Realms Beyond has been running Play By Email (PBEM) games for Civ6 since it first released; in fact, I took part in the very first Civ6 PBEM game and wrote about it on my website. I also ended up joining the PBEM7 game and it turned into a fantastic match, full of twists and turns and exciting action. It was a game that was more than worthy of being commemorated in a writeup to preserve it for posterity. But there were two major problems: PBEM7 was a massive game and it took place under the final non-expansion version of Civ6. There were so many things that took place during the game that I despaired of capturing it all in a writeup. Furthermore, the gameplay immediately became outdated with the release of Civ6's expansions shortly following the conclusion of PBEM7. Did I really want to devote untold hours writing about Civ6 mechanics that had already become obsolete? I delayed and delayed the project and the PBEM7 game slowly fell into obscurity over time.
But then something unexpected happened: COVID-19 decided to show up and plunge the world into a pandemic that lasted for well over a year. As I found myself stuck at home for long stretches of time, I decided that I would try to busy myself with various different tasks that didn't require traveling outdoors. One of these was a new season of Civ4 AI Survivor which became a smashing success with huge increases in viewership over previous years. I also went back and tried to finish some long-delayed writing projects for my website and that's when I hit on the idea of returning to the PBEM7 game. The overall game was still too big for me to want to tackle it in full and much of the game's span would have been spent discussing city development gameplay which has since been obsoleted by the Civ6 expansions. However, I figured that I could focus on the most exciting part of the game: the lategame naval showdown between Rome and England. This remains the largest naval battle that we've run in the Civ6 PBEM games, and due to changes in the Civ6 gameplay that have since taken place, it will probably never be topped in terms of size and scope.
Therefore we're going to zero in specifically on the massive fleet versus fleet engagement in this report. This is going to be something different from my normal reports, looking at the operations and tactical levels as opposed to the strategic level. Civ6 is inferior to Civ4 in most respects but it handles tactical wargaming combat between two human players very well indeed. I put together a report in five parts that looks at this endgame naval combat in depth. If it feels weird to be looking back at a non-expansion Civ6 game that finished three years ago, well, we have COVID to thank for that.
This is probably most interesting for Chevalier, Woden, and TheArchduke since they took part in this game but hopefully everyone can follow along. Enjoy!
https://sullla.com/Civ6/PBEM7-1.html
But then something unexpected happened: COVID-19 decided to show up and plunge the world into a pandemic that lasted for well over a year. As I found myself stuck at home for long stretches of time, I decided that I would try to busy myself with various different tasks that didn't require traveling outdoors. One of these was a new season of Civ4 AI Survivor which became a smashing success with huge increases in viewership over previous years. I also went back and tried to finish some long-delayed writing projects for my website and that's when I hit on the idea of returning to the PBEM7 game. The overall game was still too big for me to want to tackle it in full and much of the game's span would have been spent discussing city development gameplay which has since been obsoleted by the Civ6 expansions. However, I figured that I could focus on the most exciting part of the game: the lategame naval showdown between Rome and England. This remains the largest naval battle that we've run in the Civ6 PBEM games, and due to changes in the Civ6 gameplay that have since taken place, it will probably never be topped in terms of size and scope.
Therefore we're going to zero in specifically on the massive fleet versus fleet engagement in this report. This is going to be something different from my normal reports, looking at the operations and tactical levels as opposed to the strategic level. Civ6 is inferior to Civ4 in most respects but it handles tactical wargaming combat between two human players very well indeed. I put together a report in five parts that looks at this endgame naval combat in depth. If it feels weird to be looking back at a non-expansion Civ6 game that finished three years ago, well, we have COVID to thank for that.
This is probably most interesting for Chevalier, Woden, and TheArchduke since they took part in this game but hopefully everyone can follow along. Enjoy!https://sullla.com/Civ6/PBEM7-1.html
