Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Sullla]

Japper held the turn for most of the day today. I noticed that he and Cornflakes are barely posting anything in their spoiler thread; they seem to have checked out on the game. Well, more good news for us. Here's the new turn:



Here's the scene at the start of the turn. Japper's Ngao Mbemba continues to sit in place on the other side of the marsh. Is he trying to milk XP from getting shot for a promotion (?) I'm going to keep taking the shots since it gives my crossbows experience as well. Anyway, Singaboy's gold came through and Rome was now a very rich customer indeed. I went ahead and made a [strike]civics[/strike] government swap:



Farewell Autocracy, you served us well. Hello to Monarchy and its 6 policy card slots. I grabbed Professional Army along with Limes in the Military slots, while keeping Natural Philosophy and Meritocracy in place. For the Diplomatic slot, I went ahead with Charismatic Leader for lack of better options. We really want Merchant Confederation here, which would be worth 10 gold/turn for Rome's 10 envoys, but I still haven't finished Medieval Faires yet. It's sitting 1 turn away from completion and will be finished when I do another double civics swap in roughly 6 or so turns. Charismatic Leader isn't terrible though because one of the underrated benefits of Monarchy government is the 20% boost to envoy production. With Charismatic Leader in place, I'm getting 8 envoy points/turn right now, and that's not irrelevant. Still a long ways away from 150 points and two more envoys though - likely a good 20 turns or so. I'm looking forward to hitting the Renaissance era and getting some more quests.

I went ahead and upgraded all my chariots to knights, or almost all of them anyway. There's one still embarked in the water that I can upgrade next turn, and then the chariot who took out the barb camp making his way back to my borders. It ended up being 5 chariot to knight upgrades at a cost of 450 gold. Easy come, easy go on that money. All of my cities went up to a base strength of 38 though, and the extra movement on the knights will allow them to get to the front lines that much faster.



The crossbow that shot Japper's unit last turn had enough XP for a promotion, so I moved him northwest and promoted, swapping in this crossbow who already had double promotions. Even with Volley and Arrow Storm, I still couldn't get odds on this tough unit; that innate Tortoise promotion makes the Ngao Mbembas tough against ranged units. I also had a horrible dice roll here, with 21 being the almost minimum damage possible. (Range is 20-31 damage.) Oh well, better to get a bad dice roll here as opposed to somewhere important. The rest of my units repositioned and crept forward in preparation for the general advance.



Here's what my galley saw at the beginning of the turn. Hmmmm. That's a lot of English units hanging out around Nan Madol. I tend to doubt these units were just there to block tiles around the city state, it looks more like a deliberate movement forward to me. I sent the galley further to the east as it continued scouting, and...



Aha! Found you, Woden. Four crossbows being escorted by a Great General heading to the south. That is not a "keep the city state safe" force, it's an army on the march. There are really only two possibilities here: either England/Nubia are about to attack Kongo/Khmer within the next turn or two, or they're preparing to attack us when the Declaration of Friendship wears off. I checked and we signed it on Turn 73:

So it expires on Turn 104, and that's the date we need to have in our minds. Singaboy, I think we need to proceed right now under the assumption that we are the target they have in mind. It's not safe to act otherwise. Given that fact, I'm a bit hesitant to push into Japper's core and leave my units exposed to potential attack from England and Nubia. In a worst-case scenario, I'd have a damaged army that takes Heart of Darkness just as Nubia attacks and pounces on my units deep in enemy territory. It may even be worth signing peace with Kongo/Khmer here; we could always attack again in 10 turns if we get another Declaration of Friendship, and that would get the two captured cities out of occupied status. We need to think carefully about this.

The good news is that England/Nubia have sold out pretty hard for this attack. Their economy looks roughly as strong as ours, but that's deceptive: they're being propped up by the suzerain bonuses of Nan Madol (all that extra culture on coastal districts) and Geneva (15% extra beakers while at peace). Their gold/turn income plummeted when they upgraded their units, and now they're only making 14 and 47 gold/turn, down almost 50% from where they were earlier. All their Great People have been Great Generals or Great Admirals, not anything economic-focused. If we defend this potential attack and find a way to capture or raze their city states, we probably win the game.



In other news, this might be my biggest error of the game so far. The chariot at Milano was auto-upgraded in the queue to a knight. Instead of finishing a chariot and overflowing into a builder as I wanted, instead I have a half-finished knight and no overflow - argh! Well, it's not total disaster. What I'll do is slot in the Medieval cavalry production card at some point and finishing the knight with the 50% bonus, combining it together with a chop on the forest NE of the city to get about half of the cost of Milano's third district knocked out. That won't be for a little while yet though, so I swapped the city over to a builder for now. Sigh.



Overview picture. I'm prepping for another round of builders out of Roma, Milano, and Ostia. That last city came up just barely short of finishing its market this turn (117/120) and will complete the thing for the Guilds boost between turns. The new cities in the southeast are all working on their city walls right now in preparation for Monarchy forest chops, except Genova which may as well finish its Bath district first. Off-screen Firenze is dumping its overflow production into a library this turn, then carefully getting city walls to near completion over the next two turn before swapping over to Venetian Arsenal as soon as it's ready. It's actually hard NOT to finish the walls there with the Monarchy and Limes bonuses.



I thought I'd sound out TheArchduke with this deal, throwing in iron since he didn't have any to sweeten the resource for resource trade. I don't reall expect him to accept this, but hey, why not. Russia/Germany now have much lower power than the other competitive teams, and I'm curious about how they want to play things. There could be an opportunity for them to attack Nubia if Woden sends all his units off to attack us. At the very least, let's see what happens.

I also have a really wild idea I'll throw out:



How do we get a Chinese city on the front lines? Well.... we could cash-rush a settler out of Pisa and then gift it to Singaboy immediately upon founding. That would be super expensive at 1040 gold cost (!!!), but we could do the cash-rushing at useless occupied city of Pisa, right there on the front lines. I turned on the settler lens to demonstrate the very few legal tiles left for a city to be established, with the tile northeast of the citrus probably the best spot. Now, do I think we should do this? No - we need that gold for upgrades for both Rome and China, not to mention the fact that I'll be purchasing some tiles to put down districts at my newer cities in the southeast soon. Plus I need to buy the Venetian Arsenal tile too in a few turns. So no, I don't think this is a good plan. But it *IS* a possibility just for reference.

I think that's all for now. It's getting late so I'll probably have more to say tomorrow.

[Singaboy]

Turn 97:

To me it really looks as if England and Nubia are preparing to attack us rather than Kongo and Khmer. I think, Rome should be able to take the Kongolese capital and then secure it to defend against a potential strike from Nubia and England. If only China could get a city there to faith draft units there. My two chariots are slowly moving down the coast to get upgraded to knights. I will have to wait til T104 and Reformed Church though.

My missionary is on the way east. I need some advice here to plan my moves so as to avoid getting exposed. If Rome's quadrireme can provide coverage, I would attempt to convert Kinchassa via the sea (NE-NE). This means, the missionary would enter the Ocean T99, then sail next to Kinchassa T100 and covert it T101. Would that be ok? Conversion via a land route is far too risky.



On the home front, nothing much happened. I swapped out of Guilds to finish mercenaries next turn to enable Serfdom. All three builders are down by T99/T100. I will swap out of Serfdom then. Tianjin started a second trade route and growth is happening next turn boosting production a little to finish the walls pre-build faster. A lof of micro management is done to maximize overflows etc.



At Kashgar, which will get it's wall chop on T102, border expansion seems to be right on time. The tile it is adding on T101 would be used for its encampment, just nice. Of course, I suspect a chop on T102 won't get an encampment for a discount. I am still lacking 3 districts for that and won't be able to add three for that in time. Too bad. But a good headway will be made by the time Germany could attack us. With an additional archer in town (which will be a crossbow by T104), the city should be able to hold off any attack from Germany for the time being. Kashgar has a chariot inside it now too. There are plenty of units around.




A good example how frustrating border expansions can be is Shangdu. Its borders just expanded to include a rather useless river plains for me. The tile I would really want is going to be added in a slow 14 turns when the borders expand yet again. This is where Quanzhou's theatre is going to be placed. With the monument coming online soon, borders should expand a little faster. In three turns, the city will get it's wall chop for the Holy Site. From there, it will produce a shrine and temple to boost faith output.

Hangzhou will get its chop next turn flowing into the commercial hub and builder. I am at 7/8 districts then. If Beijing could get a relatively quick CH, the theatre in Hangzhou could be produced at a discount. Let's see....




All the best Sulla for your war against Kongo. I would move up all units towards the capital. With the super healer in place, Kongo will have a hard time knocking Roman units out. Knights should help a lot here.
If England/Nubia really want to attack Kongo/Khmer, it should happen next turn and no later. If there is no sign of that, a peace treaty with Kongo might really be a good idea.

By the way, once I upgrade a chariot to a knight around T104, I will get a 4th envoy in Lisbon. As I get second envoy next turn, i am then planning to put a total of 6 envoys into Lisbon to enjoy the full bonus for commercial hubs. I am mentioning this as Rome initially planned to out plenty envoys into Lisbon.

[Modo]

Having Nan Madol / Geneva should be a deterrent for warring for England / Nubia, especially protracted wars. The way I see it:

1) They hope Rome gets bogged down in this campaign and they get to weaken you further.

2) They don't really want to fight you head on and alone so if you make peace now they either attack Kongo / Khmer or do nothing.

So making peace now has several potential advantages in that either England / Nubia get involved in a war where you can strike them at your leisure or they don't do it and you can finish off Kongo / Khmer in a succession of quick  and decisive wars in a more controlled fashion.

[Sullla]

Yeah, my reading of the situation is also that we are the likely target of their attack. I just think they would have attacked Kongo/Khmer by now if they were gunning for the weaker team. If we are the target, I think it's a mistake from a strategic perspective. Chevalier Mal Fet and Woden have the chance to swallow up a weaker team that borders them with minimum effort, absorbing more territory and districts to make themselves significantly stronger. If they're worried about our team, they would only be putting themselves in a stronger position by taking five or six more cities before looking to attack us. Instead, they apparently want to fight us at the end of ridiculously long supply lines halfway across the world, with another empire in between us and no easy way to provide reinforcements as units are lost. We're certainly ahead in this game, but we're not THAT far ahead that they need to take such steps. And oh look, it's YET ANOTHER game where teams are racing across the world to go fight Sullla's empire. Never saw that one before. At least this is not a diplo game and it will be much harder for our rivals to coordinate against us.

So Singaboy, the current Declaration of Friendship with England/Nubia will wear off on Turn 104. That's the turn when either one of us can declare war. We just played Turn 97, which means that Rome will get six more turns to play before England/Nubia could launch an attack. I'm very hesitant to push deeper into Kongo territory because six turns isn't enough time to both capture Heart of Darkness and prepare to meet an incoming attack. I think it would take about five turns to take the capital, and then my units are all sitting there strung out and injured right when a whole bunch of English and Nubian units arrive. I want to be defending within my own territory, with the benefit of city walls to provide additional firepower. That means holding in place or even pulling back slightly into territory that we control. I'm mostly worried about Nubian crossbows that will have 3 movement points, and with double Great Generals, Woden will be able to grant pretty much every one of his units the extra movement (and +5 strength). That's tough to defend against since they can move onto a forest/jungle tile and then still fire. Maybe we can use the natural choke point south of Pisa to our advantage; I'm thinking of chopping one of the jungle tiles there to finish the city walls.

One thing I might do is fake an attack on Heart of Darkness, i.e. push all of my units forward a tile right up to the city's border where they will be visible to Japper, then ask for a peace treaty. There's no diplomacy in this game so he has no way of coordinating with England/Nubia. He's going to see his capital about to get crushed and then a way out of it with a peace deal - I suspect that will look appealing. Worth a shot, right? If Japper shoots back with a ridiculous request like wanting his cities back then we'll know that he's not interested and can play accordingly.

I also think that time works to our advantage, and that delay is a good thing for us. As soon as Rome finishes researching Mass Production, I'll be pushing for Military Engineering (2 turns) and then Gunpowder (7 turns without the boost, but building an Armory should be pretty doable). It would be really nice to be able to upgrade my legions into muskets and use them for front line blocking protection. That would get them to 55 base strength, and they all have Battlecry for another +7 strength against melee/range units (on offense). Only only of them has Tortoise for the +10 strength against ranged attacks, although some of the others are pretty close. Fortifying in place for +6 strength along with Tortoise promotion, after being upgraded to a musket, would mean that crossbow bolts are basically irrelevant. (Strength 45 with Great General against strength 71? Expected damage would be 10 per shot, and healed instantly along with the Great Scientist.) The other important thing about muskets is that they would increase the base strength of any city to 45, which Bastions could take up to 51 strength. Swords and crossbows will struggle against those defenses. Maybe I could even build Medieval walls in these frontline cities if I could get them out of the occupation penalty. Monarchy government makes them a pretty cheap build at an effective 90 production cost.

Anyway, that's what I'm thinking right now. Oh, and I can cover your missionary if needed at Kinchassa, although I don't think Japper has any naval units. That's the least of our worries right now.

[Sullla]

Another new turn, this time Turn 98. One note before the rest of the turn report: the PYDT client downloaded a software update while I was playing my turn, and that meant that it couldn't pass on the save file as normal when I was done. I had to apply the update and then replay the turn again to get it to function normally - which meant redoing everything over again, argh. I'm pretty sure that I was able to replay everything identically since I take so many pictures while playing, but it was a real pain.



I opened up the turn to find the somewhat surprising news that TheArchduke had accepted my offered deal last turn. Excellent, another amenity is always worth having and this suggests that Germany/Russia may be leaning towards extending our Declaration of Friendship when it comes up for renewal in a few turns (Turn 103 to be exact). There's no guarantees and this could be a head fake for all we know, but I still think it's good news. It would be fantastic if our western neighbor was willing to sign on for another 30 turns of peace given the action taking place in the east. (If I were them, I would not sign even if I wanted to remain peaceful to keep us on our toes. However, they might be thinking about locking in peace and then going after Woden, and that could be a good opportunity for them as well.)

As for Japper, he moved his injured Ngao Mbemba back into his territory. I also noted that Heart of Darkness finished city walls this turn, something that I'd been expecting any turn now for some time. First things first, moving up the Great Scientist for a free scouting mission:



This revealed a Khmer knight on the same tile where there had been a Khmer chariot two turns earlier. In case we needed any further proof that you can upgrade units in allied territory, there it is. I also investigated the two visible Ngao Mbembas by mousing over an attack with them with my legions. You can do this at any time with your units to see what the combat odds would be, even if the attacks themselves are impossible. Both the northern and southern Ngao Mbembas had +4 support bonus from nearby units, indicating that there were two units standing next to them. I marked the map above with white Xs to demonstrate where those units had to be. We can't see those tiles but we know there must be units there from the support bonuses.

I moved in the quadrireme to scout out the northern coast, and found an attack opportunity:



For only 10 damage, but I'll take it. Any damage is worth something, and my ship picked up 4 XP for its troubles. After this attack, I spent a long time thinking about where I wanted to position my units, as long as I've ever taken in a Civ6 turn to think things through. Utimately this is what I came up with:



General advance to the front, as I discussed last turn. This is inherently risky since my units are moving into enemy controlled territory. I'm most concerned about the legion at the tip of the formation who can potentially be attacked by three enemy units. Remember, the Ngao Mbembas can move through jungle as if it were grassland, and that's a major advantage in this terrain. However, I ran the numbers in my head and I think this guy will be OK. He has +6 strength from support bonuses and that will cancel out any flanking bonuses that Japper might have. The unit should be safe from ranged units because I don't think the terrain allows for shooting over those jungle tiles. (I could be wrong on this but I don't see any jungle hill tiles immediately available for a height advantage.) And my legion has Battlecry promotion to shield himself from direct attack by other melee units, plus the terrain advantage from the rough ground. Together they should be worth +10 strength and get the legion up to 50 strength total, enough that the Ngao Mbembas will be fighting at a serious strength penalty. Furthermore, the Great Scientist actually protects the southeastern flank of that legion because killing the Great Scientist counts as an attack. Ultimately I think this guy will be OK unless I'm missing something.

The southern flank of this formation should also be safe. The Khmer crossbow has no Great General to boost its performance and therefore can't move onto a hill or swamp tile and still fire. On the northern end of the formation, I dislike the fact that the knight has to be sitting on a marsh tile while carries a -3 strength penalty. However, the knight can only be attacked from two tiles and at 48 base strength, plus +8 strength support bonus, should be able to hold its own against Ngao Mbembas. I'm actually hoping that Japper will try to attack the knight or the crossbow to its northwest on the hill tile, which he can reach with one of his UU swords. If he leaves a unit on the tile northeast or east of the marsh, I can hit it with 4 crossbow shots next turn plus a knight attack for a near-certain kill. My vision is a lot better than his in this region and perhaps he'll make a mistake.

This whole move is essentially a bluff. Japper has made a lot of tactical mistakes in past games and I'm hoping to spook him into making another one here. The worst thing that he can do for himself is rush forward to attack me. The best thing he can do would be to retreat and try to pull me deeper into his territory. I have no intention of moving into the firing range of Heart of Darkness, and I don't think I can take the city. Against Kongo and Khmer, sure, no problem. We'd move in with this formation and steamroll the defenders. But with the threat of England/Nubia joining the war in half a dozen turns, there's no way that I can look to push any further forward. I'm bluffing an attack in the hopes of getting a peace treaty when we can talk to Japper on Turn 100. I'll offer the treaty to him when it becomes available because I think he's more likely to make a rash decision than Cornflakes. That's a blunt message but it's his cities that are being overrun right now, not Khmer. We'll see what happens.

One last point on this: I think we can dispense with any fiction that Kongo/Khmer and England/Nubia aren't working together. There's no way that Khmer would ever have a knight and crossbow on the complete opposite side of its empire when Nubia is running around with 800 military power if they weren't working as a team. We should assume that they are allied and act accordingly. (I suspect the only reason they haven't signed an alliance in-game yet is that they are still trying to fool us.)



At Firenze, I went ahead and bought the tile where the Venetian Arsenal is going for - ouch! - 180 gold. That was a painful purchase, but it was only going to get more expensive next turn. Firenze itself is working an odd combination of tiles to almost finish the city walls without them actually completing. 16 production/turn would cause the city to hit exactly 80 production in two turns at the current 2.5x multiplier, and I was able to get Firenze to 15.8 production/turn - not bad. When Mass Production finishes in 2 turns, it will be full speed ahead on the wonder, with a builder coming up here to mine more of the hill tiles and chop the forests. (I'll probably also send my next trade route from Firenze back to the capital for an additional 3 production/turn.)



Here's the overview of Rome's core. Most of my cities are working on either walls or builders right now. Guilds civic is going to finish a turn sooner than I expected, at the end of Turn 98 instead of at the end of Turn 99, which means that the boost should pass over to Singaboy either this turn or next turn. Looks like we managed to hit that one right on schedule. I have three builders with a handful of charges left out on the map right now. They're currently working to harvest the wheat on the tile east of Siena, then chop out a Campus district on the same tile. I'm also allocating one charge to chopping a jungle at occupied Pisa (former Mpinda) which will get the walls done by the time that an English attack can arrive. Savoia, former Jungle Book, has enough production to churn them out even with the occupation penalty. It's actually a pretty awesome production city if we can get it out of the occupation penalty and build a granary plus run a food trade route.

Internationally, Russia has made the most news recently by founding two more cities and getting up to eight total like the rest of us. Russia still has unimpressive science and cultural output though, for what it's worth. We also had Nubia and England finish their upgrades and they are now totally broke, down to 150 gold in the bank combined from about 1000 combined gold earlier. Their income is also destroyed at this point: Nubia is making 3 gold/turn. Heh. England isn't much better at 45 gold/turn. They're clearly going all-in with this attack and are mortgaging their future to do it. On the other hand, their power is also enormous: 831 for Nubia and 586 for England. Rome had 757 this turn for means of comparison, and should be around 800 total with the knight upgrades and units recovering strength. Even with the Great Generals on their side, I think that I can hold off Nubia in an attack with the defender's advantage. Holding off Nubia and England and Khmer and Kongo at once though? That could be impossible. Khmer has a power rating of just over 500 itself, and if they all combine together this genuinely could get ugly. We might be helped by the fact that there just aren't enough tiles for all of those units to attack, and it's too early in the game for anyone to combine units together into corps. This is part of the reason why I'm trying to push some more naval units, as I suspect that some of the spillover will involve embarking units over water. I would really like to have caravels in place when this attack comes, so Venezia is going to churn out a few galleys next and hope to upgrade them down the road. Frigates are too far away to be practical right now.

I also left this message for Chevalier Mal Fet, who I suspect is the mastermind behind this operation:



We know very well what you're planning in 6 turns dude. I want them to think about whether it's really a good idea to attack our team with full knowledge that we're prepared to meet their invasion. Also, I had to set up this message with Chevalier because Woden didn't even have 6 gold/turn income to play around with.

Singaboy, we really do need to get a Chinese city somewhere close to the front lines for Theocracy faith-rushing of units. Plus your units would have the Crusade bonus (I think) when defending Roman cities. Is there any way we could set that up somewhere? There's a really nice resource-rich island southeast of Venezia for example, maybe that's a possibility? I'm trying to think outside the box here. We were both expecting to be able to trade The Jungle Book and the occupation block there threw us off badly. Interested if you have any thoughts on this.

[Singaboy]

Turn 98:

It is really clear that England and Nubia will attempt to attack us instead of Kongo and Khmer. Good thing is that Rome has prepared well for it. I am getting my two chariots soon to be knights there too. This is not enough support but better than nothing. Those units will enjoy Crusade bonus and make them potentially pretty strong. I just need to remember to keep them in Roman territory.

Mercenaries is done. This is not to enable professional army for now but Serfdom.



Time for the first wall-Limes-forest chop. It is worth 83 hammers and thanks to the bonus of 150%, this amounts to 207 hammers. Since the walls had a mere 2 hammers left, the commercial hub is done in a instant too. The commercial hub is 146 hammers and with the production of 20 hammers, there will be an overflow of 80 hammers. The next build will be the completion of the builder.

I am now thinking of enabling Colonization on T100 once all three builders are done (Guilds should get its Inspiration next turn and complete on T100). Hangzhou is growing in 4 turns to 11 and could produce a settler in a reasonable time frame with the overflow of 100 hammers on T100. The next settler costs 260 hammers, but with Colonization, it should be done on T104. I do hope that all those overflows get carried over all the way past the builder.
This settler could then settle on that Island that Sulla suggested. It will take a while to move it down to its destination but there is no alternative really. If I enable Colonization, I might want to add another settler from Beijing using the rain forest chop to finish the walls, grow the city and store some hammers into the settler. It will cost a staggering 290 hammer though and take some time to finish. It could be used for the peninsula south of Pagan. Something to ponder on.



With the commercial hub done next turn, my districts are at 6/8 and I need 2 more districts before a discount can kick in. The builder will move north to chop the Holy Site.
Quanzhou and Beijing will both produce builders. Quanzhou's builder will improve tiles such as 4 cows, the copper hill and two bare hills from chopping to add more hammers to the cities.
Quanzhou will then produce a granary to grow again.

I am hoping that we can get 30 turns of DoF with Germany so we can focus our military attention east. I am hoping my calculations are correct, Guilds in on T100 and with overflow, Reformed Church done on T103. As I am emphasizing culture currently, the district will add 1 culture, Shangdu's monument will add another 2. If I get Reformed Church on T103, I can start to rush and upgrade units. I would upgrade those chariots in the east first. I would also faith rush 3 archers before completing machinery on T104. With it, I can upgrade a few archers. This will then depend on the situation with Germany.
If we get peace with Germany, I could rush some knights in Hangzhou to rush towards the east. Unfortunately, one knight will cost 310 faith. I would like to rush 3 archers for 300 faith. This will leave me with around 600 faith on T104. It might be a good idea to faith rush some swordsmen instead of expensive knights as I am following Rome on the path to gunpowder and muskets. A swordsman is 150 faith each. For now, I am trying to hold off any tile purchase as to keep as much gold for unit upgrades as possible.




Sulla, what do you think of the idea to go for a settler in Hangzhou?

[Modo]

I also investigated the two visible Ngao Mbembas by mousing over an attack with them with my legions. You can do this at any time with your units to see what the combat odds would be, even if the attacks themselves are impossible. Both the northern and southern Ngao Mbembas had +4 support bonus from nearby units, indicating that there were two units standing next to them. I marked the map above with white Xs to demonstrate where those units had to be. We can't see those tiles but we know there must be units there from the support bonuses.

Nice catch, that made me think about that radaring thing in Civ5 where you can select a unit and mouse over with it's movement indicator in the fog and it would let you know of potential combat (T-Hawk used this to steer captured workers away from barbs in the fog for example). Is this radaring or something similar still present in Civ6?

On the settler question I think Sullla mentioned the alternative of Rome buying / producing a settler to settle a spot and gift the city to you, Singaboy, that should be faster than you walking one all the way there...assuming you guys still have enough to buy one with gold

[Sullla]

That looks like a great turn Singaboy. The Commercial district in Hangzhou is worth what, 6 gold/turn immediately? Not bad at all. Now as for the issue of getting out a Chinese settler, I definitely think that it's something we should be doing. I'm not confident that Rome can hold out alone against the other teams presumably gathering to attack us. However, I think with Chinese assistance - and with Chinese units getting +10 strength from Crusade - then things look a lot better for us. The main thing we need is a spot near the front lines where we can faith-buy units on a constant basis to reinforce our position. I looked at the island spot first:



This is a beautiful spot for a city overall, with the yellow dot being the logical place to put it. However, I don't think it's the right choice for this purpose. The problem is those cliffs, which I've outlined in white to emphasize them. The whole eastern side of the island is covered in cliffs, and while that's a nice benefit in terms of defending the place from attack, it's a nightmare as far as faith-buying units and then sending them to the front lines in the southeast. A new unit would have to move to the WEST initially, then embark, then move up to Siena to disembark because the whole coastline on the mainland is another series of cliffs. Seriously, it's crazy how many cliff tiles there are there. Because a Chinese city can't move directly into a Roman city's tile, it's not possible to disembark at The Jungle Book/Savoia. Chinese units would have to disembark either up at Siena or all the way down to the south below Savoia, on the tile where a Chinese missionary is standing in this picture from a few turns ago:



These spots are not practical for the military purposes we're envisioning. And finally, if Rome is going to build the Venetian Arsenal and become a naval powerhouse as we're planning, this island spot probably should be used for a Roman city anyway. I'd love to get a city of mine down there, chop the forests and mine the hills, then start building caravels and frigates. If I can find a free moment to get into Colonization policy for a bit, I'd love to squeeze out a settler for this spot.

Anyway, I think that's not the best location despite what I suggested yeterday. After looking at this further, I think this is where to put a Chinese city:



There's a tiny area in the middle of Roman territory where a city can fit, and this spot would be ideal. Strategically, two-move units can make it to Pisa in six turns from this spot; four-move knights can make it to the front lines in just three turns. (If we continue to advance in technology with better roads and/or Logistic policy, it can be faster still.) Strategically, this is therefore a good choice. Furthermore, a city located here would be a decent production city in its own right. There's a deer forest that could be harvested for a district of some sort, and then two more forests in the second ring for potential chopping (or lumbermilling). The city grabs a cocoa resource that neither of us have yet, and a pair of plains hills could be mined to get up to about 10 production/turn, and that's not too bad. Obviously housing would be a huge problem here, and the city would need an immediate granary and a trade route to be functional. But we could get this city to size 4 and that's enough for decent production and two districts - we don't need much more than that.

Overall then, that's what I'm thinking. If Hangzhou can finish a settler on Turn 104, then this city can be established as soon as Turn 108 and then we're immediately faith-rushing units to reinforce the front lines. The one major limitation of faith purchases is the fact that they operate like cash purchases: only one unit per city per turn, and the unit can't move on the first turn. If England/Nubia are serious about attacking, I suspect we'll be faith-purchasing a unit per turn out of here for a while. If they're successful enough to overrun Pisa and Savoia, then our time to get reinforcements to the front lines will only be that much shorter. Ultimately, I'm hoping that this is why we'll be successful: the supply lines are just so far away from England and Nubia that they will struggle to replace lost units. It's a major reason why I think they'd be better off attacking their weak neighbors instead of their strong opponents a long distance away. (This is the age-old metagaming debate we've been having since Civ4 Pitboss #2. I've always maintained that you should focus on making yourself stronger, not simply targeting the first place opponent. Others obviously disagree.)

Other quick issues:

* Whether it's worthwhile to produce a second settler for the spot south of Pagan is up to you. I don't have a firm feeling about this either way. If we can get a second Declaration of Friendship with Germany then it's probably worth it, if not then I wouldn't bother right now because it would only be stretching our defenses further.

* Waiting for the district discount to kick in before placing Hangzhou's Theatre district looks like the right call. You're close enough that it's worth waiting for the discount.

* Really nice work having those builders queued up and ready to go when Serfdom civic arrived. This is a perfect time to get some more chops done while in Limes and Monarchy government.

* Modo: since a settler costs about 1050 gold to purchase right now, that's an emergency use of gold only. We're much better off building the settler and saving that money for critical unit upgrades.

[Sullla]

Alright, here we go with a new turn. Did Japper take the bait and attack?



No, unfortunately he made the wise move and retreated back into his territory. That was disappointing but not unexpected. His Ngao Mbembas have largely fortified in place and are remaining where they stand. We appear to be at a bit of a stalemate right now, where whoever attacks will lose badly between the fortification bonus and the support bonus and the rough terrain bonus that only goes to the defender. I'm content to stay largely in place for the moment and stall for time. Singaboy, I plan to ask Japper for a white peace treaty next turn and see what he says. I do not expect him to accept; he'll probably ask for his two cities back, which we won't give him. Still, it's worth the attempt. If by some small chance either member of their team came offering us a white peace, we should definitely accept it to get the two captured cities out of the occupation penalty. Based on their actions in recent turns, I think they plan to fight though.

Oh, and Chevalier Mal Fet rejected our "deal" that we offered him last turn. What a surprise.



Somewhat surprisingly, there were still opportunities to shoot at the Ngao Mbembas in two places. Up by the rice tiles, my crossbow could shoot the northern Kongo unit because it was standing on a jungle hill tile. Similarly, my unpromoted crossbow in the middle of the formation could line up this shot and land it for 16 damage. The second Ngao Mbemba was also on top of a jungle hill tile and thus vulnerable. The rule for ranged units is that they normally can't shoot over forest/jungle, unless the target is on a hill tile or the shooter is on a hill tile. I believe that these shots would also be blocked if the tile in the middle was a jungle hill tile, which is not the case. If you look back at the first picture, note that there was a Kongo archer standing on a hill tile up by Kinchassa. I retreated my quadrireme because it could have been shot by that archer on a hill, shooting down and over a forest tile. I also expect Kinchassa to finish its walls any turn now and I didn't want to risk my quadrireme dying to city walls + archer fire. Not worth the risk to deal like 10 damage to an enemy unit.

Here's where everything ended up:



I pulled the Great Scientist back a tile to guard the eastern spear of the formation, in particular that legion in the front. These units should be pretty safe, at least until Woden shows up with his Great General enhanced units. Those Khmer knights shouldn't be able to do too much, especially not against units that heal back 30 HP on the interturn. I do wonder why Cornflakes didn't move his crossbow up onto the hill west of Heart of Darkness, where he would have a free shot against the legion next to the bananas. I'm planning an orderly retreat, pillaging the road behind my units as they go, once they manage to get ranged units into position. Obviously a clean peace treaty would be ideal for us right now since we're not making further progress forward. Not without an agreement signed with England/Nubia, and that doesn't seem forthcoming.

There are a *LOT* of units coming our way according to power tracking. Rome has a power rating of 805 at the start of this turn, with one more knight taking place this turn. Unfortunately, Khmer alone has almost as much power, with Cornflakes now up to 679 power. Chevalier Mal Fet has been holding steady at 580 power for the last half dozen turns, but Woden's been increasing via upgrades and now sits at 931 power. That looks to be the end of his buildup for the moment, since Woden is sitting at 15 gold in the bank and 1 gold/turn. Not a typo there, he's making exactly one gold coin each turn. With this many units in play, our opponents could struggle because the map simply can't hold that many units and there are no corps yet to consolidate them. The teams also can't talk with one another, and I expect their units will be getting in each other's way. That's the hope anyway. As I said, I will probably hold here for another turn or two and then begin an orderly retreat back to the captured cities where we have the advantage of city walls, friendly cultural borders (where we heal faster and they heal slower), and narrower choke points. This is good terrain here but it's also pretty wide. Trying to push through Pisa and Savoia won't be easy given the shrinking of the isthmus there.



Elsewhere, I chose to continue further deep scouting with this galley instead of trying to return it back to our borders. I think this might be the last chance for a long time to scout out England's coast, and I still have a decent chance to save this ship by bringing it home along the tunra route in the far north. This scouting decision payed off immediately by finding the Valetta city state, which as Woden as its suzerain with 5 envoys. Talk about another nice city state for them to have in their back pocket; Valetta allows the suzerain to purchase city center buildings with faith, and Woden has faith by virtue of Goddess of the Harvest pantheon (and now his religion). Why couldn't this have been one of the many useless Militaristic city states instead of great one? If we can somehow gain naval supremacy, this is another place we'd love to raze to the ground.



With Guilds civic finished, I made one policy swap to replace Professional Army with Maritime Industries. I'm setting up a forest chop to get my second Harbor, which will deliver the boost for Cartography. I want several more galleys by the time that tech finishes in about ten turns, and this is a great opportunity to build them. If I could get five or six galleys and turn them into caravels, that would shut down any attempt to land units along the northern shores of my territory. Even if England is escorting embarked units with galleys, it won't matter against caravels. Of course, we'll be in a lot of trouble if England also reaches caravels at the same time, but we'll cross that bridge when we reach it.



It's a quiet overview for Turn 99. Most cities are either prepping their walls for forest chops or working on builders. Roma's builder is one turn away from completion and I swapped it to a trade route, which is intended for Firenze to help with the Venetian Arsenal. Even with everything going on that remains a critical longterm strategic objective to control. I'd like to get a unit here but Roma needs to build an Armory for the Gunpowder boost and there isn't time to finish another unit before my research will complete Military Engineering tech. I'll try to get another legion or two finished before completing Gunpowder so that they can be upgraded; legions are a lot cheaper than muskets to build.

Mass Production finishes next turn and that will put me into the Renaissance, the first civ to reach it. Rome is first in the game in beaker/turn rate, culture/turn rate, second in power behind Nubia, and 1 point behind China for first in score... all of that due to a ton of help from Singaboy throughout this game. So yeah, I get it. I understand why we're a target. It's still a bit frustrating though to see England and Nubia selling out so hard to go attack us. The funny thing is that Russia/Germany is quietly getting back into the game as a result of all this. They're just signing Declarations of Friendship with everyone and going full econ, with militaries smaller than anyone else. Russia planted cities #7, #8, and #9 the last three turns. I don't think they've played a particularly good game up to this point, but if we have to put so many resources into defending, they'll have a chance to get back into this again. I still think it would be more to England/Nubia's advantage to take out Khmer as opposed to blue shelling us. I guess we'll see.

If this is an epic fake out and Nubia is about to stab Khmer in the back though, I will be seriously impressed.

[Singaboy]

Turn 99:

Valetta's contact is passed to China and I get a duplication of the task from Lisbon. Nothing easier than that, I only need to get into theocracy and enable professional army then. I will get three envoys that way. That will give me 6 envoys with Lisbon and another 8gpt for now with two commercial districts.
Rome passed me the Inspiration for Guilds and I can swap nicely into it, finishing it next turn for the end of Serfdom.

There is still no news from Nubia and a war. Well, this will come in 5 turns I guess. Let's hope Japper is getting cold feet and signs peace with us. The front in the east looks more like a place where none can make progress. Maybe those 4 think, they can get make progress when combining forces. 1upt doesn't really help in this respect.




At Hangzhou the commercial district is done and I am curious about the overflow. The new builder now costs 110 hammers, hence the next overflow is unfortunately much smaller. I can still finish a library in 1 turn, means I get around 100 hammers from overflow with 20 hammers needed for the builder. Now, I made a serious mistake in my calculations. Colonization is only 150% production. At the moment, this means 30 hammers per turn. It will take another 6 turns to complete the settler, which would put it at T106 rather than T104. Nothing to be done about it



At Beijing I decide against a settler for now and will attempt to finish the commercial hub to get my 8th district. This will be a difficult undertaking indeed. I decide to lock the district now before it gets even more expensive. Mid to late game districts can be really expensive. Next turn, the new builder will chop the rain forest getting Beijing to size 6 while shaving off some turns from the district. I might have to chop another forest there to complete it. Once that is done, I should be able to lock a theatre in Hangzhou and the encampment in Kasghar.



Tianjin and Pagan are closing in on their wall builds. If only I had more builders I could do more chops there too. Kashgar will expand its borders and I do hope the encampment tile will be added. The builder from Beijing will move onto the rain forest to chop it next for Kashgar and if unlucky, I have to chop it without district discount. I am hoping that Germany will agree to another DoF really. Their military rating doesn't look so impressive now and I could imagine them being interested in another extension too.

Shangdu is finishing its monument in time for the Holy Site chop which will complete the Site in 1 turn and add sufficient hammers for a shrine too I think. Faith output needs more boosts. At Shanghai, housing severely limits growth with its current growth to size 6 and I work the incense tile instead of a plain 3 food cow. Shanghai will have a nice overflow from the quadrireme again. At Quanzhou, I decide to move the builder towards the copper hill to get higher production. It can then move toward the hills at Hangzhou and Shangdu to add hammers there too. Shangdu will have pretty decent production once it has two lumber mills too. Planning to get machinery on T104 when I own 7 archers.




In the east I committed a blunder overlooking the cliffs. I could not enter the ocean this turn and had to move one tile.
The other issue there is that an archer and city walls might be too much for the quadrireme to provide cover?