Chevalier Absolutely Knows What He's Doing as Best Korea

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 81 and Pre-Trip Overview

Okay, so a lot to go over here. I didn't do all that much, but I'm thinking about the next 10 turns at least, and about hte international situation.

Bad news first:




The first Sumerian city has fallen. Rowain's mil score hovers between 1/3 and 1/2 of Mongolia's, and Archduke is near to the second GG. Rowain miiiight survive as a rump state if Alhambram can manage to intervene or he has a miracle defense or something, but I can't have nice things so we all know that's not going to happen. 

Good news second:




Good for an instant +8 science, with +11 more to come in 8 turns when I can finish the seowon at In One Ear...(although I need to convert the dang city first to buy a library there, so add a few turns to that). Anyway, we'll be at 49 science soon, well ahead of Alhambram's 36 and the Archduke's 24. It means giving up a policy slot, but every seowon from here on out is a whopping +8 science (ie, 1/3 of Mongolia's total science output). With enough faith and spreading The Culture around, it's an additional +3 per seowon. We're starting to accelerate into our science explosion phase. 

New gubmint:




Self-explanatory. Doubled seowons is a no-brainer, and the diplomatic policy slot is a waste. Urban production is my best economic policy with 7 sprawling cities all building different things - the +7 cogs beats the 30% builders pretty handily. Agoge is necessary for Coliseum chopping, then we'll want to drop it in favor of Conscription, Maneuver, or Maritime Industries.

One thing I regret is the lack of gold boosting policies, but I have no real options for that now. Conscription gets me +5 gpt from my archers, but that means dropping urban production's +7 cogs, and that doesn't seem like a good trade at all. Trade routes are thin on the ground, so Caravanserais is out as well. My best bet is to get some Commercial Hubs down, and I've  got a good dot map for that going, I think. More on that in a minute. 




After some thought, I decide to pass around Japper's city to the north - I don't want to get stuck on the coast and have to trudge back around. I see the city center, but no new tiles yet. The city is working on walls, as is Japper's expansion towards me, but no monument or granary or districts yet. He may have swapped off now that he's at peace with the Archduke. No trade routes have left it - we'd see roads, plus the Cree's ability would grant Japper free tiles (of useless desert, but hey, I'M not the one who planted a city in the middle of the fucking desert! Las Vegas is a 20th century city, my dude!). There's also no stone or wood to chop into Petra, notably, if that was his plan. AND it looks like there's coast on the far side. Just what IS this city?

Civics tree overview:




Recorded History nets us Pingala, who I stuff into I Blame the Parents until Magnus leaves Just Read the Instructions. It has the highest net science and culture after OCISLY and JRTI. We're working on Defensive Tactics for Limes and another title, but you can swap around as needed for policy swaps - once we get holy sites up and running (finally) we'll want to grab Theology for some apostles, Civil Service and Feudalism are also both important to grab if we want to get knights and an alliance with the Dutch rolling. 

Next governor is whoever you want (except Moksha, fuck Moksha). Victor is probably not needed yet, Reyna's gold will be nice to get upgrades rolling, and Amani lets us grab a free city-state suzerainty if we want. Whoever you grab will also boost science and  culture by 10% wherever you stick 'em, so keep that in mind as well. 

Tech tree:




Iron Working will be ready to be eureka'd next turn. I would say Machinery is a good economic/military double tech to push for - we have 4 good lumbermill spots, although I've reluctantly marked 2 for chopping into Commercial Hubs. Apprenticeship is nice to have, but can wait until we have more mines up and running - note that it's not even inspired yet. So, probably Machinery -> Apprenticeship for the tech path, but use your own judgment as you see fit. 

Allll righty-then, city dive time. 

Just Read the Instructions:




The best-developed city in the empire, even though OCISLY is larger thanks to the jungle chops. It's got farms, 2 districts, and all the city-center buildings up. I have 3 forests marked for chopping: 2 to go simultaneously into the Coliseum to make that a 1-turn build (chop an archer and a warrior, all the overflow goes into the wonder, yes, I've tested this). Note that you need to swap the eastern forest back to JRTI, it's presently being worked by OCISLY for a little extra production. 

The last forest si the riverside one I wanted to make al umber mill, but I'm going to forgo that for an awesome Commercial Hub: Boosted by the city-center, the plaza, AND the river! Too bad you can't hcop it before Magnus leaves the city - JRTI needs to be size 10 to place the hub, and that's a long way off without harvesting the rice (maybe worth it, though - up to you if the math checks out!). The last riverside forest gets a lumber mill for a great production tile. 

Of Course I Still Love You:




This city is huge but undeveloped. It can still use a granary, two plantations for housing and gold, a mine, some farms for housing and growth, and nearly 3 more districts. Right now, I have a commercial hub at the bend o f the river and a holy site at the double mountains, with a distant seowon to avoid the commercial hub. If you don't want to buy the seowon tile (it IS right next to Tsingyberg), you can instead place the CH at the Holy Site spot and move the Holy Site one spot further down the river (or vice-versa), which also requires tile buying, but it brings the seowon a bit closer and can boost some more farms that way. I've marked all the sites. I'd also want a faith-purchased granary here when it's convenient, to alleviate the housing concerns. Amenities will be fixed by finishing the arena, plantationing the coffee, and a trade for Rowain's wines that I set up. 

I Blame the Parents:




Considering that this was an emergency plant, this city is working out really well. 3 forested hills provide monster early production. It has a seowon, and shortly two mines available, and a pasture. There's a 3-charge builder active and ready to make those improvements. 

At size 4, I want to plant the encampment where I've marked, where it commands the approaches to the river while being defensively placed itself. That can then be chopped out with heavy chariots, or however you think best. Right now I'm going ahead and working on a battering ram - I need it, it can't be boosted, and the city has nothing more urgent to work on at the moment since it has a monument already in place and room to grow before the granary is needed. 

I had intended to sue the 3 forests to chop out 2 more settlers: One for a nearby spot in the river bend and one for Me, I'm Counting, but the encampment is more important. 

Another Fine Product From the Nonsense Factory:




This city needs Magnus so, so much. I almost want to send him here next - every first-ring tile can be chopped, and most second rings! 

Top priority here is the Commercial Hub. If you stop the galley at 1 turn from completion, you can get a Magnus chop without Magnus. If you wait for Magnus, you get a huge 400% chop - up to you. Chop out the commercial hub and market, use the overflow on a trader or seowon. The seowon I think should NOT go on the spot I have marked - the new river city can take that spot (it's the only seowon spot for that city, in fact). So instead, I think I might plant it over on the peninsula, a secondary spot. That won't be for a little bit - need to grow or buy the tile. 

The non-chopped riverside forest gets a lumber mill for more production. This city needs a builder, though, and there's none in queue I think.

In One Ear...




Coming along well. It has a monument and is working on a seowon. An iron mine next turn will speed things up. It has 2 forests for chopping, so I think I will use this site to chop out the two settlers I want - whenever Magnus is free, there's a lot of demand for him around the empire. I Blame the Parents and Another Fine Product could both use his attentions. This is probably 2nd in priority after I Blame the Parents. 

After the seowon finishes, not sure what to build here. Maybe even time to start pre-building a settler, without colonization? I dunno. Whatever you think best meets our strategic goals. It has a 4-charge builder for mines, plantations, and potential farms or chopping. 

I Saw It First:




This infant city has a monument and nothing else. It needs a builder to mine and pasture the resources nearby. It also has a good seowon spot shared with OCISLY - that will want to be placed down as soon as the tile is available. The builder will take a while, though, so it should be plenty occupied. It ALSO has an excellent CH adjacency next to the Plaza in JRTI - third ring, though. Those are the first two district targets, then we can think about a Holy Site here. 

If Me, I'm Counting ever gets founded, it can also place a Commercial Hub adjacent to ISIF's. That will give me 5 excellent commercial hubs around the core, probably sufficient.

But Who's Counting:




Faith is very much in demand, so it's slow-building the monument. Builder is a low priority here, not too many urgent improvements to be made. 

Seowon here I have pinned next to ANtioch's mines, in the eventual hopes of adding them to the empire. : Some mines, jungle chops, and farms probably wouldn't go amiss, so perhaps a builder after the monument, unless you see something better. Building the seowon as soon as the tile opens up is +8 science, of course. 

Okay, so that's the empire. Right now, we've got a number of focuses coming up:

1)Chopping out the Colosseum on turn 85 when the Arena finishes, finsihing on turn 86 with any luck. 
2)Chopping encampments starting turn 90? Or slow-building if necessary.
3)Chopping Commercial Hubs around the empire.
4)Getting the new cities fully developed.
5)Getting settlers out to settle my last two spots. 

Overall, there's way too much chopping needed for Magnus to handle. I'd say use your policies as much as possible and chop without Magnus at places like Another Fine Product and Just Read the Instructions. We can't bring him in for a single chop - it's gotta be multiple chops for big priority projects like wonders, settlers, or crucial districts. In all other cases, we chop like a normal game. 

That means that builders will be very much in demand, so Liang needs to live at a city that can just pump builders for a while. Right now she's at OCISLY, but it has a lot of districts to get built. Another Fine Product can have high production and no urgent builds other than the chopped Commercial Hub, so it might be a good candidate for her. Even But Who's Counting could also work - the first builder will get it a LOT of production and it's a little more central than AFPftNF. 

Anyway, that's about all I have! I'll try to respond before leaving tomorrow if you have any questions. 

And aetryn, skanar, hey - thanks for this. Don't worry about screwing things up. You know our intentions, you know our basic strategic goal at the moment, and you know a lot of the rough micro I have in mind. Feel free to improvise on things to improve as you see fit. Good luck, and thanks again, both of you! See everyone in a week!

EDIT ONE: As I think about it, I'm not certain about chopping priorities.

1)Colosseum. Duh.
2)Encampment? or
2)Settlers?

2a)If settlers, where from?
a)AFP
b)IOE...

Dunno! I'll think about it.

EDIT TWO: Stop snickering, suboptimal, this is an unusual case. u_u

[aetryn]

Thanks for the long, detailed plans. That will help a lot! I just checked and my PYDT client is ready to go. The turn pace has been slow for this game so I'm not expecting to have to make a ton of decisions, but I suppose we'll see.

I will also try to use my time with the save to see if I can set up any discounted districts - we should be about coming up on the ability to do them. If I have to non-Magnus chop a CH, I'd like it to be a discounted CH so we can at least have a bit of overflow.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Forgot these earlier. Score and overview shots:




Archduke surges past us with the capture of city #10 (Christ). Rowain falls. It's really starting to look like a two-horse race - but when you compare our situation to rho and Japper's after the fall of RFS in PBEM10, we're actually kind of respectable. 




Bottom half, Japper looks tasty. We have a 30 turn time limit to conquer him before the Archduke comes for him. I think we want to prioritize civil service to get the alliance with Alhambram up to help the Dutch defend. That means housing in OCISLY or JRTI (to hit size 10 and get the inspiration). Maybe even more than feudalism - > Stirrups? Is the alliance higher priority than knights? I think so. 

Finally, here's the save if you want to poke around some before the save rolls back to you.

[aetryn]

Forgot these earlier. Score and overview shots:




Archduke surges past us with the capture of city #10 (Christ). Rowain falls. It's really starting to look like a two-horse race - but when you compare our situation to rho and Japper's after the fall of RFS in PBEM10, we're actually kind of respectable. 




Bottom half, Japper looks tasty. We have a 30 turn time limit to conquer him before the Archduke comes for him. I think we want to prioritize civil service to get the alliance with Alhambram up to help the Dutch defend. That means housing in OCISLY or JRTI (to hit size 10 and get the inspiration). Maybe even more than feudalism - > Stirrups? Is the alliance higher priority than knights? I think so. 

Finally, here's the save if you want to poke around some before the save rolls back to you.

Don't we have to wait for him to get it too? Or has that changed in R&F?

I'm also still nervous whether Alhambram will want to ally with us. Maybe he allies/DoFs Mongolia and eats the other half of Rowain? Then the shoe's on the other foot - Alhambram and Archduke would have a free hand to attack us on 2 frontiers (assuming Japper is eaten by either us or Mongolia) and that would be a difficult task to manage. I mean, conventional wisdom says 2 & 3 should ally against 1, but he may or may not perceive us as #2, and even if he does, look at how many PBEM/PB games the predicted pairing never comes up? I kind of feel like Alhambram is a bit in the kingmaker spot at the moment, unless Rowain can manage to scrape together more of a defense than he's currently managing.

Save looks good. I agree with heading for Machinery. I also want to start building some Heavy Chariots so we're ready to grab Stirrups when we're finishing it. For unit production in particular, it does no good to overresearch unless your production is massively better than your gold income. I'll have to look at Civics when we finish Defensive Tactics and see whether it makes sense to delay going for Knights anyway. Boosting a city to 10 looks tricky - I'll see if I can't get the Audience Chamber finished and what the growth time is when the housing problem is gone.

[aetryn]

Turn 82




We start off with the completion of Engineering, which lets us build Aquaducts and actually settle that dry area to the west/northwest, which has plenty of mountains about for some okayish cities. It won't happen anytime soon, but once we have some free production we should think about setting up shop out there - there are actually some resources out there. I select Machinery as our next tech as discussed Iron Working as we can finish it in one turn and it's on the path to Machinery, though it may be best to take Machinery to 1 turn and then work on something else, probably Apprenticeship. We only have 5 archers and I'd like to build another 2-3 before obsoleting them, unless it's necessary for the war timetable. Having it ready to go in 1 turn means we only need 2 turns to get the archers converted to crossbows, which simplifies planning.




Speaking of the Western Wilds, where did that barbarian camp go? It looks like Nan Madol must have cleared it - or maybe another player's unit, since we would have seen Valetta's units. Anyway, one less thing for us to worry about. We had a bunch of units enroute to the barbarian camp to clear it, so I turn these around and head back to the Korean core. These units will probably head up toward I Blame the Parents to stage for a possible attack on Japper.




The scout continues northeast and reveals that CMF was certainly right not to try to orbit the city to the south. Could that bay potentially be a useful barrier against a Mongolian incursion? Who knows if anyone plans to get a serious navy going in this map, though I suspect as the empires get bigger and more stretched around the sea, movement of units through the center will become incredibly useful.



We get a double inspiration from mining this iron - both Iron Working and Apprenticeship are now boosted, adding 2 to our Era score as well!

That's about it for the domestic report. We're fairly quiet as we position builders to prepare for the Colosseum chops once the Arena finishes. We're only a few turns away and at least 2 players are distracted by a war.  Hopefully we land it!




Something big culturally has happened in both Mongolia and Holland, as they soar out to 14 and 13 domestic tourists respectively. This could be boosting (or finishing) Feudalism. I lean toward boosting because nobody's Era Score jumped this turn, which it should have if they picked up their first Medieval civic (and it seems highly unlikely anyone boosted Naval Tradition or Civil Service - though I suppose the latter is possible for Archduke, who is probably in a mess of jungle over on his side of the sea). We really need to land the Colosseum or this is going to be a real problem for us.

In better news, we are now the clear science leader with a very strong beaker rate and tied for the most techs with Rowain who... wait, why are his beakers significantly lower than last turn?

... Of course, Archduke took another city. Well, this is terrible news, as those cities will definitely help overcome Archduke's science deficit when he gets them out of occupation, which given his triumphal stomping of everyone else with impunity should happen in another turn or two, I imagine. Alhambram still has a DoF with him (did he have that last turn?) but at least they aren't allied or anything (and yes, I checked).

Well, that's about it for this turn. Hope your travel are safe and the kids have fun, CMF!

[aetryn]

Turn 83




Iron Working finishes as expected. Now on to Machinery, which is only 6 turns away even with the "You aren't in the Medieval Era yet" penalty! Another Seowon or two finished and we are going to be flying through the tech tree. Speaking of the R&F age system, I think they are much too generous with the time spent in an age, at least compared to the speed with which we go through the tree. I haven't played a game in R&F where I wasn't into the Classical Era Civics, and usually Techs long before the Classical age actually started, and the same applies to the Medieval Era. Maybe it's set up for less aggressive economists and more aggressive warmongers? Maybe it assumes a lesser level of Civ play altogether? Anyway, this is something that they should probably consider tieing to difficulty.

Next, Rowain approaches us with an... interesting offer...




A relic in exchange for 1 gpt? I accept this, obviously. We're doing okay for gold generation, it's only for 30 turns or until the Mongols conquer him completely, and we can obviously find a use for the extra faith. I think this is "I'm toast and I don't want the Mongols to get this relic" deal, not a "that 1 gpt will really help me defend better" deal. If it had been a pure gift, I would probably have had to decline it ethically - accepting gifts from a player on their way out of the game had generated a lot of bad blood around Realms Beyond over the years. Is the token 1 gpt enough to consider this okay? I guess. I don't feel too great about it, but we DID declare war on Mongolia, signalling our intention and making it easy for other people to decide to align with Mongolia against us if they so choose, and I'm sure that's the only reason Rowain chose us. Either way, we now have a faith income of 6, and we have plenty of fun things to do with faith.

Not pictured, but the Dutch denonunced Mongolia this turn, which is a step in the right direction. The Archduke's military score has barely been scratched by Rowain. It would take both of our militaries to stop Mongolia if they want to just pour into Holland next. We'll need to continue to monitor this - we may have to postpone taking out Japper (who continues to be no threat to anyone in any category) to assist in the south if Alhambram comes under attack next. Still, I'd rather have the sense that Alhambram is leaning toward us even if that raises uncertainties about where our military will be needed.



Leaving Japper's territory to the east, we discover a city-state: Kumasi. This, like Nan Madol, is another one of the "culture engine" city states - this one works off of trade routes to city states, which seems likely to be stronger than Nan Madol on this particular map. The Archduke has 2 envoys here, Japper has 1, and that Amani assigned to it you can see in the picture is Alhambram. The quest is pretty difficult - I can't see us fitting catapults into our build queues any time soon.

Back in the Empire, with likely other players boosting Feudalism, I take a look at our situation for landing that boost. We have 4 farms down already. The tile picker for In One Ear consistently says it's going to pick up the second ring wheat NE as its next tile in 3 turns. I want to farm this immediately, since it can be shared with I Blame the Parents, it benefits from the Seowon, and both cities could really use food. The 6th farm is more of an issue. The river farm northeast of I Blame the Parents looks like it will be acquired in 8 turns, and I'd love to continue to grow I Blame the Parents, but I'm not sure we have the spare builder labor to grab it - more on that in a moment. I added some pins showing the tiles that will and could be our necessary Feudalism farms:




The second place that looks likely is over at Another Fine Product:


This city needs the food less, and the tile picker is hesitating between the wheat and the stone to the southwest, so this may not even be an option.

The final location is down south at But Who's Counting, where a rice tile lies within our city borders already:


However, this city really needs mines set up before farms - it has good food and not great production. Also, builder labor is a real problem - there's nobody close and no prospect of any finishing within the next few turns.

So how long do we have before we need the Feudalism boost? We have 6 turns left on Defensive Tactics, which we need for Limes (and is a prerequisite for Feudalism anyway). Feudalism shows 14 turns, but IF we land the Colosseum in 3-4 turns, obviously that's going to go way down. What about the idea of doing Diplomatic Service first? We might end up doing that first IF the faith-bought granary at OCISLY brings city size 10 down to a reasonable timeframe. I'm not convinced it will - we will still be facing the growth penalty for being at the housing cap, which is better than being over but not by very much. I think we will need to finish the Audience Chamber or get more builder labor going to get this city to the point where it can grow to 10 and boost Diplomatic Service. So I'm going to tentatively plan for Feudalism being our next civic (with a pit stop in Theology if necessary). That means we have something like 15 turns to get a 6th farm down.

A deep dive into our builder labor:

• The builders at JRTI will have one charge remaining after the Colosseum chops.
  
• The builder at In One Ear has 3 charges, with one charge committed to the NE farm.
  
• The builder at I Blame The Parents has 2 charges remaining.
  

We have a host of things we want to do with these builders and only 5 charges to spend. The highest priority has to be chopping the Encampment in I Blame the parents - we need to start generating Great General points. I'm willing to send Magnus here even for only 1 chop (and I might be able to figure out something useful to do with the second, though it can't be a district any time soon). Our lack of available builder labor makes it less necessary to be perfect with Magnus micro. This is the real cost we've had for building the Colosseum, but it will be totally worth it if we land it. I definitely want to use one charge at I Blame the Parents to pasture the horses: that's a 5 foodhammer tile that will be worked for a very long time. I'm actually going to pass on mining the second iron right now, saving the second charge here for the Encampment chop. We have enough already iron to upgrade our Warriors, and the Encampment will also let us build Swordsmen without the second iron anyway, so it's not critical to mine the second iron immediately. I'd love to have the tile worked by I Blame the Parents, especially once we get Apprenticeship, but its forest-hill tiles are good enough for now.

At In One Ear, we have more options. Building a plantation for the bananas isn't the highest priority but it does get us gold (of which we are currently pretty low) and with the NE farm will add one housing. I'd rather have a few more military units and builders before switching to settlers again, so I'm not really tempted to chop here. I'm leaning toward building the plantation and the farm and then sending the last charge east to I Blame the Parents, either for a second chop or the iron mine, or maybe even that NE farm for the Feudalism boost.

That only leaves one spare charge at JRTI to do anything else with. Despite how underdeveloped OCISLY is, I think this gets sent east to Another Fine Product. It could chop something (Commercial Hub?) with the Galley in production, or farm the wheat if the tile picker lands on it.

I want to push "get more builder labor" to 3rd on the priority list (after Colosseum and Encampment). Holding unimproved land isn't that great and we still have a couple of barely useful cities. Other than the one by Japper, all of our settlement sites are backline with no competition, so I'd rather settle them a bit later. This is about the time we need to aim at getting all our citizens working 5+ yield tiles, and we aren't close to that.

[aetryn]

Turn 84

Not a lot of screenshots for this turn, because not much happened domestically. Next turn should be fun though!

I open the save and am greeted with....




Wow is that a lot of icons, including 7 declarations of war!! This was some kind of crazy banner turn for The Archduke. He took Suzerinity of 3 city states in one turn, including Nan Madol (and two city states on the other side of the world). He finished the Temple of Artemis, which is going to help him with some Amenities. Oh, and (not pictured here) he took Rowain's capital city. Seriously, can anything stop Mongolia at this point? One of the icons in the screenshot is for The Archduke triggering an emergency, but we are apparently not invited. This could be because we couldn't see Rowain's capital, or because we're already at war with him anyway. Anyway, it appears nobody else jumped in, so this Emergency is just going to fizzle out I think.

In retrospect, I feel worse about taking the deal for the relic now knowing his capital was literally about to fall the next turn. If you read this later, The Archduke, I'm sorry for taking what really should have been yours by conquest. There's not a lot I can do to make up for it though - I'm not going to undermine CMF's strategy of not giving Mongolia an opening for a trader to make peace so I can hand over the relic. If CMF wants to make that kind of call when he gets back, that's great, but it's above my pay grade.

Next up, Alhambram sends us a deal trying to communicate.... something....




There's no gold-for-gold, so this doesn't look like a countdown timer. So what does this mean? Is he trying to communicate that we are sweet like chocolate and should look forward to an alliance? That we are as dark and evil as that chocolate is dark and he plans to come kill us? That he really misses Valentine's and wants to exchange our favorite chocolates? I have no idea. Best guess? Maybe he just signed a 30-turn DoF with The Archduke but wants to maintain a relationship with us in the hopes of a later alliance? Anyway, I accept the deal. Whatever he wants from us we're happy to go along with at this point, and if he plans to attack us it's not like us "rejecting" the deal will make a difference anyway. If I ever play one of these, I might just make random like for like resource trades with different players in turn trying to confuse everyone.

So anyway, we now have a hostile Nan Madol at war with us, but I think their forces are too far away to make any difference (and Valetta has units all over the place to intercept them if they come this direction anyway). We're 2 envoys down, so we're not going to fix this anytime soon. I don't know whether we want to go raze (or conquer, but it doesn't look like a particularly good city) it right now with the possibility of an attack on Japper. The forces that were heading out that way are now smack in the middle of JRTI, so they can go either way. I'll have to figure this out next turn I guess, but my inclination is to move them northeast to stage against Japper and deal with Nan Madol later.

Beyond that, all the Koreans had the day off and nothing happened. Nothing was produced, a couple of builders moved for chops, but not much else. Next turn we should be chopping the Colosseum, so unless someone finishes it soon we've got it. I'd say Mongolia building ToA is actually good news on that front - unless of course Mongolia is building 2 wonders at a time. I'd believe anything about Mongolia at this point - if you told me they ride metal robot horses that fire laser beams out of their eyes I'd probably accept it. They are sure melting the competition at least.

[aetryn]

Turn 85

 

This was supposed to be the turn we chopped out the Colosseum.




Apparently, now that an Arena is required, the Arena is required in the same city as the Colosseum, as it won't let me place it from JRTI.



Well, I think we probably won't get it, but we've committed so much and the payoff is still so important, that I think the only thing for it is to build it in OCISLY instead. It's a shared tile, so there's no problem with this other than a) 5 more turns for Magnus to move back and b) we don't have 2 forests left.  However, the one forest we were going to swap back to JRTI can obviously be chopped for OCISLY instead, and we can cut down the jungle on the Seowon A tile. This will lose us 65ish production, but OCISLY has a production of 13/turn anyway. If I start the Colosseum now, it will have 60 production invested before we chop. If someone else builds it in the next 5 turns, we've have lost minimal production. Probably the biggest cost here is that it's going to delay Magnus getting anywhere else, as well as delaying the one builder charge committed to the Colosseum from being used elsewhere.

I spent about 10 minutes thinking about where to put Liang. I ultimately concluded that with the need for builder labor so high, it needed to be JRTI for at least a couple of builders. After that, one of our other cities might be mature enough to take over churning them out at a better clip. The only other option was I Blame the Parents, but that city has to get the Encampment down and maybe start military builds. I could be persuaded to move him next turn with basically no cost if someone wants to talk me into that. If anyone is actually READING these.  

Speaking of I Blame the Parents, after pasturing the horses this is now somehow the highest production city in the Korean Empire.




Our scout continues on to the east, still trying to figure out where Mongolia starts.




Finally, a shot of the scores:




I think those numbers speak for themselves.

[aetryn]

Double turn report, but no pictures. I was kinda too depressed to take any.

Turn 86

We finished our battering ram in I Blame the Parents. I go ahead and lay down the camp now that we've hit size 4, and start work on an Archer to prep an Agoge chop.

Otherwise, not much happened.

Turn 87

Guess what! Magnus is being nerfed tomorrow, so Plan B won't finish the Colosseum either! I am now totally at a loss of what to do. I guess just soldier on and try to finish up with slowbuilding? Ugh, this project has gone all wrong.

Oh, and Rowain is eliminated (foregone conclusion, really, when he was down to only one non-capital city). Mongolia's science is now up to 37.5 and their culture is a ridiculous 63 per turn, with an Empire Score of 147 (we're second, with 90-something). With the delay of the Colosseum, I'm kinda not optimistic anyone can catch Archduke. If he can get down a couple more campuses he's going to be competitive in science and that was our only hope.

Oh, and Korea's governor bonus is getting nerfed also. Because apparently you're supposed to go both heavy on governors and also heavy on promotions for governors. Makes total sense as a game design. Eh, nevermind me, I just hate nerfing in a game where your cities already feel very underpowered by the end of the game. I'd rather they made some of the other builder civs better than nerf Korea.

Our scout still has found no sign of Mongolia. Apparently there's a fairly sizable gap in the center north and south, which explains why Rowain was the second target and Japper was not - Japper's cities would have been REALLY hard to hold.

Domestically, we were down to one turn on Machinery, so I swapped to Apprenticeship. There are 2 archers in queues that should be completed before Machinery, unless we need it for a war. The galley at Another Fine Product was down to one turn, so I swapped in another Archer. Perhaps another builder would have been better?

Keeping with the theme of second-guessing myself, I decide Liang is better off in another city after all, and move her to I Saw It First for the builder currently building there. Once that one finishes, I think the best place would be But Who's Counting, which has fabulous food and production potential. Since JTRI must have a governor, I move Pingala there.

I Blame The Parents was starving, so I steal the newly farmed wheat from In One Ear (that's our 5th farm). The UI has bugged out on showing me the turn countdown until I Blame The Parents acquires its own wheat tile.

Sorry for all the mess CMF - I think this has gotten about as messed up as possible and I will be glad when you come back to try to make some sense out of what to do next.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

gotta run to work, aetryn, but I think you did a fine job. I have no complaints about your decisions, only about Civ VI's devs.

Skanar, you may do the "I fucking told you so" dance and are awarded one penalty of your choosing - name it, and if it is within my power, I will grant it. I DID test building wonders using requirements from other cities, but it wasn't the Colosseum specifically, and it wasn't in R&F with the new Arena requirement. I should have tested that, got lazy. 

It costs us some turns shuffling Magnus around, which sucks, but no one else has an Entertainment Districts down, so we ought to still grab it - we basically have to, to make the investment in the District worthwhile! Then I think we need to go full military chop mode, I did not expect Rowain to crumple like a wet paper bag. I keep trying to get Alhambram to Join Ongoing War but the damn interface is bugged and I can't offer it, just like I couldn't offer him a Joint War earlier when I tried (before Archduke even attacked Rowain). I don't know what he's waiting for - all peace with the ArchMongols does is give them a chance ot send a trader for a combat bonus, it's not like they're going to live in peace with you.