Dave Fires Up The Epstein Drive [Japan]

[Kaiser]

Good luck with your Japan game Davy, it is quite interesting to have you play the same CIV as me at the same time although the map settings are completely different.

[oledavy]

Since I just finished Leviathan Wakes yesterday, I totally dig your naming scheme. This makes you the next best thing to the OPA then? Make do with what you've got! Tightknit and densely clustered cities. This makes perfect sense. Were those names in order? Shouldn't Ceres be the capital?

Enough rambling. I enjoyed your very detailed reports in PBEM2 and will look forward to see what you're up to in this game. Best of luck!

I'm actually shocked that I didn't think of that, I guess I'll bill myself as the OPA this game   (Maybe a thread title change incoming...)

The names weren't necessarily in order. I think Ganymede will be the capital though, simply because I like the name better and because of the role the moon plays in Caliban's War. Started reading the second book yet? Did Holden get on your nerves in the first book as much as he got on mine?

At any rate, thanks for the compliment, I hope I can manage to be as competitive this time around. We'll see what the game brings!

Good luck with your Japan game Davy, it is quite interesting to have you play the same CIV as me at the same time although the map settings are completely different.

Thanks Kaiser! I'll definitely be paying close attention to your PBEM3 thread for tips on how to make Japan work. 

Alright, let's kick this thing off. 

Turn 1

I feel like Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow/Keiji Kiriya in All You Need is Kill. Yesterday I was the leader of a mighty modern power on the verge of flight, today I've begun again and am leading a humble village of farmers. 



Ganymede is a pretty good capital, although not of the same quality of Hamilton. 

Also note from the score, everyone else settled this turn. The choice was effectively between settling in place or moving for 2 turns west to settle. I usually privilege getting your first city down as fast as possible, so I chose to SIP. 

The Good
 - Resources for 3/4 Early improvement related Eurekas, the only thing I lack is something to mine. The likely early improvement order will be to farm rice, pasture sheep, and quarry stone.
 - Lots of coastal tiles around that I get the Divine Wind Bonus on, this capital is easy to defend
 - Only one water tile adjacent to the city center. Yet again, making the capital easy to defend against an overseas invader. 
 - Lot's of hills and 2/2 tiles around the start. Great for early production. 
 - Incense. Getting the cultural expands I want is going to be a crap shoot, but that tile means I can theoretically skip God-King for Urban Planning, although I think it more likely I will just take God-King.
 - Horses at the start. I didn't have a strategic resource last time, this time I have one in my second ring 
 - A good geopolitical position. I obviously want to plant my first city towards the southwest, which seems to be the direction the majority of the land is in. North is nothing but tundra and barbs. East is ocean. If I have a land border with someone, I will likely only have one neighbor and a single front. 

The Bad
 - Its cramped. The tiles I want to throw districts down on are hill tiles that could be 2/3 mines before too long. I will need to think very carefully about where to put districts and when to put them down. I ran into this problem in PBEM2. Putting a district down immedietly to lock in the cost is not always the best thing to do if you would get more hammers from working the tile in the interim. I made this mistake around Lafayette, throwing down a campus too early and losing the ability to work a 1/2 tile in a city that desperately needed hammers. So, I will need to be very tactical in throwing down districts here. 
 - It's coastal. Hope I don't have vikings nearby, because almost every improvement is going to be coastal....
 - It's hilly. Moving east to west takes a long time. I will need a road to my second city as soon as possible. 

But, with those issues in mind, this is still a pretty solid cap. I am working the sheep to grow in 5 turns, and building a slinger in the meantime. The slinger will likely head north to explore and clear out barbs, while my warrior will hunt for city-states, city-sites, and a natural wonder to the southwest. 

I would also really love to find another continent, but that will likely be a long shot. 

Tech order is mining -> animal husbandry -> astrology, or some variant on that. 

I might go with a two worker opening here and use the extra build actions to chop out a Holy Site, taking advantage of the +100% production I have on them to build up overflow hammers.

Alright, Great People. 



Oh Hypatia....I would have killed for you last game. The fact that she's up here makes an early campus mildly tempting. Colaeus is okay, not as good as Crassus though IMO. Bi Sheng looks amazing, but I expect Singaboy will have a lock on him. 

The real cherry here is Gaius Dulius. Form a fleet this early in the game?!?! Yes please. I expect England and Norway are both taking a good hard look at him right about now.

[Mardoc]

Phobos

What have you got against Deimos?

I think Ganymede will be the capital though, simply because I like the name better and because of the role the moon plays in Caliban's War. Started reading the second book yet? Did Holden get on your nerves in the first book as much as he got on mine?

I know you weren't asking me, but I've been reading The Expanse lately too (barely started book three).  I wasn't actually much annoyed by Holden.  I know all the politicians were eager to blame him for starting the wars...but they're the ones who put the solar system into such a tense situation that any spark would do, and none of the major powers believed anything the others said.  If he didn't make the spark, someone else would have.

Also, was this on purpose?

Lots of coastal tiles
...
Lot's of hills

It's coastal
...
It's hilly.

[oledavy]

@Mardoc

I might save the name for a tiny iceball city somewhere   I think I'm going to prioritize satellites of "Non-Inner" planets though, since apparently I'm now the OPA. 

I wasn't so much irritated at Holden's actions as much as I was at his whole boy scout persona. I realize the utility of a character like Holden - he's the best thing we've got to a fish out of water character who responds to things in the way I might were I to live in the Expanse Universe. But, in books 1 & 2, I consistently just couldn't wait to be done with his chapters so I could get back to Miller, Avasarala, or Bobbie. 

And quite. It works both ways. I would vastly prefer a hill start to a flat one though. It will just make moving units to my second city time consuming.

[oledavy]

Dave Makes His First Mistake?

Upon further examination of my start, I think I should have settled on the cotton. For whatever reason, I never made the shift between Civ4 and Civ5 to see resource tiles as smart to settle (with the obvious exceptions of strat resources and calender luxuries in the Civ4 early game of course). Thus, when I was looking at where to settle, the cotton tile never even occurred to me. 

Here's what settling there would have gotten me: 

1. +3 GPT for the rest of the game
2. My first luxury hooked up (although in fairness, it wouldn't give any benefits until I reach size 3). 
3. A better district layout, Holy Site one west for a 3 adjacency bonus instead of 2, and a Commercial Hub on the actual city-site of Ganymede. 

Now, I put the question mark above, because settling in place was not without its benefits. Depending on the lay of the land to the west, it may have been the most solid move. Here's what settling in place gets me that I would have lost if I moved: 

1. It leaves open potentially the best inland city site on the river to the west. Depending on what the land looks like, I might really want to settle the tile I've marked. It's already amazing with a 3 food tile it can work right off the bat to grow in 5 turns, then work the 2/2 forested hill. It's close proximity means its easily defensible, can be settled quickly, and will allow me to cram together districts in the region between cities. 
2. It gives me Incense and horses in the 2nd instead of the 3rd ring, high priority expands that would take forever to grab were they in the 3rd ring. 
3. A better tile to work down the road in terms of the cotton plantation.
4. One extra turns of all yields. 

The big unknown here is number one. If there's a significantly better site just beyond it that invalidates something around the location I've marked, SIP will have been the suboptimal move. If that's the site I want to put my second city, it will have been worthwhile to give up the better early game location in the interest of leaving open a better second city spot.

[oledavy]

Gotta Get That Old Time Religion

Started mulling over what beliefs I'm interested in today. 

I really like the idea of building up a huge amount of faith production utilizing cheap Holy Sites everywhere, running simultaneum, and using the faith as a hammer substitute. Specifically, I really am interested in taking Jesuit Education. I could cram out lots of Holy Sites early, and transition into Campuses and (Cheap) Theatre Districts - all of which will get standard adjacency bonuses for a base 1-3 culture/science. I could then immedietly buy in libraries, universities and amphitheaters. 

I need to actually look at what the faith purchase costs of those buildings are though.  

With that being said, I'm very tentatively thinking about these: 

Pantheon: God of the Open Sky/God of the Sea
Follower: Jesuit Education
Group #1: Wat
Group #2: Church Property/Tithe
Group #3: Defender of the Faith

Anyway, I have a lot of time to think about this, but just wanted to start. Ebitten, if you have any thoughts on religious beliefs, I would love the input.

[suboptimal]

I need to actually look at what the faith purchase costs of those buildings are though.  

Having looked into this in preparation for PBEM 3, faith cost of buildings and units is 2x the current production cost required.

[oledavy]

I need to actually look at what the faith purchase costs of those buildings are though.  

Having looked into this in preparation for PBEM 3, faith cost of buildings and units is 2x the current production cost required.

That's ridiculously cheap. You're telling me I can get 160 Faith libraries and 210 Faith ampitheaters? 

With the right policy setup, that makes each Faith District essentially a mini-Industrial Zone. I can build a cheap Holy Site with a 65 cog shrine and a 105 cog temple. Let's say the Holy side has an adjacency bonus of 2. With Simultaneum, that's 14 faith per turn from the district, or about 7 cogs. 

I now really want to look into spamming Holy Site districts everywhere and effectively using faith as production.

[oledavy]

Turn 2



Two more tiles revealed. With a 3/0 and two 2/2 tiles in the first ring, the spot I have marked for a city is looking better and better. That river is really short and terminates just south of the stone. Next turn I'll be moving southwest to peek south of those mountains, and in the process reveal the last two likely spots for my second city. 

In terms of a tentative district setup, the hex the warrior is on and the one 1E of it get Holy Sites. The riverside one directly north of him gets a commercial hub. 

Too bad building districts is going to cost me some of these beautiful hills though 

[oledavy]

Is the incense tile illegal to settle because distance rules or because of a city in proximity? I thought you could settle cities within 3 tiles of another if it was over water.