Lizzy's rise to greatness

[mzprox]

Right now there are many challenges our empire must face.. we should not let any of our rivals getting a free great person (a half golden age) and we too can use that for our own golden age later.. but banking/economics are long term investments.
Our production is too low we must get nationhood and draft, however our cities are lacking in food and luxury resources as well. Still there is no other way. I would had prefered to go directly for rifles, but Egypt is raising a macemen/knight/catapult army. Getting gunpowder after guilds is only 3 turns, it's worth getting it fast and build our UU.
There are some unknown factors yet which makes precise planning hard, but a very likely scenario/schedule:

t39-148: getting machinery, feudalism, guilds, banking, economics, our cities are mostly growing, 1-2 banks might be fast produced via slaving. We build/send longbowmen to the border cities just in case.
t149-t156 Golden age, free revolt to free market (and caste system+pacifism so we can train 1 more gp somewhere) in the last turn we go back to slavery and adopt nationhood. during the GA we get gunpowder and nationalism and probably some smaller tech. Cities are still growing and building barracks.
t157-t170 mass drafting/slaving of an army, mainly janissaries and catapults+few knights
around t170 second golden age (while the golden age last we go back to bureaucracy) we push it close to the rifling tech. we would probably need represeantation to counter unhappyness, when it ends we should probably go back to nationhood and stay there. it's a big cut on our Oxford, but I think there wil lbe no other way.

[Calanthian]

In my opinion again too much slaving..

I would like to see maximized city production: all sites completely developed and on or close to POP cap.

countering unhappiness: if all hapiness buildings have been built: then is the time to slave (and in most cases: only then).
So I dont think you need representation for that, and then second time nationhood is also not needed..

[mzprox]

Drafting/slaving is more efficient in smaller cities, but generally I agree and try to make it with less slaving., especially in the more developed cities. I don't really like drafting, but if our rivals do it we must do it as well. Look at the last 3 turns events in civstats: every score decrease is either a slaving or drafting by Egypt,



now we are safe from them till t170, that's why we must be sure that our army is ready be then. Their macemen and even their knights would have hard time against janissaries.

[Dinner]

I agree with that in a broad sense. RB is clearly building an army because they intend to use it so we're going to need an army to both defend ourselves as well as contribute to any war against them. Really our only hope is to build a coalition against RB because if we let them beat up the other civs one at a time then we're toast.

[Dinner]

In my opinion again too much slaving..

I would like to see maximized city production: all sites completely developed and on or close to POP cap.

countering unhappiness: if all hapiness buildings have been built: then is the time to slave (and in most cases: only then).
So I dont think you need representation for that, and then second time nationhood is also not needed..

I too would like to see less slaving and more cities growing in pop with the pops working developed tiles. It will be hard to get stuff done by turn 170 though without slaving.

[Ben Kenobi]

Priorities:

1, finish settling all the city sites and filling out the land we do have. Makes no sense for us to invade other people when we've got empty space.
2, Rush tech research for Janisseries. We are not going to have much time to build up the size of our cities.
3, Draft as many folks as possible once we get Janisseries - convert from research to cash economy. No Commie, no Kremlin.

[Ben Kenobi]

1-2 banks might be fast produced via slaving

No. this is robbing tomorrow for a dubious marginal benefit today. Only slave (if we must) for war. If it means culling back the tech rate, I'd sooner slow down the techs than slave at this point. We need the population.

[mzprox]

well alright, i will not slave those banks, at least not at haste, but I wouldn't call their effect marginal.

anyway, t140:

[/B]


Our cities are growing fast, GNP is very high (max research is 720+ beakers), production is very low, but we can offset it once we can start drafting. Next turn we finally get a great person. I think the best would be aprophet for now to build a holy shrine, but most likely it will be a scientist. I arranged getting a buddhist missionary into our capital from the aztec. Fortunately it could spread. By building buddhist temples and monasteris into our cities we could get a nice production boost along with the other benefits. This also helps Aztec, as he gets more money this way, but he is more of an ally right now than rival.

Getting machinery next is not a question, whatever path we choose we need it. In the next turn I will make some planning/calculations and present it here.

[Dinner]

I like that our economy and manufactured goods are #1; you've done really well on that part. If we can just get our population up and build out a few more cities (I would prioritize those locations which get us more luxuries or new food resources) then we'd be in pretty darn good shape. Our military abilities should improve as our technology position improves. I still prefer path #2 just like the other posters. We can build up a few units as time allows and if war does come we can state drafting with a vengeance but for now lets build up our pops where possible so we have greater drafting potential in the future. We will need to keep a real close eye on the power graphs though just so we aren't surprised by any war mongers.

[mzprox]

So, we got a great spy..that complicates things. A great prophet would had built the holy shrine, engineer and scientist either bulbing or golden age, but both would had given imediate benefits. A great spy though.. well it still can be used for golden age, but the infiltration option is probably much better.. to get benefit from it-stealing techs- requires preparations. One of the target civ's cities must be converted to taoism(thats -40% modifier from the tech stealing cost), spies must be built and send, then waiting there to make stealing cheaper etc. Also whoever we use this gspy against probably will be pissed... with the Maya it could be the end of our nap. RB is known to be paranoid in these things.. they had closed their borders with Aztec when they saw a buddhist missionary approaching them.. If RB truly attacks the inca then we can convert an incan city, put our spies there and wait until rb takes it.. then we could steal from them. nationalism would be nice for example.. but it's also possible that RB rather raze the city.. they would know what we are doing.

India used their Gengineer to bulb engineering, they will get the Notre Dame wonder. Going for it ourselves would had been one of the option I wanted to present, but it is out of the question now.
About he other options I will make some plannings/calculations later. For now i just think that after getting the Gspy it just makes us wanting the free GM from economics even more. we want golden age in the close future, and we should probably use the gm for that and not the gspy. During golden age we will generate more great persons with great speed

[Calanthian]

Well I looked around:

Some things which need to change:

* As you said production is too low
* Still cities are massively underdeveloped

An excellent example is Ankara:



One of our older cities. This city can be POP14 (11+temple+hammam). It is 6! while it has the Moai Status.
And it is building wealth?! And even now we are not growing to the max. The cow tile is not used. And we are not using the copper tile..


* We are building wealth in two cities while we need workers and missionairies ???
* While we do need those workers, missionairies (and settlers) Apolyton is building an archer ? > change that for a worker and send this one to Ankara
* and you are talking about a massive drafting / slaving program? You will slave the entire economy to a halt.
* After 141 turns there is area within 5 tiles of our capital where 3 excellent resources and a massive amount of coastal tiles (we have the colossus) are unused.



Another one:


* Diyarbakir: a city which also has been around for a while. It has just slaved, no worker in sight, while only 2! tiles have been developed. We get 3 hammers, while there is a tile with marble! and an excellent hill tile. And a missionairy needs to go there, to get +25% production.

[mzprox]

Apolyton needs that archer to grow in two turns, it's at happyness cap. it still has to grow once more and after that it will start producing settlers (getting one in every 4 turns). Ankara doesn't need more workers, we could use some more in the west though (just finished one which will go there).
There are some oddities about what some of the cities are doing, but it's part of an economic plan. I have calculated that we need 800 beakers on average for the next 6(+1) turns to get economics. right now it's 772 , but as far as my calculations go it will be enough. Wealth building is also part of this plan. (I also calculated that ankara should go two turns like this, then one turn on the cow to grow at the same time it would working on the cow for the entire duration.. but we need commerce now more)

I see most of your notes are about all the things we should have.. yes, it would be nice if our cities were bigger, but then they wouldn't be as advanced as they are now.. yes we should build more settlers, but then our cities wouldn't grow. for now growth is prefered. I have converted all but one city to taoism (two misionaries are on the way yet)

look at Ankara.. you say it should be pop 14 and also should have a temple and a hammam.. this is just wanting way to much.. compare this city to a similar from RB's (note that ankara has no great food resource at all). We have 7 buildings and 2 wonders there, it's producing 52 science per turn and now growing fast. the only way it could have temple and hammam is with more slaving, but then it would be even smaller.


There was a worker there to improve Dyarbakir, it moved from there to cut the trees before maya does. That desert marble is a very bad tile (even the plains hill is better).. we will get it hooked before we need it for a wonder, but not before.
those incense tiles you marked are bad.. they are desert tiles.. we wil get those for happyness eventually, but we will not work them (even a lighthouse-less coastal tile is better than those)
Drafting will come in about 15 turns. by then our cities will grow 3-5 each.

[mzprox]

Would like to hear ideas about the use of the great spy. Should we use it against the maya or Egypt, use it asap or wait until we get the most research value from it. etc.

What i'd really like is to steal Nationalism from Egypt, but since we need Nationalism fast i'm not sure that we can steal it soon enough. First we would need to produce spies, at least two if we want to rely our drafting on it. then sending there, +wait 5 turns.. we could probably get it sooner by researching it ourselves.
we could try to steal many techs from maya.. but we would anger hem for sure.. so I would only do it if we have our janissaries ready .
(just an early idea: we could send 4-5 spies into the maya city closest to us, and sending a galley carrying a missionary there too, converting he city just before infiltrating with the gs and stealing 4-5 techs from them in the same turn. if we make them angry with stealing, then at least make it count )

[Dinner]

We are building wealth in two cities while we need workers and missionairies ???
* While we do need those workers, missionairies (and settlers) Apolyton is building an archer ? > change that for a worker and send this one to Ankara
* and you are talking about a massive drafting / slaving program? You will slave the entire economy to a halt.
* After 141 turns there is area within 5 tiles of our capital where 3 excellent resources and a massive amount of coastal tiles (we have the colossus) are unused.

I completely agree with all this and have spoken up about it multiple times.

[mzprox]

Most of the things are coming from different views on microing.
You know I could had built 8 new settlers instead of 8 universities, I could had built about 12 macemen instead of 8 courthouses. 10 more workers instead of 10 libraries. And then there are the many forges, monasteries etc. So while we have very low production we have many more buildings than anyone else. This way makes our GNP much higher than the other's.. higher than Maya's and India's who are bigger in pop and currently in golden age. On the military side it is a gamble.. it always is: we neglect it in hope that when the time comes we can build more advanced troops.
The last time I made a choice was about 8 turns ago. To go for the Oxford and use it to push science even further. We could had gone for Nationalism then but then we would had needed gunpowder anyway which will be much cheaper after having 'guilds'. THen it's nice to switch civics during golden age and for that a free GM is just too nice, as is the free market civic..but to get all these in time the only option is to push science even harder.

In any case we will build 2-3 new cities in the next 10-12 turns. (the barb city seems to be producing a worker.. otherwise it would had grown by now).I will not slave the mature cities as we are to enter a golden age, so bigger pop is better. also at least in two cities we shall put 5-5 scientists specialist inside during the golden age to use the short time boost in gpp production to get some more great persons. For this we also need big cities.


The most important thing right now to decide what to do with the great spy. we could turn it into 3-6000 research point, but requires planning and much investment.


This is my short term plan, also possibly the best way to get an army.


t141-t148 going for economics
t149-->golden age, getting Gunpowder, Nationalism, ironworking, construction
t156--> we enter into nationhood from bureaucracy, draft an army of Janissaries and build catapults.

if we can survive this period we will have good chance to get riflemen first.