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

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I made an error - Indonesia's culture rate isn't the low ~3 predicted by population, but quite a bit higher, at nearly 7. That's tough to explain without a pair of monuments, but that would push his population incredibly low. He can't have a culture pantheon, as we know he took Earth Goddess and besides, he has no pastures or plantations up anyway. He could have marble/amber unimproved? Hmmm...Gotta figure out where that extra culture is coming from.

EDIT: Met some culture city-states? One would be +2 in his capital with an envoy, no? Two would be +4, which would entirely explain things.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 40whatever

Quiet turn for me - I reveal some pearls, sub's galley has reached the territory of Knyaz Suvurov, and the settler is on the march.




With KS and Borodino both growing, I'm feeling the effects of the hurricane for the first time - the loss of the turtles is now costing Suvurov 10% of its yields. Nothing gamebreaking, just annoying, especially since the ONE tile that got fertilized is the one from which I will derive absolutely 0 benefit. I don't understand why the city can't just be 3 food now. ;_; 

Could be worse, though - I took out Kublai Khan for a spin and my capital was on a floodplain. The damn river flooded literally every 10 turns. My routine was repair Commercial Hub -> Repair Market -> Work on trader for a bit -> Repair Commercial Hub -> Repair Market -> Maybe finish trader? for fully 100 turns or so until I managed to get Buttresses and a Dam built. Obnoxious.

[marcopolothefraud]

Turn 49
Illmatic completes a Campus and doubles my Science output from +5 to +10 per turn. Just look at the difference:



The plan isn't actually to finish Foreign Trade, by the way. I'm going to finish State Workforce the same turn that I finish Illmatic's builder, and then Illmatic will build the settler and prepare for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The College Dropout may need to buy a 2/2 tile soon, because it's not getting a Monument or a Builder in the near future. I think I might need some of CMF's gold - about 40 gold should cover it.

So, just to recap:
- Mining will finish on turn 51, and I will start researching Sailing.
- Illmatic's builder will finish on turn 53. Illmatic will start a Settler (93 production), which will finish on turn 61 or 62 - I don't know how the new Builder will affect its production just yet.
- State Workforce will finish on turn 53. Foreign Trade will finish on turn 60.
- The Blueprint will finish it's +6 campus on turn 54. I have no idea what it'll produce next.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Good!

I think TCD ought to receive some builder love soon, probably even before the campus is finished - the two splendid campuses will have us covered there for a bit, but Australia will still lag in raw foodhammer counts. The settler will help a bit, but even so these lands are in dire need of improvement.

Towards that end, by the way, I'm finishing Masonry, since I have no pressing needs at the moment - that way I can pass the eureka on to you. I plan to research as many techs as I can to the eureka, then wait for the era change or eureka to knock down their costs before finishing them.

On the civics tree, my plan I think is to finish the Galley out of Borodino, then send it in search of a foreign continent, and further galley construction will be suspended until Foreign Trade is in. Then I'll swap to Maritime Industries and build the Hong Kong attack force. In the meantime, I can make use of Colonization to crank out two more settlers, one each from my two main cities. That SHOULD line up roughly with hte outline I had at Knyaz Suvurov earlier. It delays Hong Kong a bit but I net out more hammers this way overall, so I think it's a worthy trade. Just need to hit the city before walls, which I don't think are on the horizon.

My turn was quiet - the notable news was a barb scout appearing south of Borodino. Pictures when I'm home from work. I sent both warriors on a seek and destroy mission to the south. 3 turns until Population Growth/Civics/Religion/City.

[marcopolothefraud]

Turn 50
While exploring our surprisingly-massive continent, I stumble onto a Viking ship.


Woden has a strong second city, with two 5 yield horse tiles. He must be working some gold resource to offset the costs of his fleet. From the name "Ålesund", it seems like he hasn't bothered to find a city naming scheme.


Ljubljana's connected at least two science-yielding resources. Mercury strikes me as a bit of a weak tile, because even when it's improved, it's only 1 food/2 production/1 science. Turtles are very powerful, though. Notice that he's also researched Celestial Navigation - it's a tech that comes after Writing. From the name "Linear A", it seems like Ljubljana is naming his cities after alphabets and writing systems, which is quite lovely.


Finally, it seems like someone else has a Campus down. My guess is Kaiser of Japan - on the spreadsheet, it shows that he has 3 districts, but only two of them are Holy Sites. Should I consider some Campus Research Projects in the future, in case he poses a serious threat to getting Hypatia?


Looking at science/culture/military scores, it seems like Woden and Ljubljana are seriously ahead of us. This is very dangerous, considering they're just hitting their prime. The one good news is that both of us have 3 cities, while they each only have two...though Woden's Empire Score dropped a point this turn, which suggests that they have a settler out. Let's hope their advantages don't manifest in them attacking us.

EDIT: That Viking Longship is almost proof that I need to garrison my coastal tile improvements. A warrior can reach Illmatic in time, but The Blueprint (with two coastal improvements) has nothing in its area. If Woden keeps turning south, as I expect he will, he'll see The Blueprint and take a coastal-raid opportunity. That means I might have to delay improving the Blueprint for a while.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Down the road that will be problematic, but right now I think the only real danger is keeping a warrior or slinger at Ilmatic - a longship can, I believe, capture a strength 10 city. If he declares war to pillage our few coastal improvements, the net gain in culture from the Defensive Tactics inspiration will be more than worth it - especially since in 2 turns' time I'll have Work Ethic and can kick out galleys as fast as Norway can kick out longboats if that's how he wants to play it. No, sir, please don't throw me in that there briar patch! 

Turn 49-50

Turn 49, as noted, saw a barbarian scout appear on the isthmus between Lake Taymar and Lake Onega. I started marching both warriors south. I can't cut him off, but there shouldn't be any horses or swords to worry about so this should be a straightforward clear for the promoted troops.




On turn 50, we find ourselves:

* Two turns from Masonry (passing the eureka on to Australia so he can clear stone to his heart's content)
* Two turns from State Workforce (enabling our Culture promotion for Pingala, a nice gain)
* Two turns from size 5 at Borodino
* Two turns from recruiting our Great Prophet
* Two turns from founding Imperator Aleksandr

So Thursday's turn will be pretty exciting. Then turn 53 will see size 4 at Knyaz Suvurov and our religion actually being founded, which will add 10 production and 6 gpt to the empire! Nearly doubling both outputs. Very nice. 

Check out this fact:




Ago Bay is...in Japan! Woden has also met everyone else, we're the last team. So my thinking is we have Indonesia/China to our west, Japan/England to our east, and due north on the opposite tundra line sits Norway (appropriate) and Phoenicia.

[marcopolothefraud]

What are you going to name the religion? I'm trying to think of something that Australia and Russia have in common, with no luck. The best thing I can think of is "Invasion of Gallipoland", which is tacky and probably disrespectful towards the Polish.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Frustratingly, two days in a row I've had extra time in the morning to play the save that's usually waiting for me, and coincidentially both times the save has gotten stalled short of me somewhere - here's been uncharacteristically with Ljubljana for 10 hours, normally it races all the way to marco by the time I go to bed.

As for the religion, I don't know. I'm leaning towards either Code Zulu which many might interpret as a reference to my last disastrous game or something like "Fine Weather, High Waves". 

Or if you know of any Russian-themed hiphop movements...

[marcopolothefraud]

-_- I can't think of any Russian hip-hop, sorry. "Fine Weather, High Waves" would be my preference for a religion name, but it's a mouthful...

Turn 51
Change of plans - I'm going to improve this stone tile for a 2/3 yield. After the campus, The Blueprint might sink a few turns into a Library. There's nothing better for it to produce right now, unfortunately.


Mining has completed, so now I'm going to research Sailing (turn 53) and then Archery (turn 56).

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

How on earth is Phoenicia pulling in such culture already?

Gotta be a pantheon, some city-states, and Pingala, right? He only has the two cities and has ships out - I'm just wondering where all the production came from.

Figure 5 from Pingala at capital. Call it 4 from city states. If he's got 3 more from horses and cattle, that's up to 12, plus your basic pop and 15% from Pingala. That seems about right.