Chevalier Makes Do

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Good to see that this game is starting off well-reported so far. Here's a quick little update from the turn I squeezed in this morning. Turn is back to marcopolo, so I hope I get a second turn tonight (and I have another PBEM12 turn waiting for me).

Mostly, I just want to show off CQUI:

Turn 2

Here's what the city screen looks like in CQUI.




Information squirreled away on three separate screens is displayed on only one screen here. You can queue buildings, units, even projects over on the right. Food, Housing, and Amenities are all cleanly broken down into their sources, so you know where everything is coming from, and where it's going, at a glance. Right now I'm thinking build order will be scout -> builder -> slinger -> settler -> monument or something like that.

Warrior will do a quick pass up the coast and then down and around back to the city. Scout will start off going west, and then loop back south. We're playing Pangaea, so everyone's on this landmass. With the narrowness of the land near me, and the coast to my northwest, I suspect that I'm near the western coast of the continent. Scout should be able to rapidly confirm that. At the same time, I have desert to my north, with plains and forests to the south. Therefore, I'm probably below the equator. So, we're in the southwestern corner of the Pangaea, most likely. With that in mind, it might be wiser to send my scout due east? Hmmm. But I just want to confirm that I really am on the tail end. 

Once my improvements, barb patrol (the warrior/slinger pair), second city, and monument are up in that order, it's time to burn for Early Empire and Colonization, to begin chopping out settlers. Now, I don't have Magnus, so I don't have access to the promotion to prevent pop loss. So I may not be able to go TOO crazy. But all 4 stones are on the chopping block (aha ha ha) for new cities. I think that's the best ROI I can get from my stone (if the VA wasn't banned I'd save for that and swoop in to snatch it like I did in PBEM7). In the meantime, I'm pondering a galley to see if there's a water path to the other side of the world. The mapmaker often likes to do that (PBEM10 had one), so I might be able to find some contacts across the water that way. 

Here are the great people:




Nobody too exciting. Themistocles is probably a lock for me, and an extra quad won't go amiss. I'll use him as a free scout on the water until Frigates, then burn him and upgrade. The GS is mediocre, which is good news since I doubt I'll be leading in the race (then again...Rome, Japan, Gorgo, Arabia, Russia? I MIGHT actually be first to a campus, I don't have any Encampments or Holy Sites competing for my time!). If I do land him, I know the drill: Grab the easy Eurekas first, then burn him to get 3 bonus ones. 

So far, I'm not thinking any wonders are worth it. The Great Lighthouse is a "nice to have", the Pyramids are good but I have no valid tiles, everything else is too expensive for the return. Better to spend the cogs on more units. 

That's all I've got for today. This game is easy to report on so far. :D

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 3

marcopolo DID get the turn in before bed, so here's a quick update. 

I take a step north with settlervision on and spot a nearby city:




Seems we have neighbors across the desert! 




Oh, and barbs. Fantastic. 

I click End Turn.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn waiting for me when I got home from work! I like these early turns, quick to play, quick to report. 

Turn 4

The city-state saves me some work and comes to meet me in the middle of the desert:




It's Vilnius! Excellent find! Now, as England, we all know about my natural synergy with Nan Madol. That would have been ideal, with monstrous culture generation down the road as I reach Royal Navy Dockyards. But Vilnius isn't a bad find. Culture city-states are probably my favorite to grab in the early game, just ahead of religious ones. Religious states let you skip God-King and give you an excellent shot at first choice of pantheon, but culture states really boost you in the early game and will help bridge the gap to a monument. Culture is far more precious than science in Civ VI, I've found, since you get so many more beakers from population than clefs. With this find, I'm at the top of the culture pack for a bit, until pantheons and new cities start to come into play. 

My culture output, in fact, has tripled from this contact! I was expecting Code of Laws in 12 turns, based on last turn. Now, that number has dropped to 4. I'm going to have a hard time not wasting some of this culture - the foreign trade and craftsmanship inspirations will be hard to land in time. So I won't race quite as far ahead in the culture race as I'd like to. It's a good problem to have, though, better than trying to catch up, for sure. This must be what it's like to play Rome.

So, I have no pressing need to continue north - so where to send my warrior now? There's that barb scout, who slunk off to the east, but I'm also planning on sending my scout that way. Fog-gazing shows that I probably am at the tail end of the land mass:




Vilnius is also on the coast, so probably just up the coast from me. Let's see if we can nail that down, and let the east take care of itself once the scout comes out. 

Well, huh:




Bit more land up there than I thought. It remains to be seen if this is a narrow peninsula or a land bridge. I don't want to send my warrior too far from home, so I just want to climb this hill and establish the extend of land up here, then circle back to help guard against barbs. 

Final overview of my turn:




I pinned some early districts with CQUI, and I speculatively placed a Petra city in the desert. That oasis has one viable settling spot next to it. Now, a city there is absolute garbage, with next to no production or food! BUT. Petra adds 2 food, 2 gold, and 1 hammer to every desert tile. I'd like to settle closer to the hills, but no dice. However, that settling spot DOES have two stone within range, shared with my capital, and some jungle/forest to chop, for 4 possible chops. A triple +100% chop is impossible, due to no Maritime Industries, so we can't 1-shot Petra like we could the VA. But we can get one Stone harvest via Limes, and up to 3 agoge chops (an archer, a warrior, a spearman?), or just straight chops into the wonder (more likely, since the production will make setting up the chops not efficient. It worked in PBEM7 because I was able to pre-build before unlocking the VA, but Petra unlocks relatively early). That will make for quite a nice city, particulary if I can get a monument up and start grabbing those second-ring hills. it's also possible to drop the Pyramids there, if they're somehow not taken. 

The only other item of note is two pins that I put in those lakes at the bottom (yes, they're lakes, not ocean). That's an easy place to keep track of the two values for district discounts. I really want to work hard and nail those, if I can. A is my total number of unlocked districts, C is my completed districts of any type. A MUST be <=C for me to get a discount. Then, so long as I have placed fewer districts of a specific type than A/C, I get 40% off. Should be simple enough to keep track of the calculations this way. 

Okay! Thanks for following along so far, and I'll see everyone tomorrow!

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn Somethin'

I moved my warrior:




More land up here, which is annoying and intriguing at the same time. Gonna loop my warrior back around, though, don't want him too far from home - need him for the barbs that will be spawning soon. I'll wander across the desert, then go south and back towards home. 

The scout I'm thinking I send west, to find land's end, which I'm convinced is near, then I loop him south and over to the east, passing the warrior. Need to decide what to do about that land near Vilnius - could be a land bridge to another continent, could be a dead end? Hmmm...

Sorry I don't have more exciting commentary, but I waited 5 days to make those two clicks!

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 6




I stepped nor'west, onto the hill there. Gonna walk back through Vilnian territory, just to uncover as much of the map as possible. There could be another mountain pass beyond Vilnius, and I'm starting to think that there's quite the substantial little peninsula up there, or again, a land bridge. Might be a destination for a scout after I map my neighborhood (and find my neighbors to the east). 

In the rankings, I can see that Alhazard (I think - not sure of folks' steam names) met a science city state at some point, and Grotsnot found a religious state. That's a little disappointing, since I was hoping for second pick of pantheon after Alhambram. As Japan, hopefully he'll go for a faith-generating one like GOTH or Earth Goddess. I'd really like a culture pantheon like GotOS. If I can't get that one, not sure what I'll go with. Need to look at the terrain a bit more and think about it. 

We're two turns out from God-King and Discipline, which means I need a builder soon (for Craftsmanship) and to  find a foreign continent soon (for Foreign Trade). So, gonna start a builder next turn, and animal husbandry once mining finishes.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 7

We finish our first build of the game! A scout leaves the city of Manticore to explore the wider world:




Foggazing + settler map shows that the rice to the northwest is on the coast, as are the jungle and forest to the south. Overall, it looks like my initial impression of Manticore being located near land's end is accurate, and we're probably in the southwest corner of a larger continent. Maybe it was a mistake to send the scout this direction, unless the mapmaker squirreled a city-state away down here, but I do want to get confirmation. 

This river valley is looking like a viable expansion, much nicer than the northeastern desert. Maybe I'll find a good city site next turn or the turn after.

In the north, things are looking bleak, literally:




Vilnius sits in the midst of a great waste. Petra will make for a viable city here, but I'll want a good chop in order to get it done in a reasonable amount of time. I'm thinking that Monarchy + a wall chop is the best way to do it - in other words, Limes Prime Time. Long way down the road, but the map is giving me little enough else to speculate about.

Anyway, I queue up a builder (10 turns, yowch, but we're growing next turn so that number should look more like 5 turns), and curse the tile picker for grabbing first yet ANOTHER stone I won't be improving and the useless crabs tile instead of the cows I really want.




If it won't grab the cows by the time I'm ready to improve them I'll just have to buy the damn tile. Right now I'm thinking Quarry the stone (masonry eureka), Farm the rice (irrigation eureka), and Pasture the cows (horseback riding eureka, Craftsmanship inspiration). This little builder will more than earn his keep. We'll finish the builder, perhaps crank out a slinger for home defense, and then most likely start a settler. 

Alhambram has finished his first civic and taken God-King, as he's now 2nd in religious ranking. He's also tops in military score, while marcopolo looks to have either spent gold or taken a barb hit, from CQUI.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 8

Okay, God of the Open Sky is starting to look really good. Grotsnot and Alhambram are both going to pick ahead of me for pantheons, but maybe they'll go for something else? ._.




I'm also going to cross the river to the southeast. I think there's a small enough chance that the land continues past the horses that it's not worth scouting at the moment. I admit, the prevalence of jungle down here is intriguing. It makes me wonder if my city isn't right on the equator - there's jungle and forest mixed up all over. I might not be understanding the world generation logic, of course - we all know I'm basically a drooling moron when it comes to the fine details of these games. 

The warrior finds much less of note in the north. Two Vilnian warriors, presumably battling the camp the scout came from. If I can, I'd like to maneuver to snipe the camp myself for a cool 50 gold and the Military Tradition inspiration:




Plan is to try and swing around the mountain to the north, crossing my fingers that there's a path. The warriors block the safer, more certain route to the south.

Code of Laws finishes and I slot God King/Discipline, as per standard operating procedure. We start Foreign Trade, and we'll swap to Craftsmanship in 6 turns to give myself more time to hit both inspirations. 

Overview of everything:




Everyone except me and Alhambram is at 7 score, from 1 pop growth. With domination scores increasing at about the same time, looks like we all chose to work 2/2 tiles to start. Alhambram is at 9 from Code of Laws, I'm at 6 because my score hasn't processed yet - by the time Grotsnot loads the save it'll show 9 points for me, as well.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 9 & 10

Not much of interest in my neck of the woods. 

Well, maybe something of interest. On turn 9, I discover that I am not, as I suspected, on the western end of a large continent:




That Vilnian warrior is also in danger of going down. I'll be able to scoop up the scout cheaply!

In the south, I find a nice river valley. Can probably squeeze two cities in along this river. If I'm isolated, and I do my settler-chop, I think denser cities beat better cities. We'll all work the same tiles, but we'll have more pop and district slots, eh? 




Need to scout more, but right now I'm thinking City #2 is gonna go just east of that hill. A 2/2 first ring, plenty of choppables, and plenty of cows for food. No new luxury, but it does have a mountain for a campus adjacency, and a river for CH adjacency. Or even a lake for an RND! We'll probably build 1 or 2 CHs for district discounts and eurekas, though.

The world as I know it:




What an oddly shaped area. Looks like land is either due east, or southwest/east, with that land bridge off to the northwest. I'm very strongly leaning towards sending the scout that direction. 

Research is lining up well with the builder. We have mining, so in 5 turns I can quarry that stone for a eureka. Turn 6 I can step onto the rice and farm it for another, then turn 7 should be able to step onto the cows and pasture them - or at worst we'll need to delay a turn. 

Finally, a look inside Manticore and my current build queue. Notice that it CLAIMS it will take the cows. We'll see about that.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 11, Probably

I have mapped out my end of the peninsula with two possible  dotmaps, one for optimum density as best I can tell, and one with slightly better first rings. Right now, I'm leaning towards taking advantage of my apparent isolation (do I have my own island? :o That would be eeeeevil when I'm England!) to chop out a bunch of settlers and densely settle my area, then boom the hell out of this thing:




Right now I'm leading towards the "A" configuration. 

Gryphon A, my first expansion most likely, has two 2/2 tiles in the first ring, and will quickly expand to grab the furs. Lots of food from bananas and pastures, so Oral Tradition or GotOS are good pantheon choices. Down the road, Gryphon can pass tiles back and forth with Manticore, with production coming from 3 hills and some pastures. Lots of choppables for quick expansion, which will probably go into settlers. 

Gryphon B no longer seems to have much to recommend to it, now that I look at it - I pinned it before mapping out Sphinx and Gorgon's potential sites. It did bring in more cows to my borders, but that's no longer necessary.

Sphinx A has a 5 yield first ring tile, plus lots of 3-ring easily improved tiles. Sphinx B has closer horses, but pushes the 5-yield bananas out to the second ring. It also precludes settling at Gorgon. Both sites are somewhat lacking in production, but there are no hills at all on this end of the peninsula. We'll make it a dense district network instead, relying on cows and later an IZ for production. Bet Japan would love this site. 

Gorgon is a "squeeze" city, more of a fishing village than anything else. It has rice and crabs first ring, and then everything else would be passed around among the other 3 cities. No production to speak of, but pop and housing should be manageable and it'll generate science and culture for me. Looks like I have no neighbors this direction, so again, I think density is the way to go. Gorgon's settler will cost me ~120 cogs, which I think it will more than make up if I get it settled early enough. It's a lower priority than Sphinx and Gryphon, though. 

Down the road, getting an entertainment district and then Colosseum up here (like in PBEM8) would really get me set up well for culture and amenities in my core. There's more than enough choppables to do that, so again, Limes might be the key civic to shoot for. But even Agoge could get it done. Gryphon can use one of its district slots on the ED, then chop out using forests, jungle, maybe even cattle (does that yield production or food? Can't recall). 

Bottom line: We're building tons of settlers and tons of builders, until I bump into a neighbor who stops me from booming.

[Cornflakes]

Cattle yield food when harvested. Following along with interest good luck!