[Spoiler] Suboptimal Goes on a Pseudorandom Walk

[suboptimal]

Pre-Game Word Salad

Gathering Storm rules.  Completely random map.  Disasters are maxed.  Pindicator, Woden, Archduke and CFCJesterFool are the opposition.  This will be an interesting ride.  What’s my pre-game take?

The Opposition

Overall a highly competent bunch, Archduke remains the favorite.  CFCJesterFool is the question mark – in PBEMs 4 & 5 he seemed to be a largely ineffective, more an agent of chaos than any sort of strategic obstacle.  We’ll find out if he’s changed his game or if he continues to fit right in with the theme.

Disasters

I intend on trying to settle near, but not on, tiles affected by volcanoes and floodplains.  My thinking here is that with max disasters I’ll probably see some extra yields and that will save builder actions (no need to improve tiles with boosted yields).  In a few test starts I ran this past week (before civ picks were provided) I usually got two floods that boosted yields significantly.  In fact, I’m kind of bummed that I don’t have Egypt in my list as they never suffer flood damage to their infrastructure.

Resources

I’ll be curious to see how other players manage resources and resource-requiring units.  I don’t know that the mechanics will allow the typical beelines and rushes in other games given the resource requirements and caps.  It seems that unless you have multiple resource copies or choose to make a significant investment in Encampment buildings to boost your stockpile then one’s ability to get out large numbers of resource-requiring units is hampered.  Those with some of the lower-resource or no-resource cost melee and cavalry will be at an advantage.  My own thinking, particularly if I lack a low/no-cost unique unit, will be to put out small numbers of resource units and large numbers of ranged and anti-cavalry units as these generally require no resources.

World Congress

I think the main question mark here is the accumulation of Diplomatic Favor.  The game engine is still going to be tracking grievances between players and even though they won’t affect trading (whatever trading occurs) a significant accumulation could reduce diplomatic favor and, in turn, one’s ability to vote in the World Congress.  

City-States

If Nazca, Cahokia, or Rapa Nuiare in the game they are priorities for suzerainty as they have useful improvements.  The usual suspects from prior “flavors” of the game likewise apply.  Suzerainty of city-states with strategic resources could also be important as it provides faster accumulation and thus faster builds/upgrades.

Governors

Even with the changes to governors Magnus remains a strong candidate.  The first?  Maybe, maybe not.  With the changes in Gathering Storm Pingala with a promotion (+15% & in a city and then the first promotion gives either +1 or +1) or Reyna with two promotions (Forestry Management gives +2 to all unimproved features and +1 Appeal to tiles adjacent to them) might work well, especially in a large city where the second promotion gives +2 per citizen.

Game Flow

If we wind up with a decent number of mountains and choke points I sense a largely defensive battle.  With fractal maps there’s also a chance that someone will wind up on their own land mass, in which case they’d be in position to build infrastructure early.

[suboptimal]

The Civs

My pick list is Sweden, Mongolia, Australia, Spain and Greece. Hmmmmm….

Sweden/Kristina

Nobel Prize: Gain additional Great Scientist and Great Engineer points from Universities and Factories. Gain 50 Diplomatic Favor for each Great Person recruited and adds three competitions to the World Congress after the Industrial Era.
Carolea: Replaces Pike & Shot, 3 maintenance cost, 3 Movement, +10 CS vs. cavalry, +3 CS per MP not used, 250 cost. Unlocks at Metal Casting.
Open Air Museum May be built on any passable tile, one per city. +2 Loyalty, +2:Culture: and +2 Tourism for each type of terrain in which at least one Swedish city is founded. Unlocked at Nationalism.
Kristina Automatically theme buildings with at least three great works and wonders with at least two once full. Gain the Queen’s Bibliotheque building, which is a Tier 3 building for the Government Plaza.

Mongolia/Genghis Khan:

Örtöö: Trade routes instantly create a trading post in the destination city, giving +3 combat strength against that civ’s units and one increased level of diplomatic visibility.
Keshig: Increased movement rate and shares movement with units it is in formation with. Not a replacement so must be scratch-built. Requires 10 Horses instead of the usual 20.
Ordu: Replaces the stable and grants +1 movement to all cavalry units trained in the city.
Genghis Khan: All cavalry class units gain +3 combat strength and a chance to capture defeated cavalry units.

Spain/Philip II

Treasure Fleet: Form Fleets and Armadas after Mercantilism, increased yields on intercontinental trade routes (+1/+1 domestically, +6 internationally). +2 Loyalty is a Mission is adjacent to the City Center.
Mission: Requires Exploration. +2, an additional +1/+1/+2 if on a different continent than the capital. +1 for every adjacent Holy Site and Campus, +2 once Cultural Heritage is completed.
Conquistador: Requires Gunpowder and 20 Niter per unit. +10CS when escorting a religious unit, converts captured cities to Spain’s religion if adjacent to city at time of capture, +10CS vs. anti-cavalry units, replaces the Musketman.
El Escorial: +4 CS vs civilizations with a different religion. Inquisitors have one additional use of Remove Heresy and the ability removes 100% of the presence of other religions.

Greece

Plato’s Republic: Extra Wildcard Slot under any government
Hoplite: +10 CS when next to another Hoplite, +10 CS vs cavalry. Replaces the Spearman
Acropolis: Replaces Theater Square, +2 if adjacent to the City Center. Awards 1 Envoy when completed, otherwise acts as a Theater District.
Gorgo: Killing a unit provides equal to 50% of its CS
Pericles: +5% for every city-state Greece is suzerain of.

Australia

Land Down Under: +3 housing in coastal cities, pastures trigger a culture bomb, increased district yields for Campuses, Commercial Hubs, Holy Sites and Theater Districts (+1 for Charming, +3 for Breathtaking).
Digger: 72 base CS, +10 CS when on a coastal tile, +5 CS outside Australian territory, +10 CS vs anti-cavalry, no strategic resource requirement, replaces Infantry.
Outback Station: +1:food/+1roduction, +0.5 housing, +1 per adjacent pasture, yields increase with techs/civics.
John Curtin: +100% if they have received a declaration of war or liberated a city within the past 10 turns.


Right off the bat I do not like Sweden in an MP situation. This civ is geared for the late game and for a Cultural Victory. Spain is also out – it’s a religiously themed civ that gets no help in getting a religion. Mongolia? In addition to my thoughts on Mongolia in PBEM 14 (attempt steamroller and either get dogpiled or be isolated) my current read on resource management in Gathering Storm has me feeling that it might not be a good idea. Besides, they’re coming online at the same time as knights. That leaves Greece and Australia.

As for Greece, the wildcard slot is nice to have. I don’t see Pericles being much use in an MP game, even with our restrictions on city-state bashing. Gorgo would be OK for the early culture boosts but the barbarians are currently broken so don’t spawn swarms after discovering a city. Hoplites, OTOH, would be quite useful given my current thinking about resources.

Then there’s Australia. I played them in PBEM 6, got off to a good start economically and then got crushed by Archduke’s military competence and my ineptitude. I also did say at the end of that game that I never really got going with them and would be interested in giving them another try.

Time for some test games…..

[suboptimal]

Update

After playing several test starts out about 50 turns with Australia and Greece (MJW, don’t worry, I only used Gorgo ) I’m going to go with Greece/Gorgo. My reasoning is:

- Australia was prone to get coastal starts in the tundra (I’d say 1 out of every 4 or 5 random starts was tundra). I’m playing Australia, not Russia or Canada.
- Jungle starts were common and pretty much wreck the benefits of having high appeal tiles because there aren’t any. However, it was possible to find spots for +6 or +7 Campus districts in the nooks in mountain chains.
- Likewise, needing high appeal and settling next to large swaths of floodplains is usually mutually exclusive.
- The extra wildcard slot allowed for quite a bit of flexibility
- Hoplites are useful when resources are out of reach
- Though the barbarians don’t swarm I frequently had 3-4 barbarian scouts wandering around the map near my units. That’s 5 a pop, which in the early game is not a small amount. Camps also spawned a unit or two when a civ’s unit was near and spearmen, surprisingly, were willing to attack out of their camps once they had company.
- I was generally able to get a start to go further along in 50 turns with Gorgo than with Australia while hitting EoT50 “targets”

Regarding governors, I’m liking the Reyna+1 & Magnus approach. Take the governors with the initial set of promotions and then give Reyna a promotion by completing the Government Plaza. Her Forestry Management promotion can be huge in the right city – floodplains on ANY terrain, along with volcanic soil, get the +2 bonus if they remain unimproved. That also goes for any bonus resource requiring a plantation or a camp – saves on builder charges.

[MJW (ya that one)]

The extra French/England leader would have been useful in this format because you are not allowed to DoW city-states. Luckily for me Woden didn't pick them.

[suboptimal]

Word Salad, Pt 2

The opposition’s civ picks are in:

Woden/Persia: We saw them in PBEM 6 when Alhambram played them. Well, you all saw them. Me, I was busy getting crushed. This civ has the potential to be an economic and cultural powerhouse given their Satrapies ability and the Pairideza improvement. With immortals and Cyrus’ Fall of Babylon bonus I’d expect Woden to try to go on an early conquering streak. If Woden is a neighbor I should be able to hold him off – hoplites are a little earlier in the tech tree and immortals do not get the +10 CS vs. anti-cavalry that warriors and swordsmen do.

pindicator/Inca: This is a solid choice given the Inca’s mountain-focused abilities and the map scripts’ mountain output, particularly when World Age is set to new. I’ll be curious to see how pindicator uses Qhapaq Ñan. I don’t know that he’d use Warak’aq as they are a bit weak against contemporary units.

Archduke/Mapuche: This civ is right up Archduke’s alley as it screams “use me for aggression”. Malon Raiders don’t come around until Gunpowder and needs to be scratch-built rather than upgraded into (if the Wiki is correct).

Jester/Ottomans: Not the civ I would have taken with the list he had (I would have picked either the Zulu or Nubia). The Ottomans gain bonuses to siege units (+5 CS vs districts, +50% bonus) and their primary unique unit is a cheaper, harder to see, better raiding version of a privateer. The unique improvement is a bank replacement. They do get the Janissary but that doesn’t come until Gunpowder – it replaces muskets, eats population if you build them in a city you founded but is cheaper to produce and slightly stronger. The unique governor does give a +20% bonus to military unit builds in a city but not much else unless he takes Serasker and forward-settles someone.

So, how do I see this playing out? A couple of predictions:

- Whoever starts closest to Jester they will most likely try to wipe him out first, unless Jester winds up in some highly defensible terrain or they have bigger problems with another neighbor.
- Barring the above, Archduke will get out an Encampment, compete for the first Great General (or two) and then pounce on a neighbor if they go into a Classical Golden Age.
- I think the map will make invasions extremely difficult. (Watch me now get crushed on Turn 50)

I’m going to refine this general strategy over the next week, but my rough plan is:

Techs: Mining → Bronze Working → Animal Husbandry → Pottery → Writing
Civics: The usual – get to Political Philosophy as quick as possible
Builds: Warrior → Settler → Builder/Warrior → Warrior/Slinger → Settler
Districts: Encampment, Campus and Government Plaza

I’m not bothering with a scout as I expect there to be little advantage given the expected terrain. Regarding the builder, if I wind up in jungle with several 2/2 hills around and little to improve I’ll build a warrior and use barbarian kills to get Craftsmanship. Settling by volcanoes or floodplains is still part of the plan.

With governors I’m thinking about some combination of Reyna and Magnus with the first three governor promotions. If I wind up with a jungle start I may very well not take Magnus until the Government Plaza is complete as a promoted Reyna could be worth 8-12 per turn depending on the city placement and the tiles worked.

[suboptimal]

And so it begins….Turn 1

A couple of leftover theorycraft points before getting to the start position:

- I’ve actually found it a bit difficult to avoid a Classical Golden Age – between the points for hoplites (4), barbarian camps, settling near disaster areas, etc it’s quite easy to rack up 24 era points. This could be problematic.

- Looks like Archduke and Jester are not happy with their starts. Jester, though, I think has the right mentality – this is, after all, a game which we all agreed to put in the hands of the PseudoRNG Gods.

Without further ado (and unit movement), my starting position...




Hmmm….definitely an equitorial start, probably a bit to the north given the grassland to the south. While a lot of the terrain is plains due to the jungles, a lot of the non-jungle terrain is also plains. I’m guessing that the RNG rolled “Hot” for world temperature, which has the effect of reducing the width of grasslands in the middle section of the map and lowering their overall frequency. Likewise, based on the amount of jungle and forest coverage it appears that the RNG rolled “Wet” for rainfall. That boosts the numbers of forests, jungles and marshes on the map. There’s 7 forests and 12 jungle tiles out of 24 visible. Five resources visible, only one of which is a luxury. I’m guessing “Standard” was the roll there, though I’ll find out soon enough.

If I’ve surmised map conditions correctly I’m going to say that grasslands, along with 3+ tiles, will be in short supply on the map. There’s going to be plenty of choppables around, so Magnus as one of the first two picks is probably good. However, if I can find a location with reasonable food and lots of 22 jungles that would make a good spot for a promoted Reyna.

The view on Settlervision:




No volcanoes in the immediate area. Slightly bummed about that. Looks like some coast to the NE and a lake to the SE (I can tell it’s a lake as the edge is visible in the fog E of the grassland). I don’t like the fact that the warrior is pinned to the lake as it’s a turn before I’ll see anything new with that unit.

I don’t like the settler’s current position, either. Given my evaluation of the map conditions that banana needs to be first ring. Woden’s the only one who settled on Turn 1 so there’s time to move. It’ll also reveal a bit more to the NE. One other advantage about moving is that it will let me settle three cities on this lake – the capital, one adjacent or on the other bananas and one at the lake’s southern tip.

I move the settler NE:




Oooh...turtles. The coast runs from the wheat in the north to the cocoa in the east. The cocoa is also showing that it will flood at Climate Change Level 3. We got a while. The good news is that it would be second ring to a city by that lake to the SE. Warrior moves SE.

Scouting plan: warrior to go SW and then I’ll decide whether to defog southeast or around the lake. Capital will go warrior → settler → warrior → slinger/builder → settler. Techs will be mining first, BW to boost second. The flat plains 2NE of the city site may be a good Encampment location.

[suboptimal]

Looks like Woden is in the same boat as Jester. I posted my summary thoughts in the tech thread but will reiterate my supposition for the lurkers that we are seeing the results of a Hot, Wet map on a New World. Low food availability, production is decent, resources are around in reasonable quantity and the terrain is a PITA to move through. If everyone is in roughly the same boat I don't know that we should reroll -- let's have a challenging start for once. It's been a while (if ever) where a Civ 6 PBEM had to fight the map as much as the players. Besides, we all agreed to take our chances and if the map scripts actually balanced it, well, bow down and submit to the PRNG gods.

[suboptimal]

Turn 2



where m = 2^31 – 1 and a = 7^5




In working out the micro for the city settlement I’ve realized that I’ll need to gain control of the marsh tile to avoid stagnating the capital’s population.  My move put all the 2 tiles out of reach.  If the tile picker doesn’t grab it first I’ll buy it early.  Looking at the terrain there are 3 valid locations for iron and four for horses in my capital’s radius.  For reference, the screenshot was taken at the end of the turn, so the warrior has already moved.  Likewise, the pop and production times on the city banner are incorrect – the city started working the 13roduction hill to the SW upon founding and the UI never updated when I switched to the bananas.

The warrior is going to defog to the south, then head around the lake.  That will get the warrior back near the capital for a EoT16 settler build.  The likely location is the western end of the lake between the bananas and cocoa, but defogging will tell.  This turn, though, the warrior moves SW to the jungle W of the stone (current position in the screenshot).  The tile W of the southern cotton is coastal.  Next turn I'll move SE, then perhaps onto the cotton before turning west.  

Elsewhere in the world Archduke is the only one to not settle on Turn 2.  Jester’s gotten an era point.

[suboptimal]

Turn 3

Warrior moves southeast. Reveals some cocoa 3SE of the settler’s initial position.

In case it hasn’t been done by anyone else, he’s the “traditional” shot of the Great Person screen:

[suboptimal]

Turn 4

Nothing exciting to report. I moved to the hex E of the cotton and didn’t reveal anything new. Will go SE one more tile then turn west.