Alhambram's 1001 nights (turns) stories as Persia.

[Alhambram]

Turn 139:

Well, TheArchduke has taken Jinni and also killed knight nearby and pillaged one more trade route.
   
   
Question for lurkers, what should I do now? Stick with my word and keep going till Aladdin is taken.
Or concede now, also in mind with upcoming expansion, stopping now allows players here to participate new PBEM (rise and fall expansion added) with fresh mind, continuing this PBEM 6 while participating a new PBEM (8?) would be tiring. 
I know very well that I can win this anymore, actually already since turn 107.

[Krill]

In this situation you can just concede however you want, in public or in private.

[Old Harry]

You could get peace with Emperor K for Ahmed still couldn't you? Then who knows what's possible!

(Yeah a concession now would be fine.)

[Alhambram]

You could get peace with Emperor K for Ahmed still couldn't you? Then who knows what's possible!

(Yeah a concession now would be fine.)

Ha, if I was playing with any regular civ, Ahemd would be a occupied city with worthless yield, I would have given back Ahmed/Rose to Emperor K long ago already.
Persia power to allow occupied cities work at full 100% paradoxically lowers my urge to give it back: why give back fine working city and moreover it is at strategically spot due that mountain chain. 
Gameplaywise there wasn't any reason for me to give city back, metagaming at other hand....

Turn 140:

Metal Casting completed and start Siege tactics, but that won't matter anymore. TheArchduke killed my fleeing crossbowman near Ahmed, a Macedonia frigate appeared at scene.
   
   
   
   
This is final score, since I am going concede game now.

I did mull it over a night sleep and asked lurkers for advice, yeah a concession right now sounds good before Rise and Fall comes online, it might mess up with game and moreover we can start a new PBEM with expansion added.

If you are wondering why I didn't concede at turn 107 right away, several reasons: 
I was interested how it is to be hit by 4 (later 5) GG powered army.
I used turns after turn 107 as learning experience, to notice more mistakes from me, to learn what is to do and don't. 
Observe TheArchduke the tactician how he deals with me, he might show me useful things for future references. 
I shall use it as lesson for future PBEM's. I can say that I did learn a lot from this PBEM, hard ones often!

Next post a review of myself how I did in this PBEM.

[Alhambram]

Review of myself:

Overall it is disappointing performance from me, I hoped to show you all how Persia should be used and my feelings is that I didn't show fullest potential of Persia.

-Capital settling upon hill, that was right move I think, extra production from start and plenty plain hills around to turn it in strong production city.

-Sinbad was probably better off with settling upon jade tile, one extra culture from start and faster border expansion.

-I leaned too much upon Suboptimal's ability to stall TheArchduke instead trusting more in my own ability, so when Suboptimal fell quickly before I could stand up for myself, I fell along with him.

-Attack on Emperor K, well from my point of view at turn 50 it was right move as I did stated before. Long term it was a disaster, mainly how I did handle after conquest of Rose/Ahmed, several reasons:

-I made mistake regarding immortals, realizing too late that bug regarding melee attack has repaired, should have mass produced warriors and finishing researching Iron Working so I did immortal rush against Emperor K instead warrior/archer rush.

-No aggressively going after GG, basically I allowed TheArchduke grab first 3 GG fro free, only 4th was a attempted race by me, but TheArchduke also nabbed it along 5th.

-Attacking Bastions without real advantage, no GG, no extra movement points. Knights strength was nullified by choke point, well placed encampment and defender's advantage. I did act here too much SP wise, against AI my attack on Bastions with knight would be enough, AI couldn't handle that. Moreover my only real multiplayer experience in attacking was attacking TheArchduke while he was attacked from 3 sides, impossible for him to defend. Against Woden I had access of GG powered Cossacks. And now with normal units and without GG it has been eye opener for me how multiplayer warfare works. Next time I shall approach things differently.

-For example I didn't consider attack over sea on capital to ignore Bastions, I even didn't completed shipbuilding yet when I arrived with knights.

-No gifting city back to Emperor K, as stated I didn't see reason to give up fine working city at strategically important spot.

-Grabbing Stonehenge is probably best move from me in this PBEM, it basically delayed execution by TheArchduke for eons.

-Finally settling Maruf was a mistake, should put it at front line south of Yunan.

-And I already pointed out that I am poor at creating more science through campus, so I need to fix that problem of mine.

That is all that I can think now, more comments?

[TheArchduke]

Yunnan and DotF was an excellent counterplay. This game would have been over much, much sooner if you did not do that. What a nice fortress Yunnan was and with its own harvestable stone.

I must admit that reading your thread and looking at it from your perspective, my relentless advance against suboptimal and then Valetta must have been quite spooky. Each turn some more troops of Valetta died and then the lights went out.

Emperor K defense of Bastion was admirable and dogged and most likely swung the game in favour of me even further.

Building a fortress city south of Sindbad in the Tundra?  Unfeasible. Yunnan had only 1 approach, a lake around it and a stone to harvest. The experience of Jinni shows that I could have easily taken a city down there.


Funny, Ali Baba was more vulnerable then Jinni. I did not see the medieval walls until I was committed and I feared to delay further.
I might have taken Sindbad head on, but at that time my economy was soaring so far ahead, I decided against it and went for the low hanging fruit, Maruf.

First I disagree you played a very good game economically. Concerning military matters, yes I think the conquest of Ahmed was a bad move even as Persia. The terrain near Bastion was an impossibility to break through for a dogged defender and a conquest of his city had to make Emperor K dig in his heels and defend. Imo your best shot from the turn I conquered Australia was either a massive strike on Emperor K or sign peace. Without a GG or a significant tech advantage, that offensive was doomed to fail. Especially you neglected to flank Emperor K or decide the battlefield where you fight. He forced the location on you and he was prepared. Notice how I circumvented Yunnan, which would have been a nightmare to take.


Static defenses are something to circumvent.

Depending on suboptimal´s ability to defend, hmm I am not sure what else you could have done. The supportdow™ were plenty help, suboptimal did not use his armies optimally and did not have GG support.


The GG (bar the first one which was headache) was heavily tilted in my favour thanks to Hetairoi. No chance there. Your massive builds into encampmens should have come earlier perhaps. A medieval GG might have been the difference between killing Emperor K and being stalled by him.

I agree that Stonehenge was a beautiful play. +10 CS for defending is basically 2 GG without the hassle. Massive.

All in all, thanks for a enjoyable game and the consistent reporting in the face of adversity, I know I skipped a few turns when the odds were stacked against me. So kudos.

[Alhambram]

TheArchduke, thanks for your input and your view on my game. I really appreciate that!

Indeed it was spooky for me when you overwhelm Suboptimal and Valletta, that caused me to split army in 2 parts, one for attacking Bastions, other for defending Yunan. It also did influence me to rush toward Bastions instead carefully approaching it or attempting to flank it.

I agree with military analyse, I should had handled situation around Bastion better or sign peace, I chose the road between them which did lead to nowhere. I shall take your military lesson to my heart.

About economy, I did handle culture, gold and production well, science was the problem. In classical age it wasn't problem yet, I got science advantage over you in that period, mainly because you were more busy with military build instead economic builds.
It was the transition from classical to medieval age that went wrong considering science, with other words not investing into campuses to make use of later era policy cards Natural Philosophy and Rationalism.
Also another reason that I felt that I should had done it better science-wise is presence of 2 science city states in this map, including one close west of my starting spot. I should had made better use of them.

You also thanks for enjoyable game, despite that I lost, it was a blast to play this PBEM!

[Emperor K]

Bastion lived up to its name!

You had me on the edge of my seat the entire game. I thought many times of making peace and just letting you keep the city, however I was worried you would just use your movement to come and finish me off.

I tried to do far to many things in the beginning of the game, which led to my downfall, well timed on your Rose rush though, I did not think about the fact you could get double movement for 20+ turns.

I think I could have gotten the first GG had I went full on from the beginning, and that would have helped suboptimal.

Your conquest of Rose really set me back, it delayed all sorts of districts and builds so well played by you. If suboptimal did not get defeated I am pretty sure you would have beaten me and taken my cities.

I was worried that you would just take knights and land near my capital, there would have been nothing I could have done, so I think I lucked out there.

It was a fun time playing with you and hopefully we can play another one sometime in the future!

[Alhambram]

Bastion lived up to its name!

You had me on the edge of my seat the entire game. I thought many times of making peace and just letting you keep the city, however I was worried you would just use your movement to come and finish me off.

I tried to do far to many things in the beginning of the game, which led to my downfall, well timed on your Rose rush though, I did not think about the fact you could get double movement for 20+ turns.

I think I could have gotten the first GG had I went full on from the beginning, and that would have helped suboptimal.

Your conquest of Rose really set me back, it delayed all sorts of districts and builds so well played by you. If suboptimal did not get defeated I am pretty sure you would have beaten me and taken my cities.

I was worried that you would just take knights and land near my capital, there would have been nothing I could have done, so I think I lucked out there.

It was a fun time playing with you and hopefully we can play another one sometime in the future!

Well done defending Bastions! There was mistakes on my part, but kudos for you holding out. Looking forward for possible another one in future!

[Sullla]

Alhambram, I thought you seized the moment really well in this game with your initial attack on EmperorK. You saw a point of weakness and acted decisively to attack and capture Ahmed - that was a nice call and it put you in a good position at the time. The mistake came from continuing to beat your head against the city of Bastion, where EmperorK was able to mount a strong defense. One of the lessons of Civ6 MP is that it's really hard to break a defender in a fortified position. Even with a huge military edge, I barely managed to pull it off against teh in PBEM1. The attacker generally needs one of three things to prevail:

1) Tech edge (this is the main one)
2) Great Generals/Admirals
3) A huge numerical advantage

The last one often doesn't mean that much because only one unit can be on a tile at a time, and a natural chokepoint like the one outside Bastion kept you from being able to use Persia's superior numbers. Unfortunately, you never had a Great General to play around with against EmperorK, and you were fighting at tech parity almost the whole time. As TheArchduke suggested, swinging around Bastion to attack over water is about the only way that I could see how to break the stalemate, or maybe better yet, simply sitting back and defending until you could attack with a tech advantage. Persia doesn't have to worry about getting cities in a peace treaty to be effective.

One last suggestion: your early games have consistently seemed to be a bit slow in this game, PBEM2, and PBEM5. Granted, you had a lot of barbarians to deal with here, but it's something you might be able to work on, especially since your midgame performance tends to be a strong recovery after a slow start. Maybe it might be helpful to think about openings a bit more in future games to avoid falling behind? Regardless, thanks for playing and reporting on such an excellent game. The Stonehenge play was a thing of beauty.