Polish/South Korean vacation succession

[Kaiser]

T28



Currency in, time to wait for some district discounts before placing the Commercial Hubs



We are back to 3 turns completion to get the 3 era score next age but gained 2 vs 1
I wanted to chop the jungle and realized that we did not finish BW yet, damn my plan lacked a key tech and I realized it the turn of execution. Getting BW would unlock another district making discounts more difficult and takes 3 turns.
I decided to go for it nevertheless but to delay Astrology:
- wait CH placement until both campus are finished for discount, until then finish Builder. Afterwards build CH
- JRTI will build 1 Warrior 1 Slinger against the barbs and I will recall our NW Warrior as well
- finish Astrology and BW, get HS down at BWC
- chop GP without discount at JRTI




I found Germany's loyality influence and it looks like Bandar Brunei is our middle ground, Suzeraining it early enough might discourage him from attacking it but we really need to consider if it is worth fighting Germany over it or to conquer it ourselves.



I just realized here that Huts are on, what a crazy MP game with Religious Settlements and Huts



I should probably switch of the Builder in IBC but I hate to let the card go to waste, we will have one Builder waiting around there for quite some turns and to skip sailing for the moment.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Hey, Kaiser! 

Thank you so much for taking this game. I appreciate not getting booted - as you have found, we're in a dominant position and it'd be a shame to lose that. The crazy unbalanced settings have all played in our favor with free scouts, free pop, free gold, etc, and our snowball is roaring.

Couple of things:

1)I'll be back next week, the evening (US time) of Monday. I can take back the reins then. Could you let me know what you've been up to the last two weeks? I know you were travelling and have a real game to report on, so don't worry about the lack of turn reports. Just want to know where things stand and what your intentions were! 

2)How committed are you to the religion push? Like i noted, I'm not sure the RoI is there unless we can nab Work Ethic (may as well exploit all the busted mechanics we can, right?). Three other players - Japan, Germany (???), and India - were all chasing religions last I checked, so while we can beat Hungary and Canada, we'll be picking last. Are the beliefs worth it? I know faith is useful in volume, but it has to pay for the production we invest into those holy sites, as well as justifying the district slot, etc. I know Poland has bonuses tied to religion (culture bombs, easy conversion) but those don't seem worth the cost, either. 

Other than that, I have no qualms. Good job and thank you!

[Kaiser]

I did actually prepare a intermediate report 1-2 turns ago but did not get to upload it. I hope your vacation was great and saw a lot. I will then play today's turn and leave it to from there, I would like to know how this game proceeds as it looks quite interesting. Japan takes sometimes 30+ hours for their turn, so it might be that there won't be a turn today.

I mostly redecided against attacking the CS in the short term due to your good work finding and getting envoys in them. Also the closest one are two commercial CS (Bandar Brunei and Lisbon) which are close to Germany. Due to Polands special building, these are very attractive to keep, however Germany is a good and bad neighbor in that direction. Bad because they have an attack advantage on CS, good because they are really backwards.

I decided to go for the Settler pump and am finishing this turn commercial district #2 and #3. My intention was getting Sukienieces quickly here for the trade routes and to abuse their speciality to further increase the income advandantage, we are currently ~40 per turn.
The GP is done and AH is under construction. I am currently waiting for it to complete Magnus with the "no pop for settlers promotion", who is already establishing in the city. When he is established, you can start pumping the Settlers and should have enough to buy nearly 2.

For religion I invested into 1 HS and 1 Temple (finishing this turn), if I remember correctly Japan is not competing and Work Ethic is still open. Alternatively DoF is still open as well and might become important due to our central position and when leaving the CS for the moment alone as Hungary is probably the only real competition in this game.

Hypathia comes in three turns, I left the Library open in OCISLY.

Here is the report, as I said the pictures are about 2-3 turns outdated.




Overview:
JRTI did not finish the Sucienicze as it started building the GP and Ancestral Hall.
BWC has a Builder already having connected the Iron and Copper who is heading to JRTI's Iron next to complete the Apprenticship Eureka.
Both CD finish next turn.



It seems my memory has to have been off, but we should be at 16.6 or 19.9/30, she will come in soon.





Here are the city stats




I also found Geneva and got the barb camp.
So in total I found 3 CS, Geneva, Military CS (I do not remember its name), Jerusalem (quest fulfilled).



This is from a turn later, it is probably the first time my first government is MR, but each city had a district already built (nearly for IBC) and was approaching its housing limits.

[Kaiser]

The turn came around this morning and I played the last turn, I hope you enjoy your position and will keep us informed here how this game will proceed.



As stated we finished 2 CD and a temple.

JRTI:
Finishes the AH next turn and needs 3 turns for Magnus to establish, with AH and Colonization it could two turn a Settler. It already has a partially produced Settler in its queue and I would start pumping out settlers here although it also certainly wants to build its Sukienicze.

BWC:
Was set on a Monument so you will have free reign over its amazing production next turn. It is able to 4 turn a Settler at the moment without using the Colonization card. It likely wants a CD next at your marked spot, if you improve its fish it will fulfill the Harbor Eureka

OCISLY:
Builds its Sukienicze and I suggest a trade route afterwards

IBC:
Probably identical as OCISLY but you have a district to place here as well. I hesitad between a HS or a Campus on the Campus location, both would get +2.



So far no competition for Religion #3, Hypathia might be delayed due to an unfortunate barb but should come in in 3-5 turns



Scorewise you are the hidden champion, the difference to India are basically the civics, which are all researched down to one turn. I set Mysticism to finish this turn so you have an envoy to play around with to either get some more boni or to Suzerain Bandar Brunei for example.

This also gives you more time to decide with your district at IBC as Drama & Poetry is one turn from finished so you currently should get the discount.
You currently have 2 Campus, 3 CD, 1 GP, 1 HS, 0 E built, so 7 built of 5 available types.

You should pull ahead quickly when starting to settle some more cities




The cities are monsters for an online game, especially JRTI and BWC have huge output.



You have 4 amenities connected, these will be spread around more when settling more cities, there are more amenities to be settled for.




I was running these policies as there were none better to run, due to mysticsm finishing you have a free selection and I suggest you switch to at least colonization.



You should be able to buy 2 Settlers for the available by the time Magnus is established, so you should be able to get 3-4 Settlers out within the next 4 turns if you want to.



There are some more forces available and quite well spread, I have scouted some more and put numbers to the cities to indicate the settling priority I would have picked.



This was something I still am undecided on, but there is the opportunity to try to block Germany to the South Western parts by rush settling in this direction. You could arrange the cities differently to get another one in on that river.
This would likely antagonize Germany though and they are already quite backwards. I am not sure if it better to settle circlewise and try to get more into the direction of India instead as they have a better ingame position.



And here a last shot of what I believe the name of this game should be from here on onwards :D
It would be interesting for me to see you evaluation of the situation andto learn where you agree and disagree with my assessment. Enjoy this game it is really fun

As a last note, I tried to get you as much flexibility as possible in your upcoming turn.
- You will have a trade route to launch (I relocated it to IBC as it seems to be the only place without a route to the other cities)
- You can select new policies
- You have 1 envoy to place
- You have 2 emtpy build queues in you strongest cities (JRTI and BWC)
- You will likely get the Library pillaged by that barb that showed up, there is a Warrior healing in BWC and a Slinger coming down to defend against the barb

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I actually had two envoys to use, so I flipped into Diplomatic league, sent a 2 for 1 to Geneva, then dropped the second envoy (generated naturally, if you look at your screenshots you'll see you were just about to nab it) right after it to grab the suzerainty and a 15% global science boost as long as we're at peace. Our science is up to 40 bpt and we're absolutely crushing India and Germany.

My big worry is Hungary. His Empire score is close to ours and he has a GG on the way. I think I want to start eating city-states soon, and have a decent military to defend once we make contact, because he is tops in military power, too. After this settler push, it's gonna be horsemen or swordsmen, probably. And once we have the military, may as well USE it by conquering city-states...

[Kaiser]

Yes, you are right, I forgot to mention that in my report and stopped thinking about the natural envoy. Suzeraining Geneva is a very good move, as it brings direct benefits and will become even better with Hypathia.

Did you manage to get the Archery Eureka I was working on? There was also a quest for that and I built you 2 Slingers in preparation for the Machinery Eureka.

I agree that Hungary is the biggest threat, I did not find them and started assuming that they might be on a different continent though.
You have the better insight here, do you know the type of map script used?

How many Settlers do you want to get out before switching to Military?
I personally would have gone for the top 4 spots and then likely let JRTI continue on Settlers while the remaining empire builds military for defense and CS conquering.

Which CS do you want to go for first?
I suggest E (Fez and Jerusalem, if I remember correctly) to take away some benefits from India.
Afterwards N (Kandy, Nazca, Cardiff) while Kandy could be leveraged to generate relics, I believe keeping Bandar Brunei, Lisbon and Geneva is more than a handful already.
Do you intend keeping Bandar Brunei and/or Lisbon?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I picked up the Archery eureka, and right now am maneuvering my slingers near an Indian slinger. I don't think he'll try anything since he's bottom of hte board in military, but I don't want any opportunities for mischief.

I think it's a Pangaea map. I can't remember if it was mentioned at setup or not, but I'm almost certain it is. Japan and Hungary are almost certainly somewhere west of Germany, since I've hit land's end east of India. That's bad news, since neither one is a credible opponent to Hungary.

Settlers, probably yeah, 4, maybe even 5 if I feel cheeky, but I more or less want to keep the tap going until all the land is filled or they're too expensive.

For city-states, I'm the opposite. I want to start with BB. It's too close to my core to keep and too close to Germany, I want it as a frontier city. Then work north from there to Cardiff -> Kandy -> Nazca, finally swinging south to Fez and Jerusalem. Lisbon I will keep to boost my Markets, since it's a sort of tundra city and a bit out of the way. I can always grab it later. Geneva, Lisbon, and that far eastern Military city will be sufficient space for envoy fights, and my culture generation is so miles ahead of India's that I should be able to hold onto Geneva with little problem.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I'll have 4 settlers out in the next 2 turns, and also be finishing all my Markets (can't spell the Polish name) in those two turns as well. With 4 out for the high priority sites, I'm thinking to do an entire civ-wide wave of Settlers while I'm in Colonization. The longest would be about 9 turns, start to finish, but with the 4 I already have out, I will more than triple my city count in only 20 or so turns counting travel time (more than triple, because JRTI is going to stay on settlers as long as we're in Colonization and we have viable settling sites). That will give me ~14 cities and firm control over the center of the map. Military needs are at present slim, as we are ahead of India and have far more productive cities, Germany is way behind, and lolCanada. Hungary could be an issue, but he seems distant, and won't be planning an attack right away. I lead in infrastructure and have no need, at present, of further campuses or culture, so Settlers seems like my best bet.

That's the plan.

Pictures when I have a good update coming in.

[Kaiser]

thanks for the update, I am looking forward to the pictures.
Did you start conquering CS yet?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Not yet; I've only played two or three turns. India was on vacation over the weekend. 

Anyway, here's a few images. The main takeaway is that Operation Settler is a go (Memo to self: create better operation name). We met our second-to-last opponent, Japan. Check out these three interesting screens:









Couple of things. First, he has a strong culture score but wretched science. Apart from his capital, he only has the small city of Fukuoka to his name (nice place, I've been there! ). He's also at war with Hungary, who is the leading military power in the game and my last possible rival for victory at this point. Accordingly, I offer a bevy of horses, enough for a complete unit, in return for his spices. I have no need of the war units right now - if necessary, I have iron to upgrade for defense in case Germany gets uppity, but I have a larger total military than both India and Germany, India is far away, and Germany is tiny - and could use the extra amenity. He gets an extra horse to annoy Hungary with. 

I met Japan by contacting a culture state out west, which has 6 Japanese envoys in it, probably an effort to keep Hungarian levies away. I figure Hungary must be in the neighborhood, so I'll keep probing for Japanese or Hungarian territory that direction.

Otherwise, JRTI and BWC are finishing settlers in the next two turns. All 4 cities have settlers queued up next, plus my 2 on the map, for a total of 8 coming out in the next 6 turns (plus additions due to cost increases). Meanwhile, Germany is on 2 cities, India has 4 but two are small, and Japan/Hungary are slapfighting. If I get these cities established -and there's no reason I shouldn't - I'll have the game sewn up.