[SPOILERS] scooter tries Civ6

[scooter]

Turn 39

I didn’t really have much of note happening this turn, so I wanted to take a look at key tiles and if/how we can get them to Breathtaking. I think we can actually get quite a bit of mileage out of this. I’ll focus on areas that we’ve settled or expect to settle in the near future.





Starting with Longxi itself, the cattle tile we just picked up is already there. I nearly swapped to it this turn, but it’s too important to finish the Holy Site in 3T for our other timings, so it’s unused for now. Currently this tile is strong enough that I’m wondering if the current builder at Xian should use one of its charges here. The only catch is I want to earmark the 4th charge for the start of Pyramids, so I’d have to choose between this or the silks as the first two charges went to the rice and deer. Also this may be a bit too far out of the way, so we may just have to be patient. Plus we could use the amenity from the Silks.

Northeast/east of Longxi where we’ll almost certainly be looking at fairly soon is another interesting area. The Silk tile well to the east is sitting at 4 appeal, so that one is ready to go already. The banana to the far northeast is currently at 2 appeal, and that’s with two adjacent rainforest tiles holding it back, so clearing those would also get it up to 4 appeal.





Xian itself has a lot going for it. We’ve already established how we intend to get the horses up to 4, but the Silks can absolutely do it too. The silks are at 3 appeal currently, and the same Holy Site would get it to 4. Also, the grassland forested hill 1N of the marked Campus location is at 5 appeal already, so it could even afford dropping one and be fine. Might be a spot for a lumber mill?

Far south of Xian along the coast, the rice tile is already at 5 appeal, so likewise that tile can afford to drop an appeal and still maintain the bonus. I neglected to look at the other Silks appeal down there, so whether that’s doable or not depends on what’s next to it in the fog.

Out in the desert to the west at our Petra site, the copper is currently at 5 appeal. We have to do a mental subtraction there because we’ll surely mine it, dropping it to 4, but if we can maintain it from there, it’ll get the bonus. Give that tile a mine, Petra, and stay at 4 appeal, and we’ve got a 2/3/3/2 tile, and that’s before any of the mine enhancements come online later in the game. Sounds fun . I don’t expect much else around there or our Pyramids city to pick it up due to floodplains and mines generally ruining the appeal.





Finally, a more speculative area that’s a distant future scenario… This river valley area has tons of appeal and would be extremely valuable to us. It’s quite far away, so there are tons of reasons we may never get over this way and/or it’ll get claimed first, but I thought it’s worth noting just in case.


Finally, it’s worth noting that we intend to build quite a few early wonders, and those are a nice source of +1 appeal, so it’s probably worth factoring that in as much as we can in the future. I don’t have anything specific in mind yet, but it’s something to mentally file away.

[Sullla]

Great discussion, I like how there's a good chance to get the Earth Goddess bonus on several tiles in the near future. Also great timing on how you'll be able to finish State Workforce or Mysticism civics and swap out of Discipline / Colonization policies for Agoge / Ilkum policies right as the settler completes in the capital. Once the Holy Site is done, you might want to run high food there (sugars + faith cows + stone) to get the city up to size 4, and then work a high production configuration afterwards. Another pop point is worth extra science/culture and would also pick up faith from Earth Goddess in this situation.

I think you definitely need to improve either the silks or the sugars with your current builder to pick up the resulting amenity. That will remove the happiness penalty at Longxi and send your capital back into "Happy" status, not to mention the +2 gold/turn. The faith cows pasture is only +1 production and it can wait for the next builder (maybe the one that pops out of the Pyramids). By the way, if it looks like barbarians in the southeast are going to be trouble, you could always improve the sugar instead of the silks. A plantation on either tile is equally useful and the sugars might be less likely to get pillaged. Food for thought.

[scooter]

By the way, if it looks like barbarians in the southeast are going to be trouble, you could always improve the sugar instead of the silks. A plantation on either tile is equally useful and the sugars might be less likely to get pillaged. Food for thought.

I think we might actually be okay, as the city-state appears to be shielding us. That scout is the same wounded scout that's been hovering around our border for 15-20 turns now, so it's really helped out on that front. That said, I'll route out the path and see which is easier for the builder to plantation and then head towards Pyramids.

[scooter]

Turns 40-41





More exploration this way. Still quiet otherwise. Irrigation came in end of this turn. Opened the save for T41, and I finally got to do what I’ve wanted for 20ish turns now.





That scout moved onto the silks because he’s fleeing from the city-state warrior(s). Killed him with the slinger. That city-state has come up big for us honestly.





I found two more breathtaking tiles up here including this wheat which is sitting at 6 appeal. I’m not sure why the appeal is so high. I’m gonna guess there’s a natural wonder just east of this in the fog. The grassland forest 1SW of the wheat is also breathtaking. All in all, this is a very nice patch of land over here.





Two players have completed campus districts, and TheArchduke is still the only other player to build a Holy Site. 





I took a shot at the spear barbarian camp up in the northwest. I wasn’t fully healed yet, but 1) this win got me a promotion, and 2) we’re swapping out of Discipline next turn. We’re going to stay in Colonization one more turn in order to complete the settler, but we’re going to complete 2 civics in 2 consecutive turns, so we’ll just do Agoge next turn and Ilkum the following turn.


Masonry due in 8. We’ll be starting the Pyramids very soon after founding this new city, so the timings are lining up nicely.

[Banzailizard]

It seems unlikely that the Archduke is one of the two players who built a campus. Even if he gets a discount on his campuses from the formula, he sunk so much time into unlocking Astrology that he cannot also have writing. Therefore its safe to assume those two players are Alhambram and Cornflakes. Also in your first shot, the rivers have the names the Yellow and the Yangtze. If I understand how river naming works, you are likely the first to reach them. Whoever found Palenque did not go this way. What about that volcano's name? I can't read it in the shot, is it one of the Chinese set? If not, and you want to boost writing, go north.

[scooter]

It seems unlikely that the Archduke is one of the two players who built a campus.  Even if he gets a discount on his campuses from the formula, he sunk so much time into unlocking Astrology that he cannot also have writing.  Therefore its safe to assume those two players are Alhambram and Cornflakes.  Also in your first shot, the rivers have the names the Yellow and the Yangtze.  If I understand how river naming works, you are likely the first to reach them.  Whoever found Palenque did not go this way.  What about that volcano's name?  I can't read it in the shot, is it one of the Chinese set?  If not, and you want to boost writing, go north.

Definitely agree with your campus guesses. Also, I had no idea that’s how feature naming went. Interesting.

Turn 42





Banzailizard is correct on the terrain feature naming. Anyway, yes I’m headed north with my warrior. Hopefully we run into someone soon.





Ugh. River flooded here and knocked a population off Longxi, resulting in the Holy Site not completing as expected. The Holy Site thing isn’t a huge deal as the settler still doesn’t complete until end of this turn, but losing the population is still a bummer. I’m unsure how long fertile tiles stick around. I thought it’s basically forever? If that’s the case, this may actually do us more good than bad as quite a few tiles around here got the boost.


I wanted to talk a bit about governors as it’s something I’m struggling with a bit. I’ll include the Liang/Pingala pages here spoiled for reference.

I’m about to pick up another governor tile next turn. Any thoughts on what to do with it? Sullla mentioned it’s quite common to get Pingala going early in your biggest city, but for now we actually are using Liang there to pump boosted builders, and I think we’ll continue doing that for a good bit here. Pingala’s boost seems like it would be a bit wasted in Longxi in the near term as a result. Is it reasonable to take Zoning Commissioner for Liang instead for this next one, and delay Pingala until I pick up another tile? I’m kinda thinking we want to keep Liang in our capital for this early phase of the game, and then maybe in 20-30T or so ship her off somewhere else and get Pingala into our capital as we attempt to grow it very tall. In that case, Zoning Commissioner makes sense to get a couple districts going alongside the builders, and then we move Liang off to another city and get Pingala online a tad later. Any thoughts on this?





Pyramids city will be settled on T46. I promoted our northwest warrior this turn, and I’ll take another shot with him (possibly clearing the camp) next turn before swapping out of Discipline. Silks will get improved on T44, and it can be in position to put a charge into Pyramids by T48.

[Sullla]

That's unfortunate about Longxi flooding; I'm a bit surprised that Realms Beyond hasn't started turning off the disasters for Multiplayer games for exactly this reason. On the other hand, fortunately it didn't end up slowing down the boost for State Workforce, and I believe that the boosted tile yields remain for the rest of the game. The sugars resource is now a 4/1 tile and you could farm the tile 2N of the city for another 4/1 tile, enough food to grow the city to an impressive size later. (Note: you'll need to save the tile southwest of the city for an aqueduct district, since you'll definitely want the housing to keep growing Longxi.) I think that you run max food there for the moment and grow at +5 food with the sugars and cows, picking up the stone resource at size 3 and then another stone resource at size 4. This means that military comes out slower from the city but that's probably OK given that you don't seem to be in any immediate danger.

For the governors, I would still recommend picking up Pingala over putting more promotions into Liang. With Pingala it's not the first promotion that's particularly good, it's getting up to 3 promotions as quickly as possible. The longer you delay the first promotion, the longer you delay the third promotion. I think that you could stash Pingala in Longxi at the moment, which admittedly isn't that great, but you could move Liang over to city #3 as soon as the builder finishes at the capital while moving Pingala over to the capital at the same time. This gets Liang over to city #3 in time to pick up an extra builder charge from the free Pyramids builder, plus get the Pingala boost in the capital. I mean, with the "researcher" second promotion, Pingala could easily be worth 5-6 beakers in your capital - that's double your whole civ's research rate right now! A second promotion on Liang won't be anywhere near as useful.

Side thoughts:

* Is it worthwhile to purchase the tile for your Holy Site district at the capital? The cost to purchase the tile will only go up over time, and locking in the district cost sooner as opposed to later would make it cheaper to build as well. What are you planning on having the capital create after it finishes its current path of settler -> builder?

* Keep an eye on places to get era score because a Golden Age (for Monumentality) would be really good for you. Using faith to purchase settlers/builders at a discounted rate would be simply amazing for China.

* I like the tile southwest of the bananas up to the northeast of Longxi for your fourth city. Amazing terrain, opportunities for more Earth Goddess faith bonuses, and a great place to build (hopefully discounted) Harbor district. Coastal cities with a Harbor district + lighthouse actually get lots of housing now in Gathering Storm, enough that you could grow up to size 8-9 no problem and take advantage of all those awesome resources.

[Sullla]

Oh, and this was interesting enough to put into its own separate post. See that tile 2 NE of Longxi, next to the truffles? The truffles resource gets improved by a camp. And it looks like you're going to have a ton of food in Longxi and need some housing in there...

Temple of Artemis

Effect: +4 food, +3 housing, each camp/pasture/plantation within 4 tiles provides +1 amenity
Requirement: Must be built next to a camp

Within four tiles: 2 cows (pasture), 2 truffles (camp), 1 banana (plantation), 1 sugar (plantation)

[Alhazard]

you can't turn off disasters. Even at scale 0, there is a chance. If you are planning to buy faith buy settlers, have you considered the double magnus promotion? growing back pop in civ6 is much more time consuming then 4.

[suboptimal]

That's unfortunate about Longxi flooding; I'm a bit surprised that Realms Beyond hasn't started turning off the disasters for Multiplayer games for exactly this reason.

There have only really been two Gathering Storm games so far - this and PBEM 15 in which we all agreed to crank the disasters to the max to see what happens. I haven't been tracking the Archduke v Alhambram duels to know what they're doing with their settings.  On the one hand, I see your point.  On the other, I do personally like the idea of the risk/reward of a dynamic landscape.