Dave Fires Up The Epstein Drive [Japan]

[Ituralde]

On the topic of your naming scheme, has anyone seen the TV series(it's on netflix here)? I want to pick up the book when I get a chance, I'm curious how closely they follow each other.

I actually started reading the book after watching the tv series, which I enjoyed very much.
I have only seen season one though. The tv series follows the book quite closely while following Holden and Miller, but there are also characters included that only appear in the second book. One sideplot is also not present in the book.

Season one only covers about two thirds to three quarters of the first book though. I contemplated waiting until I got a chance to watch season two, but ultimately decided to read on and am in the middle of book two right now.

So much for the Expanse book club, please return now to your regularly scheduled Civ VI PBEM.

[oledavy]

So much for the Expanse book club, please return now to your regularly scheduled Civ VI PBEM.

For what it's worth, I don't mind people talking about the Expanse (books or TV show) in this thread for the time being. 

It's not like there's that much going on in the game at present - Oh look, I moved my warrior.

[ebbitten]

Just catching up on this now - I saw that you mentioned that you didn't want to conquer your nearby religious city state, I think this definitely makes sense in the near-mid term but I'd challenge you to revisit that assumption ~30-40 turns from now especially if there is a nearby opponent. One of the major themes I noticed from PBEM 2 was that players would decide to conquer/not conquer city states based on how much value they were getting but underweighted opponents' ability to cut them off from that.


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[oledavy]

Turn 11



Finally found barbs in the north. I think the sequence that will ensue is as follows: 

t11: Attacks me (+15 strength, ~55 damage)
t12: I retreat to hill, it moves 1 north of the hill
t13: I fortify, recover 10 HP, the spear attacks me for +11 strength, ~45 damage.
t14 I promote, take Discipline, proceed to win from there. 

Obviously I would be playing with fire here, so I'm going to double check the numbers in the morning. I think this works out well, but I can't afford to get my slinger killed. Still, if I need to, I can just start running back towards Ganymede and wait until I have discipline. Getting the Archery Eureka will net me another Envoy in La Venta. 

The other notable thing is I found jungle in the south. My lands range from icy tundra to jungle in a very short span of latitudes. The path west in the icy tundra seems blocked by a mountain, so I will half to backtrack the warrior at some point to explore the northwest. 

I've been thinking a lot today about Eurekas and Inspirations. What I arrived at is that I need to get off this island ASAP to start working on the Political Philosophy Inspiration and the Writing Eureka. Also, if I was a mapmaker, I'd put some juicy scientific and cultural city-states away from the starts to incentivize exploration....

The fact that the highest science and culture at present is Singaboy at Size 3 seems to me to be evidence of that. 

So, I have a general plan of sorts at this point. They key thing is the +100% naval production civic behind Foreign Trade, and getting it in a timely manner while still getting the Inspiration for foreign trade. First off, builder completes, and I queue up a second one. My first builder moves west, pastures the sheep (getting me culture with god of the open sky), and then I move southwest and chop the forest. I throw a HS there as soon as I finish Astrology. My first builder heads north to pasture the horse. My second builder (hurried by a chop) moves northeast, and quarries the stone, then embarks (courtesy of sailing, my likely 3rd tech) to find a second continent.

I queue up a settler, finish it, then when I finish foreign trade, swap into the naval production civic to get a galley out. I can then chop the second forest to overflow into a 2nd settler, or start my Holy Site, whichever seems better at that point. The final builder charge goes to pasturing the sheep at my second city (+1 more culture).

[oledavy]

Just catching up on this now - I saw that you mentioned that you didn't want to conquer your nearby religious city state, I think this definitely makes sense in the near-mid term but I'd challenge you to revisit that assumption ~30-40 turns from now especially if there is a nearby opponent. One of the major themes I noticed from PBEM 2 was that players would decide to conquer/not conquer city states based on how much value they were getting but underweighted opponents' ability to cut them off from that.


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I'll definitely keep that in mind. La Venta is really vulnerable to naval conquest compared to Ganymede.

[oledavy]

Turn 12



The spear attacked, doing 54 damage. I decided to play it safe and pull the slinger back towards my territory. 

I went ahead and bought the forested hill tile southwest of Ganymede this turn, as there is no way the tile picker will grab it before 7 turns from now.

[oledavy]

Turns 13-14




It looks like the land to the southeast may extend farther than I first thought. Maybe I have a neighbor in that direction? We shall see. 

Turn 14 brought Code of Laws. 



Woden and Singaboy both beat me to it by a turn thanks to their earlier pop growths. They're both now running God King. Thankfully, having La Venta gives me the luxury of taking Urban Planning. 

Nobody has yet met a cultural of scientific city-state.

[oledavy]

Turns 15-17

Should be a little more back on top of things now that my little weekend jaunt is over, what's been happening?



Found a sliver of land overseas to the southwest, and a nice looking city site to the south. The barb spear followed me home, then disappeared back into the fog after I got a shot on him. Next turn, I head back north with the slinger to hunt him down. 

I decided on settler second instead of another builder. Getting a second city up is just that important, especially when the prospective location is so great. It will grow with the sheep onto those two 2/2 tiles, and not need much in the way of builder attention to be productive early. This will complicate my timeline for getting a second builder, getting the Foreign Trade Inspiration, and getting a galley out, but I should be able to manage. The warrior is going to scout the southeastern coastline before heading northwest to defog the last bit of my starting island. Hopefully a natural wonder is up there...

Abroad, I have not been religiously tracking scores, but I think Woden and Singaboy both just dropped a pop, meaning they got out a settler. Willing to bet they both opened builder into settler. Smart, and probably the best move on a map like this with little opportunity to rush. Granted, when I chose to go slinger first, I didn't know for sure if I was alone on my island or not. Either way, likely a mistake in hindsight, but one that shouldn't put me back too significantly. 

This turn, I was .1 faith short of getting my pantheon, but I will get it next turn for an immediate +1 culture on the sheep pasture I have. Chop coming up next to expedite my settler. My second city should be founded on t28 if I am counting correctly. Moving the settler in position alone is going to take an arduous 5 turns due to the terrain - and the city will only be 4 tiles from the capital!

Now if I could only convince the tile picker to grab that rice tile next instead of the crab....Singaboy has a 4 food tile at his capital, and I would love one of my own.

[oledavy]

Turn 18

For whatever reason, my screenshot did not capture the pantheon overlay I had up when I took the screenie. 



At any rate, I took God of the Open Sky, instantly bumping up my cultural production. I'll have the horses pastured in 4 more turns, and the sheep at my second city pastured by around t35 or so. Moreover, there are two more sheep tiles in my initial spate of cities as well. All in all, I think this is a pretty solid pantheon choice here, even if it is mostly just an early game buff. 

Ganymede gets its chop next turn to speed up the settler. My slinger hit the spear again this turn, and can promote. I should have the encampment cleared before too long, and that much more gold to play with. 

Praying the tile picker switches to the rice tile instead of the crabs tile. I can buy it if I'd like now that I one again have 50 gold, but I made the mistake of buying too many tiles last game, and I would rather not do it more than I absolutely have to here. 

It looks like the continent to my east is extremely close by, based on how far the coastline extends eastward.

[oledavy]

Turn 19

Chop came in this turn. 



23 hammers...a couple less than I thought it would give (I was mentally ballparking it at 26). This irritatingly means I will fall 2 hammers short of finishing the settler on t21, and instead will not finish it until t22. C'est la vie. 

I miscounted on my last estimate, and Ceres will still be founded on t28. I'm going to check against my PBEM2 numbers, but I think it holds up favorably, although on this map I might have been wiser to skip Slinger first and gotten my settler out sooner that way. 

Nothing interesting to the southeast over the water, I was hoping for the Galapagos.... Now for a long trek to the northwest to defog the last corner of Arctica. My slinger is now set up to kill the spear next turn, sitting on a promotion so I can heal if it attacks between turns. I did some quick back of the envelope math, and I think I'm going to hit both the Foreign Trade and Craftsmanship Inspirations in time without wasting any culture.