RFS-81: Adventure 4 Spoiler Thread COMPLETED

[RFS-81]

EDIT: I've completed the game now with a score of 50 points. I've attached the final save to my last post in this thread.

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Hi everyone!

This is the first time I'm playing a Civ Adventure game on here.

Adventure 4 is all about getting as many great people as possible. The score is one point per Great Person recruited at turn 250, or when you win, whichever comes earlier. I don't think my patch version matches the one in the Adventure description, but I don't know if I can change that, so I'll just play along and post in this thread, and if you want to take me out of the ranking, fine. It's not like I'm going to win anyway

The civ that we play in this Adventure is the Congo, which is very well suited for the job: They get double Great Person Points (GPP) for Great Artists, Writers, Musicians, and Merchants. And because that's not enough, relics, sculptures, and artifacts give the city that houses them +2 food and production. The Congo also has a unique district, the Mbanza, which replaces the Neighbourhood. It's cheaper, earlier in the civic tree, always grants you the maximal amount of housing, and produces food and gold, but it can only be built on (rain-)forests. This should make it easy to settle dry locations relatively early! Their unique unit is the Ngao Mbeba, replacing Swordsmen. The leader ability of Mvemba looks more like a weakness: You cannot found a religion or build holy sites, but you get the follower belief of every religion that exists in a majority of your cities (even if there's only a single believer in each city). So you're relying on the AI picking good beliefs for you which does not sound like a great idea. Still, with all the other good stuff the Congo gets, I don't want to complain too much.

If I'm explaining too much or too little, please let me know. I don't know how familiar with Civ 6 my audience is.

So, lets get started! I moved my settler onto the hill tile across the river from its starting location since this location has more production, and I avoid ruining that 2/2/0 grassland hill forest tile the settler started on.

   

I sent my starting warrior around to explore (which immediately lucked into finding another continent, boosting Foreign Trade), and built a scout in my city, which I sent exploring to the east. My scout encountered a Norwegian warrior, and the city state Stockholm. Harald already made contact with them, so no free envoy for me. Stockholm's Suzerain bonus is great for this game: It boosts GPP in Theater Districts.

My next unit will be a slinger, then I'll proceed with a builder. Meanwhile, my warrior found a Barbarian camp in the Northwest, with a wounded spearman in it. I'll clear the camp, make contact with whoever attacked that camp before me, and then move my warrior back to the capital.


By the way, what program are people here using for screenshots? It would be nice if it could just automatically shrink them to fit in the size limit.

[RFS-81]

I cleared the barbarian camp and also killed a nearby scout. Two down, one to go for the Bronze Working boost! It seems that the civ fighting them before was Spain. In the east, I discovered the German city Aachen. When I heard Barbarossa's speech in the video, I was wondering if they didn't get a German native speaker for it, because the pronunciation was very strange - then I realized he's actually speaking Middle-high German. Nice touch! His city was getting pillaged by barbarians. He did already have archers, though!

I've researched Mining and Pottery, and I'm now progressing towards irrigation to connect the luxuries around my capital. Unfortunately, I'll have to do that without a boost, since I don't have any wheat or rice there. I also finally finished Code of Laws and set my first policies. My choices here are as usual: Discipline to fight barbarians, God King to get a pantheon belief. (Mvemba can at least get that much control over religion.) With Discipline in place, my scout finished off a wounded barbarian near Aachen, completing the Eureka for Bronze Working - nice!

The worker finished at my capital (which has grown to size 4), and I choose a settler as the next target. I chop-and-mine the hill forest to the east of my city to get a boost. Maybe going with a settler first would have been a better choice? I can't connect any luxuries yet, and the tile picker will take some time to grab the stone resource. Probably, I'll build another mine then. I also have to hurry up with a second builder if I want the Inspiration for Craftsmanship in time.

Let's talk a bit about my medium term goals:
My goal in civics is, of course, Political Philosophy, to unlock the Classical Era governments. In Science, I'll go for Bronze and start on Iron Working. Right now, my goal is to spread out both with settlers and by force. More cities means more GPP later on! Conquering my neighbors will not only give me additional cities, but also eliminate competition: In Civ6, every Great Person is unique, and they get progressively more expensive. Classical Era GP cost 60 points; when they're all gone, it's on to Medieval GPs which cost 120 points, etc. Of course, I'd like to get as many of the cheap GPs as I can!

[RFS-81]

   

Turn 50, a nice round number for an update. Doesn't the "Strategic View" of the map look great? I didn't even know this mode exists until reading teh's PBEM 1 Spoiler Thread.

I have founded my second city, at another high-production location that also has some high-yield food tiles. I'm training a builder there, after a trader. My capital has [EDIT: almost] grown to size 5, which is ok because its two plantations are worth an additional point of housing. Disregard the city marker near the furs, I changed my mind about that location, and I'll probably conquer some cities before settling the next one. I've accumulated enough fate to choose a pantheon, and picked Divine Spark which boosts Great Scientist and Writer points, and switched God King to City Planing (+1 Prod. in every city) at the earliest opportunity.

As you can see, I met the last mystery civilization, it's the Aztecs. I found the religious city-state Yerevan close by. Damn it, if I had scouted in that direction earlier, I could have used the City Planning policy right away, instead of picking God King first! Now it's useless to me (except as a conquest later on), and Montezuma has grabbed the free envoy anyway. It seems like I'm really bad at exploring. The small upside is that Barbarossa likes me for not being involved with any city-states. We'll probably fall out later on since I intend to become Suzerain of Stockholm.

I think it's cool that the diplomacy bonuses tie in with the character of the civs/leaders: Barbarossa wants to conquer city-states (at least in theory, he hasn't made any moves against them yet), so he hates leaders who support them, and likes those who don't. Montezuma motivates his army with luxuries, so he hates civilizations that have luxuries he hasn't. But sometimes, this can get weird, for example when Harald dislikes me for having no navy, when I don't even know yet what this "ocean" thing is that he's so fascinated with.

With Norway settling so close to me - personal space, Harald? - I think it's time to go on the offensive soon. I've finished Bronze Working and Masonry (for Battering Rams), and I'm targeting Archery next. I'm disappointed that there is no iron in my part of the map. I won't need it for my unique unit, but researching Iron Working without the Eureka will take a long time. I'm considering attacking Norway using Archers and Warriors with Battering Rams instead of waiting for that. Their cities' defense strength is still low right now.

In the civic tree, I've finished Early Empire and selected State Workforce next. I don't think I'll get around to trigger the Inspiration for that one.

[RFS-81]

Unfortunately, this time my screenshot got too large, so you'll have to click this link to see it.

The next 50 turns played out very differently from what I expected. I delayed the attack on Stavanger because of barbarian horsemen attacking from the West. I also saw some of them moving around in the North, but luckily they didn't seem to know about my cities. Then Spain suddenly declared war on me - I don't understand why since we weren't really competing for any territory. Of course Phillip hates me because I don't follow his religion, but neither does his friend Montezuma (who in fact seems to be eager to spread his own religion around). Spain was leading in military strength at the time, and I was around third or fourth place (IIRC). Luckily, Iron Working was nearly finished, and I had prepared by building Warriors and saving money for upgrades. My Ngao Mbebas were wreaking havoc among his archers. (Is there anything other than havoc that can be wreaked?) After a short time, Phillip started begging for peace - no chance! I captured both of his cities, plus a settler. I was lucky that Seville had a silver mine since Mbanza Kongo was getting unhappy. I used the captured settler to found Mbumbi whose nearby dyes will help keep my cities happy.

While wrapping up the conquest of Madrid, I launched a surprise war on Norway with some newly produced Ngao Mbebas and others that had finished healing after the first battle with Spain. I also noticed that I could still build Warriors since I don't have an iron resource. That's great since building Warriors and then upgrading them is a much better deal than cash-rushing Swordsmen (or whatever your civ has instead of swordsmen)! By the way, there was no warmonger penalty for my attack. I think this has been changed in some patch, because I definitely remember that surprise wars after the Ancient Era came with a diplomatic penalty. I quickly captured Stavanger and got my first Campus that way. The only thing that didn't go well was that I like an idiot allowed Yerevan, which is allied with Norway, to capture one of my builders. I'm so used to city states' armies milling around pointlessly that I don't even consider they might be hostile until it's too late.

On the home front, I built my first Commercial District and market in Mbanza Kongo once I realized that I had definitely taken the lead in the war against Spain; currently, I'm building a campus there. The Commercial District already bore fruit in the form of a Great Merchant. Marcus Licinius Crassus can claim one tile for a city and generates a bit of gold. I plan to have him grab the silk resource he's standing on in the screenshot, so I'll have another luxury. In Mbamba, I started to construct the Oracle, but unfortunately not in time for boosting the Drama and Poetry civic. I had finished Political Philosophy and switched to Oligarchy for the combat bonus when the war against Spain started. When I'm done fighting, I plan to go with Classical Republic for the additional GPP. In Science News, I researched Apprenticeship to boost my mines and am the first civ to reach the Medieval Era.

In Diplomacy, I became Suzerain of Stockholm, using the Diplomatic League policy to get a two-for-one deal on the envoy I received from researching Mysticism. After researching that civic, I switched to Charismatic Leader in order to generate envoys faster and soon sent the third envoy to Stockholm. Being Stockholm's Suzerain grants one extra GPP in every district. Barbarossa made some angry Middle-high German noises, but still maintains good relations and even asked to extend our Declaration of Friendship on his own. By the way, I was wrong about Yerevan being completely useless to me: Their Suzerain bonus allows you to pick any promotion for your Apostles, and Kongo receives an Apostle for every Theater District and Mbanza they build. So you pick the Martyr promotion and send them off on suicide missions to generate Relics, which, if you are the Kongo, give you food, production and gold. Since Yerevan's land doesn't look all that attractive, and Stockholm's Suzerain-ship (is that a word?) is not at all contested, I might try for that after kicking Norway out of the game. First I'll have to survey what the other city states are offering, though. Maybe there are others that help with Great People.

[RefSteel]

(Is there anything other than havoc that can be wreaked?)

Yup! Basically any destructive concept: You can wreak vengeance upon your enemies, time can wreak ruin upon a city, and your army might wreak destruction itself upon the AI forces.

Also: Thanks for the Adventure report! I'm enjoying the read!

Also also: After you've finished this Adventure, would you have an interest in a Master of Orion succession game?

[RFS-81]

I'm not going to get a report done today, but I wanted to reply.

Glad you like it! It's nice to know that someone's reading it. Of course I can see the viewcount going up, but I wasn't sure if anyone's actually reading. As for MOO, I'd definitely be up for it! I haven't played in a while and I'd like to get back to it. Just two caveats: First, I'm not a very good player. I still find Hard difficulty very, well, hard and I'd get crushed on Impossible. Second, I'd like to play one or two solo games beforehand, to get up to speed again. If that's ok for you, I'll get back to you when I'm ready. Do you think anyone would be interested in reading reports for games on Normal/Hard in the MOO forum?

[RefSteel]

As for MOO, I'd definitely be up for it! I haven't played in a while and I'd like to get back to it. Just two caveats: First, I'm not a very good player. I still find Hard difficulty very, well, hard and I'd get crushed on Impossible. Second, I'd like to play one or two solo games beforehand, to get up to speed again. If that's ok for you, I'll get back to you when I'm ready.

Absolutely! Skill level is no bar to playing, and SGs are often great ways to learn from your fellow players - that's how I got good at the game, playing alongside old hands like Zed-F, dathon, and do0m, and sargon0; the vets on this forum love discussing strategy, giving advice, and picking up an SG turnset from a challenging position to see what we can do with it. The hardest part is just rounding up a group of players who all have time to commit to the game (and agreeing on a variant sometimes, but vanilla games with new players can make that easy).

Do you think anyone would be interested in reading reports for games on Normal/Hard in the MOO forum?

Yes, definitely! A good report is always welcome, even if the game is on Simple/Easy!

[RFS-81]

Ok, back to Adventure 4: Before actually playing more turns, I had a look around and thought for a while. I feel like I've been rushing ahead to fast previously. I've been thinking about the Suicide Apostle strategy, and the catch is that of course my apostles will need someone they can martyr themselves to. Montezuma seems to be about to spread Confucianism to my cities. My conquered Norwegian city follows Protestantism, while my captured Spanish cities have no religion. I thought Phillip was supposed to be all about that? Barbarossa hasn't founded a religion either, even though there is still one slot open, proving once again that the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman. I find your lack of faith disturbing! If I were the Mvemba a Nzinga AI, I'd be playing my disapproval cutscene. The last unmet player has founded Hinduism; that would be a long way to travel to pick fights. (I claimed previously that I had met all players; apparently I'm unable to count.) If I want to pick any religious fights, it will have to be with the Aztecs. The big question is: Can apostles fight with foreign missionaries of the same religion? If not, only the apostles from my captured Norwegian cities can get martyred. My google-fu didn't turn up any info on that. If anyone knows, please tell!

Among the other city states I've seen so far, only Mohenjo Daro has an interesting bonus: It gives fresh water to all your cities. This is a huge deal: Cities founded on the coast without access to fresh water start out with 3 points of housing, and cities in completely dry spots with only 2, so they actually start with a 50% growth penalty. And it turns out that Mohenjo Daro's Suzerain is ... Barbarossa! I can't believe I'm friends with such a hypocrite! Do the leader agendas even mean anything in this game, other than diplomatic bonuses or penalties?

I checked the Great Person tracker and found that in the categories for which I have built districts, I'm producing the most GPP per turn, which is not unexpected, with Kongo's unique ability, the Divine Spark belief, and Stockholm's Suzerain bonus. I've got one Commercial Hub in my capital Mbanza Kongo, a Harbor in Madrid, a Campus in Stavanger, and another one under construction at my capital. Pretty soon, I'll be able to build Theater Districts, where the GPP are again boosted by the Kongo's unique ability. Overall, I think I've been too slow with getting my districts up and running to get a high score in this variant, but at least I'm having fun! And, I don't know how, but I'm generating points towards a Great Prophet! The game doesn't have a handy list to show where your GPP are coming from, or at least I haven't found it. IIRC one of the Spanish cities had a Holy Site, but that got removed when I conquered it and does not appear on the city screen any more. Maybe I'll at least be distinguished as the player who came closest to recruiting a Great Prophet. As an experiment, when the adventure is over, I might conquer Yerevan and see if my prophet GPP go up.

As it turns out, my Great Merchant actually has 3 charges, so I'll be able to grab two more tiles. This is a great ability to expand your cities' domains to the third ring. The culture picker seems to fill up the entire second ring before going on to the third, and if you want to buy those tiles, you'll have to pay over 150 gold. I'm going to get the cotton and incense resources at Stavanger, so I probably won't have to worry about luxuries for some time.

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Whew, let's get on with the game already! I'm breaking my pattern of a report every 50 turn because the last 20 were quite eventful. The Norwegian capital Nidaros proved to be a tough nut to crack, though I finally managed. Harald must have had plenty of gold, because he kept cash-rushing archers for the first few turns. To make things worse, while I was fighting over Nidaros, Montezuma declared a surprise war on me and moved in on Mbamba. So much for Classical Republic, huh? I built a few archers there and in Mbanza Kongo to help defend the city and managed to repel them. I also built some Archers in my northern cities because barbarians are rearing their heads again up there. Because of the war with the Aztecs, instead of going after the final Norwegian city, I decided to make peace with Harald, who at this point accepted pretty much anything. This is unfortunate because it means that he will remain Suzerain of Yerevan, and he attempted to compete for being Suzerain of Stockholm as well. There go my plans for influencing other city states. Oh well, at least I'll get additional beakers at my Campus districts when I reach 6 envoys at Stockholm. Montezuma on the other hand won't accept a "white peace" deal. Well, I'm certainly not giving up anything. I lost some troops to him and at Nidaros, but with my troops returning home, I'm certain that I can repel anything he might throw at me.

In lighter news, I witnessed some very funny AI behavior during the war with Norway: Yerevan had a Warrior and two Archers near Mbamba, but instead of firing, they seemed to try to surround the city. Then the warrior to the north of the city spotted a squirrel barbarian and went chasing it, while the rest of the group dispersed.

Luckily, among all the fighting, I also got something constructive done. I finished the Drama & Poetry civic, which opens up the Theater Square and the wildcard-slot-only policy card Literary Tradition (+2 Great Writer points). This sort of policy seems not very strong normally, but with the Kongo's unique ability doubling it to 4, it actually doesn't look all that bad, at least in this variant game. I gave up Agoge for that, but I don't plan to build much more Ancient/Classical Era units. I've built a Theater Square in my capital, another Commercial Hub in Mbumbi which I sped along with a chop+mine on the forest hill and a pasture on the horses, and started yet another one in Mbamba. Building the Oracle in Mbamba first was probably a mistake: It adds GPP to your districts, so if I had built districts first, I would earn more GPP in total. Still, Montezuma seems to like building wonders, so I didn't want him to get it first. I plan to build an Industrial Zone in Madrid, near the grassland hills to the north, since this city has rather low production. Once I have mined the hill tiles, it should have a decent adjacency bonus, and Seville and Mbumbi are just within range for the factory building, too. The Feudalism civic is about to complete soon, which will replace the Ilkum policy (+30% production on builders) with Serfdom (+2 charges for builders). Anticipating that, I produce Builders in all my cities up to one turn before completion while still under the Ilkum policy, and once Feudalism is completed, I finish them. I got very lucky with the Inspiration for Feudalism (build 6 farms): Previously, I only had built one farm, but Phillip had built four farms for me at Madrid, so I only needed one more. Thanks!

I attracted some more Great People, an Admiral, due to the Harbor at Madrid, which is not very exciting on this map, a Great Scientist that provided three random Eurekas (not that good), and another Great Merchant, which you can move to a luxury resource anywhere in the world, and then a copy of that resource will be added to yours. I plan to get the furs that are just out of reach of Mbeba. The next Great Scientist will be Isaac Newton, who builds a library + university at a campus, and boosts the beaker output of all your universities by one. That's the kind of Great Person I want!

Oh, and screenshots are here and here. And another thing: I finally met the really last civ, India. Gandhi took an instant dislike to me and my warmongering ways, but of course his buddy Montezuma can declare a surprise war against me! I didn't think that AIs "see" your war declarations before you meet them...and how come everybody seems to love Monty?

And I almost forgot about religion, but without becoming Suzerain of Yerevan, it won't matter very much anyway. Montezuma would bunch up his missionaries at my cities (before he had declared war), and then just moved on without spending any charges. What was the point of that exercise?

[RFS-81]

I played a couple of one-more-turns tonight, and I'd like to post a small update. Montezuma offered to give me horses for peace, after running an additional lone swordsman into my defenses, which I accepted. I made the switch to Classical Republic, and I'm relieved to see that I can keep in the green even without the Conscription policy. My policy picks right now are Serfdom (which I probably replace soon, with my improved workers already built), Medina Quarter (+2 housing in cities with 3 districts), Charismatic Leader, and Literary Tradition. Diplomacy is looking bleak. Everybody except for Barbarossa has denounced me for warmongering. I think the interface is lying to me about the warmongering penalty. That, or refusing peace deals gives you a warmongering penalty, too. The diplomacy screen is still showing "None" for surprise wars in the Medieval Era, which looks implausible. What's frustrating is that apparently the AIs are allowed to make surprise wars, but if you do it even once, everybody hates you forever. Relations with Germany are good, but deteriorating, mainly because of warmongering, and because they have switched to Monarchy. ("Stop it with this Divine Right of Kings bullshit, Barbarossa, you don't even believe in God!") This worries me because Germany has surpassed me in military power. I'll have to save money to upgrade my archers to crossbowmen. In Science, I'm working towards Banking for more merchant GPP, and in Culture, my next goal is Humanism (for museums, and thus more Writer/Artist points).

[RFS-81]

I'm now at turn 150. I used my first Great Merchant to claim the iron resource at Nidaros, instead of the cotton near Stavanger, since this allows me to now build knights at the encampment in Nidaros. I will build at least one to boost the defense rating of all my cities - IIRC, this is the strength of your best unit minus 10 + 3 for each district. Now, Germany has denounced me, too. It's unfortunate, but Barbarossa's hidden agenda in this game is "Ideologue", so he likes civs with different governments even less than usual. So it's time to shore up defenses. There isn't much of a gap between me and Germany in military power, and I think I can bridge it with a mass upgrade - which I of course would like to delay as long as possible. In the tech tree, I completed Military Engineering after Banking, and went on to Gunpowder. Military Engineering reveals Niter resources on the map. I founded another city, Kwango, to claim a nearby resource. This wouldn't have been strictly necessary, but Mbanza Kongo was hitting the housing cap for some time anyway, so I might as well build a settler. I've finished Humanism, so now I can build museums. I go with archaeological museums because artifacts generate food, production and gold for me; with great works of art, only sculptures do that. Plus, Mvemba's palace has slots for 5 great works, so I still have some place to store my paintings. My next objective in the civic tree is Exploration, so I can unlock the Merchant Republic government. It's about time I get some more policy slots! The Mercenaries civic which was on the path to Exploration is important too: It unlocks the Professional Army policy, which cuts upgrade costs in half. My plan is to hold some other civic within one turn of completion, then when I am attacked I can swap into Professional Army and do a mass upgrade. I hope I'll get by without building more military; I've been building up more Theater Squares at my cities. I think a deciding factor for this Adventure will be how much the players prioritize Commercial Hubs vs Theater Squares. Both are boosted by the Kongo's unique ability, but the Theater Square produces three different types of GPP at the same time. On the other hand, Commercial Hubs are always important, since trade routes are crucial to boost production at new cities. I have no idea what the optimal split is, though...

The highlights among my Great People are: First, Isaac Newton, who builds a library and university and increases universities' science output by one. Second, the Great Merchant Raja Todar Mal who adds 0.5 gold to every trade route for every district at its destination. For the rest, I'll just post screenshots of the ingame list: 1 2 3 That makes 11 points so far.

I also finally earned my Great Prophet which of course doesn't appear since Mvemba can't found a religion. And I located the source of my prophet GPP. If you zoom in on the screenshot, you'll see that there used to be a Holy Site there (which was removed when I conquered the city) and there still is an invisible shrine on this tile. Finally, here are the screenshots of my territory: North South And yes, that worker in the North that got captured by barbarians belongs to me, embarrassingly. I've somehow misclicked and accidentally sent it exploring, and I was too distracted to notice until it discovered a natural wonder Oh well, I'll get it back.

Oh, and another thing. It's the Renaissance Era, and the diplo screen still claims that there is no penalty for surprise wars. Sure!