[Spoilers] Ichabod's spoiler thread

[Banzailizard]

That reef to the west is good news, +2 campus adjacency, and then plus more for the jungles.  If there is fresh water out that way could be good. Any particular reason for scout first over warrior?

I want to use the scout to explore deep into the map, looking for City States, tribal villages and all the other exploration based Eurekas. The extra movement and the promotions available to the scout are better suited for that.

I'm thinking about pumping some military once we have agoge for the bonus production. I hope we can get by with jut the initial warrior, since this is prince difficulty. We'll see how things develop in the next few turns.

There are no tribal villages as far as I know.  In terms of exploration eurkas the only ones I can think of are writing (which also boosts the opponent), forgein trade (you want to go craftsmanship first I think) and astrology (you are not going for religion).  I there is still an argument for a scout to be sure since information is critical, and free envoys are great .  Other alternatives are not great, no settler at one pop, builder has nothing to work with.  Warrior though could be seen as a hedge against barbs plus inspiration for bronze working.  

On a related note thoughts on what you are going to improve for craftsmanship boost and timing on all that?

[The Black Sword]

I use imgur, it's pretty straightforward and you don't need to make an account.

Looks like quite a decent start to grow tall and put Pingala in. Could need lumbermills to make up the hammers. The list of priorities looks good, though chasing both Artemis and the Mids might be tricky.

[Ichabod]

That reef to the west is good news, +2 campus adjacency, and then plus more for the jungles.  If there is fresh water out that way could be good. Any particular reason for scout first over warrior?

I want to use the scout to explore deep into the map, looking for City States, tribal villages and all the other exploration based Eurekas. The extra movement and the promotions available to the scout are better suited for that.

I'm thinking about pumping some military once we have agoge for the bonus production. I hope we can get by with jut the initial warrior, since this is prince difficulty. We'll see how things develop in the next few turns.

There are no tribal villages as far as I know.  In terms of exploration eurkas the only ones I can think of are writing (which also boosts the opponent), forgein trade (you want to go craftsmanship first I think) and astrology (you are not going for religion).  I there is still an argument for a scout to be sure since information is critical, and free envoys are great .  Other alternatives are not great, no settler at one pop, builder has nothing to work with.  Warrior though could be seen as a hedge against barbs plus inspiration for bronze working.  

On a related note thoughts on what you are going to improve for craftsmanship boost and timing on all that?

Good point about the tribal villages, I think I was supposed to know that already.   At least I haven't yet made plans based on popping a builder from a hut.

For now, I'm leaning towards two plantations on the spices + a quarry on the marble. That can change based on exploration, as right now I'm favoring a settler before the first builder (so some charge could go to the 2nd city). Current plan is settler after the scout, I'm tempted to say (though nothing is yet set in stone, I usually just toss ideas around until the turn where I have to make a decision and commit, one way or the other, so don't read too much into anything I say).

I use imgur, it's pretty straightforward and you don't need to make an account.

Looks like quite a decent start to grow tall and put Pingala in. Could need lumbermills to make up the hammers. The list of priorities looks good, though chasing both Artemis and the Mids might be tricky.

I agree about Pingala. Regarding the priority lists, I agree that two early wonders is too much. Those are just some possible ideas, that we can choose later. What can perhaps benefit us for this wonders is the placement requirements, which perhaps our opponents do not meet. If I was to go for one wonder right now, I'm tempted to say ToA, because I think there'll be less competition and I think it makes a lot of sense to grow our Capital tall.

I'm looking for a city to be a settler pump, as I think our Capital doesn't fit that role past early game. That city would get the Government Plaza and Magnus. 

Thanks for the image hosting suggestions.

Turn 2/500

I forgot to check on the first turn, so here's the GP screen. Good GE, not so great GM and bad GS, IMO. The GG has a cool ability, never used it though. Does the bad GS pushes us towards a religion or is it still not worth it?

   

The big news of the turn is the warrior movement.

   

The western tiles are all coastal. The tile 1E of the banana is a 5 adjacency Campus, which is pretty good. Coastal + bananas (plantation pantheon?) + 5 adjacency campus + some hills, perhaps. It's a half decent city, I'd say. This also indicates that we have a secore western flank, with ocean.

Notice that Woden got +4 era score. My research indicates that is a new continent discovered. Not entirely sure.

Here's the C&H comic for my mood:

No Hypatia *grumble* No fresh water to the west *moan* No CS yet *whine* Other players have more Era Score *mutter*

[Banzailizard]

Speaking of Era score, plans on that? Going to go dark to heroic age or try for a golden classical age?

[Ichabod]

Speaking of Era score, plans on that? Going to go dark to heroic age or try for a golden classical age?

I think trying for a GA makes more sense, since we want the earlier boosts more than the late ones. Besides, it'll be hard to prevent getting the little points you need to avoid a Dark Age (as we want to explore and clear barbs, for example).

Here's a thought that crossed my mind. If no one goes for religion, which might end up happening. Is there any merit in grabbing the GA dedication that gives you +4 Great Prophet points? We could perhaps invest in a religion that does not require much faith (like the +1 amenity for cities with 2 districts).

Would that be worth more than the culture/science dedications?

[Ichabod]

Turn 3/500

We go forward with our warrior, revealing a nice 2/2 tile in the first ring of a potential western city.

   

And here's my C&H mood, about why I'm not simming this start:

I prefer thinking that I can get 5 cities, two wonders, a religion and discounted districts in the first 50 turns, thank you very much.

[shallow_thought]

And here's my C&H mood, about why I'm not simming this start:

I prefer thinking that I can get 5 cities, two wonders, a religion and discounted districts in the first 50 turns, thank you very much.

Well, believing in the infinite power of imagination is very much in line with C&H ...

[The Black Sword]

I like the sound of a settler after the scout. The builder charges look a bit weaker than usual.

It might be important to get one Carnival down to hit the golden age. The UB is a good chunk of points. If you're building one you might want to build a 2nd to unlock district discounting. The civic is sometime away though.

Brazil and Egypt are the only 2 civs with (slight) incentives to go Religion here, so maybe we should be thinking about it. We could probably find decent rainforest adjacent holy sites.

[Ichabod]

And here's my C&H mood, about why I'm not simming this start:

I prefer thinking that I can get 5 cities, two wonders, a religion and discounted districts in the first 50 turns, thank you very much.

Well, believing in the infinite power of imagination is very much in line with C&H ...

I like the sound of a settler after the scout. The builder charges look a bit weaker than usual.

It might be important to get one Carnival down to hit the golden age. The UB is a good chunk of points. If you're building one you might want to build a 2nd to unlock district discounting. The civic is sometime away though.

Brazil and Egypt are the only 2 civs with (slight) incentives to go Religion here, so maybe we should be thinking about it. We could probably find decent rainforest adjacent holy sites.

Yeah, current idea is settler after the scout. Our start is good, but hammers are kind of lacking, we only have two tiles with +2 hammers and no plains hill settle. I don't think we can afford to "waste" many hammers, so no second scout, no second warrior. I agree that the builder right now isn't worth the hammers - we don't even have 3 tiles to improve. I hope we have some more good tiles with the second city, to make the Eureka easier.

I'm a bit rusty in the district discount formula. In layman terms, to get discounts early, we need two of a district, before we build any other districts, right? So, you are suggesting that we build a campus/HS or whatever, then we build 2 carnivals and get the discount on the others? My thought was to open with 2 of an early district, like Campus or HS, and get the bonus this way. I haven't considered building Carnivals so early.

Good point about the Era points from the Carnival. It's worth 4 era points, which is significant for the first Age. Another interesting point is that the Carnival project gives Great Engineer points. I wonder if we could get that Great Engineer by doing that! Probably costs way too much, but I'll give it a try in a SP game (I also want to test if the Oracle doubles GPP from projects).

While thinking a bit about religion, I mused about the River Goddess pantheon, that gives +2 amenities and +2 housing for cities with a HS adjacent to a river. We have a long river in our starting position, perhaps this could be worth it? The problem is that going that route means a heavy commitment to a religious plan. Besides, Brazil doens't really struggle with amenities, when compared to other civs.

Question to the lurkers: There are some adjacencies for districts that give only 1/2 a yield, like forests for HS's and one district to others, as a whole. Can you combine these different bonuses, meaning that a HS near a forest and the city center will get +1 faith?

***

Turn 4/500

   

Not a lot of resources, but I like the long river, the jungle/forests and the hills. No city states in sight, even in the settler map.

   

In Civ 5, you get the non-food yields of the extra citizen on the same turn that you grow. That's not the case in Civ 6, right? Anyway, next turn we'll reach size 2 and I'll submit myself to the boring maths and try and figure out what tile to work before the second spice is online (the 2/1 or 1/2).

[Banzailizard]

If you are going religion here are some thoughts on low faith beliefs:

Follower Belief:

Religious Community + 1 housing from shrines and temples Depends on if you want to build shrines and temples. Housing is going to be your limiting factor over amenities. This could help.
Choral Music : Same as above but culture rather than housing. Again you need to build temples and shrines but maybe worth the hammers?
Divine Inspiration: If you do get a few good wonders this could be helpful. A little extra faith to help you patronize a GP maybe?

You have to pick a follower Belief so one of these three would probably be best.

Religious buildings? Skip them if you are going low faith

Founder Beliefs:

Tithe / Church property (either but I think Tithe is better) Gold is good, upgrade costs scale with techs now I think.

The rest are either not great or require faith

Enhancer Beliefs:

Defender of the faith: not as good as it once was, but +5 CS is still pretty good.
Crusade: If you can get enough faith to spread your religion, this can be a strong buff. +10 to attack is very good.

Question is how many hammers do you feel comfortable committing to get these bonuses?