[SPOILERS] AlaePB1 - the ol' Nile blues

[Bacchus]

Capital got a bit of a produciton fix with riverside horses 1S of the city. Hardly merits it's own picture. I had to make choice of whether to detour a worker to pasturing or keep chopping, and went for the chops. The city doesn't really have the pop to take advantage of yet another production tile at this stage, and when it will do, the horse will be pastured. Abandoning the chop would delay the wonder and cause a malicious cascade for everything down the line.

[Bacchus]

So. Strategically this is a fairly poor situation -- settling islands, little turf for home expansion, dry lands. What I will need to do is achieve some sort of early tech edge, and then secure a foothold on some other mainland. Fortunately, if I'm given even a little break, it shouldn't be too hard. Plenty of coast, GLH, Spirituality switch into Caste for a couple of quick GP all provide a fix that I require, an unsustainable boost that would ran out and be swanped with cottages, unless I convert it into something. Also, with all the early religions fallen and a prospective firing for a monk economy (must have AP, the only viable source of production) I will need either CoL or Theo. Tao is too late, at the time that I could be bulbing Philo, I should be conquering someone. CoL, on the other hand, is on the way to Caste, Civil Service and Maces. The current tech plan is, having finished Pottery: Hunting->Archery, then Writing->Maths->Currency->CoL->Civil, whilst the merchant that I pop from GLH assisted with merchants will get MC. Then I'd have to research Machinery by hand, but hopefully with a Bureau capital it shouldn't be too difficult. The weak point here is that Maces are quite easily countered with Crossbows, and my closest and, so far, only neighbor is China.

An alternative plan is to get some War Chariots onto a Galley nice and early, and hope that Gav didn't tech Hunting.

[Bacchus]

GLH will come in 2 turns before the third city is settled, and thus will give no benefit whatsoever for a while.



At least the fourth will come quite soon after. Well, "soon", 6 turns.

[Commodore]

Please don't take this as a slight, but...what is the game speed setting?

[Bacchus]

Normal.

The main reason for this rush is that there is no point at all in playing without this wonder, and there is a water-based Gandhi played by a guy I know loves to build this.

Another thing is, even with this huge delay in expansion, I will run out of space to settle quite quickly, the future bottlenecks wiill be in Galley logistics, rather than in Settlers. And I don't have any competition for the land either. Still probably doesn't justify it, but hey.

[Bacchus]

But I have to ask, without taking it as a slight -- are things that bad?

I have noted that few people have a fourth city up yet, whereas I'd be on about that many had I built settlers in the capital (I have 178 hammers in the wonder currently, and settler would have a) also received food surpluses, b) received more food than I produced hammers, as I would have been working lighthoused clams rather than grass mines), and I'd be 5 turns away from getting the fourth settler out the door.

[Commodore]

Heh, well, I looked again at your map, Blue Marble always throws me off...yeah, I can see not rushing out third and fourth cities with plains that plain. :vomit:

[Bacchus]

Well, after a couple of sim-throughs, the strategic direction started to make itself clear. I'm saving up money, so that I'll have enough for a direct Writing-Maths-Currency-CoL run to grab Confu, open up Caste and get even more out of my IC-TR's and any potential neighbour trades. Gavagai won't sign OB, but someone will. I will then quickly complete Myst-Poly-Prietshood-Mono, as Confu spreads and switch into OR. Merchant popped off the lighthouse will get MC to open up forges. The idea is to have ~18hpt with +50% in Memphis and hit the MoM, assisted by some prior hammer banking. Research Civil Service in the meantime. If we can get this, it's trivial to arrange consecutive 24 turns of Golden Age with my food supplies, and potentially we can hit the Taj too. The primary goal, though, would be to use the Moai Golden Age Bureau capital to get out an Apostolic Palace, get a priest to bulb Divine Right (obelisk + temple = 3, easily done) and complete the Minaret too. We will pass up HBR, Construction, Machinery and Feudalism and probably even Archery for this, relying on the fleet to keep us safe from Gav. I'd give an arm and a leg for Ind at this point.

I don't know what to with the Aesthetics line, though. I don't think I can go both Monk and Music, National Epic would be nice, but for the current plans seems a bit excessive. Will be absolutely crucial in keeping up the flow of the great men in the mid-game, however.

[Bacchus]

Wonder spam:


It's Gavagai. Shortly to be followed by the Collosus, I presume. Problem — MC means Triremes. Solutions are less clear. Research MC yourself? I have the gold saved... The GLH Merchant could bulb CoL, I guess, which would be ok.

Overview:



Gonna catch up on the old expansion and actually make the wonder work. Jesus, look at that commerce rate.

Tech set to Writing for creative libraries, then MC, better safe than sorry.

[Bacchus]

Next turn I'll found my fourth city and show some demos that finally aren't embarassing to look at. Already 2nd on crop yield, though, and I won't even be the last to four cities. Don't know what the others are doing.