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

[marcopolothefraud]

Next, a view of my own start. Ljubljana (Phoenicia) and Roland (China) both settled in place, it seems. I didn't have so much luck.

I moved 1 tile southwest, to the stone tile, because of two reasons. One is that I don't want to border too much coast. The second reason is because this puts me closer to a +5 campus location.
   
   
   

Overall, it strikes me as an OK start. I don't think I will go Builder first because I need to wait for my borders to expand to good Grassland Hill tiles.

[marcopolothefraud]

Then we have CMF's start location. You are only 10-ish tiles away from me, but you already have Tundra terrain in your start. Perhaps this means we're nested deep into the south. I like how the tundra is only present in the second and third ring tiles, so you can keep working really good tiles. Dance of the Aurora pantheon may actually be useful.

What I do not like is that you will border 2 sea tiles, no matter where you settle. This may mean that you will risk a sea raid.

If I were you, I would settle in place to receive the extra 1 production and the extra defensiveness of the hill. Then I would borrow Australia's gold income, and combine it with Russia's to buy a turtle tile as soon as possible. That extra science would push me to Astrology a little more quickly, too.
   
   

Damnit, I shouldn't have pinned the Mountains' appeal! My 4am sleep deprived brain forgot that mountains are Breathtaking appeal no matter what. Hmm...can we guess if there are mountains, woods or water tiles south of those two mountains? I think we can.

Look at the tundra hill left of the left-most mountain. It borders two marshes, one woods, and one mountain. That means its appeal is 0 and the unknown tile that it touches is not mountain, woods or water.

Look at the rice marsh in between the two mountains. It borders two mountains and one marsh. That means its appeal should be +1, Charming, but it's actually 0. That means it touches a tile that gives negative appeal, i.e. a Rainforest or another Marsh.

So, probably no Mountains or Woods to the south. This may mean that the highest Lavra adjacency bonus is 2, and that we will need Irrigation to clear the Rice and Marsh before we can put that Lavra down. What a shame.

I'm going to sleep for another 3-4 hours. Talk to you all in the morning.

[Cornflakes]

First impressions on the starts:

Austrails
Ouch, that is actually a pretty rough start by moving to the stone hill you end up with with no 4-yield tiles in 1st ring, and have to chose between 3/0 cows or 1/2 naked plains hill. This is exactly the situation where an early builder can make a huge difference in improving the production output of your capital. Mine the plains hill, quarry the 2nd ring stone, pasture the cows (which unfortunately won't pick up any decent tiles with the pasture culture bomb ). First impression is to work the plains hill and build a builder first. With no good tiles to grow onto 1st ring there is no immediate need for the food from the cow, instead work production to get the builder out quicker. Probably pool gold from Russia to purchase 2nd ring GFH 2/2 tile ASAP (the stone resources will be acquired automatically with culture expansion, but it's a roll of the dice whether the pearl get picked first).

Russia
Free Russian culture will pick up the turtles, both rice, and stone This start has plenty of food long-term but will struggle with production. Builder first might make sense here too with hill to mine and stone to quarry for production, and turtles for a luxury. Growth first with food from the rice may or may not be the best. Intuition says probably better to just work the 2/2 GFH since the there isn't a 2nd 2 tile to work at 2 pop. Growth, after all, is only a means to work more tiles for production ... and if there is no production to work then growth is less meaningful (yes there is a science and culture boost, but early on production is king).

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Oof, I don't like all that tundra in my start, no sir. It gives me nightmareish flashbacks of PBEM18. It looks like I have abundant food but almost no production - well, that's fixable with a lavra+work ethic. We might even be able to make Dance of the Aurora work.

Builder before settler probably makes sense for me, since grinding out a settler with only 2 2 tiles will be really tough. That said, once we get that first builder out, the abundant rice and sugar will make regrowing from settlers very easy, so we might be able to do a mini-expansion boom. An early galley will also be a necessity, since I'll be very vulnerable to the Norwegians in particular, with the turtles vulnerable.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 1

Per Marco's screenshot, I go ahead and settle in place:




The city of Borodino is founded! 

I have Writing and Sailing inspired now. Sailing lies here, behind Animal Husbandry:




I send the warrior east, figuring I can circle around and defog the area between us later. The priorities are seeking city-states and natural wonders - need to inspire Astrology as soon as we can! The good news is we get two bites at the apple. Honestly, with that said, it might be smarter for me to start a warrior, to maximize our chances. I slotted a builder for now, and started on AH so I can work on Sailing since I know that's useful for sure. Early galleys will be necessary for home defense against longships and to get the lay of the land.

Marco is the only player to move so far - Roland, Archduke, and Kaiser all settled in place. I hope they've got tundra starts, too. >  I just have nightmares of my Canada game, wedged between that miserable desert and tundra...well, at least Russia can USE tundra, unlike Canada. 

In the near future, I'd like to grow enough to work the 1/2/1 hill south in the tundra - that will let me skip God-king and still get an early pantheon. Is it worth working that tile over the sea turtles or a rice? I think yes, on the rice, not sure on the sea turtles. I'm terrible at micromanagement.

[marcopolothefraud]

We can assume that most people will only start accumulating faith with the God-King policy card, and they will only unlock it by turn 15-16. That means even if you start working the tundra hill one turn before that, on turn 14, you're very likely to get the second pantheon in the game.

Of course, Suboptimal of Indonesia is going to get first pantheon, and I would be shocked if he didn't take Earth Goddess. If not for the yields, at least for the denial value. There's also a slim chance that someone might work an incense tile, or tobacco tile, or something else that has an inherent +1 faith from the very start of the game. I daresay that would be shooting themselves in the foot a little bit, just for the chance to take God of the Sea or God of Plantations or something.

I would recommend that you grow to size 2, slot a settler (doesn't have to be immediately), and work the faith hill and the turtles simultaneously. When your population drops from the settler, I don't think it'll drop all the way back down to size 1 - and if it does, it won't stay at size 1 for very long. That means you can keep working the tundra hill and turtles and not skip a beat.
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I agree with Cornflakes that I should probably buy a 2/2 stone hill tile and work it. I'm a little on the fence about researching Mining - it seems like Sailing and Writing are the techs that I definitely need to research first. Sailing vs. Writing is a pretty big dilemma for me...I'll try to break down the pros and cons of each.

Pros of Animal Husbandry --> Sailing first:
- I'm willing to gamble that there are horses near my start location. Horses always tend to show up on flatland tiles without marsh/woods/rainforest - and unlike CMF, I have those in spades. Horses would give me a nice 4 yield tile.

- Political Philosophy is super important (Ancestral Hall and settler rush), to the point where I'm not willing to wait for CMF to unlock the Inspiration boost for me. If I had a galley to complement CMF's exploration efforts, I bet we could get the Inspiration roughly 6 turns earlier, and then direct our civic research towards that immediately.
              This is especially important based on the layout of the civic tree. We only need to research 2 civics to get to the Classical Era, and I bet there are only 2 or 3 prerequisites that we need to research before hitting Political Philosophy, depending on whether it is located in the early Classical Era or late Classical Era. Contrast that with the "standard" layout, which has 4 prerequisites before getting to PolPhil.

- Vision of other people's military strength. Even though it's hard in Gathering Storm, someone could potentially get some Classical-Era units and stage an amphibious invasion of my capital, especially if they're located close by. I'm thinking that the Vikings/Phoenicians could do this, or the Japanese with an early Great General and the +5 combat strength from coastal tiles. A Galley boosts the combat strength of my cities and can see incoming units.

Pros of Writing first:
- What if horses spawn under my Campus spot? Then I would have to put my Campus next to the 3 mountains, which is a significantly worse location.

- I'm likely going to finish my Campus before CMF finishes his Lavra. That means I get to boost State Workforce, and get Pingala somewhat earlier.


All in all...I think I'll go for Writing first, then Animal Husbandry -> Mining -> Sailing. I plan to use 2 charges of my builder and then have it swim in the ocean.

[marcopolothefraud]

(I'm using Imgur to host my images, because Realms Beyond seems to delete image attachments after roughly 2 years. Hopefully Imgur doesn't crash, or suddenly use a paywall like Photobucket did.)

My warrior's going to scout the northwest until it meets coast (probably very soon), then swing around to the south. Its main goal is to uncover the land connection between our two cities, but it could find some good city locations as well. Warrior 2 will scout towards the east.

I'm going to buy the 2food/2production tile northeast of my city. The hilly stone tile might arguably be better, since it's more easily improvable, but I might expand to that tile anyway without having to buy it. I think I can buy it on turn 5 - CMF should send me 25 gold on turn 4, and then I will be able to accept the deal on the next turn and buy the tile.

Illmatic is a 1994 rap classic that I could easily devote a whole post to. Hmm...come to think of it, I wouldn't be a CMF protegé unless I went on a long off-topic discussion about one of my passions. CMF, you seem to like history. What if I used these hip-hop albums to develop a full historical narrative, and embedded some Youtube music videos for you to watch? It's not like I have anything better to do during COVID-19.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

That seems good. The first warrior can go N&E around that mountain, curling eventually to the south.

Moving to the stone hill does give up some good capital tiles, a longer term gain in return for a slower start. I'm not sure I like that - I think generally maximizing the snowball is best. But let's make the best of it and try to get that campus up quickly.

Accordingly, you should indeed go Pottery -> (Unknown) -> Writing to get that campus down, which will really start to get our science running. I have more flexible lavra placement, so I can go AH->Sailing until we know where Astrology is.

For my own part, I'm not liking my builder first move, actually. The issue is that I need techs like mining and sailing to improve most of my early tiles, so the return on a builder is going to take a while until I get those techs online. An early warrior will give us more barb security, and let me further improve our chances of finding a NW for Astrology.

I also don't think that an early pantheon is necessary for me, as you said - I'm not going to be first regardless, and as Russia I have flexibility. I could take God of the Sea, Dance of the Aurora (which no one else will want), even Oloram (does that work on non-desert marsh tiles?) or the plantation one or something. Lots of time to decide.

So my next turn will probably see me swap to the warrior, finishing the builder after I've got Mining and Sailing ready.

[williams482]

Oloram?

Lady of the Reeds and Marshes covers oases, marshes of all sorts, and exclusively desert floodplains.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Interesting...There are 6 tiles in my capital eligible, then. That might be a thought.