[SPOILER] Let's try a Civ6 duel

[scooter]

So this will be an unusual game. My Civ6 experience is as follows: a test game as Trajan when I first got the game, and then Adventure 1 also as Trajan. I did fairly well in that game I thought, but I've literally played 0 games since then. I'm essentially a Civ6 noob.

To get back in the swing of things and see how I feel about the state of the game now, I'm going to play Brick in a duel and report on how poorly it goes. I know the basics of Civ6: production is king, barbs are evil, the UI is trash, unit upgrades are good, probably don't go builder-first unless barbs are off, etc. I figure I'll learn quicker against a human than the AI, but overall I'm just going to be playing by feel/gut. I'm not quite sure how much Brick has played, but I know it's much more than me, so this could be tough. Please point out my mistakes - I would like to learn here. Let's start.



Moved my warrior and saw this look. I was a little skeptical of the UI telling me to SIP. I know coastal tiles are generally worthless, and it seemed more worthwhile to get the stone/rice in my first ring. I thought about moving across the river to also get the horse first ring, but I figured keeping the 2/2 tile first ring was more useful initially.



I decided to go scout first. This is a duel-sized map with 3 city-states, and finding those first seems super valuable and fairly standard play, so let's try to do that.



A few turns later I've got my scout up, and he's headed northeast for that hut. I decided to roll the dice and go builder next. I haven't seen any barbarians yet at this point, and I'm hopeful that the water around me will help shield me from barbarians. I don't see an obvious spot for a settler yet given the dryness to my immediate northwest, so sure why not, let's get a builder. I'm teching mining first for the stone and mines in general, and there's plenty overall for the builder to do. I'm not quite sure if I should burn a charge to chop or not. I could chop/mine that hill and mine the stone to really pump out some production, but my Civ4 instincts are dying at the prospect of ignoring my rice (it's obscured by the city name bar here).

So that's my start to the game, and hopefully there'll be plenty more to come. My burning question here is... did I screw up my capital placement?

[scooter]

I almost forgot. Here are the essential details. I should have led with this:

Map: Duel-sized Pangaea, Balanced starts, 3 City-States
Barbarians: Yes
Players: scooter as Gorgo of Greece, BrickAstley as WhatsHisName of Japan
Difficulty: Probably Prince?

[scooter]

Turn 6-10

I've scouted a little bit more.



I saw the borders of this on the settler view, but unfortunately it looks like Brick beat me here. I'm guessing he's pretty close to this.



I completed Code of Laws and swapped into this Civic set. I get the wildcard for being Greece, so I'll go ahead and get myself a Pantheon. I don't remember any of them, so I'll cross that bridge when I get there.



Here's the west on T10. Still no barbarians anywhere near my borders.



I think that barb scout I saw a couple turns ago is headed towards my city, but I have no idea where its camp is. I'll watch out for that.

[scooter]

Turn 11-15



So my builder charges were spent to chop/mine the SW hill and then quarry the stone. I think this was a poor usage because the chop gave fewer hammers than I expected, but it ended up being helpful here. So the chop allowed me to complete the warrior immediately, and then I could take a shot at this barbarian scout with it in the same turn. It looks like I'll be able to kill it before it gets back to the camp. Next is a settler.



I got a nice chunk of gold and XP from this hut. Weirdly, I wasn't able to move again. Do desert tiles slow your movement? Anyway, this scout immediately circled back so that I could trap the barbarian scout and prevent any invasions. I honestly wasn't sure if the Spear would attack out, and it seems like the answer here is no.



This is on T15 with the scout seemingly trapped. I've marked the spot I've got planned for my first city. I noticed Brick's score went down by 1 this turn, so his settler came out sooner it looks like. He probably skipped the builder, and honestly I think maybe I should have too in this case. Speaking of Brick.



There's his scout. I'm not sure if Civ6 has an Always War option, but if it does, I forgot to set it. Anyway, we had a little chat trying to figure out if war weariness would disproportionately affect whoever declares. It's unclear, so to be safe I denounced him this turn and will declare in 5T. Hopefully that keeps us clear from any issues. Anyway, I moved the warrior south and spotted a goodie hut which I'll pop next turn.



Here's the capital right now. I'm almost certain I screwed up the opening here, but that's okay and really not too surprising.

[Tacitus]

I got a nice chunk of gold and XP from this hut. Weirdly, I wasn't able to move again. Do desert tiles slow your movement? 

What is going on here is a civ6 mechanic the game calls zone of control. Moving adjacent to the barbarian spear put your scout in the spear's zone of control, meaning that it couldn't move any further. It could still have attacked the spear using its remaining movement points, but it could not move out of the zone of control tile in any other way until the next turn.

[scooter]

What is going on here is a civ6 mechanic the game calls zone of control. Moving adjacent to the barbarian spear put your scout in the spear's zone of control, meaning that it couldn't move any further. It could still have attacked the spear using its remaining movement points, but it could not move out of the zone of control tile in any other way until the next turn.

Ah right, that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.


Turn 16-31

Most noteworthy here was the settling of my second city on T23.



This city got delayed in a couple ways. First, an ill-placed barbarian scout got in the way delaying me by a turn. Then right before settling this city, I left the settler uncovered because by my count it was safe. It turns out Civ6's movement rules/ranges still confuse me, and Brick's scout was able to capture it. Thankfully, he didn't delete it and render the game effectively over because he knew it was a mechanics mistake given my warrior easily could have covered, and I simply recaptured it the following turn. My punishment was then limited to a wasted turn essentially. He had already settled his city a couple turns ahead of my schedule anyway (likely due to me slipping in the extra warrior), so I'm a good bit behind his pace at this stage.



I found some sort of natural wonder over here, but the barbarians motivated me to bravely run away instead of further investigation. Will that barbarian on the tribal village stay and defend it, or does he just happen to be sitting on it? The notification referred to the natives as friendly, and I honestly couldn't tell if that was sarcasm or yet another example of Civ6's poor UI.

Speaking of, I noticed that a year later they still have not fixed the issue where micro'ing a city does not update growth/production counters on the city name bar. And yet they've had time to crank out $30 of DLC. Pretty embarassing - this game badly needs a UI mod. I also find it really difficult to pick out tiles in fog of war. The graying out of each tile makes it nearly impossible to figure out flat vs hill and grass vs plains among other things. It could just be that my eyes haven't "adjusted" yet, but the graphical design of this game is one of its weakest points.



That brings us to the current turn. I'm about to settle the site confidently labeled "I guess?" to the northwest, and there's a builder with one remaining charge ready to immediately hook copper. I've already got horses as well, so this should keep me nice and safe. I've got a second warrior in the area should Brick get mischievous, and I'm building a Heavy Chariot out of Sparta right now that can hopefully go harass him and/or kill some stuff. Finally, I'm chasing away that scout from Sparta, but I doubt I'll be able to catch him even if I think I know what encampment he's returning to. I may need to be ready for an invasion from the southeast.

Anyway, I had a lot of trouble deciding on this third city location. To the southwest are I think spices and gypsum (along with a barb camp), but it seemed production-poor. The stone-infested area just north of Sparta isn't irrigated (other than along the far north cost with the one-tile river), so that seemed like a no-go. East of Athens was okay-ish, but I'm hesitant to over-extend so early. Maybe there's a better option I'm just not seeing? It's taking some time to retrain myself on how far apart Civ6 cities are.



Brick is winning in every single category right now. I think my builder usage combined with the settler snafus are the main culprits here. His early access to the city-state (I've still yet to find one of the others) is probably helping a great deal too. Still, I'm enjoying the game so far.

[Cornflakes]

The graying out of each tile makes it nearly impossible to figure out flat vs hill and grass vs plains among other things. It could just be that my eyes haven't "adjusted" yet, but the graphical design of this game is one of its weakest points.

  I feel like I'm playing the game in color-blind mode, using the tile yields identify what the terrain is rather than graphics.
I definitely think the chop/mine was a mistake. The tile yield after the chop/mine is exactly the same as it was before, therefore your cost was 2/3 of the builder to gain the value of the chop (about 40 hammers cost for a 20 hammer chop if I remember the values correctly). Not to mention the opportunity cost of getting +1 food on the rice and a 3F/2C horse tile.

I like your capital placement as-is. Certainly better than the tile you spawned on. And I only see negatives for moving across the river next to the horse. It orphans the marble to the SE, puts more hills 2nd ring, and costs a turn.

For the 2nd city, I like SE-E on the marsh adjacent to the 2 Bananas better. That gives you a 3F/2C Banana right off the bat and a 3/1 for the 2nd citizen with no builder investment. Plus it puts a 2nd source of horse into 3rd ring where you could buy it when you were ready to build horsemen.

[scooter]

I definitely think the chop/mine was a mistake. The tile yield after the chop/mine is exactly the same as it was before, therefore your cost was 2/3 of the builder to gain the value of the chop (about 40 hammers cost for a 20 hammer chop if I remember the values correctly). Not to mention the opportunity cost of getting +1 food on the rice and a 3F/2C horse tile.

Definitely. I was under the impression that it would provide a lot more hammers than it did (I need to research that formula), and by the time I burned a turn moving onto that forest hill, there was a barb ripe for killing so I stuck with it. Live and learn.

For the 2nd city, I like SE-E on the marsh adjacent to the 2 Bananas better. That gives you a 3F/2C Banana right off the bat and a 3/1 for the 2nd citizen with no builder investment. Plus it puts a 2nd source of horse into 3rd ring where you could buy it when you were ready to build horsemen.

That's a good call.

[Cornflakes]

For the 2nd city, I like SE-E on the marsh adjacent to the 2 Bananas better. That gives you a 3F/2C Banana right off the bat and a 3/1 for the 2nd citizen with no builder investment

To expound upon this further, builders to me feel like the have a much larger opportunity cost than Civ4, especially early game when their improvements only add marginally better tile yield. Essentially your current city placement required that you immediately get a builder up there to improve a couple of tiles. Whereas you could have put those hammers to use in some other way such has building 2 warrior with Agoge to irritate Brick or fight barb camps for gold, or a good portion of a monument, or half the cost of your next settler.

[scooter]

For the 2nd city, I like SE-E on the marsh adjacent to the 2 Bananas better. That gives you a 3F/2C Banana right off the bat and a 3/1 for the 2nd citizen with no builder investment

To expound upon this further, builders to me feel like the have a much larger opportunity cost than Civ4, especially early game when their improvements only add marginally better tile yield. Essentially your current city placement required that you immediately get a builder up there to improve a couple of tiles. Whereas you could have put those hammers to use in some other way such has building 2 warrior with Agoge to irritate Brick or fight barb camps for gold, or a good portion of a monument, or half the cost of your next settler.

Yeah, I agree. Combine that with the fact that most builder actions aren't as impactful as they were in Civ4, and builders early are kind of underwhelming. Improving resources in Civ4 provided you with several additional food or hammers usually. I was caught off guard by quarrying the stone here only netting me 1h (for now), so combined with limited charges the payback time isn't nearly as good as Civ4 workers. I honestly am wondering if settler before builder is better in a lot of cases. It feels like it might have been here.