[SPOILER] - Suboptimal finds trees, still seeks forest

[CFCJesterFool]

You need to bring the battering ram forward (it works fully even if damaged.) Just make sure it isn't near a volcano. If walls go up, you don't want to wait on the ram.

Also, need to start thinking about claiming some land south east of Fondant (in area by Maris Piper and securing salt.) Please take a screen shot with settler lens on. Let's see what cities make sense to settle in this area. 
I think perhaps a city 2E of Maris Piper would be smart. It will grow real fast (so loyalty shouldn't be an issue) and does have production tiles for districts (encampment as the first.) It would make a good border city with Alhambram.

[suboptimal]

I'll grab some screenshots and a pinmap or two. Moving the original WoN spot NE one tile is not as good anymore with the loss of the copper next to the volcano.

I'll start bringing the ram south with the crossbows.

[suboptimal]

OK...here are the screenshots. First up, the area south & southeast of Fondant, with and without settler lens.







Most of the loyalty pressure her is from Khmer, as the capital is effectively pumping out the loyalty of a 14-pop city. I think settling 1NE of WoN's original location is still better than resettling the city where it was. Yes, it puts two jungle diamonds second ring. However, it gives the city two high food tiles to work early for growth. Also note that the lake is fresh water so we need not worry about an Aqueduct. I'm unsure about the city location 2E of Maris Piper. I'll need to think on that some more.

The other thing to consider/remember is all of the area southwest of Nazca that is in Pindicator's "back line"







There's room for three cities on those rivers if you go for density, plus one along the sea. For "ideal" placement it's probably three in this region, 1 one each side of the sea, 1 at Wealth of Nations and perhaps one coastal between Art of War and Conquest of Paradise.

I'll do some pinmap pondering and toss up a few ideas later on.

[suboptimal]

Lurkers - FYI while trying to get here I misclicked into Pindicator's thread. Realized and backed out before the screen loaded, but if he notes that I appeared to wind up in his thread, that's what happened.

I also realized that I did not post a report for Turn 97...

Turn 97

Looks like we’re up for another round of dissatisfaction with turn pace and/or interest. We were doing well but back to 1 turn every three days. Perhaps future PBEMs should be no more than 4-5 players to keep things moving (or do a better job at setting the turn order right over the long term). Regardless of the tech thread, I’ve got a turn to play and an empire to try to conquer. I also owe everyone some pinmaps, but that’s another post as I didn’t put too much thought into it as I was intending.

The turn opens with a bunch of notifications, the most notable is that we’ve now met the Cree. There’s a hitch, though. Archduke and TBS have both come calling with trade deals this turn and there’s an interface problem here. If you open a deal screen you must accept or refuse, you can’t back out to check what’s going on. First up, the Cree. BTW, he’s got 10 cities, has triple the culture and a bit less than double my science. I’m not about to give up my only diamonds along with wines for that trade. I refuse for now to see what Archduke wants, and he’s asking for wines in exchange for truffles and spices. That’s much better. Archduke also has ten cities and is on comparable footing with TBS. I accept this deal as it’s better for me than TBS’s as I net two luxuries, not just one. The extra amenities suit my needs nicely. Both of Archduke’s writers have resurfaced out of the fog, one SE of Preslav and the other near my archer at Res Publica.

Up north the settler & chariot head east. At Fondant the ram, crossbows and Sun Tzu advance. I move the archer to the marsh road east of the city. It’ll move to the rice road when it’s time to upgrade. Check Res Publica, there’s a promoted archer. At the main front:




Well, he’s got a horseman in Conquest of Paradise but hasn’t started building walls. The eastern archer has one friend in the fog, the middle has two, the western has none (+4, +8 and +2 support bonuses, respectively). Best guess is there’s something on the hill NW of CoP and another unit on the Holy Site. I check that theory with Red Pontiac to confirm the coastal PFH is empty. The horseman was wounded by the archer on the salt. I could, in theory, attack with the horseman but the archer won’t die and the horseman would. I move east into the forest. The only unit that could shoot at me from there is the eastern archer. I could attack & kill that archer next turn using the horse and one of my own archers. It also gets the horseman closer to where the general will be. It does reveal a fourth, wounded promoted archer in that hill tile. That might actually cost me the horseman. I could move Yukon Gold up to the roaded jungle hill and kill that archer, but that archer has a +10 support bonus and I know there’s at least one horseman in there. I’ll hold off and if I lose the horse then I committed a move for not considering there was an archer with visibility in that tile. Five archers (125), a horseman (36), plus another 58 in milpower, likely two swords, one of which is still damaged. Yep, need those crossbows – with the general in the area they’d possibly one-shot any archer not on difficult terrain. In two turns they’ll be ready to advance and start killing units. Maris Piper will also need to head back to friendly territory next turn – it’ll be two turns to get there, one to upgrade and three to get back to the front.

Crossbow and horseman out next turn, swordsman the turn after that, settler and Mercenaries the turn after that. With the policy change I’m going to take out Equestrian Orders and Colonization and put in Serfdom and Professional Army. Updated builds at the cities:

Mashed: Settler (current, 2 turns) → Builder (4 turns) → Horseman (2 turns) → Settler
Dauphinoise: Granary (2 turns) → Builder (5 turns) → Granary (2-3 turns to finish) → Crossbowman
Fondant: Swordsman (current, 1 turn) → Encampment (2 turns) → Swordsman (7 turns)
Hasselback: Builder (6 turns) → Horseman (5 turns)
Disco Fries: Monument (current, 8 turns) → Campus
Gnocchi: Granary (7 turns) → Commercial Hub

I’ll have four builders and 20 builder actions to work with. My plans are as follows:

Mashed: turtles, pearls, lumbermill @ Disco Fries (for eureka), iron mine @ Gnocchi, pasture @ Gnocchi
Dauphinoise: diamond mine, chop & mine PFH into Commercial Hub, chop flatland forest to complete Commercial Hub, .
Hasselback: Farm 33 volcanic soil, mine 31 volcanic soil, pasture @ Fondant, rice farm @ Fondant, mine grassland 2E of city center @ Fondant
Eastern City: chop woods & place Aqueduct, chop woods to complete Aqueduct and place Campus (overflow into Monument), pasture sheep, chop & mine into settler or Commercial Hub at Mashed.

Theology will take 4 turns to complete. I’ll put three turns into it then start working on Civil Service. I’ll finish Theology once the last builder is out.

[suboptimal]

Turn 98

Well, we know from the tech thread that Cornflakes is at war with a city-state that Archduke recently suzerained. WE also know it’s not Valetta as Kaiser is currently the suzerain there. In notifications news the horseman at the Khmer front has died. TBS has come back with a second deal:




Hmmmm…..that would duplicate my truffles from Archduke and it’s my only wines. TBS also doesn’t need the amenities. I refuse.

Crossbow and horseman complete and head for Fondant and then the front. Maris Piper heads for the Encampment, partly to be ready to upgrade and partly to get out of the way as the crossbows advance. Crossbows and Sun Tzu advance, along with the battering ram. I’d consider keeping Sun Tzu back but I’ll need him at the front more. Red Pontiac moves up to check the PFH across the sea (empty) and then backs up to Sun Tzu’s location. Check Res Publica, see two archers, both promoted:




I back up, noting the change in position of the promoted archer that was on the salt last turn. It has no support bonus so it’s by itself.

Right now my only way through is going to be to shoot my way through the archers, which is easier said that done. The plan of attack is to move the crossbows forward next turn and then the turn after move one of them over to Yukon Gold’s position and put the other on the open plains. The turn after I’ll advance both of them one tile SW and shoot something with the one on the road. That something will be whatever unit I can come closest to outright killing. Pindicator shouldn’t be able to kill one crossbow outright unless he can bring 5 archers to bear. That’ll give me a chance to kill something off and possibly promote the targeted crossbow.

Addendum to the policy swap – I thought I had Equestrian Orders slotted when I typed that...I have Maneuver slotted. Still taking that out and putting in Professional Army. I think after next turn I’m going to switch techs from Military Engineering to Stirrups and start bringing a bunch of techs to eureka minus one turns. The next settler out of Mashed is likely going to the Dauph Coast location via Hasselback (9 turns to arrive and settle), taking a turn to defog that coastal location north of Hasselback. I’ll be building an Aqueduct there (raw production + chopping the jungle NE of the bananas) and that’ll get me the eureka for Military Engineering.

In international news I took a look at the civics tree and then checked TBS’s screen. He’s in Merchant Republic.

End turn and hear the city-state meet sounder.

[suboptimal]

Looks like this game is in no man's land and headed for the same fate as PBEM 14. The turn pace has taken its toll as both Archduke and Alhambram are now looking to get out. Pindicator is probably also willing to abandon given our relative positions in the game vs. everyone else.

I think going forward there either needs to be a better (and more fixed) distribution of time windows or the games need to be limited to 4 or 5 people. It also makes me wonder if part of the continued success of Civ IV here (besides the fact that many of the "vets" think it's a better game) is that Pitboss mode exists and makes it easier to have those larger 8-12 player games.

[CFCJesterFool]

Looks like this game is in no man's land and headed for the same fate as PBEM 14. The turn pace has taken its toll as both Archduke and Alhambram are now looking to get out.  Pindicator is probably also willing to abandon given our relative positions in the game vs. everyone else.  

I think going forward there either needs to be a better (and more fixed) distribution of time windows or the games need to be limited to 4 or 5 people.  It also makes me wonder if part of the continued success of Civ IV here (besides the fact that many of the "vets" think it's a better game) is that Pitboss mode exists and makes it easier to have those larger 8-12 player games.

Civ VI is the better game BUT multiplayer is way worse due to unbalanced civilizations. Not many people can keep interest (and play in a timely manner) when they are almost guaranteed to lose from the start due to having a poor civilization or facing opponents with vastly better civilizations. Australia>Nubia>Khmer imo and the game situation reflects this. In order to have a competitive multiplayer game, all players need to vote on the civilization that everyone will play (eg. John Curtain vs John Curtain vs etc.) so as long as the map is reasonably balanced (everyone has strategic resources/similar amenities/no huge disparities with district adjacencies etc.) the game could hinge on player skill and making smart multiplayer decisions.

[suboptimal]

Looks like this game is in no man's land and headed for the same fate as PBEM 14. The turn pace has taken its toll as both Archduke and Alhambram are now looking to get out.  Pindicator is probably also willing to abandon given our relative positions in the game vs. everyone else.  

I think going forward there either needs to be a better (and more fixed) distribution of time windows or the games need to be limited to 4 or 5 people.  It also makes me wonder if part of the continued success of Civ IV here (besides the fact that many of the "vets" think it's a better game) is that Pitboss mode exists and makes it easier to have those larger 8-12 player games.

Civ VI is the better game BUT multiplayer is way worse due to unbalanced civilizations. Not many people can keep interest (and play in a timely manner) when they are almost guaranteed to lose from the start due to having a poor civilization or facing opponents with vastly better civilizations. Australia>Nubia>Khmer imo and the game situation reflects this. In order to have a competitive multiplayer game, all players need to vote on the civilization that everyone will play (eg. John Curtain vs John Curtain vs etc.) so as long as the map is reasonably balanced (everyone has strategic resources/similar amenities/no huge disparities with district adjacencies etc.) the game could hinge on player skill and making smart multiplayer decisions.

There are definitely tiers to the various civs and yes, they can have a large impact on play.  However, isn't this the can in unmodded Civ IV as well?  At least here the community has balanced out things with mods.  This goes back to a previous thread where we were putting together mods based on Sulla's and others suggestions.  If the civs are that unbalanced perhaps it's time to actually have the Civ VI players start to make a concerted effort at a balance mod.  I think it was Krill that made the statement along Field of Dreams' "if you build it they will come".

I'll also note that in this game the lack of advancement on the part of us and Pindicator vs. Australia is most certainly due to being in war the last 60 turns.  The civs on the other continent have all seemed to gone peaceful builders and have kept up.   What shows Australia being unbalanced is that Alhambram seems to be doing it with significantly fewer cities.

This particular PBEM is toast...I'd like to keep going (as does Cornflakes, apparently) but Archduke has held the save for 30 hours now and may be attempting to frustrate others into quitting due to turn pace since his own exhortations to speed up weren't working.  Dunno if I'll see a turn tomorrow, if at all.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

There was talk of a mod, and I think Grotsnot and others even put together most of one. The trouble is the Civ VI community here is so small. I wonder if we might put together a test game, and cast our recruiting net onto other Civ fansites? We could use some fresh blood. I'll be back in the States in September and could resume regular play then, as well.

[Rowain]

Civ VI is the better game BUT multiplayer is way worse due to unbalanced civilizations. Not many people can keep interest (and play in a timely manner) when they are almost guaranteed to lose from the start due to having a poor civilization or facing opponents with vastly better civilizations. Australia>Nubia>Khmer imo and the game situation reflects this. In order to have a competitive multiplayer game, all players need to vote on the civilization that everyone will play (eg. John Curtain vs John Curtain vs etc.) so as long as the map is reasonably balanced (everyone has strategic resources/similar amenities/no huge disparities with district adjacencies etc.) the game could hinge on player skill and making smart multiplayer decisions.

For a balanced game you also have to get rid of CS. Someone having a lot of free cities near them will have an easier game than one who doesn't. Someone who has 2-culture CS near them will be far better off than someone with 2 industrious CS etc. A balanced game has to be same Leader same civ on one of the balanced MP-maps with no CS (and perhaps no Natural Disasters ). Oh and every player should be on nearly the same level else the one with the easy pushover will win. Good luck getting such a game running .