Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Singaboy]

Had to rant in the general thread. Japper is really irritating the heck out of me. He is part of 3 PBEMs here (though he will be eliminated in two very soon) and yet, he plays in that nonchalant sort of fashion that I cannot stand. Don't sign up for such games if you can't predict what happens with your motivation etc. PBEMs are not a matter of days or weeks.

@Sulla, do us a favor and eliminate this fella as soon as possible. As Modo rightly pointed out, he seems to have 'checked out' of the game. This in fact, is yet another let down for the rest of the players. In this case, we profit from a very weak neighbor (though I expect his cities to be us underdeveloped as usual). Russia and Germany are not as fortunate to have them as their next door opponents. Hence, i would expect Japper to at least play properly and put up some resistance but it looks as if Kongo is simply there for us to take over.
Let's hope Kongo is history in about 15 turns.

[Sullla]

Still waiting on Japper to play his turn; he's had the save for almost 12 hours again. I hope everything is going OK for him at home since he's been struggling to play the recent turns. I wouldn't be too hard on him Singaboy; he could be going through some tough times, and it doesn't make us look good to be badgering him to play his turns. Anyway, some responses based on the last turn:

* Even if Germany settles on that small isthmus, there would still be room for another Chinese city in the south on the plains hill west of the crabs tile. We might want to keep that spot in mind for the future, although I agree that it won't be getting founded for a while, if ever. The map is actually getting very crowded by this point, and that will spark conflict between teams eventually.

* I should be able to cover the Chinese missionary heading to The Jungle Book. It only needs to be exposed to danger for one turn, since it can move to use the first charge from out of view of Japper. You can start from the tile southeast of where my galley is right now and move SE-E to use a conversion charge. I'll cover the unit between turns, and then the second charge will convert the city. I actually doubt there's any danger to the missionary since I don't think Japper has any naval units.

* On governments, I was thinking before to push immediately for Merchant Republic at Exploration civic. However, now I think that I'd like to spend at least some time in Monarchy before that for two reasons. One is so that I can take advantage of the wall bonus at Rome's new cities for even stronger Limes forest chops. The second reason is that Exploration civic unlocks Press Gangs (+100% production on Renaissance/Industrial naval units), and while that's nice and all, it obsoletes Maritime Industries in the process. I would prefer to keep Maritime Industries around for a little while longer to build more galleys and quadriremes for upgrading purposes. I will probably spend most of the rest of the game in Merchant Republic, but a dozen or so turns in Monarchy would be a nice pit stop along the way.

* The fact that Mpinda converted from the one missionary charge is great news. I'm also very interested to test Crusade and see if it works as expected. Let's hope that Rome does indeed get the +10 strength bonus within Mpinda's territory.

* I have no idea what's going on with the builder charges on Jebel Barkal, that's truly crazy. It's probably not worth adopting Corvee at this point - I would finish Petra and see if that fixes things. If not, we can always either invest another builder charge or simply build the remainder with natural production. 5 * 66 production = 330 while 6 * 66 production = 396 production. It looks like a sixth builder charge would be the way to go there if the weird result continues. (I swear this game is buggy with how everything works.)

Hopefully we'll get in another turn today.

[Sullla]

The turn came in late tonight but it did arrive (EmperorK played in about 15 minutes). Here's an abbreviated turn report:



Roman units have moved forward into attack position. Somewhat amazingly, every one of these units is still hidden from Japper's view; city borders only see one tile away regardless of terrain. Units see further than borders in Civ6 and I continue to see a complete lack of any units near Mpinda. Unless there's a whole bunch of units in the jungles down by those rice tiles, Japper is going to lose this city in a few turns. His power is actually going down right now; I think he has his units off attacking that Cultural city city (Nan Madol) somewhere in the fog. I'm curious if I can formally declare war on Turn 89 or Turn 90. We're planning on Turn 90 with all of these units moving right up to the border next turn without actually crossing it. Going to be an interesting turn for Japper on Turn 90, since he plays after me and won't see anything until he opens the save again.



The main economic action of the turn was harvesting the deer resource at Roma. I've been teasing this for some time and this was the payoff: 94 base production multiplied by 1.5 thanks to the Maneuever bonus. This finished the chariot and overflowed 139 production into the Encampment district, which will finish at the end of the turn. That's much more than the Encampment needs to finish, and I should overflow another 80 production for the following turn, which I plan to use for a 1 turn Barracks as well. The Barracks will supply a point of housing to let Roma get back to growing again and I need it anyway for the Armory to follow later on (we need the Armory for the Gunpowder boost). And of course we also get another chariot - that's #2 for Rome. I need a few turns to burn through this overflow and then I'll set up another chariot forest chop overflow move with the forest underneath the deer.

Deer plains hill forest is seriously the best tile in the whole game.



Ostia grows next turn and look at this fun timing: the border expands at the same time. That will let me swap the horses tile over to Ostia and give it another good tile to work. Ostia is still going to keep growing like a weed though, which is why I'm working on the Library to set up a specialty slot for down the road when it hits size 8. I also have a chariot + jungle chop overflow maneuver set up here as well, although that's "only" worth about 50 free production. I might use that on a market since I'll need two of them eventually for the Guilds boost. Still deciding what to do here after the Library.



Here's the overview picture. Two different cities are growing next turn and Milano should be able to complete the Campus in two more turns with the incoming jungle chop. At Venezia, I'm planning to put down a (discounted) Harbor district next turn and then immediately chop the forest tile there to get the Maritime Industries overflow on a galley. I've set up a tech to complete on the same turn as the Encampment finishes at Roma to "refresh" the discounting formula. At least, I hope that's how it works. I'll be able to finish Construction if necessary on the following turn to refresh it again. Firenze is off screen at the moment but finally has all of its hill tiles mined and reached 18 production/turn. Still growing quickly too and getting ready for its own discounted Industrial district for Venetian Arsenal.

My sugar deal with Singaboy is running out next turn so we're going through this same drill again:



Singaboy, can you check to see if the deal is still active on your turn? If so, then cancel my trade request and immediately re-offer the sugar deal on your turn. If the deal has already expired on your turn, then you can simply accept the deal as-is and that will be the end of it. The idea is to make sure that Rome never has to go through a turn without having the extra amenities. China has 2 sugar resources so it costs us nothing to do this.

There was only one noteworthy development internationally, as Germany planted city #8. We actually have vision on this one:



Kreutzburg would be our first target for naval attack in any future war with TheArchduke. One of my top goals with Rome is building a top flight navy to dominate the southern ocean. I'm not terribly concerned about Germany, although TheArchduke does have a couple of galleys sailing around off to the west. I'm more worried about England, who will be an eastern neighbor in the future when Kongo/Khmer are gone. We can never beat England with quality so we have to win through quantity, thus the reason to give the Venetian Arsenal so much emphasis. We should be the frontrunners to reach Mass Production tech given the need to run through Education (boosted by having a Great Scientist) and Rome's beaker output. I just hope we can build the wonder before anyone else.

That's all for the moment. Still waiting and wondering why England/Nubia haven't attacked Kongo/Khmer just yet. Off to you Singaboy.

[Modo]

Completely hypothetical and usual women-men relationship:

Sullla: I'm getting the toys out and I'm ready to go, Japper.
Japper: I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm just building my Theatre.
Singaboy: Girl, you should smoke that fool.
Sullla: Never mind that, just give me your jewels.

[Singaboy]

Turn 88:

Now this turn has been really happening. I was looking forward to it. When I open the save, I am surprised to see that England and Nubia are still not at war with Khmer and Kongo (when I check diplo it looks as if England is still having a DoF with Khmer).

Nobody has finished a wonder, especially not Petra! Sulla has sent a request for sugar which I reject but offer sugar as a gift as I did not have 2 sources yet. It should all be in order.

Hangzhou has grown to size 10 and I get Civil Service. This will mean a policy change and all wall builds will stop. Most are at their maximum anyway. Beijing has finished its granary and starts a builder.




On to the fun part, the finishing of Petra. Two tiles have been added to the city, the last second ring tile and the copper hill as I wanted. Just look at the new yields of the iron mine, the copper hill and the Oasis. Of course, finishing the wonder pushes the faith generation a little higher. 

Now the more troubling part of the wonder building, Jebel Barkal. The next charge adds 66.5 hammers too. This is just too bad as I will need to add a builder charge to finish Jebel Barkal. I have to continue to produce the temple for the Inspiration to kick in on time for monarchy. I hope to get the civic in 5 turns. I will need to accumulate 116 culture, which should be done in 4 turns in fact. This also means that I have only 5 turns to produce 3 chariots (to push them to 6), before Maneuver will expire.

I change the civics taking out Limes and Serfdom and replace them with Maritime Industries and Maneuver. Once in monarchy, I can then re-establish Limes and Veterancy to produce three encampments in earnest. I will need to buy tiles for those spots though. I don't think I can wait for borders to expand naturally as I would want those encampments to be done before Germany can think of attacking. Maybe I should insert a short period of Land Surveyors for that.

So, how do I produce 3 chariots in 5 turns? Well, with maneuver and a nice hammer generation in Hangzhou, nothing is impossible. Hangzhou is almost done with its campus and will then produce 2 chariots in 4 turns with Shangdu producing a third, getting a total of 6. Shangdu is emphasizing food now working the wheat and sugar tile. It will still produce the chariot in 4 turns and then go for a builder, archer or the trader it started some time ago. I want to produce 3 more archers before obsoleting them with machinery. Unfortunately, no production bonus for those any longer.
Hangzhou is making 24 hammers now with emphasis of hammers, which get the city to 160 hammers in 5 turns (130 needed for the chariot). The overflow will go into the commercial district which I want to produce sooner rather than later.

Of course, I also found Pagan in the south which pushes up science and culture. The values start to look better. With the better yield at Quanzhou my gpt increases to 70gpt, awesome. When Jebel Barkal is done in 4 turns, faith will increase to 70 too. Getting that next wat won't take too long ( I estimate 6 turns). After that, faith will be saved for unit generation.

I start Pagan on a granary as it needs housing. It could really use a trader for a route to Hangzhou for 3 additional food. Kashgar starts a monument to push out borders faster as the current tiles are really crappy. The next tile to be added in 5 turns is the wheat tile. The city will need a granary too.

Lastly a picture in the east, where England is trying to mess up Rome's movement in the Ocean. Don't bother about them, they will be jealous about your impeding conquest, though Nubia's military strength does suggest for the war to be just around the corner too. Anyway, I am confident you can take Mpinda in a mere two turns with or without Crusade in effect. With Crusade, it might even be one turn though access with legions is somewhat limited.

[Sullla]

That looks like a great turn from earlier today. The Civil Service boost completed from Hangzhou growing to size 10 and Petra completed in Quanzhou. The yields in that city are pretty amazing; the only issue is going to be finding enough housing to keep growing. The remaining copper tile doesn't even have a mine yet, and there's another desert hill in the third ring that can be claimed too. The only disappointing issue is the builder charges for Jebel Barkal; I cannot understand why that wonder is getting less production per builder charge. It legitimately makes no sense. Anyway, I think the push to get a few more chariots out before obsoleting Maneuever policy is a good idea. I'll be doing the same thing in a few turns to get up to about 6-7 chariots before reaching Monarchy government.

Now for my turn. My web hosting seems to be experiencing some issues at the moment, so if the images don't display try checking back in an hour or two.



The first thing that I did was check our status with Kongo on the diplomatic screen. I'm still getting a message reading "Unable to surprise war", which means that the Declaration of Friendship is working the way we expected. It was offered by Rome on Turn 58 and accepted by Kongo on Turn 59, and we still cannot declare war on Turn 89. It will be gone next turn though and that opens up the chance to attack. I moved my units into position:



(This is going to be really unhelpful if the pictures aren't displaying.) All four legions are one tile outside the borders of Mpinda with four more crossbows in position to provide supporting fire. The battering ram is also ready to move next to the city next turn to support the attack if city walls would appear. I don't think that I can take the city next turn because only one legion can actually attack, but I should have no trouble finishing the capture on Turn 91. If the Crusade bonus is working correctly, the legions will attack at strength 50 against strength 35 for the city and that's an average of 55 damage per attack, with the damage increasing as the city loses strength. Heck, even with the -17 penalty against cities, the crossbows can shoot at 33 strength against 35 strength, and that's 28 damage per shot for free. There are still zero Kongo units visible anywhere and Japper/Cornflakes haven't posted in their spoiler thread in the last two days. They appear utterly clueless.

More annoying is the presence of that English galley and Great Admiral combo. I dislike Chevalier Mal Fet having eyes on what we're doing in this region; it would be better if our attack came out of nowhere and cities were being captured in the fog. More information is always good to have in these games. Hopefully they won't try to interfere with military operations or gift a whole bunch of gold to Kongo. I still can't figure out why they haven't attack yet. They have a huge edge in military power and double Great Generals/Great Admirals. What are they waiting for? (Probably waiting for their own Declaration of Friendship to run out.)

The more remote possibility is that they want to attack us, but I think the logistics of that would be too difficult at this stage of the game. They need Cartography tech for that and they don't have it... not yet at least.



The disappointing news of the turn was the fact that the Harbor district still wasn't discounted at Venezia. Let's look at that formula again:

C = total number of completed districts (regardless of type)
P = placed districts of the specific type in question (e.g. Commercial Hub), this includes the sum of completed and uncompleted districts of the specific type
A = available districts to build, which is based on techs discovered. (e.g. Astrology + Writing + Bronze Working = 3 available districts)

For a specific district type, the discount is available only if both of the following are true:
1) C>=A
2) C/A > P

The values of C and A (completed districts and available district types) are only refreshed when a tech or civic is completed.

At the moment, the values for Rome should be as follows:

C = 8
P = 0 [for Harbors]
A = 8

The first requirement is clearly met, with C = A. The second requirement also should be met with C/A = 8/8 = 1 and that's obviously higher than 0. The only conclusion that I can reach is that the district count wasn't refreshed properly, i.e. it must have been refreshed BEFORE the production cycle finished and Roma's district was counted. This is a useful empirical test for future use, as I thought that completing a tech and a district on the same turn would get the refresh to work. It looks like tech/civic completion happens before production, so I guess you need to complete a tech/civic on the turn AFTER a district is built, I guess? We'll get another test next turn since I have Construction tech finished at end of turn. I swear that I'll get that Harbor district discounted!



I also used the third and final charge on Crassus this turn, grabbing this plains tile three east of Firenze. It's a weird choice at face value since this is a complete garbage tile. However, as I've mentioned a couple times this is the tile where I'll be putting down an Industrial district as soon as the current trader completes. Firenze will build the district and eventually place Venetian Arsenal on the tile southeast of the spices. I need to get the Industrial district completed before reaching Mass Production tech to start the wonder before anyone else. The city is still growing at a good rate and has plenty of hill tiles to grow onto. It's getting 18 production/turn now, and will reach 21/turn at size 7 and 24/turn at size 8. With two forests to chop and a Limes + Monarchy walls bonus to exploit (worth about 200 production if I set it up correctly) I think I have a good chance to land the wonder.



On the overview screen, Roma did finish its Encampment and had enough overflow to finish a 1 turn Barracks as predicted. That will give the city another point of housing to get back to growing again; I'll probably start setting up another chariot chop next turn. Milano should be able to finish its Campus district next turn with the incoming jungle chop, and that will be worth 4 beakers/turn. (Then the city needs a Bath district to continue growing.) Venezia has both a galley and a quadrireme almost done, which I hope to finish over the next two turns and then swap out of Maritime Industries in favor of Limes. All the new cities are still working on their Bath districts but mostly just growing upwards as quickly as possible.



I almost forgot about this but I do pick up the super-healer (Medic III?) Great Scientist next turn. No one ever tried to challenge our control of this guy, with Nubia being 62 points beind. We will definitely jump to a Renaissance Great Scientist for the third one, which is going to be a long way away at 240 cost. I probably won't get the first Renaissance Great Scientist, but I'll have a good chance to get the second one (we likely won't jump right away to a Modern Scientist for the fourth one). If we're really lucky, the first Great Scientist will be crummy Emilie du Chatelet (boosts 3 random techs) and then the second one will be Newton (free Library/University and Universities provide +2 science). Normally Galileo is pretty good (250 beakers per adjacent mountain) but on this mountain-poor map he's also a weak option. We'll see what gets rolled for the next option.

The biggest score increase came from Singaboy with his wonder + new city combo. China is going to get another big score increase this turn with another new city and a new district in Hangzhou. No one else completed anything significant this turn. Still wondering if we're ever going to see England/Nubia launch their attack.

[red_baron]

Long time lurker, but first time poster here.

The only thing that I can think of to be different for Jebel Barkal is that it's a DLC wonder (added with the Nubia pack, if not mistaken). It is possible that when it was added, the developers did not include it in some list that is used to calculate production bonuses  . Nothing else really comes to mind.

Great thread by the way, it's a pleasure to follow this game!

[Athmos]

As a dev myself, I don't think any developer in his right mind would maintain a list of buildings affected by this or that bonus other than simply have it flagged as a "wonder", sharing all the characteristics of those, including how it is affected by such and such production bonuses.

However, It certainly IS a very strange bug and missing exactly 15% is indeed highly suspicious, I must admit it looks very much like for some reason it isn't affected by monuments of the god (your pantheon), which might indicate that there is somewhere a list of classical wonders that are affected by the pantheon that is somehow not the same list as the list of classical wonders for which China can spend builder charges, which does look like a very sloppy job on Firaxis part indeed. I mean, how hard is it to have a list of wonders, and for each wonder to have an "era" deduced from when it becomes available in the tree, and use this single unified list to deduce all such things ?

Sorry guys, just speculating wildly here.

[red_baron]

It is possible perhaps that JB was not flagged as a wonder, as it was introduced in a later DLC. Especially that charging other wonders worked as expected both BEFORE and AFTER it, so there must be something strange in its case. Maybe some XML-digging might reveal the answer?

I'm a dev myself, and while Civ VI is very nice, I can see that it has a lot of problems that should not have been very difficult to catch in development/testing (e.g see the one great work for everything I have bug that was patched after 3 months).

[Singaboy]

Thanks guys for chipping in with your views. Knowing Firaxis and their sloppiness here, I would not the least be surprised. Very shoddy work indeed.  

Turn 89:
Construction is done and castles are lined up next. With 156 needed, this tech will be done in about 4+ turns. I found Tianjin at the coast and work the iron hill. As I am producing a second galley here, I want to run high production for make use of Maritime Industries. At 11 hammers a turn, I will swap the iron hill at some point to get a final value of 64/65 to produce some overflow into other things. This city will also need a granary badly. In fact, this city needs a trade route for faster growth and development.



As I stated during the previous turn, I would have to buy a few tiles to lock the encampments, I check the price for a tile and it's at a shocking 110 gold for a second ring tile. I think it is fair to say that the Land Surveyor card used for a short while might be worth it saving at least 330* 0.2 = 66 gold. The cost for those tiles will get even higher before enabling that civic card.

Since there isn't that much happening this turn, let's have a look at the amenities situation. Colosseum is really paying off big time here. Except for Shanghai, every single city is ecstatic. There is still room for growth for most of the cities before dropping to happy status. I still have two amenities within reach, salt and incense. What surprises me when looking at this overview is the fact that Kashgar has 5 housing due to being on the Ocean and a lake. With the additional 3f coming from its trade route by now, the city is set for fast growth.

In fact the city to grow next is Shangdu thanks to emphasis on growth. The city still has some nice tiles to work. I have made up my mind and will let the city produce its trader after the chariot and then produce a builder. There are simply too many improvements for tiles that I will need more builders.

Quanzhou get another 66.5 hammer charge and is now 3 charges away from completion (Thanks for nothing Firaxis). Hangzhou has completed the campus and goes for two chariots. The builder is reaching its destination next turn and will then charge the Oracle from T91 to T95. If all goes according to plan, on T95, China will then generate >75 faith a turn.

The missionary converted Tianjin and will move to convert the other two cities on T91 and T93.

The last thing I do is to check whether I can declare war on our 'friends' but that's also grayed out. Sulla, all the best on your turn attacking Kongo. Give em hell