[PBEM22] Friends with Benefits

[Krill]

Problem with CS is its another battleground and one fewer city to capture. So I kinda hope none of those underpowered CS are in this game.

Culture pantheon are on and done though, get it and it's done.

[Krill]

I sent you the brick of destiny as a gift; but just decline it. You request it next turn and then I accept and you get the faith from T21 and I still make T23.

Didn't have chance to check barbs so just moved to the marsh.

Heads in the shed today, lots of horrible work stuff stuck in there.

[Krill]

Thrawn, what's going on? Are you OK?

[Krill]

All done, nothing interesting to report. I reckon the scout is going to suicide into the warrior, but moving to the vent would have accepted the risk with no reward IMO.

My question regarding culture/work boat pantheons: when are we grabbing Irrigation? I can go either way on who gets GotS/GoF? I think that grabbing another settler now is going to really hurt trying to build both a district and keep up in culture, even if we buy and improve both turtles. Or are we going to use that production to throw down a monument in city 2?

[Krill]

I think it is disrespectful to take knowingly suboptimal choices in situations like this, but its fine to pick from different options that have different pluses and minuses.

With that in mind, my question is just how useful would GotForge be? At what point would it actually give us a unit faster or get us that extra unit? GotS I understand and have no issue with, obviously, but are there any other panteons that give is something else? Or even a denial value?

[Krill]

The other way to look at this is we didn't luck out. We knowingly followed a strategy from the point of picking first and last pick, and picked a rush/choke civ and then another rush/early civ. We knew that we could get a relic, you even posted it as a possibility. If we now decide that we want to "Go easy" on people or change our strategy to lower the chance of victory we are disrespectful of our opponents ability to strategise and respond to set backs, and if we lose we can create a damaging gaming atmosphere. Ironically I think the other players would be happier of we pressed the boot into their necks as hard as we can.

That said I don't know just how valuable the other pantheons are. If getting GotForge out early gives us a head start on taking CS and maybe razing a coastal city or two then is it integral to the strategy? Or does getting a culture pantheon allow you to get another wolf pack worth of boats out and possibly overwhelm another area of the map because you can ignore monuments? Is there a pantheon that gives me cover for a double settler opening?

[roland of gilead]

The stone of destiny is of course Scottish so I will go right ahead and claim credit for you getting it.

I too think you should do whatever is best. Any of the other teams could have taken Giglabro and used him like this.

Passing the stone back and forwards would be ridiculous of course and shouldn't be done but moving it once seems just about ok.

[roland of gilead]

We won't be going easy with forge. Forge's value diminishes with development which will be fast here, but it allows much better micro while the cities are growing, on one hand by reaching the currently optimal breakpoint without slowing down growth too much, and on the other or by sacrificing growth for a while to reach a higher breakpoint significantly earlier. For example if a city can start 2-turning 12 turns earlier, that's 2 extra ships. Eventually it will be a drop in the ocean but early on it's huge. It's certainly not disrespectful or suboptimal, it's a rush pantheon with the advantages and disadvantages that come with it.

We can align our strategy in two ways. The rush/forge way is to focus on ramping up a fleet as fast as possible to capture the CSs and pillage harbours and whatever else we can get to, maybe even attack a player directly if most of his cities are exposed. The +10/culture way sacrifices some early dominance to set up optimal conditions for our first conquest. The sacrifice can end up conterproductive if we could have made good gains or deterred more with forge. But it's more reliable that we'll have a target with a comfortable window and the resources we need to blitz through it and pillage. Then we use the gold to upgrade units, hit the next player and repeat, relying less on the military alliance and more on having advanced units from the science pillages and the gold upgrades.

It's a guess which is the better way. We can easily end up with more resources and a longer +10 with forge, but it's also a higher risk. What I don't like about getting culture is that it's allowing us to follow a strategy that we otherwise couldn't have. It's not even a slick one because we are going out of our way to deny and ruin other people's game, which is great to do with ships because we are Norway but not so great if it is based on a chance event.

Sea is definitely the best pantheon for you with this much seafood and opening builder which can improve 3 turtles. You can make much better use of growth than other civs because of ziggurats. +1 pop and a builder charge gives you foodhammer neutral citizen that earns 2.5 science and 1.3 culture. The exact RoI is hard to compare with campuses and monuments but eventually campuses will become very expensive as a direct and as a settler cost, and culture is always hard to scale. Better growth also allows you to fill the hills faster and the extra hammers in the meantime give a more powerful snowball. Sea will not be nearly as good for me without harbours and lighthouses or improving all the available resources. I can invest in development but it's taking directly from the rush potential. And denying Sea is even more important than culture because Japan like you can make especially good use of growth with district adjacencies and it is our main adversary.

So I think you should get Sea and the question is if I get forge or plantation. The others that can be of use are:
- City patron - will speed up any districts I build for the golden age.
- Craftsmen - extra production from horses and iron but I need to improve them and it's not clear if they'll help the breakpoints in their cities so no.
- Hunt - in general great but we don't have any camp resources.
- Initiation rites - 50 faith and instant heal. This would be a fun one for you for barb hunting but doesn't compare to Sea.
- Reeds and marshes - not a bad one since it turns marshes from useless to the best tiles and eventually they'll get even better with oil. Someone will definitely make good use of this, but for you Sea aligns much better with harbours and growth, and I don't have any marshes within the radius of my cities.

I'd say the best 8 pantheons for the game are:
- River goddess for Indonesia and for Japan.
- Sea for anyone, but you and Japan can make best use of it.
- Pasture/plantation culture for anyone. Japan will probably get one of them.
- Hunt for anyone with camps.
- Craftsmen as there are many guaranteed strategic resources on the islands.
- Reeds and marshes
- Forge for a Norwegian rush unless going with plantation.

A really good summary as ever. 

Looks like the choices are obvious.

[roland of gilead]

I believe that our best strategic objective is to conquer or cripple Japan and Portugal. Time is completely on their side and completely not on ours. The others don't have nearly as good long term prospects and are easier to contain short term but Japan and Portugal need immediate attention and can easily get out of control.

So going into full rush mode and hitting them early for whatever damage can be done cannot be a bad thing. If we optimise for +10 and our best target is on the other side of the world this will give them a lot of breathing space. While even if they get both culture pantheons and reach alliance at the same time as us despite the attack, they'll still be weakened and we'll have +5. The danger would be if the others develop too much in the meantime, but the best way to contain them is even more early ships to capture and secure their local CSs and exert pillaging pressure so they have to divert resources to defend.

In any case the best way for me to get ships is to focus on them and nothing else. I have 3 plantation resources but they need a builder and a third ring purchase. That's easily 3 ships or one more CS captured for the same 3 culture plus a lot more.

Forge is the easy choice. Also it's more fun

[Krill]

I agree, go with Forge.