[SPOILERS] scooter tries Civ6

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

or he's deliberately sandbagging techs - holding them one turn from completion - to keep us from being able to estimate his science rate.

[Alhazard]

or he is astrology rushing

[scooter]

Interesting theories! I'm generally familiar with the district cost weirdness, but like Banzailizard said, it's not really applicable here.

or he's deliberately sandbagging techs - holding them one turn from completion - to keep us from being able to estimate his science rate.

Seems unlikely to me. It's not like we're racing to builder techs or something. I can't imagine what of tangible value he could gain from that.

My only thought is that he started to research one thing, and then changed his mind as he scouted.

Maybe? Seems more likely, but I can't imagine what that could be. Again, if he's researching builder techs, he can see which ones he wants straight from T1. If he wanted Mining on T1, that's not going to change when he finds an Animal Husbandry resource 8 tiles away that he'll settle later. Unless the tech in question is...

or he is astrology rushing

This is pretty interesting because he's Japan, so he does get cheap Holy Sites. Feels like the most likely guess. Couple that with the fact that he seemingly got some extra source of faith (probably city-state?) that's had him consistently in 1st, and I'm gonna guess this is it. Could well be he started on a builder tech, and he found a natural wonder and/or a city-state (as Banzailizard suggested) and rerouted to Astrology to take advantage of his cheap holy site. I don't think he could possibly beat us to the first religion, right?

[scooter]

Turn 19





Two turns away from planting our second city. Barbarians have all disappeared, which is nice. Plan is still proceeding as-is.






TheArchduke finally finished a tech this past turn. That very possibly points towards an Astrology-first research, as someone who techs that and nothing else at roughly 3 science/turn should finish in around 17 turns. If the score screen does indeed update a turn behind, that seems about right. Seems likely he’s building an early Holy Site for a religion? That feels like the most likely explanation.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

We should still be first to a religion. It takes quite some time to accumulate enough Great Prophet points through natural generation - ages longer than Stonehenge.

Which beliefs are you inclined towards? The usual candidates are Defender of the Faith (not as strong but still nice to have, especially with Archduke's penchant for war and Hungary floating around), Jesuit Education (I think now largely overrated, since there's a lot of stuff to buy with faith), Choral Music (very strong - holy sites can speed you through the civics tree in addition to generating faith for purchases), Church Property (nice to have, but by no means essential), and from there declining usefulness.

[scooter]

I’ll circle back to the religion stuff shortly. I did notice Defenders of the Faith has been nerfed somewhat recently. Prior to realizing that, I was thinking that was clearly the way to go to avoid being a target given that I’ll be in builder mode for awhile, but now I’m not so sure. In the meantime, turn report!

Turn 20




Settler is still being kinda dual-escorted. Northern warrior is returning to the barb camp to clear that. Should be clear by T23-24 or so. I’m pretty sure barbarians don’t heal, so if it’s still that half-wounded spear, I should be in business. I did switch to Foreign Trade to stall Agoge until the turn I’m ready to actually ready to build units. Craftsmanship is 1T away, so I can finish it whenever.

Also, I noticed something I didn’t catch earlier with this settler lens. In the northeast by the barb camp, there are volcano warnings. I’m assuming there must be one just to the east of those icons. I guess it’s not a huge deal. Our next city gets settled next turn. Any thoughts on first build here? Was kind of considering starting a slinger or warrior here, actually. Monument would be nice too, but we do have some culture output already.





I think Chevalier asked about this the other day, and I took some time to look into this. So we have 1 point. Here’s a few I know we can get:

* 4 points: World wonder completed
* 1 point: Pantheon founded
* 3 points: World’s first religion (is this mutually exclusive with the 2 pointer for founding a religion?)
* 2 points: Barbarian camp destroyed
* 1 point: Desert City (maybe?)
* 1 point: Meet new civilization


Uh, past that, I have no idea how we’re going to get to 25. That would put us at 13 points, 15 if I get to double-count the religion founding. Maybe I can find a natural wonder first? I need to spend more time with the list (I’m looking at this list: https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/His...nts_(Civ6) - if there’s a better list somewhere let me know), and maybe I can find a few more options.






Score update. TheArchduke jumped up a bit this turn. I’m not getting tons out of these given my general lack of experience with these, so let me know if you want me to continue posting these regularly. Otherwise, I may not bother so much.

[Sullla]

It sounds like your second city is going to be building Stonehenge as soon as you finish Astrology so you only need something to work on for the 4 intervening turns. Perhaps dump production into a monument in the meantime? A unit doesn't feel like a great option because you won't be in Agoge. One thing I would suggest is dropping down a Holy Site as soon as you finish Astrology to lock in the district cost (SE of the city center would be a good spot). You don't need a Holy Site to found a religion but you will need at least a few of them to train missionaries and generate some faith. And by locking in a Holy Site with exactly 2 civics finished, you'll be able to build it at an incredibly cheap cost, about 45 production by my estimate. That's an absurdly good deal and you'll want to finish that district later anyway.

This is getting a bit ahead of the game, but for religious beliefs I'd suggest:

Choral Music (Founder belief): This one is really good because it allows you to generate culture at the same time that you generate faith. Faith is more useful in Gathering Storm than in the base game, and therefore building a good number of Holy Site districts and making use of Choral Music becomes very powerful indeed. Jesuit Education is similarly less useful in Gathering Storm because there are so many more ways to spend faith. And by taking Choral Music first you also deny it as an option to everyone else in the game.

Defender of the Faith: Even at +5 strength this is still awesome for a MP game. Denies it to other players and makes it very tough for anyone to attack you. We have never seen anyone running Defender of the Faith get conquered in one of our MP games, ever. Worth taking along with Choral Music as the other initial belief.

Ideally the other two beliefs are Church Property and Wats but there are other good options in both of their belief categories if they would fall. These top two beliefs are much better than anything else can take in their respective categories.

[scooter]

It sounds like your second city is going to be building Stonehenge as soon as you finish Astrology so you only need something to work on for the 4 intervening turns. Perhaps dump production into a monument in the meantime? A unit doesn't feel like a great option because you won't be in Agoge. One thing I would suggest is dropping down a Holy Site as soon as you finish Astrology to lock in the district cost (SE of the city center would be a good spot). You don't need a Holy Site to found a religion but you will need at least a few of them to train missionaries and generate some faith. And by locking in a Holy Site with exactly 2 civics finished, you'll be able to build it at an incredibly cheap cost, about 45 production by my estimate. That's an absurdly good deal and you'll want to finish that district later anyway.

Oh good call on placing the district. This is not something I’ve paid attention to in SP games, so I need to retrain myself to pay attention to district cost scaling. And yeah, Monument is probably a good choice to dump production into.

Which beliefs are you inclined towards? The usual candidates are Defender of the Faith (not as strong but still nice to have, especially with Archduke's penchant for war and Hungary floating around), Jesuit Education (I think now largely overrated, since there's a lot of stuff to buy with faith), Choral Music (very strong - holy sites can speed you through the civics tree in addition to generating faith for purchases), Church Property (nice to have, but by no means essential), and from there declining usefulness.

This is getting a bit ahead of the game, but for religious beliefs I'd suggest:

Choral Music (Founder belief): This one is really good because it allows you to generate culture at the same time that you generate faith. Faith is more useful in Gathering Storm than in the base game, and therefore building a good number of Holy Site districts and making use of Choral Music becomes very powerful indeed. Jesuit Education is similarly less useful in Gathering Storm because there are so many more ways to spend faith. And by taking Choral Music first you also deny it as an option to everyone else in the game.

Defender of the Faith: Even at +5 strength this is still awesome for a MP game. Denies it to other players and makes it very tough for anyone to attack you. We have never seen anyone running Defender of the Faith get conquered in one of our MP games, ever. Worth taking along with Choral Music as the other initial belief.

Ideally the other two beliefs are Church Property and Wats but there are other good options in both of their belief categories if they would fall. These top two beliefs are much better than anything else can take in their respective categories.

Definitely feels like Choral Music is top priority at the very least. And yeah, even with the nerfs, Defender of the Faith is pretty appealing to me. Beyond the strength bonus, it has a serious meta impact on other players’ decisions and who they choose to target. I think that will always be valuable.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

With Archduke and Hungary both present in the game, anything to discourage aggression our way is desired. I think CM and DotF are the best picks we can make.

As for era points go, most points are going to come from scouting, which we haven't managed much of due to the barbs surrounding us so close to home. But meeting the other players is worth +3 points altogether, finding a NW or two adds some more points, and closer to home the barb camp is worth 3 (since it's so close to a city it counts as a "threatening" camp), and if we can get the Pyramids before turn 60 (I haven't done the math on that), there's another 4. That should get us extremely close to the 25 needed.

[Alhazard]

Also you get era points for a swordsman and horseman i believe.