[SPOILERS] ljubljana embraces the dark side

[ljubljana]

Hahaha, I love the new naming scheme. Are you going to name the cities after banned pantheons/wonders/exploits as well?

That lake next to the Matterhorn says "Loch Awe", which is a Scottish lake. Looking at our opponents (Zulu, Nubia, Persia, Rome), only Rome marginally makes sense, because the Roman Empire conquered part of Scotland for a while. Is Rome next to us, or did the map run out of appropriate geographic names? We'll have to investigate.

That was the idea...although I'm not sure there are enough of those to last the whole game, so we might eventually have to dig a little deeper. I do notice that I kind of made a critical mistake, though, and, of our two cities, somehow decided to give the name "Scythia" to the one without horses!  My internal logic was that the terrain around the former Fleuron seemed more similar to that of the historical Scythia, but that's pretty weak - I'll rectify this travesty at once .

Yeah, I noticed that too, and am also confused about what that means...it'd be quite odd for that lake to be on Rome's list given that it'd fit substantially better on, uh, Scotland's. I know the lists aren't completely mutually exclusive, but in this case civwiki confirms that this lake is on Scotland's list only. I wonder if it's possible that the presence of the Matterhorn somehow has something to do with it? I imagine the most likely scenario is that the map just ran out of Nubian names (which it looks like there is exactly one of, the aptly-named West Nubian Lake), since the fact that thrawn's scout has the relevant promotion, coupled with the suspiciously-timed +3 ES they got earlier that tipped us off to the Matterhorn's general location, probably indicates that they got here first.

I wonder if it'll ever be worth moving our own units up here just to get that promotion? I don't think our archers have time now, since they're urgently needed at the front, but once we get to mounted units this could turn into a really nice pickup. Do we dare to dream of an army of 70-strength cossacks that can all cross hills without penalty ? Okay, the next time I muse about how great it would be to take Tithe instead of DoTF, I should remind myself how important it is to actually stay alive long enough to witness that glorious reality .

[suboptimal]

Location names are first pulled from the list of names associated with the civ that found the location first. If that civ is out of names then all names not assigned to a specific civ in this particular game are used.

[ljubljana]

Location names are first pulled from the list of names associated with the civ that found the location first.  If that civ is out of names then all names not assigned to a specific civ in this particular game are used.

Ah, that makes sense - sounds like it's probably a Nubian indicator indeed then.

Turn 33



Thrawn still doesn't have another city...but does have another Pítati . Looks like a one-city Pítati rush against someone is in the cards, since at this point I think they're far enough behind in expansion that it'd be very hard to win in any other way. It could be a city-state, and if I were in their shoes, that's probably what I'd do given that we're not going to be surprised and already have at least two archers...but, obviously, it's also quite plausible that they are indeed coming for us. We should still have 7-8 turns of travel time, since I doubt they left already with just two - probably the soonest they'd have started heading in this direction is on this turn.

I really agonized over what to build this turn. Archer-builder here delays the GP by 2-3 turns, and that's at the fastest production rate, delaying the pop 5 growth by another 6-10 turns. That's ballpark 20 culture, which is a lot given how far behind we are and how badly we need those 3 ES for Monumentality. But...if thrawn shows up here with 2 Pítatis and a warrior in 4 turns with another wave behind that, I don't think we'll hold Scythia with just one archer. I don't know how likely that is, but I'm very unsure that this builder is the right decision. I think our odds to win are almost zero if we miss Monumentality, and a builder now will seriously impact the odds of that, and they're also near-zero if thrawn comes for us, which an archer build four turns from now while Pítatis are on the way is not going to deter, so my logic was that we need to assume we have a few more turns even at the risk of losing more spectacularly now if we're wrong. But...I have a really bad feeling about this, and may well change my mind tomorrow and swap to an archer. Wow, this game just does not let up .

Oh yeah, and there's another barb scout. I...honestly, I'm not too worried about this one. If barb waves show up from the W or SW, they may be as much a threat to thrawn's attack as they are to us...though thrawn could just circle around to Hungary in that event. I don't think it's worthwhile to deliberately fail to block them to that end, but I'm definitely much less scared of this scout than I was of the NE one based solely on the direction of its approach.

I'm also considering a very silly plan for this builder - harvesting the marsh into Scythia and one of the rice into Hungary, leaving the rice farm for the Irrigation boost as the only permanent improvement constructed. I don't think I'll end up doing this, though, as it is very silly, probably prohibitively so, no matter how deeply the "population now = culture now = not missing Monumentality" maxim may be burned into my mind .

[ljubljana]

Turn 34



I finally decide on a weird compromise plan for Scythia - builder first to not delay the GP, but at max hammers so the subsequent archer will come out quickly, which means accepting a delay to the pop growth. Luckily, now that we have the Craftsmanship policies in place, builds for both units are now super efficient - Hungary may even have time to squeeze out another archer before its long-anticipated +3 campus. One thing I haven't quite decided on is the third task for the builder - I suppose a sugar plantation still seems like the right call from a yields perspective, since we're already hurting for amenities, but it'll be impossible to keep connected if thrawn's units start showing up in force.

Also, our archer's extremely dangerous (due to leaving Scythia under-garrisoned) but extremely critical (getting our +3 ES before more barbs spawn, ofc) secret mission has finally uncovered the eastern camp that has caused so much hang-wringing over the centuries. Barring one of those immersion-breaking civ6 barb spawns in visible tiles, next turn should see it eliminated, finally freeing up our newly-promoted archer to fulfill its destiny of turning Scythia into a nigh-impregnable 30-strength fortress . Our defenses are troublingly weak now, and if I'm wrong about the attack's likely timing and thrawn's Pítatis show up next turn we'll be in a lot of trouble, but 6 turns from now we'll have 3 archers in and around Scythia and will be much safer. Hopefully, the archer upgrades and the fact that our military scores crept 10 points closer together this turn means we'll get away with this bluff, since if our whole military was indeed concentrated around Scythia right now, 2 Pítatis and a warrior would not be enough to break it.

I'm not sure if I should bring our Warrior down to help out, by the way. I don't think it'll be much help against Pítatis, since it's weakish compared to archers and is very easily kited/focus-fired, and a second camp clear in the north would be so incredibly helpful for meeting our ES requirements. I'm also not sure about when I should stop to heal it up - probably sooner rather than later so it's at least close-ish to our cities for the next few turns, and because that'll help close the military power gap, but that does risk a city state or our unknown northern neighbor swiping the camp away. Hmm...

It's also about time to start thinking about the district discounting math, which requires that we a) start the GP before discovering Writing and b) finish the GP and discover at least one tech/civic to refresh the formula before starting the campus. These should both be quite doable on our current trajectory, but it's worth noting them explicitly just in case we eventually need to swap research for a turn or two or something to avoid wasting hammers.

[ljubljana]

Turn 36

Seeing no immersion-breaking barb spawns or hostile Nubian units, our archer steps into the empty barb camp for a crucial 3 ES:



...wait, new continent? Hold on, what?

After gawking for a while, I close this pop-up and a huge number of questions are answered simultaneously:



So this is where everyone's absurd ES totals have been coming from! Just look at all those notifications . Not only did we score the free envoy (with a culture CS, no less!), but somehow we simultaneously completed a quest for them from either clearing that camp or from one of the two civic inspirations we got this turn for a second envoy! That means the Monumentality GA, which seemed a distant dream but one turn ago, is now almost guaranteed, with +4 from the religion coming soon and another +2 possible from diverting to Mysticism for the free envoy if needed, after which any one of our stretch goals (or even a Great Writer, due in just 21 turns) will put us over the top. We also scored a major boost towards PoliPhil here, both from the Foreign Trade inspiration (which my earlier math assumed we'd miss) and the +2 CPT (apparently unmodified by the Ethiopia update, for some reason?). Wow, what a hugely lucky break it was that a barb camp happened to spawn on this tile, otherwise it would have been ages before I scouted down here, since normally coastal scouting is exactly the wrong decision from the perspective of maximizing the odds of CS contact.

On the other hand...if all the city-states are on islands behind cliffs, thrawn pretty much has to be coming for us, and their military score jumped again this turn by 30 more points . That does probably mean I mistook units healing for a Pítati build a few turns ago, and their current score comes from scout + warrior = 25 + 3 Pítatis, all at full health. That said, this is definitely still scary, and I'm strongly considering offering Danegeld for peace on t39 when I can do so, not that that's all that likely to deter them. But if we can just survive 5-6 more turns without losing Scythia, we'll have DoTF and three archers of our own in place and should be in a good position to hold them off in the medium-turn. Also, our warrior now has little need to dawdle around up there looking for the camp, so I start bringing them down to help out with the defense - they'll probably heal up in Hungary's Lavra ASAP to at least inflate our military score a little more . Unfortunately, I didn't have the good sense to take Tortoise, since I thought they'd have to be off fighting barbs now, but that's okay, +7 against ranged units is certainly still better than nothing.

[suboptimal]

The +2 from Mohenjo Daro is due to the fact that this game was configured without any of the content from the NFP DLC's. The modifications to envoy bonuses and the Diplomatic Quarter are not in this game (can be verified by the lack of the Diplo Quarter on the Mathematics tech in the tree).

[ljubljana]

The +2 from Mohenjo Daro is due to the fact that this game was configured without any of the content from the NFP DLC's.  The modifications to envoy bonuses and the Diplomatic Quarter are not in this game (can be verified by the lack of the Diplo Quarter on the Mathematics tech in the tree).

Ah, okay, that makes sense. I guess I mistakenly thought that had been a change made in a patch rather than as part of the NFP package.

While we're on an adjacent subject, I don't suppose you know of any way to tell if the recent Work Ethic bug fix is active in this game (short of taking it and then letting one of our Lavras get pillaged )? I'm not sure how patches affect saves of games already in progress...though, to be honest, I'm most likely taking Work Ethic regardless of the answer, both because 6-ish production/city is nothing to sneeze at and because I don't want to tempt anyone else into trying to stack it with the faith pantheons like I was hoping to .

[suboptimal]

While we're on an adjacent subject, I don't suppose you know of any way to tell if the recent Work Ethic bug fix is active in this game (short of taking it and then letting one of our Lavras get pillaged )? I'm not sure how patches affect saves of games already in progress...though, to be honest, I'm most likely taking Work Ethic regardless of the answer, both because 6-ish production/city is nothing to sneeze at and because I don't want to tempt anyone else into trying to stack it with the faith pantheons like I was hoping to .

According to the patch notes of the September update (released last Thursday with the latest NFP release) the issue with Work Ethic has been fixed - a repaired district will get the benefit of Work Ethic back.

Past experience has been that a patch kicks in immediately. Pillaging rules were changed in a patch during PBEM 14 and the new Work Ethic believe came after PBEM 18 started and took effect in that game.

[ljubljana]

While we're on an adjacent subject, I don't suppose you know of any way to tell if the recent Work Ethic bug fix is active in this game (short of taking it and then letting one of our Lavras get pillaged )? I'm not sure how patches affect saves of games already in progress...though, to be honest, I'm most likely taking Work Ethic regardless of the answer, both because 6-ish production/city is nothing to sneeze at and because I don't want to tempt anyone else into trying to stack it with the faith pantheons like I was hoping to .

According to the patch notes of the September update (released last Thursday with the latest NFP release) the issue with Work Ethic has been fixed - a repaired district will get the benefit of Work Ethic back.

Past experience has been that a patch kicks in immediately.  Pillaging rules were changed in a patch during PBEM 14 and the new Work Ethic believe came after PBEM 18 started and took effect in that game.

Got it, good to know - thanks for the heads-up!

Turn 36

Wow, another three-turn day! Honestly, the turn pace lately has been...



...absolutely crazy good by all parties, which I'm really happy to see . Anyways, I spend several minutes psyching myself up for the less-pleasant sight of an unstoppable Pítati swarm on our doorstep before I can muster the emotional fortitude to open the save...



...wait, where did that come from? I don't remember us ever letting a scout slip past - the one from t33 couldn't possibly have moved into LoS of our city and then back into the fog on the same interturn, unless I'm misunderstanding something. Or do barb horse camps sometimes trickle horses at you even when left unactivated like unhorsed barb camps will trickle warriors? Well, this certainly isn't a big deal unless there are several more horses behind it, since the attack's coming at Fortress Scythia (wow, am I ever glad that city's not 1 SW on the open grassland right about now ), and it could even be something of a net positive if our archer can squeeze a promotion out of it. Our archer fires, but that does mean the new builder has to take a back route to the rice/marsh pair so the warrior can protect it from the super-scout. That's fine, though, as, with SW now coming in 4 turns, it should get to clear the marsh on the first turn that Scythia's GP-eligible.

Scythia, meanwhile, starts an archer, as promised, due in 3. I may slow this down a turn to line up with the GP if no Nubian units appear this interturn, though, since CMF's starting to pull ahead of us in total pop. Speaking of Nubia, they cleared a camp this turn, and took another hit to their military power, hmm. Well, I'm glad they're preoccupied with something other than killing us, at least, though of course this doesn't exclude the possibility of said camp having been right on our doorstep. I suppose the 'thrawn got ravaged by barbs and has needed to pump military to stay alive' scenario is also still vaguely in play (though I'm certainly not counting on it). At some point, though I don't think we're there yet, the most likely explantation for being stuck on one city will stop being that they're all-in on a Pítati rush and start being that they lost the first settler to barb horses or just didn't have space to get it out due to being choked by barb waves on all sides. That'd be absolutely tragic, though, and despite my black-hearted embrace of the fathomless darkness of the Forbidden Civs, I genuinely hope that's not the case .

Hang on, haven't I had visibility on that marsh tile east of Scythia since, like, turn 2 of the game? How did I not notice that it was red in settlervision? I'm actually pretty sure I did notice at some point, but my brain didn't register that as odd because it was contiguous with the red blob produced by the capital and intersected with the fog and ocean in just the right way that I tricked myself into not realizing that it was 4 squares from the city . Wow, okay, I really need to be more diligent about checking that screen very carefully in the early game.

[marcopolothefraud]

It seems like we gain +50 gold from clearing barb camps. If we track down thrawn's gold balance through our previous screenshots, we can probably guess at how many camps he's cleared and what his GPT used to be.

From t20 to t27, thrawn seemed to be earning 10 gold per turn. He frequently gained and spent gold, but it seemed like it was in multiples of 10, because the last digit of his gold balance was always 2. Then it slowly dropped to 9 per turn, then 8 per turn, then suddenly 4 per turn. Now it seems to have jumped back to 9 per turn. That's abnormally high for a one-city civilization.

I think he could have a luxury resource that provides gold (although something like diamonds only provides +3, even with a mine), as well as a city-state that provides 4 gold to the capital. I genuinely have no idea, though.