[SPOILERS] scooter tries Civ6

[scooter]

Side note: I think I definitely should place the government plaza 1SW of where I have it marked if I do build it soon. I'd have to do that in order to build it from Xian, and I think that's definitely what I want to do, as Xian has the necessary production to build Ancestral Hall and is more likely to be our mid-game settler pump I think.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I think Archduke and Alhambram each have 3 cities and 1 district completed, plus Archduke has an extra Holy Site (makes sense since he gets 'em half cost), with 5 population among all their cities. If I recall correctly, the Empire formula is 1 point for palace + 6 points per city + 3 per district + 1 per pop, and that math seems to work out. I'm like 60% certain that I made an error on the city calculation, though - they may be only 5 points each, would give them both another 3 pop for 8 total. That'd be close to us, since we lost 1 from a flood and have 1 in a settler on the map.

No worries on lagging ourselves on Empire, since much of our early production went to Stonehenge and our own Holy Site, so we're not too far behind.

For finding a city-state, if you think Mt. Kilimanjaro is in the middle of the map, then there should be a city-state roughly analagous to Palenque somewhere in the north. If you keep going north and sweeping with radar we should find it within ~10 turns. I agree with the math and that should be enough to lock in a Golden Age. If necessary, you could always drop a builder charge into a Great Wall improvement somewhere to push us over the edge - one charge is a cheap price to pay for Monumentality - but I'd prefer to avoid that if possible. We can save those points to push for the NEXT Golden Age. :D

[Alhazard]

Ok didn’t realize that the campus slot has a good chance of unlocking w/o gold. I think(?) you can still build the government plaza in the original slot. Buy the tile with longxi, have capital work the cow tile N of horse, then the capital should be able to also control the tile for the Govt plaza

[pindicator]

Was your first holy site +3 adjacency? I believe you get era points for the first district of each type that is +3 or greater

[scooter]

Was your first holy site +3 adjacency? I believe you get era points for the first district of each type that is +3 or greater

Ahhh you are correct. I missed this one. So yes, we haven’t collected those era points yet, and we can go that route too. Of course, I’m not sure we can complete the Holy Site in time, but we have options. Speaking of options, today’s turn…


Turn 45

Opened the save to see the eureka for Writing was triggered. That means…





Hey, we’re no longer alone. Let’s see what he’s been up to.







TheArchduke has already planted his 3rd city, so he’s ahead of us in that regard. He’s also not yet hooked up an amenity or anything beyond horses (and he was late to that), so clearly he’s pushed settlers and Holy Sites hard at the expense of everything else. Reasonable choice given his civ I think. He’s also met both Cornflakes and Alhambram already, so he surely picked up the era score for meeting everyone first. He’s also already signed a Declaration of Friendship with one of them.





He’s also well ahead in science and narrowly ahead in culture now. The culture bit is pretty surprising given that he’s only completed 3 civics to my 6, so that must be a new development. Either that or he’s researched some expensive civics without inspirations. Lots of gold and faith too. He does have less military than me despite having an extra city, so I expect he’s been more fortunate than us with barbarian harassment.


Anyway, check out those yields around Kilimanjaro. That’s ridiculous. Quite a bit around there is breathtaking appeal too, so I still have that pipe dream of settling this. Of course, so will everyone else, and some of them will have UUs to back it up potentially, so we’ll have to wait and see. My warrior took a shot from the slinger, and I need to withdraw it a bit. If the slinger advances onto that floodplains (giving him very poor tile defense), I may take a shot at it. I do need to make sure this warrior survives to protect our new city.





More exploration happening generally east of us. With all these mountains, I suspect we’ll find some strong appeal tiles all over, so it seems valuable to know where they are now. I didn’t purchase either tile this turn, but I think I’ll go ahead and purchase both tiles over the next couple turns - the Holy Site and Government Plaza tiles. I think my estimation of their value in the last post feels good still, so let’s go that route.


Also, we aren’t going to get that Campus tile next turn sadly. However, we will pick up that (breathtaking) forested hill, so 2/2/2 will be a quality tile as we grow Xian, especially since we’ll want some faith built up for a golden age.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I think it's good news on the Campus, actually - we aren't going to build the thing right away, so the 2/2/2 tile is more immediately useful. By the time we're ready to build, we should be very close to acquiring it.

Archduke's lead of 5 science also isn't too concerning - good chance that's Pingala right there plus some extra pop. It's only a long-term science deficiency that becomes a problem, such that, say, your opponent reaches Battleships while you're still fielding Frigates.

Note: I know we're not really about Theater Squares, but damn, there's an EXCELLENT spot adjacent to City #3, the 'Mids, and the Plaza.

[Sullla]

Hey scooter, are you ever going to assign that envoy into the Scientific city state?

It's a good start for TheArchduke, no surprises there. More science, more culture, more faith accumulated, and two districts completed (albeit half cost districts) are all impressive for this stage of the game. But like Chevalier said, there's no serious need for concern at this point. The Scientific city state envoy plus settling the new city gets scooter up to 8 beakers/turn, and without losing the pop point at Longxi that would be 9 beakers/turn. TheArchduke is the most likely God of the Open Sky founder which could also explain his strong culture. He's always a dangerous opponent, but this game looks like it's going to be a builder-fest due to the big size of the map, and that's an environment where TheArchduke often gets bored. Let's hope so anyway.

The tile picker grabbing the 2/2 forested hill tile with Breathtaking appeal is probably better than the Campus tile right now, since you can't place a Campus district yet for lack of Writing (next tech choice, perhaps?) I would shift the horses over to Longxi and work that tile at the capital along with the three other improved tiles. You're already getting a nice faith income for this early in the game - I wonder what TheArchduke is pulling on his end. We'll know next turn. (He probably met a Religious city state somewhere early along the way; I don't see how he could have accumulated 150 faith to date otherwise.)

Really tasty land over there in the east as well! This game is going to be all about expansion.

[scooter]

Definitely agree with both of your reads on our opponent as well as the usefulness of that 2/2/2 tile.

Note: I know we're not really about Theater Squares, but damn, there's an EXCELLENT spot adjacent to City #3, the 'Mids, and the Plaza.

Yeah, I’m definitely not opposed to throwing one down if it’s cost effective, and it might just be with these adjacency bonuses that are possible. We shall see.

Hey scooter, are you ever going to assign that envoy into the Scientific city state?

Yeahhhhh about that … Second turn today came in, and I did do it this time. Onto the turn.


Turn 46

Whew, a lot to cover this turn. We began with a mystery.





I was pretty puzzled by this. When I click on the notification, it focuses my attention to the north, but of course I don’t actually see anything. I’m assuming his unit moved into range and then ducked back into the fog. Anyway, we’ve met Alhambram of Hungary, presumably to our north. 44 turns without meeting anyone, and then we meet people in consecutive turns.





Also some flooding out west. No major impact, but it does mean there’s some improved tiles down this way.





We settled the city of Changsha this turn as planned, and Hungary has 3 cities as well. He’s hooked a luxury, and more importantly he secured iron 2 turns ago. This does mean we almost certainly have iron close to our start. We have a few options after Masonry. Writing is an option of course, but I think we’re far enough away from being ready to build a Campus that it can wait. The other options are Bronze Working (5T) to locate Iron, or head down the Archery-HBR route (4T and 8T) since we do have horses already hooked and stockpiled. All 4 of these techs are now boosted, so they’re all quality options. I’m mildly leaning towards Bronze Working because it’s quicker, but I can definitely be talked out of that. We may not want to unlock another district so soon and increase district costs after all. I noted the time left above, but we can get these techs twice as fast once we get Pingala’s next promotion which will provide quite a bit of science/turn.





Here’s this screen, for reference. What we can conclude (and I verified it on TAD’s page) is that the declaration of friendship was signed between TheArchduke and Cornflakes. Cornflakes has not yet met myself or Alhambram, and those are the only remaining connections that are missing. I’m tempted to offer out some DoF myself just to see what happens. We certainly have no intention to attack anyone early, so I don’t see much downside for us. With how roomy the map is, it seems way more efficient to just build settlers rather than build an army.

Also, we can draw a couple more conclusions about TheArchduke. He’s drawing 6 faith/turn, which sounds about right with his holy sites and presumably a faith city-state. However, he netted +19 gold last turn, which is a truly bizarre number that I can’t explain. I guess I’ll see in another turn if that’s a sustainable number, or if something weird happened there.





I went ahead and purchased the Government Plaza tile and laid it down before swapping back to a builder. I did build it from Xian despite buying the tile from Longxi. I had to do a bunch of tile swapping there and back, but it did work. I set Changsha to a builder for now for no real reason other than we have a boost on that. At 1 production/turn, it’s doing virtually nothing now except killing time until Pyramids are able to be built. I did send the envoy this turn, and that sped Masonry by 1T. That first builder will idle for 1T, but that’s fine because it’s ahead of the second builder enough that it won’t delay anything.

I’ll purchase the Holy Site tile and put that down once we have the gold to do so as well. Most likely that’ll be next turn. Government Plaza will be built first though (after this builder) because we really need that Pingala promotion. It will literally double our science rate. Soon we’ll want to get Pingala into Xian as well to get the 15% boost, but that’s a little less crucial for now. This seems like a good time to run through our cities.





I agreed with Sullla’s suggestion of handing the horses off, and we’re now working the 2/2/2 tile here as a result. Government Plaza is next, and after that we’ll have to make a decision when to slot in the next settler. We may have to do it after that district and before the Holy Site, but I could be persuaded otherwise. I just don’t want to fall too far behind, and the next city has strong tiles to work immediately, so it seems worthwhile to settle. Once this city hits size 5, we’ll probably recapture the horse tile, and hopefully soon we can get the Pyramids builder over to Longxi to improve some of the good tiles it has. Speaking of.





I’m prioritizing the two production from the horse over the two faith from the cattle. This city will be very good once we get some more worker labor. I suppose I could start another builder here after this warrior. We do need them badly, and it’s boosted right now. I think we can time it so that the builder comes out after Pyramids completes to get the extra charge. At some point soonish I think we’ll want to swap Liang and Pingala and allow this city to be a builder pump and our capital can be our science center. The timing of the move though is trickier and kind of a pain.





Just growing here and waiting for Pyramids. We basically just want to farm and grow here and eventually add some mines as the second ring adds hill tiles. We don’t care about appeal here at all due to the floodplains killing all appeal, so we can kinda do whatever we want here.


Alright, that’s enough for this turn. Interesting times.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Regarding research, since our neighbor is Hungary - who already has iron hooked up - I'd be inclined to head towards HBR first. My thinking is Masonry, Archers, DotF, and horsemen should be enough to make us secure from any Hungarian push. The fact that Alhambram already has Iron Working has to mean he's prioritized it and Bronze Working, which suggests he intends to make use of his civ's warmongering early. On the other hand, his gold isn't too out of hand, and his milpower matches ours. Alhambram as a player varies between super-rushy and not. He rushed Japper effectively in PBEM5, and Emperor K less so in PBEM6. He also took out Grotsnot in PBEM13. In PBEM2 and 8 he focused more on building. As long as we keep an eye on his gold & iron stockpiles, and track his military power, we should be okay there. Might be worthwhile to send the new warrior north to see if we can find the Hungarian homeland, too.

Why HBR instead of heading for iron working ourselves? I'm thinking about stockpiles. We're going to max out our horses soon, which will let us spit out a bunch of horsemen quick in an emergency. Iron working we would need to first locate, then mine, then wait for our iron reserve to build up before we can get an equivalent source of swords out to match Hungarian swords. HBR is available more quickly, is on the tech path for ToA if we go that route with city #4, and gives us an emergency fallback. It'd do us no good to unlock swords but not have the iron to build more than 1 or 2. The downside, of course, is that Horsemen require Maneuver, not Agoge.

Cities -

Xian I favor the early settler, I think - with so much good land available, expansion is just strong. Then maybe HS -> Ancestral Hall before more settlers, at which point we'll start getting 5-charge builders with every new city. But yeah, I could also see wanting to bank more faith for Monumentality earlier, too.

Longxi...yes, a builder seems needed, since you're working 1 unimproved tile. At some point, a shrine for faith + culture will be good, but right now we're doing fine on both those categories. One thing to consider is a trader at some point - gold also profits from monumentality and roads will ease shuffling builders around the empire.

Changsha - thankfully the Pyramids will expand borders out to some of those hills. That should greatly boost production here. The city will have two good adjacencies with the Plaza to be used, one of which I think should be our first Commercial Hub down the line. Maybe another unit here, to scout northwest? I dunno.

[scooter]

Thanks for the thoughts. You definitely hit on why HBR in particular is tempting to me. We do have a couple turns to decide at least. Rushing would be weird to me given how much land is available, but I don’t actually know how far away he is since north is one direction I haven’t (yet) scouted much. That’s going to need to change. I’ll offer him a DoF maybe and just see what he says. TheArchduke seems more likely to be further away given that we met in the middle of the map, and he’s clearly thinking about a religious game, so I don’t expect any early action from him. Cornflakes has a civ that could do it, but we’ve not yet met, so I’m not concerned about him either.

Xian I favor the early settler, I think - with so much good land available, expansion is just strong. Then maybe HS -> Ancestral Hall before more settlers, at which point we'll start getting 5-charge builders with every new city. But yeah, I could also see wanting to bank more faith for Monumentality earlier, too.

Longxi...yes, a builder seems needed, since you're working 1 unimproved tile. At some point, a shrine for faith + culture will be good, but right now we're doing fine on both those categories. One thing to consider is a trader at some point - gold also profits from monumentality and roads will ease shuffling builders around the empire.

Changsha - thankfully the Pyramids will expand borders out to some of those hills. That should greatly boost production here. The city will have two good adjacencies with the Plaza to be used, one of which I think should be our first Commercial Hub down the line. Maybe another unit here, to scout northwest? I dunno.

Yeah this all makes sense. Ancestral Hall is the most challenging thing to slot in, as it costs so much that it’s going to temporarily put us behind, and then once it’s completed the capital will be on settler duty for a lengthy period of time. I think it’s probably one of the most important things we can build though, as once it’s complete we should be able to churn out cities that can sustain themselves lightning fast.