[Spoilers]Luddite- Isabella of Aztec

[luddite]

I've founded my first city! Here's the map. Anyone guess the city theme yet?


I researched AH one turn after founding FullMetalJacket, and discovered that I founded it right on top of horses I would have really liked to work a pasture in that city, since that's a production city. At least I have horses now.

I've microed the city so that it can finish a granary after next turn (love being expansive). I've also got another settler finishing this turn.

All other civs have made a new city except Adlain. Plako is in the score lead for some reason, and I don't know why.

I've started researching writing. I need to decide whether to go for math, try for judaism/OR, or the Great Lighthouse.

[Lord Parkin]

I've founded my first city! Here's the map. Anyone guess the city theme yet?

I guess the next one will be The Shining.

I researched AH one turn after founding FullMetalJacket, and discovered that I founded it right on top of horses I would have really liked to work a pasture in that city, since that's a production city. At least I have horses now.

Hmm, that's unfortunate. Oh well, I guess it happens sometimes.

I've started researching writing. I need to decide whether to go for math, try for judaism/OR, or the Great Lighthouse.

With the amount of forests around I'd suggest Math might be a decent idea. Monotheism and the Great Lighthouse are reasonable ideas too, although their benefits are dependent on other people. Maths is good regardless of what other people do. (Plus, you could make a shot at the Hanging Gardens if you wanted... I see you have Stone around.)

[luddite]

I guess the next one will be The Shining.

haha, good job. Although I was thinking of breaking the order a bit, and saving The Shining for the spot next to the ice and mountains.

With the amount of forests around I'd suggest Math might be a decent idea. Monotheism and the Great Lighthouse are reasonable ideas too, although their benefits are dependent on other people. Maths is good regardless of what other people do. (Plus, you could make a shot at the Hanging Gardens if you wanted... I see you have Stone around.)

That is a good idea. I like how math leads to currency, and then to Code of Laws for Sacrificial Alters. And the Hanging Gardens could be really good if I've got a lot of cities by then.

[luddite]

I've finished chopping the granary in FullMetalJacket. The new settler has finished, and is will on his way. He'll arrive before any workers are in position, but that's OK.

Plako finished the oracle this turn, and shot up in score. Probably safe to assume that he chose metal casting.

[luddite]

Nobody else has a second city yet, so I might be the first one to get a second city. That would be nice, because I'm not doing so well in the demographics right now.





I decided to delay building the road, and send up that worker immediately. The road is only worth 2 commerce per turn, whereas getting the second city up faster could get a lot of food there, and the gold mine. I'll have my workers chop out another worker there. Meanwhile FullMetalJacket will grow to size 3 and then whip a settler, while Eyes Wide Shut builds a worker and then a granary. After that I'd like to grow Eyes Wide Shut to size 4, and have it work another mine- that would get it to 9 hammers, to get another free hammer from expansive when building workers. Right now it only has 6, so another mine would effectively add 3 hammers to worker production (technically 4, but it loses 1 food). In fact, if I go to size 5 the same thing happens- That gets it to 12 base hammers, for an extra 3 "free" hammers from expansive. Then I could use it to build workers while my other cities whip and chop settlers.

[luddite]

I've been thinking a lot about what my long-term strategy should be on this map. I need some sort of edge, to get in the lead and grab a win.

One obvious way of doing that is to conquer someone else. With twice the land, that's a big edge. However, there's a lot of difficulties there. First of all, conquering someone is much easier said than done. You might lose the war, and even if you win easily it involves a huge military investment which slows down growth for a long time. And all the conquered cities will have a high upkeep cost until you build the forbidden palace. It also has massive diplomatic consequences- on a map like this, everyone will see that, and they might very well ally against you while you're weak in the post-conquest period. That's what I'll try to do, if any player here conquers another.

All in all I think it's better to play this one peacefully. And since everyone else seems to be thinking the same thing, I'm going to treat this like a single player game and just go for broke on teching and expansion. That means skipping most of the medieval techs, and going down the tech path of Code of Laws, Civil Service, Education, liberalism. I'll pick up monarchy/metal casting whenever I run out of happiness, and iron working/HBR if it seems necessary. Beauracracy + Oxford is going to be huge with this capital, especially if I can get the Taj. My edge would be that I'm sacrficing any sort of military for pure expansion, and I've played this way many times in single player so I'm pretty good at it. I might even make it all the way to democracy before I have to slow down and build a military.

I'm going to pick up alphabet after math. That will make CoL cheaper, allow me to bulb philosophy, and show me what other people have researched so I'll have at least a little warning if it seems like someone is gearing up for war (like if they research guilds really early).

Doing this does mean that I'll miss all the early wonders, except maybe the HG. That's fine, a lot of them will obsolete before long anyway, given how fast the tech pace will be on this map. The only one that I'm really sad about missing is the Great Library. That would help a lot, and I've got marble to speed it up. On the other hand, everyone else does too, so there's no guarantee at all that I'd get it. I think getting philosophy is a much better bet, and helps roughly as much in getting GP while also saving me money on upkeep.

[luddite]

I finished writing this turn, and FullMetalJacket grew so my score and demographics increased nicely


I'm now tied for first in crop yield and that's great. Even better, next turn FullMetal Jacket will grow again and I'll found another city, which should push me to first in the most important category. I notice that the first place in crops went down- I think that's Mardoc/Seven slaving away a citizen. My GNP is artificially low right now because I'm not researching anything.

In other news, I was wrong about Buddhism. It was founded by Plako. I'm...not quite sure how. I've also signed an NAP until turn 70 with GES. He sent me this funny message:

Interested in discussing NAP, EP points etc? I suspect you are likely to be one of the power players in this game, so I would prefer that we establish a mutually beneficial relationship, rather than a hostile one. I'm not someone who will plan a backstabbing rush just because you are one of the "name" players in the game. Besides, since I have to send the save to you every turn anyway, it falls in line with my laziness to keep up relations with you in particular.

I didn't realize that I was a name player!

[luddite]

New city founded! I'm the first person to get a third city. Tha's great, especially considering how far away this city is, and how little chopping or whipping I've done. I love this city position too, that's going to bring in a lot of commerce once I've got it developed. It's too bad I couldn't have The Shining by the icy mountains, but I like having the cities go in order. I'll pretend it refers to the shiny gold.


But this put in me in really tricky position. I've only got three workers (one just finished in the capital this turn) to spread between three cities, all in desperate need of more development. I also haven't made a single trade route connection yet. So how do I deal with the worker shortage?

I came up with an unorthodox strategy: build another settler



No, seriously. The problem is that what I really want to do is chop more workers, but I'm getting mathematics fast enough that it seems a waste to do much chopping right now. I could grow the capital, but getting the settler will get me basically two more tiles for the price of one (The free city tile, which doesn't have to be improved). And by chopping that particular tile, it will help me bring over a worker when the road to FullMetalJacket finishes. The new city there (different from my dotmap) will help cottage the capital to prepare for bureaucracy, and cost just a minimum of maintenance.

Meanwhile, my worker at The Shining will go up to mine the gold. I'm committing a major sin here by ignoring the corn tile, but farming that tile will only get the city to grow to size 2 one turn faster, whereas I want the gold mine up immediately to get math. Basically, this plan will get me a maximum of commerce growth with a minimum of workers, so I'll be ready to just chop workers as soon as mathematics is finished.


new demographics: looking good! I'm a clear first in the all-important food category, and almost first in MFG. Unfortunately I'm dead last in GNP, thanks to the maintenence cost of my new city. Adlain grew his capital to size 5 this turn (!) which puts him a clear first in population, but I'm pretty sure I've got the most tiles worked, which is what really matters.

[luddite]

With 10 production, I can build the worker halfway done in 2 turns, whip it to completion, and then regrow in two turns.

Amelia built another city this turn, but he's the only one. I'm tied for first in crop yield and MFG now, although not with Amelia.

Plako's score keeps increasing somehow. I wish there was a list of how many points each tech is worth.

[Serdoa]

Techs from the same era are always worth the same, techs from one era ahead of the first are worth double, increasing for each era.

As for what one tech is worth, you should be able to find that out by hovering over your score and looking at the numbers there. They are written

xxx from Technology (yyy/zzz)

The first is your amount of points for techs. You take that and divide it through the second number. That is the amount of points one tech from the first era is worth.