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

[marcopolothefraud]

Huey Teocalli is *so expensive* (710 hammers? Even a Quadrireme with the policy card is only 60 hammers), and doesn't seem to provide much tangible benefit. Lake tiles without Huey Teocalli are 1 food-1 gold; afterwards, they'll be 2 food-1 production-1 gold. That's such a bad deal! Maybe it'll work with Liang and Fisheries? Still, I'm feeling pretty skeptical.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Yes, but the seafood tiles will actually be running food surpluses at that point, and in every city BUT Oryol we'll also have harbors with lighthouses further stacking food. In essence, I'll have a bunch of 3/1 tiles to help feed my tundra, plus 4 bonus amenities to help support the pop. I wouldn't do this project in Imperator Aleksandr or in Borodino or whatever, which ahve better things to build, but Oryol will hit size 4 and then stall, but will have a strong production base to use. Those 2/1/1 tiles will be approximately the match of 1/2/1 Russian tundra, but will allow more growth AND will get better with lighthouses.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 80

Pretty eventful turn overseas and in Russia! Lurkers probably know the highlights, but I'll post still for marco's benefit and if any of you poor saps happen to be dedlurking us. 




We finish Engineering, with the now-superfluous completion of ancient walls. Gotta remember to avoid overlapping research like that.

Speaking of, marco, I'm about 6 turns from finishing Drama and Poetry. Will you be sure not to research that past the boost (or I'll swap off, if you're closer to completion than I am, but I think I have the higher culture rate)? You can take the bottom half of the tree. I figure we're least likely to boost D&P since we won't be building any wonders for ages (Huey is admittedly like the very bottom of Oryol's priority list), so the player with the higher culture should plow that row as best he can. 

Distressingly, Ljubljana has denounced us:




Hm. Curious move. If he intended war, well, it doesn't make much sense - he's embroiled up to his eyebrows with the Archduke and Kaiser, although I have to say it looks like they're getting the upper hand this turn, since Ljubljana took a city off Archduke. I know it's a former city-state, though:




So this is still a border skirmish, but the wild military power fluctuations have all the makings of a full-blown galley brawl. Not a piratical raid, it seems, after all. Anyway, ljubljana has already MET Marco, so he can't be pulling the same "get a Golden Age" trick I was (which, let me point out how essential that move was in a few minutes), so my best guess is he's angling after the Nationalism inspiration for whatever reason.

Question is, Marco, do we let him? I think we do. If he declares war on us, he proc's your +100% production bonus for the next 10 turns! I mean, Marco is desperately short of production, so PLEASE, attack us. 

For now, I don't want to take my two major naval cities off infrastructure, which I know is stupidly risky. But, if ljubljana just conquered a city off Archduke, he and Woden must be on the far side of the world, since we know Kaiser borders Australia. Most of their fleets must be there, too, so I've got time. If I see peace made, or if either's military score starts to mount alarmingly, I'll want to get out some walls in the threatened cities and crashbuild a few galleys. But, we're largely past the point where galleys can effectively threaten a defended city, and I can crank defenses out rapidly everywhere except Hong Kong (now Mikasa) and Nazca (now Shikishima). So I station my navy at Shikishima, send out patrols, but otherwise play it cool. 

I do send one galley on a scouting mission around this large island near Shikishima. No sign of intelligent life anywhere, and I might begin colonization efforts here once I have a few military units present:




Meanwhile, Sevastopol purchases my fourth Monumentality settler (after Oryol, Sevastopol itself, and Sissoi Veliki): 




Sissoi Veliki will found on turn 82, Navarin on 83, and Osylabya on 84. Every single city spawns a builder, who promptly chops out a lavra. The lavra completes in ~5 turns, around the same time the city converts to my faith, and immediately begins pumping out +12 - 14 faith each. When I started the Golden Age 20 turns ago, I was pulling in +44 faith, enough for a settler about once every 7 turns. I'm now up to +71 faith per turn, which is good for a settler every...6 turns. The faith compounds and snowballs, each city repaying its own faith cost in ~20 turns, singlehandedly, while empire wide despite mounting settler costs we've actually increased the pace of production. In fact, on turn 85 I should net the 3 era score for having the largest empire, assuming no one else founds more than one city in that time. And we won't slow down, not until we lose Monumentality.

Meanwhile, every one of those lavras will ALSO be kicking in an equal amount of production, giving those cities a huge shot in the arm to start. I'm saving hammers on settlers, which is instead being spent on military units, on districts, and buildings. I'm not just chasing everything, though: Right now I'm going Walls -> Builder -> [chop marsh]->Aqueduct -> Temple -> Harbor at Borodino, which will net me a bunch of boosts, improve gold and faith generation, and some era score. Don't need the capital on settlers! We'll expand anyway! 

If I land a second golden age, at present rates faith generation should be in the hundreds per turn, so even as settlers double in cost from 280 faith to 600 or more we still don't need to slow down. The only thing that will slwo me down will be the military strength to defend these cities, so I need to maintain research, hit frigates, and have a small land army capable of escorting settlers and defending cities with the help of the navy. I WILL paint a target on my back if this keeps up, so once my temples are up it's worth considering spending the faith to purchase apostles, which will delay the next settler by a turn or two but will let me grab Wats and some other Enhancer. 

I lean Wats becuase most of my lavras will have Temples, and I feel like Meeting Houses will be too much production? Wats will be +2 science, which right NOW would be +14 science empire wide, or a +25% boost, while meeting houses would be more of a +10% boost in production. I dunno! It's an embarrasment of riches in Russia, and the best part is it's possible no one knows about it because only science and culture rates get tracked on the diplo ribbon! Some might see how quickly my faith is increasing if they're paying attention and map that to my production, but until this wave of cities goes down I'm hoping to skulk a bit under the radar. 

-clears throat-

Anyway, enough maniacal laughter. Let's move on with the turn. 

I start to spread out my wolfpack from around Shikishima. My goal is to map out the surrounding islands for further expansion and find my rivals' homelands and colonies. Suboptimal is running a lesser Monumentality snowball, so I can expect to find him on the high seas somewhere, and Norway must never be discounted. 




Novaya Zemyla will probably become, with Shikishima, the fleet's main anchorage and naval base. I can get 4 harbors in this area, and the low production means this place will mostly benefit from maritime industries  cards and shipbuilding. It'll be a useful base to establish control around the surrounding area - IF I can hold it. My biggest fear right now is being hit with a wave of Indonesian jongs, since as I figure it that's about the only thing that could stop me right now. Can't fight them without frigate myself, so I'm bending all efforts to rush frigate tech. The bottleneck will be square rigging itself, probably, or Cartography. I'll have Military Engineering in 5 turns (inspired, that is - still need to find and research it), so I'm rushing through celestial nav and horseback riding so I can be ready for it. 

Overview at home. We finally clear the wave of barbs:




I'll dispatch 2 archers and a warrior to clean up the camp, while the other two warriors will head for Novaya Zemyla to begin pacification operations. 

My galleys will mostly stay local, but at least ONE will push for Geneva via the west. Marco, will your galley head east until he also reaches Geneva? That'll be +3 era score for both of us and might just be enough to secure the Golden Age in 20 turns. 

Abroad, the biggest news apart from ljubljana conquering an English city is China. Marco lost 10 faith per turn, at least 2 population, and a whopping 12 culture per turn. Unless I miss my guess very wrongly, he's suffered some kind of disaster that killed some pop and probably pillaged the holy site in the process - knocking out his faith and the Choral Music culture fueling him. I, uh, feel a LITTLE less salty about my lost turtles now. No idea what disaster it was, but he's got OLORAM so his cap is in a floodplain, and holy sites like volcanoes, so a devastating flood or eruption seem most likely.

[marcopolothefraud]

The Nationalism inspiration requires Casus Belli *other* than Formal War, so Ljubljana's denunciation of you isn't going to help with that. My guess is that he's trying to signal to everyone that he doesn't approve of us, probably because we've conquered Hong Kong and Nazca.

Now, I'm facing a big dilemma with my pantheon:




I think Desert Folklore feels like a trap. The way my Holy Sites are planned, they're already going to be +4 adjacency or more thanks to my Appeal bonuses, and they can be placed strategically to boost my other districts too. Desert Folklore can only help Illmatic (+5 Holy Site) and MBDTF (+10 Holy Site), but that already seems like overkill.

(Did I calculate MBDTF adjacency correctly? Here's an image.)



God of the Forge seems more promising to me. I'll have to make a massive navy to defend the weaker cities on the east of our continent, and God of the Forge kicks in immediately while we'll have to wait quite a few turns to see the benefits of Desert Folklore. I'll sit on my turn for a while, then I'll make my decision.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

MBDTF will be at +14 with Desert Folklore, doubling to +28 faith/production with Scripture running. Plus, it wouldn't just benefit Ilmatic and MBDTF - you'd also get a desert city with a +6/+12 site between Ilmatic and MBDFT, plus the Oasis city in the north, plus the desert filler city. It'd be a slower burn to get it all setup, but the payoff would be positively gigantic. You wouldn't have as many holy sites as I have lavras, but you WOULD have far, far stronger ones than I do.

[marcopolothefraud]

Damnit! I decided to stop waiting, and just took God of the Forge right before you made your response. I hope it wasn't a massive blunder or anything. Uh...do you think we can ask the others to roll it back one turn?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

It's okay, we'll live with it. We'll still have Australian adjacencies, just not the massive goosing from Desert Folklore. We'll need to leverage GotF for you, though, and it'll be helpful kicking out quads and galleys at least.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Archduke is way outside his usual window, so it looks I won't get a turn today. 

Need to brainstorm ways to stop a jong attack, since right now that looks like the thing most likely to stop me. I should also consider how to repulse

1)A dedicated Viking raiding expedition (I think I know how to manage this)
2)An attack from two teams against us around the Frigate era. 
3)An attack only on my colonies around Shikishima.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 81






I finished Celestial Navigation
because my science is so high
There's other techs like Currency
But I'll only pass them by
Unless it gives me niter, then I really don't care
Military Engineering, yep, I'm heading there. 




All these lovely settlers that are wandering after me
All these lovely builders chopping lavras far as the eye can see
Every time I chop one I get faith to purchase more
Monumentality settlers forevermore! 




Imperator Aleksandr finished its build a while ago
Now I guess a granary, since I need it still to grow
Size 7 for a campus is definitely the play
I guess there's nothing left for me to say




All these lovely settlers that are wandering after me
All these lovely builders chopping lavras far as the eye can see
Every time I chop one I get faith to purchase more
Monumentality settlers forevermore! 





City-states have fallen and I think, how aggressive I've been -
Carthage has denounced me, 'coz I conquered all of them.
Phoenicia is totally bonkers if he thinks that he can win - 
England and I are now declared friends!




All these lovely settlers that are wandering after me
All these lovely builders chopping lavras far as the eye can see
Every time I chop one I get faith to purchase more
Monumentality settlers forevermore! 


Monumentality settlers forevermore!

[marcopolothefraud]

Bravo for the song.

Do you think we should actively partner up with England/Japan and plan a joint war of some kind? Or do you think this is only going to be a non-agression pact until t110?