RPC: The 11-Headed Hydra (OCC with Gandhi)

[es4]

We have decided that the only way to achieve true peace and religious harmony is to have a single home of religion in the world. This shall be the most glorious shrine that has existed. We will not tolerate others' attempts to achieve unity through other means. Furthermore, as gatekeepers of the shrine, we shall not seek extra territory on earth, preferring to purge the earth of the wicked, or to take our message of harmony to the stars!

This task has fallen on the most peace-loving of leaders, Gandhi of India:



We start with ritualism and stone tools, which means we only need 2 techs to get Kemetism. We also randomly chose leaders by hand to avoid very religious ones (Justinian, Isabella, Pacal will beat us to Kemetism). The traits are philosophical (giving a GPP bonus) and humanitarian (a bunch of small bonuses). The unique building is a jail that gives happiness, and the unique unit is the famous Fast Worker Brigade.

Rules:
0) This is a one-city challenge. We only get one city. This also means we get unlimited world wonders, and 6 national wonders.
1) We MUST found all 11 religions and we MUST build all 11 shrines. We should have plenty of Great Prophets.
2) We cannot build the AP or UN, and must raze the cities they are in.
3) We cannot build any buildings which remove the happy cap. The Olympics make things a lot easier, but I think we will have enough religious buildings to handle happiness. The national wonders that do this aren't worth it, and by mind control we should have military police anyhow.
4) All victories are enabled. I expect it is only possible to win conquest or space. The trick to space will probably be actually completing the relevant techs before time runs out; with the Encyclopedia/Internet to backfill we shouldn't have issues staying in a tech lead for the key wonders and space techs. Conquest may be easier if there aren't outlying islands, but we cannot build boats.


Settings:
No vassals, no tech diffusion, one-city challenge enabled. Everything else is default. Difficulty level is Immortal.

The start:
We regenerated once to get a start on a river (which is almost mandatory given how useful it is). And what a start the riverside start is. Only one non-riverside tile in the entire BFC. A bunch of plains floodplains that give 4/1/1 yield (I just upgraded to 2.71, and having plains floodplains seems almost overpowered).



The start will certainly make some things a lot easier, but we still have to deal with a less than ideal tech path to ensure all 11 religions.


In the first round (coming in a few days after my Photobucket bandwidth resets; I played about 3 of these before I managed to hit Judaism): the first 4 religions are founded, we nearly die to barbarians, and we ponder the best use our first Great Prophet (choices: settle, build a shrine for income, or bulb Meditation for monasteries and religion 5).

 

[Bezhukov]

This should be good. I'd say bulb Meditation to get the monastery sci boost.

 

[es4]

My Photobucket bandwidth counter is now reset, after being at 99% for the past 2 days. So, here's the promised first round.

Our starting tech path is Mysticism -> Ceremonial Burial -> Polytheism for the first two religions. Who needs worker techs! More relevantly, we likely will miss one of these religions if we research Agriculture (the only worker tech we care about) first. We start on a worker anyhow, might as well wait to grow until we can work the 4/1/1 tiles.

From huts, we get 84 gold, an experience boost - and then our warrior is eaten by a cave lion.

We meet our first leader:



No pictures of the other leaders. In addition to Cathy, we have Bismarck, Sury, Napoleon, Wang Kon, and Kublai Khan. A reasonable collection of warmongers, peacemongers, REXers, and general freaks, with an explicit lack of religious themed leaders, and an avoidance of the top wonder-builders as well.

The first religions show up according to plan:




We start on Agriculture after this.

At turn 51, Bismarck kindly helps us move past worker techs to Priesthood -> Dualism. He has picked up writing very early through Trade. Amazingly, none of the other AIs will tech writing in the next 70 turns, forcing us to learn it ourselves.



We also pick up Mining for Ceremonial Burial a few turns later. We make a point not to trade Polytheism or Priesthood, both prerequisites of Monotheism (and Priesthood also necessary for the Oracle, which is a wonder we must have).

At turn 79, we see an unexpectedly early DOW:



I'm sure they can both handle it. It's always a good sign to see the negative diplomacy points start to pile up early. If you note the city terrain, you will see that we revealed lead in the BFC when we teched mining, and we have farmed the corn and one floodplain. We're also working on Stonehenge, since I'm pretty sure we can get both it and the Oracle.

We finish another religion:


We tech Masonry -> Writing -> Monotheism next. I don't think I've ever founded Zoroastrianism in a normal game, Dualism is a very dead-end tech and there aren't any great benefits to it. It should make good trade bait at least. We also get our first wonder:



The monument in every city is useless, but denying it to the AI, the early culture, and the Great Person points are well worth the hammers. The +1 happy is also useful, and it's only marginally more expensive than a temple. We immediately start on The Oracle after this finishes.

And we finally manually tech Writing - at turn 117 only 1 AI had it. We immediately dump Ceremonial Burial and Masonry to anyone without it, picking up Weaving, The Wheel, Naturopathy, Hunting, and Slavery. This leaves us with a nice tech situation (fishing is picked up immediately after this screen shot, and AH is backfilled a bit later as well):



With the major resource-revealing techs learned, we can make better sense of our capital:



We are at our health + happy cap for now. The Oracle will give us +1 happiness, but we need more buildings that give specialist slots. I'm deliberately avoiding improvements to any of the non-forested grassland/hills, both since there are better tiles available, and because I am hoping for forest growth. The lead in particular isn't worthwhile yet, since the -2 health counteracts the benefit of the extra hammers.

A few turns later, we finish our second wonder, and I pick up the most expensive tech available, Alphabet. In a lot of situations, this is critical because of the need to build research, but I doubt we're going to have that here.



If you notice, there are 3 barbs in the picture, a warrior and 2 archers, and our garrison is only a single warrior. Fortunately, we only get one attack per turn, letting us promote up to heal in between attacks. Our warrior survives them (we have +25% from city, +25% from fortification, and the archers were either injured or crossing a river, so it wasn't that likely we would die), but we hurriedly build a spearman to improve our defenses. We follow that up with a School of Scribes and a Forge (not yet done).

We finish religion #4 a few turns afterwards:



We will probably be adopting Judaism first, since Masada is one of the must-have religious wonders. We will be running literally dozens of priests at a time for much of the game, and having +1 hammer for each (in addition to 2 free priests) is something that we must have as soon as possible.

A few turns later, we get a Great Prophet, which gives us a bunch of options. We can bulb Meditation and get our fifth religion. We can found a shrine and get gold, some culture, and 3 priest slots. We can also settle as normal. We could also go for a golden age, since we have changed no civics. While the golden age would be a waste, the other 3 options are surprisingly competitive, so we decide to save. A case for each of these:

Shrine: We could certainly work the 3 priests now, and that would take us from 14 to 32 GPP/turn. The gold will probably be more than from the super-specialist. I am committed to building all 11 shrines, so building one now won't hurt the potential in the long run. We'll get another great prophet very quickly, which we could use for Meditation if we want it then.

Super-Specialist: It's an OCC, you're supposed to always settle them. Specifically, the hammers from the super-specialist would let us get buildings faster. We will be more likely to get an early Scientist for the academy or Engineer for even more hammers by not running more priests (we'll probably end up in State Church and unlimited priests if we bulb). This still provides gold, allowing us to upgrade our warriors for barb defense.

Bulbing: I'm concerned that by spending (currently) 37 turns on Meditation that we will lose our edge in the race for other techs. Getting Meditation also will let us switch to Church Welfare (+1 health per monastery) and let us build those monasteries in the first place for the science boost. It also seems the most in-character for the RPC to bulb at least one religion.

The tech picture (we are missing sailing from the first two rows, but that's it):



We have a sizable tech lead, Cathy is the only one that can tech Monotheism right now, and she is the only one other than Bismarck with writing. Dualism, Alphabet, and Monotheism are all absolute monopolies. Bismarck has Sailing, Trade, and Sacrifice Cult on us for now, but Sailing should go on the market soon; Sury has it as well. Nobody else has any techs on us at all.

Our short-term tech path (excluding Meditation) is something like Math -> Calendar (Naghualism) -> Code of Laws (Confucianism) -> Literature -> Theology (Christianity) -> Philosophy (Taoism), while doing Sculpture -> Aesthetics (Hellenism) at some point as well. Aesthetics has a dependency on Alphabet, which the AI is notoriously slow to tech, so I'm not concerned about that race as much. It's squeezing Meditation in that is most worrisome. Islam at Education is not an issue, as I will certainly get there first.

As far as buildings go, in the near-term we need a Healer's Hut (double-speed and +1 happy from Humanitarian), butchery once we get the sheep hooked up, temples for priest specialists and happiness, Masada, Plato's Academy (at Math, +50% sci), possibly Petra and/or Temple of Artemis for free priests, Monasteries after we get Meditation, Library / Great Library / National Epic after Literature, and Pyramid of the Magician for free priests and a golden age.

I'm also torn over whether the Mausoleum is worth it, we will likely have 4 golden ages that matter (Pyramid of the Magician, Taj Mahal, music Great Artist, two Great People not worth settling later on), so it means we get 32 more turns of free civic changes and extra production (including +100% GPP); but it's a reasonable hammer investment and gives Great Artists.

The current state of the empire:


13 hammers per turn isn't great, especially for expensive wonders. Adopting slavery will give us 2 more (from the mines). This is partially why a super-specialist would be nice. If our next GP is a scientist, we will build an academy, meaning we won't get free hammers from super-specialists for even longer.

And the neighbors:


The careful observer will note Napoleon to the west, and both Cathy and Sury to the east. Bismarck is very close to the north as well. It appears we will be boxed in a significant amount. We also have no copper or horses that will be in our culture radius.

I'll probably play the next round on Thursday, any advice on what to do with the great person or the civic changes (I think Slavery + State Church if we don't bulb, those + Church welfare if we do, and conversion to Judaism for Masada) is appreciated. FYI, I've already updated my bug settings not to use red for the date, and not to show the wall clock time when playing.

 

[MrAdam]

Couple of questions.
What does "REXers" mean and "OCC" as in "It's an OCC"

 

[Arakhor]

REX = Rapid Expansion; OCC = One City Challenge.

 

[MrAdam]

Thanks

 

[es4]

REX = Rapid Expansion; OCC = One City Challenge.

As far as the leaders go, here's my take on their personalities:

Catherine - Rapid Expansion. Creative + Imperialistic is the best AI combo for expansion. She is also the easiest AI to bribe into wars, which we will see later on.

Bismarck - I generally think of him as a second-tier wonder builder, probably the most likely AI to beat me to wonders. Probably the best techer out of the bunch, I think he has the Scientific trait here.

Suryavarman II - Widely considered to be the most unpredictable AI, though I'm not quite sure why. At least he is Creative, which is a good AI trait.

Napoleon - Warmonger. Probably in the top 5 in terms of danger for aggressive wars. I plan to have him war a bunch of other people instead.

Wang Kon - Relatively peaceful. Presumably also espionage-focused here, since he gets bonus points. Probably will be the worst enemy of several AIs due to peaceweight and the resulting wars.

Kublai Khan - Another warmonger. Creative in BTS, though I think it may have changed here.

 

[es4]

I tried this twice tonight playing more or less normally (including some building research), and both times Bismarck beat me to Calendar by a few turns. I guess that explains why I didn't lose the monotheism race. I'm going to have to go a more drastic approach tomorrow, either with a ton of building research, or finding a friend to engage in pre-emptive war.

 

[Bezhukov]

perhaps trying a couple cottages on those plains/flood plains would have been handy....

 

[es4]

Tech Path is Trade -> Math -> Calendar (Naghualism) -> Monarchy -> Code of Laws (Confucianism) -> Meditation (Buddhism) -> Sculpture -> Aesthetics (Hellenism) -> Literature -> Philosophy (Taoism) -> Fermentation -> City Planning -> Theology (Christianity).

From two failed attempts at this, Bismarck will get calendar on about turn 204, so we must beeline aggressively, including building research, to beat him. While bulbing meditation is definitely in the spirit of the RPG, the 2 hammers and 5 gold now is too good to pass up.

We immediately start on a healer's hut as well, waiting on the forge until that finishes. As Bezhukov notes, we also start aggressively cottaging the floodplains. As far as civics go, slavery and state church both have a crippling science penalty at this point, and we can't adopt church welfare until bulbing monotheism. So we wait.

After the forge, we build a second worker (6 turns) to get cottages out faster. We also build 2 more archers to garrison the city before going to building science.

We get a nice event:



You may note we're running both a scientist and engineer for the GPP right now. As for this event, the 1 beaker per turn is far more useful than the 56 beakers in the long run, and probably will be better even by the time of finishing Calendar. Sadly, nobody will trade us sailing before we finish teching it.

We get a great scientist, which probably is the key to actually getting Calendar while still developing somewhat:



The academy gives us 12 beakers per turn. That's enough to let us build a Jewish Temple for happiness while still hitting our target date; we're at our happy cap right now.

We get the first tech demand from Napoleon, and give in (he made us stop trading with Wang Kon earlier). Our strategy for now is to give in to any demand against Wang Kon (or as you will soon see, Bismarck), and to try to remain on good terms with the other leaders. As far as techs, anything that's not a key monopoly gets given away for free. And Mathematics is no longer a secret, we get a tech out of it from Cathy before she can demand it.

Spoiler :

We now have 4 of the "OR" pre-reqs for Monarchy, making it a relatively cheap tech. Cathy gets around to demanding a tech (Sailing) a few turns later. We won't mention all of the other techs given away, but there were at least 6 during the round.

After lots of building research, we get the 5th head of the hydra:



We immediately revolt to state church and slavery, as well as Judaism. We will need the priests to get a great prophet for Buddhism, although with Monotheism a monopoly we keep working an engineer as well. We avoid Caste for happy cap issues, and Patrician because it's not that useful. We also start on Masada.

After Monarchy, we can build roads for +1 hammer on mines. We also send workers to build the lead mine at this point, since at +5 hammers for the mine it is worth the cost in health.

We finish one of the key wonders for a Rise of Mankind OCC, Masada. There's no wonder movie, but we view the city to see the key features:

Spoiler :

We will be running a LOT of priests, with Masada and Angkor Wat they will each give 3 hammers and let us get a very high production. The great prophet points are fine, since we have our academy, which is the main need for a non-Prophet right now, and we need to spend 11 of them on shrines. We want to build some temples for happiness as well, but we actually continue with a butchery for +5% food from our sheep, and a granary for health and faster growth. While working on the butchery, we get a less good event, setting us back a few turns.



And the next Great Person is another great scientist at low probability (~10 percent). We were hoping for a great prophet to possibly bulb meditation here. We settle him, obviously, which gives about 10 beakers per turn now. And a few turns later, we get the next religion.



Since we can tech it before than the next Great Person will arrive, we decide to research Meditation ourselves. Monotheism is still a monopoly tech at this point, but we want to start on monasteries. We start on our next wonder, Plato's Academy. It is a 23 turn build, and gives us an extra +50% science.

We trade for bronze working, and send our workers to do some chopping towards the edge of our cultural borders. The hammers are most useful now, and we have a chance of re-growth as well.

Spoiler :

On turn 256, we get a war declaration from Bismarck. He has two stacks of approximately this composition; fortunately for us there isn't anything more powerful than spearmen.



Unfortunately for him, there are 4 other Jewish civs, and the other one is a Khan. We get Kublai Khan to declare for Code of Laws and Wang Kon to do so for dualism, and we get a package deal with Sury:

Spoiler :

We turn out to have iron on a mine in the BFC already hooked up. I doubt I need all of these allies, but Bismarck and I aren't going to get along, so we can try to isolate him. Napoleon is WHEOOHRN right now (probably with Wang Kon), and (oddly) Cathy didn't want to declare.

We start building an axeman and upgrade our warrior to a swordsman. A majority of the troops end up attacking Sury instead of us, and the rest never attacked the city or destroyed improvements. While that is going on, we get another religion.



We go Sculpture -> Aesthetics next. We aren't going to build any of the buildings along the literature path, and this is the more likely religion for the AI to get. And after the loss of 2 of his units and with the other war targets, Bismarck will take peace relatively cheaply.

Spoiler :

We finish the wonder we were working on earlier:



and start spamming monasteries and temples while the city grows. We adopt Church welfare immediately as well, for the +10% hammers and so monasteries will cure our unhealth issues.

Cathy continues to demand techs, finally breaking the Monotheism monopoly in 1560 BC. Wang Kon demands it the next turn as well. We also get another prophet, and decide that the Judaism is the most popular religion, so we want that shrine first. Our income goes from +9 to +28 gold per turn. And we complete the 8th head.



We start on Literature, a mandatory pre-req for the next two religious techs, followed by Philosophy. We keep building temples or monasteries until literature is done, when we start on a library and the great library. We pick up Democracy and Military Training in separate trades for Calendar while this is going on, but otherwise things are quiet until we finish the ninth head.



We take a short break from religion-mongering to pick up fermentation (untradeable in 2.71, needed for apple orchard) and city planning (for irrigation canals).

We get an event cementing our good relation with Napoleon.

Spoiler :

And we finish another key wonder that gives free specialists.



And start immediately on Angkor Wat. It gets interrupted for the irrigation canals, which are essential, and is still being built at the end of the round.

We decide to continue making mischief in diplomacy. We get Wang Kon and Napoleon to make peace, and then dogpile Bismarck with Napoleon, Cathy, and Kublai Khan for a few techs (mostly Meditation). We join 2 turns later after Kublai asks us to do so. We pick up Siege Warfare from Wang Kon instead of asking him to join in the war.

With the next prophet, we build the Statue of Zeus; even 2 beakers per turn (all we get from it) is worthwhile, as it becomes 5 after multipliers. The +100% war weariness for enemies is always nice as well.

We're in no real desire to stay in war with Bismarck, so when he will talk 10 turns later we give him Sculpture for peace. A few turns later, we get the 10th head, and enter the medieval era:



Which is a good time to stop and take an overview of the current situation.

Diplomacy:


Bismarck hates pretty much everyone. We will have to try to get some wars among other groups. I don't trust Cathy at all, maybe we should get her to fight Napoleon.

Techs:


I don't care about the naval or horse-riding techs. Sacrifice cult and athletics are dead-ends for my purposes. Currency (to buy resources or techs) and Music (great artist for a golden age) are my two top priorities for research right now. Machinery is always useful as well.

The city:


Once I finish Angkor Wat, I can keep building temples to raise the happy cap. I'm also hooking up cotton that is outside the BFC. I'd like to build Shwedagon relatively soon, and Sun Tzu is always a decent wonder to build as well; once we can convert to Naghualism, we will want the Pyramid of the Magician as well. The riverside forests aren't useful tiles until Machinery, when we can watermill them so they have 4 food and 2 hammers each.

The surroundings:


It looks like fur and tobacco (or is it hemp) are the only resources in the next border pop.

And graphs:


I've not bothered with espionage points on Wang Kon, but I have everyone else on these charts.


We should have the 11 religions in the bag at this point, and I think we've held off long enough that we won't get an early military destruction. The goal of the next 500 turns is to build enough wonders and other infrastructure that we can stay ahead of the AI in tech, while preventing anyone from getting too substantial an empire. I think we will need to build an explorer or two soon so we can determine just how the power picture is breaking down.

 

[CivEikka]

Nice idea, revomod could add a twist here.. maybe too strong twist. Btw does the religion wonders give bonuses even if you are in different religion? (Like masada giving bonuses when you're in different religion.)

But winning will be tough, you should start spamming some military units for protection. Money should not be an issue, and be sure that you spread your religions for cash.

 

[es4]

Nice idea, revomod could add a twist here.. maybe too strong twist. Btw does the religion wonders give bonuses even if you are in different religion? (Like masada giving bonuses when you're in different religion.)

But winning will be tough, you should start spamming some military units for protection. Money should not be an issue, and be sure that you spread your religions for cash.

Based on my knowledge of revmod, I don't want to be anywhere near it with an 11x holy city. I will definitely try that for my next game.

Religion wonders like Masada and Pyramid of the Magician do give their bonuses when you are in a different religion. They arguably shouldn't, but I'm not going to turn down 6 free priests from these (2 from Masada, Pyramid of the Magician, and Temple of Heaven). I believe that the happiness from temples will be fixed in 2.8, which would make doing this without the Olympics significantly harder.

Military units will be coming soon, right now everyone is busy warring either Bismarck or Napoleon. I've got the next round done (short, just to education), and I'm building a bunch of one-turn macemen at the end. Writeup should be tomorrow.

 

[Bezhukov]

If you stay at war with Bismarck, your relations will continually improve with the civs that are still at war with him, so no need to get quick peace unless he's sending stacks your way.

 

[es4]

A relatively short round. We were very low on military the whole time, so I preferred to repeatedly take peace with Bismarck and then get re-invited into war a few turns later rather than staying in war long enough for him to attack us. As Bezhukov notes, staying in war probably would have been easier and improved our diplomacy, but we have too many friends already.

Tech Path - Currency, Music, Aristocracy, Vassalage, Feudalism, Civil Service, Machinery, Agricultural Tools, Guilds, Paper, Engineering, Architecture, Education

Build Path (I doubt I'll list all of the buildings again, these averaged under a 3-turn build) - finish Angkor Wat, Christian Temple, Taoist Monastery, Axeman, Shwedagon Paya (8 turns), Jewellery, Pyramid of the Magician, Agora, Brothel, River Port, Jewish Synagogue, Jewish Monastery, Christian Monastery, Hindu Monastery, Buddhist Monastery (all of these monasteries one-turn builds), National Epic, 2 Fast Workers, Courthouse, Bazaar, Taoist Pagoda, Buddhist Stupa, Confucian Temple, Bakery, Confucian Academy, Grocer, Guild Hall, University of Sankore, Castle, Market, Barracks, Archery Range, and 6 Maceman (one turn each)

There were a lot of wars against Germany. At the start of the round, we got a negative diplomatic event (the religious wedding one), but who cares at this point, he hates our guts anyhow. We have most everyone declaring war against Bismarck at some point, and a bunch of wars against Wang Kon as well. I didn't keep track of them all, since it doesn't really matter.

Some barbarians appear as an event:



Perhaps because of our low military, dangerous actually meant "4 spearmen". We send a stack of 2 units towards them, but they head into French territory, where they are destroyed relatively quickly.

We get (and settle) another great scientist, which immediately gives 16 beakers after multipliers. We get one other scientist this round and several prophets, all used for shrines.

Once we finish Shwedagon Paya, we decide to kick off the golden age. We adopt Senate and Free Church immediately. During the golden age, we also adopt Republic for a few turns to build an Agora. However, Chiefdom is generally a better civic for us with the +10% food and double experience in borders, so we switch back eventually.

In 720 BC, Cathy proves that the world is round! She must have gotten lucky with sending galleys out.

We finish another very powerful wonder.



And immediately convert back to Judaism for diplomatic reasons. This wonder would be worth building just for the trade route bonuses, just for the free priests, or just for the golden age. All 3 in one package is incredibly powerful. Unfortunately, I don't think the AI considers this when choosing a religion.

With the next great prophet (currently it's 16 turns between great people), we go for the Karnak Temple Complex. 13 specialists with 1 culture per turn should let us get the next border pop faster, and it has 9 culture of its own right now.

Once we learn Feudalism, we immediately change to Feudal. +20% food and +25% hammers is absolutely incredible for us, probably the best civic in the game. Since we don't have an unlimited happy cap, we may face emancipation^W liberal unhappiness issues, but I'm not too concerned.

We get my favorite tech:


We build the extra workers at this point to speed along the watermilling of most of the forest tiles in the BFC. We're probably going to use workshops on the remaining tiles, at least for now.

The golden age soon ends a few turns later. Our civics at the end of the golden age are Chiefdom, Bureaucracy, Feudal, Slavery, Free Church, Church Welfare. I expect to stay in these until we get the Taj Mahal. We also get a free copper resource from Sury. This doesn't really help us that much, but it gives us a bonus on some of the Cathedrals.

We choose to go for the Kong Miao as the next shrine. Since we will be building military soon, we want to make sure as many units as possible get the extra movement point from the free Morale promotion. It makes defending so much easier when you can move through almost your entire territory in one move. We build the Naghualism shrine after that one. We don't have any quarries to get free specialists, but it will give the most culture of any of the remaining shrines.

It's not too long after the next border pop that we see the first revolt. No cities have flipped yet, but it should happen soon.



As you can see, we have another one of the Bismarck declarations. We also notice that Cathy has Papacy, we trade her Music and some gold for it. We would love to get the tech to someone else that we would prefer to raze cities of, but most of the AIs are far behind. We give Bismarck Meditation, Literature, Code of Laws, Theology, and Papacy in the hopes that he builds the AP. He is destined to be a non-factor already. We declare war against him a few turns later anyhow.

A few turns later, we finish our last wonder of the set, University of Sankore. Since Masada counts as a religious building, this gives us 10 raw beakers per turn (until we adopt Secular), in addition to the GPP points:

Spoiler :

By this point, almost all of the tiles in the BFC have been improved, and all of the tiles except the non-riverside forest are worth working. We also have an insane beaker multiplier for this point in the game.



A few turns later, we find out that our efforts did not allow Bismarck to finish the AP. We vote for Wang Kon, and he wins rather easily. My votes plus Cathy's should be plenty to avoid an Apostolic win, and we are less likely to get a "stop the war against Catherine" before we raze the thing if she isn't in charge of it.



On the other hand, 10 hammers per turn probably helps us more than it helps anyone else, maybe we shouldn't be hasty destroying it.

As you can see, we are researching Education at this point, the tech required for the final religion. A few turns later, the 11-headed hydra is complete. Somewhat fittingly, we get a Great Prophet on the same turn, and build another shrine, noting the declining number of shrines available for us.





And declare this a good stopping point.

Our single city is still as powerful as entire empires:

Spoiler :

We can see that Moscow is a pretty nice city that we will be razing soon.



The light purple of India isn't terribly visible. Suffice it to say that our power is catching up somewhat, while our production is as good as any other civ and our GDP is ridiculous.

Resources:


Stone is still far too rare, I doubt I'm going to be able to trade for it at all this game. This means we can't build paved roads for +1 trade route, or a glassmith for that resource. We're buying a few happiness resources that boost commerce through the bazaar, and food resources for the butchery as well.

Techs:


Elephant riding and naval warfare have been added to the techs everyone has. I did pick up sacrifice cult when I was considering a detour to pick up King Richard's Crusade, but decided against it. I really don't care about any of the remaining techs.

And, the tech goal for next round, the liberalism beeline:

Spoiler :

While we can probably do this without the Encyclopedia ourselves, I'm not sure we can allow it to fall into anyone else's hands. That said, we may wait a bit to get a better tech for free; I've taken Astronomy in the past from it, but something more expensive along the Replaceable Parts line may be more interesting. The pre-requisite techs are almost all useful, so even if we don't take liberalism immediately we probably want the beeline to Divine Right.

How greedy should we be with the liberalism bulb? I assume that once the AI gets a few more key techs their cities will start to get bigger and some of them will start conquering cities, and they will pass me in beakers per turn.

 

[Bezhukov]

Why didn't you build the AP yourself? Just curious.

AI is typically pretty slow getting Liberalism in my games, but with a bazillion and one techs, one free one is less important in RoM than in BtS.

 

[es4]

Why didn't you build the AP yourself? Just curious.

AI is typically pretty slow getting Liberalism in my games, but with a bazillion and one techs, one free one is less important in RoM than in BtS.

Because we can't raze wonders that we built.

I'm not sure if I'm going to finish this one, the leading AIs apparently get a lot more out of Tech Diffusion (and Vassal-ing to end wars) than I thought. I'm about 20 techs up on the next AI right now, and by sending large stacks into various AIs territories have managed to get them to suicide most of their units AND whip their cities into nothingness.

Right now, it looks like I will tech Liberalism immediately after Scientific Method, since Steam Power / Biology / Thermodynamics will be the best techs to get. I'm trying to tech as much as possible before that, since I lose 11 health, +110% science, and the Great Library. I should finish the next round tomorrow, and I'll figure out then if I want to play on, give a "tech catchup" to the AI, or move on to something more interesting. I could also start razing the world once I get to rifling (no sulphur available).

 

[CivEikka]

So the shrines are not ready.. That is like the hydra has 11 heads but not teeth!

Anyway looking nice, this should be an easy (and harsh) spacerace victory, just bumping settlers, military, and settle great people, you're going for technocracy civic in this (if you get there, and I'm sure you will.) It will boost nicely your "empire".

 

[Bezhukov]

Because we can't raze wonders that we built.

I'm not sure if I'm going to finish this one, the leading AIs apparently get a lot more out of Tech Diffusion (and Vassal-ing to end wars) than I thought. I'm about 20 techs up on the next AI right now, and by sending large stacks into various AIs territories have managed to get them to suicide most of their units AND whip their cities into nothingness.

Right now, it looks like I will tech Liberalism immediately after Scientific Method, since Steam Power / Biology / Thermodynamics will be the best techs to get. I'm trying to tech as much as possible before that, since I lose 11 health, +110% science, and the Great Library. I should finish the next round tomorrow, and I'll figure out then if I want to play on, give a "tech catchup" to the AI, or move on to something more interesting. I could also start razing the world once I get to rifling (no sulphur available).

Yeah, I usually leave Scientific Method to the last possible tech for that reason. Have you gotten Nationalism, etc, yet?

 

[es4]

Yeah, I usually leave Scientific Method to the last possible tech for that reason. Have you gotten Nationalism, etc, yet?

Nationalism is done, I was at Mercantilism when I saved last, heading for Economics and Replaceable Parts. Waiting on Scientific Method, as well as Liberalism and Leonardo's Workshop free techs (in an OCC, you apparently can build all 3 of the mid-game science wonders).

 

[es4]

So the shrines are not ready.. That is like the hydra has 11 heads but not teeth!

Anyway looking nice, this should be an easy (and harsh) spacerace victory, just bumping settlers, military, and settle great people, you're going for technocracy civic in this (if you get there, and I'm sure you will.) It will boost nicely your "empire".

Shrines are done. I finally got to liberalism (took Assembly Line with it) and saved to end the round. Update coming soon.