Chevalier Absolutely Knows What He's Doing as Best Korea

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

If Oligarchic legacy is a must-have, you'll want to take that into consideration so you're in the right government when you finish the Audience Chamber.  Just another small detail to keep in mind. The nice thing about favoring the Audience Chamber over the Ancestral Hall is that it's not necessary to slam it down as soon as it becomes available. You'll likely want the Housing bonus relatively soon, but it's not like Ancestral Hall in that you probably want it before settler 3, and so must be rushed. This gives you some flexibility on when to actually place the Government Plaza - which, incidentally, does take up a city district slot. If you want Government Plaza, Seowon, and Holy Site all at JRTI, it will have to be size 7 for that. It does net you 2 Governor titles though - one for the Plaza, and one for the Audience Chamber itself. What are your current plans for when to slot this district in?

Also, since the legacy cards only unlock when you build the appropriate tier building in the Government Plaza, you probably aren't getting 2 Tier 1 Government ones unless you skip a Tier 2 government one. Given that Monarchy typically gets unlocked earlier than the others, though, Monarchy and Republican legacies might be the only options unless you want to delay your Grand Master's Chapel.

Is Autocracy  +1 yields for the Government Plaza district, +1 for each Government Plaza building, or both? I tend to read it as the second, but I haven't actually checked this one.

I haven't checked autocracy, either. I so rarely run it in Single player! 

Anyway, the plan right now is to grow to size 7 and build the governmental plaza then. That delays the Commercial Hub to size 10, but since markets are so expensive there's no sense rushing that anyway. The Plaza will help me reach size 10 in the first place. Happily, Korea has never had much trouble growing for me - food and housing are relatively easy to come by. 

One last thought - do the doubled Magnus harvest yields also give bonus faith for Goddess of the Harvest  ?

Not only does Magnus give bonus faith, you get faith equal to whatever your production boost is - so a Monarchic-Limes-Magnus chop ends up getting 600% faith - enough to buy a small army all on its own! Or a free settler, if there's a spot I want, or an army of builders which can then chop...Faith has so many uses in R&F that it's basically like doubled production. Don't tell any of the other players, but I really want this pantheon.

Turn 37




Start the turn by finishing Irrigation, which unlocks all those luxuries I have lying around OCISLY. A builder will pop out after the slinger finishes in 2 turns. I need to save 1 charge for a chop, but I can farm the rice for more food and plantation one of the chocolates for more gold. Plantations aren't great, but you can't remove luxuries and so I may as well profit from the extra housing and gold. 

At the camp, combat goes...poorly, this time:




This time I roll the worst result and get hammered by the spear. I now have no choice but to stop and heal for a bit, then I can resume bashing away. See, your luck will almost always even out in this game. It reminds me of the old Zen story:

There once was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. "Such bad luck," they said sympathetically. 

"Maybe," the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed. "Such good luck!"

"Maybe," replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. "Such bad luck!"

"Maybe," answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. "Such good luck!"

"Maybe..." said the farmer.

You never know what will happen next. 

Anyway, I can dispatch my other warrior to provide extra help now. He starts to slog south from Nan Madol. I may clear the camp before the warrior gets there, but if another unit spawns I'll be happy I did this:




Probably will take closer to 10 turns, depending on the terrain, which SHOULD be way too late but you never know. 

Meanwhile, the situation grows more tense at the heartland, as the scout thoroughly surveys both my cities. 




The slinger is monitoring the situation, but for now I'll fort up next to the river. No sense sending the slinger across the river to get stabbed repeatedly by the spearman. I'll wait until I get the other slinger and perhaps a warrior up, then clear this camp. It has no horses, so it's not as urgent a priority - I can weather the warriors and slingers that will come howling out of this one in a few turns. 

Finally, I purchase my first trader. The cost has gone up from 180 to 190, I guess because of my tech?




If the scout leaves, I'll take a chance and send this trader on his route back to the capital. I will have a slinger finish a turn later who can provide a modest escort. The barbs might get a crack at it, depending on how aggressive they are, but with any luck this will pay off. 

10 turns to our first Magnus chop! 2 turns to the pantheon!

[RFS-81]

Not only does Magnus give bonus faith, you get faith equal to whatever your production boost is - so a Monarchic-Limes-Magnus chop ends up getting 600% faith - enough to buy a small army all on its own! Or a free settler, if there's a spot I want, or an army of builders which can then chop...Faith has so many uses in R&F that it's basically like doubled production. Don't tell any of the other players, but I really want this pantheon.

600%, so by the forest = 1/3 district heuristic, that would be two districts! Makes you wonder if the person who designed Magnus even knew that overflow-chopping is a thing you can do.

Regarding Culture novels, maybe I check out Player of Games. But what turned me off of Consider Phlebas was not so much that it wasn't classic space opera. I mean, intelligent spaceships with a weird sense of humor and weirder names is what got me interested in the first place. There was this part where the protagonist joins some space mercenaries, and then the book just dumped a pile of lolrandom characters on me, never made me care about them, and then proceeded to kill them off...

[aetryn]

10 turns to our first Magnus chop! 2 turns to the pantheon!

The other nice thing about Goddess of the Harvest is that the other players have no real way of telling how much faith you earn and bank, and thus might not have you pegged as a threat to have a faith-purchased army the same way they might if you have strong faith per turn coming in. They should realize it's sizable given how strong chopping is that you're likely to have a lot, even if they don't know about the Magnus bonus, but it's still very hard to track how many chops a player has done - you'd need complete visibility of their territory and a really strong dedication to checking every turn to see if forests or stone disappeared. And it looks like you can get Faith-purchased armies online at Monarchy instead of Theocracy if you're willing to take that legacy card (or the Republican one, actually) just by building the Grand Master's Chamber, but it'd still be nice if a neighbor didn't realize you were about to become a big military threat and rushed you.

Is the pantheon coming in "early" or in the natural turn if you finish Code of Laws with no culture bonus and then slot God King? Basically, wondering how many people are likely to pick pantheons before you and possibly snipe Goddess of the Harvest. It's possible God of the Open Sky and Lady of the Reeds and Marshes will be chosen next, and it seems likely that Earth Goddess will still be available unless everyone comes to the same conclusion regarding faith that you did, so you probably don't need any more backups. None of the rest of the faith-generating pantheons look good for your start.

Despite the expensive of the market and the trade route coming later, it might be useful to build some Commercial Hubs. If you want to do the kind of timing push you talked about in your opening strategy, you're going to want the gold to upgrade. Even with a huge store of faith, it'd be nice to leverage that to build cheaper units right before you obsolete them and then upgrade with cash - more bang for the... yeah, I'm not going to finish that sentence. Plus, having an obvious chunk of cash in your bank can act as a deterrent since it can be converted to defensive military power quickly. I think pushing it to the 10-pop slot in the capital is fine, but it's probably a good idea to build it as a second or third district at some of your other core cities. You'll want to diversify some anyway to even out the averages for better district discounts.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Not only does Magnus give bonus faith, you get faith equal to whatever your production boost is - so a Monarchic-Limes-Magnus chop ends up getting 600% faith - enough to buy a small army all on its own! Or a free settler, if there's a spot I want, or an army of builders which can then chop...Faith has so many uses in R&F that it's basically like doubled production. Don't tell any of the other players, but I really want this pantheon.

600%, so by the forest = 1/3 district heuristic, that would be two districts! Makes you wonder if the person who designed Magnus even knew that overflow-chopping is a thing you can do.

Regarding Culture novels, maybe I check out Player of Games. But what turned me off of Consider Phlebas was not so much that it wasn't classic space opera. I mean, intelligent spaceships with a weird sense of humor and weirder names is what got me interested in the first place. There was this part where the protagonist joins some space mercenaries, and then the book just dumped a pile of lolrandom characters on me, never made me care about them, and then proceeded to kill them off...

It's been repeatedly said that the design team doesn't play their own game - well, they almost certainly do, but probably in quick SP matches, not the sort of depth that players go into. Or maybe they LIKE chopping totally dominating the game? I dunno. But yeah, imagine plopping down a new city, harvesting a marsh to shoot up to size 4 (not sure if that's possible, actually. I don't know food box sizes off the top of my head), then for the cost of Ancient Walls, one builder charge, and a forest, you get two brand-new districts in a city that's only 10 turns old or so. 

And yeah, I had the same problem you did with Consider Phlebas. The Player of Games doesn't do that - there's a much smaller cast and a much clearer goal/plot throughout. And it has lots of the weird drones with quirky senses of humor. 

10 turns to our first Magnus chop! 2 turns to the pantheon!

Is the pantheon coming in "early" or in the natural turn if you finish Code of Laws with no culture bonus and then slot God King? Basically, wondering how many people are likely to pick pantheons before you and possibly snipe Goddess of the Harvest. It's possible God of the Open Sky and Lady of the Reeds and Marshes will be chosen next, and it seems likely that Earth Goddess will still be available unless everyone comes to the same conclusion regarding faith that you did, so you probably don't need any more backups. None of the rest of the faith-generating pantheons look good for your start.

My pantheon is "natural" - I had no boost to culture or faith, so it's just straight turn order, basically. Alhambram already has one, and right now I lead everyone else on the religious rankings. Rowain has an insane culture rate (FIFTEEN civics points = 5 complete civics! I have 3 and a half!), and Archduke plays before me, so I'm reasonably sure that they both have taken pantheons and swapped out. I lead Japper, though, who is still in God King, and I lead Emperor K, who plays after me. 

So 3 will be gone before I play. Alhambram took Divine Spark, which I think is a mistake in multiplayer. Bonus theater square points aren't that great, since you never build that many to begin with and every GWAM is interchangeable with the others, he'll get a bonus to a great prophet if he builds a Holy Site - which he may have in mind - and he gets a small trickle of points towards a Great Scientist (but still not enough to counter my half-price campuses). Archduke is canny and he might have taken GotH, and Rowain is a total black box to me. But I'm hoping that Archduke went for something like GOTS to boost all the pasture's he'd like to build as Mongolia (well, I guess just horse pastures. And I guess he only needs the two, or even just one since he wants to build encampments anyway). And with all these plantation resources the pantheon that gives culture for those isn't a bad back-up pick for me. I need to determine before next turn if the culture gained from that would be better than the passive faith generation of Earth Goddess in the long run. 

Despite the expensive of the market and the trade route coming later, it might be useful to build some Commercial Hubs. If you want to do the kind of timing push you talked about in your opening strategy, you're going to want the gold to upgrade. Even with a huge store of faith, it'd be nice to leverage that to build cheaper units right before you obsolete them and then upgrade with cash - more bang for the... yeah, I'm not going to finish that sentence. Plus, having an obvious chunk of cash in your bank can act as a deterrent since it can be converted to defensive military power quickly. I think pushing it to the 10-pop slot in the capital is fine, but it's probably a good idea to build it as a second or third district at some of your other core cities. You'll want to diversify some anyway to even out the averages for better district discounts.

Worry not, I plan to build Commercial Hubs. They're not AS good, but you still really struggle to maintain gold generation in multiplayer - you need a large pile of units at all times, either fully modern or ready to be upgraded into modernity at a moment's notice. You also need to be purchasing tiles fairly regularly (late game chops in particular can be very steep, I've found) - and the best district in the game at boosting gold is of course the humble CH. 

The real question is, how many markets do I build? Each one is 105 production, so more than Ancient Walls, and no possibility of boosting that (at least encampment districts get veterancy!). Then you've still gotta build the trader. Traders are probably too cheap in vanilla (you can run a makeshift civ just offa trade routes, I've discovered!), but will they be worth 1 trader per city in R&F? Well, with Magnus, maybe - he breaks all the cost/benefit analyses. [Something that occured to me is that the Colossus is a better wonder in this set-up - before, you were paying 400 production for a single bonus trader, a handful of gold, and some GA points. Now, you can at least save the cost of a lighthouse...well, except you'llwant to build the lighthouse anyway to take full advantage of the bonus trade route. I guess the Colossus is still kinda lame.]

Really, though, thinking about gold generation, maybe I SHOULD keep Antioch around. I could be ready to capture the city very soon, as soon as I polish off these barbarians - three warriors and three archers would be plenty - but the possibility of +8 gold in every Commercial Hub is a lot. Could I match that with internal production from the city itself? ...actually, yeah, probably, a single CH + trader will be a significant chunk of that gold, and I get culture and science as well. 

Anyway. 

Turn 38

Not too exciting a turn - a smattering of barbarian combat, but otherwise no major decisions to make. 

Over on the coastal front, the spearman obligingly moves towards my slinger:



I debated withdrawing and luring the spear after me, or going ahead and shooting. In the end, I came down on the side of opening fire. Discipline and the river give me a +10 defensive bonus when the spear attacks, and I have defensive terrain. The spear will be about as damaged as I am by the attack, and I can continue to shoot - plus the slinger has a promotion saved up. We'll make our stand here and try and clear this camp out on the cheap. The other slinger will cover my civilization. 




A look at the western front and the score. My wounded warrior is nursing himself back to health, while the exploring warrior makes his way back to support (and does some more exploration at the same time). 

Rowain is ahead, mostly because of his crazy culture rate and his era score. 5 civics! He still hasn't had the inspiration for Early Empire, so I think he decided to grab mysticism?? Maybe for the envoy? Or maybe he hard-researched State Workforce/Early Empire to get Magnus. He also founded City #2.

Let's look at that era score. He has 4 from his war cart, and 4 from a ziggurat, presumably. He's also probably met Archduke and Alhambram, so give him 10 points. He has 7 more. He's certainly cleared one barb camp, which leaves 4 points - coulda found a Natural wonder, coulda been second to a natural wonder and cleared a second camp. That's almost his entire advantage in score over me. 

Here's the bottom half of the pack:




I really like this low era score - it deflates my score and masks that I have the largest civ at the moment (alongside Archduke), probably the highest culture rate or close to it (mathmatically it's hard to have 2 monuments and a culture state down at this point, and coffee/other culture-luxuries only give 1 clef per turn), and a science rate that's .1 point behind Japper, with more science to pick up. 

Japper also has a campus down, with 2 GS points (missed that last time). And the GS isn't great - the guy who gives 3 inspirations, not Hypatia or anyone cool. I'm not sure this was the right move by Japper - he DOES get the early inspiration for State Workforce, but this is a long time to wait for a settler. Is he really going to try and build them all with the +100% from the Ancestral hall? Eh. I think that's too slow a start, but we'll see. 

The only category I trail in is civics, Rowain is crazy ahead.

[aetryn]

Worry not, I plan to build Commercial Hubs. They're not AS good, but you still really struggle to maintain gold generation in multiplayer - you need a large pile of units at all times, either fully modern or ready to be upgraded into modernity at a moment's notice. You also need to be purchasing tiles fairly regularly (late game chops in particular can be very steep, I've found) - and the best district in the game at boosting gold is of course the humble CH. 

The real question is, how many markets do I build? Each one is 105 production, so more than Ancient Walls, and no possibility of boosting that (at least encampment districts get veterancy!). Then you've still gotta build the trader. Traders are probably too cheap in vanilla (you can run a makeshift civ just offa trade routes, I've discovered!), but will they be worth 1 trader per city in R&F? Well, with Magnus, maybe - he breaks all the cost/benefit analyses. [Something that occured to me is that the Colossus is a better wonder in this set-up - before, you were paying 400 production for a single bonus trader, a handful of gold, and some GA points. Now, you can at least save the cost of a lighthouse...well, except you'llwant to build the lighthouse anyway to take full advantage of the bonus trade route. I guess the Colossus is still kinda lame.]

Really, though, thinking about gold generation, maybe I SHOULD keep Antioch around. I could be ready to capture the city very soon, as soon as I polish off these barbarians - three warriors and three archers would be plenty - but the possibility of +8 gold in every Commercial Hub is a lot. Could I match that with internal production from the city itself? ...actually, yeah, probably, a single CH + trader will be a significant chunk of that gold, and I get culture and science as well. 

With a good Magnus chop you can use the extra overflow after the district is complete to knock out at least some of the market. It's not like it's free production as you could use it elsewhere, but it does at least reduce the pain of slowbuilding it.  For Antioch, it's only +8 gold to Commercial Hubs with both a market and a bank, +4 to hubs with just a market, and nothing for a Commercial Hub with no buildings. Sounds significantly less appealing than control of the city.

Japper also has a campus down, with 2 GS points (missed that last time). And the GS isn't great - the guy who gives 3 inspirations, not Hypatia or anyone cool. I'm not sure this was the right move by Japper - he DOES get the early inspiration for State Workforce, but this is a long time to wait for a settler. Is he really going to try and build them all with the +100% from the Ancestral hall? Eh. I think that's too slow a start, but we'll see. 

The only category I trail in is civics, Rowain is crazy ahead.

Waiting until Political Philosophy + the time to build the Ancestral Hall (which might just be a Magnus chop, but who knows?) for a first settler sounds nuts even in Single Player. Maybe he's got a settler out and hasn't founded for some reason? Can't be trouble with barbs or he wouldn't have built the early campus.

[skanar]

Still here, still following along, don't have much to contribute. I don't have R&F so can't comment on the various Governor and Legacy plans. In general, it seems sound, and I like the basic approach of looking for exploits in newer, as-yet-unpatched mechanics.

A hearty second on the appreciation of your reporting style! It's clear and just detailed enough.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Just got home guys, and I'm dead tired. Turn report tomorrow.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turns 39-41

I hate falling behind in reporting, because the turns come in almost faster than I can get the reports up - I was midway through writing this one when turn 41 rolled in, and I have no less than 3 PBEM7 turns to cover, and those turns are a bit more involved than this game is at the moment. I need to stop procrastinating on that, but I might get that report in tomorrow. 

Anyway, let's condense and compress the last 3 turns:




On turn 39, the spear made a tentative stab at my slinger, wounding both units. However, my slinger had a promotion saved up and so I went ahead and took volley. If I can save up until this guy is a Hwacha I'll be happy. The warrior, meanwhile, moved to cover the camp, which raises an interesting idea - the spear moved out to attack the slinger, so if I can lure the warrior out of camp, my new slinger out of OCISLY might be able to clear the camp. I still want warriors and slingers, though, because I'm presently last in domination score.   Of course, both my neighbors have DoFs with me, so it's not an issue until turn 65 or so, but you gotta build in advance in this game. My biggest nightmare is Alhambram chopping out an army in one or two turns and invading me before I have a chance to respond, so I need to hang close. 




The next turn, the spear is even more injured, easy prey for my slinger to finish off. And look at those notifications! A player met us, but more importantly - we got our pantheon at last! At leas 3 players, possibly 4, have picked ahead of us, so fingers crossed. I kill the spear, then immediately pop into the pantheon screen and scroll down, holding my breath...




Jackpot! Goddess of the Harvest is ours! Let's break it down:

1)Goddess of the Harvest will give us faith equal to our chops for the rest of the game, and yes, Magnus does affect this. Faith purchase is 2 faith/cog, so a Magnus chop basically gives me 1 to 1 faith to production in that sense. 
2)It is unclear if production cards affect this.  I need to run a test game. Reddit claims that faith IS boosted, Woden in PBEM7 found that his chops were not. I need to test R&F specifically. 
3)Valetta lets me buy monuments, granaries, water mills, sewers, walls, and encampment buildings with faith.  Lots of culture and population growth! But you wanna stay away from walls, you use those for more Magnus chops and more faith! Valetta is my #1 suzerain target for this reason, need to make sure Japper doesn't murder it. 
4)Monumentality in the Classical and Medieval Golden Ages lets you buy settlers, builders, and traders with faith - at 2 to 1 faith to production, again, ridiculously cheap. You could chop out a market, for example, and use the faith generated to buy a trader, too. Or chop out a settler and buy a builder to accompany him - who needs the Ancestral Hall when you've got Goddess of the Harvest? 
5)The Grand Master's Chambers lets you buy military units with faith, effectively replacing Theocracy (which boosts faith generation now instead). So you can double your chops for armies! 

To sum up: There is nothing in the game that can't be bought with faith, 'cept districts and their buildings (more on that later). Furthermore, this is ridiculously cheap at 2:1 to production (compare 4:1 gold purchases), and unlike gold there are very few demands on faith. You can bank thousands of faith and pray for an army, or burn it steadily for city buildings, civilian units, what have you. Magnus doubles your faith output from chops - meaning that with Magnus you get the chop's base value in hammers AGAIN with Goddess of the Harvest. While the rest of these chumps get 2x Magnus, I get 3x Magnus. :D 

So, I've been thinking about the Choral Music/Jesuit Education tradeoff some more, and I think I've changed my mind from Choral Music to JE. My initial thinking was that I have lots of science, but will need to find a way to generate culture, and I could skip purchasing science buildings to spend my faith on other things. However, I've since decided I'm going about it wrong. Choral Music wants me to build lots of shrines and temples - but I don't WANT to do that! I get faith from GotH, I can use my limited district slots for other things. JE, on the other hand, syncs well with GotH, and lets me focus production on things other than libraries/universities. With JE, GotH, Magnus, and Seowons, I have the chance to set a new record for science - but I gotta be careful with that lest I paint a target on my back...

Anyway, moral of the story: Everyone made a huge mistake by letting me pick this pantheon with the 4th or 5th pick. Chumps. I can't beleive Alhambram opted for a few extra great scientist and great writer points instead of this. Here was the situation at end of 39:




The timing at JRTI is going to be perfect with Magnus - Magnus will come, builder will pop out, I'll build most of a warrior, and builder will reach the chop site just as Magnus comes online. 

OCISLY I waver back to a slinger - with all those barbarians, I want a bit more security before I want the plantations. Can't chop here before Bronze Working, which is probably my next target. 

In foreign news, we meet Emperor K's Georgia:




This is a bit of confirmation that he's on the far side of Japper, but I already knew that from Era score, which gives a lot of info in the early game. I could be getting more out of Era score - but that requires daily tracking, and I'm not investing that kind of time in this game. Monitoring overall developments is enough, I think. The player order I have deduced, starting from me and proceeding clockwise, is Japper, Emperor, Archduke, Rowain, and Alhambram. Alhambram getting a DoF with Rowain reassures me about Emperor getting rushed by the Archduke, since Sumeria must be aiming at Mongolia. I wonder who would win - Mongol heavy chariots or Sumerian war carts? Can Genghis Khan capture war carts? That'd be hilarious! I hope it happens. 

Let's take a look at Emperor:




Gold generation matches ours, culture is behind by 1 culture envoy, and science trails by about 1 population point - in other words, he's running even with us so far. He hasn't built a holy site yet - I think emperor is my biggest competitor for first religion, no one else has any especial reason to chase one. Anyone could, of course, but Emperor more than anyone needs a religion. I send him a DoF just for fun, which on turn 41 I find out...




...he accepts! Neato, this will keep his scout from making mischief. I also note that another warrior spawned, and both are pursuing my slinger. I will withdraw north to draw them away from the camp, and try to clear it with the other slinger. Guerrilla warfare is the order of the day, until my warriors are freed from the other camp in the west. Let's go check that out now, yes?




My original warrior will, barring a new spawn, be able to clear this camp next turn. If something spawns, I'll spend the promotion and wait for reinforcements, now only 3 turns away to the north. I'm confident, though - this barbarian crisis seems just about handled (-knocks furiously on wood after he realizes what he just said-), and we can finish up our early military and turn to expansion. 

Here's the latest at JRTI:



Granary is done and growth is back on the menu. Magnus comes next turn, and is established on t47. Builder is finished on t45, and reaches the chop site also on t47. JRTI will build a warrior (using Agoge), then get a 2(1.5(chop)) = 3x chop to inaugurate Magnus and plant our Holy Site. Since neither district is discounted, I'll chop the Holy Site and build the seowon, it's more important to get those GP points - so t48 is our timeline to first district and state workforce. 

Plan after that is to use Magnus and the deer to chop out a pair of settlers for Another Fine Product and I Blame the Parents, both of those cities hopefully founded and growing on t60 while Magnus shifts to OCISLY and starts chopping jungle for the southern frontier. Alhambram might beat me to that river spot, but I have plenty of land so I won't tear my hair out over it.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Worry not, I plan to build Commercial Hubs. They're not AS good, but you still really struggle to maintain gold generation in multiplayer - you need a large pile of units at all times, either fully modern or ready to be upgraded into modernity at a moment's notice. You also need to be purchasing tiles fairly regularly (late game chops in particular can be very steep, I've found) - and the best district in the game at boosting gold is of course the humble CH. 

The real question is, how many markets do I build? Each one is 105 production, so more than Ancient Walls, and no possibility of boosting that (at least encampment districts get veterancy!). Then you've still gotta build the trader. Traders are probably too cheap in vanilla (you can run a makeshift civ just offa trade routes, I've discovered!), but will they be worth 1 trader per city in R&F? Well, with Magnus, maybe - he breaks all the cost/benefit analyses. [Something that occured to me is that the Colossus is a better wonder in this set-up - before, you were paying 400 production for a single bonus trader, a handful of gold, and some GA points. Now, you can at least save the cost of a lighthouse...well, except you'llwant to build the lighthouse anyway to take full advantage of the bonus trade route. I guess the Colossus is still kinda lame.]

Really, though, thinking about gold generation, maybe I SHOULD keep Antioch around. I could be ready to capture the city very soon, as soon as I polish off these barbarians - three warriors and three archers would be plenty - but the possibility of +8 gold in every Commercial Hub is a lot. Could I match that with internal production from the city itself? ...actually, yeah, probably, a single CH + trader will be a significant chunk of that gold, and I get culture and science as well. 

With a good Magnus chop you can use the extra overflow after the district is complete to knock out at least some of the market. It's not like it's free production as you could use it elsewhere, but it does at least reduce the pain of slowbuilding it.  For Antioch, it's only +8 gold to Commercial Hubs with both a market and a bank, +4 to hubs with just a market, and nothing for a Commercial Hub with no buildings. Sounds significantly less appealing than control of the city.

Japper also has a campus down, with 2 GS points (missed that last time). And the GS isn't great - the guy who gives 3 inspirations, not Hypatia or anyone cool. I'm not sure this was the right move by Japper - he DOES get the early inspiration for State Workforce, but this is a long time to wait for a settler. Is he really going to try and build them all with the +100% from the Ancestral hall? Eh. I think that's too slow a start, but we'll see. 

The only category I trail in is civics, Rowain is crazy ahead.

Waiting until Political Philosophy + the time to build the Ancestral Hall (which might just be a Magnus chop, but who knows?) for a first settler sounds nuts even in Single Player. Maybe he's got a settler out and hasn't founded for some reason? Can't be trouble with barbs or he wouldn't have built the early campus.

Yeah, you're right, Antioch is better in my hands than out of it - and definitely better in my hands than Alhambram's (). I think I'll be ready in about 15-20 turns to tackle that city and add it to the empire. It seems the main danger I might run into here is OVER-expansion - these cities are going to start coming very quickly, and if I get too far ahead, the others will unite against me! I need DOTF in hand, that plus Magnus and the advantages of science/population should be enough to keep me safe. 

And yeah, Japper IS very late to a second city - I'm nearly in position to chop out cities #3 and #4! With a holy site and campus in hand, to boot - all he's got in return is a science rate that's worse than mine and a few extra GS points towards a lame GS. I think he's putting himself behind the curve by waiting to build the most efficient settler possible - you don't want to wait for colonization for your first settler, how could waiting to build a government plaza and ancestral hall be a good idea? Well, maybe he's got one out and I missed the pop change (or it was masked). We'll see. 

Still here, still following along, don't have much to contribute. I don't have R&F so can't comment on the various Governor and Legacy plans. In general, it seems sound, and I like the basic approach of looking for exploits in newer, as-yet-unpatched mechanics.

A hearty second on the appreciation of your reporting style! It's clear and just detailed enough.

skanar, just your company is appreciated. It gets lonely if it's just me by myself here, so I like it when you post even if you can't offer specific suggestions. And thanks for the encouragement on my reporting! I try to write the sort of reports I'd want to read.

[aetryn]

On turn 39, the spear made a tentative stab at my slinger, wounding both units. However, my slinger had a promotion saved up and so I went ahead and took volley. If I can save up until this guy is a Hwacha I'll be happy. The warrior, meanwhile, moved to cover the camp, which raises an interesting idea - the spear moved out to attack the slinger, so if I can lure the warrior out of camp, my new slinger out of OCISLY might be able to clear the camp. I still want warriors and slingers, though, because I'm presently last in domination score.   Of course, both my neighbors have DoFs with me, so it's not an issue until turn 65 or so, but you gotta build in advance in this game. My biggest nightmare is Alhambram chopping out an army in one or two turns and invading me before I have a chance to respond, so I need to hang close. 

...

Jackpot! Goddess of the Harvest is ours! Let's break it down:

1)Goddess of the Harvest will give us faith equal to our chops for the rest of the game, and yes, Magnus does affect this. Faith purchase is 2 faith/cog, so a Magnus chop basically gives me 1 to 1 faith to production in that sense. 
2)It is unclear if production cards affect this.  I need to run a test game. Reddit claims that faith IS boosted, Woden in PBEM7 found that his chops were not. I need to test R&F specifically. 
3)Valetta lets me buy monuments, granaries, water mills, sewers, walls, and encampment buildings with faith.  Lots of culture and population growth! But you wanna stay away from walls, you use those for more Magnus chops and more faith! Valetta is my #1 suzerain target for this reason, need to make sure Japper doesn't murder it. 
4)Monumentality in the Classical and Medieval Golden Ages lets you buy settlers, builders, and traders with faith - at 2 to 1 faith to production, again, ridiculously cheap. You could chop out a market, for example, and use the faith generated to buy a trader, too. Or chop out a settler and buy a builder to accompany him - who needs the Ancestral Hall when you've got Goddess of the Harvest? 
5)The Grand Master's Chambers lets you buy military units with faith, effectively replacing Theocracy (which boosts faith generation now instead). So you can double your chops for armies! 

To sum up: There is nothing in the game that can't be bought with faith, 'cept districts and their buildings (more on that later). Furthermore, this is ridiculously cheap at 2:1 to production (compare 4:1 gold purchases), and unlike gold there are very few demands on faith. You can bank thousands of faith and pray for an army, or burn it steadily for city buildings, civilian units, what have you. Magnus doubles your faith output from chops - meaning that with Magnus you get the chop's base value in hammers AGAIN with Goddess of the Harvest. While the rest of these chumps get 2x Magnus, I get 3x Magnus. :D 

So, I've been thinking about the Choral Music/Jesuit Education tradeoff some more, and I think I've changed my mind from Choral Music to JE. My initial thinking was that I have lots of science, but will need to find a way to generate culture, and I could skip purchasing science buildings to spend my faith on other things. However, I've since decided I'm going about it wrong. Choral Music wants me to build lots of shrines and temples - but I don't WANT to do that! I get faith from GotH, I can use my limited district slots for other things. JE, on the other hand, syncs well with GotH, and lets me focus production on things other than libraries/universities. With JE, GotH, Magnus, and Seowons, I have the chance to set a new record for science - but I gotta be careful with that lest I paint a target on my back...

Anyway, moral of the story: Everyone made a huge mistake by letting me pick this pantheon with the 4th or 5th pick. Chumps. I can't beleive Alhambram opted for a few extra great scientist and great writer points instead of this. Here was the situation at end of 39:

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure why this was so undervalued. I think Faith and this pantheon in particular were already a bit undervalued in vanilla Civ 6 (where you have to run Theocracy or pick up Valetta or JE something similar to really use faith). With R&F and the ability to faith purchase units regardless of government as soon as Divine Right and settlers/builders during golden ages, including Classical golden ages if you can manage it? Even if you have perfect terrain for one of the better terrain pantheons I think Goddess of the Harvest should never last until 4th or 5th. Their loss - it will be exciting for Korea!

I agree that you probably don't want to build Holy Sites everywhere, so Choral Music is somewhat less appealing. Choral Music syncs really well with the non-faith terrain pantheons where you will want to build several Holy Sites to get your faith generation up anyway. On the other hand, you will need Culture generation somewhere, and Holy Sites + Shrines are both cheaper and generally more useful than the equivalent Theatre District + Ampitheatre. Enough cheaper to justify spending a belief slot on Choral Music? Probably not, on balance, and you could possibly get by with fewer total districts if you pick up a GWAM or two somewhere, which could happen with no Russia (or Greece) in the game.

With the pantheon secured, and noting your above concerns about military competitiveness, I'm wondering if it might be a good idea to be a bit cautious in the opening stages so as not to get yourself targeted. It seems like you have a pretty decent amount of land and several long-term advantages, so time plays into your hands. Obviously you'd like to get DotF, and you want to get some Seowons down if only for the yield bonus to other tiles. And again, I make no claim to be good at Civ6 or this format in particular, but here's a crazy idea: Try looking competitive with military, at least enough to deter aggression, and non-threatening economically. This syncs up well with a Classical Dark Age -> Medieval Heroic age. Get lots of builders out for chops and positioned, get some faith banked through some early chops for settlers or a couple Seowons (not too many, as they will give you double Empire score, which will make other players nervous, and beakers per turn, which will make them even MORE nervous). Then when you hit the Medieval age, go nuts with chopping and science (chopping the rest of your Seowons or CH to feed faith into purchasing libraries or more units). At that point, you might have enough of a military base to upgrade (and faith to purchase more) that even if you have a target on your back it will be hard for your neighbors to mount a successful invasion. Then, when you get enough of a tech lead you can go out stomping . I'm not entirely sure this kind of "slowplay" will work - anyone that's run some SP R&F games should understand that Korea is a dangerous civ to leave alone regardless of what their current numbers look like - but there are enough other metagame factors in these long form MP games that you could fly enough under the radar until you are ready to make your move.

This is a bit of confirmation that he's on the far side of Japper, but I already knew that from Era score, which gives a lot of info in the early game. I could be getting more out of Era score - but that requires daily tracking, and I'm not investing that kind of time in this game. Monitoring overall developments is enough, I think. The player order I have deduced, starting from me and proceeding clockwise, is Japper, Emperor, Archduke, Rowain, and Alhambram. Alhambram getting a DoF with Rowain reassures me about Emperor getting rushed by the Archduke, since Sumeria must be aiming at Mongolia. I wonder who would win - Mongol heavy chariots or Sumerian war carts? Can Genghis Khan capture war carts? That'd be hilarious! I hope it happens. 

I'd have thought the warmonger civs would have wanted to target each other last. Sumeria taking out or significantly damaging the Mongols would be great as it would remove your big worry about the Medieval era - though I think Mongolia being on the exact other side of the map removes a lot of it too. A cross-map attack probably isn't going to be in the cards at that tech level, barring some kind of PB2-anti-KillerAngel-teamup (should be impossible with AI diplomacy only). 

My original warrior will, barring a new spawn, be able to clear this camp next turn. If something spawns, I'll spend the promotion and wait for reinforcements, now only 3 turns away to the north. I'm confident, though - this barbarian crisis seems just about handled (-knocks furiously on wood after he realizes what he just said-), and we can finish up our early military and turn to expansion. 

I was about to say "good job on the barbarians", but then I realized I should just probably find some wood to knock on too.