[SPOILERS] TheArchduke blasts into Space as Russia

[TheArchduke]

Turn 6

   

We have a scout next turn and will start the settler afterwards.

Current plan is for the scout to head SE, then along the river then E or NE as the terrain dictates.

Warrior is continuing SW and will cut E in some turns.

Depending on the second city choice, on of the two will return to protect the 2nd city site. I think I will go slinger->builder->lavra in "Your name here".

Lavra in the second city. Let´s cross our fingers for a Natural Wonder so we do not need to hard research Astrology.

[TheArchduke]

I'm dedlurking here for sure. The more the merrier.

God of Festivals seems like the strongest by a good margin with the map we can see now. Boosting our preferred yield on three tiles we will absolutely work, although some might not come into play until the third city.

Regarding Divine Spark, "wasted" great person points are now converted into faith, so this pantheon essentially gives you +1 faith per Lavra, Shrine, or Temple. I don't think that's enough to bump it above a really strong culture pantheon, but that's a pretty nice boost on top of the scientists and the earlier religion. I'd probably put it ahead of Earth Goddess in our situation.

I don't think Lady of the Reeds is much help given what we see right now. It boosts the marsh rice and nothing else currently visible: the benefit is to desert floodplains only, so the flooded grass and plains tiles don't get anything out of it.

Finally, you're not wrong about River Goddess in this situation, where the best HS spots are already riverside. It's definitely a fallback, but a solid one if we think we will have space and time to grow upwards.

3 culture is just too good in the early game. Besides units, settlers and districts, your precious production just can not find its way into monuments. Even in SP I find myself building/buying a monument in my capital way late into medieval.

An interesting point about divine Spark, it gives it a bit more oompf. A consideration if we miss god of festivals.

I did take River Goddess, because my gut feeling is that it is amazing longterm. Maybe without that early war with Cornflakes it might have been an idea.

Emphasizing early culture is always a good idea in Civ6 (says person who played Rome in two PBEM games ). I was also thinking that Goddess of Festivals (+1 culture from plantations) was likely the best option for this start, if it hasn't already been taken by someone else first. I think that God of the Open Sky (+1 culture on pastures) should also be considered a top choice, as you're likely to find more pasturable tiles as you continue exploring (plus horses are still invisible for the moment until discovering Animal Husbandry). Fortunately you'll have a lot more map information here before you need to make a choice. Goddess of the Hunt (+1 food and +1 production from camps) seems like a good fallback option if they aren't available since you have both deer and truffles in the immediate area. The deer tile is already 2/3 yield and would go to 3/4/2 yield (!) with that pantheon and a camp, just as the truffles would become a 3/3/5 tile. Limited usefulness but if there's a camp-able tile at each initial city location, could be a strong option. And while I generally don't like River Goddess, if ever there was a game to use it, it would be when playing as Russia. Also if you end up getting a late pantheon, Earth Goddess is worth a look just because more faith is always going to be good for Russia.

Pending more map information, my tier list would be roughly similar to yours:

1) Goddess of Festivals
2) God of the Open Sky (there will be more cows and horses out there in the fog!)
3) Goddess of the Hunt

Then a sizable drop off to things like River Goddess and Earth Goddess. I wouldn't even consider Divine Spark since Russia doesn't need it to found a religion - I'm pretty sure that Lavras still get double Great Prophet points and you can lock in the (very cheap cost) at your first two cities for a pair of quick districts. Based on back of the envelope math, I think they might be as cheap as 35 production, literally about the same as a warrior. Just hope that you can find a natural wonder quickly. (I generally hate scout first builds but in your situation here, where you need to find a natural wonder ASAP, it feels like a solid choice. Plus map info and finding city states are obviously always good.)

My one major suggestion the moment would be thinking about putting your second city over to the southeast where it could grab those 4/1 spice tiles and share them with the capital. The capital has amazing production with all those forested hills so getting a couple more high food tiles that it could borrow would help out a ton. Also, this is super early and will probably change as you explore the map, but your "1" Holy Site might be better situated a tile east of the "2" marker. That plains hill tile also has the double mountain adjacency bonus whereas the current "1" tile only gets it from being next to forests, which you'll probably chop at some point. Obviously this would not be the way to go if you decide to go with the River Goddess route.

Finally, if there was ever a civ demanding Choral Music for their religion, it would be this one. Let's hope that it doesn't get sniped by someone with Stonehenge or something.

I am actually considering getting a shrine on top of the Lavra immediately to have first dibs on religion. It was an absolute waste on China last time and it boggled my mind. China really needs to take +4 faith for wonders.

The Holy Site of the capital in your place would prevent a nice campus going up there. I have no reefs or other places where a campus could go.

God of Festivals looks like a winner so far, especially as I like the plantations for their +2 gold. Gold thanks to upgrades translates into emergency military power.

[TheArchduke]

Turn 7

   

Scouting continues. 11 turns for a settler and growth or 8 turns for a settler and back to size 1. I rather grow quickly. So 5 more turns of warrior or scout exploration.

[TheArchduke]

Turn 8

   

Contact to the SW. Probably a CS as this would be a very close player. The warrior will try to make contact before going its planned route East.

The scout will continue along the river heading roughly NE. The slinger after the settler NW. That should uncover everything somewhat nicely.

Still going for growth over production. With what I am seeing I think I am going 2nd settler before a possible builder after the lavra.

[Sullla]

Good luck with the scouting, keeping fingers crossed for a natural wonder to pop up soon. I think with a scout unit on the map you have good odds to find one in time. As far as your post-settler builds in the capital, I think you will need to get a builder before a second settler, if only to land the Craftsmanship boost. You waste a lot of culture by not picking that one up, and avoiding Craftsmanship generally isn't a great idea because Agoge is so useful in the early game. If your second city goes on the planned spot, you could use the first builder to farm the rice (Irrigation boost), pasture the cows (Horseback Riding boost), and camp the truffles for the needed early game luxury. These tile improvements also have potential synergy with God of the Open Sky / Goddess of the Hunt pantheons depending on what you get there. Considering that the first builder will cost 50 production against 110 production for the non-Colonization boosted second settler, that feels like a stronger choice.

Naturally you will have more information in a dozen turns when you actually make this decision so this is all theorizing for now.

[TheArchduke]

Turn 9

   

No contact so far. A definite city site SE. Although the dyes could be good as well SW.

I definetly want both sites ASAP. Maybe I can manage to buy a builder and get a second settler quick.

I fear you are right on the craftmanship inspiration though.

[TheArchduke]

Turn 10

Well, as far as I am concerned an industrial city state is the worst thing you can find or even contact early. Anything else is awesome, +2 cogs for units from a military CS, +2 science, +2 culture, +2 religion. But +2 cogs for buildings and districts? Meh.

So we are off to a splendid start as far as luck is concerned.

   

The comparison on how quickly you can get a settler out. At the start it was 3 turns quicker by going production only, but I much rather stay at a healthy size 2 instead of going down back to size 1 with my capital.

   

So onto city sites.
Thanks to being Russia tiles in the second ring are immediately available, this coupled with the Lavra is the reason to take Russia. Cossacks are nice, but paint an unnecessary target on your back by now.

The question is which is more attractive.
To our southwest we have the city on a plains hill tile (which I just love, +defense and +1cog) and have an excellent dyes tile with a tasty +1 culture and truffles.

   

Or bachelor #2 with double spices and a truffles tile, less production but more growth. 

   

I am leaning towards the higher production site SW atm.

[williams482]

I'd put in a vote for the spice location.

At least one of those tiles is going to be taken by the capital for extra growth, ad the capital both has excellent production already, and will be the city to kick out settler number three. Giving the cap the best tiles you can should get that third city out fastest, which I believe is a stronger overall play.

If you do settle the spice location, the tile your scout is on seems a perfectly reasonable spot for a +1 lavra, and you should be able to build it quickly enough working spice + pigs + PFH.

[Sullla]

Did you find an Industrial city state, TheArchduke? It looked like you hadn't made contact yet, I was slightly unclear on what had happened. Industrial city state is definitely the worst to get, although you would get at least some benefit in this game since the capital is going to construct an early Lavra. Much better though to get Cultural or Religious or Militaristic. (Also, did you guys ever come up with a rule involving city states? I tuned out after the discussion ran onto the third page of posts.)

I would actually disagree with williams and support the southwest city spot for city #2. The spices are great resources but otherwise the southeast location is fairly weak, very little production capacity. There's the truffles and that's it; a city there would grow to size 4 pretty quick, but then what? There are no other good tiles to work. The spot in the southwest has less food but far better production and far better tiles overall. It starts with the 2 production plains hill center tile, then has the 2/2/3 truffles tile and the 2/2/1 culture silks tile, both of them extremely powerful choices early on, and then onto a 1/3 forested plains hill tile at size 3. That's 10 production at size 3 (!) with Urban Planning running, sheesh. Just run a trade route from city #2 back to the capital for extra food, which you'll be able to get because the early Lavra will make the trade route have 2 food / 1 production yield, and you'll be fine on growth.

The southwest city spot also opens up a great location for the first Campus district out of the capital: on the wheat tile two tiles to the east. That's third ring for the capital but thanks to Russia's civ ability that tile will be grabbed immediately upon founding city #2, and it would get +3 adjacency bonus (key for later Rationalism) via the mountain and the thermal vent. Put the capital's Lavra on the tile northwest of that spot between the two mountain peaks, and city #2's Lavra on the tile northeast of the city center, also between two mountains, plus a Commercial or Campus district later along the river, and you've got an awesome little metropolis for the early game:




Something like that. Three early districts, all with easy to achieve +3 adjacency bonuses. I don't see anything like that from the spot in the southeast. As TheArchduke suggested, the location in the southwest should be the faster starting location.

[TheArchduke]

I'd put in a vote for the spice location.

At least one of those tiles is going to be taken by the capital for extra growth, ad the capital both has excellent production already, and will be the city to kick out settler number three. Giving the cap the best tiles you can should get that third city out fastest, which I believe is a stronger overall play.

If you do settle the spice location, the tile your scout is on seems a perfectly reasonable spot for a +1 lavra, and you should be able to build it quickly enough working spice + pigs + PFH.

As said I lean towards the SW site for the simple reason of more production. On paper the spice city looks good, but cogs are what you need in the early game, not so much food (except for one tile to grow into working the production tiles. The SE site needs 2 mines on the hills to get somewhere and really comes into force with apprenticeship. Baring any neighbour I can uncover in the next 5 turns I think the SW site is the way to go. This is because you always want to settle towards other players to stake out your claims quickly. As I am on the northern edge, both scouting and settling will be done more south then east or west.

Did you find an Industrial city state, TheArchduke? It looked like you hadn't made contact yet, I was slightly unclear on what had happened. Industrial city state is definitely the worst to get, although you would get at least some benefit in this game since the capital is going to construct an early Lavra. Much better though to get Cultural or Religious or Militaristic. (Also, did you guys ever come up with a rule involving city states? I tuned out after the discussion ran onto the third page of posts.)

I would actually disagree with williams and support the southwest city spot for city #2. The spices are great resources but otherwise the southeast location is fairly weak, very little production capacity. There's the truffles and that's it; a city there would grow to size 4 pretty quick, but then what? There are no other good tiles to work. The spot in the southwest has less food but far better production and far better tiles overall. It starts with the 2 production plains hill center tile, then has the 2/2/3 truffles tile and the 2/2/1 culture silks tile, both of them extremely powerful choices early on, and then onto a 1/3 forested plains hill tile at size 3. That's 10 production at size 3 (!) with Urban Planning running, sheesh. Just run a trade route from city #2 back to the capital for extra food, which you'll be able to get because the early Lavra will make the trade route have 2 food / 1 production yield, and you'll be fine on growth.

The southwest city spot also opens up a great location for the first Campus district out of the capital: on the wheat tile two tiles to the east. That's third ring for the capital but thanks to Russia's civ ability that tile will be grabbed immediately upon founding city #2, and it would get +3 adjacency bonus (key for later Rationalism) via the mountain and the thermal vent. Put the capital's Lavra on the tile northwest of that spot between the two mountain peaks, and city #2's Lavra on the tile northeast of the city center, also between two mountains, plus a Commercial or Campus district later along the river, and you've got an awesome little metropolis for the early game:




Something like that. Three early districts, all with easy to achieve +3 adjacency bonuses. I don't see anything like that from the spot in the southeast. As TheArchduke suggested, the location in the southwest should be the faster starting location.

Not made contact yet, except for a quick boost to the lavra an industrial cs only becomes good very late in the game and this is in SP where you can throw industrial districts around. I am not sure where the analysis on the forum was that industrial districts are rather suboptimal but I agree with it. No real rules on CS except for if it is suzerained you need to dow the suzerain. 

Yeah, the SW site is superior and more importantly does not need worker love to be useful. Especially as Russia it is an excellent choice as the good stuff is in the second ring and would need to be bought normally. I also agree with your district layout. With the geothermal vent southeast, the campi can go next to it and I can put the lavras into the mountain range between the two cities.

There is also a point in putting a second city just to the SW and pushing towards the CS to conquer it for Mother Russia. But I am getting ahead of myself. First we need a lot more scouting done to get the lay of the land.