Sirian
Designer, Mohawk Games
Inherited Turn: Lots of goings on here.
OK, Charis is brilliant! (No, really!). The benefit of two luxuries is significant enough to matter. Not in the way he described, no, but all the same, it was a great move and is about to become permanent. One was blah, but two. Two can tango.
OK, what is Charis smoking? (No, really!)
I can understand forgetting about rails when intent on the brokering. That part didn't help us, but it was merely an oversight. What he's done to our forests... 
"OK, Presidente. Put the chainsaw down -- SLOWLY -- and back away from it. That's it. Easy now. Good fellow there. Easy." He was then put in a straitjacket and hauled away.
This has to be the weediest thing I've seen in weeks. Not in its overall negative effect (it's not that big a deal) but in the "one step forward two steps back" category. It's one thing to chop down forests, and quite another to eat the seed corn! I guess he forgot that those forests serve a purpose in providing shields every turn. Some of the ones he chopped down left half a dozen of our cities not only on lower shields, but STILL MANNING THE EMPTY FOREST TILES. I went through a buch of cities to reassign citizens to still-alive forests, or else to higher food tiles, as I could.
And there's no time to waste on correcting these problems, there's far more urgent duty ahead for our workers. Everyone not building rails was immediately halted and sent south, or to help those who were building rails. MUST... GET... TO... UR.
Economically, we look great. 5-digit treasury! I'd call this a momentous occasion, but... it's not quite. In the absence of colonies on which to be blowing this reserve, it might be a wee bit premature to declare the spendthrift issue closed.
Still, this is good work.
Inherited Turn, 1400AD: Luxury Rate increased to 10%, all entertainers fired. Science rate increased to 90%.
1405AD: We have 32 workers. Four were left in the north to work on military rails. The other 28 are migrating south at top speed. Rails built along the east coast now stretch south past Babylon, and the group that had been at Ice Palace are one link short of Ninevah now. Diplomatic front: no news.
1410AD: Rail net reaches Ur! Four mine tiles within the city radius now have rails. Make the diplo rounds, everyone's either broke or at parity. Aztecs now have Communism, only civ who does.
1415AD: Rail net at Ur "completed". All 11 land tiles in use now have rails on them. Still a little work left to do to max shields, though. I'm going to mine a couple more tiles and leave options in place. Next up: Havana.
Ur is on placeholder for Suffrage, you see. One should not be dillying around building rails through the arctic when about eight turns might be shaved off the wonder ETA with proper support.
Make the diplo rounds. Ah, Alex has researched Industrialization. We have 3 turns to go, ~1900 beakers' worth.
Well now. Aztecs are only ones who have Communism, Greeks are only one with industry. If I sit back, they will trade, and cut us out of the loop. This is not acceptable.
2008 gold to Greece for Industrialization.
Industrialization and 4664 gold to Aztecs for Communism
Communism to Greece for 2037 gold, plus 4 gpt.
Communism to Zulus (diplo price) for 89gpt, plus 21 cash.
China, Egypt are broke.
Obsolete Tech to Russia @ diplo.
Havana switched to Factory (Ha! Due next turn with no waste. Second time in as many turns that the timing has broken down perfectly!)
Ur swapped to Wall Street (Havana will beat it to Suffrage, despite ~300 shield head start, with Factory and Coal Plant -- and full rails -- of that I am certain).
1420AD: Havana completes factory. With no rails online yet at any mines, Havana now cranking 41 shields, 1 wasted. Coal Plant due in 4 turns. All desired rail cleanup finished at Ur, the rest can wait. I start building rails to Havana's gold mines.
OMG! The Aztecs are sitting on that cash! Incredible.
OMG! I found two more cities with pathetic shield production because they were still set to work forests Charis chopped down! I reassign one to still-existing forests, the other to coastal waters.
1425AD: China has some credit available. I check and it tops out at 74 gpt. Well... how am I supposed to know what the miser price would be here? Aha. I find a way. I check their map price.
China will sell me their world map for no less than 990 cash. 990! So I put their map on the table and find that they are willing to buy Communism for the map plus 43 gpt. Now 1000 cash = 50gpt spread over 20 years. So I figure the market (miser) price here is 93 gpt. They would pay me 93 gpt for Communism, if they could afford that much.
Well today's their lucky day. I accept 74gpt, plus 102 cash (worth another 5 gpt), to let them have this one at the diplo price.
1430AD: Wall Street completed in Ur. Factory due in 8.
Egypt has captured Kyoto. We now have a new, singular, dot of map info, I presume at the new Japanese capital.
Rome's map is worth 976 cash. Germany's is worth 943. So there you go, Charis. You can use the map and figure when they offer it, they are offering ~50ish gpt. Take the map off the table, increase gpt by 50, and if they can pay, you've got a deal on your hands. If they can't pay, take our marbles and go home -- unless it's small fry and sideline deals. Heck we could afford to give a few techs away to Japan and Iros. Heh.
1435AD: Workers are busy busy with rails in the hills of Havana.
OMG! I'm still finding remnants of the Lumberjacking Scandal! Ninevah's been working empty tundra tiles this whole time! I move them to fishing the coastal waters.
Three techs to Russia @ diplo prices (but not bad cash, Russia has clearly pulled away from Japan/Iro and is on her way to the Industrial Age! One of the techs I gave her is Democracy, she revolts immediately).
I give Education to Japan, who is still dead broke. I sell it to Iro for 3gpt @ diplo.
1440AD: Havana completes Coal Plant. Rail network at Havana completed. Havana cranking 77 shields per turn, 1 wasted. Havana starts Univeral Suffrage, due in 11 turns -- 2 turns faster than Ur would have been, even with all that head start. Havana's eleven... That's five turns spent preparing, so figure 16 turns. For the AI's to build 640 shields in 15 turns, they would need 44 shields per turn in the applicable city. Possible, but as shield-laden as Havana was, it did not have that many even WITH a factory, prior to the rails coming online. I think we've got this one in the bag, but after losing this race in Rumble, I'll withhold any Namath Guarantees.
China has researched Industrialization on their own.
Magnetism to Rome @ diplo. Rome reaches Industrial Age.
1445AD: Cubans research Medicine. Oh drat, Aztecs have Espionage now -- and no cash! They bought it off someone, has to be Greece. Yep, Greece now has Espionage, and 4k cash. Well, we lost out on one trade, but will make the other two now, and bring the cash wad back to our account.
Medicine to Greece @ 2nd-civ for 3905 cash.
Medicine @ 3rd-civ and 81 cash to Aztecs for Espionage @ 3rd-civ.
Espionage @ 4th-civ to China for 74 gpt and 123 cash (diplo).
Industrialization to Egypt for 16gpt @ diplo, topping off their tank (they were close to researching it on their own).
We start researching Sanitation, due in 6 turns.
1450AD: Rail net for food increases completed at Akkad, for shield maxing at Babylon, and for best-tile increasing at Ellipi, Ashur, and Ninevah. Our military rail net is not in too bad of shape, either. All cities not connected are one link away, and the northern line is one link away from the main line. Charis, you could probably link up all remaining cities in two turns... but there is no particular hurry. I'd recommend building on the basis of what provides the best increase to production/growth.
I've been running a bunch of cities on high food. Our civ is now addicted to BOTH of those luxuries, AND 10%. But this is a good thing, as we're about to hit hospitals. When the luxury deals come up for renewal, we must have them! Rather than end up having to renegotiate every 20 turns, I think it might even be worth our while to find out how much gpt they want, then offer them 25% more than that -- and nothing else in the deal. No techs, no cash, just pure gpt, so when the AI's check for renewal in yet another 20 turns, they find out we're still overpaying them slightly, and they sit there happily and don't bother us. What do you think? It will be your call. At this point, I'd pay for a third, too, if anybody offered one, but we can still only trade with 3 civs.
Still 1450AD: Espionage to Zulus for 65gpt, 16 cash.
Nationalism to Rome for 55gpt, 5 cash. HE CALLED ME A CHEAP BASTARD. Said "your reputation as a tough negotiator". Bah. I bend over backward to cut these chumps a good deal and they call me names. I guess I really am a cheap bastard.
Japan gets Astronomy for free. (There? See? -- Oh darn, he said "What an unexpected surprise!" Guess all these really high blown multi-thousand-gold deals that I've been pinching have put us over into the miser category, reputation-wise. Well, I don't plan to shave 1000 gold off a deal for a diplo price, so they can bite me. OK?)
I sold Russia another tech, WAY cheap, like half the miser price. (See? I am generous! Oh quit snickering).
Iroquois got Navigation for 7 gpt and 7 cash.
We have ~14.5k in the bank, and with science at 90% and lux at 10%, we are still pulling close to 500 gpt surplus.
Remember the scrape with Hocus? That was NOT because his brokering was a bad deal. Economically, it was quite strong, he worked them over pretty well. It all depends on your victory goals, though. He wanted to head for space race, and squeeze every dime economically. I didn't think we could pull that off, as our lands were pretty badly scattered. I wanted as much military advantage as we could get for ourselves. Remember when someone brokered to Zulu's for massive gpt, and they shorted us by declaring war a couple turns later? We don't have that problem here. In this world, the AI's are going at one another, they don't need to add us to their enemy list. In RBD1, the world was at war in the middle ages, but then France died and it all calmed down, and as it turned out, I WAS right about not being able to be left in peace.
This situation, we have nothing to gain from a military edge. We won't be attacking them no matter what, so what do we care if they have rifles instead of pikes, or infantry instead of rifles, or the extra production of earlier rails/factories to build more units? We can fend off an invasion with the forces we have, now that we have rails. No coal on our land could have been really dicey, but we got past that. Even if the coal dried up now, we'd be OK.
As such, the very kind of maximum-economic-brinksmanship that I didn't think would serve us in RBD1 is exactly the kind of game we have been wanting to play here since the scenerio was on the drawing board. Everything, frankly, is going BETTER than we planned (18 techs from the GL!)
Your absent-minded lumberjacking was quite entertaining. Now I have something to nag about that's minor and inconsequential, but still weedy. I'm pleased as punch! Those fine Cuban cigars, I see. Yep yep. Charis lightin up the weed sticks again.
On the good side of things, it has occurred to me that Hoover Dam says "within radius of the city". Havana may YET be able to build it, as the river is within its radius, and if so, then moving off the river (to get several extra hills in range) was probably the best move you could have made. BUT... you got lucky with it, my friend. You didn't know the situation with those hills, and given what you knew at the time, I'd definitely have stayed on the river. But this is me acknowledging that the move you made does now appear to have been the best one possible.
Final Notes. Battlefield Medicine: with us NEVER going to be fighting on enemy soil, save that one as a 500 shield placeholder for use in Havana. Ur being our other best city for production, I think it should get a coal plant. The rest... I dunno. If pollution happens at Havana, it must be cleaned up right away, and would take 16 workers to do so on a hill. So... keep the workers in stacks of four, and finish jobs on the same turn, rather than letting some scatter around, as you never know when a pollution outbreak may come, and best to have almost all the workers available for duty each turn.
Good luck on your turn. Stick with max science, use the map if you have to to figure out the Actual Retail Price, and try not to sell anything at less than 25% below the miser price, if you can, unless you are purposely doing it to get extra diplo credit.
- Sirian
OK, Charis is brilliant! (No, really!). The benefit of two luxuries is significant enough to matter. Not in the way he described, no, but all the same, it was a great move and is about to become permanent. One was blah, but two. Two can tango.
OK, what is Charis smoking? (No, really!)
I can understand forgetting about rails when intent on the brokering. That part didn't help us, but it was merely an oversight. What he's done to our forests... "OK, Presidente. Put the chainsaw down -- SLOWLY -- and back away from it. That's it. Easy now. Good fellow there. Easy." He was then put in a straitjacket and hauled away.
This has to be the weediest thing I've seen in weeks. Not in its overall negative effect (it's not that big a deal) but in the "one step forward two steps back" category. It's one thing to chop down forests, and quite another to eat the seed corn! I guess he forgot that those forests serve a purpose in providing shields every turn. Some of the ones he chopped down left half a dozen of our cities not only on lower shields, but STILL MANNING THE EMPTY FOREST TILES. I went through a buch of cities to reassign citizens to still-alive forests, or else to higher food tiles, as I could.
And there's no time to waste on correcting these problems, there's far more urgent duty ahead for our workers. Everyone not building rails was immediately halted and sent south, or to help those who were building rails. MUST... GET... TO... UR.
Economically, we look great. 5-digit treasury! I'd call this a momentous occasion, but... it's not quite. In the absence of colonies on which to be blowing this reserve, it might be a wee bit premature to declare the spendthrift issue closed.
Still, this is good work.Inherited Turn, 1400AD: Luxury Rate increased to 10%, all entertainers fired. Science rate increased to 90%.
1405AD: We have 32 workers. Four were left in the north to work on military rails. The other 28 are migrating south at top speed. Rails built along the east coast now stretch south past Babylon, and the group that had been at Ice Palace are one link short of Ninevah now. Diplomatic front: no news.
1410AD: Rail net reaches Ur! Four mine tiles within the city radius now have rails. Make the diplo rounds, everyone's either broke or at parity. Aztecs now have Communism, only civ who does.
1415AD: Rail net at Ur "completed". All 11 land tiles in use now have rails on them. Still a little work left to do to max shields, though. I'm going to mine a couple more tiles and leave options in place. Next up: Havana.
Ur is on placeholder for Suffrage, you see. One should not be dillying around building rails through the arctic when about eight turns might be shaved off the wonder ETA with proper support.
Make the diplo rounds. Ah, Alex has researched Industrialization. We have 3 turns to go, ~1900 beakers' worth.
Well now. Aztecs are only ones who have Communism, Greeks are only one with industry. If I sit back, they will trade, and cut us out of the loop. This is not acceptable.
2008 gold to Greece for Industrialization.
Industrialization and 4664 gold to Aztecs for Communism
Communism to Greece for 2037 gold, plus 4 gpt.
Communism to Zulus (diplo price) for 89gpt, plus 21 cash.
China, Egypt are broke.
Obsolete Tech to Russia @ diplo.
Havana switched to Factory (Ha! Due next turn with no waste. Second time in as many turns that the timing has broken down perfectly!)
Ur swapped to Wall Street (Havana will beat it to Suffrage, despite ~300 shield head start, with Factory and Coal Plant -- and full rails -- of that I am certain).
1420AD: Havana completes factory. With no rails online yet at any mines, Havana now cranking 41 shields, 1 wasted. Coal Plant due in 4 turns. All desired rail cleanup finished at Ur, the rest can wait. I start building rails to Havana's gold mines.
OMG! The Aztecs are sitting on that cash! Incredible.
OMG! I found two more cities with pathetic shield production because they were still set to work forests Charis chopped down! I reassign one to still-existing forests, the other to coastal waters.
1425AD: China has some credit available. I check and it tops out at 74 gpt. Well... how am I supposed to know what the miser price would be here? Aha. I find a way. I check their map price.
China will sell me their world map for no less than 990 cash. 990! So I put their map on the table and find that they are willing to buy Communism for the map plus 43 gpt. Now 1000 cash = 50gpt spread over 20 years. So I figure the market (miser) price here is 93 gpt. They would pay me 93 gpt for Communism, if they could afford that much.
Well today's their lucky day. I accept 74gpt, plus 102 cash (worth another 5 gpt), to let them have this one at the diplo price.
1430AD: Wall Street completed in Ur. Factory due in 8.
Egypt has captured Kyoto. We now have a new, singular, dot of map info, I presume at the new Japanese capital.
Rome's map is worth 976 cash. Germany's is worth 943. So there you go, Charis. You can use the map and figure when they offer it, they are offering ~50ish gpt. Take the map off the table, increase gpt by 50, and if they can pay, you've got a deal on your hands. If they can't pay, take our marbles and go home -- unless it's small fry and sideline deals. Heck we could afford to give a few techs away to Japan and Iros. Heh.
1435AD: Workers are busy busy with rails in the hills of Havana.
OMG! I'm still finding remnants of the Lumberjacking Scandal!
Ninevah's been working empty tundra tiles this whole time! I move them to fishing the coastal waters.Three techs to Russia @ diplo prices (but not bad cash, Russia has clearly pulled away from Japan/Iro and is on her way to the Industrial Age! One of the techs I gave her is Democracy, she revolts immediately).
I give Education to Japan, who is still dead broke. I sell it to Iro for 3gpt @ diplo.
1440AD: Havana completes Coal Plant. Rail network at Havana completed. Havana cranking 77 shields per turn, 1 wasted. Havana starts Univeral Suffrage, due in 11 turns -- 2 turns faster than Ur would have been, even with all that head start. Havana's eleven... That's five turns spent preparing, so figure 16 turns. For the AI's to build 640 shields in 15 turns, they would need 44 shields per turn in the applicable city. Possible, but as shield-laden as Havana was, it did not have that many even WITH a factory, prior to the rails coming online. I think we've got this one in the bag, but after losing this race in Rumble, I'll withhold any Namath Guarantees.
China has researched Industrialization on their own.
Magnetism to Rome @ diplo. Rome reaches Industrial Age.
1445AD: Cubans research Medicine. Oh drat, Aztecs have Espionage now -- and no cash! They bought it off someone, has to be Greece. Yep, Greece now has Espionage, and 4k cash. Well, we lost out on one trade, but will make the other two now, and bring the cash wad back to our account.
Medicine to Greece @ 2nd-civ for 3905 cash.
Medicine @ 3rd-civ and 81 cash to Aztecs for Espionage @ 3rd-civ.
Espionage @ 4th-civ to China for 74 gpt and 123 cash (diplo).
Industrialization to Egypt for 16gpt @ diplo, topping off their tank (they were close to researching it on their own).
We start researching Sanitation, due in 6 turns.
1450AD: Rail net for food increases completed at Akkad, for shield maxing at Babylon, and for best-tile increasing at Ellipi, Ashur, and Ninevah. Our military rail net is not in too bad of shape, either. All cities not connected are one link away, and the northern line is one link away from the main line. Charis, you could probably link up all remaining cities in two turns... but there is no particular hurry. I'd recommend building on the basis of what provides the best increase to production/growth.
I've been running a bunch of cities on high food. Our civ is now addicted to BOTH of those luxuries, AND 10%. But this is a good thing, as we're about to hit hospitals. When the luxury deals come up for renewal, we must have them! Rather than end up having to renegotiate every 20 turns, I think it might even be worth our while to find out how much gpt they want, then offer them 25% more than that -- and nothing else in the deal. No techs, no cash, just pure gpt, so when the AI's check for renewal in yet another 20 turns, they find out we're still overpaying them slightly, and they sit there happily and don't bother us. What do you think? It will be your call. At this point, I'd pay for a third, too, if anybody offered one, but we can still only trade with 3 civs.
Still 1450AD: Espionage to Zulus for 65gpt, 16 cash.
Nationalism to Rome for 55gpt, 5 cash. HE CALLED ME A CHEAP BASTARD. Said "your reputation as a tough negotiator". Bah. I bend over backward to cut these chumps a good deal and they call me names. I guess I really am a cheap bastard.
Japan gets Astronomy for free. (There? See? -- Oh darn, he said "What an unexpected surprise!" Guess all these really high blown multi-thousand-gold deals that I've been pinching have put us over into the miser category, reputation-wise. Well, I don't plan to shave 1000 gold off a deal for a diplo price, so they can bite me. OK?)
I sold Russia another tech, WAY cheap, like half the miser price. (See? I am generous! Oh quit snickering).
Iroquois got Navigation for 7 gpt and 7 cash.
We have ~14.5k in the bank, and with science at 90% and lux at 10%, we are still pulling close to 500 gpt surplus.
Remember the scrape with Hocus? That was NOT because his brokering was a bad deal. Economically, it was quite strong, he worked them over pretty well. It all depends on your victory goals, though. He wanted to head for space race, and squeeze every dime economically. I didn't think we could pull that off, as our lands were pretty badly scattered. I wanted as much military advantage as we could get for ourselves. Remember when someone brokered to Zulu's for massive gpt, and they shorted us by declaring war a couple turns later? We don't have that problem here. In this world, the AI's are going at one another, they don't need to add us to their enemy list. In RBD1, the world was at war in the middle ages, but then France died and it all calmed down, and as it turned out, I WAS right about not being able to be left in peace.
This situation, we have nothing to gain from a military edge. We won't be attacking them no matter what, so what do we care if they have rifles instead of pikes, or infantry instead of rifles, or the extra production of earlier rails/factories to build more units? We can fend off an invasion with the forces we have, now that we have rails. No coal on our land could have been really dicey, but we got past that. Even if the coal dried up now, we'd be OK.
As such, the very kind of maximum-economic-brinksmanship that I didn't think would serve us in RBD1 is exactly the kind of game we have been wanting to play here since the scenerio was on the drawing board. Everything, frankly, is going BETTER than we planned (18 techs from the GL!)
Your absent-minded lumberjacking was quite entertaining. Now I have something to nag about that's minor and inconsequential, but still weedy. I'm pleased as punch! Those fine Cuban cigars, I see. Yep yep. Charis lightin up the weed sticks again.
On the good side of things, it has occurred to me that Hoover Dam says "within radius of the city". Havana may YET be able to build it, as the river is within its radius, and if so, then moving off the river (to get several extra hills in range) was probably the best move you could have made. BUT... you got lucky with it, my friend. You didn't know the situation with those hills, and given what you knew at the time, I'd definitely have stayed on the river. But this is me acknowledging that the move you made does now appear to have been the best one possible.
Final Notes. Battlefield Medicine: with us NEVER going to be fighting on enemy soil, save that one as a 500 shield placeholder for use in Havana. Ur being our other best city for production, I think it should get a coal plant. The rest... I dunno. If pollution happens at Havana, it must be cleaned up right away, and would take 16 workers to do so on a hill. So... keep the workers in stacks of four, and finish jobs on the same turn, rather than letting some scatter around, as you never know when a pollution outbreak may come, and best to have almost all the workers available for duty each turn.
Good luck on your turn. Stick with max science, use the map if you have to to figure out the Actual Retail Price, and try not to sell anything at less than 25% below the miser price, if you can, unless you are purposely doing it to get extra diplo credit.
- Sirian
This one is a keeper in the mental files!
) However, several cities went on bank with universities yet unbuilt, with us running 90% science virtually every turn, or else I would have had to waste about 300 shields from all the cities well past 100 in their box. I know I didn't explain WHY I wasn't building any factories up there on my turn, but didn't think that I needed to. Factories are generally a no-brainer, but like the lumberjacking, if you don't stop to think about why you're doing something, and just run an auto script from what worked best in other games, you may end up doing something counterproductive to your specific goals.
With railroads, forest and tundra/mine are identical - it's only with "roads" that the forest is the better choice. I purposefully got us to the point where 'all' squares were forested some turns ago, so that any 'ice' square already got its shields worth and needed a mining. Let me know if I'm missing something, but reforestation now would be a purely cosmetic thing.
