Dave Fires Up The Epstein Drive [Japan]

[oledavy]

Turn 20



I was a little worried the spear would attack me, kill itself, and deny me the Eureka for Archery (I think you only get it when you attack with the slinger). Thankfully, it moved onto the unfavorable terrain of the swamp, and I finished it off. 

This in turn gave me the Eureka, and an envoy with La Venta. Hopefully it gives me an easily doable Classical quest, and I can get that 3rd envoy just about the time I finish my two Holy Sites.

[oledavy]

Turn 21

The biggest news of this turn came internationally. 



Singaboy settled his second city. I will admit, this does depress me a little bit. In PBEM2 I tied to found the first 'second city' on t30. Here, despite planning to found my own second city on t28, I will have lost the race by 7 turns. 

For the life of me I'm struggling to figure out how he got a second city out so fast. I had thought he skipped an initial scout/slinger/warrior, but domination rankings suggest he didn't. What then? If I had to guess, I would posit some combination of the following: 

1. Found a Militaristic City-State nearby for a bunch of free hammers
2. Skipped a builder and went straight for a settler 
3. Built a builder, then used 2-3 of its charges in chops/harvests
4. Good hammer tiles around his capital (1/3s). 

At any rate, it's depressing to know you're expanding slower, to the tune of a full 7 turns. I'll definitely be curious to see after the game how he got the second city out so fast, if there was something I overlooked.

[oledavy]

Turn 22-23

I overall really like the patch changes, if I have time later I might go item by item and share some thoughts. 

I will say though, while Norway desperately needed a buff (and I think the change to the Stave Church is really good), I wish they had done something else besides give them a +50% production buff on naval melee units. They were already fantastic on water maps, now they're just even more niche. They still are decent to very strong on watery maps and bottom tier on Pangaea. Something that would have made them more well rounded (perhaps a buff to Beserkers) would have been much better for overall game health. 

For this game, they just got a bit scarier. They can pump out so many Longships now...I definitely don't want to be their neighbor, and I'm better equipped to handle them than most with Divine Wind. That production bonus will be nice for all stages of the game, and mean they're always a major naval threat. I don't think it makes them unstoppable simply because I think ranged naval units, most notably in the form of frigates, are just better that galleys, caravels, and privateers. Now watch me proceed to get run over by a privateer swarm...

At any rate, two turns have passed. 



All my clever plans with my builder came to nought. As it turns out, my settler, standing in the exact same place as my first settler, was able to get eyes on Pannotia. 

At any rate, it does make my micro easier in the coming turns. After I finish this builder, I will start a galley with the production civic in place. When the galley is close to finishing, I will chop overflow into a trader. 

I've also decided that I'm going to really focus on growing the capital this game. In PBEM2, I never really spent a lot of time grooming Hamilton for the 10 pop and 15 pop Inspirations. Here, however, with tons of improvements I can build around the city that grant housing, I think I can make a push for it. 

The only other thing of note that happened domestically is that I cleared the barb camp. 



I got a high gold roll from the camp, so I have that going for me. Abroad, someone else (I think CFC), settled a second city. I'm still 4 turns out, but on the plus side, I don't think I'll be last to a second city. 

Fingers crossed for a natural wonder to the northwest...

[oledavy]

Civilization 6 Summer Patch Analysis

I'm mostly going to focus on the general balance changes, with an eye towards their impact on this game. Standard disclaimer that these are just the thoughts of someone who plays a bunch of strategy games and are in no way authoritative. Without further ado: 

1. Reduced the cost of Aqueducts by 30% and the cost of sewers by 50%

  - YES. This is long overdo. Especially on sewers. Those suckers cost 405 cogs. This in turn made the Democracy Inspiration (Build 4 Sewers) a real pain in the ass to get. All in all, this makes non-freshwater sites slightly more viable, although I still doubt we're going to see a ton of aqueducts. It might make building an aqueduct in a city that already has freshwater for just +2 housing a little more worth it though. 

2. Reduce the costs of all other districts by 10%

 -  Solid move. It still is just really annoying to me that the district cost often exceeds that of the level 1 building for that district (80 cogs for library, 65 for shrine, etc.). I feel like the district should be relatively cheap, and the buildings expensive - commiserate with the bigger bonuses they give. I'm still waiting for a district cost scaling system that doesn't depend on tech/civic level though, so the current meta of 'lock in district immediately' stays for now. Cheaper districts are a stealth buff for me, and since I'll definitely be building quite a few CH's and Campuses this game, districts I don't get a discount on, this is a welcome change. 

3. Increase the discount for districts you have less of from 25% to 40%

 - This is really interesting. I was already beginning to wonder about the value of sandbagging districts in PBEM2, waiting for your opponent to build one then locking in a bunch of them. This makes the strategy of drafting off of someone else's district building a lot more viable. There's some interesting cost/benefit stuff going on here, to say the least. Stealth nerf to Japan, as now everyone else gets a benefit from all the extra districts I'll have build early. 

4. Increased costs of district buildings by 10% (except Aerodrome buildings), and increased per settler cost bump by 50%

The first half of this change is fine, I view it as a fair trade for 10% off district costs. But the second change is my least favorite change this patch. Sure, it's not a lot, you'll only really begin to notice it for settlers 6-12, you'll always have colonization, but why screw with it at all? After floundering in Civ5, it's such a relief to me that Civ6 not only gets expansion right, but gets it really right. Stacking settler costs, housing, amenities, all work in tandem to create a perfect soft cap on expansion, rewarding smart planning ahead while not being too punishing if you don't. The game already has a natural cap on when it's smart to found new cities in the form of districts. Without overlapping factory bonuses and even with districts being cheaper, at a certain point, it's just not worth it to found cities. They will take too long to get up and running. This change seems specifically aimed at making that last bunch of cities you found more expensive. Why though? It's not a huge change but I just don't understand. I just hope that Firaxis doesn't screw around with it too much at this point. They've got a good thing going. 

5. Reduced the cost of all spies by 25%

 - Yes, they're absurdly expensive for what they do, even using Machiavellianism. 

6. The Hanging Gardens now provides +2 Housing in city it is built

 - Nice buff to a lacking wonder. The +15% growth is just not that good. With the housing, it's basically a twice as expensive granary. But, I think the best argument for building HG is for that Drama and Poetry Inspiration. At 180 cogs, it's the cheapest way you can get it. I'm actually strongly considering building it this game now. Not exactly a must-build wonder, but a potentially nice way to grab an otherwise tricky Inspiration. 

7. Walls now provide Tourism and do not have Maintenance. 

 - I don't care about the former much, but holy shit why did it take them so long to implement the latter - a change that was made relatively early in Civ5's patch cycle. It's simply infuriating to look at your city center in the Industrial Era, when you have Civil Defenses, and see that fricking wall is still costing you 1 GPT and doing nothing. Long overdue change. 

8. Battering Ram and Siege Tower now upgrade to the Medic support unit, and no longer function against a city with Urban Defenses

 - I actually don't think this was necessary, as silly as toting battering rams around into the modern era was. I guess they just really want to emphasize using air power and artillery with observation balloons late in the game, and didn't want people to be able to circumvent that. At any rate, this just means the Late Industrial Defensive power spike is even more pronounced. When someone gets Steel, you realistically can't attack again until you get flight, and you really need bombers to get anywhere fast. 

9. Gave St. George an additional charge

 - St. George is the GE who insta-builds ancient walls and medieval walls in a city. Great change, single-handedly took him from one of the worst GE's to now one of the best imho. 

10. Updated Monarchy's Medieval Wall bonus to "+50% Production towards defensive buildings. +1 Housing for each level of wall."

Great change. Makes monarchy a lot more competitive with the other governments. Could allow for some really broken 150% wall production overflow chops/harvests. Makes ancient walls actually matter rather than packing all the value into medieval walls. 

11. Proselytizer Apostle Promotion only evicts 75% of existing pressure of other religions, not 100%

Proselytizer was too strong, I like this change. Although, in practical effects, it doesn't make that much of a difference. Your city will still be converted. 

12. Press Gangs will now unlock with Exploration and Native Conquest with Colonialism

 - Nobody uses native conquest, so whatever. This one will have an enormous impact on this game though. Press Gangs is the +100% production civic for renaissance and industrial ships. Expect to see huge fleets of frigates earlier now. Exploration comes significantly before Colonialism. If everyone wasn't already planning to beeline Exploration, they will now. 

13. Increased anti-air strength....

 - No comment, I haven't played enough in the late game to know if this was needed or not. 

14. Balance Change to Archer (cost +10) and Maryannu Chariot Archer (cost -20, combat +2, ranged strength +2)

 - Egypt is finally getting upgraded from meh to decently strong. The weakest part of their kit was always their super expensive UU. Now...    Anyway, archers really needed a nerf, considering how ranged dominates the game and archers especially dominate the ancient era. Probably won't have a gigantic impact this game though. 

15. Increased cost to repair city outer defenses

 - Eh....Until I see numbers I can't really comment on this one. 

16. Moved urban defenses from Civil Engineering to Steel

 - I understand why they did this. Since they're making Battering Rams and Siege Towers ineffective against urban Defenses, they wanted to narrow the gap between steel and flight. Makes sense. I still don't like it. So much of the military side of things is packed into the tech tree, leaving the civic tree a little bare. I liked that Urban Defenses were at Civil Engineering, providing a strong motivation to maintain cultural production and making sure you couldn't be militarily ascendant just through tech alone. A minor quibble, but if they needed to move it, I would have rather they kept it on the Civics tree and moved it to urbanization. 


What else. Nubia is broken. A lot of overdue bug fixes, UI fixes, etc (the previous trade route now shows up first when it's time to reassign a trade route, a simple but fantastic QoL buff). We can now regenerate maps! That only took a year...

I already commented a little on Norway. Much needed change, although I'm annoyed it doesn't do anything to round out their civ. Instead of having a path to win that's not boats, now they just need to boat harder. Stave Church is now not garbage but still pretty trash. It needs a much bigger buff. The naval melee production change will, however, make Norway extremely annoying this game - especially in the ancient, classical, and medieval eras. 

Scythia got a much deserved nerf. They are still broken though. As long as their play pattern is what is it is, I don't think they can ever be used in MP. 

France got a nice buff, but I still think they suck pretty hard. 

Greece was unexpected, as I think they're already pretty well-rounded. Not top tier, but just below it. Still, I like the change (building an acropolis grants and envoy). It has some nice flavor to it, and makes Pericles a little stronger relative to Gorgo rather than the complete imbalance between the two at present. 

I didn't comment on Spain in my previous post, because while their changes are nice (+2 gold from ICTRs and +1 science from Missions), they're still pretty weak and not what Spain needed. I actually think Spain has a pretty fun and interesting kit, but they desperately need something to boost them to founding their own religion. If they had, say an ability that gave them +2 GPP per holy site instead of +1, I would think they're pretty solid. Not topping anyone's tier lists, but okayish on pangaea maps and moderately strong on water-heavy maps. For now though, they're seemingly going to continue to languish...

[oledavy]

Turn 24




Quiet turn, everything moving into position.

[oledavy]

Turn 25

Turns out I didn't miss a turn, although our turn pace problems of late bode poorly for our turn pace going forward. 



Jpper and Woden both settled their second city. Looks like it's either me or Archduke for last place, although if it's me, the gap between the first settled city and the last will only be 6 turns. I'm just really curious how I wound up so late in the settling race. 

At any rate, two turns to go. Finished exploring the north. Two turns until my second builder is out, and I can get my galley and trader out in short order. Still hoping for a miracle natural wonder, but I'm thinking I'm going to have to hard research the tech if I want to get a Holy Site out in any sort of decent time frame. 

For the record, I don't intend to spend all my time trolling the Diplomacy Threat, and indeed plan on being low key in general. However, I always thought there were a lot of missed opportunities in PB7 to mess with the other players, so I'm not averse to a little screwing around with people here   Seems likely Jpper has a boat out at this point. He probably built it right after his settler. Hopefully both him and Singaboy are far away from me.

[oledavy]

Turn 26

Another humdrum turn, moving all the pieces into position. 



Next turn though, things get exciting as I found my second city and finish my second builder. Foreign trade will also be in. Nothing noteworthy happened abroad.

Here's hoping for a quick turn around for t27!

[oledavy]

Turn 27

So, after a number of humdrum turns, this was quite an exciting one. Although...I now see that I failed to screencap my second city, Ceres 

Oh well, I'll have a screen of it in the morning. Needless to say, it's a beautiful second city. Ganymede finished it's worker, who promptly went to improve the stone northeast of the city. I finished Foreign Trade and made this swap: 



Both Ganymede and Ceres are working on galleys now. I'm currently revisiting some of my micro for the upcoming turns, and the exact actions my builder takes are going to depend on if I find a natural wonder to the northwest or not. Suffice it to say, my short-term goal is to get 2 Holy Sites out and get my faith production and GPP production going. I was already planning on doing this, pushing infrastructure after a second city, but I have extra impetus to do so now because of something that happened abroad....



A couple turns ago, when I thought Jpper founded a city, it was him completing a Holy Site!  

So, first off, I'm now officially 4th to a second city. Archduke and Jpper left to found. I imagine the Vikings have an industrial CS at their start, for them to be prioritizing a district that early. Time will tell if it was a good move. It does make me less likely to get Defender of the Faith, and will allow him to utilize Stave Church. I would also venture a guess that he has a Natural Wonder near his capital. 

But...this means I now get the 40% discount on at least one of my Holy Sites, possible both depending on when the game's check comes!  This is fantastic, as I already get 100% hammers on the district, now it will go up even faster. At the moment, I'm leaning towards slow building a galley and trader in Ganymede, and swapping to a Holy Site when Astrology completes in 7 turns. Meanwhile, in Ceres, I'm going to finish a second galley then start a second Holy Site, using a chop to speed it along. If all goes as planned, I should have 2 galleys, 1 trader, and 2 Holy Sites out in about ~12 turns. 

At that point, it will be back to pushing expansion. I need to get my western city founded soon, after I defog the rest of the northwest and get a good idea of where to put it. The hilly region west of Ganymede, north of Ceres, and east of the to be settled city is going to be my urban heartland - tons of districts crammed together. I already have my eye on a couple commercial hub locations. 

And, who knows, maybe my galleys will find an unmet city-state or two 

[shallow_thought]

... Diplomacy Threat ...

Spelling mistake or Freudian slip?

Enjoying the reporting.

[oledavy]

... Diplomacy Threat ...

Spelling mistake or Freudian slip?

Enjoying the reporting.

A little of both perhaps 

Thanks!

Turn 28



First picture of Ceres! Also, I'm finally starting to defog the northwest. Nothing too earth-shattering happened abroad that I noticed. I'm leaving Craftsmanship barely incomplete for now in case I need to do a Civic swap, and in the interim am sinking culture into Early Empire. Would be nice to have that settler production bonus for my third and fourth settlers.