[NO PLAYERS] PBEM 8 Map Making & Lurkers

[Sullla]

Provision means a city builds settlers essentially for free. I didn't take it in my test game this shot is from because I'm stupid. Anyway, what this means is that we can build a warrior or summat (this bit really isn't necessary, but I like more military units), then CHOP Magnus. Now, I had been underrating Magnus before - I thought he was stupidly powerful and broken, but I thought his ability was ADDITIVE - ie stacking Magnus and Maritime Industries grants you a total of 3x production (+100% +another 100%). But it's not! It's multiplicative! That's even more insane!. So Magnus grants not 3x production on those chops, but 4 times the default production. That means 1-shots of any wonder you want down the road, with the right set up. 

So, there are no early +100% policy cards except Maritime Industries, and I don't have a coastal city or I'd consider it. So what we're gonna do is chop either a settler or a military unit (haven't decided yet) with Magus and Provision in place at a city, not for 150% production like I thought, but 300% (2x for Magnus x 1.5 for the production card) production. That will pop out a BUNCH of settlers - for free, essentially! Then in 2 turns, I can do it AGAIN, and 2 turns later, AGAIN, all for no pop loss in the city! We can do this SOON, too! [...]

This is stupid. I can't believe I almost missed this and was considering building settlers the normal way like a scrub. I think you HAVE to do it this way in R&F to remain competitive, or you'll fall behind. So yeah, Magnus is broken and needs to be nerfed, this is no way to play a game. But we're doing it anyway, because, to quote the Once-ler, if we didn't do it, then someone else would!

Really good post from Chevalier Mal Fet in his spoiler thread. This is also why you won't see me playing the expansion any time soon. This is completely stupid - chopping with Magnus overrides every other factor in the gameplay - and I'm not wasting my time until it gets fixed. The first patch for the expansion does not have me feeling optimistic.

[Ituralde]

So to sum up the early game with one word: Magnus

[pindicator]

I want to correct Chevalier and remind him that Monarchy lost the +50% in R&F but somehow that seems like over the line? I dunno, someone else say something if I'm just being paranoid.

[Ichabod]

I wonder if EmpK accepted the delegation from Mongolia thinking it was a DoF. I can't see no other reason why he'd do it... Perhaps he doesn't know about the combat bonus from diplomatic visibility? Anyway you slice it, that's as much game throwing as you can reasonably imagine.

[Sullla]

This is a terrible spot for a city placement from Rowain:



I had to use one of TheArchduke's pictures because Rowain crops the living daylights out of his images to the point where it's almost impossible to tell what's going on. There's a plains wines (2/1/1 gold yield) and a grassland marble (2/0/1 culture yield), and, uh, a plains hill tile? Both of those luxuries are pretty weak resources as far as yields go, and most damning, this city has zero forests to chop in the first ring, one forest to chop in the second ring. There's also only a single hill tile of any kind in the first two rings. It's an absolutely terrible city: weak resources, no forests to chop, no hills to mine for production. Why in the world did Rowain pick this spot over the far superior territory along the river to his northeast? And then there's signing early Declarations of Friendship with both neighbors as Sumeria. Absolutely nothing about this opening makes any sense to me.

By the way, Chevalier Mal Fet is absolutely right that the other players were making a big mistake to let him claim Goddess of the Harvest with the fourth pantheon. The expansion is all about using Magnus chops, and this lets the player get huge faith output from those chops. Since faith can be used to buy almost anything in the expansion, he's going to have a huge leg up on everyone else. Without landing Goddess of the Harvest, I thought it was a mistake for Korea to chase after a religion; just build Seowons instead everywhere and ignore religion. But with all those extra faith from chopping, it's probably worthwhile to chase after one, especially via Stonehenge to skip wasting time on Holy Sites. Goddess of the Harvest + Jesuit Education + Seowons will be ludicrous if Chevalier lands them all.

It might even be enough to win the game despite TheArchduke running over his neighbor with chariots.

Japper has also messed up his opening (one city, what the heck?!) but that's a bigger topic that I'll try to cover in another post at some other time.

[BRickAstley]

I wonder if EmpK accepted the delegation from Mongolia thinking it was a DoF. I can't see no other reason why he'd do it... Perhaps he doesn't know about the combat bonus from diplomatic visibility? Anyway you slice it, that's as much game throwing as you can reasonably imagine.

Well based on the following:

My scout is moving towards the edge of the map while trying to get as much info as possible. TheArchduke positioned his chariots to block my scout and I do not want to spark aggression yet. 

I don't know if he's even seriously considered being attacked in the near timeframe.

[Woden]

There's a plains wines (2/1/1 gold yield) and a grassland marble (2/0/1 culture yield), and, uh, a plains hill tile? Both of those luxuries are pretty weak resources as far as yields go, and most damning, this city has zero forests to chop in the first ring, one forest to chop in the second ring. There's also only a single hill tile of any kind in the first two rings. It's an absolutely terrible city: weak resources, no forests to chop, no hills to mine for production. Why in the world did Rowain pick this spot over the far superior territory along the river to his northeast? And then there's signing early Declarations of Friendship with both neighbors as Sumeria. Absolutely nothing about this opening makes any sense to me.

Not that I agree with the city location choice either but each of those river tiles are worth 2, 1 : with a Ziggurat. I can see 5 2nd-ring locations for Ziggurats in the screenshot. Maybe he is going high food/high science in this city.

[pindicator]

Aetryn makes a good point about most of the R&F mechanics being overshadowed by Magnus. Maybe next game with R&F should add a house rule of "No Magnus" or "No chopping with Magnus".

[Ichabod]

Aetryn makes a good point about most of the R&F mechanics being overshadowed by Magnus. Maybe next game with R&F should add a house rule of "No Magnus" or "No chopping with Magnus".

Lurking this game starts to become annoying, because it's just Magnus Chop here, Magnus Chop there. Civ 6 as a whole is pestered by the stupid chop overflow mechanics. Every single post seems to be about chopping something into whatever % card is highest. But if you fix the overflow rules, then you just can't produce anything other than units (not even districts will be of any expected payback value; wonders would be even more non-existant, except for stupid China ability).

[Ituralde]

Did Japper just do a naked chop into a Library? I don't get it.