Chevalier Makes Do

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

The new expansion, Gathering Storm, will not feature chop overflow - instead overflow production will be properly applied to whatever is being built, eg you can't chop a forest to get 100 hammers and then build a galley with Maritime Industries, doubling the production to giving you 200 hammers to spend on whatever you want (minus the cost of the galley). It's being incorporated into the base game sometime around February, when the expansion drops, so that's my deadline to get Petra built with Limes/Maritime Industries overflow.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Quick update. 




Turns out Arabia started basically on top of a Natural Wonder, which is great news for them getting an early Holy Site - which marcopolo refused to do, for some reason. The find unlocks Astronomy for me, and my next priority needs to be getting some builders out to hook up a pair of sea resources for Celestial Navigation. Then we can go on an RND building spree.

On turn 72, Gorgo declared on Rome:




Great news! It looks like Alhazard managed to catch Alhambram off-guard, too, since the Romans took a big hit to milpower, which now stands at half of Greece's. Arabia signed a DoF, for obvious reasons, but if Russia piles in, suddenly Rome's in trouble. I hope that my interference at Saunders and my subsidies to Grotsnot made a difference, but there's no real way for me to tell - the war is off to the west now, out of my line of view since I decided to go and scout Arabia instead. We're playing traditional English balance of power politics here: The other players may suspect that I intend to prop up whoever's weaker in any conflict, and myself sit out and peacefully boom the hell out of my isolated start. And they're absolutely goddamn right that's what I intend to do.

Down at Lynx, I clear the last barb camp from my territory. Cornflakes' practice of lots of warrior building served me in good stead here:




That's 4 or 5 camps cleared now without any trouble whatsoever. I spend the plundered gold on a monument at Lynx - science is doing okay, second in the game behind Alhazard's multiple campuses (campi?), but culture is lagging behind Roman monuments and Russian lavras, so let's juice that up a little. It'll also let Lynx start to expand - that wheat tile will be important soon, and my next gold purchase will be the flat desert tile to place Petra. In the meantime I work on ships and walls. Lynx can chop potentially 3 times, so a full Deer -> Forest -> Forest into Walls -> Galley -> Quad is possible to build Petra in 3 turns or so. I'll run the numbers later to figure out exact requirements, but Petra will fix any food problems at Lynx, provide a hefty income, and then mines will let the city build whatever it wants. This will become the premier city in the Star Kingdom of Manticore down the road.

A look at Arabia's presumed core:




Making full use of the Natural Wonder. I hope Rowain can get Arabia fighting fit. He's unlikely to compete for the win, but anything to make my foes' lives more difficult is good for me. 

Finally, an overview of everything:




We're up to 5 cities founded, with 2 settlers pushing us to 7 cities next turn. I have a builder en route to the Stones north of Manticore, where we'll harvest two galleys into two settlers. Those will probably head for the Medusa and Beowulf pins, then I'll just need 2 more settlers to finish out my entire settleable area at 11 cities - Basilisk, the filler coastal city, and then Hancock in the south, another potentially fantastic mining city. I think that's achievable within 30 turns or so. Just need to work out who's building those last two settlers - Manticore can do one, and the last will likely come from Gryphon or Grayson. Lynx if Petra is done in time. 

I aim to push to that, then start a mass wave of RND shipyards. Not sure yet if I'll chop those, or save my harvests for something else - I have limited time, though, so I might spend my last boosted chops then. We'll use RNDs to unlock district discounts, slap down some campuses to remain competitive in science, and then push our navy for the win.

[shallow_thought]

As a true British patriot, I heartily approve of playing off damn foreigners against each other for profit aiding all peoples in warding off unwarranted agression.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Another quick turn from me.

Let me lead with the big news of the turn: Russia declared war on Rome! Alhambram now has a two front war: He must defend against Greece in former Japanese lands, while Russia will attempt to assault over the land bridge at Neptune. Maybe this was just a move to tie down some Roman forces, or it's an actual serious attack. The various combatants have all raised their military powers above mine as I've been steadily expanding down here - I sit at 119 power to 256 for Sparta, 178 for Rome, and about 150 for Russia. 

Still, Alhambram isn't totally doomed, I don't think. He has veteran legions with a Great General to back him up. Furthermore, the Japanese capital is VERY defensible in general, especially against attacks from the south:




Similarly, the mountains screen any effort by Sparta to thrust to the east, towards the Roman heartland. His southern front is secure with a DoF, and the front with TBS is narrow, as well:




Have one of your legions throw down a fort south of Neptune, and stuff a pair of legions backed by a crossbow or two and you can slow the Russians up significantly. No one can yet match Alhambrams' legionaries' strength, and even better, the GG can teleport from Oorai to Neptune as needed to give strength boosts wherever the battle is. Saunders is exposed and probably untenable, and Alhambram will have to abandon his conquest of Japan, I think, but he should be able to hold out against this attack. On the whole, I think this is ideal from England's perspective. One neighbor eliminated more or less, another three tied down in a wasteful war, and the last never much of a factor to begin with. Worst case scenario would be someone winning this war. 

At home, I make my first stone chop through a galley to a settler, dropping the time down to 7 turns. Settlers are getting quite expensive:




63 production x 2 = 126 production, or about 115 into the settler. But settlers cost damn near 200 cogs! :o 

Let's use that quick yield math to calculate Petra. We'll about 65 per deer harvest, or 50 per forest chop. So we have 65 + 100 cogs available for chopping, each of which can be doubled = 330 cogs. Petra costs 400, and I'll be getting perhaps 7 cogs a turn in an ideal scenario (maybe chop the deer last?). So, we're looking at about 10 turns to build Petra once everything is in place for chopping. That's not bad at all, considering I will have the tech unlocked in 3 turns and can buy the tile a few turns after that. The delay will be in getting a builder over there in good time. We'll start one at Grayson or Gryphon next chance we get. 

Here's the empire as a whole:




Gryphon has a builder coming out in 4. That will head over to Lynx for Petra. Right now, I'm thinking to use Sphinx's builder to plantation the two bananas at Sphinx and Yeltsin, then grab a fish at Yeltsin. Alternatively, we drop a plantation and the culture from it and get 2 sea improvements to boost Celestial Nav. I'd like to head for Shipbuilding at the first opportunity, but I also want to boost techs whenever possible. Hm, culture or science? I am leaning towards science - the other stuff isn't time sensitive, and I can get more builders out. The NEXT builder will plantation the bananas, pasture the cows, etc.

[TheArchduke]

I think you can count yourself lucky, Chev. It seems people will intervene to stop someone from conquest after all.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I think you can count yourself lucky, Chev. It seems people will intervene to stop someone from conquest after all.

Yeah, I was really worried this was going to be a repeat of PBEM8 where neighbor after neighbor got devoured while I was trapped on the far end of the world, with literally no way to intervene, even if I wanted to. At least this round I managed to delay Alhambram for a single turn. I hope that and my subsidy to Grotsnot paid off. He just needs to survive about 10 more turns for me to break even on the loan, and then I get about 5 turns of pure profit! Plus mud in Rome's eye. 

Quick update, been a busy few days with the Vikings, PBEM12, and now mapmaking for PBEM14:




TBS built a quick entertainment district and now is going for the Colosseum. That'll be a nice pickup for Russia - grabbing that would have meant pausing my expansion plan, so I deleted my plans for it quite some time ago. Instead, Gryphon will be a hub city with a zoo (down the line) and a factory (down the line). If the game lasts that long...That's really the strength of the Colosseum: You can pick up a civ-wide bonus early instead of the Industrial era. OF course, Russia's built really sprawling, spread-out cities, so he won't get as much benefit from it as he could have...On the whole, though, TBS is really impressive at this game. He's got the highest science rate (10 points ahead of mine!), the highest culture rate (20, tied with Rome), as many cities as I do (more, before I founded these last few), a higher military score, and a religion to boot. 

I really look forward to poking in his thread afterwards to see how he did everything at once, but damn. I need to intervene in Russia before Cossacks, I think.

Turn 74 saw us found Yeltsin, 1 turn away from Basilisk:




It works the nice bananas, and has some jungles for chopping. Good city long term. I plan to divert the builder out of Sphinx here next. I'd like to build a plantation for more gold and culture, but instead we're going to grab both fish tiles to boost Celestial Nav, at which point we'll research straight through to Shipbuilding to enable an RND-Quad wave. That'll be the start of our terror fleet, and then we can work on reaching Square Rigging, at which point it's us against hte world. 

On 75, Japan asks for a DoF, which I see no reason not to grant. This way he can't DoW me and wiggle out of paying back his loan:




Lynx finishes the first pre-built galley for Petra, and starts on the walls. We need shipbuilding to pre-build a quad, or we'll have to just hand-build a second galley after the first chop:




A bit inefficient without Limes in place, but we have the time until a builder gets here. Need about 3 more turns of saving to buy Petra's tile and then we can place the wonder. 

Finally, we found Basilisk, which is production-poor but will do a good job on science and culture with those silks and mountains:




4 cities left to go on my dotmap! Medusa and Beowulf will come next, and then we'll find a place to slot in settlers for Hancock and Gorgon.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

:I All quiet on the English front.

I really have no idea what I'm really doing in this game. My only specific plans atm are

1)Finish settler wave
2)Petra! :D 
3)Builder wave for Feudalism

Could I be min-maxing and micromanaging more? Probably. I have only 1 district complete 75 turns into the game, a perennial weakness of mine - they only get more expensive! But we're going to try and do it with RNDs, then build discounted everything. Starting shipbuilding for quads (Petra!), then will complete Celestial Nav and we can start our naval push:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I kind of feel like this game is slipping away from me. Mostly because TBS is kicking my ass on buildering, Alhambram has eaten (mostly) a neighbor, and Alhazard has an empire just as large as me while also having more districts and more military. Like, my attention has been lackadaisical at best since PBEM12 is my main focus, but dang, I didn't think I was making OBVIOUS errors. 

Could be that a lot of my cities aren't fantastic, as I'm going for sheer volume and figuring that all the good tiles will get worked eventually:




On the other hand, I do think I've been settling in roughly the order of quality, going for good starts with 4 yield tiles first (I have very few 5 yield tiles in my area). And I've been steadily chopping as soon as I have builder labor. Could I do better? Certainly. But I'm not sure the investment in studying this game and min-maxing every thing would get me enough of an RoI to be really worth that. 

I need to finish 1 builder before Feudalism to get the farm boost. The rest will wait til after. 
Cities not building builders (ugh) are Manticore and Lynx, which is pumping settlers/prepping Petra, respectively. 

Abroad, I'm wading through thick jungle in an effort to find the Greek core and maybe the Japanese remnants, plus wherever the front is. Roman Japan is so far untouched.




I dunno. Just in a dull mood over this game today. Sorry I didn't make with more funnies. :/

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Quiet coupla turns here in England. I should have a game plan, but, uh, I don't. 

I've fallen behind in every major category while I do my settler push, and even THEN I'm still behind in total cities. I must have chosen wretched spots for my cities, and to be fair, production is pretty poor in my area - not a WHOLE lot of hills, except down by Lynx, which I only just explored. That's probably the reason, I hope. Anyway, we're hitting our stride as England, though, because:




Okay. Neat. 

So the plan is to place a bunch of half-cost RNDs. We build those, and we get all other districts 40% off. We slap down a campus or two for science, culture is okay actually since we're only trailing the Roman and Russian culture monsters, and then we start our ships. Use Maritime Industries to build out a bunch of quads, then chop them to complete RNDs in every city I can. That gets me both the nucleus of my mighty frigate armada later, and lays the ground work for trade. We concentrate on foreign trade (maybe the nearest Russian city?) and use Trade Confederation to drive culture and science even higher. 

Maybe we'll be caught up then. Maybe. 

Need to have a plan for Russia before Cossacks, which are getting really close. No one has yet successfully fought them, and I doubt I'll be the first. 




The Greek army has at last reached Saunders, and begun a siege of the city. Looks like they're on the southern side mostly, since the city isn't under "official" siege. The Roman army is...? In transit back to fight Russia? Trading Saunders to buy time? Hunting down the final Jap city somewhere in the east? Who can know these things? 

I actually want Rome to come out of this war more or less intact, since now I'm worried about my next-door neighbor, Russia.

[Grotsnot]

So far, it's looking like there's a lot of room for naval influence. I think I can set up an Encampment defense at the neck with Russia and at the possible land bridge to the east (since no one ahs met me yet from that direction, I think not), and then build a bigass navy like in PBEM7 to terrorize the coasts and use that to expand. Enough to counter a runaway Rome that's eaten all her neighbors? Tough to say! Probably not! But, dammit, at some point, building HAS to compete with the Classical Age rush or else there's just One Right Strategy in Civ6 multiplayer, and I don't want that to be true. 

But it probably is. 

Well, with some much-appreciated assistance, I held out as long as I could. Thoughts on whether it'll prove enough for you or someone else to defeat the One Right Strategy?