In terms of the most useless buildings in the game, as opposed to units, the space elevator is definitely up there among the "best". It looks great on paper, with +50%, but due to how these things work, like you showed above, it doesn't amount to much.
One of the keys to a fast space ship launch is to have enough forests by the end to chop into parts, at least in a few select cities. Admittedly this is more tricky on small-ish pangaea-style maps. One typical play, if you have a forested National Park city, is to pre-chop all those forests, and then finish the chops for an expensive part you need to get out quickly.
If you plan to go to space and have founded Sushi, then you need some "breathing room" so you don't accidentally trip domination. 10-15% below domination limit sounds like a lot, but often it is actually needed, because with Sushi, borders will explode, and you'll start eating into AI lands, maybe even flipping some cities. Many times I've miscalculated, and had to gift away a host of cities.
Not much point with Sushi on a lakes map. Probably around 15 Sushi resources on the entire map. <20 Cereal resources as well, and not that many mining resources either. State Property is clearly the better option here.
A lack of forests is a problem. I could settle a new city now which would have quite a few forests... I wonder if I have time to develop it enough until it's time to build a spaceship.
Edit: and yes, the Space Elevator is truly ridiculous. If you do the maths to see what you are actually saving on building the engines, which are the largest parts and likely to be bottle necks, the results are quite staggering. Building the engine without Ironworks, with forge+factory+power+lab+SP costs 1600/2.35 = 681 base hammers. With the Space Elevator the cost is 1600/2.85 = 562 hammers. Space Elevator saves you 121 base hammers! Build the other engine in your Ironworks city and there the savings are 62 base hammers. Going for Space Elevator requires an investment of 13k and building a 2k wonder to save a total of 183 base hammers on the builds where it matters!
Moved the scout to see the wheat in south and pigs to the west.
Settled in place with the idea of sharing elephant + flood plains with a city to the south.
City Build:
Work - War (start) - Work (@3)(chop) - Settler (2x chop) - Settler (chop + whip)
Because we don't need a food tech other than the starting Agg, I rushed to BW. Because I was able to chop a 2nd worker, I figured getting 2 workers before a settler would be a solid play.
I actually had 2 goes at this, the first never got AH or Fishing, has Mysticism, and is behind ~180 beakers and has 87% of the tech rate of my 2nd time around. I wanted to try out an axe rush on Persia and took Pasargadae and a 2nd, small city.
Map:
Spoiler:
Persia is crippled, but these two cities are subpar and will stay that way for quite some time.
My 2nd attempt involved the way I'm used to playing, REX start and ignore early wonders. I could've tried for the Oracle, but it finished before I had Writing. Maybe if I delayed Pottery + Writing and prechopped a plenty I could've gotten it. Pyramids are long gone, I'll go for the Great Lib.
Map:
Spoiler:
The unhindered Persia will be more difficult to take out in this setup, but I should have better tech. If I kept the first attempt I could have much more land in the midgame, but I'll keep the 2nd attempt. I should have better tech and a still have a solid ~9-10 cities by 500 AD.
Up to 500 AD:
Spoiler:
Tech:
Path: Aesthetics - Currency - Literature - Compass - Music - CoL - Civil Service - Paper
Trade: Alpha - Archery - IW - Masonry - Myst - Sailing - Poly - Med - Mono - Priesthood - Calender - HBR - Metal Casting
Bulbed: Philosophy
400 AD: Khmer is plotting war. He's pleased with me, but we share a border and my power ratio to his is 0.5
It's been 100% peaceful up to this point for everyone!
Starting 11th city soon, a cottage heavy city sharing rice and connecting my South Eastern city I took from barbs.
Spoiler:
My overall plan is to stay peaceful and blitz for cuirs, start a few golden ages and conquer! Holding onto my artist from Music until the National Epic finishes. (~20 turns)
880 AD: Mongolia declares on me?! There was no red fist the turn before, dang :[
1000 AD: Persia gifts me Marble as I start the Taj Mahal ^^ It's like he doesn't even know he's gonna die in a few centuries
1020 AD: Lib + MT, I start my 1st Golden Age to help get Gunpowder a turn earlier.
1040 AD: Mongolia did little damage, I had enough elephants to hold off the Keshik, we peace, he gives 10g.
1100 AD: I am Arabia's worst enemy, he is plotting war! I've been prepping cuirs for a few turns now, I can't wait to see him
Promo'd 14 Elephants into Cuirs. Because, you know, first rule of biology: throw enough money at an elephant and it turns into a horse.
1160 AD: Can't wait anymore, declaring on Persia. If Arabia sends a stack my way I'm sure I can handle it.
1170 AD: Egypt declares on me. Woah now, Egypt, you've been the Meg of this map all game long, what do you think you're doing?
1200 AD: Egypt hasn't sent anything through the Carthage/Mongolian territory in the east, so unless he has any units worth my time they are coming through Khmer, where I'm already watching for a possible Arabian stack. Mongolia is gathering some scary forces and I'd rather not fight on two sides at once, so I gave Lib to Mongolia to distract him and go to war with Egypt for me.
Up to 1635 AD:
Spoiler:
Tech:
Path: Chemistry - Steel - Replacable Parts - Rifling - 0%
Trade: Constitution - Corporation - Divine Right - Military Science
Bulb: Chemistry
1240 AD: Saladin declared on Khmer!
1280 AD: Cyrus caps to me!
1300 AD: Declared on Byzantine!
1350 AD: Justin caps to me!
1350 AD: Declared on Saladin!
1410 AD: Khmer declares on Mongolia!
1420 AD: Rifling is 1T away, I've had enough of this slow war with Saladin, probably should have noticed his power rating before hand.
I trade Steel to Carthage to get them in on this Arabian war! Also trying to get Egypt to cap to me, but I've sent very few units south, so no dice.
1430 AD: I peace with Saladin for 400g, he should be the final boss, takes too much time right now.
1480 AD: Egypt caps to me!
1490 AD: Declared on Khmer!
1520 AD: Khmer caps to me!
1525 AD: Declared on Arabia again! (MT 3 turns away for him.)
1540 AD: Arabia caps to me!
Only took one city but holy hell, he had one enormous 40 unit stack of just Camel Archers, Mustketmen, Grenadiers, and Trebuchets. I had 5 cannons with the +30% collateral damage promotions, followed by a few stacks of riflemen and cavalry. All the fights were at 80%-99% odds
1630 AD: Both Mongolia and Carthage cap to me!
2nd win for an immortal game, crushed my finish dates and score for my last two NCs! Noice!
Mistakes I made:
Spoiler:
Wanted to win ASAP and kill them all in a counterclockwise motion, didn't take into account how strong Arabia was. Need to scout more/use espionage to show power ratios a century or so before launching the big invasion.
Built a decent number of courthouses and markets when few to none were necessary for the timing I wanted to end this game.
Had very weak defenses when going into the midgame, got lucky none of them wanted to kill me sooner. Either need stronger diplomacy or faster tech to Construction so I have a decent Elephant army when needed.
Debatable on if this is a mistake, more like a missed opportunity - Stayed out of the religions for a long time, could have gone for Buddhism for +bonuses from civics, etc., and bribed another Buddhist civ into a war with me, improving diplo and conquering a valueable enemy like Persia sooner.
I'm sure there were some smaller mistakes here and there, but these are the ones I want to work on for next time! gg!
Nice enough start and scout found no reason to move. Maybe in hindsight I should have settled closer to the gold if I had known. Ok land, nothing fantastic. Found Cyrus very close and he had both stone and marble! With the Zulus and ivory I foresaw war and planned thereafter. Went min/bronze/wheel/pott/writing/math/ started alpha and traded math for it. Then backfilled the techs. Got out the academy, but decided against going for wonders. Went currency/construction/ horseback riding and dowed Persia with a big stack of 15 units to be on the safe side. Perisa had no feu and many horses, but no phants, so kinda of a slaughter. I was in tough spot financially so I had to sink some time into col to trade for it and then use the conquest gold to get Bureaucracy so I could trade for feu from the others. I thought Persia would fold once I got feu but he wanted one more spanking and capped after his 6th city fell.Gave it back but kept the other 5 to be on 10. Many civs have grown big on this map, with Surry, Kublai etc on 10 cities. I dunno what to do next. Most civs got ivory one way or another so that is little advantage. Noone has engineering yet, so I was thinking of going for Justinian. He is advanced but not too big and. Kublai is the only one without feu but dowing him would probably bring in Surry on me even though they are in a different religion they always love each other. I could do no war but I see no reason to stop now with a stack and a vassal. If I can get 1 more vassal I should be on my way which makes my next decision crucial.
Do not like that there hasn't been another war in the game and I haven't really been able to bribe someone either...
Nice idea to copy all your updates into one post for a writeup! Maybe I'll start using the same trick.
And congrats for being the first to bring Shaka to a glorious victory!
Spoiler:
Sal can indeed be a pain if he goes to war before you attack him. He'll build a ton of units while at war and usually does so in Theocracy for CG3+drill longbows. I know you had nothing to do with him going to war here, so this is not a comment on this game, but it's a good thing to keep in mind in future games. AI at war spam units but are incapable of using them, so most of the stack will still be around when you eventually attack. I know lots of people like to bribe their future targets to war to keep them backwards, but lately I've been taking the opposite approach. I avoid bribing my future targets to war as that means they will have fewer units when I attack. Also, if I plan an early rush, like HA rush, I avoid stealing workers from my first target, as that will only have them build more archers. In this game I've kept Sury, Hannibal and Kublai at war, while taking out Darius and Justinian, and soon to take out Sal. None of my opponents have had anything that would remotely resemble a stack. Only 2-3 units/city. Sal has a bit more by now, but shouldn't be even close to a 40 unit stack without war prep.
Haven't had any time for playing in the last couple of days. Quite busy weekend ahead as well. Will probably continue my game next week.
Hmm, trudging along here. So, I avoided Jusinian cause Arabia would surely jump in on me. I did consider Surry, but Kublai would surely jump on me. Both of them had phants and Mongolia would surely get feu in the war. But I wanted war so Egypt was my choice, weak, no engineering and no phants. The big problem was the he was some ways off. And sure enough, Mongolia got bribed in on me. So I had to split my armies which is never good. Egypt did cap after a few cities as he never has huge defenses and no castles either. I had to let Mongolia take my eastern city as he had too much siege and take it back the next turn. He had 10 cities and that was only a stack of 15 so I did expect more. After Egypt fell I had to take my big army for a long treck which took awhile to get back. When I had gotten back to take his city Mongolia had gotten Feu and engineering AND there was sitting around 35-40! units in the city. A bit different from Egypt. After a big slog the city finally fell. But Mongolia never caps easily. I messed up the lib race completely forgetting to switch focus on my vassal what to tech, so I ended up with gunpowder instead of chemistry.
Just awful . As I said Mongolia knows how to build units and the next 2 cities I took had 5-10 units in them and took awhile to bombard. I am closing in on his capitol, but I doubt he will cap even after that fall though so no end in sight. BUT I do have 2 vassals, mongols are hurting and only a peacevassal to Hannibal or Surry would put me in a hole. If Mongolia fall I cannot see myself losing this one but the war is taking forever having killed at least 60 Mongolian units so far.
Messing up the lib race will cost me a lot of time though and I am not looking forward to the end game vs for example Arabia....
Hmm, trudging along here. So, I avoided Jusinian cause Arabia would surely jump in on me. I did consider Surry, but Kublai would surely jump on me. Both of them had phants and Mongolia would surely get feu in the war. But I wanted war so Egypt was my choice, weak, no engineering and no phants. The big problem was the he was some ways off. And sure enough, Mongolia got bribed in on me. So I had to split my armies which is never good. Egypt did cap after a few cities as he never has huge defenses and no castles either. I had to let Mongolia take my eastern city as he had too much siege and take it back the next turn. He had 10 cities and that was only a stack of 15 so I did expect more. After Egypt fell I had to take my big army for a long treck which took awhile to get back. When I had gotten back to take his city Mongolia had gotten Feu and engineering AND there was sitting around 35-40! units in the city. A bit different from Egypt. After a big slog the city finally fell. But Mongolia never caps easily. I messed up the lib race completely forgetting to switch focus on my vassal what to tech, so I ended up with gunpowder instead of chemistry.
Just awful . As I said Mongolia knows how to build units and the next 2 cities I took had 5-10 units in them and took awhile to bombard. I am closing in on his capitol, but I doubt he will cap even after that fall though so no end in sight. BUT I do have 2 vassals, mongols are hurting and only a peacevassal to Hannibal or Surry would put me in a hole. If Mongolia fall I cannot see myself losing this one but the war is taking forever having killed at least 60 Mongolian units so far.
Messing up the lib race will cost me a lot of time though and I am not looking forward to the end game vs for example Arabia....
Really weird uneventful game this one. Kublai didn't peacevassal to Hannibal and after I took his capitol combined with my vassal Persia taking one city Kublai had had enough and folded. With 3 vassals my sight was in hannibal as he was isolated down to the east and isolated in religion. begged a map from Surry so no peacevassaling and declared. And not too soon either as Justinian, Hannibal, Saladin and Surry was trading fast and furious with all of them gaining replacebale part. I know that meant cannons so steel was up next for me as a priority. With Hinnibal alone with my vassals all around him and noone to help he gave up as I went straight for his capitol taking a couple of cities along the way. Saladin was 1st to rifling but I don't care by now and he is last on the menu anyway. My good "friend" Surry is on the menu next with my 40-50 stack standing outside his borders. He will get rifling soon I guess but until then my cannons will make mincemeat out of him. He can't be saved by religious nutcases Saladin or Justinian as they are in different religion. Not expectin gto stuble with 4 vassals on my side. Haven't decided who to go for after that as one will probably peacevassal to the other anyway. The path to victory is open!
The vassaltrain kept on going. Having isolated Surry picking of his friend one by one he couldn't peacevassal and he wasn't yet up to rifling. He lost his stack and after that is was just a matter of time. Stubborn as he was, after his capitol fell and 4 other cities he gave up. At this late game I got sloppy as usual not care much about techs or unit production as I had a huge 50-60 unit stack roaming about. Even though Saladin and Justinian had rifling they didn't have steel or assembly line. I had picked up Military science so my sheepr numbers would be too much. I did Saladin to go for 1st as he was bigger and i thought the likelihood of him peacevassaling to Justinian was a lot smaller than the opposite. And there was a higher chance of Justinian being scared of me and my vassals too. Went straight for the city with Saladins stack and wiped it out. After that his armies were scrambling about with my vassals doing cleanup. After his 4th city fell he gave up. And then poor weak Justinian. I almost felt sorry for him when I declared. The smallest civ in the game citywise and not much of an actual stack. Even if he had infantry, it would have not mattered. 2 cities was enough for him. I was very sloppy late game and didn't even use my 2 great engineers and missed out in Assembly line, electricity, artillery by a couple of turns.But who cares? It was fun phant crushing the entire world
Same here - or at least, all the wars that took place were initiated by me (including bribes)
Got this finished yesterday. Had a great time with this one! Thanks for the map, elitetroops
I was going to bite InovA's approach and compile all the updates in this post but it told me it was too long.
860AD-end:
Spoiler:
T157 920AD Iron at last! Upgraded a bunch of WEs and queued cuirs in all cities with Hindu. Wealth / fail otherwise.
T160 1000AD Justin has fallen. Lot of wonders in Constantinople:
Spoiler:
Also seems like a lot of people were going for Sistine. Was able to get nearly 1000 in trade, one of which involved getting PP from Hannibal, so Rifling is closer now. Upgraded more WEs, leaving enough cash to get through Econ. Will now regroup, heal, and start on the next target. Sal has become the leading AI, and he's next door, so thinking maybe I should go for him. Maybe build a second stack with the new cuirs coming out of the core cities to attack east.
T161 1010AD Hmmm... used the slider to put enough EPs in Sal to see his demos. I have 1.1 against him. Seems doable. Think I could take 3 cities on the 1st turn of war.
T163 1030AD Hannibal built the AP. Next two targets don't share his religion, but will have to watch it when I go after the Hindus.
T164 1040AD Econ in just in time to switch to Free Market before the GA ends.
T165 1050AD Three stacks lined up to DoW Sal. Stack for Gepid is small because it only contains one mace and two camel archers. E stack will be large enough to strike soon too.
Spoiler:
Before:
After:
Well, I think I'd call that a success!
T166 1060AD Kublai has DoWed me! Took four workers right off the bat. Gosh, if only I had a large stack of units that were vastly more advanced than his sitting in one of our border cities.... Oh, wait! I do!
Spoiler:
No idea why his units are showing in green. They're mostly single units, groups of 2-3 at most.
Took out all the guys in the open (no stack in sight yet) and sniped Turfan from uMg.
Over in Arabia, Sal doesn't want to talk. 13 cuirs were unharmed in the first assault, and are in position to attack Damascus, which is lightly defended.
T167 1070AD No counter-attacks between turns. Both opponents refuse to talk.
Damascus fell with 1 loss. Has forge and Hanging Gardens.
Spoiler:
Took crap-ice-city-with-name-obscured from Kublai. Did him a favour by razing it. Killed a few more lone units making commando runs into my borders - some coming from south, through Sury's land. The "home guard" needs a bit of healing, but fortunately a GG was born this turn for a new Impi-medic.
Saladin will talk by the end of the turn.
T168 1080AD Kublai retaliated a bit. Took out two cuirs with Pikes. He has a stack with a fair bit of seige on the way. Will be fun flanking that lot.
Spoiler:
Sal's stack has also revealed itself.
Spoiler:
Took them all out. Power still only at 1.5 though, maybe he has another?
T172 1120AD Sal ready to cap. Should have checked at start of turn, before I'd moved units into position to take Mecca. Will take peace, and send the Econ GM down there for a TM to fund Rifling (1T off RP). Set Sal researching Constitution. Also took a banana / rice city Kublai had settled S of Ulundi & uMg.
Noticed that Constantinople, which I'd left empty, had a barb archer next to it! I think I recall that when you liberate cities, the former owner gets units back in there immediately. Let's see...
Spoiler:
It doesn't offer the option! Must be because it's under a Byzantine revolt. He's got a Cataphract in Thessalonica that should be able to reach it, but maybe he won't bother.
Gave all Sal's cities back. Sury next.
T173 1130AD
He was obviously thinking the same thing because he's just DoWed me! I was already -3 for being a heathen, and I guess that extra -1 for "we are worried about our rivals being vassals" tipped him over. Hannibal is friendly thanks to shared war and religion, and trade, without which I'd actually start to worry about getting overwhelmed here.
No sign of Sury's army, but we have quite a long border, so have moved some of my eastern stack back a bit to intercept anything coming from the south. My western stack (now somewhat depleted) has moved into position to attack Hsung-Nu, close to Sal's eastern border. Used the whip to finish all the cuirs being built in core cities. Not the most efficient whips (none dry, at least) but might be glad of them next turn.
An AP vote to "Stop the war against Kublai" also came up this turn. Probably a good thing. I voted No anyway!
I still own Constantinople. Dunno what happened there.
T174 1140AD
Yup, enforced peace with Kublai. Well, I took three cities and knocked his strength down. Sury has taken Trebizond! The single cuir stationed there (nothing else I could bring in last turn) saw off a knight and a mace, then fell to a longbow. He hasn't moved any more units in. Ordered Justin to attack it. Also gave him back Constantinople, it was just revolting the whole time, the wonders were either poor or soon to be obsolete, and the shrine only brought +14 gold.
GM in Mecca is showing only 900 for a TM. Previous TM netted 1300 , with the city at size 13. It now has 16 citizens, but the yield is 400 less!? WTH?
Took Hsung-Nu. Nothing in position to retake Trebizond this turn.
T175 1150AD Sury's 1T off Nat, but doesn't have Gunpowder. Should be able to cap him - or get cavs - before he has cuirs. Sent two cuirs to Trebizond. The first died, leaving a lbow in there with 2.8 . Justin has a stack 2 tiles away, whch contains mounted, so he might get it back next turn if he doesn't insist on bombarding. Sury brought a stack of 13 Ballista Phants, maces, pikes and a couple of trebs outside Hsung-Nu, all sitting in forests. Took out the big stack, losing 5 cuirs. There are still 2 pikes in the forested tile SW. Thought it was more important to kill the siege.
Gave Sal Banking for 200 , trade embargoes against Rammy and Hanny, and convert to Hinduism. Shared religion doesn't seem to affect the TM value.
T176 1160AD Justin did indeed reclaim Trebizond. So I wasted a cuir last turn.
Rather than attack with those 2 pikes, Sury just moved them out of the forest . Took them out, no losses, stack will need to heal there for now. To the north, took Rajavihara.
TM now worth 1100 , Mecca hasn't grown. Interesting. Teching Rifling at 100%. 5T. Won't be sped up by having more money stored, so will keep an eye on that and cash it in when I run out of money.
(actually since making that note, I read elitetroops' explanation that the value of a TM is based on the value of the between your cap and the target city. Ulundi did regrow from whipping during those turns, so I guess that explains it.)
T177 1170AD Took Banteay Kdai with no losses. At 1.5 vs Sury. EPs going into Hannibal, the only possible threat left really.
T178 1180AD Iron got pillaged by a spy. Demanded Justin's. He can have it back once I've rebuilt the mine. Marching on Nagara Jayari. Gave a couple of cuirs the anti-mounted promotion in case of Ballistas. Western stack in position for Isvarapura.
T179 1190AD Isva has fallen. Sury's northern cities are decent, and not too far from Ulundi, so will probably keep them. Did the TM for 1100 . Rifling in 3T.
T180 1200AD A bunch of Ballistas appeared around Isva. Took Nagara and then he was ready to cap. Gave two cities back, kept the three on my southern border. 2T to cavs and I'll have about 1300 left for upgrades, which is plenty as cuir > cav is cheap. So just need to think about target order. None of the remaining 3 AIs have Gunpowder, but Hannibal and Kublai have MT. I think either split stacks, one each for Rammy and Kublai, then converge on Hannibal, or the inverse of that - a big stack into Hannibal, then split it for the other two. Hannibal has gone down to pleased after I took Sury as a vassal.
T185 1250AD In position:
Spoiler:
Decided to take the small fish first.
Ramesses seemed to have his entire stack in Byblos, which conveniently enough was the only city I could attack directly on the first turn of war. ratio went from 2.0 to 2.4 after taking that lot out.
Kublai was also keeping his stack close, in New Sarai. Quite a few cuirs actually. Gave some cavs the anti-mounted promotion. Hannibal has Chemistry, so will need to get to him quickly
T186 1260AD
Spoiler:
The sneaky so-and-so moved his stack! He could have reached, and easily retaken, that city with his cuirs, but must have stopped outside to bombard with those trebs. More interesting than just sitting in New Sarai, and of course allows me to take them out in the open.
Cavs with Formation were attacking his cuirs at 97%.
Put 100% EP slider on Hannibal - don't want any nasty surprises.
T187 1270AD
Hannibal is 1T off RP. He has a few Grens and cuirs, but mostly LBs. He won't reach Rifling, because -
Spoiler:
T190 1300AD Northern stack healed and in position. Southern stack a couple of turns behind because I misclicked and sent their medic running back into Khmer lands.
T195 1350AD Capitulation after taking Leptis, Gaul, Hippo and Cherokee -
Wasn't quite sure how to read the tech screen you posted. Obviously there are some big stashes being held by the AI, which is notable. The techs you traded on the previous turn don't seem to have spread that much between the AI. Could you say more about what made it brow-raising?
Settled in place. Figured that grassland might have a resource. Perhaps should of gone 1S.
Went for BW. Then wheel and pottery. Settled 2nd city by copper/goldcorn and wheat in BFC.
Persians went into war mode early 1600bc. I was 100% the target as all his EP was on me. GW was also built by Persians. Pretty much decided the axe rush for me. Needed 3-4 impi to protect stack and cities.
I declared on Persians 1560bc. I have captured their 3 cities. Auto razed another at start of war. Persopolis had a granary and light house. His second city was on a hill but S3. His third city had iron and I pillaged and took this city. 4 archers defending. No losses on that city. He has 2 cities left. I am running out of units. 6 units left of my stack.
Whipped a settled in my capital and settled 1S of wheat. Could use 2-3 other filler cities. Carthage is in war mode. Not found him yet.
Need to start on some cottages and start building an empire. Persians have 2 cities left. I lost 5 axes and 2 impi but killed 10 immortal and 11 archers.
Use a GG on a cr3 axe with +30% strength. Seemed a nice option. Medic may have been better.
There are several different multipliers for trade route values. One significant multiplier comes from sustained peace. The longer you've been at peace, the higher the TR value. I'm guessing the war caused the drop for your GM trade mission.
The value still seems too low for a ToA city though. Was it built in Mecca? I got 1900 for GM trade mission to Mecca (with ToA) around 1000AD.
This has been a very long Immortal game for me. I'm close to winning now (at war with the last CIV I need to get the domination victory, should be finished soon). As suggested in my last post, I decided to record the game and upload to youtube instead of doing screenshots. In case anyone's interested:
@elitetroops thanks! Tried to make good use of the playground you provided
Spoiler:
Wow, 1900!? Yes, ToA was in Mecca. Here's a load of probably-mostly-irrelevant data about the TM values in my game:
---------------
860AD 1300
Mecca pop 14, Ulundi pop 11
value: Not sure how to read this. Ulundi has with Carthage and Cherokee (Hannibal), both at 4.48 . Those cities are both pop 16. Pasargarde has with Mecca @ 3.85 . Pop 6.
Diplo with Saladin +4:
+1 years of peace
+2 OB
+1 fav civic
+4 fair trade
+1 you gave us help
-3 heathen
-1 first impression
-1 DoWed our friend
1140AD, the turn I noticed the reduced value - 900 . He is my vassal at this point.
Mecca pop 16, Ulundi pop 11
in Ulundi: Cherokee 5.4 , Utica 4.48 , Carthage 4.20 . Pop 18, 16, 15 respectively.
kwaDukuza has with Mecca @ 2.09 . City is 9 pop.
Diplo with Saladin +10:
+2 defensive pact
+1 mutual military
+2 civics
+4 fair trade
+1 gave us help
+6 liberated cities
-1 traded with worst enemies
-1 first impression
-3 DoWed us
-1 DoWed our friend
Don't have a save for 1190AD, the turn I did the TM for 1100 . But the following turn:
Mecca pop 16, Ulundi pop 12.
Ulundi to same cities, values 5.13, 4.56, 4.56 listed in same order as before. Carthage grown to 16, other pops the same.
KwaDukuza-Mecca 2.38 . Pop 10.
Diplo with Saladin +11:
+1 religion
+2 defensive pact
+1 mutual military
+2 civics
+4 fair trade
+1 gave us help
+6 liberated cities
-1 traded with worst enemies
-1 first impression
-3 DoWed us
-1 DoWed our friend
----------------------------------
So the lack of "years of peace" diplo bonus definitely seems to be a significant factor. with Mecca itself significantly lower after the war, despite being in a city with 50% more pop. Suggests that ToA is not always the deciding factor in most profitable TMs. Probably would have got more from Cherokee. Didn't know that!
Also interesting to see in black and white how much smaller my cities are than the AI's. Shows the power of I guess.
@BornInCantaloup
Spoiler:
Thanks for the detailed explanation! Yes, all makes sense now. So the left column would have been empty (except CS) before that round of trading? Must have been a pleasure to see that screen . I realise now that it would have been possible to figure that out by reverse-engineering your description from the screenie. Interesting to see how much further the Deity AI have settled by that point too.
Since it's determined by the value of the trade route the target city would get with your capital, I think size of your own capital matters even more than size of target city. My capital was probably close to pop 20 when I did that trade mission for 1900.
If you play with BUFFY you can see all the modifiers involved by hovering over the trade routes. Late in the game there is a ton of them, which reduces the relative value of ToA.
My game to 1500AD:
Spoiler:
Last update was 1110AD right after I libbed communism. After this I went State Property and teched to Rifling. When I reached Rifling, I had 6 turns left of the golden age and revolted to Police State, Nationhood, Slavery and Theocracy for a 5 turn war buildup. Right at this time Saladin was kind enough to tech MT, which he immediately traded to me at friendly, and didn't get much use of himself as he didn't have Gunpowder. I went on to tech Steel myself to upgrade my old cats and trebs.
When the 5 turn war buildup was over I had 30 rifles, 20 cavalry and 15 cannons, plus my old stack of CR maces. I switched back to Rep, Bureau, Caste and Paci and attacked Sal. The war was a massacre. His medieval units didn't stand a chance and he was dead in 7 turns. My army was very much overkill, but I didn't feel like playing another tight micro war where I have to carefully consider every move. Just move in with force and run over him. The army was enough for all the wars that remained in the game, didn't build any more units after this.
Mecca was a nice catch:
Spoiler:
48 gpt shrine with grocer and bank already built. I went on to build Wall Street there, not sure if it was worth the investment. Had one bank already in the other shrined holy city, but building all those other banks just for Wall Street...
While this was going on, I had been directing Sury's research by gifting him what he was teching, if it was something I already had. This way I managed to get him to tech Constitution, Corporation and Astronomy to trade to me. After Astro it was apparent that he wouldn't be of any use anymore, so my army went to work. Once again it was a massacre. Cavs, rifles and cannons vs medieval units is so much fun. He was dead a few turns later. Razed 4 cities to stay safe from the domination limit, kept the rest.
Ramesses was Sury's vassal so this meant war against him as well. Took one city he had built north of the large lake and another he had built on the pig/fish peninsula, which was stealing too many tiles from me, then took peace.
1500AD I'm 2 turns from completing Apollo Program and doing slightly over 5000/turn. This will go up as more cities become fully operational, some are still getting up factories and power plants. Most of Sury's cities are online, only capital still in revolt. I have enough workers in place to convert every single tile into whatever I want on the turn the tiles get workable, so they should be up and running very quickly. 47 cities, currently 55% of the land owned, should go up to about 60% with the last cities coming out of revolt and some border pops that will happen before the end of the game. Domination limit is 62%.
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bonus speeds up subsequent Cathedrals/builds and you get nice doubling effects later.
and building a 2k
. As I said Mongolia knows how to build units and the next 2 cities I took had 5-10 units in them and took awhile to bombard. I am closing in on his capitol, but I doubt he will cap even after that fall though so no end in sight. BUT I do have 2 vassals, mongols are hurting and only a peacevassal to Hannibal or Surry would put me in a hole. If Mongolia fall I cannot see myself losing this one but the war is taking forever having killed at least 60 Mongolian units so far.
otherwise.
against him. Seems doable. Think I could take 3 cities on the 1st turn of war.
Gosh, if only I had a large stack of units that were vastly more advanced than his sitting in one of our border cities.... Oh, wait! I do! 
. Took them out, no losses, stack will need to heal there for now. To the north, took Rajavihara.
between your cap and the target city. Ulundi did regrow from whipping during those turns, so I guess that explains it.)
. Those cities are both pop 16. Pasargarde has 
I guess. 
