[SPOILERS] TheArchduke blasts into Space as Russia

[williams482]

Williams does bring up a good point though: if the capital builds the Campus then Fogger would have to build the Government Plaza since the capital can't build a third district until it hits size 7 in population. But the thing is, I actually think that's a good plan! Fogger has good production and can build a (discounted) Government Plaza quickly thereby freeing up the capital to work on other things. It's also probably better to let Fogger do the expensive Ancestral Hall rather than tying up the capital down the road. The timings also line up pretty well here in terms of builds and research completing, just make sure to avoid placing and starting the Government Plaza until after the capital finishes its Campus (to activate the district discount, and remember that a tech/civic needs to be finished researching to "refresh" the game's list of what gets the discount.)

Well, I'd love to take credit for suggesting building the Plaza at Fogger, but to be perfectly honest that never occured to me. That's a much better idea, and helps fix both the timing crunch and the issue of Hell March being the only city capable of building districts on the two high-adjacency tiles between it and the Plaza. The only downside is that Fogger isn't quite as good a place to crank +100% production settlers, but we weren't planning on doing much of that anyway.

One crucial note with this plan though: We need to get the timing of the tile purchase, tile swap, and campus placement down perfectly. Hell March needs to buy the Plaza tile (likely as soon as possible), then Fogger needs to swap that tile over it's control BEFORE Hell March places the campus. If that doesn't happen, Civ6's extremely restrictive tile swapping rules will make it extremely difficult to give Fogger access to that tile once the campus has been placed.

Also something that I noticed in the discussion: both TheArchduke and williams seemed to want to harvest the wheat tile where the Campus is going to be placed. Don't do it! Resource harvests are a very weak use of builder charges this early in the game. Based on the harvesting formula that wheat tile would be worth about 40-45 food right now, roughly one population point at Fogger. I think it would be much better to use the builder charges to improve the good tiles at Fogger as opposed to wasting one of them on a harvest of limited value. Out of the three builder charges, one should be used for sure on the truffles and silks to unlock their amenities. That will boost every city into Happy status and produce increased city output across the board. The other tile to improve is either the cows or the horses, and I think I prefer the cows just because it's faster (less turns of wasted movement) and it provides Fogger with a decent 3 food/1 production tile to work. The cows aren't worth it as a 3/0 tile but I think they do become worthwhile at 3/1. Feel free to disagree if you prefer the 2/3 horses tile which would also be an awesome output.

Normally I'd be in full agreement for a food resource, but Fogger's relative lack of food and the intended district timing makes that extra pop point relevant. Not harvesting the wheat likely slows Fogger reaching pop 4 (and thus, the completion of the Plaza) by at least 10 turns, plus the other yields that faster citizen will give us. By my estimation, that resource harvest is worth 20 science (10 turns of +2 campus adjacency) and 20 faith (10 turns of working either cows or horses) in addition to the accelerated production and other snowball benefits. Finishing a pasture is just one hammer per turn, which is useful for sure but on a level where extra pop in a low food, high housing city can come close to breaking even.

Ultimately though, it won't matter because that campus is being placed before we could get a worker over there to harvest. We have Writing coming in four turns, the settler in six (?), and the builder in eight, plus three more to move over there and harvest. The timing just doesn't work unless we delay the campus placement, and for the kind of margin described above, it's definitely not worth it.

[TheArchduke]

Hmm, money is quite tight at the moment. Are we sure that we can actually buy a tile?

This throws a bit of a wrench into plans. I do think I can scrounge up one barb camp south in 6-7 turns?

[williams482]

Hmm, money is quite tight at the moment. Are we sure that we can actually buy a tile?

This throws a bit of a wrench into plans. I do think I can scrounge up one barb camp south in 6-7 turns?

That's probably not fast enough. How much does a second ring tile cost? We'll have 51 gold when writing completes, 67 when the Settler finishes.

[TheArchduke]

It is 55 gold for hell march, so it is doable, forget what I said. It is second ring of Hell March after.

I kept State Workforce going, as we do now want to delay the gov plaze beyond the finished campus.

3 more turns till my Great Prophet induced anxiety is over and 23 until we have a Great Artist who can explore.

Turn 35

Bronzeworking Eureka is finished by the slingers.
Both can be promoted next turn and I will promote them to arrow storm and then garrison. We will stay defensive and the +10 CS in city centers and districts is really strong.
But barbarians must be fought first and in the field. Same with the warriors, battle cry and then tortoise.

   

Not harvesting? I fear you are right. It is a nasty SP habit to make perfect cities using all possible ressources whilst in MP you want quickness and efficiency. We will only build maybe 1 more settler out of Hell March, the rest should be faith bought in the border cities.

I also switched over a tile in Hell March to have the settler finish in 4 turns before Hell March grows. Afaik this is more efficient, no? The food box that needs to be filled is smaller on smaller city sizes.

[williams482]

I also switched over a tile in Hell March to have the settler finish in 4 turns before Hell March grows. Afaik this is more efficient, no? The food box that needs to be filled is smaller on smaller city sizes.

Yup, that is better. I don't think it will grow instantly if the food box size drops below existing food, but that food will not be wasted.

[TheArchduke]

Turn 36

Naming shemes are something new for me. Before I played PBEMs I never had to use them before.
I am going with Frank Klepacki´s arrangments this time around. With Westwood disappearing his works became a bit more obscure, and C&C kinda disappeared from the hearts of minds of gamers in the last 10 years (deserved)

I have several of them in my car, although you should get the new and updated arrangments from Frank Klepackis website:  https://www.frankklepacki.com/listen/soundtracks
I encourage you to listen to them, they are closer to his vision then the old sound systems allowed him to make them.

Hell March (every C&C so far, this songs gets your blood pumping. Unfortunately or Fortunately, ymmv, it has been overused a bit for military parade videos)
Fogger (one of the best tracks on C&C2, incredibly relaxing)
Funky Swamp (Zanthia´s hut outside in Kyrandia 2, really sets the mood for the game, overall Kyrandias overall soundtrack is full of reage and funk)
Beyond Timbermist (Kyrandia 1 entree to the 2nd act, incredibly motivating.)
Spice Melange (captures the mood of Dune 2 perfectly)
Just do it (Very 90ies, but I dig it)

Those are the earliest titles and the songs I am most fond of, more will follow.
Yes, I am old.

Anyway, turn 36

   

The barb situation is under control again and we make a scout push south with a slinger and a warrior whilst a second warrior-slinger strike team cover the east. Uncovering more tiles to the south will be especially important as we have the least information over there and there must be a neighbour south of us or are we all alone? I doubt it.
Rather low burn turns at the moment as we mostly shuffle units around. This will change soon with religion and a new settler coming up.

I am firmly set on Funky Swamp right now as it is the best choice I can see. I am still playing with the idea of going for Spice Melange and then conquering Cardiff, but I do not want units to get into the way of snowballing ahead.

   

We get lucky with the natural border expansion at Hell March. The other choice for the engine would be a mountain tile.

[TheArchduke]

If the campus on the wheat is built by Hell March, can we actually allocate the tile for the gov plaza in the middle to Fogger?

[williams482]

If the campus on the wheat is built by Hell March, can we actually allocate the tile for the gov plaza in the middle to Fogger?

Yes, but as noted above, only if we get the timing right. Fogger must claim the tile before Hell March places the Campus, and Hell March must not reclaim the tile prior to the Plaza going down.

[Sullla]

To answer TheArchduke's question, no, if the capital builds a Campus on the wheat tile then Fogger can't build a Government Plaza on the intended tile. I mean, there's a remote way to do it by purchasing the hot springs tile, then the tile southeast of the wheat, and then the tile east of the wheat, but that would definitely by crazy and not worth it. Or you could follow williams482's suggestion and not start the Campus until after Fogger places the Government Plaza, which would delay the start of the Campus and also invalidate the district discount for both of them. And honestly I'm still not sure that the game would allow you to assign the wheat tile back to the capital in this scenario since it would be needed to maintain a path from Fogger to the Government Plaza. I don't think that this scenario would be worthwhile.

Fortunately I think there's a way to salvage this and maintain that wheat tile for future use, essentially by doing a slight variation on what williams had suggested in a post from a little bit earlier:

* Place the capital's Campus district on the tile southwest of the city center
* Fogger builds the Government Plaza on the marked tile east of the Lavras when it hits size 4
* Fogger later builds its own Campus district on the wheat tile when it hits size 7

That's a slight downgrade because the Campus district southwest of the capital only has an immediate +2 adjacency bonus instead of +3 adjacency, but it gets back up to +3 when the Government Plaza finishes for later Rationalism use. (Losing the forest on that tile will temporarily remove the Earth Goddess faith bonus at the capital only to see it restored again when the district finishes since Campus districts provide +1 appeal to neighboring tiles.) More importantly, this preserves all of the build/research timings that we're juggling right now: the capital can immediately start the Campus as soon as the settler completes while picking up the 40% district discount to make it cheap and fast. Fogger will need to avoid placing the Government Plaza until after the Campus finishes to trigger the district discount, but then again it won't grow until size 4 until after the Campus finishes anyway. If you want to harvest the wheat for Fogger (which I still advise against), this provides time to do so. I think this is the best way to maximize the local terrain while still ensuring that the overall civ is rolling along with build/research timings that make sense.

Has anyone else finished a district yet? Two more turns until religion arrives.

[williams482]

And honestly I'm still not sure that the game would allow you to assign the wheat tile back to the capital in this scenario since it would be needed to maintain a path from Fogger to the Government Plaza. 

The game is not that clever. I just ran a test to verify, and the game will let you "cut off" tiles from the city they are assigned to without issue. As you can see, Methone was allowed to keep the tile in Pella's second ring even after Pella claimed the intervening tile and placed a Holy Site on it:



Placing the Plaza as planned is absolutely possible:

1. Fogger claims the wheat tile from Hell March
2. Fogger claims the plaza tile from Hell March
3. Hell March reclaims the wheat tile from Fogger
4. Hell March places the campus on the wheat tile
5. Fogger places the Plaza

As long as we don't accidentally swap the Plaza tile over to Hell March after the Campus is down but before the Plaza is placed, it will work. 

Finally, campuses do not provide an appeal boost. If (when) we put a district on that tile, we will only keep the earth goddess bonus if that district is a Theater Square (or Entertainment Complex, but why the hell would we do that), or we put a city park on another nearby tile.