[TECH] Civ 6 PBEM 11 (Mid-late May Start)

[Alhambram]

So, while two top dogs fight over a bone, third one walks away with it.

More importantly this shows why I (and probably many here) don't like occupation penalty. It cripples the attacking player as long there is one city of conquered opponent left, especially if it is at unreachable place due navy superiority of other player or if last city is placed middle in empire of other powerhouse and that crippled player keep denying peace.
Occupation penalty system needs a make over, make it similar as civ 4, a cooldown of several turns depending size of city.

[TheArchduke]

Imo, we need some sort of house rule. I still think Rho would have won this, but for future games we need a workaround for the occupation issue.

[Rowain]

Imo, we need some sort of house rule. I still think Rho would have won this, but for future games we need a workaround for the occupation issue.

While I agree that the occupation penalty as it is is bad (the added Loyality makes it even worse) I don't see a good way to overcome it. Any rule you create forces the defender to sign peace when the attacker wants which is shitty in itself.

[TheArchduke]

Not entirely. Eu4 has a nice way of going about this by allowing a stabhit when you demand way less then you took.

[rho21]

The way I'd implement the occupation penalty would be a 100% penalty to all yields (food surplus, not raw food, obviously) on conquest, ticking down by 5% per turn until the city was fully productive again. Not that I think that would be easy to mod into the game or anything.

I can't see it mattering here anyway, though. I was getting ready to write for the turn 140 report a discussion of what could still go wrong for Rome. As I saw it, the greatest threat was losing the upcoming naval battle against Brazil. I don't have a good count of Brazil's navy, though I do know it was quite split up. If that battle is won, I can't see Russia being able to get together a navy capable of challenging for the seas, so the only remaining risk is being out-teched and beaten to space. Conventional wisdom would suggest that (after conquering Greece and Brazil) Rome's huge space advantage should pay off, but in the shorter term Russia has similar population and a big developmental advantage: twice the number of districts as things stand!

Perhaps we would have ended up playing a long 2-player game until a game-changing tech like nuclear weapons came along to break the deadlock. I've never had a chance to play with nukes, but I believe they will inevitably favour Rome in these circumstances due to range restrictions.

Anyway, I wasn't expecting a concession for maybe 20 turns or so, but I can hardly argue with the estimation of how things will end. Thanks to everyone for the game, it was most enjoyable.

[TheArchduke]

With your navy and an army I would also live under the constant threat of an invasion.

The dealbreaker was my mistake of not leaving Valetta liberated thereby denying myself a trade partner.

[Cornflakes]

GG all! And congrats to Rho21 on the win! Initial thoughts:

From my perspective this was a thoroughly enjoyable game. Thanks for the map Emperor K.

I liked the 2 continents of 3 players each setup, and the dynamic it created in the foreign relations. I felt like it was a balancing act in the beginning between posturing to aggressively to claim as much as possible on the one hand, but playing nice so as to not get on the wrong end of a 2v1 on the home continent. Then suddenly TheArchduke blows Germany off the map in the span of half a DoF while at the same time the Aztecs mysteriously vanish on the other side of the globe (heh, kinda like in actual history ) creating a new dynamic.

I think that if Russian signed a DoF & Alliance with Brazil we could have had an interesting end game well into the modern or Atomic eras (nukes? ........... space?). Brazil had the early lead due to Russia devoting significant early resources into capturing Germany, but the German spoils were just starting to ramp up. With science Russia had basically equalized with Brazil in production with Hattusa alone, even without the additional 2 scientific CS. Brazil was far ahead in culture but Russia was just completing their first Theater districts with Jesuit Education for amphitheaters + GWriters to fill them. Alliance would have given Russia immediate contact with the overseas city states that I'd met already including 2 additional scientific. Russia at the time had more campuses than Brazil (5 vs. 3), more total cities, fewer self-founded cities (cheaper settlers to continue expansion). Add to this the fact that Brazil can't win without keeping Russia in a competitive position until until the final push for victory [otherwise it's Mutually Assured Destruction playing out in reverse]. DotF + Cossacks mean that even tanks and artillery will fail to conquer Russia, allowing Russia to focus all energies in the Modern era towards economy economy economy. I think it's a compelling package.

No hard feeling at the end I hope TheArchduke

My biggest question at the end game: Rho, why did you not play nice with me? Throw me a bone and give me enough gold to upgrade a few MG and I'll play nice. But your refusal to open diplomacy coupled with your massive investment into navy AND capturing the city state on my now-home-continent is signaling nothing but hostility. I don't think you had enough navy to take me out The channel between Brazil's home continent and island expansion is large enough for me to maneuver in, but small enough that I can engage upon my own terms and get the first strike in. With the capture of the Preslav freeing up your navy, and the fall of Free Cell freeing up mine I'm consolidating into a defensive formation next turn, out of range of wherever you'll advance next turn. Then I'll be slowly moving southward to my sea culture where I'll be able to upgrade another MG, maybe 2 if TheArchduke keeps Free Cell instead of razing (pillage of lighthouse + harbor). I'm looking forward to seeing what you were thinking and planning!

[rho21]

I'm not sure what I gain by propping Brazil up near the end. You have enough naval force already to keep Russia penned up on that continent and no hope at all of stopping the charge of the cossacks.

Rather, my only threat is Brazil itself, and the only question I had was whether I could defeat your navy. If I lose that battle, we perhaps end up in a very strange situation with Brazil having control of the seas but almost no land, Rome and Russia a full continent each but no way off it. That could have been amusing.

What do you have in the way of a navy near your colonies? I knew of 3 frigates and a caravel, while a larger task force was off on the far coast of Russia. I did plan to try to get more information on your forces with scouts and the great merchant, but primarily I was intending to charge in and absorb a few losses, possibly after finishing the Terracotta Army for a second promotion on most of the frigates.

Perhaps your navy was bigger than I gave it credit for and my best play was to sign peace and tech to my own battleships before reopening hostilities. Another possibility is that I should have attacked earlier, leaving Preslav for once the sea was safe.

[Cornflakes]

I had 5 Frigates, 1 MG, 3 Caravel. I have another MG getting chopped out in about 2-3 turns and enough gold in the bank to upgrade 1 of the MG to Frigate (both of which I could accomplish before you could force an engagement). I'm also 5 turns from building Great Lighthouse for the extra +1 movement (making use of the charges from my Great Engineer). Which looking briefly at the last page of your thread looks probably about evenly matched after accounting for the first-strike you would have to absorb. My thinking is why take the risk? Play nice, throw me a bone, let me play in my sandcastle and tech ahead as Rome. If you play nice then I have no reason to interfere with you. If you attack and fail then who knows? I can't say for certain what I would do in that situation. Half of me says make peace with Russia and throw everything at (potentially) burning the Roman coastal cities and rule the seas at a pirate nation 

[rho21]

That's much more than I thought you could have in the area, I must admit. A big factor in my considerations earlier is that if we have peace you can force a pretty devastating first strike when it ends due to turn order advantage. I'd need a full 30-turn friendship to have my own battleships and be truly ready for that. Perhaps I should have factored in the strong chance you'd just act against the Russians for the foreseeable future. Always difficult to predict that sort of thing though.

The way to get my attention might have been to show off more naval force in my miraculous Russo-vision. If I'd seen an MG or two on that coast I would certainly have backed off in a fair bit of a panic.