Brought the city review forward a turn: thought I might get an opportunity to play T83 today, but I'm going to be busier tomorrow so now it is.
T82: World map and tech/wonder strategy
First of all, a new world map. Not a massive update, but something to look at instead of the stream of consciousness, incoming wall of text.
Right now I know we get the front city (Labelled Sing Sing Sing). So the next question that needs answering is do I get Mids? I am planning for both eventualities, if yes, an immediate revolt to Rep, growth of 6 core cities by 3 pop (so need to decide on the cities now) and likely tech path. If no, how to spend the fail gold to solve the immediate happiness crunch and costs issue stopping vertical and horizontal expansion respectively. I need a solution that fits both.
In both scenarios, the majority of commerce is going to be spent on costs. The slider is going to be quite low. Even in the best case scenario of growing into Rep happy, without markets or court houses the breakeven slider isn't pushing above 50%. Specialists and building research (and Wealth once Currency is researched) are the way forward. There are currently 2 cities that have libraries, and a further 3 can get them by T100: City 8 (Aint Misbehavin) and City 9 (Sing Sing Sing) can go library after granary, in fact need to to pop borders, and City 2 needs a library and to give up the grass sheep to the "filler" city so we have a western port. So without Rep, that's 37.5bpt, with Rep that's 75bpt. The main difference between getting Mids and not is, IMO, when we need Alphabet by.
If we finish Mids, we don't really have much spare production to dump into Research builds for a few turns: City 6/BCR is building two archers, for itself and for City 7/JJ. The capital has given up the horse so makes 4hpt and needs to finish a library on growth, or stagnate on a settler or worker. City 5, in this scenario is de facto on Mids. City 4/TJ makes 1hpt. Before T100, the main source of Research builds comes from City 5/Kalamazoo if we miss Mids at 17hpt, capital, city 3 can push 8hpt combined. Given then we finish a GS eot92, I see an argument for just saving gold until T95: if Mids has not fallen by that point, then we go for Alphabet with the Academy in place and make an extra 75 beakers. There is also a reason to just rush Alphabet: we can try to force OB with OH to explore and get the trade route commerce. If we get OB, then we would make the beakers back from the extra trade route yield, but we risk OH saying no. The way to force the issue is to move the chariots and axe onto the border with workers underneath and demand the OB, which if OH's front city still has a single spear, is perfectly understandable for OH, who has full map knowledge of us: let me through or I have no reason to be nice. I don't know if this will work, because OH is increasing in power, and I don't know if he will try to run a settler through Sing Sing Sing to settle for something, but we can always cancel OB and declare war later, nor can we stop him dumping a settler off via a galley so I don't see this as a concern. Another point is we don't even know if OH is on the same landmass as us: he may have settled his front city from a galley, and he wants intercontinental foreign trade routes with us in which case OB is worth only 7 commerce per turn to him but 13 commerce per turn to us.
If Mids falls, we should get roughly 200 gold as of this turn. We also have enough gold saved already to finish Alphabet as a 4 turn tech: finishing eot86. This would put a straight Currency rush, ignoring everything else at finishing around T92 (If Mids fell any time between now and eot86). If Mids didn't fall, then after T100. A Currency rush seems worth it to me, because it also gives us the option to grab markets, which is cheaper than a library for us, comes with the +1 happy and the commerce modifier is more relevant: I'd build them now instead of libraries if I could. If we are going to be curtailed on horizontal expansion due to costs, markets give us the option to pay the costs more easily and also gives us something to grow on vertically, plus the obvious wealth builds though an Academy. Either with or without Rep, Currency still seems to be the wiser option before then heading for the other happiness options or HBR (with Sailing thrown in as a necessity at some point).
You thought I'd put a picture now, but I'm sorry, the wall of text continues.
Moving onto the GS, an Academy is only one choice. The second choice of trying to bulb Philo is still available now, but I think it's not going to be realistic: If we hit Mids, we are too far behind to do it with the first GS and might as well try to do that with the second GS: We will already have burnt a turn to get into Rep, and we are so far from getting another other civics I don't see the point in using the second GS for a GA: We will generate a third easily enough from a city working 2 scientists and 2 merchants anyway. So if we hit Mids, we'd need to basically be without any classical era tech to defend ourselves, and that seems dumb. If we hit Mids, I say play safe. Grab Currency and then head back to HBR, IW, Maths, Calendar.
If we miss Mids, it becomes a bit safer to grab, but I'm still not sure how smart it is. If Mids falls by eot86, and we hit Currency eot92, then we need to research Mysticism, Meditation, and CoL to bulb Philo. I think it's cheaper to just research Priesthood before CoL as well, but we also may just need to grab CoL to get a religion and possibly save the bulb. Straight CoL would be around 562 adjusted beakers. With wealth builds enabled, and no OB with OH (it's worth 7 commerce per turn minimum), we can hit 100% science via wealth builds, which will be a minimum of 100 base bpt. That would be CoL eot97 if we go straight there, or we can stack overflow via Myst (get it as close to completion as possible on first turn then finish, and overflow the extra little bits from Med and Priesthood), for Myst eot94, Med eot95, Priesthood eot96 and CoL eot99; a Philo bulb also requires Maths is researched, so we would alos have to grab that at a further 3-4 turns of research, for the bulb and religion to land on T103-104 (and another turn revolting into it).
One higher variance play is worth mentioning though: on T93 we can trigger a golden age. We have no civics to revolt into, we have not grown onto even 15% of the available tiles, but it will speed up Mids by, I believe, 2 turns and would give us the free turn of revolt into Rep. I'm not going to do it, mind, but it is worth mentioning.
And then there is always the really bad idea, of just holding off on Alphabet, bulbing Maths and then researching straight through Currency. I really hate this idea, but I think it is the quickest way to get Calendar and Currency. Still doesn't make it smart though.
So Academy if we get Mids, Philo bulb if it does, but not if we can grab CoL first.
Rush Alphabet if we want to risk OB with OH, don't if we expect to get rebuffed.
T82: World map and tech/wonder strategy
First of all, a new world map. Not a massive update, but something to look at instead of the stream of consciousness, incoming wall of text.
Right now I know we get the front city (Labelled Sing Sing Sing). So the next question that needs answering is do I get Mids? I am planning for both eventualities, if yes, an immediate revolt to Rep, growth of 6 core cities by 3 pop (so need to decide on the cities now) and likely tech path. If no, how to spend the fail gold to solve the immediate happiness crunch and costs issue stopping vertical and horizontal expansion respectively. I need a solution that fits both.
In both scenarios, the majority of commerce is going to be spent on costs. The slider is going to be quite low. Even in the best case scenario of growing into Rep happy, without markets or court houses the breakeven slider isn't pushing above 50%. Specialists and building research (and Wealth once Currency is researched) are the way forward. There are currently 2 cities that have libraries, and a further 3 can get them by T100: City 8 (Aint Misbehavin) and City 9 (Sing Sing Sing) can go library after granary, in fact need to to pop borders, and City 2 needs a library and to give up the grass sheep to the "filler" city so we have a western port. So without Rep, that's 37.5bpt, with Rep that's 75bpt. The main difference between getting Mids and not is, IMO, when we need Alphabet by.
If we finish Mids, we don't really have much spare production to dump into Research builds for a few turns: City 6/BCR is building two archers, for itself and for City 7/JJ. The capital has given up the horse so makes 4hpt and needs to finish a library on growth, or stagnate on a settler or worker. City 5, in this scenario is de facto on Mids. City 4/TJ makes 1hpt. Before T100, the main source of Research builds comes from City 5/Kalamazoo if we miss Mids at 17hpt, capital, city 3 can push 8hpt combined. Given then we finish a GS eot92, I see an argument for just saving gold until T95: if Mids has not fallen by that point, then we go for Alphabet with the Academy in place and make an extra 75 beakers. There is also a reason to just rush Alphabet: we can try to force OB with OH to explore and get the trade route commerce. If we get OB, then we would make the beakers back from the extra trade route yield, but we risk OH saying no. The way to force the issue is to move the chariots and axe onto the border with workers underneath and demand the OB, which if OH's front city still has a single spear, is perfectly understandable for OH, who has full map knowledge of us: let me through or I have no reason to be nice. I don't know if this will work, because OH is increasing in power, and I don't know if he will try to run a settler through Sing Sing Sing to settle for something, but we can always cancel OB and declare war later, nor can we stop him dumping a settler off via a galley so I don't see this as a concern. Another point is we don't even know if OH is on the same landmass as us: he may have settled his front city from a galley, and he wants intercontinental foreign trade routes with us in which case OB is worth only 7 commerce per turn to him but 13 commerce per turn to us.
If Mids falls, we should get roughly 200 gold as of this turn. We also have enough gold saved already to finish Alphabet as a 4 turn tech: finishing eot86. This would put a straight Currency rush, ignoring everything else at finishing around T92 (If Mids fell any time between now and eot86). If Mids didn't fall, then after T100. A Currency rush seems worth it to me, because it also gives us the option to grab markets, which is cheaper than a library for us, comes with the +1 happy and the commerce modifier is more relevant: I'd build them now instead of libraries if I could. If we are going to be curtailed on horizontal expansion due to costs, markets give us the option to pay the costs more easily and also gives us something to grow on vertically, plus the obvious wealth builds though an Academy. Either with or without Rep, Currency still seems to be the wiser option before then heading for the other happiness options or HBR (with Sailing thrown in as a necessity at some point).
You thought I'd put a picture now, but I'm sorry, the wall of text continues.
Moving onto the GS, an Academy is only one choice. The second choice of trying to bulb Philo is still available now, but I think it's not going to be realistic: If we hit Mids, we are too far behind to do it with the first GS and might as well try to do that with the second GS: We will already have burnt a turn to get into Rep, and we are so far from getting another other civics I don't see the point in using the second GS for a GA: We will generate a third easily enough from a city working 2 scientists and 2 merchants anyway. So if we hit Mids, we'd need to basically be without any classical era tech to defend ourselves, and that seems dumb. If we hit Mids, I say play safe. Grab Currency and then head back to HBR, IW, Maths, Calendar.
If we miss Mids, it becomes a bit safer to grab, but I'm still not sure how smart it is. If Mids falls by eot86, and we hit Currency eot92, then we need to research Mysticism, Meditation, and CoL to bulb Philo. I think it's cheaper to just research Priesthood before CoL as well, but we also may just need to grab CoL to get a religion and possibly save the bulb. Straight CoL would be around 562 adjusted beakers. With wealth builds enabled, and no OB with OH (it's worth 7 commerce per turn minimum), we can hit 100% science via wealth builds, which will be a minimum of 100 base bpt. That would be CoL eot97 if we go straight there, or we can stack overflow via Myst (get it as close to completion as possible on first turn then finish, and overflow the extra little bits from Med and Priesthood), for Myst eot94, Med eot95, Priesthood eot96 and CoL eot99; a Philo bulb also requires Maths is researched, so we would alos have to grab that at a further 3-4 turns of research, for the bulb and religion to land on T103-104 (and another turn revolting into it).
One higher variance play is worth mentioning though: on T93 we can trigger a golden age. We have no civics to revolt into, we have not grown onto even 15% of the available tiles, but it will speed up Mids by, I believe, 2 turns and would give us the free turn of revolt into Rep. I'm not going to do it, mind, but it is worth mentioning.
And then there is always the really bad idea, of just holding off on Alphabet, bulbing Maths and then researching straight through Currency. I really hate this idea, but I think it is the quickest way to get Calendar and Currency. Still doesn't make it smart though.
So Academy if we get Mids, Philo bulb if it does, but not if we can grab CoL first.
Rush Alphabet if we want to risk OB with OH, don't if we expect to get rebuffed.