[Spoiler] Suboptimal's Next Attempt at Lurker Frustration

[suboptimal]

Confirmed

[Alhambram]

I was running test games with Eleanor till turn 60 several times attempting to get dark age. I got dark age 2 out 10 attempts.
Mostly got too much points from accidentally running in natural wonders as first player, or clearing out barb pest close cities before they spawn horses.

-Carefully scouting and bit of map luck can prevent us running in natural wonder.

-Regarding barb camps I discovered something interesting: if you remove barb camp by settling city nearby or purchasing tile where barb camp lies, barb camp disappear but you WON'T get era points.
Also no boost for military tradition which means yo need to destroy another camp later on by walking any unit into camp.
You do get gold for clearing camp when settling nearby or purchasing tile which do compensate cost for purchasing tile somewhat.
Also if you destroy camp by unit within 6 tiles of your city, you get 3 era points, is camp 7 tiles or further of your closest city, you get 2 era points, something to keep in mind.

-era points gained by tier 1 government can be delayed by staying in chiefdom instead tier 1 government if you already collected at least 7 era points.

Maybe we can make this work and get dark age.

[suboptimal]

I've tried a few times and wound up getting a dark age when I had an isolated start - I was cut off from the rest of the land masee by two citiy-states and a large mountain range with no passes. Played it past turn 60, albeit sloppily (I lose focus quickly in SP games) and hit the Heroic Age at T100 without issue (took about 20 turns).

I'm going to try a nuch more starts, partly for testing dark ages and partly for getting a reasonable tech path sorted out.

Something else - I thought I saw this documented somewhere, but now can't find it in the wiki or the civilopedia. Each building in the RND provides 2 renewable source Power for their city in addition to the strategic resource capacity. Nevermind...I had suzerained Cardiff and forgotten I had done that.

[suboptimal]

OK...so I took that isolated dark age start and played it all the way through. Suffice it to say that the math behind getting a culture victory, or rather, a tourism victory, is pretty steep. There were two AI civs that were over 100 per turn and it took getting all the way near the end of the civics tree for Environmentalism and Social Media before I was able to push through. Granted, I was late to Computers (science was in the 100's, culture I was up over 800 at one point) and I couldn't fill my coastline with seaside resorts (too many hills but had Eiffel Tower and Cristo Redentor) but I was grabbing practically every great writer/artist/musician that came down the pipeline. I simply ran out of room to put things. I also made no effort to go to war or have open borders, both of which would speed things up.

To be specific, the issue is the tourist formulas...

Domestic Tourists - 1 per 100 generated in the game.
Foriegn Tourists cost - 1 per [# starting players x 200]
Base Tourism: your tourism x # of civs alive and met

In a 5 player game, for every 100 that an opponent is generating per turn you'd need to be generating 250 tourism per turn, minimum, to break even with their domestic tourist generation.

The TL;DR on this is that it would be fun to try but I don't know that it would be winnable. Of course, one way to win this would be to resort to violence to focus on reducing culture generation. Another thing to try would be to industrialize and then try to use Eleanor's ability offensively. In the game against the AI I inadvertantly flipped one pop 7 city and was in the process of using that city (with 5 great works, Bread and Circuses and a Neutralize Governor spy mission) to flip a 22-pop city when the culture victory happened.

I think there are three goals we can shoot for in this game:

1) Make the quixotic run at a cultural victory
2) Attempt to use Eleanor's ability offensively post-industrialization
3) Attempt to use an industrialization ramp up to out-produce and outbuild a neighbor, then let them have it.

I think that (1) feeds into (2) and (3) folds naturally into industrializing. However, (3) would likely require a slightly stronger focus on Encampments and Industrial Zones than just 2-3 cities.

The game plan would be as previously outlined for the initial cultural victory plan, though with the wrinkle of needing some Entertainment Districts (for Bread and Circuses) and Theater Squares in front cities to shuffle great works towards our opponents. Amani with two promotions and a focus on housing towards the front. I think this would be more of an opportunist strategy and definitely requires getting to the late game. Going on offense with loyalty is also helped by offensive spy actions. Of course, this assumes we get far enough into the late game for these things to matter.

I'll play around with more starts for the dark ages and then maybe try my hand at an offensive Eleanor game to see how it goes.

[suboptimal]

And since everyone's made a selection, the players and civs are:

Ichabod - BRAZIL
Suboptimal - ENGLAND (ELEANORE)
Woden - PHOENICIA
TheArchduke - CANADA
Kaiser - EGYPT

(Archduke was monstrously unlucky - first round civ roll was Norway and Georgia, second round Sweden and Canada)

I find it highly ironic that Archduke wound up playing a civ that you can't declare war against. Also looks like Woden got our reject and we'll have some competition for the high seas. I think if I had Norway/Georgia I would have taken Norway, damned the torpedoes, industrialized, spammed beserkers and gone raiding.

My initial feeling is that Ichabod has the best-in-class. Religious Brazil with a jungle start and Sacred Path can be a monster, which is why I didn't feel that Brazil was bottom 12.

[MJW (ya that one)]

You can DoW Canada but you can surprise DoW the civ.

[suboptimal]

You can DoW Canada but you can surprise DoW the civ.

That's about as confusing as my original post...Meant to say that Canada/Archduke can't be the subject of a surprise DoW.  Guess we both had a rough weekend.

Actually, the irony is that Archduke can't attack city-states willy-nilly - he's gotta declare on a suzerain.

[suboptimal]

OK...so a bit about possible early tech, civic and build paths....

I've been doing reasonably well going for Mining, Bronze Working, Pottery, Writing and Sailing as the first five techs, with Astrology usually sixth. The exact order depends on the start position and whether the capital is getting an Encampment or a Campus first. If the capital is coastal and has sea resources I usually do Sailing first. If the capital is coastal and has two sea resources then Sailing is "automatic" as those resources get 2/3 of the Craftsmanship inspiration and the Celestial Navigation eureka.

For civics I've generally gone Foriegn Trading -> Early Empire before Craftsmanship -> State Workforce. Part of this is due to the delay in getting the builder out and part of it is to make sure I've got Colonization available by Turn 40. The inspirations for the lower part of the tree seem to come easier as well.

Build orders tend to be a bit more all over the place, but generally I've gone Scout -> Settler to open. The question is what comes next. I've gone for slingers & warriors until the first district unlocks, particularly when there's barbarian trouble. I've also considered going Monument -> Slinger when barbs seem to be quiet. As for the intial builder I've generally been buying it with gold or building it after two slingers out of the capital. In that case I buy a trader in City #2 as soon as it's founded.

As for the settlers I try to build two as soon as possible after Early Empire completes, to the point of interrupting other builds except for a district build in the second city.

Time for some questions for the dedlurkers...

- I've generally tossed the idea of a Classical dark age overboard. It's been too difficult to get reliably while maintaining a reasonable start pace.

- It's usually been the thinking around here to use gold for a couple of tile buys and then save it for upgrades. However, I have to wonder if the money is better spent on either a trader (+1+1 in the second city, which is a "big" jump early), the first builder (to get other things built) or even a monument in City #2. Anyone have any particular thoughts on this?

- Depending on how close the neighbors are do we try a bit of a builder's gambit and go for an early monument in the capital, either as the first or second build after the settler, if we don't have a resource and barbs are quiet?

- The wildcard will be Pheonicia's starting location. If we're neighbors that might lead to early warfare as we try to establish sea dominance and prevent each others' economies from getting going. If they're not close by it gives us time but regardless we'll need to be working naval builds into the early game.

- Pantheons tend to be start-dependent. I've usually taken the free builder, the +1 to fishing boats or one of the +1 pantheons depending on what's around.

[Alhambram]

Probably for better to throw classical dark age overboard, too much antics to reach classical dark age.

I generally only buy tiles if it do add somthing immediately for example resource tile which you can grab boost with or strong production tiles (13 tile if you still lacks it).

I sometimes buy trader, but if capital got very strong production, I might build trader in period that I don't have production bonus cards for example Discipline and God King combination.
I rarely buys builder, mostly just produce first builder and create all remaining builders with policy cards as Ilkum.
I often buy monument in 2nd city soon city is founded, because #2 city is then capable to pick up good 2nd ring tiles fast. This is how I mostly play.

In past I also often opened with scout-settler, but lately I do open with slinger or warrior instead. They are better option against early barbs, slinger can get archery boost and warrior deals with them better.
Opening with scout might get you extra science or culture earlier but barbs might delay your city #2 if you haven't any units around when barbs harass you while you just completed settler.

The question whether we go at builder gambit depending neighbor. Well, a builder gambit against Egypt is probably bad idea due its UU, be wary of it.
Woden's Phoenica probably go at settler spree, we might need to act if he settles upon area which is rightfully us. But his cities won't flip if it is upon same continent as his capital, which makes him immune for Eleanor's power.
Ichabod's Brazil do look as peaceful builder civ, but don't forget how Ichabod won at PBEM 3: by ruthless rushing his neighbor and then mop up next one (you). If he is our neighbor, be viligant for his buildup and don't place pink dots against him, Kaiser learned the hard way.
TheArchduke picking Canada who can't declare war at citystates is probably biggest irony ever for all years of this civ 6 community.
But that also mean he can place city at disputed spot and we can't react instantly, need to declare 5 turns later after denoucing him which gives him 5 turns extra to reinforce his foward city.

A early naval war with Phoenica is probably last thing what I want, Phoenica got Bireme as UU and all navy 50% production bonus which mean Woden is going outbuild us if we are roughly equal in size.
Hopefully Pangea map places Woden in middle of continent but I think that it isn't how it works.

Pantehons are indeed start-dependent unless you want go for religious victory which you needs more faith or if you got civ which has nice synergy fro example Brazil with Earth Goddess with 1+ appeal from rainforests.

[suboptimal]

Let's see....

- I've generally been going warrior first in the past couple of PBEMs after discussing it with Cornflakes in PBEM 14. I felt, though, that in PBEM 15 my scouting was hampered by warrior first. I went slinger first in PBEM 17.

- Phoenicia's 100% loyalty only applies to coastal cities. Anything he settles inland doesn't have that issue to contend with. If Woden winds up next to us then we could be hamstrung quite early. However, he also doesn't get the +50% production bonus until he gets a Cothon built so we have a little bit of time. If he's nearby then we'll need our second or third city to be coastal and building naval units to get a defense up.

- As for start positions both England and Phoenicia are Tier 2 but Cornflakes has already said he's moved the start positions around. unlike earlier versions, Pangea maps post-GS tend to be non-uniform in shape (ie not round blobs). I don't see Cornflakes putting someone in the middle of the map unless they've got chokepoints to control - look at Archduke's position in PBEM 2 where he was

- The other thing to note - a denouncement is like a DoF in that it "lasts" 30 turns. That means that you could denounce him, wait 25 turns and then declare war. I've been thinking about how hilarious it would be to troll Archduke by denouncing him and doing nothing. Is intentionally trying to put someone on tilt a community-accepted RB strategem?