Turns 130-139

[Lord Parkin]

Divine Right allows two useful wonders, plus founds Islam if we're the first there. Not all that bad, I would have thought.

IMHO, at the moment it's best to use the Great Prophet as a specialist (or to rush us a religion like Islam), and he'd be of the most use in a low production / high commerce city if settled.

Ya, but some techs and civics can improve it. Chowderton gets up to 150% hammer boost and with all the coastal tiles doesn't really seem to need any more cottages. It also reduces food output by 1 which may give us a way to control pop there if we want to.

Rule of thumb: You can never have too many cottages. Seriously, workshops and watermills are really just a waste of a tile until the later techs (like Replaceable Parts and Electricity) come along. Plus, even then, when Liberalism and Democracy come along for the Universal Suffrage and Free Speech civics, those cottages we've spent all that time on working become pretty attractive.

 

[1889]

We have lots of ways of getting gold and it pretty much all goes into the same pile, but hammers do not get spread around the same way. So cottages are good but I think a few production specialized cities are worth more than an couple extra cottages.

So of the few who posted opinions workshops get the thumbs up in Chowderton. Nobody is set to start the watermill yet so thats still up in the air.

 

[1889]

Philosophy and Drama for Feudalism offered to Epsilon.

Chuang-Tzu moves to Chowderton and hopes to find a nice apartment or condo next turn. Prices should go down now that the government has decided to remove the last vestiges of jungle.

Overall our demographics are slipping but big plans are in the works that may soon put us in first. First up is the economy, Inflation is at 3%, but we are growing much faster than that. Specialists have been reduced to 3 priests in Wheelville so we can grow the population. Next GP will probably be another prophet in about 14 turns. Over the next 4 turns we will get 3 more citizens, a silk plantation, a galley to open trade with Aloha (hopefully), a market, a courthouse, a granary (to end diseases so Ploughland can start growing), a settler (destined for Site 11 in the southern jungle), and Heroic Epic.

P.S. I forgot to check but the new city is likely to cost 6 gpt in maintenance which will be reduced almost immediately by 2 trade routes and a missionary.

 

[dutchfire]

Well, we need a farm for every workshop, so that's two cottages vs. 1 hammer at the moment.

 

[1889]

Chowderton has plenty of extra food, the workshops can allow us to better manage population by reducing the food excess. Cottages will give us less gold than coast for 10 turns while they grow, then they are just as good as water tiles for 20 more turns until they grow again. Meanwhile with bonuses it will be 8-10 hammers for both workshops. We'll be making Camel Archers in 2 turns.

I'll admit that I have a bit of a production bias, but I'm not trying to build workshops everyplace, I just think they are a perfict fit for Chowderton.

 

[Theoden]

I think we should gear a maximum of two cities towards production at the moment. Any more than that will hinder the economy too much, as I have managed to do in most of my SP games.
Chowdertown could well be one of the two hammer-cities. After guilds we'll get one more hammer from workshops so combined with a farm it equals one hammer per tile. That in itself is lousy compared to a cottage, but if the city is going to get the heroic epic, it'll be two hammers per tile effectively. And that's the reason I think workshops could be a good idea (usually I don't even consider them before chemistry and state property).

 

[1889]

Our prophet has settled in Chowderton giving us 5 gpt. Civic upkeep is still climbing but our economy is now +3 and growing.

Offered OB to Epsilon. I'm no longer so interested in OB with Piffle now that they have a warrior near our border. I don’t want them to observe the military buildup prior to the Loco invasion. Piffle also has a caravel exploring the other side of the world, looks like they will get the circumnavigation bonus.

Our galley is done in Glassport, courthouse begun; keep your fingers crossed for a northeast passage.

Guilds done in 7.

 

[1889]

Finished another silk plantation and a courthouse in Polynesia, economy +7 now.

Ploughland finishes granary, starts galley for invasion fleet.

Settler next turn to settle site 11 down south.

Offered Silk to Loco for Gold.
Offered OB to Epsilon again with this message:

“I would like to formalize the recent trend toward warmer relations opened up by our foreign ministers. That chat was a first step now shall we continue further down the path of friendship and cooperation?”

Piffle got Theology, now we are the only ones without. Theo can you ask the other teams about some trades. Music to Piffle, Philosophy to Aloha or Civil Service to Loco? Just some ideas, hopefully you can come up with something better.

 

[1889]

Also we are only 1 point from 2nd place and our population is only 50,000 below 1st.

Epic finishes in 2 and I'd like to change from bureaucracy to vassalage for the extra XP.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Will we be completing a lot of units soon? In my experience it's best to get a whole lot of units to within 1 turn of completion (changing production just before they're produced), switch to vassalage, produce all the units, and then switch back to bureaucracy ASAP (a more useful economic civic). Just remember not to leave any unit in the queue for more than 10 turns, or it'll lose hammers invested into it.

But yeah, it's fairly pointless to switch to vasslage just for the sake of 2 or 3 new units. Make it a decent number to get the most out of missing out on bureaucracy for those turns...

 

[1889]

That's a good idea. I'll see if I can take advantage of that.

 

[dutchfire]

Loco offers theo, gold (resource) and some cash for philosophy.

Doesn't sound to bad actually.

 

[1889]

I took a look but don't have time to play just yet. Loco wants to give us theo (715) gold and 20 cash for civil service (1144) They need to get more realistic. I will offer silk for gold again.

 

[1889]

I rejected Loco's deal and offered Silk +25 gold for Gold instead.

Epsilon must have a caravel on the west coast because an explorer has just appeared in Magadan. I'm not very happy about that. I'll see what can be done to keep our troop build up out of sight. Mean while we are probably 6 turns from their border still.

In regard to aloha's trade deal HBR will take 4 turns and we will finish Guilds in 5, but we could finish HBR first then return to guilds.

Sinsburg finished the settler and will now grow in 4. Wheelville finished the market and our economy is +12.

Should we build up some cash or put science up to 80% for a bit? Haven’t though too much about it but think gold might be a slightly better idea.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Cash is only useful if we have something to spend it on - like unit upgrades. Otherwise, it's better to get the techs first, then the cash (so you can build newer and updated units while you generate gold to upgrade the older ones).

As a side note, Theology would be very useful for us to have during our military buildup (for Theocracy). Is there any way we can secure a (reasonable) trade for it in the near future?

 

[Theoden]

Theo can you ask the other teams about some trades. Music to Piffle, Philosophy to Aloha or Civil Service to Loco? Just some ideas, hopefully you can come up with something better.

Sorry that I've been very busy the past few days, but it seems you got some proposals out anyway.

I'm in favour of accepting Aloha's theo+paper for philo+hbr.