Standard 20k Demigod

[Pacioli]

After a run of games for the HoF, it is time to get back to unfinished business. It may take me a few nights to review what has happened to date and get back into the correct mind set. I hope to play and post a couple times every week. I will continue playing 5 turns and posting. I like the 5 turn format. It will also allow Spoonwood and interested lurkers to make comments/suggestions.

Upon opening my last 990 AD, I notice that 001 has one polluted tile. Wake 16 workers from 001 to clean the pollution and reassign a citizen to said tile. I do not have a citizen assigned to the nearby mountain??? Wake 1 worker to join 001 and assign citizen to the mountain which improves 001’s production to 34 spt but creates a food shortage of 1 fpt with 40f in storage. Newton’s University now in 5 vs. 6.

We can buy Navigation from the Aztecs, Zulu & Mongols. We sell Magnetism (Japan), Steam Power (Aztecs, Zulu & Mongols) and Theory of Gravity (Japan). I see no reason to buy or sell any tech as the Wonders we can currently build include Newton’s University (building), JS Bach’s Cathedral, Universal Suffrage and the Military Academy (probably will never build). We will build JS Bach’s Cathedral next as it has the lowest shield to culture cost of the remaining three wonders after Newton’s University.

008 is about to starve which we will allow as it has one specialist. In my solo 20k games, I do not change tiles used between cities unless I see an extreme weakness which I do not see here.

I've attached a thumbnail of 001. I also attached a new 990 AD.Sav to include the above changes.

 

[Pacioli]

1-1000 AD Medicine-Corporation. Research to 100% for Corp in 4 with -51gpt. I choose Corp first over Electricity since it can be researched in fewer turns. Later after our 5 banks are completed, we will build stock exchanges and then cash-rush Wall Street. In non-20k games, I generally go Electricity-Replaceable Parts before considering Corp. The Zulus and Mongols are building Magellan’s Voyage. After moving 12 workers from 001 to clear pollution at 001’s 9 spot, I realize that I cannot move and order the needed 16 workers to finish the job this turn. Our galleon moves 2 squares toward Mandalgovi and discovers that the iron near there is already roaded. Our galleon uses its remaining movement allowances to move toward Ibabanago.

2-1010 Mongols build JS Bach’s Cathedral. We lose our supply of Wines and Ivory. Sell Medicine to Mongols for Wines, Ivory, Navigation, World Map, 27g and 21gpt.

Looking at the World Map is not encouraging. Here’s what is visible. Aztecs: roaded iron near Calixtlahuaca, no coal. Mongols: roaded iron near Mandalgovi, no coal. Japan: unroaded iron near Izumo, unroaded coal near Nara. Zulu: roaded iron near Tugela and unroaded iron near New Zimbabwe, roaded coal near Ibananago. So there are only two visible coals on the entire map. Japan is weaker than the Zulu. Izumo stands alone but Nara is on the Japanese home island which is also shared with the Zulu. Looks like our best chance of getting coal and iron is if the Zulu take over Nara and gain control of the world’s only two coal deposits.

I have not finished this turn yet. I would like to hear Spoonwood’s and/or lurkers thoughts first. I would continue playing and not worry about the lack of railroads as 001 has 7,466 culture points for a 20k win and our nearest competitor, Zimbabwe has only 2,530 culture points. This game is winnable but it could be won faster if we had coal and iron.

P.S. I must admit that I will abandon most games played for HoF submission where coal and iron are not easily attainable.

Attached are thumbnails of Izumo and Nara and a save.

 

[CKS]

The Mongols have coal under Batshireet, not that that makes your choice easier. I'd just play on without coal, probably.

 

[Pacioli]

Thanks for the info re Batshireet CKS. Thinking about how you knew that made me remember Clear Up Map (Ctrl-Shift-M). I found there is also coal under the Zulu city of New Ulundi. I did not think of it until this morning, but CAII has a resource locator under the Miscellaneous tab. I'll explore that utility further tonight. Thanks again.

 

[Spoonwood]

I also spotted three sources of coal. Look more closely at the map... not all the world comes as known yet. There might exist another coal source somewhere unknown. You might want to put a settler on a second boat with some more workers, as they might found a city near coal, and not build a harbor there. So you might have to put a harbor in that city. The probability of enough sources of coal on this map for trading still doesn't equal 0, and it can't in general on any map until the whole map has gotten revealed.

That all said, you don't need coal to win. If you build say U. S. in 23 instead of 9 turns that gives you 14 turns less with U. S. The effect on finish date doesn't come as nearly great as building ancient and medieval wonders. You can still win and place higher than the bottom spot (and probably around the middle in many cases) on enough HoF tables... especially the upper-level ones for many maps without coal and iron. My experience indicates to me that one can usually build all three industrial wonders without coal or iron. Just don't trade those techs away too early.

If you can get iron, you can still have a factory and a hydro plant (or solar plant if you have a lake instead of a river) without railroads. Sometimes breaking up trade routes might help get iron. You can determine if they have a trade route by tapping the F4 button, and then clicking on the trades tab. You'll see two lines on the right next to "active" and "potential". On my computer "active" looks blue, and "potential" looks yellow/greenish (or "greenow" similar to "grue"... where's ThinkTank to laugh?).

The graph in the center hopefully then comes as self-explanatory. In this case, the Zulu have some sort of trade deal with the Japanese going on (the blue line which corresponds to "active" connects the "Shaka node" to the "Tokugawa node"). So, if say the Zulu have two sources of spices on the map hooked-up (that their luxes come as hooked-up might come as hard to tell... especially on an archipelago), since they don't have any other active trades with anyone else, then the Zulu export those spices to the Japanese (I've made this example with spices up, I don't know what the Zulu currently export to the Japanese in this game, or if in fact they do, the Japanese might export to the Zulu, but it doesn't matter theoretically). So, if I wanted to get the "Zulu's" spices I would
1. Declare war on the Japanese,
2. Sign the Zulu in an MA against the Japanese.
3. Immediately acquire the spices from the Zulu.

As a general method, for Y as your tribe, and A, B as other tribes, then if tribe A exports to B, then
1. Declare war on B.
2. Sign an MA with A.
3. Immediately make it so that A exports to Y.

I hope that helps.

 

[Pacioli]

Thanks Spoonwood for your thoughts!