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

[Grotsnot]

Sheesh, Zobrist is unhappy at only 3 pop? That's obnoxious, though probably not a big deal. What's the priority on hooking up the 2 luxuries down at Cain?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Sheesh, Zobrist is unhappy at only 3 pop? That's obnoxious, though probably not a big deal. What's the priority on hooking up the 2 luxuries down at Cain?

Yeah, a product of having no luxuries at all at my capital (which would have been true even if I'd SIP)

Cain's first build will probably be a builder - there's 3 good improvements all in the first ring, so I don't need a monument down there right away. Then I'll hook up the tea, furs, and cows. 

I'll have a luxury soon, though, since Zobrist's borders expand this turn to grab the furs. I'll hook those up with the last charge from my builder up there. Grenada's whales will take me to three luxuries, and at some point I can either buy the salt tile or found Hosmer (last resort) for four. Looks like the far island has spices, so if it's only inhabited by a CS I could plant some colonies over there, too.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 42




Situation, start of turn 42:




Exciting turn today! We get to choose our pantheon (finally), we start work on Early Empire, and we draw closer to founding city #3, Cain. 

First, I notice that the barb slinger isn't pursuing. That's a relief, since a barb invasion would be annoying right now. I'll continue to withdraw until I'm within Escobar's city limits, to speed healing and act as a reserve in case of invasion from the west. To the west, the scout is more annoying, since it went to spy out Zobrist instead of returning directly to the camp. This wouldn't be an issue if I were building a mine, but I'm not - I want to hook up the furs. But I can't move and build on the same turn, and the scout will be able to nab the builder if I move to the furs. I'm not sure how aggressive scouts' programming is - do they go for the easy civilian capture, or will he go back to report  first? 




Not certain what the robot will do, I opt not to risk it. I pull the builder to the east, onto the hills there. If the scout leaves, I can step onto the furs turn 43 and build the camp on turn 44. 

Camps and plantations are two poor improvements, and it's a little sad that the vast majority of my luxuries take the form of those two improvements (I guess I do have a lone salt mine available). However, you can't harvest foxes, unlike deer, and the tile is otherwise pretty good - 1/2/2. Grabbing the extra +2 gold won't hurt anything. I have 2 camps and 3 plantations available in the immediate area, which will add up to a fair bit of gold. Don't want to neglect that, since I found how tough it is to scrape together gold for upgrades, and my navy will be expensive. 

Now, at last, let's choose our pantheon:






Here's the full list of available pantheons. So, what's missing? Divine Spark - we know Japper took that. God of the Open Sky is not here - Rowain and Archduke have the strongest culture, Archduke has been leading that category for a while, and he loves GotOS, so I peg him with that one. Goddess of the Harvest is gone, as expected. Finally, Oral Tradition is gone, which gives +1  Culture from  Banana,  Citrus,  Cotton,  Dyes,  Silk, Spices, and  Sugar Plantations. Looks like I'm dead last. Rowain has strong culture, so he could have taken Oral Tradition. That would mean Emperor has GotH. Could be the other way around, of course - Rowain's culture could come from a city-state, and he DID choose his pantheon very early, and it makes sense to me that GotH would go sooner rather than later. And, of course, Archduke could have Oral Tradition, or GotH, or what have you! I've no way to know for certain, but apart from Divine Spark these are my best guesses. 

Anyway, Earth Goddess is still available, so we take that as the best remaining choice. 




Woo! Check that out - an immediate +5 faith, which dwarfs what everyone else is making (including Japper with his civ ability and Holy Site). I know this since I am now in first on the religious metric. Also note that my total population is only five total, which means that I am making as much faith as it's physically possible for my civ to produce right now. Thus, as my population grows, so, too, will my faith output in rough proportion. Mines and chops will gradually reduce this number, but for now it's looking like EG might scale reasonably well and function as a poor man's Goddess of the Harvest. 




New government, now that I know I don't need God-King anymore. Maritime Industries is a given, but I went back and forth on Urban Planning versus Ilkum for a while. In the end, I opted for Urban Planning as the superior choice:

1)Zobrist isn't building a builder for a while, so it naturally profits from the +1 production more.
2)Escobar does have one builder needed. Ilkum would give +3 production in that case, for a +2 advantage. However, as long as it's working on galleys, the +1 from urban planning is also doubled, so it's only a 1 hammer advantage for Ilkum - which is in turn cancelled out by Zobrists's benefit. And the longer I work on galleys, the more the advantage shifts to UP.
3)Cain will be building a builder to start, but Urban Planning looks like it'll be a +20% boost on its own when Cain is first founded, so not too much of an edge there. Not enough to compensate for Zobrist and Escobar. 

So yeah, back of the envelop mental math suggests that I get more benefit from UP at the moment. 

In scouting news, note this, which I missed last turn:




A line of cliffs means that those hills are the northern coast. There's not a lot of island that direction. And you can see the coast beyond the sheep, so I probably don't have much more land that direction, either. What you see is what you get. 

Scores:





Our "true score" is 42, so for the moment we're nearly in the lead. Rowain and Archduke have had a while to work on Early Empire, however, so they should retake the lead in culture soon. I've been dead last on the culture victory screen for a while now. If I get Choral Music, I think that will sync well with my campuses and science boost to make me strong in faith, science, and culture. A little ways down the road, still.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Okay, this will be my last turn until Wednesday, August 8. I'm going on my summer vacation at last, after spending the summer working at a National Park. So, dedlurkers, if any of you want to take the turns for those 5 days, feel free. I'll be PMing you my PYDT client key. Banzai, aetryn (if you're still reading ._. ), you know how the client works. Grotsnot, should you want it, the software is very easy to use. You can either use the website and manually download the files, or if you download the client it'll link up to Civ VI automatically and boot up the game for you when you download the turn. Then you just go to multiplayer Hotseat and load up the file, play the turn, end it, then save when prompted and the sofware will take care of uploading it for you. Took me all of 5 minutes to learn how to do properly. 

If no one wants the responsibility, that's fine, too, the game can pause. But if you do want to play, you know my plans and intentions:

1)Escobar is building ships for a Grenada offensive. At strength 20, I think we'll need 3 galleys total to be assured of success. Keep the galleys away from Grenadan culture until then - I don't want the city-state getting alarmed and fortifying units in the center until we're ready to strike. We also need a single builder, started at least 2 turns before Early Empire comes in, to be able to chop. 


2)Early Empire is 28 turns away - 20 once Cain is founded. That's a long time, but I'm building a monument in Zobrist to try and halve that time. If you feel that Zobrist is under too much pressure from the nearby barb camp, though, feel free to switch to a military build.

3)Cain is pinned, and should be founded by turn 45. I think a builder makes the most sense, to hook up the sheep, furs, and tea. Should you finish that before Wednesday, which I doubt, use your judgment. 

4)Use the military as you deem best. We need to first protect our own developments from pillaging, then we need to scout the island. Lastly we can clear the camp but we're really pinched in our Era score budget so I'd like to avoid that until turn 60 or so. 

5)Scouting - I was just gonna continue circling the current island until I find civilization. Priority now is to find city-states for the PP inspiration. 

6)Research - Astrology is 1 turn from completion, needs to be finished before Magnus is ready to chop. I'm also picking up Irrigation so I can hook up the tea at Cain. Otherwise, use your judgment. We need 1 more slinger before we finish Archery, should you go that route. 

Overall, mid-term goals: 

1)Conquer Grenada
2)Build Holy Site via Magnus-ship chop
3)Continue to explore surroundings, emphasis on city-state contacts. 

Pursue them as you see fit!

[Grotsnot]

All right since no one else has expressed interest here we go...
(Apparently my screencaps are too big to upload directly, so gonna put them in spoilers to not flood the page. I kind of took a lot. Thanks to CMF for letting me cut my teeth on reporting in his thread )

First things first - someone has eaten a city-state!

It seems to be ArchDuke - his Empire score jumped from Chevalier's last post:

(Possibly some more stuff in the scores there too if someone wants to take a crack)

Also visible - that jerk barb scout is still harassing Zobrist's builder. And blocking the builder's path back into the safety of the city. With another scout coming from the north I move the builder SE to hide on the hills and hope the scouts finally buzz off and let him do his job.

The settler continues on his merry way toward Cain. Not sure if we already knew that mountain off the coast was a one-tile island but we do now:

Warrior continues his path north, if things get too dicey with the western barbs might need to divert him home but so far not necessary:

The injured slinger is slated to move into Escobar for R&R. I consider leaving them to heal in place since with the extra move it will take the same number of turns to heal to full and could get a quicker start. Decided against it though so that the healthy slinger can move west to help deal with the barbs.

Galley cruises along down south, no other signs of life but we're back in North America

(botched these screencaps a little with the tooltips but there's nothing interesting under it. Live and learn.)

I took a look around the empire before doing anything, may as well share what's going on (Content Warning: more detail than anyone actually cares about)
Escobar:

Working the obviously best tiles. Galley ready next turn. It's a good thing we need multiple galleys or I'd have been conflicted to pause it and ask if I should wait for a chop to overflow. But there will be plenty of opportunities for that with this map.

Zobrist

I lock in the citizen tiles, just to be safe. Toyed with swapping the mine over to the wheat but it only shaves one turn off of growth time at the cost of a turn on the monument, so decided to leave it alone.

Tech & Civics Progress

Leaving this on CMF's course as long as I can Don't need Astrology until Magnus is ready anyway, so no reason to divert.

Great People

Not pictured: checked the GPPs/turn, all zero except for Divine Sparky still chugging on his religion.

Era Points summary, no new information

And finally, overall reports:

I think that's everything. More than necessary, even 
I'm okay subbing but seriously if anyone else wants to take a shift, be my guest

[Banzailizard]

Finally got a chance to sit down and read this, nice job on the report and on the turn Grotsnot. I'd offer to take a turn but I am on vacation myself. I think it's in good hands though.

[Grotsnot]

Thanks Banzailizard

Got another turn. Escobar completes a galley, earning the Shipbuilding boost:

Barbs are mildly less jerkish but still jerks. I keep the worker hiding on the hill since the western barb scout could come eat him on the furs if it wanted to, and we might need to keep him around for repairs now anyway (Do barb scouts pillage?) Continue moving the healthy slinger west to chase them off while the injured slinger joins you fellas on vacation.

Settler moves on to the Cain site, will settle next turn. Nothing new spotted in the fog. Warrior continues north and spies a couple desert tiles in the distance.

Not even an oasis  Hopefully a resource over there...

Since the southern landmass keeps going and going I considered sending the first boat back west to loop around the other way while the new galley explores the section closer to home. Decided against that though since the plan is to send a bunch of boats over to beat on Granada so there will be plenty of boats able to explore west after that. And with still no new city-states met, may need a dedicated scout boat anyway. PP boost is probably more important than saving the 2-3 turns to build another galley for the brute squadron.

Speaking of, noticed something odd with Escobar's (claimed) production - it dropped from 12.6 last turn down to 10.5 this turn, but I don't think anything changed? The line items total up to 9.7 both turns. A little bit of overflow this turn would make sense, but where did last turn's extra 2.9 come from? I'm willing to chalk it up to the Civ 6 UI being a den of lies, but if anyone knows what's up I'd be interested. (Also obnoxious is it not including the Maritime Industries multiplier)

Scores:

If I'm interpreting this correctly, Archduke built a settler and Emperor K founded a city. Though someone should absolutely verify those numbers, I don't know the details.

Finally, a quick overview:

[Banzailizard]

On the phone so hard to quote but regarding the lack of production time change, you need to "refresh" the que for it to update properly. Switch from producing the unit you want to another then back again. The city UI should update then.

[Cornflakes]

Urban Planning might account for some of the production mis-count. It is confusing though that the items don’t total correctly. But why does Zobrist total correctly? Could the difference of 2 also be that you were getting the +2 towards unit production from the city state on that turn but not this turn?

[Grotsnot]

Ah, I think that's probably it, Cornflakes. Thanks!! And I'll try jiggering around with the refresh in the future. Stupid den of lies UI. Wish the reports included outside bonuses like city-states as a line item. Will have to check if CQUI fixes that...