Dave's Not Throwing Away His Shot

[oledavy]

Turn 132

Singaboy came offering a DoF. I refused and offered him yet another 1 gold gift to signal my positive intent. 



In the event he survives his war with Archduke, I can't have him in a position to attack Hattusa without me being able to intervene. 

In the west, I continue to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic to stop Alhambram...



I think I delayed Alhambram all of one turn in converting my cities. I continue to move around to try and make it difficult for him to freely move and convert, but I don't think I can delay him substantially enough at this point. I'm going to be really sad to lose OLORAM in my cities, it's gotten me quite a few cogs over the course of the game. I just really wish it was t141 already so I could kill him, shame on me for signing that DoF - but I was desperate at the time. 

I think there's a lot of untapped potential in this game to screw with your opponents using 1 UPT rules. For example, in the west, I'm guarding my city site with my knight. Otherwise, Woden could plop a military unit onto it and sit there, delaying the founding of my city. Since I'm in a DoF with him, I wouldn't be able to do anything about it. 

Closer to home, that's why my hoplite is sitting on a forest south of Myrmidon - stopping Archduke from chopping it. It was critical to do right now, because I believe I'm competing with Archduke for the next GG. 

I ran every scenario I could think of, and he could only beat me if he got out 4 encampment projects. He probably is working 2 right now, but hasn't finished them yet. I calculated that the only way he could get the requisite number of hammers was through 3 forest chops. So, even assuming he had the builders to do it, I could forestall him doing that by sitting on one of the forests in his border. Myrmidon is the critical city to chop in anyway, as it makes substantially less hammers than Mykenes. 

Anyway, I finished my GG project last turn, and here's where things stand. 



I've run numbers on everything I can think of, opponents running multiple encampment projects, patronizing him through gold or faith, etc. 

I think I've got him on lock now, and that there is nothing Archduke (my main competition) can do to stop me. Still, I won't breath easy until I actually have him. My big debate will be whether or not to patronize him next turn or on t134. I think if nobody has gotten him by t134, I would just get him - winning any ties. However, somebody might be able to patronize him on that turn. With that in mind, I think I will definitely patronize him for the last 2.5 GG points (~60 gold) on t134 and clinch him. Just two more turns to get through in the meantime. 

Provided nobody has jacked him from under my nose, I'll also consider patronizing him next turn. The power swing he provides is too big to take any chances with, and at 50 GPT, I have gold to spare if it means gaining some peace of mind and guaranteeing my trump card for the looming final war with Archduke.

[Sullla]

Sadly, I've learned over the years that the only way to ensure that your content remains online over time is to control it yourself. No matter how attractive a third party site might look in the moment, there's no guarantee that they'll have the same policies in place a year or two later, or will even remain in business. It sucks but there's not much any of us can do about it.

More positively, unlike in Civ5 your cities always keep their pantheon in Civ6 regardless of religious status. The pantheon is unique to each civ and always remains active in all cities. You don't have to worry about losing Our Lady of the Reeds and Marshes.

[Ituralde]

OLORAM for life. May your harvests be ever plentiful!

[Molach]

Motivation for grabbing the next great general:
The Lion From The North

Obvious not game of thrones....right?

Following with interest again. Although I know nothing about religious wars or how easy it will be to win such victory against thinking, breathing players. Good point about the moral imperative to stop Alhambram lies on Woden.

Good luck.

[oledavy]

Motivation for grabbing the next great general:
The Lion From The North

Obvious not game of thrones....right?

Following with interest again. Although I know nothing about religious wars or how easy it will be to win such victory against thinking, breathing players. Good point about the moral imperative to stop Alhambram lies on Woden.

Good luck.

I'll listen to it when playing the next turn! I should be landing him next turn if all goes well! Patronizing has a base 200 gold cost I've discovered, so I will likely just be letting the GP counter tick over normally and hope nobody can patronize him last minute (I'll run some numbers just to ensure that won't be the case). 

I really regret signing that t111 DoF with Alhambram about now. I knew at the time this would likely be the price, but I was desperate and staring a possible revolt in Hong Kong in the face without the amenities - amenities that seemed conditional on me signing the DoF. 

Despite my attempts to delay him, he'll likely convert 6 of my cities before the DoF runs out in 8 turns. It will be a near run thing, but all it would take would be sufficient religious pressure on one of my new size 1 cities to flip it even if I stop him from converting 6.  

I regret giving up my power to stop Alhambram, as one of the two players with the power to still win. Now I face the additional conundrum that the cities I take from Archduke will likely flip me over the 50% threshold. 

So, I will likely have fallen by the time this conversion mission is over, and so will Archduke. With low chances to win, Archduke and Singaboy don't have strong motivation to stop the spread of the Alhambram's religion. 

I am once again running numbers of founding my own religion and getting it off the ground. I have options I didn't have a few turns ago due to my gold income . However, the number of cogs and gold I would need to invest and the timeline for the religion being impactful make it seem like a really bad move. At best, I have a religion in 3-4 of my cities ~35 turns from now. If Alhambram wins via religion, it will be in the next 20. 

The two things the "not Alhambram" players have going for them are Singaboy's distance and Woden's religion. Singaboy is sufficiently far that unless Alhambram has a number of religious units in his lands now, he likely won't be able to convert him. After that, I will be astraddle the main path between Alhambram and Singaboy. But if he has sufficient religious forces already there, all bets are off. 

Then there's Woden. Woden has his own religion, but no temple in Main Street yet (though a holy site is under construction), to build apostles and ward off Alhambram, and Alhambram is making a push on his western cities. I wonder if Woden realizes how late the hour is? I really hope he's been saving faith and not spending it all on Oracle discounted great people. 

Anyway, I will declare on Alhambram on t141 if he still has units I can kill, but otherwise there's not a lot to do. Woden is really the only one who can do anything about this in the interim. I honestly feel like I'm in a bit of a prisoner's dilemma a la PB6 again. If I try to fight Alhambram's religious win in a big way (founding my own), the start up time and costs are huge and it likely erases any chance I have of beating Woden. However, if Woden, the would-be champion of this game, doesn't stop Alhambram, then we both lose. 

We'll see what happens. I'm honestly going to be super impressed if Alhambram pulls this off (and I would find it vaguely fitting considering how I won PBEM17). It all comes down to 2 questions now: 

1. Does Alhambram have sufficient units in the area to convert Singaboy/can he do so before they are killed?
2. How long until Woden can remove Archduke's religion from his cities?

[Zero_1627]

You can actually remove religion from a city in Civ6? Kind of like in Fall From Heaven 2?

[suboptimal]

You can actually remove religion from a city in Civ6? Kind of like in Fall From Heaven 2?

Yes.  Inquisitors can remove religions from your own cities, an Apostle with the Proselytizer promotion can do so in foreign cities.

[oledavy]

More positively, unlike in Civ5 your cities always keep their pantheon in Civ6 regardless of religious status. The pantheon is unique to each civ and always remains active in all cities. You don't have to worry about losing Our Lady of the Reeds and Marshes.

Really good to know, otherwise Weedy Movement would have removed 3 CPT from Hong Kong. 

The game is still not showing me a religious tab though, so I can't see what beliefs Weedy Movement has - unless there is some other way. 

Anyway

Turn 133-135

I'm finally breathing easy again when I open the save - I just kept having visions of being screwed out of Gustavus at last minute, but it did not come to pass. 



All the math and checking paid off, and we now have the Lion of the North 

In international news, there has yet to be a visible attack on Aachen. I wonder if Archduke doesn't actually intend to assault the city, or if he's just been taking the time to set up. Both have gone down some power, which leads me to believe the latter. 

Singaboy came asking for a single gold after I refused his friendship. It makes me wonder if he accepted the one I sent him when I refused. In any event, I accepted. 2-3 gold is a cheap price to pay for assuring Singaboy I mean him no harm and he should direct his efforts at Archduke. He has a knight in my borders this turn, it killed Archduke's raiding horseman, so he should see that I have no military remotely around Hamilton. 

Alhambram came offering open borders. I couldn't think of a single reason to accept, so I refused. I'm actually debating if I want to denounce him and DoW him for my "War with a causus belli" Inspiration. We'll cross that bridge later though. I still really need the Amenities he provides. Our silver deal runs out in a few turns, and I'm debating if I should attempt to renew it. 

On a slightly related note, I'm soon going to be pumping out cheap military units to use as Retainer Garrisons. Can any lurkers confirm that Scouts will count towards this, or will I have to build more expensive Hoplites?

By the way, the next general after Gustavus is the one that gives a free cavalry unit. 

Alhambram has two apostles in my land, and has converted Hong Kong to Weedy Movement with 6 pop total. I believe the northern apostle has Translator, given how many pop it converted each time (3 -> 1 -> 2), so it probably has 2 spreads left. Enough to convert one more city. I don't know the promotion the southern apostle has. There is also a missionary on the way: 



Note me and Woden moving our units together to stop it from going to Seven Dwarves or the future city of Angelica. Woden finally finished the HS and has now started on a shrine. He needs to get started on removing Weedy Movement from his cities sooner rather than later. 

The other international story these last turns has been Woden's tech rate: 



He's now making 10 more than me, although it's worth noting that when Lafayette finishes its campus (6 science) and I settle my next two cities (1.4 science), I'll be nearly even with him again - at least until the University completes. He has a four tech lead, but I do know one of those is Shipbuilding, and I bet the techs are cheap ones like banking and castles while I've been researching the un-Eureka'd 16 turns to research ballistics. 

Still, while it's not as bad as it looks right now, Woden has finally opened his first decent tech lead of the game on me. I'm having to fight every builder bone in my body to not queue up libraries in Lafayette and Georgetown to keep pace. 

Mobilization now, infrastructure later. 

After I get about 20 military units on the field, we'll return to infrastructure builds. 

Needless to say, I'm already formulating my shopping list for a post mobilization period: 

1. Cheap Retainer Garrisons for every city
2. Harbor in Valley Forge
3. Entertainment District in Hong Kong 
4 Industrial Zone in Hamilton (these last 3 get me the civil service inspiration)
5. A round of builders
6. A spy
7. Campuses in New York and Uptown
8. Libraries in Lafayette and Georgetown
9. University in Hamilton
10. Banks in Hamilton and Hong Kong/Schuyler

Being able to do this about still about ~10-15 turns away - I have a military to build in the interim! In the meantime, I'll just have to deal with woden outpacing me in science and hope he doesn't get an uncatchable lead. At least I'm kicking his ass in culture. 

Anyway, I mentioned this in the list, I settled two of my new cities over the last couple turns. 



Check out that harbor adjacency 

And I finally settled the middle of Death Valley. 



Two cities to go. 

Diplomatic Service came in on t134. 



I queued up Humanism, and swapped into a new government. 



I was making about 65 GPT for a brief moment before I chopped out two crossbows on t135. I'm still going to have tons of gold for upgrading and quite a bit leftover when I land the GM. 

As of t135, Meritocracy is getting me 9 CPT (3 Acropolises, 3 CH's, 2 Campuses, 1 Encampment), and Aestheics is getting me 6. When I complete 1 campus and 1 acropolis in the coming couple of turns (the campus will give one of my acropolises an adjacency bonus), these numbers will go up to 11 and 9 respectively, for a whopping 20 CPT from these two civics alone. 

My empire can no longer fit in a normal picture: 




Lafayette is finishing the long awaited 6 science campus before starting a musket, and Hong Kong is responsible for getting me the GM and accelerating me into Mercantilism for Triangular Trade. 

I just threw chops into New York and Uptown to finish two crossbows, with New York funneling its overflow into an acropolis. There is a crossbow 1t from completion in Hamilton. I'm going to delay Ballistics up to the last possible moment if necessary to cram out last minute crossbows. Feudal Contract will not work on them, so its important to build all that I need now. I think 8 should be sufficient, although I might find a way to cram out a ninth. 

The initial attack wave on t145/t146 (need to confirm this date) will consist of: 

8-9 Field Cannons
3-4 Muskets
1 Knight
1 GG

There will be a follow up wave of 8-9 muskets, so I'll conservatively be throwing 20 state of the art units at Archduke supported by their own GG. They will cost me a very pretty penny though (67 GPT even with Conscription and based on the smallest army size). 

This should be enough to crush him, unless he doesn't lose much of his army around Aachen, in which case it will turn into more of a slog - but still one I should win. I'm currently weighing striking at Myrmidon first, or pushing straight to Mykenes, but I have plenty of time to make up my mind on that score.

[suboptimal]

The game is still not showing me a religious tab though, so I can't see what beliefs Weedy Movement has - unless there is some other way. 

I believe that one of the city details tabs (the notepaper looking icon above the city infobox) shows the beliefs of the religion the city is following - I want to say it's on the districts tab but I'm not certain nor somewhere I can double-check.

[srgtb]

Scouts do count as garrisons for the policy.