[SPOILERS] scooter tries Civ6

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Congratulations on the lil' scooter!

[suboptimal]

Congrats on the new arrival!

[Banzailizard]

Adding to the congratulations!

[Brian Shanahan]

Congratulations on the scooterín. Won't be too long befure they can cover as turn player for you.

[Alhazard]

congrats

[scooter]

Thanks everyone . It’s been an incredible week even if it’s been a bit light on the sleep. Back to the game.

Turns 47-48




I noticed something absolutely massive last turn. I’m not sure how long it’s been like this, but clearly there’s a city right up here. I deeply regret getting up there and turning around way back, but it is what it is. So, I think these loyalty levels mean there’s a city with a governor up there? It’s a lot of loyalty generation, and I don’t think city-states generate much (if any?) loyalty, so… is that Alhambram’s city? I think it is. This shatters my ideas that our cities were all forever apart from each other. The plan now is to get my Longxi warrior up there ASAP to see what’s there.





And then I noticed another thing on this turn - Alhambram’s power is very high. It’s twice as high as mine. Err, I think he levied military from a city-state…? He’d have to build quite a lot of units to be double my military, and he had his 3rd city slightly sooner than I did. It seems a lot more likely he got a 3rd envoy into a city-state and levied than anything else. That’s…. kinda ominous. Especially since we’re seemingly so close. So it’s decided - we’re going Archery-HBR next just in case. It was already the way I was leaning, but it feels like the definitely correct choice.

I also chose to delay purchasing the Holy Site tile for now even though we now have the gold to do so. I want to get my warrior up there and get some vision and make sure he’s not sending anything at me before spending that gold that could be used to upgrade my slinger and/or purchase a unit. It could well be he’s not sending anything at me, but it seems wise to be a bit cautious. Any thoughts on this?





Also looks like I found another city off to the west. It’s a very small amount of loyalty on just one tile, so I really don’t know if that means city-state or what.





With Masonry in this turn, I put my first builder charge into the Pyramids. The other builder (with 5 charges) is on his way and will be able to start charges on T50. Those 6 charges will get us to within 22 production. That’s actually going to be kind of tricky to generate. I’ve been working the 3/0 wheat, and now this turn I’ve swapped to the 2/1 wheat so I can sink 2 production/turn into it. We grow in 4T (down from 3T on other Wheat, worth it in this case), at which point I can work the gross 1/1 tile for 3 production/turn. It’ll have to do.





I’m bringing our Slinger back for now until I get better vision on the north. In Xian, my plan now is to complete the Government Plaza in order to upgrade Pingala, and then I’ll probably build a settler barring anything from Alhambram. Ugh, I should have sent him a DoF offer. Mental note to do that next turn and see what he does. The Holy Site is slightly delayed for the moment unless someone can talk me out of that.

[scooter]

By the way, I'm nearly positive those loyalty pressures were not there a few turns ago. I could be wrong. I don't know the last time I looked at that region with the settler lense (mostly using that with scouting units), but I know it couldn't have been too long ago. Suggests it's a semi recently settled (or governed?) city rather than a city-state.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Woof, yeah. Personally, I think we should upgrade to Condition 2 at least, with Condition 1 waiting until you actually see an invading army.

I flipped back through to turn 46, the turn we met Alhambram, and his power was identical to yours, before spiking 90 points. 90 points...that's like 3 warriors and 3 slingers, or something, probably a bit less since I believe gold is factored in to total strength. Which is about right for a city-state's military. With his cheap upgrade ability, that could be a storm of swords (heh) coming down on you given the gold he has in the bank.

Which brings me to something else weird: If he levied last turn, where did his gold come from? I don't know much about levy costs, but he's up +31 gold from turn 46, so unless he's generating game-breaking amounts of gold per turn, he didn't spend his own money on the city-state. He could have harvested a copper or something, I suppose, and used the resulting spike to rent his army. If that is the case (lots of ifs here), then he's probably going all-in on rushing someone - and given the close proximity of that city, it's probably you. Longxi, at the very least, should think about throwing up some walls, just in case. And after PP is in, some of the military civics are probably in order, especially getting Maneuver unlocked to build a defense force of horsemen. 

In the meantime, getting that warrior up to sniff things out is crucial. I think it's at least an 8-turn march from the nearest place his borders could be to Longxi, so an early warning will be very nice. I'd think about walls->horsemen at Longxi and current builds ->horsemen everywhere else. If they're not needed, you can hold them one turn from completion to save maintenance, while letting our horse reserves build.

As for hte loyalty pressure in the west, I think that's a result of pop growth. Could be a city state or a human. Hard to say.

[Alhazard]

I thought city states don't give any loyalty. Definitely agree with walls now. If alham doesnt accept DoF, you could consider declaring on him just to meet the city state he suzareined for the PP boost.

[Banzailizard]

Which brings me to something else weird: If he levied last turn, where did his gold come from? I don't know much about levy costs, but he's up +31 gold from turn 46, so unless he's generating game-breaking amounts of gold per turn, he didn't spend his own money on the city-state. He could have harvested a copper or something, I suppose, and used the resulting spike to rent his army. If that is the case (lots of ifs here), then he's probably going all-in on rushing someone - and given the close proximity of that city, it's probably you. Longxi, at the very least, should think about throwing up some walls, just in case. And after PP is in, some of the military civics are probably in order, especially getting Maneuver unlocked to build a defense force of horsemen.

I agree it looks like this is not based on a levy.  Maybe he levied a while ago and used the discount from his civ to upgrade?  Still seems hard to believe he could get that much gold that fast. I suppose he could have lined up some barb camp clears and a harvest but still.  Actually it is even more worrying if he has not levied, since that means his military power can still theoretically spike beyond its current value.

Absolutely get started on the walls. They are even better since one of the patches in the spring, it should deter aggression quite a bit. He is not accumulation GG points too is he?