RB19 - True Cultural Challenge

[Atlas]

That sounds like you just look at one city and not across your whole civilization - am I understanding you correctly? One city is easy - info in your city info panels. Gold across your civilization is also easy (F2) but can you get the beaker output across your civilization? If so, how?

I am sure someone knows something clever that I don't, but I just mouse over the tech bar and do some math. This will be cumbersome (not feasible???) for binary research since the number of beakers is so small, but works well otherwise.

 

[Qwack]

Ruff_Hi, I dont use hotkeys but im pretty sure you mean the finance screen by F2. If you do, the finance screen shows both research and gold output, so you should easily be able to work with it there. Im pretty sure it also allows you to change the research rate directly on the screen...

[edit] I found a screenshot: Heres what im talking about. The research is the beakers output and the gold is the gold output...

 

[Sullla]

Hi guys, I'm back. Just so we're all clear, here is the current roster:

Sullla
Blake (skipped by request)
Qwack <<< UP NOW
Compromise <<< on deck
Garath

One thing that I did NOT mention in my last turnset, but which is a potential route we may want to go down in the near future, is heading for Democracy tech not for the Statue of Liberty, but for Universal Suffrage civic! Yes, in our compact civ we could use our gold reserves to rush temples in the small cities that would never get the chance to build them otherwise in timely fashion. The downside: Democracy tech will also lead to all the AIs heading to Emancipation, which is what we do NOT want. But maybe after we get to Biology, that will be the best tech path to take.

Something to ponder, regardless.

 

[Qwack]

Turns completed...



I notice we have a new city, Hehe... Marginal Terrain eh? This site is not good for whipping and probably wont be good for anything else either for a long time. Anyways, we need a lighthouse there ASAP so I switched to slavery on my last turn so we can whip the lighthouse in it right before we switch back to caste system.



Hatsheput comes demanding Nationalism, and ofcourse I decline.



I noticed that we still havent irrigated a grassland tile in Mecca which can help our growth, and we are working some really weak plains forest tiles, so I sent a worker to that site immediately to irrigate it.

Started Islamic Mosque in Damascus and Christain cathedral in Medina. I have also started lumbermilling all the forests around our big 3 like sulla suggested. Our big 3 cities now have all religions in them, but we still need hinduism and buddhism in our outside cities so we can get to 6 temples for each of those religions.

In terms of tech path, we can either beeline to biology, or get constitution/economics/corporation first. I would go with the latter because scientific method will kill all our monastaries +10% research boost, and since we have astronomy now, we probably want to get out of mercantalism and run free market instead. Even though we are concentrating on culture, I dont think we should forget about our research rate. Especially since we may need some modern age wonders(eiffel?) to push us over tthe legendary culture rate, and we will probably have to research some more military tech's soon anyways. Also, like sulla mentioned, we want democracy soon also, constitution is a prereq of democracy. Another thing, we are lagging way behind in military so we probably want to get rifling and start cranking out some rifleman soon. I think there are alot of viable options in terms of tech path right now, so we should be clear what we want to do.

In terms of our trading options with the folk on the other island, we can trade some resources to them for gold, but is it worth it? We might piss off qin/JC/bismarck if we do that.. The next player can decide. If we do decide to trade, I would be even more in favour of going towards corporation before biology and sign open borders with all of them on the other island.

[edit] Also we probably want to start building a irrigation chain towards Medina soon if we go straight towards biology, as well as irrigate some tundra in our southern cities.

Save:

 

[Compromise]

Thanks Qwack, I've got the save. I should play the next turnset within about 24 hours, but there will be some time for discussion and input.

Out of curiosity, why didn't you give Hatshepsut Nationalism? The Taj has already fallen. And I don't think that giving in to demands counts as trading with another civ, so I don't see too much downside to giving it to her.

I'm leaning toward Economics for Free Market next, but am open to suggestion here.

Also, it seems we've neglected military for quite some time. Should I give that some priority? I'll check the diplo standings when I load the save.

Previewing this post, I just noticed that Sullla basically crossposted with Qwack. Hope you had a good trip this weekend Sullla. I'll try not to botch the next 5--err, 10!--turns like last time!

 

[Qwack]

demands counts as trading with another civ

Well this was the reason I didnt give it to her. Some clarification from other members would be nice on this, would giving in to demands count in the trade with worst enemy modifier?

 

[Blake]

Giving into demands and making demands does not count as trading (I believe brokering peace deals also doesn't count as trade as of 1.61, at least I seem to recall that fix in a patch...).

Merchantalism... is a good thing, I think. Especially with Representation. Granted if we do go straight to Democracy then we wont be running Rep for long...
But Rep + Merchant > Free Market.
Once we are running US it might be good to run FM... but switching back and forth between US+FM and Rep+Merc might also be good.
In short, merchantalism equals artists points which equals a Good Thing.

I think we should get Democracy fairly promptly then head to Biology followed by the whole Mass Media line, bagging the holy trinity of modern cultural wonders. I'd really be quite happy staying in Rep+Caste+Merc and we could probably get enough happiness (with Holy Trinity) to cover any emanicpation anger.

We MIGHT want to get some other techs for defense and stuff... but bear in mind sci.method and post-sci.method techs are crazy good trading fodder... and expensive enough that we may fall below the WFYABTA limit.

 

[Garath]

I'm pretty certain we're getting more towards our goal from Mercantilism than we would from Free Market. Not only are we not a large empire, with trade routes of only middling value, but the ability to run an extra artist in each of our cities greatly improves the odds that each successive GP will be an artist.

I personally would appreciate a better military a lot, though I don't know whether we can afford to put any priority on getting Rifling. Perhaps we'll be able to trade for it soon? Tech-wise, I agree that we can delay Scientific Method for a little longer yet, but Biology and the Mass Media line are high priorities. Get straight on them but research all possible prerequisite techs that can be researched before Scientific Method first, I think.

Couple more workers might still be in order with all the lumbermills and irrigation for Biology to do. You can see when you get the save.

Keep an eye on our Civics, as ever. Caste System whenever possible, we need those Artists!

Garath

 

[Sullla]

Looked at the save, and had a few comment to pass on. Most things look good, but I'm surprised to see Medina running an Engineer specialist, of all things! Either we should be running another laborer for additional food, or go to Caste System and turn him into an Artist. One or the other! Frankly, I think the days of Slavery have largely passed, so we may as well stick with Caste System for the time being.

Mecca and Damascus desperately need aqueducts in the near future. Complete the last couple temples/monasteries first, I guess, but then they need the additional health ASAP.

Culturally, Mecca is starting to fall behind and will definitely need a third cathedral soon. Both the Buddhist and Confucian ones are available; it doesn't matter which one goes there, but we need to pick one and build it. We really should try to improve our defenses soon too, because I hate to rely on AI goodwill for survival. Fortunately, there should be plenty of time to do that once we finish the current round of temple/monastery/cathedral builds. There's not going to be anything to build culturally for a while after that as we slowly tech down the tree. Might as well spend some of that time building military! Either trading or researching Rifling in the near future might be a real good idea though.

We still have not built either Globe Theatre or Oxford University yet, either. Globe is 6 culture/turn and Great Artist points, Oxford is 4 culture/turn and Great Scientist points. We might as well think about where to put each one soon. For purely cultural reasons, I think we should do Globe in Damascus and Oxford in Mecca (neither of which has anything to do with their actual functions at all! )

The smaller cities really don't need to build any more monasteries, to be honest. We may as well focus on markets/banks/observatories in them instead.

Civics-wise, I agree that Mercantilism is much more beneficial to us than Free Market. Every Artist specialist adds 6 base culture to our cities, which after multiplying effects comes out to almost 20 culture/turn. Even if we were getting more value from Free Market (and I'm not sure that would be the case with so few cities), it would still be better to stress culture in the Big Three. The main reason I pushed for Biology tech was so we would have more food in our cities, more food to run more Artist specialists! (More food to work more forest tiles for production also wouldn't hurt.) In contrast to what I said earlier, Representation would actually help quite a bit if we're running a lot of (Artist) specialists.

I have a chart summarizing our temple/cathedral situation:

I plan on updating the Word document I made this from as we go along. If anyone would like to download it, I can upload it here too.

Just as a reminder, Compromise is up with Garath on deck.

 

[Compromise]

I didn't take many screenshots on this round, but there was some whipping.

Turn 0, 1650:
Well, we're in slavery and will be for a while, so I plan to crack the whip a little. Since Medina's not working very good tiles, I whip the Christian Cathedral to completion there. I switch Essen to a courthouse. I also shift the coast/ocean tile usage of the southern cities to the east since Khurasan doesn't need the tiles yet and the other cities were being forced to work bad land tiles.

Just checking in on "our" German cities, Munich's at 40% German, Hamburg is 37%. We'll get 'em....

Also, I decide to better our cash flow. So, I cancel the Qin-gold deal and instead sell him our fish for 9gpt. I also renegotiate the contract with Julius to get 8 gpt for another fish. A little diplo-checking shows that Tokugawa is not "most hated" by anyone! So, I sell him one of our fine German wines for 6gpt. Our cash situation is now 693 gold and -22gpt at 100% science!

1655AD: Start a Hindu Temple in Medina, Start a Buddhist missionary in Kufah. Start a Hindu missionary in Basra. Whip a lighthouse in Khurasan. Buddhist missionary spreads Buddhism in Essen (yay!). Whip a courthouse in Essen.

1660AD: Buddhist temple completes in Mecca, start a Buddhist Stupa. Whip Buddhist missionary in Kufah

1665AD: Whip Buddhist temple in Essen

1670AD: Start Confucian Academy in Medina. Got Mosque in Damascus, start aqueduct. Start library in Essen. Buddhist Missionary spreads the faith in Basra. Whip Hindu missionary in Basra. Whip Hindu temple in Kufah.

1675AD: Complete road to Cow(!) near Medina. But no good trading opportunities that I see . Start a University in Kufah. Whip library in Essen.

1680AD: Start Islamic missionary in Essen. Hindu missionary fails in Najran. Whip Buddhist temple in Basra. Whip granary in Khurasan. Finally realize we can Open Borders with Toku, so I do that.

1685AD: Last turn of whipping; maybe for the rest of the game.... Got Constitution, start Democracy. Finished Aqueduct in Damascus, start Buddhist Stupa. Start courthouse in Kufah.



Sadly, Mohommed Shah is born in Damascus. We only had 11% odds for a Great Artist, but I was hoping for a Great Scientist at 53% odds. I don't know what to do with him (save for a Golden Age?), so I fortify him in his hometown. Whip Observatory in Najran. Whip Islamic missionary in Essen.

Finally, our big civics switch: Revolt to Representation and Caste System. Set Medina to run 5 artists.



Edit: Uhh, nice cropping Compromise

1690AD: Interturn: Cyrus demands Education...okay, I guess. I give it to him. Start building Buddhist missionary in Najran. Start Islamic missionary in Essen.

1695AD: Islamic missionary fails in Basra . I decide we want to maximize the chances for an Artist in Medina, so I run a food deficit there to try to get the next Great Person out a little more quickly and slightly more likely to be an artist with six artist specialists there. Feel free to call that a weed move, especially after the next great person pops.

1700AD: Not much going on. I've got a couple workers down south lumberyarding tundra forests. I've got a couple working on farms toward Medina.

 

[Compromise]

The resistance of the Muninchmen and the Hamburgers to flipping is legendary. Their children speak better Arabic than German. I mean, come on: when you completely surround a city with your culture, it shouldn't matter how many troops you have in the city; it should flip!

We have some tech trade opportunities again, though it's going to be with somebody's worst enemy. We could also bribe some into war, though I'm not sure if we want that either.

Let me know if you think the resources for GPT I did are weed or not. We've got a good enough cash flow right now that we can run at 100% science for quite some time.

I'm not sure what to do with our Great Prophet, so I left him in Damascus. Maybe save him in case we're unlucky enough to spawn something other than an artist or prophet in the future?

Also, I suspect the days of poprushing are over and the days of cashrushing are soon upon us.

I stopped work on a Confucian Monastery in Essen because it didn't seem like it would help much. There are probably some hammers still invested in it.

At least Khurasan has a granary and a lighthouse now!

 

[Qwack]

Either we should be running another laborer for additional food, or go to Caste System and turn him into an Artist. One or the other! Frankly, I think the days of Slavery have largely passed, so we may as well stick with Caste System for the time being.

Yeah, that was the result of me switching to slavery on my last turn and not checking medina. My mistake, but nothing bad since the engineer wasnt actually worked for any turns..

We really should try to improve our defenses soon too, because I hate to rely on AI goodwill for survival.

Ill agree, primarily because ive had some bad experience with JC and qin..

 

[Garath]

I'll get this later this afternoon/evening.

Military it is, from the sounds of things.

Garath

 

[darrelljs]

Ill agree, primarily because ive had some bad experience with JC and qin..

Yeah, Qin is a rat.

Speaking of bad experiences with Caesar, I seem to recall someone somewhere saying something like "I think we can all agree that Rome is going to have to be killed before this game is over, right?"

Darrell

 

[Dreylin]

The resistance of the Muninchmen and the Hamburgers to flipping is legendary. Their children speak better Arabic than German. I mean, come on: when you completely surround a city with your culture, it shouldn't matter how many troops you have in the city; it should flip!

Lurker's comment:

I remember reading somewhere that cities are more likely to flip if they share a religion with the receiving Civ; is that something that can be manipulated, or is it simply not worth it?

 

[Compromise]

Lurker's comment:

I remember reading somewhere that cities are more likely to flip if they share a religion with the receiving Civ; is that something that can be manipulated, or is it simply not worth it?

Hi Dreylin, Our relations with Hatshepsut and Cyrus on the other island are about +0 because of "traded with worst enemy". Julius and Qin are each worst enemies with one of those two. And JC/Qin/Biz have Confucianism, Hat/Cy/Toku have Buddhism. If we switch, we'll almost certainly be a target of the other island's civs. And, it might matter since we have about half the troops of the 6th place civ.

Of course, we might eventually (now?) be able to bribe the civs on our island to fight their enemy on the other island, but maybe not.

Right now, we are precariously counting on the kindness of the other civs.

 

[Sullla]

I'm not actually looking at the save right now, but I see a number of what looks like extremely good moves, coupled with one perhaps weedy choice. These trades:

Also, I decide to better our cash flow. So, I cancel the Qin-gold deal and instead sell him our fish for 9gpt. I also renegotiate the contract with Julius to get 8 gpt for another fish. A little diplo-checking shows that Tokugawa is not "most hated" by anyone! So, I sell him one of our fine German wines for 6gpt. Our cash situation is now 693 gold and -22gpt at 100% science!

...look excellent. We don't want to give out TOO many resources to the AI civs (they almost inevitably get more benefit from having another resource than you do from the extra gold per turn), but fishes are one of the weakest of the resources, and I think those trades were sound. Certainly we didn't need the gold resource with all our happiness right now! And Tokugawa will always be backwards, so is no threat to anyone. But be prepared to cancel deals with him if one of the civs on our island asks for it!

This, on the other hand, I think was a mistake:

Well, we're in slavery and will be for a while, so I plan to crack the whip a little. Since Medina's not working very good tiles, I whip the Christian Cathedral to completion there.

The larger a city gets, the harder it is to regrow the food there. Barring some emergency, or a fishing village with absolutely zilch production, I can't see a situation where I'd be whipping a size 15 city. Whipping Medina in this situation was pretty weedy, methinks. If it's not working good tiles... then fire those laborers and create some specialists! Artist specialists, to be exact! More people = good for our Big Three cities.

I think most everything else looks pretty good. We need to be careful with Medina though not to chop all of those forests; we should save some of them for lumbermill production. As far as the Great Prophet, we DON'T want to save him for a Golden Age, we want to merge him into one of our Big Three as a super specialist! Remember, we built the Sistine Chapel, which gives +2 culture to all specialists - including merged Great People! (This is why we emphasized it so much.) Factor in the Representation beakers as well, and we'll be getting a serious benefit from that Prophet. The only question is which of the Big Three to put him in... I'd say either Mecca for the shields, or Damascus for the gold. Maybe we can think about that a bit? Garath should merge him SOMEWHERE right at the start of his turn though!

This game continues to be a blast. We're probably only about 100 turns away from a cultural victory now, so keep on holding the course.

 

[Compromise]

I'm glad to get your input Sullla, especially on the whipping at Medina. Just before my turnset began, we'd switched to Slavery--probably for the last time. I was thinking that since Medina has *so* much extra food, that I could grow back quickly enough (before the switch back to Caste) that the difference in GPP would be minimal, if noticeable. Maybe one day, I'll be able to play a game weed-free! (Would that be fun?)

Good call on settling the Prophet. I'll think about where if I'm able to look at the game before Garath posts. I'm sure there's a "best one" of the 3 cultural cities, but it's probably not that much difference.

Also, in case it's not underscored by Sullla's pointing out that we're about 100 turns away (if we don't get attacked), we should be saving any more Great Artists we happen to pop out. The end is nigh!

 

[Garath]

I've played, but the report will be tomorrow as it's late and I'm rather tired.

Highlights: We've got some Rifles! Only two, but a modern military at last!
Mecca much better caught up in culture with the last settled Artist and another Cathedral complete. And I completely forgot about the Prophet, and was playing when you posted about him. My bad, sorry.

I suspect that the only actually *relevant* thing I did was to start getting a military together. Nothing else is likely to change the finish date by more than a couple of turns now, so I personally much prefer being safe but 5 turns later finishing. If we get attacked, though, it could still be game over, hence the safety play. I considered putting Mecca on infinite Rifle build, but that might have irritated Sulla (just a little ), so I didn't.

Garath

 

[Compromise]

Ahh, rifles! Good. I was thinking that the only thing that's going to change the end date of the game much would be if we're jumped by one (or more) of the AIs. I don't know if it would help our cause or hinder it to fester AI-AI war at this point.