RK14 - Artist's Block

[Lansky]

Since we will run bureaucracy even with a specialist capital the academy is a great investment. While it may not be cottaged we will have 4 foreign trade routes, capital boosted, of likely 3-4 commerce each. Not too far down the line also harbor boosted. That on top of working a few water tiles and the scientists. You have to be in a really really odd situation to not want an academy in your capital when running bureaucracy. The religion is really worthless honestly. We are not going to spend the time/hammers to spread it around nor are we likely to generate a prophet for the shrine at this point without building the AW. The biggest advantage in our case would be not to trade it and horde it over the AI. With the religion gone they would be even less likely to research it and open up Lib. Bulbing paper is a huge waste imo. With a decent empire its a very cheap tech and you would save more time by double bulbing education and whipping in universities sooner.

Trading for Poly, Med, and Pottery is a bit questionable. It should be okay as we are not stuck with a lot of super stingy leaders but we just gained +6 on our received tech list via trade. If we were with stingier leaders we could almost be in WFYABTA.


As a side note. I am verbose at times. Please argue with me anyway if you feel that I am missing something.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Leaving Slavery for CS is always a difficult decision for me (unless I'm Spiritual) and I never know when's the right time to do it. If we can time it so we can produce 1-2 GSs during a golden age and we switch back to Slavery on the last turn, that'd be really useful. But ideally we'd want Pacifism as well as the NE before we make the switch.

Bulbing Philo seems more attractive to me than an academy as well, since London is not your typical Bureau capital (despite the high commerce trade routes) and I tend to favor short term gain over long term. But, if we do want a short stint in CS/Pacifism, an academy would also greatly increase the beaker output of those 6-7 scientists we'd be running in London... so I don't know.

edit: ^^ that's a good point about hoarding Philo, especially if we get Music for the GA. Music trades very well.

Should be noted that we don't yet have a religion to make use of Pacifism anyway. And the religious situation is very unclear at the moment since only two AIs are running one. So I guess we'll see.

 

[Meatbuster]

The Golden Age burst of Caste and into Pacifism (once we have a religion... the same Taoism from RK13?) is a good idea. I approve.

What's preventing neighbors from attacking us though... protective longbows maybe?

 

[Glare Seethe]

What's preventing neighbors from attacking us though... protective longbows maybe?

I don't think they're likely to send a stack across the hub as it's too far, and as far as I know as long as there's a land route available they won't send galleys. We are far enough away for now. If we settle that silver/crab spot on Kublai's doorstep we'd have to start thinking about better defense, though.

 

[White Dragon]

I thought the WFYABTA applied to each leader separately thus the spreading around.

Also thought meditation for philo bulb, though we don't appear to be going that way, and pottery were must have at this point. They threw in Poly for the 1 tech we were giving them.

I guess I also assumed that tech trading wouldn't be a huge part of the game since we would most likely be hording techs on the way to "Liberalism, Steel & Rifling" until the world was under our control. WFYABTA doesn't apply to your vassals, correct?

The way my mind works I need a long term goal with intermittent checkpoints so I am just trying to figure out what the hell everyone else is planning since I am still learning some intricacies of higher level play.

Each way has its advantages, just want to know which way everyone else thinks is better.

 

[Lansky]

WFYABTA applies to all leaders the same, however every leader has their own cut off point. It also applies to the computer in their interactions with each other. Don't get me wrong it was not a bad trade at all. Just not one I would have pulled the trigger on. I try to avoid making "the pupu plater" tech deal, but you are almost certainly right in taking it this time.

(this paragraph made no sense edit)
We should not adopt a religion we found on this map. That will make up potentially both Pericles' and Sury's worst enemies and maybe others. The fact that Hatty doesn't have a religion means that either Pericles or Sury (much more likely) nabbed Monotheism as well. We have trade routes with almost every city in existence right now. We will get a religion soon, likely 3 of them. In fact the fact we don't have one yet is shocking. If we adopt whatever religion becomes stronger then the founders (Sury/Pericles) will be more likely to attack each other and leave us alone. Especially if Sury's becomes dominant and is not adopted by the civs to our east as we will be in Monarchy for the foreseeable future, which also happens to be Gilga and Cathy's favorite civic. Kublai is even easier with Bureaucracy.

Assuming 100% slider (its a relative position and since a GS can't make a +gold% building just makes math easier) our current capital at size 6ish will be making 30 currency a turn after currency and bureaucracy. Even under this example an academy would be an additional 18 bpt. At 100% research our empire wide bpt assuming 100% and one more trade route per city as well as base non academy capital upgrade would be roughly 120 bpt. That is ~16% increase in raw research output. Philo is a great trade chip, but what do we need to trade for that badly in the next 30 turns?

We will get another GS who can bulb Philo and/or Education, hopefully "and". I don't see the lack of love for the capital academy. If I am out voted though then I respect that.


Tech Path wise I'm thinking Priesthood to open Monarchy trade then Lit. From there either trade for Math Music>CoL>CS or some other combination of those 3.

 

[Lansky]

Okay I played the massive 2 turns and it is a Great Scientist will hold here for a while.

Currently Gilga, Cathy, and Sury have monarchy but we also already gave them all Aesthetics so we have to wait for someone else to get it.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Okay I played the massive 2 turns and it is a Great Scientist will hold here for a while.

Currently Gilga, Cathy, and Sury have monarchy but we also already gave them all Aesthetics so we have to wait for someone else to get it.

Well there's a good reason to bulb Philo. In addition to Monarchy we could also hopefully use it to trade for Math, Compass, Currency and CoL. All would be useful techs in the next 30 turns providing the AIs bother to tech them. Math and CoL for sure, but they don't often go for Compass and in my experience they're reluctant to trade Currency, so I dunno.

In any case... if we are thinking about going to Music and starting a GA to run Caste and produce more GSs, why not wait with the academy until then? Civil Service is still bit far away and bulbing Philo can also assist on that trade if it opens up. We'll hopefully still have an academy in time for Bureau.

edit: Great Library is a bit wishful thinking, isn't it? Should I even entertain the thought? We are settling on the marble, right?

 

[Lansky]

How do you plan to bulb philo w/o drama or CoL?
Researching Math and trading that to Kublai (he seems to be avoiding it) would also get us monarchy. The reason I am so hesitant to trade is that right now the world loves each other. We did not give Gilga aesthetics, someone else did. Until there is more strife out there beyond Pericles is a douche we have to assume any tech we trade is one everyone will have. If we want a large enough window to mow the world over later we can't accelerate the entire world's tech rate. Also don't want to run caste until we have NE up.

Also we want Monarchy asap to grow London to size 10+. Waiting for Philo bulb is just too long since CoL would not be until after Lit and maybe or maybe not Music.

If we settle on the marble and use the forests to chop it out Glib is not only feasible, but highly likely.

 

[Glare Seethe]

How do you plan to bulb philo w/o drama or CoL?

Ah, the flaw in my plan. I thought it was just PH or Mono that we needed. Should probably look closer at the tech tree next time. Carry on with the academy then, if we have to wait that long for Philo then I agree it's not worth it.

 

[Lansky]

Well first off I played a much longer round than I realized so I apologize for that. Thought it was ~25 turns, but then remembered this is an epic game not a normal speed one.... sigh. Ended up going until 10 AD

Well we get a GS like I mentioned previously, which I turned into an academy. To add to the "Philo bulb won't work" debate is that we still needed to clear Math in addition to drama or CoL in order to open the bulb.

320BC - We found Marble which I then forget exists for the remainder of my set. 'Mids go to Pericles who also has the GW.

260BC- Hatty founds and converts to Confucianism. Yay strife! In addition manage to pull this trade with Kublai and immediately swap to HR. Gilga/Cathy's favorite civic and London need to be much larger.

155BC - Cathy demands we convert to Judaism. In the known world Kublai, Cathy, Periciles are Jewish. Giglamesh is Muslim, Sury Buddhist, and Hatty Confucian. Gilga will stay on decent terms with HR and Sury and Hatty both share OR as a favorite civic so I decide to give into the demand. The downside is Buddhism auto spread to London so we need to get a Jewish missionary over that way.

Same turn Hatty demands Monarchy. Giving in would push her to cautious, but no one likes her anyway so screw that. She is the worst enemy of almost everyone and I close borders with her. Someone where in here I open them with Pericles.

125BC - Coventry goes down in the sheep spot.

10AD - I realize how far I actually played and curse a bit before stopping. On the plus side....

Worker on the way to chop the forest to the far SE to help speed NE a bit. If we do swap to OR (why explained below) the chop would be worth about 40 hammers despite being so far away.

Next GP in 2 or 3 turns more turns thanks to the Glib. Right now I think a GS would bulb compass so in that case we'd hold off for a few turns. A GM would bulb MC (could be useful, depends on who would be willing to trade what) or go on a Trade Mission that is likely to be worth 500-800 gold. Probably not enough to be worth it.

I have music on queue and enough gold to research it. Only Sury has Lit atm and Music trades really well. We have no interest in Sisteen that I know of. So this would likely trade almost as well as Philo without us having to trade Philo! If we can manage to get Currency/CoL/Calendar I'd be very happy but I'm not sure how it will work out.

Finally we are Sury's worst enemy right now, but we can adopt OR and after a few turns he'll turn back onto Hatty. We can gift him a tech, he's no ones worst enemy himself right now that we know of, to speed that up. Should probably go into OR anyway. Will speed up NE construction as well as allow us to build/whip a Jewish Missionary for London.

Again sorry for the extended session. I will be more mindful in the future.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Wow, worker situation much improved. I basically have nothing to add to your plan, everything sounds good. Finish GL, revolt to OR, chop NE. More settlers! For the blue dot and maybe another in the hub somewhere - would like to scout it out a bit more. The archer in Marble town can head out west to do so and the one just outside the city can replace him as garrison cause Gilga's new city will fogbust that area in a couple of turns anyway.

So, GS we save for bulbing towards Lib, and GM? I'm never keen on bulbing MC, and now especially since two AIs already have it (and one is a friend). Trade mission is a little underwhelming, and so is settling. I guess I'm in favor of keeping him around until we want a second GA.

 

[Lansky]

If its a GM and bulbing Lib looks like a waste I'm fine holding onto him for a while as well. We could either lose the Music race to Sury (hopefully not) or later on get a freak artist from the NE for another golden age. A later trade mission would also be more fruitful.

This GS I'd probably bulb Philo

Would wait on the Golden Age until after we have Civil Service, Judaism i London as well as NE. This way we can get 2 GP out of London during the those turns and still swap back into OR/Slavery to get Universities up.

On that note we need to get Libraries up and grow the cities so that they can in fact whip universities. Might be time to whip a bit less.

 

[White Dragon]

Wow, worker situation much improved.

Like the plan to research music.

I was just looking at power rating and I think we need to whip up some kind of a defensive army. Warriors and archers aren't going to cut it.

 

[Lansky]

If we are worried about the other AI's we should just build archers. The likely target would be Marble, which is on a hill. What do we have that beats a protective archer right now? Hatty is everyone's worst enemy other than Sury.

We also won't "stop" an attack check by having anything other than at least twice if not three times the power of the AI. We will just be better prepared if someone decides to. At this point though we'd get about 10 turns to prepare unless Gilga decides too. Fairly sure he's the only one that can execute a dagger attack among our companions here. Not 100% sure though.

 

[White Dragon]

I wasn't worried about any check but since we are sucking hind t!t I thought some troops would be a good idea just in case.

 

[Meatbuster]

Looks good, I don't see anyone in red fist mode yet. Check the war... is everyone saying "we would have nothing to gain"?

 

[Glare Seethe]

No one is in WHEOOHRN but some AIs can still declare without preparations, it's what's known as a 'dagger attack'. But if Gilga's the only one who can do it then we are probably okay, I think. Plus we are still far away enough distance-wise that it shouldn't be an issue. We can reinforce Marble in any case.

Meatbuster, are you claiming your lost set or should I play the next one?

 

[Meatbuster]

I don't think I'm claiming my lost set, as it's a skip not a swap. I still have to finish off RK12 heh heh.

 

[Glare Seethe]

Okay, so I will play later today.