The Sweetness and Light Game

[Bloody Monk]

Someone earlier (I won't say who) remarked that they had changed build orders from libraries to markets. Please look at the 1060 save and notice that Beggarsville and Green Meanie are gaining nothing from their markets, whereas, libraries would have been additive to beakers.

Received wisdom is to build markets where taxes bring in at least four gold. Otherwise, the annual maintenance makes them a waste.

FYI

Monk

[Scouse Gits]

Hi Monk!

1) We have Navigation so disbanding Triremes into Caravels makes sense as they will move 4 and carry 3.

2) No chance of swapping with the Babylonians whilst their "great minds work on Leo's."

3) No gifts from Indians. On balance we didn't want to lose the alliance as they are the key civ. Your point about the air ticket home is well taken. Try it!

4) We are at war with the Americans as they demanded 150g tribute when we attempted contact.

Good Luck with your turns.

-------------------

SG(2)

[SCG]

Originally posted by Bloody Monk
Received wisdom is to build markets where taxes bring in at least four gold. Otherwise, the annual maintenance makes them a waste.

FYI

Monk

actually a city only needs to bring in 2 gold for a marketplace to pay for its maintenance (2*150%=3). Also keep in mind that a marketplace means 50% more luxuries in the city, so will celebrate at a much lower lux rate. I notice both cities are at least size 7, meaning they probably were celebrated up in size? If so, the marketplaces accomplished their goals.

One other note, Green Meanie only has 4 luxuries (3 +1 from marketplace). with 1 less luxury, we would need an entertainer, or to move a worker from the forest to the sea to prevent disorder = we are getting 2 extra production towards caravans each turn.

[Bloody Monk]

Originally posted by SCG


actually a city only needs to bring in 2 gold for a marketplace to pay for its maintenance (2*150%=3). Also keep in mind that a marketplace means 50% more luxuries in the city, so will celebrate at a much lower lux rate. I notice both cities are at least size 7, meaning they probably were celebrated up in size? If so, the marketplaces accomplished their goals.

One other note, Green Meanie only has 4 luxuries (3 +1 from marketplace). with 1 less luxury, we would need an entertainer, or to move a worker from the forest to the sea to prevent disorder = we are getting 2 extra production towards caravans each turn.

Actually, neither had a market when they both got to size eight. It was done with 80% Lux. See the 480 save. The markets came later.

Your point about the breakeven cost misses my point (which I did a poor job of stating.) Until you can get four gold as "base tax" (which will = six gold with a market) a market does not add to tax collections, net the maintenance. Anything less than four is spinning your wheels and has an opportunity cost in terms of what you could have built instead. That's why I say it is a waste; a waste of time, shields, and opportunity

Even now, Beggarsville generates only one gold from taxes. Far below breakeven. A Library would have brought in +4 beakers per turn. Your point in favor of Green Meanie is valid if you are willing to give up +7 beakers for +2 shields per turn. I lean to greater science and don't mind hiring entertainers.

Much later, when we finally get to Fundy, libraries will be unimportant, as we will run with zero science slider. At this time, our emphasis is on science so we can get to Fundy sooner.

Not saying you are wrong; just offering this for your consideration.

Monk

[Bloody Monk]

SG(2),

Happy weekend!!

Thanks for the quick response.

Based on your experience with the American AI, I am inclined to think the Indian alliance won't last long anyway.

Monk

[Bloody Monk]

Setup and Prep Work

Looking at this situation, I like what I see. There are many possible paths from here and some good suggestions from the previous contractors.

We are about to get sanitation and ST completes on hitting enter. This suggests a sewer and cranking Lux for WLMonkD. But our other cities are not ready to celebrate; they need many harbors, markets, ducts, and some land improvement. Let's see if there are other options.

The Greens have Invention and are building Leo's...but they are Receptive. I decide to swap them for Invention and start a race for Leo's Shop. This will solve the trireme/caravel dilemma and give the usual benifits as we get better mil-tech. Then we can scoop up Sir Ike and thenbuild the sewer and helper improvements.

Game Log

--Contact Greens. They are happy to trade us their Invention wisdom. Such rubes. Moves tech rate to 5 turns.
--Contact Indians and give them everything but Theory of G-spots. Moves tech rate back to 4 turns. Get Maps. Ask for gift --> they bust the Alliance. This sends our boat home for us.
--Contact Romans. Give a few and get new map. These guys have been busy.
--Change build orders for caravels to camels (which will make our triemes caravels with Leo's Shop)
--Shakespeare's Theatre builds overnight. Amer, change to Magellan, Germs to Leo...could be interesting.

1080 food vans HG/Green

1100 food vans Beg/Big/Bad...Sanitation --> Chemistry

1120 food van MeanC

1140 food vans Max; Silk in Sticky...Complete Leo's Shop Others change to King Rich.

1160 Greens build King Rich, Rom/Ger switch to Magellan.

1180 Harbor in Pool

1200 food van HG

1220 food van Green; Gems in Beg; Gems in MeanC. Boston builds Magellan; Rome learns Physics; Chemistry --> GunPowder

1240 Harbor BadLeRoyBrown.

1260 Harbor Sticky Meanie... send out ship with three good vans to Amer. Sir Ike's is half done with the needed vans arriving soon.

The Monk slips out the back, being thankful this game has no Institute.

[Bloody Monk]

And the save...

[Bloody Monk]

Some Thoughts

SCG,

--I left the sliders at 424, as I think we will need some cash to fund the huge white goods project ahead. The vans at sea will help, but the Americas are far away.

-- If Mean City gets a sewer right after Sir Ike completes, the food box will not be wasted. We can get size 13 without changing Lux.

--Manipulating the tech choices by swaping the Romans for Physics will allow us to select Explosives next. It won't be available without the swap. Demo or Metal will be available without a swap, however.

--Some selective tech gifting may be in order. The Germans are working on Sanitation and the Indians, Medicine, among others. Might be able to move then on to something we can swap for. Also, we have four more techs than our key civ, though I don't recall what the start was.

--I suggest we get a few key techs before Fundy causes our tech rate to fall. The SG's suggested going all the way to Spys first; if not that far, at least Explosives, Railroad, Corporation, IMHO.

--Our little Republic is about to take off. Have fun.

Monk

[SCG]

have the game now, will look over it tomorrow. I don't forsee switching to Fundy for a while longer as its only 1260ad, and we can't depart for another 6 centuries, one of which will have 50 turns (1750-1850); we should hopefully have most of the techs we need by then and still be able to build up an army

[Bloody Monk]

Perhaps SG[1] will clarify. As I read the rule, we are restricted from going to war until both 1850 and a hard Fundy. But, we can research and change to Fundy sooner.

Monk

[SCG]

Originally posted by Bloody Monk
Perhaps SG[1] will clarify. As I read the rule, we are restricted from going to war until both 1850 and a hard Fundy. But, we can research and change to Fundy sooner.

Monk

originally posted by SGs in concert
Before 1850AD and Hard Fundamentalism

* No attacking except on Holy Home Continent - may repulse invasions
* No military land units or Settlers or Engineers may leave the Holy Home Continent
* Any goverment at any time, BUT once Fundamentalism is discovered we MUST take it at the next oedo year and stay in it thereafter
* All Wonders except SoL - only the except SoL part is mandatory

I read that saying we change on the first available oedo year, reguardless of whether its before or after 1850. Therefore, since its still quite a ways away, I won't be researching fundy We have more important techs to get.

And on a side note, i do read the rules as saying we are to start building an army before we depart, and it would be handy to be in fundy at that point (maybe around 1820-1830), as the support costs are much lower and we have the tithes.

[Scouse Gits]

Yes there are several possible world views -- we felt that growth was of higher importance than Leos - after all we will eventually be building a modern army and anticipate that Leo will be dead long before 1850 - hence our lack of enthusiasm for that WoW - we had thought to bypass it and go for Ike's. Similarly, we have no need of Poly - no one had Mono when we were playing - once it pops out we can get it and win the race to Mike's.
Only the Romans are within realistic trading range, so we had discounted any other trading partners.
We agree that getting fundy early would be shooting ourselves in the foot.
The glory of this game is that there are so many different ways of skinning every cat.

SG[1]

[Old n Slow]

In my defense,

Noting the fine line between cheating, sleazing & good play I opted for the ‘whatever isn’t explicitly denied is permitted’ sense of rules -- most of the succession games I’ve seen don’t allow restarts, so that was OK by me. I’ve seen some examples of good play (Xinning, use of oedo years) which are now taken for granted. Other techniques, say black clicking, may be considered taboo by some, but might be OK by others. I opted to rehome the camels seeing no prohibition -- so with the adjusted rules, no more rehoming for this game for me. (We will, of course also ignore the comment about the “rehoming of the Salt caravan in SG’s post -- it must’ve been a typo.)

Regarding the switch of Libraries to Markets -- I had three choices -- a) leave the builds as libraries, knowing that upon their completion, they were going to be worthless (at zero science) for the while; b) switch to camels & lose 50% of the shields invested to date; or c) switch to markets, were they would produce under the high tax rates imposed & add thereafter. Would have switched them to camels if the shield boxes were only somewhat filled, but there was considerable investment to date at the time & I rushed a couple of them anyway to switch them over.

One can only wonder if the extra coins from those markets led to a rushed camel that brought in beakers greater than the beakers that would have been produced by those same investments in the form of libraries.

Point of clarification -- we don’t want the Statue of Liberty (and if correct, does this also imply that we walk around the city that has it until the very end, or do we raze that self same city for their construction of a pagan idol?)

Otherwise -- great work guys -- with good management of the tech tree will we be able to postpone Fundy until future tech?

[Bloody Monk]

Hi SG[1]!!

You could be right about favoring growth of the SSC first. I thought about it from both points of view and decided it was likely a push. I came down on the side of upgrades and delaying the bump of Lux slider until more cities are ready. But, having Sir Ike and a fatter SSC sooner would also be very for our research rate.

I don't understand the comment about Poly/Mono/Mike's. You say we have no need of Poly, but we already have Poly

If you mean, we have no need of hurrying to act on having Poly to get Mono for Mike's, well We already have Mike's.

I'm sure you had a solid point that I am missing. Maybe the statement was a bit sparse and the unstated details would be helpful...please.

I will submit to Institute retrainning if you insist.

Monk

[Bloody Monk]

SG[1],

One thing that comes through from the post by Old n Slow is that we need a SXN Game version of rah rules, for the benifit of newer players.

Monk