Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Modo]

Germany's other big advantage is in gold/turn income. TheArchduke has led in this for almost the whole game, and he's clearly been cash-rushing some infrastructure with his moneybags to increase his economic performance. And yet, once again this isn't as big of an advantage as it seems. Germany has a really impressive income largely because Germany is not supporting a big army. That's the whole secret there. It's not that TheArchduke has figured out something miraculous here, he just has a lot of Commercial districts for his Hansas, envoys in I think two Commercial city states to boost them, and then a modest-sized military that doesn't cost a lot of money. If he had a military the size of Rome's, he would be down at a more reasonable total in terms of income. Plus Singaboy is only making 10 gold/turn less than Germany right now after adding his latest trade route. We have more than double the power of Russia/Germany and we're almost matching them in income - that's pretty darn impressive.

The way you spin this is very entertaining
I couldn't agree more with the analysis and the fact you track so much data to ensure your bias doesn't cloud your judgment is certainly one of the strengths of your gameplay but it's still very amusing and makes me think of Churchill: men, it's tough but we will prevail....and Churchill also got to see both the bad ending and the glorious ending in his career as well.
A DoF between your teams and England / Nubia will make Germany / Russia the fattest and weakest piece of real estate available...maybe a new partitioning will ensue

[Sullla]

Russia/Germany have been playing the role of England in the 19th century, sitting back in Splendid Isolation while everyone else fights it out among themselves. That works up to a point, but it relies on no one coming out on top from all of the fighting, and with Kongo/Khmer in the process of dying, the other competitive teams are clearly starting to make real gains. I'm not trying to spin things here to score political points or whatever, I genuinely think that Russia/Germany are putting themselves in serious longterm danger by not making proactive moves to secure more territory for themselves. There's a finite amount of land available and they don't appear to be working towards claiming a larger share of it. Obviously I'm not reading their thread, and perhaps they have a plan in mind that will fix this as a problem. Right now, it looks like their plan is "sit in place and tech to cossacks, then attack" and I'm just not sure that that's a winning strategy. Time will tell.

One other thing I should have mentioned in the big post: we have a HUGE treasury compared to the other teams right now, and that's a very big advantage. No one else has more than 300 combined gold while we have a combined 1700 gold. Money is extremely powerful in Civ6, letting us react quickly to emergencies and translate financial power into military power. We know therefore that England isn't about to mass upgrade a bunch of galleys into caravels because Chevalier and Woden only have 100 gold on hand and less than 100 gold/turn income. We know that Russia/Germany aren't gearing up to attack any time soon because they don't have money for upgrades. Conversely, we have tons of money on hand and we can convert that into military power via the upgrades that we're about to pull off. Money in hand is really important and it's a serious advantage for us right now.

[timmy827]

Russia/Germany have been playing the role of England in the 19th century, sitting back in Splendid Isolation while everyone else fights it out among themselves.

OT and nitpicky, but weren't the Brits still expanding overseas during this time?  And using threats of intervention to stop some of the wars on the continent?  (Ok, probably can't have a Civ analog of that in an AI-diplo game).

Wonder about whether the occupation mechanic has discouraged early fighting too much; unless the other player grants peace you gain very little from conquering until you kill a whole civ.  Haven't read all the completed PBEMs but curious on your thoughts.  Also, is the mechanic of the Friendship (unbreakable in-game until 30 turns) making turtling/teching more attractive than in Civ4 with NAPs that are variable length?

[Sullla]

I was thinking in terms of Europe, not out in the rest of the world, for that analogy. For most of the 19th century, Britain avoided conflicts in Europe unless they felt that their interests were in danger, such as in the Crimean War. (Many of you know that my PhD is in British imperial history.) Here in this game, Japper just posted that he was able to play the turn remotely so it looks like we'll get another turn in today. Kudos to Japper to making the effort to keep things moving, that was really nice of him.

Is it better for us that Japper played his turn today as opposed to Cornflakes taking it? I'm not sure. Japper absolutely should declare war on us and get in the first strike against our units. It's extremely obvious that we're about to attack and landing the first strike is a huge advantage. It's pretty much the reason why TheArchduke won the Battle of the North Sea in PBEM4 and extended that game another 50 turns. So Japper should declare war and move to attack our units, getting in as much damage as possible. However, that requires taking a major diplomatic step and also playing a longer and more difficult turn on his end. He might just decide to adopt defensive positions and pass the buck over to us, which would be a mistake on his part in my opinion, but he's in an impossible position and I wouldn't blame him for wanting to get the turn moving faster to someone else.

As for timmy's question, I do think that the occupation penalty is a bit too severe. It's nice that it ends now with the signing of any peace treaty (with the "cessation" concept quietly dropped entirely from the gameplay), but requiring complete kills or a peace treaty is just too difficult in a Multiplayer context. The whole idea is clearly designed around Single Player where you can always get the AI to sign peace eventually. There are too many incentives against for humans to refuse peace forever out of a sense of spite. I would support a mod change where cities came out of occupation after 10 turns of being held by a new owner, though I don't know if that's even possible to do.

The Declaration of Friendships also can make things more peaceful. Then again, our MP games haven't exactly been peaceful affairs, have they? It seems as though there's as much early conflict as we ever saw in Civ4. I think the key is that it's difficult to conquer territory from other players, but the reward for doing it successfully is absolutely gigantic, since the scaling settler cost makes it extremely tough bordering on impossible to keep up with players who have managed successful invasions. The dynamic as a whole is pretty interesting. We will probably get tired of it eventually, but I think it's working well at the moment for the community. If we could tone down the occupation issue a little bit, I think the gameplay would be in a nice place.

[Sullla]

EmperorK played through his turn quickly and I had the chance to follow this afternoon. Can you tell that I've been eagerly anticipating this turn from all the posts I've typed in our thread today? Let's see what we had on our hands for Turn 111:



Good news for us: Japper did not make the first move and declare war. The real world timing all of this is excellent for us and wretched for their team, with Japper and Cornflakes both having Internet issues over a holiday weekend. I suspect poor Japper felt pressured to play his turn quickly and therefore didn't make the first move. While I'm sympathetic to his situation, I'm still going to take advantage of it in the game. I mean, we can fix their situation by eliminating them from the game more quickly, right? The only notifications were a barbarian attack against my galley in the far north, and Singaboy offering me his excess salt resource (which was much appreciated, thanks!)

Time to dial up our target:



I really do feel bad about this. Japper's been a good neighbor and we've attacked him twice now. However, this is a competitive Multiplayer game and we do need his cities to stay in the race with the other top teams. Japper, I hope things go better for you in your other PBEM games here at Realms Beyond. I formally declared war and moved in my units.



I started out the tactical part of the turn at Max Havellar since it was simpler to plan out. The knights moved in as planned and did their best to strike at the walls of the city. These units did not get flanking or support bonuses, which only appear to operate in unit vs unit combat. Oh well, it was worth a shot. Without the city walls, Max Havellar would have taken more than 100 damage from these knight attacks. Instead, I managed to do a combined 16 damage to the walls and 12 damage to the city, the latter of which will make it slightly easier when Singaboy attacks. This is pretty much what we expected here. Singaboy should be able to chip off another 16-20 damage from the walls with his two knights, and we'll have them down next turn. Fortunately my knights took very little damage in the process, and those walls will do less damage when they shoot on Japper's turn since we'll be reducing their strength. (Japper really should have attacked and gotten in the first shot.) Barring something weird happening we should be able to take the city next turn, because the city will fold like a cheap umbrella as soon as those walls are down.



The more complicated fighting was around Max Havellar. I moved up my units to get the maximum flanking/support bonuses possible, then opened the combat with this knight. I messed up the unit positioning here; I should have had a legion on the jungle tile with a road, and a knight on the tile to the south. That's because a knight could have moved onto the bananas tile and then attacked the Ngao Mbemba, whereas the legion I actually had there was unable to attack into the jungle tile for lack of movement points. Unfortunately my forwardmost knight also couldn't attack this turn, since the cocoa tile is a jungle hill and that takes 3 movement points to move into, only leaving 1 point left and that's not enough to attack into the Ngao Mbemba's jungle tile.

Anyway, I attacked here with the knight on the road at +4 strength and fortunately had a fantastic dice roll, dealing 40 damage and taking 21 damage. The average damage split in this situation should be 35-25 in favor of the attacker, so I rolled high on the damage inflicted and low on the damage taken. Very nice luck. That set up this attack:



This was the only other unit able to attack the Ngao Mbemba. Note that even though I had better combat odds (+7 strength), I did about the same amount of damage here as I did in the earlier attack. This combat result was just about average based on what the numbers suggest. The only other move that I could make was to have my northernmost crossbow fire on one of the Ngao Mbembas, which it could hit over the jungle because it was standing on a hill tile. That led to this situation after everything moved:



I'm annoyed that I couldn't get one more attack on that Ngao Mbemba to finish it off. It's still going to die because it didn't pick up experience for a promotion and there's nowhere to retreat, but it's still annoying. Japper would probably be best off by suiciding it against one of my units to get more damage. My unit that's in the most danger is the knight on the cocoa resource. Now I did manage to fortify it for the +6 strength bonus, and it's sitting on a jungle hill tile for a rough terrain bonus (does jungle + hill get double the normal +3 strength?) but that unit is still horribly exposed. Three crossbows and the city center can shoot it, plus three different Ngao Mbembas can theoretically attack it. I expect to lose the knight between turns, and that's OK. We're charging right into Japper's capital, we're going to take some losses along the way. I'm not worried about Japper trying to attack my crossbows at the top of the formation. Please, go ahead and move your Ngao Mbembas into an area where they don't the fortify bonuses that they currently enjoy.

What Japper should do is focus fire my knight in the front to kill it, and then concentrate on the injured legion behind it. He might be able to kill both units with good combat luck, although I don't think he could manage that. What he should not do is run his units away in the hopes of avoiding combat. That will only delay the inevitable while leaving my units alive to heal and fight away. I would love it if he tried to run that new crossbow back into Heart of Darkness instead of using it to attack this turn. Let's see how he plays this tactically. (Note: I did move my galley back to safety after taking this screenshot.)



I spotted this chariot into knight upgrade from Chevalier Mal Fet at Nan Madol. His cities all increased in defensive strength, indicating that this is England's first knight on the map. It looks like this was part of the Professional Army upgrading that Chevalier was doing... but he still has several archers on the map that didn't turn into crossbows. Perhaps he ran out of money? Gold seems to be a real issue for their team, with Woden down to 10 gold/turn income after bankrupting himself with units. This galley is heading back to my territory to be upgraded into a caravel; two caravels could be a big help at Kinchassa.



There was still more combat though on this turn. I went ahead and attacked this barbarian quadrireme with my galley, getting a high damage result on both damage dealt and damage taken. That's fine with me, as I only want to get a kill on this unit for the Naval Tradition boost. If you were watching my screenshots, I sunk a turn's worth of civics research into that last turn, and it's now ready to be finished in 1 turn of research if I can land the boost. This kill should be pretty easy to pick up, just requiring 2 shots with quadriremes from the units I have available. Honestly, the barb unit would have died this turn if I had Cartography finished and could traverse the ocean tiles. Ravenna is finishing a galley at the end of this turn, and that will allow me to swap to Cartography next turn and finish it at the beginning of Turn 113.

I'm looking to set up a civics swap on Turns 114 and 115. I think that I can line this up just right: get the Naval Tradition boost on Turn 113, finish the civic at the end of that turn (beginning of Turn 114), and then swap policies on that turn and the following turn, using Reformed Church and Theocracy government for the other half of the policy swap. In order to make this work, I need to capture Heart of Darkness in this span so that I can upgrade legions into muskets using the borders of Japper's capital. Fortunately, I think that we'll be able to pull that off, and then have muskets to anchor the push forward on Kinchassa. 55 strength muskets with Battlecry can shrug off Ngao Mbembas and crossbows in a way that legions can't manage.



Finally we can now get to the domestic stuff. I harvested this rice tile for 117 food (!), with it being a 3/0 tile that I was never going to work anyway. In fact, it also allowed Genova to place a Commercial district on that very same tile. The resource was worth a population point immediately to size 5, and Genova will grow again next turn to size 6. This city has more tiles than it can work right now, and it could use a library in the worst way to run a Scientist specialist. That will have to wait though; I'm building a quadrireme next to line up with Venetian Arsenal hopefully completing, and I also want to use another forest to chop that quadrireme's overflow into the Commercial district that this city placed. Genova is never going to be a great city because it lacks hills for production. However, it's producing something like 5 beakers and 4 culture/turn right now, with more to come of each as it keeps growing, and will yield another trade route when the Commercial district finishes. Definitely worth the settler.



This screenshot demonstrates the Campus district project running in Roma right now. The 5 beakers/turn yield is pretty nice, enough that I don't particularly feel like this is a wasted project right now. I'm watching the era advancement like a hawk, and no one else has entered the Renaissance yet (although Singaboy will on his turn for civ #4). We have to hope that we can make it through 5 more turns without Woden or EmperorK also reaching the next era. Honestly, I don't think that I'm going to make it. Woden's been on 23 techs discovered for the last five turns, and he has enough science output that he's probably going to finish a Renaissance tech soon. But then again, maybe he's also deliberately avoiding entering the Renaissance in the hopes of landing a Great Scientist after TheArchduke claims the current one? It's not an impossible thought. Claiming that third Great Person for The Enlightenment boost is important enough that I have to at least make the effort here. 5 more turns, keep those fingers crossed.

Roma also needs a builder in the worst way. I could have this city up close to 40 production/turn if I can get some more of those plains hills mined. Working an unimproved 1/2 forest tile? Argh. I'll be doing another round of builders in about 10-15 turns, there just isn't time to squeeze any of them out right now.



The overview picture for the turn. I actually grew four total pop points this turn, and there's another one coming next turn thanks to the rice harvest at Genova. I'm really looking forward to finishing the libraries at Milano and Siena for some more science in a few turns; Siena also wants that Scientist specialist slot since it also has more population than it can employ via tiles. I think I'm going to harvest the wheat tile there next; I need that tile for the Commercial district anyway. Elsewhere, it's mostly longterm projects as my empire works towards increasing its science output further.

Internationally, both Russia and Germany finished another district this turn, a Harbor for each of them if I read the numbers correctly. TheArchduke has 23 districts by my count; Rome is second in the game with 15 districts. Sheesh man! He's taking that Germany unique ability a little too literally. The power numbers have not updated yet to incorporate the fighting near the Khmer city last turn. I know that they haven't updated because Chevalier's power was unchanged even though he upgraded that chariot into a knight. So unless he lost EXACTLY 20 power, it looks like the delay is still in operation on the power tracking. We should have a better sense of how many units were lost on each side next turn, or possibly on Singaboy's turn. I still have Woden at 800 power and Cornflakes at 600 power right now.

I have some more tactical planning to cover, which I'm going to split into a second post.

[Sullla]

Singaboy, here's what I'm thinking for next turn:




We'll attack Max Havellar with both Chinese knights and three Roman knights. I can shuffle my knights as indicated so that all three of the ones southeast of the city get a chance to attack it next turn. I think that between your two attacks this turn, my three attacks next turn, and two more Chinese attacks next turn, we can have the city in our possession before the end of Turn 112. It looks like China will be the one doing the capturing, and that would be ideal. This is a great spot for China to have a place to faith-purchase more units, and you can indeed use faith to buy units even if a city is in occupation. Ideally, we get a Holy Site here down the road for another place to purchase missionaries in this part of the map. Japper never built a district here at his second city (?!) so there's no population requirement blocking a Holy Site.

The other two Roman knights are free to move on Max Havellar next turn. The key unit here is the battering ram; Japper blocked the road to his capital, but there's currently nothing stopping the battering ram from moving next to the city next turn. Japper needs to block that plains hill tile and I don't see him doing that. If he moves the Ngao Mbemba, I'll simply kill it with a crossbow shot + legion attack. If he moves his crossbow there, same thing. I can't see him putting the crossbow on that tile though, and I suspect he won't see this move that we're setting up. As soon as the battering ram touches the city center tile, my knights can ride up from the south and instantly knock out the city wall defenses. After that, it's knights and legions with crossbow support hitting a city with no defenses. I think it will fall quickly.

Japper essentially has his units well positioned to defend Kinchassa but poorly positioned to defend his capital. There's a reason for this, of course: England is trying to attack Kinchassa from the north. We have a good chance of pincering poor Japper between our respective armies up there in the north. That leads to another question we should discuss Singaboy: do you think we should offer a Declaration of Friendship to England/Nubia? I'm leaning towards yes, since we don't really want to get into another war before this one ends. Their team is going to get the Khmer cities, and we're going to get the Kongo ones. I'm OK with that division. I don't think either of our teams want a big clash between the two of us while Russia/Germany continues racing ahead in tech. I suspect they'd be amenable.

What if we wait to see how things go on Turn 112, and then potentially offer the Declaration of Friendship on Turn 113? If we can take Max Havellar and Heart of Darkness, there won't be anything to stop us from signing a deal. Our big fear was that England/Nubia would take everything for themselves, and that's clearly not going to happen now. Of course, they might be angry that we're taking some of the rewards of the conflict for ourselves and not want to sign a new DoF with our team... in which case, that's also important information to know. What do you think?

[Modo]

I'm watching the era advancement like a hawk, and no one else has entered the Renaissance yet (although Singaboy will on his turn for civ #4). We have to hope that we can make it through 5 more turns without Woden or EmperorK also reaching the next era.

Haven't watched carefully how China advancing now works in the overall plan and it sounds highly suboptimal but did you guys consider delaying China entering the Renaissance for a couple of turns to make room even if another civ gets there now? Off course both of them could enter it and then it's still bad but if it's that important maybe it's worth the risk.
And on the DoF with England / Nubia there's also the possibility that they might fear you coming after them once you've eliminated Japper or even snagging some Cornflakes from them so they might actually offer a DoF first in case you wait and that would be an even more revealing piece of information.

[Singaboy]

Nice analysis and a great suggestion for the attacks. Let's hope Rome doesn't lose any units as Japper fumbles away. I am still waiting for my turn, seems CMF has some issues with PYDT.

Anyway, I would say, let's secure the cities from Kongo and then propose a DoF. Then we take Seoul and raze Nan Madol. Won't be go lightly with both our neighbors though and we might find ourselves being the targets for attacks. If we get DoF with England and Nubia, we might have to look at the meta game situation to decide where to attack next and at which stage. Currently, we are aiming for a lot of cavalry and use it against England and Nubia. With a DoF until around T145, that won't cut it. The DoF with Germany runs out at around T130. Should we then prepare for an attack in the west or dig in and attempt to achieve a bigger tech lead?

[Sullla]

Right, that's the major issue with signing a Declaration of Friendship with England/Nubia. We wouldn't be able to launch a cavalry + frigates timing attack around Turn 130 if we signed a deal with them. However, the real question is whether we still want to engage in an attack like that at all. If Russia/Germany is our biggest threat, should we target them instead? I don't have a clear answer right now to that question. It's something we will have to keep thinking about.

[Singaboy]

Turn 111:

Finally I got something right about districts
I get gunpowder and by my own calculations, with 8 available and 8 finished districts, the districts I have not built yet at all, should come at a 40% discount. Let's see whether this theory hold true.

Looking at the image below, it is indeed a discounted cost of 150 hammers now. I immediately proceed to lock three districts this way:
Theatre at Hangzhou, Industrial Zone at Shangdu and Encampment at Kashgar. While Hangzhou has a few nice forests to chop, Shangdu will have to make without that. However, Shangdu gets another lumbermill and can make close to 30 hammers once grown to pop 8.



I start research on metal casting, which will get its Eureka when I change policies on T114. I will then enable Serfdom and Professional army to upgrade two archers to crossbows along with two warriors and other assorted stuff. I need around 240 beakers for metal casting. This would mean that I could potentially get Metal Casting on T115 to upgrade both catapults to then switch out of Serfdom and Professional army the same turn with another civic swap. In order to facilitate that, I start on naval tradition as the Inspiration for that should come from Rome soon. Humanism is at its 40% limit anyway and there is only one more civic to research for China currently. This is really tight, but should work out nicely.

There are a few more positive things this turn. Hangzhou added a plains forest hill to its borders which increases production to an important 27 to be able to finish the builder within 3 turns even with increased cost when the other builders are done too. Shangdu and Beijing will have to swap off those builders for a turn next.
Tianjin added the right tile to its borders and I have a builder on top of the forest that will chop Tianjin's walls next turn for 93 hammers (with Limes bonus of course). The campus that I will build there needs 253 hammers, around 180 will come from that chop. With Tianjin being a pretty mediocre town at this stage, it will still take 7 turns after that (I might want to finish the granary first to enhance growth there).
Pagan expanded its borders for an additional hammer due to the rain forest tile. The builder moving over will harvest the grassland stone there with Limes into a commercial hub. The planned encampment will need to wait for expanded borders and might profit from another discount when I get to 16 completed districts.



Let's turn the attention east. Nubia has easily taken the Khmer city. Khmer are down to one city. Here a look at the military power of those foes. England's power has gone up with those upgrades while Nubia and Khmer had a drop. Let's hope Nubia lost some troops rather than simply getting wounded. My own military strength is now at the level of Nubia and that is without all the upgrades. Let's hope that will intimidate them enough to sign peace if we decide to offer that.

Time to attack Max Havelaar. The odds are not much different from before even though the walls and city strength are down a little. My attacks go rather well though and I manage to chip off 17 health from the walls and more importantly, 49 health from the city strength itself. This leaves the city pretty exposed for the next round of attacks. Two Roman knights should be enough to get rid of the walls and then the third attack can bring the city almost down. It might be sufficient for me to attack with one knight to take the city.

Hence, I suggest Rome to attack Heart of Darkness in a way, that I could attack with my northern knight as well. Of course, this depends on the what lurks in the fog east of the city. By the way, I held off drafting a horseman this turn. If I get Max Havelaar next turn, I could draft there for more mobility or, if we intend to go after Germany/Russia, drafting in the west would be better anyway. I need to save some faith for another missionary etc anyway.