SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[Irgy]

Ok, thanks

 

[Dhoomstriker]

To add to the above points, on T220, we had +1 You gave us tribute with Isabella, and usually it takes two refusals for them to go to war, so we should be safe from her declaring war on us unless we refuse yet another request.

Also, now that you're temporarily in Theocracy, she will for certain not go down an Attitude Level.

So, I see no real benefit from accepting her request.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Nice turnset, Irgy!

While we're waiting for his write-up and updated test saved game, allow me to get BLubz started on a plan by CAREFULLY examing the uploaded real game.


Justinian and Toku: The Impact on the Apostolic Palace vote and the Impact on our Civics
Okay, well the "big news" appears to be that Toku did not attack us but is sailing through our territory. Justinian is just outside of our territory and if he will attack us, it will be on the next turn (sorry for spoiling the news, Irgy).

Since it looks like Toku is going after Zara, we should continue ahead with the plan to select the "Stop the War against Zara" Apostolic Palace voting option.

Since Justinian is just outside of our borders and could potentially declare war on us in between turns, if we are his target, I recommend that we wait until the next turn (T231) to decide which Civics to switch into.

We're about to complete Oxford University on this turn (at the end of T230), plus grow 1 population point in Delhi, so switching Civics on T231 would work out well for us anyway.

The idea would be that:
If Justinian attacks us, we will run Military Civics (Police State, Vassalage, Slavery, and Theocracy). Delhi, having built Oxford University, can still run up to 5 Scientist Specialists without needing to be in Caste System, so I would recommend that we do so. Then, of course, most Cities would switch to building Military units.

If Justinian does not declare war on us, his 2 Galleys will have sailed past their initial "attacking point" and will almost certainly not have us as the war target. In that case, we can switch our Civics to Caste System and Pacifism, remaining in Representation and Bureaucracy.

I would then recommend that we hire Scientists whenever and wherever possible we can remove a citizen from a square that works 3 Food or less.

Exceptions to this rule would be for us to keep working squares like Silverado's Silver, Bedrock's Flood Plains Cottages and GHorse, Goldfish's Gold, and it is up to you if you keep working the GHorse in Mystic (it makes 1 less Commerce than Bedrock's GHorse, but we might want to keep working it. Hiring a Representation-based Scientist would most certainly be preferable to working Mystic's Incense--however, we don't have a Library there yet, which is why I suggest that we work the Incense when not in Caste System--see below in this message--at least until we get some GIrr squares set up in Mystic).

Wheaties' PCow and Three Clams' PCow can possibly be turned into Scientists, but it is your call whether you want to keep working these squares instead, since those PCows are pretty good squares to keep working. However, we should certainly hire a Scientist in place of Grt Person Farm's PCow, as we have built the National Epic there.

In making the decision, recall that we will have a limited time for using The Parthenon's bonus GPP per Scientist, so the more Cities that can make use of it, the better. One way to "break a tie" such as whether to work a PCow or hire a Scientist would be to temporarily hire the Scientist and see if we make an "even number" of GPP before bonuses. If we do, then we'll get +2 GPP from The Parthenon's bonus by hiring that Specialist, so it is worth hiring that Specialist. However, if we will get an odd number of GPP, then The Parthenon's bonus would only give us +1 GPP for that Specialist and that Specialist would probably be better off working a PCow square.


Trading with the AIs
Isabella will take Fish for 3 GPT, so let's take that deal. Presumably, she called off the Dye to Justian for his Fish deal sometime during Irgy's turnset, likely due to Religious differences, so now is our chance to capitalize on this fact.

It is also time to renegotiate the Wheat deal with Zara, cancelling it and renegotiating it for whatever he will give to us.


Isabella and Mehmed--Getting her into our war
I personally think that it will be more effective to build 2 Confucian Missionaries for Isabella and gift them to her than for us to lose our Religious Civic bonuses by converting into Hinduism ourselves.

The suggestion is to build the Confucian Missionaries in Ivory Towers, since we don't have Open Borders with Zara and can't get Confucian Missionaries from the rest of our empire to go to the east.

Presumably, we can whip the Lighthouse in Ivory Towers immediately on T230 and then start work on building 2 Confucian Missionaries. After we regrow in Ivory Towers, it will be up to you to decide if we should just work the GIvory or hire a Scientist, as that City will probably never generate a Great Scientist anyway and it will be nice to put some more Food and Hammers into that City so that we we can get the 2 Confucian Missionaries built sooner. I say "2" Missionaries because that should be enough to overwhelm her "3" Cities' worth of Hinduism if we ask her nicely to switch Religions (and she might even switch on her own if we wait a couple of turns after she spreads both Missionaries, due to both Zara and us already running Confucianism).

If we move a Confucian Missionary into one of Isabella's Cities and then gift it to her, she should spread the Religion for us. I read that in BTS, AIs are "smarter" about using gifted Missionaries, so we shouldn't have to worry about them "sitting the Missionaries in place for ever and ever."


Cities--Minor Changes for T230
I would take the Galley out of the build queue in Bedrock, as we haven't invested any Hammers into it and we're not going to be switching into Military Civics anytime soon, if we can help it. Even if Justinian forces us into Military Civics, we likely won't build a Galley.

Crabs has a Courthouse selected but doesn't have any Hammers invested into it, so we can optionally change what will be built there next. My suggestion would be to switch to building a Forge, as we could use the extra Hammers from whipping and the extra Happiness to counter all of the whipping that we've done there.

Mystic is currently working an unimproved square (a GFor) so I would recommend that you switch our citizen from that square to one of the Incenses.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

A Safety Tip: Safely Contacting the AIs
Did you know that it is very easy to accidentally declare war on an AI? All that you would need to do is hold down the Alt key while clicking on an AI's name and you'd be INSTANTLY at war with them, without even a dialogue box asking you if you really meant to do so. It's pretty flakey functionality, considering the number of normal steps that you have to take just to declare war, including answering a dialogue box that asks for confirmation.


Obviously, declaring war on the wrong AI in a game where we're playing for Diplo and where we are limited in terms of the number of AIs that we can declare on could be a game-ending event.


To remove this possibility, I suggest that instead of clicking on the AIs' names in the bottom right portion of the screen, you contact AIs using a different method. Specifically, you should be able to open any of the F4 screens and then right-click on a Leader's picture (the "Leaderhead" picture). There is no way to accidentally declare war just by clicking on their picture here (at least no way that I've been able to trigger), regardless of which key that you hold down, so it is a very safe way to contact an AI.

 

[Irgy]

Sorry, I at least posted to say I'd finished the turn set, but the post was still loading when I went to bed, and now I wake up and see it failed to post at all. Dhoomstriker figured out I'd finished anyway though at least

A better writeup to come...

 

[BLubmuz]

I'm watching this thread every few hours and i've seen Dhoom's congrats to you.
So i went to download the save. I'll take a look shortly and post something before go in bed.

I was askin' myself If Irgy went to bed, since it should be early morning on the opposite side... now i see.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Ivory Towers

Presumably, we can whip the Lighthouse in Ivory Towers immediately on T230 and then start work on building 2 Confucian Missionaries. After we regrow in Ivory Towers, it will be up to you to decide if we should just work the GIvory or hire a Scientist, as that City will probably never generate a Great Scientist anyway and it will be nice to put some more Food and Hammers into that City so that we we can get the 2 Confucian Missionaries built sooner. I say "2" Missionaries because that should be enough to overwhelm her "3" Cities' worth of Hinduism...

Of course, since we will be switching into either Theocracy (to deal with Justinian) or Philosophy on T231, we won't be able to build a Confucian Missionary (we won't be in Organized Religion anymore). So, after the Lighthouse, we'll have to work on building a Confucian Monastary first. After that, we can get to work on building 2 Confucian Missionaries.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Religious Strategy: We can now safely accept a request to switch into Buddhism but we should remember switch back into Confucianism 5 turns later
Irgy has continued to spread Buddhism around, with only 5 of our Cities lacking that Religion.

He also has 2 Buddhist Missionaries built.

One further Buddhist Missionary is in the queue in Grt Person Farm, but we'll have to finish building it once we either have built a Buddhist Monastary or once we switch back into Organized Religion.

So, it would be my recommendation to immediately switch to building a Buddhist Monastary in Grt Person Farm on T230. We do not want to whip the Missionary now, since we (as long as Justinian plays nicely) are about to switch into Pacifism and we'll want to hire as many Scientist Specialists here as possible.


Remember that we DO NOT want to spread Buddhism to Riverdale, since that City is still planned to be the City that we gift (or lose to Zara in a war) after we build the UN there, and the last thing that we would want is for Zara to switch into Buddhism and win the Diplo Victory vote.


So, only the 2 islands will need Buddhist Missionaries if the 2 that Irgy built are successful in spreading. One of those Buddhist Missionaries will presumably be built in Grt Person Farm, after the Buddhist Monastary is built there.


Eventually, we will want to convert Isabella to Buddhism, but getting her into Confucianism first would be my recommendation, so that we can use the Apostolic Palace to protect her like we plan to do for Zara.


Also, with Buddhism being spread everywhere, and with the next Apostolic Palace vote NOT REQUIRING us to be in Confucianism (only Zara needs to be in Confucianism), we can now safely accept any request made by an AI to switch into Buddhism.

Of course, it woudl be best to switch back to Confucianism 5 turns later, as we will get more Science Flasks from having both the University of Sankore and from having built so many Confucian Religious buildings, but it will be worth it to switch for 5 turns just to get that +1 You Accepted our State Religion bonus.

 

[BLubmuz]

OK, i got the save open.
First, i noticed that we have 2 turns of forced peace with Just. Did we gave in to some demand or viceversa?

He's pleased with us, but as we know, he can have decided the war when he was cautious. Still, we have time to garrison our coastal cities. There's a LB just outside Crabs, better move him in the city and promote him.

We have 7 warriors. Better gather the 4 we need, plus 1 for spare in a safe place.
I've seen a spear ready to go in Riverdale. Also, better garrison all our cities with LBs and possibly with another unit. BtS AI can attack directly from the sea and not all our cities have enough borders to prevent a sneak attack.

Also, i noticed we already have some troops in Arabian Lands. I see we don't have many galleys, but they will travel faster loaded on 3 moves ships than walk without roads before Engineering.

I've seen OU is completed next turn. Nice.

Now, i'm completely out of ideas. I know we must build some military (well, a lot, just to be safe on the barb campaign and to have a decent defense, just in case).
Some monastery here and there will let us build missionaries with no need to be in OR and they will also give a little bonus on research.

The war with Mehmed will remain phony? How many turns before next AP resolution? Can we declare an Holy War, so the other members will join?

Tech trades: nothing interesting, we are - i think - 1 turn away from Compass, why not research it?
Also Banking can be interesting to research, for 2 reasons:
a) it opens Mercantilism, Toku's favourite civic
b) 1 free specialist/city is not bad for a Philo Leader

PP can be researched by a GS. It happens that we got one, should i burn him on that?
why pay maintenance for 1 unit if it can be so useful? We're planning to use the whip extensively to build a military, so better do it next turn when Dehli and 3Clams will grow 1 pop, i think.
I think it's better settle Whales so it can expand its borders and we gain some pop for the bulb. That city is close as Silverado to Dehli, so the maintenance can't be too high, even considering the increased number of cities (in any city). It can be largely compensated by the trade routes.

Barbs Cities
I'm too almost sure they should be 2. The southern one should be coastal but surrounded by ice. In case, will the route pass through ice or the ice blocks the routes at least until Astro?
there's only room for a coastal city in the northenmost ip of the island or the small peninsula E, 3S+2W of Trebizond.


So i need:
- opinions on the above (synthetic, please)
- build queues for any city
- improvements to build (farms or cottages, mainly, i've seen all the possible mines built) I will road as almost a priority and delete the signs of already built improvements.
- civics/religion

Some hint (and something more is appreciated) and tomorrow i can post a PPP.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Some more observations:

Resource Trading
Justinian is the only AI that is trading with other AIs. Well, obviously other AIs are trading with him, but the only Resource Trades that exist right now have either Justinian or us as one of the trading partners.

Justinian is trading Ivory to Isabella, although she has yet to learn Horseback Riding, so she can currently only use it as a Happiness source and cannot build War Elephants.


Mehmed
Both Justinian and Toku are Pleased with Mehmed. So, we cannot take a peace deal with Mehmed. We must stay at war with Mehmed until the bitter, bloody end.


Toku Bombs
Toku sure loves his Great Artists!

He has Culture Bombed 3 Cities that neighbour either Saladin or Justinian. Yet, still, he has -1 Our Close Borders Spark Tensions with both of them, so he isn't purely winning the Cultural War, thus we are unlikely to see him Culturally Flipping many (or any) Cities before the end of the game.

The three Cities that he has Culture Bombed are Kagoshima, Nagasaki, and Izumo. Once Irgy updates the test saved game, you'll be able to tell which Cities I mean, since the City names in the test saved game should match up with the real game, although the Leaders themselves are still different.


Border Cities with Zara
Well, Wheaties has both a Longbowman and a Spearman, both of whom have 4 Experience points and have been Fortified and Promoted. Riverdale also has a Longbowman and its Spearman is about to walk into the City on this turn; similarly, both units are already Promoted.

Other units that are meant for the Barb Cities' Invasion have yet to have to receive their promotions, as expected.


Now (T230) would be a good time to move the Warriors (1 each in Wheaties and Riverdale) to other Cities, to act as Military Police.


Later, once we have captured the Barb Cities, we can either slow-march some Warriors over to the Barb Cities or we can manually-build 4 Warriors there. Manually-building the Warriors would require us to not hook our Trade Network, so I would recommend that we plan to slow-march our existing Barb Warriors to the west.

That's of course assuming that we find Fur there--until we find it, we might as well keep our Warriors at home as Military Police.


Blocking Chemistry Lightbulbs: Engineering or Gunpowder?: I say trade for Engineering, but DO NOT learn Gunpowder. However, we should only trade for Engineering AFTER we have either traded for Astronomy or have learned Astronomy ourselves, to avoid exceeding WFYABTA limits ruining a potential Astronomy trade
Since we won't trading for ONE of Engineering or Gunpowder, so that a Chemistry Lightbulb is blocked for our Great Scientists, I would suggest that the tech that we choose to learn would be Engineering.

The extra movement points of units, including Missionaries, will be useful to us. If we learn Gunpowder, more of the AIs will find it easier to get Gunpowder, and we would like to keep Zara and Mehmed from learning Gunpowder for as long as possible, as their Unique Units are Musketmen.

As such, we will have the option to manually-build our Warriors in the Barb Cities if we choose to do so, since it won't be until Gunpowder that Warriors will become obsolete as a build item.

Now, the tricky part would be that we would NOT want to have the Barb Cities connected to our Trade Route. I can't tell about the southern Barb City, but the northern one appears to be land-locked. So, we COULD manually-build Warriors there as long as we don't connect the Cities up with the rest of our Trade Network.


THAT SAID, it would be my suggestion NOT to build new Warriors, as when we capture those Barb Cities, we would probably like to have immediate access to Happiness Resources there, meaning that we would build a Fort to connect the northern Barb City so that it has access to our Trade Network as soon as it comes out of revolt.


So, I still think that it should be our plan to slow-march Warriors over to the Barb Cities, but we will potentially have the option of pillaging our Fort should that plan fail, assuming that neither Barb City is connected to our Trade Network (and, as I suggested earlier, it would certainly be in line with DynamicSpirit's self-proclaimed evilness to make us either think of the Fort trick or build another Settler, just to get those Cities connected to our Trade Network).

That said, we STILL do not know for sure if those Cities are where the Fur is located. We can make an educated guess that they are the right spot, but if not, we should be prepared to rush-build (i.e. whip) some Galleons once we learn or trade for Astronomy, in order to keep agile enough to scoop up the actual Fur location.

 

[Irgy]

So, the plan was to take my notes to work, and type it up at lunch time, but my notes are at home.

I'll give you all a few points at least based on what I can remember. I think Dhoomstriker and BLubmuz have figured it all out from the save anyway, but nevermind.

* I explored the north coast of Toku and Justinian's land with Galley 1 as instructed. I spotted a handful of ships, and a large-ish fleet (about 9 ships, mix of triremes and galleys) sitting around doing nothing in Justinian's westernmost city.
* As you noticed, Toku had something of a fleet which is sailing through our borders, probably to attack someone. We could disrupt this attack by closing borders with him (temporarily). Not sure whether we want to though.
* Declared war on Mehmed T221.
* I got Zara into the war on T222, also getting Machinery that turn.
* I was literally 5 gold short of enough to get Zara into the war on T222, so I (successfully) begged 10gp off Justinian, who is (and was) pleased with us. I hope this bit of improvisation was ok I've since realised you advised to beg for 120gp off Zara himself instead, so apologies for not following that advice. In any case, that explains the remaining couple of turns of forced peace. The turn before, Zara wouldn't declare on Mehmed because he had "nothing to gain", so I was nervous he'd change his mind again and didn't want to wait another turn.
* I turned down a request from Isabella to change religions.
* Something ridiculous is happening with Toku's tech rate, he's piling up technologies very quickly. He grabbed guilds in what seemed to be just a few turns. Both Tokugawa and Saladin have Optics now.
* We've lost our monopoly on Philosophy. I've declined to trade it around though as only Saladin has it so far. Our monopoly on paper is still safe. Saladin offered us a ~900 beaker tech (can't remember offhand what it was) and 175 gold for Paper, so he hasn't researched most of it yet or anything. Someone who knows the beaker ratio that AIs trade to will know whether that means he had actually started researching it though.
* All religion spread attempts were successful, and we have Buddhism nearly everywhere.
* I'm still in the middle of ferrying across troops to go after the barbarian city. There's also a longbow and a worker sitting in Sugardaddy. The galley build queued up in Bedrock was intended to fix that problem. Personally I think we could use another galley.
* Notre Dame and The Sistine Chapel have both been built. Sistine was Toku's, can't remember Notre Dame (but probably Toku as well). I have a feeling there was another wonder that went too.
* We popped a Great Scientist. He's currently sitting around waiting to bulb Astronomy, Scientific method, Physics or something else (I know the advice was not to bulb Sci Meth, but if for instance we Bulb Sci Meth to then get Physics from Liberalism immediately after it works out quite well I'd have thought).

One thought I've had; is it worth getting Banking in trade at some point, to be able to run Mercantilism late in the game? It's not that great a civic, but it's Toku's favourite so we can please him, and it may help pump out the last of the four required great people (as well as fitting our specialist economy well.

I think we really quite soon need to start considering saving our great people and whether we'll be delayed by the need for four unused ones. Especially since we need to transport them to the barb city, which is a fair way away. I know there's tricks with galleys/galleons, but it's still a fair distance, and depending on where the last one is generated they'll have some walking to do anyway.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Justinian

First, i noticed that we have 2 turns of forced peace with Just. Did we gave in to some demand or viceversa?

I have no idea, but I would like to know, too.

Regardless, if we are not the war target, he will sail through our lands. If we are the war target, he'll likely keep his 2 Galleys where they are, as they are just outside of our borders in a good position to strike.

So, if he goes east with those 2 Galleys on the next turn, then we are not the war target.


Land-based Military Units

Still, we have time to garrison our coastal cities. There's a LB just outside Crabs, better move him in the city and promote him.

It is not a bad idea to move Longbowman 6 into Crabs and Longbowman 9 into Risaia, at least until next turn when we find out what Justinian is up to.

I do not recommend that you promote those two Longbowmen, however, as we will want to send them west to the Barb Cities and we will probably give them Combat I promotions.

As you said, Justinian cannot attack us for 2 turns, so there should be no need for promoting these units to a promotion that cannot be used against the Barbs.


Ultimately, if a western AI is going to launch a war against us, they will attack Crabs as part of the declaration of war. So, I would reserve ONE Longbowman for Crabs--Longbowman 4 (who is currently 1SE of Bedrock on the Flood Plains Cottage).

Longbowman 6 and Longbowman 9 should be transported over to the western continent, to join the army that is going to fight the Barb Cities.

With those 2 Longbowmen, along with the two Macemen on Galley 3, as well as the units already on the western continent, we will have the following army to assault the Barb Cities:
3 Macemen
2 Catapults
5 Longbowmen

I think that this army will be sufficient to take down "normal" Barb Cities, especially if we save the Longbowmen promotions in order to give them Combat I and maybe give one of them Drill I.

If there are Mech Infantry, then it won't be until the end of the game that we will be able to capture the Barb Cities, but the AIs will be unable to capture the Barb Cities AT ALL in such a case, so we will not worry if our army fails under those conditions.

Remember that in the worst case, we can always capture 1 Barb City at the cost of our Catapults (if we are unlucky in battle). Then, since Catapults do not need Resources to be built, we can defend the City with Longbowmen while we heal up our units and build Catapults in the captured Barb City. It's not the ideal scenario, but it should prove to you that this army will be sufficient--IF we bring all 5 Longbowmen, as per the plan.


Warriors

We have 7 warriors. Better gather the 4 we need, plus 1 for spare in a safe place.

As I suggested in my cross-posted message, let's use our Warriors for Military Police. Two defenders in each of Wheaties and Riverdale (one Longbowman and one Spearman in each) will be enough to hold off Zara--don't forget about our Cultural City Defence.

Also, better garrison all our cities with LBs and possibly with another unit.

One Longbowman in Crabs should be enough to DETER the western AIs from attacking us. No amount of defense will STOP them if they choose to go to war with us, but going crazy on building defensive units is just going to kill our economy and will NOT provide us a high enough power level to dissuade the AIs from attacking us. Either they will attack or they will not--there is no amount of Power Level that we can REASONABLY gain that will alter their decision, so it is better to run a lean army.

Besides, if any of them attacks us, they will land a small army near Crabs and will send a big Land Army to Goldfish. Simply by owning Goldfish, the western AIs will treat us more as a "land target" and will not be very serious about sending a Land Army in Galleys towards us--at most, we can expect a couple of units, which can easily be fended off with a quick switch into Military Civics.

So, it would be my recommendation NOT to switch into Military Civics just to build a defensive army--doing so would be a waste of our resources and would NOT affect our relative Power Level enough to change an AI's decision to declare war on us. We are best off continuing to use good Diplomacy (i.e. giving into Demands) to prevent a war with the western powers.


Crabs and Goldfish will be the only initial war targets of a Western AI

BtS AI can attack directly from the sea and not all our cities have enough borders to prevent a sneak attack.

While that is true, their AI programming is still limited. A western AI will either attack Crabs or will not even bother with sending units in a Galley, since they will deem us to be a "valid land target" by the very fact that we own Goldfish.

That's another reason why we should continue to build Cultural Buildings in Goldfish after the Lighthouse is complete.

The fact is that the AIs are not "smart enough" to send Galleys around up to near Sugar Daddy, say, and then declare war--they are "obvious" about their war declarations and Crabs will be their first target. Defending other Cities with anything but Warriors for Happiness (Military Police) purposes is a waste of valuable resources.


Galleys

Also, i noticed we already have some troops in Arabian Lands. I see we don't have many galleys, but they will travel faster loaded on 3 moves ships than walk without roads before Engineering.

The fact is that we have gone through this issue before. ONE Galley on the far western edge of the western continent, sitting inside of Trebizond, will be enough to shuttle OUR ENTIRE ARMY over to the Barb Cities' area.

I explained the process before in great detail, so that we would have a way to unload our troops and be IMMUNE to assault by Barb Galleys. Here is the process explained again:
1. Load units from our continent into Galley 3. Note that two Macemen are already loaded into Galley 3.
2. Unload the units onto Saladin's continent in the City of Basra. Since we have a lot of visibility of the surrounding area, we can spot enemy (for now just Barb) boats very easily and won't have to worry about our army being sunk. Also, with Justinian being at enforced peace with us, we do not have to worry about him sinking our boats on T231.
3. Walk our units across the land from Saladin's area to Justinian's area. This way, we were able to maximize the production of a Land Army of sufficient size to take on the Barb Cities in a one-time 5-turn Military Civic period. Most of the rest of the time, we will want to run Representation, Caste System, and Pacifism during your turnset, so it is good that we already have a large enough land army. There is no need to build a navy at this time.
4. Gather all Land Units into the City of Trebizond.
5. Galley 1, which is right now near the Japanese City of Ghuzz is supposed to already be in Trebizond. Oh well, he is not there, so I suggest the following: Send Galley 1 to the City of Polynesian. It is Justinian's City on the west Coast. End your turn in Polynesian, so that we will get 3 movement points on the next turn. On the next turn, Galley 1 can safely move into Trebizond within 1 turn. That way, if any Barb Galleys are nearby from having spawned near the Barb Cities, our Galley 1 will not have to fight them. Does this step make sense to you? It is an important step, as we are relying on keeping Galley 1 alive.
6. Once you have two Land Units and Galley 1 in Trebizond, you can Load those two Land Units into Galley 1. End Galley 1's turn in Trebizond, as the Land Units will have "used up" their movement points by getting onto Galley 1.
7. On the next turn, you can move Galley 1 1SW of Trebizond, unload the two Land Units onto the tip of the Grassland peninsula, then "hide" Galley 1 back inside of Trebizond. Barb Galleys cannot invade AI Cities, so this way, Galley 1 stays invulnerable to attack. If you already have more Land Units inside of Trebizond, you can load them into Galley 1 on this turn, so that you can immediately unload them on the next turn. Be sure to end Galley 1's turn, though, as we should not leave him outside of Trebizond at the end of a turn. If, however, you do not yet have 2 more Land Units to load up, then go back to Step 6, where you must "wait" with Galley 1 inside of Trebizond for at least 1 full turn before you can unload the Land Units.
8. If the Land Units that you drop off are Longbowmen, consider promoting them to Combat I (maybe give Drill I to one of them, but Combat I to the rest of them). Macemen should SAVE their promotions. Why would you save a promotion? Well, if a Maceman defends, it will be hurt. Giving it a City Raider promotion before it gets hurt WILL NOT HELP IT TO DEFEND ANY BETTER. However, if you wait until it is hurt and then give it two City Raider promotions, it will already be up to about 7 out of 8 health immediately. So, since the City Raider promotions will not help on defence, there should be no need to promote a Maceman ahead of time. However, if you fear attack, you CAN promote one of the Macemen to Combat I ahead of time--that's probably the best idea--promote ONE Maceman to Combat I and save the City Raider promotions for the others. You can then give either Cover or Shock to the Maceman that got Combat I after it wins its first defensive battle.
9. Gather ALL of the Land Units on the Grassland peninsula BEFORE you march towards the Barb Cities. If you do not know what I mean by the "Grassland peninsula," let me know and I'll make a screenshot. If we send in our units two or four at a time, the Barbs could wipe us out. It is better to send in a stack of all of our units at once, so that they will defend as a team and not get wiped out individually. Yes, that means that it will be up to the next player (Unclethrill?) to do the fighting, but that's just how the game goes--you can't always get to see military action in your games, especially when playing a succession game where we need to take turns.


Oxford University and Great Scientists

I've seen OU is completed next turn. Nice.

Indeed, now is the time (if Justinian leaves us alone) to abuse the Spiritual Civic to run Representation, Caste System, and Pacifism for as long as you can during our turnset. Ideally, you'll do so the entire turnset.

Organized Religion is a nice bonus to get, but it is only a 25% bonus, while Pacifism is a 100% bonus. Since we will have built all of our required Wonders (except for the United Nations) as of T231, it will be hard to come up with a reason to justify Organized Religion as being "better" than Pacifism.


Military?

Now, i'm completely out of ideas. I know we must build some military (well, a lot, just to be safe on the barb campaign and to have a decent defense, just in case).

I think that we will have sufficient units. We DESPERATELY need Great Scientists NOW. The more that we can get now, the higher of a tech that we can get with Liberalism.

So, I would strongly advise against switching into Military Civics UNLESS Justinian appears like he will go to war with us. The only way that you will see him planning to go to war with us is if he keeps his 2 Galleys that are near Crabs one square outside of our borders. If he moves 2 squares east, THEN WE ARE NOT HIS WAR TARGET.

The fact that we don't see any of his Land Units near Goldfish is also a good indication, but where he sends those 2 Galleys will confirm it one way or another. If he moves them 1 square, we had better be prepared for war. If he moves then 2 squares, then Zara had better be prepared for war.


Building Monastaries

Some monastery here and there will let us build missionaries with no need to be in OR and they will also give a little bonus on research.

Monastaries are a good idea.
Courthouses might be a good idea, too.

As a "general" build order, I would suggest that most Cities build these buildings in the following order:
Confucian Temple -> Confucian Monastary -> Forge -> Courthouse -> Buddhist Temple if we need Happiness in the City -> Buddhist Monastary -> other Monastaries

There will be exceptions to the above build order, but that's a good general idea to go with.

The Confucian Religous Buildings will get us Hammers plus Flasks. The Buddhist Religious Buildings will get us Flasks when we run Buddhism as our State Religion.

Courthouses will keep our economy from crashing once we capture the Barb Cities.


War with Mehmed?

The war with Mehmed will remain phony?

For now, yes. After Liberalism, we will likely know Scientific Method, so The Parthenon bonus will be gone. Likely, at that point, less of our Cities will be running Scientist Specialists and they can build more of a Military for us to go after a couple of Mehmed's key Cities.


Apostolic Palace Resolutions

How many turns before next AP resolution? Can we declare an Holy War, so the other members will join?

As I said previously, you can check on the F8 -> MEMBERS screen. The bottom left of the screen will tell us "Turns until next vote." When that number reaches zero, it will be time to choose a voting option.

As discussed, please pick the "Stop the War against Zara" option. We are ABUSING the Apostolic Palace's ability to stop the war between Zara and Mehmed, because it will also prevent Toku from declaring war on Zara.

After 10 turns, Toku can declare war on Zara, but then we will be close to ANOTHER Apostolic Palace vote, so we can ONCE AGAIN "Stop the War against Zara" shortly after the war begins, if Toku declares at that time.


Techs

Tech trades: nothing interesting, we are - i think - 1 turn away from Compass, why not research it?

Indeed, we almost have Compass. Why not research it? I will tell you why not: if we research it, the AIs will be more willing to trade it amongst each other. If we research it, the AIs will be more willing to piggyback off of our research into Compass.

Please wait until AFTER we have researched Printing Press in order to finish off research on Compass.

We have nowhere that really can build a Harbour (we have other things to build like Courthouses and Monastaries), so there is zero benefit in learning Compass now but there are some negative points to learning it now, as I just mentioned.


As for research into Printing Press, it is suggested that you use your "save up some cash and then spend it" trick, as Irgy and Mitchum have been doing. Try to keep our Gold level below 300 Gold if you can and try your best to check the Science Slider on each turn that you switch to a 100% Science Rate, so that we will remain in Binary Science.

Also Banking can be interesting to research, for 2 reasons:
a) it opens Mercantilism, Toku's favourite civic
b) 1 free specialist/city is not bad for a Philo Leader

While these points are true, researching Banking requires us to learn TWO TECHS off of our beeline path: Guilds and Banking.

Please do not research these techs until AFTER we have learned Mass Media.

There is a VERY STRONG CHANCE that AFTER we trade for or learn Astronomy, we will be able to trade for BOTH of these techs. The AIs heavily favour researching these two techs.

Learning these two techs ourselves would not gain us anything but would HURT our Victory Date. Please stay focused on our chosen tech path: Printing Press until we are about 80% complete -> finish off Compass -> back to Printing Press -> Trade for Optics -> Trade for Astronomy if we can -> Scientific Method -> Physics -> Electricity -> Radio -> Mass Media.

So, yes you can eventually finish off Compass, but it might not happen until the next player's turnset--it depends on how many Scientists you are able to run and whether or not Justinian forces you out of Representation. Please don't finish Compass until we are almost done researching Printing Press (about 80% to 90% complete is my recommendation), so that we don't give the AIs too much of a head start on building Privateers.

Somewhere in that tech path, we will be forced to learn Liberalism. It will be the duty of each UP player to watch for an AI learning Paper. If an AI learns Paper, we should pause play and discuss the tech situation with the team, as it may change our plans. It is not EASY to spot that an AI has learned a tech--you have to watch the "Wants" column on the F4 -> TECHS screen to see if "Paper" disappears from that column. So, be extra vigilant--we are counting on your eyes!


Great Scientists

PP can be researched by a GS. It happens that we got one, should i burn him on that?

Please do not use up our Great Scientists now.

Here is our overall strategy:
1. Learn Printing Press slowly, the hard way. Doing so gives us three advantages:
a) It lets us get maximum benefit out of our free Flasks from Monastaries
AND
b) It lets us get more free GPP from the Parthenon
AND
c) It gives the AIs more time to learn Optics and Astronomy, SAVING US RESEARCH TIME

why pay maintenance for 1 unit if it can be so useful?

See the above reasons. 1 Gold per turn is very much worth the 14 Flasks (plus bonuses) per turn that we currently get from our Confucian Monastaries. The faster that we get to Scientific Method, the faster that our Confucian Monastaries will become obsolete. Trading away more than 14 Flasks per turn to save 1 Gold per turn is a very bad tradeoff, wouldn't you agree?


Military?

We're planning to use the whip extensively to build a military, so better do it next turn when Dehli and 3Clams will grow 1 pop, i think.

As I said, we should be running Pacifism, no Military Civics. That's been our strategy for quite some time now.

We got ourselves a little army; now is the time to focus on more Great Scientists.


Great Scientists and Liberalism
Okay, I think that you'll believe me better if I explain the possibilities.

We have a lot of assumptions to make here:
1. Assume that we can Trade for or manually research Optics but not Astronomy before the AIs have learned Education plus Philosophy.

In this case, we will be forced to take Liberliasm. If we have 2 Great Scientists saved up, we can immediately Lightbulb Astronomy and take Scientific Method with Liberalism.

2. Assume that we can Trade for or manually research Optics but not Astronomy because the AIs are slow in researching, so we are also not under pressure to learn Liberalism.

In this case, we can manually research Astronomy ourselves.

2. a) If partway through Astronomy we find that an AI may get Liberalism, we will use one Great Scientist to finish off Astronomy and we will take Scientific Method with Liberalism.

2. b) If we can manually complete Astronomy, without being in danger of losing Liberalism, we will do so.

We can manually start research on Scientific Method. If we are in danger of losing Liberalism, we can probably put some manual research into Scientific Method so that 2 Great Scientists can Lightbulb the rest of Scientific Method and then we can take Physics with Liberalism.

3. Assume that we can Trade for or manually research both Optics and Astronomy. Liberalism is in danger.

We will take Scientific Method with Liberalism.

4. Assume that we can Trade for or manually research both Optics and Astronomy. Liberalism is not immediately in danger.

We will manually research Scientific Method. We will use 1 to 2 Great Scientists to "finish off" Scientific Method if Liberalism is in danger. Then we will use Liberalism on Physics.

5. Assume that we can Trade for both Optics and Astronomy. Liberalism is not immediately in danger. You have also been really great at generating Great Scientists and have 5 to 6 Great Scientists.

We can manually research most of Scientific Method. If we are at risk of losing Liberalism, we can use one Great Scientist to finish off Scientific Method. IF YOU HAVE BEEN AWESOME AT GENERATING GREAT SCIENTISTS, then we can use 4 more Great Scientists to immediately Lightbulb Physics. Then we can take Electricity with Liberalism. THAT WOULD MAKE YOUR ULTIMATE GOAL TO GET 5 TO 6 GREAT SCIENTISTS!!! (6 would be in case we need to use 2 of them on Scientific Method).

If we can't get that many Great Scientists, then at least we'd be able to finish off Scientific Method with as many Great Scientist Lightbulbs as needed and then take Physics with Liberalism, using the remaining Great Scientists on Electricity.


Whales

I think it's better settle Whales so it can expand its borders and we gain some pop for the bulb.

Settling Whales now is premature. It will cost us money to settle it, more money than we can make back by working an improved Ice Silver square and getting the City's Trade Routes.

Further, as soon as we capture a Barb City, the cost of a Barb City will be considerably higher, too.

The cost of a City is MORE than the Maintenance Costs that you see within the City screen. The F2 screen's Financial Advisor will give you a clearer picture. Go and download test save game 16 and settle Whales with that game (you'll probably want to World Build yourself a Settler). You will find that the City will hurt our economy.

The same will be true now (although we're waiting on Irgy to update the test saved game, we won't suddenly "make more money" than in the last test saved game).


As for City growth? Well, as I said, we will lose money even if we work an improved Ice Silver. We will lose even more money if we work a different square.

Getting 3 more Flasks from a one-time Lightbulb is NOT worth losing 6 Gold per turn. Do you have a way of justifying the costs of settling Whales now? I really don't see it.


However, you can get Whales PREPARED:
a) Do not settle Whales on your turnset
AND
b) Get a Confucian Missionary at some point in your turnset for Whales, so that we can be ready to spread Confucianism when we do finally settle the City
AND
c) Irrigate the Grassland square W + W of Whales

However, please do NOT put a Road on the Iron there. You can put a Mine on the Iron if you want, but we will likely never use it, as Whales does not have enough Food to use it, and if we were to work a 0 Food square, working an Ice Silver would be a better choice, so we will likely never ever use that Iron anyway.


The Work Boat down there is in a good spot, as it is currently spawn-busting for Barb Galleys.


Whales is going to be an "end game" City. At best, it will work the Whale, the Grassland Irr square, 2 Grassland Hills Windmills, and two Ice Silvers. We have a lot of time left to us to build that City and still grow it. However, its squares are not powerful enough to make it worthwhile to build it now.


ONLY LATER, when we ABSOLUTELY NEED the Happiness from the Whale, should we consider build the City.

Since you are about to run Scientist Specialists everywhere, our Cities won't be growing and they won't need the Happiness.

Let us please not burden our economy with the cost of Whales while getting no benefit out of the City itself.

That city is close as Silverado to Dehli, so the maintenance can't be too high, even considering the increased number of cities (in any city). It can be largely compensated by the trade routes.

It is very high, because we don't have our Courthouses built yet. Part of your turnset's goal will be to build our Courthouses. As I said, check the F2 screen before and after building Whales in a test saved game. You will see that the cost of the City will be greater than working the best square (an Ice Silver) PLUS the Trade Route income... and chances are that we would work a Food-based square instead of the Ice Silver and the City would cost close to 6 Gold per turn counting the Trade Route income.

It is not the City's cost that matters--it is the cost to our empire. That is part of the reason why so many players over-expand and have their units go on Strike--because they fail to consider the empire-wide costs and only look at the City screen's listed City Maintenance Costs, failing to realise that other costs are involved, including Civic Upkeep empire-wide, increased City Maintenance costs spread out across all other Cities, as well as increased Inflation.

We will lose out bigtime and we can barely make money at a 0% Science Rate. It would be an economic mistake to settle Whales during your turnset.


Barbs Cities
As I discussed previously, we can build a Fort to connect a land-locked City. Connecting the Barb Cities, if they are not automatically connect to our Trade Network, should be a trivial matter.

There is a good chance that we will be able to capture a Barb Worker, since we see that they built a Road. DynamicSpirit could have put the Farm on the Wheat that we see, but the Road in the middle of nowhere would likely have been built by a Barb Worker.

If you want, you can also drop off a Worker in Basra and have him walk to Trebizond. We should have enough Worker actions completed at home to be able to afford the loss of one Worker now.

there's only room for a coastal city in the northenmost ip of the island or the small peninsula E, 3S+2W of Trebizond.

Recall that 3 Cities on a foreign continent costs you A LOT OF MAINTENANCE in Collonial Costs. The costs are not geometrically increasing, but likely logarithmic; in other words, if we put a 3rd City on that landmass, each of those Cities will probably cost us in the neighbourhood of 20 Gold per turn or more.

No, a Fort would be a far better choice, so there is no need to send a Settler over there.


Build Queues

- build queues for any city

I can help with those tomorrow. I already gave you some general suggestions to follow, as well as a few suggestions for which build items to change on T230.

One additional idea is as follows:
Wheaties: Maybe we should not hire any Scientists in Wheaties. Instead, we should build a Forge -> Chichen Itza for Failure Gold (do not complete the Wonder). We'll make far more money than we will by building Wealth and since this City is our production monster and it doesn't have a lot of excess Food, we're probably better focusing on getting Failure Gold here instead of running Scientists. Before Chichen Itza is complete, we can switch to building Angkor Wat for more Failure Gold.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Improvements

- improvements to build (farms or cottages, mainly, i've seen all the possible mines built) I will road as almost a priority and delete the signs of already built improvements.

No more Cottages. It is too late in the game to get any value from Cottages.

PFor squares I would leave untouched. They can be useful in a pinch for extra production but they do not have much value as PIrr squares, so it is best to leave them as PFor squares.

Grassland squares within a fat cross should get Farms.

Non-forested PFor squares should be handled on a case-by-case basis, based on whether they can get Forest regrowth.

For example:
Delhi: The N + N Plains should not get Farmed, as a Forest can grow there

Silverado: Build a Fort on one of the Tundra squares, say, the square S of the Tundra Deer. You can put a Road on this Fort. Also, build a Farm on the Grassland square 1W of the City.

Riverdale: Put a Farm on the PRiv square SW of Riverdale. Do not put a Farm on the PRiv 1S of Riverdale, as we want a Forest to grow there. Do not chop the Tundra For square, as we are saving it for the UN. Do not chop the GFor square NW + W + W of Riverdale, as we are saving it for the UN.

Bedrock: The GFor NW of Bedrock has nowhere to spread to. You can chop this Forest, but it would probably be better to wait until someone else's turnset to chop it, when we can use the Organized Religion bonus for the Forest chop. The Grassland square 1E of Bedrock (1SW of the GH Mine) can be Farmed now.

Wheaties: You can put a Farm on the Plains square NE of Wheaties (1SE of the PWheat), since Zara already chopped (and Farmed) the PFor that was 1N of there.

Grt Person Farm: It looks like we are already going to finish off the Grassland Farm E + E of the City, so do so.

Risaia: There are a couple of Grassland squares W and NW that could use Farms.

Crabs: It looks like we are in the middle of Farming the Grassland N + N of this City, so you should finish that off. The Plains square 1W of Crabs could use a Farm, since no Forest can grow there. Be smart about it: once Worker 6 has finished Farming the Grassland square N + N of Crabs, you can move 1S onto the PFor and build a Road/Stop. Then you can move 1SW to the Plains square 1W of Crabs to Farm.

Others have done a good job with manging their Worker actions, so please prove to us that you are capable of rising to this higher standard of play, too. Eyes are on you as the captain, expecting you to step up to the plate and accept the challenge.


Three Clams: There are two Plains squares here that cannot get Forests, so we might as well put Workshops on them. This City will probably not grow to its maximum size, due to it being a partial-Great-Person-Farm, so it can always grow later in the game by working 2-Food Coast squares. Putting Farms on these Plains squares won't really help the City, but having Workshops there might help at some point. Just about every other City should prioritize Farms over Workshops, though.

Sugar Daddy: The Worker here (Worker 4) has nothing left to do. You can consider "rescuing him" Galley 3 is done sending troops over to the west. He might be the perfect Worker to send to the west, to help build a Fort for our first captured Barb City.

Goldfish and Ivory Towers do not have Workers.

Whales: While we shouldn't settle the City during your turnset, unless you can somehow prove to us with a test game that we will not lose money by settling the City, we can at least prepare this City by:
putting a Farm on the Grassland square that SE + S + S of Delhi.

There is not much point improving the other squares near here yet, as they could get Forests to grow on them, and the more Forests that grow, the faster that we can get Whales up and running when we do settle it.

The only EXCEPTION to Whales City is if an AI sends a Settler Party nearby. Then you can settle Whales. So, you can pray and beg Zara to send a Settler our way. I do not really know why you would want to do so, though, once you see how much it will hurt our economy, losing us approximately 6 Gold per turn.


Roads

I will road as almost a priority

We really shouldn't need any more Roads than the signs already listed, except for a Road on the Fort by Silverado that I already mentioned. I think that I gave you a good list of places to put other improvements, mostly Farms, plus a couple of Workshops and a Fort, that should take priority over building Roads.

It will probably take all of your turnset to get all of those improvements build. Feel free to complete any Road that has a "Road" sign on it, but I would ask that you not build other Roads, as doing so could either mess up Forest regrowth or else delay our improvements for other squares.

Particularly, do not put a Road on our Horse, Iron, or Ivory Resources. The signs already ask you not to do so, but if you do not understand why (even though I've explained why a couple of times already), please ask why we should not build such Roads.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Naval Intelligence

sitting around doing nothing in Justinian's westernmost city.

By "westernmost" do you mean in a City near the Barb Cities or do you mean your "other west" aka "easternmost," close to Toku?


Our Economy is Hurting enough as it is--we must keep Open Borders with Toku

* As you noticed, Toku had something of a fleet which is sailing through our borders, probably to attack someone. We could disrupt this attack by closing borders with him (temporarily). Not sure whether we want to though.

If we Close Borders with Toku, we might never get them opened again. Plus, he is currently keeping our economy from crashing by supplying us with a lot of Trade Routes.

That's another good reason to avoid researching Banking and staying out of Mercantilism: if we got Mercantilism now, we would have NEGATIVE income at a 0% Science Rate. Yes, that's right. Our units would start to go ON STRIKE.


Begging

* I was literally 5 gold short of enough to get Zara into the war on T222, so I (successfully) begged 10gp off Justinian, who is (and was) pleased with us. I hope this bit of improvisation was ok I've since realised you advised to beg for 120gp off Zara himself instead, so apologies for not following that advice.

It's done now. Hopefully, Justinian will "forget" soon enough, because the Apostolic Palace cannot stop him from going to war with Zara.

We can at least "beg" 120 Gold (150 Gold by now) safely from Zara whenever someone (Toku? Justinian?) declares war on Zara, so we should save the opportunity to do so until we really need it.


We probably won't be able to beg from Justinian for a while now, but at least the worst that we would do is anger Zara for refusing to join the war on his side.

Paying Justinian to stop a war is also an option, especially if he will do so for just Civil Service (although it is unlikely that we would get so cheap of a bargain).


Toku is more powerful than the Normal Toku due to his multiple Open Borders agreements

* Something ridiculous is happening with Toku's tech rate, he's piling up technologies very quickly. He grabbed guilds in what seemed to be just a few turns. Both Tokugawa and Saladin have Optics now.

Well, that is kind of sucky, but not unexpected. He's been teching well all game.

Toku normally self-destructs because he doesn't get the Trade Route income that other Civs get, so he has to put more of a focus on building buildings like Libraries. He's probably also likely to be the first AI to research Education, not for a Liberalism beeline, but to build Universities.

The fact that he ALSO has Trade Route income, which is not normal for his games, makes him more powerful than in your average game, since he manages his economy well.

Once he gets Code of Laws (he is Organized so he gets Cheap Courthouses) and Civil Service, his tech rate will speed up even faster.

Since he picked up Guilds, though, he might self-destruct his tech rate by learning Banking and switching into Mercantilistm...

Normally, he wouldn't be trading with anyone anyway, so Mercantilism would boost his Civ. In this case, it would hurt him badly (and hurt us a little bit, too, as we are getting the best Trade Route income from his Cities).


Tech Trading--Actually, not Trading

* We've lost our monopoly on Philosophy. I've declined to trade it around though as only Saladin has it so far. Our monopoly on paper is still safe. Saladin offered us a ~900 beaker tech (can't remember offhand what it was) and 175 gold for Paper, so he hasn't researched most of it yet or anything.

Yes, there should be no reason to trade around Philosophy or Paper. If an AI demands one of those techs, then we'll need to pause play and assess the situation as a team.

Otherwise, we should hang onto these techs for as long as possible.


Galley 3 should be able to grab both Worker 4 and Longbowman 8 from Sugar Daddy and be able to send them westward, once it is done ferrying other troops to Basra

* I'm still in the middle of ferrying across troops to go after the barbarian city. There's also a longbow and a worker sitting in Sugardaddy. The galley build queued up in Bedrock was intended to fix that problem. Personally I think we could use another galley.

Okay, well Galley 3 can grab the Longbowman at the same time that it gets Worker 4 to send to the west.

We're not in a rush to build Galleys, especially when we're not running our Military Civics. We have enough--any extras will just sit around costing us 1 Gold per turn.

The Circumnavigation bonus that BLubz keeps bringing up should be sufficient to make up for not building another Galley.


AI-built Wonders

* Notre Dame and The Sistine Chapel have both been built. Sistine was Toku's, can't remember Notre Dame (but probably Toku as well). I have a feeling there was another wonder that went too.

The Sistine Chapel = Toku
Notre Dame = Saladin
The Colossus = Justinian

At least the Wonders are being "spread out" amongst the various AIs.


See a Previous Message about Great Scientists and how we'll use them under various scenarios

* We popped a Great Scientist.

I detailed the possibilities of what to do with Great Scientists so that the team isn't left second-guessing itself.


Trading for Techs--But only AFTER Astronomy and Liberalism

One thought I've had; is it worth getting Banking in trade at some point, to be able to run Mercantilism late in the game? It's not that great a civic, but it's Toku's favourite so we can please him, and it may help pump out the last of the four required great people (as well as fitting our specialist economy well.

Yes, late in the game.

After we've traded for or researched Astronomy, we can wait to win the Liberalism race. After that point, we can consider trading away techs like Education in exchange for Engineering, Guilds, and Banking. We should not take Gunpowder in trade, though, as that would ruin our Great Scientists' Lightbulbing.

We don't want to do ANY of this trading before we have learned both Astronomy and Liberalism, though, as we want the chance to get Astronomy without encountering WFYABTA problems and we don't want to give away techs that lead to Liberalism so that we can delay learning Liberalism for as long as possible, to get better value out of it.


4 Great People for the End of the Game

I think we really quite soon need to start considering saving our great people and whether we'll be delayed by the need for four unused ones.

We have quite a fair chunk of the tech tree left to research. There will be sufficient time to generate our Great People. Consider that we can even get a Great General from a bit of fighting with Mehmed to count as one of our Great People. That's justficiation enough for some late-game fighting with him (but only after we learn Liberalism and have less Cities trying to pump out Great Scientists).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

(synthetic, please)

I don't really know in what context you are trying to use the word synthetic.

The dictionary says that "Latin is a synthetic language, while English is analytic," but that still doesn't really help me to understand what you are trying to say, as I don't really know how they're using "analytic" in that context, either.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Barb Cities

And missionaries, of course!

We might want to send one Confucian Missionary to the west for the first Barb City.

Since we want to be able to build 2 Confucian Missionaries in Ivory Towers, one after the other, we probably wont' be able to send 2 Confucian Missionaries to the west for a while, but we can certainly send one of them.

Once we have Buddhism in most of our Cities (remember, do not spread Buddhism in Riverdale), then we can also consider sending 1 to 2 Buddhist Missionaries to the west.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

War Allies against Mehmed

Can we declare an Holy War, so the other members will join?

Mehmed has at least one Confucian City. Until we capture that City (sometime after Liberalism), we cannot drag others into war with him using the Apostolic Palace.

AFTER we capture or raze all of his Confucian Cities, we will certainly be able to drag others into the war using the Apostolic Palace. But that's a couple of turnsets away.


What about Isabella vs Mehmed?

Well, assuming that Justinian sends his 2 Galleys east next turn, we won't be his war target.

That leaves you with two choices:
1. Switch Civics to Caste System & Pacifism on T231. Hire Scientist Specialists just about everywhere (except maybe in Wheaties, Goldfish, and Ivory Towers). Hope that Isabella decides to join our war.
OR
2. Switch Civics to Caste System & Pacifism on T231. Switch Religion to Hinduism on T231. Hire Scientist Specialists only in Delhi and Grt Person Farm, since those 2 Cities have Hinduism in them. Grow, grow, grow in other Cities (although you would still work the Incense in Mystic instead of a GFor). In 5 turns, when you switch back to Confucianism, you will hire Scientists everywhere, hoping to be able to hire maybe 1 more Scientist in a few Cities, thanks to growing our Cities. In the meantime, you can bribe Isabella into our war with Mehmed. If she will accept Aesthetics, that's probably the best tech to give to her. If not, then Machinery is probably the second best tech to give to her, as she doesn't have Iron yet in order to be able to use that tech for Military units.


The Implication of the above Choices
The first option lets us get started on generating our Great Scientists sooner but leaves the war situation up to chance. The greatest danger is that Mehmed may think that he can get Zara to capitulate, so he might Defy the Apostolic Palace Resolution to stop the war against Zara.

The second option still lets us get started on generating our Great Scientists in our two key Cities while allowing other Cities to grow some more (don't go whipping, though--the whole point of using those extra 5 turns is to get more population everywhere, so that we can hire even more Scientist Specialists 5 turns later). We'd also secure Isabella as our war ally, instead of leaving that war up to chance. In addition, Mehmed would almost certainly feel the pressure for 3 AIs and would probably even vote Yes to stop the War against Zara, feeling happy to take some of the pressure off of him.


Additional Factors for helping us to decide between the above Choices
Now, since we are very close to the Happiness limit in a couple of our Cities (Crabs has 0 extra Happiness and Three Clams has 1 extra Happiness, for example), we might make a City immediately unhappy (Crabs) or unhappy within the next few turns (Three Clams) if we follow the second option. Also, the second option loses out on the potential for us to maximize our Scientist Specialists everywhere.

So, from a pure economic standpoint, the first option is the best choice.

However, we can consider the second option if you don't mind temporarily growing into unhappiness in Three Clams (you can always stuff a Military Unit into Three Clams, such as Longbowman 4, within a couple of turns of movement points). We could also consider building a Forge for 1 turn in Crabs and then whipping it on T231 BEFORE we switch our Civics. Since Crabs grows quickly and we'd get 2 Happiness (from the Forge) for 1 Unhappiness (from whipping) in this whipping deal, so we would come out ahead Happiness-wise. Other Cities aren't really near their Happiness caps, so they shouldn't be adversely affected by temporarily losing 1 Happiness from not being in Confucianism and can keep growing for those extra 5 turns.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Build Queue Recommendations
Delhi: Finish Oxford University -> Buddhist Monastary -> Hindu Monastary -> Christian Monastary -> Hindu Missionaries (for Cities like Crabs that could use an extra Temple for Happiness purposes and Cities like Goldfish and Riverdale that could use additional Cultural Buildings)

Silverado: Finish the Confucian Temple -> Confucian Monastary -> Forge -> Courthouse

Riverdale: Finish the Forge -> Courthouse -> Taoist Missionaries (for Cities like Crabs that could use more Happiness) -> eventually Hindu buildings once Hinduism is spread here

Bedrock: T230: Remove the Galley from the build queue. Finish the Confucian Monastary -> Forge -> Courthouse -> Buddhist Temple -> Buddhist Monastary -> Lighthouse

Wheaties: Finish the Forge -> Chicen Itza for Failure Gold -> Angkor Wat for Failure Gold -> Courthouse

Grt Person Farm: T230: Switch the Buddhist Missionary to a Buddist Monastary. Buddhist Monastary -> Two Buddhist Missionaries (Three Buddhist Missionaries if one failed to spread earlier--just remember not to build one for Riverdale, as Riverdale must not get Buddhism if we are to gift this City to Zara later) -> Courthouse -> More Religious buildings (Monastaries if we have a lot of excess Happiness for more bonus Flasks; Temples if we are low on Happiness)

Risaia: Finish the Forge -> Lighthouse -> Courthouse

Crabs: T230: Switch the Courthouse to a Forge. Forge -> Jewish Temple -> Courthouse

Three Clams: Finish the Confucian Monastary -> Confucian Missionary (goes west for the northern Barb City) -> Forge -> Buddhist Temple -> Courthouse -> Buddhist Monastary

Sugar Daddy: Finish the Forge -> Confucian Monastary -> Courthouse -> Library

Goldfish: Finish the Lighthouse -> Buddhist Monastary (we need more Cultural output here BADLY) -> Monument -> Library (the sooner that we can get more Missionaries here, the sooner that we can go back to building Monastaries--otherwise we might lose this City to Saladin's Culture)

Ivory Towers: T230: Whip the Lighthouse. Finish the Lighthouse -> Confucian Monastary -> Two Confucian Missionaries for Isabella -> Confucian Temple -> Forge

Mystic: T230: Work an Incense instead of the S + S GFor. Confucian Monastary -> Forge -> Courthouse -> Buddhist Religious buildings (it will be a long time before you will need Buddhism here, so you can wait to spread the Buddhist Missionary that is walking to here for a number of turns, to better ensure a successful spreading)

Whales' Settler: Skips his turn and does not settle. Only if an AI Settler Party shows up will he Settle. Granary -> Lighthouse (really though, please don't settle this City as our economy is only being held together by Trade Routes--if a few AIs switch into Mercantilism, our units will go on strike if we settle a City like this one and capture a Barb City).



Note that since I do not have a test saved game (Irgy, can you get one to us during your tonight?), I gave more build queue items that you can probably possibly finish within your turnset. Some Cities might be making only a couple of Hammers per turn, so do not feel the pressure to try and complete every build item that I listed. I was more concerned with giving you "extra" items to build, just in case one City was really quick in building its items and I didn't want you to be saying "okay, I'm done the list, now what?"


Other VERY, VERY, VERY important things to do
T230: Cancel Open Borders with Zara
T230: Cancel Wheat deal with Zara
T230: Trade Wheat to Zara for whatever Gold per Turn that he will give us. Gift him Wheat if he will not give us any Gold per Turn.
T240: Cancel Wheat deal with Zara
T240: Trade Wheat to Zara for whatever Gold per Turn that he will give us. Gift him Wheat if he will not give us any Gold per Turn.
T250: Cancel Wheat deal with Zara
T250: IF we do not need the excess Health by this point, trade Wheat to Zara for whatever Gold per Turn that he will give us. Gift him Wheat if he will not give us any Gold per Turn. If we need the excess Health from the Wheat at this point, then Zara can go without our Wheat for a while and we will still keep the "Supplied us with Resources" Diplo bonus for a while.

 

[Mitchum]

Good job, Irgy!

I'm still on vacation. I've spent a total of 10 minutes trying to quickly read over 100 posts, so I am not caught up. It looks like things are going well.

Good luck, BLubmuz!

 

[BLubmuz]

First, i surely will post the save with a day of delay respect the schedule. It's not my fault.
Also, i can play tomorrow if my PPP will be approved in less than 24 hours. Unfortunately, i couldn't find the time to deeply analyze the proposals.

So, PPP v.1.0 turn 230-250

The major event that can occur will happen IBT 230-231. If Just moves his galleys inside our borders i'll know that i have nothing to fear from him. Otherwise, i must prepare for a defensive war.
This event will affect:
- our planned troop movement through his territory, since thay cannot be safe and they would move too slow.
- all the plans regarding galleys in his cities to ferry units to the barb island
- our civics switch
- i hope it won't affect our diplo situation with him, because i will end the war ASAP and renegotiate OB and trades ASAP.

so,
- case a) Just just (ahem ) moves his galleys inside our borders (he has some other target):
civics: Repr, CS, Pacifism /religion: stay Confu (we're now running Repr/Slavery/OR)
- case b) Just keeps his galleys right outside our borders, waiting for the end of forced peace:
switch to PS/Theo for 5 turns, to have a handful of units built. Then switch as in case a).
I will wait next turn (231) to see what Just will do.

Cities builds:
Delhi: Finish Oxford University -> Buddhist Monastery -> Hindu Monastery -> Christian Monastery -> Hindu Missionaries (for Cities like Crabs that could use an extra Temple for Happiness purposes and Cities like Goldfish and Riverdale that could use additional Cultural Buildings)

Silverado: Finish the Confucian Temple -> Confucian Monastery -> Forge -> Courthouse

Riverdale: Finish the Forge -> Courthouse -> Taoist Missionaries (for Cities like Crabs that could use more Happiness) -> eventually Hindu buildings once Hinduism is spread here

Bedrock: T230: Remove the Galley from the build queue. Finish the Confucian Monastery -> Forge -> Courthouse -> Buddhist Temple -> Buddhist Monastary -> Lighthouse

Wheaties: Finish the Forge -> Chicen Itza for Failure Gold -> Angkor Wat for Failure Gold -> Courthouse

Grt Person Farm: T230: Switch the Buddhist Missionary to a Buddist Monastery. Buddhist Monastery -> Two Buddhist Missionaries (Three Buddhist Missionaries if one failed to spread earlier--just remember not to build one for Riverdale, as Riverdale must not get Buddhism if we are to gift this City to Zara later) -> Courthouse -> More Religious buildings (Monasteries if we have a lot of excess Happiness for more bonus Flasks; Temples if we are low on Happiness)

Risaia: Finish the Forge -> Lighthouse -> Courthouse

Crabs: T230: Switch the Courthouse to a Forge. Forge -> Jewish Temple -> Courthouse

Three Clams: Finish the Confucian Monastery -> Confucian Missionary (goes west for the northern Barb City) -> Forge -> Buddhist Temple -> Courthouse -> Buddhist Monastery

Sugar Daddy: Finish the Forge -> Confucian Monastery -> Courthouse -> Library

Goldfish: Finish the Lighthouse -> Buddhist Monastery (we need more Cultural output here BADLY) -> Monument -> Library (the sooner that we can get more Missionaries here, the sooner that we can go back to building Monasteries--otherwise we might lose this City to Saladin's Culture)

Ivory Towers: T230: Whip the Lighthouse. Finish the Lighthouse -> Confucian Monastery -> Two Confucian Missionaries for Isabella -> Confucian Temple -> Forge

Mystic: T230: Work an Incense instead of the S + S GFor. Confucian Monastery -> Forge -> Courthouse -> Buddhist Religious buildings (it will be a long time before you will need Buddhism here, so you can wait to spread the Buddhist Missionary that is walking to here for a number of turns, to better ensure a successful spreading)

Those builds are for case a). If unfortunately b) happens, looking to our cities build potential, only Dehli can build units in a decent time without need to whip the hell.
I must know if i have to whip the hell or if i can just use the units for the barb campaign to defend and build a couple maces in Dehli. Actually, i can't see a great benefit from Vassallage and a switch to PS only for a city is not worth, IMHO. So i think we can just switch from OR to Theo to gain 2XP (it's enough fot the first promo, anyway) and after 2 units are built switch to Pacifism.

There's a flaw in the workers action proposed: worker 6, now farming near Crabs is in danger in case of war. so, better move him in a safe place. Probably the best option is to road that strange desert tile.
I noticed Just does not have CS yet, so if he attacks, we'll see LB, axes, swords, cats or chariots. Luckily he lacks guilds and HBR too, so he can't have his powerful UU.

Workers:
aside the one i wrote above, basically farms everywhere but near a forest, in the hope that something will grow. Roads to connect the cities, no more.
I've seen Dhoom recommended a couple of Workshops for Crabs. Over the forests?
I will see a workshop also for Risaia, its production is ridiculous without slavery.

Specialists:
Scientists everywhere, as much as possible while let the city slowly grow.

No use of whip if not in the inherited turn where planned.

Inform the team only if a major unexpected event happens. What Just will do is already been discussed and we already decided the countermeasures.

I will give in to any demand but for paper or philo.

Binary research:
as soon as i will have enough gold to run it for 1 turn, i will raise the slider.
Only exception the inherited turn, since we'll complete the OU next one.
Our present rate is about 22%, so i must run 4 turns at 0% and only 1 at 100%.

Various:
i've seen your points for Whales: i just keep an eye if a settler party appears, otherwise, not in this TS.
there're some chops in Wheaties/Mystic area: shoud i use them?

Not clear why you want a fort: i see that a galley can better move, but i think this will be our last priority.