I Am America and So Can You! (Kuro/Whosit Spoiler Thread)

[Whosit]

So, I have come up with a plan:



EoT75: Revolt to OR, configure Washington, workers move partway.
EoT76: 15/40 (workers arrive to forests)
EoT77: 30/40 (1) chops start
EoT78: Whip (2)
EoT79: Complete G Lib. Chops complete (3)

There are workers closer to the forests, but they'd have to wait a turn anyway, so I figured we could use more distant ones. However, if you think it would be worth putting a turn into a road or a cottage, you could use closer Workers, but you'd have to make sure you didn't forget to get them all chopping on the right turn.

So, a few more details:

The Confucian Monastery is 40 hammers. Washington needs to be configured to produce at least 12 hpt base so it will get boosted to 15 hpt for the next two turns. You can configure for more hammers, but do not produce more than 19 hpt, because we don't want the Monastery to actually finish.

Assuming 15 hpt, we'll whip with 30/40. (post whip make sure that the city is still producing 12 hpt base) With 4 chops coming the next turn, my calculations actually suggest we will have exactly enough production to meet the 234 requirement for the G. Lib. Even if my numbers are off, I was not including the production that the city would produce on T79 (just the chops and overflow) so we should still be totally clear. We can definitely get this wonder in 5 turns.

No one should be able to beat us (easily, anyway). Assuming the actual game has this artifact with no production put into anything, even the Inca shouldn't have a head start, and we're the only ones with Marble. They'd have to chop out a lot more forests to do this. They are not currently in OR, either, so they'd have to revolt, too. (Khmer and Persia are already in OR, though.)

I'm going to see if I can come up with any more specific suggestions for other cities.

[Whosit]

In the meantime, a pipe dream:



Figuring out where to stage our troops is going to be a pain and a half, but....

A stack of one-movers, siege, and knights hit that hill together. Use the siege and slow-movers to take the city. The Knights should be able to charge down to the next blue dot as soon as the city falls (keep in mind, we're going to want to bring some combat workers to road that hill), and then next turn can fork Cuzco and Huamanga. We'd want a sentry unit to give us vision. We might want to divert a couple of Knights to pillage their Horses (2N, 1W of Cuzco). They have 2 Iron and 1 Horse, so we can't alpha strike their resources, but this battle plan seems... feasible?

(To be honest, I don't know since my MP war skills are pretty bad, but at least this is a way for me to learn by proposing things to see how they float.)

((I wonder if we could convince Commodore to attack the Inca at the same time we do.))

[Kuro]

My biggest worry with an invasion like that is that it seems like we'd have a lot of trouble against Longbows and Pikes (We're late enough Pikes will probably come into play here!). We'd be pretty screwed if a Knight invasion plan failed due to our low commerce and it will take a bit to get our production cities online. Do you think it might be more feasible to go up to Curassairs (I FORGOT HOW TO SPELL IT SUDDENLY) for this? Or should we try to Manifest our Destiny ASAP to prevent falling behind?

The Great Library plan looks very good to me. Since we have a lot of forests around, do you think there's any 100% American Wonders we should look into for other cities?

[Kuro]

Also I can't check ATM. Did the reset of production etc also reset cottage growth?

[Whosit]

You make some good points. An invasion may want to wait. We'll just have to figure out how to not fall behind. I'll try thinking about some other wonders we might want to aim for, but I'm thinking we could be better off going along the bottom of the tech tree. I figure since we're behind on Wonders anyway, we might as well not put too much effort into chasing them now.

And it looks like cottage growth did reset! D:

[Whosit]

For some reason I thought we were PHI/ORG, but we are PHI/IMP. I never use Suleiman.
I guess the best way to use IMP at this point is to start warring and earn some GG points.

For now, I'm going to see if I can elaborate on my city build ideas.

Washington: Doing the Glib thing.
New York: Can produce a Worker in 3 turns. Hesitant to whip here because of the poor food conditions.
Atlanta: Put a turn into a Worker, then 2-pop whip it. We'll just lose a couple coast tiles until it regrows.
Chicago: I... don't even know. Maybe just build an Archer? I'd like to see its food box fill up, at least, but this is a shit hole. Throw down a Windmill on that hill and it'll stagnate at whatever.
Seattle: Put a turn into a Worker and whip it.
San Fran: Painful, but whip a Worker out of here. We'll just want to farm and windmill everything, I guess. It has a Barracks and a Granary, so it should just build troops.
Philadelphia: Put turn into a Worker. Whip.
Boston: See above.

New York:
T76: Worker (0/40)
T77: 14/40 >whip> 54/40 +12fh = 66/40
T78: Worker > Worker 0/40 +26+12
T79: Worker 38/40 (should be possible to micro tiles to get a couple extra fh to finish this off, we'd just lose out on some commerce this turn)
T80: Forge > Units

New York can get us a couple Workers out. I changed my mind about not whipping it. The city will regrow... eventually. When we get Civil Service, just farm all those plains. Interestingly, it currently has a base commerce of 16 (note we get +4 from Persian trade), so if we want to invest in a Market that will add +4 gold. However, it will probably just be a unit pump after we get the Forge.

Atlanta:
T76: Worker (0/40)
T77: Worker 12/40 >whip> 52/40 +12 fh = 64/40
T78: Worker > Worker 0/40 +24 +12
T79: Worker (36/40)
T80: Worker > ???

Atlanta can net us another couple Workers, but what to do after that I am not sure. It lacks production. A Forge wouldn't provide much help for the investment (although it would let the city run an Engineer specialist). Maybe it can slowly build us boats...?

Chicago:
...Tell it to build Archers into infinity and forget about it? We might want to get a Barracks first, but it doesn't even get enough base hammers to benefit from OR. The only thing useful about this city is that it's getting us gems.

Seattle:
T76: Worker (0/40)
T77: Worker 13/40 >whip>
T78: Either a second Worker, or just start a Forge and units.

We might want to pull for the second Worker here, just because we're going to have a LOT of work to do. Seattle doesn't have enough commerce to make a Library or Market worth it. We do want a Forge here, and then it should just pump out units.

San Francisco:
Whip a Worker ASAP, then make Forge and units.

Philadelphia:
I'm getting lazy, but just do a Worker whip, Forge, then stuff.
This might have to pull duty as a hybrid. There's a couple grassland forests that can get chopped down to make cottages, and we just farm over all the rest of the plains. Y'know, this place is mostly plains and lives off Wheat and Cows. Kansas City?

Boston:
Whip a Worker ASAP
Build a Jewish temple (after the religion spreads) to run an extra Priest.
Build Confucian Missionaries!
I don't think it has enough base hammers right now to make a Forge worth it, but there are two hills asking for mines, so after those are running a Forge would be good. There are also more grasslands asking for cottages. We want a Library, Market, and Monasteres here. Heck, maybe even try to get a Hindu spread from Atlanta for another Monastery (in Washington, too).

This should get us 8-9 workers in 5 turns, basically doubling our work force. I think 18 Workers for 8 cities is more than enough, but we'll want that number because there's so much to do.

Our best units at the moment are Horse Archers and Catapults, I think. If we get an Ivory trade and WE are not banned, then we'd want to build those, too.

Wonders:
Hagia Sophia
Shwedagon Paya
Apostolic Palace
Sistine Chapel
Music Artist*
Notre Dame (stone)
Versailles
Spiral Minaret
University of Sankore
Taj Mahal**

Hagia Sophia might actually be useful because our land is so badly developed, plus we have the Marble for it! However, it obsoletes at Steam Power (which basically replaces the worker speed bonus), so it's a matter of how long we'd have it active.

Shwedagon Paya is available... but why build it?

AP, SM, and UoS would be fun, but I don't think it's worth the investment on our part. We're not doing a Monk economy.

We have Marble for Sistine, but I do't think it would really benefit us, unless you can think of a reason we'd want that extra culture.

I'd love to be able to snag the Great Artist from Music, but the Inca can beat us to it if they want to. We want to get Metal Casting and Civil Service before going after something like that.

Notre Dame would be great! But we don't have stone and aren't IND, so it's probably not worth it. Others have Stone, so they'll probably get it.

Versailles would be nice if we could think of a good place to put it.

Taj Mahal! We are the only ones with Marble, so if we get Nationalism first, we have a good shot at landing it. I'm not sure if we'd want to go through Liberalism to get Nationalism, though. However, we should make a try at it.

Other notes:

We get cheap Universities, so an Education bulb could be good... but we only have 2-3 cities in which Universities make sense, so I dunno.

[Kuro]

If we went through Liberalism to get Nationalism, we could build Taj and go into Curasseirs into a war machine. It would also be a good idea to get the Taj because I am going to guess if the Mausoleum Holders get Taj they'll spiral out of control even with underdeveloped land. I also think we can push for a slightly later than Knights invasion because everyone's lands will be suboptimally improved for a while and cottage growth was set to 0T, so research and production is likely less than what would normally happen in MP at this time. AP could be useful but I am thinking it is too much of a pain to get mostly.

Theoritically, on the topic of Sistine, we could go for a Cultural Victory lol, we've got enough religions for it! And what better culture is there than AMERICAN culture?

[Whosit]

I have about zero experience with cultural victories, so I'm not sure I could help you there. Main worry is everyone dog piling us when we're about to win. How much planning does it take to get a cultural win?

[Kuro]

I have about zero experience with cultural victories, so I'm not sure I could help you there. Main worry is everyone dog piling us when we're about to win. How much planning does it take to get a cultural win?

It'd probably take a lot of planning and I don't think it is something we could seriously do, I just thought I'd bring up that it's amusing that we actually have a decent setup for it(3+ religions, 9 cities etc). I'm not sure how you'd run it in MP to avoid being dogpiled. I'm pretty sure you go Sistine, religious buildings, full slider etc. You'd need to get somewhere you can get defensive on the tree for a while and then go all in I guess. Unlikely to be an actual thing.

[Whosit]

Another thing: We should use our scouts and spies to get vision on the Persian and Incan cities we can't see. Incans have 3 big cities, but I think the rest of their cities are pretty small. We've got a couple useless cities, but I think more of ours are marginally useful. That could be advantageous.

We'll probably have to win by conquest and then something. I hope we don't have to fight Commodore.