JFC1: Spacecakes

183 The hawks are quiet, so I started on the path of culture and colonization. We'll have to see, but this may make it difficult to choose war in the future, since F and G will only get stronger. Settled 1E. RFC wanted to call it Groningen, but I had a different idea. We got nice buildings for free. Interesting that we got the Harbor without knowing Compass yet.



I also went into HR, Vassalage, Caste System, and OR.
* Vassalage for better units and better stability with HR. Bureaucracy would be very practical, but we don't have CS yet, wouldn't get the stability from HR+Vassalage, and is a stability- once you get > 5 cities.
* Caste System as much for the workshop hammers as anything else. Slavery has a mild stabilizing effect between BW and Constitution, but actually using Slavery tends to be destabilizing (pop loss, unhappiness) if you're not careful. Without Slavery (and with my diplo :smoke:, read on) we probably should maintain a solid defense for emergencies.
* OR because I'm incurring 2 turns of anarchy anyway, and we have no religion yet, so Theo would be dumb.

Some civs seem to stabler than others. Babylon for example is less stable. That may be entirely due to its small historical area, but there may be other hidden factors as well. I don't know how vigilant the Dutch need to be. So when I talk about stability in this game, my perspective is paranoia (and I've only begun the :smoke:).

Sent one galley up to meet Ragnar and found Scandinavia surprisingly lightly populated:



This was quite unexpected! 2N of the pigs is a very nice spot for "free":



Ragnar is otherwise a good trading partner. In fact when I met him on turn 184 he was the only civ willing to sign OB, and after giving him Monotheism he was Pleased and willing to trade Compass for Guilds. That did get us a -2 from England for worst enemies, not surprising but I saw England as a modest military threat and a just-OK trade partner. Louis would also trade Engineering for Compass + World Map + 10.

I put our other settler on the galley to Scandinavia, but on turn 187 Ragnar beat us there and founded Oslo on "our" tile.

On turn 187 I also met Augustus and had the option of Feudalism for Compass as a first contact trade. Rome is disliked by Vikings and France, but I took it since it was a first contact trade and everyone else had Feudalism. Augustus went to Pleased and signed OB. It got us a -4 worst enemies from France, worse than I expected. :(

Right now on 187 we have a settler and a crossbow on the galley in Denmark. If we want another city in Europe, it looks like our options are:
* Copenhagen
* 1E of the marble with the intention of flipping pigs and iron from Rome. We must be looking at culture from Mediolanum/Milan, 4S of that tile.
* SW of the lake in Sweden, getting one pigs semi-free and fighting Ragnar for the Danish one.
* SE of the lake, getting 1-2 fish + pigs.

I propose to grab SE of the lake on turn 189 and then build a settler and try to grab 1E of the marble. SE of the lake bothers me a bit since it's not on a hill and thus less defensible than Oslo. We will also incur instability from ahistorical tiles, and annoy Ragnar for occupying his historical tiles. But land is land, and for us water is also land. I'll continue tonight. Thoughts?

 

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Ahh so it was the French and Romans at each others throats. Sucks on the diplomacy, but oh well. Maybe we can stir them into war and get on better terms. It would be nice if someone collapses soon and we can grab some rebel cities.

The swedish lake looks nice. It's another port, decent land, and plenty to chop. As long as we keep Ragnar at decent relations we should be alright with him. I've settled that oslo spot a few times as the English and the worst he done was bring in Russia against me. Which is a threat if their friends, but not a big one since its easy to reinforce.


I was thinking we might want to rearrange the worked tiles? If we work the Fish + Cow we can shave two turns off the monument. We'll lose one turn on growth, but can run an artist to further our culture war with the germans. Then again I want to experiment with caste too, haven't run it much.
 
Played a total of 18 to bring us to an even turn 200 (1090 AD).

Settled by the lake, which RFC wanted to call s'-Gravenhage. I renamed it Ikea (Dutch-owned!) but I'm amenable to a veto. :) Also settled mighty Luxemburg :strength: :hammers: :strength:. Luxemburg is never non-awesome.

Explored locally and found Europe to be one big Christian group hug. We got it, and I adopted it. Through intro bribes (mostly $40, but Calendar to Peter before I realized that was overkill) I got OB with everyone who it was prudent for: Peter, Isabella (IIRC?), Alex, Hannibal, and Hammurabi. I skipped it for Ethiopia because Ragnar is at war with him, but at the moment you can't see it because they have lost contact. Ragnar declared on England. Liz asked us to join and I declined. Louis demanded Divine Right and I gave it to him, bringing him to Pleased with OB. Louis then declared on Alex. Uh, you go, Louis. Louis got Guilds, too, which is a little scary, but maybe that was simply his research target. Also, we just settled next to his only Iron.

I traded oldish techs for Calendar and part of Aesthetics, incurring no diplo hits. We should pick up Meditation for the very valuable 2 :culture: 2 :hammers: monasteries. I was wary of accumulating WFYABTA, but maybe we should actually trade for it. Maybe to Hammurabi for Engineering?

Finished Drama, which we have a monopoly on, but it turned out Hammurabi already had Music via Literature. I put 2 turns of research into Music so that we can build the Sistine Chapel for local and foreign culture war. Hammurabi of course has Marble too, but he's at war with Saladin, so I think we might be able to bag it. However I'm not certain the Sistine, which is not guaranteed, is worth the 10 turns of research and the hammers. Perhaps one culture bomb in Amsterdam plus some buildings would give us all the local culture we truly need, and we could get adequate foreign culture conventionally, and then we could concentrate on more practical matters. Should we stick with Music, or switch to Optics or Gunpowder or head toward Liberalism or maybe Nationalism for the Taj?

Laid down Workshops everywhere. With Guilds and Caste System they're awesome, and I think right now production is our priority so that we can build up basic infrastructure and defense and get some colonists in the water. Once we have colonies which are productive enough to make more colonies, that's the time to think about cottages, IMO. After all, we don't need Astronomy to settle South Africa or Indonesia.

Assigned specialists for short-term benefit. I didn't see any particular golden opportunities for the first great person except a hammer bomb for the Sistine, but it's too late for a 100% chance of an Engineer and Amsterdam has way too much food to run only one specialist anyway. Ikea went Artist -> Engineer to pop borders and build workboats; Luxemburg went Artist/Engineer for hammers/borders. I added Theaters to the build queues when we got Drama. Otherwise, Luxemburg started a barracks; I think we should use it as a unit pump with minimal infrastructure. After Library/Settler in Amsterdam, started a Trireme for minimal naval defense and possible upgrade to a Caravel.

I realized that the free "Harbors" we got in our coastal cities are Lighthouses. I approve of the name swap, actually.

MM note: if Amsterdam switches from Wheat to Fish, Luxemburg could then get the Wheat.



Sweethashcon is up for the downstroke. ;)
 
Is Hamburg a pain, or what? ;)
How many am I up for?

It really depends on how long he has had music already. Sistine would be nice, but I am unsure of our chances. Personally, I'd vote to get on with it and go for optics, but perhaps we need to concentrate on cultural infrastructure before we put hammers toward colonisation, so maybe we could delay it a little... not sure.
 
Up for 15. If we're lucky, maybe there is an artist born in... message in the log. If we don't do it / get it, I suggest that a culture bomb is probably called for, although I don't think there's a big hurry for it. (Indeed it might be imprudent without a pretty solid defense :)).
 
That's 48.

Roster:
Jet - played
Sweetacshon - lingering at the coffeeshop, but still

[PRE] UP[/PRE]
LtCowprod - on deck
Indibil
 
Sorry guys was out this weekend, but apparently I didn't miss much... yet! :lol:

Not sure if sweetchason has played yet, but if not - I'm for the optics tech route as well. The two tiles east of Hamburg are at 60%+ now and should flip soon without any intervention. We can always load up on artists if it starts going the other way.

The English have had calendar since the start so I can only imagine they are heading towards Optics and Astronomy (theres no calendar resources over there). With that in mind I'd want to get on with colonizing S. Africa. Copper+Gold+Crab+Cow+Gems and Coal in the third ring (SE coast) - can't go wrong there.

On another note, the calendar tech... it obsoletes monuments so I think gifting it to Germany is probably a good idea.
 
200
The old fish for wheat tile swap occured at the capital, and I decided to shut off research for a turn to go 100% espy, just to give us an idea of what the Babylon/Arabian war is about. If Babylon is going to suffer, I'll continue with music.

201

It turnsout that they are fairly even, but Ham has no guilds or engineering, and Saladin does. So, to chase Sistine, I think it would be better not to give him engineering. I'll hold off on the trade for a while. It seems that we have 2 galleys around... did they just pop up? (I can't recall them in the previous reports, but maybe I'm wrong ;))

202
Both the Arabs and the Babs want us in their war, and I graciously decline. Also, the French want us to stop trading with the Romans. After a bit of thought, I say yes... surely the Romans start to decline soon? BTW, the French are noe at war with the Greeks. The AP vote is to stop the English war.

203
The AP peace vote passes. Trade aesthetics with Ragnar for medi and gold.~

204
205
Trade our spare fish to Ragnar for 2gpt... it's better than nothing. Ethiopia is now at war with Russia as well as the Vikings. Alex is willing to sell optics for guilds and aesthetics, but is at war with France and the Vikings, so not yet. We get a GE, which gets us most of gunpowder.

206
Our borders start to move to the south, finally... at least, Rome's are retreating, and Germany is making gains also. Greece declares on Russia.

207
Sell more fish to Louis for 2gpt.

208

Our borders move further, and we nab the iron. Poor Rome! There are just more diplomatic episodes than I care to list.Most of them are from the middle east asking us to war, and all are declined.

209
France and Rome are now at war.

210
I'm stopping here for the moment. Music is in, and the Sistine is still available. We can use the GE on it (or gunpowder). Also a settler has been built, and are we ready to head to South Africa? The other question is about techs. Philosophy seems like a good choice, being versatile for liberalism or nationalism, or CS for bureaucracy. Of course there is still optics (if we don't get it off greece) or gunpowder (if we don't bulb it).

mid set save, if you want it - I can finish the turns tomorrow
 
Yep, I was waiting for a bit of discussion, and lost track of time :lol:

Calendar - it doesn't seem to be in the report :confused:, but he demanded it, and I gave it to him. I have seen an English caravel, so yes, we should get on with it. I was thinking we could just land the settler on Africa via galley (or ship it all the way down), is this feasible?
 
Usually Rome and Greece would have both collapsed already. But since they haven't ... I'm for helping that along. Keep in mind Rome still has iron on the boot though - this means louis doesn't. Not sure if that is good or bad since I've honestly never seen Rome around this long.

I think the S. Africa spot is our best interest, its in the historical area.... Winburg? I think. I've seen Spaine settle there too though, and atm its probably just them and Portugal that can reach it.

Sistine Chapel? Go for it. Gunpowder won't be as useful now that we have iron. Maybe we can even flip Hamburg.


A galley and one longbow or crossbow should be fine for Africa. We can probably train a workboat and worker within 10-12 turns. Theres two native towns we'll need to rid eventually, they'll just spawn suicide impis in sets of 3 for a good while though.

Oh yea... we'd need to ship it all the way down. It's a slow march and crowded with hordes of impis and camel archers invading Mali/Ethiopia. I usually drop off an explorer in Mali and move down the jungle then back up the desert, also a couple for N/S America as well. That'd easily take care of the map goal.
 
The Sistine sounds great to me.

Unpromoted Impis spawn in groups of 3 and found small cities. Worst case a colony could get attacked by 3, then by more before healing. I think this spot would be the best first colony even if it wasn't on a hill. I think this is also Lt's tile.


I have to admit that Astro is probably important since colonies are a long trip by Galley, although I suspect that if we pump out Galleys soonish then we can still get first footholds before the AI Galleons. Maybe we should either research Astro or carefully try to trade for it. Trading seems risky since the AIs are stingy in RFC, but maybe CS->Nat could yield Astro for Nat+DR+Music, as well as Gunpowder and Paper.

We're still on 15 turns, but would you guys rather do 10? Maybe 15/24/48 -> 10/24/24? I don't really care, my only interest is to keep the pace up, if possible.
 
Oh, and:

> Our borders move further, and we nab the iron.
You can't flummox the Lux.

Furthermore:

> Our borders move further, and we nab the iron.
You can't Zerg the Burg.
 
Yea those impis are cake. We'll be on a hill too, and with first strikes, chances are we won't even take a lick. Plague is going to be a threat soon, once we leave europe. For those that haven't witnessed the RFC plague yet... know you don't want too. If it breaks out in a border country close any open borders immediately, cut roads, move troops away from their cities, etc.. Else we can literally loose every unit available.
 
We're still on 15 turns, but would you guys rather do 10? Maybe 15/24/48 -> 10/24/24? I don't really care, my only interest is to keep the pace up, if possible.

Well, you're the boss. What do you want to do? This was atypically slow for me, but I wanted everyone to voice their opinion, and on that, we seem to be one member down.

OK, so I'll continue in... about 2 hours. Build Sis in Lux, ship settler and bow south, and start some explorers for the New World.
 
Depending on whether you think we can spare both Galleys, etc, you might consider sending a missionary as part of the first gang.
1. AP+Sistine = Monasteries and Temples are great early builds
2. In OR, which I think we'll be in for a long time or forever, there's a stability hit for the presence of non-state religions.
 
...and by that, of course, I mean 6 hours. I nominate myself for the longest set ever. Where were we:

210
Send the settler and a xbow to the Med to meet the galley there, and queue up a missionary.

211
The Sistine Chapel!

The Mongals exist all of a sudden.

212
Not much. The Aztecs exist now. AP vote for peace with Ragnar...

213
... which passes. Not much again. We meet Joao, and noone hates him, so I gift him med, and open borders, and now he loves us. Spain DoWs Greece.

214
England DoWs Spain.

215

save

Our cultural borders are looking ok, our 2 galleys with settler/xb/worker/miss are heading south, and another galley and xplorer are in production. There are a few large stacks moving about ~5 axes, 2 horse, 2 cats kind of stuff, so Lux should probably crank out a few more units soon. Philo is 4 turns away, and we have a few trades available, but I didn't indulge, and here they are:
 
I've been playing a bit with the mod and now feel more confident about participating in the comments.

The AI seems rather stingy in the mod, so I wouldn't take for granted that tech trades are possible. I've seen AIs reject my more than fair trades too often to keep on taking them for granted.

Settling in S.Africa seems like a bold (and historically accurate) move.

Liberalism slingshot to Astronomy is the plan? Or is it Nationalism slingshot? I'd rather have the first, as it allows us start cranking colonies in Australia/Indonesia with the 5 cargo slots galleons.
 
Aztecs.... BOO! No conquest armies for us, probably no circumnavigation either. Luckily the AI's don't usually send out explorers/scouts via caravel (at least I've never seen it) so our map goal is probably still attainable.

I think we're heading for Astronomy.... That seems the most reasonable to me, but I want to make sure. I can play later on this afternoon....
 
Looked over the save and got a few questions.

First - There's a GP coming up in Amsterdam I think it was, most likely an artist. Obviously we want to bomb but where? I was thinking Luxemburg since we need more tiles there, and Amsterdam will probably just grab useless sea tiles.

And for optics - Victoria/Ragnar will trade it for Drama+Guilds. Ragnar wants 30 gold too. That looks like the best we can do, and I will probably take it with the vikings. My reasoning being Ragnar doesn't have horses, and he's annoyed with Victoria while Victoria is cautious.
 
Yep, England is at war with spain, so you can bet that's her worst enemy right now.

We are slowly winning the culture war around Lux, and with Sistine, it should be fine. (I didn't mention it, but we lost Ikea's pigs for a turn or 2 in there) If we bomb, I agree in Lux, but perhaps a GA?
 
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