T98 Science Victory with Cooked Settings

[Minou]

T54: Our Brussels levy expires this turn, but it's no real issue as only two Warriors were left mulling around the stalled English front. Amani meanwhile arrives in Buenos Aires and reveals Sun Wukong. We currently have 7 Bonus resources, so Buenos Aires ability provides a nice boost to happiness.

They also have 5 Warriors which we can levy for 200g. Somehow only 2 have the Spear of Fiorn promotion. That seems odd since the CS is adjacent to the wonder, so in theory each new unit should get the promotion instantly - I guess maybe some of the starting Warriors spawned away from it? Anyway, we can march the unpromoted ones back to the wonder and upgrade 1-2 to Men-at-Arms to crush Spain next.

Magnus arrives in Minou Harbor, were we have an Archer one turn from completion. We can chop 200h of forests to complete the Archer to trigger Machinery and then overflow into Kilwa. The 200h is boosted to 262h thanks to Autocracy plus Brussels ability. Unfortunately we are a mere 5f short of another Builder, so it will be 2 turns instead of 1 turn until we can wrap up this wonder.

Sailing to explore, one of our captured Builder meets Sweden. The bad news is they are already walled up, and also are building Pyramids which we had hoped to grab with Imotep. Sadly we don't have any DF to sell to them, but they will at least buy Honey for 148g and 8 Iron for 57g.

In other infrastructure news, Tabopolis creates a Coffee Industry, which provides a strong tile plus a nice 20% boost to culture (the city has 5.7c currently). Tab University chops a 4th HM, as we get ready to pillage our way through the Khmer lands and continue east to where the final AI should be located (Khmer and Scotland both know one mystery AI, so they should be in that region).

One real head scratcher is the US has a Great Writer wandering around. Not sure how they pulled that off so early without a single Theater Square...

Finally, we have Dundee sieged up but a Catapult has spawned and one of our Horsemen is in danger. With reinforcements rushing in from the north and Himoko on the scene, we should capture the city next turn, along with a juicy Builder.

Techs: Machinery

Culture: 49.7cpt (thanks to small boost from Coffee plantation)

 

[Minou]

T55: The main event this turn is capturing Dundee (now Ginker Fen), a very nice city with Palgum, Campus+Library and the 6th farm we need for the Feudalism boost plus a 2-charge Builder. The city also gives us our first desert tile (or at least the option to buy one). These are scarce on "Cold" maps and getting one gives us a shot in the race against Sweden for the Pyramids. Kind of funny that Sweden got a desert tile before Babylon.

Additional good news in Scotland - Giselle River flips back to us from Loyalty pressure, adding another Campus and more Iron.

As predicted, the final AI (Canada) is discovered to the east. A nice thing about Canada is by virtue of starting in the ice they are less likely to blow their Builders on useless farms, so perhaps we will find some mines and lumber mills to pillage.

With Scotland polished off, Horsemen are moving over very rough terrane to get to Khmer - each HM must spend two moves to get to the river near the city, then another to cross. Much slower than over flat land....

Declaring on Poland reveals Bologne on the other continent.

As for infrastructure, Tabopolis completes an nice Nan Mandol boosted IZ and starts working on a Workshop for Industrialization.

Pingula finally arrives in the capital, and with the Grants promotion already in place provides a nice +4GE points each turn - though it is a bit of a bummer we only have one district in the capital so far to take advantage of the stacked Pingula + Oracle bonuses.

Finally, our SK finds the Yellow Goat camp, selling Spears and already 1/4 of the way to "civilized".

Culture: 58.6cpt

 

[Minou]

T56: The biggest news this turn is that we have secured a Great Prophet, which also gives us 2 envoys to Fez thanks to DL.


Capital hits 4 pop, which is great as we not only get to work another wonder tile but gain +1c/+1s from Pingula and can place another district.

We need to sell Honey and some Iron to get gold for tile purchases, but this also helps in a tricky way. Right now we have some Chariots in progress. Feudalism completes next turn, and if we have 20 Iron, the Chariots will start converting to Knights and take much longer to complete. But, if we stick below 20 we can keep building as many Chariots as we want and then upgrade them cheaply with Professional Army later.

Two more Magnus chops get Kilwa up to 662/710, freeing up Magnus to head to Ginker Fen where his next mission is chopping Anansi.

Himoko expires, giving us a nice little 2c/2f Heroic Relic as compensation.

Two levied Warriors gain the Spear of Fiorn promotion this turn, and another is upgraded to a MAA.

The lead HM moving up to Khmer finds Ik-Kul and reveals Sinbad.

Finally, we may as well denounce Canada now. We won't be attacking right away, but this opens the door to declaring war in 5 turns if we see an opportunity to steal a Builder or pillage a tile with our advance units.


Culture: up to 64.8cpt. We should hit 100cpt soon after Kilwa completes.

 

[Minou]

T57: Feudalism completes, which gives us Stirrups for free thanks to Babylon's ability. We can swap in Raid for the next round of pillaging, Serfdom of course, and run Strategos to get our first Great General faster (we are just past half way thanks to Hercules building us that Encampment early on).

Techs: Stirrups

Civics: Feudalism

Culture: 59.3cpt (slight backsliding due to happiness issues)

 

[Minou]

T58: With one last chop, Kilwa is complete! With the two free envoys, we can become Suzerain of Johannesburg which adds 19h of production empire-wide immediately, a number that will grow soon.

Less exciting but still important for boosts and inspirations, Fort Oscar finishes up our first Commercial Hub (plus free Market). Pretty sad that the total gold from the district and Building is probably going to end up around 300g over the next 40 turns, worth less than a single late game pillage. Speaking of pillaging, we score 141f from pillaging in Spain.

Even though progress has stalled out in England, our Eagle Warrior manages to kill a Slinger, finally getting a second free Builder.

3rd Chariot pops with 18 iron times nicely, and CH finally complete with free Market in Fort Oscar (tiny gold)

Techs: Buttress

Culture: 67cpt

Interesting shot here, with the Batay near Kilwa

Free Builder on the map. Compare the wonderful land in Port Oscar and Fort Oscar with Pantheon-boosted pastures, Apprenticeship-boosted mines, and the nice Wine Industry with England's "crapital" city laking even a single improvement.

 

[Minou]

T59: Between turns, Brazil clams Maui, who I would consider among the weakest Heroes, his main use being rolling the dice for monopolies in a Cultural Victory game.

An Aquaduct complete in capital for Military Engineering plus a free envoy (thanks again to Babylon's great abilities), plus a quest envoy to Nan Mandol. The envoy goes to Bologne, doubled by DL.

ME reveals Niter and we only have one in our current territory - directly under the capital as it happens. That gives us an instant supply, but we need to get another source to mine for the Rifling boost. Port Oscar can start on an Armory to get Gunpowder - this will take 13 turns with raw production so we will need a chop. One of the difficult things to balance as Babylon is getting 30 Niter and an Armory to upgrade three Musketmen for the Replaceable Parts boost because mining the NIter to begin with completes Refining and obsoletes the unit. Here, we have a Niter supply without having to build the mine that trips Rifling. Still, the timing will be off because we can't sit around for 15 turns waiting for the supply. But, we may be able to fall back on a Great Scientist if the timing is off too far

Our capital harvests a Marsh to get up to 5 pop and places Temple of Artemis, which will unlock further rapid growth.

We also gain our first Harbor (with free Lighthouse) in Tab University - and more Nan Mandol goodness.

Our levied troops have already sieged Acoruna in Spain and pillage another 145f.

Meanwhile, Horsemen are romping in Khmer lands and take city next to Ik-Kul down to 94HP in one turn.

Techs: Military Engineering

Culture: 73.2cpt

Ah, beautiful flat land. The four Horsemen are romping here, racking up pillage faith and crushing cities even without any help from Himoko. This could have been a different story if Khmer built walls early like Sweden. Good luck here.

 

[Minou]

T60: The big news this turn is that GE Imotep arrives. I was great luck that he was first on the list this game. He spawns in Tabopolis, which is odd - I thought we would spawn in the capital since that city since that city certainly contributed the most GE points. Maybe Great People spawn in the highest pop city that contributed? Anyway this has one minor impact on the game because if I knew he would spawn within range of planting the immediately Mausoleum I would have cleared a rainforest to allow that option.

With Imotep ready to go wild, I chop the Temple of Artemis to within 1 turn in the capital and then swap off of it to wait for Apadana.

A bit of arbitrage too, we can sell Scotland two resources for 122g since their last city will loyalty flip next

Militarily, our mounted units capture the first Kmer city with is empty except for a helpful OGO. Thanks to Golden Age, the city stays loyally with just Liang. We can repairr Citrus and Stone here, which along with the Maize will provide a wonderful +6h thanks to Johannesburg soon. We can start a half price Campus next to Ik-Kul, in order to leverage the wonder for Oxford later.

Checking on our stats at T60:
"Only" 10 cities, but 11 districts
17.2spt / 74.5cpt / 44.9fpt / 12.2gpt
Two wonders complete (Oracle, Kilwa) and 4 more planned in next five turns thanks to Imotep.
Religion founded
Two Heroes summoned (Himoko, Hercules) and Anansi hopefully on the way
Warlord's Throne up
Most of the best CS under our control (especially Nan Mandol and Johannesburg)

Our goals for the next 10-15 turns are to wrap up conquering our continent, after which we will switch to pillaging only to maintain happiness unless we need to capture a key wonder. We need to complete some key inspirations like Medieval Faires/ Civil Service/Guilds in time and start actually ramping up science with CCD Religion spread and Campus infrastructure. A big factor in reaching a T100 victory will also be whether we can secure Leonardo Da Vinci, which will require an all-out commitment to IZL projects starting now. Finally, it would be great to get Anansi and Sinbad.

 

[Minou]

T61: Mercenaries is complete, unlocking Professional Army and Retinues. These policies are great, and the later let's us play more Iron games - we stay at 18 Iron or less to keep building Chariots and still use 10 of that to upgrade existing Chariots into Knights. This turn we will upgrade one Knight to help finally take London and also upgrade that old Spear to a Pikeman to hit Boston.

Mercenaries also provides another envoy, which we can use to gain control or Bologne, which gives us two science CS to activate the 15% Kilwa bonus and will earn us an extra Great General, Great Merchant and Great Admiral point each two along with 2 Great Engineer Points and 3 Great Scientists points. Very nice!

Imotep works his magic for an instead Mausoleum (175h, doubled for Classical Wonder, plus 25% from Autocracy and Brussels = 437.5h). The geography isn't ideal for the tile boosts since Tab Universities only ocean tile is occupied by a Harbor but what we really want is the extra charge for Great Engineers which makes this wonder "free" since Imotep gains it immediately and could be worth a big tech if we get Da Vinci.

Chopping in our second WS completes Industrialization and adds another 24hpt empire-wide thanks to Johannesburg. What a great city state.

Magnus arrives in Ginker Fen where we are ready to cop Anansi, but can't do so this turn do to annoying barbarians blocking our Builders from a key forest.

Our second Trader heads to Lisbon for 12g/1s. A bit worried about barbs at sea pillaging him, but in an emergency we could actually declare war on Portugal to recall the Trader, provided we spot the approaching barb ships in time.

Scotland is eliminated this turn as Cullen, the 1-pop city they founded right before we took their capital flips to us.

In England Hercules is nearing the end of his lifespan and spending his last days on the attack. He hits London for 22 and a Chariot chips in 21.

Our Giant's Causeway levy army takes the Spanish city of Acoruna, a very nice one with an OGO, Campus, Holy Site+Shrine, triple horses, double iron, Honey, Cotton, and four choppable tiles we can use for either reinforcements of a Library+University. However, we must press east quickly if we are to hold the city since it will revolt in 6 turns unless we capture another nearby city.

With happiness becoming a concern and our army dwarfing the rest of the world, we can declare on Korea, Canada and the USA to get 6 luxuries back (and sell two of those to Portugal for 150g).

Civics: Mercenaries

Techs: Industrialization

Culture: 79.7cpt

 

[Minou]

T62: Not the greatest news between turns. America snatches one of our Builders with a unit out of fog, Spain kills a levied Warrior, and a Barbarian Swordman pummels a Horseman outside Ankor Thom.

Another Wine is hooked up, which w can sell for 75/6/OB/20DF to Portugal.

In Spain, we chop on of those 4 forests for another Horsemen and our Man at Arms kills Warrior. The clock is ticking - 5 turns for our troops to push on to the next city.....

Nonetheless, out troops are smashing both London and Angkor Thom and we should have two more capitals conquered soon. London may be a good place to chop Sinbad and Angkor Them will provide a second Harbor for Cartography plus a fourth Trade Route for the MF boost.

Looking at other boosts we need, the race to 10 pop for CS will be tough but we might be able to chop in pop in Ginkeropolis. We still need a second CH with Market for Guilds to - not sure where to chop that though.

Culture: 81.9

 

[Minou]

T63: Our Great Prophet has been roaming around as a Scout exploring Canada. Between turns, Canada bounces them back into our nearest city. In other inter-turn news, the Hero Arthur perishes over in Poland (good for us, as AIs don't seem to ever recall Heroes so we won't need to worry about a fast and powerful unit interfering with our pillaging later.

Things start off with a bang, as Imotep one-shots the Apadana! In the screenshot, the Temple of Artemis is three bricks from completion which means we will have two more envoys to play around with next turn. We can send one of the Apadana envoys to Genava (with DL making it 2) for a little more science, although we don't have enough to break Korea's hold yet.

We can actually take London this turn, but our troops hold off one more turn to allow our Man at Arms to capture one more Builder to the southwest. You can see the planned site of our second CH marked below.

Out east, we do indeed take the Khmer capital (renamed Chloe Harbor) and pillaging another 143f. The city has another OGO+Palgum as well as a Campus plus Holy Site with Shrine. Voidsingers is so useful as almost every AI city builds a Monument, letting us really ramp up our faith generation as we roll forward.

Ginker Fen Magnus-chops out Anansi, a very useful Hero. He is much more powerful in the early game, but one benefit of summoning him in the Classical Era is we will get 90s/80c instead of 60s/50c per charge. One district we have ignored for too long is the Diplomatic Quarter, which is quite nice with extra city states. Thanks to Magnus overflow, we can wrap the DQ up in three more turns here now. Magnus heads to Chloe Harbor to chop Sinbad next. In other infrastructure news Ginkeropolis completes an IZ and starts IZL and Minor Harbor create a Wine Industry - we coastal terrane will make a great spot for a Moai farm once we control Rapa Nui, and so the 20% culture boost from a Wine Industry is best used here.


Finally, we can spend 240g to levy Bologna (Catapult and 3 Warriors). They must have lost some units between turns because the cost was 380g a turn or two ago. Due to some kind of bug, we never got shared vision with Bologna when we first gained Suzerain status. Now at least we have some vision there for the units we levied and can see what type of pillage opportunities exist in the region.

Culture: up to 91.2cpt

 

[Minou]

T64: We start the turn off right with Temple of Artemis! At present we have 3 improvements in range for the happiness bonus, and can hook up another 3 down the road. We also score 2 more envoys off Apadana and set up a very nice Theater Square plot. The capital is looking great, generating an insane 42.3cpt! The Chariot we built in the capital for a Knight upgrade is also able to swipe a roaming American Settler. Stealing a Settler in the first 25 turns can be game-changing, but with the game (hopefully) almost two thirds over at this point this one is of only minor value. The best use will probably be to find a spot with 10+ chops and use him to plant a Spaceport city.

This turn we finally found a religion. For beliefs, we can role with Jesuit Education. With an OGO in every city plus pillaging now yielding over 150f per tile, we will generate massive amounts of faith for the rest of the game. Jesuit Education will net us a bunch of free Campus buildings and help with the Museums and Broadcast Centers for boosts. Cross Cultural Dialogue is our other section - CCD is great for Babylon because the science is NOT effected by the -50% penalty. We can spread our religion across the whole map for free once we control Vatican City.

A funny event between turns - Korea actually hit our Man at Arms across the channel with a Catapult. We capture London (now Oscaropolis) despite this setback and get right to work mining the Iron and chopping part of the Commercial Hub. Hercules sacrifices himself intentionally to secure the Heroic Relic a few turns earlier and our first Knight takes the city because wiping the Chariot inside counts for the kill to trigger the Military Science boost. Chop RF to 4.

Founding a religion completes Theology which was more than 60% done, and we can swap into Raid/Serfdom/Praetorium/Liminati.

One dumb mistake this turn is teleporting Imotep into the captured Spanish city of St. Socks. Since we are saving his last charge to help with Ruhr or Oxford, I figured we could use him as to Scout the icy south in the meantime. But, doing so means we can no longer buy a badly needed Builder (to harvest food for population) there because GP occupy the same map layer as Settlers/Builders. I always forget this. Even with a Governor and free spread of our religion thanks to having a Holy Site, St. Socks is at -9.4 loyalty and will revolt soon.


We have three envoys from Apandana plus Theology, and can use them to take control of Vatican City and Akkad. We can levy 3 Swordsmen, an Archer, and one Warrior for 370g from Akkad to get some pillaging going (we really haven't done much at all so far this game thanks to the AIs on our continent building very few mines and pastures. Brazil, Poland, and Sumeria though have helpfully laid the table with free gold and faith.

In minor news we find Zanzibar (who will be helpful with happiness later) and Torres del Paines (a great wonder early, but not of any impact at this stage).

Techs: Military Science

Inspirations: Theology

Civics: Theology

Culture: 98.7cpt

 

[Minou]

T65: We recruit GG Trung Trac this turn, who should be helpful especially in giving Men at Arms extra movement. Diplomatic Quarter also complete, for another free envoy and +4s/2c/2f thanks to the free Consulate. Sweden still has not finished the Pyramids, so we can try and rush them. Dye is hooked up in London for more happiness, and we finally pass 100cpt.

T66: Capital continues to thrive, completing a nice +4 adjacency Theater Square with free Amphitheater for another +4c. Three different City States had a TS quest, so we pick up a 4th envoy to Buenos Aires and Johannesburg plus a third envoy to Caguana, finally unlocking the +15% culture bonus from Kilwa. We can also farm the Wheat and mine Iron pushing the capital to +11 food and adding another +4 from Johannesburg. On top of this, a new Honey Industry generates even more food, hammers, and housing plus +20% growth!

A Quadrireme launches from Minor Harbor, aiming to knock off a barbarian for the Naval Tactics boost.

GM Coleus arrives, thanks in large part to our many Industries. Speaking of GM points, three more chops complete the CH and Market in London, and our 3rd Trader completes in Tab University. The Guilds boost adds a fourth envoy to Akkad too.

The biggest news though is we chop in the Pyramids with just two forests, snatching a key wonder right out from under the competition. It's a super strong one too, as we have 13 Builders on the map, all of which gain an extra charge instantly.

We capture another city (Chloeport) with a +3 adjacency Campus in the Khmer region. Nearby Chloe Harbor places a discounted Harbor (-40% cost based on the district discount formula), which as far as I can tell is actually our first discount of the game due to Babylon unlocking districts so rapidly.

We get our first intercontinental pillaging, scoring 310g from Poland along with another 155f from Spain.

Finally, we manage to just barely drag St. Socks across the Loyalty line by hooking up more Coffee and Honey for happiness (our existing copies were sold earlier) and clearing a Marsh to grow the city by another pop. The city is at just +0.5 loyalty. Teleporting Anansi in will help provide a little insurance as Heroes give nearby cities +1 Loyalty each turn.

Thanks to the Theater Square and Kilwa boost, we jump all the way to 146cpt this turn, the biggest single turn leap of the game by far.

Inspirations: Mercantilism, Guilds


T67: We just squeak by on getting Chloe Harbor to 10 pop in time for the Civil Service boost, thanks to harvesting 3 food tiles (scoring a quest envoy to Granada too - that's nine envoys in the last 5 turns).

The capital clears a Marsh to hit 7 pop (with enough overflow to hit 8 pop next turn too) and drops another Batay. With all the wonder tiles in range being worked, we can place the citizen on a Pantheon-boosted Horse tile (4/3/1. We place a Campus now and then start work on a Factory. We want to be churning IZL projects, but we do need at least one Coal Power Plant before using Leonardo so we might as well build it here where it will provide double GE points thanks to Pingula.

Pillaging levied Swordmen score 154+154f in Brazil. Can never have too much faith, as we will want to recall Hercules soon and need a ton for Universities and Museums.

Anansi uses his first charge to eat a Cotton for 90s/80c, completing CS and overflowing into Divine Right. The timing is good as if we started using Anansi earlier culture would have progressed too fast to secure all the inspirations near the MF/CS "chokepoint". At this stage we are finally past 50spt and science is going towards Steam Power. At this point in the tech tree we have to put science into something that we want to skip boosting, and not investing a ton of production or gold into 2 Shipyards is probably the best choice. Meanwhile we want to keep ticking off things like Industrialization, Flight, and Scientific Theory and hopefully get into position to use Da Vinci for Radio and Chemistry before chopping out Oxford for Rocketry. After that we can start pillaging Campuses in earnest and focusing science on techs that can't be boosted.

Since it isn't worth the long march through wooded terrane to capture the last English city, might as well sign peace for 22g/19gpt and start moving across the channel to hit Korea. They have the Etemenanki which we would love to get ahold of, in addition to some nice pillageable Campuses.

Inspirations: Civil Service

Civics: Civil Service

 

[ifinnem]

Such a great thread. Learning so many little tips despite being a long time player

 

[Minou]

T68: Korea pops a Crossbow between turns, which is going to slow down our invasion. Less intelligently, Korea also suicides a Scout in an amphibious attack against our Archer. Korea's Korea CP=152 according to the info ribbon, so we don't have too much to worry about.

Port Oscar completes the Armory for Gunpowder and starts on a Military Engineer to get the Ballistics boost. These early cities really have come along nicely in terms of contributing to boosts and infrastructure.

Two Magnus chops for 126h each complete our second Harbor, overflowing to Sinbad.

Pillage proceeds this turn are 162f in Brazil and 162f in Korea. We don't need to actually capture any of the cities on the other continent, so it's fine to just burn levied units pillaging for faith and gold until Cavalry get over there for the big Campus pillage push later int he game.

Techs: Gunpowder, Cartography

T69: That damned Korean Crossbow kills a Horseman, which is a big setback. We will actually have to pull our troops back and upgrade some Knights/Cavs before trying again. This is our biggest military roadblock since we failed to sweep into London due to the Vampire, but matters much less this late in the game - we don't really care too much about Korea except for the Etemenanki and some luxuries we still need.

Magnus chops in a Temple and another completes in Fort Oscar, boosting Divine Right. Anansi can then complete the Civic, allowing us to swap into Monarchy and in turn completing Castles, which unlocks Cavalry. In fact, we could have done this earlier but wanted to build up a good stock of 10 or so Horsemen first since it is far better to upgrade existing HM into Cavs than to try and build them from scratch (if you ask me, the imbalance between upgrades and producing late game units is one of the bigger flaws in Civ 6, but we have to play with what we have). The first two Cav upgrades are made in Spain, which should be more than enough to roll through the rest of their land. We have enough spare gold for one more near Canada too.

Tabopolis completes the first Factory (laying the groundwork for chopping Ruhr Valley) and starts on the Grandmaster's Chapel.

Sadly, we lost almost a full Magnus chop somehow - I think I chopped to repair a damaged Shrine or something and lost overflow. Even years on, I have trouble deciphering whether overflow is preserved or lost based on policies, there modifiers and queue swapping. At any rate, due to this misfortune Sinbad will be two turns late. Hanging his head in shame for the Sinbad error, Magnus moves on to Oscaropolis to help chop the Ruhr Valley and GC. We don't really care much at all about the production bonus from Ruhr, but it is the fastest option to complete Flight.

I haven't been recording every trade but have been careful to squeeze every piece of gold possible out of OB, resources, and luxuries. It always seems like its not worth the effort until you end up 10g short of a critical upgrade or can't pile a tile to chop and delay a wonder a few turns.... This turn I make peace with Sweden and sell them 158g worth of Iron and Horses, plus get another 10gpt for 30 Horses and OB from England and even a tiny 24g for 5 Iron from Sumeria.

Two things to note about strategic resource sales. One is that you hold onto one turn worth of overflow. So, if you can only store 50 Iron but are producing 6 Iron each turn and start end your turn at 50, you can sell 6 Iron next turn and still be at 50. The other is that AIs will always pay at least 1g per strategic - although you have to grind away selling them one at a time to do so if they are at their lowest price. This means if you want to play a totally optimal game, you should never always make sure you are selling any strategics above your storage threshold so as not to waste them -unless you are afraid of letting the AI build Swords/Knights (you can keep this from happening by only selling 19 of each to a given AI),

Guess who's back this turn? Hercules! Thanks to the steady stream of faith from pillaging overseas, we can recall him with a boosted 48CP. He will be very useful teleporting around to fight for ht next 20 turns or so, before he starts blasting out Spaceports.

One bit of fun - Imotep is still waiting to help with Ruhr and I hate leaving any unit idle so he is assigned to explore the icy south. He finds a hut which we will save for the endgame, but more importantly a perfect spot to chop space projects! There are at least 10 chops here, possibly more given 6 tiles are still hidden int he fog. We want to find four more spots with 10+ chops, either capturing AI cities (thank goodness they almost never chop, although they do build districts over forests) or founding them ourselves in the ice. Got to be quick, because if we find spots to found space cities in the ice it will take a while to march Settlers down.

Ideally one city will chop Satellite and Lunar landing with Magnus, a second will chop the Mars Colony with Cingula, a third will chop Exoplanet with Magnus, and two more will be reserved for Lasers. We need about 12 Magnus chops for the first two projects, but Hong Kong can shave that down to 10 so Imotep's icy spot may actually have a few spare forests for Lasers if there are any in the fog. It may seem crazy to think about Spaceport placement in 1280BC, but a T100 game requires planning everything dozens of turns ahead.

Techs: Castles

Civics: Divine Right

Culture: 159.6cpt - next steps are Coliseum and more TS

 

[sevenseas]

registered an account to say great thread! looking forward to the conclusion

 

[Toastedzergling]

Very nice thread indeed, it's funny to see how a remote settlement in Siberia may accelerate exoplanet exploration, ah well

 

[Minou]

Thanks @sevenseas and @Toastedzergling. I am glad people are still reading the forum. Sorry to be so slow in completing the recap, lots of distractions IRL.

 

[Minou]

T70: Guilds complete, which completes Banking. Babylon sure is fun to play. Now we can get started on those pricy banks for Economics, which we will need a chop or two etch to finish. Also the economic news feed, our 4th Trader completes allowing us to also boost Medieval Faires. The GT let's us hire Reyna in Giselle River, who might help a tiny little bit with tile acquisition while we wait for her late game role of Spaceport purchases.

Also between turns the final Scottish city Cullen flips to us from Loyalty, It is a pretty weak city but a single Builder can hook up the two Horses for some nice production with our pantheon and then chop the three forests for an OGO and Campus.

In combat news, Maui dies somewhere out in the fog. One less thing to worry about. Our Man at Arms takes a big hit from a Korean Catapult while still embarked and is redlined. Out in Poland, we lose a levied Warrior and Sword who are taken out while pillaging.

We secure two Great People this turn. James of St. George is actually really nice - with the combination of Mausoleum for 4 charges and Vatican City he can spread our religion far and wide. Omar Khayyam is also very nice - we can save him until we have only otherwise unboostable Renaissance techs/civics left for maximum efficiency. Omar is actually our first GS since the AIs gobble them up so quickly after the final patch, so he completes Education which gives us envoy number 5 to Buenos Aires - very helpful since this frees Amani up to head to Chinguetti which will give us the full 15% Kilwa bonus for faith once she arrives.

The next GS up is Newton, who costs a steep 480GS points. Thanks to that awful scaling, he will probably be the last GS we have a shot at this game even though we are going all out with Campuses and have Bologna under our control.

Infrastructure is going up fast everywhere. Chloe Harbor gets an Amber Industry which creates a nice strong tile, adds 2hpt from Johannesburg (love that City State) and adds a useful 25% faith boost - this is a perfect city for it with 21.2fpt thanks to OGO and Holy Site / Shrine / Temple. We blast out a random Lumber Mill just for Mass Production.

That's three techs worth 1908s this turn for free! With pillaging bringing in 127s we make a nice >2000 science leap this turn.

Finally, our core continues to grow more powerful as we mine our first Coal in the capital which is on a wonder-boosted tile and creates Mine Coal a disgustingly good 1f/8h/2c/3g/1f tile in addition to adding 2hpt from Johannesburg. Minor Hives goes up to the west using a captured Settler, the city is directly on Honey and can work the wonder-boosted Horse to grow really fast and then take on a another wonder tile so the capital can concentrate more on production. As a coastal city it gives us another 2cpt from Nan Mandol as well. Love that City State!

Inspirations: Medieval Faires

Civics: Guilds

Techs: Banking, Education, Mass Production


Our T70 status report is excellent, 16 cities with 22 districts and 6 wonders, producing a total of 58.4s/172.3c/106.3f/84.7g. Voidsingers in hand and our religion is spreading nicely.

A crazy total of 42 envoys, with 9 vassals.

Our army is converting to the Cavalry and Line Infantry phase, and we have the 3 Heroes we most want in hand with a 4th (Sinbad)as frosting set to arrive next turn.

Our main goals over the next ten turns are to push IZL likes there is no tomorrow for Da Vinci, get Ruhr up for Flight, and make sure we have enough fast units to pillage efficiently. Ideally we want Rocketry between T80 and T85....

 

[Minou]

T71: Nice sequence of events between turns. We hit 60 GM points this turn thanks in large part to all those Industries - but Sumeria pays gold or faith to scoop up GM Zheng even though they were way behind. So we end up getting Marcus Licinius Crassus, arguably the most important GM since he can add three forest tiles that would otherwise be impossible to gain to one of our space cities. Would have been terrible if it played out the other way and Sumeria scooped Crassus leaving us with Zheng! Marco Polo is next up - none of the remaining attainable GMs matter though the ones that give envoys are always nice.

Our capital completes our first Factory, which hits Minou Harbor and Minou Hives, which is already producing 11hpt on the second turn of its existence. Thanks to all those Industrial City States, the factory also pumps up capital production by +6hpt and provides another 2GE points (thanks to Oracle).

One terrifying moment this turn - I wasn't paying close attention and Canada marched a big army up to Johannesburg. The walls are almost down and there are three Swords, a Catapult, and a Chariot nearby!
Luckily, Canada will sign a peace deal because all three of our units in range to help are redlined. This means pillaging in Canada will be delayed ten turns, but its worth it to save one of the strongest city states - in the old days it would probably be safe to let Canada capture Johannesburg and then liberate them with Cavalry in a few turns, but in the latest patch AIs seem to raze city states more often and its just not worth the risk. We should also denounce Canada immediately after signing peace and selling them some extra Horses, we we don't forget later and delay the start of the now scheduled T81 pillage-fest.

One the fun side, we recruit Sinbad at last! Sinbad can be incredibly strong in the early game, where he can sometimes score you a Horseman or Man at Arms purchase every turn. By this stage though, he is basically frosting on the cake. We are already earning 200+ gold per pillage so the extra gold will be nice but not really game-changing. Plus, we have already discovered all four continents and most of the natural wonders which leaves us with less opportunities for treasure. Nonetheless, let's get him out sailing to smash some barb Galleys!

James of St. George builds some free walls in order to spread religion Vatican-style, converting four cities! This provides a nice 4.2spt from Cross-Cultural Dialogue. The walls are actually useful since some barbs are lingering in the area. Our other belief, Jesuit Education, provides a faith-bought Library in Chloe Crater so we can get to work on the University needed for Oxford.

With plenty of gold, we can upgrade a second Crossbow for Metal Casting and a pair of Caravels for the Exploration boost. We are closing in on Steam Power and I often forget to upgrade Caravels before Ironclad unlocks and obsoletes them, so good to check that box now.

Anansi attempts to complete Naval Tradition with a single charge, but we fall just a sliver short - one thing that annoys the heck out of me is that Civ 6 provides no way of knowing the exact progress towards a tech or civic - it should would make sense if you could mouse over a tech and see "181.6/300" or whatever point you were at.

Lots of minor military actions:

In America, the Pikeman hasn't quite been able to break through the last city's defenses, so he is recalled into our borders and upgraded to a Pike and Shot for the dirt cheap price of 75g.

In Spain, our wonder-boosted Man at Arms one-shots an Archer and the first Cavalry pillages 186f and then redlines a Warrior while another pillages 375g.

Finally, we take out the last Khmer city. It lacks an OGO oddly, but does have a nice coastal Campus for the Nan Mandol bonus, plus 3.5 chops in the current borders to get a Library and University, unless we decide we need a Theater Square here.

At this point, we should start closely tracking on both culture and science since we are getting to the point where actual science per turn will be used towards unboostable techs.

Inspirations: Reformed Church, Exploration

Techs: Metal Casting

Science: 63.9spt

Culture: 172.5cpt

 

[Minou]

T72: Medieval Faires complete, Pingula gains the Researcher promotion. With another chopped Library, we pass 80spt.

In Spain two more Warriors suicide but a Horseman also appears out of the fog to steal a one of our Builders. Another fog attack occurs in Korea, where a hidden Archer moves into range and almost kills an embarked Horseman. Korea is proving a much tougher nut to crack than anticipated.

Sumeria claims Hippolyta, which would have been a dangerous thing a bit earlier but should not make much of a difference now that we are so far up in the unit tree.

Port Oscar continues to be useful as it competes a Military Engineer.

Gold is running low. Sinbad has now traveled 16 tiles and failed to find a single target, which hurts bad because we have units queued up for two Line Infantry and two Cavalry upgrades but no cash to do so. We can swap in Conscription and Merchant Confederation to boost us from 68gpt to 137gpt, which sounds great but barely matters since we can get more than twice that amount in a single pillage. It's too bad the game is designed that way, but nothing to do except shine up the Cavalry swords and look for mines.

Culture: 179cpt (+6.5)

Science: 81spt (+18.1, most from Pingula)