[NO PLAYERS] WW err CIV6 Game 4

[Ichabod]

Singaboy saying England is overpowered is interesting. So, everyone in this game built cute little campuses, industrial zones, commercial hubs and holy sites. Everything was pretty in the early game. Archduke is the only one that bottered to build harbours in an ISLAND map. Then, Archduke kills everyone with a GA boosted navy.

My question is: what did you expect would happen? Why not build harbours yourself? Why not build more ships? Of course, harbours wouldn't give the cute 7 hammer adjacency Hansas, but that's exactly the problem with cute play. It's not effective. It's like a player that delays Astronomy in a Civ 4 game to delay the Colossus expiring later complaining that galleons and frigates are imbalanced.

Archduke played to England's strengths -> amassed a lot of gold, built cheap naval units, upgraded them when he reached the tech to get a monster naval stack. That's Civ 101, hardly imbalanced strategies.

[suboptimal]

Singaboy saying England is overpowered is interesting. So, everyone in this game built cute little campuses, industrial zones, commercial hubs and holy sites. Everything was pretty in the early game. Archduke is the only one that bottered to build harbours in an ISLAND map. Then, Archduke kills everyone with a GA boosted navy.

With respect to his complaint about England in the First Impressions thread, he seems to have forgotten that Frigates and Renaissance era units and "walls" are Classical Era and thus should be able to shred the walls.  Against any city currently in their game they'd only need 2-3 catapult shots to get through the walls.  However, the typical land-based approach seems to focus on rams rather than siege units so maybe he's forgotten that fact.

He (and the others in PBEM 4) seem to forget that building the more advanced walls would reduce the effectiveness of battering rams and Frigate-based assaults as there's more wall HP to plow through.  (Heck, people seem to forget this when dealing with battering rams as well).  Of course, that introduces the strategic decision of prioritizing defense over offense.  Everyone in this game seems to be saying "X has powerful ships and GA's, I need more ships" rather than asking "X has powerful ships and GA's, what's the best counter?".  I'm curious to see if Woden or Oledavy make the realization that there are "better" walls, slot in Limes and build a few.  That'd catch Archduke off guard as he would probably be expecting getting through walls with ease and not having to slog through them over 2-3 turns.

I would have made this response directly in that thread but felt it might be spoilerish in pointing out something to the players that they seem to be completely overlooking.

[srgtb]

More walls wouldn't have changed anything. They only add 50 hp. TheArchduke captured two cities with 500 HP of damage in one turn. Maybe that could have been changed to one city per turn with more walls.

No one except TheArchduke building harbors on a water map was the real problem. With only one great admiral the results could have been a lot different. And then with a closer strength differential maybe additional walls would have had some value.

[Japper007]

No one except TheArchduke building harbors on a water map was the real problem. 

Well to be fair, I did have two harbors about 5 turns out, but I had to switch of them to build archers and walls, as they weren't going to save me at that moment. No idea why others didn't build them though, they are better than Commercial Hubs anyway, IMHO.

[Quagma Blast]

No one except TheArchduke building harbors on a water map was the real problem. 

Well to be fair, I did have two harbors about 5 turns out, but I had to switch of them to build archers and walls, as they weren't going to save me at that moment. No idea why others didn't build them though, they are better than Commercial Hubs anyway, IMHO.

Singaboy needs Commercial Hubs for Hansas, I don't think Woden would get the Amazon bonus for harbors, and with a couple of initial locations dictated by holy site/campus adjacency it was fairly natural for Oledavy to build Japan's metroplexes inland.

[Shpoko]

Something I find very ironic about this game: Archduke has, by building districts that no one else focused on early (harbors) and getting Great People no one else went after (Admirals), has basically done the same thing Sulla did to him in PBEM #1.  The student has become the master .

[Ichabod]

Has anyone built the Great Lighthouse? It gives +1 movement to naval units, which is huge. And it only costs 290 hammers, pretty cheap for a Wonder (well, it does require a harbour and a lighthouse).

[Krill]

Why does everyone seem to forget: in a 2v1, the standard play is for the 1 to make one partner in the 2 get minimum profit from the alliance, to limit the incentive for the alliance to form. Singaboy throwing what he can against Oledavy is just this scenario playing out; the fact he lost most of his core is down to game mechanics, I can't argue if he could defend or not. His actions though are completely expected, not just understandable. That full diplo is on and Archduke can use naval pressure to gain the fruits of a land war he never had an ability to pull off is just another example of them playing a corrupted version of Diplomacy rather than civ.

[suboptimal]

Has anyone built the Great Lighthouse? It gives +1 movement to naval units, which is huge. And it only costs 290 hammers, pretty cheap for a Wonder (well, it does require a harbour and a lighthouse).

I don't think it's even been mentioned.  The Masoleum of Carnassus is another one that might come up - 400 cogs to build, grants a free Admiral and all admirals get a second retirement charge.

[Ichabod]

Has anyone built the Great Lighthouse? It gives +1 movement to naval units, which is huge. And it only costs 290 hammers, pretty cheap for a Wonder (well, it does require a harbour and a lighthouse).

I don't think it's even been mentioned.  The Masoleum of Carnassus is another one that might come up - 400 cogs to build, grants a free Admiral and all admirals get a second retirement charge.

I think this one requires some scenario expansion packs, so it's probably not buildable in this game.