[SPOILERS] TheArchduke blasts into Space as Russia

[TheArchduke]

I have to say, I don't love putting an encampment down on a forest hill without chopping. Wait five turns for magus+chop and you come out well ahead on build time for a weak startup city like this one, and it's not like dumping hammers into a monument would be a waste here. On the plus side, the chosen site is probably the least impactful for long term faith production, so that's a perk.

I agree, but we use forests mostly for faith and all other positions for the (discounted) encampment were terribly suboptimal.

[williams482]

I agree, but we use forests mostly for faith and all other positions for the (discounted) encampment were terribly suboptimal.

Why put it down on the first turn then? You could start the monument, get a builder over to that tile in time for Magus to settle in, and chop monument -> encampment, which should leave you with a lot more net production into the encampment than five turns of production and whatever marginal cost savings can be found from planting the district five turns earlier.

As for chopping ships, Galleys are 65 hammers, which is approximately one unboosted forest chop at this point in the game. Magus will bump that 50% with no overflow-cutting bullshit, but the +100% policy on top of that will basically eliminate any overflow off a galley chop. In short, DO NOT RUN MARITIME INDUSTRIES if you are planning on chopping ships. You will lose more production than you gain.

[Sullla]

Thanks for all of the pictures, they're very helpful in seeing what's going on. Here's the usual collection of thoughts that I had while reading through the posts:

* Autocracy has a great policy card setup for the moment with the 2 Military and 2 Econonic (with the Wildcard slot) policies. Oligarchy would be so much weaker both in terms of policy card slots and the actual benefits of the government itself. I strongly advise against adopting this government, potentially even if you would get into a war with TBS. It only applies to melee units and almost all of your contemporary units are horses which don't get the benefit. I genuinely don't think TBS is planning to attack you, and the current number of units should be plenty sufficient along with Defender of the Faith and city walls.

Small side note on this: TBS looks like he has Victor stationed in Skybreaker (I think that explains the 36 defensive strength, hard to tell without being able to see his other cities) which would suggest that he's worried about an attack from RUSSIA, not vice versa. Just something to keep in mind.

* What's the plan for taking Cardiff? You can only hit from two melee tiles plus one archer shot at the moment and can't put the city under siege. I think that's probably enough if you pillage the farm for healing and rotate in the third horseman when one of the current ones gets low but it could be close. Pray that the city doesn't pick this moment to finish city walls.

* Not surprisingly I disagree about building two more chariots at a time when there's no plans for offensive warfare. I guess they can be knights later, but any goal spent upgrading them is going not spent upgrading horses into the far superior cossacks. Just feels like a waste to me at a time when there's an urgent need for more culture. Each chariot could be a shrine or a monument instead and that's another 4 culture/turn. I don't like being at 28 culture/turn when Cree and Rome are both around 40 culture/turn. Yes, this is going to get better in the near future (the temple at Hell March and the double shrines at Atredies/Just Do It are worth a combined 8 culture/turn, plus Hell March growing a size with Pingala, plus Meritocracy worth about 10 culture/turn on the horizon) but Cree/Rome will also be improving their culture too. There's every reason why Russia can be leading the field in culture, not scrambling to catch up. Just feels like the chariots are a wasted build.

* On that note, don't forget to swap off Stirrups next turn since Feudalism will finish it off. What's next on research? You could try for Celestial Navigation to open up Harbor districts or start pushing the bottom of the tree towards eventual cossacks.

* I'm not sure why TBS wants to build Harbor districts, it's a bit puzzling. He has one down at his capital because he wants to build ships out of it (and it wasn't on the coast). The other one is at Skybreaker, the city on your border. Getting into the naval game is never a bad idea even though your continent is very land-heavy. I also didn't realize that TBS has nine whole cities (eight natural plus the captured city state) so he's more than keeping pace on expansion. He's going to run out of city names for Knights Radiant orders soon since there's only 10 of them.

* Probably only 2 more turns until the next settler is purchasable via Monumentality faith, sheesh. Russia's faith output is amazing. Two thoughts on that: how many envoys do you have in Yerevan? Now that a lot of cities have shrines, getting up to 3 envoys there would be nice. I'll float the idea of moving Amani over to Yerevan once you convert the current group of cities and no longer need Fez's missionary conversion bonus (3 envoys is plenty for Fez). Second thought: maybe shift that chariot by Funky over to the east to help clear out the barbarians? You're going to be getting a settler out of Act On Instinct very soon and it will need an escort en route to the Eastern Rampart location. Eastern Rampart for next settler, then the following settler northwest of the 4/0 cows tile on the banks of the Waimakariri River?

* Still going to need a road over to these eastern cities. The current trade route between Fogger and Hell March should be almost done its course, I'd re-route it to Just Do It and get a road back to Fogger or Timbermist just for movement purposes. Cardiff's Harbor district with its own trade route would also be super helpful here.

* The builder at Spice Melange: I'll suggest the following. You could improve the whales for an extra amenity and the Celestial Navigation boost (if you take Cardiff, the improved fish resource there would be the second seafood resource and grant the boost). That would leave two more charges available; you could look to improve a forest tile with a lumbermill or do some Magnus chopping once the governor gets established. I wish that a Harbor district had been planted instead of the Encampment since that would grant another trade route and help out with gold and city health. (Like williams, I also dislike the Encampment placement; one tile south would have avoided wasting a fantastic 1/3 forested plains hill tile.) But anyway, a Magnus forest chop should be worth around 100 production right now. Two chops would get you Encampment + granary + monument and that's probably the best combination of city items right now. Obviously if TBS actually did want war then you would go for city walls + Encampment but I still think that's unlikely.

[williams482]

There is no meritocracy policy any more, so no help coming there. The effect (+1 culture per district) was moved to the Pen, Brush and Voice Golden Age dedication when Rise and Fall came out.

[TheArchduke]

Guys I am more then happy to enter micro town again when I get a ReDoF, but I really do not want to be caught with my pants down.

That being said.

Initial disposition.

I decided against another strike on Cardiff and plundered a trade route and a mine. Getting my war chest up.

If TBS decides to reoffer a DoF but he is not leaving the border then fine. Else, we are ready.

   

So we are ready for a possible dow. A sacrifical warrior, 3 archers, possibly DoF boosted next turn with obliquiatory tile buys with the war chest. If a ReDoF comes we strike Cardiff. Also the worker is on emergency chop standby.

   

As said I get you guys, but Cree´s milpower and position do not fill with me with confidence that he accepts my possible conquest of Cardiff.
But I am paranoid warmonger so we go that way. Same with the 2 chariots with together with 3 knights can be a formidable force in 4 turns.

   

A new barb camp in the west and the Great Writer lands soon.

   

Not sure where Cree´s money is, his income is +40!

In 4 turns we have xbowmen and knights. I hope I do not have to use them.

[TheArchduke]

I agree, but we use forests mostly for faith and all other positions for the (discounted) encampment were terribly suboptimal.

Why put it down on the first turn then? You could start the monument, get a builder over to that tile in time for Magus to settle in, and chop monument -> encampment, which should leave you with a lot more net production into the encampment than five turns of production and whatever marginal cost savings can be found from planting the district five turns earlier.

As for chopping ships, Galleys are 65 hammers, which is approximately one unboosted forest chop at this point in the game. Magus will bump that 50% with no overflow-cutting bullshit, but the +100% policy on top of that will basically eliminate any overflow off a galley chop. In short, DO NOT RUN MARITIME INDUSTRIES if you are planning on chopping ships. You will lose more production than you gain.

I would need maritime industries for Cardiff, though, but that is far off.

Thanks for all of the pictures, they're very helpful in seeing what's going on. Here's the usual collection of thoughts that I had while reading through the posts:

* Autocracy has a great policy card setup for the moment with the 2 Military and 2 Econonic (with the Wildcard slot) policies. Oligarchy would be so much weaker both in terms of policy card slots and the actual benefits of the government itself. I strongly advise against adopting this government, potentially even if you would get into a war with TBS. It only applies to melee units and almost all of your contemporary units are horses which don't get the benefit. I genuinely don't think TBS is planning to attack you, and the current number of units should be plenty sufficient along with Defender of the Faith and city walls.

Small side note on this: TBS looks like he has Victor stationed in Skybreaker (I think that explains the 36 defensive strength, hard to tell without being able to see his other cities) which would suggest that he's worried about an attack from RUSSIA, not vice versa. Just something to keep in mind.

* What's the plan for taking Cardiff? You can only hit from two melee tiles plus one archer shot at the moment and can't put the city under siege. I think that's probably enough if you pillage the farm for healing and rotate in the third horseman when one of the current ones gets low but it could be close. Pray that the city doesn't pick this moment to finish city walls.

* Not surprisingly I disagree about building two more chariots at a time when there's no plans for offensive warfare. I guess they can be knights later, but any goal spent upgrading them is going not spent upgrading horses into the far superior cossacks. Just feels like a waste to me at a time when there's an urgent need for more culture. Each chariot could be a shrine or a monument instead and that's another 4 culture/turn. I don't like being at 28 culture/turn when Cree and Rome are both around 40 culture/turn. Yes, this is going to get better in the near future (the temple at Hell March and the double shrines at Atredies/Just Do It are worth a combined 8 culture/turn, plus Hell March growing a size with Pingala, plus Meritocracy worth about 10 culture/turn on the horizon) but Cree/Rome will also be improving their culture too. There's every reason why Russia can be leading the field in culture, not scrambling to catch up. Just feels like the chariots are a wasted build.

* On that note, don't forget to swap off Stirrups next turn since Feudalism will finish it off. What's next on research? You could try for Celestial Navigation to open up Harbor districts or start pushing the bottom of the tree towards eventual cossacks.

* I'm not sure why TBS wants to build Harbor districts, it's a bit puzzling. He has one down at his capital because he wants to build ships out of it (and it wasn't on the coast). The other one is at Skybreaker, the city on your border. Getting into the naval game is never a bad idea even though your continent is very land-heavy. I also didn't realize that TBS has nine whole cities (eight natural plus the captured city state) so he's more than keeping pace on expansion. He's going to run out of city names for Knights Radiant orders soon since there's only 10 of them.

* Probably only 2 more turns until the next settler is purchasable via Monumentality faith, sheesh. Russia's faith output is amazing. Two thoughts on that: how many envoys do you have in Yerevan? Now that a lot of cities have shrines, getting up to 3 envoys there would be nice. I'll float the idea of moving Amani over to Yerevan once you convert the current group of cities and no longer need Fez's missionary conversion bonus (3 envoys is plenty for Fez). Second thought: maybe shift that chariot by Funky over to the east to help clear out the barbarians? You're going to be getting a settler out of Act On Instinct very soon and it will need an escort en route to the Eastern Rampart location. Eastern Rampart for next settler, then the following settler northwest of the 4/0 cows tile on the banks of the Waimakariri River?

* Still going to need a road over to these eastern cities. The current trade route between Fogger and Hell March should be almost done its course, I'd re-route it to Just Do It and get a road back to Fogger or Timbermist just for movement purposes. Cardiff's Harbor district with its own trade route would also be super helpful here.

* The builder at Spice Melange: I'll suggest the following. You could improve the whales for an extra amenity and the Celestial Navigation boost (if you take Cardiff, the improved fish resource there would be the second seafood resource and grant the boost). That would leave two more charges available; you could look to improve a forest tile with a lumbermill or do some Magnus chopping once the governor gets established. I wish that a Harbor district had been planted instead of the Encampment since that would grant another trade route and help out with gold and city health. (Like williams, I also dislike the Encampment placement; one tile south would have avoided wasting a fantastic 1/3 forested plains hill tile.) But anyway, a Magnus forest chop should be worth around 100 production right now. Two chops would get you Encampment + granary + monument and that's probably the best combination of city items right now. Obviously if TBS actually did want war then you would go for city walls + Encampment but I still think that's unlikely.

We agree or disagree on some things.

A quick feedback, you underestimate how BAD off an idea milpower for the Cree is. He has no edge whatsoever against Rome or me, so he forces himself into loosing pace against Rome, Australia and others.
I do not get it, he will drag us both down.

So if your neighbour builds milpower he wants to come after you. He has 1! horse on the roman border and 2 horses and 2 archers on my border afaik. If he has no designs on us he will gladly accept a DoF.

Now add the harbors and the Gadmiral. He is not going to attack Australia with them, no? His targets can be Fez and then me.

So yes, I think an encampment is the best idea and walls as well.

I am not overreacting, half the empire is still building infrastructure.

There is no meritocracy policy any more, so no help coming there. The effect (+1 culture per district) was moved to the Pen, Brush and Voice Golden Age dedication when Rise and Fall came out.

Yep, shame about that.

[Sullla]

Even though I don't agree with every decision, I think that this last turn was extremely well played. The best decision was pausing the attack on Cardiff to pillage the mine and trade route. I forgot how much gold that's worth now in Gathering Storm - 200 additional gold is another future horse into cossack upgrade, very nice work! As soon as that warrior dies, you can move into position to pillage the last mine and hit the city state with triple horses at once plus an archer with ranged attack. Russia now has 400 gold for upgrades and Cree has zero gold for upgrades. I can't see TBS wanting to attack into Defender of the Faith given that situation, but if he does, you've done a fine job of being ready to defend yourself. Just a couple more turns and you'll have knights + crossbows along with the necessary money for unit upgrades. Hopefully this will be a nothingburger and you'll both sign a new Declaration of Friendship but you're in excellent shape even if things go south.

Other less important details:

* I spotted the unhappy notice at Timbermist this turn. That suggests using one of the builder charges at Spice Melange to connect the whales for another set of amenities (this is the one downside to swapping out of Classical Republic: a loss of amenities at each city). You might also look at trading an excess happy resource to one of the other players for one of their excess resources. Kaiser's weak enough that it wouldn't matter if you did a luxury for luxury swap, right?

* Hopefully you'll get a peace deal with TBS and can go smack the new barb camp in the west with some of the Cardiff units.

* How much faith is the next settler? Act on Instinct should be just about ready to create one for the Eastern Rampart site. That city's make great progress on its Campus district worth another 10 beakers/turn. And on that note, Just Do It has an 8 beaker/turn Campus site that it can work on as soon as the shrine gets finished. Really liking how the research side of the game is progressing here.

* Let's talk upcoming civics research for a minute. The upcoming civics in some order are going to be:

Feudalism (already boosted)
Military Training (build an Encampment: in progress now at Spice Melange)
Mercenaries (have 8 combat units: already done)
Civil Service (grow a city to size 10: not going to happen unfortunately)
Guilds (build 2 markets: doable and something to work towards for the trade routes)
Divine Right (build 2 temples: in progress now at Hell March and then Atreides)
Reformed Church (have 6 cities following your religion: in progress now with missionary)

The one boost that I think you should work on is Guilds: build 2 markets. Hell March just needs the market and I'd suggest going for this after the temple finishes. The other candidate city is Funky, which can build a (discounted) Commercial district as soon as its chariot finishes. The desired tile next to the Government Plaza was even helpfully picked up by the tile picker! If you can get these two markets build for the Guilds boost, they would potentially combine together with the Harbor at Cardiff and the initial default trade route to get up to 4 trade routes total. That's the boost for Medieval Faires which will also come down the civics pipeline in the nearish future. The only civic you won't be able to boost is Civil Service and that's pretty good if you can land everything else.

* Faith output is just amazing right now at more than 90/turn. There should be enough for 2 more settlers and hopefully a builder or two before Monumentality runs out at the end of the Golden Age. (Maybe you can even get to a second Golden Age which would be amazing. I've been assuming that Russia will fall short.) This is another reason why I think Liang should be the next governor if at all possible: with Feudalism's Serfdom policy and Liang in place, you can faith-purchase an instant 6 charge builder at a target of your choosing. There are a whole bunch of tiles that need lumbermilling, so if you had enough faith for something like 3 builders with that setup in place, there's 18 charges to play around with across your territory. Your territory is a little underdeveloped right now in terms of tile improvements and this would make a HUGE difference. If you don't take Liang here, the next governor promotion doesn't become available until Guilds or Medieval Faires roughly 15 or so turns away. So again, I'll call for Liang over Victor and trying to set up for some of those tasty faith-bought 6 charge builders.

* Last question: when does the next era begin? Has the 10 turn countdown started yet? And is there any way to see what Golden Age dedication the other players picked? I'm thinking that all that culture from TBS and Cornflakes might be partially coming from the Pen, Brush and Voice dedication (the replacement for Meritocracy policy) and it would be interesting to know. Keeping fingers crossed that TBS won't go aggressive here!

[SadGit]

Even though I don't agree with every decision, I think that this last turn was extremely well played. The best decision was pausing the attack on Cardiff to pillage the mine and trade route. I forgot how much gold that's worth now in Gathering Storm - 200 additional gold is another future horse into cossack upgrade, very nice work! As soon as that warrior dies, you can move into position to pillage the last mine and hit the city state with triple horses at once plus an archer with ranged attack. Russia now has 400 gold for upgrades and Cree has zero gold for upgrades. I can't see TBS wanting to attack into Defender of the Faith given that situation, but if he does, you've done a fine job of being ready to defend yourself. Just a couple more turns and you'll have knights + crossbows along with the necessary money for unit upgrades. Hopefully this will be a nothingburger and you'll both sign a new Declaration of Friendship but you're in excellent shape even if things go south.

Just re-read the tech thread and it seemed to me that general agreement was : CS pillage only on farm and fish. Perhaps check if that was indeed the common solution before pillaging more.

Also loving the reporting.

[TheArchduke]

I was of the distinct impression no pillage farming. As I am a 100% determined to kill Cardiff I did not think of this as a problem.
I will recheck the org thread. Money is easily solvable with a buy/disband.

[williams482]

It seems that people agreed to Chevalier's recommendation here:

A possible middle ground on city-states would be requiring declaring war on the suzerain, if it has one. Otherwise, it's totally fair game.

That appears to make CS pillaging valid.