To God Queen and Council, regarding the update I received to Los Wangeles:
Now that we have a worker in queue to improve the lands around our port city, it is imperative to note that we have settled a dry and parched land where nature is a harsh mistress! If we hope to support more citizens, we must irrigate some of those plains. We should also set up a cottage on the grasslands in hopes of future economic prosperity once the city is no longer drier than the damn Sahara.
As for the city itself, we must address our economic and educational situations. I am tired of the youth of our city forming into gangs named after objects in the sky and sea creatures, after which they engage in bouts of choreographed dancing. I demand that we construct a library so that they may instead study better ways to crush our enemies. Additionally, our great kingdom is expensive to run and we need a more convenient location for the locales to exchange strings of beads for goods and services. We need a marketplace after we construct this library.
Once we have irrigated a few of the plains surrounding our city, some of the citizenry can stop harvesting suspicious looking berries from the forest and the trees can be cut down to provide building material for these projects as well as punishing said forest for giving many of the citizens stomach aches. I would begin the timber project with the trees on the hill though. They look like they are particularly in need of punishment.
Either PM me orders or include the city shot in your post in the thread. Makes it easier to find! Though our Royal Demographer has now created a spreadsheet for me to make keeping track super easy. Lazy God Queen was lazy.
To rephrase the new rule: Steel Angel just there? Did it right.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
0
mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
His lordship the governor of Dickerdale would like to take this opportunity to suggest that the esteemed governor of Los Wangeles violate himself repeatedly with one of the phallic symbols that are no doubt strewn willy-nilly throughout his office. You think YOUR city is built on a waterless wasteland? Try this on for size:
Sure, there are a couple of flood plains up in the corner there, but otherwise it's pretty much Wyoming up in here. At least we've got gold. Beautiful Beautiful gold.
ANYWAY - here's a revised build queue from what I posted before, because I forgot to build a worker in my last post:
Worker->Axeman->Library->Chariot->Granary->Catapult->insert temple or artsy Wonder here
Once the worker is up and running, he can put a pasture around those cows (assuming our culture is controlling the tile at that point), irrigate both flood plains, then start mining the gold.
I implore the rest of our governors to build at least 3 obelisks so that we may have the "Power of Zeus Fucking a Hippopotamus" behind us in battle.
I'll be willing to trade que favors to accomplish that too. Perhaps if you build an obelisk now, you can call in a favor to build something in Pi-Dongbury down the road.
FWIW, Dickerdale is already finishing an obelisk before leaping into my posted build queue. At the time the screenshot was taken we were only four turns away.
There is also a worker hanging out mining the first gold near Dickerdale. He has already cottaged a flood plain. And once you've cultured away the cow, you'll be fine!
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
I see no reason to give Pacal perfectly good cities when he is going to be targeted for extermination in the not to distant future.
Well that's rather begging the question isn't it? My strategy envisages Pacal as a vassal rather than fodder for our SoD (newby alert - SoD = Stack of Doom).
In any case leaving Pacal aside, what's to be done with the other Portuguese cities? I don't think anyone is in a position to say whether they are sufficiently developed to warrant the maintenance hit they'll give us if we keep them, but the question that needs to be answered is whether retaining them for ourselves is worth sacrificing a chunk of the unclaimed territory between our current cities and Shaka, because if we do keep the Portuguese cities then we won't be able to fence Shaka off and the front line with the Zulu empire is going to be that much closer to our heartland when we come to grips (which we will - Shaka isn't going to take being third civ on the continental totem pole for long).
My initial idea was to torch them all except Lisbon, frankly. Mostly for maintenance reasons. We'll have to take a closer look. Which we shall, later tonight!
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
well, we shouldn't count our cities until they're being trampled under our soldier's hobnailed boots, but Evora isn't in a bad place for us. Could use a coastal city on the northern coast. And it wouldn't conflict with a second city built to the northwest.
To God Queen and Council, regarding the update I received to Los Wangeles:
Now that we have a worker in queue to improve the lands around our port city, it is imperative to note that we have settled a dry and parched land where nature is a harsh mistress! If we hope to support more citizens, we must irrigate some of those plains. We should also set up a cottage on the grasslands in hopes of future economic prosperity once the city is no longer drier than the damn Sahara.
As for the city itself, we must address our economic and educational situations. I am tired of the youth of our city forming into gangs named after objects in the sky and sea creatures, after which they engage in bouts of choreographed dancing. I demand that we construct a library so that they may instead study better ways to crush our enemies. Additionally, our great kingdom is expensive to run and we need a more convenient location for the locales to exchange strings of beads for goods and services. We need a marketplace after we construct this library.
Once we have irrigated a few of the plains surrounding our city, some of the citizenry can stop harvesting suspicious looking berries from the forest and the trees can be cut down to provide building material for these projects as well as punishing said forest for giving many of the citizens stomach aches. I would begin the timber project with the trees on the hill though. They look like they are particularly in need of punishment.
I would like to note to you that you are 4 turns from expanding your borders, which should give you access to the cow and rice resources. Certainly not standard Egyptian dining fare, but they will along with your fish give you quite adequate food access and should be developed posthaste.
To God Queen and Council, regarding the update I received to Los Wangeles:
Now that we have a worker in queue to improve the lands around our port city, it is imperative to note that we have settled a dry and parched land where nature is a harsh mistress! If we hope to support more citizens, we must irrigate some of those plains. We should also set up a cottage on the grasslands in hopes of future economic prosperity once the city is no longer drier than the damn Sahara.
As for the city itself, we must address our economic and educational situations. I am tired of the youth of our city forming into gangs named after objects in the sky and sea creatures, after which they engage in bouts of choreographed dancing. I demand that we construct a library so that they may instead study better ways to crush our enemies. Additionally, our great kingdom is expensive to run and we need a more convenient location for the locales to exchange strings of beads for goods and services. We need a marketplace after we construct this library.
Once we have irrigated a few of the plains surrounding our city, some of the citizenry can stop harvesting suspicious looking berries from the forest and the trees can be cut down to provide building material for these projects as well as punishing said forest for giving many of the citizens stomach aches. I would begin the timber project with the trees on the hill though. They look like they are particularly in need of punishment.
I would like to note to you that you are 4 turns from expanding your borders, which should give you access to the cow and rice resources. Certainly not standard Egyptian dining fare, but they will along with your fish give you quite adequate food access and should be developed posthaste.
You can't reach outside the two ring limit, so no he can't.
That rice should be used by a future city, I've got to dot map everything out at some point. Once we settle the Portugal problem we probably should.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
No Iron in our borders. One up by the silver/furs kind of close, and obviously that one in Lisbon.
Council decisions!
First of all, new available trades:
Yes, the bastard requires the 10 gold as part of the deal.
Our best options, tech trading wise. Brennus has unattractive deals. Metal Casting to the Maya might net us the Colossus in Mutal if we ever conquer him. But doesn't net us Meditation. That'd be like a two turn detour after Code of Laws though. Also: do we want open borders with Maya/Joao/Shaka? I signed them with the two Hindus.
Now, matters for the council:
1) Do we want Shangian (Wangian, obviously)? Yes/No vote.
2) Should we continue settling cities? Yes/No Vote 2a) If yes, the peninsula southeast of Los Wangeles, the silver/furs north of Arcadia, or the jungly eventual goodness south of of East Schlongville? Or somewhere else entirely?
3) Should we declare war on the Maya? Yes/No, those cities are packed too tightly, I'd raise the two expansions and keep Mutal.
4) Should we declare war on the Portuguese?
Additionally, I have provided shots of the four Portuguese cities we know of, vote on each for keep/raze:
Evora, pretty nice place, the desert two west of the city IS a flood plain, if that matters.
Razing Lisbon is the comedy option here, two more corn, iron, plenty of hills, lots of forests to chop and rush whatever (wonders).
Guimares really should be by the river, I think preferably one square west.
Oporto is in a nice place, but curious on if it would be worth it, upkeep wise. Hardest to get to and rebuild if we decided to torch it. I don't know where the fifth city is.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Raze the first, keep the second and fourth (Three ivory resources, floodplains, an oasis and corn? Hell yes - if we don't already have ivory that's war elephants right there plus a fantastic economic city). Third's a cointoss as it really has nothing available for it to be worth the trouble; I say burn it.
Never, ever raze start-location capitals; they always have a disgusting amount of resources around and almost never any waste tiles (deserts/mountain peaks). If it looks like they don't actually have much, it's because some of it is still-hidden stuff like aluminum, oil, or uranium.
Raze the first, keep the second and fourth (Three ivory resources, floodplains, an oasis and corn? Hell yes - if we don't already have ivory that's war elephants right there). Third's a cointoss as it really has nothing available for it to be worth the trouble; I say burn it.
We have ivory (but not Horseback Riding!) already so it's not critical. It's a question of maintenance, I'm leaning towards preferring we keep it. I suspect we'll rebuild Evora at some point when our finances are better.
Never, ever raze start-location capitals; they always have a disgusting amount of resources around and almost never any waste tiles (deserts/mountain peaks). If it looks like they don't actually have much, it's because some of it is still-hidden stuff like aluminum, oil, or uranium.
Again, it's the comedy option! My favorite are mysterious holes in forests near the capital that you can predict are copper/iron/horses every time.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
3) Should we declare war on the Maya? Yes/No, those cities are packed too tightly, I'd raise the two expansions and keep Mutal.
As I pointed out either in this thread or the main Civ4 thread, it is a fallacy to think that cities can not or should not overlap. It is a very long game, and typically not until Medicine or Environmentalism that you are able to make use of every tile in the BFC without hitting the happiness or health limits of growth. So you would raze two good cities because they won't be maximized for final 25% of the game?
As we build more courthouses maintenance will become more reasonable. Not to mention that as more of our cottages grow we'll gather more commerce. Plus, open borders will increase trade income, and more cities means more trade income.
As to Joao's cities, only Guimares is questionable. It has a food bonus, and a sugar bonus (do we have sugar elsewhere?), grassland hills which can be windmilled, grassland rivers which can be cottaged, and a plains hill which can be mined. The main negative is lots of jungle to clear, lots of worker turns to build cottages/windmills, and the city wasn't built adjacent to a river. If the masses are frothing at the mouth to raze a city, this (or the 5th city) would be the obvious choice.
I only raze cities when I am in a war I think I can't win, am fighting against an AI with a huge empire and I am hoping that razing cities will push them into capitulation, or its a relatively low pop city in a truly crappy location. None of those four are in a crappy location, just maybe not uber perfect super duper locations. Oporto will immediate be able to cover its maintenance costs with those three ivory; Lisbon wont be able to cover its costs but it is a production powerhouse with 2 food bonuses and a crapload of forests, so we can put it to work rebuilding our military; Evora has an oasis (+3 com), 2 floodplains, fish and silk so it will be able to easily cover its maintenance in short order and with all that food can be whipped up to awesomeness pretty quick.
I know I am a mere scientist, but we should see if we can get anyone else to declare war on the Portugese first.
Nope. They would "have nothing to gain."
If we declare first, call them both up and see if you can bribe them to join. AI's are much more resistant to starting a war than they are to joining in on a wangbang. I would wait til we secured Oporto before calling them up to join, then, if anything let them have Guimares and deal with it. We get to make buddy buddy via shared war with our Hindu faction, they get a meh city with two of our cities pushing culture their way.
Capping Oporto may very well mean that we have an international lock on Ivory, which is both a happiness resource and a special unit resource, so very valuable in trade deals.
Chichen Itza is a truly terrible location (one space from the coast, no, bad computer!). And Lakhama isn't much better and frees up space for Dickerdale (and Mutal).
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
1) Do we want Shangian (Wangian, obviously)? Yes/No vote.
2) Should we continue settling cities? Yes/No Vote 2a) If yes, the peninsula southeast of Los Wangeles, the silver/furs north of Arcadia, or the jungly eventual goodness south of of East Schlongville? Or somewhere else entirely?
3) Should we declare war on the Maya? Yes/No, those cities are packed too tightly, I'd raise the two expansions and keep Mutal.
4) Should we declare war on the Portuguese?
1: Shangian: I say we raze it for the gold and to deny it to anyone else.
2: Yes. The peninsula southeast of los wangeles seems like the next best place to settle.
3. No. Let Pacal hang out for a while. Don't sign an open border with him, let him stay trapped in his little area.
4. Yes, a thousand times yes.
Evora: Tough call. We're going to want to have a city or two on that coast, and Evora is in an OK position. But if we wanted to have a commerce juggernaut, one square to the NW or W would be better.
I say raze and rebuild for better long-term city site.
Lisbon: Keep, obviously rename to something better than "Lisbon." Where does Joe come up with those wacky names?
Guiarmes: raze and rebuild next to the river.
Oporto: Keep.
The rebuilding thing might be tricky if the computer decides to try and steal a march on those sites. THe guiarmes site seems the most vulnerable to that.
Tech trades: Metal casting to Pacal sounds fine. Louis and Brennan already have it, and it seems unlikely pacal will trade it away to someone else.
Our best options, tech trading wise. Brennus has unattractive deals. Metal Casting to the Maya might net us the Colossus in Mutal if we ever conquer him. But doesn't net us Meditation. That'd be like a two turn detour after Code of Laws though.
Though I suppose I have no say on this decision, not being the Chancellor, I would still recommend taking the deal with Louis. Getting Meditation in a tech deal now will save us research time and, perhaps, allow certain governors to build Monestaries a little earlier.
1) Do we want Shangian (Wangian, obviously)? Yes/No vote.
I say Yes. Is it not our duty as the Greatest Empire of the World to rule it? And is not genocide an admittance that there are certain people out there that we cannot rule? No. They may be barbarians, but I have no doubt they will soon realise the glory of our Empire and settle down.
2) Should we continue settling cities? Yes/No Vote Yes, of course. While I believe in quality over quantity, I have no real objection against quantity.
2a) If yes, the peninsula southeast of Los Wangeles, the silver/furs north of Arcadia, or the jungly eventual goodness south of of East Schlongville? Or somewhere else entirely? The silver and furs, so that we may finally give proper sacrifices to the Unknowable and dress the priests in proper robes.
3) Should we declare war on the Maya? Yes/No, those cities are packed too tightly, I'd raise the two expansions and keep Mutal. I vote for war with the Maya.. While I admit my knowledge of the geography of the world is a bit... confused... I believe that the Maya are the only civilisation on the other side of the border that borders on them. Therefore, conquering or subjugating them will secure that border and lock down that part of the continent.
Oh, and, while I have no real objections to continuing the practice of naming our own cities after male genitalia, I hereby propose that All conquered cities must be renamed to reflect that our Empress is female and that it was her well-shaped heel that ground the conquered armies into the ground.
1) Do we want Shangian (Wangian, obviously)? Yes/No vote.
I have reconsidered - the portuguese cities are too nice to give up but if we take them, then I seriously doubt we can plant a viable line of frontier cities along the NE-SW axis I sketched out yesterday without cripppling our economy with maintenance costs. So take it, raze it and use the cash to subsidise our war with Portugal.
We still need to meet Shaka as far forward as possible however, but we should have digested Portugal before we send settlers to the SE frontier. The precise location of our frontier cities will need to wait until closer to the time when we will know what Shaka has done in the interim.
2) Should we continue settling cities? Yes/No Vote
Yes, but watch out for maintenance problems. If we dip below 40% science for more than a handful of turns then we need to throttle back.
2a) If yes, the peninsula southeast of Los Wangeles, the silver/furs north of Arcadia, or the jungly eventual goodness south of of East Schlongville? Or somewhere else entirely?
Jungly goodness (think of the invisible ink we'll be able to make with all that dye!). The peninsula can be backfilled once our science slider permits.
3) Should we declare war on the Maya? Yes/No, those cities are packed too tightly, I'd raise the two expansions and keep Mutal.
No. Let the Maya research the minor stuff on the tech tree and then throw 'em a bone (literally, if we take Oporto) for the techs once in a while.
4) Should we declare war on the Portuguese?
Oh yes.
Additionally, I have provided shots of the four Portuguese cities we know of, vote on each for keep/raze:
Crap. Now that I look at them those cities do look good.
Evora, pretty nice place, the desert two west of the city IS a flood plain, if that matters.
Keep it - Oasis + Fish + Cows + Silk + Floodplain x2 + coastal access is a nice site, plus those desert tiles might have oil under them (or uranium? Does that crop up on desert?). Also us holding Evora secures the iron ore resource along the coast to the NW.
Guimares really should be by the river, I think preferably one square west.
Raze it and refound upon the river once we get our maintenance under control. It's still on a hill and you pick up an additional resource in the west of the new BFC. This one should be low on the target priority list however, so if Louis or Brennius join the dogpile it might fall to them.
Oporto is in a nice place, but curious on if it would be worth it, upkeep wise. Hardest to get to and rebuild if we decided to torch it.
Keep it. That avalanche of ivory will pay the maintenance bill and should not be allowed to fall into Louis' lap. I agree with Travathian that getting a corner on the ivory trade would be a very nice benefit for the next part of the game.
Why would we want to raise the cities, just to cut down on maintenance costs? I have played Civ IV a little, but not enough!
If the expansion must continue then I say settle the far north where men are men and it doesn't come out in a lukewarm stream but a frozen chunk! Plus the Engineers get fur coats after the priests.
Why would we want to raise the cities, just to cut down on maintenance costs?
Yes. For each city added to our civ, the maintenance cost for all cities in the empire goes up. It's a common error to grow too fast in the late BC/early AD landgrab and then find yourself running a science slider below 20% whilst your civ s-l-o-w-l-y pulls itself out of the mire. By the time you have your science slider back to a respectable level you are woefully behind the tech curve and you end up getting dogpiled by the AIs some time in the middle ages.
Looking at the most recent screenshots, we have science at 50% slider (which is lower than I'd like but not disastrous) and even so we are running a slight deficit. The army will be taking some of those resources, but a big chunk of the missing revenues will be going on city maintenance and that will continue to get worse as we add cities; especially if they are far flung ones (distance to the capital is a multiplier for a given city's maintenance cost).
On the plus side, we have a bunch of cottages that have been worked long enough to start growing into hamlets/villages/towns (each promotion grants an extra commerce to the tile), we've got some nifty luxury tiles that generate a good chunk of commerce (with more to come from the Portuguese cities) and we will be able to build Courthouses once we have completed the Code of Laws tech (a courthouse cuts maintenance for a given city by 50%).
Posts
Now that we have a worker in queue to improve the lands around our port city, it is imperative to note that we have settled a dry and parched land where nature is a harsh mistress! If we hope to support more citizens, we must irrigate some of those plains. We should also set up a cottage on the grasslands in hopes of future economic prosperity once the city is no longer drier than the damn Sahara.
As for the city itself, we must address our economic and educational situations. I am tired of the youth of our city forming into gangs named after objects in the sky and sea creatures, after which they engage in bouts of choreographed dancing. I demand that we construct a library so that they may instead study better ways to crush our enemies. Additionally, our great kingdom is expensive to run and we need a more convenient location for the locales to exchange strings of beads for goods and services. We need a marketplace after we construct this library.
Once we have irrigated a few of the plains surrounding our city, some of the citizenry can stop harvesting suspicious looking berries from the forest and the trees can be cut down to provide building material for these projects as well as punishing said forest for giving many of the citizens stomach aches. I would begin the timber project with the trees on the hill though. They look like they are particularly in need of punishment.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Either PM me orders or include the city shot in your post in the thread. Makes it easier to find! Though our Royal Demographer has now created a spreadsheet for me to make keeping track super easy. Lazy God Queen was lazy.
To rephrase the new rule: Steel Angel just there? Did it right.
Since I'm jailed right now you can only see it if you quote it.
Here's the que:
Forge, Chariot, Aquaduct, Chariot, Catapult, Hanging Gardens unless we get some GA producing wonder.
Sure, there are a couple of flood plains up in the corner there, but otherwise it's pretty much Wyoming up in here. At least we've got gold. Beautiful Beautiful gold.
ANYWAY - here's a revised build queue from what I posted before, because I forgot to build a worker in my last post:
Worker->Axeman->Library->Chariot->Granary->Catapult->insert temple or artsy Wonder here
Once the worker is up and running, he can put a pasture around those cows (assuming our culture is controlling the tile at that point), irrigate both flood plains, then start mining the gold.
Edit that:
Forge, Chariot, OBELISK, Chariot, Aquaduct, Catapult.
I implore the rest of our governors to build at least 3 obelisks so that we may have the "Power of Zeus Fucking a Hippopotamus" behind us in battle.
I'll be willing to trade que favors to accomplish that too. Perhaps if you build an obelisk now, you can call in a favor to build something in Pi-Dongbury down the road.
Well that's rather begging the question isn't it? My strategy envisages Pacal as a vassal rather than fodder for our SoD (newby alert - SoD = Stack of Doom).
In any case leaving Pacal aside, what's to be done with the other Portuguese cities? I don't think anyone is in a position to say whether they are sufficiently developed to warrant the maintenance hit they'll give us if we keep them, but the question that needs to be answered is whether retaining them for ourselves is worth sacrificing a chunk of the unclaimed territory between our current cities and Shaka, because if we do keep the Portuguese cities then we won't be able to fence Shaka off and the front line with the Zulu empire is going to be that much closer to our heartland when we come to grips (which we will - Shaka isn't going to take being third civ on the continental totem pole for long).
Regards
Luke
FIRE FIRE FIRE!
I would like to note to you that you are 4 turns from expanding your borders, which should give you access to the cow and rice resources. Certainly not standard Egyptian dining fare, but they will along with your fish give you quite adequate food access and should be developed posthaste.
You can't reach outside the two ring limit, so no he can't.
That rice should be used by a future city, I've got to dot map everything out at some point. Once we settle the Portugal problem we probably should.
Council decisions!
First of all, new available trades:
Yes, the bastard requires the 10 gold as part of the deal.
Our best options, tech trading wise. Brennus has unattractive deals. Metal Casting to the Maya might net us the Colossus in Mutal if we ever conquer him. But doesn't net us Meditation. That'd be like a two turn detour after Code of Laws though. Also: do we want open borders with Maya/Joao/Shaka? I signed them with the two Hindus.
Now, matters for the council:
1) Do we want Shangian (Wangian, obviously)? Yes/No vote.
2) Should we continue settling cities? Yes/No Vote
2a) If yes, the peninsula southeast of Los Wangeles, the silver/furs north of Arcadia, or the jungly eventual goodness south of of East Schlongville? Or somewhere else entirely?
3) Should we declare war on the Maya? Yes/No, those cities are packed too tightly, I'd raise the two expansions and keep Mutal.
4) Should we declare war on the Portuguese?
Additionally, I have provided shots of the four Portuguese cities we know of, vote on each for keep/raze:
Evora, pretty nice place, the desert two west of the city IS a flood plain, if that matters.
Razing Lisbon is the comedy option here, two more corn, iron, plenty of hills, lots of forests to chop and rush whatever (wonders).
Guimares really should be by the river, I think preferably one square west.
Oporto is in a nice place, but curious on if it would be worth it, upkeep wise. Hardest to get to and rebuild if we decided to torch it. I don't know where the fifth city is.
Never, ever raze start-location capitals; they always have a disgusting amount of resources around and almost never any waste tiles (deserts/mountain peaks). If it looks like they don't actually have much, it's because some of it is still-hidden stuff like aluminum, oil, or uranium.
We have ivory (but not Horseback Riding!) already so it's not critical. It's a question of maintenance, I'm leaning towards preferring we keep it. I suspect we'll rebuild Evora at some point when our finances are better.
Again, it's the comedy option! My favorite are mysterious holes in forests near the capital that you can predict are copper/iron/horses every time.
I think it'd be kind of funny to make the tech trades with the Mayans and then wipe them out before they have a chance to make good use of them.
I look forward to seeing the decisions of our esteemed council members on these issues.
I had not even considered this possibility until you mentioned it :twisted:
Nope. They would "have nothing to gain."
As I pointed out either in this thread or the main Civ4 thread, it is a fallacy to think that cities can not or should not overlap. It is a very long game, and typically not until Medicine or Environmentalism that you are able to make use of every tile in the BFC without hitting the happiness or health limits of growth. So you would raze two good cities because they won't be maximized for final 25% of the game?
As we build more courthouses maintenance will become more reasonable. Not to mention that as more of our cottages grow we'll gather more commerce. Plus, open borders will increase trade income, and more cities means more trade income.
As to Joao's cities, only Guimares is questionable. It has a food bonus, and a sugar bonus (do we have sugar elsewhere?), grassland hills which can be windmilled, grassland rivers which can be cottaged, and a plains hill which can be mined. The main negative is lots of jungle to clear, lots of worker turns to build cottages/windmills, and the city wasn't built adjacent to a river. If the masses are frothing at the mouth to raze a city, this (or the 5th city) would be the obvious choice.
I only raze cities when I am in a war I think I can't win, am fighting against an AI with a huge empire and I am hoping that razing cities will push them into capitulation, or its a relatively low pop city in a truly crappy location. None of those four are in a crappy location, just maybe not uber perfect super duper locations. Oporto will immediate be able to cover its maintenance costs with those three ivory; Lisbon wont be able to cover its costs but it is a production powerhouse with 2 food bonuses and a crapload of forests, so we can put it to work rebuilding our military; Evora has an oasis (+3 com), 2 floodplains, fish and silk so it will be able to easily cover its maintenance in short order and with all that food can be whipped up to awesomeness pretty quick.
If we declare first, call them both up and see if you can bribe them to join. AI's are much more resistant to starting a war than they are to joining in on a wangbang. I would wait til we secured Oporto before calling them up to join, then, if anything let them have Guimares and deal with it. We get to make buddy buddy via shared war with our Hindu faction, they get a meh city with two of our cities pushing culture their way.
Capping Oporto may very well mean that we have an international lock on Ivory, which is both a happiness resource and a special unit resource, so very valuable in trade deals.
1: Shangian: I say we raze it for the gold and to deny it to anyone else.
2: Yes. The peninsula southeast of los wangeles seems like the next best place to settle.
3. No. Let Pacal hang out for a while. Don't sign an open border with him, let him stay trapped in his little area.
4. Yes, a thousand times yes.
Evora: Tough call. We're going to want to have a city or two on that coast, and Evora is in an OK position. But if we wanted to have a commerce juggernaut, one square to the NW or W would be better.
I say raze and rebuild for better long-term city site.
Lisbon: Keep, obviously rename to something better than "Lisbon." Where does Joe come up with those wacky names?
Guiarmes: raze and rebuild next to the river.
Oporto: Keep.
The rebuilding thing might be tricky if the computer decides to try and steal a march on those sites. THe guiarmes site seems the most vulnerable to that.
Tech trades: Metal casting to Pacal sounds fine. Louis and Brennan already have it, and it seems unlikely pacal will trade it away to someone else.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
1) Do we want Shangian (Wangian, obviously)? Yes/No vote.
I say Yes. Is it not our duty as the Greatest Empire of the World to rule it? And is not genocide an admittance that there are certain people out there that we cannot rule? No. They may be barbarians, but I have no doubt they will soon realise the glory of our Empire and settle down.
2) Should we continue settling cities? Yes/No Vote
Yes, of course. While I believe in quality over quantity, I have no real objection against quantity.
2a) If yes, the peninsula southeast of Los Wangeles, the silver/furs north of Arcadia, or the jungly eventual goodness south of of East Schlongville? Or somewhere else entirely?
The silver and furs, so that we may finally give proper sacrifices to the Unknowable and dress the priests in proper robes.
3) Should we declare war on the Maya? Yes/No, those cities are packed too tightly, I'd raise the two expansions and keep Mutal.
I vote for war with the Maya.. While I admit my knowledge of the geography of the world is a bit... confused... I believe that the Maya are the only civilisation on the other side of the border that borders on them. Therefore, conquering or subjugating them will secure that border and lock down that part of the continent.
Oh, and, while I have no real objections to continuing the practice of naming our own cities after male genitalia, I hereby propose that All conquered cities must be renamed to reflect that our Empress is female and that it was her well-shaped heel that ground the conquered armies into the ground.
I have reconsidered - the portuguese cities are too nice to give up but if we take them, then I seriously doubt we can plant a viable line of frontier cities along the NE-SW axis I sketched out yesterday without cripppling our economy with maintenance costs. So take it, raze it and use the cash to subsidise our war with Portugal.
We still need to meet Shaka as far forward as possible however, but we should have digested Portugal before we send settlers to the SE frontier. The precise location of our frontier cities will need to wait until closer to the time when we will know what Shaka has done in the interim.
Yes, but watch out for maintenance problems. If we dip below 40% science for more than a handful of turns then we need to throttle back.
Jungly goodness (think of the invisible ink we'll be able to make with all that dye!). The peninsula can be backfilled once our science slider permits.
No. Let the Maya research the minor stuff on the tech tree and then throw 'em a bone (literally, if we take Oporto) for the techs once in a while.
Oh yes.
Crap. Now that I look at them those cities do look good.
Keep it - Oasis + Fish + Cows + Silk + Floodplain x2 + coastal access is a nice site, plus those desert tiles might have oil under them (or uranium? Does that crop up on desert?). Also us holding Evora secures the iron ore resource along the coast to the NW.
Raze it and refound upon the river once we get our maintenance under control. It's still on a hill and you pick up an additional resource in the west of the new BFC. This one should be low on the target priority list however, so if Louis or Brennius join the dogpile it might fall to them.
Keep it. That avalanche of ivory will pay the maintenance bill and should not be allowed to fall into Louis' lap. I agree with Travathian that getting a corner on the ivory trade would be a very nice benefit for the next part of the game.
Regards
Luke
If the expansion must continue then I say settle the far north where men are men and it doesn't come out in a lukewarm stream but a frozen chunk! Plus the Engineers get fur coats after the priests.
So Yes on settling the north
1) Capture, Raze 1 vote
Capture, Keep 1 vote
2) Yes - 2 votes
North - 1 vote
Peninsula - 1 vote
3/4) 1 vote for each option
Yes. For each city added to our civ, the maintenance cost for all cities in the empire goes up. It's a common error to grow too fast in the late BC/early AD landgrab and then find yourself running a science slider below 20% whilst your civ s-l-o-w-l-y pulls itself out of the mire. By the time you have your science slider back to a respectable level you are woefully behind the tech curve and you end up getting dogpiled by the AIs some time in the middle ages.
Looking at the most recent screenshots, we have science at 50% slider (which is lower than I'd like but not disastrous) and even so we are running a slight deficit. The army will be taking some of those resources, but a big chunk of the missing revenues will be going on city maintenance and that will continue to get worse as we add cities; especially if they are far flung ones (distance to the capital is a multiplier for a given city's maintenance cost).
On the plus side, we have a bunch of cottages that have been worked long enough to start growing into hamlets/villages/towns (each promotion grants an extra commerce to the tile), we've got some nifty luxury tiles that generate a good chunk of commerce (with more to come from the Portuguese cities) and we will be able to build Courthouses once we have completed the Code of Laws tech (a courthouse cuts maintenance for a given city by 50%).
Regards
Luke