new civ 6 pbem while the next pitboss can't start?

[greenline]

Proportionally, Yongle gets way more benefits per pop compared to any other leader / civ pairing except Tokugawa. 1 science / 1 culture / 2 gold is way above Khmer's 0.3 culture per pop that requires a holy site + shrine + temple. That strong of an economic bonus should be paired with some kind of malus or actual vulnerability to being attacked early - Mansa Musa's theoretical crazy gold + faith economy means struggling through the early game.

My game plan was to harass Yongle with Men at Arms, but my interest in planning that out died when I threw everything at trying to keep Venice loyal and failed.

[Krill]

I mentioned it my thread, but yeah, one reason I was so surprised that Krill sprung ahead was because I assumed at least one of his neighbors was going to pressure him before Yongle took off.

Khmer had time settle four cities towards me, and then only third rin borders touched across a three tile wide isthmus. Korea, Rome and China were in a Mexican stand off where Rome has to rush Korea but Korea was the only civ immediately capable of rushing China. And this was on an incredibly tight map.

I can't be too critical, Whosit, because at least you scouted. Just every decision you made was wrong in the context of Trajan.

Proportionally, Yongle gets way more benefits per pop compared to any other leader / civ pairing except Tokugawa. 1 science / 1 culture / 2 gold is way above Khmer's 0.3 culture per pop that requires a holy site + shrine + temple. That strong of an economic bonus should be paired with some kind of malus or actual vulnerability to being attacked early - Mansa Musa's theoretical crazy gold + faith economy means struggling through the early game.

My game plan was to harass Yongle with Men at Arms, but my interest in planning that out died when I threw everything at trying to keep Venice loyal and failed.

MaA would have been too late on this map, the encampment set up a kill zone, and even just adding a quad would have made it impossible to reach the walls to attack without a GG (and I find it absurd that when you finally did get a GG, that gave me a GG and was one of four key events which ended the game as quickly as it did).

And then frigates would have closed that door forever. With how Korea was played, it wasn't happening. The correct play IMO, was a horseman rush straight to the heart, and that I would never have been able to stop. Korea had the horses, and the builder pantheon. A straight beeline to Military Tradition, plan for a chop or two and Korea would have taken everything. Venice was always the wrong play because there was never a way to hold the loyalty. Loyalty requires a civ own the city on at least 2 sides and SF was never enough, as shown. I held Venice because of Burmese.

The problem Yongle runs into is that the main power is tied entirely to amenities. Tokugawa only cares about getting down the trade routes with one uber city, so doesn't have that weakness. With this start sizes 7 and 8 were spent building Lilja amd then a Magnus Marsh chop gave most of size 9. I basically paused all growth to even get the bonus to kick in, and I was in a hole I had to dig my way out of. That is a window of opportunity amd that is where the counterplay arises.

The output rates at the game aren't useful for understanding the reality of what Yongle is capable of. Captured cities eat amenities because of war weariness, and all the cities have to be brought I to alignment and that takes turns which gives more opportunity for intervention.

All this to say: Yongle is good, but he isn't that good. RB just isn't that good a group of players.

[TheArchduke]

Hmm, I would say Yongle is not a ban but definetly S Tier.

Yeah, our current games are not competitive enough. But for that we would need a bigger player base. I do not know if I want to do Civplayers League, their modding seems intensive.

[Krill]

I wonder if we want to branch out to the greater PYDT group, they seem relatively chill.

I don't know if I'd put Yo gle at S tier, only because I do not know the other leaders that well, but by that same measure I would not disagree with the assertion.

I'm not likely to pick another game until next summer, but I'd be willing to try another random map but with a larger number of players. The game speed isn't a problem, at time it was too fast in the early game: I'd play a turn then go to make a meal, once the meal was about ready the turn would be back to me.

[Krill]

The final video can be found at the below link now. No idea how to embed it.

https://prod-civx-saves.s3-accelerate.am...video.webm

[Sullla]

GG Krill, that was super impressive from a subpar starting position. I'm not sure how much of that was the leader and how much was your execution but absolutely deserving of plaudits either way.

Without being too critical, I have to say that I was pretty disappointed with TheArchduke's Khmer in this game. It looked like that was a stellar position isolated over in the west, with some beautiful terrain perfectly suited to using the Khmer's river + faith bonuses. I kept waiting for some kind of big move, some kind of decisive plan to execute... and then nothing really happened as Krill simply ran over everyone else in the game. Was there a plan that failed somewhere along the way? It was unclear to me in the reporting what TheArchduke was trying to do in this game. I had the sense that Khmer was simply waiting, waiting, waiting... and then the game was just over.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, I'm genuinely curious what happened for such a strong position to fizzle out like that!

[TheArchduke]

I was never in a strong position to militarilly get ahead of Krill. My science situation was subpar and my fleet was divided by 2 oceans. I kept thinking that I can outbuild him and then everybody else collapsed like a house of cards.

As you are frank I will be frank. It was not my nonactivity, but the weakness of everyone else that doomed me. I had an excellent position till Whosit decided to go after Japan.

[Krill]

GG Krill, that was super impressive from a subpar starting position. I'm not sure how much of that was the leader and how much was your execution but absolutely deserving of plaudits either way.

Without being too critical, I have to say that I was pretty disappointed with TheArchduke's Khmer in this game. It looked like that was a stellar position isolated over in the west, with some beautiful terrain perfectly suited to using the Khmer's river + faith bonuses. I kept waiting for some kind of big move, some kind of decisive plan to execute... and then nothing really happened as Krill simply ran over everyone else in the game. Was there a plan that failed somewhere along the way? It was unclear to me in the reporting what TheArchduke was trying to do in this game. I had the sense that Khmer was simply waiting, waiting, waiting... and then the game was just over.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, I'm genuinely curious what happened for such a strong position to fizzle out like that!

Thanks. I kind of lost my head a little in first 50 turns, mostly because I have no clue how to play the early game.

I know I keep on raising the same issues with scouting/information seeking, but it keeps on being true. On T100, my stats were bad, down at 4th place with TAD slightly ahead, and down three civics on TAD and Whosit. I had five cities but I'd been slow reaching three, so everyone seemed to think "food for later, not a threat". TAD had the worst power in the game but most of my power over and above what TAD had was in two galleys and a spear. Then I got the heroic age and everything looked...just as bad, and no one seemed to think about it at all, or investigate, or actually think what I would try to do to win.

By T108 I was first in techs researched because of the triple eureka GS giving me the three eurekas I couldn't otherwise get (so that was planned) and Naval Infrastructure pushed bpt to first place. Still no body did anything, and I was allowed to broker amenity deals which were to my advantage. TAD was just finishing Etamenki and a bunch of districts (and teching construction at less than half my effective tech rate). Faith output was "only" 70/turn-ish, but the focus appeared to be on growing it. Whosit remained focused on Zanzibar (which was always the goal with that little tussle).

T113 I had caravels in the water. Whosit recognised it, but less than 20 turns previously Whosit was still figuring out the issues with Korea. TAD had two cities on the east coast and nothing on the west coast and 100 faith/turn but couldn't buy boats and had no knowledge of the map beyond his lands and mine west of Long. Whosit knew though, but then Whosit had no real way of doing anything with Trajan has he had to eat Korea to even reach me, and didn't recognise the risk from a religious victory. TAD didn't realise that a Cartography rush was the right way to win (TBH, TAD, I've said I think you value coastal cities enough, reject it all you want, but on T115 you made 120 faith/turn, to Whosits 5 and Chevs 9.8. You could have made the early play under cover of DoF, but you didn't even give yoursel;f the option to explore the map to find out what you needed to do to win). I had most of the map uncovered except for the far southern peninsula from CMF and already had the plan). My T115 report gave this succint summary of the game:

The short version of the answer is that greenline probably can't win at all, Chev needs to find available land, TAD needs to forcibly spread his religion westwards around the globe to finish off Whosit last, and Whosit needs to kill everyone before they outscale him. I need to eat greenline then outscale everyone, then eat Whosit with an era tech lead. Chev and greenline lose by being eaten by Whosit, I lose by doing nothing, and TAD loses if Whosit successfully executes (what should be) his plan.

I changed target once it became obvious that Whosit wasn't strong enough militarily, and didn't have much in his core, but the plan to win was already in place.

T116 TAD identifies science as an issue, after the Burmese declaration, and thinks the long game is the right play(?!) with no military and an extremely poor gold generation. The downside of the faith game, with no plan to use faith for anything but building (The T116 report even comments that faith buying military is an option without a definitive plan in place. Khmer was already down Education, Stirrups, Castles, Buttress (had eureka), Military Tactics and Cartography without. At least up machinery...why try to fight with units you don't have, when you can fight with the units and opponent can't counter, ie religious units?

Meanwhile Whosit is still trying to figure out how to wage an effective offensive war (well, to be fair, Whosit had to, so this was an operational failure rather than a strategic one.

By T125 TAD had built a university to sort out tech rate and was at 83 and just about to finish Military Tactics with 165 faith/turn and only knowledge of Romes' western coastline, no knowledge of Chev's terrain, but contact. Whosit was teching Ballistics at least (without eureka), and still focusing on how to deal with Zanzibar which was never a real solution to the problem. But this was the time I was bulldozing through Square Rigging without the eureka (the last one I had to deal with all game FWIW). Even at this point no one seemed to be thinking how to win. T126 TAD offered the military alliance and T127 accepted the culture alliance and then the game was essentially set.

T127 I landed Square Rigging and T132 I captured and decided to keep Burmese. TAD couldn't do anything because of the alliance, Whosit couldn't fight frigates and the rest is pretty much history. By T157 my tech was obscene with Steel researched and Battleships about to break naval confrontations, so if TAD didn't offer the DoF, I could stop any religious victory attempt by condemning missionaries and apostles in the water, but even then TAD didn't try for the RV until it was too late, trying to dig out a tech whole that Khmer just couldn't get.

Please note that if I had not invaded Whosit for real after the DoF, I would still have gotten to 200bpt and the mostly improved culture just with fixing what I had within the amenity envelope. However, if the religious victory had been started earlier (at the alliance signing around T125), then I wouldn't have been able to use Lilja(faith) to defend it and I couldn't condemn units in the water. I would have been stuck between fighting Whosit, and thereby helping Khmer in Rome, whilst there was no way to stop the spread through Chev either. But without the scouting to recognise this path to victory, it wasn't taken.

tl;dr: Yongle is good, but I don't think Yongle should have won this game.