Math02: 100K with limited cities

[pindicator]

Nice turns Mathias. We've almost got all our cities planted. I have to go with the three spaces north of #4 for the final city, unless anybody else has a better idea. Which means we're going to want more workers. Any thoughts on turning Madrid into a worker factory after Colossus / Library.? It's going to mean keeping it at a lower size, lower production, and therefore slower culture. One possibility is cash-rushing culture buildings in Madrid as they come up so the worker flow need not be stymied while the culture in Madrid doesn't suffer too much of a hit. Of course, that's a lot of cash.

Or, as an alternative, we pop workers off of cities inbetween building culture.

Well how about that good fortune. Seems we have iron and horses not only in our territory, but practically on the road network already.

I want to say we should use the chop for the granary, because I love big cities, but I better endorse the temple just to get it built ASAP.

 

[MeteorPunch]

1250

1225

1200

1175
Contact with Persia

IT
Literature discovered.

1150
Contact with Scandinavia (all contacts now)
Trade Mysticism to Scandinavia for Horseback Riding and 30 gold.
switch Barcelona from Oracle to Great Library
Turn science off. We are way up in tech and have all contacts so we can broker trades at will. Using the money to cash-rush temples.

IT
Scandinavia builds the Colossus 5 turns ahead of us!!!

1125
Barcelona switched back to Oracle.
Madrid switched to Great Library.

1100
Temple rushed in Salamanca.

1075
Salamanca builds Temple.
Temple rushed in Toledo.

1050
Toledo builds Temple.
Warrior disbanded.
Temple rushed in Santiago.

1025
Santiago builds Temple.
Warrior disbanded.

1000
Temple rushed in Murcia.

Culture Value Rank for AA Wonders
50 Statue of Zeus 200/4 can't build?
67 Colossus 200/3 built by Scandinavia
67 Great Library 400/6 Building
75 Oracle 300/4 Building
75 Hanging Gardens 300/4
100 Mausoleaum of Mausollos 200/2
100 Pyramids 400/4
125 Temple of Artimis 500/4
150 Great Wall 300/2
150 Lighthouse 300/2

 

[MeteorPunch]

The Mausoleaum could've completed in Madrid last turn, than built library, then start new wonder. May have been a better way to go. Still 14 turns til Great Library completes.

Cash rush stuff in more unproductive cities.

 

[Methos]

On the worker south of Madrid, no sense in wasting a movement, he might as well road that tile.

Edit: MP has already posted.

I would suggest we settle our next city to gain one of the two lux’s. The wines are near a lot of hills so that may be our best option. One thing on those wines, in 27 turns Barcelona’s culture expands, but not enough to encompass the wines. At one point will it expand again?

I added an image of how our corruption looks at this point (after MP's turnset). Noticed Santiago went up by 2% from Mathias's save to MP's save.

 

[Methos]

Oh yeah, got it.

BTW any specific plans on our building preferences? What about military, or should we neglect that until our major culture is built and our neighbors expansion phase is done?

I understand that M of M could have been done sooner but 6c a turn is a lot and for a culture victory IMO the GL is a must.

Probably play tonight.

 

[pindicator]

Unless we are saving it for something special, I think we need to place that final city ASAP. After Seville finishes it's library, perhaps it could build our last settler.

Or if others disagree on the rush for the final city, after Barcelona or Madrid finish their wonder they can pop one out. They are our only two cities with granaries, so they wouldn't feel loss of 2 citizens quite as hard as a smaller town. This would let Seville grow up more quickly to be our third productive city.

@Meteor -- we need ivory for Zeus. It's always nice to get ivory in a culture game for that reason.

 

[romeothemonk]

lurker's comment: In this type of game the one thing that can really hurt you guys is a wonder cascade. In similar games others have tried to line up as many wonders finishing on 1 turn as they can. This may be something that you want to consider.
The MoM is a great wonder for this game type, and I usually try to put it in my fastest growth city for extra happy help. A slow tech pace is your friend as it makes the AI research, and that slows them down, as well as the wonder cascade. Something to consider is declaring war on all civs not on your landmass to get them in war mode, and then signing peace when they get MM.

 

[Mathias]

That final city won't be very useful until we can clear some of the jungle, so we need to concentrate on getting the early wonders before any more are taken by the AI. This means building the Pyramids before the Great Library, because we will likely finish before the AI gets literature. I really have no idea if we will be able to pull this off with such a slow start.

 

[Methos]

This means building the Pyramids before the Great Library...

So, first thing is switch GL to Pyramids, got it.

 

[Mathias]

I finally looked at the save. If you haven't played, I would put Barcelona on Mausoleum, and build Oracle in Madrid.

 

[Methos]

I finally looked at the save. If you haven't played, I would put Barcelona on Mausoleum, and build Oracle in Madrid.

No I haven't played yet. In fact I was just looking for the last time before I start.

No problem, it sounds good to me. I'll see if we can finish them both on the same turn if possible.

Edit: I'll leave this up in case anyone has more suggestions and I'll check it during play.

 

[pindicator]

@ Methias -- I agree that the city won't be productive until we can seriously get some workers chopping away over there, but I still think it needs to go up as soon as possible. Start it on a temple and chop the forest by the hills to hurry that along and give it a grassland square. After temple have it make it's own workers. Yes, it won't do much at first, but having it I think is better than not. I think Seville should be switched to settler after its Library finishes. It should finish that settler pretty close to its growth to pop 4.

I was ready to say how silly it would be to switch to Pyramids instead of finishing TGLib, but when I looked at the save that might just work. There are only 5 civs building wonders right now: America is building ToA, Vikings TGLight, Mayans and Ottomans the Oracle, and of course the Persians building the Pyramids. Mayans and Ottomans still don't have Writing, let alone Literature, so when we beat them to Oracle (which we hopefully will), they would cascade to pyramid. We could try investigating Persepolis (i.e. building an embasy) to see how far along they are. Since they are also one tech away from Literature, we'd have to cross our fingers they don't pick it up before the wonder cascade.

I think we should closer monitor techs if we do choose to switch Madrid to Pyramids. I would rather get TGLib and miss Pyramids and get Pyramids and miss TGLib. The last thing we'd want is a cascade to TGLib where we have no chance of building it.

Whether or not we decide to plant that jungle city now, we really could use some more workers.

 

[Methos]

Did the switching and slowed Barcelona down so that both wonders finish in 6.

 

[Methos]

Pre-Turn@1000 BC: Barcelona switches to Mausoleum. Madrid switches to Oracle. Adjust Barcelona to slow it down so they both finish in 6 turns.

IT: Murcia Temple>Library. The Vikings are building the Statue of Zeus.

1@975 BC: Zzzz

IT: Salamanca Temple>Library

2@950 BC: Murcia short-rushes an archer, than switches back to Library.

Note: Not sure if the 72 gold was worth shaving off the 6 turns.

IT: Forest harvested near Santiago

3@925 BC: Zzzz

IT: Seville Library>Barracks.

Note: Not sure about the Barracks, but we can always switch it. Figured it’s in the middle might be a good place for a unit builder.

4@900 BC: Zzzz

IT: Zzzz

5@875 BC: Zzzz

IT: We have this:

Oops, looks like we got our GA early!

Wonder Cascade gets us this:

Maya- switches to Pyramids
Ottomans- switches to Temple of Artemis

Madrid Oracle>Pyramids (in 15) . Barcelona Mausoleum>Great Library (in 25).

6@850 BC: Zzzz

IT: Mayan’s demand Horseback Riding, I give in. Korea begins the Pyramids.

7@825 BC: Zzzz

IT: Zzzz

8@800 BC: Forest harvested in Santiago.

IT: Seville Barracks>Spear. Hittites are building the Pyramids.

10@750 BC: Zzzz

-Santiago: Next turn switch the citizen working only food to a forest tile to finish the library.
-Iron is connected in one turn.
-The two curraghs met and are currently fortified as I didn’t have a clue what to do with them. They were fortified either this turn or the turn before, can’t remember.
-We still have a monopoly on Literature so the GL should be okay after the Pyramid cascade. Several AI’s are building it [Pyramids] so I am unsure if we’ll get it. We’ll be finished in 11.
-Our Golden Age is over in 15.

Edit: Yeah, I know, somehow I missed turn 9.

 

[pindicator]

I wasn't thinking about GA. This may be a good time for our GA anyway. Sure, we waste a lot of it because we only have two developed cities but it may be enough to get us all the wonders we want early on.

Got it, will wait for commentary tonight and play tomorrow afternoon.

 

[Methos]

First off once the Iron is connected (next turn) switch the spear to a swordsman. I'm not sure if we wanted the barracks and truthfully didn't plan on finishing it (wasn't expecting the GA). Though since we have it might as well let it earn its keep.

What about embassies? I would think it would be wise so we know who knows who, plus we are earning plenty of gold and can pay for them.

We're also running out of cultural improvements to build so should we buy the techs we need and research what we need to reach the MA (hence cathedrals)? Or just sit back and let the AI research for us?

 

[Obormot]

I think that slowing down the tech pace is more important then getting cathedrals. Maybe now we can build some military in our non-wonder cities. We may need it to defend ourselves and we may try to eliminate AI civs that will be the tech leaders triing to build wonders.

 

[pindicator]

The first thing I plan on doing with our money is buying embassies. Pyramids are being built by two of the AIs, and it would be nice to see how far along they are. There are also two AIs building ToA, which has a risk of cascading to Pyramids if they are both completing soon. I will also be watching the techs closely -- I know it's a long shot, but I don't want an AI picking up Literacy right in time to cascade to TGLib.

As far as technology pace goes, I say we keep the beakers turned off. I'm pretty sure we will get TGLib and if we do not we should be able to trade for the technologies that have passed us by.

I know this is counter-intuitive to what you would normally do during a GA, but we really need more workers. I don't think we are irrigating enough, either. And I would like to hear what other people think about getting that last city up. Yes, this means more workers still, and losing population is the last thing you normally want to do in a GA, but the sooner we get this city up the sooner we can get 12.5% of our culture production online.

 

[Obormot]

I think we should not delay founding that last city. Even if it won't be productive in the jungle, we can still build a temple and a library by cash-rushing and chopping forest. I think we got our GA a bit too early, i agree that we should build some more workers.

 

[Methos]

I agree on getting the final city up, but I'm unsure as to where to place it. Again, I'm not the best at planning city spots.

I hate to lose that extra shield during the GA so my opinion would be to wait until after our GA until we start watering.

See what we can do with speeding up those Pyramids, as in definitely mine there. The worker located SE-SE (?) of Barcelona should be completing the mine very soon so that's two more shields.

Once the GA is over (15 turns) I would have to agree with pindicator about watering our cities to get them at max size quicker, but again, I hesitate losing that additional shield during the GA.