[NO PLAYERS] Which DLC Civ is Most OP? (PBEM6 Lurking Thread)

[Jabah]

Archduke army is now too promoted to be damage by archer. crossbow (and wall) could have been able.
(plus suboptimal has 3 archers doing nothing around his coastal city who could have helped finishing)
Also, you really need to kill units, leaving them badly damaged but allowing them promotion is really bad (see the first attack where suboptimal though he had killed one unit that just escaped to the city to promote.

[Sullla]

OK, so with suboptimal's capital falling to TheArchduke, we have one of those big picture questions: how did this happen? I thought it might be interesting to do a bit of a deep dive into this topic, especially since suboptimal was asking the same question and I want to give him something to read after the game is over. There are two failures here, one at the strategic level and one at the tactical level. The more serious failure was at the strategic level, where suboptimal, as Australia, should have been planning for a defensive war against his Macedonian neighbor as soon as he discovered that TheArchduke was next door. I'll quote what I wrote earlier in this thread:

Suboptimal has played an excellent 50 opening turns. He's making good use of the Australia unique bonuses and the war declarations for those ten turns of +100% production accelerated his civ past everyone else in the early turns. He reached horsemen before TheArchduke could reach swords/horses himself and doesn't look to be in any danger of getting overrun militarily. Furthermore, time is enormously on suboptimal's side in this conflict with TheArchduke. Macedonia is a one trick pony civ, designed for early rushes and nothing else. Australia is a builder civ with much of their power unlocking with the outback stations halfway through the tech tree. Australia wins the game by out-researching its opponents with those silly district adjacency bonuses while Macedonia's only path to victory is the Classical era rush with a Great General.

So given all that, why in the world is suboptimal looking to ATTACK into fortified defenses right now?! It makes absolutely no strategic sense whatsoever. He should have leaped at the opportunity to get peace with TheArchduke and therefore score the +100% production bonus again any time that war was renewed. As Australia in this situation, it seems to me that the obvious play was to sue for peace, stake out a defensive position along the border, and otherwise keep on building and teching. Macedonia can't keep up with Australia in a peaceful game. Just keep racing down the tech tree until those hetaroi units are obsolete and then laugh when they get impaled trying to attack against your crossbows.

Am I missing something here? These actions seem like a complete misread of the strategic situation.

For these two civs, peace and time are always on Australia's side. Suboptimal's inability to recognize this is the single biggest reason why he finds himself in his current predicament. But let's get into the tactical side of things too, shall we? Here's the situation on Turn 34 when the war between Australia and Macedonia started:



TheArchduke has zero units anywhere near Australia and no plans to attack for a long time yet to come. In fact, he only declared war because Alhambram's Persia declared war against suboptimal on the same turn, and he didn't want Australia to get the +100% bonus production twice. This confirmed that Macedonia was going to be hostile towards suboptimal in this game, if for some reason that was in doubt, and gave him tons of time to prepare to receive an attack, as well as doubled production for 10 turns to accelerate his growth curve. That's a dream scenario for a peaceful civ who has no reason to be aggressive.

Let's fast forward a bit to 5 turns later:



There are no Macedonian units in sight. Suboptimal has scouted out the border region with TheArchduke by this point, and there's very strong defensive terrain all along the region. There's a narrow two-tile gap along the coast, along with a river that Macedon must cross to reach Australia, and then another river further along to the northeast. Given the strategic situation where Macedon essentially has no choice but to attack, and especially after Macedon has actually declared war and made it clear that an will be forthcoming, Australia should be looking to fortify the border region heavily. The future Blue Octopus is in a good spot, but it needs to construct city walls and an Encampment district before anything else to fortify the border region. Irukandji could even place a second Encampment on the tile 2 northeast of the city center; together, those two would be extremely difficult for any attacker to pass. Make sure to have at least one crossbow to upgrade the power of city walls, or better yet stick two crossbows into the fortifications and laugh and anything trying to walk through that narrow gap region. Instead, this area would be left unfortified and the units that could have been used to protect it were sent forward in reckless fashion.

Another huge strategic mistake occurred on Turn 45:



TheArchduke actually comes with hat in hand offering peace. At the time, TheArchduke was struggling with terrible barbarian problems at home and concentrating on attacking his nearby city state. Suboptimal should have jumped all over this offer, which was a major mistake from TheArchduke. Peace would mean 10 more turns of guaranteed peace, another clear signaling from TheArchduke when Macedon planned to get aggressive, and most of all, another 10 turns of +100% production during the inevitable next war declaration. There was no benefit to keeping the war going since suboptimal clearly wasn't going to take any territory from TheArchduke. This was a huge error.

Now jump ahead another five turns to Turn 50:



TheArchduke has taken Kandy at this point, the Religious city state between the two players. He has promoted units and there's clearly more of them to the north out of view in the jungles. They're definitely coming south towards Australia. There are two tactical places to make a defensive stand: contesting Macedon as it crosses the river, or contesting Macedon when it tries to pass through the gap. With two warriors already across the river in the screenshot above, and only 2 warriors + 1 archer in the area for Australia, the first option is already no good. Suboptimal doesn't have the forces here to prevent TheArchduke from crossing the river. The best tactical and strategic play is to retreat to the south of the gap and begin assembling forces to stop Macedon from passing through.

It's worth reminding everyone that suboptimal was clearly winning the game at this point. This was his Turn 50 comparison:



Top science, top culture, highest military power score, and so on. Suboptimal has access to horses and trains horsemen before TheArchduke. It shouldn't be possible for an enemy to force their way through a narrow terrain obstacle from this position of dominance. Let's see how it happened.



TheArchduke seemed content to hold on the northern side of the river while assembling more of his army and accumulating the points needed for a Great General. Suboptimal had ample time to fortify his borders and prepare to receive an attack. Instead, he continued to have the warriors and archer hang out in no man's land. One unit there would be a good idea as a spotter for visibility, but having three sit there served little purpose. Meanwhile, the new horsemen began running around to the east side of the mountain range because... reasons??? It's completely unclear to me what these units were trying to achieve. Here's what suboptimal wrote at the time:

That one’ll get plunked by an archer. However, it does mean that I can cross the river to the east and then wheel around to the north, either skirting his forces altogether or taking them down from the end. Archduke has a warrior in Urteau now but hasn’t built anything more advanced than that (and archers).

Archduke opened the turn by moving both archers east and shooting at the horseman with one of them, causing about 20 points of damage. Both horsemen move east in order to cross the river next turn.

This can only be unfamiliarity with the Civ6 combat system, or else too much time spent playing against AI opponents. Two horses unsupported by other units will never be able to achieve much of anything. Instead of pulling back to heal after being shot, the horses kept diving deeper into Macedonian territory on a doomed mission:



Where are these units going?!? Civ6 (and Civ5) use this One Unit Per Tile combat mechanic, which turns them into a kind of tactical war game. If you've ever played any of them seriously, you might remember that they are all about moving units together in formations. Try playing something like Battle for Wesnoth and move individual units around by themselves, you'll see how poorly that works. Armies need coordination in Civ6 to function properly, and ideally you want strong melee units in front backed up by ranged units behind them. Tactics are very, very important to have success. Moving units around by themselves or in small groups rarely works out, and I keep seeing this mistake made over and over again in PBEM games. It might seem counterintuitive, but the fact that Civ6 forces One Unit Per Tile rules means that it's actually even MORE important to keep your forces concentrated. If not, it's an invitation to have your units sliced up and defeated in detail. When your units are concentrated, you can coordinate multiple attacks against the same target and finish it off. When your units are split, the enemy unit gets redlined and limps away to promote, heal, and fight again.



Now we're on Turn 64. A Macedonian attack is clearly imminent, with the Great General visible on the northern side of the river. Suboptimal has 5 horsemen out on the field, but their tactical positioning is awful. Three of them are on the east side of the mountain range and out of the key combat zone. One is deep in Macedonian territory, on its way to dying for no purpose. A second is injured because it ran up to the river and was shot by Macedonian archers. None of them will serve any role in this fighting. The other two could potentially be of use, but they are poorly positioned, sitting BEHIND the archer for no clear reason. The archer and warriors have been holding in place for a dozen turns now, and yet the spots chosen for them make little sense either. The archer can't shoot at anything crossing the river up by Austrex, which gives Macedon free reign to cross as its leisure. The warriors don't appear to be doing anything, since they aren't protecting the archer from attack. The best move here is to stop trying to defend this patch of desert and retreat back to the southern side of the gap. Having only a single ranged unit to defend this territory is inexcusable given how much time there was for preparation.



Here comes the attack that was telegraphed last turn. Note that TheArchduke was able to cross the river with absolutely no resistance, and suboptimal is getting precisely nothing out of the defender's advantage. He's not fighting with city walls or Encampments for defensive fire support, he's not taking advantage of the narrow terrain to the south, nothing. His units are just kind of hanging out in this desert region for no clear reason. The warrior who was fortified on the coffee tile for so long took damage from archer fire and a Hypaspist. Suboptimal decided to retreat the warrior and move up his horses to attack:



But all this did was redline the Macedonian unit, not kill it. Some of the other lurkers have made this point already, but I'll repeat it again: finishing off units is extremely important in Civ6. Each unit is much more valuable in this game than in Civ4. TheArchduke simply moved his unit back to Austrex and healed it back to full, then returned it back to the fighting five turns later. Exposing all of the Australian units and not getting the kill was a huge mistake. The Australian horses were now damaged and easy prey for TheArchduke's Great General boosted units.



One of the horses died between turns. Suboptimal now tries to run away with his units...



But it's too late because the Macedonian horsemen have 5 movement with the Great General, and they have no trouble running down the fleeing units:



Suboptimal has been completely routed, and his nearest city still doesn't have walls up yet. No Encampments or crossbows anywhere in his territory either. Meanwhile, the Australian horses off to the east are limited by the rough jungle terrain and can't contribute to the fighting. They were just hanging out looking cool, doing nothing of substance. Imagine how this situation might have looked if suboptimal had been defending south of the gap, and then counter-attacked anything trying to pass through it with all those horses.

By Turn 71, it's too late. The Macedonian units are through the gap and have free reign at the Australian core:



Suboptimal gets walls up in his nearest cities, to his credit, but can't protect Mouse Spider in time. Irukandji follows as soon as TheArchduke can get a battering ram up to the center tile, and that's an effective GG.

I'll throw out one further suggestion here. Suboptimal became the suzerain of Grenada and talked in his thread about how he should have built more Alcazar tile improvements. I think that's the wrong line of thinking though; instead of running horses around uselessly in the east, he would have been better served to attack and conquer Grenada for himself. Sure it was an iceball spot, but having another city always helps and that would have been a more productive use of those horse units. The Alcazar tile improvement is a lousy one; if you can build one, use the builder charge to chop something else instead. For that matter, suboptimal likely trained too many horse units here. Having even two crossbows in good defensive positions with city walls/Encampments shielding them might have been enough to shut down this attack cold. I think Australia had enough beakers and production to get crossbows in play by the time this attack arrived.

Whew, I think that covers what I wanted to say. Kudos to TheArchduke for making an aggressive play that worked out, but this absolutely was an attack that should not have worked.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

So Macedon really is a one-trick pony...but it's a pretty good trick.

[oledavy]

Very happy to see the Archduke in such a strong position to win one of these things, he's definitely earned it at this point. 

I would be wary of drawing too many conclusions about the strength of Macedon though. Archduke is a battle-tested veteran at this point, and Suboptimal made a number of tactical and strategic errors in his war with Archduke. I feel pretty confident that Archduke would have carried the day even without Macedon's suite of UU's.

[suboptimal]

Very happy to see the Archduke in such a strong position to win one of these things, he's definitely earned it at this point. 

I would be wary of drawing too many conclusions about the strength of Macedon though. Archduke is a battle-tested veteran at this point, and Suboptimal made a number of tactical and strategic errors in his war with Archduke. I feel pretty confident that Archduke would have carried the day even without Macedon's suite of UU's.

I agree with that assertion.  My tactical and strategic blunders disaster aside, I am a bit surprised that neither Alhambram or Emperor K only made half-hearted attempts at a GG knowing that Archduke already had two, was actively pursuing more and has historically made a point of pursuing the more relevant Great [Military] people in prior PBEMs (generals against you in PBEM 2, admirals in PBEM 4).

[Japper007]

Gotta agree with Davey here, the Macedonian UU's aren't anything special like the Roman Legion or the Nubian Pitati Archer. The hypaspist is hardly anything special apart from the usual no Iron requirement. The hetairoi is cool for its flexability of being essentially both a heavy chariot (upgrades to Knights) and a horseman, but it is severely outshone by some of the other heavy Cav UU (Mamluks or Warcarts)

Archduke would've done just as well with regular horsemen, chariots and swords. It really came down to superior tactical play on his part.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Of course, I don't want to minimize Archduke's win at all - he's earned this one with his great play, no doubt. But before the war with suboptimal remember that we were commenting that his civ wasn't doing much for him. He's shown how Macedon can be exploited to the hilt - he has, what, 4 great generals now?

[Jabah]

Gotta agree with Davey here, the Macedonian UU's aren't anything special like the Roman Legion or the Nubian Pitati Archer. The hypaspist is hardly anything special apart from the usual no Iron requirement. The hetairoi is cool for its flexability of being essentially both a heavy chariot (upgrades to Knights) and a horseman, but it is severely outshone by some of the other heavy Cav UU (Mamluks or Warcarts)

Archduke would've done just as well with regular horsemen, chariots and swords. It really came down to superior tactical play on his part.

Earning GG points in battle definitly help having 4 (might not have been needed, but helped at stealing them from the competition)

[Azoth]

Five GG! The fact that you can earn points against barbarians is important, because you can always have a spare unit earning points on the side, and it makes it risky for opponents to run projects against you, since you can conjure up bonus points anytime. In a more contested game, zero war wariness might be a bigger deal.

[shallow_thought]

Also, the fact that Hetario upgrade to knights, not cavalry, lets you just keep the offensive rolling as Macedonia in a way that is denied to other civs. It would have been interesting to see if it would stall against an industrial-era opponent, but once you have two-thirds or more of the available good land, UUs kind of stop mattering.

I do wonder if the community should consider some sort of restrictions on GG/GAs. Their stacking seems OP, and some Civs seems to be able to dominate their recruitment in a way that's hard to counter. Against that, banning stacking boosts abilities such as DoF in a way that could be unbalanced, quite aside from the practical difficulties of enforcing a ban without causing eternal arguments.

Good game all! Great reporting generally.