So, our first decision is when we'd like to, uh, make our next decision.
To my mind, there's only two real choices: 1/8 or 4/5. Basically, either you pick first (and last) to guarantee that one specific civ, or you pick last (and first) to have the strongest slate available if you have no specific strategy in mind.
Now, I never go into a game with a specific strategy in mind. Instead I've usually gone with luck of the draw and tried to adapt my civ with the map the gods have given us (except for my Arabian game, which was an attempt to show that Arabia could be a useful civ! That sort of worked, I guess, thanks to passive opponents). I'm also sick of picking last - it was a cruel blow watching Indonesia, Norway, and Phoenicia come off the board back to back to back last game, when I wanted just a single one of them to pair with Australia. If thrawn hadn't been going for a variant with Japan*, we'd have been even worse off. Now, Russia was available, but I needed a long-shot grab of Work Ethic to make that pick viable, and I've banned that so we'd have to come up with a backup plan.
So, I think best practice here since I've devoted zero thought to this game and have no specific strategy in mind is to ensure ourselves maximum flexibility and grab the middle pick slot, giving us maximum expected value from picking civs.
Now, uh, I guess I gotta think about what those civs will actually be...hmm...
*PBEM 20 digression:
It was unlucky for Kaiser that he took over Japan. Thrawn clearly had a specific combo in mind when he took that civ with the very first pick, and that team was VERY luck that Roland opted for China and left England on the board (in retrospect because that team intended a weird SP builder game on their island and only attacked us with jongs because suboptimal was miffed I settled near him. Good thing or that game would ahve been an easy walkover victory for us). Anyway, thrawn would have made Japan work, I think, but Kaiser didn't have the same background when he took over.
Fundamentally, the Central Powers lost that game because they didn't work together effectively. Japan's shallow water bonus SHOULD have made the fighting around Akkad a walkover for them and for England, and, having built that massive English fleet, all they needed was some Japanese escorts to hold off Norway and they would have been just fine. Instead, though, Kaiser didn't really exploit Japan's strengths, trying to build nice Japanese cities on their snaky island, when the terrain really didn't suit that style of play. Meanwhile, Woden/ljubljana massively lucked out, as not only did they get to concentrate on Archduke's fleet first (in two separate halves, no less), but Kaiser's efforts MOSTLY just made juicy pillage targets for Woden, who was able to loot his way back into relevance and let Norway's builder bonus and massive conquered empire do the rest.
The fundamental lesson is: Civ VI is all about exploiting the map as you find it. You're going to have things that suck (massive tundra, snaky island terrain), but the game is turning those weaknesses into strengths (Dance of the Aurora -> Work Ethic for a massive production boost that lets your civ credibly fight 4 others at the same time, using the snaky island to have juiced galleys and aggressively drive back your foes in the pre-Frigate era alongside your English allies). So, don't fret too much about your civ, or about your start. Just look at the pile of tools you've been given (the civ), the problem you have to solve (your terrain), and solve it. /end
Commentary for peanut gallery: Thrawn going with pick 1 is totally unsurprising. Means he has a specific civ he really wants to get, I suspect. Which one it is will tell us a lot about his gameplan. There's enough strong civs that I think picking 8 isn't really a handicap - cf me taking Russia on a naval map, strong generalist civs are always a reliable choice.
Should really start thinking about two strong civs to pair together with 4/5.
(August 15th, 2022, 06:47)Chevalier Mal Fet Wrote: So, I think best practice here since I've devoted zero thought to this game and have no specific strategy in mind is to ensure ourselves maximum flexibility and grab the middle pick slot, giving us maximum expected value from picking civs.
Quote:So yeah, having slept on it, I think our best bet is a strong science civ paired with the strongest naval civ we can get. Australia and Korea are the two most powerful researching civs, and of the two I favor Australia on a water map - islands make seowons a little difficult, while Australia's coast and appeal bonuses will be easy to get. Because the selection here is more limited, I think we should have you claim Australia with your first pick.
Of the naval civs, Norway, Indonesia, England, and Phoenicia I think are all strong. Norway is my favorite - the bonus to melee naval units and pillaging is very strong. The gameplan would be for Norway to swarm out longships with maritime industries (absurdly cheap!) and harass and pillage nearby civs on their islands. We'll make enemies doing that, but if you keep spamming longships there's nothing they can do about it. The knarr ability is great for naval invasions and seizing beachheads, and the ability to cross oceans and heal gives Norway incredible strategic mobility and longevity. The stave church is meh but could pair well with Work Ethic. And as thrawn showed, we don't need to found Work Ethic in order to benefit from it (religious spread will be difficult overseas). Pair with Auckland (which shouldn't appear) and God of the Sea and you've got a strong coastal city, too.
Longships are ridiculously cheap, too. With conscription, they cost NO maintenance, meaning you can spam them to no end from your cities - I'd have my coastal cities churning them out all the time, honestly. Expensive to upgrade, but you don't have to ever upgrade them - their role is to pillage and harass, not to fight! No one can really catch or stop them until Caravels come online (with one exception, which I'll get to). With Maritime Industries and Harald's bonus, they only cost 22 production! A decent city can kick the little buggers out in 1-2 turns, meaning by turn 70 you could have more than 10 of them swarming around, descend on a coast en masse, pillage the hell out of it, and withdraw. All of that covers Australia (some can stay on home defense) and lets Oz pull ahead of the field. The Vikings draft off Australian inspirations and eurekas married to pillaged research. No one can retaliate in kind until they get to Privateers, waaaaaaay the hell up the tech tree (with one exception, which I'll get to).
This civ is so good on the water that I think there's almost no chance thrawn/Archduke don't take it, but there's honestly a case to be made to take them first and hope for Australia/Korea with our second pick. I do think Australia is the stronger pick, though, since there's so much more good naval civs available. However, the denial value would also be strong - Australia would be VERY vulnerable to longship raids. If Norway lasts until Pick 7, there's every chance in the world Archduke/Thrawn will be looking at it and salivating with pick 8, so we'll certainly take it.
Indonesia is my second choice...maybe. The coastal adjacencies and kampung make them a poor man's Australia with a bit stronger naval game and a much stronger faith game. The gameplan here would be to maximize faith production by all means possible. Indonesia would found the religion and take Crusade (obviously) and then faith-boosting beliefs, perhaps cheaper missionaries + pilgrimage and then a synagogue? Anyway, with a good faith income rolling in, Indonesia does NOT chase monumentality, but instead saves that for Jongs. The jong is the powerspike - you hit it at Mercantlism, a bit sooner than Square Rigging (though who knows, these days?), and it pairs wonderfully with missionaries. The missionary gets your full movement (Great Admiral/Great Lighthouse synergy), then you hit your enemy with Crusade and now the Jong is +15 - the equivalent of a jong fleet! Add in the admiral and it's +20, which lets the jong credibly go toe to toe with battleships. That's an ideal scenario, obviously.
The weakness is an Australian/Indonesian civ combo would be INCREDIBLY vulnerable in the classical age, which is when thrawn/Archduke are most dangerous. If they take Norway, this combo is almost impossible to justify - both civs NEED to be coastal, but both civs also will have a very difficult time fending off a coordinated longboat push. Even combining forces would be minimally effective, since the longships would be faster and have access to ocean tiles, enabling them to outmaneuver us fairly easily. Both civs need time to ramp up to full speed - if they get there, they'll be unstoppable, but in multiplayer things rarely go that way. My Zulu warriors would have been unstoppable *if* I had survived the classical age more or less intact - but the civs with ancient or classical advantages get first crack. For that reason, despite Indonesia's overall strength, I hesitate to take it.
A better option for countering Norway is Phoenicia. In fact, uh, as I look, Phoenicia might be *better*. The loyalty mechanic for the same continent is gimmicky and can't be relied upon, but there is room for shenanigans with Colonial Offices/Taxes and flipping your capital to different cities in the late game. Unlike Indonesia, though, Carthage has some early game advantages - you'll be able to easily pump out settlers - good economic advantage. Woden put it to great use in PBEM18, and he might take Phoenicia again because of that (I can't believe Phoenicia and Brazil were rated "weak" and allowed in while other players were stuck with Canada.) That will keep Carthage competitive through the ages (sadly, the eureka for writing is wasted, since we all get it on turn 1).
The real strength of Carthage is the Cothon, though: +50% to naval units AND settlers! That is flat out better than Harald's bonus, with the only disadvantage being you need to build the Cothon first. Accordingly, Phoenicia should rush Celestial Nav and make getting this out their top priority - I'd even bypass the already-unlocked Holy Site to make the Cothon your first district. The +50% is key. You get it for ranged units, too, and frigates and bbs rule naval warfare after the classical age. Harald will be churning out Caravels, not nearly as good. Paired with the bireme, though, it perfectly counters longship spam: the bireme is faster than the longship (without the ability to enter ocean tiles), so if he comes in to pillage you can run him down. It is just as strong, and is just as cheap. So, for every longship, you can have a bireme.
Now, you don't have Norway's pillaging ability, so your offensive ability with biremes is limited. But they do make a beautiful coastal defense force, and can safeguard Australian/Phoenician shores. So the gameplan is to make use of the Cothon to expand wide in the classical age, using biremes to fend off our opponents and defend Australia as it ramps up. You build a s trong capital with the plaza and its bonuses, and use your production bonus to kick out frigates (or quads) for a decisive war when Australia is ready. I might take Phoenicia before Indonesia, honestly. I definitely will if thrawn/Archduke take Norway with their first pick. If sub/ljub or woden/Roland take it, I'm not as worried about maximum aggression, so I might lean Indonesia in that case.
Finally, that brings us to England. Up front, the fact taht most of their abilities don't come online until the Industrial age is a huge weakness. The game is usually decided before factories and power matter. Especially with Australia, this makes a poor pairing. The bonus coal and iron just doesn't seem like it will ever be relevant.
Victoria's ability is decent, but not game-breaking. You want to get your RNDs down as early as you can - which means that your strongest ship is likely a galley or a quadrireme. Figure you'll found about 10 cities over the course of the game, MAYBE 15 if it goes long - that's probably like 5 free galleys, 5 quads, and 5 caravels or frigates. Over the lifetime of the game, Harald and Dido will both get more out of their production abilities.
The only real saving grace is the Royal Navy Dockyard. It's a bit more military focused than the Cothon - it generates more gold to help pay for those ships, it grants +1 movement to all ships, and has double GA point generation. With first strike being critical to victory at sea, those are not insignificant bonuses. I dunno, though, England has been nerfed again and again since it was only "decent" at release, and the only real buff since has been getting the free naval unit - the free melee unit ability, already niche, has been nerfed. Madness.
I don't really like England, and this writeup hasn't convinced me.
Later on, I'll look at niche dark horse picks - the Ottomans, the Dutch, the Japanese - for naval civs. Right now I like Norway -> Phoenicia/Indonesia -> England in that order. I might like one of the dark horses like the Netherlands more than England, though.
I'll think about counterplay and opponents next.
Norway/Indonesia/Phoenicia are still my top three picks from this set. I still can't believe that Woden/ljubljana were able to swing Phoenicia/Norway on the last game. I haven't looked at civs in over a year since writing this, though, so need to update it with my PBEM20 experiences.
Ljubljana chooses pick #2, meaning he also has a specific civ that he wants. I wonder if he's thinking Indonesia, after speculating about a ban? Or possibly NFP Portugal, which I took for a spin once last year in SP and indeed crushed the AI?
either way, if NFP is allowed, we are certainly going to have two of Norway, Indonesia, Phoenicia, Portugal, Japan (giving them more thought now), and Australia (still think it's a solid choice but not #2 pick material anymore) available. We definitely want at least one of those, and have more flexibility with our second civilization - a strong researcher like Korea, a generalist like Russia, I think Ethiopia is actually really, really strong on land maps but not so sure about islands, etc.
Ideal pairing would be Phoenicia/Australia/Japan/Indonesia/Portugal/Norway, in any pair - two strong naval civs or coastal research civs teamed up would be excellent. I could definitely get more from Australia than Marco did, but Japan might be even easier and better to build a naval research civilization from.
Anyway, plenty of time to think. Curious about thrawn and ljubljana's picks, will show their thinking. I predict that thrawn takes either Norway if he goes for a naval civ or something weird if he's got another plan in mind (although if he was going with something weird why pick #1? He had to be afraid someone else would take his civ off the table). Norway perfectly suits thrawn's aggressive, tactical mindset - he can build his way to victory (PBEM21) but thinks it's inefficient (PBEM19). Norway gets an early start on the seas, has powerful military and economic bonuses (per looting and pillaging), and it has denial value to everyone else - no one else can fuck with thrawn's teams' plans if they're the ones with the early high seas raiders. So no, I predict Norway for thrawn, and Indonesia/Portugal for ljubljana. Woden at pick 3 with Banzai will probably take Indonesia/Phoenicia (since Norway and one of Indonesia/Portugal will be off the table), leaving Portugal/Japan and probably Phoenicia for us?
School starts in 30 minutes (I REALLY shouldn't be doing this) but here's a possible shortlist to consider, Inc:
Standard:
Norway
Harald
Stave Church
Longship
Civilization abilities
Phoenicia
Dido
Cothon
Bireme
Civilization abilities
Indonesia
Gitarja
Kampung
Jong
Civilization abilities
England
Victoria (we're not doing Eleanor lol)
RND
Sea Dog
Civilization abilities
New Civs/More in-depth look:
Portugal
* Joao:
+1 sight for all units+1 trade route per civilization metOpen Borders with all city states
Navigation School (replaces Uni)
+25% towards naval units in city
+.5 science per Lake or Ocean
+1 Great Admiral point
(University stuff)
Nau (replaces Caravel)
+1 free promotion on upgrade, train, or purchase
+2 build charges -> Feitoria
(Feitoria -> Must be placed next to resource in foreign city you have Open Borders with, +1 +4 yield, Portugal receives +1.5 +6 per trade route)
Civilization ability: Can only trade with coast or harbors. +50% range/yield on international trade routes, Traders can immediately embark.
Spain
Philip
Super effective inquisitors, +5 combat strength against civs with other religions
Mission
+2 , +2 1 1 if on different continent from capital+ 1 for every adjacent Holy Site/Campus, +2 loyalty if next to city center
Conquistador
Musket replacement, +3 strength, +10 strength when adjacent to religious unit, converts cities if adjacent upon capture
Civilization
Armadas at Mercantilism, not Nationalism. Trade routes +3 +2 +1 , intercontinental routes + 9 +6 +3 Cities on foreign continents receive +25% towards districts and a free Builder
Australia
John Curtin
+100% when war declared on or when liberating foreign cities for 10 turns
Outback Station
+1
+1
+0.5 Housing
+1 Food from every adjacent Pasture
+1 Production to every adjacent Pasture (Req. Steam Power)
+1 Production from every 2 adjacent Outback Stations (Req. Steam Power)
+1 Food from every 2 adjacent Outback Stations (Req. Rapid Deployment)
Civilization abilities
+3 Housing in coastal cities. Building a Pasture triggers a Culture Bomb, claiming surrounding tiles. Campus, Commercial Hub, Holy Site, and Theater Square districts gain +1 to their yields in tiles with Charming Appeal, and +3 with Breathtaking Appeal.
Dark Horses:
Ethiopia?
Menelik
Ethiopian cities founded on Hills receive Science and Culture equal to 15% of their Faith output. +4 Strength Combat Strength for all units when fighting on Hills.
Rock church
+1 Faith +1 Faith for every adjacent Mountain and Hills tileProvides Tourism from Faith after researching Flight+1 Appeal.Can never be destroyed (only pillaged) by natural disasters
Cavalry thing
No movement penalty on hills, +1 sight, +2 CS
Civilization abilities
Improved resource tiles receive +1 Faith for each copy of that resource the city owns. International Trade Routes grant +0.5 Faith for each resource in the origin city. Can purchase Archaeologists and Archaeological Museums with Faith.
Khmer?
Javayarman
Holy Sites grant Food equal to their adjacency bonus, receive a +2 adjacency bonus from Rivers, grant +2 Housing if built next to a River, and trigger a Culture Bomb when built, claiming surrounding tiles.
Prasat
+6 faith (not +4), +.5 culture per pop in city. Bonus tourism at 10/20 pop.
Domrey
Can move and attack, +5 CS, exerts zone of control
Civ
Cities with an Aqueduct receive +1 Amenity, and +1 Faith for every Citizen Population. Farms receive +2 Food when adjacent to an Aqueduct, and +1 Faith when adjacent to a Holy Site.
The standard picks are the strong naval civs, all of which I analyzed earlier. I'd love any of the big three, but even if all 3 go then Portugal will still be available and I'm increasingly liking what I see. Anyway, we should probably take whichever of these is still on the table, even any two.
More in depth:
Portugal
Hugely profitable trade routes. This civ can be positively swimming in gold - my SP game last year I remember had like tens of thousands because I wasn't bothering to spend it every turn. In multiplayer gold is hte lifeblood of war, vital for unit upgrades (and apparently we're going to have to do the goofy gamey trade-resources-build cheap units-trade back resources-upgrade thing). This is because production scales up quickly, Incurian, while gold and resource costs can be mitigated with policy cards, so the best way to get lots of units out is to build cheap earlier units and then upgrade them. Portugal is king at making gold on the sea and best of all gold can be traded between teammates! The Nau is a decent sea supremacy unit (will be opposing Jongs, Caravels, and Frigates most likely and outclasses all of those), and the Navigation School is like a poor man's Cothon with some science benefits thrown in.
Overall, I like Portugal, and I think it'd be an excellent civ to pair with any of the standard naval civs as the gold makes it an excellent partner and it can contest the sea well.
Spain
The beefed up Spain might be even better, honestly. No Nau and no Navigation School gives no direct boost to building ships, but the massive production, gold, and science income from foreign continents (with the mission) makes this actually quite a strong civ. Entirely mapmaker dependent, though - my English game I somehow managed to be the only player not placed on a continental divide, which possibly was the difference in a drawn game. A Spain without continents is pretty sad, one with continents is good. This one might be a candidate to pair with Phoenicia/Indonesia/Norway, if Portugal is gone. Not sure if I like them more than Portugal or not.
Downside to both of these is the dependence on overseas trade. We need good escorts to keep the Norwegians away. I don't think that's too big a drawback, though, since once you lose control of the sealanes you should lose the game anyway. I'm seriously considering these two.
Australia
Still strong. Not as fun as the others. Slow burn. But a monster in the lategame if you can hang in there. Worth thinking about, doubt we'll reach lategame with thrawn in the game.
Will do Dark Horses later - but I'm sure lurkers can spot what I'm thinking with them (hint: what do they have in common?)
+4 
yield, Portugal receives +1.5 
, +2 
if on different continent from capital+ 1 
for every adjacent Holy Site/Campus, +2 loyalty if next to city center