T1-4: Temple of Doom

[angeleyes]

We still have zero traderoutes . We should connect Chartres (and Napoleon) asap and connect little T with the incan river (only one tile west of the copper).

I prefer to make a shrine in little T.

Also would like to use a list of

Planned national wonders:
Heroic Epic -
Globe Theater -
Wall Street -
Oxford -
Forbidden Palace -
National Epic -
Iron Works -

to streamline the game.

 

[Jet]

I agree that those roads are worth doing promptly.

Shrine in Little T... hmm... Did you consider that besides supporting another city, a settled Great Prophet (5 GPT) would beat the Kong Miao in the short term (3 GPT)?

I proposed
* Heroic Epic - Tlateloco (Hammer-T)
* National Epic - Temple of Doom
* Wall Street - Temple of Doom
and in fact started building them there. I'd be delighted to discuss those or other National Wonders, but personally I'm not going to repost the half-empty list of Planned National Wonders in every message.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

Speaking of discussion, it's possible (although probably too late) to reverse my decision to go for peaceful expansion right now -- if you look, you'll see that 4/5 of the French stack that threatened Chartres is currently headed towards a barb city in the desert. Also, Napoleon is willing to sign open borders, and he is not disliked by anyone besides Victoria, so we could do that and check out the garrison in Lyons if desired.

I'd OBs but still keep an eye on Boney as I've a feeling he'll want Chartres back. In fact, it might be an idea to use Chatres as bait: let him take it but keep our main force outside and attack his units when the city is in anarchy. Rinse and repeat in the hope that he thins out the Lyons garrison.

As for the prophet, I vote to settle him as it gives us the most benefit in short and long terms (according to the rules of our variant).

 

[Jet]

That's 24 for frankcor - Swiss Pauli's up.

Planned Nationa- nah, just kidding.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

Got it and played a few turns - razed that barb city...full report later.

Not much to report at all, so here's the story in pictures:

 

[Swiss Pauli]

One thing missing is that we have OBs with Ramesses.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

I stopped after learning CS. We need to discuss where to go next. I think our best hope is to beeline for Liberalism and grab whatever we can with and try to trade our way to parity. I gave in to Boney as I think we should join up with him (spam him Hindu) at least in the medium term, as he's about the only AI we could trade with.

 

[Bede]

Got it and in the bin for tomorrow.

 

[Jet]

I think Liberalism is worth trying although I'm not sure our chances are great. Hypothetically we could do something like
Paper
trade Paper to Vicky for Metal Casting
trade CS and Paper to Napoleon for Feudalism
Education
trade Education to someone for Machinery
trade Education to someone for Philosophy
pray
Liberalism

It'd be nice to try to take something from HC (say, Cuzco and Huamanga) while it's still Maces versus Longbows. Hopefully he won't get horses for Knights from Mao.

Hindu missionaries to France would be good if we can find the hammers. Even if he was just a different religion from Ramses and Shaka, that'd be good. But I wonder if we can afford to adopt Hinduism ourselves. Temporarily to use a religious civic or to meet a hypothetical demand from Napoleon, sure, but...

In the short to medium term I'd suggest densely settling our backyard. It's all fertile and it's not like we can really expand any other way!

 

[angeleyes]

We can get marble from Mao for our gold and a few gold, we can use it while building HE and NE.

 

[Jet]

That's 48 for Bede - Asperger's up. Good call on the Marble.

 

[frankcor]

That's 24 for frankcor - Swiss Pauli's up.

That's 48 for Bede - Asperger's up.

Okay, now I'm really starting to feel stupid? Is this some scoring system or code I'm supposed to know about? And how come Bede got twice as much as me?!?!

Oh, and where's the list of Planned Nation -- er -- never mind.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

It's 24 for a 'got it' and, having got it, 48 to play.

 

[frankcor]

Oh duh. I knew that.

 

[angeleyes]

Got it. will play tomorrow.

 

[angeleyes]

Here a short report of 11 playturns in which we researched Paper. Our chances getting Liberalism first are very small imo, also don't have a good alternative plan,so i hand the game over to Jet.

With help of Mao's marble, Temple of Doom build the National Epic and a settler is almost finished for settling south of ToD or maybe nw of ToD. Also Heroic Epic will be ready in one turn.

Mao asks us to cancel deals with Ramessess II, while Napoleon wanted us to cancel our deals with Victoria, which both i agreed. Was not able to do any fine deal with anybody....

 

[Jet]

Probably play tonight, any thoughts appreciated.

Here's the tech situation. Of course we can't trade with Ramses or Vicky after agreeing to to close OB with both (which I think was a fine decision.) HC has Paper. Only Ramses has Philosophy. Possible trades right now:
- Feudalism from nobody
- Paper to Mao for Theology
- Paper to Mao for MC + World Map + 170
- Paper to Shaka for 260
- CS to Napoleon for MC + 10

Research times at current research rate (we're slightly in the red right now but we can still grow pop, so these are probably about right) Drama 4 -- Feudalism 8 -- Theology 6 -- Music 8 -- Philosophy 11 -- Education 27 -- HBR 3 -- MC 5 -- Compass 5

I'm inclined to try something like -
0. set research on Education (for long shot at Liberalism)
1. Paper to Mao for MC + World Map + 170
2. Paper to Shaka for 260
3. See if CS + the 430 is enough for Feudalism from Napoleon
4. Save Paper to trade to Napoleon a little later
... and build -
1. temporary OR (no SR) -> swap missionaries in Big T and Little T
2. units in Little T and Hammer T, settlers in Saxon, and temples/monastery/Hindu missionaries (for France or whoever) in TOD.
... and settle -
D, H, G, F (from dotmap earlier on this page). J has been blocked by HC.
Actually I suppose we could capture Bantu, the Barb city downriver on El Intestino Grueso, or rebuild it in a different spot.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

Agree on Edu, but seeing as we might as well grab Nationalism with Liberalism, I'd be tempted to go for max cash to fund deficit research when we're trading away Paper. I think it'll be tricky in any event, but Ramesses should complete AW whilst we're techîng. We might need to risk trading him Edu for Philo, but I don't see another big beaker tech that we might get quickly enough to use as Philo bait.

Away from the jungle, I'm OOP for a couple of weeks and will only manage the occasional lurk after Thursday. Good Luck!

 

[frankcor]

@Jet: that looks like a masterful plan. I can't think of anything I'd change. Go for it!

@SwissPauli: enjoy your travels and return home safe!

 

[Jet]

I guess the alternative would be to make the same trades, but then self-research Machinery and attack HC sooner.
- compared to the best case of getting Liberalism, we'd lose the opportunity to trade Liberalism and Nationalism to Mao and HC (and Napoleon)
- if we could take a couple cities successfully we'd have more land etc and HC would be trimmed back, sooner and easier than otherwise
- it's less risky
- either way we'd have Napoleon as a tech buddy (hopefully)