Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Singaboy]

I am aware of the fact that Forbidden City can't be built using charges. However, with 7 charge builders (post pyramids and with serfdom), it should be possible to develop an city in such a way, that it can build FC in a reasonable time frame. Chops could also be used for such an undertaking. The extra slot is well worth the investment in my mind. Same goes for other OP wonders such as Great Zimbabwe. It remains to be seen whether we can find a suitable location for that though. It would require CH with a market and cattle adjacency. Not something that is found easily.


Here is a suggestion of changing Mahabodi location to cater for Great Zimbabwe. Sure, it would take away the nice forest hill, but the potential for commerce would be huge, if we think, we could get that wonder.
The wonder gives +1 trade route, +5 gpt and +2 gpt per bonus resource in the city territory for trade routes FROM this city. If wheat and rice would be inside the borders, it would be +8gpt per trade route (wheat, cattle, bananas, rice)

[Sullla]

Hmmm. The issue as always with wonders in Civ6 is whether their cost is worth their effects. For example, an extra policy card slot from Forbidden Palace is nice, but that's 920 production that could have gone towards something else. We could practically have an entire army's worth of units for that cost. I don't think we should rule it out entirely but I'd lean towards not building it until much later in the game when the relative cost is much less. If the wonder build time is more than 15 or so turns, it's probably not worth it. The one exception to this rule is the Venetian Arsenal, which is not banned in this game and I think we should prioritize very heavily. We can't have England building that wonder or we'll be in trouble. I'm hoping we can identify a good spot for that wonder and set things up to build it well in advance. Everything else is "nice to have" but not essential.

That said, we definitely should built the Mahabodi on that eastern forest tile to leave room for Great Zimbabwe later on. It costs us nothing to do so and that's a very helpful wonder to have.



The barbarian scout in the north chose... not to move at all. Uh ok. We can live with that. I moved the slinger a tile southeast where the barb unit will either need to run away or attack. The only possible escape route is west-northwest-northwest; there's literally nowhere else possible to go. I'm really hoping I can kill this unit next turn and get that Archery boost.

But if that doesn't work, there's another barbarian scout to kill in the south, the one that was triggered by Hangzhou earlier. It went berserk because its camp was cleared last turn, and chose to attack my slinger on the hill. I went ahead and shot it again this turn:



I ended up with a low damage roll but that was fine. It should attack the slinger on the hill again on the interturn but shouldn't take enough damage to die, then my slinger will kill on with another stone next turn. One of these two slingers should manage to finish off a barb scout next turn! Note as well that I finally have four slingers on hand. They'll start moving down towards Ostia to be upgraded into archers, with the hope of launching an attack against the Industrial city state around Turn 45. Roma starts a 6 turn settler intended for the eastern natural wonder area. Lots of excellent tiles to work over there now that it's been de-barbarianed.

Bronze Working research also finishes next turn and will reveal the iron locations. That may also influence where I decide to settle; I would really like to get the boost for Wheel tech and build a watermill in both Rome and Ostia. Now, with nothing else happening this turn, let's take a look at some of the religious spread mechanics, brought to you by the disciples of Marco Polo:



By looking at the religious lens, I can see how long it will take my cities to convert to the new religion. Lisbon, Roma, and Ostia are all getting religious pressure from Hangzhou; they are all too far away to have any pressure coming in from Quanzhou, as religious pressure spreads to cities 10 tiles away naturally. Roma takes longer to convert because half of the population needs to become followers of Marco Polo, and that obviously takes longer in a size 4 city than a size 2 city. We'll need one or two missionaries to convert our core cities, and after that natural pressure should quickly convert new size 1 cities. So how does that pressure work?



Clicking on a city under the religious lens will display this information which, as always in Civ6, has no documentation and is never explained. Love that interface guys. The information on the left side displays how many followers there are of each religion in the city; Quangzhou has 2 followers while Hangzhou has 4 followers. The circular graph displays this in visual form over on the right side, with everyone in Quangzhou being part of the religion and 4 out of 5 population in Hangzhou having converted. The number on the left is how much pressure the city is receiving from each religion. The number on the right is how much pressure the city is exerting for each religion. Here are the basic rules from a guide on CivFanatics: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/s...on.623723/

Passive Pressure
A city with a majority religion will passively spread that religion to other cities within 10 tiles with the following pressure values
A city with no holy site = 1 pressure per turn
A city with a holy site = 2 pressure per turn
A Holy city (including Jerusalem with suze) = 4 pressure per turn.
A trade route to a city = 1 pressure per turn (but also feeds 0.5 pressure of their religion back)
The Scripture Belief increases city pressure by 25% initially and 50% after Printing is discovered.
A city does not apply pressure on itself.

This matches what we can see here. Hangzhou is the Holy City and is exerting 4 points of pressure on Quangzhou. The latter city has a Holy Site district, so it exerts 2 points of pressure back on Hangzhou. Cities need the following to convert:

Conversion
A city will be converted once more than (or equal to?) 50% of the population is converted.
The conversion of a cities population appears to be based on the accumulation of pressure over time as follows

50 pressure points to convert 1 population of an atheist Population
100 pressure points to convert 1 population of a religious city
200 pressure points to convert 1 population of a holy city

I thought that my cities would count as "atheist" population, but apparently my pantheon or the fact that I'm another civ gets them considered as "religious" cities instead. That's why it takes 26 turns for Ostia to convert: the city needs 100 pressure points to convert 1 population into a follower, and at 4 points/turn that works out to 26 (well, 25) turns. I dunno what's going on with Roma, maybe it's slightly harder to convert a capital city or something like that. Like I said, we'll need one or two missionaries to convert the cities on our continent, and then they can work together to start converting everything else that gets founded. We may also want to consider Itinerant Preachers (religious pressure spreads 30% further - 13 tiles instead of 10 tiles) or Scripture (religious pressure is 25% stronger boosting to 50% stronger after Printing Press) beliefs to help in this regard, although I think it might be better to take Holy Order (30% cheaper missionaries) instead, both because it's useful and to deny it to the other teams. We can think about that more later.

I have more thoughts about the score rankings for this turn but I've got to run now. More to come later.

[Sullla]

OK, let's talk the score situation as of Turn 35:



We're on top at the moment although I'd caution that early game scoring, and scoring in general, can be pretty deceptive at times. I'm going to try to break down where these points are coming from for each team, and hopefully infer from that where each team has strengths and weaknesses. I'll start with our team:

Team 2: China and Rome
Cities: 4 (2/2)
Population: 13 (7/6)
Districts: 1 (Holy Site)
Techs: 9 (5/4)
Civics: 10 (5/5)
Extra Stuff: Great Prophet, Stonehenge, Religion with Divine Inspiration and Church Property

I don't have too much to say about our team here because we've already filled up a thread full of posts about that. Our biggest strengths right now are having 13 population points and 5 civics apiece researched. We also have outstanding gold generation, although that doesn't show up in the score tracking. If we have a weakness, it's that our science generation is on the low end because we haven't found any Scientific city states and we didn't build an early Campus district. Our score is slightly overinflated because Stonehenge counts for 5 extra score points and that's a lot this early. Let's move on.

Team 1: Russia and Germany
Cities: 4 (2/2)
Population: 13 (8/5)
Districts: 3 (two Lavras and one Campus)
Techs: 9 (5/4)
Civics: 5 (3/2)
Extra Stuff: Great Prophet, Religion with Choral Music and Defender of the Faith

I said before the game started that I thought EmperorK and TheArchduke would be our biggest competition and I've seen nothing to change my mind since then. They were slightly faster than us to reach two cities apiece and they claimed the first religion, picking up two strong beliefs for it. They are tied with us at the moment for the most population in the game at 13. The biggest thing that their team has been doing is cranking out districts, with three in total (two Lavras for Russia and a Campus finished this turn for Germany). With Choral Music for those Lavras, Russia is going to be a cultural powerhouse in this game later on. Russia will claim the first few Great Writers uncontested and that plus culture from shrines/temples will propel them through the civics tree. It was a really smart pick that will pay off in time as they get those Holy Site districts up and running. Combine that with Defender of the Faith to stymie attackers and the awesome lategame power of Hansas and Cossacks, and this team is probably the favorites to win at the moment. (Note that their score is somewhat inflated as well because Lavras count for 6 points each instead of the normal 3 points for districts.)

They have one huge weakness at the moment however: they put so many resources into early game expansion and districts that their culture is terrible right now. It won't be for long, once Russia gets the Choral Music engine going, but their civics research has been very slow thus far. They are by far the worst of anyone in the game right now with only 5 total civics researched and only 2 of them done for Germany. That's Code of Laws and either Foreign Trade or Craftsmanship - not both. With Singaboy and I about to land Political Philosophy in half a dozen turns, that's a seriously behind pair of civs. Slower access to those governments and crucial policies like Colonization is going to hurt them in the near future vis a vis the other teams. To compound this, they are also dead last in the Military ranking right now, although it's pure guesswork what that means. Maybe they haven't been able to run Agoge because they don't have Craftsmanship yet, I dunno. So while this team looks like very strong competition, they definitely have their own weaknesses that we may be able to exploit. I'm really curious how long it will take these Colonization-lacking teams to expand out to three or four cities each. Hopefully some time.



Team 0: Khmer and Kongo
Cities: 2 (1/1)
Population: 8 (5/3)
Districts: 1 (Holy Site)
Techs: 12 (6/6)
Civics: 9 (5/4)
Extra Stuff: Great Prophet, Religion with Jesuit Education and Tithe

This is the team that sniped away Jesuit Education from us when Singaboy couldn't found a religion due to the lack of having a pantheon. They're going to have a lot of faith income with the various Khmer abilities and Jesuit Education will be a powerful tool in their hands. I think this team is going to lead the pack in science for the immediate future, with the combination of that belief and their oddly strong research thus far. They must have found a Scientific city state on their starting continent because they're a full tech ahead of everyone else in the game. If they can conquer that city or save it to power up their Campus districts, then combine it with Jesuit Education, their research strength could be tough to beat. (They also have better than expected civics research so they probably met a Cultural city state somewhere as well. That or I'm missing something.)

The biggest weakness of this team has been expansion. They got that early religion that they wanted, but man, they paid a price for it. Neither team has a second city out on the map 35 turns into the game, and that's a real problem. Mikeforall's Khmer team has been sitting at size 3 without growing for the last 22 turns by my count. That's the only way you can get a shrine and double Holy Site district projects done in the first 32 turns, by crushing the growth curve for your civilization. Similarly, Kongo grew all the way to size 6 on a single city (apparently that's how they scored the Early Empire boost) and then just finished a settler this turn to drop back to size 5. I thought that was a bad play by Yuris in PBEM1 and I'm guessing it's a weak decision here as well. I'm honestly not sure how their game is going to play out from here, whether they made a brilliant opening with their religious stuff or they shot themselves in the foot completely.

Team 3: Nubia and England
Cities: 4 (2/2)
Population: 9 (5/4)
Districts: 0
Techs: 9 (5/4)
Civics: 5 (3/2)
Extra Stuff: none

Uh, what are these guys doing? The score display doesn't lie in showing that they are last in almost every regard. While both of them do have a second city on the map, they were slow to expand with Woden only getting his second city established on Turn 31. They barely have more population than the Khmer/Kongo team that hasn't expanded at all. They have zero districts completed and their civics research has been just as bad as the Russia/Germany team. Unlike everyone else, they have no religion established and most of the desirable beliefs are already gone now. I don't have the faintest clue what's been happening with them. My only guess is "something with barbarians" because they're listed as being first in military strength. Did they get swamped with barbs and then have to crank out military units to survive? Is this part of an elaborate scheme to get an early conquest of a city state? Whatever the plan was, it's not working thus far. This is our top target for future expansion - they look weak and ripe pickings for conquest once we get past the era of Nubia's overpowered early archer.

I have one other theory to pass on about the scores. Based on what I've been seeing, I think this map is likely mirrored between each team's starting positions. Each team has had one player who grew very fast (China, Russia, Kongo) and one team that grew very slowly (Rome, Germany, Khmer). I don't think that's a coincidence, and a mirrored map would also help to explain the pattern of the pantheons that were taken. For example, God of the Open Sky was still sitting there at the sixth selection, while Oral Tradition, the one that gives culture to plantations on sugars/spices/bananas/etc., went at an early date. No one seemed to want Our Lady of the Reeds and Marshes, which is normally a hot commodity. All this makes sense if we have a mirrored or very similar map. I'll be interested to see if that guess holds true.

[Singaboy]

Turn 35:

AH is done and archery slotted in. Hangzhou has finished its builder and goes for quick slingers. The city makes 12 hammers a turn and with Agoge in place, that's 18 hammers a turn, hence 2 turn slingers. This will fit in nicely with 4 turn to PP, when Colonization is enabled and a settler started.

My warrior attacked the barbarian camp a second time and redlined the warrior there. It might be possible to take out the camp next turn.



I micromanaged tile assignments in Quanzhou. The city will still grow next turn but works the production heavy tiles. This way, we can switch production to the Holy Site again in 3 turns. I would like to finish the second Holy Site before producing a settler there, so that I can research writing. I will be stuck soon with research in order to profit from that district discount. There is no point to delay all research though just for a discount on that.

As for civics, after PP, I plan to head right for theology so that I can build the Mahabodi as a side project with mere builder charges. It would award 2 Apostles for Evangelizing two beliefs. Of course, I will need to research mysticism & Drama and Poetry before that. Having netted all Inspirations by now, this will cost me:

Mysticism: 20 culture
Drama and Poetry: 44 culture
Theology: 48 culture

Currently, I am making 5.1 culture a turn. This will slightly increase next turn with pop growth, maybe 5.3. I reckon to get mysticism by roughly T42. By then the pyramids + autocracy are adding 3 cpt, so let's say I make roughly 8 culture a turn. This would mean D&P and Theology take 5 + 6 turns, hence a target of T53 to finish them and being able to start Mahabodi. Remember that I can easily use all 5 charges from a builder to build the wonder on T58 (any overflow of the charges will go into the next production). Do we think T58 is on time to nab the better beliefs?
It might be a good idea to build a shrine before the Mahabodi in order to prevent another surprise (maybe Apotles can't evangelize without a shrine)

If we fear T58 is a bit too late and Russia able to beat us yet again, we might want to produce a monument in Hangzhou after the settler. This might not make a big difference though in the end.

[Sullla]

OK, a couple quick thoughts:

* I think you should heal your warrior up in the north for a few turns. Remember there's a barbarian slinger up there too, and it would be a waste if your warrior cleared the camp only to have the barb slinger then finish it off immediately afterwards. Also, in 4 turns you'll be in Autocracy and have two Military policy cards to work with, and for lack of other choices right now one of them will likely be Discipline. Might as well clear the camp with the +5 strength bonus and more health on the warrior.

* For district discounting purposes, let's see, the formula again is:

C = total number of completed districts (regardless of type)
P = placed districts of the specific type in question (e.g. Commercial Hub), this includes the sum of completed and uncompleted districts of the specific type
A = available districts to build, which is based on techs discovered. (e.g. Astrology + Writing + Bronze Working = 3 available districts)

For a specific district type, the discount is available only if both of the following are true:
1) C>=A
2) C/A > P

Thanks again to Cornflakes for the information. Right now China has Holy Site districts available and nothing else, with one Holy Site district finished and another placed on the map. That means:

C = 1
P = 2
A = 1

With A becoming 2 once we research a second district type. That will be Campus districts when Singaboy finishes Writing tech, so to make a long story short, as long as China doesn't unlock any more district types, a Campus will be discounted when the second Holy Site finishes. I think that we definitely do want to take advantage of this since we'll both need to get some more science going. The best tile to place a Campus district appears to be on the wheat tile 2 east of Hangzhou, which will be the next tile the city's borders grab. What do you think Singaboy, perhaps the Hangzhou build order is double slingers, then a settler with Colonization, then a discounted Campus after harvesting that wheat tile (?) We will get a free builder with 5 charges when the Pyramids completes that can do stuff like improve the sugars and harvest the wheat tile. (The one monkey wrench here is that finishing Drama and Poetry civic unlocks Theatre districts and would then stop the Campus from being discounted. We'll have to think about this.)

* On the future civics path, I agree that China should go after the bottom of the civics tree for the time being while Rome pursues the top of the tree. Not only is there Mysticism/Drama/Theology, which have all been boosted, but Recorded History is down there too, which would open up the Great Library as a possibility. Maybe we'd even be able to construct it in time to make use of some of the boosts, which pretty much never happens. (That wonder should be changed to boost all Classical and MEDIEVAL techs/civics, which would then make it useful. It's silly to have it come at the end of the Classical era and then boost a bunch of stuff that everyone has already researched.)

* For the Mahabodi, we do want to construct it sooner rather than later to enhance our religion. But there's no rush here; an apostle costs about 300 faith to purchase and Russia is currently getting something like 5 faith/turn. In my last Single Player religious game, where I do nothing but focus on faith generation, it took me until almost Turn 100 to get enough faith to enhance my religion with two apostles. There is absolutely zero chance that anyone is enhancing their religion for the next few turns, and that means a wonder ETA around Turn 60 should be fine. I know I was already wrong about religious finishing dates, but trust me on this one.

* Hopefully I'll get the Archery boost next turn and you can swap research off Archery and towards something you actually want right now. Writing probably.

[Singaboy]

Ok, let's see what building a campus at Hangzhou on a harvested wheat tile would mean:

T37 switch research archery to writing
T39 PP done, Aristocracy, charge 1+2 for pyramids, Hangzhou starts settler (with production of 20 should take 5-6 turns)
T40 writing research done, charge #3 for pyramids
T41 archery research finished, charge #4 pyramids done -> builder appears at Hangzhou (assumption), builder at Quanzhou gets additional charge for a total of 2
T42 wheat at Hangzhou harvested (can be done later too), after that builder can mine hill, improve bananas + sugar and citrus
T43 builder improves horses Quanzhou
T45 Hangzhou starts second settler (140 hammers, takes 7 turns)
T47 builder uses last charge to improve sugar at Quanzhou
T49 Holy Site finished at Quanzhou, start construction of campus at Hangzhou at 40% discount
T50 able to finish Drama and Poetry
T52 second settler is done at Hangzhou, starts builder (62 hammers)
T56 Theology done, Mahabodi charging starts

The issue is what do I do for research from T41 to T49, because BW and currency shouldn't be finished due to new districts. I could research both to one turn completion of course as well as the wheel. After that holding time, it would be good to get to iron working and mathematics as soon as possible for the wonders they hold. Also, maybe Hangzhou should build 2 settler then the builder for Mahabodi. Two settlers take the city roughly 12-13 turns.

[Sullla]

Hmmm. Normally I wouldn't suggest double settlers out of the capital because it takes too long to regrow the lost population, but with those sugar and citrus tiles at Hangzhou I think it could work out just fine. And since we need Quangzhou to be working on the Pyramids and then its Holy Site district, the capital is probably the best place to get out some more cities. I think I like that plan. As far as research goes, yeah we can research Bronze Working and Currency to within 1 turn of completion and decide when the best moment is to finish them. That will be enough to keep China's research busy for the moment.

Quick turn report for me. I might post more later, I want to do some more thinking about upcoming city planning.



The barbarian combat played out as expected in the southern part of the map. The scout attacked my slinger on the hill and didn't quite manage to kill itself, so I finished it off and earned the Archery tech boost:



Yay! Finally. Now Singaboy can stop researching Archery tech on his end and work on something we actually care about. In other barbarian news, the scout in the north moved away from my slinger yet again and is located on the tile southeast of the wheat. That's the only place it can be right now since it was on the northern citrus tile last turn. Singaboy, I stopped chasing it with my northern slinger because I need to start moving south for the upcoming assault on the Industrial city state. I think that the barb scout will move right up next to you on the following turn, so I would fortify in place for now with your warrior and be ready to intercept it when it heads for the camp. I don't see any way it can get to the camp without your warrior having a chance to attack it, and it's on near-death status so will fall easily to your unit. Just be prepared to deal with the scout so that we don't have a camp erupting on us in the north.

You may have also noticed that we can see iron resources now that Bronze Working research is complete. There's one in the third ring northwest of Rome that I'll be wanting to connect sooner rather than later, and there's also one over here:



I'm probably putting a fourth city somewhere in this region since there's fresh water over here. I need to defog a few more tiles before making any final decisions. Over by China, there's iron on the desert hill tile where we plan to put Jebel Barkal and a second iron further to the southwest. Looks like plenty of the strategic resources available to everyone on this map.

Nothing significant in the score tracking this turn, just a random tech or civic finished being researched elsewhere. Over to you for now Singaboy.

[Singaboy]

@Sulla,

don't forget that on top of being a food heavy city, Hangzhou will get even more food via harvesting that wheat, most likely pushing Hangzhou to pop 6 before the first settler is out. It will drop back to pop 5 while producing settler #2.

Anyway, on to Turn 36:

Quanzhou grew to pop 3 having the effect of science and culture inching up a little. The warrior fortified in place to be a little safer. The slinger moved south and spotted more rainforest. I plan to move it SW and then SE to defog the area. Having iron on the Jebel Barkal location is a little unfortunate, but you can't have it all. Well, the wonder itself will provide me with 2 iron, so there is surely no shortage. I kept research for a turn on archery, so that I can finish it quickly when needed. I switch to writing next turn as planned.

Hangzhou will have a very nice overflow after those two slinger going into the first settler. Making 18 hammers a turn currently thanks to Agoge, the second slinger production will end up with an overflow of 13 hammers. Those slingers will be able to escort the settlers and generally help make sure barbarians are kept in check. With this overflow, Colonization civic and a base production of 12+1 (Autocracy), it will take 5 turns for the 110 hammer settler. This means the settler will be done T44, a turn earlier than estimated.

Quanzhou grew to pop 3. I assigned the third citizen to work the horses for the added production. The city can go for higher growth later on. For now, it is important to get the Holy Site out as quickly as possible. Current production will reach the threshold of 35 hammers in 2 turns. I can then swap over to continue with the Holy Site. The indication is that it would take 12 turns for the Holy Site. The estimate was T49, a turn earlier and that should be possible due to an additional hammer from the horse pasture as well as the overflow from pyramids. Things are looking good.

There is of course another thing I can do to speed up production a little and that it to swap out of Corvee once the pyramids are done and mysticism comes in. I can then enable Urban Planning for an additional hammer in both cities. With Theology and the construction of Mahabodi, Corvee gets back its slot.

[Sullla]

Yeah, the Agoge overflow into the first Chinese settler sounds very nice. Changing out Corvee for Urban Planning is also a good idea. Where are you thinking of sending those Chinese settlers? There are two clear choices from what I can see: along the northern river sandwiched between the two wheat tiles, or on the western lake on the plains hill northeast of the horses. I think those are the two locations where the next two Chinese cities should go although I could be talked into either order. The western spot has better land but also requires more builder labor to get going. I think I have a slight preference for the northern double wheat location because it can borrow the sugar tile from Hangzhou to grow quickly, then use a strong 1/3 forested plains hill for production. What do you think?

My turn itself was quiet, so I'll run through that and then get into some serious city planning.



Here's the overview screenshot of my territory. For once, there are no barbarians anywhere in sight. I moved the selected slinger a tile and then promoted it with the standard Volley (+5 against land units) to heal. The other injured slinger is currently healing in Ostia, and all four slingers will be at full strength when Archery tech research completes in four turns. I'll be able to upgrade and then start positioning for the attack on Turn 41. So far, I can still see only the one warrior from Buenos Aires - which is in the way this turn! - and the city's defensive strength remains 15. With four archers firing away, it should be a relatively easy city capture. I hope so since I can't put the location under formal siege. That's why I wanted four archers and not three, as the fourth one puts the damage per turn over a tipping point. With only three, you're only just barely outdamaging the city's regeneration rate and it takes much too long.

My damage warrior was blocked from returning back to friendly territory so it will simply heal in place for the time being. It's at 20 HP right now and I'll need about five turns to stage for the attack, which will put it back close to full by the beginning of the war. That's all I can do since the stupid city state warrior is in the way right now.



Scouting in the east revealed that some of this water is a freshwater lake and not the ocean. I'm going to move the warrior and the slinger in this area east next turn to reveal more of what's down here. I'm really hoping there's one more freshwater tile so that I can get two cities on this lake at four tiles distance. If not, I'll figure out a dotmap accordingly. This is some very dry land in the east, and unfortunately there's only one mountain to the south of Lisbon that I can use for a Bath district. I still think I can get four total cities in this area but it's going to be tight spacing in some places.

One noteworthy score increase this turn as Mikeforall's Khmer establishes his second city. I expect Japper's Kongo will do the same this turn or next turn, since he recently popped out a settler himself. The real question here isn't when they get their second cities planted, it's when they get their third cities established. Everyone else has had two cities for quite some time now. The advantage of waiting so long is that they could build the first settler very cheaply via Colonization policy at the 50% discount. The tradeoff is that their second cities were delayed so long that they'll take a while to get going. Singaboy's city of Quangzhou is size 3 and has a wonder done inside already, while my second city is size 2 and mostly finished with a trader. When your second city is a dozen turns late, any savings from having Colonization in place while training the settler are probably lost in the delayed start up time. But it got them the religious beliefs that they wanted so probably justified here.

More to come in a little bit, I wanted to get the turn report up first.

[Sullla]

I'll start this post by discussing Civ6 tile improvements at a general level. One of the questions I've kept asking myself about the early game is when to prioritize improving tiles with builders and when to ignore builders to crank out units or settlers instead. Unlike Civ4, where getting workers out and improving tiles was always the right decision, Civ6 is not as clear cut. There are a lot of starting positions where builders aren't particularly needed in the early game. Take Singaboy's capital city of Hangzhou for example. It's a really strong city with a 5/0 sugar tile and a 4/0 citrus tile for food, then a 3/2 forest hill spices tile and a 1/3 forested plains hill tile for production. We've improved exactly one tile there with a builder this far: a plantation on the spices to add 2 gold/turn to the tile's yield and connect an amenity. That's it. Everything else has been working the naturally awesome yield of those tiles. Some starting positions simply don't need builder labor in the early game.

Other starting positions do need builder labor, however. My capital in the PBEM1 benefitted enormously from builder labor:



At this city I farmed the rice tile to take it from 4/0 to 5/0 yield, pastured the horses to take them from 2/2 to 2/3 yield, and mined the plains hill to take it from 1/2 to 1/3 yield. Those three builder actions made the capital significantly faster to grow and stronger from a production standpoint. So that's the first key question to ask about builder labor: can you meaningfully increase the yield of the 3-4 tiles that your capital will be working in the early turns? If so, then it's probably a good idea to train a builder. The second key question is whether an early builder can provide crucial tech/civic boosts for your civ, and in fact this is often more important than improving tiles themselves. This game was a classic example of that, as we needed one of our two civs to train a builder for the Craftsmanship boost. We picked Rome because Rome would benefit much more than China from the early builder labor (getting wheat farms for more 3 food tiles and a pasture on the sheep for +1 production). These are therefore the main two reasons that I think about when deciding the need for an early builder.

Over time, however, you want to move from working unimproved tiles to improved tiles. Strong capitals can get away with ignoring improved tiles in the early game, but eventually improved tiles start to become much better and can't be ignored any longer. When does this happen? I'd say the main breaking point takes place in the late Classical / early Medieval era through the combination of two things: Apprenticeship tech and Feudalism civic. Apprenticeship adds +1 production to all mines and that changes the production dynamic. In the early game, a forested plains hill (1/3) has the same yield as a mined plains hill (1/3). There's little need to emphasize builder labor just to get the same tile yield. Post-Apprenticeship though, the improved tile is clearly better and it's worthwhile to start cutting down those forests and replacing them with mines, getting the chopping bonus in the process. (Since the chopping/harvesting bonus grows over time, unlike in Civ4, it's better to save the chops until you can actually benefit from the tile underneath. That or if you have a pressing need to finish something RIGHT NOW. But you don't lose anything by waiting to chop in this game.)

The other big change comes from Feudalism. This civic allows for the creation of the Feudalism Farming Triangles, which means that a single carefully placed farm can be worth +2 food instead of +1 food. A trio of plains farms become 4/1 tiles and those are pretty darn good. At the same time, Feudalism unlocks Serfdom civic and takes builders up to 5 charges, a huge deal in making them more effective. At the same time that improved tiles are becoming much stronger, the cost per worker charge is dropping precipitously. Whereas before chopping/mining a forested hill tile would eat up 67% of a builder's usefulness, now it only uses 40% of a builder and make the whole thing much more viable. So for me, the arrival of Apprenticeship/Feudalism is the big crossover point when it's crucial to start getting all the tiles improved. You can also think of it this way:

Foodhammer Yields
Foodhammer = 2: terrible tile, never work if possible
Foodhammer = 3: bad tile, try to avoid working
Foodhammer = 4: good in the early game, bad after Apprenticeship/Feudalism arrival
Foodhammer = 5: exceptionally good in the early game, everything should be this after Apprenticeship/Feudalism arrival

The fact that Singaboy's capital has multiple unimproved tiles with a foodhammer yield of 5 demonstrates how awesome it is. OK, now let's try to put this theory into practical use and lay out some city plans, starting with the capital:



Roma's big problem is that it lacks food resources. There's a 3/1 bananas tile and then a pair of 2/1 wheat tiles that I've farmed to get them up to 3/1 yield. Even when working all of them though, that only means +5 food/turn... which Hangzhou can get from a single tile. (By the way, I'm actually happy to have the weaker capital city. It's more fun to work around and I enjoy the challenge. ) My biggest goal in terms of planning has been trying to get more food into this capital by any means possible. It needs a watermill in the worst way and I'm going to be heading for Wheel tech to unlock that sooner rather than later. I will probably research Writing -> Wheel next and cash-rush a watermill in the capital so it can concentrate its production on builders and districts. I'm also going to use my first trader for a trade route to bring in extra food.

City planning involves two things: workers and districts. After the settler finishes, I'll train two builders. The first one will go off to improve city #3 at the eastern lake, because that city will need improved tiles to get up and running and it won't be able to train its own builder as fast as the captial can. The second builder can improve three tiles at the capital and I thought about about which ones to improve. Eventually I decided that I will mine the iron (duh), plantation the bananas since the capital works it every turn, and chop the forest on the plains hill where the Commercial district is slated to go. I thought long and hard about putting a Commercial district there because plains hills are excellent tiles and you lose one when putting a distrct on top of it. I decided that this would be OK though because Roma has so many other plains hills: six of them in the second and third rings. That's enough that losing one of them isn't the end of the world. I'm going to try and funnel that chop via Agoge +50% overflow into the Campus district, which goes next to the southern mountain. I can get +2 science adjacency bonus from the mountain (+1) and then two half bonuses from the jungle tile and the Campus at Ostia. Eventually the jungle tile will be cleared and I'll put some farms over there in a triangle but that will come later on. An Industrial district will go up in the north later next to some hill tiles and there's room for a fourth district to its west when Roma eventually reaches 10 population. The Bath district goes on the only eligible tile, and I'll be sad when I have to harvest that wheat tile to place it.

Now a look at Ostia:



Ostia will be working on a settler for some time after that trader completes; I think it will take about 9-10 turns to build a settler at 140 production cost. (It can get 10 base production at size 3 while stagnating on food and I'll be running Colonization policy to help out.) I may have Roma pop out a builder to help Ostia after that, we'll see how everything lines up. Ostia is another city that desperately needs a watermill for additional food, although I can resolve a lot of the troubles by farming the rice tile, which will take it up to 4/0 yield. A watermill would tip it up to the very nice 5/0 yield and allow for working more hill tiles. I also want to try and get a Campus district done here quickly, since that will get the +2 science adjacency bonus for the mountain and being next to Roma's Campus plus the city center. With a builder's three charges here, I would likely farm the rice and then either farm the wheat or chop a forest somewhere. Putting a camp on the deer for +1 gold/turn isn't worth it at the moment.

The longterm district planning is fun here. I can get an eventual trio of Commercial districts, all on the river, all of them next to each other for some serious cash. Ostia's Commercial district goes east of the city and then the captured city state can plant a Commercial district on the tile next to it. Then I can get a third Commercial district from a city on the white dot in the jungles, and that's the spot where I want to send the Ostia settler. I know it's encroaching on Chinese territory, but having a Roman city there opens up all kinds of useful tile sharing with Ostia and the city state. They can pass around tiles back and forth and rack up all kinds of adjacency bounses. It also looks like the land in the southeast is weaker than over here in the jungles, and we want to make sure that all of our early settlements are powerful spots. This location is out of Jebel Barkal range and I think we can still get six Chinese cities in range of the Colosseum even without giving China this spot. So I might be getting a bit selfish here on land, but I think it does benefit our team in the long run. We can, uh, give China the spot at the tundra lake in the far north to compensate. That's fair, right?



This is where the settler out of Roma is going to head. The land up here normally wouldn't be too good, and I'm not going to try and do the district planning in great detail until we have a chance to finish exploring. The whole reason to plant here is the natural wonder combined with several pasturable resources. I'll be sending a builder here immediately to improve the cows, the horses in the second ring, and the grassland hill tile southwest of the pearls. That tile will have a yield of 2 food / 2 production / 2 culture/ 2 gold when mined, going up with Apprenticeship and eventually Industrialization. There are also spices and pearls here to connect later on for amenities, and the borders will expand very quickly with a free monument plus all those tiles with cultural yield. Seriously, at size 3 with those three improved tiles this city will be producing 7 culture/turn, double what my whole civ makes at the moment. It will be a bit weaker from a production standpoint but that's OK.

A future city will go at the black dot location, specifically so that I can then harvest the wheat and put a Bath distict on that tile. It's the only place in the middle of the map where I can get a city with a buildable Bath district. This will be a later filler location, maybe city #6 or #7. Then I'll also get at least one and hopefully two cities along that southern freshwater lake. I don't want to do the planning until all of the tiles are defogged.

Finally a few thoughts for Singaboy on Chinese planning:



This is where I would suggest putting down the Chinese cities, with the caveat that we're still exploring the deep south and things could change there. Still, these spots would give us some very strong cities and also line up close to the maximum possible bonus from the Colosseum and Jebel Barkal. I indicated cities in range of the Colosseum in orange, cities in range of Jebel Barkal in blue, and cities in range of both in yellow. I count five cities that will be in range of both, with six total for the Colosseum (seven if it somehow also grants the benefit to my city) and seven for Jebel Barkal, although that includes a tundra fishing village that might not be worth founding. It's really neat how it works out that there's just barely enough room to get all these cities in range. And aside from the tundra fishing village, these aren't crummy cities either. A whole bunch of them are on plains hill tiles for the double production plant and there are resources and jungles and forests everywhere. I'm really excited to put these wonders to use. Jebel Barkal should be easy (no one is building a 400 production cost wonder in the near future), and we should be able to chop out an Entertainment district at the discounted rate, then build Colossus with China's unique ability. We're looking at 30 faith/turn from Jebel Barkal (!) and 12 culture/turn from the Colossus, plus all the amenities, plus China then being able to trade Rome every amenity on the map since Singaboy won't need them. Say hello to perma-Ecstatic cities for both of us until we have to deal with war weariness.

Whew, that was a long post. I need a break for a bit. Let me know what you think Singaboy.