[pb72 spoilers]: the esteemed gentleman's literature and book club

[Commodore]

Starting off with some rare good news. So it turns out that me, in my general Civ rubeness, totally missed that CtH protective also buffs market production. Markets are now on the menu in some big cities to speed recovery. 

This surprised me in 69, too, it's a subtle but nicely impactful change.

[greenline]

It definitely puts that Persian unique market on the map. I thought it would normally just be too expensive to bother with.

[greenline]

Sailing in for us. Bing (just recently, I think) researched Calendar. That will do wonders for his happy situation. He already has sugar hooked, and has spice somewhere in his territory as well. He also has the only source of marble on the map I can see, so I smell a MoM run coming:




Chaining a couple of 12 turn golden ages in the middle ages would be a strong play. Not as strong as just going for his Sacrificial Altars as soon as possible, but still strong. Thank goodness Mausoleum expires at Nationalism in this mod. 

Our next tech I am feeling should be Machinery. There are a ton of hill tiles in our land that can't be worked just because there isn't enough food to cottage or mine them all. Being able to set up windmills would let us grow further and set up for a Serfdom swap in a golden age. It's also on the way to Guilds. I don't see us being able to compete with Bing for the Mausoleum.




Furs city is settled; the instant missionary spread makes it less of a financial strain, and the incoming market next turn in the shrine city will ease that burden further. If Aetryn decides to discontinue the silver for corn deal, the fur will be a better happy resource for our cheap markets.

Is anyone still reading the book reports? Didn't seem like they were getting much engagement. I'll still keep writing them if anyone wants to read them, but if not, not much point.

[greenline]

Metal Casting will be finished next turn. It only took 3 turns of break even research, not bad at all. Not much wealth building involved either, although I was still running a couple of scientists here and there where I couldn't manage to find a more useful tile to work. Pyramids are done in 3 turns. It will be kind of inefficient, since it would have made more sense to just go all in on Mids and enjoy Rep rather than Hereditary Rule, but I originally built them for failgold purposes and didn't think they'd still be on the table this much later.

So the question is: when to pop the golden age, and Police State or Representation? Bureaucracy or no bureaucracy? I wish I had an insight for which is better, but it seems these days I am flying blind.




State of the new capital. The last of the cottages were just laid down this turn, on the hills, and every cottaged tile is being worked by the capital or another city. This city really wants a market, and it will probably need an aqueduct. Should I build Hanging Gardens too? The wonder competition in this field has not been that strong.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Tarkeel]

So the question is: when to pop the golden age, and Police State or Representation? Bureaucracy or no bureaucracy? I wish I had an insight for which is better, but it seems these days I am flying blind.

I'd say keep your eye on the prize: Cataphract rush is still the plan, right? That means Police State for boosted whips IMHO. Vassalage vs Bureau is a harder choice though, but we'd likely want either Vassalage or Theocracy so we don't need stables for two promotions.

State of the new capital. The last of the cottages were just laid down this turn, on the hills, and every cottaged tile is being worked by the capital or another city. This city really wants a market, and it will probably need an aqueduct. Should I build Hanging Gardens too? The wonder competition in this field has not been that strong.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We have enough cities that building the gardens are cost effective.

[greenline]

As part of the recent wonder cascade, we land Pyramids:




Bing was also the one to build Great Wall, which I find puzzling. Temple of Artemis at least is useful for boosting GPP generation, a sticky point on this map. But Great Wall at this point only gives +2 GSpy points per turn, and he didn't even build it in the same city. The barbs effect won't do anything either. Does he plan to do any fighting in his territory to the point where he'd expect Great Generals?

Wealth builds are keeping us at 40% on the way to Machinery. Not sure if that tech speed is healthy for this stage of the game. It will drop somewhat when more cities are settled.

The bump to GPP generation in Dune from the Mids means we will get another Great Person in 20 odd turns. It will drop when Dune finishes a lighthouse and has food for a couple more specialists. So 15 turns is about when we should plan for the Golden Age.

I'd say keep your eye on the prize: Cataphract rush is still the plan, right? That means Police State for boosted whips IMHO. Vassalage vs Bureau is a harder choice though, but we'd likely want either Vassalage or Theocracy so we don't need stables for two promotions.

Is whips + Police State the way to go? At some point serfdom will become attractive when I have all the windmills set up on the many green hills in our land. Vassalage probably makes more sense, though, just because getting Bureau would mean a detour through CoL -> CS that we may not have the time for.

When it comes to building the Phracts... since we do not have HBR yet, do we want to grab HBR before Guilds to do the Horse Archer upgrade chain?

We have enough cities that building the gardens are cost effective.

Good to know. Atlas Shrugged will be building a (cheap!) aqueduct anyway since it needs the health. Might as well try to slip those in if there's time.

[greenline]

One More Question... how critical a tech would Construction be for a Knight / Phract rush? Do people typically throw in a cat / melee stack, or is a big enough Knight stack plenty to blitz through ancient defenders?

[Tarkeel]

Is whips + Police State the way to go? At some point serfdom will become attractive when I have all the windmills set up on the many green hills in our land. Vassalage probably makes more sense, though, just because getting Bureau would mean a detour through CoL -> CS that we may not have the time for.

When it comes to building the Phracts... since we do not have HBR yet, do we want to grab HBR before Guilds to do the Horse Archer upgrade chain?

For warfare you really need a way to quickly pump out units. Serfdom is IMHO only a (risky) option when you're running a peaceful golden age, or have Nationalism to draft defenders when you're in a building phase. Even for modern warfare it's hard to avoid slavery.

As for HBR, yes. You should try to sneak in whipped horse archers in just about every city before Guilds, preferably not on the same turn for camouflage.

One More Question... how critical a tech would Construction be for a Knight / Phract rush? Do people typically throw in a cat / melee stack, or is a big enough Knight stack plenty to blitz through ancient defenders?

It depends, mainly on what you're facing and how soon you can hit with Knighs. If you're early enough on the rush to not face large stacks, you can get away without catapult support. Even in that case you do want some in the second wave. Realistically you want to hit Construction and Engineering pretty soon after Guilds for improved movement.

(I'd look at our Knight invasion of Egypt in PB66 for an example of what happens when you invade too late)

[greenline]

For warfare you really need a way to quickly pump out units. Serfdom is IMHO only a (risky) option when you're running a peaceful golden age, or have Nationalism to draft defenders when you're in a building phase. Even for modern warfare it's hard to avoid slavery.

As for HBR, yes. You should try to sneak in whipped horse archers in just about every city before Guilds, preferably not on the same turn for camouflage.

Got it. So this is what the plan is starting look like in my head:

Hard tech Machinery, then grab IW and HBR. Make sure Iron is settled and hooked. Pop GA to swap into representation to fuel tech towards the rest of Guilds. Finish GA in Police State/Vassalage. Build barracks, then prep Horse Archer whips.

It depends, mainly on what you're facing and how soon you can hit with Knighs. If you're early enough on the rush to not face large stacks, you can get away without catapult support. Even in that case you do want some in the second wave. Realistically you want to hit Construction and Engineering pretty soon after Guilds for improved movement.

(I'd look at our Knight invasion of Egypt in PB66 for an example of what happens when you invade too late)

I'll take a look at that game today. I think our research base is strong enough that we can fit in Construction soon or during the push to Guilds. But things will really depend on our target. Xist or Bing, Xist or Bing...

[greenline]

Interesting glimpse into other player's development on this screen. Seems like I have been able to grow the tallest capital so far. Not sure if happy or something else is what is limiting the field - maybe they don't have a similar green FP valley to consider moving to. Or maybe going this tall is a bad idea compared to pumping growth? Time will tell.

It also shows what a powerhouse Dune has been for us thus far. I thought it was a weak city site, but it gave us Oracle and Pyramids and even popped an extra Copper (should have covered this, but I missed it for a while!).







Further exploration of the tundra shows that we do indeed have marble access, albeit in some of the most miserable terrain you could imagine. I'd like to settle a city for the deers and lakes at some point. It would be best 1W, but that might interfere with the minimum city distance limit.