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

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

So because thrawn/Archduke play last in the order, they get first pick of civilizations. That means the pick runs 43211234 in terms of teams. But either teammate can pick in that slot - so one of thrawn/Archduke picks, then one of you/me, then Roland/sub, then Woden/ljub, followed by ljub/Woden, sub/Roland, me/you, and then Archduke/thrawn. It's just the reverse of the play order.

The Dutch are quite strong, but I think maybe overlap with Australia's strengths a bit. I'd put them below Norway/Indonesia/Japan in that order as Aussie partners. The +1 culture isn't much, even if you stack trade confederation on top of it.

[marcopolothefraud]

I've mentioned that I'm not too comfortable with military tactics, so I will pick Australia, I guess. (Or Korea as a backup. What are the odds that both Australia and Korea are taken ?)

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Then you take Australia, and with pick 7 I'll take one of Norway/Indonesia/Japan, with England/Phoenicia/Netherlands as a backup.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

If Archduke/Thrawn (henceforth team Empire) take Australia, then we can take Norway (my preference) or Indonesia, gambling that Korea or a similarly strong science civ will still be available at 7. 

Woden/Ljubljana = Team Slovenia (ancient Slovenes worshiped Woden, Ljubljana is the capital)

Roland/suboptimal = no idea. Team Quixote? (Roland is a knight, but a suboptimal one...hence Quixote).

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

So yeah, having slept on it, I think our best bet is a strong science civ paired with the strongest naval civ we can get. Australia and Korea are the two most powerful researching civs, and of the two I favor Australia on a water map - islands make seowons a little difficult, while Australia's coast and appeal bonuses will be easy to get. Because the selection here is more limited, I think we should have you claim Australia with your first pick. 

Of the naval civs, Norway, Indonesia, England, and Phoenicia I think are all strong. Norway is my favorite - the bonus to melee naval units and pillaging is very strong. The gameplan would be for Norway to swarm out longships with maritime industries (absurdly cheap!) and harass and pillage nearby civs on their islands. We'll make enemies doing that, but if you keep spamming longships there's nothing they can do about it. The knarr ability is great for naval invasions and seizing beachheads, and the ability to cross oceans and heal gives Norway incredible strategic mobility and longevity. The stave church is meh but could pair well with Work Ethic. And as thrawn showed, we don't need to found Work Ethic in order to benefit from it (religious spread will be difficult overseas). Pair with Auckland (which shouldn't appear) and God of the Sea and you've got a strong coastal city, too.

Longships are ridiculously cheap, too. With conscription, they cost NO maintenance, meaning you can spam them to no end from your cities - I'd have my coastal cities churning them out all the time, honestly. Expensive to upgrade, but you don't have to ever upgrade them - their role is to pillage and harass, not to fight! No one can really catch or stop them until Caravels come online (with one exception, which I'll get to). With Maritime Industries and Harald's bonus, they only cost 22 production! A decent city can kick the little buggers out in 1-2 turns, meaning by turn 70 you could have more than 10 of them swarming around, descend on a coast en masse, pillage the hell out of it, and withdraw. All of that covers Australia (some can stay on home defense) and lets Oz pull ahead of the field. The Vikings draft off Australian inspirations and eurekas married to pillaged research. No one can retaliate in kind until they get to Privateers, waaaaaaay the hell up the tech tree (with one exception, which I'll get to). 

This civ is so good on the water that I think there's almost no chance thrawn/Archduke don't take it, but there's honestly a case to be made to take them first and hope for Australia/Korea with our second pick. I do think Australia is the stronger pick, though, since there's so much more good naval civs available. However, the denial value would also be strong - Australia would be VERY vulnerable to longship raids. If Norway lasts until Pick 7, there's every chance in the world Archduke/Thrawn will be looking at it and salivating with pick 8, so we'll certainly take it. 

Indonesia is my second choice...maybe. The coastal adjacencies and kampung make them a poor man's Australia with a bit stronger naval game and a much stronger faith game. The gameplan here would be to maximize faith production by all means possible. Indonesia would found the religion and take Crusade (obviously) and then faith-boosting beliefs, perhaps cheaper missionaries + pilgrimage and then a synagogue? Anyway, with a good faith income rolling in, Indonesia does NOT chase monumentality, but instead saves that for Jongs. The jong is the powerspike - you hit it at Mercantlism, a bit sooner than Square Rigging (though who knows, these days?), and it pairs wonderfully with missionaries. The missionary gets your full movement (Great Admiral/Great Lighthouse synergy), then you hit your enemy with Crusade and now the Jong is +15 - the equivalent of a jong fleet! Add in the admiral and it's +20, which lets the jong credibly go toe to toe with battleships. That's an ideal scenario, obviously. 

The weakness is an Australian/Indonesian civ combo would be INCREDIBLY vulnerable in the classical age, which is when thrawn/Archduke are most dangerous. If they take Norway, this combo is almost impossible to justify - both civs NEED to be coastal, but both civs also will have a very difficult time fending off a coordinated longboat push. Even combining forces would be minimally effective, since the longships would be faster and have access to ocean tiles, enabling them to outmaneuver us fairly easily. Both civs need time to ramp up to full speed - if they get there, they'll be unstoppable, but in multiplayer things rarely go that way. My Zulu warriors would have been unstoppable *if* I had survived the classical age more or less intact - but the civs with ancient or classical advantages get first crack. For that reason, despite Indonesia's overall strength, I hesitate to take it.

A better option for countering Norway is Phoenicia. In fact, uh, as I look, Phoenicia might be *better*. The loyalty mechanic for the same continent is gimmicky and can't be relied upon, but there is room for shenanigans with Colonial Offices/Taxes and flipping your capital to different cities in the late game. Unlike Indonesia, though, Carthage has some early game advantages - you'll be able to easily pump out settlers - good economic advantage. Woden put it to great use in PBEM18, and he might take Phoenicia again because of that (I can't believe Phoenicia and Brazil were rated "weak" and allowed in while other players were stuck with Canada.) That will keep Carthage competitive through the ages (sadly, the eureka for writing is wasted, since we all get it on turn 1). 

The real strength of Carthage is the Cothon, though: +50% to naval units AND settlers! That is flat out better than Harald's bonus, with the only disadvantage being you need to build the Cothon first. Accordingly, Phoenicia should rush Celestial Nav and make getting this out their top priority - I'd even bypass the already-unlocked Holy Site to make the Cothon your first district. The +50% is key. You get it for ranged units, too, and frigates and bbs rule naval warfare after the classical age. Harald will be churning out Caravels, not nearly as good. Paired with the bireme, though, it perfectly counters longship spam: the bireme is faster than the longship (without the ability to enter ocean tiles), so if he comes in to pillage you can run him down. It is just as strong, and is just as cheap. So, for every longship, you can have a bireme. 

Now, you don't have Norway's pillaging ability, so your offensive ability with biremes is limited. But they do make a beautiful coastal defense force, and can safeguard Australian/Phoenician shores. So the gameplan is to make use of the Cothon to expand wide in the classical age, using biremes to fend off our opponents and defend Australia as it ramps up. You build a s trong capital with the plaza and its bonuses, and use your production bonus to kick out frigates (or quads) for a decisive war when Australia is ready. I might take Phoenicia before Indonesia, honestly. I definitely will if thrawn/Archduke take Norway with their first pick. If sub/ljub or woden/Roland take it, I'm not as worried about maximum aggression, so I might lean Indonesia in that case. 

Finally, that brings us to England. Up front, the fact taht most of their abilities don't come online until the Industrial age is a huge weakness. The game is usually decided before factories and power matter. Especially with Australia, this makes a poor pairing. The bonus coal and iron just doesn't seem like it will ever be relevant.

Victoria's ability is decent, but not game-breaking. You want to get your RNDs down as early as you can - which means that your strongest ship is likely a galley or a quadrireme. Figure you'll found about 10 cities over the course of the game, MAYBE 15 if it goes long - that's probably like 5 free galleys, 5 quads, and 5 caravels or frigates. Over the lifetime of the game, Harald and Dido will both get more out of their production abilities. 

The only real saving grace is the Royal Navy Dockyard. It's a bit more military focused than the Cothon - it generates more gold to help pay for those ships, it grants +1 movement to all ships, and has double GA point generation. With first strike being critical to victory at sea, those are not insignificant bonuses. I dunno, though, England has been nerfed again and again since it was only "decent" at release, and the only real buff since has been getting the free naval unit - the free melee unit ability, already niche, has been nerfed.  Madness. 

I don't really like England, and this writeup hasn't convinced me. 

Later on, I'll look at niche dark horse picks - the Ottomans, the Dutch, the Japanese - for naval civs. Right now I like Norway -> Phoenicia/Indonesia -> England in that order. I might like one of the dark horses like the Netherlands more than England, though. 

I'll think about counterplay and opponents next.

[marcopolothefraud]

Wow, thanks for the writeup! It really shows what a noob can learn.

Australia vs. Korea: Yeah, I see how your argument makes sense. Ultimately, we don't know how big the landmasses are - a map like PBEM 4 has enough coast to make Australia more appealing than Korea, while a map like PBEM 7 would favor Korea. (And PBEM 7 was a distinctly naval map, with canal cities and large swathes of ocean).

That's how cheap Longships are? Dear God. I wish we were playing pre-2019 so that we could manipulate chop overflow with those ships and get extra production. I did find a Gathering Storm guide for Norway (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f...1935960977), and here's what I noticed:
- To carry out a coastal raid, the adjacent land tile must not have a military unit present. What's to stop everyone else from parking archers on their most valuable tiles and defending them from your pillaging? It's a production sink, for sure, but Archers are 40 production with the Agoge card - that's relatively cheap.
- We can pillage free cities pretty easily, because those are controlled by AI. Is it an exploit to deliberately make free cities (settling too close to someone else and intentionally improving tiles) to pillage them for yields? We will have to ask this in the Organization thread once everyone has picked a civ.

Damn, the Indonesia and England comments makes a lot of sense. That makes me sad, because I would love to play a good Jong game. Maybe if we had a Medieval Era start it would be better; I've seen some suggestions for a late start in a PBEM, and eventually we'll probably do one.

You mentioned that Phoenicia should rush Celestial Navigation technology - remember, we're using Random Tech Tree, so we wouldn't be able to beeline it. There's a good chance that Celestial Navigation will be very cumbersome, and only be available during the Classical Era (I'm referring to the Dark/Normal/Golden Age classification of "era", not the technological classification). That would slow down Phoenicia from getting a Golden Age, which is an important crux of its strategy.

[marcopolothefraud]

10-15 cities over the course of the game, huh? Maybe I should list some hip-hop albums that I want to name them after.

• 1988: "It Takes a Nation..." by Public Enemy
• 1991: "The Low-End Theory" by A Tribe Called Quest
• 1994: "Illmatic" by Nas
• 1996: "ATLiens" by OutKast
• 1998: "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" by Ms. Lauryn Hill

• 2000: "The Marshall Mathers LP" by Eminem
• 2001: "The Blueprint" by Jay-Z
• 2004: "Madvillainy" by MF Doom and Madlib
• 2006: "Hell Hath No Fury" by No Malice and Pusha T
• 2008: "Tha Carter III" by Lil Wayne

• 2010: "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" by Kanye West
• 2012: "Good Kid, m.A.A.d City" by Kendrick Lamar
• 2015: "Rodeo" by Travis Scott
• 2017: "Laila's Wisdom" by Rapsody
• 2017: "Scum F*** Flower Boy" by Tyler, the Creator

How many of these do you recognize, CMF? 

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Damn, you're right. I guess that's a bit of blow to Phoenicia, but not enough to knock them down, I think. They're still my second choice after Norway (I'd like to be aggressive and show off pillage swarms, since I never got to show the Zulu corps in action). 

(Zulu would actually be not a bad pick with a naval civ - Zulu cover culture and land, the other civ covers science and the water). 

As for your albums...

Not a one!   

I'd do Queen albums but Archduke already did that one. I'll pick a theme once I know what civ I can end up with.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Shit, we're 3 and 6, not 2 and 7. How did I misread that?

[marcopolothefraud]

How does Zulu boost culture? I'm a little confused on that front.

If we are picking 3 and 6, there's a distinct chance that Korea and Australia will both be taken. In that case, the best science civs would be the Netherlands or China. (Is China really that good at science? What if I can't find good Campus adjacency?)

I have to admit, I'm tempted to play as the Dutch, because Polders and de Zeven Provincien are both very fun in single player. The Archduke nearly led them to victory in PBEM12, too. I'm worried that Niter may be hard to find for them, though.