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

[Krill]

I've not been ignoring everyone, I do have some updates stored, I'm just a little backlogged and busy with work. I've mostly written T166 and just played T167 so not too far behind.


T165 - Set up for Bengal




Start of turn screenshot. The musket is retreating, and frankly nothing is presenting much of a danger. The question isn't if I can take Bengal on T166, it's if I can also take Bombay on T167,





End of turn/Roman theatre. Pillaged a bunch of tiles to upgrade my last remaining land units (I now only have a spearman left, everything else is on the board).





Whosit is making a play at Korea.

This is...an opportunity. Arirang can't be razed as a capital, so the only city I would want to integrate is Scarborough Fair. Urtin Duu is worth keeping but I'm not that concerned if I can't get it. So if I can finish up Bombay quickly enough, and if Whosit doesn't try to raze Scarborough Fair, then I might be able to fight him in the field whilst he has damaged units and just take his army out in a single turn. Then I can just finish up: capture and release Zanzibar for the amenities is the only critical options, but capturing the northern iceball city for oil is also worthwhile. Add in Tourdion and Ocicat for the other oil and that will put me at 7 oil resources with only two other land based oils not in my control.





Showing this as the solution to my build queue problems at Lumberjack. My solution has been to buy the zoo outright and use the faith pillages to buy the archeologist, saving me 760 production. The pillage economy outscales everything, and now Lumberjack only needs the bank to be up to speed.

[Krill]

T166





Before, a bunch of units that look quite annoying to deal with if I don't remove them from the board. However, I can one shot the courser with a field cannon corps, then the solo field cannon and a line inf clear out the cuir before my two cuirs delete the musket (I even made use of the charge promotion! it's not total junk, honest).





After, my units are starting to get a little banged up, and I need to stop and heal, but I'm on a clock and I need Bombay in my hands before I heal the majority of the units (the really injured line inf will have to heal next turn, as will the cavalry in Sphynx).

I'm not sure if I can capture Bombay next turn. I will only have two cuirs and two line inf as hitters, but I will also have the four field cannons available. If I could have taken Bengal with one fewer line inf I'd have three available next turn, and I'd be much surer, but c'est la vie.

Bengal was almost holding it's own in loyalty with just a unit in situ, but I moved Victor from Burmese to get it online faster. It should be back to maximum output on T169, and have everything fixed and in place by T172, at a cost of tighter amenities for a couple of turns. This is the easy stuff, but there is bad news this turn:





This is obnoxious, but to be expected. TAD is down 6 techs, so he is ignoring the military line to try and catch up. I want to use OU to bury him. My problem is that TAD passed on da Vinci and put me in a bind. If I skipped d Vinci, then I couldn't guarantee when Whosit would reach him (even with me taking Bengal, I can't work out just how quickly he would get there at the slower accrual rate). And then TAD would get Brunelleschi due to turn order, and I'd be left holding the bag. Worst case, I lose the culture and the free eureka and TAD would still get the techs.

TADs science isn't actually that threatening, at this point he is just about matching what I'm making (because I'm hitting all the eurekas and getting techs every 4 turns the extra 10% beakers works out at about 40 beakers/turn). If I integrate the high pop cities and manage amenities, I should still be growing a tech lead if I can match TAD for great people.

The other ace in the whole is the oil situation: TAD is gambling that he will have accessible oil, but I already know he doesn't. So when he eventually gets to Refining he will be unable to build a stockpile and I'll stretch him with numbers of units on multiple fronts.

So I accepted da Vinci after a bit of rumination, triggered him immediately, and lucked out: I got the Radio eureka which I had no other chance of getting. As it is, I am only missing the Sanitation and Chemistry eurekas' but I don't need that line at all until I want to head to Rocketry. Flight is dependent on landing an industrial era wonder, so I either hit OU and bury TAD as expected, or I fail and limp to Ruhr with the failure production.

[Krill]

I'll expand on this issue with da Vinci and Oxford University, because I think it highlights the challenges that both TAD and I need to overcome.

OU is not worth 2 techs. If I finish it and it gives me Sanitation and Computers, two techs I will not get the eurekas for in time, it's essentially given me the opportunity to build a drone, plus the denial value, even if those are the two techs with the greatest beaker value. OTOH, if it gave me Flight and Combustion, even those are two techs that I have half completed already, it pushes up every future tech by about 8-9 turns, maybe less.

For TAD, the same is almost true again: if he gets OU, then with his faith output he should be capable of getting Radio triggered, but he should have the eurekas down for everything except Sanitation and possibly Economics (and definitely lacks it for Rep parts, but because of his oil situation, Rep parts is of very little value to him even if he doesn't know it yet). So at best for TAD, OU is worth about 1.2 techs, and potentially is worth far less over the next 30 turns. Given his current tech rate of around 200bpt (whilst pushing GS projects and not building units, when he can't upgrade many oil units anyway), if he got the most expensive "useful" techs (Flight, Radio), OU is worth about 8 turns to him.

da Vinci, with the luck of Radio, was worth 820 beakers, so slightly over 4 turns of tech. If I hadn't accepted da Vinci, I wouldn't get another GE during the relevant turns and hence I'd essentially be down an amount that could be valued as half of Oxford (and points accrued but not realised will not have any value during the remaining turns of the game).

But keeping up in tech is only one half of the problem for TAD. The other is the ability to field the units, which means having the strategic resources, and for all the resources TAD pushes into tech that will not solve this problem. Sure, TAD can rush for Darwin, and he can try to play tricky for Brunneleschi, but he only has one coal, and he only has one land based oil. This shouldn't be enough if I can get my act together and access Whosit's available resources.

This brings me to the second point: what victory conditions does TAD have? Domination is out, he has to beat me. Culture? I don't know how it works, but with all the captured great works from Whosit and TADs lack of culture districts I doubt it. Science? Er, likely not if I can manage amenities, and I should be adding more cities from Whosit that come with campuses and universities so I should outstrip his GS accrual shortly. Diplomacy? That's possible but don't think there will be time for it, not as I can eat every other player in the game. So he has to aim for religious victory, and he has already started to convert Chev.

But there's (at least) two problems for TAD: Whosit is taking greenlines cities, and greenline isn't reachable once I've finished with Whosit, so I can keep greenline cosy and locked away with Whosits religion in his cities, and that is an extremely challenging obstacle to overcome with the RV attempt. The other is that as I take over Whosits cities, my empire is gradually becoming less and less dominated by TADs religion, and I'm gaining the necessary infrastructure to faith buy units to remove his religion. And this is a double whammy as it reduces his ability to invade me due to his reliance on Crusade to get a strength advantage. Plus if I can upgrade my navy and hold the Rheic ocean, he can't get his religious units anywhere, whilst I raze the relevant cities that he already converts (spoiler alert, TAD has converted Chevs capital).

Right now my biggest obstacles are finding Whosits' army in the field so I can wipe it out, and managing amenities, and ultimately I don't have to do the latter to "win".

I hate how arrogant this sounds, but this game should be over over unless I flub it. Easiest ways to flub it are to underestimate a last ditch offence from TAD, and miscalculation on the RV. I need to remain vigilant and not underestimate the faith elements of TADs economy.

[Krill]

Question for lurkers: should chopping a forest and chopping a stone have different production outputs for the base value or not?

[Quagma Blast]

IIRC Stone is worth more than a Forest. Can't recall the exact numbers off the top of my head but I think if a forest is 1x then a district cost is 2.5x-ish and a bonus resource is 1.5x-ish.

[Kaiser]

I can confirm that a stone chop has a higher base value than a forest, but I do not remember the values

[Krill]

I thought that as well but the game gives the same value for forest chops as stone harvests for some reason.

[Krill]

It's a moot point about harvest values but I'll land Oxford this turn with a triple stone harvest.

Does anyone want to guess what techs it gives?

[Krill]

T167 - Capture of Bombay




Not much to say here. Bombay did fall in a single turn. All the units were moved up and then I just hammered the city and saw what happened. The four ranged attacks managed to do enough damage that the cuirs followed up and I got away with only two melee attacks via the siege tower. I lost the opportunity to pillage a bunch of tiles: onwe pasture, plantation, mine and a farm pillage for healing, without resorting to the district pillaging. This is possibly a mistake.

Unfortunately I don't have a plan for moving forward.





Arirang fell, no idea what Whosit is doing. I moved to try and cover a flank at Scarborough, but I can't stop any moves to other cities, not that I care, really, other than the resources it gives Whosit. I'm more interested in ensuring Long is kept free from disruption, so that means try to cover Urtin Duu.

[RefSteel]

It's a moot point about harvest values but I'll land Oxford this turn with a triple stone harvest.

Does anyone want to guess what techs it gives?

No idea what Civ 6's tech tree looks like at your stage of the game, and my only knowledge of what Oxford does is from inference reading your thread, but sure, I'll guess ... let's see ... Electricity, Flight, and Industrialism. (Assuming those are all even techs ... and that you get three....)