Abusing Spectres to the Maximum - Sheaim Succession Game

[Mardoc]

Also, wow, already through one full rotation? I'm glad we didn't wait on v12, given this pace

[DaveV]

Mines would help too. A farm + mine is strictly better than two forests at this point. (this comment isn't really for you, more for everyone to consider)

The river farms are for the +1 commerce. If we can do riverside mines, those would be better and faster than farms.

I don't object to Festivals, we'd have wanted to go there anyway for Chaos Marauders. But wouldn't Mysticism have been equivalent on the commerce front for us, and have the advantage of Great Sages instead of Great Merchants?

Equivalent in theory, yes. In practice, right up to the point where we're losing gold at 0% science. Speaking from experience, we're headed to that sorry state.

[BRickAstley]

Oops, sorry, I didn't think about the commerce side of things.

[Mardoc]

Oops, sorry, I didn't think about the commerce side of things.

Eh, don't worry. A typical SG goes from overreaction in one direction to overreaction in the other . We'll muddle through.

Other commerce boosting options:
- Convert the wines farm to a winery
- Research Exploration, road to all cities
- Research Fishing, work water tiles
- Research Mysticism, build elder councils
- The biggie: research up to Code of Laws, revolt to Aristocracy.

I've listed them pretty much in order of small to large investment, but also small to large profits. We want enough of the little ones to be able to get the big ones before we crash - but at the same time Aristocracy is by far the biggest prize. If we can manage to skip some of those (Myst and Fishing are most likely to be skippable) and come back for them after Aristo, we'll do better overall.

But of course we also want to push REX. Meaningful amounts of Gate units are pretty darn far in the future. Once we run into borders, we'll be unable to expand for a long while. So the whole thing is a judgment call, really.

[jalepeno]

Great pace guys! Almost too fast if we want to discuss tech plans/settling priorities. I'll try to throw in some comments from what we've discussed so far.

Settling plans: I'm fine with our city #3 spot (mining the sheep). Maybe the next two go to the northern "c" spot (3 N1W of capital - or 1N of that?), and 3N of Cheydinbal to grab the other 2 wines. Thoughts anyone? I'm a big fan of ICS for this game.

Festivals will be very helpful to keep us expanding, and had the advantage of not needing to grab ancient chants first. since we can't really build units, econ buildings will be great for growing on. I expect most cities to get both market and EC at some point.

After festivals, what about exploration -> AC -> edu -> CoL to get a real economy going? then fishing/AH/BW in some order, then AV beeline? maybe push exploration after fishing if commerce is in bad shape. hunting can wait until we're ready to settle ivory/furs.

I think catacomb libralus should definitely pay off on a map this big. mage guilds also give a sage slot, which might prove important for tech as the empire expands.

I actually think PoR would be a decent build for us. We get 2x warriors per city, and we're going to have a LOT of cities in this game. We can delete non-marked warriors and replace them. It also means we won't be killing off marked units during our conquests, and guarantees that we're building units to push the counter up (sometimes the AI builds it and then just sits on it).

[jalepeno]

I see I cross posted with Mardoc. some comments

Other commerce boosting options:
- Convert the wines farm to a winery Yes!
- Research Exploration, road to all cities maybe switch this with exploration? it opens up some seafood for certain cities too
- Research Fishing, work water tiles
- Research Mysticism, build elder councils
- The biggie: research up to Code of Laws, revolt to Aristocracy. I think we pretty much beeline this now, with either exploration or fishing first if a crash seems iminent

Great point regarding not being able to expand militarily for a quite a while. Gotta push REX hard.

[flugauto]

Why dont you want to build cottages? Why Aristocracy?

[Mardoc]

We already have Ancient Chants, it's the Sheaim starting tech. Otherwise I mostly like your thoughts, Jalepeno.

Settling north will probably cost us some land in the south, we seem to have closer neighbors to the south. But at the same time, we do want those extra wines tiles, so I think it's worth it.

I think Exploration at least will pay for itself with trade routes and extra population working tiles. So I wouldn't delay that any further. I agree I don't want Fishing soon if we can avoid it.

Something I forgot to mention: we can always build some cottages at Edu, too, to push us over the hump to Code of Laws.

Since we'll have Festivals, I want to slip Drama in there somewhere before AV - DaveV suggested it and it makes sense to me. Assuming the bard lasts, of course.

You and DaveV have convinced me that the Catacombs is a worthy target.

Edit:

Why dont you want to build cottages? Why Aristocracy?

Aristocracy is a civic that gives Farms -1 food/ +2 commerce, making a riverside grass farm a 3/0/3 tile. That typically makes farms better than cottages...once you get there. It also cuts distance maintenance by -40%. It's all-around solid as a civic.

[Molach]

Lurker comment:
Naming scheme could be words for end-of-the-world: armageddon, ragnarok, götterdämmerung...then move on to cataclysm and other fitting disasters.

[DaveV]

I would *much* rather have Bone Palace than Prophecy of Ragnarok. A golden age would be just what we need to push along our research. Yes, it's 1.5x more expensive, but the payback is potentially huge. Pushing the AC will happen naturally if we grab Ashen Veil. The AIs love to build both of those wonders, so I don't think we should plan our strategy around either of them.

Why dont you want to build cottages? Why Aristocracy?

As Mardoc said, we *do* want to build some cottages, but aristofarms are better in the short term. Plus, we really, really need to switch out of Despotism with its +25% number of cities maintenance. Between pushing that down to zero, and kicking in the -40% distance maintenance from Aristocracy, our city costs will drop by about half, and our total commerce will roughly triple. On the downside, our crop yield will drop by about 25%, but it will be worth it.