[Spoiler] OW PBC1 Canada and Egypt again?

[civac2]

-20% (of something) on the tactician general is intended to offset the stun ability?

[Kaiser]

-20% (of something) on the tactician general is intended to offset the stun ability?

Yes, the sword symbolizes attack, a shield symbolizes defense and a sword and a shield symbolize both. This ability is one of the few one shot abilities in the game, it is only available if your Leader is a tactician and commands a unit with this ability, I like to call this a leader-general.
The commander archetype has an an ability which lets all to the leader-general adjacent units attack again (but this one costs 600 training to activate)

Leader-generals come with up- and downsides. 
- it is easier to level the leader when you can involve him frequent into combat
- there is a risk/chance for events (depending on the event if you want it or not)
- one of the event risks is a straight death when the unit dies (or receives a crit I believe)
- your leader is likely your most advanced character, not having him contribute as a governor but instead improve the combat skills of a single unit might be inefficient
- not all archetypes can become generals (Orators cannot for example)

As Bruindane also starts with a tactician, this a little game of chicken as whoever stuns the enemy general first can then kill him as long as there are no other units. We are disadvantaged due to playing 2nd here, but we can try to play around it by staying in the forest, our starting unit is a Slinger and benefits from the 2nd tactician ability, the stealth inside forests.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 2 1 Again




We're off, again! Everyone is loaded, PBC seems to be working, and the janky, wheezing rattletrap that is RB's first Old World MP game is once more clattering down the tracks. 

I take Rome, as noted in the tech thread. Rome is neatly summarized by Kaiser up above. The extra fatigue grants it some flexibility, it has a strong roster of families, and besides, who doesn't love a good Roman Empire? We found in place (I note a nice chokepoint makes this capital basically impregnable - the game will be over one way or the other long before it's in danger), with access to stone (under the tooltip), cattle, deer, and grain. 




Kaiser tells me that Settlers are built with growth, so first and foremost I prioritize getting the farm up on my grain to get that flowing in more quickly. I need to think about my orders in advance before I just start clicking on a turn, and the game wanted me to build a quarry or something out to the west instead. I'll do that, but only after we've got more food and growth coming in for those early settlers. 

I also have two governor candidates - Aemilia and Antonia. Antonia seems particularly apt, with 2 more growth, 2.4 civics (essentially culture, yeah?), minor reductions in unhappiness and a boost to science, at the cost of a bit of gold every turn. When I have a pair of orders to spare that seems like a worthy trade to make. 

Warrior begins crossing the difficult hills to my west, but I spare a pair of orders to send the scout down to a city site in the south, to make sure it really is clear for the settler in 4 turns (it is). Now I'll prioritize getting the warrior west more than scouting to the south, since the south SHOULD be backlines. More orders will be important, soon! Otherwise, the only thing I do is zoom in close to admire the beautiful city graphics. Check out my lovely capital at Caudine Forks:




And Kaiser's Urban Planning:




I love the dense urban feel, the culture-specific buildings, the scaled trees - ah, simply a beautiful game so far.

[Kaiser]

And here an example why I like having hunters around especially on maps with coastal sites

[Kaiser]

I managed to read your report just now, due to travelling to Geneva by car. A great start so far.

[Kaiser]

T2 Babylon




I start the turn off with triggering the ancient ruins, Aristrocracy is a valuable boon, an early law allows for early garrisons (the capital started with one) and 120 beakers is 5 turns of research currently. The other option brings 40 culture for Urban Planning and Steadfast for Nabo (25% strength vs tribal for him as a general, 10% strength vs tribal for all units as he is leader).
Steadfast will making clearing barb/tribal units a lot easier, especially on the leader, but 120 science is a strong early game boost. 
Looking at the laws itself, they are not that urgent, as we currently do not have many units (Vassalage) nor any marshes nearby (Centralization). The science bonus from Centralization seems the biggest impact, especially as it increases to 4 in ~12T.

I decide to ponder this decision (click on x) and go on with my turn for the moment




Nabo is assigned general of our Slinger




Here are some remarks for your start, desert tiles cannot be roaded or be used for urban tiles, so I recommend building a road N of it to make crossing these hills quicker. That is a relatively high priority, so Ironworking -> Slavery (for roads) should be considered high priority research targets.

You likely will want to get a scout or other unit for opening the blue ancient ruins for you at some point, but it is not urgent as it is out of the way. Maybe your third unit (after settler -> settler) can be a scout to go N and then W later? Probably depends on the number of free city sites you stumble on.

Your scout can either try to cross the mountain range (purple) or go S and circle around it next to my capital/near the 2nd possible pass. I recommend moving your Warrior first next turn to get a better understanding what is W/SW beyond the mountain range. Circling S has the advantage of liberating me to Scout between me and Bruindane.

Note the option to spend civics for marrying, this comes typically as a free of charge event, but if it does not, we need to trigger it at some point. (If it did not come by T10, we should start worrying)




Red is the expected midline of the map, I assume there is a city site under the brown circle due to the citrus and dyes ressources. claiming this is a high priority as I can likely quickly connect the coastal gap between the cities for very quick reinforcements.
If you can scout SW along the inner side of the mountain range, I can circle wider in direction of Bruindane with my scout (orange), else I will likely return in a clockwise circle to scout my N and NE. Napo and his Slinger will move in direction of the expected city site (I can likely confirm it first with the scout) to stake a claim, expanding here with hunters will likely be my preferred option, but it is in Bruindanes face.

The attentive reader realized already that I did take a decision on our ancient hut event (missing exclamation mark in the bottom left of the last screen)




The current bottleneck for Aristrocracy is civics, we need 400 (so 6 turns) to enact the law and even more to get the ambassador going which will mostly bring me opinion boosts. This conflicts with spending civics for assigning Sheritum as a governor, which also gets an opinion boos but most importantly increases our local civics production in Urban planning for getting a quick miner specialist done.
That and the fact that Steadfast will help me REX quicker and me expecting the site in the SW to be defended lead to the decision for the 1st option, 40 culture for urban planning (new developed status on T9) and Steadfast for my leader.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Rome Turn 2

With 11 orders to spend, I am able to accomplish everything I want to accomplish. The warrior is pushed out into a flat desert beyond the hills, and we spot a forward city:




The scout defogs the south, and finds some resources in a pile of ruins:




I take the wood, since that seems hardest to come by before lumbermills in the mid to late game. Bit disappointed to lose the research event I got the first time, but it is what it is. 

By the end of turn, I establish my queen as governor of the capital for the boosts to growth, culture, and happiness, and have defogged the land between Kaiser's capital and my own:

[Kaiser]

Thank you for the scouting, that location looks like a great sages seat with three marble quarries (they give civics which in turn are needed for specialists)



We crossed the middle of the map, the expected city site in the South is there but looks to be very underwhelming as I did not spot any other seafood there. It still is important for strategical reasons, but it will be a nightmare to defend with all this forest around.
Bruindane has a similar scouting strategy, as he already named the El Grillo Woods thanks to being first in turn order.



This is an amazing find and will likely be my third city, maybe my fourth if my plan for buying a settler when developed works out (the main thing I want to do with the civics saved from not picking Aristrocacy).
We will have to discuss my settling strategy, but currently I see most likely N and NW for hunters, NE for sages.
Claiming the middle point city needs military support, thanks to us both starting with tactician, it is only feasible to get it down as long as there is only one military unit on bruindanes side, as I can hide my general in the trees and attack it once it attacks the city. As soon as there is a 2nd one, I need a 2nd one as well to not get stun locked. My next research has to be iron working to get a melee unit for fighting in these woods.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Thanks for the report, Professor. A few questions from your faithful apprentice:

Could you talk about how you decide which family goes to which city? How do you determine N and NW for hunters, NE for sages?

Second, how does terrain affect combat? Why do we need melee units to fight in woods?

[Kaiser]

First question:
The main thing you want to consider what you want the cities to do and where they should be located to do their job best, especially considering order expenditure.
In this case I have the choice between Hunters, Sages and Traders as I already picked Artisans. Of the remaining families I can only pick 2 and I am already leaning heavily in favor of Hunters and Sages

Hunters:
- have +2 base training to get to 10 training out of the gate, so get T1 units out in 6 turns instead of 8 (not considering overflow, it is actually 2 units in 12 vs 2 units in 15)
- boost camps and nets by 100% (including specialists on these)
- ranged units get +20% strength when in own territory
- please ignore seat boni for 99.99% of the game for this family
=> these are my best unit production cities (which most are going to do), I want to have them close to the front (to have minimal order need for getting to the front) and best case some camp or net ressources (camel for example will yield 1 order instead of 0,5 with a Hunter family)

Sages:
- +2 civics per year means these cities are good at doing projects (mostly meh options) and specialists
- -20% urban specialists cost combines nicely with above
- +1 science per specialists
- Seat: free random tech (from available and +25% science)
=> these are my economic powerhouse cities, science is already in the package and urban specialists are the best way to get to global yields (science, civics, training) as well as discontent reduction and culture (there are some urban improvements here which are strong). These are most likely to do something else than units so go to the backline, also the city site in the NE has 3 marble each bringing 2 civics when improved.
A Sages city there with three quarries would be 8 + 2 Sages + 3*2 marble quarries = 16 civics per turn, base cost of an urban specialist is 40 -20% =32 (but scales from there with the number of specialists)

Traders are a SP option in my opinion

One thing to remember is that you typically do want to balance the number of cities per family you have to avoid opinion issues with the families. It is typically fine to have 1 or shortly 2 cities more for a family, but long term you will struggle to keep them on your good side.
The more families dislike you the more likely are small rebellions (barb units spawning within family cities) up to a coup or straight assasination (can also come from relatively high power/close family people who dislike you). This conflicts with keeping your leader as long as possible (I think 85 or 90 is a forced death) to beef him up with abilities and traits.

I for example sold some iron to get to 200 gold for a Influence mission on the Artisan leader to get a +40 opinion boost with him (and thus his family) until my leader dies or an event removes the bonus. There is also a 25% chance that this will trigger an event which might be beneficial or not, we will see, it takes 2 turns and will be finished on my T5.

For your start I recommended:
- Landowners to optimize your REX phase (more growth = more settlers and workers) but they will soon become less important, mostly for some unit production and a rural specialst here and there (so a high luxury site might be a good Landowner city, a high ressource site as well if it is far and you have the food to invest for boosted rural yields and the lower science rural specialists bring)
- Statesmen will be your equivalent to my sages, they are less good (actually near standard) at getting specialists out and bring less science, but bring orders and have the very nice decree option. We can consider getting the 3 marble spot for you as well so you can get an easy 8 + 3*2 = 14 marble civics to build 40 civics decrees, so getting 6 additional orders every 3 turns instead, let us think about it
- Champions are your unit pump withe identical production advantage to hunters with the added benefit that the seat will be a military production monster (they do ot have champions) and champion cities are excellent front sites due to their inherent 50% city defesen. Steadfast helps REXing. You want to make sure that your champion cities have access to horses, best case also camels and elephants