[SPOILERS] Chevalier Mal Fet and Marcopolothefraud lead a Soviet Down Under

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

What a great analysis of the Chinese/Indonesian religion! I don't have anything to contribute, but I think you were spot-on.

Ultimately, I think faith tends to be an opportunity-cost trap in civ 6. You have to devote a large amount of resources to it in hopes that you can succeed. On the Realms Beyond forum, Russia's been used so frequently that everyone knows how to avoid most opportunity-cost traps. (Not always, though - look at Ljubljana in pbem 19). However, for other faith generators like Indonesia, China, Japan, Arabia etc. there's so much luck involved that it's hard to successfully pull off a faith-generation strategy.

True. I made Arabia work in PBEM12, but it was a really slow burn and I was helped that all my opponents save Archduke were incompetent. Russia makes faith look stronger than it is via the absurd lavra district, which benefits from its absurdly low cost and Russia's native abilities being tailor-made for Dance of the Aurora. Most other civs don't have such easy ways to access faith and have to devote a LOT more resources to it. 

Worst of all, though, is making a middling investment in faith like Kaiser and Roland have done. Their faith incomes are trickles at <20 fpt, which is good for like, what, 1 builder every 10 turns? That means Monumentality would get them something like 4 builders, total, or perhaps a pair of settlers. That's a terrible return on investment.

OH! 

Speaking of, next turn, I'll have 250 gold and you'll have 30. I'll send you my gold on my turn, so on turn 85 you can buy a trader at MBDTF and speed up that city's growth curve.

[marcopolothefraud]

Wow, we got lucky and squeezed in an extra turn today! Nothing to report on my end, so I won't provide any screenshots. I do want to talk a little about global diplomacy, though, because you're the player with the most cities right now.

In rough terms, Norway/Phoenicia is to our west, with the conquered city-state of Rapa Nui. Indonesia is to our north, on the Sakhalin continent. Japan/England, which we know the most about, is to our east.

1. Is our military capable of a war with anyone else right now?
Probably not. We don't have any Quadriremes, despite having researched them for a while - and they're much sturdier than Galleys are. If, say, you bunched your Galleys together for a surprise razing of Rapa Nui, it might *barely* work in the moment - but we might lose the war long-term.

2. Is anyone else planning to attack us right now?
We only have limited information, and this is a serious unknown. However, Russia seems to be a city-creating snowball, akin to thrawn's Nubia in PBEM19 - so if the answer to this is no right now, it will become yes very soon. Suboptimal, who has a military strength of 280 and doesn't seem to be using it for anything, seems to be the most likely attacker.

We can be reasonably sure that Japan/England don't want to attack us. They signed a friendship with you, and they're still in a destructive war with Ljubljana/Woden. That means my eastern cities will be (hopefully) safe.

3. What military should we build?
I'm thinking Quadriremes, at least 3-4 of them on my end, and maybe 1 or 2 Horsemen/Swordsmen if we can put them in Sakhalin? I haven't fought Civ 6 wars in a multiplayer setting, and I don't know how useful Horsemen/Swordsmen are for defense. Archers will be pretty useless right now until we can make them Crossbowmen, though.

As of the next 5 turns, my production will still be on settlers and infrastructure. I will transition to military builds with the next policy swap (probably Drama and Poetry), though.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Wow, we got lucky and squeezed in an extra turn today! Nothing to report on my end, so I won't provide any screenshots. I do want to talk a little about global diplomacy, though, because you're the player with the most cities right now.

In rough terms, Norway/Phoenicia is to our west, with the conquered city-state of Rapa Nui. Indonesia is to our north, on the Sakhalin continent. Japan/England, which we know the most about, is to our east.

1. Is our military capable of a war with anyone else right now?
Probably not. We don't have any Quadriremes, despite having researched them for a while - and they're much sturdier than Galleys are. If, say, you bunched your Galleys together for a surprise razing of Rapa Nui, it might *barely* work in the moment - but we might lose the war long-term.

Yep, this is a good time to consider possible reactions against us and what we can do to prepare. I have to figure that everyone will see the surge to 10 cities and begin to cut me down a notch. 

That said, teams don't like to consider wars that they don't think they can win, so it's probably time to begin pumping out units. I'll be able to swap to MI on turn 86 and can start quadriremes. They cost 120 production for me, at about 25 production per turn. Call that 50 per turn with MI and I can spit out 2 quads every 5 turns from both cities. 10 turns will get me to 4, but I want more. I think for us to be safe my military needs to mass about 600 points, or about twice its current strength. 

Sub's military strength in quads will about double at Jongs, so I need to estimate his total quad strength. IF we assume he can afford to upgrade about 6, though, we should see a spike of about 150 points. Thus, if I aim for a target of strength 150< than Indonesian strength we should be safe enough. 

For Australia, I'd aim for parity - call it about 250 points of total strength. You can get out some galleys and quads, enough to defend the bay that Ilmatic is located in, I think. 

2. Is anyone else planning to attack us right now?
We only have limited information, and this is a serious unknown. However, Russia seems to be a city-creating snowball, akin to thrawn's Nubia in PBEM19 - so if the answer to this is no right now, it will become yes very soon. Suboptimal, who has a military strength of 280 and doesn't seem to be using it for anything, seems to be the most likely attacker.

We can be reasonably sure that Japan/England don't want to attack us. They signed a friendship with you, and they're still in a destructive war with Ljubljana/Woden. That means my eastern cities will be (hopefully) safe.

We should be safe from them until turn 110, which isn't super long. However, I expect them not to try galley warfare, but instead to opt for a frigate attack on us. Suboptimal's choice...it's hard to say. He's a cautious player and I'm hoping to bluff him away with a high strength. Then he'll think "I can eat a neighbor and catch up," especially if he uses monumentality to keep up with me in total city count. Unlike me, his cities won't start with builders, and they won't have lavras, so I hope Indonesia doesn't panic and thinks he's much closer than he is. The advantage of sub is we'd only be fighting him and not China, most likely.

Woden and ljubljana might try something, but I think we can hold them off with galleys and outtech them. 

3. What military should we build?
I'm thinking Quadriremes, at least 3-4 of them on my end, and maybe 1 or 2 Horsemen/Swordsmen if we can put them in Sakhalin? I haven't fought Civ 6 wars in a multiplayer setting, and I don't know how useful Horsemen/Swordsmen are for defense. Archers will be pretty useless right now until we can make them Crossbowmen, though.

As of the next 5 turns, my production will still be on settlers and infrastructure. I will transition to military builds with the next policy swap (probably Drama and Poetry), though.

I will upgrade some swords, but my iron income is low, so I won't have a lot. Horses are useful for defense against land units and can be stuffed into a city to defend against galleys. However, the main thing we want is ships. I'll run a skeleton military until I'm ready to pray for an army. Anything coastal will get out ships. 

Once I hit 600 or so (modified upwards as our enemies build ships), then I think I'll be safe enough to resume settler snowballing. I might settle Novaya Zemyla first, but definitely will hold off on Rapa Nui land (Alaska?).

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Played rapid turn. Have other things to do.

Made end of turn save to update sheet later.

Report later.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 84

Two turns in a day! Lots of chatter in all the threads. I really, really hope I haven't kicked the beehive too hard. I'm going to consider measures to actually slow expansion until I know the national security situation is in hand. But I DO think we can handle what the others will throw at us, if I am sufficiently prepared.




We finish HBR, which is notable since it's the most advanced tech anyone on the map has. A few civs have one or two more techs than us - but that just means they have the relatively useless Iron Working and Currency techs. They've also had time to work on Military Engineering et. al, but I doubt any of them will be able to get out an aqueduct quite as quickly as me. This is all excellent news, since it means between Marco's science and my own, plus Russian production nail Eurekas, we have a very good shot to be early to Frigates. If that happens, I can build more of 'em than any one other team and that should be enough to keep us safe. 

Or murder someone. Which is what I intend to do.




In the south, my archers manage to nail the scout on his way back to camp. That should buy me enough time to finish the spear in 2 turns and clear the camp around turn 86. That's only, uh, 37 turns after it appeared and I said "should be easy" to clear it with my two promoted warriors! Oh well, I got some good XP from it and only suffered a pillaged campus (via Vikings) as a result. No worries.

At Borodino, in anticipation of the future IZ many moons in the future, I plant a mine, my third:




I know I have one on the iron, but what's the third one? I can't for the life of me recall. Oh, duh, the silver at Imperator Aleksandr. Anyway here's Wonderwall here's Apprenticeship: 




Right after Castles. So, marco, it looks like my tech path is (Iron Working to enable swords on Sakhilin) -> Military Engineering -> Castles -> Apprenticeship. I should pass all 4 eurekas on to you. That means Australia should work on Military Tactics first and then Stirrups. 

In any future war with Norway and Phoenicia, the Kara Sea will be crucial:




The enemy galleys could base either at Rapa Nui or at the Norwegian city in the fog to the west. From the west they'd mostly threaten Shikishima, which is what I want. Rapa Nui would enable threats at Hong Kong, though, which is harder to defend. I'd have to split my fleet to cover both possible approaches, which I hate. The only solution is to maintain advanced pickets so I can spot them coming from far off. 

I expect a Phoenician declaration of war next turn. I could have pre-empted him, obviously, but we want him to declare war. Marco will get doubled production for 10 turns, which is JUST what the doctor ordered. Thank God for Australia! 

I send one galley on to meet up with Marco and secure circumnavigation, while hte other will come back and begin forming my garrison.




Religious overview. Apart from Hong Kong all is going well:






I shall be finishing 4 lavras over the next 4 turns, which is regrettably another spike in Empire score. Most distressing of all is the fact that our team has climbed to second in the leaderboard, trailing China's inflated Wonder score:




Worst of all, I have only 4 lavras completed, for 8 extra empire points. ._. This must be setting off five-alarm fires everywhere. I just have to roll with the snowball and hope I'm too far ahead for anyone to stop.

The basic defense plan is to reach a target military score of 600. That means I need 300 more points, and ideally most should be quads, which are defensively about the same as galleys but have a bit more hitting power, albeit nearly twice as expensive. That's 15 quadriremes, at ~3 turn builds from my two advanced cities. It would take 23 turns to get them out just from those two, but if I can add Hong Kong, Shikishima, and Oslyabya to the mix I can bring that down to about 15.

[marcopolothefraud]

Nothing to report, except I found a strangely tundra-free continent to the southeast.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 85




No tech income this turn, but we land the boost for Military Engineering. That alleviates Knyaz Suvurov's housing crunch and puts us in very good shape, I think. China could conceivably land this boost this quickly, but I think the warring teams have had other concerns - and I'm not worried about Chinese frigates, if we're being honest. Serious question: Has Roland built a single ship so far? I look over his military score increases and it's tough to find one corresponding to the "first ship" era score he'd get. I also ahven't seen any Chinese galleys poking around, but maybe suboptimal is taking over exploration duties. 

Anyway, what I'm saying is, I think Marco and I will be one of the first teams to unlock niter and start storing it, and THAT far more than production will be a bottleneck in Frigates. We won't see the same massive fleets we're used to in previous naval PBEMs, and in the medieval era I might be settling just for niter. Plus, I've now crept up to third in science generation, behind only Australia and Japan, based almost entirely on population. I have libraries still to come, and probably 4 more campuses over the next ~30 turns as I grow in population?




More excitingly, Sevastopol has finished its lavra! I proclaim this tundra-ridden iceball Fully Armed and Operational, the third tundra city to come online. It only earns a paltry 16 production, but that's with only 2 pop and absolutely no improvements - no mines, no mills, nothing. My plan is to share the farm with Oryol back and forth, surging first one then the other city to 4/7 population. I doubt we'll ever grow past 7 with only one rice farm and some fish between the two cities, but that's good enough for a lavra, a campus, and a bonus district (an encampment? A theater square to park all these frickin' great works? An industrial zone? A harbor, at Sevastopol? Who knows?). In the meantime, while Oryol busies itself growing to size 4 for its campus, I start a monument here, due in 4 turns. 




Further south, in a move I actually sort of regret, Sissoi Veliki's builder throws down my first mill, revealing Mass Production. The reason I regret this is that the extra food at Sevastopol's fish might actually be more useful to me than an extra 2 production here. Sissoi Veliki will earn 17 production on one pop - or, well, now 19. In the near term do I want to grow Sevastopol faster so I can get down a campus faster? Oh, well, it probably won't make much difference and it's not like the production will go to waste. I think Ichabod went after a few too many "nice to have" wonders in PBEM18, and Marco rightly pointed out how expensive Huey is, even though +4 amenities and an extra 16 production empire wide is nice. Will there ever be a time when I want a marginal wonder like Huey or Macchu when I could have another frigate/builder/military unit instead? 

Almost certainly no.

Moving on, clockwise around the empire, our archers intercept the spear as he races home for the safety of his camp:




I should finish him next turn, clear the camp for 50 gold, and earn a pair of promotions for my brave arrer boys. There'll be more camps down here, I expect, but I have other uses for my military units after this - I want to embark them to the neighboring islands and begin clearing them of barbs for settlement. I need landing zones for settlers secured by around turn 100, so we need to get moving. 

On their turn, Kaiser and Archduke declare war on Mohenjo-Daro:




Ljubljana also neutralized my suzerainty with Amani. I had tried to claim it with some spare envoys in an effort to grow my cities, but in retrospect that was a waste of envoys. The boost applies to buildings I don't have, and I could have saved those to push myself to +6 at Yerevan or dump into other city-states we meet. 

I do wonder how long it'll take them to wear down MD. Quadriremes do very little damage to walls, and galleys almost none at all. They COULD grind it down and rotate ships, but it'll take a large naval commitment - while they remain at war with Norway and Phoenicia! Is that war still hot? ARchduke took Hattusa last turn, Ljubljana denounced us 5 turns ago (but weirdly didn't declare war at the start of this turn), and all 4 have spiking military strengths...hm. Could be a phony war, while they prepare to confront us? I dunno. I don't trust the others. Ljubljana has more power than me, and suboptimal has matched me, neither of which I'm comfortable with. I have started the first of my projected 15 quads at Knyaz Suvurov. It's due in 5 turns. Borodino will join in 8 turns, once it finishes its temple and then a +4 harbor. I'd like a lighthouse, but not sure if I have time. 

I find Occupied Vilnius:




So, Norway's mainland must be a little west of here. Norway took Rapa Nui and Vilnius in rapid succession, possibly with the same ships. At 4 pop, Vilnius has 5 production + that fogged tile and should be growing. It looks a bit nicer than Shikishima and worlds better than Mikasa (Hong Kong). Anyway, this is one potential attack vector, Rapa Nui is the other. 

On Sakhilin, I find Indonesian borders but sub also founds a city:




Bizarrely, he founds it off the coast, so he earns no faith from it and can't build ships until he buys two tiles and plants a harbor, gold which would distract from Jong upgrades. Maybe there's really good tiles in the fog there? 

Anyway, I think I need to send my next settler to the southern half of the island. I'd like to stake a claim and it'd be good to have a land border. That will serve as a shield for the island south of Shikishima and I can't have a hostile coast at my main fleet anchorage, now can I? Settler is...well, we could purchase it now but we wait for a few reasons:




First reason: Magnus isn't established yet. If I wait two turHyns, no pop loss. Is this urgent enough that 2 turns matters? No, I don't think so. Sub's faith income is only half of mine, meaning he's getting settlers about once every 10 turns, not once every 5 like me. Would he lunge all the way down here to pink dot me? That doesn't feel like sub's play. No, I have 2 turns to spare. If not, well, I'll pray for an army HERE and start my invasion over the straits. Tomato, tomato. 

The second reason is this:




Kaiser seems to have passed on the mediocre Euclid, forcing sub to take him, but that gave me an opportunity. I spotted this while I was trying to work out what district Woden finished or if he just grew two pop (unsuccessfully, by the way - no GPP yet, but I might need to wait a turn, or he might have finished a plaza. I figure it has to be a district since Woden's only built one of the blasted things so far, a mediocre holy site!). Anyway, Hypatia is the next scientist up, of course - but more importantly, she's available. I could grab her with faith.

I go back and forth for a while. I almost message marco about it. Here's my thoughts:

Hypatia is a very nice pickup. Not only does she make libraries half again as good, she also will make one for free. That's 90 production, or a full 1.5 quadriremes with the production card. I can use her at Kynaz Suvurov or Borodino, my two coastal campus cities, and keep them on ships without ever diverting. So, is Hypatia worth a ship and a half and a permanent +1 science in every library (call it +8 once the empire is mature)? For free, yes. 

Now, she does cost the same as a settler. Would I rather have Hypatia, or another city? Put THAT way, I'd rather have another city...

...except right now, I think I have more cities than I can defend (projected into the future, that is). I'm settling almost too quickly and putting a target on my back. I need to find ways to usefully use this faith, and maintain my advantage. In a vacuum, nothing does that better than EXPANSION MODE. But tapping the brakes, too, just long enough to let people's nerves settle, might be good, too. Then throw in the fact that I'll earn this faith back in literally like 3 turns and it's not so high a cost. 

Then I remember that I have to delay my settler for two turns ANYWAY due to Magnus. So this isn't delaying the Sakhilin settler, it's delaying the NEXT one by a few turns. Which will make me look less scary. And I make sure that I get Hypatia and no one else, meaning our team would have pulled in 2/3 Classical great scientists and left the more mediocre medieval ones for the others.*

So I pull the trigger and grab Hypatia. I could have waited ~4 turns before Kaiser recruited her, but I figured getting the library online sooner was worth the ~40 faith it cost me. 40 faith for ~12 science, not a bad trade, I think, not when faith is so abundant and beakers so precious. 

Situation at Shikishima:






*Except Hildegaard. obviously I would love Hildegaard.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Ichabod, what do you think about banning Russia? Between the initial extra tiles, the cheap lavras, monumentality settlers, all the gwams, and the cossacks as the cherry, it seems to be head and shoulders above anyone else. Other strong civs at least have to work for their expansion, the Russians have twice the snow to roll in.

Rude.

[marcopolothefraud]

To be honest, I think Russia should be banned too, but only because we've seen it so much and its strategies are starting to get stale and predictable. Same with Rome.

I'll send you my gold on my turn, so on turn 85 you can buy a trader at MBDTF and speed up that city's growth curve.

Thanks so much! That's just what I did.
The Blueprint completes its settler, and starts a builder due in 3 turns. My builder at MBDTF has 3 charges and nothing to do, so it's probably going to harvest an Illmatic marsh and make a sugar plantation.

In international news, Ljubljana conquers the city-state of Mitla.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 86

Start the turn with...




The suzerainty I don't care about much at all, because I'm not going to be recruit apostles anytime soon and it won't be for anything other than evangelizing Fine Weather & High Waves. But I DO want the era score and the extra faith from my shrines. It's a nice little buff and Russian faith is up to 100/turn. 

Yerevan is having barb issues:




That's good news, though. I will train a quadrireme out of Osylabya next, maybe even a handful until our target strength is reached and I have a small eastern squadron. THen I can grab the Naval Tradition Inspiration and start scouting this area for settlement. That tundra island just east of Yerevan could hold a lavra...hm. And that would give me two shipyards in this sea, to support Australia settling the southeast continent, which I think should be his overseas target. Marco can base himself out of Turtletown, with his navy around that cape to keep Japan away. 

I also finish some techs...






I can't upgrade my warrior this turn, because I sent marco all my money, duh. I'll have enough in 2 turns, plenty in time to escort the settler. Sub is about ~3 turns out from affording his next settler I estimate. 

The good news with Drama and Poetry is that Divine Right si the very next civic! It'll take 7 turns to research, then we'll have Monarchy. I'll pass the inspiration for both along to Marco, so he can reach Monarchy in a reasonable time, as well. 

Now, I have a policy swap, but before I drop Discipline let's mop up these barbs:




EZ-PZ and I clear the camp for 50 gold and some more era score. I don't know if more barb camps will spawn down here - it's icy and will never be settled, but I really don't want to spare the units to guard down here all the time, either. I think I'll take my chances and can quickly crank out units from Oryol, Imperator Aleksandr, or Petropavlosk as needed. I send all 4 units towards the coasts - 3 will start clearing the western isle, one will head to Shikishima...or perhaps I should reverse that ratio? Send one to the unimportant tundra isle that I'll be slowly settling, and send 3 to beef up defenses in the more central zone. Yeah, that makes sense. I'll dispatch both archers and a warrior to Novaya Zemyla. 

Swap into Maritime Industries and my quad build time at Knyaz Suvurov is down to 4 turns, as predicted:






Figure 5 turns per quad. Borodino can join in 7 turns, after Temple->Harbor, at 4 turns per quad. That gets me only half the amount of quads I want in 15 turns. We must either find other shipyards or revise our force requirements downwards. Oslyabya can add perhaps 3 more, still not enough. I need Mikasa to hurry up and convert and then it can join! I can extend the build time to 20 turns and then we should have all the quads I'll ever need - far more than I can afford to upgrade. 

Speaking of, Marco, after my sword upgrade, we'll need to begin hoarding gold for upgrades. Suboptimal has already started doing so for his jongs. I think I can swarm him with quads if he attacks us, though I likely can't hold Shikishima. What we're probably looking at is a few Frigates escorted by multiple quads, due to gold and niter constraints. Once I have that, I aim to start burning enemy coasts. We won't bother with land invasions - putting enemy harbors and ports to the torch should be enough for the win. 

Exploration time. I have about 5 galleys exploring, though I will recall most soon. One pushes past Rapa Nui and finds Delicate Arch:




I will need to veer south after spotting the wonder, since we're near Phoenician territory and I expect a DoW any turn now. Further north, the Vilnius galley finds what I presume si the Norwegian coast. I will see if I can spot Woden's nearest city, then turn around and head back to join the fleet anchorage at Shikishima. 

...actually...Ljubljana conquered a city-state this turn, and his and Woden's military power continues to spike. Do I need map information on Woden's cities? I know where he is. I think it'd be better to turn around now. My ships are all scattered exploring and are super easy prey. I can outrun everyone except Woden's longships, so I better scuttle home, I think.

My three Indonesian galleys find Sub's capital, his second city, and what I presume is a conquered city-state:






I will turn the CS galley around and head back for Shikishima along the north coast of Sakhilin, the other two will get one turn to spot city-centers (since I don't fear sub as much as Woden) before heading back. THat will give me about 5 galleys at Shikishima, to hold out until the first quads arrive there in ~10 turns. 

In news abroad, yet another city-state falls and the Central Powers begin work on Mohenjo-Daro's walls:




This reinforces my conviction that the galley war is largely a cold one at this point. Clearly Archduke and Kaiser have significant assets at Mohenjo-Daro, equally clear that ljub has some at Mitla, and neither has suffered significant losses since Archduke lost his city-state. I cannot count on the Vikings being distracted for much longer. Thankfully, our defensive shipbuilding has begun. They can build probably about as fast as me, but I've got more and better cities, so if they try for a naval arms' race I'll pull ahead eventually. 

Other news...tech tree overview. 4 turns to Niter:




Military Engineering on turn 90.
Castles on turn 94.
Apprenticeship on or before turn 100. 

Russian science is about as good as Australian, now, until Marco finishes the next supercampus. With no eurekas likely, Marco should burn through Military Tactics, then can start following in my wake so he can get his mines upgraded, too. Our next target after Niter is, of course, Cartography and Square Rigging. We can't find Square Rigging without gunpowder (never happen), so Cartography will have to be the go-to tech. My harbors will come in just as soon as I can build them, even at the expense of ships. 

Civic tree:






Divine Right in 7 turns. Then possibly Military Tradition, then start on Naval Tradition. 

Note from the tech tree that we're full caught up. No one has finished a tech beyond HBR yet, although I expect Kaiser or Roland to in the next 4 turns. That means we will be, maximum, only 3 turns late to Niter, and our team science (especially counting eurekas!) is highest in the field. We now have 93 combined beakers to 77, 69, and 60. 

Team culture is weaker, as ljub and Kaiser ahve both reached Naval Tradition (no-doubt inspired by their war!), our 52 combined culture trailing Woden/ljub/sub/roland's combined 60. Here, we're helped that no one else will be able to get the difficult but expensive Divine Right inspiration. On the whole, no one has separated themselves significantly in terms of tech yet, which is excellent news for us as the hither-to laggards. 

Overview. Sissoi Veliki comes online next turn, Oslyabya the turn after that: