[Spoilers] Whosit is playing for second

[Whosit]

Wow, look at this land! I have no idea if there's a land rout here (besides going through La Venta). Entirely possible it's blocked by mountains, but I'm definitely going to scout it out as soon as I can. I was really hoping to find another Camp luxury somewhere, and those truffles would be sooooo good with boosted Camps! Plus Silver!

EAST is where my luxuries lie.

Next turn, will see if I can take that camp with my scout (fingers crossed that no new warriors spawn). I'm not sure that it would be worth losing the scout, even for the Gold from clearing the camp. if I can find a land route to here.... probably too far for my 3rd city, but would def want to plant down city 4 to stake my claim to the area. My big weakness in the short term future is a lack of amenities.

Back west, the barb horse didn't attack my scout again, but Venice spawned a warrior, so I think I'm gonna have to back track and take the long way around the lake. :/ I've been very fortunate with a lot of things on this map, but my scouting is not going quite as well as I'd hoped. From score, Korea grew to size 3, suggesting that they are indeed on a +2 food surplus.

[Whosit]

We probably don't have much of a lurker audience, do we? That's fair. Civ 6 was never super popular here and PBEM games always got less attention than PB ones. Still, I had always looked forward to seeing the lurker thread after all was said and done....

Still! I'm gonna play like there's someone watching! Or at least, report like there is.

Got a bit of a sticky situation with the barbs:




The Scout died attacking my warrior, and the barb warrior is in hot pursuit (tagged location on the map). Settler is out, and I cannot delay the new city. I may have to sacrifice a pawn for the queen, as it were. The warrior was originally on the jungle tile by the river, but even with the benefits of the promotion, tile defense, and river defense, I don't think he had enough health left to survive an attack. By placing him here, the Settler can move through him next turn, and the barb warrior will be forced to stop after attacking and killing my warrior, so the Settler can settle the turn after.

A bit of a gamble, and now I wish I had started to bring that scout back sooner, but I wasn't anticipating any of this. Losing the warrior will be a huge pain and I might have to gold buy another.

In the east, my scout cleared the barb camp, gaining both gold and the 3rd barb kill to boost Bronze Working. Scout has like 10 health left, but I may swing him west a couple turns to defog the land route before letting him heal.




I can do some more growth micro here. Even not accounting for any overflow, if there was any, by growing in 3 turns, I should still be able to get the worker out in a total of 6 turns.

I'm VERY excited to only be a couple of turns away from my 2nd city, and just 7 or so from my first improved tile.

[Whosit]

Had a big stroke of luck! The Barb warrior did NOT pursue, so now my warrior just needs to heal up and can then get back out there! Scout to the east actually earned a promo, so of course gave Alpine to help get over those hills. Will send west to unfog a few tiles, then will backtrack east to try and find stuff and meet other players. I'd love to get access to the ribbon info on everyone else.

So, greenline got their 3rd tech, and it's the last tier 0 tech. Maybe I shouldn't read into it too much, but I find it interesting that greenline isn't beelining any particular tech, especially Writing. Pottery > Writing seems like the natural opener for Korea, if for no other reason than to lock in a Seawon at the lowest cost possible. The only reason I am making the AH detour is because I NEED at least one luxury hooked up. I really want 2 ASAP which is why I will settle east as soon as I can.

Honestly, very tempted to go there with 2nd Settler. If it's not blocked by a mountain, it's only 8 hexes away. Which is far for an early city, granted, but not the worst. TBH I will probably do something smarter and settle 3rd city closer and go out there with the next Settler.

I think that I am going to be the first with a 2nd city by a fair margin. Unless one of the other players timed a pop growth with a Settler, no one has shown the drop in Empire score I'd associate with losing a pop for a Settler.

Fingers crossed for another save tonight, but the pace has been very good so I shouldn't get greedy.

Edit: Oh yeah, greenline's income increased from +8 gpt to +13 since a couple turns ago. I can't think of any explanation except maybe an improved luxury resource? AFAIK there's no tile that naturally generates +5 gold. If this is true, it means a very early builder, which would mean a very late Settler. I suppose I'll know when I either scout Korea's territory or read greenline's thread after the game.

[Whosit]

Second city founded! And here's an overview of the new Empire! Purchased a Trader for 170 that will go from Bengal to Bombay (to help the new city grow). Warrior will heal until he needs to go escort the Builder.

You can also see that, with the new Monument, we'll be finishing Early Empire in just 7 turns! No way I'll get a boost soon enough and I'd rather not wait for it.

Bengal will train a Builder and then a Settler. Gotta keep the Empire growing!

Krill's China finished a 2nd tech (another Tier 0). Japan grew to size 3. And just noticed, looking back I see that the Khmer appeared to grow from size 2 to 3 in 6 turns? That would mean +4 food? Which I guess is perfectly doable with two +3 tiles like I have. I'd probably know for sure if I started tracking further back. Alas.

[Whosit]

I've been debating on which tiles I want to improve with my first Builder. Obviously, Honey at Bombay. Do I want the Honey at Bengal? With those two huge food tiles, it's going to grow far faster than I will have amenities to keep up. I'll eventually have enough, but the 10% penalty to yields hurts. Then again, it'll hit the housing cap before it gets unhappy enough to possibly rebel. And I'll probably get more overall yields at size 4 with a 10% penalty than at just size 2.

If I end up with Horses in my territory I suppose I'll improve them. If no Horses.... maybe the Maize? I don't really want to, especially since I plan to harvest it at some point, but it'd be a food neutral tile that would generate me some gold. I plan to use a lot of gold for tile and unit purchases in the early game. We'll see, I suppose.....

Lastly, Governors. I want Pengala with Connoisseur in Bengal, but I realized I also want Magnus in Bombay to help with producing the Ancestral Hall. It's actually pretty hard to find stats online so I had to go into a new game to double check how much prod you get from Woods in ancient era (25). The woods NE of Bombay, and the woods on the plains hill south together with Magnus's boost is fully half the cost of the Ancestral Hall. I suppose I can use the two Governor titles from civics on Pengala and once the government plaza is built that can be Magnus. If I can have Ancestral Hall before my 4th city, that would be ideal, but not sure if timing will work on that. I'll either need a 3rd Builder, or possibly the one that Bengal is training now, depending when it ends up finishing.

[Kaiser]

I am reading along with great pleasure, please keep it up

[Whosit]

Glad to have you reading, Kaiser! I'd still report to the best of my abilities, but I have to admit it's encouraging to know I'm not just rambling to the void.




Here we can see my first Trade Route. My goal is to have each new city get a Domestic Route to help it get on its feet, but I plan to focus on Foreign Trade Routes this game in order to maximize my gold income. I will primarily trade with City States, I imagine, but I DO want to try trading to other players to get extra espionage on them. Also notice I do get +1 gold from this route because of the Roman ability to get extra money from every trade post the route moves through. Every bit helps! The bonus food and prod also cut down growth and build times.

This ALSO shows the land route east of Bombay! The city I want is 8 tiles away, which is pretty far. Scout will head back east to see where the nearest civ is. I'm willing to take a Settler out there (possibly even the next one depending what the scout finds). It's close enough that it should still establish an automatic road with the capital, and if I settle it this early it's unlikely that anyone can contest it until much later, and by then it would be established.




Bombay grew and as expected, Builder will finish in the same time as if I hadn't focused growth. Hooray!




New city, where our people are just establishing themselves. I'm glad that this is a civilization that has a lot of spices available. And soon we'll have Salt! And Honey. Got some good cattle too for meat and milk. Our cuisine will be amazing! It's still only 3120 BC, but I bet someday Roman spiced beef kabobs will be world famous!

Anyway. I'm highlighting the prod penalty we're getting (also applies to all other yields, but growth takes a %15 penalty!). Even so, the city looks like it will do well, penalties or no.

A couple interesting things in score.

Don't let the stats on the ribbons fool you, with Bengal settled, we've nearly matched the Korean's in science! Keeping in mind they're getting +1 from a city state. We're actually 3.9 vs 4.5! And we'll exceed them as our pop growths. It probably won't be until Korea starts putting down Saewons that they start surpassing us.

Also, Krill's China has not grown to size 3 yet. I believe it has been at size 2 for 13 turns, which shouldn't be possible with a +2 food surplus. My guess is that he timed a Settler with the city growing. If I'm right, I would expect to see a new city jump in Krill's stats in 3-4 turns.

[Whosit]

Went back into the save to look around in more detail and noticed something very important:




Now, knowing that there's NO WAY greenline settled a 2nd city yet, that loyalty pressure must be from Korea's capital growing to size 3. I will need to look into how loyalty pressure works and how far it goes, though my scout is gonna get there eventually, anyway, I guess.

Edit: To clarify, and finish my own thought, I think that means that the next settler I produce out of Bombay is actually going to go south, not east! At least... if it's still possible to by the time it finishes. It looks like we're close enough that if Korea settles to the north with their first settler, I may not be able to settle any further south than Bengal, would would suck.

Edit Edit: OK, by my calculations, if I focus wholly on it, I can get my next Settler out on Turn 34. This means no playing around with culture (if I wait for Bengal to get to size 3, I would get Early Empire in 8 turns instead of 6. Free culture is nice, but not if I am trying to get fastest possible Settler). I could settle the currently marked southern spot on Turn 38. Will I still be able to settle that far south without Loyalty pressure in 15 turns? I don't know. Then again, Bengal will have grown a lot by then, so the extra pressure and free monument may still make it viable! I would definitely like to hem in Korea as much as possible.

[Whosit]

No big moves this turn, but some important things in Score.

Korea: Population drop indicating Settler finished. My scout is slowly heading south, so I'll be curious to see if that Settler is going north.

Khmer: Gained an Empire point. I was thinking it might be a pop growth, but on second thought, and looking at when they completed Astrology, most likely the Holy Site. And +2 or less faith.

China: No pop growth, and unless Krill is running no food somehow, I'm guessing the Settler popped same turn as the city grew.

Japan: Very little seems to be happening here. I think he's teching towards a Tier 1 tech, though.

[Whosit]

Not too much going on domestically but I DID realize I can just look at the Trade screen and the Great Person screen to confirm certain information.

I had been suspecting, just from tracking stats, that Korea had an improved Truffles. Well...




I was right! And improved Horses. Good to know. I'll have to keep an eye on quantity in case they start building Horsemen. Not that they can any time soon, of course. I believe next turn is the earliest that Korea's 2nd city could be founded, assuming it's flat land all the way. Might be another turn or two depending on travel time.

I believe in Settler before Builder in most circumstances but I suppose we'll see what time tells.

I also realized Khmer was NOT building, or at least did not finish a Holy Site because 1) no gpp accumulated, and 2) they dropped from 4 pop to 3 pop, so their settler is out. They also got 2 more era score.

Korea has lost a lot of army power, so their Warriors are clearly doing some fighting. Not sure if both warriors have taken damage or if 1 is just near death. I'm assuming greenline will escort their first settler, especially with all the barbs around. Hopefully I'll have some more interesting scouting info next turn, and first Builder finishes next turn as well!

Oh, I forgot to switch back to AH.... but Builder can't make the Camp until turn after finishing, so I just need to remember to do that next turn lol