[SPOILERS] Chevalier Mal Fet and Marcopolothefraud lead a Soviet Down Under

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

No horsies:




Next turn I'm in position to reduce both camps. I also pinned marco's horse locations:

[marcopolothefraud]

Turn 17



Well, the Mackay scout got away. I'm not sure where to position my two warriors: there's two good hills in the northeast of Illmatic, but there's nowhere to retreat if one of them gets critically injured. Perhaps the west bank of the Warrego River (can we customize geographic labels?) might work.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 16-17




Discipline for barb clearing (commencing now), G-K in order to speed up the pantheon and get the inspiration. My pantheon is due in ~15 turns at this rate, which will be in time to not waste culture. Then, as soon as I finish Mysticism, it'll inspire it for marco and finish it for Australia, as well - nice timing. In the future, we'll want to spread out our research in order to maximize these eurekas/inspirations.

I go to work on both camps, should clear the northern one quickly and the southern in ~4 turns:




On the interturn, the spear suicides and I clear the camp on turn 17:




EZ. 

Now, future prospects:

I need to resume scouting as soon as I can, but first that warrior needs to drop back to escort the settler to one of my two possible sites. I'm not sure which is better - Knyaz Suvurov is coastal, and will pull in 5 luxuries, but not the horses. Imperator Aleksandr isn't coastal, so no help on galley construction, and has lots of tundra, but it does have the horses and cotton which will help it grow. It'll also be a good early lavra city if I take DotA. The settler is out in 2 turns, and will take about 4 turns to walk, so I have about 4 turns to decide. 

Marco, for your part, I'd use the healthy warrior to escort the settler, then begin pushing for the barb camp, while the injured one heals, then starts defogging the NE. It looks like that's the only real prospect we have of finding more land area and a natural wonder, unless it's buried deep in the tundra or in the small patch of fog left between our capitals. That patch is priority #2 for scouting, I think.

[marcopolothefraud]

Turn 19

Very bad news coming from the west.



Even though the Mackay Barbarians will come soon, I'm going to send a warrior west to clear the Pacific camp. I definitely need a third military unit, which I'll make after my settler finishes in 2 turns. Warrior or Slinger? I'm leaning towards Slinger now that I already have two warriors, and it can stay in Illmatic forever. It won't be very useful as an offensive unit, though.



In other news, we have combined enough money to buy a Monument, so I gifted 70 gold to CMF. It doesn't really matter who should get the Monument...though maybe it might matter for era score, because an early Monument often means an early government. CMF, have you decided to go for a Golden Age or a Dark Age?

Oh, and we shouldn't buy it yet, because we would be wasting culture into Mysticism. It's still a nice thing to think about, though.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 18




I have an opportunity here - after only two turns of plunking away at the camp, the spearman is vulnerable. I takes my chances...




...and clear the second camp. Hopefully that puts a lid on barbs for the time being. There are two scouts and a slinger unaccounted for, to my knowledge. Finishing off the slinger will grant me the Bronze Working eureka. 

Overview:




Each of my warriors has a promotion available. Settler is out next turn and will head west, though I still don't know whether to go north or south with it. 

Good call on not purchasing the monument yet. We have a cultural bottleneck to clear and we don't wanna waste the extra culture we'd get from the monument. 

Right now, I think I need to shoot for the golden age. The lavra and my religion should all come in before the era rolls, plus I'm going to pick up a pantheon. Finding a natural wonder will be worth 3/1 more points, as well, plus getting a galley into the water if I can.

[marcopolothefraud]

Marco, for your part, I'd use the healthy warrior to escort the settler, then begin pushing for the barb camp, while the injured one heals, then starts defogging the NE. It looks like that's the only real prospect we have of finding more land area and a natural wonder, unless it's buried deep in the tundra or in the small patch of fog left between our capitals. That patch is priority #2 for scouting, I think.

Yeah...facing two separate barbarian camps, that's not going to be feasible. I may have to hard-research Astrology without the Eureka whatsoever...sigh.

Let's be super-strategic about that Golden Age. Classical Golden Ages are nearly impossible on water maps, and it would be a massive setback to have a Russian Normal Age. From our past PBEMs, the Classical Age usually starts on Turn 61.

You already have 5 era score. 20 to go.

These are the milestones you're near-certain to reach, in rough chronological order:
- 1 era score for a pantheon.
- 4 era score for the unique Lavra.
- 2 era score for Russia's first seafaring unit.
- 1 era score for the Great Prophet.
- 3 era score for the World's First Religion.*
- 1 era score for a Classical-Era civic.
- 1 era score for the Great Writer. (In PBEM19, Ljubljana's Russia got it t56...it doesn't seem like you'd fall behind him, so we can chalk this up to a certainty.)

(*Roland of Gilead's China could hypothetically beat us to it with Stonehenge. I think the chances of this are <10%: first, we can assume the map is roughly fair, and that lakes and mountains are somewhat-obstructing movement in his continent. Therefore, he's facing the same barbarian problems that we are, and doesn't have the production to spare for builders to make Stonehenge. Second, China doesn't need the best beliefs like Choral Music/Crusade/Defender of the Faith. It can do really well with the World Wonder-synergizing beliefs.)

That's 13 guaranteed era score, plus your current 5. You would be at 18/25, 7 era score short of a Golden Age.

These are the situationally-plausible milestones:
- 1 era score for a city founded on Tundra. Imperator Aleksandr would fit this criteria, but I would prefer the Suvorov city site.
- 1 era score for a city founded near a Volcano, or a floodable city site.
- 1 era score for a city founded <5 tiles away from another civilization's city. Not sure if this triggers, because we're on the same team...
- 1 era score for a Classical-Era technology. The chances of this seem low...the most important Classical tech might be the Quadrireme-technology, which doesn't seem too important.

- 1 era score from meeting a different civ. I'm going to take a wild guess and say we meet 4 other players by turn 60...that gives us 4 era score. Of course, it may just be 2 other players. Or we might even meet 6 other players, and then trigger +3 era score from meeting every civilization...
- 1 era score from meeting a Natural Wonder, and 3 era score from meeting it first. I'm not even going to guess for this one.
- 2 era score from clearing Barbarian Encampments. Do you think you could clear my Pacific Barbarians?
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In conclusion, we should keep in mind the "18 guaranteed era score" figure for now, and update it whenever we score the situationally-plausible milestones. Then we can stop once we've gotten 24 or 25 era score, and deliberately save some for the next era.

Australia should go for a Classical Dark Age. It's not too important: an Australian Golden Age won't really be plausible, a Normal Age is terrible, while a Dark Age easily lets me score a Medieval Golden Age. Like CMF showed in PBEM13, that could really carry me far.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

It's going to take me about 12 turns to force-march my warrior up from the south to the Pacific camp. That guarantees an eruption for you. But if you have a slinger and no real improvements to pillage, that wouldn't be too great a setback, if we really wanna hoard the era score for Russia. I'll need to pause to promote and possibly heal, then I can clear it.

We can't count on being first to a religion, since Roland found a natural wonder so fast, he's already well on his way to Astrology if he wants it ahead of us. I'd rate the chances of being second more like 40-50% than 10%. BUT, if we assume the map is fair, he stumbled on a natural wonder within 5 turns of starting, so we should have one within approximately the same distance - we just need to wade through these barbs and find it. I'll map out my tundra after Knyaz Suvurov is founded to see if it's there.

But that isn't really urgent. You can swap off Astrology after you hit the eureka point, because it's not like you'll be throwing down a campus immediately anyway. If I were good at micro, we could calculate the breakeven point on science here - so much science wasted vs. a campus THIS many turns earlier....wait, actually that's super easy. The eureka is worth 20 science, so if you get a +3 campus down 7 turns earlier as a result of rushing through the eureka, then we come out ahead. That's actually super viable, BUT it does require you to commit to a relatively early campus, so bear that in mind when making the decision of whether or not to pull the trigger.

For my part, promoted first warrior with tortoise, settler is out and marching for Knyaz Suvurov, city is due turn 24.

Not sure what to work on in the immediate future. Nothing is super useful at the moment - I could get the builder out in 7 but I still don't have the tech to improve. I have ~12 turns until I finish Astrology and can start a lavra, so in the meantime it might be worth building a third warrior - we'll want it down the road for city-state conquests. A slinger is also a possibility but if you're getting one out, you can almost certainly get the archery eureka, and I'd like a unit that can take care of itself. Granary is needful down the road, but won't pay out for a while.

For now, I keep dumping the production into a builder. I can farm the rice (boost irrigation) still, and then need mining+sailing/irrigation to have three improvements available (or just mining and I march over to improve the horses...actually, yeah, that makes sense). So, I'll grab mining in about 15 turns, need the builder out then. I can always have him stand around and it'll be worth improving the horses at KS anyway, so I'll keep working on him.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I smack the slinger and move my settler, due to settle Knyaz Suvurov on turn 24. No one else has dropped a pop yet, and some civs are up to 3 population! Interesting. I think at least one or two others must have settlers out by now, though. If I'm first, that means that we all probably have equally weak starts, which is encouraging (though I'm curious to see how much tundra everyone else has). 




Marco has his own fun with barbs. 

My plan is to keep on getting out the basic starting infrastructure until Astrology si finished, then lay down double lavras. We'll get the faith engine up and running, and honestly with all this tundra, I can make it work. Take DotA, a lavra at Imperator Aleksandr will return crazy amounts of faith (and production! Or culture if Roland beats us and takes Work Ethic), and we can Monumentality expand over our entire island. Meanwhile, I can kick out some galleys from my coastal cities with the saved production and explore. Hopefully we've got good expansion prospects overseas, though neither of our civs is especially suited to fighting with Norway/Phoenicia/Indonesia for 'em.

[marcopolothefraud]

If we assume the map is fair, he stumbled on a natural wonder within 5 turns of starting, so we should have one within approximately the same distance - we just need to wade through these barbs and find it. I'll map out my tundra after Knyaz Suvurov is founded to see if it's there.

But that isn't really urgent. You can swap off Astrology after you hit the eureka point, because it's not like you'll be throwing down a campus immediately anyway.

I don't want to rely on the assumption that a natural wonder is nearby, especially since Ljubljana/Woden and Kaiser/Archduke most likely haven't met a natural wonder either. They don't seem to have gotten +3/+1 era score. To this end, I'm going to research Astrology over the Eureka and run the risk of "wasting" science.

In my singleplayer experience, I've committed the mistake of waiting for the Astrology eureka too many times, and lost out on a good religion because of that. (Same with waiting for the Foreign Trade inspiration - that's caused me to delay Political Philosophy by a lot.) Here, if I wait for the Astrology eureka, I'm not confident at all that we can find a natural wonder. My warriors are still fighting barbarians, and will do so for the next 10-15 turns. Your warriors have already explored most of your corner - your western warrior seems to have bumped into the western coastline, and your southern warrior has found the snowy southern coast. As a realist/pragmatist, I think the best thing to do is to keep researching Astrology and eat my losses. What if our natural wonder is east of Lake Mackay? I'm not going to explore there until the Pacific Barbarians are dead. Therefore, if we don't find a natural wonder, I should finish Astrology on my own and boost it for you.

And I'm sorry if I didn't make this clear, but I want to throw down a campus immediately.  
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Okay, rant over. Time to see what else to talk about.

My plan is to keep on getting out the basic starting infrastructure until Astrology si finished, then lay down double lavras. We'll get the faith engine up and running, and honestly with all this tundra, I can make it work. Take DotA, a lavra at Imperator Aleksandr will return crazy amounts of faith (and production! Or culture if Roland beats us and takes Work Ethic), and we can Monumentality expand over our entire island. Meanwhile, I can kick out some galleys from my coastal cities with the saved production and explore. 

Sounds fantastic! Best of luck.

I'm going to settle "High yields, no coast" by turn 25, I think. That northwest barbarian scout will get away from me, but it isn't activated. Meanwhile, the activated scout has also gotten away from me, but seems to have went for the south for some reason. Maybe I can stop it from returning to the camp.

Both of my warriors are on barbarian patrol, and my settler is going unescorted. Hopefully this will be fine. After Illmatic's slinger (due t25), it will make a builder.

[marcopolothefraud]

Interlude: 1996-2000

If Nas had fallen after releasing a slew of classic singles and his startling debut Illmatic, he'd be every bit as revered as Biggie, 2Pac, Big Pun and Big L. Instead, Nas has broken our hearts with a series of decent-to-mediocre albums that belittle both his considerable talent and the sheer brilliance of Illmatic. Between 1996 and late 2001, Nas morphed into a studio gangsta, and seemingly turned his back on the audience that initially supported him.

- Pitchfork Album Review, God's Son by Nas, 2002 

I haven't really listened to much of Nas' music after Illmatic. Whenever I tried, I would like some of his hit singles, but get bored soon after. If you want to give it a shot, here's a 12-minute highlight reel of Nas' career until 2018: 




For me, the biggest problem is that his flow sounds similar on several songs. This wasn't really a problem on Illmatic, because his lyrics were so sharp and his production was amazing, but it was seriously noticeable on his subsequent albums. (He's supposed to be this master lyricist, but how can I focus on his words when his emphases and delivery all sound the same?) 

Nas released It Was Written in 1996, I Am... in 1999, and Nastradamus also in 1999. The general consensus is that he got worse with each album, and that Nastradamus might be his worst one, period. Judging from the video above, I think his production noticeably deteriorated by 1999. Like Pitchfork said, Nas chased radio airplay instead of another Illmatic.

By 2001, it seemed like Nas lost his crown as the King of New York hip-hop. Someone else would have to pick up the pieces.