[Spoilers] Whosit & Pindicator Team Thread

[pindicator]

By the way, any Civ 6 mechanics questions before the game commences?

Probably hundreds, but we'll find out as I get there.


I'm doing some more test games, although until we get the real map we won't know what we're working with. Here's the general opening moves I've been considering.

Builds: I prefer to start with a Scout. Covering more grounds means finding City States and Natural Wonders faster (and getting the free envoy and era score, respectively), finding our rivals, and tribal villages if they were left on. If you feel confident in your ability to manage/dodge Barbs, I'd go for a 2nd Scout, otherwise a Slinger. I prefer to start the first Settler as soon as possible after the capital hits size 2.

Generally agree here. I think I'll go double scout, because the slower pace of playing 1 turn at a time generally means we can see barbs sooner and plan this stuff out more in advance. I think I keep the starting warrior near the capital to scout in a circle and send the scouts out to hunt for city states, hunts, and wonders.

We'll want to kill at least 3 barbarians for the Eureka for Bronze Working. I think we'll want to prioritize early districts as: Commercial/Harbor, Encampment, Campus.

Agree, except I think the Encampment priority will depend on neighbors.

For civics, I usually prefer to go Foreign Trade > Early Empire as an opener. If we get to EE quickly, we can build Settlers 2 and 3 with a production bonus. I think I favor trying for a Farmer's Gambit until we have a total of 4 cities. That's the point where the cost of Settlers grows enough that it's better to start investing in Builders and infrastructure imo.

Been watching some Herson videos and this seems to be his favored opening as well.

Another little micro detail I've been mulling over. Unless our start dictates otherwise, we'll want to open with Pingala. However, whether Pingala goes in our Capital or 2nd city depends on where we want to build the Government Plaza. My thought on this is because Pingala can get that promotion that doubles the great people points in his city. Therefore, we want to avoid putting him in a city that is filling up specialty district slots with districts that do not provide great people points.

We'll be relying on Monuments and Pingala for early culture. Political Philosophy is the first major target, then Feudalism (grants Serfdom and Feudal Contract, both key for our play).

Techwise, we'll want to prioritize the bottom/middle of the tree. We want Military Engineering as early as is feasible in order to reveal and accumulate Niter. (We don't need Gunpowder until we're ready to upgrade units to Janissaries.) We'll want to build a Quarry, Walls, Mine a resource, build a Watermill, an Aqueduct, and an Armory to hit key boosts for those techs.

I also expect we will have a lot of competing priorities early. We want to grab land and improve our tiles, but we also want to find a City State we can conquer early to make into a military hub. If we attack early enough, we can fight with Warriors and Archers, but that also means early investment in military units.

Here I think I differ. Though a lot of this is going to depend on the map. But in general I think gunning for Feudalism & Industrial Zones then aiming for our UU push is a better strategy. But I'm going to play a test game or two myself and see how things shake out.

[Whosit]

My reasoning for prioritizing an encampment is to generate Great General points early, and to make sure we will have an encampment and (likely) a barracks so we won't have to rush to construct all that to get the Armory to boost Gunpowder. But I'll agree, if we don't have hostile neighbors, Encampment could fall to last priority. We just want to make sure we can get a Medieval Great General (since they also benefit Ren era units).

CMF confirmed map is set to World Age: New, and all other settings are default. Maybe that means we get goody huts? He did not reveal if it will be Pangaea or Seven Seas.

(TBH, I've become mixed on playing on New vs Standard world age. Farms aren't great, but sometimes you want a Feudal Farm Triangle for food poor cities, and it can be hard to get those on really hilly maps.)

You're right that we don't want to delay Industrial Zones too long. And Apprenticeship adds +1 prod to all mines. We are just in a unique position where we want to avoid training Man-at-Arms if at all possible. Though I suppose with enough planning, we could build a big round of Warriors/Swordsmen before completing Apprenticeship and just wait to upgrade them until we have Gunpowder. I'll do another test game this weekend and see how that looks.

Oh, one other thing I forgot to list out, lol. This one highly depends on map, but our first tech(s) should prioritize being able to hook up a luxury so our 2nd city won't be unhappy for too long.

[pindicator]

Not sure when we're starting, but I may ask you to play some of the early turns. Going on a weekend trip next weekend (Nov 7 - 11). Will bring my laptop but I don't know when I'll have time to get turns in.

[Whosit]

As long as we can set it up that I can also get the saves from PYDT. I'm also out of town Nov 11-13 as it so happens.

[Whosit]

Dunno if we'll have any lurkers for this game, but before picks come in I want to make guesses as to what picks the other players will make.

Yuris: I think all these leaders are viable. I actually like Theodora quite a bit, but I'm not sure if I'd pick her with Work Ethic banned (holy sites that produce faith, culture, AND production? Come on). Victoria/England is a pretty strong pick, too. Not sure which version of Victoria I'd go with, though. Lautaro is combat focused and I'm not sure if Yuris would pick that. Honestly.... I could see a Theodora pick because there aren't really any viable Faith picks for the rest of the players, so if Yuris picks Theodora they could guarantee they get a religion and could benefit a ton from Monumentality in Golden Ages.

Greenline: Honestly, I think greenline throws these back for a reroll. Of the selection... Lincoln. I don't think greenline wants a warmonger in the form of Genghis Khan, and Egypt is kind of a weak civ in MP.

Woden: All strong choices. My gut says Woden will take Nader Shah. Persia is a strong civ, and with Nader Shah, a conquered city's domestic trade routes get +2 Faith, +5 gold, and +1 culture. I'd fear a Woden of Persia as our neighbor. Pericles could also be a powerful choice. A Hoplite rush is incredibly dangerous, Greece can dominate city states, and Pericles is always good for a Culture victory. I'm not personally a fan of Seondeok because I think the early investment in Science is a trap, but....

Anyway, I think Woden picks Nader Shah, but wouldn't be surprised to see Pericles either.

Archduke: I could see him picking Eleanor (of France or England, though?). I think Eleanor vibes a little more with France for a culture victory. Mvemba a Nzinga, like Gandhi, seems like it would be hard to make work in MP. Gilgamesh could be a strong pick, but if TAD wants to play a builder game, maybe not the best pick. I'd place my bet on Eleanor of France.

I wonder if selections will be announced or if we have to wait for the game to start to find out.

[pindicator]

Thanks for providing the content Whosit.  I'm eager to see this game started.  Looks like I'll only be out the 8th through the 10th and back the evening of the 10th.

But more seriously, I will be visiting my brother in SE Asia in January, from the 5th to the 28th, and I will not be bringing a laptop for that.  Are you okay play for those 3+ weeks?

[Whosit]

Yeah, I'm sure I can do that.

[pindicator]

Ok, I have a mechanics question. If you settle on a luxury do you get that amenity even if you don't have the technology researched yet? Because I think I did that in a test game and had the luxury - I'll probably try again in another game to make sure

Also, given the state of my other game I'm eager to see this get started

[Whosit]

Yes! If you settle on a luxury you immediately get access to it, even without the tech. If the map layout allows, we'd want to settle either our capital or second city on a luxury So there's no unhappiness in city 2 and no need to spend that builder charge.

C6PBEM23 Spoilers:

Sometimes the quality of the tile comes into question. In my game, I settled a city ON desert silver because I still get the +2 gold on the city tile, because mined desert silver is a sucky tile to actually work. Still get some bonus gold this way.

[pindicator]

How much of a farmer's gambit do you think we will be able to get away with? I've been able to consistently jump out to 5 cities by turn 60 in my SP test games, but I am very light on military for this time. (Of course, the games where barb camps are right on top of me are a little slower.) But from there it feels like a good baseline to jump to whichever strategy I want to pursue.