T120:
Okay, let's take a look around. Red Herring is in an awkward spot because it's Red Herring. We're not hurting for happiness, but we're mildly low. It's also low on housing, so I'm not too concerned.
We're in Merchant Republic, so we've got 2 new trade routes to fill. They're building in Wheaties and Need Food Pls.
Candy Mountain completed a workshop and needs a new build. We're going to be getting a bunch of GPs soonest, so that's going to be an amphitheater. The alternative is an extremely tempting aqueduct. However, we don't have any improvable tiles left to work there at the moment, and we don't have builders for them anyway. The amphitheater will help us in our competition for tiles by India, and we can do the aqueduct afterward.
We have a settler in the south. I reeeaallly want to put it in the place I proposed long ago in range of the industrial zone from Need Food Pls, but that puts the truffles (and their 3F3G before improvement tile) in the third ring. It gives up a grass hill and 3-7 hammers per turn from industrial zones to get that tile without working for it. We'd also miss out on a forest we would be able to chop and block out what would have been a nice site for a campus. We'd also move a really nice +4 (or more!) IZ into our third ring.
so... saves: 290G (to buy out to truffle tile, in theory); loses: 1 chop, 3 prod (grass hill mine), 3 prod (Need Food factory), possibly 4 prod (need food power plant). We do get a really good growth tile from the get-go, but we can also borrow a good growth/production tile from Iron Chef in the sheep, and Iron Chef has some spare tiles (albeit less good for food) it could be working. It does miss out on a copper mine deep in the tundra, though. Maybe I'm playing too conventionally, but I still like the site.
We also have a settler in the east. We could plunk it down near a mercury and a tea... or we could keep moving east and claim a coffee with the tea and get two new luxuries. Saladin might not be amused, but we'll probably be fine anyway. There's room to settle a backfill city between the rivers later. (Also, it would plop down far enough east borders that we might restrict any expansion left that Arabia might want to do.) Besides, it looks like we have the backfill settler already there.
I thought long and hard about having the builder near Crab Cakes build a fishing boat... but I decided to go chase after the eastern settler to get to the tea and eventually coffee there. Actually, I notice we have an extra builder a little too late... but I don't think there's a better layout for Crab Cakes tiles at the moment, so I'll just have to remember to pull out yet another builder for it, later.
T121: The trader in wheaties completes. We're going to start on a workshop to boost Industrialization, but it's going to be a tiny bit too late to boost optimally. We can probably switch off early, though. This turn, Frosted Flakes gets the short end of the amenity stick. I really do feel like it's shuffling them around, but ineffectively.
Feeling Crabby completes its amphitheater. What it really needs is a builder, but it's slow there (14T). I queue one up anyway, as well as changing my mind on Candy Mountain: that's a builder(8T) now, instead of an amphitheater(7T), too.
I found a city next to the mountains and name it "Truffle Dream". We'll get those truffles soon: the extra tile for having a first-ring tile already claimed was one next to the truffles themselves. We can either buy it when it's time to grow that big or get it with culture in the meantime. I start the city on a theater square next to Iron Chef's Theater Square. That's a second-ring tile, so I had to buy it for 115 gold, but it also let me swap the sheep next to it (3F3P) to the city so we can both grow and build at reasonable rates.
I also fiiinally noticed that Wheaties can build a new district. I recall it being called out, now, along with the suggestion for an entertainment hub. There's a spot approximately at the midpoint of Candy Mountain, Iron Chef, Wheaties, and Feeling Crabby which hits Need Food Pls and Truffle Dream as well. This seems like the best we're going to do on short notice, so I lay it down. Lacking adjacency bonuses, we can put it just about anywhere, so it being out in the middle of nowhere doesn't really matter. When we get to zoos, we can actually get around to building it for the AOE happy.
If we add 2 production in Wheaties, we can get the workshop there done one turn earlier. So, we're doing it there for now. I really want that extra turn earlier of Industrialization if I can at all get away with it. When it finishes, we'll probably want to move it elsewhere to do things like bring up young cities. On further investigation, one more hammer per turn is all it will take. The growth to size 8 in 5 turns should do that if it doesn't get hit with roving unhappiness, but I don't want to risk missing on those grounds. However, it looks like we can get away with running the route to Rio De Janeiro, which costs us 1 production for 3 gold, a science, a culture, and a faith... and should guarantee us our one turn earlier workshop. We can also go to Delhi or Agra, which gives us another 3 gold instead of the science or culture. That seems better for us, given that our research scheme is actually built around boosting techs... and it scouts a little bit of India's interior, which I confess I am curious about.
T122: Various apostles have been duking it out in our lands. Given that we have ignored religion, it's more interesting than a problem one way or another. Also, scouting in the north, I found Mt. Kilimanjaro... it's rather more snow-covered than IRL.
Need Food Pls finishes a trader and starts on a workshop. It also needs food(pls!), as always. I'm tempted to try to get it to size 7, but that would require another amenity, and I haven't the foggiest clue where I'd put the extra district. (It wants a harbor, really, but, uh...
) The one nice piece of flat land I'm saving for the Ruhr. I suppose one of the mountainside hills could become a campus if we ever claim them. So, the trader is going to a new city to help bootstrap.
I drop Caffienated (Yokohama) 2 tiles each from a coffee and a tea. (I hope I don't regret not putting it 1N and in closer range of the marshes.) For some reason, this annoys Victoria. I send the escorting archer south to explore a bit. Workers frantically try to catch up. I move the trader there, because it's really hard up for production. I think I'm going to waste another trader turn to run the route from here. There's not much good to get production from, unfortunately, so I suspect this place will not have much infrastructure. It's also 1 tile too far from Rice Bowl's industrial zone, which hurts a bit (but there's nothing for it: that entire river was 1 tile too far.) there's a spot near one hill and the city center which could possibly be an industrial zone. It's not feeling too appealing atm, so I drop another theater district somewhere next to both that and the city center. This city will grow like a weed, so I expect to be able to drop #2 before we even finish with #1. Besides, some culture early will help us get these nearby tiles with less tile-purchasing.
Amusingly, given the complaint about us treading dangerously in the face of her colonies, Victoria asks for a renewal of our friendship declaration interturn. I accept.
T123: Mercantilism comes in. We're not building any settlers right now, so that card is out. I'm tempted to take the tile purchase cost card, since I'm somewhat of a fan of purchasing tiles. However, even with 3 trade routes, unless we purchase a ring-2 tile every other turn (they cost 120 currently and it's a 20% discount), we're better off taking Triangular Trade for a total of 12 gold and 3 faith per turn. Actually... I don't recall why we're rushing so hard for natural history. I suppose it's because of the archaeologists, but I recall the sites are as likely to get in our way as not, at least until we have a museum, so I kind of want to put that off a moment. I guess the Hermitage is worth it, so I'll switch back to that after what I do this turn. This turn, I'm putting Recorded History on, which completes in 1 turn (we have built no campuses anywhere; I expect no changes in that...) and lets us spend 1 turn buying some tiles.
Oh, we also got a Great Musician, Yatsuhashi Kengyo - from our own native Japan. I put him to sleep in Iron Chef until we find some space for his stuff. (This also apparently completed a quest for Vilnius.)
Rice Bowl finished something. It definitely wasn't the builder it says was completed. I put in to finally do the industrial zone. I also notice that Rice Bowl is about to grow, and the only tile it has to grow onto is a forest plains. I bring one of the two workers I was sending east back (only 2 turns or so) to putit on a hill... which I buy using the handy discount card I put in (96G). I also buy each of the horse, tea, and coffee, next to Caffeinated. The rest we can grow onto, but those are important, and I'm not willing to waith the 33 turns or whatever that it would have taken otherwise. In 2 turns, we'll pasture the horses with one of our builders, and then we'll move on to a luxury (which will be the end of the line for him).
T124: My 1-turn civic completes and we swap out tile cost reduction for +gold from trade routes. (as discussed above) Back to the path to Natural History.
Feeling Crabby grew, and now we have two cities with amenity problems instead of one. I need to get that coffee online real soon. 4 more turns.
T125: this round of tile shafting goes to chocolate River and Frosted Flakes. Also, India has wandered a Varu into the space between Frosted Flakes and the rest of my empire. If I'm completely honest, nothing really happened aside from moving units around. Rice bowl got a mine and Caffeinated a pasture.
IBT, Pedro wants to trade us chocolate for mercury and a little money (with open borders on our end). I'm not impressed, because we already have the chocolate, but it reminds me that we have a mercury available. Also, Saladin commends us on our productivity.
T126: I offer Pedro the mercury, and he gives me a better deal for it. He'll give even more for open borders. I need to decide if that's worth it, but it probably is. Is this the trade bug? (I genuinely wasn't impressed with his original offer.)
We also got a great person, the GE. I recruit him; the next one is 480 production towards wonder construction (twice, of course). We have approximately 3x the GPP of the next civ, so we'll definitely get the next one, too. We
also got a great artist: Donatello. With a couple more GPP, we'll have 3x the next civ's gpp/turn for those, too. (and next turn, we'll be getting Cervantes, from the writer pool). Our cultural artifacts are well on pace.
Chocolate River completed its amphitheater. Production is a little awkward, so I want the workshop to get going on the crazy stuff, or we can do an encampment in 6 turns. 11T for the workshop seems better. I think we have multiple art museums in flight already. (I'll check... no. Hawkward.) We still need more production. It's rough. Probably time for a trade route to somewhere whenever one of them finishes...
I use Da Vinci, and he boosts... Steel! That means we don't need a coal mine to boost it. Radio/Electricity is still probably better.
In the east, I decide to follow the settler suggester and move the settler all the way to the coast, wich moves the mercury nearby from rings 2 and 3 to ring 3 and "only in another city". However, in return, I find actual food resources for it: 3 fish (2 in second ring 1 in third ring) instead of 2 fish and a crab in the third ring (with one of the fish being something we didn't know about until this turn.) That city will found next turn.
T127: we complete an art museum, boosting Opera and Ballet. We also get Cervantes. Pedro informs us after using our GP a bit that our people would be happier somewhere else... like say, Brazil.
Oh, also, I forgot to make the trade with Brazil involving Mercury for chocolate and gold a couple turns back, so I do it now. We get a chocolate, 4 gold, and 9gpt. I trade our now spare chocolate to Arabia for salt and another 9gpt. I don't remember if we have salt yet (anymore), so that may solve our amenity problem, actually.
Iron Chef, having finished its art museum starts on a workshop. It's going to be time to upgrade all our production soon. Meanwhile, Frosted Flakes completed its Industrial Zone. We're actually really hurting for workable tiles there, so I'm building the workshop first so we can stick our next citizen into 2 production, rather than 1 food 1 production or 2 culture. Then we're going to have to go back to upgrading culture stuff everywhere.
Also, with the art museum completed, we remove the random work of art from Iron Chef and put some music there.
In the northeast, I found Hakodate, which I rename to "Tuna". It's going to need workers... just like everyone else! (At least it has a plains hill forest to work until we can get some stuff improved.) In fact, it needs them so badly I'm going to buy one. The first thing it's doing is chopping a forest where I want to put a district. (The second thing is going to be building a theater district, followed by an industrial one when we've grown a bit more.) In the meantime, I'm sure we'll want even more builders eventually, so that initial chop is going into another builder.
Interturn, the Arabian and Brazilian Apostles continue to call down lightning and hellfire on each other. Our cities convert, cheering whoever won last on.
T128: Need Food Pls completes its workshop. Wheaties is next turn. Industrialization is halfway done, so I set our tech to be Cartography. 10 turns is gonna hurt, but all our fishing boats will gain 1 gpt. I chop a forest into Tuna to lay down a theater district. It takes us from a lot of turns to 12. The theater district says 34. We can go back to the worker later. I'm sure we'll want it eventually. Other than that, this turn is just moving units around and pouring great people into great-person-shaped buildings.
T129: Wheaties finishes a workshop, boosting Industrialization. Once we don't have GAs piling up, we'll need to build factories everywhere.
Speaking of which, Candy Mountain finished a worker, so it's starting on a factory. On the other hand, Wheaties is starting on an art museum, because we need those.
On the civics side, I want to upgrade 2 archers to crossbows and swap out of the upgrade-discount civic, but I need one more turn to get two archers inside my borders! I sink a turn of research into Civil Service.
T130: This is where I hand off. We've got 1 turn to Colonialism, at which point you can upgrade 2 archers and finally switch out of that civic.
Apparently, this turn (rather than a turn with a tech), we entered the Industrial Era for civics despite not completing any new civics this turn. This gave us a boost for Civil Engineering, which actually looks really handy: it combines the +2 charges and +30% production builder cards into one. It's also only 4 turns, now. I suggest that as the next civic, and Natural History only later. We really need Natural History for the zoo, and that means Wheaties needs to build an entertaniment district, so we should probably hold off. (Okay, we do want the Hermitage, too, but where are we building that right now? We've got a lot of stuff to build already.)
Red Herring completed an industrial Zone, and I'm setting it on a theater square for now, just to get that initial 1 extra culture per turn. Also, the industrial zone currently does nothing, but there's a jungle hill next to it which definitely should be mined to increase its output. However, the builder on it only has 1 charge left because I wasn't careful in my planning. There's a second builder on the way, but the tile is being worked currently, so I wouldn't chop it until the extra builder is close.
I'll edit in some pictures, but I wanted to get this out.
Here's our new cities in the east:
![[Image: BD247B320D4DA6740FDEA6721392B80C380404AD]](http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98346819269369675/BD247B320D4DA6740FDEA6721392B80C380404AD/)
Here's our new city in the south, with an archer who can get away but might be in a tiny bit of trouble:
![[Image: B6A0A73F03A287D73FCB0B35274DC86DC04D51DD]](http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98346819269369822/B6A0A73F03A287D73FCB0B35274DC86DC04D51DD/)
Finally, here's our civics, since I didn't look closely at them and we may want to review:
![[Image: 3F3B3F54E444AC685C1E84932E07C76CC0B6864B]](http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98346819269369947/3F3B3F54E444AC685C1E84932E07C76CC0B6864B/)
In short, I settled some cities, built a bunch of buildings, and improved some tiles. Also, I have archers wandering all over the south, although I didn't talk about them much.
When described like that, it feels kinda durdly, and we definitely haven't caught up yet in the tourism race, but I think we've finally got our engine online. We just have a ton of infrastructure to build, as always.
(Also, I know there are a few moments in there where I'm like, "whoops! I should have done that other thing!")
