Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Singaboy]

By the way Sulla, after the current bout of settlers etc I think it is time to get serious with military. Get some warrior and archers out, maybe some cavalry as well. With Crusade coming online in about 10 turns or so, a few Roman archers to protect the new southern Chinese city would be really good to have.

[Sullla]

Wow, what a busy turn indeed. I'll try to run through issues one at a time:

* Train a knight is a great quest to pick up from Lisbon and easily achievable. I concur that Stirrups tech to unlock knights is in the medium-range future, but that we need to pick up some other targets first. For Rome, Engineering and Bath districts is next, as my cities are finally starting to run into the housing cap. I will probably try to get Shipbuilding afterwards to allow units to embark over water tiles, and that will pass the boost over to China. I need to think about what the next major target will be after that; maybe finally finish Iron Working since I have 6 warriors on the field already and Agoge policy will be obsoleting.

* Let's hope that the Mahabodi overflow goes correctly into the Campus district at Hangzhou. The interface definitely doesn't know how to display the information properly. Having faith up to 32 points/turn is excellent, that's more than double what Russia has and on the order 5 or 6 times what the non-Russia teams are producing. We'll be able to purchase Wats in any city that has a Holy Site and shrine/temple combo, plus purchase lots of missionaries and (once in Theocracy government) units. In fact, we may want to have China start pushing in that direction at the bottom of the tech tree once the Colosseum finishes. Faith purchase price is double the production cost and Theocracy gives a 15% faith purchase discount, which means crossbows and knights cost 306 faith, horsemen cost 136 faith (!), and even field cannons would only cost 560 faith. Again, I think China will be able to get up to roughly 150 faith/turn without too much trouble in this game between the world wonders and use of Simultaneum policy. Why waste production building units when you could just pray to the gods and have them appear via the power of Marco Polo?

I think mass faith-purchased horsemen gold-upgraded into cavalry could be extremely powerful. We should keep that in the back of our minds for the future.

* One of the two apostles having Orator promotion is excellent. I agree that Lisbon and Firenze are the best places to use those two extra charges, and then we can take Crusade for our last belief with the final three spread charges. Russia is unable to take a belief in that category because they already have Defender of the Faith, and Khmer is currently getting something like 3 faith/turn, nowhere near enough to purchase an apostle. No worries about someone else sniping the belief from us. Roma is about to convert on its own, although probably not in 3 turns since it will be growing to size 7 next turn. When it finishes its settler and drops back to size 6, that's when it will convert. Not long regardless though, since it has a ton of religious pressure working on it.

* England's culture is really weird, and the only possible explanation I can think of would be culture from a natural wonder. But it's hard to imagine even a natural wonder producing 15 culture/turn in one city. Perhaps this will make more sense in time.

* The big question is about the diplomacy with Germany and Russia. I'm willing to defer to your preference in this situation, although I'm more open to the possibility of a Declaration of Friendship once we can get the border region settled. I agree that for now avoiding any treaty is a good idea so that we can make sure to settle this disputed region. Long term, it is debatable as to whether or not we want a military buildup along the German/Chinese border. On the one hand, if we sign a treaty later we can focus resources elsewhere, whether that's on serious infrastructure development or whether that's on attacking our eastern (and much weaker) neighbors. On the other hand, there's significant value in forcing Germany to expend resources on defending the border as well. Russia almost certainly borders Nubia on their western side, and Nubia has built two Encampments and is about to pop the first Great General. Their team has to be worried about an attack from that direction no matter what they might have signed in the past. I think it's highly significant that Germany came asking for a Declaration of Friendship in the first place, indicating that they want 30 turns of peace with our team. For that reason alone, it might be worth denying it to them, if only under the logic that when they want something we should not want to give it to them.

In summary then, I agree that we don't sign anything for the moment. I think we should keep our options open for the future though; getting 30 free turns to hit another target could be highly useful for us. If we could somehow get Russia/Germany and England/Nubia tied up in a conflict, it would be enormously to our benefit.

* One last point. In the future, you could always build something else in Beijing for one turn other than the chariot rather than work a bad tile, right?

[Singaboy]

Thanks for the thoughts and ideas. I agree that China should head for theocracy as soon as possible for the issues you have mentioned.

The lower part of the civic tree is the one I should be heading for instead of following Rome for now.

The next target would be Recorded History which needs me to build another campus. That's a tricky one. Maybe Quanzhou would be a good target here as it can still build a district. I could use the mountain tile SW of the sugar and use a forest chop to speed it up.

Then I need Hangzhou to grow to pop 10, which should be achievable. Next turn, the housing cap will increase to 10 with bananas and cows being improved. The city should be able to grow to pop 9 before the settler is done and then get the time to grow to pop 10. The Colosseum will ensure that happiness won't be an issue there.

Building 2 markets and 2 temples for the remaining 2 civics on the way is more than doable. Next turn, I will check the civic tree and do some rough calculations about the eta.

*Beijing was simply 1 hammer too close to the chariot. I want it to be 64/65. Switching production for one turn would have gotten it to 52/65 resulting in a much lower overflow for the entertainment district. Swapping a 2f2h tile for a 1h1s tile seemed the right thing to do for a mere turn when growth is stalled anyway due to housing.

[Sullla]

I'lll get you the boost for Recorded History, I already have 2 Campuses and passing it along will be cheap. What we want China working on is Civil Service. since Rome has no prayer of that. I can sit down today and think more closely about the civic tree. I think we're set up well to have Rome take the top part and China take the bottom part.

[Sullla]

Alright, another busy turn for my civ:



First the ongoing barbarian wars. The barb archer once again didn't do what I expected, this time shifting back around to the southeast again. Fortunately this was better than I expected, and it put the barb archer in range of my own archer. There was also another barb warrior exposed to attack in the north, and I started up there by taking a free shot with the archer incoming from the west. I attacked with the warrior up there to trade some more damage, and then had the archer in the south shoot and kill the barbarian archer. Here was the final result:



I ran the numbers and my injured warrior and my injured archer both won't die even from a bad dice roll. I should be able to kill off both remaining barbarian warriors next turn and then finally get to work clearing the camp itself. This has really taken more time than it should have, and I'll have to be careful with the damaged units because that injured English scout is still running around to potentially cause mischief. I wish that unit had stumbled into the barbarians... Maybe it would be worthwhile asking England for a Declaration of Friendship again, hmmm.



One of the major bits of news this turn is that Kongo has a settler out and apparently headed for the disputed area in the southeast. I marked in the three tiles where I'm hoping to send my upcoming three settlers with white dots; I should be able to get the two spots closest to me without too much trouble, although there's a decent chance Kongo will pick a spot that rules out the most aggressive of the three dots. I am going to try and block this settler by occupying the two tiles with the red Xs on them with my units. That's the one thing about narrow isthmuses: under One Unit Per Tile, they can easily be blocked off. Kongo could go around of course, but that requires a long detour or Shipbuilding tech, and I don't think Japper has that researched yet.

We'll see what happens. In a worst case scenario, I'll send my third settler to that luxury-stuffed island in the southern ocean (under the "Lenses" above), which looks to be a pretty good spot itself. I'd rather have that as a later spot to found a city, not something I have to take right now. Anyway, we'll see what happens. If Japper does decide to get aggressive with his city placement, well, our Declaration of Friendship runs out on Turn 88 and I should be able to upgrade all of these warriors and archers into legions and crossbows by that point with the discounted Professional Army policy rates. I'm already saving towards that right now and along with Singaboy's huge income, we should be able to build/upgrade a strong force in the next 18 turns. I'm not intimidated by the player with 11 total population and a military score of 61 this turn. He'd better settle defensively in this region or he's going to get burned.



Elsewhere, this was finally the long-awaited turn that Feudalism arrived. First I planted farm #6 outside Ostia as seen above. That immediately delivered the civic and a policy swap opportunity:



There was only one change here: Urban Planning sadly had to be dropped in favor of Serfdom. I don't plan to be in Serfdom long, just the three turns remaining on Military Training and then I'll drop it in favor of something else, probably Urban Planning again but we'll see. I also want to get my forest chops finished quickly so that I can drop Limes policy in favor of Maneuver for some chariots (i.e. knight pre-builds), but that's likely going to have to wait for another policy swap later. Singaboy, I can probably follow Military Training with Drama and then Recorded History to pass you the boost for the latter civic. I just need to be absolutely sure that I have Mercenaries civic finished by about Turn 85 to be able to pull off legion and crossbow upgrades. I think I have enough culture to get through those four civics in the next 15-16 turns, but we'll see.



I spent some time on the city micro and did a lot of tile swapping, ending up with this setup. It turns out that I've hit the happiness and housing limit all at once, which means that Bath districts are arriving at an excellent time. Ostia, Firenze, and Venezia all are going to need them in the near future. I also need to connect another amenity of some kind to help my cities out, probably two of them to be safe. I still lack a single one connected in my territory, with my civ sponging two of them off of Singaboy. This has shifted my builder plans slightly, and I think I'll use one of the charges from Milano's builder to improve the truffles. It won't be connected for a while yet though. At least when these cities finish settlers it will improve my amenities situation temporarily. Rome is a civ right now bursting at the seams, ready to expand.

My trader finished its old trade route this turn and I had the chance to reassign it. I crunched the numbers on routing it to Firenze, but unfortunately the city was still just short of being able to shave a turn off its settler build even with a trade route to help. It came up 2 production short no matter what I could do. If I could have kept Urban Planning in place somehow, it would have been enough. Sigh. The need for Firenze to finish its settler first is the one thing holding up this whole process. At least the other two settlers will be able to follow it shortly thereafter, with forest chops at both Roma and Venezia to overflow their respective settlers. Anyway, Milano ended up getting the trader because it's the smallest city and can make the best use of it. That will be a 2/2 trade route back to Rome next turn and help Milano continue building itself up.

Ostia and Milano should both finish their builders next turn, with Milano working a high production configuration to ensure that it gets a builder done even after the cost scales up from Ostia. Roma is *NOT* training a builder this turn because I want it to finish a more expensive builder next turn, after the weaker cities of Ostia and Milano get theirs done first. I'll be chopping something almost every turn for a while after this.

International news: the shocking thing is that Russia finished a wonder this turn: Apadana. Say what?! That's such a random choice, and insanely risky with China in the game. I wonder why in the world they wanted a 400 production wonder that has such a weak function (+2 envoys per wonder built in the city including itself, 2 Great Work slots). Perhaps EmperorK figured we wouldn't target Apadana and wanted it for the Great Writing slots, which turned out to be correct. The other potentially scary thing is other teams looking to build the Colosseum, which again feels extremely risky with China in the game, but if Russia's willing to go for Apadana, then all bets are off. I would be worried about England having built the wonder (with that explaining all the culture) but I never saw any popup message to that effect. Anyway, we certainly can't dawdle on the Colosseum. I know it's due in 5 more turns, hopefully we won't have to sweat it out too much. The need to build an Entertainment district and a 400 production wonder certainly isn't cheap for the other teams.

The only other bit of news was England/Nubia declaring war on Kabul as they conquer their own second city state. Expect to see it fall in a few turns. Over to you Singaboy.

[Singaboy]

Turn 70:

A somewhat frustrating turn.

When I open the save, the turns required for the campus are not 2 or 3 but still 5  
the only explanation I have is that a double overflow as in this case, the builder and wonder overflow can't be handled by the system and the second overflow, in this case the overflow from the wonder did not work. That campus is just jinxed. It didn't get the discount and now, it didn't get the overflow either.

The second annoyance is that English scout blocking our apostle's path towards the north.

In other news, sailing is done and feudalism got its Inspiration from Rome dropping it to 4 turns. That's in fact too fast as I need to time Corvee to Colonization swap with the wonder completion on T75. Hence, I will swap a turn to another civic for a turn soon.

The plan is to go from Corvee to Colonization together with a swap from Maneuver to Limes on T75. The Limes overflows will be used for more builders that are supposed to build Jebel Barkal, Petra and a sea wonder. For China, districts have to wait or be built by hand without those tricks.





Hangzhou gets two tile improvements, which increases the housing to 10. In fact, housing is at 10.5, but that doesn't count for growth. The city will grow in 5 turns but will fall back to pop 8 when its settler is done later on. As the path to theocracy is still some ways to go, this shouldn't be an issue. The good news is that the 2f2h hill next to sugar will be added via Shanghai in 4 turns giving more flexibility and some room for chops. Maybe there is a possibility to use the city walls for some overflow chop into a commercial district. We will need 2 markets after all for an Inspiration.
I decide not to continue to build the campus with no bonus, but to go for a chariot. With Maneuver, that's 26.7 hammer a turn. I might want to build 2 in those 5 turns until Maneuver is swapped for Limes. It would be nice to have around 5-6 chariots from upgrading to knights. Stirrups will cost China 144 beakers, at the current science output, that's 6 turns.
However, I slot in Engineering on the path to crossbows and China's UU. Strategically placed on top of hills, those crouching tigers could make for an impressive defense in the south.

Let's get to the south. I am determined to make a stand and block Germany from getting any settler into an awkward position. I throw the archer and second horseman into the fray. If I can manage to get a unit onto the tile SW of the sheep, I should be able to block any settler for now and be able to secure our southern city. The first horseman in in such a position that it should be able to climb that hill with 4 moves. let's see what Germany does on its turn.

As the situation there could get tense, it is important to get additional military presence there. Hence, the production of 2 chariots from Hangzhou and one from Beijing within the next few turns. Quanzhou will finish its shrine next turn too and might go for another chariot as well. What is your assessment of the situation there, Sulla?

Lastly, that annoying English scout. I do not want to tempt is by parading my apostle right in front of it, hence I move the apostle east and promote it. At the current, it can't be reached by the scout. However, depending on the scouts move next turn, I might have to delay my advance to the north. I do note though, that it did NOT move the last turn at all. I am sure England wants to keep us on alert there.

If one of us could become suzerain of Lisbon, I'd say, declare war on England and take that pesky unit out. If the unit doesn't move next turn, I could get my warrior into position for an attack on T72. Together with Rome's city wall strike, we should be able to kill that unit. It would have to follow a Chinese first attack directly followed by Rome. Alternatively, we can attempt a DoF offer again.

By the way, I am so far really impressed by Russia and Germany. They know very well, what they are doing, which is good for a proper contest. Choosing Apadana was a very smart move indeed. Kudos to EmperorK

[Sullla]

Lots of busy turns, lots of things to discuss. Here's the usual checklist of different responses:

* The overflow into the Campus district... yeah, I dunno what happened there. Civ6 has some real oddities in the interface and mechanics at times. That thing definitely does appear to be cursed. We'll want to go back and finish the Campus eventually, but China's science is pretty good at the moment and there's a Wat incoming in a few turns so you're probably fine for now. I'm pleased at how our beaker rates have consistently been leading the field of other teams while we've been keeping up in expansion.

* Your upcoming civic swap in 5 turns sounds good to me. I would start thinking about what forests each city plans to chop into Limes city walls overflow ahead of time; those kind of things always proceed more smoothly with a plan in mind. Also, what was the plan for Quanzhou to build next? I think you have something in mind but I can't remember what it is.

* Hangzhou looks like it will be able to reach size 10 in time to pick up the Civil Service boost, which would be a great help for our team. This is still some distance off but good to see. It's also nice that completing another wonder at the Chinese capital grabbed 2 more tiles within its borders. Only one more tile in the second ring to pick up, and then the third ring resources will start to be grabbed. More chopping options are great to have.

* When it comes to civic boosts, Rome should be able to deliver the Medieval Faires "4 active trade routes" requirement. I can also potentially look to get the Guilds "build 2 markets" requirement if China looks like it will have some trouble doing so. These are both pretty far into the future right now, but we can start thinking about them. I think it might be a while before China has two Commercial dsitricts completed, whereas Rome already has one finished and two more slotted to complete soon.

* I think Engineering is a good tech for China to pick up, and the boost will be coming over from Rome shortly. One note about the Chinese unique unit: it's good to build one of them no matter what because that way every city walls and Encampment district will fire with 50 ranged strength, since the formula is based on your strongest ranged unit. That will pack some serious punch if anyone tries to attack. The unique unit is also good defensively when you can put it inside a city and make enemies come to you. It's a poor offensive weapon though due to the range of 1 tile; crossbows are much better if we're interested in actually attacking someone. Overall, I concur that we want one of them but probably not too many more than one.

* With regards to Germany: I urge caution in this region. Maneuvering to get a forward position is a good thing, getting involved in a shooting war with TheArchduke is not. I'm concerned that TheArchduke is pulling your units towards his territory and will then spring a trap and counterattack, getting in a nasty first strike. Your three units would beat the three units he currently has in the area, but we don't know what's lurking further back. Again, we don't want to get into a war with Germany/Russia if we can avoid it. They are the strongest opponent on the board and fighting them wouldn't serve us well, especially when we have a weak neighbor to go exploit in the other direction. I don't think you'll be able to take a position SW of the sheep tile in that region, not with Germany having a city just to the south of that tile. We would never let another team set up shop that close to our cities and neither will they. I think it serves us better to accept an even split of land in this region and focus our attention elsewhere. My suggestion would be to avoid trying to go much further than the position of your current southern horse.

* With regards to England: that scout is really annoying. I think the move here is to offer another Declaration of Friendship and see if Chevalier Mal Fet is more willing to accept now that he sees he can't pass through our territory. If he rejects a second time, well, we've given him fair warning. I'll get another envoy on Turn 73 and can drop it into Lisbon to become suzerain once again, and that might be the time to strike. We would actually want a war declaration to come from China given the turn order; Woden and Chevalier Mal Fet play between the two of us, so if China started the war, China would act first, then the city state would act, then Rome would act, and only then would England get to move. I actually do not want to start a war with them if possible because we're already thinking about attacking Kongo/Khmer, and it would be really easy to find ourselves stuck in a situation where we're at war with all of the other three teams at once, a bad situation. Their team also probably lacks Defensive Tactics civic and it would hand them 125 free culture to start a war and give them the boost for free.

At the same time, we can't have a scout running around in our back lines with the ability to declare war on any random turn. That scout is especially dangerous because it has the promotion that lets it move through forest/jungle tiles with 1 movement point - it's important we remember that. Anyway, what do you think of my suggestion that we offer the Declaration of Friendship for now and see what happens, then prepare to hit the scout in a few turns if it gets rejected again? Let's hold off on attacking until both of us agree that it's the way to go.

* I've also been very impressed by the play of EmperorK and TheArchduke in this game. I think it's partly due to the fact that Russia/Germany is an awesome combo, and I still wish we had managed to land Russia for ourselves. Still, there's no need to deny how well they've done. Tough opponents for sure.

[Singaboy]

Well, I certainly didn't plan to plant a city south of that sheep. I want Germany to be unable to settle in such fashion to prevent me from planting my own city. I am aware of the message I am sending to Germany right now. He must be wondering what I am up to. Keep them a little on their toes isn't a bad thing.

I also agree on crouching tigers. They are of no use offensively. By the way, all those snake tiles would lend themselves for a Great wall improvement from China if needed for an additional +4 defense. Well, not that great after all

As for Quanzhou, the city needs two wonders sooner rather than too late. Those are Petra and Jebel Barkal. Hence, I will start another builder there until Colonization kicks in and a settler is started. Of course, I won't finish any builder until I have serfdom enabled. Three builders with 7 charges would be awesome for another round of wonders. I am now thinking of using the leftover charges of the current builder at Hangzhou to harvest the copper and then to improve the fish tile at Shanghai for the Eureka (tow sea resources improved).

With regards to England. Yes, we give him a last chance and then declare war if he doesn't comply with a DoF. My warrior attack, your city walls, Lisbon's troops in one row should be enough to take that unit out.

[Athmos]

Lots of busy turns, lots of things to discuss. Here's the usual checklist of different responses:

* The overflow into the Campus district... yeah, I dunno what happened there. Civ6 has some real oddities in the interface and mechanics at times. That thing definitely does appear to be cursed. We'll want to go back and finish the Campus eventually, but China's science is pretty good at the moment and there's a Wat incoming in a few turns so you're probably fine for now. I'm pleased at how our beaker rates have consistently been leading the field of other teams while we've been keeping up in expansion.

Unspoiled lurker here !

I think the overflow from the previous turn is getting overwritten by the chop, that is, it doesn't properly handle an additive production box . As a result, it probably applies something like "turn production + production bonus", set with the overflow as production bonus, then when you chop the chop replaces the overflow rather than adding to it. I don't know if I'm making sense to you, but that's what my developper's gut are telling me.
Similarly, eurekas and inspirations eat your science overflow (culture, respectively).
It can crop up in the late game, where you can get massive science overflow from great scientist raw science generation (from adjacent jungles, etc), it's actually best to avoid or delays eurekas in many cases to preserve your science generation.

BTW, thanks for the great great thread !

[Sullla]

This game is very interesting and a lot of fun. I only wish it didn't eat up 1-2 hours of my day playing and reporting, every single day. That's a lot of time invested into a game even for me.



The barbarian struggles continue. One barb warrior attacked my northern warrior and committed suicide between turns; the other one attacked my archer and damaged itself in the process. This was all predictable and I already had my moves for this turn planned out in advance. My archer moved a tile southeast and shot the barb warrior, then the full-health warrior attacked and finished it off, earning a promotion in the process. When I moved that warrior, I spotted a barbarian scout on the tile east of the iron, so I moved my northern archer a tile east and shot at it:



Not enough damage to kill it in one shot from full health, but that was a healthy chunk of damage applied regardless. My preference here would have been to fortify the injured warrior in the north to start healing, however I ran the numbers and saw that the barb scout could kill that warrior on a good dice roll, which was far too much risk for a future legion upgrade. I ended up moving that warrior a tile southwest onto the forest where it can't be attacked between turns. This will also allow the archer to provide some protection if the barb scout sticks around. I've now killed 1 scout, 4 warriors, and 1 archer from this camp, and that's not counting this new scout. Sheesh, this is more units than the entire military of Kongo. Hopefully I'll be able to get in one more shot to finish off the scout, or barring that, it will stumble next to a unit from Lisbon and perish that way.

I intended to take an overview shot of the southeast area where Japper is moving a settler forward, but apparently I forgot to take that image. Well, the long and short of it is that I'm moving my injured archer and warrior to try and block his settler's path, and he has a couple units in place to try and keep a path open. We'll see what happens here. I'm hoping he goes for a more defensive spot and doesn't push forward for something ridiculous.



OK, now here's a little micromanagement trick that sometimes comes in handy. Ostia and Milano produced builders this turn, and I wanted to place a Commercial district on the tile east of Milano. That tile had a jungle on it along with a road to facilitate movement. If you look at the picture on the left, the Commercial district takes 23 turns to complete. I moved my builder a tile east and chopped the jungle into an empty production box. Then I was able to place the Commercial district on the tile cleared out, with the Commercial district now taking 19 turns to complete. While this is something that doesn't come in handy too often, it does have its uses when you want to place a district on the same tile that has a chopping yield of some kind. Milano will put its production into the district for this turn (as otherwise the chopping yield would go into whatever I picked for the turn), and then I'll finish getting the city walls to near-completion next turn.



Milano also set up a trade route to Roma this turn, which will help it grow a bit further towards the housing cap. The place where trade routes will be the most helpful is in the new cities not yet founded. I'm not holding a trader unused for 10 turns until they're founded, however - Milano will do for now. The food from the jungle chop will cause this city to grow to size 4 next turn (never mind the wonky interface saying otherwise), and it's quickly becoming one of my best production cities. I'll probably try to get some more units and then another builder out of here.



Firenze finally has that awesome grassland hill tile next to the natural wonder within its borders, and the tile picker is correctly choosing another grassland hill with a similar boost next to it for the following tile. This is another city that needs further builder attention - there's never enough of them to improve all the tiles. Next build here will almost certainly be a Bath district; Firenze will need to grow back after the settler pops out and then grow upwards towards a future Venetian Arsenal. I can get up to around 30 production/turn at size 8 and that would give me a good shot of producing that wonder, assuming I build the Industrial district and get an early start on it.



Overview picture. Roma actually comes up just short of being able to produce a builder next turn after the cost scaled up from the Ostia/Milano builders this turn. It will have to do it in 2 turns with a good bit of overflow, and that's fine. The builder is going to chop the settler when it's nearly finished to overflow with the Colonization bonus into something else, probably a library or watermill. Ostia is awaiting that forest chop into its Commercial district; the builder can climb the forested hill next turn, and then chop the following turn. Milano will also chop out its Commercial district over the next few turns, then that pair of builders will meet at Venezia and chop/mine the forested and jungle hill tiles north of the city. Every city other than Milano needs a Bath district to raise the housing/happiness caps, and I'll try to slip in a few of them afterwards. I also want to get out some more units and builders if possible, so the usual competing priorities will be in order here.



Internationally I offered a Declaration of Friendship to Chevalier Mal Fet again, we'll see if he accepts this time. If not, then we'll look to surround and kill his scout. Hopefully he'll just sign the stupid agreement and we can stop this whole dance up in the north. There isn't too much news this turn from other teams; TheArchduke built a second Commercial district this turn, which is amusing since I'm about to chop two of them to completion myself. First I built one, then he leapfrogged me with two, then I'm going to jump past him with three. He'll probably get the first Great Merchant since it's hard to compete with Germany (and he's running Classical Republic for the Great Person point bonus), but we'll see what happens. It could be worth running a Commercial district project later if it's close. Speaking of which, next turn TheArchduke claims the first Great Scientist and we'll get to see what the second one turns out to be. Cross your fingers that it's another Classical Great Scientist and we win the 50/50 dice roll for Hypatia. That would be really, really sweet for us.

The good news is that we are continuing to lead the field in science, with Rome #1 and China #2 in beaker output. Rome is also well ahead of everyone else in culture... save one exception. Chevalier Mal Fet's England is getting the same culture/turn as Rome, 26 points exactly. I continue to be baffled as to where all his culture is coming from. How did he suddenly go from a modest 11 culture/turn, same as everyone else, up to 25 culture/turn? It happened in a single turn, his output going up by 150% all at once. What am I missing here - how did he do it?! This is a really big deal because poor culture and science output was the biggest thing holding back the England/Nubia team. With strong culture, they are much MUCH more dangerous. I wouldn't mind so much if I just knew how England was pulling this off.

Similarly, TheArchduke's income went up again... to 45 gold/turn. He was down at 32 gold/turn last turn and I thought he might be dropping back to something reasonable. I know he finished a Commercial district on his turn, but still, how's he doing this? Do they have double Commercial city states in their territory or something? It's crazy. We are actually keeping pace with Russia/Germany as a team, with 59 gold/turn combined income for us and 61 gold/turn combined income for them. We just happened to have a religious belief granting Singaboy an extra 16 gold/turn right now, and we're still only treading water with them. I wish I knew what was going on over there.

TheArchduke did pull his units back further Singaboy. I'd suggest staying about where you are now without pushing too much further forward. Up to you though - good luck!