[SPOILERS] Yuris125 tries to win a game of Civ5 before it fades away

[chumchu]

Civ 5 war is a lot different against human opponents and much more fun in my opinion. This is where 1upt really shines. If they had spent more resources on the MP-aspect it believe it might have had a big MP-scene. As it happened, it took them 3 years to get it reasonably stable which meant that they missed most of the hype. Secondly, there was no MP-balance testing which meant that it took mods to make it competitive and varied. That was made much harder by the lack of native mod/scenario support as we noticed when setting up this game. In the end, some of these problems were solved by GMR and the NQ-mod . The NQ started quite late in the life-cycle and is still in development. I do not like it that much personally as it tended to buff everything and nerf nothing which led to a powercreep forcing them to change more and more aspects of the game.

[yuris125]

Yeah I really like Civ5 war, it's a pity we never explored it properly - I have a feeling Nic pay have played a fair amount of MP outside RB (his early attack on me suggests that), and I have been feeling outmanoeuvred pretty much throughout the war. I wonder if there would be interest in more Civ5 games after this one is done (we'll see if Civ6 is a reasonable alternative, but for the moment the new movement rules frustrate me a little too much)

[T-hawk]

I'm actually getting the feeling that while Civ 5 multiplayer war might look interesting, it tends to stalemate. Because the side superior in strength can't maneuver enough of it at the same time to make gains and win a war. It only works early on, when the unit advantage is something like 6 to 3, since six units can be brought to bear on a front line. But you can't win a war when ahead by 20 units to 10, since you can't cram your other 10 units into the fight at the same time. You can't out-attrition the defender since he can hold a firing line and get first shot every time the attacker tries to move in.

I'm starting to think what you really need is overwhelming force to attack Harar and the capital at the same time, and that way one might succeed if he doesn't have enough units to defend both?

[yuris125]

You could well be right - it's just that we didn't explore Civ5 mp war enough, so it's not easy to say. I'm going to throw an idea of a Civ5 AW game into the ring after this one, maybe there will be enough interest

[chumchu]

I have had a fair bit of war in MP and watched a lot more. A huge difference is between turnbased and simultaneous. In simultaneous it often becomes grinding fast-click wars of attrition while turn based leaves more room for tactics.

I agree that there are some problems with maneuver. I would argue that there is too little space for army size, that melée units are too slow and that ranged units and city shots are too strong. I do not agree that defending is too easy. yes the defender gets an advantage but it is not overpowering unless you have really good terrain like a choke point in a mountain range or hills and Great wall and outside of gold purchasing strats its very hard to get a defensive army fast. While not all units can be brought to bear, being able to rotate units out to heal is huge and for that you need many units. 20 to 10 is a given victory for the attacker if both have current tech. It can bog down a bit in late medieval/renaissance like in civ IV. The crucial techs to overcome a defensive position are usually navigation, artillery and flight. Keshiks, camel archer, longbow and chu-ko-nu can do it earlier , so can Persia's extra movement/strength.

I would like to play in such an MP.

[yuris125]

While we wait for HAK to come back, here's the depressing part about the state of the game




I sent a trade route to Ichabod - he cabn break it and destroy my cargo ship just by declaring war, but I have to hope he doesn't do it at this point. I started it after finishing Gunpowder. The game says that there are any techs I know and Ichabod doesn't. So he's clean 8 techs ahead of me

The only positive I can think of in this situation is that his spy has nothing to do...

The defining factor of this game was that when I chose to take Holy Warriors, I had to make significant military gains. Through Nic's good play, and my less than stellar attempts, that didn't happen. I tried to stay optimistic - the demos looked like there was still hope - but in the last 10 turns Ichabod reclaimed the lead in every category and is running away with it

I initially thought about backfilling the tech tree and getting Universities up. But I don't think it makes sense at this point. I have to capture cities, I have to do it soon, and I have to slow Ichabod down somehow

I will review the tech tree when I get the save next time, and determine how I can get out of it. The key techs I need are Artillery and Flight. Artillery is well known to be op as hell and should let me break Nic's resistance if I get there in time. Flight will allow for military action on the other continent without the pain of sailing units across the ocean

Additionally, with HAK losing interest in the game, and Nic seemingly happy enough to contain me rather than try to capture my cities, it might make sense to divert some units from the from with Nic and attack HAK with some number of Muskets. He might even welcome it. I know I had hopes for research agreements with HAK, but again, I think it's too late in the game to get enough benefits from them

So that's roughly the plan for what I'm going to try after the break

[yuris125]

Artillery is too far away (9 techs I think). We'll see if I can do something with Cannons - I can do Chemistry in 10 turns, and it will boost my production in addition to giving access to Cannons

[yuris125]

Wanted to explain my thinking about questions in the tech thread. Trades with AI are obvious; Catherine actually has spare gpt right now (well, had last turn), and I wanted to bring up the matter before my turn, so that I could take advantage of her gold if decision was to allow it. But I think not allowing lux sales is a good decision - we shouldn't take advantage of Ichabod's decision not to take players out completely

As for nukes, I think they're a good way to finish the game if Ichabod is far enough ahead and doesn't want to go through the trouble of building a spaceship, and a possible way to catch up if other players are not too far behind. Plus, when will we get another chance to see Civ5 nukes in action (if it does come to that of course)

[yuris125]

I got my first tech steal from Ichabod, and Chemistry was available. Once again, depressing that he's so far ahead in tech. But on the bright side, I expected to steal something cheap like Education, so getting an expensive tech I still was 7 turns from self-researching was a decent boost

[T-hawk]

Civ 5 tech stealing works oddly. The time needed for the spy depends on the cheapest tech available, but once that time is fulfilled, then you can take any available tech. It's a strategy to deliberately leave something cheap (Optics or Compass on land maps) unresearched and available to exploit that timing quirk.