[Spoilers] Chevalier Gives You Something to Cry Aboot

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

The amount of randomness in Civ VI's design is baffling to me. Like, why not have each civ submit a proposal to be voted on (for a favor cost, perhaps)? Why not let us choose which tiles our borders expand to? No reason not to give player choice in these things, but they LOVE to give you choice in things like the goofy theming minigame.

[williams482]

Turn 130:

First the wold congress results:



Woden, Kaiser and I voted for nefing Bologna, which passes and grants each of us a diplo victory point. I guess Ichabod had taken control of the city state, and Kaiser is sick of fighting over it? Damn. Would have been nice if I could, you know, check that before casting my votes. 

(update: nope, both Ichabod and Kaiser have 9 envoys in Bologna. This situation is good for us, as we will now get to reliably benefit from Bologna's science boosts instead of shuffling in and out of war)

Woden did the exact same thing I did on Border Control too, putting down five votes. Ichabod beat both of us with six votes, scoring the border pops for himself. Two other things of note, Suboptimal opted to save his favor and put down the minimum one vote on each proposal, while Kaiser also spent a single vote here, on killing Ichabod's border expansion. Suffice it to say I am not considered the more dangerous of his two enemies at this time, which isn't exactly a shock. 

Kings swaps from the grass mill to the rice, as planned, and will swap from the plains mine to the grass mill next turn and pick up the geothermal vent with pop growth on the subsequent turn. Damn wasted overflow, it'll make you crazy. 

On an irrelevant note, a new update (I guess?) added a new and totally useless functionality: notifications for units that need to move. Because nothing helps a trash tier UI like extra clutter.



On the barb front, our horse was attacked, as expected:



Also, a second, injured barb musket showed up out of nowhere, which was not expected. We're going to be counting on Venice's musket to do a lot of the heavy lifting here, unfortunately, as our units are not strong enough to take on muskets with any expectation of safety. I withdraw both the crossbow and horse to the first ring of Blackhawks, and hope to be able to kill this musket (with help) before it pillages the ivory tile.

Kaiser has done some minor shuffling around Bortus, but the big news is with the Settler:



I have a decision to make with the Bruins encampment: shoot the musket for about 22, or the courser for about 31? First off, if I don't shoot the musket this turn and Kaiser moves it 1SE to the plains hill, my encampment plus two crossbows plus knight plus horse project to to exactly enough damage to kill it, which really means I'd have slightly better than 50/50 odds. Getting 22 damage in early here turns that into a guarantee and may save me from needing to sacrifice the horse. On the other hand, taking damage on his garrison unit may push Kaiser to take the safer, smarter play and just settle on his current tile. I know that's not his plan, because he could have settled there last turn. I am also fairly sure that he is not advancing the musket before the settler to check the situation, as the two units are linked. The chance to kill a musket and score a free settler is so hugely valuable, I need to maximize it as much as possible. Is Kaiser likely to get skittish if his unit is fired upon by an encampment which he knew was there if no other units show themselves? I'm betting on no, and fire. 24 damage to the musket, a slightly favorable roll. I pull all the melee attackers back out of sight, keep the crossbows where they are, and hope against hope that Kaiser is feeling lucky:



Now, if we are so fortunate, we'll have one turn to decide what to do with the settler. We could settle on that spot: We'll score a five charge builder because Serfdom will still be active, and can chop ancient walls with that forest (48h base, * 2 for limes = 96/80, all overflow wasted), or we can try to hard build them if we feel lucky (6h per turn from a lumber mill + city center, * 2 for limes, = 7 turn build, probably too slow but worth the mention), and we'll get a native source of Niter. Loyalty is an issue, as the tile is currently -6 and will get worse when our golden age ends, but a governor (Magus) will bring that up to positives, and the marginal extra pressure will help Wild. A second ring tile purchase (granted, an unlikely luxury) would allow us to harvest the wheat at Bruins into this city, boosting it's population to add further loyalty.

Defensibility is also a potential issue, even assuming we can get walls up. Kaiser's ranged attackers will be able to occupy two floodplains on the far side of the Saint Lawrence, vulnerable to whatever ranged strikes we can scrounge up, but quite safe from any mounted raids. any other attackers need to be on our side of the river, which gives us a chance to hit them, and the abundance of floodplains on that side of the city will make attackers more vulnerable. If walls go up fast enough here, I think we can hold this site. If we can't, I'll be smart about this and make sure to keep counterattackers in easy reach so we can recapture and burn as necessary.

The alternatives are to take the settler to Red Wings or Capitals, but I think settling Hurricanes on Kaiser's apparent intended spot would be the better play. Thoughts?

The Wild builder lumbermills the grass forest hill. My original plan was to sent him to the incense next, but the Kings builder can reach it next turn, and with Magus potentially on the move, chopping the jungle hill 1W of the Wild builder's current location becomes a priority. If things go as I hope, he can move to that tile next turn, and chop the following turn immediately before moving Magus to the Hurricanes site. That would finish the commercial hub, and I'll figure out next builds then. The Blackhawks builder places a camp at Penguins, and the Blues builder puts a fishing boat on the Crabs. Blues has one charge and one fishing boat left to build, Blackhawks has two charges and no urgent tiles to improve. the flat stone second ring to Penguins is a possible option, that will be 2/2 when improved, and 2/3 once Gunpowder completes. I may also need this builder for repairs at Blackhawks, so it's good he's still around.

Woden seems a lock to get that ironclad Great Admiral barring a slew of project completions from Suboptimal, he's at 290/310 and pulling in 14 per turn.

Scores:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I expect Kaiser will settle in place or on the wheat tile (I assume the wheat tile is open?), because we can't have nice things. However, taking and settling in place is the best play, I think, followed by forting up. We may not be able to hold the city long-term, but a free city is a free city, and when Kaiser takes it, he'll have to deal with occupation penalties and loyalty problems of his own. Plus, there's a good chance it'll serve as a mousetrap for his units, drawing them away from the more vulnerable Blues still and prolonging our resistance.

It's as good as anything we can do, really, when our game mostly consists of waiting for Woden or someone to win and praying suboptimal holds off stabbing us in the back for just a little longer.

[williams482]

Stars is the obvious reinforcement for Blackhawks. Wild stands alone; Suboptimal has occupied every spot except the Avalanche location, which is totally crushed by foreign loyalties and would be a guaranteed flip to England.

The econ play is obviously either Red Wings or Stars, both backline locations with solid development potential but minimal immediate military value. All three are in the cards as settler locations whenever we can set up a swap to colonization, while Hurricanes is far too vulnerable to risk sinking 230+ hammers into. I'm considering it here because the settler would already be on location, may be difficult to extract, and it would block Kaiser from something he apparently wants while providing loyalty to the vulnerable Wild site. That's all dependent on Kaiser having few enough units in theater to threaten the city on it's first few turns, which is no guarantee even if we do get a chance to steal the settler.

[williams482]

Turn 131:

Kaiser, regrettably, has opted to make a good decision, and settles in place:



He clearly doesn't expect immediate aggression, though, because he started on a monument. Unfortunately that's pretty reasonable, because the city is stronger than anything we have except our one knight, cannot be sieged, and is supported by a small but powerful contingent of Egyptian troops:



We'll get back to that later. On the barb front, things are not the best:



The crossbow promotes Garrison, and Blackhawks shoots the injured musket for 23. I expect to get pillaged on the interturn, as these barbarians have shown a disturbing lack of interest in that fortified Venetian musket, who cannot enter our territory and is apparently not feeling the urge to attack anyway.

Woden has a deal for us:



This would restore our +5 strength against Kaiser, but it would leave Ichabod out to dry. We are doomed anyway, Whales are not sufficient incentive to make us do that. Pass.

Builders move towards their next tiles. Wild has completed it's market, and starts on a trader, due in 5. I could really use some extra roads, and of course more yields would be pretty great too. On the loyalty front, Suboptimal has established Amani in Pearl, and given her the "Emissary" promotion, which reduces the loyalty of all non-English cities within nine tiles by two. This pushes Wild down to a mere +1.1 loyalty per turn during our Golden Age, and that will fall by about 5 even if we manage to score a normal age. Infuriatingly, Wild is doomed. When it flips, that will put Bruins in the red, and without the apparent seductive powers of our greatest fortress, Kaiser will probably turn his attention to cities he can actually capture. Fun!

The gossip report offers some noteworthy information:



Apparently Puerto Alegre has been changing hands for the past few turns. That "lost city" is Sao Luis, the only Brazilian city with borders we could see: those borders are no longer present. Also of note, Kaiser finally decided to turn on Vilnius, and dealt 17 damage to their walls:



Oh, and apparently Ichabod made peace with Kaiser? Bloody hell, I wish I'd seen that sooner. That definitely leaves me disinclined to remain at war with Woden, and rather disappointed in Ichabod. I'm a little surprised that's possible, given the military alliances on both sides that apparently trigger an automatic wardec if one alliance member is declared on, but why would we expect internal consistency in the byzantine mechanics of civ VI diplomacy? Whatever. I offer Woden the exact peace deal he offered me, and direct a disappointed frown in the general direction of Brazil.

Brazil has also suffered a pretty substantial blow to both their milpower and yields, while Phoenicia looks as strong as ever, and both Egypt and England have continues to grow upward as the Punic-Brazilian conflict continued. I'm pretty confident that Woden will win, and as I have been for the last 50+ turns of 0% win probability, I am ready to concede. Just in case those happen to be magic words for the lurkers.

For the time being, though, Canada fights on. We have no chance of taking Charlie Burke, so we won't try. We will continue to hold our side of the Colombia, and I rather hope Kaiser tries to make further progress through military might, because we'll keep kicking his teeth in and that will give us something to do that isn't "wait for England's stupid culture gimmick to swallow us whole." The injured horse withdraws well out of reach, and the Garrison crossbow steps to the incense so it can occupy the Bruins Encampment next turn. From there, it can take enhanced potshots at Egyptian units and even their city, which would earn experience and might even annoy Kaiser slightly.

Scores:

[williams482]

One thing does occur to me as far as protecting Wild: We have three jungles and a marsh in the borders, worth ~180 food with Magus in place. That could get us to pop 9, and combined with the diplo policy that gives loyalty from governors, keep Wild in the green provided we can grab 8 more era score for a normal age. For that we obviously need a builder, ideally with serfdom+Liang in place, but with at least one an absolute requirement. Maybe I should swap Magus and Liang immediately after this chop, and plan to get a builder out of Bruins in about 6 turns? Or Maybe Kings is the better spot for a builder, while Bruins tries to knock out the barracks + armory for the gunpowder boost.

As for that era score, we're in a tough spot. We should complete Celestial Navigation on t133, which will unlock the discounted +5 harbor at Penguins. That will cost 78h, still too expensive to knock out before the era expires. However, we could knock off 52h of that by harvesting the stone tile, which is possible within our time limit. That's 3 era score, plus the financial benefits. Now to scrounge five more.

That camp would be worth three era points in this era (and no later), but we do not have the military power to batter through two muskets and a pike. What we might be able to do, if the camp is spawning units slowly enough, is to sneak a horse around the coastal side of Reindeer Lake and poach the camp, hoping not to meet any actual resistance. We know the pike has pushed forward and isn't guarding the camp, which might mean it's exposed. Worth a shot.

Other technically possible options:
+2 for a naval unit. Might be possible out of Penguins, if we can get the policy card in place.
+1 for a pop 10 city. Two marsh chops at Blues would do it, but I doubt we can spare the charges.
+1 for city near floodable river. Red Wings would qualify, if we could somehow get a settler down there fast enough. Doubtful.
+1 for first improvement on an enriched tile. Possible at Red Wings or Stars, but same limitation as above.
+2 for first city on a desert tile. Possible if we move Red Wings to an inferior location, or settle a junk city in the Nubian Desert. Same limitations as the previous two plus extra downsides.

The most likely of the difficult paths to normalcy would be a harbor + galley at Penguins, and getting lucky trying to hit that barb camp with a horse. I'll investigate if a fast settler is possible next turn, but for the moment those three are what I'll try for.

[williams482]

Turn 132:

Woden accepts our deal, we are no longer at war with Phoenicia. Wild is "threatened" by a Genevan crossbowman, who is shot by the city for about 70 damage. Kaiser has attacked and killed my forwardmost horse near Kings and left me little opportunity to strike back safely, so I pull my forces back across the river and dare him to chase me:



At Blackhawks, Kaiser has advances an MCH to shoot at my frontmost horse. The barbs have opted not to pillage, and one of them actually did pick a fight with that Venetian musket. Excellent.



I attack the barb pike with the mostly healthy sword for 55 damage, dropping it to single-digit health. The city center and the crossbow each hit the frontmost musket, leaving it a hairsbreadth short of death. I could clean up both units with injured horses, but given that barbarians don't heal and there's still another mostly healthy musket more than capable of cleaning up a half-health horse the cost/benefit just isn't there. Instead, I pull the horses back where Kaiser will have difficulty shooting at them safely, and move one of them towards the barb camp. It should have eyes on the tile next turn, and be able to clear it the turn after if it remains ungarrisoned. 

In domestic news, the Wild builder chops a jungle hill at Kings for 55h and 55f, completing the commercial hub. I decide to put the overflow into a builder, due in 3 turns after swapping a plains mine from Wild. Liang and Magus swap cities in preparation for the food chops I mentioned earlier. Both cities would already be at negative loyalty without governors in place. We have two governor promotions upcoming from Medieval Faires and Guilds, and Victor plus his Garrison Commander promotion (+5 combat strength for units within city borders, +4 Loyalty for cities within 9 tiles) is probably the most useful thing we can do with them. The Kings builder plantations the incense. The Blues builder completes a second fishing boat at Penguins, boosting Celestial Navigation (due to complete next turn), and the Blackhawks builder moves to the stone tile. I had badly lost track of our tech/civic counts earlier: our discounter harbor will actually cost 121h, the unboosted stone harvest would be 75h. That means we need 46h of natural production from Penguins, which currently maxes at 12h per turn, giving a completion time of t137 with 3h overflow. Border expansion will allow the builder to place a grass hill lumber mill on t137, bumping production to 16h. The era will end after t138, so we can get at most 38/65 production into a galley after completing the harbor. investing the 13h we are pulling in this turn brings us closer, but 51h is still 14h shy of the cigar. The fastest we could get a trader active in Penguins is t137, which would get us only 6h before t139, not enough. If I had been thinking about this one turn earlier, I could make it work. Two turns earlier and it would be easy. As it is I can pull it off, but only by chopping that grass hill forest instead of dropping a lumber mill on it. Probably worth it, but super wasteful. Damn, damn, damn. I do swap production into the galley at Penguins just in case I think of another way to speed things up, but I'm not optimistic. Any ideas from the peanut gallery?

Woden did score that Ironclad Admiral. The next one up creates an Armada, which I suppose is nice too.

Scores:




Woden has finally passed Ichabod in score, and holds a 97 point edge in empire score. Suboptimal is going to have to act very soon for anyone other than Woden to ultimately win this game.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

We've shit on the mechanics of Civ VI a lot in this thread and SERIOUSLY questioned their design, but I do kind of like the idea that the fate of Wild depends entirely on one brave little horseman, on the far side of the world...

[williams482]

Turn 133:

Celestial Navigation completes. I switch back to Gunpowder, and plan to research it up to the boost before swapping back to the probably unboostable Siege Tactics. Unfortunately, I made a major error in my calculations that will doom us to a dark age: unlocking Holy Sites increased the number of completed districts required to discount a Harbor by one. We have eight finished, we need nine. Kings and Blackhawks are both on track to finish their hubs in six turns, right when the era ends. Neither district can be accelerated. Damn, damn, damn! Victor plus the food chops might be just enough to save Wild and Bruins even in a dark age, but it's going to be a close run thing, and Suboptimal will be able to tip the balance with a few more great works.

The latest wrinkle to Kaiser's evil plot is made clear to us:



He is using Charly Burke as a safe hiding place for the bombard, which can grind down Bruins' encampment while safe from counterattack. At ~31 damage per hit, this will take about seven turns to kill the walls, then another half dozen or so to tear down the district entirely, presumably with some help. Once he does that, he'll have to figure out how to knock down Bruins without the benefit of these cheap tricks. I counter by shooting his city with the encamped crossbow for 22 damage, earning a promotion. I'll take the vs city defenses promotion, making this crossbow full strength against the city, and average 27 damage per hit of my own. I don't think I can actually take Charly Burke with a single crossbowman, but it's something to dream on, and it might annoy Kaiser.

The barbs near Blackhawks did pillage a mine, and the injured pike ran away to be replaced by a crossbow:



The sword steps out and hits the crossbow (revealing the fleeing pike in the process), then Blackhawks finishes it off. Our crossbow kills the crippled musket, and I move a mostly healthy horse to the pillaged mine tile in hopes of drawing an attack instead of a much more inconvenient pillage. Our brave little horseman strikes out further into the frozen wastes, and spots the unguarded camp:



Let's take annother crack at Wild micro. If we place the undiscounted harbor now, it will cost 209h. The galley is currently at 13/65h. We can put in two chops, each of them 77h. If I pull Amani out of Venice this turn, I could move Magus down here in time to boost the last chop on the last turn of the age. If we just put the two normal chops into the harbor, we will need 55h of natural production to complete the harbor, and another 52 to complete the boat. That obviously isn't happening. Making one of those a Magus chop means we need a total of 69h natural production, but getting the full Maritime Industries boost on that may be tricky because this game is dumb. Here's my current best shot at a micro plan:

t133: galley at 13/65. Move Magus to Penguins, place and work on harbor.
t134: Harbor at 13/209. Builder harvests the stone for 77h into the harbor, now 90/209
t135: Harbor at 102/209. Medieval Faires completes. Swap out Serfdom (and/or Limes) for Maritime Industries. Borders expand to claim a grass forest (which one? Ask the bloody tilepicker). Builder moves adjacent to forest
t136: Harbor at 114/209. Builder moves onto forest
t137: Harbor at 126/209. Magus establishes, chops for 115 to complete the harbor with 32 overflow. Start galley.
t138: Galley completes with 12 overflow, all wasted.
t139: Renaissance era begins.

This should work, if we trust the game to handle that bloody overflow in the stupid way it's intended to, instead of randomly eating it or whatever. Moving Amani does cost us 2gpt, but that's well worth it to protect Wild. I place the harbor, then move Magus and Amani.

As for military matters, Kaiser has left a double promotion crossbow where I can definitely kill it, if I'm willing to expose my knight. I move it forward, and here is what we're dealing with:



Because of the river and that stupid not-quite-finished road over it, moving the knight forward was commitment in and of itself. The only real question here is if that chance will pay off, or cost me this valuable unit. I have the knight attack and two crossbow shots to kill this crossbow, after which Kaiser can hit my Knight with at most two MCH strikes and a Courser attack. If the knight attacks the crossbow first, I expect to take 19 damage, and the MCH, MCH, and Courser would deal an average of 22, 24, and 27, leaving the knight with 8 HP but still alive. I could then kill one MCH at a minimum with the crossbows, and would have a strong shot at taking the courser instead. If I open by attacking with an unpromoted crossbow, I'll do an average of 35 damage, and my knight will take an average of 16 when it attacks after. This does create a risk, however: if the Knight and crossbow both roll "well", my knight would kill the crossbow outright and be stranded on it's current tile. It's chances of surviving the immediate counterattack would be about the same, but the odds of escaping on the subsequent turn would be almost nil because it would not be able to reach Kings in one round of movement. Is there more risk of Kaiser getting a lucky 8 damage to my knight across four strikes (including my attack on the crossbow), or me getting a "lucky" 10 damage to his crossbow on two hits? I'm thinking the former is more likely.

My unpromoted crossbow advances to the rice tile and shoots for 41. Damn! The knight would now average 57 damage, and is barely under 50/50 to kill the crossbow outright. The promoted crossbow will average 50 damage, which is very unlikely to kill. Moving that horse up for a peek (and a flanking bonus) may have been a mistake. I have to go for it though, otherwise the crossbow can shoot my knight and it will die next turn. I attack, win, and get something I did not expect:



And, of course, the inspiration to military science. If that becomes relevant, things have gone impossibly right for us.

I regret placing that harbor now. If I'd realized that two promotions was enough to trigger this, I would have just built the boat and waited for the discount on the harbor. Oh well. This does at least save us the need to chop into the harbor twice, we can just hard-build the boat. That will teach me to do infrastructure planning before military. I may as well keep Magus here for 5t and use him for the stone harvest, and leave the trees for mills. It also occurs to me that my thinking regarding probabilities here was just wrong: anomalous events are much more likely over smaller samples.

The knight took only 15 damage. With the forest helping against ranged attacks, but two flankers balancing two supporting units against the courser, I expect to take an average of 23, 21, and 32 from the MCHs and courser. I have the choice to sacrifice a horse to block the courser from attacking my knight, but with survival likely I don't think that's a smart idea. That leaves the battlefield looking like this:



Huge interturn ahead.

Scores:

[williams482]

Turn 134:

I underestimated the martial prowess of that barbarian Musket, and lost a sword for my troubles:



Fortunately the crossbow and city strike are able to finish the job without issue. The Barb camp is also now occupied, but the unit within is a rather squishy skirmisher. Our brave little horse attacks for 45 damage. A return strike will likely deal about 22 damage, and a higher than average result might force a withdrawal or risk losing the unit. Time is of the essence here, so I push forward with the healthiest horse in the area, hoping to draw a suicide attack from the pike and then assist against the skirmisher:



Kaiser, for whatever reason, decided not to throw everything he could at my knight, instead settling for a single MCH strike while taking up a defensive position:



He did fire on the encampment with his bombard, dealing 30 damage to the city walls. I promote the crossbow as planned, preparing my futile retaliation. I pull my units back to a defensive formation of our own, promoting the knight to Barding. If I had the ability to make rapid river crossings this turn would actually have been a good time to press the advantage against Kaiser's relatively small force here, and a chance to do some damage to Charly Burke while a relevant chunk of his army was dealing with Vilnius, but as it is setting up for an attack grants Kaiser a chance to hit us next turn before we can hit him for real the turn after, which completely tips the scales against making such an attempt.



Blues has completed Medieval Walls, and begins the Market, which we can squeeze out in 5 with a little bit of tile micro. Medieval Faires will complete next turn, and we'll start research on Exploration while we wait for that market to boost Guilds. Next turn's policy swap needs to put in Maritime Industries for our Galley era score, with both Limes and Serfdom not desperately needed, which leaves us a slot to play with. Some options:

- Keep serfdom in, delay the builder at Bruins for a few turns until Liang establishes to get an extra charge. We can use that for a mine on the plains hill between Bruins and Wild that will be claimed in a few turns. This would also give the option of Magus chopping that stone into another 5 charge builder at Penguins, if we were so inclined.
- Swap into Colonization early and start a settler at Bruins.
- Swap into a unit booster policy and build military at Bruins (probably Feudal Contract -> crossbow)
- Run Natural Philosophy for an extra 11 beakers per turn. Over the five turns we have the slot available, that's a little more than one turn of research, not bad.
- Run Veterancy for an extra 6.9 hammers per turn into the barracks Bruins. We need the barracks + armory up soon to boost Gunpowder, and we won't have that encampment alive and kicking for all that long to begin with. Unfortunately the builder is going to complete with zero overflow, and the difference between 23 and 29.9 hammers per turn into a 90h building is zero turns, unless we are carrying an undetectable 0.1h overflow in which case it's worth a full turn.   With no policy boost, we could finish the barracks on t138 and the armory on t147. Running the +30% card for five turns cuts that final completion date to t146, running it until completion would finish t144. Powering through gunpower would complete on t143, or t142 if we run Natural Philosophy for a spell. At current income, plus the extra 8gpt we'll add on t139, we will have 270g on t142, although a trade route from Wild to Venice starting t137 would make that 324g. We have one warrior, one sword, and 20 Niter; upgrading those units with the discount cards in place would cost 205g and 155g respectively, a total of 360g, which we can hit on t143 with just a teensy bit of tile micro.

As a dead civ walking, the lost efficiency of not waiting for a boost doesn't matter all that much to us, and getting the next tier of units in play as fast as possible is obviously critical. Neither boosting encampment buildings nor increasing our research rate will actually achieve that objective, as our true bottleneck is gold income and it intersects neatly with our expected completion time of the tech. Building settlers sooner at Bruins doesn't help much either, our optimal distribution of settler completion sites would be Blues -> other -> Blues, and Bruins would complete that settler before Blues could complete it's first. The extra builder charge isn't critical because Victor + normal era should get us enough leway to forego at least one of those jungle chops, so we'll have at least one charge to spare for that mine, and we'll have surplus charges again as soon as we start planting cities. That leaves the military card, and more units are always useful in a war. I think we'll go with that.

Scores: