Abusing Spectres to the Maximum - Sheaim Succession Game

[Aurorarcher]

The one next to Sun Mana or the one north from Barb city Ultigar?

What for? To speed up Bone Palace? Or what did you have in mind?

[DaveV]

I thought the one by the Mirror looked reasonable, and the city could be built on a river that dumps into the North Sea for instant trade connection. Yes, I wanted marble for faster Bone Palace or more failgold. Hannah and Decius are the only AIs with Philosophy, so I think we still have a shot at Bone Palace.

[Mardoc]

I think it might have been worthwhile twenty turns ago, but by the time we can get a settler built, moved with workers, the marble improved, and whatever roads are necessary built, we should either have the Bone Palace nearly done, or an AI will have sniped it.

Also, I'm not sure on this, but don't we need Fishing/Sailing to get trade down the river along the coast? Isn't that why we don't have any trade routes with Arendel despite having open borders and a scouted path?

Granted another golden age would be perfectly lovely...I still think that it's too much investment just to slightly increase our odds.

[Aurorarcher]

I think I agree with Mardoc. It'll take quite a while for the city to be set up indeed. It's not the worst idea though, Bone Palace would be nice pickup defnitely (or even the failgold). I think the city would just eat too much money for too little profit, would probably be at least 10 gpt.

Also, I'm not sure on this, but don't we need Fishing/Sailing to get trade down the river along the coast? Isn't that why we don't have any trade routes with Arendel despite having open borders and a scouted path?

Yes. That's why getting at least Fishing/Sailing would be nice. We'd actually get TRs with Calabim/Lanun as well, both are willing to sign OBs.

I always get confused with TRs but can anyone explain why 4 of our cities are getting Foreign routes (+2c per route, one of our city with Smuggler's port has 2 routes) with Elohim but other cities are only having internal rotues (+1c per route). Why is this? I don't see any clear reason for these cities having the routes instead of some other cities.'

EDIT: Is it because Elohim only has 5 cities that we can TR connection? We should get TRs with Lanun/Calabim/Ljos asap to pump our other TRs to 2c. Even that alone would give us +16c (or 16gpt when saving gold), assuming they have total of 16 cities (which they quite don't IIRC). I guess Fishing/Sailing would make a lot more sense now (and maybe even up to trade).

[Mardoc]

Well, mostly I meant that without Sailing, we wouldn't even get marble from a distant city. I think. I'm never perfectly sure on the trade rules, especially when it comes to resources vs trade routes.

Yes, we only have five trade routes with the Elohim because they have only five cities. It's those five because they're our biggest cities and therefore potentially most profitable TR. I agree that it would be valuable to connect to other civs as well, it's just that hasn't been realistic until recently. Now that we have roads going northward, we ought to be able to hop over to the elven road network, at least.

[DaveV]

Yes, only one trade route per foreign city.

We should be careful about signing OB with Jonas, since he's Beeri's worst enemy. No one's suggested that, but I thought it was worth noting.

Edit for Mardoc crosspost:

I think we would need sailing to get coastal trade routes to a marble city, since the route would have to pass through Elohim territory. We can get coastal trade routes without sailing if the route lies entirely inside our borders (see post 38, where the new city is instantly connected).

[Aurorarcher]

Yes, we only have five trade routes with the Elohim because they have only five cities. It's those five because they're our biggest cities and therefore potentially most profitable TR.

This is what I had thought as well, but it doesn't seem to be like this. They're not our biggest cities first of all. One of them is size 3, two others size 5 and one is cap at size 8. While we still have some cities at size 6 having only internal routes.

[Mardoc]

I can't find the post, but SevenSpirits found a bug related to the trade route algorithm. It's supposed to maximize trade route income, but it doesn't always actually work as it's supposed to.

[jalepeno]

T180

Ok, I really didn't do much during my turnset. Finished off currency and fishing. Mostly just kept building what we were already building, except sticking a few workboats in queues. No new cities (although a couple are 1-2 turns away from settling), no whips as I just tried to regrow from river of blood. I did open borders with both Calabim and Lanun, although we don't have TR with them yet.

Consumption is good for us. Before revolting:


Afterwards:



Mind you, we were at 100% gold there, so the real benefit to our economy isn't quite that much. However, breakeven is still hovering around 30%, so the benefit isn't that much less either. Sailing next for sure to guarantee 2gpt routes everywhere. After that, I think CoS and writing->trade is a toss-up.

I've sent a settler up here to snipe one more spot on elf borders. It grabs several aristofarms, plus shares remnants, so it should be economically positive (some of our recent cities look like they'll be a net drain for a quite some time). It also grabs another mana for our witches (spectre power-up?)



Due to RoB, I managed to keep up ok without building any new workers, but a few more in the north would be welcome. Also didn't put any settlers into queue as I didn't see any immediately profitable spots for them. Still have a settler in the capital queue - I put 1 turn in to prevent hammer decay. Once the capital grows onto another specialist or two I think we should whip the settler for max overflow into the wonder. That settler can go for our first overseas colony if sailing comes in time.

I like the out-of-the box thinking Dave, but at this point I don't think a marble city is quite worth it.

[Mardoc]

Excellent, we look a lot stronger now that we've regrown pop.

I ought to be able to play this afternoon, but I'll hold off for a couple hours to see if anyone has any suggestions.

Currently planning to imitate Jalepeno and focus on growing up our cities, with maybe a little more expansion mixed in. We're down to just 5-10 more cities possible peacefully, but there's no particular rush to hit that wall.

I do plan to go for Trade next, unless there's a strong objection.