Chevalier Rides Again: A City Lights exploration

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Got it, thanks.

239

Moria finishes the long Industrial Zone build and we immediately pop James Watt to grab a free Workshop and Factory (and boost our factories by +2 production):



That makes Moria my 6th-most productive city, still without a power plant for another boost:



So, my five cities it seems will be Caras Galadhon (Kyoto), Osgiliath (London), Cirith Ungol, Moria, and probably Minas Morgul over Barad-Dur or Henneth Annun since those two cities will be a bit busy. Osgiliath will probably lead most of the projects - the first 4 that can only be done via one city, the other 4 will simply prepare spaceports and be ready to run exoplanet projects when the time comes. 

Otherwise, we scout floodable land and begin to prioritize cities for seawalls (Cerin Amroth has a floodable center, Utumno a floodable mine, otherwise nothing urgent), and continue to plant ski resorts. Soon orcs are happily whizzing down damn near every mountain in the empire:






Still need to work out a few things before I can definitively plan the space project - need to see the Great Scientist/Engineer Situation (many boosts to be found there) and the Civic situation (more boosts in the civics tree).

[Erasmas]

I see you still have a lot of unimproved tiles. Have you not yet unlocked the forest planting or were the amenities more important?

How long till you finally get the heroic age?

Request: I am curious about the great people status, maybe you can post a screenshot?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Unimproved tiles on the Misty Mountains Island are mostly due to those cities frantically shipbuilding through the war with Japan - they're being steadily improved now. On the mainland, it's mostly either rainforest (only just unlocked rain forest lumbermills) or flat grassland, and I just haven't had the spare builder charges to improve such marginal tiles.

[Erasmas]

I wouldn't call 2 food / 4 production marginal on a water map. Then again, 2 builder charges means not a great ROI. I am just too much a builder and tend to forget to focus on what is really important in short term.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Oh, you mean planting forests and lumbermilling. I was referring to grassland farms. Yeah, that's more viable, but you gotta keep in mind some things:

1)Up until the Second Battle of Nagoya around 220, I was doing exclusively shipbuilding. I felt I needed every possible hull to combat Japan's excellent and productive cities - I had a window of opportunity because he was a bit slow in noticing my military buildup, but that wouldn't last. So, no builders came out for ages.

2)The tech to plant trees (conservation) comes pretty late - it's a modern-era civic. I don't even have it unlocked yet (it is on the list, I just think that Democracy and Market Economy will give a lot more bang for my buck than second-growth lumbermills). So we can't do it yet.

3)It still might be worth it at places like Osgiliath, even if the objective RoI is net negative - 2 chargers on 6-charge builders, 1/3 of their cost, might take as many as 30 turns to pay for that. BUT we'd build the builders at cities that can't otherwise contribute to the project and transfer those cogs, essentially, to Osgiliath.

Anyway, that's why I have undeveloped lumbermills and plains still - only just unlocked the jungles and only just got the build queues available for builders after 100-ish turns of shipbuilding.

[williams482]

Fortunately for PBEM18 Canada, floodable city centers are safe no matter what. Not that I expect you'll have need to rely on that here.

[Erasmas]

Even more fortunate, no matter how expensive the barriers become with production, the buy-out with Valetta always remains at 160 faith.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Fortunately for PBEM18 Canada, floodable city centers are safe no matter what. Not that I expect you'll have need to rely on that here.

Why'd you say that name? You promised me that you would never say that name!

240 - 241

Got through two turns in a few days. Mostly uneventful, which is to be expected. Our anchorage near the Misty Mountains is filling up, things are going well. Well, Kyoto did get hammered by a volcano, but otherwise...

A bevy of eurekas and new techs, including the excellent Democracy government:


Oil Plant finishes in Cirith Ungol for this boost.



Research Labs (+3 science, +5 more when powered) unlocked, the endgame science building.






Democracy has the inherent effect of boosting my many international trade routes, as well as unlocking the excellent New Deal civic, which grants +2 amenities at many of my cities. 

On the downside, as we enter the Modern Era, Caras Galadhon - which had nearly finished all of its repairs - sees a catastrophic volcanic eruption that pillages everything around the city again:



Well, I redirect a nearby builder to begin repairs (again), while the pillaged holy site is a low-priority problem (although, what IS Indonesia planning with that thousands of faith? Phoenicia and I have no religion and Norway is quite weak. Need to get my holy sites online perhaps sooner rather than later?). 

For my heroic age, I get to choose 3 of the 4 dedications. I really only need Heartbeat of Steam, but take the other two as well, obviously. I leave the Military dedication off, as I have no intentions of declaring war or building more units to my world-conquering navy:



Reform the government to this:



Will drop the Builder card in a few turns and take another international trading card when that arrives. 

That gives our first happy city (Barad-Dur itself, naturally), and we're down to only 10 unhappy cities, mostly smaller ship or resource plants, too. Would like to get Moria happy, though.



Zoos and Stadiums should get us an empire wide +10%. 

Great Person situation. Sadly we're going to miss out on Goddard, who gives an excellent +20% to Space Race projects:


And Phoenicia gets to eureka Rocketry, but we DO ahve a research alliance with them so I may pick that one up as well? Fingers crossed. Confucius in 3 turns to enable us to found an emergency religion, but I'd like to get more holy sites down first - cities with a holy site automatically convert to your religion when founding one. 

Domestic situation:



Diverting resaerch from Rocketry to Computers. I can grab it in 6 turns, then Rocketry 6 turns after that. Doing it in the opposite order delays starting my first Spaceports, BUT the climate screen says the next round of flooding is due on turn 250 so I want basic flood barriers in place at my vulnerable cities before then. 

We are very close to two excellent end game civics, our next cultural research targets:





The +5% boost is additive, and we have 4, soon to be 5 (with Kilwa) city-states under our control for a 25% boost empire-wide to science and culture! We'll head there as soon as we can, grabbing what inspirations we can along hte way. Then our next government target is after that:


Free +3 power in every city, AND +30% towards projects, slashing our total hammers for the space race by nearly 1/3. Good stuff all around.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Randoms 242

World Congress comes and goes, in the usual comedy of errors - I voted to remove 2 diplo points from Indonesia, Norway voted for me, and Phoenicia for himself, meaning I would have won the vote had I tried, but instead Indonesia got the majority and secured 2 points. I voted to give trade routes to Phoenicia, figuring he'd vote for himself, but he voted for Norway, Norway voted for me, and Indonesia again won by voting himself. 



Start +5 holy site at Umbar to prevent backdoor religious victory, research lab at Morgul, and lighthouse at Gorgoroth. Kilwa in 3 turns! Will get basic holy sites in place for conversion, then back to amenities/science/production.


Massive amenity push in the Misty Mountains - entertainment & water park districts, arenas, etc. Will get to +3 amenities everywhere then resume industrial push.


Phoenicia running Engineer projects? Weird. 

Except...


I can snipe Goddard with gold! It costs 3 turns' income but gets him here 4 turns sooner, and he grants +20% on space projects in addition to boosting Rocketry. Seems like money well spent and I'm not confident that Phoenicia HAS skipped or if he gets him on his next turn. Best not take the chance.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Randoms 243



Robert Goddard, a brilliant engineer, leads Mordor towards the space age. He has extremely interesting ideas about the potential for rockets capable of escaping Middle-Earth's gravity, with associated implications for making war on the Valar at last and freeing our master Melkor from the Outer Darkness whither he was cast long ages of the world ago. So yeah we'll look into that. The +20% for space projects also cuts our needful production. New numbers:

Spaceport: 1800 production still
Satellite: 720
Moon: 1200
Mars: 1440
Exoplanet: 1680
Boosters: 480

Total: 6840 production from one city.

Osgiliath:


As you can see, War Weariness is now totally gone, and we are content or happy everywhere, still with no zoos or stadiums finished. Osgiliath is my highest production city at 85, followed by Caras Galadhon, and I still have yet to reroute trade routes there. But we'll center our space projects at Osgiliath. So, figure we need 18 turns on the spaceport - could promote Liang twice and use her district-boosting promotion? Hmmm - 8 turns on the Satellite - 11 turns on the Moon (with overflow) - 14 turns on Mars - 17 turns on the Exoplanet. That's 68 turns from now still, very slow, I feel. BUT! Kilwa will boost production by a further 15%, and hopefully I can Osgiliath ecstatic for another 20% boost. That drops needed time down to just 48 turns, not bad. Finally, if I build the proper building in my Government Plaza at Barad-Dur (the Royal Society), my builders can trade charges for production boosts (2% per charge - since I can field 6 charge builders with the proper policy cards, that's 12% per builder). So at non-contributing cities, I need a bevy of builders ready to step in and accelerate the project. Sky's the limit there. Either way, target date of 300 for launching the exoplanet expedition is officially in place. 

How much science do we need to hit that target?


We could have Rocketry by 248 if we wished, but since I want to grab Computers (for flood barriers) first in order to beat the rising tides, it'll come in on 252 and we can begin construction of our Spaceport at Osgiliath then. 

Next step is Satellites for the Moon landing:


A direct beeline requires that we pick up Advanced Flight (6 turns, unboosted) and then Satellites itself (7 turns, unboosted), so earliest would be 265 for the moon landing - earlier than we need, given that Osgiliath needs to construct the spaceport and launch the Earth satellite by that date. Looking ahead, though, we also need Nanotechnology (8 turns), which requires Composites (7 turns) and Synthetic Materials (7 turns). I can work on those while waiting for boosts elsewhere, and ultimately the Exoplanet expedition is hidden at the end of the tree somewhere. That means we need Advanced Ballistics (4 turns), Nuclear Fission (7), Lasers (7), Guidance Systems (7), Robotics (8), and Fusion (8). All told, unboosted, we're looking at 76 turns there with no eurekas and no additional science. Kilwa won't help since there's no science states on the map (I burned down the only one, Hattusa, outside Japan, ages ago). So, Research Labs will be a priority to get these times down. We can also hit Eurekas fairly simply for some of these:

• Build 2 aerodromes (Cirith Ungol and any handy free city with high production, will investigate map)
  
• Build 2 biplanes (Cirith Ungol and other city/both at Cirith)
  
• Build 2 broadcast centers (Caras Galadhon and Cerin Amroth have theater squares in place, just need to make repairs)
  
• Kill a fighter (not happening)
  
• Own 3 tanks (probably not happening - didn't build war chariots or knights so I have to hard-build the tanks from scratch. Might be viable).
  
• Own 2 drones (easy enough, except they upgrade from balloons, and I don't have time to build any of those before Computing comes in in 5 turns! Damn. Maybe emergency builds or purchases? I ahve a good gold reserve.)
  
• Build aluminum mine (easy)
  
• Have Globalization (sky-high culture, should be doable)
  
• Have a nuclear powerplant (maybe viable, but it ties up one of my 4 IZ cities for a while).
  

If I land the boosts I think I can land, then we're looking at roughly 64 turns instead of 76 - still not quite in time to make my timeline, BUT we'll count on Research Labs and amenities to further reduce things - 10% for amenities seems fair, so down to 58ish, and research labs should get us under the deadline. This also isn't counting a number of policy cards that will seriously skyrocket yields. The math on quite when I'll get those, what my yields will be at that time, and what they'll be after that, and what effect that will have on all of this, is too complicated. Bottom line: the research numbers are viable for the t300 target date. 

Great people are the last piece of the puzzle. Today we'll look at scientists, tomorrow engineers:


From the Real Great People mod, which adds portraits and a list of all the Great People available in the game. 

Nobel is up right now, and would be useful for future Scientists and Engineers. Turing is mostly useless (only 1 eureka and hard to make sure that eureka lands on a critical path tech). Phoenicia is 1 turn ahead of us for Nobel but only 1, and so Gold sniping is ap ossibility. Can't spend faith as an Indonesian religious win si a serious danger with all of his faith (he doesn't seem to be trying atm, though, no missionaries or apostles out yet - I am monitoring this closely). In the atomic era, any would be useful, and can accelerate our timelines by 3-5 turns depending on who I get and where I use them. Leakey, for example, would take some investment in return for 1050 science, 3 turns' acceleration. Won't target any of these specificially. Information Era scientists have the excellent Sagan (burst of 3000 production, about 40% of requirements from one city), and the even better Kwolek (+100% to all Space Race production, taking us from 6800 production down to 3400!). She's undoubtedly our best target and we will take every available step to secure her. 

Last bit of news - the Last Prophet, Lao Tzu, appears in Caras Galadhon on this turn:


As stated, I'll keep him up my sleeve until I finis ha few more holy sites on the mainland to speed conversion. He's insurance against an Indonesia religious backdoor.