Cheater Hater's PBEM58 Thread (with a surprise post lead!)

[Cheater Hater]

I normally wouldn't worry about all the lurker thread action, but it's the lurker thread action, combined with action by multiple lurkers in B4ndit's thread, combined with him being top of the rival power rankings--it's inflated by his classical tech, but so is mine, and his is only 1k less than me, and he has more units total, since he's been building multiple spears/chariots and workers, while my unit power is concentrated in my 3 axes. Hopefully I should be able to get a round of Praets down to my southern border soon--I don't have much to build in my cities except Workers, Settlers, and military, and in the south I want to grow. The problem is that right now most of my military building capacity is in my capital, and although the worker currently cottaging up at Caldisla is going to road down to Lontano Villa next, I hope it won't be too late, and that something like 2 chariots won't show up on Harena Desert's doorstep as soon as the peace treaty expires--maybe I do need Archery just so I can emergency whip an archer if necessary :/
(or hopefully it's him just asking a rules question or something, and not him planning to get Edirne back--that would be ideal )

[NobleHelium]

I was just pointing out that I stopped reading your posts because it's just all smileys.

[Cheater Hater]

T41 Report and C&D:
Today's actually a really boring turn--let's start with the capital:


In Caldisla, the axe continues--I need to swap from the grassland cottage to the grassland forest hill next turn to save a turn on the axe while still growing to size 5--if I don't, not only will I delay the settler a turn, the 5th pop point will be unhappy (since I had to move the axe to the northern city). After that, I'll be able to work 2 cottages--at least for a turn before I whip the settler

Norende is mainly regrowing, which it can do quickly since I completed the pasture this turn. Right now Norende is 1-turning a warrior (which can scout the east) thanks to the whip overflow, and then next turn it can start building a larger military unit (axe/spear/chariot, probably an axe to start) when I finished the road 2W of the worker and connect all the resources.

Now to the south:


Not much new here--I finished my first cottage at Lontano Villa (allowing me to bump up research to 50% break-even) while starting my second, and I'll start pasturing the sheep next turn. I'll be able to whip the granary in Harena Desert in two turns, then I should be able to push a warrior out to scout more in eastway's direction/check Ancheim's location for settlers wanting to poach it, and then maybe slow-build a library, or maybe a worker? I'm not sure what to do there--probably put the whip overflow into a worker at least, then see how long it would take (probably not that long).

Now the scout move:


Is that really eastway's iron, in the 4th ring and jungle-covered? I haven't seen his horses yet either, though I assume it (and Dale) are to the south, which I'll see next turn.

Now to C&D--it's been a while since I've had so few pictures I could do C&D in the same post:


Before getting to score, a note on GNP: how am I so low? Where is that 57 coming from--the gems, the gold, and a bunch of cottages by eastway? Is it that I'm focusing on growth more than I am my tech rate at this time? Is it that everyone's focusing on the religious techs I'm skipping, and getting lots of known tech and arrow bonuses--or maybe Writing with the double-arrow bonus and some known-tech bonuses? I'm assuming my tech rate will recover once I get to Currency, which I'm focusing on instead of chasing after the religious techs and wonders--though I'm certainly going to try for Pyramids if it's still around in 20 turns
Now to the score changes, or rather the change: eastway increased 6 points, an ancient tech--apparently he doesn't care about finding his iron

Now to soldier points: 18k total increase, 6k increase in the Max, 8k increase in the Min--or in simpler words, yikes! Here's the power chart for this turn--actually after the turn rolled, to get Twinkletoes's graph in there, although since it didn't change this turn, I'm not going to worry about diagnosing it right away:


The Max change is easy--B4ndit built an axe. We can also see in my scout move that eastway built an axe in his capital. That leaves 6k soldier points to distribute, but it can't all be in the same place, since both AT and eastway need to get above the Min of 39k. The trick here is that eastway's power isn't as high of Twinkletoes's in the graph, which means he is still the min at 39k and only gained 2k--I'm guessing that means the tech is sailing. That means AT gained 4k, from yet another Spear/Chariot.

Before we spill the SPLT, one more note: eastway and Twinkletoes have open borders with each other, which means one of them has Writing. Since Twinkletoes has a lot more unknown techs than eastway, I'm going to say Twinkletoes researched it, though that is obviously subject to change--I need to keep better track of the relations screen. I also went in the SPLT rankings and said that Twinkletoes has Mysticism, since ignoring Archery and Sailing (which soldier point analysis says he doesn't have), there aren't enough Ancient techs left for him not to have Mysticism.
Also, I thought I was going to have to worry about land points today--apparently not

Soldier Points:
AT: 41k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+AH+MC+Sailing*+2 Warriors+2 Spears/Chariots+10 pop)
eastway: 39k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+Hunting+Sailing+Warrior+2 Axes+10 pop)
B4ndit: 56k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+IW/HR+3 Warriors+2 Axes+2 Spear/Chariot+8 pop)
Twinkletoes: 40k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+AH+Warrior+2 Axes+Barracks+10 pop)

Base Score (land-1): 49
Wonder Points:
AT: 2 wonders (Palace, Oracle)
B4ndit: 1 wonder (Palace)
Cheater Hater: 1 wonder (Palace)
Twinkletoes: 1 wonder (Palace)
eastway: 2 wonders (Palace, Stonehenge)

Population Points:
AT: 11 population (Ozymandias=6, Say My Name=3?, Felina=2?)
B4ndit: 8 population (Istanbul=5, Ankara=3)
Cheater Hater: 10 population (Caldisla=4, Norende=2, Lontano Villa=1, Harena Desert=3)
Twinkletoes: 9 population (King's Landing=3, Winterfell=?, Casterly Rock=?)
eastway: 11 population (Annuminas=4, Brithombar=4, Calembel=2, Dale=1)

Ancient Techs:
AT: 13 techs (Agriculture, Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel, Fishing, Pottery?, Animal Husbandry, Hunting?, Mysticism, Polytheism, Priesthood, Monotheism, Meditation/?, Sailing/?)
B4ndit: 9 techs (Agriculture, Wheel, Mining, Bronze Working, Mysticism, Polytheism, Fishing, Priesthood/?, Animal Husbandry)
Cheater Hater: 8 techs (Fishing, Mining, Bronze Working, Agriculture, Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Animal Husbandry)
Twinkletoes: 11 techs (Agriculture, Wheel, Mining, Bronze Working, Pottery, Fishing, Hunting, Animal Husbandry, Mysticism, Writing/?, ?, ?)
eastway: 11 techs (Fishing, Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel, Agriculture, Mysticism, Meditation, Animal Husbandry, Priesthood?, Hunting, Sailing/?, ?)

Classical Techs:
AT: 1 tech (Metal Casting)
B4ndit: 1 tech (IW/HR)
Cheater Hater: 1 tech (Iron Working)
Twinkletoes: 0 techs
eastway: 0 techs

[Old Harry]

Gnp includes (wonder) culture.

[Cheater Hater]

Right, that makes sense--I did consider culture, but it was of my library
That probably makes eastway the top GNP--Stonehenge plus 4 relatively cheap cities would do that

[Cheater Hater]

T42 Report and C&D:
Not much today, at least in the empire report--mainly just workers working




Not much has changed--I'll be able to road through to woods to the south, since going around makes me waste a worker turn regardless, then I'll be able to build copper units (and soon iron units) in Lontano Villa. I'm not sure what I want to with that worker afterward--my gut says complete the route to Harena Desert, or at least road the tile 1SW of Lontano Villa (to connect the gold to my capital), then maybe cottage a bit more--of course, a lot of that depends on what B4ndit is doing (more on that in the C&D)

Now to the scout move, as boring as it is:


Yeah, Dale and the horses are south of Annuminas, as expected--I'll continue scouting south of eastway with the scout, probably coming out on the other side of the lake by Norende, assuming I don't run into AT or Twinkletoes (and AT won't sign open borders with me--we already know Twinkletoes probably won't ).

Now to C&D--we'll start with the top cities:


Yeah, Istanbul is still growing--that makes what's happening with his power even more surprising, since it's happening without many (if any) whips. And speaking of whips, AT finally whipped his capital. Now onto demos:

• AT lost 7 points, a lost pop point--but since we know he 2-pop whipped his capital, that means he must have grown somewhere else.
  
• eastway gained 7 points from a pop point in Calambel.
  
• Twinkletoes gained 7 points, a pop point not in the capital.
  
• B4ndit gained 13 points, the growth in Istanbul as well as an ancient tech.
  

Now to the exponential chart that is soldier points: 13k total increase, 1k increase in Min, 12k increase in Max...I've run out of synonyms for "holy crap"
Granted, the changes aren't that hard to figure out this time at least, especially with the power graph to help:


B4ndit's power increase continues to astound me--although unless we think one of his cities can 1-turn axes naturally (or with chops possibly), 6k of that 12k increase has to be Archery. The min is easy at least--eastway moved up to 12 pop.

However, something's going on with Twinkletoes--according to my stats he's at 10 pop, but he didn't have a power increase--let's do a score check on him just for fun:
207-49-16-(12*6)=70 -> 10 pop
So it is 10 pop, but looking at it closer, I already considered the 10 pop in the soldier score, but not the population rankings--I just forgot to count Highgarden in there for some reason--everything should be right now (including that I forgot to give Twinkletoes his 12th tech, or at least count it as the 12th).

Soldier Points:
AT: 41k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+AH+MC+Sailing*+2 Warriors+2 Spears/Chariots+10 pop)
eastway: 40k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+Hunting+Sailing+Warrior+2 Axes+10 pop)
B4ndit: 68k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+IW/HR+Archery+3 Warriors+3 Axes+2 Spear/Chariot+8 pop)
Twinkletoes: 40k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+AH+Warrior+2 Axes+Barracks+10 pop)

Base Score (land-1): 49
Wonder Points:
AT: 2 wonders (Palace, Oracle)
B4ndit: 1 wonder (Palace)
Cheater Hater: 1 wonder (Palace)
Twinkletoes: 1 wonder (Palace)
eastway: 2 wonders (Palace, Stonehenge)

Population Points:
AT: 10 population (Ozymandias=4, Say My Name=?, Felina=?)
B4ndit: 9 population (Istanbul=6, Ankara=3)
Cheater Hater: 10 population (Caldisla=4, Norende=2, Lontano Villa=1, Harena Desert=3)
Twinkletoes: 10 population (King's Landing=3, Winterfell=?, Casterly Rock=?, Highgarden=?)
eastway: 12 population (Annuminas=4, Brithombar=4, Calembel=3, Dale=1)

Ancient Techs:
AT: 13 techs (Agriculture, Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel, Fishing, Pottery?, Animal Husbandry, Hunting?, Mysticism, Polytheism, Priesthood, Monotheism, Meditation/?, Sailing/?)
B4ndit: 9 techs (Agriculture, Wheel, Mining, Bronze Working, Mysticism, Polytheism, Fishing, Priesthood/?, Animal Husbandry)
Cheater Hater: 8 techs (Fishing, Mining, Bronze Working, Agriculture, Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Animal Husbandry)
Twinkletoes: 12 techs (Agriculture, Wheel, Mining, Bronze Working, Pottery, Fishing, Hunting, Animal Husbandry, Mysticism, Writing/?, ?, ?)
eastway: 11 techs (Fishing, Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel, Agriculture, Mysticism, Meditation, Animal Husbandry, Priesthood?, Hunting, Sailing/?, ?)

Classical Techs:
AT: 1 tech (Metal Casting)
B4ndit: 1 tech (IW/HR)
Cheater Hater: 1 tech (Iron Working)
Twinkletoes: 0 techs
eastway: 0 techs

[Cheater Hater]

Thinking back a bit on the turn (after spending a half-hour moving pictures from old turns into folders because I was bored ), I'm letting up a bit on the paranoia--why would B4ndit need to research Archery if his plan was just to attack with axes and chariots? I guess he could just be bringing archers to hold his captures, but if he wants to build archers to hold the cities, that gives me more time to get axes (and spears--I'll probably send a spear first from Caldisla) to Harena Desert, as well as time to research Archery myself--I feel like I'm going to have to detour from my Currency plan to have Archery just in case unfortunately--I need to do that next turn just in case, so I don't lose the game being greedy

[Cheater Hater]

T43 Report:
So with all the lurkers watching, I open the save and get greeted with...AT asking for Open Borders!


I accepted of course, so I can scout him in the east and--what do you mean that's not what you were waiting for?

Okay, fine, B4ndit declared war on me too, just as the peace treaty expired:


It appears my paranoia was not unfounded, though I will admit I didn't expect it so soon. B4ndit has 2 Chariots right next to the city, a single axe right behind them, and his scouting warrior actually threatened my worker pasturing the sheep. As such, I did a bunch of things to react:

• I whipped a warrior out of Harena Desert to try and have more defenders in the city
  
• I attacked out of Harena Desert with my axe at 75% odds--and won with 0.8 HP left:
  
  
  I did this so that combined with the whipped warrior, he cannot take the city next turn no matter what, since I have two defenders and he has only one attacker.
  
• I moved the pasturing worker from the sheep onto the tile where the other worker is cottaging, so it's away from the rampaging warrior. Assuming B4ndit doesn't move his chariot 1E before attacking Harena Desert, I'll start roading that tile next turn.
  
• I moved the axe I just built in Caldisla along the road, so I can move it to Lontano Villa if he decides to continue his conquests:
  
  
  This does mean that I'll have to deal with a turn of unhappiness in Caldisla, but given a turn of unhappiness (and only a turn, since I'm whipping next turn) vs possibly losing a city, I'll deal with the unhappiness
  
• I did offer peace for the city, just like I did to him:
  
  
  

Even if he doesn't accept my peace offer, I still think I'm in a better position than he was at this point--he can't take the city next turn, which means I'll get another warrior whip in, even if it means that I still don't get that good of odds--although I think the warrior will defend against the chariot, which means my axe will get his promotion and heal--and that even assumes he beats the warrior with 40% culture defense, which isn't completely a pushover:
2*1.65=3.3
That means it's 4 vs 3.3, which seems worse than the battle I took--let's make a quick sandbox and check:


Yeah, ignoring the retreat chance that's worse than the chance I took (and if I would have failed, almost certainly would have cost me the city). He might not even take it. Honestly, I'm not even sure I should have offered him the city after going through the numbers--still, if he wins the battle against the warrior he still takes the city, and has more troops to go after Lontano Villa/harass my workers. If that happens, I'll be able to come back in 10-15 turns with Praets if he decides to slack on defense, or he's wasting a bunch of builds on archers and the like, and he'll still only have 3-4 cities--that's the real beauty of my city grab, I had to invest basically nothing to take the city (I diverted one axe), and now he had to build two chariots in addition to the axe to hold it, and that still might not be enough to hold the city in the long term with my Praets coming up.

C&D will come in the next post (after I take a break to catch my breath), but until then, have a boring scout move I couldn't really fit anywhere in the war narrative

[Cheater Hater]

T43 C&D:
Don't worry fans of numbers! While the fields burn outside of Harena Desert, our statisticians are hard at work crunching the demos, oblivious to the fighting outside:

• AT gained 18 points--you could say it's 3 techs worth of stuff, or a classical tech and an ancient tech, but that doesn't seem possible, so I'll come back to this later.
  
• Twinkletoes gained 12 points, a classical tech--or maybe more land points stuff.
  
• B4ndit gained 7 points, a growth in Ankara
  

Now to soldier points: 13k net increase, Max decreased by 3k, Min remains constant. Here's the power graph--remember that although I did take the demos after killing B4ndit's chariot (explaining the Max decrease), the graph will not reflect that:


For once the max is easy--1k gain from the pop increase, and 4k decrease from the death of the chariot. That leaves 16k of increases left to be accounted for. The weirdest part is that relatively low power increase from Twinkletoes--it even looks less than a single axe, much less the expected 10 from IW/HR. Is that a naturally researched Metal Casting? Or maybe I'm overthinking things and it's just a spear or chariot? I'll go with Metal Casting for now, since we know the increase is 4k (not even the 6k needed for Math), and update it later when we see forge builds from Twinkletoes.

Now for AT--the power rankings actually would make sense with just a classical tech (IW/HR+Warrior/Forge), but that doesn't make sense with the score. But wait--Ozymandias grew this turn:


This could have been combined with a 1-pop whip of one of his other cities, but it also could be part of the missing 6 points. It also could be a Medieval tech--is Machinery a medieval tech? No great people have come out, so AT can't have gotten two techs in the same turn (unless he hacked in a hut) I have no clue what's going on here

With regard to the current SPLT rankings, take them with a huge grain of salt, especially AT's population and tech numbers. I'll probably start with last turn next time I need to redo my SPLT rankings when I figure out what's going on with that remaining six points.

Soldier Points:
AT: 53k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+AH+MC+Sailing+IW/HR+Warrior/Forge+2 Warriors+2 Spears/Chariots+10 pop)
eastway: 40k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+Hunting+Sailing+Warrior+2 Axes+10 pop)
B4ndit: 65k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+IW/HR+Archery+3 Warriors+3 Axes+Chariot+10 pop)
Twinkletoes: 44k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+AH+MC+Warrior+2 Axes+Barracks+10 pop)

Base Score (land-1): 49
Wonder Points:
AT: 2 wonders (Palace, Oracle)
B4ndit: 1 wonder (Palace)
Cheater Hater: 1 wonder (Palace)
Twinkletoes: 1 wonder (Palace)
eastway: 2 wonders (Palace, Stonehenge)

Population Points:
AT: 11* population (Ozymandias=5, Say My Name=?, Felina=?)
B4ndit: 10 population (Istanbul=6, Ankara=4)
Cheater Hater: 10 population (Caldisla=4, Norende=2, Lontano Villa=1, Harena Desert=3)
Twinkletoes: 10 population (King's Landing=3, Winterfell=?, Casterly Rock=?, Highgarden=?)
eastway: 12 population (Annuminas=4, Brithombar=4, Calembel=3, Dale=1)

Ancient Techs:
AT: 13 techs (Agriculture, Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel, Fishing, Pottery?, Animal Husbandry, Hunting?, Mysticism, Polytheism, Priesthood, Monotheism, Meditation/?, Sailing/?)
B4ndit: 10 techs (Agriculture, Wheel, Mining, Bronze Working, Mysticism, Polytheism, Fishing, Priesthood/?, Animal Husbandry, Archery/?)
Cheater Hater: 9 techs (Fishing, Mining, Bronze Working, Agriculture, Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Animal Husbandry, Hunting)
Twinkletoes: 12 techs (Agriculture, Wheel, Mining, Bronze Working, Pottery, Fishing, Hunting, Animal Husbandry, Mysticism, Writing/?, ?, ?)
eastway: 11 techs (Fishing, Mining, Bronze Working, Wheel, Agriculture, Mysticism, Meditation, Animal Husbandry, Priesthood?, Hunting, Sailing/?, ?)

Classical Techs:
AT: 2* techs (Metal Casting, IW/HR)
B4ndit: 1 tech (IW/HR)
Cheater Hater: 1 tech (Iron Working)
Twinkletoes: 1 tech (Metal Casting/?)
eastway: 0 techs

[Cheater Hater]

Yes, I'm going to lose cities in the coming turns. Note the "s" there: Lontano Villa will fall this turn if B4ndit wants to take the 73% chance:


In addition, Harena Desert is doomed with that second axe coming--my only hope is to whip an archer in there. I can 1T Archery with some deficit spending/working the second scientist, but I can't whip another warrior in Harena Desert to do so--the margins are that tight. Without whipping that second warrior, not only do I put Harena Desert at risk of being taken this turn (being attacked by both the axe and the chariot), I doom it to being taken by the axe since I can't 1T dry-whip an archer in the city, and there's only two defenders, both of which are probably easily destroyed by the axe--that archer will only be able to defend against the second axe that's coming. That leaves me with 3 options:

1. Sacrifice everything to get Archery, lose Harena Desert with the archer in my build queue
   
2. Whip the warrior as planned, whip another warrior next turn (2-turning Archery), and lose Harena Desert when the second axe arrives, if not earlier
   
3. Quit.
   

Yes, I'm serious with that last option--why shouldn't I? Losing two cities sets me back ages, and I'm assuming B4ndit still hates me enough to try to get those two workers nearby (my only chance of saving them appears to be running them away into eastway's territory, and that puts me back ages in development). Even if I take my 3 cities and build Praets to take back Harena Desert (Lontano Villa will thankfully be auto-razed), that's more time I'm spending not expanding to get sites like Ancheim in the south (even though I'll probably never be safe enough to settle that, not with crazy B4ndit to my east) and east (which requires way too much worker labor to get through, and considering I'm somehow behind a ton on worker labor despite my current efforts, I'll be behind all game), I've already lost. Why would I continue to play for a year--this isn't like the 34 player game, where I'm expecting to lose (and instead have fun in something that's a spectacle), it's a game I want to have a chance at winning. I haven't played the turn yet (technically I tried some things and did my scouting moves, but those aren't the important part--I can easily redo those if I play the save again), so convince me why I should continue.