Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Sullla]

Again, apologies for holding the turn today while I was at work. It took me about an hour to play the turn again though, and I don't want to rush things right now. Here was an eventful Turn 144:



Before doing anything else, I checked to see what Chevalier's culture would look like without the Nan Madol suzerain bonus. It was pretty much what we expected: he fell from 126 culture/turn down to the visible 62 culture/turn. Yeouch, that has to hurt. More than half his culture is coming from that city state! Chevalier has been enormously lucky that he's been able to control Nan Madol for most of the game. The one weakness of the England/Nubia team is that neither of their civs had any kind of culture-boosting abilities, and this city state has allowed him to coast on its bonus (literally to COAST on it, get it?) for thousands of free culture throughout the game. Swap the location of Antananarivo (the Cultural city state we whacked early in the game) with Nan Madol, and Chevalier would have been in a much, much weaker place. Kudos to him for seeing the opportunity to become the suzerain of a city state that combined perfectly with his civ's unique Harbor district.

But the free ride is over now. We're conquering this district for ourselves.



I declared war on the city state and moved in my units. I suspect that Chevalier is back to being the suzerain once again for the time being, although there was no indicator of this on my turn. With the battering ram next to the city, I attacked with the ironclad and took out most of the city's defenses. By the way, we got really lucky here: Nan Madol moved its defending musket out of the city center and replaced it with this crossbow. That dropped the defensive strength from 68 last turn to 58 this turn, and even so, this ironclad wasn't strong enough to take down the (damaged) city walls in one shot. Look at all those bonuses, +16 in total when added together. I think that the +6 from "outside influence" comes from the envoys that other players have invested in here although I'm not completely sure. In any case, the ironclad knocked out most of the city walls on a pretty good damage roll.



Next I moved up a field gun, and had the choice to shoot at the city center or at this crossbow. I decided that it was more important to avoid taking damage here from the enemy unit and one-shotted the city state unit. 100 damage to dead, just like that. I don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing that in Civ6, heh. At +42 strength difference, average damage is 148 and the range is 123-185; guaranteed odds to get the one hit kill. Note that without the double promotions, this attack would only be at +27 difference: 70-106 damage range and likely not a one-shot kill. Promotions for the win!



I followed that up by having the other field cannon shoot the city center tile and remove the rest of the walls. Next I needed to remove the city state musket on the tobacco resource, and fortunately I could bring over some of my frigates to get in some free damage. First I had the only frigate with double promotions and the +7 ranged attack against land units fire for 29 damage, followed by another random frigate chipping away for 25 more damage. This set up an attack from my musket to finish off the unit:



It won, taking 18 damage in the process. This musket actually has another promotion saved up that I apparently forgot to use earlier. While it's too bad that I wasn't able to have this unit attack the city center this turn, it was probably worth losing that attack in exchange for the city state defending the city center tile with a crossbow instead of a musket.

That was the last unit that was able to attack the city center tile this turn. However, I was able to pounce on the helpless city state units in the water for some free experience.



Those poor saps, I actually felt bad for them. Embarked units literally can't defend themselves, and I could have my ironclads both get in attacks for extra experience without worrying about taking damage themselves. The crossbow died, of course, and the catapult took 90 damage on the attack highlighted above. The 10 HP catapult and the crossbow inside the city center of Nan Madol are the only units still left alive on the side of the city state.



I'll get back to the military overview at the end of the turn report. On a related note, Parma finished a frigate this turn and then this builder harvested the stone for another frigate. That gets me to my grand total of 16 frigates and 5 ironclads available in this region for the start on Turn 146 action. Every ship aside from these last two have a promotion thanks to Terracotta Army. I think that's more than what Chevalier has available in this ocean, but I guess we'll find out, won't we?



One unfortunate thing about declaring war on Nan Madol is that it ended my trade routes to the city state. The trader units didn't die or anything, they just were sent back to the cities where their routes started and weren't able to establish a new trade route this turn. Note to self: don't send a trader to a city state that you're about to attack. Routing the trader from Milano to Nan Madol last turn was a waste of time since it left me with an inactive trader this turn. That meant I was down two trade routes this turn, and my income took a predictable small hit as a result. At least I'll be able to use those traders again next turn.

In the meantime, Ostia finished a trader this turn via natural production and I sent it on to Lisbon for the standard 16 gold/turn. Most of my trade routes are now going to that city state, and it's been proving enormously helpful throughout this game. Commercial city states are pretty mediocre in the early stages of the game, but here in the lategame it's pretty amazing to have one as a safe destination for trade routes in your back lines.



By the way, I did finish Natural History civic this turn and had the chance to swap policies. One policy change was a no-brainer: popping into Diplomatic League for a few turns allowed me to get the 2 for 1 deal on an envoy at Muscat, the Commercial city state way over by EmperorK's Russia. More on that in a minute. I was also dropping Professional Army here for a few turns, and I agonized over whether to pick Conscription (worth about 50 gold/turn right now), Logistics for the +1 movement in my territory, or Wars of Religion. In the end, I decided that I couldn't allow Woden to have the +4 strength advantage on my units and picked Wars of Religion. We'll see how much I actually use this policy. If it turns out that I'm barely fighting against Woden, perhaps I'll drop it on the next policy swap. I'll be dropping Press Gangs for a little bit when I go back into Professional Army, but I'd love to have both Wars of Religion and Feudal Contract active, the latter to get out a round of knights in preparation for tank upgrades. The three Economic policies listed here are basically mandatory and can't be dropped for any reason. Decisions, decisions. Sure could use one of the 8-slot governments right now, heh. At least I'll be able to get back into Merchant Confederation policy at the next policy swap in 4 turns, I still prefer that over the other Diplomatic options. (The spy one is interesting though and I know TheArchduke is running it. That's a slight cause for concern.)



Here's the payoff for enabling Diplomatic League: reaching the 3 envoy bonus in Muscat. Envoys dropped into this city state are pretty safe because it's hard to see TheArchduke or EmperorK attacking this location, not when they both have this many envoys inside. This was immediately worth 28 gold/turn for my civ, 4 gold/turn from the first envoy and then 24 gold/turn from my six Commercial districts. I have two more envoys appearing from natural generation in five turns, and I'll dump them into Bandar Brunei to reach the 6 envoy bonus for another 24 gold/turn. I actually made more money from putting these envoys into Muscat while also staying "under the radar" by not contesting the suzerain bonus at Bandar Brueni. Gotta make every envoy count.



Northern overview. I checked and the Commercial district project is producing about 10 gold/turn in Roma right now, which I agree isn't a great use of its production capacity. I think it's worthwhile to lock down the next Great Merchant for its 500 gold and 2 free envoys, but otherwise not such a great choice. Next turn, a university is completing in Siena and that should take my civ up to almost 190 beakers/turn, with another university nearly finished in Firenze. I've delayed that one to push out another frigate before they get obsoleted at Steel tech, one of 4 frigates completing in three turns. Rifling completes next turn and Steel is due in another 3 turns after that, right on the scheduled Turn 148 mark. Nationalism policy is also right on pace to be finished on Turn 148 when the boost arrives from Singaboy, right when I want to start upgrading frigates into battleships. We've been lining up these tech/civic discoveries pretty darn well in recent turns.



Down in the ex-Kongo lands, our armies continue to amass near the borders. Singaboy's units look pretty terrifying right now; Woden still hasn't upgraded his crossbows into field cannons yet, although I expect that he'll do so either this turn or next turn. He finished a civic last turn and it would have been a natural time to change into Professional Army policy. Still no visible upgrades as of my turn. In my cities, Parma had enough overflow from the stone harvest to 1-turn a monument for itself, and Savoia began the long crawl to an archeaologist unit. I have another coal mine incoming there and will cut down the build time a little bit, but we're probably 12 turns out from the unit finishing and therefore about 12 turns from tanks. (We can research Combustion without the boost but that would only get us tanks about 2-3 turns faster and waste about 600 beakers, which doesn't seem worth it.)

OK, this is what you wanted to see, the military map around Nan Madol spoilered for size. If Chevalier doesn't interfere with his land units, I can attack with three field cannons, two knights, the musket, and an ironclad next turn, which should be plenty to take the city. He can block the tile east of the city center with one of his units though, and that might be enough to stop the attack from succeeding. Here's the one thing that I absolutely cannot do: leave the city redlined for Chevalier to shoot with his frigates and then capture with a land unit. That would neatly reverse the situation, booting all of my units out of the borders and throwing them who knows where. I don't expect Chevalier to try that move because it would mean burning up all of his envoys and lose him the suzerain bonus here, but it *IS* possible. I'll be watching closely to see what he does on his turn.

I'll therefore have to make the call on whether or not to try and capture the city state on my turn. If it's at all in doubt, I'll hold off on attacking. There's no huge rush here, and leaving the city state intact could even have a tactical benefit. Chevalier seems to be trying to stop me from capturing the city state, and I think that may be a mistake on his part. Look at where his units are positioned right now. If we were able to go to war this turn, I would have been able to sink just about every single one of these English ships. I think he has a few more ships up to the north of this group since I caught a glimpse of a frigate and his old caravel fleet up there earlier, but they wouldn't be enough to change the flow of battle. Even if there are some Sea Dogs hiding out in this area, it's not going to make up for losing 8-9 frigates on the first turn of the war.

Chevalier's in a very tough position here. He's desperate to hold on to Nan Madol because his whole cultural economy is riding on this city state's suzerain bonus. On the other hand, if he positions his fleet to continue defending this spot, he might lose most of his ships on the first turn of the war, and then I have free reign to do anything that I want. I think that his navy is split between this ocean and the far ocean south of his core cities. He looks to have something like 500 power in land units and then 1000 power in naval units on each of the two oceans. In contrast, my navy is entirely concentrated here and has the tech edge (at least in terms of ironclads) and the promotion edge. We have about the same power rating on paper, but wars aren't fought on paper, and right now it looks like he's about to get crushed. I don't think he realizes how much danger he's in here. Very interested to see if he calls for a general retreat on one of these next two turns and abandons Nan Madol or continues fighting here. I'm honestly hoping he tries to defend this spot and loses a huge chunk of his naval power.

Singaboy, I will continue to follow your lead against Woden. Good luck on your turn.

[Sullla]

One other comment: in the time that it took me to write up my turn report, both Woden and Chevalier played their turns. They've been super fast about doing that all game long, and serious kudos to them for playing so promptly. However, these turns are important enough that you don't really want to be rushing through them. They both did their turns combined in less than an hour, and there were no posts in their team thread following my turn, or after Woden played but before Chevalier played. Shouldn't they be coordinating things together here? Like, Chevalier just had his units bounced all over the map and a huge war is starting in 2 turns. It just seems like they would want to think about how to plan things together as a team to avoid making mistakes. It seems to me like they might be playing a little too fast here and potentially opening themselves up to mistakes.

Now maybe they're on Skype together and playing the turns as a team, I don't know. This could be completely wrong and they know exactly what they're doing. Still, there's more to this game than winning the PYDT ratings battle. Woden has had that sealed up from the first ten turns.

[Singaboy]

Nice turn! Glad to see that you are most likely able to get the city state next turn. I am confident that you can take the city with its walls down. You might even be able to snatch that builder with whatever amount of charges left!

I am really hoping that you can smash England's navy there and then! It would crush their confidence and maybe get our momentum for the land war against Nubia.

I am a little confused about the Nationalism boost. Do you need me to finish it on T147 so that the boost gets to you on T148 or a turn earlier. I thought, in your last turn report, you mentioned T146/147 or the target dates? With T144 lining up for me, I still have a turn to clarify this. Actually, T147/T148 would be perfect for me both national history and nationalism are then due in one turn each. Perfect double swap. I am trailing just slightly behind to get steel with rifling done on the same turn as Rome (T145). Steel needs 1140*0.4 = 456 beakers. Taking my current beaker rate, I will be able to finish it 4 turns after that on T149. As I don't have an immediate benefit other than a single bombard upgrade, I might wait with professional army for some time. I hope to be able to draft one additional bombard before T149.

As for civics, with nationalism done on T147 and national history a turn later (T148), there should be enough time for Hangzhou to grow enough for the two chops to deliver sufficient food for the city to grow to pop 15. (317 food needed with around 270 coming from harvests). I am going to closely monitor the city's growth this turn with Hangzhou at pop 13.

Urbanization costs 424 culture and could be done in 4 turns (given some overflow), coming in on T152. This means that Hangzhou would need to produce 50 extra food in around 8 turns, which seems absolutely doable.
I would use this to swap back to Professional Army to upgrade some additional units, if I have the gold. Otherwise, it might be wiser to wait for tanks. Here is hoping that Rome can make a ton of gold to pass some to China this time to upgrade knights to tanks and quadriremes to battleships.

Combustion which is our next goal costs a mere 500 beakers for China if I get the Eureka passed on from Rome. China's 60% discounts have really let me keep pace with an economically much stronger Rome.

On a final note, I simply love that culture drop for England, should Rome manage to take the city next turn. If we succeed here, we can stall England and Nubia's civic progress.

[Modo]

Taking Nan Madol is a big fish but baiting English forces into annihilation is an even bigger one. If CMF does opt to block that tile I'd say it's a signal he's willing to stand his ground until Nan Madol falls so that might be a good reason to not take it until the big war starts.
Granted, this is also kinda telegraphed so he might sniff the trap but it's a lose lose situation anyway and him losing all that culture a couple of turns earlier should not be a bigger benefit than the potential elimination of so many juicy units.

[Singaboy]

T144:

I get the Inspiration for natural history and become suzerain of Lisbon giving me two sources of niter. I got three niter now. In case Rome would need 2 niter at one point, I could trade one source.

The loss of Nan Madol's envoys hits my income as well as culture hard. I will need to think how to get culture up again and keep gpt in check. England's culture is back to what it was, but Rome is going to take the city next turn, I am sure (later more about this).

As mentioned before, Sulla, let me know whether I can stay another turn on course for natural history and then finish nationalism on T147 or whether you would need a turn earlier.



I jump right to the conflict zone and upgrade the remaining crossbow as well as two additional horsemen. As the war is starting in 2 turns, I better be prepared. I draw the following idea of troop movement (of course it will all depend on Nubia resistance here).
Generally I think, the Roman units circled should move NE or north depending on English and Nubia resistance. The reason is that I can then use the space for my cavalry which should withstand the income fire better. Of course, as Rome has the first moves, individual actions will need to depend on the situation on T146.

My units will have cavalry to protect the field cannons and generally move NE to be able to encircle Hathor. There is a Roman combo that needs the battering ram to be next to Hathor at one point in time. I think the unit combo can move forward 2 tiles next turn as it is protected. However, I suggest to pause on T146 to be able to judge what Nubia will field here. It might also be a better idea to cover the ram with a musket rather than a field cannon. I will have cavalry to protect the battering ram and field cannons to hit opposition. I would expect Nubia to upgrade their crossbows next turn, other wise, they are inactive on T146. That would be a big surprise. I reckon if Nubia doesn't have field cannons, I will attack pretty aggressively to take advantage of the situation. Next turn. I will upgrade the remaining 4 horsemen while on the move.

Any suggestions or feedback on my general strategic plan here?

By the way, Acre has finished its Holy Site and is going for a quick shrine. The Apostle is currently rushing towards Scre but is being slowed by the fact that it can't move through friendly cities. That will result in the unit reaching Acre in around 9 turns or so.

What about the situation at Nan Madol? I am glad to report that England has left its navy there but did NOT move any unit to block the city. This means that Rome can strike the city in full force. Unless I am very wrong, with smart unit movement, I gathered that Rome can attack with all three knights, with three field cannons (all those tiles next to Nan Madol are single movement tiles), the musket and a new ironclad. If 8 attacks are not enough, then I don't know what would ever be. You need to score an average of 25 damage per attack and as the city gets weaker, this should surely be doable.

By the way, England has deleted its locked musket, a smart move here, though this is our first victory in the war

With all the war preparation, the tiny details on the home front get somewhat less important though they aren't

Hangzhou has grown to pop 13 and locks its industrial district which comes at a discount of 193 hammers. Growth is hampered due to the city being merely happy and the housing cap penalty. However, it is clear that the city needs a maximum of 148 food to grow to pop 14. With the current marsh harvest getting 120 food, and growth at 7.4 per turn, I will harvest that tile on T148 to get the city to pop 14. I am hoping that the additional two civics will be enough to get the city to pop 15 with the rice harvest (currently at 150 food). It should require 165 food, hence even with a tiny shortfall, I should get the city to grow to pop 15 by itself

In the south, the English hunt of our units continues. I suggest we split forces to make England have to decide whom to fight. Luckily my knight has the additional defense promotion, though it might get pretty hairy here. The knight will enter that forest hill and together with the promotion, it has a defensive strength of 45 versus two frigate attacks of 45. This could result in the loss of the unit in case of very bad dice rolls. However, that would mean they have to chase the knight rather than the caravel. I suggest for the caravel to sail west to hope for the best.

The are some other news, for example the race for Great People. It looks certain for Woden to net the Great Scientist in two turns. I am curious what sort of scientist will follow after that. Either Rome or China will net that Great person next (China has a project running for another 3 turns). I think all Industrial Era GS have been here by now, so the next one would be a lot more expensive. As for Great Merchants, Rome is set to get the next GM with China trailing. However, I will restart some commercial projects to net the next GM which I hope is Adam Smith. I would love to have that GM.

Good luck for the attack on Nan Madol, Sulla. Hit England hard with this

PS: There is a new barb camp in our north and I have sent the warrior I have to clear it. Maybe Lisbon can help out.

[Sullla]

Lots of good news there, Singaboy. I honestly don't know what Chevalier is doing around Nan Madol, but more on that in a minute. I want to walk through your posts one issue at a time to make sure that I get through all of them.

* Nationalism boost: OK, I completely agree that this one is a little confusing. Basically it comes down to how Civ6 passes the boosts from one player to another. I'm asking for China to finish Nationalism at the end of turn 146, in other words that the interface says "1 turn remaining" while researching Nationalism on Turn 146. This will cause China to complete the civic on Turn 147, and then the boost will pass to Rome on Turn 148 and allow me to change into Professional Army for upgrades. The confusing part is that the boost doesn't pass to your ally until after the tech/civic is completely done researching. Since Rome plays before China, I can finish a tech or civic on one turn and then have the boost pass over to China on the same turn. However, it doesn't work in reverse because China plays after Rome. If China take Nationalism to "1 turn remaining" status at the end of turn 147, then it will be formally discovered on Turn 148 and Rome won't get the boost until Turn 149. Does that make sense? I know that this is one turn sooner than would be ideal for you, but I think it's worth it so that Rome can start upgrading battleships immediately when Steel is discovered.

For what it's worth, China's science rate has been excellent throughout this game. Remember, China has had to invest in all those Holy Site districts to generate faith for our shared religion while Rome's been able to skip them completely. If Singaboy had built all Campuses instead of Holy Sites, he'd have 10 Campus districts right now and probably more beakers than Rome. Russia is the only other civ to invest as much in religion and EmperorK is currently making barely above half of China's science output, 65 beakers/turn to China's 125 beakers/turn. We're both going to unlock tanks at the same time and that's the next game-changing unit on land, long before Woden or Chevalier or EmperorK can build the same unit. (TheArchduke is keeping pace pretty well on technology, although without Darwin he'd also be behind.) Obviously the Chinese unique ability to get those 60% boosts has also helped a ton, and it's an underrated strength of China as a civ. I'm extremely pleased at how well this has been going for our team throughout the game.

* One more bombard for upgrading into an artillery piece later seems like an excellent faith purchase. They won't be useful in the immediate future, but a pair of them with an observation balloon would be a sweet combination in roughly two dozen turns.

* Glad to see that we're both to having control of Lisbon's suzerainship again. I just may need to take you up on that nitre offer later on if I need to build some nitre-enabled units.

* Your tactical diagram for attacking Nubia is pretty much what I was envisioning as well. The Chinese units will generally take the lead and Roman units will provide some assistance from the flank to the north and west of Hathor. I agree that we shouldn't move in until after Woden plays his turn on Turn 146 since he will otherwise get in the first strike. He still can do that if he wants, but he'll have to run his units forward out of his borders to do it and that's a good thing for us. We do need to be careful: his Great Generals will give all his units +1 movement and he can adopt Logistics policy as well for another +1 movement. Be aware that he can potentially have 4 movement field cannons and 6 movement knights. I will be covering my battering ram with a double promoted musket (Battlecry and Tortoise) to try and keep the support unit safe. I don't intend to move the battering ram up next to an enemy city until China has cleared out a safe path.

If for some reason Woden doesn't have field cannons then yes, we should attack aggressively. I'm pretty surprised he doesn't have them yet, I'm confident that he has Ballistics tech by now. I do think that this attack for China is going to be on the bloody end. Unlike at sea where there's lot of room to maneuver, on land the terrain penalties make it much more difficult to attack entrenches defenses. About the best that we can hope to do is kill Woden's units in even exchanges. Maybe if we're lucky he will forget about the Wars of Religion policy and we'll be able to get +4 strength against his units for a little while until he catches on. There is one other little tactical thing that we can do to help: cavalry that don't make an actual attack can fortify for +6 strength at the end of their turns. That gets them up to 68 strength, which unfortunately still isn't great against field cannons that will have a Great General buffing them to 65 strength ranged attacks, and worse than that for units that have a promotion. A small saving grace: field cannons are Industrial era units and only one of Woden's three Great Generals will boost them. (He has the Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance era Great Generals.) It's still going to be an ugly invasion though.

* Woden's not going to get the next Great Scientist: I'm going to patronage the guy first. I'll have to check to see whether to snap him on the upcoming turn or the following one. I don't think Woden can afford to spend 600 gold (half his treasury) on patronage right now, and I'd be fine with him getting the Great Person if it meant fewer upgrades for him. With the Great Merchant coming online and granting me 500 more gold for battleship upgrades in the near future, I can afford to splurge a little bit. Oh, and unfortunately you're never getting Adam Smith in this game Singaboy. The next Great Merchant will come from the Modern era, not the Industrial era. Commercial district projects almost certainly aren't going to be worth running.

* The situation at Nan Madol looks great for our team. I have no idea what Chevalier is trying to do there. I think he's trying to save Nan Madol somehow but it's not going to work and as a result his units are all over the place. First let me discuss the attack on the city state. It's not quite as rosy as Singaboy's diagram suggests because I don't think there's a road on the tobacco resource southeast of the city center tile. (Hard to see on the screen, will check when I play the turn.) That rules out some of these moves if there's no road there, like the foremost field cannon moving east twice and still shooting the city. Nevertheless, I can put a lot of attacks on that city and it does look like it should fall on my upcoming turn. I'm hoping that I'll have a leftover attack to grab the builder as well before the city gets captured, although I'll prioritize taking the city first of course. Better to have the city than come up short for want of taking a builder. Maybe we'll get lucky and the builder will run into the city state on Nan Madol's turn, then we get the reward without even needing to worry about it.

As for Chevalier, he's doing... something. Let's back up for a second and make a broader point about large-scale unit movement in Civ6. Ideally, you want your units to move together in a group with the beefy melee units in the front, the more mobile cavalry units on the flanks, and the vulnerable but powerful ranged attackers protected in the center. I think that I pulled this off quite well when advancing on Japper earlier in the game, when we captured his last three cities at the cost of only losing two units (a knight and a caravel). While terrain and enemy actions will mess things up and prevent you from realizing the ideal, you still want to keep your units grouped together as much as possible. This is an example of classic military tactics: concentration of force. Do not split your forces in the face of the enemy unless you have a REALLY good reason to do so. If you're a military genuius like Napoleon you can get away with doing this, if you're someone else, probably not. I'm setting up my naval forces right now under this general principle; note how all my ships are concentrated together aside from two picket units out in front for scouting and vision.

By contrast, Chevalier has his ships in multiple little clumps off by themselves. He has that group next to Nan Madol, three more ships by the Great Admiral for some reason, and then I think he has a few more up in the north where I spotted them a couple turns ago, although they could have moved somewhere else by now. I actually think that most of the English ships in this screenshot are already dead and he just doesn't know it yet. While Chevalier's ships are faster than mine thanks to his Royal Navy Dockyards and the Great Lighthouse, they aren't THAT much faster. Where can he possibly move those ships northwest of Nan Madol to get them to safety? He only has one more turn of movement before I can attack. Remember, the moment that I declare war on Turn 146, all of my ships suddenly gain zone of control and he can't move through them anymore. Is Chevalier even thinking about that right now? I'm going to continue pushing my ships east on my upcoming turn to cut off his retreat back to his own cities, while keeping them in a tight formation of course. Where do his ships go from there? He doesn't have enough speed to outrace me back to the questionable safety of his own cities. If he tries to move against my cities, that's great: my fleet will move in behind and cut off his retreat lines, then slaughter everything up against the coastline. He needed to concentrate his ships together and ideally put them all about 6-7 tiles distance from my fleet, where he had the range to move in and attack but I couldn't reach him on the first turn. With his ships jumbled together like this, he's setting himself up for an absolute disaster in two turns.

I'm trying not to get ahead of myself here and remain cautious. There are probably Sea Dogs lurking somewhere, plus more units out in the fog. But this looks really, really bad for Chevalier overall. Modo is right: trying to defend Nan Madol has sucked him into a tactical quagmire.

* He may also be getting fooled by the overall power rating for our two civs, where Chevalier has a small lead on me right now (about 2300 power to my 2200 power). This is a good opportunity to talk about the power rating in this game and why it can be highly deceptive. While it's true that the power score is useful as a general guide to military strength, the numbers can be enormously misleading since they don't take a lot of local context into account. First, a quick explanation of what this score means. The power rating is simply the military strength of every unit on the map under your control added up together. Melee units use their melee strength, ranged units use their ranged strength. That's it, that's all that this number means. As units are damaged, their strength falls and the power rating also falls accordingly. This can make it look like a civ is losing units when in fact their units are only taking damage, and will heal back to full eventually. Overall though, this number essentially functions the same way as the Soldier count rating in Civ4, adding up a strength rating for all of your units and posting it for the other players to see.

However, there are two major differences here from Civ4. One is the basic fact of the One Unit Per Tile rules that works against older units. In Civ4, we're all familiar with the player who has fallen behind in tech but who no one wants to attack because they have 50 knights and 25 catapults. Even when an era behind, the combination of collateral damage and mobile 2-move units make it tough to pull off an attack successfully. But in Civ6, only one unit can go on each tile (corps/armies notwithstanding) and each individual unit is much more valuable. There's no way to put 50 knights on one tile, which makes falling behind in technology more punishing. The second major difference is the way in which the combat system works in Civ6. Unlike in Civ4 where a unit must die in every combat, in Civ6 units can take varying amounts of damage and combat is not necessarily fatal. The result of this is a system based around strength differentials; units at even strength will deal roughly 30 damage to one another, with a decent amount of variation on either side (24-36 damage possible on the dice roll at even strength). The bigger the strength differential, the more damage units deal and the less damage they take. At +10 strength you're dealing 50% more damage and taking 50% less, the 30-30 average damage split becoming a 45-20 edge, and at +17 strength it becomes 100% more damage dealt and 100% less damage taken (i.e. 60-15 average damage). You go from 1:1 damage ratio to 2.5:1 damage ratio to 4:1 damage ratio, and it only gets more lopsided from there. Another way to put this is that it takes 4 attacks to kill a unit at even strength, 3 attacks to kill a unit at +10 strength advantage, and 2 attacks to kill a unit at +17 strength advantage, eventually reaching 1 attack to kill a unit at +30 strength. Under a system where limited numbers of units can be in combat at one time, that matters a lot.

The net result of all this is that strength differentials are the alpha and the omega of combat in Civ6. You need to do everything possible to pile on that strength differential since it makes such a huge difference. And the game does this well: terrain bonuses, fortification bonuses, flanking and support bonuses, unit type advantages, promotions, etc. It's a rich system and the designers did an excellent job putting it together. One side effect is that each new generation of military technology represents a massive leap forwards, usually 15 strength higher than the previous generation. Warriors have 20 strength, swords have 35 strength. Archers have 25 ranged strength while crossbows have 40 ranged strength. And so on. There are jumps here and there that can be smaller (ironclads only 10 strength higher than caravels) or larger (field cannons are 60 ranged strength to crossbows with 40 ranged strength) but you get the idea. This is why staying caught up in military tech is so critical in Civ4. If you fall a generation behind, your units are at roughly -15 strength differential before the fighting even begins and you're dealing roughly 80% less damage than your opponent. Being on the defensive helps a lot but only so much. Generally speaking, when someone falls behind in tech they will get crushed unless they can pull off some kind of tactical coup.

Now here's where the power rating comes up short: older units score very similarly in power rating but perform at a vastly weaker level. Think about this for a minute. If Chevalier and I both had 20 ships, but he had 20 frigates and I had 20 battleships, the power rating would be pretty close between us, 20 * 70 = 1400 for me and 20 * 55 = 1100 for him. If you just saw those numbers, you would think that I had a slight edge but you would expect the fighting to be fairly close. In reality it would be a complete slaughter though, even in an imaginary world where we alternated shots one at a time. Each battleship shot would be taken at 70 versus 45 strength (+25 differential), dealing about 85 damage on average. It would nearly fall into the one-shot kill range, and I think a very lucky roll might actually hit that point. In contrast, the frigates would attack at 55 versus 60 strength (-5 differential), dealing about 25 damage on average. You might be able to kill a battleship with three of those shots because units lose strength as they take damage, but it would be close and the player would have to roll well. If we simmed this out somehow, with the two sides alternating shots, you would likely see 3-4 battleships sunk and all of the frigates would die. In other words, not a "slight edge" at all but a massacre.

This is why looking at the power rating alone outside of context isn't very useful. EmperorK has about 1000 power rating right now, which looks impressive on the ranking screen. However, it's all in horses and swords so that he can avoid paying upgrade costs, and those units are worthless until they get upgraded. Field cannons could almost one-shot those units, and those Russian units would take much more damage than they received when attacking. Completely useless until they get upgraded. Power rating also doesn't include promotions (which are even more important in Civ6 than in Civ4 since there are fewer units on the map), nor does it include contextual factors like the disposition of forces. Chevalier's navy is larger than mine, but he apparently only has half of it in the eastern ocean and that renders half of it irrelevant in this engagement. I'm also reminded of pindicator's masterful use of the Defender of the Faith bonus to crush Alhambram in PBEM5. They had an even power rating, but Alhambram's force was very heavy on cavalry that could never get into a position to attack, while pindicator used his faith bonuses and observation balloon-empowered siege pieces to pick the enemy army apart.

Long story short: the power rating number has value, but it needs to be considered in context. I'm not entirely sure if Chevalier is evaluating it properly right now. We'll find out soon enough!

[Modo]

Every time I see the English ships around Nan Madol I start drooling so I can only imagine Sulla itching something fierce for the war to start and almost end there.
Then he drops 3130 words on us and I'm reminded I have no idea what patience means.

[Singaboy]

By the way, with regards to combustion and tanks. There is a possibility that none of us has land access to oil. It would be great to net that Great Scientist to spot oil well in advance for some planning so that we have at least one source of it (better to have two), so that we can upgrade knights to tanks.

I have no problem to switch to nationalism on T136, so that it finishes on T137 with Rome getting the Inspiration on T138. This, in fact, is ideal for the double swap. This means that I might get attacked for two turns (T136/137) by Woden without having War of religions in place. Of course, his GG boosted army is no pushover, unless he has no cavalry and field cannons.

On other comment, it seems that CMF is going on a trip from tomorrow until 10th May. This means, that turns 146 - 150 will be played by Woden. It might be an advantage for him to play both nations in direct succession. However, I am still not too convinced that Woden is the best General out there. he tends to be a little indecisive and prone to retreat rather than attack and risk some losses. For all we know, he might show a different side this time and smack China badly. We shall see.

[Sullla]

Every turn takes a long time to play now. Let's see what we have in store for us on Turn 145, the last quiet moment before the storm:



This was the scene at Nan Madol when I opened up the save file. The crossbow inside Nan Madol elected to shoot at my knight for minimal damage and the builder ran onto the forested hill tile. Before doing anything else, I had to stop on this turn and think about whether it was worthwhile to attempt an attack on the city state. Unfortunately, I was correct and there was no road tile on the tobacco resource southeast of the city. This meant that at most I could attack with three field guns, an ironclad, the injured musket, and two knights (one of them the injured one). As a result, I sat down to work out the expected damage from those combats:

Field gun: 43 strength against 59 strength (-16 difference) = 16 average damage
Field gun: 43 strength against 59 strength (-16 difference) = 16 average damage
Field gun: 43 strength against 59 strength (-16 difference) = 16 average damage

Obviously the city would lose some strength here as it took damage, but I was trying to be conservative if I had bad dice rolls. Hmmm, that was only about 50 expected damage there, and could be worse with bad dice rolls. What about the melee units?

Musket: 53 strength against 57 strength (-4 difference) = 25 average damage
Knight: 48 strength against 56 strength (-8 difference) = 22 average damage
Knight: 45 strength against 55 strength (-10 difference) = 20 average damage
Ironclad: 60 strength against 54 strength (+6 difference) = 38 average damage

Add that up together and it only came out to 153 damage, almost certainly not enough to take the city in one round. Singaboy, you were absolutely correct that I had seven attacks to throw against Nan Madol this turn. Unfortunately, I couldn't average anywhere close to the 25 damage you thought I'd be able to do on those attacks. The city state just had too many defensive bonuses. This influnced the rest of the way that I played the turn. Instead of taking injuries on melee attacks against Nan Madol, I would get as much free damage as possible with ranged attacks and look to take the city on a future turn. That's disappointing but the math says I wouldn't have come all that close to getting the city on this turn.



First I had my injured knight snag the builder. The only other unit that could reach it was a field cannon and I wanted that unit firing on the city state. The knight revealed some interesting information when I highlighted Woden's crossbow. As expected, there's a Great General in the vicinity as well as more units hidden in the fog behind the ones we can see. However, Woden currently is not running Wars of Religion policy. He has to have a civic finishing this turn or next turn since he still hasn't upgraded his units, but maybe we'll be lucky and he'll forget about this policy and give us the +4 combat strength edge. I also noted that he's not in Logistics policy right now (only 3 movement instead of 4 movement on the crossbow) and that's a positive for us too. He probably should be running both policies; we'll see if he changes into them on this turn or next turn.

Then it was time to get what damage I could against the city state:



The field cannon shots did 18, 18, and 19 damage on the three attacks, slightly higher than I had anticipated with my math. Still nowhere close to enough to take the city though, only coming out 7 damage higher than I thought when I needed an extra 50 damage to take the city. Then since I wasn't going to take the city this turn, I went for an attack with a frigate instead of an ironclad to avoid taking damage:



Sheesh, 30 damage from one shot. Unlike land-based ranged units, ships do not suffer an attack penalty against cities, functioning like siege units in that regard. I was able to attack at 55 strength against roughly the same 55 defensive strength and sure enough, that comes out to 30 damage on the average attack roll. I promoted the musket and ironclad that attacked last turn to heal both units back up to full, leaving the knight as the only injured unit anywhere in the vicinity. Nan Madol is right about half health now and won't heal by virtue of being under siege.

Next up, I decided to do a little scouting and found this:



Well, well, well. What do we have here. Chevalier is apparently hiding some ships up here in the north. Why did I suspect that he had units up here?

1) Earlier scouting, where I saw his caravel fleet moving around my borders and then head up to the north. It had to go somewhere, and Chevalier obviously would want that unit nearby for the war. North was the only place it could be, and I guessed there might be companions to go along with it.
2) Power tracking, since Chevalier has a massive power rating (2400 this turn) and that meant he must have more ships somewhere. I was hoping most of them were in the southern ocean but it was reasonable to think he might have some more of them here.
3) Chevalier himself. He's too good of a player to leave his ships out in the open like he's been doing. I've been wondering if he had something else up his sleeve, and this looks like it.

But wait, there's more. This scout was about to be worth its weight in gold:



Oh hai there suspiciously outlined water tiles. Looks like I can't move my scout onto either of those spaces for some reason. Whatever could be hiding underneath? So that's a pair of Sea Dogs hiding there, probably chopped out of Lepanto in the last turn or two. It's clear what Chevalier wants to do: force battle in a position where he can attack me from out of the fog and potentially capture ships with his Sea Dogs. It's a smart tactical play assuming that the other person doesn't know that the units are here.

Of course, I do know that his ships are there now. He's baiting a trap for me, but I may be able to trap the trapper, or something like that. This is where I placed my ships after they all finished moving:



Same idea as before, my ships are concentrated together around Nan Madol and the little island to the north of it. I'm trying to make it look like I still have no idea that Chevalier is up there with his ships. The fact that I didn't manage to take Nan Madol this turn may even be a good thing, as Chevalier will hopefully opt to keep the blockade going. His land units look to be trying to rush to the rescue of the city state as well, and to be fair his economy is heavily tied to this particular location. He may even have to fight for Nan Madol regardless of the tactical situation. (Side note: I was heavily critical of the addition of the city states to Civ5/Civ6, and while I think they still have problems, wow have they ever worked as a design element or what in a MP game like this one! Nan Madol is the crux of this whole conflict.)

So hopefully Chevalier will keep most of his units in this position on his turn. He's about to play the single most important turn of the war right now, and it's not Turn 146, it's this upcoming Turn 145. If his ships stay in roughly their current positions then I've got him. I'll sink the current English ships down here in the south while making sure that all of my ships slide down below that island, which will put them juuuuust barely out of range of whatever fleet is lurking to the north. Those units will have at least 7 movement points, and possibly 8 movement if there's a Great Admiral with them. Too bad I couldn't hover for potential combat odds with those ships and see all the bonuses like I could with Woden. That's not permitted because I had a Declaration of Friendship with Chevalier but don't have one with Woden. I can't attack Woden, mind you, but I can hover for combat odds with his units.

For the curious, Chevalier's best play here would be to move his ships up to the north and dare me to come fight them, drawing me into range of whatever ships he has lurking in the fog. I would respond to that by taking Nan Madol, killing the exposed English units along the coastline, and pulling south to wait for battleship upgrades. I'm not fighting his concentrated fleet if I can avoid it, and I only need to stall for a couple more turns to get access to battleships. But if he stays anywhere close to his current position, we kill the isolated southern English ships while making sure that we stay out of the range of whatever is up there in the north. I'd also love to kill the Sea Dogs if possible, but it depends on where they move and if they'll be vulnerable. No point in sending ships to kill the Sea Dogs only to get killed in turn, not when those frigates can become battleships in just a little bit more time.



Overview of some of Woden's units in this area for reference. Note that with three movement points his crossbows (which will be upgraded into field cannons for sure) can be moved onto forests or hills and still shoot. He can't move onto forested hills though, not unless he swaps into Logistics policy. I took this picture because I moved some of these knights back from the front lines afterwards. This is my best intel on Woden.

Going to break this up into two posts since it's so long...

[Sullla]

Just saw your comments in between posts, Singaboy. As far as your point about the Great Scientist, well, it turns out that we were independently thinking along the same lines. More on that in a minute.

Woden replacing Chevalier for the most critical turns of the game is very good news for us. I mean this in the nicest possible way, but it has to be said: Chevalier is a much better tactician than Woden. Woden was badly outmanuevered at the tactical level in both PBEM2 and PBEM4; I don't think that he captured a single city from a human player in either of those games. From what little we saw of their earlier war against Cornflakes, Woden struggled a surprising amount in attacking against a technologically backwards Khmer. Woden will be stepping into the reigns of an unfamiliar civ at an incredibly important and stressful junction for this game. Let me put it this way: I'd rather have Woden playing those turns than Chevalier. Anyway, back to the turn report.



There are still domestic tasks to be done even in these busy turns. The trade route that had been running to Nan Madol, and which constructed the incredibly important road that my units are now using as a lifeline, ended up getting canceled last turn when I declared war. I was able to re-route it this turn and send it to Lisbon for a very sweet 17 gold/turn value. Somewhat amazingly, these trade routes have me sitting at close to 200 gold/turn even with an army score of 2300 and no Conscription policy active. The trade route out of Milano that also had previously been running to Lisbon also came due to reassignment, and I sent it to another city that lacked a trade route to Lisbon, so that will kick in another 15 or so gold/turn again next turn. Plus Milano is finishing my 15th and final trader next turn for even more income, and if I can take Nan Madol, that will open up room for a 16th trade route. I'm still salivating at taking Chevalier's coastal cities since they all have Royal Navy Dockyards that can be captured for even more trade routes. Lisbon, you da real MVP for our team.



What, more barbarian ships?! Oh come on. I guess we know where that barb ship that almost killed my scout ran off to. I promoted both caravels to Embolon and that should be enough to take care of this ship if it attacks. They're heading to Venezia to heal any injuries taken and upgrade into ironclads when I next swap back into Professional Army. These ships and the frigates currently in production will be tasked with dealing with the English ships sailing around in the deep south below the Khmer lands.



These units down here. Before moving my caravel, I checked for invisible units and yep, there are two Sea Dogs accompanying the two frigates, the tile indicated and the tile to its southwest. There could be more invisible Sea Dogs further back but there's at least these two moving down in the deep south. Unfortunately it's impossible for my caravel to outrun these units with their 7 movement points to my 5 movement points. It's my own fault, I should have started retreating from Chevalier's waters sooner than I did. I was planning to go south underneath Russia but a barbarian frigate blocked my path and forced me in this direction. Bah! There was only one possible route of escape: slipping up that narrow water channel to the northwest and hoping that Chevalier's units would keep going west. Worth a shot, right?



Curse you, random Woden knight! So that's not going to work, heh. Singaboy, your knight is probably also doomed because I don't think it can manage to reach a tile safe from those frigate shots. I will likely delete my frigate next turn so that there's no chance of it being captured by the Sea Dogs. I doubt we could get any of the Chinese units up to the north down here in time, and that doesn't seem like a good use of their efforts. What a sad ending to this Arctic adventure for our guys.



I had a tough decision to make when it came to the Great Person screen. The Great Scientist was only 20 points away from being recruited by Rome, and since I generate 22 Scientist points/turn, I would get this Great Person if nothing else happened. However, Woden will get 15 Great Scientist points on his turn and leave himself at 413/420 points. If he's paying attention to this screen even the slightest bit, he'll claim the Great Scientist for himself at a pittance of a cost. 7 missing Great People points costs 220 faith or 305 gold, and I suspect he likely has enough faith along to snap that up. I almost had enough faith myself and Woden has Goddess of the Harvest boosting all of his chops. I also thought that James Young would be a very useful Great Scientist to have, and I suspect that we're in the closing stages of this game right now, without much more time for a future Great Scientist to have much effect.

Ultimately I decided that it was worthwhile to patronage this Great Scientist at the 500 gold cost. The biggest reason why was the incoming gold from the Great Merchant, John Jacob Aster, which will neatly offset the cost of patronizing James Young. No one else is even remotely close to Rome on the Great Merchant front, and that gold will land in my pocket in 5 turns to help fund battleship upgrades. I also have a crabs harvest coming my way for 300ish gold, plus the current income of about 200 gold/turn. That's enough to upgrade all my frigates to battleships even with this expenditure. So I went ahead and used the Great Scientist, and we'll have to think about whether we want to reveal oil right away or wait until we unlock some more of the tech boosts in the Industrial/Modern eras to increase the odds of landing boosts on techs that we want.

The new Great Scientist is Alfred Nobel: gain 1 random tech boost from the Modern or Atomic era and gain 20 Great Person points towards all current and future Great People. That's not terribly useful for this game. James Young is honestly better since he provides a double boost and oil is an important resource to spot on the map. If we need a settler to claim oil, we want to know that ASAP.



Northern overview. Finishing up a few more ships and building old districts placed a long time ago for lack of other things to build. Steel is still on course to be discovered in 3 turns, right on Turn 148 as we've been planning for some time now. Siena finished its university and took me up over 190 beakers/turn as expected; there's another university almost done in Firenze that will boost me over the 200/turn mark as soon as I can complete it. Needed to do the frigate first though or else it would get obsoleted by a battleship. Hopefully Nan Madol will fall next turn and I can build another trader in Roma.



Same basic story in the south. If I can take Nan Madol, there's a stone resource for that builder to harvest that can be turned into another frigate.

There's the big overview map. I think I covered the situation with Chevalier at sea pretty well in the first post, now we wait and see what he does on his turn. I still think this turn right now is probably the most important one of the whole conflict, whether Chevalier realizes that he needs to change the situation or if he continues attempting to save Nan Madol. I'm sure hoping that he stays in roughly the current location. It's going to be a very busy turn tomorrow regardless.

Singaboy, it's unfortunate that you won't be able to get into Wars of Religion policy until Turn 147, after Woden plays the first two turns of the war. I would be EXTREMELY cautious about moving into his territory without that in place. If he has that, plus his Great General, plus the defender's advantage, I don't think things will go well for your units. You know, we don't *HAVE* to attack Woden here at all, honestly. If his territory is a massed series of field cannons, then we can hang back and simply defend what we have. That's not particularly exciting, but it's a lot better than charging into entrenched defenses and getting slaughtered. We'll have tanks before Woden and we can always wait for them to attack him directly. I urge caution here unless we're presented with a clear opportunity to attack. (One possibility: we have that Proselytizer missionary coming down slowly from China. If Woden looks like too tough of a nut to crack, we can wait for that guy to arrive and use an apostle charge for a Crusade against Hathor. THAT would be the way to break into his territory, getting +10 strength on every Chinese unit!)

Going to be a busy day tomorrow. Hope all of you reading along are enjoying this one. We are too, but it's also pretty draining.