[SPOILERS] TheArchduke blasts into Space as Russia

[williams482]

I have to agree with Sullla here, especially on short term expansion towards Greece instead of picking up those backfill spots now.

One of the nicest things about these monumentality faith purchases is that we can do them right at the front, taking a short walk from an undeveloped border city to wherever we want to put our new settlement. That goes completely out the window once Monumentality is gone: we can backfill Vector, et all pretty easily because they are right next to powerful core cities that should be able to crank out settlers in 10 turns or so with Colonization, but sites closer to Greece will take a lot longer to either build the units, or walk them to their destinations.

Add that to the safety of our backline spots. Someone technically could get a settler back there, but they wouldn't be able to defend their little colony, and even if they landed enough troops to hold you off, the city would flip due to loyalty pressure. Spice Melange is the exception, and has enough strategic value that I can get behind trying to plant it soon, but Vector and LoF are totally safe.

[TheArchduke]

I find both of your well-thought out analysis of the situation and recommendations annoying but very helpful. How am I supposed to make mistakes that way?
First off turn report.

Turn 75

We encounter Hattusa with an excellent quest and we have an enovy on standby. If we wait 4 turns however we could get 2 envoys instead of one. But we would need to delay the commercial hub in Hell March for 2 turns. I think this could be worth it. We have one more turn to decide.

   

TheBlackSword screwed up with Cardiff as he moved his horseman away. I think Cardiff is pretty much ours which is really good news as it prevents our flank being attack able by sea. We will commence our attack as soon as possible maybe next turn if TBS gets antsy. Excellent news. With Cardiff and Spice Melange lateron an attack by the Cree is doomed. I am less worried now.

Note also 5 turns until DoF expiry. So we have to be cautious about our positioning. Thus also my 3rd Horse out of Funky which I do not apologize for at all.

   

The pain train for Cardiff.

And a much needed sawmill in the east and some exploration.

   

Also I am sure you will heavily disagree, I faithbuy a settler out of Beyond Timbermist. It is for Spice Melange. I want a connection between Cardiff and my empire.

[TheArchduke]

Once again I hope everything is going well with the busy real life stuff. This game certainly doesn't move very fast (or apparently get reported very well outside this thread and suboptimal's thread). I have some disagreements with both the small scale stuff taking place on the current turn as well as some of the bigger picture planning for the future, which you can feel free to follow or ignore as you prefer. First let's cover some of the small scale things taking place right now:

* Is Vector the best place to pick for the next city spot? It's certainly not a bad spot as there are several resources nearby and I can see two strong district placements immediately: a Lavra southeast of the city center (double adjacency bonuses with the forests and the city tile) and a Harbor two tiles north of the city for future shipbuilding at size 4. But Vector is a completely safe backlines spot that no one will ever contest and I'm not sure that this is the best spot for the next city. I'll continue to advocate pushing east towards Greece in preparation to crush Kaiser with cossacks later. You can always get the Vector spot later on but you might not have the same chance to claim the eastern wilderness. It's hard for me to see the terrain over there from the screenshots posted thus far; I would advocate trying to get something in the area of Eastern Rampart for now and then pushing another city after that at the Waimakariri River region which has some nice land. Do not place a city at The Waiting Game, that's bad local terrain and it's not necessary to have a city in that spot. Establishing control of this area is important to get some roads running (via trade routes) and speed military units later.

* Your income situation is slightly underwhelming but only because the current policy configuration isn't running the -1 gold/unit card (Conscription). Obviously this is one of the downsides to being in a Classical Republic government. If you're able to swap into this policy card at the next civics transition and finish the Commercial district at the capital, that should take Russia up somewhere into the 25-30 gold/turn region which is healthy for the moment.

* Shipbuilding tech finishing next turn is great! The Great Writer(s) can explore overseas to find that missing Scientific city state and hopefully contact the remaining two players eventually. But your Great Writer in the west is currently standing next to cliffs and will need to move back a tile to embark into the water. Shouldn't take more than a turn or two to meet that Scientific city state though.

* I strongly disagree with that second horseman in Funky and I think it was a poor choice. You absolutely did need to build some military since TBS had jumped out to about 220-230 power rating, and you managed to accomplish that by training two horses and a chariot. But adding a third horse is purely wasteful at this point: TBS stopped increasing his power, indicating that he was only interested in whacking city states, not conquering another player, and Funky is missing an opportunity to work on its infrastructure right now. *THIS* is the time to get a shrine or a monument finish to boost culture, while Funky is waiting to grow to size 7 and build its Commercial district. Russia has Choral Music available but it's not being used very well thus far - I think there's only a single shrine in the whole empire right now. There's no reason to be slipping behind TBS and Cornflakes on culture (they're both up around 35/turn now) when Russia has the option to get 2 culture per shrine and the big payout of 4 culture per temple. I mentioned in my last couple of posts that this was the time to have these cities get some shrines/temples going for culture purposes and I think not doing so is a missed opportunity.

Seriously though, what is that horseman going to do? What purpose does it serve? Russia isn't going to war anytime soon. Why build a horse that's only going to cost gold in maintenance each turn and delay useful city infrastructure (?)

* Now for the big picture theorycrafting, the most important part of the discussion. I have the 100% opposite conclusion with regards on who to be thinking about attacking: for me it's Greece all the way. Kaiser is incredibly weak both in-game and out-of-game. 17 beakers/turn is a total joke at this stage of the game and he'll never be able to field units better than knights/crossbows when Russia's in a position to attack with cossacks. (It goes without saying that 67 strength 5 movement cossacks will laugh off either of those units without breaking a sweat.) Kaiser is also totally checked out when it comes to playing this game, with zero posts in his spoiler thread over the last month. It's the very definition of "mailing it in" from a Pitboss/PBEM perspective.

And I can't emphasize this enough: yes, this really does matter when it comes to strategizing! We've seen endlessly over the last ten years that the surest path to victory is to run over a weaker/checked out neighbor and absorb their territory. In the big Pitboss games, the pregame discussion of who will win often turns on which players managed to roll weak neighbors for easy consumption. Conversely, if someone has a reputation for whipping/defending well in Civ4, that's a player who should be avoided if possible. You'd better believe that this was a major decision in the PBEM7 game when Singaboy and I went after Jowy as opposed to your Germany!

So Russia has the best possible neighbor here: a weak, checked-out, technologically-backwards neighbor who we can reasonably expect to fold like a house of cards when attacked. Why in the world wouldn't you want to set up a scenario where they get eaten up and annexed by Russia? I'm struggling to understand this desire to attack TBS instead. TBS has already shown that he's a strong player in past Civ4/Civ6 games and his Cree are doing the best of the non-Russia players on this continent by far. (I would currently rate the field as Russia, Australia, Cree, <big drop>, Rome, <big drop>, everyone else.) TBS has an excellent beaker/culture output, he just took over a city state, and he's tied for the city count lead if I'm reading the numbers correctly. Attacking the Cree would be a very difficult task and I doubt that a complete conquest would be possible at all. So why charge into that minefield if you don't have to?

I understand the worry about TBS potentially attacking your flank from the south. However, I completely disagree with the statement about "I cannot conquer Greece with TBS at my side." For starters, there's a decent chance that you can line up a Declaration of Friendship window that grants you 30 turns of immunity from attack. The current Cree DoF ends on Turn 81; if you can get a renewal until Turn 111, you'd be in a position to sign a new extention on Turn 111 right when cossacks are rolling out and you look terrifyingly strong. I think there's a decent chance that TBS signs that out of fear that he's a target. We've seen innumerable cases where players sign DoFs that they shouldn't and clear the field for a player to conquer someone else.

But let's say that doesn't happen: TBS refuses to sign a deal and you have to worry about a hostile Cree to the south. Serious question here: how dangerous is that really? Cossacks have 67 strength as a base value, then they get +5 combat strength for fighting in your borders... and then ANOTHER +5 combat strength from Defender of the Faith. TBS isn't going to be further than the Renaissance era on the tech tree around Turn 110 so he's going to be working with knights, cavalry, muskets, and maybe field guns as his best units at that point. None of them are going to do a darn thing to 77 strength cossacks that can attack and then move again after attacking. Like, how would he even hurt you in this scenario? Everyone is familiar with the changes to city walls in Gathering Storm, right? The ones that make it nearly impossible to attack without bringing siege units into the mix? Fogger and Funky would have defensive strengths of at least 60 once cossacks appear, and if you put medieval walls in those cities they'll be essentially impregnable to attack, because how could a bombard ever get into firing range without 77 strength cossacks one-shotting them and then dancing away to heal and attack again? I just don't see how this is possible. TBS isn't dumb: if he has a strong military around Turn 110, he's going to be hitting Cornflakes with it, not charging into cossack-wielding Defender of the Faith Russia.

That's the other piece of the big picture analysis that I think you're missing: Rome. You wrote "I fully expect Cornflakes' yields to explode soon". I disagree: what's the evidence for that? Has Rome been building a bunch of districts that I can't see because I'm not in-game (?) My feeling is the opposite: Cornflakes has stalled out and doesn't have a plan for what to do next. Rome's science rate is terrible and has been stagnant for the last dozen or so turns. He's been sitting around the 25-30 beaker range for ages now. Rome's barely even ahead in culture and that's a really dangerous sign - Rome should be WAY ahead in culture. Rome's advantages are all frontloaded and the player needs to snowball off of them from a position of leading the pack. This is what I did in the two PBEM games that I played, where Rome was leading in score for basically the whole game. Cornflakes might have a lot of cities but his science rate is poor, his military strength is bizarrely weak, and he's almost out of room for peaceful expansion. I have no idea what he didn't set up for a legion-based attack on Greece but clearly that's not happening now. I think Cornflakes gets run over by TBS down the road, I don't see him as a competitor at all. What am I missing here that makes you think Rome is about to take off (?)

Overall then, my recommendation is pretty much the same as what I outlined earlier: keep pushing towards cossacks ASAP, keep expanding eastward, be in a position to crush Greece and absorb Kaiser's territory. There is no situation more favorable than having cossacks + Defender of the Faith on hand so don't let the presence of the Cree stop you from making a move. (I had to expose my flank in the PBEM1 game to attack but it was worth the risk.) It's almost always better to hit the weakest player rather than the strongest player and this game sets up perfectly for that. I'd encourage you to push culture right now and get ready for a wave of builders afterwards once Serfdom is on hand for the 5 charge units. Hopefully this wasn't too much of a wall of text paragraph - as always, it is your game in the end. Feel free to tell me to shove off.

Agree with the push east. Spice Melange for military and strategic reasons has higher importance. We want to close off our soft underbelly and I do not want a repeat of the Spice Melange move situation.

If I can get Cardiff and Spice Melange under control the case is stronger to hit Greece. I need the Horse for milpower, Cardiff and general protection. I plan to not build any military for the next 20 turns though, if I can not help it.

Cornflakes is more competent micro wise then Rome is at the moment. I think he is pushing expansion relentlessly. Not that I agree, but I won´t count him out.

Also note that an eastern settler would suffer 2-3 turns of barb delay at best atm.

I have to agree with Sullla here, especially on short term expansion towards Greece instead of picking up those backfill spots now.

One of the nicest things about these monumentality faith purchases is that we can do them right at the front, taking a short walk from an undeveloped border city to wherever we want to put our new settlement. That goes completely out the window once Monumentality is gone: we can backfill Vector, et all pretty easily because they are right next to powerful core cities that should be able to crank out settlers in 10 turns or so with Colonization, but sites closer to Greece will take a lot longer to either build the units, or walk them to their destinations.

Add that to the safety of our backline spots. Someone technically could get a settler back there, but they wouldn't be able to defend their little colony, and even if they landed enough troops to hold you off, the city would flip due to loyalty pressure. Spice Melange is the exception, and has enough strategic value that I can get behind trying to plant it soon, but Vector and LoF are totally safe.

Yeah, Vector and LoF are at the back of the que now, especially as Cardiff can provide us with a fleet. If we can not win the influence war with Australia over those CStates, we might just conquer Hattusa and push envoys into Fez.

[Sullla]

How amusing is it that after all those turns of waiting to meet Hattusa, on the very turn that Russia discovers Shipbuilding and can embark units... that's when a random city state galley shows up out of the blue. Well, better late than never. I think that you absolutely should hold off on finishing the Commercial district in the capital until you can get the 2 for 1 envoy policy card in place. Hell March can work on its temple in the meantime which will be another big boost to culture when it finishes, then swap back and finish the Commercial district once the Diplomatic policy card is in place. Note that you have to wait until the turn *AFTER* discovering a civic to do this, since production happens before the civic swap can take place. I think this is worth delaying the Commercial district by 4-5 turns because the double envoy card gets you 2 envoys in the city state and then you can drop the currently saved up envoy to hit the magic 3 level, worth an instant +4 beakers/turn from Russia's two libraries. How many other players have envoys invested in Hattusa? The city state suzerain benefit is worthless but I'm curious who's been sinking envoys in there.

By the way, I also think you should be working to capture Hattusa as well. With only 19 defense your horses have a good chance of being able to take it quickly. I would still try to get 3 envoys in there, however, because the investment cost is low (a single envoy plus the 2 for 1 card plus the reward) and it might take some time to capture Cardiff. Even if you're only getting the extra science from Hattusa for a dozen turns, I think that's worth spending one envoy.

The actual city strength of Cardiff is only 23; it's getting a major bonus from the chariot sitting inside the center tile. Hopefully the chariot moves out of the city, you can kill it, and then the capture will be easy. I think your proactive movement to grab Cardiff while TBS has his army still healing/repositioning from taking Mohenjo-Daro is really smart. And if you're going to move on Cardiff then yes, Spice Melange is the logical next city spot to secure it. Besides, as you pointed out there are too many barbarian units over by Act On Instict to be able to move east right now. So I think the path forward on expansion is the Spice/Cardiff combo for now, then Eastern Rampart, and then a city at that river about six tiles beyond Eastern Rampart. You should have enough faith to be able to purchase two more settlers after this one before the Golden Age runs out.

The key district for Spice Melange is a Harbor that goes one tile west of the city center. But you can't build Harbors yet since you lack the tech so I'll throw out an Encampment as its first district instead. You should be able to construct an Encampment at half cost via the district discount formula, you'll need an Encampment for some of the tech/civic boosts down the road, and there's no better place in tactical terms than along the southern border with TBS. If you go this route, which spot do you prefer more: two tiles south or two tiles east? Two tiles south would probably be better defensively but two tiles east avoids wasting a good tile. I wasn't able to make up my mind here.

Check-in on the district discounting formula:

C = total number of completed districts (regardless of type)
P = placed districts of the specific type in question, both completed and uncompleted
A = available districts to build based on techs/civics discovered

Discount applies if both of these are true:
1) C >= A
2) C/A > P

Right now the constant values are C = 7 (four Lavras, two Campuses, and the Government Plaza) and A = 7 (Lavra, Campus, Encampment, Commercial, Government Plaza, Theatre, Entertainment). Russia still qualifies for the discount on everything other than Lavras and Campuses! You will need to complete another district when Apprenticeship finishes to keep it in play but that should be easy given the Commercial district almost done at the capital and the Lavra nearing completion at Atreides.

What were you thinking next turn for Just Do It when the chariot completes? I'll suggest a shrine again, both because more culture is important and you might need to purchase a missionary over in the east down the road.

[williams482]

Encampments are appeal killers. Placing one 2S will not only remove that very nice breathtaking GFH, but also drop the 3rd ring deer down to charming. Placing 2E will have no effect on current appeal.

That said, do we really have much choice here? 2S is by far the better strategic position, as it controls a critical choke point. Meanwhile, 2S will be blocked from firing into the desert by the two forest hills.

Oddball alternative: if we spend some gold and grab Magus, we could chop that third ring plains forest deer 3S of the city center and put the encampment on that tile. Much better strategically than the 2S spot, and the shields we get from the harvests will at least partially offset the lost gold.

[TheArchduke]

Turn 76

The Cree are definetly not happy with Cardiff. Posturing indicates possible hostilities. I am starting to worry. 
Maybe 2-3 more archers or warriors?

   

Australia declines Euclid and I get him automatically without any doing on my part. Strange. He boost Apprenticeship, thereby enabling my Fez Missionary to finish the tech.
Spares me the bother of a third mine.

   

Hattusa is not as crowded as Fez is. Not sure if a conquest is worth it when I can push in 3 envoys very quickly.

   

A quick overview of the empire.

   

A very strong roman city hides in the fog.

   

[TheArchduke]

On the encampment. 2 tiles east is nice. But 2 south nicely closes off the approach to Cardiff.

And I agree with the appeal loss being annoying. But we continue to explode faith wise in any case. I think we can take a hit there.

[Sullla]

Well, that's quite a traffic jam shaping up around the Cardiff area. Since Russia does not have an Open Borders agreement with the Cree, those units should get bounced somewhere else as soon as Spice Melange gets founded. I'm not entirely sure where they will end up, probably somwhere over by Skybreaker. Regardless though, Russia should have control over this region thanks to planting a city at the Spice Melange location. Here's a couple of thoughts along those lines:

* The timing on the Ancestral Hall couldn't be much better: it will finish next turn just in time to deliver a free builder to Spice Melange. I'll suggest that Fogger use this time to get out a shrine/temple combo before you unlock a tier 2 government and it finds itself working on the Grandmaster's Chapel for the next dozen turns.

* Finishing the Ancestral Hall also delivers a governor promotion. My suggestion is to use this for Magnus and immediately place him in Spice Melange itself. Use the free builder to improve the whale and fish resources that Spice Melange's borders will grab; this will provide the boost for Celestial Navigation and allow Russia to research that tech next very cheaply. Then use the third charge on the builder to chop the forest tile two south of Spice Melange once Magnus finishes establishing himself in the city; this will instantly finish the Harbor and clear out the forest from a tile where a future Encampment will be placed, thereby not wasting the chance to chop. It's much better for Spice Melange to go Harbor then Encampment as opposed to vice versa because there won't be enough health to grow to size 4 without the Harbor district and its lighthouse.

Note that finishing Apprenticeship (Industrial district) and then Celestial Navigation (Harbor district) will disqualify Russia from the district discount. However, Russia will also finish two districts in the next 4 turns to re-activate it: the Lavra at Atreides and the Commercial district in the capital, plus you'll have to wait 5 turns for Magnus to establish himself in Spice Melange. Thus it should be possible to Magnus-chop a cheap discounted Harbor in roughly five turns and that will be enough to get Spice Melange off and rolling (not to mention setting up a much-needed trade route).

* While you have the Fez suzerain bonus in play, I think the next faith purchase should be a missionary to convert the Spice Melange + Timbermist + Atreides trio. This will get Defender of the Faith into play at Spice Melange in case you end up in combat with TBS and set up for the Choral Music bonus at Atreides and Timbermist. The cities should be size 1, 3, and 4 = 80 free beakers from Fez as a handy side effect too.

* By the way, you have the potentially to REALLY mess with TBS by planting Spice Melange. Although I think that gold should generally be saved for unit upgrades from this point forward, there are always exceptions and this looks like one of those cases. Spice Melange is going to grab the 2/2 forest hill tiles south of the city (yay Russia!) and you can spend gold to purchase the deer tile further south in the city's third ring. TBS only has 23 gold on hand right now, he won't be able to purchase over to that spot before you (not to mention he'd have to purchase two tiles to get there, not one). If you purchase the deer, he can't reach Cardiff by land at all without declaring war on you. That could seal off this whole corner of the map without him being able to do anything about it. Plus the deer itself is a genuinely good tile for the city to work! Normally I would say to avoid tile purchases but the tactical benefits here make it probably worth it.

* Longer term thought on Amani: I would keep her in Fez for now until you have a missionary convert the Spice/Timbermist/Atreides troika. After that, I'd look to move her to Yerevan in an attempt to get up to 3 and eventually 6 envoys there. Russia will be building a lot of shrines and eventually temples for the Choral Music benefit and that's going to be worth a lot of faith if you can establish envoy control there. (By contrast, I'm not sure if you're going to be building any universities in the near future so stopping at 3 envoys in Fez/Hattusa should be plenty for now.)

* Empire looks very good overall. Only slight weaknesses right now are culture (which is only low relative to Rome) and gold/turn income. Finishing some shrines/temples will fix the former and finishing Commercial/Harbor districts combined with running Conscription polict will fix the latter. Meanwhile, science is looking great: four more turns until you gain control of Hattusa and pick up 6 beakers/turn and Act On Instict is about a dozen turns away from finishing its Campus district for an obscene 10 beakers/turn (!) Faith is higher than we've ever seen before in a Realms Beyond MP Civ6 game on Turn 76. It's a nice place to be right now.

[TheArchduke]

Analysis tomorrow.

Turn 77

   

[TheArchduke]

Well, that's quite a traffic jam shaping up around the Cardiff area. Since Russia does not have an Open Borders agreement with the Cree, those units should get bounced somewhere else as soon as Spice Melange gets founded. I'm not entirely sure where they will end up, probably somwhere over by Skybreaker. Regardless though, Russia should have control over this region thanks to planting a city at the Spice Melange location. Here's a couple of thoughts along those lines:

* The timing on the Ancestral Hall couldn't be much better: it will finish next turn just in time to deliver a free builder to Spice Melange. I'll suggest that Fogger use this time to get out a shrine/temple combo before you unlock a tier 2 government and it finds itself working on the Grandmaster's Chapel for the next dozen turns.

* Finishing the Ancestral Hall also delivers a governor promotion. My suggestion is to use this for Magnus and immediately place him in Spice Melange itself. Use the free builder to improve the whale and fish resources that Spice Melange's borders will grab; this will provide the boost for Celestial Navigation and allow Russia to research that tech next very cheaply. Then use the third charge on the builder to chop the forest tile two south of Spice Melange once Magnus finishes establishing himself in the city; this will instantly finish the Harbor and clear out the forest from a tile where a future Encampment will be placed, thereby not wasting the chance to chop. It's much better for Spice Melange to go Harbor then Encampment as opposed to vice versa because there won't be enough health to grow to size 4 without the Harbor district and its lighthouse.

Note that finishing Apprenticeship (Industrial district) and then Celestial Navigation (Harbor district) will disqualify Russia from the district discount. However, Russia will also finish two districts in the next 4 turns to re-activate it: the Lavra at Atreides and the Commercial district in the capital, plus you'll have to wait 5 turns for Magnus to establish himself in Spice Melange. Thus it should be possible to Magnus-chop a cheap discounted Harbor in roughly five turns and that will be enough to get Spice Melange off and rolling (not to mention setting up a much-needed trade route).

* While you have the Fez suzerain bonus in play, I think the next faith purchase should be a missionary to convert the Spice Melange + Timbermist + Atreides trio. This will get Defender of the Faith into play at Spice Melange in case you end up in combat with TBS and set up for the Choral Music bonus at Atreides and Timbermist. The cities should be size 1, 3, and 4 = 80 free beakers from Fez as a handy side effect too.

* By the way, you have the potentially to REALLY mess with TBS by planting Spice Melange. Although I think that gold should generally be saved for unit upgrades from this point forward, there are always exceptions and this looks like one of those cases. Spice Melange is going to grab the 2/2 forest hill tiles south of the city (yay Russia!) and you can spend gold to purchase the deer tile further south in the city's third ring. TBS only has 23 gold on hand right now, he won't be able to purchase over to that spot before you (not to mention he'd have to purchase two tiles to get there, not one). If you purchase the deer, he can't reach Cardiff by land at all without declaring war on you. That could seal off this whole corner of the map without him being able to do anything about it. Plus the deer itself is a genuinely good tile for the city to work! Normally I would say to avoid tile purchases but the tactical benefits here make it probably worth it.

* Longer term thought on Amani: I would keep her in Fez for now until you have a missionary convert the Spice/Timbermist/Atreides troika. After that, I'd look to move her to Yerevan in an attempt to get up to 3 and eventually 6 envoys there. Russia will be building a lot of shrines and eventually temples for the Choral Music benefit and that's going to be worth a lot of faith if you can establish envoy control there. (By contrast, I'm not sure if you're going to be building any universities in the near future so stopping at 3 envoys in Fez/Hattusa should be plenty for now.)

* Empire looks very good overall. Only slight weaknesses right now are culture (which is only low relative to Rome) and gold/turn income. Finishing some shrines/temples will fix the former and finishing Commercial/Harbor districts combined with running Conscription polict will fix the latter. Meanwhile, science is looking great: four more turns until you gain control of Hattusa and pick up 6 beakers/turn and Act On Instict is about a dozen turns away from finishing its Campus district for an obscene 10 beakers/turn (!) Faith is higher than we've ever seen before in a Realms Beyond MP Civ6 game on Turn 76. It's a nice place to be right now.

I have 2 gov promotions lined up and I disagree with getting Magnus in Spice Melange. I am leaning towards a defense governor. TBS mil power is starting to rise as well 280 and he has plundered a road to Cardiff. I am quite confident he won´t back down until I slapped his hand a little bit. Why he does not back off against me is flabbergasting whilst Cornflakes who is an easier target not only milpower wise but as a player is beyond me.

I would take the second promotion for Magnus in Atreides and get that city going down back there.

I also disagree with the tile purchase. Past Sullla is absolutely right that this seldom worth it except for the very early game. I have a bit of cash which could be used for emergency upgrades and that is what I am keeping it for.

Consider the Cree movements. Cardiff is done for, he will not get it as I got the key access tile, so why bring another horse? Our DoF runs out in 4 turns.
Also his scout has pillaged the road, making reinforcements to Cardiff slower.

So the only question now is can I conquer Cardiff before the DoF expiry and that is a no. So I will bounce his units out. Dig in, get some more military (thus the archer out of Fogger). I also prepare Stirrups for a possible feudalism boost or an emergency research unboosted.

Let´s hope that TBS backs off.

I slot in Oligarchy in 2 turns if the situation escalates further or milpower of the Cree increases further. I wary atm.

I agree on everything else, especially the missionary for the DotF bonus in Spice Melange.