[SPOILERS] TheArchduke blasts into Space as Russia

[TheArchduke]

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.

I would like to establish the 3 eastern cities a bit quicker, although yeah, I think Beyond Timbermist should be #5. A bit more of exploration and I will make a final decision and discussion with you guys, one turn before the settler finishes.

[TheArchduke]

Turn 48

The old Magnus meta is dead, long live Pingala?
I am not so sure, there are valid options now. especially without Earth Goddess and a more harvest approach, Magnus has its uses. But with our pantheon? Pingala is more then worth it.

We shoot from 10 science to nearly 17 science.

   

17.6 with the dyes improved. We have 2 battles with barbs and we have a barb horse archer showing up in the Northwest. Thank God for discipline. I retreat the slinger and finish archery next turn. Together with Defender of the Faith we can hold off barbs. The warrior fortifies and hides in the NW until I can get the slinger upgraded and to head back again.

   

And we encounter the Cree in the south as the colours suggested.

   

The diplomacy screen sees the Cree at 2 cities and suggests that Bondsmith is actually the capital of the Cree. Connect this with the first to discover bonus at Mohenjo-Daro and the closeness of the Cree and the unique scout they have, consider me mildly suprised. I would go as far as say that this is a clear failure of scouting on the part of the Cree under the black sword.

   

Both our neighbours have not invested anything into faith and culture is only decent with the Cree. I must admit that I think we are in good shape if we play our cards right and remain cautious.
Spice Melange is actually close to be considered contested territory and I know Sullla will be annoyed, but I am back towards putting this down as #5 or even #4. If the Cree would have built 3 cities by now and expanded quicker they could already be there. There must be better land to the south though.

The good news is that Spice Melange is impossible to defend against a push from the north but quite easy coming from the south. I doubt however from my experience that people really consider defensiveness of cities when placing them as they should. Despite several PBEMs showing how IMPORTANT placement is in a war.

Our scout encounters the greek capital and so we have a clearer picture of what is going on:

   

[TheArchduke]

Overview of the map.

Distance between the capitals of Cree and Russia is 22 tiles.

Distance between the capitals of Greece and Russia is 35 tiles.

There is a very high probability of us being on a 4 player continent judging from the layout, and both Cree and Greece who DoFed each other have exactly one contact that we do not yet know off. 

Cardiff is 11 tiles to explore from our capital (real distance 14)
and 9 tiles from Cree.

Mohenjo-Daro is exactly 10 tiles away from both. 

Spice Melange is only! 12 tiles from the Cree and 8 tiles from my capital (which also moved 1 tiles SW initially)

Ngazarmu is 15 tiles from Greece and 14 from us (really 17-18 though as I needed to cross the small bay to contact them. I would consider our scouting a bit better even if unlucky (Mohenjo-Daro.. )

Just some interesting tidbits there.

   

   

   

[Sullla]

Great stuff, I'm happy to see that Greece and Cree are both in roughly the same position and seemingly well behind Russia's development. I wonder what TBS has been doing to have only two cities nearly 50 turns into the game, perhaps he ran into barb troubles at some point. This certainly looks like an excellent local neighborhood with plenty of space and no nearby rush civs to worry about. Other more specific comments:

* Definitely do not look to send the next settler to the Spice Melange location. It's an important spot tactically but too slow from a development perspective, the Just Do It location is a much better choice. Russia will be able to faith-purchase two settlers immediately as soon as the Golden Age begins (roughly Turn 60) and those can go to the Beyond Timbermist and Spice Melange spots simultaneously.

* How many turns until the Great Writer pops up in the capital? Should be pretty soon if I remember correctly, that will be a nice cultural boost and grant another immortal scouting unit. For that matter, have you checked which pantheons the other two players are running yet?

* Did you decide on what Fogger is starting next turn after the builder finishes? I'll still nominate the trader as the best choice while growing to size 4.

* Atreides is going to be an insane faith producer when it gets founded with settler #8 or so. With that many forests and the Russian tundra bonus it should be worth 3 faith on nearly every tile worked. It will just need a food trade route to get growth going. In fact, there are so many forests that you can probably chop some of them with Magnus later for an easy Mahabodi Temple. Worth thinking about in roughly 50-60 turns.

* With only 6 turns to Political Philosophy, it won't be long until it's time to think about what government to run. Do you lean towards Aristocracy or Classical Republic here?

[williams482]

For governments, I'm guessing that the extra yields from Autocracy will be worth more than the housing/amenities from Classical Republic. I don't know if Classical Republic's great person point boost applies to points converted into faith, but that's a difference of just 1-2 faith per turn. I also suspect that military policy cards will be more useful than econ/diplo in the short term, as we are faith purchasing our settlers and we already got the first meet bonus on every city state we have met to date. Urban Planning, Discipline, a military production boost, and either Caravansaries or Conscription seems appropriate for the initial slate of policies.

If we agree on Just Do It, Spice Melange, and Beyond Timbermist as the next three cities in some order, we should consider starting with Beyond Timbermist. Fogger is by far the closest city to both Timbermist and Melange, but we definitely don't want to buy two settlers there in short succession, and we lose three turns walking a settler from Funky to the Melange location. Instead, we can place the hard built settler at Timbermist, and buy settlers at Timbermist and Funky when the GA rolls around to settle JDI and Melange at minimal food cost.

We will have enough faith to buy two settlers (546) on t54. It will take us something like 10 turns to get enough faith to purchase the next settler. It will take the JDI settler 10 turns to settle and then grow to pop 2 for a settler purchase, so unless the era rolls over at t55 or earlier a potential settler out of JDI for the Act On Instinct site will be appreciably delayed. That's okay if our next settler would go to Vector, Artredes, or Arakis instead, with another ~10 turn wait to buy the AoI settler, so it depends how aggressively we want to push that front.

The strongest argument in favor of going Timbermist first is probably reducing the load on Fogger's paltry food supply while it tries to crank out Ancestral Hall and grow large enough to place the Commercial Hub. Getting out Ancestral Hall is worth some delay, as faith lost from later settlements will be easily made up by faith not spent on one or two more builders.

As usual I haven't totally convinced myself here, but I submit this for further consideration.

[TheArchduke]

Great stuff, I'm happy to see that Greece and Cree are both in roughly the same position and seemingly well behind Russia's development. I wonder what TBS has been doing to have only two cities nearly 50 turns into the game, perhaps he ran into barb troubles at some point. This certainly looks like an excellent local neighborhood with plenty of space and no nearby rush civs to worry about. Other more specific comments:

* Definitely do not look to send the next settler to the Spice Melange location. It's an important spot tactically but too slow from a development perspective, the Just Do It location is a much better choice. Russia will be able to faith-purchase two settlers immediately as soon as the Golden Age begins (roughly Turn 60) and those can go to the Beyond Timbermist and Spice Melange spots simultaneously.

* How many turns until the Great Writer pops up in the capital? Should be pretty soon if I remember correctly, that will be a nice cultural boost and grant another immortal scouting unit. For that matter, have you checked which pantheons the other two players are running yet?

* Did you decide on what Fogger is starting next turn after the builder finishes? I'll still nominate the trader as the best choice while growing to size 4.

* Atreides is going to be an insane faith producer when it gets founded with settler #8 or so. With that many forests and the Russian tundra bonus it should be worth 3 faith on nearly every tile worked. It will just need a food trade route to get growth going. In fact, there are so many forests that you can probably chop some of them with Magnus later for an easy Mahabodi Temple. Worth thinking about in roughly 50-60 turns.

* With only 6 turns to Political Philosophy, it won't be long until it's time to think about what government to run. Do you lean towards Aristocracy or Classical Republic here?

- Yeah I think Just do it can be reached quicker and will enable us to push east quicker with faith buys.

- 4 turns, which means our warrior in Cree territory will return and will be replaced by a 1charge Great Writer.

- Will be discussed in the turn report. I nearly wanted to start a warrior, but the time for a trader is good and we want to keep the money for archers or emergencies.

- Atreides with 1 or even 2 trade routes is great. An excellent backfill, but still a backfill.

- When we reach PP. What a conundrum. Aristocracy has the best policy setup getting rid of the awful diplomacy card, but the yields are already a drop in the bucket. Classical Republic has the much better overall bonus enabling cities to grow quite a bit bigger, but only one mil policy card is possible and that is in the wildcard spot. I lean towards Autocracy and switching to CR if things stay peaceful or Oligarchy if something happens.

For governments, I'm guessing that the extra yields from Autocracy will be worth more than the housing/amenities from Classical Republic. I don't know if Classical Republic's great person point boost applies to points converted into faith, but that's a difference of just 1-2 faith per turn. I also suspect that military policy cards will be more useful than econ/diplo in the short term, as we are faith purchasing our settlers and we already got the first meet bonus on every city state we have met to date. Urban Planning, Discipline, a military production boost, and either Caravansaries or Conscription seems appropriate for the initial slate of policies.

If we agree on Just Do It, Spice Melange, and Beyond Timbermist as the next three cities in some order, we should consider starting with Beyond Timbermist. Fogger is by far the closest city to both Timbermist and Melange, but we definitely don't want to buy two settlers there in short succession, and we lose three turns walking a settler from Funky to the Melange location. Instead, we can place the hard built settler at Timbermist, and buy settlers at Timbermist and Funky when the GA rolls around to settle JDI and Melange at minimal food cost.

We will have enough faith to buy two settlers (546) on t54. It will take us something like 10 turns to get enough faith to purchase the next settler. It will take the JDI settler 10 turns to settle and then grow to pop 2 for a settler purchase, so unless the era rolls over at t55 or earlier a potential settler out of JDI for the Act On Instinct site will be appreciably delayed. That's okay if our next settler would go to Vector, Artredes, or Arakis instead, with another ~10 turn wait to buy the AoI settler, so it depends how aggressively we want to push that front.

The strongest argument in favor of going Timbermist first is probably reducing the load on Fogger's paltry food supply while it tries to crank out Ancestral Hall and grow large enough to place the Commercial Hub. Getting out Ancestral Hall is worth some delay, as faith lost from later settlements will be easily made up by faith not spent on one or two more builders.

As usual I haven't totally convinced myself here, but I submit this for further consideration.

- I think CR is the better choice, I nearly always take it over Autocracy in SP, but in MP you want to be able to field 2 mil policies as you need serious military or fleet build boosts ahead of time and can not expect your neighbours offensives to be inept.

- Sigh, a very, very good point about Fogger. Fogger is the last place where we want to faithbuy settlers out of. Still we could buy one in Funky and escort him to Spice Melange. Who thought that the 4th city plant could result in such a lengthy and heavy discussion. 

- I am very close to yield to you and Sullla on the Beyond Timbermist front, maybe I do think too much about stacking my claim, defensive wars and offensive actions. It is just such a backfill location.

- The argument for Ancestral Hall is a VERY good one, can we establish it before we faith buy/settle the 2 settlers? Point taken.

[TheArchduke]

I dislike Bridge.

Why is that, I love playing cards. There is an old austrian game which is called "Tarock" I think it originally comes from France which I play to death. Bridge I can not stand.
It is highly analytical, easy to teach, it is perfect for a social atmosphere and evening. It enables one person to always get up, pour drinks, go to the toilet, etc. It is the perfect social card game.

I dislike the "Lizit" as we call, the announcement of what you game you play this round. Now in Tarock, you are allowed to talk about everything except the game. So you announce what you play, someone may overbid you but 2-3 "Lizits" later you know what is up. Either you play alone against 3 for the most points or the least points (ridiculous fun).

Bridge is different, you and your partner are always fixed and you "lizit" yourself up. So you announce that you will make the base amount of won cards and add "1 diamond" and someone else will say "1 heart", your partner then will say "2 diamonds" and so on. And as it is over the years this will escalate into a sort of "secret speech" which I loathe. It serves no purpose apart from learning by heart how many cards in which combination which announcement will mean. I loathe it.

So why the ramble? This:

   

I expect this will happen more often the longer the PBEMs here will last. From past PBEMs one knows that we are in the infancy of this 10gold for 10gold is meant to nudge someone to attack someone. In essence this is a loan offer, where the Cree can always cancel payment by declaring war. Which does involve giving me free culture. I declined as I need those 70 gold now a lot more then 90 gold in 30 turns.

I am however of a mind to offer the same deal in return. Does he want peace for 30 turns? Why not do a DoF? Right now I am confused more then anything else. He has DoFed Greece after all.

Cree´s milpower is quite high not unlike mine but it may be that he is worried about his other neighbour more then me.

Anyway, my warrior will return home by way of NW, thereby uncovering the lay of the land between us. I do not want to get a military unit stuck down there and our Great Writer can assist the Scout if needed.

   

It is looking good in era points, we will clear a camp next turn and another one probably in 6-7 turns. For that purpose I upgraded a slinger to an archer and will upgrade the second one. I do not want any barb suprises I can not handle to interfere with our micro.

   

This is why scouting is important. We now know the capital of Greece, its location, its geography and possible attack routes. Flying blind is never fun. 

   

I like that defensive site, eastern rampart. It could be added to a conquered Ngazagarmu to be my eastern border. The river location east of it is terrible. Undefendable and low on production. Yikes.

   

Yes, a trader is the best that can be done. I thought about waiting to buy it and handbuild a warrior, but one should not build outside of Agoge or Maneuver or ever buy a military unit outright. If you need to rushbuy a unit, you already did something wrong.

[Sullla]

These turn reports have been excellent, thanks for providing so much detail and so many screenshots! I wanted to make sure to mention that since it often goes unremarked in these MP games. Now as far as the topics we were discussing:

* I disagree a bit with williams482 on needing to avoid faith-buying settlers out of Fogger. That city has four really good resource tiles (cows, horses, the two luxuries) and then some "OK" tiles after that (the double forested grassland hills and the plains grassland hill). Those hills will be excellent down the road with lumbermills and they can *ALL* get the Earth Goddess bonus with a Liang city park improvement placed on the tile southwest of the city center down the road. However, Fogger gets most of its power at size 4 and never really needs to grow past size 7, which means that it doesn't matter overmuch if Russia produces some settlers out of it. I'm fine with TheArchduke going for the JustDoIt spot with the current settler and then faith-purchases two settlers at the start of the Golden Age out of Fogger (for Beyond Timbermist) and Funky (for Spice Melange). For that matter, you could always get a settler out of the capital too if needed with faith, although Pingala argues against doing that too much. Basically, I'd pick the best spots for new cities and not worry too much about where the settlers come from. I would not pick a weaker city spot just out of worry about where the settler's population point comes from.

* The Ancestral Hall costs 150 production so there's no way that it will be done before the two faith-purchased settlers finish. Fogger definitely should go trader -> Government Plaza -> Ancestral Hall and get the thing up and running ASAP but don't try to delay settling around the thing completing. It will probably be ready for city #7 and everything thereafter.

* I wouldn't sign that gold trade with TBS either, giving up 70 gold right now for 3 gold/turn over 30 turns is a sucker's deal. My immediate thought was that he's at war and needs money for emergency upgrades, no idea if that's true or not but it would explain the low city count. We don't have enough information at the moment to make an informed strategic decision. I would consider offering a Declaration of Friendship though since we have no intention of being aggressive at any time in the next 30 turns. Has that option been unlocked yet? I can't remember what you need on the tech/civics tree for that.

* The countdown to the next era should start any turn now. Russia will easily hit the required points for a Golden Age, and if anything it would be better to "save" era points if possible until after the next era starts. Not sure how possible that will be though. Landing another Golden Age for the Medieval period will be a very big deal and then after that it won't matter that much.

* I think archer upgrades are a decent use of money since there have been a lot of barbs and not stopping development to get more military is a high priority. Just remember that archers cost 1 gold/turn unlike warriors/slingers and that anything spent on upgrades isn't going into economy. You will also likely need to purchase the tile for the Campus at Funky in the near future so that it can go right onto the +4 beakers district when it hits size 4, and that's going to cost 80ish gold or so.

* On that note, your next big civics target after Political Philosophy should be Recorded History for the Natural Philosophy policy card (double adjacency bonus from Campuses). That's often a weak option but not here, with the capital having a +4 beaker Campus (once the Government Plaza finishes) and Funky also going to have a +4 beaker Campus. So Natural Philosophy will be worth +8 beakers/turn and that's a ton at this stage of the game. Far better than any of the other immediate targets on the civics tree that I can see after you land the initial governments.

[TheArchduke]

Oh my god. My browser at my reply.

Will rewrite when I can. Sigh.

[Sullla]

That sucks... A small tip I learned a long time ago with forum posting: always Copy your typed post before submitting it in case the browser eats it. That way you can Paste the same text immediately thereafter if something goes wrong. That's saved me more time than I can put into words over the years.