RB29d - Cultural Extermination

lurkers comment
I think you should build the shrine, you'll get the next GP faster and with the AI not having any prophet-wonders it's a fair gambit.
 
I'll agree we can make the decision at the end of blid's set. I think it will take two turns for the Prophet to run to Novgorod anyway, so we wouldn't lose any time on building the Shrine.

It'll be an interesting cost-benefit analysis to do, so might as well do it with the most complete information ... If we build the Shrine, Novgorod can build Settler --> Lighthouse (trade for Sailing, makes Fish a 6-food tile) --> Shrine --> run three Priests while building a replacement Axe or a Courthouse. With the Shrine and the Priests, Novgorod will generate an additional 9 gpt which should cover most of the costs of two new cities. That would put Reddotstov on military for the new city at yellow dot, itself, and Novgorod if we build a Courthouse there instead of an Axe. St. Pete could build military for itself and the western cities after it completes its Settler, and Moscow could chop a fourth Settler and work cottages.

If all goes well, in ~25 turns after the Shrine we'll have 7-8 properly-defended cities and our core will be available for Wonders and workers (and Missionary spam). The 2nd GP pops Theology, founds Christianity (I'm optimistic it will last 40 more turns, we'll have a better idea post-Alphabet), and St. Pete can start on Sistine.
 
Here's tech situation when we got alphabet



Bis is the only one with monotheism. No trades with you my friend

I take sailing from Genghis for polytheism. Roosie don't know mysticism yet !!

The axe in NovGorod went ahead to check on yellow dot

Genghis demanded monotheism from me. I didn't want to annoy him since we'll be settling yellow dot soon. This puts christianity in danger but with alphabet monopoly and this guy liking military techs, I don't think he'll chase christianity anyway. He probably want to run organized religion

Capital finishes settler. Starts an axe
Novogord finshes settler and starts an axe. We are playing it very thin militarly here, so I took the way of caution
The settler would be built in Novgorod which is already grown up and can use that plain hill once we fire the priest

We got it, our first revolt that is :cool:




Many of those to come

Bis got monarchy. One step away from christianity. Hope he chases feudalism

Yellow dot is Rostov :




This city would suck for a while


We got gems from Julius for fish. There were not any other available trades during my set

I turned down Gengis when he asked me to stop trading with Bismarck. He hates this guy but I didn't want to lock us off german lands. One demand per turnset is enough for you, meanie mongol

No screenies for settling purple dot, but we see bit of it in the NW here :



Moscow finished the axe (partly chopped) and started a worker at size 5

End of turnset : we have +3gpt at 30%. We neeeed that shrine. We should get Boston during next turnset, it is 1% american now. And we have a settler due in 6 turns from StPet that can go claim the blue dot north east of Rheims

The worker in capital is due in 5 turns

New cities are building granaries ...slowly. The best one would be Yaro (purple dot). A worker is mining the gold before city pops borders and claims the corn.

We definitely need that shrine to support two more cities. I held off alphabet. Here's tech situation at end of turnset




Someone probably got calendar by now. We can get maths from Juluis by giving him three religious techs. That would let us know if it's time to break alphabet monopoly. An alternative would be to wait for some turns, give away priesthood as a gift, use COL to get the techs we need from AI without breaking alphabet monopoly

What would be very nice is a war between Toku and Genghis. Genghis won't go right now but we sure can bribe him later with an expensive tech. Many benefits, they would be busy with each other and leave us alone, that would slow them and if by chance one of them looses a city, we could play sneak settling with a reserve settler positioned nearby

In the west, Bis is Hindu. He would likely be hated by everyone. Once we can afford it, we should push hindu missionaries towards him so he keeps his faith

save
 
I don't know how to add culture icons!

I agree on trading CoL for maths/IW/whatever and would consider researching CS next because we need some irrigation chains if Alphabet remains unbroken.

I think it is correct to build the shrine and use it to hire the 2-3 prophets in Novgorod, if the AIs are this slow to research priesthood it's highly unlikely that they will lightbulb Theology on us. They will probably get Taoism, but that is ok.

Should we consider a period of Judaism and Org Rel to catch up on infrastructure/wonders and appease our neighbours? We would be temporarily sacrificing some of our holy city pressure on Washington and Paris, but we have been building everything but city infrastructure and it would be great for doing that once we've finished the current round of settler spam.

Also, I just noticed all our troops are 0 xp and our power rating is ridiculously bad because we don't have any barracks... we need to sort this out, Red dot needs a barracks queued BEFORE it makes more units as it is our most vulnerable core city and seems to have been designated as military centre.

Finally when we flip Boston I would propose disbanding it and resettling on the plains hill later to gain more cottage space.
 
I could go along with a stretch of Judaism/OR after we settle the city we're building in St. Pete. Except ... how many of our cities are Jewish? OR without a State Religion would be palatable for a little while until we get 2-3 Missionaries built or have few free spreads. How much will the 25% hammer boost in one city be worth relative to all the lost culture? That's a much easier equation if it's 25% hammer boost in 3-4 cities. I think we have to take two Anarchies regardless so at the very least we should flip Boston before we nerf the culture in Reddotstov.

Don't necessarily agree with disbanding Boston. Moving the city gains 2 grass tiles we don't already claim, and removes all the hills from the city radius. It would make the city just about pure cottages and force us to use the whip to build anything. I'm not sure we don't have better things to do with 150 hammers + food. Eh. Best argument to disband it is that it will be size 1, with no improvements and no improved tiles to work so it will be a net loss to us. No one else can settle the area, so worst-case scenario if we disband is that we spend the hammers/food to re-found on the spot. So I'm in agreement with disbanding, but maybe not with re-founding the city on the plains hill.

I agree we need to build Barracks soon, but I'm not too bent out of shape about only having 0-XP troops. We're not going to attack anyone right now, so Axes fortified behind 60% cultural defenses are good enough even without promotions. I think we need 2-3 more non-Warriors before we build Barracks. I peeked at the save but didn't check F4. We'll have 6 border cities so I think we need 12 non-Warriors to defend those cities (2 apiece). I'm guessing we have either 9 or 10 already built.

Be wary of Nappy. Seventy-five turns after the Pyramids were built he's going to rush another wonder in Paris. So we'll have to keep building wonders/culture in St. Pete and Yekaterinburg. I propose Sistine in St. Pete.

Where do we want to settle the next city? The dot in uberfishes dotmap claims a row of desert tiles. Would it be better off moved a tile? Can't open the save right now to check for myself.
 
Looks like Toku has cut us off from pushing more to the east. We'd have to put a city up in the tundra now, and his cities are like a wall considering he's not very inclined to let us pass through his territory.

In the southwest, uberfish's white dot is still available. Perhaps our next city should go there?
 
Got another look at the save ...

We only have 7 non-Warrior troops. Looks like St. Pete and Reddotstov will have to alternate building Barracks and troops for the short-term future.

I am not sure the dot in the SW is really available. There are a lot of colored borders around there.

Here is the other area in the west:



Red dots are junk tiles. White was uberfishes suggestion, yellow is an oh-so-slightly better city for us. I would still found on white because that city is worse for Nappy. :) Nappy has a Settler pair wandering west, but I think he's going to get real frustrated by our borders.
 
SW white dot at gems is still available. We should take that one first, because we have two options for a city near rheims (upper white dot and the corn/sheep site 3N1W of rheims) so we're ok if Nap blocks one. This would bring us up to 9 cities and we move into consolidation mode. I agree that at this time we are militarily weak and if the AI starts demanding we convert to Judaism, we should consider doing so.

On the tech trade front actually giving Caesar 3 religious techs for maths should be safe since no one has CoL and so he would only be able to lightbulb theology if the stars align (he chooses to research CoL after his current project AND finishes it in time AND builds a temple in his Wonder city AND gets a prophet at very low probability) Then when we have theology sewn up we can pick up IW.

Our theatres should be out in time to offset the loss of free culture from obelisks @ calendar and a potential switch to Judaism.
 
We are currently building a lighthouse in Novgorod. Why? I would say courthouse (giving us back 3gpt), library, jewish monastry, even the temple are all better choices. A grassland hamlet is equal to a financial lighthouse coast tile, only that the hamlet grows bigger in time. Or what am I missing here? :confused:
As for being denied access to the east. There is always the sea route from Moscow open.
mh
 
mostly-harmless said:
We are currently building a lighthouse in Novgorod. Why? I would say courthouse (giving us back 3gpt), library, jewish monastry, even the temple are all better choices. A grassland hamlet is equal to a financial lighthouse coast tile, only that the hamlet grows bigger in time. Or what am I missing here? :confused:
As for being denied access to the east. There is always the sea route from Moscow open.
mh
Click to expand...

The Lighthouse makes the Fish a 6-food tile and allows a third Priest at break-even food. We're now racing for a Great Prophet so I feel we need to get the third specialist in play ASAP.

We won't be denied to the East for that long. Novgorod and Rostov will eventually open a channel S of NY. We need to control two more tiles, and I believe the western tile is only 52% Japanese at the moment. The other tile is 1st ring to Rostov and it appears cpt has an attenuating factor for distance (i.e., it won't take too long for us to control that one as well).

Research should probably go Drama --> Math (trade) --> Music. Until someone gets Alphabet we aren't in danger of losing the GA but the sooner we get the 12 cpt working in one of our wedge cities the better. Then we can go Civil Service.

If the SW white dot is available, I agree we should take it.
 
Well, we can run 3 prophets for a while on food deficit, just be careful not to let the city starve down to 4.

Maths would be good to get now to get full value from forest chops at Moscow, Reddot and western cities, less hurry for ironworking.
 
Okay, so my goals for the turnset:

  • Build Shrine in Novgorod & Hire Priests
  • Military out of Reddotstov -- enough for 2 non-warriors per border town
  • Settle Uber's white dot if available, otherwise north up to pressure Rheims
  • Trade religious techs for Math
  • Tech order: Drama -> Music to wrap up the GA
  • Disband Boston if it flips -- we can refound later at our discretion

I'm playing in 30-60min, so let me know if I need to change or add anything.
 
Well, I pretty much accomplished every goal during my turnset :cool:

Inherited Turn
Started off by trading for Math.



Aside from that, everything looked to be in top shape. I hit enter, and Julius got caught up in the spirit of sharing knowledge. So caught up that he asked us to trade Alphabet for IW. Maybe later, buddy.

1) 160BC
We need a place where our Priests can make money and hammers in peace:



Hire one priests immediately in Novgorod. Once the Lighthouse finishes, I'll hire the other two. We're able to run 50% at even now (although that will drop to 40% in the following turns).

IT -
Khan wants to trade for Archery. I politely decline.
Natty wants our Ivory. Remember to cancel this 2 turns after uploaded save.

2) 145BC
Great Merchent born in Rome.
Our scout spots a Roman settler pair heading to the far southeast to claim the horses. Looks like they're going to settle on the desert tile 2N of the horses.

3) 130BC



I decide to disband the city. I doubt an AI is going to settle in the desert. Plus it costs us 7gpt right away. leaving us to pick up this city site at our leisure. Plus, we do need to decide on where to plant the city (my vote is either on location or 2W of Boston's ruins).

On the plus, we get a free chariot. Score one for the military goal.

Khan now has Calendar.

4) 115BC
...zzzz...

5) 100BC
Moscow finishes its worker, starts an axe to let the city grow a little. Probably need more workers after the axe, however.

6) 85BC
St. Pete finishes it's settler, and also goes for an axe to let it grow. Reddotstov starts a Barracks with the overflow from the hammer chop last turn.

7) 70BC
Every little bit helps...



Notice that Rostov is starting to make some ground. I had our workers come build a mine on that plains hill to help with production. And the production really will come in handy when ...

8) 55BC
... wait for it ...

9) 40BC

:culture: DRAMA!!! :culture:

I turn off research for this turn to build up a little cash while we confirm what our next research project should be.

10) 25BC
Novgorod builds its Lighthouse. Here's a picture:



Theatres started in Novgorod, St. Pete',s & Reddotstov.
The gold is hooked up and being worked in Yaroslavl'. Possibly should switch that build to a theatre as well.

In the southwest, our settler is ready to settle next turn.

Louis had a settler pop up a few turns ago in the west. Take a look:



I'm guessing they are heading towards an area near T_McC's yellow dot. I'm not too worried about it; we have plenty of opportunities to pressure that city and Rheims.

Washington's settler sniffed around, and now has turned back into Roosie's borders. Probably going to settle somewhere in the tundra.

We also are up to 10 non-warrior military units. An axe in Moscow is due shortly.

And let's finish with a culture picture:



save me!
 
Initial thoughts without looking at the save:

I think we're on 15-turns per set, so you still have 5 more. :) Even if we're not you can take the five I didn't last round.

I think we have plenty of things to build: Barracks, Monasteries, Missionaries, Temples, Theaters, Courthouses, ... so I think the most useful tech for us right now is Music.

I would figure out how many turns we'd have to run 0% science to have enough cash to upgrade a Warrior to an Axe (n). Then I'd run 0% science for (n-1). That way in case anyone got excited we could turn off science and upgrade a Warrior on turn 1, and whip another Axe on turn 2. That may allow us to start building Barracks now instead of more troops. I am guessing n=3. If no one else has Alphabet yet we really can't lose the Artist.

Since the Prophet will be due by the end of the next turnset we should discuss where we want Christianity to found and what we can do to steer it to that city. It won't found in any city that is already a Holy City, but beyond that I think is it sort of a dice roll. I think the selection order is weighted to smallest culture, smallest size, absence of any other religion. That should stack the deck for the city we found in the vicinity of Rome, but maybe we want to prioritize a couple of Jewish Missionaries to plant a religion in our two cities W of France to bias the outcome further. Having the religion found there would make it easier to drop the Christian Missionary on Rome and stir things up, in addition to the needed cultural boost.

Along the same vein we should also consider where we want to settle the free Artist at Music. Less time pressure for this, once we have him we can wait for the end of the turnset to make the decision. My first thought is Rostov to really put a pinch on Toku and Rosie.
 
If you want to go after Music and no one has Alphavit yet I would suggest to research Litherature first. If would reduce cost of music a lot, may be as mach as half of cost of litherature.
 
I like T_McC's idea for leaving some cash on hand for an emergency upgarde. This will let us keep more warriors in our core and spread the actualy troops to our less secure holdings. It takes 110g to upgrade a warrior to an axe; n=3 indeed.

11) 10BC
Settle Yakutsk at the White Dot.



How nice of Julius to mine those gems for us. Start a theatre.

12) 5AD
Who said we should bribe Genghis to declare war on Toku?
Who wanted us to split the religions between our opponents?
I really can't remember names, but you people are frickin' geniuses. :cool:



Khan, however, has chariots for an attacking force. Toku has axes. Somebody needs to tell him this isn't Warlords!



We hit "n-1" for cash, so I switch research to 40% and Music is due in... 46 turns. Maybe we should diverge to Literature first? 16 turns + Great Library might not be bad.

I also decided to swap all of our Granaries over to Theatres.

IT-
Biz wants to trade Priesthood for Archery. Nix on that.

13) 20AD
Biz & Julius decided to swap religions.



IT-
Roosie offers to trade our ivory for his fur. I accept.
We hit half a million people.

14) 35AD
Every little bit helps...



Roosie finally researched Mysticism.

15) 50AD
Khan converts back to Judaism. Our temple tells us there are 11 Jewish cities in the world, only one of which that we own. Khan also hasn't done a thing (that we can see). His chariots are all there and Toku's archers haven't been in any battles either. Looks like he's happy to pillage so far.

France settles Merseilles across the bay from Moscow



We are also claiming tiles in the east, but that picture didn't want to upload...

Mutineer makes a good point about Literature. We should probably swap to it right away.

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