Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Sullla]

If yesterday's turn was frustrating, today's turn was a pleasant surprise. I opened up the savegame file expecting to see the barbarian scout about to walk into the camp, and instead...



Hey, where did the scout go?! I dunno but that's good news for us. Maybe it tried to cross the river to the southern side for some unknown reason, maybe it got caught up on a unit from the Industrial city state down there to the south. I have no idea. It's not here though and that's what matters. This gave us a clear ticket to promote the warrior with Battlecry for the +7 strength addition and heal 50 HP in the process. That warrior is now sitting at 66/100 health and the barb spear in the camp is very, very dead next turn. That should clear the way to plant the second Roman city down here soon, and avoid the potential for disaster with a horse camp so close to Roma.



The northern barb scout decided to play coy and stay up to the north of Roma. I'm fine with that for the moment; I held position in place with my warrior this turn. The warrior has zone of control over pretty much every tile to the southeast or east, and the barb scout can't get any closer without getting attacked. We have all of the barb camps under control for the moment except that one to the far east that just appeared... which is, of course, another horse camp. Oh well. I'm going to be producing slingers as soon as this settler finishes, and then we'll have the units ready to deal with them and/or conquer Buenos Aires.

The builder pastured the sheep resource this turn, changing it into a 2/3 tile. This dropped the settler ETA down to 7 turns remaining:



The settler build is at 11/80 production right now and the city will produce 10 production/turn for the next seven turns. Easy math to figure out. The Irrigation and Craftsmanship boosts will be arriving shortly as the two wheat tiles get farmed, and that will help solve Roma's biggest problem: low food output. This is a city that really needs a watermill.

Off in the west, the Cultural city state warrior once again didn't attack the barb camp. Singaboy has attacked three times with that warrior, so it should be at 15 XP and ready to promote and then clear the camp next turn. I have some big picture strategy ideas bouncing around that I'll split off into another post hopefully coming later tonight. For right now though, we seem to have the barbarians coralled and two camps about to be cleared. So far, so good.

[Singaboy]

Excellent news!

Why didn't Antananarivo attack. I am so going to take that city sooner or later. By the way, my warrior is at 14/15 exp as I attacked the camp twice and the 4xp come from taking out the scout. Nevertheless, healing once should do the trick getting my warrior to 45 health, then taking a shot. It's a little frustrating to sit there with the warrior and wait. If odds are no good in 1 turn, I might have to wait 2 turns.

Good that you are having some big picture strategy coming up. I am currently thinking about the split of Eurekas and Inspirations in the short and medium run.

I was thinking of going Irrigation -> mining -> Masonry (as I will work the stone) -> wheel (Eureka from mining stone), while you can go for archery (get that slinger victory), BW (surely 3 barbarian kills are achievable), writing.

Now, as the second Chinese city wants to build Petra, who is going to have a shot at three different specialty districts? The second Roman city looks suitable for a commercial district as well as campus (W and NW of the city respectively). If Roma would build an encampment, that would make it three.
This would mean Rome has to go for writing -> currency -> maths.

[Sullla]

I didn't end up having enough time to type up something lengthy tonight on strategy, hopefully tomorrow. The question about planning how to get three districts for the Mathematics boost is an excellent one and I hadn't been considering it. I'm leaning towards China for that role actually (since China is going to have the early Holy Site and will be 1/3 of the way there already) but I need more time to think about it. Really good question and something we should be lining up ahead of time.

[Singaboy]

Turn 17:

The odds are what I said, not enough for a safe attack. I might even have to hold for 2 turns of healing if required. I do not want to end up with an attack that almost kills the warrior for Antananarivo to be laughing in my face.
The scores are pretty much the same currently. As long as Russia/Germany do not pull ahead any further, I am feeling better.

 
Xian grew to size 4 and will work citrus for one turn. It's at 7 food surplus right now, awesome city. It will grow back to size 4 soon enough once the settler is out. However, I need to connect a luxury to not let it grow unhappy at size 5.
With an overflow of 4 hammers into the builder, the builder will be done in 5 turns with some slight micromanagement (working bananas for one turn instead of the sugar). I think it will be worth the investment.



Looking at the civic development, the following is going to play out:
T18: Foreign Trade done, start on Early Empire for a turn giving it roughly 7
T19: switch to State Workforce - needed 28 , roughly 6 - 7 turns
T25: switch back to Early Empire - roughly 5 turns remaining
T29: Holy site is ready, State Workforce done
T30: Early Empire ready (assuming both cities combined reach pop 6), start PP - cost 110 *0.4 = 44
T 39-40: PP done, Autocracy in

Unfortunately, it has 2 military slots which are pretty useless for China early game.

[Sullla]

Lots of new information to ponder from today's turn.



First the ongoing barbarian situation in the south. Although the camp itself is about to be wiped out, somehow that missing barbarian scout must have snuck in here (I guess from the south?) because the camp triggering message played and a horseman appeared. Now fortunately this is the weaker pre-Horseback Riding tech version of the horseman unit, which means that it only has 3 movement points and doesn't have as much strength as a normal horseman. It's still annoying though. At least we can wipe out the camp itself though; I attacked with the +15 strength advantage and easily dispersed the thing:



There's the boost for Military Tradition tech plus a very nice 50 gold for our efforts. I even picked up an envoy with Buenos Aires since that happened to be the quest that they had assigned me. Too bad we're going to be conquering that city state sooner rather than later. I'm hoping right now that the barbarian horseman will try to attack my warrior while it has the defensive terrain bonus. Unfortunately Battlecry only functions against melee and ranged units, and therefore the +7 strength doesn't apply against that horseman, although the +5 strength bonus from Discipline does apply. We'll see what that barb unit ends up doing. In a worst case scenario, I'll pull back towards my territory and look to heal there.



Up in the north, the barb scout headed up towards the coast and my warrior followed suit. This unit is effectively pinned against the coast by the warrior's zone of control and I'm hoping that I'll get a chance to attack it next turn. My real concern isn't this unit but rather that camp off to the east, which (of course) has a horse resource nearby as well. It's only been there for a few turns but if it spawns a scout and comes looking for my capital there's not a ton we can do right now. Let's cross out fingers and hope we can get a reprieve for a little bit from the barbs. I'll be cranking out a bunch of slingers after the settler gets done, but that needs about ten more turns before it can happen.

Foreign Trade civic finished this turn and I did not switch policies, staying with God King and Discipline for the moment. Craftsmanship civic will be finished in two more turns with a pair of wheat farms, which will boost Irrigation tech in the process. That should be finished as well in about three more turns. I think we're threading the needle pretty well on these techs/civics right now, landing the boosts for everything we need without wasting our culture.

Now here's the single biggest news from the turn. I was doing the normal score tracking and it looked like Khmer finished a district this turn. When I went to check for the type, I didn't spot anything under their name, but I did see this:



What the... oh, Russia (Emperor K) finished a Lavra district 5 turns ago. This means that I was wrong: they did *NOT* conquer a city state at a super early date, they simply finished an early district. I couldn't understand what I was seeing because Emperor K had gained 6 empire score points, and that corresponds to a new city (5 points) + a population point (1 point). What I missed is that the unique districts count for DOUBLE the normal district points in the score tracking. I played a quick test game with Russia and yep, the Lavra counts for 6 points, not the normal 3 points for a district. I feel really foolish for missing that. I'm sure some people were poking fun in the lurker thread.

Well, I do make mistakes too. Overall though, this is excellent news for our team. We're not behind the Russia/Germany team at all! They just built a really cheap early district. This is exactly why I preferred Russia over China, as it's super easy to found an early religion with Russia. The Lavra is half cost to build and it produces double Great Prophet points, making it essentially four times as effective compared to normal Holy Sites. If nothing changes, Russia will get a Great Prophet on Turn 43, and we have to hope that they don't build a second Lavra district at their second city to speed things up from there. Plus, the Khmer team looks like they're getting into the religious game as well with an early Holy Site, which could be bad if Russia tries to speed up their own Great Prophet push to match.

Fortunately, I think we can still beat both of them. Remember when Singaboy posted this a few days ago?

Ok, I did some bean counting and this is what would happen if I purchase a trader (T21) the turn before the second city is founded (T22)

T18: Settler in Xian done, move towards city #2 spot
T22: Settle city #2, starts builder working forest 2/2 tile (total production = 4 due to trader)
T24: Xian builder ready
T25: spices improved, T28 sugar improved
T27: city #2 grows to pop 2, working forest tile and a purchased stone hill (total production = 6)
T29: Holy Site done in Xian
T30: Assuming a cost of 60, Holy Site finished in Xian, city#2 grows to pop 2 working forest tile + stones (total production of 5)
T33: Builder from Xian (2 charges) arrives, builder in city#2 completed as well, first charge
T34/35 Builder Xian charges wonder
T35/36 second builder charges wonder => wonder done
T38: Use last builder charge to quarry stone for Masonry boost

I kind of shrugged off this timetable as being excessively pessimistic, but once again, Singaboy was right and I was wrong. We do need to hurry up and make sure we secure the first religion via Stonehenge, and I still think we can beat the other teams with this Turn 36 plan. That's incredibly fast and even Russia's going to struggle to match that. However, we aren't going to do it by rush-purchasing a trader. We'll do better by purchasing another BUILDER, which gives us a ton of charges to play around with. I need to sit down and play with the numbers some more, but I think we can still do this just as fast and use our early builders to knock out Stonehenge followed shortly thereafter by Pyramids and get a massive jump on the rest of the field.

Overall then, we're racing for the first religion but our rivals do not have a city state in hand. That counts as excellent news to me. More to come later tonight if I can get the time to post.

[Singaboy]

Wow, what a surprise! I could swear I checked the GP screen every turn. This is what age does to you. By the way, as pointed out in my post above, the builder should be done a turn earlier on T23, means it could reach the second city on T32. If I am going to cash rush a builder, we could speed up Stonehenge a little.

We should aim to get the bonus from pantheon and state workforce. State workforce is done T29, by that time my faith is at 20. The pantheon should come in at T33. If we don't mind a little more waste on builder charges for Stonehenge, I could buy the builder on T28, switch to Corvee on T29 and start charging the wonder. The purchased builder could charge T29/30/31/32 and the builder from Xian can charge the same turn for a fifth charge.
We need to do some math here. What are the outstanding hammers in this case? Should the second city should in fact work on Stonehenge to support this and switch to a builder once Stonehenge has been completed?

By the way, as for the barbarian horseman, you defeated the camp just in time! The horseman will charge at your warrior as there is no longer a camp around. That's my experience post fall patch.

[Singaboy]

Done more math for the Stonehenge:

Ctiy #2 is settled on T22, making 3 hammers per turn. Five builder charges with Corvee will result in 155 hammers, leaving 25 hammers for the city to add. This can be easily achieved in 9 turns. Hence, if we really want to, we could get Stonehenge on T32.

This is 14 turns from now. Russia should be making another 24 GPP, even with a second Lavra from a second city (no even built yet), they shouldn't be able to do that. Maybe they run a project? That would sacrifice a lot of growth and development though.

[Sullla]

That math is reassuring Singaboy. There's zero chance that Russia can get their Great Prophet done before Turn 32, none at all. I mean, maybe theoretically if they did nothing but Holy Site district projects, but there's no way that they'd be willing to crush their growth curve like that. More realistically, they would get a second Lavra in their second city, but in order to do that Emperor K has to build another settler, move it to its destination, and then construct the Lavra district. Since they went all-in on the early Lavra at the capital (looks like initial military unit while researching Astrology followed by the district), Emperor K has slowed his development curve significantly. No early builder, no early settler. I suspect he won't plant his second city for at least a few more turns, and then he'll still have to build the second Lavra, with the higher district cost from having researched more techs/civics. Let's keep that Turn 32 mark in the back of our heads as a worst case scenario, while hoping that we have a little more time to build the wonder more efficiently.

I would really like to burn our builder charges with the Monument to the Gods pantheon in place as well as Corvee policy. That extra +15% makes a real difference: 5.79 charges per wonder (31 production per charge for Stonehenge) versus 5.13 charges per wonder (35 production per charge). What I would like to do is time it so that we use 4 total charges with Monument to the Gods + Corvee policy in place for 140 total production via charges, then get the other 40 production naturally from the second city. Since Monument to the Gods will arrive on Turn 34, we can get Stonehenge on Turn 36:

Turn 34: Burn third builder charge from initial builder (out of Xian)
Turn 35: Burn last builder charge from initial builder, first builder charge from second city
Turn 36: Burn second builder charge from second city

So then we just need to make sure that we have the other 40 production coming naturally from the second city after it finishes its builder. I think I have the timetable for that down as well:



Turn 22: Second city settled. We instantly purchase the 2/2 stone tile and a builder in the new city to improve the stone. Second city works on Stonehenge until we hit 30/180 production. Work 3/0 cattle tile on the first turn, the stone tile after that.
Turn 25: Stone improved, second city up to 4 production/turn [11 total]
Turn 29: Second city grows to size 2, reaches 30/180 production on Stonehenge at end of turn, swaps to a different build (trader? monument?) starting on Turn 30
Turn 34: Finish pantheon and finish State Workforce civic, swap to Corvee policy. Cash in builder charge for 35 production and have city invest normal production in Stonehenge (6.5 production) -> total 71.5/180
Turn 35: Burn two builder charges (70 production) and invest normal production in Stonehenge (6.5 production) -> 148/180
Turn 36: Use builder charge (35 production) -> 183/180 for midturn Stonehenge completion

This is the most efficient way that I can see for us to build the wonder. Having the cash-rushed builder sit around doing nothing for a few turns feels a little bit silly, but it's important to get the stone connected quickly, and there's no point in waiting around to rush the builder a few turns later. In fact, I think the capital should strongly consider another builder following the Holy Site district so that we can turn it into the Pyramids, the other crucial early game wonder we need to complete. Heck, the Pyramids even grant us a free worker AND are worth 2 culture/turn like a normal monument... in addition to super-charging China's builders for the rest of the game. I can't think of anything that would be as useful immediately, and then we can have Singaboy pop into Colonization after that and push out some settlers. By the way, I do like the idea of trying to speed up the second Chinese city with a trade route and I looked into the math on that as well. However, we didn't have enough time to get both a trader and a builder done there before Stonehenge; it was one or the other, and the math on the builder was superior. China's builders are so important and powerful that they crowd out most other cash-rushing options in the early game.

The other thing I like about this setup is that we can always go more aggressive on Stonehenge with an extra builder charge if we're worried about losing the Great Prophet race. I've deliberately set this up so that we have a 1 charge builder remaining at the end; builders get an extra charge when the Pyramids are finished and it would be worth keeping that builder around for that very reason. But if we're in a tight race, we burn that charge as well and finish the wonder that much sooner. One super important item to note: we need to hold State Workforce civic 1 turn from completion and finish it on the same turn that we found Monument to the Gods pantheon (Turn 34). That's because we need to keep God King in the Economic policy slot until we have the pantheon done, and therefore we want to found the pantheon and swap into Corvee on the same turn - then use our first builder charge immediately afterwards. Lots of micro here.

Let me know if this doesn't make sense or you have other thoughts Singaboy. I also have a big picture strategy post that I want to do which was derailed by the wonder micro planning today. We're bound to have some more quiet turns where there will be plenty of time to discuss that stuff.

[Sullla]

OK, let's talk big picture strategy in a post. The focus is going to be mostly on China here, because Rome is mostly playing a standard game of Civ6. Expand outwards, build military units for protection, yadda yadda. China has the more interesting role in this partnership due to its wonder-building ability, and the chance to grab an early religion opens up more avenues for unusual gameplay. So let's start with that question: why is it so important to found the first religion?

We don't know what religious beliefs the Russia/Germany team is planning on picking. Best not to leave it to chance though, because there's several that we want to make sure to secure. The first and most obvious is Defender of the Faith in the Enhancer category. It's arguably the best belief in the whole game and even if we don't end up needing it to defend our own cities, we'd like to deny the belief to anyone else who might be able to take it. Having Defender of the Faith from the very early stages of the game creates a giant "leave us alone" sign that would do much to deter aggression. We still haven't had a MP game yet where this was put to much use, although I will note that no one ever successfully attacked oledavy in his own territory in PBEM4 and I don't think that was entirely a coincidence. That's the first reason why we want the initial religion.

The second reason involves one of the Follower beliefs, which is handy because you must take a Follower belief when a religion is first created. (Any of the other belief categories can be taken as the second option.) There are a number of powerful choices in this category: Choral Music's shrines/temples provide culture as well as faith is very nice, Divine Inspiration's 4 faith per wonder constructed seems like a natural fit for China, and I suspect the Khmer/Kongo team wants to get Reliquaries for their own religion. However, what we want is Jesuit Education and I don't think it's particularly close. Jesuit Education allows the player to purchase Campus and Theatre district buildings with faith at the same price as those buildings normally cost in gold. It's an excellent conversion rate and particularly works well in new cities where a library can instantly be purchased without needing to invest any production. The biggest issue with faith as a resource is that it can be difficult to convert it into something more useful. Investing in a religion often means accumulating all this faith and then having it sit around doing nothing except used to purchase missionaries/apostles to go fight with rival missionaries/apostles in a Red Queen's Race scenario. Jesuit Education is critical because it allows the player to do something much more useful with that faith, translating it into powerful science and cultural output. And it also happens to synergize perfectly with our big picture strategy for this game.

So let's say that we're successful in landing Jesuit Education. This allows us to run a faith economy in a way that no one has managed to pull off yet in a MP game at Realms Beyond. When I played my Single Player game with the Khmer last month, I was surprised at just how cheaply things could be purchased with faith in the midgame. Look at this picture:



I was making 200 faith/turn and those units cost very, very little to purchase. Buildings aren't that much more expensive either, with libraries around 250 faith and universities something like 600 or 700 faith. Now with this being a MP game it won't be possible to concentrate that single-mindedly on religion, but it shouldn't be THAT hard to get some serious faith incoming rolling in. The dream government for China is going to be Theocracy, which I suspect we'll be running for most of the game. Theocracy has a nice mix of policy card slots and allows purchasing of land units with faith, plus grants a 15% discount on faith purchases. This is exactly what China is going to want. We'll need to allocate one Economic policy card to make this work: Simultaneum, which doubles faith output from Holy Site buildings. Shrines (2 faith/turn) and temples (4 faith/turn) can be combined together to create 12 faith/turn with that policy, and a worship building adds another 3 faith/turn, doubling to 6 faith/turn. So the whole set of religious buildings is worth about 20 faith per turn per city with Simultaneum. We're only going to need about five Holy Site districts to power the faith engine and then it's all gravy from there.

Plus China is going to get lots of faith from other sources too. Stonehenge is worth 2 faith/turn, and the Mahabodi will add another 4 faith/turn. We'll never need to purchase expensive apostles to enhance the religion because the Mahabodi will do it for us. Jebel Barkal grants 4 faith/turn to each city within six tiles, and I think we can get five or six cities within range based on city placement. There's always the possibility of finding a Religious city state out there somewhere to buff up the output from those Holy Site districts. And we're not even considering the Holy City adjacency bonuses, which will kick in a little bit more faith in bits and pieces. All of this will easily get China up over the 100 faith/turn mark and allow for the purchasing of buildings and units with faith.

It keeps getting better from there. With an early Mahabodi, we'll be able to pick the other two belief categories that we want. For the worship building, either Wats (+2 science) or Meeting Houses (+2 production) are good options. We could take either one. In the Founder category, the weakest of the lot, we'll want Church Property: +2 gold for each city following this religion. Between our control over the Commercial city state and this belief, we're going to be swimming in money for unit upgrades and emergency cash-rush purchases. With luck, we'll be able to hit a key tech before the other teams and set up a mass upgrade of units, then go wreck someone. Faith-purchasing those horsemen at a dirt cheap 135 faith and then converting all of them into cavalry via upgrades has a certain appeal to it.

The other amazing thing about Jesuit Education is that it can also be used by Rome! Yes, the Follower beliefs are available to anyone who has the religion in their city, and I've tested in Single Player that you can faith purchase the science and cultural buildings with Jesuit Education even if someone spread it to your cities. (Thank you AI for spreading your religion to me.) Of course, Rome needs a source of faith income to make this work, but fortunately there's a solution there as well: Goddess of the Harvest will grant faith yield equal to the chopping/harvesting whenever forest or jungle or a resource is removed. This is another reason why we want Jesuit Education so badly, as it combines perfectly with what Rome is doing. We're hoping to set up a situation here where both of us will be able to save immense amounts of production by faith-purcashing most of our science buildings. (And yes, we'll both need Campus districts in good numbers. Science is not optional for a MP game.) As Rome, I'm going to get the second pantheon due to early adoption of God King, with only the one player who met a Religious city state going first. (Although if Russia landed a +2 faith adjacency bonus with their Lavra, they might also go before me.) I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Goddess of the Harvest will still be there. If not, then Jesuit Education won't be quite as strong and I'll try to take something else useful like the new pantheon that grants +25% production to the first district built. In a pinch, I will take the pantheon that grants +1 faith on all tiles with Charming or better appeal, which is significantly weaker than Goddess of the Harvest but does still allow for some faith income outside of building Holy Sites.

Here's a picture of the key wonders we need to land with China and where they might be placed:



Stonehenge and Pyramids are the big ones and we need to land both of them ASAP. After that I'm pretty confident that we'll get the rest. Singaboy's next city will likely want to be placed either on that western lake or along the river to the south where we haven't have a chance to finish exploring the terrain yet. The suggested Colosseum tile in the middle of that jungle patch will reach five different cities, which is important for the 2 culture/turn in grants all of them in addition to the amenities. Jebel Barkal must be placed on a desert hill and that limits its location a bit, but the spot I indicate here can still reach four cities for sure, and potentially as many as six cities depending on what happens on the southern river and the far north. Later wonders, like the Great Lighthouse or Oracle or whatever, we can figure out later. They aren't key to our plans for the game.

So that's the big picture planning for the moment. We'll see how much of this we can manage to make a reality as the game goes along. First things first though: landing Stonehenge and taking the beliefs that we want.

[Singaboy]

First my part of turn 18:

Foreign Trade is done, switch to Early Empire for one turn (need to note that it's got then around 7 culture into it). Next turn, when craftsmanship is done automatically, I will move on the state workforce (need to research it to less than 28 culture to stop one turn shy of it).

The settler is done of course and on its way protected by the slinger. I would like to get my warrior freed from barbarian camp duty to protect my forces a little, but alas, I still can't attack the camp as the odds are not good enough. I am fearing I have to heal another 2 turns. Very frustrating.

The builder takes currently 6 turns, but some tight management will drop it to 5 turns soon.



With all the new input, I will need to come up with a turn by turn instruction to myself in order to not screw things up. Too many things to consider in the heat of the moment. I rather be safe than sorry.

@Sulla, in your explanation above, I noted the power of theocracy. I tried that once and it can be very powerful and indeed, units seem to be pretty cheap to purchase.

If Jesuit Education can be used for Rome as well to purchase libraries, that's even better. By the way, we both need to research writing sooner or later to lock those campuses cheap and early. My question is, where is Rome getting the faith from to purchase those buildings?