(November 9th, 2014, 21:07)Mardoc Wrote: 10 HP or better was not required, though - anything below 30 would have sufficed to make the pike irrelevant. The way binomials work, I would expect that to be about 30-40% likely, and at most require 2 HA instead of 1.
Chance for that HA for getting that pike below 30 HP was ~8 %.
In order to get odds for the next HA you would have needed at least 3 hits, which happens 25 % of the time. (assuming you had C2 HAs available). I think sacrificing 2 HAs and then ending up with a redlined pike is the most expected outcome. Requiring 3+ HAs is more likely than knocking the pike out with 1 HA though (remember that there was a 40 % chance of getting zero or only one hit in).
Quote:I guess, technically, that was luck - but it was luck on the rounds where it didn't matter.
Lucky start, yes. But I would have gotten to the same point without nearly as much luck.
I got my luck when it didn't really matter, and then you got the luck when it did.
Of course that luck did matter. The way I see it we can expect to get at least couple of decent rolls out of those first 7 fights and that pike and at least some of the other units should have been able to take down a 2nd attacker with clear odds.
So I think the situation where you have sent in 10 attackers got ~2 kills and then find yourself in a position where you can take couple of battles with ~50 % odds with LBs is closer to a base case. I guess it's fair to assume that you get couple of 50 % battles in the end and you should have killed at least an additional HA. But even if the expected outcome would have been 4 kills (I'm afraid we really should test this properly before we can agree here), the fight wasn't really a good idea especially as it included LBs attacking outside the city.
Quote:Also, what the heck do you mean '1 out of 8-9 times?' For each flawless win? Making three in a row more like 1 in 500?
Yeah, exactly, the odds of us being so lucky with that knight are even worse than 1 out of 500.
(btw, that HA vs pike, LB vs knight, HA vs knight -combo gets so good results also only once out of 500 tries)
Quote:And sure, knight vs. axe is good odds, but you'd still have lost some units if you had to kill his units instead of me doing it for you.
Yep, it was great for us that you did the hard work there for us.
Quote:Even if you chose to ignore me, that attack was never a good idea. Just a catharsis.
Fair enough. My point is that had you done the attack e.g. 2 turns earlier, you would have had time to heal some of your units, consolidate your troops in one stack and most importantly scout out surroundings and react to our stack properly. Just saying that the events around Dental Plan attack went as bad as possible for you.
Quote:At least I should have left the units in the city to soak collateral and let the longbows have a better chance.
Yeah, or if you had been able to retreat a bit further it would have worked too.
Quote:I knew it was a big risk with variable payback, but it still seemed better than fighting on your terms.
Fair enough. At that point we had gotten too much out of our expansion + Azza war and you had suffered enough from your conflict so that it becomes really hard/impossible to pick good battles. You don't get to see a wounded stack too often in range.
Quote:I still can't see what I could have done better, anyway - just sat there and waited for you to walk to the city, sacrifice three cats and slaughter my army anyway? It wouldn't even have bought me any time compared to how it turned out!
I think you would have gotten more time, because those LBs that you lost in counterattack (along with enough units to soak collateral) were something that we would not have been able to dislodge in the coming turns.
The above point still applies though and I understand the decision to pull the trigger and try something instead of just sitting tight and waiting.
(November 9th, 2014, 21:21)Mardoc Wrote: I guess that's what's really frustrating me. You say that battle was a mistake - but you'd put me into a spot where I had no good choices. And then you write off the strategic mistakes that I see.
And what frustrates me was the claim that my complaints about our RNG luck are not based on facts and I'm just groundlessly bitching.
I tend to express my emotions in our thread, which possibly is not always the way to go, but I would like to see myself as someone who does not take undeserved credit when one really just has been lucky (your conflict with Azza) or claim being unlucky when that has not been the case (combat rolls in our war).
Anyways, it's a bit pity that the discussion started circling around this RNG thing while the strategic stuff that you mention is of course more interesting.
I also apologize for being provocative/unfriendly/untactful. Yesterday was a really shitty day for me because of out-of-civ reasons, which is surely reflected here. I hope I haven't driven you off our thread, because I would be happy to discuss this game and civ with you in a better atmosphere. The big picture from my perspective is still that I appreciate the way you played until the end, made our life difficult with your defense and the stuff we are arguing here are just mostly details.