[no players] CiVI Lurking Part II: Sophomore Slump

[Old Harry]

If barbs spawn similarly to civ4 (there are supposed to be a certain amount depending on the size of the continent and new ones only spawn to get to that number) then an editor would let the map maker pre-place enough barbs sufficiently far from players that they get some breathing room at the start of the game but still spice things up.

[kjn]

Looking at Oledavy's proposed second city (in the south), he mentions the defensive value of being protected on three sides on the river. I'm not sure I agree with that one, based on my experience with other games.

A river has two effects on combat: it gives a combat malus when attacking across the river, and as an obstacle in movement. By placing the city right next to the river, it can be attacked from three different tiles, it can also be attacked from two tiles away in certain situations (like the great general movement bonus), and any attacking units will likewise be sheltered by the river.

If the city is placed 1NE, on the hill, the result would be that any enemy unit crossing the river would be open for attack from friendly units that could not be attacked on the same turn, and would attack without a malus. Meanwhile, enemy units behind the river would be limited in how they could attack any victorious enemy units. Being on a hill would also help against attacks from any direction.

[Ituralde]

I look forward to Alhambrams reaction when China settles his second city right where he intends to put his third.
We might not see the builder-fest some were predicting in the East. Alhambram will be pretty boxed in with nothing but tundra to settle then. He would have to stretch for the nexus in the west or go through Woden.

[Commodore]

I look forward to Alhambrams reaction when China settles his second city right where he intends to put his third.
We might not see the builder-fest some were predicting in the East. Alhambram will be pretty boxed in with nothing but tundra to settle then. He would have to stretch for the nexus in the west or go through Woden.

For all his ostensible obsession with wonders, Woden seems to be actually following a sensible and aggressive gameplan. "Settle up on Russia, push borders east, beeline Chucklenaughts" isn't builder-centric at all. Ought to be a pretty good one too, hopefully he blunts Oledavy's dominance in the eastern half.

[Sullla]

Some Turn 20 thoughts:



Oledavy is in great shape. Two warriors and a slinger for military, three city states found (2 Industrial + 1 Scientific), a builder improving tiles at the capital, and a settler about a third of the way done. His one area of weakness is in culture, and as Gorgo he's going to be claiming a lot of that for free from unit kills. Perhaps most importantly, he has a firm grasp of his situation and seems to be reading the metagame well (i.e. knowing that he needs to expand south and backfill the north later). I agree with Commodore that he is the early favorite in the eastern trio.



Singaboy is recovering well from the barbarians, and he played out that rough start very well indeed. He has more military than most of the other players (2 warriors, 1 scout, 1 slinger) but in his situation it was justified. Finding the Scientific city state was a major boost, and I think he'll claim the Military city state in the far northeast as well. My one criticism is that I think he should have purchased the floodplains wheat tile for 50 gold as soon as it became available on Turn 5 or 6, then worked that to grow quickly. I would need to sit down and run the food numbers to be sure, but my gut instinct is that growing at +4 food/turn instead of +2 food/turn would come out ahead in production pretty quickly. Several of the other players have remarked on how slowly Singaboy's growth has been in this game. I'm also concerned that his Always War background might cause him to overfocus on military at the expense of economic development. Overall though, this has been well played indeed considering the immediate barbarian crisis that broke out on Turn 3 or whatever.



TheArchduke looks good enough on face value: warrior and scout out on the map with a slinger completing next turn, a builder already done and improving tiles, good opportunities for expansion, etc. However, he's already falling into some of the same bad habits from PBEM1, despite some excellent advice from Bacchus. While oledavy has done a good job of reading his game situation and playing around it accordingly, TheArchduke has not. The scout wandering around in completely useless tundra for the last 5 turns is a real headshaker. TheArchduke is also already complaining about the map and suggesting that it's been unfair to him, when he's failed to understand that he should prioritize scouting out contested land in the center of the map, not the south pole where all the land is useless. The infamous "scout in a circle around the capital" can be clichéd, but there's also a reason why our players usually do some variation of it: you don't want to have fogged tiles three tiles north of your capital 20 turns into the game. Anything could be up there. Anyway, maybe TheArchduke surprises me, however I think this is already heading down the wrong path. I hope I'm wrong.



Despite a really nice capital, this has been a rough start for Alhambram. The fact that barbarians have given him this much trouble, forcing 160 gold to go into a cash-rushed warrior, is little less than a disaster. He also failed to reach any of the four city states near his capital before Woden, and seems to want to chase an early religion for... reasons? To be fair, religion can be pretty useful in Civ6 MP even though none of us pursued it in PBEM1, but it's a poor sign when someone thinks they can win a Religious victory. Alhambram also posted this message today:

Barb warrior didn't attack, he just moved one tile south east. I did move my warrior along with builder to prevent builder being sniped by barb scout.
Unfortunately that allows barb warrior to pillage pasture next turn, I shall have it repaired by builder after he chopped the forest.

No, units cannot move and then pillage in Civ6, not unless they have a lot more than 2 movement points. That's fairly basic tactical knowledge and not knowing it is a pretty big strike against the player in question. I don't want to be cruel here or anything - Alhambram is enthusiastic and has been posting some nice turn reports. I'm just failing to see this end well for him, not when Woden seems much more knowledgeable and has a clear plan in mind.



Woden's been doing awesome so far too. He has a warrior and slinger out on the map, a builder finished and a settler half done, and four city state envoys (2 Cultural, 1 Commercial, 1 Industrial). He's going to settle aggressively in the face of Russia and seal off 70% of the western continent for himself. If the unorthodox wonder gameplay works at all, this could be his game to lose, especially with seemingly weaker local competition. I'm genuinely curious to see how the whole China + wonder combination works out.

My current guess at the standings of the players on Turn 20:

1) Woden
2) oledavy
3) Singaboy
4) TheArchduke
5) Alhambram

[Ituralde]

Thanks for your analysis Sullla, I agree with your conclusions regarding the standing of the players.

Looks like the Kilimanjaro region is shaping up to be a hot spot in the next dozen turns. The Archduke looks more and more likely to be boxed in by Singaboy and Oledavy. Judging from his initial reactions to this, there seems to be a high chance that he will simply tilt when this happens and start a war, he can't win. Although I don't blame him, if he ends up with the worst land share it will be hard for him to come back anyway.

Also looks like Woden will be first to his second city.

[kjn]

Kilimanjaro really is a settler magnet. Though that Archduke didn't found it until now sure shows how bad his early scouting has been. I think that the winner of any conflict between Singaboy and Thearchduke in the area will be Oledavy, if he is sensible enough to stay out of it for now

Oledavy's expansion plans look very sensible and pragmatic, with focus on both claiming and securing land. Though I think it'd be a mistake of him to place the southern vines/Kilimanjaro city south of the river. It will act as a red flag against Singaboy, and will be much harder to reinforce from the north. (How do mountains work for siege purposes?)

What is the envoy/city state situation? I tried to work it out, and get the following:

City state	Type	First contact	Other contacts
Nan Madol	Cultural	Woden	Alhambram
Vilnius	Cultural	Woden	Alhambram
Toronto	Industrial	Woden	Alhambram
Buenos Aires	Industrial	Oledavy
Hong Kong	Industrial	Oledavy
Carthage	Militaristic
Preslav	Militaristic	Singaboy
Hattusa	Scientific	Singaboy
Seoul	Scientific	Oledavy	Singaboy
Zanzibar	Trade	Woden

Some comments:

Woden and Oledavy sure has cleaned up the roster here.

Thearchduke's scouting has sure been abysmal. He has missed out the entire river valley to his north! He handed Buenos Aires to Oledavy on a platter, and haven't made any moves towards that area at all so far. Alhambram isn't as bad, but should have gotten contact with at least Toronto or Vilnius before Woden.

In terms of scouting, I'd judge them as:

Oledavy, (big jump), Woden, Singaboy, Alhambram, Thearchduke. Oledavy is the only one who seems to have really been systematic in his scouting, and it's only a matter of a few turns until he gets visibility on Athens.

Sullla, where is Preslav on the continent? You pointed out Carthage up in the tundra northwest of Oledavy, but I can't find Preslav.

ETA: Looks like Singaboy just found Preslav.

[kjn]

So, who will win the settler race towards Kilimanjaro, Thearchduke or Singaboy?

Singaboy has the turn order advantage (Oledavy -> Woden -> Singaboy -> Alhambram -> Archduke -> Oledavy).

From what I can gather, Singaboy will get his settler on T31, and it will settle on the third turn (ie T34). Or will the river delay the movement with another turn? However, it seems he wants to delay it to not drop the city to size 2. 

Archduke will have his settler on T30, but it will take four turns to reach the chosen spot (ie T34 as well). It seems like he also thinks about building an extra warrior as escort, though.

My money's on Singaboy, especially if he decides it's more important to claim the spot than try to keep three civizens in Aachen. His warrior is better positioned to block of Archduke, and harder to shift as well compared to Archduke's slinger.

[gunnerxtr]

Singaboy may use force to keep that spot if it comes to it.

[kjn]

Having checked through how the various players have developed, here are some additional thoughts (apart from what Sullla commented earlier).

From a pure capital stand-point, Alhambram should dominate the game right now. He could grow on that awesome 5/0 tile and into tons of great early tiles (1/3, 3 x 2/2, 2/1/3g, 3/0/3g). Instead his initial warrior scouted deserts, and his scout haven't accomplished much so far. He had bad barb luck, but didn't manage it as well as Singaboy. I also think it was a mistake to go for the 2/1/3 tile with his second civizen over the 1/3 tile. The main use of gold early game is buying tiles, and Russia has far less need to do so.

Woden had much worse land (with only a 3/1 to grow on, and then 3/1 and 2/1/2 tiles). He still managed to get his settler out before Alhambram, thanks to getting more hammers from the chop, some bonus hammers from UP, getting his builder out quicker, and getting a few more hammers from the chop.

Singaboy also started with a scout (as Alhambram), but got his scout out in 6t instead of 8t, by working his 2/2 tile. I think that's the best way to get a scout out, if you open with one - get it out as quickly as possible. If Alhambram had used the 1/3 tile from T3, he'd have his scout out 2t earlier, and could maybe have beaten Woden to Vilnius (would have been T11 for both players).

What is clear from the threads is that Oledavy and Woden have been much more focused in their early scouting, by actively looking for other cities and players by searching for borders and using the city placement overlay. It's also apparent how many of the city-state contacts were with the initial warriors: three in the case of Woden and two in the case of Oledavy. It's only Singaboy who has managed to make good use of his scout, but its useful life seems to be over for now.

It also seems like early builders aren't that great. Better to grow to size 3 on units first. Barbs can be bothersome early on, so early military is needed. The improved yields aren't that improved, even on resources, and with the charges system the builder gets things done quickly, so there is much less incentive to grow onto improved tiles. In a way, the main value of the builder early game seems to be to get the eurekas and inspirations!

(Archduke is really screwed. His starting capital had as bad production as Woden's, but unlike Woden he didn't have a builder who could make up for some of that via chopping, and he frittered away his early production with a so far useless scout.)