After killing the Slinger, my Warriors discover a pretty nice city location. I hope there's Horses here; then it'll be ideal.
I don't know if both of the Warriors should go exploring, or if the injured one should return home. In a few turns, I'll have a Horse pasture in Illmatic, and I'll want to protect it in case a Norwegian ship wants to coastal raid. Woden's had Viking Longships since turn 31; we have no idea how many he has, or how far away he's located. But the longer my tile improvements go without defense, the higher the risk will be. At least none of my Campuses are coastal.
Now's a good time to discuss culture, too. I'm obviously going to finish Early Empire, but should I really go for State Workforce after that? Perhaps I should go for Craftsmanship instead, so I can get some Slingers -> Archers to stand on my tile improvements in case of enemy attack. At the very least, I want to get Craftsmanship in a timely manner, because I feel like I'm underestimating the importance of military. Foreign Trade is useful too, but it'll probably take a backseat to both SW and Craftsmanship.
Actually, I think Foreign Trade is more important than Craftsmanship UNLESS you are going to build a lot of land military soon. FT unlocks Maritime Industries, a must-have for our galley navy, which we must also have to defend ourselves and secure overseas - because as you can see the home islands are very poor. I think we're being driven to settle offshore islands. We also get traders, and those are very useful tools for getting new cities up and running*.
State Workforce I'm taking next, for the governor title, then likely FT. With Pingala's culture promotion I should be able to finish both in about 12 turns and then it's time to beeline PP, wherever it may be.
*For Russia, I'm debating if an international trade economy is worth it. I could stack the +1 science/culture civic with Peter's ability and Australia's likely science lead to goose my own science. But that means giving up the food and production from internal trade routes, which is hard to justify. I'd need to run some numbers.
Quiet turn - literally no buttons to push, so I spend more time updating the spreadsheet than I do playing. Lots of our rivals are posting pretty serious population growth rates, most notably Kaiser and Archduke. They must have a very fertile island indeed - perhaps it's more cramped than my spacious but barren island? Hmmm...Anyway, finishing Writing next turn. With two lavras placed, I SHOULD be able to place a discounted campus at Borodino, which I must remember to do before State Workforce comes in. Then, when the lavra at Imperator Aleksandr completes, my next campus at Knyaz Suvurov should be discounted as well, and then the Government Plaza at Imperator after that.
Religion is due in 8 turns, 7 if I speed it up with faith (or purchase a shrine or something). The main concern is monitoring Kaiser - he's well behind me and I THINK he's content to get religion #3, but spending a bunch of resources to snipe religion #2 would screw both of us - him for torpedoing his own game and warping his growth curve, and me for making all of this tundra entirely useless. Oh, well, just have to cross my fingers and hope my opponents do the smart thing.
Well, in terms of raw hammers and food, this might be the best location on the map.
My Illmatic Campus finishes in 4 turns, and then I could potentially make another Settler. (I'm going to gold-purchase a builder, so making another Builder in Illmatic would be a little counter-intuitive.) However, that would stunt Illmatic at a low 2 to 3 population. Given my Science and Culture production, I really need to grow Illmatic.
The more I think about this Settler, the more wary I become - a Settler costs 140 production (93 with the Colonization card), compared to 65 production for a Galley. The settler would need a full 7 turns' walk to arrive in this general area. Alternatively, Sailing finishes in about 6-7 turns, so I could probably squeeze out a Slinger, Galley and then a Settler. Should I invest into a little bit of military, so I don't overextend myself? Or am I justified in wanting to settle this city spot?
Elsewhere, Suboptimal's Indonesia founds its third city, while Woden's Norway may have built a district. (Its empire score increased by 2 and its era score increased by 3 - strongly implying that they built a district with high adjacency.) Does Woden also want to go for a religious game? Or did they go for Writing like I did? Shouldn't they be pumping out Longships, not building infrastructure? Strange.
The College Dropout will be founded next turn. A gold-rushed builder will also appear next turn, in preparation for Animal Husbandry.
If you have a warrior that can garrison the city, then I think you should push for it as soon as possible. More expansion faster is a sure-fire way to strength and relevance in any game. Remember, Archduke just walked a settler for nearly 10 turns to found his third city. The site you found looks very strong - fish, turtles, and cows for growth, gypsum for production, and a desert tile that makes an excellent candidate for a Work Ethic-boosted holy site for even more production (Charming appeal + Natural Wonder). It'll be defensible, too - Yerevan's tundra position makes this kind of feel like a "back door" to Australia. I feel like most interlopers will come from the north coast, not the south.
With 6-7 turns until Sailing, but Early Empire coming in next turn, it's a good time to run colonization and get that settler out. Then Ilmatic can go into infrastructure mode, while I get my religion established and spread to your cities.
Suboptimal is third to a new city, just behind Archduke and Kaiser. Marco will likely be 4th, putting me in the back half, and I think Roland has a settler out. Mine is due on turn 47, founding Imperator Aleksandr 6 turns after that, on turn 53. Again, I'm just not good at counting movement, but I think the settler can only move one tile per turn. Thick terrain! That's no worries, though, as by turn 60 it'll finish its lavra and instantly leap to 13 production.
At home, I finish Writing and place a discounted +3 Campus at Borodino:
It's a 5-turn build whenever I can squeeze it in, but science isn't a priority right now - I have the tech for my immediate needs, and it's more urgent to focus on exploration and expansion at the moment. Hence, my next build will not be the campus, but rather a galley, the first of a double build to get 4 out and go after Hong Kong. The first galley will noodle around to the northwest and look for a Foreign Trade inspiration in order to help the others.
Imperator Aleksandr will be unable to get a discount on the lavra, obviously, AND I need to get the campus down before I finish State Workforce, which will cost me the discount until I finish a third district. BUT, I don't want to wait until I finish Aleksandr's lavra to place the Campus, even though I probably won't touch it before turn 60, because the price will be going up with every tech/civic I complete. Thus, I felt this was best.
I still don't fully grasp the discount mechanism - I'm not sure if having 4 districts completed with 3 unlocked will grant me a discount on the second campus. If it doesn't, then I'll certainly have a discount on the Government Plaza, which is already half-cost, so I'll hold off on unlocking/placing more districts until that is complete.
Let's see..one of my warriors is mostly healed up and the other is nearly back to the capital, so I feel I can risk heading out to defog the coast near Navarin:
Who knows, might be something worth knowing. It cost me nothing at the moment (in b4 stealth raze of Knyaz Suvurov by Vikings lurking in the fog). The other warrior will link up with the settler and escort him in case, I dunno, a scout bursts out of the fog or something. I don't think he could - they'd be spawning in those foggy patches near the Pole, WHICH, personally, Firaxis, I think is a bit absurd since the polar regions are uninhabitable to humans before the late 19th century, but I digress - but better safe than sorry!
One last thing is I tinker with Borodino's citizens a bit, dropping the 5 food tile which is being slashed in half since I'm at the housing limit and picking up the sea turtles for a bit more production, science, and gold for the two turns I have the settler coming:
Bizarrely, the auto-governor, when locked out of the rice tile, insisted on that grassland hill southeast of the city, even though it has the exact same yields as the sea turtles except worse. I will never understand what's going on under the hood in this game, I fear.
Overview of Russia:
Immediate plans:
Borodino: Settler -> Galley ->[RELIGION YAY] -> Galley -> Campus/Builder/Shrine
Knyaz Suvurov: Granary -> Gal[RELIGION YAY]ley -> Galley -> Campus/Builder/Monument?
Imperator Aleksandr: [RELIGION YAY] Lavra -> Builder (Pasture/fish/silver or fish)-> Monument/Granary/Shrine (filler) -> Plaza -> Ancestral Halls -> Settlers x a bajillion
Hong Kong will then be city #4, but I might want to squeeze out some settlers from Borodino or Knyaz Suvurov, too. With such high food nad production, expansion via Colonization will be the way to go.
Anyway, when I was ordering up the galley at Knyaz Suvurov, I was a bit surprised to see that the Galley would take 15 turns, the Settler only 17. Clearly, the city really needs to wait for Work Ethic in order to get some productivity - Work Ethic will be good for a 4 hammer boost. That shortens the galley from 15 turns to only 8 turns. If I start it now, I'll knock out 27/65 production, then need 5 more turns still to finish. If I wait, I can start it then and only need 8 turns - essentially, the efficiency saves 3 turns of production. By getting the galley out 3 turns later, though, I can invest six turns' worth of production into the settler, using Colonization, which I have slotted. We will knock out 40 hammers (13 more!) until our policy swap, leaving 100 hammers left. Work Ethic + Colonization can then finish that settler in a further 8 turns. If I do it the other way around - going galley then Settler, I get the galley out on turn 57, then the settler out on turn 69. My way, galley pops on turn 60, settler on turn 68 - a hair faster. If I finish the settler through to completion, keeping Colonization in place, we finish on turn 60, then the galley comes on turn 68.
It all seemed more efficient to put some hammers into the settler now, since I want to do a double settler build in Colonization while Imperator Aleksandr is getting up and running. That will push me to 4 cities, 5 with Hong Kong, and then future settlers can come from IA while the two initial cities build navies and then campuses.
Great plan, CMF! I'm a *little* bit concerned about building too many settlers via production instead of through faith...but it seems like a settler is Suvorov's best option right now.
Turn 47
Slightly outdated view of my empire. College Dropout has since been founded (it's working on a Campus), and the Illmatic cows have also been pastured. I finished Early Empire but *didn't* plug in the Colonization card just yet...I'll wait until after State Workforce finishes.
Mining is due by turn 51 or 52, thanks to Illmatic's upcoming Campus. I will need a builder for the Blueprint soon. Maybe Illmatic should produce a builder, and my current builder should move south to Illmatic just in time to improve some tiles? In that case, I should hold off on completing State Workforce until Illmatic is actually ready to produce a Settler. At 54 production, my builder will take about 5 turns to make.
In addition, here's my planned city site, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy". I'd likely miss out on the eastern Cattle tile, but I think it's worth losing the eastern Cattle if I can work that Gypsum. The adjacencies are also amazing; this could be a great Russian city too.
I don't know that I'll be able to achieve a Classical Golden Age - with ~14 turns to go and 14 points I need to scrape up, it'll be tough. But a Medieval Golden Age should be achievable and that's when I'll spend my faith in an explosion of settlers. The homeland will have to be settled with production, but I suspect there are vast and fertile islands for colonizing overseas.
One thing to consider MIGHT be to leave my galleys 1 turn from completion, until the era flips, to bank some score for the next age. I think I can hit a golden age pretty easily one way or the other, and it'd mean delaying my galley by about 7 turns out of Borodino. But I really want to get at least one out from the high-production capital so I can inspire Foreign Trade and Political Philosophy. Our third city state is probably somewhere north of us.
Anyway, more on exploration - we have some significant news from my turn:
Turn 47
I push my healed warrior towards the west coast and we find a visitor offshore, taking on water and hunting for game in the forests near Borodino. Their language is an incomprehensible babble suitable only for the simple-minded or the insane, but eventually our explorers decipher that they are from "Indonesia" and worship a god-king by the name of Gitarja. They mention "Chaineese" as their close friends and allies - noted builders of great monuments of stone and brick in all manner of wondrous shapes.
Let us commence the ritual mutual sniffing of butts:
Sub's exploring galley, no-doubt faith purchased (his faith reserves are approximately half of what I predicted based on his city adjacencies alone, taking no account of his Earth Goddess pantheon. However, my purely pop-based predictions for minimum science and culture were spot on!), has already met one other team. We can't know if it was this galley or another one, but it's possible he already made his way past their shores and onto ours. This galley has been exploring for a maximum of 18 turns (guessing his first boat based on era score), so that's about the max radius we can expect to find competitors for land overseas.
Indonesia's gold reserves are low but income is healthy, no-doubt a product of his truffles camp. His second city is pop 3, same as Knyaz Suvurov, and has a placed but not completed Campus, no improved resources. City #3, founded just a few turns ago, is pop 1 but placed a holy site right away. His capital population is about 4, then, with no granary (we know he has no monument per culture income).
Roland has a healthy income of 11 gpt, with his own turtles and truffles. His science rate is only 1 pop point higher than estimated, easily explained via error on my part (he's not working the turtles), his culture rate is nearly double what population + sacred places alone would predict. Does Stonehenge give culture? Or he has a monument in each city.
His second city, James Tavernier, is only size 3, which would mean HIS capital is size 5 with no monument, but we know he has one - so call it size 4 with a monument. He might have driven his capital down to size 3 with the recent settler on turn 41, which would allow for a monument in both cities, explaining Chinese culture. He has no placed districts in his expansion but he DOES have stone - that's likely his Stonehenge city, I expect.
Anyway, that's about all I can deduce from the diplomacy screen. Marco, Cornflakes, you're both welcome to take a crack at the cloak 'n dagger if you want. I'll attach the start of turn save to this post for Cornflakes.
With the granary and settler completed, I rejigger my cities for maximum growth, so they hit pop 4 & 5 right as work ethic comes in in 5 turns and Imperator Aleksandr founds. I'll also complete State Workforce and promote Pingala with culture. That'll be a big turn:
Then we'll go into maximum galley production mode until I have 4, then back into Colonization to get out 2 settlers (probably Oryol, which looks great, and Petropavlosk, both of which will grow slowly but have crazy good production so they can build their own, er, builders (I hate that) before the Ancestral Hall makes it easy on future cities). Then dual campuses, and then we'll see what the board says.
![[Image: pEcYqoo.png]](https://i.imgur.com/pEcYqoo.png)
![[Image: SDqTGAR.png]](https://i.imgur.com/SDqTGAR.png)
![[Image: Ea114zs.png]](https://i.imgur.com/Ea114zs.png)
![[Image: XTVAHFg.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/XTVAHFg.jpg)
![[Image: ZVWjN8j.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/ZVWjN8j.jpg)
