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

[Krill]

Mechanics interlude

I've been troubled by district costs not matching the currently known formula, but I think I've figured out why. I expect many other players have already figured it out but I can't find it explained anywhere. In Gathering Storm there are more techs in the tech tree so the tech part of the formula should be changed from /67 to /76. Things don't line up perfectly but are pretty close.

[Krill]

Question for lurkers: does production start at the beginning or end of the turn?

[Krill]

Turn 59

I think everything processes at the start of the turn. This is relevant because of when stuff processes as a historic moment, but I'll probably just eat the turn delay on finish what I need on T62 rather than T61. I can confirm I will be making the Free Inquiry dedication




greenline is staking out the only viable city location between us. I've made the decision to not try and contest at this point: I'm going to be in a GA, and that area is all negative loyalty. If greenline settles past those markers, then he is going to be in a slightly dicier position, I think he will paint himself into a corner and have to deal with the fact he has a long border and no navy near me, and I can threaten a whole front, whilst having a solid defensive position. If he settles in that area then he gets all the good resources but builds a buffer area to fight in which makes it easier to hold in the long run.

greenline has not used any of his horse resources, so despite reaching his 7th tech I can't see an imminent invasion that I can't handle with what is already in situ (or I plan to build in the next 10 turns). He has limited iron, and a single sword would not be a problem (I could probably evaporate it between two archers and two city attacks) given what should be in place by that point.

That said, he goes into the Classical era in a normal age. I'd have expected more from Korea





I'm sticking with the hairstyle theme. I think I can bend it to the task at hand in terms of the terrain.

MH is starting to get a move on. It can finish the GP in 2 turns, and then at size 6 (with the trade route to Long with the new Encampment) it can two turn galleys with Maritime Industry. I can keep a galley and archer in Long, to benefit from the raised city strength and still get the two ranged attacks out of one tile. I need two galleys for the Shipbuilding eureka, and long shot, I could use the second galley to reach two other city states (if any exist. I need to scout, this is the most effective way to do it now. I'm 6 turns from HBR, but I may not need to rush out a horseman, so I am contemplating getting a builder between the galleys and GP, and then roll onto a horseman. I can finish the builder in 3 turns, which means I want to finish Mil Trad (1 turn from completion no later than eoT63).

Given that I will finish PP in 16 turns according to current in-game estimates (which are wrong), that would leave roughly 6-10 turns in MI (due to growth shaving a little off that), plus the reduction in civic cost due to era change. That seems quite reasonable, and then I would need to be in conscription due to the gold squeeze.

I want to cram in the Ancestral Hall ASAP once PP is in, so I do need to focus on how long it will take to complete the first horseman. The horseman should take 4 turns, as MH will grow to size 7 in 9 turns, eot68 and get up to 20 production per turn, which would be eot72. That feels late but that's with 4 turns building galleys. If I were to skip the galleys, then I would be stuck with a 5 turn horseman unless I rigged overflow. That would be a horseman eot69, unless I used Manouevre instead and that would lead to a three turn horseman. The problem is I would not have enough horses to then build a second and manouvre falls down. MI ultimately gives more hammers than Manouevre in this instance, and if PP cost drops enough (I think it drops from 132 to 108 culture, which is the 20% drop?) then that should land T70-ish. This is where watching greenline pays dividends, but also I may need to balance the builds between the two cities. I may only be able to build one galley and a horseman in MH if I want that builder.

For context in the quest to size 10, it takes 90 food to go from 7>8, 8>9 costs 102 and 9>10 costs 114. I need MH to get those marsh into borders. Buying the tiles is actually a net gold position after about 15 turns at current costs but I will not have enough gold to buy all of them. Once the Ancestral Hall is in place I need to move Magnus over to not lose the settler pop.





Long has been stagnating at size 4 for a while, but it's ready to move on. Unfortunately, I need to improve both the fish and maize for housing, but I also need the gold, and then I need a granary to give enough housing to get to size 7. And I need that Watermill. Here are the things that Long has to build for itself:

• Granary (no other available housing route that doesn't give too many farms to pillage)
  
• Watermill (not building that in MH, the farm resources are at Long and Long really needs the food now)
  
• Campus (The only way to give food to MH in teh quest for size 10

Here are he things that can be swapped between Long and MH build queues:

• Galley
  
• Horseman
  
• Settler
  
• Builder

I won't beat about the bush. I need more cities. I don't have any good locations, but there is one I can make work in the near term, it is defensible and long term it can get to size 10. Yongle doesn't really care about much else. I'm planning on settling on the forest to the south of Long, between the fish and Honey. It will be named Mullet.

There is limited Housing. I need to improve both the fish and the Honey, but at size 2 it can steal the marble to pop borders onto the crab. That's 6gpt I am in dire need of. It gives me the option to swap a forest chop from Long (but lose the Magnus bonus - it's actually not a bad idea if I wanted to cram in a monument for more culture or a granary to keep on growing to size 4, but I won't be doing this). This is one of the reasons I need another builder, as the Honey is another amenity to boost MH a bit (although I'm not sure would be improved in time to do much except shave a turn off growth in MH).

I have 2 builders left with 4 charges total. I need to farm the maize and boat the fish. I need to use one Magnus chop into a settler, and I need to use Colonisation - this gives me the settler in 1 turn with no overflow. That's 1 remaining charge, but I need two at Mullet and there is another forest to chop. This would mean Colonization gives something like 36 production, so it's obviously the right choice over UP for those turns until PP lands. I also need to promote Magnus to Supply to not lose the population, so I must do this after finishing the GP at MH (really the list above is a lie, the settler has to come from Long for this reason). This also means that I have one more Magnus chop that I can use. I could go for a fourth settler, but that location is the for western horse site and I have no units to cover it, plus it needs a builder. That will be later.

Right now I'm leaning towards using the third chop ASAP into a watermill. That boosts Long up to 5fpt (and another 1fpt from Magnus) and I can hand build the granary. The alternative, which is running a close second, is to just chop the granary (4fpt, lose the hammer, but it doesn't matter if I can't get the Waterwheel for a while as growth will not be slowed, just slow in general) but then build the second galley at Long. The challenge is lining up the builder actions with the policy card swap, the era change (for the dedication and era points) and that I can't grow Long until both the maize and fish are improved.

If greenline doesn't actually push that hard, then the right play is (I think) the watermill chop, build the granary, let MH build both galleys and then go into Oligarchy with Conscription (save 4gpt minimum)/Manouevre (Long can build the horsemen quickly enough at that point)/Urban Planning/flexible wildcard. Plus I can use Mullet to push out the pantheon (plus a random turns production at Long to help push it to completion). The Ancestral Hall takes about 8 turns to complete, but I don't think I can line up Colonization (nor justify sitting on it for that long; OTOH Mysticism will be a cheap way to rejig cards if needed, including picking up the GS).

If greenline does push then it's horseman from MH and a galley from Long (but still chop the settler).

[Krill]

Actually forget all that about it being challenging to work out the correct order.

Finish Mil Trad T60. Chop the settler T61 to settle on the forest T66. The builder finishes T63 to improve the honey t66 as well.

The settler chop used is the northern forest. The T62 move onto the fish and t63 improve it. T62 the southern builder chops the forest and t63 farms the maize. Long builds the water mill t60, settler t61 finishes the watermill t62 and then grows from t63 at 6fpt with Magnus and enough leeway to give plenty of tiles to MH and Mullet, and can happily work the bare plains hills for hammers due to the imminent housing issue. A theoretical granary would land T70. A galley would land T66. So there is a lot of flexibility with this.

[Krill]

Might update in a bit, but I just played the turn this morning wrong in so many ways it is hilarious (if you have no sense of humour). It doesn't really matter though. I forgot to account for the beaker reduction in HBR and now all timings are shot to hell (in a good way).

[Krill]

Oh this turn gets even better. I just realised that after fixing the policy card issue I actually made another mistake else where which actually makes the replayed position even worse than the original.

I shouldn't be allowed to play in these games.

[Krill]

I'm going to write this up in a bit more detail simply because this is a good example of where Civ 6 fails, and how much easier Civ 7 can fix the issue.

Documentation. That's it. Simply, documentation. Sid Meier is quoted as saying a game is a series of interesting choices.

But for a choice to be interesting, the player has to understand the consequence of the choice. In the UK there is actually a law about how people make choices. I raise this point to highlight the level of importance that making the information available is, when it comes to decision making.

The civilopedia in civ 6 is trash. T61, I open up the save and what do I see? Mil Trad had reduced to 40 culture and I have 44 invested, and it wasn't researched. Oh no, I thought, but then I look closer and I can still change cards for no cost? Why? I still don't know. Best guess is era change.

I've come into this game with an open mind, and there are still things that will never not annoy me. That damned Iron mine bullshit is one of them. This is just a reason to not micro to any real extent if you don't really know the rules.

So let us come up with a new plan: revolt into Discipline this turn (there's a barb I can hit twice, the only real alternative is Conscription for 2 gold. I'll take that trade), and into Colonization. Set culture to Mil Trad (get the excess culture out into PP fo no loss of time), build the settler this turn, chop it next turn, hit the barb for the second time, and change cards to MI (for yon galleys) and Urban Planning (for a total cost of 2 production I would gain 37 production into the settler.

The first mistake? I swapped into Discipline only (no idea why). Easy and quick mistake to fix with a reload. Second mistake? I didn't set Long to build a settler In other words UP would give me two more production than the "fixed" save. Whatever, I'll roll with it.

On reflection, part of the issue is playing the turn at a bad time. I had just got back home and was taking a break before restarting work but was distracted, but I don't think that detracts from the main point: if the rules are understood, you can make a decision and plan (and document the plan!) Then when it comes to play the turn, there is something to work from. Simply winging it doesn't work. If the rules aren't understood, the choices don't really matter.

[Krill]

The map generator hates me, but that's OK. I can deal with that, I was never in the running to win this game. It's just a reminder than a tight pangaea map should have had an aggressive pick (not that I realised it was a tight pangaea map when I made that pick). The bigger issue is my PC keeps on crashing and I'm struggling too complete the turn.

[Krill]

Turn 63

This is turning into a tradegy of errors on my part. Ah well, it's all a learning curve.




TAD is to the north west. That means I'm stuck in the middle with very little land. And greenline has settled a city first ring to his capital. When I was younger I'd be angry about such disrespect, now I just find it funny. I could have settled that city. In all honesty I might even have been able to hold it as Yongle in a dark age, but I don't think it would be great.

No, I have a plan, and that's play tight, get a tech edge then ruin someones day.

TAD has almost no military. 67 mil score and offered a DoF. I'd not have a problem with being friendly but I have zero land to work with so I actually need to settle the western city now. If TAD managed to snaffle that spotI'dI have nothing to do but get Magnus to the 4th promotion (-80% resource costs of units, hmmm) and play the barbarian. Actually that's probably the same plan but whatever.




I've redirected the settler over there. Now I know it's TAD, and I have the slinger, warrior and builder I can kinda make it work...but more than anything I want the extra horse. Ancestral Hall has limited value at this point...Warlords Throne is the only option.

[Krill]

Reflecting on how I got to this point I see a whole range of errors recently, and I'll get to them again, but I'm not sure how this start should have been played?

Stuck between the tundra and ocean, desert to the west and plains with no freshwater to the east, the only two city locations I can identify that fit with Yongle are the two Iv'e already identifed, unless I pushed right up against Korea.

If the first settler is delayed for scouting, then realistically the player meets Khmer and Korea much sooner, probably meets both by T20, but I'm not sure how much that helps. It speeds up the Writing eureka and the FT inspiration, but end of the day still need to get out a builder and settler. I'm not see options other than a straight "rush" scenario. Go AH first because the builder comes out late, then go Mining. The capital culture takes the horse first, but still want SAiling for the turtle. Likely have to give that up, but if the priorty is instead a quick Writing then still need to tech pottery. And still end up with the stupid Iron campus because there is no where else to put it except against a volcano.

No, I feel like the aggressive play was AH (blind luck in the horse)>Mining>Archery>BW and just pushed east hard. Maybe that would have been wiser? But it's the same problem, unless I fight an early war with Korea (into a tech disadvantage) and win it feels like a massive loss. It feels like if you do that and lose the retort is "Why didn't you play to Yongles strengths?"

All that said, reflecting on the last week I probably shouldn't have lost my head so much once I met greenline and saw the horse. OTOH, I think he has made a misplay because he could have rushed me off the face of the map (due to my incompetence) but now he is going to have a thorn in his side and he is stuck in the middle with lots to defend. I don't know if I should regret the walls and encampment build: Maybe the last 6-8 turns should have been played differently, and I should have placed the encampment, but then chopped a settler and rushed east now? But then I'd be fighting an uphill battle at a loyalty disadvantage.

You know maybe it wouldn't feel so bad if the little land I had wasn't actually ice?