[SPOILERS] Rusten enters uncharted waters

[Rusten]

I'd capture everything if could actually keep it, but right now the threat of counterattacks are too strong and he'd just take the city back. Once the Mali virus is eradicated settled new cities are immediately profitable.

I decided to launch my third golden age. Partly because OH started one of his own but mainly because I realized just how close I am to infantry. Might even finish it during this golden age. That's going to be my 2nd big military build-up.

Drafting rifles? Meh. (2 pop)
Drafting infantry? Yeah!

[Rusten]

And if anyone has been wondering why I didn't declare on OH to interfere with his conquest of Elkad instead of DS then the answer is quite simple -- I don't have the required navy for it right now.
The map worked in such a way that I didn't need a navy for my 2metra and Borsche conquest whereas OH definitely needed one for his. Now with steel and drydocks I can catch up, but it's not been something worth considering. We've been forced into a cold war of sorts, left to our own devices.

In other news Commodore is currently accruing negative diplo points by not declaring on DS. Quickly erased once he actually does something, but his passivity is a little annoying. He had the choice to send back a fish-for-fish deal instead of fish+iron if he just wanted to be friends and not signal anything beyond that. I was already at war with DS at the time so my intentions should've been pretty clear. But soon I won't need him anyway -- 12xx infantry with cannons on top is going to be pretty sweet.

Steam power is going to enable ironclads which seem pretty good for this map. The availability of those lets me delay astronomy+military science without feeling bad about it.

[Rusten]

Golden age demos:




By my calculations I will complete assembly line on the final turn of the GA, which goes well with switching to nationhood after the GA ends. Worst case I complete AL the turn after. That's without building any wealth/research. I think I have less than 100 hammers invested into wealth/research this entire game. There's always been something more useful to do and hammers have been way more precious than commerce. It's a bad use of hammers in most cases IMO, at least with the new civic changes. Workshops not being the be-all and end-all of improvements means you don't need wealth/research production in times of peace to make something out of the workshops. If workshops are your only improvement then you have spare hammers and need to invest them in tech, but with a variety of cottages, windmills and watermills that's not really the case.

Getting my 8 required universities in 5 turns and will start on Oxford then. I don't have any city that stands out for it, but my capital will do. My holy city will start on Wall Street in 2 turns (the required banks are already completed).

Probably sticking with OR for the first few AL turns to complete factories. Democracy (and astronomy) will be the next techs, and after the 5-turn wait I will likely leave representation, OR and mercantilism in favour of universal suffrage, theocracy and free speech. So the main civics in the near future will be US+nationhood+serfdom+FS+theocracy. Possible I keep OR a little while longer, but the big benefit of theocracy is that all drafted units get 2xp instead of 1xp and have a promotion available. I may do some bursts of emancipation growth too if I'm drafting more than my food supply can handle. But the goal is drafting 5 infantry every turn*, and it really should be an easily attainable goal with so many cities.

*Without drafting away a significant improvement (land).

[Rusten]

Fun little event, I can't say exctly what the trigger is but it's no coincidence that I settled Goldfish just this turn.




For a filler city that was slow to grow and only wanted to grab some unworked tiles that's a kick-ass event! What a flying start -- even makes me question the granary!

[darrelljs]

Looks like you need to steal 3 lake tiles to get every tile worked, so the Granary probably makes sense?  That is an event that appeals to perfectionists since its a drop in the bucket in the context of your larger empire .

Darrell

[Rusten]

Looks like you need to steal 3 lake tiles to get every tile worked, so the Granary probably makes sense?  That is an event that appeals to perfectionists since its a drop in the bucket in the context of your larger empire .

Darrell

Perfectionist? Me?

Not like I still go over every city every turn and make sure the hammer rounding is favourable or anything. Nuh-uh, not me! No way! That would be ludicrous at this stage!  

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

how many cities are you up to, at this point?

[Rusten]

I can give you an exact number next time I log in, but I think it's around 80. Definitely more than 70, and fairly sure it's more than 75. But I've lost track at this stage. All I know is that I can open the f1 city advisor and scroll all the way until the bottom city is off the list and I still haven't reached the end.

[Rusten]

I got a little carried away with the city count. I think I "only" have 67 cities. I got the 80 number in my mind from the projected Mali conquest so we'll get there soon enough.

Able to finish AL by end of GA as I had hoped, but at the cost of a couple of research builds. Easily worth it for the faster factories and draft. If I'm able to 1-turn democracy after then I will do so before making my civic switches to get universal suffrage in, but if it's not possible or I feel the concessions are too many I will simply go astronomy --> democracy and adopt it 5 turns later.

I've also set up a galley chain to be able to transport 4 drafted infantry from old Persia to the Mali front immediately --> repeat every two turns.

[Raskolnikov]

Any news from the war front? (from post #259)