It's Clobberin' Time! Raging Barbs Highlands Tokugawa on Monarch

[Zalson]

Ok here's the situation:

We have a ton of available land. Everything on this dotmap that is in not green or blue we should attempt to found ASAP. Maybe try to add one per turnset for the next 10 turns?

Everything that is in green needs to wait until we get biology. Otherwise there won't be enough food.

Everything that is in blue we can found whenever we want. We just want to build wealth in these cities. No infrastructure, just build wealth. Once we get to mercantilism, I think we go Caste System/Mercantilism, and put a merchant in every one of these cities.

Not Blue Or Green: 11 spots

Blue: 5 spots

Green: 4 spots

Yes. That's 20 cities more cities. But we've reached the conquerors plateau in terms of maintenance. Each of these cities brings in at least 3 commerce per turn (2 trade routes, 1 city center commerce). Once they get a courthouse, they're a gain, regardless of what else we do. The not blue green cities will pull their weight as size 2 with biology. The Blue cities will pull their weight at size 1:

3 commerce, +1 gpt wealth build, +3 gold from a merchant. Obviously, we will want caste system and representation before we start founding those cities (with the exception of the Fures City.

[Zalson]

Our end-game civics are going to insane:

Representation, Nationhood, Caste System, State Property, Theocracy

State Property i think over Mercantilism because of the cash benefit. although +30 merchants at 3 gpt/3b per turn may be worth more than the SP value.

[Zalson]

I knew we might lost the horse archer, but wanted to finish off the remaining Roman cats. If Julius sends the knight after it, we might be able to kill it next turn. If not, well, it happens.

It would be good to put the GGs somewhere. I probably should have done so, and if we end up putting the HE elsewhere then we do. We will still get some value from them.

Good luck!

Edit: Cross-posted with Zalson.

Not sure I understand going for Theology? Or OR. Expensive civic, and we have monasteries if we want to build missionaries.

Organized religion to help us build infrastructure; Theology to help us build Bombard catapults, CR2 samurai, and formation knights.

[haphazard1]

Not sure OR is worth it just for the infra boost. Maybe if we plan to win via space ship or culture.

For the unit promotions, we could run vassalage. Especially as our empire gets bigger, bureaucracy becomes less of an advantage.

[Zalson]

Not sure OR is worth it just for the infra boost. Maybe if we plan to win via space ship or culture.

For the unit promotions, we could run vassalage. Especially as our empire gets bigger, bureaucracy becomes less of an advantage.

I agree that OR isn't worth as much now; if we had had it earlier, it definitely would have been.

Vassalage + Theocracy would be worth calculating out. But I think the big B is still worth more right now. It's probably worth something like 30 commerce.

EDIT: just checked. Bureaucracy is worth 25 commerce per turn (before +25% and +75% multipliers); Vassalage saves us 18 commerce per turn. Bureaucracy is still worth more. But it's getting close.

[haphazard1]

On pure commerce, bureaucracy is still better. But vassalage also gives the XP bonus to all units.

[shallow_thought]

Well, I reckon I will get the turns played and reported by early tomorrow evening. Ended up in peace with Jules early on, so it's not taking too long. Despite the damn barbs. have taken advantage of the peace to get specialists worked at FM.

[Zalson]

Well, I reckon I will get the turns played and reported by early tomorrow evening. Ended up in peace with Jules early on, so it's not taking too long. Despite the damn barbs. have taken advantage of the peace to get specialists worked at FM.

Sweet! We get paid for peace?

Let's grow and expand as peacefully as we can until we get to rifles and cannons. Then let's draft our way to victory. We'll play a little bit of whack-a-mole!

[Zalson]

Oh and don't forget to spread hinduism!

This actually might make a switch to organized religion worth it: We can 2x whip the missionary to overflow 37 into the monastery. Then we grow into the monastery and then 2x whip the temple.

Then we can AP cheese the wars against JC.

[haphazard1]

Peace with Rome sounds good. We have options for expansion that do not require fighting the world's #1 power and tech leader. Hopefully he will turn his attention elsewhere.

Barb whack-a-mole has been endless on this map. I had forgotten just how much land there is on highlands, and how the mountainous bits tend to slow expansion and leave huge areas for the barbs to spawn. Rainforest is also an all (or almost all) land map, but those are so lush with food that expansion tends to be very rapid despite the barbs.