UNGY7 We'll do it by ourself

[oyzar]

We can capture one worker on the iron by declearing war this turn. Also shouldn't capital do NE next? Whip lighthouse in new york and build GLH there? Looks to me like settling that next GS is the best option.

Looking at demographics we are currently #1 in GNP by quite a margin. #4 in CY and #5 in MFG though.

 

[Rusten]

I'm around and I can take it. Comments in the morning -- too sleepy right now.

 

[Duckweed]

Hmm, this game has progressed a round. Quickly browsed through the posts and found that this semi-isolated start with an easy neighbor greatly weaken the no trade restriction. I am interested in a culture plan which I only won once before, however, it further alleviates the restriction and make this game almost nothing special.

 

[Dirk1302]

Welcome back Duckweed,.

We don't have Col yet. If we don't go culture i'd say we try to bulb philo + tao with our next GS. Having a religion in our empire is just a very good thing. It would be best to go col before currency in that case, not such a problem since those techs are not that expensive if we really try.

If we do go culture it seems we shouldn't bulb Tao so in this case i don't know. If we do go culture people have to explain to me what i should do once i play a set.

 

[oyzar]

1 religion is fine when going for culture, so bulbing tao is still an option. That said we will generate another GS before we get col (assuming we don't go drama next) so we should definatly settle the first one.

 

[Rusten]

IMO a cultural victory goes against the spirit of the variant, but this is a group decision.

We have more than 11% of the total land so clearly this fractal map has a lot of water. With that in mind I doubt we'll get the GLH in time, but I guess we can try.

*Make another city east of Washington. It can borrow a food resource.
*NE in Paris. We can choose to 3-pop whip a settler first. How many forests do we chop? IMO we want early NE despite losing some health. The first forest is 'free', but the second will cause Paris to drop 1 in health.
*I agree with settling the specialists -- it's clearly the better move with this variant.
*Make a city in the north (fur) if we find seafood. Is it worth it if we don't find anything (assuming no GLH)?

Techwise I'm thinking math-currency-col-CS.

Agree, but with the addition of priesthood before CoL.

 

[Dirk1302]

^Oyzar, we may need to hurry to bulb Tao so there's something to be said for math->priesthood->col -> bulb Tao. Settling other specs is probably right.

 

[oyzar]

When we can't trade, not researching currency before col loses us quite a few beakers, I am not sure if it is worth it as we might get the religion anyways.

 

[Dirk1302]

Don't know about that. We'll get col in some 6 turns iirc. Currency is not as valuable as in your standard game since the extra route is domestic and we don't have trading partners apart from Lin who's probably broke so we can't sell techs/resources. So the main benefit is the ability to build wealth and we delay that by ~ 6 turns. Imo the religion is worth it since we may also lose it.

 

[Rusten]

The main benefit of currency in this game is a market in our capital.

 

[oyzar]

We lose 1 commerce per city per turn for each turn later we get currency, obviously we also lose ~16 beakers per turn for each turn we don't have a settled GS. If it is 8 turns later we get currency and we go with the pesimistic estimate of 6 cities that is 48 ~commerce(which is 57 beakers). Col cost 568 beakers ~473 with one prereq and ~406 with two prereqs. That is another 67 beakers difference. Without counting the beakers from the scientist we therefore lose about 1 turns worth of research just by chosing different tech priorities. In best case for the GS lets say we decide to bulb philo anyways with a later GS, then not settling the first one will only cost us the difference between when the first one and the second one pop. Lets say we somehow manage to get that extra GS in 9 turns, then we lose 144 more beakers on that. Total loss is about 300 beakers or 2-3 turns of research. Are we willing to give up this much just to get philo a bit earlier when we might get the religion anyways? Christianity was founded in 200 BC and Confu 750 BC off oracle.

 

[Dirk1302]

2-3 turns of research, i'd be willing to give that up to be sure to get the religion. The religion is going to amount to +100% gpp or 25% production on buildings,a monastery in the capital will give us the lost research back in time. Having the religion earlier has it's own set of advantages, don't feel like quantifying but it may well amount to 6 turns earlier OR or pacifism. We can spread sooner too from cities don't have interesting things to build.

 

[ungy]

Good discussion guys and good to have Duckweed back!

I'm on the road but if I remember right don't we need math to bulb philo?

I'd be in favor of hustling to the bulb. Can we get another GS in time if we settle?

Might as well take a shot at the GLH--whip the LH in NY and hope for the best.
I confess I had forgotten it was still unbuilt until I stopped play.

 

[Dirk1302]

Yes we need math anyway. That's why math-priesthood->col seems best to me.I'd have to check on the other GS, probably not.

 

[Rusten]

Think I'm in favour of skipping currency too. While it reduces the cost of CoL it will slow down CS and I don't like that. If we get Taoism we can adopt bureaucracy and a religious civic in one go. Currency would delay these civics and the cost of that should amount to more than what we save from currency first (not inlcuding the risk of missing the religion).

Playing tomorrow unless someone brings up something that warrants delaying my set.

 

[Rusten]

75 BC:
-Start off by declaring war on Lincoln (steal worker).

Decide to whip a settler in Paris and Washington.

25 BC:
-Spy is complete send towards Boston.
-I settle the GS. A quick calculation before my set started showed that we wouldn't be ready to bulb Tao before the next GS gets out anyway so we'd lose out big time by holding on to it.

1 AD:
-Our spy gets caught immediately (on its way to Boston).
-We miss the GLH. I chop a spy instead and hope this one will be more successfull.

I notice we popped another source of Silver in the hills next to Washington.

The gold from missing the GLH, the extra silver mine and getting priesthood from Lincoln (later) speeded up our teching a fair bit. CoL is ahead of schedule.

25 AD:
-Declare war on lincoln again (steal worker).

75 AD:
-Make peace with Lincoln and ask for priesthood in the deal. I just stole 2 workers so we will be able to stop him from getting metal units despite the 10-turn peace -- he has no workers atm.

150 AD (present):
2 turns to CoL but we're still lacking meditation. GS is due in 4 or 5 turns.

Started on Moai in Orleans. Not sure we want it there, but better to get 1.5 gold for the hammer than 1 beaker.

Note: I set Paris to avoid growth mode because there's 2 turns until the whip anger is out. It won't lose any food as it'll get 40/40 food anyway. Remember to turn this off next turn.

 

[oyzar]

Asking for priesthood in the deal with lincholn is against the variant rules no?

 

[Rusten]

You're absolutely right. Slipped up a bit there in the alcohol haze.

I see that I have an autosave from the turn it happened so we can opt to replay from that one.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

it's... priesthood

 

[ungy]

Yes I think I'd use the autosave--not a huge deal but might as well keep it pure.

We haven't discussed the culture possibility but I'd be inclined not to play for it. As others have mentioned, it really nerfs our variant. I think we'd very likely win it and I'm sure I'd learn much from this group as it's a path I rarely take so if people want to do that I'm OK. But looks like we're headed the conventional direction.

Duckweed do you want to take the next set? If not, then I've got Dirk as up.