Civ6 Succession Game 1: Commercial Free Programming

[Ichabod]

I played 13 turns, instead of 15, because there's a lot to discuss for the next set. The ext player can play the extra turns, to get us back to a round number.

I started by going with the plan to buy the watermill in Kyoto. I kept the citizens working hammer tiles, because the +1 hammer from the watermill meant we could finish the builder this turn. After that, I started focusing more on high food tiles. 



I also changed Fukuoka to a granary, since that city has good tiles to grow into, but not that much food. And Shizuoka to a builder, since I didn't see that much point in getting a monument there, since we can just buy off the tiles, if we see a Gandhi settler trying to sneak past there,



I met Nan-Madol the next turn and Vilnius in the following turns (just in time for the boost to Political Philosophy). These are two cultural CSs and we got the first envoy in both, meaning our culture generation is very high right now.



After finishing the Watermill in Sendai, I started on a settler. This city has awesome growth potential, but we will be limited by housing penalties and amenities. So, I think we don't have much choice but to build settlers to shrink the size of the city. I also started a settler on Kyoto, after finishing 2 builders and an archer.



We bumped into Victoria's scout to the west. She is the only AI in the north of the map, so she has a lot of room to fill. Hopefully she'll expand and give us a challenge in the late game.

In other AI news, Pedro finished the Oracle and he has a very big positive modifier because we aren't getting any Great People from him (and he doesn't like us because we are not productive, whatever that means). I tried to befriend Tomyris, but she didn't accept my delegations. And all the religions fell, the last ones to Brazil and India.

By the way, I kept selling extra amenities to the AI, not relying on any exploits to do it. I think we should keep doing this, considering our variant.



After Political Philosophy, I changed the government to Classical Republic and picked these policies. The +1 hammer in each city was to help our lower cities to develop, since they had very low hammers. The builder and settler bonuses gave us the best hammer output, considering our builds.



State of the empire on the middle of my turnset. I went for Drama and Poetry next, as our civic research, because it seemed the most useful. I don't think we can wait to get the inspiration for it and we have a very solid culture output, considering the CS bonuses.



Nearing the end of my turnset, I sold our last copy of Cocoa to buy a builder in Shizuoka. We had just completed apprenticeship, so I wanted a mine as soon as possible on that hill. Because of this, one of our cities got an amenity penalty on turn 73. Of course, in true Civ 6 fashion, some of our cities are at + amenities, while one of them is at a minus.    Well, it can be solved easily by improving the sugars near Shizuoka.

After apprenticeship, I went for Bronze Working. That revealed Iron, which we have a source already mined on our Capital.



This is the situation on the turn I stopped. We just finished our research, so we need to choose where to go next. We just finished a civic, so we can change policies and we need to choose the next civic (and we can debate about where to start districts, since we have Campuses, IZ and Theaters now). Finally, we have two settlers to choose where to settle.

Ah, and we also have two envoys to decide where to send. For now, I kept them banked, because we already have the bonus from the meaningful CSs (we met a religious one too - Yerevan, the imbalanced CS for reigious victories -, which we have 0 envoys with, but I don't care that much about faith right now). We could change the diplomatic policy to get 2 envoys for the price of one with Yerevan. By the way, if we are going for a cultural victory, allying Yerevan could be meaningful, just so we can suicide some apostles and get free Relics from them (they give tourism). We could use an opponent religion for that, but we'd need a Holy Site. Just a thought.

I apologize for the barb situation. That scout moved from fog all the way to our borders on the interturn, coupled with a warrior that was already roaming around. Most of our units are down south because I let a scout escape down there and I feared for a stronger invasion, that never came. It'll be a pain to move the settlers around considering this, but I think it's manageable (we can get some war civics now and use it to crank out some quick archers, if needed). It was my bad, though.

Considering where to go next, I took some pictures. Here's the civic options:




And here's where we could settle our next cities. I think we should place them close to our already existing cities, perhaps on a coastal location and that one near tundra to the south. I don't think there's a need to landgrab next to Saladin, the land there is not that good. I think we should just get a good base of cities and then start sending some settlers north, through the water. Anyway, here's the pictures of the land:










There's also some interesting land to the west, past Gandhi. We could further pester him and settle there, but I don't think it's needed. One of the CS quest is to get the boost for Celestial Navigation, which means improving two water resources, so perhaps a coastal city is a good plan going forward.

I forgot to take pictures of the civic and science trees, sorry.



Overview on turn 73. All units are unmoved. I suggest changing the tile configuration on Kyoto and Sendai to favor food a bit more.

Anyway, here's the save:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2124...3.Civ6Save

[Ichabod]

So, will the new patch break our save?

[Ituralde]

More importantly it will let you rename cities!

[Molach]

Lots of changes! Seems to fix a lot of things we've griped about. Didnt see 'allow stacking' as an option though.

Im on a little trip, cant log in and check our civ out till monday, but looking good from what I read.

Re:Monuments, I didnt know if 0.3 per pop is enough to grow borders at a reasonable clip, post-patch we should be able to see. I approve of building more pressing stuff first. Getting more culture in general is good though- new civics come faster so we can switch govt around more, so we'll slot them back in later.

I guess I-zones is must-build in all cities now, new and old? Any new city with freshwater and a forest to chop should soon be part of our circle of prod. Otherwise I like the idea of picking up seefahrer eurekas and go colonize the north.

[Sullla]

Very nice reporting Icabod! I don't think the new patch will break saves, since I was able to load one of mine from an existing game without issues. (I downloaded Icabod's save and it did open just fine for me. Looks like we're good here.) As far as settling goes, I think we have a relatively tight build already, and with the need to use up tiles for districts in Civ6, I prefer a little bit more space between cities. Since water tiles are terrible in this game and we can't build Harbor districts, I'm also not that keen to put cities on the northern coast. Here's a potential suggestion:



We could use one settle on the hill tile east of that barb warrior (the green dot). It would be a low food city early on, but post-Feudalism the plains farms would start to kick in with the adjacency bonus to help it grow, and the production would be amazing with so many plains hills. I think it's the best location to our immediate east. Then I like the blue dot further east for a city, which will grab a ton of resources in time and become a very strong city. We could also split that into two slightly weaker cities by putting one further north on the coast and another further south along the river. We also will want a city at some point at the black dot location, largely because we can put a Campus or Holy Site district one tile east where it will touch 4 mountain tiles. However, the land down there is mostly tundra and mountains, so I'm not sure we want a city there immediately with this round of settlers.

I don't think there's anything immediately compelling on the tech tree right now. Astrology for Holy Sites? Maybe Engineering for aqueducts and Machinery for crossbows, in case an AI decides to get frisky? I have no strong feelings here. On the civics tree, probably Feudalism next for the farming bonus and the +2 builder action policies, unless we want Civil Service for the +1 culture per specialty district policy.

The main question though: what are we going to rename our cities? Ranamar is up to play next.

[Ichabod]

I agree with Feudalism next, on the civic tree. After feudalism, I usually focus on getting the next type of government (considering the cultural victory article Sullla linked, we probably should go to Merchant Republic next). In this case, perhaps we could go towards Humanism, to open the museums. There's also the possibility of going for Guilds, to enable Chichen Itza.

By the way, I think we can skip Industrial Zones in most cities, if we are going for a Cultural victory. The first order of business should be getting the Theater Districts. I don't think the hammers invested in IZ will repay themselves in a Cultural Victory scenario, especially considering the Theater discount for Japan. I'm not opposed to getting one in the Capital and some of the strongest cities, but I fear it would end up beng more fluff play than an actual benefit to us.

Anyway, I think we need a Theater Square soon, because Humanism inspiration is generating a Great Artist. It'd be nice to get one of those.

On the science department, what seems to benefit a cultural victory the most is Flight and Radio. That means getting the top of the tech tree, where most of the Eurekas are annoying to achieve (require investiment in other parts of the tech tree and a lot of naval units/buildings). For now, Machinery or other techs on the lower part of the tree seems decent, even if there's no real tangible benefit there (construction gives the inspiration for Games and Recreation, another option). We could also go straight for Industrialization, like I do in most games, for the mine production benefit.

[Ranamar]

I'd like exactly one water city in case we need to build ships sometime. Without harbors, we can't build ships unless we're water-adjacent. (My past suggestion was moving green-dot 1NW.)

Alternately, there's exactly one tile between Takamatsu and Fukoka which can get a city, and it has a zillion fish and crab near it: Crab actually generates a decent amount of gold, on top of being food-neutral, so that could be a decent option for financing our empire. It does steal the banana away from everyone else, though, since that's first-ring, and it wouldn't be hurting for food anyway.

Edit: oh hey, I'm up next. I'll grab the save tonight and get it done tonight or tomorrow. Should I be playing to T85, or T90? (I suppose that depends on what comes up in the next 10-15 turns...)

[Ruined Everything]

A very busy few days at work! I booted up the save, had a look around, and I’m back with some thoughts

In order of importance:

1. The cost of a district is locked the moment we start building them! Ranamar, I would urge you to lay down the districts we want (theatre districts and i-zones, I suspect) this turn.

2. Pyramids at the chocolate river (Fukuoka) is a net gain in worker charges. We only need to chop 5 plains/rainforest tiles (not at all a waste - we’re never gonna work 2 food/1 hammer tiles, and you can’t build a lumber mill on jungle.) We’ll instantly gain 4 of those charges back (since we’ll get a 4 charge worker) - and every single worker that you have active *gains a charge* - if we have just one other worker we’ll break even on spent worker charges, and if we have 2 we make a profit!

(Maybe we should slip into land surveyors and buy the 2-3 tiles required to make this happen - the jungled hill, the desert, and another rainforest to cut. We should be able to buy a tile every 3 turns if we want at +22.6 g/t and land surveyors.)

3. We need more workers in the worst way. 3 out of our 5 cities are working mostly (or completely) unimproved tiles, and we have 2 more cities on the way! I would have every city that’s not Kyoto or Sendai cranking out workers, and the two original cities cranking out settlers.

4. In the 30 turns since I (incorrectly) built a monument at Sendai, Sendai has gained 3 tiles. I am not at all convinced that monuments are that useful for boosting the rate at which a city claims tiles. Furthermore, provided that we lay down our districts now, culture districts are only 13 hammers (50% of 146 vs 60) more expensive than monuments. 

5. I would kill the barb scout first to stop us from being menaced by horsemen. The slinger is 1 shot away from being dead, and the warrior can’t attack the archer this turn (not that he’d do much anyway.) 

6. I would argue in favor of i-zones (prioritizing our cheap theaters, of course.) The overlapping factory boni will be worth 30-40 hammers in our small cities after industrialization, which is the only way that they’ll ever be able to build the gratuitously expensive 525 hammer broadcast centers (that’s most of a industrial era wonder!)

7. I completely agree with Icabod’s civics.

[Ichabod]

I don't mind Pyramids in Fukuoka, I was just saving the jungles there for Chichen Itza (reason why they are still standing). I think it's worth keeping the jungles around for the wonder, but chopping for faster benefits now is fine as well. If we decide to prioritize Pyramids over Chichen Itza (which is likely better, but I'd like to see an uber Chichen Itza city, just for the style points), I'd say that jungles over hills shuld be cut first, since mines are the best tile improvements we have.

We can get builders faster by rushbuying them too. So, keep in mind the opportunities to sell luxuries to the AI.

By the way, I think builders importance is overstated a bit here. Most of the avaiable tile improvements are pretty bad, since apart from Kyoto and Sendai, we don't have a lot of hills avaiable. Shizuoka has the one hill, that will be mined this turn, and then there's only plantations left, which are bad improvements (only netting one extra gold). Takamatsu only has farms avaiable as improvement and Fukuoka, if we keep with the Chichen Itza plan, only has plantations. It's better to have them, but the situation isn't dire.


I'd actually save some of the next builder charges for the new cities. They stand to benefit more from it, since there'll be hills there.

[Ruined Everything]

Finally, here are my thoughts on settling. I actually disagree with some of what has been said. (Would be interested to hear push back against these thoughts.) We have three regions to settle: the tundra wastelands, the chocolate coast, and the luscious west. 

The Tundra Wastelands

Why on earth do we want to settle this region first? It's ... uh... a tundra wasteland. There are much better city sites elsewhere. If we do want to settle, here would be my suggestions 3. 

The Krusty Krab (Yellow dot): Sullla is right about plain sea tiles being mediocre. He's ignoring, however, sea food tiles, which can be awesome. Each of those crab tiles is a 2 food/4 gold tile before Cartography, and 2 food/5 gold after. That's a 18 g/t city (enough to build 6 broacast centers!) that will pump out GPP all game long. We should prioritize this city heavily. 

Quicksilver frosts (Grey dot): This city can farm those rice tiles for 5 food each after feudalism, mine everything in sight, and be a pretty ok production city.

Copper canyon (Blue dot): Like quicksilver dot, but less so. Will benefit from overlapping factories. Will make 8 g/t.

That +4 mountain range that Sullla was talking about would be, at most, +2/4 extra science with the 100% campus adjacency civic. (there are plenty of +2 science locations.) Not worth throwing away a city in the southern tundra for. (If we were going religion and could get ridiculous +8 adjacency faith cities with dance of the aurora it would be different, but we're not.)

The chocolate coast

Seafood tiles are awesome (2f/5g, or 3f/4g after cartography), and the chocolate coast has them in abundance. I also respecfully disagree with Sullla's premesis that close spacing your cities is a bad idea in civ 6 - cities are free! A couple small fishing villages that exist to work the sea, build theatre squares, and contribute to factory overlapping bonuses that will cap at size 8 or so are valuable.

Consider Cerulean city: Cerulean dot, north. That city works 3 fish and 2 crabs for 3 f/t and 19 g/t (!) after cartography. It builds a couple mines, soaks in Fukuoka's factories, spits out a cheap theatre and then slowly builds a factory of its own. Glorious stuff. Given that we want to build districts, we might want to settle this next.

Banana crabs: (Aquarmarine dot, south): This city is I think a prototypical civ 6 fishing village. It'll grow to size 7, and then stop. But you know what? At 15 g/t (three crabs) and a theatre district, and +15 production from adjacent factories (with an extra +20 from electronics factories if we make it to electricity.) that's ok. I wouldn't settle this city until much else has been settled, but I would settle it .

We may even want to put a city buy the crab/chocolate pair by Kyoto - especially if there are more crab resources hidden.

The luscious west

This, if we can stomach it, would be a real prize. This has some of the best land we have to settle.

Bananas dot (yellow) rocks the triple food reasources and works everything all the hills in sight.

Granite ridge (grey) builds a mountain aquaduct, and rocks double stone, double marsh, chocolate, and Pantale.

Wheat dot (purple) is a weaker city, but it is backlines (since Gandhi will never attack us.) It allows us to use some of the southern wheat.

Can we defend these cities from Pedro? Maybe. It depends a lot on whether the northern range of mountains makes a choke point. If it does, we should totally go for this region (maybe even next.) If Pedro declares on us we should consider taking and keeping Rio, which would give us an undisputed claim on the West.