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As a French person I feel like it's my duty to explain strikes to you. - AdrienIer |
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Woden's Rise and Fall from Civ VI glory
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It makes me slightly sad, but Nan Madol really is too good to be kept alive in anyone else's hands. If suboptimal is your neighbor, it'd be doubly bad since Indonesia builds on coast anyway.
I Think I'm Gwangju Like It Here
A blog about my adventures in Korea, and whatever else I feel like writing about.
I forgot about the faith for coastal districts. If it is suboptimal, he will benefit greatly from Nan Madol and even more reason to take them out quickly.
Turn 33 Open the save to the boost for Early Empire. Here is what I know after moving my units...  Not much else to tell. Here is the current score break down...  Rowain finally settles his second city. Suboptimal is in the lead with 4 techs and 2 civics plus a bunch of era points. I will probably drop off in the tech race as I am going to research Iron Working and Archer down to 1 turn to save on the cost of the encampment at Methone. 
Turn 33 cont.
Forgot to mention that I switched civics to Craftsmanship (due in 2) since I will have enough faith to get the pantheon in 3 turns and want to get out of God King ASAP. I also switched out of Archery and started Iron Working. Strategic Plan I wanted to wait to develop a strategic plan until I had a better picture of the land around me and I have been going back and forth on a few decisions: (1)where do I want my next city to go, desert or the horse city; and (2) what pantheon do I want take, faith or culture generating? As for the location of my third city, the desert city would be nice as I can buy the jungle tile west of the sugar and have it work the sugar out of the gate for fast growth and then buy the northern copper to be able to share the iron when needed. This city will be an economic hub for my empire. It will get the government plaza and a commercial hub, plus it will allow me to place the commercial hub for my capital next to the GP. The horse city in the south has 3 horses (1 1st-ring and 2 3rd-ring) and can share the southern sugar at Methone for faster growth. I could get a 3rd encampment down faster, it is closer to where the front lines might be, and has better land (no desert). I think I am going to go with the southern horse city. I think long term, it will be better to get that city to a decent size before the desert city. I might be short of gold once I go full-on military mode but should be able to get desert city going within a decent time. As for pantheon, a faith based pantheon like Goddess of the Harvest or Earth Goddess would be nice (if either are still available) but I think a culture based pantheon (God of the Open Sky or Oral Tradition) is going to help me more in the short term. I will have to figure out some faith generation in the future to utilize faith buying of builders and settlers. Faster culture will mean a better government and production cards (aka the calvary card) sooner. Tech-wise, I am going to research Iron Working down a bit and may fit Pottery and Irrigation in after I get the encampment at Methone placed. I will finish Archery once I get a few slingers via chops out and then bring horseback riding down to 1 turn. I will finish Iron Working and Horseback Riding once the Era changes. I am planning on getting a Dark Age in the Classical Era and sling shot to a Heroic Age. I could try for a Golden Age now but not sure if I can get out my unique barracks plus a swordsman and horseman out in time. Better to plan on the Heroic Age. Plus, I am not sure how long the Classical Era will last since I think most will head straight to Apprenticeship. Civic-wise, I am going to finish Craftsmanship in 2 turns, then head to State Workforce to get Magnus online, then Foreign Trade and Early Empire. Doubtful that I will get the boost for Foreign Trade since I am most likely done with exploring for the time being. Don't want my neighbor to know I am here. Magnus will be the first governor, than Amani into Carthage to get Suzerain and the +2  to barracks.City Builds: At Pella, it will finish the settler, then a builder, then the Encampment. After that maybe another builder, then chop out a settler, and build its barracks before head into military mode. At Methone, it will finish its builder, then a slinger to be chopped into the encampment, then a builder and barracks. At horse city, will start a slinger to be Magnus chopped into an encampment. Then build its barracks and units. I will have to fit a trader to send to Nan Madol somewhere, probably at Pella but not sure of when. Once I get the barracks up in the cities, it will be non-stop military builds until I go broke of I have enough to move on my neighbor. This should help finish Apprenticeship fairly fast, as each horseman or swordsman are worth 25  War-wise, depending on my gold and the Era switch, I think I will start attacking Nan Madol sometime around T60-T70. I think it will mostly depend on when I get the Trader out and it finishes its road to Nan Madol. My plan is to send it out of Methone and then when I declare war, I will send it to Pella for a nice road from north to south. Once I take Nan Madol, I will build a ram and continue marching towards my neighbor and see if I can find them. If I can take them out quickly and I am alone on this continent, I should have a big advantage as I can push expansion and settle the whole island. Well, that is the plan for the next 30-40 turns right now. Let me know what you think or of you have questions. Let's hope we can get through the next 30 or so turns before the expansion patch drops and we lose overflow chopping.
Turn 34
Open the save to...  Finally get to get out of God King and Discipline put in something better. I go with...  Agoge for chopping and Ilkum instead of Urban Planning because I will get a better return as I am building builders in both cities of the next several turns. Warriors move and reveal a little more of the map. Nothing to interesting. Check over the leader board and see something interesting...  Rowain (wgh) is now 2nd in culture. So, either he met a cultural city state or build a monument. It is possible that he is my neighbor that met the cultural city state and my misunderstanding of how the cultural ranks are established. I am not sure. He would be a tough neighbor too, since he gets +100% when declared war on. I don't know who I prefer, suboptimal with the possibility of fighting DotF units or Rowain with +100% for 10 turns after I declare war. Only time will tell. Since I haven't posted it yet, here is the current Era progress...  Next Era is 10-27 turns. Most likely closer to the 27 turns, as I think it is early for the majority of players entering the classical era. I am 2nd in science and have at least 11 turns until Iron Working can be completed and I pretty much beelined it. I suppose if there are 3 other players beelining something similar, it could end in 10-15 turns. I am not going to finish Iron Working anytime soon. Similarly in culture, until last turn I was 2nd and nowhere near completing a classical civic. Turn 35 Uneventful turn. Moved my warriors. Decided I didn't want to push anymore west with my southern warrior, as it is possible my neighbor is just southwest of Carthage and it looks like some flat land in the west. He will swing north along the mountains to defog north of Carthage...  I have over 25  now and should get the pantheon next turn. Settler finishes at Pella and I start a builder. Settler moves south to horse city spot.
Turn 36
Start turn off with my pantheon. I select...  I am third to get a pantheon and Goddess of the Harvest and Divine Right were already selected. I went with God of the Open Sky since it will help immediately and I have a bunch of animals to pasture in the future for some cultural benefit. No much revealed with unit movement but I did check the current score...  Suboptimal jumped from a score of 44 two turns ago to 53 this turn. He finished a civic and gained 5 era points. I check Nan Madol...  Looks like he finished Mysticism and put a third envoy into Nan Madol! He is my southern neighbor as no one else has finished a 3rd civic for the envoy. Nan Madol must die soon, don't want to gain too much of a lead in civics. I will have to run some numbers to see how fast I can take the city, might mean a change plans. And I will have to watch the GP screen to see when he will get his religion. Definitely want to stay hidden as long as I can to not alert him to my presence. Nan Madol might see my southern city but no preventing that. Hope their units stay south.
I am rethinking my settling plan. It might be better to settle the desert city first. I could settle the city on T38 versus T42. This would delay being spotted by Nan Madol. I know Nan Madol has a warrior north of the city and even if he doesn't get eyes on a city or a unit, suboptimal might still be able to see the borders under the fog. This might not be a big deal but if I were suboptimal and saw my neighbor is one of the best classical age warriors, I would go full on military production the minute I see him. The longer I stay hidden, the less units I have to kill. Of coarse, my units are going to be more expendable than suboptimal's, as I will get science for each unit built and gain no war wariness, but still it would delay taking him out.
A bonus for settling the desert city first is that it has a higher early production potential, with a shared iron and better gold production over the long term and both will help fielding a larger army. Culture will hurt a small amount as the southern city has a 1st ring horse but I can build a monument as the 1st build. Yes, I think I will settle the desert city first. Turn 37 Uneventful turn. Moved units and didn't reveal much. Settler moves across river and will settle city next turn. Here is life as we know it... 
Turn 34
Founded desert city and am first to 3 cities...  I buy the jungle to the east and swapped the sugar to the new city. Reworked the tiles at Mathone, which dropped builder a turn and increased the growth buy a turn. Slinger that was covering slinger is moving to Methone for builder protection in case a barb scout appears for the fogged area near the coast. Warrior down by Carthage will defog last tile next turn and then head to Alexanderia in case the scout by Hattusa sees my capital. I think the camp is either down by Carthage or up in the hidden tundra; couldn't find one on the map. Otherwise, not much else to report.
Turn 39
To my surprise, I open the save to...  I met suboptimal of Indonesia! But where, I don't see anything. None of his units and no Nan Madol units in sight. I click the notification and it takes me here...  Most likely a Nan Madol warrior or one of his units sitting on one of the hills between the cows and horses near the middle of that screenshot. That didn't take long. Oh well for wanting him to not find me for a while. All good thing come to an end. Let's have a look...  Pearls hooked up, 175  in the bank, and making 14gpt. Pretty good but more concerning is his science rate of 13 and culture of 9.4 . Plus a military power of 150  What the hell? To start, his science rate is twice mine and I have an envoy in a city state. Maybe he found a couple of science city states? More likely is the natural wonder at his capital is a science generating one. With his high gold generation and high science output, it might be Yosemite? That or the Great Barrier Reef or Galapagos Islands plus a few gold generating luxuries. High culture can be chalked up to Nan Madol. From that, we can safely assume he is on the coast. Lucky start! I have a great start but it ain't no Yosemite, coastal start with Nan Madol in the neighborhood start. A little more concerning than any of the others is the 150 military power. How? That's like 4 galleys, 2 warriors, and a scout, or 6 warriors and 3 slingers on turn 39. What is going on here? It has been bothering me all night. It has been only 10 or so turns since he finished Foreign Trade and could use the +100% navy card. I guess you can chop 4 galleys out? Why? Why do you need 4 galleys? I can understand 2 for ship building but why the other two. Is he having major barb troubles? Is there an island with a passage to other continent were you would need ships going in 4 directions? Sorry, I am rambling, I am missing something here. Maybe he is planning early aggression and going after Carthage? Still, 150 is high for that. Hopefully I find out soon, as this will bug me for a while. One thing is for sure, I need more units. I switched Alexandria to a slinger and will switch out the encampment at Pella for a quick 2-turn warrior. Builder did finish at Pella and started the encampment. Builder will pasture the sheep, mine the iron, and stick around to mine the copper in a dozen turns. The builder increased cost added a turn at Methone. Here is what it looks like before I hit end turn... 
Turn 40
Open the save to find...  Rent-a-warrior! This is why suboptimal's military score is so damn high. He has levied Nan Madol's army. Why? I could think of better ways to spend 80-160 in the early game. One thing that is obvious now, is he will probably want to start trouble, because why not with rented units. He has them rented for 27 more turns. Here is what it looked like at the end of the turn with my unit movements... 
Turn 41
Open the save to find suboptimal's rent-a-bat checking out Methone. I move my units closer to there destinations. Here is what it looked like...  I figure he is checking out the lay of the land while he brings up a couple more of his rentals. At most, I think he rented 3 warriors. I don't think Nan Madol would have more than that built at this point. He may have another of his warriors come up from the south and has one near Carthage. Speaking of Carthage...  Looks like he is going to rent-a-hannibal too. No doubt in my mind he is going to attack. Figure 4 or 5 turns. Probably bring up Nan Madol rentals to attack Methone and the Carthage rentals to hit Alexandria. Let's hope the Carthage warriors are out scouting the west. Before I hit next turn I did this...  No, not really. I was seriously thinking about it to goad him into thinking that I think I am in danger and need peace to survive. I'm in no danger. He will have, what, potentially 8 warriors knocking on my door in 8 turns, 3 or 4 will arrive at Methone in ~4-5 turns and another 2-3 in 8 turns form Carthage. It is going to take a hell of a lot more than that to take one of my cities. I decide against the friendship request because I thought that there might be a tiny chance that he might take it. It would give me some time to build an army but I would feel bad when I wipe out Nan Madol before it ended. The fact of it all is that I want him to attack. The earlier the better. Let's get that war wariness going early. Once war is started, no need to sign peace. If he kills my units 5-to-1, all it will mean, besides I suck at war, is he will gain war wariness from the units I do kill... And it will be around as long as I am in this game...Always war baby! Suboptimal, I hope you have lots of luxuries. Maybe he doesn't know that he will get war wariness when I kill his rentals. Warrior finishes at Pella and builder at Methone next turn. Warrior will go down to Alexanderia and move to Methone as the western warrior comes back home. Pella will move on to it's encampment (due in 4 or 5), while Methone starts a slinger. I will bring Iron Working down to 2 turns, then switch to finish Archery before Methone finishes the slinger and the overflow science should bring Iron Working down to 1 turn. Bad part of this is that I will have to buy the flat grassland between the sheep and rice at Methone to place the encampment but I will be able to chop both forests with Magnus in place. Will have the gold in 3 turns. Once Iron Working is done, I will pop out a Hypaspist with a 4 or 5 turn build time, and should be out in 9 turns (2 turns into IW, 1 turn into Archery, 1 more turn to finish IW, 4 or 5 turns to build the Hypaspist). I say 4 or 5 turns because it will depend on when suboptimal declares war and I lose the envoy/production I will get at Carthage when I finish the encampment. I think I am pretty safe. It changes my timing on everything and no dark age for me. Hope I can still get a medieval golden age. |
