Brick by Brick (Spoiler Alert!)

[TheHumanHydra]

Yeah, looking back I should have taken the Pyramids (I would have razed it, of course ). At the time (just after fighting Serdoa) I felt 1. your army was still very large, if outdated (I was actually afraid you would come for my southern cities while I was fighting Serdoa), and 2. a comeback of the kind you staged was not possible in Civilization IV (everything we say about snowballing, etc.). As for Aquanauts, my third city, I'd actually been grateful all game I settled it so early; that became my best-developed city in terms of infrastructure and probably MVP in my empire in terms of both beaker and military contributions. I feel that settling my "northern belt" of three cities (Aquanauts, Hydranauts, Wild West) early, even though a reach, allowed me to develop what I felt were the best city-sites on the map earlier than anyone else and make them powerhouses (relative to the rest of my mediocrally-managed empire). It was probably an indication of a recalcitrant single-player mindset, but, objectively right or wrong, I didn't regret it all game.

Thank-you very much for the constructive criticism; you were a very good and sporting opponent to play against. I'm sorry I don't have all that much to critique about your play; IMHO (besides the couple faults you pointed it) it was flawless.

[TheHumanHydra]

In case anyone is still reading this, I thought this was interesting - I just had a chat with a friend who recently got into Civ IV and who read my thread, and got his thoughts on it (mostly in the first part) along with some more of my own, of course (more in the second part):

[....]

G: Your game ended well
well, I mean,, people seemed impressed

me: Oh no, you read it?

[....]

G: I liked your rant about not the inability to win despite all the work
I think that has some interesting historical parallels

me: Do go on ...

G: Well, imagine being the Germans in Russia in 1943-44.. Lets say general staff officer, and youve done so well, youve help to conquer all of Europe and create a Reich that spans across the continent
you even beat back the RUssians thousands of kilometres in victory after victory
but you still can't win, because theres always more, and slowly they wear you down
so from factors that do not take into account your ability to strategize, plan, or execute military operations
you lose the war
I mean, there's some differences, but I am sure that feeling of losing and you cant do anything about it is a very common one in military history eh

me: Yeah, that's definitely how I felt.*
I became quite bitter for several days.
I actually really appreciate how incredibly resilient the defence is in Civ IV, because it adds a great deal of realism and possibly makes people think twice about how they think about war.
(You know, it's all guts and panzers in pop culture.)
But when massed bolt-action rifles can't defeat equal numbers of friggin' Napoleonic infantry, there's a problem.
I really like how artillery is key to accomplishing anything in Civ IV warfare, 'cause that's very realistic.
(And that's the root of the mechanical problem.)
It's just unfortunate your artillery won't fire defensive fire tasks on approaching units to rake them as they advance,
which would be even more realistic and actually allow you to invade successfully.

G: yeah.. Im assuming CivV is not any better?

me: I'm not sure; I haven't really had the chance to try it.
Civ V (if you didn't know) uses hexes, not squares, and a limit of one unit per tile.
This in an attempt to make combat a lot more tactical.
It's also the root of really severe mechanical problems with the game that have caused most of the community to disown it.

G: I remember you telling me soething like that, thats too bad
Are you involved in other games for Civ now?

me: No, all of them have either ended or I stepped away from them.
As you probably read, I'm really reticent to join another game, as much as in a way I'm mad and want another go at it to do better.
I think I can improve, as you probably noticed throughout the thread I tried to analyze everything to see what I and others did well and poorly.
I'm just not sure I should commit to another game given how long I took to play many of my turns (holding up the game) and how demotivated and frustrated I got when things went poorly.
But there is a certain sense of "now single-player Civ will never feel challenging again."
So who knows.

G: I cant imagine going back to playing against the computer
where's the thrill!

me: Exactly ...
Hey, can I post this chat in my thread? I feel people may be interested in it

[....]

me: By the way, if you ever want to get in on the MP action, let me know and I'll one of watch, dedlurk (advise) or compete - it'd be fun! (Though you're probably busy ...)
Just something to keep in mind for the future.

G: it sounds fun, but I would probably be destroyed, I dont have the time to commit to keep track of all the factors at play
nor do I have a general staff to do it for me
though that would be cool...

[end of chat]

* Disclaimer: I do recognize and fully accept, of course, that my failure was the consequence of my own informed choices - just as it was, naturally, for the Germans in Russia as well.

Anyway, just thought that was interesting. Carry on.

[BRickAstley]

Yeah, interesting chat. And I hope you do get the mind to play another game, I think you'd do well and hopefully enjoy a chance for redemption!

[thestick]

We could always do a rerun of PBEM 38, the Second Chance game

[TheHumanHydra]

Well, I guess I'll just have to challenge you guys sometime.

[Azza]

Mostly it was that I could see the little red lines on so many of your units and I didn't want them to recover. The temptation was too strong... More important though, as I think you noted, I wasn't sure what Azza was planning (still no idea unfortunately) so I wanted to have our fight over and done with ASAP just in case. So either staying at war for the war-weariness or not attacking your stack on the hill could both have been better options, but in the bigger picture I needed peace. To be honest at the time having survived at the cost of Lancaster seemed like a win to me...

If you have a specific timeframe, I can go back through my save archive and try to remember what I was planning. Between having every attack get shot down in flames (this game), not particularly enjoying the reporting side of things (all games) and general laziness (all life) I let reporting fall by the wayside in this game.

[Old Harry]

Hey Azza, I was wondering if - around the time that I gifted you back the MOM city - you were planning on dogpiling me with THH, or was Serdoa always your first target. If I hadn't given you the city back would things have turned out different?

Also you were running very light defenses there and in your island city, at the end of the game. Did you know how much you were tempting me?

GG

[Azza]

Hey Azza, I was wondering if - around the time that I gifted you back the MOM city - you were planning on dogpiling me with THH, or was Serdoa always your first target. If I hadn't given you the city back would things have turned out different?

Also you were running very light defenses there and in your island city, at the end of the game. Did you know how much you were tempting me?

GG

From memory, the plan was always to go after Serdoa and hope you and THH would butt heads for a while giving me a shot at recovering. Unfortunately my first stack got bogged down in the Great Lighthouse city, since I knew there were huge stacks of outdated units and I didn't want to lose TGL after taking it. I sent some Rifles to wander round Serdoa's moved capital (with Hanging Gardens IIRC) hoping he attacked out at great expense, while pillaging because I didn't have the reinforcements available. That was why I'd pretty much emptied out my Moai and MoM cities, I needed all the Rifles I could conjure to actually make progress. I was about to launch a stack into north Byzantium as the game was called, which probably would've allowed me to finish off Serdoa/Dhalphir (unless I fucked that up too, which wouldn't have been all that unlikely given my track record).

I can't say I considered how tempted you might've been to mess with those cities, I was more or less hoping I could run a token defense while you focused on Hydra. Having said that, I didn't exactly notice that you'd picked up Astronomy until I saw you'd razed Aquanauts, so I was basing my assumptions on your best transport being a galley which would've given me time to defend Moai or MoM, unlike Galleons.