Chevalier Rides Again: A City Lights exploration

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Randoms 235: Early Rebuilding



Start the turn with Replaceable Parts, as my 3rd Line Infantry finishes in Cirith Ungol, replacing (ha) the fellow who died defending Takamatsu's coal mine. Hopefully won't ever need Infantry, but it's an important step on the road to Rocketry.

The alliance with Norway expires with perfect timing:


Can you IMAGINE if I'd just declare war on him now? 

No, we've won plenty of domination victories. Let's explore Space in a multiplayer setting. I do note that some of my ships were teleported near the Free City of Akkad, which is still at war with me - well, we can sort that out:


Akkad embarked his only melee unit, a severely wounded line infantry (there's been a little side drama here for a few turns, with my privateers haunting the coast, taking potshots and trying to pick off his builders). That dropped the unit's strength down to 30, and ungarrisoned city defense strength = your strongest unit - 10, so the city has only 20 defensive strength against battleships bombarding with 100 more points. So two shots are sufficiently to bring HP down to zero, but how to capture? I had a DD teleported just north of Akkad, but the line infantry blocked his movement and just barely kept him out of range! Luckily I still had bits of Escort 4 nearby and was able to swing one in to finish the infantry...



Leaving the DD free to capture Akkad (again). So the war starts and finishes in this chilly tundra. We could keep it, this time, without loyalty problems, but since Oslo is going back to Norway I have other plans in mind.



Akkad is properly liberated once more, and my BB is teleported into Oslo's pillaged canal because apparently you CAN fucking use them even when pillaged. Oh. ANyway, the fleet sets sail for its home anchorages near Nurn, which takes a solid 15 minutes of clicking with 50 ships to sort through. 

Now, to business. Check out my research rates at top left! Research had topped out at 150 points, basically, before falling all the way to 120 due to amenities penalties when the war started. It hovered between there and 140 through the war, jumping 30 points to 150-160 after I slotted Natural Philosophy back in with Ideology, and now that I got 50 amenities back from war weariness it skyrockets to 240, with at least 3 universities and 2 campuses coming online in the next 10 turns. Culture jumps similarly, as does production and gold (now solidly back in the black, yay), and basically the competition is dusted.

Liberating Akkad gives us full suzerainty of 4 of the 6 city states left:


We control 2 military states (no one has tried to take the HIGHLY useful Valetta from us - Indonesia, with faith to really utilize it, is concentrating on Armagh and Rapa Nui), 1 industrial state (Mexico City, with the valuable +3 range to regional boosts), and 1 cultural state (Nan Madol, lol). 6 envoys are in hand and Kilwa will give us 3 more. I've also allied with every power on the map, so my 3 spies (one was freed from Japanese captivity last turn, yay) will travel to Hong Kong, Rapa Nui, and Nan Madol and begin Fabricate Scandal missions, which will destroy other powers' envoys when completed, granting me control over 2 each of industrial, militaristic, and cultural states, for an imperial-wide boost of +15% to production and culture due to Kilwa (Barad-Dur will get +30%!). 

Speaking of, here's the core...


Kilwa's ETA down to turn 147, from 152, as again 40% of production comes back! It'll now be worth 230 x 1.15 = 265, so 35 cpt right off the bat, and if average production is now nearer 40 than 25, the production boost empire wide will be on the order of 6 hammers/city, or 180 hammers across my 20 cities. So, Kilwa will pay for its 710 hammers in only 4 turns. An excellent investment.

New amenities situation...


About 2 amenities short in every city still. I have zoos planned in Osgiliath, Morgul, and Umbar, which will cover my core. THe island cities have aquatic centers which can be done within 15 turns or so that should cover them. Gundabad can do an aquatic center and Utumno a zoo, as well, and cover the Misty Mountains island. Everything else should be either research centers, holy sites (to get fpt up to 100 or so to ward off a religious victory), and a few minor things for boosts. Will make a full list later.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Randoms 236: Bread and Circuses

5 turns left until the Era changes from the Industrial Age to the Modern Age:


We have earned 199 of a needful 147 era points, so the Modern Age will be a golden age for us. Since the Industrial Age was a Dark Age (I didn't earn enough points before the last era change), we'll jump straight to a Heroic Age, which lets us slot 3 powerful bonuses instead of the usual 1. So, look forward to that on 241!

Major news of the turn is the completion of the Colosseum at Umbar, which generates 2 culture and 2 amenities in each city within 6 tiles (I don't think Mexico City's range bonus applies):


The jolt in the arm of amenities is valuable, as science climbs a further 40 points/turn from last turn and culture somehow climbs less, only +30 on the turn. We got +8 culture/amenities, so it seems the amenities were the more valuable of the 2. 

Even so, it still isn't enough. Umbar, for example, is at -1 amenity still. Empire wide the picture is still unsatisfactory:



Amenities have been redistributed as war weariness comes off, but we're at about -2 amenities in each city, so I'm losing 10% of my potential yields. Getting this fixed is as good as Kilwa's boost, so that's going to be my top priority before finishing more campuses, universities, etc. 

So, we have every single luxury resource on the map connected either via builder or via trade, so there's no more amenities to be had there. That leaves buildings and policies. I'll get to policies in a few turns, but we can't change them now so no point looking at it just yet. Instead, let's talk buildings. 

Each entertainment district provides +1 amenity on its own and +1 from the first level arena building, solely to the city that owns the district. But the next two levels are good for us. First, the Zoo:


+1 amenity to Morgul and all cities within 9 tiles (thank you, Mexico City!). That gets us partially there, as well as a trickle of science from jungle. The other building I'm working on unlocking is the Stadium, the ultimate late game amenity generator:



+1 amenity base, which coupled with zoos should get me to full amenities everywhere, and a further +2 if powered - I have plenty of power available, as well. So that's +3 net to all cities within range, if I can manage that empire-wide every city will be at +2 or +3! The +3 cities will generate +10% yields, which right now would be Barad-Dur, Cerin Amroth, Cirith Ungol, Henneth Annun, Gundabad, Osgiliath, Umbar, and Utumno - a pretty strong selection. 

So, how many stadiums do I need? Here's a handy lens filter:



Angband can build an entertainment district covering most of the archipelago apart from Durthang and Gorgoroth.



Osgiliath covers the mainland, easy. Cirith Ungol, Durthang, and the oil cities north of Gorgoroth are still uncovered.



But Umbar's covers everything except Angmar and Mt. Doom in the uttermost north. 

Will also need one at Cerin Amroth or Caras Galadhon, when the population is available. 

So, 4 stadiums coming up, next priority. Angband has 1 turn left on the campus, then will begin the project. Osgiliath and Morgul are working on theirs, and Occupied Japan needs to finish repairs before it can begin new districts. Call it 15 turns to solve amenities problems.

To push us to happy in all cities (+3, +10% yields) or even ecstatic (+5), we'll turn to water parks, which will be a bit easier to tag on every city but cost more in production. More on those when we can begin production.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Randoms 237

We're back, if anyone is still following this, after I was traveling for Christmas (Galveston, Texas - I saw the USS Texas in drydock and had a lovely beach holiday).

Start the turn with Flight (meh):


I'll build a pair of aerodromes and biplanes for the inspirations where I have the district slots available, but this doesn't seem very helpful for a Science victory.

MUCH more useful is the civics tree, where Professional Sports finishes:


The era score indicates that we're first in the world to an Atomic Era civic, which, well, yeah, I've been Suzerain of Nan Madol for 200 turns now and it's bringing in over 50 culture/turn right now. 

Anyway, that enables our first policy swap since the end of the war and I adopt a more peace-time oriented government:



Veterancy (+30% harbors) and Levee En Masse (cheaper unit maintenance) are obvious picks, but the last military slot is a bit wasted - I slot in bonus science from military academies, but ironically it's immediately clear that I don't need Communisms's 3 military slots now that the war is over, and might think about swapping to Democracy. That will swap one military slot for a diplomatic slot, letting me drop in Raj, Merchant Confederation, or Colonial Taxes, all of which clearly beat Military Research.

Economic slots - we keep our campus, industrial zone, harbor, and commercial hub boosts, as well as trade route boosts for our 15 active trade routes. Wisselbanken in the Diplo slot is also an obvious choice. Finally, after some internal debate, I slot in a Great Engineer boost in the final wildcard slot, which seems more useful than the Gold or Production. I get +4 immediately, then I have 5 workshops for a further +10, which more or less doubles Great Engineer points empire-wide. Lots have good abilities for the space race, and pair well with the Mausoleum of Helicarnassus's double Engineer ability...except I am giving that wonder back to Norway this turn, alas. 

No action on the turn, mostly. Our garrisons are arriving in Japan and cleaning up the barbs:



Research-wise, we resume work on Chemistry which will enable Research Labs, the last major science boost of the game, and civics, I have some choices:


Capitalism and Suffrage both unlock highly useful policy cards - International Trade & New Deal - and the Democracy government type, all of which will massively boost my 15 trade routes and and help with the amenity & housing crisis (ongoing). But they're both dead ends, as well. To progress the tree I must take Nuclear Program, Conservation, and Cold War. I can work on those boosts - Build a Research Lab is easy and that will in turn get us closer to researching Fission. With so much culture, though, I probably shan't boost all these civics. Opera & Ballet and the other government civics can be safely ignored. 

Home improvements:


As Japan rebuilds, I place 2 ski resorts, freshly unlocked from Professional Sports. Far from just goofy tourism-boosters, these are actually worth 1 amenity apiece! And I think the little bastards stack, too! I will spew out a wave of builders around the empire to take advantage, but between that and the stadiums that will shortly be under construction we should have the entire empire happy in <20 turns. 



Zoos & Stadiums will add +3 amenities per city. That gets everyone from +1 to +3. The +3 cities get a 10% boost to all yields, so those +2 and +1 guys will need some ski resorts. That's...everyone except Cerin Amroth & Gundabad, fully 30 builder charges. I never did recruit Liang, but I can slot the Builder Card with democracy (+30% production and +2 chargers per builder) and with the Pyramids (+1 charge per worker) that's 6 chargers per builder, or 5 builders empire-wide. Very cheap for +10% imperial yields!

That's the story. Ships are sailing for their anchorages near the Misty Mountains. Oslo is offered to Norway to curry diplomatic favor. Still need to work out what my 5 Space cities will be, and how quickly we can beeline the relevant techs, but that will come after amenities. 

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it's not too boring, even if you don't play Civ VI yourself!

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Wait, Stadiums & zoos add +4 gross amenities per city when powered. That cuts needed ski resorts to only 18, or 3 builders! Neato!

[Krill]

I am reading and I like the updates.

I'd like another civ 6 game to be played....

[Erasmas]

I appreciate the reports. It has been far from boring, although I think a science victory on such a map may get boring as you slowly advance through the whole science tree and start building spaceprorts and spaceship projects with cities with far less production than on a continent-type map.

Is there any reason you specically want 5 spaceports or is that a rule of thumb?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I am reading and I like the updates.

I'd like another civ 6 game to be played....

Yeah, perhaps once I finish this one and my two games with friends (and my two ongoing AGEOD games...) I'll have the bandwith again. The nice thing about this game is that it's entirely stress free, purely an exercise in optimization, and writing relaxes me - plus, I am using it as a bit of a tutorial on Civ VI/Gathering Storm for those who don't have the game or the expansion.

Speaking of...

I appreciate the reports. It has been far from boring, although I think a science victory on such a map may get boring as you slowly advance through the whole science tree and start building spaceprorts and spaceship projects with cities with far less production than on a continent-type map.
Is there any reason you specically want 5 spaceports or is that a rule of thumb?

I will try to keep it entertaining! I think I can do it fairly rapidly, although I need to break down exactly what my target date is. 

As for 5 spaceports, it's no rule of thumb that I know of, just quick analysis seems to indicate that roughly that many will be the most efficient way to get the science victory. I'll explain below.

Randoms 238



The Black Gate finishes its university and starts the Zoo, but we're looking at a hefty 25 turns to get the Stadium online. Oof! But this city has nothing better to contribute, so it'll soldier away. Finishing both should get it to the fabled +3 amenities for the 10% boost. 

Over to the east, Henneth Annun finishes a market and starts a bank. These commercial hub buildings are marginal, BUT I need to work towards a stock exchange. I have exactly two (2) Commercial Hubs in the entire empire (the other is at Barad-Dur), due to...




Capitalism needing 2 stock exchanges to boost. That enables the Market Economy policy card, which will supercharge my trade routes even more on top of Democracy, Wissenbanken, and Trade Confederation & Triangular Trade (I think one or two of those will obsolete, but no matter). 

Caras Galadhon, the occupied Japanese capital, continues repairs, but I note that it has no power plant. I queue up an oil plant:


The Coal Plant gets the adjacency bonus of the IZ, which in my case is +2 (I'm not Hojo and don't get the doubled adjacency Japan did, sadly), while the Oil plant is a flat +3. Plus, I have way more oil than coal, so

Otherwise we continue to plant Ski Resorts as my new best improvement around the empire. I only have 10 more mountains available, in fact, by end of turn, in the entire empire, so we're nearly maxed out there already. New amenity situation:


Slowly improving. We're only 1 short in most cities, never 2 short, and so zoos/stadiums will get everyone to +10% (in 25 turns). Good stuff.

Okay, so, science victory. In Civ VI, to get a science victory, you gotta research rocketry, build a spaceport, launch a satellite, moon landing, Mars landing, and finally an exoplanet trip. The expedition travels 50 light years at 1 light year per turn, and then you win once it arrives. Now, each spaceport can run one of two projects to speed things up - they're functionally the same, except one increases the city's power requirements by 2 and the other consumes 30 aluminum, a resource I haven't unlocked yet. So, here's where my 5 rule of thumb comes from: Each project increases your speed by 1 light year/turn. So, running one will double your speed and cut the time to arrive in half (from 50 turns down to 30 or so). If you run 5, you speed it up by 5 light years/turn and cut your maximum arrival time down to 10 turns. I could then run a second project from each and add another 5 light years, up to 10 light years/turn or 5 turns arrival time. So, more than 5 spaceports feels inefficient - you won't really bring your time down by any more orders of magnitude, since building 10 spaceports and running 10 projects all at once to cut it to 5 turns is unrealistic, since the requirements are so expensive. So, 5! It might be possible to squeeze out a few turns faster arrival if I have slightly more spaceports, but the math on that is hard. 
Now, what are we looking at?



Rocketry is behind the Flood Barriers tooltip. Flood Barriers is at Computers and helps mitigate rising sea levels from global warming, and I shall definitely want that soon, but more on that another time. ANyway, Rocketry is locked behind Radio & Chemistry, all told 14 turns to research before I can lay down my spaceports. Then...


From there to Satellites (for Moon Landing) and to Nanotechnology (For Mars Landing), and thence the Exoplanet tech is hidden in the Future Tech tree somewhere, which is randomized every game. Not counting prerequisites off-screen, it's a minimum of 25 turns to research to Nanotech alone. So 40 turns at least before we can even launch the Mars Colony. 

We will continue to boost amenities and lay down Research Labs (unlocked in 2 turns) to get those times down. Each one is +8 science, and I have one more campus to build, for another +25 or so with all its buildings, so we can hope to break 400 science soon, which should cut these times by 33%. Building is harder. The Spaceport is 1800 production by default, 20 turns at my best cities. The Satellite is 900, Moon is 1500, Mars is 1800, and Exoplanet is 2100. Your basic science victory is therefore 8100 production - 81 turns from an ideal city of 100ish production (Osgiliath). Clearly we need more support there. Builders can increase these speeds, for example, and we'll relocate trade routes. Finally, Lagrange Lasers cost 600 production and 30 aluminum, and Terrestrial lasers cost 600 and 5 power. Our goal of dropping the time to 10 turns is thus another 2400 production per city doing it (24 total turns from my idealized 100ish production cities). 

So, that's our rough requirements. THe plan to do that as rapidly as possible will evolve over time.

Final fun fact: No one other than me has any strategic resources beyond Niter. No destroyers or battleships or even ironclads ever to fear from any of my enemies! 

[williams482]

Checking in to say I am happily following along.

Ski Resorts are fantastic improvements; a precious yield and placeable in large numbers granted ideal (otherwise useless) terrain. Although they technically compete with National Parks, the placement requirements for both usually allow for pretty dense packing to make use of a larger percentage of available mountains.

Regarding Flood Barriers: you have Valletta, right? Those things are eligible for faith purchase, and that is by far the easiest way to get them up in any eligible city quickly. Especially early on before waters rise too far, they seem just ludicrously cheap with faith relative to the hammers that would otherwise be needed.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Yep, Valetta is the plan. I make only 30 faith/turn atm, due to two captured holy sites in Japan, but holy sites are 'nice to haves' at any city that won't be otherwise occupied with

1)Amenities
2)Science
3)Eurekas (Aerodromes -> Fighters, Stock Markets, etc)

So, it'll be a few turns, but once we get those up and running our faith income should improve. Barriers are 160 faith a pop - the equivalent of 80 production - and we already can afford one every six turns. Can't figure out where the sea level map lens is to determine the neediest cities, but I'll work it out.

[williams482]

Sea Level is shown via icons on the settler lens.