[SPOILERS] Smackdown Game Thread

[SevenSpirits]

t28:

Buddhism and Hinduism were both founded. I went ahead and finished the last 4 beakers of mysticism. For the record, we could have gotten Buddhism t30, or Hinduism t31.



We have a couple things to decide now.

1) What to tech? Well, we can do the obvious choice of Mathematics; we can make a run for Judaism; or we can grab sailing and then presumably head on to Math. Without worrying about other teams, Math is probably the best choice. But I really want a religion, and if we don't get Judaism it will take quite a long time. Plus, Rome hasn't revolted to slavery yet, so they could do slavery and OR together. On the other hand, the team that went for Hinduism could carry on and grab Judaism too. Since teams have 2 civs, a second religion is actually not just an irritation.

2) Where to put the Sumerian third city? Here are the logistics: Our two workers are finishing a second riverside cottage for Iced Tea next turn, then after that they are free to do whatever. Meanwhile the capital grows to size 6 next turn, whips the settler the turn after, and completes a third worker the turn after that. So: where do we settle?

[novice]

Just from looking at that screenshot, perhaps 1N of the copper?

[NobleHelium]

Just from looking at that screenshot, perhaps 1N of the copper?

You mean 1S of copper.

[Krill]

3N of the capital and Sailing next, lighthouse on OJ, split off the fish and get a galley to go see what is over there. It's not even a bad long term coastal city if you decide to turn OJ into the NE city for Sumeria. The only potential glitch I think is that you need to get a unit onto the grass forest hill to see if that alienates any seafood.

[SevenSpirits]

Just from looking at that screenshot, perhaps 1N of the copper?

That's what I was thinking.

Btw total cost of Poly/Masonry/Mono at this point is about 413b. We'd get it in about 10t. Math could be done in maybe 9.

[Ichabod]

I'd go sailing next and then head to Mathematics, eyeing a quick currency. After that, IW and Calendar. I think going for Monotheism is too risky for not that large of a reward (if we lose the religion, Org religion is useless, masonry is useless and Polytheism is useless - if we get it, we still need to eat 2 turns of revolt to get the benefits of the religion and civics).

If we are not going for early wonders, beelining currency seem the way to go. I'm scared at the perspective of a financial civ with colossus on that coastal spot. I don't think we should delay our strenghts for long (being the fast Academy with 100% of a civ commerce going through it). Besides, after that, Calendar seems so good on this map.

[SevenSpirits]

I'd go sailing next and then head to Mathematics, eyeing a quick currency. After that, IW and Calendar. I think going for Monotheism is too risky for not that large of a reward (if we lose the religion, Org religion is useless, masonry is useless and Polytheism is useless - if we get it, we still need to eat 2 turns of revolt to get the benefits of the religion and civics).

If we are not going for early wonders, beelining currency seem the way to go. I'm scared at the perspective of a financial civ with colossus on that coastal spot. I don't think we should delay our strenghts for long (being the fast Academy with 100% of a civ commerce going through it). Besides, after that, Calendar seems so good on this map.

Thanks, it's good to have another opinion on this.

A couple of counterarguments:

1) If we go Poly-Masonry-Mono, we can abort if someone else gets masonry before us. If no one does, we are all but guaranteed the religion.

2) If we get it, it only costs one revolt turn, because we haven't revolted to slavery yet.

3) I think we can have Rome save enough gold before the library comes in to power through Mono, Math, and Currency (plus Sailing if we decide that). So we wouldn't be missing out on the gold-trading benefits of Currency, really.

I see your point about wanting to focus on our plan, but I also think we need a religion, and Judaism certainly won't be available for long. Btw we know that Buddhism was founded first, which means that it's either RMOG with Buddhism and one of 4H/LAM with Hinduism, or it's 4H with Buddhism and LAM with Hinduism. In both cases the spiritual civ (Gandhi from RMOG) didn't get Hinduism, so there is no clear desire for the Hindu player to push for Monotheism too.

[Ichabod]

The 2 revolts I mentioned are the one to get slavery/Org Rel and the one to adopt Judaism, since we'll need it to get the Org Rel bonuses. And we can always revolt to Org Rel when we go for HR, which I'm guessing we will, at some point.

I see your points about getting the religion and it's important to stress out that my opinion is not the most informed one, so I'd take it more as a sounding board than anything else (I'll probably go against everything you guys plan, just to make you have to think twice about it ).

I wonder, though, if we'd really use a religion a lot before when we'd expect to get one of the later ones (like Taoism, most likely). We already have a granary at the capital and I think we'll build a library before founding a religion (or at least before spreading it to the capital). What are the buildings we expect to get in most of the Roman cities in the next 50 turns (I imagine we'd found the religion there)? Granaries and Libraries... Anything else? Courthouses? Are the discount hammers from org Rel worth in this case (considering we'd need missionaries to spread the religion to some cities)?

Do we plan on getting a Shrine? I guess we could run some priests in Sumeria, while Rome keeps on going for Great Scientists... Would that be a good strategy? With Philo we could very well bulb Philosophy, if we want a religion later.

Happiness from religion is also a good boost, but will happiness be a growth limiter with all the Calendar resources? We can also think about Monarchy. But we want Priesthood, anyway, due to Sumeria Ziggurats, so we don't actually need Monotheism to get it.

Just some things to think about. I think both options are good and I don't have any idea about which is best.

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Important: The orange city we have scouted is the Roman capital counterpart of team RMoG, right? This make me think that Sumeria capital can be connected by the sea with RMoG other civilization. The map seems to not only work with this hipothesis, but also make it pretty likely. So, having a galley to explore would be very valuable, not only to make us preparred against a possible attack, but also to give us a chance to do an attack, if opportunity presents itself.

What do you think?

[SevenSpirits]

I wonder, though, if we'd really use a religion a lot before when we'd expect to get one of the later ones (like Taoism, most likely). We already have a granary at the capital and I think we'll build a library before founding a religion (or at least before spreading it to the capital). What are the buildings we expect to get in most of the Roman cities in the next 50 turns (I imagine we'd found the religion there)? Granaries and Libraries... Anything else? Courthouses? Are the discount hammers from org Rel worth in this case (considering we'd need missionaries to spread the religion to some cities)?

Yeah, we'd use it a lot. Every city wants granary + library which is 100h, so OR would save 20h already. So missionaries would be providing 1 happy, earlier border pop, and 20h, for the cost of 26h in a more developed city, which is really good.

Very interesting thought about a possible sea connection of our other capitals. I suspect it's not the case because there are a lot of tiles in between us, but it's possible, and you're right that getting a galley out will be useful for expanding in that direction regardless. (In fact that's the direction we have the most room to expand in!)

[Ichabod]

Well, le'ts go for Judaism, then. I'm guessing masonry is the next tech, since it's more useful than Polytheism if we end up losing the race.

Any plans for a shrine? Should we let Sumer get the Holy Site, so it can build the shrine to go with the gold multiplyers? I'm guessing no, since the slider doesn't matter for the Shrine, only the actual gold multiplyer buildings, which we are not forbidden to build on Rome. If we indeed get the religion, priesthood should be consider a priority target, not only for Ziggurats, but also for the possibility of getting a temple and prophet specialist.