Krill - PBEM5B - Return of the King!

[zakalwe]

But by revolting for a single turn, I'd lose around 50 gold, 7 beakers, 140 hammers, and around 160 food, I need to regain these losses for the revolt to be worthwhile.

Good point, never really thought of it like that before. In other words, a turn of anarchy for you in this case equals the opportunity cost of 3 settlers (if this is normal speed; I forget). EDIT: Provided you've got a food *surplus* of 160 food, that is, since cities don't eat food during anarchy either.

Have you hemmed him in completely yet?

[Krill]

Good point, never really thought of it like that before. In other words, a turn of anarchy for you in this case equals the opportunity cost of 3 settlers (if this is normal speed; I forget). EDIT: Provided you've got a food *surplus* of 160 food, that is, since cities don't eat food during anarchy either.

Have you hemmed him in completely yet?

Yes, I'm planning on doing the update tonight, and he is entirely hemmed in...just been a rather weird week, had to get my car MOT'ed and spend half a months wages on fixing it, and go book a holiday...kinda busy, you know?

[Krill]

So, where are we...I just played turn 153, 860AD and sent it along to Cyneheard. I haven't done an awful lot,other than grow my cities onto more cottages and stop planting new cities near the homelands, and hemmed Cyneheard in almost completely. I say almost completely because there are still 2 routes he can use o get past my borders. One of them is right at the bottom of the map, and the border closes after next turn, and the other I have a settler on the tile ready to block it off once a settler turns up. The reason I've not settled the new city, is that I don't want to pay the maintainer on a new city, which has no food resource to use.

Other than that...started to get monasteries up and started to spread my religion. As T-hawk has stated, the main problem with spreading religion is the missionary limit, and I am not sure that I will get them all built before SM is researched (I could have up to 120 cities...) and I now have Judaism in 15 cities, Islam in 7 cities, and just founded Confucianism from Philo. I am considering going for Theocracy for the fourth religion, because I could do with the extra happiness, and the extra shrine isn't difficult for me to get either. Most of the religions spread have been for free as well, which is kinda neat.


I have a total of 53 workers, but I'm about to slave out a couple more settlers and workers because I'm running out of tiles to work,so I expect by t160 to have at least 60 workers and another couple of settlers to settle into the jungle.

I have also decided on my FP city. It has a couple of grass hills, and 2 food tiles, so should build the FP fairly quickly. That means I can plant a single city and chop out the Palace somewhere just over the middle of the map, towards Cyenheard, and in the south. Then I'll get both new cores up and running without crippling myself with maintenance, and on I go.

One interesting thing to note is that I've grown some of my cities so large that only 38 of my 68 trade routes make 1 gpt, the rest make 2 gpt

[Krill]

If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to ask them; although I would ask to not do any of the spoiler stuff, if in doubt ask the question in the spoiler thread first. Any extra pics I can do quickly, I still have the latest save open.

[Krill]

Oh, and some of the new cities for you: as you can see, I'm pushing culture quite hard in them.

[regoarrarr]

How are you producing most of your settlers? I see some of the bigger cities building them (I assume w/o the whip), but I assume you're also building them in smaller cities via the whip.

Do you have a "typical" size that you're building them? Like large cities up on the happy cap, or from 6 and whip to size 3, or from 7 and whip to size 4, or 4 and whip to size 2, etc.

Again, I assume that you're doing some of all of that but just wondering if there was one that was more prevalent than others

[Krill]

How are you producing most of your settlers? I see some of the bigger cities building them (I assume w/o the whip), but I assume you're also building them in smaller cities via the whip.

Do you have a "typical" size that you're building them? Like large cities up on the happy cap, or from 6 and whip to size 3, or from 7 and whip to size 4, or 4 and whip to size 2, etc.

Again, I assume that you're doing some of all of that but just wondering if there was one that was more prevalent than others

How, and where I produce settlers and workers varies from game to game, purely because of other requirements. Here, my need has changed from the early game (to grab as much land to hem in Cyneheard) to keeping my GNP as high as possible (spreading religion, working as many cottages which are now towns/villages in old cities) while I continue to settle new cities asap, plus getting them up to speed (food connected, new cottages worked).

In the early game, before Monarchy with the low happy cap (6 with gold, 7 with rel), I like to slave a worker from 4>2, overflow into a settler, and slave that 10 turns after. After Monarchy, it changed to slaving as soon as a city hit size 4,stacking the unhappiness and just getting the quechua and I could afford new cities, plus I had the workers spare to road forward, chop and improve. If I had the workers, I slaved a settler, otherwise I slaved the worker. When I decided to just hem Cyneheard in as much as possible (not just split the land 50/50, but really be greedy), I just slaved out the settlers, but luckily I already had the workers spare, but couldn't settle new cities closeby and stay solvent...the travel time let me mature and grow onto more cottages, which kept me in the black.

Now though, I have research visibility on Cyneheard, and I am falling behind (might have slowed after I gained about 60 gpt over the past 3 turns), so I know I can't afford to slave off the towns that I already have, but slaving off population that is stuck working forests is good because it decreases maintenance in the short term. I'm also slaving off population that is just working the basic cottage, provided it will grow back in a few turns. other times I'll slave away if I'm about to grow into unhappiness, and overflow into more Quechuas...most of my cities only make 1 hpt, and have a happy cap of 7 or 8 without HR.

I've not thought much about it on a tactical/MM level, about how to expand now I have no rush to expand, no race. My main aim since, what, t110 was that massive road to the east, which constitutes 66, 67 tiles,and goes both to the north of the jungle and through it, but also keeping gpt above 60, and it has dropped as low as 40. I suppose my main aims now are to keep the large cities, the ones that are giving 2 gpt trade routes, at that size or higher. The rest, I just don't care about...MOAR CITIES!

[T-hawk]

As T-hawk has stated, the main problem with spreading religion is the missionary limit, and I am not sure that I will get them all built before SM is researched (I could have up to 120 cities...)

120 cities and the missionary limit doesn't scale up for map size?

You do know you can still build missionaries after SM, if you either built a monastery before SM or are running Org Rel, right?

Judaism in 15 cities, Islam in 7 cities, and just founded Confucianism from Philo.

Are you planning to stay in a state religion long term or just take Free Religion?

[Krill]

120 cities and the missionary limit doesn't scale up for map size?

You do know you can still build missionaries after SM, if you either built a monastery before SM or are running Org Rel, right?

Are you planning to stay in a state religion long term or just take Free Religion?

I'll answer the last question first, because it explains why I'm building the monasteries now.

I'm going to go FR, for the happy bonus from the religions that I'm going to spread (plus the shrines make it a no brainer when this is a game that will get decided by tech and not production). State religion will go once FR is available. I'm not in OR now, and I don't think I ever will, because I don't want to pay an extra 20 gpt, nor revolt to Bureaucracy. This map has only gold, furs, incense and sugar as happy res, so I need to find some happy source from somewhere else.

The culture slider is out, as I'm running on cottages. Temples? Really expensive, but they are a possibility if I am making 15 hpt from Universal Suffrage. HR is what I'm relying on now, but do I really want to be paying for 8 Quechua per city? For over a thousand units total? With a market, I figure I can get up to a happy cap of 11 with state religion, forge and market. most of my cities will need to be much higher than that, minimum of 15. FR gives me a further happy cap of 13; I think I can get Theocracy first for a fourth religion, so happy cap of 14. Still not enough, but cheaper than OR, and gives me better tech. Add in 4 temples, and I can just about ditch HR for Universal suffrage - which is worth up to 1000 base hpt.

More than OR gives me

And yes, missionary limit doesn't scale with map size. Which, combined with no OR, is the reason for those monasteries. I could build those monasteries later...but I am about to get my second shrine up, so getting hte religion spread increases my GNP, which lets me settle more cities and keep my tech some where near Cyneheards'.

Oh, and on the tech front, I am making 675 base bpt at 100%...but I need about 520 gold for a single turn of max science, and I'm making 130 gpt at max science.

[Krill]

Got Theology first, so that is religion #4. Now the question hangs on DR at some point.