Civ6 Succession Game 1: Commercial Free Programming

[Ranamar]

Come to think of it, they're not as important as I was feeling originally. They cost on the order of 800 faith, and they give the sum of the appeals of the tiles in tourism per turn. The big thing about them is that they tend to use up tiles that you couldn't use anyway, like mountains, at the cost of not developing a couple of tiles, in a game where developing tiles is somewhat more expensive than it might be otherwise. The other big advantage is that they give out a little more than one luxury resource in amenities, which, in a sprawling empire like ours, can be somewhat valuable. (... since doubles of luxuries don't actually give you happiness in twice as many cities.)

I may have gotten a little fixated on them because the hill/forest/plains next to mountains felt like such a slam dunk of a park, but you've given me a strong argument why we shouldn't set things up to get it.
I was of some mixed feelings about the marsh; I really want to make that a park, but it's also an amazing tile to put a district on. Probably, the right thing to do for Rice Bowl is to put a campus on the marsh, save the wooded tile for Oxford, put a theater square next to the city center and future-Oxford, and eventually put a holy site SW of the campus. The city has the growth potential, with two rice and a wheat, and the tiles are getting into tundra land.

[Ruined Everything]

I was of some mixed feelings about the marsh; I really want to make that a park, but it's also an amazing tile to put a district on.  Probably, the right thing to do for Rice Bowl is to put a campus on the marsh, save the wooded tile for Oxford, put a theater square next to the city center and future-Oxford, and eventually put a holy site SW of the campus.  The city has the growth potential, with two rice and a wheat, and the tiles are getting into tundra land.

I do really like the marsh park. I'd be tempted to go for it anyway. After we get industrialization/radio, what other techs do we possibly need? Maybe Steel for 5 hammer lumbermills? Electricity for our unique powerplants? I'd almost be tempted to turn teching off after we hit the electricity/radio/chemistry/combustion section unless we want military security to minimize district production costs for our new cities. There's just not much there.

[Ranamar]

The unique is actually the factory, but power plants are still amazingly good when you're stacking them 5x like we will in the heartland.

The funny thing about district costs is that they scale with whichever is more advanced of tech or civics... and not only is the civics tree smaller, but we also plan to get to the end of it.  So, we're kinda hosed if you're trying to keep district costs down.  (besides, we can't actually "turn tech off" in the civ 4 sense...)

Here's the full list of techs for factories, which is to say Industrialization (boosts in parens):
Shipbuilding (2 galleys if we really want)
Mathematics (3 different types of districts built)
Education (earn GSci)
Mass Production (Lumber Mill improvement)
Industrialization (3 workshops)

Here's what we need for the Eiffel Tower, which is at Radio:
Military Engineering (build aqueduct, if we really want)
Stirrups (get Feudalism civic)
Gunpowder (build an Armory)
Metal Casting (own, which is to say upgrade, 2 crossbowman)
Ballistics (build 2 fort improvements with military engineers, if we really want)
Steel (build a coal mine, assuming our coal doesn't appear under a district)

Power plants come at Electricity, which requires:
Industrialization (see above for details)
Cartography (build 2 harbors; welp)
Square Rigging (kill a unit with a musketman; I find this terribly hard to do if I don't get in a war)
Steam Power (2 shipyards; requires harbors, so nope)
Electricity (own 3 privateers... actually, they're pretty decent units because of when they show up)
While we're here, Electricity is the only prerequisite of Computers (have a government with 8 policy slots), which doubles all tourism output.

The last building for theater squares comes at Radio, along with beachside resorts.
It requires these notable things (this list is backwards due to many prereqs being covered already):
Steam Power (direct prereq for Electricity)
Flight (build an industrial or later wonder... like the Ruhr Valley or the Eiffel Tower)
Industrialization (see Industrialization above)
Scientific Theory (have The Enlightenment civic)
Astronomy (Build a university building in a campus adjacent to a mountain)

The one other thing we really want in the tech tree is Printing, because it doubles our tourism from great works of writing.
It requires:
Iron Working (1 turn out)
Engineering (build ancient walls plus a sliver, or 4 turns)
Machinery (boosted)
Printing (build 2 universities)

Other techs that could be interesting:
Banking is useless to us except that it adds a gold to our quarries.  It leads to Economics, which is completely useless to us.  However, that leads to Replaceable parts, which gets us modern farm adjacency bonuses.  Radio leads on to Advanced Flight, which reveals aluminium... we only care if we're worrying about aircraft.  If we're really hurting for stuff to do, Computers leads to Robotics (Have the Globalization civic), which gives our pastures +1 production.

At our current tech rate, all the stuff I listed above is going to take 3-400 turns.  Obviously, population growth is going to improve that for us, and getting most of the boosts will cut that down a lot.  Still, even if we don't build a university in a campus next to a mountain, we have our hands full for longer than I think we want this game to take, if we don't build at least a little research power.  We probably don't even need the 2 campuses to accelerate the things that require two.  (Those, actually, only save us a few turns, now... it's the modern era stuff which starts taking 20-30 turns.)

Meanwhile, for civics, we want Mass media (Cristo Redenetor and Broadway).
For that, we need:
Recorded History (half-done; to boost, 2 campus districts)
Feudalism (6 farms)
Civil Service (10-pop city)
Medieval Faires (4 trade routs; lol no)
Guilds (2 markets; welp)
Humanism (earn a Great Artist) -> this unlocks art and archaeological museums
Diplomatic Service (Have an alliance with another civ... probably not)
Mercantilism (earn a great merchant... hah)
The Enlightenment (earn 3 great people)
Civil Engineering (7 different specialty districts... by locking out 2, we may not be able to do this)
Nationalism (Declare war using a causus belli.)
Urbanization (Grow a city to 15 population)
Mass Media (research Radio)

We also want Exploration along the way for the Merchant Republic:
Military Training (build Encampment)
Mercenaries (have 8 land combat units)
Medieval Faires and Feudalism (in above list)

National Parks require Conservation, which branches off from Mercantilism and Urbanization:
Colonialism (Research Astronomy)
Natural History (build an archaeological museum) -> also grants zoos, the first area happiness building
Conservation (Have a Neighborhood district with Breathtaking Appeal; I haven't, historically, built many neighborhoods, but that's the place to build them!)
Conservation leads to Cultural Heritage, which gives us a card for doubling art tourism.

Honestly, not only is that second list shorter, but the research times seem faster, too.  That's what we get from a ton of culture districts, though (and sometime, we need to build buildings in them...).

Actually, to give a concrete piece of advice, I think this should be our beelines, in order:
(Machinery,) Industrialization, Electricity+Radio, Printing, Steel, Computers. We could move steel forward, if we really want to raise tile appeals already, but it's almost kinda in the "it'd be nice" category anyway. Computers may even be better. Printing should be researched whenever it's convenient and we've got some writings. Although, to be fair, the Forbidden City is a pretty good wonder. If we research it early, we might even be able to get it.

[Sullla]

That is a very thorough turn report Ranamar! Thanks. I'm going to read through it all and play my turns later today. Definitely a lot to think about, but we seem to be doing well.

[Ranamar]

That is a very thorough turn report Ranamar! Thanks. I'm going to read through it all and play my turns later today. Definitely a lot to think about, but we seem to be doing well.

I keep a text editor open and basically live-blog my turns, because I know I'll forget everything I did if I don't, tbh.

[Ichabod]

I agree with the Machinery -> Industrialization -> Radio tech path. I think we need to reconsider after that.

Civics, from the top of my head, I think Feudalism -> Humanism. If we are diligent with building the Theater Squares, we should have a GArtist in no time. I even suggest using some city projects for it, if needed.

Interestingly enough, it seems the first great slot of art avaiable in the game comes from the building enabled by Humanism, so getting a quick Great Artist means having him sit for a while. Something to take into account, perhaps to have the Capital/most productive city ready to build a museum once Humanism comes in.

[Ranamar]

Ichabod is right on tech priorities. By the time we have Radio, or actually even Industrialization, the situation will have changed so much that we will want to reconsider anyway. It'll probably be through a full cycle of players, at the least.

Also, there is actually one great art slot before Humanism... exactly one: your palace. (Well, okay, also, if you pick cathedral as a worship building, that can hold one religious art...)

[Ruined Everything]

Very interesting tech analysis, Ranamar. Thanks! That detail about your district costs being set by the greatest of science/culture is very good to know.

I agree with the industrialization -> radio path too.

CAPTAIN OBVIOUS ALERT: I don't think it's so much a question of an early great artist as it is a question of monopolizing the great artists. Even if the classical great artist has to wait around for 100 turns, if we don't get him we lose a given number of great works, forever (unless we can trade with the AI.) Now is probably a good time to start being attentive to GPP.

[Singaboy]

Lurkers comment:

You are really lucky with the chocolate and India next door. Otherwise, your economy would look very different for this variant. If you would have a 'normal' AI next to you, you would have to build a far more sizeable military early on. Currently, there is basically nobody who challenges you, allowing you to have almost zero military.

[Sullla]

Turn 89 (0): Spend a good amount of time looking around, as I always have to do at the start of a succession game. Things look really well run: lots of tight management of cities and excellent planning all around. Great work everyone! If I understand correctly, we're sending the Iron Chef settler to the north coast to grab the remaining cocoa resources, and the Chocolate River settler up to the north to the cluster of all those seafood resources. I'll see if I can get another settler to the seafood cluster north of Rice Bowl before the end of my turnset; probably not, since we need about a gazillion builders right now with all these cities.

On research, I am going to use this turnset to push for Machinery (and crossbows/lumbermills) as we discussed in the thread. I'm not going to try to build Ancient Walls for the boost on Engineering, as I don't see how we can get it set up in time. Trying to delay Engineering tech just to get the boost would take us too far off our tech path. On the civics tree, we'll go for Feudalism next, and I see that we need 2 more farms for the boost, which I should be able to line up in time. We are producing a lot of culture for this early in the game, which sounds like just what we want. I do not change civics for the moment, what we have right now looks good.



I rename Osaka to "Need Food Pls" and have it start the pre-placed Theatre district for lack of useful other options. I will start the Industrial district as soon as it reaches size 4. Candy Mountain needs an aqueduct badly, we'll have to add that as soon as we have Engineering tech (which will be done soon). I will try to get a builder down to Frosted Flakes to chop/mine the hill and speed along that settler. I can't remember if we decided on pursuing Chichen Itza in Chocolate River; I'm going to assume not because we haven't been pushing for Guilds on the civics tree. I'd like to push for Medieval Fairs next after Feudalism; Aesthetics gives +100% theatre district adjacency bonus in culture, and we're getting +3 culture on a whole bunch of our theatres thanks to Japan's unique ability and smart district placement. Seems like a good target to pursue next.

I'm going to try and improve relations with the AI leaders as much as possible, since Open Borders and sending them a trade route both increase tourism output. If we can get good relations now, it will be easier to get Open Borders later when we're pumping out tourism. On that note, send a delegation to Victoria and sign Open Borders. This will let us explore her territory with our scout if nothing else. Sign Open Borders with Pedro of Brazil. Sign Open Borders with Saladin of Arabia. Pedro and Saladin both say they dislike leaders with low productivity. We should be able to fix that shortly as our Industrial districts finish.

Turn 90 (1): Victoria pops up between turns asking if we wand to declare friendship. I see no reason to oppose this, and accept her offer. At least we have one ally in this game, along with a lot of unfriendly faces from the other AIs. Iron Working research done, on to (unboosted) Engineering next. Iron Chef finishes its settler and Wheaties finishes its Industrial district; I set both to builders because we're going to finish Feudalism soon and obsolete the +30% builder policy. I'll try to set it up so that we can complete a couple builders the turn after the +2 builder action policy card is ready (Serfdom). Do some micro at Iron Chef to have the city regrow more quickly, it has a lot of 4/1 wheat tiles and there's no reason to be shy of the housing cap. Build a farm at Rice Bowl and complete the boost for Feudalism, yay!



Turn 91 (2): We actually find a tribal village in the extreme southern tundra. I will see what's inside in two turns. Archers are mapping out the antarctic wastelands for lack of other tasks to do.

Turn 92 (3): India has a warrior sitting on the tile where I want to found our next city. More fun with One Unit Per Tile, sigh. I expect that warrior will move next turn. And an Arabian scout poaches the village down in the southern ice. Seriously, what were the odds on that? Hmph. Not my favorite turn.



Turn 93 (4): Finish Feudalism research. We change policies over to the +2 builder actions option, and I also drop +1 production all cities in favor of Insulae (+1 housing in cities with 2 specialty districts) since a lot of our cities are getting the Industrial/Theatre combo finished. I start researching Medieval Fairs next, for the +100% theatre adjacency bonus and because it's directly on the line to Humanism.

We also get an envoy, which I will save for the moment. If we can get 2 more envoys, I would drop them into Vilnius and get the +2 culture on all Theatre districts bonus. But there's no point in sending just 1 envoy, so we can save for now.



This is slightly concerning from Brazil. We do have Open Borders now so there's a good chance he's just passing through. I'm recalling some of our archers up from the southern wastelands into this region just in case we would need them. I will also build one more cheap archer next before we obsolete them at Machinery tech, which will also trigger the boost for Mercenaries civic.

Turn 94 (5): Engineering tech done, Machinery tech next. We finish two builders in the capital and Wheaties, just in time to get the 5 actions bonus. I set the capital to an archer (2t) as described in the previous paragraph, for extra safety and for the Mercenaries boost. Wheaties goes onto a granary (3 turns) to increase the housing cap further. Both of these cities will be able to grow upwards quite a bit further, to around size 10, and I would let them do that by working high food tiles. The capital in particular can be a stellar production city if we let it keep growing onto plains hill mines. Candy Mountain finishes an Industrial district; I want an aqueduct here next, but I want to get the jungle clearing bonus before putting it down. I have it start a granary in the meantime while waiting on that.



Settle Feeling Crabby on the north shore near the double crabs (and even more chocolate). I have it start working on the theatre district right away to cheapen the cost; we can rush-buy a granary or monument here, but we can't rush-buy the district. I also have to place it in a slightly strange spot, over near Need Food Pls, in order to preserve a Feudalism farming triangle of flatground tiles. We will want the Industrial district southeast of the cocoa when the city grows up to size 4 later.

Turn 95 (6): Saladin says our people are lazy and untrustworthy and that we will soon be forgotten. No idea what agenda this is. Archer in the very deep tundra finds a barb encampment, not sure if it's even worth trying to clear. Brazil continue to move a lot of units past Chocolate Mountain, but I don't think we're his target, since he has worse relations with Gandhi.



Turn 96 (7): Between turns, Gandhi offers to trade us truffles in exchange for our mercury. Since we already have truffles as a luxury, I instead trade it to him for 225 gold and 1 gold/turn. Hopefully this will boost relations with him somewhat. We get the boost for Mercenaries civic thanks to having 8 land units in our military. We will not get the boost for Medieval Fairs (have 4 trade routes) which is why I think now's a good time to research it.

Settler finished in Chocolate River, I will send it north to the seafood bonanza up there. Going to go back and finish the monument (2 turns) since it's almost done in this city. Scratch that; we have a builder almost done here (3 turns) as well, so let's finish the builder and then finish the monument. Lots of tiles to improve at this city. I have a tough decision on what to build at the capital, and end up going with another settler, after picking a Campus district to lock in the district cost right now. We do want to get some Amphitheatres done somewhere soon, and the capital is probably the best spot for that. However, I think now is a good time to get one more settler out for the crab/mercurcy area north of Rice Bowl while we're running the +50% settler production policy. I expect we'll ditch that soon and so now is the time to build settlers.



Turn 97 (8): Yep, Pedro was going after Gandhi as I suspected. It will be fun to watch them duke it out. Perhaps I shouldn't have granted Open Borders to Brazil? Well, water under the bridge now! The AI is not very good at capturing cities, and I suspect nothing of interest will happen. I have Wheaties start another builder because we need more all the time, always more tiles to improve.

Turn 98 (9): Between turns, Arabia finishes the Hanging Gardens. I considered making a run for that in one of our cities because it was down to 8-9 turn build, I'm glad I didn't since it would have been wasted effort. Machinery research done, I start pushing for Industrialization tech (a long way off) with Shipbuilding research. We are not going to get the "build 2 galleys" boost there, and it's a cheap tech anyway. It also seems unlikely that we'll get the boost for Mathematics (3 different specialty districts) unless we drop the settler in the capital to focus on the Campus district. Maybe that should have been a very cheap Encampment to get the boost, I dunno. Wheaties isn't too far off from size 7 and the ability to toss down an encampment if we want to delay Mathematics research. Probably not worth the effort though.

I drop an aqueduct at Candy Mountain on the best eligible tile, but don't build it so that the city can go back to working on its Theatre district. There's a builder there clearing out the jungle and connecting our chocolate resources. (Yum!)

Turn 99 (10): Lots of builders clearing rainforest at Candy Mountain and Chocolate River. Sorry Chichen Itza! At Feeling Crabby, this causes the city to have a weird interface bug:



Zero turns until growth, because there was so much food from clearing the rainforest it would have grown TWO sizes. Ha!

Turn 100 (11): Watch Brazil and India continuing to duke it out. Right now, it does not look like any cities will change hands. I connect another cocoa resource and sell it to Victoria for 75g + 7 gpt. That's almost 300 gold in total - keep selling those Wonka chocolate bars! There is an UNMOVED SETTLER north of Chocolate Mountain, which is on the tile where I expect we'll want to found a city. I have left the actual settling (and naming) to the next player, in case we have another place in mind. There's also a settler due out of Frosted Flakes next turn, and another out of the capital in 3 turns. Their location is up for team discussion.



We have a LOT of gold right now; 1000 in the bank and making +45 gold/turn. We could potentially use this to snipe the upcoming Great Writer away from Brazil. We will lose the race currently, but we could take the Great Person with Patronage if desired. This is another issue we could discuss as a team. Alternately, we could use some of that money to speed along the development of new cities.