The Civics Thread

[sooooo]

This thread is to take civic discussions out of the main thread. We face a debate in 2 turns time: Whether to revolt to nationalism as soon as we can (T149) or on T154, the expected completion date of the Taj Mahal.

I will try to list the factors as I see them in favour of each:
Factors in favour of a T149 revolt

• We get more troops, quicker. The extra 3 turns of drafting we could do on turns 150-153 is worth (far) more than the hammers of production we lose from anarchy. However, this is tempered by the fact that most of the draftable cities will only be drafted every 10 turns to offset the happiness cost. Some of them could be drafted twice though due to our high happiness barrier.
• We get troops quickly to defend against a possible templar counterattack at Pink Dot.
• If we miss the Taj Mahal then we get anarchy anyway

Factors in favour of a T154 revolt, assuming we get the Taj Mahal

• The turn of anarchy we save is worth over 200 points of commerce.
• It will be closely followed by gunpowder, so we get to draft Oromos almost immediately.
• Staying in bureaucracy longer gets us more gold.

I think it's pretty close, and am undecided as to which is better right now. I'm leaning slightly towards a T154 revolt, but may change my mind.

[Dreylin]

My feeling is that it depends on how well the attack at Jericho goes, and also how Templars & Imperio react on t148 when it becomes clear that we are going to attack. If we lose a lot of troops, or Templars move to attack PD, or Imperio move towards CT; then I think we need to switch.

A general question; can we draft while in Anarchy - i.e. can we draft the turn we revolt, or only after the anarchy is over?

[sunrise089]

I think that you can draft right away.

[Swiss Pauli]

I want to have my cake and eat it, so how about: (c) Adopt Nationalism right away, then draft; assuming we land Taj revolt right back to BUR for Golden Age goodness whilst we work off draft then revolt back to Nationalism at the end of the GA. If we miss Taj we carry on drafting.

[timmy827]

I like Swiss's idea. I did a quick check and you cannot draft while in anarchy.

[Sullla]

I also like Swiss' plan... but we're in what looks to be a really tight race for Taj, and I'd hate to see us give it away by spending a turn in Anarchy. I am in favor of the second plan, trying to avoid the wasted turn of revolting and draft Oromos instead of maces if possible.

[regoarrarr]

But our turn of anarchy won't affect our race for the Taj, right? I thought that it was dependent on our chops - that the actual base hammers from Bluebell were more than sufficient, even with a turn of anarchy

[T-hawk]

I like Plan Swiss too. I'm convinced that the hammers from drafting outweigh the anarchy. And Sullla, the anarchy does not jeopardize Taj because chopping is the long pole there.

What are our chances of landing Banking in time to get into Mercantilism before the end of the Golden Age? How about Theocracy?

[Dreylin]

iirc, Banana's ETA on Banking was in the single digits, so we should be safe to get into Mercantilism before the end of the GA.

[sunrise089]

I'd like to see us able to revolt to Mercantilism and Theocracy by the end of the Golden Age, as long as that can happen I don't have a strong preference. Of course I wouldn't mind drafted maces, but we're probably not going to press forward with one-movers until Gunpowder anyways so I don't consider it essential.

[sooooo]

Banana will discover mercantilism way before the Taj's completion date. I think the eta is T149 and gunpowder's eta is T155. Just wondering - can we revolt to nationalism and mercantilism for one turn's worth of anarchy?

[Swiss Pauli]

Yes. I just selected Vas & Caste and it was one turn of anarchy.

Where does Theo lie on our tech priorities? We'd have to start it fairly soon to get it in time for a GA adoption.

[sooooo]

I don't think we can afford to get theology right now. It will probably have to wait. It's good that a double revolution is just one turn of anarchy because the T149 revolt looks much more attractive if we get mercantilism too (assuming banana gets us banking on that turn).

EDIT: Well, actually Theology is only 2-3 turns at 100% science so we may be able to fit it in before the golden age finishes.

[sooooo]

If we only actually get 3 turns of drafting before we get a golden age, then it may be better just to wait until T154 to revolt. Our cities aren't really in a good state to draft from right now; most of them are growing while recovering from whips. We'd get 3 drafts from Green Acres, but the irrigation chain isn't quite complete yet. It will be almost complete by T154 though. We could draft from Mellow Yellow fine, but drafting from PD and SF is not great for them. Saxon is not at size 6 yet. So we'd probably only get 5 drafts in (3 from GA, 1 from MY and probably 1 from PD). It's probably not worth the anarchy.

We should probably make a decision this turn, after we see how the Templars respond to operation Joshua, because if we do delay the revolt until T154 we should change some tiles around to optimise growth over production (specifically at Green Acres and Mellow Yellow).

[Zeviz]

I also think it's better to wait and let cities grow, considering how close we are to gunpowder and a free swap from Golden Age.