RK13 - The Great Prophet Game

[Meatbuster]

pre-turn95:
Well I move guys around, pretty much. Warrior fights an archer in the woods and succeeds. Find out we can't get past Charlie's border without writing. Deny Joao's Open Borders.
So what are we doing fog-busting for Gilgamesh again?

turn 95:
Micromanage Capital a bit to emphasize production. Granary build first before pop growth. Sounds good?

turn 99:
Warrior killed by barbarian visitors from another planet... or... gilgamesh's place.
Ok, we have a backup fortunately.

turn 101:
Tech: Writing->Aesthetics, the usual. We can talk about tech path after my turns.
Bibracte: Granary->Oracle
Micro Bibracte for growth.
Go to 0% research for a while.

turn 107:
WHAT!? Backup fogbuster at bridge to Gilgamesh's place slain by archer.
Hmm... bad. Need to build archer at capital after Oracle, then Lib.

turn 108:
Vienne: Warrior->Settler

turn 113:
See, I told you Axeman = game over.

turn 114:
Bibracte hits Size 9, maximize hammers. Forest is being chopped. Oracle is 8 turns away! Cross your fingers!

turn 117:
Archer kills Axeman, preventing the End of the World As We Know It

Charlie refuses to open borders, preventing our continued exploration of the world. Oh, and before you say Switch to NSR, our capital is maxed out in happiness.

turn 120:
Screw you conspiracy theorists!!!

I pick Metal Casting because it's expensive.
Can we trade it around yet? Not at all, no one has Alphabet yet. Is this Emperor difficulty?

Bibracte: Oracle -> Archer
I think I was overzealous with the binary research.
Start researching Aesthetics again.

Tunr 124:
Vienne: Settler -> Granary
Settler moves to Blue Block.

Turn 125 (875 BC)
Library is halfway through. We can reasearch what we want now. Currently it's on Aesthetics but we can choose Monarchy too.

Looks like the barbarian state is holding Gilgamesh back.

We are second in score and it's not even the AD's. Is this Emperor difficulty?

Yes it is.

 

[Meatbuster]

Based on the religious situation, there's no way to convert Gilga, he has his own holy city. I say, build 3 missionaries before opening borders with Joao. We should probably build another worker+settler in the capital, but not after building monastery to increase research.

Possible tech plan: Aesthetics -> Monarchy
Vertical growth is awesome at this stage. We are in a good position with our awesome population cap of 9 at the capital.
Metal Casting and Aesthetics will provide unparalleled trade fodder, try to check if tech trading is available soon so we can get Monarchy for free.

I say, city settling order...
Blue Block
pink at pigs, sheep and bronze
Red fish city or silver city or gold city

I don't see a high priority to block Gilga, he's far and he still has to take care of the barbarian city.


Roster:
RK/Meatbuster (just played)
Glare Seethe (up for x turns)
White Dragon (on deck)

We're still looking for two more members on our team. Please join.
(It turns out it's SGOTM signup season, I feel so sad...)

 

[Glare Seethe]

Got it. I'm fine with Aesthetics though I'll wait until the library's done in Bibracte first.

Build-wise, not sure if to go settler > worker in Bibracte or monastery > missionary for Joao. I see the floodplains in Vienne have been cottaged though I thought we agreed to farm at least some of them first so we can whip stuff more efficiently - I would've maybe had Bibracte work on settlers and workers while Vienne whips out a monastery/missionary. Coudl still go that way, though, I suppose whipping cottages isn't that bad but I almost have to force myself to do it. I'd have prefered some farms to start with.

I think I will stop the worker farming the wine, he'll be better off roading towards blue dot or putting cottages in Bibracte.

For the gold city, my thinking now is 1S of the gold. I can't really see a better location for it. Priority's low on this unless we want the Shwedagon Paya. Do we want it? If yes we should decide now as it should be settled after the blue dot, especially if we plan to trade Aesthetics around. Of course we can just forget about it, we'd probably be able to trade for Monotheism (would really like to be in OR), and aside from the GP points it won't do us much good. In that case magenta city will be settled after blue.

In the somewhat longerterm, we might want to head towards Music. It's a free great artist prophet and makes for good trade fodder.

Will play in a 4-5 hours or so.

 

[Meatbuster]

Forget the Paya. Spiral Minaret and Sankore are where it's at.
I don't see ourselves settling that gold city over the purple dot just for reducing the time it takes for building a wonder.

Myself I would focus on blocking off Joao asap then settling New Purple Dot.

Gold site MIGHT work IF we borrowed the cows from Vienne. Which Vienne may not need once its population is maxed out and already have the buildings needed.

Then we can think of putting guys on the gold or on the red (fish) site.

If we will actually build a wonder right now (assuming no bonuses), I'd rather have Parthenon rather than Paya. But it's a detour to Polytheism.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Sounds good and I tend to agree that settlers are more important than wonders... the Paya I thought would be nice for the prophet points but if we're not actually restricted to only generating prophet points then we don't need it.

Good to know I can run scientists, by the way.

 

[Meatbuster]

I forgot to say that I agree also with capital going Monastery, 3 Missionaries now and let other cities build the settlers and workers.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Umm we forgot to discuss what to do with the upcoming GP. I'm in the middle of the set right now, do we settle for +2 and +5 or build the Taoist shrine?

edit: I'd rather settle him, almost everyone else has a religion already so the chances of spreading Taoism enough to have a decent shrine are minimal. We can always shrine it later and Bibracte could use the hammers.

edit2: I'll have to play the rest tomorrow evening, unfortunately. But it's still within the 48 hours.

 

[White Dragon]

Originally I thought about settling him as well, however, if we are going to build 3 missionaries for Joao and settle two more cities ourselves, wouldn't a shrine produce more gold? The hammers are nice but so are the GP points and culture. Plus, instead of building monuments we can escort settler with mish to help it pay for itself and for border pops rather than wasting initial chops/whips for a monument.

Regarding the build, shouldn't we build at least one more archer in Bibracte for the west to hover outside that barb city before mish's?

Agree with settle order of blue block then magenta copper site then red fishies.

I am not much for trading so it will be nice to see how Aesthetics and MC play into the picture.

 

[Meatbuster]

I also vote for Shrine, it will produce at least 6 wealth in the near future. (I expect it to spread a lot more, because Joao doesn't have a religion and may have a lot of cities - Imperialistic. And NSR will open Gilgamesh's borders with us. Fortunately we are spiritual so switching religions has no turn penalty.)

 

[Glare Seethe]

Okay, shrine it is. Will also try to fit an archer into the build as indeed the one we had got killed by a barb (stay tuned for the full report!). I do disagree with the three missionaries, one should be enough to convert Joao and the beauty of having a shrine and converting your neighbors is that they spend the hammers on missionaries instead of you. We need Bibracte to build more workers and settlers. I'll try to send a second missionary from Vienne if I get the chance but waiting until we have 2-3 before opening borders and sending them in is just inviting the other AIs to convert him first.

 

[Meatbuster]

Yeah, I guess you're right about only one guy.

Though, the point of 3 guys was to get in and then shut off our borders quickly (because Joao is imperialistic, he's looking at our lands for expansion naturally). Like a surgical strike. It also lessens the chance of rogue religions infecting Joao's lands.

 

[Glare Seethe]

I doubt he would go past the blue city, though, and we're about to seal off that area anyway. He'd have nowhere to settle, except maybe the gold city but I expect Vienne and blue city to dominate that area culturally anyway, especially with Stonehenge plus religion. I think we're safe and could keep OB with him. Worst case we close them if we spot a settler.

 

[Meatbuster]

Ok, but I think don't open yet until at least 1 missionary is available. (Even if it hurts trading income... a bit.)
We don't want to have to close borders suddenly when we're sending guys to Joao's lands.

Also watch out for "amphibious invasion" of our lands. Joao might use a boat.
It's not something we can stop until settling the gold city or purple AND red dot though.

 

[Glare Seethe]

IT, 875BC:

Set slider to 0% until the library in Bibracte is finished. Send the warrior fogbusting near blue dot 1S to fogbust a path for the settler.

850BC:

Gandhi asks for open borders and is denied. The barb archer kills our archer in the western jungle. I send the Woodsman 2 warrior out of Bibracte for fogbusting duties instead. Also send one worker to road towards blue dot and one worker to lay down another cottage in Bibracte.

825BC:

Not much.

800BC:

Found Tolosa:

775BC:

Library's done but since we're building a monastery next we might as well stay at 0% slider until that's done as well. Stagnate Bibracte by hiring a scientist and shuffling a couple of tiles.

750BC:

Gilgamesh asks for open borders and I decline for now.

725BC:

Sojourner Truth born in Bibracte. He builds The Dai Miao for us. +2gpt.

Give Metal Casting to Joao for Alphabet and Fishing. He already has tons of cities.

700BC:

Here's the tech screen now that we have Alphabet:

Alexander and Gilga are no one's worst enemies so I give Alphabet to Gilga for Iron Working. Unfortunately this is what Alexander wants for Sailing:

Fat chance.

Oh and we have iron in our silver city. I also just noticed we are not in Slavery. I don't know if we never switched to it or if we revolted out to prevent chance of that nasty slave event but I switch to it in any case. Whip the granary in Vienne and the monastery in Bibracte.

675BC:

Overflow in Bibracte goes to a missionary, due in one turn. Overflow in Vienne goes to an archer (albeit without barracks), also one turn. Looks like I whipped just in time, and I didn't even calculate any of this. Lucky.

Slider to 100% losing -5gpt. Aesthetics in 15.

650BC:

Bibracte starts another missionary while Vienne starts on a library, at least until it grows a bit and can build some workers or settlers.

I'm also running a priest in Bibracte at the moment, speeding up the next prophet, and I started working another cottage, cutting Aesthetics down to 13 turns:

This setup will only last 6 turns until the city's ready to grow, at which point I'll stagnate with a second prophet until the whip anger disappears. Or I'll just whip some more.

625BC:

Not much.

600BC:

Not much.

575BC:

Our scout is trapped between Holy Roman cities:

And I was hoping to send him to scout Gilgamesh as he's willing to open borders.

550BC:

Check out Joao:

Also the barb archer shows up again:

I retreat our warrior 1E, he'll wait until our own archer is there and they can double-team the barb.

525BC:

Open borders with Joao and send the missionary towards Braga, the newly settled city on Tolosa's doorstep. A second missionary just left Bibracte heading north as well, while the city begins its next build: a settler.

500BC:

Taoism spreads in Braga:

Our warrior and archer fortify in the jungle waiting for the barb to attack:

And a settler is whipped in Bibracte.

485BC:

Our archer kills the barb. Joao revolts to Organized Religion but is running no religion. Weird guy. Bibracte starts a 4-turn archer until growth in 4 turns when it will start on a worker.

470BC:

Ah, now he converts.

455BC:

Tolosa's border expand and our worker arrives just in time to start clearing the jungle on the rice tile. I also decide to send the warrior stationed in the city up north to scout out Joao. If we can find Alexander maybe we can convert him too. I will send the warrior fogbusting near the dye up there to replace him, though the city won't be affected by the unhappiness for a while yet.

440BC:

Dilemma of whether to spread Taoism in Tolosa, now fighting Portuguese culture, or send him to Portugal. Decide on the latter as I'd like to make sure Joao stays Taoist, and Tolosa is nearly connected to our trade network (I've had a worker roading towards it almost the entire set), so hopefully our shrine will take care of its lack of religion.

Also Vienne whips the library.

425BC:

Settle Gergovia:

Bibracte finishes archer and starts a worker, Vienne starts a monastery.

410BC:

We get this event in Bibracte:

I paid the measly 20g, we can afford it. Whipped the worker just now too so it'd have sucked to lose all that food.

Gilgamesh starts a golden age for some reason.

395BC:

Aesthetics in, worker done in Bibracte, missionary ready to spread Taoism in Oporto. Save game. I moved the warrior/archer in the west to fogbust better but the workers have not been issued commands (other than the one already chopping jungle near Tolosa). One of them can start chopping the jungle on Gergovia's rice tile this turn, and the one just built in Bibracte should probably head north to assist.

Tech screen:

I'm in favor of giving Aesthetics to Gilga for Math, then to Alex for Sailing and Polytheism. We could ignore Alex and give MC to Gilga as well for his small techs but I see no reason to do so. We can eventually get Gilga to Pleased with Hereditary Rule most likely, despite different religions, although Gandhi being the social pariah that he is in every single game ever makes it inadvisable to get Monarchy in a trade at the moment.

 

[White Dragon]

Got it.

Nice set. I take it you moved Gergovia back to its original position since we have iron in our cultural borders and no longer need the copper, therefore re-opening the location of gold city?

What should be the goal of my set? Further religion spreading? More expansion to red fishies and Gilga Block? Or Silver City for the extra Happy? More workers? Hook up iron for military? Infrastructure? Tech towards Literature? Or straight for Paper? Or DR, Theo, Philo?

 

[Glare Seethe]

Oh... man. That's a pretty major screwup. I settled where the warrior was fogbusting rather than on the revised spot. My bad. Shall I replay the last few turns or so? I have an autosave from 440BC and can try to do everything the same... sorry about that, it definitely was not intentional. Not sure how bad it is as the original spot is also okay, but it just sucks not to work the copper.

As for the goals of the next set... can I say "All of the above"? With emphasis on settlers and workers, I think.

 

[White Dragon]

I don't know. Vienne is at the alternate location so Gergovia could work the copper tile. If we move Gergovia there would be 3 workable tiles of overlap whereas now there are none. Plus, at its current location is gives us more grassland hills to mine for a real military production site.

MB/RK should cast the deciding vote.

 

[Meatbuster]

My vote is old spot.
After all "new spot" is because of the bronze, which isn't needed anymore due to iron. We can "get" the bronze sooner with an inevitable border pop from Vienne anyway.

Also, move scout to far left. In case he gets hemmed in let's hope that he's ejected to the left for continued exploration.

However, I would like to hang on to our Aesthetics monopoly. Trade out Metal Casting instead.
So it's MC to Alex for his Poly&Sailing...
And MC to Gilga for Math.
Forget Gilga's Masonry, it may just contribute to WFYABTA.

 

[Glare Seethe]

All right, that means White Dragon can grab it now. If Gilga will do MC for Math then by all means let's do that and hold on to Aesthetics for a while longer. What's our next tech target? We can continue towards CS/Lib or Music for the GP and further trade fodder (if we're holding onto Aes then maybe that would be best). Don't see many other attractive alternatives.

 

[Meatbuster]

I vote for lit->music. It's a free Great Artist Prophet. And also (if it's any consolation) puts us closer to Military Tradition .

After Music we can -probably- go CoL-> CS and trade for Currency on the way I see a lot of peace in the future. After that it's Philo (can be bulbed by prophet, likely) -> Paper -> Educ. -> Gunpowder -> Nationalism -> Mil. Trad. (sneak Liberalism in there somewhere).

In the meantime, we can build Gallic Warriors to increase our power rating and deter an attack until we have Cuirassers.