One quick but important question: How many turns am I playing?
I'm sure I could figure it out by looking somewhere but it's easier to ask.
15 turns per turnset was the last value that we used, and I just played two people's turnsets. BLubz made a passing remark about needing to increase the amount of turns per turnset but nothing was formalized, so plan for 15 turns until the team agrees to change that number.
That said, it is my personal belief that we've done best as a team when we play about 7 to 8 turns at a time with a partial PPP.
Really, you can write the PPP however you want--write out the whole 15 turns if that works best for you, but if you play for around 7 to 8 turns and then pause play to get feedback, it can help you to better react to the changing game situation. Pausing for feedback after that number of turns can also help to keep you focused on the game--most of us, myself included, seem to lose focus after about that many turns and it can help to pause play and involve the team to get a better perspective on what to do with the next half of the turnset.
Test Saved Game
It seems that now many important decisions are diverging between the test game and the real game (either before or, more critically, during the turn set). So, the plan is this:
Ideally, I will update the test saved game according to my latest turnset, so that it'll match as closely as possible. I don't have the time to do so currently, which is the issue. I thought about doing so tonight but writing the rest of this message took up all of the time that I could allocate before going to bed. Tomorrow is a busy day for me, but I will see if I can do so on my Friday afternoon (which would be your Saturday morning). That doesn't give you a lot of time to make adjustments, but it is what it is. Still, I can do my best to review what you write in the meantime and can provide "insider info" that you might not get from the test saved game, such as the fact that we have already researched Paper.
* I run through the test game (again - I did get to look through it the other night for all that I didn't post about it) and write down everything I do. Post it up, get comments about what things I'm doing wrong (or at least, suboptimally).
* I repeat this process as many times as necessary, although hopefully only once more. The write-up from the last test run becomes the final PPP that I will use for the real game.
Sure, that sounds fine.
There's a lot to keep track of, but the more "possible decisions" that you have to make that you can capture in the PPP, the more we can ensure that we're all onboard with each other.
For example, it is my recommendation that you go out of your way not to meet Mehmed--i.e. don't explore Isabella's land or beyond it. If you put a simple statement to that effect in your PPP, everyone will know that this idea made it into your plan.
Likewise, things like getting a Buddhist Missionary to Isabella or a Confucian Missionary to Goldfish are good things to point out--then we'll know what sorts of things you are going to try to accomplish (and can argue for or against these things, as well as argue for you to include additional things in your plans), and your test saved game can help to validate approximately when you'll fit these items into your build queue.
Research
* Research Paper->Education->Liberalism (but don't finish it!)
I'm fine with that approach, but unlike in the test saved game that you have, we actually just finished learning Paper in the real saved game, so you won't need to research it anymore. Still, I don't think that you'll get past these techs within your turnset, so we shouldn't need to plan past them, but if you somehow get that far advanced, you can always stop play and let us know about the overall AI tech situation, so we can decide what to go for next (if a few AIs have Metal Casting, we'll probably be able to get it and maybe Machinery in trade, for example, and wouldn't need to chase after those techs).
University Cities
* Prepare at least six cities to have libraries and 6 population by the time Education comes in. Which 6 cities? I'm thinking:
1. Dehli
2. GP farm
3. Risaia
4. Bedrock
5. Riverdale (Unis give culture, and it's just about already prepared anyway)
6... Not sure. Wheaties is busy with the AP. Silverside is busy with the Maoi Statues. Three-clams, Crabs, or Sugardaddy are probably the best candidates, maybe I'll pick whichever one is able to get there
This issue is a tough call.
Silverado
If we chop 2 Forests into Silverado while using the Confucian Organized Religion bonus, those Forests will give us 88 Hammers each, for a total of 176 of the needed 375 Hammers for Moai Statues. Given that we already have 47 Hammers invested, that leaves us 375 - 176 - 47 = 152 Hammers to self-build.
At a rate of 9 Hammers per turn (8 if we are temporarily asked to switch into Buddhism), would take us: 152 / 9 = 17 turns, or in the worst case where we don't get the Organized Religion bonus, 152 / 8 = 19 turns.
So, Moai will be ready, assuming that you can chop into it or that someone else can finish the chopping into it at the start of the next turnset, as late as 4 turns after your turnset.
Given Silverado's rate of growth, it will have grown to Size 6 at the end of your turnset and thus will be working all 4 Lakes.
That would give it 8 base Hammers and 6 population points, but it would still need to build both a Library and a University.
Depending upon the timing of Education, it's an option.
Wheaties
I think that you're right in that Wheaties will be focused on building the Apostolic Palace, so it can't count as one of our University Cities. I would not even consider buiding a Library for whipping overflow, as that building would require us to whip 3 population points just to get the same amount of Hammer overflow that we can get from whipping a Missionary for 2 population points.
For your PPP, I wouldn't mind seeing how you plan to do the whipping in Wheaties spelled-out on a turn-by-turn basis, as it is pretty critical when performing whipping overflow from one item to the other not to invest too many Hammers into the build item that you are whipping for overflow. If you forget to whip your build item after 1 turn of Hammers invested and accidentally spend 2 turns investing Hammers such that the build item goes from requiring 2 population to whip down to 1 population to whip, that will be 2 turns' worth of "normal" production lost. By "normal" production, I mean by just working Mines and building the Apostolic Palace directly.
In addition, whipping that build item would net us virtually no extra Hammers, while it would reduce the City's Size such that we wouldn't be working one of the Mines for a little bit of time. Basically, missing the timing by one turn can cost us the Apostolic Palace. If it comes to that point where you've invested turns on a build item, such as a Temple or a Missionary, and you find that it will now cost you 1 population point to whip it, DO NOT WHIP IT. Instead, forget about building that build item until after the Apostolic Palace is built--that will at least save the population point to continue working a Mine, so while the situation is bad, it wouldn't be made worse.
For other Cities, the timing is not so critical, so I care a bit less if you don't detail that info and if you accidentally whip a turn later in a different City or whatever... but you really need to work out the details of Wheaties so that you're clear on what needs to be done there and exactly on which turns you need to do what. You can refer to my Partial PPP3 by searching for the keyword "Wheaties," to get an idea of how I was swapping squares worked by citizens (PIrr vs PH Mine) based on which build item I was building. When I wasn't ready to whip (say, I wasn't in Slavery anymore), I'd put 1 turn of Hammers into the Missionary and then my PPP would say that I would "go back to building the Apostolic Palace," which just meant switching the order of the Missionary and the Apostolic Palace in the build queue so that the Apostolic Palace came first, until I was able to switch back into Slavery and put the Missionary as the first build item in the build queue in order to whip it.
I am going to assume that you know how to switch build items in a queue, as there are several different ways of doing so (Shift+Clicking, Ctrl+Clicking, clicking on build items to remove them, etc), but if you need help on that point, just ask.
Bedrock
If we don't whip Bedrock that much or at all for the next little while, it can probably count as a University City by building a Library using Hammers and slow-growing to Size 6 for being able to whip the University, especially if it steals squares like the PMarble and/or PCow, or if you can manage to build a Mine on the GHFor NE + E of Bedrock.
Delhi
Delhi will be a no-brainer, and we might even be better off just Hammering out the University instead of whipping there, especially if other Cities are lagging behind in getting their Universities out.
Grt Person Farm
With a Library already in this City, we'll just need to agree on sacrificing population to whip a University there, and we're set. Since I think that we can all agree on that point, especially seeing as how our Republic-infused Scientist Specialists will benefit from having a cheap University in the City, this City should be trivial to build a University in.
Riverdale
This City also has a Library and we are building Cultural buildings there, so a cheap University would be an excellent building to put there. We should be able to easily grow the City to Size 6 in time (we're currently at Size 3 with 5 Food surplus per turn).
Risaia
While we lack a Library here (it has a few Hammers invested into one and will get a few more from Hammer-overflow from a Work Boat on Turn 193, since I've already whipped the Work Boat on Turn 192), as long as we get enough Farms here, we should be able to whip both a Library and a University here.
It may take a bit longer time than the other Cities, but we should hopefully be able to whip the Library for just 2 population points when we are at the City Size where we have a full Foodbox and growing 1 more in Size will lead us to working an unimproved Foodbox. The only exception to delay whipping under that scenario would be if we are close to having a Confucian Missionary showing up there, in which case we'd want to wait to whip until we could whip while using the Organized Religion bonus.
Crabs
I expect that this City will be busy first with whipping Buddhist Missionaries and then building a Lighthouse. I don't think that we'll be able to make it one of our initial 6 University Cities.
Three Clams
If you send both Work Boats that I just whipped to this City and if you build a Lighthouse next (instead of the currently queued-up Library), then I think we'll have a strong chance of making this City one of our 6 University Cities. Without the Lighthouse, though, I don't think that this City will grow fast enough to be able to whip both a Library and a University.
Another tip for this City: On T192, it should work the PCow, which it is already doing. On T193, it should work the Clam. Why? If we instead work the Clam immediately, we can grow to Size 2 one turn faster. Why delay growth?
The answer:
Since we just whipped a Granary there, we want to delay growing by a slight bit immediately, due to the way that Granary overflow works.
Scenario a) If we work: T192 = PCow, T193 = Clam, T197 = Clam and PCow
On T198, we will end up with 24 Food in the Foodbox
Scenario b) If, however, we work: T192 = Clam, T196 = Clam and PCow
On T198, we will only have 22 Food in the Foodbox
The number of Hammers generated in either scenario will be identical, because the extra turn of working the second square (the PCow) in Scenario b) on T196, while we are still at Size 1 in Scenario a), will equal the extra turn of working the PCow on T192 in Scenario a), in terms of Hammers. All other turns will have equivalent Hammer output.
So, just with a tiny bit of micro on T193 (switching the PCow to a Clam), we make 2 Food out of thin air for free.
Sugar Daddy
This City is still building a Granary. It also only has so much Food to go around, even if we were to steal the Fish from Mystic (and I do not advise that we steal the Fish from Mystic--Mystic is using the Fish to build a Worker), which would not be enough Food (even with that Fish) to get us to where we need to be in time for whipping a University.
Sugar Daddy will therefore not be able to be one of our 6 University Cities.
So, that leaves us with a list of:
1. Dehli
2. GP farm
3. Three Clams (maybe Risaia, but Risaia might be better as a Missionary-pumping City)
4. Bedrock
5. Riverdale
6. Silverado
* Spread Buddism as much as possible.
Yes, with an emphasis on Cities that can spread it. Here's a relative suggestion of City-ordering:
1. Wheaties--this City can just as equally whip Buddhist Missionaries for overflow Hammers into the Apostolic Palace as it can Confucian Missionaries. We will have to stay in Org Religion just to be able to build Missionaries, though, and of course staying in this Civic lets us get the best chance at being the first to building The Apostolic Palace. Building the Apostolic Palace before all of the other AIs is not a "given fact" at this point--we really need you to stay on top of Wheaties' production for your turnset and that should be your #1 goal--ensuring that Wheaties is building the right things at the right times, whipping at the right times, and working the correct squares at the right times on every single turn.
2. Risaia. While this City will be tight for becoming one of our 6 University Cities, it can be slated as our "backup" University City. Since we still need to build some Farms here, we can potentially afford to have one Worker (out of Workers 1 and 6--Worker 6 will come over from the Goldfish area within your turnset) work on improving Bedrock, such as by Mining the GHFor NE + E of Bedrock, since Risaia will be whipping Buddhist Missionaries and won't need THAT many improved squares to work. If we want, we can dedicate Risaia and Crabs to be our Buddhist Missionary "whipping centres" and thus we can focus on building Libraries and Universities (plus first a Lighthouse in Three Clams) in 6 Univerisity Cities, dropping Risaia off of the list.
3. Cities that could use the Organized Religion bonus, if we get asked to switch into Buddhism. I'd start with Delhi, since it will be busy with Wonder-building, then the other 6 University Cities.
No, there is no rush here. I've found when playing Cultural games that you almost always want to spread your religion domestically before you spread it to foreign Cities. An exception to this rule might be when you first spread a Religion to an AI that has no Religion within their borders.
So, focus on domestic spread and in a future turnset we can deal with how to spread Buddhism beyond our borders.
Confucianism
If you agree to my 6 University Cities' selection, then you can thank me for having prepared those Cities in advance with Confucianism. They all have the Religion.
There is a Confucian Missionary that was just whipped in Wheaties that you can use.
My recommendation is to send it to Goldfish. If we agree with the plan to "protect Zara" by building the Apostolic Palace using Confucianism, and am strongly leaning towards this approach, then it will help for us to get Confucianism in Goldfish ASAP.
Not only will we thereby have Goldfish containing the Religion, such that if an AI captures the City, we can vote to stop a war, but also, we'll be slowly building up our cultural precense in the City, which will be important for being able to vote the City back into our hands.
It would HELP to get a couple of more Confucian Missionaries for our other Cities, starting with Risaia and Crabs, but you should make sure that Goldfish has the Religion first, meaning that if spreading Confucianism fails in Goldfish, keep sending Missionaries there until we are successful. Recall that a larger population is helpful, so if Risaia and Crabs are busy "using up" the 3 Buddhist Missionaries that we can have maximimum at a time both built and in build queues, then temporarily stop whipping in Goldfish in order to grow the City so that we have the best chance of successfully spreading Confucianism there.
On each turn, the plan is to:
* Check the event log for anything interesting.
* Cycle through each city, and confirm it's doing what it's supposed to be doing, and working the right tiles. The PPP can help with this, but for example in the test game Izzy (who's really meant to be Saladin) culture-stole the crabs from the crab city, and this may or may not happen on the same turn or even at all in the real game.
* Load the F4 screen and review tech, resource trades, AND AI Attitudes (the GLANCE screen).
* Glance at the display on the right to see score changes, WHEOUHRN, new cities, etc.
Sounds good. I added one more F4 screen for you to check, because it is important to know who is who's Worst Enemy, as well as who is Friendly with who and will thus likely "give away" any tech that you give up in a Demand, and I am pretty sure that you can only get half of the Worst Enemy info when talking to an AI in the trading screen (I'm not sure if it's who is their Worst Enemy or who's Worst Enemy they are, but I think that you only get one of those two pieces of info from the trading screen).
Other Things to Remember (and probably put in the PPP as "things to remember" or "strategic decisions" or something, so that we know which ones you'll be following)
Anything else I need to remember to do each turn?
Maybe not "per turn" per say, but there are a number of things for you to "keep in mind" that "could happen" on any given turn. I've already listed several such things in the last few messages since my last partial turnset, including in the partial turnset report, so be sure to go over that info and collect the relevant points into your PPP, so that we know which items you'll be following.
Some strategy comments:
Why are we building the U. Sankore anyway? Is it just the fact that we seem to be total wonder-whores?
Maybe...
Is it that we've kind of filled in our land and don't have that much better to do?
No.
If we run Buddhism, it would only be at most 2 beakers per city, which we only get by building temples
Up to 4 per turn in Cities that build the Monastaries, before Scientific Method comes in. That means helping out on research of all of the techs up to and including Astronomy, Printing Press, and part of Liberalism, plus possibly Economics should the AIs happen to trade us Banking.
Still, let's discount the Monastary bonus, as we'll probably only build those buildings in a couple of Cities.
The Temples, if you'll recall, are super-cheap for a Spiritual Civ. They also give us Happiness, which, in a whipping-happy Civ (which we were under my rule for 30 turns and although others may play differently, the unhappiness effects will be around for a little while) will help out. Plus, we are relying on a lot of AIs to trade us Happiness Resources at the moment; if we go to war with them, it will be nice to have a backup source of Happiness, right?
So, I would argue that most Cities will be building these Temples anyway.
The University of Sankore also gives us extra Scientist GPP, which we are in favour of getting.
It also requires Stone to build, which not only do we have, but we have a relative monopoly on that Resource, giving us a great shot at being the ones to build the Wonder.
While The University of Sankore, if you are a Space Race player and you don't normally chase after Religions like we did in our game, often expires before you get the full use out of it, in this game, we will not only be building the Temples, but we will not research the tech that obsoletes it (Computers), meaning that these bonus Flasks will be useful right up until the end of the game.
In terms of being able to convert our Hammers into Flasks, which in a game where we are limited mostly by Research would seem to be a good thing to be able to do, building the University of Sankore for this bonus-Hammer to Flask conversion seems like a great reason to build this Wonder.
Although we will hopefully not need Biology, should we manage to build Mass Media and still need to keep teching, this Wonder will still be pumping out Flasks for us at that stage of the game. It will also keep pumping out Flasks when we need to switch into Police State, while our Scientists won't be able to make the same claim to fame due to their loss of the Republic bonus when we're running Police State.
Admittedly I'm more used to a beaurocracy oxford cottage capital providing most of the research through a 100% slider, rather than this more spread out specialist economy though.
That's yet another good reason--our Flask input is spread across several different Cities already, half of which will be getting Libraries and Universities for certain anyway, so a few more Flasks everywhere will be helpful, as we'll still get 3 Flasks instead of 2 Flasks in every City that has both a Library and a University (2 * 150% = 3), regardless of our Science Rate value.
Whipping vs Workers
Personally I'd rather free up Dehli to pump out the Buddhist missionaries so that we can let some of the other cities grow rather than constantly whipping them all to death.
While we now have all of our Cities working improved squares, this situation is only sustainable if we whip in some Cities, due to our lack of Workers to go around. We're working on that situation by building Workers for 2 of our new Cities, but part of the strategy means that we'll have to keep a couple of Cities small while we invest the Worker turns in other Cities.
Risaia and Crabs are my suggestions for Cities that will be whipping a lot, while Wheaties can whip a bit for extra-Hammer purposes and most of the other Cities will be able to grow.
While you make a very convincing argument with your Bureaucracy analysis, and I like the information that you came up with, one of the conclusions that we came up with was that "other factors" may override the decision to avoid building items that already have a "production bonus" on them. "Being the first to a World Wonder" is one such "other factor."
Since we're on a map with a lot of Coast and not many Hills squares, nowhere else besides Delhi can really pump out Wonders in time to beat the AIs.
Bureaucracy used to build Wonders faster than the AIs is still a good use for this Civic and it's better than not running Bureaucracy at all. That said, it is actually a GREAT use of Bureaucracy if we can consistently beat the AIs to Wonders on Emperor level.
Further, with Granaries in place, we actually get more production across our empire by whipping Missionaries in Cities with a reasonably-high Food surplus than we do by building them using Hammers in the capitol. So, while your argument for building non-bonus items in Delhi is a good one, and it applies in many games where you have multiple Hammer-producing Cities, in this particular game where we:
a) Do not have a good Hammer-producing City outside of the capitol (that is not already busy building The Apostolic Palace)
and
b) Where a primary source of production can still viably come from whipping high Food-surplus Cities that will not have improved squares to work if they grow in size
, we are going to get more effective use out of Delhi by dedicating it to building the Wonders that we want, while whipping our Missionaries in Cities like Crabs and Risaia.
Military Units
And longbows or other military so that we don't lose quite so many cities from a DOW before we can start to defend ourselves.
As part of my "collaboration" with you on your Bureaucracy discovery, I pointed out the that Police State bonus would apply in the same way as the Wonder-Resource-based bonus and the Organized Religion bonus, such that these bonuses are additive to Bureaucracy and not multiplicative to Bureaucracy.
So, the capitol is equally unsuited, given your Bureaucracy analysis, to be our military-pumping City as it is to be our Wonder-building City, assuming that we had another place to build Military units and/or Wonders. Since we don't have another spot to build Wonders but we have many other spots that can build Military units, Delhi is actually ill-suited to the task of Military-unit production from a Hammer-efficiency standpoint.
I would much rather see us do the following:
1. Whip the Universities
2. Switch into Police State, Theocracy, and probably even Vassalage
3. Use the overflow Hammers into Military units across our Empire, and then build military units for a few turns
4. Whip the remaining Military units in build queues as it comes time to switch Civics
5. Go back to having the Cities doing whatever they were going to be doing (building Temples, Missionaries, Courthouses, etc).
That way, we'd get the most out of our Civic Switches and wouldn't have to run Police State, Theocracy, and maybe Vassalage for a large number of turns, allowing us to focus on other Civics for the other turns.
Should we not get enough Military units out of this process, we can grow our Cities again for a bit and then repeat the process when we're ready to whip a few Military units again.
Theocracy and AIs
What is the benefit of gifting the missionary to Izzy rather than just using it directly? If she's in Theocracy, she can't use the missionary herself any more than we can.
Okay, I will try and share my knowledge on AIs running Theocracy. Hopefully, this info will help to clear up the confusion around the subject.
Isabella is currently running Theocracy.
That means that she cannot receive any Religion other than her State Religion via "automatic spread" of a Religion.
It also means that no other player can spread a Religion that is not her State Religion via a Missionary to one of her Cities.
However, there is NO RESTRICTION on DOMESTIC Missionary-spreading when running Theocracy, either for an AI or for the human player.
So, Isabella would be free to both BUILD a Missionary of a Religion that is not her State Religion and/or SPREAD it to any of her Cities.
Now, since an AI running Theocracy cannot build a Missionary without having a Monastary like they could under Organized Religion, they are MUCH LESS LIKELY to spread around Religions when runing Theocracy. That's one of the reasons why you might not see it happening very often for a Theocratic Civ, but, they can still do so.
Now, if a player (AI or human) does not have a Religion within their City, that City cannot produce either a Missionary of said Religion or a Monastary of said Religion. Therefore, the obvious conclusion is that Isabella cannot build Buddhist Missionaries, since we see all 4 of her Cities and none of them contain Buddhism.
That said, there is nothing to stop us from building a Buddhist Missionary for her. (I just don't think that we should do so during your turnset, but that's a different matter).
What does stop us is the fact that she is running Theocracy, that means that FOREIGNERS (that's us) trying to spread a Religion to her Cities that is not her State Religion will not be allowed to do so. There is nothing that stops DOMESTIC spread, though, so we can simply move the Buddhist Missionary into her territory and gift it to her.
The only PROBLEM with doing so is that the AIs have TERRIBLE programming for such an event. Similar to how we were able to "game" the AI by trapping their Settler Parties, a gifted Missionary can often get "stuck" without having the appropriate command assigned to it for it to move or even try to spread--it will just sit there, doing nothing, for the rest of the game, not even running if the City is under threat of being captured.
Now, it is POSSIBLE that the BtS AI has been changed since the last time that I gifted Missionaries and that the AIs are now "smarter" about this part of the code. Settler Parties aren't smarter, but who knows--maybe they improved the Missionary code.
But if not, we risk gifting her a Missionary that will just sit there doing nothing.
My anecdotal experience shows that an AI is "smarter than normal" in the case where it has a Missionary standing over a City that contains NO RELIGIONS, such that it will be far less likely to have the Missionary "sitting around for all eternity doing nothing," like we'll probably see for Isabella's Settler Party on Ivory Towers' island. Instead, such a Missionary tends to be far more likely to get spread to the AI's City that it is currently standing over.
That's not a guarantee, though, so it would suck to gift away one of our Buddhist Missionaries when we only have 2 Buddhist Cities ourselves, only to find that the unit-gifting was wasted. Far better to run into that scenario when we have most or all of our domestic Cities containing Buddhism already and can afford to suffer through this AI-programming silliness.
UPDATE: Screenshots have been added.
