[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats

[ljubljana]

Yeah, I only really have two ships that need to heal anyways, and since I am Phoenicia they can do so very quickly. I should still have enough for some amount of caravel screen to safely keep the pressure up, or I can just wait 2-3 turns before moving out to give those ships time to heal and my reinforcements time to show up. We should try to figure out where TAD's navy ends up retreating to if it does retreat...Writing on the Wall will force them to choose only one side of their continent to defend, and we could manage to capture or burn a few cities on the side they don't choose. If TAD is in retreat, do you think there's any chance that if some of your caravels headed due west, you'd be able to cut off or at least see TAD's ships before they can get away if they choose to go south?

I think it's a little more likely that TAD stays and fights this turn that that he retreats, since my redlined caravel and exposed frigate should look like pretty juicy targets. Unless I am very wrong about how much damage he can do this turn, though, I think that's the better outcome for us. I do not know if he can kill any of my ships without committing frigate shots, and any frigates he attacks with will be impossible to defend on the counterattack. In the absolute worst case, maybe I'm wrong about that and we'll end up trading a frigate and the redlined caravel for the 3 TAD caravels he will need to kill them, which is fine if unspectacular.

How many swords do you have to upgrade to zerks, by the way? If TAD does retreat, I think those will become our best available use of gold with the imminent liberation of Akkad, and I can send some gold along to help with that if you would like. I will want to do 3 frigate upgrades when Guilds comes in and also have one more Bireme that might be worth upgrading, but other than that I don't have much need for gold at this point. 3 zerks is a better buy than 1 caravel IMO anyways, especially since I will need a few disposable scouts if we're going to advance and those should probably be biremes and quads instead of caravels.

[Woden]

Finally got to my turn. World Congress is next and I will defer to you for what we vote for. I will not be around a computer tomorrow for most of the day, so vote for whatever you think best, No need to hold up the turn.

[ljubljana]

Going to start with the good news:



Instead of retreating, TAD took another bad ship trade, killing two of my wounded caravels and a healthy unpromoted one but not quite getting to my frigates. I was also right that TAD didn't have any fast-movers hidden in the southern fog, and all their ships were left agonizingly just short of being able to reach my exposed line of frigates. I should be able to escape to the north this turn, since TAD has barely failed to trap me with ZoC from the west as well, and I am expecting to kill all four of TAD's western frigates plus the redlined caravels. I don't think I can kill the healthy-ish Embolon caravel, but I can trap it against the coast to kill it next turn which is almost as good. Not sure what to do with my new caravel by Linear A - I might retreat it onto the Cothon tile to block a pillage? Or one tile forward so it's harder for TAD to eat your trader? TAD may be able to pillage our stuff anyways if I do that, but will need to commit two caravels and a frigate to do so, which you can then trap and kill. Also, I actually can have my one bireme move to 4 tiles away from our traders to protect them, which could be a hilarious and unwelcome surprise if that's TAD's plan.

TAD's milpower is really starting to crater too...I do not think we will look dead in the water to the rest of the world for very much longer, so I'd better get in my lux deals now while I still have the chance. Luckily we did look dead for long enough to get the two alliances up because, uh, here is the bad news: this game is about to be decided by the World Congress



This is a ridiculous layup for CMF - plus TEN combat strength? That is easily enough to swing an entire war on its own - look at what we were able to do with just a few turns of plus FIVE combat strength against TAD, and CMF is already winning their war. There is no way we will be able to match the pace of conquest they will be able to achieve against sub/roland if this passes. In two huge strokes of luck, a) we have an alliance with CMF timed perfectly so that we will be on the receiving end of only 5 or so turns of this +10 strength ourselves and b) TAD's team is not the one with the giant surplus of diplo favor (though they do have more than us). How did CMF even get that much diplo favor? I think RB is really sleeping on diplo favor's power as a currency, at least in MP team games where vote coordination is possible. It is very random as an investment, but this is now two for two World Congresses where the outcome has been absolutely crucial for determining which way a war goes, and this one is way more significant than even the GA one that made us fight an 97-strength ironclad IMO.

I know you said not to hold up the turn, but this is a game-swinging vote so I'm going to hold up the turn anyways. I see one way that this doesn't pass, and that is if everyone who is not CMF realizes its importance and pours all their votes into option B. Does that seem right to you? I am worried that someone out there will get it in their heads that option A is better and vote for it, which would hand it to CMF for sure since their religion would beat out the other religions if option A wins and they invested the most votes (I think? How does the WC even work?). I am also worried that TAD will try to spite us if they think they're losing the war and throw the game to CMF here in the WC, though hopefully they still think they have enough of a chance that they won't do that... Let me know what you think, though. If we mess this up and CMF or TAD gets option A to pass with their religion we are in deep, deep trouble.

Also, do you know if it matters which religion passes for option B? Is that condemnation just a one-time thing where every player can get 25 diplo favor once, or can you repeat it if you have access to multiple units of the chosen religion? I might just put TAD's religion to avoid antagonizing CMF diplomatically...we'd prefer for that to pass than for CMF's religion to get condemned anyways, and will have pretty safe access to CMF units to condemn in the soon-to-be ruins of soon-to-be former China if we have to.

No idea what to put for the second vote either. I guess I could vote for more GA points? TAD is unlikely to get to Industrial ships anytime soon so it probably won't hurt us, and it could be helpful to get a head start on Industrial admirals for what is looking more and more like an endgame showdown with CMF. What do you think, though? Unfortunately, this is pretty important too...if no GA points passes, CMF and TAD will have the only living Renaissance GAs in 30 turns, which could drop us intp a situation where CMF can buff their ironclads but we can't buff ours (if we can even make it to ironclads by the time they're ready to attack us!). I might try to offer marco some kind of alliance in a few turns just to buy us some more time...

Not sure I will hold the turn for too long since I don't want to force everyone to wait on me on a WC turn. But I will hold it up for at least a little while to give you a chance to give input given how important a vote this turned out to be.

[ljubljana]

Okay, there is one other viable option, which is voting to boost suboptimal's CS. There is no way that TAD will vote to boost us (obviously) or that sub will vote to boost us (I don't think), but they sure won't vote for runaway CMF either, and if TAD or sub vote for option A they will probably vote for sub (or TAD might vote for themself).

Let's do some vote-counting:
CMF (193 favor = 6 votes) and marco (150 favor = 6 votes) have 12 votes
roland (160 favor = 6 votes) and suboptimal (0 favor = 1 vote) have 7 votes
TAD (59 favor = 3 votes) and Kaiser (78 favor = 4 votes) have 7 votes
Woden (93 favor = 4 votes) and ljubljana (39 favor = 3 votes) have 7 votes

Let's assume CMF/marco votes to boost themself and everyone else votes for either option B or to boost suboptimal/roland. If we vote option B, we will need both of the other teams to vote option B as well, or both of them to vote to boost suboptimal; if they split the votes, CMF will win. If we vote to boost suboptimal, we will need only one of the other teams to also vote to boost suboptimal; if they both vote option B, CMF will win. Thus, if these assumptions were true and both of the other teams chose randomly between the two, we should vote for suboptimal (75% chance to win) instead of option B (50% chance to win).

This is an oversimplification, though. One has to imagine suboptimal is a bit more likely to vote to boost themselves than they are to vote option B, since either could pass and the payoff for the former is much higher. There is also the worrying chance that someone will vote to boost someone other than suboptimal. I don't think sub will since they are dying. TAD on the other hand might...they could try to boost themselves in the hope of salvaging their invasion, or they could try to boost CMF to make 100% sure that our team does not get the boost. The former is pretty unlikely to succeed, though (they surely are aware of how badly sub must be doing, and it's not like we're going to vote for them), and if they want the latter, their best choice is to vote for sub who won't be a threat down the road rather than CMF who will win the game if this vote goes their way. CMF could vote to boost TAD in a 1000 IQ move, which would be pretty good for them if it passes, but I don't think they will do that since a) they don't really have a clear picture yet of who is winning our war and b) the odds of the other teams failing to coordinate are high enough that they should probably just go for the win now. If they do vote for TAD, we can't do much anyways except vote for sub and hope TAD doesn't vote for themself.

I would put my subjective voting odds at something like the following:
CMF/marco: 90% boost themselves, 10% boost someone else (probably TAD, outside chance of us)
sub/roland: 60% boost themselves, 40% option B
TAD/Kaiser: 40% boost sub, 40% option B, 20% boost themselves

If those odds were true, we should vote to boost sub, since we would need only one of the other two players to boost sub to make it work (74% chance), whereas option B would work only if both other players boosted sub or both players went for option B (40% chance total).

These odds might be a little off, though. Sub and roland are in a bad situation militarily...their only chance to win (and probably even to survive) is for a boost to their CS to pass, and I imagine they are well aware of that, which would reduce the odds of option B from what I listed here. They should be voting for themselves and praying that someone else helps out for metagame reasons, the resolution failing will simply result in a slower demise.

Meanwhile, TAD and Kaiser are in a weird spot...they are no longer favored in their war with us (or won't be after this next turn), but I am not sure they realize that yet. Do they need +10 CS to have a reasonable chance to win? I would say probably, but I am not sure they recognize that, nor am I sure where they could reasonably expect to get a second vote. Not from us, that's for sure...and I don't think from sub either since they are in big trouble militarily. CMF could vote for them, but if they do, it's not like there's anything we can do to stop it besides vote for the person most likely to draw a second vote, which is sub. The odds of TAD voting for themselves are probably higher than I gave them here, but if they do that, our best move is to do whatever we think sub will do, and sub will probably vote to boost themselves.

I am pretty annoyed that this whole game is coming down in large part to a giant WC dice roll. But I thiiiink the above analysis points towards voting for sub as the right move, and I am probably going to do that unless you think otherwise. CMF will be pretty pissed if that happens, but what can he do about it - nothing for 25 or so turns, and maybe not after that either if sub stays at war with them.

[ljubljana]

I know, right? I really hope you're right about that. I'll try looking it up, but if it's +10 CS for all combat units that is maybe the most ridiculous mechanic in all of Civ6 and absolutely needs to be nerfed into the ground in the RB mod. I think +3 is roughly the upper limit of what would be reasonable if it applies to all military units.

If it doesn't boost military units, I'm going to pour everything into double GAs. CMF can already boost their industrial ships with their Renaissance GA whereas we had to retire ours to fend off Yi. In an industrial-age showdown with CMF, we want more GAs on both sides, not fewer, and they are making roughly the same amount of GA points as I am (a bit fewer), so there's not much risk of another situation developing like the one with TAD.

edit: You were right as of a year ago according to reddit, but a) I don't trust reddit that much and b) I think the wording of the resolution has changed since this question was posted. I will keep looking.

Oh, I don't know about the genlurker question, maybe ask in the lurker thread? If people object, the thing I was most likely going to do is a) wait another hour or two to hear from Woden and b) pour everything into boosting suboptimal if I didn't. I can restore the game state by just doing that instead of incorporating your suggestion if lurkers don't think it was genlurker-appropriate. Also, if any genlurkers have thoughts on that they should feel free to comment here as well.

Woden, when you see this, I'm sorry you have to deal with me not even being able to do a WC turn without it devolving into a catastrophe of multiple hour turn holds, pages of analysis, and genlurker feedback requests. Hopefully I will kill enough units next turn to make up for it

[ljubljana]

It looks like this has come up in exactly one prior PBEM as far as I can tell, that being PBEM15.

Suboptimal [PBEM15] seems to have been under the impression that it only applied to religious units there, but it's not completely clear...rereading the wording I could go either way on that.

Woden [PBEM15] on the other hand seemed pretty confident that it applied to military units, and even mentioned that he might try to stack it with DoTF for +15 CS, which, holy crap ! CMF has DoTF too - that would effectively turn all his caravels into ironclads in his territory! After Woden's PBEM15 post, CMF then asked, much like you just asked, for Woden to clarify that this meant military units as well, but Woden couldn't check at the time because he didn't have a majority of his cities following the religion. Not sure if that ever got cleared up later in the game or not.

Pindicator [PBEM15] mentioned the vote in passing but not what he thought its mechanical effects would be.

In that game, everyone but Woden (the runaway) voted for option B and Woden voted to boost himself, winning the vote because the other players didn't invest favor into stopping it. I am not sure the same analysis will hold here, though, with suboptimal in much more dire straits than anyone seems to have been in at the time against Woden. It appears the PBEM15 vote was a general one to rein in the runaway or at least keep them from accruing a further advantage; here, though, it seems pretty clear that the best way to rein in the runaway is not to vote for option B but to vote to give more CS to their would-be conquest. I am not sure the other players will see it the same way, though, and if they both pick option B a vote to buff suboptimal will hand the resolution, and probably the game as well, to CMF.

So this doesn't get lost, I'd still like to hear from any genlurkers on whether it's okay to allow myself to have been prodded into this digging by thrawn's comment. But it's starting to look like it's too risky to assume this means anything other than +10 strength to all units anyways... If I assume that and am wrong, I will lose diplo favor, but in the reverse case, I will lose the game .

[ljubljana]

Turn 131 World Congress - Phoenicia

Okay, here is what I'm going to do: I'm going to put my 3 votes into boosting suboptimal and my 1 vote into double GAs to move the turn along. Woden, if you see this and decide that option B is the better choice, you can put your 4 votes there - either way, option B only passes if both other teams vote for it, and if your 4 votes go there it will have 7 + 7 + 4 = 18 votes in that case, still more than 3 + 12 = 15 for option A. If we find out between now and then that the boost doesn't apply to military units, you should probably put everything into double GA points instead. I don't think that will pass (TAD and CMF have the same incentive to vote for no GAs, namely that it helps them kill us), but it's worth a shot IMO.

We may luck out here if people vote for TAD - their religion is only in 4 English and 4 Japanese cities, which I think is less than half for both of them. Roland's religion is in 5 Indonesian cities (and a billion Chinese ones) - not sure if that's more than half, but it sure will be once they start losing former Russian cities:



If none of those fogged cities have the religion, then sub is not following it. I imagine that's probably the case...but as you can see these cities are also in the process of falling to CMF, after which sub will be following it. Not sure how that bears on the likelihood of roland and suboptimal voting for option A as the "save themselves" choice though...



Anyways, here we go. I sure hope this doesn't matter...

[ljubljana]

Looks like we are not the only ones who have a lot to say about the WC vote this turn... There has been a ton of frantic discussion in sub's thread since roland got the save, and they waited to talk it over before making their move. I think that the more they think it through, the more likely it is that they decide to vote to buff themselves...I do not see how they can possibly win the game except by turning back or signing peace with CMF, and they badly need a CS bonus to have any chance of doing either of those things.

I just hope that my vote to buff them doesn't enrage CMF so much that they peace out with sub and come after us in 25 turns. That doesn't seem like CMF's style, though...he seems to keep his cool in the face of realpolitik moves, and I'm pretty sure he will know that I don't necessarily mean him any direct harm, just to not let him roll over sub and run away with the game. Maybe I've just become gun-shy from my TAD experiences and am now seeing game-long revenge vendettas around every corner . If you think it would make us a likely target for Russia if the sub buff passes, though, feel free to vote for option B instead, which would limit the odds of the sub buff actually passing.

[ljubljana]

Just throwing this up here for the sake of planning - I played a little minesweeper with TAD's ships in the west, and here's what we have to deal with:



My priorities for this turn are, in order, dislodging the Great Admiral, killing as many frigates as possible, and finishing off the redlined caravels, while keeping what's left of my caravel fleet between my frigates and TAD to avoid replicating his mistakes. Here are the nearest TAD cities:



This is really awkward positioning for TAD as far as the GA respawn is concerned - if we can kill it this turn, it should be out of the fight for roughly two more turns afterwards, which should be enough time for us to do significant damage over here. It will also give us a ridiculous +13 CS advantage over TAD's ships for whichever attacks remain this turn after we kill it, so naturally I am hoping to make that my first priority in the turn, especially if it turns out to be under a frigate.

edit: waaait no, it will just go back to Writing on the Wall, whooops. Guess retaking that city won't turn out to be a total waste after all. Still, though, it will be nice to have another CS buff for the second half of the turn so I may still try it.

[Woden]

Was able to play world congress turn. It came right before I had to stop for fuel. The +10CS to units only applies to religious units and not combat units because only religious units are for a specific religion. It includes combat because of monks.

I like your plan, go for it. I will not be available fo rthe next 5 hours, so won't be able to help on your turn. You have been doing great, keep it up. Not sure if any of my boats are in range to attack TAD next turn but they are going to head more west than north. Good luck!