RBC15c - Russia (DD:Demigod for Domination)

Ok, here we go.

Our Lands:
The South




The North


The Good:
We are huge. We own 17% of the land, and we have 20 cities. We are AGR, so population shouldn’t be that problematic.

Our Army:
We have a free support of 60 units, but have only 36 so far:
18 Musketman
3 Cannons
1 Cossack
1 Frigates
2 Troop Transports
11 Workers

We have number of special units:
Jäger 4.5.1 @ 80sp instead of Musket Infantry, can be drafted (Nationalism)
Guards 6.6.1, +1HP @ 110sp (Advanced Tactics)
Cossacks 5.2.3, Blitz, UU @ 100sp (right from the start) – the only move 3 unit in the game!

Resources:
We have plenty of Strategic resources (3 Horse, 2 Iron, 5 Saltpeter already connected).
We have 3 Furs connected, Spices (unconnected), and Silks and another Spices we need to form a Colony. We also can trade our 2 spare Furs for 2 more Luxuries (Wines/Dyes/Gems).

We are in no locked alliance, and are at peace with everyone.

The Bad:
Corruption kills us. More then half of our cities only pull 1 or 2 spt, we don’t even have Courthouses in most of them. And of course, we badly need a FP.

Our income/research. We have a total of 2 Banks and Universities (and one of the 2 Unis is in 70% corrupt Kiev)…

Cities. Many cities lack basic improvements.

As a result, while other Civs start with something like 800gp and a balanced cashflow at 5.5.0, we run a deficit of -53gpt with 200 in the bank…
Minimal research time is 100, and we cannot afford more then 20% Science, giving us the next non-monopoly tech in only 82 turns

Sign-ups:

Doc Tsiolkvoski
Jabah
Grahamiam
microbe

Discussion:

No question, we need some time to build up. Then, who’s gonna be our first target? I vote for Sweden, they are close to our core, and have only one source of Saltpeter.

I really want to go for Domination; that not only requires us to grow big, but also avoiding VPs. So, we should avoid the VP locations and any defensive wars – those only raise our unit kill, but lead to nothing otherwise. Also, we need about every tech – Hospitals, Public Schools are a must-have.

Forbidden Palace: Natural choice seems Kiev. Would make most of our cities somewhat productive, and especially Kiev is one of our few cities with lots of improvements (and a couple of bonus tiles, but that’s not that rare) – 67 turns out of the box . Another possibility would be Riga (40 turns); too close to the capital for my taste. Or Minsk after a Courthouse (currently at 1spt, but a good city otherwise).

GA: The later, the better. At least, not before the FP is finished. Maybe even fight the first wars with Jägers and Guards only.

Research: IMHO we should try a maximum run on Code Civil (maximum run = about 40 turns); France starts with Nationalism, Britain with Naval Tactics, so we should be able to trade for them anyway. By the way, this is the only Conquest where the AI builds a huge navy, and we will need some ships as well.

So my plan is:
Concentrate on Infra/ Workers first. Try to get Kiev in WltKD, and get the FP there ASAP. Stay out of any early war, and fight Sweden as soon as we can afford it. Then Prussia.

Comments?

And, who wants to go first?

Check in. I'll take a close look at the scenario and give my comments tonight.

checking in. need to think a little more. hopefully, i'll have time tonight to give it a good review

I looked at the game, and here are some thoughts for discussion.

1. resources. we have plenty of them. sell them and get some money!

2. GA and FP. I am not sure if we want to hand-build FP. Can we do some leader-fishing? It would be hard to avoid the GA, but it might bring the FP faster. I think an early GA is actually better.

3. FP location. Does it really matter that much in conquests? Moscow can build it in 19 turns and it's not that bad a location either.

4. Techs. All these techs seem too expensive to research for this short game. Stealing might be worth considering. For example, immediate steal on France only takes 671g, and safe steal is 1342g. Of course there is risk of war. It would be even better if we could steal and trade for another tech.

Agree on attacking Sweden first. One thing I'm not sure: can we actually get to it from land in the north?

Checking in.

I still need to have a proper look at the scenario, units, map, cities, tech....

Looking at the map you posted, there seems to be a lot of nice place to build new cities (especially in the south, with river, wheat...) do we want to densify our lands. Are extra corrupted cities worth the settlers time/shield or is there more urgent building.

Regarding the FP, how is it now in the 1.22 version. Is it still only improving the FP city and the 'optimal' number or are the cities around the FP getting a bigger reduction in corruption. (So Moscow or Kiev is the choice)

Not sure about trying to wait for a leader, because that means a war when we are not really ready then fishing for the leader which can take forever and finally an army is probably a much better use with our goal.

Jabah

Jabah said:

Looking at the map you posted, there seems to be a lot of nice place to build new cities (especially in the south, with river, wheat...) do we want to densify our lands. Are extra corrupted cities worth the settlers time/shield or is there more urgent building.

Click to expand...

lurker's comment: No settlers in this scenario. Very annoying.

From another (english) thread, it seems that you can't build settler, so all the nice spots I saw are not going to be cities...

Jabah

(edit : cross-posting with -oblivion- )

BTW : No settler = domination will be even harder, no 'cheap' territory/population from our empty steppes.

FP: The 1.22 FP serves as centre for Distance corruption, so yes, it does improve the cities around (not as much as in c3/ptw, of course). Moscow is a pretty bad spot with nearly no cities around.

GA: By the time we'll have enough Cossacks to trigger it, we will have handbuild the FP halfway anyway. And I'd prefer to get the GA at a time we are almost done with improvements, and can build interesting units - maybe even mobilize during GA, the boni are cumulative.

War now: And with what units should we fight?

Stealing: Risking a War with France or England (who might ally half the world against us) is too risky for my taste; stealing from a smaller Civ we're about to attack soon anyway is of course fine.

And yes, no Settlers. But at least, cultural borders stay expanded, so we don't have to bother with cultural buildings in captured cities.

No, we cannot get to Sweden by land (those edge tiles are somewhat annoying, btw; sometimes units end there when thrown out).

Leader Fishing: An Army of Cossacks or Guards is worth more then getting the FP 10 turns faster to me. And without a Heroic Epic, MGLs are even more unreliable.

i have not played this scenario before so these questions/comments come from blind ignorance

1. besides no settlers, are there any other new rules we need to be made aware of?
2. Have you ever considered Smolensk as the FP city? nice land (after improving) and will lower the distance corruption of a lot of cities, at least more cities than Kiev or Minsk. only doing 1spt atm though so maybe that's the problem. With the FP there and all the production concentrated in the N, i would imagine we would take a domination path thru Germany, down thru Austria, and then into the Ottomans(? yellow?). of course, sweden would be first to get popped.

well, the FP in Kiev with it's university would also be nice but i'm just afraid we'll end up with 1 super city in the south and a 5 decent cities in the N. however, not playing this scenerio before (with it's altered rules), i don't have a good feel for how the FP being so far away from the capitol (distance = 28 if i counted correctly, usually too high in an epic game).

1. besides no settlers, are there any other new rules we need to be made aware of?

Click to expand...

All ships have only zero range bombard, cultural borders stay expanded.

Smolensk as the FP city?

Click to expand...

Smolensk or Minsk are both good spots, they just need a Courthouse before (which will cost us 2 turns on the FP). Agreed, Kiev is too far for a regular game, however, in a regular game you would have more cities in between. And, we will employ a lot of Policeman, so the difference won't be huge.Will have to calculate again once we have traded for more Luxes, if we can get Smolensk into WltKD, ok; but Kiev has a Cathedral. Definitely not decided yet (and I don't know how good Kiev will be; the only time I played Russia was with the 1.00 broken FP, and with that one it was great - though of course, lots of cities got worse...)

Any objections against me going first, picking Code Civil, trading for as many Luxes as possible, and posting again after the first interturn, to check how many spt the possible FP cities can pull?

And I think we/I will start with 10 turns, then every player gets 5 (if something interesting is about to happen after 5 turns, I'll hand it off then, of course). Fine for everyone?

ok to me. i prefer not to play hard and fast to 'x' number of turns per person. if you need an extra turn or 2 to setup something for the next player, i think that's fine as well. what's the order?

Just a remark

I try and it seems that you CAN go from Russia to Sweden (check it with the musket in StPeter, it was able to find a path north...)

Jabah

PS - no problem for me if you start Doc like you said

RBC15c – Russia

Turn 1: Jan., 1800

Diplomacy:
Start with selling RoP to all far-away Civs.
Portugal: Get WM and 24gp for RoP
Netherlands: Get WM and 41gp for RoP
Spain: Get WM and 24gp for RoP
KoN: Get WM and 21gp for RoP
Denmark: Get WM and 79gp for RoP (why that ?)
Britain: Get WM and 23gp for RoP
France won’t pay, and I don’t won’t RoPs with our neighbors/ potential targets.

Next: Resources
Ottomans: Get Dyes and 89gp for Furs
Denmark: Get 121gp for Horses (Denmark broke)
France: Get Gems for Furs and 169gp (they have their own source of Furs, just not connected yet, so we do not really help them)
KoN: Get Wines for Iron and 140gp
Cannot get the 2 monopoly techs, btw
Do *not* sell Saltpeter to the Netherlands, since they may be destroyed before the deal expires (cannot get a gpt deal).

WM isn’t worth anything

We now have 4 Luxuries (+ 2 we need to connect), and 313gp.

Move all Workers towards our core, the Luxes or Smolensk/Kiev. Move our lone Cossack towards Smolensk for MP duty.

Initial builds:
St. Petersburg – Cossack, Kiev – placeholder (in WltK with one Scientist), Sevastopol – Worker (too corrupt to benefit from a Court), Minsk – Courthouse (is at +5fp, but only 2spt now), Vilnius – Court (only size 4, will be in WltK at size 6; growth in 3), Smolensk – Court (in WltK with one Scientist, but only size 6; 2spt now), Bryansk – Court (max on growth, 1spt anyway), Odessa – Worker (may change to Court, depending on WltK effect), Krivyy Rih – Worker (may change to Court, if Kiev gets assigned to FP), Dnepropetrovsk – Court (will be in WltK), Kharkov – Cossack (is in WltK with one Scientist), Tula – Court, Polatsk – Court, Helsinki – Harbor, Talinn – Harbor, Riga – Bank (vetoable, in WltK at size 6), Novgorod – Cossack, Stariya Russia – Musket (we have a couple of empty cities), Yaroslawl – Bank (vetoable, needs to grow anyway), Pskov – Worker, Moscow – Cossack.

The Courts will be worth it even in 90% corrupt cities, due to the increased shields during GA/Mobilization. And we could need a couple more Banks desperately.

Sell Courthouse in St. Petersburg. Move Musket out of it, to avoid the VPs from the location.
Btw, our VP locations are St. Pete, Moscow and Sevastopol, and I do not move out the units from the other 2 – need the MP, and don’t want an empty border city.)


Code Civil at 78 with 20% Science, +19gpt. Minimum run is pointless, with a minimum research time of 100.

Phew, that was tedious.
Press enter.

IBT:
Prussia wants RoP and MPP, decline.
WltKDs in Sevastopol, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk (no effects), Riga, Smolensk, Kharkov, Moscow, Kiev (do help).
No visible action anywhere.

Now on to the FP discussion:
Smolensk makes 5/10 without a Court (which we can barely afford to rush, 300 out of 352gp).
Kiev makes 5/11 with a Court, but is already size 7. Minsk is out.
Terrain at Kiev is easier to improve (more Workers close by, and BG instead of Hills). And Kiev will stay in WltKD once we connect the 2 additional Luxes even after growing.

Nevertheless, I now tend towards Smolensk; 50% corruption without a Court looks good; however, we need to blow our treasure for it…

Please vote NOW!


And:

Roster:
Doc Tsiolkovski – at work
Jabah
Grahamiam
Microbe

@Jabah: Looking at the map in the editor tells me yes, there IS a land bridge to Sweden.

my vote is for smolensk

Denmark: Get WM and 79gp for RoP (why that ?)

Click to expand...

I believe the RoP price is based on the size of the 2 nations. Since Denmark gives you almost no territory to use...

I believe the RoP price is based on the size of the 2 nations

Click to expand...

That's what I thought as well (and it's the reason why we, being about twice as big as everyone else except Ottomans, receive gp).
But Denmark owns 2.4% to Portugal with 2.3% and the Netherlands with 0.7% (and they are all coastal, so they have a comparable number of water tiles).

We have LOTS of forrest around our (mainly northern) cities, chopping lots of trees to build courthouse (or harbor...) should be a good idea (if the chopping is as the normal C3C rules).
With heavy forrestry, we can have a courthouse in Smolensk or Minsk fast enough before considering the FP ?

Bank or Library or Units. I know we need cash, but if go anything than 0% research we should consider a few library in the core (after courthouse of course), on top of that if we want to go after Sweden we need more units (and only StPeter is fully improved)

BTW Isn't 0% research an option, as 20% for 78t seems worse than making cash and either buying or menacing others.

We need lots of worker, as our lands are either not improved or to heavily irrigated or too "forresty"

Regarding FP, Kiev is really nice with lots of improvment (except library), I think I prefer the FP there, as Smolenks will be good enough with just a courthouse and can start units soon after. Having at least 1 good city in the south can help fighting those southern AI.

Jabah

Seems that forrest cutting is a 10t base (instead of 4t) -> more workers...

Jabah