Reporting on this game has been poor from everyone other than Chevalier so it's hard to know what's happening. I suspect that TheArchduke is the favorite to win right now, both because he seems to be ahead from the minimal information available and because his Dutch civ will be a monster on this archipelago map. I wanted to take a few minutes to evaluate what went wrong with Chevalier's game. I've been rooting for him to do well because he's the only one reporting (and he had all those fabulous baseball posts in his thread), but it looks like he's going to be an also-ran in this game. What happened?
* Civ choice: Arabia was probably a too-cute pick for this game. There's nothing about Arabia as a civ that would lend towards picking them for a water map, and I would rate Arabia as a middle-of-the-road choice in terms of overall power. Picking Arabia essentially forces Chevalier to invest in founding a religion, but Arabia has nothing that helps them get a religion more easily. And unlike Russia with their cheap Lavras, building Holy Sites early on with Arabia means that the player isn't building Campuses or some other district that helps snowball ahead. As a result, I view Arabia as a slow-starting civ that puts the player behind the curve immediately. We've rarely seen Arabia do well in these games and the need to invest in early Holy Site districts is likely a reason why.
* With Arabia as the civ choice, Chevalier needed to pick a capital that would get him off to a fast start. He basically did the opposite:
This was the starting screenshot. Since it doesn't have the tile yields turned on, let me post one from a few turns later that does:
That's better. Escobar is a solid city from a production standpoint, and placing it on the coast was a good idea on this archipelago map. However, there's one crucial flaw with this spot: there are no food bonuses and no tiles with more than 2 food available. Later on, higher food tiles aren't that important in Civ6 because you can chop jungles or clear marshes to increase the population of cities. The capital is a bit different, however, since builder labor is scarce in the early turns. You don't want a capital that can't get any tiles above 2 food because it will take forever to grow any population. Unfortunately Chevalier didn't have a lot to work with in this regard. (His starting area is clearly inferior to TheArchduke and Japper, especially Japper who has two 3 food rice tiles and an absurd 1/4 plains hill deer tile, the best tile in the game.)
Still, there was a better spot for the capital: NE-E-E of Escobar's location, east of the plains hill sheep. That location remains coastal, has a 2/2 sheep tile in the first ring to work immediately, several more 2/2 tiles in the second ring, and most importantly, a 3/1 bananas tile that will get some kind of extra food coming in. That food is the reason why moving east would have been a good idea, as Escobar has been stunted in growth throughout this whole game since it's been stuck on 2 food tiles throughout. Chevalier has mentioned a bunch of times that he's been suffering from low population, and this is the one thing that he could have done to help remedy the situation. Not as good as the terrain that other players had, but better than the actual Escobar location.
* Next up, Chevalier went for a settler before builder play in this game. I think that was a mistake; the fast settler is an ideal play when the capital has strong tiles to work and there's another strong city location nearby that also can get started quickly without the need for builder labor. I don't think either was the case here. The 2/2 tiles that Escobar was working are decent for the early game, but an early builder to turn some of them into 2/3 tiles would have quickly paid back the investment. An earlier builder also would have delivered the boost for Craftsmanship, and that would have been a huge help in getting Agoge into play sooner. Chevalier would be tortured by barbarians in this game, and lack of access to the +50% production bonus on military units is a major reason why. Training the settler also dropped the slow-growing capital back to size 1 again, which was a somewhat questionable decision. But the biggest reason why I don't like the early settler is that the second city didn't contribute much of anything in his game:
* This is the second city of Zobrist, founded on Turn 22. Getting out to two cities that fast is nice, but it doesn't do a whole lot for the player if the second city can't contribute anything. And while Zobrist does have a good long term location, it was a very weak spot out of the gate. Chevalier was working the 2/1 wheat tile for a long stretch of time, followed by the 1/2 bare plains hill. These are poor tiles and the city struggled to grow or produce anything of value. Builder labor would be a long time in coming because the capital itself still didn't have any improved tiles. Chevalier seemed to be taken off guard by how long it took to pop borders at 0.3 culture/turn, and he had situated Zobrist in such a way that all of its good tiles were out in the second ring. The result was a slow-starting Arabian civ picking a second city that was also slow-starting. Unfortunately for Chevalier, when you put yourself behind the other players like this in competitive MP, it becomes almost impossible ever to catch up from the initial ditch you've put yourself in.
What Zobrist needed was to purchase the 4/0 floodplains wheat tile in the second ring; Chevalier had the money available and should have done this immediately. He would ultimately buy this tile later, but only after his builder was completed, wasting about a dozen turns in the interval. Having the wheat available immediately would have led to rapid growth, a faster builder, and a greatly accelerated development curve. Working the crummy 2/1 and 1/2 tiles in the first ring was a serious mistake.
* Meanwhile, back at the capital of Escobar, Chevalier trained a builder after the settler then a galley. Due to interfering barbarians, he wasn't able to get the stone quarried for his first improved tile until Turn 27, an awfully slow date. Then he strangely chose to improve the crabs tile to take it to 2/0/3 yield. This was the logic:
Chevalier Mal Fet Wrote:I go ahead and build the crab boats. Once I pasture the sheep, Escobar will have fully 6 good 4 yield-or-better tiles to work, 7 once it grabs the PFH in the second ring. So, I feel okay burning a charge on the fishing boats in pursuit of the eureka. Really, if I'd been smart - Escobar has no urgent need of a builder, while Zobrist could really use one to get up and running. So if I'd been using my brain I would have sent the builder along to Zobrist right away and gotten a farm and some mines up. Well, we're only 6 turns away from our builder there, with pop growth. Really need more culture at this city - the second ring tiles are great, but it's gonna take ages to grab those. I'm considering building or even purchasing a monument at Zobrist once I have the gold for it.
This was not the best analysis. Escobar definitely did need improved tiles, as 2/2 yields are not especially great, and burning a builder charge on a crab resource that the city would never work was wasteful. Chevalier was partly a victim of the tile picker here, which had unfortunately grabbed the crabs over one of his sheep resources. But that goes back to the initial mistake of choosing this city location in the first place; if he had gone east to the spot I mentioned, his second ring resources would have been 3/1 bananas, 2/2 sheep, 2/2 sheep, or 2/2 stone. No bad choices there for the tile selector. More importantly, if the tile picker won't grab the spots you want, don't spend a builder charge on a pointless crabs resource that the city won't work, PURCHASE THE SHEEP TILE that you do want!
There's 171 gold available for use in that picture, and when your whole civ has 3 population and is working 3 tiles, it's worthwhile to purchase the best tiles to work. Better if you can avoid it, but if you can't, then spend the gold to work the best tiles available.
* As of Turn 37, the capital still is working only 1 improved tile, the 2/3 quarried stone resource. Craftsmanship will finally arrive on Turn 38. Culture still sitting at 2.4 per turn, no monuments or granaries, no districts started yet. This is a slow, slow start. I'm not convinced that training another settler to go work more unimproved tiles is the right answer here.
* Barbarians suck.
Still, this is partly a consequence of not having Agoge available until Turn 38 and placing cities at widely spaced intervals. It leaves you more susceptible to barbarian activity like this. Also, while the third city of Cain does have pretty good terrain, it's another spot with no food bonuses. Another city that will grow slowly. Here's the current screenshot from Turn 51:
I wanted to put this together because I think Chevalier will appreciate having the chance to read it after this game is finished. I've really appreciated his storytelling in the thread and I hope this provides a way to give back a little bit with some advice. The sad thing is that Rome, the civ that Chevalier passed up, would have been a perfect choice for this game. The free monuments would have expanded the borders much faster at his initial cities, and that's exactly what both Escobar and Zobrist needed in the early turns. The culture would have sped him along the civics tree and opened up Magnus at a much earlier date. And even the free Roman roads would have been useful as a way to connect Zobrist back to the capital and maneuver more easily in barbarian defense. Arabia has been significantly worse in every way; Chevalier may as well have been playing a blank civ with no abilities thus far.
Good luck Chevalier - I hope that things improve in the turns following this summary.
/3
tiles. He's planning on building a harbor anyway in his capital and thus would be able to build ships in the long term. Then plant the 2nd city on the coastal plains hill 1E of the horses and use the 3rd builder charge immediately to pasture the horses for another 2
) and then the 3rd builder charge can pasture the sheep for the second citizen to work 2
] picks up the 1
This is going to cause major problems down the road and limit Escobar to size 3 until Chevalier builds a granary. The spot that I suggested would have been on the freshwater lake in addition to the other benefits mentioned in the last post. Poor Chevalier, he really put himself behind the curve in the opening turns of this game.
