused to stop trading with our worst enemy" hit. For OB it's 25 turns for +1, it's not that quick btw. I had to check for the other thing, it should be 1:150 each turn that they'll forget about you refusing the demand and that's your point.

HOWEVER, you will have then let Saladin into "your club." If Saladin has a Worst Enemy, Saladin will now be free to ask you to stop trading with his Worst Enemy, who just might happen to be another AI that you are trading with. BUT, if you don't even Open Borders with Saladin, when his programming tells him to randomly talk with you, he will be far more likely (I won't say 100% likely, but anecdotal evidence states that he is much more likely) to ask you to Open Borders with him, rather than asking you to stop trading with his Worst Enemy.

I'm questioning this one, but that's sth to check in the code...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

And I would love to have discussion on plans before we play 3rd round.

Grow Bablyon one more population point and then work two more Mines (the GHRiv square is about to get a Mine) and see if we can't complete the Mausoleum. After that, rehire 2 Scientists in Babylon until we get the next Great Person, then fire them and work Cottages.

A Great Scientist could be used on either an Academy in Babylon or on Lightbulbing Philosophy, if we tech either Drama or Code of Laws within a reasonable timeframe.


Since we're already on the path to Literature, we could keep researching it and build The Great Library in Babylon.

Or, we could research Currency, which won't be great trade bait (but Literature is even worse in that regard). That said, Currency would likely get us at least 1 other tech in trade, possibly 2 other techs in trade, while Literature won't likely get us anything in trade.

If we go for Currency, then I'd finish off Literature next.

After Literature, as long as we have a monopoly on it, we could research Drama, so that our second Great Scientist (preferably our third one, if we're going to build The Great Library in Babylon, which would mean that we'd want an Academy there) can be used to Lightbulb Philosophy.

Then learn Music, to partner up with the Mausoleum for a long Golden Age at the time of our choosing.

If Literature has been taken, we can skip Drama for now and beeline Music, if we think that we can be first to it. Otherwise, we can just skip Drama and Music and get Code of Laws next, then Lightbulb Philosophy.

If we do get Music, we'd next go for Code of Laws.

After all of that, we'd go for Civil Service, for Bureaucracy and a HOPEFULLY Cottage-worked capital by that point.


Stop building The Pyramids in Sparta.


From here, we can either gear up for war against Peter (hoping that Darius will attack him, too) or else we can keep buiding Marble-based Wonders for Failure Gold.

Either way, we should spread out our Military Units to Cities that could use an increase to their Happiness cap, while sending most of our troops next to an AI that we will likely attack next (Peter would be my suggestion).

Build a Spear or two in case Darius goes after us (since he'll build a lot of Immortals, which are really just regular Chariots if you don't have Archers) and place them in a border City next to Darius.


It's up to you as to whether or not you'll expand to a couple more City locations, such as the Fish + Sheep location, but it might not be a bad idea to do so, as Fish is likely going to be a tradeable Resource on a Pangaea map, which could net us another useful Resource in trade.


Keep spreading Buddhism, with an emphasis on Cities in this order:
1. Building a Wonder
2. Building a Building now or in the near future
3. Already have a different Religion


That's all assuming that GKey's game is the one that we will continue from...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

@Dhoomstriker

Can you explain why I don't have foreign trade routes? Is it because I opened borders rather late?

You don't have Sailing, so Trade Routes along Rivers won't work.

They won't work along the Coast, but since you haven't explored the Coast towards any AI Cities, having Sailing wouldn't be a sufficient condition to give you Trade Routes there anyway.

Therefore, you'll need to connect your Road to an AI's Road network.

I suggest that after Babylon's Wine gets a Road that you build a Road on the PRiv square SW + SW of Bablyon. That would be adjacent to Zara's Road and you'd then have access to Foreign Trade Routes. Well, to at least 1 City's worth of them, and more of them if that City of Zara's is connected to his other Cities.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

You repeat it here as well

Yes, it looks like I confused the two negative Diplo modifiers when I wrote my original comments.

It was only in responding to your query that I really thought about them as being distinct.

I apologise for any confusion that I may have caused.

So many words to read...you'd be welcomed in my sgotm team anyday!

Oddly enough, that was the opposite feedback of my last SGOTM team ("too many words!").

I'm questioning this one, but that's sth to check in the code...

Go ahead and question it, and even prove it wrong, if you can. I'd love to hear about when my playstyle can be improved by doing something differently than what I believe is a good approach.

What I said makes logical sense, but we all know that not every concept in Civ appears to be backed by logic...

 

[Fierabras]

Thanks, Dhoomstriker. I can't believe I missed that. I assumed there was at least one road to another civ.

 

[Yamps]

Oddly enough, that was the opposite feedback of my last SGOTM team ("too many words!").

Hehe...while getting the point briefly definitely has value, you obviously have the enthusiasm and a lot to say as well, that's what I was getting at.

 

[drlake]

Try it out. What you'll see is that an AI will try repeatedly to get you to Open Borders with them, assuming that they don't hate you too much to do so.

SOOOOOOOOOO... instead of an AI asking you to stop Trading with their Worst Enemy, they will come to you asking to Open Borders with them.

This request for Opening Borders with them will REPLACE other such requests that they might have made. I'm not sure if they can still ask you to stop trading with others, but if they can still ask you to stop trading with others, they'll ask you to do so a lot less frequently, since they will be so busy with asking you to Open Borders with them.


Once you Open Borders with an AI, it's like you have "accepted" them into "your club," and once they have their foot in the door, they can be as noisy and cantankerous as they want about other members that you have allowed to join "your club." But, if they aren't a member, they'll spend most (all?) of their time begging you to join your "awesome club," instead of complaining about who the other members are.


Yet another tidbit that was worth the price of admission...

Wow, that is awesome! I always just go OB as a matter of course, for the trade routes and to explore, but this may make me rethink things a bit.

 

[drlake]

Hmm, I also never thought of there being any advantages to staying in an early war with an AI, but with war weariness largely not a factor I guess I can see why it may make more sense to stay at war than either make peace or finish them off.

 

[GKey]

Turn 3 possible strategies.

@dhoomstriker I would prefer more then 2 food surplus in Babylon before hiring specs there. It means delaying next GS by 5-6 turns though. If not go directly for Music I expect getting CoL in about 20-25 turns and 2nd GS will bulb Philo. MoM might be there with current production and chopping in less then 10 turns.

What I would not like to do is getting Great Library in Babylon. This city can be decent commerce or production, but no GPfarm. That's why I've made academy in Athens and going to build GLib and NE there, using its forests.

The question is what would be the best site for HE.

Another question is should we run for Currency/CoL ASAP or spend ~20 turns for Music. I hope trade for these, but being first to Music is very tempting with MoM.

As long as we don't need slider to adjust happiness, I consider Drama to be a waste and prefer CoL for bulbing Philo.

Btw IIRC extorting techs from AI for peace count towards WFYBTA? Need keep this in mind too.

Would be nice to time possible GA with necessary civic switches. And even more nice to have bigger empire by then.

So I am leaning to beeline Music, trade for currency/CoL with it and then lightbulb Philo.

Does academy multiply science output of specs? That was my thinking when I made academy in Athens. Is it worth to make fill in city near Athens, which will mature its cottages, while Athens runs specs?

What about move capital to Athens, once CS is in? With GLib, Academy and matured cottages it will be a great cap.

I will gladly stop building pyramids in Sparta once it will have something better to build instead.

I want keep our small stuck where it is for possible future wars with Zara or Peter. City's can build bowmen to fight unhappiness for now.

Opinions, advises are most welcome!

 

[GKey]

IIRC, AI can make all sorts of demands, while not having OB with you. Especially Catherine (luckily we got Peter instead)

 

[Dhoomstriker]

IIRC, AI can make all sorts of demands, while not having OB with you. Especially Catherine (luckily we got Peter instead)

I guess the actual situation needs to be looked at in its full context.

If, for example, an AI is Furious with you, for most AIs, that means that offering an Open Borders agreement is not even an option for them.

So, in such a situation, not having Open Borders with them will not encourage them to ask you to Open Borders with them, since they will be unable to do so, and thus their original demand will still be asked for.


That's not to say that AIs can't demand things when they are ABLE to ask for Open Borders and do not have Open Borders, but it does make you want to pay more attention to future situations with a critical eye, to analyze a bit closer "what makes the AIs tick (a.k.a. how do the AIs work)."

 

[kossin]

Round 3

Overwhelmingly, the second round's selected save by you is

***********
* GKey******
***********

Save Here

Feel free to discuss the coming turns and play at your leisure. As for the previous rounds, this set will be 50 turns and go up to about Monday 0:00 GMT, where voting commences.

Anyone that has not participated in the previous rounds is welcome to join in the fun now!

Keep going at it guys, you are making good progress on this one. These 50 turns should be sufficient to place you in a position from where winning should be more or less trivial

The next round will probably be to the end and then we can start another game.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Turn 3 possible strategies.

@dhoomstriker I would prefer more then 2 food surplus in Babylon before hiring specs there. It means delaying next GS by 5-6 turns though.

Actually, I was suggesting that we delay hiring Scientists in Babylon until after the Mausoleum is built, so that we can first focus on Hammer-producing squares, then hiring Scientists after we're getting the +2 GPP per turn from owning the Mausoleum. Yes, there will be a small chance of getting a Great Artist instead, but you'll make more efficient use out of the +2 GPP that way. Plus, you'll have a better chance to actually be the one to build the Mausoleum if you focus on Hammering it out ASAP.

If not go directly for Music I expect getting CoL in about 20-25 turns and 2nd GS will bulb Philo. MoM might be there with current production and chopping in less then 10 turns.

Music is just an option. However, if it looks like we will have a really good chance of being the first to get it, it can be worthwhile pursuing, especially if we manage to complete the Mausoleum.

What I would not like to do is getting Great Library in Babylon. This city can be decent commerce or production, but no GPfarm. That's why I've made academy in Athens and going to build GLib and NE there, using its forests.

Okay, that's a fair point, but if we do so, then I do not think that we should move the capital to Athens. We should really build more Farms there and then plan to hire as many Specialists as possible after The Great Library and The National Epic are both complete.

The question is what would be the best site for HE.

Of our existing Cities pre-Civil-Service, I would say Nippur, our Cow + Copper + Deer City in the east.

After Civil Service, I would say our Cow + Copper City, just to the east of our capital, but we might not want to wait that long.

If you can get a Settler out soon, then I'd probably say it would be best to put a City to the NW of Athens and use that City. Make it NW + NW + N of Athens, 1N of the PHIron square. If we can grow the City to Size 5 (we can temporarily borrow Athen's Pig), then we can stagnate the City pre-Civil-Service such that it will make 16 Hammers per turn.

After Civil Service, at City Size 8, it could make 20 Hammers per turn.

Another question is should we run for Currency/CoL ASAP or spend ~20 turns for Music. I hope trade for these, but being first to Music is very tempting with MoM.

As long us we don't need slider to adjust happiness, I consider Drama to be a waste and prefer CoL for bulbing Philo.

Drama is kind of the middle ground here. Drama should allow us to trade for some techs like Currency. You have to be careful about the timing of when you trade Drama, as you might put Music at risk if you trade it too soon, but getting Currency will speed up the research on Music, so I'd probably say trade for Currency partway through learning Music for the best net effect.

HOWEVER, if building the Mausoleum nets us a Great ARTIST, then researching both Literature and Drama allows us to Lightbulb Music with our Great Artist, getting us a free Great Artist, essentially giving us Music for free!

So, getting a Great Artist as our second Great Person thanks to building the Mausoleum is not really a bad deal.

Btw IIRC extorting techs from AI for peace count towards WFYBTA? Need keep this in mind too.

While true, I kept that fact in mind in my game. I manually researched Hunting and Mysticism, instead of trading for them, so the WFYABTA values are still relatively low. I'm not sure what they are like in your game... can you list which techs you got in trade?

Would be nice to time possible GA with necessary civic switches. And even more nice to have bigger empire by then.

So I am leaning to beeline Music, trade for currency/CoL with it and then lightbulb Philo.

Sounds fair, but you probably won't get Code of Laws in trade unless you get the AI that learned it up to Friendly relations.

Does academy multiply science output of specs?

Yes it does.

That was my thinking when I made academy in Athens. Is it worth to make fill in city near Athens, which will mature its cottages, while Athens runs specs?

Not really. If you're going to build The Great Library in Athens, it probably even makes sense to tear up the Cottages there and replace them with Farms.

The more Food that you can get there, the better.

Leave our capital where it is so that we won't worry about losing the Bureaucracy bonus for Cottages--you would have to worry if you dual-purposed Athens as both a Great Person Farm and a capital. Usually, you want to avoid doing both, but sometimes it can make sense to build The Great Library in a Bureaucratic capital that builds multiple other Wonders, since you'll be using Wonders (like the Mausoleum) instead of Specialists to generate your Great People Points.

However, since Athens does not have any Wonders, it's not a good location for such a hybrid City and you should give it only one single focus:
a) All Farms, The Great Library, and hire Specialists after both The Great Library and The National Epic have been built there
OR
b) A ton more Cottages, move the Palace there, but no Great Library and no National Epic there

What about move capital to Athens, once CS is in? With GLib, Academy and matured cottages it will be a great cap.

I just answered that question. Make a choice (Great Person Farm or new capital) but don't choose to do both. Chase 2 rabbits and you'll end up as the fox's dinner.

I will gladly stop building pyramids in Sparta once it will have something better to build instead.

- The Parthenon?
- Stop building The Temple of Artemis in Babylon and build it in Sparta?
- Another Worker?

All of those items would be better if the plan is not to complete The Pyramids.

I want keep our small stuck as it us for possible future wars with Zara or Peter. City's can build bowmen to fight unhappiness for now.

I'm not sure that I understand what you meant. Do you mean to leave the army in the middle of nowhere where it is currently location or do you just mean keep all of our offensive military units together instead of retiring them to be Military Police?

If you're serious about going to war, put the stack on your War Target's border and be prepared to fight said AI as soon as war breaks out.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Thanks, Dhoomstriker. I can't believe I missed that. I assumed there was at least one road to another civ.

You weren't the only one. I only realized this fact at about Turn 85.

At that point, I decided that it would have been unfair to Reload to an earlier point to execute THOSE Worker actions, since building a Road to connect up Trade Routes was outside of the scope of my "reloading to see which improvements were the best to build" experiment.

So, I, too, suffered with only having Domestic Trade Routes for most of my turnset.

 

[GKey]

The list of traded techs is in my 50turns post. IIRC I traded for Alpha, IW, Math, Sailing, Monarchy, Monotheism and Calendar.

Regarding Sparta:

- The Parthenon?
- Stop building The Temple of Artemis in Babylon and build it in Sparta?
- Another Worker?

All of those items would be better if the plan is not to complete The Pyramids.

With its poor production chance of getting any wonder there is tiny. I build Mids there for failure gold ofc. Parthenon I plan in Babylon after MoM.

I always wanted to know what happens when you remove wonder from build queue in one city and start it in another. Will you receive failure gold in both? If so that's what should be done. Cancel ToA in Babylon and start it in Sparta.
Not worker there for now, I want it to grove up to happy cap and work all these FP cottages and run specs. I do need more workers though. Hope to capture some soon.

Since Zara most likely will be my next target, I keep army near his borders. You prefer Peter, but he got construction and is going to be harder to beat. Plus Zara got some nice cities near Babylon, asking to be captured. If Darius declares on Peter that will change the plans.

@drlake
I thought, you liked the idea of having proposing plans before round, then play out most popular plan. Where is yours?

@all
More opinions , more suggestions , more plans - more fun!