[spoilers] OT4E is gonna try something special

[OT4E]

Advisors havent come to unanimous decision what to recommed me...


Sorry I cant talk about it seriously...

[OT4E]

This is the story about how I doubled the overall number of researched beakers in just 1 turn.

Initially before the start I was thinking about Oracling Machinery. Metal casting is cheaper in this mod and I was the only IND, also there was a trend of not making early wonders which I recognized observing other games. But I was aiming T60 at maximum. Anyway I gave up this plan after finding close neighbor, delaying pottery significantly for Animal Husbandry and Mysticism. But Oracle is not the thing you can lose from your attention and if you claim to be good you must grow in yourself some kind of game perception. If you are playing your own game without looking around you will always be a delicacy on someone's dinner table. This is my point.

Being close to complete Metal Casting I noticed that the option of building Oracle was still open. I knew I can do it in 1 turn, but I missed 2 techs: meditation or polytheism and priesthood. I evaluated my research capabilities and found out that it takes 3 turns on 100% to get them both, though I had to work some lakes and even coasts instead of good tiles like pigs, also I had to save some gold for 3 turns. The non-return point was when I started researching on T72, investments were not going to turn into gold if I was late, so it was plain risk, but it was worth that.

So 5 worker + 5 forest managed to do it. Nuff said.

What are additional reasons which made it work?
1. No marble in sight.
2. Plenty of luxuries around so it made Monarchy path on which Priesthood naturally lies less attractive
3. Weak players got early religion, usually those players grab Oracle if it is not gone before the reasonable time.
4. Close map and many of early wars.

[OT4E]

Some screens to think about:

[GermanJoey]

Very nice! Congrats!

[OT4E]

Sudden Oracle spoiled my plan and I need to build new one.

The remaining part is my three rabbits:
1. Oracle (built on T75)
2. Pyramids (ETA on T80)
3. Collosus (ETA on T85)

I am not sure I can get all, but again there is nothing more important than trying them.

But meanwhile Machinery brought me many new opportunities I need to add into my strategy:
1. I no longer need to spend GE to bulb it. I get GE before GP in SH city only if I finish pyramids. Now I can spend GE somewhere else.
2. New military available. I will trebutchets to get rid of wetbandit/ipecacin honor to that Oracle is build in their former cap.
3. I can start building wind and water mills. They are expensive in terms of worker turns and not really effective without Serfdorm, but I feel that I can base my economy on them. Unfortunately I still need Iron Working and Archery for crossbows, so I do not feel completely safe, neither I can start building the core of my future army because I can only build axes or chariots so far.

[OT4E]

My economy is bad. I made 4 cottages by T55 and now at T76 I still have just 5 and that 1 new I captured. All those wonders take all my available resource.

The main problem is in happy limit, I still have just furs connected and my cities are capped at size of 5. Ivory is coming in like 7-8 turns but I cant hook whales because of Collosus construction. The next settler will go to the west to gems but this only promise to solve problem in like 20 turns from now.

I could switch to representation if I finish pyramids but I personally think that Rep and Colossus both are stupid choice. So if possible I will choose growth and use coasts/makes for restore economics.

I put my bet on high pop adding some mills and preparing to GA. For GA mills and plain cottages are the best. So I am not going to whip a lot, though I think I will make army to visit Stardoor or Nyles/dcodea. This mainly depends to the scouting. I see big piece of land without any player presense, so may be there is no point to go into war if there is still enough in settled land.

[OT4E]

T78
Here is my micro plan:



RustyHorseshoe will build Pyramids in 2 turns if noone does it before. I doubt after all. Engineer is already working in the city and will bring me GE by T95.


New Horizon's borders will pop in 6 turns and provide me ivory, my main short term goal is to hook it and let cities grow. Whales will come soon after, but I still need Maths urgently to set away happiness limit. Anyway it will be great city even if I fail to build Colossus.


My cap is making 2turn chars to make basic military presense in the other cities. Unfortunately it cant use its 2nd food and hasnt finished granary yet.


The Small One has also sacrificed its own growth needs in honor to global. No granary or forge and its spending all its food into settlers. I still need to expand and there is no other way to get settlers than slow build them, because I am not in slavery.





The Watch Tower is my current leading candidate for Moai. It doesnt have much coasts but will be able to complete it earlier and will get better GP generation. The plan for it, InChopWeTrust and NeverPlantOnCow is to wait for slavery and whip some trebuchets to relsease wetbandit/ipecac.


TheThirdRabbit here. It builds forge 3 turns later than TheWatchTower but it has 3 forest to chop.

Demographs:


Top GNP on 100% doesnt mean much because I get +24 culture from wonders, but it says that noone has GNP. By this time people often get over 100 commerce and this map is quite rich, so I dont understand why it is so low.

I dropped to the 3rd place in food but there is nothing strange since I dont use my food because of happy cap and I am not top in city count definitely.

Forges brought me top production by decent margin.

The only thing justifying such a small power is that I am facing 2 nations down to 1 city and 3rd expresses no interest in my direction or possibly in any direction.

[OT4E]

About windmills I obviously cant build any before I solve the problem with growth. Right now I am pretty happy that mines consume food extras and I have to continue building them everywhere. The plan is to switch on kill economy closer to GA may be combined with adopting serfdorm.

[OT4E]

The main thing I need to decide is to tech Ironworking or not. Axes are extremely weak in this mod since they die to swords in cities and if I want to start gathering army I'd prefer to focus on swords/CBs rather than axes or chars. On the other hand there are plenty of in occupied land I do not really army to attach them to my empire. If I get army the temptation to use it will be too high to ignore it and I risk to let others take land for free while fighting hard for each tile.

But what is fighting hard? Stardoor has nothing and according to the fact that pindicator is following turn order with him means that it can happen that he can be already in trouble and I need to hurry to get a single piece from this pie.

[OT4E]

One thing to note. The worst nation has just 6 food, I know it is not wetbandit/ipecac because their city is at size of 5 and is eating like never before the Ottomans invasion. It means that dcodea's land is pillaged hard or Nyles is simply covering every useful tile before his main forces arrive.

Also 31 k power means 2 archers at most.. oh dear..