Civ6 PBEM: Sullla of Rome

[Ituralde]

Very informative and detailed post. I definetly enjoyed reading it. I would always be too lazy to do C&D, but it is very useful information to have.

[unaghy]

All detail information looks great and definitely very interesting for readers, however question is, if it is worth of time spent for player and if it makes any difference in the end in the game. If pace is one turn per day, then there is certainly time for that. On the other side, I can spend staring at demo screen for hours just to see nearly nothing by my own, so not worth of time for someone who cant read it

[Sullla]

Of course - you wouldn't go through this kind of time and effort when playing normally. It only becomes worth doing when the turn pace slows down to a crawl, and there were always plenty of players in Civ4 MP who didn't track this information and did very well for themselves. For me, it's a puzzle to figure out and the process of scrutinizing the Demographics is itself part of the fun. I don't expect everyone else to necessarily feel the same way.



We had another fast turnaround and went through two turns yesterday. On Turn 13, TheArchduke moved his warrior into the rainforest tile shown here. I'm not sure if he was worried about my warrior attacking his or if he was doing some kind of odd scouting or whatever. I have no intention of engaging in early combat and moved SW-W to explore some more territory en route to home.

I finished Foreign Trade civic at the start of the turn, and that allowed me to swap to a new set of policies:



The only change of significance here was exchanging God King for Urban Planning. More production in the capital, yes please. I also traded out Survey for Maritime Industries, both equally useless at this point in the game. The policy that I want in the Military slot is Agoge (+50% production on Ancient/Classical melee and ranged units) and that unlocks when the Craftsmanship policy finishes. I don't plan on building any more miliary units until that one is finished.



At the capital, I was pleased to note that the overflow from the builder did complete correctly. The settler sits at 9/80 production as expected. Thankfully this is not Civ3 where production overflow was not tracked. My builder unit had to spend the first turn moving across the river, then farmed the rice tile this turn to take it to 5 food yield - very nice indeed. Food surplus is now back to +4 food/turn, and growth to size 4 down to 6 turns. Farming a resource tile also provided the boost for Irrigation tech, although I will end up skipping that one for some time. Because the luxury resource next to my capital is jade instead of citris or tea, I don't need Irrigation to improve it. Jade requires a mine, not a plantation; that's one of the small advantages of the southwestern start on this map. I'll be able to send my early research in other directions.

I did notice something else on this turn: the patch made an undocumented change to the power rankings. TheArchduke stayed at 30 military power even though his gold increased from 8 to 14. Similarly, I noticed that I was not getting any military power ranking from my own gold total. In other words, the new patch removed the 12 gold = 1 power aspect of the formula that I posted yesterday. That's a good thing for the health of Civ6 overall, as it makes it much easier to understand how much military strength each player has. It's slightly bad for me in this game, as I was planning on saving up hundreds of gold for unit upgrades which would inflate my "power" and make me look stronger than I actually was. Ah well, still a change for the best.

TheArchduke picked up 6 gold between turns, which narrows down the possibility of what city state is next to his capital. It can't be a Commercial city state, or he would have received another 4 gold in income. Since it also can't be Cultural, Scientific, or Religious, by process of elimination it must be Industrious or Militaristic. I hope it's an Industrious city state if I had to pick - they're better in the long run, but an early Military city state applies the +2 production to units and that speeds up the early game quite a bit since the bonus does apply to builders and settlers. It's going to be a very long time before I find out what the type is - there's no way I'll have a unit up there deep in TheArchduke's core for centuries on end.

Since TheArchduke is first in military power at 30, this change to the formula to remove gold from the equation now also tells me what the other players are doing. Yuris is in second and teh is in last place with me. Both of them must have gone builder-first as well, since they would have finished a scout by now otherwise and would be ahead of me in military score. Looks like TheArchduke was the only one to open up with a scout. Since no one else seems to be loading up on early military, I feel a lot more comfortable with my builder -> settler opening. Still very very early, of course.

[Sullla]

The Archduke moved next to my warrior at the start of Turn 14, and I moved off to the southwest:



I'm confident that both of us are just scouting at the moment and that he doesn't have any desire to attack right now either. TheArchduke's warrior is currently three tiles away in the fog, E-E-NE of my warrior. As for the current area where my own warrior is located, the plan is to establish my second city right here, on the tile where my warrior is standing. The third city will then backfill four tiles away on the tile SE of the bananas. I've debated about establishing them in the opposite order, but I'm concerned about TheArchduke getting a city in this double river region first if I go for the closer and safer play. Because cities must be 4 tiles apart in Civ6, whoever gets a city here first can crowd out the other player away from the region. This gives a giant advantage to the early first mover.

Besides, the tile where my warrior is standing makes for a stronger city anyway than the spot by the bananas. The floodplains tile in the first ring will be a 3/1 tile once my pantheon lands, as good as a pastured cow, and it will go to 4/1 yield when irrigated. The two copper tiles are worth a lot of early production when mined, and there are more hills and floodplains in the second and third rings. By contrast, the bananas area has a lot of food but not much else; it will need trade routes to get it up to speed. Worth founding for the innate science/culture, however not a strong contributer early on. Since I already have a settler in production right now, I think I'll be safe to reach this area first unless TheArchduke is going scout -> settler, and that seems a bit unlikely.



This turn the builder moved onto the horses tile and built a pasture, picking up the boost for Horseback Riding tech in the process. I now have horses visible and connected on the trade screen. The tile yield goes to 2/3 and along with Urban Planning civic in place, that takes the capital to 9 production overall. The builder will next move onto the plains hill tile and mine it, with Mining tech research finishing just in time. (This is why I had to go Animal Husbandry -> Mining and not the other way around.) The plains hill mine will take that tile to 1/3 yield, and when I finish my pantheon, Lady of the Reeds and Marshes will add another 1 production to the rice tile since it's a floodplains. That adds up to a combined 11 production at size 3, which is as good as I could hope to do at this start. I'm also crossing my fingers that the cultural borders will grab the marsh tile to the northwest of the rice shortly, as that will be another 3/1 tile with my pantheon in place. I don't plan on getting another builder out in the near future here, as those four tiles will be plenty strong on their own. Combined +5 food/turn and 12 production/turn at size 4? That's plenty to churn out early settlers and units for a while.

In the score rankings, TheArchduke finished both a tech and a civic this turn, vaulting him past me into the mostly meaningless score lead. We are both at two civics completed, while TheArchduke has finished his second tech (as a result of scoring the Scientific city state). I'm guessing that he picked up Foreign Trade civic since I don't think he could have three tiles already improved for the Craftsmanship boost. Even with a Military city state ally, there's no way he could build a scout and a builder and also have 3 tiles finished improving by now. I suspect he's doing the same thing as me: researching Foreign Trade to avoid wasting culture on Craftsmanship while waiting for the builder to improve three tiles.

Yuris also finally finished Code of Laws civic, which should give you some idea of how slow the culture rolls in for the non-Roman starts. He also selected the God King policy, as he is now listed as being ahead of TheArchduke in faith/turn, which is the only way that the numbers make sense. In fact, everyone other than me is running God King at the moment - everyone seems to want a pantheon. I'm happy to see that, as I'll get first pick and that means they aren't running Urban Planning for the bonus production. Going back to our other debate from a few turns back, Yuris has also grow to size 4 this turn, which he reaches five turns ahead of me. By my best guess, he should finish his builder this turn with 53/50 production in the box. Now obviously getting to size 4 that much faster is very nice from a growth perspective, but the tradeoff is that the builder finished 3 turns slower, and at the same turn that he finishes a builder at 53/50 production, I have a settler already in progress at 26/80 production. And while a city at size 4 presents no issues, his city is going to hit the housing cap AND the amenities cap at size 5. Growing faster doesn't inherently do that much to help you in Civ6 beyond the relatively modest science and culture from the pop points. So again, while I think this is a complicated discussion and well worth having, I do think that emphasizing production comes out ahead in this particular case.

Feel free to laugh if I'm totally off with these numbers and Yuris is doing something completely different at his capital.

[Sullla]

Two more turns rolled around yesterday - I love the turn pace we're getting on the weekends.



Turn 15 was uneventuful. I moved my warrior across the river and that was about the long and short of what took place. I ended up less than 1 beaker short of finishing Mining tech, fortunately that didn't matter because my builder had to move onto the plains hill tile this turn, which took all of its movement points. Because Yuris has a size 4 capital, he finished his second tech this turn. The only other thing worth noting is that I swapped off of Craftsmanship civic at the end of the previous turn to avoid wasting culture, dumping one turn's worth of it into Early Empire. I want that civic quite badly for the Colonization policy (+50% production on settlers), and I'll have to do more swapping later to avoid wasting culture while waiting on that boost (have 6 total population in your cities).



Turn 16 was a bit more interesting. TheArchduke moved his warrior up to the river to explore more tiles, and I decided to hold my warrior in place on the same tile. Due to the silly One Unit Per Tile rules, TheArchduke can't cross the river without attacking me, and of course by attacking across a river he would do so at a major disadvantage. He would take more damage than me, and by virtue of staying in place for a turn, my warrior would also heal 10 HP between turns. Like I said, pretty stupid. I'm hoping that he will head off in another direction once it becomes clear that my warrior isn't moving. I still want to bring this unit back to escort the settler when it pops out, but I also want to make sure that TheArchduke doesn't sneak a warrior down into my quadrant of the pangaea. Since teh and Yuris went builder-first in their openings, the odds are a lot less likely that their starting warrior is going to stroll out of the fog from the east and turn now and grab my unprotected settler. That would be truly bad luck if it occurred, but it would also end my chances of winning immediately. So... for the moment, I'll hold the warrior in place and hope that TheArchduke heads off elsewhere.



Here's the builder tossing down a mine on the plains hill tile. Wave goodbye since he disappeared after completing that job. That took the capital up to 10 production:



Growth in 3 turns, settler due in 5 turns. I had another stroke of good luck: the tile picker randomly grabbed the marsh tile northwest of the rice when borders expanded this turn. That's the exact tile that I wanted, and it was pure chance which one was picked. My pantheon will arrive in 3 turns, and that will sync up perfectly with growth to size 4. Lady of the Reeds and Marshes will add +1 production to the rice and the marsh tile, worth another 2 production immediately (10 -> 12 = 20% more). I'd like to say I planned all of this, but a lot of it was having the good luck to hit some very helpful city states. Not all luck though - without pushing for the Cultural city state in the center of the map, I wouldn't have landed that bonus.

In terms of research, I've now swapped back to Craftsmanship civic to finish that one off and swap into Agoge policy finally. I'll pop out a slinger or two after the settler and then go back into more settlers with the Colonization policy from Early Empire in place. If everyone keeps farmer's gambiting this opening, perhaps just one slinger and then back to more settlers before Early Empire is even done. My third city will be a backfill location near the bananas that won't require much to defend at all.

My tech choice is more interesting. I'm picking Bronze Working next so that I can toss down a very early Encampment district and lock in the costs before it gets too expensive. This is an odd choice to be sure, so the question needs to be asked: why this tech? The main reason is a lack of anything else compelling to tech right now. I don't need Sailing or Astrology any time soon at the top of the tree. I don't want Archery tech yet because I want to build the much cheaper slingers instead and upgrade them later. Masonry and The Wheel will be useful later, but I don't want to finish teching them yet because I'll be able to land their respective boosts, and there's little point in teching half of those techs. The most logical choice here would be Pottery into Irrigation or Writing, however I don't immediately need any of those options either. The luxury resource at my capital is jade, and that requires a mine to connect it, not a plantation. I don't need Irrigation for a bit since I don't require early plantations. I have no plans to build an early Campus district, as my capital is going to do an early Encampment instead for the Great General points. And as far as granaries go at Pottery... I'm going to try and skip them here as much as possible. My early cities will all be on fresh water, and that will get them to about size 4-5 before hitting the housing cap. That should last them long enough for me to tech to Engineering and get my Baths up and running. The Baths are roughly the same cost as a granary for me, and they provide +4 housing and +1 amenity for cities on fresh water, more than that for any city not on fresh water. I can save production by skipping the early granaries and sinking that production into settlers, builders, and Commercial districts.

This worked out pretty well in my test games, and I was able to get the Encampment district dropped on the map (and the cost locked in place) before Turn 30. Then my capital would go back and actually build the thing later on, after the initial settler expansion wave was finished. In addition to the Great General points, the Encampment district also does provide +1 production on trade routes to that city; again, I plan on going Encampment/Commercial/Industrial/Harbor districts at the capital so that every other city can eventually run 1 food / 5 production trade routes back there. And the Encampment district also opens up the very cheap Barracks: +1 production and +1 housing for 80 production cost (along with another Great General point). I doubt I would do this against the AI, but it should be helpful here. After all, I don't just want the first Great General - I'd like the second one too if possible.

Nothing noteworthy these turns in the C&D department. No one else has built another military unit yet and TheArchduke hasn't connected a resource at his capital. Quiet for now.

[Sullla]

Another fast turnaround so here's Turn 17:



TheArchduke moved his warrior one tile west into the rainforest, where the land deadends into the sea. I will keep my warrior in place for at least another turn to dissuade him from coming any further south. I'm trying to signal that anything south of this river is my territory but that I won't be coming further north into his territory (at least not in the early game). No idea if he is picking up on that or viewing these actions as something else entirely. I have been moving my warrior SE-NW the last two turns, which gives up the fortify bonus from remaining in place in exchange for a little bit more vision on anyone else who might be slipping in from the east. I can spot all but one tile, which means there's a very slim chance that teh's starting warrior could be passing through. Extremely unlikely but possible. I'd be much more worried if anyone else had built an early scout, as their 3 movement points gets them through rough terrain much faster. For now, the waiting game by the river continues.

I finally finished Craftsmanship research this turn, allowing this policy swap:



Finally into the two best policies of the very early game: Agoge and Urban Planning. Obviously this is all situational; sometimes you need the barbarian combat bonus, sometimes Ilkum is needed for getting builders up quickly, and so on. Generally speaking though, these are the strongest all-around policies to have. Both TheArchduke and teh have recently finished their second civic, and I'm unsure if they've picked up Foreign Trade or Craftsmanship. I'll go out on a limb and guess that teh (who went builder-first) has also finished Craftsmanship and will likely be in Agoge as well. TheArchduke still has no resources visible on the trade screen, and since he went scout-first, he probably finished Foreign Trade. As far as I know, there's no way to see what policies another player is running in Civ6, only their current government. If anyone knows how to spot someone's policies (aside from the espionage system), let me know.



Settler is coming along nicely, although unfortunately even when the capital grows to size 4 it won't pull in enough production to chop a turn off the build time. It will have 77/80 production in the box at the end of Turn 19, with the settler completing end of Turn 20 / beginning of Turn 21. That's OK though, as the capital will overflow 9 production and I'll probably use that to push out a pair of fast slingers. With Agoge's +50% production in place, the capital will get 10 -> 15 production/turn into units at size 3 and 12 -> 18 production/turn at size 4, after I land my pantheon. Slingers cost 35 production (and do not require gold/turn in maintenance) so I should be able to get a few of them done very fast indeed. No one else has any military beyond TheArchduke's one scout build, and Yuris with his Eagle Warriors are as far away from me as possible on this map. The way looks clear to push out settlers very aggressively.



With nothing else going on, I thought I'd take a quick look at the early Great People available. The Writers/Artists/Musicians always do the same thing, so these are the key ones to consider. That Great Engineer is very nice indeed, essentially a free early game wonder for anyone who can claim it. I would love to turn that into the Pyramids or Colosseum with no production invested. Teh will probably get that Great Person though, since he gets cheap Hansas. I'll see if it makes sense to try for it (I will have some surplus faith from the city state for patronage). I will be emphasizing Commercial districts, and that will give me a good shot at the first Merchant, which has a pretty solid benefit. An extra trade route in the early game is quite helpful. The Great Scientist is even better, and +1 science per library is a really nice benefit. (Libraries are 2 science by default, so that means this is double the normal benefit.) I won't be getting this one though, as I am skipping the early Campus districts. It's a shame but you have to sacrifice somewhere, and I'm choosing to build the early Encampment district instead.

I do think that I can leverage my huge early culture to score an early suzerainship with Stockholm for the very nice +1 Great Person point per district. That will speed along the first Great General and potentially help me in racing for the Great Merchants and Great Engineers as well. Shared vision with the city state (and the ability to levy their units in a pinch) would also be quite nice. Still a little ways off but I should be able to put that together sooner rather than later.

[Sullla]

Only one turn has come through in the last 24 hours; our turn pace seems to be noticeably slower during the week compared to the weekends. Here's the minimal news from the current turn:



TheArchduke moved his warrior off into the fog, I suspect another tile NW along the coast of the continent. Since he moved away, I also moved a tile south away from the river. If TheArchduke moves back into vision next turn, I'll move back to cover the river crossing again. If not, I'll cross over the second river to the bananas and prepare to escort the settler when it pops out. Nothing else of note to report on this turn; next turn will be much more interesting with the pantheon completing and the capital growing to size 4. I haven't spotted anything in the Demographics over the last few turns, still no additional units beyond the early scout build from TheArchduke.

Since the in-game stuff is slow at the moment, I'll use today's post to talk a bit about the PYDT software that we're using:



This is what the client looks like for the software. You can choose not to run the software and treat everything like a normal PBEM, with the save arriving via email, but I find the PYDT setup to be a lot easier. If you keep this program running in the background, it will pop up and alert you immediately when the save has been passed to you. It also keeps track of who has the save at any given moment and how long they've been holding it. If I click on the RB PBEM1 link on the software client, it goes to a page on their website with more statistics:



We have the current holder of the save listed again, along with information about average turn time lengths and who has been guilty of holding the save for the longest periods of time. So far I haven't been tagged with the "over 6 hours" penalty, although that's been luck as much as anything. If the save would get to me in the middle of my work day, there won't be anything I can do about it. That said, I do like the visual representation of this information; if one person is dragging down the game, it will be very obvious here. This group has been excellent so far, and we've had a very healthy turn pace. I hope that continues.

When the save does arrive, it pops up in the software client and one click immediately launches Civ6 with the savegame file queued up under the Hotseat option. Aside from the weird fact that the loading screen always shows teh's Barbarossa leader rather than my own Trajan, it all works normally. After playing a turn, I save the game and the software immediately sends it on to the next player. No need to fool with attachments or email or anything. I've had no problems so far and it's been a very positive experience. It's too early to say if Civ6 will prove to be a good MP game, and the lack of Pitboss functionality will always be a disappointment. But with that said, team MP has been added in the latest patch, and from a technical perspective the PBEM feature works just fine. There's no longer any excuse to avoid Civ6 MP on technical grounds - this thing works pretty darn good from what I can tell.

[Singaboy]

Thanks Sullla for the nice introduction to PYDT. I am following this game with keen interest and might want to join a game, though my playstyle won't be cutting edge to be a winner.

[Sullla]

Thanks! Part of the motivation for playing and writing about this PBEM game is to expand the potential interest in future Civ6 MP games. That's not just so that I have more people to compete against later - it's also so that I have more interesting games to read about on this website. I've loved reading the Civ4 Pitboss/PBEM games for the last decade and I hope this game is worthy of the same kind of community investment.

Back to this game. Turn 19 rolled around this morning:



It would be nice if more of these turns came around to me in the evening instead of 5:50 AM, but the alternative is holding up the game for 12 hours until my work day is over, so early mornings it is right now. My warrior did not see TheArchduke's warrior up in the north, and as a result I moved further south across the second river onto the bananas. Hopefully TheArchduke is heading back home with his warrior and won't try to double back towards my territory.

The biggest news of the turn was my civ ticking over 25 faith and establishing the first pantheon:



Here's Lady of the Reeds and Marshes, the one I've been talking about for the past few turns. Timmy's report on the Epic One game completely changed my mind about this pantheon, which I had largely been ignoring up to that point. There are a surprising number of floodplains, marshes, and oasis tiles on these maps, and this pantheon changes them from fairly weak 3/0 tiles into far superior 3/1 tiles. As good as a pastured cattle tile, as I've said a couple times. On the map we have here, the pantheon immediately benefits two tiles at the capital and a whole bunch of other tiles elsewhere. There are two floodplains at my planned second city site, for example. With production being so valuable in Civ6, this pantheon is another accelerator for the early game.

There's also the question of what else to take from the pantheon list aside from Lady of the Reeds and Marshes. I know lots of people love Divine Spark (+1 Great Person point from Campus, Theatre, and Holy Site districts) but I don't rate it nearly as highly. The benefit on Holy Site districts isn't that great when playing against other humans, Theatre districts are a weak option for MP, and that mostly limits the benefit to Campus districts. Divine Spark does little to speed up the early game, and that's what always matters in Civ. I do like God of the Open Sky's +1 culture on pastures, however this is a weak map for it. There's the horses at the capital and that's pretty much it, very few cows or sheep on this map. Fertility Rites (+10% faster growth) and Religious Settlements (+15% faster border expansions) are both OK without being anything special. If someone wants Monument to the Gods (+15% faster Ancient/Classical wonders) or God of the Sea (+1 production from fishing boats), they're welcome to have it.



Here's the capital with the new pantheon in place, now grown to size 4 and working what are effectively four improved tiles with the pantheon bonus in place. With Urban Planning policy also running, I have +5 food/turn and 12 production/turn in the capital. Based on my tests, this is the best that I was able to do on this map in the early game. I suspect that I'm ahead of the other players (especially TheArchduke with his scout-first opening) but you guys will have to be the judge of that. Settler due in 2 turns, second city will be founded Turn 27 after a rather slow six turns in transit. That part sucks but there's nothing I can do about it because of Civ6's silly movement rules.

Growth to size 4 increased science to 4.8 beakers/turn and culture to 6.2 culture/turn. I'll lose that pop point when the settler finishes of course, but I'll grow back quickly by working the marsh tile over the plains hill for a few turns and getting up to +6 food/turn. I still get 9 production per turn at that configuration which is very strong for this early in the game. Next turn I'll have reached the halfway point on Early Empire civic, and I'll swap to State Workforce for a bit. I will not get the boost for that one, and it will take a bit longer to complete. The boost for Early Empire will complete when my second city grows to size 2 (alongside the capital hitting size 4), which should hit about Turn 31. I actually have a little too much culture here, as my culture is outrunning my ability to complete these boosts. Not the worst problem to have though.



Diplomatically, TheArchduke has encountered one of the other players this turn. I suspect this is Yuris, and that contact was made by TheArchduke's scout unit up near the top of the map somewhere. At the risk of reading too much into limited information, it would certainly be a good thing if TheArchduke's scout is off on the other side of the map and therefore not planning on coming down here to harass me. I'll proceed on that tentative assumption for now. TheArchduke also finished a third tech this turn, the first player to do so. Because he completed the tech so quickly, it must be Pottery tech (assuming he didn't already have it) and TheArchduke should have the first three initial starting techs. Nothing too unusual there so far.

TheArchduke still has no resources connected on the trade screen. In comparison, I finished my builder on Turn 12 and I've had the horses pastured since Turn 14. He is definitely behind economically at this point, enough so that I wonder if I should alter my settling plans at all. Perhaps I should grab the closer site first with this settler, under the assumption that I can get a third city in the floodplains region before TheArchduke can get a second city there? It's tempting because the closer spot would be established four turns faster, which would complete Early Empire civic much faster, and therefore get me into Colonization policy (+50% production on settlers) at a much more convenient timing. The risk is that TheArchduke could settle a spot I want in the center of the map if he moves aggressively with his first settler. I'll think about it.

Otherwise, I grew to size 4 this turn and neither TheArchduke nor teh did so at their capitals. I've been working the plains hill tile at my capital ever since growing to size 3, and so I expected that they would either beat me to size 4 or reach it the same turn. What have they been doing with tile management at their capitals? Wish I could find out somehow. Perhaps getting the builder out and farming the rice tile so quickly gave me a slight edge over them. We'll see if they join me at size 4 this upcoming turn.

[oledavy]

Regarding Pantheons, I agree on valuing Our Lady of Reeds and Marshes highly. I took it in my Adventure 1 game, and I think it's a no-brainer for Egypt/any Civ that starts near flood plains. It you only have a couple marshes around, I'm a little more hesitant, since I often end up clearing those mid-game. But generally a fantastic pantheon. 

Generally I rate the pantheons that produce production/culture the most highly, with the caveat that they have to come online within a decent time frame (Not God of the Sea for example).

I actually have been irritated in my SP games recently with Divine Spark, because if I want to have a shot at a religion on Emperor/Immortal, I have to take it. I think it's potentially solid in MP for a double campus opening, which sets you up for Recorded History/Astronomy/Printing/Education Eurekas down the road. However, its more of a long-term investment, and I just don't know how worthwhile early investment in districts is in MP (my hunch is not very).