[no players] CiVI Lurking Part II: Sophomore Slump

[rho21]

Mm, I was rooting for Woden early on due to the clearly-defined and interesting strategy. Now I've definitely switched to Alhambram, who despite lacking a strong overarching strategy has managed to read the game state masterfully and launch an unbelievably successful 1v2 war.

I'm hoping for a culture victory though, as if it's religion the game will be over very soon. I'd very much like to see the forthcoming clash between superpowers.

[pindicator]

I'm hoping for a culture victory though, as if it's religion the game will be over very soon. I'd very much like to see the forthcoming clash between superpowers.

I am hoping the religious game falls short too only for the reason of the game not ending. It would be a shame to have the game end before the upcoming conflict between the 3 remaining players.

[Sullla]

There isn't going to be a huge lategame struggle here. In fact, I'd be very surprised if we even see 15 more turns in this game. Alhambram is about to win, and it's not going to be close at all. Let's leave aside the Religious victory condition for the moment and focus only on the military and economic aspects. Alhambram is crushing Woden without even breaking a sweat; he's lost what, one or two units total so far. Has he lost even a single cossack? I don't think Woden has managed to kill any of the Russian unique units. Woden has infantry now, and it didn't slow Alhambram down in the slightest. The ability of cossacks to hit and run, combined with their enormous base movement points and Logistics policy, lets Alhambram attack any target he wants and never leave his units exposed to counterattack. The cossacks are a snowball mechanic that only gets stronger and stronger with time, and we're long past the point of no return now.

So Woden will be dead in about three more turns. The instant that happens, Alhambram is going to see his research and culture explode into the stratosphere. He's currently trailing oledavy only because he has something like 10 cities under the occupation penalty, where they can't grow and produce 1/4 their normal science and culture. If Woden's empire was worth ~120 beakers pre-conquest, how much is that empire going to be worth to Alhambram once everything is out of resistance? Not quite as much, but still a substantial sum. Alhambram will leap up to something like 200 beakers / 150 culture per turn, at the same time that Singaboy razes Hattusa and collapses oledavy's own science rate. This will demoralize oledavy on the economic front and speed along a concession.

Then there's the military side of things. Oledavy seems to think he can hold his cities against Alhambram's forces, and he's going to get a rude surprise when he runs into the much larger and better promoted army that Alhambram is fielding. With Logistics policy (which oledavy still hasn't grasped the importance of), Alhambram can easily get in the first shot against city walls with his bombards, followed by cossacks rushing in one at a time to attack. The cossacks move back to a safe position with their 6 movement points (12 movement along roads!) and never expose themselves to the enemy, striking and retreating out of the fog each turn. I don't see any way to defend against this without being ahead in tech, and oledavy isn't ahead. Look at Woden's cities: he has infantry defending, he has strength 75-80 on defense. It's not stopping Alhambram at all. Why is oledavy going to fare any better? He has Singaboy on his other flank with an army almost the same size; I think it's something like Alhambram = 1300, Singaboy = 1200, oledavy = 1000. The upgrades oledavy has planned aren't nearly enough to solve this problem, especially because Alhambram's army has a lot of injured units, and the true strength is closer to 2000 if all units are healed. Civil Engineering for free city defenses will help, but it won't be enough, not against roughly 2:1 odds and with the insanely strong cossacks thrown into the mix.

I see Alhambram finishing off Woden, his science/culture exploding immediately thereafter, and then the cossacks ride on and start taking Greek cities with help from Singaboy on the back end. Oledavy sees the writing on the wall and concedes after a few turns of this. Again, I would be shocked if this game lasts much more than 10 turns from today.

[Ichabod]

I agree with Sullla. The only thing to point out is that perhaps Defender of the Faith could be a turning point to stop the Cossacks, but I doubt it. The thing with Cossacks is mobility, not only raw strenght, like Sullla pointed out. A huge factor in 1UPT wars is that there's only a few tiles to attack units from, before everything gets occupied. At one point in the last Civ 5 PBEM, I had to gift one of my units to a City State after it attacked, only to open up a tile from where my final unit could attack a city. Cossacks forgo this penalty, which is huge. You're basically guaranteed to finish some units each turn, with multiple attacks, and that makes a lot of difference, especially when your own main attackers are never getting caught. It's a huge hit on the player's moral too, as we saw with Woden.

In Civ 5, every mounted unit had the ability to move after attacking. On the early days of the game, they were blatantly overpowered, so the strength of those units was reduced a lot, which keeps them in check. In Civ 6, the strength of mounted units doesn't need to be reduced due to this, because mounted units don't have that mobility feature. But Cossacks keep the higher strength of Civ 6's mounted units (they even get a bonus), while getting a huge and exclusive advantage of mobility. That's a killer combo.

Obviously, it's not the sole reason Alhambram is in such position. He played very, very well, overall. But it's worth noticing that Russia is highly regarded in Civ 6 MP communities, that I've seen, and the cossacks are the main selling point.

Finally, what could hurt Alhambram is Woden founding a city in the middle of Oledavy's lands, before Alhambram can finish him. That would severely hurt Alhambram's conquest cities, for as long as Oledavy could defend Woden, due to permanent occupation penalty.

[Azoth]

Finally, what could hurt Alhambram is Woden founding a city in the middle of Oledavy's lands, before Alhambram can finish him. That would severely hurt Alhambram's conquest cities, for as long as Oledavy could defend Woden, due to permanent occupation penalty.

Woden wouldn't even need to found it, right? Oledavy could gift him some remote city, like Valley Forge, and prolong the occupation penalty. But while Woden was planning to build an escape Settler earlier, he ultimately decided it wouldn't be sporting, and would probably reject a gift, too. I expect that will become a house rule: no gifting cities to dying civs.

[Ichabod]

Finally, what could hurt Alhambram is Woden founding a city in the middle of Oledavy's lands, before Alhambram can finish him. That would severely hurt Alhambram's conquest cities, for as long as Oledavy could defend Woden, due to permanent occupation penalty.

Woden wouldn't even need to found it, right? Oledavy could gift him some remote city, like Valley Forge, and prolong the occupation penalty. But while Woden was planning to build an escape Settler earlier, he ultimately decided it wouldn't be sporting, and would probably reject a gift, too. I expect that will become a house rule: no gifting cities to dying civs.

Ah, I didn't see that he backed out on that.

Most of the Civ 4 games already ban city gifting (or city trading in generel), due to cheese strategies like that. I agree that it's a worthy ban, though you could argue it's already within the "don't be a jerk" rule (I mean the city gifting thing, I don't see any problems if a player decides to self found a distant city to prolong the occupation penalty).

[Esteon]

At this point I do hope Alhambram does not win via religion, even though I love the way he played.
I just want to see his forces run over oledavy (who's so sure he can stand against them...).

Blood, blood ... and death

[Mardoc]

I hope the game at least goes long enough for OleDavy to experience the Cossack horde, rather than ending to religious victory instead.  That would give Davy a chance to walk back his comments about Woden. Davy's had quite a bit longer to prepare for Cossacks than Woden did.

Alternately, maybe OleDavy can find a way to fight Cossacks.  It would help if he had parity in war-civics, promotions, mobility, or numbers, though .  I have theories about how one might fight Cossacks, but that can't compare to actually trying it.

[MJW (ya that one)]

His military strenght has recovered a little to 1500 (and he still has many injured units). His true strength will be much higher now. Mine is 1350 and oledavy is still trailing behind. What is he doing?

[TheArchduke]

Yeah, I am not sure how Oledavy is supposed to fare any better then Alhambram.

Woden had a secure flank, Oledavy does not.

Oledavy does tend to be widely optimistic about his wars.