[Spoiler] Suboptimal's Next Attempt at Lurker Frustration

[Alhambram]

I like your plan!

Though in my opinion France is still better for pure cultural victory then England, though England also do have decent shot at cultural victory thanks increased production which translates in more wonders and districts.
Altough England do excel more at domination (with victoria especially) and space victory thanks increased late game production and science, cultural victory is doable with for example buying archelogists using gold stockpiled by navy dockyards.
Navy dockyards are indeed better than commerical hubs, not only because unique districts costs half but also because you can use veterancy policy card to discount it further with 30% for Navy dockyards AND buildings.
In that case when landlocked, search and find lakes to fill them up with navy dockyards and no worries about when victoria's power cause a ship spawn which can do nothing while stuck in lake since we are playing with Eleanor.
If you manage to massbuild Navy Dockyards, you attempt enter golden age and pick Free Injuiry for big science boost.

When I think more and more about it, it makes more sense to pick England over France here at MP after all. France is very spiked towards culture and potential lategame domination with its UU.
But France lacks bonuses for generating science and also lacks early gold stockpiling and military power. With France the early game is going be tough and basically hoping that others don't bother attack us.
With England it is different for reasons that you did outline, England is much better balanced option for multiplayer.

So, yeah I am in for Eleanor of England.

[suboptimal]

Quagma Blast: Confirm Eleanor of England

Cornflakes said that he'd get to the map this weekend. That gives me time to do some experimenting in SP and try to come up with a naming theme.

[suboptimal]

I took a look at the map script for assigning start positions. The short story is that it is highly likely that we will start within 3 tiles of either "the coast" or a lake. The question becomes whether or not we move out to settle on the coast or elsewhere, but that will depend on what we see on the map and if the warrior can locate the coast before the settler moves.

[Alhambram]

I took a look at the map script for assigning start positions.  The short story is that it is highly likely that we will start within 3 tiles of either "the coast" or a lake.  The question becomes whether or not we move out to settle on the coast or elsewhere, but that will depend on what we see on the map and if the warrior can locate the coast before the settler moves.

I argee with checking map first, escpecially yields. If coastal spot offers lower production yield than starting spot then it is better to settle in spot and settle coastal city as 2nd or 3rd city depending surroundings.

[suboptimal]

Alhambram - another thing to note and plot our strategy with. In what looks like the soon-to-be concluded PBEM 17 TBS and Cornflakes both almost doubled their science with a Golden Age and Free Inquiry at the change over to the Medieval Era. Something to keep in mind as we plant cities - we'll want to try to get out a bunch of coastal cities with RNDs, complete Naval Tradition and get a Golden Age when the Medieval Era starts.

As far as PBEM 17 goes, this analysis is proven incorrect after looking at the save files. However, it nonetheless could be an important science boost to keep in mind, especially with cheap Harbors.

[Thrantar]

Another dedlurker signing up.

[suboptimal]

Welcome aboard!

[Thrantar]

Other things to think about: There's a lot of era score tied up in the water, especially with a unique harbor. You can probably golden age the era after you build your first coastal city. A monumentality settling push powered by harbor trade routes might be on the table. Note that I haven't played GS, or multiplayer. However, I've mucked about with R&F a good bit in single player and can win at all difficulty levels.

[suboptimal]

My experience in the MP games that I've played, at least with the civs that I've played, is that getting the era points for a golden age in the Classical can be a challenge unless you make it the main focus of the Ancient Era. It does seem that the era points in the Classical Age come fast and furious and it's not too difficult to get enough for a Golden Age at Turn 101. One thing we haven't seen yet (AFAIK) is someone going Classical Dark to Medieval Heroic. I look at my experience playing Indonesia in PBEM 14 - it was all I could do to get a Classical Golden Age but the key there was that I was generating a pile of faith from the civ ability. I should look at the SoT61 save of PBEM 17 to see who in the other place got what ages.

My few SP test starts with Eleanor/England have had me teetering on a dark Classical but usually enough era points show up in the T50-T60 window to avoid it. Ironically it's usually the completion of Political Philosophy and the adoption of a Tier 1 government that pushes me out of a dark age.

Monumentality is most useful, I think, if you have the faith income to make unit purchases and get it in the Classical. In the Medieval for MP I think I'd rather have Free Inquiry during a golden age, particularly if I've got a few harbors up.

I think this, then, leads to an interesting question - do we want to intentionally attempt a Classical dark age with the intent of going for a Heroic medieval? We'd have to pick and choose what era points are unavoidable and which we can reasonably avoid. One way to do it might be avoid build-based era points (high adjacency districts, unique district, first naval unit, etc) buy building them all to one turn from completion during the Ancient and then finishing them all on Turn 61. Completing a 4+ adjacency RND and a 3+ adjacency Campus is 10 era points.

That's also a good example of the difficulties of getting a dark age. "Typically" you're likely to build a 3+ adjacency Campus because it's efficient (high science) and is the "usual" path to getting an early district down for the State Workforce inspiration. However, that's 3/11 era points to "avoid" a dark age. In thinking about it, though, we might want to go Encampment first because it gets us two inspirations (State Workforce and Military Training) and we're going to want a few Encampments for the added production and resource storage from the buildings as well as building military engineers.

So...this leads to the first question for "the committee" - do we think that a dark Classical to heroic Medieval game is feasible in MP and is it something we want to try?

[Alhambram]

Big question first: Is dark age worth to grab? Do you plan to enter medieval age with heroic age which you can pick up three dedications.
And also are special dark age policy cards worth it? Are you planning to use them?
-Twilight Valor gives all melee units +5 strength, but can't heal outside friendly terrain. It meant for rushes or extra arm in war but weaker loyalty from dark age means harder suppress rebellion in eventual conquered cities.
-Isolationism gives nice +2+2 for internal trade routes, but can't train settlers or settle cities, harsh requirement but manageable if you swap around policies.
-Monasticism gives cities +75% in cities with holy sites, but -25% in all cities.
-Inquistion allows a apostle to start inquistion with 1 charge instead 3, all religious units +15 strength in friendly terrain, but -25% in all cities.

Of those four only Isolationism would be use for England if you spam Royal Dock Yards, or if you happen to find religious city states and natural wonders nearby, it might be worth to go for religion.
But latter means that you are likely to collect much era points making dark age diffcult or save up activation of religion after era change.
Therefore it depends largely upon map, do we ecounter natural wonders or many other opponents, each meeting is 1 era point. It is more harder to reach dark age than golden age.
I recall that Chevalier did get dark age in PBEM 12, mainly due PBEM taking place in islands map resulting in isolated starting spots for everyone, it helped to keep down era points.


Also pay attention to not fall behind too much comparded with other players due delaying campuses or other infrasctructure.