Inherited turn 190:
York: Move a fisherman onto the 2h hill. This gives 16 production. Next turn, the harbor will be at 34/80, which will whip (50% hammer bonus, 45/pop) for 2 pop with max overflow.
Adrianople: Each turn without the market is expensive -- not only is it +25% cash, it gives us two merchant slots. Given that I want to run 100% research, these are even more important -- no commerce -> cash. Unfortunately, whipping for 3 means leaving a merchant slot empty -- not enough pop. That means we either need another person, or to hit the next whip break. We can grow in 2 turns (max food production: 6 of the 11 needed), or we can get to 13 production (at -9 of our 25 food) and whip next turn. I choose the latter, since it's one turn earlier for getting up to the big 40+ cash numbers, and additional pop here won't do much.
Nicaea: We have a GG settled here, but we're building...an archer? I'd much rather have those bonuses on a trebuchet. Can't get much whip overflow, so I stagnate the city to finish the archer in one turn.
Nottingham: We have whip unhappies here, and we're just churning out military, so I'd like to whip more gingerly. On the other hand, we have 5 (5!) spare happies, so I'm fine with whipping 1-pops, despite the happy inefficiency. There aren't a lot of hammers to go around -- it'll be 3 turns.
Thessalonica: This could be a GREAT place to run specialists, given that it can work its 8 (EIGHT!) flood plains, plus city center, to support 5 of them (with no farms...ah well). That will require 13 happies, and it has 12, which isn't so far off. So I decide to let this city continue to grow and wear off its whip-unhappies. Since it has huge health issues, I switch from a mace to an aquaduct.
London: With bureau in play, it makes sense to let London grow as best it can to fully use its bonus. Plus, we want a great scientist. I move the other two specialists into the fields.
Constantinople: Our best production city, by far, at 21 base production. Stagnant on food, maxed out on happies...I'm just gonna let this place do its thing (its thing? Macemen).
Other: Max out research: 188b/t, -49 money. We have but 38. Luckily, our next victim is happy to help!
Now we're at 168 - 49/t, which is much...less inverted, really.
Turn 191:
London: Horse archer -> archer. Since I don't want to build them in Nicaea, something's gotta do it. Since I don't want to whip in London, things it can build in one turn (base 17, 75% bonus -> 29h/turn. Archer is 25) isn't bad.
Constantinople: Mace -> mace.
Nicaea: archer -> trebuchet, as mentioned. No whip unhappies? Two happies to spare? Lots of uninteresting tiles being worked? Hmm...
Adrionaople: Whip market. Can't use the merchant slots yet, so it uses a couple scientists.
Nottingham: Grows. Micro.
Thessalonica: Nothing happens.
York: whip harbor for 2 pop with 40 overflow.
Other: Joao's stack continues to grow:
...so the maceman and horse-archer produced this turn head to Thessalonica (along with a mace already produced), since he's likely to counterattack there. The archer heads to Adrianople, which has our war-stack, but no defenders to leave behind. Our trireme heads east to feed on a barbarian galley, and a trebuchet continues on towards our main stack.
Turn 192:
London: archer -> archer. We'll need more once we start taking Portugese cities.
York: Harbor -> catapult. This is for dealing with Joao's stack (cats are better than trebs outside cities).
Nottingham: unchanged.
Thessalonica: Grows. Unhealthy. Ah well, still +6 food. Keeps on growin'.
Constantinople: Mace next turn.
Adrianople: At 100% research, our gold here (3h/8c) is producing some beakers, but no cash. Sadly, we have no more merchant slots. If only we didn't need the whip so much, I'd be eyeing caste system. Continue work on the forge, but with every pop needed to max out its cash, it'll be a while.
Nicaea: Treb whip for 2 pop.
Other: Nothing of interest really happening. We can hold out one more turn before selling another tech. Education in 2, GP in London (58% sci) in 4.
Turn 193:
London: archer -> archer.
Constantinople: Mace -> Heroic Epic. It's our best production city, and will be for a while -- the next good city we get is Lisbon, but I'd rather build Oxford, Ironworks, Moai...any number of things there. This is bordering on my "stop for consult with the team" line, but I've delayed so long already I'm pressing ahead. This is the last thing I'll be doing in this otherwise uninteresting city.
Nicaea: treb -> treb. Continue to be heavily production-oriented, since this city is basically good for little but whipping, and the pop is too high to whip particularly efficiently.
York: Whip cat, queue up another trireme for our navy.
Nottingham: 1-pop whip the treb. Queue up a maceman, to keep our supply coming as Constantinople finishes the epic.
Thessalonica: Continues to grow.
Adrianople: I take one more look around: No more decisions to be made here in my set.
Other: We're at 30-39 for monies, so it's time to take a look at that again:
Ah, that's better: 320-39. I fail to sell a tech to Joao for 40 money, as I believe we'll be taking everything he has...soon.
Turn 194:
IBT: Willem shows up and asks us to declare war on Joao. I think about it for a bit, since I wasn't planning on doing so this turn. But our stack is in place, our backup is coming, and we can always use the relations bonus.
Education is in. Gunpowder is next. The plan is chem -> lib for steel, which is much faster and more beaker efficient than heading for rifling.
London: archer -> university. That 25% beaker bonus is 12.25b -- nothing to sneeze at!
York: catapult -> trireme. Catapult goes to Thessalonica, in case a Portugese stack heads north there.
Nottingham: trebuchet -> mace. Treb heads east to rendevue with our stack.
Thessalonica: nothing.
Nicaea: Whip trib, queue up horse archer.
Other: our galley wins (90%) and will gain a level. Our stack moves in towards Joao's cities. We're at 281-53/t money, +189b/t, 7 turns to gunpowder.
Turn 195:
IBT: Caesar wants open borders. I'm not sure if he's just scouting us out, or if he really wants to make nice. I take him up on it, however, after making sure he's not WHEOOHA.
Willem makes peace with Joao. Quite a war partner we have there!
London: whip uni, queue up spearman. The lack of archer production this turn does end the conga line, sadly:
York: Nothing happens.
Nottingham: Max out production. I'd like to whip the maceman soon with max overflow for a uni. We do need 6 for Oxford, and we can produce a reasonable bit of commerce here, comparitively.
Thessalonica: The growth fun continues.
Nicaea: Change my mind, and put the overflow into a uni. I'll switch this out again next turn, and overflow more into it -- this is another case of "not great science city, but has some, and I want Oxford sooner than later."
Other: Make this trade:
Puts us at 388-52/t, which gives us 7 turns to work with, for now. Our stack, meanwhile, is now in place to start bombarding/attacking next turn.
Turn 196:
IBT: Caesar comes asking for philo. Whyever would he want that? Perhaps to go with his education! No way, dude. Only, after rejecting this, I look at his techs again. Is he REALLY doing that well?! No, the reason we can't trade him paper or edu is because he has neither theology nor civil service, and thus can't research paper. So, that was dumb. Sadly, I realized this after my set.
Joao attacks our stack with a cat, which manages to withdraw after dropping our super war elephant to 2.0/8.0. I try to bring up the log to see what the odds were, but no such luck: crash to desktop. I'm using BUG, so someone is using old BUG. Gr.
London: University -> spearman. I max out the science here, and hit 99b/t. Not bad.
York: Whip a trireme, queue up a university.
Nottigham: Nothing much of interest. Still trying to maximize overflow for a uni (whip next turn).
Nicaea: Micro to be able to whip uni next turn.
Thessalonica: Nothing doin' here. In fact, I'm thinking I'm gonna play a shortened set, and nothing will happen here for the rest of it.
Other: A great merchant is born in London. Dammit. I fortify him in London for now. Our stack bombards Oporto, reducing its defenses to 6%. I'll wait another turn (healing for our stack, plus more bombarding, plus having trebs available) before going in. Our horse archer is dispatched to destroy the cat (left in the open?!) before returning to the stack.
Turn 197:
London: Spearman -> jumbo.
York: Trireme: university. Chugging along. Don't wanna whip this *too* hard, as those 2 commerce coastal squares need quantity to make use of it. Hence, optimized for production.
Nicaea: Whip the university, start on archer. We'll want to grow back onto some of this city's decent commerce/food tiles, and maybe run some scientists.
Nottingham: Whip maceman, queue up university.
Other: The attack goes...horribly. Apparently, 50% means "your trebuchet will retreat 1/4 times" or some such nonsense. Also lose a mace at 95%+ odds, and another at 97%+. Joao has 4 longbows left in the city, but they're all at 1.5 health. Our stack is 3xTreb, 5xCat, 7x'Phant, 2xMace, 1xHA, 1xWarrior (general). There's another stack of a mace and 3 trebs one tile back, coming to reinforce.
We're at 281-50/t, which won't get us through chem and lib, so we'll need to raise some money. We can always sell techs. Of course, we also have a great merchant -- with us having open borders with Caesar we could go on a trade mission to raise funds, settle him in Adrianople for 7.5/t, or start a GAge.
York: Move a fisherman onto the 2h hill. This gives 16 production. Next turn, the harbor will be at 34/80, which will whip (50% hammer bonus, 45/pop) for 2 pop with max overflow.
Adrianople: Each turn without the market is expensive -- not only is it +25% cash, it gives us two merchant slots. Given that I want to run 100% research, these are even more important -- no commerce -> cash. Unfortunately, whipping for 3 means leaving a merchant slot empty -- not enough pop. That means we either need another person, or to hit the next whip break. We can grow in 2 turns (max food production: 6 of the 11 needed), or we can get to 13 production (at -9 of our 25 food) and whip next turn. I choose the latter, since it's one turn earlier for getting up to the big 40+ cash numbers, and additional pop here won't do much.
Nicaea: We have a GG settled here, but we're building...an archer? I'd much rather have those bonuses on a trebuchet. Can't get much whip overflow, so I stagnate the city to finish the archer in one turn.
Nottingham: We have whip unhappies here, and we're just churning out military, so I'd like to whip more gingerly. On the other hand, we have 5 (5!) spare happies, so I'm fine with whipping 1-pops, despite the happy inefficiency. There aren't a lot of hammers to go around -- it'll be 3 turns.
Thessalonica: This could be a GREAT place to run specialists, given that it can work its 8 (EIGHT!) flood plains, plus city center, to support 5 of them (with no farms...ah well). That will require 13 happies, and it has 12, which isn't so far off. So I decide to let this city continue to grow and wear off its whip-unhappies. Since it has huge health issues, I switch from a mace to an aquaduct.
London: With bureau in play, it makes sense to let London grow as best it can to fully use its bonus. Plus, we want a great scientist. I move the other two specialists into the fields.
Constantinople: Our best production city, by far, at 21 base production. Stagnant on food, maxed out on happies...I'm just gonna let this place do its thing (its thing? Macemen).
Other: Max out research: 188b/t, -49 money. We have but 38. Luckily, our next victim is happy to help!
Spoiler :
Now we're at 168 - 49/t, which is much...less inverted, really.
Turn 191:
London: Horse archer -> archer. Since I don't want to build them in Nicaea, something's gotta do it. Since I don't want to whip in London, things it can build in one turn (base 17, 75% bonus -> 29h/turn. Archer is 25) isn't bad.
Constantinople: Mace -> mace.
Nicaea: archer -> trebuchet, as mentioned. No whip unhappies? Two happies to spare? Lots of uninteresting tiles being worked? Hmm...
Adrionaople: Whip market. Can't use the merchant slots yet, so it uses a couple scientists.
Nottingham: Grows. Micro.
Thessalonica: Nothing happens.
York: whip harbor for 2 pop with 40 overflow.
Other: Joao's stack continues to grow:
Spoiler :
...so the maceman and horse-archer produced this turn head to Thessalonica (along with a mace already produced), since he's likely to counterattack there. The archer heads to Adrianople, which has our war-stack, but no defenders to leave behind. Our trireme heads east to feed on a barbarian galley, and a trebuchet continues on towards our main stack.
Turn 192:
London: archer -> archer. We'll need more once we start taking Portugese cities.
York: Harbor -> catapult. This is for dealing with Joao's stack (cats are better than trebs outside cities).
Nottingham: unchanged.
Thessalonica: Grows. Unhealthy. Ah well, still +6 food. Keeps on growin'.
Constantinople: Mace next turn.
Adrianople: At 100% research, our gold here (3h/8c) is producing some beakers, but no cash. Sadly, we have no more merchant slots. If only we didn't need the whip so much, I'd be eyeing caste system. Continue work on the forge, but with every pop needed to max out its cash, it'll be a while.
Nicaea: Treb whip for 2 pop.
Other: Nothing of interest really happening. We can hold out one more turn before selling another tech. Education in 2, GP in London (58% sci) in 4.
Turn 193:
London: archer -> archer.
Constantinople: Mace -> Heroic Epic. It's our best production city, and will be for a while -- the next good city we get is Lisbon, but I'd rather build Oxford, Ironworks, Moai...any number of things there. This is bordering on my "stop for consult with the team" line, but I've delayed so long already I'm pressing ahead. This is the last thing I'll be doing in this otherwise uninteresting city.
Nicaea: treb -> treb. Continue to be heavily production-oriented, since this city is basically good for little but whipping, and the pop is too high to whip particularly efficiently.
York: Whip cat, queue up another trireme for our navy.
Nottingham: 1-pop whip the treb. Queue up a maceman, to keep our supply coming as Constantinople finishes the epic.
Thessalonica: Continues to grow.
Adrianople: I take one more look around: No more decisions to be made here in my set.
Other: We're at 30-39 for monies, so it's time to take a look at that again:
Spoiler :
Spoiler :
Spoiler :
Ah, that's better: 320-39. I fail to sell a tech to Joao for 40 money, as I believe we'll be taking everything he has...soon.
Turn 194:
IBT: Willem shows up and asks us to declare war on Joao. I think about it for a bit, since I wasn't planning on doing so this turn. But our stack is in place, our backup is coming, and we can always use the relations bonus.
Education is in. Gunpowder is next. The plan is chem -> lib for steel, which is much faster and more beaker efficient than heading for rifling.
London: archer -> university. That 25% beaker bonus is 12.25b -- nothing to sneeze at!
York: catapult -> trireme. Catapult goes to Thessalonica, in case a Portugese stack heads north there.
Nottingham: trebuchet -> mace. Treb heads east to rendevue with our stack.
Thessalonica: nothing.
Nicaea: Whip trib, queue up horse archer.
Other: our galley wins (90%) and will gain a level. Our stack moves in towards Joao's cities. We're at 281-53/t money, +189b/t, 7 turns to gunpowder.
Turn 195:
IBT: Caesar wants open borders. I'm not sure if he's just scouting us out, or if he really wants to make nice. I take him up on it, however, after making sure he's not WHEOOHA.
Willem makes peace with Joao. Quite a war partner we have there!
London: whip uni, queue up spearman. The lack of archer production this turn does end the conga line, sadly:
Spoiler :
York: Nothing happens.
Nottingham: Max out production. I'd like to whip the maceman soon with max overflow for a uni. We do need 6 for Oxford, and we can produce a reasonable bit of commerce here, comparitively.
Thessalonica: The growth fun continues.
Nicaea: Change my mind, and put the overflow into a uni. I'll switch this out again next turn, and overflow more into it -- this is another case of "not great science city, but has some, and I want Oxford sooner than later."
Other: Make this trade:
Spoiler :
Puts us at 388-52/t, which gives us 7 turns to work with, for now. Our stack, meanwhile, is now in place to start bombarding/attacking next turn.
Turn 196:
IBT: Caesar comes asking for philo. Whyever would he want that? Perhaps to go with his education! No way, dude. Only, after rejecting this, I look at his techs again. Is he REALLY doing that well?! No, the reason we can't trade him paper or edu is because he has neither theology nor civil service, and thus can't research paper. So, that was dumb. Sadly, I realized this after my set.
Joao attacks our stack with a cat, which manages to withdraw after dropping our super war elephant to 2.0/8.0. I try to bring up the log to see what the odds were, but no such luck: crash to desktop. I'm using BUG, so someone is using old BUG. Gr.
London: University -> spearman. I max out the science here, and hit 99b/t. Not bad.
York: Whip a trireme, queue up a university.
Nottigham: Nothing much of interest. Still trying to maximize overflow for a uni (whip next turn).
Nicaea: Micro to be able to whip uni next turn.
Thessalonica: Nothing doin' here. In fact, I'm thinking I'm gonna play a shortened set, and nothing will happen here for the rest of it.
Other: A great merchant is born in London. Dammit. I fortify him in London for now. Our stack bombards Oporto, reducing its defenses to 6%. I'll wait another turn (healing for our stack, plus more bombarding, plus having trebs available) before going in. Our horse archer is dispatched to destroy the cat (left in the open?!) before returning to the stack.
Turn 197:
London: Spearman -> jumbo.
York: Trireme: university. Chugging along. Don't wanna whip this *too* hard, as those 2 commerce coastal squares need quantity to make use of it. Hence, optimized for production.
Nicaea: Whip the university, start on archer. We'll want to grow back onto some of this city's decent commerce/food tiles, and maybe run some scientists.
Nottingham: Whip maceman, queue up university.
Other: The attack goes...horribly. Apparently, 50% means "your trebuchet will retreat 1/4 times" or some such nonsense. Also lose a mace at 95%+ odds, and another at 97%+. Joao has 4 longbows left in the city, but they're all at 1.5 health. Our stack is 3xTreb, 5xCat, 7x'Phant, 2xMace, 1xHA, 1xWarrior (general). There's another stack of a mace and 3 trebs one tile back, coming to reinforce.
We're at 281-50/t, which won't get us through chem and lib, so we'll need to raise some money. We can always sell techs. Of course, we also have a great merchant -- with us having open borders with Caesar we could go on a trade mission to raise funds, settle him in Adrianople for 7.5/t, or start a GAge.
(probably going in the south hemisphere beachs... 
)
