I secured God of the Open Sky for my pantheon. The +2 culture immediately expedites Early Empire bringing it to now 8 turns. I'm debating how to best use my gold balance. TheArchduke I think purchased a builder since his treasury decreased from about 220 to empty. He must also have previously purchased a tile since he is making double my gpt and still had less than me in his treasury when we met.
Here's a brief look at dotmap:
- YELLOW in the north at Jade will lock down a comfortable border with TheArchduke's Japan. There will be room for one more floodplains city in the no-man's-land between us that I may consider for a monastic outpost. Yellow is a high priority site due to the Jade culture and locking down the border ASAP. This will also be a decent production port on the northern ocean.
- PINK sandwiched awkwardly on flat/floodplains between TAD and I
This could be a monastic outpost ... except that it has no production or forests and all the bananas will make it grow like a weed and make it hard to acquire religion
I don't see a city in here being profitable for either one of us and currently am planning to leave this area un-settled until I get more map info.
- GREEN has an excellent campus (+5, 1SW due to 2 geothermals), and 2 pasture resources, and enough production to make due ... although a little too much desert and a little too far away from the core for this early. The body of water to the ease is labeled a "Sea" which I presume means is is surrounded on all sides by land. Therefore my eastern scout will prioritize skirting the sea to see what he can see see see, and see if there is another neighbor nearby beyond Palenque.
- RED region can support a decent city although many good production tiles land in the 2nd/3rd ring so not super appealing.
- ORANGE is a nice site without fresh water
+5 campus location 1NW due to geothermal and reef. Two reef turtles will make decent tiles to work early and the fishing boats can increase housing +1. Lighthouses now greatly improve housing of coastal cities, and the Classical era Veterancy policy card boosts production of harbors/lightouses +30% now. This will probably be part of my 2nd wave of settlers late classical.
In the west there is another river just west of the scout so I'm sure there will be another city or two nearby there. If the land ends immediately to my west I'll have enough room for around 9 or so cities. If land continues then wars may not break out until Renaissance era as we keep pushing into unclaimed territory.
When writing lands next turn I'll immediately place and start building the campus 1W of Chocolate, ETA about 6 turns. I put a turn of production into a builder and will do the same in the 1-2 turns that I'm waiting to slot Colonization after the campus is finished. Gummy's culture picker keeps flitting around to a different tile each turn so it's literally a toss-up which one it'll be on next turn. If it takes the rice 2W then I'll immediately plant and build the campus there as well. If it doesn't pick the right tile then I'll have to either buy the tile or wait ... OR ... the tile I want is 2nd priority for Chocolate (currently been holding steady on the SE marsh rice). Instead of buying the tile for the rice-campus I could cash-rush a monument at Chocolate to speed up acquisition of the tile. I lust for culture anyway in the early game to speed along Political Philosophy >> Feudalism.
I'm currently planning to appoint Pingala as 1st governor with the Early Empire title so having the 15% bonus stacked monument + palace + horse pasture will be +1
/ +1
as well due to the CS bonus. But the real reason I'm leaning Pingala is for the Connoisseur promotion with the Early Empire title for +1
/pop. That should be worth 4
/turn even considering the back-to-back settlers I'm planning to crank out in Colonization. I'll be rip-roaring through the culture tree aiming full-tilt for Feudalism and the +2 builder charges policy, then on to Mercenaries for the half price upgrades before hitting up the bottom of the culture tree (hopefully founding a religion by then for those inspirations)
Science-wise the two campuses will give me a healthy +6
/turn combined. That will be more than sufficient to carry me through my initial tech targets of Astrology (to start slowly working on religion) > Horse Back Riding (defense & flexibility) > Construction (Lumbermills!). I don't plan on investing any more production
into science beyond those two campuses for a long time ... although I do have multiple excellent campus sites available for future development.
But instead of building infrastructure and districts right away I think my focus will be on expanding out to more cities with settlers and builders. As long as I have good city sites available I want to expand my production base and population. I'll plant the districts to lock in costs but probably won't build anything beyond the initial pair of campuses, the discounted Government Plaza, a pair of discounted Holy Sites to start working on religion.
Hopefully it doesn't come back to bite me. I feel a little silly having turned around earlier only to end up in about the same spot I would have been in a half dozen turns earlier if I'd continued. But I did kill a barb scout the other way and ensured that my settler was secure.
Is that 2 commercial city states in addition to a religious CS? Is this some combination of resources? Japan doesn't have any resources connected yet on the trade screen so no strategic or luxuries improved.
(+6.2
(+0