Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Brian Shanahan]

One thing you got to remember about the Jerries

[Singaboy]

@Sulla,

I only realized it but the next Great Scientist provides permanent(?) additional healing of 5 hp a turn for wounded troops. I'd say that is actually pretty good.

[Sullla]

Yeah, that Great Scientist is pretty darn good, agreed. I would have rather had Hypatia at 60 GPP cost but Al-Zahrawi is probably the best of the three Medieval Great Scientists. I expect we'll be doing a lot of fighting and +5 HP healed per unit per turn, forever, should be highly useful. I had another thought about the amenities from the Colosseum: I bet that the game distributes amenities normally and then adds +3 amenities to all cities in range of the Colosseum afterwards. That would explain why poor Shanghai isn't benefitting from them (it's outside Colosseum range and those amenities are distributed as a last step after the normal allocation). Just a guess but it would make sense from a coding perspective.

Looking good over in China. I don't have a lot to add right now other than the hopes of some future missionaries both for new cities and for use against Kongo. Now for my turn:



My archer had been on the forest tile between the two rices, and this barb spear came out to harass it. This confirms what we strongly suspected previously: there's a barb camp 1 tile out of view in the fog. My archer moved a tile west and shot this spear over the marshy rice for 37 damage. It will likely move back to the camp next turn, and then I'll have to draw it out again by moving back to the forest tile. I may or may not have time to clear the camp before needing to move south to get ready for the Kongo offensive; we'll see how this plays out tactically. I'm not too concerned though, sooner or later this camp will be cleared.



I'm just holding in the southeast for now, my units on the hills blocking any Kongo movement in that direction and the two southern warriors watching for anything incoming from the south. I can move to block both of the routes around that little 1 tile lake if needed; I'm avoiding doing that for now since it requires a unit to stand 1 tile outside The Jungle Book in view of Japper. As far as what he's doing, he doesn't appear to be thinking that an attack is imminent. Kongo finished a settler this turn, moved the two UU swords back away from the border, and has a Theatre district under production in The Jungle Book. That's a really weird choice and I don't know what Japper is thinking. Whatever their bizarre Cultural victory plan was for this game, I don't think it's going to work. The fact that Rome's power is very mediocre right now is likely helping. I'll jump from about 200 power up to 450 power in about two turns and hopefully catch him off guard.



This was a fun turn because I was able to cash in two jungle chops, although only one of them with overflow production set up. Here at Venezia, the third and final settler for this round of expansion was sitting at 224/230 production. I chopped the jungle into the settler for 32 * 1.5 = 48 production, instantly finishing the settler and overflowing 42 production into the city's Campus district. I did not try to use my forest chop as well; we know from Singaboy's experimentation that only one amount of production overflow will work per turn under Civ6's crummy interface system. The builder on the forest hill tile just waited for a turn and will do the Limes wall overflow chop next turn. I should easily have enough production to finish the Campus district, and possibly the cheap Bath district after that.

Chopping the jungle also provided 32 food, and the net result was that Venezia stayed at size 5 instead of dropping back to size 4. It was really weird how that worked, with the food in the box actually dropping and the city not changing sizes. That makes sense mechanically, it's just strange to see the city stay at the same pop and the food bar go down when a chop completes. By the way, here's a good reason why I went for Shipbuilding tech before Iron Working:



Ha, look at that movement over water! The ability to embark cleanly from a city center tile saved me a full turn of movement here. This settler lands on Turn 80 and founds its new city on Turn 81. In fact, I'm going to establish two cities on Turn 81, and the third one on Turn 83. That will be eight total cities plus seven districts completed on Turn 83. Not bad at all - Rome is just so strong as a civ in this game.



Speaking of Rome as an awesome civ, Ostia finished its stupidly cheap Bath district this turn and now has 10 housing to play around with. That Bath district cost all of 55 production - craziness. :crazeye: Ostia's biggest problem is going to be having enough tiles for all of its citizens to work, and I expect to run some specialists here as the game goes along. I have the city on high food configuration at the moment, gaining +9.9 food/turn with the amenities bonus, and I swapped the mined plains hill tile over to Venezia temporarily until the former jungle hill can be mined. Lots and lots of tile swapping in this region. The Ostia/Milano/Venezia triangle is slowly growing into the economic heartland of Rome.



Overview picture. Roma itself chopped its jungle tile for the same 32 food and 32 production, although it didn't have a production modifer in play to get extra bonus production into anything. That was non-ideal but I really want to get a farm on that tile next turn for the Feudalism triangle and I still wanted to get something from the jungle chop. I put the production into a Commercial district project, which I'll now have to swap off of so that it doesn't complete in 3 turns. The goal is to finish the district project in 5 turns on Turn 82, timed to land me the Great Merchant on the same turn. Roma will probably produce a trader for one of the new cities in the meantime, either that or start producing some chariots for future knight upgrades. We'll see. (One annoyance: the food bar in Roma didn't go up after the jungle chop, which hopefully was just an interface bug and not a failure of the city to get the food somehow.)

It was a busy turn for score updates. I confirmed that Russia finished a Lavra last turn (for 4 of them total) and Germany finished a Commercial district this turn, also for 4 total. TheArchduke has been emphasizing the Commercial districts heavily, so expect a wave of Hansas to come out next. Interestingly, this means that Germany and Russia's science isn't too great, and Nubia/England have actually surpassed them now both in techs discovered and in total beakers/turn. I didn't expect that; Nubia and England have done an excellent job of recovering after a very slow start. Chevalier Mal Fet finished his third Royal Naval Dockyard and he'll be stacking up the Great Admirals even faster. Still no wars between any of the other players as yet.

I think that's all for now. Good luck Singaboy.

[Singaboy]

Turn 77:

I start to look around at the beginning of the turn and spot that Roma has finally converted and follows Marco Polo giving me an income of 49.2gpt.



By the way, while checking other people's incomes I spot some weird stuff which might explain Germany's bombastic gpt. When checking Rome, I can get Rome to send me 51 gpt though its actual income is only 35gpt. Now, we know that Roma has started a commercial project, which might distort the numbers. However, Germany shows me an income of 59gpt which could also be explained by running one or more projects. Germany is making 4 GM points currently to top that up. I am not too sure, whether Rome will land that GM which would be really nice to have.

Another issue about that Great Scientist. It might actually be much more valuable to not retire him at all as he provides +20 hp healing for units within 1 tile (If I understand that correctly, that could mean 1+6 tiles, which could be huge in a war. As those guys are invincible, this guy is too valuable to retire.

Back to the turn, things look as expected, I hire a missionary to be sent after Romans settlers. The next missionary will take 5 turns. Not too sure, but I guess it might be better to use the first missionary to convert some of Kongo's cities. I am not too sure whether the missionary can reach the cities before the DoF runs out. Otherwise, Rome's military simply has to cover the missionary while it converts Kongo's cities.

The apostle moves back home and will reach 'friendly' territory om T79 to give us Crusade.

At Beijing, I  as the chop leaves us a few hammers short of finishing the settler next turn. This means that all settlers will be delayed by an additional turn. Beijing T79, Hangzhou T81, Shangdu T82. Well Beijing's overflow will be a good start for the city walls.



At Quanzhou, the builder mines the iron giving us yet another well times Eureka. I love it how mathematics and iron working where stopped inches before overshooting 40%. Both science overflows from ship building as well as iron working will be used to speed up construction or stirrups.



The mined iron gives me the option to reassign tiles from Quanzhou and it works out beautifully. Swapping the poor grassland forest 2f1h tile for the iron tile lets the city finish the builder next turn as well as grow to pop 6. Reaching the housing cap next turn, the sugar tile will be once again swapped with Shanghai while Quanzhou can work the Oasis. Quanzhou is actually the city that could use a purchased granary once Petra is up and running. The builder will run east and chop the forest for Shangdu for its settler on T81, mine the same hill and then build Petra from T84-T88. The second builder will be done on T85, harvest copper on T87 and build Jebel Barkal from T88-T92. 

As Quanzhou is supposed to build a second temple while also producing the extra amount of 25hammers for each wonder, a purchase of a granary might be the best for this city to grow and be able to make use of all the nice Petra enhanced tiles. With two additional wonders, 4 extra tiles will be incorporated into the city borders, surely the copper hill in the west has to be a part of that. Three tiles alone will be stunning, the Oasis with 5f1h3g, iron hill 2f4h1s1g, copper hill 2f4h4g. Together with sugar, cows and horses, this city has a lot of potential to grow really big.

[Modo]

Did I understood that correctly, you can have a super healer GS that's immortal...and can be teleported from city to city?

[Sullla]

Yeah, the Great Scientist might be better keeping around as an immortal super-healer. I wasn't sure if that ability applies to all units within 1 tile or only to units on the same tile as the Great Person. If it's the former, then yeah, that's an amazingly good Great Person ability for a MP game with lots of warring. I'm hoping that I'll be the one to recruit Al-Zahrawi and get the chance to test. Rome is a huge favorite to recruit the next Great Scientist but we're still a long distance away.

Good to see that Roma finally converted to Marco Polo! China now almost matches Germany's insane income. I don't think that TheArchduke is running a Commercial district project, since his income went up on the same turn that he finished his fourth Commercial district. If I had to guess, I think that he has the 3 envoy bonus with two different Commercial city states and each of his 4 Commercial districts is getting +10 gold/turn income. That would explain what we're seeing here. I could be totally wrong though - we'll find out soon enough.

OK, now for Rome's turn:



The barbarian spearman did not move back to the camp as expected, instead moving next to my archer. I made the obvious move and shot it for another 34 damage, which was actually less than last turn's 37 damage. That's a good example of rolling high last turn and rolling low this turn. I expect the barb spear to attack the archer in between turns, and then I'll finish it off next turn. There should be time to clear the camp and then still make it down to the military front in time to join the potential attack.

No movement from Kongo this turn, everything still looks the same. Singaboy, when you get your missionary down to this region, I think we should try to use one charge on a Roman city and the other two charges on Mpinda and The Jungle Book. One charge should be enough to convert both of them so long as The Jungle Book remains size 3. We can plan this more closely when the Chinese missionary gets down there.



This was the fun part of the turn. I had another forest chop set up, the last one for this round of builders. You know the drill by now: swap back to the city walls for the Limes overflow forest chop. This produced 130 production, with 15 going to finish the city walls and the other 115 overflowing into the Campus. The district goes from 73/146 to 188/146 and Venezia should add another 17 production on top of that next turn. The Campus did not complete instantly the way that units will do - I think that districts can only finish in between turns - so hopefully everything will work as planned and I'll get about 60 production overflow next turn. If so, I'll probably build the Bath district in 1 turn so that Venezia can go back to growing again. As for the builders here, one of them will finish mining the plains hill for its fifth charge, while the other one will go put a camp on the truffles. It's worth a point of housing for Milano to let the city grow, plus the extra gold and another amenity. (I would have preferred to put a pasture on the cows but the tile picker chose the rice tile instead.)



At Roma, the jungle chop from last turn did apply the food correctly, it just didn't show up on the interface. Typical Civ6. I farmed the former jungle tile and that resulted in my first Feudalism triangle of the game, with the two wheat resources becoming 4/1 tiles. Growth back to size 7 will take place in two turns, and I couldn't speed that up by working different tiles. Roma is producing the Commercial district project this turn; I'll stop next turn and pause for 2 turns, then finish it at the end of Turn 81. Rome will claim the Great Merchant on Turn 82 unless TheArchduke patronizes it or runs his own district project first. This will be a good test of how closely he's watching the Great Person screen.

There are a couple of competing priorities here in Roma next. I want another trader, more builders, a third district, and chariots for upgrading into later knights, all at once. I think another trader is my current lean here, since I can see a useful place for it in the upcoming turns. The trader under production in Ostia is going to Firenze to help it grow faster for future Venetian Arsenal production. In terms of districts, I'd prefer an Industrial district but I think I need to pick an Encampment next. I need an armory from somewhere for the Gunpowder boost later and Roma is the only realistic place to build one. The barracks and Encampment are also worth production and housing for the city, which make them pretty decent. I'm going to try and build the district at some point later using the +30% Encampment policy card and the discounted district formula. As soon as this Campus finishes at Venezia, the next non-Campus district will be discounted.

This builder at Roma is going to Firenze to mine two hill tiles there, which will give that city 6 good tiles and enough to hold it for a long time.



Here's the overview picture. The settlers are on their way and ready to found their respective cities on Turns 81, 81, and 83. I'm going to need to look at the list of Italian city states again. After being stagnant on growth, half my cities are back to positive food income again. Venezia and Milano will soon follow when they get their Bath districts done. I'm planning to have Firenze train a builder next, timed for a brief stop in Serfdom again when Milano also finishes its builder, then I'll probably try to have it build its Industrial district at the discounted cost. (The Great Merchant would help enormously here since the tile I need for that district is in the third ring.) Iron Working research done, Machinery is up next. Recorded History civic was about 1% short of completion, with Mercenaries next. It should take 5 turns. I'll swap into Natural History next turn for the science boost, and either Maritime Industries or Maneuver for the other Military slot. Still not quite ready to crank out chariots yet.

Elsewhere, Khmer finished an Encampment district to get up to 3 Great General points/turn. Cornflakes has been running Strategos forever and finally built a district to go along with it. This is still being outpaced by Nubia's 4 Great General points/turn, although Nubia took the first Great General and is far behind in the race for the second one. No other districts or new cities settled this turn.

One last thing to note: Kongo's military power jumped up again to 205. I ran the numbers on that and it's a military force of four archers (4 * 25) and three of the unique unit Ngao swords (3 * 35). That adds up to exactly 205 power. They don't appear to be right on the border, so either this is an elaborate trap or Japper doesn't expect to be attacked by Rome right now. We'll see how many units he's able to produce in the upcoming turns. So long as Rome can attack before there are walls in Mpinda and crossbows on the field, I think there are excellent chances for success.

[Ichabod]

About the District not finishing after the chop overflow, I think no city can finish two items in the same turn, that's why it didn't. I'm pretty sure you can finish a district midturn if you chop it directly, but I don't seem to recall ever finishing two builds in the same turn (even units). Not 100% sure, though.

[suboptimal]

About the District not finishing after the chop overflow, I think no city can finish two items in the same turn, that's why it didn't. I'm pretty sure you can finish a district midturn if you chop it directly, but I don't seem to recall ever finishing two builds in the same turn (even units). Not 100% sure, though.

I believe this interpretation is correct - even when production is overflowed from one unit to another with enough to finish both only the first unit completes.  I've also (inefficiently) chopped out a district mid-turn and had it complete.

[Singaboy]

Turn 78:

A rather quiet turn with some micro management thanks to growth in Quanzhou and the settler sequencing. Quanzhou has reached its housing limit and it is time to swap the sugar yet again to Shanghai. The city will grow in 7 turns, possibly earlier with the fish being improved by the builder. However, thanks to the cliffs it will take 5 turns to improve the fish for the Eureka and +1 food.
Quanzhou is being MM as well to bring the next builder down to 7 turns while the new builder moves east towards the hills of Shangdu. Let's hope nobody interferes with our wonder plans. China has sacrificed a lot of potential districts, unit and additional cities for its 5 wonders so far. We really need those two wonders.



In Hangzhou, I need to get off the settler for a turn to prevent it to finish its settler next before Beijing. I start with walls with 19.8 hammers. Next turn I swap back to the settler to be done on T81. The walls will be at 19.8*4 = 79.2/80 hammers. It could not be closer and with a monarchy chop (possibly at 71 hammers for the chop due to two additional civics), this will result in 175 hammers overflow That's an instant campus and quite a bot of the CH.
After some thinking, I decide to cash rush the granary here to get faster growth. The city has now a housing cap of 12 with a growth in 6 turns. Of course, the settler will get the city down to size 8 but I am hoping to recover that very fast. With another rain forest being part of the city soon, I can then emphasize growth while producing a warrior and maybe 2 archers before acquiring iron working and machinery.

In the image you can see England's scout moving west and I suspect it to enter the Ocean north of Shangdu to 'spy' on China's land. Not something I am keen to see, but there isn't much for me to do. I would rather they do not know where the wonders are hidden and that we start Petra and Jebel Barkal very soon.



I move both apostle and missionary towards their target zones. With the current faith output, we get the next missionary in 3 turns. That missionary can then convert the two remaining new Roman cities as well as maybe the new Chinese city near Milano.

By the way, the fact that Kongo has upgraded his units and removed from the borders could also mean that England and Nubia are getting ready to attack them. Remember that Nubia has a GG on top of their OP UU.

The image below shows the southwestern 'cold war' of blocks between Germany and China. Both of us are trying to block each other from moving closer. I am fairly confident to secure all 3 settling sites. The first and most southern city will be settled on T82, that should be fine. The second settling spot is now being blocked by a chariot. With 4 units in that area I should be able to block any incoming settler, should there be one.
I am suspecting that Germany is planning to found a city where its archer currently is to provide a canal city for them. This would require a second canal city for them maybe on the tile north of the elephants where another archers is sitting. If not for the Colosseum distance requirements, we could have tried to negate those sites. Well, we will simply have to take those cities by force. It would be a good idea to 'steal' some tiles from that city in the east by buying two second ring tiles on those hills two tiles SW/W of the bananas. Those would be brilliant strategic locations for crossbows.
Maybe, in order to get border expansions really fast, a purchase of a monument which would result in +4 culture a turn (2 from the Colosseum) would be a good idea.

Now, since I am getting ship building next turn, I moved one chariot to the southwest. It will enter the waters next turn to attempt to spy as much as possible moving towards the tile SE of the elephants.



By the way, in your screenshot, there is no citrus at Lisbon. However, if you look carefully at my screenshots, there is actually a citrus tile there.
As for the finances for Rome's war against Kongo, there is a need for 760 + 260 (ram) gold on T84? If I am calculating correctly, Rome will have 610 gold and China 560 gold. That seems more than sufficient.

[Athmos]

At least before the latest patch, each chop would "reactivate" production overflow and allow it to complete one more build. It was used to great effect in quite impressive 1 turn SV all projects completion by speedrunners. Have a look at civtrader6's videos on YT If you never did before. Very interesting stuff.

Stuff just never completes when you select an item to be built, only when production is applied (turn start, when you chop).