[SPOILERS] Suboptimal's Arabian Adventure

[suboptimal]

Turn 95 Post Mortem

I signed up for this game for two reasons – to give MP gaming a try and to try to learn more about Civ 6 in order to improve my own play.  I knew going in (back in June) that I had a lot to learn, particularly given my sloppy style of play in SP.  I’m not going to rehash the game in its entirety, but will go through what I feel were some of my critical mistakes and what their causes might have been.  I’ll finish off with some questions for the lurkers, as a matter of improvement.  I also hope that my reporting was up to RB standards (please let me know either way).

The Game:  I am a little disappointed in myself with this game.  Going in I didn’t expect victory to be an option – my goal was to play well and maybe put myself in position to make a run at a victory.  I daresay that I didn’t meet the “play well” objective.  My military misadventures in the Turn 60-62 really did me in, though the way Ichabod rapidly built his military up in the Turn 60-70 window, along with his strong and rates,  it was apparent that keeping up with him long term was not going to happen.  I just didn’t have the production for it, even if I had to resort to spamming ancient era units.

Religion:  Yup, massive screw up on my part.  Had a plan, tried to be too cute/perfect/exacting about it and then never looked at it again.  My main problem here was getting too tied up in the adjacency bonuses with the pantheon selection, the nearby city-states and the placement of the district.  I needed to realize earlier that the main benefits would accrue from the beliefs and the buildings and that the adjacency bonuses are just “starters” to get things off the ground.

Wasted Military: I was in reasonable position to defend what I had in the south, then wiped out half my military in a bad operation trying to take Kikyo.  Again, a case of tunnel vision and inflexibility in planning, combined with a lack of appreciation for how precious production was in this game given its limited availability.  Speaking of which…

City Placement:  This is one thing I really struggled with.  I’d like to think I have some sense on picking out reasonable city locations but I found it particularly difficult to figure out what to do.  Rowain did a good job of intimidation to keep me away from settling by Tsingy earlier, which also kept me locked out of horses.  Glenfarclas was settled as a “get a 2nd city now!” settlement but was the crap de la crap for production – 9 available unimproved in the first two rings, two of which got chopped out.  Dalwhinnie was a (desperate) strategic resource grab, nothing more, nothing less.   In the time since this game started I’ve spent quite a bit of time playing SP to better learn the game and perhaps the available land wasn’t as bad as I initially thought in this game, but that remains for the Lurkerati to decide.

Lack of Production: The flatness of the area combined with my lack of...advanced skills...made finding production and getting things done quite the challenge.  At it’s peak I think empire-wide production topped out at 25 base per turn across four cities (10 in Tomatin, 7 in Glenkinchie, 4 in Glenfarclas and 5 in Dalwhinnie as of Turn 69).  That’s not going to get anything done once the Classical Age rolls around.  

Questions to the Lurkers (and my opponents, if you choose to comment when you get here)

With my current participation in PBEM 6 I’ll let you decide what, if anything, can be answered.

City Placement : Given the geography in my immediate area, where would have been good spots for cities #2 and #3, and why?

Strategic Resources: My military folly notwithstanding, was the settlement of Dalwhinnie to secure the iron a good move or a bad move?  If it was a bad move how would you have compensated for the lack of both early strategic resources?

Lack of Production: What’s the best way to deal with a low-production situation?

Critical Error(s)?:  Is there a critical mistake I made within the first 50 turns of the game that I haven’t shown any awareness of?

Despite my showing I did enjoy the playing in the game.  Playing in an MP game has a much different (better) feel than SP.  Taking the time to do the “deep dive” on things between turns has definitely improved my overall play.  I also feel that I better understand the game as a whole, so mission accomplished there.
 
One last note – I’ll eventually be plowing through the lurker’s thread just to see what kind of derision awaits.   If there’s anything that I’d want to respond to I’ll be doing so here in order to keep the lurker thread “on topic” to current events in the game.  Speaking of which:

Seriously suboptimal, what was that?! Running four chariots off into the desert while making no attempt to defend the capital - did you kill any of Rowain's units at all? I'm at a loss for words.

No, I did not.  Initially I figured there might be enough time to take Zanzibar, more as a economic spoiler than as a survival move.  As I noted in Turn 94’s report I should have stayed put and fought “the good fight”.  I’ll accept the criticism but chalk it up to a combination of “what else can I try to do here as a spoiler?” and my tendency for poor decision making in this game.  The chariots going north was a very longshot hail mary, not a “I give up, kill me” maneuver.

I think your words went that way →.

[Cornflakes]

I think one of your big mistakes was being indecisive with your first settler. Your settler was completed T28, moved northwest, then east, and on T35 back into Tomatin thus wasting 7 turns. I don't know how much the combat bonus of America would have affected the combat, but just looking at it I think you would have been fine to declare war on T28, first strike his warrior with your slinger + warrior, and I think your warrior should have been able to survive a counter attack from both of his warrior attacks. Or stick to defensive terrain (blue route on screenshot below) where you would have been behind the river for the +5 river combat bonus when Rowain could hit you with 2 attacks.

   

The Glenkinchie spot with its double horses and hills + Tsingy to the southwest is easily the best city spot around. Your supply lines are closer and with the river providing extra defense at Glenkinchie I'm pretty sure you could have held that spot easily once settled.You mentioned that Rowain had 55 military strength at this point with a slinger somewhere to back up these warrior. If you buy a slinger right here I think that either attacking the warrior, or taking the more passive approach of slinger + settler to rice and warrior to forest would have been successful.

Actually, looking at this more, I think your best course of action from this position would have been slinger + settler to rice and slinger attacks warrior, purchase another slinger to get the message across to Rowain, and move your warrior to the forest, queue up warrior in Tomatin (due in 3 according to your report). If Rowain attacks your slinger hit warrior is dead to your 2x slinger + warrior attacks. You know America is close due to how quickly his warriors moved up on you, and ceding the initiative over here now will only make it more difficult in the future. I think your only winning move here is to force the settlement of Glenkinchie ASAP. At the very least, if you're not going to push aggressively to Glenkinchie, at least be decisive with the settler and don't move him in a 7-turn circle.

This was meant to be constructive, and I hope it came across that way  Thanks for your excellent reporting! I've enjoyed following along your short history here and am following you in your PBEM 6 thread as well

[suboptimal]

This was meant to be constructive, and I hope it came across that way  Thanks for your excellent reporting! I've enjoyed following along your short history here and am following you in your PBEM 6 thread as well

That was at the start of my mental meltdown and I think had I been more familiar with combat calculations at the time I may have been more likely to try to force the issue.  Alas, I wasn't (and didn't).

[Japper007]

I agree with Cornflakes that not pushing against America was the fatal flaw, with America on the same continent and that close, war was inevitable anyways. You should've struck him while he wasn't ready. In multiplayer war is always on the horizon if someone is close, (I learned this firsthand in my pbem4 game...), so you might as well just DoW and get the pretense out of the way.

[Emperor K]

I was not watching this thread for sometime. I have no caught up and found that you are in fact dead. Well played to the bitter end.

And thanks for the reports

[Mikeforall]

As you have already said yourself, you made some 'stupid' mistakes. 
However, you have achieved the most important thing already: you recognised your mistakes and learned from them during the game. 
Also, note how I re-use your 'stupid' on purpose. Because yes, some of the mistakes could have easily be prevented and had severe consequences. However, few of them were beginner mistakes. 
Most of them were just wrong predictions, something even the most advanced civ-players make themselves guilty of. 

Aside from your military endeavours, which did not end well but for someone who is used to singleplayer AI was not bad at all, I think some of the most devastating mistakes (notably the settler) have already been mentioned. 


If I might give you a tip from an area (or seeing my current PBEM the ónly area ) I am familiar enough with to talk about:
you should have invested a bit more time in micro-managing your cities, especially your capital early on. 
Especially with these Play By E-Mail games, where you play only one to two turns a day, you got plenty of time to plan ahead and shuffle around with tiles accordingly. 

You started off very well with locking in on the rice to grow the cap, but it would have been more beneficial to keep the food-priority up till you had three pop, and then switch over to full production, instead of going half/half on the first popgrowth. Especially with those city-states nearby to deal with barbs from the north and west, and America to deal with any barbtreat from the east. 
This way, you'd have reached pop 3 around the time.
With 2 citizens locked on the two rice you'd have slightly delayed your scout and sling, but gained a significant boost when starting on the builder once 3 pop came in and you could go full production, whereas still maintaining a decent growth due to the abundance of food tiles. 

Whether the above was a significant trade-off can be discussed. Your play in your second city however is more of a mystery to me. 
You started so well in your capital with slotting the rice, so why would you buy the rainforest in Glenfarclas and work it immediately after founding your city? 
Not only was it a waste of money, but it also caused a rather unnecessary delay. Working the oasis would have made the city need significantly fewer turns to grow, and also generated some extra gold. 
You could then have trown your second pop on that rainforest tile for the science and production, since unimproved the rice is not very beneficial in this city. 
I know, you would have gotten +1 culture and +1 science a few turns earlier your way, but was it worth the growth trade-off? I myself think not, but I know by now there are people that disagree with me. 

Now, this management is just a minor thing, and I doubt it would have significantly changed the outcome of the game, thus I would not call it a 'critical mistake'. 
However, you were asking for some input, so these are my two cents . Focus on growth first, and once you got around 3 pop switch to majority production with some growth or, if the situation requires it (barbs, war, etc) full production. 
Because yes, it will delay your first two or even three builds, but speed up the rest of them. 



A small thing on city placement, as you asked. 

I think that the spot were you eventually planted your second city wasn't that bad, even with the eastern one being closer and potentially more rewarding.  
I would personally have planed it one more tile east to make use of the deer, with the trade-off that the oasis would fall in the second ring too. 
Since you however did not use the oasis for an early pop-boost anyways, going one east would have been better, and saved you a tile purchase. 
Yes, you would have lost the fresh water, but in return get more tiles around the natural wonder. And with an aqueduct much of that fresh-water problem would be solved anyways. 


Not saying all to much about your third city, since I believe it was more of a forward settle rather than an actual planned-out metropolis. 
Only that declaring war on Japan, taking their capital ánd settler and then building out Kikyo would have been a better use of that specific location, especially since it would mean you could send your settler elsewhere to claim contested lands. 
And yes I know, you did declare war on Japan, but I think (in hindsight, heh, always easy to say such things after the fact ) you should have jumped in earlier. 
That might also have prevented war with England, or at least have them running their units against a city now belonging to you, and unlike Japan you did have the units to make for a proper defence. 


I hope these comments disguised as tips will help you a bit, and if not feel free to shoot them down. 
I wish you the best of luck in your other PBEM's, may you prevail there.

[Rowain]

HI suboptimal Thanks for your reports and for playing

[suboptimal]

Thanks! I would have preferred a better showing for my first foray into PBEM land, but gotta start somewhere!