[SPOILERS] Yuris125 tries to win a game of Civ5 before it fades away

[yuris125]

Nic skipping the turn today makes me think he didn't particularly like the sight. Zerg strategy best strategy, I don't have the reflexes to play RTS, but apparently can execute it in Civ5

[chumchu]

It's a fine balance between making it too open for aggression which leads to a "liberty or death" situation and too defensive which leads to turtling until late game.

Nic planted in a highly defensible position with hilltop, river and marshes but he lacks walls and roads on the other side of the river. Then you may complain =)

[yuris125]

Nothing died this turn. I carefully moved the frontline Bowmen to check if I could see anything scary, but didn't




Red circles show where I thought Nic could have moved his units to still be relevant on defence of the city. But he could keep them there indefinitely, and I didn't want to give him more time than necessary. On a map with less rough terrain, it could've been beneficial to clean up the units outside the city before starting to attack it. But on this map, I feel capturing the city first and getting benefit from the roads is a better option

So I went ahead and moved in range of the city




Now, Nic does have a fair amount of units nearby; I correctly guessed the position of one of his Bowmen, and I'm pretty sure there's one unaccounted for. I expect at least one of my Bowmen to die this turn, maybe two. But I didn't see a better option than to start the siege as soon as possible. I admit I'm zerging this attack - hope I do have enough....

I actually considered moving the Swordsman onto the marsh NE of Harar, just as an extra target for Nic's shots. Decided not to though, firstly because of the aforementioned Bowman who's currently unaccounted for - it may be on the road SE of Harar, and if he is, moving the Swordsman there would let him get a shot it which it would not have been able to make otherwise. Second, there's a possibility I will want to move a Bowman on that tile next turn, so occupying it with a Swordsman didn't seem reasonable. Finally, I don't think he actually would achieve much there - I'm not attacking the city itself next turn, and Nic can just ignore the Swordsman, so it would just sit there in the swamp doing nothing and looking stupid. Much better to keep it outside for now and have an attack on the tile should Nic move there

One more point worth mentioning is that I'm once again in the negatives on happiness - my luxury trade with Ichabod expired this turn. I will fix this next turn by picking Meritocracy, so decided not to re-offer the deal, especially after checking the demos and seeing that Ichabod also has a happiness problem at the moment. This does mean I will get an additional malus against Nic's attacks this turn, but not much I can do about it - better to take the -8% combat strength for a turn than give Ichabod extra happiness for the next 25 turns. Especially when my own happiness situation is going to be fixed very shortly

Speaking of demos, been a while since I showed them, so here




Pleasing (if unsurprising) to see myself ahead in soldiers. Also I'm not that far off in the land area - actually thinking maybe I won't need to attack HAK after Nic. Undecided on that. The big problem is being behind Ichabod in all the key stats, especially 2.5 times behind in crop yield. This makes me think that after the war with Nic, I will either need to switch to peaceful mode and drow the city while improving my happiness further, or send the army across the sea to Ichabod while I have the military advantage. Attacking HAK would achieve pretty much nothing. So - still thinking on this.. let's deal with Nic first, that's the most important thing to do as we approach T100, and something I'm 100% focussed on. Then I'll make that decision....

[T-hawk]

For everyone who complains about 1UPT ruining Civilization, that last post should be required reading. This is exactly the deep and interesting tactics that Civ 5's system is meant to create and enable. This whole war would be 90% less interesting if you just smashed a bigger stack into Harar than he had defenders.

Why not occupy your stone tile? Your archer can reach it and still get a shot at Nic's bowman east of Harar, and so can your damaged bowman on the jungle. You're not giving Nic any extra shots because anything that can shoot at the stone tile can already shoot at one of your units elsewhere.

[yuris125]

The biggest reason is that there's no real need. Nic can't block the tile - if he moves a unit there, I won't have a problem shooting it down. And if I want to take a shot from there, I can move and shoot from that tile on the next turn in any case if I want to do that. Getting a shot this turn before everyone else was pointless as the city would just immediately heal the damage from a single shot. And I wanted extra flexibility in case I want to move something other than a ranged unit there - if I use that tile for a ranged unit, it can't then move anywhere else and still take a shot - keeping them on rough terrain was better. I think

[T-hawk]

I mean shoot at Nic's bowman east of Harar. Both your archer and your bowman on the jungle could have done that.

[MJW (ya that one)]

For everyone who complains about 1UPT ruining Civilization, that last post should be required reading.  This is exactly the deep and interesting tactics that Civ 5's system is meant to create and enable.  This whole war would be 90% less interesting if you just smashed a bigger stack into Harar than he had defenders.

Why not occupy your stone tile?  Your archer can reach it and still get a shot at Nic's bowman east of Harar, and so can your damaged bowman on the jungle.  You're not giving Nic any extra shots because anything that can shoot at the stone tile can already shoot at one of your units elsewhere.

It doesn't work in Civ5 because the defender has too many advantages. The biggest one is the 2x move bonus the defender has (not on every tile but he can move twice as fast as you). They got rid of that in Civ6 by nuking roads and not even allowing you to build non-trade route roads without building a hilariously overpriced unit. Too bad the AI is horrible and there's no MP... But it still shows that Jon could have done a better job with 1UPT.

Edit: Here's luddite's rant on it. Some of it was fixed in patches but because Jon resigned those patches were made by Beach so the patched version of Civ5 is effectively just a beta for Civ6.
Luddite:
Although it's true that the AI does a lot of stupid stuff in this game, I think people are unduly harsh on it in this respect. The fact is that once you get past early warrior/horseman rushes, any sort of offensive war is extremely tough in this game. The defender has all sorts of advantages. 1 UPT means they can only move a limited number of units at once, and rivers/mountains really consctrict the movement, while the defender enjoys road movement. For example that horde of spears that Monty has looks scary, but he can only attack us with at most 5 at a time, and we can actually kill 5 spears/turn with catapults and knights without losing anything. The attacker can't see into the terrain, so they're forced to move in blindly. Defending seige units can kill units in one blow as they come in, while invading seige units get destroyed easily by mounted units. And of course anything that ends turn on open terrain is as good as dead.

There's just no good option for invading at this point in the game. If you want to invade the AI you usually have to wait for them to throw away all their units, first.

[chumchu]

I agree that 1 UPT works fine in multiplayer. Giving the defender an advantage is reasonable in Civ V as there is no whipping or drafting. The movement advantage is huge in earlier games as well but in Civ V it requires a bigger investment in worker labour and gold. What feels unbalanced to me is the city shots. They break the 1 UPT rule by allowing an extra strong shots from a tile where you can also have a normal shot. This leads to a strategy of avoiding of the city limits until you have enough to handle losing a unit every turn. This makes sieges swingy and the map feel more cramped. I would do away with them and nerf ranged units in any balance mod.

[yuris125]

Two of my Bowmen died this turn, the two on the unfinished fort tiles. One was shot down by a bunch of arrows, the other slain by a Swordsman (that Swordsman likely was on that tile I didn't uncover last turn, but expected a unit of his to be here - there's no other place it could've been)




Now note my Bowman on the tile circled in blue. This guy is the answer why I didn't move onto the stone tile last turn. Unless Nic moved onto the marsh NE of Harar (which I didn't expect him to do, that tile is way too exposed), it wasn't going to have a shot this turn because of the forested hill in front of it. I had to keep the stone tile free to be able to move this Bowman onto it this turn. And I promise, it's not me coming up with hindsight explanations - I did think about it when playing last turn

Anyway, I thought I had to kill the Swordsman this turn, otherwise it was going to do too much damage. I hoped 4 shots would suffice, but in the end all 5 Bowmen in range had to shoot it. Just the Archer in the west took a shot at the wounded Bowman

This is the situation after my moves




Couple of notable things. First, I decided to be more aggressive with my Swordsman. With my Bowmen flanking the western road, Nic's Bowmen in the west won't be able to shoot at it next turn. So Nic only has 4 shots at the Swordsman, including the city shot. Which may easily be enough to kill it, especially with the defence malus from the marsh - but it should let all my Bowmen to survive, so it's sacrifice won't be in vain. I also moved in the wounded Bowman in the east for even more targets (and attackers next turn)

Second, I moved the Horseman away. That was the unit Nic's western units could shoot at, and at only 42hp and no defensive bonuses, it could've easily died from 2 shots. And I can't let that happen, or I won't have a unit to take the city

Meanwhile in the south...




HAK used a GG to make a citadel, and my Scout got trapped. I actually sent HAK an OB offer - there's not many benefits to OB on Civ5, but he may be able to use my territory to attack Nic better, and I would like my Scout to remain useful. Considering I'm no longer planning to attack HAK, I expect a friendly gesture to be appreciated (even though he may not accept, because, as I said, there's not many benefits to OB)

Disappointing that HAK still seems unable to do much damage to Nic's city though

Finally, Ichabod did send an offer to renew the lux trade (as expected) and I declined it (as planned). Meritocracy did come in this turn, and a few happiness buildings are finishing, so I'm in a good shape on happiness right now - and will be even better if I do land Notre Dame. It's money that's becoming a problem once again....

[yuris125]

Apparently I failed to take any screenshots this turn - sorry! Big news are that my Swordsman is dead; considering I didn't see any news units in the area, guess the city shot + 2 Bowmen were enough? Disappointing - if not that surprising between Nic getting +20% bonus from Ethiopian UA, the city having 19 strength, and the Swordsman getting defence penalties from the marsh

The westmost Bowman is also dead, and a new unit did enter the scene there. A Crossbowman! If anything going to swing the war in Nic's favour, that unit will. Especially considering I'm very far away from Machinery myself - I don't even have Currency yet! (and yes, Currency is a pre-requisite for Machinery, however much sense that makes. Currency leads to Guilds, Guilds leads to Machinery)

I killed Nic's wounded Bowman with my Archer and one of the Bowmen, and managed to get off three shots at the city. I really need to get a move with capturing it. I can afford to trade two of my units for one of Nic's, but if I allow him to get a substantial amount of Crossbowmen, I won't even be able to trade like that

In other news, HAK did accept OB with me. Would be nice to stay friendly, now that I believe that conquering him will not help me to achieve victory