Author Topic: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI! (Completed!)  (Read 60963 times)

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #60 on: March 19, 2018, 08:28:22 PM »
Update nr. 29 - Help! I'm being repressed by Queen Shinmyoumaru!

Turn 143 - 640 A.D.

Last time, we learned how to properly equip a horse's saddle and started connecting Futatsuiwa of Sado to the rest of our empire. With a new settler in production at Blefuscu, we should direct our thoughts onto where to put the future city. I think I've found a spot...



In hindsight, it was a strange decision to raze a city that is only 2 tiles away from where we're making the new one. Especially when it already had additional population and a district. Still, the ideal positioning of a city is incredibly important, and the one we'll soon have will make us proud, I'm sure. Definitely prouder than the one we could have robbed from Mamizou. The Shining Needle Swordsman and the battering ram will guard the position, just so that it won't be occupied by one of Kaguya's when our settler arrives in about a dozen turns.

While we're already at it, how about another map pin?



We're going to have a Mexican settlement, right where that lake is. I believe that is Lake Texcoco? Then again, it might be smarter to make it coastal right upon the Pacific Ocean. Still not 100% sure, we'll see what we'll do. Whatever the exact placement will be, the city will get us permanent access to cocoa and truffles.

As the last relevant actions of the turn, we have Shining Needle Castle working one more turn on the temple instead of the harbor. This is only for reasons of timing the era transition towards the Renaissance. We want to get the Divine Right civic done first, then get a culture boost from the Kobito's special ability to be awarded while on a different civic. Complicated stuff, I know.

Turn 144 - 660 A.D.

Futatsuiwa of Sado has finished the first entertainment complex within our empire:



Who knew it would go from a captured city to the Kobito's Disneyland? The district looks like a circus. Buildings like the arena will add a jousting lane for example, giving it more diverse attractions. Even without any extras, the circus provides +1 amenities to the respective city.
Repairing a building generally has more priority than building new ones, so we will restore Futatsuiwa of Sado's granary next. Only 2 turns.

That is basically all that's happened upon reaching turn 144. Just as a swift reminder: We are now 2 turns away from finishing development of Divine Right. Also if you're wondering: Kaguya so far has only three cities. I don't exactly know what's up with her. Three cities is by no means the ideal end amount in this game. Is she just too dead-set on making archers? Does she not identify any other places in Canada as worthwhile enough? I definitely would have expanded if I had her starting position. If I ever notice another Eientei city appearing, you'll hear the news.

Turn 145 - 680 A.D.

Through influence, we have gained another envoy and this time, it actually prompts us. Thank you, game. Was that so hard?



The two emissaries that we have are going into Granada, bringing us up to six and awarding us the final bonus: +2 production for all unit training in cities with encampments. That's only Lilliput at the moment, but who says more cities won't be specializing in warfare in the future?
We've now reached the point where we should save envoys and only put them in those city-states others are contesting us for. Perhaps soon, we'll find more of these one-city-civilizations so that choices in this regard become more meaningful and involving again.

Since we have a very healthy income of money (+44.5 coins per turn) and have again saved up more than 200, we upgrade the final archer we have garrisoned in Laputa into a crossbowman. That city is very, very secure now. Too bad we are back to 55 coins. I wonder if we should have utilized the policy card with the 50% upgrade discount already. I can tell you for certain that we will when our swordsmen are getting the next evolution.

As the computer calculates its moves...



That's really a shame. The Petra would have done well in Laputa. Even without it, it has enough fertile tiles in the northwest to be sustainable. Our plan will now be to use most of the desert landscape for districts.

Turn 146 - 700 A.D.

Shinmyoumaru Sukuna has achieved divinity! She would have appreciated it if God made her a little taller...



If you are too young to know what the comedy group of Monty Python is, you have some catching up to do. If you think, "oh, they're from the 70's, that won't be funny any more today", think again. Their absurd humor has aged so well, it's really not aged at all. I claim their sketches will always be hilarious and never outdated.
The quote is from the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", a parody on the saga of King Arthur, and it takes place during a scene called "Constitutional Peasants". Monty Python has uploaded it themselves, so just watch that here at your own leisure.



Monarchy is one of the tier 2 governments. While I don't think its perks nor policy card setup are too ideal, any tier 2 government is better than those of tier 1. This is also due to quicker influence gain for city-states. I'm not spoiling anything when I say we're going to switch to it.



This policy takes effect when producing knights and cavalry (horsemen with swords and rifles), as well as any unique riders your civilizations may have in the span of those two. If we ever need to increase our ranks with those, we should produce them in bulk after setting the card.



Upon receiving this card, the one giving bonuses to ancient and classical wonders is thrown out. When building a wonder and you plan to speed it up through policies, make sure that the age classification actually applies to it. For the Terracotta Army, for example, it wouldn't.



For this one, it would. The religious commune of Mont Saint-Michel lies in the Normandy region of northern France and is very popular with tourists and the pious, even today. In the game, the wonder probably fits best for a religious-cultural playstyle, a very odd combination that I'm not sure is too viable. The idea within that playstyle is to get apostles and pretty much suicide them on other players' religious units for creating relics. Yeah, you read that right. We absolutely do not need this wonder.



Down here we choose our new government. We are then faced with reassessing our card layout pretty substantially:



Economic, diplomatic and wildcard policies seem fine as they are. But a whole three military policies? Do we even have that many that are sensible? Conscription stays, that's a given, it saves us about 15 gold per turn or so. A safe choice for one of the open slots is of course Retainers. More happiness, yes please. What should we do with the third slot? I really hesitated a lot with this one, my mind zipping from Feudal Contract, Survey, Limes and Veterancy. It ended up being the last of these, but then again, I'm seeing now that it didn't really help us. Too bad.



This eureka comes from the switch to Monarchy, but not Monarchy specifically. The two other tier 2 governments would have also done the trick, but they're not yet in reach.

Our cultural development needs a new direction. People like to party, so let's choose Medieval Faires for now. It is (so far) not boosted and will take 14 turns.

Futatsuiwa of Sado has repaired its granary. Our silos are now no longer on fire as they have been for several turns while our administration decided it was more important to set up circus tents. Several farms are still ravaged from our conquest, so we're making a local builder to repair them as well. 6 turns.

As we get ready for the next turn, Kaguya contacts us with a trade proposition to provide her horses. This is something we decline. We only have 2 copies of the horse resource. Overall, any deal that we could have with our good friend Kaguya we have already sealed.

Turn 147 - 720 A.D.

The second harbor in our empire finishes in Shining Needle Castle. The resulting boost completes a key technology:



This is the day where so much more of the map opens up to us. The age of discovery begins!



There aren't many who have never heard of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. What may however be a common misconception is that he didn't invent the kind of High Fantasy he wrote (much of it was influenced by mythology), instead, he just made it extremely popular. The quote is from a poem about Aragorn, "All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter", which recurrs a few times in the Lord of the Rings novels.



The caravel is the evolution of the galley, therefore it fights by directly approaching other vessels, embarked units or coastal cities. I think I said it before when we got the galley: You don't need many units of the naval melee class. Ranged ships are generally more useful in sea-fighting. I usually just bring one or two of such caravals along my navy so that they can conquer a city that I've damaged from afar.



More income from our fishermen is always good, but the first sentence of this passive completely pales because of the second: Any ship and any embarked unit can now voyage through the ocean. We can start our quest to find Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, all the other continents really. We'll finally meet new leaders!

Let's switch our cultural focus from Medieval Faires to Naval Tradition. Strange, I thought getting that last technology would have already advanced us to the Renaissance...

As said, Shining Needle Castle is to thank that we got that amazing technology. After the harbor, it now needs a new building project. We are getting the temple we've been building sporadically. Somehow, it is only a single turn away from completion now.
Lilliput also erected a stable. The horses will have it much cozier now. Our choice here is one of the more adventurous: The Terracotta Army. Wonders need a tile sacrificed for them. The one we can spare is...



...that one. The hex for the Terracotta Army must be adjacent to the encampment district and it also must be on flat land (that disqualifies the hills with the sheep). Wonders are obviously very costly projects, so the 20 turns shouldn't be a big surprise. Even a powerhouse such as Lilliput needs some effort for that.

Time for the meat of this turn: Where are our four fearless explorers? We've parked them conveniently in America's four corners:

   

   

Top left will be heading to where East Asia is, with a not so small chance of hitting Japan. Top right is en route to Europe, ideally to the Iberian Peninsula. Bottom left is going to Australia . Finally, Aya and Momiji will be going to the southern tip of Africa. You'll read it when one of them shouts "land ho!"

By the way, this is how you find dormant units like those scouts:



One click on a unit's name brings up a scrollable chart of everyone you control. A lot of players of Civ 6 do not know of this function, now you do, whether you play or just read. Order is alphabetical, but ascending from the bottom. Units that you've given custom names (like Aya and Momiji) will still be found under what they actually are.

Turn 148 - 740 A.D.



There we go. Wonder why it was a turn late. Was it maybe because we gained Cartography through a eureka? Anyway, we pocket 400 coins and get a culture boost. Brace yourselves, this is another turn where we are awarded a million goodies:



"Monty" Bernard Law Montgomery was a British Army officer. I cannot tell you which war he is talking about in the quote here, as he was active in both the First and Second World War. Perhaps it applies to both?



The armory is the second building in an encampment. A barracks or stable must have been built before, and the armory's effect is much more universal compared to those.



Here's a support unit that is tied to having such an armory: The military engineer is a little bit like a builder, with special improvements that only he can make. He can for example set down a road on demand, if your traders can't make them where you'd like them to be. I believe there is another engineer improvement that the tooltip fails to mention: Missile silos. Yes, these guys can construct you some sites to store your ICBMs. They can't right now of course! But potentially they will.
Believe it or not, I relatively rarely build military engineers. I often forget that I have them and because of pretty strict prerequisites, very few of my cities can build them. Furthermore, except for the missile silo, the improvements they make are very niche in their usefulness.



Niter, also called saltpeter, is something very combustible and a strategic resource that only becomes visible with this technology. Upon such a reveal, you're always on edge if the resource is somewhere you can even reach with your current cities. I can take your worries away: The niter spawn is pretty opportune for us. First of all, we gain a free copy outright for being the suzerain of Hattusa. But we also have some that'll be easy to collect:

   

I'm also seeing one next to the city we're about to settle. So much for the scientific discovery. Our civilization ability "Power of the Miracle Mallet" gave us so many culture points upon reaching the Renaissance, that we are also getting this:



Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt Jr. was the 26th President of the United States. Again, I'm the wrong person to tell you about politicians from a country that isn't my own, but I know that this guy finished a campaigning speech in 1912 after being shot in a failed assassination attempt. No need to hurry, the hospital was still there after he was done. Teddy is also the leader you play as if you select America as a civilization in this very game.



This card can produce a lot of cash if your civilization is specialized in sea-trading. We probably have better alternatives.



Great Admirals are the equivalent of the Great General, supporting your ships if you escort them. We will likely never equip this wildcard, as even if it had some use, the + Great People generation ones are not as powerful as you would think.

On to said cards: We only exchange Veterancy for Survey this turn. Now that our scouts have been activated, they may actually find goody huts or natural wonders again and gain experience that way. Who knew we would ever use that ancient policy card again?



We got this inspiration for having 7 unique districts in our lands. With "unique" is meant that they need to be different types of districts, not just the same ones several times. I believe it was an industrial zone in Laputa that made the jump.
Also: Sometimes I call the boosts "eureka", sometimes "inspiration". Apparently, "eureka" is for technologies, "inspiration" for civics. I think I've messed up the terminology several times in the past. Sorry! Now you know what's the difference.

   

What do we need our busy inventors and reformers to do next? A lot of new options have popped up on the science side. Education is enticing, but we're picking Castles for now, as it's boosted. Civics are so much less complicated with but two options. We're again settling on the already boosted one, Guilds.



Just to give you some additional overview, here are all the technologies that are attributed to the Renaissance Era. Banking is something that would get us rich and yes, the earliest concepts of financial institutions are indeed that old. We can also see some crossed muskets under Gunpowder and what could be a cannon at Metal Casting. Warfare will soon have a new face.
If you look closely to the bottom of the screenshot, it shows how modernized we are compared to other players: We're ahead of Kaguya by a good distance, who in turn is ahead of where Mamizou was...when she stopped existing in this world.

As another action for this lengthy turn, we're setting production for 2 cities: Shining Needle Castle has done its religious duty making that temple, now I believe it should make another settler. Our population could fall back to 9 points because of this. It's nothing to be worried about, as we have already made the district we needed 10 for. Just because the district limit lowers won't mean you'll be losing the districts you have! 7 turns to extract the homesteaders.

Laputa on the other hand has made an industrial zone and is on its way to further chase for the district limit:



A theatre square will be placed on the desert hill and it takes only 10 turns. While we're not going heavy on culture, we should at least have a few of them. Don't worry about the missing adjacency, as theatre squares get theirs mainly from wonders. We're just going to live with the fact that the Kobito don't make many wonders.

Some more good news: The trader going from Shining Needle Castle to Laputa has finished his rounds, we have a functional road between the two. This gives me an idea: We quick-purchase another trader in our capital for 335 gold (remember, the Kobito's ability made it rain gold again this turn). The route that just finished gets adjusted: Shining Needle Castle -> Lilliput. This is currently the most powerful internal trade route we have with +2 food and +3 production for the capital and +1 religious spread of the Touhou Fandom to Lilliput.

Huh? We've got "land ho!" already:



The militaristic city-state of Carthage was just a little ways off from America's western shore. I'm unsure what this island could be...is it Japan? That is unlikely, there's a lot of the Pacific east of Japan. It might be the peninsula of Kamtschatka in north-eastern Russia. It's hard to say at the moment, but hey, we have found foreign lands at least! We get a free envoy for Carthage, as no one else has yet found them.

That last turn was much thicker in events than I would have thought. Rather than further expanding this post, I'll give you a break for today. Next time: How to legally ruin the business of your rival handyworkers. Bis bald!

CyberAngel

  • Retired
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #61 on: March 19, 2018, 09:58:43 PM »
The quote is from the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", a parody on the saga of King Arthur, and it takes place during a scene called "Constitutional Peasants". Monty Python has uploaded it themselves, so just watch that here at your own leisure.

I bet Kaguya has the beast of Caerbannog as a pet. And half of the tanuki army ran into it during the last war.

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #62 on: March 22, 2018, 09:17:18 PM »
I bet Kaguya has the beast of Caerbannog as a pet. And half of the tanuki army ran into it during the last war.

That's what Tewi and Reisen become when you forget to feed them carrots for a day  ::).
Kaguya does in fact get her own combat rabbits. "Moon Force" is her unique version of the musketman.

Update nr. 30 - The Seven-Coloured Se?orita

Turn 149 ? 760 A.D.

Last time, we started sailing out into the great unknown. Will we fall off the end of the world? Some of our wise men said we might be living on a globe, round like an orange. Who ever heard of that?

Blefuscu has expelled a group of adventurous settlers this turn, shrinking from 11 population back to 10. They'll be heading to the point we've marked, west of Futatsuiwa of Sado, east of Lilliput. I think that's about where Illinois is. I'm expecting the site of the new city to be reached in about 5 turns, perhaps a little more. You'll hear of it. Next up, Blefuscu deserves to get another district constructed. I think we should do something about its old ailment: The city's mediocre construction speed. An industrial zone will remedy that a little. Here's where we'll have it:



We purchase the marked tile, adjacency is +1 cog thanks to the jade mine next to it. Remember what I told you about the entertainment complex, that it's sensible to have cities within 6 tiles of it to get bonuses? The same goes for industrial zones. The radius of this one will incorporate Shining Needle Castle, Lilliput and even the city we are about to settle. 14 turns is the time until the district stands.



As the settlers leave the safety of their home city, the pikeman we have parked nearby links up to them to become their bodyguard. I can only keep preaching: Don't move settlers around unescorted. Not in singleplayer and by all that is decent: Not in multiplayer.

Last turn, we also quick-purchased a new trader in Shining Needle Caslte. Most units aren't ready for action the turn they're bought out, such was the case here. Now he is getting his order, and that is to be moved to Blefuscu. You know, I should have had the foresight to buy him in Blefuscu in the first place, but I didn't. A single turn of losing trade unit income is not the apocalypse. You'll see why he's needed there.

Turn 150 - 780 A.D.

We keep our concentration on said trader:



We may have linked up our eastern province with Lilliput, but that infrastructure is still far too inadequate. With a road leading from Blefuscu to Futatsuiwa of Sado, we can move units to and fro even quicker. The yields aren't bad, I wish we wouldn't be importing Zoroastrianism though...



A look through the religious lens, available from a menu in the lower left, shows that we needn't be worried. The influence of our holy city for The Touhou Fandom is so strong that trade route gossip about Zoroaster is not going to shake it. This is a source of information we won't we using much, but it is good to have in stock for religious campaigns.

Sticking to trade routes: Our international one with the moon folk needs to be reassigned. Strange, I thought we had set it not too long ago. A trading post was constructed in Kaguya. The city, not the person. I think it's appropriate that we now pick the third city of our neighbour's and assigning Shining Needle Castle -> Eirin, worth 7 gold a turn. This one goes far north, but should be safe. I'm pretty sure Kaguya can protect her borders from barbarians with her overabundance of archers.



The inspiration for Medieval Faires is awarded for having 4 trade routes simultaneously active. The one we quick-purchased made the difference. We can pat ourselves on the back for this: Such an expanded and healthy trade system is not a given at this point of the game. Do remember that routes can be plundered and destroyed.

While relaxedly sailing with our scouts, I had the thought of showing you the global scores:



I often look at these, but haven't done so in the Let's Play so far. Score is awarded for technologies, civics, population, really all things you can think of that mean you're doing well. One civilization is 2 points ahead of us. Can you believe someone out there is more amazing than the Kobito. I think that's something we need to change. Kaguya is embarassing herself a little on that list: Last place. But who cares?! She's our friend and we don't choose our friends just by prestige!
The screenshot can also serve as a reminder that we are still mapping around Carthage. We didn't find out much about them other than that they are decently defended and have pearls nearby, unfortunately 4 tiles away and therefore out of claiming range. Wars against city-states are possible, but looking at this one, I'd say not at all worth it. We'll most likely coexist peacefully.

I've just noticed, we discovered Carthage last episode, but I didn't give you any information on it. When most people hear about it, they think of the Carthaginian Empire, but the capital city was for the longest time indeed a city-state, one among many others of the Phoenician region. Nowadays, the country it was in is Tunisia. The historical Carthage fell to the Romans after the Third Punic war. Had they actually won that series of wars, culture in the rest of Europe would likely be very different today, as the Romans wouldn't have been the dominating force on the continent for centuries as they were.
Carthage was a playable empire in several Civ games, but not yet in this one.

Turn 151 - 800 A.D.

A fancier name for our newest technology would be "domestic security measures":



Mehmet Murat Ildan does not seem to have a wikipedia page, but I found out he's a Turkish novelist and playwright. One of his works is "Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi", the life story of the famous Indian freedom fighter and politician (who is also one of the two leaders for India in this game).



If you want your walls to be more difficult to crack, you can upgrade ancient walls to medieval walls. I'm somewhat surprised to not see any maintenance cost for these. I thought they charged extra. Maybe that's something Firaxis removed to make them more attractive to build? Maybe we'll actually do that soon.



The Alc?zars have made it into our Let's Play already. The Alhambra is basically another Moorish fort, one of the most impressive and also situated in Granada. Later, it became remodelled into a palace. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site and, naturally, still stands. The Alhambra for the sake of this game helps out with military and amenity matters and wouldn't be too bad for our devices.



These passives take effect exclusively when you are playing as China or France. Irrelevant. Well, not completely: You now know there's something such as espionage in this game.

The next scientific discovery we're striving for is going to be...



What our smart advisor says: Education! I first checked how long we're going to need until we would get the eureka for it: We're getting the Great Scientist in about 17 turns if no one snatches him from us. That's too long for such a vital technology. We're researching this one in full.

I noticed something very funny after moving all of our units this turn:



This Eientei archer in the middle has been completely trapped by our borders between Shining Needle Castle and Lilliput. Poor guy, he was on the tile when our culture happened to reach for an adjacent piece, his only passage out. If that isolated hex is eventually claimed, it will automatically expell him further away from the cities. Until then, he is sad and stranded, unable to do anything, go anywhere. A human player would probably pressure us to give them open borders to get the unit back, but Kaguya is too polite for that.

Turn 152 - 820 A.D.

The 9th century. This and the next one were supposedly part of an era where little to no scientific change was achieved in the world. The story of humanity that is being told here is nothing like the real one, so I'm pretty sure that the Kobitos' science and culture will keep going with record speed!

There is very little else of note to say about this turn, units are travelling. Production, science and culture are advancing. How about I give you a close-up of the mini-map on that occasion? We haven't looked at it directly for ages:



The scouts are making very visible trails out of the tiles they have unveiled. The air-line distance between North America and Europe should be shortest, so the scout heading that way is the most likely to hit another shore next. But we'll see. If you have little land uncovered, the mini-map will be centered on your capital. Those times are long gone for us. As soon as your perspective of the world grows too big, the map becomes static, which explains why our home continent is pushed all the way west, as it would be on real world maps.

Turn 153 - 840 A.D.

One thing that bugs me about Civ 6 in general is that you don't really notice when certain trade deals run out. Unless there's an option for this that I'm oblivious to, you're not reminded and you'll just have to keep track of them in your head. Kaguya is already no longer receiving silver from us, which we used to buy her into the second war with Mamizou. Let's reactivate that, shall we?



Kaguya would have been willing to spend a little more than that, but we once more told her to just keep the change. It's still a pretty lucrative affair for us and we know after all that Kaguya needs all the help she can get to climb the score ladder she's at the bottom of.

A builder was just born in Futatsuiwa of Sado, ready to put those muscles to work. What's next? The city is technically big enough to set down another district, and we do in the form of a commercial hub...



+3 is some excellent adjacency. However, we only pre-place it. For now, production will go towards a shrine. We need some more religious output going, and we only have 2 holy sites where we could do that. We'd only have the one in Shining Needle Castle if Mamizou hadn't been so kind to make one for us here before we claimed the city by force. 5 turns for the shrine.

Huh, what do we have here?



It seems that the scout soon to arrive at Europe has spotted the baby-blue outline of some borders. We're finally going to meet a new Touhou character and it should already happen next turn!

For now, let's get back to life on land in the old world. Our new builder of Sado can immediately secure the closely situated source niter for us. He does so with a mine:





The eureka for Rifling is an easy one to get, as all you have to do is create a single niter mine. The technology itself is actually still fairly far away, deep within the industrial era.
We now have 2 copies of niter and are therefore able to make any unit that requires it. The first one apparently spawned somewhere directly under one of our cities, meaning we just get it by default.

Turn 154 - 860 A.D.

The upcoming civic has been a blessing for some in the past, a curse for others:



I remember a high school teacher once explaining to our class what a medieval guild was. Basically, it was a club for independant craftsmen of which the main purpose was to badmouth anyone of the same trade who wasn't a member. They'd try their best to give the non-payers the reputation of botchers so that their own businesses thrived. Is this really something we wanted to develop? Too bad, now we have it. It's actually all positive in this game.
Phineas Taylor Barnum is someone who went through professions that you wouldn't associate much with each other: He was a showman and later a politician. He even owned a circus. The recent end of 2017 movie "The Greatest Showman" is actually about the very same guy. Hugh Jackman portrayed him in it.



If you concentrate strongly on industrial zones and place them with good adjacency, this can be a truly mighty card. With a single one, we're unfortunately not in a spot where it's sensible.



I can say the same on this one as I did on the last card, except that our circumstances would already make it quite attractive. I do however think that the alternative policy of +2 gold per trade route would still make us richer. We could also use both if we reeeally needed the money...



We know first-hand what a Great Merchant is. Our point generation is already quite high for them, the +2 wouldn't make much of a difference and isn't really worth a wildcard slot.



The Chichen Itza was a famous Mayan City in Yucat?n, Mexico. Today, it is an archeological site. The wonder was present in Civ 4 and 5, but had more defensive uses if I recall correctly. Here, it boosts culture and production and is most sensibly built in cities nestled between a lot of jungle. Apart from the canonical Mesoamerica, you could get a lot of use out of it in Brazil, South-East Asia and Central Africa.

We are, as always after receiving a civic, prompted to overthink our policy cards. I try to, but come up with no better alternative to Survey or anything else. The old setup stays.



Finishing Guilds puts banks within closer reach. Some would say both are equal rogues...
This eureka is difficult to miss so long as your science doesn't tremendously outpace your culture. For us, both are doing quite well and are still somewhat balanced. Speaking of culture, I'd like to give you an overview of what the Renaissance offers in this regard:



Two new government types become available at Reformed Church and Exploration. Both are dead-end civics by the way. Diplomatic Service is also interesting, as the passive introduces espionage. For now, we clean up the last medieval civic, Medieval Faires, for 5 turns.

Meanwhile, in Brazil: It's just me, myself...and Irene of Athens:



Yeah, she was fetching Citrus over many turns for us. We just click the Great Person symbol above her and voila, the luxury is forever ours. That is the 8th in our collection. Trade route capacity also gets upped by 1, to 5. You know, the area really would be an amazing site for a city, but only if you had all your other cities also in South America.

Next, the builder at Futatsuiwa of Sado gets no lunch break yet. He's got fires to extinguish at a farm:



Repairing, I've said it a long time ago, costs no builder charges. The action looks pleasantly comical, with the men at work zipping about very quickly and hammering the ground, but that is unfortunately lost in the screenshot format. The farm, at least, is looking much better afterwards. The builder's next destination will be the silken forest in the southwest.

Greetings! We come from beyond the ocean, Ms...?

   

Alice! My third-favourite character in all of Touhou (and the highest ranking among the modded leaders)! Alice and her civilization of the magic forest have a unique industrial zone and are very good at recruiting Great Writers and Great Musicians. We are once again very polite to the new acquaintance, following her into the city and gifting a delegation to her for 25 gold.
Uhm...



See folks, this is why you don't pre-emptively deny something. Now we can't help but think that Fanonical Slasher-Villain Alice has Marisa hanging on a meathook in her dungeon.



The nearby city she shows us is likely a very new one. With only 3 population, it must be, but it does at least have walls for protection. Despite the mentioning of French Dolls, I'm pretty sure this is Spain/Portugal.
The majority religion there is Catholicism. I didn't check if Alice had founded it herself or if it's been converted by a foreign power. Maybe I will in the next update.
Score-wise, Alice is doing second worst, only exceeding Kaguya. Maybe some sugar for a decent price could help her situation? She is very stingy it seems and doesn't even make suggestions on what she would give. In the end, we hand over the sweet goods for a flat 50 gold. Hey, at least it financed the delegation.



So is Gesh86, Ms. Margatroid, a fellow third-person self-addresser!
During her turn, Alice opens up a diplomacy window without any text. We've had a similar bug or oversight happen with Mamizou. It's so far unclear if we worked in compliance with the puppeteer's agenda, or against it. Mysterious! We'll have to check what that agenda even is next turn, then we'll likely be able to connect the dots.



Unlike Kaguya, who makes the impression of having already given up the game with her three cities, Alice still seems very willing to compete and expand. City names for her are not about people associated with lonesome Alice, but her spell cards.

Alright. We've been going for a while and a lot has happened, so let's take a break. Next time, we'll find out if the new girl is more friend or foe. Be seeing you!

CyberAngel

  • Retired
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #63 on: March 23, 2018, 11:06:20 AM »
Alice in Europe, huh? How fitting, considering her spellcard names. How did they go, again? FranceHollandTibetKyotoLondonRussiaOrleans? ...Looks like some will definitely be misplaced, though. Oh well, looking forward to discovering them!

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #64 on: March 24, 2018, 12:44:41 PM »
Alice in Europe, huh? How fitting, considering her spellcard names. How did they go, again? FranceHollandTibetKyotoLondonRussiaOrleans? ...Looks like some will definitely be misplaced, though. Oh well, looking forward to discovering them!

I'd laugh if I noticed colonies of her all the way in Tibet or Japan  :D. The AI is not that adventurous.

Update nr. 31 - The power to create miracles

Turn 155 - 880 A.D.

Last time, we discovered the new world and called it Europe. The inhabitants were less like humans and more like life-sized, self-moving mannequins. I think we need to add that to our Kobito schoolbooks. Oh right, we do have schoolbooks now:



Your first instinct about this one is right: Malcolm Stevenson Forbes has to do with Forbes Magazine. He was not the one to start the magazine, that was his father. Nevertheless, the company undoubtedly flourished under his leadership.



Universities make your campuses far more effective. The flat +4 science is no small sum, and the bonus housing for the students is also very helpful. We want to make one very soon in at least one of our cities. Among its worth as a building, universities are tied to getting two eurekas.



The Hagia Sophia was built by the Orthodox in Constantinople. This city, as many know, changed ownership between many civilizations. The Hagia Sophia belonged briefly to Christians in the 13th century, from the 16th century onwards, it was used as a Mosque. Nowadays, the building is secularized as a museum, but is still viewed as a place that many faiths have shaped and that in a way, connects all of them peacefully.
The additional spread-charges for religious units will help you greatly in achieving a religious victory. It's easily one of the best wonders to make when you're going heavy on religion.

I'd like to set a new science focus, but Alice is just too new and exciting. Let's check what her agenda reaction was about in the previous turn. Alice sports a yellow, frowning smiley now, so it likely wasn't too positive. A look at the relationship chart will tell us all we need to know:



I'm sorry, Gandhi?

   

Like identical twins, am I right?...Let me explain what this is about. Alice's main agenda is called "Solitary" and is essentially a copy of Gandhi's "Peacekeeper". If one has ever actively declared a war, Gandhi/Alice will know and not approve, handing the warmonger harsh negatives in relationship. What the team of modders did not see was that a tooltip refers to Gandhi specifically by name. This is pretty rare in Civilization 6's flavour texts.
This is not good at all. With such a trait, I see it as fairly unlikely that we will ever become much of a friend to Alice. It may even go so far that we'll get denounced by her. We'll see how it plays out.



Ho boy, that is quite the catalogue. And so many of these technologies are really, really good! Yet with how many aren't boosted, I think we'll be going with one that already is. That condition disqualifies everything but Banking. After all, banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies...



Shining Needle Castle has readied a settler, who'll be sent down to Mexico and all its riches. He'll be escorted by the garrisoned horseman. I didn't get hyped about the university for nothing: Of course we're making one of those, giving the Kobito many of the smarts and less of the dumbs.

Ready for a new city? What weird, tongue-twisting name will this one have?

   

Brobdingnag is again a place from Gulliver's Travels. This one, however, is inhabited by giants, at least 10 times the size of humans. Can we make them our invincible soldiers? I hope we can. Brobdingnag is going the good old conservative route of making a monument. 20 turns. But wait! We also pre-place a commercial hub with +2 adjacency one tile west of the city, because why not?
I can tell you why not: Looking back at the footage, I think an industrial zone would have had much better adjacency on that hex. Dang it! Mistakes like these can happen. Try not to rush your thoughts like that.

I think I can tell you something new about the area around Carthage:



This cluster could indeed be Japan. That small center island would then be Shikoku. I do remember that a previous game I played on "Greatest Earth" made the Nippon almost unrealistically large. Perhaps the mappers thought that the Pacific was too big and uninteresting and cut some of it away? Maybe they were also a little japanophile. I can feel them, so can you I'm certain. I think on a Touhou fan forum, you can spend a long time looking for someone who doesn't like Japan at all.

On Kaguya's turn, she admonishes how close we put Brobdingnag to her borders. Really? It's not that close in my opinion. And no, a Declaration of Friendship does not protect from such a transgression. Anyway, it's the same as a certain incident of the early game: We promise our good princess that we won't be settling too close once again. This guarantee is one that should be extremely easy to fulfill, we likely won't need any other cities in North America. Only the one in Mexico, and surely, Kaguya won't consider that her territory, right?

Turn 156 - 900 A.D.

We have our first theatre square:



Without any additional buildings, this district is simply an idyllic little garden. It's looking rather paradox here, since we built it onto a desert tile. The city to make this jewel of our empire, Laputa, needs to build something else. There are a lot of good options, but I'm noticing it doesn't have a granary yet. We can't have that! 4 turns.

Good news! Our third scout shouts "land ho!". It's the one in the southern Pacific, aiming for Australia:



The tooltip still speaks of "Asia". Did we drift too far north perhaps? It could be the Phillipines. Or Papua New Guinea. No matter, land is land. We'll get ashore in a few turns. On the other side of the world, we have the following situation:



Geez, Alice is another one of those leaders who just can't have enough archers. Is this some kind of competition that only we're not partaking in? Our scout is destined to get into some traffic jams.
I promised to tell you whether Alice was the one who founded Catholicism and indeed, she is. Our magician is pretty much the Pope. Nah, more likely, she has a Pope to crown her emperor, like the Holy Roman Empire once did.



This is a good piece of gossip to hear: Not only is Kaguya making progress, she adopted the same form of government we did. This generally increases reputation, I guess queens respect other queens.

Turn 157 - 920 A.D.

A shrine was constructed in Futatsuiwa of Sado, raising our faith per turn to 13.1. We're at 369.3 right now, 400 is when we can purchase an apostle. While doubling down on this with another temple would be nice, we're going to go ahead with the commercial hub we pre-placed. It's only 14 turns for our proud province.



Just around the corner, we've got a builder at the silken woods, about to groom some caterpillars. The plantation grants us our 9th luxury. The exact spot here should be in Kentucky. Does Kentucky have a renowned silk industry, or did the map take some liberties there? I always thought you had to go to China for the best silk. Anyway, the builder now has only a single charge left, and we're sending him west to Brobdingnag.

The scout in the northern pacific keeps exploring Japan, he should be in Kyushu now. I'm surprised we haven't hit Africa yet: Aya and Momiji, our most experienced scouts are still only seeing ocean all around. That's all there is to this turn. Just before the new one begins, Kaguya asks us to share her some niter. However, she's not willing to give us all that much in exchange (147 gold and open borders) and this would cost us our 2nd copy of that strategic resource. We politely decline.

Turn 158 - 940 A.D.



When was it that we hit the Renaissance era ourselves? 10 turns ago, maybe 15? This puts Alice at a respectable pace. Meanwhile, our scout of the South Pacific disembarks onto an unknown continent and finds...



Friendly villagers! It's been a long time since we last claimed a goody hut. They are the reason we did our best to get Cartography and begin our age of discovery, so that ideally no one else had gotten to these helpful folk. We'll be able to say hello to them next turn. Also on that island is an unknown luxury, spices. Not being specific which spice, but I can see peppers and curry on the symbol. Salt is not considered a spice here. I can tell you that much, as salt is its own luxury altogether in this game.

The European scout sees the outline of another city belonging to Alice at southern France. It's still too far away to identify a name. Much more exciting is what African scout is able to report:



Fellow explorers, we've finally made out a feint shoreline. Even if it wasn't visible, the fish would give it away. Sea resources have to spawn in a place that could theoretically be claimed by a city, so you'll never just see them in the wide-open ocean. The North Pacific scout is the next to give us an update: He runs into a galley belonging to a city-state, which is...



Kabul. This one still has that name today and is the capital of Afghanistan. It is a very ancient and strategically placed city, located at the silk road. For this game, it is a militaristic city-state, which is in so far sensible that the people of Afghanistan see themselves as a "graveyard of empires", successfully defending themselves against many invaders despite seeming like an underdog. Alexander the Great is such an example, he tried and failed and I think directed his campaign more towards India afterwards.
We do not get a free envoy for them, someone else had contact to Kabul before we did. We refrain from sending envoys there for now. The suzerain bonus of double experience for all attacks sounds enticing, but isn't overly urgent to fetch right now.

Turn 159 - 960 A.D.

Hope you are ready for a turn with a double feature. A new technology and a civic. Let's start with the first:



He didn't have 24 hours of time to wait at the bank, huh? I can respect anyone with such a hand for dad-jokes, and wouldn't you know it, Steven Alexander Wright is a stand-up comedian, actor as well as a Oscar-winning film-producer.



Banks have to be constructed in commercial hubs and are a real moneymaker. Like all buildings there, they don't have a maintenance cost. We'll make some of them, sooner or later, I'm sure.



Found in the country of Zimbabwe, The Great Zimbabwe was a medieval city that is now in ruins. There are other smaller ruins around it, but this one is the most interesting and valued. Very little seems known about the Great Zimbabwe, making the site extremely attractive for archeology and research. Much points towards it as having been a seat of power.
Having the wonder in your city will probably make it the mightiest trading hub in the world. I believe the wonder is notorious for having pretty harsh conditions that aren't easy to plan for. Did we ever look to leave a spot open between a commercial hub and some cattle? Unless you keep this in mind from the very start of the game, you most likely won't have.



As good as this passive is, it stumps me. What does banking have to do with quarries? Do you typically need to take huge loans to start one? Is it because banking capital is backed by gold? Can't be, since you build mines on gold in this game, not quarries.

On to the civic. The knaves and wenches of the peasantry have learned how to have jolly feasts:



We've had William Shakespeare already, but just for good measure, I'm linking him again. The quote is from the play "The Merchant of Venice."



A diplomatic policy card that is actually very good!? No way! Equipping it creates a lot of gold now and it only gets better the longer you go on. Do know however that if we exchange it for Charismatic Leader, we will gain less envoys and be less competitive for suzerain statuses. If you can live with giving up some of those, it will make the card an even better choice. We'll stick with the old for now.



Aesthetics is another one of the adjacency boosting cards. We don't need it at all with our playstyle.



Medina Quarter, a term applied to certain narrow-streeted districts of North Africa, is the upgrade to the card Insulae that we were using until now. The effect is improved from +1 to +2, but cost for it taking effect is raised from 2 districts to 3. If you think that it's a strategic choice which one to pick, Insulae is unfortunately obsoleted and discarded upon developing Medieval Faires.



Angkor Wat is a huge Hindu temple dedicated to Vishnu, created by the Khmer long ago in present-day Cambodia. It is the pride of the country and a tourist attraction, well-known throughout the world. I remember first hearing of it when I played Illusion of Gaia, where it is a dungeon. A very big dungeon that unfortunately lacks a bossfight and is therefore one of the less memorable of that game.
Angkor Wat has also appeared in many of the earlier Civ games with varying effects. Here, it can be summed up as a population booster. The +1 instant population balances itself out with the global increase of housing. I unfortunately don't get around to building it often, as I don't make many aqueducts.

For policy cards, Insulae has disappeared, leaving our wildcard slot empty. Medina Quarter takes the place of its predecessor, no other changes are made beyond that.

Research gets set to Mass Production, taking 8 turns in case we can't get its eureka (which is making a lumber mill). When it comes to civics, we have the alternatives of Diplomatic Service, Exploration, Humanism and Reformed Church. We take the very first of these and it will take 18 turns. Darn, these are getting expensive. The inspiration for it would be to have an alliance. Hmm, should we make one with Kaguya, just for the sake of boosting this? It would get us ahead by quite a lot. We've got plenty time to decide on that.

Aya and Momiji reach the African mainland, where a diplomatic contact immediately pops up:



We've met Gangnam Style Psy's favourite Touhou, SANA-EH Kochiya. She leads a faith-based civilization that profits from peace-time, but has the means to fight if neccessary. We do the usual procedure of friendly hellos and getting a look at her nearby city. We're also so courteous to hand her the appropriate welcoming present worth 25 gold.



The city has a remarkably high combat strength, meaning Sanae has built at least some powerful units. Double-checking the scores reveals that she is the AI currently doing best. With 208 points, she's only 10 behind us. Could she have actually been the one to wipe out one of the other players? We cannot yet say that, but we do learn that Alice and her have denounced each other.
Sanae is also the founder of Shinto in this campaign. Can't think of one that would be more fitting, nor a modded civilization that would deserve it more.
As we end our turn, the southern Pacific scout collects the villagers we discovered. They award us 20 points of faith. In the early game, this could have been very impactful, but now it's one of the more mediocre gifts. Not too bad however, as we shall use some of that faith shortly.

Turn 160 ? 980 A.D.

This will be the last turn for today. As a positive surprise, there's already a green smiley face next to Sanae's symbol, meaning we're already gathering a positive relation with her. In the past, I've witnessed the wind priestess being another easily befriendable leader, so it must come from that trait alone.

We've accumulated a faith value of over 400. For that reason, we must take a look at the faith-purchase menu in Shining Needle Castle:



The ability to buy a university for faith comes from one of our religious perks. Missionaries have charges to spread faith and Gurus are a healing unit for the purposes of religious combat. We don't need any of them right now, anyone's priority at this point should be an Apostle. 400 faith are used up, upon which the Apostle appears at our Holy Site. From there he'll be able to take an action next turn. And what an action that will be...

Our desert oasis Laputa has finished its granary. It's at its district limit and doing well. So well that it's really not in dire need to get anything right now. It's times like these when you should train your brain to think about wonder-building. It's well within Laputa's abilities to construct one of the cheaper wonders, and I think I know just the one...



The Pyramids must be built on desert tiles, and we have a lot of those around. Since we can't make the Petra anymore, they're all throwaway tiles that we really can't do much with but use them for wonders or districts. We quickly purchase the tile southeast of the theatre square for 130 gold and start pulling those endless rows of stones. We're sure going to make those ancient pyramids!...in the high middle ages I guess? Weird that no one else wanted them until now.

Beyond the Rio Grande, a new, proud settlement is ready to form:

   

We've heard of Balnibarbi before when we set up Laputa: It is the land below the king's flying island and is a somewhat pitiful, ruinous and impoverished place in Gulliver's Travels. Tell you what, we won't have that. I'm sure it'll develop into a really cool metropolis, on par with the rest of our empire. We're going to make the first step for that and immediately pre-place a campus on the tile southwest of the new city. Like charity commercials tell you: Education means everything. Adjacency for the campus is +1, thanks to some jungle tiles.
After that procedure, we set production to, as so often before, a monument. 15 turns. But we don't stop there! Like Laputa got one, we quick-purchase a builder at Balnibarbi to give it that initial edge. 340 coins are deducted, bringing us down to 225. There are many valuable resources around he can grab for us, namely cocoa, tobacco, truffles and copper.

We are currently making some fruitful reconnaisance through Alice's lands:



That's the city we recently heard about in a piece of gossip. It's Alice's latest, and with another very small one in the west, I'm fairy certain Alice's starting position and capital will be in southern Spain. You usual spread out around your starting city relatively closely and only build cities further away later on.

Another scout lands in what I think could be Korea or Wladiwostok:



Yikes, barbarians! You have to take these guys seriously, as they can make any unit players can make. A crossbowman would be bad news for our explorers. We're going to try and navigate around the barbarian camp with some distance and hope no other units are nearby.



Here's our last point of interest in this turn and update. Just like Alice, Sanae keeps expanding. This is not something we should look at with a too jealous eye. In fact, I'm already liking the African shrine maiden and am confident we'll get along, better than with Alice. Just like the latter, city names are spell cards for the Moriya Shrine / Youkai Mountain civilization.
Well then, that's it for today. Next time, the first of the twelve apostles. We'll actually never get that many in our game. Anyway, I sure hope he's not going to be our Judas. Hope to see you soon!

CyberAngel

  • Retired
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #65 on: March 24, 2018, 02:14:11 PM »
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.

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #66 on: March 26, 2018, 06:02:15 AM »
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!

CyberAngel

  • Retired
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #67 on: March 26, 2018, 06:53:29 AM »
Honestly, if I could draw anything more than a straight line I'd make some comics out of the stuff that happens here!

AzyWng

  • "I was a dumb American in a place where dumb Americans were less popular than the clap."
  • "So this was it. My easy retirement."
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #68 on: March 28, 2018, 03:57:38 AM »
Honestly, if I could draw anything more than a straight line I'd make some comics out of the stuff that happens here!

Maybe you could make short stories out of some of it?

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #69 on: March 28, 2018, 09:23:13 PM »
Honestly, if I could draw anything more than a straight line I'd make some comics out of the stuff that happens here!

Maybe you could make short stories out of some of it?

It makes me glad to hear you're getting into our campaign so much to even think about these things  :D. Even if they were cheap doodles, I wouldn't mind. I'd also read the tragedy of Sanae estranging herself from her foster mothers.

Update nr. 33 - We know it definitely wasn't the Goa'uld that built those

Turn 166 - 1.050 A.D.

Last time, we sold cigarettes to underage shrine maidens. We also made The Touhou Fandom more potent as a religion and finished our first world wonder. Said wonder is leading to a whole wave of promotions that is now continued by our scout Sekibanki and Kagerou, who are at rank 3:



Isn't it weird that a tool like a spyglass, you know, something you can have and hold and feel in your hands, is a promotion? Are they so rare that only the best scouts deserve one?
The right side of the perk tree turns your scout into a mediocre fighter. We instead make the duo of Youkai into a Ranger-Sentry-Spyglass archetype. The European scout becomes an Alpine-Sentry and shall from now on be known as:



Choju Gigaku. Mystia, like all birds, has sharp eyes and echodog Kyouko probably has a sensitive nose, apart from speaking far too loudly.
Continuing with Aya and Momiji in Africa, they too become a Ranger-Sentry-Spyglass scout just like Sekibanki and Kagerou are.
Thought that was all the promotions this round? Nah, I think we'll do this in subsections:

- Nitori Kawashiro, a swordsman, reaches rank 3 and adds Urban Warfare to Tortoise-Amphibious.
- Watatsuki no Yorihime, another swordsman, becomes exactly the same archetype as the previous.
- A horseman reaches rank 2 and can choose the following:



That was our first cavalry unit to get to rank 2. Hmm, since riders are inherently majestic, let's pick the names of leaders among Touhous for them. This horseman is now known as Kaguya Houraisan
- The swordsman "A very short Youmu" was guarding Laputa when she became another uninspiring Tortoise-Amphibious-Urban Warfare type. What can I say? It's such a good combination.
- Right now Tenshi Hinanawi is our most experienced swordsman. She has reached rank 4! This means she can and will pick the very bottom of the promotion tree:



If this perk sounds obscenely powerful to you, that's because it is. The bratty celestial has the right to call herself elite now.
- Another swordsman, I think the second to last we have, picks Battlecry-Commando. The unit could scale the Cliffs of Dover now. As for the rank 2 name, we give the Jason Voorhees of Gensoukyo some love, Nemuno Sakata
- Sakuya Izayoi becomes another Tortoise-Amphibious-Urban Warfarer. You can't ever have enough of those.
- The promotions just keep coming: Our sole pikeman reaches rank 2 and on top of his Echelon promotion, picks:



Excellent for our tightly marching armies. Most appropriate for someone with a long weapon would be a Touhou with a spear. There's a certain vampire wielding the Gungnir, so this is now Remilia Scarlet.
- Another horseman becomes Coursers-Double Envelopment and is named Byakuren Hijiri. As a buddhist, she may be living humbly, but that can be majestic in its own right.
- And one final horseman in Balnibarbi takes the same promotions as the last. How about two rivals in our army? Toyosatomimi no Miko it is. Finally, we've promoted everyone!

Turn 167 - 1.060 A.D.

We are but a single turn away from our next civic. But more importantly:



Last time we were hoping for a Great Scientist, now our dreams are coming true. And oh boy, is it a good one:



If you choose a good enough spot, that can literally be mountains of science points. Galileo Galilei was an Italian scientist of many fields. Astronomy, physics and mathematics were among his talents. He was extremely influential, some call him "the father of the scientific method." He didn't always have it easy with his passion though: Harsh conflicts with the church and the pope erupted, as Galilei denied "heliocentricism", the belief that the sun circled the earth and not the other way around. While he wasn't executed for this, he had to live his last years in condemnation, which was a heavy branding back then.



The third Great Person you win the favour of boosts this civic. We had the prophet O No Yasumaro, merchantess Irene of Athens and now scientist Galileo Galilei.

Brobdingnag has already grown into a 3-population city and owns a monument from this turn onward. I was thinking of heading for the commercial hub, but no, the giants living there need some ancient walls to huddle behind. Only 5 turns. Thanks to living in a monarchy, any kind of wall is constructed noticably quicker, I believe 50%. Plus, they provide housing.

Our very youngest city isn't doing as well, but still respectably. Balnibarbi is about to use up its builder:



Just as a reminder, the copper there is just a bonus resource, meaning no increase in amenities. We're basically just making a mine that is slightly better than the mine you could make on your average hill. Oh well, it'll still be a productive tile.

Now, back to Mr. Galilei. The Kobito will treat him much better than the peers of his time by sending him to a mountain far outside our borders!...Are we also being a jerk to him? Don't tell me we are...



Cashing him in at the marked tile would give us 4 * 250 science = 1.000! Hexes with this many mountains adjacent to them are rare to find. Thank you for existing, Coast Mountains of Canada! The route-planer tells us our genius needs 8 turns to get there (Great Scientists are as fast on their feet as they are in their head). It might turn out to be a bit longer than that, as Kaguya could be jamming the road with her archers. I think that's worth the risk though.

Turn 168 - 1.070 A.D.

The units we woke and promoted at the beginning of the update have all gone back to alert, guarding their old positions. Now we gain control of weapons that can be sharper than any swords and pikes, if honed over a lifetime:



A diplomat is a man who would always just assume Yukari is 17, got it! Robert Lee Frost was an American poet with a focus on the subject of rural life. He was also a winner of the Pulitzer for poetry, due to undoubtedly many more such witty lines as the one we just read.



Those naughty Machiavellians and their spying spies! We most likely want to do it just like them and get some of those deceitful liers working for us. I'm unsure if we'll equip this card for those purposes, but we'll see.



I believe this is a function that obsoletes sending a diplomatic delegation. Instead of the past 25 gold, this one costs 50. The old option should no longer be available from now on and we might need to try and re-negotiate this with Kaguya, Sanae and Alice. I'll check in due time.

   

   

We have gained four new casus belli from the civic, which can be very helpful if they apply. At the moment, I'm pretty sure none of them would. But you never know what the future holds.



Spies are very expensive to make and you have a maximum, depending on how far you are in the game. Right now, we can have a single one at most. Spies can be assigned to foreign cities and cause various hazardous effects to the owner, each attributed to the districts the target city has. This is possible even if you are not at war with the civilization. Heck, you can spy on your friends and allies if you want. Even if you don't have nefarious intentions, it's worth having a spy, as they can also protect your cities from the actions of enemy spies. This actually makes a lack of own spies a gross oversight. We don't need one of them super-urgently, but somewhat soon would be good and wise.

We need to do a minor change to policy cards: Our scouts have gotten enough use out of Survey, we're putting the trusty Limes back in. We did already start building walls in Brobdingnag again and we should do so in other places. I think we're getting +150% production to walls with our current setup. This demands to have some use squeezed out of it.



Those development times are just not getting any prettier. It may be a dead-end civic, but we should put some work into Exploration, at least until we get to the half-way mark. Then we might switch to Humanism.

Blefuscu has done a good job completing a library for its campus. Only here and Shining Needle Castle are where we could currently be making any ships, so let's prepare for doing that in the near future. A lighthouse will help our vessels and their captains gain experience quicker, so we're setting one up here as well. 9 turns.

On the scouting front, it's fairly quiet actually. Kagerou and Sekibanki leave Tasmania, the scout in Asia is taking a route westwards. Mystia and Kyouko are uncovering more forests in France. The most interesting, yet not too hot report comes from Aya and Momiji:



Sanae must have expanded mostly northward of her capital. That's where I initially thought of exploring, too, but we would have to negotiate passage through the borders of the Moriya Shrine first. We're going to adapt to this by simply heading south first. This part of Africa didn't interest her all that much. Maybe when we've reached the Cape of Good Hope, we can get back to the sea and circle the continent eastward. Seems like the best plan right now.

Turn 169 - 1.080 A.D.

While we have the chance, I want to emphasize that in only 6 turns, we've raised our science output from 65 to 80. Universities and libraries are really helping us out there!

Blefuscu is a city that will be very busy for the next few turns. I had the idea to pre-place an encampment for it, to keep those district costs from ever increasing:



The placement will destroy the jungle on the tile, which is too bad. That will slightly decrease adjacency bonuses to the campus, but once finished, the encampment will then increase adjacency of both the campus and harbor again. I did this with a lot of doubt, but I do think this is better in the end. Production is returned to the lighthouse, as expected.

I've checked something else: Discovering Diplomatic Service did indeed outdate the old delegation of gift-bringers we had with Kaguya, Alice and Sanae. Under the guise of those presents, they were also bringing news to us. To regain our chances to hear gossip, we beg Kaguya and Sanae to have an embassy in their lands. This costs 50 gold each, 100 in total, provided they like us well enough to accept. In the end, both do!

It's a good day for pre-placement. Lilliput has just hit 10 population and thereby increased its district limit, so we pick this empty spot for an entertainment complex:



While it doesn't need any itself, it'll provide some adjacency to the campus and the commercial hub. For now, we'll have a different project for our second oldest city: Medieval walls. Shouldn't hurt to get stronger defenses and the small housing bonus monarchy provides. 5 turns, thanks to the Limes card.

Our scouts continue their journeys through the fierce wilds. Three of them don't run into trouble, but one does:



Marked in the south is another goody hut, tastily waiting for us. Somehow, Sanae has never gone for it, despite it being curiously close to her territory. The other marking isn't good news at all: A barbarian swordsman, and he's technically in attacking range. The question is if he'll actually approach us. It's likely, but not certain. Interestingly, this barbarian swordsman has an old Egyptian design, complete with hooked sword. I believe what continent barbarian units spawn has an effect on their ethnicity and style. A fine detail to add for some extra immersion.

We end the turn and for some moments, everything seems to be going smoothly, including this message:



Huh, apparently we are worse at recruiting Great People than Sanae is and she appreciates that. Are we actually not rivals in this matter? Maybe she just collects Great People of very different types than we do? This hidden agenda of the wind priestess is comparable to that of Pedro II, who leads Brazil in the vanilla game. It's a slightly problematic trait as you fulfill it by being not as good at something as its holder. Anyway, something has come true that we weren't hoping for:



Aya and Momiji really were attacked by the Swordsman, 86 damage to us, 13 to them. We are no match and even worse, another barbarian unit, a horseman, is approaching from the south. If we do not flee northwest next round, the scout is as good as dead.
I know there's bloodshed happening here and all, but we can also see a new luxury on that screenshot: Gems. I remember seeing them in this region in past games I played. Wait, we have a bunch of villains who happen to be jealously protecting them? I guess those are blood diamonds, alright.

Turn 170 - 1.090 A.D.

Retreating the African scout as described previously is the very first thing we do once we have control back. You don't want to give something so terrifying and dangerous a low priority. Now Aya and Momiji have slipped into a jungle their pursuers can't reach in a single turn.

Shining Needle Castle has completed a lighthouse this turn. We could double down and make the Great Lighthouse wonder after it, but we have something more urgent and that is getting an actual navy. We will be getting a use out of some vessels now, I assure you. We begin with a caravel, 10 turns. Sturdy, quality boats take their time.

Brobdingnag has intact city walls now. That leaves only the city of Balnibarbi without the capabilities of a ranged attack, but that should resolve itself soon as well. Keeping to the city of giants for now, they turn their attention to their pre-placed commercial hub. 23 turns is pretty daunting, but it's to be expected for a relatively small town tackling a district at this advanced stage of the game.

You know what the Kobito can't do, despite their scientific and military achievements? Cook. We make great sweets and chocolate, but when it comes to something savory, our kitchen is a nightmare. This could help:



Salt! This luxury is gained by setting down a mine, Civilization does not consider ocean salt. This is our nameless Asian scout, by the way. Geographically, this might be right at the Gobi Desert in China.

Turn 171 - 1.100 A.D.

At last, we complete a wonder that really nobody else wanted for thousands of years.

   

We already had Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. In our reality, he won't be too impressed and instead say: "Hey, these aren't really that old!" A builder with four charges will instantly be born in Laputa. All our future builders will also have that additional charge.

What a great turn this is becoming:



This was not said by the singer Philip Irving Bailey, but the poet Philip James Bailey, the author of "Festus". The context of the quote is Memorial Day.



This may be all that comes with gunpowder, but oh am I looking forward to our first, primitive, horribly unreliable firearms! You wouldn't think so, but they are still classified as a melee unit and our Shining Needle Swordsmen can be upgraded to them. Comparing base strengths, the musketman is 22 points stronger, which is loads. The condition of having Niter is more than fulfilled by us, but we will hold back the costly modernization until we can put in the policy card with the upgrade discount, Professional Army.



The strongest contenders for the next scientific choice are the already boosted Astronomy and Metal Casting. We do not need cannons too quickly right now, so let's go for the less explosive option, Astronomy.

The Laputans are still shaking off the awe from seeing their precious pyramids, as we're already giving them new orders. Yeah, you guys did a good job, but there's no time to rest. Our desert oasis is one of our more isolated cities. Even with the existing road network, stronger defenses could make the difference of an unexpected assault ever happened there. We're going for medieval walls, and they're a puny 4 turns away.
The builder that rose up from those pyramids by the way should go here:



Too bad he can't climb over Yosemite Valley. The target iron resource is outside our borders, so we're giving our builder the crossbowman as an escort, just for the most unlikely and unpleasant eventualities.

We're continuing to make medieval walls in other places, namely Futatsuiwa of Sado. That city is also a little remote and close to the ocean. Oversea invaders would likely strike there first, but they'd have it harder in 6 turns. The project the province just finished by the way was a commercial hub, raising our trade route limit to 6. We just keep rolling in the dough.

And finally, it's Balnibarbi's turn. They have made their monument, and mimicking Brobdingnag like a copycat, are moving to ancient walls. 4 swift turns. The Limes policy card in combination with Monarchy is just heavenly.

People keep going on about how dangerous Australia is with its wildlife and all. To us, it just keeps on giving:



That's the second of three goody huts we know of, another you can see a little northeast of Uluru. The one we grab now gifts us 20 points of faith. Not too bad, we're 3 points short of the next apostle. Asian scout finds only more salt in the Gobi Desert, while in Europe, Mystia and Kyouko's plan to embark into the Mediterranean Sea is thwarted by a whole line of Alice's archers. They're not letting anyone through. Aya and Momiji just keep finding trouble:



Alright, that's another direction we're not heading into. How do all those barbarians survive so close to Sanae? Shame on you, girl, for not keeping your territory secure and orderly. As if she heard her name, she has a proposition for a deal during her turn. The deal really isn't good, it was something along the lines of several of our luxuries for a single one of hers. But the whole transaction gave me an idea, so we change it to this:



Screw those barbarians in the south and east, we're going back to the original plan: We'll be parking Aya and Momiji in the lands of Moriya, bandaging their wounds. After that, we'll just explore towards the north.

Will Aya and Momiji survive? We're going to find out shortly. Next time, persecution! And yes, typical for Civilization 6, it will be presented to us as a purely advantageous thing. Bis bald!
« Last Edit: March 28, 2018, 09:26:05 PM by Gesh86 »

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 #70 on: March 29, 2018, 12:56:57 AM »
Wow, Gesh. Didn't know you were into the Stargate franchise. I certainly was surprised by you referencing the Goa'uld.
There's nothing inscribed on the dog tag...

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #71 on: March 30, 2018, 11:27:06 AM »
Wow, Gesh. Didn't know you were into the Stargate franchise. I certainly was surprised by you referencing the Goa'uld.

I greatly enjoyed the show during my teenage years. A Let's Play of (movie) Stargate on the SNES was also my 2nd ever. Don't look it up, it's absolutely horrible  :3.

Update nr. 34 - If the first apostle was Tasofro, is the second PlayDoujin with their PS4 ports?

Turn 172 - 1.110 A.D.

Last time, we revolutionized warfare by inventing a weapon traditionalists will call the tool of a coward. We don't yet have anyone using muskets, but that will come.



You will receive automatic reminders when you hit certain faith thresholds, I like that. It would really be annoying if you accumulated a couple thousand points and forgot to purchase the apostle just out of being scatterbrained. We cash in ours and have 300 of our 312 faith deducted.

   

To the left, we have desert and tundra tiles right next to each other. It must be the Himalayan region, one of the few places in the world where that is somewhat realistic. To the right, we're sailing onto the Mediterranean Sea. We should try going west from there, maybe we can uncover a few more cities of Alice, just out of curiosity. Besides that, this was a fairly uneventful turn. On to the next one!

Turn 173 - 1.120 A.D.

So we got ourselves an apostle on the previous turn. A good, virtuous apostle who believes strongly in Touhou. I'm sure he will shape our faith and worship in ways that will greatly benefit the well-being of the Kobito. You know what would be crazy? If he set something radical in motion. Absurd, I know. I couldn't imagine that fine fellow doing something extremely political like launching an inquisition...





There is indeed a Steam achievement for doing this as the Spanish Empire. You'd think this action would cause a ruckus, screams of agony torture and all, but no. The apostle disappears and all that happens is the adding of a new religious unit in Shining Needle Castle, or any place that owns a temple:



The inquisitor is a defensive religious unit, meant to stop other civilizations in overruning your people with their faith. Unless you've sacrificed an apostle just like we did, you can't make any. We also can't make any now because we scraped all our faith reserves just to get the apostle. 150 points should however be quickly reached, so we'll be able to recruit this scourge of the infidels.
Who would 12th century fundamentalists of the Touhou Fandom put on the stake? Enthusiasts of Kancolle, maybe?  Len'en? :3



That's the final aboriginial village to help our cause. They hand us 75 gold, bringing us up to 882 pieces. We should think about buying something with that. An iron reserve is prudent and all, yet you don't want to hoard your finances.

There isn't much to say about our other scouts. The European one has come into range of idyllic Corsica. Doesn't look like too great a place to settle, though. Small islands generally aren't recommended to cultivate in this game.
We notice that our development of the Exploration civic is at roughly 50%, so we switch to Humanism. 14 turns is what that will take. I think that's 2 less than the last time we decided, so our culture output is getting slightly better.

Turn 174 - 1.130 A.D.

Our mexican city of Balnibarbi is almost finished with its city walls. Just then, I get the urge to do a little more for it. It is not connected by road yet, and we are two below our trade route capacity. Thus, we quick-purchase a trader in said city for 365 gold. That'll link it up over the next turn, and we slimmed our money reserves to a still very commendable 587 coins. Our income rate is 69.9 per turn, which is very wealthy at this point of the game. Thanks to a pretty dedicated focus on commercial hubs and harbors, Shinmyoumaru and her followers are living the good life. It is undoubtedly one of our strengths.

Lilliput has improved its walls to a level that makes them of medieval ingenuity. There's a lot of stuff it could now work on. I'm feeling that we've neglected our heartland's infrastructure a little, and Shining Needle Castle, now busy making our navy, can't provide anything. I think it's best if we make a pyramid-strengthened builder here. 2 turns.

Not many unknown luxuries remain. And one less when we've covered this one at northwest China/Kasachstan:



That is gypsum, another resource to be mined and it does look as crystaline as portrayed here. Gypsum can be used as fertilizer, but fits the description of a luxury more when you look at a variety of it called alabaster, used for sculpturing. Apart from that, you apparently have gypsum even in tofu.



Good for Sanae. We did not really need the Jebel Barkal. There are many wonders we could build instead, when we actually get around to making any. On that note, African scout is currently hiding inside her borders and there is a construction site visible near Moriya Shrine that will become a wonder. It's still at an early stage, but it might be either the Mahabodhi Temple or Angkor Wat from the looks of it.

Turn 175 - 1.140 A.D.

We've had Astrology, now it's Astronomy. Don't mix them up, this one is not considered pseudo-science:



Brian Harold May is an astrophysicist. If he weren't, he couldn't have really sounded believable giving us that quote, could he? Interestingly, May got famous in something much less scientific long before that: He was the lead guitarist of Queen.



Only a single advancement comes with Astronomy: The world wonder of the Potala Palace. This was the seat of the Dalai Lama from when it was built during the lifetime of the 5th, until the current, 14th one had to flee the region. A typical source the average person has heard from it is from the book "Seven Years in Tibet: My Life Before, During and After", which has also been adapted to film. The wonder is a decent, although not great one, as diplomatic policy cards tend to be the weakest of the four subtypes.



Once again, advancing quicker in science than culture gets us an effortless boost for a later civic. Astronomy benefits the coming of the colonial age.

We took Astronomy over Metal Casting the last time we picked a science focus, but only barely. A new technology that was unlocked is Scientific Theory, but I feel that would be jumping too far ahead. Metal Casting and the cannons that come with it is what we'll have, 4 turns.

It's the turn of Laputa, that begins by purchasing a tile with some iron in the southwest for 210 gold. We have that kind of money, no problem, 447 is left. Why did we do it to begin with?



It was so that our newest builder can immediately secure it for us. We now have one copy of iron in our empire, enough that Lilliput could train knights, if it needed to. We had some iron before, but only due to the special trait that comes with the suzerainship of Hattusa. Other civilizations could contest our relationship with that city-state, so it's better to have some iron no matter what happens.
Laputa has also become the second city to modernize their walls to medieval quality this turn. At first, I had the thought to create a new district, but none seemed too urgent. Let's make something untypical here: A siege tower. We still have a battering ram lying around, but you never know: It might get captured and destroyed during a campaign. Then walls would become a problem. 3 turns to make this emergency plan.

Balnibarbi is another city that needs new plans now that it has put up a set of ancient walls around it. With that, no settlement in our realm is defenseless on its own anymore. We did pre-place a campus there, so that's what we're tackling now. 28 turns. Yeah, Balnibarbi only has 2 population points and as expected, will spend some time on districts. Not much we can do but help it grow. Actually, we're doing that right away: We've made a trader there, remember? We set the route Balnibarbi -> Shining Needle Castle and from those yields alone, construction time lowers to 20 turns. Trade routes to support young, underperforming cities is always a good idea.



While getting a good look at how Alice is doing, we notice she has a Great Engineer running around. This is a type of Great Person that usually has production-centric purposes. I'm unsure right now what Isidore of Miletus can do, but it might be one of those that can rush the construction of wonders. We will likely not be good at recruiting any engineers, as industrial zones aren't exactly a district we put a high focus on.

The following screenshot will stay the last for Aya and Momiji in Africa for a good while:



We're going to spend almost 10 turns there simply regenerating hitpoints. When we're done, the unit will automatically awaken. We're trusting Sanae to not be overrun by barbarians in the meantime. She actually doesn't seem to be in on the whole archer spamming tradition. I can see only a swordsman there and a turn or so ago, I noticed a knight. The wind priestess is actually putting quality over quantity, which comes close to our own approach to military matters. Out of the blue, the very same leader approaches us:



It's usually a good sign when the AI asks you for an embassy within your empire. We accept. Our relationship might be cordial enough that Sanae becomes our friend. There's a realistic chance. Let's ask next turn.

Turn 176 - 1.150 A.D.

Well, what do you know? We have encountered actual pirates!



I heard them attacking someone, probably someone's embarked unit. They can't really harm Futatsuiwa of Sado, as it's not reaping any sea-resources at all. Maybe when we get a navy, we should hunt these crooks.

As foreshadowed, we ask Sanae for a Declaration of Friendship:



"I'm sorry, but I don't feel the same way. I can't see you becoming as close as a brother to me"

Being rejected has no negative consequences aside from that you can't ask again for a while. This is to prevent you and others to just keep asking for friendship over and over. There's however still a chance that Sanae approaches us with the same idea in a bunch of turns. That would be grand.

Before regaining control this turn, a city-state has found us. That's just as good as us finding them:

   

Real Zanzibar lies off the coast of Tanzania. It is counted towards that country, but somewhat loosely with a lot of autonomy. This leads to it being called the "African Hong Kong". You might have heard of "Zanzibar Land" in the Metal Gear franchise. It is strange that they called it that, as it has nothing to do with real Zanzibar and not even remotely in the same place.
In our campaign, Zanzibar was placed in what I think is Kasachstan. Its yellow colour signifies a commercial city state. Allying with them fills your pockets. With that, I think we've encountered at least one city-state of every type. We do not commit the only envoy we currently have to there or anywhere right now.

Fast-producing Lilliput has taught a builder his craft, now they move on to a pre-placed entertainment complex. Got to keep those amenities up before problems arise. With 7 turns to construct, they're making everyone jealous again...



The very same builder uses one of his charges to combat the lack of farmland on the spot he's on. We really need to make some more.

Sekibanki and Kagerou have finished their scouting in Australia. Where could they be going next? The Phillipines and Indonesia would be close and sensible.

Oh, now here comes the undoubtedly best part of this turn! Galileo Galilei has reached his research spot of choice!



Effectively, the 1.000 points of science are a full technology plus a little more. Let's just grab a very expensive one that we've saved for this very occasion: Square Rigging. We set our science to it before we click the Great Person's ability.



Alan John Villiers was an Australian author, adventurer, photographer and most important for us, mariner. He loved sailing since his teenage days and possibly before. The term "rigging" refers to the technique of using a system of cables, ropes and chains to secure the masts of sailboats.



Man, do I love frigates and their evolutions. These are ships fighting on distance like quadriremes, but range has increased from 1 to 2. This means several frigates can surround a coastal city and just blast it in unison. Ranged ships receive neither maluses nor bonuses against cities, but their high combat strength makes them generally effective. You bet we're going to make some of these!



Embarked movement points are now at 3, as opposed to 2. This will help immensely with scouting or any troops that are needed on a different continent. Remember, 3 out of 4 tiles on Earth are water.

Research is set back to Metal Casting. The excess science from Mr. Galilei and his amazingly heretical teachings has put it down to a time of 1 turn. Sweet!

Turn 177 - 1.160 A.D.

I remember this technology came much earlier in Civilization 5's tree. Maybe experts are unsure when exactly it became common place, so the timespan is very large:



It's the second syllable of Homer you stretch, otherwise you're speaking of Homer Simpson. He was the author of the Illiad and Odyssey, two of the most influential and important epics of the greek classical antiquity. He defined classical heroes and their traits and purposes in literature, which is no simple subject when you have no real guidelines to go by.



We abstained from building any catapults, which the bombard is the evolution of. At least this means we won't need to upgrade any. Think of this as large Renaissance artillery that needs to be pulled by multiple men. It wasn't actually that widespread, but the Ottomans for example were famous for it. We might make some of these. They can prevail where even battering rams and siege towers aren't enough.



Hmm, we haven't boosted any of those technologies. Among them, we have the first few industrial ones: Ballistics, Industrialization and Scientific Method. We're going to start working on Industrialization for now, but it's very likely we'll switch at halfway.

Blefuscu has received an intact lighthouse this turn. Our procedure with this city is going to be similar to Shining Needle Castle, in that it will become our secondary shipbuilder. The city at Florida is going to make us a Frigate. 23 turns. Is this really a good idea with such a massive timer? Yes, yes it is. Frigates are just too good.

Futatsuiwa of Sado is up next. They have imposing medieval walls now and should get another district going. For being so proud of our army, we have very few encampments. Let's change that and have one here:



At first, I almost put the encampment two tiles east of the city. This would have made it a coastal fortress of sorts, good at fending off the landfall of an army or a naval invasion. I refrained from this however, as it would have severely tampered with our farm-triangles. The actual place isn't the best for defense, but can still shoot at some tiles next to Futatsuiwa of Sado.
Oh, we also just pre-place the district. We instead make a builder for the next 4 turns, as there are still farms on fire there, memories of our last glorious war.

Speaking of farms, we place another in our heartland:



The tile of the builder is one that can be worked by both Shining Needle Castle and Lilliput. However, only one can claim it for itself at a time. Under the citizen menu of a city, you can set which city such a tile should belong to, if you're willing to do the micro-management. For now, we just leave the decision to the game. I didn't actually check who called dibbs on it.

Our previously European scout, Mystia and Kyouko, are at least temporarily becoming the "North African scout":



This news wouldn't be all that interesting, but I'm noticing something: Those are Sanae's dotted borders to the east there. I find that really curious and I have a dark hunch. Did she really build a city that far north? We're going to make a short detour towards it, find out what city that is, then we'll go back to scouting around Alice.

With nothing to report on the AI's turn, we close another update. Next time, pack some fruits and veggies and seal them airtight. They'll keep the scurvey away. Until then!

CyberAngel

  • Retired
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #72 on: March 30, 2018, 01:15:42 PM »
Who would 12th century fundamentalists of the Touhou Fandom put on the stake? Enthusiasts of Kancolle, maybe?  Len'en? :3

PC-98 pagans

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 #73 on: March 31, 2018, 01:39:17 AM »
Once again, you've managed to surprise me with your reference to Len'En.
There's nothing inscribed on the dog tag...

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #74 on: April 01, 2018, 09:40:07 AM »
PC-98 pagans

Or maybe those would be the old fundamelists, who just couldn't accept that any programing would be done on that new-fangled windows system.

Once again, you've managed to surprise me with your reference to Len'En.

When we have Len'en threads on our very forum, it's hard to stay ignorant of it  :D.
By the way, Len'en mods exist for Civilization 5.

Update nr. 35 - Legend of The Great Shinto-Buddhism War, fact or fiction?

Turn 178 - 1.170 A.D.

Last time, we sent smart Mr. Galilei to a mountain and he told us: "This is how you make a real warship." I think the church would have been fine with that.

Upon reaching this turn, we have a siege tower ready to be pushed out of Laputa. We're sending it towards the east coast of North America. Laputa sure has become a productive city without too many immediate needs, so we make a unit there that you should never be without: A spy. I told you they were expensive. 10 turns is how long this one will take until he's got the skills of Charlize Theron.
Laputa's builder who has used a charge to secure us our first own source of iron is heading on the road towards Shining Needle Castle. Doing the same is the 2-charge builder who's been making farms at Lilliput.

We're getting a prompt on what to do with the Shining Needle Castle -> Lilliput trade route. It's run its course again, producing 2 food and 3 cogs for our capital. There's no immediate need to make roads to anywhere, so we simply use the "repeat route" function. If you don't hear about me mentioning certain trade routes anymore, you can from now on assume that we just repeated existing ones.



Kaguya is good at recruiting Great Touhous. She indeed has her unique commercial hub in all three of her cities. Yes, still three. I've given up hope that she'll ever make a fourth.

Turn 179 - 1.180 A.D.

It's official, Sekibanki and Kagerou are my favourite scout and dog combination:



Another goody hut for those who aren't afraid to see the world. This should be one of Indonesia's numerous islands and we'll reach it in two more turns.
Just because I like that the mentioned girls best doesn't mean another scout won't make a commendable discovery. This one was tracked down by Asian scout:



After Jerusalem, this is the next city-state that everyone must have heard of. Seoul is located in South Korea and officially called nowadays "The Seoul Special Metropolitan City". Its global importance is sky-rocketing currently. It has an almost futuristic image, but you might not know that the city itself is actually ancient. It's been where it is for about two millenia.
The suzerain bonus is very powerful, but unfortunately, Sanae has it fairly secured with 5 envoys. This is a number high enough that we don't actually want to challenge her for control of it at all. The very same goes for Zanzibar, who she has met much earlier than we did and became their undisputed sweetheart.

Speaking of Sanae, the pleasant shrine maiden we turned into a fellow smoker is only amicable under the right circumstances. My fears have turned out to be true:



Ichirin is a member of the buddhist crew. This city originally belonged to Byakuren, who I'm very certain has been murdered. Possibly by Sanae alone, perhaps by an alliance of several aggressors. When I saw Sanae's colours in North Africa, I immediately thought this was fishy. Why would she ever settle that far from her capital?
Oh well, we now know why Alice denounced Not So Good Girl. Silent waters are deep. Not being a hypocrite here, it was the same with us and Mamizou. Maybe that's why we're getting along!

Turn 180 - 1.190 A.D.

We've researched Industrialization far enough. We make the switch to Printing, a slightly earlier technology. 7 turns, we will likely switch again after it slips over the typical 50%. The boost of building two universities, of which we already have one, is fairly achievable.



This builder, originally from Lilliput, stands on a juicy bit of grassland we've had right next to our capital all game and that we never had the chance to improve until now. Those days are gone, a farm occupies it now. With his single charge left, we will send that builder towards Balnibarbi, where I am seeing something we want, just along the very edge of that screenshot...

Nothing else extraordinary happens this turn, but a production we've been looking forward to is about to finish.

Turn 181 - 1.200 A.D.

Shining Needle Castle has made our first naval unit, a caravel. A single one will not suffice, so we make another in the same place. 11 turns. We're going to take a look at the beauty we tinkered together in a minute.
Before that, we set another new production at Futatsuiwa of Sado. Previously, it's made another hardy builder. I'm jumping between beginning the pre-placed encampment and a temple here, but in the end, piety wins out barely. We have holy sites in few places, the ones we have deserve some extra attention and care.

Next up, 150 city-state influence points have been accumulated. Under the tier 2 government tarif, that creates two new envoys, bringing us up to three in our stock. Rather than bolstering the tiny countries we're strong with, we branch out a little for the sake of collecting some quick and easy bonuses. Jerusalem and Nan Madol are getting one envoy each. The very first envoy there gives +2 faith and +2 culture in our capital respectively. That doesn't sound like much, but if you consider that our gains per round are only 15.3 and 41.4 for these resources, it will make a difference. There's little sense in aiming for more favour with these two, but a basic presence among their council is worth it I think. One envoy we still have is kept as an iron reserve, in case we suddenly lose suzerainship somewhere.

We have another reminder for faith purchasing on the right side. This time, it tells us we have enough for an inquisitor. 150 faith is deducted after the purchase in Shining Needle Castle. Now we have a raging fanatic under our control. We're going to send it towards Futatsuiwa of Sado and you'll understand why he goes there once he arrives. One important tip here: Always make sure to buy missionaries, apostles and inquisitors only in those cities where your state religion is the majority religion. If we were to, for example, buy a Zoroastrian missionary in Futatsuiwa of Sado right now, it wouldn't help us at all.

Now let's look at what's anchored at Shining Needle Castle's harbor:



Sleek, efficient design. With its five movement points, we're driving it east into the Atlantic where it will do some additional reconnaisance. Embarked units are very vulnerable, but a ship made for actual combat shouldn't have to fear pirates.

During scouting, we find an industrial zone of Alice in Spain and I just wanted to show you the tool-tip for it:



It's actually called a "Doll Factory" for her, is built with a lower cost and gets adjacency a little easier I think. I wish we had those as well. The city it belongs to "Scarlet Sign Red-Haired Dutch Dolls" we cannot see, it probably lies further inland.

As we grab the goody hut in Indonesia, we get possibly the best reward imaginable:



That's the technology we're researching right now. What luck, we won't actually have to switch away from it now. The new time to complete Printing is at only 3 turns.

Turn 182 - 1.210 A.D.

Time to do some pre-placing in Laputa which has the neccessary population to do so. It will continue working on a spy as it currently is, of course. Our district of choice is the campus:



You might be asking: "Why pick the +2 adjacency when there's also two +3 hexes available?" Sometimes, it's worth checking adjacency for more districts than the one you're immediately interested in. The desert tile southwest of Laputa also has +3 adjacency for a commercial hub, something that no other tile has. Meanwhile, the tile further southeast that has +3 campus adjacency also has +3 holy site adjacency, so we can use it for that later and not buy it with the 215 gold right now. Hence. the marked tile is perfectly suitable for said campus. If you ever discover that a spot is especially good for a certain district and you don't want to accidentally use it for another, remember that you can put a map pin there.

There's some very suspicious terrain at Seoul. When Koreans say it, that's pronounced "Soul" apparently:



I'm very certain this is a natural wonder, but it's still too early to say which. I'm estimating an answer to this question in about one or two turns.

Back home, the trade route of Blefuscu -> Futatsuiwa of Sado is exchanged for Blefuscu -> Shining Needle Castle, simply because it has slightly better yields and imports The Touhou Fandom instead of Zoroastrianism. All roads this would make for us are already constructed.

Let's not sugar-coat anything here: Our fire-fighting builders at Futatsuiwa of Sado are centuries too late. The families that inhabited these farmhouses saw their livelyhood burn to ash and have long packed and left with what little they had left:



A click on the repair command at least makes it so that new peasants can move in. Let's do our best so that this tragedy never repeats.

As another turn ends, Wakasagihime echolocates some news over the Atlantic:



After some decoding, "Blub blub Buu Klubben" means that Sanae is continuing her rapid expanse. Very impressive, Ms. Kochiya.

Turn 183 - 1.220 A.D.

We have accumulated over a thousand gold, so we really must think of a way to spend it. Let's look at our weakest cities: Balnibarbi is still only at 3 population points and doesn't have many buildings yet. Therefore, we quick-purchase a granary there for 260 gold. I often get them this way, as they stay very cheap throughout the whole game.

Lilliput now has an entertainment complex. We can also deduce making one was a city-state quest, as we see this...



Our suzerainship of Granada is further bolstered. It's just too bad that in most cases, setting down farms is much smarter than Alc?zars. I'm struggling hard whether to have Lilliput work on a university or a crossbowman. The university isn't as urgent to build anymore, as we got the eureka for Printing by chance rather than effort. A crossbowman would increase our homeland security, but I don't feel like an invasion will be coming any time soon. In the end, the university wins, because those are just really good, eureka or none. 11 turns until our professors can start teaching.

We're waking up all of our Shining Needle Swordsmen this turn and one by one, we lead them en route to the East Coast. Now why would we do that? Well, I'm pretty sure they'd be happy to see the Atlantic for once. Maybe they'll go on a nice cruise. It'll take even the closest of them multiple turns until they can go to sea. On that note, we can see the upgrade cost to a musketman is currently 220 gold per unit. That'll be quite a sum for all of them. Let's not evolve them at this point in time.

As our caravel explores the Carribean, it spots a ship of similar size, yet already with some damage:



Alice has also made it to the vast sea. I think she might have had an encounter with the pirates we saw at Futatsuiwa of Sado earlier.

As the last deed of the turn but not the day, a builder at Futatsuiwa of Sado makes a pasture:



Additional horse resources won't do anything for us other than becoming a tradeable good. Once improved though, they stay pretty valuable tiles to be worked by the city. 3 builder charges remain.

Turn 184 - 1.230 A.D.

Don't forget to always read the fine print:



That one-liner would not have qualified for a quote read by Sean Bean. Wendell Phillips was an American abolitionist, meaning someone who advocated equal rights for all. In his case, he fought for the rights of women, (former) slaves and Native Americans. The Civil War did happen during the time he was active and Phillips did his due in the "Reconstruction Era", a post-war process that many believe went messier than it should have, unfortunately.



The Forbidden City describes the governmental district in Beijing from the time China had an emperor of the Ming dynasty, until the monarchy ended. It was not "forbidden" in a most literal sense, you would have still seen lots of people there. It's only that you needed the emperor's permission to be there, it wasn't a residential or commercial area at all.
Within Civilization 6, the Forbidden City is one of the better wonders. The wildcard slot is beneficial to every imaginable playstyle and the conditions to make the wonder aren't particularly harsh.



Through international reporting and newspapers, it becomes easier to learn what the other nations are doing. Literary geniuses also have an easier time mass-copying their work for interested foreigners. We don't have Great Works of Writing in our empire, the trait for tourism gain isn't really irrelevant to us.

We still have the same scientific options as we had before, minus Printing of course. We dabble a little into Scientific Theory, learning what testing and empirical evidence is all about. 9 turns.

As our formerly Australian scout reaches the western edge of Indonesia:



We find more lonesome villagers. We can disembark and greet them next turn already.

The previous turn was pretty barren when it came to discoveries. Not so this one:



This is at Seoul, where the edges of the unveiled hexes already had suspicious markings. Now we know that it was indeed a natural wonder, and that we've scouted further west than I would have guessed, namely into the Middle East: The Dead Sea steps over the borders of Israel, Jordan and Palestine and isn't at all creepy or cursed as you would think from the name. It is an extremely popular vacation spot and a salt lake. Most lakes are of the sweet water variety, but this one happens to be several times saltier than even the ocean. Please refrain from drinking the water. Apart from giving faith and culture if worked, the Dead Sea lets units regenerate fully if they wait adjacent to it.
George Gordon Byron was one of the most influential Romantic poets and authors, even though he died very young. Most well known is his poem "Don Juan".

About Alice possibly having pirate troubles:

   

We do notice some rogues who were about to sink near Iberia and decide to give the puppeteer a hand. We take 23 damage for their destruction. This wasn't done out of selflessness alone, our recruits on the cannons gather 7 experience points for their shooting. This kind of military aid is something the AI generally doesn't actually take note of, but something else is:



We impress Alice with our advanced science. Printing, Square Rigging and Metal Casting, I doubt that's anything she can do right now. It would have been sad if our heavy science play didn't fulfill such an agenda, an agenda that's like it was made for us.

That was only one of the events to happen between turns, coming up is the next. This time, it's one that thoroughly sucks and annoys me:



Sanae greatly disappoints us here. See all those units she has? Crossbowmen, knights, swordsmen, catapults, even generals to help them? And there she lets a barbarian unit step on a tile right next to her capital and attack us while we were regenerating Aya and Momiji. They take 57 damage, deal 14 in return and survive by only a hair. We're going to have the scouting duo flee further north. Remember how Sanae rejected our friendship? Now I'm feeling as if she didn't deserve it to begin with.

This desperate retreat will however be spared for another day, as we've reached a fairly sizeable post again. Next time, are we human...or are we dancers? Actually, we're Kobito. Our Kobito sometimes dance, probably.

CyberAngel

  • Retired
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #75 on: April 01, 2018, 10:45:48 AM »
Ichirin is a member of the buddhist crew. This city originally belonged to Byakuren, who I'm very certain has been murdered. Possibly by Sanae alone, perhaps by an alliance of several aggressors. When I saw Sanae's colours in North Africa, I immediately thought this was fishy. Why would she ever settle that far from her capital?

Guess she followed a UFO in the sky and discovered it was a treasure ship... without any treasure. So she took it out on those who built it. Or something.

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #76 on: April 03, 2018, 06:47:11 AM »
Guess she followed a UFO in the sky and discovered it was a treasure ship... without any treasure. So she took it out on those who built it. Or something.

So this Sanae 1CC'd Touhou 12. I could not do that on any difficulty above easy. Then again, I played maybe three sessions of that game.

Update nr. 36 - Did you ever dance with the devil in the scarlet moonlight?

Turn 185 - 1.240 A.D.

Last time, we discovered that Sanae had blood on her hands. We resume in the middle of her country, where Aya and Momiji had to flee from the imminent single unit barbarian invasion:



The enemy is left in the dust. Further inland, it should be much safer to rest. It's too bad how long this is pinning down our scout. The two tengu are probably not going to explore for at least this update.

Old trade deals seem to have expired, as we have a few duplicate resources in our possession. Let's share them for a price. A very friendly and most of, equal price for everyone:

   

Economical matters aside, we land at the goody hut in Indonesia and get:



Apart from eurekas and inspirations, you can apparently also get complete technologies and civics from the villagers. I did not remember that until now. The quote here reminds me of "Do you think love can bloom on the battlefield?". Christian Gordon Cameron is the one who writes novels under the shown pen name. He's a former historian and was part of the Navy. His works are often about fantasy, war and espionage.



To be honest, I'm certain I've never, in all of my games, built Renaissance. Most of them took place in Civilization 6's earlier life-cycle, when additional levels of walls increased maintenance costs. That made them even less attractive. Now that they are free, there's at least a tiny chance that we'll make one somewhere. When you do, your city will have 150 defense points.



Forts if you recall are made by military engineers, who I so rarely build. I think I might have also never built a fort ever in Civilization 6. This fact might make Siege Tactics the most forgetable technology in the game. In my opinion, at least.

The still nameless Asian scout has meanwhile reached the Arabian peninsula. It holds the very last luxury in the game, if I counted right:



2 tiles south you can see some grapes. Those are delicious, but if it were about them and stilling your hunger, they'd only be a bonus resource. No, this luxury is wine. There actually is a wine bottle mostly concealed by the grapes. I'm just noticing it for the first time. The very same scout keeps moving and finds a city-state at where should be Egypt:



Palenque was a Mayan city and it is your capital in Civilization 5 if you play as the Mayans there. Long before Europeans found it, it had already become abandoned, but the ruins were preserved. Byakuren's "Palanquin Ship" refers to it, I believe it's a mythology that the Mayans from there created a ship that could take them to the heavens.
Currently, the city-state has no suzerain. It's displayed that 4 envoys are needed, meaning at least two civilizations are tied at 3. The bonus is pretty good, especially with our many campuses. I'm not saying we'll do it, but it might be an idea to contest this one.

Let's give a mention to a luxury that we can not only see, but newly claim:



At Balnibarbi, we get some pigs, err...truffles of course with this builder's final charge. Camps will keep the forest and jungles they are made on perfectly intact, which is good, as we'll be getting science adjacency from that tile once the campus next to it stands.
It's finally happened by the way: We have our first farm-triangle I've been going on and on about:



The location is at Blefuscu and you can see it says +2 food now. A nice side-effect of this screenshot that I didn't plan for was the close-up of our siege tower. What a massive construct. With this, we'll be storming whatever castle stands in our way.

This turn just isn't ending, is it? We have a precendent next: Our inquisitor is standing next to Futatsuiwa of Sado. He has a certain button available:

   

Notice that the inquisitor has a "religious strength" of 75. That is actually very low. However, if combat happens within your borders, they will get a bonus of 35 points. Then they are actually really strong. Don't ever have them hunt for infidels outside your borders, or else they'll be crushed. "Remove heresy" can only be done on one of your cities and it will take away one of your inquisitors religious spreads. We do just that and thus, Zoroastrianism vanishes from Futatsuiwa of Sado. Mamizou's old religion is now extinct more or less. I hope any Zoroastrians reading this aren't taking it personally, but your faith must make way for The Touhou Fandom. It's a common misconception that real Zoroastrianism is a dead, no longer practiced religion. Not true. Wasn't it Snoop Dogg/Lion that offended Zoroastrians a while ago by sitting on a Fire Altar?

As the AI takes its turn, we suddenly encounter a ghastly, yet also strangely charismatic being...



All the players have shown their faces. The artwork you see here is from the exquisite Touhou fangame "Koumajou Densetsu 2: Stranger's Requiem" made by Frontier Aja. You would estimate Remilia to be one of the more aggressive Touhou leaders, but we will still treat her like the lady that she is. We greet her amicably, then learn that the meeting apparently took place in no-man's land. The option becomes available to tell each other the location of our capital cities, which we agree upon.



From its position, this is western Russia, most likely not too far from Moscow. Also, Ms. Scarlet has Hinduism as her state-religion. A strange combination, but I won't judge her taste.

Turn 186 - 1.250 A.D.

The only civic to currently advance the tree is ours. The game is arguing that everything cultural today is based on...



Humanism is an amalgamation of ethics and the belief that a human, any human has a high value. This subject did get most of its coverage in the Renaissance. Edward Morgan Forster was an English novelist and President of the Cambridge Humanists from 1959 until his passing. There's also the E.M. Forster award, a 20.000 $ prize money given annually to promising English and Irish writers so that they can travel to the United States.



If there isn't an Alice around stealing all your Great Engineers away no matter what you do, this card can help you.



Great Artists benefit cultural play and tourism. Recruiting them is balanced so that it typically doesn't happen before the Renaissance. Most of their Great People points come from...

   

...these two buildings. The Great Works those artists make are stored in the Art Museum. You can instead make an Archaeological Museum, but if you do, you must then recruit archeologist and have them hunt for antiquity sites around the map. Archeological museums therefore need more active work put into them, but tend to be worth a higher value in tourism. You can only have one or the other in a theatre district, see them like the stables and barracks of the encampment.
We won't be making many, if any museums, as they only matter much for a cultural victory.

We change our policy cards only slightly: Limes goes out, Professional Army with its unit-upgrade discount of 50% goes in.



Mercantilism and The Enlightenment are newcomers. We will try to get enlightened next, as there's a eureka tied to completing that civic.

It's barely worth mentioning, but our promise to Kaguya not to expand anymore close to her has been fulfilled again, just like it has when our civilizations were still fledgelings. Staying on the subject of diplomacy, we remember to instantly approach Remilia with the request of an embassy for 50 gold. You already know this always works within one turn of meeting someone. On the diplomacy screen, we learn that Remilia has the agendas "The Dignity of Remilia", which rewards high culture, and "Money Grubber" which grants respect to those who can make a lot of money per turn. These aren't the worst conditions for getting along.
To make an even better impression on the young vampiress, we make her one of our typical welcoming offers:



For being so obsessed about finances, she's actually quite poor herself. The fact that "gold per turn" is not a tradeable item probably means Remilia has a negative income. We wish her luck with resolving that.

Not much can be reported by our scouts this round. Our caravel that was recently damaged in a fight with pirates will float back to its home shore to heal up. One thing to know about your ships: Unless they have a special promotion, naval units can never heal in neutral or hostile waters. Land units can rest anywhere, if they have to. You must regenerate all ships within your cultural borders.

Just this turn, we set up the card Professional Army. Let's put it to good use and spend some money, so that we can feel like we saved a lot. It's how Steam sales are so lucrative:





We do the same for Sakuya Izayoi at Futatsuiwa of Sado. She also trades her knives for a musket. Or better, she now loads her musket with knives. We have 773 coins left after these two deductions. This turn, we can't upgrade any other swordsmen, as the rest is currently travelling and not within our cultural borders. Equipping a regiment with brand-new muskets can't happen in the middle of the untamed wilds.



Sometimes, gossip can also reveal AI intentions. Really, Kaguya? You want to go from Canada to Egypt and invade there, when putting down a fourth city is already too adventurous for you?

Turn 187 - 1.260 A.D.

Our current faith has increased to 109, so we spend 105 on a missionary in Shining Needle Castle.



This missionary will simply go on a domestic mission to make The Touhou Fandom the majority religion in more than just our capital. When you send them into foreign territory, it's best to escort them with apostles. Against other religious units, missionaries are generally easy prey.

Future religious units should come out a little quicker, as Futatsuiwa of Sado has finished its temple. Faith output per turn is now an impressive 23. That city puts down the books with gospel and takes up arms now, working on the pre-placed encampment for 16 turns. A satisfying time for any district.

Sekibanki and Kagerou arrive at southern India and reveal two items worth noting:



Marked is another goody hut, but also new is the religious city-state of Kandy. This is a very large city in Sri Lanka. Hey, a city-state is not actually that far off their real life location! The Temple of the Tooth lies in Kandy, making it one of the most holy places for Buddhists.
The suzerain ability awards a relic (basically a Great Work of religion) upon discovering any natural wonder, and also increases the faith bonuses of those relics. We will not be giving much attention to Kandy, as this doesn't really suit our playstyle. Also, we probably know of most natural wonders by now anyway.

Futatsuiwa of Sado has located some work for himself and is already rubbing his hands together:



I remember archers sniping us from that peninsula. I looked it up and this place actually belongs to Virginia and is called the Eastern Shore, despite being seperated from the rest of that state. Now it serves as a productive little pasture.

Like I previously announced, we must evolve more swordsmen into musketmen. Our elite rank 4 Tenshi Hinanawi gets some guns, upon which...



...we get the eureka for the modern technology of Replaceable Parts. Three musketmen in the field is what this requires. Three musketeers? Actually, I've heard that if you say "musketeers" you refer specifically to French musketmen. That's why Civ 6 uses the term that sounds a lot less cool.
Replaceable Parts will include the unit musketmen evolve into. It makes sense if you look at the eureka's blub.

Another builder has reached a key destination, but this action requires some thought:



If we were to completely chop that forest, the farm we could follow up with would also become part of a farm triangle. The problem is, Blefuscu has always had trouble with constructing items. We should instead make that a lumber mill. If we change our mind, we could use another builder later to destroy the improvement.

Turn 188 - 1.270 A.D.

Laputa has done it and made us our very own James Bond. In Civilization 5 by the way, spies were not something you actively had to build: They were automatically awarded upon every era transition starting with the Renaissance. Before that spy, we pre-placed a campus, which we'll be setting up now. 11 turns is what it takes, record time as always.
Control over a spy functions a little like that of a trader. You don't manually move them over the map. Instead, a new menu pops up upon a click:



"Select a city to target for espionage". This spy, "Sukunabikona" (they do have ethnical and modded names), will have to spend several turns travelling to his destination. Except if that were Laputa, as he's already there. We select Shining Needle Castle with its travelling time of two turns and we are given a preview:



The missions refer to all districts that are present there, as I've explained a good while ago when we only just learned what espionage was. We press a button to confirm the placement in our capital. In the jargon of this game, a spy in your own cities is called a "counter-spy". His job is to capture or kill foreign spies that are meddling with our success. Know that the AI, even if on friendly terms with you, are pretty eager to do hazardous espionage. My own experiences have confirmed this.

Through a gut feeling, we ask Sanae for friendship once more, but it's still a no. Most likely, we should stop bugging her and actually wait until she approaches us.

The missionary from last turn is ready to move and thanks to proximity between our capital and Lilliput, we approach our second oldest city and start converting:



With 5 followers, The Touhou Fandom is now the majority religion there. This gets us +2 gold per turn, thanks to the Church Property perk.

We continue our army modernization. Upgraded swordsmen in this round were Nemuno Sakata, A Very Short Youmu, and Nitori Kawashiro. We are left with 470 gold at the end of the turn.

The builder at Blefuscu uses up his last charge for a farm and goes into retirement:



Sending him up to Brobdingnag to the niter would have been an alternative, but there will be others who can do that.

As the computer does its turns, someone has a moment of triumph:



I was wrong. The wonder we saw near Sanae's capital was the Chichen Itza all along. She can be glad the barbarians there couldn't sabotague the construction. The only way wonders can be plundered is through a nuclear strike.



Kaguya's ideas just keep getting wackier. Even if she were to get units to Russia, she'd completely embarass herself against the Scarlet Devil I'd wager.

Turn 189 - 1.280 A.D.

Alice is currently scouting the Gulf of Mexico with her only battered caravel. I'm pretty sure this is just the puppeteer satisfying her own curiosity. Since we found her first, she never actually learned of where our capital was.
The missionary keeps on roaming through our lands, telling everyone how great The Touhou Fandom is. He sets a new course for the city of Brobdingnag. Meanwhile, the formerly European scout, Mystia and Kyouko, has circled to Africa's west coast. They will chart the land there, which is still completely unexplored. That encompasses the Sahara desert. I wouldn't want to be in Choju Gigaku's shoes...

We're actually having a very uneventful turn for once, and it would be even less interesting (and more advantageous, actually), if we didn't have to hear of this:



Too bad, Sanae isn't happy with our faith output. 23 per turn is not something I would objectively be ashamed of, but you have to know that Sanae also compares it with her own. I'm pretty sure the wind priestess leads the most zealous civilization out there and can probably sport much more than we do. Decent isn't going to be good enough. I think this pretty much throws a wrench in our desperate plans to lastingly befriend Sanae. She won't exactly hate us, but we're not popular enough with her for it to be meaningful.

Since many of these last turns had a lot of meat and even completely new subjects to cover, we're going to leave it at five turns for today. Next time: An age of steam, ash and soot.

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #77 on: April 05, 2018, 09:15:56 PM »
Update nr. 37 - When unregulated child labour was accepted and encouraged

Turn 190 - 1.290 A.D.

Last time, we found out where in the world Remilia Scarlet was hiding. We also established a secret service for our empire.

Brobdingnag can proudly call a commercial hub its own, bringing our trade route capacity up to 7. We immediately reward this with an investment there: For 260 coins, we rush-build a granary. The city was very close to its housing cap, so good timing on that. As for the regular construction plan, we place an industrial zone...



...right there. I'm still a little unsure if it's alright to go from one district to the next. Oh well, it's 23 turns.
We're only starting this session and there's even more good news: Our first spy Sukunabikona has arrived in our capital and is ready for duty there. For this, we must once again confirm in the menu that Shining Needle Castle is the location of the operation. After that, it asks us to "Choose Mission":



We decide to have our agent protect the commercial hub. Spies who operate in commercial hubs will steal money from you and they do it in such a quantity that it can actually bankrupt you if you don't keep an impressive reserve. If you get in debt in Civilization 6, military units will disband over time.
There's one thing to know about counter-spies and it's what the triangle is signifying: They will also protect any adjacent district to the one they're stationed in. By choosing the commercial hub, the campus and the holy site are also safe from any covert activity. Hopefully at least. There is a chance to fail, even on defense.

I really hope our other scouts aren't feeling like stepchildren. Sekibanki and Kagerou have visited the goody hut in India and inside was:



To regularly get this eureka, you would have had to build two shipyards in your harbors. Excellent, as we didn't plan to do that any time soon. But yes, this is another industrial technology that are starting to approach on the horizon of our research. Oh no! That reminds me of something. Dang it, we overslept our switch. Our current research of Scientific Theory has slipped over the 50% mark and I didn't notice in time. Currently 3 turns are left, and I think it was 9 or 10 when we started. We've missed maybe one or two turns of science because of this. How annoying, but worse mistakes have been made. Like that time this poser went to war with Mamizou with only four swordsmen...
We're now figuring out Ballistics. 10 turns.

As the final action of the 13th century, our missionary brings the truest of faiths to Brobdingnag. That's the second city we have converted, not counting our capital. The missionary has but a single religious spread left. We'll send him to Futatsuiwa of Sado to use it.



Lysefjord sound Scandinavian. We should check that corner at some point as well. Thanks, Remi!

Turn 191 - 1.300 A.D.

The jingle of a Great Person being born greets us at the dawn of the thirteenhundreds. Is he of a type we haven't had yet?



Nope, it's another Great Merchant. We have loads of commercial hubs, so this should not surprise. It was a close call, we only beat Kaguya by a small amount.
Todar Mal was an Indian king ("Raja" means king). However, since the Mughal Emperor reigned there, he was still considered a vassal, although a high-ranking one. He served very successfully as a financial minister, installing efficient systems of land surveys and making settling plans. His ability in this game is a permanent, empire-wide one that you can activate in any of your commercial hubs. We use the good Raja this very turn and make our trade routes forever more worthwhile. The effect is instantly visible: Gold per turn goes up from 68.1 to 76.4.

Aya and Momiji have finally stepped out of their makeshift hospital and continue to explore in Africa. We keep within Sanae's borders for now and discover another new city with the name "Miracle: Daytime Guest Stars". Sanae has a lot of cities bunched together, much closer than we build ours. I better show you the picture:



There's a lot, yes, but they're all quite tiny. That one crossbowman conceals a "4" as the number of population.
We still have a two-charge builder left, who is currently at a tobacco resource situated just between Brobdingnag and Futatsuiwa of Sado. We immediately claim it. I will probably put a little less emphasis on builders from now on. Not every farm or pasture needs a screenshot. We've made so many improvements over the course of the game already, you get the idea. Nonetheless, know that we can share our smoking habit with another leader now.

We're then reminded that our Great Merchant has also brought us the side benefit of another city-state envoy. We put this one in Carthage to become their suzerain. To remind you of their special ability, it was that encampments also increase trade route capacity, bringing it up to 8 for us now. Not only that, but we can also see with their eyes while allied and they reveal two more goody huts in Indonesia for us:

   

Sekibanki and Kagerou are still the closest to this, so they will turn heel and venture back east. We've got to grab them before anyone else does.

Shortly before everything was settled for this turn, I'm getting second thoughts about Brobdingnag's production. We set it from the industrial zone to a trader, since we have so many open slots now, waiting to be filled. 8 turns.

Turn 192 - 1.310 A.D.

We get a new civic. But wait, The Enlightenment still had 3 turns of development left! That's because it's something different entirely:





We got the inspiration from the second caravel that was just finished in Shining Needle Castle. If it weren't for the boost, we would have likely just made one. Thomas Stearns Eliot was an American-born British playwright, poet and essayist. His subject was Modernism and he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.



A merchant republic is another type of the tier 2 governments. In reality, there were quite a lot of these in Europe, usually very rich city-states run by several houses of noblemen. There was to my knowledge no hereditary rule, councilmen would instead elect a leader among themselves . In the most prominent example, Venice, this title was called "The Serene Doge..."



No, not that kind of doge. It's Italian I think? One of the most successful Serene Doges was Enrico Dandolo, who you could play as in Civilization 5. Because Venice was a gimmicky and weak civilization in that game, he is a bit of a laughing stock among the community unfortunately.
Merchant Republics here have a relatively low military focus, but are economically very strong. The two additional trade routes are only so helpful. My tip: When you're a Merchant Republic, don't exert your trade route limit to the maximum. If you switch to a tier 3 government later, you'll drop to a lower limit and you'll have more traders than you can support. On the bright side, the discount for quick-purchasing here is great.



If you need to get a navy and you need it fast, this card is extremely helpful. In detail, it applies to caravals, frigates, privateers and ironclads. You'll hear what some of these are in due time.



All of our cities lie in North America at the moment, so this card wouldn't help us right now. Still, having colonies wouldn't be bad, would it?



We have lambs and bovines and ponies aplenty. No idea what this passive bonus has to do with Exploration, but I'll take it.

During this turn, I noticed that the transition to the next era is coming closer and closer. To time everything well for the gold and culture bonus of our leader ability, we switch science and culture focuses: Industrialization (4 turns) and Mercantilism (8 turns). This means we are ignoring Industrialization's eureka of making three workshops. We don't even have enough industrial zones right now, let alone any workshops in them.

Before we forget, we also switch governments. Here's Merchant Republic's card layout:



While I said that it may not be the best for warfare, I meant only relatively in comparison to a monarchy. You can use those two wildcard policies for military doctrines if you need to. Here's what our new setup looks like:



A few cards stayed, namely Urban Planning, Medina Quarters and Charismatic Leader. The two in the wildcard slots, Press Gangs and Town Charters have been put in for Limes and Retainers. We don't need walls, but we do need to speed up the forming of a navy. That Professional Army is still in there is actually an oversight. I didn't look close enough and left it in there, Conscription is what I would have liked. Damn it, we're unintentionally paying more on unit maintenance for the next few turns. Beware of this when changing governments: The game may throw out cards that you didn't expect it to. Better double-check. I've recorded until turn 197 currently so this blunder won't be noticed for a while.

Shining Needle Castle goes from churning out a caravel to a frigate next. The Press Gangs card is really working wonders here: 6 measly little turns.

While mapping the Atlantic, our caravel notices that Alice has more than one ship:



This one is in mint condition, how commendable. The shore we can spy onto is that of Ireland. We'll see if there's something on the green isle other than many four-leaf clovers.

Our missionary uses his last charge on Futatsuiwa of Sado and disappears. With 6 converts, it now has The Touhou Fandom as a majority. Lovely! To think it was once a holy city of a different faith...

Turn 193 - 1.320 A.D.

A campus is now ready to be populated by eager students in Balnibarbi. That is the fourth one we have right now, with a fifth in the making at Laputa. Our youngest city will make us another trader next. A city can't always work for its own benefit. It's the empire that counts!



This is something that happens rarely. It took the game another turn to notice that Exploration made Urban Planning obsolete. Aww, I liked that one a lot. In such a case, you can edit your cards for free once more despite not completing a civic that turn. We put Town Charters in the open economic slot and fill the second wildcard slot with a diplomatic policy out of all things: Merchant Confederation. This one gives us +1 gold for every envoy we have no matter where they sit. No I did not notice Conscription missing that time either :blush: . Perhaps because our income is still 100.4 gold per turn even without it. Geez, we're getting filthy rich here.

The nameless Eurasian scout lands near Remilia's lands to find out what riches our dear undead lady bunkers:



Look at that, we're still finding luxuries we didn't know of: These colourful jars represent dyes. Before synthetic dyes, the majority of clothes were coloured through liquid solutions made out of plant sources: berries, wood, fungi and many more. With how many possibilities there are, it's strange that dyes are such a rare resource in this game. I've noticed by the way that the Black Sea is just south of Remilia's capital. This makes her home geographically not actually near Moscow, but more akin to the Ukraine than Russia.

Turn 194 - 1.330 A.D.

This round brings the end of an era of cooperation:



We no longer have open borders with our princess and don't explore in unison anymore. I really gritted my teeth at the thought of that alliance, but it caused no harm, did it? The declaration of friendship has expired with it, but I'm sure with Kaguya, renewing this is a given.

Lilliput has a big, majestic university now, bringing us to over a 100 points of science per turn for the very first time. The runner-up of my last decision for that city was a crossbowman, so we're making one now. 6 turns.

Deep within the Sahara Desert, Mystia and Kyouko spot a world wonder. Is it real, or just a "Fata Morgana?" More commonly, you call them a mirage.



Checking the tooltips of tiles can sometimes tell you what city a cultural border belongs to even if you can't see the city itself. Byakuren belonged to, well, Byakuren. Now Sanae occupies it like Ichirin. I'm pretty sure she did not have help in her war back then.

Two turns ago, I mentioned Ireland. We find something there. It's not the legendary Gae Bolg, but another, more realistic sight to impress us:



The Giant's Causeway consists of thousands of basalt columns. They do look as comical as the game's graphics suggest, and they were formed in this peculiar manner due to a volcanic fissure eruption in ancient times. Old legends don't care about such sciency mumbo-jumbo and claim that giants built them.
The Dublin Penny Journal was a newspaper in the 19th century that may have been mostly concerned about all things Irish, but was internationally available. I cannot tell you why it was ceased after only four years, despite sounding incredibly popular.

Our currently only builder throws out his last charge on a stone resource at Brobdingnag. The quarry should give the industrial zone that will one day be next to it some extra adjacency, and obviously the stone itself will raise production.

Kaguya is quick to react: She instantly noticed on her turn that her bestest friend forever was no longer her bestest friend forever and consequently asked for a renewal. We agree without hesitation.

Turn 195 - 1.340 A.D.

In Blefuscu, we've been very, very slowly building our frigate. It's finally done!



This fair lady is going to rule the seas! Like all of our vessels, we're sending her to the Atlantic. Making such a frigate was also a city-state quest for Palenque, so we're getting an unexpected envoy there.
Come to think of it, the musketmen we've had on the East Coast are also in position to embark. All except one at least, who is lagging behind a little. Who knows where we're going to have them land? They aren't needed anywhere, right?

Only after that kind of troop movement do we set a new production for Blefuscu. The pre-placed encampment is the best course of action I'd say. 10 turns.

The same caravel that found the Giant's Causeway is riding the waves to the northwest where there should be Iceland. Once we are in reach of that...



I think we have one or two Icelanders on our forum, so please ask them on how to pronounce Eyjafjallaj?kull. This is a volcano covered completely by an ice-cap. It's still active as well and last erupted 8 years ago.
The Liverpool Mercury is another international paper like the Dublin Penny Journal, but from England of course. Unlike the latter, it is over 200 years old and ongoing to this day.

We discover a few more cities of Sanae. Now we know that she has at least eight. That's actually more than our seven. Impressive! And so is this:



Wow, the shrine maiden actually beat us to it. Her headstart won't last for long, I swear!

Turn 196 - 1.350 A.D.

And that oath was justly sworn:





Alice Mary Norton wrote science-fiction and fantasy under this pen name. She won several awards in these genres and was active for what seems to be almost 60 years. Her longest running series was "Witch World".



Factories are the second building you make in industrial zones. They are also the first building to have a "radius", supporting nearby cities that the respective industrial zone doesn't even belong to. The restriction that these radiuses don't stack was introduced through a relatively early patch. Exploiting this passive effect multiple times proved to be too powerful.
In early games of the franchise, too many factories caused pollution, an effect that could prove to be very negative for your empire. This is not the case in Civilization 6 anymore.



The Ruhrgebiet is the region of Germany with the highest population density and makes Nordrhein-Westfalen the state with the highest overall population in the country. Major cities like Dortmund, Bochum, K?ln (Cologne) and D?sseldorf are all part of it. The reason why this represents a world wonder themed for the dawn of the Industrial Era is because the Ruhrgebiet had incredibly rich coal deposits. That's why so many people settled there of all places. Requirements for building this wonder are steep, but the city that makes it will become a production powerhouse, possibly without compare. The reason why you must build it on a river is because the "Ruhr" is one.



Coal is needed to construct certain steamboats I believe. I can see a deposit of it near Blefuscu, so we'll be able to claim a minimum of it if we need to.



We don't have too many mines, but the ones we have will be more valuable now. Maybe we should get some more.



All of these are industrial technologies, and Steam Power as well as Military Science are even brand new. We pick Ballistics now. The culure bonus from the era transition sped up Mercantilism from 5 turns to a single one. We do however change it back to The Englightenment. A look at the eurekas of those four technologies will tell you why. 2 turns.

Reaching the industrial times has another special benefit: The roads that we have in our empire have become more efficient. Any of our units that traverse them only use three-quarters of a movement point. This symbolizes the arrival of the railroad, which was a seperate technology in Civilization 5 but not in this one.

It's nothing alarming, but, we notice Alice has a very strange ship in the Atlantic:



I briefly mentioned what a Great Admiral was, this is one of them. This tells us the puppeteer must have a lot of harbors.

The scout we had mapping around Remilia's lands encounters a lone builder weirdly far away from his home city-state. He tells us all about it:



Yerevan is the capital of modern Armenia, but is also a very old city. "Erebuni" is what it was called in ancient times. Like Jerusalem, this is another city where many religions come together: Christianity, Russian Orthodoxy and Islam are the most major ones.
The suzerain bonus is extremely helpful when persuing a religious victory. Freely picking powerful perks like Translator, Debater and Proselytizer is delicious for your invading apostles. Remilia has this currently and she is free to keep it: We won't be paying much mind to Yerevan.

Alright, that should be it for today. I made the update a little longer than I wanted, as I hinted on reaching the industrial era in the previous update. How uncool would it have been if we didn't actually get there? Next time, the Sunset Invasion appears on the horizon. Bis bald!

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 #78 on: April 07, 2018, 08:09:12 PM »
Getting someone's current vision is often not as useful as getting someone's past maps.  I think in either Civ 4 or Civ 5 you could buy and sell maps. 
[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 #79 on: April 08, 2018, 09:35:42 AM »
Getting someone's current vision is often not as useful as getting someone's past maps.  I think in either Civ 4 or Civ 5 you could buy and sell maps. 

In Civ5 I don't think you could, but in Civ 4, I distinctly remember that "World Map" was a tradeable object.

Update nr. 38 - Oh don't worry, those are just trade ships. They're peacefully trading guns and cannons

Turn 197 ? 1.360 A.D.

Last time, we ditched the crown and became a state ruled by money and influence, not heritage. I like the setup of the Merchant Republic, so we'll likely stay as it for quite a while.

It's high time we talked to Alice. We have a very one-sided matter that we shouldn't postpone any further. Among Touhou characters, I'm very fond of the Seven-Coloured Puppeteer. But let's, just for the sake of this Let's Play, pretend she wasn't my third favourite. Let's imagine that she is a despicable, unworthy rival that can't be trusted and is a great danger to the Kobito's way of life...

   

The Magician has been denounced! Now you know why I've been avoiding any kind of trading with her over the last few turns.

We reached the Industrial Era only two turns ago. On arriving in such revolutionary times, I wanted to give you another more detailed overview over the coming technologies:



A eureka we can see here that should be easy to achieve is that of Economics. We can see four new units in total. One of them, the one at Steam Power, is a boat. The one found at Rifling is looking especially peculiar. Is that a coonskin-hat? In our case, it would be a hat made out of tanuki. But not the ones who are now equal citizens of Kobito!
The gauge at the bottom tells us that only Sanae is keeping up with our level of research.

By the way, our gold reserves stand at 1,334 coins. We received a huge bonus due to reaching a new era and we haven't gotten around to spending it. We can't have that much money gathering dust, so let's make that two purchases: We get a builder at Shining Needle Castle for 345 gold, and a crossbowman at Lilliput for 610. This leaves us with a healthy 379.
The reason why we needed that crossbowman so badly is because finishing Ballistics obsoletes them and aborts production of those that are still currently building. It's not worth starting another crossbowman somewhere else and delaying Ballistics. With our income, it's better to have another crossbowman immediately and upgrade it to its evolution than to build the more expensive evolution from scratch.

Turn 198 ? 1.370 A.D.

The science we have gotten this turn is, literally, science. The principle of just everything you could call a science:



Carl Edward Sagan was an American astrophysicist, cosmologist and astronomer. The quote tells me he wasn't afraid to say something that could offend certain people. You know what those ?assertions immune to disproof? are. He has received countless awards and several that were formed later were named after him. One big subject he thought of bringing closer to people was the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Despite saying it's worth discussing, he actually believed that chances are very slim that aliens have visited, are visiting or will ever visit our planet.
Carl Sagan is also a recruitable Great Scientist in this very game. He can benefit you in the space race and the connected science victory if I recall correctly.



It's not exactly known when the University of Oxford opened up its campus, but it's believed to be one of the oldest there is. It's also one of the most prestigious, even today. Apart from teaching, research itself is also practiced there. I think this was once a very weak wonder, but it seems to have gotten buffed at some point. Building it somewhere is a realistic option. Maybe even just so that no one else gets it instead!



Research agreements are a two-sided tradeable good so to say, like an alliance. The difference between Civilization 5's research agreements, which were about research in general, is that you set a specific target technology. I utilize them very rarely and I wonder if we could do this with Kaguya for example, or if we eclipse her science by too much.
I don't quite know what "at the duration of the agreement" means. I think when it's completed most likely.



The repetition of the former advancement is somewhat redundant, but I do like the food bonus. We have lots of plantations in our empire. Does this mean our tobacco is now more edible? Please don't do that no matter what...



See, we weren't actually researching Scientific Theory. We got it because we got this civic:



Baruch Spinoza was a Portugese-born Dutch philosopher. He was one of the biggest shapers of The Enlightenment, a movement that advocated reason, personal liberty and secularism among others. Spinoza's magnum opus was called ?Ethics?, published after his death.



In our case, this would greatly increase our science output. With three libraries and two universities, I'm imagining a plus of at least 14 points. However, we should value production just as much as science at this point in time. After all, what do more advanced units and buildings help us if we take too long making them?



The moneybag's equivalent of Rationalism. We have two markets at the moment I think, so the gain wouldn't be too great yet. There are better alternatives right now.



Liberalism is a good alternative  to the military policy Retainers for the purpose of raising amenities. I believe that one will become obsolete somewhat soon, so the question which is better won't even come up.



Relics stored in temples do create tourism, but they are meant to be less effective in the late game. This passive that sooner or later everyone gets, is meant to make this so. The Kobito would already no longer be too impressed if you showed them someone's holy sandals.

We get the chance to switch our cards and oh what a relief: We're putting Conscription in for Professional Army. This mistake really irked me to no end when I noticed it last update. No other changes to cards were made. Our current income is 106.6 coins per turn.

The civic we are now developing is Mercantilism. We worked hard on it before, so it is but a single turn away now.

Shining Needle Castle has made the second frigate, cannons loaded. Part of me wanted to work on a district there next, but we still have the Press Gangs card in our policy deck. This was no mistake, so our course is clear: We're getting another frigate. Like the last one, it's 6 turns.

Another city needs orders, it's Laputa. They have erected a campus, and while it's tempting to follow up with a library, we make our first workshop to further boost production power in what may already be our most hard-working city. 7 turns.

In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, we are packing some big guns:



Know that these valiant musketmen and the siege equipment they're carrying is still very vulnerable at sea. The embarked melee strength is reduced from 55 to 35. That's why our caravels and frigates are loosely guarding them against potential pirates. We're also activating our pikeman, who was still at the mainland. He's sent out into the same direction. The crossbowman we quick-purchased last turn will be garrisoned in our capital.

What a nice surprise we're getting at the very end of the turn:



This is from one of the Indonesian goody huts Sekibanki and Kagerou have just said hello too. We set them to head right for the next one we have learned of, about five turns away.
Normally, the inspiration for Reformed Church is to have your state religion in six cities. We were at four when the matter became irrelevant for us just now.

Turn 199 ? 1.380 A.D.

Hooray for discovering something that is again seen as exclusively negative nowadays:



Mercantilism is the principle of maintaining as positive a trade-balance as possible. It was wide-spread in the European Renaissance, where empires tried to export a lot and import very little, so as to keep their neighbours wealth down. Somewhat dirty tactics were part of this, like empires forcing their colonies to trade with no one but themselves. It's kind of what we as the Kobito are doing...have we ever imported anything? In modern global politics, mercantile behaviour is often admonished.
I could be wrong about it, as its unfortunately a very common name, but the quoter is probably Peter Ludwig Berger, an Austrian sociologist and theologist. He also taught in sociology at several universities.



This card may sound a little forgettable, but it's not half bad. Know that despite this being a military doctrine, it applies to civilian units like builders, who usually don't have to leave your borders.



With our current number of traders, this policy would add up to 20 gold and 5 faith per turn. We might actually put it in.



It's very rare that a civic leads to a unit, but here we have the first one of the Naval Raider subtype. These are ranged ships like frigates, but they trade a bit of power for a component of stealthiness. Their promotion tree has a theme of creating gold through combat to it.
A privateer is somewhat similar to a pirate, with the difference that they have loose allegiance to a country, more like a mercenary of the seas. In some of the past Civilization games, like Civilization 4 Colonization, you could not tell who a foreign privateer belonged to and they could iniate combat with someone the owner wasn't even at war with. The point was that you would mistake these covert soldiers as bandits. This isn't the case here.



I think we have two camps: One for the furs of Ran Yakumo, another for truffles. Nice to have, but not too impactful.

We're throwing out the policy Merchant Confederation for the new Triangular Trade. I thought it might be a little more lucrative, but just to check this is a commitment. Was I right? Somewhat. Gold income reduces from 107.7 to 106.7. But we do also get additional faith now, so I think it was a good idea.

To decide on our next civic to work on, we might as well get a detailed look on those of the industrial era:



Sanae is unfortunately beating us in this discipline. Opera and Ballet is a dead-end civic, dancing and singing isn't the basis of much cultural change. The most important ones here are Civil Engineering, which we will pick, and Urbanization. Civil Engineering is the one technology that allows farms on hills, whereas Urbanization gets us a new type of district, one that the Kobito of all people have a unique version of.

I've finally written Brobdingnag so often that I don't need to have it on screen while writing anymore. After recruiting a new trader that we are relocating to Laputa this turn, they go back to the shallowly started industrial zone. 20 turns for that.

My, my, Alice. You are not handling your pirates well. Do we have to clean up after her?



This is exactly what we didn't need right now. Such a barbarian caravel is a danger to our embarked units. Attacking it is also a problem: I do not want our caravels to get damaged at this point in time, they couldn't heal unless they went back to America. You've probably figured out why we want them at the best possible amount of hitpoints...
We take an unusual course of action: We do not attack the pirates, instead, we bring in one of our caravels (the one selected here) and enter their zone of control. Even for naval units, there is zone of control. This will make it difficult for them to get around our ships and threaten the musketmen. We'll see how it turns out.

I'm getting a bad conscience for letting our capital work on nothing but frigates. That's why we're at least pre-placing an encampment at the following hex we needed to buy first:



Of course, we we still be finishing that frigate first.
Between turns, Kaguya asks to have an embassy with us. Gossip tells us that she has only developed the Diplomatic Service civic on this very turn. Naturally we trust our friend and gladly accept the 50 coins that come with this. Her response is ?Oh happy day!?
The barbarian caravel acts in a way that I would not have foreseen: The blockade of our ship and another adjacent caravel belonging to Alice must have scared the living daylights out of it. It promptly flees south, away from the Iberian peninsula. If it doesn't come back immediately, we could not have wished for a better outcome.

This again. You know, I think they really gave the AI a much better sense of smell when it comes to learning of an imminent invasion:



The fact that such a big part of our force is on the water doesn't give us the confidence to admit to anything here. We're going to play a game of deception just a little while longer and ignore this request.

Turn 200 ? 1.390 A.D.

Two fifths of a standard-speed campaign's runtime will be over once we take our actions for this round.

We have shown a man how to properly use a crossbow in Lilliput. He will be heading to the currently unprotected city of Brobdingnag. There's little else Lilliput needs, so we have it make a bank next. 13 turns. Getting banks is tied to a eureka, so that was easily the most urgent project there.

A trader was completed in Balnibarbi, that will be our seventh. He gets transported to Futatsuiwa of Sado. Back to Balnibarbi, we have too few theatre squares for my liking. While we're not playing specifically for culture, you shouldn't underestimate its worth too much. I have been moaning about how long our civics take to develop, after all. 10 turns, the placement is right here:



We have once again hit 150 influence points and have three free envoys. We only spend one now, however, and he goes to Toronto. We're at four envoys with the industrial city-state now. Just a little more and we can get the 6-envoy-bonus to make our industrial zones a little stronger. We could do that right now, but I don't want to use up all of our reserve envoys.

Mystia and Kyouko have left the Sahara northward and entered the Mediterranean Sea. They spot something interesting at Italy:



Those are Alice's colours. Somehow, she identified France as unattractive to settle and went to the big shoe instead. Not something that I would have done, but to each their own.

Our Atlantic force moves further eastward. Two of the musketmen, Tenshi and Sakuya, travel a little further south than the rest, aiming for Portugal instead of the northern flank of Iberia.

With a trader we have at Laputa, we define a new trade route:



It includes all bonuses from triangular trade, as well as those Raja Todar Mal is giving us. New roads to combat Laputa's remoteness will also be built through this.

Turn 201 ? 1.400 A.D.

This will be the last turn for today, let's make it an important one. In Shining Needle Castle, we spend 320 of our 342 faith on our third apostle of The Touhou Fandom. If PlayDoujin was the second one, this could be Steam and Gaben! He can receive orders in the next update.
We reveal more of Alice's italian city, the name is "Darkness Sign "Foggy London Dolls"". I know it's redundant to say, but no, London isn't in Italy.

Thanks to her promotions, Tenshi can land in Portugal on this very turn already:



The screenshot should also give you a good view on our army's and navy's positioning.

We create the new trade route of Futatsuiwa of Sado to Lilliput. The yields of it are once again 3 food, 3 cogs, 6 coins, 1 faith and a little bit of Touhou Fandom religious pressure. If you ever have trouble keeping track of where you already have traders and where you could need some, check out this button in the top right:



It'll provide you a list. The one we have tells us that every city of ours except Lilliput has an internal trade route. We also have an international one with Eientei.

The newest builder we quick-purchased at the beginning of this update has reached a copper resource that he improves with a mine. The resource is in range of both Shining Needle Castle and Balnibarbi, either one could profit from it.

Ok, we're stopping here, right at a cliff-hanger. If you think that's cruel, know that I'm just as eager to see how our next operation goes as you are. Next time, Saving Private Shinmyoumaru.

CyberAngel

  • Retired
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #80 on: April 08, 2018, 01:37:53 PM »
Will cleaning Alice's clock help relations with Sanae (or anyone else she might be at odds with)?

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #81 on: April 10, 2018, 06:10:49 PM »
Will cleaning Alice's clock help relations with Sanae (or anyone else she might be at odds with)?

Generally, stirring up any kind of aggressive war will not be appreciated in Civilization 6's global politics. The later era you're in, the lower the tolerance will be. There are however ways to justify your cause to select parties and we have done it before. Maybe we can do it again in this case? You're going to read about it in a minute :D.

Update nr. 39 - We lied about those trade ships. You really shouldn't keep believing us!

Turn 202 ? 1.410 A.D.

Last time, we gave enough of an indication that peace was over. We also made another apostle and have just completed the last turn of a new technology.
I've also got a quote for this one! "I see that the president has equipped his daughter with...ballistics too." - Luis Sera



Adam Whitney Savage is an industrial and special effects designer and a television personality. He was a co-host of MythBusters and has also worked on some big movie blockbusters.



So this is basically a smaller version of the bombard, but its use is a different one: The field cannon is the evolution of a crossbowman and therefore makes for a ranged unit useful in the hunting of other units, not so much cities.

Even before setting a new scientific focus, we cash in the apostle we have purchased and evangelize our final belief. Here are the options:



These are all about which building to have in our holy sites. They can be built regularly or purchased with faith so long as your religion stays the majority. Cathedral, Mosque and Dar-E Mehr have purposes that are generally not well-aligned with our playstyle. They're out of the race. Now what could be better? The Gurdwara or the Pagoda? I wasn't a hundred percent sure, but it's generally tougher to get a decent amount of housing than enough hexes with food. The Pagoda wins by a hair. The Touhou Fandom now has Jesuits educating, with a church that owns property, is made up of holy orders that are staying in pagodas. I think that's awesome!

Now then, on to science:



Yes, we could make Leonardo Da Vinci happy and learn to fly. Other things are much more important though. We'll pick Military Science next

Futatsuiwa of Sado has made the second encampment within our empire. I was thinking long and hard on what to do next there. It's not a city with immediate needs and is even at its district limit. So why not make a wonder? I was thinking either the Colosseum or the Alhambra. The first may be much quicker to build, but I think the Alhambra should be much more impactful. So let's do that. 30 turns, which is not too bad for a somewhat recent wonder. The position we place it on is this one:



The Alhambra must be made next to an encampment and on a hill. This tile is the only one to fit those requirements. Hopefully, nobody else snatches it...

What's this? A tribal village that Sanae has ignored for no discernable reason?



We are just in time as well to grab this just before Alice's scout would have been able to. That's got to sting for her.

Next, we have a dangerous proposition to Sanae that despite everything, she is perfectly willing to take:



Sure, we could have asked our good friend Kaguya, but she wouldn't really get any useful units to Spain. Remilia was also an option, but she too is pretty far away. We want to stay on good terms with Sanae and I think this is the perfect way. Sanae's response to accepting the deal is: ?Yeah, that's right, that's power.? The two most sinful civilizations do understand each other well, don't they?

This means war one more time!

We're going to once again put less emphasis on domestic matters while subjugating Alice. Coming up is the battlefield. Red numbers are land units, orange ones ships:



Frigate nr. 1 begins by floating onto the whales, capturing Alice's builder there. She is in range to shoot at the city of Benevolent French Dolls. Combat calculations are 56 to 55 in favour of the city, but this will still deal a lot of damage, namely 14 points to the walls and 1 to the city center. A zoom-in reveals that these are just ancient walls with their 50 hitpoints.
Next up, frigate nr. 2 zips next to the first and lifts her cannons: Another 14 damage to the wall, 8 to the city center. Land unit 2 rows onto the same tile as frigate 1. Ships are always attacked with priority when they're on the same space as an embarked unit, so the musketman will be safe. Land unit 3 takes the same refuge with frigate 2. Land unit 1 goes southeast as much as it can, unit 4 only a little so that they're west of the pearls. Unit 5 positions itself west of the whales. It's crucial that we get no unprotected embarked units within two tiles of the city until the walls have fully crumbled. Otherwise, the ranged city strike will likely one-shot them. Unit 6 steps onto the hill east of it, nr. 7 takes the old position of 6.
The fog of war west of the deer resource happens to have concealed an archer. Our troop movement has caught it and ship nr. 4 moves in to attack: 69 damage to the archer. Embarked units do not ever counter-attack. Ship nr. 3 moves to where land unit nr. 1 is to protect it. That's all the combat from our side.

As we end our turn, Sekibanki and Kagerou grab our first relic from the last Indonesian goody hut:



Whatever you do, don't transmute a human with that thing! Relics are some of the rarest finds for tribal villages. Let's take note that we have it and concentrate on what Alice is doing. The pop-up almost made me miss it!

- Benevolent French Dolls ranged strike is used against frigate number 1. 9 damage. Laughable.
- Land unit 6 is shot by the previously embarked and heavily damaged archer. 8 damage. Pathetic.
- Less embarrassing is the assault of a knight onto land unit 7. 17 damage to us, 51 to them. Still advantageous. A knights base combat strength is 7 points below that of a musketman, making them at least a threat.

Turn 203 ? 1.420 A.D.

Back off, Alice! We saw that goody hut at Somalia first!





That is the technology we're currently researching and it's an amazing turn of events. The eureka was recruiting two knights, which we refused to spend production on. A free eureka of one that you wouldn't have gotten is the best kind.

Back to the frontlines! It's looking a little messy, but that's to be expected from the sheer scope of the war:



The frigates lead the attack: Boat nr. 2 continues shooting the city. It's once again 14 damage to the crumbling walls and 13 to the city center. Ship nr. 3 takes aim and destroys the last 8 hitpoints of the walls and deals 26 to the city itself. Benevolent French Dolls has lost its capability to attack approaching units through this.
Now let's do some blockading: Ship nr. 4 takes the tile to the west of Alice's caravel in the north of the screenshot. Unit nr. 5 moves next to the northwestern shore of the peninsula. Unit 6 pushes onto the stone resource next to itself. All other units take no action. The enemy caravel is pinned down by zone of control and shouldn't be able to reach any of the embarked units. The combat odds against Alice's knights are not so good that we'd want to take the attack. Let's bide for time instead and have her act.

We have a somewhat interesting builder action back home: We chop a forest near Shining Needle Castle, which rushes its frigate to completion. No more frigates for now, we're working on a bank there. 5 turns, thanks to the overflowing cogs from the chopping. The frigate will be heading to the front, but it'll take at least three turns until it arrives.

Alice is getting a lot of attacks on us this time:

- Unit 5 is shot by an archer from the shore. That's only 17 damage, despite embarkation. Archers are slightly outdated, just by a thousand years or so.
- Unit 6 must persevere through a charge of a knight. Even after gunpowder was discovered, the stampeding of armored riders was something fierce. 21 damage to us, 42 to our enemy.
- Alice's scout in Somalia is so frustrated from having the goody hut snatched away that he engages in a stickfight with Aya and Momiji. 28 damage to us, 24 to them.

Turn 204 - 1.430 A.D.

We're beginning with our battle plans. The blockading of the caravel was successful: It sailed off north



As before, we want to begin with the bombarding of the city. Ship 4 shoots for 35 hitpoints, nr. 3 follows with 39. Both ships will be eligible for promotion next turn. Unit nr. 5 does an amphibious attack onto the shore next to it, effortlessly stomping over the archer that is there. They take only 7 points of damage for this. The almost dead knight is picked off by unit 6, who suffers 13 damage. Unit 7 takes the old position of 6, then goes after the knight east of there, as the combat odds are pretty good. 37 damage to them, 23 to us. The archer of Alice that is currently embarked entices ship nr. 2 to attack, 53 damage to them. Ship nr. 1 repositions one tile southeast. Land unit 2 stays on water but moves northwest of the stone resource, ready to fall on shore next turn.

Laputa got done making a workshop, a library is up next there in a negligible 3 turns. The builder at Shining Needle Castle who chopped the forest there last turn puts down a farm.

Alice is pulling her defense together. She does have an impressive amount of knights. What do her units do this time?

- The embarked pikeman unit 2 suffers arrows for an impressive 27 damage.
- The elite unit 7 (Tenshi) defends against a knight from the southeast. 46 damage to them, 22 to us.
- Our scout in Somalia is running for the shore, but is once again threatened by Alice's scout. These two are having their very own silly little war that pales compared to the real one. 29 damage to us, 22 to them.

Turn 205 - 1.440 A.D.

We begin with a domestic matter: Blefuscu now has an encampment at the most strategic southern tip of Florida. We'll make it even better through barracks. 5 turns.

On to turning up the heat for Benevolent French Dolls:



We're in a hurry to capture the city, so the two frigates delay promoting in favour of blasting it. Ship 3 opens fire for 30 damage on the city. Ship 2 goes in for a whole 40 points, dipping the healthbar into the red.
We're taking the gamble of having our caravels make melee attacks on it. It just might be enough. Ship 1 holds course and hits for 27 damage, taking 26 in return. We take control of ship 4, steer it in and...





We're actually keeping this city, even though it's not a capital. The reason is because a beachhead like this, where our units will have accelerated healing, is going to be invaluable for the campaign against Alice. If we were to raze and forfeit all this friendly territory, I think this operation would go just as wrong as the first war against Mamizou did. Alice's knight that garrisoned the city was, as the rules go, destroyed during the takeover. The city begins production under us by repairing its monument. 2 turns.

Unit 5 and 7 swap positions, as I think the three adjacent knights would destroy Tenshi (unit 7) if we didn't do this. The pikeman is more expendable and, as anti-cavalry, the scissors to the knight's paper. Land unit 1 disembarks onto the now collaborating city-tile. Unit 7 goes one more tile southwest on the water, as the northern caravel won't reach it there. All other units that you haven't heard of defend and heal.
The exception to that would be scout Aya and Momiji, who have taken two beatings by a rival of the same trade. They flee Africa by disembarking east. Ideally, they won't have anything else to do with this war from now on.

We end our turn and receive a rather shocking message:



This is a denunciation of us. Remilia sees us as the villain of this conflict and has us feel the consequences. Can't say she's wrong, but I hope she realizes that she is applying to be next after Alice through this action. The game always gives a reason for denunciations. Apart from warmongering like here, having different governments is also a common one. Agenda conflicts may also make enough of an impact, if there's nothing else salvaging your reputation.

Alice is rubbing her hands in anticipation. There will be several hits we're going to have to swallow this time:

- Pikeman unit 5 (Remilia Scarlet) first takes a barrage of arrows for 21 damage. I was thinking of crushing that archer during our turn, but decided not too. It might have been a mistake. Then the knights go in to hit hard: The first deals 23 to us, takes 37. The second already utilizes Remi's exhaustion: 27 to us, 41 to them. Finally, she breaks from the third. 30 damage to them.
- A caravel of Alice comes out of the fog of war from the southwest and surprises our poor disembarked and already damaged unit 7 (Tenshi). And just like that, she is gone. Yeah, our best land unit with her four promotions was lost in a gamble, sunken in the Atlantic because no naval unit covered her. This annoyed me. The pikeman from before I could have seen as somewhat of a neccessary sacrifice, but not Tenshi. Damn it!

Turn 206 - 1.450 A.D.

Still shaken from the loss of two units, we learn to improve our overall warfare through brains:



Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for two terms. Within the first of which, he led the country through World War II. Very successfully, as most agree. A few months ago, the oscar-winning movie "Darkest Hour" about him and the mentioned time period came out.



Military academies are the third building you can have in your encampments. They make building the previous two very much worth it, due to the ability referring to Corps and Armies. When we get the ability to form those, you'll learn what they're all about.



After so very long, this is what the classical horseman evolves into. Did you notice we didn't even bring those to our current campaign? That's because they are simply too outdated. Once upgraded, these riders will be able to take knights with ease. Their symbol is that of crossed sabers, but in some situations, I do believe they use muskets.

Deciding on our next scientific focus, we choose the one that is quickest to achieve: Steam Power, already boosted with only 4 turns remaining.

With an accumulated 189 faith, we use 160 to purchase another inquisitor at Futatsuiwa of Sado. We send the one we already had to Shining Needle Castle, so that we have religious defense at both corners of our home continent.

We're almost ready to concentrate on our war again when I get a splendid idea: Let's look at what our sister in arms Sanae thinks of buddying up with Shinmyoumaru and the Kobito...



With a +18 in reputation, this might just work. With the help of the current war, will we be able to make a diplomatic sensation and negotiate friendship:



Yes! Now we have two bestest friends. You can call it a posse. With such a turn of events to boost our previously damaged morale, we head to our strategy board:



For staying dormant the last turn, some of our units have healed substantially. Land unit 4 iniates the first combat by overruning the archer just southeast of the city. The combat strength comparison is 59 to 19 in our favour, so to nobody's surprise, the archer gets flattened. They deal 7 points of damage in return.
Next to strike is musketman nr. 5. We pick the most damaged knight to the southwest as our opponent. He was the killer of our pikeman Remilia and we're taking vengeance now. He falls off his high horse, we take 17 damage in response.
Thanks to being the most amphibious Touhou, Nitori (unit 1) can go through the city and step on the tile unit 5 was previously on. That still leaves room in the city for unit 2.
Frigate nr. 2 advances on the caravel in the west and stops exactly 2 tiles north of it. Then it does what you wouldn't expect: It promotes instead of attacking. The caravel isn't especially dangerous and now that the first city has fallen, we can take the timeout. Here's the promotion tree for ranged ships:



The old idea applies: Left side is more for fighting units, right is more for assaulting cities. A bane of cities is indeed what we want this one to be, so Bombardment it is. The AI barely ever builds aircrafts, so you can bet we'll switch sides to the left when we get to Proximity Fuses...
Frigate nr. 1 positions itself just west of nr. 2 and can also promote. Once again, we take Bombardment.
The heroic caravel nr. 4 that took the city of Benevolent French Dolls does something similar: It enters the zone of control of the enemy caravel and, even though it could attack with its final movement point, promotes like the rest. The promotion tree for melee ships looks a little different:



The left side here is that of a unit hunter, whereas the right one is that of an explorer. It might surprise you, but even the latter of these I like a lot. Nonetheless, we pick Embolon in this case.

We also bring the captured builder on land. With that, there are now no more land units embarked in the warzone. The tragedy of Tenshi won't repeat anymore, I swear.

I think the tables have turned, Alice. What will you do now? At least she's not giving up:

- Unit 5 is in the most provocative position, so it naturally has to deal with the knight. 23 damage to us, 34 to them. If that wasn't enough, the other knight also tests their aim. 19 damage to us, 33 to them. The hitpoints of all three combatants is in the red after this.
- The enemy caravel we thought we had pinned down steers west and attacks the third frigate we only just finished making this episode! Cannons roar, and the melee ship obviously does a little better, with 32 damage to us, 22 to them.

Alright, we'll leave it here for today. This invasion from the ocean was a risky idea, but with Spain's geography, we had little other choice. Despite early losses, I think we're on our way to winning. Will it stay like this, or turn unexpectedly sour? Find out in the next update!

CyberAngel

  • Retired
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #82 on: April 10, 2018, 08:23:04 PM »
The field cannon is the evolution of a crossbowman

Reminds me of a quote, to paraphrase: "Behind the infantry we see English archers. They don't look too worried because they're good at shooting their cannons."

Also, it hit me just now how hilarious it is that you came FROM America and been offering Sanae the pipe of peace all this time. Guess it paid off!

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #83 on: April 15, 2018, 09:54:16 AM »
Reminds me of a quote, to paraphrase: "Behind the infantry we see English archers. They don't look too worried because they're good at shooting their cannons."

Also, it hit me just now how hilarious it is that you came FROM America and been offering Sanae the pipe of peace all this time. Guess it paid off!

Unlike Europa Universalis, you don't need mods to make a "What if Native Americans discovered Europe?" scenario in Civilization. We did use loads of mods, but we wouldn't have had to :3.

Update nr. 40 - The Little Shop of Magical Horrors

Turn 207 - 1.460 A.D.

Last time, Sanae and us declared a joint war against Alice. Saying it like that sounds like it was the shrine maiden's idea and we only tagged along. Of course we are the main culprit.
Before we go back to the center of inhumanity, we have more than one production order to assign. Let's start with Laputa. Powerful as ever, they have made a library. I wish I could let them make more districts, but it's another 8 turns until they can raise their limit. Let's pick smaller projects until then. A builder it is, 3 turns.

Next up is the city of Benevolent French Dolls. Being threatened by proximity to our enemy, ancient walls is the only sensible option here. All walls but those of the fourth level are destroyed from takeover and will always have to be rebuilt from scratch. 8 turns. Now back to where all the mayhem is happening:



The enemy caravel that is slightly off from the screenshot is shot by ship nr. 2 first. 37 damage. also going for some payback is Ship 5, just west of the target. The enemy sinks to the bottom of the ocean from this. This was the same caravel that eliminated proud and mighty Tenshi. She was rightly avenged and won't be forgotten.
Ship nr. 3 heads in a completely different direction: She goes north towards the plainly visible caravel and after a great shot, deals 37 damage to that one. Our own caravel nr. 1 doubles down on her and deals 26 while taking 22. Promoting our ship and healing will be possible next turn.
I foresee a good round for our land units. Southwest of unit 4 are warriors. Yes, Alice somehow still has club-wielding cavemen in her army, refusing to upgrade them. Take a guess: Do you think they can survive unit 4 and its muskets?
No, they can't. 6 damage to us.
Unit 5 will not attack, by all means! Instead, they swap positions with unit 3. And now the knights face a fresh and ready unit all over again. Unit 5 must hide and heal over the next few turns. Unit 3 on the other hand still has a movement point left after the swap, which it uses to topple the knight in the southwest. 15 damage to us.
Unit 2 takes the position unit 4 had at the start of the turn. From that moment, the city itself is without a defender. Let's change that: We quick-purchase a musketman in Benevolent French Dolls for 805 gold. See, that's another advantage of having such a beachhead: The possibility of buying emergency reinforcements.
Ship nr. 4 just sails further south, searching for other enemy ships. None are found this round.

Mystia and Kyouko discover a new revelation that could greatly affect this war:



Sanae is leading a respectable army through North Africa and on top of all, it's in a somewhat orderly formation. You know, ever since Civilization 6 came out, people have been moaning about how bad the AI was. Has it actually gotten noticably better? Has Sanae actually realized that she is part of a conflict and is sending units to Spain, where the hottest battles are taking place? Time will tell.

Another one of our scouts, en route as far away from Alice as possible, discovers a city-state deep within northern Russia, close to Remilia:



Mohenjo-daro is in modern Pakistan and is an extremely old ruined site. With over 4.000 years of age, it's so old with so little knowledge preserved of it that Mohenjo-daro is actually just a code name for a place of ancient mystery. There's indication that the real name was Kukkutarma, but even that can't be said for certain. It's a cultural city-state that will provide fresh water connections and the respective housing bonuses to all your cities if you're allied with it. Current suzerain is Remilia. That's no big surprise, given the proximity.

Alice takes some very foolish actions during her turn. As if she was even in a place to make good ones:

- The last surviving knight of the screenshot chooses a chivalrous death, charges unit 3 and deals only 19 damage in return.
- But in truth there are still more knights: A brand new one comes out of the fog of war in the southeast and attacks unit 4: 18 damage to us, 46 to them.

Turn 208 - 1.470 A.D.

Once again, we save the action scenes for later. Shining Needle Castle has completed a bank. Now our people can experience the pleasures of loans and buying with money you don't possess. Just consolidate so you can afford to go and spend some more when you get bored! Our capital will work on the pre-placed encampment. 21 turns. I'm surprised it takes that long. Got to check the tiles it's working when I next get a chance...
The builder that is also in the vicinity makes a sugar plantation on a tile recently claimed by culture. That should be the fourth copy of that resource we have. The Kobitos' diet must be way too sugary. It's a problem.

One of our scouts (Sekibanki and Kagerou) discovers what I'm sure is Hawaii. Not to sound mean, but it's not of great importance. There are some furs and whales there, resources that we already have in our homeland, but that's it. Sorry to any Hawaiians reading this: We won't be settling near you.

Once again, we go from the unharmed regions to a bloody battlefield:



Frigate nr. 4 is slightly damaged, so she travels 3 tiles east into our cultural borders. She will wait there until the repairs are finished. Carvael nr. 1 has it easier: She heads 4 hexes southwest and simply uses the promotion that is available to her from the last seafight. This one takes Helmsman for the extra mobility. All the other ships also circumvent the Iberian peninsula southward until we make a fateful discovery:



Not only is that shoreline being harrassed by another group of swashbuckling pirates, but a new city is revealed. The star on the name says it all: Kirisame Magic Shop is Alice's capital and the grand prize of this campaign. It's not our goal to wipe Alice out, but this town is one we must grab. What luck: It has been erected in a way that it can be fired at from two tiles at sea. This will make the navy we put so much effort into building be as effective as we hoped it would be.
We can also see that Alice built Stonehenge and the Hanging Gardens near her capital. So I was right. She was indeed securing those early wonders!

Very little brawling is done from our side this turn: Units 1 and 3 switch places, so that our most injured musketman is far away from all danger. Unit 4 climbs the hill southeast of it. Unit 1, the recently purchased musketman that has not yet seen battle, goes onto the copper resource southeast of him. Everyone else just waits and heals. Patience is key...

...Alice on the other hand is reckless: As her offensive action this turn, she bashes the only visible knight on the screenshot into unit 5. The result is even worse for her this time: 18 damage to us, 49 to her. Most of that damage to us we heal up through preserving our movement points. She then brings several more units to the front, so the next overview will look way more cramped.

Turn 209 - 1.480 A.D.

Other Civilization games described this as architecture. It's a civic instead of a technology this time:



William Blake was a Romantic poet as well as a painter and printmaker. At his time, he was a "hopeless romantic" with views that few shared. Nowadays he is much more recognized for his impact on the genre.



This policy combines the effects of Ilkum and Serfdom. It also obsoletes the second one of those.



With the neccessary knowledge, it became feasible in the industrial era to have supertall buildings. Before then, they proved to be too vulnerable to natural disasters like earthquakes for example. Make sure this card applies to the wonders you're currently building. Otherwise, it's a waste.



This is going to make getting farm-triangles so much easier. I can already think of a few hills in our lands that were sabotagueing this. Not anymore!

On the menu for selecting policy cards, we remove Press Gangs and Town Charters. For those, we are putting in Liberalism for extra amenities and Professional Army to reduce upgrade costs. There are a lot of units we can modernize. Here's what our setup looks like now:



Nicely balanced I'd say. We instantly go on to modernizing some of those units in our homeland with the cash we have on hand. One horseman (Kaguya Houraisan) is transformed into a cavalry for 190 gold. Four crossbowmen (among them Reisen Udongein Inaba and Eirin Yagokoro) are given command of field cannons for 115 gold each. After evolving the second of these crossbowmen we get...



This is an easy inspiration to get if you value your ranged units. It's also time to choose the next civic. Nationalism is tempting, but I feel it takes too long. Colonialism it is instead, boosted for only 8 turns.

Balnibarbi has made our second theatre district. Because it's quick and cheap with only 3 turns, we're making a library there next.

After much work was done in America, we take a look at Spain and quickly understand that more trials lie ahead:



Land unit 5 advances southeast, but does not initiate any combat. Unit 2 takes the old position of 5. I think on what to do with the rest of the musketmen, but then delay the decision, so the ships are up next:
Frigate nr. 4 advances semi-closely to Kirisame Magic Shop in the south, but halts with some distance and fires at the southernmost knight we can see. Frigates are not just great for sieges, but also as supporting artillery on the coast. 38 damage was dealt.
Frigate 3 heads south as far as it can but can't fire at anyone. Caravel 1 only advances slightly further south, still on standby to defend Benevolent French Dolls if needed. It might seem hard to understand, but no other offensive actions are taken this round. I'm hoping Alice bashes her units into ours, as that should give her much worse combat odds.

And that is partially what she does:

- Unit 3 is attacked by the club-wielding savages southeast of them. With a primal warcry, the warriors approach them, not caring how out of touch with the times their equipment is. They should have cared. Total victory for us. We take 6 damage in the process. A little while later, archers also use their ancient weapons on the same target. Another negligible 6 damage on us.
- The two knights you can see at the front do something I did not expect: They completely retreat! Apparently, Sanae has landed units in the south of Spain! For some reason that I cannot fathom, Alice prioritizes the shrine maiden's forces over ours. I think that was a grave mistake, girl.

Turn 210 - 1.490 A.D.

We've been working on the raaaaailroooooad...



It would be an insult to your memory if I linked Winston Churchill again. We only had him in the update before! Plus, I think he's among the less obscure personalities to have made it into the Let's Play. I believe the quote points at the new and uglier face of war that technology has given it.



Ironclad is the name of some B-movie set in the middle ages, but can also describe the earliest steel ships. Their combat strength is only 10 points higher than that of the caravel, which evolves into the ironclad. I don't think it's too urgent to have them, as our frigates should be the more decisive factor of this war.



The oceans become smaller yet again. With 5 movement points, embarked units are now roughly as fast as our ships. This should benefit our scouts especially, who are travelling the longest distances.

With a technology finished, it's time to switch to the next we regard as most valuable: We pick Rifling for the next 4 turns. We'll soon find out what that unit wearing the tanuki-skin hat is.

I don't really know what to do with Laputa until it reaches 10 population points in 4 turns. After initial confusion, we pick a water mill. Those give a small amount of food and production for little investment. 2 turns.

Back to fighting our skirmishes: The path is open for our musketmen. To top it off, several of our ships can soften up Kirisame Magic Shop:



Frigate 1 stops her repairs and spontaneously fires onto Alice's caravel two tiles away from her, destroying the enemy with ease. She's rewarded with enough experience points to promote at the next chance she gets.
Frigate 5 is the first to open fire on the enemy's capital: 19 damage to its walls, 1 to the city center. This one clearly has medieval walls with 100 points they can absorb. Frigate 4 makes the same attempt, but does a little worse: 13 damage to the wall, 6 city hitpoints depleted.
The land units move next: Musketman 6 crosses the river and steps on the wheat fields southeast of it. Unit 5 does a parallel motion and enters the forest to its southeast. Our line keeps shifting itself, unit 3 steps onto the stones southeast of it. Only unit 2 breaks formation to smash that meddlesome archer to the east of it. The victory is complete, 6 damage is taken in return. Unfortunately, this reveals a new city, "Blue Sign: Benevolent Orl?ans Dolls". Unit 2 has unintentionally stepped into the city strike range. I'm sure it'll pull through with ease, though.
The barbarian caravel in the south is a thorn in my side: Our own caravel 3 rushes in and attacks that one for 40 damage, taking 17 back. I thought this would sink the pirates, but they barely make it with a single hitpoint. Their banditry ends when caravel 2 zips next to them and finishes the job. 21 damage to us.
Land unit 4 advances one hex southeast, to 6's original position. No other troop movement was made by us this round.

Alice's units do little to us this turn, but I can see her knights charging some of Sanae's units. Some Tengu, the Moriya Shrine's variant to the swordsmen, are killed in southern Spain. Kirisame Magic Shop's city strike hits frigate 5 for an unimpressive 10 damage. Benevolent Orl?ans Dolls does an even worse job and deals 9 damage to musketman 2. I knew it wasn't going to be too bad. I feel city strikes have become much weaker going from Civ 5 to 6.

Turn 211 - 1.500 A.D.

The passing of time reduces further on getting to the 16th century, to just 5 years a turn. Upon getting control back, we're given a small gift to feel good about:



Very good, Urbanization is going to be a very important civic to pick up. The inspiration is given at reaching a population of 15 points in whatever city. It was Shining Needle Castle in this case, but Blefuscu would have also been but a few turns off. Achieving this inspiration can actually be pretty hard when you play heavy for culture: You'll reach Urbanization earlier than we did and might not have grown your cities large enough when you get the ability to pick the civic.

We noticed earlier that Shining Needle Castle's production was very poor. We remedy that by going into the citizen control panel and making sure the mine at the copper resource is counted towards its territory. It actually wasn't, Balnibarbi claimed it, even though it already had another copper mine. With one click, this injustice is removed and Shining Needle Castle produces 30+ cogs again. While in that very menu, we lock one of our citizens as a specialist:



He will now produce about 2 extra points of science for us. Specialist slots appear in districts as you make buildings in them. While specialists can be helpful in the mid- and late-game, try not to overdo it with them: Citizens who are assigned these jobs will not create food, so a city's growth may slow down through them.

We contact Kaguya and sell her tobacco for the usual rate of 3 gold a turn. Sanae got a lot of attention from us recently, but you also have to keep those older friendships warm. The princess's stance on Alice is "unfriendly" by the way. We really isolated the puppeteer, didn't we?

Blefuscu now has barracks to make any future soldiers tougher and more professional. The source of coal we have near the city reminds me on what we need the most urgently there: A builder to claim it. 5 turns.

We also spend a 110 points of faith from our 192 to get a new missionary in Shining Needle Castle. With him, we should soon unify our home continent in our state religion.

Finally, let's give the Magicians in Spain one heck of a bold turn:



We start with the one thing everyone is most eager for: City bombardment. Frigate 3 hits the wall for 16 damage and the center for 12. Frigate 2 gets a similar result for 16 on the wall and 13 on the center. Alice's capital is now down to about one third of its wall's durability. Land unit 5 pushes forward, 2 tiles southeast, so that it is just next to Kirisame Magic Shop. Unit 4 takes their previous position. Unit 6 does not advance and instead pillages the wheat field it's standing on to heal up to full. I often refuse to pillage tiles of cities I intend to keep, but in this case, I said better safe than sorry! Musketman 3 also goes 2 tiles southeast, standing point blank to the city. The two caravels you can see advance a little further east, with relatively little purpose in the current situation. We do learn through them that Sanae has clogged the Mediterranean with troops! Frigate 1 voyages south for 4 movement points and on its very last one, promotes to rank 1. We take Line of Battle for this one, just so that we have a frigate that's especially good against other boats. Land unit 2 goes west so that it's all out of Benevolent Orl?ans Dolls' shooting range.

We give the turn over to Alice, who mostly bashes her units into Sanae's. But not exclusively. We're also somewhat at the receiving end:

- An almost dead knight stomps onto the tile with the Hanging Gardens and dares to fight musketman 3. His roaring guns overpower the foolish rider. 15 damage to us.
- Oh boy...I was just hoping to ship our scout Mystia and Kyouko from Africa back to America, but Alice's caravel thinks otherwise. We're ambushed while embarked for 59 damage and we're immediately going to retreat them to shore and probably have them wait out the war there.

Turn 212 - 1.505 A.D.

We're giving it one more turn for today...and one more...and one more. No, this is actually the last.

It's driving me nuts that Laputa still hasn't increased its district limit. To pass even more time for it, we're making a trader. 4 turns.

Going down to business once again. Got to say, I'm very impressed by Sanae's enthusiasm and devotion. Look at all those units she's sparing for our cause:



Musketman 2 and his siege tower pull themselves 2 tiles south. Nr. 6 heads one tile southeast so that another unit (3) can take their old position and surround the city further.
Now to the good part: Frigate 4 keeps pelting the city, it takes 18 points of wall damage and 24 to its center. Frigate 2 also makes an effort for 16 wall damage and 32 to the actual hitpoints. Wall strength has been reduced to but a sliver!
Musketmen 4 and 5 head one tile east each. We briefly contemplate if we should have some of them attack the city, but I think it's still too early.
Frigate 1 slips next to the rest of the ships in the south.

In the AI phase, Alice and Sanae decimate themselves about equally. We only have to suffer a wimpy city strike on frigate 4. 11 damage. I do however see some very fearsome ships of our adversary arriving in the north. They actually shocked me a little and you'll understand why in the next episode. Will Kirisame Magic Shop fall? Will this turn out to have been a war worth fighting?

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #84 on: April 16, 2018, 05:20:04 PM »
Update nr. 41 - The invincible Spanish Armada of Alice II?

Turn 213 - 1.510 A.D.

Last time, we put the squeeze on Alice's capital and, due to the intervention of Sanae, actually got musketmen into besieging range. We could take it were we to just deal some more damage to the city.

But let's not jump the gun, building orders come first. I'd have loved for Balnibarbi to pre-place a harbor, but we lacked the funds earlier. The tile we needed to buy for it was this:



I had originally made Balnibarbi with the intention to have at least one harbor into the Pacific. I drew the conclusion though that there really isn't any need to: There's no one we could invade better from that direction, and the port would be more vulnerable against pillaging from pirates. So another harbor to the Atlantic it is. The 165 gold is paid, 10 turns.

We ended last time with the hint that something worrying was coming up. Apart from the regular unit positions, check the green circle:



What do those three stars above that one caravel of Alice mean? It means this is a caravel armada!. A fleet would have 2 stars and is two ships of the same type fused into a more powerful version of it. An armada however is 3 ships fused into an even stronger one! This caravel armada actually has a combat strength of 67 as opposed to the standard 50. With Alice's level of culture she should have no deliberate, typcial way to form fleets or armada. I'm pretty sure she got this one by retiring one or more Great Admirals. These two ships that have appeared could be a genuine threat to Benevolent French Dolls. We cannot yet afford to intercept them though. Let's hope they decide against a siege from the sea.

The slightly beaten up frigate 3 lights up the cannons once more: The walls are finally destroyed, 41 city damage. Frigate 1 doesn't hesitate to do the same, and it's a whopping 63 damage. Kirisame Magic Shop is actually in the red now!
This is when duty calls for the land units. Unit 5 (Nemuno Sakata) rushes into the city, but because the mountain hag is more geared towards hunting soldiers, it's not quite enough: 46 damage to the city, 22 to her.
Unit 4 (A very short Youmu) is up and she proves that size doesn't matter:





Glory to us! Unless we promptly lose the spoils of our war, we have fulfilled what we had in mind. The Kobito now control 3 of the 7 capitals in the world. Kirisame Magic Shop is a real treasure: Apart from what the conquest screen shows, it also calls Stonehenge and the Hanging Gardens its property. There's a funny phrase among avid Civilization players: „Why build world wonders when you can have other players do all the building, then just steal them through conquest?“ It applies perfectly to what we did here. Kirisame Magic Shop gets the order to repair its monument. 1 turn. It also pre-places a theatre square on the tile northwest of it. The adjacency is greatly increased to +3 due to the surrounding wonders. The resourceless mine that was on the tile before is automatically overwritten.

The takeover doesn't stop the fighting of course. It would be great if we could eliminate surrounding cities of Alice. It'll give us more tiles to work in Spain and a footpath into Europe. Banishing the Magician from the area should be our secondary objective.
Unit 6 needn't attack any cities, but there is a petty little archer next to it. This nuisance is quickly wiped off the earth, 6 damage to us. Unit 3 has missed its role in the siege and just heads one tile east.
Caravel nr. 2 does something that the turn of events has made neccessary: It sits on our cultural border now and we allow it to modernize it into an ironclad for 110 gold. With the new combat strength of 60, it will still be weaker than the armada, but at least an opponent to be taken seriously. Because I'm justly intimidated by Alice's navy, we spend another 110 to do the same with caravel 5. Now we have 49 coins left. We've spent all we could.

A builder at Laputa makes a pasture around cattle to round off this turbulent turn. Our missionary at Balnibarbi joins him in fairly serene actions, as he converts the city with one of his charges. Only Laputa and Blefuscu stay without a majority religion now.

There's considerable brawling between Alice and Sanae, but no offensive action against us. The enemy caravels ignore Benevolent French Dolls and drive in the direction of our ships instead.

Turn 214 – 1.515 A.D.

This technology has a really good quote, one of the funniest you can roll:



Advocate of footwear thievery, the 2nd Target Company Inc. does not have a wikipedia page, but seems to be a business in Denton, North Carolina. They manufacture target plates in all kinds of shapes for shooting practice.



There are only 2 recon units in the game and the Ranger is the better one. Yup, our meek little scouts can upgrade into a unit that in the current time would actually be quite formidable. So formidable that a musketman would probably lose to it in a 1on1-ambush. Notice that this evolution now has a range of 1, like a slinger. It's actually an option to attack with them now, as you do not need to fear immediate retaliation.

This also happened to be the moment where our second bank in Lilliput opened its counter:



Economics also happens to be the technology we work on next. 4 turns. The first few modern techs like Electricity, Flight and Steel are also becoming available, but let's not jump ahead.

Lilliput may have booming commerce, but it could use more farms. Can't eat cold hard cash, your teeth will break. We're making a builder there next. 4 turns.
Kirisame Magic Shop may still have a couple of fire-blackened buildings, but it too needs a new plan. Given the hostile territory it's in, we want at least ancient walls. 5 turns.

I think our land units will mostly heal their wounds this round, but our ships will have to do some work:



Frigate 3 is eligible for her rank 2 promotion. What we pick is...



A perk with a pretty badass name! It's essentially like Bombardment, but even more powerful. City damage of this ship should be fierce. Let's not call her just a ship: We type in the custom name “The Palanquin Ship“.
Combat odds on the enemy hyper caravel are not looking great. Nonetheless, ship 1 does what she can and hits for 21 damage. She too will be able to promote once she has movement points again.
Ship 4 also tries as best as she can and lands 31 points of damage. Ship 2 is a compact little ironclad. Here's their symbol by the way:



Looks almost impenetrable. But like I said, this unit is actually weaker than the melee ship we're currently up against. We move said ship nr. 2 in front of our enemy to hopefully bind them with zone of control.
Land unit 1 will approach Benevolent Orl?ans Dolls over the next few turns. Unit 3 (Nitori) however is in such good shape, we have her engage the enemy knight next to her. But not before unit 6 advances next to the Kappa to give her a flanking bonus. The result is 44 damage, 16 on us. We could defeat the knight with unit 2, but we only advance that one a little. I don't want to have anyone land in city strike range and I estimate those knights are probably going to suicide themselves on us anyway.

Alice uses her turn to bring in a set of fresh and new knights from the north:

Those very knights go after unit 6, but for pretty poor effect: 13 damage on us, 60 to them.
I was right about the knight we had quarreled with: They race towards unit 2 and solve the problem that they themselves were. I unfortunately couldn't catch how much damage we took (the camera blitzed to the next encounter), but it couldn't have been over 15 or so.
Drat, the zone of control wasn't good enough! The caravel armada sails around our ironclad and beats up frigate 4! 48 damage to us, 17 to them. At least they're in bad shape now, too.

Turn 215 – 1.520 A.D.

Not much happened in America this turn, so we get right back to where we left off:



Land unit 2 is our youngest musketman, but he has enough experience to promote. We take Battlecry, as I feel we have few good hunting units.
Naval unit 4 (The Palanquin Ship) shows what she's made of and aims at the weaker, escorting caravel. That one takes 30 damage and is now also in the red, like the armada. We decide to have ironclad unit 1 take care off the big one:



The armada, terror of our seas, sinks! We take 25 damage in the process. Worth it. Afterwards, the previously attacked ship nr. 3 fires at the single, leftover caravel and sends it to the bottom of the ocean. That'll take care of everything. I thought the navy we had formed might have been overkill at first, but it really ended up paying off.
Ship nr. 2 takes her second promotion (Rolling Barrage) and the well-deserved custom name. I'm thinking of naming ships after Gensokyan transportation, so she will be “Remilia's Rocket.“
Meanwhile, ship nr. 5 advances far east, along the North African coastline, until it reveals the city "Scarlet Sign: "Red Haired Dutch Dolls.""



Once again, the naming is pretty far off from the actual location. It's more where Valencia is than anywhere near the Netherlands. As a truly coastal city, it's very vulnerable to our navy, but we have to be cautious of the caravel that's anchored there.
Our land units mostly regenerate. The heavily injured knight isn't really worth going after right now. Again, I think he'll just shatter against us in his false heroism. Only unit 1 (Sakuya) travels further east.

Back home, our missionary tries to convert Blefuscu, but the 15-population metropolis is too large to be won over in a single turn. Maybe next time.



It's nice and all that we were able to awe Remilia, but take it from my own experience: Once you're denounced for warmongering by someone, agenda fulfillment is basically just a band-aid on a severed limb. The eternally-young vampiress will likely never truly like us again.

Alice retreats the knight that I thought she was going to waste on our defenses. But I have to hand it to her: Ironclad 5 does get attacked by the caravel from Red Haired Dutch Dolls: 21 damage to us, 38 to them.

Turn 216 – 1.525 A.D.

The current conflict has been going on for about 15 turns and I'm sure a lot of war weariness has accumulated despite the Kobito's natural resistance to this. If you ever want to check how severe the effects on your civilization's happiness are, a certain table can help you:



There's a total of 11 negative amenities through war weariness spread out over 3 of our cities. That's overall very sustainable. The button for these reports is the small circle marked at the top. This to me is the most interesting and well-organized information sheet of the three available. We might go over the others at some point in time.

Blefuscu has taught a builder and needs something that benefits our troop output. An armory it is, the very first that we are making. 12 turns. The city is also converted to The Touhou Fandom with the local missionary's final religious charge.

Laputa desperately needs more districts and there's a really good one available. We put a commercial hub right here on this otherwise fairly useless tile:



This will also provide some more cultural adjacency to the theatre square. 9 turns. We happen to have a builder in the area, who puts a farm on a hill on the northwest. So glad we have the civic to do that now!

Benevolent French Dolls has been satisfyingly secured through walls. Now they can move on to simpler things like a granary. 6 turns.

Sekibanki and Kagerou have been brought all the way back to America. One click and the sum of 265 gold spent turns them into this expert of survival:



Sekibanki has become Davy Crockett, Kagerou has stayed the same. They will venture out again, but at much lower personal risk this time.

Our invasion force is in much better shape now. Where will it go next?



Land unit 4 (Watatsuki no Yorihime) advances northeast onto the marble. We learn that Benevolent Orl?ans Dolls has a garrisoned knight. Unit 1 (Sakuya) goes southeast and is now also in range of the city. Musketman 2 crosses the river between him and the tile northeast. Unit 3 (Nitori) steps upon the rice resource we're farming. That's a bonus resource very similar to wheat by the way. Unit 5 (Nemuno) travels two tiles east to block Alice's caveman warrior. He is no real threat, but he could pillage improvements if we let him.
Our two undamaged frigates 3 and 4 float further east, the battered ships 1 and 2 will heal up in the bay of Kirisame Magic Shop. Ironclad nr. 5 simply holds its position, waiting for other ships to help it against the blockading caravel.

There are a bunch of things to report from the phase between turns: Sanae actually kills the warrior in our lands and damages the caravel at our ironclad with a crossbowman. Said caravel unfortunately promotes and is now in a better state than she was previously in. Remilia also laudes our economy, as we're fulfilling her „money grubber“ agenda. If our warmongering didn't stand between us, Remilia might have become a great friend...
There are however also some expected and unexpected aggressions against us:

- Musketman unit 2 draws the short straw and endures a city strike. 10 damage.
- A caravel comes out of the fog of war and ambushes the damaged frigate nr. 2. She survives by only a hair after taking 45 damage and dealing 18 back. That's too close for my comfort.

After this cheeky manuever, Alice has the audacity to ask for peace. I see now that she did promise us 306 gold and 28 per turn, but when it happened, I didn't even look at the numbers: The outcome of this war is satisfying, but not yet ideal. We must keep fighting, no matter what the puppeteer offers.

Turn 217 – 1.530 A.D.

Last one for today. Got to warn you, the industrial era brings us ALL of the controversial civics. Difficult times:



A very cynical quote by John Anthony Burgess Wilson, but the kind of cynicism that I like to hear. He was the author of the dystopian novel "A Clockwork Orange". He was also a composer, but less people know that side of him.



Give it up for the 1.000th screenshot of the Let's Play!...If I didn't misnumber anything that is. This card would have been lucrative had we gotten it when the war against Alice was still young. She seems to be running out of units now. Maybe we'll pick it on another day.



Only Benevolent French Dolls and Kirisame Magic Shop would be paying these right now, so I don't think it's worth it at all.



You might have heard of the "British Raj", somewhat autonomous, but also highly influenced by the holder of the Raj. So heavily influenced that it wasn't acceptable at some point anymore. Here, it applies only to city-states and is actually a pretty formidable policy card. Right now, we are suzerain of Toronto, Granada, Hattusa and Carthage, adding up to +8.

We do want to change our setup considerably: We've spent a lot of money on upgrading units, now we are almost broke. Until we have some dough again, it's no use to keep Professional Army, so we throw it out of the wildcard slot and put in Veterancy. We're planning to put emphasis on our encampment districts in the near future. Finally, Charismatic Leader is given a break in the diplomacy slot, Raj goes in. Conscription, Liberalism, Medina Quarter and Triangular Trade stay.

From one divisive civic to the next: We're establishing Nationalism over the next 15 turns. Our culture output is 59.5 now, so the time for it has reduced itself significantly.

We have a Great Person to claim and one look will tell you that we're not passing this one up:



Naturalist, geologist and biologist Charles Robert Darwin is best known for his theory on evolution and "survival of the fittest." You might think he too got in trouble with the church like Galilei for example. It actually wasn't all that problematic! Most clergymen just said "evolution is a tool of God."
This Great Scientist unit is basically an even more powerful Galilei. It would probably be best to cash him in on the Pantanal in South America. That'll give us 4 * 500 = 2.000 points of science. 13 turns until he gets there. Great People don't need escorts. If he gets attacked he'll just get forcefully teleported.

There are lots of domestic matters this time, aren't there? Understanding Colonialism got us 2 extra envoys. We have 4 and I'm willing to spend 3 and keep one in reserve: We put 2 in Toronto to get their 6-envoy bonus, strengthening our industrial zones. We're also putting a single one into Zanzibar, as that alone gives a flat gold bonus of +4.

With a healthy haste, we go to the battlefield once more:



The assault previewed on the screenshot is also the first action taken: The enemy caravel takes 36 damage from unit 3's barrage. Afterwards, the rickety planks of wood that are currently frigate 2 still have enough life in them to sink the fool that almost ended them! If she survives until next turn, she can heal through promoting. Ship 4 and 5 decide to switch positions, so that the frigate can fire at the caravel blockading Red Haired Dutch Dolls. Only 23 damage. No wonder, that enemy has picked the Embolon promotion out of all things! Hopefully, Sanae's crossbowmen will support us against it.
Land unit 6 decides to keep our borders clean from the knight in the east. Not a spot remains of him. 20 damage to us.
Unit 4 can only go one tile northeast, pressuring the city. Unit 1 goes one hex east to make our grip even tighter. Unit 2 goes one tile northeast and this one is especially important: The siege tower we have goes with it, meaning most of anyone's damage will be directed straight to city hitpoints instead of the walls. We curiously check the combat odds for unit 2:



Not actually that great, aren't they? However, we will take this and I'll tell you why: There's a crossed-out heart in the name of Benevolent Orl?ans Dolls. This signifies a status that the city is surrounded and cut off from supplies. It will not regenerate any hitpoints between turns. How exactly did we achieve this? When hostile zones of control encompass a city center tile as well as all 6 surrounding tiles, that's when the city is facing a siege and getting hungered out so to say. Any units we bash into it may take wounds, but all inflicted damage is there to stay, unless Alice can kill at least one unit and break the siege.

Like I said, we take the attack: 23 damage to the city center, only 3 to its walls, and a whopping 37 to our musketman. Unit 3 goes on the offensive next: 38 damage to the city, a puny 4 to the walls and 29 to us. We then lead unit 5 out of Kirisame Magic Shop and northeastward to aid the siege.

As our final action this turn, we assign a trade route to a brand new trader (made in Laputa) between our 2 new Spanish cities. I think the path is defended enough that no stray enemies should make it there.

Anything Alice still wants to add to this war? There is:
- Musketman 2 takes the city strike for 11 damage and is now deep within the yellow hitpoints.
- The caravel blockading Red Haired Dutch Dolls is shot by Sanae's crossbowmen and flees back into the city.
- Remember Aya and Momiji's daring escape from Africa? They were currently on their way home when tragedy strikes on the eastern coast of Australia. A stealthy barbarian privateer (I guess that's actually a pirate and not a privateer then) shoots and sends our two Tengu to Higan! Unfortunately, scouts live dangerously and are technically cannon-fodder. That they have survived until now was already impressive. Hopefully, we can make the remaining two into rangers before something similar happens.

That'll do it for today. Next time, will we set a price for peace? Or will we have to wipe out Alice completely? She still has colonies in Italy and Britain actually, so who knows how long this will go on?
« Last Edit: April 16, 2018, 05:22:47 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 #85 on: April 18, 2018, 12:14:34 PM »
Update nr. 42 - It was your weakness that provoked us into attacking. Now pay up!

Turn 218 ? 1.535 A.D.

Last time, we fulfilled what we set out to do by taking over Kirisame Magic Shop! Two more of Alice's cities are immediately threatened by us. In more peaceful matters, we learn the science that I graduated in:



Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was the First Secretary of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was the opponent of John F. Kennedy. Despite this antagonism, the west does not see him as the villainous figurehead of the Red Scare anymore. After all, it would have only taken one of the two sides to be less prudent than it was for a nuclear escalation.



The stock exchange is the third building for a commercial hub and makes you even more money than a bank does. It's understandable that these are so lucrative. If they weren't, Electronic Arts would actually value their customers more than their shareholders.



You typically call the Great Bell of the public clock at Westminster Palace in London "Big Ben." It is over 150 years old, but relatively recently, it's been in the news for its longest scheduled period of silence ever. It won't be consistently used for around 4 years due to renovations.
Big Ben is a costly wonder, yet it's among the most worthwhile. The economic policy slot is great on its own, but you'll get the most out of it if you precede the construction by a lengthy period of money-hoarding. You can make thousands of extra coins in return if you save up.

We're now going to aim for what I think is the first technology of the Modern Era: Steel. It's unboosted and takes 9 turns. We would need to set down a coal mine to speed it up. I've got a feeling that can be arranged...

Lilliput has made a builder that can hopefully provide some food for it. 12 population points will not do! We're saving ourselves the bonus from the Veterancy policy card and go for an armory there. 7 turns.

I really struggled on what to make in Brobdingnag. The industrial zone there finished and it wouldn't hurt to pre-place the next district. After almost two minutes of choosing one type over the other, I settled on a campus, right here:



The whole process got me so bamboozled that we actually started working on it instead pre-placing it. In a calmer state I would have octruated a smaller project, possibly a market. 17 turns. Maybe I'll think about changing the build order at some point.

Last but not least, Kirisame Magic Shop will make the pre-placed theatre square for its new masters. 10 turns.
Since we're now in the region, on to the war that's as good as won:



In the north, the enemy city is still heavily surrounded. Land Unit 2 will keep off their triggers this round and instead nourish themselves by plundering the farm they're standing on. They heal 50 hitpoints, nearly back to peak condition. Unit 1 has no time for grub, it assaults the city: 31 city center damage, 4 against its walls. Unit 3 gives the Magicians and Dolls no quarter and deals 39 city damage and 6 on the walls. Benevolent Orl?ans Dolls' walls hold strong, but thanks to the siege tower, we mostly just climb over them. That's why they're already in the red. I don't like the condition unit 4 is in, so it simply swaps with the uninjured unit 5. That one (A very short Youmu) goes on the offense, deals a brutal 44 points to the city and another 6 to the walls. It's almost ours!
On to our navy and their target, Red-Haired Dutch Dolls. Frigate 5 closes in, stops 2 tiles northeast and gives the city one nice blast from the sea. 34 wall damage, 1 to the city. Frigate 3 can only get closer and take the position southwest to ship 5, movement won't allow for more. Ironclad 4 cruises to the bay of the city, shielding the two frigates from the harbored caravel.
Frigate 2 gladly takes the promotion it has, if anything, they did it just to get the 50 hitpoints back. We pick the second option from the left side for it:



This ship will now do well as a coastal guard and harrasser of embarked units. Oh, and it will from now on be known as Marisa's Broom. Yes, I know she doesn't need it to fly, that it's just a kitchen broom she uses because she's into Harry Potter...

Before we end the turn, we purchase a tile at Blefuscu for 255 gold. A tile on which a builder is already standing. A tile on which you can find black clumps that you can use to fuel and sustain fire. We now have a coal mine!



This eureka had two conditions: You also needed an ironclad apart from coal. I believe this wasn't always so. Having the ironclad was added to make it a little harder to achieve, possibly in one of the more recent patches. Didn't stop us.

We're getting more resistance than I thought we would:

- Alice finishes a knight in Benevolent Orl?ans Dolls that she promptly uses to attack musketman 1! 12 damage to us, 59 to them.
- The city strike of the very same city is aimed at unit 2 who can only laugh at those 8 points of damage.
- Frigate 3 takes the other city strike. It's 15 damage in that case. Not too bad.

Turn 219 ? 1.540 A.D.

It was about time our capital of all places made an encampment. One of those in their barest of states is not actually that useful, so let's follow up with a stable. 3 turns. Shining Needle Castle and Lilliput will now be our specialized makers of cavalry units.

I believe Benevolent Orl?ans Dolls' days are numbered:



Our approach with the siege tower was a clever one. Wall defense needn't be used up for a takeover. There's still so much left of it, but it doesn't matter, as hitpoints are about to drop to 0. We check musketman 2's combat odds against the town: The estimation is that a single attack will be enough to take it. Is this true?



It sure was. We took 36 damage for this, a good price to pay. The decision to take the city or raze it is not an easy one. 5 starting population isn't too bad, neither are the 2 districts. The city also happens to be the one that built the Oracle, a wonder that's not to be underestimated. But I fear that if we keep more cities than we originally planned to have, we'll do something that's called growing "too wide." That would be really bad for our amenities. Many would probably disagree here and I get their opinion, but we raze this unwanted city!
I think now that the Oracle has been trashed, it should be possible to reconstruct it somewhere else. I'd have to check to confirm (addendum: Yes, the Oracle has reappeared among the buildable wonders).

Unit 4 has an unprotected builder unit with two charges next to him. That's just screaming to be punished: We step on their tile and put those worker dolls in chains. They'll make improvements for us now. The only trace of our enemy where the razed city stood is another knight, the last survivor. He does have a lot of grit, as he barely makes it through unit 1's (Sakuya's) attack. 21 damage to us, 37 to them.
There's still the second city we need to take care of, and that is a matter of our navy: Frigate 4 begins with a devastating 28 damage to Red Haired Dutch Dolls' walls and 21 to the center. Frigate 5 puts just as much spirit into it and achieves 26 wall damage and 31 to the city. The defenses are just barely standing now. Ironclad 3 moves one tile northeast to better shield the frigates from a caravel.
All other land and sea units retreat to friendly territory or heal up when they're already in it.

There was this wheat field we messed up at Kirisame Magic Shop. A builder on site swiftly repairs the destruction there. We're now officially no longer the worst of warlords: We actually fix our damage.

At home, another builder makes a mine at a source of niter near Brobdingnag. He's pretty overdue there and he'll continue to improve the mediocre infrastructure at the city of giants.

You're probably surprised that Alice still has relevant things to add to the campaign from her side:

- The knight we attacked acts in despair against unit 1 and is no longer the last survivor that he was. I couldn't see the damage we took as the camera zipped away too quickly, but it couldn't have been much.
- That dastardly caravel at Dutch Dolls! It has circled all the way around the vacation paradise of Mallorca. That way, she got around our ironclad and in the back of our frigate 4. 31 damage to us, 26 to them.
- The city strike is given to frigate 3 again. 11 damage.

Turn 220 - 1.545 A.D.

Our current faith stands at 419. Time to get rid of some of that, but to a positive effect:



This building comes from the last belief we evangelized for the Touhou Fandom. We buy it in Shining Needle Castle. The fact that it's a holy site building with its very own faith output will mean it'll pay for itself over time. Apart from that, the housing in our capital slightly increases.

The area for the relevant battles this turn has gotten a lot smaller:



I can already tell you that all those land units won't be doing anything that's noteworthy. Except 4, it'll move closer to the distressed enemy city. A city that, thanks to Sanae, is now completely under siege and was unable to heal. Frigate 3's (The Palanquin Ship) attack brings down the walls completely and deals 37 damage on top of that. The other frigate 2 does not direct its cannons at the city, but at that meddling caravel east of it. It was the last we ever saw of it. It was actually very deliberate to not deal too much damage to Red-Haired Dutch Dolls this turn. Sanae shouldn't actually be the one to conquer the city and as things are, she actually might if we push it too far.

A builder at Lilliput successfully completes a farm-triangle, once again thanks to our ability to put them onto hills. There's a tech later that'll make farm-duos as worthwhile as farm-triangles, but we're not there yet.

Turn 221 - 1.550 A.D.

Benevolent French Dolls has made a granary and has therefore outfitted itself with the typical basic buildings. It's unfortunately still too small to work on a district, so it picks a trader instead. 10 turns.

Abandon all hope, ye residents of Red-Haired Dutch Dolls:



Frigate 2 starts off the carnage with 59 points of damage, depleting roughly half of the hitpoints you can see on the screenshot. Frigate 3 makes it even worse for the town with 61 damage. Ironclad 1 becomes the final act of this whole tragedy, taking only 19 damage in the process.



If even the superior, previously conquered city didn't make the cut, how could this one? We raze it, no contest. Our ironclad that did the conquering looks like it got stranded ashore now...



In no other turn of events than when it razes a city can a naval melee unit get beached on a land tile. Apart from looking funny, this has little consequence: We can have it return to the waters next turn.

At about the height of Barcelona would be Alice's next city "White Sign "Chalk White Russian Dolls"". We could probably demolish it as well with little effort, but honestly, it's enough. Our victory was devastating for Alice and we would gain so little from further warfare. I think it's time to enter negotations.



Since the war had such a one-sided outcome, you can bet we can be rather demanding when it comes to reparations for peace. When you grab cities you want to keep, the marked objects should be your main item to request. I think I mentioned briefly what city-ceding was before, but now we're actually experiencing it. If we don't push Alice towards ceding Benevolent French Dolls and Kirisame Magic Shop to us, we won't be the truly rightful owners of them and the occupied state would resume in a future war. The AI can be especially uncooperative when it comes to ceding their capital, but not this time: Alice agrees to forever part with the cities she lost to us.
But that's not where we need to stop. How much more can we squeeze out of the puppeteer? We tell her that we also want her religious relic, the "Bones of the Magi." She's alright with it. "How about you part with some of that gypsum? You can keep the other copy." Still fine with it. "The flat 149 gold coins in your treasury: Hand 'em over." She naturally does. "Finally, the 26 gold you make per turn, we're siphoning all of that, too." And still it's ok from her side. As you can see, you can push your opponents really, really far after a successful war. There's little that speaks against stripping them bare like that, so think big. With that, the war between the Kobito and Magicians has ended in a historical victory from our perspective. What will Alice do about Sanae who's still in the war? Well, that is her problem, not ours.

The people of Brobdingnag get their first farm from a builder just east of the city center. It should help them grow above their current, somewhat mediocre size of 7 points. The improvement of its infrastructure also reminded me that the city shouldn't actually be building a campus right now. We switch production to a market. It's but 5 turns away.

During the movement of scouts, I notice a luxury we've never talked about: A copy of it is in Kabul, at real-life North Korea:



It's greyed out, but that is supposed to be tea, symbolized by a teabag. Many people nowadays learn through Halo what a teabag is. Herbs to make tea with may be common, cheap items nowadays, but in some countries, namely England, there have been such tea-drinking crazes, so much demand, they were genuinely willing to trade silver for tea. I think that alone makes it well-deserved for tea to be a luxury in Civilization. You improve it with plantations.
I believe we now know of all the game's luxuries. I can't think of any in the base game we might have missed right now. We still have considerable landmasses to scout, so maybe that'll bring something up.

Turn 222 - 1.555 A.D.

We're receiving two additional whale luxuries from possessing Spain. Time to share a little blubber: Sanae takes it for 3 gold per turn. I was hoping she would trade one of her own luxuries like coffee or wine for it, but we'd have to pay too much extra for her to agree.

Shining Needle Castle has a stable to keep our horses warm and cozy. We're jumping straight to the next encampment building there, an armory. 5 turns.

While looking around with the navy we have in western Europe, we notice that trouble is brewing in Brittany:



A duo of a frigate and a land unit could easily clear that barbarian camp. We should do that sooner than later. The spearman that's guarding is not even remotely a threat, but barbarians can theoretically create any unit that players have built. This was also most likely the birthplace of the pirates we saw during the war.

For the second time in this campaign, we greedily chop a forest at Laputa. Even without it, the production speed there is excellent, and we were going to put a farm on the tile anyway. Due to the sudden burst of usable lumber, the commercial hub with +3 adjacency there finishes instantly. We will outfit it with a market next. 2 turns.

Speaking of farms, we make another one at Brobdingnag, right next to the one we already had. The builder who was responsible has unfortunately used up his charges and leaves.

Turn 223 - 1.560 A.D.

Our output of science is just too damn good. The industrial era went by in a flash, the one to follow is...



This time period lasted from the later 1800s to about the Second World War. The transition got us the usual 400 gold and unfortunately only a single turn worth of culture. The technology that allowed us to enter this age was...



I believe a very advanced use of Steel is meant with this. In Civ 5, the Steel technology of the medieval era got you longswordsmen! We can assume those are not to be compared with this modern type of steelworking. Some may know Benjamin Franklin from looking at a 100$ bill. Through his signature on the Declaration of Independence, he became a Founding Father. Even beyond that he was an extremely influential politician, yet did not ever become President. Well, of the United States that is. He indeed was of Pennsylvania.



There is no clearer symbol of Paris and perhaps all of France than the Eiffel Tower, the lifework of Gustave Eiffel, who was in his own words jealous of the wrought iron lattice tower: She was more famous than he was. The meager description of this wonder may fool you: For cultural play, this is the most important one there is! Perhaps it's tied on first place only with the Christo Redentor. We will learn of which when the time comes. Appeal is incredibly important if you want to raise your tourism through seaside resorts.



It's too bad we never got around to making any bombards. We could now upgrade them into this if we had. 80 ranged strength without any maluses on cities will lead to massive damage numbers. I swear we will make artillery, they're too good to pass up. In fact, Blefuscu has finished its armory this very turn, so I'm already telling you now and completely out of line that it's going to construct this siege unit for us. 13 turns.



You won't sink our battleship. If you thought frigates were great (a fact that this campaign has proven without doubt), battleships are a dream. Range is even further increased to 3! The catch would be that most ships don't have a natural sight range of 3, so you need another unit to reveal your target if you want to take full advantage of these long barrels. What's especially mean and overpowered is that ideally, you can shoot from outside of city strike range.
As amazing as they are, there isn't much immediate need to transform our frigates into one of these metal leviathans. I don't see another war with coastal operations approaching too soon.



Oil is a strategic and globally valued resource indeed and boy, it is our lucky day. I can see three copies in range of Blefuscu alone! Oil is used for airplanes and tanks.



We should really set up more lumber mills. But that's such an irrelevant point compared to what else it says in that passive: Urban Freaking Walls! I was misremembering about this and thought you got them at the Urbanization civic, but it's at Steel instead. What this means is that all cities from now on will have maintenance free 200-point walls. And with all cities I really mean all, as in, if we settle a new one with 1 population point, it'll still have fully functional urban walls. Hmm, I don't like that part about obsoleting battering rams and siege towers though. It would be a bit silly if tanks could roll onto siege towers and drop themselves over medieval walls. I think in an earlier patch, they technically could.
It's not perfectly phrased so I'm a little confused about the exact effect here: Are all wall-centric support units becoming useless that we have now? Or are they only useless against opponents that also have urban walls? I can't say for sure, so we won't delete them just yet.

Rather than giving you a shortlist of technologies, we honor our tradition of looking at the complete tree upon an era transition:



Flight is quite a revolutionary one, but the symbol for tanks is visible at Combustion. I'd like some of those! Radio is not as important for us, but it can be absolutely vital for other playstyles. By the way, there's still something of the industrial era we haven't picked up: Sanitation. Nonetheless, the poop in our streets can wait. We're picking up Replaceable Parts next.

The seas are no hinderance for Balnibarbi anymore. They constructed our third harbor district just now and will make it a little more useful than it currently is by installing a lighthouse. 5 turns.

It isn't a construction plan or will lead to anything before some turns have passed, but at Futatsuiwa of Sado, we're embarking an inquisitor eastward. His nose is bred to sniff out infidels and he thinks there are some new ones that have cropped up in our empire. The Touhou Fandom must be protected! You'll see soon where they are.

At Kirisame Magic Shop, we're having a builder repair a pillaged cotton plantation. I think it was Sanae's fault that one got set on fire. Oh well, all is fixed and pretty again, we won't let such little things come between us. Also, the capital of Alice that we stole is having some trouble with producing enough food. People are actually starving there! I think I know what the issue is: Alice has put down so many mines that the AI citizen assigning is getting all greedy for production again. We had that same problem with Laputa ages ago, remember? We're setting yield focus to food and everything is fine and orderly.

A builder at Shining Needle Castle makes a farm on a hill just next to our best city and wouldn't you know it, for the first time ever it has farm-triangles.



It's actually a farm-diamond, even. All four farms have amplified yields, but the effect is still the same as it would be for a trio of farms.
Laputa is also getting another farm from a builder, the one that destroyed the forest there last turn and who, now that he's retired, will probably become the hero of Ferngully.

Another 6 turns are over. I think that's a good timespan to split updates. It's probably around the average, or perhaps a little above it. Next time, nuts and boltz and the realization that agriculture can be so much easier. Bis bald!

CyberAngel

  • Retired
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #86 on: April 18, 2018, 02:20:09 PM »

AzyWng

  • "I was a dumb American in a place where dumb Americans were less popular than the clap."
  • "So this was it. My easy retirement."
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #87 on: April 19, 2018, 05:02:44 AM »
RIP Marisa

That is... honestly a little unsettling, yes.

What does that do again?

Gesh86

  • Buddha may forgive you...
  • but Byakuren won't!
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #88 on: April 21, 2018, 09:05:52 AM »
RIP Marisa

Oh no...Alice was a Yandere after all! That, or Marisa got exploded by some stray fire of our frigates.

What does that do again?

Religious relics occupy a Great Work slot in a temple and give a flat 8 faith and 4 tourism bonus so long as you keep them. The effect of this tourism is weakened against anyone who has the Englightenment civic, which should be the whole world by now.

Update nr. 43 - Modern Peacefare

Turn 224 - 1.565 A.D.

Last time, we dealt such a nasty blow to Alice, you can expect her to not be an earnest contender for the campaign victory anymore. She gave us a lot of resistance, but it proved to not be enough. We have more relaxing gameplay ahead of us now that this bloody chapter has concluded.

In Laputa, a market has been completed, getting us up to 149 gold per turn. This might be the most income we've had all game. For a moment, I was thinking of making a bank next. It would have taken only 7 turns. Know what also takes only 7 turns? The new and improved Oracle of Delphi.



It may seem very uneven to have two world wonders in one city when we have even larger cities without any, but balanced build plans aren't always good build plans. Besides, that is a desert hill we're sacrificing for it, a tile that is virtually worthless otherwise.

We further increase our wealth by starting a new deal with Kaguya: Cotton for 3 gold a turn. Not actually a new deal, more the revival of an old, expired one.

On the subject of resources, we send a builder near our capital to the 5th and last unimproved resource of sugar we have in our lands. After a click, that one belongs to us as well. This would be enough sugar to share a copy with every civilization that hasn't been wiped out yet, but let's face it, Alice and Remilia wouldn't take it even if we gave it to them for free. They'd assume we have poisoned the sugar.

As our ranger-duo Sekibanki and Kagerou make it back to East Asia, they find a natural wonder that had been uncovered before but came without a scene or quote. At least I can show it to you now:



I did not know of this natural wonder's existence and it's not even on the Civilization wiki. I've just found out that it was added as part of the Khmer & Indonesia civilization pack and is therefore still relatively new.Ha Long Bay is a UNESCO world heritage site in Vietnam. Apparently, they successfully stopped chinese armies from landing there three times, so that explains the massive defensive bonuses you get on the tiles.

Just as the turn ends, an enslaved builder, previously belonging to Alice, stops at a source of pearls northeast of Benevolent French Dolls. We spend 260 gold for the cultural takeover of the tile, then...



...we claim it. According to trade screens, this is the 12th luxury currently in our possession. The Kobito are living the high life.

Turn 225 - 1.570 A.D.

We learn that there's some trade activity according to gossip:



That this appears also means that some sort of agreement has taken place and by the rules, any trading between warring empires involves a peace deal or a truce. A further check confirms: Alice is no longer getting mangled by Sanae.

Our friendship with Kaguya has lasted the typical 30 turns and needs to be renegotiated. We'll ask her again shortly.

It's high time we did some pre-placing for the more developed of our cities: Lilliput sets a theatre square on the tile bordering the encampment and the Terracotta Army. It'll have +1 adjacency this way. For now however, our second oldest city will make a powerful and mobile cavalry unit. 11 turns.
Shining Needle Castle pre-places an entertainment complex on a hilltop just west of it. This featureless theme park will be in range of both Lilliput and Balnibarbi. Our capital goes back to making the armory it has been.

Finally, Blefuscu has to think of the future. It's a bit hard to describe where it'll have an entertainment complex, so the screenshot will tell you:



Yes, it does cost us extra money up front, but we're willing to pay. It's also interesting to know that Blefuscu's borders will be claiming the source of oil next.

I'm foreseeing Kirisame Magic Shop to become a mighty multi-million people metropolis one day. It just finished its theatre square, so it'll be able to cultivate the arts, if anything. What it needs sooner than later is a better growth rate. We make a granary there. Alice never thought it was neccessary to make one in her capital. Can you believe that? 3 turns.
Another builder that wasn't originally ours is toiling there as well. He just removed a mine, as I disagree with the multitude of the ones Alice has made there. To transform a mine into a farm, you have to remove the mine first (you do so by clicking a symbol that shows a bulldozer), then you spend another turn making a farm. Apparently though, improvement removal does not cost a builder charge. I was not aware of that. Nice!

We're starting to relocate the musketman-army from the Kobito-Magician War to Benevolent French Dolls. We plan to send them to Ireland. Why Ireland, even though there are no enemies nor a city of our own? You'll see in a few rounds.

Since I happened to land on it and lingered there a little, I wanted to show you the table for the cultural victory:



The most detailed explanation of how to achieve a cultural victory is given here. If it's still too complicated for you (I can't blame you, it is), here's a crash course: Tourism output gets you closer to a cultural victory. Increasing your own culture and population defends the cultural victory from someone. Currently, Sanae does best in this category. If we didn't have the second highest domestic tourism, she would have 6 of only 49 required tourists, which would already be a little scary. I'm confident we can improve the Kobito's culture and keep the shrine maiden from this winning strategy.

Turn 226 - 1.575 A.D.

Alright, I think we should approach Kaguya now and ask her to restore our friendsh...



Minus 141 relationship for warmongering Alice. You've got to be kidding...no, nobody's kidding. When you have negatives going into the triple digits here, there's little you can do. You know what that brings to my mind? In an upcoming patch, the spring update 2018, they're making an overhaul of Joint Wars. Not only will there be denunciations necessary to declare them (like formal wars), but you will be able to call civilizations into wars that are already running. Had this already been possible, we could have asked both Sanae and Kaguya for aid, not just one of the two. I'm pretty sure this would have not made us look like a demon in front of the Moon Princess.
Expect a denunciation to come from our former friend soon. The relationship has already fallen down to neutral and I don't see it getting better.

Brobdingnag has swiftly made us a lucrative marketplace, now we finally allow it to work on the campus consistently. 11 turns are left on it.

The builder that closed off a mine at Kirisame Magic Shop prepares the ground on the same tile for farming. When the granary in Alice's former capital is done, we can probably return back to a balanced citizen assignment, not prioritizing food.

While waging what to do with a builder between Shining Needle Castle and Blefuscu, I notice something about the oil we have:



See, we did get the ability to locate the black gold with the technology of steel. To our dismay, extracting it is still impossible. To make offshore oil rigs, we need the technology of Plastics, which is only learnt in the Atomic Era. It'll be a good while longer until we can call this resource our own.

Turn 227 - 1.580 A.D.

We learn through gossip that Sanae is planning to build the Mahabodhi Temple. She can do that if she wants, it fits her character. If it were the Oracle or the Alhambra she was aiming for I'd be more begrudging. Those belong to us! A much more important message than this gossip pops up almost immediately:



Bartlett Joshua Palmer is called the "Developer" of chiropractic, as he was a pioneer in it when the subject was still young. The quote is one of many clever ones he had to offer about his craft.



Can you believe that the musketmen who were kicking so much butt in the recent war have just become outdated? Infantry has a difference in combat strength of 15 compared to them. Civilization 5 and its expansions differentiated between Great War Infantry and Infantry, the latter being more of a WW2 technology. Here, we just have infantry for the whole timeblock.



No more ploughing by hand, we have high-tech tractors now! I can't stress enough how important it is to farm in clusters. Apart from farm-triangles, farm-pairs already have an increased output now.



Replaceable Parts leads to the first technology of the following era: Advanced Ballistics. Let's not aim for the stars though. Let's aim for the skies instead: Flight is our next focus.

Shining Needle Castle has an armory as well now and proceeds to make a cavalry, just like the little brother Lilliput. Except with 8 turns, it'll be done even quicker.

Oh! Look at the adjacency Benevolent French Dolls will have for its harbor:



Yes, please. We'll have it ready in a mere 8 turns. The project the city previously finished was a trader. I got very confused at this point that I couldn't send it from Benevolent French Dolls to Kirisame Magic Shop. The reason was that we already had that same trade route running. Trade routes must be unique, we couldn't have 10 traders going from Shining Needle Castle to Lilliput out of laziness for example. This one will instead be Benevolent French Dolls -> Shining Needle Castle for 3 food, 4 cogs, 6.5 gold, 1 faith and 0.5 pressure from The Touhou Fandom. Impressive bonuses!

It was only a few turns ago that we had enough faith to purchase a pagoda in Shining Needle Castle. Now we already have enough again to do the same in Futatsuiwa of Sado. The city is having severe housing problems and really needed that kind of relief. By the way, our province has 5 turns left until it has constructed the Alhambra. I so hope no one snatches it on the final stretch!

There's some payback Sekibanki and Kagerou could give to some arrogant barbarians in South East Asia:



As you can see from the combat predictions, the swordsman wouldn't stand a chance. Even if the nearby crossbowman supported, I'm sure the ranger could handle them both. But does he need to? Actually, we'd have little to gain from seeking an active confrontation here. Experience points from fighting barbarians severely drop after rank 2. I think we're smarter to just keep exploring west, leaving those hostiles in the dust.

And it's happened. I regret having to show you this:



"Like, we are never getting back together, like, ever!" The war with Alice and the resulting 141 negative warmonger points truly were a friendship-ender. I've considered whether we should war with Kaguya next after this denunciation. She is still by far the weakest AI player and wouldn't be able to do anything with her hordes of archers against the cavalry and field cannons we're sporting on our home continent. But I decided against it. Yes, she hates us now, but I don't want to hold it against her. We'll stay neutral. After all, we're still making money off of the Eientei through trade routes.

Turn 228 - 1.585 A.D.

In Mesoamerica, Balnibarbi has made a lighthouse at its harbor. We lack the population to have more districts at this point and looking at the city, what it most desperately needs is some farmland. That's why they're getting a builder next. 5 turns.

Kirisame Magic Shop is one of three cities in our empire with a holy site, constructed by Alice at who knows what point in time. Since they're so scarce and this one is still bare, we're making a shrine there. 3 turns.

Also in Spain, a builder at Benevolent French Dolls improves a source of iron. Only now with 2 copies would we be able to recruit a knight in a city without an encampment. Not like we'd want to when we can have cavalry instead. At the very same location, an inquisitor from North America has landed and wipes out the Catholicism Alice had established there. Now you know why we've had him travel the oceans. Just like Zoroastrianism, we can't tolerate this religion, or anything that isn't The Touhou Fandom! That is now the new majority religion in Benevolent French Dolls by the way. Only Kirisame Magic Shop is still of the false faith.

Guess who's made it all the way to the swampy Pantanal:



Charles Darwin slashed his way throught the Brazilian rainforest. The tile he's now on is a natural wonder with 3 more tiles of the same natural wonder adjacent to it. That's perfect, he can cash in 2,000 points of science for us. The technologies of the Modern Era go for a little over 1,000 each, so it's effectively a free one and more. I've reconsidered on getting Flight, so we first switch away onto Combustion...



Man, is it just me or is this game is painting Sir Churchill as a greater enemy of technology with every quote? I don't want to know what he'd have thought about video games, had he lived long enough to learn of them.



Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you: A battletank is classified as "heavy cavalry." Therefore, it's knights that evolve into them. Uhm...horsepower, maybe? Actually, they're probably the most appropriate as they're used to having armor around them...
Anyway, they're the most powerful unit we have researched currently, trumping infantry by another 10 points. I'm surprised they're ignoring zone of control. I thought only the light cavalry did.



Steel only revealed oil, now we can actually bore it out of the earth. And only from there, unfortunately. There's a distinction between land oil and submerged sea oil. I see a source of it we could settle onto in Brazil, but I'd rather not. A South American city, like I once said, would be very isolated and serve little other strategic purpose.



Our embarked units are now faster than our frigates. I think this will be the swiftest they'll ever be, but I could be wrong.

The technology we choose next will receive the science overflow that Charles Darwin caused and instantly gain some progress. My thoughts jump from Flight to Electricity and back. In the end, we decide that we'd like to have lightbulbs and whatever comes after. It's 4 turns away from now on.

Turn 229 ? 1.590 A.D.

From this moment, we decide that the Kobito are the very best in the world and all other nations are smelly, lazy and dumb:



Ernest Andr? Gellner was a British-Czech philosopher, social anthropologist and critical rationalist. Despite feeling the negative side of several nationalist movements, namely fascist and communist, he did argue that nationalism was a neccessity in modern times for modern rulers due to the process of homogenizing and standardizing of their subjects. I was unsure whether this quote was pro or contra the respective civic, but reading about Mr. Gellner, it's all pro.



This effect extends to infantry, a.t. crew and field cannons, as well as some unique units we cannot make.



Combat strength maluses from diminishing health can stack up to 10 points. If you're using this card against civilizations that don't have it, you can expect to just perform noticably better in a lasting conflict.



This is a casus belli working on the principle that might makes right. Interestingly, a pop-up on the side tells us that we could use it against Kaguya at this very moment. It got me thinking again whether we should invade her, but my recent decision stands strong: She deserves more respectful treatment, honouring the good times we had together.



A second spy would be useful. We'd probably use this one in a more aggressive fashion if we get around to training him. Now Corps and Fleets are an interesting game mechanic, adressing something that could become an issue especially in Civ 5. Expect us to make some of them soon. Once we do, I'll explain to you the ideas behind them.

We are in great need to change our policy cards. This is the new set-up we're sporting:



Liberalism and its amenity bonuses has temporarily gone out, as did Veterancy: Encampments and their buildings have sufficiently profited from it. Professional Army and Grand Arme? have gone in. We're about to throw a lot of our 1,598 gold coins out for upgrading. Grand Arme? was actually a bit of a thinking error here: I thought it applied to artillery, counting them towards ranged units, but it actually does not. In a few turns, we'll get a chance to correct that.

Nationalism was the prerequisite for Urbanization, which we need to persue next. It's already boosted and will be developed in 8 turns.

Through a scouting caravel of Toronto, we've learned that there is a tribal village we overlooked in Papua-Newguinea:



Closest scout to fetch it for us should be our youngest and currently nameless one. But only after he's become a ranger.

The inquisitor we have in Spain continues removing heresies. His next target is Kirisame Magic Shop, which is now also rid of its Catholicism. The Touhou Fandom does not establish itself as a majority religion there yet, we're going to have to send a missionary. A missionary that we purchase immediately at Futatsuiwa of Sado

We're about to rid Brittany of the banditry that has sprouted from it:



The Palanquin Ship is escorting a musketman (A very short Youmu) for a landfall operation. First, we soften the guarding spearman with some cannon fire: He miraculously survives, taking only 77 points of damage. Through fortification over several rounds, he actually severely boosted his combat strength. In the end though, his crude weaponry is just too outdated. Next, A very short Youmu moves in. She can attack amphibiously through a promotion and has overwhelmingly positive combat odds. The result is a routine victory with only 5 damage in return. 45 shiny coins land in our wallet for the destruction of the barbarian camp. Not much, but it's nice when units pay for their own maintenance from time to time.

A builder at Kirisame Magic Shop digs a mineshaft at a source of coal. Now we have two copies to create all dependant units no matter the circumstances.

It's time to wrap up this round with the big troop modernization. We still have some embarrassingly outdated horsemen at home: Two of them (Byakuren Hijiri and Toyosatomimi no Miko) are made into cavalry for 190 gold a piece. The symbol for cavalry looks like this by the way:



Preppy uniform. Next up, we tell the last crossbowmen in our lands to get with the times. The oldtimer with rank 1 gets outfitted into a field cannon for 115 gold.
We're not done by a long shot. Mystia and Kyouko have stopped in Spain to become a ranger for 265 gold. The scout that we'll be sending to Papua-Newguinea does the same, only in California, for the same amount. Finally, all the musketmen we have need weapons with actual rifling, so that they'll be able to hit barns at point blank, let alone further away. Watatsuki no Yorihime, Nitori Kawashiro, Sakuya Izayoi and a nameless musketman all get equipped. Price: 4 * 145 gold. Now we've run out of money: A puny pocket-change of 38 bucks remains. On the upside, we're more powerful now than we've ever been.

We learn that piracy in the Atlantic still exist. We have an ironclad coming to the rescue:


This scum needs to go if we want to send the recently upgraded units and the missionary towards Europe. And we do want that. The assault costs them 40 hitpoints, on us, it's 22.

That'll be it for today. We gave our soldiers the guns, but what can they do without guts? Next time, we'll imbue them with some Celtic mysticism and make them warriors by heart. See you then!

CyberAngel

  • Retired
Re: [SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI!
« Reply #89 on: April 21, 2018, 10:51:54 AM »
Kaguya: "A new empire overseas? Gee, it will be so cool to declare a war on it-- WAIT WHAT YOU JUST DID THE SAME THING HOW DARE YOU"