Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Sullla]

We did get a new turn today, and it brought mixed news:



I was hoping we would get one more turn before the city walls went up in The Jungle Book, but it was not to be. To be honest, it was a bit of a miracle that weren't already finished before this attack even began. Japper also made what I would consider to be a tactical mistake by shooting at my injured galley, which redlined it but failed to kill it. This is why I didn't try to attack with the galley previously, as I knew that taking more damage would open it up to dying if Japper finished walls and attacked. Anyway, that galley will go off to heal now, possibly boosted by the Great Scientist medic but more likely not. It's out of the fighting for the time being. What Japper should have done was shoot at my legion or my crossbow, both of which are higher priority targets and both of which were in range. The legion is the unit he really should have attacked even though the raw damage would be lower. That's the one unit nearby that has the potential to drop the city walls completely.

After shuffling units around, here's the deployment that I ended up with:



The most important units here are the legion that moved next to The Jungle Book and the fresh galley approaching from the west. I plan to move the embarked battering ram next to the city center tile next turn, and hopefully that will allow the legion and galley to get the battering ram bonus and remove the walls. I'm not 100% sure that the ram does its thing if it's embarked when next to a city center tile; we're about to find out one way or another. Japper actually cannot see most of these units because visibility from borders only extends one tile in each direction. Hopefully he's unaware that there's a second galley and the battering ram moving in.

I had a free attack from the northern crossbow so I shot the city center. Last turn that did 21 HP of damage; this turn with the walls in place, it did 7 damage to the walls and 1 damage to the city (heh). That chip damage is not irrelevant though, as it does weaken the strength of the city bombardment. Japper is also running the Bastions policy card for +6 city defense strength and +5 city ranged strength. It doesn't look like Kongo has any crossbows on the field yet because that would have made the city bombardment strong enough to kill my galley. (The walls are currently firing at 25 (archer) + 5 = 30 strength. That would give it about +10 strength advantage over my galley for about 45-50 damage on the attack, which matches what I saw this turn. A crossbow-enhanced city walls would have had +25 strength advantage and averaged 80 damage against my galley, which would have killed it for sure.) Japper and Cornflakes really should have pooled their gold together and rush-bought a unit of some kind in The Jungle Book. One Ngao Mbemba in there would have made this vastly harder, with +10 additional defensive strength for the city center tile and the ability to attack out against incoming units. They have no units inside though, which means that Singaboy's missionary is safe. Even if they cash-rush a unit on Japper's turn, it can't move on the same turn that it gets rush-bought.

This is honestly a pretty risky move on my part. I'm gambling that I can get the walls down in The Jungle Book next turn before Japper can reinforce the place. The other legions at Mpinda will be healed back to full strength next turn (thanks Great Scientist!) and 2 legions + 3 crossbows will start moving southeast into that grasslands region. However, I'm in a risky position here if Japper has more units about to pour out of the fog. I'm only making these moves because I've been tracking his power rating and I'm confident that I've caught him off guard. Note the Kongo unique sword off there in the far east that my galley spotted - that's where the Cultural city state is located, and where I think Japper has most of his units. He can't get them back in time over land, and if he tries to embark, my galley will kill them. Remember too that the slower I move, the more opportunity I give Japper to marshall his defenses. Hopefully my decision to push speed here will pay off.



More interface craziness from Civ6. I had a whole bunch of popup messages about unhappiness and insufficient amenities. It turns out that I picked up 1 point of war weariness last turn, but Rome still had more than enough luxuries to me OK. In fact, clicking on Siena itself showed that the city was at +1 amenities - what the heck?! It's another interface issue showing incorrect information; I was able to fix it by selecting a different tech and then reselecting Stirrups again. While Rome will likely run into amenities issues down the road, for the moment I'm doing just fine.



The trader rebased to Roma last turn started another trade route, this time running back to Ostia again. The main use of this trader was to get an additional +2 food in the capital, now that it's out of the housing penalty. I chose Ostia as the destination city because that will be the shortest duration trade route, giving me a chance to select another location in about 20 more turns. I valued the extra food and production over running a trade route to the Lisbon city state for +9 gold/turn; we aren't that desperate for money right now. Most importantly, this trade route also was the fourth one for Rome and boosted Medieval Faires to near-completion. The next boost I'll be working on is the Guilds boost, with a marketplace underway in Roma and Ostia.



Sometimes you have to spend money to make money, and that's what I did at Milano. Sort of. I bought this riverside grassland forest and built a lumbermill on it. This was the only tile in my whole empire where I wanted to build a lumbermill, the only riverside forest that was not a hill tile. I hated spending the 110 gold for this tile given that we'll be ugprading a lot of chariots into knights soon, but we also aren't very far away from researching Mass Production tech and I wanted to get the boost secured right now while I had a builder in position. Plus this is actually a good tile for Milano itself to work. I'm going to use the fifth and final charge from this builder to improve the cows that are finally popping into Milano's borders. Once it finishes the Bath district, it will be able to grow for awhile.



The standard overview picture for Turn 92. Roma is about to overflow forest chop another chariot next turn, taking me to 4 chariots total. Ostia also has a nearly-done chariot set up for chopping purposes, abd I'm hoping to get one more apiece out of Venezia and Milano after their current builds. Venezia is finishing a quadrireme next turn that will likely go to help out at The Jungle Book. Siena is nearly done its own Bath district and will probably start on its city walls next, even before Limes is ready. It's OK to build walls for a few turns before I swap in the policy. I'll also need another round of builders soonish to help these new cities with the district chopping plans. (Genova had its iron tile mined this turn, and I have four more charges to use on that builder.)

For research, I will swap off Stirrups next turn when it gets 1 turn away from completion and work on Education next. I will be finishing Stirrups soon though, timing it at the same point that I finish Divine Right. That's coming over from Singaboy on Turn 95 so I'll probably try to adopt Monarchy government on Turn 96 and finish Stirrups at the same time. The tech path will otherwise be Education into Mass Production next for Venetian Arsenal purposes. In civics research, I have queued up Civil Service next and can drop Maritime Industries (with the galleys done and the quarireme finishing) in favor of Meritocracy. I'll take Divine Right to 1 turn away from completion next and try to set up back to back civic swaps with Divine Right and Medieval Faires finishing on consecutive turns. I'll only want to be in Professional Army civic for 1 turn, enough to upgrade every chariot into a knight, then switch again.



Internationally, Woden's capture of a Religious city state 30 turns ago has finally delivered him a Great Prophet and a religion. There wasn't much left in terms of good beliefs and they ended up with these two. Zen Meditation is OK, at this stage of the game providing a few extra amenities in mature cities. I think Stewardship is pretty lousy myself, offering a tiny trickle of extra gold and science. As I said though, there wasn't much left for them to choose between. We'll see how long it takes for them to start spreading religion about. It would normally take forever given Woden's awful faith output, but he has Goddess of the Harvest pantheon and likely has a good bit of faith saved up from chopping/harvesting stuff.

Woden founding his religion was the biggest news in terms of score. He also finished Campus and is all the way up to 55 beakers/turn now. Nubia was sitting at only 37 beakers per turn 2 turns ago, so that's a shockingly fast rise in research power. He's been building several more Campus districts and picked up the 3 envoy bonus over in Geneva, that explains it. (I suspect he also adopted Natural Philosophy policy along the way too.) We're currently a few techs ahead of them but it's not much of a lead, certainly a lot less than it looked like a few turns ago. I've been really impressed at how well their team is playing. They're strong in science, culture, gold income, power (which is above ours and still going up) - everything other than faith. England/Nubia has totally eclipsed Russia/Germany at this point, and it genuinely looks like a two-team competition right now for first place. We have a real game on our hands here.

[Singaboy]

Turn 92:

Very interesting developments in Kongo. Sending down two chariots to be upgraded to knights might be a good idea after all. I might want to produce maybe an archer or two in the new city as well. Most likely production in Jungle Book will be too low to do anything useful though.

This is the situation on my part at the start of the turn. Shangdu has finished its chariot which starts its journey down southwest. Shangdu continues with the trader it started long long time ago. It will take 4 turns to complete. Shanghai and Hangzhou have their units at near completion with some overflow as discussed before.

Pagan has grown to size two and works the stone hill shaving off 6 turns of the granary production. Growth there is reduced due to the housing penalty.

I swapped out of castles as I want to complete stirrups by the time the 6th chariot is out. Better to clear those technologies to be able to upgrade units around T100-T102. I will need to find a good timing just like Rome for a 1 turn civic swap to get serfdom and professional army for as short a time as possible. I will have 6 chariots, 1 slinger and 2 archers to upgrade. As I am planning to produce another 3 archers, those will be within this cycle as well.
Sulla, you are the expert on upgrading cost, could you give me a number here at what amount of gold I am looking at for those upgrades. I will need to be prudent enough here to have the gold available for that.

I am planning to be in theocracy by that time, so that I can then proceed to faith purchase swordsmen and horsemen with it. I am hoping to purchase those at much lower faith cost (4* horseman 135 faith, 4* swordsman 153 faith). Those are then to be upgraded to muskets and cavalry. I also have to remember to buy two catapults (2* 204 faith). I am looking at a faith of around 1550! This is quite a feat considering that I also want to buy wats and missionaries and maybe some apostles.



We need more faith and gold per turn, that's clear. Looking at the power rating for Nubia (>600) and England (>500), we need to be prepared for some onslaught. There is always the possibility that they turn toward Russia and Germany, though I think DotF is quite some deterrence.

Let's have a look at the war front. Everyone knows the image from Sulla here. Let's hope the battering ram inside the lake won't negate its effect. Well, there is only one way to find out. It is a real shame that Crusade doesn't work for Rome. It would be so useful here. In fact, I am able to convert Jungle Book with a single charge here. I do not quite know what sort of genius you have to be to understand the awful religious interface. Jungle Book follows Marco Polo with 2/4 citizens converted. Firenze has 3/6 citizens converted but doesn't follow the religion. Any reason why? In the case of Jungle Book, I do not mind. I will use the missionary to sail to Seoul to convert it too. (Sulla, do you think it would be worthwhile to sail over to Bandar Brunei to convert that city instead as I would get an envoy for that?).



On to the fun part of the turn: Jebel Barkal is finally done Look at the faith generation! I in fact made a mistake to think it would add 20 faith a turn. However, it is 20+4 since the wonder itself will generate 4 faith due to Marco Polo. Faith is now at 74 per turn, that's a 50% increase in one turn! Awesome. This also means that I will just have sufficient faith to purchase the wat right next turn, when the temple is done in Quanzhou too. Both temple and wat will add 7 faith a turn + 2 science.
The wonder added tow tiles to Quanzhou's borders and it is two very useful tiles in the third ring, cows and a grass hill in the south. Both tiles can be shared between cities which is always good. I just need a builder to improve all those tiles.

With 80 faith a turn, it will take 20 turns to gather all the faith needed for the units I wish to purchase. Currently, Simultaneum would add 18 faith a turn into the equation. I should get those additional Holy Site's with their buildings up and running in Shangdu, Shanghai and Beijing. If I can get those three cities to have those districts, I could well be making 150 faith a turn.




Now for my new pet project, the Oracle completion on T94. Hangzhou gets another charge into the wonder bringing it to 134/290 as predicted. Next round of charge should get the wonder to just below 200/290. Of course, after the charge, production is swapped back to the chariot. 



In the south, my archers that is spying on German lands spots that the Hansa cluster actually consists of three cities there. Nice setup. If we could ever captured those cities, Germany would be broken.

And yes, Sulla, you are right about those monuments, cheap culture still available in all 8 cities for me. It's just that there is so much to build and so little time to do that.

[Sullla]

What an awesome turn from China! This was really the payoff for many long turns of planning dating back to before the game even started. With the completion of Jebel Barkal, we now have every critical wonder that China needs to build to be effective. The core list is Stonehenge, Pyramids, Colosseum, Mahabodi, and Jebel Barkal. Together they make China a cultural and religious powerhouse, and hopefully in this game we can leverage faith to a greater degree than anyone has yet seen in a Civ6 PBEM game. I often get this feeling with religion in Civ6 of "what exactly is the purpose of getting a lot of faith?", since it often feels like you're accumulating faith just to get missionaries to spread your religion to accumulate more faith. Well, in this game we can use faith for Wats - which yield a few beakers but more importantly produce even more faith in a positive feedback loop - and for units. Lots and lots of units. Singaboy, you might not ever need to build a land military unit again.

I would purchase the Wat next turn and the start saving faith. If we can capture The Jungle Book and get China into Theocracy government, we can potentially faith-purchase new Chinese units right there at the front line. (I'm not completely sure of this; can you faith-purchase things in an occupied city? We'll find out.) That would be extremely powerful and would open up the Kongo front for a rapid advance forward. I'm really excited about the possibilities of having so much faith and access to Theocracy government coming up shortly. Seriously, 75 faith/turn is just insane. EmperorK is second in the game with 20 faith/turn and no one else has more than 7 faith/turn. This is a HUGE advantage for us.

As far as gold upgrade costs go, the big one we're looking at is chariot to knight upgrades. That costs 90 gold apiece (with Professional Army policy); Rome is looking at probably 7 of those upgrades for about 630 gold cost. Yeah, sorry about that, heh! I know that China needs a good number of chariot to knight upgrades as well. We're probably looking at about 1000 gold cost in the near future for upgrades. We have 700 combined gold in the bank right now and are making a combined 110 gold/turn income, so that's all pretty doable. The key thing is getting those chariots out ahead of time before they get replaced by knights.

Hey, one other thought: how long can you avoid researching Machinery? Can you avoid that tech long enough to faith-purchase ARCHERS?! An archer would cost 100 faith to purchase with Theocracy, and we could crank out five or six more of them very easily for upgrading to crossbows with gold. That would be incredibly nasty for the other teams; just put a bunch of them on the German border and TheArchduke would have zero chance of breaking through. Or we could use them on the Kongo front for attacking. The possibilities are almost endless. (That's not even getting into finishing the Oracle and using faith for Great Person patronage which could also be crucial. I definitely agree that we want the Oracle in our hands as well.)

One small note I didn't put in my report: I have that one galley scouting as far east as possible right now. That's party to get more knowledge on the terrain over there, and partly to make sure there isn't an English fleet starting to head our way. England and Nubia do not have Cartography yet for embarking units on ocean tiles, so at the moment they would have to hug the coast if they wanted to try a sneak attack. I'm trying to spot an attacking in case there's the small chance one is coming our way.

The Jungle Book converting with one missionary charge is unexpected and great news. I'll suggest sending the missionary back up to Siena and then loop around to Kinchassa. That's another easy city to convert and could be useful if China attacks there down the road. On the other hand, converting Bandar Brunei (especially with the 2 for 1 policy card in place) is another great call too. Whatever you think is best.

[Singaboy]

Hmm, the question, I think, won't be whether I can delay machinery, it is how long I will spend in monarchy to make those wall chops in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Shangdu happen. I have a builder that can reach and chop the hills for Hangzhou and Shangdu on T98/T100.
If we really think, I can postpone machinery long enough, I might start a builder in Hangzhou right on T95 finishing around T100. This could be combined with the builder in Beijing. If I delay the granary in Quanzhou, I might be able to produce a third builder there with all three finishing around T100. It would still take until around T105 to finish the chops to then switch to theocracy and start to churn out archers.

If Germany decides to attack when the treaty runs out (I guess T104 is the first turn they could DoW), there might be a few dicey turns. I could upgrade those 4 chariots in the southwest and then line up machinery on T106 to mass upgrade all the archers. Should still be viable.

By the way, I forgot whether you can purchase units with faith in cities without a Holy Site or simply follow Marco Polo (I think it is the latter). If I could purchase units from T105 onward, it would be quite amazing. I will work out the math required to get all this lined up properly tonight.

[Modo]

I am planning to be in theocracy by that time, so that I can then proceed to faith purchase swordsmen and horsemen with it. I am hoping to purchase those at much lower faith cost (4* horseman 135 faith, 4* swordsman 153 faith). Those are then to be upgraded to muskets and cavalry. I also have to remember to buy two catapults (2* 204 faith). I am looking at a faith of around 1550! This is quite a feat considering that I also want to buy wats and missionaries and maybe some apostles.

Add patronage to the list but yeah, from now on it's maybe better to list the things you don't want to faith buy

[Singaboy]

Forward Planning T93 to T105:

I am going to produce three builders that should all finish around the same time and get produced with Serfdom +2 charges: Those builders will cost
102, 106 and 110 hammers.

1. Hangzhou T95-> T98 (forest wall chop will yield around 187 hammers) via CH (needs 146 hammers), ready on T99  (I hope I am correct to assume that the CH will finish on T98, but the subsequent builder only on T99)
2. Quanzhou builder T93-> T99 (6*19 = 114 hammers)
3. Beijing builder -> T97 (delayed finish on T98)
 
The builders will be used for (remember that the current Hangzhou builder will have 2 charges left):
Hangzhou builder: mine 3 hills + copper, 2 lumber mills, pasture cow
Quanzhou builder: pasture cow T99, chop forest T103 Shanghai, mine hill
Beijing builder: chop forest, chop rain forest, improve sheep, hills etc

The important wall/forest chops will be:
T98 for Hangzhou, T100 for Shangdu (both by existing builder), T103 Shanghai, T100 Beijing, T102 Kashgar (rain forest)
 
This means that I will get into monarchy on T94 and stay there until T103


Civics planning:
T93 swap to Divine Rights (Medieval Fairies at 66.7/154)
T94 Divine Rights -> monarchy -> Reformed Church (0/160)
T97 swap to Mercenaries (Reformed Church at 100/160)
T98 Mercenaries done -> serfdom enabled -> Medieval Fairies (for 2 turns at 130/154)
T100 Guilds
T101 Reformed Church (2 turns)
T103 Reformed Church done, switch to theocracy with professional army civic, purchase 3 archers for 300 faith in the west, maybe more in the east
T104 upgrade archers -> crossbows, chariots -> knights (need 6* 95 and 6*90 for upgrades at the very least. This will amount to 1110 gold, so Sulla, don't ask for too much gold from now. My expected gold in 12 turns = 1390 gold. This doesn't even include any tile purchases)
T105 switch out of professional army (using Medieval Fairies finish)
 
Technology:
T94 Stirrups -> Castles
T96 Castles -> Siege Tactics/Military Engineering
The subsequent techs will depend on Rome's provision of Eurekas

In short, it is possible to delay machinery and get the upgrades just about the time the DoF with Germany runs out. I can start upgrading chariots to knights on T103 and then archers on T104. Rome can expect Inspirations for Divine Rights on T95 and Reformed Church on T104.

[Sullla]

Thanks Singaboy, that's really helpful to know. Fortunately we have a little bit longer before the Declaration of Friendship with Germany wears off, so we can upgrade the Chinese units after we upgrade the Roman ones engaged in the current war. If we're lucky, Germany might be willing to sign up for another 30 turns of friendship, but there's no way to know that ahead of time. I'm not that worried about Germany attacking, and I don't think TheArchduke would have too much success if he tried. It's more of a case that our resources are better spent in other areas aside from a big buildup in the southwest. It might seem incredible to say this compared to where we were 20 turns ago, but Russia/Germany are practically reduced to a spoiler role in this game now. It's going to be either our team or England/Nubia competing for the win.

This turn went pretty well overall:



Japper chose to have his city walls shoot at my crossbow. See, this is why shooting at the galley last turn was a mistake. If he had attacked the crossbow last turn, I would have been forced to retreat it and I would not have been able to shoot the city center last turn. Two shots against my crossbow also would have meant a dead unit. Instead, he redlined a galley and cut the health of a crossbow by about half, leaving the legion approaching from the east untouched.

This was the moment of truth: would the embarked battering ram would properly from the water tile?



Yep! Score one for the mechanics working the same regardless of whether or not a unit is embarked. I figured that since missionaries can spread religious charges while in the water, the battering rams probably worked the same way, and fortunately they do. This allowed me to attack with the legion and take out the walls... or almost. The walls were left with 2/50 HP, and unfortunately that meant that I did need to attack with the fresh galley to take out that remaining bit of the walls. The poor galley had to attack at -10 strength disadvantage and took about 50 damage, yeouch. But the walls are down and that's simply huge, with The Jungle Book instantly falling from 35 strength to 27 defense. Hopefully this was the hardest part of attacking this city, now that more units are on their way and the city defenses are gone.

Also: Crusade belief really would have been helpful here.



This is where my units ended up after moving everything. Note that I moved the injured crossbow a tile to the southeast, directly next to The Jungle Book itself. That was a dangerous move, but remember that any unit Japper cash-rushes here won't be able to move on its first turn. And let's face it, this city doesn't have THAT much natural production - it finished city walls last turn and will need at least a couple more turns to finish a sword or archer or whatever. This movement allowed a fresh crossbow to move into position to fire next turn, and for a second legion to move next to the city next turn. So next turn on Turn 94 I'll fire one crossbow into the city center and on Turn 95 I can attack with two legions and three crossbows. I think that should be enough to capture the place, or barring that, we'll get it on Turn 96.

A little bit to the east, my healed units are shuffling eastward towards the road to Japper's capital. I'm actually using the Great Scientist out in front to scout for incoming Kongo units - those things are immortal after all. If it would die, he'll just get sent back to my closest city. I was already able to see that the tile 2 east of the Scientist had no unit present and there's likely no Kongo units here at all. Two legions and two crossbows are moving forward onto the plains; I plan to finish Stirrups and upgrade the chariots to knights on Turn 96, then use them to lead the advance through the jungles.

Note the two Ngao Mbembas up by Kinchassa. They can move through jungle tiles like they were grassland tiles, so they'll be down here sooner rather than later. The promoted one has Tortoise promotion and gets a disgusting +20 strength against ranged attacks. Crossbows are basically useless. Of course, that means it's pretty vulnerable to legions with Battlecry promotion or to knights, and that will have to be how we go after them.



My galley found the city state where Japper was attacking: Nan Madol. He's broken off the attack now to come back and defend his remaining core cities. Chevalier Mal Fet's England is the suzerain of Nan Madol (with the minumum 3 envoys) and this is part of the secret of how his culture is so high. Nan Madol is giving him +2 culture on every coastal district, which of course means all of his cheap Royal Navy Dockyards. That's a huge, HUGE break of good fortune for their team, #1 that Nan Madol was in the game at all and #2 that the incompetent Kongo/Khmer team never bothered to capture it to stop England from suzeraining it. If England also has Kumasi lurking around somewhere on their continent... well, that would be pretty disgusting if true. The one gigantic weakness of the England/Nubia setup is a lack of anything that generates culture, and they seem to have lucked into at least one (and maybe two) powerful Cultural city states that basically solved that problem for them. Kudos to them for taking advantage of an opportunity, but if they had rolled Toronto and Kabul instead, they would be miles behind us right now instead of running neck and neck with our team.

Singaboy, our top strategic objective is now to capture or raze Nan Madol. This would be a devastating blow to England's economy and quite literally could swing the game. Obviously we have to deal with Kongo/Khmer first, but if we can gain control of this jungle region we will hopefully be in position to go after Nan Madol.



Back at home, Roma annoying finished its chariot between turns instead of coming up just short on production. I figured out why this happened: when the amenities were reshuffled around during my turn, the interface never updated properly at Roma and I ended up with the unit finishing by accident. Argh! Just before ending your turn, always select another tech and the reselect what you actually want to research, which will update the interface properly. Then cycle through your cities again to double-check that everything looks correct. It's ridiculous that Civ6's interface makes us jump through these hoops but there you go.

This particular unit finishing is OK though. I'll simply try again by building another chariot to near-completion and then do the same forest chop in 2 turns. Mostly it just means that this poor builder wastes 2 turns sitting in place doing nothing.



With Civil Service finishing, I was able to change policies. I dropped Maritime Industries for Meritocracy and the sweet culture boost, jumping from 39.7 up to 50.2 culture/turn. I thought I would be first in culture after this, but no, Chevalier Mal Fet also apparently swapped into Meritocracy on the same turn and went up to 52 culture/turn. A lot of his culture is coming from Nan Madol though, so if we can raze that city state he'll fall back to earth. I'm now starting research on Divine Right to pop into Monarchy government when Singaboy delivers the boost on Turn 95 (Turn 96 for me since Rome plays before China).



I have four chariots on the map right now and I should finish another chariot in each of Roma, Ostia, Milano, and Venezia over the next three turns. That means 8 potential chariot upgrades into knights for a very pricey 720 gold even at the discounted rate. I think it's worth it though - we need military units to fight Kongo and deal with a potential attack from England/Nubia. (I really wish we hadn't bought that watermill for 300 gold a little while back, that gold would have been nice for some of these unit upgrades.) At least China does have a beastly income, and Rome's income will go up too once I can slot in the Diplomatic policy that grants gold for envoys. China can use that one too when we both reach Monarchy government, and that will help a good bit. We do have the highest combined income in the game right now at about 110 gold/turn.

Do you want to see how strong England/Nubia is right now?



That strong. Their power keeps going up every turn even as their science and culture output keep increasing too. I don't really know how they're doing it aside from lots of helpful city state bonuses. Woden and Chevalier both have 3 envoys with Geneva, Chevalier has control of Nan Madol, and they have another pet city state back in their core. Their military power is very high, higher than Rome's and continuing to go up. I'm terrified that they are setting up for a Cartography attack over the sea against one of us, and I don't know how I would stop that if they were planning it. I check the science screen every turn to see if they're researched a Renaissance tech yet (not so far). If I were them, I would have attacked and crushed Kongo a long time ago.

Well, at least we have an exciting game for the lurkers to read! I kind of wish that they weren't in this game since we're crushing the other teams... but they probably feel that way about us, heh. It really is down to two teams already even though we haven't reached Turn 100 yet. I don't see how Russia/Germany would ever have a realistic chance of catching up at this point. At least we have crazy faith generation in our back pocket, and maybe that will be the differnce.

[Singaboy]

Excellent news on the battering ram. I was worried about the effect. Now that the walls are down, Jungle book should be captured on T95. Next turn, you can attack with one legion, one crossbow and the galley.
If you attack with the legion (around 50 damage), then crossbow + galley (around 60 together). Maybe it is better not to use the galley to avoid a potential counter attack). However, on T95, you would face a city with less than 150/200 health. Surely, three crossbow attacks as well as two legions will get the city captured. If not, you can always use the galley for an additional attack.
I think time will be of essence to take out Kongo and enjoy the fruits of the hard labor earlier.

By the way, I will get Divine Rights on T94 and that means you are getting the Inspiration on T95. I will switch governments after the last charge on T94, hence, this turn I will research Divine Rights to completion on T94.

As for Nubia/England. I am glad we have a great foe here. Who wants to play a game with no competition?

There are two issues here.
1st:
If England gets caravels soon, we better have some good defense in place. This means that you will need caravels yourself for defense of Mpinda and Ravenna with walls to boot, of course. Monarchy with Limes might help to get walls up in Mpinda faster. Also, get some galleys out to be upgraded to caravels. English harbors might be insane but they don't provide hammers. Might want to prioritize research toward cartography without finishing it before having sufficient galleys. What is your ETA for the Arsenal?

2nd:
Nan Madol. What a lucky break for England really. Totally OP. Let's hope I get contact in whatever way and a lucky break for the quest. I am up for an envoy soon. I could attempt to steal that city state from them though I think we need to go the hard way and raze the city. Did Kongo attempt to take the city without a ram? Wish he had been successful. Maybe we can get Nan Madol converted to our faith and my knights can then support an attack...

[Singaboy]

Turn 93:

I get greeted by some messages, what shall I say? Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good. I have met Nan Madol and the quest given is to get the Inspiration for Divine Rights. Under normal circumstances that would be an awful quest. For religious China it is a good one, but to be given the quest on the turn I actually get the Inspiration? Never knew that this is possible. Well, 2 culture for free, I don't say no to that.

It is a real pity that I get a free envoy next turn for reaching 100 influence. If I could change government one turn earlier, this would have extended to 150 for 2 envoys. Well, you can't have it all. We have to take Nan Madol from under England's protection by force.

As the grey religious UI is highlighted (awful color scheme by the way), let me mention the religious actions this turn. I used my last charge to convert Pagan for another 2gpt which was eaten up by temple maintenance. The second missionary is going to land near Jungle Book to make its way to Kinchassa. To attempt converting the city states wouldn't succeed with one charge anyway.



I charge the Oracle and get the chariot overflow as predicted to get to 197/290 hammers for the wonder. The next charge in addition to normal production should get it to around 280/290 next turn. I can then change government and finish the Oracle via normal production. I do hope that overflow gained without wonder charging will be added to the builder production there.

I took an image of the wat purchase but seemingly forgot to save it. Anyway, I bough that building to increase science just a notch. I am slowly inching up my way to better science and culture. Faith is now close to 82 a turn, excellent.

Next turn, I could enable meritocracy with the wild card for an additional 5 culture (not that much but better than nothing). I will keep Urban Planning and used three military slots for Limes, Professional Army and Maritime Industries. I could enable a wildcard for Great People Points. Unfortunately, the card for Great Merchant Points is not available yet. I am not too sure whether a Great General chase would be wanted, what do you think, Sulla?

Quanzhou started its builder and Shanghai is putting the overflow into the Holy Site. Next turn, it will start with a quadrireme. Tianjin will delay the galley by a turn to increase overflow. It badly needs the trader in 4 turns to get it going. With Limes and monarchy in place, Pagan and Tianjin should start their own walls as well. 9 turns monarchy is all I have to enjoy +150% bonus for the walls and I hope to get both city's walls close to completion. Quanzhou could produce its walls as well once the builder is done.

Checking tile expansions show the most irritating of selections. Quanzhou expanding to the forest in the north still makes perfect sense, but Shangdu choosing the river plains and Kashgar the plains W of the salt are bad choices. Tianjin isn't showing the hill SW of stone as well. I surely hope the selections will change in due time.

[Modo]

As for Nubia/England. I am glad we have a great foe here. Who wants to play a game with no competition?

Sullla...and for good reason. As a chess player I can perfectly understand wanting to get every edge and make your victory as dominant and effortless as possible. That is also exciting in itself...even if just for a minority of us :D. But if the point of the game was excitement I'm sure other more suitable settings would have been found, as it is the point is to win and if you can do that in the most secure and boring fashion all the better
Lots of things learned this turn as well on how to deal with some of the silliness in this game, I particularly like how you can both resurrect and teleport the GS so that you can workaround the movement rules that were put in game by the same devs; I am both confused and amused.