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1.) Sorry for choosing Canada. My idea was to go for a warlike approach despite their limitations.
2.) You should go either full settler wave or full assault. I think full assault is out of the picture as we are way behind Kaiser and no second soft target is in sight. I would not compromise.
3.) So, grab as much land as possible. What is the worst that can happen? Kaiser conquers you?
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Turn 45 & 46
Okay, downloading an update to Civ VI now. Don't know what the patch notes are since my Steam is presently in Korean. In the meantime, let's hit the last turn and then live-stream the current one.
You all know the major events - I continued to shadow and harass the settler, mostly to make sure he doesn't invalidate Bruins now, since Hurricanes is irretrievably lost. 1/2 of my immediate military force and 1/3 of the total force I was sending to the theater, erased by capricious fate.  What a world we live in, where our warriors drown in the desert. I hate Gathering Storm sometimes.
Oh yeah! Forgot to mention while I was distracted by incandenscent wrath but we met one of Kaiser's pet science states, Geneva!
That's pretty good. If no one suzerains them, great. If they do, we actually have a city-state we can attack, although getting around Kaiser will be tough here, so maybe not great. Anyway, quest is...uh...I forget. Again, incandescent wrath. Sue me. I'll figure out in a few minutes when I get the turn loaded. Kaiser's also got lots of flat, fertile ground. I take the flat ground and force him into the thicker, dry jungle. He could safely attack me on the interturn, so I guess I'll see how that goes.
Anywho, that just leaves our score analysis, so here's the score, followed by my C&D.
Sub finished a settler, Ichabod bumped his score by 3, probs a district, Woden finished a tech (finally). Our score bumped down last turn but then UP this latest turn!? Wait, why is that? We didn't grow back the lost pop from the settler, so why did my empire score go...?
OH! I GET IT NOW! BUILDINGS ADD A POINT TO EMPIRE SCORE! Our granary added a point! Those mysteriously high pop numbers are MONUMENTS AND GRANARIES! Ahaha! So much is explained!
I'll take away some of the ???? points now and chalk them up as buildings.
Anyway here's turn 46
It was a doozy. I really, really wish I had time to do this turn justice but I have to leave in - checks clock - 15 minutes! I'm due downtown for my farewell dinner at 7 pm and the bus ride is an hour, so here's what I can do. I found many, many interesting things and plotted a medium term strategy that is FAR too greedy but should keep us in contention. I think we're okay.
As expected, I open the turn to one of my warriors being deleted by a meteor strike no notifications at all. Kaiser's warrior has slunk off, almost certainly north towards his own borders since I can't see him with my western dude. Sure enough, I bring in my warrior...
My guy and the slinger (promoted, btw) should be enough to keep him from working too much mischief. Right now I think he's gathering information, plus perhaps looking for some opportunistic snipes if war does break out. I'm content to let Kaiser declare first at the moment, since the waiting game favors me. He has to take aggressive action to clear out my scout, not me. I can continue to passively interfere and slow him down, the better to grab a foothold in this fertile river valley between us. I COULD declare war and get the Nationalism inspiration (something only Canada can ever really get, haha), but that's a million turns down the road and why give him Defensive Tactics, a much nearer and more useful inspiration? Let's let this play out.
Interesting. This is the same position I left everything in last turn. I moved onto the coastal plain, as I said, to keep the settler in front of me. I expected Kaiser to sidle to the south and start marching through the hills, zig-zagging towards his preferred spot. Instead, he stood pat. What's he thinking? That if I'm still in place here next turn, he'll declare war? Giving me a turn to back off? Not certain, but I still like my hold here. I intend to stay, but I don't have to be passive...let's dip a space towards Geneva and then dip back.
Interesting:
THAT, dear lurkers, is a natural wonder between us and Geneva. Useful if we want Astrology any time soon, but not urgent. I step back onto our blocking tile.
Okay, +1 culture to surrounding tiles, that looks like...-checks wiki- Matterhorn. Gotta be. Nothing else gives only +1 culture. Okay, so that explains where his settler is headed. I pin two possible Kaiser city sites and resume my blocking position. Show you them in a second. Just southeast, my warrior on the way here got into a tangle with a barb camp, only to find this:
Free 50 gold is free 50 gold. We clear the camp and take it. We still have a promotion due with this chap and he should be okay. I think Yerevan/Geneva have been battling the camp. It takes me out of the way of contesting the wonder site, but realistically we're not going to stop Kaiser settling there, so I've lost the urgency. Instead, we'll bring in 2 warriors for Bruins' security and rethink things now that we know where he's settling. So, here's an updated pin map of the northeast with all our new info:
Kaiser settled city #3 on the expected spot. Geneva's location precludes packing in more than one city in this northern area, so Kaiser's going to push east for Matterhorn, I expect. Like I said, two likely spots. Spot A picks up the rice, horses, 2 wonder tiles, and second-ring whales. It's safe from the south but on the coast and exposed to Phoenician/English marauding. Spot B is more secure. It picks up some wonder tiles and the horses, plus 2 2/2 hills. I'd prefer the northern spot, obviously, which would allow us to settle Hurricanes B in my preferred location. The southern location does NOT preclude Bruins, either A or B. It also allows Hurricanes C. So it's not the end of hte world if he settles it. I'd like to settle first for loyalty reasons, if I can, which might juuust be doable, and I'll have 2 (not 3 -sigh-) warriors on hand for defense.
I pin Hurricanes A as a third possibility. It's not a great city, but it can secure a source of horses and, with Antananarivo, serve as a strong frontier, with an encampment securing the river area. This is my ideal world and I know it's a long stretch to get there, but it's important to have goals to work towards.
Shit fuck just 1 minute left. Um, okay. I also pin Lightning way out in the east. We're probably getting into another player's territory, but it might be the end of the Pangaea, too. We haven't seen anyone (Ichabod? Sub?) come this way yet. I might be able to stake a claim to this region and grab Yerevan to really secure it.
In the west, we spot something very interestink:
A second culture state, near Kaiser. That explains his high culture rate. 2 envoys in culture states for +4, Pingala, and a Sphinx will just about cover it. I'll meet them next turn. Oh, Geneva wants a Great Prophet, by the way, not happening. Bummer.
So, here's a dotmap of the wild west:
Two Blackhawks possibilities. A Ducks site (Relocated from the southeast, which is polar) and a Devil-ducks site, which allows us to squeeze in the city of Devils near Antananarivo. Lots of desert and low production, but bananas/deer give food and production and we have a decent mountain-jungle area for a research hub. This is likely near Woden, though. Keep an eye out for him, and for a continental divide.
Okay here's scores and I'm bouncing, I'm 2 minutes late!
Archduke I'll respond to you later with a strategic analysis I gotta go! love you!
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I don't think that the scout is blocking the warrior settler pair as they can move EE through your scout and overtake you in the race to the easr. (You might do the same on your turn).
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Oh, damn, you're probably right. I forgot ZoC probably doesn't apply when at peace, and I'm sure stuff like that has happened before.
Well, they only have 2 movement to my 3, so I can actually still beat him to both settling sites.
If I have to choose one to block, I'd definitely choose site B, since that is the one more likely to interfere iwth my own plans. I might be able to shape Kaiser's decision here on my next turn. If he sees my scout standing on the desired spot, how committed is he? Does he shrug and move to site A? Found on a different tile than my predictions entirely? Or does he declare war, giving me the inspiration, and we get a brushfire war out here? His military score is only 40, and I can see the two nearly intact warriors, so I think he's having trouble with barbs, too - the predicted other warrior/slinger are badly hurt/dead. Gods, if I had my third warrior I'd have enough strength to even push on this city in the next 10 turns, like Woden and I did to Mike in PBEM7.
Ah, well. For now I plan to pull my guy to Site B and we'll see how Kaiser reacts. My nearest warrior is entangled with barbs, so tbh the scout is going to be unsupported for a while.
Score-tracking wise, Kaiser got a bundle of points for settling near a volcano, I think? He got 3 era score for founding his city (Oh, wait, continent! Probably continent points), while Ichabod finished a district, which is a Holy Site, as expected. Sub will have a third city around the time we do, and Woden has a very high pop but no signs of a settler; I expect it was hidden by pop growth since I should be last to city #3 if current trends hold.
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Turn 47
Quick turn today, then I'm on a bus for Yeosu. Twice more I'll see her, then that will be that. Said goodbye to lots of friends at the farewell dinner last night.
Speaking of, starting next Friday, I'm going to be in transit for most of August and perhaps into September. For those 4 weeks, I'll need a sub. Archduke, Sullla, either of you would be ideal if you have the time, energy, and will. We all know our mutual plans, mostly, although I still need to talk about what I envision for turns 60 - 100.
Kaiser has outfoxed me here and won a turn to build his city. He passes me, THEN declares war, thus preventing me from leapfrogging him. Well, all right then. I take the inspiration and instead lunge deeper into his territory. There are two units I know of healing, so I might bump into them if I'm not cautious, but if I can pillage his campus (for example) with this scout or delete a builder I'll go a long way towards evening the odds. However, his military score spiked to 83 this turn, which looks like 3 warriors and an archer, I wanna say? So he finished a unit/promote-healed one, and upgraded a slinger. Or finished an archer and the slinger died. Who knows?
I think on the whole this has played out to my benefit, though. I cost Kaiser 2-3 turns worth of production, culture, and science from new cities, and I won a few dozen clefs for the Defensive Tactics inspiration. Limes isn't as game-breaking as it used to be, but it'll be good to have. Walls are underestimated here, because people only play with useless ancient walls, but Renaissance walls can't be cracked with anything short of siege weapons, which people hate to build (and there's no card for it! I think.).
I queue up Horseback Riding, though. I can't monitor Kaiser's horses for the next 10 turns we're locked into war, and I can't start my own for about 7 turns, but I want to have the option available. I think after PP my next target is Maneuver, so we can crank out at LEAST 1 horseman to raise our city strength and to garrison Bruins, possibly more. If the war with Kaiser continues, actually, I want to look into pillaging his lands with horsemen. We could do serious harm if he's just going to rely on walls and archers, which won't kill many horses. Conquest is out, but raiding and pillaging is in. Maybe.
I cross my own warrior towards the future site of Bruins, where I'll fort up and heal. I'm a bit worried by the barb slinger heading that way - I was going to link up with my warrior coming up from the south to finish the escort, but, well. Fuck you game.
Anyway, our plaza finishes and I promote Pingala with the science promotion, and start the campus (which I had purchased the tile for and placed as soon as the barb camp gave me the gold last turn). Our science instantly jumps 5 points, to 10.8 per turn, which will halve the time to HBR from 15 turns to 7 or 8. In 9 turns, we'll have both campuses (campi, I suppose) for a further +7 science, taking us to 18 without accounting for population growth. Geneva will bump us up above Kaiser at that point if we can get an envoy.
Speaking of envoys, I meet Vilnius. They want a Holy Site. The game REALLY wants us to go for religion this game, sheesh. I wonder if the numbers make sense to build a single Holy Site somewhere in the civ. We start earning GP points passively, can make use of the faith in a variety of ways, help trigger the district discount, and clear both those quests for 2 envoys total. Probably not, but I'll check with the boys in the lab later to make sure.
Vilnius has met someone other than me and Kaiser, who has an envoy, meaning they completed a quest. Looking at civic progress...Woden has had fastest civic progress after Kaiser, and ahead of me. Conclusion: Woden is almost certainly Kaiser's neighbor to the west. Ichabod and sub might be on their own subcontinent somewhere, might be far to the west or far to the east. Somewhere far from the divide, I think. I'd like to meet Woden to find a potential partner against Egypt if I can.
Scores aren't too bad, apart from our still-lagging empire score. Bruins and our campuses finishing up will make us a lot more competitive there. We're hanging in there. The low era score is potentially problematic in the river valley - Kaiser's golden age pressure against my dark age loyalty might cause us some difficulties. Need to consider a monument in Bruins and possibly make it a destination for Victor, our next governor? Worth thinking about.
That's all for today, I think. C&D on the Yeosu bus.
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I wound up playing my Switch (Civ, naturally) on the bus instead, so missed C&D analysis. I'll do it here - finals week at work so I have time to noodle around.
One thing I forgot to mention is that Kaiser's faith drop shows he adopted his pantheon, and the Gossip screen helpfully told me which: God of Craftsmen. Faith and production to strategic resources, but I can't open the wiki at work - it used to just be mines, did they change it? Kaiser hasn't hooked up iron yet, but he can't have many sites that would profit, so let's assume it'll cover his horses, too. I dunno about that choice, it looks like he gets a trickle of production and faith. Not nearly as valuable as our own pantheon, but maybe he had limited options since he chose last, I think (or sub will choose last, he has terrible culture generation and might be limping along in God-King still).
Okay, scores.
Actually, nothing really interesting beyond the usual so-and-so finished a civic, such-and-such grew a pop (a word which here means "grew a pop or finished a building and I can't be arsed to figure out which."
I did only gain two points for my district, not three. Is that because it's a government plaza? Did they tinker with the score formula since I last memorized it two years ago? If everyone's only getting 2 points per district, 4 for uniques, that's gonna throw off ALL my calculations. I'll need to break down my own score later to see.
...well, what the hell. Let's do it now. I have, per the game, 20 empire points. Two cities are worth 5 points apiece, so I have 10 points still to account for. My population is 6. That leaves 4. One palace and one granary are each worth 1 point apiece. Then my Government Plaza is worth 2. Okay, well, that was easy. We'll monitor my empire score when these campuses finish in ~5 turns and see where things stand, then revise everyone else's analysis accordingly. But buildings = 1, pop = 1, cities = 5 for sure. Districts = 2/3, pending verification on whether or not the Plaza is a special case.
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Turn 48
I feel good, playing. We're still facing a steep uphill climb, and we're definitely the weakest civ at the moment, but we're not that far behind by any measure. I have a pretty good grasp on what Kaiser is up to, and he's not out of reach of us even though he's part of the biggest snowball (until the busted Brazilian religion comes out. We'll keep an eye to see what beliefs Ichabod takes in ~20-30 turns when his prophet comes in).
Biggest news, of course, is that we reached our government:
We are the second in the world to complete PP - our culture is a real strength, and it would probably be dominant if not for Egyptian sphinxes. I also know that Kaiser is building monuments, although I don't know if he's built them in his first two cities. More on that later. Anyway, in the early game, culture is a very important currency, I think even more important than beakers, because it unlocks dramatic snowball civics like Colonization, governments, and governors. Look at how much our science and culture have been kicked up by Pingala, for example - he's more than doubled our research rates and dramatically cut into Kaiser's lead. The remaining Egyptian lead is assembled from Geneva, his campus, and his pop lead.
Because we're at war, I go with Oligarchy, although I debate Autocracy - the +1 yields in the capital might be helpful. Ironically, though, I don't have many useful civics to slot for our government, so this is what I go with:
Agoge as an emergency button to train more military units if I see signs of Egyptian horsemen. I know what Kaiser is building, I think, though, so no need yet, we can work on our campuses. Urban Planning is obvious. I go with Charismatic Leader for a few extra envoy points, but in two turns when our next civic completes we'll drop into Diplomatic League for two turns to send an envoy, almost certainly to Geneva over Vilnius - I'm comfortable with our culture generation for the moment. That will net us 2 envoys, but the third will be a long time coming since they want a Great Prophet, sadly.
That leaves a puzzler as to what to do with the final slot. Caravanserais is useless for about 10 turns until I get a trader out, and we'll have frequent policy swaps. Ilkum and Colonization, likewise. Land Surveyors could come in handy in two turns after I found Bruins, but for now it's also useless. In the end I'm actually torn between Discipline and God-King, evne though God King represents only 2 extra faith and 2 extra gold in the time I'd run it. I decide to go with Discipline since I'm not sure what the barbs are up to in the northeast, and with Oligarchy it'll make my warriors basically immune to barbs for a bit.
Next up is Mysticism, with the goal of grabbing the envoy to drop into Geneva for 2 more science points, slicing into Kaiser's lead a bit. Then we'll just need one more point to boost our libaries by a further +2, which will be a net +10 science once I get around to building out a pair of libraries in our campuses. Military Tradition gives us Maneuver, which I want for horsemen soon, but we won't be starting horsemen for 4 turns, and the earlier we get the science online the better.
up on the "front" my scout is hidden behind a tooltip, sorry, but it's an important tooltip:
Kaiser is pursuing me with his warrior. No worries, my scout can keep ahead. Now, Matterhorn WILL promote Kaiser's units with Alpine, but I know this warrior didn't find Matterhorn - the one in the south, near me, did, because it came down from the north, while THIS warrior was escorting the settler. And Kaiser didn't take the time to grab the promotion, opting to immediately pursue. The danger is running into his other warrior and archer up ahead somewhere. He's fighting barbs - note the power drop from last turn - but getting my scout trapped will shortly end him.
I WANT to move onto the campus and pillage it, but it's on hills, regrettably. That means I can't move onto the campus next turn, but can only enter the jungle hill. That makes me nervous, since if there's a unit in the fog ahead I could find myself trapped between them and killed before I could pillage the campus. If I CAN pillage the campus to boost my science and hurt Kaiser's, I'd trade the production cost of the scout for that - I think the hammer cost comes out in my favor. Need to decide in the next 24 hours if I should make the risky move towards the campus or keep heading west.
Now, a dip into strategic view makes it easy to see what Kaiser's up to in his cities. The new city queued a monument:
Always possible he started a monument but swapped to an archer or something, but that seems unlikely - it's not like monuments go up in cost. Kaiser wants to get loyalty up and start grabbing tiles, I suppose, plus the city has few other useful options. If he was planning on aggressively pushing me, I'd expect an archer build, so that's a good sign. I don't think a rush in the next ~10-20 turns is in the cards -knocks on wood-. That's good, since archers and warriors can't really stop horsemen.
In the north, the same trick reveals he's working on a library. Again, possible he queued it and then swapped, but it seems unlikely. That cements my belief that Kaiser is peaceful atm. Note also the road on the campus tile - it must be adjacent to his city, which I believe is his capital. Next turn, do I go north and try for the campus? Or west and keep harassing the builder? Tough call.
Final situation in the north:
Bruins due in 2 turns, which will make me 4th to 3 cities, unless Woden founds next turn. Sub founded his third city this turn.
here's a strategic overview of everything, including my planned empire:
You see how essential Antananarivo is to my security. It's central to every single damn city in the empire except the far eastern cities. If we don't have it under our control, we simply cannot be competitive in this game. Unfortunately, due to Canada being the worst civ in the game, we alone among everyone can't do much about it. We need someone else to either take suzerainty (unlikely when Vilnius and Geneva are better options as envoy sinks) or to conquer it (ie, Kaiser) and then we take it off them. Thus, a military policy is going to be necessary sooner rather than later. The nice thing is the city is equally vulnerable to us, with easy access from all directions, and then easily held against attacks from the north with the river and thick terrain. If I can take it and settle a Hurricanes location, I should have a solid front against Kaiser to build everything else out.
So, my goal is to push out a small military to cover our expansion and be prepared to react if we get a favorable situation against Antananarivo soon. Our existing warriors I will try to preserve to upgrade into a core force of about 3 swordsmen for city attacks, while I back them up with 3-4 archers and 3-5 horsemen, which will be expensive to maintain but should be more than adequate. A GG will finalize things, but that requires slotting an encampment into the build queue. Possibly at Bruins to lock down the north? I dunno. My first build there is probably an archer for security - I don't like Kaiser leading me in power.
Scores:
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Fast turn tonight. Dinner downtown. Update this evening?
Finals week is over and now I have a week of classes to teach - 5 a day D: - so no more time at work to update either (not that I could upload screenies from work anyway).
You'll see very little of me from now until September, friends
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Posting from my phone: I met Bologna just north of Vilnius last turn. Best of all, their quest is eureka Recorded History...which we accomplish in 7 turns. :o
If I drop my double mysticism envoy there we get suzerainty in 7 turns. They declare war on Kaiser and give us all their scout data. We give up an envoy in Geneva in the short term, costing us 2 bpt starting 7 turns from now until we scrape up another, but giving us 4 GS ppt!
I wanna do it.
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That sounds like a good trade to me.
So who is playing the turns next month? It sounded like Kaiser volunteered for that other, non-Realms-Beyond PBEM, not this game which he is already playing in.
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