(October 10th, 2017, 05:20)JR4 Wrote: Hmm, I think the advantages of The Apostolic Palace you describe belong to another mod.. I do remember lurking a game where Temples gave extra production after the Wonder was built but can`t remember which. According to the changelog it still does has the same effects as in base bts, except the most fun resolutions are no longer available.
I don't know about RtR, but in BTS the AP grants +2 hammers for each temple, monastery, cathedral or shrine of the founding religion, for any player, regardless of what their state religion is. So, if you have Buddhism everywhere, and some buildings already up, it could be good for you. As Ref says, it's more cost effective for SPI civs because of cheap temples. It would also encourage other players to adopt and spread the faith, which is good for your shrine. Losing the "fun" resolutions is probably a good thing in RtR for the founder, as it removes incentive for other players to avoid the religion or kill the owner...
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
(October 10th, 2017, 06:28)shallow_thought Wrote: I don't know about RtR, but in BTS the AP grants +2 hammers for each temple, monastery, cathedral or shrine of the founding religion, for any player, regardless of what their state religion is.
Okay, so it turns out that I`m the one mixing things up! It`s really hard to keep track of all the changes. For now, we`re not building the AP as there are more important things going on..
TURN 163
Dtay has a decent-sized Knight stack here and a couple of Galleons. Definitely something to hold an eye on. Kokejin is finishing a Pikeman now, we really need a lot of defenders to be safe from opportunistic attacks. The two wars are still continuing. I think Gavagai is just waiting for the right moment to sign peace as it looks like he clearly has the upper hand here. Alarmingly, Joey is again spending a lot of EPs on us. We even lost research visibility again (I think he spent about 25 EPs on us). All EPs were switched to Greece again. We have to regain that visibility. Actually, I think we`re desperate enough to turn on the EP slider if Joey continues the EP pressure.
Tbh, I think we`re out of position to attack anyone right now. We need to build up even more power and then whip out a lot more troops. Also, note the Greek Worker SW of Nambui. It looks like it`s going to chop down the forest(s) there, endangering Nambui. Consequently, Nambui started another Longbow. The Pike from Toregene can get down there in a couple of turns. I`m considering splitting the Knight stack here. We should think about Nambui`s safety and having some Knights e.g NW of Toregene would allow them to hit a stack at Nambui`s gates. I`m increasingly worried about an attack from Joey.
We finally made some whips again this turn. Espeically Radnashiri`s Bank will be a big boost to our economy.
Graphs and demos: Our post-GA demos don`t look bad at all, 4th and 5th in mfg and crop yield is fine. Let`s keep an eye on the power graph at all times to make sure that we`re not considered an easy conquest. 4 units finish eot to help our numbers a bit, though that`s arguably not a lot at this stage of the game.
EDIT: I totally forgot to mention that we founded Christianity in Budnashiri! The free Missionary is now in Borte, it`s probably going to attempt spreading the faith in Oghul Qaimish, (though there`s a quite big chance of failing).
shallow_thought is correct: The advantage of the AP for us would be additional hammers empire-wide, including 4hpt from alread-finished temples and monasteries at each of (most of) our best cities. The disadvantage is that we could build ~4 knights (with 3 promos each) with the same hammers, and those might be needed sooner than the AP would pay for itself. (Also it would give GJ and Gav some free hammers, but not nearly as many.) It's a shame to tech theo and not build the AP, but the payback horizon if we start it now in Bulugan is something like 14-15 turns away (assuming we land it in 8) with the hammers spread around instead of concentrated in a single city that makes 10-xp mounted units. That's really good ... unless we need the hammers sooner!
I don't think that worker is meant to chop down those forests right now. I think it's going to build a workshop for his island city to work. This is not the same thing as thinking GJ won't attack us.
Thanks to engineering, it should be safe to move our northern Cats+Wellies stack to the corn - but under the current circumstances, I would be inclined to move them all the way down to the Sheep, so they would have a chance at relevance in case of a GJ attack.
I recommend against turning on the EP slider; if GJ is willing to turn all his EP on us and gets courthouses everywhere, we won't be able to keep up with his spending without falling ages behind, and keeping up in tech is way more important than knowing the details of what he's teching each turn. (With fewer cities, we are eventually going to fall behind everybody on EP spending anyway, except to the extent they ignore us because we're small.)
330 gold is peanuts if it's the difference between capturing two developed cities and falling short, but I think you're right that now isn't the time; we would have needed to start preparing sooner than we did if we wanted to attack Dark Savant's islands in this window.
Also, yeah, it would be good to pivot our fast-mover stack south to respond to a possible GJ attack. I also think we need cats more than we need LBs right now, for what it's worth.
Finally, do not assume that any land tile is hidden from GermanJoey. He sent one spy into our territory and will certainly have a back-up looking for threats now. Spies can only see the tile they're standing on, but he'll definitely be watching the most-important three-tile road length he can (with each spy; he may have several if he feels he needs them) and we already know he was interested in what we were keeping near Toregene.
A big turn for us. Sadly, Gavagai and dtay signed peace. Well, the war couldn`t last forever. We did catch a lucky break there as I think dtay was considering an attack on us when Gavagai attacked. Also, look at what just happened in the first screenshot: We got control of that disputed grass tile between us and Greece! We`re also rapidly gaining on the tile E of that. Soon, Toregene will add to that pressure so as long as we`re left in peace we`ll get control of both tiles. Christianity was successfully spread to Oghul Qaimish and it started yet another Monastery. It seems that Joey is... not that happy about it. He spent something like 50 (!) EPs on us. I took your advise and switched EP spending to the others, (not adjusting the EP slider).
And yes, culture works in a strange way. Totally unexpectedly we got control of the Dye that dtay roaded some turns ago! So that gives us some options of landing a big stack next to Angle if we feel like a huge gamble.. Dtay moved out one of his Galleons to the tile 2N of Wildabar (forgot to take a screenshot of it) and could have Knights on board so our island cities are starting some defensive units (and a couple of Galleons).
We are finally building more Catapults. The Knight stack was split and a some of them moved SE of Borte to act as zone defenders. The War Elephant/Catapult stack in the NE is now on the corn (I didn`t dare moving it further away yet).
The AP was started in Bulugan. Another Knight completed there this turn, adding nicely to our power and you know what, I feel like trying for it! If it will pay for itself soonish it`s probably worth the risk. Eot a Great Person will be born in Nambui. There is about a 25% chance of an Engineer. Would it be worth it to rush the AP to gain those hammers now and not in about 10 turns?
Finally, Gavagai has 2 Caravels sneaking around, one on either side of our Empire. Let`s make sure that every coastal city has a few defenders so that he hopefully turns his attention elsewhere.
Graphs and demos: We`re pretty close to being 4th in crop yield which is a bit strange, considering our desperate lack of land. We have just about an average soldier count now.
One thing I forgot to mention was that Babukhan makes a lot of culture and is gaining on the important disputed tiles with D-mishi. Our city therefore started a Monastery that`ll finish eot. We really should keep hold of those tiles, giving us vision on the area.
EDIT: I certainly agree that paying for the upgrade of a few ships is worth it if we have a real chance of gaining more territory, but we really need to prepare the attack a few turns beforehand. It looks like this window of hitting Dark Savant is about to close anyway as he gets Astronomy in 2 turns.
This isn't critical, but I actually didn't/don't suggest putting EP on other people; you can leave them all on Greece and force GJ to spend heavily on us if he wants to make any headway. I just don't think we can afford to run the EP slider, even if it means losing research visibility on somebody.
It would be sad to spend a turn building AP only to Engineer it the very next turn. (Even if we put it in a different city, we wouldn't get any failgold because RBMod gives no failgold for wonders you complete yourself.) If we get an engineer, I would rather save him for either 1) A more-contested Wonder OR 2) Bulbing Chemistry OR 3) Half of a Golden Age. My concern about the AP remains the same as ever: I'm worried GJ, dtay, or both will attack us and we'll wish we had more units instead. (Good call not moving the cat/wellie stack too far away from the dtay border now that he's at peace with Gav....
I'm not sure where Gav's caravels are, nor what the cultural situation actually looks like out there, so I can't comment on that stuff yet.
Gaining cultural control of those tiles is great (and surprising) news - I wouldn't expect that to last, given GJ can run artists at State of Zijin now (with a theater) and that dye is 2nd ring for dtay and I think 4th for Chubei, but it's still really helpful for now!
Our second Great Person was born this turn. It turned out to be a.. Great Engineer! That`s the best we could hope for really. Now we have some options as you described earlier. It now stands on the tile SE of Borte, protected by a pack of Knights. It`s probably going to sit in Borte for a while until we decide what the best use for it is. Gavagai`s two Caravels are now 3N of the Banana plantation on D-mishi island (hasn`t moved this turn) and in the middle of the eastern sea (has moved). Gavagai playing a bit of his turn without pushing the end of turn button is annoying.. Anyway, I think he`s going to attack someone soon as he whipped 8 times. Hopefully it won`t be us.
For now we split the EP spending between Joey and dtay. We still have a big lead on dtay fortunately but Joey`s EP advantage over us is pretty big. He can produce a lot of EPs if he wants to. The EP graph shows us still in 2nd place, though.
Our cultural advantage is 57-42 on the D-mishi/Babukhan border. Our Monastery should help us keeping control of the tiles. On the eastern sea we have a few Pikes finishing. We need to dissuade an attack, especially as both dtay and Gavagai have a lot of Galleons sailing the seas.
Our science rate is pushing +700 beakers per turn now and will be even better next turn when the Observatory in Borte completes. Gunpowder is an easy 3 turn tech for us now. We have 3 Catapults, 3 Pikes and a Longbow completing eot.
