Macro Thread

[zakalwe]

I played on after landing the pyramids until T90, and we're still not done growing to our happy cap. Tons of cottages to build.

I whipped a settler and a worker in the north on T80, and revolted on T81. Settled the ivory city on T83. Our economy can handle more cities, but with all the growth and cottaging we need to do, it could easily be another ten turns before the next city, which should probably be the marble city in the north.

So in terms of NAP durations, I wouldn't mind extending them well beyond T100. And there's really no rush to agree on a settlement plan with TEAM for the eastern peninsula.

[zakalwe]

Our economy can handle more cities,

On reflection, I guess this is debatable. The ivory city is pretty expensive, and we don't urgently need the happiness if we land the pyramids. So if we secure the settling rights diplomatically, we should perhaps delay it a bit more.

What do we want to do with our first great scientist? An academy might make sense if we also build the great library.

[zakalwe]

This was good deal indeed. We'll have both marble and stone to play with and after Representation we've a good shot at getting the key wonder tech we want before others. We could try to land Great wall and/or Hanging Gardens and pursue e.g. fast Calendar to land MoM or alternatively Great Library. We'll have lots of Great persons in this game so MoM would be very useful.

Moving this macro discussion here.

MoM is obviously great, but I don't think calendar would give us a lot, economically. We'd get spices on-line, and we could also get sugar and silks, but we would have to settle cities we can't afford to claim them. Our improved happy cap with the pyramids is great, but even though we're growing onto a bunch of cottages, those citizens are still really high maintenance, particularly after settling another city or two. So ideally I'd like to focus on economic snowballing first, and delay the MoM as much as possible; just reserve the forests for it and try to keep a watch on the other teams' tech progress.

For our economy, I'm wondering if a code of laws might be in order. That would give our cities something to build, we'd get a way to control costs, and we'd get access to caste system, which might be useful, at least during a golden age. Oh and a religion, possibly, for what that's worth.

Of course, we could do currency before code of laws, for the discount. Trade routes are nice, and markets would also be good builds, considering our slider settings. (Wealth too, for that matter.)

The third option I kind of like is to go for aesthetics and literature. If we manage to build the great library in a good spot, we could add an academy and also settle future scientists there. Our riverside cities don't have a lot of forests left, but with marble and an early start it looks quite feasible. Not sure if this is really a good strategy though, or more like a fun experiment. The Paya would also be nice, I guess.

[plako]

My tech path preferences after Pyramids:
1) Fishing - Sailing - Calendar: MoM is top tier (e.g. normal speed gives option for 2 civic switches) and +1 happiness now and +2 down the line is not that bad. Actually I would settle Marble city and then the city near silk, cows and corn after that so it would actually be +2 right away and +1 later and we could chop MoM in that city. No matter what we need Fishing to make stone city productive
2) Fishing - Polytheism (if Hinduism available otherwise after Aesthetics) - Aesthetics - Literature: Great Library would be very good while being in Representation and we could proceed towards Music Artist. Happiness will start to be an issue, if we go here. Religion would help a little, but spreading it would require Monotheism or Meditation.
3) Fishing - Currency - CoL: Courthouses and Markets are expensive, but trade route benefit would be immediate. This path is pretty expensive also. CoL opens up possibility for Religion and Caste system, but I much rather have MoM and initiate golden age to switch civics when we get here.

[zakalwe]

How about this, as a rough plan?

0% science until the great scientist is born in Bitter (T90ish), while building the great wall and collecting lots of failgold for it. Meanwhile, research fishing and polytheism using scientists, and settle the marble city. Make an academy in the capital, and research aesthetics and literature at 100%. Build the great library in the capital using whip overflow and a few third ring chops. Also collect more failgold from the great library, and power on towards calendar. Settle the corn/silk city and chop out the mausoleum.

(Maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves here, but I'll be surprised if anyone beats us to the pyramids.)

[novice]

We can only build any given wonder in one city at a time, so if we're finishing a wonder ASAP we won't be able to get failgold from it as well.

EDIT: although we can do tricks with alternating chops/whip overflows in different cities.

[zakalwe]

We can only build any given wonder in one city at a time, so if we're finishing a wonder ASAP we won't be able to get failgold from it as well.

EDIT: although we can do tricks with alternating chops/whip overflows in different cities.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I don't know how much fail gold we can get from TGL, but we can get a lot from the GW. I built it almost to completion in BM before finishing it in HN in my play through.

[zakalwe]

I also put the overflow from pyramids into the GW.

[zakalwe]

I played through to T102 to get a feel for how the great library plan would work out.

In short, I got TGL EOT97 and the mausoleum EOT102. My worker micro was pretty tight up until T90, then gradually more and more sloppy.

We could probably get mausoleum a bit quicker if we beeline for it (though it should be noted that the silk/corn city really has too few forests for it), but if we want to aim for both wonders, I bet this is much faster.

Some milestone dates:
T83: Fishing. (Needed one turn of 30% science.)
T87: Polytheism.
T90: Great scientist born. Marble city settled.
T91: GW completed in Horse's Neck. 148 failgold in total. Academy built in capital, 100% science.
T94: Aesthetics.
T95: Literature. Four third ring chops + whip overflow from barracks into TGL in the capital.
T96: Overflow from settler whip in Bitter sunk into TGL, while the capital whips a spear.
T97: TGL completed in capital at end of turn. 52 failgold from Bitter. Central horse city founded.
T98-T101: Sailing (and meditation should be doable, too, so we can start the Paya).
T102: Calendar, could easily be sooner, but we may not be ready to chop the mausoleum earlier. Chop mausoleum in central horse city, (whose borders just expanded).

Capital on T102: (Pretty good shape, the whip anger is receding and calendar happies will be online soon.)



Mausoleum being chopped on T102:



Edit. Minor complication: apparently, the forest W-SW of the mausoleum city grew in the sandbox.

[plako]

GLib is short term superior to MoM. Long term losing MoM would hurt, but probably not enough to give up the benefits of the early GLib so I'm starting to agree with you. Furthermore despite of side tracking we might still get MoM.

Silk/Corn city can potentially have 7 forests that alongside with whip overflow would give us pretty fast MoM (Not cosidering how feasible dot map with this positioning would be). Of course this assumes we don't chop 3rd ring forests around capital for Glib from this direction. I think this city would be very good to settle after the Marble one. It is close to capital making it cheaper and has riverside/hills and cows+corn.