RBP3 - [SPOILERS] - Team DIM (Mehmed of HRE)

[Ilios]

Here's a recent screenshot of Singa Mati, to fully address Meatbalz' concerns...

As you can see, I now have a decent garrisson in the city. Borders will pop again next turn, bringing total cultural defenses to 60%. Together with the Walls and Castle, the city will have a total of 120% defense bonus. Before Cannons make their appearance, attackers will have a very hard time bombing down the defenses of the city. We can rule out fast strikes as well, because the Landsknecht garrisson will have a total strength of around 21 each against Mounted units. (less if England decides to upgrade all its Knights to Cuirrassiers, which are Gunpowder units and can ignore the Castle's and Wall's defenses).

The HRE will also be switching to the Nationhood Civic next turn, which will allow me to create revolutionary armies our of thin air! (well, warm bodies actually... )

Losing the Bureaucracy civic will hurt in the short term, but not that much, because my capital has been converted to production, which means I didn't get that much of a commerce boost to begin with. (it has two mature cottages and a silver mine)



Here's an image of the immediate surroundings of Singa Mati, with my planned next city. I haven't decided on the location yet, because red dot would make it easy to fork it or Singa. I'd like to put it there because it will start putting cultural pressure on the westernmost England tile (marked with an "X") jutting into my lands. Midas' Folly, to Singa's east, has reach 500 culture this turn and is now putting cultural pressure on the easternmost England tile marked with an "X".

Or I could just build Hermitage in Singa Mati and found my new city 1W...



The south east of the empire, with its newest aquisitions, Eastmark and Farvergnugen. My modus operandi has been thus for the past couple of new cities:

- build Culture until border pops.
- convert the city to Buddhism for the 25% Production bonus of Organised Religion Civic.
- double chop (75 hammers) into a Theatre (50 hammers) for early cultural warfare
- overflow into a cheap Granary (30 hammers)
- two-pop whip (75 hammers) a Forge (120 hammers) at size 4
- overflow into a cheap Rathaus (60 hammers)
- then either Barracks or Library depending on the city's specialisation (production or commerce)

I had originally planned to place Farvergnugen 1N on the plains hill, because of the English cultural pressure, but I decided against it. Steam Power is only 15 turns away, and Levees will come in mighty handy (so far, every city in the empire is on a river). The cultural pressure comes from only one city (England's Taoist holy city), which has recently reached 500 culture, which means I'll probably gain control over most tiles of Farvergnugen's BFC once it expands border a second time (100 culture)



GNP Graph. I'm still in a golden age, which explains my n°1 position (I'm currently n°2 behind either Maya or Babylon)
If you're wondering why Krill and Cyneheard are in the middle of the pack, please bear in mind they are PAT's funders, and gold multiplyers (e.g. Marketplace) are harder to get then research multiplyers (e.g. Library)



Crop Yield. There are currently four clear leaders in this game: India, Portugal, Ottomans and Maya (not shown on this graph). I'm in fifth position...
I'd like to get the other graphs as well for comparison purposes, but I've got Krill and Cyneheard double teaming me to try and get research visibility, so I've had to spend EP's on them. I'll be building more Rathauses (which produce espionage points) in the coming turns, and I think I'm holding them off (I've forgotten the formula determining research visibility... ).



MFG. I'd have to wait until the golden age ends to see how well I'm really doing.



I'd like to present to you the city of Bordertown, my future draft camp. I've got two more Theatres finishing in the next three turns, allowing me to build the Globe Theatre, which, I'm sure you know, provides endless happiness. Or more precisely, the city can never go into unhappiness. Bordertown will have a surplus of around 8-9 food at size 6 so I'm confident I can get a draft out of the city every other turn. I am told that with a 16-food surplus you can draft a Musket/Rifle every turn, growing back to size 6 after every draft. Unfortunately, this site was the best I could get on this low-food map. (at least in my corner of the world...)