[SPOILERS] Serdoa - PBEM47

[Serdoa]

Break-even should be around 25% with ~50 beakers/turn. That GNP was with 28 gold costs. I do have one island city right now. I should be able to get Currency in the next 5-6 turns. With another island city that will be 26 gold across the empire (island-city will be city no. 13). That will get my breakeven to around 75 beaker / turn. Still not great, but I am able to build Wealth at that point and with one city doing that I should finally reach 100 beakers / turn at breakeven.

Plan is to use that for some time to tech, before finally all those grassland-cottages that I will now plant because there are no other tiles for my increasing population left to work will mature and by T90 most should be 2/0/3 tiles. Not great, but good enough to carry the expansion I am planning. After all, thats another 100 commerce across my core cities.

[pindicator]

Just wow at this
Excellent performance Serdoa

[Krill]

That's your GNP without Currency? Bloody hell.

[Serdoa]

Thank you pindi

Krill, I do have quite a bit of culture though. Out of my 11 cities, 9 have a Terrace (the other two were planted last and this turn and will have it next or the turn after). I guess, without having checked, that I have a total of around 40 culture / turn in my lands.

[Serdoa]

Not much time today, sorry (and save is also coming late now every day, so if that keeps up I'll probably not get to a proper update before the weekend earliest). But for those maybe interested, those are my demos after the end of my recent turn (so 1 turn after HG completing) with the new population set to the right tiles:



GNP is at 30% breakeven. 60 beakers / turn. Slightly up from last turn. But I will now be able to run ~3 turns of 100%, we'll see what that does for my GNP next turn. MfG still nearly double the next one and I will get Currency in 3 turns, so I can use a bit of that to produce wealth and shift the slider higher. Together with CoL (next turn) and Courthouses that should reliably keep me from crashing the economy I hope.

I also really want to spread out and settle my marble city. I think I can do that from the north instead of from the south via galleys. I also think I will get MC soon, just to get a hard grip on the surrounding islands and drive Seven and Gaspar away from me - and into the opposition. Of course if I settle Marble the Aesth -> Lit -> Music line is interesting as well. Though ... I think I will ignore it for some time. Yeah someone will get TGLib instead of me, but I think another city should offset that and I never expected to get it anyway. The Music Artist would be great, but uh... thats many beakers for not much gain in the end. I won't bomb Seven because he might attack for that and I won't bomb Gaspar because it simply isn't necessary.

Anyhow. Food I am back to first but just slightly. I am actually wondering why people keep up with me in food but are so far behind in MfG, I guess that means they have much less population than I do but have set them to grow? Don't answer this if you fear you'll spoil something. But otherwise, I'd like to hear if you agree with this thought or if I miss something.

Lastly, Dom-conditions



Um guys, 30% of world pop... we are 5 players... something isn't working out here. Seven with 20%. I have to try and calculate if that is because Gaspar is lagging back so much (and I basically took his other 10% and everyone else has 20%) or if Seven is the only one to keep up somehow. I'll check next turn my pop-numbers and let you know. I think I should have around 66 citizens. That would mean that Seven has around 44 I guess. Sounds like I am leading by a nice margin actually.

[Serdoa]

For some time I had only updated when my thread was the one at the bottom - but with mackoti in the game, that basically means never. What is a shame as I would really like to read his thread later on and get an idea what he did, how many cities he had etc. After studying the demos I think he is winning this game, despite me leading right now. Well, thats not a surprise really, I certainly did go into this game expecting him and Seven to win and I don't think that was wrong. Right now I expect mackoti to go after Seven - who I think is not ready for that - and when he has conquered him start pestering me.

But, I have a plan. It basically goes: Get enough land for a spaceship and keep it with advanced defensive techs (Feudalism). One issue with that though: I have NO clue how to fight with advanced units. I have never, not even once, used bombers or fighters. My games never lasted that long. So, that is certainly a disadvantage - one that actually is pretty much dooming me, no matter my position right now. Quite honestly, I have no clue how to play on from my position correctly. The first thing certainly has to be to decide if I indeed want to go for a spaceship-win. If not, what else is left:

Culture: Theoretically possible. If Seven holds out long enough and at the same time is hurt enough by mackoti, I might actually be able to get to that win-condition. I think if I remember correctly one has to get 3 cities with as many cottages as possible + a city or two with as much food as possible to create Artists. We are playing on Quick, so 25000 culture are necessary. Is that possible with just 1 religion, maybe 2? I really should re-read T-hawks posts on this topic, but I am not sure where to find them. Someone has a link?

Dom, Conquest: Um, yeah. I'm not going to conquer mackoti. It is just not happening. Not actually necessary though. And I can win against Gaspar I am pretty sure. I should be able to get 30 HAs in 10 turns. I don't think Gaspar would be able to counter that, at all. And when he is finished I could be at 60 already. I don't know - is that enough to win the game? To I need to tech up to Knights first?

Diplo: Uh, yeah, this is AW.

So, I am at a loss really. I'll probably go for Conquer for now. I can safely expand in my backyard while I get ~25 HAs. At that point I should be good to switch to Slavery as well, and produce another 20 in 3 more turns. That would tank my economy though. What is kinda scary as I might have a great deal of HAs which are slain by my oppositions Knights. Well, ok, they probably can't tech that fast, but still, I guess a tech-advantage is kinda necessary just so the others don't run away. I understand now why you waited sooo long in your AW-game Krill.

Well, I'll ponder that a little bit longer, for now, turn report... in the next post

[Serdoa]

First, something I didn't tell directly the last turns: Due to mackoti finishing TGW I made some gold. A little bit fail-gold...



Thanks dude. I had set it up to be finished in Tiwanaku just 1 turn later. But this way I got 276 fail-gold. That is actually good enough to tech at 100% - for 2.7 turns my costs are really crazy. But that doesn't matter because we finished CoL at the end of the turn. Confu landed in a border-city to Seven and Currency will be finished next turn as a 1-turn-tech. I already do have IW and Calendar as well, so I am good to go in whichever direction I desire. I think Monarchy is the next stop though, to finally be able to switch into Slavery - I really didn't want to do it on its own by now that would be a waste. But I will stay in HR for some time, so I'll have one turn of Anarchy anyway.

I am thinking about how much I will spread this religion though. I might have to think about Poly -> Mono. Alternatively I could go Aest and try for Paya, but I think it has gold as doubler and I don't think I found any yet. So that wonder is not really all that exciting. Especially considering that I would invest some 100-hammers just to be able to switch into Org.Rel. It would be better to produce wealth and tech Poly -> Mono. Hm. Poly -> Mono would also make sense for getting Courthouses into every city. Maybe even more than getting Monarchy. Yes, 1 happy more would be nice but I'll get 2 more via Calendar right now, so I do have some time to grow into my happy-cap. I am getting some more farms up at this point so I actually can grow my cities into the happy without having to juggle tiles all the time. I will increase my happy-cap by 1 in 2 turns, another 1 in the turn after. Plus growth means around 5 turns before I actually need Monarchy at all.

Ok, so probably Currency -> Poly -> Mono -> Monarchy. Switch into Org.Rel + HR (I mean, who needs Slavery, really?). Around 6 turns before I actually should start the Courthouses. Now, is it better to start the Courthouses in the high-hammer cities now to save more gold earlier (and they can produce them easily without Org.Rel) or should I rather build wealth now and switch to Courthouses later when I have Org.Rel? I think Courthouses without Org.Rel.... actually, I should think about how many more buildings I will even get apart from Courthouses. Spending 200 beakers + several hundred hammers for missionaries? I'll save at best 16 hammers on the Courthouses with Org.Rel. The missionary costs what, 40? That doesn't sound like a good deal actually. With more buildings down the line of course it is different. But delaying others techs and courthouses now if I won't build any more buildings for the next 20-30 turns isn't making much sense, is it?

See, thats why I need someone who is experienced to ded-lurk me and explain me that stuff. I read Sevens explanation on how to evaluate the costs and gains of different options and I honestly can't do it on my own it seems. I always start to think about one possibility, but then the next one pops up, and the next, and the next, and the next .... and suddenly I am not even sure why I wanted to do something in the first place and if I shouldn't do something completely different. I think I really need first to decide on WHAT I want to achieve in the next 20-30 turns, then think about which techs help the most for that and then do the micro for it.

Anyhow, thats not really interesting, so, overview-map of my land:

So, thats 66 pop right now. Will soon be more. That screenie shows a worker in Machu Pichu, but I am pretty sure I changed that to a settler. Hopefully. If not that will delay me slightly. Anyhow, 12 cities now. As for the marked city-spots. That one at the fish in the middle will probably go either 2N or 2N,1W. Will make it impossible to ever work the desert hill, but I think I can live with that.

Demos:



GNP is at 100%. As can be seen in the land-overview I make 175 beakers at 100%, with -100 gold. That should get considerably better with Courthouses I think. At least 30-40 gold less I think. MfG is still highest, though people start to catch up here too. I hope to change that when I grow my cities to size 9 and 10 (and with Monarchy 11 and 12). Highest soldier - I am proud of that And back to 2nd highest food. That should get much better when I finish my farms and workboats and actually grow again. That really became hard in the last turns as I tried to have all cities work improved tiles while giving the high food tiles to the city that is supposed to grow at that point. I just don't have enough. CS would really help to spread irrigation. Or building farms where I can BEFORE I get the higher happy-cap. Unfortunately 2/3 of my worker-force was trying to get Pyramids *sigh*

[Commodore]

If you're not interested in Slavery, why not Caste?

Edit: Pre-forges, Missionaries are Sid's Own Gift to whip micromanagement, being the perfect cost (26h Quick) to easily 2-pop whip for overflow.

[Serdoa]

Ah thanks Commodore. I had the cost of normal speed in mind I guess, probably due to PB8. 26 hammers of course are much better (I can nearly one turn them in one of my cities) and would also be nearly got back by building the courthouses with the bonus. And I probably want to spread the religion anyhow sometimes. Maybe I can get a Prophet for the shrine though and save some missionaries.

As for Caste: I thought about it - but I also am not sure that I do need it right now. As I said, I do not have that much food, except for in 1 city. And that is just evolving right now. So I don't see myself running that many specialists. And I don't have MC, so no workshops either. I am having Terraces, so I don't need Artists either. So yeah, kinda hard to find a reason for it. Of course Merchants could be nice, but I guess I can build Markets instead. Those would also benefit from Org.Rel though. But I don't think I want to build them in every city, I think it takes quite some time before they would pay back in quite a few cities.

[Nakor]

Hey Serdoa, ýou're playing a great game so far!
I completely understand your uneasiness with late game warfare, most of my games were done before that or were builder games.
I think that if you feel that Mackoti is going to attack Seven and you want to keep up, you have only one option.
Attack someone else and take their lands.
But when to do that? With what tech or tech advantage? I'm unsure....