Moonraker

[Cam_H]

Jeeze Louise .. another cross-post ... I'm cursed with these!

FiveRings,

On The Great Library

(This is sort of re-phrasing vranasm's #160 post)

What I understand that vranasm is saying is that it's good to pair The Great Library with The National Epic in a dedicated Great Person Farm so the city can churn out Great Scientists until 'the cows come home'.

However ... to do this in the capital is a questionable move. Why? Because Bureaucracy rewards and but not .

So, what we've planned (or at least was my plan!) of getting The Great Library and Oxford Uni' in the capital arguably doesn't well leverage the +100% opportunity through The National Epic. If we put The National Epic also in Prague, then we're probably trading off either its benefit (by focussing on Cottages rather than specialists [Farms]) or Bureaucracy's benefit (by focussing on specialists [Farms] rather than Cottages).

With all of this acknowledged, I still think that putting Oxford and The Great Library in Prague as our capital will still serve us very well.

Frankly I just wanted to build The Great Library as quickly as possible in a city that had both decent and a good -haul, as we're running out of time to get this Wonder done at all I'd imagine.

On Spaceship and # of cities

If we can get 30 cities, we should be assured of getting a Spaceship victory, the thinking being; the more cities, the stronger our position. 30 is an arbitary number.

On Technology

I agree that we should at least try to slingshot Liberalism, and if we can get Astronomy (international ) so much the better in my view.

One step we can undertake is to be the first to get to Philosophy. It's my understanding that the AI tribes 'downgrade' the perceived value of; Polytheism, Monotheism, Meditation, Code of Laws, Theology, Divine Right, and Philosophy if a different tribe has previously founded the religion. Therefore by being the first to Philosophy and founding Taoism we dissuade the AIs from pursuing Philosophy and therefore have a better shot at getting the Liberalism slingshot.

Until we get Optics, on this map (Continents) we have little idea as to where the other AIs are 'tech-wise', and therefore can't 'bank' on getting it. Usually Liberalism goes around 1000AD, but there's no guarantees that we won't see it go at 800AD.

vranasm notes that we can double-bulb Education with two Great Scientists. This not only puts us squarely on the pathway to winning the Liberalism race, but also allows us to start much earlier on Universities and Oxford University than if we had researched Education 'normally'. This therefore complements the strategy he's presented of sticking The Great Library and the National Epic in the one city that's ideally not the capital.

On Judaism

It's either Judaism or Paganism (No Religion), as we don't have any Hindu influence in our empire. I don't think that we're trying to make too many friends at this stage, and neither Bismark not Churchill are recognised 'religious nutters' anyway.

I am not sure right now if academy counts as national wonder or not.

No.

 

[woopdeedoo]

Ok. So, from what I've gleaned from the previous posts, the course of action would be to attack Bismarck and not raze any cities (except Dortmund) and hope we can secure our continent (after, hopefully, successfully crushing him and Churchill). Once done, settle more appropriate cities. I'm not going to mention them right now as I don't have too much time, but on the East (and NW) coast as discussed and in the spot close to where Dortmund is. This is pretty much going to be all I can do in my TS.

 

[FiveRings]

Ok. So, from what I've gleaned from the previous posts, the course of action would be to attack Bismarck and not raze any cities (except Dortmund) and hope we can secure our continent (after, hopefully, successfully crushing him and Churchill). Once done, settle more appropriate cities. I'm not going to mention them right now as I don't have too much time, but on the East (and NW) coast as discussed and in the spot close to where Dortmund is. This is pretty much going to be all I can do in my TS.

Just crushing both Bis and Church could do...!

 

[Cam_H]

Once again - I'd consider hurrying a Jewish Missionary out of Amsterdam (1st turn build with <10 , 2nd turn '2 pop' whip) destined to Prague (Organised Religion + Jewish buildings in time).

We've got a Great General ... what to do?

Generally I'd like to firm up our empire in terms of city specialisation - don't want to see Cottages being built in unit pumps for instance.

Tech' path?

I'm still not sure which city will be our National Epic city either.

 

[woopdeedoo]

Once again - I'd consider hurrying a Jewish Missionary out of Amsterdam (1st turn build with <10 , 2nd turn '2 pop' whip) destined to Prague (Organised Religion + Jewish buildings in time).

Ok, I hear you and I do agree.

We've got a Great General ... what to do?

Personally, I would settle him in our future HE city.

Generally I'd like to firm up our empire in terms of city specialisation - don't want to see Cottages being built in unit pumps for instance.

Agreed

Tech' path?

Not sure. Will have another look at current tech tree and comment later.

I'm still not sure which city will be our National Epic city either.

I don't think this will really concern my current set. I will be getting troops out to reinforce existing armies and building basic infra (granaries, for example) in newly conquered or newly settled cities.

 

[FiveRings]

My twopence:

We've got a Great General ... what to do?.

Another option - to joining a city, I guess the one that will be pumping units and will get the HE - worthy of consideration seems to be one more Super Medic. Thet will speed up the redeployment of the Southern army after mopping Dortmund and will be useful in the future war with Church whenever we fork. Count me in favor of the latter one, please.

Tech' path?

I thought we're more or less agreed on EDU->LIB but am not sure what was the attitude to getting CoL first. Personally, I prefer to be on the safe side of having a tool to prevent economy break-down, but as we are going on with a military prep, I guess we won't have the time to build the CHs -they take a too long time. So I'd go EDU->LIB, and hope we can get CoL thru trading (don't remember what's the situation there regarding Churchill, but if we can get it from him - or from Bismarck before we attack, this might be best case scenario.)

HBR came up, too, but while we have spears and WEs, HAs seem not such a big problem to me.

I'm still not sure which city will be our National Epic city either.

Maybe we can postpone this till we finish Bismarck and have a close look of his wonder-endowed cities?!

 

[woopdeedoo]

I thought we're more or less agreed on EDU->LIB but am not sure what was the attitude to getting CoL first. Personally, I prefer to be on the safe side of having a tool to prevent economy break-down, but as we are going on with a military prep, I guess we won't have the time to build the CHs -they take a too long time. So I'd go EDU->LIB, and hope we can get CoL thru trading (don't remember what's the situation there regarding Churchill, but if we can get it from him - or from Bismarck before we attack, this might be best case scenario.)

CoL will be finished when I hit Enter... I really don't see the point in deviating now...

 

[Cam_H]

Yes, well, I would have been 'disappointed' if we didn't self-research Code of Laws within a couple of turns if not next turn.

Meditation, Priesthood, and Philosophy ... or Civil Service? Monarchy (or are we 'banking' on getting The Pyramids and living without Wine for a while)? The free Great Artist from Music?

I'm just not sure what you have in mind.

 

[woopdeedoo]

So here is my plan tech-wise. Finish CoL by hitting the Enter key. Then, trade Lit and CoL for whatever I can from the AI, esp Bis. DoW Bis and crush him like a bug. Settle GG in HE city. It makes sense to me. Then start Music for GA. Save said artist for GA later when we get another GP.

Everyone happy with that?

 

[Cam_H]

'Yes' ... please complete Code of Laws within a few turns if not next turn. In addition to Courthouses and The Forbidden Palace, Code of Laws extends to us The Caste System, so whether this is more useful to us than Slavery is one for debate - I'd lean to sticking with Slavery, but Caste is an option to (a.) run 'unlimited' Scientists so we can pop a Great Scientist or two for Academies and/or bulbs, and (b.) run Merchants to prop' up our economy if required.

'Yes' ... to Literature + Code of Laws trades. Do trades with both Bismark and Churchill on the same turn.

I don't mind if you wish to add the Great General to our Heroic Epic city or build another Chariot Super-Medic.

In terms of tech', Music would probably not be my first choice, and instead I'd look at the pathway to Liberalism (incl. securing Philosophy to dissuade the AI) through Civil Service, or heading down the Optics pathway so we can find some new tech' trading partners. If you're determined to go after Music however, who am I to say "no"?

"Crush him like a bug" ... I'm leaving relations with Germany (if and when to DoW) in your hands.

It's been over a week now since the last turnset was posted. It would be nice to move this along.

 

[vranasm]

if the Music GA is still open then you got your ticket to fixing economy though.

Caste is interesting and all, but I really think you need slavery AND running merchants is inferior to building wealth on hills (can't believe I have almost the same discussion in 3rd thread in last 10 days), aside from the purpose of getting GM, which I am not sure you really want.

If you get some "unlucky" great prophet, I guess you will shrine hindu and spread hindu (hmm not sure if the holy city in shanghai is hindu and can't check ;-)).

 

[Cam_H]

vranasm,

Thanks once again for your input.

Because it's Warlords, we need two Great People to kick off a Golden Age, and I'd rather use 'the other' Great Person (in whatever form they take) in a different manner than burning on a Golden Age at this stage of the game ... just my preference.

Good call on the Merchant issue. While we're not in Representation and not especially looking to pop' a Great Merchant (Beijing may be the exception due to The Temple of Artemis and its generation of both Great Prophet and Great Merchant points), that working Mines on Hills and building Wealth does almost always offer a better yield. Cheers.

It's Judaism, but "Yes" - Temple of Solomon I would think would be 'the go'.

 

[vranasm]

ah sorry for the GA... I don't play warlords as evidenced by this non knowledge...

Well at this point of the game it's always. Maybe worth the read for FR and woop...

for example hired Merchant produces 0f 3gpt (we're using caste and have not market).

plains hill mine produces 0f 4h, with building wealth converted 0f 4 gpt (1 gpt more)
grassland hill mine produces 1f 3h, with building wealth converted 1f 3 gpt, the 1f can be equivalent of 1.5 bpt for example, surely beating plains hill mine and hired merchant.

Market and forge both offer 25% "production" modifier to the above.

Btw ironic enough building Market almost can't be payed with running merchants (boost the yield of 2 merchants to 7.5 gpt which is less then 2 plains hill mines, trade commerce and natural commerce at tiles run, but should be low amount if you run merchants and food) and you are forced to build it in cities with commerce which will pay the investment back thanks to slider 0% at times and big commerce base.

Juda? then it's even better...you already have some spread.

 

[woopdeedoo]

So this has been a very fun TS!

Now on the inherited turn, I moved some peeps around and happy things, turned tech down a wee bit. I settled the GG in our HE city. Hit enter. Get CoL and make the following trades:





I whipped the missionary and Steel Jaw and Judaism spread in our Cap.

Bismarck settled Stuttgart as soon as I DoW'd him:



But that was quickly razed. Taoism was found in Dortmund, shortly before I razed it. I was considering keeping it but the city is badly situated and better cities can be found in the vicinity. I decided that Taoism was not worth it and burned it to the ground.

I have settled 3 cities, including Silver and two others. I fail to recall what they were labeled on previous posts.

Frankfurt fell to us, as did Essen:





i decided to keep Frankfurt as it is a pretty decent city. Essen, OTOH, was pretty mediocre so I razed it.

We got Music first and our GA is snoooozing in our Cap.

Built TGL:



And a gem of a city was captured:



Thoughts on the turnset: To be honest, I had a lot of fun playing this set. I got our units consolidated as discussed and launched a successful campaign against Bismarck, who is pretty much broken. Our plan to dominate the entire continent is looking more and more workable.

On worker actions, I paired a number of workers together in order to get things built, chopped and roaded quicker. I think my worker management was not quite what it should have been.

Anyways, here is the save:

 

[woopdeedoo]

We may wanna send our GA over to Hamburg to Culture Bomb it.

 

[Cam_H]

Congratulations on the war front ... as you say, Bismark looks "pretty much broken", and Berlin will be a great take when we get there.

Great to get The Great Library so late imho, and also we've surpassed our "Goldfinger" variant requirement in this turnset. Even though we didn't found Taoism, hopefully the fact that Bismark did found it will dissuade the AIs on the other landmass(-es?) from pursuing Philosophy and competing for the Liberalism freebie.

Our economy, as expected, isn't travelling so well. I'd suggest that we keep on getting out some more Courthouses (along with Forges) so the Forbidden Palace becomes one possibility. Very much along the lines vranasm happened to note above, "Build Wealth" in a few cities looks like our 'best bet' for a while, and maybe as some cities get their Courthouses done, these can then progressively take over the "Build Wealth" burden. More War Elephants out of unit pumps as well in light of the Longbows that we're now facing.

I'm a bit unsure on quite a few builds; Steel Jaw Guy (unit pump) building a Library, Monte Carlo (Heroic Epic) not getting up a Stable but building a War Elephant, Amsterdam, Beijing, Nanjing, and Vienne all building Archers, Shanghai could build any number of things arguably other than a War Elephant where this city has no Barracks or Stable.

I'm also a bit unclear as to why Feudalism is queued up, albeit I acknowledge that we've hardly spent any on it. Were we looking to vassalise Germany and England? Maybe so - I wasn't sure if that was the plan or not.

Again, good to see success on the war front. Taking The Pyramids also gives us access to Representation if that's of interest (?).

[Edit] Oh - I just noticed that German War Elephant + Catapult to the north of Nanjing! Yikes - we should whip out some units there, but could still lose that city and may need to re-take it. [/Edit]

 

[vranasm]

checking the save.

looks good. I think 1 thing is absolutely clear. the stack runs out a bit of steam.

some cities work tiles that are a bit questionable.

I would 2-pop whip spearman (totally nonoptimal) in Nanjing and get some OF into archer hopefully being enough to defeat that WE+cat stack.

I think you will have to risk moving out from frankfurt those 2 WE's and merge them in berlin. the stack needs to continue imo.

I would pump out some gallic warriors, they are 40H instead of 60H of WE's and with so many siege I think you could use some.

I think it's finally time to whip CH's ;-)

not sure why prague builds market and why plains cottage when there is so much better tiles? (plains mine is inferior to GH mine too)

edit:
added t0 prep save to show what I have in mind.

 

[Cam_H]

not sure why prague builds market and why plains cottage when there is so much better tiles? (plains mine is inferior to GH mine too)

Not sure why you don't join the roster!

Once again, thanks for your effort.

I like the Market in Prague! +2 from the Fur and Ivory, with +1 promised from the Whale when we eventually settle that junky city of "Purple" (Whales-Cows coastal in south west), while at the same time we'll get a passive +2.5/turn from the two merged Great Prophets for the rest of the game, and ultimately we'll have maybe six or seven Towns if we continue to Cottage-up this city which I think should remain our capital (+50% also to multiply with the Market with Bureaucracy). Furthermore, we'd already invested into it , so I suspect woopdeedoo has done her best to finish it off asap by working -heavy tiles. This one could be a whip-regrow given its four resources and that the whip-weariness will be off-set by the Market. A Forge seems like a likely follow-up, if not 'Build Wealth'. It's hard to not look at The Colossus just sitting there as a build option, but I worry that Astronomy may be too close.

I was thinking of what to do with Nanjing, and we can optionally swap to a War Elephant, build it for a turn, then whip it out. I notice that you/vran' has proposed whipping out a Spearman immediately, which also works.

(I really must get more smilies into my posts! ).

 

[vranasm]

well I thought I won't have time... well now I actually could take this next TS if you want.

I see... the market probably isn't that bad of build, but with 4 turns away from strike it isn't probably best, since I think there is needed some consolidation in the -gpt while whipping CH's.

 

[woopdeedoo]

Welcome aboard V! To be honest, I was so focused on the war effort, I did minimal MM on city workings. I agree that we need stables and rax in our HE city. My concern was that, even though we lost very few units, our stack was getting a bit worn out and that we needed reinforcements. Also, due to inadequate road network, getting our WE's to the front takes very long.