[SPOILERS] Novice and SevenSpirits play Suleiman of Korea

[novice]

Oh and Lewwyn adopted Hereditary Rule. I've yet to see a game on RB where early Monarchy was good - the maps are usually heavy on happy resources. I guess getting Monarchy after Currency is ok though, at least if you're spiritual and already have Monotheism.

[novice]

So I was looking at this city and considering whether to gouge my eyes out or queue up an archer and then 1 pop whip it. (I'm talking about the grassland tile being worked, of course.) I stayed my hand though and decided to let it grow to size 4 as soon as possible and then 2-whip the granary instead. The pain is temporary, soon it will work a rice farm, fish, and a forest.

[SevenSpirits]

Nice going.

Hey, at least a 2/0/1 citizen pays for itself in food and maintenance. Unlike our friend in King Ban who is arguably a net drain on the city working the coast.

I agree Monarchy doesn't seem to be the greatest here - it's really just about +2 happy/city plus you get to supercharge your capital, and Calendar and Metal Casting are both just fine for your happiness needs. I guess he is heading on to Feudalism soon?

Wonder-wise, we'll have the option to build Statue of Zeus and Shwedagon Paya starting next turn (since we already have the doublers unlike for marble/stone wonders). Interested in those? SoZ gives artist points which I don't mind particularly; Paya gives Prophet points which is less appealing. Both have useful effects. If I'm reading the game correctly Mackoti will probably try for Liberalism - Nationalism - Taj which makes our prospects of getting those bonuses somewhat poorer. We might be better off going Education for Seowons/Oxford but then up to Banking and Economics, nabbing the merchant and getting great military tech along the way. In this case Paya will not only allow us to skip Monotheism and Theology forever but it will allow an earlier pacifism while delaying Philosophy.

We should start thinking about medieval teching order and when we want to use our first golden age (presumably once we have some great civics coming online).

[SevenSpirits]

Btw Mackoti just showed up with an aqueduct in the capital and two more forests chopped. How have Bonsag not built the HG yet? It's past t70, they've had stone and math since forever. Better finish it this turn, guys...

[novice]

I think we do want Paya. Any suggestions where to build it?

SoZ would be great as a poor man's culture bomb. We'll have to wait until we have a developed jungle city, though. Or we could build it in the tundra although I think the culture is less useful there.

As for tech, our immediate needs are iron working and calendar. But maybe we should grab Music for the great artist? I'm itching to bomb that jungle, and denying it from our opponents is pretty huge too.

[novice]

Then I think we want Education and Gunpowder. If we get music too, Nationalism->Taj->Military Tradition becomes an option. Artists bulb Nationalism, btw. Oh, but we need Philo for Nat so might as well Lib it then.

You think Mack will beat us to Lib?

[SevenSpirits]

Artists bulb Nationalism, btw.

Not in any meaningful way, unfortunately. They bulb all the way up to Divine Right before doing so.

[SevenSpirits]

Novice played this one but I did 73 without a report, so I figure I'll catch you guys up. NoGraspOfPriorities failed to build Hanging Gardens despite having stone for a LONG freaking time and even building the Great Wall with it about twenty turns ago. Heads will roll, or at least eyes. So yeah that means Mackoti built it.

We on the other hand built the Great Library this turn. That's an immediate +16gpp/turn and +15b/turn - pretty amazing in other words. This will only get better as we complete the National Epic, an academy, etc.

Here are our cities. We're pretty much trying to grow into as much colossus coast as possible after getting a granary everywhere and popping borders. This requires careful management of happiness, which can be moved around in delightful ways via Representation. As you can see I've sorted the cities by population - the top 5 cities on this list are the beneficiaries of the +3 bonus.

In the near future I want to push Failed Sum up into the top 5, since it's a pretty nice city and Cruel Guitar is just about capped at its current tiles, particularly since the capital has been getting stingier about lending out food. This maneuver will be made easier soon, as we are getting silver online next turn (fixing those temporary unhappy faces in Yin and Smoots, btw) and Calendar (for an immediate Dye resource) the turn after. So Failed Sum can use those to vault past Cruel Guitar.

Also visible in the domestic advisor you can see I started Shwedagon Paya in Cruel Guitar last turn. It's fairly safe, doesn't need to build anything else urgently, and has enough hammers to finish the wonder in (I estimated) 10 turns, which I figured would surely be soon enough for any golden ages we might choose to trigger.

Here's a view of northern Clam Island (this sea has clams, the other one has crabs). Homely Pits' borders just expanded and we have 3 culture on that clam tile to 16 of Mackoti's. Hopefully we can get to 50 first.

You can also see we are about to settle Magical Tents, plus we're going to whip out another settler and hopefully grab another lush island spot.

Here are demographics. Mackoti just got a huge boost, obviously. We've also just de-emphasized hammers in the capital in favor of growing it a bit, so you can see us behind there too.


Finally I noticed this after ending turn, since the border pop gained us a peak tile (for peeking at the other players?).

Is Lewwyn itching to declare on NoLastGasp a third time? Immortals get a nice bonus against archers. I wish we could see into the city.

[Ceiliazul]

Homely Pits looks a wee bit exposed in that shot.

[novice]

NoGraspOfPriorities

Yeah, who lets Mackoti land such a powerful wonder, despite having the Great Eng.., err, stone, hooked up long in advance? Crazy.