[SPOILERS] TheArchduke blasts into Space as Russia

[TheArchduke]

Turn 30

Quite a busy turn. The bad news before anything. The barbs maneuver so that I can not possibly shoot the slinger thanks to a timely warrior reinforcement.
This also means I am going to have to delay the settler for Funky Swamp 2 turns to push a quick slinger out. It might be possible to move the settler to Funky without a bigger escort, but I do not want to risk it.

   

In a weird twist, Agoge actually makes things easier for us with the barbs and more difficult. More units, but less combat performance.

   

So I decide on a warrior out of Fogger (4t) and a slinger before we finish our settler (2t and 5t).

   

Craftsmanship is boosted, Foreign Trade goes down from 8t to 6t thanks to our second pop at Fogger which works the dyes.
Both scouts push along the coasts and will circle back in 1-2 turns N and S respectively.

In general we are looking good, although my paranoia will make me sweat until we get our Prophet.

[Sullla]

Yeah, things look reasonably good as long as the barbarians don't try to pillage your two Lavras. I think your religion is due in 8 turns at the current rate which hopefully will land the first religion on schedule. Two thoughts that I had while looking at these screenshot:

* It looks like you will finish Foreign Trade civic in 4 more turns if you purchase the monument in Fogger as planned once 240 gold are in the bank. This would be a perfect time to flip back from Agoge into Discipline to deal with the barbarians, and it might be worthwhile to push out another warrior from the capital before you make that switch. You could probably finish the current slinger (2t), then follow it with a warrior (2t), and swap back to the settler as you flip out of Agoge. That would give you 2 warriors and 2 slingers to fight off the current barbarians and then do some scouting afterwards, plus be available for upgrading later on into swords/archers. Worth thinking about if the barbs continue to be a nuisance.

* You mentioned circling the scouting units back, and while I think that's a good idea for the warrior off to the west (need to defog more tiles near the capital), I think the actual scout far off in the east needs to keep going further afield. There's a need to meet someone else to trigger the Writing boost in the near future so that the capital can get started on a Campus district, plus a need to find a third city state for Political Philosophy. The odds of finding both are better with continued deep scouting as opposed to circling back closer to home.

[williams482]

This need for barb defense units pretty much rules out trying to do anything cute with a second builder, and takes any reasonable alternative to the post-settler capital campus with it. That campus feels suboptimal in a number of small ways, but it's hard to argue that we don't need more science as soon as we can reasonably get it.

On the plus side, Funky will expose both spice tiles to the capital while still picking up tiles that are as good or better for itself. Hell March can thus pull in +10 food per turn at pop 4, 5 and maybe 6, depending on how hard we want to push it, which should get us to pop 7 and the plaza relatively quickly. In between districts we probably want to kick out a builder or two and maybe a trader, although if we want to get greedy, a library and/or project to steal Hypatia could be in the cards. I don't think building more settlers in the capital prior to Ancestral Hall/Monumentality makes a ton of sense, but maybe Funky or Fogger could get one out just in time to take advantage of the free builder.

The first district at Funky is obviously going to be a Lavra, presumably located 1E of the intended plaza location (where the barb slinger is now). That's a +1 location immediately, +2 with the Plaza and +3 with another adjacent district. For second districts, I think the best options are probably a Campus at Funky 1SE of the plaza, and a Commercial Hub at Fogger 2N of the city center.

[TheArchduke]

Yeah, things look reasonably good as long as the barbarians don't try to pillage your two Lavras. I think your religion is due in 8 turns at the current rate which hopefully will land the first religion on schedule. Two thoughts that I had while looking at these screenshot:

* It looks like you will finish Foreign Trade civic in 4 more turns if you purchase the monument in Fogger as planned once 240 gold are in the bank. This would be a perfect time to flip back from Agoge into Discipline to deal with the barbarians, and it might be worthwhile to push out another warrior from the capital before you make that switch. You could probably finish the current slinger (2t), then follow it with a warrior (2t), and swap back to the settler as you flip out of Agoge. That would give you 2 warriors and 2 slingers to fight off the current barbarians and then do some scouting afterwards, plus be available for upgrading later on into swords/archers. Worth thinking about if the barbs continue to be a nuisance.

* You mentioned circling the scouting units back, and while I think that's a good idea for the warrior off to the west (need to defog more tiles near the capital), I think the actual scout far off in the east needs to keep going further afield. There's a need to meet someone else to trigger the Writing boost in the near future so that the capital can get started on a Campus district, plus a need to find a third city state for Political Philosophy. The odds of finding both are better with continued deep scouting as opposed to circling back closer to home.

A good point. A return to the settler and a possible builder from Fogger could be the next builds after a basic military.
We have not been scouted so far, but this could be a ruse and some invader is already enroute. I did this myself with the Mongols.

This need for barb defense units pretty much rules out trying to do anything cute with a second builder, and takes any reasonable alternative to the post-settler capital campus with it. That campus feels suboptimal in a number of small ways, but it's hard to argue that we don't need more science as soon as we can reasonably get it.

On the plus side, Funky will expose both spice tiles to the capital while still picking up tiles that are as good or better for itself. Hell March can thus pull in +10 food per turn at pop 4, 5 and maybe 6, depending on how hard we want to push it, which should get us to pop 7 and the plaza relatively quickly. In between districts we probably want to kick out a builder or two and maybe a trader, although if we want to get greedy, a library and/or project to steal Hypatia could be in the cards. I don't think building more settlers in the capital prior to Ancestral Hall/Monumentality makes a ton of sense, but maybe Funky or Fogger could get one out just in time to take advantage of the free builder.

The first district at Funky is obviously going to be a Lavra, presumably located 1E of the intended plaza location (where the barb slinger is now). That's a +1 location immediately, +2 with the Plaza and +3 with another adjacent district. For second districts, I think the best options are probably a Campus at Funky 1SE of the plaza, and a Commercial Hub at Fogger 2N of the city center.

I think the campus or no campus decision really comes down to the longterm plan to win this, I will elaborate further when turn 31 comes. Suffice to say, Hypatia presents a strong case for going for those campi quickly.

[TheArchduke]

So.

Turn 31

Finally back to a somewhat decent turn pace. 

First of all scouting. I am doing a sweep of the coast with my warrior to check for good coastal sites and to cover more ground quickly in the west.

   

I am rather confident that my scout should have gone south since this turn. Maybe continue on NE for 1-2 more turns? I am there after all. I think my best bet for a writing eureka (first contact) is probably south of the desert, maybe I should have sent my scout back to the capital and sent my warrior S by SE next to Cardiff? No matter, 2 slingers and 1 warrior will go there next.

   

7 turns until religion. I still could throw a shrine project in there to maybe get it quicker, but it does feel like a waste. If we miss choral music I will blame Sullla.

   

As noone has established any campi yet, I am highly tempted to try for 2 campi and a possible project soon, maybe even in 2 cities. Hypatia is a free library and kind of a nice boost. If I can land choral music and with my lavras, culture is no issue, so science needs to be fixed.

Next turn archery eureka, monument buy and maybe my scouts finally find something.

More interesting is that NOONE else has any points, neither GP or GS. Which really astounds me. One has to assume that there are some settlers being built, but the lack of an early holy site by Khmer is suprising. This makes me even more jumpy about a Stonehenge build.

[Sullla]

At this point you might as well send the scout 1-2 more turns to the northeast before turning back. There's a decent chance that there's a city state somewhere up there and that would be worth meeting for the Political Philosophy boost plus potential first contact envoy. You still have some time before needing to find another player; ideally, I think you want to go onto a Campus after the settler finishes in the capital, which gives you about half a dozen more turns to make contact. By the way, related question on that: are you going right back to the settler again or do you want to squeeze out another military unit while you're still in Agoge? It largely depends on how dangerous the barbarians are feeling at the moment, faster settler is better economically and longterm while it's better to get a military unit if you need it for the barbarians.

Also, I know it's been floated as an idea several times but a project just doesn't make any sense right now. The Great Prophet is arriving in 7 turns even if you do absolutely nothing - where would you even find time to squeeze out a project right now? Build one in the capital so that the Great Prophet arrives in 5 turns instead of 7 turns? Come on, that would be silly. I think that projects in general are a weak use of production, only useful later on in the game to secure absolutely critical Great People. I can't think of any situation where I would run a project in the first 50 turns of the game. By that same token, Hypatia would be "nice to have" but not worth running Campus district projects to get (or spending faith to patronage). Save faith for purchasing settlers/builders in Monumentality and save production for units and districts.

I have some big picture ideas bouncing around in my head that I may find the time to type up over the next few days. And if someone else builds Stonehenge at this point then so be it. Anyone who sinks 180 production (!!!) into a wonder before Turn 35 is asking for a crippled opening and a last place finish.

[williams482]

More interesting is that NOONE else has any points, neither GP or GS. Which really astounds me. One has to assume that there are some settlers being built, but the lack of an early holy site by Khmer is surprising. This makes me even more jumpy about a Stonehenge build.

That's flabbergasting.

How is our place in the demographics right now? If nobody else has districts, they must be pushing serious expansion and/or military buildups. Khmer with no Holy Sites seems especially weird, and does seem to hint at a stonehenge rush attempt. A counterargument in the same vein of stuff-that-doesn't-really-mean-anything, his thread and the lurker thread have been relatively quiet.

Regardless, I still seriously doubt that anyone could slam the henge out fast enough to catch us without totally crippling their start. Three Magus chopped forests with four civics only gives 153/180 hammers needed to build the wonder, and getting to that point requires two builders, a settler, likely a monument, and miscellaneous military, while generating enough culture to pick up those civics. That's more resources invested than we've put into our expansion and districts, with significantly less long term utility.

[TheArchduke]

At this point you might as well send the scout 1-2 more turns to the northeast before turning back. There's a decent chance that there's a city state somewhere up there and that would be worth meeting for the Political Philosophy boost plus potential first contact envoy. You still have some time before needing to find another player; ideally, I think you want to go onto a Campus after the settler finishes in the capital, which gives you about half a dozen more turns to make contact. By the way, related question on that: are you going right back to the settler again or do you want to squeeze out another military unit while you're still in Agoge? It largely depends on how dangerous the barbarians are feeling at the moment, faster settler is better economically and longterm while it's better to  get a military unit if you need it for the barbarians.

Also, I know it's been floated as an idea several times but a project just doesn't make any sense right now. The Great Prophet is arriving in 7 turns even if you do absolutely nothing - where would you even find time to squeeze out a project right now? Build one in the capital so that the Great Prophet arrives in 5 turns instead of 7 turns? Come on, that would be silly. I think that projects in general are a weak use of production, only useful later on in the game to secure absolutely critical Great People. I can't think of any situation where I would run a project in the first 50 turns of the game. By that same token, Hypatia would be "nice to have" but not worth running Campus district projects to get (or spending faith to patronage). Save faith for purchasing settlers/builders in Monumentality and save production for units and districts.

I have some big picture ideas bouncing around in my head that I may find the time to type up over the next few days. And if someone else builds Stonehenge at this point then so be it. Anyone who sinks 180 production (!!!) into a wonder before Turn 35 is asking for a crippled opening and a last place finish.

Funnily enough I found a CS. But it is complicated.
Yeah, too much sensible stuff to build, we will have to take the risk with Stonehenge.

More interesting is that NOONE else has any points, neither GP or GS. Which really astounds me. One has to assume that there are some settlers being built, but the lack of an early holy site by Khmer is surprising. This makes me even more jumpy about a Stonehenge build.

That's flabbergasting.

How is our place in the demographics right now? If nobody else has districts, they must be pushing serious expansion and/or military buildups. Khmer with no Holy Sites seems especially weird, and does seem to hint at a stonehenge rush attempt. A counterargument in the same vein of stuff-that-doesn't-really-mean-anything, his thread and the lurker thread have been relatively quiet.

Regardless, I still seriously doubt that anyone could slam the henge out fast enough to catch us without totally crippling their start. Three Magus chopped forests with four civics only gives 153/180 hammers needed to build the wonder, and getting to that point requires two builders, a settler, likely a monument, and miscellaneous military, while generating enough culture to pick up those civics. That's more resources invested than we've put into our expansion and districts, with significantly less long term utility.

No districts so far.

I will provide a score overview.

   

[TheArchduke]

Turn 32

Scorewise, Cornflakes with Rome is likely to have established a third city.
His Civics Score is of course insanely high as well.

Anyway, how do we contact this:

   

A settler? Or how do we get a trireme out quickly. A peculiar place for a CS that is for sure.

In the center we will build a solid foundation for an army against barbs or any suprise attacks. Better safe then sorry. A monument is bought at fogger.

   

[Sullla]

Yes, it looks like Cornflakes raced out to a fast third city (always a good choice for Rome), and I suspect several of the other players are doing the same thing based on those empire scores. Being behind in expansion isn't ideal, but it's not like that production was wasted: you have two districts done and hopefully will use them to lock down the first religion. Faith income can go a tremendous way to catching up and you haven't needed to slow down much at all since the Lavras are so cheap. The good news is that everyone other than Cornflakes is doing a poor job of researching techs and civics. Despite needing to go for the more expensive Astrology, you're right there with everyone else in tech and tied for the non-Cornflakes lead in civics. I've thought for a long time now that Rome and Russia are the two best civs from the base game; Rome starts faster with the free monuments and praetorians but Russia is stronger in the long run with religion and cossacks. Time should be on your side in a contest with Rome.

For that city state across the water, nothing you can do right now. It's definitely not worth the time to move a settler over there to make contact with the extra vision. Eventually you'll build a naval unit or be able to embark land units and make contact. Best to keep scouting normally for now.

I like the fast extra warrior from the capital too. Very cheap to build, makes use of Agoge before you swap out of it, and provides another unit that can head south for some deep scouting. 1 warrior and 2 slingers should be enough for barb defense for the moment and then you can go back into econ mode for a while. Later on, that's another sword that can be used to help capture Cardiff too.

Overall, I'd say that you're in great shape so long as no one snipes that first religion in the next 6 turns.