RB1 - Cuban Isolationists

[Sirian]

Meanwhile, in other news, discover of Steam Power reveals two more shields at Saint Bob.

Also a source under Guantanamo!

For all my misfortune last round, nary a failed missionary this round. Lots of proselytizing going on here now!

Our peoping were just DYE-ing to settle Santa Catalina!

Ooh. The borders of Black Dot(TM) have expanded!

Let's take a look inside the money pit, the black hole of finance, the "worthless" city.

Aw, nuts. Somebody forgot to tell these yokels they are supposed to be LOSING MONEY.

13 net commerce? That's three from plots, three from trade routes, six from free specialists, and one from Civics, but only five total on maintenance. (That's at size 1, mind you. With granary and lighthouse, it -will- grow larger and more profitable!)

Well, it was definitely worth the time and expense to get three Dye sources!

Looks like we should settle on Pink Dot(TM).

Green Dot would open up more access to the west.

 

[Sirian]

1775AD: What is Vicky trying to do there? Reach us? Or move past us to head for Roman lands?

Notice our Frigate. I did not spend money upgrading land troops, but I did upgrade five of our seven-ship navy.
We now have two galleons and three frigates. The frigs are guarding seafood locations.

Wow, this is like reading a sheet of music.

Black Dot(TM) is of course the black sheep. :shakehead
Those rebels down there just have to be different.
Bunch of kooky teenagers.


Work Boats are en route to Grenada's Clam site.

Wall Street is under construction.
We are running out of time to build any more Monastaries.
(For Christianity or Confucianism or Islam).

 

[Sirian]

Our Spiral Minaret is USELESS while running Free Religion.

Details on the rest of Havana:

We now have 65 net income from the Hydra!

With banks and markets, that's 130gpt!


Rosa is packing in the research.

Two gold mines, two Towns, the river, and the coastline! CHA-CHING!


Globe views:

Now here's a crazy thought.

What if...?

WHAT IF WE CAN LEGALLY CROSS TO OTHER CONTINENTS VIA THAT ARCHIPELAGO REGION?

What if we could actually reach Domination threshold?

Sulla?


- Sirian

 

[Sullla]

By way of explaining the Priests in Havana, I knew full well that we wouldn't get much benefit from additional Great Prophets. But... but.... we want to build all six shrines if we can, right? Right? (I think I'm getting caught up in a Charis-style "going overboard on the roleplaying" mindset here! ) OK, so maybe that wasn't the best decision. But at least we'll probably pop another Great Prophet out of Havana anyway regardless!

Confucian monastery was a deliberate call, since we're close to researching Scientific Method. Gotta build those things while you can before you lose out on the opportunity permanently!

OK, *SURE*, Black Dot looks awful good when you're running Mercantilism + Statue of Liberty + Representation. Anything would look good with that combo! When you first proposed Black Dot, we were not sitting quite so high and mighty. I fully agree that with the combo we have going now, ANY additional cities on the main continent will be worth more than they cost.

Now here's a crazy thought.

What if...?

WHAT IF WE CAN LEGALLY CROSS TO OTHER CONTINENTS VIA THAT ARCHIPELAGO REGION?

What if we could actually reach Domination threshold?

Sulla?

If there's any possibility of this...

We Cubans do not play well with others! I'll investigate it on my turn.

 

[Sirian]

OK, *SURE*, Black Dot looks awful good when you're running Mercantilism + Statue of Liberty + Representation. Anything would look good with that combo! When you first proposed Black Dot, we were not sitting quite so high and mighty.

Right, but I knew where we were going.

The only potential snag was the lack of copper, but of course I POPPED ANOTHER ONE!

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.


As for you being infected with Charisitis... Well, that WAS his slot, until he ran off to build the real life Cure For Cancer. There must be some essence of his spirit hanging around. He is going to get an enormous kick out of this read, when he gets around to it. (Heck, that alone makes it worth doing!)


- Sirian

 

[Sullla]

(0) 1775AD OK, there's relatively little to change after picking up Sirian's save. I increase the growth in a couple of cities, no doubt due to the AI simply not emphasizing it enough (we want to keep on growing until we hit our happiness limits). We're researching Steel, and although Sirian didn't mention it his notes, obviously Railroad is the next tech for us to head for. We have about a 2-3 tech lead over the AI civs, although Victoria does have Scientific Method (the one tech that any AI civ has that we don't). She'll probably get the free Great Scientist at Physics, which isn't a huge deal. We're pumping over 800 beakers/turn (and that's only going to go up), so I'm not entirely sure how the AI civs are supposed to keep pace with us.

There's the new demographics screen. It looks like the Cuban draft was successful! The only strange stat is the GDP (commerce) one again. That *CAN'T* be right, can it? Is there a bug in the way that's calculated? No big deal, but I don't see how we can possibly be next to last in terms of commerce when we're clearly the tech leaders in this game!

(1) 1780AD A lot of cities still need Observatories. Of course, we're trying to squeeze out a few more monasteries before we lose the option to build them, so I continue that trend as well. Observatories ordered in cities that have finished their monasteries. I'm going to let the bank in Santa Rosa complete, but I do wonder why we chose to build a bank there over an observatory - in our Oxford city!

Moving our settler/escorts in the extreme northwest reveals bad news: one of the islands turns out to be rather pointy!

Well, we won't be settling there! But we can still follow the island-hopping strategy Sirian outlined earlier, although it will be a bit of a tedious process. (But after playing Civ3 for all those years, we're both extremely familiar with those kind of jobs.)

(2) 1785AD Steel discovered, research going into Railroad (hey, our workers are starting to run out of jobs to do!) San Roberto finishes a temple, starts on a new Drydocks. Wait till you see the navy we can build out of here in the future!

Moving our units up by the dyes to found a new city, we see a purple border. And... we meet the final civ!

So, we went until 1785AD without meeting Asoka. And he didn't come to find us - WE came to find him! With us being unable to move boats outside our borders too! That's too much for words. Asoka appears to be a middle of the pack civ; he's about equal with most of the other AIs on tech. He's Daoist in his religion though, which is the only religion that doesn't make us money. He also dislikes us for trading with his worst enemy (which I'd be willing to bet is Rome). He's willing to trade with us though; cows and spices to Asoka for pigs and silks. Our people are even happier and healthier!

(3) 1790AD Seaside dyes founded:

We are so close to being able to reach India, which is undoubtedly sharing a continent with Caesar. Doesn't look like we'll be able to get a ship there from this particular crossing though, unless Sirian has some kind of an idea that I'm not seeing (?) If only that island extended one more tile northeast!

(4) 1795AD Tokugawa converts to Christianity - we must have had it spread to one of his cities then. Could potentially do some religious scouting, but I don't think it's worth it for one city. Madrid produces a settler to help us island-hop further. I plan to start on another one in Santiago starting next turn. Must... keep... island hopping!

 

[Sullla]

(5) 1800AD Railroad finishes, we start on Assembly Line. Sirian will get to do a round of factory construction on his turn. San Roberto finishes drydock, and take a look at this!

Over ONE HUNDRED shields/turn on naval units! (with a little overflow, of course) This is PRE-factory, and before building rails on those mine/lumbermill tiles. Absolutely astonishing. We could build a whole navy from here in a matter of turns. If Ironworks weren't being buggy, this city would get downright frightening. Since we are in infrastructure mode at the moment, Saint Bob gets set to Observatory. Our workers start workin' on the railroad! They have plenty to do.

Oh, and our expenses top 300 gold/turn for the first time. This proves that 1) we could really get a lot of benefit for being Organized here, and 2) I spend way too much time looking at the F2 Financial screen.

(6) 1805AD Vicky enters a Golden Age, making it likely she popped the free Great Scientist at Physics. Of course - I think I'd prefer having rails and factories to the freebie Great Person, all things considered. Borders expand at Seaside Dyes. And - ack! What is this foul red border intruding on our expansion plans?!

Is a war against Japan in the works for the future? Sirian will have to decide that... (We can raise a decent little army just by dropping research and upgrading the units on former Roman Island.)

(7) 1810AD Sirian's Work Boat on endless goto finally reaches Grenada. Hooray! Now it actually has some food. Island Hopper founded on the little island that we can now reach. Under pressure from Rome's city of Setia, but we can run an Artist there thanks to Caste System and should be OK. In 3 turns when its borders expand, we'll be able to at least reach the Japanese city and take a look at it. Hopefully there will be a path from there to one of the continents!

(8) 1815AD Assembly Line finished, start research on Scientific Method. Our last monasteries are scheduled to complete just before that happens. Factories are ordered up across Cuba, si!

There are more than 20 million Cubans! Seeing as how the average AI population is around 7 million, I'd say we're ahead of the curve by a bit. And another milestone hit this turn too:

We go over 1000 beakers/turn for the first time! The first time at a sustainable rate, that is. Those observatories have really made a difference, greatly increasing our research rate. At this rate, we can get even the most expensive endgame techs in a matter of turns. We're in good shape here, no doubt about it.

(9) 1820AD Asoka proposes trading furs for wheat; I see no reason to refuse and accept. I order up about a million more factories this turn, most of which will complete during Sirian's turn. Our production will explode shortly (to be used for late-game warring? Perhaps, if we can get there!)

(10) 1825AD Scientific Method finished, Biology is the easy next choice (more food = more good!) We have three sources of oil: one in the desert on former Roman Island, one close to our new colonies in the ocean, and the final one? Where do you think it could be?

We were good enough to claim enough land to have three sources of oil on hand. But it takes some mighty powerful luck to have oil in your capital's city radius too.

Meanwhile, Island Hopper's borders have expanded and we can get a sight of that Japanese city near us:

Umm, the only reason that's a crossbow there on our part is that it was the closest unit on hand to use for scouting. Anyway, we should be able to take the city pretty easily if we want to, with only two longbows on defense. Now whether that city will let us get any further to the west is anyone's guess. Now IF we by some chance could get a Great Artist and use it in Island Hopper, we'd be able to reach Setia. Barring that though, I don't know how much further we're going to be able to do this. But Sirian may have something up his sleeve I just haven't seen yet...

Factories are under construction everywhere in our territory. Once we have those and coal plants done (or power plants of some kind), we'll have plenty of options on hand. Up to you which path to take next, Sirian.

 

[Sullla]

There's another settler on Former Roman island, just in case you have use of one (it was built back before the Japanese grabbed that spot). And a couple more pictures:

Look how close we actually are to the Inca/Japan continent (I'm presuming they started on the same continent). Under normal circumstances, we would have found them rather quickly. As it was, they took their sweet time finding us, although nowhere near as long as Asoka (he must not have a single coastal city! That's got to be the only possible explanation.)

We've got Vicky pinned in pretty well. England has been badly outdone by the might of the Cuban Isolationists!

By the way, next turn we'll finish Wall Street in Havana and income will climb by 82 gold/turn. Yes, that's 82 gold per turn (not a misprint). Behold the power of the hydra's shrine income!

Have fun with it Sirian.

 

[Ragnoff]

Lurkers Question:

Earlier one of you mention the production boost one would get to your big production city with railroads. No iI am sure that Civ3 fans will remember that adding rails to a tile with hammers (shields then) increased teh shield output by 50%, however i could not find anything in the CIV ciilopedia that would indicate the same, how does it work now?

 

[Double Stack]

Railroads increase hammer production by +1 on all mines and lumber mills, that have a railroad built there.

 

[Jkaen]

Question: If you are going to culture bomb, would it not be better on seaside dyes to allow you to reach the large continent, rather than just another small island?

 

[quail]

A picky question, but are marble, stone and (I think) iron supposed to give you +1 hammer in every city with access to it, as shown in the resource box? Because I don't think this is ever reflected in my cities, and I don't see it in Sulla's production screenshot up there. Unless it's part of the base production, but I don't think it adds up (and wouldn't make much sense anyway). Is this a bug?

 

[Sirian]

A picky question, but are marble, stone and (I think) iron supposed to give you +1 hammer in every city with access to it, as shown in the resource box? Because I don't think this is ever reflected in my cities, and I don't see it in Sulla's production screenshot up there. Unless it's part of the base production, but I don't think it adds up (and wouldn't make much sense anyway). Is this a bug?

That's what it adds to the tile, only. I agree it's ambiguous and not very useful info. :shrug:

 

[Sirian]

1830AD: Bribe Tokugawa to attack Incans. We had to pay FOUR techs: Gunpowder, Economics, Printing Press, Nationalism.

1845: Island Hopper gets religion.

Every bit of culture there helps! I'm anticipating being able to reach the Roman island to the north, without need of a culture bomb. (We may need a culture bomb somewhere to have any prayer of Domination, though!)


1850AD: Shimonoseki reaches size 2. OK, THAT'S IT! THIS MEANS WAR!

Woops. Japanese boat threatens some of our commercing fishing.

I swap TABC over to produce a Frigate -- it won't start with any XPs but it may save some of our crabbing trawlers.


1854AD: The Japanese ship passed the chance to pillage our Whaling Boats. Second time this game, Caravels passed an easy chance to pillage. Let's hope Soren is watching this.

OK, so our forces attack at Shimono.

Whoa! Close call! Longbows are tough customers. Good thing we brought medics with us!

 

[Sirian]

1854AD: A leader popped at Havana and it's -not- another Prophet. Instead, it is a major Profit!

CHA-CHING!

(See that little golden button? Yep, next to the wagon icon. Press it.)

Sister golden age.


After a promotion heals half of the damage, and with the help of Doctors With Crossbows(TM), our Infantry will be full strength again in a mere three turns. (Actually we may attack again in two!)

Saint Bob begins the Pentagon.

Oro River queues up the Iron Works. Yes, I know it's broken, but it will still let us have three more Engineers in a city, and this city can feed SIX, so we may pop a leader or two out of there before it's all said and done.

Plus I think this would be a good spot for West Point. I definitely want Red Cross at Saint Bob, as having it produce TONS of Medic-promoted infantry and marines sounds like a good ticket, while other cities produce tanks. This, assuming we are at least going to beat down Financialist England, rather than actually, like, race them in to space and such.


1858AD: So I finally figured out where in the devil Sulla hid the settler unit.

Please don't expect me to notice the obvious, OK? Like, I can't see units on the map too well, or the Spanish "peachy" flag. I had to use F5 to find the bloody thing. (This is why it is only now getting loaded!) Fortunately, no time was really wasted yet as we have to wait for Shimono to pacify before we can hop any farther.

We WILL be able to take that Roman island. Crossing will occur here:

And green arrow points to another island up north. Who knows. We are still alive on the possibility of obtaining a legal crossing!

 

[Sirian]

Did I say Shimono needs to pacify?

More island hops are available.

If we go on to win this by domination, how legendary will this island hopping exercise become??

Are you in to heavy metal?

You've got to love the sound of those electric guitars!


Just for kicks, I turned down science to zero.
We can still research a modern age tech in just eleven turns!

So our second golden age is being spent on factory and power plant construction.
The AIs shall PH34R the might of our warmaking industry!


Some terrain still needs improvements near TABC.

I have Havana on Merchant specialist duty, Rosa on Scientist.
Everybody else is doing Engineers.
If we want to try to pick an Artist site, maybe Hydrata?
Need to plan if we are to get another golden age, plus have artist for culture bomb if needed to cross.

We also still need to spread Buddhism and Judaism to the rest of our cities.


- Sirian

 

[illysmith]

Sulla talked earlier about the Flying Camera mode. How does one go about enableing this in the .ini?

BTW: I'm really enjoying this thread. Good job.

 

[eldar]

Cool, just got to Page 5 whilst still at work.
Problem is when I get home, there's this game I like to play.... Ah well. Work's boring right now

 

[StarrySurprise]

Specialists are nice, but I have to spend way too much time micromanaging them. Is there some way to tell governors to emphasize a particular type of specialist, perhaps in a certain order, like engineers then merchants then scientists? Sometimes my governors set a priest, but I'd rather have a merchant or scientist. And is there a way to tell the governor to set no specialists until all the tiles are used up? Perhaps in advanced settings somewhere.

 

[SlayerofDeitys]

Yes excellent thread.
Sirian- For my own edumucation I wanted to ask for your take on the military aspect as I have a tendency to kind of neglect it early on the same as Sulla, which has bit me in the rear a couple of times...
Specifically what do you like to have for a garrison, strictly from a militaristic point of view? How do you feel about siege weapons for that job? I personally never find myself building them till I wage war because of the short production time, however if a surprise SOD(TM) comes knocking on my door that could come in handy.