RB PBEM #1 - Pericles (SPOILERS!)

[Krill]

Conning Dreylin out of the extra 20 gold...I'll add it in above so it makes more sense.

[sooooo]

Ah, OK I see now. Unfortunately, any extra gold I make through negotiations is going find itself in Ruff's pocket thanks to our Ashes bet .

[sooooo]

Taoism founded thankfully in Sparta, my highest population, non-capital city. Will wait to revolt to the religion until my next settler is finished. Will wait until CS to double-revolt to bureaucracy and pacifism. I sent the free missionary to Athens which has good production to make quick missionaries.



Machinery is actually around 8 turns because I fired the scientists at Sparta just for this turn.

Things will look better in 10 turns. I'll have 3 new techs and a new city. More importantly, Thebes will have an academy (GS due in 7), a Palace (helped by 2 chops) and will get the bonuses from bureaucracy and pacifism.

I've decided to postpone the Angkor Wat + shrine idea. Shine is not very valuable yet and the wonder is often ignored. Instead I'll keep the scientists at Sparta for better short-term research power and I'll save the GE I'll eventually get from Athens for Oxford at Thebes. Even with stone that wonder will take too long to manually build in that city. My half-price universities will be very handy.

[sunrise089]

Hi Sooooo,

Can you remind me why you're moving your capital? What is so much better at Thebes? From your screenshot it doesn't seem to have substantially more production or commerce potential than your capital.

[sooooo]

Not so bothered about production, it's the commerce bonus from bureaucracy that I'm after. Rightly or wrongly, I split my production and commerce. I had to build mines and farms at Athens in order to build the wonders and settlers at a decent rate. Now instead of cottaging over those improvements or making a hybrid city, I have just decided that Athens will stay production focused. I have built 4 cottages and the great library at Thebes and it is an obvious place for an academy. Eventually I plan to cottage the plains tiles and most of the grass hills too. Since the bureaucracy bonus to commerce is applied before the academy bonus to beakers, I really need my capital to be my cottage+academy city.

[sooooo]

80BC update:

Sparta is 2t away from a forge thanks to some chopping. I have fired the scientists again to make the city grow, since I'm plantationing sugar and spices to raise the happy cap.

Athens is 3t away from a settler for the western coastal spot with the deer. I'm roading towards that city.

Corinth has the task of building 3 archers before I get feudalism for cheap military police.

Argos is also building a forge and I think I will make this a production city, going for a barracks next.

One of my phalanx has killed 6 barbs and will kill a seventh next turn. If he kills 3 more after that I get access to the heroic epic. That makes settling the fish, wheat and marble site in the north higher priority (for the marble doubling effect) so I will start a road up there soon.

I have a deal to trade machinery to Ruff for paper.

[sooooo]

Another turn played, nothing new to report except that Dreylin got the great artist from music. Got this email from Ruff:

Sooooo, Dreylin has been talking to me about mh and not wanting to trade CS for MC. What is the deal there? Seems a bit strange to go through the trouble of researching CS instead of just picking it up via trade. Ruff

Let's get this straight - Ruff is asking me about why two of the other players in the game won't make a trade?!? I told him to stop being such a gossip.

I don't think it's that strange either - Dreylin is the PAL of this game and unlike Imperio and Templars, we are not going to allow him to get too far ahead. Dreylin seems to be rapidly expanding: he's on 7 or 8 cities, I'm on 5 and I think mh and athlete are on 4 or 5. I told Dreylin that I'd rather get CS from mh than him since it makes more sense to trade with the 4th place civ over the 1st.

[sooooo]

I'm trying to work out the timings for my next great scientist. I want to use my next scientist for an academy the one after that for education, the tech I'll research next. I'll get the first one in 3t, then have 2 turns of making the next one while researching machinery. Then I'll revolt to pacifism and go with 2 hired scientists (in addition to great library, total of 14 base GS points per turn or 42 total). Think that's 5 turns while researching education before the next GS comes out. What I want to know is how much (roughly) the great scientist will give me towards education. I can run 0% science to save cash for liberalism but with 4 scientists and an academy then it's still a lot of beakers even at 0%. I don't want to waste too many beakers on the lightbulb.

[zakalwe]

Can you apply the lightbulb towards liberalism rather than education? (Don't know the preference list by heart).

[sooooo]

Nope, printing press is higher than liberalism.

Maybe I'll just research the tech and not lightbulb it.

I am up on philosophy on everyone, but Ruff will get a headstart if he goes immediately for education and you can't rule out him using a great scientist too.