[Spoilers] Chevalier Gives You Something to Cry Aboot

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Yeah, the issue with Canada is

a)the tundra bonus is totally irrelevant until you're using it to make marginal end-game cities more functional after you've run out of good spots

b)Nothing else comes online until the Industrial era, when you can finally get ice rinks. At that point you can stack up quite a bit of culture/tourism with those, and the tourism does translate into diplo favor.

I found that I had more Diplomatic favor than most of the other civs combined, due to my hoarding it in the early game. If you can vote strategically and gradually build up points, reaching 13 or so, there are 7 points available from wonders: Mahabodi, Potala, and Statue of Liberty, which might be handy for an end-game sprint to catch people off guard (you'll lose 1 point per WC resolution as people vote against you, naturally. You have to vote with them to preserve a point).

Other points come from Sea Steading and Global Warming Mitigation, if we reach Future era, and winning votes/competitions.

So the gameplan, I think, has to be to build culture and threaten a CV, which will force other civs to respond with their own culture builds. Try and quietly reach 13-15 DP votes, then sprint to the end with builds and the Statue of Liberty (I'd make sure to grab a GE and save him + chops specifically for that). In the meantime, try to maintain just spiky enough defenses that no one c an really conquer you - Medieval/Renaissance Walls are cheap with Limes and can do a great job holding off even artillery.

Is this a good plan? Hell, no! I think we have maybe a 5% chance of bringing this off. Egypt, Phoenicia, and Brazil will get off to faster starts. Eleanor and Brazil will be competing culturally. We won't be able to maintain enough suzerains to keep rolling in the Favor. But...I DO think we can avoid being conquered by a superior army, and we can force the game to come down to an endgame contest of science vs. culture vs. diplomacy. Or just exhaust everyone else and force them to give in to us! :D

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Reading up more on diplomatic victories. I...really don't think they're possible in multiplayer. How do you get to 13 points alone? That's a lot of votes! 

One strategy that seemed suitably evil on reddit was avoiding settling the coasts and causing lots of global warming. With Phoenicia and England in the game, we can flood their coasts with our vast Canadian factories of misery, then send them gold and win the emergency to gain points. 

So stack culture and gold generation, keep science just good enough that I can bog down an invasion...This is going to be a challenge. England and Brazil are both going to be strong culture/Great Person competitors, and Egypt/Phoenica are Ancient civs with a quick snowball. 

It might come down to my hoping everyone ignores the meme civ until it's too late to stop the SoL completing with my final points.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Chevalier Rides Again

Turn 1




Okay, bad news is, to the north, we have a shitload of desert that ain't gonna do much for our hockey rinks. To the east and south, empty grassland with one hill there for a mine down the road. And, I believe, coast. 

I start Pottery -> Irrigation and a Scout. I want to find city-states early so if anyone tries to eat them I can maybe get some grievances going. Don't know how useful those are in multiplayer yet but maybe we'll figure it out, yeah? I thought about a warrior for barb smacking but with no City-state wars I think a light military is the way to go here (knock on wood before being screwed by barbs). 

Ichabod, Sub, and Woden all settled. Sub got an era point, Woden got 4! No worries, he's guaranteed a golden age as Dido. I wonder if he'll go for Monumentality? It's anti-synergistic with his Unique District, which doesn't generate faith but DOES give settler bonuses. It might make sense to take Pen Brush and Voice instead, or even Free Inquiry if that's a Classical dedication. Can't remember, it's been 9 months since i played Civ 6 seriously.

Anyway, not gonna do too long a write up yet. I'll wander generally east with m'warrior and then loop south with him. See ya'll soonish

[shallow_thought]

Chevalier Rides Again

 maybe we'll figure it out, yeah?

Surely that should be "', eh?", shouldn't it ?

[Sullla]

Chevalier, are you interested in another dedicated lurker? I enjoyed following along with scooter and TheArchduke during the last two Civ6 PBEMs and I'm unspoiled for this game. This looks like a tough civ and a tough starting position.

[TheArchduke]

Yeah, the issue with Canada is

a)the tundra bonus is totally irrelevant until you're using it to make marginal end-game cities more functional after you've run out of good spots

Well, you won´t be suprised. My suggestion and idea would have been to attack someone in an early rush. It will be unexpected to say the least, especially with you at the helm.

Reading up more on diplomatic victories. I...really don't think they're possible in multiplayer. How do you get to 13 points alone? That's a lot of votes! 

I think they are impossible, games are decided way earlier. I think only our water based games really went industrial.

Chevalier Rides Again

Turn 1

Anyway, not gonna do too long a write up yet. I'll wander generally east with m'warrior and then loop south with him. See ya'll soonish

Not a glorious start so far. Have you considered a dark age for classical. Without any UUs or UBs easy to do.

Chevalier, are you interested in another dedicated lurker? I enjoyed following along with scooter and TheArchduke during the last two Civ6 PBEMs and I'm unspoiled for this game. This looks like a tough civ and a tough starting position.

Cool.

Chevalier, please tell me what name you want for the thread. And once again sorry for getting you stuck with Canada.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Chevalier Rides Again

 maybe we'll figure it out, yeah?

Surely that should be "', eh?", shouldn't it ?

Damn! I can't leave easy jokes on the table like that if I want to have any chance at all in this game! Sloppy, Chevalier, sloppy. 

Chevalier, are you interested in another dedicated lurker? I enjoyed following along with scooter and TheArchduke during the last two Civ6 PBEMs and I'm unspoiled for this game. This looks like a tough civ and a tough starting position.

Sure, welcome aboard! It's a tough civ, a tough start, and a tough crowd, so I'll need all the help I can get.

Right now, I rate the oppo:

Ichabod of Brazil - Ichabod hasn't played a full multiplayer game in a while, but he did take England on a runaway rampage in PBEM3, so he knows what he's about. Maybe that was a fluke from eating Kaiser and suboptimal, maybe it wasn't, but I am wary of him until proven otherwise.

I've no idea how Brazil slipped into this game. It's a strong scientific civ that can also play culturally very easily. The jungle bonus comes online immediately and blows our Tundra Farms out of the water, and while his UU and UD are a bit late, he has enough going for him early that the Minais Gerais can be a game winner. Brazil is strong in the beginning, middle, and endgames. A strong player with a strong civ that stands directly athwart my thoughts of a Culture/Diplomatic victory.

Woden of Phoenicia - Woden used to fall prey to builderitis, but I think he got over that when he successfully rushed Jester in PBEM15 (I wanna say). He is a pretty strong builder and while not a spectacular tactician he's working on his aggressive instincts. 

Dido is strong on water maps, but I think water strengths are often applicable to Pangaea as well. The Cothon lets him get a settler pump going from a city within 3 tiles of the coast (maybe City #2, combine with Ancestral Hall?), the bireme SHOULDN'T be important, but who knows? The biggest threat from Carthage, I think, is an early game settler snowball that we'll struggle to keep up with. If he doesn't focus on keeping ahead of expansion, then we stand a chance. 

Suboptileanor of England - Sub is a strong builder and has a fantastic attention to detail in his micro and his plans (far more than I do). However, he tends to lack big picture strategic focus, and gets hung up on slightly loopy long-term plans rather than focusing his civ's strengths onto one coherent gameplan. We tried to get over that in PBEM17, but our initial attack bogged down between loyalty issues, rough terrian, and probably mismanagement on our part (I still maintain we should have built way more units than we did - ancient units are cheap as hell to mass produce in a hurry). 

Eleanor has few bonuses to the early game, apart from the powerful RND (stronger than the Cothon? I dunno. Another naval game might be fun soon). A cheap Harbor is fantastic, since Harbors have been buffed so much. Trade routes are good to have, as well. He'll have warfare options iwth boosted IZs late in the game, but most frustratingly, he'll want to focus on Culture to profit from Eleanor's ability, which again stands directly athwart my own plans. This...is possibly the worst game to try for Culture/Diplomacy, but what am I supposed to do as Canada? Domination? C'mon. 

Kaiser/Ioan of Egypt

Kaiser hardly posted about PBEM17, but he had fallen as badly behind as sub/pin did, without the excuse of a destructive but pointless war. I'm glad he's returned to the forums after leaving for a year or so after his spanking by none other than Ichabod in PBEM3, but he seems tramautized by the experience still and was apparently over-reliant on military to defend himself. Ioan is a total unknown. Seems like a nice guy but really flaky and hard to contact. More enthusiastic than skilled (he did not know what PYDT was, so he's really, really green). 

Egypt I think has possibilities. The Sphinx gives you Faith and Culture, which are both important early game resources (less so later), so you can rush to PP easily and have a good income for Monumentality (or whatever you want to spend it on). The Floodplains bonus is weaker than Hungary's river bonus in a bit of naked power creep, but not terrible and will come in especially handy for CHs (and River Goddess Holy Sites). The wonder bonus feels like a trap. Very few wonders are worth it. The Chariot Archer is goofy and the boosted foreign trade routes aren't great, since foreign trade routes are so weak before the late game anyway. 

So I guess it's mostly just the sphinx then. Huh.

Chevalduke of Canada - I feel that I have a good metagame sense on the whole, and can do grand strategy perfectly well. I tend to fall short in micro execution - I have no patience for spreadsheets, I have only the faintest grasp of the nuts and bolts of many mechanics, and I'm really not great at tactical maneuvering. I tend to do my planning in my reports, thinking out loud as I go (like right now), and juggling civic card swaps and chops and governors strains me. I can do it (I'm still pretty nostalgic about my nearly 1-turn build of the VA in PBEM7), but I have to force myself. Think of me as the anti-sub. 

Canada is...rough. Tundra bonus is basically useless before the middle game, when it makes cold cities slightly more viable. I don't think we've ever had a game where people just flat ran out of spots to settle yet. Maybe I should boom harder than normal? I dunno. No CS wars is almost crippling in the mid game, but we might take people by surprise via Casus Belli wars just to go after their vassals. Risky business but I think there's scope for limited wars. The ice rink is a meme, as is the Mountie. The Diplo favor bonuses are nice and are the only real shot I have at any sort of victory condition. Our culture does double duty in farming diplo favor and so will compete nicely with Ichabod and Suboptimal in the lategame, I think. If we can survive there. Until the late game, we have flat nothing apart from no one being able to surprise war us. Whoopee. :P 

I know lots of these plans and speculations sound desperate, but...that's because I am. We gotta be creative with our comparative advantages here if we want to have any sort of chance of competing at all, otherwise we're just playing a vanilla civ against lots of better civilizations.

but seriously if there's a worse multiplayer civ than Canada I'm not sure what it is. 

Yeah, the issue with Canada is

a)the tundra bonus is totally irrelevant until you're using it to make marginal end-game cities more functional after you've run out of good spots

Well, you won´t be suprised. My suggestion and idea would have been to attack someone in an early rush. It will be unexpected to say the least, especially with you at the helm.

Reading up more on diplomatic victories. I...really don't think they're possible in multiplayer. How do you get to 13 points alone? That's a lot of votes! 

I think they are impossible, games are decided way earlier. I think only our water based games really went industrial.

Chevalier Rides Again

Turn 1

Anyway, not gonna do too long a write up yet. I'll wander generally east with m'warrior and then loop south with him. See ya'll soonish

Not a glorious start so far. Have you considered a dark age for classical. Without any UUs or UBs easy to do.

Chevalier, are you interested in another dedicated lurker? I enjoyed following along with scooter and TheArchduke during the last two Civ6 PBEMs and I'm unspoiled for this game. This looks like a tough civ and a tough starting position.

Cool.

Chevalier, please tell me what name you want for the thread. And once again sorry for getting you stuck with Canada.

I COULD rush someone early, but it depends on the map. If someone is close enough to be in striking distance, then it might be a nice surprise. I'll need to go back and look at early rushes - PBEM1, PBEM3, PBEM4, PBEM6, PBEM10, and PBEM15. We might have too much terrain between us and any targets, but if I could bring off a Horseman rush or something, that might be enough to win us enough land to dominate science and culture and intimidate everyone else into giving up. 

I do think a diplo victory is possible, because my experiences in lategame GS make me feel that warfare is much harder than people expect. We remember the easy lategame conquests in PBEM2 and PBEM4 and don't realize how much walls and city defenses have been buffed. Even with artillery, it's a grind to take down AI cities in defensive terrain. I think we can defend ourselves well enough that even a big science lead by someone won't be enough to make me throw in the towel until I know he can take all my cities with no one else intervening. That, and the weak civs, make me feel this game has a chance to go long - better than most. The hope - probably forlorn - is that I can gather up the needed diplo points from emergencies and manipulation of the world congress, before sprinting to the end. It'll be all about timing...and if I can get my Tourism high enough to have a Favor advantage over everyone else. 

A Dark Age is possible, and Classical Dark -> Heroic Medieval is strong (in one of my test games I did a Dark Medieval -> Heroic Renaissance. The dark age policy cards are often quite good - Isolationism was really nice for a short age (we blazed through medieval in <30 turns) of pausing expansion while having supercharged trade routes. And you can just swap out the policy card when you want to build a settler! We'll play it by ear. 

As for thread title, I was thinking something like Chevalier Rides Again, Eh? or Chevalier Gives You Something to Cry Aboot or Chevalier Mounties Up for Canada puns. Any other Canadian puns are appreciated.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 2

Appeal lens turned on, nothing really new. Double wheat out here in the west suggests a possible settlement site nearby, but that's a long way to go yet. A city settled in this neighborhood would also have crazy growth, but not a lot of production, and high pop just doesn't seem helpful without tiles for them to work. A bunch of 2/1 farms will not push us ahead of the competition.

Kaiser settled after me and got an era point. I'll need to flip through the sources of era score to C&D what everyone is up to, but that's not what I feel like spending my time on here in the PC bang. The Korean teenagers around me all sound like they're having way more fun, but they do not appreciate the merits of a more placid, gentle life of moving a warrior a single tile and then writing two paragraphs about it, once a day.

[El Grillo]

Just wanted to let you know that I’m rooting for my first home and native land I continue to appreciate your detailed write-ups, as well.

[TheArchduke]

Oppo Research:

Start bonus, not unlike our own are most of the times ignored or nullified by a mapmaker, so I am not too worried about Brazil. Ichabod seems to be the most dangerous on an aggression standpoint to me.
The more we play CIV VI MP, the more the scientific (science) and commercial districts (upgrades/military) become dominant. Being an entertainment district, I would devalue the entertainment district. The patronage is underwhelming as well. Money is always tight and faith even more so with GTS (settlers).

Woden took Phoenicia and rightly so. The best thing about unique districts is that you can take better advantage of the district discount and can establish districts quickly in new cities. An harbour is excellent for that. The Bireme I would dismiss. The settler bonus on the cothon is nice though and a decent boost compared with the other civs around here. Thankfully it is Woden so he is not a military threat.

Suboptimal has all the advantages of a unique district as well. Apart from that? MEH. I am not seeing a culture pressure game as realistic. Especially as you need to store Great Works somewhere and you have to do so in suboptimal districts. England is like Phoenicia only less dangerous.

Kaiser as Egypt. Egypt is an interesting choice and one I would have taken. I think the Maryannu Archer is underestimated. Please do consider that it has 35! Ranged strength. I know it costs and arm and a leg, but in the right hands it can be devastating. I am not too impressed by Kaiser yet, I have no idea how he handled PBEM 17 that badly.

Do notice that I see other civs and players always through the lens of danger and aggression. YMMV.

A military victory over a human player is not as difficult as you think it is. Most players around here suffer from builderitis and micromanagment excess and ignore the military side of the game at their own peril. The only saving grace are two problems which I identified back in PBEM 2:

- You have to conquer someone whole. Anything else is a total waste of ressources and time apart from very specific punitive expeditions to set someone back by burning a city.
- The earlier you do a war the better.

I think you are perfectly setup with dedlurkers. What Sullla rightly pointed out in his critic on me is the disfocus. Either you got military or you just leave it alone. I would suggest to keep an open mind. Noone would expect a canadian rush.