It's Chevalier's Thread and He Can Do What He Wants To

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I might have to run an actual test game to try out various methods of building. Obviously, the sooner the Ancestral Hall is up, the better. The Audience Chamber isn't as urgent to build and can wait until you actually need the housing.

the main issue with low pop is the limited district slots. I feel like as Arabia on a naval map I've got 3 districts I need a lot of, and waiting until size 7 will be a long way into the game. Rome has the simpler game plan, but I'm not sure I'd have as much fun with such a well-worn civ.

[Ichabod]

If fun is involved, there's no discussion needed, just go with whatever you prefer. Personally, though, through the many MP games that I've played here, I started realizing that I have more fun when I'm a contender to win the game, so I started favouring powerful picks. I know the feeling of wanting to try the different stuff, the unconventional pick, that you get when a game is about to begin, but that one tends to fade pretty quickly for me.

Either way, Arabia is not a bad pick. I think they are very, very suited for a Square Rigging beeline and powerful science. You can open up Madrassas and Square Rigging without even needing Commercial Hubs and IZs, so you can play the district discount game with some advantage (you can even skip Camps, but that would mean no jungle chopping). I think it's certainly competitive.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Rowain's choices:

Ouch, kind of a rough draw here. Nothing that really stands out, but I'm kind of intrigued by Mapuche. 

Brazil




Not a bad choice. Great People are effectively 20% cheaper after your first of each type, and the Minais Gerais is a pretty solid unit. Like I said, Woden's main issue was he didn't have enough of 'em. Rowain should know by now to build a swarm of quads and then frigates using the boost cards, and only then unlock Nationalism and then he's got a badass battleship that no one else can match. 

Brief historical rant:

I'm going to interject here to complain for a moment about the Minas Gerais being Civ 6's idea of a unique Brazilian uber-unit.

Look, my hobby is naval history (I'm a history/English teacher by trade). I've got most of Friedman's battleship books on my shelf. And, frankly, the idea of the MG is ridiculous. A late-industrial unit capable of smashing even modern battleships, for cheap production costs to let you cram out a bunch? Maybe makes sense for game balance, but historically this is nonsense. 

Basically in the late 19th century the South American powers were doing the same thing the European powers had always done - jockeying amongst each other for influence, fighting wars over territory (the Pacific War) or all-out wars of annihilation (the Champas War wiped out most of Paraguay's male population to a degree I've never seen equalled, not even in WWII Germany or USSR). Part of this jockeying, of course, was battleships - any modern country had to have modern battleships!

Brazil was building their own homegrown BBs, but then the English, Americans, and Italians started coming out with Dreadnought-class designs and made any pre-Dreadnought ship totally obsolete. Most people know Dreadnought, but in case you're unfamiliar, in brief: She had an all big-gun armament, instead of a mixed big and medium-armament (this made fire control much easier and enabled greatly increased engagement range over pre-Dreads), and she had turbine engines instead of reciprocating, which enabled her to run at higher speeds at a longer time. In short, Dreadnought could hold any pre-dreadnought outside her range and pound her to death without the other poor bastard getting a chance to reply. 

So here are the Brazilians with a bunch of obsolete ships coming down the slipways. So, they do the logical thing: they scrap their native designs and buy a pair of dreadnoughts from Britain. Did the British sell their shiniest, best ships? Of course not! Dreadnought was launched in 1906, the Minais Gerais was launched in 1910 - but in those 4 years the British had already built the first superdreadnought. 

Thus, the MGs were already slightly out of date when they were commissioned. Their 12 12-inch guns were relatively weak (most navies were moving to 14 inch or even 16 inch guns), the quadruple triple-turrets were unwieldy and difficult to use, the fire control was out of date, and the boilers were not up to modern stands. Ultimately the Brazilian government wisely decided to cancel the 3rd member of the class (she was sold to the Ottoman Empire in 1913 instead, but at the outbreak of WWI the British seized her and renamed her the Agincourt, which helped drive the Ottomans into the Central Powers' arms). The two completed ships, Minais Gerais and Sao Paolo, were delivered and operated in the Brazilian navy for decades. They were involved in the famous Revolt of the Lash mutiny, and both ships helped put down a handful of uprisings, but otherwise they never fired a shot in anger, even during WWII (when Brazil was an Allied power) - the venerable ships were simply too vulnerable to face a modern navy, while (by way of contrast) British, Italian, American, and Japanese ships laid down at approximately the same time all served with distinction in the war. 

Long story short: The MG class was a cheap export battleship the Brazilians bought to bully their neighbors, they were out of date from the moment their hulls touched water, they never accomplished anything of note, and were finally all scrapped. Makes no sense as a Brazilian uber UU.

Anyway, back to Civ - Rowain's main game will have to cultural, focused on unlocking those MGs as early as possible, then leveraging that into conquest. Definitely a civ to keep an eye on but not an early game threat. 


America




Sure, America works out great when you're pindicator and your starting continent is half the entire map, but most of the time the civ is just mediocre. You get a poor man's Plato's Republic, the continental combat bonus, and two uniques that come waaaay too late to ever matter - I think this happens in EVERY Civ game my home country features in. Note that I've only played IV, V, and VI. 

Plus, Rowain's already played as the USA. I bet he skips these guys so I'm not gonna waste any more time with them.

Mapuche




Mapuche would be an interesting and not unviable choice, I think. Yes, they have no bonuses to naval games in particular. However, their UI is improved by high appeal - and in island games, you have lots of high Appeal tiles around! So you can have a real cultural powerhouse here. 

The Malon Raider isn't so good on an island map, but that's a minor issue - most UUs aren't. 

Both Swift Hawk and Toqui could be really interesting at sea. First, we noted in PBEM8 how common golden ages were among other players. The Mapuche get the equivalent of DotF against enemy golden age units all the time. +10 boosted frigates! Now he can try and back them with a GA and yeah. It's curtains for whatever navy he attacks. Pair this with Swift Hawk - decisive naval battles are usually titanic, with well north of 5 units destroyed on each side. If he forces the battle within the borders of someone else's city, even if his opponent wins the battle he could still lose the city. 

There might also be a minor play available with privateers and subs - get a small squadron to swoop down on an undefended coast and start driving opponents' cities into rebellion.

basically, I think most of the Mapuche's bonuses work on a naval map, except the Malon Raider, which can function as a good home defense unit anyway. 

Russia




Always a good civ, and maybe a solid fallback even on a naval map. The tile grab is awesome, and even though it might take a lot of coast, I can also see the argument that it'll go for valuable inland tiles over low-yield coast tiles a lot of the time. A nice bonus. 

Tundra bonus probably isn't great, but maybe lets you settle some marginal iceballs? Rowain would probably definitely want the Ancestral Hall with Russia. 

Lavras are fantastic districts. Basically guaranteed first religion, lots of early GPP for early culture, you can use 'em as a loss leader for district discounts...Powerful even on a sea map. 

Cossacks are scary but thankfully the island setup should keep them from exploiting their abilities too much. Overall a solid if not spectacular choice. 

Cree




Bonus trader is nice, and I think the Mekwekap is a solid improvement, but it's hampered by its dependence on bonus resources, which get chopped. The tile claim is going to be a useless novelty most times - on a naval map especially, enjoy grabbing those coast tiles, eh? - and I've been over before why I think the Scout UU is perhaps the dumbest UU in the game. And the alliance thing is a really, really minor bonus at best.

Not sure why Rowain would take the Cree, he has much better options available. 

Spain




Spain COULD work, but he's really dependent on 2 things:
1)Landing a religion
2)the map

Spain needs foreign continents, so if each island is its own continent, Spain could be a great choice. Your missions get buffed to +4 faith +2 science tiles (rising to +4 science later in the tech tree, don't recall when), and your treasure fleets give your trade routes a bit of a buff. 

If we take Arabia and Japper takes Indonesia, Spain will also be a strong counter. Rowain gets a +4 bonus against players following other religions (which can be stacked with Wars of Religion), which applies to naval units as well. And he, of course, will want a religion of his own in order to juice up his Conquistadors, which I think can be a really dominant unit if you have enough missionaries.

If neither of those things happen, well, he can fall back on early Fleets/Armadas and try to play like a naval Zulu. 

Picture this, though: An Indonesian jihadi army of Jongs + Missionaries squaring off against the Spanish Armada leading a swarm of conquistadors with THEIR missionaries. It'd be awesome. 

I think Mapuche is Rowain's best choice (but I have no idea how well they'd work in practice), then Brazil, then Spain. He probably takes the safe choice in Brazil.

[Ichabod]

Wouldn't spanish fleets/armadas be overpowered, when considering the fleet-forming bug (they aren't avaiable when they should be on the tech tree)? Or am I missing something?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Oh, hell, that hasn't been fixed yet? I forgot about that.

I guess it depends on if the bug affects Spain or not. If Spain can't form fleets when they should, then they become pretty lame. If they CAN, and everyone else has to wait for Mobilization...then they become really strong. Gotta test that, too.

[suboptimal]

Supposedly the original bug happened only in vanilla games after R&F's release but the bug didn't affect R&F games. According to the thread at CFC this bug was fixed for vanilla games in the spring patch.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/n...sm.630068/

[aetryn]

I'll be interested to see if it's quite so easy for everyone to grab Classical golden ages in this one. The Archduke kind of hinted that it wasn't that easy last game and only happened because he was able to conquer another civ. I'd expect England to because their district is doable before the Classical Age starts, but is anyone else likely to get a unique built before the era rolls?

If Arabia is the pick, is there anything to be said for your Dark->Heroic Age gambit again? Arabia seems like the obvious target for Monasticism (double science in all cities with a HS - i.e. everywhere) but the cost is culture (25% less in all cities). On the other hand, with Monasticism and Free Inquiry it would be very easy to get a Heroic Age in the Medieval era where you could take the Golden Age Free Inquiry and suddenly all your Harbors are also producing science and you still have a Dedication slot to spare. If you've somehow got a double promoted Reyna to double your best Harbor adjacency bonus it would be even more ridiculous.

Speaking of Free Inquiry, doesn't that make England and even more obvious choice for a naval map? You get cheap RNDs, which can probably earn era score in the Ancient era if you push for them, and then you take Free Inquiry and suddenly all your RNDs double as Campuses. It seems absolutely bonkers and we'd have to hope England has poor adjacency sites for Harbors, because this is a strategy that's going to fall into England's lap - not going to require some special skill to build your unique district and then take the dedication that obviously makes it better.

Free Inquiry actually makes me a bit nervous about depending on a tech lead. It's fairly likely everyone's science totals on this map could be higher than expected (just like Pen, Brush and Voice contributed to the culture-storm that was PBEM8). As long as you exploit it roughly comparable to everyone else I still think there's a good strategy in being the first to open frigates and battleships, just something to be aware of.

[aetryn]

Two points in the Hall vs. Chamber debate.

1. Housing usefulness is directly related to the number of good tiles in a city, i.e. hills. My experience is that most cities don't have enough tiles to make growing very high profitable. You end up working poor tiles pretty soon and, in this case, growing the city is not meaningful.

2. You need to take into account snow-ball effects, not only absolute production saved (i.e. Roman monuments are not only 60 free hammers, is 60 hammers + whatever culture you get in the time-frame it would take to build a monument on that city (that can pobably go as high as 50 turns) + the benefits of finishing earlier whatever you use those free 60 hammers on). The advantage of having a builder as soon as you settle a city is pretty massive, especially in a game where chops are so powerful. You also save time on the builder moving to the new city, which can take a very long time.

I can see a game where you build the Hall before your third city (second settler). No offense intended, but Japper's problems in PBEM8 are not related to that. He doesn't grasp some basic mechanics of the game, I remember him Magnus-chopping into non boosted items, for instance. I think the increase in settler cost (+ the builder with charges instead of permanent workers) really diminishes the snowball of settling cities (housing, lack of whiping, a lot of things lessen this snowball).

I'm not sure it's the way to go, but I wouldn't really disregard it.

That's interesting. Maybe I'm still stuck in Civ 5 tall mode where you can easily build 30-40 pop tradition capitals and they are SO much more powerful than any city I've ever built in Civ 6. I thought tile yields were generally weaker in Civ 5 - why do you think a megacity in Civ 6 has more waste working poor tiles than Civ 5? Slower tile acquisition? Weaker and fewer specialists? No GP tile improvements?

I do tend to play on maps with a lot of resources, so maybe that's skewing my evaluation of housing.

[Ichabod]

Snip

That's interesting. Maybe I'm still stuck in Civ 5 tall mode where you can easily build 30-40 pop tradition capitals and they are SO much more powerful than any city I've ever built in Civ 6. I thought tile yields were generally weaker in Civ 5 - why do you think a megacity in Civ 6 has more waste working poor tiles than Civ 5? Slower tile acquisition? Weaker and fewer specialists? No GP tile improvements?

I do tend to play on maps with a lot of resources, so maybe that's skewing my evaluation of housing.

Well, in Civ 5, some of the science buildings were based on population or had % bonuses, so growing high pop cities resulted in high science yields. Libraries and Public Schools (IIRC) had 0,5 science per pop point and universities gave 33% bonus. Also, civ 5 had aqueducts (that could save food when growing) and no housing penalties, so growing as a whole was easier. Civ 5 had permanent workers, so improving more tiles had a lower opportunity cost. Also, working specialists added GPP bonuses, which was great. Finally, new cities had terrible penalties in Civ 5, mainly happiness and tech/policy cost increases, which favoured less cities.

All this is gone in Civ 6. There's no % yield bonus buildings, the library type effect is gone, you are going to reach housing sooner or later (which will cost a huge loss of food that didn't happen in Civ 5, where you never stopped growing unless you hit the happy cap). In terms of science, in Civ 6, growing a pop point in a size 1 city with no infra is the same as growing from 15 to 16 in a city with library and university. Apart from concentrated production (that you need to churn out the late game cost units and buildings), there's not much advantages in concentrated pop against diluted pop (and considering chop is the main way to produce things, diluted pop actually has an advantage; ah, another advantage of diluted pop is that you can use it to build multiples of the best districts, while at some point, concentrated pop will only allow bad districts).

I think moving Governors to increase housing cap on different cities using the chamber is indeed a nice trick (combine that with harvesting food bonuses for a very nice boost). I'm just worried that it won't help much in a lot of cities. You need hills to make pop points productive (growing into grassland farms is really meh, it's just a meager science boost and one step closer to housing cap) and you need tons and tons of worker labor. You'll be chopping a whole lot, so it won't be easy to get builders to actually improve tiles (and you can't build only builders, they are competing with districts, units and other things) for your high pop cities to work.

Meanwhile, cheaper cities that come with builders are great. Just remember Chevalier chopping stations in the team PBEM. Place a new city, get the builder, place Magnus there, you likely get 3 chops that just gave you a district and a bunch of units, or whatever you prefer. That's really powerful. And since you don't need to build builders on your other cities, they can build granaries to help housing, if you so desire. It seems way more explosive and snowbally.

[aetryn]

Snip

That's interesting. Maybe I'm still stuck in Civ 5 tall mode where you can easily build 30-40 pop tradition capitals and they are SO much more powerful than any city I've ever built in Civ 6. I thought tile yields were generally weaker in Civ 5 - why do you think a megacity in Civ 6 has more waste working poor tiles than Civ 5? Slower tile acquisition? Weaker and fewer specialists? No GP tile improvements?

I do tend to play on maps with a lot of resources, so maybe that's skewing my evaluation of housing.

Well, in Civ 5, some of the science buildings were based on population or had % bonuses, so growing high pop cities resulted in high science yields. Libraries and Public Schools (IIRC) had 0,5 science per pop point and universities gave 33% bonus. Also, civ 5 had aqueducts (that could save food when growing) and no housing penalties, so growing as a whole was easier. Civ 5 had permanent workers, so improving more tiles had a lower opportunity cost. Also, working specialists added GPP bonuses, which was great. Finally, new cities had terrible penalties in Civ 5, mainly happiness and tech/policy cost increases, which favoured less cities.

All this is gone in Civ 6. There's no % yield bonus buildings, the library type effect is gone, you are going to reach housing sooner or later (which will cost a huge loss of food that didn't happen in Civ 5, where you never stopped growing unless you hit the happy cap). In terms of science, in Civ 6, growing a pop point in a size 1 city with no infra is the same as growing from 15 to 16 in a city with library and university. Apart from concentrated production (that you need to churn out the late game cost units and buildings), there's not much advantages in concentrated pop against diluted pop (and considering chop is the main way to produce things, diluted pop actually has an advantage; ah, another advantage of diluted pop is that you can use it to build multiples of the best districts, while at some point, concentrated pop will only allow bad districts).

I think moving Governors to increase housing cap on different cities using the chamber is indeed a nice trick (combine that with harvesting food bonuses for a very nice boost). I'm just worried that it won't help much in a lot of cities. You need hills to make pop points productive (growing into grassland farms is really meh, it's just a meager science boost and one step closer to housing cap) and you need tons and tons of worker labor. You'll be chopping a whole lot, so it won't be easy to get builders to actually improve tiles (and you can't build only builders, they are competing with districts, units and other things) for your high pop cities to work.

Meanwhile, cheaper cities that come with builders are great. Just remember Chevalier chopping stations in the team PBEM. Place a new city, get the builder, place Magnus there, you likely get 3 chops that just gave you a district and a bunch of units, or whatever you prefer. That's really powerful. And since you don't need to build builders on your other cities, they can build granaries to help housing, if you so desire. It seems way more explosive and snowbally.

It's not just the science yields - I remember knocking out lategame wonders in 3-4 turns in my production powerhouse cities. On the other hand, they also did have production multiplier buildings with Civ 6 lacks.  I guess I'm just trying to explore the gamespace of Civ 6 - are cities not natively any good at producing because the housing cap (+ perishable builders) is keeping them from reaching a normal level of production? Because it feels like production and production costs scale pretty well until cities reach about size 9 or 10 and stop growing - maybe if they kept growing, we would see the ability to build without chopping acutually work. This probably isn't the map to try it, though.

PBEM8 didn't go long enough to see it, but I'm thinking the CS and Rationalism changes may alter the effectiveness of buildings lots of crappy cities with bare districts. Let's say Player A builds 10 size 5 cities with bare campuses with a +1 adjacency bonus and a library, while Player B builds 5 size 10 cities with Campuses with +3 adjacency bonus and libraries and universities. Let's say both have a scientific city state at full envoys. Player A is getting 50 science (5 from each campus+library+CS). Player B is getting 65 science (13 from each Campus +Library + University + CS). Okay, that's not even viable for Player A before we add policies. Let's assume he somehow has the production to put Universities in all 10 campuses, so he starts with 110. If he runs Natural Philosophy, he gets +10 for 120 science. Ratoinalism gives him 0, so would never run that. Player B, on the other hand, gets +15 from Natural Philosophy and +30 from Rationalism. Still a win for player A, but only by 10 beakers. And outside Jesuit Education I question whether it's going to be anywhere near as easy for Player A to get those 10 universities built in crappy cities. Actually, now that I think of it, now that CS bonuses apply to buildings, are they doubled by Rationalism instead of Natural Philosophy? Because if they are, now Player A is getting +50 from Rationalism, and clearly has the advantage. Obviously access to a Scientific CS can't completely be counted on, but that doesn't completely help Player A if one is missing. Still assuming universities, he gets 70 science while B gets 45, but Rationalism still bridges the gap (and is still just as useless to Player A). That's not even counting the minor effect of Pingala, or the possibility of an Amenity based multiplier to science (easier if they can all be covered by both Entertainment Districts and Water Parks), or the possibility that the bigger cities might have the population to run specialists for an additional 2 beakers per.

I'm not suggesting that Tall is as viable in Civ 6 as it is in Civ 5 - just that the Firaxis seems to be pushing the game in that direction, and we might see more changes that reflect that.