Turn 46
Let me just come out and say this: I think the only way to play Civ 6 MP and keep your sanity is to just accept that you're screwed from the start. With my last game and now Rowain's feelings in Australia here, there's just too much left to chance each game. So I'm not expecting to win, and I'm not going to try to win. I'm going to try to revert back to the old Civ3 Epic days of 15 years ago and try to play the hand I'm dealt and do the best I can with it. Bring on the Diety barbarians!
Let's see what kind of scenario Rowain & Chevalier have cooked up for us
Meet The Neighbor:
Archduke has met one other player whom he has declared friendship with. He has recently gotten Divine Spark. He has 2 cities, 2 luxuries with a 3rd in his borders, and is about to capture his 3rd city when he takes the city state of Babylon. Unfortunately that puts him in a direct line towards me. He's making an absurd amount of gold, fueled on the back of 2 commerce city states: Zanzibar and Bandar Brunei, and he grabbed his Pantheon off being first to Kandy. I see why Rowain got upset, Archduke has had a lot handed to him. But that's why I started with my first paragarph: we're not going to focus on things we can't control, we're going to focus on making the most of our lot.
Babylon is going to fall next turn. It sits at 54hp. I had a thought of trying to help break the siege, but then I saw that the city is coastal - and so that means he has a galley in the water, meaning with 2 units I don't think Babylon's chances are great. Even if our attack plus the city state's managed to kill one of the warriors, then we still likely see the city fall. Besides, this lets us liberate the city state later on and take advantage of Australia's UA
(That's the best sarcastic smiley I could find upon skimming.)
In the meantime, I probably need to make sure that Babylon is as far south as Archduke comes. We need to fortify the river valley between Babylon and Newcastle. I've tentatively put in some city locations, inluding the frontline city I'd plant just off the water in the west. That may even be my next city placed...
Rowain finished a Holy Site on the turn before, and seeing how nobody else has started on Great Prophet points I'm going to continue on that path and try to get the best religious beliefs in the game. Newcastle is going to have it's forest chopped and overflowed (while we can still do that, we're in Agoge) into a Holy Site. I thought a little about holding back for Magnus, but I don't think that the 1 forest is going to be that good. Maybe it's better to buy a tile south of the city for a more defensive Holy Site, but with our UA giving us bonus yield due to appeal I think we kind of want to be on the river here.
The capital is going to finish up the Trader this turn and send it up to Newcastle to help that city grow. I'm debating on whether or not I want to go for an Encampment at the capital to take advantage of all that production or lock in the Campus. I don't think I want to try to fight for the first Great Scientist - Archduke has Divine Spark and already has built a Campus and a Library, as his 3 Great Scientist points per turn attribute to. But I do want to lock in the Campus, because while an encampment would be good to take advantage of the capital's production, I think we want the encampment up north with Newberry near the border. And I may not build the Campus because I think I need to get a Shrine down quick since Archduke could easily get into the religion race with his pantheon.
What does Scotland do anyway? I have hardly played with Rise & Fall. And I'm probably going to misplay the Governor game horribly because I have so little experience with it.
The other question I have to answer is what to do with all that gold. My first thought was to buy a settler, but we're going to be getting Early Empire and the +50% for settlers soon. And yet if the capital is tied up with building districts and buildings then maybe we do want to buy the settler out of Newberry since that city can recover from the food loss better. And yet again, we won't have enough gold for buying a settler for another 14 turns, which seems an awful long time to wait.
Naturally the answer is Mangus and Bronze Working and chop out settlers from Newberry. Which means policy card and then we're going to be looking for a use for those tiles.
Other needs: slingers. A pair at least, a trio preferable. A pantheon, we're 5 turns out from that. Some good city locations to settle. And a strategy for picking away at Archduke's city states.