[Spoilers] Pindicator already misses slavery, and other out-of-context quotes

[pindicator]

Turns 134 & 135

A pair of quiet turns. And I think I've potentially made a minor mistake or two.

Firstly, I read up that Formal War does not count for the trigger for Nationalism. Which makes that civic eureka very difficult to reach. I was hoping for the 2-eras ahead bonus on CFCJester, but he is not yet that far back. Can I get to Modern era before he gets to Industrial? Steel is probably the tech that will get me there. More importantly, will that happen before I just need to hard-research Nationalism anyway? It's likely nobody will be able to reach it, but I will try to delay it all the same.




I really do like placing Commercial Hubs places where Ruhr would be great to have...

And I re-routed the builder here to chop and mine for Transylvania instead of Lost Dakota. Since I'm a little crunched on time for Workshops it made sense to me. I'm counting 2 turns to finish the IZ and then 6 turns for the workshop, which is just about as fast as if I would have hard-researched through the bonus. I'll need to divert for Banking of Metal Casting for a few turns, but it shouldn't be too bad of a delay.




Here's Vandalia, with my builder in shot having just made a camp on the truffles. Camps are pretty nice improvements at this stage, giving 1 each to food, cogs, and gold. I also decided to try and squeeze in some quads before square rigging - with the jungle chop it comes out just about even, and it will be cheaper than trying to build them later. Plus I might want to grab exploration at some point to get +100% maritime production to caravels and frigates.




So when Colonialism came in on t135 I swapped policies from Conscription to +100% maritime production for ancient and classical naval units. Then I realized I wasn't likely to finish another civic for 9 or more turns, and the -19gpt from ducking out of Conscription might be tolerable for 4 turns, but sure wouldn't be tolerable for more. I added another quad to be produced at Acadia, wanting to get more than 1 out, and then realized I hadn't considered how this was going to mess with my limited builder charges that i have available. I'm going to use the last charge of the builder that just chopped jungle and mined at Transylvania, but I may have to buy the tile to mine with.

Also, I don't really want to be in Limes any longer than I need to either, so anything that delays chopping overflow for all hese walls I have in production is probably not worth it. Especially since I'm not really going to be seeing production benefit for this in the near-term. Just saving hammers down the line when I upgrade these guys to frigates. Yeah, this was probably a mistake, but the policies have been set. I'm probably going to have to research Naval Tradition to get myself out of it.

On the plus side, the envoy from naval tradition will come in handy. I spent the 2 envoys that Colonialism brought as well as the 1 i had saved and now Alhambram is no longer suzerain of Kumasi. We'll see just what this does to his culture next turn. Unless he's got an envoy saved up, but he's already fighting with Krill over Zanzibar in the east. I'm hoping he doesn't have the resources to fight both of us in envoy battles.

[pindicator]

Turn 136

Short update here: Kumasi is still tied between Alhambram and myself, and it did what I hoped. Alhambram's culture output dropped by 16.5 from the previous turn. But Alhambram has also switched into Theocracy. I wonder what his plan for it is: faith-buy horsemen and then upgrade them to cavalry? Crossbows to field cannons? Actually, this is probably just for the 15% discount combined with Jesuit Education.

I decided to just bite the bullet and tech Naval Tradition straight away. It will cost me 2 turns, but it does grant me an envoy. I can combine that envoy with the 2 I'll get from Natural History and bring one of the commercial city-states up to 6 for more gold. And it gets me back into Conscription for about 20gpt. I'm really looking for a reason to swap out of Limes too, but then I look at just how many hammers that is going to get me and I decide that I can wait a little longer. 3 cities are sitting with their walls a turn away from completion, so the issue is I don't have enough builders. Enough of an issue to spend 440g on a builder? Maybe...

I realized today that I have an opportunity to sneak in Oracle. When Yazoo has it's forest chopped that will be 220 hammers plus the 25 I drop on the turn of the chop. That will put Oracle as a 3 turn build. I know China has been building Oracle, which is why I didn't start it earlier... but maybe it's worth putting a few turns into the wonder so that if the chop does come in then I can build it. Production is counted at beginning of turn, right? That would mean I can't make it 100% safe to build, just decrease my window to 1 turn.

It's also possible that I just put those hammers into development: 2 bombards will cost me 240 cogs and 250g. Is that worth 330 beakers? I'm not entirely sure... I think I would rather have Oracle than 330 beakers, even now. Another difficulty is I may not have a good hill to put it on unless I either pay gold to buy one or cover up one of my existing mines. I'm not a fan of either choice.

[pindicator]

Looks like no save tonight with the ongoing PYDT upload issues, so let's talk about another of my failures to plan:  factory coverage.  (Image spoilered for size.)

Red, Blue, and Yellow are the locations of all 3 of my current industrial zones, with the range of any factories marked by the dotted line.  I think it's quite amazing how Absaroka manages to be 1 tile away from most of the cities.  Actually, these are all a mess, and I might end up building factories in all 3.  Each of them hit cities not hit by any other industrial zone, and all of them have holes in their coverage.  Notably, Yellow (Yazoo) and Blue (Transylvania) both miss Absaroka by one tile.  Red (Acadia) does reach Absaroka and also Forgottonia but doesn't reach the northern cities of Nataqua and Potomac.  Considering Absaroka is one of my weaker hammer cities this seems like a pretty big case of my lack of earlier planning coming back to bite me.

Green has not been set yet, but considering the coverage it gets seems like an excellent choice for when the capital reaches size 10.  It will reach the capital, Forgottonia, Vandalia, Texlahoma, Vellatta (when I capture it), and the future city that I want to plant on the coast south of Texlahoma.

Another option for a future IZ is at Absaroka itself:  if Absaroka puts an Industrial Zone just southeast of the Iron, this would be a +4 adjacency and would also open up a location for Ruhr that Yazoo could build across the river from it.  However, I would need to grow to size 10 first and then chop out a walls here.  Honestly, I don't see this happening soon.  However, if I did this then I could pass up the Factory at Yazoo because the factory at Absaroka would give coverage to the entire southwest.  Combining that with Blue and Green would give me complete coverage except for my northern 2 cities.

Of note:  if I ever capture Al-Majrit (formerly Glorious Terra), it's Industrial Zone would provide coverage for both McDonalds and Chippewa in my far north.

[pindicator]

For sake of argument....

* Faith-buy a granary at Absaroka on t137 for 105 faith. Now we're sitting at 8/10 housing and get an extra food
* Fire citizens from holy site and campus and put them to work in the fields. We'll be making .... +13 food, with +1 amenities that becomes 14.3
* 89.5 food required to grow to size 9. Can't see how much we have in the bank (thanks Firaxis) but it look like it's about 1/3 full. So say it's 4 turns to grow, size 9 on t141
* Size 9 to 10 has half food penalty unless I get really nuts and build a worker in Yazoo to make 2 farms. But we're crazy in this scenario so say we do that. Builder takes 3 turns to complete out of Yazoo, because we're going to put it out as the first overflow build, 2 turns to move, and then can put down 2 farms for the extra housing and more food.
* Size 9 to 10 costs 102 food. T142 is at 50% penalty, so +6.5, assume no overflow putting total at 6.5/102. T143 the first farm goes down, which will add +1 food to 2 adjacent farms and +2 to its own tile, then we're looking at 15/102. T144, move the builder, 23.5/102. And then finally t145 farm again, increasing housing cap to 11 and removing the food penalty. Food is now +19, and we grow in 4 more turns, hitting size 10 on t149.

How do we build the IZ? Easy, wall chop. Start the walls on t137. Absaroka makes 10 base hammers per turn, 10.5 after amenities boost. On t149 we are at 210/225. Actually, we can steal the marble for a few of those turns so we really end up really close to the 225 cost of the walls. Once we get within a turn we stop the wall and wait for the builder to get there.

Another cost: buying the tile. Currently 225g for 3rd ring. Don't see it getting any cheaper.

So in total:
- 105 faith
- 225 g
- 110 h for builder that only gets 3 chargers
- chopped marble

All this so Absaroka can get a +3 Industrial Zone and factory coverage, and Yazoo can build Ruhr.



Speaking of Ruhr... Absaroka will then need to slow-build it's own workshop (175h @ 14hpt ... so 13 turns) and it's own factory (390h @16hpt ... so 25 turns). And then we're looking at starting Ruhr .... 50 turns from now? That doesn't seem worth it. Seems like I should just put the factory at Yazoo and write off Ruhr to bad planning at this point.

[pindicator]

Turn 137

Krill landed a great admiral.  This is something to be mindful of, but I have a lot of harbors coming online as soon as the chops come in, so I will hopefully be in contention for the next.  I worked out the chop logistics a bit more, and I'm going to grab Maneuver next turn when I swap out of Maritime's +100% production for boats.  That will speed up the over-burdened chopping requirements of my builders, but even then I'm looking at not being able to finish all the needed chops until near t150.

I spent a lot of time trying to decide on what to do with the overflow at Yazoo.  with another civic finishing next turn we're looking at 113 hammers on a forest chop, which will give me 222 overflow hammers.  I came up with lots of options:

1) Settler - sending him either south of Texlahoma or west of Transylvania.  Decided against this because I can still get a +50% settler card in the future, and neither site is so good that I really want to grab it.  They're both solid but unspectacular.

2) Oracle - China appears to be very close to finishing their own Oracle, but this would be a 3-turn build with only 1 turn of it being at risk of losing the chop to nothing.  Downside is I have to spend 150g to buy a tile as I have to start it now.

3) Catapults - I am probably 10-12 turns away from needing the eureka for these.  Another reason to build catapulst and upgrade them would be if I had decided that Valleta's time was over and I just wanted to conquer it.  Actually, we're getting closer to this than you may think.  I have peace deals with all my neighbors... perhaps it is time to bring the army down.  There's a bit about needing enough amenities to cover the population and I don't think I have that until I get zoos or national parks up.

4) Infrastructure - market + bank would be nice for my awful gold income.  I'm going to build these soon and I like my production enough that I don't think I need that here.

5) Sitting on the chop until I reach size 7 and then using it for a new district.  Maybe, it would be nice to get another campus up and running.  But we hit 50% housing penalty after growing to 6 next turn, so I'm not confident.

And the winner was...

We're in the lead.  We can afford a risk or two.  And the 2 GP types that this would give me are the two that I want the most right now: engineers and merchants.

[pindicator]

Turn 138

The planning is starting to come together. At least, for the first time I've gathered just how long I'm actually going to be in Limes, how long it will take to get my next civics, and how to stay efficient with inspirations and eurekas because this is all still something of an endurance race and not yet a sprint.

First bit: Krill




He reached Enlightenment this last turn and swapped to Rationalism. He does now have a university in his capital campus, and is building a second one at Equus Ferrous, but his science has only bumped up to 103.3 so I'm still maintaining a healthy lead with my own 126.1. However, I'm feeling like I do want to start planning for another campus. Actually, I like Yazoo for one. Well, either a campus or a holy site; I'm like 70% sure on campus, 30% on holy site. I also will have my university at McDonald coming to a completion in 10 turns, which will add another dozen science. On top of that there's half of my empire which is size 3 or less and growing, so potentially a lot of science to be had there.


Next up: Naval Tradition finished, and my quadriremes were 1 turn away so it was time to chop




I had done a decent job of getting within a few hammers of completion on both cities, so we had about 100 overflow in each. Forgottonia will finish it's Theatre Square at end of turn. Acadia will finish it's Workshop, and then have enough left over to 3-turn it's harbor. Unfortunately I haven't done as good a job at Lost Dakota - it appears that I've set it up in such a way that I have no way of getting that city near it's cap simply because there's no way to pick up a citizen and have it do nothing in civ 6 - something I just expected to be able to do after years of 4.

With the quads done I did a policy change, moving out of +100% ancient/classical era Maritime units, and on to Logistics. I wanted Conscription badly, but I need to have the extra movement in order to have the builders get to all the spots they have to chop in time. The southern builder especially as I've made a real mess of where he needs to go thanks to adding in those quad chops.

There were some non-boat chops this turn as well:




At the last minute I decided not to harvest the deer. The difference between harvesting the deer and not was about 50 hammers, but I think I'll make that up and then some by camping the deer up until I'm ready to turn that into a park. And yes, I lose a little bit of tourism in the long run by using a new-growth forest instead of an oldgrowth, but I think that's better than a city that doesn't grow because it doesn't have any tiles above 1 food yield.

The overflow here went into a harbor, which will finish at end of turn: more trade routes coming up as more harbors come up, and a commercial hub at Nataqua ... which reminds me, who is going to build the traders?

And speaking of traders, as I had a trader at Forgottonia finish up I decided to reroute it to McDonald. That city should be able to reach Kumasi and if I can get suzerain status there then we may have to rethink whether we use our traders domestically or to make a lot of gold internationally.


Tech went to Square Rigging now that the boats are done. We're going to Industrialization as quickly as possible, but the limiting factor is that 3rd workshop for the eureka. I don't see any way to speed that up.

Civic went to Civil Engineering. The civic side of things is a bit more detailed, but the short version is that I can't finish Civil Engineering until I'm done chopping walls, and I need to build the Archaeological Museum at the capital to get the inspiration for Natural History. It's 12 turns away. This means we'll dance between a few civics and put them at close to done, and then finish Natural History on t150 then get Civil Engineering on t151, and finally build that fleet of builders that I really desperately need throughout my empire after. I'll use the 150 & 151 back-to-back civics to fit in a Professional Army upgrade. That means if I'm going to get 2 bombards or 2 galleys for the respective inspiration/eureka they have to be built by t150.

[pindicator]

Turn 139

Internationally a bit this turn: CFCJester got a great general, Alhambram picked up the great scientist. Krill built his 2nd university in 2 turns and his science is again coming up to mine. Good on him for being able to catch up, but I don't feel like I'm in a bad spot at all.

And then CFCJester built a wonder:




Hey, i wasn't sure if the production was saved in Vanilla or if that was just a R&F mechanic. Glad to find out I got stuff saved here.

CFCJester may have saved me from myself here... I was trying to plan out the next 10-12 turns because the amount of inspirations and eurekas combined with chops and policy changes and things I need to build in order to get certain eurekas/inspirations ... well, it's a little daunting right now. I could make a huge wall-of-text post about all the things I need to do and the timings I discovered, but instead we'll just bring the conclusions to the report and it can all look like it came naturally and easy for me

In any case, I say CFC may have saved me from myself because I didn't need to get Oracle and as I was planning things out I found that I was running into a bit of a production bottleneck for all the things. On top of that my list of units to build over the next 10 turns is pretty extensive: military engineer, traders for all my upcoming harbors and commercial hubs, 2 catapults to upgrade to bombards, and maybe even needing to make a builder before Civil Engineering finishes, sad as that would be. So now I chopped the forest into walls for overflow anyway, and I put the overflow into a trader. We did finish a harbor at Popham at the end of last turn, and even better: this trader will allow me to chop all my chops by turn 148.

Also, with how Alliance sight mechanics work, does CFCJester get vision on my units since he is allied with Krill? And does that then mean that Alhambram also gets sight on my units since he is allied with CFCJester? (If so, that's stupid, so I hope it's not.)




First off, I was able to send a trader from McDonald to Kumasi which gives me suzerain bonus, as I go up 7 envoys to 6 over Alhambram.


So as for chops, here is the northern chop plan:




Nothing special up here except that we may need to buy the tile that I want to chop at Potomac. Also, I didn't realize builders could repair pillaged roads for some reason (though it makes complete sense now that I stop and think about it) so this will allow us to fix the broken road and then chop everything by t148.


And the southern one:




This one I have been trying to make work all week, and it wasn't until this turn came up when I realized how I could get from Vandalia to Lost Dakota in time: a trader. Yazoo, instead of building an Oracle, is going to put its hammers into a trader for this turn. Next turn the trader goes to Vandalia. And at the end of turns 141 to 144 the trader will make roads west from the city (probably going to Forgottonia), which means the builder can not only move west 3 tiles on t145, it can then also move across the river without penalty because we'll have a bridge set from the roads the turns before.

Why is this such a big deal? Well, I can't really complete Civil Engineering until after we are done chopping because Limes gets expired. I also want to have only 1 turn spent in Professional Army which means that I need to have Natural Engineering and Civil Engineering finish on consecutive turns. And the sooner I can get Civil Engineering the sooner I can flood out all those damn builders that I really really really so badly need. I really need them. Really.

So we will finish Civil Engineering beginning of turn 149. This means we want Natural History beginning of turn 148. And right now I'm a little short. But I think I know how I'll get there: another trader, of course.

[BRickAstley]

Also, with how Alliance sight mechanics work, does CFCJester get vision on my units since he is allied with Krill?  And does that then mean that Alhambram also gets sight on my units since he is allied with CFCJester?  (If so, that's stupid, so I hope it's not.)

Do you get sight on CFCJester's units since you are allied with Krill?

[pindicator]

Also, with how Alliance sight mechanics work, does CFCJester get vision on my units since he is allied with Krill?  And does that then mean that Alhambram also gets sight on my units since he is allied with CFCJester?  (If so, that's stupid, so I hope it's not.)

Do you get sight on CFCJester's units since you are allied with Krill?

A painfully brilliant response

[BRickAstley]

Also, with how Alliance sight mechanics work, does CFCJester get vision on my units since he is allied with Krill?  And does that then mean that Alhambram also gets sight on my units since he is allied with CFCJester?  (If so, that's stupid, so I hope it's not.)

Do you get sight on CFCJester's units since you are allied with Krill?

A painfully brilliant response

I couldn't resist.