Chevalier Makes Do

[TheArchduke]

Love your naming sheme.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

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

And yet deer, also a bonus animal resource, yield production! What's the rhyme or reason? Who can know these things?

Love your naming sheme.

Thanks! This was my backup English naming scheme after famous naval battles, which seemed the more natural choice.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 12 was boring and I don't know how to make it exciting to read about:




Found the southern coast. Note all the jungle, though - my intuition of starting south of the equator was incorrect, and the continent may go further south than I thought. That would explain why I'm finding coast in every direction except the one I haven't explored yet - southeast. I'm having a really hard time establishing the geography of this map. No other city-states in sight, but we're a long ways from PP so we've got time. No neighbors yet, either. Hell, (-knocks furiously on wood-), we've only seen that one barb scout so far and Vilnius did most of the heavy lifting there.




All quiet on the English front.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 13

oh.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 14

The barb spear opted not to attack my scout, so I'm slowly easing him around and I'll continue to head towards the warrior. Right now, though, I'm finding coast in every direction! There's still a possible land bridge to the north, near Vilnius, so I may send my scout that direction. The only other possible direction is the southeast, which has yet to be fully scouted. 

The warrior, crossing the river near the desert, has entered a fertile lake country. I pin another possible city site and a fishing village, again, going for maximum density:




There haven't been too many games of Civ VI singleplayer, but really, what's stopping ICS in Civ VI? Amenities and escalating settler costs, right? Settlers should eventually price you out of more cities, but back-of-the-envelop math with Colonization suggests that you don't hit that point until damn near 20 cities (or a shorter game). Right now, counting Petra, I have only 6 cities pinned - which means I'm only halfway through settling this area. 

Now, amenities are harder, but a dense network of cities makes sense there, too. You just need one or two entertainment centers in a hub location, and then let their amenities radiate out to all the nearby cities! I've not done the math on how many EDs you'd need per X amount of cities, because as you guys know I try to stay out of the weeds on how the various systems work if I can at all avoid it. I'm a big picture guy and only crunch the numbers when I have to (like going for a wonder). 

Anyway, it's 13 turns in and I have yet to meet my nearest neighbor. I've got a bit of isolation, therefore, and I think it's a chance to try again what I did with Korea in PBEM8: Just go nuts with chopping settlers. Which would you rather have - a wonder, or another city? Almost always another city, right? How 'bout a military unit - or another city? Again, another city. So that's the gameplan. We've got tons of choppables in the jungle belt, and cattle and rice in abundance to grow our population. No one else can capture city-states for a quick boost, so it's self-founded cities all the way. Thus, I think more mediocre sites are better than a few superior sites. Hence my "pin as densely as possible" strategy.

We'll see how it goes. Here's an overview of the known world so far:




Need to remember to show you guys some pretty normal screenshots, although I do most of my planning and playing in strategic mode. 

EDIT: Also, you see that I've started a settler in Manticore. I decided I'd rather go settler right after builder. Risky move, with a barb camp nearby, but this gives me time to get Craftsmanship up for Agoge, so I can build cheap slingers to patrol my area, and get a second city faster. That, in turn, speeds the beeline for Early Empire, at which point we'll take Colonization and get chopping. Need at least one builder charge per city at that point, then our cities will double, regrow...then double again.

Research wise, I think we'll be right on time with animal husbandry and Craftsmanship. I swapped off foreign trade in the hopes of finding a foreign continent and preserving some culture, but obviously I can't put that off too long. I don't intend to swerve from the PP beeline. Eventually Alhambram will pass me in culture output as new cities go up, but if I can stay close until our empires are established I'll feel okay on culture. 

I'd like to get an early campus, as well - maybe hand-built after the settler chop? Not looking to take the lead here yet, but want to keep up in science. We'll eventually lead through total pop and number of cities, defended by our isolation and the Royal Navy terrorizing the coasts. With no diplomacy, the others should have a tough time coordinating to take me down. 

Now, as long as no neighbor just gets totally eaten by another...But there's no Archduke this game, so fingers crossed!

[suboptimal]

There haven't been too many games of Civ VI singleplayer, but really, what's stopping ICS in Civ VI? Amenities and escalating settler costs, right? Settlers should eventually price you out of more cities, but back-of-the-envelop math with Colonization suggests that you don't hit that point until damn near 20 cities (or a shorter game). Right now, counting Petra, I have only 6 cities pinned - which means I'm only halfway through settling this area. 

Now, amenities are harder, but a dense network of cities makes sense there, too. You just need one or two entertainment centers in a hub location, and then let their amenities radiate out to all the nearby cities! I've not done the math on how many EDs you'd need per X amount of cities, because as you guys know I try to stay out of the weeds on how the various systems work if I can at all avoid it. I'm a big picture guy and only crunch the numbers when I have to (like going for a wonder).

ICS is possible in single player only because the AI is inept and passive.  However, the ICS folks also seem to limit city size (killing growth after Pop 7) or are builders content to play for 400 turns.  In MP you'll have none of those luxuries.   

Having done the big empire thing I think the threshold for building settlers is a bit lower than 20.  The scaling production costs, even with Colonization, get too large vs. the available production.  The only way this works out beyond 12 or so settlers is to have the time to get a city or two built up as a production hub.  The other consideration is return on production value, which was touched upon in the lurker thread in PBEM 10.  Granted, Magnus under R&F changes the numbers quite a bit, but if the production cost of a settler is near that of a tank (which it would be if you've built more than 9 settlers) I would think that the tank is the better MP build unless you need a resource grab or have some sort of special plan in mind.

Regarding amenities, Entertainment Districts do not have a radius effect until you get a Zoo or Stadium built, and even then it's only the amenity from the improvement.  The base district and the arena are both local to the city and you will run short on amenities before you can get Zoos built if your empire gets too big.  Look at the difficulties that rho21 had in PBEM 10 vs. mine, considering the Aztec bonus, the Colosseum and our relative empire sizes.  I would make the argument that the Colosseum is as important for its amenities as it is for its culture if considering a large empire.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

There haven't been too many games of Civ VI singleplayer, but really, what's stopping ICS in Civ VI? Amenities and escalating settler costs, right? Settlers should eventually price you out of more cities, but back-of-the-envelop math with Colonization suggests that you don't hit that point until damn near 20 cities (or a shorter game). Right now, counting Petra, I have only 6 cities pinned - which means I'm only halfway through settling this area. 

Now, amenities are harder, but a dense network of cities makes sense there, too. You just need one or two entertainment centers in a hub location, and then let their amenities radiate out to all the nearby cities! I've not done the math on how many EDs you'd need per X amount of cities, because as you guys know I try to stay out of the weeds on how the various systems work if I can at all avoid it. I'm a big picture guy and only crunch the numbers when I have to (like going for a wonder).

ICS is possible in single player only because the AI is inept and passive.  However, the ICS folks also seem to limit city size (killing growth after Pop 7) or are builders content to play for 400 turns.  In MP you'll have none of those luxuries.   

Having done the big empire thing I think the threshold for building settlers is a bit lower than 20.  The scaling production costs, even with Colonization, get too large vs. the available production.  The only way this works out beyond 12 or so settlers is to have the time to get a city or two built up as a production hub.  The other consideration is return on production value, which was touched upon in the lurker thread in PBEM 10.  Granted, Magnus under R&F changes the numbers quite a bit, but if the production cost of a settler is near that of a tank (which it would be if you've built more than 9 settlers) I would think that the tank is the better MP build unless you need a resource grab or have some sort of special plan in mind.

Regarding amenities, Entertainment Districts do not have a radius effect until you get a Zoo or Stadium built, and even then it's only the amenity from the improvement.  The base district and the arena are both local to the city and you will run short on amenities before you can get Zoos built if your empire gets too big.  Look at the difficulties that rho21 had in PBEM 10 vs. mine, considering the Aztec bonus, the Colosseum and our relative empire sizes.  I would make the argument that the Colosseum is as important for its amenities as it is for its culture if considering a large empire.

Well, I'm hoping to grab the Colosseum, probably at Gryphon, with its abundance of choppables. 

Now, late game, at the time you've got tanks, sure, probably take a tank instead of a city. But at this stage, the only thing holding me back from endless settlers (until I find a hostile neighbor, of course!) is the steeply increasing production costs - it'll eventually tie up all my cities, and I need to spend that production on things like campuses or monuments to get through hte research trees and find ways to boost production to keep up. 

However, the boosted chop to me suggests a shortcut, at least in the short term (heh). We've been using chops for mostly wonders or district builds, but why not settlers? Colonization is just as good as agoge, and I think it can stretch the time that you can expand before needing to pause and do infrastructure. In multiplayer, you can't do that (cf. Japper's fate in PBEM4), but if you're as isolated as I seem to be, I think I can push things a bit. Basically, I think the calculus this game - isolated start, no city-state captures - is pushing me to build a lot more settlers a lot earlier than I normally would. Not quite ICS, I grant you, but perhaps a Civ VI version of it.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 15

More scouting of the lands around the lake. Seems rich in food, an overall nice place. Trying to figure out the ideal placement of cities, when I realize that I can put an aqueduct near the lake - which makes things much more flexible, and will grab a boost for me down the line. Need at least one, after all.




In the end, I pin two more tentative cities on the southern coast. Yeltsin actually is mispinned, and needs to be shifted over to the east one space. That will open up a handy Aqueduct tile, as well. Both will be later cities, probably.




Still no neighbors. With the scout basically done with the loop, I'm thinking to send him to the land bridge. Depends on what I find in the southeast. 

Everyone has now finished CoL and a tech. Next turn I'll get irrigation and finish Animal Husbandry, the turn after that I'll boost Craftsmanship and Horseback Riding.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 16

Leaving for my run, so no big update.

They say a photo is worth a thousand words, so new challenge when I get back: Write 1,000 words about this overview shot.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 17




Finished Animal Husbandry right on time, planted the pasture to inspire Craftsmanship and Horseback Riding. We'll have agoge in two turns and we can start cranking out settlers. 

I opted to go with Sailing since I want an early galley - maybe right after I find a continent to boost Foreign Trade? We'll go exploring and see what we can find. 

Settler time should come down to 4 turns or so once Manticore grows next turn

that wasn't a thousand words, sorry