Multi part update, T116.
Finish Exploration and Military Engineering end of T155. Revolt into Merchant Republic:
I think running more than one production multiplier card at a time is inherently inefficient, however can be necessary due to the game state. But not now, not for me.
Natural Philosophy is only giving 6 science per turn, but look at the other options: Merchant COnfederation would give me 9 gold per turn. Revelations would be giving me nothing for 2 of the next 4 turns (note: I think it's justifiable, I believe Guilds will be a 3 turn civic but I'm expecting to be wrong). Great Writer is gone to Pindicator, and the GS is a crap shoot as unless Japper dies in the next 7 turns he gets it, and then takes Galileo with him to the grave. Which is actually great IMO. Medina Quarter speeds up growth in Scom and CS, but I would then grow too fast and lose food anyway from teh extra pop size when I drop a settler out of CS (and Scom is just irrelevant IMO). All my cities are ecstatic and I'm not upgrading units. NP is just the right card even if it's not that great for me, even though it's a staple card.
But look at the changes to the outputs:
Note: Pin is at 59.8 Science per turn, and 61.6 Culture per turn. We are essentially even in output on these two resources now. I dumped an envoy into Kumasi last turn for the 2 culture and 2 envoys, as I don't know when I will be next in Diplomatic League, and I am now 13 turns from 2 more envoys. 1 point short of getting them in 12.
The before shot of Alhambrams troops is actually much better. It shows Mamluks on the tiles 1, 11, 3, 6, 63, and 9 of the starting point, the plains tile that is vacant. 6 Mamluks visible. Japper is going to die. Occularis Terribus is somewhat ironic, don't you think. Terrible eyesight...(although even my incredibly rusty latin made me check, terroribus is the correct spelling for ablative form of terreo, latin word for terror. Terribus means "...of the land"). Wouldn't the correct name be Oculus terroris?
Pin has 7 envoys into Valetta. I can't dislodge those, so my only options are to raze it, or suck it up really. Is it possible to raze a city state? It gives him an amazing sentry net to this flank, and then any attack goes into DotF and the American home continent bonus. No, this game is not really winnable through murdering Pin. I want to geta DoF from him, and he just sent one to me that I've promptly ignored, but what I want to do is get DoF with jester, then stagger them. DoF with Alhmabram after that, and then DofF with Pin in about 10 turns. That would give me plenty of time to lock down the Western Peninsula. I hope he remains distracted.
As you can see from the score, Pin is 3 civics above me. He must have Guilds, DR, Theology and Reformed Church, and I am up Exploration on him. As I will have the inspirations for Guilds and Theology, I am down 252.5 culture on those two civics and then down 170 culture on DR (as, thinking about it, I could always just buy the damned temples as I will need faith). Reformed Church is literally a dead civic to me, but then Exploration may be a dead tech to Pin. So I think it's far to say that I am roughly 400 odd culture down on Pin at this point in the game, 8 turns behind on branch civics, but I'm pretty much equally placed to get through the choke point Ren era civics. Alhambram is slightly behind again.
Techwise it's pretty close, Although I think both Alhambram and Pin have universities we are still neck and neck with science. I don't quite know why that is, probably the trade routes. Pin is just further ahead in spreading religion and great people due to the explosive start he had, but in districts it's not that different between us but Alhambram lags behind (yet is doing OK with religion). So the game is in an interesting position. I don't know how often a 5 player PBEM is in such a position after 115 turns in Civ 4, and I think I'd argue that Civ 6 is better at not letting a single player break everything in first 50 turns.
You can see the few units floating over to the peninsula. Going to use the horseman and HC to soak up attacks on defense and just sit and heal each turn whilst the Xbows whittle down the barbs to get both Xbows to level 2 (I think they are both quite lose, like 5 attacks away). Hopefully I can get promotions onto all 4 of these units. That niter is in an interesting position. It's the second niter available to me, so I may decide to plant with that tile third ring and just buy it, so all cities can build musketmen later on. The dot map for the two cities is going to be based around making it impossible to get through that two tile, one unit wide channel, and making it difficult to even reach the two peninsula cities. I'm going to lock up my entire western seaboard from coastal invasion with these cities, so it's all about the defense, not about economic output. Maybe cities 779 of the niter with an encampment 77 of the wheat and then a city 66 of the northern wheat and an encampment 7 of the deer? Need to explore this area. Bother cities need 3 charges apiece, one charge to overflow out a chop from ancient walls for a discounted district (ideally not an encampment, CD or Harbour if I have DoF as I will have time to complete the Encampments by hand) and then two chops to get 90% of a Medi walls complete and then overflow out the second chop for whatever is needed. I can get close to 300 production in each city from three chops, which is a single Serfdom Builder. That then means a further 2 builders are needed to improve the tiles. 3 builders needed total.
Citrus Sinensis, building a 3 turns Trader with minimal overflow and then going for the settler. Trader gets moved to MS on T119 and then goes to Pan Mei on T120. Settler will cost 320, putting 42.9 production in per turn, so would be due eot125 (eot124 should be at 42.9*5+73=287.5, which is perfect to sit at to wait for EF). I'm look at all the hills at CS that are due to be built, and thinking I really should have built that sodding monument. I'm thinking over dropping either a holy site or a Harbour at CS, because I need the faith, but also I could do with the Housing from a lighthouse and a place to build boats instead of the encampment. And CS can build a full cost Harbour if I don't have to build a university here. Options.
More to come later, taking a break from report writing now and going to have a cup of tea and put some washing out.
Finish Exploration and Military Engineering end of T155. Revolt into Merchant Republic:
I think running more than one production multiplier card at a time is inherently inefficient, however can be necessary due to the game state. But not now, not for me.
Natural Philosophy is only giving 6 science per turn, but look at the other options: Merchant COnfederation would give me 9 gold per turn. Revelations would be giving me nothing for 2 of the next 4 turns (note: I think it's justifiable, I believe Guilds will be a 3 turn civic but I'm expecting to be wrong). Great Writer is gone to Pindicator, and the GS is a crap shoot as unless Japper dies in the next 7 turns he gets it, and then takes Galileo with him to the grave. Which is actually great IMO. Medina Quarter speeds up growth in Scom and CS, but I would then grow too fast and lose food anyway from teh extra pop size when I drop a settler out of CS (and Scom is just irrelevant IMO). All my cities are ecstatic and I'm not upgrading units. NP is just the right card even if it's not that great for me, even though it's a staple card.
But look at the changes to the outputs:
Note: Pin is at 59.8 Science per turn, and 61.6 Culture per turn. We are essentially even in output on these two resources now. I dumped an envoy into Kumasi last turn for the 2 culture and 2 envoys, as I don't know when I will be next in Diplomatic League, and I am now 13 turns from 2 more envoys. 1 point short of getting them in 12.
The before shot of Alhambrams troops is actually much better. It shows Mamluks on the tiles 1, 11, 3, 6, 63, and 9 of the starting point, the plains tile that is vacant. 6 Mamluks visible. Japper is going to die. Occularis Terribus is somewhat ironic, don't you think. Terrible eyesight...(although even my incredibly rusty latin made me check, terroribus is the correct spelling for ablative form of terreo, latin word for terror. Terribus means "...of the land"). Wouldn't the correct name be Oculus terroris?
Pin has 7 envoys into Valetta. I can't dislodge those, so my only options are to raze it, or suck it up really. Is it possible to raze a city state? It gives him an amazing sentry net to this flank, and then any attack goes into DotF and the American home continent bonus. No, this game is not really winnable through murdering Pin. I want to geta DoF from him, and he just sent one to me that I've promptly ignored, but what I want to do is get DoF with jester, then stagger them. DoF with Alhmabram after that, and then DofF with Pin in about 10 turns. That would give me plenty of time to lock down the Western Peninsula. I hope he remains distracted.
As you can see from the score, Pin is 3 civics above me. He must have Guilds, DR, Theology and Reformed Church, and I am up Exploration on him. As I will have the inspirations for Guilds and Theology, I am down 252.5 culture on those two civics and then down 170 culture on DR (as, thinking about it, I could always just buy the damned temples as I will need faith). Reformed Church is literally a dead civic to me, but then Exploration may be a dead tech to Pin. So I think it's far to say that I am roughly 400 odd culture down on Pin at this point in the game, 8 turns behind on branch civics, but I'm pretty much equally placed to get through the choke point Ren era civics. Alhambram is slightly behind again.
Techwise it's pretty close, Although I think both Alhambram and Pin have universities we are still neck and neck with science. I don't quite know why that is, probably the trade routes. Pin is just further ahead in spreading religion and great people due to the explosive start he had, but in districts it's not that different between us but Alhambram lags behind (yet is doing OK with religion). So the game is in an interesting position. I don't know how often a 5 player PBEM is in such a position after 115 turns in Civ 4, and I think I'd argue that Civ 6 is better at not letting a single player break everything in first 50 turns.
You can see the few units floating over to the peninsula. Going to use the horseman and HC to soak up attacks on defense and just sit and heal each turn whilst the Xbows whittle down the barbs to get both Xbows to level 2 (I think they are both quite lose, like 5 attacks away). Hopefully I can get promotions onto all 4 of these units. That niter is in an interesting position. It's the second niter available to me, so I may decide to plant with that tile third ring and just buy it, so all cities can build musketmen later on. The dot map for the two cities is going to be based around making it impossible to get through that two tile, one unit wide channel, and making it difficult to even reach the two peninsula cities. I'm going to lock up my entire western seaboard from coastal invasion with these cities, so it's all about the defense, not about economic output. Maybe cities 779 of the niter with an encampment 77 of the wheat and then a city 66 of the northern wheat and an encampment 7 of the deer? Need to explore this area. Bother cities need 3 charges apiece, one charge to overflow out a chop from ancient walls for a discounted district (ideally not an encampment, CD or Harbour if I have DoF as I will have time to complete the Encampments by hand) and then two chops to get 90% of a Medi walls complete and then overflow out the second chop for whatever is needed. I can get close to 300 production in each city from three chops, which is a single Serfdom Builder. That then means a further 2 builders are needed to improve the tiles. 3 builders needed total.
Citrus Sinensis, building a 3 turns Trader with minimal overflow and then going for the settler. Trader gets moved to MS on T119 and then goes to Pan Mei on T120. Settler will cost 320, putting 42.9 production in per turn, so would be due eot125 (eot124 should be at 42.9*5+73=287.5, which is perfect to sit at to wait for EF). I'm look at all the hills at CS that are due to be built, and thinking I really should have built that sodding monument. I'm thinking over dropping either a holy site or a Harbour at CS, because I need the faith, but also I could do with the Housing from a lighthouse and a place to build boats instead of the encampment. And CS can build a full cost Harbour if I don't have to build a university here. Options.
More to come later, taking a break from report writing now and going to have a cup of tea and put some washing out.
