Das Boot (directed by Wolfgang Petersen and Singaboy)

[Singaboy]

Turn 29:

We still find no barbarians on our land. The score is getting tighter, though I have gained 2 points due to pop growth in both cities. Both cities are now unhappy. One more reason to connect sugar soon.



Builder #2 connects the wheat tile that I bought at the end of last turn and yet another Eureka is done.



Let's have a look at the technology tree to see what I am going to do. As usual, Civ 6 is not good at updating displays. Indeed, it is only 1 turn until pottery is done. You can see that it will then take less than 4 turns (7.2 * 4  > 25) to complete Irrigation. With Irrigation done, I will complete BW without the Eureka as I need to know where iron is and I want to chop rain forests before dropping districts (starting with the campus). I guess BW has 50 beakers left and with sugar connected, i will make 7.7 beakers a turn. BW should be done in 7 turns (T41). Keeping that in mind, it might be a good idea to produce another builder in Aachen right after the current trader (since no barbarians are in sight) and wait for Agoge to produce some needed military. The next builder costs 58 hammers and can be ready in roughly 4 turns. This would be nice timing to be able to send it north to Kiel to chop that rain forest and improve maybe 2 sea tiles (Kiel will grab a crab in 7 turns).



I move both warrior and slinger but that doesn't reveal any new land. However, builder #1, my good old sailor spots the same continent Antartica (mine is Siberia) west of Helgoland. I am supposed to turn around next turn to be able to improve the sugar at Aachen on time (in 5 turns). This is a tough decision to make. I would love to discover more land there especially running into a city state. I will have some time to think about that.



PS: I am thinking of sending the traders from Aachen to Valletta in order to pave a road for following units through the thick terrain. Especially the new builder might benefit from it. Also, it might be a good idea to start another galley after the current galley in Kiel to make the most of the rain forest chop to potentially overflow into a monument before starting the campus (or use the overflow for the campus depending on tech rate and writing completion)

[Singaboy]

Turn 30:

We get pottery



What I don't get though is the trader. Due to the amenities issue, it falls short by one turn. This means however, that I will have an overflow of 12.3 hammers into the next build. I might as well go for a monument, which would then take 4 turns. I need more culture badly and a monument would be a good addition before going for that builder and settler. I will have to delay Early Empire as well as it would be done too early currently and a policy swap out of God King not possible before T39 (netting the Pantheon). I will have to swap to Craftsmanship (5 turns left) for two turns or so. Of course, with the monument in play, this would be shortened. I really need a district up soon in order to speed up my path to Political Philosophy.



I decided to move on with builder #1 and explore and we spot something through our settler lens. there has to be a city there, whether a player or CS, we shall see.



In the scoring, Woden is making up good ground and is now second with 26 (I have 28 without the 2 points from pottery).

[Singaboy]

Plan for the next phase:

Research: Irrigation (4 turns), BW (7 turns), writing (4 turns)
Civics: Early Empire (7 turns), Craftsmanship (5 turns), State Workforce

Production:
Aachen: trader (1 turn), monument (4 turns), builder (4-5 turns), settlers (with Colonization policy)
Kiel: galley (4 turns), galley (8 turns), campus

To tie in with Eureka of State Workforce, a campus in Kiel would be required. Builder #3 will head for Kiel to chop the rain forest to aid the campus completion. In order to maximize the overflow, the chop will go into the last turn of the galley build to get +100% overflow. As Kiel might be too fast with its second galley, a monument could be inserted.
In 9 turns a belief will kick in too and hopefully boost culture. Once Craftsmanship is done, Agoge will be enabled alongside Maritime Industries and Colonization. This gives us the flexibility to react to any barbarian threat.

[Singaboy]

Turn 31:

Sometimes, strange things happen. I open the game and spot a slinger from Buenos Aires in the southwest. However, we do not have any contact with them. 
Even after moving my sailor/builder towards the unit, there is still no contact.




The trader is done and we start with the monument. I send the trader right away towards Valletta for a good road connection through the rough terrain and some nice extra bonus. This will boost our income and in fact, it adds enough production to Aachen to shorten the production to 4 turns. In 3 turns, when we connect sugar, hammers, research and culture will increase thanks to the luxury we connect. Of course, sending the trader to Valletta gives us another Eureka.



As mentioned, sending the builder south doesn't help with the contact. I hope we will get the contact in the IT, so that I can travel all the way back to Aachen to connect the sugar there. I need to monitor Early Empire and make sure, I do not complete it before T39 when we can get out of God King. The good thing is, with the additional hammer from the trade route, I will be making 16 hammers a turn in Aachen (when producing units) once sugar is connected. This will get the builder out in 4 turns (58 hammers) and with Colonization, result in 24 hammers a turn for settlers. This means a mere 5 turns for the next settler (T44) and another 3rd settler in 6 turns (T50). The calculation doesn't even take city growth into account. In 7 turns, we can make another 2 hammers per turn due to the stone hill that will be part of the city soon.



I include the score as well. It is all pretty tight, but Norway (the only nation having a district) still has only one city. TheArchduke shot up in score most likely due to his second city. oledavy is leading in both culture (I lead in science) and faith. I assume this might be city state envoys.

[Singaboy]

Turn 32:

I am greeted with great news at the beginning of the turn. Who could have hoped to be the first to meet Buenos Aires I didn't even know that the suzerain bonus for Buenos Aires is quite remarkable. Every bonus resource type to count as a luxury. I have stones, deer and wheat already connected, that would be +3 amenities. There are more of course, such as cattle, fish and crabs. The bonus quest it to get inspiration for Military Science, in other words to conquer a barbarian camp. I would love to do that but there are no barbarians on my continent. It seems off limits to them.



I send the builder back home, there is clearly more land to explore but I would like to improve the sugar at Aachen for +2 gold and later hopefully, +1 culture. Well, a quick look at Aachen shows that production has gone up by +2 thanks to Buenos Aires. As there are already 26 hammers invested in the monument, there will be an overflow of 9 hammers going into the next builder. I am in fact now waiting for my galley to be ready in two turns. I hope it will also improve my military strength as I am last in that category. I don't want to invite others to think they can conquer my continent. And so far, I am not really planning to produce a lot of military in the coming turns.



The warrior in the south makes an interesting discovery. I think I know where I am going to send my galley to. I was wondering where to head to with it. Northwest or southeast. The greenish color on the east seem to suggest that there is in fact more land there.

[Singaboy]

Based on the latest city state production bonus, I recalculated the production

Aachen:
Monument done on T35, builder done T39, settler 2 done T43 (given that I can still change from God King to Colonization on T39), settler 3 done T49.

Settler 2 will settle north at bananas/sugar/river. Settler 3 might head for the orange site to claim the southern part of the continent. We can always backfill later on. Both new cities would be heavy on growth.

After T49, with Agoge in place, Aachen will produce 2 slingers and 2 warriors for homeland security. Aachen makes 15 hammers at pop 5 and 17 at pop 6, hence with Agoge in place (22.5 or 26.5), all four units (150 hammers) will be produced in under 7 turns. After that, I might resume settler production while slotting in districts as well. If all goes well, I should be in a very comfortable position around T70. Remember that Kiel will go for a campus to provide science and the Eureka for Craftsmanship. I hope that the campus is done before T50 (remember that Kiel has pretty poor production currently)


Question: Pantheon requires 25 faith points, but usually kicks in a turn later. I will have 25.8 on T39. I fear the Pantheon will not kick in that turn. However, am I right to assume that the Pantheon will pop up even if I switch out of God King on T39 resulting in faith stuck at 25.8 at T40? This is crucial for me as I want to swap to Colonization on T39.

[Singaboy]

There are two more issues that have popped up in my mind. I will elaborate them again in the next turn set update. Just to quickly mention them (so I don't forget them myself).

a. If I want to get the third ring commercial hub for Aachen, currently it is within the first ring of the planned city next to salt. I read that you could overcome that 1st ring swap by claiming the third ring tile before founding the next city. This would mean, I need to buy two tiles (2nd and 3rd ring) for Aachen and drop the CH before building said salt city. Luckily my income currently is quite high and will increase with sugar plantations. I might want to pull off that stunt. (might need some testing though)

b. I might want to claim a city on the other continent. There is this really juicy place with a river, 2 wheat, cattle and 2 fish. I am aware that it would be an 'offensive' city and might provoke a war with the Vikings. However, in the long run, expansion would be required anyway. The city wouldn't be too far off from Aachen to get military support. Of course, I need to research the necessary technologies to be able to set sail with land units, but that was planned anyway after irrigation - BW - writing - currency.

[suboptimal]

There are two more issues that have popped up in my mind. I will elaborate them again in the next turn set update. Just to quickly mention them (so I don't forget them myself).

a. If I want to get the third ring commercial hub for Aachen, currently it is within the first ring of the planned city next to salt. I read that you could overcome that 1st ring swap by claiming the third ring tile before founding the next city. This would mean, I need to buy two tiles (2nd and 3rd ring) for Aachen and drop the CH before building said salt city. Luckily my income currently is quite high and will increase with sugar plantations. I might want to pull off that stunt. (might need some testing though)

This happened with Woden in PBEM 2 and caused a bit of confusion when an isolated tile turned Russian after Alhambram captured a city.  My understanding is that if a city's 3rd ring tile winds up in another cities' first ring, three things happen:

- the new city will get a 2nd ring tile in place of the 1st ring tile 
- the old city will retain the "contested" tile unless it is swapped to the new city
- in the event the tile is swapped to the new city, it cannot be swapped back to the old one

As always, trust but verify with these things.

[Singaboy]

Excellent, precisely what I need. Now, I just need the 'spare change' for those two tiles.

Anyway, since districts can't be swapped, I am not even able to accidentally swap that CH tile then.

[Singaboy]

The test for third ring within first ring of another city:

On the left, Hamar is building the commercial hub in its third ring. Heidelberg is then founded and grabs a second ring tile as stated by suboptimal. Not only that, the tile clearly belongs to Hamar and since it is a district, it can't even be swapped. Exactly what I needed