Sengoku Chevalier: Hiun no Kishi

[ljubljana]

yeah, seconded williams' feelings - this is probably as bad as things are going to look for you, with double settlers about to finish but not having paid off yet and horrible barb luck. but you are isolated enough, and in civ6 settlers are expensive enough, that i think you can still get a strong result out of the landgrab and that should be what matters most when exploiting a trade route spammy leader like toku

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Do note - I know I've been remiss with screenshots, product of me being at work during the day now instead of at home - that TWO Roman cities have been settled on the near side of the mountains. I figure Bombay is his capital, so he's pretty nearby. About 15 turns' march. I'll try to remedy that when I get home. Anyway, Rome has 6 cities to our 2 at present.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 69

[williams482]

Okay that's not great. Most of what I said still holds assuming you get Hong Kong first and Whosit doesn't send a half dozen legions your way, but we'll see. Those mountains are clearly not the barrier I had hoped.

[Erasmas]

What a horrible start. I think this is one of the worst starting positions I ever saw. And then the unlucky spwan of first a barbarian horse camp and later a horrible quad spawning camp in the worst possible space. I tend to play the hand I got dealed but as SP this would have been a restart long ago.

I fear that I must disagree with Williams an Ljubjana. It is nice of them to try to lift your spirit but there must be some realism in it. Maybe they underestimate the value of the snowball but you are so far behind the field that the only thing you can do is not play kingmaker and try to put up some defense. Hopefully Rome gets backstabbed, but being close to his UU that is not very appealing to the others. Who don't know how bad your position is.

Well, hope you can get some fun out of turtling in your own corner.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Yeah, we're pretty much fucked. I settled City #3, Honda Kyojin, but check out Rome's yields:

 

I have no real way of catching up other than getting my trade routes up as quickly as I can and getting more cities out, but I still need two more settlers evne to match Rome. Religion will help as it should bring in some food, I hope, or at least culture as a consolation. 

Also, Korea settled Gwangju out of the fog to the southwest, so I'll have a warrior there soon to make contact. Might be able to coordinate something to bring Rome down, it's our only chance. But it's entirely possible greenline charges off to the west at Krill or Archduke. :/

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 73

Met Korea. The galleys are out of control:



City 4 founded in 2 turns. If I can just get a handle on the barbarian boats and clear the camp, I can stabilize things.

Whosit built the Temple of Artemis, which is both fantastic for his amenities and shows how much excess production his empire has. Probably pairs well with the Truffles in that part of the world. He's running Free Inquiry Golden Age. Korea is fairly close in science nad culture so might be a check?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

So, what can we do, to salvage this? Hmmm.

We're dramatically behind in city count, but I think I can even that up. We'll be at 4 cities next turn, and I've got my first horsemen on the way. They may be too late to take Hong Kong prior to walls (3 horses should guarantee it, but with walls it gets harder), in which case we'd have to wait for Masonry (for Rams) and Iron Working (for Swords) to come in. But IF we can manage that, we'll be at 5 cities to Rome's 6, and can perhaps shake out one more settler. 

That would at least get us set up in the medium term, but then we'll be far behind in development. How to catch up there? Well, I'm getting down harbors everywhere, and then lighthouses would be nice...but that's all expensive. If we could get Harbors -> Lighthouses and Industrial Zones up and running I think we'd be in a very good place, especially with our religion supplying food and then probably security either via Crusade or DotF. To do THAT, I come back to us needing Serfdom, and then a massive wave of builders chopping and improving everything in sight. 

We'll still be behind, since obviously Rome is doing all of this but 30 turns sooner, but Korea seems roughly balanced-ish with Rome? Best case is greenline lunges at Whosit with my help, and maybe we can claw our way back up the mountain?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 75

Banner turn! We found our religion:


Crabs in the Bucket, the inevitable efforts to drag down the most successful by jealous rivals, ie, our only remaining chance to achieve some measure of competitiveness this game. Food is crucial for our starved start, and Defender of the Faith is the equivalent of a Great General and will give us some odds of slowing down the inevitable Roman attack, along with hopefully horses and crossbows. Archduke took Choral Music and Tithe, so gathering culture and gold with his religion. 

I also found City #4, Fukushima Shiku (City 3 was Honda Kyojin):


Decent tiles in both but no high food tiles again make growth slow. I haven't planned the districts because I've been mentally checked out for a few weeks, but I'll try to drag myself back. We're now just a few cities behind Rome and I'm working on the military to grab Hong Kong. I'm also attempting to slip a warrior to maybe clear the camp? But there's 3 galleys (see one up by the polar ice in the religious photo, before I moved my repair builder back off the turtles) to my two, and quads outfight anything I have. And anything I build to fight hte barbs is a total waste of time otherwise. 

Our yields are terrible, our empire small, and our military tiny, but we'll soldier on as best we can! I want horsemen, then shrines, and then lighthouses, I think. Then a last wave of settlers and hten try to chop infrastructure.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

No screenshots, because I'm at work, but we have a Serious Problem.

Home front is good news, mostly. We've cleaned out 2 of the 3 galleys and our warrior is promoted next to the camp. I also have an archer ready to provide support next turn, so I hope to clear this game-ruining nonsense soon. Then I can at last repair my turtles permanently and get the harbors going. We're dead last in everything, but not big surprise given the barbarian problems forcing us to build a nonsensical amount of units and the food-poor start. We might be competitive yet!

Except...

I think Whosit is about to run over Greenline. I have visibility on Gwangju (incidentally, Gwangju was my home in Korea. Beautiful city), and if you look at the screenshot of it above you'll see that it has only strength 10, compared to my and Whosit's strength 20 cities. City defense strength is equal to the strongest melee unit you've built -10, so greenline hasn't gotten anything more powerful than a warrior out. 

EDIT: There are no screenshots of Gwangju. Oops. It's southwest of Hong Kong, in the desert near Zanzibar. Two tiles are fully barren desert, so what kind of land must Greenline have that he's settling HERE? 

Anyway. Greenline has no swords or horses yet, and he doesn't have my excuses - I COULD have those if I'd prioritized them instead of harbors, for example. That's bad, because Krill and Whosit both have encampments done, but Whosit is going to spawn a great general in less than 10 turns. That's a clear indicator of an attack on SOMEONE, and Whosit can see my tougher cities compared to Greenline's, as well as Greenline's higher science score making him a juicier target (he can finish me at leisure). I am researching Masonry to enable Walls, but realistically I couldn't stop a Legion rush at this point, just slow it down. I don't think Greenline can either, and I worry that he doesn't see it coming. 

I wish I knew more about Whosit. If that was ljub over there, I'd throw a denouncement or something his way to try and stick a wrench in his mental gears. But that might just call down the thunder on me, and I can't possibly stand up to Rome right now. I need him to charge into Korea, take a city or two, and then get stuck. So I need greenline to be ready to defend. Curses. 

Hmm. Decisions, decisions.