(July 21st, 2014, 14:45)Gawdzak Wrote: Mono? What are your tech plans after that?
**Just for clarity, I still have one more turn to report that I haven't posted yet, which would color some of what follows that is tinged as hypothetical. I've written this as my thinking evolved over the war turns with wetbandit.**
Monotheism is there because I'm about to fire a golden age and I want to swap into Taoism/Caste/OR immediately, Caste pending the outcome of my current flap with wetbandit. If this turns into a personal grudge match and not just an opportunistic city swipe, I would have to tech appropriately, which would probably mean Construction for cats and collateral just to shut the thing down entirely. I'm not in a hurry for HBR because I think that Caledorn is going to play nice. I've been more than kind to him when I could have razed a border city earlier and wiped out a second settling party after that. For now, wetbandit lacks any way to get at me even if he gets seriously pissed off, unless he settles a port city across the channel from me, so I'll prevent that as much as I can. Which more than likely means settling a second city over there soon. I can live with Nakor having access to the soft underbelly of my empire. He has lacked the killer instinct so far to really cause concern as any sort of invader.
By the end of the GA I intend to swap into HR and Bureaucracy, so the tech path will be Monarchy then Civil Service. I'm pretty sure Bureaucracy gives me the most bang for the buck. I've been working plenty of cottages for the capital for a while now and I'd like to get the 50% bonus commerce going, as well as the 50% on hammers to go with OR to get up all my multiplier buildings, as of now just the market (150h) and two monasteries (60h each).
The biggest economic tradeoff for me is avoiding Calendar even longer when I have incense and now two silks to hook up. I plan on gifting one silk to wetbandit to salve his aching pride once our war concludes in the hopes that he won't renew the war when our peace treaty expires. If I settle a second city, though, I'm not sure that will be good enough for wetbandit. Anyway, I have to assume by now that someone has beelined Calendar so MoM is going to be gone before I can reasonably get it. I'll need to save gold for two turns for two turns of 100% research, so I could have Calendar EoT 106. Having said that, it almost surely is false and I'll regret even more going for the Great Library later. MoM is >>> GL, but I have the quest, so... The good news is that I'm setting up Grant Village for max hammers and then doing chops, so in theory I could start MoM and switch to AW later if MoM falls. I'll only start MoM once I'm able to hook up the marble, so at the worst I'd get bonus fail gold. But I expect MoM to fall anytime now. This is just like I started to ponder a late, late Mids run, only to see it fall about the time I'd even started to hope everyone was ignoring it (bystander effect). I'm fairly confident I could make a late stab at MoM, fail, and still get Ankor Wat in time, because who is going to go after Philosophy at this point in the game for the same cost as Civil Service (1380b) when the religion is already gone? Ankor Wat is 500h. Having said all of that, though, I think the likelihood of me landing MoM when I'd only be researching it more than 25 turns after I originally could have (I finished Currency T79) is so small that it isn't worth delaying Bureaucracy, and since I'm running out of GA not too long from now and I'll want HR too, Monarchy has to be on the path as well before I detour back for Calendar.
To offset the delay in hooking up those two happiness resources, I have silver coming online soon, forges going up, and I'll be spreading my religion around. I'll have a hard time keeping growth up in most cities before happiness becomes an issue, unless I keep whipping units. When MoM falls on T118, someone please come in here and mercilessly mock me for being so stupid. Seriously.
An offer and agreement. After again lumbering through the clunky interface to the war theater, I can see what has happened before accepting the agreement. But the fact that the city stands is reason enough to accept this deal. Each of us are lighter by a single unit from last turn, and I can see I have a redlined axe which has won in an upset. That's all I needed to hold the city over two turns of combat, and with borders popping EoT, the battle suddenly became much more difficult for wetbandit to win.
I'd rather be lucky than good, so I'll take that.
But just in case I hadn't been lucky, I had more units coming across to clog up the attack until borders popped.
Peace with wetbandit simplifies my thinking tremendously. I'll finish up the forges that I have scheduled to complete and keep ferrying over a trickle of units to defend this city sufficient to discourage wetbandit coming back in 10t with catapults or anything else he conjures up. I'll also race to fill in the coast across the channel to prevent wetbandit having a port that I would just have to close with a stack of triremes. I've played that game with novice before and have zero interest in doing it again, so a preventative/predatory, land grab city will turn the trick nicely. Despite the likelihood that this enflames the situation further, in fairness it is almost certainly closer to my core than his. If anyone should be upset it will be Nakor. If Nakor is upset, let him write it in blood.
Cities:
I can now stop whipping inefficiently in West Yellowstone and Fishing Bridge and get back to the business of growing this economy.
I really should have grown this city larger by now. Someone has a size 14 capital for comparison. Both wheat and sheep are shared to other cities, but I'll be taking at least the sheep back as soon as the forge is done and probably the wheat as well. I'll be size 12 before too long.
Grow while you can. As Fishing Bridge regrows, it will keep the mines, leaving the to-be-completed workshops here. That's fine as long as I'm in Caste. Until I get a Taoist missionary in here, I'll pump units to support my cross-channel cities. I might throw down a Barracks first. I do have a few turns of enforced peace.
A single plains workshop here will probably suffice for a while. The new city on the far shore will steal the seafood initially. The spear is a war relic that I'll finish eventually.
I'll whip the worker for overflow, maybe. Or I'll hold the worker, inefficient as it is, swap to a settler, then whip both on back to back turns to dump into the Great Library once the marble is online. I still haven't drawn up a wonder micro plan here, due to uncertainty about when I'd get the marble hooked up. And a lack of time.
Part of the reason that Yellowstone has yet to meet its full potential, but I'm glad to be working all of these cottages. I have some buyer's remorse over the market. I think the forge was probably the right call and then go for the market while the markets are still relatively immature.
A turn of wealth to preserve overflow hammers until the golden age and the swap to Organized Religion. A forge is desperately needed here for happiness. 25 turns of whip anger. All in all, it could have been much worse, to be honest.
If I start the GA next turn, I'll build a missionary and then start on AW. And then maybe swap to MoM if I finish Calendar? Then Spock says something about chasing two birds and me being an idiot.
This island shithole has built two workers and will whip (once religion spreads) for a forge and then go all out for Moai. This will be my naval port for the next little while. I'll have a galley ferry my workers over to mine those grass forests, so I need the missionary here sooner rather than later.
Just grow, little commerce city. Just grow. Oh, wait...I'm going to whip that forge when I start the GA. So maybe I swap to Caste after 5 turns into the GA. I haven't thought this through yet, to be honest.
Will whip the galley next turn to fetch the workers on schedule from Tower Junction. After that, this will be a sad little sucker when I steal the sheep back at Yellowstone.
Brave little survivor. I'll start hooking up the horses next turn, then the marble, finally the corn. Way to go awesome micro genius! /sarcasm
Nothing necessary to say. Next priority is hooking up the silver.
I really need to grow some more and hope that whoever is so far ahead in crop yield (and almost certainly the land leader) gets spiked by someone else in his neighborhood. Or that his economy is total shit.
Now this is fun:
I spy with my little eye...
Well hello there, little friend! I hope you're enjoying your stay.
Mardoc declared on Caledorn to get his galley through, I'm moving one of my chariots to inspect through Nakor's land and see if I can make contact with anyone on his other border. I have trade routes available with most players, I just need contact. Also, we're getting to the point in the game where I think that known tech bonuses will increase, so I'll want to make contact far and wide so I can get those bonuses.
This is just funny to me. I'm not sure if this is widely known, probably by now? If you look at the "Domestics" screen you can sometimes see the lurkers' Great Spy. Now, to figure out how to capture it like a worker...
This is less funny. I'll have to think hard about what to do here. On the surface, it is a simple decision. Attack, raze two cities, kneecap my neighbor. I've already shown him mercy once when I could have razed a city and a settling party. I've benefited by being able to have a very thin military presence on our border, enabling me to focus on infrastructure and expansion. Caledorn has benefited as much as I have from having a secure border here, but this is absurd.
I could as easily snipe two workers and ask for peace and still (maybe) appear benevolent because it could have been so much worse for Caledorn in his carelessness. I can actually use two workers and I don't want to gear up for war yet, which is certainly what this would lead to. But allowing a neighbor to invest literally nothing in his own defense is just not possible.
He's holding nothing, and lacks horses. I have little enough, most of it is across the water in wetbandit's back yard, but I have cultural depth and chariots for fast response on defense. And, higher production capacity. Caledorn won't make any headway against me, but I won't benefit from building more units than I am right now (next to none) and I'm not interested in an elimination campaign just yet, I still have land to settle peacefully. In general, it is probably better for me to let Caledorn keep his cities, grow them up some, then rampage over him with knights. If he has bulked up some by then, maybe Nakor or Dhal will still be weak.
Or, he can pack some units in these cities on T105 and I'll let things stay as is, an idyllic border stationed by peace-nik drum circles. But the workers...very helpful. We'll see.
Cities:
I'm working a coast tile again to set up whip overflow for once I have a Taoist spread here and marble hooked up for extra hammers into The Great Library. I've really slacked on microing ahead because I could have had two cottage turns instead of silk and coast assignments on previous turns. I need to get back to that, and war with Caledorn won't help me. Strategic gain is a lot faster than micro gain, but only micro efficiency is a guarantee. War is tricky and uncertain.
Preserving overflow for the revolt into Taoism/OR.
I'm not sure which version of Grant Village I ended up on. Delaying the golden age a turn meant preserving overflow, a relatively modest amount for this city, or starting on the Statue of Zeus, which would be nice to control and would give this city the nod as the Heroic Epic. I know I'm waffling all over the place with my wonder plans these last few turns. I think Zeus would be great, AW is likely secure for quite a while.
I'm out of improved tiles here. Time for the whip!
Someone is in revolt, and someone has a size 1 city? Pindicator, finish "Barry" off already.
Someone's hardy size 14 capital. And the ToA. Did I miss something in the mod update or doesn't that wonder still suck?
(July 22nd, 2014, 15:20)Commodore Wrote: Prophet points, plus a merchant specialist. Run it with a temple, that's 62.5% odds on netting a Great Prophet. I dunno, always worked for me.
I loaded it into my sandbox.
60/40 on getting the GP. I guess I should have assumed the free priest was like the free GS with TGL and would give GPPs. 350h is a lot cheaper than 500h for AW.
So, I'm looking now at the AP. Did the mod change buildings receiving the hammer bonus?
Edit: It appears that Spiral Minaret and UoS still have their per building gold/beaker bonuses intact.
Edit2: Apparently the order of inserting the wonder and swapping into the state religion in the sandbox matters? On a second attempt, I declared for Taoism first, then edited AP (and UoS and SM) into a city and everything worked properly adding hammers/gold/beakers onto temples/monasteries/etc, even lacking the techs needed for UoS/SM. Hmm...
I would have chastised myself as a hippie civ-coward forevermore if I hadn't done it, so....
WAAAAAAARRRRRRRrrrrr......dotdotdot...
Cancel OB (I was only getting one route from Caledorn, he has a new island city somewhere, while he was getting all of my cities' routes) to check odds because who has time for a civ calculator...
Totally worth it.
Perfect, no hits!
Only a granary. Apparently this was just a tall cottage grower for the capital.
Was.
Stealing candy.
This candy should have donated more money.
Empty, but I'm going to keep it anyway. Also, another flawless win.
More candy!
I got what I came for, maybe I can leave without the headache? Not counting on it though.
I've done my best to make sure all of my neighbors hate me.
News of the day. Oh yeah, a golden age! It isn't ideal to just swap one civic, but I didn't want to give up slavery, just in case Caledorn decided he had nothing to live for but an old-fashioned vendetta. Unless things go sideways with Cal and/or wetbandit comes back for more, HR/B/Caste/OR at the end of the GA.
Need more spreads. 2% isn't going to give my shrine the oomph it deserves.
Cities:
Ooohh, shiny moneybags! I'm not sure when I'm going to finish that settler. That should certainly have just been a wealth build.
Since I've pissed off two neighbors now, I'm going to need some meat for the sausage grinder. These guys give good value, so die but get some hits in.
I probably should have dumped the hammers into a settler. This is the most likely location to send to wetbandit's shore for my other city there, marked 1W of the fish here. The settler that was supposed to go there is now going to snipe some recently vacated land on Caledorn's border, on a hill and taking his horse resource. I'll have four horses. I don't feel bad about that either.
The worker is at 59/60. I need a missionary to spread the word here, then a couple whips for overflow to get TGL off to a fast start. Watch novice do his usual 1-turn trick and beat me.
Not a terrible recovery from a few turns ago. Back on the gold next turn, slackers...
I love a good hammer city.
Same deal as Lamar Valley. Needs a missionary and some whips for Moai. The stone is done next turn, the galley will pick up my work crew and get them started mining hills.
Whipped once we were in OR. I'm short on improved tiles here, so I don't mind whipping some. I need more workers. Hopefully Caledorn will be careless more workers.
Time for this city to suck hard. I'm taking the sheep back to Yellowstone after growth.
Look! A ghetto improved ivory! Pasture done next turn. I diverted one of the workers to lay a road down to my new acquisition from Miner's Inc. (Cal). The NPS was never going to allow miners to continue to harvest just outside the national park.
Caledorn only has a single vulture in his adjacent city. I have two chariots available in Grant Village. Wonder what I'll do? Only if I can...
Hmm, a little concerning that the Great Spy shows up for you. That definitely shouldn't be happening. Do you have to do anything in particular to get it to show, or is it there immediately upon your login? Probably should squish that bug in the future.
(July 23rd, 2014, 17:35)Lord Parkin Wrote: Hmm, a little concerning that the Great Spy shows up for you. That definitely shouldn't be happening. Do you have to do anything in particular to get it to show, or is it there immediately upon your login? Probably should squish that bug in the future.
I noticed it first when it was on the same tile as a worker when viewed on the "Domestics" screen. I saw it again the next turn when it was not under a worker. I haven't seen it since.
You could try landing it under a worker and let me know so I would know to check on that turn.
The good news is that I'm setting up Grant Village for max hammers and then doing chops, so in theory I could start MoM and switch to AW later if MoM falls. I'll only start MoM once I'm able to hook up the marble, so at the worst I'd get bonus fail gold. But I expect MoM to fall anytime now. This is just like I started to ponder a late, late Mids run, only to see it fall about the time I'd even started to hope everyone was ignoring it (bystander effect). I'm fairly confident I could make a late stab at MoM, fail, and still get Ankor Wat in time, because who is going to go after Philosophy at this point in the game for the same cost as Civil Service (1380b) when the religion is already gone? Ankor Wat is 500h. Having said all of that, though, I think the likelihood of me landing MoM when I'd only be researching it more than 25 turns after I originally could have (I finished Currency T79) is so small that it isn't worth delaying Bureaucracy, and since I'm running out of GA not too long from now and I'll want HR too, Monarchy has to be on the path as well before I detour back for Calendar.
