Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Singaboy]

Turn 71:

I am glad that Rome has finally managed to clear the bulk of those barbarians in the east. Likewise, I am glad that Archduke retreated his troops a little. He must be wondering whether I am poised to attack. Well, no way, it would succeed with his military strength increasing bit by bit.

I forgot t check, but I guess England/Nubia have taken a city state. City states in Civ 6 continue to be mere fodder for the main nations. Something ought to be dine to increase their value to players and AI alike.

Quanzhou has finally finished its shrine and starts a builder at 90 hammers   Well, China certainly has produced a lot of builders so far. This builder will be worth 7 charges, good value for hammers I'd think.
Engineering is nearing the 40% threshold and I switch to yet another important technology, iron working.



First action of the turn, the chop of the forest into a chariot/entertainment complex. The chop is worth 61 hammers, which will result in 91 hammers due to Maneuver. That more than sufficient to finish the district next turn. Of course, this will diminish my income another 1gpt. Time for more cities to convert to Marco Polo.
Good thing, Beijing added the sheep hill to its territory and we can work this tile instead of the 2f1h hill.



So, what is going to happen there for the next few turns. I adjusted my plans yet again. In order to ensure that Colosseum is done on T75, the builders will charge the wonder from next turn onward as indicated. This also means that the builder that chopped the forest this turn won't have the time to mine the hill. Instead the builder will use 2/3 charges for the Colosseum to finish on T75 and then move south to build a pasture on those sheep.
Meanwhile, the builder from Hangzhou will move west to a. mine the iron hill (and get the Eureka for iron working) b. mine the current hill c. move all the way west to improve the fish for the Eureka for celestial navigation.
Why mine the iron hill? Well, currently it will only be a 3h1s tile but just wait for Petra. With Petra, the tile will be a potential 2f4h2g1s tile, quite amazing. With mathematics, iron working within reach, China should push for more builders after its round of settlers.
The builder that will ultimately build Jebel Barkal will have 7 charges and can easily harvest the copper before charging the wonder itself.

In the picture below, I also indicated some tiles for Limes/wall chops. Those tiles should all be within my territory soon.



Now for the 'hotspots' with our foes. First off, I am not sure whether I could see that but England has most likely not agreed to a DoF. In any case, I decide to not move the apostle into any danger zone and instead wait for next turn to be covered by the warrior. From there, the unit could move north towards Lisbon and Firenze. By the way, trying to select a new belief is not possible where the apostle stands right now as the requirement is to be in 'friendly' territory. One would have thought that the territory of an ally is considered 'friendly' territory. Firaxis, c'mon



In the southwest, as mentioned, Germany decided to move to a more defensive position. Perfect, that's exactly what my show of muscle wanted to achieve. Nothing more nothing less. I position my troops in such a way as to block the two potential problematic spots that Germany must not settle. In order to be prepared for a counter by Germany, more troops will be brought in here. While my slinger continues to move toward Beijing for an upgrade, the first chariot is moving south. Hangzhou is producing two additional chariots and that should be hopefully sufficient for now. Actually thinking about it, we could offer a DoF.
@Sulla, do you agree you should offer a DoF to Germany as it would get us in the driver seat in 30 turns and gives me the time to peacefully settle the spots I wanted to settle.

[Ituralde]

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.

Thanks for the example, I find this very useful as it happens a lot of times in my games (Choppable resource where I want to put my district). What I was wondering though, is how you managed to chop into an empty production box, if you were actually producing Ancient Walls? Or was it empty, because you just finished the Builder and had not selected the Walls yet?
I probably just answered my own question, but I will let it stand for confirmation / clarification regardless.

This means you can only do this, if you manage to make the chop on the turn the Builder is completed, right? Because unfortunately I don't alwas manage to get my Builder on the tile that needs to be chopped in time and then have to shuffle around production so that the chop does go into the district again.

[Athmos]

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.

Thanks for the example, I find this very useful as it happens a lot of times in my games (Choppable resource where I want to put my district). What I was wondering though, is how you managed to chop into an empty production box, if you were actually producing Ancient Walls? Or was it empty, because you just finished the Builder and had not selected the Walls yet?
I probably just answered my own question, but I will let it stand for confirmation / clarification regardless.

This means you can only do this, if you manage to make the chop on the turn the Builder is completed, right? Because unfortunately I don't alwas manage to get my Builder on the tile that needs to be chopped in time and then have to shuffle around production so that the chop does go into the district again.

You can always chop/harvest into an empty production box. As you said, the production box has to be empty of course, and the only real use of it is for chopping into districts that will go onto the tile you're chopping. So to do that you must have a builder chopping on the exact turn you want to start that district (if you want the chop to go to the district).

[Athmos]

(...)

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.

(...)

You can't block a unit that way. So long as you're at peace with the unit you intend to clock, they can go under/over your units if they have enough movement to do so and end in a free tile. If you want to block a settler you have to occupy 2+ move tiles (forests, hills, swamps...) or occupy the whole path : two flat tiles deep to block settlers and most units, but that would be 4 moves deep to block a horseman of course.

You can probably block a settler there, I'm not sure about the terrain from the screenshot, but you'd probably need to make use of the isthmus further south from the tiles you highlighted.

edit : actually, not sure from the screenshot, but if those two X's are hills, then you're good.

[Sullla]

Yes, you are correct Athmos that two civs at peace can have their units pass through one another. However, those two tiles indicated are indeed hill tiles:



This plan won't work though because there's a Kongo warrior standing on the northern of the two red Xs. Still, I suspect I can find some place to block the incoming settler since I have a good number of units in the area to play around with. We'll see what happens.

Singaboy, in the southwest you could move your archer to the wheat tile and your incoming horseman to the copper tile, which together with the other horseman would block all land-based movement in that region for Germany. I'm fine with offering a Declaration of Friendship to Germany this turn - I will go ahead and do so unless you change your mind before this evening.

[Modo]

With all the quirks and interface inconsistencies it might be a ridiculous question but would it work to have several one charge builders around a city where you plan to build a wonder?
So move one builder in and charge then another and another...and just complete the wonder basically.

[Sullla]

That would definitely work. However, it's tricky to get a whole bunch of 1 charge builders and have them standing around in place perfectly positioned to complete the wonder. Hopefully we won't see anyone snipe the Colosseum in the next 4 turns. I think that's very unlikely, but Singaboy is right to prioritize finishing it quickly since it's such a powerful wonder.

[Athmos]

Oh, about wonders as well, are you sure about Jebel Barkal ? If I understand correctly, it will bring in 12-20 faith per turn (4 for the wonder itself with divine inspiration plus 4 per city in a 6 tiles radius). On the other hand, a Petra copper hill is 2f 4h 4g (and it only cost a single builder charge).

The iron itself will be of no value, as every team has natural iron aplenty.

I might be undervaluing faith here, but Jebel Barkal doesn't feel as obvious a benefit to me, so did you consider the value of the tile itself ?

[Modo]

With all the purchases faith will afford it becomes a more valuable currency than gold, imo.
China will be a faith cow.

[Athmos]

Well, as I understand it faith will only purchase religious/military units and faith building.
And the tile isn't only 4 gold, it's also 2f4h... it's certainly one of the best tiles of the city.
Instinctively don't think I would build it myself, at least the choice doesn't look obvious to me, but maybe I value production too much.

let's see, a Petra hill tile with copper would generate, in 50 turns (with no additional bonus)
100 food, 400 production and 400 gold (assuming it's worked).
Jebel Berkal is in range of 5 cities if I'm not mistaken, so it would generate (5*4 + 4) * 50 = 1200 faith.

Holy sh*t that's a lot. I don't know how many knights that buys, and maybe 50 turns is too long a timespan for a useful estimate.
Still, I think 400 raw production is not to be sneezed at...