[SPOILERS] swans will bite u

[williams482]

Portugal is going to be getting 2 beakers per turn from trade routes to Japanese cities with Campi. Throw in the +1 culture, +1 science for the Trade Confederation card (unlocked at mercenaries) that nobody except Portugal is likely to seriously consider. Then double that for two traders per city, and you're looking at some major beakers per turn in the midgame. I anticipate a slow start but a powerful recovery, and pumping out a bunch of promoted galleys is a good way to keep us secure even when we fall behind at first.

Other thoughts on the bomber plan: +75% science is great and worth the price, but -25% culture isn't trivial. It would really suck to be late to fleets, armadas, or fascism at a critical juncture.

[ljubljana]

don't forget Wisselbanken :D

yeah the culture problems are going to be pretty catastrophic. we might not even make it to, like, military alliances before the -25% kicks in with a delayed culture pingala :| nationalism, though, i don't mind too much if our opponents get before us under the bomber plan - bombers can one-shot frigate fleets too :D

[ljubljana]

there is a part of me that thinks we may not want a holy site in Geneva. this will be one of TAD's main TR destinations in the midgame, and we'd much rather give them 1.5 science from a campus or 1.5 clefs from a theater than a pathetic 1.5 faith. that part of me is probably wrong though as Geneva's campus is at least +3 and we do want that multiplied by Monasticism in the midgame, plus the free religious spread is too important tactically to ignore in case of DotF. but wherever the second TR city ends up going it will almost certainly go campus - theater - harbor in some order, and i will try my best to fill Geneva's builds with as many random districts as i can as quickly as possible :D

[ljubljana]

OH by the way guys! TAD gets a pantheon next turn, and the only ES jump since my pantheon is 6 for incurian which is just the first bireme. which meanssss TAD should be in the clear for a very nice 6 culture festivals :D

unless someone hits 25 on the same turn and snipes THAT from us too

[TheArchduke]

Got Festivals. Shall I help you with Geneva with my western galley?

[ljubljana]

Turn 30 - Japan

Redid the pinmap again:



I'm increasingly starting to like the NE spot for the third city - it gets the +3 HS for era score, it doesn't need to buy a tile to do so, and it starts creeping our cluster of districts westward for a fast acceleration of yields. Once the first four cities get HS + campus up we will have very good faith and science numbers here, without having to wait on cities 5 and 6 to get up to size.

Nothing scary in the scores - Chevalier got a third civic, which HAS TO be Craftsmanship, which means they both made a builder and used all three of its charges on tile improvements, leaving none to chop out a holy site. That bodes well for us in the race, so I chose to follow williams' cooler counsel and prioritize the galley in Teru over the HS - 2t saved on Geneva is quite likely to make the difference in whether I get the HS there up in time or not.

oh and thrawn got a third pop in the third pop and is now 2-turning longships, plus they are back up to first in the dom rankings BUT no big deallllll

To my great chagrin, poking around the east coast of Geneva island reveals fewer Feitoria spots than I was hoping for However, TAD did reveal an 8th spot at the northern channel island, and there is potential for a 9th as well if everything breaks juuuuust right.

What should my capital start next turn? A galley is the sensible answer, but I am still a little paranoid about this religious race, and we obviously want the shrine up before FtW pops to maximize its snowball impact. So I may do the shrine next, which will take 7t and should leave us space to finish off the religion with a project if things start looking dicey.

Got Festivals. Shall I help you with Geneva with my western galley?

Nice! re galleys: are you getting another one in the capital soon to defend the trader? If so, yeah, you may as well send the western one to help with Geneva. It shouldn't be necessary unless something REALLY unexpected and catastrophic happens, but it never hurts to have a little more margin for error.

One thing I do think you should do though is send a galley east on a scouting mission as soon as possible (maybe the one you are about to produce in the second city?). We need to start working towards circumnavigation ASAP - it's hard to overstate how crucial it is to both get golden ages to speed my expansion and your Cartography beeline.

[williams482]

Awesome to get the plantation pantheon!

I think I prefer the galley in Hakuho, but the Shrine is defensible. Accelerates the religion, a bit more faith (to be used a little while down the road) and means that the religion will be instantly beneficial. That's the internal econ play for sure.

That said, I really want to get some deep scouting underway. There's a big advantage to spotting city states first and spotting named features to get ints at who is where. Never mind the benefits of actually contacting our neighbors; we want that era score badly, and Portugal certainly wouldn't mind more trade routes ASAP.

[ljubljana]

hmmm so what i like about shrine is the build order flexibility. if we want to have the shrine up for sure when the religion pops, we need it to be either this build or the next build. if chev isn't contesting us we can go shrine-galley instead of galley-shrine, and if they do we still have time for the project

hard, hard agree on deep scouting. one of the geneva ships will go west asap for contacts and circumnav, and i will try to convince tad to send an eastward ship as well. contacting all teams in the ancient era is flatly REQUIRED as otherwise we WILL do so in classical which basically kills monasticism

[ljubljana]

turn 21 - japan

literally on the bus rn so maybe don't have time for a detailed report but



i provisionally chose greed with the shrine in hakuho. please feel free to talk me out of this! it seems like shrine - galley is roughly equivalent to galley - shrine in terms of thrawn defense, and leading with the shrine gives us the chance to follow with a project after if chevalier is making a serious push.

we also badly need the first trader somewhere soon - 2f/1h is a big deal, and the GP is not too far away now. but there isn't really space in the build orders for it anywhere

[ljubljana]

indal river is on sweden's list according to civwiki. what does it mean?? is this a sign of norway approaching, or have i just defogged enough rivers that we're out of japanese river names?

only developments abroad are pop growth at banzai and third tech at chevalier