Japper and Cornflakes' team thread

[mackoti]

I didnt played civ6 and all civ i know is from reporst but looks nice and ty for this reports.

[Fenn]

Same here. It's hard for me to make useful comments as a global lurker with no civ6 experience, but your updates are always a good read

[Mikeforall]

Thanks for the feedback!

In that case, I will stick with the team nicknames, as wel as with my current style of reporting 

[Japper007]

Turn 40: WAR!!!

Well we finally caught onto why the lurkers were suddenly so active in our thread:

Woden (and Chevmalfet, but he is a far less serious threat right now) has declared war on our team. He has a truly frightening amount of military.



As to my preparations to help Mike out, I am rerouting my military towards his core and upgrading my Slinger next turn. We debated me cancelling the Campus in my capital to add more Warriors (once I upgrade those to Ngao Mbeba they'll effectively shut down Woden's archers due to their innate defense bonus vs ranged attack and faster movement in jungles and forests) but we decided on finishing the Campus first to hopefully outtech their team, as they were slowed down significantly to push out this rush. I've also swapped my civics over to Military Trad to make a swap to Agoge+Urban planning once the Campus finishes (already in Agoge, but also still in God King)

I think we can survive this, as long as we get walls, their team as far as we can see has no Great General and no Battering Rams, just a shitton of Pitati archers (a scary enough prospect on it's own though, heh)

[Mikeforall]

Turn 37:






Bronze Working finishes. Next up will be Archery - Masonry [won't get the boost for this in any way, since I do not have stone, so just completely researching it] - Horsemen -Wheel. 
By the time I get to the Wheel, Jasper will already have finished it (he is going Currency - Iron Working - Wheel, due to him building an iron mine in the future, giving the boost for the latter two techs). 
Then I will work towards engineering for aqueducts, though this will be over a month later, so no idea how the situation on the map will be by then. Not going to plan thát far forward. 

Jaspers diplomacy screen bugged out again, so had to resent the gold requests. Hell, what is up with those bugs, second time it happened already... out of the two times I put a request through. 
Does somehow on the interturn the AI take over and deny the requests, invalidating it? Strange, especially seeing that when the request is sent in reverse (Japper offering me instead of me requesting) it did work last time. 
Oh wel, will be ranting more about that next turn if it fails again, or not if it succeeds. 

On towards the borderlands. 


The slinger makes contact with a barbarian warrior. Since the barb will attack it next turn (due to the combat strength of the sling being lower) I set the sling on Fortify now. That way, it deals more damage compared to how much damage it takes when the warrior attacks, than if I were to attack it now and then get hit by the warrior on the interturn. 
Talking 'bout warriors: my own warrior is retreating south now, to help out with clearing that barb-camp. For now I have seen enough up north. 
It is large enough to confirm it is indeed a different continent, and for now I am in no mood to meet any player up there yet. Neither do I plan to expand that far away from my capital anytime soon, so leaving things be seems like the best idea for now. 


Talking about expansion:


I have revaluated the situation, and getting my now-finished settler to the spot east of Nan Madol is just a no-go, with that barbcamp there. So instead, I reroute it to the southern tundra. Despite their also being a barbcamp in the south, at least it is not between my capital and the new city. 
I had preferred not to settle the tundra yet, since its  location, despite being not your typical horrible tundra, is not thát great either. However, with northern expansion blocked, East being not yet scouted and West being Jaspers terrain (and a far walk), south is the best option for now. At least I can take use out of my pantheon pick now. 
I have also slotted in a builder earlier than in the aforementioned planning. This so that I can improve that third city a bit, making it just a bit more attractive. 
With Ilkum slotted in, it will take 4 turns to produce said builder. That means that my military plans against the barbs are delayed by 4 turns. Not ideal, but doable. 
On the subject of delays: Because the deal with Jasper glitched out, the trader is delayed too, meaning that I have a turn extra to clear out that camp south of Ãranyaka. 


Now, onto some scores, shall we?







First, the thing not visible on these:
Nubia, as af having read my rant and laughing at it, surpassed the 100 military power this turn [on 109 as we speak, if the UI mod is correct]. Leaving alone city states, even players should fear for their borders at this rate. Though that will stop once those archers are outdated, as discussed in the previous post. 
In other news, TheArchduke trew down a district. To confirm which one we look at the Great person screen:


He built a campus.... three turns ago! How did I not notice that score-changing up till now? Wel shit. 
Not that his science is very high though. his adjacency must be low, because me and Jasper, admitted with the help of two science city states, are still above him in science-per-turn. 

We are clearly leading in science, as the score shows. None has as much techs as we do. 
We appear also to be en par with team Classical in culture. This is a perfect example of how score can distort reality. Even with Jaspers natural wonder and Nan Madol we are no match for Rome with its monuments (2 cities, thus 2 monuments) and the 60% civics boost of China. Yet we have more points than them, because wel... we civilized more civics. They probably went straight for Political Philosophy. 
Honestly, I believe that one should get points based on how advanced the technology / civic is that you finish, not merely the cheer number. 

A final thing to note here is that it appears our starts have been quite mirrored, reading the score. 
Every team, excluding team Atheist, has a civ with very high empire score and one with a relative low one. Since I so far have kept track of major scorejumps (districts, cities, lavra's) I can subtract those, and still have the difference. It appears that the   start vs    start wasn't just a very clear choice on our continent, but on all (again, excluding Team Atheïst here).

[Japper007]

We appear also to be en par with team Classical in culture. This is a perfect example of how score can distort reality. Even with Jaspers natural wonder and Nan Madol we are no match for Rome with its monuments (2 cities, thus 2 monuments) and the 60% civics boost of China. Yet we have more points than them, because wel... we civilized more civics. They probably went straight for Political Philosophy. 
Honestly, I believe that one should get points based on how advanced the technology / civic is that you finish, not merely the cheer number. 

 Score on the whole is not very representative of what you do in game. But that has been an issue since civ 5 at least. There is also no bonus added at the end if you finish quickly, so a neat sub-200 Science Victory will be lovingly rewarded Dan Quayle in the end game screen   because your overall score is low... 
 

[Mikeforall]

Turn 38:

two things worth mentioning here, so lets jump right into it!



We meet England!

So, we now know who our neighbours are, team Atheïst. 
How glad I am that I decided last-minute to not found Ãranyaka on the coast, but on the rice one tile land-inward. 
So, the positives and negatives of having them as a neighbour:

They are two civs to be reconned with. England will go for naval superiority, and Nubia is already in its golden age. 
First of all, each of them currently has a military score which is above that of mine and Jaspers combined. Nubia even triples both our scores. 
Now, Chevaliers score is most likely a bit deceptive, since he probably has a naval unit. However, Nubia's score is most likely an army of archers. 
They are a fearsome foe, and with such high military score we cannot rule out they might decide to war us. 
After all, Team Classic has a large military as wel, and team Imperial has Defender of the Faith, making us a pretty likely target due to our relative weakness. 

However, despite their military score, they are one of the better neighbours to have. Why?
Their military strategies are most likely based on Nubia's land superiority and England's naval power. 
However, Nubia's land superiority will soon falter, when horses and especially X-bows come into play. That would merely leave England. 
And (probably??) due to their focus on military, they are behind on every single aspect in the game. Science, culture, raw district output, just name it. They are dead last in every single one of those.  

With my warrior on low health, I let it retreat to a nearby hill heal. After all, that sling might very well decide to snipe it. Not that it is likely, but still. 

Time to take a closer look at both our neighbours.  



Silk, horses, even their gold income is very close to mine. Seems like my mirrored start idea is getting ground. 
They also got a second city at pop three. That must mean it has access to fresh water, seeing as it was not founded thát long ago (see my report a few pages back). 



Wel, or my theory is just a hoax. Chinaware and horses... nothing of the jungle-food Jasper has. Also an awefully low gold income, most likely due to the upkeep of that huge military. 
Yeh, that military is just a goldwaste if he doesn't use it for something. It does not seem that either of them is at war with a city state however. 


Now, the second 'thing of note':



AAARG. It failed again! Asked Jasper to just send me the deal instead of in reverse, since that also worked last time. No idea what is up with this bug. 
Trader is thus set back yet another turn. 

Wel, small thing prob, but have also called my northern slinger back to the capital last turn. It will arive there next turn, after which I will prob upgrade it to an archer (archery finishes next turn).

[Mikeforall]

We appear also to be en par with team Classical in culture. This is a perfect example of how score can distort reality. Even with Jaspers natural wonder and Nan Madol we are no match for Rome with its monuments (2 cities, thus 2 monuments) and the 60% civics boost of China. Yet we have more points than them, because wel... we civilized more civics. They probably went straight for Political Philosophy. 
Honestly, I believe that one should get points based on how advanced the technology / civic is that you finish, not merely the cheer number. 

 Score on the whole is not very representative of what you do in game. But that has been an issue since civ 5 at least. There is also no bonus added at the end if you finish quickly, so a neat sub-200 Science Victory will be lovingly rewarded Dan Quayle in the end game screen   because your overall score is low... 
 

hence why I always disable score victory in our personal duels, since score is just a stupid mechanic. 

However, it is useful to track progress. Although distorted, we can still easily see which teams are currently doing well, and which are severely lacking behind. 
Also damn, due to my delay in reporting, you got to bring the lurkers the great news  Lets see how this 'thing' (not gonna mention it before I posted my own report of it   ) will play out.

[Japper007]

hence why I always disable score victory in our personal duels, since score is just a stupid mechanic. 

Yeah, and that still makes zero sense, unless you actually believe you could ever hit the turncap to get a score victory. It's 500 turns on standard, you'll stumble over a culture victory looong before then even if you deliberately neglect to build the Spaceship parts which any decent player can do before turn 250. By the time you hit turn 500, a Score Victory will be a mercy.

[Mikeforall]

hence why I always disable score victory in our personal duels, since score is just a stupid mechanic. 

Yeah, and that still makes zero sense, unless you actually believe you could ever hit the turncap to get a score victory. It's 500 turns on standard, you'll stumble over a culture victory looong before then even if you deliberately neglect to build the Spaceship parts which any decent player can do before turn 250. By the time you hit turn 500, a Score Victory will be a mercy.

Eh, if we both find it a stupid mechanism, why wóuld one leave it enabled? saying it makes no sense to disable it is basicly saying it is a victory you are going for.
If you cannot win any of the other victory's, in my eyes your playstyle is not worth winning anyways.