Chevalier and Incurian's Itsy-Bitsy Teeny-Weeny PBEM Reporting Thingy

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Yes, I thought Maori's colors were Indonesia. Me west, Inc East (inc is out of town til Saturday).

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Inc and Chev Turn 1:



No time to report, more in-depth talk later.

[incurian]

Yesterday it said owning two scouts would boost sailing tech, but now it says I earned a boost from settling my capital on a coast.  Well, whatever, I will just finish out the scout.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 2:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Srivalli



Srivalli is the anchor song for the Telegu movie Pushpa: The Rise. Which means that it's not even a Bollywood movie at all (but that's because Bollywood has been declining for years and South Indian cinema tends to be more creative and higher quality these days, but I digress). It won Song of the Year in Durban in the Telegu category and has dominated the airwaves both in India and in South Africa's Indian diaspora. 

Pushpa tells the story of a red sandalwood smuggler, Pushpa, a suave, cool, unflappable rogue fighting for the rights of poor tribespeople against the Indian government. However, despite all his projected confidence, charisma, and arrogant competence, Pushpa completely falls for local village girl, Srivalli - who won't even glance at him. Srivalli thus features a rare Indian love song where the male lead mostly humiliates himself (notice how often, for example, he loses his flip-flop on his signature drag-step move). The song shows increasingly desperate attempts by Pushpa to get himself onto Srivalli's radar, usually as an abysmal failure. (During the dialogue portions of the song, he's arguing with his sidekick about whether or not she's even looking at him). 

The lyrics of the chorus:




Overall the song's a real banger and I enjoy it for its humor, wholesomeness, and the tune ain't bad either. Pushpa: The Rise is also available on Amazon Prime and worth a watch if you ever want to check out a solid Indian movie.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Finally a spare moment to look over the game. 

As you have no doubt deduced by now, I don't really have the time at the moment to give this game the attention it deserves. So, no obsessive simming of a hundred different starts, as is ljubljana's wont, or of pinning every single appeal tile around the start to get marginally more effective scouting, as thrawn does. With 5 different lesson preps all week and a wife and dog at home needing attention each evening, I just can't manage. If you're looking for a winning thread, regrettably mine will not be one of them. 

That said, I do at least want to put up credible opposition to the field to give them an enjoyable experience. And I think I can have a little fun with variant play in this scenario. 

While everyone else is focusing on naval supremacy, I'm going to zig where they're zagging - and try to use Indonesia's other strength to win the game. 

Need to do some math, but more later.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Thoughts on the start, quick hits:

1)The two of us facing each other looks good from a "don't get murdered immediately" by Norway perspective, with plenty of coast available limiting the ability of unkillable longships to choke us to death. So thrawn's easiest route to victory is off the table thanks to Kaiser. However, my real worry is still an unbreakable blockade around our starting areas coupled with Norway snowballing off conquered city-states. That's still on the table, so yikes.

2)Lots of hills in the west suggest a strong production city. The best tile would seem to be on the lake, but that means no naval units before a harbor, which is a strong turnoff. On the other hand, building such an exposed city before Norway's location is known is far too risky, so building on the coast is also a negative. This might be an area saved for later exploitation, when I have either a naval squadron capable of shielding the city-site or the ability to quickly build harbors (need a naval squadron in any case since otherwise Norway could just occupy the harbor).

3)The absolute total lack of luxuries is worrying. I'm going to quickly run into amenity penalties and there's no early hookups at the capital or expansions so far. However, if we assume all starts are balanced and that no one ahs any luxuries, then it shouldn't be a big deal since we're all dealing with the same constraints.

4)Haven't tried to dotmap Srivalli yet, but each city needs to hit 7 for Holy Site/Campus/Harbor combos. A few cities will drop one of thsoe for the odd IZ or Entertainment District (amenities were a huge problem in my Russian game, due to my sprawling size).

5)We will be focusing on faith as a major currency. I think many players neglect faith and they might settle for one religion per team (might request Inc build a single holy site to claim the 5th and last religion in that case), with one player totally ignoring holy sites. Efficient play but it does leave potential vulnerabilities to exploit.

Anyway basic gameplan is monumentality expansion to have a competitive number of cities cheaply, while we use our UUs more for diplomatic leverage than for outright conquest. Again: a jong rush is not going to win this game, not against this field, so it's not on the table. We'll leverage the jongs another way.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 3

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Posting here even though I'm at work and can't actually pass the save.

I just know it'll irritate thrawn.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 3-12

Saturday morning means I have time for a small update. Sorry to any lurkers expecting a usual Chev thread, my life has changed since those days and I don't have the time for obsessive C&D, simming, or plotting and writing like usual. Instead, these mini updates will ahve to suffice. 

Inc and I have largely completed early scouting, finding a natural wonder, foreign continent, and 2 city-states:



Priority on scouting is to finish defogging to finalize future city-sites and to find a third city-state before we start foreign travel adventures. 

Domestic development will see a holy site follow the settler, should be second after Japan to get a religion (since Ljubljana will get his holy site down in half the time at probably two early cities), but if he is unlucky in wonder-locating then I might get first grab at a religion. I'm not stressed about it since we're going a less traveled route with our grand strategy this game. 

Pantheon in 2 turns. Probably taking River Goddess for +2 amenities and housing in all of my cities. Amenities killed me as Russia last time, and none of the other pantheons seem good, other than God of the Sea - but I don't have enough seafood for that. Shame it won't be around for Incurian unless he gets an easy quest with this religious city-state I meet next turn.