[Spoilers] Suboptimal - Welcome to the Tlachtli of Blunders!

[suboptimal]

It looks like a long, hard slog out there. And a rifleman barb? I don't think I've ever seen that before.

It's a Ranger, which is the industrial era version of the Scout.  That also means that there is probably a musket or an infantry at the camp.

[suboptimal]

Turn 191

Primary concern remains the Greek tanks I previously spotted. A just-secondary concern is the Greek navy in the northern sea and if my field cannon has survived to see another turn. Notifications on-screen say:




It was attacked but survived. OK...north first. Sir Drake, back at Hairshirt, heads out once more. Finds the battleship in the upper left corner. Retreats. Field Cannon gets out of the way. In the southeast the promoted tank is still in position but notably not fortified. I move the embarked musket into the city to heal, one battleship heads for home, one stays here.

Down at Diminished Japper has brought down a musketman and a unpromoted field cannon. For the time being I remain fortified as he can’t attack the musket corp except with the field cannon next turn...and it would be defending at 80 vs. that unit. I could kill the musketman but that could expose my corp to the field cannon corps that I know is in the fog. I also leave Ghenhis right where he is. Slightly to the west the barbarian ranger has moved next to my other musket corp, which cleanly finishes the unit off (the +8 CS to attacks for luxuries is nice – almost like having a GG+½ around).

Builder at Oddfellows continues towards Hairshirt’s forest. Builder at Boy chops the jungle, bringing the city to 4 population and Petra down to 6 turns. The builder closer to How moves for one of its forests to chop it in two turns (just after the factory completes). I plan on putting the 140 into a military unit, just don’t know if it will start a tank or a field cannon (for added backup in the north). Builder at Welcome heads for the furs. I’ve got a 4-charge builder at Maps that has nothing to do as I don’t want to chop more jungles for the time being (because population is not something I need right now). I park it in Kenneth for the time being. High Speed’s builder heads for Driver 8 to start resource hookups there. For some reason the tile picker this turn is taking the hill sheep (3/1 luxury resource) rather than the hill coal (2/3 STRATEGIC RESOURCE YOU DUMBASS). I think at some point I may have to try to deep blindfolded dive into the GlobalParameters settings to reverse engineer what’s going on to try to fix things (or wait and hope for the source code).

Maps starts a cavalry unit. Harborcoat has finished its Shipyard and starts a Harbor Shipping project. At 12.4 per turn there’s not much more it can do when everything else has build times in the 30’s. It’s more gold, even if it’s only 2-3 a turn. Horse to Water has finished its factory, boosting Begin, Find, High Speed and Driver 8. It starts a cavalry unit. I’d build a tank but if Turing gives me the boost for Flight I want to start on an Aerodrome at Horse as soon as I complete that tech. Two aerodromes and I’ll have the boost for Synthetic Materials and can finish that tech or hold it one turn from completion to get a few choppers out.

[suboptimal]

Turn 193

I open the save to finding out I’ve boosted Class Struggle (three factories) and I’ve got Alan Turing waiting for me. I should also have a nice view of Xenocrates. Time to take a look around. First, the new bit – Xenocrates:




All of those builders have two charges. Due to DotF even the horseman would not be a one-shot kill by tank attacking at 88 – it’s defending at 62 in its current position in the fort. The 2x promoted field cannon would be defending at 84. Then there is the 2x promoted field cannon corps up at Menachmus’ Encampment. I suppose the good news is that my +8 to attacks somewhat counters the +10 defense from DotF. Of course, DotF also applies when they’re attacking.

At Hairshirt it looks like Sir Drake is “it” and heads out once more. Nothing’s changed up there for the time being.

Down at Undertow it’s a different story:




Dinner guests! The late-departing battleship turns around and is in position to be able to take a shot at the tanks if they advance. The good news is that it means the tanks are over here instead of over at Diminished. The southeastern tank has a promotion that is giving it +7 defense vs. the battleship.

Over at Diminished the Kongolese musket has retreated into Kapsalon’s borders. I bring my musket back down next to Diminished. The tank advances out of Driver 8 to the marble and the musket corps fortifies in the city proper. The tank at Begin’s Encampment moves back to Cant’s Encampment. Trade route ends at Find, I send the trader to Horse for a trade route back to Find. Oddfellows’ trade route has also elapsed.

I recruit Alan Turing and he appears at Oddfellows. Next Great Scientist is Alfred Nobel – the “race status” is 33 turns for me, 56 turns for rho21 and 60 turns for Japper. Random Modern or Atomic eureka and 20 GPP for each type. That could be useful. I send Turing to the Campus and activate him, gaining the boosts for Computers and for Chemistry, which completes immediately. I start Flight, that’s due in 6 turns.

Time for the builders. Chop out the forest at Hairshirt, fully repairing the outer defenses. The scant overflow will go into the Commerical Hub which will now complete the turn after next. Up at How I have a decision to make – what to build? A shiny new research lab would take 13 turns, a cavalry unit 8, a tank 10. I could try to increase the likelihood of getting Goddard – one project is currently worth ~56 GEP and the margin between myself and rho21 is 86 points, something he could easily overcome with two projects. A project would only take 6 turns. I decide to do the cavalry first and will debate the project later. The builder that headed over here for a chop does its thing, putting 144 into the trader at Oddfellows. This completes the trader and gives me 95 overflow to put into a research lab. Even with a second forest chop that’s gonna take 20 turns to build. I relocate the trader to How, from where it will send a route to Begin. High Speed starts a library, that’s due in three turns.

Spy in Xenocrates starts a Listening Post mission, I’ll check back in with him in 8 turns. Petra due in four turns.

[suboptimal]

Turn 194

The usual concerns plus wondering if rho21 will make an attempt on Undertow/Hong Kong. Start of turn notifications say no. Screenshot, on the other hand, says yes:




If he takes the city I lose a city that is occupied and providing some benefit to my empire (6 amenities, 7 gold and a trade route). He’ll have three choices if he does take it: raze it, keep it as an occupied city or liberate Hong Kong. He’s bringing a battering ram to the party. I wonder if he’s aware that rams and siege towers don’t work against modern city defenses? If he’s not, I welcome the attack – it’ll cost him at least a tank and I might be able to take out the cavalry unit to boot. One other note – he doesn’t get DotF in my territory because we are at war. Since I’m over at this part of the map I bring the further battleship down to the fish east of the city. If he takes a direct route to each of the surrounding tiles he won’t see either battleship until it’s too late. Interesting that Kongo has an apostle as well. Just to show the numbers about bad the attack could go for rho21, a tank at 80 attacking a fortified city at 74 should expect to deal 5.7 damage to the walls. He’s my CS 88 tank against Diocles’ walls at a CS of 73:




It’s just a flesh wound. The picture is magnified 2x so you can see how little it will do. Of course, this is Civ 6 so who knows if the supposed patch is working correctly. By the end of our next turn one of us will be very surprised and the other will be nodding their head at an expected behavior working correctly. However, I think the worst thing for me that happens here is that the truffles get pillaged.

Over at Diminished nothing is going on. I move the musket corp into the eastern swamp to defog, find a good bit of Japper’s army:




I move back. I could, in theory, send in the tank and follow up with the crossbow corp, killing the field cannon on the Campus. The city’s ranged attack won’t do any significant damage to the unit. The alternative, actually, would be to run the tank up to Waffles – the city has no walls and a tank attack would do 131 damage in one shot. I move the tank up to the rice NE of Driver 8 to take a look around and so far see nothing. Of course, as soon as I approach the borders I’ll get a reaction from either Japper or rho21. I’m actually more interested to see what the latter would do.

Speaking of Driver 8, the tile picker did, indeed, take the sheep tile over the coal. The coal is due in 16 turns.

Up at Hairshit the situation has changed slightly – the ironclad has left itself out in the open, two off the coast. One field cannon is not enough to kill it, I’d need both. I move Sir Drake out to sea once more and find James of St.George in the way, two sea tiles east of the city. I leave Sir Drake at sea there and wait and see. My battleship enters the straight and finds…




Indeed. I’ve got three choices here:

- Kill it with the battleship, announcing my arrival.
- Spend 6 turns bringing over a field cannon and moving it out of position to kill it
- Spend 9 turns bringing up the closest archer at (Cant) to kill it.

Well played sir, but your sentry dies now. Or not. I only did 78 damage to it. Eh, I’ll get it next turn. If anything, this might convince him further that I’ve moved all three battleships for the northern sea. That could encourage him to make a fruitless attack of Undertow (or set up for one). Note to self – need a few more ranged units in this section of my empire direction.

Traders at How and Horse start their routes to Begin and Find. Builder at Welcome considers a camp, then sees that I can chop the woods out from under the fur resource for 144. I chop, taking 5 turns off the military academy build. Over at Boy I have a 1 yield desert tile thanks to some incense. A plantation would turn that into a 1/2/1 tile. However, Petra completes in three turns and that would be a 3/1/4/1 tile. Yes, please.

Up at Hairshirt the tile picker is expanding to a forested tile in two turns. The Commercial Hub will be done in one. I’ll start a privateer next turn, chop the woods into it and it’ll be done on Turn 204. That could come in handy later on. The 4-charge builder that’s up here hangs tight for the time being. The 2-charge builder at Horse crosses the river eastwards – it’ll quarry the marble and pasture the sheep. The 4-charge builder at Begin is at the oil – that will get a well next turn and then it’ll head for Driver 8 to farm the wheat, mine the coal and eventually (or sooner, if I shell out for it) plantation the dyes.

In international news rho21 is now ahead of me in culture, having recruited a Great Arist this past turn (Qiu Ying) and presumably generating a great work. He’s also moved one column ahead of me on the civics tree and based on his policy choices he’s gotten Mobilization (adopted both Grande Armee and Levee en Masse). He also spent about 290 gold on an upgrade as he’s down to 97. His income increase was about 40, so good to know his approximate unit count. He can also now form armies, so I need to keep an eye out for that as well.

Note for next turn – put envoys into Geneva as they’d be worth 8 per turn in extra income.

[suboptimal]

Two more things...

1) I wouldn't be able to defnitely kill a tank at Undertow unless he attacked the city first -- I can do about 98 points of damage with the available attacks.

2) His upgrade was a musket corp -> infantry corps upgrade at Xenocrates. If attacked across the river it currently defends at 100.

[shallow_thought]

Is this the furthest into the tech tree a PBEM has gone yet? It feels almost as if the advanced tech works for the defenders more.

[suboptimal]

Turn 195

Hmm…where to begin? Greece pillaged my oil well at Find (there’s where that frigate went!), Kongo attacked my musket at Diminished and there’s a barbarian infantry unit across the river from Horse (). Notably at Hairshirt Sir Drake is still outside the city. At Undertow the battering ram has disappeared. Where to begin? Diminished:




The two ranged attacks won’t be enough to get the job done, the musket corp will need to get involved. However, I don’t want to use it to attack first. It moves to the forest to defog the area, finds only the rifleman across the river. Not worried about that. The city shoots, doing 40 points of damage. Sticky wicket time. The musket corps, on a good attack, can kill the unit. Hoping that I don’t kill the unit I attack, don’t kill the unit and the crossbow finishes it off. My musket corps is at 35 hit points. Against the field cannon corps it’s defending at 76 (65 base, -7 for damage, +5 for GG, +3 for terrain, +10 for Tortoise). If the field cannon and the musket both attack it will die, but I’ll get the musket killed in the process.

Up at Hairshirt I advance the battleship into the strait, looking for the damaged scout. It’s just out of range of me being able to move, see it and shoot at it. However, it’s also now sandwiched between the battleship, my city and the barbarian musket that’s still hanging around without a camp.




Down at horse my crossbow and the city both fire at the barbarian infantry for a total of 48 damage. Driver 8’s musket corps once again heads west for barbarian control. Doing so reveals a barbarian musket also making its way north. If that infantry crosses the river it will die.

At Waffles I move the tank one tile closer, defogging the Campus and the Commercial Hub there, along with a Mbanza. Next turn I’ll be at the city’s borders and reveal the city center, along with alerting everyone else to my position.

At Find I’ve got a slight problem in that I’ll probably lose the Harbor next turn. I won’t lose an active trade route, however, as Hairshirt’s Commercial Hub is complete and I have excess route capacity. I resume the field cannon at How, that’s one turn from completion so will be ready to go next turn. Depending on where rho21 goes after he pillages (not far) I might be able to shoot at him with it in a turn or two. I decide to bring the battleships at Undertow west in order to see if I can chase down that ship. They’ll take five turns to get there via the direct route.

The loss of the oil well at Find only drops the production at the city by two since the builder at Begin puts an oil well in the lake (), restoring my oil count to two.

I’ve decided that Welcome’s builder will chop out the two forests at Green to get out a field cannon up here. I switch from the infantry build to the field cannon now, first chop in two turns.

Re-examining the Great People races I’ve decided that I’m going to run a few projects to ensure certain Great People – an Encampment project at Begin to get Napoleon Bonaparte, an Industrial project at Kenneth to get closer to Goddard and a Campus project at How to get closer to Alfred Nobel.

Internationally rho21 has entered the Atomic Age. I don’t know what tech he finished to get there, though. I also didn’t put my envoys in Geneva.

[suboptimal]

Is this the furthest into the tech tree a PBEM has gone yet? It feels almost as if the advanced tech works for the defenders more.

I believe this is the furthest a Civ 6 PBEM has gone into the tech tree, civics tree and the turn count.  How much of that is our ineptitude and how much of that is game balance is a debate for the lurker thread. 

Right now part of the situation is dictated wholly by the Defender of the Faith belief.  If it wasn't for that belief rho21 would, at a minimum, have had to upgrade all of his Renaissance era units by now to maintain a defensive line.  As it is even if I were to upgrade my two knight corps to tanks they'd have a tough go of it.  That isn't to say I might not try anyway, at least once I get another tank corps up there (and/or get Napoleon).

Putting that aside, Urban Defenses really gum up the works.  Tank v city for 6 points of damage?  Yeah, that'll put a stop to things real quick.   No cities will trade hands unless someone can bring up artillery units or bombers.  I half expect rho21 to regroup a bit and for some artillery to show up at Undertow.  The way he's been with boosts he's gotta have two siege units somewhere in the fog.

I have a feeling that right now we're in a race to Rocketry and Nuclear Fission.  Rho21 needs the former to see a good portion of my lands, but I can already see a good portion of his western core.  I can beat him to the satellite project by virtue of being able to build spaceports with builder charges (!!!), even if I'm behind him a few turns in getting to Rocketry (he has the eureka, I don't).  I can get a spaceport out in 5 turns while he'd need to spend the time amassing the 1800.  Goddard will be key for that for the Rocketry boost and given that the Launch Earth Satellite is a Space Race project and he gives 20%.

The second race to Nuclear Fission is where it gets interesting -- first one to build a nuke is likely to claim the upper hand, at a minimum, and victory at best.  Of course, they'd need to avoid the massive war weariness that comes with using nukes.

A third, minor race is for air power and air defenses.  If someone can get bombers and fighters operational before the other has AA units out it could get interesting.

I do not see this game getting to the information age only because one (or both) of us will have gone nuclear by then.

[suboptimal]

Turn 196

Musket corps at Diminished has died. Greece’s battleship has fled into the fog. The barbarians at Horse are the bigger problem:




The ranged attacks from Horse to Water kill the infantry, musket corps does 81 points of damage to the musket. I could clean it up with the horseman but I use it to escort the builder towards Driver 8.

Over at Diminished Japper used his musket to kill the corps off, putting it within range of Diminished. I kill it with the crossbow corps.

Up at Hairshirt the Greek scout has gotten frisky and came ashore right next to the city:




The city cleans up. The battleship moves a little closer to the city and then shoots the barbarian musket. I’ll leave it here redlined for the time being.

Down at Waffles I move next to the city’s borders and finding nothing move onto the Mbanza. I’ll have a straight shot at the city center next turn via the roads:




Let’s see what people do in response, if anything.

Out at sea I continue moving my battleships eastwards but now spread them out a little bit. I want to see as much ocean as possible to try to catch the Greek battleship. Easier said than done, though, as there’s a lot of room in the sea and no radar.

I also remember to put my envoys into Geneva for the extra income.

In looking at the Great Scientists in the Atomic Era I don’t know that I want to rush to Nobel. One of them gives three eurekas, another gives science for rainforest (of which I still have enough to make it worthwhile) and the third gives science for artifacts (which I’ll be getting to at some point for their culture).

The other question is at High Speed and what to build next – Colossus (3 plus a trade route worth potentially 3 and 4 per turn) or a University (8 )

[suboptimal]

Turn 197

The big question while opening the save is what, if any, reaction is my tank at Waffles provoking? Japper’s brought up his knight corps to attempt to defend. Alrighty. I take a look around in the other operational theaters. At Hairshirt rho21 has pulled back St. James. No sign of the battleship on my west coast, status at Undertow is the same as before.

My biggest military threat right now is that dumb barbarian field cannon by Driver 8. I move the builder into that city and send the musket around behind the iron hill, putting me out of sight. If the field cannon closes I’ll be able to use the city’s attack to help kill the unit. That situation taken care of it’s now time for Waffles.

If I take the city I’ll have three options – raze, liberate Brussels or keep it. Keeping it nets me a Campus (6 with Natural Philosophy), a Commericial Hub (3 + trade route) and a second source of truffles. It will cost me...one amenity. Tank moves in and attacks the city, doing 115 points of damage and sustaining 7. I’ll take it next turn unless Greece intervenes in a hurry. In taking a closer look around I do see that rho21 has moved his infantry corps two tiles southeast of Xenocrates. Interesting. I wonder where he’s going with that?

Now for the big news of the turn:




Petra has completed. Last turn this city was generating -1, 9.5 and 4.8. This turn, well, you see the numbers. I start an Entertainment Complex midway between this city and How. I have a forest available for a chop and will save that for the eventual zoo here.

At Hairshirt I move Sir Drake eastwards to see if the Greek ships are still there – they are not. At the full extent of his movement range I find St. James. I decide to put the barbarian musket out of its misery with my battleship. As for the field cannon, I move one towards Hairshirt and bring the other one, and the great general, towards How.

Speaking of battleships, the oceanic fleet contonues moving towards the coast by Find. I’ve spread out but left some fog open to the south by the ice. Not that it’d matter as I can’t see interturn unit movement, so if rho21 moved through the gap I’d never know. This is a low probability operation as a lone ship is a needle in a haystack in the ocean, even on Pangea maps.

Builder at Hairshirt mines the hill with its last charge. That takes two turns off the privateer. The other builder up here begins making its way south with three charges to go. Builder at Oddfellows moves into the forest for a chop into the research lab next turn. Speaking of chops I was going to put one into the field cannon at Green. In a fit of wishy-washiness I decide that the builder charge is better spent chopping the jungle at Welcome into a Zoo, so I head back down.

That leaves production at High Speed. University or Colossus? University. Science sooner is gooder. That’ll be done in 8 turns.

I have two envoys that I’ve naturally generated. I put them into Geneva for additional income. It also ties me with rho21 for envoys, giving me temporary peace with the city-state and about 33 per turn, bringing my rate up to 240. Until rho21 gets some more envoys my science rate will exceed his by about 60 per turn.