RB20 - Miller Time

[Iustus]

I think this is what you were referring to:

The good leaders : Elizabeth,Cyrus,Frederick.
The bad leaders : Peter,Tokugawa,Alexander.

The problem with this is that all the 'good' leaders have founded their own religion, while all the bad leaders have no religion (so we could convert them). I have always found that religion matters more than any other factor. That said, we will try it your way.

Does this mean we will scorn these 'bad' leaders? The reason I ask is you said:

I don't think we should group the AIs in friends and enemies
right now.We need all the trade opportunities given.

The problem with trading with everyone is we will be almost guaranteed to get 'you have traded with my worst enemy' modifiers, perhaps multiple times. In addition, we will have lots of 'you refused tribute' and 'you refused to help us'.

If we pick a few friends, then we will all know who to give in to, and who to scorn. Unless you think we should decline everyone?

With that new city our science will drop to 10%.

I do no think so. I am fairly certain I can have Machinery for us by the end of my turn, which I think would do more for our economy than Code of Laws and Civil Service combined.

We could then likely trade Compass and Machinery for code of laws (which will be cheeper to trade because of partial research), currency, and possibly even Civil Service (perhaps with Philosophy).

CoL + Civil Service also leads to Paper.

I missed that alternate path. Even so, if we can trade for Polytheism, Monotheism, and Theocracy, we can use our 3rd GS, in about 10ish turns to pop Paper right away.

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Complaining if we get a Great Scientist instead of a Great Prophet seems to me to be backwards. Right now a shrine will net us less than 10 gold/turn. If a scientist will lightbulb 1500 beakers research, thats 150 turns worth of our shrine. I agree, eventually the shrine will pay off, if we manage to spread our religon a lot, but not before we get a few more great people.

--------------

Some questions:

1.Are you still convinced CoL next is the right thing? Even with courthouses in every city, our economy will not improve much. Heck, Currency alone will help our economy as much as CoL + courthouse in every city.

2. Assuming with stick with the CoL plan, what is the next tech? Civil Service? (Thats 40+ turns of research if thats the plan, with two GS sitting doing nothing the whole time). Currency instead of trading for it? Compass?

3. When we get CoL, is it ok to trade it? (See next question)

4. Why are we not trading Drama? Or are we willing to trade for a good tech, like Currency?

5. Do we have a Diplomatic Plan? If so, can someone explain it to me please?

6. Without Horse Archers, what would you suggest we escort missionaries with? Or do you suggest no escort?

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I will play my turn either way later today. Unless there is a lot of support for the Machinery plan, I will stick with Code of Laws, make no tech trades, build some workers, elephants and hopefully some missionaries.

-Iustus

 

[Sirian]

The Polytheism-Mono-Theology-DivineRight line is TOTALLY USELESS to us. We can't use any of the civics, nor do we need to build any of those wonders. (I suppose Sistine would help us, but we'd never get it without a great Engineer!)

We can "save" ourselves four techs, and several techs toward WFYABTA limits, by continuing to ignore the entire line. Whatever gains we could make by trading those techs away to those who don't have them are lost in the initial expenditure to get them in the first place, and then some.

Researching Compass to get to being able to Lightbulb Machinery sounds like the winning plan to me. My two bits.


- Sirian

 

[Iustus]

Ok, I was looking closer and we need to choose if we want to lightbulb Paper or Machinery, we will not be able to do both in the short term. Here is the list, edited for the techs we care about (higher is prefered):

Great Scientist:

Education
Printing Press
Optics
Paper
Astronomy
Compass
Engineering
Liberalism
Machinery

Plan Machinery: If we go Compass->Machinery, then the lightbulb path will become Optics->Paper->Education->Printing Press

Plan Paper: If we go CoL->Civil Service then the lightbulb path is Paper->Education->Printing Press->Compass->Machinery->Optics

If we go with plan machinery, then that gets us machinery sooner rather than later, and that is one of our key techs. The downside is any more great scientists we get will not be terribly useful for lightbulbs unless we want to waste one on Optics.

If we go with plan paper, then we will have to research machinery without a lightbulb. However, as long as we never learn compass, we will be able to use future great scientists for the expensive education and printing press (will take 2 each, one scientist will research a bit over half of either one).

Plan science city: On the other hand, we could just pick a science city, start merging scientists into it, build the great library there if we can, and get any techs we want. This works even better if we plan on pissing off Peter and taking the pyramids from him to get representation early. (I know we cannot start wars, but we can provoke one, right?)

Just when we were starting to reach consensus, I messed it up again!

CoL is only 2 turns into research, so I could change it to get machinery in 15 turns, but that will mean we have to research paper ourselves. Since paper is cheeper than machinery (1400 to 1700ish) the real loss is we will get lightbulb blocked by Optics (another 1400ish), and have the useless (but tradeable) Compass.

I still am thinking windmills and watermills will net us significant commerce to be worth getting asap. As far as trade bait, either CoL or Compass could be everywhere by the time we research it, or could be good for some lucrative trades. Of course the advantage of CoL is it is a tech we actually want, so if we cannot trade it, we do not really lose. That gives an advantage to the CoL side, since we will not have to trade for Compass (in fact we want to avoid it), helping with the WFYABTA limit. Of course, eventually we will want Astronomy for Observatories, but that could be a long way off.

Either path seems viable, as long as we stick with one. If we do go CoL, we need to make sure we do not trade for Compass, for a long long time.

-Iustus

 

[Sirian]

I admire your strategic thinking. We're not going to run a game plan of finagling our way through the Lightbulb Maze, though. It's Miller Time. We can't see past the next party, much less six techs down the road.

Lightbulbing Optics won't be bad at all, by the way. We will absolutely want to get to Biology sooner rather than later, which means getting through Optics and Astronomy sooner rather than later, too. Astronomy will not be prioritized by the AIs, so we can probably trade it for quite a bit, if we can still conduct trades at that point.

Miller Time means MILLS, so please head on toward Machinery. The rest will unfold as the beer gods will it.




- Sirian

 

[Qwack]

Lurker comment:

Unrelated, but those screenshots of the huge map on camera flying mode look great. I gotta use that feature sometime.

 

[Iustus]

Post edited to add pictures and add text to explain the pictures.

800 AD (0)

Ok, after much debate, I will go with the decision of our sponsor, Sirian, and I am switching to Compass.

I hire two scientists at New York.

I promote the unpromoted archer in Seattle to be a medic, since this is our new hot spot. The war elephant is injured and mobs are incoming. I promote the war elephant to combat 2 (he already has shock)

I promote the elephant by our new city to shock

815 AD (1)

San Francisco is founded, our dye town! Start a granary.

14 turns left on Compass, 95 gold left, -28/turn.

IBT: Boston Elephant defeats barbarian swordsman

830 AD (2)

Elizabeth asks us to give her Drama as a friend. My plan was to trade drama to Mansa next turn for money, so I guess I will do it this turn. In the effort of keeping Elizabeth as a friend, despite the religious differences, I will give her Drama. This means we need to keep this relationship alive. She goes up to pleased, but still will not trade Currency.

Mansa will give us his remaining 430 gold + Polytheism for Drama. Now, I could just take the money, and not take Polytheism, since we do not want it. That would prevent the WFYAGTA limit I think, but it means we are giving up something we could get for free. Now, I think we have to trade Drama away now, Elizabeth will trade it away if we don’t. Well, call it a weedy move, but I am going to take his money but not Polytheism. We need the cash to get Machinery! Mansa moves up to Pleased.

13 turns to Compass, 497 gold left, -33/turn

845 AD (3)

Napoleon wants to trade HBR for Construction, I decline.

Monastary finished in Boston, start a chariot, which I will use as escort, for 37 hammers, its cheap insurance for our 60 hammer missionaries. I would prefer horse archers, but we do not want to trade for HBR, and I am not going to rock the boat.

860 AD (4)

Much drinking

875 AD (5)

Compass (10), 398 gold -34/turn

Granary done in Chicago. Start a Barracks. I considered a forge, but its 26 turns, I would like to build some units sooner rather than later.

890 AD (6)

Alexander demands we cancel deals with Mansa Musa. I decline, we have Mansa to pleased! Earn -1 with Alex.

905 AD (7)

Mansa demands we cancel deals with Peter. Well, since it seems we want to fight Peter sooner rather than later, and since I want to be Mansa-friend, I agree. I did manage to map a lot of Peter’s cities in the last few turns, but now our warrior will be thrown out into the wilderness to fight axemen!

Mansa will trade us everything he has (Currency, Polytheism, Horseback Riding, 20 gold) for Philosophy. Since we only really want Currency, I hold off for now.

Taoism spreads to Seattle, so we will have to use our own missionary here.

920 AD (8)

I screwed up at Atlanta and it grew into unhappiness. I queued up a theatre after the war elephant someone else queued up here.

935 AD (9)

Yay, game crashes! Nothing else of note this turn. Boston is getting almost all of the barbarian action, with a bit at Washington and a bit at Chicago.

950 AD (10)

Cyrus asks for Drama for free. Since he is supposedly one of the good guys, I agree and give it to him. “Elizabeth,Cyrus,Frederick” are the good leaders is my mantra! Cyrus moves up to pleased.

Second Great Scientist is born, we now have two on ice, but not for long.

965 AD (11)

Toasting the barbarian death machine at Boston!

980 AD (12)

Bottoms up!

995 AD (13)

Fredrick asks to trade HBR for Drama, I decline. When are you going to trade CoL guy?

1010 AD (14)

Since when do the barbarians attack in stacks!

1025 AD (15)

Compass finished!

These are the tech choices for the next person, or the person after that, since our economy needs some fixing. We probably should have done currency before compass.

I use the new guy, Aryabhata to lightbulb machinery, since by now Euclid is too drunk to do it:

My thoughts on the missionary was to send him northeast, avoiding the main barbarian pathway, trying to get him to Mansa to convert Mansa to the way of the Budda. We no longer have open borders with Peter, so could not send one that way. (If we open borders with him again, Mansa will just ask us to cancel it again, causing more negative with Peter.) Once we get Mansa converted, we could open borders with Peter, sneak a missionary in fast, convert him quick and then Mansa will like him.

My plan was to use the upcoming elephant from New York to escort the worker there up to San Fancisco, either to build a road to it, or to just head up there to work first, then build a road.

Note, we have lots of barbarians incoming almost everywhere.

Here is Chicago:

We have two barbaians incoming, with 2 elephants and a wounded archer in the hills (plus archers in town), this should be no problem, but might want to move the elephants now, to avoid pillaging. Remember elephants do not get defensive bonuses, so no reason not to park them on the farms.

Washington is in more trouble, with two axemen incoming:

The forest archer just moved north to hopefully entice one of the axemen to attack him. He is combat 2 and shock, so should have decent odds in the forest even without fortifying. The archer on the hill is guerilla 2. Our elehpant is wounded, so probably should let him heal in place and hope the archers defeat the axemen. If a wounded axemen advances you will probably have ot meet him with the elephant to avoid pillage of the pigs, if the axeman wants to pillage the farm, you are too far away to stop it. An alternative is to keep the chariot around as backup, instead of sending it out. You could even use that missionary at Boston if you want to just keep the chariot as local defense.



Finally, here is the situation at Boston:

Note there is a stack of 3 barbarian nasties northeast. I would recommend moving the elephant from town north to stand on top of the other elephant that I already moved. Then if the stack moves into the forest next to Boston, which is what the barbarians have been doing, move both elephants into the city to defend. The downside is the barbarians get to use their city attack bonus. The upside is one elephant doesnt have to face all 3 attackers at once. The elephant I moved was southwest (it had just killed a warrior to promote to 5 exp), I should have left it to you to move, sorry. Promote the elephant to shock if I did not already.

Note, Mansa will not trade Currency for Compass, so he is almost certainly researching it right now. We probably should have researched Code of Laws and then traded for Compass once Mansa finished it. Oh well.

Whoever is next is going to probably want to manage some cities to increase our income to get us out of the red. Windmills and watermills should help once we get a bunch built.

Currency will give us a big boost, I almost think it is worth trading Philosophy for it, but I was not going to do that without talking about it first.

Pictures after I sleep!

-Iustus

 

[mike p]

Looks like I'm up.

Is it really feasible to get a missionary all the way to Mali? I could give it a try, but it seems rather daunting.

Currency for Philosophy is probably a good idea. Currency will help our economy and our economy stinks. We are running a deficit at 0% science. MM will also through in HBR and Polytheism. I'll probably take HBR, should we not pick up Polytheism? Is the WFYABTA limit based on number of tech trades or number of techs traded?

If we want to hold onto Philosophy in expectation of better future trades, we can try lightbulbing Optics and then trade it around instead.

Either way, it looks like my focus will be on building the economy.

We have seven workers. I'm thinking I might want to pump a few more out of Washington once the temple completes.

All guidance is appreciated.

I need to be home for a furniture delivery on Friday morning, so in the worst case I should have my turns played within another 48 hours, possibly as early as tonight though.

 

[Sirian]

Mansa demands we cancel deals with Peter. Well, since it seems we want to fight Peter sooner rather than later, and since I want to be Mansa-friend, I agree.

Eh?

We're a Pacifistic civ by variant. We don't WANT to fight anybody and will not be ginning up wars by covert design.

If one of the AIs does attack us, that's going to tick us off and trigger our "worst enemy" rules, but that's up to the AIs to decide, without any deliberate angling on our part.

I've seen Mansa pop Islam many times. You'd better hope Liz gets to it first in this game, or Cyrus, because if we get a missionary all the way to Mali only to watch him turn Muslim on us, I'm pulling out the "I told you so" from a couple of pages ago.


Anyway, we can't keep flopping back and forth between which partners we're going to try to please. We'll end up with no friends at all. Staying in good with Mali and England, and whoever else will fit with them, seems to be the required plan going forward.


- Sirian

 

[Iustus]

I've seen Mansa pop Islam many times. You'd better hope Liz gets to it first in this game, or Cyrus, because if we get a missionary all the way to Mali only to watch him turn Muslim on us, I'm pulling out the "I told you so" from a couple of pages ago.

Sigh. Perhaps you are right. In the interest of avoiding this, we probably should not trade Philosophy to Mansa, and do trade it to Elizabeth or Cyrus or Fredrick. It would be great to get code of laws out of it.

If you think we should give up on keeping Mansa as a friend, I will go with the group. I was following this rule from Tatran with the addition of Mansa to our side:

The good leaders : Elizabeth,Cyrus,Frederick.
The bad leaders : Peter,Tokugawa,Alexander.

I was thinking that gifting Fredrick Drama might get him to Pleased, which might enduce him to trade Code of Laws, which convienently he would now be able to accept Philosophy. It would be great to get both Code of Laws and Currency in the same trade with Philosphy, but I do not think that is going to work.

Anyway, we can't keep flopping back and forth between which partners we're going to try to please. We'll end up with no friends at all. Staying in good with Mali and England, and whoever else will fit with them, seems to be the required plan going forward.

I completely agree with this. Honestly, I do not understand how we can have multiple friends, all different religions, I was hoping Tatran would give some more direction. I usually give up on someone once they have a different religion.

I would very much like to have a clear plan on who our friends are, probably in a prioritized list, and some direction on what to do when our friends start hating each other.

Currency for Philosophy is probably a good idea. Currency will help our economy and our economy stinks. We are running a deficit at 0% science. MM will also through in HBR and Polytheism. I'll probably take HBR, should we not pick up Polytheism? Is the WFYABTA limit based on number of tech trades or number of techs traded?

I thought it was the count of techs traded, but I do not know for certain. I do know that the number of beakers of the techs does not matter. I think we should just avoid ever getting Polytheism, Sirian is right, it gains us nothing, we can go to the end of the tech tree without it.

If we want to hold onto Philosophy in expectation of better future trades, we can try lightbulbing Optics and then trade it around instead

This might be smarter, just to avoid Mansa founding Islam. The problem is Optics requires Machinery. So really what you would have to do, is gift Compass to Mansa, then trade him Machinery for Currency. I am not sure this is a good idea.

Probably smarter to try to get Currency from anyone else, several civs know it. Gifting Drama to Fredrick or Cyrus will raise our standing and allow us to trade Philosophy to them, which will hopefully get one of them to found Islam.

Or, we could give up on Mansa long term and let him found Islam.

Sirian says:

We're a Pacifistic civ by variant. We don't WANT to fight anybody and will not be ginning up wars by covert design.

Tatran says:

Peter will be a problem.Already in a Police State and I don't like to fight cossacks and he is our neighbor.

Help! I know we are pacifist, but if we scorn Peter completely, in fact if we do not actively try to be friendly to him, he will attack us sooner or later. Tatran prefers sooner, to avoid Cossacks. I wanted to convert him to buddism and make him our friend, but Tatran vetoed that plan.

I do not care either way, but I do think we need to have some sort of overall diplomatic plan and we have to stick to it. I have been asking for that in my last two turns and I still do not feel like we have reached a consensus, hence my floundering with those decisions.

---------------------------

We have seven workers. I'm thinking I might want to pump a few more out of Washington once the temple completes.

Atlanta is the place to build them fastest. There was a settler queued up there but we do not need more settlers until our economy is fixed, so I changed it to a worker. If you want to build workers fast at Washinton, you would have to fire the scientists, which I think is a bad idea. I would get a Theatre at Washington asap, then get a library at Atlanta while Washington does some builds.

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One final point. War elephants are not the magic unit I was hoping for. They get significantly injured when fighting even barbarian axemen. Do we need longbows? Or are we going to skip them and just go through education to gunpowder? I am not sure we would live that long.

-Iustus

 

[Sirian]

Help! I know we are pacifist, but if we scorn Peter completely, in fact if we do not actively try to be friendly to him, he will attack us sooner or later. Tatran prefers sooner, to avoid Cossacks. I wanted to convert him to buddism and make him our friend, but Tatran vetoed that plan.

We don't have a plan.

I know that's different from how most SGs are run these days, but nobody here HAS a veto except for the variant rules themselves. Losing is OK, if it goes that way. Arguing over which way to go is not the idea here.

I urged us to move toward certain short range goals, but honestly, this variant is uncharted territory for everybody. Let's try to enjoy that. Looking for ways to make this game play like one of any other examples that people judge as successful is not the goal. Getting the MILLS going is the primary theme of the variants. Truly, this game is about MILLS not beer. I think some people have lost sight of that?

Avoiding Cossacks is not one of our goals. If Peter attacks us, it will be the last thing he does, because we will ERASE the first fool who Chooses Unwisely(TM). If that's Peter, so be it. If it's Alex, fine. Liz, or whomever.

In the mean time, we need to build some respect for precedent. It's not just about what any one player thinks we ought to do, but also about making the most of what previous players have handed you. We're doing fine in that department, I think. We've got our desired city sites, got more workers going, got to Mills, got Jumbos on the board.

REEELAXXXXX. Have a beer. Thinking is good but fretting and worrying and overanalyzing is best saved for other SGs.

You did great speeding us along to Machinery. It was worth selling tech to Mansa to get us to Machinery. Selling tech does not count toward WFYABTA, and it was good (I think) to avoid picking up Polytheism in trade.

It's not COMPLETELY useless, though. There are a lot of techs in the future. We may want to research Poly and Mono ourselves, on the ultracheap, to get "prereq" discounts on most of the late tech tree. Trading for Theology might be worthwhile if Sistine is still available and we have an Engineer on hand, but that's for later and surely a longshot situation.


I'm happy with everybody's play so far. Even if we end up with a mixed bag at the diplo table, we'll just roll with it. This is on Prince for a reason.





- Sirian

 

[Strauss]

this game is about MILLS not beer.

*resigns from this SG*

 

[Sirian]

 

[Iustus]

We don't have a plan.

....

Avoiding Cossacks is not one of our goals. If Peter attacks us, it will be the last thing he does, because we will ERASE the first fool who Chooses Unwisely(TM). If that's Peter, so be it. If it's Alex, fine. Liz, or whomever.

....

REEELAXXXXX. Have a beer. Thinking is good but fretting and worrying and overanalyzing is best saved for other SGs.

I am relaxed! Really!

On the other hand, I do think it is useful to at least point out which leaders we are spending resources to befriend. With that said, it looks to me like:

Friends:
Elizabeth
Mansa Musa

Prospective Friends:
Fredrick
Cyrus

Everyone else we will still try to befriend, but not at the cost of those above folks. I think it is still worth trying to spread our religon around to everyone that did not found one.

-Iustus

 

[mike p]

Well, I'm still not sure what to do with the trades. Mansa is far enough away, IMO, who cares if he founds Islam later. We need Currency now, and he's the only one offering. I may do some gifting to try to get some other Civs to offer it or CoL to us. In a regular game we might be able to get cute with withholding some techs for a future edge, but not if it keeps our economy crippled.

I'll keep that in mind about Atlanta pumping out some workers too. Call it a pipe dream, but I'd still love to build a road to another civ and get some foreign trade routes some time before everyone goes to Mercantilism! To bad our rivers go nowhere. I'm thinking of dedicating a couple or three workers, a couple of phants and some sort of medic for protection.

So what about our Great Scientist? Optics won't have much trade value and is basically useless to us in the short term. Should I merge the GS, build an Academy, or just put him to sleep for a while? Our next GP will probably also be Scientist, but I might hire a priest in Washington and try to get lucky.

I need to go to bed so I can't play tonight, as expected.

 

[Sirian]

So what about our Great Scientist? Optics won't have much trade value and is basically useless to us in the short term. Should I merge the GS, build an Academy, or just put him to sleep for a while? Our next GP will probably also be Scientist, but I might hire a priest in Washington and try to get lucky.

Lightbulbing Optics still looks like a better bet to me. That will unstick us from that part of the tree and allow the next scientist to grab something of more immediate use. As for not having much trade value, the AI looks more at the beakers and little or none at a tech's strategic value to them on a particular map. Certainly it won't have much trade value in the short term, but it will keep us going later on.

Go ahead and trade for Currency if you want. Once we have some mills going in NY, Washington, and Philly, they will be able to get more shield output, so can build Markets. It was the idea of getting Currency earlier, with mills nowhere in sight (and delaying the arrival of mills) that seemed like a bad idea to me at the time.

The game will pass to me after you, and I'm sure I'll probably end up continuing what you were doing, since we simply must build upward a bit before we can think about planting more cities. I definitely like the idea of getting some roads going to other civs! That's critical on Highlands maps.


- Sirian

 

[Iustus]

Well, I'm still not sure what to do with the trades. Mansa is far enough away, IMO, who cares if he founds Islam later. We need Currency now, and he's the only one offering. I may do some gifting to try to get some other Civs to offer it or CoL to us. In a regular game we might be able to get cute with withholding some techs for a future edge, but not if it keeps our economy crippled.

I was a bit suprised how quickly both Mansa and Elizabeth went to pleased with just one gift each. I do not think you will be able to trade for CoL until a 2nd person knows it, but a lot of civs know currency. If you gift Drama (or Compass, but Drama is known around more), that probably will move someone from not wanting to trade currency to being willing to trade it. So, if it was me, I would seriously consider gifting Drama to someone with Currency, to get them to trade it next round.

If that does not work, then trading with Mansa is a fallback. Since Philosophy is twice the beakers of Currency, and Mansa just got Drama, I do not think there is much risk of Mansa researching it himself in the next couple turns if you want to explore other options. (Unless he uses a great person of course).

I'll keep that in mind about Atlanta pumping out some workers too. Call it a pipe dream, but I'd still love to build a road to another civ and get some foreign trade routes some time before everyone goes to Mercantilism! To bad our rivers go nowhere. I'm thinking of dedicating a couple or three workers, a couple of phants and some sort of medic for protection.

I would love to see this as well, but the barbarians are no joke. If anything I think we are a bit short troops just to handle the barbarians hitting us, much less have 3 extra elephants to send off on a mission. That is why I only built a cheep chariot for escort, the idea is to avoid the slow axemen.

So what about our Great Scientist? Optics won't have much trade value and is basically useless to us in the short term. Should I merge the GS, build an Academy, or just put him to sleep for a while? Our next GP will probably also be Scientist, but I might hire a priest in Washington and try to get lucky.

I would save him for Optics, but I do not think there is any rush in using him. Until someone else knows Machinery (and thus can take Optics), or until we get a second great scientist, I would just keep him on ice. The only danger is that he gets accidentally used up in a golden age or something. We very well may trade Machinery sooner rather than later, so Optics may be tradeable quite soon.

In fact, once two people know Code of Laws, I would suggest gifting one of them Compass or Drama, so we can trade Philosophy or Machinery for Code of Laws.

Now a real score would be to get civil service in trade, but I am not sure I see how that would work right now.

As far as HBR, I think we will want it at some point for Cavelry, and Horse Archers are better than Chariots vs Axemen and Swordsmen, but not that great.

Our next great units will be grenadiers, riflemen and cavelry. If we got there quickly, Musketmen might be actually useful, since we cannot build Macemen. Although with Grenadiers one (albeit expensive) tech away, not that great. In any case, I think riflemen have the most synergy, since we need replaceable parts for mills and that leads to rifling.

-Iustus

 

[Tatran]

We don't have a plan.

I've noticed.We are at 0% research,which causes to break one of the rules.

Let's simplify things.Goal is winning,only time victory means the highest
score.We can't start wars, so building wonders and population will
help in scoring.Population won't help much,because a lot of tiles can't
be farmed.

Guess the action will be in the second half of this game,when we are
behind in tech.

 

[Iustus]

We should be ahead in tech in the second half of the game. This is Prince difficulty. There is no reason for us to be behind in tech, even without cottages.

-Iustus

 

[Sirian]

We are at 0% research,which causes to break one of the rules.

No. Being at 100% Taxes would be breaking the rule, though.

The worst we are supposed to be is 20% Culture, 80% Taxes. If we're bankrupt and losing money, to where the game would force us to lower the Culture Tax, ALL available means (including switching cities to higher commerce configurations, running merchant specialists, selling techs to the AI for cash, and anything else that can turn up money) -MUST- be taken to get us back to 20% Culture Tax IMMEDIATELY if not sooner.

Most of our research, at this point, is coming from Scientist specialists, so "zero research" is not very indicative anyway.


- Sirian

 

[Iustus]

Most of our research, at this point, is coming from Scientist specialists, so "zero research" is not very indicative anyway.

With our real production starting to kick in, I think we should set a goal to getting a library at every city with a 4+ food tile. Every 4+ food tile can support a scientist, and I think we should look at doing that.

I still think its possible to get the Great Library, although it is less valueble the closer it is to becoming obsolete. If we could get it, then we could make a science city, with an academy and we could start merging in scientists. This is particularly effective under Representation. For now, probably should just keep it in the back of our mind.

-Iustus