Chevalier Rides Again: A City Lights exploration

[Ginger()]

Overview. Sorry my pins are cluttering, this will become more clear as my cities go down and the plans vanish:

Nonsense! Don't apologize for what's literally the best part about Civ6. Seriously I love the pins, both how the make the game easier and how they look, it fits the art style perfectly, and dovetails the game mechanics and the necessity of district placement.

I'm really liking this game report, so please keep it up!

Are you on quick or online speed for this game? 
Also I understand that this is a 'casual' and less   game, but how does this impact pink-dots? Is that why you're eager to settle up near Germany, because its a more always-peace landgrab, or is the idea of the peace rules to be "within reason?"

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I think we're on online, but I'm not 100% certain. I can look at production numbers and work it out, probably.

The main reason I want to pink-dot (although! note that every single dot is 2-3 hexes closer to Canterlot than to Aachen's presumed location, judging by borders) is because yeah, once land is taken it's largely taken. I won't be able to take those places by force without substantially harming the German player's fun. A bit of light sparring over border areas is fine, but I suspect taking his first expansions will be very rough play.

So what you get peacefully is largely what you get.

[Brian Shanahan]

Liang actually might be skippable. Builders are much less important due to the abundance of Farmers/Miners/Fishers coming out of the rural towns. Will need to re-examine civics tree and consider how many titles I'll get and how they might best be spent.

What about Liang's aquaculture promotion which unlocks fisheries that can massively boost seafood?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

tbh I've never used it. I rarely need more seafood once I have my lighthouses and stuff up in single player games, and in multiplayer governor titles are too precious to spend (since you need lots of Victor promotions there). I'll look into it -

It's possible Liang will have a use in a fishing-village heavy town, but it can't be Ponyville since that will be Magnus's home (as I route all trade routes there for lots of food).

Manehattan might be a rural fishing community, or Bologna if I get the galleys out to conquer it. Manehattan and Baltimare can both supply galleys for that task.

NOTE: Might rename Manehattan. It obviously has to be a city name for an urban city and that site might be rural.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 8

We uncover the supremely irritatingly-named Codenhaagen, Grotsnot's capital:



Slightly better first ring than Canterlot, worse second ring, and much better third ring, I judge. Note that there is no room for a city to the north between here and Hattusa, and I know from Grot's complaints that there's at least one city-state to the south as well, so we will likely press on. 

On the opposite side of the map, in the northeast, we don't quite reveal Aachen (which I mistakenly labelled Berlin) yet:



First ring copper, nice. Probably on the far side of the hill. I should be able to claim Baltimare and Seaddle and seal off Germany into his space. Hopefully the barbs prevent Eltargrim from sending his first settler this way, as I gamble by sending mine to Ponyville to the west instead of Baltimare to the east. 

Overview of the known world:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 9

The turn pace drags, but I sort of expected that - I turn my turns around in about 2-3 hours maximum but everyone else will take 18-48 hours with a turn. With 5 other people to get through about 2 turns a week is all I can hope for. This will probably be a year+ commitment but thankfully I EXPECT to spend longer than 12 months staying on the same continent this time! 

anyway, our empire is progressing quickly:








Irrigation and Code of Laws comes in, enabling me to clear the marshes around the capital where I have districts pinned, and to slot in my first government. I go with Discipline and Urban Planning. 

* Discipline's +5 to combat against barbs is strictly superior to a trickle of extra XP for scouts, given a barb camp in the neighborhood. 
* Urban Planning is only +1 cog at the moment but will soon grow to +2 as my cities come online. God-King's trickle of gold and faith doesn't matter, since I'm planning on an early Holy Site anyway to supply faith for a pantheon, and there's no call to rush for a pantheon in our position. 

Next, I find Seaddle's position menaced by a barb camp:



The oki can clear this; however, I have other plans for hte little explorers. That DOES mean I'll need to recall my warrior sooner rather than later, but I'll take the risk of barbs until I can get my holy site up - I want to find the city-state Grot's complaining about to boost Political Philosophy before recalling the warrior as a garrison. I think the scout is going for Germany anyway, so let him mess with Eltargrim for a while. 

Speaking of, just to the east of the camp lies Eltar's capital of Aachen:



First ring copper, two rice, a deer, and a fish, second ring crab, stone, and more rice, it's strictly superior to Canterlot in just about every way. I'm definitely facing an uphill struggle here!

However, the mountainous terrain to the west does offer opportunity.  It's possible to establish blocking positions with just two units to lock Eltar out of the river valley to the west:



Posting my scouts in the valleys pinned should prevent any march to the west by the 2-move settler, who won't have enough movement points to move through my scout onto the terrain behind. That forces him to move more roundabout north or south, and I can continue to maneuver to block his moves until I have Baltimare settled. Baltimare and Seaddle together will be all I think I can push for in this direction, and they'll secure Manehattan as a backline in the process. 

Final note: Grot ALSO has nice terrain than me, in the jungle belt with diamond mines available:



Good! Keep things interesting. 

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turns 10, 11, and 12

Three turns in as many days, after a 3-day wait! Sometimes I have hope that the pace might be good. 

Anyway, research causes a slight alteration of plans for both cities, Canterlot and the aptly-named Ponyville:




Animal Husbandry reveals 3 horses all in range of projected Ponyville, which means that it can be the hub city of the Cree trading ability, routing all my initial food trade routes there. So, we will definitely settle it first and attempt to stake a claim to the river valley to the east using our scouting units. It's a gamble but if it pays off the snowball is massively boosted. I also intend to plant my Government Plaza there (it needs to be in city 1 or city 2 to really get the Ancestral Hall) which will likely be a very early build, so my Monumentality push can benefit from free builders. 

In a failed attempt at a clever move I unlock writing early:



My intention was to plant both the Holy Site and the Campus before the settler finished, letting me lock in slightly lower costs; however, I forgot to finish Astrology first! In a derpy move, it won't even sync up with the end of the settler as planned - I'll have to sink production into a warrior or something for a turn or two (I'll need 4 to go after Hattusa, next on the list after the Holy Site, I think, once Craftsmanship is in). 

I do plant the pasture instead of harvesting the rice, deciding that a meagre food gain is dumb when I'll have so much food from trade soon, and that the boost to culture, food, and production from the pasture is obviously better. It felt wasteful to pave the rice, but obviously opportunity cost is far higher for doing that and I should have factored that in. 

Next turn find culture state. Grot has already met them:

[Dp101]

The first image in that last post isn't working, you have a mismatched image/screenshot tag, which causes almost half your post to be eaten (since the forum sees it as part of the URL until the closing screenshot tag). Still readable if I reply to see the raw text ofc. I've been really enjoying the reporting so far, this mod is fascinating to me.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Really? It looks good to me, both here on the page, and when I go into edit mode. Not sure what I broke there.

[williams482]

I don't see anything wrong with the report or images in Chrome.

Jackpot on those horses appearing where they did. And I agree that pasturing the horse instead of harvesting the rice was definitely the right way to use that last builder charge.