Round 10: 1725AD - 1860AD
Some plans were cancelled, so I have time to post this update today. Well, at least part of it.
We ended our last round on a high note. Our GNP was unbeatable and we're #1 in score. We're set to be a major competitor in the space race. But whether we actually win it or not would probably depend heavily on whether we can maintain national security. Will we invade someone to achieve that goal? Or will we rely on a precarious balance of power and stave off conflict until the launch?
I decided not to research Combustion next. Since Nappy and Saladin had it, it would only be a matter of time before everybody else had it, and then we would probably be able to trade for it. Combustion would give us the ability to build tanks and a modern navy, which were vital for our security, but I decided to take the gamble and research Radio first.
True enough, Ramesses soon had that tech too. He was not willing to trade it away yet, though, implying that he was still waiting for more people to have it. Well, better than WFYABTA (Napoleon). It turned out that the wait wasn't long. However, we did not get it from him:
Gandhi remained a viable techer despite being reduced and becoming a vassal. The power of passive resistance at work? "You may take our lands, but you will never take our research power!"
And for some reason he was no longer Napoleon's worst enemy. Now that place has been taken by Ramesses. As you can see, it becomes important to check diplomatic relations before making any trade at this point in the game. We can't risk any diplomatic demerits from Napoleon.
After Radio was researched, we went for Flight. Now that oil had been hooked up, we were able to build an army and a navy that should be sufficient for defense against attacks from Arabia or the other continent. Having bombers (requires oil, Flight and Radio) in addition to them, however, would reduce casualties and damage to property (through enemy pillaging). I agree with the guys here that if you drop enough bombs on an AI SOD, it might just turn around and go home. And there's little to no risk of WW from that too. Moreover, Flight leads to Rocketry and would therefore make the latter cheaper to research. Hence, it isn't really a deviation. Lastly, Flight isn't a priority for the AI so we might just get good trading opportunities with it.
And then our next GP was born:
It isn't a GE, as we had hoped, but with the Kremlin, a GM on a trade mission is probably good enough. That's a few thousand more gold to help rush buy the Space Elevator.
Anyway, our monopoly on Industrialism was eventually broken. Once HC had it, I went to Gandhi and initiated another trade:
Again, not a very balanced trade for us, but I was hoping he might share it with his master, with whom we cannot trade techs directly without incurring the wrath of Napoleon. That would balance the power on the other continent and help prevent HC from dominating.
After Flight, we went on to research Plastics. Hopefully, we would be able to get it before any of the AIs and build the Three Gorges' Dam. Power (in the energy sense of the word) is important for space race production, and a couple of our core cities were already suffering from unhealthiness. Having a source of power that is not coal plants in cities that don't have rivers would be good.
Before starting on the Dam, though, we had a dress rehearsal on building a wonder:
Well, it was 11 turns in our Ironworks city and the extra happiness would be useful, given our relative lack of happiness resources. It would also translate to more gpt through trades. I sell you records for a fraction of your GNP. Mwahaha!
Then HC got a bit bossy:
If you say democracy is good, I might buy it. Hereditary Rule? What, is this the 18th century?
After Plastics, we researched Computers on the way to Robotics.
Our GM soon arrived at the Inca capital and found it to be the most prosperous city on the other continent, in which a trade mission would yield the most amount of gold:
And our next GP was a prophet:
Hmm... we're getting GPs from everywhere. I guess that's not surprising, since we are running specialists everywhere in order to keep growth down in cities that are close to their happiness caps. A shadow of the effect of an SE? Anyway, this prophet was able to establish the Taoist shrine in Pusan at last:
Good thing I had decided to start the Wall Street there. It wasn't the highest in food output and would therefore not be able to run more merchants than a few of our core cities, but I decided to build the Wall Street there just in case we could build the shrine.
By then both Saladin and Napoleon had Industrialism as well. An arms race was probably afoot (we had been building tanks ourselves). To give Napoleon an edge in case war broke out, I made a deal with him:
Saladin still did not have Artillery, which would be a major disadvantage for him in a war. And we could use more gold in our bank for our future Kremlin-backed spending under US. By the way, as you can see, despite our efforts Napoleon was still unhappy about us trading with his worst enemy. Maybe this is because of the centuries-old resource trades with Ramesses. Well, there's only so much we can do without bringing ourselves too much trouble.
Probably still smarting from our rebuff, HC came back with an even more belligerent demand:
This, however, I accepted. At our current science rate (we can't go higher without losing a lot of money every turn), this amount of money could be made in a little less than 4 turns. And at least we didn't have to go through a turn of anarchy, which IMO is more damaging. Better keep HC as happy as we can to prevent trouble.
And we completed another wonder:
Why are we going wonder happy all of a sudden? Well, since we have hit singles, why not enhance its benefits? And more pressure on Saladin's borders could only be good. Plus it would keep this neat wonder out of the AI's hands. It took only 13 turns in Wonsan...
As we're nearing the discovery on Robotics, we got out next GP:
A GE at last!
The odds for him were quite high in Wonsan, but we could have had bad luck. Yes, Space Elevator requires Satelites as well, so we can't build it just yet, but now we can be pretty sure that it's ours.
Thus ends the first part of the update. The second part would be posted tomorrow.
[to be continued in the next post...]