[Spoilers!] Dave Versus Financial

[Mardoc]

Ah, yes, pikes and crossbows ought to manage just fine. Carry on!

farms spreading irrigation.

My gut feel is that this is the factor that will matter most. When do we have to decide? It'd be nice to scout some first, so we know if we need the food or not. I don't think Christianity will matter to us, but Theocracy might.

I don't *think* the beaker difference will be all that much, but I don't really remember what Bureaucracy competes with civic-wise. If we're talking no benefits vs. +50% commerce from the capital, 229 beakers ought to pay back in less than 50 turns from the palace alone. If there's another civic we'd rather run, it's a harder choice.

I'm happy with the Phoenix-like cities idea . Admittedly I don't have any examples off the top of my head, but I'm sure those will come to us.

Edit: Hmm. Do almost-destroyed cities count? We could go with Manticore, Gryphon, and Sphinx since they'd surely have died if PBEM24 was played all the way. (I see you're a Weber fan, Commodore).

[SevenSpirits]

Just don't forget you need Civil Service for Cuirassiers.

[Commodore]

I'm happy with the Phoenix-like cities idea . Admittedly I don't have any examples off the top of my head, but I'm sure those will come to us.

Edit: Hmm. Do almost-destroyed cities count? We could go with Manticore, Gryphon, and Sphinx since they'd surely have died if PBEM24 was played all the way. (I see you're a Weber fan, Commodore).

Hah, it's funny you mention that, because I literally just bought an ARC of his latest book fifteen minutes ago. Gryphon actually was destroyed in the final turn, so if that's famous enough, it's certainly a cool city name.

[oledavy]

Just don't forget you need Civil Service for Cuirassiers.

Ah, I forgot CS was a pre-requisite for Nationalism. This debate has all been rather academic then CS it is!!!

Edit: Hmm. Do almost-destroyed cities count? We could go with Manticore, Gryphon, and Sphinx since they'd surely have died if PBEM24 was played all the way. (I see you're a Weber fan, Commodore).

Hmmm....On the one hand, only Gryphon was technically razed. On the other hand, it might appease the god of this map, the almighty Commodore.

My creative writing senses are tingling...

[oledavy]

[SIZE="3"]In the beginning, there was Commodore, lord of all creation. In his infinite wisdom, he created three worlds. The First World was inhabited by Obsessive Compulsive Micromanagers and B-rated Hollywood flicks, and he saw that it was not good. Within the Second World, time dragged at such a slow pace, that the almighty Commodore deemed it also a error. Within the Third World indwelt great warriors and skilled statesmen, but it was still not enough to satisfy the god. And so he wandered, trying to find meaning in his eternal existance.

In the fathomless heavens lay infinite realities and universes, and the great Commodore had not existed as a deity in all of them. Dreams of defeat haunted his eternal vigil. He thought of the watery world, how the servants of The Heretic had defied his authority and killed so many of his people in their efforts to bring peace to the great oceans. He thought of the land of Bob, in which he had been building a utopia of learning and art when his followers were brutally betrayed by the endless hordes of The Deceiver. And so, he began to craft a Fourth World, in which he sought to punish those who had thwarted him during his time as a mortal. The stars foretold that The Deceiver and The Heretic were to be reborn, and so the god sought to take his revenge. He carefully created his world, and inhabited it with his enemies, choosing a nation to teach them them the error of their ways.

Yet, the people he chose to exact his vengeance instead remained on their island, living in excess and gluttony. In a rage, Commodore sought to destroy the world he had created, sending pestilence and war to drive all the peoples from their homelands. He was ready to destroy what he had created, when he heard a cry of despair from the leader of his people. It seemed the destruction had left them penitent and ready to obey his will. And so, he decided to give his people a second chance.[/SIZE]

"And so the nation of the lord will be cast out,
for they have been found wicked in his sight.
In their land of plenty,
they have grown slothful and gluttonous,
and defied the will of the lord.
And so, he will lay his vengeance upon them,
spreading sickness and death through the peoples,
and driving them from their homes."

The Prophet, March 15th, 250 AD, Last words before his execution.

So said the prophecy which had now come true. The Spanish people had always scoffed at the words of the prophet, but now that the events he foretold had transpired, there were no doubters left among the few survivors that trudged the desolate shores at the center of the Fourth World.

And so they roamed the desolate lands far away from their home. The High Council was at a loss of what to do, and food supplies were running low. It was at the end of a heated meeting with the high council that the leader of the Spanish walked away from the encampment to the shoreline, and cried out in frustration at the god who had deserted them.

"Where are you now!" He shouted, shaking his fist at the sky.

In blinding flash of light, Commodore appeared, looking rather smug. Temporarily blinded, the chieftain fell to the ground, but then jumped back to his feet and glared at the deity accusingly.

"You deserted my people!"

"You refused to fulfill your destiny, but I am giving you a second chance"

"What do you mean?"

"If you obey my commands, I will give you dominion over all the Fourth World and you will be able to return to your homeland."

"How?"

Commodore's lip curled as he spoke: "There are three other peoples in this world, you must subjugate and eradicate the followers of The Deceiver and The Heretic. Leave none of my enemies alive. As for the third, you may do with them as you wish."

Commodore turned and gestured to the land north of him.

"Take your people, and build a pair of settlements around the great lake to the north. The land is not lush, but it is enough to sustain your people while they fulfill their destiny. As a sign of humility, you must name your settlements after the cities of great lost empires, now burned to the ground"

"But how will I know the na- "

"You will know."

Commodore turned and stared back at the leader of the Spanish:

"No longer will you be known as the Spanish......but as my Inquisitors. You will be my arm on the Fourth World, fulfilling your destiny and punishing those who would dare defy me. Now go, heed my will, and I will give you victory."

And with that, the god disappeared.

The chieftain turned around and headed back to the village, his faith restored, and formulating a plan to make his people the most mighty in the land.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Sweet, thanks Commodore for giving us food resources, I expect everyone else to have bare plains everywhere

I agree that we need Civil Service, not just for the commerce (not a great deal, but it still counts to pick up the non-bulb techs), but for the hammers (necessary to make our empire large enough), and to spread irrigation to the few grasslands we can see. The nice thing about specialist economies is that you can skimp on tile improvements, enough +food tiles to grow, and then stagnate and generate GPPs.

Here are the techs I believe we'll need:
Music (bulb)
Civil Service (tech)
Paper (tech)
Philosophy (bulb)
Education (bulb and tech)
Liberalism (we bulb this if we don't have Machinery, else the GScientist bulb goes into Optics [Risky!])
Gunpowder (tech)
Machinery (tech)
Engineering (tech)
Military Tradition (tech)

This feels doable, though I'll need to find some time to really hash it out.

I did a quick sim last night, and here is what feels viable to get our GArtist out: Settle as you suggested earlier, get our capital building a worker, and chop a workboat into city #2, and only afterwards improve the wheat. We can grow to either size 3 or size 4 before starting up the artists. 2 artists takes 6t for GArtist to pop, 3 artists takes 4t, it takes either 1 or 2 turns to grow from 3 to 4. I'm leaning towards growing to size 3, as that frees up the wheat tile for our capital sooner. Cottage the floodplains early, and mine some hills in anticipation of civil service coming in and making our hills effectively 6H tiles in our capital. We don't want to hammer out settlers, I prefer timing a chop and >7 foodhammers into a settler on the first turn, and doing a 3-pop whip on the second turn. Our happy cap is high enough to whip like crazy but not high enough to grow onto cottages. I'd prefer overflow to be put into forges, though that's my farmers gambiting side speaking.

By the way, the map is food poor enough that it wraps around and FIN is uber again, because coasts are the only tile to really let you grow onto again. I don't see a great deal of strong food resources, which are the tiles that really power specialist economies. Oh well, we'll make do. We don't want to build colossus as that incentivises putting happy cap into use working coast tiles, while we want to put our happy cap into use working specialist slots.

[SevenSpirits]

Careful about the order there, can't bulb Philo between Paper and Education.

[oledavy]

Careful about the order there, can't bulb Philo between Paper and Education.

Yep, we need to bulb philosophy before finishing paper.

I wasn't planning on delaying machinery so long, as I don't think our opponents will be so nice as to leave us alone if we lack feudalism and machinery. Leaving machinery un-researched also means we're two techs away from engineering. Bulbs of education and philosophy should be sufficient to ensure liberalism for us, the tech itself we'll hard research.

Other than that, I agree with the tech order.

In the sim I ran, I had the 2nd city (hereby known as Gryphon) grow to size three producing a workboat, then switch to running two artists and building a pair of workers. I chopped a worker out of the cap first, then a workboat from Gryphon. Meanwhile, the worker from the cap farmed the wheat while the city slow-built a library. I have no idea if this is optimal, I haven't done it enough times. However, I do believe it would be better to chop a worker out first and not a workboat.

[Mardoc]

Bulbing 4 out of 10 required techs? Suddenly I think I grasp the value of Philo .

[Nicolae Carpathia]

We don't need a library, we'll only run specialists during Caste, otherwise we regrow population from whips. That and the +25% research is useless right now. If we want to park our builds into something, then do it into a forge.

Chopping WB, growing Gryphon to Size 3: Gets our artist on T14

Chopping WB, growing to Size 4: Gets our artist on T13, and let's us immediately 2-pop whip a worker from Gryphon

Your chopping WB, growing to Size 3: Artist on T14

Your chopping WB, growing to Size 4: Artist on T14, but let's us immediately 2-pop whip a worker from Gryphon

Also, I was wrong about the chop and whip strategy: Chops are 20H on Quick speed, meaning we'll need to double-chop and 3-pop whip, or have a forge down. Ignore that bit in my previous post.