Epic One: Sullla's (Shadow) Report

[T-hawk]

I know how the AIMission feature works, yeah. Civ IV was made in a time when PCs probably didn't have the spare processing power to be constantly recalculating AI missions to see if it was still the right move.

This isn't a question of processing power.  Turn-based games have an eternity available for AI calculations, tens of seconds per turn compared to hundredths for real-time strategy or FPS, literally 1000 times more.

It's true that Civ 4 (and 5 and presumably 6) infrequently recalculate the AI-mission function of a unit, but that's intentional to give the AI more visible continuity of purpose.  The AI would look spastic and disorganized if its units frequently changed missions between attacking and exploring and escort and so on.

[Cheater Hater]

It seems like the answer to why the AI turned around is pretty clear on the same screenshot we see the declaration: Barbs attacked Egypt, and the AIs prioritize defense over offense (it's easier, and less likely to go wrong).

[Athmos]

Anyway Sulla, thanks for setting up the games, even if we are only a handful of participants!

I enjoyed the 3 RB games I played immensely, variant rules and comparison between reports are very interesting. Actually, as I started to read your civfanatics GOTM report on your website, I decided to interrupt my reading and have a go at it myself :-). No variant there, but just having a base for comparison definitely makes the game more engaging.

I find that I am enjoying civ6 a lot more than I thought I would. There is certainly a lot of room for improvement, but at least for now, I'm having fun playing it and that's definitely the only thing that matters.

[timmy827]

Nice report!  Interesting the AI's in your game filled the map well, my game still had a lot of river/seaside things available at comparable dates.  Maybe yours were a little more peaceful and thus more time on settlers(?)

Some different wonders dropped early in these timelines.  Compared to the civ4 wonderwhore game (was well into BTS when lots of folks had played many games), this is fresh and a little more exciting, not really having a full bead on when wonders are likely to drop, which ones AI's likely to go for vs leave.  Expect that Kongo getting Chichen might be a constant, saw in a civfanatics thread its on his "favorites list" and obviously he's starting in a good jungle location for it.

I guess my Petra city first was more of gamble than I realized (which paid off hugely); I would have lost it by 15 turns against your Cleo.  (though probably would have seen it coming).  

Re: starting locations - to me it seemed to work out staying in place.  the 2/2 was nice but could buy it 10 turns in.  My Toulouse (your Lyon) was more cramped though.  
Also staying in place meant I could buy a tundra hill for Oracle and keep the good ones mined longer. 
Little surprised Rouen was your first settler, I thought it seemed important to reach toward the AI's while possible then backfill.  (Then again, this game I didn't get rushed super early so felt more confident settling in that direction).  Arguably I should have settled west earlier than I did - even with no new food bonus a city with ~5 new grass hills is pretty good.

EDIT one more note - I didn't consider another 6-slot gov't besides Merchant Republic.
If I remember I didn't want Monarchy early because I was still building classical wonders (the policy obsoletion leaves something to be desired here, really think those should apply to all earlier eras as well).
My culture seemed ahead of yours in midgame - as noted some of that was from weird luck on 2 cultural CS and arguably I should have not triggered the inspiration for it.  But not all of it - we both had 5 Colosseum cities, so not sure where else we diverged?

[timmy827]

And one more comment on Great People -

Think our Great Engineer roster was mostly the same.
But I didn't see Sarah Breedlove (last merchant for me was up into the 800-something cost?) or Isaac Newton.  The mechanics here seem mysterious, not sure if selections are made at random on map roll (which you won't see until later except for the first one) or if they branch in game.  Also it seems tied to era advancement - like you might miss a Great X of the Renaissance if (one? two?  majority?) of players rocket through to Industrial era before all the Renaissance great people go but not totally clear.  

Maybe there are just fewer Great Engineers since their districts are later so you get less variance there?