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

[Banzailizard]

Here is my thought on evaluating between open sky and earth goddess (which I honestly forgot about).  Let's do a simple calculation to compare the two.  How much production will you put into mouments to get the same early culture as open sky? Now put that into shrines and how much faith will that grant?  I would not even consider the cost of holy sites because you will be building those anyways.  Compare the faith from the shrines to the faith from earth goddess.  Now we are comparing apples to apples, by looking at the exchange rate of production into faith, rather than trying to compare culture to faith. 

There is more to consider in detail of course. Earth goddess gets the faith right away, so those turns will add up.  At that point we would be calculating also the total output in terns of faith for each policy.

Between the exchange rate and the total output it might act as a resonable guide.

Just a thought, I can try to run that calculation if I have time.

[RFS-81]

Sorry, I've been a terrible ded-lurker and I don't even have any excuse about moving. (You know what, I'll just blame the heat!)

It's been too long since I last plaid Civ 6. Wasn't there a pantheon that makes water tiles yield ? Not something that gets considered normally, but on this island map, maybe it should be re-evaluated. Then again, as Arabia, going for more faith is probably the right choice.

At Zobrist, assuming that you want more food, I think buying the trader and slow-building the monument would be the right move, because the tile picker is probably going for the furs first and the wheat second. So that's more of a longer-term thing, and you need food now to get the city going.

And: Congratulations on the first ship!

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Here is my thought on evaluating between open sky and earth goddess (which I honestly forgot about).  Let's do a simple calculation to compare the two.  How much production will you put into mouments to get the same early culture as open sky? Now put that into shrines and how much faith will that grant?  I would not even consider the cost of holy sites because you will be building those anyways.  Compare the faith from the shrines to the faith from earth goddess.  Now we are comparing apples to apples, by looking at the exchange rate of production into faith, rather than trying to compare culture to faith. 

There is more to consider in detail of course. Earth goddess gets the faith right away, so those turns will add up.  At that point we would be calculating also the total output in terns of faith for each policy.

Between the exchange rate and the total output it might act as a resonable guide.

Just a thought, I can try to run that calculation if I have time.

It's not just a straight production comparison, though, because faith and culture are used for different things. You don't need as much culture as you do faith, for example - faith gets spent in big chunks, while culture just piles up and pushes you through the tech tree. Culture is also harder to come by than faith, which makes GotOS appealing to me. The real question is if I want Jesuit Education or Choral Music. Might be dependent on what Japper takes, if he goes for a religion hard - he's the only other vaguely religious civ in the game - but I think I could be happy with either. EG pairs nicely with JE, while GotOS pairs with Choral Music to give me monster culture. 

Sorry, I've been a terrible ded-lurker and I don't even have any excuse about moving. (You know what, I'll just blame the heat!)

It's been too long since I last plaid Civ 6. Wasn't there a pantheon that makes water tiles yield ? Not something that gets considered normally, but on this island map, maybe it should be re-evaluated. Then again, as Arabia, going for more faith is probably the right choice.

At Zobrist, assuming that you want more food, I think buying the trader and slow-building the monument would be the right move, because the tile picker is probably going for the furs first and the wheat second. So that's more of a longer-term thing, and you need food now to get the city going.

And: Congratulations on the first ship!

You're thinking of God of the Sea. That gives +1 production sea resources - which would take the crabs to a 2/1/3 tile. I suppose not terrible, roughly similar to an unimproved copper, and not bad to have if I'm going to be working that tile anyway, but I think the returns from the other two pantheons would be superior. It's an opportunity cost thing - it's not the worst pantheon by any stretch, but it doesn't compare to others. 

Turn 33

A quiet turn. Not a lot of movement or combat this turn. 

Situation, start of turn 33:




Actually I forgot to take a picture of the starting situation. This is the end of turn situation instead, whoopsie. Anyway, the barb warrior moved up, but did not attack my own. I fortify in place, while my slinger takes position on the hills next to it. My hope is he'll go for the slinger, and get damaged, then the slinger returns fire and the warrior (healed up a bit) finishes him off.

The terrain has really helped me easily fend off this barb wave. The only easy approach is the coastal plain, which is only 1 tile wide, and it's flanked the whole way by the rough line of hills on the western coast. The mountain divides the approach and funnels the barbarians into the easy terrain to the east, while my army occupies the defensive terrain to the west. As a result, they come at me piecemeal, while I fight from superior terrain at all times. Gotta be sure to notice my blessings in between bouts of complaining about the map. 






Archduke's growing quick - largest empire score. Two cities totalling 6 population, there's his Early Empire boost. I'll need to found Cain in order to get that, neither city has a great food surplus. Emperor K also grew in both his cities, 6 total pop - guessing 4 and 2. Japper founded city #2, and finished a tech. No one gained any era points that I saw. No GPP points yet either, so all empire growth is from pop so far, no districts.

[RFS-81]

You're thinking of God of the Sea. That gives +1 production sea resources - which would take the crabs to a 2/1/3 tile. I suppose not terrible, roughly similar to an unimproved copper, and not bad to have if I'm going to be working that tile anyway, but I think the returns from the other two pantheons would be superior. It's an opportunity cost thing - it's not the worst pantheon by any stretch, but it doesn't compare to others.

Ok, that's pretty weak, I though it was every water tile.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

You're thinking of God of the Sea. That gives +1 production sea resources - which would take the crabs to a 2/1/3 tile. I suppose not terrible, roughly similar to an unimproved copper, and not bad to have if I'm going to be working that tile anyway, but I think the returns from the other two pantheons would be superior. It's an opportunity cost thing - it's not the worst pantheon by any stretch, but it doesn't compare to others.

Ok, that's pretty weak, I though it was every water tile.

Even that's not too great, I think, mostly because water tiles can't be improved. In Civ V, when you regularly had 20-30 citizens per city, sure! At that point, you're working every single tile in the city's radius, and that production from all those water tiles quickly adds up. But Civ VI you have housing to think about, and growth is much harder - in our games I think we rarely see cities above size 10, and that's just a couple core cities that have been very thoroughly developed. As a result, you're never working THAT many tiles in Civ VI, and so instead you want high impact tiles to concentrate your citizens on. A pantheon which packs more of a bonus into those good tiles is better than one that slightly improves otherwise mediocre tiles. 

God of the Sea would make the water tiles 1/1/1, and a lighthouse (which is a hefty investment, albeit necessary now for the trade route) makes water tiles 2/1/1. That's still not as good as the yield from a basic plains farm!  Why would I want to work that when just about any of my land tiles could be better? So, I think it makes sense to apply only to resources, but even so they're just not good enough to bother with unless you have no other option. 

Fishing boats DO give half a housing, though, so once I get my pasture up we'll alleviate some of Escobar's housing woes!

[Banzailizard]

Here is my thought on evaluating between open sky and earth goddess (which I honestly forgot about).  Let's do a simple calculation to compare the two.  How much production will you put into mouments to get the same early culture as open sky? Now put that into shrines and how much faith will that grant?  I would not even consider the cost of holy sites because you will be building those anyways.  Compare the faith from the shrines to the faith from earth goddess.  Now we are comparing apples to apples, by looking at the exchange rate of production into faith, rather than trying to compare culture to faith. 

There is more to consider in detail of course. Earth goddess gets the faith right away, so those turns will add up.  At that point we would be calculating also the total output in terns of faith for each policy.

Between the exchange rate and the total output it might act as a resonable guide.

Just a thought, I can try to run that calculation if I have time.

It's not just a straight production comparison, though, because faith and culture are used for different things. You don't need as much culture as you do faith, for example - faith gets spent in big chunks, while culture just piles up and pushes you through the tech tree. Culture is also harder to come by than faith, which makes GotOS appealing to me. The real question is if I want Jesuit Education or Choral Music. Might be dependent on what Japper takes, if he goes for a religion hard - he's the only other vaguely religious civ in the game - but I think I could be happy with either. EG pairs nicely with JE, while GotOS pairs with Choral Music to give me monster culture.

Not quite what I meant, though it does raise a good point; ultimately one of these options nets you more culture and the other more faith.  Let me try to elaborate the math to see if it makes sense. So right now you have 6 sources of pasture visible.  That means 6 culture.  You would need 6 monuments in Rise and Fall (assuming the wiki is correct its +1 loyalty and +1 culture at 100% loyal), to equal that.  That is 360 production (60 per), which would give you 5 completed shrines (65 production) granting 10 faith per turn.  Thus here you are spending 360 production for 6 culture and 10 faith.

Alternatively you could take earth goddess. I will assume you have 6 cities to keep it fair, since you would need 6 cities to build those 6 monuments.  I will keep the current pops consistent with what they currently are.  So you would get effectively 1 faith per tile worked, or 1 faith per pop, (and plus one for the city center? did a test, yes) . 4 from Escobar + 3 from Zobrist + 8 from the remaining cities. You a spending 360 production for 6 culture and 15 faith.  That faith is low as it assumes only 1 pop cities later.

To be honest at a straight comparison, and despite my initial thoughts, Earth Goddess seems superior. You could sink a citizen into the citizen slot for the shrines and get extra faith that way, but then you are trading off for other resources.  You would not have to make that trade off for Earth Goddess.  If it was not for the limited space for cities, you could reasonably reverse this analysis even, keep faith constant based on the number of shrines you could build and then see what production could be sunk back into monuments or other culture buildings.

Now this is meant as a short run comparison.  In the short run you have to make this trade-off, either the production goes to monuments, or it goes to shrines. The short run is probably about 30 turns I would say. (Edit actually mulled this over a bit probably not, the short run is however long that constraint of not having enough production to build both lasts that might be more than 30 turns) What about the mid-run, where we will relax this condition and allow that you build both monuments and shrines?   Here your analysis is correct. Then GoTH grants more culture and EG more faith.  And what of the long run? As Keynes used to say, " In the long run we are all dead".  We do not know how much faith or culture will be generated by these choices because we do not know the resources further afield, the decision can only be made by what is on hand.

Looking at the math though I think EG is actually the better choice in the short term.  Whether you think that culture or faith is more useful in the mid-term is ultimately your decision though.  I would say faith is more important if you find someone to launch a faith based attack against.  Faith means the ability to purchase missionaries, and military units. Culture more important if you are more isolated and playing the long game where you will need fleets and armadas eventually.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

It makes a lot of sense when you put it that way, Banzai. Might have sold me on Earth Goddess!

Turn 34

Try to keep this short, not a lot happening. No time to write. 

Situation, start of 34:



Warrior went for hte slinger, as predicted. Let's try and mop him up.




Just missed out on killing him. No worries, he'll go down on his turn if he attacks. Gonna push with the warrior next turn to try to clear out the camp - not sure if any of my screenshots show it but another scout has appeared to the north of Escobar. There's a camp somewhere in the fog to the northwest. 

Score, no time for comments. Might look in more detail later.

[RFS-81]

You're thinking of God of the Sea. That gives +1 production sea resources - which would take the crabs to a 2/1/3 tile. I suppose not terrible, roughly similar to an unimproved copper, and not bad to have if I'm going to be working that tile anyway, but I think the returns from the other two pantheons would be superior. It's an opportunity cost thing - it's not the worst pantheon by any stretch, but it doesn't compare to others.

Ok, that's pretty weak, I though it was every water tile.

Even that's not too great, I think, mostly because water tiles can't be improved. In Civ V, when you regularly had 20-30 citizens per city, sure! At that point, you're working every single tile in the city's radius, and that production from all those water tiles quickly adds up. But Civ VI you have housing to think about, and growth is much harder - in our games I think we rarely see cities above size 10, and that's just a couple core cities that have been very thoroughly developed. As a result, you're never working THAT many tiles in Civ VI, and so instead you want high impact tiles to concentrate your citizens on. A pantheon which packs more of a bonus into those good tiles is better than one that slightly improves otherwise mediocre tiles. 

God of the Sea would make the water tiles 1/1/1, and a lighthouse (which is a hefty investment, albeit necessary now for the trade route) makes water tiles 2/1/1. That's still not as good as the yield from a basic plains farm!  Why would I want to work that when just about any of my land tiles could be better? So, I think it makes sense to apply only to resources, but even so they're just not good enough to bother with unless you have no other option. 

Fishing boats DO give half a housing, though, so once I get my pasture up we'll alleviate some of Escobar's housing woes!

I probably have too much of a Civ 4 mindset at the moment.

Aaanyway, with Arabia, I would also favor faith over culture. Ultimately, I imagine that you want to be in Theocracy and faith-recruit Mamluks. It takes some culture to get there, but once you're there you get more out of faith.

On the other hand, with more culture you could get your university replacement even faster. Are you planning on building that? It looks like most players don't bother with high-level district buildings, except where it's needed for a boost.

EDIT: Have you made any decision about the trader or monument at Zobrist? You could also buy a tile instead, like the second wheat if you want more , or the hill forest if you want more .

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 35




Uh, where'd the warrior go? I didn't get a notification that any of my units were attacked, which I would expect. On the other hand, my slinger is ready to promote and I'm pretty sure he didn't have that last round. Guess there's only two possibilities, then: Either he banzai-charged my slinger and died like a nincompoop, or he's withdrawing across the plains to the south. I don't think the robots usually like to retreat, but it's possible, I guess. I'll probe south with the warrior and see if I can find him. I've got the promotion up my sleeve in case the warrior runs into trouble, otherwise I'm just gonna try and clear the camp. 




End of turn situation. The slinger took Volley, naturally, and will begin to head north to repel the newest incursion. Having a trio of slingers to hold off barbs while my planned trio of warriors heads for Grenada will help a lot. I just hope I'm acting quickly enough. I tried around the '60s in PBEM8, and the damn city state got up walls, which effectively stalled my campaign (Alhambram's interference didn't help. ). Anyway, that's the next goal after getting Cain established and the builder out at Zobrist, which will really start to accelerate my laggardly play so far. 

End of turn scores:






Archduke is ripping through the civics tree now. To be fair, I'm only two eurekas away from having 3 civics myself, but even so, this is really quick. He has a pantheon - I wonder if he took one of the two culture pantheons? He often gravitates towards those, I've noticed. Everyone else is growing like a weed, while I am not.

Rho, I'm intrigued by the notion of buying the wheat at Zobrist. I already have the builder ready, and I wasn't looking forward to farming the nearby wheat, since I want to harvest that eventually for a Holy Site. But the barb camp gold should effectively cover the cost, and then I'd have a 5-food tile at Zobrist to really push it up. I'd also get Craftsmanship and Irrigation boosted, and I'll need Irrigation eventually  to pick up those teas. 

Right now, I'm thinking of a wheat buy and a trader buy once Foreign Trade is unlocked, while I slowbuild a monument after I get all my units out. The two first-ring hills will be fine for initial production once I've got mines out, and then Zobrist will only get better. Gold is precious, but I think this might be a good early use of it to improve my snowball. Shoulda done it this turn to get the 4-food right away.

[Banzailizard]

I support the strategy in that last paragraph.  If this were pangea hording gold might make sense.  You could need to tap it to quickly upgrade units.  At the moment however, you need growth.  On island plates that is fine since you will not likely be attacked. 

It's been a busy few days for me I will try to update graphs tomorrow.