It's Chevalier's Thread and He Can Do What He Wants To

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

[Sullla]

Congratulations on a well deserved victory! With all of the time and effort that you put into playing and reporting this game, you certainly earned the win. With a few exceptions, most of the Civ6 PBEM players have seemed to be going through the motions recently: sparsely updated spoiler threads, few details, lots of grumbling, and so on. But this thread was exactly the opposite, brimming with passion and excitement for most of the game's length up until the lengthy delays took over in the later stages. I enormously enjoyed reading about your personal experience with the 2014 and 2015 Royals teams, even if I can't join in the celebrating as a lifelong Baltimore fan. (Seriously, your team was gritty and all that, but I've never seen a baseball team have such *ABSURDLY* good luck in a playoff series.) This was a unique thread and hopefully one that will be remembered for a long time here.

Regarding the comments in the lurker thread: I still believe quite strongly that Rome would have been a vastly superior choice for this game. You crippled yourself with a horribly slow start and only EmperorK's suicide-bomber attack on TheArchduke turned this into a competitive game. Otherwise the Dutch simply run away with the game and no one else comes close. But with that said, I'm glad that you did play Arabia and were able to make it work! This game was a good showcase for why Arabia isn't a good choice for Multiplayer in general. "Everybody leave me alone, I just need about 100 turns to found my religion and get my faith economy going" isn't exactly a winning strategy.

Congrats again - it was a fun read for many months.

[Rowain]

Congrats again to your victory

The United States. Only two real cities, and a slogging campaign to retake La Venta. Rowain had a settler on the map shortly after I razed most of his empire, but he opted for the inland Buffalo location. Again, defensive, but abdicating any chance of influencing the wider game. In fact, that was Rowain’s playstyle all game long. He had some awesome campuses, but his two major cities were well-inland, and I don’t think be built a single harbor all game long. Rowain settled his island sluggishly (only 3 self-founded cities when I attacked! Plus the tardy and doomed Charleston), and never made a serious effort to build a navy. Frankly, the main influence he had on the game was my paranoid attack on him as a warm-up for the Archduke. Otherwise he never ventured beyond his own shores. He even built two encampments after I razed his coast to defend his interior, rather than trying to build up harbors to strike back.

a) you razed 3 of my selffounded cities/Baltimore,Boston,New Orleans) so there were more on board when you attacked.
b) I built 3 Harbors (La Venta, New Orleans, Baltimore)
c) Building a Harbor while you have frigates around to pillage them wouldn't make much sense would it?

My big failure was not going after Frigates ASAP. I wouldn't be able to stop your attack (too few coastal producers to keep up with fleet-replacement) at long but maybe the cost might have been to high for you to attack me.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Congratulations on a well deserved victory! With all of the time and effort that you put into playing and reporting this game, you certainly earned the win. With a few exceptions, most of the Civ6 PBEM players have seemed to be going through the motions recently: sparsely updated spoiler threads, few details, lots of grumbling, and so on. But this thread was exactly the opposite, brimming with passion and excitement for most of the game's length up until the lengthy delays took over in the later stages. I enormously enjoyed reading about your personal experience with the 2014 and 2015 Royals teams, even if I can't join in the celebrating as a lifelong Baltimore fan. (Seriously, your team was gritty and all that, but I've never seen a baseball team have such *ABSURDLY* good luck in a playoff series.) This was a unique thread and hopefully one that will be remembered for a long time here.

Regarding the comments in the lurker thread: I still believe quite strongly that Rome would have been a vastly superior choice for this game. You crippled yourself with a horribly slow start and only EmperorK's suicide-bomber attack on TheArchduke turned this into a competitive game. Otherwise the Dutch simply run away with the game and no one else comes close. But with that said, I'm glad that you did play Arabia and were able to make it work! This game was a good showcase for why Arabia isn't a good choice for Multiplayer in general. "Everybody leave me alone, I just need about 100 turns to found my religion and get my faith economy going" isn't exactly a winning strategy.

Congrats again - it was a fun read for many months.

Oh, yeah, that's rough. The Orioles really might be the unluckiest team of all time in that regard.

For those who don't have every single detail of the 2014 MLB playoffs memorized (I know, I know, there's still a few people out there!), this is what happened when the Royals and Orioles met:

The Royals were a team built on steals, elite defense, and putting the ball in play. They didn't walk, and they didn't hit home runs. Basically anti-Moneyball. The Orioles were all about power - led the American League in home runs. So naturally this is how the series played out:

1)Scoring in Game 1 opens when Escobar hits a home run. For his career, Alcides Escobar has just 24 home runs in 973 games – one homer for every 40.5 games. He hit 2 in the playoffs. One was a flyball that bounced off Yoenis Cespedes' leg - the other was this one. The Royals led 5-1 a few innings later after a series of bloop hits that fell juuuuust beyond a Baltimore defender's reach, then somehow the unthinkable happened: The Orioles tied the game. This is the ONLY time I think in either year that the Royals blew a 4-run lead. But in extras, Gordon and Moose hit two homers to score 3 runs. The Royals won on power!? in 11 innings.
2)Game 2, the Royals led again, this time 3-1, again on stupid bloop hits that fell juuuust outside the defense. Again, the Orioles tied it. This time, the Royals won in 9 innings on a series of bloops in the top of the 9th. 
3)Game 3, the go-ahead run scored in the 6th, so this was the least dramatic. But it was just a 1-run loss for the Orioles, right after a loss in the 9th inning ("All losses are in the 9th inning, Chevalier." Shut up, you know what I meant), right after a loss in extras, so it has to sting.
4)Game 4, in the first inning, on a stupid botched play Escobar kicked the ball out of the catcher's mitt at home plate, when Escobar was out dead to rights. Instead, he scored, Aoki scored right behind him, and those 2 runs decided the ALCS as the Royals won 2-1. 

I can't imagine a more frustrating series of games to watch if I were a Baltimore fan. Every loss was fluky and stupid. 

So let's watch it again :D 

Congrats again to your victory

The United States. Only two real cities, and a slogging campaign to retake La Venta. Rowain had a settler on the map shortly after I razed most of his empire, but he opted for the inland Buffalo location. Again, defensive, but abdicating any chance of influencing the wider game. In fact, that was Rowain’s playstyle all game long. He had some awesome campuses, but his two major cities were well-inland, and I don’t think be built a single harbor all game long. Rowain settled his island sluggishly (only 3 self-founded cities when I attacked! Plus the tardy and doomed Charleston), and never made a serious effort to build a navy. Frankly, the main influence he had on the game was my paranoid attack on him as a warm-up for the Archduke. Otherwise he never ventured beyond his own shores. He even built two encampments after I razed his coast to defend his interior, rather than trying to build up harbors to strike back.

a) you razed 3 of my selffounded cities/Baltimore,Boston,New Orleans)  so there were more on board when you attacked.
b) I built 3 Harbors (La Venta, New Orleans, Baltimore)
c) Building a Harbor while you have frigates around to pillage them wouldn't make much sense would it?

My big failure was not going after Frigates ASAP. I wouldn't be able to stop your attack (too few coastal producers to keep up with fleet-replacement)  at long but maybe the cost might have been to high for you to attack me.

a)Sorry, should have been more clear. I meant only 3 self-founded coastal cities, the 3 that I razed. When I said Charleston I meant Boston - I kept mixing up which American city was which.
b)I, uh, should have paid more attention. I was desperately in need of cash and should have pillaged those! Oops.
c)Well, true, but it would have forced me to divert ships from the Netherlands. But I think we get tunnel vision on our own situation. I was thinking only about hwo you could best hurt me, and not about what made the most sense for you. 

In retrospect I didn't need to attack you at all. I was paranoid about American frigates hitting me from the rear while I was busy with the Netherlands, but that seems to have been an imaginary fear.

[TheArchduke]

Congrats on a deserved win and thanks for the shout out.

I agree that Emperor´s attack was very bad timing, I think I could have run away with the game otherwise.

You played very good and outmaneuvered me nicely.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing against you again.

[Rowain]

c)Well, true, but it would have forced me to divert ships from the Netherlands. But I think we get tunnel vision on our own situation. I was thinking only about hwo you could best hurt me, and not about what made the most sense for you. 

In retrospect I didn't need to attack you at all. I was paranoid about American frigates hitting me from the rear while I was busy with the Netherlands, but that seems to have been an imaginary fear.

In my dream you and the Duke fought each other and you left your coast open to allow me to sail some Knights and Muskets (and 1 ram) to your land and start burning down a city or 3 .

Don't know if that had a chance to work but that was also behind the Encampment-builds.

[VoiceInTheWilderness]

Congratulations, Chevalier! Your game really showed the truth of Emperor K's Churchill quotation: "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." You were contagiously enthusiastic about everything - apparently I like baseball now? - and I very much look forward to anything else you do in this community. I almost want to fire up my copy of the game and get stomped on.