Part 16: Mechanics: A brief example of good celebration strategy play

Just finished a first wave celebration before 300 BC:




I launched the instant my Hanging Gardens finished (in 425 BC). I celebrated 2 turns at 40% Luxuries, then needed to crank it up to 60% for another turn. At that point I didn't have enough Food to grow much further without either Harbors (not unlocked yet) or more Irrigation, so I stopped. It's now been another couple of turns and I've got everything stabilized at the new city sizes.

Not all my cities were size 3 yet when I began, but I'd managed things carefully so that most had just gotten there (1 was size 4). So it was about a 75% increase in total citizens in just 3 turns despite being fairly inelegant. I'm now #1 in every important demographic stat and my cities dominate the top 5 despite me having the lowest land area of anyone.

That's only 83 turns of setup before launch compared to about 171 in the LP game. Now I'll stop and crank out some wonders and benefit from my massively increased Science and gold income while I build up and then do another wave when I finish the MC. And then probably another when I finally get Democracy. By then I think I can have Aqueducts everywhere and start harvesting the whole ocean with piles of size 12s.

And you can do even better than that. My point is just to underscore that what I did in this LP was not the best way to play a Celebration strategy, merely the most illustrative.