[90 Spoilers] Saxony's splendour and Miguelusten's glory

[Amicalola]

Ahem. I'm meant to be commenting here, aren't I?

Those demos look fine to me. Sure food is concerning but you know your start was handicapped and you're playing Fin/Ind Inca against poor schmucks with Suleiman and Brennus. And you're about to land a religion in an 18-player game, which will culture-bomb your new island. I wouldn't stress too much yet.

Oh, you wanted useful comments? I, uh, don't have those yet. I do have an annoying request for brief explanations of your city names though.

[Rusten]

If we land Hinduism that's a great start. As Amicalola said, we've got great traits for the endgame, simply not starting right next to a bloodthirsty neighbour is good news. And we've got copper now.

FTR I'll refer to Meißen as Meissen in the future to save time and not have to fiddle with german letters.

[Rusten]

I wouldn't stress about the 1 worker thing. It's the right choice when you're only settling for seafood.

DId you notice this border, BTW?




Looks barbarian to me, but I didn't look close enough to tell for sure.

[klops]

yeah, those bears definately look barbarian :D

I don't understand the lion next to Leipzig. Shouldn't it get teleported by the city? Can animals enter culture???
WHat do I miss here, or is it simply a bug?


Hmm... maybe a similar code like early boats on ocean? They may not ENTER that tile but they can exist there?

[Rusten]

Animals don't get ejected immediately when you settle cities, but it won't enter again after. Normal behaviour.

No need to kill the lion IMO. It stops more dangerous barbarians from spawning.

[Miguelito]

  






Good catch on the barb city Rusten. I looked in that direction yesterday but didn't notice it; probably it sprang up in the interturn, or maybe it has gone unnoticed for a while? The most recent screenshotI found, where it definitely isn't, is from turn 47. I did check culture bleed this turn, still nothing. But we do get some exploration news:




Looks like we missed out on a pretty good hammer city 1W. But I'm still happy the way it is, because we wouldn't connect copper for another ten turns otherwise. And hopefully that hammer city just goes SW of the corn or something. (maybe rather plant offcoast?) Next moves for the scouting Quechua S-SW? OR want to catch possible ocean seafood that we'd see from W?

So the lion just buggered off. I am advancing the nearly healed Quechua with the following in mind: IF we get Hinduism AND it falls in Leipzig, THEN the riverside grass tile is the more attractive to chop for the worker that is getting dropped off the galley next turn. Vodka gives me 16something odds against a single lion on defense, which is too high a risk for the worker - but if the Quechua steps on the forest next turn and sees no lion (or bear ) adjacent, then I'd send the worker to chop that tile, and by t58 it's within borders already. Makes sense?

Ahem. I'm meant to be commenting here, aren't I?

Those demos look fine to me. Sure food is concerning but you know your start was handicapped and you're playing Fin/Ind Inca against poor schmucks with Suleiman and Brennus. And you're about to land a religion in an 18-player game, which will culture-bomb your new island. I wouldn't stress too much yet.

Oh, you wanted useful comments? I, uh, don't have those yet. I do have an annoying request for brief explanations of your city names though.

Thanks for the encouragement (also Rusten). Yes I'm fine with being behind in expansion at this point. What has me nervous is being far behind Plemo (Asoka) and Piccadilly (Wang Kon), who should enjoy nerfs on a similar level, and we know that the former is Sid Meier's Only Begotten Son, and the latter a very capable player (who may have an axe to grind with us? Nah I don't think he's that kind of character).





More importantly:




Dresden, the proud capital of the State of Saxony.

Tbh, our in game capital looks so un-Dresdeny that for the first few dozen turns I had named it after the nearby, and mostly unspectacular Elbe river island by Pillnitz (where incidentally the royal summer residence is located):




The Civ 4 palace even bears some semblance. However, if we're doing Saxony Dresden has to be the capital, so I have come to accept that.

Historically Dresden was a bit of a late starter (hm ok that is fitting), rather insignificant through the middle ages, but then propelled to prominence as the residence of the Albertinian dynasty that ruled Saxony until 1918. It is famous as a historic center of the arts, and as a newcomer from outside I have been impressed by how much many ordinary people care about activities like opera, classical concerts or expositions, something that I have not seen to that degree elsewhere. There is also a lot of movement in terms of contemporary arts and music, although I'm not a good judge.




Furthermore the city is known for its baroque and classicist architecture, see above, and it turning to dust in the bombings a few months before the end of WW2 [obligatory: the myth over the bombings is overblown and a product of propaganda - reportedly Goebbels just added a 0 to the right of the casualties number, and later on the GDR went with it because it had been the vile anglosaxons. And now that figure is back with the nazis. Dresden was an important transport hub and garrison city, and the destruction was no worse than in other German cities, or cities bombed earlier by the Germans. Not to say that in isolation it wasn't horrific, just that in context it wasn't particularly so]. So all the historic places that you can visit today are no older than 70, and mostly 30 years; and the conversion of ever more parts of old the city into an open air musuem is ongoing. It does look nice, although I sometimes get the feeling of there being an effort to undo decades of history, and restore the supposedly pristine jewel that so unjustly got destroyed. What I find fascinating is that the city used to have two complete fortification rings (one on each side of the river), including water trenches. As a remainder, our Saxon-Incan capital does have a waterside terrace both in game and in real life (I could not find a good picture, but there even even some gardens on top).

The birthplace of the author Erich Kästner (*1899) is a block from where I live. He's a staple in German children's literature and afaik has been widelytranslated as well - it is more than a bit dated, but I'm of the opinion that that is just right for children if they are receptive to it, and my son has been enjoying even the parts that I thought would be just incomprehensible to a person born in this century. More to the point, Kästner among his grown up works also wrote two autobiographic works that I'd recommend to anyone interested in the period, and his childhood account naturally features Dresden prominently:

Should I indeed not only know of what is awful and ugly, but also what is beautiful, then that is thanks to my fortune of growing up in Dresden. I was allowed to breathe beauty, as a ranger's children forest air. (bad translation mine)

So that's aspirational for the game I suppose. Not sure though if we'll get even one measly wonder in there tbh.

[Rusten]

I spent a week in Dresden visting a friend the summer of 2020! Very nice place.

[Amicalola]

Apologies if you answered this in an earlier post, but what was the thinking behind settling on copper?

[Miguelito]

 




Incredible that it's turn 57. We're very lucky for this to have worked. There is a little imperfection in it falling in Meißen and not overseas in Leipzig, where it would have been more immediately useful and also a prophet would be easier, but I won't complain, and maybe this is safer.
There seems to be a tendency of Hinduism falling later the bigger the game is, cue PB59 with t54(?). Is that due to higher tech costs (here Deity,  back then the Huge map), or is it because nobody tries, as it's so risky with so many competitors? Both games also had quite early Buddhism.




Rusten! Lurkers! What should we research next? In the order of my preference:

1. Priesthood - get a temple up in Meißen with the 2pop whip after the axe, for a prophet around t100. I really want the shrine, and I have mentioned before how I'm interested in monk wonders and particularly AP in order to have everybody feeding the shrine. A second priest for a theo bulb would be very handy for that goal, and we could put Meißen to work 3 priests for another 22 turns in order to achieve this. The shrine is probably not terribly useful immediately, but the more the game advances the more difficult it becomes to get a prophet, with just one slot from a temple. Anways, we don't need the tech immediately, as the temple is one whip cycle away anyways. However if we want it we should also grab the arrow bonus into Writing.
   
2. Writing into Maths into Currency - the reasonable route. I'd love to run for Calendar and MoM instead, but we don't have a single plantation resource. With all the overseas trade Currency is very strong, obviously.
   
3. Metal Casting - Ind forges calling, but I'm unenthusiastic seeing as we don't have spotted any precious metal yet. Under those circumstances I guess it's better to leave it forafter Currency. Colossus is banned.
   
4. AH - well we haven't seen a single husbandable (?) animal, but maybe Rob hid some horsies for us? We are supposed to research the tech at some point, and doing so before Writing gets us another arrow into it. Not a terribly serious option.
   
5. Don't see a reason for any of the others.
   

Regarding the whole religious play, maybe with how the map is laid out we should rather focus on getting some scientists up and bulb Astro? Fwiw Theology kills that bulb option by enabling Paper.

I have not ended the turn so we can discuss.

Apologies if you answered this in an earlier post, but what was the thinking behind settling on copper?

sure did

Tremendous excitement, as we're setting sails, finally:




there is copper on the map!

I say we very much settle on top. We still only have one worker, who is supposed to spend the next 8 turns chopping out two terraces. The copper plant speeds up the third city terrace, making it so we don't have to set avoid growth, great . Also undisturbed availability of axes and hill plant both seem very important for the barb avalanche that awaits us at some point.

[Charriu]

I would get the prophet sooner than later. Not only takes this care of your finances, you also get more random spreads for culture.
Bach in PB59 I think I got 18 out of 21 religion spreads by random and in a reasonable time span too