[SPOILERS] TheArchduke blasts into Space as Russia

[TheArchduke]

No turn yet.

@Sullla:

Still bad enough, no belief comes even close to choral music in Gathering Storm. Until the era dedication of monumentality there was a case for Jesuit Education. Couple that with the excellent "do not rush me" DotF and you´re either first to religion or might very well be last.

But this proves another point, Craftsmanship and Agoge are a must, we do not want to be caught with our pants down just because someone wants to wreck our sandcastle with an early rush. I am still not convinced that I should not squeeze out a shrine. I will try to calculate quickly how long the second lavra takes, it may come online quick enough.

[TheArchduke]

Turn 18

One shall not take the barbarians lightly.
This means a camp roughly to the SE of the capital has an angered scout and we have one new barb camp smack next to our 2nd city Bratukhin.

Well, no problems getting BW and Military Tradition this time around.
Depending on the pantheon (which sure as hell is not going to be god of festivals.) I will sort my priorities of improvement. With 7 players, one has to have a religious CS.

Right now it is Camp the Deer, Farm the Rice and Camp the Truffles. Bratukhin does not need a pasture, plenty of good tiles all around there.

So this firmly brings us to Craftsmanship and a Builder next. Especially as I can camp the Truffles for a sweet +5 gold overall and more happiness.

   

Nothing in the east, no CS, no players nothing. I am starting to think I should have sent my scout south.

   

I think going East and then Northeast is the best, zigzagging east. Especially as I am bound to run into the barb camp with the scout which does not help me at all.

Finally settled on a naming sheme, takes 1-2 tries till I find my groove it seems. Implementation next time around.

[Sullla]

For scouting purposes, it's probably best to keep going east in the hopes of finding more city states and another continent for the Foreign Trade boost. Future military units can head for the south and the unexplored west. Hopefully the barbarians won't be too bad - that camp near the second city site will be almost in your own territory, which hopefully will make clearing it a bit easier. Extra gold from barbarian camp clears and from putting down camp improvements on the map would speed you along to a potential monument purchase nicely.

6 turns to a pantheon at this point. You will probably be second or third to found a pantheon depending on how much luck everyone else had city Religion city states which should be plenty to get something very strong. Goddess of Festivals still looks like the top choice and I think you have decent odds to land it. All you need is whoever stumbles into a Religious city state not having plantation tiles at their capital, hardly impossible. If that's gone, Goddess of the Hunt for super powered camps seems like the obvious choice since you have deer at the capital and truffles at the second city. I still think God of the Open Sky after that despite only having the single cow tile, both for denial purposes and because I think you'll reveal more cows/horses with time. Probably River Goddess fourth if all of those other options were gone which would be shocking to me. A Turn 24 pantheon is extremely fast.

[williams482]

Goddess of Festivals is a strong #1, and although I see the case for Goddess of the Hunt as a second choice, I'm going to change tacts from my earlier post and suggest Earth Goddess should be our #2 target.

First, we are absolutely gunning for a classical GA and we seem to have a lot of space to work with, so we will be trying to get some serious use out of monumentality. Second, although we don't have Spynxs or Paredezias for spamable appeal boosts, placing Lavras in the kind of terrain we already want to put them will bump some tiles over the line. Third, and most importantly, the terrain here is great for it.

At our capital right now, the marsh rice, two PFHs, two bald plains hills, and the city center are currently breathtaking. At our second city, the truffles, silks, cows and (again) the city center all either are or will be if we put a Lavra in the +3 western location. Our prospective city sites all have useful tiles with already breathtaking appeal, such as the northern of the two spices, the marsh rice near Yakulev, and Tupolev's city center. Some of these sites will get less pretty as we chop trees and put down mines, but I'm not sure how much we really need to do that in the short term. Lumber Mills are relatively quick and give more production per turn than a chop+mine anyway, and it will be a while until we have enough pop to be forced into throwing down mines in appeal-killing locations.

Hell, after writing all that out, I'm not totally convinced that this shouldn't be our #1 pantheon target. We can get a ton of early culture from festivals (+1 at pantheon time, +6 with 2-3 more cities), and that's undoubtedly a huge deal, but we're looking at between three and five times as much faith per turn as we'd have culture once those plantations are all on line, and that would be an explosive boost to our expansion capabilities.

[TheArchduke]

For scouting purposes, it's probably best to keep going east in the hopes of finding more city states and another continent for the Foreign Trade boost. Future military units can head for the south and the unexplored west. Hopefully the barbarians won't be too bad - that camp near the second city site will be almost in your own territory, which hopefully will make clearing it a bit easier. Extra gold from barbarian camp clears and from putting down camp improvements on the map would speed you along to a potential monument purchase nicely.

6 turns to a pantheon at this point. You will probably be second or third to found a pantheon depending on how much luck everyone else had city Religion city states which should be plenty to get something very strong. Goddess of Festivals still looks like the top choice and I think you have decent odds to land it. All you need is whoever stumbles into a Religious city state not having plantation tiles at their capital, hardly impossible. If that's gone, Goddess of the Hunt for super powered camps seems like the obvious choice since you have deer at the capital and truffles at the second city. I still think God of the Open Sky after that despite only having the single cow tile, both for denial purposes and because I think you'll reveal more cows/horses with time. Probably River Goddess fourth if all of those other options were gone which would be shocking to me. A Turn 24 pantheon is extremely fast.

The barbarians are actually good news. Era score and money are things that we want and it seems we have at least 2 camps to work with in our immeadite vicinity. With Discipline and a cautious approach one warrior can take on a camp, even an active one in the early game.

God of Festivals is choice #1, for choice #2 I am torn between Goddess of the Hunt and Divine Spark. Goddess of the Hunt seems like +1 and +1 : for nearly every city plant I have seen so far. It is quite an early, quick boost. And I know you dislike Divine Spark, but with +1 faith per Holy Site and the bonus to Great Persons it is a valid choice. It also firmly locks in a first religion, something which I am paranoid about. We have at least one civ which needs a religion to work, Khmer and which should be highly aware that Russia will easily beat them in a straight up race. All the other civs have better things to do then chase an early religion, you might be right I may be paranoid.

If I am beaten to God of Festivals I think I will run a project or go Divine Spark. If not, I think we can pursue religion without any fancy shrines or projects. 

There is a point to deny God of the Open Sky, but I still have found only one cow and I have maybe 1-2 horses around. River Goddess is out thanks to the lavra plant next to the mountain.

Goddess of Festivals is a strong #1, and although I see the case for Goddess of the Hunt as a second choice, I'm going to change tacts from my earlier post and suggest Earth Goddess should be our #2 target.

First, we are absolutely gunning for a classical GA and we seem to have a lot of space to work with, so we will be trying to get some serious use out of monumentality. Second, although we don't have Spynxs or Paredezias for spamable appeal boosts, placing Lavras in the kind of terrain we already want to put them will bump some tiles over the line. Third, and most importantly, the terrain here is great for it.

At our capital right now, the marsh rice, two PFHs, two bald plains hills, and the city center are currently breathtaking. At our second city, the truffles, silks, cows and (again) the city center all either are or will be if we put a Lavra in the +3 western location. Our prospective city sites all have useful tiles with already breathtaking appeal, such as the northern of the two spices, the marsh rice near Yakulev, and Tupolev's city center. Some of these sites will get less pretty as we chop trees and put down mines, but I'm not sure how much we really need to do that in the short term. Lumber Mills are relatively quick and give more production per turn than a chop+mine anyway, and it will be a while until we have enough pop to be forced into throwing down mines in appeal-killing locations.

Hell, after writing all that out, I'm not totally convinced that this shouldn't be our #1 pantheon target. We can get a ton of early culture from festivals (+1 at pantheon time, +6 with 2-3 more cities), and that's undoubtedly a huge deal, but we're looking at between three and five times as much faith per turn as we'd have culture once those plantations are all on line, and that would be an explosive boost to our expansion capabilities.

Earth Goddess is a good fallback choice. Maybe even better then Divine Spark.

[TheArchduke]

Turn 19

Inspiration for Foreign Trade coming up. There is a new continent to the east.

   

More relaxing situation in the west. Gunning for a builder and getting the settler in place.
The warrior can clean the camp and stay close and protect the city.

   

[TheArchduke]

Turn 20

Thanks to the continent inspiration I actually overlooked something.

There is a CS lurking. A military one, please let me first contact it..

   

[Sullla]

Nice, another city state would be great to find no matter what the type. I don't suppose anyone knows what city state that is based on the color of the borders bleeding through the fog (?)

I completely agree with williams482 that Earth Goddess would be a better choice than Divine Spark. (I continue to think that Divine Spark is a poor option and a waste of an early pantheon choice.) How many potential tiles would gain the Earth Goddess bonus in the area? It might be helpful to take a look at the map with the tile appeal lens turned on. Goddess of the Hunt still looks like the best choice, and then it's a question of whether you want the immediate boost from Goddess of the Hunt (+1 food/production at your first two cities from camps) or the longer term benefit of something like Earth Goddess. I think Earth Goddess will be better in the long run if you're willing to do some careful city planning, not quite as good out of the gate though.

Anything interesting thus far from score tracking of the other players? No one else finished a district and started earning Great Person points yet, I hope.

[TheArchduke]

@ Sullla

I think this should be military. Industrial is a tad lighter.

GP and Score coming up, I am not a big gazer on score except that empire is a good measure midgame who is leading. I know you can pretty much follow the game from turn to turn with it.

   

Score, we are 3rd to a second city, must opted to go settler 2nd it seems. Kaiser and me can go for a golden age it seems.

   

1 turn till city plant and 2 turns till we start hunting barbs. As soon as the city is up we delve into a bit of city micro. With the good city sites we have we want to expand quickly.

   

I do hope you find my reporting style sufficient. I am not the guy for walls of text on my own. If you need to know what I think about a current situation sometimes you have to poke me.

[TheArchduke]

Ah yes, appeal.

I had to use the turn 20 old save, as I am switching between home and work pcs all the time.

Still, Earth Goddess might be better then Divine Spark. We have high appeal terrain, Australia would be thrilled.

   

The dark green tiles are breathtaking and count. Only mines ruin appeal, no? So farms and camps are good.