[SPOILERS] TheArchduke blasts into Space as Russia

[TheArchduke]

Thanks for the time to test this! Turn is in.

Turn 37

Barbs continue to show up. Especially annoying next to our scout. I think that we can officially consider hardresearching Writing the right play btw. We could have one of the earlier campi.

   

Still not ONE district by anyone. This must mean some serious settling or misplay happening. There is a high probability of an early war as well. I think we need to squeeze out 2-3 more slingers as soon as we can so we can defend better and destroy Cardiff easier.

   

No camp in the desert.

[TheArchduke]

The strategy for the next 10 turns is rather apparent.

Finish Writing -> Build Campus at Hell March -> Get Gov Plaza at Fogger -> Establish Pingala in Hell March -> Promote him with science upon Early Empire ->

Then it becomes a bit fuzzy.
Right now my thinking is this.

-> Get the +50% settler policy -> Build two more settlers by hand out of Fogger and Hell March before the hopeful faith buys in a classical GA -> Get a 3rd Lavra in Funky Swamp -> Get 2-3 more cheap slingers (gold is never tight as Russia, we can upgrade) as a protection force -> Consolidate our souther expansion by settling Spice Melange -> Rush Just do It for the Tundra Faith tiles together with appeal -> Try to build shrines where we can

The tech path is a bit less sure. I am of a mind to push for a quick Machinery to get Crossbowman quickly so we can defend our claims or annihilate 1-2 strategic CS or if a neighbour looks especially inept conquer him. I would rather prefer to play it defensive as Russia. We have a lot of land to grow into.

What is absolute crucial I think is settling Spice Melange (I was even on the fence of settling it before Funky Swamp) as to establish a navy, scout more CS and get a lay of the land. Navy will be absolute crucial to our success as we are on rather big penninsula. Spice Melange is an excellent choice for a naval base. Only meleeattackable by one tile and bombardable by 2 tiles in the west. (Yes I am thinking about defense/offense considerations this early on). It also nicely controls the lake southeast of it (you can not see it on the current screenie, this is a lake.)

I did not update the dotmap, I am thinking on our western coast the tile SW of the warrior should be our next plant. The Stone is awesome to harvest there and we could have a belated Magnus with a harbor establishing a huge quadrireme navy.

I am off a mind to ignore currency for the moment and research towards Machinery, thereby enabling more cheap districts with less district techs. Hell we could even consider getting cultural districts after the gov plaza.

[Sullla]

That's awesome news about the strange tile assignment rules - thank you for checking that williams482! The timing is perfect since it looks like the capital expands its borders onto that Government Plaza tile next turn, just in time to assign it to Fogger and then have the capital place the Campus on the wheat tile immediately afterwards. I wish that we could say that we planned it all out that perfectly. And TheArchduke was right about hard-researching Writing without waiting for contact with another player. At least there's one good bit of news: no immediate neighbors to interrupt the build-fest with Lavras and other districts.

The total lack of other completed districts at this point is bizarre! Maybe there's been some bad barbarian activity, or an early war somewhere as TheArchduke guessed, or perhaps a fast settler rush because the local terrain is excellent everywhere. Like I said before, I think TheArchduke will be a bit behind on expansion in the immediate future because he took the time to build some districts, but I think he'll be able to catch up and pass others with Monumentality faith-purchased settlers once the next era begins. (There's already enough faith saved up to purchase a settler if we were in a Golden Age.) One screenshot that might be useful to see: where does Russia show up in the global rankings? Not the score column which we've seen already, but the rankings where everyone gets listed in power, research, etc. That can be a modest source of information as far as how much military, science, culture, etc. everyone is producing right now. I think Russia is middle of the pack in most categories and stratospheric in faith, with that faith being converted into huge advantages down the road.

I don't care for the Spice Melange spot at all. Yes, there is a need for a coastal city, but the local terrain there is weak overall and far inferior to the strong tiles elsewhere in the immediate area. Even with half of the tiles in fog, Beyond Timbermist looks far stronger: a 5 food (with farm) rice tile, another truffles resource, tons of forested hills for production, and very high appeal which will have lots of tiles qualifying for the Earth Goddess faith bonus. That spot just seems like it would do far more to snowball your position ahead than Spice Melange. You do want that spot eventually but not for city #4.

Longterm I think one more settler with natural production (using Early Empire) and then hopefully faith purchases after that. Ideally that settler wouldn't come from the capital but there might not be any other good candidates. My suggestion is to use the governor promotions from State Workforce + Early Empire + Government Plaza for a triple Pingala settled in the capital. It should be easy to get the capital up to 5-6 population and that would be worth something like 6-7 beakers and culture per turn immediately, scaling to higher amounts over time. That's double the output of the whole empire right now, and I don't think the other likely candidates (Magnus and Liang) would be worth as much. No need to make any decisions immediately on this.

Great Prophet next turn, yay! And thanks to those Lavras, a Great Writer for +4 culture/turn comes down the pipeline appears 15 turns after that on Turn 53. It's too bad that only one of the two Great Works can be used in the palace, but hey, 4 culture/turn for free isn't bad.

[williams482]

I agree with Sullla that Beyond Timbermist should be our next spot. The local terrain is better, and it has an excellent spot for a Lavra (2w of Fogger) which will bump the silks tile up to Breathtaking. It's also a better stepping stone towards places we want faith purchased settlers to go.

On Governors, I agree that Pingala III (or II, is there a standard notation for recruit + two additional promotions?) is the best governor choice. I would like to submit for consideration the possibility of using Funky, not Hell March, as his place of residence. Funky is going to grow like no one's business, and although it's a solid city it doesn't really have the hammers to be a settler pump, while Hell March is probably the best place to kick out at least settler #4, and has some very powerful low-growth tiles it could be working.

Pingala gives us effectively 5 * 0.15 = 0.75 science for the post-plaza campus, and 1.15 science and culture per pop point, so the campus doesn't swing the math much. Funky can get +5 food at pop 1, +7 food at pop 2, +9 food at pop 3, +11 food at pop 4 (and beyond), so we'll catch Hell March pretty quickly if we go production heavy there.

For reference, Funky will be settled t43 with no further barb disruption. Pingala will be claimed t41. Yeah, actually, nope. We're not having Pingala hang around for two turns. Hell March it is.

I suspect Funky will be Pingalla's permanent home a little later in the game, as it's peak population seems to be far beyond anywhere else, but trying to jumpstart that is not worth it.

[TheArchduke]

Turn report incoming.

Non habemus religion this turn, but next turn hopefully. The Great Prophet spawn in Hell March making a turn of movement necessary.

   

Anyway, establishing a campus with a discount. 4 turns till it is done (at pop 4)

   

And bad luck with my scout once again. I fortify in place for one turn and then we can move on.

   

[TheArchduke]

That's awesome news about the strange tile assignment rules - thank you for checking that williams482! The timing is perfect since it looks like the capital expands its borders onto that Government Plaza tile next turn, just in time to assign it to Fogger and then have the capital place the Campus on the wheat tile immediately afterwards. I wish that we could say that we planned it all out that perfectly. And TheArchduke was right about hard-researching Writing without waiting for contact with another player. At least there's one good bit of news: no immediate neighbors to interrupt the build-fest with Lavras and other districts.

The total lack of other completed districts at this point is bizarre! Maybe there's been some bad barbarian activity, or an early war somewhere as TheArchduke guessed, or perhaps a fast settler rush because the local terrain is excellent everywhere. Like I said before, I think TheArchduke will be a bit behind on expansion in the immediate future because he took the time to build some districts, but I think he'll be able to catch up and pass others with Monumentality faith-purchased settlers once the next era begins. (There's already enough faith saved up to purchase a settler if we were in a Golden Age.) One screenshot that might be useful to see: where does Russia show up in the global rankings? Not the score column which we've seen already, but the rankings where everyone gets listed in power, research, etc. That can be a modest source of information as far as how much military, science, culture, etc. everyone is producing right now. I think Russia is middle of the pack in most categories and stratospheric in faith, with that faith being converted into huge advantages down the road.

I don't care for the Spice Melange spot at all. Yes, there is a need for a coastal city, but the local terrain there is weak overall and far inferior to the strong tiles elsewhere in the immediate area. Even with half of the tiles in fog, Beyond Timbermist looks far stronger: a 5 food (with farm) rice tile, another truffles resource, tons of forested hills for production, and very high appeal which will have lots of tiles qualifying for the Earth Goddess faith bonus. That spot just seems like it would do far more to snowball your position ahead than Spice Melange. You do want that spot eventually but not for city #4.

Longterm I think one more settler with natural production (using Early Empire) and then hopefully faith purchases after that. Ideally that settler wouldn't come from the capital but there might not be any other good candidates. My suggestion is to use the governor promotions from State Workforce + Early Empire + Government Plaza for a triple Pingala settled in the capital. It should be easy to get the capital up to 5-6 population and that would be worth something like 6-7 beakers and culture per turn immediately, scaling to higher amounts over time. That's double the output of the whole empire right now, and I don't think the other likely candidates (Magnus and Liang) would be worth as much. No need to make any decisions immediately on this.

Great Prophet next turn, yay! And thanks to those Lavras, a Great Writer for +4 culture/turn comes down the pipeline appears 15 turns after that on Turn 53. It's too bad that only one of the two Great Works can be used in the palace, but hey, 4 culture/turn for free isn't bad.

Still no Great Person Points from anyone else. Yeah, only one settler probably makes sense out of Hell March. 
I disagree on Spice Melange, games are lost by navy in the midgame and if you can establish a good naval production center early on it is worth it. For the scouting alone as well.

I agree with Sullla that Beyond Timbermist should be our next spot. The local terrain is better, and it has an excellent spot for a Lavra (2w of Fogger) which will bump the silks tile up to Breathtaking. It's also a better stepping stone towards places we want faith purchased settlers to go.

On Governors, I agree that Pingala III (or II, is there a standard notation for recruit + two additional promotions?) is the best governor choice. I would like to submit for consideration the possibility of using Funky, not Hell March, as his place of residence. Funky is going to grow like no one's business, and although it's a solid city it doesn't really have the hammers to be a settler pump, while Hell March is probably the best place to kick out at least settler #4, and has some very powerful low-growth tiles it could be working.

Pingala gives us effectively 5 * 0.15 = 0.75 science for the post-plaza campus, and 1.15 science and culture per pop point, so the campus doesn't swing the math much. Funky can get +5 food at pop 1, +7 food at pop 2, +9 food at pop 3, +11 food at pop 4 (and beyond), so we'll catch Hell March pretty quickly if we go production heavy there.

For reference, Funky will be settled t43 with no further barb disruption. Pingala will be claimed t41. Yeah, actually, nope. We're not having Pingala hang around for two turns. Hell March it is.

I suspect Funky will be Pingalla's permanent home a little later in the game, as it's peak population seems to be far beyond anywhere else, but trying to jumpstart that is not worth it.

You as well. Sigh, Timbermist it is I guess. Although if my game is screwed over by a navy I will come back to blame you guys.

I think the jumpstart with 4-5 pop is worth the delay somewhere midgame where we swap over, yes. Hell March will be his home.

[Sullla]

Navies are great, no question about it. But you're going to have plenty of chances to build coastal cities in this game (I can see at least half a dozen good spots already), plus Beyond Timbermist and the capital of Hell March could both construct Harbor districts down the road if desired. It just doesn't make sense to found a weak city for the #4 spot when there are much better inland spots available. Snowballing the growth curve and all that needs to take precedent.

It was slightly confusing in the turn report but I can see that the Great Prophet was indeed recruited (after taking the screenshots) and had to waste a turn moving to the Holy Site district. This is the last possible turn that someone could steal a religion with a Stonehenge build, and unless Stonehenge happened to be within 3 tiles of where the Prophet popped up, a competitor would face the same dilemma. TheArchduke being first in turn order is really nice for the purpose of winning and same-turn ties. We're all agreed on Choral Music and Defender of the Faith for the two religious beliefs, right?

Glad that the tile-swapping went off as planned this turn. And 4 turns to build the Campus is an incredible steal, hooray for Lavras triggering the district discount so easily! TheArchduke has actually gotten some use out of that Industrial city state bonus in this game. By the way, what's the next tech to research now that Writing is done? I would normally say Bronze Working to reveal iron but you don't want to finish that (and unlock another district) until the Government Plaza can be placed by Fogger. Anything else seem like it would be nice to have in the immediate future?

[TheArchduke]

Irrigation is a priority for the dyes and spices. After that onto BW and Machinery.

Still no turn, I am getting antsy as always before a crucial turn.

[TheArchduke]

Turn 39

Quite a big turn for us. Let´s take things one by one.

   

First up religion. Followers of Westwood is established.
Given our cheap lavras that we want everywhere, choral music is a no-brainer.
Defender of the faith discourages early attacks and gives us a slight edge down the line.

   

I am immensely relieved. Step 1 of our russian plan for domination has been achieved.
Now unto other things.
The settler moves with all due speed to Funky Swamp. Faith generation will be not that huge but by god that city can grow quickly. It also enables spice switching towards Hell March. The campus still only takes 4 turns thanks to the discount.

   

I switch over a worker over from the plains hill to the river tile in the NW. The campus does not delay, but we grow to size 5 in 6 turns not 8.
8 faith from Hell March, 7 from Fogger and 4 from excess Great Prophet points. Faith generation is already ridiculously high. Funky Swamp will be a small pause on the faith snowball, but I think it is worth it.

   

Fogger is done with its builder in 3 turns. I think the cows should be improved, the camp and the dyes. We do not necessarily need the horses quite that quick with Hell March having a pasture, do we?

   

Our scout is close to a promotion next turn, which would be great for quicker exploration.

Do we need to delay State Workforce by one turn so the refresh gets the Gov Plaza discounted? It would be a shame because it synchs up so nicely with the finished worker. What am I talking about we need 4 pop at fogger. We can however lay down a third lavra at Funky Swamp if I read that formula right.

[TheArchduke]

A quick overview over victory progress.

   

I am rather low on numbers and yields, expected with the few scouting we have done and the military and industrial CS we found.
Weird stuff. I am 2nd in milscore. Also 2 players are rather low in overall score, Suboptimal being one of them.