McCIV-01 Prince McShuffle

[armstrong]

A Great Prophet would be great, but St. Petes already has 132/300 GP points with 100% probabilities of it being a scientist. Would it be better to hire a scientist and plan for him, or use a priest and hope the odds hold up and we get a Prophet?

Well, I'd hire a priest first, and then scientists to speed things up just to finish up that GP quickly (at which point Rostov can take over things.) Either a scientist (we have no academies yet) or a prophet would be good. Even if it's only a 20% chance, it's still worth trying for - if we luck out with a prophet, a Pagoda becomes a lower priority in Rostov than if we don't.

 

[Thrar]

(0) change two of the 1/1/1 plains worked at St. Peter to 2/0/3 and 2/0/1 grassland, to cut down growth to 3 turns. After that, we can shut down growth here.
CoL is fine with me, I don't see any big benefit in Monotheism. OrgRel is 1 turn anarchy, and not such a big deal right now I think.
Some more micro in Moscow and Yekaterinburg. And I think it's true, with the forces we have, we're pretty much ready for war already!

(1) move lots of axers in position. Pity, they'll take 6+ turns to arrive where they can be used. We don't see a single persian mounted unit, so that one spear we have there will be enough i suppose.

By the way, we need more workers. I'll see into this after the first few catapults.
Some strategy: I'm planning to hit Pasargadae first and still without catapults. Then, when the catapults arrive, we can go straight for Persepolis, and maybe take Tarsus on the way back home.

(2) not much really.

(3) Yakutsk on the island gets Taoism, all by itself. Taoism is at 23% spread, only Buddhism (30%) is bigger! St. Peter has grown, now supporting 2 scientists, 1 priest. Still at +1 food.
Regarding the GPF, Rostov imo has far too little food and grasslands to irrigate later. Novgorod is perfect, we could put a windmill on the hill, which, together with iron and stone, will provide us with some hammers, there are two BIG food bonuses (both +6 with irrigation), and lots of grasslands. Perfect.

(4) Moscow: Catapult -> Market.
Novgorod: Catapult -> Catapult. Since we'll hopefully build the shrine here one day, how about National Epic and Wall Street?
Rostov: Library -> Market. I figure this could be another nice commerce city later.
Yaro: Granary -> Library. I really don't know what else to build here.
Axemen slowly moving in place.

(5) Yakutsk finishes work boat, now going for granary. I'm not so happy about the worker traped up there though. Anyway, now that Moscow has put some fresh hammers into its market, I think we might as well switch to a worker up there. MM to get growth in 1 instead of 2, then worker next turn.

(6) There are some more Taoists in the world, living in a town called Cuzco. War is imminent, most axers (7, that is) are in place. And I almost forgot about the worker in Moscow.

(7) CoL comes in. I don't see anything of huge importance, so I decide to go for CS, mostly for the irrigation. I figure we're late for the colossus anyway, so we can probably get the forges and then Machinery afterwards.
Yaro switched from library to courthouse.

I believe I said something about 7 axers before, right? Right!

Pasargadae is almost undefended, an archer and a spear (yummy!), behind 40% cultural defense. Should be easy.

Tarsus just got 2 axers, so we have to watch our backs a little, but since we have the intel from religion, we can see them moving out and react appropriately. Upon capture of Pasargadae, Cyrus will also lose his northern horses, although it seems like there are more in the south.
Both Qin and HC complain about declaring war on their friend. Never mind, sooner or later it'll be there turn, anyway.

(8) HC comes calling. He joins Cyrus in the war.



No, kidding. He offers gems for our clam. Sure thing, man!
Novgorod completes another catapult, I tell them to start another one. I tell you, these rock-throwing devices will be a big hype one day! After recent growth, they're also running a priest now, still at +4 food.

Down south, the Tango spots what's the strongest unit in the persian army so far: a swordsman, guarding the southern horses. The two axers from Tarsus have disappeared into the fog, which means they can't have gone into our direction. Probably (late) reinforcements for Pasargadae. On a nice jungle hill right to the east of Pasargadae, our axers are enjoying the view. Still no hostilities, by the way.

(9) Pasargadae got a second archer. Won't help them much. First axer loses to archer (18.4%), down to half health. Second axer beats the fresh archer (30%), axer beats spear (77.5%), and finally axer beats archer (94.5%).
We capture Pasargadae, which is in a pretty good location, so I decide to keep it. Thanks to pretty good luck, we only lost 1 axer and still have 3 uninjured ones. Pillaging a fishing boat and the city capture got us a little over 100 gold.

(10) more believers of the Faith, in Tiwanaku. Axers move into Pasargadae to heal, I promoted all of the injured ones to heal them as fast as possible. The first catapult is (as good as) there, once they're healed, we can make a move towards Persepolis!
The persian axers seem to have disappeared, probably headed to Persepolis. So maybe we'll meet them there. We got 1 reinforcement axer down there, have to leave one behind for guard duty, so there'll be six and a catapult ready to move soon.


Nothing else to say I believe...I put a couple of signs up to mark a few spots. Strategy, as mentioned before, should be Persepolis -> Tarsus I think.
Statistics: we rock!

Here's the save:

 

[armstrong]

Good turns! I didn't expect to see a city fall yet I'm glad to see the specialists going, too. St. Pete's should give birth to something in 12 turns, and Novgorod is getting some valuable "priest time."

Some comments:

1. Cyrus has a galley up in Tarsus, so we probably don't want to get the Tango going too far south, or Yaroslavl' might get it's fish pillaged. I doubt he'll send it out anytime soon, though, with only an archer and a spearman in that city.

2. To solve the worker problem on the island, how about switching Yak to a galley, and have it work it's second seafood instead of the hill? Whip the galley asap. The worker, then freed up, can chop in the granary, and then after that return the to mainland. The galley can then scout Qin/protect our north, or head south towards Cyrus. OR... we could build a galley in Moscow, and while it manages the worker, Moscow could build two units and we could ship them south for reinforcements.

3. I agree about Novgorod as our GP city - the production, especially, will be nice in the short term, and it will be bigger in the long term. So, for national wonders, what would you think about:

Moscow: Heroic Epic, West Point
Novgorod: National Epic, Wall Street
Jungle City: Ironworks, Red Cross
Pasargadae: Forbidden Palace
Persepolis or St. Pete: Oxford

That leaves: Hermitage, Scotland Yard, and Mt. Rushmore.

By "Jungle city", there's a perfect later game production spot in the jungle between Tarsus/Yaroslavl'/Pasargardae - 1n of the rice looks good. It will be a nice base 60 hammer or so monster once we can clear the jungle and get post-state property workshops down.

It's a bit of a ways off, but I like Pasargadae for our Forbidden Palace. It would help us both with Cyrus's lands and (eventually) both Qin and Huayna's.

While St. Pete is our best current commerce city, Persepolis is in the long term better I think, even without the coastal routes: 16 cottages (all but 2 river), 1 windmill, 3 scientists.

4. I agree in general with Persepolis next, but I'm wondering if we should go for Susa before heading up to Tarsus - it's a coastal city with two nice food resources (clams + hill pigs) and it also has 2 grass hills, a plains hill, and a horse for some good production. We could go Persepolis -> Susa -> Tarsus. It will depend, of course, on how much Cyrus fights back and how hard Persepolis is to siege. If we do go south to Susa, we can have reinforcement catapults/axers incoming to Tarsus, so I think we'd have the military for it. It will sting, but our economy can handle 11 spread-out cities, and we have enough food that we can whip in courthouses everywhere if it gets too ugly.

5. We currently only have two cities on military, and the only main one is Novgorod which needs to start on the Great Library soonish (I think - I tend to be paranoid about getting wonders, so maybe I'm off...) We could move Yaroslavl' to military production - it has decent enough production to build some archers to secure our captured cities and it has a free whip and can run at +6 food with those fish, so we could whip a barracks, then build a few archers/axers/cats as needed for replacements & to garrison our new cities.

6. Cyrus has Monotheism. If we take Persepolis and Tarsus (and maybe Susa) he'd mostly likely trade it for peace. That would let us revolt to organized religion and a new government civic at the same time - which one do you think is best? I can see reasons for either Representation or Hereditary Rule.

So, what do you all think? Is Susa worth going for now, or just grab the 3 and consolidate? When should Novgorod start the GL? Whip a galley in Yak, or build one in Moscow?

 

[Xtream_Rockstar]

okay im picken up[

 

[Xtream_Rockstar]

heres my turn

Turn1: Set Galley to explore
Turn2: Novograd Catapolt-> catapolt STARTED ON MY MARCH TO PERSEPOLIS
Jr. starts on cottage
Turn3:Albert Starts on Mine
Turn4: St PetersBurg Catapolt -> Settler Sige on Persepolis begans
Turn5: Catapolt done start on Court house
Turn6: nothing
Turn8: 1st part Battle for Persepolis
Axeman dies
Axeman PWNS archer
Axeman dies
Axeman dies
Axeman PWNS archer
Turn 9: 2nd part Battle for Persepolis
Axeman PWNS archer
WE TAKE PERSEPOLIS
Casualties: us 3 them 3
Turn10: nothing

 

[Xtream_Rockstar]

.... whose ever next should pick up now

 

[armstrong]

Okay, I got the save, but I won't play tonight since it's my birthday.

Looking at the save, I'm wondering about the best way to continue waging the war. Our fish in Yaroslavl' is going to be pillaged next round cringe and we're down to only three axemen in our offensive stack, one of which must be used to garrison Persepolis. We have 6 cats (4 with our stack, and 2 near Pasargadae that probably should have been used to soften Persepolis up. Tarsus only has an archer and a spearman, so it shouldn't be too difficult. Susa is the Christian holy city (when was that founded?)

I see three possibilities:

1. Capture Tarsus. Make peace then.

2. Make peace immediately to save our fishing boats, rebuild the army and finish Cyrus off (maybe razing the cities south of Susa.)

3. Whip out some archers/axers, and take Susa and Tarsus with liberal use of catapults.

Take a look at the save, everyone, and tell me what you think. Also, we're going to get a GP next round - 18% prophet/81% scientist. What would you like to do with him? Where should the settler go (should I even finish him?)

And, I see that the worker currently, um, irrigating one of Moscow's forests, is named POOHEAD.

 

[McLMan]

And, I see that the worker currently, um, irrigating one of Moscow's forests, is named POOHEAD.

Alright Xtream, just stop it. It's obviously not wanted by some of our members (me included). This has been a good game so far, exactly what I was hoping for. I'm learning a lot. Lets not spoil it with childish behavior.

Back to the task at hand...

I took a look at the save, and I think I'd do option #2. (Although I think one of my faults is a lack of aggression when I have a chance to finish someone off.) I think we need to concentrate on building infrastructure and more units before finishing Xeres off for good.

If it's a scientist, I like the thought of an academy. It will yield a lot of research from this early point in the game. If we get a GP, it would be nice to have the shrine.

I don't know what to do with the Settler other than keep him on ice for when we raze some cities later.

 

[Thrar]

Irrigating a forest at Moscow? Are the signs I put up still there?

Moscow currently has 2 forests, IIRC, which I think should be kept for health, we don't need those tiles anyway. However, there's one more forest right outside the fat cross, with fresh water access, which can be used to get irrigation to the corn at Rostov. I hope it's that one that gets chopped, not the other one. I suggest changing that if not.

I didn't check the save, but I think I'd go with option 1, Tarsus, then peace. One fishing boat is no big deal, and then later we won't have to split up our forces to take it.
The 4 catapults you mention should be enough to capture Tarsus, even without bombarding, give them city raider as needed and go kill something. I don't think we should draw the war out any longer than your turnset.

I believe there was another big empty spot in the southern jungle (where the former border was), so probably we can send the settler down there.

I keep forgetting which city is good at what, so I'm not sure if there's any one city that's good enough at research to make use of an academy. I don't know about our tech situation, if there's a useful research option, it might be worth considering, too.
Remember that Persepolis as a capital likely has pretty good production (check that...), so it might be a good ironworks site later, and not get many cottages. Unless it's commerce heavy and low on production, St. Pete will probably be the better research center.

 

[Paulsy]

Moscow currently has 2 forests, IIRC, which I think should be kept for health, we don't need those tiles anyway. However, there's one more forest right outside the fat cross, with fresh water access, which can be used to get irrigation to the corn at Rostov. I hope it's that one that gets chopped, not the other one. I suggest changing that if not.

You're right, the worker to the N of moscow should be stopped this needs to be the first thing you do armstrong!

I go for option #1, its a pity our galley is sooo far south, i hoped he was going to be in a position to defend our fishing boats. If they do get pillaged it won;t take long to build another and send them down. But send some cats and a couple of axes to take Tarsus.

Oh, Susa has been a holy city for about 1 or 2 turns. If we leave that we might get lucky and Cyrus may start spreading christianity for us, or even better build a shrine.

I have just noticed that we have an present from Cyrus in the form of an Immortal sat outside Yarosl.!!! We've only got one archer defending but if it does fall we have a half fit axeman (with a promotion not yet used) that should be able to take it back.

I think persepolis would be better used as commercial city as it's sat on a river surrounded by 6 FP and an oasis. It could also be used as a GP factory if we irrigate. Thoughts???

Oh and Happy Birthday armstrong!

 

[armstrong]

I have just noticed that we have an present from Cyrus in the form of an Immortal sat outside Yarosl.!!! We've only got one archer defending but if it does fall we have a half fit axeman (with a promotion not yet used) that should be able to take it back.

I started playing, but I need to take a break for an important little game. I noticed the Immortal too - I ended up whipping a spearman to save the city. The galley returned (without touching our fish!) to Tarsus, where it was destroyed - the immortal pillaged a hamlet to a cottage, but that was the extent of the damage.

I think persepolis would be better used as commercial city as it's sat on a river surrounded by 6 FP and an oasis. It could also be used as a GP factory if we irrigate. Thoughts???

I really like Persepolis as a commerce city (in fact, I think it'd be good for Oxford) - it can have up to 16 cottages (and 14 are on rivers!)

Oh and Happy Birthday armstrong!

Thanks

Oh, about our GP:

We got Euclid the geometrist as our GP - he built an academy in Moscow (even though Moscow isn't even really a "commerce" town, with Bureaucracy in place it was light years ahead of everything else - the academy in Moscow was worth 30 beakers/turn!

I should finish playing and post the game tonight (at least an executive summary and the save.)

 

[armstrong]

Okay, my goals are to resolve the war with Cyrus (capturing Tarsus and hopefully getting Monotheism) and then have a revolution to Bureaucracy, Representation, and Organized Religion. After that, I'm going to focus on infrastructure and, importantly, workers (we have FAR too few right now with these new cities.)

Preturn

Okay, I'm confused. Apparently, the galley near Yaroslavl' landed troops in our lands. Our axeman is standing at the "Border Guard" sign, wounded, with no movement left. Cyrus has an unwounded skirmisher on the hill W of Yaroslavl' that is in position to attack IBT. Xtream, you NEED to mention these things in your report!

I whip (at double cost ) a spearman in Yaroslavl' to protect it. On the plus side, his galley might not pillage our fish if it's in "troop transport" mode. We can hope:

I find the Tango - it's down far south. I stop it from exploring: it would have been much more useful protecting our coast or getting Papa Serf off of North Island.

Checking our workers:

Papa Serf is stuck on the island. Yak switches to a galley (to be whipped as soon as possible.)

POOHEAD is renamed Radu. He's a turn away from farming the forest not marked by any sign in Moscow. Note that, following Thrar's signs, it was implicit not to touch that forest, since you need two forests for health benefits. He goes to chop a forest and irrigate Rostov's corn.

Albert & Willy aren't doing too much useful - I have them go connect our incense, and then get a couple of farms up around Yek.

Xtream, Jr. is building a plains cottage in Novgorod. Since that will be a farm someday, I tell him to stop - he'll go help our cities in the south.

Checking our cities:

I switch St. Pete's from a settler to a worker. It will whip this next round once it's GP comes in - we need worker turns more than another city, I think.

Novgorod switches from a Courthouse to the Great Library.

Yaroslavl' whips a spearman.
Yek needs a couple of farms.
Yak needs a lighthouse next, but it's working on a galley to free Papa Serf.

I put in (with signs) an irrigation line that we can use for Novgorod.

I bump our science rate to 90% (+10% culture) to get Civil Service in 2 turns instead of 3.

Okay, and away we go!

IBT:

Cyrus's immortal pillages a hamlet->cottage by Yaroslavl'. His galley moves back to Tarsus, without touching our fishes! One of the problems with the single-minded AI scripts, not that I'm complaining.

Turn 1 - 665 AD

Euclid has been born in St. Petersburg. The options for his academy are: Moscow (currently highest commerce, due to palace, and will be even higher with Bureaucracy coming in), St. Pete's (second best science, and will pass Moscow at some point), Persepolis (best eventual science city.) I'll think about it while I play out the turn. I settle on Moscow for the immediate research benefit.

This is weird. The WW in Novgorod has disappeared. I guess they got a little bloodthirsty when our cottage got pillaged

Xtream, Jr. begins making a road down to our new cities - it's worth doing now to get new workers down there, I believe.

Our spearman kills Cyrus's immortal.

St. Pete is whipped for a worker. It stops running specialists, and I assign instruct it's citizens to focus on commerce.

Our army rests one turn in Persepolis.

Our border guard rests until he is healed.

The Tango begins it's journey back north (you just had to get your specimens from the arctic, eh Dr. Maturin?)

I trade our extra horse to Huayna for 4 gold/turn. Be sure to check this every so often to see if he's got more money to give for it! Plus, since we're probably only going to go after him once we have Cossacks (+50% vs. mounted I think?) it's not going to hurt us if he has a bunch of knights around

Turn 2 - 680 AD

Civil Service comes in. The research choices are: Music, HBR, Monotheism, Monarchy,Nationalism (!), Paper, Metal Casting, and Compass. I really should have asked for advice on this before I played... oh well. I'm torn between:

1. Metal Casting
2. Compass
3. Paper

Paper brings us closer to Liberalism->Nationalism->Military Tradition for Cossacks. Metal Casting gives us forges for the hammers, a chance at the Colossus (Moscow could probably build it very quickly), and Compass gives us cheap harbors that will be very nice for health+commerce. Ultimately, despite the fact that Qin already has metalcasting, and so we could probably trade for it soon, with the slow pace the AI is teching at on our continent,
it seemed risky. It was a sub-optimal choice...

Moscow finishes Market->Worker
St. Petes finishers Worker->Archer (we need some city garrisons)

Our incense is hooked up.

Our new worker is named "Rodka the Rascal" and heads to the south.

Our army rolls out towards Tarsus.

Euclid will now discover paper for us. I don't think it's worth it, though - Paper is a relatively cheap technology. He opens a "School of Geometry & Dance" in Moscow.

Turn 3 - 695 AD

Our spare two catapults move south to Persepolis, and our army marches on Tarsus. Otherwise, nothing much happens.

Turn 4 - 710 AD

Persepolis comes out of revolt, begins on a worker- It has NO tile improvements. Did you pillage it Xtream?

Rostov finishes Market -> Lighthouse (it will need to work it's coast tiles soon)

Cyrus sends a galley out of Gordium with an archer in a settler right behind the Tango. I position the Tango to block his passage north.

IBT:

Our medic Axeman defeats an Immortal in Persepolis.
Cyrus moves two axeman (including a combat 3!) next to our army in Tarsus - I'm going to sack Tarsus next round to make peace, or else our City Raider axes are going to get cut to bits.

Turn 5 - 725 AD

Use two catapults to lower the defense of Tarsus a bit. Send in a collateral 1 catapult, who doesn't do a whole lot before dying. Send in a combat 1 (?) catapult who does do some serious damage. The two axemen head in and win easily:

Our "border guard" moves south to Tarsus. The Tango, after it scared the settler galley back to port, continues north. Arbela, Cyrus's capital, is going to be tough nut to crack, as it's on a hill with a City Garrison 2 archer.

Cyrus will pay handsomely for peace:

I revolt into Representation, Organized Religion, and Bueracracy. It's not an easy transistion for our poor people:

Turn 6 - 740 AD

Anarchy in the R.E.!

Cyrus converts to Christianity. Now that we respect Cyrus's borders again, The Tango is trapped down south, and with Cyrus's conversion we won't be able to get Open Borders with him. On the plus side, it means we shouldn't get another -1 "declared war on our friend" from Qin & Huayna when we finish him off.

I promote a City Raider 2 axeman to CR3 so we can build the Heroic Epic, and name him Nikolai.

Turn 7 - 755 AD

Anarchy in the R.E.!

The Great Library has been built in a faraway land It was someone not on our continent.

Turn 8 - 770 AD

Law once again reigns supreme in the Russian Empire. Thanks to representation, I can turn the culture slider back down to 0%.

Nikolai decides to show off against a barbarian warrior in front of Cyrus's men.

Yaktukst whips it's galley (it had to grow to size 4 before it could.)

Novgorod can't finish Great Library -> National Epic

Turn 9 - 785 AD

Moscow finishes Worker -> Worker
Yak finishes Galley -> Granary

Tarsus comes online, giving us spices.

Grr... Qin & Huayna both have Metalcasting now, we could have traded for it. Bah, that was not a good move on my part.

Yak's galley picks up Papa Serf.

Turn 10 - 800 AD

Yak finishes Granary -> Lighthouse

Papa Serf gets dropped off on the west side of the island. Be sure to have the galley wait for him!

Post-Turn Wrapup

Metalcasting will be learned in 1 turn. There's a worker near St. Pete's that's headed south to our new lands, and we have two workers building roads to the cities along the coast and in the interior respectively. I'm not sure if assigning two workers to road-building was a good idea, but it had to be done at some point if we want to get troops/more workers down south in any reasonable amount of time.

Cyrus should be crippled now - he only had 3 cities remaining when I made peace with him, so we took half his empire (including his capital.)

Our economy, despite how far our cities are from our capital, is running pretty well. We can run 60% (-5 gpt) or 50% (+15 gpt).

I've put some signs up, and removed some, including the irrigation path to Novgorod's corn and a sign where I think we should place a city down in the jungle as a workshop production town.

Oh, Taoism spread to about 2-3 more cities during my turns. I really want a shrine now...

Phew! That's all.

 

[armstrong]

I bet the save would help.

 

[Thrar]

Sounds good.

 

[McLMan]

OK, got it.

Things look really good. I'm not used to leading in the score at such an early date! The war wity Cyrus really expanded our territory. There are a lot of unimproved tiles in the former Persia though (as mentioned by armstrong). I usually don't pillage unless I'm in a tough war and I'm trying more to cripple the opponent rather than take over his cities. Sure, the AI makes some questionable improvements, but they're better than nothing until I can change them.

With metal casting finishing next turn, have we decided whether or not to build the Colossus? I think it's cheap enough that we can get it pretty quick in Rostov.

I also don't notice any discussion about what to research next. I'd probably go music for the free GA.

 

[Thrar]

About research...is the artist from Music still available? And even if he is, what do we want him for?
I'd rather skip that until later, and go for Paper->Edu->Liberalism, I'd take a free tech (Nationalism) over an artist any day!

Colossus...well, I don't know. Why Rostov, shouldn't that be a LOT faster in Moscow, with Bureaucracy and all that? I'd say go for it, but in Moscow.

Watch the specialist assignments carefully, Novgorod should have a priest at all times!

 

[armstrong]

With metal casting finishing next turn, have we decided whether or not to build the Colossus? I think it's cheap enough that we can get it pretty quick in Rostov.

I definitely would like us to go for the Colossus - we have one city that depends entirely on water commerce, and many other coastal cities. I agree with Thrar - I think it's best to build it in Moscow. There's two reasons for this: 1) Qin's had metalcasting for a while, so time is important, and Moscow has better production (especially with Bureaucracy), and 2) Moscow has the Great Lighthouse already, so we'd double up our Great Merchant points there. That's kind of nice, as later in the game we'll be guaranteed a great merchant.

I also don't notice any discussion about what to research next. I'd probably go music for the free GA.

I don't know if Music is still available - Homer (or any other great people, for that matter) wasn't born in my turns, so it most likely is still around - we went up the Alphabet-Drama line pretty early on.

Normally I don't get too excited about a free Great Artist, but in our case Music is relatively useful as we're going to need it for Military Tradition eventually.

Research is a good question. Our current goal, it seems to me, is to get Cossacks and take over our continent. We need the following techs for Cossacks:

Paper->Education->Liberalism->Nationalism->Military Tradition
Music (for Military Tradition)
Gunpowder (after Education)
Horseback Riding

Also, the following techs could be pretty useful:

Compass, Machinery -> Optics (for Harbors, Macemen, and Caravels)
Theology (for second promotion on Cossacks)

The following techs don't seem very useful in this game:

Engineering, Monarchy, Feudalism, Guilds

Looking at the tech path, then, it seems that the techs we'd most likely be able to trade for are HBR, Theology, Music, Machinery, Compass, so we might want to make researching those a low priority. On the other hand, a great person is never a bad thing to get...

I'd normally take a track along the lines of Paper->Education->Liberalism (+Nationalism)->Gundpowder->Military Tradition, trading for the rest.

 

[McLMan]

Thanks guys. What both of you say makes good sense. Sometimes I get too caught up with GP. I also see what you mean about the Colossus in Moscow. I'll start playing now.

 

[McLMan]

Pre-Turn: Everything looks good. Hit Enter.

IT
Learn metal casting, set research to paper
Moscow: Worker -> Forge

Turn 1) 815 AD
Papa serf loads into the galley.
Moving workers south

IT
St. Pete: Archer -> Galley
Yekaterinberg: Theater -> Library

Turn 2) 830 AD
Papa Serf sets foot on the mainland for the 1st time in hundreds of years.

IT
Pasargadae: Granary -> Courthouse

Turn 3) 845 AD
SS Yak heading West along Northern coast of continent
Working on irrigation chain from Yek to Novgorod

IT
Huyana makes an offer:

Never really sure what to do here. Doesn't seem like much but it's about all the AI will ever give for a tech. I decide it's better to make them research it rather than give it away.
Rostov: Lighthouse -> Aqueduct

Turn 4) 860 AD
Horse deal with Huyana can be re-worked. Now getting 5gpt for Horses.

Turn 5) 875 AD
zzzzzz

IT
Cyrus' peace treaty cancelled
Learn paper, set research to education

Turn 6) 890 AD
Cash running low (126g), and current research rate (80%) is -48 gpt. Set research to 70% (-26 gpt), education due in 19

IT
Moscow: Forge -> Colossus (due in 8)

Turn 7) 905 AD
Worker moves.
Road to Pasargadae is complete

Turn 8) 920 AD
Road to Tarsus is complete

IT
Yakutsk: Lighthouse -> Library
Persepolis: Worker -> Courthouse

Turn 9) 935 AD
zzzzzzzzz

Turn 10) 950 AD
Set research to 60% (-7gpt). Will still be out of cash soon.

Post turn
Overall a pretty quiet turnset. Once the Colossus comes in we should see a big boost in research. Still a lot of work to be done down South. In my opinion we should continue to build our infrastructure for a while. Maybe get to caravels so we can see the rest of the world.

For the lurkers:

The Roster:
armstrong
McLMan - just played
Paulsy - UP!
Thrar - on deck
Xtream Rockstar

*****The Save*****

 

[armstrong]

Looks pretty good Great job renegotiating the trade, and I see at least one worker at all of our southern cities. I agree with declining the trade with Huayna - 110 gold is too low for a military tech like that. I would like to see if we can get him to part with that gold some other way, though (he's Pleased, so we could just ask nicely - there's no hit as long as you don't "demand" it.)

Some comments on the save:

1. Moscow can whip the Colossus right now. It's not worth the 4 pop... unless we'd miss it otherwise. I really don't know what I'd do in the situation - on one hand, it will really help (it's a 10-15% increase in our research) if we get it... but I think we should be able to get it without a whip since Moscow is a such a strong production town with Copper+Bureacracy+OR+Forge.

2. I see we have some health issues. We should discuss researching Compass - it would only take 5 turns. Harbors would not only give us a boost in commerce, it would give health in 3 of our 4 sick cities, and they're very cheap.

3. Pasargadae is getting hit hard by culture (it's neighbor is on it's 3rd cultural expansion already.) It could use a theatre as it's currently missing it's silk, but we can let Huayna's worker build a plantation there first

4. What do you all think is the next best build for Novgorod after it finishes the National Epic in 1? It's really unhealthy, and we have stone, so Aqueduct->Hanging Gardens might not be a bad idea (and get some GE points in the city.) We could use the health (and population) in all of our cities.