[Spoilers] Grotsnot massively inflates his own View count

[Grotsnot]

Lurkers only beyond this point

[Grotsnot]

Heya, folks! I'm Grotsnot and I'll be your host for this thread!

First things first, we have a civ to pick:

Alhambram: Kongo, Rome, China
The Black Sword: Norway, Greece (Pericles), Russia
marcopolothefraud: America, Germany, Arabia
Grotsnot: Japan, Spain, Aztec
BUFFBUNNY: France, England, India
Alhazard: Egypt, Greece (Gorgo), Brazil  

For reference (mostly cribbed from wikia):

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Japan:
Civ ability - Meiji Restoration
Districts recieve a +1 adjacency bonus for each adjacent district, instead of +0.5.
UU - Samurai
Unlocks at Military Tactics, Melee Strength 45 (Note to self: check if the 48 STR and reduction patch applies to base game), does not require resources to build, and does not suffer combat penalties from damage.
UB - Electronics Factory
Grants an extra compared to the Factory it replaces. Also gives +4 upon researching Electricity.
Leader - Hojo Tokimune
Leader bonus - Divine Wind
Land units receive +5 Strength in land tiles adjacent to Coast. Naval units receive +5 Strength in shallow water tiles. +50% towards Encampments, Holy Sites and Theater Squares.

Spain:
Civ ability - Treasure Fleet
May form Fleets and Armadas with Mercantilism, instead of Nationalism and Mobilization. Trade Routes between cities on different continents grant +1 and +1 for internal Trade Routes, and +6 for international Trade Routes.
UU - Conquistador
Slightly higher cost than the Musketman it replaces. Gains +10 Strength when stacked with a religious unit. Also converts cities to Spain's religion when it captures a city or is adjacent to the city when it is captured.
UI - Mission
+2 :faith, +2 if on a different continent than your capital, +2 if next to a Campus, +2 upon researching Cultural Heritage.
Leader - Philip II
Leader bonus - El Escorial
All units receive +4 Strength against civilizations following a different Religion. Inquisitors have one extra use of their Remove Heresy ability.

Aztec:
Civ ability - Legend of the Five Suns
Can spend Builder charges to complete 20% of a district's Production cost.
UU - Eagle Warrior
Higher production cost and strength than the Warrior it replaces. May capture defeated enemies, turning them into Builders for the Aztecs.
UB - Tlatchtli
Grants +2 and +1 Great General Point compared to the Arena it replaces.
Leader - Montezuma
Leader bonus - Gifts for the Tlatoani
Improved Luxury resources provide an Amenity to 2 extra cities. Military units receive +1 Strength for each different improved Luxury resource in Aztec territory.

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Ok so Spain is right out. Fleets/Armadas is near useless on Pangaea and continent shenanigans requires a lot of luck from the map to even work. If they could more reliably use the El Escorial bonus and have some way to boost odds of landing DotF they might be better but they're still too reliant on the map.

Leaves Japan or Aztec. I suspect people will predict Aztec because of all their goodies - Gifts of the Tlatoani is great and Eagle Warriors are awesome sauce. The builder->district ability is underwhelming, especially when chopping is available, and the Tlatchtli is situational since generally you only get one or two Entertainment Districts. But not bad. Still a better love story than Twilight pair than Treasure Fleets and Missions (sorry Philip)

However, Aztecs are very frontloaded. Gotta start pushing out Eagle Warriors early and go eat someone before they become obsolete. I don't really want to do that. Don't feel qualified to pull off a rush and doubt that it would be much fun for my usual playstyle.

Which means I'm leaning toward Japan. Use Meiji+Hojo's cheap districts to make myself actually plan out a district sprawl, include a bunch of Encampments, and when Medieval hits churn out a horde of Samurai to go ruin someone's day. Sucks that can't upgrade anything to Samurai but I think we'll be okay. Electronics District probably won't come into play and the coast strength is situational but, again, still better than Treasure Fleets or Missions.


So now the important question: Japanese city names - to weeb or not to weeb?

[Grotsnot]

Predictions time!

Alhambram:
I'm not convinced Kongo is much good, while Rome is excellent and China is at least good. Hoping that Al decides that RB has seen enough of Rome for a while and goes with China. Either would be a pain to play against, though. Rome's free monuments are a tough snowball to compete with and Legions can really ruin your day. China meanwhile means any hope of getting the Pyramids is probably shot.

Rome 60% China 35% Kongo 5%

The Black Sword
Norway is not gonna be any good on this map. Russia is quite solid with Lavras and extra city tiles, and god help us if we get to Cossacks. TBS was talking about wanting to see city-states in the organization thread, so might be tempted by Pericles, though I doubt it. +5% per city-state ally is nothing to write home about. The wildcard policy is handy and hoplites are decent, though unspectacular. Acropolis synergizes a bit with Pericles but not particularly impressive.

Russia 70% Pericles 25% Norway 5%

marcopolothefraud:
IMO America is kind of bad, at least for MP. Everything is late game except the home continent bonus which is kind of nice. German extra districts and Hansas are always nice, though Freddy's anti-CS ability is rather less useful in our variant. Arabia is respectable, too. Never been particularly impressed with automatic Last Prophet but could be handy if Russia, China, and Japan (don't forget our half-cost HS!) are all picked. Hard to say, Teddy's mostly-defensive bonus might be tempting, even.

Germany 50% Arabia 40% America 10%

BUFFBUNNY Chevalier Mal Fet:
As a turtley cultural civ, France is right down there with Spain and America on the MP rankings. Of course after ragging on both Teddy and the Garde Imperiale, odds are I'll be sharing a continent with one of them and get rolled by a late-game invasion England is solid, though hard to say how they'll do on a pangaea. Chevalier has played them before so might be looking for something fresh? India is decent. I quite like the Varu debuff aura, not many things like it out there. Stepwells aren't too shabby, either, giving double the housing of Farms and have an early adjacency boost. Their religion abilities aren't much to write home about, though would work well in a field with lots of religion rushers. The hard part is spreading other religions in your lands when human players know you get bonuses from it.

India 50% England 40% France 10%

Alhazard:
Probably stuck with the worst draw. Egypt has a lot of decent but nothing really compelling. Gorgo is roughly the same as Pericles but gets their bit of extra culture from fighting instead of making friends with CS. And as pointed out, fighting CS has a lot less reward in this game. Meanwhile Brazil hangs out in the rainforest and gets more great people.

I dunno, Egypt 40% Gorgo 30% Brazil 30%?

[Grotsnot]

Dear Santa,
Sounds like we'll have a map soon! Going to post up my notes on things I'm hoping to see before the map is revealed so I can preregister my whining deep appreciation for the work put into it

Spoiler tags for anybody contributing to the map, do not open until after Xmas the game starts 

Features

* Inland start. Looking to have my starting triad packed very closely and having my capital cornered by coast (or a mountain range) would thus limit my options for early expansion. Also hopefully I don't have city-states right on top of me, mucking up expansion sites with their distressing tendency to not conform to my city grids. The nerve. The ideal would be to have the city-states as speedbumps waystones along my borders. Though if so I'll need to remember to still fortify those particular borders - a sudden enemy levy would be bad news bears.

* Densely distributed rivers and lakes. Hey, it's a wishlist! Japanese District Carpet requires a lot of housing to get lots of people to enable the districts. So at least for my core 3-4 cities I want fresh water for cities packed at minimum distance from each other.

* A couple lonely mountains, or pairs of mountains, would be nice for HS and Campus bonuses. Too many or big ranges don't play well with JDC. Though I wouldn't mind a natural wall at my back (as long as it's not pressing right into my capital).

* Obviously more forests more better. Marshes, too: I needs me that food. Rainforests are all right, if they're on hills. Otherwise they kind of demand builder charges.

* No flood plains, please! As much as I like the food, they tend to screw up the JDC. Hoping to get mostly grassland because, as I'm sure you're all tired of hearing by now, I wants more citizens. Plains hills and forests are nice but otherwise they're gonna get districted ASAP. Deserts and Tundra make me sad.

* While we're on the subject of pie-in-the-sky dreaming, a pony natural wonder wouldn't hurt either. But I'm not picky, any will do to get the Astro boost (except Cliffs of Dover. Cliffs of Dover is foodless, district-blocking garbage)  

Resources

Bonus
As much deer and stone as I can get. Chop chop chop
Rice, Wheat, Cows, & Sheep all good too. More foods means more districts. Sheep hills and rice marsh are some of the best early tiles. Wheat + Rice work well with water mills, too. So I guess Rice -> Sheep -> Wheat (b/c no prereq) -> Cows. Please, sir, may I have some more?
Fish are exceedingly welcome for the occasional coastal city but I don't expect to capitalize on it much early on
Meh: bananas, copper, crabs. Compared to the others, these just get in the way for not much gain. (Note to mapmaker: Still better than nothing!)

Strategic
All handy. Horses in the capital makes for an excellent early tile, assuming it doesn't get in the way of district placements. Iron I just hope doesn't show up and trash my district plans - by niter onward I should already have most placed.

Luxuries
Really hoping for a quarry/mine lux. Plantations and Camps suck without specific pantheons.

Top pick goes to Jade, Marble, and Mercury - improvable with Mining, give +1 or Yes please!
Salt, Gypsum - Mining, food/prod
Ivory - production boost is nice. Camps suck but if there's a bunch of these (and Furs and Truffles) I can consider wasting my Pantheon on Goddess of the Hunt
Diamonds/Silver - Mining, but only gives gold. We'll see how much Archduke tweaks the map but I think Silver tends to show up in crappier biomes than diamonds
Citrus/Spices/Sugar - if I get plantation luxuries, please please please let it be +2 food tiles
Dyes/Tobacco/Coffee/Silk/Tea - early faith/culture/science is nice too. I think Dyes & Silk show up on forests and the others are flatland, so preference goes to those two.
Wine - food & money, sure. Less food than the plantation gods but still respectable and a little dosh doesn't hurt
Pearls/Whales - like fish, very handy for coastal but will likely be low priority for my builders. Whales are usually 2nd or 3rd ring water, too, I think, which makes them a mediocre home lux but solid mid-game tile.
Incense - on paper as good as dyes/tobacco but generally shows up in garbage clay. Pass.
Furs, Truffles, Cotton, Cocoa - please no. I need the undistrictable tiles to be good, please. A couple on the periphery for a small commerce boost would be handy, true, but I don't want to see my starting zone littered with these things.

[Grotsnot]

Continued! This time City-States

Type Priorities
* Military & Religious for lots of Encampments & HS
* An early Cultural would be nice to help get to Drama&Poetry
* Scientific always helps
* Mercantile $$ always nice and going to have to delay Currency a little to get the most out of district discounts
* Industrial meh

Great Tier
* Carthage - trade routes from encampments? Yes please! High priority target for others, though.
* Muscat - if no Carthage, anyway, put those CHs to even better use
* Stockholm - planning to have a lot of districts. Somewhat wasted on HS but not entirely if it's my 1st neighbor and has an achievable mission
* Zanzibar - money and happies

Depends on map
* Hattusa - Usually MP mapmakers balance the resources but in case I get hosed or forward settled it wouldn't hurt
* Mohenjo-Daro - Useful if I don't get a decent river network, but not a good idea to rely on it too much
* No Auckland with only base+Aztec Would make a coastal backfield much more useful, freeing up more land tiles for districts and wonders

Maybe? Tier
* Valletta - Military + Faith synergy. Almost put this in Great, but I need to remember walls are for Limes chop-overflow, not for buying
* Buenos Aires - Industrial is fairly weak, but the bonus amenities are helpful if I want to support a high-pop empire. Need to keep reminding myself most bonus resources are for the chop, but keeping 1 copy around wouldn't disrupt too much.
* Kabul - More XP never hurts
* Toronto - Lowish priority since Ind and late-ish effect, but the range boost doesn't hurt. Like with Mohenjo-Daro, complicated by not wanting to rely on it

Decent Tier
Geneva - hoping to Sakoku most of the game and focus on inner development (have I mentioned districts?), so wouldn't hurt. But dangerous to have a boost that encourages declaring war on me
Seoul/Vilnius - not a huge fan of the free boost, actually, since you don't get all that many over the game and it inevitably seems to land on something I was going to get naturally. But certainly doesn't hurt and Sci/Cul is nice
Kumasi - could be useful for CS trade route missions and synergizes with district spam but I'm not planning on a lot of foreign trade routes. Maybe if paired with Carthage there'd be spare routes available.
Nan Madol - Don't actually expect to get much out of this, most districts will be inland so as to be close to other cities' districts. But better me than someone else; a good candidate for razing if in a border zone and nobody's gotten too attached to it yet
Brussels - Nearly meh, but there are a couple wonders it could be handy to have around for, if it can be pulled into my orbit at the right time. Probably too late for Pyramids though

Meh Tier
Amsterdam - don't expect to send trade routes to foreign cities. Maybe the occasional CS but most will be internal for Food and Cogs. In SP I run Caravansaries a lot but dunno if I'll have the bandwidth for it here.
Jakarta/Bandar Brunei - same problem as Amsterdam only more so since requires focus on foreign trade to pay off
Hong Kong - Might be wrong on this one, maybe Projects are something I need to use more of, but I don't foresee having the cogs to spare. Also Industrial.
Jerusalem - At least it's Religious but unless I go for Religion in a big way the suzerain bonus isn't that helpful. Would make a good CS to meet somewhere far from home in ancient or classical era and knock out a few missions for for the faith bonuses.
Kandy - again, at least it's religious, but natural wonders are such a crapshoot. Especially since need to be suzerain, which won't happen before late classical at least, before I find them...
La Venta - sheesh, no religious CS have that good of abilities. Not impressed by Colossal Heads (+2 improvement), need builder charges too many other places. Could maybe work if there was a mechanism to stack faith bonuses on the tile, but still too situational to matter
Yerevan - did someone say situational religious bonuses? I'm quite fond of this in SP to get a bunch of Debaters to shoo away AI missionary spam but doubt it would do a whole lot in MP. Mass Proselytizer would be handy for a Religious Victory push but I'm skeptical that's in the cards.
Preslav - Bonus to Cavalry on hills. Ehh. Maybe if the map is super rough.
Lisbon - Oh boy water trade routes. Pass.

Political Philosophy Dream Team: Carthage + Stockholm + Kumasi
It's a tough Pick Two between Scientific/Cultural/Religious. Science is the least likely to be covered by starting resources and Stockholm is the most legitimately good suzerain ability. To round it out, a Cultural CS for PP+D&P beeline I think is better than pantheon faith - not predicting will have time for monument building - and Kumasi synergizes reasonably well with Carthage. If there was a Religious CS with a trade-related ability (or really any ability I actually liked) it would give Stockholm a run for its money.

I would like a Religious city-state I can throw some envoys into for all my Holy Sites, too. They're all about evenly mediocre but I suppose the best case would be Jerusalem in one of my neighbors' backfields. Away from me so it can't do any harm, but close enough to meet for early missions and might be kinda-sorta useful if if I actually do become suzerain. I don't think I can reasonably keep suzerainship (suzerainity?) over more than 2 CS, though, and those slots are far and away Carthage and Stockholm. Yerevan and Kandy near me would work too, or saddle a neighbor with La Venta.

[Grotsnot]

Difficult to keep up in the postcount war before the game has even started but we'll do our best Today's lunchbreak thoughts: Wonders!

In general I don't expect to actually get more than 1 or 2. Lots of investment with high risk - especially if China is on the scene - and lots of Settlers, Builders, Districts, and Units competing for .

Super Want:
* Pyramids: Ancient/220 - Very nice, I expect to need a lot of builder charges Tricky to pull off though, since I bet the others are eyeing it too. At the time Pyramids would be going up, chops are worth 30-40 - 40-50 for stone/deer - so with Agoge can expect somewhere around 50/forest or 65/harvest. A disadvantage to focusing inland is the loss of Maritime Industries chops Maybe if I'm lucky I can find a site that is all of coastal, has a small desert, and gels with my Japanese District Carpet layout. And has at least one stone and a few forests. And a pony while we're at it Highly desirable wonder but probably not worth the sheer effort required to win it unless the stars align properly.
* Colosseum: Classical/400 - +2 +3 Amenities aura is obscenely good, would love to have in the middle of a bunch of cheap theatre squares in the JDC. City will need an EC and furthermore one in a very central location so that the Colosseum can reach 4-5 cities. ...And a backup plan for the slot in the JDC blueprint in case someone steals it.

Want:
* Alhambra: Medieval/710 - Free policy slots are super sweet. Also diggin' the +2 Amenities and +2 GG points. Fort effect is situational but might be handy to place on the border with a mostly-amicable neighbor to stretch the effectiveness of a skeleton deterrent. Production cost is fairly steep (an AgogeFeudal Contract stone at this Era is still <200 ) and placement rules are fairly narrow, so actually achieving this one would be complicated, and being Medieval Era is hard to plan out in advance. Obvious joke is obvious but I wonder how strongly Alhambram will go for this
* Oracle: Ancient/290 - GP faith discounts is pretty nice. Not so much expecting to outright buy GPs but a good card to have in my back pocket to steal a nice GP or rush the last few turns to prevent stealage. +2GPPs/district in the city is nice too. It should have IZ for GE points efficiency, also no HS because that'd go to waste (Civ6 Design Tangent: I really wish Great Prophet points weren't total garbage after your first-and-only one. Would be nice if they went toward Apostles or got transmuted into ). Encampment/Campus/IZ probably the best. Still unsure how much I actually want to buy GPs, though, since it trades off against Theocracy Samurai (stupid firaxin' lack of upgrade path ), so this might belong in the Maybe tier.

Situational:
* Huey Teocalli: Medieval/710 - The only non-base wonder we're playing with. Could be good if we have lots of lakes at several cities. Anything that makes the "rural" tiles of cities better is good for the JDC (still sad no Auckland ), and y'all know by now I keep banging on about Amenities (probably more than is warranted, but whatever). Expensive, though, so would need, I dunno, 10+ empire lakes to be worthwhile? Maybe as low as 8?
* Petra: Classical/400 - Duh, desert + choppables. Probably not worth going for unless geography all but forces me into it since failure would stick me with a ton of shitstink desert when I could have settled elsewhere
* Terracotta Army: Classical/400 - If we have a large army and are either at war or will be soon. 400 is achievable if it goes unclaimed long enough.

Maybe?:
* Hanging Gardens: Ancient/180 - If left available long enough for 1 chop + ~3turns. Might not even be worth that since I'm pretty sure the +15% is only to surplus food.
* Mahabodhi Temple: Classical/400 - A potentially cheaper way to upgrade religion, saving the that Apostles would compete over for units and GPs

If Nothing Better To Do (aka Not Gonna Happen):
* Forbidden City: Renaissance/920 - Wildcard slot. Need I say more?
* Colossus: Classical/400 - mostly for the trade route and gold, GAs not likely to be as useful on this map
* Potala Palace Renaissance/1060 - Diplo slots are the weakest but I dunno maybe? Probably not since it's late enough to be stupid expensive.

Lategame (aka Super Not Gonna Happen):
* Big Ben: Industrial/1760  - yay econ slots and $$, don't forget to stash monies for the treasury doubling
* Ruhr: Industrial/1450  - production always nice, could help swing things if I survive the game runs long enough
* Oxford/Bolshoi: Industrial/1450 /ea - 2 free techs/civics, so why not if can get it without giving up important district/settler/builder cogs
* Estádio do Maracanã: Atomic/2835  - more bigger cities more districts more better. Housing probably a bigger pinch though and will almost certainly not get this far through the tree.

(Special Bonus Section) DLC I Wish We Had:
* Angkor Wat - +1 Citizen in every city *and* a house for them?! I would move mountains for this if it was available.
* Angkor Wat is also #2 because every city getting 1/3 of a district slot is that good
* Temple of Artemis - Early Food, Housing, Amenities. Everything I've been saying I want!
* Jebel Barkal - The Iron would be mostly wasted but aura is pretty solid. Difficult to maximize the use out of due to severe placement restrictions, though.

[Cornflakes]

Starting save attached

[Cornflakes]

Starting screenshot:

[Grotsnot]

Thanks Cornflakes!

Let's do that thing where we talk about who we're up against:

1. Grotsnot - Japan
2. Alhazard - Greece (Gorgo)
3. Alhambram - Rome
4. The Black Sword - Russia
5. marcopolothefraud - Arabia
6. Chevalier - England

None of the picks are terribly surprising. Our first opponent Gorgo comes closest but Alhazard had a fairly weak set to draw from. From what I can tell, AlZ has been around here playing Civ 4 for a while but this is their first go at Civ6 MP. So probably ahead of me but hopefully not insurmountably so. Gorgo is gonna want to hit people quickly to raid so gotta be careful if they start near me.

Next up: ...Rome. Blast. If I had to pick a favorite to win at turn 0, this would be it. AlB has done a few of these before and has even won one. Behind the wheel of Legions and free monuments, watch out.

TBS of Russia is another Civ 4 player taking 6 for a spin. Russia is really good, too. If TBS makes the transition effectively this is another one to watch out for. With Lavras they're probably my top competitor for first Religion. If I'm lucky TBS and AlB are right next to each other and faaaaar away from me

Marcopolothefraud is, like me, new 'round here. In an extremely foolish fashion y'all can expect to see plenty of in my game, my first instinct is to try and make friends to Joint War someone else. While we're probably the best food on the menu, trying to devour each other risks turning into a newbie slap-fight that draws some big honkin' vultures. Arabia is a slow burner, like Japan, so I don't think I'd need to worry about an early attack. Hoping we're neighbors

Finally we have Chevalier of England. He's played them before so I'd expect him to run a tight ship. Interesting choice with a pangaea though - hopefully the Royal Navy is mostly neutered but if they're near a continental divide they could still be an issue. Kind of hoping I start on the same continent so his attention will be drawn elsewhere

Oh and there's me too, I guess. The stupid peacenik who took Japan over Aztec because rushing is hard, guys...   Going to mostly try and keep my head down and focus on development, trusting in Encampments and walls to dissuade attacks until the economy gets up to speed, Samurai show up, and great people start rolling in. Count on at least once me talking in my thread about trying to play nice with a neighbor while they're planning to chop my face off (possibly right now!)

Probability of winning? Oh, let's be nice and give myself 10%. I probably deserve closer to 5% but if I can last the first 60-some-odd turns unmolested I think we could survive long enough to concede

[Grotsnot]

So, map. First off, yay Gypsum! Yay river! But oh dear... where's the ? At least we have some wheat and sheep to keep from stalling out immediately but city growth is gonna be limping along for quite a while

I'm not seeing a good site for a 2 city district, either. Maybe over on the flatland Gypsum but that's a leap into the unknown - and loses the sheep and marsh And might hog the whole river >_< We'll see what the Warrior can uncover to the southeast but I guess SIP is probably the order of the day. Could be mistaken but I feel like delaying a turn results in closer barb camps, too, so probably for the best.

Also, tundra to the north means low expectations of a Pyramids site

Hopefully the river continues west to a good expansion site!