Improving on Monarch level

[Seraiel]

Drafting doesn' have better conversion rates, it got conversion rates that are unmatched by any other scenario in a game. Not just with Muskets, with them, drafting is only slightly better than whipping with Forges and PS, but Draft-Rifles are a game changer. Look at the later posts of Replay #8, I take over a Huge Terra map with Rifles, Cavs, Airships and Spies.

Happiness is an issue, but with keeping the citiea small, it's usually possible to draft at least 2 times / city. Don't forget that while getting -3 for every draft, you also lose 1 pop, so it's actually only -2.

Replay #9, whi h is on a Large Boreal map also demonstrates the power of drafting Rifles, while combining them with Cavs, Airships and Spies. That combination makes up for extrem fast Conquest, and I havn' met an AI that could defend against it, unless i. e. 500y later, but then oneself also has better weapons.

 

[Pangaea]

One advantage whipping has over drafting, however, is that the cities can be smaller, which means they are easier/faster to regrow. You can do for instance 4->2 whipping cycles. But to be able to draft, the city must be size 6, and then it naturally takes a little more time for it to regrow as well. Drafting Rifles is incredibly good though, and nothing in the game can beat it. You can of course also draft from different cities, you're not limited to just three, and you can draft 3 times per turn on normal speed. So in ten turns, you can have a 30-Rifle stack. Not easy to defend against that

 

[Todelotti]

Economics is finished and free Great Merchant born. Together with the GS from NE city we could start a GA. But if I understood correctly we want to use the GA to switch to State Property, so we have to wait until Scientific Method->Communism is done, right?

In any case, the question is what to research now? Options are (aside from Scientific Method that Mansa will research for us but he still has 9 turns to research):

- Nationalism
- Replacable Parts
- Astronomy
- Military Science

Another question: I have invited Ramesses and (his vassal) Mansa into the war against BurgerKing - to further improve relationship and to direct them to a city that geographically fits much better to Ramesses or Mansa anyway so I don't have to care about this city. On a second thought I was unsure if that was a smart decision: What if BurgerKing agrees to become a vassal of Ramesses? I don't want that because I'd like to capture 2 cities more. Is it possible that BK accepts immediately (or after only a few turns) to be Ramesses' vassal? Or can this happen after 10 (or x) turns earliest because BK refuses to talk for 10 turns after the DoW from Ramesses?

 

[Seraiel]

Go Nationalism.

For BK to vassal to Ramesses, Ramesses must first kill quite a lot of units or take a city, dont worry.

 

[elitetroops]

I had a look at the Oxford save and learned something new. Max amount of overflow you can get from a build, before hammers are turned into gold, is not equal to the hammer cost of the build. Max overflow is the amount of base hammers required by the city to build the build. With the setup you had, 75 hammers overflow into Oxford was the maximum you could possibly get, no matter how many hammers you worked and how well those whips were set up. (Last whipped build costs 150 hammers, capital has +100% hammer modifier for building buildings, the cost in base hammers for capital is 75.) A lot of the overflow from your whips was converted into gold instead of Oxford hammers.

One important rule of chain whipping is to do the whips in order from smallest build to largest. In this case whipping Uni last allows 100 overflow hammers instead of just 75. That's still not quite enough and several hammers would be turned into gold.

The best I could do from your save was to have Oxford up 5 turns later. t0-whip market, t1-whip uni, t2-overflow into Oxford, t3-whip grocer, t4-overflow into Oxford, t5-Oxford done. I dump the hammers into Oxford after the second whip to reset overflow. Otherwise every single overflow hammer from grocer whip would be turned into gold, as the overflow stack is already full. With one more mine (or by working an engineer) you could do it in exactly the same time without even whipping the grocer. Just whip market, whip uni, overflow into Oxford and it's done 2 turns later.

 

[Seraiel]

I'd propose that Lotti replays those 3 moves. Producing large amounts of Gold was definitely not intended, and none of us did exactly know how whip-stacking works (@ plz don't name this method Chain-whipping, as that could be understood completely different. Say “whip-stacking“ or “whip-cascades“ ) 'til now.

 

[elitetroops]

Oxford could also be up in 4 turns from the save. t0 whip market or grocer, t1 whip uni, t2 overflow into Oxford, t3 whip Oxford, t4 Oxford done. You need to work max hammers the first 3 turn to make the Oxford whip a 2 pop whip. You lose a few hammers for whipping a wonder, but you gain >100 beakers for one more turn of Oxford, assuming you can keep slider up for a while. The market/grocer that isn't whipped can be finished by slowbuilding later.

 

[Pangaea]

I had a look at the Oxford save and learned something new. Max amount of overflow you can get from a build, before hammers are turned into gold, is not equal to the hammer cost of the build. Max overflow is the amount of base hammers required by the city to build the build. With the setup you had, 75 hammers overflow into Oxford was the maximum you could possibly get, no matter how many hammers you worked and how well those whips were set up. (Last whipped build costs 150 hammers, capital has +100% hammer modifier for building buildings, the cost in base hammers for capital is 75.) A lot of the overflow from your whips was converted into gold instead of Oxford hammers.

One important rule of chain whipping is to do the whips in order from smallest build to largest. In this case whipping Uni last allows 100 overflow hammers instead of just 75. That's still not quite enough and several hammers would be turned into gold.

The best I could do from your save was to have Oxford up 5 turns later. t0-whip market, t1-whip uni, t2-overflow into Oxford, t3-whip grocer, t4-overflow into Oxford, t5-Oxford done. I dump the hammers into Oxford after the second whip to reset overflow. Otherwise every single overflow hammer from grocer whip would be turned into gold, as the overflow stack is already full. With one more mine (or by working an engineer) you could do it in exactly the same time without even whipping the grocer. Just whip market, whip uni, overflow into Oxford and it's done 2 turns later.

Great finding elitetroops It doesn't conform with how I thought it worked, based on seeing many hammers overflow, but perhaps I've misunderstood the mechanic because I haven't pushed it so far as this.

So because the capital now gets +100% multipliers (OR, Forge, Buro), you effectively can only have half the building's cost as OF. But how do others 1-turn Oxford then? Because I have seen that happen. Probably in SGOTMs and the like. Is that due to chops on top of OF then?

 

[elitetroops]

Probably chops, yes. With 100 overflow from uni and bureau+OR+forge+stone, only 100 hammers are missing from Oxford. One chop is enough to take care of that, as long as the capital itself can produce 4 base hammers.

I hadn't bumped into this problem either earlier. I tested it in BUFFY as well and it seems to work the same way there.

Not that it matters much, but max overflow turned into hammers is the exact amount of hammers required to build the current build with current modifiers, rounded down. For example, you build uni with bureau, OR, forge and SP for +110% hammer modifier. The cost of university with those modifiers is 95.238 base hammers. To finish the build, you need 96 hammers, but you can get only 95 overflow hammers.

 

[Todelotti]

Oxford could also be up in 4 turns from the save. t0 whip market or grocer, t1 whip uni, t2 overflow into Oxford, t3 whip Oxford, t4 Oxford done. You need to work max hammers the first 3 turn to make the Oxford whip a 2 pop whip. You lose a few hammers for whipping a wonder, but you gain >100 beakers for one more turn of Oxford, assuming you can keep slider up for a while. The market/grocer that isn't whipped can be finished by slowbuilding later.

I've done it this way now plus an additional 24-hammer chop that made Oxford a 1-pop-whip. Normally 2-pop is prefered but in this case the 1-pop was not bad I think because we want to let the capital grow as fast as possible back to its former size. The earlier Oxford allowed indeed to finish Nationalism and Economics 2 or 3 turns faster. I tried to follow your earlier explanations with a piece of paper and I believe I got it Thanks for the detailed analysis!

After replaying around 10 turns after the Oxford whip I'm almost back at my old date in game. Regarding research the game took basically the same route as before: Mansa researching Scientific Method now and I have finished Nationalism and Economics and the question is again how to continue with research. I have attached my current tech tree (everything to the left is researched). The options are:

- Constitution
- Military Tradition
- Replacable Parts (I'v put it into the queue but no beaker invested yet)
- Astronomy
- Scientific Method (Mansa is researching that for us right now)
- Military Science

As far as I could see for the space race we must have Replacable Parts, Astronomy and Scientific Method and even Constitution (for Corporation->Assembly Line) but we could skip MT and MS. Or are we interested in those as well? Generally what is the next big milestone on our way to the space colony? Or do we just need to research everything that leads to a spaceship part finally and it doesn't matter anymore in which order we do that?

 

[Pangaea]

At this point I'd say the normal approach is to go for either Communism for State Property, or Mining/Medicine (plus pre-reqs) for Corporations, and then explode in tech on the back of those choices. You can also go SP first, and then shift to Corps later, enjoying the fruits of Communism/SP first. Usually you don't want to tech Military Tradition or Military Science in a space race, but rather trade for them later. You have cannons now, so you don't really need MT and Cuirs. Cannons will tear apart everything you face for a rather long time. And you can clean up with just about anything, and certainly elephants, maces, muskets and knights.

SciMeth is an expensive tech. Do you have enough to get it in trade with Mansa? Once you get SciMeth, I'd probably go with Communism here. Since you can't tech that before Mansa does it for you, maybe Replaceable Parts is the best, as you want that sooner or later anyway. Usually you can get Constitution from the AI, as they love to go up towards the hated Emancipation/Democracy.

How long before Mansa is done with SM?

 

[elitetroops]

Well done!

I haven't been following this thread very closely, don't know what kind of endgame plan you have discussed. For a space race there's mainly 2 different strategies. State Property or Corporations.

With State Property, Guilds, Chemistry and Caste, your dry grassland tiles are producing 2f4h, and plains tiles 1f5h, which allows insane production with a large empire. Often so much that you can build wealth until you are breaking even with slider at 100% and still build a ton of research on top of that. State property also eliminates distance upkeep from all your cities, which makes a large empire much cheaper to run.

Corporations also allow insane production, often even more than State Property, and very large cities for running specialists, with mining and sushi/cereal corps. How much production and food you get depends on how many resources you have. Corporations do take a while to set up, and they cost a lot in maintenance, which makes it quite a lot more micro intense. Very strong results can be reached with both the Corps and the SP path.

Where to head next would depend on how you've planned to go on from here. If there's still a lot of warring to do, then Rifling could be the next target. Drafting rifles is ridiculously strong, you'd very quickly have an army that can conquer the entire world. If you already are strong enough with cannons+whatever, then you'd be heading for communism or the corporation techs (Railroad&Medicine). As Mansa is teching SciMeth, it's probably a good idea not to tech it yourself, but trade instead. So I'd say go Replacable parts, no matter what. If you head for State Property, it's good to have to boost your watermills (SP also boosts those), and if you are heading for Corps, it's needed for Railroad. Another option could be Corporation, though you should delay that if you have the Great Lighthouse. Don't know if you do. And it's a tech you usually can trade for.

Seraiel might totally disagree, he has a better idea of what is going on in your game.

You are right that MT and MS are not needed, you should not waste beakers on those.

Xpost with Pangaea, apparently we agree.

 

[jackelgull]

What happened with liberalism? Last thing I remember is that you decided to hold off researching to bulb a later tech. Have you already used it?

 

[Todelotti]

SciMeth is an expensive tech. Do you have enough to get it in trade with Mansa? ... How long before Mansa is done with SM?

Mansa finishes SciMeth in 5 turns. At the moment I could give him Nationalism, Banking, Education and/or Steel. It might be possible that he will be trading Banking with Zara before. But I think trading options are still OK. I also had invested a few beakers (485/3588) into SciMeth earlier before I saw that he went that way. So, I will get it a bit cheaper than normal.

If there's still a lot of warring to do, then Rifling could be the next target.

There is still a war with Charlemagne going on. But it looks that I will be able to finish it with cannons, war elephants and one or the other knight. After that I intend to finish with a peaceful space race as we are only 4 civs on the map then and my direct neighbours are friendly/pleased.

Another option could be Corporation, though you should delay that if you have the Great Lighthouse. Don't know if you do. And it's a tech you usually can trade for.

Yes, I have the GL. I will go Replacable Parts as you both suggested which will probably be finished at the same turn when Mansa has SciMeth. Can trade then and continue with Communism. If I have Replacable Parts earlier than Mansa has SciMeth (depends on when I can conquer Charlemagne's next city and how much gold the city conquest will yield) should I continue with Steam Power then? I guess Communism has priority, so whatever I am researching when I trade for SciMeth with Mansa I should interrupt that research and go straight towards Communism, right?

 

[Todelotti]

What happened with liberalism? Last thing I remember is that you decided to hold off researching to bulb a later tech. Have you already used it?

Hi jackelgull, yes I finished the last turn for Liberalism after I had researched Chemistry and chose Steel as the free tech. We discussed that long, but this was indeed a great move as I really feel VERY comfortable with cannons in my current war against Charlemagne.

 

[Seraiel]

Research Steam Power after RP, but set the slider too 0%, so you save gold, and can research Communism with 100% speed.

And yes, Cannons are funny ^^ I laughed heartly when I played the first time with them, Cannons + Maces + Pikes + Knights + XBows. It's unbelievable what a mess the Cannons leave, after attacking and they bombard a lot faster too.

 

[Todelotti]

Few days break from this game but now continuing!

I just clicked to start the next turn and... oh well, diplomacy again: Mansa is asking me if I'm willing to gift him Steel!

Hm, what to do? Relationship with Mansa is pleased. It might drop to cautious if I reject but I don't think so. Or it might improve to Friendly if I accept. There is also room for +2 additional fair trade points available. Remember, he is vassal of Ramesses and can't declare war on his own anyway. For trading with Mansa besides Steel I have still Economics and Replacable Parts (and soon Communism) in my pocket. He is researching Astronomy for the next 8 turns which we certainly would like to trade with him, I guess.

I'm inclined to accept the request as I don't see a serious threat that he might run away with research or get too powerful by having cannons soon, but I'm not sure if that's the right move.

 

[Pangaea]

DENY. It would be some pretty spectacular events for me to give away such a crucial tech like Steel at that time for free. Mansa won't drop to Cautious either. Getting him to friendly doesn't really do much for you in any case (and this may not be enough), because Mansa already trades everything with you.

 

[Todelotti]

DENY.

Did that! Relationship remains pleased. And just the next diplomatic thing right after that: Zara asked me to convert from Judaism to Hinduism which I denied as well: Ramesses is Jewish, holds the Apostolic Palace and I have already built a lot of Jewish missionaries and temples to spread to my cities and to get the AP hammer bonus. Wouldn't have made any sense to convert, I think.

 

[Todelotti]

Turn 197 - 1370 AD

Time for a new game status update (map screenshot, tech tree and saved game below and attached):

- Communism finished this turn
- Traded for Scientific Method with Mansa
- 4 Great people are available to start a Golden Age: Great Scientist and Great Artist from the NE city, Great Merchant from Economics and Great Spy from Communism
- I'm building the Taj Mahal in Tenochtitlan since a lot of turns. It has 8 turns until completion (can be dropped to 7 or even 6 when I accept shrinking or losing 1 pop). However, I'm building without Marble and Zara and Mansa (who both have Marble) have Nationalism since some time. So, it's possible that they are building Taj as well and will finish it earlier.
- Globe Theatre finished
- Mansa will have Astronomy in 3 turns
- Zara has Constitution but doesn't trade it yet
- War with Charlemagne almost finished - except 1 city on an island

Questions:

- How to continue with research? Steam Power or Biology? Or something else?

- Is it worth it to conquer the last Charlemagne city? It is on an island (see Ulm on that northern 3-tile-island on the map) which is a bit annoying to get there. I initially thought I should go and attack that city as well and have built a mini-fleet in Monty's Grave (1 caravel, 2 Galleys, 1 Trireme) but it's more than 12 turns to even bring this fleet up there and load units, etc. Also, Charlemagne has at least 4 caravels floating around that island. Or is it better to just accept capitulation now? Or make peace and declare later again when I have a few frigates?

- Does it have any value at this stage to settle new cities? There is room for maybe 3 (probably rather small) cities (2 cities with clam and perhaps a double-deer city in the tundra).

- I think we can start a Golden Age NOW. If Zara or Mansa don't beat me Taj Mahal will finish during the Golden Age and double its length (+1 additional turn due to a bug, iirc). Which of my 4 Great People should I invest for the GA? The GS might be valuable to bulb a tech, right? Or are we aiming for another GA later with 3 GP?

- Which civics do we want to change to after starting the GA? State Property+Caste System+Pacifism? And then specialists like hell again?

- Where to build Ironworks? Does it belong to the HE city?

- Are we interested in building the Kremlin and/or Hermitage?

- Where I'm struggling (also in most of my former games) is to decide which buildings are really needed in my cities and when I should better just build wealth. Having the Space Race in mind - that means a lot of research and later space part production - in basically all cities I have built (partially conquered during war) or I am building the following (also roughly in that order):

-- (Culture until first border expansion, if city is conquered)
-- Granary
-- Theatre (sometimes before Granary if city is conquered)
-- Library
-- Forge (sometimes before the Library)
-- Lighthouse (if coastal city)
-- University
-- Jewish temple (+2 hammers for AP temple)
-- Harbor (if coastal city)
-- Grocer (built earlier if health is an issue)
-- Customs house (if coastal city, only in Uruk that has 4 foreign trade routes)
-- Bank (at the moment only in the high commerce cities Nidaros and Uruk)

Not sure if the Market is worth it (except in high commerce cities) because happiness is no problem at all. I have a Market only in Nidaros and Uruk. I'm also not sure how important Courthouses are. Probably not so important with State Property, but should I have built them much earlier to lower maintenance costs until State Property? Are Intelligence Agencies of interest now?

Since 2 or 3 turns I'm building Wealth in my capital because I didn't see anything useful to build anymore.