Guys - I am very confused about our strategy now, and note that we have contradicted our earlier decisions.
I can't look at the game, so shouldn't comment much more, although wary that we've conceded far too much to the Mongols now.
Although it's true GK benefitted more than we did, I think it was the right think to do : he was our only trading partner and we needed the money!
Just one thing : do we have currency?
If we don't, why didn't we trade for it, instead of HBR which is of low value to us?
... and 'yes' ... very aware that The Colossus obsoletes with Astronomy. We got it because it was (a.) cheap, (b.) suited our financial trait, (c.) it was on our bee-line, and (d.) would 're-activate' for Gandhi. We got it so we could boost our commerce and elevate our population by focussing on food and coastals, then whip for hammers ... it would propel us towards Astronomy and give us 'breathing room' afterwards to research other technologies as required (e.g. Bureaucracy, Currency, Construction).
agreed, the colossus is there to fund our empire without help from cottages that may not resist a war with GK.
With the colossus, we're able to pay for every city we can capture from GK
Cam, what is your confusion about?
For the next turns I think we could do:
Optics (8 turns)
>Build caravels<
priesthood (2 turn)
CoL (9 turns)
CS (20 turns)
>build Berserkers<
construction (7 turns)
>build cats<
Take out GK
priesthood, col and cs aren't needed now.
Let's go for construction straight after optics, and take out GK.
We can trade for those things with foreigners, IMHO. Maybe we can even sue for peace for a few of those things.
Do we have Literature already for The Great Library?
no and we don't have the marble yet, so no great library for now.
I'd question the wisdom of trading machinery to Khan like that. It runs the risk of him building a few xbows, which are the ideal counter to whichever units we'd use to attack his cities with, and none of the techs we picked up would take that long to research.
If he's got Feudalism already, no harm no foul, but Khan certainly needs to be taken down a peg or two sooner rather than later.
he doesn't have feudalism since he gave us money and he has archers as garrison. We need to find his iron, if he has any, and take it down (galleys filled with chariots please!)
As far as GS and astronomy are concerned, the time to bulb is the turn before we complete CS, reason being we want the largest pop possible and don't want to suffer any beaker decay. We can still research construction after CS as it's only 7 turns (which is too soon for decay to kick in) but can't afford any dalliances after that.
agreed with more pop = more beakers, but beaker decay isn't a problem.the grace period is very long (too long to be any problem)
Good news about Khan building the Hanging Gardens though - that'll mean +1 health per city for Gandhi by the time we're finished.
I was somewhat surprised to see the machinery trade but what's done is done. Maybe GK will get to trade it to Gandhi for feudalism
.
Is it supposed to be good news?
We're certainly just about done with phase 1: optics beeline. Phase 2 is meet the world and take out GK. We won't be building too many missionaries atm but something to consider for a bit later on. Can't get meditation before burning GS on astronomy (can't burn GS on astronomy before we've got calendar). Can't get CS before astronomy lightbulb either so no berserks atm.
I reckon that what we should do is switch off research once optics is in. Spend money on upgrading triremes to caravels (maybe build some more triremes first). Go out exploring and trading widely and wildly because we've got some valuable techs to trade. Pick up calendar, CoL, monarchy, feudalism etc etc. Once GS pops lightbulb astronomy asap then CS and upgrade axes to berserks. An alternative would be to research construction after optics then switch off research so we can build up cats while awaiting berserks.
Do we want to declare on GK before cats and berserks? Maybe (it will help GK and Gandhi become friendlier). If so we're looking at unsupported axes and we may as well start on that asap. Maybe take out a couple of GK's cities then aim for peace. If we focus on units rather than buildings that'll help power rating making negotiations easier.
I suggest thinking twice about the astronomy lightbulb :
1) we're in no hurry to leave. GK is far from dead. In fact he is stronger than we are.
2) we don't want to leave before having killed GK.
3) galleons don't take cities
4) catapults and berserkers do
5) another academy for Gandhi would be great.
Even if we really do want to lightbulb, I still would
- declare on GK as soon as we're in position to threaten samarqand
- research construction asap, and go for GK
- try to sue for peace for techs and/or money as soon asap
- go for the rest of his cities.
If we can sue for peace twice, let's do it. We don't care about the diplo modifier!
Another point : We don't need upgrade money, let's whip 2 caravels and keep our triremes vs GK. stopping research for a while (= until we could trade for a few techs) could be right, though. We're going to need money anyway.
And one more thing : we don't want Gandhi to be the world ruler (= UN leader), we want him to fly away. So let's not put too much effort towards his diplomacy.
, but we could get it from GK if we take Turfan. That could be a while. Maybe we get lucky and have it spread to us.
