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Nubia-Turn 92
Quiet turn before the storm. Start of with...
Put in Stirrups, due in 4 but will complete in 5 as I need to finish 1 last chariot in 4 turns. Theater Square finishes at Traueret, so I can place a discounted Commercial Hub at Horus...
I switch back to the builder and will work on the CH afterwards. Builder completes at Nu-Kandy and I slot in an aqueduct, due in 11 turns but should be able to get that down to 7 with some improvements. Here is an overview shot...
All cities except Amon and Isis are working on Builders. Amon and Isis will each build another chariot before starting their Builders. That is about it. Most of my cities are ecstatic getting +10% yields. I also noticed while looking at resources that I am getting an iron from Valletta. Since I already have 2 hooked up I decided to do this...
CMF, I don't know if you need it but you only have 1 and I have 3 sources so I figured why not. Accept or reject, doesn't matter to me.
Here is the current Military Power:
England/Nubia: 454/629
China/Rome: 241/475
Germany/Russia: 320/205
Kongo/Khmer: 143/350
Cornflakes has been building units, probably chariots to upgrade to knights. May be a tougher rout than expected but still manageable since I do have more than their MP combined. I expect it to continue to rise as they defend against Rome. Let's just hope they move those units to their western front. No walls at Khmer's southern city, I may peal off a few units to take it out quickly if no walls are present by the time we are ready to move. We should be in attacking position by next weekend.
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Wanted to do a quick score report before my full turn, just to point out some current things before we wait another week on a score update. This will not update scores, though, just the demographics and great people tables:
Score report:
The main thing is just a couple of developments, because a lot changed in the last two turns and I don't want to spend a week out of date. Notably, Woden and I narrowed the science gap - Sullla/Singaboy run 104 beakers combined, compared to Woden and I's ~102. Again, though, I have only limited capacity for further improvement - eventually the weight of campuses WILL tell. But Woden is close behind Sullla, and he hasn't finished Recorded History yet, so I think we're actually not doing half bad. In terms of culture generation, the gap opened again after Rome/China drew near to us - combined 72 culture per turn for them versus 83 for us. We're still a few civics behind, though, by score. And notice that Woden and I still combine for the most powerful armies, and Sullla isn't actually more powerful than Japper/Cornflakes combined! Singaboy's power has been static the last couple of turns, as well - could be he's hoarding faith until Sullla captures him a city, then he'll unlock Theocracy in a few turns and join in.
Still, I'm optimistic. Sullla won't have significantly better units - Cornflakes has to be just about at Machinery, Woden and I only just finished it but we've been busy with other priorities. That means it's Crossbows, Ngao Mbebas, and Chariots against what I saw was mostly a Legion/Crossbow force. Japper made peace with Nan Madol, and he can slink to his capital and make a stand there. This won't be the one-sided walkover I feared, though Sullla still gets those free border cities - at leas they're mostly useless while under occupation.
Other news - someone else built a Harbor! (Singaboy also has nearly finished one). This was probably to trigger district discounts - unless you're me, Harbors seem strictly inferior to Commercial Hubs when you've got cities like Lisbon on your side. Singaboy might also want wonders like the Colossus (which I'm skipping as not worth the production) and the Great Lighthouse (+1 move would give all my naval units +3 movement, when stacked with RNDs and Great Admirals! That's nice to have, and I'm looking at possibly getting it done at Actium).
Finally, my new research rates drop the timeline to starting the VA to turn 109! 2 turns for Math, 9 turns for Education (ouch), and then 5 or 6 turns for Mass Production - 17 turns from right now. It's increasingly looking like the bottleneck will be builder labor for chopping, and getting my pre-builds done at Navarino, and not research! I'm taking another look at production timelines to see what needs to happen.
March 11th, 2018, 18:04
(This post was last modified: March 11th, 2018, 19:58 by Chevalier Mal Fet.)
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Just as a benchmark of this game, here's where most of the major players were in our other 4 PBEMs at this point. Compare the demographics in the table above with these historical performances:
1)First, note that in any other game, Woden/myself or Singaboy/Sullla would be demolishing the competition. In every category, PBEM7 is matching or exceeding benchmarks set in previous games - most notably culture, which is up across the board - and gold generation. Except for Archduke, Woden, and Bacchus, everyone in the previous games seems to have struggled to make money. Alhambram's monk economy was a game changer in PBEM2, and everyone else was in awe of his cash flow. In this game, that 18 g/turn is scarcely worth noticing.
Now, this is skewed a small amount by the team play - teams can specialize more, and you have a solid trading partner to rely on. Singaboy, for example, was able to concentrate on wonder building and faith spreading, to get his 71 g/turn with the same belief Alhambram had. 7 faith seems like a happy number for some reason - is that hte amount that a single Holy Site plus shrine tends to generate? Not sure what's going on there.
But by all accounts, I should be satisfied with my development in this game. Too bad everyone else is doing so much better, too! 
2)The major exceptions are Sullla and Ichabod's rates, which would be quite respectable in this game. Notice that both of those are the result of successfully invading and absorbing another player - Archduke gave Sullla 5 cities (and a city state), while Ichabod grabbed I think 4? cities off Kaiser in PBEM3.
3)The other obvious exception is oledavy in PBEM4. That absurd science rate is a product of Dave combining the Meiji Restoration with Jesuit Education and quick acquisition of the right policy cards. Even Sullla's science in this game can't match that performance. Dave's science rate, of course, let him beat everyone else to the Venetian Arsenal, letting him stay afloat (no pun intended) against Archduke's GA-boosted navy, and he was also first to battleships, which came right before the other players conceded. It really sticks out here as an impressive achievement.
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This is a great analysis! I think it's hard to compare games, because the settings make a lot of difference, but I also agree that the current games are being played with more refined technique. Ah, also worth remembering the settler nerf that happened after PBEM1 and PBEM2.
Interesting to note that I went from 8,5 gpt to 150+ gpt in about 30 turns or so (I'm guessing, but seems pretty close). I started building CH and Harbors and getting the TR policies + that GM that gives +gold to internal TRs. So, Civ 6 can also be pretty explosive, in terms of yields.
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Really cool benchmarking analysis to see! As a lurker and someone who read through Sullla's writeups of PBEM1 and PBEM4, it is quite astounding to see how far everyone's macro planning and decision making has changed and improved.
Clarifying here - I assume Chevalier's point 3) refers to oledavy in PBEM4 with 73 beakers and not PBEM2. While oledavy had a huge science lead, income generation lagged behind at 4 gold/turn, so there are always tradeoffs to be made. But in terms of the race for the Venetian Arsenal, seems like more science is the way to go until you hit the VA, at which point the focus quickly transitions into gold generation to finance the "free" ships.
March 11th, 2018, 20:34
(This post was last modified: March 11th, 2018, 20:36 by Woden.)
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Nice Analysis CMF! And I have to agree with everybody that it highlights the improvements the community is making at optimizing development in these games. I thought the speed of tech in PBEM 4 was fairly fast and this game is even better. Just imagine if we decided to go for a science/builder opening instead of a more military opening.
I will say having a snapshot doesn't really tell the whole story. In PBEM 4, oledavy had a much higher science rate than me a this point of the game but I was able to keep tech parity until much later since I had a high early lead plus oledavy dove deep into the tech tree, chasing subs. In fact, we both could have started the VA on the same turn but I chose not to chase it as I didn't want to waste the production if lost and it turned out to be the right call since he would have beat me to it by 2 turns. I guess what I am trying to say here is the yields don't necessarily tell the whole story, so don't discount people trailing behind or feel down because you are not on top. As Ichabod pointed out, it is real easy to change things in Civ 6 if you are committed and throw everything at a goal.
I am very impressed with you and your game here, considering you have only a few monuments and 1 campus but are close to the top and I can barely keep up and I have 4 campuses and all my cities have monuments. You are really using England's trade routes to their fullest. I actually think you could really pull ahead if you focused on development a little bit, maybe pop out monuments, campuses, and commercial hubs. China and Rome have early bonuses, so take early leads. England takes a little bit to get going.
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Turn 92
I finish Mercenaries and pop over into Trade Confederation and out of Serfdom for a boost to my science and culture - Woden is pulling away from me, but I'm hanging in there!
It's only after I do this, of course, that I realize I've made a mistake.
See, Trafalgar finished its builder...But Salamis needs one more turn, because every builder you finish increases the cost of the others. Oops. No biggie, though, I can't use the builder until I'm ready to overflow the Commercial Hub, so I swap to a quadrireme while waiting for another civic swap:
Trafalgar immediately starts work on another builder - I have 17 turns now to get ready for the VA project. I need 4 more builders in addition to the one on the field, so even doing nothing but builders out of Trafalgar wouldn't get me enough in time (particularly given the cost increase!). Salamis can hopefully provide 2 in total - one more after it chops the Commercial Hub. I'd LIKE six builders, enough to give 1 forest chop and 2 jungle chops and 1-turn the whole project, but that's probably not going to happen. Who would have thought that builders would become the bottleneck!
Anyway, current building plans in the core:
Trafalgar: Buildersbuildersbuilders. Then perhaps a granary and watermill for the Civil Service inspiration (need 2 housing, have a good Feudalism diamond candidate, just need - as always - the builder labor).
Salamis - 4 turns on the quad, then 1 turn on the builder, then chop quad into CH. Finish CH in a few turns, then build another builder.
Navarino - 1 more turn on the galley, then 5 on a quad, then chop into IZ. Rebuild quad, build ancient walls, then have 3 x2 chops of stone when the VA is available. The timeline is tight but I can JUST manage it, I think. Getting some builders here early to start throwing up mines and harvest that marsh will help.
The secondary cities: Mostly builders, also going to pre-build some Quads to pop out when the VA finishes. Monuments are on the table, and I'd like one more campus at Actium. I have an aqueduct down at Actium as well, which will alleviate housing issues there for most of the game. 7 pop is the goal for a Harbor/Campus/CH build, Leyte wants 7 for a Harbor/CH/Encampment (in that order), and Aboukir wants a CH (it hits size 4 soon, and I won't get discounts on CHs for a while, so I'm going to drop it as soon as I can. No chops left at Aboukir, have to build it regular like a plebian).
Anyway, my scout is having a tough time finding a way through the borderlands between Germany and China:
Cliffs and borders everywhere. Also, fun fact: You can see units from half the civs in the game within a 2-tile radius of that German warrior. I'm really global here. I also have visibility on Japper's army and Sullla's:
Japper's wounded army is at last withdrawing from the city-state. Did my DoF blocking achieve anything? I was really cautious, not wanting to lose my army to an alpha-strike, but I think I slowed him enough for Rome to draw him away. Those were actually tense turns, waiting to see if Japper brought up a battering ram, and it's a relief to have the city safely encircled by my units once more.
Sullla has an injured legion healing in the city - his GS functions as a medic, which mitigates Woden's GG advantage a tiny amount - but the battering ram, all the crossbows, and 2 legions at least are missing. I thought he'd strike south for the capital, or towards the exposed city further along the coast, but it looks like he's opted to swing south instead. He'll grab the two border cities, then press forward only after his entry to the continent is secure. Cautious, but solid tactics. I do wonder that Sullla appears to be making this attack solo - he's facing the strength of two civs on his own here. I'm very nervous that I only have ten out of date units supporting Woden, but Sullla's going in with no appearance from China yet! If only Japper had seen this attack coming, he'd have had walls up, crossbows, and Ngaos ready to greet the legions and Crossbows, and in the rough terrain, that'd be an even fight.
Japper, when you get around to reading this, I think your big mistake in this game was not reading your opponents better. Japper's moves actually make sense if you posit a total blind spot when it comes to Rome. He's behind on cities, he's weak on culture, and he hates England and Nubia's guts for razing his buddy's city. So he sends his own force - close to England's in size - to raze or capture England's key city state ally, which will give him another city, and a base close to the enemy homeland to strike from. Cornflakes runs GG cards to counter Woden's GG, then the two armies combine and go in together.
Now, if Japper had been monitoring enemy gold reserves, incomes, domination scores, science rates, or culture rates, he'd know that a lot of these plans were unrealistic to say the least. But not everyone does that.
Well, here's what happens if you don't do that. Most of Sullla's preparations were out of Japper's immediate view - I wonder if Japper had any patrols beyond his borders at all? I constantly poked my archers into the no man's land with Cornflakes to detect any build ups there - and so it could come as a total surprise. That'd also explain why Japper was hell-bent on wrecking his army against Nan Madol. He had time to grind down the city, not knowing he needed his army intact when the legions showed up.
Moral of the story: Use the information the game gives you, so you don't get caught with your pants down. Woden and I were able to watch the Great Prophet race from afar, which is a big part of why we knew we could get away with razing Aranyaka. We've watched Rome and China's build up and knew they would hit a neighbor like this right around this time (before Legions go obsolete), and all signs pointed to Kongo as the best target. But if you only play in single-player mode, not monitoring scores or anything like that, then you can get blindsided by this.
Anway. I think I'm the only person on the map who knows the location of both the Kongo and the Roman army. The only player who does NOT have a unit next to one of mine is Cornflakes. 
Let's see, other news of note:
I swapped out of CQUI and that fixed the city-state interface bug. I'm researching Naval tradition, on the one hand to boost my harbors if I can ever spare the policy card, on the other hand to get a policy swap back into Serfdom (sigh), and on the gripping hand to get a 4th envoy for Geneva to keep it out of Cornflake's hands. I'm hoping Woden will boost Recorded History for me after he finishes mercenaries - I'm working on the Civil Service inspiration now.
Speaking of news in the fog, Rome finished a harbor, but China's not far behind:
This makes sense for China. The Colossus is a good return on a single builder, but is too expensive for anyone else to pursue. The Great Lighthouse is nice to have - not essential. The fact that Singaboy has to build a lighthouse first means he can't just rush it as China, so I still have a shot at it at Actium. A lighthouse is next on the agenda after the builder, then I can build a quad, chop it out when the VA finishes, and dump the overflow stone into the Great Lighthouse for +3 move naval units! That sounds fun!
In the far south, I think my galley has the best chance of finding the final city-state on the map. Could I be the first civ to meet them all? Rome/China haven't scouted Valetta or Kandy (or, hell, Nan Madol), Emperor can't get over to meet Geneva or Nan Madol...hm, I might be! That's another goal!
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(March 11th, 2018, 18:33)Ichabod Wrote: This is a great analysis! I think it's hard to compare games, because the settings make a lot of difference, but I also agree that the current games are being played with more refined technique. Ah, also worth remembering the settler nerf that happened after PBEM1 and PBEM2.
Interesting to note that I went from 8,5 gpt to 150+ gpt in about 30 turns or so (I'm guessing, but seems pretty close). I started building CH and Harbors and getting the TR policies + that GM that gives +gold to internal TRs. So, Civ 6 can also be pretty explosive, in terms of yields.
True, and I think the table underrates your performance in PBEM3 at first glance. But in 8 fewer turns, with 3 fewer cities than Sullla captured, you've got nearly 25% more science than he does (only half as much culture but against 11 free monuments whaddayagonnado). And your science demolishes everyone else's (except PBEM4 oledavy), plus the reason you were ABLE to totally devour a neighbor in only 84 turns was your excellent early development. I really need to go back and reread the early pages of your thread, I could learn a lot about piloting England.
I still haven't gotten even ONE free melee unit. 
(March 11th, 2018, 19:51)WiseSanta Wrote: Really cool benchmarking analysis to see! As a lurker and someone who read through Sullla's writeups of PBEM1 and PBEM4, it is quite astounding to see how far everyone's macro planning and decision making has changed and improved.
Clarifying here - I assume Chevalier's point 3) refers to oledavy in PBEM4 with 73 beakers and not PBEM2. While oledavy had a huge science lead, income generation lagged behind at 4 gold/turn, so there are always tradeoffs to be made. But in terms of the race for the Venetian Arsenal, seems like more science is the way to go until you hit the VA, at which point the focus quickly transitions into gold generation to finance the "free" ships.
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it! I think the team play really does advantage players in this game, but I also think people really are getting better - how much more is chopping overflow used now compared to PBEM1? It's practically mandatory if you want to remain competitive! In fact, I suspect that's why Japper has fallen so far behind - I've been scratching my head trying to work out where he's spent all his production, because he has way less than everyone. While everyone else built holy sites, large militaries, or lots of settlers, Japper sloooowly crawled out to 3 cities, despite no need to build a holy site, despite not building any early district at all apart from a single campus, despite not building any military to speak of ever, really. Cornflakes took over a civ that had its only expansion city razed, but he's better off than his partner. The only thing I can think of is that Japper has slow-built everything.
That might explain why there's still so much jungle down there, too...
(March 11th, 2018, 20:34)Woden Wrote: Nice Analysis CMF! And I have to agree with everybody that it highlights the improvements the community is making at optimizing development in these games. I thought the speed of tech in PBEM 4 was fairly fast and this game is even better. Just imagine if we decided to go for a science/builder opening instead of a more military opening.
I will say having a snapshot doesn't really tell the whole story. In PBEM 4, oledavy had a much higher science rate than me a this point of the game but I was able to keep tech parity until much later since I had a high early lead plus oledavy dove deep into the tech tree, chasing subs. In fact, we both could have started the VA on the same turn but I chose not to chase it as I didn't want to waste the production if lost and it turned out to be the right call since he would have beat me to it by 2 turns. I guess what I am trying to say here is the yields don't necessarily tell the whole story, so don't discount people trailing behind or feel down because you are not on top. As Ichabod pointed out, it is real easy to change things in Civ 6 if you are committed and throw everything at a goal.
I am very impressed with you and your game here, considering you have only a few monuments and 1 campus but are close to the top and I can barely keep up and I have 4 campuses and all my cities have monuments. You are really using England's trade routes to their fullest. I actually think you could really pull ahead if you focused on development a little bit, maybe pop out monuments, campuses, and commercial hubs. China and Rome have early bonuses, so take early leads. England takes a little bit to get going.
Yep, and it's important to not get complacent. We came from near last in every category but military power 40 turns ago to rivalling the leaders now. Archduke and Emperor have lots of land, defensible borders, and now Archduke might finally get to put Hansas to use - I expect this team to catch up to us quickly as they swap over to building campuses and military units. We've got to make sure the Cossacks go for Singaboy and not for us - I think Archduke/Emperor have the ultimate outcome of the game in their hands.
It's also important to note that these trade routes come with a cost - I just want to acknowledge the tradeoffs here. My coastal cities have been great, especially with Nan Madol - what a lucky find that was! - but they're also the single reason I've struggled with pop throughout this game. Sullla's new cities are already near long-established cities like Actium in size, Salamis has been stuck at size 5 for forever, etc. I've only got 3 freshwater cities, in fact. I don't regret my city placement one bit (I mean, for one, where the hell is the rest of the freshwater for me to settle on, anyway? Nowhere near!), but I'm giving up a lot for it.
The low pop combines with my use of Harbors over Commercial Hubs - again, 100% the right choice, but I don't have the population to build second districts yet! The CH at Salamis will be FIRST time I actually put England's double trade route ability to use this game.  I won't be able to build campuses for a long time - but if I can get 3 science for every trade route maybe I don't even need to...
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If you are hitting the housing cap, it might be a good idea to push granaries and lighthouses before more ships. We are at least 20 turns (if not more) from needing any real navy power. Might be a good idea to pushing housing to get your cities growing again. Some improvements will provide a little housing, so maybe plan on granaries and lighthouses after your builder wave. Just a thought.
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So far, only Salamis and Navarino are at the housing cap - I finished a granary at Actium with overflow a little while ago. A lighthouse is next there, and after I finish the VA I can get in an aqueduct at Navarino and a granary at Salamis.
Then I really need to think about a settler wave, too. I'd like to push to 9 or even 10 cities - Syracuse, Jutland, Dogger Bank, and maybe one more coastal one, either Philippine Sea or Lepanto (to get as many possible harbors facing Rome as I can). That'd probably be all the cities I have time to build in this game - future ones wouldn't pay back the settler cost before the game ends.
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