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

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

China recruited Hildegaard, which makes no fucking sense because Japan recruited Omar Khayyam and China goes BEFORE Japan. That's completely insane - how can he bypass Japan and recruit the scientist AFTER Khayyam BEFORE Japan goes? He didn't even have enough fucking points, you need 160 and he's only got 120! So he SKIPPED a player who had YET TO MOVE to recruit a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SCIENTIST than what was available USING POINTS HE DIDN'T HAVE.

Sorry, that's an 18-point science swing away from me because the game is incredibly busted so I'm pissed off about it.

Fuck these mechanics.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Actually, this is the chief design flaw of Civ VI for multiplayer: Way too much swinginess on essentially random dice rolls and way too much obscure mechanics. Like, bypassing the mediocre great scientist doesn't mean that the next player up - Roland - gets him, nor does it mean that the next player in terms of points - Japan - gets him, instead it means that the next player up gets to recruit - at a 20% discount! - the NEXT scientist up, which by random draw just happens to be the one I wanted, and THEN Japan (for some reason Japan and not Australia, EVEN THOUGH AUSTRALIA IS NEXT TO PLAY AFTER CHINA AND BEFORE JAPAN) gets the bypassed scientist. Add in the random-ass tile picker choosing what random-ass tile it wants. And the random-ass World Congress choosing whatever random-ass events it wants. It just sometimes really irritates me that your planning goes out the window and fucking China just STUMBLES INTO the one Great Scientist that would be ideal for me, because the designers of Civ VI were afraid of what woudl happen if, I don't know, you let players CHOOSE WC resolutions or CHOOSE the tiles to acquire or CHOOSE what great person they wanted.

anyway gonna play the entire turn salty now that I lost out on a permanent 20% science boost because of FUCKING NONSENSE.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Nope, still pissed. Gonna be salty all game long about that missing 16 science. Like, even if I bypassed Khayyam and he INSTANTLY went to Japan, then I SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN TO SEE WHO THE NEXT SCIENTIST WAS and I could have used my banked faith to recruit her! BUT THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN EITHER. So literally the ONLY way it could happen is if Khayyam absurdly goes to Japan WHEN I END THE TURN. NOTHING ABOUT ANYTHING MAKES SENSE RARGH SMASH

just for this, by the way, guys, I'm burning down Chinese cities. Fuck China. This is bullshit. Anyway on with the turn.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

As best I figure, Omar was forced on Japan not at the start of the Japanese turn, which I thought would happen, but instead at the END of my turn, absurd as that is. Then at the start of China's turn, because Omar was gone, Roland got the discounted Hildegaard because he won the 50/50 coin toss and got her instead of Abu. Then I was able to recruit Abu on my turn (I passed him on to Australia instead). I didn't think it'd be possible for anyone to snipe a scientist between turns, because I thought

a)I go right after Japan, so will get first crack at the new scientist and
b)anyway no one has enough points other than me so no worries.

I have a consolation prize in mind for my faith I've been hoarding, next turn, and at least I"ll get a head start on the Industrial Scientist...who will almost certainly be Emile instead of Newton or Galileo (I have a GREAT 2000 beaker Galileo spot, which would admittedly far outproduce Hildegaard assuming the game ends within 120 turns).

[Sullla]

The Great Person design in Civ6 is mind-bogglingly stupid. They could keep 99% of the current system intact and improve it a hundredfold by doing three small things:

1) Great People points accumulate in a pool until they are spent.
2) All Great People associated with their era unlock upon reaching that era.
3) Players spend points to purchase Great People however they want.

Think about how much better that system would be. Players could save up and CHOOSE which Great People they wanted instead of an asinine system that randomly picks one Great Person and basically forces them onto whoever reaches them first. There would be so much more depth and interesting decisions to make - do you go for an early Great Person or save up for something more powerful in a later era? "Uh oh, player X has several hundred Great Scientist points saved up, that's going to be dangerous whenever they cash them all in." And so on. It's a bafflingly dumb missed opportunity for no reason whatsoever.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 120

Well, it was supposed to be a big turn, with getting Hildegaard, founding 2 new cities, and catching the jong fleet at last. I'll just have to settle for leading the field in science the normal way and praying for the 66% chance at either Newton or Galileo in the Industrial. 




I started the turn here as usual, and immediately went to see if I could recruit Hildegaard. Alas, no:




As discussed, ridiculously the game processes the Great Scientist not when I make the decision to skip Omar, nor at the start of Japan's turn, but absurdly at the END of Russia's turn, leaving a half-turn gap when I can't do anything about the next scientist. Furthermore, the next scientist is discounted - which I didn't expect - and China, far from being 4 turns short, actually has enough to take the next one up. As the final link in the chain, on a 50/50 chance the exact scientist up is the exact one I hoped for. What rotten luck and poor design and implementation and documentation from Firaxis from start to finish. 

But mousie, thou art no thy-lane
in provin' foresight may be vain
the best laid plans of mice - and men - 
gang aft agley
and leave us nought but grief and pain
for promis'd joy. 

Well, it's not a disaster, since Russian science is still best in class and our only two close rivals are going to see theirs bottom out soon. The loss stings but I will get some burst science later instead, which I can use to land some key techs, I hope. 

I settle my two cities in Svalbard, tweaking Phoenicia's nose as I do:




A nice bundle of era score, I don't know if I'll make a Golden Age or not. It's a tall order.

Here's the new Svalbard:




General-Admiral Graf Apraksin is a rare "normal" Russian city, albeit with great tiles to work. I immediately place a harbor, although a Monument is probably needed here to combat loyalty pressure. It has wheat, sugar, two gypsum mines, and a plains forest hill tile and a floodplain thrown into the bargain. As per standard Russian doctrine I work the food tiles first - I figure work food as long as you have good tiles to grow onto, or if you need the production NOW for a special project. 

To the south, Admiral Seniavin is another lavra colony, this one with bonus niter. It has the niter tile - improved immediately - a set of turtles, and assorted hills and fish and stone. It'll be decent at just about anything, and there's some decent campus adjacencies available for 2 of the 3 southern cities. Hell, I could make a cluster of 4 campuses there in that mountain valley! That'd be neat. Maybe I do that at size 4? Yeah, I think so. Harvest the stone into a campus and this will probably fuel my science for the rest of the game alongside the mainland cities. 

While we're here, Ushakov gets converted and will finish the lavra in about 5 turns, and Nakhimov is converted in two turns, not one. The last charge will go into Seniavin, of course, and we can rely on passive spread for GAGA. 

To the west, my exploring army will sweep over this island. I'll send the two Writers north to try and map out Phoenicia/Norway/England and get the northern hemisphere, the units will make their way across to the big tundra island near Japan. 




Now, on to the main event: the battle of MMLP. 




We find the very tail end of the Jong fleet - Marco quite correctly committed the last of the Australian fleet to battle, so I join in on both sides. 

In the east, we can only reach the final jong, but the double-promoted ship is easily sunk. The rest of my fleet closes up, frigates now in the lead due to their greater speed - this does expose me to a lot of return fire, but after this turn sub is down to 6 jongs in the fleet, 2 injured, so I anticipate that he could sink at most 2.5 frigates if he threw everything at them. Then my galleys would close in and he's done. 

In the west, I have one crippled galley, which I slide up, using its ZoC to prevent jongs from slipping past until he burns an entire attack on this gravely wounded unit (IRS Johnston?), while two more fresh galleys come up. Damage matters now, since he can 1-shot the buggers anyway, so I order the men in and two attacks injure another jong. If Sub throws everything at these galleys, he should be able to mostly destroy the last remnants of our eastern fleets - but the frigates are on his heels and staying to fight means I'll catch up with everything next turn. If he does that, he'll lose the fleet. 

So I think the next three turns will see the final settlement of the jong attack, one way or the other. It mutilated Australia, as noted, but our team is still in the game and Team Sandbox's quiver is spent. From here on out they're reliant on China's pocketful of wonders and whatever ships they can scrape up on their own devices. I'll wait for the results of the battle before I begin discussing Phase 3 of the Indonesian War, but revenge is coming soon, Marco. 

Final setup:




The tactically right move for Indonesia is to throw everything at my frigates, which are now vulnerable to a massed first strike, but doing so will doom his fleet as well in a bloody battle. Then we'll both be rebuilding from scratch - and that's a fight that favors Russia. However, his alternative - trying to punch through to the south - is even worse, as that will net me the lot with light losses. The final option is to flee to the north, and go over to the defensive. That's my most-feared option, but I might be able to cut him off using the narrow coastal waters with my now-superior mobility. I suppose it would mean the end of the threat to Australia, but the fleet would still exist and I can't maneuver offensively until I know where that is and I can kill it. 

So, hopefully he continues to try to battle his way to Marco's final 3 cities, or barring htat, he comes in for the decisive battle, just please stop running! 

In the south, more joy. The barb frigate does indeed spawn:




Well, Sithspit. We'll pull our two wounded galleys into the nearby cities to heal. In 3 turns' time I'll promote them to Caravels with professional army. 

We've already seen the west, so how about hte center:




No changes. Again, Mikasa and Suvurov kind of kill me with the Harbor builds over more ships, but once those are out I'll have Press Gangs and I'll flip back in. I am setting a hard requirement on myself to always have at least half of available queues in this area on ships. Non-ship needs:

4 lighthouses (everywhere except Borodino)
Monument/library in KS
Aqueduct at Borodino
IZ at Borodino

So Petropavlosk, Navarin, and Mikasa make sense to get their lighthouses out as quick as I can, then they can go on permanent ship duty. Borodino and KS will follow as rapidly as they can, I think that gives me the best possible balance between immediate striking power and long-term strength. 

East:




Once the lighthouse is in Osylabya will go on to Caravel or Frigate duty. 

Sevastopol and Petropavlosk will need to kill a turn before they can start Universities right away. 

Finally, my Consolation prize:




Japan is at 183/199 and earns 12 per turn, so he should be 4 short next turn. I will earn 6 points, dropping the cost to ~940 faith to recruit, and I'll have 970 faith to spend. A Great Admiral will boost all my caravels and Frigates and I'll be the only one other than Phoenicia and England with one, so suck it, naval powers. 

I give this plan a 99% chance of ending up with a Japanese great admiral next turn because that's how this game goes.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Okay. Thinking longterm next steps:

1)IF sub came south, then I should be able to catch and sink 2-3 jongs fairly easily, leaving him with 3-4 left and a few more blockers on my part. Then next turn I can reduce him again if he keeps trying to fight past the blockers, and that should be the end of it. If he came north, then it's a brawl but again Russia should come out on top.

2)Thus, once the Indonesian army is likewise defeated, we should be relatively clear.

3)Therefore, Australia should first drive off the Indonesians, and then get back into colonization and rebuild the 3 lost cities. Probably won't be settling southeast now but we can make up for that with land in the center.

4)Russia should first
a)Sink the jongs
b)Sail over and retake Ilmatic
c)Continue building for a confrontation with China and to maintain Australian security.

So yeah, general longterm plans are for Marco to get back on his feet (Work Ethic holy sites + chops will help), while I maintain the military push and move to seize the central island and sack the Indonesian coast. I'll have more specific military plans once I know the outcome of the battle.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 121

Blood in my eye this turn, assholes.




I finish Stirrups, I suppose. This is interesting mostly as a stepping stone to Universities at Education, but knights will be very handy in the future as I scour Indonesia off the central island. For now, though. Boring. Let's jump straight to the main event: The ongoing Battle of Marshall Mathers LP. 

Now, last turn, I predicted that the final sacrifice of our eastern squadrons would be the nail in the jongs' coffin - they would at last be caught by my frigates if they tried to blast through, and worse, give me an excellent first strike. Now I open the save to find that sub is true to the death ride of the jongs and is making one last lunge for Aquemini:




I bring up my rear two frigates and find a promoted jong waiting for us. The greater combat strength of jongs doesn't actually matter much in this kind of fight - two shots from a ship on either side will sink an enemy, and even though I've been outnumbered the whole war long sub doesn't know that, and now we have the tactical upper hand. Two shots polishes off a promoted jong. 5 remain:






A third galley moves up and spots a cripple out to the east. I snap it up before he promote heals or something:




Four jongs remain, against 4 frigates (and everything else). 

Now, I could sink a third jong on this turn, except the Japanese quadrireme is occupying the only tile I could get a second shot into it from. Nevertheless, I push in my last frigate and go to wound one of the final remaining unhurt jongs:




I go for the double promoted one, since I know he can't heal. 




The final result leaves 4 jongs, 3 of them injured, against 5 frigates and 11 galleys in immediate striking range (with about 4 more galleys in distant support). I bring in my final remaining Eastern galley and park it in the reef, with the chariot in support. With the support of the reef, I estimate that sub will need 2 shots instead of one to clear this blockade - so he'd need to sacrifice two of his final 4 jongs for ANY to escape. If he wants to kamikaze into Aquemini, though, he'll need to use two MORE shots to clear the chariot - meaning NONE of his jongs will escape next turn. Alternatively, he might, now that he's been brought to bay, turn and go for the frigates. With 4 jongs, even though 3 are injured he should be able to kill 2 of my 5. The remaining 3, with galley support, will clean up the jongs next turn. 

In short, we are witnessing the end of the Indonesian navy. Sub's faith income has remained stagnant at around 60 fpt all war long (mine has doubled from 120 per turn to nearly 250 now in the same timeframe). He can purchase a jong once every ten turns. He can build jongs from, as far as I know, 3 cities, 4 counting Australia's capital. I can build caravels and frigates from 12. 11 of those 12 will be boosted by work ethic lavras. 

So the next 30 turns are my turn, jerkface. Bully me? Fine. Bully Australia, who never did anything to nobody? That's going to cost you, friend. 

Final setup:




That was the main excitement of the turn. I think strategically, we can pronounce the Australian campaign a mixed success - obviously we lost 3 cities burned and Ilmatic looted all to hell, which would be a fatal blow to Australia in a SP game. But it's not a SP game, and we took the best haymaker Indonesia and China could muster, with a (literally) unstoppable unique unit, and Russia is if anything much stronger than it was 25 turns ago. We are injured, and vulnerable to the other teams piling on...except both of them signed DoFs with us and are locked away for 25 turns. So Australia has time to recover and I have time to seek vengeance. China and Indonesia have shot their bolt and are now basically punching bags for the rest of the game - I struggle to see how they will meaningfully exert influence other than self-defense from here on out.*

Abroad, I dump some envoys into Antananarivo in a (futile) effort to entice them away from China:




This is a losing effort, I know - China has oodles of culture, and has the Apadana feeding them envoys. Envoys are the scarcest resource in the game, and I can't compete unless Roland is stupidly investing in Valetta too (but I think he and sub are splitting city-state duties). So next turn we'll lose them again, but it's worth a shot! See how it brings RUssian culture right into line with Chinese? Oh, well, you can't, because I haven't shown a screenshot yet. But it does! Trust me! 

In Norway, one of my new great scouts uncovers one of Woden's youngest plants, with a presumably chopped Harbor:




As badly as Marco was hurt, Woden is nearly as badly off. He has a larger empire now, but he was slipping behind Australia in research and expansion before the pirate attack. Now Woden's been playing catch up and believe me, a year playing as Canada shows that that is not a game you can win without lots of help. He might get it from ljubljana, who has been doing better...but ljub, Woden, and Archduke have been locked into an arms race, and Archduke upgraded 10 frigates this turn as he unlocked square rigging. And he's pissed at them for the whole earlier war. And (blessing in disguise) Australia's mutilation leaves the Raiders as Archduke's main rival (no one tell anyone the true strength of Russia). Good luck, boys. 




So, hope the other two powers fight. One or the other gets mauled, Australia-style, while I punch sub in the teeth and take his stuff (giving it to Australia, mostly). It's conceivable that 30 turns from now we'll be recovered and both of these two teams will be worn down...so our final knockout punch can come in and topple the bloodied winner, whoever it is. I think Archduke will have to win in the initial rush with this massive force he's upgraded, because I can't see how long-term England alone can compete with Phoenician Cothons and Norwegian shipbuilding to keep up in a long war of attrition. 

Down south, the frigate chases my fleeing galleys:




I get into the city centers for healing and upgrades in 2 turns (maybe more, depending on Marco's actions). 

For my last trick, I demonstrate why having a monstrous faith income is awesome, pt. 276:




I spend 920 faith to grab Magellan, who amazingly did NOT fall to Japan this turn. 

Now, 900 faith is a lot! That's two military units, a settler, or a LOT of builders. But the thing about faith is that it's FLEXIBLE. You can use it to do almost anything with the right tools. 250 faith is 4 turn's income for me - earning a Great Admiral in only 4 turns is, like, English levels of Great Admiral points. But if I want a Merchant, I could grab that instead. Or an Engineer, for a wonder...you get the idea. But of course, 250 faith can ALSO be spent via Monumentality for settlers (it's a 4-turn settler build, too) - literally the only reason I haven't done so is I was reserving faith for the Admiral. In 4 turns I might buy a settler, or I might say screw the Japanese tundra island, I'll just buy military units from now on. 

With the admiral, my frigates are now qualitatively a match for jongs. My caravels can stand up to an English fleet on equal terms, forget superior numbers. He'll still be faster than me, thanks to RNDs, but I can work around that (as I did with jongs). Best of all, I now outclass anything left in the Chinese or Indonesian arsenals. China has built I estimate 6 quads in the last 10 turns (check the spreadsheet for details), so I can expect possibly a second wave of 6-10 Chinese frigates coming down on me in 10 turns or so. I will have something like 30 galleys escorting 5 caravels and 5-10 (depending on casualties) frigates at that time, so, uh, good luck with that. If he wants them as a defense force instead, well, good luck again. 

With this faith in hand, though, the conquest of the central island should be fairly straightforward once I establish firm naval superiority (mainly by getting everything except the frigates into Sub's home bay) - 4-5 frigates could bombard all the cities in the center at once, but basically the ships will strip away any defending units, then shred the walls, and finally I'll take the city. Then that city starts spewing out knights, or cossacks, god forbid...I can afford a knight every 2 turns via faith.  This is going to be like a zombie apocalypse once I have a city near sub's cities. 

Maybe that's why he attacked me, in retrospect. 

ANyway, point is, faith is awesome, and that combined with Work Ethic are going to win the game for Team Underdog here. 

Sub doesn't seem to be too concerned with defense, as he's building a commercial hub (because what kind of IDIOT builds harbors on a water map?):




Marco scouted the last jong outside the trap at MMLP. Sub is playing cautiously with it:




I have 14 galleys hovering around waiting to ambush him if he comes out for Marco's tempting galley. Most of htem are going to scoot along to China and see what raiding possibilities are along the coast - if the quads are vulnerable waiting for upgrades, if I can pillage some harbors, etc. I have more heading north to sub's sole visible harbor at the former city-state. It has walls so I can't take it with galleys alone but I can get some gold unless he's got, like, an entire second navy up his sleeve that I don't know about.

The last area of vulnerability is a final assault on Aquemini or SFFB:




My courser is in position to challenge the knight and defend MBDTF, so Marco can shift the galley over to SFFB to boost its garrison strength. Aquemini is vulnerable to the knight and sword, BUT it has quads providing fire support and a warrior in the city. Marco, I offered you all my treasury - take what you need to upgrade the warrior into a man at arms and that should stop the attack there cold without jongs (which are busy getting murdered up north). 

Otherwise, I think Australia can go back to peacetime production. Repair your holy sites, finish the ones that aren't up, and that will be a little goose of productivity. Then you can work on getting 3 replacement settlers out with Colonization and begin clawing your way back. I will send the fleet to reclaim Ilmatic once the battle with the jongs is over. 

Economic overview of the east:




No changes. 

Of the center:




Will be able to begin 3 universities in 2 turns. Borodino and Navarin will remain on ship duty until Mikasa and Petropavlosk are done with their lighthouses. KS will go to ship duty once its harbor finishes, until the two lighthouse builds are in. Then Mikasa, Petro, and Borodino will build ships until Navarin is done with its lighthouse, at which point Borodino will go Aqueduct -> Industrial Zone (placed this turn) while KS goes lighthouse -> Monument -> Library. Then all 5 cities will go into long-term war production mode, giving me approximately 1 new ship a turn between all of them. 

West:




Nakhimov converts next turn and will be active. Ushakov and Seniavin will be ready around turn 125 (not hurrying the chop since it needs some extra production anyway).

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Oh, hey, Marco, after you finish upgrading the Warrior to a man at arms, send back any spare gold you have. I'll need it as soon as I can for the Civil Service -> Exploration slingshot in 2 turns.

[marcopolothefraud]

Aquemini has been burned; apparently the Jongs were still powerful enough to fatally destroy it. That means no Men-at-Arms upgrade.



Assuming all 3 Jongs come south, Flower Boy might die too. That will leave me as a 3-city minor.