[SPOILERS] ljubljana embraces the dark side

[ljubljana]

Turn 5



We find a geothermal vent, which will certainly be useful down the road, though it's probably too far away to help us get the +3 campus at the second city. We could get it by either founding W of the warrior and Lavra-ing the stone, or founding on the geothermal and Lavra-ing 1E - the latter gets better adjacency bonuses, but the former has stronger tiles. Either is a weak and distant spot for a second city, though, so hopefully we don't end up desperate enough to seriously consider this.

Pilcrow hits size 2! Ignore the lying interface, of course - after a tile swap, it now grows in 5 and finishes the slinger in 6. This bumps our empire score up to 8 - out in the fog, Ioan hits size 2 as well, but nobody else does. Since Ioan didn't move before founding, they're presumably working a rice rather than a sugar - does that mean we're the only ones with a 5-food tile at the start? That could indicate a capital that is, in fact, slightly stronger than average from a yields perspective, which would certainly be nice.

At the end of the turn, we hear the ominous shouts and rumblings of a barb camp spawn. I don't know what this means - did we get a camp, or did Ioan? I certainly hope it's the latter, or our scouting will end up even more truncated than is already the plan.

Also, with a 5-minute turnaround time, I've finally cleansed myself of the psychological need to play these turns as fast as possible. This is definitely a good thing, as we're approaching the next real decision in the game - when do we turn the warrior around? I'm still hoping to find an NW or city state by pushing deep, of course, but we also badly need to scout SW of the capital before the settler pops to identify any other possible +3 campus sites that can share the sugar. I think I'll have him circle around the lake, then start walking home (unless we got the camp spawn, of course).

[ljubljana]

Turn 6

Our warrior's perambulations continue:



The biggest news of the turn, or lack thereof, is that it looks like we didn't get the barb camp spawn, and thus Ioan presumably did. Worse, at the end of this turn, we hear the even more terrifying 'barbarians are approaching our city' sound effect. If I'm interpreting this correctly and Ioan has an activated camp next to their capital on turn 6, that's a really catastrophically bad break for them; the barbs as currently implemented represent just such a hugely impactful luck element in the Civ6 early game, enough so that I'd seriously consider playing in a no-barbs PBEM in the future.

In other news, CMF's capital grew this turn, indicating a worked 3-food tile, while thrawn and TheArchduke are still at size 1, indicating a worked 2-food tile. Since we got a 5-yield tile at the start, it's probably fair to assume those two have a 2/3 forested grassland hill deer or something like that, but still, all else being equal, I'd probably choose the tile we got over that one given our otherwise very production-heavy capital.

[marcopolothefraud]

If you're very worried about having a +3 campus for the era score, I would advocate settling 1SE of the geothermal fissure. The good thing about Russia is that you'll immediately access tiles in the second-ring, which means that you can work the 2/2 deer and the gems hill immediately. I would harvest the cattle and get a Lavra next to the mountains, and that will make the second city pretty good. Just don't fall into a trap of building too much infrastructure and not enough military/settlers.

Plus, there's almost a 100% chance there's horses in the Amur-Khanka area. Hopefully they spawn in a convenient location.

[ljubljana]

If you're very worried about having a +3 campus for the era score, I would advocate settling 1SE of the geothermal fissure. The good thing about Russia is that you'll immediately access tiles in the second-ring, which means that you can work the 2/2 deer and the gems hill immediately. I would  harvest the cattle and get a Lavra next to the mountains, and that will make the second city pretty good. Just don't fall into a trap of building too much infrastructure and not enough military/settlers.

Plus, there's almost a 100% chance there's horses in the Amur-Khanka area. Hopefully they spawn in a convenient location.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that plan will actually get us a +3 campus, which would need to be placed adjacent to the fissure and to the city center and to the Lavra to hit +3. We could get there with this proposed site, but we'd need to put the Lavra 1E of the city center, sacrificing a woods, to do so. At this point, I'm hoping a somewhat-better site presents itself in the rest of our first ring, both because that plan's somewhat weakish in terms of yields and because a second city that far away from the capital would waste a lot of turns' worth of settler moves and could be a serious defensive liability in the event of an early attack. The +3 campus concern is a fairly compelling one, though, IMO, since not only does it get us 3 ES closer to the Classical golden age, but it also 3 ES worth of flexibility in terms of the Medieval dark age (since it's not like we'll want to go all the way to the Medieval era without placing a +3 campus). I'll probably ultimately end up reserving judgement on the second city site until its settler's out, I think.

As for horses, AH will likely be our next target after Astrology, so hopefully we'll get the eureka soon and will then be able to take the horse location into account when settling. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how likely getting that eureka is at this point; hopefully we get lucky on that front soonish. If we do find a close NW, we can also settle near it instead of (or in addition to!) a +3 campus spot to greatly ease the ES crunch.

[ljubljana]

Turn 7



I think it's about time to turn SE; we're not likely to want to settle this far out anytime soon, and all these between-turn barbarian noises (we got another this turn, poor Ioan ) are making me paranoid. This would also have the advantage of slightly reducing the odds that we'll be scouted by Nubia, though of course we may well give up some first-contact city-state bonuses by doing so. I do think that 'our' NW, if there is one, is not too likely to be further out than this - TheArchduke's was a bit closer in PBEM17, and this map is most likely smaller, for whatever those two data points are worth. If we do find an NW by turning SE, moreover, it could make a great second city site, while out here in the fourth ring, that's pretty much out of the question. I'm not totally sure this is the right decision, and I'm open to counterarguments, but my qualitative sense is that the balance of probabilities makes a SE turn the safer and better call on average.

Ioan also has a civic this turn, as expected for Rome; if they adopted God King, we have essentially no chance of beating them to the first pantheon even with our early Lavra. I'm probably still going to go for God King, though, as if we run it for 12-ish turns to speed the Pantheon by an equal amount it'll be effectively worth 1 + 2 * (number of worked breathtaking tiles) faith/turn for those 12 turns with the earlier Earth Goddess, which is quite decent.

[ljubljana]

Turn 8

hahaha well, I don't know how we managed to sniff this out, but, uh:



The tile the warrior is standing on is a defensive liability, but would otherwise be a strong second city site, getting the +3 era score from founding next to the wonder and a chance at a +3 campus on the hill 1W, with food bonuses in range to help us reach size 4 in time and at least okay early production, which should improve in the midgame once we start picking up those resources out in the third ring. All the visible tiles next to the wonder are Breathtaking as well, making this spot even better in conjunction with Earth Goddess, which it would even help us land quickly by working bonus faith tiles. I'm still hoping we'll find a more defensible site to the SE that also achieves all of this, which is made more likely because Mato Tipila is considered a mountain in-game, easing Campus placement. Either way, though, something in this region has to be considered a huge favorite for the second city despite the exposed position. With the Astrology eureka in-hand, we should even have time to take any horses in the neighborhood into account before making a final decision as well. What a huge stroke of luck .

In other news, thrawn picked up 3 ES this turn, and Ioan picked up 4 - I wonder if we're not the only ones to stumble upon a natural wonder about this far away from the capital on this turn? Ioan also met a city-state, at least according to my interpretation of today's telltale end-of-turn noise - good for them! Hopefully that'll help them recover from what otherwise sounds like a very difficult starting situation.

As far as our own ES situation goes, we're now at 3/25, and the remaining freebies are:

- Build a Lavra (+4)
- Found a pantheon, likely not first (+1)
- Found a religion, likely first (+4 including the Prophet)

Settling on the warrior's current tile would give another +4, with +3 from Mato Tipila and +1 since it's also near a floodable river. With correct culture prioritization, we should also be able to land PoliPhil in time for another +3 (since Rome will surely be first). That brings us to 19/25 - where will we get the other 6? The +3 campus would help, and the warrior's tile also allows an extremely sad boat build if needed for another +2. It's also pretty hard to imagine we'll stay completely contact-less until t60, although I would of course absolutely love it if we somehow managed to do so. Fortunately or unfortunately, we're likely to have to clear at least one barb camp as well, which would ease the math substantially. Finally, we could also consider something like an early HBR research if the cost isn't too impractical - this would give us +1 from a Classical era tech (+2 if it's the first Classical tech researched) plus another +1 from building a horseman (+2 if it's the first horseman), and said horseman would also of course considerably ease our early military worries. All in all, I'm much more confident about our classical GA odds than I was last turn - an early NW find, especially at an otherwise-decent second city site, is just so hugely helpful in that respect.

Oh, one more thing - note the Congo River peeking out of the fog there. I haven't been able to turn up the relevant lists easily on Google, but my initial thoughts are that this most likely means CMF's Zulus are in this direction, which wouldn't be the worst draw civ-wise. CMF is a scary-good player, though, and I'm a bit nervous that the Zulus' lack of an obvious timing attack means they'll be sitting around waiting to strike at the first opportunity to present itself, which scouting Russia on t10 could well constitute. There's also a chance that this river naming instead indicates Nubia, which I conceptualize as being a North African civ but which is actually closer to the Congo than the Zulu geographically; such a draw would, of course, be terrifying. I also can't quite tell what that mountain name is - I'm not great at fog-gazing, but I think I see the edges of what might be a G over there? Google suggests that 'Gebel Mountain' could refer to the mountain at which Jebel Barkal was built, which is in...Sudan. Oh boy. I did eventually find the list of mountain names on the Civ wiki, and Ctrl-F reveals that the only ones ending in 'ebel' are all Nubian, so I've since recanted my initial thoughts and am now assuming that this is Nubia until proven otherwise.

All else being equal, my next scouting moves would head SW slightly to make sure we defog all the tiles near the wonder, but this makes me think twice - if we're going to place a settlement halfway between ourselves and Nubia/Zululand, it's probably in our interest to delay contact as long as possible to buy time to stand it up militarily and to at least slightly reduce the odds of it being perceived as an aggressive plant. I'm not totally sure what I'll end up deciding on this point - I think I'll think it over on the nice scenic 90-minute car ride through Western Pennsylvania that I'm lucky enough to get to take today .

[ljubljana]

Hmm, the more I think about it, the more I think that our presumptively-Nubian neighbor presents a wrenching strategic decision about whether or not to pinkdot them with a second city at Mato Tipila. I increasingly think such a city would need to be to the east of MT, not where the warrior is standing, in order to be at least something vaguely resembling defensible. Moreover, while that's very likely the strongest site from a snowball perspective, I suppose we could delay it to the 3rd city as long as we make absolutely sure to get it founded by the era change (assuming Nubia doesn't decide to pinkdot us there, of course ). We could then plant our second city to the SW of Pilcrow, hopefully in a spot that can share the sugar and satisfy our +3 campus needs, to avoid stretching out this far until we have DoTF archers to back it up at least (and hopefully until thrawn has already committed to rushing someone else). I guess we'll have to explore more before we can really make an educated decision, with an eye towards both plausible SW spots and the relative defensibilities of the various pinkdot spots. That said, I'm pretty confident that our warrior should flee in terror to the SE on the next few exploration turns rather than dawdle for too long defogging MT-adjacent tiles; with every turn that our existence escapes Nubia's notice, our odds of survival grow. In the meantime, I'll try to do some math to work out what kind of defense we'd be able to stand up in the face of a ~t35-40 Pítati rush, should it come to that.

[ljubljana]

Turn 9

Well, so much for that plan :



They can't have finished that scout more than two or three turns ago either (especially since their capital just hit size 2 this turn) so Nubia proper must be just out of sight to the NW of us. Our warrior does their best to keep scouting by MT while at least not immediately leading the Nubian scout right back to Pilcrow:



I hate to say it, but we're definitely the heavy favorites to get Pítati-rushed now, and with Nubia this close to us, t35 is probably a closer ETA than t40. We may not lose immediately if this happens, but we will certainly no longer be in contention to win; thus, our only real chance is to become so prickly-looking in the next 25 turns that thrawn goes for a city-state or for some other neighbor instead. Our only way to do that, in turn, is to get DoTF absolutely ASAP, perhaps even delaying the settler for a Lavra to do so (good thing we found that NW!). At the same time, we need to research up to Archery, hard-researching it if needed, while delaying that which can be delayed to make slingers. In particular, Pilcrow has such strong land that it doesn't actually need a builder for anything other than the Craftsmanship boost anytime soon - our build order there might very well look like slinger - Lavra - settler - monument - slinger - slinger or something ridiculous like that, intentionally skipping the Craftsmanship boost (painful though that is) to get Agoge up without waiting for a builder and without sacrificing any chance at the PoliPhil ES. If we then got State Workforce, we could build a fast GP for an early Pingala culture promotion to partially make up for skipping the boost.

How quickly can we make DoTF happen? Pilcrow can probably 3-turn a Lavra at size 3, so we could spend the next three turns on a settler and finish the Lavra on t16. We can then put 5 more turns into the settler, settle somewhere close, and Lavra asap there too for a second Lavra in the t30 range; those numbers would yield a religion on t38. If we don't delay the settler, we look stronger and therefore pricklier by getting a second city up sooner, but will probably lose 2-ish turns of DoTF as a consequence, which could very well be the difference between having it in time for the rush and just barely missing it. I'm not really sure what the right play is...I guess if I were thrawn, I'd see DoTF coming and recognize that it will slow down my attack significantly whether it comes on t38 or t40, and then I'd decide whether Russia is worth attacking anyways based on whether they look weak otherwise. That logic favors slinger - settler - Lavra...but I'm just spitballing here, I'm not sure I have the experience to really get into the mind of an MP conqueror .

If we sense a rush on its way in the t30 range, we may actually want to get sneaky and denounce thrawn and then declare formal war ourselves, which is worth 2 ES points . Getting that right would require quite a bit of finesse, though, and I'm not sure it'd be worth the risk of accidentally diverting the rush from a different target.

Based on this discussion, I think I'm on board with unbanning everything except Hungary/Scythia. No doubt this stance has karmically ensured my upcoming death-by-Pítati, but that hasn't happened to me in a real game yet, and I'm sure it will also be a valuable learning experience 

Hmm...it looks like somebody should be a little more careful about what they wish for . I wonder if this post has been quoted in thrawn's thread yet ?

[marcopolothefraud]

Oh dear, oh dear,, oh dear.
Some thoughts:
- Let's say an attack actually comes t35, 26 turns from now. We can probably calculate how many hammers Pilcrow will produce in those 26 turns, and determine how many slingers and archers we can build. I think we'll need at least 4, if not up to 6-7 archers.
- Slinger -> Archer upgrade costs 60 gold. IIRC our palace is the only source of gold, and will remain that way for quite a while. By turn 35, we're just barely going to have 120 gold, enough to upgrade 2 archers. Hopefully our income won't go negative.
- How much culture do we need until Craftsmanship? When are we projected to get there?
- Pin the spot on the map where thrawn's scout is. It'll help us predict where his capital is. Look at the loyalty map view, too.
- When do we want Horseback Riding? I'm assuming before Writing and Masonry, right? When can we expect to get it?
- Pay close attention on thrawn's income. Whenever it decreases, we can guess he has a new archer/new infrastructure.
- It’s almost irrelevant, but whats the Appeal of the lands west of Pilcrow? I'm assuming high in the woods and around the wonder, but low everywhere else?

[ljubljana]

Yeah, these are all good points. I'll write up some more thoughts later after I do some of the math, but I wonder if we should be considering working the copper at the capital so that we can maybe afford one more upgrade? It would only cost us 1H/turn to do so, which would not amount to much militarily (5/7 of a slinger?) over the next 26 turns, and it would of course keep our income from going negative after the upgrades, which would indeed otherwise be quite possible. This might be the wrong idea, but I sort of think we want to go for something like 4 archers + a monument if possible rather than 6 archers, on the grounds that we won't really have any more chance to win if we fall extremely far behind in culture (especially if we then miss Monumentality) than we will if thrawn attacks. Winning from this position seems to require threading a very tight needle where we build just enough military to look pricklier than thrawn's other neighbors while also expanding economically quickly enough to stay competitive with whoever else they don't go after, should we somehow be lucky enough that the target isn't us .

I'm also definitely going to check out the loyalty view as soon as I get the turn back to check out where thrawn's capital is - if we settle at MT, we'll want to go as far SE as possible to buy an extra turn or two, and if we don't, we could potentially gain quite a few more turns by doing so. If there's a good site E of Pilcrow, or SW in such a way that it's not any closer to thrawn than Pilcrow already is, that would probably be the safe decision, much though I'd hate to essentially cede the strong MT site to thrawn like that would.

I have to say, though, even though this is pretty much the nightmare scenario for Russia, I sure am glad we didn't roll Japan here, whom I probably would have taken if possible! They'd be totally screwed, since only the Lavra's extra GPP gives us even a chance to pull this off, however implausible that may be .