Author Topic: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI! (Completed!)  (Read 60969 times)

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Hello fellow maidens! You might have stumbled upon some of my Let's Play centric threads in the past. What they all had in common was that apart from a few introductory screenshots, they were mostly ground for me to paste Youtube links onto, usually accompanied by a motivational blurb to make it not quite as hamfisted.

Today, I'm tackling a different beast. Welcome to my very first Screenshot Let's Play.

I do know of a time before the processed bovine that doesn't go too swiftly, when it wasn't even a question whether you chose SSLP or VLP as a format. The first of these do seem to be quite popular and numerous on our forum, so I don't think it's outlandish to have one hosted here. What I have in mind for us is:

Sid Meier's Civilization VI
(with nothing but Touhou mods, no realistic civilizations allowed!)

   
   

Developed by Firaxis and published by 2KGames, this is a so called 4X game. "Explore, expand, exploit, exterminate" is what this special term stands for. What it describes is a strategy game, usually turn-based, although not necessarily. You use the term to differentiate these games from purely military focused strategy titles like e.g. Warcraft. Although war is an option, healthy economy and progression towards peaceful goals are also and perhaps an even bigger part of the gameplay.

I want to lead all of you through a full single-player campaign, Ancient Era start until one of the 7 competing players wins (preferrably us, but that's not a given). Difficulty chosen will likely be King [5 out of 8] or perhaps Emperor [6], I'll decide on that on a whim. Also, the map will be "Greatest Earth" of the Yet Not Another Map Pack mod, because that's much more fun than fictional landmasses that don't mean anything to anyone apart of their strategic value.

7 fan-modded Touhou civilizations exist on the Steam Workshop at the moment, made by 4 different users (KCucumber, Amekijiang, Sa and BoringDuck). Which of these will we be playing as? What a tough choice indeed...

READER'S VOTING! (closed by now)

Rather than just being a lonesome rider about this, I want you to vote on who we should pick. 1 vote per user, most votes wins, the 6 runner-ups will appear as AI-controlled opponents. Here are the choices:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=901489830&searchtext=Touhou ? Remilia Scarlet by KCucumber

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=895016567&searchtext=Touhou ? Byakuren Hijiri by KCucumber

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=909273322&searchtext=Touhou ? Kaguya Houraisan by KCucumber

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=917770139&searchtext=Touhou ? Alice Margatroid by Amekijiang and KCucumber

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=921802125&searchtext=Touhou ? Sanae Kochiya by Amekijiang and KCucumber

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=923523091&searchtext=Touhou ? Shinmyoumaru Sukuna by BoringDuck

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=938405869&searchtext=Touhou ? Mamizou Futatsuiwa by KCucumber and Sa

The links to the workshop should provide you with their leader and civilization abilities if you want to factor them into your vote. If you have no prior knowledge about what abilities will be useful or not so useful in the meta of Civilization VI, take it from me, don't worry about it at all. Listen to your gut and pick what could be cool or just whoever might be your favourite Touhou girl. There are no bad or wrong votes.

The first proper content post of this Let's Play will appear on Sunday, December 10th. That's when the voting will be closed and the votes counted.
A bit of a disclaimer here: I'm telling my Youtube subscribers about this thread through a video and I'm also allowing them to vote. If they don't have a MotK account, I'll be taking their votes on the video's comment section, which I'll be copying into this thread as well (for transparency) when the deadline is reached. I hope this unusual procedure is ok? I am open for concerns.

With that, please vote ahead! Any interaction is appreciated.

List of update shortcuts:

1 - Turn 1 (4.000 BC): Instant city, just add water
2 - Turn 2 (3.960 BC) - Turn 5 (3.840 BC): Tribal tattoos
3 - Turn 6 (3.800 BC) - Turn 10 (3.640 BC): Grass grows, birds fly, sun shines and brother, I'm bad at hurting people
4 - Turn 10 (3.640 BC) - Turn 14 (3.480 BC): Requesting the impossible
5 - Turn 15 (3.440 BC) - Turn 19 (3.280 BC): They said Tokugawa Ieyasu was as wily as a Tanuki...
6 - Turn 20 (3.240 BC) - Turn 24 (3.080 BC): That's where Yosemite Sam lives, right?
7 - Turn 25 (3.040 BC) - Turn 30 (2.880 BC): World of Handcraft
8 - Turn 31 (2.840 BC) - Turn 35 (2.640 BC): We can call our scout Eric the Red
9 - Turn 36 (2.600 BC) - Turn 40 (2.440 BC): This land is my land, this land is my land...
10 - Turn 41 (2.400 BC) - Turn 46 (2.200 BC): Would you like to make a trade agreement with yourself?
11 - Turn 47 (2.160 BC) - Turn 52 (1.960 BC): I'm in the zone, baby! The zone of control unfortunately...
12 - Turn 53 (1.920 BC) - Turn 57 (1.760 BC): The Sword Coast's Iron Crisis
13 - Turn 58 (1.720 BC) - Turn 63 (1.520 BC): More embark than bite
14 - Turn 64 (1.480 BC) - Turn 69 (1.280 BC): Governments explained to you by someone who lives in a country currently without a government
15 - Turn 70 (1.240 BC) - Turn 75 (1.040 BC): Don't underestimate me just because I don't need resources to be built!
16 - Turn 76 (1.000 BC) - Turn 79 (925 BC): Those countries that lose soccer matches 0:10, but are always really excited to take part
17 - Turn 80 (900 BC) - Turn 84 (800 BC): Don't worry, it's just a drill! Ignore the army that's gathering there
18 - Turn 85 (775 BC) - Turn 91 (625 BC): All the swords we're carrying? Oh, those are just props
19 - Turn 91 (625 BC) - Turn 94 (550 BC): Ok, we lied in those last two updates
20 - Turn 95 (525 BC) - Turn 99 (425 BC): When did the Civilization 6 AI actually get somewhat decent?
21 - Turn 100 (400 BC) - Turn 104 (300 BC): Let's shake hands now so that I can destroy you at a later time
22 - Turn 105 (275 BC) - Turn 109 (175 BC): We're going medieval on their asses
23 - Turn 110 (150 BC) - Turn 115 (25 BC): That's us in the spot...light, gaining our religion
24 - Turn 116 (1 AD) - Turn 121 (125 AD): If at first you don't succeed...
25 - Turn 122 (150 AD) - Turn 126 (250 AD): Hear ye, hear ye: You have a new liege
26 - Turn 127 (275 AD) - Turn 131 (375 AD): When you've scrubbed all the floors of Lilliput, then we can talk about mercy
27 - Turn 132 (400 AD) - Turn 135 (475 AD): The stone tablet contained but one mysterious phrase: "Mamizou will return!"
28 - Turn 136 (500 AD) - Turn 142 (620 AD): Skull and crossbows
29 - Turn 143 (640 AD) - Turn 148 (740 AD): Help! I'm being repressed by Queen Shinmyoumaru!
30 - Turn 149 (760 AD) - Turn 154 (860 AD): The Seven-Coloured Se?orita
31 - Turn 155 (880 AD) - Turn 160 (980 AD): The power to create miracles
32 - Turn 161 (1.000 AD) - Turn 165 (1.040 AD): If ZUN was the Great Prophet, would Tasofro be our first apostle?
33 - Turn 166 (1.050 AD) - Turn 171 (1.100 AD): We know it definitely wasn't the Goa'uld that built those
34 - Turn 172 (1.110 AD) - Turn 177 (1.160 AD): If the first apostle was Tasofro, is the second PlayDoujin with their PS4 ports?
35 - Turn 178 (1.170 AD) - Turn 184 (1.230 AD): Legend of The Great Shinto-Buddhism War, fact or fiction?
36 - Turn 185 (1.240 AD) - Turn 189 (1.280 AD): Did you ever dance with the devil in the scarlet moonlight?
37 - Turn 190 (1.290 AD) - Turn 196 (1.350 AD): When unregulated child labour was accepted and encouraged
38 - Turn 197 (1.360 AD) - Turn 201 (1.400 AD): Oh don't worry, those are just trade ships. They're peacefully trading guns and cannons
39 - Turn 202 (1.410 AD) - Turn 206 (1.450 AD): We lied about those trade ships. You really shouldn't keep believing us!
40 - Turn 207 (1.460 AD) - Turn 212 (1.505 AD): The Little Shop of Magical Horrors
41 - Turn 213 (1.510 AD) - Turn 217 (1.530 AD): The invincible Spanish Armada of Alice II?
42 - Turn 218 (1.535 AD) - Turn 223 (1.560 AD): It was your weakness that provoked us into attacking. Now pay up!
43 - Turn 224 (1.565 AD) - Turn 229 (1.590 AD): Modern Peacefare
44 - Turn 230 (1.595 AD) - Turn 235 (1.620 AD): Finn MacCool's legendary spears he hands out for free to anyone who comes by
45 - Turn 236 (1.625 AD) - Turn 239 (1.640 AD): The deluxe suite? I'd rather sleep inside some kitchenware
46 - Turn 240 (1.645 AD) - Turn 244 (1.665 AD): Don't worry, those soldiers...oh. Okay. We're just going to invade then
47 - Turn 245 (1.670 AD) - Turn 248 (1.685 AD): Rose-killing the Carmilla
48 - Turn 249 (1.690 AD) - Turn 253 (1.710 AD): Septette for a Dead Princess. The one that's dead because we killed her
49 - Turn 254 (1.715 AD) - Turn 259 (1.740 AD): Rubbing it over your body will give you superpowers. You'll be Sickness Man!
50 - Turn 260 (1.745 AD) - Turn 265 (1.770 AD): I respect you as a person, but I need to let you know that all your views on the world are wrong and stupid
51 - Turn 266 (1.775 AD) - Turn 270 (1.795 AD): Totally Totalitarian!
52 - Turn 271 (1.800 AD) - Turn 275 (1.808 AD): Tanks from the bottom of my heart
53 - Turn 276 (1.810 AD) - Turn 280 (1.818 AD): Senator McCarthy would like to question you about what you think of Shinto...
54 - Turn 281 (1.820 AD) - Turn 286 (1.830 AD): Do worry, because those soldiers are not on a drill, nor are their guns props
55 - Turn 287 (1.832 AD) - Turn 290 (1.838 AD): Stop talking! That's too much information
56 - Turn 291 (1.840 AD) - Turn 294 (1.846 AD): An innocent saint, rescued from the depths of Makai
57 - Turn 295 (1.848 AD) - Turn 299 (1.856 AD): In Soviet Kobito, shrine maidens donate to you!
58 - Turn 300 (1.858 AD) - Turn 305 (1.868 AD): Better show some respect to our returning soldiers. You've seen Rambo 1, right?
59 - Turn 306 (1.870 AD) - Turn 310 (1.878 AD): Fat Man, Little Boy and Cruiserweight Toddler
60 - Turn 311 (1.880 AD) - Turn 314 (1.886 AD): At no point in history did a Japanese samurai cut down a Roman legionnaire
« Last Edit: June 05, 2018, 06:57:54 AM by Gesh86 »

Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2017, 04:18:46 PM »
I'm definitely looking forward to this unusual type of let's play :)

Kaguya's impossible request gimmick sounds fun so my vote will be going to her.

commandercool

  • alter cool
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2017, 04:25:33 PM »
I don't know anything about Civilization, but I vote Sanae because... I like her art?
I made a PADHerder. It's probably out of date though.

Sophilia

  • Exposition Patchouli
  • Seeker of Truth
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2017, 06:35:45 PM »
Each of the other Civs seems to have a defined focus besides Mamizou who is RNG and Kaguya whose Impossible Requests each benefit a different field.  Remilia in particular seems like she would make an outstanding final boss due to her self-building military and development boosts.  So, to face the "blood-sucking oni", who else could you be but Shinmyoumaru?
Life and death are without purpose.  Our attempts to give them one are quite presumptuous of us.  But in the end, we exist, and that is enough.

Current status: Dissuading deliberately choking for imagined fame.

Lt Colonel Summers

  • Lieutenant Colonel
  • Do not mess with a soldier
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #4 on: December 05, 2017, 10:54:11 AM »
Aw, this isn't a Touhou game...  :(
But at least it has a Touhou mod pack in it.  :)

Alice Margatroid, I choose you!
Because doll army  :V
There's nothing inscribed on the dog tag...

Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #5 on: December 06, 2017, 08:05:35 PM »
I vote Mamizou. She seems a bit underrated by fandom. Also I like the RNG.

CyberAngel

  • Retired
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #6 on: December 06, 2017, 09:01:23 PM »
Remilia. Time for a Vampire Apocalypse!

PX

  • School Idol?
  • *
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #7 on: December 07, 2017, 12:02:27 AM »
Byakuren

O4rfish

  • something seems fishy
  • paranoia 4 lyfe
    • Ask an Oarfish!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #8 on: December 07, 2017, 01:17:10 AM »
Remi is OP, so let's play as her.
[9:49:09] <Purvis> Generally not, but your mother may be an exception.

Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #9 on: December 07, 2017, 01:49:37 AM »
Byakuren, early Windows has enough recognition as it is.
My old avatars: Old ass turtle, Unzan - Second and Current Avatar by the talented Aoshi-shi

Thata no Guykoro

  • I ran out of good lines a while ago
  • It alllll makes sense now
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #10 on: December 09, 2017, 04:48:35 PM »
alice alice full of malice

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #11 on: December 10, 2017, 09:40:48 AM »
My subscribers were...not exactly very active voters, we have only 1 incoming from there:

Quote from: Bismuth
I'll put in a vote for the tiny 2hu since I love the early rush play-style and that UU and Civ ability seem perfect for it.

If we take a look at the scoreboard then:

Byakuren Hijiri: 2 (PX, the old guy)
Remilia Scarlet: 2 (CyberAngel, O4rfish)
Alice Margatroid: 2 (Lt. Colonel Summers, Thata no Guykoro)
Shinmyoumaru Sukuna: 2 (Sophilia, Bismuth)
Mamizou Futatsuiwa: 1 (Golbez)
Sanae Kochiya: 1 (commandercool)
Kaguya Houraisan: 1 (Kaiserlucas)

Well now, that's a lot of girls sharing that first place. I could make myself a tiebreak-voter but I'd hate to, seems so arbitrary. Any lurkers around who just couldn't make up their minds yet and would like to be a last minute decider?

If not, I'll declare a winner in perhaps an hour or so.

Edit: Nvm, someone voted on my video:

Quote from: crazyduplicate
I vote Sukuna. Always root for the underdog.

Voting closed, we'll be playing as Shinmyoumaru Sukuna
« Last Edit: December 10, 2017, 10:28:05 AM by Gesh86 »

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #12 on: December 10, 2017, 02:59:30 PM »
Before I forget, the fullscreen screenshots will be thumbnails. I compress them to 640x480, which will be smaller than they are intended to be viewed, making especially text very difficult to read. One click and you'll see them in 1280 x 960, just as I originally made them.

Alright, here we go! On starting up the game, you see the logos of Firaxis (the developer), 2K (the publisher) and AMD Gaming Evolved (I think they have something to do with how the game is run?). After those, you are treated to the trailer cutscene.

   
   

The movie is about these two characters, father and daughter, living through the eras of history. I couldn't find information on who voiced The Daughter unfortunately (even in the game's credits roll! Maybe I missed it?) but when it comes to The Father, everyone either knows or instantly hears it, it's Sean Bean!
His character does not survive the intro cutscene...You are to assume that in the dogfight-scene, the bullets hit him through the cockpit
During the trailer for the upcoming Civ VI expansion "Rise and Fall" The Father is on his death bed. Obviously, he does not survive again! One does not simply kill off Sean Bean once!

Rather than just seeing a few screenshots of the intro cutscene, I'll direct you to the video itself. It's on the Sid Meier's Civilization channel. I think that is the best way to enjoy this, and I do like the intro movie a lot.

Now we get to the title screen:



The background is a globe on which the landmasses are not quite accurate. This is intentional. It's supposed to refer to the age of discovery, when people were still charting their maps and even the best ones had "Here be Dragons" on them. The music playing during this menu screen is "Sogno di Volare" (The Dream of Flight), composed by Christopher Tin. It's based on a poem of the same name by Leonardo da Vinci. Since audio does not transfer well to this Let's Play, you can listen to it on Christopher Tin's channel, right here. I find it wonderful and have it saved under favourites...

We choose "Single Player" and "Create Game" to have a very specific configuration. Since very recently, you can load a configuration you have previously made for added convenience. What I have saved under "Touhou Party!" looks like this:



As said in the opening post, what is called "Greatest Earth Map" is from the YNAMP mod. Civ 6 has a pre-included somewhat realistic Earth map, but it comes in only 1 underwhelming size and isn't all that great. Good, but not as good as it could be. We'll have more fun with this one. Difficulty is "King". I decided against "Emperor" because Shinmyoumaru is in my estimation a decent leader, but probably not overpowered. It's the first time I play a big campaign as her.
All victory conditions (Culture, Domination, Religion, Sciene and Score) are enabled. Who knows which we'll be going for?  :D



Before we can get into the action, there's loading. The game is creating the map, so that takes a while. Especially on a map of the size "Greatest Earth", I waited at least 3 minutes here. Good thing that doesn't transfer into the LP, right?
Sean Bean reads the era blurb on top out loud and there would be another one for the leader you've chosen, but of course that's only for unmodded civilizations. What we can also see are Shinmyoumaru's leader and civilization abilities in summary. "Power of the Miracle Mallet" is an ability not really linked to any particular playstyle. In Civ, you advance through eras sooner or later, so we'll get those gold and culture bonuses at some point, guaranteed. If we're not wiped out at least. "Descendant of Issun Boushi" is a more tricky thing. It will definitely help us if we're ever attacked, but if we can stick to having a humble, compact civilization, it could support us in offense, too. "The Shining Needle Swordsman" is a unit you can build instead of the standard classic-era Swordsman. Rice Bowl is a replacement for the neighborhood district, something that won't be relevant until roughly the second half of the campaign.

Update nr. 1 - Instant city, just add water

Turn 1 - 4.000 BC



It has begun for real. This is what you'll be looking at on a fresh, ancient era start campaign. There are 4 symbols in the top left:
- The blue flask is sort of a test tube, representing your science output per turn. It is 0 at the moment, perfectly normal when you do not have cities. You gather this to advance your technologies.
- The purple musical note represents culture output per turn. It is 0 at the moment, absolutely normal when you do not have cities. You gather this to advance your social policies.
- The white winged symbol represents faith. It is 0 at the moment and the smaller 0 next to it means that we are also accumulating 0 per turn. This is a resource to spend on units and buildings
- The yellow coin stack represents gold. We have a very tiny starting treasury of 10, so little you can't yet do anything with it. We are accumulating 0 per turn. This is a resource to spend on all kinds of things.

The first thing anyone should do is to select their settler...



And click this symbol in the unit pop up on the lower right...





As if it were magic, we have an impressive capital city called "Shining Needle Castle". The purple colouration around it is our cultural borders, marking spaces that we and we alone have influence over. And wouldn't you know it, now we have 2.8 units of science, 1.4 units of culture and 5.2 units of gold per turn. You can usually trust the game that the first settler it gives you starts on a space where it's very sensible to build a city on. I briefly thought about moving it one field to the lower right, onto the grassland next to the sea. It would have made the city coastal, but I'd rather have some more room on the land. That won't mean much to you. Yet...



The lower right always displays matters where the game still awaits decisions of yours. "Shining Needle Castle" needs something in its build queue...



A list appears on the right with a couple of options. This list is comparatively small now to how large it can get later. The "monument" is a building constructed directly in the city center (most will be in so called "districts" instead). Under "units" we already have a lot of things. "Settler" is grayed out as these deduct population upon construction, population that we don't yet have. Everything else is possible. "Builder" is a civilian unit, "Scout", "Warrior" and "Slinger" are military units.
Next to each build option is the construction speed. The monument would take 10 turns to complete on our current production output for example. There's also  a picture of The Daughter next to some of them, meaning one of your AI advisors calculated it as recommendable. You may follow that advice, but you don't need to. For now we pick...



the scout! This is my typical turn 1 action that I don't even think about. See, I called it a military unit, but it's actually used almost exclusively for early exploration. More important than having an early monument or builder in my opinion, is getting to know the land around us.



The next decision the game prompts us to take is to set our research. This time, the selection appears on the left and we are left with 5 choices. "Animal Husbandry", "Astrology", "Mining", "Pottery" and "Sailing". This one is not as much a no-brainer as the previous. I always choose this depending on a few factors. On the map we have revealed so far, we see 2 spaces with sheep, not too far away from our initial city. This makes "Animal Husbandry" a sensible choice. If those resources were stone, "Mining" could be smarter. Were they wheat or rice, "Pottery" would be what I would pick.
But it's sheep, so animal husbandry it is.



Production and science are set (so is culture, since there are no other choices, "Code of Laws" is automatically selected). As the last mandatory prompt of the turn, we need to move units that still have movement points. As you may have noticed, we've had a warrior unit since the very start. It is a very basic military unit, some dudes with clubs. These warriors will not see combat for a while, so while we're waiting on our scout to finish, they will be our makeshift explorers.
We're moving them across a river, onto the hill our cursor is pointing at in the screenshot. This space to move them on is as good as many others, we can't know where something of importance could be, what matters is to spread out from what is already revealed.



The turn guide says "Next turn". Everything we could do we have done and that's how it looks after our first turn. And just one turn is what I want my first post to be because there's way, way more to explain to someone who possibly knows little about Civilization VI. I hope this doesn't go too fast for you. I feel that I could have gone into much more detail already. In fact, it's probably possible to get half of the LP's content into this first turn, but that would make everything way too slow and dry. We would never gain pace. As we are, there are probably many things that are still unclear, so just know that we will still cover more basics in these early turns and I'll do my best to make this game understandable.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2018, 03:27:28 PM by Gesh86 »

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #13 on: December 14, 2017, 08:17:14 PM »
Update nr. 2 - Tribal tattoos

Turn 2 - 3.960 B.C.

Last time, we set down our first city. Historically, you can view this as around the time humans found out about the basics of agriculture. Hunting/gathering became not the only options of procuring food and communities generally grew in size substantially.
To say it simply, the Kobito stopped being cavemen. Cave...gnomes?



From this screenshot, we can learn when certain advancements will take place. "Animal Husbandry", should we decide not to switch our research focus, will be discovered in 8 turns. "Code of Laws" still takes another 14 turns. Shining Needle Castle has the number "1" to the left of its name, meaning it is but a size-1-city. The small green number above the 1 reads "13". That means it will have grown to a size 2 city within that many turns due to its food surplus. Not a very impressive growth rate, but at least it's not stagnant.
The dog symbol on the right of its name means this city is building a scout. A city's production can only be focused on one buildable object. Above the symbol is a "4", meaning the scout will be finished and appear in 4 turns.



We move our scouting warrior one tile from the hill to the west of our city to another hill towards the northeast. More landscape becomes visible due to the warrior's sight range. Since they are on a hill, they have an overview towards the valley and a slightly better sight range. Just to the east of our warrior is a tile with a luxury resource - tobacco. Further to the northwest, we see a strategic resource - horses. We cannot do anything with these right now, but it's good knowing they are around.

Turn 3 - 3.920 B.C.

Yup, our warriors have been combing the wilderness for 80 years now...don't think about these things too much. Ever since Civilization I, I've learned to suspend my disbelief for this series and so should anyone.



We wander 2 spaces eastward. Why can we move 2 tiles instead of 1 now? It was because of the terrain. Climbing onto a hill costs 2 movement point, traversing grassland, plains, anything flat really, just 1. With 2 movement points to call their own, warriors are not especially mobile.
To the east of our unit is now a small cluster of a new luxury: Sugar. I mistook this symbol for fluffed-up cotton for a long time somehow, but if you look closely, it's a bowl filled with cubed sugar. This luxury however is the least interesting new discovery this turn. Much more exciting is...



...this notification that appeared on the right side of the screen. It announced itself with the tune of a primitive flute and drums. What could it mean?



"Tribal Village Discovered" ; "You have found a village inhabited by a friendly tribe". This, in the jargon of this series, is a "goody hut". Move a unit onto it and something good for you will be gained. You cannot know what beforehand, and one example what it might be is money, another a boost in research...
In earlier Civilization games, there could have also been bad things in these villages. Namely, hostile units of barbarians would spawn that would likely rip the discoverer of the hut apart.
Finding many goody huts is a large part of the early game and has always been something invigorating to me. This is why you want the early scouts. If another civilization picks up a goody hut before you, it will be gone. Nonetheless, I have a feeling that we are not in a rush to grab one that is so close to our capital.
In the screenshot, the goody hut is somewhat obscured now by the way. That's because it only slipped into our warrior's vision briefly. Since we don't have any other unit monitoring this spot, it is now in the "fog of war". We have once discovered the tile itself, but what's currently happening on it, for example foreign units moving onto it, we wouldn't know.

Turn 4 - 3.880 B.C.

Very slowly we are building that scout. Our warrior treks another tile eastward to discover the unknown...



The space he occupies now is an interesting one. Yes, it has sugar on it, but more importantly, it is a marsh! This is a terrain you want to avoid when in a conflict: Units that get attacked while in a marsh have a slight disadvantage in combat strength. Apart from that, this is also a slow tile: Our warrior used all his movement wading into it.
A marsh may not always be bad. A city can gather a lot of food from it, more than from grasslands. Being surrounded by marshes may also make a city more defensible, as enemies might have to approach it through the marsh.
 We've also uncovered another new luxury: Jade. If you squint your eyes, you'll make out that its picture shows a hand-crafted figurine of a dragon, a jade-green one. Can jade be in another colour but jade?

Turn 5 - 3.840 B.C.

Our next move may be very surprising for you, as it suddenly makes me look like a big wimp...



We are retreating our warrior back towards our city. Barbarians have a possibility of appearing once we hit turn 7, and I don't want him to stray too far from his home when we need to crack some skulls.
He's seen enough of the world for now. Do not fret, our scout will appear on the very next turn! He can pick up the slack.
I'll tell you all about what makes the scout much more suited for his job in the next update. Bye for now!
« Last Edit: January 21, 2018, 03:28:53 PM by Gesh86 »

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #14 on: December 16, 2017, 04:42:10 PM »
Update nr. 3 - Grass grows, birds fly, sun shines and brother, I'm bad at hurting people

Turn 6 - 3.800 B.C.

Last time, we learned of the advantages of scouting and today we're reaping their possible spoils. A scout of ours has cropped up in our capital.



Let's take a closer look on his pop-up...



A melee strength of 10 is quite wimpy, but it's not what you build scouts for anyway. 3 movement points however is 1 quicker than a warrior. Doesn't sound like much, but there are nuances to Civilization 6's movement system that can make 1 point mean a world of difference.
Also, the scout has a German Shepherd with him. We're going to call it Momiji.



We move the duo onto the fields of wild tobacco. The goody hut has come back into view and it is what we're racing for. See, scouts gain unit experience from certain actions that other military units don't. Claiming goody huts is one of those. That's why we had our warriors ignore it before, it would have been a waste.



Speaking of warriors, we're moving them back into the city itself. You can have a unit in the same tile as a city, naturally, and it's no bad idea. Any attack onto the tile would be aimed at the health of the city, the unit would be perfectly safe.
Notice that the warrior has 1 movement point left, yet the adjacent hills are unavailable to move into. That's because this would cost 2 points and in Civ 6, any movement must be paid in full. This is a pretty severe shift from the system of Civ 5, where 1 movement point would still get you onto any tile. A 2-movement unit back then could have traversed a grassland first and ended their turn on a hill, but now the same unit needs to devote 1 full turn just to climb up that hill.



The scout was finished, so Shining Needle Castle demands a new build plan from us. We could ponder over all the options we have, but out of past experiences: I always follow up my first scout with my first builder!



Most of these exciting things we cannot yet do, but improving tiles is something we can. I have those sheep in mind. Animal husbandry will be researched before this builder is ready, so the technology of making a pasture will be ours sooner than it first matters.

Turn 7 - 3.760 B.C.



We come so close, and yet we are so far. Notice again that we have 1 movement point left. Apart from the goody hut being on a hill, there's a river running between our tile and its. Crossing a river, no matter what's on the other side, costs either 3 movement points, or if a unit has a maximum of less than 3, that very maximum. Yikes, even our scout won't take that crossing with ease...



Rather than having him wait in our city uselessly, our warrior moves onto the forest-laden hill southwest of it, all still within our sphere of influence. This allows us to spot a copper resource behind the inland lake. It's symbolized by a 3-way pipe. I dare you to explain plumbing and running water to any of our primitive Kobito, but at least they would find other uses for copper. Unlike Civilzation 5, where copper counted as a luxury resource, it is like sheep, a bonus resource. This means that it won't become a tradable good if improved, and will instead make only for a slightly better mining site than your average hill.

Turn 8 - 3.720 B.C.

I just can't resist sending our warriors a little further west. We discover...



Hills. Lots of hills. While that's not so exciting, it's worth pondering where in the world we could be. Remember, this is a realistic world map. Hills, sheep and a couple of mountains makes me think Scotland, but that would clash with the tobacco and sugar we've seen. Perhaps somewhere in the new world?



Our scout finally says hello to the villagers. Will they sacrifice him to their vengeful god? (I already said they will never do that in Civ nowadays...)



Oh! They gave us one of the more valuable outcomes of their selection: A random inspiration. When an inspiration is triggered, a technology or a civic (the cultural equivalent of a technology) will fill up half of its cost so that you'll be able to discover them far quicker. The interesting part about inspirations is that to make them happen, some condition that has a logical link to that technology or civic will have to be fulfilled. This is a completely new gameplay mechanic Civ 6 has brought to the series and I like it a lot. Rather than just allocating your science or culture output to whatever tech, ticking towards discovery over the turns, you have to take active measures in your general planning to get what you want quicker.
What we got the inspiration for was "Craftsmanship". This is a civic that directly follows up „Code of Laws“ and its inspiration would usually require you to expends 3 builder charges for improvements. This is an easy boost to get and there would have probably been a few I would have rather liked to see, but no complaining! Inspirations are good and valuable.

Turn 9 - 3.680 B.C.

Southwest of our lands, our warriors find only more hills and generally not too enticing land. Our scout however...



...reports to us that the north is teeming with wildlife! At this point in time, you should start analyzing the land towards its suitability for placing new cities. That area, particularly where our scout currently sits, would be pretty juicy I'd say.

Turn 10 - 3.640 B.C.

Before anything else happens this turn, great news loudly burst into our vision!



Research completed! We can now marry animals!...That's not actually what "husbandry" means in this context.
All technologies and civics present you with a flavour-quote as they arrive. Sean Bean always reads these out loud to you. "Will Rogers", founder of our quote here, was an American-Cherokee entertainer and humourist, apparently most active in the 1930s. While I know little about him, he seemed to like dogs a lot. That's an opinion I can respect!

So what does animal husbandry do for us? We'll hover over each of the 3 advancements it enables us:



A pasture is what our builder of the near future is going to put on those surrounding sheep! They get more efficient with a bunch of later technologies. Yes, we can research robots at some point. Don't show one to the current Kobito, they would scream and fling rocks at it I'd imagine.



Camps are not too different an improvement, only exchanging some of that production with gold. You put these on deer, elephants (ivory) and truffles for example. We have not found any resources that need camps, so this is not that much of a concern to us right now.



"Harvesting" is an action that I rarely utilize, often forgetting that I have it. Let's say there are just too many bonus resources around your city and you don't even want to work all of them. When you expend a builder charge to harvest, a resource will be permanently destroyed and an immediate bonus will be gained, usually in food. Rather than domesticating those sheep for their cuddly wool, we'd be throwing them all on the grill.
This may be a good idea, it might also be very short-sighted. Like I said, I don't choose to do this very often.

What technology should we get next? Rather than just picking another one from the simplified menu, I want to give you a bigger overview:



This tab will show you the complete technology tree. I don't think it's necessary to present the entirety of it to you now. After all, the ancient Kobito can't know what an "Information Era" would even be. But what does our current ancient era look like?

   

The technology tree is a chart full of prerequisites. We must work our way through the simple advancements, only then will more intricate options open up to us. "Irrigation", the technology needed to put down any kind of plantation for example cannot be gained without the knowledge on how to make pots. The artwork in the background shows a residential area, with houses most likely made out of hardened clay. That's how you can imagine this era: It's supposed to last over most of the bronze age, one could argue that the classical era was reached before the collapse of said age (centuries of stagnation are never assumed in Civilization, for now at least)
The Pyramids, metal armor as you would know it e.g. from Spartans and Egyptian war charriots count among the most defining wonders and inventions the game has picked from this era.
We set "Pottery" as our next focus. I said it might be the choice one can start with and, since it's a technology you cannot earn an inspiration for, is best picked up sooner than later.

Next, we move our scout 2 of his 3 possible pieces northward. I didn't want to spend his last one yet because the respective tile had been out of our sight range. You know what, I think it was a good idea to take it slow and steady...



Here's something that is going to be very hard to make out for the uninitiated. Look closely to the northern edges of what we have revealed: There are very faint teal-coloured markings. This is someone's cultural border! Look even more closely and you can see the corner of an acre just barely peeking out. Someone has also used a builder to place a farm there. Most industrious of them.
This could be a city-state (an inititally neutral non-player) or one of the AI civilizations! Yes folks, first contact could be upon us. If it were a civilization, the resulting diplomacy screens would be much too big a chapter to still include into this update. Sorry to leave you on such a cliffhanger, but it has to be this way. Next time, the rest of a very eventful turn 10!
« Last Edit: January 21, 2018, 03:30:31 PM by Gesh86 »

Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #15 on: December 18, 2017, 09:33:31 AM »
With pottery, we will finally be able to get our leader a nice hat!

O4rfish

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Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #16 on: December 18, 2017, 06:42:26 PM »
Do city-states still have dotted borders?
[9:49:09] <Purvis> Generally not, but your mother may be an exception.

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #17 on: December 19, 2017, 08:20:52 PM »
With pottery, we will finally be able to get our leader a nice hat!

And also the skyboat she'll be rowing through the air with and that anyone who defeats us will tell us to clean!

Do city-states still have dotted borders?

That's a good question ???. I can't say from the top of my head if player and city-state borders can be easily told apart, but I can tell you that a dotted border is one you can pass through without conflict. Once we've made a certain discovery, border lines will be continuous and off-limits unless agreements with the owner are made.

Update nr. 4 - Requesting the impossible

Still turn 10 - 3.640 B.C.

Last time, we were just about to spot a foreign city. Who does it belong to?





It's Kaguya Houraisan! Good thing we're not playing as Fujiwara no Mokou. If someone did make a Mokou civ, I'd want one of her traits to be an automatic declaration of an eternal war when encountering Kaguya.



We're going to tell her "It is an honor to meet you". Whether we're going to get along or not in the future, there's no need to be unneccessarily rude at this moment.



"Welcom[e] to Eientei!" Since this is a modded civ, this little blurb does not tell us everything that's to know here. As it was, it was one of our units who discovered the immortal princess's lands, so she is inviting our scout to her capital. Accepting will reveal all tiles of around that city. Had Kaguya discovered Shining Needle Castle first, we could offer to show her the heart of our civilization. If it had been an encounter between two units in the open wilds, the game would calculate whose homeland is closer. That party would have then been the one to give or deny the invitation. Again, it's worth sending out your scouts faster than your potential rivals.
Of course, we want to keep making a good impression, so we accept once more.



First contact comes with the added benefit of triggering another inspiration, or "eureka-moment" as they are also called, for „Writing“. This is one that you're almost sure to get before researching towards the technology. Unless you're playing on an oversized map with like 1 rival, you're bound to meet a neighbor before too long.
Inspirations always fill 50% of the total research/culture required, unless your civilization or leader traits say that it's even more (Qin Shi Huang's China for example).

Let's go over the diplomacy screens, now that someone exists we could have diplomacy with. You contact someone by clicking on their small picture in the upper right:



From there, you can navigate between 4 intel reports. Here are the "overview" and the "gossip" screens:

   

"Overview" to the left gives you the most crucial pieces of information in summary. Among them are also their current government. We'll learn in time what governments do, but until you've finished the civic "Political Philosophy", you'll always be an insignificant little "Chiefdom".
"Agendas" are something Civ 6 is very proud to have introduced. "Neet Princess" makes Kaguya admire high culture and despise low faith. Every leader has certain things they respect and if you build your empire in accordance to these agendas, you'll gain a positive relationship with them. Then they'll give you better trades, be less likely to go to war against you and possibly become a long term ally instead.
Since we have just met, Kaguya is still neutral to us.
The screenshot on the right mentions "gossip". Those are little intelligence reports that pop up if you have the means to learn of them. Have trade caravans going towards another civilizations or a spy within one of their cities, and you may learn more of what they're doing, what they're building, perhaps even if the AI is setting their sights on a war.

Here's the other two pages:
   

To the left, we have "access level". This explains what kind of gossip you could currently be receiving. Yeah, if they were to shoot a nuclear missile, we would know that it happened and who did it. Apart from that and a few other minor things, we are not too aware of Eientei's activities at the moment.
The Daughter also gives a little tutorial on all the ways you can raise your access level.
The last of these diplomacy screenshots on the right finally gives us information on our relationship level. Again we have a tutorial on relationship, explaining what you can do to get on someone's good or bad side. Kaguya at the moment couldn't be more neutral. Let's change that...



Near the bottom of the diplomacy screen, we currently have 5 actions we could take. "Declare Friendship" guarantees not attacking each other formally for many turns and enables alliances. Kaguya would by no means accept that at the moment. We could "Denounce" her to prepare a formal war against her and perhaps butter up to a civilization that doesn't get along with her. We could naturally just "Declare [a] Surprise War" if we were to feel mean or "Make [a] Deal". We unfortunately only have gold to give each other, so that would be a waste of time.
A very effective way to start a cordial relationship with another power is to "Send [a] Delegation". This just means you're giving them a small monetary welcome gift, for which you receive a tour of their capital in return. If you do not know of its position yet, you will do so then. We do, but heck, let's bribe Kaguya a little.





Once you've sent a delegation, you can't repeat that action. If you do it on the first turn upon meeting an empire, they will always accept. It has often happened to me that I forgot to do that and when I remembered, they had already become so grumpy that they wouldn't accept my gift any more. My advice is to make a strong habit of always sending those polite 25 gold pieces straight away.
The AI may also offer you gifts in this manner. We'll see if our princess is grateful enough to do so.

That concludes a very long 10th turn. The only other action we took was moving our warrior back towards our city. I plan to just put him on guard duty there.

Turn 11 - 3.600 B.C.

We have our scout moving in 2 leaps:

   

Eientei with its fertile lands has reached size 2 before Shining Needle Castle did. I'm feeling my inner Parsee right now...



To have our warrior guard the town as effective as they can, I'm giving them the "alert" order, marked with the red circle. The game will no longer ask us to move him, unless there's a hostile unit entering his sight range. Then, the garrisoned warrior will "wake up" so that we can attack if we so choose. It's a very handy function of convenience.

Turn 12 - 3.560 B.C.



Speak of the devil! It's barbaric barbarians trying to bring their barbarism to our country. This colour symbolizes not an AI player, but units that are permanently hostile to everyone and anyone. Their purpose is to annoy players and city-states, spicing up the early game in the process. Barbarian scouts in particular are special in that they bind themselves to a barbarian camp. When they spot a settlement, they will retreat back to that camp and report their findings. The barbarian camp will then build up units and send them to harass that very settlement.
Ideally, we would bash in this scout's head before he's able to talk, but in my experience, this will be difficulty, up to impossible.



We'll have our warriors face him up close at least, but I know he will turn heel.

[img width=640 height= 480]https://i.imgur.com/5Erunwa.jpg[/img]

Not much to report on the scout front. Wherever this is in the world, it's a temperate region. Jungle, desert, tundra, snow and ice are all featured terrain with their own intricacies, but none of those are nearby.

Turn 13 - 3.520 B.C.



The chase is on and yet it's all to clear already that the scout is getting away untouched. I told you the difference between 2 and 3 movement points can be huge. Had a ranged unit been guarding our city or someone on a horse, chances would be looking better.



Our scout rushes 2 tiles eastward and finds little of importance. Although, I've not mentioned what the milk bottle resource means: Those are wild bovine. Like sheep, they are improvable through pastures and act as a bonus resource. The only difference is that they improve their tile with additional food instead of production.
A mountain has also become visible in the southeast. Those are impassable tiles. Because you would see a mountain stand out in real life, they're quicker to spot, just like here where all its surrounding lands are still invisible.



We had already ended our turn when we received this sudden interruption (only in multiplayer do players move simultaneously, Kaguya only acts when we're done). Kaguya wants to pay back our good manners with her own delegation, which is already a sign of respect. Unless you fear that the computer wants to learn of your location for military reasons through this, it is safe to accept those 25 gold. We'll trust her and hold out our hand.

Turn 14 - 3.480 B.C.



Our builder is ready! Builders are what "Workers" were in Civilization 5, but with a lot of meaningful changes to them. Back then, the tile improvements they would make would be constructed over several turns. Now, builders instantly finish their jobs, but have a default of 3 improvement charges. Use these up, and the builder disappears, unlike the workers of olde who would stay with you indefinitely if not otherwise lost.
This is once more a change that Firaxis is proud of and I think it's justified. Workers would mostly make farms around your cities. Where you improved first was not a very involved decision. Heck, there was even an option to automate workers! With finite builder charges, you'll think hard which improvements are the most important to get and you'll be making builders all throughout the ages instead of mostly the early game until you had enough of them.



When making our builder, we had the sheep tiles in mind. We'll be able to make our first pasture next turn.
Next person we train in Shining Needle Castle is another scout and he'll take 5 turns. I don't always build a second scout, but "Greatest Earth" is a pretty big map and I'm still expecting a lot of unexplored land to the west and south of us.



Meanwhile, our already existing scout is about to meet someone other than Kaguya. This time, there's an orange-brownish border. We might take another turn or two to get close enough though and find out who it is.

I think that'll be it for this update. Next time, we'll learn about "social policies", or civic cards as I sometimes call them.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2018, 03:34:53 PM by Gesh86 »

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #18 on: December 23, 2017, 02:14:55 PM »
Update nr. 5 - They said Tokugawa Ieyasu was as wily as a Tanuki...

Turn 15 - 3.440 B.C.

Last time, we not only received our first builder, we also put him into the perfect position to expend his first charge.



The pasture will make our city extract more production power from the sheep tile. We also get "0.5 Housing". Housing is a mechanic to limit city growth. In Civilization 6, it's not enough to have tiles with lots of food around you. You must take actions to increase the living space of your people. We'll learn more about housing when it becomes even remotely an issue. As early as the game is, it's not.



As soon as we hammer in the pasture's poles, we're jumped by another eureka! Creating your first pasture is how you shorten the research time of "Horseback Riding", an early classical technology.
I...guess we're practicing riding on those sheep? Please call animal rights!



I wanted to show you how valuable the improved tile has become. This is best done in the "Manage Citizens" screen. When selecting a city, you get there by clicking the button that I've marked. We can see a little stone pen around the sheep now and that they have 2 green corn cobs (food) and 3 orange cogs (production) on them. It is easily the most efficient tile around Shining Needle Castle right now.



Since we want to keep that city and all of its tiles in good shape, we retreat our warrior. The barbarian scout escaped towards the south, we can expect an invasion force from that direction very soon.

Turn 16 - 3.400 B.C.

Before anything else, this message pops up:



Thomas Hobbes was an influencial English political philosopher of the 1600s. His ethical way of thinking had an impact that can still be felt today and he is a mainstay of history classes. While I couldn't give you a spontaneous essay on him, I do remember his name dropped in my school years.
Anyway, it took all the predicted 15 turns, but we have completed our first civic, a social and cultural advancement! We have laws now, meaning that one Kobito is no longer allowed to stab another with their needle for no reason. Now what are these weird shield and diamond things supposed to be?

   

   

They are military and economic policies. Now these don't sound like units or buildings, more like passive bonuses. They are however, not automatically taking effect. We must equip them, and we do so in the "Government" screen.



You get here by the button in the upper left that I've marked, the one with the little legal/judicial building on it. As a puny chiefdom, we can have 1 military and 1 economic policy active at the same time and we must choose from the ones we've just learned of. "Discipline" would be a good option, since we know those barbarians will soon be coming. I am always tempted however to grant my scouts additional experience with "Survey". "Urban Planning" stays helpful for an impressively long time and gets more useful the bigger your empire gets. "God King" despite the bombast name is considered somewhat of a weak policy. There is however reason to adopt it in the very early game, just to reach a certain miniscule threshold of faith, which we would have trouble otherwise collecting at the moment. In the end...



...our choices can be seen on the left. A very typical initial setup for me, but was it foolhardy to pass up "Discipline"?



The civic tree takes longer to split up as far as the technology tree. We take "Craftsmanship" next, simply because its inspiration is already received and it'll be done quicker. This is often an argument for picking a certain tech or civic.



Our scout is now in position to jump out of the shrubbery and into the sights of someone new. They are...



...Mamizou and the rest of her fuzzy kin! I honestly didn't think we would meet 2 other players so quickly. "Greatest Earth" with 7 contestants and 15 city states should have a lot of open space actually.
She's not royal, is she? No matter, we're going to treat her with the same respect as we did Kaguya. We offer a delegation and obviously, she accepts. What do her lands look like?



Very rich. Did we actually get the poorest starting position out of the three that we know of? I fear we might have. The symbol with the fox is the luxury of furs. They needn't specifically be of a fox I imagine, but Mamizou would totally wear the remains of Ran if she could. What looks so much like a dandelion and what we even passed on the way here is the cotton luxury. I'd much rather wear something made out of that than dead Ran  :(, but your population will still be happier if you can offer them both. West of the furs, not yet claimed by Mamizou, there's a purple sheet. That's another luxury, silk. You can see webbing in the trees on that tile. Not everyone may know that silk comes from little caterpillars, the silkworms.
Before we part ways with Mamizou, here's a look at her main agenda:



That...is the name of Sanae's boss theme. Yes, Mamizou just copies one agenda of the other players. This one is not good news for us, as it favours strong religious play. I do not plan to heavily invest into religion. Some people say doing so is quite underpowered, unless you want to dedicatedly win through a religious victory.



With his 2 remaining charges, we send our builder to the other flock of sheep. As you can see, you can pull up a route for your units to a tile further away than your movement allows. The game will (hopefully) calculate the fastest way to the destination and automatically move them along before the turn ends.

Turn 17 - 3.360 B.C.



A relatively uneventful turn. I'm moving our scout towards the southwest, in the direction of our capital, so that there are as few unexplored spaces in its shorter distance as possible. I do this in preparation of setting down our second city. I think it should be somewhat north or perhaps northeast of Shining Needle Castle, as that is all territory Kaguya and Mamizou would snatch away before too long. First come, first serve!

Upon ending our turn, a message box comes up:



This is one of the results of our delegation, part of the intelligence collection system Civilization 6 sports. A lot of people are a little annoyed by it, feeling it is too spammy with all kinds of information that you don't really need to know. I do get some of those concerns. That Mamizou defeated a bunch of barbarians is nice, but not much more than a sign that they're doing somewhat ok. Hardly something that will affect our approach towards her.

Turn 18 - 3.320 B.C.

We have a brand new secondary scout! Planning for what our cities should build will be getting more complex the further our game goes. I did have to ponder a little over our next project, but decided to make a monument over 7 turns. A monument wouldn't be considered a very powerful building in the late game. Right now however, we have a culture output of 1.7. Finishing the monument will more than double our cultural advancement! The early monument can matter a lot.



The safest place to go for our scout should be westward and for good reason. There is already a barbarian warrior approaching from the south, barely visible above the unit tool tip. Were we to explore that way, the scout would meet those barbarians and probably wouldn't make it too far. Also, the second pasture has been made. The builder graphics now show only a lone man (there were 3 at the start, and 2 of these hardy craftsmen faded after completing their jobs)

Turn 19 - 3.280 B.C.

Technology discovered!



One of our scientist Kobito, Harry, found out about this one. He is now known as Harry the Potter. He's had little luck with the ladies due to the huge, lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead. With this on his resume, maybe things will get better for him.
The mentioned Janet Fitch here is a writer, still active nowadays it seems. The quote is from her work "White Oleander", a coming-of-age novel.

   

A granary is, like the monument, a city centre building. It overall boosts your cities' growth rate, with the +2 housing being usually more impactful than the +1 food. The passive ability on the right will not see much use any time soon. We don't have wheat or rice or even seen some anywhere.
Our next science focus will be "Irrigation", of which pottery was a prerequisite. The inspiration requirement for it is "farm a resource", something that we will likely be unable to fulfill. We still need "Irrigation" promptly, as it'll allow us to improve the tobacco fields with a plantation and gain our first luxury.



Well now, the development between turns was not a pretty one for us. The long expected barbarians have brought 2 warriors. The one to the right we are sort of bottlenecking with our own warrior, but it would be bad news if the other squad circled around him. If you look at what our capital is producing, it is a slinger now. After analyzing our military situation, I decided to switch away from the monument. Progress on that building is not lost (I think some of the production diminishes if you don't continue a started build-option for long enough). Getting a slinger has just become so much more urgent.
I wish I could have kept building that monument, but this is all part of Civilization 6. You can't stubbornly keep doing what you do, you've got to react and adapt sometimes.
About what we're doing against those barbarians: We do not attack during this turn, and we refrain from doing so for good reason. It'll all become clear.

After ending our turn and dreading the actions of those barbarians, we get something more pleasant: A nice 25 gold from our good neighbor Mamizou:



A following gossiping message tells us that Mamizou also did the same with Kaguya. The Tanuki is quite amicable it seems. We also find out that our delegate's name is "Wakasagihime". One from a previous message was "Raiko". A cute little touch!



First combat of the campaign was initiated! It was done from the barbarians' side and resulted into them taking 43 points of damage and us taking only 21. This is not because their unit was inherently weaker, but because defensive multipliers were at work. Our unit is sitting in a forest tile, which always grants juicy bonuses to the defender. This is why we just held our line this turn: The one who forces combat in such a situation with units of similar strength always picks the short straw. The barbarians are apparently so confident that they stomached this pretty bad combat outcome (you will always get a preview of the combat odds).

Thus ends turn 19 and this update. Things aren't looking as unpleasant as they did a minute ago, yet the siege of our homeland is only just beginning. See you then!
« Last Edit: January 21, 2018, 03:36:35 PM by Gesh86 »

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #19 on: December 24, 2017, 04:26:41 PM »
Update nr. 6 - That's where Yosemite Sam lives, right?

Turn 20 - 3.240 B.C.

Last time, we met a kind Mamizou and not so kind barbarian bandits. While those are relatively unlikely to conquer your cities, they are very ready to kill your units, demolish improvements and enslave builders if they catch them. We'll see how far they'll succeed with that. Our older scout, roaming the northeast makes a discovery!



Our second tribal village and unfortunately, a barbarian camp right next to it. These are the ones spawning the meddling scouts. Destroy them and the barbarians will not bother you any more. You'll also gain a small amount of gold for clearing them out. Our scout shouldn't be concerned with any of that though. Ideally, those spearmen in the camp won't attack and murder him. Let's hope it'll be like that.
Back on the battlefront...



...we are still sticking with a defensive strategy. We're going to use the action "fortify until healed", marked at the cursor, for our warrior. When damaged units refuse to do anything during a turn, not even use up their movement points, they will automatically heal a little. It should be 10 hitpoints in this case, as we're currently in the wilds so to say. Healing would be stronger were we within our cultural borders and even more so on the city tile itself. Rather than moving back now, I do want to hold this very narrow pass we're on, our own little Thermopylae.



When you're subject to such an invasion, it's smart to retreat civilian units to the city tile. Our builder does not have a combat strength. If a barbarian sets foot on the same tile as him, he will simply steal the builder, converting him into the barbarian faction. While they're in the city, they can't easily do that, as stepping onto a city centre counts as an attack against the city.
As soon as those brutes are taken care of, our culture has likely already claimed the tobacco fields in the north. When the irrigation technology is ours, we'll use up his last builder charge for that.



Look at those sfx! As foolish as it was last turn, the barbarians repeat the same attack. The outcome: 56 whopping damage on their unit, only 17 on ours. Their performance worsened as there was now also a difference in health for both units, with them being more wounded. The game does deduct up to 9 points of combat strength for damaged units, enticing you to keep your army fresh and rested for combat.

Turn 21 - 3.200 B.C.



Our younger scouts learns that west of our capital, the land is even more barren! What we settled in can be considered somewhat of a not too fertile highland prairie, but these new tiles are outright desert. Flat desert has no natural yields of any kind. It's not even possible to put farms on it. Sounds like an awful area that you want to keep your cities far away from, right?
Yes and no. There are ways to make desert tiles worthwhile, so having some of them in your city radius may not be as damaging as it seems right now.
Meanwhile, the veteran scout in the northeast moves into the tribal village. The hostile spearmen spared him. I think the calculation for combat would have been pretty bad for our opponents actually, as they would have had high penalties for attacking over a river. Barbarians are also reluctant to move their camp garrison at all and give up their long-term fortification bonus.



The inspiration for "Foreign Trade" was given inside the goody hut. That is an absolutely excellent outcome! Normally, you would have to discover another continent for this. All land tiles belong to a certain one, and on all the ones we've seen, it said "America".
Yup, we are somewhere in America. This does not neccessarily mean the U.S. of A (as it has become a manner of speaking for so many), but the actual continent America. The "Greatest Earth" map unfortunately seems to make no distinction between North and South America, the pack-in Earth map does. Had we not received this inspiration as a gift, I don't think we could have earned it any time soon, probably not before completing the foreign trade civic itself.



Now here's something new! Collecting 2 goody huts, our scout from before has gathered over 15 experience points. This means he can take a promotion. This is more than a simple "level up". Let's look at his promotion tree...



Every level, you choose a helpful perk for a unit. What they can be depends on the type of unit, for a scout, it is the "Recon" promotion tree. The general idea is to go on one of two sides. The left in this case is more exploration based, the right makes our scout more formidable in combat. The first promotion however is only a choice between a ranger scout or an alpine scout. We are planning to send this scout further east and perhaps north. That area seems to be heavier on forests than mountains, so we pick "Ranger". That's the kind of thought process you're motivated to have here.

Between turns, the heavily injured barbarian squad finally suicides itself on our warrior. All units have a maximum of 100 hitpoints (this can never be increased), and I think they might have been on 1 HP. What a silly thing to do...

Turn 22 - 3.160 B.C.



Just as everything was looking a little rosier, the other pack of warriors has made it to our flank and new troops, this time slingers, are approaching. Now is the time where I think the pass between lake and sea should be abandoned and our warrior should utilize the improved healing of our cultural borders. We move him northeast onto the riverside grassland. Attacks suffered on there will hurt more than in the foresty pass, but we gain the option to retreat into the city should our warrior lose too much health.



Meanwhile, our first scout has mostly filled in the blank spots and is now east and not too far away from our capital. He revealed two new resource icons. Crabs have been a luxury item in Civ 5, but here they are but a bonus resource, useful for getting a lot of food but not too vital to have. Reminds me that at one time, shellfish were considered trashy meat fed to prisoners. Nowadays a lot of them are delicacies...
The whales in the southeast however are still a luxury. I imagine the main idea for them to be valuable is their blubber. To improve sea-resources in Civ 5, you specifically needed to build work boats. It's actually gotten easier here: If you've researched "Sailing", your builders can embark from the shore, get to the respective lake or shallow sea tile and expend a charge.



The barbarians are making their best move so far: 36 damage against us, only 22 damage thrown back at them. You can really see the difference of being rushed on flat land here. Still, I don't think it was a mistake to adjust our position. We can persevere, especially because...

Turn 23 - 3.120 B.C.

...Reinforcements have arrived!



Our slinger is here and ready to mess up our enemies. This is our first unit classed as "ranged". Slingers can shoot onto an adjacent tile, the difference to a melee attack that the warriors and scouts do is that this ranged attack never provokes a retaliation.
Slingers have a ranged combat strength of 15, not especially much. It is nevertheless much better than their melee combat strength of only 5! This number is taken only into the equation when defending against a melee unit that has advanced onto their tile. Basically, most ranged units can dish out decently upon distance, but if someone closes the gap, their squishyness can be their downfall. Warriors, before any adjustments, have a combat strength of 20 in all situations.
Their rock-pelting deals 23 points of damage to the nearby barbarian to about 50% of their total health. Not bad overall.
With the slinger completed, we resume building the monument, this time without bad conscience. Two units are a capable defense force this early in the game.

The turn had almost passed without anything extraordinary happening. I love the phase of early exploration, the surprises it can bring...



This is a natural wonder, Yosemite Valley, nowadays the main point of appeal of the famous Yosemite National Park. Natural wonders are very unique tiles that either have an extraordinary amount of yields on them or adjacent to them, or some other effect that makes them noteworthy. Settling a city in range of these natural wonders is most recommended.
For this specific one, all adjacent tiles receive +1 gold and +1 science as yields. To have any kind of science gained from a tile is very rare, it mostly comes from city population and buildings.



Most interestingly now, this gives us a clear idea of where we are in the world: Our younger scout discovered Yosemite, meaning that's California. Looking at the geography of the map, our capital is in Texas, possibly reaching a little into Mexico. Kaguya could be in Dakota, maybe southern Canada? It's hard to say as we haven't gone all the way to the north yet. Mamizou might be Pennsylvanian.



As an added bonus, we get another inspiration. "Astrology" is the most basic technology to start up any meaningful religious play. Although I've already said that this won't be our main focus, it would be nice to have at least some of it and this eureka should help.

Just before the next turn, the barbarians attack our warrior again and our decision to not take any actions and healing up to about our enemies health gives us a more favourable outcome: 35 damage on them, 29 on us.

Turn 24 - 3.080 B.C.

Taking so many hits has made our warrior more experienced. Here's their level up tree:



The right side has some perks that help in advancing on enemy cities, the left is more useful when using the unit as a hunter of other units. Unrelated to any of that, we have an enemy slinger nearby and "Tortoise" would help us in taking cover from his rocks. I do end up picking it. Plus, who said we wouldn't be advancing on a city at some point...?
There's one extremely important game mechanic to know about leveling up: When you do, all movement points of your current turn vanish. You can't attack and level up afterwards. Leveling up in itself however instantly heals a unit by 50 points! This could not have come at a more opportune time for our bruised and battered warrior.
We use our slinger again to land the final blow on the extremely weakened barbarian warrior...



Killing a unit with a slinger is prerequisite to the inspiration for "Archery". This might sound not hard to fulfill, but you'd be surprised. I am very happy we got this! Honestly, slingers are actually a very crappy unit. Just the chance of getting the boost for archery was my main motivation for building one instead of a second warrior. Archers are so much better and this technology allows you to transform slingers into them. More on that game mechanic when we're there.



Younger scout finds some rich silver deposits near Yosemite. You guessed it, this is a luxury that needs to be mined, just like jade in the other direction does. That region looks better and better for a potential settlement.
Finding the natural wonder also gave this scout a huge experience boost, enough for a level. There seem to be much fewer forests in the west and more hills and mountains (the Rockies, obviously), so we're making him "Alpine".

As the last event of turn 24, our warrior receives 17 damage from the barbarian slinger southwest of him. The "Tortoise" promotion already shows effectiveness. This will be it for today. Next time, we'll mop up the remaining barbarians. Unless 3 or 4 more start showing up. I don't know by what rules a barbarian camp aborts their targetting of a city. Let's keep our fingers crossed!
« Last Edit: January 21, 2018, 03:40:34 PM by Gesh86 »

O4rfish

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Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #20 on: December 25, 2017, 12:37:52 AM »
What's SNC building now?  Back to the Monument?
[9:49:09] <Purvis> Generally not, but your mother may be an exception.

Gesh86

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Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #21 on: December 26, 2017, 08:45:50 PM »
What's SNC building now?  Back to the Monument?

Yeah, it's the monument. I totally forgot to make a remark of that :P. At current production rate, it'll be ready on turn 28.

Update nr. 7 - World of Handcraft

Last time, we got our first taste of warfare and learned a few basics about units, both melee and ranged.

Turn 25 - 3.040 B.C.

Not much action in this one:



While the combat odds for attacking the slinger with our warrior are expectedly good, I'd rather have him heal for one more turn, get our own slinger in position and put the squeeze on theirs with both units next round.



When it comes to scouting, this turn wasn't too exciting. We did uncover Florida a while ago, very easily identifiable on the screenshot due to its shape. I have not yet talked about the deer resource. They are a simple bonus resource that you improve with camps and Mamizou has some close to her. Deer can only be found on forest tiles, often also on tundra forest (forests can be placed on a couple of soils).

As much in a pickle as the enemy slinger is, he bravely shoots our slinger for 41 damage. That's the strength of the desperate I guess.

Turn 26 - 3.000 B.C.

We soften that naughty slinger up with some rocks for 28 damage, then immediately send our warrior in for another 50. Less than I expected, as he is burrowed in that same pass that helped us defend so well before.

Just out of curiosity, I was checking relationship levels with our neighbours. For Mamizou, I spotted a line that's worth writing about:



"First impressions of you" with its -4 here seems to be a factor that you can't control. I thought it might have to do with how well you are doing upon meeting an AI, but I couldn't ever see a system behind making a good or bad impression. It's not there for Kaguya for example. The first impression malus seems to diminish over time, and even though it's there right now, bringing us to a -1 total, Mamizou seems to still warm up to us. Possibly because KCucumber and Sa designed her leader personality to be easily befriendable.



Our slinger takes another painful hit of 26 damage. I knew however that the badly damaged enemy slinger wouldn't do much more than that, not nearly as much as he did the previous round. As deep in the red as our unit is, there was never a need to worry.

Turn 27 - 2.960 B.C.

Slinger dude is going to set his weaponry aside for a turn so that he can take a promotion. Here's what the perk tree for "Ranged" looks like:



Equivalent to the melee units, the right side is good for taking cities, the left for unit hunting. Often, I like to pick "Garrison" for defending my own cities. From experience though, I tend to not use slingers, archers or whatever ranged units come later against other players' cities. So called "siege units" are better suited for that. We might go hunting for the barbarian camp of the south at some point, so we get ourselves "Volley" for now.

Our warrior is the one who ends the barbarian slinger's suffering. It looks quite savage how they twirl their stone axes above their head for additional swing, then have them slam down on their enemy. This would probably be unimpressive in the screenshot-format, so please just take my word for it.



Eureka indeed! The slinger was the 3rd barbarian of the campaign that we killed, and that's exactly bronze working's prerequisite. It's a very combat centric technology that we should pick up soonish. I think we still need mining to get it though.

During his exploration, younger scout finds out why Kaguya's Moon People have been growing so well:



They had not one but two wheat fields! Making these into farms is what got them the inspiration for irrigation, the same technology we are currently gnawing at.
Somewhat obscured behind Eientei's name is a stone resource on the tile northeast of the city. They have not yet improved that one, you would do that with a quarry from the mining technology. Stone is a bonus resource, useful for increasing production. I wish we had some stone in our lands, as it allows you to construct a certain wonder. Said wonder would be very beneficial for our playstyle, but I see only a miniscule chance of securing it.

Turn 28 - 2.920 B.C.

Our second civic has been developed:



The Kobito can now call handymen, but don't have a phonebook yet to find out if any experts are in their region. Or a phone at all, even. They'll make due.
Tom Stoppard is a Czech-born British play- and screenwrighter, still with us, knighted too. From his theatography/filmography, he might even be somewhat active in business, despite the age of 80. Looking closer at those, you're quite  likely seen at least something he was involved in.

   

These are the two policies we gain from craftsmanship. Both of them give build-bonuses, but only to very specific options. If you have multiple cities, a good plan is to equip them, set all production towards those projects and swap out the policy card as soon as you can when you're done.
That brings us to a very important game mechanic: Policy changing. You can not do this at will. We currently still have Survey and God King in our slots and had we tried to change that before, it would have cost us a lump sum of gold. However, whenever you complete a civic, you are prompted to readjust your policies and it will be free for just this one turn. So let's do that now.



The only policy we exchanged was Survey for Agoge. I was thinking to go Discipline, but I really have the impression that those barbarians that have targeted us aren't coming back. If they are, it would be just as good to have more units to use against the barbarians as it is to do better in combat. God King stays, as we have not yet achieved what we took it for in the first place.



Next civic to pick is "Foreign Trade", as it is the only one we have the inspiration for. Development times for these have shrunk quite noticably, as we have finished the monument I forgot to mention we continued after building that slinger this turn. With 3.9, our culture output has indeed more than doubled. What could we be building next? The answer is clear to me, some may even ask why we haven't already...



We absolutely need our second city. The earlier you have one, the longer you'll have it until the campaign ends and the longer it will be useful for. Simple logic. In Civ 5, building a settler halted your food production for the city for the whole build process, symbolizing that you're extracting people from the city to live somewhere else. In Civ 6, you grow normally, but 1 population point of the city is subtracted the very moment the settler unit is born. Practical difference in these methods is minimal. I think in Civ 5, the meta was to maximize production output just while building settlers, since your population could not starve during settler production. Now they technically can. Our settler will take 8 turns to complete.

We're ending the turn with military strategies: We retreat the slinger into our capital, where he can heal up. Our warrior does the same, but only in our cultural borders. Two military units cannot inhabit the same tile. It's nice that we're actually not being attacked any more between turns. Seems the barbarians have learned their lesson after suiciding most of their clan onto us!

Turn 29 - 2.880 B.C.

Relatively little to report in this turn. We're waiting on sciences, civics and production to finish until we can take a new strategic decision. Our scouts are snooping around, revealing the lands of Kaguya and Mamizou. Just as helpful to know as the wilds is insight into what your potential rivals have in stock. It won't get you any goody huts, but knowledge can be vital.
Knowledge can also come from this not as typically useless gossip:



I imagine Raiko is drumming those news to us in morse code! What is a "Pantheon of the Gods" in regards to this game? It's exactly what we've adopted God King for. The idea is that once you pass a certain faith threshold, you can choose a small permanent bonus for your civilization from a list. "Earth Goddess", which Mamizou picked, gives +1 faith on all tiles with "charming" or better appeal. Tile appeal is a gameplay factor that is barely relevant at this point. Our Kobito love to smash in the heads of their foes, they have little sense for the beauty of nature...
Interesting about pantheons is that you can snatch them from people. Every one of them can only be adopted by a single civilization. If we wanted "Earth Goddess", that's tough luck...
I can assure you, we did not need Earth Goddess  :D. Yet this is a sign that we better get a move on to our own pantheon. The next one someone else claims could be more attractive to us.

Turn 30 - 2.840 B.C.

We learn something else about Mamizou, this time not through gossip but through our scout's eyes:



That is the Tanuki's settler, escorted by a slinger. Our own is still in production for another 6 turns. This should tell us that we are indeed pretty late when it comes to expansion.

Back at Shining Needle Castle, we're playing with laudable foresight in mind:



Our science says irrigation will be done in 2 turns. Our builder will also need 2 turns to travel onto those tobacco fields. Simply said, we are getting in position to start smoking as soon as possible. Our people better cherish it for the next 4000-something years, until we put pictures and text on their packages telling them they're killing themselves, harming their unborn children and risking their fertility.

Speaking of luxuries, our younger scout far in western Canada...



...has not only met another barbarian tribe that will hopefully not gut him, but a resource. Everyone can see it, these are wild pigs. Right? That's extremely easy to identify!
Wrong. That luxury is truffles. The pigs in the picture and on the tile are truffle pigs sniffing out the rare and delicious fungi. You can indeed spot little mushrooms in the picture, too. You would not believe how many Civ players don't know those aren't just pigs for your people to eat on those tiles...

Just before ending the turn, I remembered that I never showed you the ancient era civic tree. We only ever took the next civic from the quick selection. Here it finally is:

   

"Early Empire" and "State Workforce" are the key civics to get up to that point, but the real big difference maker to our government, the one that will make us comparable to the old Romans, Macedonians, Spartans and Persians, won't come until the classical era...
The last notable event today was spotting a settler of Kaguya a little northwest of the truffles. She too is growing so much quicker than us, how disheartening. We've got to do our best to catch up, but that will be for next time!

I might pause this SSLP only for a week or two. A new Touhou fangame has announced itself and I really want to cover its current demo by Youtube video, spreading the word. After that I'll continue showing you the tiny Kobitos' way towards becoming a global power that even the Oni will respect! Either that, or becoming forgotten by history...
« Last Edit: January 21, 2018, 03:42:44 PM by Gesh86 »

Gesh86

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Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #22 on: January 06, 2018, 11:56:28 AM »
Update nr. 8 - We can call our scout Eric the Red

Turn 31 - 2.800 B.C.

Last time, we saved our citizens from the barbarian menace for good. We were also on the verge of a few new discoveries. The technology of irrigation is currently a single turn away, the civic of foreign trade merely two. Apart from being an opportunity for this recap, there was nothing else notable about turn 31.

Turn 32 - 2.760 B.C.

I already jumped the gun on this one:



You could say the man lauded in that quote has True Grit. The quoted is Sir John Arthur Thomson, a naturalist/scientist. There are several knighted John Thomsons who were noteworthy enough to have wikipedia pages about them, but the link brings you to the one in question instead of a false one.



Here we have the Hanging Gardens, pride of ancient Babylon and one of the earliest Wonders one can unlock. A wonder is a building with a noticably high production cost that you can not just have in only one city, only a single one can exist of it among all civilizations! Were we to start building it and another leader were to complete it earlier, it would become unavailable for us and all our progress towards it would be discarded. When people speak of a "wonder race" in regards to any Civ game, that's what they mean. If you want these, better make them before anyone else does!
Wonders have an effect that tends to be nation-wide, not just strengthening the city that built it. People like to grade these wonders in effectiveness against each other and to my knowledge, the Hanging Gardens are considered worthwhile no matter your playstyle. You need to be cautious about wonders in Civ 6: A new feature is that a tile within your borders needs to be sacrificed to build a wonder onto. It can no longer be used to gain yields once the wonder has been completed and there is no option to get rid of a wonder, should you think you don't need it any more.



This is mainly what we came for. The tobacco tile will not be especially useful for food production (keep an eye on the children, they'll try to put it in their mouth), but we need to "own" the luxury. More on what it does once we do.



Not much to this. Destroying a marsh through a builder will produce a lump sum of food. The terrain under it will always be grassland I believe, which has less yields but can be traversed so much easier.



We have several sensible, boosted research options now that irrigation is no longer an issue. Mining, archery, writing,...astrology? No, astrology is of the least priority for sure. After almost a minute of thinking, we pick archery. Slingers are just too awful, they need to become archers who are such a valuable defensive and in a few cases even offensive unit.



One click and our builder retires, but not before making a tobacco plantation. Tobacco creates 4 units of "amenities". Amenities are the equivalent of the happiness value of past Civ games. Whenever a city grows to certain sizes (3, 5, 7, 9, and always adding 2), their requirement for amenities increases. Have it too much in the negative, and not only will your yields of that city suffer, you'll be risking a rise of insurgents. Insurgents are a sudden crop up of barbarian troops, already within your city borders. A city with a surplus of amenities will be a little more productive than usual.
Of the 4 amenity units our tobacco provides, each city can only receive 1. Shining Needle Castle cannot get +4 amenities through smoking alone, but when we set up another city, it will automatically benefit from the tobacco, until we have too many cities to pass it around to all.



On the screen for managing citizens, we click on the tile where the plantation is, putting a secure little lock on the symbol. Usually, the tiles are worked that the computer calculates as the most sensible, but you can overwrite this, saying something specific has to be worked. Our plan here is that there is an additional point of faith tied to the tobacco. We want to reach the pantheon threshold soon. After that, we may remove the order to prioritize working the tobacco.

Turn 33 - 2.720 B.C.

Our third civic did not take long to get. The Kobito culture well (I guess we're making this a verb now):



We already heard about Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith is someone from a similar field of philosophy and often mentioned in succession, even though they lived more than a century apart. "The Wealth of Nations" is considered his greatest work, and although I haven't read it, we can assume the quote is from that piece.
Foreign trade introduces the mechanic of trade routes to the game, the advancements you gain from it mostly have to do with it.



Get many trade routes and you can get rich quick with this policy. Our current number is naturally 0 out of a possible 1. This card would do literally nothing at this moment and equipping it would be foolish. We shall still keep its existence in mind.



Warfare on sea rarely happens in the early game, but should you want to make it, this would be your ticket. We own no naval technologies so far and don't even have coastal cities or the ability to build harbors. Useless at the moment.



Ah, traders. They are a civilian unit like builders and a very good one to get. You don't move these around the map, instead, you define a starting city and destination to each. Depending on where it goes, it will create certain yields.
It's generally advisable to have as many or close to as many traders as your trade route limit allows.
"Automatically creates Roads while it travels" - Now this is an interesting quirk. In Civ 5, building roads was an order you would give to your workers. You'd like to assume Civ 6 builders do everything workers did, but here's another difference: Traders and their trade routes are the ones who make roads along their way. Military engineers can do it too, but it'll be a while until we have those.



The Joint War. Oh, the Joint War  :barf: What were they thinking?
Anyone who's played this themselves knows what I'm getting at here. If you don't, I think I'll tell you when one is ever declared against us. What you need to know now is that this is a trade option that will appear in the diplomacy screen when we're in negotiations with another empire. Like gold and luxuries, this is effectively a tradeable item.



This advancement brings up your maximum trade route capacity from 0 to 1. Next to being able to build traders, it is but a formality, as it would be dumb if you could make a trader and then not have the ability to assign a single trade route.

We look at our policies afterwards and after some thinking, don't change anything. Agoge for military recruitment and God King for our faith gain are still in effect. I pondered whether we should get rid of the latter and instead rely on the faith from our tobacco fields. Was it the right choice? We will likely be stuck with it even after we've gotten our pantheon, as the next civic and therefore the next opportunity to change policies seems long off.
Our next choice when it comes to the focus of our culture can be one of these 4:



Mysticism and Military Tradition probably aren't super important. It's mostly a match between Early Empire and State Workforce. We end up going with the State Workforce, just like The Daughter says we should.

It's been quiet on the scout front. They've been roaming the frosty side of Canada with few discoveries. But what is this?



What? Europe!? Unless I'm stupid, this area should be either Newfoundland, Labrador or, even though I feel like more water should be between us and it, Greenland. Are any of these actually counted as European?
I did some research: As it turns out, Greenland is considered European by its ties to Denmark. You would never believe that from its location and this fact was completely new to me. Intriguing approach, Greatest Earth map makers. This also meant there was a realistic chance for us to gain the Foreign Trade inspiration even without the goody hut. It didn't matter the way everything ended up of course.

As we wrap up our own turn, we get an interesting news flash:



Gossip girl Wakasagihime confirms that Kaguya's settler has found a suitable location. We'll check on the next turn if it's somewhere we've already revealed.

Turn 34 - 2.680 B.C.

It is in fact! Partially at least:



For some reason, Kaguya wanted to settle in the northwestern territory of Canada. Not known to be the most fertile land early cultures could easily prosper in. I was wondering where her settler was heading, but didn't expect it would be even further north. This is an exclusively positive development and really surprised me. I would have bet she would actually go to her south and get into quarrel with me over land I would want as well.
We've seen tundra and snow terrain types in the last two screenshots. These are generally avoided when settling, as they naturally give very poor yields. Yet like the desert terrain, there are configurations where you can benefit from them more than you would think. The vanilla civilization Russia for example makes tundra tiles a little more feasible.

Delegate Raiko can't allow Wakasagihime to be more effective than herself! Her drums carry the following message and we react immediately:



Mamizou was just a single turn behind Kaguya. No other city names than Futatsuiwa of Sado are defined for her civilization, so it defaults to the pool from the American Empire. It makes sense that Mamizou would masquerade as someone else. This city placement is a lot more sensible to me. It is in very close proximity to her first city, but that is perfectly viable. There are advantages to a "cramped" empire. Again, this development is good for us. This is not land we were ever interested in taking for ourselves.

Turn 35 - 2.640 B.C.

This wasn't an especially interesting round, but there is an action that should be mentioned: Our settler is one turn away from being made. With this in mind, we lead our slinger out of our city tile, our warrior onto it in return. The reason for this will be made clear in the next update. A typical sentence to close our current one. Until then!
« Last Edit: January 21, 2018, 03:45:44 PM by Gesh86 »

Gesh86

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Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #23 on: January 07, 2018, 06:16:16 PM »
Update nr. 9 - This land is my land, this land is my land...

Turn 36 - 2.600 B.C.

Last time, we learned that Kaguya and Mamizou got their second cities quicker than we did. Let's not give them this headstart for much longer! Our settler has finished, bringing Shining Needle Castle from 3 population points down to 2. It has a lot of improvements around it, so it should recover the neccessary food quickly. Anyway, we first need to select our settler and use a certain command on him...



The marked symbol only appears if a civilian unit, like builders and settlers, is on the same tile as a military unit, like warriors and slingers. Clicking it will "lock" the units onto one another, meaning if you give one unit the order to go somewhere, the other will instantly follow. This is for the purpose of escorting vulnerable civilian units. We're going to send our settler somewhere and if we do not make sure he and the warrior end their turn on the same tile, he could fall victim to barbarian enslavement, or to that of an empire that declared war on us.
You practically never want to send out settlers unescorted. If you were to lose this settler, the first one you manually built over several turns, it would be a massive setback. In multiplayer or on an especially high difficulty, I'd say you'd be out of the game.

Now the big question is, where should we settle? It'll take us many turns to traverse the map, so we need to make up our mind now, rather than turning around half way. I've set my sights on 3 promising locations that I think I can best describe to you on the mini-map:



About upsetting rival nations: If you settle too close to someone, it's always considered an affront and they will call you out on it. It's understandable, they consider nearby land attractive to settle themselves.
When playing with human players in multiplayer, settling intentionally close towards the direction of another empire is called a "forward settle" and will probably get you yelled at and a war declared to take that very land you claimed. If not more than that.
I want to have our second city be a powerful, productive one that is easy to link up with our capital and where it's quick to send troops to and fro. 1 and 3 feel too remote given our situation. Because of that, I mark position nr.2 by the map pin function. The other places will likely make for future cities.



Using the third symbol from the left above the mini-map, you can set map pins. I put one where our city should go so that I don't need to think again where the ideal place was, should I forget. No chance to be scatter-brained!



The cattle and sheep make that area very fertile, the horses very productive, and the river will provide "fresh water", a status where a city will have the highest possible base threshold for housing. Seaside cities will have not as much, those without any water sources even less. The route says it'll take us 4 turns to get there.
Since the settler was created, we need a new build option in Shining Needle Castle. I have a rule of thumb for a defensive military: Having as many units as cities is an adequate defense, less is meager. Having 2 units per 1 city means having a strong defense, basically ready for any war. We know that we will very soon have a second city, so let's go from adequate to strong-ish. We're making a warrior, he'll be drafted in 4 turns.
I took a look on our treasury at that moment, and with 221 units of gold said to myself that we're quite wealthy. Wealthy enough to buy something. Apart from making units over several turns, there is the option to purchase them instantly if you have the funds.



When choosing what to produce, there are three tabs on top. Next to the normal building process, there's the instant purchase by gold, next to that the instant purchase by faith. Gold purchase has mostly the same options as building over turns, with a few exceptions. Examples are protective walls (so better get those up before the hordes stand at your gates), and any kind of world wonder, obviously. Imagine if you could just buy out a wonder...
Since we have a respectable surplus and gain new gold every turn, we're instantly getting ourselves another builder for 215 gold.

One of our scout notices that something unusual has happened with Kaguya, near what has to be the city of Eirin:



Notice that her borders are no longer freckled, but that all lines are spaceless? This tells us that she has gained the Early Empire civic. Her borders are now closed to other nations by default. Were we to have our scout walk into her territory, the game would stop us and ask us if we want to declare war. Yup, unless we want to have an absolute political escalation, her borders are now off limits. The excuse that it's just a scout who wants to explore won't cut it either.
If this new distance between us and Kaguya makes you sad, don't worry. There's actually a green smiley under her diplomacy portrait now, telling us that she's generally benevolent towards us. We're on the road to friendship, but a war from her side would technically still be possible.

Upon ending our turn, we witness a scout from Mamizou getting attacked by a barbarian horse archer, suffering 40 points of damage a little northeast of our capital. Horse archers are a swift, ranged shock unit that is incredibly weak on defense. Only barbarians with a camp next to a horse resource can build them. A pretty insignificant event, but a good chance to tell you about that unit's existence.

Turn 37 - 2.560 B.C.

First off, we deactivate the order to work on the tobacco fields in our capital. We have 27 faith right now, we should very soon get our pantheon of gods. We want to get back to the population level 3 that we lost, and that order was keeping us down in that regard.



The builder we purchased heads one tile east and puts a simple farm onto the riverside grassland. This is now the only tile that creates 3 units of food in our lands if worked. That should help with Shining Needle Castle's generally mediocre growth. Yet the main incentive for buying the builder was our soon to be second city. The remaining two builder charges will be spared for it.

Having our younger scout sneak around the edge of Kaguya's city, we learn that it's indeed the one called Eirin, surrounded by some wheat, silver and lots of tundra. Really, what was the princess thinking putting it there...?

On our other neighbor's turn, Mamizou, we hear the sound of Raiko's thundering drums again:



While I've belittled the news of our rivals clearing barbarian camps in the past, this is one that concerns us in a way. See, the camp in question was right next to the horse archer we can currently spot. Mamizou actually thwarted a potential menace for us. As good as that is, it also means the horse archer is now homeless and may wreak havoc whereever he feels like. Hopefully not in our country?

Turn 38 - 2.520 B.C.

A new technology is ours!



If you read the quote out loud and think Henry Longfellow might have been a poet and he didn't know it...he was a poet and I'm pretty sure he knew it. That, and a university professor.
Just one advancement for a tech is pretty scarce, but if that one is worth it alone...



It absolutely is. Not only are the combat stats of an archer superior to that of a slinger, they have a range of 2 instead of 1. A slinger when going on the offense always has to fear retaliation. Archers could hide behind a melee unit and shoot from there with little danger. The basics of battle formations, I guess.
Archers are the first unit to have a running maintenance cost of 1. Understandable, your soldiers want to be paid and need equipment. Have a too large and bloated army and they will bleed out your finances.
Our research options are largely the same as before we finished understanding archery, only horseback riding is now newly available to give us mounted units, should we want them. It's a close decision between mining and writing, and we pick writing in the end. Fun fact: In earlier builds of Civ 6, archery was a "dead end technology". No other techs required you to have it. Your empire could theoretically build rockets to travel into space, but be too stupid to gut animals for a bowstring.

We've been waiting for this:



We hit the mark of 25-30 faith (there's always a bit of a dice-roll to what it has to be) and I'm confident a lot of good ones are still available. When we click it, we get a pretty big selection:

   

Apart from these two pages, there's one more pantheon "City Patron Goddess - +25% production towards districts in cities without districts". If you analyze the many pantheons, you'll notice that many lead to the generation of more faith. These are generally uninteresting for us, again: We're not going to put much focus on religion. Some of these are a lot more practical, like "God of the Open Sky". We have many pastures in our lands, 2 of them already worked, and +1 culture for each is not to be underestimated, especially in the early game. It is a choice that I have ended up with many times in the past. But not today. We pick "God of the Forge - +25% production towards ancient and classical military units", a pantheon of which the benefits vanish very, very quickly, and the choosing of which could be seen as very short-sighted. It is also very telling of our intentions...
So that's our pantheon. Pantheon bonuses are not considered super powerful, but it is an exciting decision nonetheless. A single pick is all we get, all those ones we refused will never again become available to us.



The boost to the mysticism civic comes as sort of a byproduct to choosing your pantheon. It is not too vital a civic, so rather than getting all giddy, we give a low-key, dignified approval.

At the end of the turn, we move settler, warrior and builder closer to the map pin of our second city. Looking at it now, the builder is somewhat endangered by that horse archer. Let's hope he doesn't try anything funny. I think we're still out of his sight range?



Rather than getting on our nerves, he destroys Mamizou's severely injured warrior. She ravaged the barbarian camp, alright, but at these costs, it's safe to say that the AI is not as good a tactician as most human players.

Turn 39 - 2.480 B.C.

First thing's first, our newest warrior has finished his boot camp, our military power is much better now. There are many sensible build options now. Even more soldiers is a possibility. A granary could help with growth. Making the Hanging Gardens would be bold, but 29 turns? No thanks. Should we think long-term and maybe already start working on our next settler? He also would need a whole 18 turns (Settlers get more expensive the more you've made of them and the more you've advanced through the eras). Know what would be a boon? That trader we got from our last completed civic. I didn't emphasize how important traders were for nothing, so that will be it and it'll take 7 turns.



At the end of our movement phase, the escorted settler sits on the hill he is supposed to set down his city. We also refused to move the builder towards there. Instead, we sent the newly trained warrior after him and made another escort lock. That barbarian horse archer is just making me too nervous to leave my civilians unguarded. I think their movement is a swift 3? Our villainous foe simply waits during his turn, possibly because he can't see any city borders nor units from where he is. Campless barbarians can be this apathetic.

Turn 40 - 2.440 B.C.

We've reached our destination, and with a couple of more clicks...



Lilliput has been set up. The names of the Kobito civilization's settlements all refer to very tiny beings I believe. The second city you make as them needn't always be Lilliput, there's a random chance it'll be one of the next 10 names from the list that has been assigned to the civilization. This is to have it so that players don't see the same cities cropping up in the same order every time they play.
The escorting warrior now has no one to escort any more, as the settler has vanished with the founding of the city. He will however be given garrison duty in Lilliput. Our second, less experienced warrior will keep the builder company as he travels to Lilliput.

Now what shall we build in the new city? A monument is a decent first build order, not only for its inherent culture bonus, but because it will help the city claim tiles for its borders by cultural influence. However, I'm still not too happy about our military situation, and Shining Needle Castle is busy with a trader. Lilliput only needs 9 turns for an archer, so it'll teach its people how to handle the bow and arrow first.

As we end our turn, we get this angry reaction from Lady Kaguya:



Lilliput was too few tiles away from Eientei and the AI recognized it as the mentioned forward settle. This message appearing already cost us a little bit of Kaguya's respect, but what you do from here has a potentially much higher impact. The first option will make a promise to not build more cities close to Kaguya for I think at least 40, maybe 50 turns. Once the timer is up, the game will let you know that you've kept your promise and little damage has been done. If you ever break the promise during that time, the game will also let you know and that would really anger the princess from the moon in this case!
The second, very belligerent option is to kick Kaguya's concerns with your feet. This will annoy her a lot now, but at least you didn't make a promise you know you'll break. If you know you're going to keep forward settling, it is the best option.
The third option is a little bit of a mystery to me. If you pretend not to have heard Kaguya, you'll slightly annoy her now. If you do settle a city again in a way she disapproves of, she'll be miffed...but not as much as if you made a promise that you broke I think? But still more than if you had been straightforward to her? Something like that. We won't be picking it anyway, in fact, we will apologize. I think we can place future cities in a way that's not against her interests.

On the barbarians' turn, we witness this military blunder:



The horse archer discovered Lilliput and got very close to it, how threatening. He also wedged himself directly next to our two warriors who are going to have a good time pinballing him between their clubs in the next update. This one didn't cover especially many turns, but it did feel like a big one where a lot of stuff happened. Bis bald!
« Last Edit: January 21, 2018, 03:49:10 PM by Gesh86 »

Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #24 on: January 09, 2018, 02:47:56 AM »
Nice LP! It makes me want to start playing Civilization again. I... must... resist...

O4rfish

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Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #25 on: January 10, 2018, 06:22:36 AM »
The expansion comes this Feburary. 
[9:49:09] <Purvis> Generally not, but your mother may be an exception.

Gesh86

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Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #26 on: January 11, 2018, 09:53:04 PM »
Nice LP! It makes me want to start playing Civilization again. I... must... resist...

Thank you!  :D
I know how it feels "Just...one...more...turn" is followed by "Just...one...more...full campaign" and that is followed by "Just...the rest...of those...impossible Steam achievements"

The expansion comes this Feburary. 

Sure does, February 8th is where I marked it on my calendar. I'm really looking forward to it, but I'm sad to say it'll have zero impact on this LP. Upon campaign creation, the chosen game rulesets are very rigidly a part of it. We unfortunately can't retroactively apply Rise & Fall rules to a vanilla game that's been running for a hundred-something turns  :D.

Update nr. 10 - Would you like to make a trade agreement with yourself?

Turn 41 - 2.400 B.C.

Last time, the Lilliputians got bored of Gulliver and founded the second city of our empire. We were also just about to punish a careless horse archer.



Horse archers are indeed as weak as scouts when defending, but this one has a mild advantage for at least standing on a hill. Our first warrior deals 34 damage and suffers 27 himself, the one who follows delivers 39 while getting hurt for only 21. With 27 hitpoints left, the invader has no chance to survive another assault when it comes.

Turn 42 - 2.360 B.C.

The barbarian's reaction to the Kobito's clobbering turned out to be either a very headless or simply desperate move:



Rather than fighting back, the riders have traveled onto our tobacco fields. I see what they were trying to do: Pillaging this tile would have been very annoying to us. Yet the adjacent warrior crushes his dreams, taking but 19 damage in return for the total victory. We did cut the escort order with the builder first, otherwise the builder would have followed our warrior for no reason back towards our capital. A melee unit that defeats an enemy on offense automatically walks onto the tile of the beaten defender.
Barbarians rarely attack cities. Units are more likely, if the combat odds are at least somewhat favourable to them. But what they like to do at any opportunity they get is damaging your improvements. This explains why the horse archer acted as he did. If this happens, you'll have to repair the improvement with a builder. Repairing costs no builder charges at least.

Almost out of the blue, we swap to another civic:



It ends up being Early Empire. This action may seem very random, but believe me, there's some good logic behind it. See, State Workforce has been developed to a little more than half its culture cost and we have not yet achieved its eureka. If we build the district required to trigger said eureka, we will instantly achieve the civic. Let's say we were to ignore this procedure and would just carelessly keep developing State Workforce. Were we to make that district within for example 4 turns, the culture we kept spending on the civic over those 4 turns would have been forfeit.
It is very clever and highly recommended that when you know you can get an inspiration for a technology or civic soon enough, you only complete them to 50% and then swap to something else.

That's the last really important action of this turn. Our scout in the northwest is witnessing that Kaguya is trying to destroy a barbarian camp near Eirin, but may not actually succeed with the single and very injured warrior she's using. I'm imagining she might win by a hair and wish her the best of luck. Our own warriors will heal within our borders over the next few turns, so that they'll be healthy when we next need them.

Turn 43 - 2.320 B.C.

As we notice our gold count recover back to 50, it's time to upgrade our first unit, the slinger guarding Shining Needle Castle:



This marked button will only appear if you have the technology that grants you a unit that's considered the evolution of the selected. For slingers, that is the archer. Upgrading always costs some money, so you have to ask yourself the question: Do I upgrade, or do I spend the turns to just build the superior unit? Very often, upgrading isn't too terribly expensive and is also worth it for another reason: Upgraded units keep all their experience and promotions.
Upgrading is only possible within your own borders. If you're planning a war, think whether you want to wait until every unit is up-to-date before you march. At the enemy's gates, you're stuck with the soldiers you have.

We are now poor again and have our first archer. Their stats (as a reminder) are 15 combat strength, 25 ranged strength, 2 movement point and an attack range of 2 tiles. Very formidable.

I've been yearning to show you an interesting result from our scouting of the north. Here's a decent one:



This is in the area of the Great Lakes and even with as much as is still obscured there, I'm pretty sure it's Lake Superior. It has the luxury of pearls in it! Like whales, this is a sea resource that you obtain through a builder after researching sailing (we still have not). The tile would give a not so insignificant amount of gold and food if worked, after all, you can also slurp up the clams around the pearl. If you want. I won't. Mollusks don't belong in my belly  ::).

Just as we're about to wrap up our turn, the younger scout makes an even better discovery than some sea-creature's residue to wear on our body:



There is a goody hut in Alaska! Despite being so enamoured with the cold north, Kaguya seems to have missed it. Let's make a dash for it before she noticed. The AI does not take offense for snatched villages close to them, luckily.

Last but not least, our builder enters the influence of Lilliput and improves the sheep just to the southeast of it. One more turn for the cattle, and it'll be on its way into what soon should be a very productive city.

Turn 44 - 2.280 B.C.

Hearing Sean Bean's voice at the beginning of a turn means it's going to be a good one:



I don't have to tell you who Mark Twain is, but I will link him as always. Finally someone who I have in my bookcase! The quote seems to not be from a book of his, (I thought it might have been a smartypants thing Tom Sawyer said) but just a memorable line of Mark Twain himself. It refers to all the ideas you may discard and rephrase when writing something.



A library is a quick ticket to increasing your science output. "Citizens" are sort of specialists, we may hear of them later. "Great Scientist" is a type of Great Person who we will also hear of later. The library itself requires a "campus". Now what's that? The next advancement tells us:



The campus is a district. The district system is the one feature that Civ 6, more than anything else it did new or differently, is the most proud of. Similar to wonders, a tile must be sacrificed to construct any district, but the amount of specialization it will allow your city to have will be so much more impactful than making any simple building like a monument or granary. We want to build our first district soon and it will likely be such a campus.
All the listed science bonuses are so called "adjacency bonuses". We'll learn about those when we decide on a location for our first district.

A new technology means another one to choose:



Currency is a new option unlocked by writing. What good would currency be if no one wrote price tags in the supermarket after all? What we really need to work on now though is a tech that has waited long enough, since the beginning of the game actually: Mining

Builders by the way slam down their hammer onto the ground so hard it creates a shining, almost divine effect when making an improvement:



That was the last charge of the builder at Lilliput, he disappears. The two pastures our young city now has should make it useful quickly, soon returning the investment of the settler to us.

Meanwhile, the goody hut previously sighted in the cold northwest is claimed:



A free scout is meant by this. This gift would in many situations be considered as just about the crappiest outcome of a goody hut. However, I actually planned to build a third scout in Shining Needle Castle once the trader was done, so this is quite fortunate. That's 2 or 3 turns of production saved! When you are gifted a scout in this way, it'll appear in the closest city, which is Lilliput. His mission will be to explore Central and South America for us.

As we wait for our next turn, a blunt, loud sound is heard that means nothing good in this game:



Someone must have beelined straight for the Hanging Gardens and it's neither Kaguya nor Mamizou. They were so quick, even if we had allocated all our production to building it after researching irrigation, I doubt we would have beaten them. So the wonder is lost to us...actually I'm not too sad. The Hanging Gardens are good, but not a game deciding wonder.

Turn 45 - 2.240 B.C.

We have control of our first trader! Here's what it looks like when you click on him:



Traders do not have the movement point that we know from all the other units. You can invest a turn to "warp" them to a different origin city, but apart from that. you just select a destination and that's it. Yes, that destination needn't be our own city, we can send him to our neighbours as well. Such foreign trade routes tend to yield gold, internal trade routes usually buff food and production. The displayed bonuses are always exclusively gained by the city the trader starts in, but sometimes the targeted leader has an ability that makes them benefit from trade routes others make to them as well. Cleopatra of Egypt is an example.
We send our trader from Shining Needle Castle to Lilliput. I see it as a priority to make road connections between my own cities. I also want to start with this short route because traders can be destroyed by barbarians, and we should be able to protect him best if he just passes through our own territory. Know what else is great about having our very first trade route?



When choosing our technology in the previous turn, I smiled knowing that we would fulfill the condition for currency's inspiration in but a moment. I didn't want to say anything back then because I couldn't do it now if I did  :3.

What's next to build in Shining Needle Castle? I would really, really like to start making that campus, yet the problem is, the tile that I would like to place it on is not yet claimed by our cultural borders. There's a lot of strategy involved in where you place districts actually, so let's literally settle for the second best, another settler. 10 turns is how long he'll take.

Turn 46 - 2.200 B.C.

In the final turn of this update, not too much happened. We've gotten our newest, gifted scout to the south of Shining Needle Castle and I'm planning not just to send him further south, but to have a warrior and an archer follow him to the unknown. Unless another, currently unmet neighbor took care of it, the barbarian camp that harassed us earlier in the game is still in the vicinity. Hopefully we can reveal it soon and wipe it out as well. Marching hasn't really begun, but the positions of our units are the following:



Scout in front, archer still in city, warrior lagging a little behind. We'll work on getting those in a better formation soon. As we end our turn, Mamizou would like to adress her frustration with us:



We have acted against what should be Mamizou's hidden agenda. Every AI controlled leader has hidden likes and dislikes that you'll only learn of in advance if your information access level to them is high enough. I forget the exact name of this one, but it seems Mamizou gets angry when you've uncovered more of the earth than she has. She is Parsee levels of jealous of our exploration prowess! We have indeed been very thorough in mapping almost all of North America, I doubt she's even close. Unfortunately, the green, friendly smiley next to Mamizou's symbol has disappeared, getting us back to neutral terms with her.
Had we purposefully or out of inability scouted very little, we would have gotten on her good side for "leaving the exploration of the world to her empire". Agendas that favour doing a poor job at something are always annoying, as, well, doing better is obviously punished. And you want to do as well as you can in anything.

That will be it for today. Next time, we'll cross the Rio Grande and see what dangers await us in Mexico. Not claiming real Mexico is dangerous! I have not even been there yet. In this fictional version of the world inhabited by Youkai and in savage 2.000 B.C., we should assume it will be...
« Last Edit: January 21, 2018, 03:50:43 PM by Gesh86 »

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #27 on: January 13, 2018, 02:13:25 PM »
Update nr. 11 - I'm in the zone, baby! The zone of control unfortunately...

Turn 47 - 2.160 B.C.

Last time, we learned to write and read. Some installments of the series were notorious for dividing the technology of the written word into writing and literacy, possibly allowing your people to be unable to read what they had learned to write down. Weird, I know.

The scout and warrior at Shining Needle Castle push ahead, leaving the archer at the end of their trail. That's how you want a war party to proceed, the warrior becoming the archer's shield and the scout as the expendable eyes in front. There's little else to report other than these and a few more minor troop movements. The two scouts in Canada are uncovering the last few spots on that map. They'll go on their way home at some point in the near future.

Turn 48 - 2.120 B.C.

The 5 turns we spent on this now finished technology means there was more to it than ramming pickaxes into rock:



We know Will Rogers already. Firaxis, the developer of the newer Civ installments does clearly favour some of these wise speakers, it's not just one quote for each person. A group of British comedians comes to my mind who they seem to be especially fond of. I hope we'll hear them at some point.



Like the farm, mines don't neccessarily need a ressource to be made, just any kind of hill will do. If you want your city to be a production powerhouse, you'll set down sufficiently many of them.
The word "appeal" drops here and mines do literally drop it by 1. Appeal is a numerical stat that any tile will have. Apart from when you're setting your sights on heavy cultural play, appeal has little relevance to your interests. Basically, if your lands are litttered with dusty, industrialized mine shafts with the nearby hot and smelly forges, they may be unattractive to the tourists. Let's also not forget about all the noise pollution...



Quarries are very similar to mines, but bound to only be made on certain resources. Stone is one of them, and I think marble?



I don't think I've ever harvested copper for an instant return in production power, but chopping forests is actually an effective way of rushing your build options. To get the gain in production, the forest in question has to be within your cultural borders. In an earlier patch of the game, this was not so. Sending out lumberjack builders into the wilds and just ravaging nature was extremely lucrative, but ultimately unintended for the balance of the game, so they fixed it. I think you could even steal the lumber of other civilizations if you tricked them into opening their borders to you...

Rather than selecting the next technology from the typical shortlist, here's something else that you can do in the full technology tree:



Iron working is greyed out at the moment. It is a technology we still lack the prerequisite for, which is bronze working. If you click on it anyway, you'll do a research beeline: This means you will queue up all prerequisite technologies and end with the selected tech. If you want something asap, that's how you do it, you don't have to calculate the fastest route yourself. A "2" appears on iron working, meaning it's the 2nd in our queue. Our current research is therefore bronze working, boosted through a eureka and only 7 turns left to grab.



Lilliput has completed its first project, another archer. We set the monument as the next one. I already said that one is a typically good choice for a young city to make. Since we didn't pick it as the very first, we should be so reasonable as to at least make it now. It'll take 8 turns. A few turns ago when Lilliput was still on population level 1, it would have taken twice as long. My suspicion that this was a good place to put down a city seems to be proven true...
You can see here that the new archer and the garrisoned warrior inhabit the same tile. The warrior was already there, then the archer was built. This is not allowed in Civ 6, at least not longer than momentarily. The so called "doomstacking", as in having multiple military units gathered in the same place, has been thrown out with Civ 5. Unless we move one of those units away from the city tile, the game will not allow us to end the turn. We move the warrior to the south, temporarily guarding our trader.

The units on our southern borders are beginning their hunt for barbarians. We were worried last time that Mexico would be a bad place. It can't be as bad as we thought as it has something devilishly delicious:



Trees that grow chocolate! No, it's actually the luxury of cocoa. Until we get the chocolate modern people can buy, you'll have to do some intricate processing of those cocoa beans. The Mesoamericans are indeed believed to be the earliest connoiseurs of cocoa products. To find it there is very accurate of Greatest Earth Map and could have been expected by someone with an overview of all luxuries.

Turn 49 - 2.080 B.C.

What better way to start a turn than to receive an inspiration?



You get early empire's boost when the sum of your population reaches 6 for the first time. Shining Needle Castle just grew to 4, Lilliput is at 2; 4 + 2 = 6. We're mathmagicians. We're currently on this very civic, its development time is now on a single turn.
By the way, a barbarian warrior has stepped on the hill next to the cocoa. This is a clear sign that the barbarian camp is truly still there, they were just taking a break after their horrendous defeat against us.



And as we move closer, we finally find the hideout of those trouble makers. The barbarian camp is guarded by a spearman. Spearmen are a so called anti-cavalry units with a base combat strength of 25. It'll be higher than that due to them having a fortified position. At least we are not using cavalry which they are so anti against.

One of our older scouts happens to be near Kaguya's territory and has some less menacing news to spread to us first hand:



That Kaguya is still one step ahead of us! While we're only creating our next settler, she's already on her way to a third city. At least we know this: She's sending it northeast, most likely not colliding with our interests again. Maybe she doesn't know Yosemite is but a few tiles from her capital?

Turn 50 - 2.040 B.C.

We saw it coming a mile away, a new civic:



As fancy as that crown is, Shinmyomaru is not going to trade the lid of her rice bowl for it, I assure you. Gary Edward Keillor has been active in several creative fields, but is most well known as a radio host. Interesting, he seems to have recently fallen from grace pretty severely if Wikipedia is to be believed. His quote at least is still one of my favourites in the game. Duh, the classical Romans did not have air-conditioning! Of course this is to be interpreted as the general complacency the empire had so notoriously developed just before its capital's conquering.



We have not yet covered what purchasing a tile is all about, but I already foresee an opportunity to do this in the not too distant future. With this card, you can do it at a better price.



Settlers are not a cheap unit to build. If well timed and carried over the duration of making one or more of them simultaneously, this policy can create a pretty substantial production margin for you.



Like the joint war, open borders is a tradeable item. You can have good reasons to move your army through someone's territory. Perhaps they're blocking your access to your actual enemy? Having open borders active also plays a role, like appeal, in attracting tourists. We don't have any so far. That's ok, people couldn't imagine the idea of vacations 4.000 years ago. It's not like we're backwards.



The fourth advancement of early empire is really just the complement to the third. Now the AI will by default see our border lines as continuous and will have to respect them unless they want to start a war.

All that surveyed, we really need to change our policies. Agoge is of little use, we're not building any military units right now and there's no immediate need for more. God King...you bet we don't want to hang onto God King anymore! After some thinking, our setup ends up so:



We know we're just about to have fierce battles with barbarians. We can literally see them. 5 combat strength in all situations can make a pretty big difference, believe me. As for Colonization's benefit, I've just explained it and we are indeed building a settler. I've weighted it against a few other cards, but it won the pot.
Lastly, we set our next most desirable civic to military tradition, available in 10 turns. It brings a lot of conflict-focused policies and is boosted by clearing a barbarian outpost. Where could we ever find one of those, hmm?  ::)

On the battlefront, the tension is rising...



Selecting our scout, we see that some tiles adjacent to the barbarian warrior have weird, red marking. This symbolizes tiles that have zone of control. Zone of control is a game mechanic to make even single units more meaningful and reward strategic placement. The idea is that the moment someone moves their unit onto a tile directly next to an enemy unit, zone of control is applied and the only movement option becomes attacking the tile of that enemy unit. This is so that units can't just ignore and swiftly walk around others, unless they are classified as light cavalry. Zone of control does not apply to those. On the flipside, ranged units do not excersize zone of control unless you've picked a promotion for them that says they do.
The only other military action we take this turn is to move the scout one tile to the southwest. Is it perhaps possible for our scout to distract and lead that barbarian? The brute moves west onto the jungle tile during his turn and that is actually a manuever we may be able to exploit soon.

Turn 51 - 2.000 B.C.

If the barbarians were controlled by a human, they'd know they're in a pickle now:



This is what the map looks like after all the troop movements of our frontline. Starting next turn, our archer will be able to rain arrows onto our foe from the elevated position he is on.
As a last action of this fairly uneventful turn, the warrior we had to reactivate from Lilliput has traveled to Shining Needle Castle and we put him on alert there. While its original protectors are on their expedition to the south, he will be the temporary garrison of our capital.
On the barbarians' turn, they obviously go for the weakest target, our scout that's pinned down in the west. They deal 34 damage, scout and his trusty dog only deal 23 in return. While in the words of the game, that's a "minor defeat", it's still not too bad considering the circumstances. You'll be used to your scouts taking more damage than that, no matter what combat situation they get in. Our Discipline policy is to be thanked for this.

Turn 52 - 1.960 B.C.

A new millenium has dawned! Except our people don't know as our calender can't possibly be Gregorian in this age. It's payback time for the attack against our scout:



Those are some delicious damage predictions. The archer shoots for 37 points of damage, but we're not satisfied. We send the warrior right after them for another 29. It reduces our opponent's health to but a sliver. Doing math, he has 11 hitpoints left. That's so little, a scout with a whack of his hiking stick could probably kill him now!...



The not so hypothetical scout did, taking 37 damage in return. A scout can attack if he wants, it's just that he almost never should. Except here we were absolutely certain his attack would be enough to destroy the enemy. He is now in bad shape and should recover before charting our maps any further. Our continued exploration is just one of the things that will take place in the next update. If everything goes as planned, I'm predicting a third city of ours. See you then!
« Last Edit: January 21, 2018, 03:52:03 PM by Gesh86 »

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #28 on: January 16, 2018, 08:13:20 PM »
Update nr. 12 - The Sword Coast's Iron Crisis

Turn 53 - 1.920 B.C.

Last time, a lot of things happened, but let's all agree that the most important of them was learning of the existence of chocolate. We also engaged a new barbarian threat, this time as the aggressors.
A new settler was born in Shining Needle Castle this turn. Still remember the minimap enlargement I showed you for the first? We're aiming for position nr. 3 this time:



Florida. Don't worry, the alligators are not going to eat us. What I think is the Apalachicola river gives this very spot the best possible housing. We'll also have quick access to sugar, whales and a little later some jade. As a possible negative, I'm expecting the production output there to not be especially high, due to the many coastal tiles nearby. Coastal cities don't typically yield many of those orange gears.
The settler is being escorted by the warrior we stationed in our capital just 2 turns prior, and should arrive to settle in 5 turns if there are no unexpected hostiles blocking the path.
What's a logical option to build in Shining Needle Castle, knowing that we're about to claim land with several improvable resources? A builder, of course. We'll have him in 6 turns.



The scout you're seeing there is not one we built anew. I think it's the first one we ever made. He's cartographed most of the America's northeast for us and naturally came back home. In such cases, you're always wondering what else to do with a scout. The west coast is actually still relatively unexplored. Once Yosemite had been discovered, we turned north instead. Let's send him back to California, it might still be worth it.
Meanwhile, our troops in the south are still advancing. Except for the scout. He shall rest where he sits and gain +10 hitpoints every turn until we have something better to do with him. Shielded by a warrior and an archer, he's very safe at the moment.

Turn 54 - 1.880 B.C.

The injured scout might not be allowed to stay idle as long as he would have hoped:



Stepping on a hill, our warrior revealed a goody hut. I'm suspecting no other player civilizations in South America with this one still unclaimed. Of course, we want the scout to pick it up for the experience bonus. Ideally, we should destroy the barbarian camp first.

Did I put Qin Shi Huang in the game by accident? Somebody is addicted to those wonders...



Stonehenge is unlocked at astrology and is viewed as a wonder with religious purposes. Build it, and you will instantly gain a Great Prophet who can expend his charge at Stonehenge to found your state religion. I very rarely succeed in getting it, as you must have a tile with a stone resource next to it, otherwise you can't start construction. This was not the case for any of our cities. Kaguya could have done it, but she didn't.
Stonehenge is actually really great to pick up for civilizations who want to have a little bit of religion for boosting their worldly affairs, but not a lot of it. It's less vital for a dedicated religious play where all of your cities will build holy sites to gain your Great Prophet quickly and have a generally high faith output.

Turn 55 - 1.840 B.C.

At last, we can slip into that sexy Spartan breastplate with room for our six-pack already modelled into it:



Aeschylus was a Greek playwright and considered the father of the tragedy genre. Bronze, as evident from the quote, is an alloy easily moldable for blacksmiths. That's one of the reasons why the bronze age preceded the iron age. Another is how widely available it was.



Want your footsoldiers to be superior? You'll need barracks. In many earlier Civ installments, barracks were a building you could make without researching anything. Not only is this not the case anymore, you'll also need an...



This is a district for any city you want to be a production line for soldiers. Moreover, having an encampment somewhere allows you to lessen the amount of neccessary resources to build units. For example, to recruit horsemen, you need 2 improved horse resources in your empire. A city with an encampment can make them with just 1.
Encampments will also gain the ability to shoot enemy units with a ranged attack if the city it belongs to has walls. This ranged attack and reasons of balancing are also why an encampment always has to be built at least two tiles away from the city itself.



We can now build that same spearman the barbarians currently have. The evolutionary line of anti-cavalry units is unfortunately considered very unkind in the meta of the game. There's a rock-paper-scissors system involved here that makes it so that regular melee units beat anti-cavalry of a similar age. A spearman will actually lose to a warrior, despite a higher base combat strength. Anti-cavalry is not even considered that amazing against cavalry, as they are naturally on foot and therefore outrun in a chase. Most people will tell you that the best way to defend against a mounted assault in Civ 6 is to throw your own mounted units against it...

   

Iron is now visible. Like horses, it is a strategic resource. You need to have some improved if you want certain build options unlocked. We're going to check the map in a moment and see if we have any available to us.
We can also chop away that rainforest now if we choose to. Remember those marketing initiatives that were like "every container of beer you buy from us saves one tree in the rainforest"? They should have sent the memo to ZUN and not an acre of it would have been touched.
No research selection prompt appeared this time, since we had iron working queued. 19 turns. That's a painfully high number to hear...

The only sources of iron somewhat nearby that I could find were west of Shining Needle Castle:



They're in the state of Sonora and that is very inconvenient. You've got to understand that any resource more than 3 tiles away from a city is considered out of reach. To claim that iron, we would have to build a city specifically for that purpose. The area is otherwise not very interesting, mostly desert, so we would have an otherwise very useless city. Getting any iron would have triggered the eureka for iron working, but I think that dream just popped like a bubble. We'll have to research it all by ourselves.



On the bright side, the barbarian AI did something very unusual and beneficial to us here. For some reason, the half-killed scout was so enticing that they pulled out their guarding spearman to go after him. I really didn't expect them to be this stupid. The unit stationed in the camp itself almost never leaves it or attacks anything next to it even. We first shoot him for a whole 42 points, and our warrior simply walks into their hideout.
Barbarian encampments are automatically destroyed and plundered the moment a non-barbarian unit touches them. We get an immediate 45 gold from this and...



This is the civic we were just developing, and we were a little past the half-way point, so...



we instantly get it, mid-turn. Colonel Hack served in the Korean and Vietnam War. But Firaxis wouldn't be taking poignant quotes from but a simple soldier, as this man later became a military journalist and wrote about subjects like PTSD. The new policy cards are...



The equivalent of Agoge, but for anything involving horses. We can't make any of those at the moment.



This is a "Wildcard policy". Our chieftain government does not have wildcard slots, so we cannot use it, even if we wanted to. All types of policies can go into wildcard slots, but wildcard policies themselves can go only there and nowhere else.



When you have several units stationed around an enemy and then attack with one of them, you'll get a small combat bonus called flanking. I'm not quite sure about support, I think it's the equivalent on defense. A defending unit adjacent to another friendly is a little harder to damage than if it were alone.
We are once again allowed to change our policies. It may be only useful until we've destroyed another damaged spearman, but we'll leave Discipline in for now. As for economic policies, our settler has been born, so we must change our card there. We pick Urban Planning to increase our production in every city by 1. We have 3 cities, so that's a total gain of 3 production no matter what we build. Urban Planning is a good go-to policy when you simply can't think of anything more clever. At worst, it won't be completely wrong to pick.
As our next civic focus, we'll be working on mysticism over the next 6 turns, a mostly religious civic, for better or worse. The other two options were "drama and poetry", a pick for the cultured, and state workforce. Again, we want to get state workforce by procuring its eureka through construction of a district and not waste any more culture output on it apart from that.

Next up, we want to put the lucky and free money we got from the barbarians to good use. We want to purchase a tile:



Tile purchasing happens from the marked button on the city menu. Buying a tile means adding it to your cultural borders immediately, otherwise, the city claims the tiles it views as the most valuable over many turns. We pay the 70 gold for the circled tile. Price of tiles depends on how far away from a city they are and how far you've advanced into the game. They'll naturally be a little more expensive in the later eras.
Now here's where I want to tell you about a small metagame trick: Production cost for districts also rises the longer the game goes on, and quite substantially, too! For this reason, you can sacrifice a tile for a district in advance by briefly choosing the district in your build options. Once you've chosen the tile to make the district on, you don't have to build it, but now the production will be fixed to what it is at this very moment.
We're going to put this trick to use right now. We're swapping our builder production in Shining Needle Castle to a campus:



The marked tile is the one we just bought. A campus on that spot gains +1 science adjacency from the mountain to the west of it. This means that when the campus is done, we'll gain +1 science, so long as the campus stays intact. It doesn't need population assigned to it for this. We select it, "reserve" the tile and production cost for the campus and go back to making our builder. This trick is not considered an exploit from what I know, like lumberjacking in the wilds was.

Rather than attacking the scout, the barbarian spearman seems to have completely lost his mind and attacks our warrior to the southeast of him, where the camp used to be before we purged it. We take 15 damage, they 54. Scissors beats paper, just like I told you. That concludes this behemoth of a turn.

Turn 56 - 1.800 B.C.

First thing's first, we put the enemy spearman out of his misery, and we use our archer for this. With the path cleared, we move our scout closer to the goody hut we uncovered. Our last unit in the south, a warrior, gathered enough experience from getting attacked previously that he can pick the Tortoise promotion.

War and combat is one thing, but in civil regards, Lilliput has finished its monument. Our culture output is now at 7.3; not too bad I would say, but it didn't lessen the time for developing mysticism. Many build options sound tempting: A granary, a campus, maybe a builder to get access to horses? Some other time. In the end, we decide to bolster our defenses a little more with a spearman in 6 turns. I said spearmen weren't especially good, but I think getting a kill with them, no matter against what, triggers a eureka. It would be great if we could make that happen.

In the northwest, a pretty funny picture is painted:



Our scout, a barbarian scout wedged in between and Kaguya's scout have gotten themselves into a weird traffic jam at the coast of British Columbia. We're going to beat up the poor barbarian during the next few rounds, if we can. It's not a very relevant happening, but a moment that's worth a chuckle to me. Hopefully Kaguya won't be stubborn and retreat out of the way afterwards.

Turn 57 - 1.760 B.C.

So close! It looked like our scout was going to be able to reach the goody hut, but the terrain was a little more costly than I anticipated. He's now sitting next to the villagers. In the same area, we're having some problems with pathfinding:



With the job done, we should retreat our combat parties back to our homeland, but Mamizou's scout is very annoyingly in the way. I've told you that military units can't inhabit the same tile, that also counts for units foreign to each other. We would need 3 movement points to get our archer to the hill north of that scout, but that's just not possible. Since we can't end our turn on the tile the scout is at, we can't even get closer to the hill this turn. Yeah, it's possible to troll other players with your units like this...hopefully she'll move out of the way. The AI usually does.

Canadian scout has nothing better to do than attacking the barbarian scout. 28 damage dealt, 30 in return. The scout who is now exploring California (I think he was the middle child) discovered another source of iron:



This is right next to Yosemite Valley and therefore actually very eligible to settle close to. Our current settler is not going to turn heel and go all the way there though, because...

   

...we just cashed him in. The name is supposed to be "Blefuscu", Lilliput's rival tribe in the written work they come from. The guarding warrior's symbol is making it hard to read. The inspiration for sailing is gained by setting up your first coastal city, another reason why we chose that very location. Sailing isn't a very expensive technology, so the science yield from this idea isn't amazing. Still, every bit helps.
Blefuscu starts building a monument to help it possibly claim that jade resource soon. 30 turns, because of only two little cogs of production. Yuck.

One last message for today:



This means they either got their first tech or civic that is considered classical and are therefore also doing better on the science/culture front than we are. Iron working for example would be such a tech that would catapult you into a different age.

Only 5 turns passed, but this felt like an especially big update. Next time, we'll do what we can to modernize Blefuscu. See you around!
« Last Edit: January 21, 2018, 03:54:03 PM by Gesh86 »

CyberAngel

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Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #29 on: January 16, 2018, 08:59:54 PM »
Should you be wary of Kaguya or Mamizou getting upset at this point? How much would it matter if they did?