Realms Beyond PBEM7: Part Five: The Denouement

Chevalier Mal Fet:
I have no idea how things went after Turn 146, but I have a few guesses based on the org thread and my own instincts. There's a lot to talk about in turn 146, and I'm not sure I have the time to do it all justice! First, I want to emphasize that Woden was in a really, really tough situation. Put yourself in his shoes - you get dropped on literally turn 1 into one of the biggest naval wars in Civ VI multiplayer. You have one concrete instruction ("Raze Genova," I now regret appending the at-all-costs modifier to it as I think we DID go full Battle of Manticore), and to make matters worse thanks to a really dumb mistake by your partner (more on that in a second), you have enemy fleets already all up in your business. Tactically, strategically, psychologically, grammatically, that's a hugely difficult spot to be put under. Woden, I appreciate it immensely, and I have no complaints about the choices you made in that situation.

Second, let's talk about my assumptions going into the war. My operating strategy, if I recall it correctly, was to knock out Genova with an alpha strike at the start of the war, neatly cutting off most Roman reinforcements from reaching the northern sea until Sullla could train and march another settler, which should buy enough time to turn, meet his fleet under hopefully favorable circumstances, and win the battle for the ocean. Roughly, this was the scenario I was hoping for:

Turn 146: Rome declares war, either steams east to confront the decoy fleet or cautiously probes local waters while staying concentrated around Nan Madol until Sullla could upgrade to battleships. England launches the first attack on Genova. The rest of the fleet maneuvers to launch a first strike on Roman reinforcements. Turn 147: Rome steams for Genova, but doesn't have enough movement to interfere, and most of the English fleet is capable of setting up to intercept. Alternatively, Rome abandons the city and steams for the English coast (this was my biggest fear). England razes Genova, finishes uniting the fleet, and continues maneuvering for a first strike. Turn 148+ With Genova razed, the two fleets contend on roughly equal terms - each of us has ~4 cities to build ships from, and the Venetian Arsenal + Great Admiral + Great Lighthouse combo tips thinks England's way even in the face of Roman promotions (the Terracotta Army was a great play by Sullla) and tech advantage.

That didn't happen, obviously.



Third, let's talk about the most decisive issue: The Roman first strike was far more severe than even my worst case scenario. How did that happen? Well, a couple of things. 1) I was counting on stealth to mostly preserve the fleet. Unfortunately, I had fantastically bad luck and not only did Sullla stumble upon the scout Sea Dogs keeping an eye on things, he discovered the main body with most of his fleet still ready to move and launch an all-out assault. This totally invalidated what I was hoping for on the first turn, but I didn't entirely plan on stealth... 2) If Rome did find the fleet, I had positioned myself so that if he steamed straight at me, only his front rank ships could reach me, while the rest would be unable to support. He'd injure or kill 2-3 frigates on the front lines, and then my counterattack could drop on his fleet like a sledgehammer.

Unnnnfortunately I made one enormous blunder. This is probably the most important mistake of the game, guys, so I'll set it apart here: I have no idea how far each generation of ships can move. I could have looked it up, but the wiki is often wrong, and besides, I was lazy and had an easier method. To calculate Rome's movement, I took my own ships, and subtracted 3 move points: 1 for the Royal Navy Dockyard, 1 for the Great Lighthouse, and 1 for the Great Admiral. My own ships could move 7 tiles with all those advantages, so Rome could only move 4, right? Ha! Wrong. See, Great Admiral move points are not added to the total move pool, I don't think. So when I set up just within the outer edge of Rome's range, I actually was well within range for him to sail up and smash me, because he's got 5 move points, not 4. Ouch. As a result, my fleet got smacked around a lot.

4)Should we have continued to go for Genova? Well, eyeballing it, it looks like Woden took the city, but at the expense of the fleet. I'm hoping he was able to draw some blood from Sullla's main force first. Was that the right call? The ultimate goal of razing Genova was to hit the Roman fleet and ensure it couldn't be replaced. The idea was we'd hit it unopposed, then be able to pivot and bring the full weight of our ships to bear on the Roman navy. However, Sullla's luck in finding my fleet, coupled with my own idiocy giving him a solid first strike, invalidated a lot of my planning for the war. I think, finding myself in the situation Woden did at the start of 146, I might have concentrated all my efforts on the Roman fleet first and Genova second. The armadas and fleets would hit very hard, and I think I still had enough ships to seriously maul the Roman fleet, while Decoy Force steamed to join me. It might even have been worth ignoring the ironclad - those bastards can take a beating - to get there, but it's also hard to criticize Woden opting to sink a potential threat and scout (seriously, information is so important in naval warfare. DAMN the luck that got my Sea Dogs found, why did Sullla even sail that direction? Two sea dogs would have made a great difference on turn 146 to Woden).



However, Woden's decision is entirely defensible as well. First, I told him to go for Genova, so any blame for focusing on it over the Roman fleet falls on me, not him. I didn't leave clear enough instructions for what to do if the Romans did something unexpected, and that's my fault, since I knew I was leaving. I should have given him more flexibility. Second, we have Steel to worry about. It's quite possible that we'd beat the Roman fleet, only to lose most of our own, and for the survivors to find that Genova is too difficult a nut to crack with Steel defenses and battleships in the canal. We'd then get overwhelemed and beaten anyway.

So those are my quick, rough impressions of the turn from Woden's report. It looks as though we won a psychological victory, however - our endless waves of ships burned out Sullla and Singaboy! In my personal opinion, Rome/China have this game all but won. In time, they will slug through my chopped-out navy as I run out of resources to chop, war weariness will drag my economy down, and of course I freely gave up on science and culture 20 turns ago to focus on fielding the biggest, baddest navy I could. Long-term, there's no way they don't grind me down and start razing cities, and they'll come after Woden with tanks and infantry to crush field cannons and cavalry soon - or they could. And if nothing else, they could go full turtle and space-race victory. Stalemated wars can favor both sides.

I guess there's also Germany to consider. They need to beat Woden and I by turn 165 or so to avoid a dogpile, and it's looking like that's not happening? I'm not sure how the later turns of the war went, but Woden apparently put up a stout defense! Well done, Woden! Anyway, there's no way Woden and I win this game, so yeah, by all means, I say we take the draw.

Singaboy:
Well, I thought one of the privateers would be safe from an English attack in our waters but it seems the frigates and most likely, sea dogs are well within our waters. I have to play really careful here not to lose more of the precious few units we have. One knight is moving into Venezia to be upgraded to a tank and thus increasing the defensive values next turn.Next turn is a big turn as I will get Urbanization and of course, Combustion to upgrade those knight to tanks. I will also swap out Professional Army for now as I hope to upgrade all knights to tanks and then enable to policy to get gold from defeating units from earlier eras.



In the east, there is no longer any English navy present. I have actually managed to defeat them there. If he has 40 ships in the other sea soon, I am doomed anyway. However, for now, it is time to plan a proper strategy to take those cities and then move the navy into other waters. Rome will finish a new settler in 2 turns making a passage viable in about 5 turns. This is getting pretty tight with regards to Germany attacking us. Lepanto's health is blown away while I ship in an ironclad and promote all those ships that can be promoted. Two battleship fleets are equipped with +7 attack strength versus district, which will be important when attacking cities. I have two ironclads to take Lepanto and hopefully Valletta next turn. The fall of Lepanto is a foregone conclusion. However, it will be interesting to see how long it will take to conquer Valletta. It's wall have 100 health. I can attack with three fleets, two have 87 strength. Those two should be able to eliminate the walls. I can then attack with a fleet and a normal battleship, hopefully taking the city with the second ironclad.



Let's have a look at the bigger picture in the east. If I can take Lepanto and Valletta next turn, I would like to move south the take Actium and Midway. Actium would give us the Great Lighthouse for faster movement. It would have to be a swift action so that my fleet can sail to protect Rome's western flank. At the same time, knights are being upgraded to tanks next turn. The plan is to take Hathor from the north while China is providing support from the west. If there is good progress, Jutland could be taking via land forces rather than keeping the fleet busy for too long. Hathor having a defense value of 86 doesn't make things easier though

Chevalier Mal Fet:
Okay, let's talk grand strategy for a moment. The battle of Genova Cape and the struggle for the Mediterranean have been decisively settled in Rome's favor. A variety of factors led to this result - superior Roman play (building the Terracotta Army, a vastly superior research base arriving at Steel very early, with lots of gold for upgrades to spare) combined with luck breaking pretty much all one direction (the Sea Dog bug that no one felt was worth mentioning, the lack of an English canal preventing me concentrating my navy as the Romans did, turn order granting Rome a first strike instead of England, my having to travel right at the critical turns), but we've got to make the best of it. I can delay a bit, but in the long term, my cities on that coast will fall to battleship and ironclad combined assaults. The land cannot defend against the sea. Actium will sting, but the rest of the cities are shitty chop plants that I've squeezed everything useful out of. Singaboy can raze or capture them as he likes. So, why delay?

Well, I have a new strategy for the war. My goal is to hang on until Russian/German intervention, and do as much damage as I can in the interim. I think I can do that. Right now there's an opening: Most of Rome's navy - maybe almost all of it, from my scouting - is in the Mediterranean, laying waste to my cities (Lepanto is a blasted ruin and ready to fall on turn 155). It currently has no means of return until Rome gets a settler ot the former Genovan site, and it needs to take some time to finish off my cities. So, I'm going to repeat our earlier strategy:



This is a small initial striking force, but I have about 4 more frigates and Ironclad within 5 turn's sail of Siena. Every settler is getting more and more expensive for Rome - they've probably got a replacement on the way for Genova, but I doubt they have two. I want to quietly build up out of Singaboy's sight, probably combining into a trio of fleets for more firepower, then I strike out of the fog at Siena and raze it, too. Then all of Rome's battleship fleets are STILL locked into the wrong sea - just as Germany/Russia enter the war and as my fully armed and operational second fleet (which has its own terracotta army at the fjord!) enters the sea. If I can take Siena, then THIS TIME for sure I should be able to control this sea, which is Rome's economic heartland. I can then try and gut the place. It'll be tough going, with Steel defenses against Frigate fleets, but I'm going to take my best shot at it. Like I said, I'm constitutionally incapable of defending. I have to hit back somehow, try and take the initiative. If everything goes beautifully, we could even fantasize about bringing Rome/China low enough for Russia/Germany to beat them and win the whole game. That would invalidate my Hitler rant from earlier, since it would turn out to have been a brilliant play by the Archduke, but what the hell.

Here's the early wave of the Siena strike force:



6 frigates, 2 sea dogs, 2 ironclads. Probably want to combine the frigates into fleets for more punch, but the sea dogs I like separate - gives me more scouting, and I have twice the chance to capture things? Maybe? Not sure on the math. Anyway, we'll combine everyone and strike at the city, unless a better target presents itself.

International news: The Archduke is assaulting Lisbon himself, and his own fleet can contend (maybe) with a battered Roman navy in 6 turns:



If I can take out one more battleship fleet before succumbing on the Mediterranean, I'll be over the moon - let the Archduke bleed the rest. Eventually we'll overwhelm Rome, I don't think Singaboy's civs are good enough to survive a 2 v 1. Emperor's Cossacks are ready to go:



Emperor will get first strike, and cossacks are the best unit possible for cracking a fortified city like that. Archduke has some frigates to help out with fire support, as well, though the battleship means China's defense here will be stubborn. Since Woden's busy, here's his front:



Good enough until tanks. Then we'll probably melt here, as well. The goal is to buy time, remember. We can trade space for time here, and maybe retake this area later if the war on the China/Rome home front goes splendidly.

Singaboy:
T155: Combustion is done , Urbanization too. This means tanks and the drop of Professional Army. My usual scouting between Siena and Venezia reveals another sea dog. It seems, England is trying to get to Siena. It might be their next target to prevent Rome's fleet from crossing over. I have to tread waters very carefully here with the limited navy I have. I hold back the attack from now, as I want to swap policy cards. First, I need to upgrade as many knights as possible in the east to stage an attack on England (not Hathor for now, I agree it would be suicidal).



Knight to tank upgrades are insanely expensive even at 50% discount. I think, Sulla had the impression that corps and armies would enjoy a discount for upgrades. I know that you simply pay double or triple the cost. No discount as a knight-> tank upgrade costs 230 gold. With this, I can only afford 4 knight upgrades. I use the gold for two tank corps to push defense values of cities up. This will make it even harder for anyone attempting to attack Rome's cities. I am hoping to send those tank corps east to attack English cities with some naval support. Time to take out Professional Army and test a new policy. I am waiting for levee en masse for some substantial maintenance savings here, but let's try this. 50% gold for killing troops that are from an earlier era.



With that policy in place, I sink the sea dog with Rome's ironclad fleet causing a mere 7 damage. This results in 20 gold for us. This reveals another frigate. The good thing here is, England has got no city at all to upgrade any troops unless they take a city from us. This has to be prevented at all costs. It won't be that easy for them, just look at the defense rating for Rome's cities, Venezia and Siena at 86. I take out the frigate with a double shot from the privateer fleet and the battleship gaining as many hp as possible. I will have to continue to sit tight here. Roma's settler will be done next turn. I have another privateer fleet waiting to cross via the canal, that should be operational on T157. In the meantime, I am trying to get some builders to chop whatever is left to chop for quick units.



Let's move attention to the eastern Ocean. I take Lepanto via a shot from the privateer fleet, then an ironclad. That was trivial as I mentioned. The capture reveals a Nubian ironclad to protect Valletta. That is too bad as it will delay the capture of the city. On the other hand, Rome will gain an extra 30 gold sinking the ironclad.



I sink the ironclad using two battleships, then use three fleets to shell the walls in Valetta, then finish off the attack with a third battleship and finally the ironclad. The city is going to fall next turn. Surely the crossbow will attack on of the ships, but that doesn't really concern me. I will turn around fleet as fast as possible to move south and take Midway and other cities. No time to be wasted here at all to get the ships west. I will pick up some promotions while moving. Lepanto with its harbor gives Rome yet another trade route, I swap Ostia to produce that.

Singaboy:
T156: Rome is clearly on a roll. Anyway, is there a bug with privateers versus privateers. How come I can spot England's sea dog from two tiles away? This happened before with England's sea dog armada. Maybe fleets can see 2 tiles even if the enemy is supposed to be invisible? I attack the sea dog with my privateer fleet and then the battleship to earn more gold. Tonnes of gold are needed from now to upgrade China's troops til T161. Roma's settler is on the way to found a new city on T158. For the time being my ships will only move about the vicinity of Siena and Venezia. Moving forward would most likely be suicidal.



I conquer Valletta with a battleship shot as well as the ironclad which earn a promotion as well. That is great as I can then sail back immediately. The city has awesome production if it has the population. Now at pop 4, it's just an average city but better than nothing. Can someone tell me why the city walls are only at 100 strength, half of what is supposed to be? Seems to be another glitch.

I move a lot of troops towards Midway, Actium and Jutland. Actium has a frigate to defend the city. Midway's city health is halfway down by sniping battleships. On land, a field cannon removes one crossbow that was standing on the hill. Unless Judtland gets its walls up soon, the city might be gone next turn or the turn after that. Nubia is the one with advanced technology (they are only 1 level behind us in tech), but England seems somewhat backwards. This is the opportunity to be seized.



And the England front, I move a tank corp forward and spot units that are less than frightening. This is looking good and encourages me to move all tanks forward with field cannons behind. Let's have a look at the strategical view. Next turn, Actium can be attacked by at least 2 battleships and 2 fleets. That won't be enough to capture the city in one turn, I assume. If the ironclad can actually slip past Actium (I reckon ZoC will stop it), it will capture Midway first (there are battleships that can attack Midway from the west) and then on T158, Actium. With TGL [The Great Lighthouse] in Rome's hands, battleships will then be able to move 7 tiles a turn and sail west as fast as possible to reach Siena and then defend that part of the Ocean. With the capture of Midway, I can pull some ships west even on T158 itself.

Chevalier Mal Fet:
Really, guys, there's nothing more to be done at this point. Somehow, Singaboy found my scouting Sea Dog AGAIN and killed it. How the fuck does he always know exactly where they're hiding? Is he proceeding tile by tile until he bumps into one? This is kind of irritating at this point, or it would be, if it made any difference.

Singaboy:
T147 (Rome): The situation with regards to England looks pretty promising here. I move in the vessels to attack both Midway and Actium. I am going to hit both cities with battleships before deciding which city will be taken first as I only have one ironclad available. The other ironclad moves out of Valletta while getting promoted to get +10 strength against bombardment. That will make this ironclad even harder to sink. Note also England's crossbows perfectly lined up to be shot, not too sure why he didn't retreat them.



The result of the battleship bombardment is devastation. Both Midway and Actium have no health left, the musket next to Midway has been sunk (with a lvl 3 battleship with 87 strength for unit bombardment). Obviously the choice is clear which city will be taken first. I did not foresee such clear result and had thought, I need another round of shelling here. The ironclad which has earned a promotion is still fine to take Midway next turn. These cities are all bare bones after being stripped of all forests and stone. However, Actium has the TGL making Rome's vessels now faster and in turn, England's vessels slower. This is very important. This very turn though, the behavior is weird, even though the movement display increases by one, the remaining ships I move are still at 6 tile actual movement. I need to check this next turn. You can see one unused battleship, which sails west and gets a promotion.



With the bombardment from the sea so devastating, it is time to roll in the tanks. I move in all three tanks and get a somewhat lucky second strike with the tank corp taking the city. Those tanks cut through the English cities like butter. 5 damage taken while causing 167 damage? Amazing. Better still, the city itself can defend the very turn against those English sitting ducks. It is a pity that the third tank here can't attack any longer with too little movement left. I sure would have loved to steal that builder. With the conquest of Jutland, the roads between Roman land and this city get upgraded for faster movement. That's a Roman feature I guess, very handy indeed. I can roll in the field cannons and clear the land from those crossbows. This is what the situation looks like at the end of the action. Two new cities for Rome, 2 new trade routes available giving a total of 19. 47 gold gained by defeating some units (those units in captured cities and city wall kills don't count).



The situation in the east: The problem with Nubia is that they have reached steel and all their cities are very hard to conquer thanks to 200/200 city defenses. The goal here can only be to draw Nubian units away from China and maybe take out some English cities at the other coast. I wouldn't want to keep them as the English navy could just shell those cities. Razing Leyte Gulf and Abourkir Bay would be additional blows to England. The Roman navy however, is now free to move west. I need to decide to defend Lisbon or cross over to the other Ocean.



The situation near Germany. England is trying to sail towards out cities via the very south. A long route indeed. The good thing here is, that England can't upgrade their navy unless they manage to take a city. Even with frigate fleets, that won't be that easy. German cities have been upgraded as well in their defenses due to steel. A bummer. The question is, should Rome sail into those waters to fight?

The situation near the northern pole of the world. Germany has quite a few vessels here ready to take Lisbon. Rome's fleet could just arrive in time here to fight Germany on T161. Unless Germany suddenly produces a lot of naval units in their own cities, China should be able to keep Germany at bay in the west. I am no longer scared of all those cossack. I think Russia waited too long to use them. They aren't that stellar against 200/200 cities with defenses of 80+. So, the question remains, where to send the main navy to? Splitting it might cause a defeat in either location.

Singaboy:
I am a little surprised how much health is left in Lisbon. The longer the German navy is caught up there, the better. Will give China the chance for a more decisive first strike.



I move the navy towards Siena. The navy will get there on T161 not able to make any impact. However, with the English navy being slowly moving forward, it might end up with a big clash of another naval battle later on with Germany siding together with England. England is pretty much broke and can't just upgrade their navy. In two turns, I will have two privateer armadas between Siena and Venezia. As long as the navy is between Siena, Ferrara and Venezia, Rome should be safe.

At this point, I have to say, that the game gets more pointless as cities cannot produce anything in a meaningful time frame to keep up with technology and civics. If you don't have the troops from much earlier eras, there is no way to produce a tank, battleships to react to enemy forces. It is either chop or die. I can play China's turns in minutes as there is simply hardly anything happening (besides the actual and looming war). Settlers, builders, districts and especially units are so expensive, cities really need far better boosts to production. If your capital makes 40 hammers, what can it really do? Even though I am playing these last few turns, I have to say, that the game has really put me off Civ 6. There needs to be some proper balance here. The very fact that food can't be converted into production (only some meager bonus for specialists) etc makes the mid to late game arduous. I think I am close to burnt out with Civ 6.

TheArchduke and EmperorK:
Lisbon actually proves a tough nut meaning it may not actually fall. What a disaster. I steal some funds and prepare for the upgrades. I am not too hopeful.

Hmm, we can probably call it a day. I do not think my fleet advantage is that overwhelming.

* * * * * * * * * *

Ya I can call it as well.

Chevalier Mal Fet:
Okay, so the last half of the game was a long, slow slide for me. I've noted a lot of the problems already: Lack of new cities, Lack of growth in old cities, Negligence of districts. These three things gave me a small, weak civ by turn 100. I was aware of it, and spent most of the rest of the game working to correct it, knowing that I could never 'catch up' since the other teams would grow just as fast or faster, but hoping I could stay within striking distance and exploit an opening. The big play, of course, the game-saving play, the one thing that kept Singaboy and Sullla from just running over everyone else, was snatching the Venetian Arsenal. The neat thing about this is that I did most of the work building the wonder before I ever unlocked the tech. I didn't reach Mass Production until t106 and I didn't start the wonder itself until t110. Instead, I needed to quickly prebuild some ships, chop those into an Industrial District, then rebuild my ship charges and ancient walls to load up the VA chops themselves.

Navarino helped, as it was the perfect city - no less than 3 stone tiles nearby. I had to buy a lot of tiles to get everything set up - basically the money that would have gone to knight/crossbow upgrades. That ~700 gold stung a lot, but it was worth it to land the wonder. I was also fortunate that I never built walls in the city, saving the Limes chop for a time like this, and I had the ability to build 2 different ships with Maritime Industries. I therefore had a dream scenario: 3 100% boosted Stone harvests for maximum overflow, and a handful of jungles and forests afterwards to rush the last bits conventionally. However, all of this took a tremendous amount of logistical work to set up beforehand, getting the district in place and the walls and ships built BEFORE I finished Mass Production. I started the work on turn 80 and I still barely finished in time (waiting for Monarchy to squeeze an extra 50% out). I was also neatly urged along by my visibility of Sullla's own progress over in his city. Thankfully, he didn't seem to grasp the true idiocy of chop overflows quite yet, and he settled for slow-building the thing over 20-odd turns - which, to be fair, is the way it had always been done. I think everyone knows, now, that you can't do that and hope to land a wonder anymore. A RB mod really needs to address chop overflow, because it dominates the game and frankly, I hate it - it's not very much fun to play around and I imagine it's not fun to read about, neither, but you've got to do it or else you fall behind your rivals.

I also scored a diplomatic coup the same turn the Arsenal finished, landing a DoF [Declaration of Friendship] with Sullla/Singaboy. I still think this was a boon to our team - I had next to no navy in the western ocean at all, most of my ships had been built in the south. As soon as the VA completed, I founded 3 cities in the west and started chopping out ships. In retrospect, I maybe should have prioritized Midway and Lepanto more than Savo and Syracuse, since that would have meant a handful more ships produced and that could have been the difference. However, at the time I founded those cities, I was counting on a joint war with Russia/Germany to take down the leaders. Yes, I had landed the VA, but I expected Archduke and Emperor to see that that merely compensated for an abysmal research rate and a low population, not to see me as a threat to win the game. However, I felt that with the VA and Woden's archers/GGs [Great Generals] on our side, and Cossacks/Hansas on the other, we'd stand a good chance of taking down Rome/China before their massive science rate ran away with the game.



That, of course, didn't happen. I stand by most of my rant at the time Germany allied with Rome/China. I can understand Archduke's play, I guess - he didn't want to face Rome/China alone, and why not take the guaranteed peace? Send the big dog after the other guy, then come in later. It's the same play Woden and I were planning on, but I think Archduke was mistaken, because of that crucial edge the other team had in research rates. Consider a war where Rome/China go after Germany on turn 135, still 15 turns out from Steel and Combustion, fighting with frigates, knights, and muskets against similar tech, including Cossacks, on one side, and a horde of frigates boosted by the VA on the other. That was the war I was angling for. By signing peace, Germany pushed the war back 10 turns, and by the time he and Emperor could have come in, England was in ruins (more due to tactical blunders on my part, though, that didn't HAVE to happen) and Cossacks were obsolete. Totally different complexion.

As for the war itself, I don't have much commentary - I think I've noted all the major points in previous posts already. In the interests of completeness, though I think my strategy going in to the war was a good one - lure Sullla away from his key city, strike it and raze it in the first 2 turns of the war, then turn and confront his fleet. As I envisioned it, I would hit the city while his fleet was down around Nan Madol, unable to sail back in time. After the fall of Genova, we'd be on an equal playing field regarding fleet production, and then I could use my Venetian Arsenal to overcome his scientific advantage. Parts of the plan went well. Not defending Nan Madol was the right call - I did force Singaboy to burn some envoys on it to boot me out before the war started, but I still kept the culture right up until the first turn of the war itself, which was the best case scenario. With the Roman first strike potential I could never have held the city longer than I did, and if the Genova plan had worked I could have retaken it at my leisure and restored my culture. I also got most of the fleet in position on the right turn, and I was able to save most of my decoy fleet.

Ultimately, of course, the plan failed as initially conceived. Why? Couple of reasons. 1)Lack of canal - This meant that Rome could build using twice as many cities as I could, which effectively negated the advantage of the Venetian Arsenal. When war broke out, we had a modest numerical advantage, but not a 2:1 ratio - it looks like it was more 4:3. Adding in my second fleet in southern waters, like Sullla could, would have made the ratio closer to 7 or even 8:3 in my favor. That would have decided things even if nothing else changed. My not having a canal city was decisive in this game.

2)The Terracotta Army - this was a great move by Rome. In one neat move, he negated my Great Admiral advantage and then some, with +7 promotions on every ship. My qualitative vanish disappeared overnight, and suddenly all I had was my own modest numerical advantage against Roman ships just as strong and very near battleships. No excuses for missing this play - I could have built the damn wonder myself, but I didn't think to. 3)Rome's first strike - the fleet battle was effectively decided on the first turn of the war, when Rome sank half of the "real" navy in one blow before I even had a chance to move. That's why the war isn't tactically too interesting - Rome won because he got to move first and I did not. If the shoe had been on the other foot, we could have sunk 10 Roman frigates on the first turn, and gotten the rest before he was able to upgrade them to Battleships (Woden's reporting is fuzzy here, but by turn 151, I was facing battleships all over the place, which means the upgrades came on turn 149 or 148). Why did Rome get first strike? I'll break this down, too.



a) I was a moron and couldn't count. Deployed my fleet too close to Rome's, thinking I had a one-tile greater buffer than I did. This si the biggest reason. Huge blunder on my part and ultimately it should have cost me the game. b) Rome knew where my Sea Dogs were all along - which meant that he knew where most of my fleet was, since the Sea Dogs were the nearer screen of the fleet (duh, since they're invisible...right? Wrong). This meant that he didn't blunder into the main fleet with a few ships after moving most of 'em, he went straight at it with his whole force. c) Rome gets to move first. No way around this one. If any one of those three facts change, Rome doesn't get to sink my fleet before I even have a chance to fight back, and we have a proper fight, one I think I could have won. Ah, well.

As we know, once the fleet was gone, the war, and the game were effectively decided - I had no means of defending my coastal cities (I could blast those tanks to scrap with frigate fleets if I had won), and with the loss of half my empire Woden and I were out of it. Except... Singaboy and Sullla didn't see that way. My desperate chopping of anything that moved, burning down my civ in a bid to take as many Romans with me as I could, worked, but not as I envisioned - instead of weakening Rome/China so that Germany could have an easier go at them, they were convinced that it was impossible for any of the remaining three teams to be conquered. This has to be a combination of the endless waves of VA ships I threw at them, with Woden's strong army showing on his front. And so, with Sullla wanting out, they offered a draw. What we couldn't do on the gameboard, we COULD do to the minds of our opponents. That's what matters, in the end. Naturally, Rome/China were wrong about this - as the last 5 sandbox turns have shown, Rome was on the very edge of victory. I had no more ships left and nothing to save my cities, and once my units were gone the rest of my stuff toppled lightning quick. I marvel that we're in a position to shrug at this.

In the end, I had lots of fun. I learned a whole lot, I got to see what Sullla is like in action - when I stumbled across his site 5 years ago looking for Civ V tips, I never imagined that I'd one day find myself staring at hordes of his battleships across an ocean and trying to figure out what I was going to do about them, so that was neat - and I think I didn't completely humiliate myself. Overall, it was a great experience! Thanks to Woden for being a great teammate and showing me the ropes - sorry my noobish tendencies let you down sometimes, bud, but you were a great ally. Look forward to playing with you in the future. Thanks to oledavy for dedlurking us at the beginning, and for his help resolving the Mikeforall situation, and for the words of encouragement later - that really helped me stay motivated. Thanks to the other players, particularly Cornflakes for helping keep the game going, and for everyone staying civil and friendly and keeping a fairly good turn pace throughout. Finally, thanks to everyone following along at home - more than anything else, I was motivated to keep putting together good reports for you guys, and I hope I didn't let you down.

To close, let me borrow a phrase from the Romans (with apologies to Sullla): valete et plaudite, which translates to: "Goodbye - and applaud us!"

Sullla:
There were two huge swings around Turn 120 that likely caused this game to result in a draw instead of a crushing victory for my team. The first was Chevalier building the Venetian Arsenal, and that was one place where he simply outplayed me. I had planned what I thought was a good spot for the wonder with a finishing date of 17 turns after completing Mass Production tech. However, Chevalier's chopping strategy (still not sure exactly what he did since I haven't read his thread yet) was the correct way to play things. Don't build the wonder with actual production, just use a bunch of forest chops to complete it. If I had known then what I know now, especially after playing through the later stages of this game, I would have tried to build the Venetian Arsenal in Milano instead. That city had enough forests/jungles that I could have put a pair of builders in place ahead of time and then chopped out the wonder in probably 5-6 turns total. In our defense we were in a hot war at the time, but so was Chevalier as well. As I said, Chevalier simply outplayed me here and kudos to him. Of course, if Rome had landed the Venetian Arsenal, the game would have been a total stomp. We would have had a massive edge in naval units *AND* the tech edge the whole time. Imagine 30 frigates against 10 frigates on the eastern ocean, and then all the frigates upgrading into battleships. GG for sure.

The other huge turning point was TheArchduke choosing to patronage Darwin with gold a single turn before Rome had double Campus district projects land and grab the Great Scientist. That was another huge turning point in the game, as if Rome had landed Darwin we would have had battleships in place before fighting Chevalier, instead of getting them several turns into the war and then slowly upgrading as we went along. If it had been 19 battleships instead of 19 frigates on that body of water, it would have been a complete and utter slaughter. Battleships with Line of Battle promotion are 77 strength and Chevalier's frigates had 45 defense, so that's a combat differential of +32 which averages one-shot kills. Instead of sinking 10 ships the first turn, we would have sunk 20 ships the first turn and that would have been it immediately. No loss of Genova, no losses of any significance to the Roman fleet, and then we capture all of the English cities on the eastern ocean (as Singaboy did anyway but after major losses) and turn to fight TheArchduke when the Alliance wore off. I think this also would have been enough to result in a concession. It was really frustrating to set up such a slick play by having the double Campus district projects land on the same turn only to find that TheArchduke had been one step ahead. He literally swung the game there with the foresight to grab Darwin on his turn in the nick of time. An outstanding play from him.



Planting the canal city to block TheArchduke... if we had known how TheArchduke would react, I don't think that we would have done it. The problem is always that you don't know how the other players will react or what they're thinking in these AI diplo games. Was TheArchduke serious about allying with us? We didn't know for sure one way or the other. In that absence of knowledge, we went with the stronger tactical play (denying Germany a canal city) to safeguard our cities in the southern ocean. If TheArchduke was serious about attacking Nubia, then yes, that was a gigantic misplay on our part. My only answer is that we really didn't know what TheArchduke or EmperorK were thinking. I agree that this is a weakness of my Civ gaming skills, and I probably should work harder to try and understand what other players are thinking. We may very well have shot ourselves in the foot here, I'll have to read the Russia/Germany team thread for more info. I really wanted to work together with Russia/Germany and I'm going to feel sad if it was the canal city that stopped us from getting the 2 vs 1 against England/Nubia (which, let's face it, would have been an autowin scenario for my team).

It was weird to see comments saying that playing first in turn order (due to signing up first for MP games) was the source of my success. In PBEM1, I was last in turn order and in this game, I was a replacement player. So... Also, I did NOT have first strike against Japper who played first in turn order. He had first stike opportunities in both of our wars and didn't take advantage of them. I wouldn't have had a first strike chance against EmperorK either, who also played before Rome. And finally, Chevalier and Woden both played before China in turn order, so they had the first strike chance against Singaboy. The first strike advantage was absolutely real, but others had the chance to take advantage of the same thing. They just didn't make use of those opportunities.

About the invisible Sea Dogs being visible: I honestly didn't even think about that while playing. The whole thought process at the time was "must destroy these units before they can capture ships", not "hey why can I see invisible units?" That was definitely a bug and unfair to Chevalier. I don't really know how to respond other than that; I wouldn't have thought it unfair if lurkers had told Chevalier that his ships were visible. I don't have much else to say about this, I was at war with Chevalier and had to go after the enemy ships. At least they did properly become invisible again when war broke out.

I was surprised that the lurker thread misread the English tactical plan to attack and raze Genova. Losing that city really didn't do much of anything to hurt Rome beyond losing a mature city. The Roman navy was already concentrated in the eastern ocean and there was no immediate need for a canal, plus the city could be replaced before Germany could enter the war. Sending so many ships to attack a city instead of the Roman fleet was a massive misplay from a tactical perspective; if not for that, I don't think that Singaboy would have been able to win the naval clash and push on to capture the English cities. Killing the enemy fleet was the overriding goal of the combat in that theatre of war. I also think that the positioning of the English ships on the first turn of the war was also a mistake. With 7 move frigates, England could have kept all those ships completely out of range of being attacked by Rome. Having the first strike advantage would have been meaningless if they had been too far back to be attacked. Similarly, concentrating so many attacks against a double-promoted ironclad on the second turn of the war was another major tactical misplay. The ironclads were not the important units, the frigates were. With better tactical decision-making, England definitely could have won the war on the eastern ocean. I think we were fortunate to come out on top. (Also, not even one post in the lurker thread about building Terracotta Army? Give me a little credit there!)



This is a good time to discuss the Venetian Arsenal. I genuinely think it should be banned in the future for any game that involves water, and arguably even on a Pangaea map since every coastal city would still be subject to VA-doubled ships from the player that built it. It's the combination of chopping and the +100% naval production policies that make this wonder game breaking. You can turn any forest on the map into two frigates, and that's just way too strong. In this game, it took having the promotion edge via Terracotta Army and the tech edge (Rome was almost a full era ahead of England) to come out on top, and frankly Rome still would have lost the war if England's fleet hadn't been split across two oceans. Honestly, Rome still might have lost with better tactical play from the English side. You should not need to have a tech edge and promotion edge just to narrowly win against an opponent. Under any other circumstances, being a generation ahead and a promotion ahead on every unit would lead to a crushing victory. And if this matters, the Venetian Arsenal is so incredibly frustating to play against too. Ask TheArchduke about this from PBEM4; it's soul-killingly annoying to be destroying enemy units left and right and see them replaced constantly. The thing is toxic for gameplay purposes. (For that matter, I would also ban spies in the future as well. 50% chance to steal 700 gold from an opponent?! That's terrible design. Get rid of those things.) This is not a criticism of Chevalier who made a great play to build the thing. But for future games, we're better off as a community for not having it around.

Suboptimal and Brian Shanahan correctly summarized my feelings about the end of the game in the lurker thread: I was looking to stop playing the turns due to a combination of frustration with the Civ6 lategame mechanics and growing exhaustion, and then the bug with the policy change not working properly was a "last straw" moment that killed enthusiasm to keep going. I appreciate the fact that the lurker thread was understanding of this and it wasn't full of posts about how "you killed the game!" or "you're a quitter!" or some such nonsense. The fact that lategame chopping/harvesting becomes so much more powerful than anything else was a major downer for me. This was the first time that we had a Civ6 Multiplayer game make it this far down the tech/civic trees, and the results weren't pretty. I would be interested in brainstorming solutions for a Realms Beyond mod to address some of these problems. At a minimum, I think that the scaling for the chops/harvests needs to be toned down significantly and the lategame units made cheaper to build. I'd also think about making unit upgrades more expensive so that they aren't the obvious One Right Choice that they are now; it really doesn't make sense that finishing more advanced technology can penalize you so much in Civ6, with it being so much better to build old units and upgrade them as opposed to build new units. I think that with some tinkering we could come up with a system that makes more sense.

But it was mostly a case of needing to step away from the game due to pure exhaustion. Things are just different for me in real life now than they were back in the day. I was 19-20 years old and an undergraduate in college during the heyday of the Civ3 Epics. I had tons of time on my hands then, enough that I could play a 20 hour Civ3 game and do a writeup for the website, while participating in multiple Succession Games, all at the same time, and keep doing that month after month. I was 26-27 years old when the Apolyton Demogame and Pitboss #2 games were taking place, a full time graduate student who again had plenty of time on his hands. I had no trouble waking up at 3:00 AM to move units on the Pitboss timer if needed, and I could essentially structure my real life around playing optimally in the Civ game. Not saying that was necessarily a good thing mind you, but it was possible back then.



It's a different situation for me now. I'm 35 years old and I work full time during the week, 12 hour days Monday through Thursday in exchange for having Fridays off work. I live together with Liz and our dog, and it's important to keep those relationships in a healthy, productive place. As I mentioned before, we're buying a house together right now and getting all the paperwork in place has been understandably crazy. We're closing the deal right now and moving into the new house in mid-June. I should also mention that Liz and I became engaged back at Christmas and we're planning our wedding too. I don't think that I've mentioned that before on the forums. So between work, buying/moving into a house, and doing the million things that go into planning a wedding, it really doesn't leave that much time for Civ stuff. Playing the turns was fine in the earlier eras, but it was really becoming a drag as the game went on. The team format actually made things worse here because I absolutely had to report every single turn to coordinate with Singaboy. There was no opportunity to play the turns and leave them unreported for a few days, not when it was so important to work together. When we started our war against Chevalier and Woden, the first war turn fortunately fell on a Friday, but it took well over an hour to play the turn and then another two hours to report it. Then the same thing the next day on a Satuday. There was no way that I could keep that up during the week, and that's why I was looking for a replacement player. Since it seemed that Chevalier and Woden and possibly EmperorK were also feeling pretty burned out on this game, that was the impetus for calling for a draw. It was not a surrender on our part, nothing like that. I wrote at the time that I thought we would win a game that continued to drag on, and I think the following turns that Singaboy played proved that to be correct. However, I just wasn't in a position to be able to invest the time needed to grind things out until reaching a concession, for better or for worse. I also think that a three-way draw is a very fair outcome for this game. The other two remaining teams played excellent games in their own right and deserve to share in the results (even if I do think that we were the most dominant team in this game from start to finish).

I'll be taking a well-deserved break from Civ6 for a while now. I'm pretty burned out and ready to try some other games; being a part of this PBEM game meant that I couldn't play much of anything other than Civ6 for the last six months and that was taxing in its own right. We've also hit the mature stage of Civ6 Multiplayer now, at least for the non-expansion game, and that's when I start to lose interest. I like exploring new gameplay mechanics, not endlessly refining the ones that are already in place. Now that we've more or less figured out how to do Civ6 Multiplayer, I'm more interested in heading off to another game. Perhaps if we create an RB mod for Civ6 it would rekindle my interest. As it is, the lategame problems have done a lot to kill my interest in Civ6. A lot. It's a shame that everything falls apart so badly after about the midpoint of the gameplay. I'm highly pleased that I was one of the people who helped to get Civ6 MP off the ground here at Realms Beyond, along with TheArchduke and oledavy and Woden and Alhambram and Singaboy. Without the PBEM1/2/4 games, we wouldn't have had the Civ6 MP community grow the way that it did here at Realms Beyond.

I also did want to thank everyone else who took part in this game and for making it such an entertaining, if flawed/unbalanced, experience. Cornflakes first for making the map and filling in for the Khmer spot, and then EmperorK, TheArchduke, Chevalier, and Woden for being such capable opponents. I'm looking forward to reading some of those other spoiler threads, and none of you were pushovers. It's clear that the community has improved immensely from a year earlier in the PBEM1 days. TheArchduke in particular is now a terrifying opponent and I wish that we had been able to work together more effectively in this game. That's mostly my fault from what I've been able to gather thus far, and I'm sorry for that. A China/Rome/Germany/Russia alliance is about as frightening as you can get in Civ6. Last and most importantly of all, Singaboy was an exceptional teammate in this game and deserving of all the praise. If this game was a blast to play, most of the credit of that goes to him. Thanks again.