Lizzy's rise to greatness

[mzprox]

I will try to write detailed reports about the current state of game for those who are trying to catch up with events. I'm still trying to get more people back here, hopefully i'll be succesfull.


Right now we are medicore in score and stats aswell, but we have a relatively strong economy and probably the second most advanced civ. This "second" place seems to be the best possible rankings right now, as one of the civs, Realms Beyond is running away like crazy. Their skill is undeniabe but this time it seems everything works in their hands.
As we have found out our land really lacks compared to others.. we have few short rivers instead of long ones which seems to be the normal everywhere else .Our land is relatively small as well, this comes mostly from our position. we could expand only east-west. We have place about 6-7 more cites, and those are not that great.
Our food production is quite low, but we are growing fast -then to be slaved to small again.
As far as I can tell our cities are very well developed, we have many forges, courthouses, religios buildings etc that's how we are competitive with those bigger civs. The strategy is that once we allow ourselves to grow big we will have the advantage.
We have quite few workers, we could use more, but it is not common to use undeveloped land in our cities-this is also the effct of slaving.
Our military is quite minimal. we have defense in our two border areas, almost nothing in between. This was because of economy reasons.. high maintenance was already killing us, i tried my best to keep it low.
We got the +1 naval movement bonus thanks to our map tradings
We have two wonders, the Colossus and the University of Sankore (we should keep building religious buildings to get more benefits)



the strategy was to try to run away with science and reap some benefits which come with it: liberalim, Taj mahal or other wonders, free great persons etc. Now it seems we will lose most of these races to RB unfortunately. But i believe if we have a chance we still should try.

short medium term strategy was to get education, use our trait to mass build cheap universities and getthe Oxford fast. with that science power we could easily backfill the cheaper technologies.
We, India and the Aztec are closely monitring RB. we made a plan with india to stop RB getting both liberalims and the Taj. We still don't know if they go for liberalism or nationalism first. If they go for lib then India will probably beat them to Taj, getting it first. If RB goes for Nationalism we will have a shot on liberalism. Right now we believe Rb will get liberalism first. To still get something for us as well I think we should get to economics first and get the free Great merchant (Then i would use him for a GA and get constitution while it lasts so we could revolt to representation/free market freely). But it's not in the close future.

As I've mentioned we have very good relations with India and Aztec, we have chats time to time. If it comes to war then those two civs will have to defeat RB.
Some diplo deals we have with other civs:

India has recently asked us for a possible loan if that would help them getting the Taj sooner. 150gold 3-4 turns from now for 1-2 turns. i think if it takes the GA from Rb then we shoul do it. we can ask for some interest, but I think we should ask them to give us one of their silk resource. i think they would agree. once we have both incense hooked we can give one of them to them.

Aztec has agreed to send us a buddhist missionary if we send him a taoist one. Buddhism is the religion of the apostolic palace so it worth spreading into our cities and get +2 production from buddhist temples(along with extra happyness). we have a not finalized deal with them. They have promised us one of the spice resources from the jungle if we don't expand there. we should discuss this later a bit more.

Maya: we had a crisis recently but it seems we can struck a NAP finally. we get sugar from them for a wheat resource, so it's like getting a luxury for free.

Inca: we have peace and good relations with them. according to our agrement the land east of our borders is ours (2 city places, not that good, but not bad either) in return we don't expand south (that's one of the reason that agreeing with the Aztec not moving to the jungle and still get somethin from them too)

HRE: we don't talk much, we are getting their stone for 7gpt. it's still a few turn until we can cancel this deal, we are building the moai statues in istanbul meanwhile. we need to think about if we want to cancel at all, we will need stone for the Oxford.

Egypt(RB): we have cold relations, we have NAP till t150, but we are not bordering each other.

Natives: they are small and far away.

[mzprox]

proposed answer to the Mayans:

"We are happy to hear that we could get to an agreement and we would happily sign a treaty which ensures the borders we agreed on along with a non aggression pact. We suggest to sign a NAP for about the next 50 turns (T180) then we can extend it from there. We as many others will take Egypt as our only rivals until their relative strength somehow declines."

I think I have worded in a way that the NAP is part of the border treaty.
Btw they had pulld back their settlers and we have ours is on its way to take that land in 3-4 turns.

[Hercules]

I agree with this broad strategy. Glad we got Sankore. I'll look in to evaluate tech options, though in favour of playing to our traits.

I found HRE a friendly civ and we should make of our good relationship.

[Robert]

I've read the latest 6 pages, nice diplomatic war with the Mayans, great victory.

I'm sorry for losing touch with this game over the past months.
I'm also sorry, mzprox, for ignoring your PM about the diplo mail. I still have it in my 'to answer' list, but I never answered. That sucks.

I see that you now have different means of diplomacy, not using the mail address anymore.

I'll try to keep up with the game more again.

[Calanthian]

I have taken a long look around:

* we have the colossus and virtually no coastal cities
* our cities are too small: we are far from the POP cap
* we have too little workers
* we need more cities, more courthouses
* so: I think the economy is under developed. I think you have been slaving too hard.

[mzprox]

It's just a different strategy: first build many buildings while i keep the cities small, so they grow much faster. Then I let them grow and get the benefits of those buildings.
An example: i planned to start collecting money. in Aurora we were getting about 50/turn after slaving a marketplace for 4 population (and get a very big overflow into the palace) the money dropped to about 40 and in 4-5 turns we were back to 50+ and now it could increase thanks to the marketplace bonus. After we moved the palace that will be even more money and by slaving the mp we get the palace sooner too. In some cases the return not so fast and big as in the previous example, but slavery is a very powerful tool.

Half of our cities are coastal and the rest of our cities (with the exceptioon of one) will be coastal. However coast is not that great in this game, very few sea food resource. We have lakes too btw. We get about 10 extra commerce from the colossus now, but it will increase.
The building of new cities were halted after a big expansion around t100. we got new pop1 cities costing 9+ gpt in maintenance. I agree it's time to expand further. I think we can say that our borders are set by now. we can discuss how to backfill our land.

in any case I will leave most of the microing/economy stuff up to you. I think you will be supported in building more workers (though i'd prefer to have them via slaving ).

[mzprox]

I've just received a picture of RB's capital. They are in golden age now and preparing to build the Taj Mahal (puttings things into their queue almost finished so they can gather a big overflow when needed.

They still have much less buildings than us though. (we have temple, monastery, forge, library, academy, hammam, marketplace, granary, courthouse in our capital plus a wonder)

[mzprox]

One more thing: in Ankara we are expecting a great person. Even though in the end it will be about only 60% chance that it's a great scientist this was a big part of the plan for getting liberalism. Right now it seems we can't get liberalism even if we bulb half of Education, but still I'd like if we kept this option open as long as possible, even if it means sacrifices there (halting grwo and later even losing food to get the GP asap)
A great scientist gives 1500 +3 * population beakers when we use it to bulb so the plan was this:
we research as far into Education as a single great scientist can bulb it. After that we are collecting the money. When we get the GS we use it to bulb and use the money to get liberalism at 100% science. In a few turns we will know the realities of this plan. if we can't win liberalism we should discuss what to do with the great person and we can even slow its production.

[Calanthian]

Perhaps we have to find a mode in which we play the upcoming turns with the both of us, so that we make a smooth transition.

We clearly have a different playing style. Thanks for the elaboration though.
I tend to run a high pop, multi-city economy with loads of settlers and workers (built only by cities at POP cap).

[Hercules]

I couldn't see the image.

Btw How can you be so certain about RB build queue and such. Is CFC using espionage?

[mzprox]

Perhaps we have to find a mode in which we play the upcoming turns with the both of us, so that we make a smooth transition.

I agree.

About high pop we can try that route for now so letting the cities grow more and less slaving. Yet we should not give up slaving entirely as sometimes the benefit is high.
In one particular case as we are getting closer to education we need to select 8 of our cities and plan how to finish the universites asap. Even if it would hurt some of these cites the benefit of Oxford is much higher..

Hercules, i have reuploaded the picture. It's coming from the aztec and i forward it to CFC.

[mzprox]

I have short term plans for most of the cities.. I will tell some of those and then we can discuss which to keep and which to modify.
We have a settlers ready, I have rush-slaved it to try to settle the land before Maya takes it all. I still think we should settle east of izmir, not sure where exatly.. maybe 1NE of that cow. (according to the agreement we have accepted we can not settle directly next to the river.)
We need to increase our culture in the area. My plan was to slave 2 missionaries in Konya and send them to izmir and into the new city. (we can get the two missionaries with one slaving event if we sacrifice two population and get big overflow from he first one)

[mzprox]

I'll try to elaborate the medium/long term plans I had in mind and also the current situation, why is it so important to keep an eye on RB:

Once we had a good shot to get Liberalism first and take Nationalism and Taj(golden age) first. However RB grew too strong and now it seems they can not be stopped to have the first pick. Our goal now working with other nations is to at least have the rest of the good stuffs. We know almost everything about RB's potential, He is kept in the dark and tries to keep their options open as long as possible. (they have 3 technologies almost finished, it seems they start to finish them now at 100% science (they had 1000 gold in reserve). once they have finished those techs they will have about 1500 rp overflow. They did the same with buildings in their cap. preparing to mass slave the TAj Mahal.) Actually we are the reason they are doing this. They don't know what we are researching and they want everything if possible. However they probably underestimate cfc (they have a GS to bulb philo and they can start researching Nationalism now. they also have marble unlike RB) So, if RB goes into the edu-lib route they will probably lose the Taj.
If RB chooses nationalism first then we will have to do our best to get liberalism before they do. This plan really depends on whether we get a GS in 8 turns in Ankara. RB also have a Gs they will probably use for bulbing btw. That's why we will do lots of calculations with cfc and aztec to see if we can stop them at all having everything.


One thing for sure: if we see we have no chance for liberalism our next goal should be to get economics after education.
This of course requires several prerequisite technologies. The one directly after Edu is machinery and that will open up macemen. then Feudalism/guilds/banking/economics
I think the best tactic is to use the free great merchant to enter a golden age, revolt freely to free market and get constitution while the GA last so we can revolt to representation as well without anarchy. Rb will probably want this tech too, so we need to keep our research up and be sure we won't lose this race no matter what.
I think cheap universities and the fast completition of Oxford will help a lot in this.

[Calanthian]

I made my first small adjustments:



I changed 3 hammer to wealth production to 12 hammer in wonder (which we are not going to finish, and will get a lot more hammers to wealth for on account of +150% wonder production).

I see what you are doing with the GP. But still this city is massively underdeveloped. Enormous potential, with lot's of unimproved tiles. The upcoming 9 turns will not change so much (for GP) but afterward it will be developed a lot further.
In general I have a feeling that you have a lot of clever tactical tricks (and I know the master when I see him), but strategically / macro some of those tricks are hurting us in the long run. Some more workers 80 turns ago, would have ensured this city to be maxed out. Now this city has 6 pop, while it can easily support 12.




Same hammer to wealth via wonder trick here (from +12 to +21). After Apolyton has grown next turn, it should switch to worker production..

The same general observation. This is our capital and we are in turn 127 and we still aren't using all those tiles and even haven't developed 7+ tiles.

12 cities, 7 workers: this IS the problem.


PS. If I should miss something why you need instant gps (in stead of quite a lot more gold in a couple of turns) then change it back..

[Calanthian]

PS Do we still need to build spy points against civfr?