[Spoilers] Kaiser tries to remember the new AI difficulty

[Woden]

Any updates? How's the game going?

[Kaiser]

Hey Woden, thanks for checking in, sorry that I had to stop posting but life is busy and it was actually a little tricky to keep the game running during the Christmas period due to extensive family visits

Happy new year to everyone, sadly I doubt that I will find more time now for reporting as work has started. I will try to give some updates now and then.

As a rough description, I started with a growth focussed opening delaying scouting. This meant being pop 2 by turn 5 and immediately starting a settler. Luckily I found a very nice first city spot which turns out to be a backline spot but giving me access to the cliffs of dover which are keeping my culture rate in the game right now.

I found an early barb camp and cleared it to speed up my civics but sadly did not get the first to meet bonus to any city states due to my late 2nd unit (a Warrior). Cornflakes found both city states which were likely supposed to be found by me ( Yerevan and Akkad). I think he also found at least one other religious city state and likely a cultural one as well.




First of all I did some huge misreads on the score (especially the era score) as Cornflakes Rome is acutally my neighbor so we have to live with a potential early aggression, I have scouted one of his cities and will plant my next city on the other side of lake. This will be a tense border I believe so I will build some military in my capital after the settler to stake my claim roughly around where my Warrior is right now.
Akkad has to go mid-term I do not know how to get a galley in the water but I will send over my first horsemen to try to take it and secure my border over there.



Rycroft is not contributing to any war efforts and I would like to keep it from it as well. It shall be my Pingala city and is currently working on a Campus (I will try to get Hypathia if nobody else finishes a Campus soon). Afterwards it shall build a holy site to start my Faith generation and utilize my River goddess pantheon. Sadly missing the Yerevan envoy meant that I  could pick only a very late pantheon and had neither Goddess of Festivals nor God of the open Sky available to further push my culture output. I think I am in no trouble and River Goddess is actually a very solid pick as I want to get a good faith economy going any case for buying civil and later military units but it is definetly a later benefit coming in.



I bought a builder at Rycroft to get it going and chopped a cow as well as a wheat into population to work more tiles and get the city productive. In 2 turns I will connect the citrus to get both cities in neutral amenities again and increase my income. Rycroft needs a 2nd Builder badly for the Quarry and Chop on the GHF where the commercial district is marked. I hope to get the coffee and the GFH NE of the commercial district next so I can improve the coffee with the last charge and can keep working the 22:cogs:



My capital is a production powerhouse with 12.4 production at negative amenities. The settler for the border city is done next turn and I will produce 2 slinger afterwards before considering changing cards to get some builders out. I want 3 builders but probably wont do that many directly. I plan to get Liang in my capital for the builders and Magnus in Rycroft for the chop before switching him to either the border city or Vignette (Stone and PHF are planned for chops)
Sadly I did not identify a good location for the government district yet but I do not want to postpone it too long so I will probably put it down in Vignette without optimising adjecency afterwards. As you can see Vignette is not planning to many districts yet, as it will contribute settlers and units mostly. However I plan on getting a holy site NW of the city center to utilize Goddess of the River but I will have to see how to fit it in.



It looks like I am on the eastern coast of a continent with cornflakes to my south east and somebody else (who met Ngazgarmu first) to my west. Score is looking good but I have to be wary of Cornflakes and the strenght of his Legions.




Even though paying the full price for delaying my 2nd unit, I am still in a solid spot fighting for the leadership of the board. The_Archduke is currently the leader but has likely 2 holy sites which give him a +6 score boost, his holy sites are very good as well and will enable him to have a strong culture game after he has received a couple of culture GP.

My goal right now is to plant the border city and get at least 2 slinger out of Vignette military while Rycroft builds the campus and a holy site (next tech) afterwards. Then I would like to get 2-3 builders and another settler out of Vignette.
After Astrology I will start researching Archery, Masonry and Bronze Working until their Eureka to prepare for better military. Sadly Akkad destroyed a nearby barb camp which would have been nice for the culture, money and to finish the Bronze Working Eureka (I killed a Scout in between so am at two killed barbs at the moment).

I have to prepare for Legions with a Strength of 40 +4 Oligarchy on Attack (+10 against Hoplite) and the best I can get against it is a Horseman fortified on a hill 36 +3 +6 +4. I will also have to take promotions and support/flanking into account but it means I have to have units at the border best case fortified for several rounds and be able to exchange them.
My biggest challenge is Akkad as it is an open gate into my territory if Cornflakes controls it, so I will have to take control, preferably by conquering it as the suzerain bonus negates the need for rams.

Next turn to play, I will try to give another update when someting important happens

[Kaiser]

I will do another update on turn 50, but this is worthwhile to post and maybe cornflakes and pindicator will assoicate me posting and my ingame diplomacy. I want to point out to them that there is an issue with the_Archduke



It seems I largely underestimated the_Archdukes position, I just met him and it turns out that he generates 24 faith/turn already, many of it has to be based on his pantheon "Goddess of the Earth" which means he has a shitload of high appeal tiles around. Hopefully these are not productive in terms of and so he has to sacrifice something for his high faith output.

Due to him grabbing a religion and building his special district, he is guaranteed (or will make sure) to get a golden age in order to buy settlers with Faith left and right. While he is already leading, his score will explode when he starts his setteling spree.
On top of that he seems to be NW of me, I either have missed him or he is very far west. In any case this area is vast and offers many settling spots, I will probably have to push quicker than I though for this area and will not be able to contain him. Maybe I should get a couple of horses and threaten his settlers during his golden age?
Seeing how the coast looks like at my northern Scout, I assume I am the only land based neighbor and it is up to me to stop his snowball, I need to find him, quick!

[VoiceInTheWilderness]

[Rowain]

How do you feel about conceding the game to TBS?

[Kaiser]

Well I do not stand a chance to win for a long time already, so I concede to TBS if that is the consensus.

As I was trying to avoid being eaten by the Archduke when he can buy superior units with faith I tried to set up a war between TBS, Archduke and me when my hoplites were still worth anything.
This would also allow me get some first hand war experience against one of the better CIV6 generals here.

If this ends the game, it will be interesting to see what tipped the point for the Archduke, was it the defensive alliance bonus for TBS or the fact that my hoplites can actually fight his Knights. I believe it was more TBS