Ok I've the save played, it's at end turn 299. It's too hot to even think of writing up a report now so I'll save that to tomorrw.
On the war front I've captured Arpinium, Circei and Mediolanum for a total loss of 3 rifles, 3 samurai a trebuchet and a catapult. I revolted Circei and Mediolanum before attacking (both won first attempt). War weariness is beginning to bite our cities, and given our power and tech differential over the other civs, I think after steel we should just pump the culture as high as we can for happy (we'll get two sources, dyes and ivory for killing Rome).
In foreign affairs I took the gold for wheat deal that I mentioned before playing and swapped Constitution for Rep Parts and 320g. We can swap to Rep if we want, I don't actually think Monarchy is too helpful currently, but I didn't pull the trigger for anarchy reasons.
In domestic news I've farmed and windmilled a lot of land, chopped some forests and in general looked to keep our people from starving. That's why Cholo actually ended up building a Stupa and a Theatre and is running an artist (it's trying to regain control of its second ring to the east).
The save and two pics to show 1) our Roman advance, and 2) why Rome was the big dog coming up.
Travelling on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
June 29th, 2018, 15:51 (This post was last modified: June 29th, 2018, 16:04 by shallow_thought.
Edit Reason: EDIT 2: Oh blast, someone has Emancipation (prob G). Goodbye happiness until we can sort that - which is no fun on top of WW.
)
Must ... keep ... killing Rome ... despite heat .*
Oh, god, with haphazard out it's my turn .
Will be trying to both sim start of PB40 and play this this weekend. YMMV.
*I'm sure that people in - pick three countries at random - Brazil, Mexico and Kenya will be laughing at us pasty, freckled guys, but we're just not not set up for this. Two or three days - glorious (particularly if over a weekend). A week - wow, an actual summer. Two weeks and no end in sight? - it's a grind of poor (or non-existent) air conditioning, the water pressure being cut (you still have to water the garden, it just takes twice as long and you have to do it three times more often) and your cats staring at you blaming you for not being able to turn the temperature down to comfortable levels.
Still, getting my money's worth out of the BBQ.
EDIT: @Brian - how gassed is Julius? I notice that we don't have graphs (he's probably spending heavily against us). We don't currently have much visibility on anything he's got left, and would value some guidance as to the extent we can afford to split forces pushing for the quick kill.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
That corner start for Rome...wow. Protected from most of the raging barbs, nice fertile flood plains river area, some ivory for early happiness, and iron very close for his praetorians. No wonder Julius got really strong, while most of the rest of us were fighting for our lives against the barbarians.
Cholo getting that much pressure sounds like we need to eliminate Mansa once Rome is gone.
Not sure I see a point to switching to Rep if we are already struggling with happiness. HR allows us to get as much happy as we want/need, at a cost in hammers and maintenance of course.
Hmmm, emancipation. Well, whoever it is (presumably Gilgamesh) will also likely build the Statue of Liberty. Would be nice to have on this all land map, but that is something to think about later. We have more urgent targets for the short term.
Summer? Summer started a couple months ago. Of course, living in this part of Texas I do have air conditioning. 35 C days and we are not even to the really hot months quite yet.
How is Rep going to help our happiness problems? Our empire is way too large for a small happiness bonus in a handful of cities to make much of a difference.
It's mostly that hereditary rule isn't a solution to our happiness problem: we have 9 war weariness and 3 emancipation unhappiness. We're not going to add 12 units to take care of that unhappiness. We can use the culture slider and turn the extra citizens into useful specialists.
Mansa needs to be the next target. His GNP is really far ahead.
We also should consider dropping slavery and going into caste system. Are we rushing anything anymore?
OK, so some slightly more serious thoughts now that I've had more time to look around. Some comments and questions.
We're due a Great Person in 9t from Advanced Wars, but it's got a 33% chance of being another Great Prophet. After that, we have one out of Goldeneye - in what will be 39t. I could notionally speed this up, but not by enough to matter. I note that we don't have the NE up anywhere; probably sensible, as nowhere can really make good use of it.
I'm tempted to pull a couple of Advanced War's citizens off lake and hill tiles to push for a GP in 6t with a marginally higher chance of not being a Prophet (it's the timing I'm more interested in, we're just going to have to gamble on the type).
It's a 2t revolution to get Rep/Caste, so presumably will be similar for Rep/Emancipation. I'm tempted to push for Democracy first rather than Steel - I may even choose not to finish Chemistry yet. If we get lucky and we get a GA, we're laughing, otherwise I'll just eat the anarchy. The alternative is to be truly crippled by unhappiness, particularly if Mansa also gets to Democracy (or even Shaka, if Gilgamesh trades!). If we do get a GA I might be tempted to spend some time in caste before Emancipation, but if we have to eat the anarchy that's not an option.
One thing - slavery is still useful in newly captured cities that are culturally crushed and starving. That pop can literally go to waste otherwise. But the resistance times are so long that we're probably not going to be able to use that much more.
If we think we're going to be running the slider I may drop a few theatres in for the extra happy - we should also get our hands on Rome's dyes soon. If Gilgamesh will take sensible gold-per-turn for that Ivory, I'll take it. Actually, I wonder if he'll just gift it if we ask nicely?
We can build Oxford; it won't be as effective in the cap post-Beauracracy, but there's no clearly better site. Is it worth it? Gligamesh is currently trading his stone to Shaka, but if it becomes available I will probably try and trade for it and get Oxford built in SMB - Advanced Wars may have slightly better science post-Beauracracy, but lacks hammers. Otherwise it's a bit expensive (12t).
How are we using Shinobi. our Globe city? It's given one of it's food tiles over to Vectorman, so is not growing that fast. Are we happy just drafting it every 7-8t and keeping it at size 9? It has decent hammers itself, so it's not useless, but it could be reconfigured to draft every 4-5t (at the expense of crippling Vectorman). It's probably a bit late to be thinking of rigging it for the NE, with Emancipation just around the corner.
Let me know what you think.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
Will be trying to both sim start of PB40 and play this this weekend. YMMV.
*I'm sure that people in - pick three countries at random - Brazil, Mexico and Kenya will be laughing at us pasty, freckled guys, but we're just not not set up for this. Two or three days - glorious (particularly if over a weekend). A week - wow, an actual summer. Two weeks and no end in sight? - it's a grind of poor (or non-existent) air conditioning, the water pressure being cut (you still have to water the garden, it just takes twice as long and you have to do it three times more often) and your cats staring at you blaming you for not being able to turn the temperature down to comfortable levels.
Still, getting my money's worth out of the BBQ.
EDIT: @Brian - how gassed is Julius? I notice that we don't have graphs (he's probably spending heavily against us). We don't currently have much visibility on anything he's got left, and would value some guidance as to the extent we can afford to split forces pushing for the quick kill.
Not having graphs is my fault, I used our ep to bump two cities into revolt, spending 1400 of them. But after killing his stack at Arpinium this is what they were like
The last fall was me over two turns hitting the city. It's safe to say he's gassed, I was facing 4 to six units in the other city with random single units wandering on go to orders.
Oh, by the way I've a lot of units on go-to to the tile marked "hold this pass", some well into the high single digits. Just thought it best to stage them there for the moment (on the off chance of us actually needing them and it's also a good spot to hit Musa).
As regards the heat, never mind them forraners they've never experience the savage heat we're getting this week, especially not in a building built in the 1840's with half the windows almost welded shut, the rest kept shut because builders are rebuilding the cells out the back and only domestic fans for airconditioning.
(June 29th, 2018, 22:53)Zalson Wrote: It's mostly that hereditary rule isn't a solution to our happiness problem: we have 9 war weariness and 3 emancipation unhappiness. We're not going to add 12 units to take care of that unhappiness. We can use the culture slider and turn the extra citizens into useful specialists.
Mansa needs to be the next target. His GNP is really far ahead.
We also should consider dropping slavery and going into caste system. Are we rushing anything anymore?
I'm not, and I even managed to completely forget about our draft camp, except for one time. Though given the power differentials a draft is not necessary at the moment (maybe pull some rifles from the ether on the border with Sumeria, he's our only real rival left).
Travelling on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
.*
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Protected from most of the raging barbs, nice fertile flood plains river area, some ivory for early happiness, and iron very close for his praetorians. No wonder Julius got really strong, while most of the rest of us were fighting for our lives against the barbarians.
Well, whoever it is (presumably Gilgamesh) will also likely build the Statue of Liberty. Would be nice to have on this all land map, but that is something to think about later. We have more urgent targets for the short term.
Of course, living in this part of Texas I do have air conditioning. 35 C days and we are not even to the really hot months quite yet.
Our empire is way too large for a small happiness bonus in a handful of cities to make much of a difference.