Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Sullla]

Hmmm, there's a lot to digest in that turn report Singaboy. Thanks as always for putting together such detailed reporting, I echo GoldenredDragon on that note. Running through some individual issues:

* Science for China is coming along pretty well right now. We don't need China to have as much science as Rome, just enough to keep up and occasionally supply some of the eureka boosts that make more sense for China than for Rome. We're basically splitting the four main currencies in this game in half: Rome is supplying science and culture, while China supplies gold and faith. All of them are important, and the fact that we've been able to work together on these four different currencies has been a major factor in our success. We're still about 3 techs ahead (each) of the other teams in both science and culture, while equal to Russia/Germany in income and with the largest army in the game... plus China is still doing its crazy thing with faith generation. I'm convinced that we'll be able to retake the lead in beaker/turn output once we capture Seoul and some of the Kongo cities. (Similarly, if we can raze Nan Madol down the road from the sea with frigates and caravels, we'll destroy England's cultural output and set their team back enormously. Nan Madol provides culture for both districts along the coast and CITIES along the coast; I estimate Chevalier is getting close to half his total cultural output from that city state.)

* Good to see that there's niter connected at Shangdu. I'm about half a dozen turns away from connecting my niter resource, so I may need to borrow yours for musket upgrades and then send you my own niter shortly thereafter for China's musket/bombard upgrades. We'll see how the timing works out here, just giving you fair warning ahead of time.

* One note on policy swaps: if I can successfully land the boost for Naval Tradition, I'll research it to completion and can pass it over to China. That would give you the chance for another double policy swap down the line. It probably won't arrive for about 6 turns but just an FYI for your planning that it should give you an opportunity down the road in a little bit. Also an important note: Rome is not going to be researching Metal Casting at all for a long time (too many other important techs to get), so Singaboy you will need to upgrade two archers into crossbows the next time that you're in Professional Army policy to give yourself that boost. That should be pretty easy since we only need to spend the gold, China already has plenty of archers.

* Those suggested unit movements for Seoul look excellent to me. I forgot that there was another chariot on its way over that can turn into a knight. I can get that crossbow out of the way for your units and the suggested crouching tiger, knight, and 2 muskets should be PLENTY to take the city. I can embark the battering ram once it's done and move it next to the city covered by a caravel, with the caravel doing the actual capturing once the walls are down. I think I'll also send an unpromoted crossbow for ranged support just in case. That gives us plenty of units to get the job done. Six more turns to build the battering ram and then three turns to move it next to the city state. Let's plan on roughly Turn 117 or Turn 118 to take Seoul.

Also, I do feel a bit bad about China doing most of the work and Rome taking the city. But I think we want Rome to have it for Venetian Arsenal shipbuilding down the road and because we need Rome to keep pushing science via the Campus district there.

* OK, the most interesting part of the turn: Woden's unit movements. Yes, I should have written that those were horsemen, I don't know why I was typing knights yesterday. That said, horses and knights have the same 4 movement points and I think that I'm correct that Woden could have crossed the river with his forwardmost knight if he'd wanted to do so. Crossing a river costs 3 movement points onto flatground, 4 movement points onto a hill or a forest, with the one note that a unit at full movement points can always move wherever they want. (Otherwise 2 move units would never be able to cross a river.) So I think Woden's westernmost horseman could go West-West and cross the river onto the tile next to the horse pasture if he wanted to. Instead he mostly held in place, and that gives us one more turn on our countdown clock.

We definitely need to work together on the unit movements for coordination around Max Havellar. I agree with your suggested "blue arrow" units movements and was thinking the same thing. Things could change depending on what Woden does, but I'll certainly move that way for the upcoming turn (Turn 109) and see what he does on his turn. I might have one of my three southern knights stay in the area and attack Max Havellar via the spices tile southeast of the city, but for the upcoming turn, I agree with your thinking. Your outlined "red arrow" movements look like excellent choices for taking Max Havellar quickly. I don't think we have to be too worried about Woden attacking us at Max Havellar unless he has a lot more units heading this way. We have seven knights, and that's a ton of force at this stage of the game. We could easily defeat his horses and that crossbow. (I'll have to mouseover the crossbow on my turn and see if it has more unit support bonuses from hidden units in the fog behind it. But those four units alone are 140 of Woden's 750 power rating, so unless his entire army is swinging down here we're probably OK.)

* The other big question is whether we can declare war on Turn 111 or Turn 112. This is critically important enough that I'm going to load up a Single Player game today and find out the definitive answer. I need to know on Turn 110 (not this upcoming turn but the following one) because if we can attack on Turn 111, then I need to move up to the border on Turn 110. In fact, I'll start shifting a bit forward this turn just in case. This will also have the handy effect of clearing out some room for Singaboy's units to move towards Seoul, heh. I'm looking forward to having access to Nationalism and corps in not too much more time. Things are starting to get congested in the map right now.

One final note: I'm probably better at the economic side of Civilization gameplay than Singaboy. But he's better at the tactical side of combat than I am; under the name ThERat at CivFanatics, Singaboy played and won more Always War games of Civ3 and Civ4 than anyone else. We're starting to enter the part of the gameplay where his specialty is going to shine, and it's going to be a lot a fun. Stay tuned.

[mackoti]

One final note: I'm probably better at the economic side of Civilization gameplay than Singaboy. But he's better at the tactical side of combat than I am; under the name ThERat at CivFanatics, Singaboy played and won more Always War games of Civ3 and Civ4 than anyone else. We're starting to enter the part of the gameplay where his specialty is going to shine, and it's going to be a lot a fun. Stay tuned.

Whattttttt? Singaboy is Therat? Man is genius.WHy you dint join to some civ4 MP game, I am sure you woud have done very well.

[Singaboy]

Thanks for the accolades, but just overlooking that horsemen have 4 movement too, disqualifies me on the tactical front a little....well well

I had another idea about Woden's movement. Could it be that he is in fact trying to support the capture of the Khmer city in the fog? Three horsemen and 1 crossbow wouldn't be an adequate force to attempt to take a city from Kongo. To surround the Khmer capital with units the way we surround Max Havelaar makes a lot more sense though.

I loaded the save again and he has a GG in tow with those 4 units...the screenshot is telling us something

[Sullla]

This was another quiet turn. The quiet before the storm, perhaps.



I moved my knights forward as Singaboy and I discussed, except that I left the injured one back to heal. This one can move northeast next to the iron tile right before we attack, and then hit the city center tile of Max Havellar from the spices resource. Since I already have four knights over there to the east, moving another knight in that direct would only clog up the space; there aren't enough tiles to move and attack over. With Japper apparently abandoning this city and leaving it defenseless, the real question is what Woden is planning with those units. He at least two more units in the fog off to the east and a Great General, which could actually cause trouble for us if they all rushed to Max Havellar. I also suspect that Woden's goal is a flanking move against the Khmer capital, based on the way he moved last turn. I think he wants to go northeast from here, not west. We'll have a better idea of his intentions by the time Singaboy plays, after another Woden turn.



I'm shuffling units around slightly and trying to get them into position for the upcoming attack. Japper having that Ngao Mbemba on the road towards Heart of Darkness is pretty annoying; I was hoping I could move the battering ram straight east next to the capital on the first turn of the war and immediately take out the city walls with a knight. Instead, I may have to focus my units on killing that Ngao Mbemba to clear the road. We'll see if Japper fortifies in place or keeps moving. By the way, Japper continues to receive gold gifts from TheArchduke. He has zero income right now but his gold was up at 100 again, and I suspect that was after purchasing something; power tracking suggests he may have purchased a crossbow. TheArchduke's treasury is down about 300 gold this turn, and EmperorK also went down about 300 gold, although Russia is amusingly still not in direct contact with Khmer or Kongo. I'm not sure if funneling a losing team several hundred gold is the best use of it, but it might make our task harder.

Khmer's power is up slightly this turn, probably from units healing. Woden's power is also slightly up. Chevalier Mal Fet's power is flat, but his culture dropped by a huge amount and he spent his whole treasury, which almost certainly means that he popped out of Meritocracy this turn (and into Professional Army) to upgrade some units. Expect to see his culture return to its normal rate shortly as he swaps policies back. I'm wondering what he upgraded; the most dangerous thing would be a mass upgrade of galleys into caravels to seize control of the seas. Then again, it doesn't look like he upgraded any caravels yet:



My galley returning home to be upgraded into a caravel spotted these English units moving towards Nan Madol. Perhaps Chevalier Mal Fet is turning archers into crossbows and chariots into knights? He can't have upgraded to a caravel yet because they have 50 strength and his cities would therefore go to a base defensive strength of 40 afterwards. At least, I'm pretty sure that's how it works. I think ships are counted the same as land units for defensive purposes. Regardless, we'll watch his power for next turn and see if it goes up significantly. I'm pretty sure he was upgrading something this turn.



I finally managed to get the grassland hill tile southwest of the cows mined this turn. Firenze is currently sitting at 183/920 production into Venetian Arsenal, making 27 production/turn into the wonder. The builder is now going to move to chop the forest on the spices tile (T113), the tundra forest next to the iron (T116), and finally the plains forest next to the niter resource (T121). They will produce roughly 450 production when combined together, and the intervening 12 turns of natural production at 27 production/turn = 324 production. 324 + 450 + 183 = 957 production, enough to have a little overflow if I lose the 5% amenities bonus here or something goes wrong. In fact, I should be able to complete the Venetian Arsenal mid-turn on Turn 121 with that last forest chop. We're looking at a dozen turns to completion right now, and I should be able to time it such that I finish 5 quadriremes -> 10 quadriremes the next turn (Venezia, Siena, Genova, Ravenna, Savoia).

Then we upgrade them all to frigates and go raze Nan Madol with 12 frigates and 6 caravels total.



Overview for the turn. Roma will finish the Armory next turn and boost Gunpowder tech to completion, passing the boost over to Singaboy. I still plan to work on a Campus district project next (6 turns) to sneak out a Great Scientist unless I see some kind of action from TheArchduke to make me give it up. Right now, we still have only 3 players in the Renaissance era and we need 5 players in the Renaissance to trigger the counter upwards to the next era on the Great Scientist. I think we'll hit 5 players in the Renaissance before 6 turns are up, which is why I'm pushing for this Great Scientist. Milano and Ostia are funneling their overflow production into settlers this turn, then will swap over to other builds next turn and come back when I can switch into Colonization policy. Those settlers will take 8 more turns to finish once I'm in Colonization, and that's not too bad for a settler at this stage of the game. I'm going to run Colonization for a little bit and get settlers out of these two cities and Roma for three total. This game should last long enough for them to be worth founding. That will then be it for Rome as far as self-founded cities go in this game. I have 9 cities now, and these would get me to 12 cities; adding Seoul and Heart of Darkness would take me to 14 cities. That would be really nice to have, well above most of the other players who are around 8 or 9 cities.

Internationally, the biggest news is that TheArchduke finally reached Civil Service and swapped into Meritocracy policy. This has solved his one glaring weakness the whole game, and Germany now has the most culture in the whole game at 69/turn. Yeah, Germany is pretty scary here with the most beakers and the most culture right now. And it's a bit frustrating that our team's status has gone from "leading team" to "tied with Russia/Germany" over the last two dozen turns. Still, I like our position in the larger strategic picture. Russia and Germany are maxing out their current cities, but they look to be pretty much out of room to expand, with 8 cities for Germany and 10 cities for Russia. We look to be in good shape to get more territory for both Rome and China moving forward. Aside from taking cities away from Kongo/Khmer, we also have a plan to undercut Germany's economy by capturing Seoul. I think we can pull that off in the next 8-10 turns, and that's a place where TheArchduke has 6 full envoys invested for his Campus districts. Meanwhile, I can probably go from 0 envoys in Geneva right now up to the full 6 envoys in about the same 10 turns span:

1st envoy: Invest the current one in hand using 2 for 1 policy
2nd envoy: See above
3rd envoy: Picked up from Naval Tradition civic
4th envoy: Fulfill quest for Square Rigging (kill a unit with musketman)
5th envoy: Natural envoy generation, due in about 10 turns
6th envoy: Natural envoy generation

TheArchduke currently has zero envoys invested in Geneva. If we pull this off right, Rome will get a shiny new city with Campus and library intact, while Germany drops from 6 envoys to 0 envoys at the same time that Rome hops up to 6 envoys with another Scientific city state. That would be an unpleasant surprise for him, to say the least. If we can pull that off, capture some cities from Kongo, and raze Nan Madol, we'll be sitting pretty. That's a lot of "if"s there, but like I said, I still like our chances. I wouldn't swap our position with any of the other teams right now if I had the chance.

I'm going to stop typing for a bit, but I'll look at the war declaration mechanic in a Single Player game next and report back what I find. Good luck Singaboy.

[Sullla]

OK, in retrospect I wish that I'd tested this before I played my turn. Just not enough time, unfortunately. Singaboy was right and I was wrong: we *CAN* declare war on Turn 111:



Here's the test from my Single Player game. I attacked Cyrus on Turn 175, then after ten turns of nothing happening, signed peace on Turn 185. So what turn can I attack him again?



The answer was indeed Turn 195, exactly ten turns later. That countdown on the diplomatic trade window has the correct number. Oddly, this does not work in the same way as the Declaration of Friendship, which lasts for 30 turns and can't be broken until the 31st turn. So Singaboy, if you haven't played your turn yet, make sure to move your units under the assumption that we're attacking on Turn 111, *NOT* Turn 112. Hope you got this message in time to line up your knights.

[Modo]

Did not see this explicitly stated in your turn report but the fact England is moving land units toward (presumably) Nan Madol means he's not fearing an attack over water.
If they had designs for VA themselves I'd assume they would use a naval force to protect it so either they're not building it now or it's so far away from completion that the current force is just to keep the city safe until then.
A lot of unknowns still.

[Singaboy]

Turn 109:

A rather quiet turn for me but one with good news for us. Nubia indeed is trying to attack Khmer from all sides. This means we should be able to take Max Havelaar on T111. I am moving my knights into position, but not just yet. Next turn, I will move right up to the borders to be able to strike the city on T111. This turn I am trying to stay out of sight for a bit. The screenshot below is taken at the beginning of the turn. I moved my knights onto the niter (south) and NE in the north.
Technology and civic research stay on course this turn before switching to gunpowder next turn. As stated before, I am aiming for a policy swap in 3-4 turns to time that with Serfdom. It would be great to get out of that and Professional army two turns later.



My own core had nothing much happening, the settler is moving towards the site for the next city and will settle on T114. The builders are moving. Next turn, I will connect salt and send to you Sulla. This means an additional amenity for Rome. After that, said builder will move to Pagan to chop the rain forest (it should ne party of the city by then). The builder at Shanghai is going to connect incense next turn, then turn south to chop either a rain forest or forest. Kashgar is adding a tile to its borders next turn and I am hoping that this will be the hill between Kashgar and Tianjin. Tianjin is adding a tile in 2 turns and it should then add that forest SE of the incense. That would be perfect for a chop of a campus there. Alternatively, I could go for a Holy Site at Tianjin to increase faith output. What do you think, Sullla? Add a Holy Site at Tianjin and Beijing each?

Hangzhou is finishing the library and will produce a builder as well hopefully taking not much longer than the other cities. A trader is departing Pagan next, while Kashgar is producing yet another trader.



I am actually really looking forward to some war action soon. So far, I have not done any fighting except to fight off those barbarians in the beginning. My units march south towards Seoul lined up perfectly. I drafted a first catapult and am planning to add a second catapult in the west to deter Germany there. A stationary bombard there might be good to stay within a city etc. The catapult at Pisa will stay where it is.

The science and culture situation are getting more bleak as the others add beakers and culture pretty fast. Good thing, that we are now #1 in terms of military, That doesn't even take into consideration my upgrades to archers/slingers and more chariots + upcoming musket upgrades. I am really looking forward to Rome's navy with the Arsenal boost. Let's hope Sulla can net that crucial wonder.

We need to coordinate the movement around Seoul soon as it is not that long to go. As I said, I can upgrade those units in maybe 3/4 rounds and then line them up. Once the swordsmen are upgraded, niter can be sent to Rome. We need to get clear about the timing here too. Let me know the exact turn times and I will try and accommodate my policy changes.

[Sullla]

Singaboy, I would suggest adding Campuses over Holy Site districts at this point if you have a choice. I think China probably doesn't need too much more faith than the current amount; while more is always better to have, I think we'll need beakers more than we need additional faith going forward. The additional salt resource should also be a help, since we'll probably have some war weariness to deal with going forward. Now for the turn:



Unfortunately, the first piece of bad news comes at the start of the turn: Japper has finished city walls inside Max Havellar. Now that's not going to stop us from taking the city, since we can still attack with knights at 48 strength against a city that only has 33 defense, and once we get the walls down the city will fall very quickly. The city walls reduce melee damage by a staggering 85%, which will cut the damage from about 55 per attack down to about 8 damage, ouch! But the walls only have 50 HP and they'll go down quickly, followed by the city falling as well. It's still annoying though because it will delay our knights being able to swoop in and attack Heart of Darkness, the real prize in this war. Hopefully we can take the city in a turn or two and won't be held up long.



Everything moved up to the border this turn since we can attack next turn. Will Japper declare on me to start the war himself? He should if he's paying attention and get in the first strike, which we can't avoid since he plays before either of us in turn order. I'm most concerned about my knight in the northeast, which could potentially be attacked by three Ngao Mbembas and shot by two crossbows. That unit is fortified (+6 strength) on a forest tile (+3 strength) with two units supporting it (+4 strength) for a grand total of 61 strength value, but it could very well die if Japper focuses his attention on it. I'm actually OK if he focuses his attention up there, however; my top goal is to clear the Ngao Mbemba on the tile northeast of the bananas. If I can get rid of that unit, the battering ram can move two tiles east on the road next to Heart of Darkness, followed by the knight on the road getting next to the city and attacking it. Walls down instantly and then we don't have to worry about taking fire while advancing forward. I would be willing to lose a unit to push on and quickly take Japper's capital.

Kinchassa though... that's going to be ugly. Lots of rough terrain and lots of crossbows. There's a fourth crossbow inside Heart of Darkness based on the city's defensive strength and power tracking. This is only possible because Germany has been gifting so much gold to Kongo for unit purchases and upgrades. Japper never could have produced those crossbows on his own, and he's losing money right now in terms of income. I can't help but get the feeling that Russia/Germany are just teching and building up behind a series of Declarations of Friendship while the rest of us fight it out like peons. That might end up being a winning strategy. I hope not, but it might be. I'm going to look at the numbers for this game in more detail tonight and tomorrow and see if I can type up some more big picture metagaming thoughts about Germany/Russia.



England has planted a new city here at Jutland. Based on that city having a defensive strength of 26, it means that England still doesn't have a unit stronger than those swords at 36 strength. This may be another place we we could attack them later on from the sea if we get into a war. There's another city in the fog to the east of Jutland that we can just barely see the border of, probably a canal city for England into the next ocean over. Woden definitely looks like he's getting ready for a big push on the remaining Khmer cities, both this one in the north and the capital further south.



This was the biggest economic action of the turn, chopping this forest at Genova for a Campus district. I ended up getting just enough production to complete the Campus district at the end of turn. This takes me up to 7 total Campuses, the same number that I believe TheArchduke has. I need to get a quadrireme prepped in Genova next for Venetian Arsenal purposes, and then I can go back and work on the library. I also do have a Commercial district placed here which will also be chopped to completion down the road.



Overview for Turn 110. With their overflow put into settlers last turn, Milano and Ostia have returned to working on Campus district buildings while waiting for Colonization policy to arrive. I'm hoping to swap policies in about 3 turns or so, ideally lined up with the Naval Tradition boost. My galley/quadrireme squadron spotted a barbarbain quadrireme in the northern tundra this turn and can start attacking it next turn. Other cities are mostly continuing on their current builds. Off screen, Savoia has started a battering ram due in 5 turns. It will then take 3 turns to move next to Seoul to attack, so plan on attacking the city state in 8 total turns Singaboy, or on Turn 118. You know, it might be a good idea to purchase the second catapult in Pisa as well. Catapults tend to be useless units in combat in Civ6 because they can't move and shoot on the same turn and do little damage against other units, but they would actually be really useful here. You could put catapults NE-NW and NE-E outside the city state's culture, and then fire on the city center on the first turn of the war for huge damage. Since we need two catapults anyway, might as well use them, right?

My capital has started a Campus district project in the hopes of landing a Great Scientist. Here's the current standings in that race:



TheArchduke is going to get the next Great Scientist. He will claim it in 5 turns and there's nothing I can do to stop it. However, if the era does not advance on the Great Person counter, then I will claim the following Great Scientist in 6 turns when the district project completes... sniping it away from Woden at the last second. There's a pretty decent chance of this happening to be honest. TheArchduke is unlikely to use gold patronage or run a district project because he's going to win the race. Woden will probably figure that he'll snap up the next one after Germany, although I could see him trying to make a run for it too. It's actually easy to get thrown off here, since the projects are very expensive and the Great Scientist points are accumulating fast. You have to start well ahead of time to line things up correctly. So there's no guarantees here, but it's really important to land the boost for The Enlightenment civic, and I'm going to take a stab at it. Hopefully we won't have a 5th player advance to the Renaissance in the next 6 turns. (If someone does, then I'll abandon the project and stop wasting resources.)

Perfect scenario: TheArchduke claims the not-so-great Emilie du Chatelet in 5 turns and then we claim the awesome Isaac Newton in 6 turns. I can dream, right?

That's all for now; I might have more to say later today. Good luck Singaboy.

[Singaboy]

Turn110

Wow, those city walls are annoying. The only thing ew can do is for Rome to amass flanking bonuses with one knight attacking at 48+8 and another with 48+4 strength. That should knock down 20/50 city wall health. If I can then deal a damage of additional 16, we have the city wall down on T112. I guess we will take the city on T113 on Rome's turn.

My core at the beginning of this turn doesn't show much change. Hangzhou has finished a library to give science some boost. As gunpowder has gotten its Eureka, I can swap to finish that tech and then head to upgrade two archers to crossbows to get the Eureka for metal casting, then upgrade those catapults and net siege tactics. With gunpowder finishing next turn, the district discount should kick in next turn (unless I calculated something wrongly, which is entirely possible).
The very annoying thing is that Kashgar added a useless tile in the SW instead of that hill tile. Nevertheless, the plan is to lock a few districts with the discount:
Theatre at Hangzhou, industrial zone at Shangdu and encampment at Kashgar. They should all go for 253*0.6 = 151 hammers. Shangdu will be making 26 hammers next turn with another lumber mill. It seem to be my production powerhouse and might want to go for a factory later on, which could benefit both Quanzhou and Hangzhou.
(In fact, if the industrial zone would be put on the tile planned for a theatre to the east of Petra, a factory could add 3 hammers to 5 cities. This would mean that I have to purchase the tile next turn though. Is that a good idea?)



I connect both salt and incense with incense getting some cities back to being ecstatic. This does make some difference, especially for faith. Every little bit counts. I make the following gift. On that note, it would be great to get truffles one fine day to add to my happiness. Maybe Rome will connect a second source eventually

I also start a third trade route with Rome being the overall best target city. I can always use more gold for all the upgrades and the unit support that will be increasing pretty soon. I am happy to see our power rating continue to rise with a combined 1700 now.

There is big news in the east with Nubia beating the crap out of Khmer. I assume that next turn, at least one city will fall. Khmer and Kongo won't be part of this game much longer. I am hoping that Nubia/England and Rome/China can get an agreement to go after Russia/Germany or hurt them in some way or other. If we hit at each other, Germany/Russia might just run away with the game.

Let's hope that Japper will move his units east to help Khmer rather than attacking us.

As for our own movements, I went ahead and purchased the second catapult. Six units are moving toward Seoul now. I need to cram them into Savoia territory to be able to upgrade them all in a few turns. Ideally, that should happen on T114 together with the builder completion in three cities.

Good luck to you, Sulla on the war. As you can only hit Max Havelaar with 2 knights next turn, I hope those two will hit with maximum flanking and luck to maybe achieve more than 20 city wall damage.

[Sullla]

Singaboy, I think that we'll be able to get the city walls down pretty quickly in Max Havellar and probably take it on Turn 112. We'll be able to attack with four combined knights on Turn 111, and then five knights on Turn 112, with the chance to rotate out damaged units if necessary. Even with the walls absorbing a lot of damage, that will add up pretty quickly, and the city is toast as soon as the walls are down. Let's hope that there aren't any more unpleasant surprises waiting in store for us there. (I will make sure to attack with the maximum flanking bonus as you suggested.)

With regards to the Industrial district at Shangdu, I would not spend gold to purchase the tile east of Petra. While that is definitely a great spot, I think we need to save our gold for unit upgrades unless absolutely necessary going forward. I'm purchasing two tiles in the upcoming turns (in Land Surveyors to discount the cost) only because I absolutely need both of them, one being my only niter source in the third ring of Ravenna and the other being a forest that needs to be chopped for Venetian Arsenal purposes. Elsewhere, I've been putting down districts in non-optimal spots because it's more important to save money for unit upgrades. We have a ton of them upcoming on the horizon: legions/swords into muskets, galleys into caravels, and catapults into bombards. Then horses into cavs not too far away over the horizon either. I would suggest putting down an Industrial district for Shangdu southwest of the niter where it won't cost anything to add. That will add +1 gold for an adjacency bonus to the Commercial district, and the spot is next to two mines for +2 production via adjacency. While a factory there only reaches three cities instead of five cities, factories come late enough that I don't think they will matter too much. And you can always add a factory somewhere around Beijing to reach the western cities separately.

Nubia almost but not quite capturing Preah Vihear is a pretty good result for us. If the city had fallen, the Khmer unit inside the city would have died and Cornflakes would have lost vision over the territory in his borders. Since Woden came just short of taking the city, Cornflakes had a chance to hit back with his units and cause more damage. Hopefully this was a costly trade for the players on both sides of the conflict. Khmer had 620 power at the time of my turn against 827 power for Nubia, so Cornflakes should be able to make this pretty ugly for the attacker.

Now since I have time this morning before the next turn arrives, let's take a few minutes to discuss the bigger picture situation of the game.



I expanded out my data summaries to break out the numbers by individual players instead of just by teams. This is a really useful summary for getting a quick look at the game - with the notable caveat that my numbers are likely off for some of the other teams - and I'm going to play around a bit with Excel to produce some graphs of historical information over time. I haven't done a lot of graphing work in Excel and it will be good practice for me. But as to the PBEM7 game, the continued story here is the rise of Russia/Germany, and really just the rise of Germany. By way of comparison, Germany was making 28 beakers/turn and 21 culture/turn on Turn 90, against 61 beakers/turn and 38 culture/turn from Rome. It's been a dramatic turnaround from TheArchduke as his Hansa-boosted cities churned out infrastructure like no one's business. This is the first Civ6 MP game where Germany hasn't gotten involved in early warring, and the results are impressive.

Right now, Germany looks like a terrifying juggernaut of a civ, and there's some truth to that impression. Science rate is almost 50% higher than second place Rome, Germany has the highest cultural output and the highest income at present, plus complete control over every Great Engineer for the rest of the game. However, I don't think it's as bad as it looks here, and I'm not saying that only to create more suspense in this game, or to delude myself into thinking our position is better than it is. (Maybe I'm wrong on this - I am a bit biased! ) As best I can see though, Germany looks to be getting pretty close to maxed out on its current configuration, while our team (and the England/Nubia team) have more room to grow. The short story is that Germany has created the quintessential version of the "Tall" civ, and TheArchduke is getting close to peaking with what he has right now. But he doesn't seem to have room to grow outwards due to a lack of land, and he's running out of room to keep expanding vertically upwards.

Let's look at this in more detail. The first key stat is the city count: Germany has 8 cities, and has been on 8 cities since Turn 88. TheArchduke has not moved to settle some of the land that theoretically has been available over by China, and he isn't going to capture territory from another team right now. It looks like he's going to remain on 8 cities for the time being (watch me be proven wrong on this soon, heh). Germany's average city is almost size 6 if I've got the population tracking correct. TheArchduke has built an absolute ton of districts, but he'll need to get more cities and more territory eventually if he wants to remain competitive. With the map mostly full at this point, I don't see an easy opportunity for him to do that.

Germany's most impressive stat is that science rate at 114 beakers/turn. I won't lie, this is pretty scary to see in practice. Still, this is mostly a function of the fact that TheArchduke is getting the 6 envoy bonus from a Scientific city state and no one else has the same bonus right now. Rome finished its seventh Campus district at end of turn; give me that new Campus district finishing and give me the 6 envoy bonus instead of the 3 envoy bonus, and my civ would be right around 100 beakers/turn. (This isn't as far fetched as it seems, since I'll be able to get 3 envoys into Geneva in as little as 3 turns from now if I can land the Naval Tradition boost with my quadriremes). Another good sign is the fact that TheArchduke only has 5 Campus districts completed. I actually thought he had 7 of them done until I went and looked at his city list this turn. Nope, he only has 5 of them done. However, Germany is getting 12 base Great Scientist points/turn right now, which means that he likely has libraries completed in all 5 of those Campus districts plus 2 universities finished. (He could also be running the +2 Great Scientist points/turn policy card, but that's a really weak option and I think the libraries/universities are more likely.) That means that TheArchduke has a really impressive science rate at the moment... but it also means that he can't grow that science rate very much further. He can add a few more universities and then he's stuck until reaching public schools much further down the tech tree. He will need to either build more Campuses at his remaining cities or settle/capture more territory for himself.

This is where we have the chance to make up ground on TheArchduke. The single biggest thing we can do is capture Seoul for Rome, which will drastically reduce Germany's science from losing the 6 envoy bonus. He would immediately lose anywhere from 20-25 beakers off his research rate if we can pull off that move. Of course, Rome will also lose the 3 envoy bonus, but I can compensate over at Geneva, which I don't think Germany can do. TheArchduke is just now hitting a lull on the civics tree where there are no envoys available for a long time. Seriously, take a look sometime at the civics tree. There are a bunch of envoys at Military Training, Mercenaries, and Theology. Then nothing until another big group of them at Colonialism, Opera and Ballet, and Scorched Earth. We've been in that desert for a long time while TheArchduke is just hitting the start of it now. We cut him off at Seoul and take it for Rome, which will reduce Germany's science by 20-25 beakers while increasing Rome's science by about 8-10 beakers. That alone is enough to make up the deficit, not even counting the potential to land the 6 envoy bonus in Geneva on top of the 3 envoy bonus. We also have a major advantage in the fact that Rome/China are going to reach The Enlightenment civic for Rationalism policy well before Germany. TheArchduke's culture is quite good now, but it's been weak for most of the game, and he's a long way behind in civics research. We should get there a good 15 turns before he does. Add in universities completing in Roman cities and hopefully a capture of Heart of Darkness (with its own completed Campus/library pair), and this situation could look a lot different in a dozen turns. We have to hope that it does.

Germany's other big advantage is in gold/turn income. TheArchduke has led in this for almost the whole game, and he's clearly been cash-rushing some infrastructure with his moneybags to increase his economic performance. And yet, once again this isn't as big of an advantage as it seems. Germany has a really impressive income largely because Germany is not supporting a big army. That's the whole secret there. It's not that TheArchduke has figured out something miraculous here, he just has a lot of Commercial districts for his Hansas, envoys in I think two Commercial city states to boost them, and then a modest-sized military that doesn't cost a lot of money. If he had a military the size of Rome's, he would be down at a more reasonable total in terms of income. Plus Singaboy is only making 10 gold/turn less than Germany right now after adding his latest trade route. We have more than double the power of Russia/Germany and we're almost matching them in income - that's pretty darn impressive.

The lack of a competitive military is the biggest weakess of Russia/Germany right now. Yes, their Declarations of Friendship have let them push economy for the whole game, and it's serving them well at the moment. But the tradeoff is that they can't influence anything that's taking place on the map. Germany can't stop us from attacking and capturing Seoul if we want to do so. Germany can't do anything about the two other teams absorbing the territory of Kongo/Khmer because none of us are worried about being attacked by Germany, or especially by Russia with its pathetic 200 military rating. They can sit on their continent and go "Tall" all that they want, but they aren't expanding and they can't do anything to stop the teams that are expanding. It's a passive way to play the game and I'm not sure that it will be successful in the long run. A lot depends on how things shake out in the Kongo/Khmer territory.

Singaboy, I agree that Russia/Germany coming on very strong changes the dynamics of this game a bit. Rather than setting up to fight a war with England/Nubia, we might want to look to cooperate with them going forward. At the very least, I'm much more open to offering them a Declaration of Friendship than I was 10 turns ago. Our biggest fear was that they would sweep through the Khmer and Kongo territories and claim the whole continent for themselves. Instead, it looks more likely as though we're going to get a relatively even split between our teams, and I think we're OK with that. We definitely don't want to keep fighting each other for territorial spoils while Russia/Germany tech away endlessly. Let's see how things go at Max Havellar and Heart of Darkness over these next few turns. If we can take both of them, I think we offer England/Nubia a Declaration of Friendship and some resource trades. Don't forget that we can sign a Declaration of Friendship with England and still attack Nan Madol; the DoF doesn't do anything to stop that. (I tested it in Single Player, and yes, you can attack a city state even if you have a Declaration of Friendship with its suzerain civ.)

Whew, OK, that was a lot of text. Looking forward to seeing what this turn brings, and in particular crossing my fingers over the fate of that knight at the tip of my formation. Here's hoping that he's still alive.