Dave's Not Throwing Away His Shot

[oledavy]

I do hope you don't mind me writing here (I'll delete this post if you do).

As a defensive measure: could blanketing the border with - say - hoplites work?
Or some other cheap unit (used only/mostly for blocking).

I'm content to leave our dispute to the lurker thread. Here we can talk about Civ 

I think that's an excellent idea actually. The biggest drawback I can see is that each unit loss runs up your war weariness, so this is not a sustainable strategy - but it could be used for a few key turns. 

As an aside, I think all players should build a few scouts to keep around for scouting/garrison/tile blocking purposes. I definitely got a lot of utility of the half dozen I built this game.

[suboptimal]

The weaknesses with Cossacks are few, but notable, so the rest will be based on exploiting these. Cossacks are extremely good at single target destruction, but like all melee units they have difficulty with fortifications. Without a battering ram and facing adequately protected cities they quail. They're very expensive, and the civic to get a production modifier on them is under Divine Right. This is a civic many players will skip, so getting them at a remotely cost-efficient price requires forgoing other civics and investing a ton of hammers/gold/faith to get them built. 

I think that with respect to Russia the Divine Right civic will seldom be skipped for two reasons:

1) The production modifier policy card for their unique unit
2) It's the prerequisite civic for Reformed Church and unlocking the Theocracy government.  With Lavra spam faith generation is not that limiting in terms of faith-purchasing units.

[Woden]

Two things I have to ask:
1. You sent me a friend request on T156? Never received it, only got you trade offer Cotton for Mercury!

2. I have to ask about your though process on denouncing Russia on the same turn you asked for my friendship (I think it was T159). And for clarity so this doesn't become anything, I am not asking you to defend your decision and I not looking to complain about any of it (I did that in my thread long ago). I honestly want to know your thought process of it to better understand you as a player, get your side of the situation, and diplomacy in multiplayer games.

[oledavy]

Two things I have to ask:
1. You sent me a friend request on T156?  Never received it, only got you trade offer Cotton for Mercury!

2. I have to ask about your though process on denouncing Russia on the same turn you asked for my friendship (I think it was T159).  And for clarity so this doesn't become anything, I am not asking you to defend your decision and I not looking to complain about any of it (I did that in my thread long ago). I honestly want to know your thought process of it to better understand you as a player, get your side of the situation, and diplomacy in multiplayer games.

1. Interesting. For what it's worth, I didn't receive several of the offers you sent me over the last few turns. I got the message that you offered a deal, but no actual diplo screen opened up when I clicked on it. The best I got here is that Civ6 is buggy. 

2. I think it was a mistake in hindsight, for what its worth. I was effectively trying to force your hand. At this point, I believed you had refused a renewal of our friendship once, and were playing coy or about to backstab me. Then I had Russia come to me with a DoF on t159 - which forced the situation. I felt fairly sure he would take a refusal as the sign of aggression that it was, as it would close out the option for a number of turns anyway. I was also weighing the costs and benefits of trying to get the Nationalism Inspiration, which I erroneously believed I could get from a formal war dec. 

With this in mind, I decided I had to make a decision due to his offer. So, I denounced with the aim of setting myself up to get the Inspiration. I additionally offered you a DoF the same turn, with the idea of having played my hand and ruled out a last minute DoF with Russia, you would have no reason to play coy with me anymore or mistrust me. In the event you refused the DoF and signed one with Russia, I would have time to prepare for the 2v1. I didn't want to leave that possibility open to last minute and was getting jittery enough to move my units to cover my front facing you if you've seen the relevant turn reports. 

So yeah, in sum, it was a decision that I felt was forced by Russian overtures, and one I calculated would force you to choose a side, since at that point I was not entirely sure that we would ally together. I had no inkling of just how unprepared your were for invasion at that point, and had I known how bad the situation on the ground was, I would have not denounced, fwiw. I was just staring a 2v1 in the face and had to do something to get some certainty, to know if I needed to be queuing up military everywhere or not, to know if I needed to DoF Singaboy or not, before the situation ran away from me and my options were removed.

[Woden]

Two things I have to ask:
1. You sent me a friend request on T156?  Never received it, only got you trade offer Cotton for Mercury!

2. I have to ask about your though process on denouncing Russia on the same turn you asked for my friendship (I think it was T159).  And for clarity so this doesn't become anything, I am not asking you to defend your decision and I not looking to complain about any of it (I did that in my thread long ago). I honestly want to know your thought process of it to better understand you as a player, get your side of the situation, and diplomacy in multiplayer games.

1. Interesting. For what it's worth, I didn't receive several of the offers you sent me over the last few turns. I got the message that you offered a deal, but no actual diplo screen opened up when I clicked on it. The best I got here is that Civ6 is buggy. 

2. I think it was a mistake in hindsight, for what its worth. I was effectively trying to force your hand. At this point, I believed you had refused a renewal of our friendship once, and were playing coy or about to backstab me. Then I had Russia come to me with a DoF on t159 - which forced the situation. I felt fairly sure he would take a refusal as the sign of aggression that it was, as it would close out the option for a number of turns anyway. I was also weighing the costs and benefits of trying to get the Nationalism Inspiration, which I erroneously believed I could get from a formal war dec. 

With this in mind, I decided I had to make a decision due to his offer. So, I denounced with the aim of setting myself up to get the Inspiration. I additionally offered you a DoF the same turn, with the idea of having played my hand and ruled out a last minute DoF with Russia, you would have no reason to play coy with me anymore or mistrust me. In the event you refused the DoF and signed one with Russia, I would have time to prepare for the 2v1. I didn't want to leave that possibility open to last minute and was getting jittery enough to move my units to cover my front facing you if you've seen the relevant turn reports. 

So yeah, in sum, it was a decision that I felt was forced by Russian overtures, and one I calculated would force you to choose a side, since at that point I was not entirely sure that we would ally together. I had no inkling of just how unprepared your were for invasion at that point, and had I known how bad the situation on the ground was, I would have not denounced, fwiw. I was just staring a 2v1 in the face and had to do something to get some certainty, to know if I needed to be queuing up military everywhere or not, to know if I needed to DoF Singaboy or not, before the situation ran away from me and my options were removed.

Thanks. For what it is worth, I think I didn't understand how unprepared I was for the beating I took either and totally underestimated the power of the Cossack. I knew they were tough but didn't realize the damage they could inflict without ever seeing them.

[Ituralde]

Thanks. For what it is worth, I think I didn't understand how unprepared I was for the beating I took either and totally underestimated the power of the Cossack. I knew they were tough but didn't realize the damage they could inflict without ever seeing them.

How much do you think the Cossack power was affected by playing this in a PBEM setting. I have never played this, so correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I gather, you never actually saw any Cossacks. You just opened the save and poof: Those units are gone, that city is gone, correct?

In a Single Player setting you would have at least seen the attacks happening. You would have known that seven Cossacks got quite wounded to take that city. In the PBEM format you hav none of that information, you don't know how many Cossacks are running around in the fog and have actually attacked you. How many Support units were used along, none of that.

Does Civ6 have the equivalent of the Civ4 combat log where you could look all of this up?

[Woden]

Thanks. For what it is worth, I think I didn't understand how unprepared I was for the beating I took either and totally underestimated the power of the Cossack. I knew they were tough but didn't realize the damage they could inflict without ever seeing them.

How much do you think the Cossack power was affected by playing this in a PBEM setting. I have never played this, so correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I gather, you never actually saw any Cossacks. You just opened the save and poof: Those units are gone, that city is gone, correct?

In a Single Player setting you would have at least seen the attacks happening. You would have known that seven Cossacks got quite wounded to take that city. In the PBEM format you hav none of that information, you don't know how many Cossacks are running around in the fog and have actually attacked you. How many Support units were used along, none of that.

Does Civ6 have the equivalent of the Civ4 combat log where you could look all of this up?

Interesting, I never though of it that way. I guess I was used to the PBEM style by the time he attacked. I hardly every saw the Cossacks and if I did it was only 1 or 2 that were out of range and pillaging. Not where I assumed the main attack forces was located. I had no idea how many he had, where they were coming from, or how injured they were. If this was a SP style where you get the animation,  it probably would have helped. I could have moved units into more defensive positions to minimize losses or counter attacked in mass to where they were coming from and at least pushed him away from the cities but for all I knew, he had the whole border filled with them. As for support units, he keep those fairly hidden too. I knew he had a ram and a couple of bombards and saw them a few times as he marched towards a city but the opportunities to attack them never appeared. Alhambram did a very good job picking me off while keeping his units protected and figured out the best way to use him Cossacks.

[suboptimal]

Does Civ6 have the equivalent of the Civ4 combat log where you could look all of this up?

Not within the game interface.  I believe combats are logged to a .csv file in one of the game's folders.  However, they probably shouldn't be looked at during a PBEM.  It seems that the city states and barbarians take their turn when the last player in line hits "Next Turn" and as a result all of their actions (builds & build progress, research, combats, gold status, etc) would be recorded in that player's log file set (talk about spoiler information ).  I'm not in a position to check this given that I'm last in the turn order for PBEM 3.

[srgtb]

Documents/My Games/Sid Meier's Civilization VI/Logs/CombatLog.csv
It contains the last 128 or so combat results from everyone. Like suboptimal said, I would guess it only contains combat that happens on your computer.

[Alhambram]

Finally read your entire thread! It has been long ride to read everything, you surely put a many effort, not only playing but also planning things and writing up things here.
It is unfortunate that Photobucket is being a ass, at least you did use imgur at some turns for example turn 42, 46 and 74-78, that turns I could shape a image how your empire looked before I scouted you fully.

You and Woden got best starts concerning city states, it is also bit helped by scouting of opponents at both sides. And I am deeply impressed how you did survive first 2 vs 1 war, against Singaboy and TheArchduke who fielded GG. To be honest I was delighted that you got attacked by them since I could see you science going strong and started worrying that you might run away (I did pin you as favorite to win). Although you did slow down at science rate due pillaging campus, losing Seoul and investing in military units, I am really amazed that you didn't lose a city in that war. After that you went war against Singaboy, but didn't manage to retake Seoul and I was impressed by your decision to leave war and going on settler spree allowing you keep up with Woden. I pinned you as solid number 2 of PBEM behind Woden at that moment.

I also saw your rant about me not attacking Woden at turn 86 and sign another friendship. Well you didn't has a visibility of Woden's and my lands and our situation. I played a very poor opening, you can read yourself in my thread. Woden claimed all four of city states and you did rant about it at turn 125. If I look back and checked Woden's thread when he did met city states, then I would say that if I did scout systematically, I should have claimed Vilnius's envoy at turn 10, Woden got it at turn 11. My poor display however caused me meet with Vilnius at turn 13. So you was right to rant about it. Another 3 city states were not possible for me to claim, also Toronto not. What you (also people in lurker thread, I did check them already a bit), didn't realize at that moment: to reach all of city states I had to cross hills (1 movement per turn) while Woden could meet them all over flat tiles (2 movement per turn). But I admit, I really should have gotten Vilnius. The result is that Woden got very powerful start and I had to chase him almost entire PBEM.

Back to situation of turn 86, as result of my poor play, not only scout but also other things I hesitated to go war against Woden. Our power were roughly equal, but my cities lacked production to replace losses, I did handle my cities poor before turn 93. Woden at other hand had strong production base and could replace his losses easily. I did feel it coming and aborted my attack plan at last moment and resigned declaration of friendship. In case that Woden did decide to declare me war instead accepting declaration of friendship, I likely was overrun and it would turn into same scenario that you feared from Civ 5 PBEM 1 and 2 where you had to concede due far away opponent becoming too powerful. Between turn 83 and 93 I was depressed and gave up any chance to win, I just keep playing and felt a obligation towards players at eastern continent to not throw away game and I made sure that Woden wouldn't absorb me to force eastern players concede. 

Ironically your vacation proved be turning point for me. Since start turn pace were very fast and I rarely got chance to look back how I did calmly. Your vacation allowed me to review myself harshly and I was able to press restart button and play better game from that moment. And at same time you was planning to cultivate me as ally, but you was right to call it delicate balancing act, since I indeed went for religious victory. 
Also after turn 94 I started to reap fruits from my investments into lavra's in form of church property and Great Writer. That heavy investment into religion is also one of reason why I was struggling before turn 94, but at other side I didn't need to make heavy religious investments in future anymore since I got everything in place already. That would be having consequences for players who want prevent my religious victory: they have to invest cogs into religion instead other things for example your situation at end of PBEM where you rather had produced infantry to deal with Singaboy instead investing into holy sites. It also happened with Woden and I made his situation more problematic by converting his first city with holy site (Splash Mountain) which forces him to build another one in Main Street at later moment, I also landed Mahabodhi Temple and it resulted in my almost peaceful victory around turn 140. You and Woden truly did work together hard through alliance (sharing sight proved very useful for you two) to stop my religion at all costs. I was at one side disappointed and at other side impressed with your and Woden's efforts!

I didn't know that you did take a break from writing while not faring well in war against TheArcduke. I was distracted by activity of dedlurkers and lurkers in your thread. But I could see through scores that war did end in bloody stalemate for both. Your stalemate and my suddenly rise in power (two reasons for that: firstly as said reaping fruits from my religion, secondly aggressively absorbing city states into my empire), resulted in somewhat strange situation for me. Before turn 100 I pinned you down as solid 2nd place of this PBEM and only hope to take Woden down. But afterwards I suddenly found myself into second place while you did slip away to third place but I knew that you would bounce back as you did after failing to get Seoul from Singaboy. So I started to see you not as possible ally but more a rival instead and that is one of reasons that I decided to drop our seemingly building up friendship by not accepting joint war against Woden at turn 123.

I was really surprised to see you ally with Woden, I didn't expect that move. And your another rant about me at turn 125, well. About scouting city state, I already said my piece: I should have scouted Vilnius before Woden. And you did criticize Woden about Petra location, well that is because I denied Woden of the godlike location for Petra by settling Desertgrad as my 4th city. 
And for my decision to not attack Woden, yes I was hesitating too much and lurkers in lurker thread pointed out it correctly. About that possible extra science and extra Great Writer slots from Great Library, I realized that after signing declaration of friendship with Woden.
I was also afraid of Woden's defensive army, especially crouching tigers, at that moment Chinese military would be upon their defensive peak. I wasn't confident enough and settled myself for simpler goal then: grab Mahabodhi Temple. And result is that I lost desire to go on war and gambled upon religious victory. Also I did observe wars in eastern continent and defender almost always ended up as winner, except TheArchduke's razing of Frankfurt, I suspected that only happened because Singaboy was busy with you. So I was hesitant to play attacker because I knew that all Woden had to do was play defense. And then at turn 123 you also went all way to Woden's eastern borders, at that moment my mind was already set upon religious victory, also as mentioned I didn't saw you as ally but rival instead and was afraid that you might back out when I declare Woden, so you could tech in peace while Woden and me were ripping each other apart.
So I decided upon another friendship to gamble for religious victory which I did almost reach it around turn 140. Also it was playing in my mind a bit that moment already when I signed friendship with Woden: okay now Woden's China is upon his defensive peak, but when friendship ends I got Cossack and with it Russian power would be upon defensive/offensive peak, so I decided to wait for my chance and not attempt attack China in their best period but instead fight in Russian best period. It was not really intentional plan I admit, just a thing that crossed through my mind at that moment.

In end things worked out fine for me, but I admit that declaring a friendship is a double edged sword: 30 turns ensure no war, but you never know who shall end up better at end of declaration of friendship. It is gamble for both players who sign friendship. In our case, it allowed me to spread Weedy Movement over your lands. I need to tell you something about conversion of your capital Hamilton: you did surround it entirely which I wasn't happy about it. But I saw a exploit to bypass that and used against you, you can read upon my thread at page 19. My feeling is that it was either a bug or intentionally made such way by creators to able spread religion despite opponent surrounding city to frustrate religion spread. That moment is also only moment that I used that exploit in whole PBEM and I posted it in my thread to show that such way to bypass unit surrounding cities for spreading religion is possible. Though it isn't possible if you want capture cities with units (as you did with surrounding Hattusa) and missionaries can't do that exploit in war due zone of control of enemy units.

I saw you planning build spy and planning to steal my Great Works, wow I actually never thought about spy at all! I rarely (basically never) used them in civilization 4 and 6, so I completely forgotten about them. In future PBEM I shall keep that in my mind more. It would be really nasty surprise for me if you managed to steal one of my Great Works, I really would be infuriated about it.   

Then our short time of working together against TheArchduke, I don't know whether you already read my thread or TheArchduke's. But you didn't realize while playing that I made things even more easier for you to conquer TheArchduke besides attacking from west. You did see TheArchduke's niter location and you was disappointed that you couldn't prevent potentially mining of niter thus musketman and higher city defense for TheArchduke. I actually came at same conclusion as you and I did have capacities to prevent it. I launched naval invasion against TheArchduke (you didn't know that I pulled out a naval invasion, hence your surprise that I took Abydos at same time as Helice) and I really barely prevented TheArcduke mining his niter (I really thought that I would be too late, only realizing later that zone of control of my knight prevented it). It resulted in no musketman and no higher city defense, it resulted in TheArchduke's rapid downfall, faster then initially thought by us all. 

And I was freaked out by your one shot TheArchduke's capital, you said that it made you terrified of your power and same time you was drunk of it power and reign in euphoria. Well I did feel same way when I did one shot Woden's capital Monsanto, only to be slapped back in reality when Woden mass upgraded his musketman into infantry very next turn.

I initially planned to take four cities from TheArchduke, also Ithake which would make Zacynthus more easy defensible for me. But I saw you one shot TheArchduke's capital and your army approaching Ithake. I knew that you would take it in one shot too and decided to pillage tiles/commercial district of Ithake. But the result is that Zacynthusgrad is too indefensible for me and I already quickly decided to abandon it in case of war between us. Then diplomacy went in rapidly hurricane between you, me and Woden. I strongly suspected that I would end up at wrong side of 2 vs 1 due my religion. I did everything that I could to prevent fighting a two front war, what you and Woden didn't realize is that your trade of gold to confirm when to attack was picked up by me. I didn't know contents of trade but I saw upon diplomatic screen of both players that you are trading and I strongly suspect that it is about how many turns till war. But I didn't know how many. Actually I think to prevent such signal in future you have to refuse offer, not accepting. I did refuse 15 gold for 15 gold from Singaboy indicating when he want ally with me, I didn't see you or Woden mention me trading with Singaboy. Also Woden didn't realize that I got open view of his state of affair. It was thanks many trader route that I sent to Woden for Peter's ability to leech off his science advantage, combined with printing which raises diplomacy view with one level. So I could guess strongly what Woden was doing through his policy choices. 

I wanted to prevent war at all costs unit I got Great General, from that moment I was confident to start war. Then Woden's army made aggressive move at turn 158, at that moment I still believed in 1% chance that it wouldn't be 1 vs 2 war with me in wrong side. So I offered you friendship, because I saw Woden as bigger threat due his aggressive movement and his border sharing majority of my empire. Then you not only rejected it, but also denounced me for inspiration. Now I look back to it, it is actually funny that nobody got inspiration for nationalism. In future PBEM it is very unlikely that it would happen since players would simply declare war before 5 turns expires to deny them inspiration. I didn't know that you couldn't enter Woden's borders due Woden denouncing you without declaring Woden war which would result in amenities problem for you. Now I understands it a bit better why you didn't help Woden more and the result was that I was basically fighting 1 vs 1 war majority of my war against you and Woden.

Your comment about me not getting Alhambra earlier made me laugh, well I did always intent to get it, but then other things got more important and I had delay starting building it several times. But I am really glad that I got it and completed it before PBEM ended.

Your comment about game ending that it was stressful, well it was also stressful for me, especially around my almost religious victory moments. And I agree about geography playing big role, in my thread I mentioned a classical problem of three players playing against each other: two of them shall always work against local leader. Woden and me were basically playing very different game (more peaceful) than three players in eastern continent (where war has basically became a norm). 

Well, you did play really very well. Eventually emerging as biggest power of eastern continent and only player besides me with chance to win till last moment. I did pin you as favorite to win, but I myself am very surprised how this PBEM went, especially after turn 160 in that perspective you could say that too many things happens outside your control. But I was really glad have you as opponent, you did push me until my limit this PBEM! 

Well, good luck with PBEM 4 and I am really looking forward your reports over there!