[no players] Lurkers' paradise for PBEM3

[TheArchduke]

Difficult to say with the recent lack of reporting by both. Rowain does post too many thoughts which is a shame, maybe we should ask him for more on that front.

Suboptimal does seem to be overreacting, on the defensive. But yeah Rowain has very nicely cut him off from the east, and given that the bonus America gets is relatively strong especially early on, it seems like a good play.

From his reporting at least it seems he is doing Settler and Worker at home, so I doubt there will be aggression.

For now at least.

[Alhambram]

Bacchus's plan to win with cultural victory sounds intriguing. However hopefully for him Rowain don't reach modern age, because America do get huge tourism boost with its unique building film studio and also extra appeal for national parks thanks Roosevelt. Also Ichabod's England can slot six artifacts instead three and also just throw six random artifacts and they are automatically themed, this makes England a dark horse for eventual cultural victory. But we shall see whether Bacchus chooses this path.

Another possible (and terrifying path) for Bacchus is that he meets up with Preslav at his west first (east of Kaiser but barbs stand in way of Kaiser). Thus it might bring Bacchus upon idea to become suzerain of it and then field a Great General powered Varu's which do get 50 melee strength upon hills!  ( and I yet have to mention -5 penalty for enemy units for every adjacent Varu  )

[Ituralde]

Seeing suboptimals plwn to guard his settlers via DOF reminded me of those hyper aggressive settling moves that happen in Always Peace games. I hope suboptimal knows what he's getting into here. Not that I expect Rowain and Kaiser to accept, though.

[oledavy]

Have all the city-states been met? Was a more even split of them achieved this game?

[Alhambram]

Have all the city-states been met? Was a more even split of them achieved this game?

Only Preslav at east of Kaiser has yet been met by anyone. It was predicted by Sulla that Kaiser would find it but he has been hindered by barb horses which killed his slinger scouting in east.
This opens up possibility of others finding Preslav first instead Kaiser, I already said that it would be interesting if Bacchus finds it first with India's Varu's.  

And split of them is pretty achieved: 2,2,2,2,1 (Rowain 1 which was also predicted by Sulla due his starting location). Only surprise here is Kaiser finding Stockholm before Suboptimal, which results in Kaiser meeting a science and cultural city state first, boosting him greatly.

[Azoth]

I am toying with the idea of a tourism victory.

I am always interested in seeing people take a different approach to the game, but I very much doubt this is possible in the way Bacchus describes.

The basic mechanics are as follows: there is a set of things which generate "Tourism", which in turn turns into a foreign tourist from each civ you have met, when you accumulate some large enough chunk, after modifiers (Open borders +25%, Trade route sent +25%).

It's been pointed out that these modifiers are simple to deny in MP - refuse to sign Open Borders, and if tourism victory ever looks like a serious threat (and you have rough military parity) declare war to invalidate foreign trade routes - but that's not the most important thing.

You have to generate more "foreign tourists" than any one other player has "domestic tourists", and the latter are generated in chunks simply through culture. Chunks are unequally sized, for domestic tourists the size of the chunk is always 100, i.e. for each 100 culture you generate, you get a domestic tourist. For the foreign tourists, the chunk is 150 * number of civs, but because the tourism you generate goes towards all civs you have met, that number effectively cancels out. Basically you win, once your lifetime tourism becomes bigger than the highest rival's lifetime culture [by] a factor of 1.5. Because everybody generates culture from turn 1, and tourism only picks up later in the game, this means that you must produce something like 3 times the culture per-turn of your best rival in the later game, to catch up on the lag.

Going by Sullla's Civ6 reports, that "number of civs" multiplier for foreign tourists is not based on "current number of civs" but "number of civs at the start of the game". So eliminating another player severely delays any potential tourism victory, because it increases the factor by which tourism must outpace rival culture. This is consistent with PBEM2, where TheArchduke's elimination set back Woden's (limited) progress to tourism victory.

In other words, tourism victory is a way to punish underinvestment in culture. This is exactly what pushed me to consider this approach. My rivals all have civs with a strong military flavour. [...] Overall I expect the level of military tension to be very high in the west, which will leave few spare cogs for theatre squares, which are just shit districts overall. Unless you are the only one building them

This is somewhat misleading. First, inspirations count towards domestic culture: building an encampment, getting war declared upon you, and signing an alliance all indirectly defend against a tourism victory by triggering inspirations. Second, it's not clear to me that you need to invest much of anything in theatre squares to keep pace with foreign tourism. Raw culture from population plus Monuments and Meritocracy (+1 culture per district) generate plenty of culture. And successful wars will increase that count all around. It's the *highest* rival lifetime culture that sets the benchmark for tourism victory.

Now, what are the mechanics of tourism victory? There is a beeline, which is entirely within the civics tree, as you would expect, which goes Mercantilism -> Colonialism -> Natural History -> Conservation. NH unlocks archaelogists and the ability to extract artifacts, which are placed in museums to give 3 tourism per turn, 6 when themed. Conservation lets you build naturalists at 800 faith a pop, which create national parks [...] Before these, the main source of tourism are Great Works of Writing, these babies provide 4 per turn, which gets +100% with Printing. With open borders and trade routes that could mean 10 tourism per turn after Printing, and each Writer makes 2 works, so 20. Three Writers -- and it's possible to snap up the tourism victory even before Conservation. Holy city and wonders also yield some tourism, but it's not meaningful.

One thing to note is that contrary to the Civilopedia, Naturalists cost 1600 faith! More generally, these are all mid- to late-game techs and civics. In PBEM 2, despite Woden's religion and wonders, and Alhambram's religion and Lavra-accelerated Great People, neither player came anywhere close to tourism victory. Unfortunately, it seems that if you have a strong, semi-isolated start like Bacchus, the correct move is a farmer's gambit at the beginning, followed by a push for military hegemony. Once you dominate militarily, you can take your pick of the victory types, but the peaceful ones seem too risky (and require too much long-term investment) to pursue as your primary win condition. Like in single player, tourism victory probably ultimately revolves around Seaside Resorts, plus enough military (especially air power, since Flight is a prerequisite tech) to defend yourself and limit the number of player eliminations. But I'm happy to be proved wrong.

[oledavy]

One thing to note is that contrary to the Civilopedia, Naturalists cost 1600 faith! More generally, these are all mid- to late-game techs and civics. In PBEM 2, despite Woden's religion and wonders, and Alhambram's religion and Lavra-accelerated Great People, neither player came anywhere close to tourism victory. Unfortunately, it seems that if you have a strong, semi-isolated start like Bacchus, the correct move is a farmer's gambit at the beginning, followed by a push for military hegemony. Once you dominate militarily, you can take your pick of the victory types, but the peaceful ones seem too risky (and require too much long-term investment) to pursue as your primary win condition. Like in single player, tourism victory probably ultimately revolves around Seaside Resorts, plus enough military (especially air power, since Flight is a prerequisite tech) to defend yourself and limit the number of player eliminations. But I'm happy to be proved wrong.

I think your analysis is extremely insightful Azoth. 

While it's interesting to entertain, I agree that a cultural victory is very unlikely. While you can rush out an early religious victory, I have a hard time conceiving of anyone winning via culture before the 250/300 range, so the possibility of surprise is remote. Your best chance, I would think, is in a late game setting with only one major opponent and perhaps a couple other players still in game but out of the running. Since they would not have a chance to win, the players who are out of the running will be less likely to take measures to prevent your cultural win.

Seaside Resorts, in combination with Christo Redentor, would seem to be the best way to brute force a cultural win. I don't think there's enough coast on this map to make that strategy viable. We may see someone make a legitimate attempt in PBEM4 though, with the island plates map. 

Finally, while I do agree with your conclusion, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that PBEM2 might be a slightly flawed example. The presence of Russia and two Greeces in the game, with high innate cultural production thanks to Thermopylae, Lavras and Acropolises, means that a cultural victory for a player like Woden would always be an uphill slog. In a game with civs that do not have the same level of cultural production available, a cultural victory might be easier.  I doubt this is the one though, with Japan, America and England present.

On an unrelated note, any bets on if Suboptimal's settler gets through to the river valley location? I personally feel that Arabia is playing with fire here, and while it does have a high potential payoff, the risk is substantial as well.

[oledavy]

Feel free to disagree, but I think Rowain only has one move here. He declares war, gets a major victory and minor victory over that warrior, knocking it down to ~30 HP and forces it and the settler to retire westward. This move east will have effectively been a two turn delay to settling a western city if my supposition is correct. 

His other warrior is on the wrong side of the river and can't do anything, and he will need to wait to heal his first warrior and deploy a second before he can once again begin moving his settler towards the Glenkinchie location.

Additionally, if that horse crosses the river onto the rice tile, suboptimal will be in a world of trouble

[Singaboy]

How many turns has lost suboptimal now to settle his second city thanks to those moves. It was highly risky and did not pay off.

Generally I am surprised how many of them do not take the barbarians seriously. On a Pangaea, barbarians are a real pain.

[Alhambram]

Just wow, early declaration of war at turn 31, here I thought that TheArchduke's declaration of war at turn 42 in PBEM2 wouldn't be beaten for a while. Rowain is using that extra 5 strength from being American civilization well to claim his desired spots and deny others of it.