Lizzy's rise to greatness

[mzprox]

Istanbul was the city where we had to do unfortunate sacrifices. We got the third GP there and now we will get the 4th. and to get it asap I slaved a forge and temple just recently, because at some point we should have 5 specialists running. As I have said before in 3 turns we will know the realites of getting liberalism (which looks like a very very small chance now, but I think we should keep the option open).

I can support putting the hammers onto those wonders, though probably no one has started building those yet. Building worker is good.. i wanted more workers, but there was always something which looked to be a better option .

yesterday India has asked us to give them a loan of 100 gold in 1-2 turns and we would get it back after they had researched Nationalism. They had offered they would pay some interest if we wanted but I was mentioning them a different idea:
For the loan we would receive one of their silk resource. they will get one of our incense, but only after we connected it and we make no promise when we will do that. This was just my idea, we can try to ask them money etc.
Also it's up to the team whether we give the loan at all.

i believe we must: We can not risk RB getting an other golden age8cfc ned it to get nationalism/Taj), this money (if they pay back in time) would not slow us down, and I can trust the player behind cfc to know they will keep their word no matter what.

[Ben Kenobi]

Good! Glad to see that negotiations were successful! Well done mzProx!

[mzprox]

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

i was alo thinking about that..

whether we want to steal techs from them. we can send a missionary into their closest city and steal every tech we missed before for very very cheap.. this would anger them somewhat of course.. Stealing from RB is much harder

[Ben Kenobi]

I also second between the collaboration between MZprox and Calanthian. This is very helpful for us peons to follow along with the game.

[mzprox]

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..

I put Istanbul to worker production, if it's not growing anyway it can at least make a worker (though slowly). Let the cap putting its hammer into angkor wat.. we might even choose to build it eventually.. a holy shrine would be nice in Aurora. (and later on the Oxford and Wallstreet for a hyper commece city )

[Calanthian]

Istanbul needs to grow: so please no worker prod there.. when at POP max, then we may decide it can build workers and settlers then.. the wonder will return nice cash..

Apolyton can make the workers for now (after one turn in which it gets +1 POP)


In the POP max strategy the only cities which build workers or settlers are the cities at POP cap
(then both hammers and food go into production, while at max production).

[mzprox]

I saw you marked city places, I though i'd add where i was going to put those:



this way a cities can use all the grasslands in the area, city1 can use the pig to help in its inital grow.



Here I'd put the city where you wanted, but according to the agreement I offered to the maya none of us can settle the river bank. So I suggest 1SW, at least we can get the cattle and corn worked asap.



Again I would put the cities in a way to get the most possible grasslands into radius.

[Calanthian]

Most cities I marked where intended as sea oriented cities: after building lighthouse they will be working sea tiles at 2 food and 3 gps. So they maximize water tiles.

And the other goal of the city on the ice is to control the sea lane: make sure only friendly states can trade via this sea route. Combined with a city on the right yellow X.

[mzprox]

Since there was not much comment about lending the money to cfc or not I took it as yes so we lended them. The benefit we get: we were promised to get a silk resource from them in advance (later we will give incense to them) and a promise that we can count on them in similar situations. The biggest benefit of course making it sure that it won't be RB getting a second golden age from Taj Mahal.

Our intelligence now believes that RB will finish education in the next turn despite they don't even have paper yet. We calculate they will get into education with 1800-1900 overflow and they will bulb the GS they receive next turn into it. After that they will get liberalism in about 4 turns.

With the money cfc gets from us they can start building the Taj Mahal one turn earlier and that may prove critical. For this we will probably get Education one turn later.


Some things I'd like to talk about:

First is about a short/medium term economical strategy. To get a very nice science bonus from universities and the Oxford national wonder.
The plan is to get Education, it doesn't even matter when but sooner is better ofc. and then halt research until the Oxford university is finished.
To build the oxford we need 8 universities. Building them asap requires coordinated chopping/slaving. Thanks to the philosophical trait's cheap universities I think it can be done within 2-4 turns after we researched education and we would need an other 5-6 turn to finish the Oxford in Aurora. Then we could resume researching in a much higher rate. (the overall increase would be about 30%). The downside is that we do it via slaving and would require soem turns growing back again.
I still think this is one of those times when the yieald of slaving is especially good.


second is a much smaller issue. Konya is a pop4 city, for slaving in an ideal condition (about to grow, max pop for max hammers). However it has good commerce tiles to work on. This is a city which normally even I wouldn't slave until it gets bigger, but we need missionaries in our border cities and would be nice to get them asap. So I'd sacrifice 2 pop in konya to get 1,5 missionaries (then finish that half to make it two).

third: what should we write to the maya? (check the diplo thread)

These are the main things for this turn.

one more: there is a new barb city close to our borders. No new picture now, but if you look at this:



the city is on the "blue 2" position. We need to decide what to do with it.

[Calanthian]

Quick reply: on barb city: the position is not good as far as I am concerned : I want to place 3 cities in that area: second yellow X, blue 1 and ice city.

If we agree on that: then barb city must be destroyed.

if we think blue 2 is good location: wait until it grows and then conquer it.

[Calanthian]

On building universities: only slave to balance finish times: we have to minimize the wait for the 8th university.

[Calanthian]

On Konya: no slaving for missionairies..

[mzprox]

would like to hear a more detailed answer as I tried to elaborate my points.
Would like to know when and how izmir will gain culture fast to fight back the maya. I don't like slaving in konya either, but that's the fastest way for now and then we could get to use the org religion bonus to slave the granary in Izmir cheaper then. And slaving that granary is a must, we need that city to grow much faster.

On slaving universities or not: the difference can be 8-10 turns. having oxford and the universites running 8-10 turns earlier is worth a thousand gold at least and the cities recover their pop in a few turns anyway. i generally can agree to use slaving less, but the slaving of the universities must be done.. even if that is the last slaving we do .

On the barb city I have no strong opinion.. either way is fine. it's nice to have a free city though and later if we really want more cities we can populate the ice islands. there are even food resources there (and I also think some strategic resource will be found there too)

[Ben Kenobi]

On building universities: only slave to balance finish times: we have to minimize the wait for the 8th university.

Exactly this. Slaving to build seven really does us no good.

The problem with slaving is short term gain for long term falling behind. It's similar to the xinning strategy in Civ2. Yes, you get extra short term beakers, at the cost of city growth.

[mzprox]

Exactly this. Slaving to build seven really does us no good.

The problem with slaving is short term gain for long term falling behind. It's similar to the xinning strategy in Civ2. Yes, you get extra short term beakers, at the cost of city growth.

It's actually the opposite in my view: sacrificing the short term gain-the population which grows back anyway- to get a big bonus thanks to having all those buildings.
What I have said is serious: doing research after having education and not having the oxford is a waste. we lose a big potential research bonus from universities and the Oxford.

A fact: our capitol will have 90+ research/turn just from the Oxford university itself. if we slave 2 pop each in our 8 cities we lose much less than 90 research, we get the 25% bonuses from universities (that alone could compensate for the pop loss) and the cities grow back fast. If we want to stop slaving in our cities this is not the best time.

So I can agree with Calanthian saying that we need to balance finishing times.. we should, but I believe we should make it so that we shut down research and finish all the univrsities just in max. 4 turns. So our Capital can start working on the Oxford. (there is a forest in Aurora's radius which was saved for this project too).

In any case I wanted this conversation start quite soon. we still have about 5-6 turns until Education, we will know more info about advantages and disadvantages and we can make a vote then about how strong slaving we want. I think we can agree in that we need to prepare moving our workers to start chopping where necessary. (in the nwer, lower production cities)