[Spoilers] Whosit is playing for second

[Whosit]

I have a new Objective.

[Whosit]

I told myself I wouldn't let this game throw me into despair, but look at this:




Imagine if I had settled on that 4 food honey.... Free amenity,  there's a 2/2 tile to work until I get the 4/2 spices... Ah, what might have been....

Sadly, I have to work with what I've got.




Pleaaaase don't actually give me the maize right away.... I'm not entirely sure how the auto picker works. I'm sure someone does. I'm pretty sure it goes for Resource > total yield > ???
I thought it might go for the spice because it's a 4 yield tile just like the maize, but maybe the picker also weights the number of different yields? Spice = 2, maize = 3. idk.

Krill and Archduke did not settle on turn 1 (their score is 0). I'll be curious to go back and see what they ended up doing. Maybe they  had starts like mine and made bolder choices lol. Greenline seems to have gotten lucky, as they already have 5 era score. Maybe they had a nearby natural wonder, and settled near a special terrain feature (flood plains, volcano, etc) and.... maybe got a hut already? I'm not sure.

I deliberated pretty hard on what I'd be doing next. I debated teching straight to Astrology for an early Holy Site, because I would still like to get a religion at some point, but ultimately decided that would be putting the cart before the horse. See, there's two economies: Gold and Faith. It's better to focus on one. Rome has no Faith bonuses, but it does have a small gold bonus to trade routes, so it would be best to focus on Commercial Hubs and Harbors to maximize trade routes and gold income. I would also have a lot more use for Gold than Faith.

The next thing to consider is amenities. I've been watching a channel called Herson, a MP player, and making note of his strategies. Some adjustments need to be made for vanilla Civ 6 vs the mods they use. For example, in the mod, all cities start with 1 amenity. Since this is the base game, that's not the case and I want to avoid my cities being unhappy because there's a penalty to yields and growth. My goal was to settle either my capital or 2nd city on top of a luxury (another reason I regret not moving the settler). I have plenty of time to scout, but I also need to prepare for a situation where there's not a good spot to settle on top of a luxury.

My tech plan is Pottery > Writing > Currency to throw down Commercial Hubs as soon as possible. I then want to go Mining > Bronze Working in order to reveal Iron and begin stockpiling it. However, I currently see 0 luxuries that would be connected with Mining. I think that somewhere before Currency, I will get Animal Husbandry. There are 2 Honeys (fingers crossed that I'll find another luxury that needs a Camp), and right now I see Cows that could be improved as well. I'm not entirely sure what Pantheon I want, but I may seriously consider Goddess of the Hunt for the +1 food and production to camps. It would really help my capital.

I also now realize with Camp resources, a play for the Temple of Artemis would probably be good. That and the Pyramids. Though I am not really sure when to start going for Wonders.

My build order plan: 

Scout > Scout > Settler > Settler > Worker seems like the standard play on the MP I've been watching, but again, this is with the mods. I think I may want a Worker before 2nd Settler in order to get a luxury hooked up ASAP. I may also want a Slinger to help defend, but that depends on how many Barbs I see and how aggressive my neighbors appear. I've seen Herson take some BIG risks sending out unescorted Settlers, and it sometimes bites him. He truly does not build any units unless needed (and I think he mostly buys them with Gold early on).

Scouts will go out West and East. I will be conservative with the Warrior, keeping it relatively close to scout out around the capital, and to deal with Barbs and escort Settlers.

I've also decided that I really want to pump out Settlers. My 2nd and 3rd cities will need to have enough production to contribute to Settler production. My main advantage compared to my opponents is the free Monuments. The more cities I settle and the faster I do so, the more free Monuments I get the faster my cultural advantage will snowball. To that end, as mentioned before, I plan to use Legions to deter invasion while I send out my Settlers, unless I see an opportunity to do some conquest easily.

Will most likely put the Government Plaza in the capital and I'll want the Ancestral Hall for free Builders over the other options.

Lastly, I will do my best, but I expect that I will not get the Boosts for my early civics, just because I expect I will research them too fast. As you can see, my cultural output is 3.2. I think everyone else is at 1.2. So with my free monument in the capital, I am earning culture nearly 3x as fast at this early stage. I want to get to my tier 1 government asap, and then get Feudalism for bonus builder charges. My 1st government is almost certain to be Classical Republic, because if I can make sure all my cities get at least 1 district asap, that's +1 amenity!

I will probably not post a ton of updates in the next few turns, unless something interesting turns up.

[Whosit]

Ok, there was something of note on turn 3:


 
Met Venice, and as the first to meet got the free delegate. Not gonna say no to +2 gold. I will probably want to court this City State instead of conquer it, because I intend to build a lot of Commercial Hubs and markets, and the extra gold would be stellar.

I'm also feeling a lot stronger about the Goddess of the Hunt pick when I get my pantheon, because it would really help my capital, but hopefully there will be some more camp resources nearby.

I'm continuing my research into MP play for Civ6, but I don't think I feel comfortable playing as risky as Herson. Watching him produce literally nothing but settlers (and the occasional worker) and sending them out unescorted makes me so nervous. I'm definitely going to slot a Slinger in early just as insurance. TBH I'm not expecting the other players in this game to just spam settlers, but there's few examples of recent Civ6 gameplay on this forum, so who knows....

[Whosit]

We've met our first neighbor!


 
Korea, who I am very thankful to have as a neighbor because I think they would be the easiest to take down with a Legion rush. (Whether or not I can pull off an effective Legion rush is another matter entirely.) I noted that greenline has 1 more science per turn than me, suggesting he met a scientific city state. I have 4 more gold than him, consistent with me meeting Venice 2 turns ago and neither of us working a gold tile. (You can see that Bombay did unlock the maize. Fortunately, the Honey is the next tile, 6 turns away.)

I may work the maize with my 2nd citizen if it can get me to 50 gold faster, so I can buy the plains hill forest tile for the extra production.

Also of interest:

 
Likely a city state to the east. Not sure if it's the scientific one that greenline met, or another, but I will head in that direction to at least make progress towards meeting 3 city states. Warrior will move 2 east (hopefully close enough). This situation is interesting because we both may be competing to capture the barb camp. I think I have the advantage because I can get on the other side of the river first, and will get Discipline first. But greenline could just wait around to poach it after I've done enough damage.

Depending how the next couple turns go, I may actually send my first scout down here to help capture the camp. The gold, experience, era score, and civic boost are all too valuable to lose. While there is definitely an opportunity cost to sending the scout south instead of exploring the unknown, I can also use the scout to find Korea's capital after the barb camp is dealt with. I want to keep the warrior close to home for defense.

As a side note, I forgot how nerve-wracking the slow pace of these PBEM/PB games can be. Too much time to think about everything. Maybe I should have gotten into the online games. I can lose faster that way!

[Whosit]

Actually, yeah, just doing the quick math, I'll have 41 gold in the bank next turn, so if I work the Maize for a single turn (+9 gold total) I'll be at 50 even in 2 turns and can buy the tile I want. I'll still be at +2 food at size 2, so that's not too bad, either.

Once the Honey tile is available, I'll have to decide whether it's worth working that or not. I may prefer the 1/3 tile (production is more valuable than food early) until it's improved with a boosted camp. I can't imagine anyone else is going to be eager for Goddess of the Hunt since camp resources are so rare. Speaking of that, not seeing any more camp resources so far.

I've been considering Goddess of Festivals, too, for the +1 culture on plantations, double down on culture, but I'm not convinced that would give me a comparative advantage. I'm still pretty concerned about the capital's long-terrm food prospects.

[Whosit]

Got another turn in. City state to east is another financial (I can tell from borders) but greenline met it before me. Sad. I'll still want to send an envoy there at some point.

I'm not an expert at reading Civ 6 score, but I think I may be the first to Size 2? I'll get 50 gold next turn, but after all this time, I'm still not sure exactly what prompts the cost of buying tiles to increase. Code of Laws finishes end of this turn, so if I need 55 gold I will be sad.

Greenline also has 6 era score, on turn 6. What the heck has he been finding? Seems incredibly lucky. I always have difficulty getting enough era score for a golden age in the Classical era.

Scout also pops next turn. I think I will send this one west, and the second one can go south if greenline sticks around and I need a 2nd unit to take the barb camp. I'd also like to locate Korea's capital, but I think 1st scout should explore to get more map info, find huts, etc.

[Whosit]

OK, turns are flying. I love working from home--wish I could do it more days of the week. So, the mystery financial city state is Zanzibar!! This is absolutely a CS that players will fight for control of. Greenline did get the free envoy (I can tell just by the gold increase), buuuut....




In a stroke of luck, Zanzibar wanted me to get an Inspiration for Foreign Trade, and I just so happened to get that boost immediately  


 
With the extra gold from God King, I'm now earning +10 gold per turn. Not bad for turn 7!

And I was able to buy the tile I wanted:

 
And with the first scout out, here's the known world:

 
Fingers crossed that I can start gaining some era score soon.

Current build order: Scout > Settler > Slinger > Worker > Settler. Those last 3 may get shuffled around depending on circumstances (may put Settler before Worker, for example), but this feels like a fairly safe opener.

(sorry for the huge images, I forget how to make them smaller)

[Whosit]

Little to report, but this:


 
I considered the possibility that greenline could attack my warrior after being weakened, but 1) I can't let that stop me from making the best plays possible, and 2) it honestly seems like a bad idea to piss off a neighboring civ this early for very little gain. I will almost certainly get out that Slinger before a Worker or 2nd Settler, since I will need to worry about a prowling Korean Warrior on top of the barbs. I definitely WOULD steal a worker or settler this early if I had the chance.

I'm going to need to start thinking about where to settle my next cities very soon. Almost certainly my 2nd city should be on the flat grassland southeast of Bombay between the Spices, Honey, and Cattle. Settling on the plains hill SE of that might be better long term (and more defensible) but I'd lose out on some VERY good tiles in the 1st ring.

I also decided that I'm going to start tracking my opponents score, at least for the early stages of the game. While I initially intended to play this relatively casually, I can't help myself.

Unsurprisingly, I am the first player to complete a Civic. I also think that no one else has reached size 2 in the capital yet. I know I bemoaned my starting situation, but could I really by the only one working a 3F tile from the start? 2nd city is definitely getting Pingala, but Bombay can probably get 3-4 strongish tiles to work early on. Only 24 turns until my Pantheon!

I'd go worker before slinger if I'm able to get my warrior back home before my 1st Settler is done. I mean, I want to do that anyway to protect the Settler.

I also need to remember to check how long Animal Husbandry will take. Probably still 10 turns. 1st worker could improve both Honey tiles and the Cattle. Kinda sucks I don't have a 2nd luxury I can improve with a single tech.... Actually, so far I'm only seeing these 2 luxuries nearby. Maybe there will be more to the north and/or east.

[El Grillo]

(sorry for the huge images, I forget how to make them smaller)

Use the [ screenshot ] tag instead of [ img ].

[Whosit]

Thanks! Fixed everything except the first post, which was an attachment.