[Spoilers] Commodore as Darius of the HRE

[Commodore]

Okay, so barring anything really weird happening, the war is over and I'm in a markedly better position for the oncoming years. Here's a general plan, subject to changes as we go, naturally:

Item 1: General Builds

Okay, obviously the new startup cities will be doing the usual granary, forge, rathaus, and library, but the established cities need to be pumping out as many workers as possible between growths and infrastructure polishing. One more settler for blue dot needs to be built in Nemedia and although Grenoble removes the pressing need for a yellow dot, I still want one more hub city when the workers are free. My military is strong enough to be a threat for a little while, although upgrades are in order for the visible defenders to more modern stuff.

Item 2: Research

Next tech up is Civil Service, followed immediately by Monarchy. The conventional wisdom would be to fire off the GA at this point to switch to HR/Bureau, accept the GNP/MFG windfall as a way to get caught up a little, and move on. This is an option, but I'm also considering getting Meditation during a gold-saving turn and then grabbing Philosophy. The GA would then be a case for a quadruple swap (that doable?) to HR/Bur/Caste/Pacifism and during the GA squeezing out as many Great People as possible...and with me only having popped one GP thus far, that's quite a few GP. The next part still happens with or without the Philo pitstop. Then, with a stop at Theology if Christianity is still unfounded, on to Paper then Education. After that it's obviously Liberalism first if it remains a free tech, Printing Press otherwise. At this point, stop, reassess, and see what comes next (probably either seafaring techs or a rifles bee-line).

Item 3, Sistine Chapel

I have marble and as far as I know I'm the only one with music right now. I am hemmed in by others' culture. Every part of this screams "get Sistine". Right now Aquilonia has tossed a few hammers in in between builds, but I think I'll chop it out soon. It's not a great wonder, but it makes a cultural victory less of a no-chance and more of a faint chance.

These are at least my thoughts currently. GES founded Taoism a few turns back, so Liberalism is probably out, but in either case this plan yields good returns with a ton of PP-powered towns and hamlets in my Oxford-building empire.

[Ceiliazul]

Sounds ok, but remember how valuable your OB is to France. Don't agree to permanent OB...that's too valuable to give up future negotiations on.

One interesting thing: avignon IS a backlines city. ;-)

[Commodore]

As I mentioned to MNG, the way I see it, his permanent spices is the cost of those OB. I'm not going to nickel and dime a preferred post-Astronomy ally if it keeps him in the running. Remember, Fin/Org is about to shine...now. Creative is fading and the lack of Financial is really going to hurt the rest of the game. In a horse race between MNG and us, my money is on us if we can tech/build with relative security.

This does not, of course, mean I'll be ignoring defense or anything daft like that. That particular lesson is quite driven into my skull.

[Ceiliazul]

Sounds like you got all you could ask for then. :-)

Will you settle the Artist on your GES border? Would be nice to get those clams back from the hostile city next door.

For the first time in a while, I opened the save... some ideas:

Zingara should build a work boat first, right?
Nemedia can swap to a settler for blue dot? (South blue better to get 2nd clams)
Will you settle the French peninsula? Only one city can be placed there, I'd rather it be yellow.

[Commodore]

Ah, excellent questions all;

Will you settle the Artist on your GES border?

I think that he'd notice that one. As nice as it would be to steal the crabs, a golden age would be nicer in general. See: Why it'd be awesome to nab the Sistine Chapel.

Zingara should build a work boat first, right?

Actually, not sure if you noticed, but Koth built a work boat that will hook up the fish next turn. And those workers will finish chop-mining next turn as well. It's going to be a great site.

Nemedia can swap to a settler for blue dot? (South blue better to get 2nd clams)

South blue a legal site? I know the two sites are over water and diagonal, but I thought they still needed to be two apart to be legal. In either case, thanks for the reminder, Nemedia does need to be swapped. First worker, then settler, worker will road so that the settler gets on the hill the turn it's built.

Will you settle the French peninsula? Only one city can be placed there, I'd rather it be yellow.

The jungle one? Hrm. MNG and I had DMZ'd it earlier. Need to go back to the table with that one.

[Commodore]

Well, it's pretty marginal and about to starve, but the peace is signed and we're now richer by a lot of tundra.



Woot! Ironically, it moved me over a threshold I'm certain everyone else has been at for a while now:



Ain't gonna complain. I have the room now, just time to start making use of it all. I expect these numbers to really start improving now.



It just remains to be seen how much. Did have one thing improving my income a little:



Just about enough to make up for the brutal support costs of the new land. Next up, build those rathausai asap! In some cases a rathaus is coming in second after a granary, and boy are they making themselves felt. I took a few pictures of the south-east cities for review a little later, it will be instructive to compare the before/after maint.

[Commodore]

Okay, for Reasons Why This Is Winnable: Part 1:



I just 1-pop whipped this city (weedishly, ought to have 2-popped, but eh) for a rathaus. The current maintenance rounds up to -8 per turn. Next turn, it's a piddling -2. Next build is "making marginal location better" building #2, a lighthouse...which will be 2-pop whipped the second Khauran grows again. Forge is next, and after that, it's monastery time, followed by either temple or market or grocer. Thanks to the gold even at its worst the place was profitable but next turn it will start carrying the two new acquisitions all by its lonesome. And this is a severely marginal site.

Even sadder sites are improvable:



Khoraja has been neglected and forgotten, used to pump extra backline guards and two ships during the recent build-up. The poor place was at 2 for a long time, just outputting hammers. Now with its borders popped (via building culture) it owns a floodplain farm and is slow-growing while waiting for the granary to finish. As soon as it does, a whip will come in for the forge and then it, too, shall receive a rathaus, although this one will only save 5 gpt rather than 6.

In the western corner the future grassland farm that will double as irrigation towards Koth's rice will actually give the place enough food to grow to fill the three grasshill mines and, once the cheap lighthouse comes in, all those 2/0/3 coasts too. A missionary will be needed soon as the free spread count this game still remains at 1.

Even the city 2 tiles from the capital will benefit tremendously from the rathaus:



The market is going in first more for the silly-high happy addition it has and the merchant slot than a need for the multiplier, although it will also make sharing cottages with the capital more efficient. Again, the el cheapo Org rathaus is worth a constant 4 or 5 gpt (depending on the whipped size of Koth). Again, this is the worst-case situation, a city that literally sees Aquilonia in its city screen. Was this map made for us or what?

[Commodore]

Mechanics Question: If I settle on a tile with furs, that gets me a 2/1/2 city tile, correct? Which then financial moves to 2/1/3?

[mackoti]

Only if its near a river.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Unless the base tile gives more than 2 food or 1 hammer or 2 commerce, it won't boost the city tile. That's why everyone settles on plains hills as it has 2 base hammers).

Also, one minor thing, it's impossible to 2-pop whip the lighthouse as you're organised. Take that as a good thing!