[SPOILERS] Emperor K, Cornflakes, what could go wrong?

[Cornflakes]

I downloaded the picture and was able to see your marked location. That spot has a 2-cog city center tile, but absolutely nothing else in its favor. All the surrounding tiles are 3 yield, and the only resource in the 1st and 2nd ring is a plains wheat.

   

Here are my initial thoughts on a dot map. My first thought was the A circles, but upon further reflection I think it might be better to shift those onto the resource tiles. The city center at each location will lose 1 food from what is shown (jungle and marsh will be destroyed upon founding). The BLUE-B sugar city especially will get off to a quick start with a 4 city center and three 2/2 tiles 1st ring. Long-term those jungles will be chopped and replaced with 1/4 PH mines for strong production.

The BLUE-C location brings marble into the 2nd ring but loses the city center food and only has one 2/2 tile 1st ring. In the very long term C is probably stronger, but it's hard to pass up the quick growth onto 2/2 tiles now. The biggest negative of any BLUE location is that it doesn't have a good campus tile. All jungle tiles are ineligible for a long time since BW is low priority. The tile 1E of RED-A has 2 adjacency from Jungle but is 2nd ring to BLUE-B. Therefore I think my current choice for 2nd city is plant at BLUE-B and place the campus on the BLUE-C tile which has 1 adjacency from jungle, saving a forest and saving tile-purchase gold.

The ORANGE arrows indicate general scouting movements needed to reveal more tiles in the direction of RED dots. The LIGHT BLUE is a potential site assuming the river extends to provide fresh water. YELLOW and GREEN are long-term tentative sites. YELLOW especially would benefit from Lady of the Reeds

Hong Kong is very food poor and overall has much worse terrain than Kumasi. At this time my leaning is to plant towards and capture Kumasi. Hong Kong will also contribute mildly to the district production (and later Oracle) at the capital.

[Emperor K]

Yes the city site proposed was for the campus.

I am really liking blue dot B. It is also far enough away that it will allow for another city up by the red dots. It also saves us a builder charge to get a luxury, which is not that important, but still something to consider.

My goal with the scout however was to meet somebody else, or more city states. I was planning on following the coast north to see if it breaks east. If not then head west but several tiles north of what you are suggesting.

I do want to scout out the light blue dot, so maybe head that way then head north.

I do not think we need to know information about that area around your red dots considering we will be taking Kumasi and the troops in the area will get a good view and be able to scout.

Now that we both agreen on Kumasi, what build order do you want to go for? Our tech path is set for the next couple techs.

We got a slinger -> Settler up next. If we have writing then do a campus, if not another slinger (pref with agoge) is what I was thinking. City two can do the same with both of them switching to campus ASAP.

[Emperor K]

Also blue dot b does not need builders, so we won't need a second one any time soon. Which means we may be able to run production card to help with campus/military instead of builder card.

[Cornflakes]

Scouting more north sounds good to me. I'll consider the build order at the 2nd city, but it might make sense to get our 2nd warrior out there rather than the capital so that it can de-fog some of those tile around RED on the way.

The rankings are interesting. We are first in Culture, indicating Rome does not have a culture tile or met a culture CS. We were 1st in ranking on T10 due to early adoption of God King (thanks Kumasi!) meaning nobody had met a religious CS up to that point. On T11 we dropped to 2nd. Either someone found a Religious CS at that point, or a player after us in turn order adopted God King in order to get ranked ahead of us. Therefore we should be among at least the 2nd pick of pantheon, for sure we should get 3rd pick or better unless people are getting really unlucky with finding their CS and there are still a couple of religious CS out there.

Here are my more in-depth thoughts Pantheon choices (spoilered for length):

First let's look at a comparison of the 1-shot chunks of faith from Goddess of the Harvest vs. the continuous trickle from Stone Circles. Say the quarries are built on average around T50, and throw in the Stone at the capital for +10/turn. Over the next 50 turns they will yield 500 ... Chops around T50 pull in around 30/chop, maybe 70/chop by T100, average of 50/chop. Would we have 10 chops/harvests in the T50-100 period? We can already see 10 forests/stone, and it's likely that we would chop/harvest half them in that time period. Presumably we would chop/harvest as many more from expansion in other directions ... As time goes on the value of chopping continues to increase (granted, the number of quarries will likely increase as well), but harvesting of other tiles is also an option. Food resources become tempting to harvest around T100-120, especially to quickly grow new plants or to push cities to size 10 after they hit the housing cap (harvests don't suffer the housing penalty). Gold resources such as Copper/Crabs grant double yield. Also having the faith yield on the stone tiles discourages their use for harvesting, meaning that it slows other aspects of our development down. Goddess of the Harvest also opens up a late-game strategic option of building a mass quantity of builders and chopping/harvesting every single eligible tile in the empire as a last-ditch (or planned victory-push) effort for accumulating faith for military/Religious unit victory push.

In comparison with the other faith generating pantheons, Desert Folklore would give almost the same /turn yield without discouraging harvesting of Stone. A HS on the marsh 1E of YELLOW dot yields 4 desert adjacency, and as an added benefit the adjacency can be boosted with the relevant policy card. The tile 1NE of the barb camp is also 4 desert adjacency. It appears that the desert continues on to the west which would presumably open up more locations to make use of that pantheon, and there is also desert in the east near Hong Kong. I think Desert Folklore offers a better long-term option for faith generation than Stone Circles, allowing us to harvest the Stone tiles to achieve other goals throughout our empire.

The comparison with other types of pantheons is a bit difficult ... Assuming we won't have Jesuit Education available when we found the last religion, I don't see any direct conversion mechanism from to other economic yields. Valletta (if it is in the game and close to us) presents a potential to some extent through Monuments and Granary purchases, but that cannot be relied upon. Actually Valletta would be a wonderful CS for our civ, but with the two closest CS already found it's doubtful it will be an option. Early-game culture feels like a real weakness for Arabia, and although doubling down on with a pantheon would surely allow us to far surpass other teams output, I fear that we would fall behind to critical policy and government targets. On the other hand, playing to our strengths might be better than trying to patch up weaknesses. A massive stockpile of faith when Theocracy is unlocked could allow us to immediately swamp the world with military + missionaries. And once we reach Reformed Church, there is really nothing further on the Civics tree that would be needed. Basically all faith + units until victory.

God of the Open Sky fills in the very early culture with the 2 pastures at the capital, Kumasi has 1, there are a pair of Cows that would make a decent city to the east (2nd ring hill stone + PFH), and one more horses out on the plains that might be orphaned for a while due to poor production in vicinity. Monuments should be able to carry us to Reformed Church if we chose a faith pantheon, but GotOS would basically allow us to ignore early monuments and dump that production into districts instead.

Lady of the Reeds and Marshes would make YELLOW dot planted on the desert hill 1NW of Sugar appealing. Two marsh rices at the capital, one at BLUE-B, one FP-wheat far east. It might be enough to make it worthwhile. On the other hand, if we compare it back to GotOS we get 2 immediately at the capital in exchange for 2. If we use that production to build a 60 monument it's a 30 turn payoff to break even. We have other good/decent city locations that can be settled if we ignore YELLOW in the early game. Plus once we reach the housing cap in the capital it probably makes sense to harvest those 2 rice + marshes to push us a couple sizes larger and replace those tiles with districts.

[Emperor K]

I took some screenshots, will update the lurkers in the morning.

Here is the save, the scout should be find with the barbs.

[Cornflakes]

Took a look at the save. What are you planning for the scout's next couple moves? W-W to get out of the camp's ZoC while still revealing LIGHT_BLUE dot?

I'm somewhat puzzled by why barb horsemen have not appeared from the southwestern camp yet. My worst-case had the barbs crossing the river about T10, able to attack the city T12. I would have thought by T13 we would at least see them on the horizon. When the barbs do arrive, don't promote your warrior too early. It will only gain 1xp per attack after the promo, so the lost xp from not promoting aren't that big a deal. Ideally save that promo for when the +50 health will have the most impact (i.e. if your warrior is not in danger of dying, save the promo for when it gets desperate).

A screenshot with some city-planning pins:

   

The western city on the plains will have be halfway decent production once lumbermills are unlocked. It has a couple 2nd ring hills and 3rd ring marble hill.

GotOS will make that city southeast acquire the stone and 2/2 GFH tiles relatively quickly and make that a decent site. I marked a potential Great Zimbabwe location, but depending on what else is revealed in the vicinity that tile might actually make a better city center location (still 1st ring to one cows to pick up the GotOS immediately). Without GotOS that is still a decent city, but probably would take a lower priority. This might be one reason actually NOT to take GotOS ... if GotOS would only make a marginal city equal with some other sites then might as well double down with a faith pantheon. More scouting is obviously necessary before making any firm decision.

To the northeast, planting on the chocolate will give 3 city center and save a builder charge on the chocolate. It does get 2 useless mountain tile 1st ring, but brings the 2/2/3 chocolate and marble into 2nd ring, as well as the 2-mountain-adjacency PH. Shifting it 1E off the chocolate brings floodplain wheat into 2nd ring where it will be easily acquired, but the 2/1 jungle tiles that get picked up instead of the mountain won't ever be worked so might as well plant next to the mountains. The chocolate plant would invalidate the LIGHT_BLUE dot, but fog-gazing strongly suggest the river stops short of giving that tile fresh water anyway.

What are your thoughts on a longer-term district layout around the capital? My thoughts with the CH location are that I'd rather not cover a hill, and Cairo still has great food even without one of those rice. The CH as located gets 3 adjacency from river + 2 districts. The only other place I see would be on the Oracle tile, but then we'd have to buy a hill for the Oracle (or chop the one marked Theater and put Oracle there). Harvesting the rice + marsh would take 2 builder charges (40 production equivalent). My thought is to build Oracle after Campus but before CH in this case for two reasons: (1) Give Cairo more time to grow to the happy cap before harvesting, and (2) plant the first (discounted) CH at the 2nd city or Kumasi. Once the 2nd city completes its CH then the capital could get the discount on it's CH.

[Emperor K]

Turn (13)

The settler view of the area.

Not much to report this turn, builder done next turn. SO here are the score and rankings.

[Emperor K]

Turn (14)

Score and Rankings

Still the champs in score. Our rankings are also looking good if you ask me.

Looks like our light blue dot area does not have water. 

I am thinking the spot we marked on the sugar is the way to go for city number two. I got another report to post right after this so I will address you post at that time.

[Emperor K]

Turn (15)

Alright, so we got lots of wooded hills in the fog just north of the mountain.

I still like the sugar spot. The extra food with no worker charge is nice. Also the couple food and gold will take a long time to be worth the cost. As for getting a city in the mountain area. Settling the chocolate 1E of the mountains does look like a nice spot. With the ocean being there that is probably backfill though. I think we want to expand north / west of Kumasi. Try and get as much land as possible.

Score and Rankings

I think with the ocean where it is, scouting north by northwest is the way to go. Really want to try and get 3 mov each turn to maximize distance. Hopefully we will run into more CS or one of our enemies. 

Pantheons are still far into the future. From what I gather though you do not think the +2 pantheon is any good. I do like the idea of desert folklore, but would we rather expand towards an opponent to grab land or settle that area? It is true those two cities would make great faith, but they do have to build a holy site so that is even more turns before they actually start providing some. Currently there are 10 tiles that can take a quarry. And even though the value of quarries is not as good as mined hills, quarries are a way of getting production out of the grassland. 

Now the one thing the +2 pantheon does is allows us to settle a quick city 3 buy the double marble and quarry all four tiles, thus helping our culture, since now those quarries are valuable. 

Desert Folklore does allow us the ability to make use of deserts on the map. Even size one city's just need help getting there holy sites down for the bonus.

So to sum up if our first 4 cities including the capital are, sugar city, choco mountain city and lumbermill city(which I think it is best to move it 1W). Then we not only get 3 marble in a decent amount of time, we also can start earning faith the entire game from the pantheon with each city able to have some stone or marble.

That is just my two cents. I am actually fine with any pantheon, all of the ones you suggested have pluses or minuses. I do think we should stay away from GotOS. For some reason while it looks good at the start, it just doesn't scale as well, plus I have used it in many games and would like to try something else.

Next turn just came in so I can give you more info after I play that.

[Cornflakes]

Shifting Lumbermill City 1W would get us 7 stone/marble easily (1st/2nd ring) from our first 4 cities, or 14/turn. Quarrying those resources early still gives us the option to come back later and harvest after the production has scaled up. Banking becomes a more valuable tech target as well since that adds +2/quarry. I think if we decide to go early faith pantheon we need to leverage that faith somehow. Like snuffing out an opponent's religion immediately (before they have a chance to launch an inquisition) or enhancing our religion early.

Speaking of which, what are your thoughts on religion beliefs? Something unique with Arabia is the ease of unlocking Printing ... since Madrassa unlocks at Theology we can skip Mathematics + Education, and run immediately to printing. The boost to passive spread at that point might make early adoption of the passive spread belief powerful.