Civ 6 SG2 - Duty Free Egypt

[Gaspar]

Decided with the new patch and how I'm enjoying reading SG1, I would propose another succession game. I've kind of slipped off playing Civ6 and the thing that really strikes me when I was playing is that it was going to require some serious time investment to get the strategies down precisely. So I'm going to propose a relatively simple variant as well, given that my personal bent is more to just get more comfortable with the mechanics of the game.

I'm also curious at just how many people there are in the community who are currently interested in this sort of thing...

Civ: Cleopatra/Egypt
Difficulty: Emperor
Game Settings: Standard speed, Ancient era
Map Settings: Small, Continents

Variant Rule: Only international trade routes

Not the most exciting variant but I picked it for a few reasons. 1. The SG1 guys are exploring the limited route thing and I thought it might be interesting to explore the other half of the underused mechanic. As such, Egypt seemed a nice hedge pick, since they do get a slight bonus to international routes. 2. I don't want to go to heavy on variant play just yet because I'm most interested in better understanding the game. 3. I'm not that great. Succession game typically raises your ability roughly a difficulty level and I didn't want to make it too challenging just yet.

I am open to tweaking the setup if someone has a great idea. I debated going for Standard or even Large size because part of what I'd like to explore is efficiently managing a large-ish empire in Civ6 but I'm also not keen on it taking forever to complete turnsets in the later eras.

Following standard-ish rules otherwise - 24/48 got it, play it and 25/15/10/10... for turnsets. Looking for 4-5 players and so on. Sign-up ahoy!

Ok that's five.

Gaspar
ReallyEvilMuffin
Sareln
Pindicator
Ruined Everything

[Gaspar]

We'll go with the above as a turn order. Ruined Everything was kind enough to roll us a save, and here's the start position. I made the command decision to move the warrior SW because that seemed most likely to reveal something relevant, so here's the start after that maneuver:




Move revealed Jade. Lots of stuff to chop methinks as well. They would like us to move, and I can see some merit in moving 1E to open up a coastal spot at the river mouth in the west as well as preserving a forest. I doubt its worth wasting a turn, particularly as it moves away from pretty much all the bonus tiles we currently see. I'll see if anyone has any thoughts on that, though, before playing. Otherwise, its a fairly good start, though we're likely to have to research Irrigation without the eureka since there's no farmable bonus tile in view.

If SIP, thinking Pottery -> Irrigation -> AH as start techs, though certainly open to debate. I assume the generator will grab that horse tile first.

Buildwise, thinking Slinger -> Builder -> Slinger but that's also open to interpretation. I like Scouts but I'm not entirely certain of how safe they are given we know nothing of our neighbors and suspect the foliage-heavy start means we'll see above average number of barbs since our LoS is blocked a good bit. Also, I know a horse tile within 5 tiles means horse barbs, not sure if that only counts if the horse tile isn't within borders. If not, we probably want Warriors over Slingers, since horse units are pretty effective at closing on ranged, Slingers in particularly who need to be up close to fire. Might want to delay the builder til build 3, dunno.

Also up for discussion, naming theme, general team goals - particularly how we want to attack the variant - specifically whether we want to use international routes heavily, to see how good they are or if we want to use them more sparingly, since the payback on a Commercial Hub is significantly less than with internal routes.

In terms of play order, thinking we just go in order of signup, though I'll get us going and we have time until everyone checks in to rejigger if necessary. 25/15/10/10 seems fine, unless you guys think Civ6 starts slower and we should extend the sets or whatever. I'll wait for some input on all of this before playing.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

We'll go with the above as a turn order. Ruined Everything was kind enough to roll us a save, and here's the start position. I made the command decision to move the warrior SW because that seemed most likely to reveal something relevant, so here's the start after that maneuver:




Move revealed Jade. Lots of stuff to chop methinks as well. They would like us to move, and I can see some merit in moving 1E to open up a coastal spot at the river mouth in the west as well as preserving a forest. I doubt its worth wasting a turn, particularly as it moves away from pretty much all the bonus tiles we currently see. I'll see if anyone has any thoughts on that, though, before playing. Otherwise, its a fairly good start, though we're likely to have to research Irrigation without the eureka since there's no farmable bonus tile in view.

If SIP, thinking Pottery -> Irrigation -> AH as start techs, though certainly open to debate. I assume the generator will grab that horse tile first.

Buildwise, thinking Slinger -> Builder -> Slinger but that's also open to interpretation. I like Scouts but I'm not entirely certain of how safe they are given we know nothing of our neighbors and suspect the foliage-heavy start means we'll see above average number of barbs since our LoS is blocked a good bit. Also, I know a horse tile within 5 tiles means horse barbs, not sure if that only counts if the horse tile isn't within borders. If not, we probably want Warriors over Slingers, since horse units are pretty effective at closing on ranged, Slingers in particularly who need to be up close to fire. Might want to delay the builder til build 3, dunno.

Also up for discussion, naming theme, general team goals - particularly how we want to attack the variant - specifically whether we want to use international routes heavily, to see how good they are or if we want to use them more sparingly, since the payback on a Commercial Hub is significantly less than with internal routes.

In terms of play order, thinking we just go in order of signup, though I'll get us going and we have time until everyone checks in to rejigger if necessary. 25/15/10/10 seems fine, unless you guys think Civ6 starts slower and we should extend the sets or whatever. I'll wait for some input on all of this before playing.

I'm not overly thrilled with the start personally. Nothing easy to improve, no plains hill or bonus tile to settle on easily either. The citrus would give us a 3 food cap but if it were grassland it would be 4. Decent amount of hills at least.

I would always suggest scout first on the 2/2 tile. The free envoys are just stupidly OP. A free military envoy is an extra 2 hammers a turn on those units. 4 commerce, 2 faith... there's a lot of space to explore out and about with. I often open with 2 scouts TBH at the moment.

Barbs just don't seem to do much, and I've found that saving my gold for an instant trader gives you the option of rush buying defence or if not needed instant TRs. I mean we won't even have a builder to defend or tiles that can be pillaged (but I've not seen barbs pillage either)

[pindicator]

I've been toying a bit with not going scout first, and to be honest it really just depends on how close your neighbors are. If you're in a tight area then that scout doesn't do a whole lot; if you have a lot of room then I find myself wanting the info. I haven't done too much with it though, so I'm really open to going Slinger -> Builder here. We do have a pair of 2f2h tiles, so we're going to have good production early on, even without builder improvements.

I vote to SIP. The best tile around is that horse tile (3f1h, upgradable to 3f2h) and moving so that it becomes 3rd ring would mean we don't work it for an eternity in the early game (or spend 150g over 2 tiles just to open it up).

[Ruined Everything]

I'm in the SIP/scout camp as well. 3F/1H and 2F/2H tile are nice in the early game. Free tier 1 city state benefits are pretty strong. REM's scout - scout idea is pretty interesting - maybe an early production queue along the lines of scout -> scout -> slinger -> worker -> <worker settler chopping cascade>?

REM, what's your logic behind starting 2/2 rather than 3/1? I think (not at my computer with civ 6 right now so this all might be rubbish) our early production should be 2 (palace) + 1 (starting tile) + (second tile). 2/2 gets us the scout in 6 turns (with 12/15 food to growth) whereas 3/1 gets us the scout in 7 (5 turns at 4 production and 2 turns at 5/6 production) and a size 2 city with 6/24 food (more if we've grabbed the horses tile.)

I think taking the extra turn on the scout is better for our growth curve. What am I not seeing here? Am I doing the math wrong?  Or is the extra turn that important?

[Sareln]

Move revealed Jade.  Lots of stuff to chop methinks as well.  They would like us to move, and I can see some merit in moving 1E to open up a coastal spot at the river mouth in the west as well as preserving a forest.  I doubt its worth wasting a turn, particularly as it moves away from pretty much all the bonus tiles we currently see.  I'll see if anyone has any thoughts on that, though, before playing.  Otherwise, its a fairly good start, though we're likely to have to research Irrigation without the eureka since there's no farmable bonus tile in view.

If SIP, thinking Pottery -> Irrigation -> AH as start techs, though certainly open to debate.  I assume the generator will grab that horse tile first.  

Buildwise, thinking Slinger -> Builder -> Slinger but that's also open to interpretation.  I like Scouts but I'm not entirely certain of how safe they are given we know nothing of our neighbors and suspect the foliage-heavy start means we'll see above average number of barbs since our LoS is blocked a good bit.  Also, I know a horse tile within 5 tiles means horse barbs, not sure if that only counts if the horse tile isn't within borders.  If not, we probably want Warriors over Slingers, since horse units are pretty effective at closing on ranged, Slingers in particularly who need to be up close to fire.  Might want to delay the builder til build 3, dunno.

Also up for discussion, naming theme, general team goals - particularly how we want to attack the variant - specifically whether we want to use international routes heavily, to see how good they are or if we want to use them more sparingly, since the payback on a Commercial Hub is significantly less than with internal routes.

In terms of play order, thinking we just go in order of signup, though I'll get us going and we have time until everyone checks in to rejigger if necessary.  25/15/10/10 seems fine, unless you guys think Civ6 starts slower and we should extend the sets or whatever.  I'll wait for some input on all of this before playing.

Don't you mean 1W? I would do that just b/c the rate of tile acquisition is really slow, so put horse and citrus in first ring, move jade into the 2nd ring while keeping tea on 3rd ring, and the harbor in the capital is an extra TR, extra housing, which can let us skip the aqueduct (or grab the aqueduct to go tall much earlier than housing would normally permit). Also lets us put our IND district where the settler is currently standing eventually for +3, hard to see what are hills right now. Also gets away from the mountains which are dead tiles...

In terms of attacking the variant, I think it would be much more fun to do a whole bunch of international routes and use the gold to buy all the things? Depending on the city states, could also route to them for +production/gold that way. Also, roads will be much harder to come by, heavier dependence on military engineers to lay our actual road network?

My starting build-orders I've found almost always scout-scout-slinger, but I have no idea if that's crazy and it's just happened to work out so far.

[Gaspar]

Consensus seems to be Scout start and SIP. I guess Scout > Slinger > Builder is the logical progression in that case, with the Builder obviously contingent on what we've encountered to that point. Sareln's suggestion to move 1W to get both tiles 1st ring has merit though I think if we're waiting til 3rd build for a Builder we'll certainly have acquired the Horse by the time its completed. Getting the Jade faster is good but that means 4 techs before we've used all 3 builder charges, is that doable? I'll probably play in 12-ish hours so I'll leave this out there for more replies in any case.

Anyone have any argument with Pottery > Irrigation > AH > Mining as a tech path?

[Ruined Everything]

Anyone have any argument with Pottery > Irrigation > AH > Mining as a tech path?

Why do we want Pottery/Irrigation at this point? We're not building granaries any time soon, and plantations are + g/t, which is pretty useless in the early game. By far the best tile on our screen is those horses. I'd go AH > Mining > Pottery and farm to get the Irri boost (can we farm the Citrus? I'd rather a 4f/1h tile than a 3f/1h/1g tile in the early game.)

[Sareln]

Second AH -> Mining at least. Can't get the irrigation boost w/out a farm-able resource (Rice, Wheat)

I don't know but best guess we can't farm the citrus since it's not the matching tile improvement, as in CIV5. Hooking Citrus and Jade are more for the happy's +10%? My guess on first worker charges being spent as Pasture, Chop (enabled by mining for forests, BW for jungle iirc), Mine? Or Pasture, Plantation, Mine Jade?

What does the size 4 capital look like in terms of the tiles being worked, Horse, Citrus + ? + ?

[Ruined Everything]

Second AH -> Mining at least.  Can't get the irrigation boost w/out a farm-able resource (Rice, Wheat)

I don't know but best guess we can't farm the citrus since it's not the matching tile improvement, as in CIV5.  Hooking Citrus and Jade are more for the happy's +10%?  My guess on first worker charges being spent as Pasture, Chop (enabled by mining for forests, BW for jungle iirc), Mine? Or Pasture, Plantation, Mine Jade?

What does the size 4 capital look like in terms of the tiles being worked, Horse, Citrus + ? + ?

I always spend the first worker on 3 tile enhancements for the craftsmanship bonus to speed me on the way to 30% to workers/50% to settlers (by far the best early game civics, imo, with some exceptions.) I'd def do the horses, but maybe I'd farm and then hopefully grab a resource in the fog? The 2f/1h/1 culture jade tile seems to me strictly worse than a 2f/2h ordinary mine.

I don't even know if we want the plantation. 10% of 6 hammers/3 food isn't a lot. 1g/t is almost useless. I'd rather spend the worker charge on an more useful improvement if possible.

Based on all of the above, maybe horse, Citrus, Mine/Hill forest x 2 at size 4? Might want another farm somewhere to toggle for growth?