Civ 6 SG2 - Duty Free Egypt

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Second AH -> Mining at least.  Can't get the irrigation boost w/out a farm-able resource (Rice, Wheat)

I don't know but best guess we can't farm the citrus since it's not the matching tile improvement, as in CIV5.  Hooking Citrus and Jade are more for the happy's +10%?  My guess on first worker charges being spent as Pasture, Chop (enabled by mining for forests, BW for jungle iirc), Mine? Or Pasture, Plantation, Mine Jade?

What does the size 4 capital look like in terms of the tiles being worked, Horse, Citrus + ? + ?

I always spend the first worker on 3 tile enhancements for the craftsmanship bonus to speed me on the way to 30% to workers/50% to settlers (by far the best early game civics, imo, with some exceptions.) I'd def do the horses, but maybe I'd farm and then hopefully grab a resource in the fog? The 2f/1h/1 culture jade tile seems to me strictly worse than a 2f/2h ordinary mine.

I don't even know if we want the plantation. 10% of 6 hammers/3 food isn't a lot. 1g/t is almost useless. I'd rather spend the worker charge on an more useful improvement if possible.

Based on all of the above, maybe horse, Citrus, Mine/Hill forest x 2 at size 4? Might want another farm somewhere to toggle for growth?

You can drain AI of gold quite easily as soon as you meet them with luxes. You would be looking at getting a decent amount of gold for the citrus if it were plantationed, and of course at 3/1 it is a decent tile before being improved. 

Having said that unless it was set on sparse resources I would be hopeful for something else interesting in the SE

[Gaspar]

Appreciate the detailed discussion.  It seems as though we all have slightly different ideas of how the opening should go.  Since I was fool enough to propose the game, it falls on me to make a decision.  I will SIP as is the majority consensus with research AH -> Mining.  I agree that getting 3 tiles improved for the Craftsmanship boost is important, even as tempting as chopping some of that foliage might seem.  Probably will go towards Irrigation after that, since not only do we have the Citrus but Tea which is an excellent opportunity to turn early game luxes into a Granary or an Archer or something.  We'll start on Scout, then Slinger, then Builder, unless something crazy reveals itself in the process.  I'll direct the Warrior south and then have it loop around, while sending the Scout out towards the west.

Turn 1:

Let's go with famous international trade routes/deals/institutions as a naming construct for lack of a better idea.  With that:



Decided to go with growth because well, that's what I've always thought was the right way to play Civ. God only knows if that's right here. Hit end turn.

Turn 2: Warrior moves to Jade and discovers Pearls off the coast.
Turn 3: Nothing interesting.
Turn 4: Maybe a Petra-licious spot discovered. I'll move again next turn and put the screen up.
Turn 5: Well, Petra-ish is more accurate. Unfortunately, we meet Preslav who has the area covered. We are first to meet.



Make mental note to check tiles next turn.

Turn 6: As expected, Horses will be first tile captured. No reason not to work the forested hill. Curious as to whether gov will move towards Jade or Tea next.

Turn 7: Scout completes, moves 3NW:



This triggers Astrology eureka, obviously. We haven't discussed Religion because it really isn't relevant yet. I don't think its probably a thing we want to pursue. This is maybe a good time to suggest I might like to go for Science victory here, as it usually just ends up so easy to go for Culture. Might be painful without internal routes, though. Start Silk Road on a Slinger, due in 4t. 6t to growth.

Turn 8: Barbarian scout shows up in the East. Probably a good time to start swinging the Warrior home-ish. Meet Seoul also in the south. First. Scout finds hut in the north. Will move slightly off track to grab it. View of citizen screen suggests that governor will go for the Tea before Jade. No huge rush on Slinger, so I work 3/1 Horse over 2/2 hill. Growth in 5t, Slinger in 3t.

Turn 9: Animal Husbandry in, onto Mining. Scout gets hut which gives Early Empire inspiration, a fairly underwhelming result as we're likely to have earnt that before we needed it. This earns scout a promo. I take Alpine since Ruined Everything said he rolled the map as new which gives more hills.

Turn 10: Scout finds another hut, which we'll grab next turn. Warrior cycling back.

Turn 11: Hut gives Archery eureka. Growth next turn.

Turn 12: We hit size 3 in Silk Road. Slinger completes. Start Builder. Find Barb camp. Seoul warrior already after it.



Turn 13: Decide to wait a turn to hit barb camp when CoL comes in. Mining in. Onto Pottery. Scout discovers hut, which we'll grab next turn.

Turn 14: Code of Laws in, grab Discipline and God King. Start Craftsmanship so we can build Sphinxes everywhere! Scout gets State Workforce inspiration. Warrior takes out barb Spearman and clears camp, earning 40g and the Military Tradition inspiration. He also espies another hut in the east.

Turn 15: Moving units, nothing.

Turn 16: Meet La Venta. Not first. Get Political Philosophy inspiration. Hut gives 40g.

Turn 17: Nothing.

Turn 18: Pottery in, Builder done. Warrior finds another hut we can grab in 2t. Builder goes to improve Horses, there's really no way to do this and not have it take entirely too long. Decide to grab Irrigation, due in 8t hard way. May reconsider and stop at halfway but think Craftsmanship inspiration is probably worth hard teching it. If it will really take 8t, probably I could have built something else first. Ah well. Will also need to swap off Craftsmanship when it hits halfway. This is very micro-y. I dig. I start on another Slinger, due in 3. Growth in 2. Governor has changed mind and will grab rainforest hill next. I'll take a shot next turn.

Turn 19: On the interturn, we meet Philip.



Exchange capital information, he's not especially close. Writing eureka comes as well. Horses pastured, HBR eureka in. Governor grab Rainforested hill. I send the 25g delegation to Philip since I can't see why not. We have a -6 first impression modifier. Have I mentioned how terrible the diplomacy in this game is?



On IT, I learn that Spain met Scythia.

Turn 20: Silk Road grows, here's what she looks like now:



Hut gives 20 faith. This means we get Pantheon next turn. At same time, Spain takes Desert Folklore on IT.

Turn 21: Here's my Pantheon debate. I debated stopping here for input from team but I don't think its actually all that mission critical a decision. I generally believe the best Pantheons are the ones that give tile bonuses, plus Divine Spark, which is generally best if you're chasing religion. I don't suspect we'll chase Religion here, so that leaves the following:

Lady of the Reeds and Marshes (+1h from Marsh, Oasis, FP) I think this one is great if you have the tiles, but there's no obvious FP or Marsh we'll be Settling soon.
God of the Sea (+1h from Fishing Boats) This is another strong one if you can make use of it. We have a good handful of seafood resources in the neighborhood, but I don't think we're necessarily planting anytime soon.
God of the Open Sky (+1 culture from Pastures) This is the clubhouse leader, as we have Horse at the capital and there's 2 other visible horse tiles and 4 visible cattle.
Goddess of the Hunt (+1f from Camps) Not bad, but no visible campable resources.
God of Craftsmen (+1h from mines on strat res) This is fools gold, as everyone knows there's no iron in this game.
Goddess of Festivals (+1f from a host of resource plantations, of which Tea is in the only one in the neighborhood) We do have Tea at the cap, but I'd need to see a bit more to consider this.
Oral Tradition (+1 culture from a host of resource plantations, of which Citrus is the only one in the hood) This is strictly worse than Open Sky.

Based on this God of Open Sky is the only reasonable option, so I choose it. Next player should swap off God King, since we have a Pantheon now. Mysticism inspiration received. New slinger complete, I start on a Settler, due in 7t. There's an argument to be made to wait until we hit size 5 to complete this (10t)

Meet Tomyris near Madrid. She's a little closer. Build spearmen. I send her the delegation as well.

Turn 22: Much less interesting turn. Mental note to swap off Craftsmanship next turn.

Turn 23: Build Mine at cap. This was kinda pointless tbh. I think Pottery > Irrigation before Mining would have been better had I planned this out more clearly and known that Rainforested Hill was going to end up in culture. Lesson learned. Swap to Foreign Trade. 3t to Irrigation, so builder will have to sit on the Citrus a turn before he can plantation. Sell those Oranges soon as they come in. Phil has more gold than Tommy atm.

T24: Nothing.

T25: Scout lucks into a barb camp clear for 35g. I don't hit end turn. Take a bunch of pictures:

North:



Ideal strategic location for the next city would be somewhere in towards Tomyris. Unfortunately there are no rivers there, so anything settled would probably need to be Coastal. There's a mediocre plant where the barbarian camp is that would pick up Cows, Stone and both tiles of the Great Barrier Reef first ring. Not sure how great that would be as a second city. Highest quality fresh water plant in this region is on the hill NW of the one tile lake. That's probably the easiest plant to justify, tbh. We need to see how far that land extends in the NE as well. I was moving the Slinger that way but noticed the barb camp so started him that direction. Warrior maybe can sneak up there.



That's the south. There's some ok-ish stuff south of Seoul. And probably we want to settle something on the other side of the lake at capital. Pretty uninspiring stuff, really. There might be an argument for killing Preslav and/or Seoul, though I haven't been building towards that and its probably a thing we want to do soon if we do it.



Here's what we see of the west. I'd try and cycle that scout north of Madrid from here.



We have all the boosts here except Foreign Trade, so the path to Political Philosophy is quick as its going to get. Completing the plantation next turn will complete Craftsmanship. We may want to swap off Foreign Trade for State Workforce once we hit half and hope one of the units stumbles on a new continent. If there's any more land west of Spain, I'd suspect there's probably a new continent dividing line there.



Eurekas have been less kind. I'd probably wait on Archery until we get one more Slinger built. Only killed 1 barb so far on the BW boost, and neither Masonry nor Wheel are happening soon. Maybe just start Currency and then tech Archery after the next Slinger is built.

Anyway, that's all for me for now.

Gaspar -- Just played
>> ReallyEvilMuffin - UP NOW <<
Sareln - on deck
Pindicator
Ruined Everything

Turn 25 Save

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Interesting. I'd like to see how the pasture culture plays out. I don't really go for culture much, I generally plump for the growth bonus which capidly ramps up, and in the early game paired with the 10% amen bonus actually allows for a decentish 20% growth. 

Victory wise, if we are building sphinxes, religious could be an easy option. I do dislike both the religious combat and the culture minigame (I don't play civ to run around with naturalists and archiologists!) so I'm fine shooting for science. If we are shooting for science then we need to eye up a rhur valley spaceport city early. 

Have you been saving the gold for anything?

You're right in that there is a huge lack of freshwater or even options to get fresh water with aquaducts. For a first city I would be contemplating the hill in that area that has copper/horse/stone first ring - horse and copper are nice tiles pre improvement, and it doesn't need to get huge to give good output. Also the reef doesn't inspire me hugely as I value hammers over science at this stage personally.

[Gaspar]

Interesting. I'd like to see how the pasture culture plays out. I don't really go for culture much, I generally plump for the growth bonus which capidly ramps up, and in the early game paired with the 10% amen bonus actually allows for a decentish 20% growth. 

Victory wise, if we are building sphinxes, religious could be an easy option. I do dislike both the religious combat and the culture minigame (I don't play civ to run around with naturalists and archiologists!) so I'm fine shooting for science. If we are shooting for science then we need to eye up a rhur valley spaceport city early. 

Have you been saving the gold for anything?

You're right in that there is a huge lack of freshwater or even options to get fresh water with aquaducts. For a first city I would be contemplating the hill in that area that has copper/horse/stone first ring - horse and copper are nice tiles pre improvement, and it doesn't need to get huge to give good output. Also the reef doesn't inspire me hugely as I value hammers over science at this stage personally.

I used to always grab the growth or border bonus but I'm kind of sour on the growth bonus since the housing cap tends to limit most of your cities, particularly here where we're definitely going to be planting a bunch without fresh water. I'm not convinced the border growth bonus makes much difference either. Anyway, I usually aim to add one that's either +food or +production but figured that the pastures one was the best available for us to take advantage of and maybe will save us a monument or two.

I was definitely joking about Sphinxes, I don't think they're worth much.

Re: gold, I tend to buy a builder or a granary at the first city but no, not saving for anything. Keep in mind 35g of that came in on that turn with the barb camp clear. We'll need 60-90g to upgrade Slingers as well, so that's a thing.

I suspect the tile NW of the lake is probably the best plant long term, but I'd agree that horse/copper/stone is probably better in the short term.

I think the biggest question before you play is if we want to go after the city states and/or Tomyris. I'm not sure an early rush isn't a bit cheesy for our purposes here but someone is clearly going to have to die here due to our lack of quality land. The city states are both pretty good sites, comparitively.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Interesting. I'd like to see how the pasture culture plays out. I don't really go for culture much, I generally plump for the growth bonus which capidly ramps up, and in the early game paired with the 10% amen bonus actually allows for a decentish 20% growth. 

Victory wise, if we are building sphinxes, religious could be an easy option. I do dislike both the religious combat and the culture minigame (I don't play civ to run around with naturalists and archiologists!) so I'm fine shooting for science. If we are shooting for science then we need to eye up a rhur valley spaceport city early. 

Have you been saving the gold for anything?

You're right in that there is a huge lack of freshwater or even options to get fresh water with aquaducts. For a first city I would be contemplating the hill in that area that has copper/horse/stone first ring - horse and copper are nice tiles pre improvement, and it doesn't need to get huge to give good output. Also the reef doesn't inspire me hugely as I value hammers over science at this stage personally.

I used to always grab the growth or border bonus but I'm kind of sour on the growth bonus since the housing cap tends to limit most of your cities, particularly here where we're definitely going to be planting a bunch without fresh water. I'm not convinced the border growth bonus makes much difference either. Anyway, I usually aim to add one that's either +food or +production but figured that the pastures one was the best available for us to take advantage of and maybe will save us a monument or two.

I was definitely joking about Sphinxes, I don't think they're worth much.

Re: gold, I tend to buy a builder or a granary at the first city but no, not saving for anything. Keep in mind 35g of that came in on that turn with the barb camp clear. We'll need 60-90g to upgrade Slingers as well, so that's a thing.

I suspect the tile NW of the lake is probably the best plant long term, but I'd agree that horse/copper/stone is probably better in the short term.

I think the biggest question before you play is if we want to go after the city states and/or Tomyris. I'm not sure an early rush isn't a bit cheesy for our purposes here but someone is clearly going to have to die here due to our lack of quality land. The city states are both pretty good sites, comparitively.

The way the land is set up we probably will have completely uncontested influence over those 2 states which isn't to be taken lightly. Militaristic states are so so because encampments seem low down on build lists, but the free units hammers early are nice. The scientific Seoul is nice though. I'll have to check the unique suz bonus. I would be more inclined to hit tomarys personally. We can settle this city, a further one towards him and then look to rush him perhaps?

I think unless anyone has major objections I'll aim to settle that hill and buy a worker straight out of the gate. Other than that I think there isn't much else here to plan currently, and I'll look to do the 15 odd turns in 12-24 hours after some more input.


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[Sareln]

No objection. Seoul gives a random eureka for each era you enter (eg. you enter medieval, get a free medieval eureka). The +sci to each campus is worth the attention though.

So there's a total of 4 amenities in our vicinity (Pearls, Citrus, Tea, Jade)?

I would be inclined to keep the city states around as they can be destinations for international routes...

[Sullla]

Good luck with this game! I'll be interested in watching to see how it plays out. That immediate starting neighborhood doesn't look terribly inviting, although at least you seem to have plenty of space to spread out.

[pindicator]

Well that's a challenging bit of land we get to start off with. Nothing like getting an ability that requires rivers and then not getting any rivers to use it on. I'm having trouble dotmapping anything west of that lake-hill location.

What do you think about going for a scout next, to map out the northeast? Any unit works but I guess I'm being optimistic that we'll have lots of land to explore that way.

I actually am intrigued by the Great Barrier spot , what do you think about settling on the stone just north of the natural wonder? We then use the science to boost towards currency and apprenticeship. The better long-term spot would be the one Gaspar noted, but it needs a border expansion to work both of the 3f2s tiles (although it would allow for a strong holy site on the stone, if we wanted to pursue religion). Settling on the stone also allows another coastal city to the northwest, between the cow and crab.  In any case,  I think this is a 3rd city, after settling the lake.

Other spots that catch my eye:
* The jade/pearl/sheep/wheat to the southeast - the better of the two pearl resource spots by far.
*  There actually is a river spot we can settle in the south between the two city-states with 1st ring wheat and 2nd ring jade. Considering our other options, that looks like a strong 3rd city option.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Well that's a challenging bit of land we get to start off with. Nothing like getting an ability that requires rivers and then not getting any rivers to use it on. I'm having trouble dotmapping anything west of that lake-hill location.

What do you think about going for a scout next, to map out the northeast? Any unit works but I guess I'm being optimistic that we'll have lots of land to explore that way.

I actually am intrigued by the Great Barrier spot , what do you think about settling on the stone just north of the natural wonder? We then use the science to boost towards currency and apprenticeship. The better long-term spot would be the one Gaspar noted, but it needs a border expansion to work both of the 3f2s tiles (although it would allow for a strong holy site on the stone, if we wanted to pursue religion). Settling on the stone also allows another coastal city to the northwest, between the cow and crab.  In any case,  I think this is a 3rd city, after settling the lake.

Other spots that catch my eye:
* The jade/pearl/sheep/wheat to the southeast - the better of the two pearl resource spots by far.
*  There actually is a river spot we can settle in the south between the two city-states with 1st ring wheat and 2nd ring jade. Considering our other options, that looks like a strong 3rd city option.

Just opened it up. Bizzarely the reef does not even count as a source of coastal water, so that spot because it only has the 2 reef coastal tiles has NO housing boost?!

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

All played. Left it at a really nice takeover point at turn 40, although with the new way of counting I suppose t41 is 15 turns played. Report incoming.