[PB72 SPOILERS] Aetryn learns humility

[Mjmd]

I had thought of doing that after MC as can build research especially if don't want to over add to military budget, but as much as Aetryn complains about his economy, its actually doing better than even I expected. I think my numbers for MC were low.

And there are other reasons for math......

[aetryn]

So now that you've finished Math, I can ask...why not Currency via Alphabet, if your economic straits were so dire?

Uh... rote habit? I always think of Calendar, Currency, and Construction off of Math as the Big 3 Cs for transitioning out of Ancient-land, so I reflexively pick up Math because it enables all 3? I'm probably also too much of an efficiency nut playing single player and try to leave as many forests as possible for post-Math, which of course the AI will not punish you for, so yeah, this was total reflex on my part and I probably should have actually thought about it more. Thanks for pointing out that I missed considering an alternative!

One positive thing I was thinking about though was that picking up Math allowed me to chop those Walls I might have wanted in Temperance in time if he had actually sent in an attack, since I had no whip available. And I did end up using those augmented chops in a couple new cities for Granaries, so it wasn't ultimately wasted I guess.

[aetryn]

I had thought of doing that after MC as can build research especially if don't want to over add to military budget, but as much as Aetryn complains about his economy, its actually doing better than even I expected. I think my numbers for MC were low.

And there are other reasons for math......

I've mostly stopped complaining about it since it's been out of single digit gold at 0% science. I've still been working on it, mind you. But I feel like I'm doing okay at the moment. I'm behind the non-Xist players, but I have long-term advantages and I don't think I'm really that far behind, so I should have chances to catch up.

[aetryn]

T115-118: Cities and Wonders

Turn 115 and 116 were the two turns of researching Currency, so I now have two trade routes everywhere. Not quite enough foreign routes to fill all the slots at this point, but close. On Turn 116 the continuing saga of the wandering Praetorians continued:




I assume this is just for protection, since he's chopping a tile right next to my fortified defenders. I cancelled and re-sent fish for fish and he accepted, so I assume this is not an aggressive move. I should probably pull those defenders back since there's really no reason I need them there and it might help border tensions to show a less militarized border. Xist's long expansion drought is over, suggesting he was probably researching currency like a sensible person, has it now, and feels like he can go back to expanding (and is now up to 10 cities). That plus the accepted fish for fish means I can spend a few turns at least on the path to Monarchy.

Also on Turn 116, the city of Kindness is founded in the Western Valley:



Kindness is the virtue opposed to Envy. Instead of being sad at someone else's good fortune, and seeing another person only as a competitor for a position or goods, kindness is compassionate at another person's misfortune, and seeks to treat all persons as worthy of love and respect. Unfortunately in these days of discord in the public sphere, many people only offer kindness to those who think like they do or are part of their "tribe".

I will be kind to this city placement. It's very slow, but it will eventually be okay when the two food tiles are acquired. With 5 river tiles and a bunch of plains hills for production, this is kind of a budget version of Fortitude in that it probably ends up as a kind of hybrid city, just not anywhere near as good as Fortitude is at that. Early emphasis will certainly be developing the river cottages.

The very next turn, we add another one:



Another doesn't-even-have-a-third-ring-on-the-edge-of-the-map-fishing-village-special. This basically exists because there's a fish that isn't used yet and coastal tiles are very good for me, so a city that does pretty much nothing but work fish and coast and maybe develops a couple cottages for Faith to use later is actually pretty positive. This city gets off to a faster start because the fish had already been claimed by capital culture so I'd pre-netted it. But then it will immediately run into the problem of no production. We'll chop and 1-pop whip it for a granary, then 2-pop whip it for a lighthouse and inevitably whip it repeatedly for every other building we can't build with actual hammers here.

Chastity is probably the least popular virtue to discuss these days, and probably unsuited for a forum post, so I will simply note that this is yet another virtue whose meaning is commonly misperceived - it is no more abstinence than Temperance is, and a married man is still called on to be chaste.

City count is now Bing 15, me 13, Greneline 11, Xist 10, and my Crop Yield is now up to second.

----

The 117th and 118th cycle in the Malian Reckoning were interesting and tumultuous times. The introduction of standardized silver coins to replace the silver jewelry trinkets that had grown common as barter trinkets led to an explosion of trade, especially with neighboring nations such as the Romans and Readerians. And it was a time of great creativity and effort across the world - in just 50 years, three significant projects were completed in other lands - a marble temple to a Hindu goddes of the hunt in the Bingtec nation, an impressive wall to keep at bay the mythical beings known as "Those who say only Bar-bar instead of speaking in a proper language", also constructed by a somewhat unhinged king of the Bingtecs, and breathtaking stone pyramids used for preservation of pristine copies of all the best books in Readerium for future generations. Though the Malian people had their own great landmarks to point to, the people clamored for another "wonder" of their own. Very rough designs for the world's largest lighthouse in Faith were postponed by the need to build a market to better support local trade. In the south, in the bacon capital of the empire, Diligence, another project began. Said to be the brainchild of the royal advisor known only by his four initials, the Malian despot had become distracted by the needs of newly founded cities and had not properly organized a workforce to assist in building it, so progress was very slow. If completed, the structure was supposed to be some kind of ziggurat with elaborate gardens of plants taken from all over the empire, many of which would not grow well in the hilly soil near Diligence but would thrive in a specially-designed garden. By the 118th cycle, the despot had finally gathered the necessary workforce and progress became somewhat swifter, but was hampered by a lack of good quality stone, despite the presence of the nearby mountains. The despot searched foreign lands for a reliable stone supplier, but had little success. Only time would tell if the project would be completed.

[aetryn]

T119-122: Faith. Not the City. The Other Kind.

By the 120th cycle by the Malian reckoning, the entire world was focused on money. All 4 major empires had commercialized, trade was booming, and everywhere the pursuit of profit was in the minds of everyone. Most Malian cities were busy constructing Markets for the traders or Mints for the metalsmiths:




But all was not well in the world. The prosperity of the Classical world was highly concentrated in the hands of a few elites - the professional classes, the landowners, the administrators. But there were thousands of less fortunate residents of the great cities who barely got on day labor, never able to save up or store anything, who would inevitably perish when fortune turned against them. Maliland was no exception. If anything, its somewhat backward government was incapable of administering large cities in the same way the Readerians were. But, as it turned out, from the Readerians a great change would come. In the 122nd cycle, an itinerant wonder-worker in the Jewish holy city of Dune was put to death. His disciples, who remained adamantly loyal even after his death, claiming he had risen from the dead, were persecuted mercilessly and scattered from Jewish lands. One of those followers, an ex-persecutor of the new sect converted on the road to HuckleberryFinn, arrived in Humility later that cycle, preaching this new religion:




The residents of Humility were impressed and many converted, but the despot was not keen to see his authority challenged. But the adherents of the new religion, called Christians after the man who was said to have died and risen from the dead, found more enthusiasm (and converts) in the nearby city of Patience. The local ruler of the city himself converted after several people were martyred on the hills outside the city, and Patience became known as the Holy City of Christianity. The zealous followers of the religion began to spread throughout the Malian Empire aiming to convert all the cities:




---

Patience is an okay place to have the Holy City pop up. It has production to spare, so it can easily produce a monastery and a couple missionaries. This is important, because I have a Golden Age due in 6 turns and I want a few cities to be able to make use of Organized Religion during the Golden Age. On the other hand, it's never going to be a commerce city and may not be first priority for multiplier buildings if it's building needed units. Fortitude would probably have been the absolute best place as it has both the hammers to produce stuff and the commerce to want to prioritize gold multipliers, but it was never an option as it picked up Buddhism from the Romans a while back. I'd certainly rather have Patience than Prudence in the south, or worse, something in the Western Valley where the missionaries couldn't reach my core cities quickly enough.

The initial missionary will head north and convert the capital, which needs to be in the state religion as soon as the Golden Age starts. The next missionary will head for Hope, which is working on an important project that needs to be finished as soon as possible. I will save gold for a couple turns, then pick up Monarchy so I can hook wines and switch to Hereditary Rule as soon as the Golden Age starts. If all goes as expected, I should pick up 2 happiness everywhere (HR Garrison + Wines), 3 in key cities, and more in the border cities with stacked garrisons.

Elsewhere the world remained fairly quiet. I continue to drift along neck and neck with Greenline in demographics, though his cities are bigger because of HR, temples, and religion. Bing is still the clear frontrunner and Xist is still trailing. Someone in the world finished Code of Laws, presumably going for Courthouses. I sent a garrison for the new city and an axe over to the Western Valley, since it's fairly hard to run reinforcements over there at a moment's notice. This is going to be a long-term structural problem for defending this part of my empire. Some ideas:

• For pre-war positioning of troops, I can probably build a road from Patience to Temperance. It's very vulnerable to being cut if Xist attacks (less so if Greenline does), but at least I can send troops west more easily without them being caught in no-man's land for several turns
  
• I might want to invest in another galley or two so I can do some chain moves of troops across the water. This won't help a ton, but buying a turn or two might be worth the cost of another 2-3 galleys, especially in another 25 turns or so.
  

By contrast, the east is much safer - the reinforcement lines are straightforward and impossible to cut, it's harder for Xist to stage an attack over here far from his production cities, and Greenline has no contact at all on this side. Fortunately, nobody has Construction right now, and in the west, attacking a hilltop city with Walls and 3 Skirmishers/1 axe should be sufficiently unappealing to keep it safe until Catapults enter the scene.

Economy-wise, I spent the last few turns cleaning up the religious precursors to Theology, which involved several turns not working binary science (due to not needing 100% science to finish techs). So, hard to gauge how well it is doing, but so far the markets are quite slow to build so I should pick up a boost when I get those going. And, of course, there's the impending Golden Age civic swap that will help!

I've finally got chops coming in near Diligence, so we'll get a run at this Hanging Gardens thing..

[Commodore]

So is the plan OR for the Golden Age, then Theocracy after?

[aetryn]

So is the plan OR for the Golden Age, then Theocracy after?

At this point, it's probably Organized Religion for the Golden Age and research Feudalism and slot Vassalage at the end but leave Organized Religion. If a war seems likely to break out, I might change this plan, of course. I do have a fair number of buildings to build and will add Courthouses at some point also, so I'd like to have access to that bonus if I can.

[Mjmd]

 Organized Religion 

Organized Religion OP   (I swear I don't have a favorite civic   )

Vasslage will give enough exp for 2 promos. Even if war does seem likely to break out I would recommend staying in org religion until end of 2nd GA.

[aetryn]

T123-127: Golden Diplomacy

I forgot to mention in my last update my absolute favorite part about bulbing Theology - early access to the Medieval soundtrack in Civ4. I love pretty much all of these tracks, and I apparently share the song that is my favorite with another user here who is named after it: El Grillo. (Link) Oddly enough, Josquin de Prez and Palestrina (another composer who figures prominently in the Civ 4 Medieval track) are really Early Renaissance rather than Medieval, but I'll forgive the Civ 4 developers for that.

Looking around at the end of Turn 122, I noticed that someone had researched Aesthetics. And I just hooked up marble for Temperance to work. On the off chance that this was Greenline and he was interested in Marble for Parthenon or other stuff in this line, I sent a Marble for Stone trade. I don't need Marble immediately and my next city will pick up a second source of it anyway, but Stone would help with Hanging Gardens and Moai Statues (and maybe other stuff later if I can keep the trade going for longer). Well, I opened Turn 123 to find:



Finally, a successful Stone trade! This is unfortunately too late for all the chops of Hanging Gardens, but it does reduce the population loss from whipping it. Which I promptly did. I'm not 100% sure about how Greenline is going to feel about this trade next turn when he sees Hanging Gardens finish, but he has to have known this was a possibility, since I was clearly fishing for stone for a while. It also looks like I won't finish Moai before the Golden Age, but it should be nearly done and still useful for a good part of the Golden Age.


Elsewhere in the world, I discover the world's loneliest silver deposit:



I'm pretty sure there's water east of it and a mountain southeast, and since this is a freshwater lake, no boats can be built. On the other hand, great place for that "can't find my last city" last stand.

I landed Hanging Gardens as expected and immediately used some of the population to whip a couple buildings. But most of the population will just sit around unhappy until the Golden Age arrives.

In the south, my scouts continue to monitor the elements of the Roman army. There are 6 Praetorians in the Neapolitan force located here:



and four more Praetorians and two axes in the Forward Guard divided between two locations here:



I probably can't defend Temperance if he throws all of this at it, but the core can probably defend itself okayish. My current interpretation of this positions is mostly defensive. He knows I have some forces in Temperance and wants to make sure he can defend his forward city, but otherwise is keeping most of his forces back where they are mostly just guarding his core. Also, it seems his intentions are not immediately aggressive, because he sent me this trade:




This is a trade I proposed earlier, but apparently he was far enough from connecting the second gold that he didn't want to take it. This is amazingly good for me, as it immediately gets a BUNCH of my citizens out of unhappiness, including a lot of the new ones added by Hanging Gardens. This probably added 16-18 working tiles for me in one go. Combined with some markets finished in the last couple turns, I had went from 65ish gold at 0% Science to 105+ gold at 0% science. I wasn't expecting to get this happiness boost until the Golden Age, so getting it a few turns early really helps me prepare, letting me save a couple of turns of gold up. There's only two cities in my entire empire in unhappiness:




And even those will be happy by the time I add Hereditary Rule and the wines.

----

The years after the arrival of Christian missionaries to Maliland were years of social change and ferment. In just a few cycles, the Mali conception of religion and government radically changed. The despots who had ruled the Malian people through their personal strength and force of character seemed unable to adapt to these changes, even as they won important trading agreements with the neighboring empires. Even the completion of the great Ziggurat-Garden of Diligence caused further strife. The garden has been laid out according to Buddhist principles by a small but influential sect that had a direct link to the Roman Buddhists. The ascendant Christians objected to a Buddhist garden as a national monument, and particularly zealous citizens refused to even visit Diligence. To make matters worse, in the 126th cycle the Despot died suddenly, without naming a successor. In those days rule was not passed down from father to son, but to the strongest and most suitable candidate the previous despot knew. Of course, despots had died unexpectedly before, but either through happenstance - an obvious strongest candidate was easily identified - or through tight bonds between the leading class from which the despots were drawn there had never been a serious power struggle over succession. This time, with social cohesion in tatters, there was. In the 127th cycle two rivals both claimed the right to be the next despot. One was the captain of the Despot's personal guard, named Yambo Bakr. He was known to be a cruel, power-hungry man with no tolerance for disagreement. The other, a middle-aged man from Prudence, the Warchief of the Southern Marches, was called Khons Tahnteen, whose men praised his valor and honesty. In their clash would be written the next chapter of the Malian Empire.

[aetryn]

Forgot this picture in my last update:




Why yes, that is a city with walls and 4 garrison troops on your northeastern border. Don't get any ideas!