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I had a chance to play through several starts. A few only to about T40, and a couple to T60-100 range. Wan't trying to optimize, just get a feel for timing and try a couple of different tech and civic lines. Lots of SHIFT+ENTER to cycle through the turns without exploring much.
Found this in one game  when using reveal all cheat code to see the entire map:
First screenshot is from T44. I was done with what I wanted to test in that game and curious to see what would happen. I cycled through another 10 turns, but the barbs only circled around the city without capturing. Each Macedonian unit that got build was immediately killed upon leaving the city, and the 3 barb camps were pumping out units quicker than they were dying. The city was never attacked though as far as I could tell. If no Macedonian units were visible the barbs just circled like vultures but didn't attack.
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Barbs don't attack cities on prince, king and up they do.
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T1 score reveals Pindicator didn't settle. I move warrior 1NW revealing a horse, take pause briefly and wonder if it might not be better to move towards the horses. Then realize that a 2nd city could be planted along that river to the north adjacent to horses and stick with the plan to move the settler 1E:
With settler lens on, and Great People:
Plenty of fresh water around. Options to the NW, NE, and SE. And another horses! This is good news for early/easy access to a classical unit if I find Aztecs in the neighborhood. 3 pasture resources mean I really want to try and get God of the Open Sky! I hope the starts aren't mirrored or GotOS looks like it would be in high demand. If only that Dye were 1st or 2nd ring I would work it after growing to size 3, alas it is too far away  Also in looking back at the screenshot I see coastal housing visible on the settler lens 3E of the settler.
Next scouting move I'm probably going W to the swamp since that will reveal the most number of tiles. From there unless I see something interesting on the settler lens I'll probably make a general counterclockwise movement around those horses to (1) check out the area for 2nd city location, and almost as importantly get those files defogged so I can get early warning of a horse camp spawn in the vicinity. The nice thing about keeping vision on tiles around the horse in these first few turns is that will prevent barbs from spawning on any tiles I can see.
Now to re-run the starting micro with incorporating horses into the calculations. Interesting start indeed Emperor K! Thanks again for making the map!
May 26th, 2018, 07:56
(This post was last modified: May 26th, 2018, 08:27 by Cornflakes.)
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Looking at the micro now ... borders pop end of the 8th turn after founding. Since I'm founding T2 the tile should be available to work on T10. The horses should be the acquired and there shouldn't have any confusion over which tile the picker selects.
[all values below are end of turn]
A: Warrior ASAP > builder > settler, Work 1/3 PFH until borders pop to pick up horses:
T7 warrior completes
T11 growth to size 2
T13 builder completes (improves horses T15)
T22 settler completes with enough food in the box to remain at size 2. [builder available to immediately pasture horses at city #2 upon founding]
B: Sync warrior completion with growth (as close as possible) > settler > builder, work rice
T7 growth
T9 warrior
T18 settler with enough food to remain at size 2
T24 builder (improves 1st pasture T26, farm T8, 2nd pasture T3)
C: Growth ASAP > warrior > settler
T6 growth
T9 warrior
T19 settler (1  short)
T25 builder
D: same as A except scout instead of warrior ... speeds up settler and builder by 1 turn, but higher risk due to barbs/Aztec
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Change of plans! Opened the save to militaristic CS borders visible in the west! Proceeded with settling the city, and then moved the warrior 1W to make contact with ...
Valletta!!! We saw in PBEM 5 how Pindicator leveraged Valletta's Suzerain bonus, and after watching that game it looks like one of the stronger CS possible. It may be worth shifting the entire early game strategy to leverage it's ability. The quest in construct a Holy Site, and combined with Mysticism envoy it is easy to get 3 envoys early. Faith  as an early game yield it massively improved, to the point where I might build Holy Sites first before campuses. I've set research to Animal Husbandry for now since that is obviously needed to build pastures early.
The +2 from meeting the militaristic CS is already speeding up the warrior by a turn 
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Second the notion that Valletta is one of the best payoffs for an early faith push possible. Note that Valletta makes Jesuit Education relatively less good, since it [Valletta] grants a method of turning faith into infrastructure. I believe Choral Music to be the first choice for a religion now.
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(May 26th, 2018, 19:51)Thrantar Wrote: Second the notion that Valletta is one of the best payoffs for an early faith push possible. Note that Valletta makes Jesuit Education relatively less good, since it [Valletta] grants a method of turning faith into infrastructure. I believe Choral Music to be the first choice for a religion now.
That is a good point about Choral Music being relatively more valuable than Jesuit Education now. It is unfortunate that with Russia in the game there's virtually no reasonable shot at the first religion That would require immediate HS builds at both of the first cities, plus Divine Spark, and probably a project (or 2 projects without Divine Spark) and I just don't think we can afford that type of investment. So the question is, will TheArchduke go for Choral Music? I think he will. He has mentioned in several threads that he thinks that belief is overpowered compared to the rest of the beliefs. So if I do build early holy sites, what other beliefs would I go for?
First, let's look at the payback of holy sites, shrines, and temples. Say an average +2 adjacency for a holy site. Construction cost of around 60 for a 1 /turn equivalent ROI makes that a dubious investment. Same math on a shrine. Temple is only slightly better at 105 for 2 /turn equivalent. There is also the opportunity cost of using up a district slot, and the resulting yield from that district (  from campus districts, etc.). The religion itself will need to have some considerable return I think to make that worthwhile, and I will need additional source of faith than just HS I think in order to actually be effective (such as pantheon, which has its own opportunity cost).
May 27th, 2018, 09:01
(This post was last modified: May 27th, 2018, 09:28 by Thrantar.
Edit Reason: Mil Buildings Text
)
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Couple points.
Part of the repayment of religion and temples is offering the fastest access to a tier 2 government (Monarchy). Founding a religion and building temples for it boost Theology and Divine Right.
The other potential Follower Belief probably remains Jesuit. While Jesuit is relatively less good with access to Valletta, it is exactly as good as previously. Choral Music gained ground on Jesuit; Jesuit did not get worse. (I suppose you could do some sort of River Goddess [pantheon] & Religious Community [follower] combination to grow larger cities.)
For pantheons, God of the Open Sky is good, but I urge you to consider Goddess of the Harvest as well. Chop whatever, and buy granaries/monuments/water mills with the faith from the chops. Sacred Path remains an option, depending on what terrain looks like by the time you pick a pantheon.
Valletta also allowing the buying of encampment building with faith. The eureka for Gunpowder requires an Armory, and faith purchase might be the fastest way to get there. Barracks/Stable buys also can help you get a Great General, to either forestall aggression, or do your own.
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Added the Valletta +2 for units to the spreadsheet, and it's effect is to speed up Warrior, Builder, and Settler by 1, 2, and 4 turns respectively! Settler timeline is now T18.
The only ranking out of place is current TheArchduke, who as jumped to the top of the Religious ranking. Presumably he met a religious CS already.
The GPerson traits of Brazil make other districts relatively stronger than Holy Sites (since HS don't produce any meaningful GPP long term). Goddess of the Harvest might in itself produce enough faith for Valletta to be meaningful. I think I am going to proceed at this point as though I am going to go Campuses for my first districts. How can I pass up that +5 adjacency tile?! It will take approximately 130  to acquire that tile, but I think that is a worthy price to pay compared to a 1st ring +1 or 2nd ring (50 ) +2 adjacency. I will try and get a single HS down in a high adjacency location to complete the quest before entering the Classical era, and also start crawling slowly towards a religion.
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Just moving the scouting warrior for the past couple of days. Here's the latest:
Settler is due by T18, and I want the northern warrior to loop around and finish scouting out that area around the NW horses. In the south, I see coastal housing 3E of the capital, but the Coffee is not coastal. I think the priority in the south is scouting along the river looking for potential 2nd city sites in that direction.
Having 2 horse resources, and without a huge number of great resource tiles, a direct run to Apprenticeship looks appealing for tech path. Pick up Writing + Pottery + Mining while building a few slingers, then Archer + HBR for defensive purposes (especially if Aztecs are in the neighborhood) and the Currency + Apprenticeship. The delay to BW/IW won't matter as much when I can build horsemen to boost city defense strength.
On the ranking screen, rho21 not only leads Culture (obviously as Rome) but also Science and Religion indicating that he has met a CS of each type ... I didn't check the scores so I suppose now that I think of it he could have been the first to grow to size 2 for the science lead. I'll check next turn.
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