Civ6 PBEM: Sullla of Rome

[Bobchillingworth]

That is a truly astonishing number of units Hong Kong is fielding. I've seen some impressive CS armies before, but that force looks comparable to what an entire AI civilization might deploy. Out of curiosity, how much would it cost to borrow Hong Kong's units?

[fahbs]

What the heck determines if a city state has 2 units or 10?

[kjn]

That's wrong. The crowns should be yellow!

I'm amused that you don't sign peace with teh so you don't run the risk to do a Whosit on Stockholm. Will your continued war against teh mean that you skip conquering Yerevan for now?

Nice update as always!

What the heck determines if a city state has 2 units or 10?

Proctonumerology?

[Athmos]

(...)
Proctonumerology?

Pulling numbers out of... a secret place ?

I might reuse that one

More seriously, I think CS build units the normal way, they have bonus ones at game start as well, then lose, upgrade and merge to corps/army later depending on the game. City states just lose units the normal way to barbarians and war (since they are automatically involved in in their suzerain's wars), but if they're sheltered by their suzerain or terrain, they often end up with a modest carpet of units. They do start with bonus units like major civ AIs (although not as many).

I think they emphasize unit production when they are below certain threshold (I don't know if it's in unit number or combined power or whatever) : they seem to regrow their army relatively quickly after losing it in a war, but I have no concrete proof of that and might totally be imagining things.

[gunnerxtr]

I thought I read somewhere that number of envoys influences a city states strength as well. I could be wrong though.

[Sullla]

Fahbs: that's pretty much the conclusion that I came to yesterday regarding war versus peace with teh. I've already switched over all my cities to development, and so I don't really lose anything by remaining at war. One of the things that the best players here at Realms Beyond are really good at doing is pressing advantages when they have them, and I think that this is a situation where I have a clear military advantage. For example, I can't see someone like mackoti signing peace and giving another player a break for no good reason when he has a clear edge. I'm going to keep pushing back against my peaceful builder instincts in this game and see how it goes. (That means no capturing of Vilnius or Yerevan for right now, but if I'm able to run over some of teh's cities, there's no need to conquer more city states anyway.)

On the city states: I think that the general lurker consensus is correct here. The city states definitely start the game with bonus free units (like the AI civs do on higher difficulties), and I'm pretty sure they build their units naturally after that. They do get additional defensive strength on the city center tile depending on how many envoys have been invested. I don't know if more envoys affects anything else about their development. Yerevan, which has 1 envoy invested in it all game, has definitely been slower to develop than the city states in the center of the map, although that might be due to the weaker terrain as much as anything else. One thing I can agree on: Hong Kong is fielding a genuinely scary amount of units up there in the northwest. It's a good thing no one else has contact with them - and I'm certainly not signing Open Borders to allow that to take place.

Here's Turn 94:



Since it was under formal siege, Stockholm did not heal between turns. I fired on it with my crossbow as highlighted here, then prepared to send in the legion southwest of the city center. Because the combat mouseover showed that I would definitely capture the city, I paused to let the legion standing southeast of the city pillage the cattle tile for 50 gold. Very nice to pick up, and easily fixed by one of the legions with their builder charges in a turn or two. I also could have pillaged the farm on the tile west of Stockholm, but that legion had a promotion pending and I figured I didn't need to heal that badly. With that out of the way, I attacked and the city state was finally mine:



Stockholm proved to be a very rich prize indeed. A full six population points survived capture, and since this was a city state, there was no need to worry about that obnoxious occupation penalty. Stockholm will be immediately useful to my civ. The terrain itself will make for a very powerful city: a pair of 3 food / 1 gold / 2 beaker fish tiles next to the Galapagos Islands natural wonder, a cattle resource, and four grassland hill tiles out in the second ring, two of them forested and unchopped. Even better, the city came with two districts intact: the Campus district and a Harbor district! I didn't even see the Harbor district, which is located northeast of the city center. It was mostly hidden up there, heh. That means an additional trade route for my empire (now 5 in total) once I can finish building all the traders. With further cultural expansion onto the hill tiles and some worker labor to chop/mine the tiles, this will be another very strong city indeed.



Capturing the city state also opened up this trade route from the capital: 2 food, 2 production, and 3 gold via passing through trading posts along the way. That's one powerful trade route! We tend to overlook the Roman ability that adds a road and a free trading post in new cities, but here's one place where having them in place immediately (instead of after a trade route completes) makes a major difference. With this trade route and the water mill completing next turn, the capital will grow very fast indeed, potentially faster than I can improve tiles to keep up with it. I can live with that being a problem, heh, especially since I'll be able to run specialists in my districts once I get some buildings done. I'm going to construct the Industrial district next, then a market and armory in some combination. (Building an armory is the boost for Gunpowder tech, which I'm now speeding towards at a very fast pace.)

I also finished the Recorded History civic this turn, which I was largely researching to avoid wasting culture on Medieval Faires while waiting for more traders to complete. That did unlock a civics swap though, and I exchanged Professional Army for Caravansaries:



I did that after upgrading the archer in the north to a crossbow, of course. Caravansaries will be a major help right away with my 3 trade routes, and I'm almost done the fourth trade route. I'll have to get another trader out ASAP as well. Then there's Merchant Republic government upcoming on the horizon for 2 additional trade routes, and I should be able to secure the first Great Merchant for an eighth trade route in another dozen or so turns. (Yuris is currently winning that race, but it's close enough that I can faith-purchase the Great Merchant out from his grip.) For that matter, I'm likely going to want to return to Professional Army soon enough for more archer to crossbow upgrades, since the units are so darned useful to have. Furthermore, I also want to hop into Serfdom briefly when these builders I have queued up are about to finish.

Long story short: I need more policy slots. Merchant Republic will be a godsend when it arrives.



Here's my front with teh at the moment. Interestingly, there's a spearman mixed in with those archers and chariots, perhaps because teh has seen my horseman running around in this area. I would dearly love to introduce that unit to my legion if it moves any closer. Anyway, teh is camping out units one tile away from coming into Aquileia's firing range. Since his defenses are concentrated south of Frankfurt, he could be vulnerable to an attack from the north, which is where my army is hanging out. I probably need about 2 turns to heal up my forces, and then I'll see about moving out across the northern plains to pressure teh from that side. If I'm doing the math correctly, my promoted crossbows really should be able to one-shot his archers with the Great General bonus; it should be 50 ranged strength against 15 melee strength, and via the damage formula [Random(24-36 hp)* e^(Strength difference * 0.04)], that works out to 97-145 damage per attack. With promoted legions in front, promoted crossbows in back, and the Great General boosting everything, I think there's an excellent chance to make progress here... especially if teh's army is dug in defending an attack from a totally different direction entirely. In his defense, he's increased his power rating from the low 100s to just over 200 in the last five turns, which means that he's loading up for combat. All the more reason to attack now though, because he can start to close the gap in power.



Finally, here's the real kicker for this turn: the effect of taking Stockholm on science rate. Last turn, I was making 36 beakers/turn and teh was making 28 beakers/turn. That's a nice lead but it's not exactly dominant. Teh was getting +2 beakers for the initial envoy in the city state, and then another +2 beakers at his one Campus district. Stockholm was also doubling his Great Person points each turn via the suzerain bonus, speeding him along quickly to the first Great Engineer and the second Great Scientist. With my capture of the city state, however, that math has shifted significantly. Teh lose those 4 beakers/turn and dropped down to 24 beakers of science output. That has to sting, and losing the suzerain bonus is even worse. Instead of his Great Engineer being about 8 turns away, now it's more like 16 turns away. The second Great Scientist costs 240 GPP, and with teh's Great Scientist points per turn falling in half, it's now about a million years away.

The inverse is true for me. The six population points from Stockholm are worth 6 * 0.7 = 4.2 beakers alone before considering anything else. The Campus district adds another beaker, and then the two fish tiles pile on 4 more beakers. Hopefully the city's borders will soon grab that 1 food / 1 gold / 4 beaker tile in between them for even more insanity. All told, I'm up 10 beakers/turn over Turn 93, and now I'm essentially doubling the rest of the field in science. It's even worse in culture, where both teh and Yuris are right around 19 culture/turn... and I'm sitting at 42 points per turn.

Then there's the issue of gold/turn income, which as we've seen can be a huge factor in civilization power as well. Last turn I was making 24 gold/turn, and I was quite happy with that number. With the capture of Stockholm, the addition of that very nice trade route from the capital, and the Caravansaries policy, my income has skyrocketed to 38 gold/turn. That's enough for an archer to crossbow upgrade just shy of every 2.5 turns (with Professional Army discount of course). The other players aren't even close in gold output, with teh making about 12/turn and Yuris about 8/turn. (Yuris' decision to sell me two resources for 10 gold/turn total was truly silly, taking away money from his pocket and putting it into mine. Don't do this, folks.) My economy is sailing along at gangbusters pace now, and I should be able to keep upgrading my military to stronger and stronger units as more tech unlocks. I already have crossbows so I'll do those upgrades first, but muskets aren't that far away either now. I only need four more techs, all of which are already boosted or easily boostable, and as you can see with Stirrups tech there, they aren't too expensive to research.

I think the capture of Stockholm may be another turning point in this game. It's made my civ significantly stronger in just one turn. Now I need to do a little healing, and then we'll see if we can pay teh a visit with these units.

[kjn]

Are your research power currently so strong that many of the boosters are contraproductive to get? (Ie it's faster and less effort to just research the tech.)

[fahbs]

Now aren't you starting to feel guilty about picking Rome?

[Sullla]

Kjn, I'm running into the unboostable situation more so with civics right now than with techs. All of the techs on my immediate radar right now have been relatively simple to land the boost:

Construction: Build a water mill
Stirrups: Have Feudalism civic
Military Engineering: Build an aqueduct (Bath) district
Gunpowder: Build an armory (not done yet but will be able to manage at capital)

Then I'll probably head straight for Industrialization after that, although the "build three workshops" boost might be tricky. I should be able to land all of the boosts for the military-unit related techs at the bottom of the tree; even the one for Ballistics (build two forts) is easy to do with Roman legions. On the civics side, I definitely will not get the "build two caravels" boost for Exploration, or the "recruit a Great Artist" boost for Humanism. The "grow a city to size 10" also looks a bit dubious for Civil Service right now. Most of the others I should be able to get though, such as building two markets (Guilds), earning a Great Merchant (Mercantilism), and recruiting three Great People (the Enlightenment). I have enjoyed planning for the boosts and working around them in this game.

Fahbs: I don't feel guilty at all! This is not a variant setup here; I wanted to pick what I thought wast the strongest non-rush civ and see if my theorycrafting was correct. Having a successful game so far is reassuring, not guilt-inducing. And besides, the one other player that I managed to defeat was playing the exact same civ as me, so it's not like I had an unfair advantage there. The players signing up in the Civ6 PBEM2 thread don't seem to think Rome is too strong either, for what that's worth. I suspect that the proper ranking of the Civ6 civs will require more games to evaluate properly.

We only had one turn yesterday, as teh held the save for most of the day. This morning I was able to play Turn 95:



Teh moved an archer onto the forested hill tile next to my builder. At first I was going to take a defensive position here and make sure none of my units were within 2 tiles of that archer. Then I stopped myself and said, wait - why am I playing so defensively here? That archer had just moved itself into easy range of my crossbow, and this was a perfect time to take a potshot and test my theory that crossbows could one-shot teh's archers with the Great General bonus. This archer was slightly damaged but had the +6 defensive bonus for being on the forested hill tile, so if anything this would be a more difficult shot than normal. My crossbow lined up the shot and the bolt flew home true: scratch one dead German archer. That was a promoted archer too, even better. I've now killed three German archers (and the Vilnius city state may have wiped out a fourth) while teh hasn't managed to kill any of my units.



I thought I'd show the list of melee promotions here as I selected another one with a legion unit. The melee promotions are interesting in the sense that Battlecry is usually the best option for a first promotion, but the left hand side of the promotion tree kind of stinks after that. Commando rarely comes into play, and Zweihander is bad because no one builds the spear/pike units and melee units already slaughter them anyway without needing that promotion. On the right hand side, Tortoise is also pretty good, although since it's defensive in nature it's harder to use properly. The Amphibious promotion behind it is a solid choice, and then the poorly-described Urban Warfare is really nice. That provides a bonus when attacking cities themselves, although you wouldn't know it from that horrible descriptive text. (If you go back and look at my mouseover combat odds when fighting cities, they always say "damaged district" as the city takes injured. The city is considered a district for purposes of combat.)

In this game, I've been taking Battlecry first on my legions, followed by Tortoise. That latter promotion will be really nice if assaulting teh, since his military is so archer-heavy. His archers will be 25 strength or 30 strength with the initial ranged promotion; with Great General + Oligarchy + Tortoise, my legions go up to 59 strength, enough to shrug off those shots without blinking. I promoted two legions this turn with the Battlecry/Tortoise pairing, and they'll be in the front lines as I move up against Frankfurt.



This was the status overview after moving everything this turn. I have three legions in the green that will all be full-health or very close to it next turn, and combined with the healthy legion next to the oasis, that will give me a front line wall of 4 units to advance behind. The redlined legion and horseman back by Stockholm will need a while longer to rest up, and won't be involved in any further immediate actions.

Now there is that chariot to consider on the horse pasture. It will have 3 movement points next turn, and can potentially attack the crossbow, although it can't actually see the crossbow at present. (I'm assuming that chariots can ignore zone of control rules like horseman units can, although I don't know that for sure. If chariots can't move through zone of controls, then it can't attack the crossbow at all, only the legion.) So I put my crossbow unit at risk here, right? Well, not as much as you might think. The chariot has 28 strength, while the crossbow has 35 strength with the Great General bonus. Go ahead teh, be my guest. Make that attack to do ~20 damage to my crossbow, followed by getting killed immediately by the other crossbow next to it. I'm fine with that trade of units.

Long story short, I need another turn to move up my units for positioning purposes, and then on Turn 96 we can likely start pushing against Frankfurt in earnest. Seeing as how we just captured a city with 47 defensive strength, the 18 strength on Frankfurt isn't exactly scary.



Still hanging out defensively here in the south by Aquileia. The horseman is currently starting each turn on the desert tile southeast of the oasis, moving to this tile, and then moving back again. I'm sure that there are more archers just out of view in the Frankfurt area. If teh tries to move forward against Aquileia he's going to get nailed with all kinds of archer fire, and I suspect he knows that. Thus the standoff right now. It's not going to last much longer though; with my current income level, I'll reach 200 gold in 3 more turns (possibly with some micromanagement to get over the exact total needed) and can swap back into Professional Army for another pair of archer to crossbow upgrades. Then I will push from both sides and crush Frankfurt like the hinges of a trap swinging shut. I've reached a level of military tech above what teh can currently field, and that means he's in some very deep trouble. Like Civ4, this game is punishing for those who can't remain current in tech.



I also wanted to highlight my capital, which completed a water mill this turn (and thus landed the boost for Construction tech). With the water mill and the 2 food trade route that runs to Stockholm, Roma is now up to +10 food/turn, although for some reason this city wasn't allocated an amenity for the +10% growth bonus. I think my builder will go use its last charge to hook up the furs in northern Rome to fix that. Anyway, with the Bath in place and the food situation sorted out, this city will now be able to grow at a healthy pace upwards. The Industrial district will only take 7 turns to complete, and then I can run +1 food / +4 production trade routes from every other city back to Roma. Growth next turn to size 8; when the Industrial district finishes, the adjacency bonus and city state bonus should get this city close to 40 production/turn. I'll also need an armory (to boost Gunpowder tech) and a market (for Guilds civic), which means that this city's going to be busy for quite some time to come. Perhaps I'll eventually build a military unit or two to go conquer Yerevan; I will have a barracks and armory here for the XP bonus on new units, after all.



Finally, here's a fresh picture of the Great Person screen with everyone's current Great Person points/turn added in. I'm probably about 20 turns away from the next Great General, since an armory will lower the time slightly. Teh is going to land the first Great Engineer thanks to his Hansas; he's so far ahead of Yuris because he was getting 6 points/turn via suzerainship of Stockholm for a while. I should be able to get the first Great Merchant via faith purchase, and it's worth my time to do so since it will boost Mercantilism civic. Yuris has the edge there but not enough to stop me from sniping it with this otherwise useless faith I've been accumulating all game. (I would have won this Great Merchant easily without TheArchduke pillaging my first Commercial district, argh.) The next Great Scientist is a very powerful one for a long-running game, but none of us are remotely close to landing it, and I suspect this PBEM game will be over before anyone can get there.

Total district count:
Aztecs: 7
Rome: 6
Germany: 5 (teh's second Great Scientist point comes from a library, not two Campus districts)

[Sullla]

We cycled through another turn this afternoon, Turn 96:



Teh did not move any of his units forward, and as a result I shuffled my units around and set up in preparation to start advancing on Frankfurt. This was the basic tactical formation that I came up with: three legions in the front line, two crossbows behind them. There's another legion in the back bringing up the rear, although that's not due to any tactical concerns, just as far as that unit could reach with its movement points. Moving up revealed that Yuris has blocked the pair of one-tile desert hill tiles leading into his peninsula, with an Eagle Warrior on each. While I could break through that defense extremely easily, my conflict is with teh right now, not Yuris. There will be plenty of time to deal with Yuris later if necessary.

My forward legion can be hit by archer fire this turn, both from the visible archer on the banana tile and by another archer if it moves up to the horses tile. I am very willing to accept that exchange, however, as my easternmost legion has the Tortoise promotion and an effective 59 strength against ranged attacks. That unit can take a hit or two and be OK. Meanwhile, any units stationed north of Frankfurt are going to be hit by crossbow fire next turn, and any archers that teh moves up there should be one-shot kills. I should be able to start rolling forward one row of tiles at a time, taking fire but dishing out much more in return. The general plan is to suck teh's defenses in this direction and then sweep in with a flanking attack from the south in a few turns after I upgrade some of the archers there to crossbows. The specifics will depend on what he does, but that's the general plan.

Also note that my 2 promotion legions can be renamed if desired. Kind of a neat feature, although I liked how Civ4 let you rename any unit, not just the highly promoted ones.



No change down here in the south as yet. I think I have a pretty good read on teh's military via power tracking: he should have about 5 archers along with the spearman and those 2 chariots. In other words, what I can see here should be more or less his whole force. Still holding here for now for a couple more turns waiting on gold for upgrades and the northern attack force to keep drawing attention up there.



Even though I showed it last turn, I had to display a picture of my capital again. 32 production turn now, and 5 turns left to build the Industrial district. I love this city.

I know that a lot of people don't like the way that the district costs scale up in Civ6, and I totally agree that making them more expensive based on techs/civics researched is a dumb mechanic. I would rather they made them more expensive based on the number of districts built (like settlers/builders), or more expensive based on the number of districts of THAT TYPE already constructed, or whatever. There's a better way to do this system than what we have now. However, it's also clear to me that the districts do need to scale up in cost in some fashion to keep them from being trivially easy to build. I've never had too much trouble building districts in Civ6, even in new cities in the lategame. Yes, the districts are much more expensive, but everything else scales up too. The tile yields are better, cities grow faster (with much better farms), trade routes are much more powerful, the benefits from policies are larger, there are factory/power plant regional production bonuses, forest chops are MUCH better, and there's enormously more gold available for cash-rushing stuff. In other words, everything scales along with the district costs. If you're consistently getting stuck with 50 turn district times, then you're doing something wrong. I don't seem to have this problem in my games, and this screenshot here is a good example of why.



Here's a score overview just as an FYI. The turn tracker says that we just cycled over to another new turn, so I'm going to go play that rather than continue posting here.