[Spoiler] Any volunteers for a human sacrifice? Brennus of the Aztecs, by Krill

[Krill]

So I wrote that post on what I could tech in the past week, and I finally decided that I'm going to go for Aesthetics, Lit and that junk tech Polytheism. I think it is a risky strategy: IW>Calendar has a definite pay out down south, and opens up 2 move in jungle jags, and Alphabet>Currency has a solid commerce and beaker pay out. But I'm in the lead according to the demographics and F8, and I need to do something to make sure I stay there. IW and Calendar would leave me with no tech pace, Alphabet and Currency have a lower payoff IMO than Aesthetics, Lit, SoZ (and the NE which is enables, Barracks+Stables+SoZ= (3+2+3)XP= 8XP= level 4 chariot) and the GL.

As I've said before, you can't just sit on your laurels, you have to keep on pushing, so I'm taking this risk now rather than the other risk: giving the GL to Scooty. Their wonders will start to become less useful as the game progresses, obsoleting the Collosus and GLH, the tech tree is researched and we gain new civics. I don't have much fear of the others, not since Commodore started to wreck Pingo's game. Or rather, I don't fear them until they can trade tech.

But we are quite a ways from there at the slower players tech pace. So I need to consider likely tech paths after Lit if I tech to there, and if the GL falls before I get to Lit.

Even if the GL falls, I am researching Aesethetics first for SoZ, but that leaves about 500 adjusted beakers of tech I could get in lieu of Lit, and a further 400 I should be able to get with the extra saved gold. No extra tech paths are available except Drama but to hell with that. The best path is probably IW first to enable a strong unit to interdict the jungle area, and focus on getting a monastery in a good hammer city for missionary production.

If you look at the two cities I want first, neither of them needs IW or calendar to hook up the first few tiles, grass cow toward Nazul, and plains cow and horse towards Teoi, but both need border pops. With WTF? still due for an SoZ build, the likely aim would be to pop the missionaries from Crapital, it has nothing else to build and can slow grow upwards. The settlers would come from GNAP and SC. I'd likely have to pull the chariots back from Teoi as I wouldn't have many more due to be built: I'd likely have 5 chariots total, with warriors, meaning Archery would be a very smart choice.

Note, I keep on saying that, but I never seem to tech it? The reason is I don't actually have anywhere I'd build the archers, and as the tech is useless with out the production capacity I haven't teched it. Anyway, I'll get off the tangent.

After IW, I'd expect to have the two cities down and missionaries heading towards them or the religion already spread. The aim then is military in nature, take and hold Teoi and the Pingo barb city. I'd need to weigh up the use of the HE in WTF? versus just build ing HA without it. I think hammerwise the HE is definitely worth it, but would I want to tech Lit? I would still need HBR for stables, after all so I couldn't just build the HE. I'd probably go HBR first, the stables would be built on the way to Lit anyway, and gives me HA for other cities to build. Combined with IW and Jags, that's a decent combo. I'd then have to save gold, and it would be much slower at this point. I'd likely have to get Currency, but the utility of Research builds would be unknown from Alphabet (due to military builds), so I'd probably go via Maths.

Conclusion: If I miss the GL, I'm probably going to end up taking a more militaristic stance in this game.

[Krill]

And the rest of the turn report.

Still growing...

Still boring. I could have workign the marble this turn and given the corn toe RVC to grow RVC this turn istead of next turn, but I don't want to starve this city. It's more important to grow this city now I'm going with the GP from here, it has a granary and the better tiles to work than RVC.

Silver city settler.

Warrior>chariot as explained before, though it's only going to be useful to pad my soldier points.

Yay I can explore shortly

Still growing, but the plains hill should be mined by T95, and the city should be size 5 by eot T95, ready to work the mines and build stuff.

Something to consider. ORG would only be saving me 6 gpt at, but FIN would likely be making me even less at 2cpt. Though that is with no decent coast cities, so I suppose FIN would have made me play the game out differently. And ORG would give me cheap libs for Crapital and light houses for GNAP, and RVC. I think T-hawk came up with a good fix for FIN...

[novice]

A size 13 capital with nothing but a granary. Beautiful.

[Krill]

Buildings are overrated.

[Krill]

A size 13 capital with nothing but a granary. Beautiful.

Buildings are overrated.

To expand on novices point...buildings act as multipliers, increasing what is already there (granary, library), enabling cities to grow larger (aquaduct, temple) or open new tiles to be worked, as that is all specialist slots are, extra tiles (library, temple), or a combination of the three (markets or grocers). But all of them require population to be making the raw yields, and that's why having a large population is a good thing. It's also significantly cheaper to grow a city than it is to make buildings. Population can do something productive every turn, but buildings are harder to use. Libraries and banks depend on the slider, monasteries the slider and the need to spread religion, markets are perhaps easier to use because they allow more pop in the city.

So if the point of the game is to grow more pop, the needs are an increased happy cap, and a good food surplus. And granaries, lots of granaries. And good tiles for the population to work. Well, I have the happy cap, from CHM (+2), resources (+3), religion (+1) and civics (1-∞. The food surplus is harder to do: I've had to share food resources between various cities, but I've still gotten a good (OK, great) amount of pop for this game from sharing that food. I've gotten granaries in almost every city, but more importantly I've gotten them in cities that have either needed to grow very tall (lots of pop in a single city) or had a very small food surplus and needed to decrease the amount of food needed to grow each pop point.

The last point, good tiles to use, is where Seven's thread about tile values comes in. Valuing population productivity is not easy, but the rule of thumb (for vanilla BtS) I use is this: if I have the spare room in the happy cap, and the city can support the tiles worked as cottages, grow it and work them. They'll be good tiles eventually, and you can use them for tech or hammers with the right civics, and the pop is stored hammers towards military if needed. But here, I'm not so sure, because being the tech leader isn't that helpful, and the value of pop from the whip is lower, which increases the value of up front investments (other tile improvements except farms, and specialists). Towns are still great tiles, but it's skewed a bit more to workshops etc compared to vanilla.

So right now I'm focussing much more on city specialization, and designing each city to meet the needs of the empire: DF got cottaged to fund cities 4, 5 and 6, and Crapital got cottaged to increase bpt (I know 1 commerce is same to another, but the bpt didn't increase noticeably after DF got cottaged, but it has as Crapital has grown). WTF? gets hammer tiles to push out military and let DF, Crapital and that river city focus on growing and building gold and beaker multipliers. But population comes first.

[SleepingMoogle]

I started following this thread about a week ago, and must say it's an awesome and informative read so far. It's very interesting and helpful to see your thoughts and decisions explained in such detail. Definitely picking up some helpful bits and pieces along the way so thanks a lot for your effort.

[Krill]

Thanks SM, I'm trying to keep on updating, which I haven't been able to do in most of my games, and TBH it is helping me play at a higher level than I have for a while, so it's mutually beneficial.

[Krill]

Yay a galley, with a chariot. And it looks like there is a fair amount of land up there...which is the last thing I really want, if it's white. I want 3 fish and a crab...

Looks like I'm finally going to have to use military for killing things...

I like those gpt figures.

Soon as that barb moves somewhere dumb it's pretty much dead, as it is only 1.3

Slightly less beautiful now according to novice. This library is a 6 turn build, not a 7 turn build due to labourer reallocation in 2 turns.

T123 this will be less boring...still, it's growing. That grassland up north will be cottaged next turn as well.

Pigs back in 2 turns, and Wines in...4? The warrior is currently 7 of WTF?, able to move between Crapital and WTF? as needed.

This city really needs CS. The grass farm can be swapped to the new city though, and the plains hill worked, once it has a monument and a work boat out...

Need to get a library here as back up if I miss the GL. I probably ought to chop most of the forests as well if I do miss the GL.

3 more turns and this becomes an uber 12 hpt powerhouse city. Well, one of those three points is true, anyway. Still most likely moai city...

works the plains forest this turn, and the plains mine next turn until the monument and then work boat is finished. Maybe with a turn or three of a grass farm instead, so long as the work boat finishes the turn before the borders pop.

[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

So, DP cost me net 7 gpt in civic and city maintenance, but with units coming back into my borders, and not counting the newly built galley, which moved out of my borders along with a chariot...whatever, I don't care about the maths right now. The city hasn't bankrupted me and now Pingo know where my borders are near to them.

[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

Some graphs for you to peruse.

[Krill]

OK, comment on this turn: I'm actually considering sending that settler over towards Nazul to settle on that hill. A W2 warrior on that hill, another warrior, and a chariot would hold against pretty much everything except a stack of chariots or better. There is the argument that I should have settled that city with the settler that made DP, as Pingo have a war to deal with. But I can just see rego pushing out a settler or two to try and keep up expansion in the "safe" backlines, screwing me over and forcing a war that I don't really want. That silver city isn't really critical so long as I have HR and Crapital is the only city with a large pop

[Krill]

Additional point: Now that the settler is at 30/100 in WTF? I can always revolt to slavery and whip it out immediately. Cost is 3 pop, which is pretty high, as the settler should finish in 4 more turns (so I'd basically be saving 3 turns). Roads would speed up the settling date by 1 turn, if I managed to get the 9 worker turns to road the four tiles needed.

Even with the high costs, it's quite tempting to slave the settler, as I think I would just build an army and declare war to raze any city stopping me settling that area. Looking ath te power grpah, that bump looks like it is either a chunk of units (to go settle somewhere aggressively) or IW, which lets Nazul settle the jungle. Either way, I need to keep an eye on it...