[Spoilers] 0x49-y: Marxist-Joaoist Praxis

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Coming out of my retirement to lose to an artillery rush 

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Tho the more I think about it France + Gunpowder seems like the best military combination. Easy 3-pop whip of 2 movers, strong offensively and defensively. Ragnar of France sounds like a lot of fun 

[Commodore]

Still your thinking? Looks realistic now.

How are you going to take most advantage of your hyper-juiced start?

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Strongly considering Inca-Communism-Joao. Muskeeters in sims get wrekt by artillery with a worse hammer exchange than HAs so I'm feeling a lot cooler on them. Feeling like going for an economic tech and quecha rushing luddite if I'm next to him. With Joao + insane start I think i can get 5 cities by turn 50 and Kremlin isn't too much more expensive than pyramids thanks to stone at capital start

[Oxyphenbutazone]

How are you going to take most advantage of your hyper-juiced start?

3rd settler by turn 36 

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Pyramids seems even better than normal here with the potential of a Great Engineer rush of the Kremlin + stone at capital start

[Oxyphenbutazone]

What's the logic behind going for the pure economic play? Well when defending against superior tech units with cats + phants + flanking HAs, the hammer exchange isn't actually too bad and can approach even against muskeeters and cataphracts. So then the main factor is build queues: if I can get to turn 75 with construction + horseback riding + 10 cities I'll feel very secure against even an artillery rush.

Of course if 6 muskeeters or 2 artillery drop on my door turn 50 it'll be a lot more dicey. Early scouting + potential rushing will be very important. If I'm next to Luddite I'll need to rush right away. And of course longer term building amazing land + The Kremlin will put a big target on my back. But B&S is a pretty defensible map script as long as you're not behind on naval tech so if I have a big enough production advantage I think I'll be ok.

Goal is to get to Kremlin-powered knight whips ASAP at which point I'll be on even military ground with Yuri and Cairo but with a significant production advantage. Throw in astronomy and even Luddite will be susceptible to an attack that will at least force him to pin an artillery in all of his coastal cities. I'm not really worried about Yuri because needing Iron working + HBR himself means that I should have defenses up before he can muster a big enough force (seems like rifling would have been a better choice for him considering war elephants trade evenly with cataphracts).

Expansion will be everything. Cities are essentially free as long as they can work some cottages, but if I'm next to any of the military civs it'll be impossible to defend aggressive border plants. Hopefully there are plenty of islands to expand to. Obviously best case scenario is I'm on my own island but definitely can't rely on that (seems unlikely that the mapmaker would put the most OP start in the best geopolitical situation).

But overall the real reason I picked Communism is it just seemed like the most fun. The Kremlin is an awesome wonder I've never gotten to use in MP. State Property enables ICS at a crazy level and makes early workshops and watermills great tiles. The production bonus is actually quite useful for chopping out wonders and whipping infrastructure. With EXP + IMP + pseudo creative I'm aiming to have the most explosive start in RB history.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

By the way Commodore I was re-reading my finest moment on RB and was pleasantly surprised to see that most of my images from the game are still alive.

How does Quirrell rank on the Ottawa scale?

[Krill]

That's about 0.45 on the Ottawa scale. It has roughly half the output, is smaller, and far poorer trade routes.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

It was an AW game but yeah that sounds about right