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Adventure Forty-five: Hannibal's Muse

So let's get started on my own game. It's going to be Kremlin/Oxford, the two wonders I think are most powerful and a combo that nobody else took. Since everybody loves watching me go for culture wins, that is the plan. I briefly considered Eiffel Tower, but those two are just too good.

The plan is Stonehenge to start, then try to Oracle for Civil Service on Oxford's research power.

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This presents a classic choice between work boat or worker first. A work boat is cheaper, doesn't stop growth, and doesn't need labor time, but provides only 1 food over the oasis and FP. A worker can get the big 6-food corn online ASAP. (I'm not sure all players realized that the corn has fresh water, thanks to the oasis.)

So my opening move is to work the flood plain then oasis, while putting the 1 hammer into a work boat and growing to size 2. At size 2, build just enough of the worker to Kremlin-whip it. That requires Bronze Working, then Agriculture to give the worker something to do, which synched perfectly on turn 13. That is already two turns ahead of any wonders that don't speed the worker, and actually three since I've already taken the Slavery revolt. That pace is tied with any 1-hammer wonder such as the Statue of Liberty or Hanging Gardens or Temple of Artemis. Plus I have 8 hammers into the work boat.

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After Agriculture, directly to Pottery. Food is production. The worker farmed the corn, then started chopping. First chop finished the first work boat, and overflowed into the granary, which was immediately whipped.

Granary finished in 3040 BC. Show me another wonder pair that can do that. Next I chopped Stonehenge, pausing it to double-whip a second worker and overflow back into Stonehenge. Research to Writing -> Mathematics.

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I then finished off Stonehenge by triple-whipping the first settler and overflowing onto the wonder again. (actually pulling laborers off land to be scientists for one turn, to build the settler to exactly 9/100 to allow a triple Kremwhip.)

GP #1 came as a Spy as expected. I considered saving him for a Golden Age, but let's go with settling, I can make good use of 12 EP.

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And shazam, Oracle to Civil Service in 1760 BC. Immediate Bureaucracy of course. Next goal is to chop the Great Lighthouse which I got too.

I usually resent changing a single civic on Normal speed instead of doubling-up, but Bureaucracy's superfast payback makes that correct. Also, when your limiting factors are worker labor and whip anger, anarchy is really not so big a penalty. cool.gif - 1kb

Kremlin + Bureaucracy = a whopping 67.5 hammers per whip! In fact, that makes whipping things difficult - so few items are big enough to double-whip! Can't do it on the lighthouse, or galley, or even a worker. I had to carefully manage Carthage, whipping only bigger items (mostly settlers) and build anything smaller by overflowing.

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Blaaaah. Freaking stupid that I have 9 gold in the treasury and the event wants 10. I also couldn't take the top option, adding 10 turns to the whip anger clock. So I had to let the revolt continue (the bottom option) while saving gold for a turn to take the middle option -- but got lucky that the revolt did not continue!

So I got to Alphabet, seeing this tech picture:

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That's a pretty comfortable lead. Traded for Iron Working and Monotheism as usual, and Monarchy a bit later (though didn't need it thanks to Repyresentation.)

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Here we are as the Pyramids complete. Are the Muse wonders actually giving me a fast start? Not quite sure. It feels like I have about a normal amount of cities and workers for this date. But the difference is that I've also produced enough hammers for four important wonders. And I am far ahead of a normal game in technology, naturally.

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