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

[williams482]

FYI, the tundra and desert holy site adjacency pantheons do not double count mountains of the appropriate terrain type. Why they do not is beyond me, but be aware of that when planning your lavras.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

My fishing boats were pillaged, but I can't for the life of me spot a single increased yield from any tile. Figures.

[williams482]

Borodino is on a plains hill. If that tile gained an extra food, it would be invisible because cities already provide a minimum of 2 food.

Still miserable luck that your one disaster-aided tile offers no benefit whatsoever, and insane that the game doesn't highlight where those hields were added except in fleeting animations.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Nothing much on my turn. Settler is due turn 48 still, I lose a bit of food from the fishing boats and obviously I'll have to spend another builder charge there now for Celestial Navigation (not to mention the luxury), but that's okay. I'll do a round in Ilkum when I can. 

Abroad, Archduke finished 2 techs in 2 turns, taking him to 6. Still hasn't settled his third city.

[marcopolothefraud]

Turn 43

Finally done with healing, my warriors successfully push east, where they find the Eye of the Sahara and a very nice city location. I swear, if Lake Mackay didn't have the shape that it has, I would've found Eye of the Sahara in time to boost Astrology.



I made a revised version of The College Dropout's districts. Before, I would've had a +4 Campus right off the bat, but I would've had to research Mining before I could put it down. This way, my Campus will have a lower yield until a Holy Site comes along, but at least I don't have to research Mining and slow down my first pastures and my first ships.



Now with 10 era score, I can reliably get 3 era score from Illmatic's Campus, 3 era score from Blueprint's Campus, and 2 era score from my first boat, which would bring me to 18 era score. I only have until turn 60 to get a Golden Age...is it feasible? Is a Normal Age really that much of a setback?

P.S. CMF, weren't you researching Early Empire? Why are you building your Settler without the +50% production card?

P.P.S. I've considered gold-buying a Monument in College Dropout, trading 240 gold for +2 culture. But what if I gold-bought a Builder in Illmatic on t46, 1 turn before Animal Husbandry was researched? I would essentially be trading 200 gold for +2 production...indirectly +3 production, because once two pastures are down, the Blueprint could work the 2/2 stone tile that Illmatic was formerly working. This seems like a much better idea, especially since Illmatic will work on a Government Plaza or a Galley before it makes a Builder.

[Cornflakes]

I dunno, I'm just growing increasingly concerned with Australia's slow start here. It can be a science monster IF we can get some good expansion in first. Cornflakes, if you're reading along, I'd also welcome your thoughts on the matter.

Sorry, I haven't been following closely. I just briefly caught up on the last 2 weeks worth of posts. Quite frankly I got discouraged by Australia's tech and build queue choices and had to take a little break so as not to try hijacking the management I've been concerned with the slow start since T1 where my preference would have been to start with a builder and immediately tech AH + Mining to improve production ASAP, rather than devoting precious early resources towards infrastructure. I'm pretty busy over the next couple days but I will dig in when I have a chance and see what I would do from here.

Marco, can you attach a current start-of-turn save that I can load up and poke around in? It's easier to get into the game when I can scroll around and click on things

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Here's a Russia save, from the turn I'm downloading as we speak. 

My thoughts, you remember, were in line with yours - I thought grabbing the basic techs early woudl be better. However, it's also worth remembering that without him doing the dive to Writing, I'd've been pretty delayed to getting Astrology myself, with a corresponding delay in getting our religion second. With Japan finishing 2 holy sites (I think? Might have been double growth), that's not insignificant, and right now I think Work Ethic is almost essential for our game. So it has some benefits. Now we need to work out how to get his cities growing and productive and how to exploit the science edge we should have.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 43

Two main changes - Early Empire is in, so I can swap in Colonization, and Pingala is in:






Culture seems more important to me right now than science, with so many important cards - mostly Maritime Industries and Simultaneum - still to unlock, so Pingala will get the Culture promotion with State Workforce, which I'm working on next. Then Foreign Trade, then a dive for Political Philosophy, wherever it may be. 

Running the numbers, I lose 18 production from the loss of Urban Planning while Colonization is active, but gain 20 from 4 turns of producing the settler at 10 production/turn, so it breaks about even. It delays the granary at Knyaz Suvurov for one turn, until I rejigger everything to cut that down to 3 turns again, but speeds up the settler by a turn and in turn the settlement of Imperator Aleksandr by a turn. Imperator Aleksandr will immediately place and begin working on a lavra - not sure how much that should cost, hang on...44 production. It'll be getting 4 production and 3 food per turn assuming I work the horses...so growth in 5, then I can work the TFH for a total of 7 production. So the lavra will come in 8 turns after foundation, ie completing on turn 59 (or 60, not sure on the settler movement). At that point production will almost instantly double from 7 to ~13, which is better even than my capital at the moment. Builder out for pasture/fish/fish (silver mine for wheel?), then hit Government Plaza -> Ancestral Hall. Should ahve the settler pump up by turn 80 or so.

[marcopolothefraud]

Sorry, I haven't been following closely. I just briefly caught up on the last 2 weeks worth of posts. Quite frankly I got discouraged by Australia's tech and build queue choices and had to take a little break so as not to try hijacking the management I've been concerned with the slow start since T1 where my preference would have been to start with a builder and immediately tech AH + Mining to improve production ASAP, rather than devoting precious early resources towards infrastructure. I'm pretty busy over the next couple days but I will dig in when I have a chance and see what I would do from here.

Marco, can you attach a current start-of-turn save that I can load up and poke around in? It's easier to get into the game when I can scroll around and click on things.

I don't agree with your reasoning (and apparently neither does CMF), but I'm glad to have you back, Cornflakes. Let's re-review the first piece of advice you gave me, all the way back on December 10.

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.

(This is a slightly outdated screenshot. Now my city is at 2 population and will grow within 5 turns, if I remember correctly.)

All of your suggested tile improvements are good ideas. My only concern is that quarrying the 2/2 stone hill will lose my best spot for The Blueprint's Commercial Hub, but there's likely tons of +2 adjacency Commercial Hubs all over. I understand the production/gold tradeoff, and the long-term/short-term tradeoff that is present here, and ultimately I think I might listen to your argument and quarry that hill.

Notice how Illmatic has 4 worthwhile tile improvements, by the way. (The pearls aren't worthwhile.) Two of them are pastures, one of them is the plains hill, and one of them is the 2/2 stone hill. That means I can consider a few options:
1. Create 1 builder, make 2 tile improvements, and cast it out to sea to go exploring.
2. Create 1 builder, make 3 tile improvements.
3. Create 2 builders, make 4 tile improvements, and put them both to sea to go exploring. Or 5 tile improvements (surely the Blueprint could use some love), and putting only one of them to sea.

Maritime exploration with a builder would work pretty well, unless I bump into an enemy player's ship. Then they might try to kill or steal it.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Nah, can't do that with a builder. We know Woden, ljub, and sub all certainly have ships out per era score. Better to use the charges and get a galley out, which can at least sort of take care of itself.