[SPOILERS] ljubljana embraces the dark side

[ljubljana]

Yeah, I've been running some test games with Russia and they're about as good as Japan at this, with the much better cultural start and faster growth curve from the free border pops and not needing to run Holy Site Prayers seeming to approximately balance out Japan's stronger holy site and campus adjacency bonuses. The odds of my picking a civ other than Russia are quite low at this point; even if our start is completely full of jungle, I'd probably try for Sacred Path Russia rather than actually picking Brazil. While it's conceivable that information from screenshots could change my mind if they're made available, I'm struggling to come up with an example of what that might actually look like, unless there are like 5 deer in range of the capital or something like that.

...I'm seriously confused as to what I'm supposed to be doing with all of these Great Writers that keep spawning, though. It's nice that they completely trivialize the important and otherwise somewhat tricky Enlightenment and Humanism inspirations, but that still doesn't give me anything to do with the actual units themselves. Do people actually build early Theater Squares and Amphitheaters with Russia just to find some use for them? That strikes me as pretty unlikely to be worth it over CH/Harbor/IZ as a third district in most cases, but I could be wrong. I guess I could try building the Great Library or Apadana? But that's quite a lot of hammers to invest into wonders that seem pretty underwhelming otherwise... I guess I could always take a page from the AI's book and use them as free scouts

[ljubljana]

It looks like thrawn's 'one hold' proposal is building consensus in the organizing thread as a way to get around problems that have arisen from the civ choices going out before we decided whether to provide starting screenshots before making picks. If so, I will of course hold Russia, which is a top-two civ for Work Ethic + Monasticism and a top-tier general-purpose choice as well. They will very likely be my pick if we don't reroll Japan; if we do, the choice will likely depend on whether there is visible desert in the starting screenshot and the degree to which the capital's early strength is reliant on Russia's free border pops.

It's still early, but my practice games seem to confirm that Japan is stronger at this if they can land the pantheon and religion, especially if the map lacks for strong campus sites. Averaging (say) an extra +2 on every campus adjacency bonus on (say) 8 cities on t100 is worth 2 * 2 (NatPhil) * 8 * 1.75 (Monasticism) = 56 bpt (!) which is very significant at that stage of the game. Russia, on the other hand, is more consistent at landing the beliefs and gets out to a much faster food (border pops) and culture (buying monuments rather than tiles) start, but produces a smaller science bomb. This becomes less of an issue if there are lots of strong campus sites via geothermal fissures and reefs and the like, both because a higher adjacency bonus is less impactful in fractional terms when the bonus is already high and because you can't build districts on these tiles, so Japan can sometimes have trouble strengthening such campuses further without placing otherwise suboptimal districts. Thus, a third screenshot-dependent factor that would favor Japan is the lack of a strong campus site at the capital, especially because we really want to get the +3 Era Score from building a campus with 3+ adjacency in the Ancient Era to both facilitate Monumentality and avoid taking any chances with Monasticism. It's also worth noting that one of the major reasons that Japan is less consistent at landing the first religion than Russia is the possibility that Russia is among the opponents, which conveniently would not apply in this case

Here's a shot of the practice game on which I'm basing this speculation (please ignore the noticeably lax builder micro which I got lazy with towards the end of this one):



Japan wouldn't be getting an extra +2 at all of these campuses, but there are quite a few where they would be, and some of the others might have been placed somewhat differently with Japan to better leverage that effect. However, the island start here means that I wasn't really able to take advantage of Russia's fast start to out-expand a hypothetical Japan, which is one of the two major mechanisms by which I can imagine them catching up, so this may not be a totally fair test case. The other mechanism is of course faith-rushing Cossacks, which I was able to do on t108 here despite a) researching up to Education, b) weakish holy sites and campuses, and c) not having killed a unit with a Knight. That's around when TheArchduke would have had them in PBEM17, which would have been fast enough to beat RB opponents under better circumstances, so maybe I'm underrating them a bit after all. This time might not be replicable in a real game, as Monasticism would come online somewhat later, but perhaps we could get close enough to still catch someone off guard (with a few more than the three you see here, obviously ).

Also, you can see that I halfheartedly tried to build a theater square (in Smolensk) to attempt to stanch the deluge of Great Writers. Despite passing up a few in the Classical Era, this was but a finger in the dike, and there are even more that you can't see here fogbusting to prevent barb spawns in the southern tundra. The 7 culture/turn (+1 adjacency, +2 Amphitheater, +4 Great Works) did turn out to be pretty significant as a fraction of my total, though. It also came at a significant cultural inflection point in the game, since faith-rushing cossacks tends to require spending time in Monarchy, which can't run all of NatPhil + Scripture + Monasticism; accelerating the speed to Theocracy could therefore be fairly significant in a longer game. I think this was probably worth it over a +2 harbor in a city with no seafood resources, especially since my other cities here were large enough to support enough Markets to stave off bankruptcy. Japan's probably better at managing the financial side of this push long-term, but Russia definitely has the cultural edge, and would surely have hit Rationalism quite a few turns sooner, for whatever that's worth. This success also revives my vague and quite possibly weird consideration of the Great Library; 4 culture + 2 beakers is comparably useful to 7 culture, and this late in the game it wouldn't have cost too much more than a theater square + amphitheater, and I could have then built a more useful district in the city as well (or, indeed, a theater that would then get decent adjacencies). I didn't get the chance in this game (it was gone before I unlocked it, the AI really seems to like it), but I'll probably give it a shot on some future attempts. Apadana could do even better if the science CS supply ever outstrips my envoy supply (note that we in particular would not want to conquer them early, since in Monasticism they do more for us than anyone else).

[Kaiser]

Here is your starting screenshot



Your CIVs are:
Russia
America, Cree, Inca, Khmer, Macedonia, Poland, Sumeria

[ljubljana]

Interesting - well, for a non-Russia civ, 1W seems like the natural tile to settle, giving a strong capital with plenty of high-yield tiles in the first ring. Russia, on the other hand, would have a few extra options - SIP avoids moving off the plains hill, while 1NW moves towards whatever's in the fog while claiming a very defensible city site, on a hill with a river on five sides! Perhaps we should err on the side of caution here and make that move - while we're not exactly likely to win a game in which my capital's defenses actually come into play, it's at least conceivable that a would-be rusher could be deterred by the need to attack such a spot. Now, is that abstract meta consideration worth giving up 1h forever at a still-reasonably-defensible capital by settling in place? I don't know - this likely depends on what the warrior reveals. Luckily, he's in a great spot for t1 scouting, as moving NW onto the hill should reveal all the fogged tiles that could possibly be relevant, barring any more obstructing hills. W - NW might also an option, since it reveals more tiles, though we'd need to spend gold to bring the extras into play.

What about civ picking concerns? With no visible desert/tundra/jungle, faith-boosting pantheon strategies are likely out, and with nothing better than a +1 Lavra and +0 campus (!) sites visible, Work Ethic is questionable as well. We're very likely going to want the Government Plaza at this capital, wherever we found, with no adjacency bonuses in sight save for the nice long river. On the other hand, there is an obviously strong pantheon here in Lady of the Reeds and Marshes, which will make that sugar a 5/2 tile and would be worth at least 8 yield based just on what we can see now. If we can land that, the plains hill in the east could be a strong second city site (for Russia and Russia alone) if move the capital 1W, a decent argument for doing just that. Russia can't accelerate the pantheon all that much (especially on this map), but I don't expect that one to be in especially high demand either, so hopefully we'd have a shot.

Anyways, I'm not immediately sure what to do here. Russia's a strong civ, but this start looks pretty poor for a religious game, and the capital doesn't benefit all that much from the border pops. It doesn't really look like a good Cree map, either, though, and my earlier vague skepticism of Sumeria still stands. I guess I'll have to look at some of these other civs and see if they bring anything interesting to the table here. If I do go with Russia, I'll also need to figure out my preference of SIP, 1W, and 1NW based on what's visible, and move our warrior in the opposite direction to give it a chance to change my mind.

[marcopolothefraud]

Here's my thoughts about the city-settling. Keep in mind that Russia's ability grants 8 additional tiles. All cities need to fill out the "second-ring" of (12 total) before moving on to the "third ring".
- Settling 1W means that you can have a +2 lavra, on the spot 1E of the sugar. That spot will have minor adjacency from the city centre and the 3 woods tiles. The downside is that they'll probably all be chopped, and that you'll put yourself further away from the woods due east.
- SIP puts you close to a lot of woods: 5 in the first and second rings, and 2 more in the third ring. It also puts you away from many marshes - only 1 marsh would be within the second ring - and it might take until the Classical Era for the city to start grabbing those third-ring tiles.
- Settling 1NW is probably the best choice for Lady of the Reeds and Marshes. It would also make the 3 woods in the south harder to get. I would *move the warrior 1NW* to see what's there, before making a city-settle choice.
- W-NW seems like a very bad idea - that's moving away from many of the hills and woods that can give the city a lot of production. I would only do it to leave myself a good second city to the east.

Personally, I'm leaning towards settle 1W, but you'd have to move the warrior first to know what the best choice is.

You think that this is a pretty poor start, but I think it's relatively decent. I would research Mining, get a builder, and then improve the stone (2/2), the southern wheat (3/1), and the copper hill (1/3/2). That gives a Craftsmanship inspiration, Masonry inspiration, Irrigation inspiration (very important), and the Wheel inspiration - that's a lot of beakers and culture! (The extra food and production might not matter until you reach 3 or 4 population, though.)

[ljubljana]

- Settling 1W means that you can have a +2 lavra, on the spot 1E of the sugar. That spot will have minor adjacency from the city centre and the 3 woods tiles. The downside is that they'll probably all be chopped, and that you'll put yourself further away from the woods due east.

Does this work like this? I thought the 1.5 from being next to 3 woods gets rounded down to 1, and the 0.5 from the city center gets rounded down to 0, and then they get added to +1 total. But I could be misremembering; I'll do some more looking into this. (edit: the civilization wiki seems to confirm this)

- SIP puts you close to a lot of woods: 5 in the first and second rings, and 2 more in the third ring. It also puts you away from many marshes - only 1 marsh would be within the second ring - and it might take until the Classical Era for the city to start grabbing those third-ring tiles.

Yeah, the tiles to the S and E that we'd be moving away from aren't great compared to the N and W, and we'd only get one marsh. Is it worth giving up a plains hill start for an extra marsh tile? If we get Lady of the Reeds and Marshes, it'll be 3/2, one foodhammer better than the four-yield tile that citizen would likely otherwise be working, which is also what we make by settling on the plain hill. SIP does destroy one of those 4+-yield tiles, though; 1W has 5 of those visible with Lady of the Reeds and 4 without, while SIP has only 3 (without builders), and this city will hit size 4+ fairly quickly with that 5-food sugar. Yeah, I'd say it's probably worth moving based on yields alone; I don't know if the defensive considerations from founding on a hill as opposed to in a valley surrounded by hills sway that at all.

- Settling 1NW is probably the best choice for Lady of the Reeds and Marshes. It would also make the 3 woods in the south harder to get. I would *move the warrior 1NW* to see what's there, before making a city-settle choice.

Yeah, Lady of the Reeds and Marshes wants either 1 NW, or 1W with a second city east (but who knows how strong the rest of the land there is). This is probably the warrior move I'll make, since 1 NW otherwise seems slightly weaker from a yields perspective. It is the strongest option from a defensive one, though, which is relevant both for rush deterrence and for barbarians, either of which can easily cause enough damage to make up for the difference in yields. But yeah, it depends on the warrior move for sure.

- W-NW seems like a very bad idea - that's moving away from many of the hills and woods that can give the city a lot of production. I would only do it to leave myself a good second city to the east.

Oh, I was thinking of W-NW as a possible alternate warrior move, not a city location - I'd only consider moving the settler that far out if the warrior sees something really wild up there.

You think that this is a pretty poor start, but I think it's relatively decent. I would research Mining, get a builder, and then improve the stone (2/2), the southern wheat (3/1), and the copper hill (1/3/2). That gives a Craftsmanship inspiration, Masonry inspiration, Irrigation inspiration (very important), and the Wheel inspiration - that's a lot of beakers and culture! (The extra food and production might not matter until you reach 3 or 4 population, though.)

I actually do think this is a strong site in terms of yields - much better than what I'm used to the map generator giving with standard settings. But I also think that balancing dictates that everyone else likely has a similarly strong start in terms of yields as well; thus, it seems like quite a poor start for us as Russia, in terms of odds of winning the game, because it doesn't have strong or even decent Lavra locations, making our bonuses less relevant. I agree that these definitely seem like the right choices for the initial builder improvements based on what we can see; that said, we already have four tiles at least as strong as these in terms of foodhammers if we move 1W (the sugar, two 2/2 grass fh, and a 1/3 plains fh). Therefore, I don't think this builder is especially urgent; warrior - settler is probably the strongest opener, IMO. This is the one thing about the start that seems quite good for us as a religious civ, as it frees up Astrology as our first research, after which we probably have time to get a Lavra before the builder and still not have to work any 3-yield tiles

[ljubljana]

Hmm, another idle thought - we should be careful not to overrate Lady of the Reeds and Marshes here. Goddess of the Hunt was so good for TBS in PBEM17 because it added two yield to five tiles that the cities were already working or wanted to work, for a total of +10 extra yield. LRM applied to these four marshes appears to be worth 8 yield, but it's likely worth less during the part of the game that matters, since a city that swaps from a 2/2 grass hf or some other 4-yield improved tile onto a 3/2 marsh only gains one yield, not two, and the marsh can't ever be improved further. Thus, if we settle 1NW and get 3 marshes in range, the pantheon is actually only worth 4 effective yield once we get the first builder out instead of the apparent 6, which might actually be weakish unless we find more marsh/desert fp nearby.

[ljubljana]

As far as the rerolled civs go, it looks like there's not much exciting here. Cree and Sumeria we already analyzed earlier; Cree could be a good choice over Russia on a slow religious map, but not on this slow-religious map, which has zero Cree resources in sight. Of the new civs, none grades out as better than Mediocre in TheArchduke's tier list. America has a decent, if generic, pair of bonuses in the extra Wildcard slot and free +5 combat strength on the home continent, which seems solid, but not hugely impactful economically. A first-pass gameplan for them might look like a fast-ish military push while using the free Wildcard slot to run two military policies in Classical Republic, which I can see being good, but which it would probably take a stronger player than me to execute well, due to my lack of experience with MP tactical combat. Inca has some decent economic bonuses but is ruined by the total lack of mountains, so they're obviously out here. Macedonia is another rushing civ that I have neither the experience to handle well nor any particular inclination to try to do so. Poland is strange and just seems very mediocre other than perhaps the UU, especially with America's superior extra wildcard slot also on the table.

Khmer is the one civ here that seems to warrant some more looking into. They're one of those weird religious civs that has no easy way to actually found a religion, but they do have a good synergy with the River Goddess pantheon and can run either Feed The World or Choral Music well, so getting the second religion should be just fine should it come to that. Indeed, while the Khmer have no bonuses to an early religion, we actually do here, since, again, our biggest competition would likely be Russia and we're guaranteed not to have them in the game . The Khmer also don't mind bad holy site locations quite like Russia does, since they can supplement their faith income with those buffed aqueducts and are more concerned with making sure the holy sites are all riverside. Their main downsides are the lack of any production boosts, the need to pay for full-cost holy sites and aqueducts to get their bonuses online, and the difficulty of finding useful things for the extra population to do, but we can at least partially answer those objections with a rush to Construction for lumbermills, which is in the same area of the tree as the Engineering tech we'd want to get quickly anyways. They would unfortunately likely need to buy a tile for the holy site at the capital, which is unfortunate, but at least that holy site would synergize reasonably well with the map conditions, and it would could make up for some of the tile buying cost by claiming more tiles via culture bomb, thus saving future cities from more tile buys.

Yeah, I'm not sure if they're stronger than Russia here, but they're definitely worth at least one practice game. In particular, the Monasticism science bomb strategy above doesn't rely on Work Ethic per se so much as some way to get enough production quickly enough to build all the campus buildings. With a strong enough map, it's conceivable that Khmer could do this by simply growing their cities two sizes larger than anyone else can by the same date and dumping the extra population into lumbermills, and that more than anything is what I'd want to test before making a civ pick here. Well, that and the following observation: by settling new cities near a pre-existing aqueduct with farms and going for a holy site as the first build, the Khmer could pull quite a bit of free extra food to bootstrap new cities - though this requires much more production than the Cree equivalent and is equally map-dependent, anything that speeds that snowball along is worth at least some investigation.

Update: I played some of a practice game as Khmer, and I'm not sure I'm convinced - they just take so long to get their traits into play, and needing to be riverside is a pretty significant constraint on the quality of holy sites they're able to field. Placing a riverside holy site for just the amenities/housing/food is probably pretty good long-term once the cities start nearing the housing cap, but short term that's a reeeeally expensive granary. The aqueduct thing above requires delaying city founding until its neighbor builds an expensive district, which seems like it'll be pretty dicey even when aqueducts do finally come online. They have more trouble getting a Classical Golden Age than Russia too, of course, but that's not even that big of a deal since it's so hard to make enough faith to use Monumentality anyways. At least the lack of good holy sites frees them up to run Serfdom over Scripture to get enough of their tiles improved to keep up with the population growth. I might try a longer game just to make sure; fewer, larger cities could still conceivably come out ahead in terms of beakers by working Scientist specialists or something, I guess.

[ljubljana]

Okay, I just haven't been able to make Khmer work; building full-cost holy sites gets them off to such a slow start, on both the religion and expansion, and it's so hard to usefully leverage faith when all your holy sites are in the 1-2 faith/turn range due to riverside constraints. Maybe I'll give them a shot in another game when I'm more experienced; for this one, I think I have to commit to the civ I know to be MP viable, which is Russia, and hope that somewhere out there in the fog is something that makes a standard faith-based religious game more viable from this start. Perhaps the right play in this circumstance is to ditch the religious gameplan and go with a civ that plays a strong generalist game, but, to be honest, none of our other choices really meet that criterion except the map-dependent Cree and Inca, who also interact poorly with this start. Thus, our odds to win seem highest if we go with what is in this circumstance the high-variance choice, the civ that is strongest overall and with which I am most familiar, and hope to get lucky, so that's what I will do

By the same logic, I think I will move towards the fog rather than SIP if the warrior move reveals nothing, in the hopes of getting either mountain or a better Lavra site than what's visible now by doing so.

[ljubljana]

I actually think I was completely wrong earlier about which direction we should move the warrior; here's some unnecessary microanalysis of why I think so.



Blue tiles are in range of the 1NW city site but not the 1W site, red tiles are in range of 1W but not 1NW, and purple tiles are in range of both. Cyan, orange, and pink tiles are not in range of either site, but could contribute adjacency bonuses to a Lavra placed at one or both sites. Since purple and pink tiles contribute equally to both city sites (assuming we're willing to buy a third-ring tile if necessary), the only tiles that are relevant to deciding where to move are the red, orange, blue, and cyan tiles. Moving the warrior 1NW reveals exactly zero such tiles - moving 2W, on the other hand, reveals six, barring any intervening hills. If the sites were otherwise equally strong, then, the play would probably be to do that and, if nothing useful is found, move the settler 1NW and settle blindly into the fog. Now, the sites are not equally strong, since 1NW requires moving, wastes a good tile, and moves us further away from otherwise-useful forests, so maybe our standard for what we need to see to settle 1W should be a little lower than would otherwise be the case. But I do think this basic logic favors either a 2W or 1W-1NW move for the warrior over the 1NW move, so I'll probably do that unless I think of some reason why everything in this post is nonsense in the meantime

Also, we, amazingly, have more activity in the lurker thread now, before the game has even started, than PBEM17 had when the game ended! I wonder what everyone's talking about...