Realms Beyond PBEM4: The English Armada

Picking up from the last section, Singaboy's Germany had overrun the island continent controlled by Japper, eliminating the Norwegian civilization entirely from the game. The decisive aspect of the campaign had taken place in the first ten turns, followed by a long mop-up period afterwards in which the remaining Norwegian cities were slowly captured one at a time. The war finally came to a close on Turn 114 with Germany now controlling roughly double the total land of anyone else in the world. With the removal of the occupation penalty in the Norwegian cities, Singaboy's scientific and cultural output was now beginning to rise to match the size of the lands flying the German banner. However, success in Multiplayer games inevitably breeds jealousy, and the other players in this public diplomacy game were already planning to strike back at the German juggernaut.

The key date that was floating around in the discussions between players was Turn 120. That was when a non-aggression deal would run out that had been negotiated between Singaboy and TheArchduke, and all of the major players were laying preparations for that important turn. TheArchduke was at the forefront of these plans to attack Germany:

TheArchduke was using one of the most important strategies in Civ6, and one that I had also put to good effect in PBEM1: building up a large treasury and then mass upgrading units. England had trained a whole bunch of galleys and quadriremes, then used the huge income provided by the Royal Dockyards to upgrade them into caravels and frigates. This is the way to convert financial power into military power, and it allows players to amass a striking force much faster than what would be possible through normal production alone. TheArchduke's gold income fell all the way from 90/turn down to 41/turn after making those upgrades - maintaining military units isn't cheap. However, now he had the naval force that he had lacked during the earlier German war against Norway, plus two Great Admirals to increase the strength and movement of every English ship. Singaboy's cities were located directly to the south and in easy range of the formidable English fleet.

Lining up one ally was easy. Oledavy's Japan had already been opposed to Germany since the time of the initial invasion of Norway. The major diplomatic breakthrough in the turns leading up to Turn 120 was getting Woden's Brazil to join together with England and Japan in a united front against Singaboy. Woden had been sitting on the fence without taking sides for a long time (and irritating all of the other players in the process), before finally making up his mind with this post:

As the scoreboard in the picture above indicates, Woden was clearly in the #4 position in a five player game, a difficult spot to inhabit. The plan was to team up with England and Japan for the moment while teching towards the unique Brazilian battleship, the Minas Geraes, and use that ship to leap past the other players once it became available. This was a decent strategy for a trailing civ to adopt, although it would often cause tensions with TheArchduke and oledavy. Especially oledavy, since Woden often seemed to be going out of his way to needle Japan diplomatically even when it wasn't necessary. Woden's overall civ was trailing the other leading players in virtually all categories, with his earlier science lead completely evaporated by now due to having fewer cities and less developed infrastructure. Brazil was pledged to aid in the upcoming war effort, but how that aid would manifest itself was very much up in the air.

Oledavy had his own plan: work with TheArchduke against Sinagboy while constructing the Venetian Arsenal in the city of Europa:

The Venetian Arsenal is the best wonder in the game on a water-heavy map like this one. It causes every new ship built by a civilization to produce two ships instead of one. Why the designers even put this wonder into the game is beyond me; it seems almost intended to be abused by the player, or perhaps the game's creators didn't bother to spend much time testing the game on non-Pangaea maps. In any case, oledavy was the one chasing after the wonder and no one else would contest his control of Venetian Arsenal. When it eventually completed, Japan would have the ability to crank out a huge fleet of ships in short order. For the moment though, the wonder still required several dozen more turns to finish.

Singaboy was unable to enjoy the fruits of his conquests in former Norway. He was well aware of the coalition growing against his empire, and felt depressed about the situation in his thread:

The last player in the game was Jester, who had stopped updating his spoiler thread and seemed to have mostly checked out of the competition by this point. He had signed a Declaration of Friendship with Singaboy, however, and seemed to content to take Germany's side in the budding world war in the hopes of getting revenge on Japan for the earlier city razing. On paper, this would therefore be a struggle of empires #1 and #5 against the #2, #3, and #4 empires in the game. In practice though, the conflict would be significantly less neat and tidy.

With TheArchduke's fleet making obvious preparations to attack Germany from the north, the logical move would have been recalling most of the German army from the Norwegian continent to prepare for a defense. Instead, Singaboy decided to attack the city state of Toronto:

Using his experienced veteran army, Singaboy had little difficulty capturing the city state on Turn 119. However that wasn't really the issue; the question was why so much of the German military was off fighting a city state instead of preparing for TheArchduke's fleet. At the very least, the Great General and the crossbows could have assisted in the home defense against incoming ships. From Toronto, those same units then embarked and launched an assault against oledavy's newest Japanese cities:

Oledavy responded by rushing reinforcements to this narrow island, which he had named "Saturn" and where he was calling the cities after Saturn's moons. Caravels, frigates, and swords backed by the Defender of the Faith bonus were able to hold the line. Singaboy decided not to commit his forces in full and retreated back to Toronto without engaging in battle. Oledavy was quite pleased by this turn of events and continued to bide his time:

Meanwhile, the main show had kicked off on the northern German coast. TheArchduke played before Singaboy in turn order, so this was where Germany had placed its units on the all-important interturn between Turn 119 and Turn 120:

Singaboy is a very good tactical player in Civilization games dating back to his Civ3 days as ThERat, and for the life of me, I'll never understand what he was doing here. He could see that TheArchduke's fleet was gathered just north of Zitronenhain, and yet he divided his naval forces and left them in plain view of his opponent. Three caravels were just sitting in the water off to the west, practically beginning to be attacked and defeated in detail. Another two caravels and a frigate were off to the east of Zitronenhain, in the open water, in full view of the enemy, basically hanging around waiting to die. The Germany fleet absolutely needed to be concentrated together here in one group, and since they had numerical disadvantage, they needed to be back far enough to ensure that they couldn't be hit with a devastating first strike. Let TheArchduke come forward and try to attack a city, and then counter-attack with German ships getting in all the initial attacks. Singaboy couldn't win straight-up against the English fleet, not at numerical disadvantage and with Great Admirals on the other side, but he could have inflicted larger casualties and slowed down the invasion, granting more time for additional ships to complete and for some of his army to return from ex-Norway. Germany had the production advantage, and now that TheArchduke had invested his treasury into this fleet, it would take a while for England to build more ships. This was a serious misplay from an normally excellent tactical mind.

Needless to say, Singaboy left himself wide open and TheArchduke didn't miss the opportunity:

TheArchduke: After forcing Singaboy to defend both coasts, I carefully move my fleet alltogether east to Zitronenstadt. Threats are Frigates > Caravels > City walls > Crossbowmen, so I prioritise accordingly. Zitronenstadt should fall next turn and I should be able to catch his wounded frigate. His 3 caravels are free to either run against my city walls north or file 1 by 1 to the slaughter.

TheArchduke sunk two caravels and crippled the remaining German frigate, concentrating all of his naval power in the east while ignoring the three German caravels in the west. Zitronenhain lost its city walls leaving it unable to shoot back at invaders. The city itself fell the next turn:

And since Kiel had no city walls, TheArchduke was able to sweep in and take that city as well. A huge chunk of the German homeland had been swallowed up just like that in the span of two turns. Furthermore, TheArchduke's naval force had barely been scratched thus far in the war. There didn't appear to be much of anything that would stop him from continuing the conquest and overrunning the rest of the German home continent. Everyone in the game was shocked at this reversal, Singaboy's Germany suddenly collapsing under this naval invasion from the north. Singaboy himself was despondent in his spoiler thread:

Make no mistake about it, this was a very bad position for Singaboy. He didn't have the naval forces needed to stop TheArchduke, and those Great Admirals made the English ships a nightmare to confront. However, this wasn't as impossible of a position as his posts suggested, and we would see later in the game that it was possible, albeit difficult, to made a stand under similar circumstances. Singaboy was simply off his game here, with a good chunk of his forces off attacking oledavy for unclear reasons, and half his fleet left exposed in the waters to be destroyed on the first turn of the war. While this situation was almost certainly unwinnable, I maintain that Germany could have put up more of a fight with better tactics.

While this was taking place, Woden and oledavy were working together to destroy a long-shot Spanish invasion of the Jerusalem city state:

I have no idea either what the plan was behind this Spanish attack. It seemed doomed to failure from the start.

Back in the main theatre of the world war, TheArchduke's navy had swung around counterclockwise and prepared to attack the western coast of Germany. First TheArchduke went after Salz am Meer:

TheArchduke: Our southern caravel acts as a spotter and see 2 frigates and turns back. Even Great Admiral supported it is at risk of being sunk, but I much rather run over Singaboys industrial powerhouses quickly (+10 production in Salz am Meer before I take it, wow....) It looks like his capital is actually inland, which is terrible bad news. I might have to consider negotiating for the ceding of some cities (yay CIV VI peace and occupation rules), which I doubt Singaboy will go for. We might need to do something about our amenties soon. Especially if Oledavy does not conquer Norway off Singaboy, I can't do everything by myself. I might have been better off just razing everything... Aachen can be bombarded by sea. So I need units and can easily take it after bombing it down. Question is can I conquer all of Norway against Singaboy's army. I seriously doubt it. I am considering offering a grand bargain peace. All of Norway and Toronto and I return his whole island to him.

The one fatal flaw for TheArchduke was the fact that his entire military in this area was naval-based. There were no land units coming along for the attack; the two English swords had appeared out of thin air due to the English unique ability that spawns a melee unit when a city on another continent is captured. This had a surprisingly decisive effect upon the future course of the PBEM4 game. Singaboy was in little position to fight back, and TheArchduke almost certainly could have taken the remainder of the German cities if he had continued pushing onwards. Instead, TheArchduke proposed a peace treaty to Singaboy: they would sign peace and all of the cities on the German mainland would be returned... in exchange for the cessation of all the German cities on the Norwegian continent.

This was an interesting offer. On the one hand, it was a lifeline for Singaboy to get out of a disastrous war that he was losing badly. TheArchduke would gain a massive amount of territory at a stroke, albeit territory that had been heavily fought over and which had almost nothing in the way of districts or other infrastructure. That made the offered deal seem like a clear win for Germany, regaining enormously productive home cities in exchange for underdeveloped territories on another continent. On the other hand, peace treaties only last for 10 turns in Civ6, and there was little guarantee that TheArchduke wouldn't simply return to attack Germany again when the treaty expired and complete his conquest of Singaboy. If TheArchduke could control his own continent, the Norwegian continent, plus the German continent, that would be the effective end of the game for everyone else.

Ultimately, Singaboy did accept the offered deal, which had to wait until Turn 130 to be signed due to Civ6 mechanics. (Once war is declared, the two sides cannot talk or sign peace for 10 turns.) Afterwards Singaboy began to rebuild what was left of Germany, reduced back to the original starting continent:

TheArchduke was quite rightly pleased with this course of events, and looked to be in the process of consolidating his future victory:

Note the repeated mentions of Woden by both Singaboy and TheArchduke. The Brazilian player had earlier signed an alliance with oledavy's Japan, and oledavy had been under the assumption that Woden would now work together with his civ to stop TheArchduke in the same fashion that they had been cooperating against Germany earlier. Of course that cooperation had been more theoretical than anything that manifested in reality; neither Japan nor Brazil sent any units to attack Germany in the most recent conflict, though oledavy's Japan had fought off a German attack against one of his cities. One of the things that alliances grant is visibility of the other player's territory, and Woden observed that there were no land units on the Japanese home island. With Brazil and Japan located close to one another, he mentioned that this might be a potential avenue of attack for Brazil later in the game when the Minas Geraes battleships arrived.

Then this decisive offer arrived from TheArchduke on Turn 132:

This decision never made a lot of sense to me. With TheArchduke now the clear leader in the game, the plan for Brazil was to... sign an alliance with TheArchduke to make it easier for him to win? While Woden was correct that he was under no obligation to help oledavy win, I'm not sure how entering into an alliance with TheArchduke particularly helped him in this situation. At the very least, signing nothing at all would force TheArchduke to remain on his toes due to the uncertainty about whether or not Brazil would join in an attack. Honestly, this seemed to be more about leftover feelings from the PBEM2 game, where Woden continued to blame oledavy (rather unfairly in my opinion) for not doing more to stop Alhambram's victory.

Woden was certainly right about one thing though: there were angry diplo posts forthcoming from oledavy.

Strong words certainly, but I tended to agree with oledavy. Woden really was falling into the same trap as he did in the PBEM2 game, operating under the assumption that if he only had 25 more turns to build up his civ, then Brazil would be strong enough to make a decisive and winning move. This is a common error for newer players in these Multiplayer games: you have to consider not only where your civ will be in 25 turns, but where everyone else will be in 25 turns. And even though Minas Geraeses would be a powerful weapon indeed, they weren't going to be enough to accomplish much if TheArchduke had control over half the land in the game. This new alliance had to have been particularly frustrating given that oledavy had just signed his own alliance with Woden five turns earlier. Some of the lurkers were critical of oledavy's theatrics, but I've been in the same position in these games and it's easy to overreact. Letting off some steam in your own spoiler thread is understandable.

Fortunately for oledavy, he did complete the Venetian Arsenal on schedule:

Oledavy had timed a whole bunch of ship builds to finish the turn after the Venetian Arsenal so that they would all be doubled in number, and Japan's navy would be formidable indeed with this production advantage going forward. Interestingly enough, while TheArchduke's England was now the score and territorial leader, Japan still remained the science leader. Oledavy was hoping that he could reach submarines on a determined beeline to Electricity tech, and then upgrade some of his frigates into those deadly Modern era ships. TheArchduke managed to swipe away Charles Darwin, a Great Scientist, to get a burst of research towards Steam Power tech and the ironclads contained there. This was the main reason why TheArchduke was able to keep pace in the critical naval tech race. Note that oledavy also mentioned above the importance of gold to maintain huge fleets of ships and upgrade older ships into newer ones. This was a crucially important aspect of the gameplay here as the technological eras continued to advance. Civ6 does a better job of simulating the financial aspects of war better than any previous game in the series. More advanced units are very, very expensive and civs that can't afford them will be defeated by those who can. All of the players would soon be scrambling for every penny that they could find.

Oledavy was still at war with Jester, and beginning the process of attacking the Spanish continent:

De Soto was the first city to fall, with a Japanese missionary tagging along with the invasion force to spread religion (and Defender of the Faith) inside. The Spanish campaign would be an extended affair, due to a combination of a number of inland cities that were difficult for oledavy to attack, and the need for Japan to hold units back in defense against TheArchduke. Nonetheless, Jester was in serious trouble and Japan was slowly gaining more territory (under the occupation penalty) in the south.

Oledavy's frustration with Woden also caused him to break an agreed-upon deal regarding the Jerusalem city state. They had previously negotiated that Woden would pay oledavy 350 gold and in exchange Brazil would get control of the city state. However, oledavy decided to unilaterally cancel that agreement in a show of extreme bad faith:

This was a terrible breach of faith, and a sign of poor sportsmanship on oledavy's part. For that matter, I'm not even sure that it was worth the betrayal. It drove Woden firmly into TheArchduke's camp as a result:

I think this whole incident indicates why the public diplomacy thread was a mistake. The back and forth led to serious bad blood between players that our community is normally able to avoid in Multiplayer games. Oledavy certainly looked bad here, and yet he likely was correct in his metagaming; Woden seemed determined to work against his Japanese civ at least in part due to animosity from the last PBEM game. In any case, oledavy was able to steal Woden's gold and also pick up a city for himself, which in pure realpolitik terms was a victory for Japan.

But this betrayal did mean that the sides were being drawn for the next phase of worldwide conflict. Woden was now committed to TheArchduke's cause against oledavy, although Woden still harbored plans of striking out and making a move for himself when his Minas Geraeses appeared on the scene. Oledavy was also at war with Jester's Spain, the forgotten civ having fallen into virtual irrelevance by this point in time but still clinging to life. However, there was one thing that was genuinely new. A dramatic shift had taken place in the diplomacy between oledavy and Singaboy. Whereas earlier in the game it had been Japan organizing a coalition to stop Germany from taking over Norway, now Japan and Germany were increasingly thrust into a situation where they needed to work together. Singaboy needed help to survive a repeat attack from TheArchduke, while oledavy simply needed any allies at all. The next big date was going to be Turn 144, when TheArchduke's previous peace treaty signed with Singaboy on Turn 130 would expire. Singaboy was making preparations for the return of the English fleet:

The critical question now became what oledavy would choose to do. TheArchduke was about to attack Singaboy as soon as Turn 144 arrived and the peace treaty ran out. Would Japan move its Venetian Arsenal-powered fleet to assist Germany, or would oledavy instead focus on conquering Spain? This was the subject of considerable debate in oledavy's spoiler thread. His dedicated lurker and teammate Chevalier Mal Fet ultimately provided the argument that spurred the final decision:

This was the correct analysis: winning the game was going to come down to which player could defeat the other player's main fleet. If oledavy could destroy the English armada, then the rest of the game from that point on would be a mop-up exercise. Similarly, if TheArchduke could find and decisively defeat the Japanese fleet, that would also put an end to this contest. Perhaps Woden would be able to pull a rabbit out of his hat somewhere, but that seemed unlikely. Under this logic, it was better to fight the English navy in German waters with local German support than to abandon Singaboy and try to take on TheArchduke (and probably Woden) alone. Oledavy agreed and decided that he would throw in his lot with Singaboy. The Japanese navy would steam east to confront the English fleet.

PBEM4 was therefore divided up into a 2 vs 2 scenario, with England and Brazil facing off against Japan and Germany (and Spain still kicking around in the background). A true Axis vs Allies scenario! The core battleground was going to fall in German territory once again, where seemingly the action had been concentrated throughout the entire game. A final great clash of fleets was just around the corner, with the overall game going as the prize to the winner.