Mansa's Ju-Co, CIVIV 101

[Irrukathus]

I would settle the copper city first, while researching mys and chop a monument. As nothing cannot be solved with enough axes when they're available; unless you want to show of the UU. But archery has never sone much for me personally so I tend to research other techs.

And i really cant do the math though, so I dont know how many turns it would take to research mys and have ur settler built. But i would assume working the corn 1/2 the time and the gem the other 1/2 the time would allow you to finish mys just as you settle the copper city and be able to chop the monument on the first turn.

And for the 3rd city i would go for the stone, and settle 2s of the rice.

You also mentioned a city that claims the other corn and the clam, but I think 2s of the other gem would be better since it would be able to work the corn and gem. This would allow the city to pay for itself and increase research.

 

[xanadux]

A little more detail on what has happened so far:

Tech path:

We started with the wheel and mining. Bronze Working is researched first. This is an ideal situation for grabbing BW first. We have forests to chop, and indeed 4 of them will need to be chopped for riverside grassland cottages. In addition to revealing copper, chopping wood (and slavery a little later) is a key early game production boost.

Second tech was agriculture. The reason for this is to improve our corn resource for the capital. Food is key for growth, and this is our capital's only food resource. Corn is also all about the map, and will be worked in several cities. Agriculture also opens up pottery.

After agriculture, I chose pottery. Now this is not always the normal path for me to take, especially in BTS, but it makes sense to me here. The reason is that I see the capital needing to work grassland tiles to grow, and work them early. Since we have the land and the leader for it(and one of the goals of this game is to demonstrate a strong cottage economy), we want to be working cottages in the capital very early. Additionally, we are going to want to get open borders with Jao to scout him out, and hopefully have a city with a library run 2 science specialists for an academy in the capital. So needing Writing fairly soon, pottery also is a good choice.


Build order:

I am using a method that produces 2 workers and a settler very quickly. For this, BW is a priority, because forests are going to be used for most of the production on the second worker and the settler. The idea is to build a worker while researching BW, then use that worker to chop a second worker, then both workers to chop the settler. This method gets the settler out slightly slower than making the settler second, but not a lot slower, and gets the second worker out improving sooner. There will be a lot of work to be done, mining, building cottages, developing a second and third cities.

For building an inland capital to its full potential as quickly as possible, there is no better alternative than worker first unless that worker will have nothing at all to do once it is done. Usually you can research the techs you need to put it to work while it is being built.

Normally there are 3 basic goals for the opening of a game:

1. Get a settler built for the second city
2. Develop the capital by growing and working IMPROVED tiles
3. Locate, and hopefully control a strategic resource

The combination of building a worker first and researching BW very early makes strong progress towards all 3 of these goals. Since the capital can't grow while building a settler, chopping forests for the first settler is an extremely strong play. Also chopping a second worker is strong because it allows a head start on capital improvements, and very often a monument is needed quickly in the second city, so a forest must be chopped there as well. Since a worker can't be in 2 places at once, 2 workers is ideal if you have 4 or 5 forests you are willing to part with in the capital.

 

[xanadux]

Round 2 is finished.

First, an overview, and my answers to the questions from the end of last round.

The question of working the gems vs. the corn while building the settler is not obvious at all. To remind you, it was 7 turns to build the settler working corn, or 10 turns working gems with a bonus of 8 commerce/turn. The immediate short term gain is 56 commerce ... The city will reach pop 2 3 turns earlier with the corn, and will work the gems then, so it is 7 extra turns of gem working. So what are we sacrificing in the long term by working the gems?

3 turns of working a cottage by reaching pop 3 sooner: 9 commerce
3 turns of working a cottage by reaching pop 4 sooner: 9 commerce
3 turns of working a cottage by reaching pop 5 sooner: 9 commerce
3 turns of working a cottage by reaching pop 6 sooner: 9 commerce
4 cottages reach a hamlet 3 turns sooner: 12 commerce
4 cottages reach a village 3 turns sooner: 12 commerce
I'll leave out the town, because I think that is far enough down the road to ignore, but it will be 12 more commerce then.

So we have 60 commerce in about the next 50 turns we will be sacrificing to gain 56.

But there is also cost to the second city from the settler being delayed. This city will reach each pop level 3 turns later if we delay the settler. Anything this city does up to the happy cap will come 3 turns later and will be lost resources. In the city I ended up founding, just from a commerce point of view, we lose 9 commerce from not working the clams 3 turns earlier, and when we build a library and run 2 scientists, that will happen 3 turns earlier, losing 24 more beakers. Minimum 33 commerce lost in city 2.

So we have a total of 93 commerce lost for 56 gained. And that doesn't even account for additional food and hammers lost in the second city.

So I built the settler with the corn. The only reason to choose the gems would be if getting some tech 2 or 3 turns earlier would make a significant difference. I could see no reason any one tech would help that much in the next 30-40 turns.

When you have developed tiles to work, especially in the early game, it is almost always correct to work all high food tiles to grow to happy cap as soon as possible, and only switch to more commerce or production after the city has grown to full size.

 

[xanadux]

We left off round 1 with 2 major decisions. Where would city 2 go, and what techs to research.

First city placement. Normally, having copper close by that would be my city of choice. Getting an early strategic resource is very important. But I went with the plains hill SE of Timbuktu for corn and clams. See screenshots in posts to come, or earlier in the thread.

Several things moved me towards this spot.

1. We can really get a roaring economy going with cottages in the capital. An academy would be a massive boost. The 2 food resource site allows very quick whipping of a granary and library to run 2 scientists, and still have enough food for more whipping or straight production. If we can afford to settle this city first, our tech rate will be very high.

2. There were only 2 resources in the capital's fat cross. It is almost a certainty that either horses or iron will be there, and we can research these techs before barbarians show up.

3. Almost 40 turns into the game by the time the settler was completed, I still had not seen a unit from Portugal. This very strongly suggests that Jao is occupied scouting and settling to the South. There is likely plenty of time to grab the copper and more cities to the West.

4. Without plentiful forests or food or production, and not wanting to whip much in the capital because we want to be working cottages, an axe rush is not desirable.

An interesting option for city 2 was to settle on the coast to be able to work both gem tiles. This is not a bad play, and I strongly considered it. But as hard as it is to willingly sacrifice a riverside gem tile, it was harder to give up having the clams for city 2. Our big problem on this map is going to be production, and this clam/corn city is the only site so far that offers 2 food tiles. We may need to whip units, and this is the only ideal spot for it. The clams are also nice since our part of the map is strangely short on health resources. Food is a valuable commodity, and I judged it to be more valuable in the long run than working an extra gem tile.

 

[xanadux]

As for the tech question, at the end of round 1, we had completed BW, agriculture, and were 2 turns from finishing pottery. The wheel and mining were starting techs.

With a settler soon to be done, and a new city to be founded that had to habe a border pop, Mysticism was vital. There was no point getting a settler out early if the city would just be a drain on the economy. For this city to contribute, we had to have Mysticism.

After mysticism, fishing. City 2 needed to work the clams.

After fishing, there were many options. About 45 turns into the game, it won't be long until barbs start showing up, so military must be addressed. The safe option is hunting and archery for skirmishers. I almost chose this path. But I was pretty certain that horses, iron, or both would be in the capital's fat cross. I don't think I've ever seen a founded in place capital enter the classical era without at least 3 resources.

I decided to go with Animal Husbandry. This was more of a high risk/high reward decision than you might think. We desperately need to do some scouting, and chariots take care of that much better than one move units. Horses in the capital would allow chariots for some much needed intel, and also provide a nice 2 food/3 hammer tile to work. The risk was that if there were no horses this tech is a waste ... there are no animal resources in site. The only benefit would be that we would at least know where Jao's horses would be.

Unfortunately no horses. Next decision was between IW and Writing. I still didn't want to go down the archery path unless absolutely necessary. If there was time for writing, I wanted it first to build a library in the second city as quickly as possible. I decided to go writing first. IW followed and was completed the last turn of round 2. Wouldn't you know it? The capital had iron. So did our second city.

Now more detail on the mechanics of the round with screen shots.

 

[xanadux]

Round 1 ended after turn 30. The following shot is turn 37, the settler in the capital just being completed. The path of the worker is shown. It will go to chop a forest for a monument. Mysticism will be completed in 2 turns, the same turn as the second city is founded, so no time will be wasted on the monument.

While we are looking at this screenshot, I take some time to talk about the workers. Workers are expensive, and their work is valuable, so it is important to use them efficiently. It is important to also build the right improvements of course. The selected worker in the shot was the first worker built. It started by chopping the forest 1S of the capital, then moved 1E to chop that forest, then 1N to chop the forest 1E of the capital. It then moved onto the gems and built a mine. Pottery was still 2 turns away when the mine was completed, so the worker moved to its current location and built a road. Note that this road will allow the settler to get to its end location 1 turn earlier. Also note that I have not built any other roads. Building roads when you don't need them and have better things to do is wasteful. It is far more important for my precious workers to be improving tiles than building roads. After the road, the worker built a cottage while waiting for the settler to complete so it could go chop a monument for the second city. You should also note that if I had not planned the order my first worker chopped the forests, and did them in the reverse order, finishing 1S of the capital, the worker would have wasted a turn moving to the gems.

The second worker started by improving the corn, moved 1W to chop a forest and build a cottage, then to it's current location where it is building another cottage. It will then move to 1S of the capital for another cottage then on to the SE hills for mines.



Now a look at the capital in 2000 BC:

After the settler, a garrison warrior was built, and a granary was started on. The warrior would be needed to avoid the happiness penalty for no military protection. The granary was a tough choice. I could have built a warrior or scout for needed scouting, but either of these units would likely have a short lifespan as it would not be very long before barbarians are about. It is not vital at this point to scout until we are getting ready to found more cities. A barracks was an option, but I decided that with health in short supply, the granary would be put to good use, and if whipping became necessary, would be far more useful than a barracks. Scouting and barb defense units don't really need a promotion to do their job, and often it is better to have a granary or more units than a barracks this early in the game. Also, once the mine was completed, the governor wanted to work it, so I shifted the tile worked to a cottage. Our goal in the capital is to work those cottages and grow to the happy cap. We may need the production later, but for now, we want economy, food, and cottage growth. Also note that I am not concerned with growing without a granary. I could build the granary quicker, but the capital will grow quickly enough without it, and our capital's primary function is commerce. Cottages don't grow if they aren't worked.

And now a look at what my worker is doing while it waits for Djenne's borders to pop:

After chopping the monument, the worker sets to building a road to the capital. Note the path I took, avoiding river crossings. Before construction river crossings act like there is no road. Since I have just enough time before the border pop, I am going to mvoe onto the forested hill and build a road, so that when I want to chop it, I don't lose a worker turn. The borders will pop a turn after this road is finished, and the worker will move onto the corn, irrigate it, and build a road to hook it up.

And now a look at Djenne after its border pop:

Fishing completed the turn the monument was finished, and a workboat was built. The workboat completed the turn before the border pop from normal production working forest grassland. Djenne now has a nice 5 food surplus that will increase soon when the corn is improved.

More on Djenne:

The plan is to whip the granary. There is a lot of information on the whip here at CFC, including a nice article in the CivIV war academy. Whipping provides a very good conversion of food to hammers, moreso with a granary. Whipping for 2 or more population is generally better than for 1 pop. This is because you get the same happiness penalty from a whip no matter how much population you whip. Notice in the above screen shot that Djenne will grow in 4 turns, and has 13/60 built on the granary. A whip provides 30 hammers on normal speed, and if we want to whip for 2 pop, we need to do it before the granary reaches 30/60 completion. Producing 5 hammers a turn, in 4 turns, the granary will pass that point, at 33/60. So the 3 hammer tile is switched to the 2F/1H tile, which also drops growth time from 4 turns to 3. To get the most of whipping, you really need to check on your whipping cities fairly often.


And Djenne after the whip:

There you go, 60 hammers for 5 turns of growth. With a granary, whipping from size 4 to size 2, you get 60 hammers for 25 food. Now if we had lots of grassland hills and the happy cap to work them, whipping would be less efficient, but for low pop/high food cities, especially without a lot of hills, there is no beating the whip for production. Plus, you get it right now!
Djenne will be back to size 4 in 5 turns and ready to whip a library.

I ended the round in 1480 BC, turn 63, having just completed Iron Working. I was right about having iron in the capital, and as a bonus, Djenne has iron as well. Although Polytheism shows being researched, that is all overflow, and the tech path will have to be determined.

And a view of the capital:

We have just reached the happy cap, and are pulling a nice 32 commerce with no multipliers. 2 of our cottages are now hamlets, and the other 2 very close. The granary will be done soon, and it will be time for some axemen for scouting and barbarian defense once the iron is hooked up.

Still haven't seen a unit from Jao yet. Well, we will see what he has been up to soon enough.

Posts on where to go from here, and a few more details on the round to follow soon.

 

[LlamaCat]

great stuff! this thread has really improved, I like your explanations of everything. I think everything you have done so far makes sense. good points on worker movements... you don't want to waste them. Interesting note about the roads crossing rivers... I knew that about construction and bridges, but never really quite understood the implications and thought about it in a game.

One question on the whipping, but I don't want to sidetrack into a discussion on slavery so only if you want to address it:

Spoiler :

Notice in the above screen shot that Djenne will grow in 4 turns, and has 13/60 built on the granary. A whip provides 30 hammers on normal speed, and if we want to whip for 2 pop, we need to do it before the granary reaches 30/60 completion. Producing 5 hammers a turn, in 4 turns, the granary will pass that point, at 33/60.


Why do you want to whip before the granary reaches 30 hammers? As I understand it, any excess hammers will just overflow into the next build. In fact I use this overflow strategy all the time.

I don't entirely understand the slavery mechanics and this is a good example where my brain is just missing something I guess...

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Spoiler :

Why do you want to whip before the granary reaches 30 hammers? As I understand it, any excess hammers will just overflow into the next build. In fact I use this overflow strategy all the time.

I don't entirely understand the slavery mechanics and this is a good example where my brain is just missing something I guess...

Spoiler Answer :

There are a couple different parts to this answer.

The mechanic of the whip always eliminates precisely the population required to complete the build at the top of the queue. Therefore, if you invest more than 30 hammers in the granary, you'll trade 1 population and 10 turns of unhappy for 30 hammers. If you have fewer than 30 hammers invested, you'll trade 2 population and the same 10 turns of unhappy for 60 hammers.

So the pop to hammers ratio is the same, but the unhappy to hammers ratio is much better. Similarly, the food to hammers ratio is slightly better (because the third population point requires less surplus food to regrow than the fourth population point).

Against these benefits you have to consider the lost opportunity of the second citizen working a productive tile. As a rule, the better the tile he would be working, the less happy you should be about whipping him off of it.

For hard questions about whipping: consider asking them over here!

 

[xanadux]

A few more things of note from round 2:

Jao adopted slavery in 2120, most likely the same time he discovered BW.

Hinduism was founded in 2520, Buddhism had been founded in 3240. Pretty late for Hinduism, and I wonder if the same civ founded both. Both founded in a distant land.

Stonehenge was built in 1720.

We got a random event giving all of our axemen the shock promotion. IIRC, this applies to all axes we ever build.

It is looking more and more likely we are alone with Jao on our continent. And also that he is expanding to the south. All of his espionage has been put toward us, making it more likely he doesn't know anyone else. This is some early game free intel. Just mouse over the AI's score on the screen, and it shows the espionage point ratio between you and the AI. The AI typically tries to match EPs with everyone. If there were one other AI on the continent, Jao would most likely have spent EP toward that AI, and we would see him dropping behind us in EPs. I do not know if this always happens. On the other hand, there could be 2 AIs, and Jao met us first, spending all EP on us, and the other 2 AIs met each other first, spending all EP on each other, and once the other AIs met Jao, spent nothing on him because he was spending nothing on them. Not sure of the mechanics here.

We have seen no scouting units from anyone, and by this time I would expect at least a scouting workboat if someone else was on the continent. Although we don't know for sure, it appears that units could get by Jao's borders on either side.

Just us and Jao is fine by me. No one to worry about when we decide to take him out, so expansion should be pretty straightforward. There appears to be plenty of land on the continent, and space for at least 1 more super cottage city. No worries there.

So far I have been playing the game to maximize the economy. We are relatively defenseless, but there is at yet no reason to expect this to be a problem.

Round 3 should be relatively straightforward as far as building ... we need military, and need more cities. We need to scout the land and Jao.

The big decisions for round 3 deal with the technology plan. We have quite a few directions we could go, but should definitely consider Civil Service a priority. Beauracracy is massive with a cottage capital.

For teching, we could pursue Metal Casting, currently only 14 turns to research for forges and the colossus ... it looks like there will be at least 3 more coastal cities from the map we know so far.

We will want to get Code of Laws so we can get Civil Service, and at our tech rate if we go relatively straight to it, we can expect to grab a religion there.

On the way to CoL, we can either go through Priesthood (quicker, gives temples), or through mathematics and currency. Math is needed for Civil Service, currency isn't.

We have the option of trying for Judaism by going straight to monotheism now. Whether we get it or not, Organized Religion is a useful civic we can use if we become Confucians. This also slows CoL a bit because of needing Masonry, and Mono is not required ... we will still need Priesthood.

Getting a religion would be good, because it doesn't look like Jao will, and we are spiritual for cheap temples, and civics changes.

Additionally, we need to think about raising our happy cap, with 3 reasonable options and an expensive longshot. Reasonable: religion + temple: +2 happy, or Hereditary Rule, or Calendar. Expensive: Pyramids ... I don't see that we have the production for this, even with the stone.

I have more thoughts on the tech path, but I am going to wait a bit, and post them with spoiler tags. I think it is a good excercise to think this through on your own, giving consideration to military, religious, growth, and economic issues.

Thanks to VOU for asnwering the slavery question, and a clarification ... you will whip the minimum population necessary to finish the current build. At normal speed it's 30 hammers/whip, so if 30 hammers or less are left to complete the build, it will whip 1 pop. if 31-60, will whip 2 pop. You can only whip away half of your population, so a 2 pop whip requires a size 4 city. All hammer multipliers count, so if you have a forge and organized religion building a library, each pop whipped provides 45 hammers (+50%)

So really only 1 study question this round:

1. What should we tech and why ... we need a plan here.

Bonus question:

2. A library would be nice in the capital. We need to build some military first of course, but suppose after 2 axemen we want to consider building a library. Would it be better to build it slow, working cottages, build it fast with mines, or whip 2 or 3 pop? Assume the grassland iron is available for a 2F/4H square, because it will be.

 

[xanadux]

Here's the save after Round 2

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/114233/Mansa_BC-1480PWT_save_2.CivBeyondSwordSave

Some research times:

Monotheism: 10 turns total, need masonry and polytheism
Code of Laws: 19 through Meditation and Priesthood
20 through Polytheism and Priesthood
37 through math and currency
27 if we grab monotheism first
For CoL, Poly then Priest makes montheism for organized religion quicker afterwards.
Sailing: 3 turns
Metal Casting: 14 turns
Monarchy: 17 turns total, through Med and Priest
Calendar: 25 turns total through sailing and math
Note that we have 2 potential calendar resources, but dyes are far away, and silk requires a junk city to grab soon. Eventually silk will be available at capital's next border pop (a long time, at 126/500, +2/turn, but culture will eventually increase)

Following are my thoughts on the matter, in a spoiler tag. I encourage you to think through it on your own before reading the spoiler and post your suggestions.

Spoiler :

Everything in this game so far has been to increase the economy, and at the moment, I see no reason to alter this path. In my view, the 2 biggest things we need from our research are more happiness and the Bureaucracy civic.

I consider Civil Service to be a high priority that should not be strayed from very far. An additional benefit is that with the Bureaucracy bonus, it will not take long at all to research Machinery and we can field a maceman army, and a few turns later supported by trebuchet.

Getting Civil Service means getting Code of Laws. Our tech pace is pretty swift, and I expect us to get Confucianism if we take a relatively direct path here.

In addition to Civil Service, we need to raise the happy cap. Hereditary Rule is the quickest, surest path here, but I have 2 problems with it. 1, monarchy is not on the way to Civil Service, and is relatively expensive, and could possibly cause us to lose Confucianism. 2, Production is relatively low, and in the short run, I want my units out scouting, and being available for active defense without causing unhappiness.

For happiness, Calendar is the worst option. I don't see either of the available resources being hooked up until at least our 5th city.

I want monotheism for organized religion, but fear it is too late to hope for Judaism. But since no one has founded it yet, I don't see much harm in trying. I'm thinking Polytheism, Masonry, Monotheism, Priesthood, CoL. If at any point after Polytheism someone else founds Judaism, switch immediately to Priesthood and go for CoL. I think a religion is quite important here, and a religion will give us 2 happy per city with a temple. 2 religions get us 3 happy. We are spiritual, temples are cheap. We can always grab monarchy or calendar to help more after Civil Service.

I am skeptical of going for Metal Casting and building the colossus. It's 14 turns of research taken from CS, risks losing confucianism, and having a production poor empire, I just don't know if our copper city is going to have the time to build the colossus. But we have copper, and maybe we will do the colossus after CS, as MC is on the way to Machinery.

 

[xanadux]

A couple more quick things to note:
I haven't signed open borders with Jao yet, because I haven't needed to pass his borders with a unit yet. Usually an AI will come to you offering open borders as soon as they get writing. Before alphabet, it's a clue to where they are technologically. Not a big clue, but a clue.

Also, if you look at all the screenshots, I have been careful to save up a little cash. If necessary, I could fund a little extra research, but it is extremely important to have some cash on hand for random events. Both positive and negative events are often better when you have some money to spend. Hate losing a forge because I don't have 40 gold. Or losing a chance at +3 health in my capital because I don't have 10 gold. As the game goes on, you need more gold for these events.

 

[LlamaCat]

Thanks to VOU for asnwering the slavery question, and a clarification ... you will whip the minimum population necessary to finish the current build. At normal speed it's 30 hammers/whip, so if 30 hammers or less are left to complete the build, it will whip 1 pop. if 31-60, will whip 2 pop.

er, I think you have it backward here from what VOU said... if 30 hammers or less are left, it will whip 2 population and if 31-60, only 1 population is whipping. like you say, it will whip the minimum # of people needed to finish the build.

thanks for the clarification on that - I think I finally get it. I was forgetting that by whipping 2 people, you get double the hammers (but only 10 turns of unhappiness)

regarding your random event - free shock promotion for all axemen?! I think that is actually a quest, is it not? that's the best random event I've ever heard of otherwise...

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

er, I think you have it backward here from what VOU said... if 30 hammers or less are left, it will whip 2 population and if 31-60, only 1 population is whipping. like you say, it will whip the minimum # of people needed to finish the build.

Depends on whether you count debits or credits. I think he and I said the same thing, though. To wit, the number of population sacrificed is a function of the number of hammers needed to finish constructing the building/training the unit. In other words, a granary at 32/60 production has exactly the same whipping math as a forge at 92/120, because both require 28 more hammers.

You are getting the right answer in your head - it's only a difference in vocabulary/perspective (half full vs half empty if you like - except of course that the empty bit is what actually matters )

 

[monolith94]

Why did you not settle Djenne one tile west? You'd lose three practically worthless ocean tiles for two much more useful plains and one lake tile...

 

[xanadux]

Why did you not settle Djenne one tile west? You'd lose three practically worthless ocean tiles for two much more useful plains and one lake tile...

You are right, maybe. Your site is far superior in the long run. The existing site is a bit better in the short run because of the bonus of being on a plains hill. If I had noticed the site you suggest, I think I would have chosen to settle there.

 

[Rentage]

regarding your random event - free shock promotion for all axemen?! I think that is actually a quest, is it not? that's the best random event I've ever heard of otherwise...

No, it isn't a quest. I had that one happen once. It's not uncommon for someone to get a unit promotion for all axes/archers early on.

 

[Rentage]

Now - to address the teching issue:

Happiness is our main concern. Calendar leads to happy items that are out of our reach at the moment. They can also be picked up at any time. Religions can't be. Throw in the spiritual bonus for temples and the benefit of running OR, and the route we should take now seems clear:

Polytheism - Masonry - Monotheism - Priesthood

The question then becomes "What next?". The answer depends upon whether or not we successfully found Judaism.

If we do, CoL can be delayed to pick up Metal Casting. I think this is an important tech for us to get early for three reasons:

1) It gives us access to our UB. +10% gold isn't much, but given how many cottages we'll be running, it will certainly help.

2) The Colossus. I know you're not thinking this is a big deal, but if we're really all alone with JoJo on a big island, we'll be building a LOT of coastal cities and we won't be able to tech trade for a while. Combine the Colossus with financial and lighthouses, and suddenly all those ocean squares are going to be 2F/3C, which should help keep our economy buzzing along until we find the rest of the world. I also think we'll have a very good chance of getting it if we make it a priority. Djenne will have the two hills mined by that point, so a minimum of 13 hammers/turn (don't forget OR!) on a 250 hammer wonder (125 with the copper city up, and it should be). It'll take less than ten turns to build.

3) Our production isn't the best. Any boost will help. Mints give us that boost.

If we fail to get Judaism, then the push to CoL takes priority. We can't afford to wait on Christianity or Taoism. And even if we do get Judaism, CoL should come immediately after MC.

So I'd be planning:

Polytheism
Masonry
Monotheism
Priesthood
Metal Casting
Code of Laws
Mathematics
Civil Service
Machinery (maces)

 

[Rentage]

As for the library:

I'm not inclined to whip in Timbuktu until we're above the happy cap. That would delay the growth of our cottages - which will all be approaching village status by that point.

Running the four cottages, the iron, and a mine gives us 8 hammers, so the library will complete in 8 turns. We'll be producing 18C/turn during this stretch.

Our peak hammer output is 16 by working the iron, three hill mines, a forest, and the corn. Here, we produce 4C/turn and complete the library in 4 turns. Growth rate in both cases is +1F.

18C x 8 = 144C + four turns of growth on the cottages
4C x 4 = 16, 22C x 4 = 88 104C

We're best off working the cottages unless we have another urgent build to make in Timbuktu.

 

[Diamondeye]

Question: The event that grants "Shock" - are you sure it only grants it to axes? I have had it where it affected all melee units...

 

[Elandal]

"Shock" promotion to Axemen (only Axemen) is given by event AXE_HAFT ("Our craftsmen have devised a technique for improving the balance of our axes.").

A promotion to all melee units is given by event TOWER_SHIELD ("Invention of the tower shield has provided our foot soldiers with some protection against archers."), but this is Cover, not Shock.