T168-175: Frenetic turn pace continues
There are good and bad points to having a fast turn pace. The good thing is that obviously the game moves faster, you don't have to wait as long for stuff to happen, more action, etc. The bad thing is it's harder to report effectively. The turns kind of blend into each other when nothing particular stands out, and you make a bunch of small decisions that collectively just don't seem that interesting to report on. Even though these turns were a Golden Age for me, there really wasn't all that much going on.
Technology:
This was the big focus of the Golden Age - hitting my technological goals. MJMD and I had some discussions about diverting to Divine Right on the way to Nationalism and building Spiral Minaret in Hope. But I couldn't get anyone to trade me Stone - both seem to be using it to build Castles at the moment, and without Stone it just didn't make enough sense right now given that I'm still feeling short of power. So I went Philosophy, spent one turn getting Liberalism close enough to finish in one turn later, then went to Nationalism, Alphabet, and Printing Press. I have enough left in the bank to finish Replaceable Parts and Gunpowder in the next 3 turns, then I have the option of using Liberalism on Rifling or just research it myself. Odds are strong I'll use Liberalism here for timing and because it's the most expensive tech I expect to research for a while.
Greenline meanwhile wrapped up Replaceable Parts, inserted Education before Gunpowder (understandable), but then unexpectedly went to Chemistry next over Rifles. I'm not sure what to make of this - precursor to Cannons for Steel? Making a run at Railroad for Mining Inc? Maybe he has Workshops he wants to make better? Bing's path was also odd. After finishing Alphabet and Printing Press, Bing next went to Gunpowder (not Replaceable Parts), then Philosophy and Nationalism. I wasn't expecting Nationalism here because he has yet to fire his third Golden Age, but he has a couple turns to do that and probably intends to. Anyway, what I thought were my opponents heading straight to Rifling clearly isn't, and I may well end up being first there.
Cities:
I had one spectacular turn for new cities when 3 settlers all happened to reach their destination and found new cities all at the same time:
Freshwater fish, lake tiles, and some very slight possibility if Greenline and I stay friendly that I can get a worker the long way around and improve that silver.
No food bonuses at all, but farmable grassland, more lake tiles, and grassland hills, should be able to do SOMETHING useful with this city, maybe production.
Also no food bonuses, but it's effectively a crumple zone city and I can chain farm enough to let it grow a bit.
Discipline, Obedience, and Loyalty are all "hard virtues" that are not highly valued by American culture at the moment. There's practically no loyalty in the work world (by either the companies or the workers), and not much more in personal relationships it seems. And Americans practically encourage people not to be obedient.
Amusingly, founding all these cities seems to have caused Greenline to log in immediately after. I'm wondering if he was afraid I was taking some area on our borders (nope, just filler cities off in the wilds that was clearly mine).
Beyond that, I wrapped up Universities in the 5 cities necessary to get Oxford started in my capital, finished off some buildings my production cities had never got around to (temple, courthouse, etc), and the rest of the Empire did the same with more basic infrastructure. I also ended the Golden Age with 12 Banks built, so saving money should go pretty fast in subsequent turns.
Foreign Affairs:
These turns were quiet other than my continued failure to get a stone trade going again. There's a war on, but nobody is actually fighting it. Greenline looked like they were going to wait for Rifling to absorb the last parts of Xist, but then didn't actually go to Rifling, so I don't know what the plan is there. I'm unlikely to move south against Xist at any point soon and am really only staying in this war because Greenline hasn't peaced out. Unless Bing and Greenline get into a war that's unlikely to change, so if it becomes advantageous I might well seek peace with Xist. But right now there's no real benefit to me to doing so, so I'm preferring not to upset Greenline. Also, at the VERY end of this set of turns Greenline finally broke our Espionage stalemate (we had both been stalled at 42 with each other to get graphs but nothing else). That's a bit ominous, but not entirely unexpected.
Taj Mahal:
With Nationalism secured, construction of Taj Mahal began in Forgiveness:
This picture is with 2 first-ring forests chopped. I will follow with another first and second ring, and then position 3 workers on the 3 lumber mills and chop those when I have 180 hammers to go to finish Taj. Estimated completion is Turn 185 or 186, will have to check my math for exact details.
Turn 175 Report:
Here's the core of the Empire:
The Western Valley:
The Lakes District:
The Southeast Wastes:
Graphs:
Thoughts on the Graphs:
I overtopped Bing's GNP while both of us were in a Golden Age. Good sign! And it didn't stay ridiculously high for all of that time, hopefully making it less obvious that my GNP is really, really good right now. Crop Yield being stuck in third is a visible symbol of my utter failure in the Second Roman War, where both Greenline and Bing made gains and I killed annoying border cities and only resettled one of them. I'm hoping to make up for this by continuing to settle my filler sites, and having settlers on hand to claim a couple of border sites currently swallowed by the culture of the Roman holy city. You know, assuming Greenline ever takes it. Power continues to look dangerously low, but drafting Rifles is not far off, at which point most of the units that have been built so far become less useful anyway. I included the Espionage graphs to show how late Greenline was to build Courthouses.
Improvement Stats:
City List:
Xist's Army Disposition as of T175:
There are good and bad points to having a fast turn pace. The good thing is that obviously the game moves faster, you don't have to wait as long for stuff to happen, more action, etc. The bad thing is it's harder to report effectively. The turns kind of blend into each other when nothing particular stands out, and you make a bunch of small decisions that collectively just don't seem that interesting to report on. Even though these turns were a Golden Age for me, there really wasn't all that much going on.
Technology:
This was the big focus of the Golden Age - hitting my technological goals. MJMD and I had some discussions about diverting to Divine Right on the way to Nationalism and building Spiral Minaret in Hope. But I couldn't get anyone to trade me Stone - both seem to be using it to build Castles at the moment, and without Stone it just didn't make enough sense right now given that I'm still feeling short of power. So I went Philosophy, spent one turn getting Liberalism close enough to finish in one turn later, then went to Nationalism, Alphabet, and Printing Press. I have enough left in the bank to finish Replaceable Parts and Gunpowder in the next 3 turns, then I have the option of using Liberalism on Rifling or just research it myself. Odds are strong I'll use Liberalism here for timing and because it's the most expensive tech I expect to research for a while.
Greenline meanwhile wrapped up Replaceable Parts, inserted Education before Gunpowder (understandable), but then unexpectedly went to Chemistry next over Rifles. I'm not sure what to make of this - precursor to Cannons for Steel? Making a run at Railroad for Mining Inc? Maybe he has Workshops he wants to make better? Bing's path was also odd. After finishing Alphabet and Printing Press, Bing next went to Gunpowder (not Replaceable Parts), then Philosophy and Nationalism. I wasn't expecting Nationalism here because he has yet to fire his third Golden Age, but he has a couple turns to do that and probably intends to. Anyway, what I thought were my opponents heading straight to Rifling clearly isn't, and I may well end up being first there.
Cities:
I had one spectacular turn for new cities when 3 settlers all happened to reach their destination and found new cities all at the same time:
Freshwater fish, lake tiles, and some very slight possibility if Greenline and I stay friendly that I can get a worker the long way around and improve that silver.
No food bonuses at all, but farmable grassland, more lake tiles, and grassland hills, should be able to do SOMETHING useful with this city, maybe production.
Also no food bonuses, but it's effectively a crumple zone city and I can chain farm enough to let it grow a bit.
Discipline, Obedience, and Loyalty are all "hard virtues" that are not highly valued by American culture at the moment. There's practically no loyalty in the work world (by either the companies or the workers), and not much more in personal relationships it seems. And Americans practically encourage people not to be obedient.
Amusingly, founding all these cities seems to have caused Greenline to log in immediately after. I'm wondering if he was afraid I was taking some area on our borders (nope, just filler cities off in the wilds that was clearly mine).
Beyond that, I wrapped up Universities in the 5 cities necessary to get Oxford started in my capital, finished off some buildings my production cities had never got around to (temple, courthouse, etc), and the rest of the Empire did the same with more basic infrastructure. I also ended the Golden Age with 12 Banks built, so saving money should go pretty fast in subsequent turns.
Foreign Affairs:
These turns were quiet other than my continued failure to get a stone trade going again. There's a war on, but nobody is actually fighting it. Greenline looked like they were going to wait for Rifling to absorb the last parts of Xist, but then didn't actually go to Rifling, so I don't know what the plan is there. I'm unlikely to move south against Xist at any point soon and am really only staying in this war because Greenline hasn't peaced out. Unless Bing and Greenline get into a war that's unlikely to change, so if it becomes advantageous I might well seek peace with Xist. But right now there's no real benefit to me to doing so, so I'm preferring not to upset Greenline. Also, at the VERY end of this set of turns Greenline finally broke our Espionage stalemate (we had both been stalled at 42 with each other to get graphs but nothing else). That's a bit ominous, but not entirely unexpected.
Taj Mahal:
With Nationalism secured, construction of Taj Mahal began in Forgiveness:
This picture is with 2 first-ring forests chopped. I will follow with another first and second ring, and then position 3 workers on the 3 lumber mills and chop those when I have 180 hammers to go to finish Taj. Estimated completion is Turn 185 or 186, will have to check my math for exact details.
Turn 175 Report:
Here's the core of the Empire:
The Western Valley:
The Lakes District:
The Southeast Wastes:
Graphs:
Thoughts on the Graphs:
I overtopped Bing's GNP while both of us were in a Golden Age. Good sign! And it didn't stay ridiculously high for all of that time, hopefully making it less obvious that my GNP is really, really good right now. Crop Yield being stuck in third is a visible symbol of my utter failure in the Second Roman War, where both Greenline and Bing made gains and I killed annoying border cities and only resettled one of them. I'm hoping to make up for this by continuing to settle my filler sites, and having settlers on hand to claim a couple of border sites currently swallowed by the culture of the Roman holy city. You know, assuming Greenline ever takes it. Power continues to look dangerously low, but drafting Rifles is not far off, at which point most of the units that have been built so far become less useful anyway. I included the Espionage graphs to show how late Greenline was to build Courthouses.
Improvement Stats:
City List:
Xist's Army Disposition as of T175:
