Hm, this leaves Remi or Byaku for the last surviving slot. I'd expect the scarlet devil to wipe the floor with anyone, but the peace-loving buddhist seems to be quite a militant zealot, from her mod description. Maybe both clashed somewhere in Asia.
I'd like to be proven wrong, but I'm expecting Byakuren to be the eliminated player. The reason is that, while she is strong if you play as her, I fear the AI isn't permanently aware of her playstyle. You never build units, you just faith-purchase them. If you break that rule, you'll have horrendously bad production times.
Update nr. 32 - If ZUN was the Great Prophet, would Tasofro be our first apostle?Turn 161 - 1.000 A.D.With a new update comes a new millenium in game time. From here, time advances only 10 years per turn. Last time, we discovered a new, foreign continent ruled by a human turned god. We also made a most impactful unit, this one:
The apostle. Having any religious unit selected automatically switches to the religious viewing lens. That's why the screen is all grey and depressing here. The first few apostles you make have two special buttons, namely "evangelize belief" and "launch inquisition". Both of these will destroy the apostle, in exchange for something helpful and permanent. Unless you immediately find yourself under religious assault, it's best to choose
"evangelize belief", so we do. We thereby return to the same screen we saw when we founded our religion:
Yup, evangelizing grants you your third religious perk. And the fourth, if you do it once more. The selected perk can't be of a subtype we already picked. The subtype of the folded hands is called a "Worship Belief" according to the wiki. We do not yet need the special buildings that they grant, so we'll take one of those symbolized by a burning candle instead (They are apparently called "Enhancer Beliefs"). Many of these would be very good. "Defender of the Faith" would keep us safe, "Itinerant Preachers" would help our religion spread through our empire by natural means. Our cities are indeed not too close to one another. "Scripture" would also help in passively converting our own cities faster.
I'm unsure if this was really the best course of action, but in the end, we pick
Holy Order: Missionaries and Apostles are 30% cheaper to purchase. This is a very strong belief, but only if you build enough religious units. Will we do that in order to get a satisfying return on invest? Hopefully. Thus, The Touhou Fandom becomes a religion where Jesuits educate, where the church owns things and they form holy orders. Nice!
With that chapter out of the way, we turn to our scouts again, and the one in the southern Pacific makes a great discovery:
This answers the question where that scout even is: New Zealand, where they shot all the Lord of the Rings movies.
Piopiotahi, or Milford Sound, is a breathtaking fjord there, an incredibly popular location. The man fawning over it, Darroch Donald, does not have a wikipedia page, but is a Scottish-born New Zealander, active in photography, art and writing about wildlife and travel subjects.
The scout who stumbled upon it was also awed, so much that he gained a promotion. He still has a movement point left, so we make him a
Ranger-Sentry-archetype, great at making it through woods and jungles. He's also the second scout we can name. He and his doggy will be dubbed:
Floating, remote-controlled heads as their many eyes, and a hairy werewolve's nose to sniff out danger. Good choice, wouldn't you say?
At Brobdingnag, we purchase a tile just north of the city for 130 coins and send our builder onto it. Next turn, you'll see why we needed to do this. Meanwhile, something horrific scares one of our scouts, the one in Asia, out of his pajamas:
A swordsman? Let's not meddle with him. We are making a run for it towards Kabul. It should be safer there.
Last but not least, our African scout reports on some exotic luxuries:
We now know what an elephant is. When the Romans first saw the Carthaginians use them in war, they thought the world's largest land mammal was a demon or monster. The luxury isn't actually elephants, but their ivory, once again a somewhat controversial good to have in a videogame. But that's how it is. Real humans liked, and in some places still like, real ivory taken from real elephants.
The other luxury we see two copies of there is a sack with brown clumps and a hand shovel in it. This is, of course, coffee. I think you can cultivate coffee in many regions, but for the sake of the game, we've only just found it for the first time here in Africa.
Turn 162 - 1.010 A.D.First of all, an industrial zone has finished in Blefuscu. It's the second one we made, but we never gave the other one a close-up:
Sure looks like a building site, with shacks, material and a large transporting cart. It's not too much unlike the mine improvement next to it.
Blefuscu's next task will be to make a
library. We could do better on science and on points for recruiting the respective Great Person of it. 7 turns.
Sekibanki and Kagerou are being great subordinates. Last turn, they found us a natural wonder. Now it's a city-state:
Toronto should be known to most, but for those who don't, it's in Ontario, Canada. It's also the most populated city in the country and on top, the 4th largest on the continent. In the Kobito's reality, it seems to be in Australia instead. We have our first industrial city-state of the game here. They will provide cogs to you and your industrial zones if you behave well to them. The suzerain effect of Toronto wouldn't do much for us now, we haven't made buildings with regional effects yet. Once you do, this does become a very valuable perk. As the first visitor to Down-Under, we get a free envoy with them, but don't yet send another to them.
Balnibarbi and its builder complete their first service for the wellbeing of the empire:
I believe we were already receiving cocoa through our suzerainship of Granada or Hattusa, but having a domestic source that no one can easily take away is of course the much safer option. The tile now grants 2 food, 1 production and a whopping 5 gold! Who knew chocolate would sell? Everyone did, absolutely everyone.
The day belongs to the builders. Here's the one at Brobdingnag, originally recruited by Futatsuiwa of Sado:
This is the place I was all foreshadowing about last turn, the tile we purchased. We want to make a lumber mill there. As we know, they will become more valuable along rivers, so that's a checkmark we can set. We click, and...
...get the eureka to the technology we're currently researching. The new timer to get it is now down to a single turn! Worth it, definitely. The builder has now used his last charge and retires.
The scouts who haven't moved do so and draw their maps, but don't find anything that's neccessary to write about. That concludes another turn.
Turn 163 - 1.020 A.D.Did they really have cardboard boxes in the Renaissance? Seems somewhat uncanny:
Modern mass production does lack a certain romance and soul. Marty Rubin, the wikipedia-pageless author of "Boiled Frog Syndrome" seems to think strongly so.
The shipyard is the harbor's second building. Unlike the lighthouse, it's all about production, not food or gold. The special effect is why it's so important to have a harbor with good adjacency.
The Merchant Republic Venice was famous for its shipyards and armories, and the
Arsenale di Venezia is the amassment of these. Generally, people were a little disappointed with how little impact the wonders of Civilization 6 have and how much less than in Civ 5 there seemed to be a "wonder race". However, the Venetian Arsenal is seen as a god-tier wonder, provided there is any need to have a navy. The two ships for one deal effectively makes it that you can take on two enemies in a war at sea and still be competitive. A single foe you can expect to just sweep over. We might want to grab this. Blefuscu for example has its industrial zone beached and could work on it.
What should we work on next? A few things would be clever ideas:
Astronomy and Printing can expect their boost sometime soon. Square Rigging is what I would love to have very soon, but I have a plan on how to achieve it very unconventionally. We do not actually want to get
Gunpowder's eureka. Lilliput has other things than an armory to make once it finishes the Terracotta Army. Besides, that boost is only worth 4 turns of science, within which we're well ahead of our rivals. Gunpowder it is and all the way.
Part of me reeeally didn't want to do this, but the inspiration is just worth too much culture. There's few lucky setups where you can even get it, so we need to clutch the opportunity:
The alliance with Kaguya will last 30 turns according to the tooltip, but from my experience, that is false. If the pre-requisite Declaration of Friendship ends, so will the alliance that needs it. I think this will happen in maybe 10 turns or so. During this pact, we have open borders with one another. We also have special casus belli to defend each other from another aggressor, and, this I did not know: You trade your maps. Kaguya now sees everything we do and therefore meets Alice and Sanae. That's one way to broaden your horizon.
Kaguya's maps also benefit us somewhat. Here's a city-state she knows of and we somehow didn't:
Nan Madol is in Micronesia and consists only of ruins nowadays. It is one of those places called a "lost continent", its mysticalness being compared to Atlantis and Mu. Unlike Atlantis, you can at least go to Nan Madol and see the remains. The city also inspired "R'lyeh" from the Cthulhu Mythos. There's an achievement in Civilization 6 referrencing Lovecraft, and it's about levying their military as suzerain.
In the game, Nan Madol is a cultural city-state, benefitting those civilizations with loads of theatre squares. Suzerainship grants +2 culture to all coastal districts. We do not yet put any envoys there, but since it made me inspect the tab for city-states, we put
2 envoys to Toronto and become their suzerain. Always good to have an ally who shares their production power.
Since Toronto shares maps with us, unveiling much of Australia, we instantly find another natural wonder that Down-Under wouldn't be complete without:
Uluru or Ayer's Rock is a mountain range near the center of Australia. Supposedly, it's obscenely hot there in the (Australian) summer, blazingly so. Nonetheless, Uluru is considered sacred to the Aboriginals. Uluru was first introduced to Civilization 6 through the Australia DLC. You can play as them under the leader John Curtin.
There are several
William Gosses, but I'm 100% sure it is the one being a famous explorer, since he is indeed the man to give Uluru its secondary name, Ayer's Rock.
Toronto also reveals three goody huts on top of that. Looks like Sekibanki and Kagerou will continue with their productive scouting in the near future.
A trader situated in Futatsuiwa of Sado needs new orders. He just completed the route to Lilliput. I'd like Brobdingnag to reap benefits of a trade route, so we teleport the trader there. Next turns, we'll give him a good route.
Just as the turn ends, we notice that we found not just Uluru this turn, but two more natural wonders, thanks to Kaguya and Toronto. They did not give us a fancy scene or quote for some reason, but a tooltip stealthily tells us where they are:
The Gal?pagos Islands are found west of South America and are famous for having isolated fauna, meaning animals developed there that you really don't find anywhere else.
The largest coral reef in the world, even so that it's visible from space,
The Great Barrier Reef has all the right to be called a natural wonder. It's located just off the coast of Australia, near Queensland. We definitely uncovered the area because of Toronto, Kaguya can't have found this.
Turn 164 - 1.030 A.D.The turn begins with the acquisition of a luxury we already have. Getting another copy of it couldn't come at a better time:
Smoking tobacco was the first passtime the Kobito ever took up if you remember. We're finally getting some more from our newest city. You know, since smoking is knowingly spread through peer pressure, what do you saw we push someone into accepting some pulls from the pipe?
What would Kanako and Suwako say if they caught their teenage protege inhaling? It would end with shouting, tears and door-slamming. Quick, girl, hide it before they return home!
We're giving Sanae a special discount here. She would have accepted 3 gold per turn. Much more important than making a quick buck is getting to consistently good terms with the wind priestess and generous trading, as you know, helps with that. We can't say yet what impact her agenda "Faith is for the transient people" will have. She respects civilizations with high faith, scorning those who neglect it. We are not playing with a religious focus, but our output is still decent. It might be enough to be recognized as pious by her.
We need to give orders to the trader we warped to Brobdingnag. As often before, we're prioritizing roads over yields and set
Brobdingnag -> Blefuscu. This will reduce the travelling distance between those two and get the young city 2 food and 3 production per turn.
The European scout did not discover more cities set down by Alice. It seems she hasn't really put France under her control. I've sent him all the way up to the Normandy, knowing that we would find a unique place:
The White Cliffs of Dover have their signature colour through a high amount of chalk in their composition. They overlook the Dover-Calais straight and have been used as a landmark by sailors. The two tile wonder, like all cliffs, can't easily be disembarked upon, but they do provide lots of culture and gold if worked. Doesn't look like there's a player inhabiting Britain, though...
William Wordsworth was an English romantic poet. He honored his name well, undoubtedly writing words that were worth reading.
...otherwise they must have gone for that source of
marble there. Symbolized by a modelled bust, this is another luxury you would expect to find in Italy and Greece for example, but over here as well I guess. In some Civilization installments, having marble sped up construction of some wonders. This is no longer the case. Perhaps getting rid of that rule was actually better when it comes to balancing. Marble in this game is the only luxury claimed by making a quarry.
Looking towards Sanae, we're learning much quicker where the core of her empire is located:
The star next to the name of Moriya Shrine proves this is her oldest city. Seems like Sanae has settled the northern area quite thoroughly. We might need to negotiate open borders with her to proceed, but let's not be too hasty.
There is another unknown luxury on this screenshot: The unidentifiable plates southwest of the double ivory is
mercury. This is often also called quicksilver or cinnabar and can be very poisoneous if in liquid form. Still, it's considered a luxury, apparently because cinnabar can be used for facepaint and rouge. Naturally, mercury is won by having your builder make a mine.
Just before the turn ends, we experience a moment that makes us roll our eyes:
Marked in the south is one of the three goody huts Toronto was so nice to tell us about. Just as we're about to grab it, they just had to park a unit on there. Let's hope they move it from there in the next turn and not troll us as thoroughly as Mamizou did.
The other marking in the north is another new luxury. Man, those foreign continents all have such exciting new treasures. The one here is a filled bowl letting off some kind of gas. It is in fact,
incense, something often used in religious ceremonies. Any kind of plant that releases aromatic smoke when burned can be called so. Typical are myrrh and frankincense.
Seems the whole world is trying to go monarchist. I however doubt this will be enough to get on better terms with the elusive Alice.
Turn 165 - 1.040 A.D.As control comes back to us, we're shown a video of a structure assembling itself in a timelapse:
The quoted
Jacques Chirac is not primarily someone who has to do with world wonders. He was prime minister of France from 1986 to 1988 and later president from 1995 to 2007, but also suffered a personal and political fall when he was sentenced in 2011 for diverting funds. Why is he the choice to be quoted here? He has connections to preserving culture in the form of the Chirac Foundation.
Folks, we have done it! We have our first world wonder, the Terracotta Army in Lilliput. We've finally proven that we are not just brutes that are specist to raccoon dogs, but more sophisticated creators of lasting value. Expect a lot of unit promoting in the next few turns, as that's what the wonder enables us to do. Let's also hope that the Pyramids in Laputa will be the next wonder to follow. 6 turns for that from now.
This eureka had nothing to do with that. Our university in Shining Needle Castle stands now, and the district it's in happened to be next to a mountain. The students there have the best conditions for examining the stars.
Our Asian scout was approached by the swordsmen of an unknown city-state:
Do I really need to link
Jerusalem? I think this might be the least obscure city-state yet. It is the first religious city-state we find, boosting faith output if you bolster it with envoys. The city is a melting pot of many faiths, and the suzerain bonus has to do with that: It will always adopt your religion as a majority religion, so long as you are allied with it. The scout who discovered Jerusalem uses his promotion from the Terracotta Army to become
Alpine. Yes, even scouts gain a bonus rank from that.
I already mentioned
Shining Needle Castle got done with their university. We should soon think about making ships. For that purpose, let's first make a
lighthouse there. 5 turns. As for
Lilliput, which can look proudly upon its new wonder like no other city of ours, should finally get a
library. 4 turns for that.
Sekibanki and Kagerou are at last allowed to step into the small village at what I think is Tasmania. Will they be claimed by the red-eyed, tornado-spinning devils there?
No, they encounter nothing but good faith. Lots of it. I didn't know you could find such a high amount in a goody hut. Quite the contrast to the 20 faith we got from the previous. I guess rewards can somewhat scale with how far you are in the game.
We end the turn, but not before promoting a couple more units. There's going to be so much promoting today and in the next update. That's what you get when you build the Terracotta Army with a 20 unit strong army...
A crossbowman in Laputa picks the
Garrison trait. The next one at Lilliput takes...
...Arrow Storm. He's a real unit killer with that and Volley. He's also allowed to pick a custom name, and who else should it be but Gensoukyo's ace archer,
Eirin Yagokoro. Still sticking to the crossbowmen, we have another one guarding Blefuscu...
...Incendiaries, following the Garrison promotion. Perhaps not too effective, because we don't plan for him to shoot at cities in the near future, but I'm sure it will lead to better perks. This one gets the rank 2 name
Reisen Udongein Inaba. The moon rabbit does have a ranged weapon starting from 14.5, a cartoony space gun, so I do think she's appropriate.
It takes me until the next turn to understand that in order to promote horsemen, swordsmen and the pikeman, we must wake them from alert and move them at least one tile. I can't explain why this is like that, a bug/oversight most likely. After five very eventful turns, we leave it at that for today. Is it just me or was this update particularly educational? I don't think we've had one with this many trivia links. I wasn't initially planning this to be a teaching Let's Play, but it's not a bad byproduct, is it? I hope not.
Next time, we'll be taking part in a military promoting marathon and master the art of saying very little with extremely many words. Bis bald!
