(July 31st, 2017, 13:40)Ichabod Wrote: I fear that, since I've completed two settlers before the patch (being the only one, as far as I can see), I'll have less expensive settlers for the rest of the game. It depends on how they coded things, but I can see that happening.
I really love Paradox's solution of letting you reload any previous patch version. They set them up as beta patches through Steam. It would really have been a nice option here for finishing out the game.
First of all, this is the only Iron source in all the map I have revealed so far. Not the map close to me, ALL the map. Thankfully, it's on our backfill area. I don't care that much about swords when we have access to horsemen, but losing knights would be really bad.
Ah, my settlers are costing what they should, after the patch. 140 hammers, that's steep. I rather take some City States, while we can enjoy the fact that they don't have walls yet.
Kaiser moved his warrior, not to the city, but to the forest tile. Good move. Without the chance of blocking his warrior, I kept the other plan, where my southern warrior crossed the river to prepare for the siege, while the other units got closer.
Meanwhile, Kaiser completed the monument on Shido. If this plan works out, we even get a free monument. Pretty nice.
I thought long and hard about what to build next in the Capital. I think we have enough military for now. If we take Shido, Kaiser is kind of out of the game (I'm guessing), because we can siege his Capital (the action, not the game mechanic), killing his units and leaving him without options. The best unit he'll be able to get is HCs and those are not enough to kill fortified warriors, with ranged support. He'll need to waste 80 hammers on Ancient Walls to get something done, but if he takes all this time, we can likely just finish him. So, I think we should only get more military after we have access to better units.
By the way, I'm thinking of keeping this archer here for defense (and to clear the babr camp to the north). It won't be able to help the Shido attack and I don't think we need him to siege Kaiser's Capital (I'm guessing his Capital is named Ippon).
Anyway, I thought about a trader, a second builder, a monument, but decided on a Campus. While the science isn't that needed right now, we will start getting GPP bonus, we get the Inspiration for State Workforce (even though it won't speed up PP by that much, if we had just beelined it) and it's some infrastructure investment that we are lacking right now. The trader will be better after the District is done, and I think we can get him in Watchtower, after the archer. I Don't think we need a second builder right now, because there aren't that many tiles to improve (we can't even build plantation right now, so i'm guessing the horse pasture, the wheat farm and something else). Finally, the monument on the Capital would speed up PP, but it wouldn't help acquiring the food tiles on that city, since cities take a long time to take third ring tiles. We'll need to buy those, I'm pretty sure.
So, right now, we are building the Campus. I'm open to change it, though with 2 turns already invested from the 6 needed, it would have to be a very convincing reason for it.
Scout kept going. He's still damaged, but I don't want to leave him open to an attack from Suboptimal and I want to find the Natural Wonder that we have around here. perhaps that'll give him enough XP to promote again.
---
Next turn, war starts.
I move the southern warrior to scout a bit around and I'm happy to see there's no army hiding. So, I declare war and move in.
Here's what I did:
1. Attacked with the archer, for 19 damage, IIRC. Archers get a 66% reduction of damage against cities, I think, that's why we didn't see expressive numbers.
2. I attacked with the northern warrior, for 26 damage (I think). Since the city is in siege mode, whatever damage we deal to it is a profit for now (and all damage dealt makes our next units deal more damage, due to how combat works), since our units can heal (albeit slowly), while his city can't. I think we need to favour speed over cost, because our units are easily replaced, while our objective is all or nothing. I'm not going to be reckless, but that attack was pretty safe. I'm sure Kaiser can't kill the unit and even if he does, he'd have to get away from the city, which is a plus for us.
Notice Kaiser has a slinger down there. That's pretty light in terms of reinforcements.
What I think Kaiser will do:
1. Attack my warrior with the slinger.
2. Keep his warrior on the city.
Next turn, here's what I'll do:
1. Attack with the archer. Move the other archers in position to attack.
2. Move the wounded warrior to the southern forest. Attack with the warrior currently occupying the northern forest.
3. Fortify the southern warrior to gain combat strength and likely heal the damage from Kaiser's slinger.
4. here's the most controversial move. The warrior to the northeast of Shido, what will he do? I'm thinking of crossing the river with him. That will likely scare Kaiser's slinger, because two warrior attacks will definetely kill him. It makes it impossible for Kaiser's slinger to get into his borders to upgrade and it kind of guarantees that we'll keep the siege effect. This last point is the main reason and I think it's a huge one.
Next turn is still a turn of preparation, rather than a turn with decisive impact. Unfortunately, the terrain doesn't favor our archers positioning, so I'll have to spend another turn maneuvering them. Notice that the archer from Watchtower is down to 2 turns, so he'll be able to help soon too.
Being honest, the only way I see Kaiser getting out of this is if he brings more units south and breaks our siege. With the two units he has, he can deal some damage to our warrior there, even forcing me to move him away, I think. But that'd mean attacking with his warrior accross the river, which gives my warrior +5 strength, so I don't think he'll do it. And while his warrior is giving the city +10 strength right now, a damaged unit doesn't give the full benefit, as you can see in the picture with my scout above.
But he'd have to do this fast. After I have 3/4 archers attacking the city every turn, healing 20HP won't matter. Every damage the city takes make my other attacks more damaging and if my injured archer made 19 damage in a city with full health, a full strength archer will do more on a city at half health. So the city will need 4 turns to heal the damage I can do in a single turn.
Anyway, I don't think Kaiser can get walls in time. I don't think he has better units than warriors and archers (not sure if he has archers, I doubt it right now), so I don't expect to see HCs or something that improves the city Combat Score. I think he doesn't have the needed techs and, even if he does, he won't have time to spend all the hammers needed (80 hammers with no boosts for a wall, 80 hammers with no boosts for HCs).
I don't think i'm being overconfident here due to reading the "demographics". Kaiser's military strength this last turn is 58, up from 57 in the previous turn. My military strength on the previous turn was 177, 3 times his score. I'm not sure he has more than the warrior, scout and slinger I can see. And if he has, I believe it's a warrior at the most. And even if he doesn, this unit can't get to me next turn, since there's no tile I can't see where an attack could come from.
I guess I'm just being wordy here. The short way of saying it is that we likely have the city and there's nothing Kaiser can do about it, it's too late. Even if it's frustrating that my archers can't attack next turn, there's too little time for him to get a proper defense going.
My trailing archer also took a shot at Kaiser's scout, which I believe was trying to get some pillaging action going, in case of an attack. I'm ready for it, though. What can be a problem is the new influx from barbs, not only this scout showing here, but there was also a new scout from the barb camp above. Hopefully the northern barb camp can't spawn horse units anymore, but we'll see. i'm not too worried.
I think your analysis of the upcoming turns and Kaiser's options is sound. I'm hesitant to say we don't need any more military because I saw several campaigns in pbem2 fall short for under estimating the amount of troops needed ... yet in this case I really can't see how Kaiser puts together the production or gold needed to best us.
Now if we have to push on to the capital (say on the instance he refuses to accept peace) then we probably need to reassess the military situation, and probably go with your plan of horsemen.
IF we can get a policy change to Ilkum I'd like 2 more builders to handle chops and improvements. I think we'll need at least 2 more in addition to the 1 at Hard Rain so it makes sense to wait for a policy change.
Yeah, storming the Capital will require better units. For starters, the Capital gets a straight up +3 defense (palace guards) and the Holy Site district gives an extra +2. That's at least 25 defense and I don't see how warriors can cut that, baring a long siege with archer fire. Kaiser will have Oligarchy soon too, if he keeps full throttle towards PP. This was just an opportunistic attack, after all (the initial idea was taking one of the CSs). Kaiser was too optimistic with his opening, with early district, caravan and monument, likely without archery, while we went God of the Forge. Even a few more warriors would make things difficult enough to not be profitable. Attacking a human player without technology advantage shouldn't work out, in most cases.
Right now, I don't see taking Kaiser's Capital as our next goal, if we capture Shido. I'd say we should move to his Capital and try to pillage his Holy Site, so he loses the GPP (we don't want him getting Defender of the Faith). We should also camp him to avoid any more cities or access to strategic resources, if possible. That seem achievable since it's unlikely he can amass an army to attack us (he can't keep more than one unit safe in his city center, after all), if we manage to clear his standing army (which I think we can, with our current archer support, if he tries some sort of desperate defense of Shido). Considering the difference we'll have of 4 cities to 1, I think every hammer of damage we inflict on Kaiser is worth more than 1 hammer we'd lose to do it.
I don't even think we have to worry about finishing Kaiser as soon as possible, even if he doesn't cede Shido. Capturing that city is not about the yields, it's about crippling our neighbour, securing backfill land and the horses. I have no problem keeping that city at size 1 working a hill tile, so long as we have 4 cities to Kaiser's one.
But as you said before, better to be flexible and keep our options open.
We can also consider attacking Kumasi next. It's on the way to Kaiser, it's pretty weak, the terrain is good for a quick attack and our troops are already there. Our next neighbour is really far away (Suboptimal), so no one can contest our long reach. I think it's a good way to keep our military useful, while we continue to expand. Losing the culture hurts, but after we get to PP, rushing culture is not that important. And Kaiser already has 2 envoys there, so he'll be Suzerain pretty soon. Better to attack the city in our terms, in that case.
Kaiser boldly attacked with his warrior, that coupled with a slinger attack, damaged my southern warrior to 42/100 HP. He also brought another slinger to the field, but that one couldn't attack the warrior and just approached.
This situation changed my plans, especially after I executed my first two moves. I used the archer to shoot the city for 21 damage and attacked the city with the full health warrior, dealing 42 damage.
That high damage from the warrior was unexpected for me, but I realized it was due to the city losing health and the fortified warrior being damaged. Considering this, I decided it made more sense to attack with the other full health warrior, instead of moving him accross the river. The next attack deal 49 damage, more or less what expected, and that meant the city was red-lined and unlikely to survive the next turn.
Finally, I had to decide what to do with the southern warrior. Keeping him in place would keep the siege going, and I'm pretty sure the "siege effect" is checked at the start of Kaiser's turn. I could move him 2 tiles south (due to ranged units not having ZoC), where he'd only be reached by a single slinger and could possibly survive. And I could move him to the hill, which would require Kaiser to bring his units forward to kill him.
In the end, I decided to attack the city, which dealt 25 damage and kept the siege going. I knew this meant I'd lose the warrior next turn, but I rather be extra safe than just a little bit sorry. If kaiser finished a warrior (unlikely, but possible) and brought an extra unit... I don't know, but I was fine with losing that warrior to make extra sure the city would fall. And Kaiser would have to keep a unit there to kill him anyway, so we would be sure to get something back.
Situation at the end of the turn.
In other news, Suboptimal declared on Stockholm. That's certainly to clear a difficult quest, since they are very far away from each other. I'm considering doing the same, since our quest with them is terrible (Great Writer), but there's a chance some random warrior could go near watchtower and be a nuisance. I'm still undecided about this.
---
Next turn, Kaiser conceded the city and withdrew his slingers. I think that was a wise choice. He killed my warrior with his warrior too. Here, the moves were pretty straightforward. I used one of the northern archers to soften the city (and get XP), I used the other archer to kill the warrior (and get enough XP for a promotion), I attacked the city with the warrior that would get a promotion from it.
And we captured Masters of War. The monument needs repair, which takes 8 turns. The city lost a pop and it's now size 1.
Just a note about how profitable capturing a city early is in Civ 6. It's not only the 140 hammers (settler cost) that we save. We also save 30 hammers for every other settler we'll build until the end of the game. That's very significant and I'm pretty happy about how things worked here. The city was even in our dot map (well, it should be taken into account that the city spot is the only valid one in that region, but alas).
Anyway, I knew kaiser slingers couldn't go very far, so I pursued with the southern archer. I couldn't quite kill it, but that unit is out of action for a long time. It's not going to Kaiser's land, healing in neutral territory takes a while and it can't upgrade too. Finally, since the unit is already promoted once, it's very unlikely it can promo heal. Ah, I also crossed the river with my other warriors.
Kaiser's military is up to 69 (ours is 166 currently). I'm guessing he has at least one archer in his Capital and he wants to retreat that slinger and promote it. I'm thinking about pursuing with our 4 archers and the warrior that can heal, while the injured warriors stay on our borders to heal for a bit. I want to get at leat a glimpse of Kaiser's Capital.
On domestic news, here's what happening:
1. I stopped teching HBR at 1t left, because I don't want to go into classical era yet. I think we can clear Geneva's quest (TR) before that. For now, I started on Masonry. We already have the Eureka, it opens up walls and siege rams, things we want.
2. I started a monument in Watchtower, after considering a Trader there. We won't have gold for a long time, so we need some cultural expansions in our weaker cities. The trader would give 2f, 1prod, but that's not very good.
3. I think that, after the Campus in the Capital, we go for a Trader. The trader will go to Geneva for the quest (I think it'll give 1 science, 3 gold, which is probably better than food and production for us, right now). After the trade, I think we get a builder.
My general plan is to go for Horsemen to finish Kaiser. As you can see, Shido expanded borders before we captured it, so we already have the horses in our borders. That + chops mena fast horsemen. Hopefully they'll be enough to take Kaiser's Capital.
But there's another thing. We'll be swimming in science pretty soon and I think we need to decide what to do with it (with the Campus + a likely 3 envoys in geneva pretty soon, we'll be at 15 science). There's a whole lot of techs in Civ 6 that makes me go "heh, I don't need this right now". I wonder if there's some beeline we can take that will be profitable? Going for knights is an obvious one, but our opponents after Kaiser are very far away.
We should also start considering getting some GG points. Unfortunately, the Capital can only build an Encampment at size 4, and it'll take a long time to grow it. I think after the builder in the Capital, going for a Watermill there is a good idea. It gives a bit of food, especially if we buy the farmable tiles. And it boosts construction tech, which is the tech we need to the Games and Recreations Inspiration.
And we need to explore the west. I'll likely slot a warrior in one of our cities to use for this. It's a good idea to do this soon, because we should probably slot in Conscription, once it's avaiable.
Fantastic turns! It might have been possible to save the warrior but I completely agree with the thought process behind the decision to sacrifice him.
I'm going to try and put myself in Kaiser's shoes now to guess what we can expect from him in the upcoming turns. Likely he's going full military, aiming for archery and Masonry. So we probably have 5-10 turns where we won't see him as he turtles and waits to see if we continue on to his capital or not. After he gets confident that he isn't in immediate fear of dying then we will have to worry about him trying to counter attack.
We could try pushing on to taking Kusami, but that would likely put us on Kaiser's doorstep and take away any suspense of "are we going in for the kill?" that could paralyze him now. Pulling back to take Yerevan would also be risky in case my assessment is wrong and he decides to counter attack sooner. So I think best is to sit tight on our gains and then finish him off with horsemen later. And so we might as well chase with the archers to locate his capital. Unless you think we can use that 10 turn peace window to take Yerevan or Kusami! That would be a great reason for peace actually. Perhaps we could even chase, ask for peace on his doorstep, and then turn around and take Kusami?
I think a new warrior to scout west is a fantastic idea. It would also be nice to scout south into the tundra to get an idea of the land down there / watch for barbs or any round-about maneuvers from our opponents. But we can still wait a bit on that.
I think declaring on Stockholm is fine as soon as our units are away from directly engaging or chasing anything else. Honestly it is probably ok to do now as even if there are units in the area then we can adjust with our archers currently nearby.
As for economy, I might actually start that trader in Watchtower now. The reasoning is that one the capital finishes the campus we are going to trigger the eureka for State Workforce which will be when we switch policies. And I'm guessing that will be the time to switch to Ilkum for getting some builders out, meaning I'd think builder after campus in the capital. In addition to the horses, we do want to hook up those bananas (+2g), mine that copper (Wheel eureka), as well as chop at least 3 additional trees. So 2 more builders minimum.
I think your domestic plan is to use the 1 builder at Hard Rain to hook up the horses and build infrastructure now, then do builders after the monuments and trader. And it's hard to argue against not wanting to put off those monuments for much longer, so I guess I'm glad you get the final call in what the priority is in this case
Played only two more turns, as there was a lot of delays these last few days.
On the Kaiser front, I kept going with my units that didn't need to heal, in search for Kaiser's Capital. Kaiser's Military Score is still at 46, which is very, very low, lower than before the war. I wonder what's he doing... Perhaps building a wall in his Capital? That's my guess, at least. Nothing else makes sense considering the current situation.
My idea is to find out Kaiser's Capital and try to pillage his Holy Site. If he gets Defender of the Faith, I don't think we can crack his Capital even with horsemen, if he plays his cards right. A speaman with no other defense bonuses would be strength 45 against the horses 36. So, that's the current objective.
The secondary objective is to take Kumasi. The city is currently at 15 strength, so if we manage to get 4 archer shots in the initial turn of the war, we likely get the city close to half health. The city has farms that we can pillage for health, it's very easy to attack with archers... It's the perfect target, really. And the best part is that it'll be our main line of defense against Kaiser, because the terrain from his Capital to Masters of War is pretty bad for movement (and the Trader Road goes through Kumasi ), so it's unlikely we'll be on danger at two different points.
Next turn, we'll likely reveal some more important information by occupying those two hills. We can get into the perfect position to surround Kumasi and attack with archers in about 3 turns, and I really think we should. The city graphics show Kumasi is not currently building walls, so we don't need to worry about that. And again, with the farms to pillage, I think a brute force approach will work wonders to take the city. Just ignore the units and clobber the city (well, if we can kill an archer on the first turn of war, perhaps that's better).
Kumasi is a great city and we can finish walls there very quickly. We'll finish masonry next turn and the city won't be suffering occupation. It's also great for an encampment, if we can't finish Kaiser right now. And since Kaiser is giving us the opportunity by not getting units, we should use it.
Anyway, the economic builds kept going as planned. I think I'll stick with the plan of getting the TR in Capital, because we can easily change civics, at least in the next few turns. While we delayed State Workforce to finish the Campu for the Inspiration, we got Mysticism and Military Tradition (after clearing the camp) to about 1 turn. So, we have civic switches avaiable as needed, for some time.
Speaking of the economic side of things, I'm worried that we have no settlers planned. I often have this problem on Civ 6, I stop expanding after a bit. We already have access to the +50% settler build card, so we are ready to go. If the Capital gets the Settler, I think we need to place it west. There are not the best city spots there, but it's what we get. And at leats we can get some coastal cities to start working on the Eurekas for our Unique District.
Here's the thing: we'll have way more science than we need with the Campus. In that sense, I think it's best to "waste" science on non-Eurekas than hammers to get Eurekas. It's the example of mining the Bronze on the Capital. That tile is bad and we don't even have the pop to work it. There's no sense in wasting hammers to get a builder there just to improve it and get the Eureka. Those hammers could be a settler. This is just an example, but I think we need to take it into account. Use hammers for expansion, since we have enough science to waste a few Eurekas.
In that sense, I think Capital should go Campus -> Trader -> Settler. Hard Rain should go Builder (both horses and wheat) -> warrior (to explore and protect the settler) -> builder (this one gets 2 banana plantations and perhaps a rainforest chop, to help Hard Rain grow). In that sense, I say we finish State Workforce and go into PP. When the warrior and Trader are done, we quickly finish Military Tradition (or Mysticism, if we want the extra envoy, that we could put in Geneva for +2 on the Campus) and switch into the settler card and army maintenance card. We could even use one of the builder charges from the first builder to chop a forest in the Capital to get the settler out quicker.
Our terrain is really bad for builders and large cities, because it's dry and has low resources. So, I think we just spam cities and get our Unique District where possible.
Anyway, we still need to take a look at Kaiser's land before deciding antyhing.
---
Miscelaneous stuff:
*There's a report that Rowain declared on Hattusa. So, we know Hattusa is in the game.
*We declared on Stockholm to get rid of the annoying previous quest.
*Our scout found which is likely to be a city:
Notice the wheat is red. That place is so distant from everyone we already met and in such bad looking terrain, that I think we may find a CS that hasn't been met yet. That would be pretty nice!
), so it's unlikely we'll be on danger at two different points. 
