[Spoilers] Pindicator already misses slavery, and other out-of-context quotes

[pindicator]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but getting a single copy of horses won't help much. There's no way to upgrade to horseman. The only advantage would be if you had a Camp, but that seems as far away as it'd take to get the horses with city 4.

That's true. I'm thinking that it may make sense to prioritize them now so that we aren't scrambling later for them. And then either plan for an encampment (at the capital?) or to claim the second horses with the next settler.

Really, what I could use is for my scout to find just how far away Rome's borders are, and 2 more scoring units to go east and west to see what other neighbors there are.

Religion wise, there's always DotF, which is very powerful. I would be against choosing one of the worship buildings, as any benefit from them is too late into the future, so you might as well get them later. Beyond that, there's church property and the gold pantheons.

Oh, I forgot about DotF for a moment. I think that's definitely the other choice then as I really like stacking combat bonuses. And all the culture is also going to help expand culture to make DotF useful on more tiles.

I wouldn't worry about getting a faith generating pantheon. You'll have enough faith from the religious buildings, that will be very profitable with Choral Music. You won't need absurd quantities of faith, since I don't think the plan is to go for a religious victory, so there won't be the need to buy tons of religious units.

By the way, considering you'll likely have more culture than everyone else, how do you think you can abuse this to get a bigger advantage? Going for a quick 6-slot government is an idea, but there's probably more to think about (simultaneum will be a key policy for you).

Well, my long term idea is to push through the culture side ASAP and get to the economic goodies there. If I can go fast enough then there will be archeologists and (more importantly) national parks. I'm eyeing using America's UB for a culture victory as my long-term goal, which presents me with some problems:

1) Culture generation needs to be as cheap to startup as possible so we don't die for dedicating all our hammers to Theatre Squares. This is where Simultaneum and Choral Music will fit in, and even Valletta will fit in by converting 120 faith for monuments. In addition, Divine Spark will help me generate Great Writers which give both culture and tourism, and I'll already want to build some Theatre Squares for the American UB later in the game.

2) I still need a lot of faith generation even if I'm not going for missionaries. Valletta can provide a lot of buildings at 2 faith : 1 hammer conversion. At a minimum we'll want 300 faith per city for walls, monument, and granary. That's not counting any encampments I build. This was one reason why I didn't even entertain Jesuit Education as there's already a lot to buy with faith. And it's why I was thinking about faith-generating pantheons.

Then late game we will have Archeologists and National Parks, which both require large amounts of faith. (Should we actually even build them - it's quite likely they'll be inconsequential.) Plus there's always buying great people.

3) What about science and gold? I still need to keep up in technology to keep myself from being overrun and to pay for all this. I'm going to build a holy site at every city, so the natural answer here is taking the Wat for science generation and church property with religion. I would like to grab Hypatia and am flirting with the idea that Divine Spark will help there, but honestly I'm not building a campus until Forgottonia reaches size 4, so if I go after Hypatia is because I run a policy card for 20-30 turns.

And yes, there will be commercial and industrial districts, but they won't be emphasized like holy sites will. And thinking about it more makes me realize I'm going to have to not emphasize Theatre Squares either and mostly rely on Choral Music for culture. If I get to the part of the game where tourism gets relevant then I can stay emphasizing more theater squares.


I'm glad you ask questions like this. Every time I think the idea through more it gets less extreme and more realistic for a MP game

[pindicator]

Turn 031

The capital grew to size 4, which means the inspiration for Early Empire came in.

The spearman hit my slinger for 35, which was a middle result, and took somewhere around 28, which was another low roll for me. I hit for 31, which was middling again, but it gained a promotion for my slinger, and the barbarian spear is redliend, sitting somewhere around 14-17hp. That should turn into a eureka for Archery next turn.

I also keep finding that I'm using pre-patch stats for my calculations. All the resources I have found at civfanatics haven't updated with the times (looking at you, formula thread), and another thing I didn't take into account was that shrines are now 70h instead of 65h. This turns out to be pretty good that I mined that plains hill, as I now need those hammers to get the shrine done in 2.




C&D stuff:

Japper planted his 2nd city, making Alhambram the last person without 2 cities.

[BRickAstley]

I would love to see a serious cultural attempt, since that hasn't really been done here in MP yet. Cheering you on!

[pindicator]

I would love to see a serious cultural attempt, since that hasn't really been done here in MP yet. Cheering you on!  

Thanks for the support Brick!

I bet some people are wondering how I went from "civ6 is a war game" to "let's go for a culture win", and the answer is I still think this is primarily a war game. So I'm not sure how serious my culture attempt is.

But one thing that I think America can do really well is "flip the switch" on a culture attempt by building National Parks, having those parks increase appeal, using that extra appeal with seaside resorts, and bossing all of that with the Film Studio UB. So you don't have to dedicate all your resources to a culture attempt until the endgame.

Except this may all be moot because we've yet to have a MP game even last long enough for us to reach that far into the tech tree. (PBEM4 is looking like it might.)

[pindicator]

Turn 032

Let's take a little time out to check in with the scout up north:




I've managed to stumble my scout around, but surprisingly it seems that Japper has sat his slinger on that tile for the last 2 turns straight in an attempt to keep me from moving farther along. This is all telling me that I really want to get a city up here and establish a favorable front, especially in a way that would keep him from pushing south of that mountain chain. For example, a city (or an encampment) on the tile west of where my scout is now would help to lock down the pass.

Do I send my next settler all the way up here??? It is some really nice land with lots of production.

Also, I noticed that Japper's power increased by 25 this turn, which either means he built a spearman or an archer.


In the south, the barb scout continues to run away from my warrior. I've decided that this warrior is just going to head west for a bit to scout that strip of fogged land that my scout missed. The barbarian spear retreated to the camp on its turn, but I chased it down and killed it with my slinger, earning the eureka for Archery. I will want to pick that up soon, and I may even switch over to it next. The shrine in Jefferson finishes at end of turn, and so I swapped my civic to Craftsmanship to finish that up. Next turn we'll change policies to agoge, so I am very happy that the barb units were both able to be destroyed before this happened. Fingers crossed a new unit doesn't spawn at the camp at end of turn!

3 units to be produced at Jefferson over the next 6 turns, and then my army of 5 will take out Brussels. I'm just debating if I want to upgrade 2 or 3 slingers to archers; I may just build 2 total slingers considering I want to use my early gold to buy a shrine.

One thing I am struggling with: when do I build my trader? It's a 3-turn build; do I sneak it in before the next settler? Or just slow-build it at Forgottonia after the holy site and warrior finish? I'd really like to have it for growing new cities; +2f +1h for that first trade route is like building a pop right now.

[pindicator]

How crazy would it be to send city #3 all the way up there?

[SadGit]

How crazy would it be to send city #3 all the way up there?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkjD_jlDb7o

[Ichabod]

If you manage to get DotF and Choral Music, I think you should focus the timing of an attack around the time of Cavalry/Rough Riders. I'd also not go for Holy Sites in every single city. A few Holy Sites will bring all the culture you need, allowing you to focus on Campuses (and the faith + Valletta will free your production to focus on districts, rather than monuments and granaries). DotF will allow for a skeleton military to defend against any possible attacks. So, you focus early culture to get the adjacency civic cards (especially the science one) and a 6-slot government, you focus your science on a key military tech, further down the line that your better science/culture will allow for a gap in power (which I think will be around cavalry).

I'd focus on getting some nice adjacency for Campuses, to increase the power of the adjacency card.

This is the best path to victory I can see right now. You have a lot of free room to expand while you tech for cavalry. Use your hammers on settlers/builders and districts. Skip military due to the America bonus + DotF (if you get it). Don't use hammers/gold for buildings you can buy with faith.

If you combine all this with Theocracy and faith buying the military for the attack (can you faith buy rough riders?), I think you can hit a pretty decent timing. I think a very deep beeline is in order for this, don't fall for luxury techs.

Japper seems like a soft target, from what he showed in PBEM 4 (no offense intended, but I don't have time to sugar coat this opinions). I think your micromanagement/builder side can easily outpace his. I just think you need to focus on what will give true advantages, rather than what "would be nice/luxury".

Of course, all of this depends on the religion you will end up with. If you lose Choral Music, I think Jesuit Education is the way to go. But we'll see what happens.

[Ichabod]

Ah, I wouldn't send your settler all the way up there. I'd just focus on a compact empire, with steady production of science/culture. Japper will likely overexpand without infrastructure, like he did in PBEM4 (even more when he's playing Rome), so you'll have to kill him by reaching a military gap with enough room for a decisive attack. Let him waste his resources with pink dots, if he wants to. You can take the cities later.

If you want the +2 library Great Sci, I think you need to think about chopping a Campus ASAP (you have Divine Spark, after all), combined with a faith rush strategy. I think this could be a good plan, but you'll need commitment. Likely a builder before military... Not even sure if a builder would repay its cost, by the way, or if going straight Campus wouldn't work better... Perhaps, with Ilkum and if you go fast into the culture tree. I don't know, but if you want that GSci, you can't dilly dally too much.

Just throwing some ideas around.

[pindicator]

I didn't make time for a full report after playing last night, but I did want to discuss some of the good points you brought up, Ichabod. Mostly the larger strategy ideas:

I don't think I can go for the great scientist, Hypatia. It would be nice to have, but I've already sunk 133 cogs into a holy site and shrine, so I think I have to focus on growth for a bit last I fall behind. Plus, the capital just doesn't have any good spots for a campus.

Forgottonia has a fantastic spot for a campus, and even better - it's free! Ok, not exactly free, but it only costs 1 builder charge and a little bit of time with the Maritime Industries policy card.  With the cost reduction to districts they now cost exactly double the amount you get from harvesting a bonus resource (like a stone!), or 2.5 times the cost of a forest chop*. They both scale with the same formula so this is always true. So the plan with Forgottonia is to get a galley within 1-turn of completion, then harvest the stone with the Maritime Industry policy card. The overflow should 1-turn the campus that I'll put on that same stone tile the next turn.

Simple enough, but it means I need to tech Masonry as well as Sailing before I can do it. Which means I need to find another stone to quarry to get the Masonry eureka. Which means my capital needs to get out units now to capture Brussels and hopefully that quarry thing I see at Brussels will give me the eureka. Deciding to capture Brussels in the near future means I need Archery now, and I started that tech this next turn.

I do want a second campus at minimum (2 are required for the Recorded History inspiration), and I think my next city will start that right away. I'll go over that a little more with next turn's report, but I'm pretty much split between 2 locations for the next settler.

Science feels like I have a lot of things I want right now, enough that I'm tempted to work the 2f1h1s tea tile over the 1f3h plains.In no order the techs I want right now are:

• Archery - for archers (just started last turn)
  
• Masonry - for cheap walls with Valletta and harvesting stone
  
• Writing - for campuses
  
• Bronze Working - for iron reveal
  
• Sailing - for a galley to get my "free" campus with, and to scout coastline
  

And that doesn't count obvious techs like Currency or Apprenticeship!

I don't know about a longer-term science plan yet. Culture seems pretty obvious, pushing along the bottom of the culture tree for the 6-government slot and then up to the top for Conservancy if things get that far. But science ... I do like the idea of a timing atrack against Japper but I think knights are a better time frame. If I wait till rough riders it'll be around t150

* I know that patch notes say that district costs were dropped by 10%, and that the base cost in the UI states 54 cogs. But the real value seems to be 50 cogs as that is what makes the formula work with the costs I've been seeing in game. I think someone at Firaxis mixed up -10 with -10%!