TBS gathers his thoughts

[The Black Sword]

I've been waiting for my Pantheon to come in before figuring out a plan and updating. As expected I didn't have many options available to me. Divine Spark has apparently been nerfed from what I remember - you need to build a library as well as a campus to get the bonus now, so that seemed too weak. The only two decent options were God of Craftsman(+1h, +1faith on strat resources) and Goddess of the Hunt(+1f,+1h on camps). I only have 1 camp right now but I can quickly pick up 4 more in my first 3 cities, and at least a couple more truffle camps after that. In comparison I have 3 horses and will probably discover 3 iron tiles somewhere in my territory to be affected by Craftsman. Faith sucks, food is better, so I'm going with the Goddess. 10 extra yield from my pantheon actually sounds pretty strong to be fair.

Since the last update I've completed my campus and units, switched to Colonisation and started on some settlers:



The campus seemed to put me at top bpt for a moment until Cornflakes took the first Pingala promotion. I'll be taking the culture promotion for Pingala first instead to speed me along to a turn 50 Political philosophy. Sounds pretty decent for no Pantheons or city states helping me. 

The most obvious continuation to this line is spend the time between State Workforce and Political Philosophy in Colonisation again, to finish of the settler in Windrunner and build another in Bondsmith. I eventually decided against this though, because more settlers just don't seem to have that great of return right now. Instead I'll get 2 builders out of Bondsmith under the policy card and the probably start the Government Plaza in Windrunner ASAP, delaying the completion of that settler. These things just seems way to good to skip. For example just the truffle camp in the capital will add +1 amenity(+3-4 yield), +1f/+1h/+2g on the tile and +1f/+1g on the trade route. The government Plaza will add +1h,+1f on the trade route and +6b from adjacency bonus & Pingala promotion. I want to snowball food hammers now but that is just nuts for ~52h. I'm thinking we can switch back into Colonisation at PP and chop the settler to completion, saving 20h on the build, this probably delays the settler 3t.

After this I'm looking at getting Ancestral Hall in Windrunner, might even be able to time it so that the 4th city gets the free builder, while the capital occupies itself with the Temple of Artemis. The temple gets +3f directly(in the Pingala city), +8 amenities and 44 culture from the civic inspiration. That sounds better than a settler to me and the timing should roughly work that I'm free for a big settler push as the Ancestral Hall comes in. Given how large the map is, I'm fairly happy with delaying claiming land to just make the best snowball plays.

Here's my 3rd city location:

Iron could still change things but it's hard to see anything beating that spot: plains hill plant adjacent to the pair of spices. The city will probably just build units as it grows. I'm thinking BW -> Archery -> HBR and getting some horsemen out to capture city states, defend Rome. It's on the route to construction also. A Trade route from this city to Windrunner also looks like it will pop borders on quite a few nice tiles, as a direct path goes through the Mountain-Volcano pass.

I finally got the shape of the land down south, and I had totally misread it:

The name 'Hudson Bay' really threw me, I thought it would be a bay, and hence connected to the sea, not a lake. If not for that I may have continued on to meet Jerusalem way back when, but it's hard to say. The land seems a bit barren of resources compared to the north, so I'm expecting to see some iron pop up.

My explorer has been circling Rome and found the Dead Sea:

He will use the natural wonder to heal to full in a single turn and then continue trying to map out Rome's other borders/find more city states. You can just about see the land of another religious city state at the top of the picture - Rome got that too. As you can see I've met 3 city states since the last update, and their quests all suck - in any case I'd only be interested in the culture one. Theoretically I should have 1 more CS that's definitely mine or 2 more that are ''contested'. Anyway, since the city states apparently hate me this game I'm going to try kill them.

Some other things I've learned over the past few turns:
1. Trade route yields update immediately as you improve them with districts(and presumably Cree camps). I thought you were tied in to the yield on the turn you create the trade route and they would only update every 20t when you renew them. I delayed starting some trade routes in the early game to get my camps done because of this ...  

2. Overflow is still a thing in civ 6. Obvious I know, but somehow the overflow change had me in a mindset that overflow never had any modifiers applied to it, which is not true. Luckily I noticed when my slinger got more hammers than expected and then was able to micro my builds to get max overflow into the settler turn and under that +50% policy.

[The Black Sword]

Not sure what the barb scout in the west is doing, but I like it. It never saw a city centre, so it shouldn't have the exclamation mark, maybe just seeing a district(the campus) is enough? It also didn't run directly towards it's home camp. But I'll get the Archery Eureka out of the whole thing. Looks like the Jerusalem warrior in the north hit the other barb scout since he's injured. The scout was so weak he would have been one-shotted, so I shouldn't have to worry about him anymore.

[The Black Sword]

I finally got some good city state luck! 


Construct a Government Plaza is something I want to do ASAP anyway and an extra 2h in the capital is great. Once again Rome was the first to meet it though. Pharsalos is Greece's 3rd city and it looks to me to be a mere 10 tiles from Rome's capital. Got to be some tension there. There is also a Greek scout coming closer to my borders, so I sent him a declaration of friendship. If he doesn't accept I'll probably have to declare war on him to keep his scout away from my traders. He probably doesn't want my Oki messing with his civilians either and we're natural allies against Rome(and probably a mystery neighbour no. 2 also), so it should be a decent deal.

I found evidence of what looks to be an Industrial CS in the North West too:


And I put a note down where I conjecture the 4th CS is, if it follows the pattern. It really looked like a dead end though ...

At the moment I'm guessing we have a 4th player on this continent to my north and there's another 3 player continent somewhere. Given the level of map editing and symmetry I've seen so far, I feel it's unlikely Woden would have put someone with more than two direct neighbours. Just don't be Nubia in the north.

I'm also putting my settler mechanics to the test again this turn. I expect production to happen first, and I'll drop the truffles tile in my capital gaining me a 'free' one food.

[The Black Sword]

Everything in one picture:


Settler for city 3 is on the way. That spot is nuts and it really should have been city 2 if I'd found it in time. 

I spent quite some time deliberating over city 4. This spot is the most immediately productive site, with a 5 yield and 4 yield in the first ring and the crazy truffles tile in the 2nd ring, that will be 3/3/5 once improved. It also does a decent job of claiming land in the Roman direction while being pretty defensible; it can support a first line of defense at the tree line to the north or it has the river to protect it if I need to fall back. The long term dotmap might miss a tile or 2 but that seems a fair price to pay.

Iron has turned up in 3 decent spots. I'll probably want to buy and mine the capital's one to eureka the Wheel tech. I'm hopeful a trade route from city 4 will pick up Windrunner's source. Unfortunately, it means my border is going to pop in that direction rather than towards the deer while I wait. I plan for another city 1W of the final source in the south. It's a decent spot with short travel time to Windrunner, but it is backlines, so I don't really know one way or the other when I will fit it in.

The final piece of news - the volcano blew up my sheep!    I didn't even know that could happen. So much for my hopes of a grand trade route city in Windrunner ... I decided to change plans after that, I'll make the capital the primary trade route city and build the government plaza there instead. Arguably I should have just be doing that anyway, super-late game planning be damned. I'm telling myself that the game will probably be over by the time I want to transition Magnus from chopping to TR boosting, but my inner builder was looking forward to it.

That means I need to re-plan things a bit. Getting both an Ancestral Hall and the Temple of Artemis in my capital might be difficult. I'll need to have a think about priorities. For the moment I'm going Builder -> Plaza in the cap and Settler -> Builder in Windrunner. It's about time for some Mekewaps to deal with housing issues(and get me this golden age). To be honest I should have got a new builder before the settler for city 4, I was too excited for +50% HAMMERS !!!!

Mechanics Update:
Settler Mechanics still working as expected.
Confirmed my suspicion that production and food is done city by city a la CIV. So when I finished my campus in Bondsmith, Windrunner got +1f on the trade route that very same turn because it processed 2nd. (I didn't have an easy way to test this before I realised trade routes update immediately).

[The Black Sword]

Met Russia, he looks to be doing well. Pretty sure he went for the Science Pingala promotion first over the the culture one. I understand why he went that way, with a great writer coming in 5 turns for a culture boost but I'm still not sure I agree with it. There's no tech I'm really looking forward to for a while, whereas I'm frothing at the mouth for Political Philosophy. Based on score I think he just finished State Workforce this turn so he's a few turns behind there already. Rome made the same Pingala play btw, I think it makes a lot more sense there since they've had the free monument culture boost all game, but I'm still slightly skeptical.

Anyway, the science difference is entirely the Pingala promotion which will be evened up in 3t when my Government Plaza is finished. The culture difference is my Pingala promotion minus his culture CS. That big 400 faith stockpile is a bit menacing. It comes into play on turn 60 when he presumably picks Monumentality. I should be ready for a border push then (also, I should find the border!) I have 2 traders and the 4th settler already built and the question is how much of that he has too. Still, whatever way you slice it, even if I am ahead, I'm not as ahead as I should be by now with the Cree's early boni.

Been thinking about my own plans and I think I can get the Ancestral Hall finished by turn 54 when my fourth city is settled. Getting a free builder immediately from it is  very powerful, so that seems best to me. I need to have a think about whether it's worth delaying the settle of city 3 for a few turns for a free builder too. I could push the the city forward a few tiles since I have the extra time, but this spot is so good I'm not sure about that. I'll need to do some chopping to get the Hall built, and ideally I purchase a worker in the capital to smooth the micro. 

To that end I sent out offers to Rome and Russia of 3gpt for 30t for 70g now. It will be interesting to see if anything comes back. I can haggle a bit on price but they need to know I won't war dec them to cancel the money. I don't want to give Russia a DoF, but I would probably give Rome one. Tbh, there's a bit too many issues that I don't expect to get a deal but I figure it's worth a shot. My real hope is Greece but they didn't have the gold this turn.

I also turned my warrior back around to help escort settler 4, while my slinger gets redirected to shadow Russia's warrior and keep my civilians safe. Given that his warrior is injured and my slinger only needs two fights for a promotion I think he will do.

[The Black Sword]

Had quite a turn today. I opened the save to 2 Declarations of Friendship! 

First let's talk about Rome:


Rome straight up accepted my 70g for 3gpt trade the previous turn, with no haggling. I was really surprised by that, both because I think the deal is more beneficial for me and because it gives me some soft assurances that legions aren't coming my way. This turn Iron showed up on Rome's diplo screen, so he can upgrade a warrior in a mere 5 turns. Anyway, do I want a DoF to skip the Roman Legion power period? Of course. The only consideration is whether he can use the DoF to stuff an unfair border city down my throat. So I had a think about the border above, and I think a) it's unlikely he will and b) if he could, I couldn't stop him anyway without the DoF. All he needs is a warrior escort to deal with my warrior, there's no way I can get a bigger force together in 5t when he can upgrade his Legion and the place would become untakeable. As for why it is unlikely anyway, I set a mark down for a decent front city - plains hill plant, 5 yield tile first ring. If he settles there, that's fine. The next good place to settle is really the X I have put down for my border city. Anywhere else is a pretty big loss in city output (even that spot is worse, but it claims good land). If he has a settler in position right now he could beat me to that spot. But he can't know where my settler is. He should know I have 2 out if he's tracking population, or just by assumption since I only have 2 cities right now. If he moves toward my X, he risks losing 3+ turns of city production if I settle a spot to invalidate his. Regarding settling south of the lake - that's just too weak an area to prioritise right now. 

So in the end Rome was fairly straightforward, Russia on the other hand:

Here's the setup. Russia's warrior has to be on geothermal vent or horses. In a vacuum I'm not inclined to give them a DoF.  Keeping my options open mostly, there's got to be a temptation to forget the military backup when you are monumentality buying settlers. It also isolates Greece since I've got the DoF with Rome too, and we're natural allies on this continent. On the other hand ... I have this settler out and he doesn't need to settle until T54 anyway so he gets a free Ancestral Hall builder. Why not just push him up and claim my own unfair border city? The biggest argument against this idea is how awesome that double spice spot is. The city states and the lake look exactly like the border region with Rome and the distances match up too. Do I think they have their own settler out? No, I'm worried about Rome because they've built 0 districts and had early access to colonisation. I don't believe Russia could have built a 4th settler to beat my 3rd coming of the capital. Plus he didn't even know I existed 3t ago, he couldn't really plan this. In the end I decided to go for it, I will smash out a 3t settler from the capital after the Ancestral Hall with the +100% bonus and use that to settle the spices. It's downright cruel to delay the spot that really should have been my city 2 until past T60 but the saved travel time will probably make up for the reduced yields. There looks to be some decent tiles at the edge of the fog too.

Some domestic points:
Civ 6 apparently doesn't apply amenity bonus to chops. Cheers for the clarity . So I need to chop another forest in my cap to get the Hall out. I also missed that I can't harvest stone yet ... so that's a 3rd forest instead. Didn't want to ruin so many lumbermill tiles, but it's too late to re-arrange micro now. At least 2 of the 3 tiles are eligible for Mekewaps instead. With all this chopping there's a good case to be made that I should have went Magnus first over Pingala and State Workforce over Early Empire. I think I only realised how powerful these options were when I was already committed to Early Empire though. Maybe next game.

[The Black Sword]

I can settle the x on T54, so no time lost vs the spice spot. By putting an immediate Mekewap on the 2nd flood plain it becomes a 4/2 tile. So the city is actually better at size one. The city is 10 tiles away from my capital, while there is a 22 tile distance between me and Rome(so probably similar to Russia). I'd guess it's only very slightly favourable to me. It's hard to imagine a good enough spot in the fog to compete, but we'll have time to check with my Oki anyway.

Rome does actually have a settler on my projected border spot right this turn. But he has no escort, so I doubt he tries to push any further in case of barbs.

Also, I think I'm the first person to complete the Pingala trifecta with the Government plaza and you can see that in my stellar beaker yields. 

[hzhp800]

I don't know if it needs to be said, but this global lurker really appreciates your in-depth and engaging reporting style. Thanks for everything you've reported so far, and here is hoping for some more reports in the future. Good luck either way!  

[The Black Sword]

Thanks a lot, it's great to get some encouragement!

Technically T54 was a super turn for the Cree and I was going to report it, but the game lied to me twice in one turn which really killed my enthusiasm.

First my builder was left 2h off completion:


The previous turn the UI told me it would complete on schedule but it's trade route ended between turns and it lost the 2h. 

And here's Skybreaker, my border city with Russia(you can just about see their borders in the fog):


I tried to put the planned Mekewap on the floodplain but the icon never showed up. After some googling I find:

In Gathering Storm, the Mekewap receives an undocumented change, restricting it from being built on all three types of Floodplains.

I thought a while about settling other locations in the area, but decided this is still best. It's got 4 good tiles to work in the first ring and I probably want to put a Lighthouse on the one water tile pretty soon. I thought about pushing up to the plains hill, but defensively the spot isn't great - Russia would have more slots for shooting me at the chokepoint. The benefit from pushing forward isn't that great either, due to the desert and the lack of a quick trade route to border pop the tiles to the south.

Assuming that isn't Rome's capital I see in the fog then it doesn't look like I really stole much extra land from them. The desert makes for too much of a natural border. I'm pretty sure I could have settled this city without the DoF, so maybe it was a mistake. But there's a lack of good sites that he might settle and I might attack in the region between us, so I guess it didn't hurt anyway. And it has allowed me to not worry about his scouting warrior among my trade routes.

The next high priority for me is taking out the city states, starting with Mohenjo Daro. Settlers are so expensive that this seems much more efficient and I need to try beat my neighbours to it. If I fortify an Oki on the chokepoint into Cardiff then Russia can't get military through due to the DoF. 



The same thing goes for Jerusalem, I can use the warrior to block his Legions. 

Bondsmith had the Ancestral Hall chopped on T54 for two immediate builders, the Liang governor and another Autocracy proc. Lightweaver got an immediate trade route worth 4 border pops and a crazy 6f/2h/3g per turn. In 6 turns it will be a mature size 4 city and have finished that horseman. The capital will also complete a horse by then and they'll head up to attack Mohenjo, supported by future units from Skybreaker.

Bondsmith will go Watermill(eureka Construction and 3 yield per turn) -> Builder(for lumbermills and mekewaps) -> Horseman -> Settler. The settler will probably try set the border with Rome, ideally by the Jerusalem pearls, but if we have to fall back one slot then that's fine.

The Campus in Windrunner is just too good to miss, hitting 2 CS envoys, increasing the trade route to the capital and getting culture from my golden age dedication, in addition to the normal boni.

I switch to the +2 Scientist GPP last turn, in the hopes of scaring everyone else away from Hypatia. I figured since I'm ahead and building another campus anyway it would work. But Alhambram has somehow got up to 5gpp this turn. It's not worth fighting that for it so I'll just give it up. Unfortunate it cost me 12h by not running Urban Planning.

Other stuff I'm interested in during the T60s:
-Markets, Lighthouses and the Cree's trade route economy. Lighthouses in particular can be made 30% cheaper by a new policy card, though because they are gated by the religious tech it means it's harder to get the normal district discount.
-More Military for the City States
-A few more settlers to round out my land
-Still thinking about the Temple of Artemis, though it's getting quite late now. You can think of the amenity bonus as simply +5% in my capital, which will soon be 100 total yield per turn. Seems good.

As usual, I don't think I have the production to do everything though ...

[The Black Sword]

One other point, it seems like Greece is doing pretty poorly in comparison to the rest of us. I assume he took Magnus instead of Pingala, but that's not showing up in his city stats or elsewhere at the moment. That would leave a natural prey for both of my neighbours and none for me...