LotR27 Science-Scorning Spacists

[AutomatedTeller]

This means I'm up?

Some questions (and I'll ask some more once I take a look at the save)

1) No libs, no scientists, no building research. Artists, spies, engineers, priests and merchants are ok. Do you want to prohibit bulbs now, Arathorn? I don't think anyone has bulbed anything yet.
2) What's next to research? Calender, to get MoM? Hold off for now?


Couple more questions:

1) We have a settler moving to a spot with fish and crab. On the antarctic continent, there is a spot with fish and whales. Of course, it'll take 20-30 turns to get the culture out to it, but it might be a good plan.
2) Looking at the save, the hagia sofia is, in fact, built. Some unknown city has that, University of Sankore, Glib and the Great Wall.
3) Why are we running priests and not merchants?
4) Do we want to put all those specialists in the cap onto tiles once we get civil service?
5) We'll have a spy next turn - what do we want to do with him?
6) Do we want to leverage any techs we may have that orange borders wants? I'm guessing we may have a monopoly on optics, since no one has said hi to us. Maybe when I see him, I'll post what options we have.

 

[Ozbenno]

Probably wait on trading Optics until we can meet more AIs for better value but trading other techs is probably OK.

Spy should probably head for Pericles to see if we can steal a tech.

 

[Arathorn]

I'd definitely send the spy to Pericles now. We might want to steal from Wilhelm if he has a lot better stuff, after our "sanctified spy" -- missionary -- spreads our religion. For now, though, Pericles should be a TON cheaper to steal from.

I would like to ban bulbing, yes, but I didn't. If bulbing is to our advantage, we can. Though I'd like to see us persevere without, if we can.

Why priests and not merchants? We need hammer more than coins? That's all I can figure.

More cities is probably a good thing. With GLH and Colossus, coastal cities are quite economically sound for us. Even many of them.

Roster:
Arathorn - on deck
ZPV
Methos - indefinite skip
Rex Tyrannus - just played
Ozbenno
AutomatedTeller - UP NOW (and claimed)

The tech I think we need to prioritize, as soon as we can, is Constitution. Jails will be huge for our economy. And, honestly, Pericles is starting to outlive his usefulness, isn't he? At some point, I'd like to deal with that.

Arathorn

 

[AutomatedTeller]

oh - one more thing - do we give in if Pericles asks for something?

I'll play it today (well, tomorrow, after I sleep)

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Quick writeup:

Orange was Hannibal. All we had was Optics. He had everything we could see but Engineering. I didn't trade.
We then met Catherine, who had everything we could see but Optics. I kept going and met Mansa - however, when I met him, he had everything, including Astronomy!! And everyone had Optics. I should have traded when I met Catherine.


We went Calendar, but MoM was built the turn before I got it

Then engineering, cause no one had it. Now, only Catherine doesn't have it

We have a spy in Pericles - all we could steal was Archery, so I parked him.

Versailles has also been built. I assume that someone had an engineer.

We are roading our furs
We have a city on the south continent, working on a terrace for a culture pop in... a long time.

We are in bureuacracy (note that I made up my own spelling - cap is making another settler

I think I should have gone for caste when I switched to Bureaucracy - we would have gotten that pop down south much faster.

I did some MM'ing and our tech rate has gone from 120 to 179. The cap is working more commerce tiles, we have a couple more merchants and we are running @ 70%.

Our first missionary failed to spread

We also now have a great prophet, who is parked in the cap. I think we should settle him, but I didn't want to do it without talking to everyone.

We will have furs soon and should have whales. Pericles dumped a city right next to us by the furs, though, so they'll have some, too.

I think we need 4 or 5 more settlers for the little islands. We won't get all of them, but a couple more will help.

 

[Arathorn]

Got it.

I think we should stop trying to maximize our economy for science. We have no boost to that commerce. We need to either go money or espionage. We have no espionage boosters but we do have markets. If all techs are already known, why not go pure cash for a while, BUY a tech and broker it? It is possible. I'll look at the tech situation when I get the game, but that's my thought.

Too bad about missing YAW (Yet Another Wonder). It's OK, though, we'll make do. A couple more missionaries to lower espionage costs are required, as well as the settlers for a few more cities. Knowledge of where the rest of the world is will help us understand our position. There should be one other island to find, too. Maybe they'll be a bit more backward. But I doubt it.

Arathorn

 

[Ozbenno]

Should be 6 AI, Pericles, Hannibal, Catherine and Mansu mean 2 more, bound to be behind us and the financial 3!

Stealing tech might be an idea but we need to spread the EPs thinly (only 2 AI maybe). We can build wealth AND turn it into EPs after all.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I agree that it's time to start buying and/or stealing techs, at least until/if we can find a tech that no AI will research, at least.

 

[Arathorn]

I feel this game is really struggling from a lack of direction.

First off, Ollant... was building a library. That's a BIG no-no. Fortunately, it hadn't completed, but we lost many turns of production. Second, why was Machu Picchu building a colosseum? I let it continue, but it seems like military units are a much cheaper and easier source of happiness. Third, we sent 3 caravels west to the same landmass and none seemingly anywhere else. Why? I'm also wondering why the need for a second worker at Vilcambra before even a terrace so we could get some culture. Now those furs are culturally lost to Greece.

Anyway, what I did....
Whipped out some forges, terraces, courthouses, and markets.
Finished Engineering (for no trading options), researched Archery (for cheap MP so we can send our "military" where it might do some good), and turned research down quite low, pumping 30% into espionage. More might be good.
I also only took 6 turns to even us up to 190 turns. Everybody's turns should end in 0. So next turnset ends at turn 200.

Started moving our spy (once I saw him, because he was fortified and therefore invisible, generally a HUGE no-no in SGs) to Argos (instead of Mycenae) because tech stealing is cheaper there. Espionage screen tells anyone who cares to look that information.

I divided our espionage points between MM (because he's tech leader and nobody likes him) and Pericles (because he's cheapest to steal from and we might also use those if/when we go to war). We're not so far along that we can't change that decision, but it made sense to me.

Totally missed the missionary on the one boat, so he just got off. He should not spread Hinduism where he is but should move to a city closer to our capital. We need to get a missionary to MM, too (or we could pick that one back up).

Continued exploring and met Joao II on my last turn. Gifted him 20 gold to make him a bit happier with us. He doesn't think we're pagans at least. He doesn't want any of our backwards techs, of course.

Traded WMs with Hannibal. We can only trade WMs with a few, so I'm sure Hannibal gained from our WM more than we gained from his, but it's nice to see the landmass he shares with Russia.

Started building archers to fight unhappiness. Want to build a bunch more to replace our only offensive force as MPs so we can think about the concept of fighting a war. We need more land if we're going to win. Pericles seems the only natural opponent, though we could also take a fair number of barb cities which would also help our cause semi-significantly. We need to build archers, though, so our mace and swords and such can leave the city where they live.

We're essentially dead last in every Demographics category. EEs are good, but they're not that good. We need a bunch more of everything.

I did settle one more city, where it can work a plains hill, fish, and crabs, eventually. A workboat is on its way, though a second will be needed eventually. We should found a few more island cities if we can. They pay for themselves economically pretty quickly. I didn't start another settler, though, as we needed happiness MPs much MUCH more from my perspective.

A few markets completed, so our economy is doing a little better, but we need to find ways to get better building boosters. That means Jails. I don't think even Nationalism is known, but we should make Philosophy our first steal so we can keep a closer eye on that. We need Constitution. Guilds and then Banking are also good targets for us.

Roster:
Arathorn- just played
ZPV - UP NOW
Methos - indefinite skip
Rex Tyrannus - on deck
Ozbenno
AutomatedTeller

Pic of our empire in next post.

 

[Arathorn]

 

[Ozbenno]

Million dollar question is do we want to try and take Pericles down?

If we do, we should head down the Chemistry --> Steel and Military Science route as he should be unable to hand cannons and grens (Chemistry might be a tradeable tech as well). If we want to play more peacefully in the short term then Nationalism might be a better option.

Filling the islands east of Cuzco would also be good but not that urgent in the short term.

We have three cities without Hinduism as well, need to fix that.

 

[Kylearan]

Hi,

[...] and turned research down quite low, pumping 30% into espionage.

I'm curious: Is there a specific reason you let research stay at 10%, and not pump everything into espionage? With no science multipliers, this seems a bit of a waste to me - but maybe I'm missing something.

On a related note, have you thought about what's more efficient, to steal or to buy techs? You seem to go the espionage route for now, but I'm not sure about the reasoning. Or is it just intuition?

(I have to warn you that my questions may be loaded as I'm very biased here. I've seen lots of spy economy games but no cash-for-tech games, and I had a lot of fun way back in Vanilla Civ with my no science game where I only bought techs, so as a lurker I'd love to see some buying of techs in this BtS game... )

-Kylearan

 

[Arathorn]

Million dollar question is do we want to try and take Pericles down?

I think we have to, yes. If we're going to win by space, we'll need a few really awesome production cities that we don't have. That means war. We can take a few barb cities which will help but the only way we can grow enough and keep our economy OK is to take out Pericles. Since he's also likely to try culture at some point, it's almost inevitable. I think trebs and maces is a good time to wage war.

We can't really push ourselves down the Chem to Steel and MS route except by directing how we steal/buy. Right now, we have enough EPs to steal Philosophy but nothing else from Pericles. Not sure if that's what we want or not. Ideally, I think stealing a monopoly tech (same cost as non-monopoly) and whoring it around with plenty of cash to make sure we can supplement to get what we need/want is the way to go.

On a related note, have you thought about what's more efficient, to steal or to buy techs? You seem to go the espionage route for now, but I'm not sure about the reasoning. Or is it just intuition?

I've not done in-depth analysis. I don't know the mechanics of what the AI charges in gold to buy techs....

Arguments for buying:
- We have commerce-boosting building for cash (markets) and not for espionage
- Don't need to spend hammers and MM time on spies
- No chance of failure when we're ready to act

Arguments for stealing:
- Up to 50% rebate for stationary spy
- No extra cost for monopoly techs
- Other benefits (see cities, can cause revolts, etc.)
- No diplomatic shenagins required to be able to steal from anyone we need/want
- Will eventually have best commerce-boosting abilities

So, why did I leave science at 10% now? Because I'm hedging my bets all over the place. Assuredly not optimal, but it gives the team flexibility moving forward.

 

[ZPV]

Got it.
I've had a bad day today, but I should be able to play tomorrow, at which time I'll have some better idea of which way our civ should go.
Things don't look great for us - we need to plan things properly soon.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Sorry about the lib. It was an oversight - I didn't even realize it was being built until you just said it.

We could rush courts everywhere and set up some spy specialists, get a great spy.

 

[Kylearan]

Thanks Arathorn for elaborating!

 

[ZPV]

I haven't played yet, but I do have a few comments:

1. Joao and Mansa Musa have Nationalism.
2. If we keep sitting on these GEs forever, all they end up doing is costing maintenance.
3. Pericles has popped Gold in the south.
4. The GPro will lightbulb Theology. Are you sure you're OK with this, Arathorn?
5. We are currently running some sort of citizen-economy. Unfortunately, we are much smaller than anyone else, and we don't have a whole lot of resources or power tiles. I plan to switch to Theology, and start whipping like a madman. That will give us enough army to take down Pericles (it will have to be big, but hey!), and solve our happiness problems. We almost have enough EPs against him to steal Philosophy, and beyond that, I think we should run over him as soon as possible.
6. I don't quite understand the choice of Aesthetics. I'll put it on 0% for now. Once we have enough EP to steal up to Constitution, I'll switch to pure gold, so we can save up until we have jails.
7. We'll be facing Longbows and Crossbows when we fight Pericles. (He'll also have some ancient/classical junk including fast units.) This will have to be a siege-heavy slog, as opposed to a quick go-for-the-big-city-and-mop-up-later operation. Since (if) we'll have a 2nd promo for Accuracy, catapults are more hammer efficient for taking down city defences (just), but trebs will cost less gold in maintenance. I'll go for the latter, since we're facing tough top units in cities, as opposed to a deep army of roughly equal units.
8. Longer game plan: regardless, we are in no position to do anything, without going up in the world. Thus, we should focus all-out on taking the Greek core as quickly as possible. Once we have done that, we can start to recover and reassess.

 

[Arathorn]

Using GPeople for techs was not specifically denied, so, yes, I'm OK with it.

I like the take out Pericles ASAP plan. I just hope we can do it.

 

[Ozbenno]

Aesthetics is an odd choice at the moment but Literature will open up Heroic and National Epics, both of which may be handy. What will the GEs bulb? Chemistry maybe, that would be good.

I never build castles but this may be a good game to do so, cheap and worth EPs (at least I seem to recall they get EPs )

 

[ZPV]

Castles give +25%EP, going obsolete with Economics. They're not on my priority list, but are something to keep in mind for the future.
The first thing the GEs will bulb is Feudalism. After that, Guilds.
Down the line, gunpowder and chemistry can be lightbulbed by a GE, but this will be blocked by researching Banking.

I think the best thing to do is save them for the time being, and if we capture some horses from Greece, then we can lightbulb Feudalism and half-bulb Guilds, giving us knights for a quicker end to the war.

btw- no Nat Epic without a Library