Dave Fires Up The Epstein Drive [Japan]

[oledavy]

Woden agreed to a concede with Archduke (possibly pending one last fleet battle). Singaboy is the last domino to fall, and he usually logs in about 8 hours from now, so this could be it.

Very torn. I really want to fight the fleet battle and end this thing on a more resounding note than this.

[oledavy]

Turn 175

Welp, that's that. Everyone has conceded, and as much as I would like to end this game with Bohemian Rhapsody in my hands, it's probably better that it ends here. Time to survey the Japanese Empire/Outer Islands Alliance One Last Time.

Sank that infernal caravel of Nan Madol's. 



And, with little else to do, founded Cantebury and moved my fleet forward, revealing the lead elements of Archduke's fleet to the southwest. 



Archduke will not see this when he opens the last save, as when I played again to send the save to him, I basically left everything in place (besides sinking that caravel again). 

In the east, Woden is heading for Aachen, my fleet pursues. 



In Germany, the British retreat. Singaboy has prevailed. 



As far as tech goes, here is where I end it: 





One of these days, we'll have a MP game that gets to flight. 

Here is the Civic tree by comparison. 



This government was shortly going to change, grabbing Liberalism and Professional Army, but here is my final government of the game. 



I finally accumulated enough faith to buy an archaeological museum this turn, for one last Inspiration. Given the outsized role Jesuit Education had in my win this game, I find it a pretty appropriate note to end on. 



Even at the very end, Archduke leads me in score, but I am ascendant in other categories, making nearly 160 SPT.



Here you can see the much fought over Western Norway and the island of Saturn. 

To the west, The Belt, Brazil, and the former city of Jerusalem. 



Finally, to the south, the newly integrated Spanish cities. You can also see my power highlighted, significantly more than Woden and Archduke's combined. 



I'm ending though, on a picture of my favorite thing I did this game - the building of the Jovian Mega-City. 



This was where the game was won, in the yields gleaned from this hilly region of districts. 

What a wild ride of a game! I've just begun to look through others' threads. I suspect there is quite a bit left to be said. For my part, I will soon be writing up what I thought were my best moves and biggest errors this game. After so many stressful turns (basically since t86), it feels good to prevail and legitimately win one of these things (I'm discounting PBEM17 here). The ghosts of PBEM2 and my near miss there have been put to rest. 

@Chevalier, thank you so much for ded-lurking this game. As someone who doesn't typically do very well with DL's and teammates, I just want to say, I really appreciated your help this game. Your insight, advice, and counsel was invaluable, and definitely had an outsized role in making this win possible. I owe you

Thank you to everyone who followed along these months! It has been a pleasure to play and report on this game. 

End Turn.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Thanks for having me, Dave. I was new to the forums (Sullla did his write up of PBEM1, and I really wanted more civ 6 multiplayer games), and unsure about how everything worked, so please forgive any missteps I made.

Your detailed turn reports and the way you would lay out all your long-term plans on PBEM2 were my favorite style of reporting, so I knew I wanted to follow along with you. More than once I found myself spending time I should have been planning lessons or grading instead spent worrying about how 2 great admirals would stack up against a frigate zerg, or the best diplomatic approaches to avoid a 2 v 1. I can't imagine how much worse it must have been for you.

I had to bow out of PBEM6, but hopefully after the holidays pass I can find the time to try my own solo flight.

I might respond one last time with my own analysis of the game here, if I can beat you to it. You ought to have the last word.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

This'll be my last post here, probably.

Okay, so what worked here, and what didn't? I think by and large you did more things right than not (duh), and there were some really inspired plays that I wanna highlight. There were a few blunders, too, or suboptimal plays, but definitely overshadowed by the good stuff.

The first 50 turns:

The Jovian megacity concept worked beyond my expectations. The cheap districts let you get it down fast, then fueling the scientific infrastructure via faith generation - which also served to turtle you - was what pushed this from a solid move to a great one. The OIA surged to an early science lead, and I think it stayed there. Norway was never able to develop, since it was a blasted, war-torn hellscape by the end of the game, and so no one was ever able to acquire enough land to overcome your superior scientific core. Fueled by this, you hit the major techs well in advance of the others - whether it was for buildings like the VA or units like subs and battleships, the OIA was never behind in the scientific race. 

Culture generation was solid, as well - not as spectacular as the Brazilian carnival, but enough to keep you close. Scouting was good - you met more than your share of city states (getting out galleys early was key here - I think that was Jester's main mistake this game), and had a good feel for your neighbors early. Not much to say here.

The megacity was priority 1, and you had to sacrifice some other things to do it. I think expansion lagged a bit in the early game, especially compared to Singaboy, and you had a skeleton military. This didn't matter much - the navy was more than enough to keep the other empires away, and you caught up in number of cities eventually - but it did make intervention in the Norwegian war ineffectual and it seriously slowed the settlement of the island belt between you, Norway, and Spain. I wonder if there was some way to better balance infrastructure with military? Keeping Norway crippled but alive (perhaps by winning the battle at the capital?) would have made this game totally unrecognizable. 

Anyway, after Norway fell, it seemed like you were always swinging from crisis to crisis, so the game picked up pace after that.

Norway and What Came After

Around the same time Singaboy invaded Norway, you were starting your own war with Spain. I opposed the Sack of Pizarro at the time, but ultimately you were right here. Jesterfool was basically removed as a competitive force in the game (particularly after the settler cost increase), and his weak empire ultimately became fodder for the OIA. 

Knowing what we know now, I think it might have been a better move to preserve your troops and use them to more quickly settle the intermediate islands. As it was, they were mostly caught up in the rout in Norway and failed to accomplish much. However, at the time it was impossible to know how thinly defended Norway really was, and letting Singaboy absorb another player unopposed was unthinkable. Intervening was the right call given the information you had.

Diplomacy following Germany's conquest was effective - England and Brazil both quickly came on board for an anti-German alliance, and rather than surge across the narrow seas and come after your core (which, apart from the navy, was fairly unprotected) Singaboy instead found himself a pariah and forced to defend on too many fronts. I think the diplomatic moves here - the friendships with Woden and Archduke - were effective, as was your settlement of Jerusalem with Woden. It contained Singaboy, and but for a couple of factors would have had you well set up for the remainder of the game. 

Best move here was unquestionably the laying down of the Venetian Arsenal - with two players locked in friendship, another ineffective, and the last being harried by the first two, there was no one who could stop you by force, and your tech lead let you comfortable win the race for this key wonder. Without the Arsenal, Archduke could probably have rolled over the rest of the world with his unstoppable navy. 

Worst move? Not sure. Maybe intervening in Norway? But at the time it didn't seem like a mistake, so I can't criticize. 

The English Armament

Singaboy folded unexpectedly to Archduke. The double GAs were unstoppable in a fair fight, and Archduke had the first strike on Germany's navy. Most of Singaboy's cities were on the coast, and even one or two sea spaces were more than enough for the Royal Navy frigates to level the walls and send in a caravel to capture. The Norwegian settlement dramatically altered the game, as suddenly Singaboy was left an also-ran with a damaged core while Archduke gained, at a stroke, an entire second empire with a ready-made army, but needing infrastructure investment. 

Most of this period was a time of growing tension around the world, as everyone armed up and prepared for the war we all knew would come once you and Archduke's friendship expired. The Arsenal finished and you started to pump out ships. Gold generation started to become an issue here, and I think the Lisbon trade economy was a great move that gave you the gold you needed to finish the game (switching to Toronto and Triton as needed). It was a creative play that will probably become standard in future games. You started the slow conquest of Spain, using what units you could spare, and took care of other housekeeping issues while concentrating the main effort on readying a navy capable of meeting the Royal Navy and winning.

The biggest diplomatic shakeup was Woden unexpectedly allying with Archduke. Now, in my opinion, Woden was doing his usual thing of playing both sides - he would give support, but try to stay out while you and England beat each other to a pulp. He was probably motivated by your VA, thinking you both needed to be cut down. 

I think your response here was probably the biggest mistake you made in the game. You interpreted Woden's move as a total betrayal (to be fair, he was hanging you out to the wolves, but as it turned out you didn't need Woden anyway), and in turn betrayed him over Jerusalem. I stand by what I said at the time - this was too little reward for pushing Woden firmly into the enemy camp. The final turns would have been much less stressful without Woden's budding MG armada to worry about over your shoulder, and it's hard to quantify how valuable his naval intelligence that he provided Archduke was. 

However, you did a great job keeping Singaboy on board and motivated - Germany put up a tremendous fight against great odds in the world war, and did invaluable work keeping English units occupied. That more than compensated for Woden. All told, when the friendship expired and the war started, you were more prepared than any other empire on the map. 

The World War

The First Battle of the North Sea

Possibly the largest naval battle in Civ 6 multiplayer history, so that's kinda cool. Anyway, despite a near 2 to 1 advantage in ships, the Axis powers came up just short in this one. Archduke's smaller fleet managed to annihilate in turn the attacking OIA squadron and the German auxiliaries in support. However, the English navy was left a crippled wreck itself, and Archduke was very cautious with its use thereafter, not risking another full-scale fleet engagement for the rest of the game. 

On the whole I stand by my original assessment: Even though you lost more ships, this was a strategic win. Your goals were, in descending priority,

1)To remove the threat England posed to the OIA homeland, particularly the VA city. 
2)To preserve Germany from conquest as a viable ally
3)To cripple the Archduke and remove him from the game. 

You fulfilled the first two of those goals. Archduke stayed quiet to rebuild his fleet, never reaching the same strength (while almost all your losses were replaced within ten turns), and then slowly ground down Germany. Meanwhile, you were raiding and razing cities all around your strategic perimeter, from Jerusalem in the west and south all the way to Norway in the north and east. England was getting much weaker in both ships and cities, while you were getting stronger. 

Tactically, could you have pulled out a win here? The criticism of too many task forces is misplaced - most of the ships mentioned could never have reached the battlefield in time, and just would have been sunk too if they straggled in piecemeal. They did better where they were. However, I think better coordination with Singaboy, both in his initial attack and in, perhaps, a decision to retreat beyond the straits could have seen the OIA prevail. Better dice rolls swinging a ship here or there might have altered things. But damn, double great Admirals makes every ship a monster, and guarantees first strike to even the odds even more. I think that is the single best bonus, and really emphasizes how important it is to get SOME kind of great person for warfare. 


The Campaign in Norway

This was fun side theater to watch. You made good use of your limited ships here to harry Archduke's overextended empire, securing your own waters and bleeding him of resources while driving up his war exhaustion. I particularly enjoyed the back and forth struggle over Toronto, a city which must have changed hands at least 5 times over the course of the game. Ultimately, Archduke's free army here amounted to little - I wonder if he pulled most of his muskets over to Germany, leaving only the stragglers to carry on a low-intensity conflict with you?

Overall, this was a cheap way to hurt Archduke and boost you a bit (particularly the brief Toronto economy), but neither side ever devoted resources to this theater, which mostly just simmered away. For all that the fate of Norway precipitated 90% of the conflict in this game, the game was ultimately decided elsewhere. 

The Spanish Front

Another secondary theater. You did an excellent job here conquering Spain with a bare economy of force - a handful of ships, your tiny land army. Jester refused to defend passively, instead continually striving to strike out with raiding caravels and the like, but OIA mastery of hte oceans doomed all his efforts. His powerful land army slowed the conquest of his island, but this is a good demonstration that all the land power in the world can't save you if you're within 2 tiles of water. Naval power is everything. 

Spain never did contribute much, since it was conquered too late, but the growing production and science of Spanish cities I think were a big factor in giving you a decisive edge if the game had continued, and probably played a small role in inducing concedes. The most impressive part of this was the way you managed to strengthen your empire (at a time when most other civs were bleeding cities) with such a small investment of troops. Very satisfied here all around. 

The Second Battle of the North Sea

The last open confrontation between English and OIA fleets. The submarine squadron tried to save Germany's west coast, but a single bad die roll saw the floodgates open and Archduke's surviving squadron was able to pour through and wipe out the OIA subs. This loss stung, since I don't think you got nearly the compensation for the subs that their hammer investment warranted, and it was all because the sub holding the straits was destroyed. As a result, Archduke was able to press deeper into Germany than he otherwise would have, and you ceased direct cooperation with Singaboy. 

Nothing really to comment on here. No tactical blunders, and it was the right strategic move if it had worked (and didn't harm you too much when it failed) - just bad luck, I think. 

The Brazilian theater

When your friendship with Woden at last expired, the final front of the world war opened. Woden opted to avoid combat until he reached his Minais Gerais, the peak of his power curve, which was sensible. However, I think Woden built too conservatively to protect his cities. His cities were safe enough, but the majority couldn't build ships! His few shipbuilding cities became targets right away as the war came here, and with no navy to defend them, they were easy prey for the OIA. Your campaign of piracy and terror along the coast here went very well, weakening Brazil greatly and taking him out of the running for victory almost without a shot being fired on Woden's part.

Woden's biggest error, though, was Germany, I think. He sent a significant army and navy, and showed us how a navy NOT backed up by double Great Admirals fared against Singaboy's defenses. Singaboy mutilated the naval squadron sent his way (accounting for what, 4 frigates by the end?) and bloodied the army's nose. After a few turns of probing, and with OIA ships steaming towards him from the opposite direction, Woden was forced to cut his losses and sail home. From then on the war was largely two separate duels.

The Battle of Bahia Bay

At last Woden finished Nationalism and started popping out his uber units. He grouped quite a sizeable squadron, but he crept cautiously along his own coast and failed to closely coordinate with the English navy. Whether he was let down by scouting, surprised by the movement rules, or underestimated your ships, his main squadron of MGs was caught outside the city of Bahia. OIA ships were able to accept the near-OHKOs and pinned the fleet, then massacred it. In the space of three turns the flower of Brazil's navy and a good fraction of hte Allied naval power vanished. 

This was the only clear-cut victory the OIA had, well, virtually the whole game if you count the failed Norwegian intervention. But it was decisive. Gone was any chance of Woden linking up with Archduke and driving on the OIA core - in fact, I think the only city you ever lost was Toronto, briefly (and Triton should probably count). Brazil was no longer capable of defending its remaining coastal cities, and you set about cautiously razing his remaining naval production to the ground. Woden was basically finished as an effective fighting force (though I think he still had enough units to bloody your nose) and Archduke was bogged down fighting Germany, so at this point the game was over.

The end

You did some more great moves during the war to prop up the home front. You mentioned Retainers+Scouts as a possibility in PBEM2, and it came into its own here, as your economy shrugged off the staggering war weariness from the North Sea and soldiered on. Rerouting trade to Lisbon and to Toronto and to Triton was inspired - despite a massive war machine you managed to stay in the black for most of the game. I think both tricks will become standard moves in the future. 

I admit, I got a little worried as your metagame behavior grew erratic, from offering hte VA to Archduke to the "rage quit," but I figured as long as you were having fun and continued to play to your ability level it was harmless. 

To sum up:

Biggest mistake: Backstabbing Woden

Best moves: 
1)the megacity
2)landing the VA
3)the economy/amenity shenanigans at the end.

Overall it was a wonderfully entertaining game, perhaps the best that's yet been played in Civ 6. I hope it lays the groundwork for many more to come. 


Thanks again, Dave. It was a joy to watch. Congrats on the win.

[oledavy]

So, I have a couple articles I plan on writing about the end of this game, talking about what I felt were the biggest mistakes I made, and what were the big breakthrough moments. First though, I feel it would be appropriate to acknowledge. 

My Luck this Game

I feel like just about any win in these games in about equal parts skill and luck. Before getting into what I did to make my win more (or less) likely, I want to acknowledge some of the luck I enjoyed - what was outside my control. For the purpose of this list, I'm not including other player's actions as 'luck' - even though I often benefited from them. These can be more accurately explained as a natural response to other's actions and them attempting to maximize their chances to win. 

Anyway, without further ado. 

Luck #1 - My Neighbors

After being next to Singaboy and Archduke in PBEM2, and fighting constantly with both, this game I had the good fortune to border Woden, CFCJesterfool and Japper007. Woden ended up repeating his general gameplay pattern from PBEM2, and was peaceful towards me until almost end. Japper007's raiding hit Spain and Germany but not me, and he was quickly embroiled in a war with Germany and removed as a threat CFCJesterfool was contained through an early city raid and never really recovered. Moreover, while the Vikings had potential to be very strong early, Brazil and Spain were two decidedly later-game civs that didn't pose much of an immediate threat. By comparison, the two players who ended up doing the best were on the other side of the world from me. Singaboy and Archduke, were, not coincidentally, also the players with the other really strong militaries and economies. 

Surrounded as I was by peaceful, hamstrung, or distracted neighbors, I have a long period of time without proximate threats to my expansion and building. 

Luck #2 - Hildegard

I could have very easily landed a much less helpful GS at this moment. Instead, I pulled the Great Scientist who synergized perfectly with the game I was playing. I don't want to overstate how helpful she was, as at the end of the day, she only generated me a few hundred science total. However, the boost came at a rather critical time for me, when I was gunning for Replaceable Parts to build the Venetian Arsenal. Considering how much of my strength derived from my strong teching ability and my landing of the Venetian Arsenal, she was invaluable. 

Luck #3 - No Competition for the Venetian Arsenal

Looking through other's threads, I'm more and more shocked that seemingly nobody else even considered building the Venetian Arsenal. The only one who posted about possibly building it (that I have found so far), is Woden. While I had set up quite effectively to rush out the VA by the time Woden was about ready to try building it, it still might have been a near run thing, given the hammer potential of Salgueiro. Imagine how my game would have looked if I had sunk 700 hammers into the VA and then lost it. It would have been GG right there. Woden and I also finished Replaceable Parts at almost the same time, I think I beat him by a turn (underscoring the importance of Hildegard). Anyway, I'm mostly just shocked that Archduke and/or Singaboy didn't consider it. Singaboy in particular was well-set up for it with all his Hansas, but he can perhaps be forgiven on the grounds that he was side-tracked at about that time fighting. But, had one of them gotten VA, it's very hard to see how anyone else could have won. 

There are a multitude of smaller instances of luck that assisted me in my win, but these stand out to me as the biggest three.

[oledavy]

I really like your summary of the game @Chevalier   I think you nicely sum up many of the major trends. I think you were ultimately quite correct that while the loss in the North Sea sucked, it still was a strategic victory that did a lot to set up the win. 

I feel a little sheepish actually, as I'm going to end up echoing quite a few of your points when I go into some of my post-game thoughts. You have already beaten me to the punch with your analysis 

Please though, feel free to continue posting as we begin to work through the end of this game. I still need to finish reading everyone's threads. I hope you're enjoying getting to read them and the lurker thread!

I have a couple more game summary posts to write, but I'm also working on a history post in the very first reply of the thread. The World War that wound up this game is one of the more interesting conflicts we've had on the site, and I think is worth examining more.

[Japper007]

Luck #3 - No Competition for the Venetian Arsenal

Looking through other's threads, I'm more and more shocked that seemingly nobody else even considered building the Venetian Arsenal. The only one who posted about possibly building it (that I have found so far), is Woden. While I had set up quite effectively to rush out the VA by the time Woden was about ready to try building it, it still might have been a near run thing, given the hammer potential of Salgueiro. Imagine how my game would have looked if I had sunk 700 hammers into the VA and then lost it. It would have been GG right there. Woden and I also finished Replaceable Parts at almost the same time, I think I beat him by a turn (underscoring the importance of Hildegard). Anyway, I'm mostly just shocked that Archduke and/or Singaboy didn't consider it. Singaboy in particular was well-set up for it with all his Hansas, but he can perhaps be forgiven on the grounds that he was side-tracked at about that time fighting. But, had one of them gotten VA, it's very hard to see how anyone else could have won. 

There are a multitude of smaller instances of luck that assisted me in my win, but these stand out to me as the biggest three.

*slowly raises hand* I actually did plan on landing the VA but... well I never really got to that point

[oledavy]

My Top 10 Mistakes (Number 3 Will Shock You)

Clickbait titles aside, I made a fair few mistakes this game that I think are worth noting. Before getting into this, all mistakes are not created equal. Some 'mistakes' simply arise as a result of pursuing other priorities - it's hard to produce guns and butter. Nevertheless, this doesn't mean I don't think I might have been able to balance competing priorities better. Others only became clearly mistakes in hindsight, at the time they were made, things might have developed in a way to make them solid decisions. Most of the one's listed here are just plain bad moves. Here they are so you can avoid them, arranged roughly chronologically. 

#10 - Not Building More Military Early

I think one of my better moves this game was prioritizing island plants relatively early. Titan, Eros, and Ceres turned into monster cities by the end of the game, easily on par with some of my mainland cities. Yet, my biggest problem in getting these plants out early was a lack of archers and warriors. Had I this game to play again, I would have gotten a couple more military units out earlier to begin the arduous process of clearing these islands off sooner. This would have meant getting to settle Io in the Titan location instead of a mediocre location on my home island. Early on, my military coverage just didn't quite keep pace with my expansion, and had I sunk a few more hammers into military, I would have been able to get stronger cities online sooner. Additionally, having a bare minimum of military early meant I could not respond forcefully and effectively to the invasion of Norway. More on that in a bit.

#9 - Taking Defender of the Faith

This one is debatable. I don't know how much having this belief dissuaded people from attacking me. I also don't know how much the denial value was worth at the end of the day. If Japper007 was going to take it, I wish I had left it up so he might have been able to more effectively resist Singaboy. If CFCJesterfool was going to get it, I'm very glad I took it instead 

The bottomline is that when you're doing all the attacking and basically never fighting on your home turf, DoTF is a pretty meh belief. While I still think its godly on Pangaea, on island plates it was underwhelming. I think it came into play a total of three times, and never in a terribly decisive manner (except perhaps around Enceladus). It might have made a critical difference in my final battle with Archduke and Woden, or might have just as easily been trivial. It's just hard to say. Meanwhile, I can more accurately quantify the benefits Religious Community or Church Property might have given me. At the end of the day, maybe not a mistake, but I do think it would have been stronger to take another economic belief. 

#8 - Sending Troops to Norway

This was a move I agonized about at the time, and one that did only become clearly a mistake in hindsight, but was a mistake nonetheless. In Norway, I wanted to stop Singaboy, but without stopping my expansion and running behind to Woden and Archduke. Additionally, I faced the simple reality that I would need to train up troops to fight a real war of reconquest, a long-term and costly venture that had no promise of returns. However, I also wasn't comfortable leaving Japper007 to his own devices to die. With that in mind, I adopted a middle path. I funded him, sent him resources, and sent an expeditionary force of available archers and galleys to try and stem the tide. The archers got there just in time to be routed and made little impact on the final outcome. 

Moving these archers away from my islands hurt my ability to clear them of barbs, and additionally meant I had little military available to secure Uranus from CFCJesterfool. Had I this game to play over again, I would not have sent any troops to Norway, and instead contented myself to fund and supply him. 

#7 - Settling Enceladus

Compared to Eros, Ceres, and Titan, all of which ended up rivaling the best cities on my mainland by the end of the game, Enceladus was just a sub-par plant. I had originally intended this settler for Uranus, but for reasons discussed in my thread, chose not to try and settle the island. With the benefit of hindsight, I think this was a mistake. I was more afraid of Spain at that point than I really needed to be. In reality, I probably could have settled and held the city with little trouble, and had a much more productive plant going into the late game. This can also be thought of as the natural end point of my lack of investment in ground troops early and loss of archers in Norway. I didn't have the military to defend the city where I wanted it, and took a suboptimal city placement as a result. It also ended up being uncomfortably close to Singaboy's army and might have fallen had Singaboy not withdrawn. 

#6 - Not Taking a CS Sooner

The secret to Singaboy and Archduke's early leads is that they identified plum city-states in their vicinities and took them early. La Venta by comparison was a pretty sad city, but Toronto - with its double luxuries - was not. Also, given its geographic position, it could have been held from the sea against Singaboy's units. During the mid-game period where I was lagging on expansion, I should have made it my priority to take the city and strengthen my position in that manner. Alternatively, I should have considered taking the isolated and productive Jerusalem earlier in the game, but in the case of that city, there were diplomatic issues. 

#5 - Not Pressing the Attack on Spain

After taking De Soto, I could have sent forces around the western edge of Spain early to begin the attack on the future city of Halimede. However, at this point I was really worried about inviting Archduke's attack, and was simultaneously considering how many forces I would need to protect Singaboy. In the end though, I wound up sending a few ships south of Spain anyway, who were able to efficiently wrap up the Spanish campaign. Had I to do over again, I would have been more aggressive and deployed these forces south sooner. I could have wrapped up Spain a little sooner, and consequently been rid of the WW and had the additional yields more quickly going into the end-game. 


#4 - Getting the Alliance End Date Wrong

More than anything else, I think the Battle of the North Sea was lost off of me thinking me and Archduke's DoF ran out on t148 instead of t147. I erroneously thought we had an alliance, when any look at the diplo icons would have indicated this was not the case. This was not the sole reason the Axis lost the subsequent battle, but it played a big role. Not much to say here but that I screwed up, big time, and it cost me dearly. 

#3 - Losing Darwin

I rather complacently thought that Darwin would just fall into my lap, and Archduke wouldn't try to contest me for him. I was dead wrong here. Archduke was benefiting from a ton of extra GSPs generated from Singaboy's core, and took the opportunity to run 3 GS Projects and steal him from under my nose. What's worse, he used him at a critical moment to finish Steam Power and slingshot into Electricty, upgrading his caravels into ironclads in the nick of time for the Battle of the North Sea. I think this move, more than anything else, is what allowed him to win that battle and came to define many of the following turns. If I had had the foresight to run a couple GS projects and start them sooner, the tables would have been turned, and I would have had a dramatic tech advantage - as opposed to Mendeleev, who benefitted me none by the end of the game. 

#2 - Not Prioritizing Gold Production

Throughout the game, one of my biggest weaknesses was gold production. This was a result of my early district prioritization more than anything else, you can't have guns and butter. However, if this game has hit home nothing else to me, it's that gold reigns supreme. You can lack tons of production, cram out a bunch of cheaper older units with a policy card, then finish the tech for the next unit, slip into Professional Army, and upgrade to have the strongest army on the board. I found myself lacking gold at a number of critical moments in this game, and moreover, more gold might have made a big difference in my ability to prop up Germany and Norway. Gold is transferable power, and my lack of it made it hard to affect things outside my sphere of influence. 

Hurting for gold was one of the primary drivers of my expansion into otherwise unremarkable cities like Jerusalem and Hong Kong. They had harbors. The adjacency bonuses plus the trade route they granted allowed me to use them to up my GPT.

The lack of a trade partner at the end of the game prompted a number of interesting and controversial responses, and with all my international trade partners gone by about t170, I was resorting to using submarine pillaging as the primary source of my gold income 

Had I to do over again, I would have prioritized more gold producing districts early, and maybe left La Venta alive as a safe local trade partner. Not having gold is simply a huge deal in Civ 6, because it directly correlates to military strength in a way it didn't in Civ5. 

#1 - Finishing Researching Electricty

I think this was actually my single biggest mistake of the game. It's not that having 8 submarines didn't confer some pretty big advantages to me. But, if I had known submarines were a modern unit and didn't benefit from Press Gangs, I probably would have played this very differently. I would have had to cut Singaboy loose, and I wouldn't have been able to have the successful pillaging campaign east of the UK that I did. However, had I just sat on the tech for awhile, built up a backlog of 20-30 privateers, and upgraded them as I got the gold.... Man, the terror with which I faced the prospect of MGs would have been immaterial. Instead of the near run horse race that only resolved in my favor after the Battle of Bahia Bay, I could have steamrolled to victory on the backs of a horde of subs. Things ended up working out okay for me, but I think this was just a bad move and if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, I strongly advocate building up a backlog of units to upgrade before researching the tech for the next unit. It's just much more efficient than trying to build something like a submarine from scratch without a policy card. 


You'll notice I notably don't have back-stabbing Woden as a mistake here. I think Chevalier and I are just going to disagree on this one. I think that regardless of stealing Jerusalem from him, Woden would have been hostile by t160. Even if he hadn't been overtly hostile, I would have faced the dilemma of take him at his word and don't alpha strike him, or alpha strike him to remove him as a threat and end up with him as an enemy anyway. I'm curious to hear Woden's thoughts on this, but from where I stand, this is one of the few decisions I have no regrets over.

[Woden]

You'll notice I notably don't have back-stabbing Woden as a mistake here. I think Chevalier and I are just going to disagree on this one. I think that regardless of stealing Jerusalem from him, Woden would have been hostile by t160. Even if he hadn't been overtly hostile, I would have faced the dilemma of take him at his word and don't alpha strike him, or alpha strike him to remove him as a threat and end up with him as an enemy anyway. I'm curious to hear Woden's thoughts on this, but from where I stand, this is one of the few decisions I have no regrets over.

Pretty much correct. Once I saw you core, I was making plans to attack it. You had no walls and no land units and I figured I had 2 locations for a canal city where I could bring ships to your back side. That was what the settler was going to do but you captured it before I could get it to land. There was a 1 tile blockage in the north where I had a few MGs and a Caravel ready to move on your backside plus an army to pillage your core.

The other location was the cotton next to the city state but your navy pretty much negated that location.

[oledavy]

Turning Points

Chevalier wrote an excellent summary of this game, so I'm not going to duplicate his efforts and write my own summary. I do, however, want to discuss what I think were the three big turning points of this game. As far as my game is concerned, I think it hinged on how these three key moments combined together to produce the win. 

Turning Point #1 - Turn 43
 
So, I played a notably 'tall' opening here. I expanded to two cities, built two Holy Sites, grabbed a religion, then expanded out to a third city and built three campuses. These three campuses at the center of my empire, the doubled adjacency bonuses making effective use of Meiji Restoration and Natural Philosophy, when combined with the faith-bought libraries and universities effectively drove my research machine for much of the game. Landing Hildegard was icing on the cake. I've come to think that contrary to what you might think, Campuses are the best district for Japan to build early (in many, not all cases). They much more efficiently leverage the Meiji Restoration double Standard Adjacency Bonus, especially keeping in mind the comparable yields from a Holy Site or a Commercial Hub. I think TD's are also pretty good to build, but they come comparatively late. This calculus would obviously be different on a Pangaea map where encampment first is a must, and this is not an effort to say you shouldn't build no HS's or TD's at all. On the contrary, I built a couple of each to great effect. However, I think the true strength of Meiji Restoration is using these cheap districts to boost the yields of campuses, combined with Natural Philosophy. 

And yet, if you look at my opening, I had not come to this conclusion on turn 30.



On t43, I realized that I was started to run a serious deficit to Woden's early campuses. I also realized that with Woden building one first, I had a discount available. This discount ended up not being as wide-ranging as I thought it was, but still ended up being meaningful. I changed course at this point, scrapping the above district layout and moving three campuses to the front of the queue. 

The early prioritization allowed for significantly higher science generation early, and allowed me to leverage Jesuit Education sooner than I anticipated doing. This had some consequences, especially in terms of kicking off the trend of me being short on gold for the entire game. But, in this moment, with a course change that prioritized science early and more effectively leveraged Japan's abilities and Jesuit Education, I opened the door to future success. 

Compare the above district plan to what ended up panning out: 



This is how you really leverage Japan's abilities, and in this game, it paid off handsomely.


Turning Point #2 - Turn 130




Not much to say about this one. I could talk about my initial decision to pursue the Venetian Arsenal or all the little tricks and plans I employed to get Europa's IZ up and running and to cram more hammers into the city. I could talk about maximizing science to beeline the Replaceable Parts or about Woden's decision to not pursue the VA. Any one of these might be considered a turning point, but I'm going to lump them all together into Turn 130, the moment I finished the Arsenal after our long break. 

At this point, I had build 7 ships 1t from completion in several cities, and in the next few turns following this, went from having a small but respectable military to having the largest fleet in the world. It's easy to imagine a game where this didn't pay off, where while I was building the VA, Woden or Archduke came at me with the 7 frigate/caravel fleet (the rough hammer cost of the VA). But it didn't happen, and by the end of the game, I was able to leverage it into about ~25 free ships, far outstripping its cost.  Were it not for the arsenal, there would have been absolutely no way to compete with the Great Admiral powered English fleet or the Brazilian MGs. Without the arsenal, Archduke probably would have steamrolled me shortly after taking down Singaboy. It was absolutely critical to victory.  


Turning Point #3 - Turn 165/166


It was 2am on a Saturday morning. I was about to go to bed after a night of kareoke, when I saw the save was here. Having laid a trap for Woden the previous turn, I was curious to see if he had moved into it. To my disappointment, he had not. But, then I moved my ironclad forward.



This was the exact moment that I knew, barring something absurdly outlandish, I had the game in the bag. 

The Battle of Beija Bay had been set up the previous turn, in response to this post from Woden in the diplo thread. 

@TheArchduke

oledavy seems to have withdrawn from attacking my island. I think he is most likely rallying his navy east of Tijuca. There is a bunch of shallow water there so he can have his bonus. I have a fleet moving up from Lisbon and will have a fleet moving out of the northern gulf of my island. If you want to head east from your current location. I can hit him from the south and you the north, we may be able to put the squeeze on him. 

I believed he was being sincere in this post, and so laid out my fleet that I might take advantage of him moving forward. He didn't move the majority of his fleet into the ocean west of Charon, but he did move it along his coastline into a little bay southeast of Beija-Flor. My fleet discovered this, and pounced, trapping his fleet against the coastline. 



I had spent the last dozen turns trying to figure out how I could fight both Archduke and Woden's fleets together. Then, I was handed the opportunity to defeat them in detail. There was an excellent chance before this moment that they would simply be able to join up and overpower my qualitatively weaker fleet with a devastating first strike. Finding Woden's fleet and destroying the majority of his battleships at the cost of a mere 3 ironclads removed the last major obstacle to victory. I think it just goes to show that you can lose every battle in a war, but all it takes to prevail in a conflict is to win the right one. The Battle of the North Sea was a demoralizing loss, but it ultimately wasn't a battle I needed to win to win the game. The Battle of Beija Bay was, and when it really counted, we brought it home.