Polish/South Korean vacation succession

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Maybe I should move Just Passing Through across the river? Onto the CH site. It's still eminently defensible, given the ring of mountains, and then I can grab a third volcanic tile with Crassus! That might be the play.

[Kaiser]

Yeah, go across the river, it also save you gold as you do not need to buy the 2nd ring tile and you can get both ambers.

Great overview, thanks. Can you post a screenshot of the Germany / Japan area for a better understanding how far Hungary is away and how the defense could look like?
From your post I understand that there is a land connection to Hungary somewhere to the NW so my block Germany plan would have left us with a Hungarian Border?
This has the nice flavour of building your base before the inevitable hungarian wave of levied units come :D

If you want to get units out very quick and want to better manage your strategics, I suggest you pre-build for 1 turn either Horsemen or Swords to be able to start stockpiling. You can manage the policy cards a bit better this way.

I also suggest you keep a strong force on your W while 1 - 2 CS conquerors rush the states. For that reason (and the Ram and Melee units you need on the W) I suggest you start with Agoge getting 2-3 Swords, 2 Spearmen and at least 1 Ram out.
Do you how Horse heavy Hungary's army is?

The CS in the N and E are hopefully still wall less by the time you get there, so I suggest to target them with the follow up builds of 5-6 Horsemen. If not then you can turn around your Ram or build one early on the E with a Single Sword to complement.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 50 Roundup

As is traditional. A bit more effort than I usually put into reporting this, a private game, but eh, what the hell. Let's dive in and get a look at Poland ca. turn 50. Remember, it's online speed, so everything moves quite ab it faster. 




The Polish core around Gdansk Bay. This area is one of the cradles of human civilization, and most of it has been settled since the early '20s. But Who's Counting came via Religious Settlements, Of Course I Still Love You was a hand-built settler, and It Builds Character was purchased using our early gold. We picked up some free scouts and builders via huts and contacted a huge amount of citystates - I think we were first to Antioch, Nazca, Kandy, Geneva, Jerusalem, Cardiff, and Lisbon, getting beat to Fez and Bandar Brunei in each direction. Our land is fertile and prosperous, we put our spare production to work on good district infrastructures, and are easily the largest, most prosperous empire on the map. Others have caught up in city count to these initial four, but we used the time to lay the groundwork for a new settler wave, and then launched that wave right as India and Hungary caught up.




The Elbe River valley is the target of a focused wave of Polish expansion, as three cities in three turns have been founded here. A fourth will go down to the east within five turns, and long-term we'll push west and north to the coast and up the river. These cities aren't as strong as the old established core, but will rapidly grow and start contributing. Me, I'm Counting! is mostly filler, but Gravitas Shortfall and Ask Your Mother both have solid tiles and will be great tier 2 cities. There's a huge amount of land available and no one to contest it, because the Civ VI automated mapmaker is drunk. It plopped us in the middle of a vast fertile plain surrounded by city-states, shoved our nearest neighbor Canada into the tundra, and our other neighbor Germany next to the desert. Far to the east India is wedged on the edge of the continent and only bordered 4 city-states, although he does have good land available. 

Foreign lands:

The eastern borderlands between ourselves and India are mostly untamed wilderness. There's good land here, though, and the city-states make for a convenient buffer zone. India has begun settlement efforts in this direction (look VERY closely at the fog southeast of Kandy and due east of Look Ma, No Hands!), but so have we - Just Passing Through is 2 turns from being founded, and Look Ma, No Hands! will be settled shortly after that. My next wave of settlers is also headed in this direction to secure the southeast and northeastern borders, respectively. 




The Far East, India. India is isolated and lonely apart from its city states. It borders Canada to the southwest, but distantly, and Canada is mostly tundra. It has a lot of room to call its own, but he's been content to grow large cities and expand slowly. Note that his scouting has been very limited - I got the era score for "First" to the Dead Sea and it's in his own backyard! I also swept up a bunch of huts here.

 Down the road India has the potential to grow into a threat, but I don't intend to let things get that far. India has a paltry military nad mediocre research scores, mostly from its high population. He's probably in second place.




The southern borderlands with Canada. Canada clings to the tundra, is run by an AI, and is Canada. Emphatically in last place, even below Japan (who got rushed by Hungary). The next settlers out of my core are grabbing the three spots visible here to set the border. The land is dry and barren, not at all like the east or north, so no rush here. I just need to beat the AI to it, is all. Canada is a target of military conquest down the road, but we haven't bothered scouting them because Canada.




To the southwest of us lies Germany. Germany is divided from us by a range of mountains, but cheekily thrust into "our" sphere of influence in the Chocolate Hills, creating a German/Polish border which has never led to problems historically, no sir. Germany is small and weak, with only 3 small cities (you can see Mainz under the fog to the west), pathetic research, and the weakest military in the world, even below some city-states. He built a Holy Site before a settler, sat on 2 cities for ages, and isn't bothering to build a military to defend against his neighbor Hungary OR to eat Bandar Brunei and Lisbon, two of his city state neighbors. He's useful as a buffer but no threat at all. I hope he doesn't try to eat his city-states, since I plan to eat Bandar Brunei (too close to my core for comfort) and keep Lisbon around to enhance my markets. 




West of Germany lies what looks to be a vast desert, and then flat, unproductive lands to the Japanese/Hungarian bloodlands. Japan and Hungary border closely on each other - it looks like Hungary's second city is less than ten tiles from Japan's capital at Osaka! It explains the Hungarian rush. The war also has prevented Japan from expanding here, leading to the vast wilderness we see. 

There's no natural barriers to a Hungarian invasion of Germany other than distance. A single river is on the Hungarian side of the desert, and then it's all flat, open terrain straight to Aachen. A few forests could provide a sort of defensive position, but Germany has no army and no production. Once Japan falls - IF Japan falls - the Kaiser will be in serious trouble. Hungary looks to lie just west of Antananarivo, and has at least 4 cities, plus Japanese conquests. His cities are relatively large nad have a modest infrastructure - one campus and a few encampments. He has the second-highest score in the game and second-best research. If he can finish off Japan, he'll be a contender, but...




Japan fields 3 horses and 3 archers at least, with a total military score of 281 - higher than Hungary's! He's lagging in research and has a poor production base, but his military tech is current generation and his capital can spit out horsemen quickly, it seems. Japan is running right at the limits of his ability to support an army - he makes 1 gpt. However, he might have prospects to push back and reclaim some of hsi conquered cities, since you have to figure a portion of Hungary's strength is at home. Right now, the war looks stalemated to me. We'll keep propping up Japan as necessary, but this is very good news. You can dimly see Hungarian borders west of the Japanese army - figure that's his conquered city of Fukuoka, most likely. 




The northwestern frontier. Hungary lies just west of Antanarivo, but is separated from our frontier city of Ask Your Mother by thick terrain - hills, rivers, jungles, mountains. It's good land and my next prospect for expansion. I see excellent city-sites here, but Hungary has been distracted by his war, so it goes unclaimed for now. The good news is Hungary will have a tough time invading, but we will need a decent garrison force to protect settlement efforts in the area if we intend to claim this territory (which I do). For now, though, all of Corvinus's forces are no doubt tied up battling around Osaka and Fukuoka.

Cities:

The capital city of Just Read the Instructions. It can churn out settlers in ~5 turns with base 27 cogs going in, 36 with Colonization. It also has decent infrastructure in place, and even lacking a campus generates nearly a third of the empire's science. It's a gem of a city, only marred slightly by the fact that Gdansk Bay is a saltwater lake. At some point, I intend to send a builder here to chop the jungle into an Aqueduct and the forest into a Campus, but right now with Magnus it's pumping settlers and will continue to do so even as the rest of Poland changes tack to other projects.




But Who's Counting? is our first expansion, although it was settled almost simultaneously with OCISLY. It lies just southwest of the capital and is the German/Canadian border city. Chocolate Hills and the volcanic tiles to the east make the city home to beautiful pastoral, untamed lands. It also had a jewel of a campus that is unfortunately pillaged at present, costing me 8 total science per turn. Once restored, BWC will contribute about 1/4 of empire-wide science. 

Unfortunately, housing is an issue due to Gdansk Bay again. No aqueduct is possible on volcanoes, I think, so it needs a harbor to continue to grow, as the city also lacks farms. But it needs to hit size 7 for a harbor since it's got a Holy Site. The growth in the city will stall, but it'll have decent production (equal to the capital's!) and is responsible for fully half our culture. It'll be an excellent builder pump and so Liang calls the city home with our next title. Next turn it will spawn a Great Prophet and found our religion. After the settler, it'll repair the campus and library, then transition to either a military build or builders. 




Of Course I Still Love You is a pleasant city in a peaceful mountain valley. It boasts the most distinguished campus in Poland and is responsible for more than 1/3 of empire-wide science. Production is slightly behind the two previous cities, but there's plenty of room to develop the southern bank of the Elbe with lumber mills and mines to improve this. After the completion of the settler, it will probably do a round of military builds, then move on to the aqueduct, then the Holy Site. If we have Work Ethic that will really goose production here. Pingala will establish here to further boost the Campus, since pop in this city should get a bit higher than BWC.




It Builds Character is the breadbasket of the empire, with by far the most food flowing in. Most of its best tiles are out in the outer rings and still to come, plus it's key to developing the Government Plaza metroplex I have planned. Right now it's working on Eurekas for me, having finished its contributions to the settler project - the Walls will finish Construction for me next turn (or Engineering, whatever), then probably a Water Mill to give it even more food and boost (Engineering/Construction), which I wnat to enable lumber mills. From there's time to start laying in an aqueduct, then an industrial zone, which will in turn fuel production of the campus. This city is a slow-burn but once it matures it's going to be magnificent. 




Gravitas Shortfall is our first colony on the lower Elbe. It has fantastic tiles and just needs the population to work them. I want to get the Market established here to fuel our economy, then it'll probably move on to military builds for a while. Later on a campus might work well in the jungle belt, but for now it's basic infrastructure and then units. Honestly, if it's going to be a unit pump, an encampment might be worthwhile here, since it lacks other major adjacencies and is in the direction of Hungary. 




Me, I'm Counting is mostly a filler city, but note the yields it's getting on 1 population - that's due to the trader I had ready to plop in there. My plan basically is to use traders to fuel new cities, which will lay down Hubs and Markets themselves to build more traders, which in turn fuel the next generation of cities as we move in waves to the north and to the west. MIC will probably work on units after the trading infrastructure is established. I have no specific plans for this city beyond that. 




Ask Your Mother, just founded this turn. It has some solid tiles, and a third ring encampment southwest will totally seal off Germany from the fertile north. It hasn't placed its CH yet because I intend to chop it, so in the meantime it was working on the water mill for a bit of food and production to get it going. The builder will chop the jungle to provide a tile for the CH to the east of the city, place a mine for a bit of production as Apprenticeship is completing, and will plantation the chocolates to add a luxury to the empire. And more gold. Always more gold. Meanwhile the city will get trade infrastructure up and running.

Those 3 cities are only the tip of the spear - fully 4 settlers are still on the map moving to final destinations, while 3 more are in queue and I intend to train at least 2 more from JRTI after that. I just doubled my city count in the last 3 turns and it's going to double again over the next ten turns. We're in full runaway mode.

Scores and reports for people who like that stuff:

Scores:



City-states and envoys. Amani is establishing in Geneva, due in 4:



City Yields summaries:





Available resources:





City Summaries:

Moral of the story: this game is over, everyone else just doesn't realize it yet.

[Sullla]

Really appreciating the level of depth in the reporting Chevalier. I hope this game is fun to play and a nice break from the more tense Realms Beyond matches.

[Kaiser]

Thanks for the great overview, I am happy the Settler spree is working and look forward to see more of this game.

Are you proping Japan up with Horses and Gold?
When do you expect to start the conquering of CS?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I am sending Japan horses, but hoarding my gold. He doesn't have to BEAT Hungary, just stay alive. Right now his forces are driving towards the captured city in the fog, so I like where things are. I probably am going to retain further horses for my own use now.

As for city-state conquests. Bandar Brunei still fields warriors, but has walls. I need to squeeze in a ram, then I have 3 swords and 2 archers available for the operation, which should be plenty. I started upgrading last turn, without Professional Army. Mercenaries is a ways off, still, and iron is more important to me than gold at the moment, since with no encampments my stockpiles are low. 3 more settlers finishing over the next 3 turns, then we'll swap into horses (and a few other needful things).

The main question is JRTI - there are more good sites available, and even without Colonization, it's a great settler pump between Magnus and the Ancestral Hall. I see three options:

1)Continue with settlers until all good sites are filled.
2)Swap to military builds to use the production to quickly get an army ready to go after city states. This I think gets mroe land faster than continuing settlers.
3)Infrastructure builds, like a campus, to solidify my advantage.

Right now I think 2->3 ->1 is best for the snowball. Once it has at least a campus and library in place, I'll not need infrastructure again for a bit and can do a round of settlers. The soldier will be immediately useful and nice to have in hand in case Hungary gets frisky. I think Bandar Brunei can be attacked around turn 60, about 3 weeks from now given Japan's 40-hour turns (the guy really is dragging himsefl to play since Hungary torpedoed his game).

[Kaiser]

I agree that the quicker Military campaign in the W is more important than keeping JRTI on Settlers. Especially as it looks like Bandar Brunei, AYM, a city 3 NW 1NE of AYM and Cardiff will make a nice first border against Hungary.
Any city you intend to settle beyond that will likely need Military support anyways, so you can delay these cities until your slow movers control Cardiff and Bandar Brunei and then consider pushing your borders NW in direction of Hungary.

Do you plan to swing the BB task force around for the Northern and Eastern CS as well or will you send the Horses there supported by a Swordman and a Ram?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

It's been nearly a week since my last turn, most of which was Japan holding the save for days on end. He marked himself as "on vacation" though on PYDT. 




This is the first tech I've completed in ages, while I try to take advantage of the era flip and get eurekas. I am running out civics and techs to sink research into, though, so it's time to start finishing things. Gonna rattle off a quick series over the next few turns that should demoralize the opposition even further. If this doesn't already demoralize them:




India is next, with I think 5 cities. I can do a quick count. This brings me up to 8. In the meantime, Hungary has lost Nagoya to rebels, has a badly misplaced catapult getting mauled, and a sword/ram against 2 injured horses and 3 archers visible, while Japan is pressing an attack on the Hungarian homeland while also attempting to recapture his lost city:




I move my scout further west. Not sure where to go from here - there's an unmet city-state in the north near Hungary, but it's a long walk around. I might head towards Hungary's borders and try to map him out. I'd also like to see a Japanese city-center so I can monitor his unit strength. 




It's here that I learn Nagoya, not Fukuoka, is Japan's second city! Where is Fukuoka, then? He definitely had it when I met him, then lost it. It can't be south of the capital, since the Japanese army holds the land between the two nations at the moment. It must be further west or north, then, meaning Hungary struck Nagoya from his second city first (staging from the encampment we saw, and probably sweeping west across these open plains), then pressed on to Fukuoka, while the Japanese counterattack came from the south and cut him off. That's why he's defending at his own encampment despite the first strike and having 5 cities at one point to Japan's 1. Japan has nearly 1.5x Hungary's military at this point, but Hungary has the superior research and production base. The war should stalemate iwth Japan reclaiming the burnt out husk of his empire, and in the meantime Poland merrily surges ahead. 

At home, apart from founding Just Passing Through, there's not much to tell. My new builders are busy as bees at their cities, throwing up initial infrastructure while I place Commercial Hubs and get the early builds on the way. I'm using Monumentality to faith-purchase traders right now to further jumpstart the colonies - Just Passing Through gets one instantly to go with its builder. Most cities except OCISLY are finished iwth the initial settler wave, although I need at least 4 more settlers for all the spots I've identified as good ones. JRTI places a campus, then starts on its horseman, BWC begins repairs on its campus, IBC is finishing its water mill for the eureka, and the new sites are working on their markets. 

Scores and core view:




No longer small enough to fit on one screen. I left off Japan and Canada because they are irrelevant.  

In answer to your questions, Kaiser, I plan to at least tackle the northern states of Cardiff and Nazca with my slow movers. Kandy, Fez, and Jerusalem are still up in the air - I think the army I take them with will be the same army I move on India with. That will be the endgame, since from India I can roll over Canada, and from Canada on to Germany. Once Germany is hand Hungary and Japan should throw in the towel, if they haven't already. 

Right now I field 3 swords, 1 archer (with 2 slingers heading to upgrade points), and am building a horse with a second on the way as soon as I have the build queue for it. I'm going to build a ram before the second horse, though, since BB fields 4 warriors and 2 archers at the moment, and I can take that with my current forces if they only have the ram.

[Sullla]

Fantastic stuff Chevalier, thanks for keeping us in the loop. It's too bad that this game likely won't last more than a dozen additional turns; one player surging far ahead combined with an atrocious turn pace probably signals that this one's at the point of wrapping up.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]