teh: Frederick of Germany

[teh]

First ever game on the website. Let's see what Civ 6 offers in terms of multiplayer (and hopefully more games like this will come).

I'll post some thoughts and screenshots later this evening about my first city.

[teh]

My long overdue update:

Turn 1



Here's the starting position after I moved the warrior southwest. With the water tiles significantly weaker than land tiles in Civ 6, I decided to move the settler 1SW and settle 1 off the coast:



This moves the two hills SW and SE of the mountain hex within the city borders to the second ring for the city. I start with a builder production, and choose to use the rice tile to grow fast initially, until the horse hex is picked by the cultural growth.

Turn 2

Continued scouting southwest of the city with the warrior. As expected, the game chose to pick the horse hex to grow onto:



I also laid down an initial tentative plan for the districts. The commercial hub will go on to the river hex NE of the city center. Harbor will go NE of the commercial hub to give +2 gold adjacency bonus to the commercial hub. Since I'm playing as Germany, the unique industrial zone, Hansa, benefits from being adjacent to resources and to the commercial hub. It will go onto the marsh hex, neighboring 2 resources (crab and rice), and the commercial hub, resulting in an adjacency bonus of +4 cogs. I can even put another district SE of Hansa later on to get another +1 cog (for being adjacent to the harbor and the 4th district). Similarly, the commercial hub will be at +5 (+2 from harbor, +2 from river, and +1 from hansa&city center). Harbor will be at +2 gold (+1 from crab, +1 from Hansa&Commercial hub), but the main use of the harbor is the extra trade route and giving adjacency bonus to CH and Hansa as described above.

Turn 3

I find the city state Kumasi, giving me an envoy automatically. It's a cultural city state, and I get +2 culture in the capital. Wonderful for the early game as this will more than double my cultural income, speeding up the cultural growth onto the horse hex and finishing code of laws earlier than I would without the city state. The quest is to train a galley, which is not in my near future things to do. The suzerain bonus is so-so, but it might actually be useful for me since I get an extra district slot in each city. Trade routes out of the capital will probably give me a good amount of culture with the suzerain bonus, but it's not something I'm planning to prioritize yet. We'll see.



Turn 4


Nothing of note. I switched the citizen from the rice hex to the hill hex W of the city to pick up an extra cog (The city would grow to size 2 whether I work the rice hex or a hex with 2 food).

Turn 5

The warrior comes back around. I can only see one viable city spot between my capital and Kumasi on the east side of the peninsula (marked with the pin). It's a weak city, so I would probably go towards the cattle and truffles spot to the west for my first city:



Aachen is size 2 now. It's working the rice and the hill hexes. The horse is going to be picked up in the next turn, so my plan is to work the hill tile and the horse tile for some production to speed up the builder (9 turns now).

[teh]

Turn 6

The horse is picked up by the cultural growth after the last turn, so I decide to work the horse hex + the rice hex for 2 production and 6 food in total.

Turn 7

The city keeps growing and the warrior keeps exploring around the coast. I'll send the warrior NW of the city next.

Turn 8

Code of Laws is finished. The two military slots (since I have one extra) are filled with the two available military policies, though they are of no use right now without the barbarians. I fill the economic policy with the god king (+1 faith +1 gold) to get a pantheon. For the next civic, I start craftsmanship, but I'm planning to switch it around once I fill it halfway since I have a worker coming out soon. I'll be able to boos craftsmanship with the 3 worker charges.

Turn 9

Animal husbandry is finished. The next tech I choose is mining, since I want to mine at least a hill for some extra production. My plan is to farm the rice, pasture the horse and get a mine with the initial worker.

City growth is in 2 turns and the worker is in 4 turns.

Turn 10

I make a minor shuffle in the hexes worked by the city: rice-> grassland hill W of the city center. The city will still grow in 1 turn, but the worker drops from 3 to 2 turns.



Aachen is going to pick up another hex next turn, and it looks like it's choosing the marsh hex NW-NW of the city center. I might buy the plains hill SE-SE of the city center to mine for some extra production next turn. Once the city grows, it will most likely work the rice, the horse and either the previously mentioned plains hill, or the grassland hill. The plan is to produce a settler after the builder. Aachen should be able to grow back easily with the rice and marsh hexes once it produces the settler.

[Singaboy]

just a heads up. I am following your turns with interest. Curious how your game turns out. Any short or long term plans here?

[unaghy]

Looks good so far. First met cultural city state is great for you, as it allows you to keep up with Roman´s free monuments culture boost. On the other side, you dont have much options for city placement currently. Any long term planning down the road?

Good luck btw, I had to withdraw from this MP due to sickness/work duties, but I will enjoy to be the one that criticize

[teh]

just a heads up. I am following your turns with interest. Curious how your game turns out. Any short or long term plans here?

Short term, get a settler out asap. I also need to uncover the central portion of the map, so the warrior is heading in the NW direction. Not sure about what I'm going to do long term yet.

Looks good so far. First met cultural city state is great for you, as it allows you to keep up with Roman´s free monuments culture boost. On the other side, you dont have much options for city placement currently. Any long term planning down the road?

Good luck btw, I had to withdraw from this MP due to sickness/work duties, but I will enjoy to be the one that criticize

Yes, that cultural state helped a lot vis-a-vis the two roman civs. The suzerain bonus will also be useful in that regard, especially for me as Germany, as I can get more districts. If I can get 3 districts early in the capital, that would be +6 culture for each trade route out of the capital. That might be enough culture depending on when I can achieve that. It might allow me to skip monuments in the cities I settle.

In terms of the possible city locations, I'm considering the coastal hex next to the truffles. See below for further discussion about that.

Long term plans are up in the air now, but Germany sort of incentivizes military with the +1 military policy card, +7 strength against city states (that would be allied to other civs I declare war on - would make dealing with the city state allies much easier. Cheap Industrial district (Hansa) is great for getting one in every city to pump up production and that would synergize well with a military conquest game. We'll see though.

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Turn 11

Aachen grows to size 3. The growth drops my amenity down to 0, but that will be improved (in the not so near future) by improving the coffee hex eventually.

Aachen also grows culturally, picking up the marsh hex NW-NW of the city center as I expected. With the 3 citizens, I elect to work rice, horse and the grassland hill. The worker is in due 1 turn.

Turn 12

The worker is out. I move him to the rice hex and I'll improve the rice first. I have 71 gold, so I buy the plains hill hex SW of the horse hex. I move 1 citizen from the grassland hill to the newly bought plains hill. I have enough food from the pasture and the rice (especially once I improve the rice), and the extra production helps. I start the production of a settler next. The plains hill drops it from 14 turns to 12 turns.

Here's the current view of Aachen:



And here's the overall view:



The warrior finally reveals part of the central portion. There's a desert there, but the revealed river helps a lot. The hex where the warrior stands now would be a good place to settle a city, with the banana, truffles and the whale. Depending on the hexes in the north that are currently hidden, this might be where I'll drop the first settler down. Compared to the other possible city location, I wouldn't need an aqueduct here for the early housing and it has a lot of food in the form of banana and the marsh hexes, though it lacks some production (No hills in sight). The pantheon that gives +1 production in marshes might be useful if I can get it. It would help the capital with its two marshes, too.

In terms of techs, I'll wait one more turn to reach halfway point on craftsmanship and then switch that to another civic. Mining will be done in 4 turns. My worker will spend the next turn on rice, a turn on moving to horse and improving, and a turn to move on to the plains hill. On the turn the worker will be ready to mine the hill, I should have just finished mining, so that lines up well, no wasted worker turns. From thereon, I need to research pottery -> irrigation for the coffee, but thankfully, irrigation will be boosted by farming rice.

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Also, a new patch is up. One major balance change is that a city with a commercial district and a harbor gets only a single trade route, as opposed to one for each as before. So there's less of an incentive to build a harbor now, but I would probably still try to put down harbors to grant adjacency bonuses for other district. I think it's still good to power up a commercial district (for +2), so I'll try to plan my districts to make that happen as frequently as possible.

[Ituralde]

Thank you for the reports. Just happily lurking along and curious to see where this game is going!

[teh]

Thank you for the reports. Just happily lurking along and curious to see where this game is going!

I'm glad you're enjoying my reports!

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Two new turns to report:

Turn 13



First thing, the builder improves the rice. It's a 5f hex now, and the farm boosts irrigation (which I'll need for the coffee plantation). Also, I just realized that I kept calling the builder 'worker' in my previous posts - civ 4 habits die hard. With the farm, the city growth drops down to 7 turns from 9.

The warrior moves NW, revealing two floodplains in vicinity - I'll have more to say about this city location in the next turn.



Turn 14


The builder moves on to the horse hex and improves it. This boosts Horseback Riding. It also drops the settler from 10 turns to 9 turns.



The warrior moves further NW, revealing more of the center portion of the map:



I dropped two pins for further city locations. I think given the tiny size of the map, I really need to emphasize growing towards the (seemingly) richer center portion of the map rather than backfilling my 'leaf' of the clover. The first settler will definitely go on the location next to the banana. I'll try to get the 2nd settler to claim the city location NW of the warrior, though it might be too aggressive. I might build one or two slingers after the first settler to have some sort of defense. But look at all that food between those two cities! If only this game had an equivalent of slavery to whip away all that food for production... The city SW of the banana is production starved, so buying the stone hex might be a good option right off the bat to get some production going there. The city NW of the warrior has a great copper tile in the first ring, so that should be fine. I might start putting down an early planning for some of the districts of the banana city, but it's probably too early to do that for the copper city.

Here are the current rankings by the way:



Of note, I'm the worst in science, though early game it's a bit random (especially if some of the other civs ended up with a scientific city state next to their capital). Yuris is the fourth on both culture and religion, and the two roman civs are leading both. I think this is due to the starting monument for the roman civs, where the early monument let them start working on the pantheon with the god king policy earlier than I or yuri could do, and I'm suspecting yuri didn't end up with a cultural city state, propelling me ahead of him in both culture (and as a result) in faith for now. I can't see actual numbers yet, but things should become more clear once I start meeting other civs.

[Singaboy]

Looking good, are you trying to time you settler with city growth 3 -> 4?

Settling that location you just uncovered might trigger a reaction by whoever would be in the fog, I reckon. You better be prepared for that

[teh]

Looking good, are you trying to time you settler with city growth 3 -> 4?

Settling that location you just uncovered might trigger a reaction by whoever would be in the fog, I reckon. You better be prepared for that

I wasn't trying to time the settler, but the way it turned out, Aachen won't drop down below size 3 after the settler (since it will grow to size 4 before the settler comes out). This is good because I have 3 good tiles that soon will all be improved and I want to keep working them (and never drop down to size 2).

I agree with your assessment about the copper city. I'll definitely grow my military a bit before I get a settler to that location. Like I said before, the plan is to get some slingers out after this settler.

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Turn 15

The city state warrior moves onto the hill that I was planning on mining with the builder   This delays the mine by 1 turn unfortunately since I can't move my worker there (1 upt shenanigans...) The warrior will most likely move next turn so I can move the worker there next turn instead of this turn.

Turn 16

As expected, the warrior moves from the hill, so I move my worker there. It'll mine the hill next turn and boost craftsmanship, finishing the civic.

Mining is complete, so I start researching pottery next. I'll go onto irrigation after that for coffee.



Updated overview of the map. I moved the warrior south to uncover more of the central portion. I'll try to reveal more of the west of truffles city next.



Updated scores are:

science:
archduke, yuri, me (2 tech, 4.1 beaker), sullla

culture:
sullla, archduke, me (3.9 culture), yuri

domination:
archduke, yuri, sullla, me (20 military)

religion:
sullla, yuri, archduke, me (1 faith)

I moved up in science, probably from discovering the new tech. This tells me that sullla probably hasn't researched two techs yet, though I might be wrong.

I moved down in religion. Though I have a suspicion that all 4 players have one faith (and yuris picked god king recently). I checked the great people panel and no one is producing any gpp yet. I think the interface is ranking the players based on the reverse player order (sullla, yuris, archduke and me) when the 'score' for a category is tied. We'll see about it though.

Military and culture are the same from before. I have a suspicion about the domination (miltary score). If no one has produced any military like me, we would all be tied, except the domination victory ranking seems to be based on your military and then your score because when you hover over your civ icon, it lists your military score followed by your overall score. As the screenshot below shows, the overall score is archduke, yuris, sullla and me, which matches the domination victory order. I'll try to see if moving up in the overall score list bumps me up in the domination victory rankings without me building a new military unit, that would prove my suspicion here.



Here are all the scores. I labeled the players. Archduke and sullla are leading in civics (as they have more culture than me or yuris), though I should jump to a score of 4 once I finish craftsmanship with the boost.

The technology score of 2 for sullla against 4 for all other players reinforces my belief that sullla is still at only 1 researched tech.

Nevermind, I just read on a civfanatics thread that the scoring is as follows:

+2 for each tech and civic (sullla is definitely at 1 researched tech then.)
+5 For each wonder
+3 for each great person (awarded on receiving GP)
+4 for a pantheon and +8 for a religion (not much value for using religion)

Empire seems to consists of
+5 per city
+1 per population
+3 per district

So barring a really early district (that I think is impossible since no one is getting any gpp), yuris' capital is at size 4 (from empire score) as opposed size 3 for the rest of players. That could be from working a marsh hex, or working the grassland hill instead of the plains hill. It could also be from clearing a marsh with a builder charge, though you need irrigation for that. Given that yuris has 2 techs, I could easily see him going for pottery->irrigation (boosted with the farm) early on instead of the other 2 techs, so you would be lacking in some production without mines and pastures right now. Speculation at this point though. I'll get a screenshot of this score page every turn because I feel like it gives some good info about other civs even before meeting them. Incidentally, my score is shown as 12, when it should be 14 (if you add up the points from the categories), but I think this is just the game not having updated the total since I gained a new tech (+2 points) just on this turn.