[Spoiler] Kaiser has a plan

[Ioan76]

My main position right now is Builder (for PHSheeppasture, PWheatfarm, ?? (maybe PHMine)) into Settler into something useful.
If we choose a Scout we need to bring back our Warrior due to barbs, if we choose a Warrior we can circle our first Warrior a little farther outside to get a better understanding of our surroundings. I dislike Scouts as they loose usefulness later in the game.

You definately have more experience than me but I'd still prefer Warrior -> Builder -> Settler. Maybe a stupid paranoid feeling but I don't feel secure with just an warrior which could lead to lack of early exploration.
Any anyway AH will take 10 turns to research.

[Kaiser]

What about tie-break by score first, then backwards player order?

That is possible, I will have to have a look at that, I think Woden leads the score right now with 11 points Suboptimal and me being equal at 8 and the other two following with 7. This is a lot more logical as well

By looking at the yield values, I think your "wheat" tiles are on normal plain not flood plain (no super Sphinx unfortunatly) ?

The non desert floddplains in Gathering Storm have no different yield values until they are flooded for the first time (and received and increase in yields). I checked this in my save and they are in fact floodplains. The bad news is that I tested placing Sphinx on PWheat and that is impossible, I would need to harvest the Wheat before placing the Sphinx.

This makes the wishful district placement even more ambigious, I think we really need to have a close look at:
- how to feed the capital
    - we probably need to farm both Wheats and place even a third farm later for the triangle on the now preferred Sphinx spot.
    - do we build a Granary?
    - do we rush a Watermill? (This is something I rarely do, even though it is an important Eureka for construction, but it might be the right play here)
- where to place our 2nd city
    - the first idea I threw in the ring severly lacks production and 4 yield tiles to quickly get of the ground, it can be settled quickly though.
    - I believe we can maybe find a better city site to the W/SW as there seem to be more hills, forests and jungle and the rivers are coming from there.)
    - S is a big unkown at the moment but the terrain looks like travel time alone might take to long even though jungle and forests makes this a prime settling region as we can save worker turns there

My main position right now is Builder (for PHSheeppasture, PWheatfarm, ?? (maybe PHMine)) into Settler into something useful.
If we choose a Scout we need to bring back our Warrior due to barbs, if we choose a Warrior we can circle our first Warrior a little farther outside to get a better understanding of our surroundings. I dislike Scouts as they loose usefulness later in the game.

You definately have more experience than me but I'd still prefer Warrior -> Builder -> Settler. Maybe a stupid paranoid feeling but I don't feel secure with just an warrior which could lead to lack of early exploration.
Any anyway AH will take 10 turns to research.

I have tested the Builder start extensively and feel safe with it, the Settler likely needs our first Warrior for protection if we are settling farther, a very close city typically can be settled quickly and is a huge advantage if it can provide value to our civ. As stated above, I think we need to analyze the food situation and 2nd city site in detail, this also sounds like we need scouting information so there is a good case for a Warrior before the Settler.

Regarding techs, the Builder will arrive on the Sheep tile and can improve it right away due to travel time.
I think afterwards we want to improve at least one of the Wheat tiles, maybe both to spend this Worker and get our Craftsmanship Eureka.
A quick next Worker and resulting Sphinx would be great to start our snowball but we have to think about what we are sacrificing for it (Scouting, Military, delayed Settler?)

[Ioan76]

My main position right now is Builder (for PHSheeppasture, PWheatfarm, ?? (maybe PHMine)) into Settler into something useful.
If we choose a Scout we need to bring back our Warrior due to barbs, if we choose a Warrior we can circle our first Warrior a little farther outside to get a better understanding of our surroundings. I dislike Scouts as they loose usefulness later in the game.

You definately have more experience than me but I'd still prefer Warrior -> Builder -> Settler. Maybe a stupid paranoid feeling but I don't feel secure with just an warrior which could lead to lack of early exploration.
Any anyway AH will take 10 turns to research.

I have tested the Builder start extensively and feel safe with it, the Settler likely needs our first Warrior for protection if we are settling farther, a very close city typically can be settled quickly and is a huge advantage if it can provide value to our civ. As stated above, I think we need to analyze the food situation and 2nd city site in detail, this also sounds like we need scouting information so there is a good case for a Warrior before the Settler.

Regarding techs, the Builder will arrive on the Sheep tile and can improve it right away due to travel time.
I think afterwards we want to improve at least one of the Wheat tiles, maybe both to spend this Worker and get our Craftsmanship Eureka.
A quick next Worker and resulting Sphinx would be great to start our snowball but we have to think about what we are sacrificing for it (Scouting, Military, delayed Settler?)

If you're confident about this that's OK for me.
I'm somehow traumatized about significant numbers of games which I was forced to abandon on higher levels due to popping barbarians.
BTW, I feel that this "barbarian feature" is somehow the worst implemented aspect for MP in current Civ 6.

But that's a different topic - let proceed with little exploration and we will see when o build our first Settler.

[Kaiser]

If you're confident about this that's OK for me.
I'm somehow traumatized about significant numbers of games which I was forced to abandon on higher levels due to popping barbarians.

I currently assume that we are playing maximum on a Monarch/King difficulty so the Barbarians have a lower combat strength advantage.
@Cornflakes can you disclose which difficulty setting you have choosen?

I can try to explain why I feel comfortable with going Builder first:
- barbs spawn at least 4 tiles away from a city and never on a tile with visibility from a player or CS
   - that means we actively fogbust them in the NW (right now a Scout would need to at least 6 turns from the closest uncovered spot in the NW to get to our city and get back to the Camp)
   - the S is more of a danger but also a lot slower to move through (worst case 4 tiles distance, Scout spawning in our direction would still mean at least 2 turns to our city and then at least 1 back to the camp to spawn units, in that case we need to bring our Warrior back asap and maybe switch building to a Warrior)

- depending on difficulty they have a maximum of +1 combat strength against us
- our improvable resources are in two different directions (in this case SW and N), that means we should be able to move the Builder into at least one direction safely
- my experience is that a Scout typically shows up roughly around the time when the Builder finishes

That being said, the absolute worst case scenario would be two independent Barb camps close by sending their Scout our direction, but in that case even with a Warrior start our game would be wrecked due to the delay to our development (we probably would need at least another Slinger to fight them off, probably more units)

Ioan76
BTW, I feel that this "barbarian feature" is somehow the worst implemented aspect for MP in current Civ 6.

But that's a different topic - let proceed with little exploration and we will see when o build our first Settler.

I am happy to discuss this here if you are

In my opinion the barbs bring an element of randomness into the game with the possibility of impacting players differently. This clearly takes an influence onto the game outcome, especially in a worst case scenario as described above, but also in other scenarios as players will have to invest different amounts into staying safe. The barbs are basically there to keep the players honest and discourage playing a farmer's gambit. So I believe we should try go for a farmer's gambit while playing it as safe as necessary

The loyality feature would be my top pick for the worst implemented feature for MP (and SP, just after the abyssymal AI), my main reasons are:
- difficult and costly to influence early game (station a unit, build a monument, build another city nearby, place a governor)
- city pressure is very strong and can barely be countered (effective are mostly governors and additional cities)
- increases snowball (player with more cities can better settle contested spots, border cities)
- hard benefit/loss relation, I would much prefer tiles switching over slowly than the city completly

[Kaiser]

I checked the visible tiles some more and want to discuss scouting with you.




There is another full Iteru district hexagon with the GP in the middle possible when shifting it like I painted here.

When reading the graphical bleed of the river correctly, then the blue dot marked city spot should have freshwater and can be reached in 4 turns. This equals the settling time for the other two spots (light blue dot), however it i has a slowing feature (hill, forest, jungle, river crossing, we can only settle it one turn later than the light blue dots.

For that reason I suggest we move the Warrior along the purple path so we have a better understanding of the tiles there. I believe it likely to find PHJ or PHF there, maybe even a banana or other jungle related luxury resources which would make blue dot a better starter than the light blue dot alternatives.
However it looks like it will be more difficult to find a floodplain for a Sphinx in blue dot.

The two light blue dots, especially the Western one, need directly some builder labor to get of the ground and are mediocre in production early. A nice flood on these tiles would help improving the quality of this settling spot significantly, let us hope we are hit soon by a flood here or in the capital

@Jabah
Here in the settler overview you can also see the flood icon on the two Wheat tiles (and the global warming icon NE-NE from Ed Mercer).
We also know that there is no Volcano in adjacent to visible tiles as there is no icon.

[Kaiser]

I also had a quick look at the build orders for the capital, here is the spreadsheet for this game.

I did try out the following setups:
- Pasture first working PHJCoffee and PHSheep (besides 2 turns improved) later PWheat improved
a.) PFGreedy: Builder -> Settler -> Builder -> Warrior (no chop)
b.) PFless greedy: Builder -> Warrior -> Settler -> Builder
- Farm first working PHCoffee and PWheat (only one turn PHSheep while PWheat not yet improved)
c.) FFless greedy: Builder -> Warrior -> Settler -> Builder

You can check the spreadsheet but the results are roughly this:
a.) Settler done turn 17 (possible 2nd city turn 21 or 22), build chain finished turn 26 with 3 pop, 1 and 7.9
b.) Settler done turn 21 (possible 2nd city turn 25 or 26), build chain finished turn 26 with 2 pop, 17.6 and 1.8
c.) Settler done turn 22 (possible 2nd city turn 26 or 27), build chain finished turn 28 with 3 pop, 14.6 and 9.2

I will probably have another go at greedy farm first later on

Edit:
d.) FFGreedy: Builder -> Settler -> Builder -> Warrior (no chop)
d.) Settler done turn 19 (possible 2nd city turn 23 or 24), build chain finished turn 27 with 3 pop, 12.2 and 0.7

We can end all with Agoge slotted for building some units, I think we want to get our Campus at the +4 location in the capital down soon after this execution and need to chop the forest E of Ed Mercer for it

In comparison for turn 30:
a.) Pop 3, 13 , 67.9 into a unit / 51.9 into something else, 2nd city turn 22
b.) Pop 3, 3.2 , 58.9 into a unit / 43.9 into something else, 2nd city turn 26
c.) Pop 3, 20.6 , 39.2 into a unit / 31.2 into something else, 2nd city turn 27
d.) Pop 3, 21.2 , 43.7 into a unit / 31.7 into something else, 2nd city turn 24

[Kaiser]

Thanks Cornflakes, prince difficulty means that the barbs do not get any combat strength bonus

I have extraploated the above number to turn 50 assuming the 2nd city working only 2 and 1 tiles. The field stays close we need to get a better understanding of city site number two to decide if its worthwile to get the settler earlier or not.

[Ioan76]

{...}
For that reason I suggest we move the Warrior along the purple path so we have a better understanding of the tiles there. {..}

I agree that 4 zig-zagged moves along purple path seems the most logical decision for warrior-movement.
And we will see after what will unfold...

[Kaiser]

I played the turn today and we found something interesting



I cannot imagine that this is another player capital so close, we cannot tell right now as it is too early for loayity to show up, but I believe this has to be a CS. We will try to make contact next turn and to unfog the blue dot tile. The way it looks it is possible that we cannot settle into that direction due to the city there. That would be a harsh blow to our settling options.



Also here is an overview of the available great people, nothing to urgent (such as Hypathia) but Isidore and Crassus are nice boosts. We will not go for many harbours so I expect England or Phoenicia to pick up Themistocles with their increased incentive to build harbors.

[Kaiser]

The good news is that it is not an enemy capital but a scientific city state, this is a huge bonus but sadly still blocks the blue dot I was talking about earlier.



Without any other CS interfering (which I highly doubt given that Bologna was already extremly close and in the same principal direction) I believe we can shift blue dot to the marked tile (so basically 2 SE from before). It can even be settled in the same timeframe (so either identical to coastal or 1 turn slower depending on the terrain of the tile itself.

It looks like the mountains extend at least two tiles further north and this desert region is relatively unappealing and the North continues to be featureless plains so very unattractive for the moment. I suggest we continue our way S through the jungle to uncover blue dot and its sourroundings. (Exact movement suggestion would be SW - SE onto the PHJ as we should uncover the tile W of PHSheep when the culture expands.

The scientific city states means that we will pull ahead in science for the moment, so we should also consider where to go next.
Currently I see AH -> Mining (for the chop of the Campus tile) -> Pottery -> Campus
We want a quick second builder anyway, so we could also think about AH -> Pottery -> Irrigation (for the Coffee) -> Mining -> Campus
This will probably depend on the 2nd city site though as we will need to know how many Builder charges we want to invest there, the 2nd Builder likely has only 1 charge open after chopping and placing a Sphinx.

Maybe we should try to go for the Fertility Rites pantheon to get the extra Builder?
We are likely the first to Code of Laws and God King but if the others also have a CS this close it is likely that one will have a religious one making this a hard race.