Dave Fires Up The Epstein Drive [Japan]

[oledavy]

Looks like we're on hold for awhile, sucks that it happened right before I completed VA. 

Hopefully the patch fixes things and we get back on track without too much difficulty. I'll be interested to see what alternative solution they devise if the patch does not fix things. At any rate, we'll see what happens!

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

This enforced pause might be a good time to sit back and take stock of the game so far. What's working, what's not, what needs to happen to pilot the OIA to its inevitable glorious victory.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Okay, Dave, I went back through the thread to review how plans have gone, how the game stands, and where to go from here after the patch drops. Hopefully I can be of some use to you. Of course, my usual caveat remains - I am not a good Civ 6 player at all. I just enjoy watching, and I feel I'm reasonable at diplomacy and grand strategy, so everything I say must be taken with a grain of salt. 

Side note, I'm sort of glad the hiatus coincides with the baseball playoffs - the division series this year have been hugely fun to watch. Crazy Game 5 between the Nats and Cubs last night. 

Anyway, to business. 

A Brief History of the Outer Islands Alliance
Pregame:  Your analysis here, I think, is all spot on - almost uncanny at times. Consider: 

Singaboy -...He did a pretty good job expanding and growing his economy in the face of early barb troubles. He also did a stellar job defending his capital from Archduke's double-GG army. He's resilent, and knows how to maximize the benefits of his civ. He still seems to have a long way to go in learning how to handle human opponents though. The attack on Frankfurt, which was obvious to me, caught him completely by surprise and ended with him being effectively put out of the game. In his second war with Archduke, he only won after taking massive initial casualties. I can't confirm it, but I feel like he tried to attack Dorium and then defend the indefensible Frankfurt 2 before finally getting his act together. 
... if I had to pick one player most likely to get blindsided by someone out of our current group, it would be Singaboy.

Singaboy of course played Germany's advantages to the hilt, built a fearsome army, ran over another player with ease, then was totally blindsided by the metagame response. 

OleDavey - ...I think my best attribute in PBEM2 has been identifying my win condition and playing the diplomatic metagame well. I think in general, I've been on point with what I need to be doing and when I need to be doing it. I think I've also done a very good job in PBEM playing my way out of a crummy diplomatic situation and balancing short-term concerns (like surviving my neighbors), with long-term ones (like building enough infrastructure to keep up with Woden). While my game there has had its ups and downs, I've always managed to keep myself in a position that can be turned into a win - even if its not the strongest board position at a given moment. 

As far as weaknesses, I'm easily frustrated and prone to venting in my thread when other players don't behave in what I see as a "rational" manner. I'm still learning the ins and outs of fighting other players, and I thought my tactical performance in PBEM varied from very good (The Great War) to very bad (The Second Pelepponesian War). 

I think most of this is dead accurate as well. You've been excellent this game at identifying specific goals - get a religion first, build a powerful urban core, land the Venetian Arsenal - and working with admirable intensity to reach those goals. You've also been far more aware of the current game state than the other players, as far as I can tell. Japper and Jester didn't build military and paid the price, Archduke and Woden thought you could stop Singaboy easily, and Singaboy was blindsided by the anti-German coalition. 

I'm not sure how to evaluate your tactical play so far. I think the economic micro has been solid - your stellar science and the Venetian Arsenal (assuming it doesn't get sniped in the next few turns to completion!) show that. On the military side, my two reservations are the clearing of the islands and the ineffective Scandinavian intervention. Could building more military have enabled both a more efficient, less-bloody clearing of the islands, and saved the Vikings? I'm not sure. Where would you have found the time to build more units on top of everything else? You were building towards your goals, and since you nailed those goals, I don't think I can justly criticize here. I'm just dissatisfied with Japper's fall, which is the root of most of the thorny problems in the game, and wish it could have somehow been avoided. 

Turns 1 - 50

With the right policy setup, that makes each Faith District essentially a mini-Industrial Zone. I can build a cheap Holy Site with a 65 cog shrine and a 105 cog temple. Let's say the Holy side has an adjacency bonus of 2. With Simultaneum, that's 14 faith per turn from the district, or about 7 cogs. 

I now really want to look into spamming Holy Site districts everywhere and effectively using faith as production.

This plan evolved even before turn 2. It worked spectacularly, I think - you crammed out an insane amount of science in a short time. The only players matching you are those that devoured the lands of another player entirely - basically you're producing as much science as anyone else + Japper's corpse is doing. 

Otherwise it's mostly quiet turns of exploration. You note that building a slinger before a settler may have been a small mistake. However, I think in retrospect it didn't matter much - you won the settling race to the nearby islands effectively, and getting the cities down a few turns earlier is small potatoes in terms of science/culture generation compared to your Jesuit Education plan. 

By turn 21, Singaboy has his second city - starting to open the lead will carry him through the Scandinavian War, until the British Invasion (Archduke is indeed the walrus). No real way to speed up your own second city that I can see, but I'm a terrible micromanager so I could be missing something.

Your thoughts on the summer patch:

4. Increased costs of district buildings by 10% (except Aerodrome buildings), and increased per settler cost bump by 50%

The first half of this change is fine, I view it as a fair trade for 10% off district costs. But the second change is my least favorite change this patch. Sure, it's not a lot, you'll only really begin to notice it for settlers 6-12, you'll always have colonization, but why screw with it at all? After floundering in Civ5, it's such a relief to me that Civ6 not only gets expansion right, but gets it really right. Stacking settler costs, housing, amenities, all work in tandem to create a perfect soft cap on expansion, rewarding smart planning ahead while not being too punishing if you don't. The game already has a natural cap on when it's smart to found new cities in the form of districts. Without overlapping factory bonuses and even with districts being cheaper, at a certain point, it's just not worth it to found cities. They will take too long to get up and running. This change seems specifically aimed at making that last bunch of cities you found more expensive. Why though? It's not a huge change but I just don't understand. I just hope that Firaxis doesn't screw around with it too much at this point. They've got a good thing going. 

Turns out this was a more significant change than thought - the increased settler costs made your peaceful colonization of the outer islands slower and more difficult, while increasing the relative value of seizing other player's cities. Singaboy grabbed his city-state (which was a lot better than pathetic La Venta, with naught but sea and desert!), then raced to build a force to conquer Scandinavia. 

Turn 30 sees you finish mapping the starting island, and starting the urban core plans. I think this worked out as well as could be expected, no real comments here. 

Turn 35, you note a high-quality city site far to the west. I'm not sure this was ever followed up on? I know there are a ton of higher priorities on the moment, but if it's still unsettled I just want to bring it to your attention for possible exploitation down the road. 

First contact comes with Woden at turn 40. You already lead him on science at this point. 

Woden's deal is absurd. I can only assume he's trying to bluff me, or start out the deal high. At any rate, I have no patience for this, and had to edit out a much snarkier reply to him I originally wrote. Here are the facts on the ground: 

1. My galley is 30 strength to his coastal city's likely 10 strength. That means I deal 60+ damage per attack and take ~15. Barring a supporting unit, that means my galley can basically take the city on its own. Another galley being present would guarantee it. However, I'm not willing to gamble on the city not being on a hill/a slinger not being nearby - especially as this would be a city I would not be able to hold. It would not help me win, it would only make Woden less likely to win and make me an enemy for the rest of the game.

Interesting that diplomatic considerations stopped you razing one of Woden's early cities, but the same situation didn't halt you against Pizarro. Now, obviously this is for the best - if Woden hated your guts right now, you really would be entirely friendless. Singaboy seems to blame you for all his troubles (maybe because you actually used the diplomacy thread? The cheek!), Archduke knows he just has to run you over to win the game, Jester wants you dead for understandable reasons, and Japper himself is dead. So this undoubtedly was the correct move. Still, interesting to compare these two situations. 

Another interesting what-if: you decide to sink some hammers into HS projects to ensure landing the first GP.

On more reflection, I think I have to pursue the first religion in a big way. Even if Defender of the Faith isn't necessarily worth stunting my early growth, you know what is worth it? Making sure my closest neighbor and most likely enemy doesn't have it. 

So yeah, the plan has been drawn up. John The Baptist is recruited on t51.

Later on this lack of growth would be visible, as you had to race to catch up with Singaboy in particular. The other side of the coin - what if the Vikings had landed DOTF? Would it have made a difference when the German Army came knocking? Again, the whole situation was impossible to foresee, so this is by no means a mistake - especially since DOTF is worth having on its own, definitely more valuable than a surviving Viking civilization with it next door - but it's another inflection point leading us to our present circumstances. 

Turn 50: A minor bit of drama over the projects, but you successfully complete them. 

Abroad, the Vikings are mobilizing, Singaboy and Japper go to war, and Singaboy and Woden both ahve built a large science edge on Japan. 

So far, I think, the play has all been very solid. No obvious boneheaded moves - not that we expected them from you! You can see the long-term outlines of the game becoming clear with the benefit of hindsight - Singaboy's early expansion lead, Japper laggardly pursuing a religion the slow route (along with Spain), cavalierly declaring war, Woden's building tendencies. The real dark horse is the Archduke - his present dominance is nowhere foreshadowed. 

Anyway, my battery's dying, so I'll look at 50-100 in a few hours.

[oledavy]

I appreciate your examination of the game. It's pretty fun actually to see you referencing some of my opponent analyses, I hadn't even thought of the ways in which they have come to fruition - especially in Singaboy's case. 

I'm a little bit worried now this bug and this pause have killed this game, we shall see if things pick back up next week. I have to say I'm happy of the break though, as it coincides with a busy academic time for me. 

I'm really curious about the alternate universe where I didn't make the push for DoTF and the Vikings got it inside. Practically, it wouldn't have done much to save him - not with everything else being the same. The Vikings just didn't have the numbers to withstand the invasion. However, it might have dissuaded Singaboy from attacking in the first place. I've certainly felt like its effect this game has been bigger in theory (dissuading attackers), than in practice. 

I think my tactical play against the barbs on Saturn was pretty bleh. I tried to have my cake and eat it, doing a lot with a shoestring military. It worked out okay in the end, but I should have built a slightly bigger early game military. I think my macro play has generally been pretty solid though, at least in terms of targeting appropriate things and hitting power spikes. I think the triple campus into Jesuit education play is the best thing I have done this game, and it notably diverged from my initial district game plan - I think to my  long-term benefit. Spamming campuses to take advantage of Japan's extra adjacency bonuses, combined with Natural Philosophy, feels like a really solid play.

If I had it to do over again, I would have responded more forcefully to Singaboy's attack on Norway, or ignored it completely. As things stand, my middle path didn't give me near the benefits of either alternate path. 

I actually don't think I could have razed Woden's city. I only have one galley over there, and it would have been coinflippy at best - based on whether or not he had a unit around. 

At any rate, I'm going to be very interested to see how things end up playing out in Norway/Germany. I do hope whatever solution they end up devising, in the event the bug is not fixed, keeps Archduke's military busy for longer.

[oledavy]

Turn 130

Two weeks later, we kick things back off. That was honestly much more of a break than I would have liked. In addition to this morning being the first time I opened the game with the Fall Patch applied, I spent most of the time simply trying to remember what I was doing. It doesn't help that I keep most of my economic micro in my head and don't detail it in my thread. I have two builders being built, and I don't recall my exact plans for when to complete them or swap into Serfdom. Some of the patch changes also weren't helpful to me, but we'll get to that in due time. Buckle in, this will be a long report. 

First things first: 





This turn I kicked things off around La Venta, and declared war on the city-state. The result was taking the city down to 101 HP. I have a third frigate moving into range next turn with +7 strength against district defenses, and a caravel that can reach the city as well. It should fall for t131, a nice two turn war - provided the AI doesn't find a way to block me. The city comes with a free harbor, holy site, and pearls. I expect about 3 pop to survive the city's fall. Won't dramatically strengthen me, but every little bit helps. 

This was the long-awaited turn though, because of Venetian Arsenal: 



One turn to go. Next turn, I begin churning navy out. The lead elements of my forces slated to take De Soto and Hong Kong are already en route south. 

Also on screen, you can see that annoying sign from CFCJesterfool that I feel is blatantly against the rules. I don't expect he's going to remember to take it down and clean up my UI until I kill him. On the plus side, given two weeks away from this game and his starting up of another game, he should be an easy mark. The difficulty will be in finishing him off if he has inland cities. 



I really like the new religion interface. Showing where religious pressure is coming from and how many turns until a city converts is amazing. The changes really make me want to try a completely religious game soon. Japan or Russia with Choral Music or Burial Grounds sounds amazing. I can still take the latter actually, but there would be little point on an islands map. On a Pangaea map though, it would be a lot of fun. Choral music feels very strong, but to pursue it you really need to focus hard on getting a lot of Holy Sites out early, which I didn't do here. 

On another note, thank god religious units now have their own layer. That should have been in the game from the start. 

However, I think I have encountered a bug on Saturn. 



I don't see any reason why this city should not be growing. I'm going to just chalk it up as a 1t thing for now and double-check it next turn. But I'm going to be pretty annoyed if one of my best new cities is stuck at 3 pop for the rest of the game 

If anyone knows what's going on here or how to fix it, please post. I would love the help.

I don't know if I mentioned this recently, but Crater Lake is my back-up plan for Darwin if I am unable to activate him in the east. 



500 science less, but at least I would get to use him. 

However, I may have competition for him. 



Archduke GSPs are currently inflated by holding all of Singaboy's infrastructure, so it will go down shortly, but I think he may be making a push for Darwin. I will be monitoring this situation going forward. 

Also note, the new icons! I think they all look pretty good. 

Also, the new diplo screen will take a little getting used to, but is similarly pretty nice. 



I lost pearls from La Venta this turn, but I'll get them back next turn. I didn't realize Woden had an extra wine, maybe he just hooked it up. I haven't been looking at his lands that closely to be able to tell. At any rate, I offered him a deal. 



Humanism finished this turn, and I think I had a more complex civic swapping plan, but I couldn't remember it in the moment. Also, the patch screwed up my tight timing on everything by suddenly making Guilds a pre-req for Humanism. How this worked is I finished Humanism, since that turn rolled over already, but I now have to spend 4 turns on Guilds before I can get to Mercantilism. 

At any rate, after mulling through all my civic choices for a bit, I settled on boosting my Holy Sites. I have another university to buy, and I'll soon be able to buy another ampitheater and two museums too, or alternatively push out an apostle. The science is also nice. 

Note to self: I still need to figure out if Stonehenge grants a Great Prophet when none are left. It feels like a weird edge case. 



So, internationally:

I expect CFCJesterfool will be checked out and easy to overrun. Woden is probably paying attention still. Singaboy is probably completely checked out, what an incredible fall from grace. 

At any rate, I'm glad he's going to get his homeland back without occupation penalties, that would have really sucked. Archduke having to take the Viking capital is both good and bad for me. Good in that it means Archduke will get at least one city with less pop, Singaboy is without his core for 3 more turns, and Archduke doesn't get a bunch of free cities for three more turns. He just has a lot of cities with occupation penalties. It does bring at least a portion of his fleet closer to me than I would like, and means he has all of Singaboy's infrastructure for GSPs for three more turns. Still, I'll call it a net positive. More time to churn some navy out. And indeed, the hour has finally finally arrived, after nearly a month and a half of building the Venetian Arsenal. 

Archduke remains the biggest threat, and I'm sure he's aching for a win at this point. The key thing for me is going to be making sure Woden isn't completely checked out and is still trying to win, otherwise he may just roll over and lead to a concession to Archduke. I think Archduke is a favorite at this point, but my chances are pretty respectable all things considered. 

I may have mentioned this previously, but it bears repetition. Woden's homeland is very tactically settled to be difficult to assault from the sea, so at least I don't really have to worry about him just collapsing. A major plus for me. 

Anyway, hopefully we'll get back up to 2 turns per day and I'll recall what I was doing in more detail, and once again develop more complex economic plans for the upcoming turns. Still, I can't complain too much. Nothing super critical was happening on my end, and my path forward is very obvious at this point: cram out frigates and caravels, start taking stuff/prepare for Archduke's fleet. The beeline to submarines continues. 

Hopefully Titan's growth will not be bugged next turn....

Patch Thoughts

Thank god they finally produced two expansion civs that feel relatively balanced in line with base game civs. Both of them look nice and flavorful, without being too strong. I don't honestly think Monastaries of the King and other abilities like it are especially strong, but I fully acknowledge that's conjecture and I may just be plum wrong. 

New religious gameplay looks interesting, even if it is feature creep. Giving missionaries the ability to evict other religions is really nice, and makes them not totally worthless spreading into a high pop city with another religion. I love that it will now show you how many followers you get when you convert. Just all around great stuff, adding clarity to the game - really exemplified in the new religious lens. 

The guilds change is really annoying here because I wasn't planning on it, but isn't bad overall. 


Two major bug fixes I love. You can no longer make peace with a CS while at war with its suzerain - this was so annoying. Pillaged districts also no longer give adjacency yields, so that hooplah in PBEM2 can finally be put to rest. The adjacency yield going away makes a lot more sense. 

No though, good stuff all around. 

Earth Goddess and City Patronn Goddesss both look really nice. I might even grab Stupas as my religious building this game, if I ever get one. 
I wish Choral Music had been in this game before we started, as I would have loved to try out a game plan completely focused on maximizing it's benefits. Can you imagine Choral Music with Simultaneum 

Still, I've been very happy with my DoTF/Jesuit Education game here, so I suppose I shouldn't be too upset. 

Warrior Monks look interesting, if a little weak. I'll withold judgement on them for now. Burial Grounds is really interesting. I can't wait to see if some of the players in PBEM5 adopt the new religious game play and beliefs into their gameplans. 

Overall, this patch has increased my desire to get some of the expansion civs, and play another PBEM, perhaps with some of the expansion civs enabled. I'm a little sad I didn't sign up for PBEM5 now, but there will probably be a PBEM6 at some point, so I may hold off for that. 

Anyway, it will be interesting to see if any of the patch changes have a major impact on our game. I doubt it, but you never know. Right now, I'm just hoping it doesn't introduce too many bugs...

Anyway, time to build some boats 

[oledavy]

Turn 131

Looks like we can get back to our old turn pace without too much trouble 

Also, thankfully, Titan wasn't bugged. 



The conquest of La Venta went off without a hitch. I actually didn't need the third frigate. Realistically, I probably could have even skipped a second Frigate shot this turn too, but I wanted to make sure I didn't end up on the wrong side of bad RNG. 



A nice little boost to my overall economy. I swapped a hammer tile over from Callisto so it can repair its granary and monument faster and resume growing. 

The big news of the turn however, was this. 



Alright, time to saddle up. 

Next turn, 6 ships slide off the drydocks. 4 ships the turn after that. I'm rerouting all my TRs to international so I can have the gold to support this fleet and hopefully upgrade it before too long. 

One benefit of allying with Woden, I now have better TR options. 



The bad news of the turn is that Archduke finished a GS project, he's going for Darwin. 

And now I realized I screwed up, because is is shortly going to lose quite a bit of his GPP. 

Anyway, I estimated there was no way I could beat him. The fastest I can get Darwin is 5 turns, and if Archduke completes another project in that time, which seems likely, he will get him due to turn order on t136. However, in about two turns he's going to lose all of Singaboy's Great Scientist points per turn? Or maybe he sits on his cities longer to gurantee the grab? 

Either way, I deferred starting a project in Europa this turn, and now I'm wishing I hadn't. The above just didn't occur to me while I was playing the turn. 

Then again, if he has two projects underway right now, then there is absolutely nothing I could have done to stop this. 

Eh, c'est la vie. I'll re-examine things next turn. Losing Darwin would be a major blow, not the least of which because he would be going to Archduke. The other two Industrial  GS's just aren't very good by comparison, and it would effectively mean Archduke get's tech parity with me and my beeline to subs is slowed. 

Welp, at least I got the arsenal! Focus on the good things 

[oledavy]

Just to lay out what I'm up against. 

When Archduke takes over Norway, he will have 16 cities and 88 population to my 9 cities and 48 population. The name of the game right now is rapidly and efficiently acquiring as many pop as I can to prevent him from snowballing out of control. 

Also, Woden still doesn't have his Tier II government. 

For reference, he's at 7 cities and 42 population.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

It's remarkable how well-balanced Archduke is against you and Woden together - 16 cities each, with 88 population against 90 population.

Too bad that won't mean much in game terms, since science and culture are keyed to population. I know tech swapping just leads to mass brokerage among players, and it's overall better that everyone stand on their own two feet, but sometimes (in situations like this) I think it'd be far more interesting if you and Woden could more easily maintain tech parity with the coming English-Scandinavian empire (the Danelaw? More of a reverse Danelaw, really). Then with Singaboy and Jester playing the role of wildcards we'd have a really interesting endgame.

Oh, well, good luck! With the VA, a slightly more developed infrastructure, and the rapid swings in relative power this game, I feel confident. I think the game will be settled one way or the other relatively soon - either Archduke will win, or he won't, and if he doesn't I think there'll be no one left to stop an OIA snowball.

[oledavy]

Turn 132

Industrialization in. 



Coal revealed and +1 hammers to all mines. My production is now going through the roof. I have decided I'm going to slip out of building ships and cram out 4 builders in Serfdom. Their primary objective will be to build a bunch of mines and harvest a bunch of forests/other resources, and in this way, with not be much of a detour as they will pay themselves back in military units quickly. Mines are +3 hammers at this point for me 

I'm also beginning to scope out locations for aerodomes. The game may be over by then, but its fun to dream...

Anyway, here is all my coal.



Four sources, but 3 I will irritatingly need to found another city if I want. I went ahead and bought the one near Ceres and now have a builder en route to mine it. 



If I need a second, I'll found a city in the far west for one. However, I don't think I will. Having one will be sufficient to do some upgrading into ironclads. 



Bad news, Archduke finished another project. Darwin is probably a lock for him now, or it will come down to when Singaboy's cities change hands, which is looking to be soon....



I'm annoyed he's likely going to get Darwin, but realistically, there was little I could have done even had I known he was going to go all out. It was beeline Darwin or prep a bunch of ships to finish after I completed Venetian Arsenal, and I think I made the right choice. 

My navy is up to 7 frigates and 4 caravels, and I am just getting started. 

I'm not exactly trying to be subtle about who my target is. 



I also declared war on Hong Kong this turn, and sniped a galley of theirs that was blocking my movement for a cool +3 XP. Getting promotions on all my ships will be very important for fighting Archduke down the road. I need the one that gives +7 strength versus naval units pretty much without exception on all ships. 

Fun fact, I share vision with Woden's units, so I am getting to see what Spain's eastern holdings look like: 



Next turn, I really kick things off around De Soto. The OIA is returning to its first site of aggression, the ruins of Pizarro.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

the game feels like it's blazing along now! 3 updates before I even really have time to process the first one!