Yeah, 17 culture is insane compared to everyone else. Even worse, they recently finished a Cothon, which means they'll be barrelling quickly towards a Great Admiral and those lucrative production bonuses. I just hope that Woden/Ljubljana don't decide to target us...
Turn 52
Well, it seems like I've finally found the northern contours of this continent. This northern edge of the continent could make a decent, maybe sub-par city spot that looks really hard to defend.
College Dropout is about to reach 2 population, and I think I want to buy the 2/2 tile to its southeast. CMF, do you mind giving me 30 gold for it?
Next turn, my science per turn will shoot to 18.5/turn. Hopefully that'll compensate for my bumpy start. I'm going to get a Governor title; I think Pingala's +1 culture is a good fit.
Are you certain you need more science infrastructure right now, like the campus and library? Without production, the science is useless. I think right now Australia's biggest issue is the laggardly growth - food and production are more important than beakers at the moment. I would focus on builders or settlers at all 3 cities until you've got a decent base in place, then you can push the already-placed campus at The College Dropout and the library at The Blueprint.
Pingala's Culture promotion is an excellent choice, pretty obviously superior to any of the others (except perhaps Magnus for stone harvestiing, but I don't know what you'd harvest the stone into yet). We wanna reach PP as quickly as we can for those precious card slots. And, Theology for Simultaeneum which will give us doubled faith/production from our holy sites.
Buying the 2/2 tile is a good idea. I'll send the cash on my turn.
True, the library isn't very useful. The Blueprint and Illmatic have 1 builder each, and that should cover them for now. Nevertheless, I will switch both College Dropout and Illmatic to make Builders soon.
Hey, Marco, can you do me a favor? Until I meet ljubljana, can you be sure to either always include the ribbon (so I can update his research rates, etc.) or jot his scores on the spreadsheet? You have so far, so this isn't a complaint or a criticism or anything, I love it when you update the bits of the spreadsheet you can, I just wanted to note it (because I'm filling in the spreadsheet and I'm irritated that the game hasn't introduced me to Phoenicia yet; I haven't scrolled up yet to see if his numbers are in your report. Hang on...they are!)?
Sent the gold along. GP is in, religion is founded next turn. Full report to come, updating spreadsheet from within game atm.
Yay, the next two or three turns will be lots of fun.
I finish Masonry and State Workforce, which enables a policy swap and more importantly grants me a promotion for Pingala. I slot in Urban Planning over Colonization - the goal is to get the Lavra up at Imperator Aleksandr as rapidly as possible, and the young city could use the extra production. The +3 from Urban Planning outweighs the +2.5 I was getting with only KS building a settler, so with all builds at equal efficiency it's back to the galley. I know I swap my micro around from turn to turn, but that's because I'm bad at it and I calculate things in different ways every turn!
It's also time to take Laozi, well ahead of Japan in second place and Indonesia (surprise!) in third.
Not sure what Sub's plan is - to found a cooperating religion with China? I get that he needs faith to fuel his navy, but I feel like unless you need a rapid holy site (for a religion) then there's other districts that get you more bang for your buck. For example, Marco will will want holy sites, but only once I have my religion foudned and spread to his cities - where his Holy Sites will be instant upgrades of 4/6 - 8/12 production each.
Because my holy site is down in the tundra, I can't quite found yet:
We'll get it next turn, and that'll be a boost of 6 production at Borodino (taking it from 11 production to 17) and 4 at Knyaz Suvurov, taking it from 4.5 to 8.2. Imperator Aleksandr, once it completes its lavra, will jump from 7.2 to 13.2 at size 2! As soon as I unlock theology - and I'll know where it is next turn, after founding my religion - I can slot Simultaneum to double all of those numbers again - thus every tundra city will get +12 production from their lavras, meaning my only limitation will be population. At that point, the amenities from the loss of the turtles will be costing me real production every turn, so I need to get a builder out toot-sweet. I'll get turtles and silver both connected very soon, that should help.
Speaking of Imperator Aleksandr, I join the 3 cities club with Kaiser, Archduke, Sub, and Marco:
A +6 lavra goes down on the planned tile. We go lavra ->builder -> (filler to size 4) -> Plaza -> Hall ->Settler pump here. As an inland city it won't be able to contribute to the navy, but the Hall can boost 3 lavras ultimately for +3/6 faith/production down the road, plus the free builders and settlers. I think that's a stronger return than using it to boost any campuses, especially in coastal cities which want to be busy with ships often anyway.
After some jiggering, I settle on this for the micro at IA:
I could work the TFH and get the lavra in 9, growth in 18, work the horses and get growth in 9 and the lavra in 11, or work the Sugar (Cotton? I never can tell) and get growth in 4, the lavra in 10. I settle on the rapid-growth as the best compromise - by sacrificing 1 turn of lavra production (6 faith/production) I gain 5 extra turns, minimum, of extra science, culture, and faith from the higher pop. Plus it'll bring size 4 that much closer. Natural pressure should convert me to the faith without a missionary, I hope - I don't know how the numbers work exactly on conversions - then we'll spit out a builder to improve the horses, the silver (for the amenity and the mining boost) and finally the fish. I'll need a second builder here for the other fish, the cotton (or sugar), and probably either another plantation or fishing boat at KS.
At Borodino, here we are on the eve of our religion:
Pingala now boosting us a nice +5 culture. I pull in some sea turtles and drop the 4 food rice tile the game had selected, at least until we get a granary here to relieve the growth penalty. I thought about working the tundra hill for 2 extra production and 1 extra faith instead of my rice farm, but stalling growth entirely didn't seem worth it. I might revise that thinking later, though.
Knyaz Suvurov needs some better tiles:
It'll hit size 4 next turn, but really only has the forests to work. I need machinery for this city to really profit from its surroundings - happily it doesn't need population or map-based production, since it'll get a very nice boost from its holy site, doubling production next turn. That will chop galley arrival time down to 6 turns. Should I wait for foreign trade, research through the boost, or wait for the boost but build galleys in the meantime? I've no idea what is best here.
Overview. Note the Hong Kong galley - we'll need to attack when it's not at home:
With the religion on the way, next plan is a wolfpack for Hong Kong and exploration (gonna explore in a group of 4 so I can eat city-states, muahaha) and then start filling out my home island.
I will get +4 points from my religion and my galley, and if I can find a foreign continent that's +5 total - not enough for a golden age. Alas. Need 3 more from discovering a NW or something.
(February 5th, 2021, 18:37)Chevalier Mal Fet Wrote: Hey, Marco, can you do me a favor? Until I meet ljubljana, can you be sure to either always include the ribbon (so I can update his research rates, etc.) or jot his scores on the spreadsheet? You have so far, so this isn't a complaint or a criticism or anything, I love it when you update the bits of the spreadsheet you can, I just wanted to note it (because I'm filling in the spreadsheet and I'm irritated that the game hasn't introduced me to Phoenicia yet; I haven't scrolled up yet to see if his numbers are in your report. Hang on...they are!)?
Sent the gold along. GP is in, religion is founded next turn. Full report to come, updating spreadsheet from within game atm.
Thanks for the gold. I usually update the score-spreadsheet for 5 players: me, Roland's China, Suboptimal's Indonesia, Ljubljana's Phoenicia and Woden's Norway. For the other 3 players, it's more accurate for you to update the score because they play after me. Sometimes I don't know how to interpret Empire Score - especially whether someone's laid a district down or not - but I usually retroactively fix my mistakes.
I often forget to do the gold/military score spreadsheet, mainly because it doesn't seem as important or useful to note when people spend gold or build units. I will include Ljubljana's ribbon whenever I can.
8 turns to scrounge up 8 era score. I'm already up 4 from where I was on turn 49, so I'm actually on pace the last couple of turns. I think I can just barely manage it:
* Found religion (2 era)
* First ship (2 era)
* Breathtaking Campus (placed at Borodino, 3 turn build) (3 era)
* Find a foreign continent (1 era)
So I have about 7 turns to find a continent for 1 era point, OR to meet ljub/Kaiser/Archduke for one. If Kaiser or marco meet, then I'll have a golden age. But I'll put my own galley to the west - suboptimal's galley never returned from the passage north of KS, so I think there's land that way. If I'm lucky, then that's a foreign continent and I have a classical golden age. Even better, my faith isn't competing for ship purchases like suboptimal's is, so I can use it all to spam out settlers.
First, I found my own religion, going with Fine Weather, High Waves:
That's a big hint to my naming theme in case the others haven't worked it out yet. Work Ethic is obvious and is our killer app for this game - both Russia and Australia can profit from it and use it to leverage our high adjacencies, whether from tundra (me) or appeal (marco). With the edge in production, I hope to out-expand the others and build more ships than them. I think it's a neat counter to Indonesian faith purchases, Norwegian build bonuses, and Phoenician Cothons, not quite as powerful but far more flexible. Our snowball is on the slope!
Tithe I went with over Crusade. Gold generation is essential - more gold = more unit upgrades = more power = victory. I find myself starved for gold in test games, even with harbors, because militaries are expensive. Ultimately, the gold will be a longer-term and more flexible benefit than Crusade. Crusade is, of course, strictly superior to DotF in a team game, since it has both a higher combat bonus and applies in more instances (it works around your ally's cities, not just your enemy's).
After the Monumentality is expended, I'll take an apostle and pick up either Meeting Houses or Wats (Stupas a nice fallback) for even more production from holy sites. Then round things off with something from the final category, not sure what I'll settle on.
We locate theology:
Is it worth chasing this even at the expense of Political Philosophy? It's a massive upgrade to Urban Planning - something on the order of 16 production empire wide on just three cities, plus the attendant faith. I...think so. I'm going to roll straight through foreign trade into Theology, fingers crossed for a continent on the way. We can have it in place ~10 turns from now, THEN we can chase PP.
PP must be behind either Military Training (requiring that and Theology), Defensive Tactics, or the unknown civic (Recorded History?) in the third column.
Anyway the new Work Ethic slashes my galley to deliver next turn from Borodino and in 6 turns from KS. I will go Galley -> Campus -> Galley and Galley->Galley to get out my wolf pack, then go after Hong Kong. Then probably finish KS's settler and use faith purchases for the rest. I will settle out my tundra island first while the lavras are cheap (waiting until the Ancestral Hall is in - builder chops very important for getting the lavras up), then use that as a core to begin overseas expansion.
We get our first boats to boldly venture forth into the open blue - undoubtedly the last team to put ships into the water, but we're also the only team without any naval bonuses at all and getting the lavra infrastructure up and running as rapidly as possible was essential. We won't be first to meet or discover any city-states or natural wonders, but I'm hoping there's still time for exploration and to get a feel for the lay of the land. With work ethic in place Borodino's shipyards can hum along at a good clip, its citizens fired with religious fervor.
We head out - I'm going to gamble here and swap off Foreign Trade next turn. IF I find a continent within 7 turns, then all is well - I finish the civic in plenty of time and I secure my golden age. If I do not, then not only do I miss out on the golden age, but I've delayed theology by about 4 turns, costing me a goodly amount of production. I'm betting that production in return for saved culture, essentially. A good trade? Well...put like that, probably not. But you gotta take risks to get ahead in this game!
I'll go investigate wherever sub's galley vanished to, that, I think, offers my best chance. Hope the continent generator was sane this game!
Completing the galley dropped us an envoy in Hong Kong, so we get +2 to our districts at Borodino for a bit. That will benefit me building this district and this district alone, but it's nice to have - the campus will be a 3-turn build now that the capital is pulling in 19 hammers a turn, which isn't bad at all for this stage of the game. That's with 0 mines or lumberyards in place, too, and I can place 4 of those for another 8 production or so down the road.
The campus will bump up my science score a bit, to 14, not stellar like Australia but respectable. The problem with our team right now is our strengths are split - Australia has fantastic science but very little production with which to put it to use, I have lots of production but (at the moment) only so-so research rates. I think our central challenge is to fix Australia's production problem, because production solves all things in Civ. And I think the way to do that is via Work Ethic.
Crazy thought, marco: What if you took Desert Folkore with your eventual pantheon? That would make the desert for you a lot like the tundra for me, with the drawback that feeding cities in that area will be hard. But you will have about 3-4 cities adjacent to the big desert, and if you stack DF + Eye of the Sahara + Australian appeal you could build some wondrous holy sites out there. Getting the sites up initially would be a challenge, but after that those cities could build anything.
Too bad China's in the game or Petra would even be on the table.
End of turn overview:
I think Kaiser finished ANOTHER district this turn, since he gained 3 empire score. Could be double pop growth + a building, though. He has 2 holy sites and 1 campus completed for certain.
Roland purchased a missionary this turn, so we know he has a shrine in place. Is he going to convert suboptimal? His religion doesn't seem as useful for spreading to others. Perhaps his third city is a bit distant and needs converting from the core. (Imperator Aleksandr is on track to convert in 8 turns, just as it finishes its lavra).
I also added an Order of Battle tab to the spreadsheet, since Woden finished another longship. I estimated each player's military as best I could, so we don't get blindsided by attacks. That should also set our own force requirements for defense and, eventually, attack and conquest.
A better look at the eastern/northeastern end of our continent. There are some really pretty tiles in the north, with a 2/2 forest hill tile and a 3/1/1 fish reef tile. Unfortunately, there aren't many hills and it's very far away from my core cities, and I predict that it'll remain vulnerable to foreign attack until we get Frigates.
(I'm also wondering if I should move My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy east 2 tiles, on the 2/1 grassland hill, just so it'll be closer to the sugar. It'll lose the 1/3/1 Gypsum but that can be worked by another city.)
Illmatic, at a pitiable size 3, is working some really nice tiles. That builder will mine the 2/1 grassland hill, and then move toward College Dropout. I may have to guard that horse resource from Viking pillaging.
I would like to give it another builder by turn 70, I think. I can put another mine down on the plains hill, a lumber mill or two, and chop the marsh for some food. I can also improve the rice, but I don't foresee myself working a 4/0 tile anytime soon.
The Blueprint is still working 0 unimproved tiles, but that'll change soon. In hindsight, I can see how much of a mistake it was to build a Monument -> Campus in this city. One problem is the lack of food resources; hopefully my borders will grow to the Marsh soon and I can harvest it. I really want to get that Holy Site as soon as I hit 4 pop - what do you think, CMF?
Ignore the image - College Dropout is still making a Builder, just in time to coincide with Construction technology for Lumber Mills and maybe Irrigation for marsh-removal. (Irrigation is locked behind Masonry on the bottom end of the tech tree, I think.) The Illmatic builder will waltz over by the timely date of turn 60 and improve that Horse, and then nothing else will happen until turn 80. What a slow grower.
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I feel somewhat bad for mismanaging my city development. Ever since New Frontier Pass, I've been somewhat cheating - I litter my maps with hills and forests, crank Disaster setting to 4, and watch my tiles grow to 6 yield without having to do anything.
There's an alternate version of me where I listened to Cornflakes' advice and went AH -> Sailing -> Mining, even though it would've messed up my district plans at Illmatic. My first galley could've popped out at around turn 30-35, and I would've easily found Eye of the Sahara in time to boost it for CMF, as well as god-knows-how many city-states in the ocean, and god-knows-how many envoys. I could've been like Ljubljana, who leads the world in culture, science and (presumably) military right now. Well...maybe not science, because I don't have turtles or mercury. But by turn 65, I could've been leading in science.
Still, I'm not really that far behind in culture or science. I have researched 4 civics and 6 techs, the lowest in the world. But most other people also have 4 civics, and most other people have 7 techs researched - just one more than me. Ljubljana is an anomaly for his 5 civics and 8 techs. I have high-yield Campuses and Holy Sites coming my way, and all my cities are still in very good (if underdeveloped) locations.
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