Ranamar and Lewwyn, ministers for Bismarck of Mali

[Ranamar]

Sounds good!

Edoras is defintely the place for it; you're forgetting how much more commerce it's about to get from Free Speech.

Yeah, for some reason, I keep forgetting about the +2C on all our cottages (and it has a lot of cottages...) from Free Speech.

[SevenSpirits]

I played t120. We got Communism!

Plan is to start the golden age next turn using merchant, spy, and the scientist from Yuris. (Leave the scientist in our capital for later just 'cause it's easier - then we don't have to land Yuris'.) Then we'll immediately revolt into Universal Suffrage, Free Speech, Caste System and State Property. (Not going to slave during the golden age so might as well boost our workshops some more. And we have cash rushing for emergencies.) I would like to revolt into Theocracy but we simply haven't had time to research Theology or build Shwedagon Paya yet.

A few micro notes:

- Edoras should only be a few hammers short of finishing Oxford next turn after the golden age and USuffrage swap. Maybe for example trading a farm to Dale for a windmill will make enough difference that we can get the 100% science bonus a turn earlier.
- Might want to whip the library in Bag End before we swap civics or it's going to grow into bad (ocean) tiles in the golden age.
- Barad-dur is going to finish Ironworks next turn and can build the living daylights out of the Kremlin after that. Then maybe Shwedagon Paya after that.

Strategy-wise we're doing really well right now. Here's demos for example:



Which mean that right now we should be extra paranoid about military, and make sure we have enough defenses. I think we can 1t-research railroad next turn; this will be good as it means we can start building machine guns everywhere. Machine guns being the best defense of this era as we discussed earlier. I hope we can also build Shwedagon Paya or research Theology before the end of our golden age so we can go to Theocracy. I don't think the building bonus from OR is that important anymore. Ideally we'd revolt at the beginning of the GA in fact but that's not possible.

So, defenses. Every city should make either drydock and ships or barracks and units. Probably we have enough drydocks by now so more barracks where needed. Exceptions are the buildings currently in queues (and of course Barad-dur) - lets finish those. I took a couple of banks out though, as State Property is going to raise our research rate a lot. The best economic buildings now are lib/observatory/university and I think we've got enough for now. I've been building cannons as they're the most advanced unit we can build and we want some siege, but after we can we'd much rather build machine guns. Ship-wise we mostly want to wait until Railroad-Physics-Combustion is done and we use uranium to make destroyers/transports. Maybe start galleons if our drydock/no barracks cities need something to do, and they'll auto-upgrade to transports in the queue later.

[SevenSpirits]

Oh, forgot to mention:



GES+Luddite/Yuris made peace and the former gave two cities to the latter. This worries me a lot.

Chat with Yuris which increases my worry further:

me: I thought GES/luddite seemed pretty safe after you didn't take any cities in the first turn and he made so many rifles
what got him to give you the cities?
Sent at 3:10 PM on Monday
Yuri: I don't know, honestly. Didn't take much effort to convince him All I could do was threaten him with Galleon harassment, and apparently he bought it

Last I'd heard from GES he was he was planning on getting frigates to blockade the crap out of yuris. It's really hard to buy that galleon thing and that makes me think yuris has something to hide about this mysteriously lopsided deal.

[NobleHelium]

Uh, don't the great people need to be on the same tile to launch the GA?

[Ranamar]

That last bit is really worrying...

As tempting as it might be to get physics next even though nobody else can get at it quite yet, I think we really do need to get railroad so we can start producing some modern garrisons, first.

Although... we still have deals signed with everyone, I think... I wonder if "threatened galleon harassment" involved a certain amount of paying Yuris off to go bother Commodore.

[SevenSpirits]

That last bit is really worrying...

As tempting as it might be to get physics next even though nobody else can get at it quite yet, I think we really do need to get railroad so we can start producing some modern garrisons, first.

Although... we still have deals signed with everyone, I think... I wonder if "threatened galleon harassment" involved a certain amount of paying Yuris off to go bother Commodore.

Well luckily there's no big hurry on Physics, everyone else is still several techs away since they lack Compass. We can definitely grab RR first turn of GA and Physics second turn (with help from a bulb).

@NobleHelium nope - the GA button is available on our scientist in the galleon. If we just hit that it will consume the right GPs.

[Lewwyn]

Uh, don't the great people need to be on the same tile to launch the GA?

Nope.

[SevenSpirits]

Played t121. The only decisions I made were what to do with the workers, everything else was decided already. Started golden age #3, revolted, got railroads.

Here's how our demographics were affected. Compare to the shot from EOT 120.

Library whipped, a few tiles microed, golden age started:


Food goes from 570 to 564.
MFG goes from 314 to 480.
GNP goes from 1232 to 1937. (But also gained 20% tech bonus by selecting RR)

Now with civics swapped:


Food 564 -> 573.
MFG 480 -> 622.
GNP 1937 -> 2268.

At EOT we finish Oxford, Ironworks and a couple other things.


Food 564 -> 588
MFG 622 -> 703
GNP 2268 -> 2060 (lost 20% tech bonus)

[Ranamar]

That GNP jump is frankly kind of scary... I guess all those windmills going from 1 commerce to 2 commerce, as well as sea tiles gaining a commerce from 1 or 2, because cottages should be grown enough by now that it wouldn't be nearly that enormous a difference.

Gaining ~300 GNP from changing civics is also impressive.

How did we manage to gain 80(!) hammers EOT? Is that counting some sort of overflow, or did we complete some forges, too?
... Wait, all our towns should be pulling a hammer each now. I suppose we could well be pulling a ton of hammers from the ironworks right now.

[SevenSpirits]

That GNP jump is frankly kind of scary... I guess all those windmills going from 1 commerce to 2 commerce, as well as sea tiles gaining a commerce from 1 or 2, because cottages should be grown enough by now that it wouldn't be nearly that enormous a difference.

Gaining ~300 GNP from changing civics is also impressive.

How did we manage to gain 80(!) hammers EOT? Is that counting some sort of overflow, or did we complete some forges, too?
... Wait, all our towns should be pulling a hammer each now. I suppose we could well be pulling a ton of hammers from the ironworks right now.

Base production in Barad-dur right now is 71, so that accounts for almost all the 80. The rest is probably cities growing into more workshops.



Sadly we're not quite going to 1-turn the Kremlin.


About the civics GNP gain, a lot of that (like 200-250 or so) was actually the +100% culture. But remember that we swapped out of representation converting science to hammers basically, and and free speech from bureau is approximately breakeven in terms of commerce/maintenance. We're still working on upgrading a bunch of villages to towns though, it will definitely outshine Bureau soon. I almost opted to stay in bureau until the end of the golden age but the doubled culture will actually be quite handy. The only civic swap that was significantly commerce-positive was Free Market to State Property.