Turn 169-171 (1110 AD)
Let us revel one last time in the glorious Golden Age of the Empire, for next turn we're back to normal. We revolted into slavery and mercantilism this turn, and the loss of serfdom alone was felt, but much of that was the farm commerce wich counts double for this turn only. Being pseudo-SPI for the last 15 turns has made me appreciate how good the trait is in the mid-to-late game.
'Why mercantilism?' you might ask, as we weren't even planning on having Banking by now. Amica made a persuasive argument that MrC is already there and both Jowy and AT are likely to go there soon, while Superdeath seems to be going for free market instead. To help stave off the lost trade routes we're founding a fourth island city (on the inner sea island) soon. This also affected our opponents, as rival best GNP dropped by 20 and average by 12. Detailed demographics in the spoiler below.
Before:
Immediately after:
Final, after whipping and reassigning spies:
We also completed the first monk twins this turn; Spiral Minaret has been delayed by a turn due to the need for Banking, but Coruscant will be rushing it with the spare engineer next turn. We're likely picking up Angkor Wat (hey, we have a ton of free specialists and temples everywhere!) and are also interested in Sistine to counter our cultural neighbors better.
So what have we gotten out of that first golden age? The obvious answer is 'a second golden age, and most of a third', but we've also catapulted ourself up on the scoreboard, spread Hinduism to most of the empire and built a ton of infrastructure. Most cities will have temples and monasteries by T175. We've caught up on tech, and as far as I've been able to recreate, we've researched: Feudalism, Drama, CivilService, Meditation, Philosophy, Nationalism, Theology, Engineering, Paper, Alphabet, Guilds, Banking and overflow will finish DivineRight next turn. That's technically 13 techs, of which only Meditation was a pure freebie. We still can't match Jowy or MrC in army size, and while we might have gotten their attention now I don't they will come knocking straight away. MrC's offensive army departed some turns ago, he might have done a similar calculation to ours and is heading for AT.
On that note, let's take a look at the alternative for us, going north into Superdeath instead. (This is based on T169, but the situation is more or less unchanged).
We have a very stable landborder, both of us having an expendable border city and mobile forces behind. We could be in a position to fork TwistedMetal and MarbleBlastGold on the third turn of the attack, but that's also when both of his defensive stacks will hit us hard. He's extremely vulnerable to a surprise seaborne attack, but we'd need galleons and Astronomy to pull that off. I'd much rather have this be the backline while fighting on the other end of the empire, than the other way around.
Hey, it's a Lewwyn! Good to see you again, I fgured you'd had enough on your plate lately.
Yeah, mercantilism feels like the right move; most cities got scientists or engineers out of it. Three cities got artists (that was actually useful), and the Ruff capture got a laborer for now.
Turn 172-174 (1140 AD)
Our transition to normal times has been eased greatly by the monk wonders. We've got Hinduism in 24 of 25 cities, and 16 temples and monasteries built, with a few more being whipped this turn. Our breakeven research is currently at about 55%, but even at 0% we're netting 123 beakers per turn. Our production is out of this world, currently at 346 hammers, with rival best at 259.
Coruscant is currently set to birth the next great person in 6, and we have about a 90% chance of getting our second golden age. We're in an espionage war with both Superdeath and Jowy right now, and both are important to keep track of research for. I'm currently trying to keep up with Superdeath, as he seems most unpredictable.
Turn 175 (1150 AD)
The turns have been flying past, and we're already on T175, so here's a minor status update:
The Empire ugprade is nearing it's completion, most tiles are improved and we've started turning old mines into windmills in anticipation of ReplaceableParts and Serfdom again. All 25 cities have Hinduism, and 20 monasteries and temples have been built. It's only the latest city of Dagobah and Salmagundi that are lagging. Speaking of Ruff-town, he's peaced out with everyone and is surviving as a OCC for now.
Our economy seems pretty healthy, and we're finally going to fill in the crappy desert-incense city soon.
Jowy is coming into his prime, with the former Ruff-land coming out of Revolt. AT has been busy settling astro-land, while Superdeath is running out of room and the food curve is stagnating. MrC seems to be gearing up for another military adventure, and has most of his old army intact from the unfortunate Ruff-war. AT still is the most enticing target to hit, not the least to get revenge on the previous war.
I was looking over his cities to decide which we'd want to raze and resettle, and discovered four inner-ring tiles that has no city; including a floodplain and two grassland hills!
Is there anything in particular you'd like a look at? I haven't posted any city closeups in a while.