[SPOILERS] TheArchduke and the Red Army Choir invite you to listen to the classics

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I had a long time of looking over this game, racking my head. I do not think I can win this. I considered going for cultural, but given Rome´s strength this may be difficult.

DotF will be less viable the more advanced things get and my economy money wise is absolutely crashed. I am not sure how I can salvage it when I have noone left to trade.

I should have liberated Valetta in hindsight and kept it around.

Leaning towards a concession atm.

Just to clarify for the lurkers, do you want to concede to Rome?

[TheArchduke]

I had a long time of looking over this game, racking my head. I do not think I can win this. I considered going for cultural, but given Rome´s strength this may be difficult.

DotF will be less viable the more advanced things get and my economy money wise is absolutely crashed. I am not sure how I can salvage it when I have noone left to trade.

I should have liberated Valetta in hindsight and kept it around.

Leaning towards a concession atm.

Just to clarify for the lurkers, do you want to concede to Rome?

Yes.

I would only play on if Rho wants to find out if I can sneak a cultural win, which I doubt. He will leave 1 brazil city alive just to spite me, and I could only get peace if Cornflakes resigns then. I rather play a new game.

[TheArchduke]

So how did I fare in PBEM 11.

I am not that happy with my performance. My economic performance is still subpar and I have to work on that.

What went right:

- The invasion of Germany was nicely executed even with a very weak army.
- Not much else, really.

What went wrong:

- Moving the capital. Yosemite proved to be a false lead, probably watered down by the mapmaker, lost me turns, pushed me too far west and gave Cornflakes way more room and especially longterm disabled any good coastal cities from the getgo which bit me in the ass down the road.
- My economic focus was all over the place, districts were poorly planned, I spent too much time on useless stuff and my cities were rather small whilst Cornflakes played a masterpiece of city building, easily keeping up with me even when I conquered all of Germany.
- The lack of a navy killed my game. I vastly underestimated the speed at which Cornflakes would show up and (once again, what a map) that so many CS were overseas waiting to be picked up. 3 scientific CS were just adding insult to injury really.
- The occupation penalty is moronic nonsense, but still this was my game to loose and I lost it fair and square.
- Conquering and not liberating former Valetta. This alone would have justified keeping the game going.
- I had no CLEAR plan in this game and it showed. PBEM 6 and 8 were concise, planned affairs where I kept my focus. This and PBEM 7 were all over the place. I could NOT wait on Cossacks, I had to attack Cornflakes immeaditly and waste his ressources in a slugging match with me.

All in all, I am not a happy camper with myself.

[Grotsnot]

- The occupation penalty is moronic nonsense, but still this was my game to loose and I lost it fair and square.

Do you think something along the lines of Paradox's Wargoals would work as a starting point for a house rule? Would require some breaching of AI Diplo, but my off-the-cuff draft is something like:
* When Declaring war, state what your territorial ambitions for the war are. Anywhere from "raze this one annoying border city" up to "total annihilation"
* If the Attacker achieves the Wargoal and (spitballing options here for the Defender to get a limited chance to recover) holds it for X turns, holds the enemy capital, holds Y% of Defender's cities, etc - Defender must accept an offered peace deal that is limited to the Wargoal. If the Attacker wants to keep going for more, they may, but they don't get to complain about occupation penalties.
* If the Defender proposes a peace deal that satisfies the Wargoal, it must be accepted.
* If during the war the Defender founds a new city, or conquers a city from a 3rd party, it may be added to the Wargoal.

May be too finicky a system for Civ - especially since I dunno how to handle gpt, Great Works, and the like with any elegance - but tossing out the idea for smarter, more experienced players to riff off of

[Cornflakes]

Great execution on the German conquest that was definitely the right move at the time and you executed that about as efficiently as possible.

Other than Cossacks you wouldn't have made progress in an attack when you did at the end. If you had tried to compromise with Knights/Crossbows and hitting the top of the tree I would have delayed Square Rigging and met your attack with Muskets + Crossbows + Knights. That would have been a bloodbath but I think I could have held the position. I had many forests remaining in my culture which were chopped into Frigates as the DoF drew to a close, once I saw you were committed to unlocking Military Science. Those would have been some form of land military instead if you had diverted from the beeline to the top of the tree.

I think you had a legitimate shot at long-term buildering for reasons I outlined in the tech thread. You were essentially immune to attack from me for basically the same reason you lost upon attacking me, a dispute between us throws the game to Rho. DotF is a simply massive defensive advantage that I probably couldn't overcome before your larger empire took off. Maybe after reaching Steel (30 turns away) I would have an opening but even still your Cossacks defending in Russian territory + DotF would counter even tanks with ease. But that is all water under the bridge at this point I wish you luck in your future games!

[Cornflakes]

What are your thoughts on Defender of the Faith after this game? From my perspective DotF didn't do much for you through the first 120 turns of the game (first 60-ish turns of having your religion). DotF didn't factor significantly into my decisions to sign declaration of friendship. I knew you were competent enough in defending against a classical rush, especially given the distance between our starts. By the 80's/90's I was more concerned about maintaining a positive relationship with you so that Rome didn't run away with the game on the other continent, and didn't have a technological nor GG advantage.

The only point where DotF may have played a role is right at the expiration of our last DoF. Without DotF I might possibly have rushed to Cavalry myself to attempt a first strike against you to prevent Cossacks. But I knew that our squabbling would just throw the game to Rome so I was convinced that trying to maintain positive relations was the best way to go. (oh, I remembered you also took advantage of a few DotF-boosted archer shots in Germany, but that I think was a relatively minor contribution there.)

[TheArchduke]

Yeah, without Cossacks I doubt I would have won a war. Too many encampments on your end.
I do not think I could have outbuilded Rho, maybe if we would have taken you on fleetwise to conquer overseas territory, but if you DoFed me, you would have killed Hattusa, no reason not to.

DotF is a big, huge "do not attack me" sign. It helps protect you through a weak start phase and is also beneficial in an offensive war as it forces the defender to not engage you right on the border.

The german forces had to retreat from the river thanks to it, for instance.