[SPOILERS] scooter tries Civ6

[scooter]

Swap the tile SE of the pyrimids to Changsha.  2 chops should finish the walls.  Better that than letting it die.  One more chope then for the horseman next turn.

The problem with this is the builder by the Pyramids has only 1 charge left, so I can't then chop a horseman next. I'd have to wait 4 full turns for it to slow build as the other builder walks back towards Xian. We could get a 2nd and 3rd one quickly that way, but we'll be waiting quite awhile for the horseman. Not sure I can afford that.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I think you should prioritize getting a fast horseman first, since that will raise your city's combat strength. If necessary, you can send the horseman to Changsha and garrison the city, which will hopefully buy enough time to get walls up. That should slow him down to pillaging a farm or something (trivial with China's excess builder charges to repair).

Pulled something out of Woden's PBEM15 thread for future reference:

Fighting over Antananarivo with suboptimal. I should have brought the fight to Bologna instead and made him was a bunch of envoys there. I would have needed a few more envoys and should have built the Apadana instead of the Great Bath at Bomb Cyclone. That would have gave me 2 more envoys, then I could have built the Great Bath at Polar Vortex for another 2. That would help me control Antananarivo and take the fight to Bologna sooner.

Apadana might be a wonder to consider for countering Hungary down the road. +2 envoys per wonder we build would let us fight him in the city-states we can't kill (ie, Bandar Brunei, or one of his backline states that we'll discover when he gets around to declaring war). Obviously a luxury we can't afford right now, but if the situation stabilizes, before we build our next wonder we might keepe this in mind.

[scooter]

Apadana might be a wonder to consider for countering Hungary down the road. +2 envoys per wonder we build would let us fight him in the city-states we can't kill (ie, Bandar Brunei, or one of his backline states that we'll discover when he gets around to declaring war). Obviously a luxury we can't afford right now, but if the situation stabilizes, before we build our next wonder we might keepe this in mind.

This is actually really interesting... I just wish we had the builder capacity to do it. If we can stabilize over the next few turns, this may be worth considering - kneecapping him by sniping his city-states away from him.

[scooter]

Turn 56

Sorry, reporting is going to be a bit simplified and laser focused on defense right now. I was wrong earlier - I got 43 production from the chop rather than 41. Still, it's going to be tight.





I went ahead and prioritized the horse chop at Xian and decided to play things tight at Changsha. I'll explain this momentarily. The Longxi walls complete EoT, so I suspect Alhambram will either go on a pillaging spree, or he'll beeline Changsha and hope that it has no walls. My remaining builder next turn will run along the SW border of Changsha and will go chop at Xian in a few turns. I've also started Bronze Working since it's a quick tech. I know spears are kinda worthless against Swords, but perhaps less worthless than warriors if we survive that long. Plus we can build swords of our own. Let's look at the Changsha timing.





I hope that's visible. These markings are where Alhambram's furthest forward sword can be and how long until wall completion at each point. Assuming they can move 4 tiles, I believe the first one can get to the grass hill next turn (with 2T left on walls), and then on the following turn it can get next to Changsha with 1T left with 1 movement point remaining, which he can use to hit the city once. I know so little about Civ6 combat, but I'm pretty sure it would survive? If not, let me know, and I can place my warrior sacrificially in the sword's path, forcing it to expend movement points to attack it and waste a turn, which is all I need to complete the walls.


The Horseman meanwhile I believe will complete end of next turn (EoT57) after chop + 2T production. If it's beelining Changsha, we get onto the forested hill T58, then into (or next to) Changsha T59. Longxi is 1T further away I'm pretty sure thanks to needing to cross 2 rivers.


Question: I know archer melee strength is quite bad. Does that mean my Battlecry promoted warrior is actually the better Changsha defender, and the archer should sit behind it and hit from range? Or is that not feasible given the extra movement on Hungary swords?

[scooter]

TRIPLE POST TIME

Apadana might be a wonder to consider for countering Hungary down the road. +2 envoys per wonder we build would let us fight him in the city-states we can't kill (ie, Bandar Brunei, or one of his backline states that we'll discover when he gets around to declaring war). Obviously a luxury we can't afford right now, but if the situation stabilizes, before we build our next wonder we might keepe this in mind.

Sorry, but this got my brain going a bit. So, the issue right now is we have just one builder, now with 4 charges left, and at least 1 of those is absolutely 100% earmarked for horseman chops, if not more than that. That said, I had a thought. This is all assuming we survive the next 4-5T and we can stall out this attack until Alhambram can send a ram.


Our golden age starts in like 4T, and we'll of course take Monumentality. The hope was definitely to buy a settler, but what if we purchase a builder or two instead, and then use that to build Apadana. All we'd have to do is be able to defend the builder, and we wouldn't need to use up any actual city production. We can place it 1SW of Xian, which should be fairly defensible. We're also picking up a natural envoy in 8T, so Apadana + natural envoy = 3 envoys. Those + Diplomatic League means we could dump 4 envoys into one of Alhambram's suzerains, instantly wiping out his levied army. This would be something like 10-11T from now, but if we can survive that long, it might be our way to end the war before a ram arrives. Sure, we'd probably be pillaged to death and in shambles, but our builders can do nothing else in the meantime besides chop as any improvements will just get pillaged. And it's not like we can build or buy a settler because Alhambram would just kill it. It's kind of a longshot, but maybe?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 56



I hope that's visible. These markings are where Alhambram's furthest forward sword can be and how long until wall completion at each point. Assuming they can move 4 tiles, I believe the first one can get to the grass hill next turn (with 2T left on walls), and then on the following turn it can get next to Changsha with 1T left with 1 movement point remaining, which he can use to hit the city once. I know so little about Civ6 combat, but I'm pretty sure it would survive? If not, let me know, and I can place my warrior sacrificially in the sword's path, forcing it to expend movement points to attack it and waste a turn, which is all I need to complete the walls.


The Horseman meanwhile I believe will complete end of next turn (EoT57) after chop + 2T production. If it's beelining Changsha, we get onto the forested hill T58, then into (or next to) Changsha T59. Longxi is 1T further away I'm pretty sure thanks to needing to cross 2 rivers.


Question: I know archer melee strength is quite bad. Does that mean my Battlecry promoted warrior is actually the better Changsha defender, and the archer should sit behind it and hit from range? Or is that not feasible given the extra movement on Hungary swords?

I believe that should work. The horse finishing will immediately bump your city's combat strength to 25 (strongest unit-10). I stuffed a combat formula into my PBEM8 or 12 thread, let me dig it up, hang on...

-sound of shuffling papers-

...aha, here we are. 

[img]https://i.imgur.com/5FsdUtn.png[/img]

So, Alhambram's swords have a base strength of 35, +5 for being levied (because free units and extra movement wasn't enough for Firaxis, apparently) = 40. According to my chart, we can expect 50+/- 10 damage. The city has 200 hp, so it can take maaybe 3 hits, but a 4th will capture it. Walls will boost this time significantly, cutting Alhambram's damage by 85%, down to ~10 or less. Since he'll be blasted by the walls and your archer (not to mention the horsemen on the way), that should secure the city.

As for garrisoning, until the horseman completes the warrior is your best garrison, because his melee strength is higher. But after horses, the warrior/archer question is moot - the city's base strength is higher.The archer would be safe behind the river for a turn or two, but Alhambram's faster swords could definitely run it down. I think it's worth keeping the archer relatively safe inside the city and increase your fire. They don't do much to swordsmen, but the damage should add up.

Our golden age starts in like 4T, and we'll of course take Monumentality. The hope was definitely to buy a settler, but what if we purchase a builder or two instead, and then use that to build Apadana. All we'd have to do is be able to defend the builder, and we wouldn't need to use up any actual city production. We can place it 1SW of Xian, which should be fairly defensible. We're also picking up a natural envoy in 8T, so Apadana + natural envoy = 3 envoys. Those + Diplomatic League means we could dump 4 envoys into one of Alhambram's suzerains, instantly wiping out his levied army. This would be something like 10-11T from now, but if we can survive that long, it might be our way to end the war before a ram arrives. Sure, we'd probably be pillaged to death and in shambles, but our builders can do nothing else in the meantime besides chop as any improvements will just get pillaged. And it's not like we can build or buy a settler because Alhambram would just kill it. It's kind of a longshot, but maybe?

Can we build Apadana with pure builder labor? Hmm...

I'm intrigued by the idea. I like the thought of kicking Alhambram's free armies out from under him. I also like that it seems like a decent long-term solution to the levy problem. We could have Apadana in our pocket, and save the envoys until Hungary gets cute again, then dump them in targeted waves to dispute suzerainty (pair with Amani for best results). We murder any city-states we can and envoy-neutralize the rest. This also lets us build for the future while still defending ourselves. 

Downsides: it's more straightforward to use that builder labor to chop for horsemen, and we need a standing army one way or the other for security. 10-11 turns may be a long time to wait, but it should be in time to stop a ram. Hell, it'd be funny to wait for the ram to show up, then delete Hungary's army and burn the ram ourselves. It also seems a shame to use the faith, when we're already behind on expansion. But like you said, we can't exactly build a settler right now anyway.* The builder will be vulnerable outside the capital, though.


Hm. It seems risky, but also like we'd win a lot of style points if we pull it off. I defer to the judgment of others here. 

*I just want to again express my irritation at how casually Hungary can choke us at no cost to himself beyond some piddly gold. Even if we survive the attack - I give us good odds of that now, north of 80% - we'll still be really behind and vulnerable to the NEXT attack.

[scooter]

Downsides: it's more straightforward to use that builder labor to chop for horsemen, and we need a standing army one way or the other for security. 10-11 turns may be a long time to wait, but it should be in time to stop a ram. Hell, it'd be funny to wait for the ram to show up, then delete Hungary's army and burn the ram ourselves. It also seems a shame to use the faith, when we're already behind on expansion. But like you said, we can't exactly build a settler right now anyway.* The builder will be vulnerable outside the capital, though.

FWIW, I think in this plan we can do both. Xian has 4 forests that can be chopped without doing serious harm to the city. 1 of those goes next turn to the expiring builder. Then we'll have our northern builder with 4 charges left and 3 forests to chop. I think we can chop all 3 and use the remaining charge + purchased builder for Apadana. Whether we SHOULD is of course debatable, but "can we kinda do both" is definitely a yes. And I'm struggling to see another use for Monumentality as long as we're choked.

[scooter]

Popped open the save, and uhhh. WTF.





(Ignore the 3T to walls in Changsha, it's actually 2T.)

Apparently Alhambram got to hit Longxi once before the walls completed? What's up with that? When I played last turn, it says walls had "1T remaining." And they have completed since them. I wasn't sure if in a PBEM if production completes end of your turn (like in Civ4) or at turn roll, but it shouldn't matter because turn order was scooter -> <turn roll> -> Cornflakes -> TAD -> Alhambram. So why was he able to hit my city without walls?? Does production seriously not happen until the beginning of your next turn? That's insane. This game is already super punishing on turn order - even worse than Civ4 - but this makes it feel even worse.


This also really screws up my Changsha plans, too. My whole timing there was based on the assumption that Alhambram would only get one attack against Changsha prior to the walls completing, but now he gets a full extra turn to hit it. I would have chopped the walls to completion last turn had I known that. So there's a real chance my game is just done because of that because now he can get 3 or maybe even 4 hits on the city before walls come in.

[suboptimal]

All of the "yield processing" (techs, civics, production, great people points) and "passive" unit actions (healing and I think fortification bonuses) occur at the start of your turn. After you hit Next Turn the engine moves any of your units with queued movement (e.g. traders). If any of their queued movement is invalid (for example, unit moving into occupied tile in the in the fog) you'll regain control of the turn to deal with the issue immediately.

One of the other side effects of this is that you might have a tech or civic with 1 turn remaining, pass the save along and then load the next turn to see you still have one turn remaining because something negatively impacted your yields in the interim. This tends to happen when you have a lot of yield coming from a contested city-state (like I did with Antananarivo in PBEM 15) and someone else takes control.

[Ichabod]

Civ 5 has the same production at the start of your turn rule and it makes me crazy. Another annoying consequence is that actions taken by your opponents turn will affect your outputs and there's nothing you can do to avoid it. In one PBEM, I missed some critical timings, that I've spent a long time number-crunching to achieve, because Pindicator converted my city to his religion in his turn, which changed my pantheon and the city output.   

In your situation, it might be relevant, though I can't remember if enemy units prevent you from working occupied tiles.