[SPOILERS] TT tries yet again to not be terrible

[Twinkletoes89]

In the game now. Couple of thoughts.

1) I have just settled the copper city to the NW of the capital. That has silks so that is another +1 happy to go with the sugar, so things aren't completely awful on that front.

2) Why not head for Theology? I'd be surprised if anyone else is going for it, it gives us a shot at the AP, which given the lack of happiness, would give us extra reason to build half-price temples for extra happy and hammers. Could chop it out of this new city perhaps?

[Twinkletoes89]

Just a quick update again.

We are still a bit behind the leaders in terms of city count but we are keeping up tech wise right now.

I decided to go for Theology, landed it and it has paid off for us in terms of tech trades.

I have picked up Civil Service, Philosophy and Machinery from it for the added cost of Calendar (once) and 100g

Jowy offered HBR for it but I'm not too fussed about that right now as we have no horse yet and I don't really want him to have Theocracy if he may attack us.

There are mines at the capital now and it is working max mines under Bureaucracy for a quick forge. After that forge, I may take a run at the Great Library if it still holds.

At Success Kid, I am thinking of taking a cheap run at the Hanging Gardens. It hasn't fallen yet, and the Aqueduct will be done in 3 turns (two of its mines are currently being used in the capital for speed on the forge) and it will only take a handful of turns to build with stone.

I'm keeping up with the pack militarily right now and have joined Commodore & AT in closing borders with Cornflakes to negate him some Great Lighthouse trade routes.

[Twinkletoes89]

Oh, and we should have a great scientist in a turn or two.

I'm thinking golden age as our tech rate will not massively benefit from an academy and bulbing will give us Compass which isn't worth it.

During the golden age, I think I will swap to caste and maybe pacifism for at least a short stretch. Then we can start researching better with more specialists and maybe get another great person out.

My only worry on that is that it may seal our fate with Jowy and he will attack us. On that front, we have never opened borders but I have a spy ready to enter his territory soon to see if I can uncover a city or two

[Twinkletoes89]

A (pleasantly) annoying spanner in the works...

The Great Scientist that we just got can bulb Paper...

That would be one heck of a tech to have for bait.

I just have to decide if that advantage is greater than the advantage of an MoM powered Golden Age

[Twinkletoes89]

The investment in a spy has already paid off.



That's not a nice stack, and *could* move up to our borders in 4/5 turns depending on how extensive his uncovered road network is.

Our military is not far behind in terms of power numbers, and is all in position for a likely attack at Futurama Fry if he chooses to go for me.

What I would like to do, while we are running max gold and building up population, is to swap over for 5 turns into Police State and Theocracy.

I think this could be a no-diplo way of showing Jowy that we aren't an easy target and push him to look elsewhere and it wouldn't be a huge loss if we aren't researching.

Then we save the Golden Age for last-ditch emergency production if he still attacks. Or if he attacks someone else, we can then use the population build up for a caste/pacifism binge.

The only thing that makes me delay doing it right now is that we are 3 turns from the Hanging Gardens and I would prefer not to lose it by getting rid of the OR bonus.

But, we may need to do something to signal our potential threat to Jowy asap, as putting all the units in one city suggests he will be moving on soon.

[Bigger]

how many turns does switching off OR delay hanging gardens? what about other non-wonder buildings you building?

switching to police state seems extreme. are you not going to have any specialists during that 5 turn period? even so, don't forget that thats a -3 to your happy cap in your 5 largest cities as well. that alone may make it unfeasible.

how far away are we from engineering? I think just having that tech might deter him, even elephants will get shredded by pikes <G>

[Twinkletoes89]

Engineering is going to take a decent while yet - its very expensive and is going to rely on a lot of specialists, which requires the food I am trying to build up right now.

You are probably right on the happiness front for police state, I'm just thinking that Jowy seeing that might be a big plus in convincing him to attack someone else.

HG will probably be delayed by a couple of turns without OR

In terms of other buildings, I'm not building too many right now - more units and workforce to get CS farms going for our specialists when we go into Caste

[Twinkletoes89]

Sorry for the lull in updating - bit crazy with university finals right now.

I popped the Golden Age a couple of turns ago and went straight into Caste and Pacifism.

Because of all the pop I built up, we have used caste to power through Engineering, which should be due in 3 turns from now. This is quicker than Jowy could move his units to really threaten us and so we may be safe from his aggression. With his power, we may be able to really squeeze people for buying it.

We have our first great person of the GA popping out next turn, with another that should follow in maybe 5 more turns max, depending on if I really want to starve my capital to do it faster.

Going to be hard to leave Caste if we need to go back to slavery as all these specialists are finally giving us a respectable research rate.

If you can pop into the game at any point Bigger, feel free and let me know your thoughts

[Bigger]

k.. probably no time tonight, but I'll check it out tomorrow. sounds good though

[Twinkletoes89]

Got a great scientist this turn.

2 turns to Engineering, 2 turns from another great person - at least 75% likely not to be a scientist - from the capital. Most likely it is a merchant.

If we were to get a non-scientist, would we keep the guys back for a second golden age?

Also, my spy has tracked Jowy's stack and it is finally on the move. Looks like he's going against AT as he's going the long way round if he's going for me.

If he does declare war on AT, we could move our defensive stack (a few maces, spears and plenty of cats) on him if we wanted to, or even have a go at 2metra if we really wanted to. That might be better as he has only one channel to attack us. Or we just build up.

In terms of peaceful goals - we need to get expanding again and I also think that building the AP would be worthwhile for us. That plus probably swapping out of caste for a little while to whip out some infrastructure.