It's Chevalier's Thread and He Can Do What He Wants To

[Ichabod]

The comparasion you are making isn't helpful, in my opinion. Tall vs. wide discussions as a whole are not helpful, as well. You will always grow your city as tall as possible and expand as wide as possible. All this tall vs. wide comparisions seem to imply someone will purposedly stop growing a city or expanding, to keep up with a previously imposed limitation. The discussion should be to determine when expanding/growing stops giving profitable returns.

A good example is T-Hawk's fast wins in Civ 5. He has a high number of high pop cities. He plays tall and wide, because he doesn't care about tall nor wide, he cares about what investments return more profit in an expected time frame (the turn when you win).

In you specific example, why would the player with 10 cities and 10 campuses choose spots with +1 adjacency, while the player with 5 cities get +3? We are comparing different strategies in the same map, so player A should at least have 5 +3 campuses and 5 +1 campuses. Otherwise, the comparision doesn't make sense. Thinking that way leads to a trap, in my opinion (another thing to consider is that +3 Campuses are not trivial at all to get, for that Rationalism boost).

Here are some questions that would make the discussion more profitable, but that should always be taken into context of a specific game:

1. How much do we want to grow each city? 

As long as there's improved hills, growing seems profitable. That's an interesting rule of thumb. My experience is that we don't have much more than 5/6 hills is most cities, unless you invest tons of gold into tile purchases.

1.a. How can we grow our cities to the desired sizes? Do we need the Audiance Chamber or could we use other sources of housing? There are granaries and policies (Medina Quarter, for instance), there's also improvement sharing.

1.b. How much do we grow a city that does not have any more hills to grow into? Is it worth spending hammers on housing improvements to get the 4th district at size 10? Is the Rationalism boost really that good (it's just 3 science on a city with University, for instance)?

And so on and so forth.

On the specific topic of Chamber vs. Hall, I just can't see how a housing bonus can compete with faster expansion + a front-loaded worker. It just too much of a immediate bonus, compared to a bonus that only starts giving benefits after a long time.

To be completely fair, right now, I think the most profitable investment in Civ 6 is just to spam units. Buildings and districts don't compare to taking your opponents lands. But that's just not very fun and obviously comes with risks, so we tend to stir away from it. Buildings, even districts and natural expansion seem to have such a low return of investment rate that I feel the game kind of loses its meaning a bit.

[Ichabod]

About production in Civ 6. Eiffel Tower costed 1060 hammers in Civ 5. Eiffel Tower costs 2100 hammers in Civ 6. Both are Modern Era wonders. That's simply bonkers. We have a game that severely nerfed production (actually, I think factory spam was supposed to be the late game production boom, but that got removed; also, TR yields, which also got severely nerfed) and heavily increased the costs at the same time. 

Science simply outruns production in Civ 6, so either you are building things with % cards or gold/faith (buying/upgrading), or you are spending 40 turns on something that will never return the investment. 

And since beelines are so easy in Civ 6, the way you play it is to pump science into a killer unit and cheat its production. If you try to grow your empire organically, meaning growing your population, improving your lands, building your districts, gradually rising your yields, someone will just run you over with Cossacks sooner or later (and his enpire will have almost no improvements, just a bunch of chopped wasteland).

[RFS-81]

Look, my hobby is naval history (I'm a history/English teacher by trade).

I'm surprised how many people here have a background in history. It's like a Bones or CSI fansite full of forensic scientists!

About Ancestral Hall vs. Audience Chamber, I played too little R+F to really have an opinion. I fear I'll not be much of a help for this game. I think Ichabod's arguments make sense, though: The purpose of food and housing is to make it possible to work hill tiles; beyond that, it's not very useful.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

So right now, I'm leaning towards Arabia and trying something new with them. I like playing with religion and I think a great jihad might be in order. Plus, after PBEM7, I really hate falling behind the technological curve and want to pick something that I think can be competitive in science, we'll figure out the culture later - maybe from our pantheon if the map suits it, otherwise we can fall back on our old friends Goddess of the Harvest or Earth Goddess. 

I really enjoyed following you guys' discussion on the Hall vs. Chamber. Ichabod, I think you're being a little unfair here:

All this tall vs. wide comparisions seem to imply someone will purposedly stop growing a city or expanding, to keep up with a previously imposed limitation

Aetryn wasn't proposing that we stop expanding entirely once we reach an arbitrary pre-imposed limit - only a complete idiot would do that. Instead, isn't it a discussion of what to prioritize more? You want as many cities as you can as large as you can - but what do you prioritize more, growing your cities larger or spreading out more first? 

That said, though, I agree with your larger point - in general, with the limited tile yields, you want to go wide (seriously, the subreddit's constant insistence that V is the superior game because "you can go tall and outcompete a wide empire!" drives me freakin' insane), and I think you've persuaded me that the Hall is a better investment IF we have the room to expand - in PBEM8 we didn't really ahve the space to make use of it by the time I was building that, having rushed out to 7 cities early and filling up my land. 

The main concern, like I said, is growing pop for district slots. If we play as Arabia, we'll want as many Holy Sites, Campuses, and Harbors as possible - I can't see us wanting to go without any of those, right? But that means every city needs 7 population - and we're only going to be founding cities with 3 housing to start with, so we're going to grow really slowly. If we had the Audience Chamber, we could drop a governor into any 3 housing city and instantly pop the cap up to 7. Let the city grow up and then move the governor on - we have our 3 districts, we usually only want to work about 7 tiles anyway, and so we don't have to faff about with granaries or sewers or what have you. That doesn't sound like a terrible play to me. 

however, the prospect of instantly founding a city with a builder, moving Magnus in, and using the 5 turns to pre-build a galley or quad that gets chopped into an instant Harbor or whatever is appealing, and probably stronger than the Audience Chamber governor-skipping. 

The magic number to me is size 7 - 3 districts. The capital we'd like to get to size 10 for the inspiration and to accomodate the Government Plaza. How do we get there assuming each city is on the coast? Granaries get us to 5, not bad. If we lead with a harbor, the Lighthouse gets us to 6, and then the Madrasa would bump us to 7 - but that's building our districts backwards, since we want to lead with Holy Sites where possible. However, in lieu of a Campus, we make district #2 the Harbor and build the lighthouse (have to anyway for the trade route), and then we just need some combination of farms/plantations to hit 7. That's 170 production for the granary and lighthouse, plus the builder charges for the improvements. Your average Magnus+MI chop will net you about that right from the start, so that's manageable, I think. 

RFS, don't worry about not knowing R&F - as you can see I barely know anything about Civ Vi's mechanics. I'm a big picture, grand strategy kind of guy, and your thoughts in that vein are always appreciated. Plus, please poke holes in my plan. I'm prone to random bouts of idiocy between my moments of sparkling genius, and I need someone to point out to me which is which.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Also, I stashed the out-of-date chop table on the first page, in case anyone needs a rough rule of thumb for doing math.

[T-hawk]

(seriously, the subreddit's constant insistence that V is the superior game because "you can go tall and outcompete a wide empire!" drives me freakin' insane)

Dear god, yes.  And not just the subreddit, basically everywhere.  "Tall" triggers two reactions that humans love: rooting for the smaller underdog, and getting by on less work.  Everybody wants to think they perfectly crafted a gleaming tall empire to beat that grubby slummy wide one, never mind how true it actually ever is or isn't.  This is what I've meant all along that Civ 5 hit and satisfied a wider target audience than Civs 1-4 ever did.

I play a lot of Euro-style tabletop board games.  There's a similar tall-vs-wide question in many of them too, although people don't talk about it in those terms.  Some strategies involve making your actions better with bonuses and multipliers; some strategies involve getting more quantity of actions.  By and large, people tend to perceive the first approach as feeling more clever and strategic and satisfying...  and then I move ahead and beat them with quantity.

I don't know Civ 6 to offer advice on building, but Ichabod is right that the labels are stupid, it's about whatever investment pays back better.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Emperor K today, last but not least:

England



No real need to list any of the others, since Emperor K is almost certain to take this one. England is THE premier naval civ, and I really enjoyed playing them in PBEM7 even if I didn't do the greatest job in the world. Spam RNDs everywhere = lots of quick moving ships and lots of Great Admirals.

In R&F, he'll also get a free melee unit every time he builds an RND on a foreign continent, in addition to bonus gold and loyalty. If he can get a good continent draw, he'll be able to totally ignore land melee units and just focus on getting Dockyards up everywhere.

The Sea Dog is a fun novelty, but nothing game breaking. I had a swarm in PBEM7 but they all got sunk in the opening turns of the war 'coz TURNS OUT THEY'RE NOT REALLY INVISIBLE >

more fool me for expecting the game to work as documented, though

Anyway, the British Museum never matters, and the Redcoat is a fine unit that comes too late in the game to make much of a difference. They're as tough as Infantry on foreign continents, though, and in the lategame Emperor can get them by the bucketful by founding cities on foreign continents and then building a dockyard. They really help a conquest snowball.

So yeah, most of what England has going for it is the Dockyard, but that's really all they need.

Macedonia




I really like Macedon - I feel like the designers really captured the spirit of Alexander the Great with this one (far more than they did with Cyrus - I mean, Cyrus was famously one of the most honorable and benevolent rulers in all of history - so he gets bonuses from surprise attacks!?).

Not gonna spend time analyzing them because all their stuff is for land bonuses, pretty much. To the World's End applies to naval units, but that just lets them maintain the momentum of conquest - the UUs and UB are all land units and won't matter a damn in the game.

Poland




I really want to take Poland out for a spin sometime. Unfortunately, I probably won't see them in this game. Emperor already played Poland in PBEM6, anyway.

Golden Liberty + Lithuanian Union can let you do some neat things with Crusade in crowded maps, but how often will that trigger on an island map? Your culture bombs will very rarely convert an enemy city in this map. The Winged Hussar is also neat, but I wonder if the knockback wouldn't be more obnoxious than helpful, since positioning is so important in combat - how often would you knock a unit out of range of your ability to kill it? Finally, I really like their Market replacement, which really juices up trade routes - spam trade routes like I did with England, run some trade-boosting policies like International Confederation, and watch your yields soar (as long as you've also kept up in Campuses/culture).

France




It's...it's just not going to happen, France.

Extra Diplo visibility is no longer completely useless, so there's that.

But the wonder production bonus IS useless - you can have +20% towards the Venetian Arsenal and you'll STILL lose it to some jerk who chops it out with Maritime Industries and Limes. The Imperial Guard comes far too late to matter, and unlike the redcoat gets its bonus on the HOME continent - a nice parallelism but far less useful. And the chateau comes far too late in the tech tree to be useful.

Alas, poor France. Still one of the only civs that's never been picked.

Norway




Norway isn't so terrible on water maps, I think Japper just played them wrong in PBEM4. He sent a few longships out to harass and annoy his neighbors, while building no military at home and stretching himself thin with settlers. Basically, he used NONE of Norway's advantages, at all.

What I'd do with Norway is use Thunderbolt of the North and Knarr in combination to build an early army of horsemen or something escorted by a few galleys. Then, instead of scattering my ships everywhere, I pick one poor sap of a neighbor and descend on his kingdom in force. The army crosses the sea early, before shipbuilding tech, so hopefully we catch the neighbor off-guard. Then the longships go nuts pillaging and grabbing builders if they can, while the army uses its quick naval mobility to sail around and hit the key cities. Eat that neighbor, hopefully, then snowball from there.

Thunderbolt is also good for chopping, and if you have 2 civs under your belt then your melee naval production bonus should be enough to snowball and overwhelm your neighbors in turn, like Archduke's Macedonia or Mongolia. What you DON'T do is sit back and spam settlers while pissing off all your neighbors with pinprick longship raids.

China




If Emperor didn't have England and Norway to choose between, China wouldn't be a bad backup. The Eureka bonus is ALWAYS good, as is the extra builder charge. The Crouching Tiger is a weak UU, but that doesn't matter since ranged units in general are de-emphasized in naval warfare (siege units get full damage on ships, ranged units suffer a penalty in R&F - maybe in the base game now, too?).

the real key would be to land the crucial naval wonders: The Mausoleum lets you double-charge your great admirals. Not as good as I had it in PBEM7 when I had a monopoly on those guys, but if you can land the one that grants you an ironclad, or lets you build an armada early, woof! Look out. The Great Lighthouse adds +1 movement to all ships and should be heavily targeted by EVERYONE in this game - England has a leg-up with its half-cost Harbor, though. Finally, the Colossus is pretty much only cost-effective for China and lets them have a few additional traders for the price of a builder.

You could hack together a naval civ with those wonders, and then use China's superior science/culture to stay ahead of the pack. But why do that when you have the straightforward choice of England in front of you, unless you're a lunatic like me who likes to be different?

I think Emperor takes England, 60%.

So, final guesses at civ picks:

Japper: Indonesia 55%/Australia 40%/Other 5%
Archduke: Scotland 50%/ Netherlands 45%/ Other 5% (obviously not nearly as confident here)
Rowain: Brazil 40%/ Mapuche 30%/ Spain 20%/ Other 10% (really no clue what Rowain will go with)
Emperor: England 60%/ Norway 30%/ China 5%/ Other 5% (probably England, maaybe Norway, outside bet on China?)
Chevalier: Arabia 60%/ Rome 25%/ Germany 15% (my own feelings, haven't finalized yet but leaning strongly Arabia).

[Ichabod]

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be rude. As CMF and T-Hawk also pointed out, my complaints regarding tall vs. wide are more directed to the discussion I see on different sites than anything that aetryn said.

And I think the point about most cities being coastal gives more merit to the Chamber.

[Banzailizard]

I like how this thread has more lurkers than the actual lurkers thread.

In general I favor the ancestral hall just because of how quickly it returns the investment in hammers. However this is not a decision that I think needs to be made now, play the map see what you get.

If you go Arabia what is the plan for the religion.

Jesuit education & Defender of the faith? Then tack on Wats and church property to round things out?  Gives you defense, science, culture, and gold.

Should probably have a backup plan.  If Indonesia is taken Japper might go hard for a religion, and if Emperork takes China he will pick up Stonehenge. Then it is a race with no guarantee of victory.  Choral music is the obvious second choice for a follower belief and would be fine to build towards theocracy which is Arabia's key civic.  Crusades for enhancer, though if you also get Jesuit education you will be scraping by on faith trying to purchase units, buildings, and missionaries for foreign conversion.  Synagogues or mosques might be a good choice in that case.  Lay ministry is a distant second for founder beliefs but might be the best choice.  

Island plates is not the place for it but it would be interesting to see someone go hard on the jihad with Arabia.  Picture Mamālīk boosted by crusade, with Mosques or Synagogues, and Lay ministry providing extra faith and culture to push towards theocracy. Mix in the warlord's throne to go on a long term conquest spree.  Not sure how well it would pan out in MP but if you could get the ball rolling things could snowball quickly.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I think I've only seen Cornflakes post in the lurker thread. :/ Apparently the community is losing interest in civ 6 - I think there's about 15 of us who participate in the multiplayer games, we just have a rotating cast.

Anyway, whether we go with the Hall or the Chamber depends on the map, right. I like the idea of using the free builder to insta-chop districts at new cities, though. That could get a good science/faith snowball going really quickly, especially if I can somehow swing Monumentality - buy a settler, found the city, use the builder to hcop out a Holy Site which gives me more faith to buy more settlers...

As for beliefs, I think it depends on the players. There's enough beliefs for two really solid religions, while the third will be so-so at best. If Japper takes Indonesia, we might be in a race - but while he gets an edge on pantheons, there's nothing that especially helps him get a Great Prophet early. Emperor might take China, but I think that's a very slim possibility. If we can count on being 1st or 2nd, then we take JE/CM and DotF/Church Property depending on what's available. We make all beliefs work.