For the post-mortem and the lurkers, here are the reasons I can't compete at all with TAD navally, since there are really a few specific mistakes I made that swung this rather than large-scale development errors, so far as I can tell:
- Great Admirals, not from their standard combat boost but from their retirement bonuses. The biggest is Yi, of course, which I couldn't really have stopped, since he appeared at the worst possible time for us, where we would have needed to spend 800 gold to get him, itself pretty prohibitive in terms of our odds to win this war. We probably still should have done that, in retrospect, but I'm not sure it would have given us a chance. More minor were Rajendra Chola, Themistocles, and I guess now Gaius Duillius in conjunction with Yi. I could have stopped Themistocles by passing on Artemisia, but the others were also pretty much outside of my control. I think this is a case of England's GA bonus being stronger than the community gives it credit for, perhaps stronger than Phoenicia's Cothons on a naval map. England has translated the GA bonus to a +3 CS advantage, +20% hammers on frigates, a super-ironclad that I have no prayer of stopping, and a 450 gold advantage from having forced me to by Santa Cruz, which in a straight fight has come out ahead of my stronger ship production. In fact, Phoenicia's bonus to shipbuilding doesn't actually help us in a situation like this, because it doesn't actually translate to more Renaissance ships, since the bottleneck to building those is not hammers at all but upgrade cash. It would help in a long war, yeah, but in Civ6, especially in a naval war situation, I think having a stronger knockout punch at a technological breakpoint via a mass-upgrade is simply more effective than having a good grind game via hand-building modern ships with a higher hammer multiplier.
Note that, while I couldn't have beaten England to their GAs and remained competitive, I could have voted for no GA points at the World Congress. That would have prevented the Yi and Rajendra Chola problems, but would mean I would have zero Medieval GAs to TAD's one, itself a significant disadvantage. I am not sure changing that decision by itself would have salvaged this situation (my caravels would be 9 points behind TAD's without a GA or OL), but it would have been better than giving TAD an ironclad that can beat my whole navy by itself... You were skeptical of this decision at the time, and you were right about that - in retrospect, I definitely should have gone the other way on it.
- Financial mismanagement on my part. England's navy is qualitatively better than mine due to GAs, which is in large part due to England's unique ability (in conjunction with the world congress resolution). But why are they also quantitatively so much better than mine? Since we both have half-cost harbors and both correctly focused on them, England's gold edge really comes from just three places, so far as I can tell - having focused on gold TRs early and in greater quantities than I did, my 1000 gold outlay on the Cuneiform lighthouse, Linear A fish tile, and Santa Cruz, and the CH at Cuneiform. The former didn't seem like a mistake at the time, since my cities were so undersized and underdeveloped from the first TAD war, but in retrospect it is now proving to be - gold TRs are weaker in the early game than domestic TRs, but that disadvantage wears off sooner than I expected, especially on naval maps where foreign TR yields are doubled and frigate upgrades are such a strong, game-winning move. The second was definitely a mistake that even seemed like one at the time but that I rationalized doing as a symptom of builderitis - gold in this game should be used for upgrades, upgrades, upgrades, and nothing else really unless absolutely necessary, and I think I've learned that lesson pretty comprehensively from this game. Finally, the CH was something I could not even fathom being the wrong decision at the time...but let's do the math. It was worth 7 gpt and 7 bpt for me, but was worth 8 gpt on each of TAD's 4 TRs to the city, for a net swing of 25 gpt in TAD's favor in exchange for 7 beakers. Over the course of a 30-turn DoF (though TAD didn't quite have 4 TRs up the whole time), that adds up to something like a 500-600 gold advantage for TAD because I built a CH! It is almost unbelievable that this is true, but my building a +5 CH was absolutely a major contributor to ultimately finding myself in a hopeless-looking military situation in this game. Be careful about stacking CHs and harbors in the same city in a naval game!
- Not having Oligarchic Legacy. This was just dumb, you told me not to pass it up and I did so anyways because of builderitis. I will never, ever do so again in any context, and I heartily encourage all lurkers to do the same (or don't, so that I can have an easier time attacking you
)
- Great Admirals, not from their standard combat boost but from their retirement bonuses. The biggest is Yi, of course, which I couldn't really have stopped, since he appeared at the worst possible time for us, where we would have needed to spend 800 gold to get him, itself pretty prohibitive in terms of our odds to win this war. We probably still should have done that, in retrospect, but I'm not sure it would have given us a chance. More minor were Rajendra Chola, Themistocles, and I guess now Gaius Duillius in conjunction with Yi. I could have stopped Themistocles by passing on Artemisia, but the others were also pretty much outside of my control. I think this is a case of England's GA bonus being stronger than the community gives it credit for, perhaps stronger than Phoenicia's Cothons on a naval map. England has translated the GA bonus to a +3 CS advantage, +20% hammers on frigates, a super-ironclad that I have no prayer of stopping, and a 450 gold advantage from having forced me to by Santa Cruz, which in a straight fight has come out ahead of my stronger ship production. In fact, Phoenicia's bonus to shipbuilding doesn't actually help us in a situation like this, because it doesn't actually translate to more Renaissance ships, since the bottleneck to building those is not hammers at all but upgrade cash. It would help in a long war, yeah, but in Civ6, especially in a naval war situation, I think having a stronger knockout punch at a technological breakpoint via a mass-upgrade is simply more effective than having a good grind game via hand-building modern ships with a higher hammer multiplier.
Note that, while I couldn't have beaten England to their GAs and remained competitive, I could have voted for no GA points at the World Congress. That would have prevented the Yi and Rajendra Chola problems, but would mean I would have zero Medieval GAs to TAD's one, itself a significant disadvantage. I am not sure changing that decision by itself would have salvaged this situation (my caravels would be 9 points behind TAD's without a GA or OL), but it would have been better than giving TAD an ironclad that can beat my whole navy by itself... You were skeptical of this decision at the time, and you were right about that - in retrospect, I definitely should have gone the other way on it.
- Financial mismanagement on my part. England's navy is qualitatively better than mine due to GAs, which is in large part due to England's unique ability (in conjunction with the world congress resolution). But why are they also quantitatively so much better than mine? Since we both have half-cost harbors and both correctly focused on them, England's gold edge really comes from just three places, so far as I can tell - having focused on gold TRs early and in greater quantities than I did, my 1000 gold outlay on the Cuneiform lighthouse, Linear A fish tile, and Santa Cruz, and the CH at Cuneiform. The former didn't seem like a mistake at the time, since my cities were so undersized and underdeveloped from the first TAD war, but in retrospect it is now proving to be - gold TRs are weaker in the early game than domestic TRs, but that disadvantage wears off sooner than I expected, especially on naval maps where foreign TR yields are doubled and frigate upgrades are such a strong, game-winning move. The second was definitely a mistake that even seemed like one at the time but that I rationalized doing as a symptom of builderitis - gold in this game should be used for upgrades, upgrades, upgrades, and nothing else really unless absolutely necessary, and I think I've learned that lesson pretty comprehensively from this game. Finally, the CH was something I could not even fathom being the wrong decision at the time...but let's do the math. It was worth 7 gpt and 7 bpt for me, but was worth 8 gpt on each of TAD's 4 TRs to the city, for a net swing of 25 gpt in TAD's favor in exchange for 7 beakers. Over the course of a 30-turn DoF (though TAD didn't quite have 4 TRs up the whole time), that adds up to something like a 500-600 gold advantage for TAD because I built a CH! It is almost unbelievable that this is true, but my building a +5 CH was absolutely a major contributor to ultimately finding myself in a hopeless-looking military situation in this game. Be careful about stacking CHs and harbors in the same city in a naval game!
- Not having Oligarchic Legacy. This was just dumb, you told me not to pass it up and I did so anyways because of builderitis. I will never, ever do so again in any context, and I heartily encourage all lurkers to do the same (or don't, so that I can have an easier time attacking you
)
). I have also committed to the caravel path rather than the Medieval Walls one - we should be able to finish a few before being overrun, with Press Gangs coming in next turn, and Medieval Walls are as pricey as caravels and will not buy us much time anyways. I have no real pretentions towards holding off TAD, which would basically require them blundering away the ironclad somehow and also us pulling off a series of tactical coups to buy time until Press Gangs kicks in. But let observing thrawns take note that, this time, I at least did not do 