[Spoilers]C6PBEM23: Krill sidles yonder, and probably fails

[Krill]

Option 0: Turn over the table, scream incoherently at the RNG, and go wandering. Not doing this.

Option 1: Settle in place. One unrevealed second ring tile: can claim stone, spice, and two extra marsh. No farmable tiles for Irrigation, but the grasslands could be decent IZ/dam/Aqueduct area late game (and if the VA was legal would open up a location for it). Theoretical Great Bath city? Easy option for Henge. Downsides, going to get flooded and wrecked, but then every T1 settling location has this problem.

Actually, options 2+ can be ruled out: can't move east or west without risking not having fresh water, and moving north/south limits available tiles to work to grow to size 10. Actually, it's even worse:




There's a volcano to the east.

[Krill]

Wait, WTF. Tiny?

[Krill]

I had to take a step back and go generate a map on tiny, because I hadn't read the settings when I picked Yongle. I'd been generating Small maps. This is my mistake, and I own that.

Tiny is tight. I do't know if I would have piocked Yongle if I had realised it is Tiny. I could explore this issue, but not now whilst I hold the turn.

I think that I'm in a bit of a bind. Pangaea, tight map, tundra to the south and ocean to the north. I'm probably on a peninsula. Good for defense, bad for expansion. Only 5 City states, they will get removed from the board quickly. I don't know if I can afford to leave a CS up for someone else. I probably need to be aggressive, unless the CS is "behind" me and I can take it at a time that works for me. Yongle needs to get a single city to size 10 to alleviate culture/science/gold issues, and just counting tiles I'm struggling to see how this city gets to size 10. There's a few hammers going but I'll be leaning on Lilja to get there, and I need a granary and monument down ASAP anyway.

If I were to wander, I run the risk of moving to the end of a peninsula and losing both expansion and vertical growth prospects. I risk moving close to someone who could then rush me. So I need to settle in place or on one of the available tiles. I checked and two other players didn't settle on T1. I decided to move away from the marsh and against the ocean: I can't build VA so coastal IZ doesn't matter that much, working coast isn't actually bad for Yongle post-size 10, and I have a potential path through Henge (and Great Bath actually) towards harbours.




I count 9 decent tiles to work, but all except one are second ring so I need a monument. I'm probably going to have to buy one of the stone tiles, possibly both, but 3 stone tiles = Craftmanship inspiration for a single tech, or the tile picker goes for the turtle (it takes lux over bonus resources right?) in which case I get the amenity to power growth to size 4. I could go Sailing/Builder first and do a little naval exploring with the builder bfore returning to improvetwo stone tiles. Three quarries and the turtle gives means Lilja will boost growth by 6fpt from size 4, so for quick bursts will be helpful. Question is how many settlers to get out of the capital before Magnus Provision kicks in, and I want these out ASAP.

I suspect the answer here is to try and get one quick settler out, but builder>settler feels damned risky.

• If I don't go builder first, I can only half build a monument, and an expensive warrior is an insurance policy against barbs only.
  
• Scout is a waste without huts.
  
• Slinger needs to pair up with the warrior and even then feels wasteful if I can get a quick Crafstmanship inspiration.

Sailing should take about 11-12 turns to complete, so a builder first improves the turtles ASAP for a 3/1/1 tile and then Mining completes after another 9 turns or so. If Mining first, the quarry is up a two turns faster.

I need the second city to sacrifice itself to get the capital to size 10 ASAP. That means a size 2 hammer powerhouse. The only options are west of the Game tile, or east of the Volcano. Both have 2/2 tiles available. I think the warrior might need to explore around the lake and return through the tundra then go west. The build can explore the western coast if I go Sailing first. I can improve 3 tiles, get into Agoge quickly enough and churn out a bunch of warriosr and slingers if needed, but this might impact on getting down a monument and granary.

Questions for lurkers:

• How does the tile picker work for border expansions? Are there any mechanics explanations posted in other games?
  
• In a game with disaster level set to 0, will rivers ever flood etc? And depending on this answer, will tile yeilds ever increase?
  

[Krill]

I'm going to reiterate a major point here: I have no clue what I am doing. If I speak about a mechanic and I am wrong, please take the sentence as a question about the mechanic. I've played three games of civ 6 to completion: PBEM5, which was a loss, PBEM22 where I dis what Thrawn told me to so, and a single player game which was as far from competitive as you can imagine.

[thrawn]

If you settle on grass hill rock you get the 2 hammers.

Tile picker will always pick second ring before third even if it's a dummy tile like mountain or coast. Within a ring a resource will always be picked over a non-resource but from there it's a mystery and one of the few things I never worked out.

There are still disasters on setting 0 but milder and rarer. However I think volcanos go active only after being discovered so if your volcano is the only one it will have a high chance anyway. Not sure though, it has been a while.

Mild disasters can also increase yields but less than the big ones.

[Krill]

Cheers.

Does buying a tile increase the culture cost of the next tile?

[thrawn]

No, culture acquisition is separate from any other - so buying, wonders, Russia, etc. don't affect it.

[Krill]

Thanks for that confirmation, there was conflicting information online. I think this tightens up the plan to buy the turtle and force the tile picker to then grab the two stone tiles, and go Sailing first.

[Krill]

I am a doofus.

I forgot that on strategic view the fourth yield gets hidden by the resource icon, I should have remembered this from PBEM22. The reef turtles are 3f/1p/1g/1b, so that's pretty solid.

Counting tiles, it will take until T11/T12 to circle around the lake, and I think this is better as it allows the worker to head north and circle clockwise to the stone. With any luck the northern stone gets picked up and I can get a bit more scouting in (just wait for a barb galley to eat the builder first!)

I need a theme for city names. And I hope Whosit can play soon so we can get another turn in tonight.

[Krill]

Hey Thrawn (or any other lurker that knows) if you don't mind being a walking encyclopedia a bit more, I got another question: does the appeal of the tile take into account the tile feature on it, ie does a marsh tile that is -1 appeal increase to 0 appeal if the marsh is chopped? I think the answer is no but I just want to make sure.