[SPOILERS] TheArchduke blasts into Space as Russia

[Sullla]

No opinions on the pillaging subject, I didn't follow the lengthy rules discussion in the organizing thread. It seems like the consensus is to buy and delete a unit which should be an appropriate remedy. Anyway, we're basically waiting to see if TBS accepts the Declaration of Friendship or if he decides to engage in an unproductive war. Here's hoping that he sees reason by the time you get the save back. Elsewhere:

* I'm not at all sure that I would have spent that money upgrading a warrior into a sword given that there were multiple horses already in the area. Why not wait until Professional Army policy was available, or save the gold for the more useful archer into crossbow upgrade? Crossbows with a promotion and Defender of the Faith hit at 52 ranged strength and that's far better than getting another 36 strength sword unit. Water under the bridge now but I think this was a mistake. I don't mind purchasing that deer tile with gold though, that's a key spot to control and the tile itself is a good one for the city to work.

* If you do get a peace deal with TBS, I'll suggest using one builder charge to improve the whales for Spice Melange (amenities + Celestial Navigation boost) and then use the other two charges to harvest the deer and chop the forest on that same third-ring tile, obviously after Magnus is in place. By harvesting/chopping that tile you still preserve the faith bonus on both of the neighboring grassland hill tiles and can lumbermill them later on. It also removes any defensive cover from someone trying to attack from that direction. Seems better than chopping either of the other two tiles.

* Shrine next in Fogger, Commercial district next in Funky? Assuming that you get a new Declaration of Friendship, of course.

* Kaiser actually has more military power and science than Cornflakes. Still puzzled as to what Rome's doing in this game.

* Valetta is a very high priority indeed, even one turn of suzerainship would be enough to pop out a bunch of monuments across your territory with faith. Keep Amani in Fez for now until you can get the remaining western cities converted and be ready to move her afterwards. Russia needs 1 more envoy in Hattusa to get up to the 3 envoy library bonus, plus there's the desire to get Yerevan up to 3 envoys if possible to power up your shrines, plus there's Valetta to be concerned about. Lots of competing needs here.

* How many more turns to 100 faith/turn? Looking forward to purchasing another settler next turn; hopefully with Cardiff plus Eastern Rampart Russia will be the first to 10 cities.

[TheArchduke]

No opinions on the pillaging subject, I didn't follow the lengthy rules discussion in the organizing thread. It seems like the consensus is to buy and delete a unit which should be an appropriate remedy. Anyway, we're basically waiting to see if TBS accepts the Declaration of Friendship or if he decides to engage in an unproductive war. Here's hoping that he sees reason by the time you get the save back. Elsewhere:

* I'm not at all sure that I would have spent that money upgrading a warrior into a sword given that there were multiple horses already in the area. Why not wait until Professional Army policy was available, or save the gold for the more useful archer into crossbow upgrade? Crossbows with a promotion and Defender of the Faith hit at 52 ranged strength and that's far better than getting another 36 strength sword unit. Water under the bridge now but I think this was a mistake. I don't mind purchasing that deer tile with gold though, that's a key spot to control and the tile itself is a good one for the city to work.

* If you do get a peace deal with TBS, I'll suggest using one builder charge to improve the whales for Spice Melange (amenities + Celestial Navigation boost) and then use the other two charges to harvest the deer and chop the forest on that same third-ring tile, obviously after Magnus is in place. By harvesting/chopping that tile you still preserve the faith bonus on both of the neighboring grassland hill tiles and can lumbermill them later on. It also removes any defensive cover from someone trying to attack from that direction. Seems better than chopping either of the other two tiles.

* Shrine next in Fogger, Commercial district next in Funky? Assuming that you get a new Declaration of Friendship, of course.

* Kaiser actually has more military power and science than Cornflakes. Still puzzled as to what Rome's doing in this game.

* Valetta is a very high priority indeed, even one turn of suzerainship would be enough to pop out a bunch of monuments across your territory with faith. Keep Amani in Fez for now until you can get the remaining western cities converted and be ready to move her afterwards. Russia needs 1 more envoy in Hattusa to get up to the 3 envoy library bonus, plus there's the desire to get Yerevan up to 3 envoys if possible to power up your shrines, plus there's Valetta to be concerned about. Lots of competing needs here.

* How many more turns to 100 faith/turn? Looking forward to purchasing another settler next turn; hopefully with Cardiff plus Eastern Rampart Russia will be the first to 10 cities.

Thankfully we have MJW on watch.

In any case, TBS did the worst of both worlds, reject the DoF and not DoW.

Color me confused.

[TheArchduke]

Turn 82

So the tension subsides. Funny enough although TBS does not renew the DoF he relents and leaves the border.

   

Which of course means:

   

I switched that galley to monument repair later in the turn.
Eastablish a discounted commercial district.

   

We buy a settler east. We will reach +100 faith next turn with a temple, lavra and Cardiff out of occupation.

   

I am quite confident now. Our trader finishes and moves to Just do It to speed along the campus and establish a very important strategic road to the east.
I doubt we will see a DoF but I have been wrong before about TBS. His galleys means we will buy a basic navy next turn with maritime and 1-2 chops which we could use to conquer Hattusa as a buffer island?

[williams482]

That is odd behavior from TBS. I guess he's trying to keep you from getting comfortable, but (wisely) unwilling to actually fight right now.

With regards to development of Radio, an aqueduct on that farm (the only eligible tile) seems worth planning on long term. A Lavra on the pillaged mine tile will only get +1 adjacency, but it should bump both adjacent grass hills up to breathtaking. You may even be able to mine the unimproved one without losing faith, assuming that the cliffs add appeal and the pillaged mine is currently giving -2 appeal.

Alternately, you could put a +3 campus on the pillaged mine, and plan to put a +1 Lavra on the existing mine some other time. I'm not sure if either of those two tiles will be breathtaking with just a campus down.

[Sullla]

Well, that wasn't quite what I was expecting from TBS but it's better than a war declaration. You can always try re-offering the Declaration of Friendship in a few turns to see if his mind has shifted at all. By the way, I would *NOT* sign another Declaration of Faith with Kaiser's Greece when the current one runs out in the near future. The only techs remaining on the path to cossacks are as follows:

Castles (390 beakers, 195 if boosted)
Printing (540 beakers)
Siege Tactics (660 beakers)
Military Science (845 beakers, 423 beakers if boosted)

Russia's not going to get the boost for Printing or Siege Tactics but the other two should be pretty doable. That's a total of about 1800 beakers or 24 turns of research at the current pace, and obviously Russia's science rate is going to be increasing as time continues. Figure about 20 more turns until reaching Military Science and then 5 turns or so to get the units themselves ready. That means not signing a new Declaration of Friendship with Kaiser and getting stuck locked into peace. Your ETA for a cossack-based attack should be geared towards that Turn 110 mark we've been estimating for some time now.

Securing Cardiff, now Radio, is a huge relief and a major step forward. This will go a long way towards competing with TBS in terms of naval power down the road. For now, repairing the monument and then the lighthouse (to get the trade route back available) seem like the immediate priorities followed by using this city for shipbuilding. I disagree with williams on how to manage this city: no need for an Aqueduct district at all, a Harbor district with a lighthouse provides plenty of housing. (They have been enormously buffed in Gathering Storm as compared to the release version of Civ6; if a city is placed directly on the coast, a Harbor district with lighthouse is worth +3 housing, enough to reach size 7 with ease along with a granary. That's more than enough for this city.) I also wouldn't bother with Campus or Lavra districts here, just mine all the hill tiles and crank out ships, ship, ships. No need for anything else, this is a military city like Spice Melange.

Did everyone see how Radio's borders blocked the TBS galley from moving towards Hattusa? It's fun to be Russia sometimes.

I also noted that culture actually went DOWN this turn from capturing Radio, as the extra city ate up some additional amenities and dropped cities out of happy status. I'll call again for using one of the builder charges at Spice Melange to improve the city's whales (along with harvest/chopping the deer with Magnus in place and the repairing the pillaged mine at Radio) and seeking out some amenities trade partners in diplomacy. Can you send an excess resource or two to Kaiser for some more happiness? We wouldn't care if his performance was slightly improved since he's so weak. Obviously if you can meet suboptimal or pindicator on the other continent, they would also be worth trading for luxuries.

I'm going to call again for taking Liang with the spare governor promotion and putting her in a central city, probably Funky. If you start establishing her now, you can faith-purchase several builders in rapid succession with Serfdom policy in place and have each of them pop out with 6 builder charges. I favor getting out three workers before the next settler (you should still have enough faith generation to get one more settler for the far eastern spot before the current Golden Age runs out). Three 6 charge builders would be enough to chop out the Mahabodi at Atreides, improve a ton of forested hill tiles with lumbermills in the Hell March/Fogger/Funky core, and speed along the development of the new eastern cities. This would do a huge amount to strengthen your economic core by adding much more productive capacity, going from 2 to 4 production on grassland hills and from 3 to 5 production on plains hills.

Really like the movement of the current trader over to Act On Instinct. The best route is probably back to Fogger thanks to the Government Plaza; it should be worth 3 food / 2 production if I have the math right while also building a badly-needed road in the process. You'll need a future trader to build another road further east from the spot beyond Eastern Rampart back to Act On Instinct but that can come later.

I'm also very much on board with the idea of conquering Hattusa. If you don't take it, someone else is going to grab it for themselves sooner or later. I would wait a little longer to hold on to the suzerain bonus until the western cities can be converted by the current missionary, and I also think this provides a great opportunity to land the critical "kill a unit with a knight" boost for Military Science tech. You could potentially capture the city with a chariot-upgraded knight, as taking a city counts as "killing a unit" for that boost. So maybe 10 turns down the road, perhaps?

Last point: I wouldn't invest forest chops into ships right now, I think you can build them naturally with Maritime Industries since there's no crucial need just yet. For the builder at Spice Melange, I'd suggest chopping the Encampment and potentially basic infrastructure like granary/momument instead. You could also burn the second chop on a builder after you flip into Serfdom and get another 5 charge builder out of it, which might be a nice addition since there are a bunch of unimproved tiles. Lots of options there to think about.

[TheArchduke]

That is odd behavior from TBS. I guess he's trying to keep you from getting comfortable, but (wisely) unwilling to actually fight right now.

With regards to development of Radio, an aqueduct on that farm (the only eligible tile) seems worth planning on long term. A Lavra on the pillaged mine tile will only get +1 adjacency, but it should bump both adjacent grass hills up to breathtaking. You may even be able to mine the unimproved one without losing faith, assuming that the cliffs add appeal and the pillaged mine is currently giving -2 appeal.

Alternately, you could put a +3 campus on the pillaged mine, and plan to put a +1 Lavra on the existing mine some other time. I'm not sure if either of those two tiles will be breathtaking with just a campus down.

I think I prefer a harbor over another district. I lost a PBEM twice over a lack of a navy, not going down that route again, and housing boni by harbor have been improved as Sullla points out.

Well, that wasn't quite what I was expecting from TBS but it's better than a war declaration. You can always try re-offering the Declaration of Friendship in a few turns to see if his mind has shifted at all. By the way, I would *NOT* sign another Declaration of Faith with Kaiser's Greece when the current one runs out in the near future. The only techs remaining on the path to cossacks are as follows:

Castles (390 beakers, 195 if boosted)
Printing (540 beakers)
Siege Tactics (660 beakers)
Military Science (845 beakers, 423 beakers if boosted)

Russia's not going to get the boost for Printing or Siege Tactics but the other two should be pretty doable. That's a total of about 1800 beakers or 24 turns of research at the current pace, and obviously Russia's science rate is going to be increasing as time continues. Figure about 20 more turns until reaching Military Science and then 5 turns or so to get the units themselves ready. That means not signing a new Declaration of Friendship with Kaiser and getting stuck locked into peace. Your ETA for a cossack-based attack should be geared towards that Turn 110 mark we've been estimating for some time now.

Securing Cardiff, now Radio, is a huge relief and a major step forward. This will go a long way towards competing with TBS in terms of naval power down the road. For now, repairing the monument and then the lighthouse (to get the trade route back available) seem like the immediate priorities followed by using this city for shipbuilding. I disagree with williams on how to manage this city: no need for an Aqueduct district at all, a Harbor district with a lighthouse provides plenty of housing. (They have been enormously buffed in Gathering Storm as compared to the release version of Civ6; if a city is placed directly on the coast, a Harbor district with lighthouse is worth +3 housing, enough to reach size 7 with ease along with a granary. That's more than enough for this city.) I also wouldn't bother with Campus or Lavra districts here, just mine all the hill tiles and crank out ships, ship, ships. No need for anything else, this is a military city like Spice Melange.

Did everyone see how Radio's borders blocked the TBS galley from moving towards Hattusa? It's fun to be Russia sometimes.

I also noted that culture actually went DOWN this turn from capturing Radio, as the extra city ate up some additional amenities and dropped cities out of happy status. I'll call again for using one of the builder charges at Spice Melange to improve the city's whales (along with harvest/chopping the deer with Magnus in place and the repairing the pillaged mine at Radio) and seeking out some amenities trade partners in diplomacy. Can you send an excess resource or two to Kaiser for some more happiness? We wouldn't care if his performance was slightly improved since he's so weak. Obviously if you can meet suboptimal or pindicator on the other continent, they would also be worth trading for luxuries.

I'm going to call again for taking Liang with the spare governor promotion and putting her in a central city, probably Funky. If you start establishing her now, you can faith-purchase several builders in rapid succession with Serfdom policy in place and have each of them pop out with 6 builder charges. I favor getting out three workers before the next settler (you should still have enough faith generation to get one more settler for the far eastern spot before the current Golden Age runs out). Three 6 charge builders would be enough to chop out the Mahabodi at Atreides, improve a ton of forested hill tiles with lumbermills in the Hell March/Fogger/Funky core, and speed along the development of the new eastern cities. This would do a huge amount to strengthen your economic core by adding much more productive capacity, going from 2 to 4 production on grassland hills and from 3 to 5 production on plains hills.

Really like the movement of the current trader over to Act On Instinct. The best route is probably back to Fogger thanks to the Government Plaza; it should be worth 3 food / 2 production if I have the math right while also building a badly-needed road in the process. You'll need a future trader to build another road further east from the spot beyond Eastern Rampart back to Act On Instinct but that can come later.

I'm also very much on board with the idea of conquering Hattusa. If you don't take it, someone else is going to grab it for themselves sooner or later. I would wait a little longer to hold on to the suzerain bonus until the western cities can be converted by the current missionary, and I also think this provides a great opportunity to land the critical "kill a unit with a knight" boost for Military Science tech. You could potentially capture the city with a chariot-upgraded knight, as taking a city counts as "killing a unit" for that boost. So maybe 10 turns down the road, perhaps?

Last point: I wouldn't invest forest chops into ships right now, I think you can build them naturally with Maritime Industries since there's no crucial need just yet. For the builder at Spice Melange, I'd suggest chopping the Encampment and potentially basic infrastructure like granary/momument instead. You could also burn the second chop on a builder after you flip into Serfdom and get another 5 charge builder out of it, which might be a nice addition since there are a bunch of unimproved tiles. Lots of options there to think about.

I reoffered the DoF. Not going to do so a third time. Priority for a Cossacks push is to get a Knight a victory. Easily done either with Hattusa or the mil CS east. 1 or 2 barb camps should spawn as well. 

I concur that Radio and Spice Melange should occupy themselves with building ships. Maybe the odd harbor district but that is it. We can loose this game only to Australia (who reaches us only by sea) and maybe the Cree (who insists on building a strong navy).

Culture should be up when Radio comes out of "occupation". I will fiddle around to get Feudalism down to 1, although I am confident the temple at Hell March will suffice.

I think Liang is doable right now. We not under immediate threat, Radio is so far secure. We are in a much better position then 2 turns ago.

I need to check out the chop situation. Forests add not only faith but also defensive strength as well and I got rid of 2 faith tiles by Spice with the encampment.

We are definetly a bit low on improved tiles. If we get a DoF, I might switch over to Mil-Training to get an Ilkum push going. I see when the turn comes.

[TheArchduke]

Turn 83

No DoF. Still I relent and get Liang.
I do chop out an encampment to speed culture along and prepare for maritime industries in 2 turns, and maybe Ilkum.
I get an envoy, but I do not have the double first envoy policy card I need for Valetta. Maybe we switch to Oligarchy for 10 turns or so.

   

A granary costs 3 turns in Hell March and the ToA frigging 9 turns. I am so tempted now.:D

   

The difference between discount and no discount is very clear here. Campus is not discounted as well. Maybe a theatre?

   

[Sullla]

Happy to see Liang appear over Victor, there will be a chance to take Victor later on with a future governor promotion if needed. He would be useless right now while Liang will be fantastic with Serfdom civic. I wouldn't run Ilkum though, or even spend production training builders naturally. I'd just faith-purchase several of them in a row out of the Liang city (Fogger) while Serfdom is in place. This lets you minimize time spent in Serfdom and avoid ever needing to use a policy card slot on Ilkum. I'll continue to stick with my suggestion of getting triple 6 charge faith-purchased builders with Serfdom + Liang and using them to chop out Mahabodi + improve the rest of your core. Also keep in mind that you can get a 5 charge builder if you make sure to found Eastern Rampart while in Serfdom.

DO NOT flip into Oligarchy, it's a terrible government. You can still get the 2 for 1 envoy policy by running it in the Wildcard slot in Autocracy. That's far better and you should be able to minimize the time spent running that crummy policy down to a single turn by setting up Military Training and Feudalism civics to finish research on back-to-back turns. Finish Military Training, spend one turn running the 2 for 1 envoy policy, then flip into Serfdom on the next turn. No need to touch Oligarchy at all.

There's a decent case to make that Temple of Artemis actually would be worthwhile to build now that it's down to just 9 turns. If you can finish the market and it's still there, it might be worth considering. Need the market for the Guilds boost first though.

Atreides legitimately should go for a Theatre district, you're going to need one for some of the civics boosts down the road and it gets a +2 culture adjacency bonus from being placed next to a world wonder... which is exactly what's going up at Atreides next. Not to mention, if you could get an Amphitheatre done it would mean an instant +8 culture from being able to place two Great Works from the saved up Great Writers. Perhaps put the Theatre district southeast of the city (next to the Lavra and city center) and then put the Mahabodi two south of the city center?

Love the amenities trade with Kaiser, there's a pretty good chance he'll accept and help put your cities back into happy status.

I wish you'd chopped and harvested the deer tile at Spice Melange instead of chopping that non-resource forest tile, too late to do anything about it now though. What's the next chop for? Keep in mind that you need a granary if the city is ever going to reach size 4 and be able to do a Harbor district, I'll suggest granary + monument from the second Magnus chop again. And improving the whales (after fixing the pillaged mine at Radio) would be very helpful for boosting Celestial Navigation and adding another luxury.

Culture gap has almost been closed with Rome/Cree/Australia with two shrines and a monument about to finish. Things are looking really good overall - don't forget to move Magnus over to Atreides so that he can start getting established there once you're done chopping at Spice Melange!

[TheArchduke]

Happy to see Liang appear over Victor, there will be a chance to take Victor later on with a future governor promotion if needed. He would be useless right now while Liang will be fantastic with Serfdom civic. I wouldn't run Ilkum though, or even spend production training builders naturally. I'd just faith-purchase several of them in a row out of the Liang city (Fogger) while Serfdom is in place. This lets you minimize time spent in Serfdom and avoid ever needing to use a policy card slot on Ilkum. I'll continue to stick with my suggestion of getting triple 6 charge faith-purchased builders with Serfdom + Liang and using them to chop out Mahabodi + improve the rest of your core. Also keep in mind that you can get a 5 charge builder if you make sure to found Eastern Rampart while in Serfdom.

DO NOT flip into Oligarchy, it's a terrible government. You can still get the 2 for 1 envoy policy by running it in the Wildcard slot in Autocracy. That's far better and you should be able to minimize the time spent running that crummy policy down to a single turn by setting up Military Training and Feudalism civics to finish research on back-to-back turns. Finish Military Training, spend one turn running the 2 for 1 envoy policy, then flip into Serfdom on the next turn. No need to touch Oligarchy at all.

There's a decent case to make that Temple of Artemis actually would be worthwhile to build now that it's down to just 9 turns. If you can finish the market and it's still there, it might be worth considering. Need the market for the Guilds boost first though.

Atreides legitimately should go for a Theatre district, you're going to need one for some of the civics boosts down the road and it gets a +2 culture adjacency bonus from being placed next to a world wonder... which is exactly what's going up at Atreides next. Not to mention, if you could get an Amphitheatre done it would mean an instant +8 culture from being able to place two Great Works from the saved up Great Writers. Perhaps put the Theatre district southeast of the city (next to the Lavra and city center) and then put the Mahabodi two south of the city center?

Love the amenities trade with Kaiser, there's a pretty good chance he'll accept and help put your cities back into happy status.

I wish you'd chopped and harvested the deer tile at Spice Melange instead of chopping that non-resource forest tile, too late to do anything about it now though. What's the next chop for? Keep in mind that you need a granary if the city is ever going to reach size 4 and be able to do a Harbor district, I'll suggest granary + monument from the second Magnus chop again. And improving the whales (after fixing the pillaged mine at Radio) would be very helpful for boosting Celestial Navigation and adding another luxury.

Culture gap has almost been closed with Rome/Cree/Australia with two shrines and a monument about to finish. Things are looking really good overall - don't forget to move Magnus over to Atreides so that he can start getting established there once you're done chopping at Spice Melange!

  How did I forgot that you can put a diplomacy policy into the wildcard slot? I think because I have never done so before.
As the market in Funky needs some more time, I think I am going to go for the ToA now. I can afford to waste some turns in the worst case.
I agree with the theatre district, my thinking exactly. An amphitheater is worth it there.

Chopping in Spice Melange is done in 2 turns. I am not sure if I want to get rid of the deer, it is +2 gold after all as a camp.

[Sullla]

The case for removing the deer was to harvest the deer and chop the forest on the same tile, thereby clearing out that tile completely and saving both of the two grassland forested hills. It's pointless now since one of the chops already went into the grassland forest hill next door.