[SPOILERS] Cornflakes (Norway) vs. TheArchduke (Japan)

[Cornflakes]

And so begins Round 4 ... this time on a more balanced map thanks to Woden! The start:

   

I had to think long and hard about this start. First warrior move was from the SW from the Incense, revealing the Sugar. I strongly considered moving 1E to get horses and rice first ring, but this would have moved away from the sugar, the 2-mountain adjacency tile, and all those juicy hills to the west. The downside of having all these resources 2nd ring is that it will take about 66 cumulative culture to claim 3 tiles for the builder to improve. I was sorely tempted to start with a Monument to speed up tile acquisition [slaps wrist, "STAY FOCUSED!"]. Since a builder would be twiddling his thumbs until more tiles are acquired I started a Scout. The plan is tentatively Scout > Settler > Builder.

The scout will follow the river east while the warrior continues poking around in the west. Hopefully I find a stellar 2nd city site in close proximity. With an entire continent to myself I expect to be pumping out a lot of settlers. On the other hand, settler cost increases rapidly. I'm thinking it would be better to be a little more selective with the locations, settling for excellent city sites first even if they are a little further away rather than medium/average sites closer.

   

The warrior in the west already uncovered a potential candidate. Fresh water, lots of hills, a 3/2 banana 1st ring. Also we found another continent already for the Foreign Trade eureka.

[Cornflakes]

Why did I pick Norway? I don't know, it hasn't been played much, with 2 continents navy will come into play, potentially decisively. The +50% naval melee looks like it could provide an edge on the seas. And with the ability to cross ocean early I might find and opening for an opportunistic raze. The ability to ignore embark/disembark costs could lead to some tactical advantage, ducking into/across coves and lakes. The Stave Church building looks to be largely a snooze building unless there are many sea resources near. In that case it gains some value. The forest adjacency will likely be irrelevant long-term since the forests will probably be chopped eventually. All-in-all it looks somewhat lackluster, but I took it primarily because I think I can do some interesting things tactically with embark/disembark.

With TheArchduke taking Japan my challenge will be to keep up scientifically and culturally. I actually strongly considered Japan but decided to give it a pass since it's already won a PBEM I suspect that I'll have a hard time founding the first religion naturally through GPP accumulation so I was happy to see Stone available at the start! What I'll probably do is place Stonehenge next to the stone, then harvest it through an almost-complete unit to get the Agoge bonus production. 

   

Found Yerevan T6. According to the score overview I'm now ahead of TheArchduke in Domination in addition to Religion, indicating that TheArchduke is having some early barb combat. Yerevan is located in what looks to be a very strong location. Double sugar with lots of hills means it could grow fast and have high production. On the other hand, Yerevan looks to have a good Suzerain bonus for a religious victory attempt ... guaranteeing that I can train Debater apostles for theological combat and Translator or Proselytizer apostles to spread the religion. On the other hand most of the Apostle promotions are useful, and a mix of these promotions would likely be best. Even a random selection should provide a decent option among the choices. Also keeping it around only plays to a religious victory while incorporating Yerevan into my empire early contributes towards any victory (including religious). I'm thinking conquer ASAP is the way to go.

After I get my first settler + builder out and Agoge in place I will probably devote some resources into military to capture. By that time it will definitely have provided me with the Pantheon. And speaking of Pantheon, let's take a look at my top choices for Pantheon and also each of the religious categories (the top bullet point is my current preferred choice):

Pantheon - 2 stand out

• Goddess of Harvest - I'll be clearing many tiles over the course of the game. I cleared many even in the first 60 or so turns as Rome in Round 3, and at that point each clear was worth around 50-60 cogs. I remember in the PBEM 4 in the Renaissance era crabs were getting harvested for around 300g. This coupled with Jesuit Education looks enticing, or coupled with an early push for religious victory.
  
• Divine Spark - partially for denial value since this looks like it synergizes very well with Japan's half price districts. Also would aid in getting an early religion, plus the first GScientist builds library & +1
  

Follower - 3 stand out

• Jesuit Education - Paired with Goddess of Harvest looks very powerful. Would help me keep pace with Japan economically. Most of my faith would be funneled here so I would not be playing for religious victory if I take this belief
  
• Choral Music - this looks appealing, however in a longer game I think that Jesuit Education might provide as much culture through the Theater Square buildings.
  
• Warrior Monks - The thought is to escort an early settler across to TheArchduke's continent, chop out a holy site, buy the Shrine + Temple with gold, and then use a reserve of faith to purchase a warrior monk army. If I go this route I will probably save this belief for later and use an apostle to enhance it right when I'm ready to start purchasing Warrior Monks. The Wiki & Civilopedia both put the cost at 100 and don't say anything about the cost scaling up (as with missionaries/apostles). This is something that I would want to test first.
  

Worship - these buildings seem expensive so nothing really stands out

• Wat? Mosque?
  

Founder

• Church Property stands out a tier above anything else
  
• Stewardship looks ok as a backup? The others are low-impact or rely on foreign spread
  

Enhancer

• Itinerant Preachers - Synergize with Jesuit Education, allowing me to save Faith for building purchases by utilizing passive spread instead of missionaries. I think Itinerant Preachers is much better than Scripture because the extended range means that likely an extra city (or more) can exert pressure on a given target city resulting in +100% pressure
  
• Holy Order - if going to early religious victory (probably not)
  
• Crusade - bring a couple of apostles/missionaries with an attack force, spread the religion before attacking
  

[Japper007]

I picked Feed the World in pbem4 as the additional yields from forests for the Stave Church UB are not counted by the game as "adjacency" but rather as a yield of the building itself, thus getting turned into bonus food. Norway can easely get up to 12 food bonus  and possibly way more from a single Holy Site this way. It's "just" food, but it is the only thing that really Synergizes with the Stave church, beyond the Fishing boat pantheon meaning you get 2 hammer fishing boats with a stave church.

[Cornflakes]

I picked Feed the World in pbem4 as the additional yields from forests for the Stave Church UB are not counted by the game as "adjacency" but rather as a yield of the building itself, thus getting turned into bonus food. Norway can easely get up to 12 food bonus  and possibly way more from a single Holy Site this way. It's "just" food, but it is the only thing that really Synergizes with the Stave church, beyond the Fishing boat pantheon meaning you get 2 hammer fishing boats with a stave church.

Did that actually work? I did a test game with Choral Music (which from the description looks like it works the same way as Feed the World) and I only got 4 culture from the innate +4 faith and didn't get any additional for the forest

[Woden]

One advantage that Norway with the +50% ship production is additive to the +100% ship production card. Therefore, you can get +150% chops and wipe out 83% of a district from a single chop if timed right.

[Japper007]

I picked Feed the World in pbem4 as the additional yields from forests for the Stave Church UB are not counted by the game as "adjacency" but rather as a yield of the building itself, thus getting turned into bonus food. Norway can easely get up to 12 food bonus  and possibly way more from a single Holy Site this way. It's "just" food, but it is the only thing that really Synergizes with the Stave church, beyond the Fishing boat pantheon meaning you get 2 hammer fishing boats with a stave church.

Did that actually work? I did a test game with Choral Music (which from the description looks like it works the same way as Feed the World) and I only got 4 culture from the innate +4 faith and didn't get any additional for the forest

Hmm maybe they fixed it in the patch? It worked in all my test games...

[Cornflakes]

One advantage that Norway with the +50% ship production is additive to the +100% ship production card. Therefore, you can get +150% chops and wipe out 83% of a district from a single chop if timed right.

That's the plan! Also useful for wonders (Pyramids if I can find desert near the coast) ... maybe Great Lighthouse? Does anybody know if the +1 movement from great lighthouse applied to embarked units? Or just to true naval units?

   

Found coast in both directions so this appears to be a narrow continent. Shallow water appears to extend out to the west ... tiny offshore island to the east? There's another river for fresh water at the eastern coast, but where are all the seafood resources for the Stave Church cogs ?

A barb scout appeared briefly in the north right when my scout completed, prompting me to send my scout into the rougher jungle belt to the south rather than the more open terrain to the north.

[Cornflakes]

Did some more testing of religion and found that the Follower belief must be selected first upon founding the religion, and cannot be deferred and evangelized later as I initially theorized with Warrior Monks above. This makes the warrior monks belief much much worse for an early founder than a late founder since there is the large opportunity cost (e.g. all the culture that would have otherwise been generated via Choral Music). I did confirm that warrior monks can be purchased 2/turn out of a city with a Temple in it's holy site. The first appears in the HS, the 2nd in the city center. After that the purchase line is grey until one of the units moves on the next turn (unfortunately they can't be moved on the same turn that they are purchased). The cost is 200 faith each and does NOT scale up with subsequent purchases. Based on this, someone stockpiling faith could potentially purchase a large army in short order. I don't think this is something that I'm going to try in this game though. After the last couple of duels with clashes in the classical era I'm looking forward to a more builder-oriented game

Passive spread is really weak, to the point where it doesn't seem worth the wait. In my test game, just as the "convert in X" timer was dropping the city would grown and increase the timer again. Sure over time passive spread will eventually work. But even when pressured by 3 cities the passive spread was still something like 30+ turns from founding until it converted. Better to just purchase a missionary and spread the religion manually when the city is size 1-2. Each missionary can spread the religion to 3 cities that way, much better than waiting for the passive spread.

I also confirmed that The Great Lighthouse does indeed give it's +1 movement to embarked land units in addition to naval units. In that respect it has high tactical value especially as Vikings which can move onto land without penalty. This would mean that post-Mathematics my embarked units would have 4 movement. Therefore my embarked knights could hit a coastal city out of the fog, landing before attacking the city. Add in a GGeneral and they have 5 movement!

[Cornflakes]

   

Thanks Woden for not putting any seafood on the east coast   Auckland looks to have an interesting Suzerain bonus ... +1 production to shallow water tiles. That sounds like it could actually be pretty powerful. Coupled with my temples this would turn netted fish into 3/2/1 tiles, and crabs into 2/2/3 tiles. Cartography also adds +2g and lighthouse +1f to each of those tiles. Depending on how many seafood resources I find in the vicinity it might be worth keeping the Auckland around. There are two seafood on the west coast, but unfortunately the fresh water is too far away. I moved the tentative city location a little south to leave room for another freshwater city to the north near the mouth of that river.

Fount Tsingy natural wonder in the south, but most of the yield bonus unfortunately lands in the tundra

   

Here's a closer look around Nidaros. DOUBLE HORSE CAMP   I was originally building a settler when the horsies appeared. I bought the PHF tile to the west for some extra production and crammed out a 3-turn slinger. I decided to go back and finish the settler. I'm pretty confident that my warrior + slinger can handle the barbs with the Discipline boost   The barbs should target my warrior, while the slinger can keep taking pot-shots from inside the city. There should be one more horseman still incoming from the fog.

Don't even ask about the monument under construction inside the city center ... no, I didn't put any turns of construction into the monument   I just clicked through it at some point.

[Cornflakes]

Barbs successfully cleaned up with warrior + slinger. 2nd City founded on the marsh as indicated, builder just completed in Nidaros. Culture expansion flip-flopped between rice & horses, ultimately picking rice first with horses due in about 10 turns from now. I'm debating exactly what I want to do with the builder ...

1) Farm rice > plantation Sugar [requires irrigation research] > pasture horse ... 3 improvements for the Craftsmanship eureka, although the plantation at +2 gpt is a low-impact improvement.
2) Farm rice > chop forest [requires mining] ( into builder?) > pasture horse ... 3rd improvement coming from quarry at 2nd city. The advantage of this is that I can delay irrigation, speeding up Mining > Bronze working > Astrology. Also the chop, although low yield would get me 1/2 of another builder, which would then chop & harvest stone later on into Stonehenge. Bronze working would be used at 2nd city to chop the jungle at the +3 campus tile, allowing me to lock it in and build it earlier in my quest for Hypatia. I'm leaning towards this option, need to decide this turn though.