Sengoku Chevalier: Hiun no Kishi

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Khmer lands look nice.

 

The interesting thing is we're in spitting distance of Archduke's science, probably because he's focused on Choral Music holy sites. I'd like to get some more holy sites up myself, obviously, but I just don't have the district slots atm. Our cities are very slowly starting to grow, though obviously we'll never catch up to Rome. 


 

My goal is to settle down the coast and get traders up for population -> Loyalty, and then take Hong Kong and settle the last two spots roughly simultaenously. It's the only way it'll work at all. 

I wonder if Whosit is marching on my borders? Kinna stopped paying attention. I've reached Zen tranquility on this game. What will happen will happen.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Archduke has 7 cities and they are all, predictably, enormous:




His cap has 14 pop by itself, and there's nearly 35 more scattered among his other 6 cities. :D 

We find Krill in the south. This wretched polar city must mean he's incredibly cramped between Korea and Khmer:

 

So the world map looks like this:

 

Hopefully the intersection of Korea - Khmer - China - Rome is a sizzling hotbed of tension. I need Rome not to eat me. 

I have one settler out, my Ancestral Hall is 1 turn from completion (I'll finish it the turn before I start settling to swap in Serfdom), and 3 more settlers on the way:

 
That will bring me to 9 cities, and I have 3 more planned after that which I shall try to rapidly build. Hopefully we catch Rome flatfooted, Whosit is faffing about with Engineer projects. 

I still have no chance to win, but maybe I can make the endgame interesting? Dunno. Need to pay attention again to do that and that seems like a drag. 

Should work out how to kill Hong Kong, though. Gets me 13 cities and then we're cooking with charcoal.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

2 settlers on the map and sailing for points south, 3 more within a few turns' of production, and I need 4 more after that for marginal tundra settlements, which will give me a grand total - with Hong Kong - of 15 cities. Each one of THOSE runs a trade route back to the capital for 4 science/culture each, assuming I can reach size 10 with my Feed the World belief, and we're looking at 60 science/culture from Tokugawa, achievable in a reasonable timeframe. 

 
Krill/Whosit looks like a sitzkrieg, possibly Krill trying to signal that we need to unite against Whosit - hopefully he setn the same message to greenline. Archduke is the real long-term threat to win the game, though, with his frankly absurd booming population, culture, and faith production. However, he'll need to translate it into a military advantage against SOMEONE so we have some time before that becomes an issue. 



 

The contrast between our capitals sure is something. 

Anyway, Whosit needs to make an aggressive move soon, but he's not built enough military, I think. He needs enough to fight at least me and Korea/China comfortably, and he's not there yet. Greenline seems to be fading - he's trailing me in most stats, and he's Korea. I haven't built any campuses! Krill is locked in a box but he's Yongle, the single best civ to survive being trapped on like 5 cities. 

I want to get my cities down -> Chop out trade routes -> Use trade routes to build IZs -> Use those to build campuses -> Figure out how to win.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Our trade routes are developing nicely:



PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE SCIENCE AND CULTURE RIBBONS

5 settlers out or near completion:


Sure would be a shame if Rome invaded and ate all this, which I can do basically nothing about. :D

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Due to the rough terrain around Hong Kong, I've been settling the South mainly via amphibious movement down the coast. Naturally, the turn before my Samurai was due to land to clean out a barb camp, a Crossbowman spawned and mauled him.



Founding a city up the coast next turn, so I'll pull back there, heal, and then escort the next settler to the inland site on foot. 

Back home I need 3 more settlers, then I can go into infrastructure mode to get out Industrial Zones while I start to hit Eurekas:

 
I'll do that by spamming out builders like there's no tomorrow and chop everything in sight, until every city is fully improved. 

Whosit offered a trade deal, so maybe he's not intending to invade? He has a spear and a man-at-arms at his border. 

I'd kill me, if I was him.

[Jabah]

Wouldn't Hosokawa be better on the barb camp, saving a wheat (no big deal) but having a +4 harbor, access to plenty of seafood and opening the potential for a passage between seas through the lake

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Probably! But there's a barb camp there and clearing it is irritating (the newly-spawned Crossbow killed my horseman before he could escape - the horse WAS going to act in concert with the Samurai to clear the camp). I think I was after the 1/3 PFH when I pinned it htere, with a farm triangle possible. But the seafood is compelling, too. Shoulda taken god of the sea but I thought I'd be able to settle those pasturelands around the Roman eastern expansions.



I found Todo Biruzu, which will immediately chop a harbor. I've also faith-bought a builder up at Chairo, and he'll ALSO chop the harbor.

Really, I've just gone into full ignore-the-rest-of-the-world mode in an effort to get my own house in order. If Whosit lets me settle these cities AND lets me chop out infrastructure AND THEN doesn't just take them for himself (probably his best move tbh), I might be able to finish in not-last-place by the time Archduke or Krill or Whosit wins.

[ljubljana]

re whosit invasion, what does the differential in military tech look like at this point? i agree that you "look tasty" from the standpoint of having (been forced to) neglect military for a while and having cities full of edible-looking districts and the like.... but the terrain between you and whosit looks absolutely miserable for them to attack through. i've never fought an offensive war in this era of civ6 against a human but it seems like cracking the chokes west of hong kong might just not be doable without ranged support (but the hills seem to block that for the most part) or a massive combat strength disparity (and you don't seem THAT far behind).... maybe that's why they are hesitant to invade? either way, as soon as hong kong is ours i definitely recommend fortifying that area with a big ball of mutually-supporting melee dudes to drive the point home

does TAD have, to your knowledge, um.... literally any ability to make ships on his western coast? i think that's the direction i'd be more worried about an invasion from, frigates would be devastating here..... but it looks like none of his defogged cities are actually coastal and he has not yet reached out to build harbor districts in the third ring, is that correct?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

re whosit invasion, what does the differential in military tech look like at this point? i agree that you "look tasty" from the standpoint of having (been forced to) neglect military for a while and having cities full of edible-looking districts and the like.... but the terrain between you and whosit looks absolutely miserable for them to attack through. i've never fought an offensive war in this era of civ6 against a human but it seems like cracking the chokes west of hong kong might just not be doable without ranged support (but the hills seem to block that for the most part) or a massive combat strength disparity (and you don't seem THAT far behind).... maybe that's why they are hesitant to invade? either way, as soon as hong kong is ours i definitely recommend fortifying that area with a big ball of mutually-supporting melee dudes to drive the point home

does TAD have, to your knowledge, um.... literally any ability to make ships on his western coast? i think that's the direction i'd be more worried about an invasion from, frigates would be devastating here..... but it looks like none of his defogged cities are actually coastal and he has not yet reached out to build harbor districts in the third ring, is that correct?

His southernmost city, near the Galapagos, is coastal and can build ships. But it's only the one, and Archduke hates naval combat, so I hope he's more focused on Krill and Whosit. 



3 more settlers are wanted for marginal tundra spots, but all the core settlers are nearing completion. On the downside, we're losing our heroic age soon and with it Free Inquiry & Pen Brush Voice, so that's going to hit our yields a lot. I've managed to get the basic districts down, though, just need to finish them. If everyone ignores me for 100 turns I might be dangerous. >

[ljubljana]

hmm.... on the bright side, the isolationism policy card could go really hard here..... it's too late for monasticism yes? still, +2 food and hammers in every city seems like a pretty big deal, esp with a ton of new colonies developing, if you can push out all or almost all of the settlers by the age transition...