Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

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Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by bugattivitesse »

I just played a game as Russia against a Spanish merc semi FF. I realized i was going to have a little extra time so as soon as i aged, i sent 5 coss to my fb, and then spice trade, since i was going to mass muskets. I saw that he was gonna FF so i stopped musk production and followed to age 3. My 17 strelets from the age up combined with 10 musks from age 2 tore apart his rodoleros, hussars and Highlanders. IMO he should have waited for falcs to push. I kept up vil production and spice trade just carried me hahha. Spice Trade helped so much that game, i never had a need for more food. At the the end of the game, we were both age 3 and i could have gone age 4 in a little bit more.

I think i will start sending spice trade in my Russia games now. Super helpful for musk aggression.
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by yurashic »

700 wood and 700 gold are usually better cards to send. But do it if it works for you.
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by milku3459 »

I'm not sure...spice trade will help a bunch since Russia is quite food starved early game even with steel traps, what with 270 food per batch of vills and 375/ strelet batch and not being able to round out batches as food comes in. Kinda like Ports early age II. But then again, Russia's Age II shipments are good, like 13 strel, or just a basic 700 wood. I think I'll try this next game with Russia as I always have problems after the first shipment push with getting food.
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Wales CelticCrusader
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by CelticCrusader »

I have used spice trade before. I have it in my deck in case i end up on a high berry map. It helps alot on those type maps. Its situational though, not always the best choice but can help sometimes.
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by pecelot »

you can also send wood and BH hunts to secure more of them and above all deny your opponent from getting doing so
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by lemmings121 »

even tho I have spice trade on my standard russian deck, I pretty much never use it, but thinking about it, its not THAT bad of a eco card, you usually have ~~20v on food quite early, and soon will have even more... but it just doesnt fit well in the standard agro play style that everyone is doing

In theory there should be a good build for russia doing something similar to spice trade first in colonial, then 700w 700g with all vills on food. maybe with a tp with age up wood, idk. but i got inspired now and will certanlly try this out latter.
maybe this more eco focused build might fit in a couple MUs/maps, playing out of the meta is always fun..
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by yurashic »

lemmings121 wrote:even tho I have spice trade on my standard russian deck, I pretty much never use it, but thinking about it, its not THAT bad of a eco card, you usually have ~~20v on food quite early, and soon will have even more... but it just doesnt fit well in the standard agro play style that everyone is doing

In theory there should be a good build for russia doing something similar to spice trade first in colonial, then 700w 700g with all vills on food. maybe with a tp with age up wood, idk. but i got inspired now and will certanlly try this out latter.
maybe this more eco focused build might fit in a couple MUs/maps, playing out of the meta is always fun..


GoodSpeed recommends this strategy, but 5 cossacks are much more influential.
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by Hazza54321 »

spice trade sucks, cant send it early cos 700 res shipment is way better. By the time it becomes worth it hunts are running out/run out
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by _H2O »

Spice trade just is a horrible card. It's a long term type of card that only applies to hunts. You need 20 villagers on hunt to make it equal to a villager shipment. In a typical comp you won't have that many until later. Port and Russia both do hunt heavily but even with that the pay off is too slow to send this card.
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by bugattivitesse »

_H2O wrote:Spice trade just is a horrible card. It's a long term type of card that only applies to hunts. You need 20 villagers on hunt to make it equal to a villager shipment. In a typical comp you won't have that many until later. Port and Russia both do hunt heavily but even with that the pay off is too slow to send this card.


What about on a hunt heavy map like Great Plains? Especially if you use the 700 W to add more BHs and get map/hunt control?
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by __Uhlan__ »

bugattivitesse wrote:
_H2O wrote:Spice trade just is a horrible card. It's a long term type of card that only applies to hunts. You need 20 villagers on hunt to make it equal to a villager shipment. In a typical comp you won't have that many until later. Port and Russia both do hunt heavily but even with that the pay off is too slow to send this card.


What about on a hunt heavy map like Great Plains? Especially if you use the 700 W to add more BHs and get map/hunt control?


Works in a long colonial game where you have the map with bh's, but 700w 5cos 700g > spice trade. It's good to have in deck but not a first card.
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by LordCharlie_131 »

i agree with hazza and h2o. crates are more viable for the early timings and if u wanna boom stagecoach tp is much better and even eco theory(as second card with 17 vil age up plus early market) is slightly better.
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by deleted_user0 »

Only viable as sioux in high hunt maps imo
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by Darwin_ »

Spice trade is only viable on cascade range/carolina or whatever other maps have a lot of berries. Even with high-hunt maps, it can be a good card, but only after you have sent 700w/c/f and all military shipments and boyars. With 20 vills on food, it is equal to 4 vills, and makes berries gather at .8 f/s, which is about 70% of the rate of steel trapped hunts, and 4% slower than unupgraded hunts. That is fine, and allows for you to not have to push out of your base quite as early. However, you are playing russia, so making that timing push to get more hunts is much easier than most other civs. I think that spice trade is really only a practical card once most of the hunts are out, or if you are playing very greedy on maps like great/high plains, kamchatka, or other maps where you can get tons of hunt near your tc, against civs that are going to be playing slowly.
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by fei123456 »

This card doesnt work with market upgrades. Thus, after steel trap and spice trade, you will have 150% hunting speed, not 156%. So it is actually worse.
700f is much better. Russia train units in batches so you need more food to launch training, and 700f doesnt rely on map resources. 3500×120%=4200, but a berry bush usually has 4000 food only.
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by ronsu »

Couprider wrote:This card doesnt work with market upgrades. Thus, after steel trap and spice trade, you will have 150% hunting speed, not 156%. So it is actually worse.
700f is much better. Russia train units in batches so you need more food to launch training, and 700f doesnt rely on map resources. 3500×120%=4200, but a berry bush usually has 4000 food only.


I had been sending Spice Trade for a while. The reason is that russian economy is not good at early colonial and I thought this was a good solution for a high-food consuming civ as the ruskies. But after read some arguments, i'm starting to think if "700 food" would be more useful as a colonial shipment.

Usually you don't want to send any food crates but... man, russia use so many food with the batch vills and heavy food-cost infantry that may worth it. What do you think? Is 700f an interesting option for Russia?
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by fei123456 »

ronsu wrote:
Couprider wrote:This card doesnt work with market upgrades. Thus, after steel trap and spice trade, you will have 150% hunting speed, not 156%. So it is actually worse.
700f is much better. Russia train units in batches so you need more food to launch training, and 700f doesnt rely on map resources. 3500×120%=4200, but a berry bush usually has 4000 food only.


I had been sending Spice Trade for a while. The reason is that russian economy is not good at early colonial and I thought this was a good solution for a high-food consuming civ as the ruskies. But after read some arguments, i'm starting to think if "700 food" would be more useful as a colonial shipment.

Usually you don't want to send any food crates but... man, russia use so many food with the batch vills and heavy food-cost infantry that may worth it. What do you think? Is 700f an interesting option for Russia?

700f is quite good at least to russia. watch jui's russian recs and you'll know how it works against aggro civs (iro india etc).
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by ronsu »

Cool! I'm searching Jui's russian recs and i'm only finding this ones you @fei123456 uploaded: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=9531&p=207973&hilit=jui#p207973

But i cann't find russian recs of him :(
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by OrangeRage »

bugattivitesse wrote:I just played a game as Russia against a Spanish merc semi FF. I realized i was going to have a little extra time so as soon as i aged, i sent 5 coss to my fb, and then spice trade, since i was going to mass muskets. I saw that he was gonna FF so i stopped musk production and followed to age 3. My 17 strelets from the age up combined with 10 musks from age 2 tore apart his rodoleros, hussars and Highlanders. IMO he should have waited for falcs to push. I kept up vil production and spice trade just carried me hahha. Spice Trade helped so much that game, i never had a need for more food. At the the end of the game, we were both age 3 and i could have gone age 4 in a little bit more.

I think i will start sending spice trade in my Russia games now. Super helpful for musk aggression.

Spice trade is a card where it helps you a little down the road but it will not yield results if you need units right now or you're rushing. I think 700 wood is a good start followed by spice trade if there are tons of hunts or you find yourself needing to spam tons of units while wanting to keep up villager production but that's what people usually ship 700 food for.
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Re: Age 2 Russia Spice Trade

Post by OrangeRage »

_H2O wrote:Spice trade just is a horrible card. It's a long term type of card that only applies to hunts. You need 20 villagers on hunt to make it equal to a villager shipment. In a typical comp you won't have that many until later. Port and Russia both do hunt heavily but even with that the pay off is too slow to send this card.

hmmm I thought it was quite a good card as I found it really helped me with my British musket spam in great plains. I never knew it was that bad lol it just doesn't seem so bad

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