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

[marcopolothefraud]

I think these city spots are pretty bad, and you should get Liang's Aquaculture bonus before settling those cities. (That means 2 governor titles on Liang). The lakes have a lot of seafood; with Liang, you can build Fisheries for +4 food tiles on a lot of the lakes.

Unfortunately, having to prioritize Liang may set back Magnus and Pingala a little bit. We're going to have to plan around that a little bit.
(Why not settle Navarin and Petropavlosk on the coast? Are you worried about naval invasion?)

[marcopolothefraud]

Turn 37


Lake Mackay has spawned a new barbarian - a slinger - bringing the total up to three units: a wounded scout, a severely wounded spearman, and a full-health slinger. Against them, I only have two warriors, now both at 60HP at the end of the turn. One of them is on a hill, and can be pulled away to safety whenever I want - the other is on a floodplain, and doesn't have a good route to escape. I decided not to clear the camp because I'm worried that a unit might die.

Hopefully next turn the slinger will move to a different tile, and I won't have to stomach a slinger hit. I tried to access the religion interface but I guess it doesn't pop up until I start producing faith.

[marcopolothefraud]

I think these city spots are pretty bad, and you should get Liang's Aquaculture bonus before settling those cities. (That means 2 governor titles on Liang). The lakes have a lot of seafood; with Liang, you can build Fisheries for +4 food tiles on a lot of the lakes.

Unfortunately, having to prioritize Liang may set back Magnus and Pingala a little bit. We're going to have to plan around that a little bit.

Imagine if teams in Civ 6 could share governors with each other! You could get Liang to build Fisheries in Russian cities and City Parks in Australian ones. In turn, my Magnus could cover most of your chopping/settler needs. We could tap into the special niches of Reyna and Moksha as well, and it might bring a whole new level of strategy to the game...

Then again, it could be severely unbalanced as two Magnuses, working together in close-by cities, might abruptly conjure a massive army in 5 turns. Well, it's still fun to think about.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

The main limiter on the city-sites is food. Remember that I'll get +1 cog and +1 faith (wings?) on every tundra tile, so a lot of those are at minimum 1/2/1 or even 1/31 tiles. So I should be able to manage enough production on low populations to get my lavras out. Those will get massive production not dependent upon population, and the faith they produce will be useful throughout the empire. Then, I can grow just enough to reach size 4 or size 7 and get out campuses (many profitable sites with all the mountains) and perhaps even harbors (more food, gold, GA points) with my nice expansive production.

Navarin COULD be pushed 1SW to be coastal, but Petropavlosk is located such that the Amber and campus sites are second ring. It can spend the early years getting those districts set up and then take a harbor at size 7 in the second ring. It might make sense to push Navarin SW, since I can then use the city space down the road for a farm, so dire si the city's food situation.

Long-term, they'll be outmatched by mature cities on actual good terrain, but in the medium term they'll serve well as bases to let us push into the islands. Right now my suspicion is that TBS seeded the home islands with crappy desert and tundra to push us into conflict with each other - we'll have to fight for more fertile central islands, I expect. So, the name of the game will be quickly developing the navy and settler bases to stake our claim, and from there our course will be to grow large enough to overwhelm at least one neighbor (which should suffice for victory).

My plan is to go settler on my turn, and then get out a swarm of galleys from both cities (4) to go for Hong Kong nad begin exploration. I want to be aggressive with my galleys and get as many city-states early as I can, and get a good map. We're at a disadvantage compared with Indonesia and Norway of course, but England and Phoenicia won't be ahead until they reach RND/Cothons and Japan will mostly be strong in galley warfare, not in production. So, we want to have as much momentum as we can going into the medieval eras as the naval power's advantages come online. With luck I'll have an Ancestral hall and can have a thriving tundra faith+production empire, churning out settlers with faith and ships with production, backed by solid science and culture from my great writers.

I think the Fisheries would be nice, but those will be medium game things. I'd prioritize Pingala->Culture first, then Magnus->Colonization, and then finally Liang->Aquaculture. I'll get 2 titles from the Plaza+Hall, +2 more from SW/EE, so we may not get Liang up until the late Classical era. That will be right when those cities need the food bonuses, a bit slow, but I think it's still worth settling them early to get the lavras up ASAP. I'll also need missionaries to convert them unless I burn a belief on Religious Colonization, which I don't intend to do.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 37




Sailing in, builder moves to place some turtle nets. The amenities will come in handy, and the turtles are good science when I work 'em. Settler out on 47, Imperator Aleksandr should found on 52. About 15 turns behind the Archduke to city #3, but I have two districts and some improvements on him, I think. 

In the south, I amuse myself by making a canal to bypass Australia:




I dunno, I doubt the game gets that far, but it'd be amusing.

[marcopolothefraud]

Turn 38


The slinger retreats one tile, so I feel brave enough to clear the camp. One warrior is at 42 HP, and one is at 70 HP, against a full health slinger and a half health scout. The scout will commit suicide against one of my units, likely only scratching me somewhat, but the slinger is a lot tougher...Hopefully I can lure it in a position where both my warriors can pounce.

Once these barbarians are cleared, I'm only going to go exploring once the warriors have at least 50 HP. I'm not as brave as CMF, walking around with a red-lined warrior in the snow.

P.S. Illmatic's borders have grown, and I have a pearls tile now. Not very useful at all.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Well, I'm crossing my fingers that with 4 camps having been cleared by us in the last 10 turns, we won't see a new spawn soon. I'm also marching both back to my cities for garrison and healing. I want them at home in case longships wander by soon, since they can conquer undefended cities at strength 10. I'll heal up and then use them to go exploring once Shipbuilding is in.

For the slinger, I'd go ahead and try and lure him onto the tile your 42 HP warrior is standing on (push 42 hp warrior SW onto hill, pull 70 HP onto the flat). He'll come in, take a shot at one or the other, and then you can clean him up and heal afterwards. It might be a bit tight but I think doable.

[marcopolothefraud]

Turn 39


The scout is dead - it used to be west of the mountain, and must've attacked my weaker warrior, causing it to go red. I killed it, so only the full health barb slinger remains. One warrior at 28 HP, the other at 42 HP.

Roland's China finally founded a religion (I can tell because their score went way up). I still can't tell what they picked, though.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

We'll have to cross our fingers that China went with something other than Work Ethic. Divine Inspiration is the obvious choice, so it's not guaranteed. If we don't get it, Jesuit Education or Choral Music are decent fallbacks, but obviously a huge disappointment given my tundra terrain.

For Founder Beliefs, I think Tithe is the obvious choice, if available. +3 gold per city following the religion, so that's +30 gpt once my whole civ is converted, and we can likely include another +15/18 from Australia. Gold is the only resource that can be freely shared between teammates, so the more of it, the better. A Russian monk economy can help cover Australia's costs. If China took it, fallbacks include Cross-cultural dialogue (+1 science for every four followers, should be +1/2 science per city = +15 science for Russia, maybe +5 from Australia so 20 bpt total), World Church (same, but culture instead of science), Pilgrimage (+2 faith per city, so ~32 fpt once maxed), or Stewardship (+1 science/gold in each Campus/Commercial Hub...which would be only about +6 science and like +3 gold or so, obviously inferior). Okay, so I think Tithe as first choice and Pilgrimage as a backup? I could be talked into CCD/WC though - +20 culture is not to be sneezed at.

Worship beliefs, either the Wat (+2 science in every city = +20 science for Mature Russia), the Meeting House (+2 production, eg +20 hammers total for Mature Russia), or even the Gurdwara (+2 food/1 housing in holy sites - minor benefit for the tundra cities which will be food-starved). I think Production is King, so Meeting House first, followed by Wat, then could be talked into the Gurdwara.

For Enhancers, Crusade is strongest. China may have taken that, or gone for a Divine Inspiration/Sacred Places build (which is an obvious reason for taking China). Holy Order and DotF are backups. Religious Colonization would cut down on Missionaries, I suppose. Could be worth a couple hundred faith by the end of the game.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 39




I boost Craftsmanship to completion on turn 38 by boating the turtles; now just one more boat will inspire Celestial Navigation for us and point the way to the third of our three essential districts: Campuses, lavras, and harbors. 

On turn 39, I check out China's religion. Excellent news all around:




He took Choral Music, which means he'll be building lots of holy sites as China (possibly Indonesia as well - fuel for Ships and culture? Not a bad plan). Better, though, is the fact that CM now isn't going to one of our rivals, and, best of all, Work Ethic is available for us. I'm now earning 4 Great Prophet points a turn with 8 in the bank, meaning the religion is due on turn 52. Kaiser finished a holy site this turn and will earn his first point at the start of next turn. He'd have to run projects more or less right away to snipe me, so I'll keep an eye on the GP screen and have faith in hand ready to purchase my prophet if I grow alarmed. Losing Work Ethic at this point would be a disaster (and, quietly, the other players losing work ethic to me would be a disaster for them...). 

A look inside Borodino:




I accept 1 less production and faith for 5 turns in order to grow 2 turns sooner - the result will be a net loss of 1 total production/faith in return for 7 extra science and gold, which seems like a good tradeoff. Knyaz Suvurov is working on the granary since it's already starting to hit the housing penalty, then it and Borodino will kick out 2 galleys each to go and conquer Hong Kong. The settler will claim Imperator Aleksandr and begin work on a lavra, which will instantly grant that city a boon to production when it converts (it will found on the same turn as my religion, I think). 

No other major news abroad. The usual shuffling of population growth and tech. I'll do a review of everyone on turn 50.