[SPOILERS] Chevalier Mal Fet and Marcopolothefraud lead a Soviet Down Under

[marcopolothefraud]

Hooray, two dedlurkers! Hopefully we can make this game a fun one to dedlurk.

Well, we now know that one team is Norway-Phoenicia, and one team is China-Indonesia. I know that Indonesia peaks in the midgame, but I don't know when China usually peaks in a multi-player game. (Without AI breathing down its back, China has a lot more wiggle room to delay their preferred wonders).

How does this change the religious dynamic of the game? If you picked Russia, your serious faith-contenders are Japan and Indonesia. (I would be very surprised if Thrawn and the Archduke both chose religious-inclined civilizations, or if the Norway player threw away his Viking Longship and went for religion). I'm tempted to believe that Indonesia is the more dangerous religious opponent of the two, but their +2 faith to city center bonus seems to lose importance as the game progresses.

Even though they took almost a full 24 hours to pick, suboptimal and Roland were exchanging messages in their thread almost hourly. (I didn't look at those messages, but I know they exist :P). That must mean that they're in as much of a strategic dilemma as we are. Perhaps that gives me hope that we can pull a victory, even without Norway or Phoenicia.

[marcopolothefraud]

One more thing - given the discourse that Kaiser and I had, I'm convinced that land units can stop Norwegian Longships, and Pitati Archers can somewhat stop invading Quadriremes. But Jongs, a medieval era unit with effectively 50 melee strength and 60 ranged strength, will remain unopposed until everyone else gets Frigates.

Even though siege units attack ships with full strength, they're useless against Jongs. Think about it: Catapults are too weak, while Bombards are just not as good as Frigates are on this map.

Ranged units are also going to be outclassed. Crossbowmen are a tenacious maybe against Jongs; Nubia can produce them for 80 production, compared to the (effectively) 150 production cost of a Jong. However, they're still only 30 combat strength - and even with terrain defense bonuses, I think they are two-shot kills. Maybe a Great General might make them strong enough to use for defence?

In PBEM13 and PBEM17, the Black Sword won in large part because he reached Frigates much earlier than his opponents. In PBEM18

Ichabod's Brazil, Woden's Phoenicia and Suboptimal's England seem to have reached Frigates at about the same time. However, only Woden managed to turn them into an actual military advantage.

This makes me think that Ljubljana and Woden will deliberately go after Suboptimal and Roland because they don't want their conquests/plunders erased by Indonesian firepower. The question is, how can we pull ahead of both of them to come out on top? I'm leaning towards using England's Royal Navy Dockyards and having a decent enough quadrireme navy to influence the Vikings vs. Jongs war. If we're lucky, both of them will drag each other down in the conflict, and we can use renaissance Sea Dogs and Frigates to rule the waves. This seems like a pipe dream, though.

EDIT: I followed williams482's advice and properly formatted my spoiler.

[williams482]

You can make something a spoiler like so:

[ s p o i l e r] I have a terrible secret! [ / s p o i l e r ]

Just cut out the spaces between the []'s and it will work.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I'm always of the opinion that the more, the merrier. Especially since I'm a fairly mediocre player on the day to day stuff! Cornflakes' PBEM11 was my bible for early Civ development before TBS's PBEM17 displaced it. I welcome Kaiser and Cornflakes! And williams, even if you're a genlurker.

China is a decent choice, obviously oriented around the wonders. With the +4 faith per world wonder belief, you can set up all kinds of neato combos. You can also hack together a naval civ using the naval wonders, although the Mausoleum isn't as good as it used to be (I loved double charged Great Admirals, since you could retire all of them and keep 'em, too).

Anyway, the key to jongs is to reach Square Rigging before Indonesia can run rampant with them for too long. Cartography is also a decent counter, and Norway will be relying on its Caravels. We don't know the tech tree, due to shuffle, so there's no telling if jongs will come stupid early or if we can get square rigging up at about the same time. They DO suffer from my fear - nothing much going early on, prime target for a visit from the Vikings. Also, do note that ranged units have a strength penalty against ships, although enough crossbows will still sting a jong pretty badly.

For my part, I think we hvae to choose between the Netherlands, England, and Russia. England is the most straightforward naval civ, but they're the worst of the lot and I really am not super thrilled at playing them for the third PBEM (I also took them in the LAST team PBEM because I was picking #7 and we were running low on good options! I made them suprisingly competitive against Rome/China and Russia/Germany teams, though). The Netherlands has the 7 Provinces, which have a modest strength bonus and can crush cities, plus a decent economic bonus. Russia is most intriguing. It can leech off Australian science better than anyone, especially if I sandbag techs, although I admit I'm not sure how viable Peter's ability is compared to just plain ol' domestic trade routes. The religion and tile bonus are the two money ones, aiming for a strong Golden Age monumentality settler push. It's one of the strongest civs in Vanilla, we could be obnoxious and take Crusade + Work Ethic, and we're just worried about China competing for first religion (since our Lavras are as cheap as Japanese Holy Sites but with boosted GPP).

I'm leaning Russia, but could be talked into England or the Netherlands. What does everyone think? Any off-the-wall ideas?

(I dropped the Ottos - I like their governor and the barbary corsair, but the janissary is gimmicky and the siege bonus is just weak).

[marcopolothefraud]

Nubia remains a strong choice for fending off a Longship/Quadrireme invasion, but the more production it invests in ranged military, the less production will go to infrastructure.

If you think Russia can pull ahead in this (very competitive) religious field, you should by all means take it. I'm most concerned that religious infrastructure leaves people vulnerable in the early game to classical-era attacks. Longships and Biremes are already 35 melee strength units; with some Swordsmen, a Battering Ram, and the Oligarchy government, ljubljana and Woden could definitely pull off a successful invasion (though negative Loyalty will remain an issue).

Personally, I don't think Australia and Russia synergize very well. Because of how vital a first religion is, Australia would likely have to delay some of its districts and settlers to build enough military to protect Russia in the short-run - but that military, especially all of the Archers, would lose value once Quadriremes come online. If Russia was successfully defended from attacks, then it would have a nice faith economy. However, apart from the Crusade belief, this faith economy would mostly be used to boost infrastructure - even the Grand Master's Chapel only allows land units to be bought with faith, and this map wouldn't need many land units. Faith, unlike Gold/Science/Culture, doesn't help Australia to get ahead at all.

Finally, if we decide England is the strongest choice but you still don't want to play it, I'm fine with giving you Australia and playing as England. I suspect that you'd be able to handle either civ better than I can.

[Kaiser]

My recommendation would be

Russia > England > Netherlands

As I wrote earlier, England would be a defensive pick to deny as many GA as possible to Wodenjana. However you are still outproduced heavily by them.

Russia claims the first religion and will be a strong culture as well due to the Writers/Artists.

The Netherlands has only really the 7 provincien going for it. It is a good general CIV if there are enough rivers.

I also believe Thraduke will pick vicky for GA denial, even though it was not their original plan.

@marco
Your game is already influenced by Wodenjana you will need to get more military to occupy the few coastal improvements you have.
My understanding is that each team will start on a separate island/continent, that means there is basically only the naval threat early game

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I think Russia pairs up quite well with Australia. Russia's strengths from the lavra are faith and culture. That covers precisely two areas that Australia can struggle with - because focusing on holy sites is a distraction from campuses and commercial hubs. Thus, the two sides cover each other's weaknesses. We lack a strong ancient unit, true, but that's true regardless of who we pick, unless we took Aztecs or Nubia or Rome or something. China might rush Stonehenge (see PBEM7 for the religious race there, influenced by cheating), but we will have no trouble beating Archduke/thrawn's Japan unless they distort their game by running projects, and I don't think either will go for that.

Note also that we needn't stress that the religion will leave us vulnerable. A lavra is cheap, and just one or two guarantee a religion. That's all the infrastructure needed to start - from there we can build military or infra as needed based on the game state. Might need to go heavy military at the start just in case Woden opens by spamming longships and hoping to catch someone being careless, but with Crusade/DotF on the table religion will actually enhance our security.

I like Russia, honestly. It has something going for it in every stage of the game. It has no advantage especially at sea, but since its' an overall strong civ, we can make it competitive, like I did with Arabia against Indonesia, England, and the Netherlands in PBEM12.

[marcopolothefraud]

You've convinced me that Russia isn't vulnerable in the early game, but I'm still unsure on how Russia and Austarlia synergize. I get how Russia can benefit from Australian science and gold. Gold can be given/traded, and Russia will receive Eurekas from every Australian tech. I get how Australia can benefit from Russian culture, because Australia will receive Inspirations for every Russian civic.

I don't quite get how Australia can benefit from Russian faith. I've looked at the Follower Beliefs, and it seems like Australia can only use 3 Follower Beliefs without building Holy Sites, Shrines or Temples.
- Jesuit Education - useless because Russia can't directly give some of its faith to Australia/
- Divine Inspiration - useless because China's in the game, and Wonders are mostly a drain of resources.
- Zen Meditation - amenities aren't important enough to matter.

It seems, long-term, like Russia will eclipse Australia in the team because only Russia will be able to benefit from its faith. If you take Russia, I trust that you'll take Work Ethic, even if you don't have good adjacency bonuses, just to deny it to Indonesia. That means you'll be building most of our warships, and I may be funding their Maintenance costs. If that's our best shot of winning our game, I'll be fine with it, and we can announce it in the Organization thread whenever we're ready.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Don't forget Crusade - Russian units will fight at +10 strength near Australian cities.

Australia will have large, coastal cities with productive commercial hubs and campuses (and be good at building ships with all those coastal cities). Russia will have faithful, cultural cities and fight very well near Australian land (not so well at home, but I'm willing to take that risk).

I think it gives us a better game than England or Korea or the Netherlands. Archduke's played 2 out of 3 of those nations, too, and he hates repeating if he can avoid it.

[marcopolothefraud]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_policy_of_Russia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian..._Territory

Russia has territorial claims in the Arctic, and Australia has claims in the Antarctic... can we say something like "CMF and Marco take the poles?" I can't think of the right wording for it.