Civ6 PBEM: Sullla of Rome

[Tyrmith]

Have you enjoyed the smaller scale PBEM? Do you think you lose a lot by having less players in exchange for a faster turnaround and smaller map? Now that the game is maybe winding up, do you think the settings worked well? Do you think having the map so predictable was a good thing for the game as a whole (since it seemed to work very well for you)?

[fahbs]

Trade route screen quality of life interface change I'd like to see: making the glowing possible trade route choice line NOT almost completely cover up existing roads. Makes it very difficult if you're looking to plan out new roads. I have to exit the trade screen, note the roads, then reselect the merchant.

[oledavy]

Have you enjoyed the smaller scale PBEM? Do you think you lose a lot by having less players in exchange for a faster turnaround and smaller map? Now that the game is maybe winding up, do you think the settings worked well? Do you think having the map so predictable was a good thing for the game as a whole (since it seemed to work very well for you)?

@Sullla, I expect you'll have quite a bit to written up on your website when the game is over. However, in the interim, if you want to start doing some reflecting on the game (the strengths and weaknesses of Rome/Aztecs/Germany, takeaways from this game for future Civ6 pbems, etc.) I know I would be interested in reading what you have to say.

[Brian Shanahan]

Yep, those are trade routes - or more accurately, potential trade routes that the trader can establish. I don't have actual roads on all of those tiles right now. If you hover over a trade route, it will highlight the path that the trader will take out of that mess of spaghetti lines. I do like the comparison to a modern speedway; that is an unusually straight road for the Medieval period!

Well, you are Rome!

[Sullla]

Tyrmith (and oledavy): Yes, I'll have more to add on this topic when the game is over. I'm limited a bit right now by not knowing exactly what the other players did in the early game, especially teh and Yuris who I contacted relatively late. About the game itself, I did enjoy playing on a smaller map and against a smaller field for a change of pace. Most of my previous Civ4 Multiplayer games were large Pitbosses of eight or more competitors, and this was certainly different. The PBEM format is great for not having to worry about turn splits and so on... with the large caveat that it's only fun so long as the save keeps moving. That's been the case to a remarkable degree in this game, and I want to thank everyone in this PBEM game for being so dedicated to playing their turns every single day.

I think having a predictable map worked fine for this first game due to the newness of Civ6. It certainly helped me because I had played almost a dozen short test games on it to experiment before we started; I'm sure that the other players were disadvantaged in that respect. I also would not recommend playing on this map script again now that everyone is thoroughly familiar with the landmass it generates. But for a first game, yeah, I think it was a real success. The size was just about right for four players, and it seems like the competition for good city sites was a driving factor in starting wars. One thing that I didn't want to see was a farm-fest where everyone just sat and built in their sandboxes for 100 turns, and we didn't get that here. Based on the amount of comments in the lurker thread, we've had more interest in this game than in any other PBEM for years, and while I know that's partly due to Civ6 being new, clearly there's been real tension/drama to follow in this game. By way of comparison, the first Civ5 PBEM didn't draw anywhere near this much interest from the community. So as I said, I would rate the map as a major success, while not suggesting that we revisit it again.

Quick strengths of the civs in this game (relevant for those of you planning your picks in PBEM2!)

Rome: Similar to a Creative civ in Civ4; awesome early cultural growth/civics research, fast border pops, excellent resourceless unique unit, Baths solve your housing issues forever
Germany: Similar to Financial/Organized civ in Civ4 (or Meklars in Master of Orion); slow to start then incredible production capacity, goes "Tall" better than anyone except maybe Kongo, the extra Military policy slot is *MUCH* better in Multiplayer than Single Player
Aztecs: Similar to an early pressure civ in Civ4 (think maybe Zulu impis?); Eagle Warriors are scary early, great at pressuring/capturing city states, builders used to complete districts seems like it would be very useful in longer games

I'll have more thoughts to add after the game ends and I can better see what the other players were doing in the early stages. For now, let's get to Turn 103:



This was an unexpected move from teh. After pulling back all of his units on the previous turn, he moved this horseman out of the fog and attacked one of my crossbows. The noteworthy thing to me comes in the form of those health bars: the horseman took only slightly less damage than the crossbow! That was the horseman's 36 strength against the crossbow's 34 strength, since it has 30 (melee) strength base and then gained +4 strength from having two of my other units standing adjacent to it. That was a nice little surprise to see how even when teh managed to get a horse unit on top of one of my crossbows, it still didn't do much damage. (This is a result of the horseman being a generation behind in military technology. Horses crush archers but then only have a modest advantage against crossbows. I will say that I think crossbows are a little too strong though; I would nerf their melee strength to 25 so that they are hard-hitters but very fragile when actually put in melee danger.)

As a tactical move, I don't think this was the best play from teh. Let's be honest: he's in an impossible position here, which makes any potential move difficult. Still, when you are disadvantaged like this, the one thing that can't happen is throwing units away to no purpose, and this attack by a single horseman with no followup support doesn't appear to make much sense. By putting the horseman on the hill tile like that, it was easy prey for my crossbows:



This was yet another time where the Great General bonus came in handy. I moved the legion a tile east, then moved the unpromoted crossbow onto the bananas tile and could still fire. That is so, so very nice from a tactical perspective. I might not even upgrade some of my legions into muskets because then they won't be able to benefit from the +1 movement (although the second Great General isn't too far away). Anyway, the first crossbow got in some very nice damage against the German horseman, and then the crossbow that was attacked at the start of the turn finished it off. I'll happily trade 30 HP on one of my crossbows for a dead enemy unit, especially since teh can't make more horsemen. Remember, losing Frankfurt knocked him down to a single horse resource, and you need two to build horseman (or an Encampment, which he doesn't have either). I'm pretty sure that Yuris is not trading him another horse resource since Yuris only has one source himself. I'll have to remember to double check on that next turn.

With the horseman out of the way, I could move up my other units. Here's what that looked like after all moving was done:



An archer inside the city of Mainz and three more horsemen behind it, one of them at half health. I was actually intending to have my own horseman unit circle around to the south of Mainz and place the city under formal siege, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen now. Two of my crossbows were able to fire on Mainz this turn, and together they removed almost half of the fortifications (27/50). Critically, cities recover 20 HP each turn when not under siege, but the walls do not recover health between turns. They stay damaged until the city spends production rebuilding them, and that's not an option until the city avoids taking damage for three straight turns. With that in mind, I am cautiously optimistic that I can capture Mainz next turn, especially if it remains at 30 strength. The legion with the siege engine will attack and remove the last of the city walls, then four crossbows can all fire against the unprotected city, then two more legions can attack. I'm reasonably confident that that will be enough. If not, then we'll take Mainz on Turn 105 instead.

The only unit of mine in any danger is that horseman on the hill tile. In restrospect, I probably should have moved the Great General down a tile southwest so that the horseman would get the +5 strength bonus, but I wanted the two legions at the top of the screen to get the extra movement point. Right now it doesn't look like they're going to play much of a role in this attack, so that was likely a mistake. Oh well. The horseman will get the hill defensive bonus and +2 strength for being next to the crossbow. Teh can attack it with two horsemen and the city of Mainz (which has the strength of a crossbow); I don't think the archer can shoot over the mountain, although he could move the archer out of the city if he wants to get in another shot. If he wants to commit everything to kill another horseman, I'm OK with that trade. Aquileia will finish its chariot next turn, and I'll be able to upgrade that into a knight instantly when Stirrups research completes (and it's a one-turn tech). I have the replacement units for my two horsemen just about ready to go.

Teh's military power was just over 150 at the start of this turn. Let's see: he had 4 horsemen (35 power each) and 1 archer (25 power). That works out to... 165 power, with a little bit less in total because of the damaged horseman to the east. Seems like that matches up pretty closely. This is basically his remaining military, and I think I can handle it without any serious issues.



I decided to use my galley to scout out a bit more of teh's lands rather than continue to hold it in reserve as a secret. Teh will spot the thing soon enough anyway. In the couple turns before I put Ulm under format siege, I'll try to meet the Cultural city state over by teh that I've never encountered to date. I'll also comment on this since I never mentioned it before: teh picked God of the Open Sky for his pantheon (+1 culture on pastures). It's one of the better choices, although this map had relatively few cows/horses tiles to make use of it. Between the Cultural city state and that pantheon, teh's culture was surprisingly strong in this game.



Finally, an overview of my core cities with the score tally. Hispalis grew this turn, and I really should remember to throw down another district here to lock in the cost. Either an Industrial or Campus district seems like the best choice, although I doubt the game will last long enough to finish either one. The capital remains on track to steal the first Great Merchant with that district project and Arretium is closing in on completion of my second chariot. I'm also close to Exploration civic and Merchant Republic government, along with several cities that are nearly done builders. Constiantinople, Ravenna, and Arpinum are all nearly finished and waiting for that Serfdom policy card. I'll probably train another builder in Aquileia after its current chariot finishes, plus a second builder in Arpinum for Stockholm. That's a lot of builders, but hey, I have a lot of tiles to improve!

Really looking forward to the next turn. I'm hoping to capture Mainz tonight and break teh's civ wide open.

[unaghy]

Sullla, I´m reposting my comment/request here as I feel you can benefit from checking this.

"I also could have used this turn to promote the crossbow (which also has the XP bar filled up and won't gain any more XP until it promotes) but I figured I could do that next turn."

I thought that one of the patches has already removed this restriction. I do recall that XP bar was not at zero after I have promoted my units in my recent game (it was actually half-full). Or do I get this wrong? Can you check XP bar after that Crossbow promotion to see if its at zero?

[antisocialmunky]

I like how the roads around Arpinum are shaped like modern motorways, including the one running extremely straight towards southwest 

The laws on road building during the early republic stated that road sections that were curved were required to be twice as wide as a normal road.  This requirement along with the surveying tools available to the Romans led to extremely straight roads.

Law VIII.
Where a road runs in a straight line, it shall be eight feet, and where it curves, it shall be sixteen feet in width.

http://www.constitution.org/sps/sps01_1.htm

Of course not all Roman roads were straight and laws change over time.  Another reason that the Romans roads were so straight (obsessively so) and the Romans built over obstacles like steep hills, marshes, and cut through mountains was to aid in military logistics.  The shortest point between two points is a line after all.  Many roads were constructed for exclusive military use first and later allowed for civilian use.  As the Roman Empire expanded, the fact that roads went up and over these obstacles became a hindrance to the transporting of goods so access roads around obstacles were built.

[fahbs]

Can Inca workers rush spaceport districts? That would be amazing given how amazingly expensive they are.

[kjn]

When it comes to the roads, it wasn't really the straightness that struck me, but the way the branches were shaped. Old roads usually contain straight intercrossing, but here you have a route angling away from the main road and then crossing over or under it.

[Sullla]

Unaghy: none of the patches have changed how experience works. You still cannot earn more XP while holding onto a promotion. The little bar in the pictures can be misleading, because it does not go back to zero after taking a promotion. The bar will go from being full (15/15 XP) to being one third full (15/45 XP) after a unit claims that first promotion, and this is likely the source of confusion. But the mechanic itself is unchanged from the release version of Civ6, and this is one of the things that works pretty well.

Fahbs: I'm assuming you mean the Aztec builders? There is no Incan civ in this game (yet). As far as I know, their ability only works on normal specialty districts, not spaceports. I admit that I have not tested this directly though.

I'll leave the discussion of Roman road-building to the experts.

Teh just played his turn about 2 minutes ago after holding it for the last 14 hours... but now it's 0100 GMT in Yuris' timezone, so we're unlikely to get in a second turn today. If we do, I'll update the thread, otherwise it's back to the waiting game for tomorrow.