Whomp said:
I've uploaded the save for Conroe or anyone who'd like to see it.
Why thank you! After having a look at the save, I am first struck by a question. Whose dumb idea was it to build these Granaries?
Balderdash is at max happiness and has enough food to grow the pop back in 10 turns without a Granary. So, it really isn't critical that we finish that Granary right away. It would probably be better to put it on hold and save the
for a more important need. Hamburger is in a better position to use a Granary at the moment; however, would it be more prudent to
an Axeman rather than the Granary?
Whomp said:
The Leaders power just majorly spiked. In our pitboss game, Davemcw just finished 10 space parts in 2 turns so we have our hands full needless to say.
The power graph measures not only a civ's troop levels, but also its troop capabilities (i.e. its troop tech level). Since Epsilon just shot up this turn, my guess is they just completed researching Iron Working. I don't recall them having that tech in the last save that I looked at.
Their researching of Iron Working surprises me. With their Alphabet advantage on us, I would have thought they would have gone after Literature and the Great Library. I can think of only three reasons that they would go after Iron Working next.
- They have no copper and wanted to know if there was iron. This doesn't really make sense, because we can see that there is at least one source of copper in their territory. I find it hard to believe that they have not explored all of that land above the isthmus and found the copper.
- They founded a city in all of that jungle down by the isthmus. They would need Iron Working to clear the jungle to make the land viable. This is certainly plausible. It would make sense that they would want to block the isthmus from us, as we desire to do to them.
- And finally, Iron Working is one of the two remaining techs, after we give them Metal Casting, they would have needed for Macemen. This is a particularly disturbing if you consider that there is only 34 turns left in our peace treaty. Now, I have no MP experience, nor do I know the folks on this team. But from a financial perspective, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Paying city maintenance costs are bad enough at this stage of the game, without trying to pay for an army in the field.
For a moment, though, lets assume we are in mortal danger. The counter to a Maceman is a Crossbowman. In order to build crossbows, we would need to research Hunting, Archery, Iron Working, and Machinery. We are looking at about 50 turns compared to the roughly 30 turns they would need for Machinery. In other words, it's not lookin' good.
The problem with going that route, though, is we would then be playing catch-up to these folks the rest of the game. Assuming they don't annilihate us first, that is. I'm going to suggest an alternative approach; one that leverages our Philosophical trait. A Great Scientist would allow us to light-buld Philosophy once we have Mathematics and Code of Laws. Note, though, we would also need to pick up a couple of religous techs in order to get CoL. Philosophy does two things for us: it gives us a religion and it opens up the Pacifism civic. Pacifism would give us a 50% increase in the rate of Great People generation. This in turn would allow us to light bulb a few more techs and hopefully leap frog them in the tech race.
This route is not without its risks, though. It only works if we have a religion. And frankly, Epsilon is in a much better position to light bulb Philosophy before us. They only need a GS and one tech, and have most likely already built a Library. We need to build a Library and get a GS, all the while going after four techs. If they have this same idea, they will beat us to it.
Sorry for such a long post. But, I thought we should start thinking about some of these issues.
and it should look like this 
Tubby is good. 
in the bucket) and is producing 11 
