Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Sullla]

My short thoughts on the last turn:

* I agree that sending a trade route from the new city of Kashgar back to the capital makes the most sense. The road will be highly useful for strategic movement purposes, and the new city gets more of a benefit from running the trade route to the capital than anywhere else. I was considering suggesting a trade route from Kashgar to Shangdu for the +1 food / +2 production yield, but I think Kashgar will need food more than production, given that it has all those plains hill tiles in the area. Agree with your thinking here.

* As far as wonder-building goes, is it possible you're getting a small boost to the wonder charges from the Autocracy Legacy bonus? Petra costs 400 production so the base charge should yield 15% of that or 60 production. With Monument to the Gods pantheon and Autocracy, that should produce charges that are 25% stronger or 75 production each. Hmmm, even with another 3% from the legacy bonus it wouldn't come close to 81 production from the charge, so it looks like there was some kind of production overflow at work there. Otherwise there's some additional factor at work that I'm missing.

* Gold needed for upgrades: Rome needs to upgrade four legions (55g each) and five crossbows (95g each). That's a total amount of 220 + 475 = 695 and then another 280 gold for the battering ram = 975 more gold. Rome will have just under 420 gold at the start of the next turn so I'll need 300 at minimum for the upgrades and then another 200-250 for the battering ram, although the ram doesn't have to be cash-rushed until Turn 87 so we have slightly more time. I'll also be getting some more gold from the Great Merchant when the charges get used, but I'm trying to present a worst case scenario here right now. I think I'll ask for 300 gold next turn and then we'll go from there for the battering ram addition.

[Singaboy]

The legacy bonus is currently 2%. The very next turn I will know what is happening here. I am hoping that I might get around 78 hammers a charge so that a single turn of production spent on each wonder would be sufficient.
I am now thinking of keeping the second builder with its single charge remaining so that it can be used at Shanghai the moment I implement monarchy and Limes again. Beijing is going to produce another builder which could be used to chop a forest there, then at the capital too. I might have to produce another builder that could then chop the walls at Shangdu.

As for gold, you can ask for more to be safe. We can always trade gold back and forth. I won't upgrade my troops to save on maintenance costs. The upgrading would be done a lot later.

The good thing about the trade route is that Hangzhou will soon finish its campus (+1 food) and CH (+1 production) anyway resulting in 3f2h trade routes.

[Sullla]

I played my turn but didn't have time to post. Nothing too unusual happened this turn - details to come later tonight.

[Modo]

Nothing too unusual sounds very unusual...so much peace and quiet can make you nervous. I guess this is the time before the war when victorious warriors win the war. How are those upgrades lining up, by the way?

[Sullla]

According to the turn tracker Singaboy has already played his turn, but it looks like I'll still be able to get my report posted first after being out for most of the day.



The barbarian sword apparently has a death wish because it continued to move forward towards Genova. I couldn't pass up this opportunity to get in free damage when the unit was standing on a tile with a negative defense modifier in the marsh. The crossbow went first and had a slightly above damage roll for 50 points, and then the archer followed up for 29 more damage. That left the barbarian unit on death's door but not quite dead, probably about 5 HP remaining. We'll see if it tries to attack the crossbow between turns or continues to roam about aimlessly. I will have to upgrade the archer inside Genova next turn and then it will be healing up for a little while in there. Too bad the Great Scientist with the special healing powers won't be ready in time to help here, although it is drawing close. Only 5 turns away and no one else seems to be making a run for it yet.



I upgraded the two units north of Ravenna since they need to embark into the water next turn. The six other units around the city will all upgrade next turn using the full complement of tiles within the city's borders. Upgrading the first warrior into a legion this turn completed a quest for Bandar Brunei (the extremely easy "train a legion" quest), and since I had Diplomatic League running in the Wildcard policy slot, I gained the 2 for 1 benefit on envoys. Here's a quick look at the city state envoy screen:



I dropped an envoy into Seoul for 3 total there, becoming the suzerain and - more importantly - gaining the +2 beakers/turn benefit on my Campus district. That was worth 8 beakers/turn immediately, taking me up to 45.8 beakers/turn... and that without Natural Philosophy policy running. I'll be slotting that back in next turn and cresting the 50 beakers/turn margin at a time when no one else in the game has more than 33 beakers/turn. The fifth Campus district at Milano will be worth another 6 beakers/turn on top of that too. Anyway, this was just too much benefit to pass up for the moment. I don't know if we'll keep Seoul around forever due to strategic concerns, but for the moment it's almost a no-brainer.

The suzerain benefit from the city state is nothing too special, a free eureka on entering a new era. Nice to have, not too important either way. I'm much more interested in the beaker bonus for the Campus districts. We did get a little bit more visibility over here in the far southeast from the suzerainship, and there's beautiful land over here that Japper isn't using. The jungle river valley to the east of The Jungle Book has room for another city with chocolate resources and choppable jungle everywhere. Considering how The Jungle Book is a pretty awful city, I have no idea why Japper didn't settle the much stronger city in that area over the coastal spot with no food. I'm hopefully we can take over this area and start developing it more properly.



Overview time. I was correct and not all of my cities finished their builders; Firenze ended up 2 production short. I'm glad that I held off the policy swap for that one extra turn to get all of the builders done with Serfdom policy in place. Firenze will go ahead and finish that, then build the fourth trader that I need for the Medieval Faires boost, with the trader going to the capital to increase its food output once it solves its housing situation. Roma is going to produce a chariot next, but I needed to dump its builder overflow into something this turn and selected the Encampment for that purpose. It will train a chariot to near-completion over the next two turns and then harvest the deer tile to complete the district. The builder from Roma is already heading northwest as we speak. Ostia finished a trader this turn, which I rerouted to Siena to boost its food/production output. Ostia will prep a chariot for the chopping of its jungle tile, although it will be a little while before that completes. Milano and Venezia are both prepping for their own chariot/galley forest chops now that their builders are done. I'll have to delay the builder for one turn at Milano; both chops will arrive in 2 turns when the chariot/galley are nearly finished.

Research is finishing up Celestial Navigation so that I can build the Harbor district at Venezia. Theology is also finishing next turn to open up a civics swap out of Serfdom and Professional Army once I'm finished training builders and upgrading units. The next civic will be Medieval Faires and then I'll likely follow Singaboy to Civil Service and Divine Right after that. In research, I'm going to knock out the cheap Mathematics for faster embarked unit movement, then probably take Stirrups to near-completion (still want to build more chariots before obsoleting them) followed by going for Education. I really do want to get Mass Production tech finished quickly so that Firenze can start on the Venetian arsenal. Firenze is going to build a (discounted) Industrial district shortly and hopefully get started on the wonder by about Turn 100.

Internationally, I asked Singaboy for unit upgrade money:



350 gold for now and we'll see how much more I need for the battering ram purchase after that. Elsewhere, the teams with half cost districts have been spamming them lately. TheArchduke finished his fourth Hansa and Chevalier Mal Fet finished his fifth Royal Navy Dockyard. This is the main reason why their scores have been leaping up so quickly in recent turns; it's hard to compete with half cost / double score districts. England has six districts finished and five of the six of the Royal Navy Dockyards, worth 30 score points between them. I'm actually kind of surprised that we're still both ahead in score for the moment.

This is probably still the quiet before the storm. Hope your turn went well Singaboy.

[Singaboy]

Turn 85:

I purposely waited for Sulla to post his turn so that everything here is in order. Nobody likes to read reports that are mixed up in the turn order. It was a somewhat quiet turn. Of course, I am always keeping my fingers crossed that nobody finishes one of those three wonders I am about to or currently building.

It is finally time for my first trade route. Besides adding some food and hammers to Kashgar, it will create a first road for faster access of the south. This might come in handy later on when Germany/Russia try to attack me from the south. With Hangzhou soon building its campus, the trade route will gain an additional food as well. I am hoping to add a CH sooner rather than later there too for 3f2h trade routes.

Both missionaries converted a city each boosting my gpt a little more. The eastern missionary will round Ravenna to move south in sync with Rome's attack force to convert Mpinda prior to the attack. Let's hope one charge will be sufficient to convert that city. The western missionary will enter the Ocean and then approach Jungle Book via the sea covered by a Roman galley. It could then proceed to convert Seoul. Next turn, there is sufficient faith for me to purchase another missionary to convert my own cities.

Back to the main focus of the current turns, my wonder building efforts. A check of the production indeed revealed that the overflow from the builder had resulted in the wonder having 81 hammers. That's interesting. The overflow went into the wonder because I charged it. That mechanism might be of some use if I am still able to build those sea wonders (Colossus, Great Lighthouse).

Anyway, due to the fact that each charge amounts to 77 hammers, I need to add a turn of production from Quanzhou. However, I am trying to minimize overflow and hence, did some tile shuffling with Beijing, working the copper mine as well for a turn. Next turn, I can then resume temple production while charging Petra another three times.

The second builder has climbed the copper hill and will harvest it next. That will help to offset Sulla's greed for gold

By the way, if you look at Quanzhou. If I manage to get both wonders there, 4 tiles are going to be added to the city. Petra will add the one remaining second ring tiles, the desert tile SE/SE. The interesting question will be, which three other third ring tiles will be added. I am hoping for the copper hill, in fact all three desert tiles would be awesome. However, I assume it will be copper hill, cows and ?. We shall see. The task will be to bring Quanzhou to larger size as fast as possible. There are just so many great tiles to work.
Iron Hill: 2f 4h 2g 1s
Copper Hill: 2f 4h 4g
Plain Desert Hill: 2f 4h 2g
Oasis: 5f 1h 3g
Those four tiles will generate 13 hammers and 11gpt alone. If I can get that city to size 10, it could generate close to 30 hammers.

The last image shows the overview of Chinese lands. Two settlers are moving as planned. Hangzhou has finished its builder and is moving towards the rain forest it will chop for growth. By the time the chop is happening, city growth is down to 3 turns. I am hoping that the chop will cut that to 1 turn then., getting size 10 on T88. Production has been changed to the campus to catch the overflow from the builder. Next turn, I will add 19.8 hammers to the walls for a big overflow with monarchy. After that Hangzhou will finish its campus before producing 2 archers and more chariots.

Beijing (75/80), Kashgar, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Shangdu will be prepared nicely for those walls -> overflow chops. Of course, this means that some builders are needed to execute that.

With this round of builders done, once CS is in place, I can take out Limes and Serfdom. I am hoping to get mercenaries down to 1 turn completion before swapping to CS and continuing to monarchy. The temple completion seems to line up nicely though Quanzhou will need to invest 1 turn of production for Jebel Barkal.

With regards to research, I am now trying to hold off machinery and stirrups to build the cheaper units. I am soon running out of option as I don't have the construction Eureka. I am thinking of purchasing a water mill in Beijing to speed up growth there and get me the path to construction. What do you think, Sulla?

[Athmos]

You need a river to get a watermill, I don't think Bejing is on a river ?

[Singaboy]

You are right and actually I meant to suggest Shangdu as it has already an irrigated wheat and needs food for growth badly once the granary is done.

[Sullla]

Sheesh, Woden and Chevalier Mal Fet play their turns so fast... Still typing up a report here Singaboy, I'll have it posted in the next 30 minutes.

[Sullla]

I think buying a watermill wouldn't be a very good use of our gold resources. Hangzhou has plenty of food already, and Shangdu only has a single wheat resource to boost. Shangdu looks like it has plenty of food, since it will be able to take the 5 food sugar from Hangzhou as soon as the capital hits size 10. What it needs is more housing and the watermill doesn't do anything to help with that. Anyway, if China needs the boost for Construction tech that's easy enough to pass over. I'll research that next (2 turns) and we won't have to worry about it for China. (If we get to the point of wanting to cash-rush something to speed up a new city's development, a monument in a brand-new city is often a great choice to help pop borders faster. However, I still think we're better off saving gold for unit upgrades for the most part.)

I ended up having a busy turn:



Here's what I spotted at the start of the turn. The barbarian sword suicided against my crossbow, dealing 30 damage in the process, argh. This is one of the biggest differences in the combat model between Civ4 and Civ6. In Civ4, units that are about to die are almost useless for combat. In Civ6, units at 5/100 HP still retain nearly all of their effectiveness. There's a huge priority on finishing off kills in this game since redlined units continue to deal near-full damage. I'll need to heal this injured crossbow in the upcoming turns; maybe the incoming Great Scientist can help with that.

There were two deal notifications: the 350 gold coming in from Singaboy and a new request from Cornflakes (Khmer):



A request for 300 gold? No thanks. There was a notification that Khmer entered the Medieval era this turn; best guess is that Cornflakes has teched to Machinery and wants some gold for archer to crossbow upgrades. Well he's not getting any from us, perhaps he'll have more luck with Germany/Russia. Except... they actually don't have contact with one another, heh. No wonder Kongo/Khmer keep coming to us and asking for help, we're their only other contact aside from England/Nubia. Also taking place on this turn: Nubia claimed the second Great General and England swapped into Oligarchy government. England/Nubia have also been increasing their power and it looks like they did an upgrade of their units recently. It sure looks like an attack is imminent over here. I've been fooled before expecting an attack off to the east, but now it really is starting to look like a war will be starting shortly. I can't see why England would swap into Oligarchy otherwise.

Anyway, I went ahead and did all of my own upgrades:



That was 550 gold well spent. Note that income fell from 29 gold/turn to 15 gold/turn as a result of having all these shiny new units. This is the whole reason why you need to build a gold income in Civ6: to pay for the cost of your increasingly expensive military. In Single Player, the AI poses virtually no threat and there's no need to keep upgrading units, and therefore the whole system falls apart with the player ending up with hundreds and hundreds of gold/turn income. Here in Multiplayer though, the whole thing works perfectly. I would need to improve my economy to get it out of the doldrums of unit support payments; fortunately, I was able to do that before my turns was even over, as you'll see shortly.

Singaboy, about the Chinese missionaries: you can move the one near Ravenna SE-SE to the cattle tile next to the city. Then on Turn 87, that missionary can move two tiles east and convert Mpinda. We should do so right away because the city is still growing and if we wait much longer that one charge might not be enough to convert the city. Similarly, the Siena missionary can hop into the water and move down the coast to convert The Jungle Book by sea. I'll cover your missionary with a galley to protect it while it's doing the converting. We'll need to use both charges to convert The Jungle Book but I think that's OK since Seoul can't be converted without multiple charges either. Cities deeper into Kongo territory will have to wait for later missionaries.

With Theology civic finishing and all of the unit upgrades done, it was time for a policy swap:



Maneuver stayed in and all of the other policies changed. Conscription returned to its usual place and I found it was worth about 12 gold/turn right now. It's saving me money on 4 legions, 6 crossbows, and 2 galleys. I put Natural Philosophy in the Economic policy slot since I judged +5 beakers/turn to be more valuable than the +1 production/turn in all cities from Urban Planning. This is also partly due to the fact that the policy will be worth another +2 beakers as soon as the Campus district at Milano finishes. The last slot went to Maritime industries for the galley chop being set up in Venezia. I actually want to drop this policy in favor of Limes as soon as possible; I should be able to do that at the next civic swap from Civil Service in a few turns.



The third trade route at Siena was ready and I sent it on to Ostia for 2 food / 2 production / 1 gold. This will also put a road on the two tiles east of Ostia, which I've wanted to have connected for ages. Only one more trade route needed now for the Medieval Faires boost, and that will be ready in a few more turns as well.



Crassus used Great Merchant charge #2 for this horses resource in the third ring of Roma. Ostia will probably end up working this tile most of the time since it has fewer good tiles available, although it needs to expand borders to one of the intervening tiles to have that option available. Roma did get some use out of the horses this turn though:



With Roma's overflow from last turn put into the Encampment district, I was able to swap over to a chariot this turn. I fiddled with the tiles until coming up with this setup: exactly 21 production/turn. With Manuever's +50% production bonus in place, Roma will be sitting at 63/65 production in two turns, the same time that my builder arrives to harvest the deer. I checked this turn and a forest chop is worth 75 production; a deer harvest should be 20% more than that for the base value, so about 90 base production, and then Manuever increases that by 50%. I should get about 145 production from this deer harvest, enough for the Encampment and probably the barracks to follow it. Then we do the same thing again for the forest chop undernearth it and get another 120 or so free production via chopping. This is a lot of fun - building districts while training military at the same time.



Theology civic also gave me another envoy. I decided that the best use was to drop it into Bandar Brunei, where I've gone from 0 envoys to 3 envoys in a pair of turns. This gave me +4 gold on each of my three Commercial districts, and after the various modifiers were applied, that put Rome right back to 44 gold/turn income again, about where I was before the whole upgrade process started. I'm looking forward to getting more Commcerial districts built at my new cities; it doesn't even matter if they're on a river since they start out at +8 gold/turn from city state bonuses.



One more example of city micromangement. I need to make sure that Venezia doesn't finish this galley next turn so that I can set up the chop into the Harbor district. I had to run this wonky tile setup where Venezia dropped two of its hill tiles and ended up at 10.5 base production, which turns into 21 modified production from Maritime Industries. That gets the city to 62/65 production, right where I want it. I'm also planning to hold off on the forest chop for a few turns here, since the Harbor district will be discounted in cost as soon as either the Campus at Milano or the Encampment at Roma finish. It's worth waiting two or three turns to pay 110 production for a district instead of 185 production.



The overview shows a bunch of cities preparing for their next forest chop. Ostia needs access to that horse tile to set up its chariot chop properly, so I'm having it work on a library in the meantime until the borders expand in a few turns. The chop itself won't be ready for a little bit as I'm waiting for the Milano builder to come over. Three different cities are growing a pop point next turn: Firenze and Siena and Ravenna. Research is going into Construction tech to boost it for China and Civil Service civic in anticipation of the boost coming back from China in a few turns.

I will need to cash-rush the battering ram in Ravenna next turn to maintain our current attack schedule. I requested 100 gold from Singaboy to cover the cost:



That should be the last money I need for a while. Rome will go back to saving gold for the time being.

Internationally, Russia finished another Lavra and Germany finished another Hansa. They now have 5 Lavras (one at each Russia city) and 5 Hansas; Germany is getting 45 empire points from districts alone, 30 points from Hansas and 15 points from five normal districts. Nubia planted city #7 this turn and recruited the Great General as I mentioned before. Nubia has the first two Great Generals and England has the first two Great Admirals - thank goodness they no longer stack now. We'd be in very serious trouble otherwise. Then there was one other unpleasant surprise from that team:



What the heck?! Where did all that money come from?! Last turn, England was making 43 gold/turn and Nubia was making 23 gold/turn. Somehow they almost tripled their income in a single turn. Seriously, WTF is going on here. I don't know anything that would have caused their income to explode like that. It's not Commercial district envoys because neither of their two teams has a Commercial district. Is this something with trade routes? But then how would Woden (who has zero Harbor or Commercial districts) see his income leap up 50 gold/turn in one go? I'm just baffled by what these teams are doing. It feels like they've found some kind of new secrets to Civ6 play that the rest of us don't know about. I'm really stumped here.