[SPOILERS] TheArchduke blasts into Space as Russia

[TheArchduke]

No seperate post this time, as I think I will answer all questions in my report and turn analysis.

Turn 44

Quickly done, 2 barb attacks and a bit more scouting. Irrigation is done, archery is started and I am off a mind to finish it or to near completion. First to have it ready for a possible attack on us. Second for the ToA. I concede your point about Hypatia. She may be a free library but +1  per city with a campus is actually not that brilliant. One project in Hell March would take 4turns and the city just has better things to do.
Also in the east the scout uncovers a possible CS in settlervision.

So with that out of the way.

Hell March

   

Current plan is to finish the builder and to get a +50% settler after the builder. Where to put the 4th city is a very big decision and more on that later.
The current worker setup will add a size 5 worker on the Plains Hill W of the city. The Floodplains NW was abused for more growth until the spices were claimed by Funky.

The builder that leaves the city will improve both spices. I am off a mind to get a third growth tile by farming the Floodplains NW. This would cost us a builder charge for the truffles E of Funky.

Tentative plan could be a granary, a shrine or even ToA. I put down a possible location near Funky as well. I am a big sucker for amenities and it provides a gazillon housing for a Pingala City whilst being relatively inexpensive and much easier to complete then the Collosseum.

The nice thing and this will be apparent continuing on, we do not need mines to stay competitive until medieval and we should consider going for Machinery after Archery with an oppurtunistic currency grab when the district discounts allow.

Builder->Settler->ToA or Shrine->military

   

Fogger, excellent work setup and as it has no awesome growth tile unlike Hell March and Funky we will not push out a settler here. The best bang for buck is a shrine here after the builder and the gov plaza and the builder will pasture up the horses before continuing on to farm the 2 ridiculous flood plain tiles near Funky. Our biggest issue will be to get out ancestral hall as we only have one (faithless) 3 hammer tile which we will work when hit size 5.

Builder->Gov Plaza->Ancestral Hall->Shrine

   

Funky. With three high food tiles this city can grow, grow and grow some more. We should not buy a settler out of here ever. The case for ToA or the Great Bath is very strong here. We have some VERY strong tiles in the second and fourth ring to take advantage of a ridiculous number of pops. We have a mediocre lavra (still awesome thanks to +2GP points which get converted into faith) and a great Campus. After that the best we can do is a commercial district (like Fogger and Hell March). I consider to make a lowlevel play for ToA in this city as it would provide 8 amenities and 3 housing to a city which can really grow into its housing cap. Something worth to consider.
I acutally prefer this ToA site a low more and we could pour some production until size 4 into a ToA and see where we end up with.

The plan ahead is very clear to me.

1.) Get more faith and a golden age (easily done with a Cardiff quest and an envoy from Mysticism if need be)
2.) Faith buy settler out of Hell March and city 4.
3.) Funky Swamp as a Pingala growth city.
4.) Hell march for the occasional infrastructure.
5.) Funky for ancestral hall in time for the classical GA

I will NOT conquer our two CS to the south. Those city sites are were weak, difficult to attack without ships and actually together with the desert serve as an excellent buffer zone. So I actually see no case for any further military builds thanks to a small efficient army for barb control that we already have.

Ships however are another issue.

For orientation purposes a map overview. I am confident now that we are quite isolated. Let´s keep it that way.

   

   

The biggest issues now is settler number 4 and where to go. So meet our prospective city #4 bachelors:

[TheArchduke]

So to our east we have two very strong candidates.

   

Just do it has some excellent tiles, but a bit of a growth problem if not for the 3 food tiles in the second ring (gotta love Russia). It has a very obvious and strong Holy Site tile to its northwest. It does contribute to our snowball with some serious faith output. All 4 tiles next to Crater Lake are breathtaking and with Russia and Earth Goddess this means that those 1 2 are actually 1 3 and 3! tiles.
For Russia Just do it is some serious real estate.

Act on Instinct has a ridiculous campus of +5  with +6 if I can get a +3  site going W of the city.  

   

I am of the firm belief that Spice Melange is a priority of at least city #5. It has excellent ship building qualities and we have no site that comes even close to the water. A great campus as well.

   

Beyond Timbermist is awesome and was a strong contender with Funky for city #4 but it is a backfill city, we should push our boundaries earlier and quicker.

   

Right now I think the current settler order I would prefer:

Just do It (handbuilt)
Spice Melange
Act on Instinct
Beyond Timbermist Woods

Beyond that depends on neighbours, Vector could stoneharvest some good ships out, The Waiting Game opens up the east and ships for the southern sea.

[Sullla]

Thanks for posting all of those images TheArchduke, very helpful for providing a basis for discussion. I'm going to try to run through your two posts in the same order and give some feedback on the questions that you raised:

Hell March: Finishing the current builder and then going into a settler for city #4 (coinciding with flipping into Colonization policy upon discovering Early Empire) definitely feels like the strongest option here. I also agree with working the 1/3 forested plains hill with the +2 faith Earth Goddess bonus upon hitting size 5; you could also potentially pick up the other 4/1 spices tile if you wanted to grow faster, but I think higher production for a faster settler outweighs that (also because the other spices tile wouldn't have the Earth Goddess bonus). Improving the double spices tiles and then using the third builder charge for something at Funky similarly feels like the obvious best decision. No disagreement there.

One thing that I don't agree on is making a play for Temple of Artemis, either in the capital or in Funky. That just feels like such a Single Player move to me, investing 180 production for a questionable wonder. That same production could be a shrine and a temple (6 faith + 6 culture per turn), or it could be an entire district plus a tier 1 district building (Commercial district + market), or three builders, and so on. Temple of Artemis produces 4 food, 3 housing, and +1 amenity (a quarter of a luxury resource) for each camp, pasture, and plantation resource in the vicinity. How valuable is that really? Hell March and Funky both have little need of food while granary + aqueduct gets them enough housing to reach size 12, more than large enough for competitive MP. And while more amenities are always nice, this area already has plenty of luxury resources: truffles and silks and spices and whales just based on what can be seen already. I think that chasing after a wonder would be a huge waste of time, that production would be better invested into pushing the growth curve instead. There's also the risk of someone else building the wonder and wasting the production investment which would be a disaster. (If you're going to push for a wonder, I think the Mahabodi would be the best choice since there shouldn't be much competition and it would allow the religion to be enhanced without wasting faith on apostles. That can come much later though. Most wonders are just not worth building for non-China players.)

Fogger: The biggest issue with this city is a lack of food. It has a lot of production to grow onto (the 2/3 horses tile with pasture and a bunch of 2/2 forested grassland hills which will become 2/4 tiles with lumbermills), it just needs more food to grow more quickly. As such, I think the logical choice here after the current builder finishes is a TRADER. This will boost Currency (a tech you'll want in the near future anyway) and a trader can run a route back to the capital for a 3 food / 1 production yield right now, exactly what Fogger needs. I'd even suggest finishing the trader before the Government Plaza - you can place the plaza as soon as Fogger hits size 4 to lock in the cost, then finish the trader, then swap back to the district and finish the plaza. This will boost an important tech, significantly speed up the development of Fogger, provide a little bit more gold income, and heck, even build a useful road connection between the first two cities. Since Fogger is going to have about half a dozen turns of downtime between finishing the builder and growing to size 4 to start the district, the trader is a natural choice to fill in during that gap period.

Funky: I agree that the plan here should be to grow ASAP up to the housing cap, with production starting on the Lavra district and knocking it out while it's still cheap. I'm less sanguine about this being a great longterm city though because it's a bit lacking in the way of production. Crazy amounts of food, yes, but not that much production. I would emphasize building the Lavra and then going into the Campus district after that at size 4 because the +4 beaker adjacency spot is so strong. I don't think this city has any reasonable chance of building Temple of Artemis and I would strongly caution against trying. I also think that you're going to need to faith-purchase some settlers out of Funky, largely because it's much closer to the planned city spots off to the east. If Funky's sitting at the housing cap it won't particularly hurt to purchase a settler here anyway.

Southern city states: I agree on no immediate plans to conquer these city states, with it being too difficult to attack until Russia has a naval presence and can blockade the water tiles. Definitely no need to train more military at the moment in the hopes of launching a Classical era attack. I do think that these cities should be conquered eventually though, as there's zero need to make use of Industrial and Theatre district benefits. Save those envoys for Scientific or Religious city states that might be good choices to befriend. Basically, I would be thinking "conquer these city states circa Turn 100" rather than "conquer them circa Turn 75", but definitely do plan to conquer them eventually.

Settler #4: The obvious choice to me seemed to be the spot to the west, identified right now as Beyond Timbermist. The terrain over there is very strong, with a 4 food rice tile for growth (5 food with a farm), another truffles resource, and a ton of forested grassland hills that will pick up the Earth Goddess bonus. This city can get started out immediately with little need for builder attention and start contributing to the empire right away. It will also be a launching point for faith-purchased settlers to be placed on the western coast down the road. There's even a stone resource that can be quarried there for the Masonry boost that otherwise looks tricky to land. Timbermist felt like kind of a no-brainer to me when I was looking at the map.

I don't care for the Just Do It spot nearly as much. It's a bit lacking in food and would need a trade route to get started, with the best food tiles being a 3/1 marsh tile and a whole lot of hill/tundra tiles nearby that only have 1 food. Yes, there's a ton of faith at this spot and it's very much worth grabbing, but you'll also get a lot of faith from Timbermist since basically all of the tiles there also qualify for Earth Goddess. Just Do It requires more support to get up and running which I'm not sure will be available right away. It feels like a better choice for a faith-purchased settler circa Turn 60 as opposed to a hand-build settler circa Turn 50. (Don't forget that a settler out of Hell March has a much longer transit time to walk to Just Do It as opposed to Timbermist - that does matter!) Again, I like this spot for a city and I think it will be a great contributor eventually, I just think it's better holding it for another settler 10 turns down the road.

My order would therefore be:

City #4: Timbermist (hand-produced)
City #5: Just Do It (faith-rushed)
City #6: Spice Melange (faith-rushed)

With cities #5 and #6 popping out simultaneously on the first turn of the Golden Age. Russia will definitely have enough faith to get two settlers immediately, and a third settler probably due a couple turns after that. It's too early to project much beyond that but I'd lean towards Atreides or Vector to fill out the west, subject to what scouting finds over there. Expansion is going to outstrip infrastructure in the worst way as soon as Monumentality arrives, and that's going to be a good problem to have.

[TheArchduke]

Thanks for posting all of those images TheArchduke, very helpful for providing a basis for discussion. I'm going to try to run through your two posts in the same order and give some feedback on the questions that you raised:

Hell March: Finishing the current builder and then going into a settler for city #4 (coinciding with flipping into Colonization policy upon discovering Early Empire) definitely feels like the strongest option here. I also agree with working the 1/3 forested plains hill with the +2 faith Earth Goddess bonus upon hitting size 5; you could also potentially pick up the other 4/1 spices tile if you wanted to grow faster, but I think higher production for a faster settler outweighs that (also because the other spices tile wouldn't have the Earth Goddess bonus). Improving the double spices tiles and then using the third builder charge for something at Funky similarly feels like the obvious best decision. No disagreement there.

One thing that I don't agree on is making a play for Temple of Artemis, either in the capital or in Funky. That just feels like such a Single Player move to me, investing 180 production for a questionable wonder. That same production could be a shrine and a temple (6 faith + 6 culture per turn), or it could be an entire district plus a tier 1 district building (Commercial district + market), or three builders, and so on. Temple of Artemis produces 4 food, 3 housing, and +1 amenity (a quarter of a luxury resource) for each camp, pasture, and plantation resource in the vicinity. How valuable is that really? Hell March and Funky both have little need of food while granary + aqueduct gets them enough housing to reach size 12, more than large enough for competitive MP. And while more amenities are always nice, this area already has plenty of luxury resources: truffles and silks and spices and whales just based on what can be seen already. I think that chasing after a wonder would be a huge waste of time, that production would be better invested into pushing the growth curve instead. There's also the risk of someone else building the wonder and wasting the production investment which would be a disaster. (If you're going to push for a wonder, I think the Mahabodi would be the best choice since there shouldn't be much competition and it would allow the religion to be enhanced without wasting faith on apostles. That can come much later though. Most wonders are just not worth building for non-China players.)

Fogger: The biggest issue with this city is a lack of food. It has a lot of production to grow onto (the 2/3 horses tile with pasture and a bunch of 2/2 forested grassland hills which will become 2/4 tiles with lumbermills), it just needs more food to grow more quickly. As such, I think the logical choice here after the current builder finishes is a TRADER. This will boost Currency (a tech you'll want in the near future anyway) and a trader can run a route back to the capital for a 3 food / 1 production yield right now, exactly what Fogger needs. I'd even suggest finishing the trader before the Government Plaza - you can place the plaza as soon as Fogger hits size 4 to lock in the cost, then finish the trader, then swap back to the district and finish the plaza. This will boost an important tech, significantly speed up the development of Fogger, provide a little bit more gold income, and heck, even build a useful road connection between the first two cities. Since Fogger is going to have about half a dozen turns of downtime between finishing the builder and growing to size 4 to start the district, the trader is a natural choice to fill in during that gap period.

Funky: I agree that the plan here should be to grow ASAP up to the housing cap, with production starting on the Lavra district and knocking it out while it's still cheap. I'm less sanguine about this being a great longterm city though because it's a bit lacking in the way of production. Crazy amounts of food, yes, but not that much production. I would emphasize building the Lavra and then going into the Campus district after that at size 4 because the +4 beaker adjacency spot is so strong. I don't think this city has any reasonable chance of building Temple of Artemis and I would strongly caution against trying. I also think that you're going to need to faith-purchase some settlers out of Funky, largely because it's much closer to the planned city spots off to the east. If Funky's sitting at the housing cap it won't particularly hurt to purchase a settler here anyway.

Southern city states: I agree on no immediate plans to conquer these city states, with it being too difficult to attack until Russia has a naval presence and can blockade the water tiles. Definitely no need to train more military at the moment in the hopes of launching a Classical era attack. I do think that these cities should be conquered eventually though, as there's zero need to make use of Industrial and Theatre district benefits. Save those envoys for Scientific or Religious city states that might be good choices to befriend. Basically, I would be thinking "conquer these city states circa Turn 100" rather than "conquer them circa Turn 75", but definitely do plan to conquer them eventually.

Settler #4: The obvious choice to me seemed to be the spot to the west, identified right now as Beyond Timbermist. The terrain over there is very strong, with a 4 food rice tile for growth (5 food with a farm), another truffles resource, and a ton of forested grassland hills that will pick up the Earth Goddess bonus. This city can get started out immediately with little need for builder attention and start contributing to the empire right away. It will also be a launching point for faith-purchased settlers to be placed on the western coast down the road. There's even a stone resource that can be quarried there for the Masonry boost that otherwise looks tricky to land. Timbermist felt like kind of a no-brainer to me when I was looking at the map.

I don't care for the Just Do It spot nearly as much. It's a bit lacking in food and would need a trade route to get started, with the best food tiles being a 3/1 marsh tile and a whole lot of hill/tundra tiles nearby that only have 1 food. Yes, there's a ton of faith at this spot and it's very much worth grabbing, but you'll also get a lot of faith from Timbermist since basically all of the tiles there also qualify for Earth Goddess. Just Do It requires more support to get up and running which I'm not sure will be available right away. It feels like a better choice for a faith-purchased settler circa Turn 60 as opposed to a hand-build settler circa Turn 50. (Don't forget that a settler out of Hell March has a much longer transit time to walk to Just Do It as opposed to Timbermist - that does matter!) Again, I like this spot for a city and I think it will be a great contributor eventually, I just think it's better holding it for another settler 10 turns down the road.

My order would therefore be:

City #4: Timbermist (hand-produced)
City #5: Just Do It (faith-rushed)
City #6: Spice Melange (faith-rushed)

With cities #5 and #6 popping out simultaneously on the first turn of the Golden Age. Russia will definitely have enough faith to get two settlers immediately, and a third settler probably due a couple turns after that. It's too early to project much beyond that but I'd lean towards Atreides or Vector to fill out the west, subject to what scouting finds over there. Expansion is going to outstrip infrastructure in the worst way as soon as Monumentality arrives, and that's going to be a good problem to have.

I aim to please. I do have to thank guys you for engaging to this high amount, it motivates me and helps me play with a lot more focus.

Onto your input. Yeah, the Temple of Artemis. I am a bit burned by my England PBEM on sea where amenities started to become a REAL problem by the end of the game. It may be that this is not so much of an issue with this setup. Also one luxurity counts for 4 amenities. If I read you right, the Temple of Artemis counts for 1-1/2 luxuries if you get lucky with placement. This makes it a bit less good.

I disagree with your trader idea. Trader can not be boosted by any cards and are best bought with gold or faith. I am fairly sure that if we do not see any hostile movements by neighbours (none so far) I should buy a trader with 160 gold not build him and delay the govplaza. We want ancestral hall in place for our next city for the free builder.

I do think you underestimate Funky Swamp. We have 1x 1 3  and one lesser tile that we can snatch from the second ring of Hell March. Also with Appeal being low thanks to floodplains, Funky can mine 1-2 hills without tanking faith production.

On city sites I am really sceptic of Timbermist Woods. It is the better site by far, but not a strategic plant. It is a city away from the opposition and yields land relatively.

A quick overview of turn 45

   

The capital goes into -1 amenity with grow, but goes back to neutral thanks to the truffles.

Quite a bit turn, we meet Kaiser of Greece when we stumble not upon a CS but the city of Rycroft, which just finished a campus.

   

So Kaiser is east and a tad south of our position it seems, making anything east of Waiting Game contested area. Another point imo against Timbermist, but I disgress.
Except for religion and faithproduction we are quite close in terms of milpower, yields and finished districts. I can check out all cities except the capital in diplomacy.

   

Turn 46 report comes up and I will post it now. Turns have been slow and time has been precious this weekend.

[TheArchduke]

Turn 46

Doing the report 1-2 days after a turn really lowers the quality.

Anyway, we are finally getting the lay of the land. Our southern borders next neighbour are the Cree under TheBlackSword. This is overwhelmingly good and bad news. Bad news I am not bordering Nubia or Rome (which both need a highly alert and competent neighbour to defend himself from them) and good news I am not bordering Nubia or Rome which could seriously detract from our snowball by forcing me into a high military buildup including silly amounts of chop or hammers into military like PBEM #16.

   

A warrior comes posturing out of Rycroft, not wanting me to see too much or pillage anything. Thanks to the mountaineer trait, we can dance around him.

   

Next turn and the turn thereafter, we get 2 workers going. Hell March will go back to a settler with the +50% card engaged.

   

With our next neighbours located this changes things and the dotmap and accordingly the overall strategy. I will try to make my thoughts clear with the next turn report.

P.S.: I switched away from Archery afair.

[TheArchduke]

Pindicator holds save till 16 hours.

Pindicator posts 11 hours ago in Pitboss 46.

Come on..

[Sullla]

Yeah, it can be annoying when the game runs through long delays especially during the early turns when there's not much going on. Anyway, contact with other players is big news. Kaiser's Greece is one of the less dangerous neighbors to have and there seems to be a very wide buffer zone between your territories. The head to head comparison with Greece is outstanding: Russia has more beakers, more culture, more gold/turn, and an equal number of cities despite also having an incredible 26 faith/turn income. Basically Russia has kept pace with Greece while also managing to build two Lavras and found a religion. You're going to accelerate past Kaiser quickly once the Golden Age arrives and settlers open up for faith purchasing. This is a good neighbor to have IMO.

Also, how did you know that the Cree are to the south? Was that from the name applied to the volcano on the map (?) Based on the name of the Kawatiri River, it could just as easily be Australia to the south. I guess we'll see in time.

Williams482 and I are here to provide advice and feedback, and you should always feel free to disagree since it's your game. If you prefer the Just Do It site for the next city, you should definitely go with your gut feeling. I think that it needs a food trade route to be a strong contributor but we can agree to disagree on that. I suggested the trader for Fogger because there's going to be some time between when it finishes its builder and when it grows to size 4. What are you thinking of building there during those 4-5 turns while waiting on growth to size 4? Purchasing a trader isn't a bad use of gold at all, this just seemed like an opportunity to do something useful during that span of time while also adding more food (which Fogger badly needs) in the process. Don't forget that you'll likely need to purchase a tile at Funky for the +4 Campus district in the near future, since it's going to reach size 4 quickly (with the Lavra already done, 6 more turns sheesh!)

One other key point: a new governor promotion opens up next turn with Early Empire finishing. I think the strong choice here is Researcher for Pingala, the one that adds +1 beaker per population point. There's more of a need for science than culture right now, especially because the Russian Lavras are going to produce a Great Writer in a few more turns for +4 culture in the palace. That should get Russia up around 16-17 beakers/turn and start pushing through the tech tree at a much better rate. The culture promotion for Pingala can wait until the Government Plaza finishes.

[TheArchduke]

The turquiose-blue-green? border to the south points to the Cree. We will see when I play the turn now.

   

[TheArchduke]

Turn 47

One turn till contact and we have the lay of the land.

   

Pingala is upgraded one turn before establishment.

   

A lull of 5 turns starts where nothing much will change, but we got plenty of units to run in circles.

I am also happy about the current comparison with Greece.

   

I like Just do it better as it will come shortly before the faith based settler rush and means we are a bit more east towards a neighbour. Also I can easily get a lot of faith out of it and I can always do my trade route to my capital from there.

[williams482]

Quick hitters:

That's definitely the Cree's color scheme, barring some really weird jersey shuffling. I don't think I've seen any other civ with those colors.

I'm not sure how much a Trader will cost at this point in the game, but it's probably in the ballpark of 50 hammers / 200 gold. I'd lean towards hard building the trader. Your best alternative is likely a shrine, which also cannot be boosted by policy cards and can be purchased for a similar amount of gold. Hard building the trader looks like it will be slightly faster than buying it, finishing likely a couple turns after growth to pop 4, while the shrine would take longer (meaning either a further delay of the Plaza+Hall, or we leave a large hammer investment sitting unfinished in the build queue).

Further exploration clarifies the strategic value of Just Do It over the other candidates. JDI can also be settled sooner (six turns after settler completes vs eight for Beyond Timbermist, if I'm counting the optimal routes correctly). I think your instinct on grabbing JDI first makes sense, but Beyond should probably be one of the first two faith settlers (the other going to Act On Instinct) because it is a phenomenal location for conventional reasons and a faith powerhouse to boot. That's probably the only urgent "backfill" city, with the others pushing towards the front as fast as faith accumulation and military considerations permit.