Gillette Turn Discussion

[YossarianLives]

Wow, awesome job Old Harry! Have we been #1 in score at any other point in this game?

[Cheater Hater]

Amazing! So can we start asking for concessions now?

Seriously, we burned two Trolls cities (where was Deerslayer and how big was it?), took out a bunch of naval presence, and are finally moving our economy? The only question left is what Trolls' power ranking will look like--and how much M3 had to spend to burn the city.

BTW, are Pirates in the war yet? And how is TEAM doing--any diplomatic changes/communication after they proposed that lopsided border deal?

[Old Harry]

I haven't been keeping you up with diplo since we decided Q was a security risk and abandoned the forum, these have come in over the last couple of days:

to TheStick, HAK
A little war update - this turn we razed the Troll MOM city and sank about six of their boats. Next turn will be the assault on Teqilla Sour, and we'll keep harassing their coastal cities. I can't see any other objectives right now, but I'm sure we can come up with something if you want to keep fighting?

How did your assault on Deerslayer go HAK? I saw your great general :D so you must have had a bit of fighting?

I'm afraid we couldn't protect your privateer, they would just have killed all three of our boats. Sorry about that, but nice work anyway!

Cheers

to me, TheStick
Yes, we were able to raze Deerslayer with only minimal casualties (just a few Cannons). And I didn't expect that Privateer to survive the attack on the Troll ship in the first place, so them sinking it after I won that 43% battle is just fine.
Speaking of the GG, what is the best use of him at this point? I already have myself a GG Chariot for being a combat healer. I assume I should use him on another unit (Rifleman or Cavalry) this time? And probably also spread the XP amongst a bunch of units?
Or is it actually better to use him on one of my cities? Since the game probably won't last much longer, I'm assuming putting him on a unit is probably better.

Next up will be to see where the Trolls send their stack of units. They got 30+ Cannons and a bunch of other stuff 3 tiles from my stack, though my stack is on a hill. So I'm sure they'll wait until I move onto flat ground towards another one of their cities. Just don't know which one to go for next. Probably that one to the east of my SE city.

to TheStick, HAK
Cool, THH did a neat thing in 46 - he just had the GG accompany his
stack into Serdoa's land, then when he felt like he needed some xp he
used it. I just got another GG and I thought I'd use him for a galleon
super medic. Oh, but the best idea is to attach him to a cav, give it
commando and morale (if that's possible?) and use your airships to see
if there are any cities only defended by one unit within 6 or 9 tiles?

Black Russian is empty, Horse's Neck only has a mace in, I can't see
any other targets though...

Be careful of those cannons, if you lose your stack they can just
rampage through your territory...

to me, HAK
Here's the latest recon:
(There are probably Grenadiers in that stack; I just forgot to count them.)

Trolls get Railroad next turn, so I really think that you should retreat, HAK.

I could move my stack onto the hill your stack is on, sacrificing two Workers to road 1 SW of Santa Maria. That way you/we could retreat back onto the forest hill then run for our lives.

I don't think we should move on Ramune; suiciding troops into Machine Guns isn't the most productive use of manpower.

Thoughts?



Scratch that, I don't have Workers in position. In that case, I think I'll just sit in Santa Maria and reassess next turn.

Objections?

When I was negotiating with plako he was a bit upset that M3 and Pirates were attacking without the prospect of making any real gains themselves, we seem to have got a defensive dogpile going on, where all of us need to harass them just to survive...

I don't think it would be unreasonable to demand everyone concede... We're clearly the best at organizing dogpiles! I think this was the last time we were number one. Then Trolls got the pyramids and never looked back.

Deerslayer was size 11 and HAK lost a couple of cannons:

[Cheater Hater]

Things seem to be looking good--have Pirates done much other than recon at this point?

If Trolls have Railroad that's not good news--how much gold do they have left in reserve; when would be a reasonable Combustion timetable?

I don't think we're the best at organizing dogpiles--if we were we probably shouldn't have invited TEAM that deep into the process, especially after we figured out they had an ironclad NAP with Trolls.

I still don't know where Trolls is coming from on the "M3 has nothing to play for" idea--if we didn't have a rock-solid NAP with them (how long does our NAP last?) I could easily see them trying a sneak attack on SFL or something while we've got our hands full trying to attack Trolls and integrate their territory.
On the other hand, what happens if we don't bring at least M3 into the war? Sure, we stopped Trolls from taking out Occam by using all of our resources, but Trolls would probably regroup and probably take over SFL when they get Combustion (which would have probably happened by now if not for the war), which leaves us without our long-game advantage and instead just vastly outmatched on the mainland--even now we haven't really made any gains on the mainland and instead have just picked off island/coastal cities, reclaimed what Trolls took in the beginning of the war, and only last turn razed a mainland city.

[Old Harry]

Pirates haven't done any fighting, but cancelling the nap when they did was one of the things that let us hit back at the Trolls so effectively. It also provoked Trolls to give TEAM back a bunch of cities (3 or 4 I think) which has probably done more to take down their score than we have! In fact if TEAM hadn't been involved in the dogpile thread they might not have taken so much from Trolls. They only got the nap because of the cities.

The only city we can realistically take this turn can't draft machine guns. Otherwise that's it, we're not taking any more land and just need to get to combustion ASAP. Our only other option is to burn every coastal city...

I can sort-of see Trolls point - only us or them can win the game - but that doesn't take into account that HAK and TheStick want some fun and I think our alliance is providing that... we're winning hearts and minds here!

M3 and pirates can't really get much further, the way the land lies, but we might be able to hit a couple more cities. The question is - should we? Or should we keep our stack intact for the next inevitable attack on occam?

[Cheater Hater]

Wait, you can draft machine guns? I thought the next draftable unit was infantry, unless you somehow obsoleted Rifles (which I'm pretty sure Machine Guns don't do).

When do you think the next Occam attack will come? Machine Guns to defend the stack? Combustion to try to dodge the stack from the south or west? Infantry to completely dominate our troops? Part of this needs Trolls power rating after this turn's breakthroughs.

[Old Harry]

Of course you're right! Can you upgrade anything to be a machine gun? Ah, a grenadier. Well that could suck - the grenadiers are already causing trouble in Tequilla Sour. We just have to hope Trolls get the tech next turn, not this...

I dunno when the next attack comes, we have replaceable parts now so could get rifling pretty quick and Cavalry are still their best units. Will they wait til infantry? If I was Trolls I'd sit with my stack in my own borders to tech faster and get to combustion quicker, then overrun SFL, then win. But if we get to railroad before they get combustion then we can whip machine guns for SFL and actually maybe hold on to the cities, although they can pillage without opposition. So it's possible they'll come after Occam before we can get machine guns, but I don't think they realise how many of our cannons we gifted to M3...

[YossarianLives]

Just got back from vacation, will mail in...err, I mean will play the turn in the morning .

Darrell

Whoever is attacking from the north, you are welcome for the epic misclick .

TEAM I think is next.

Darrell

What's going on with the Trolls? I hope they can turn things around soon (either Plako returning or Darrell caring about the game)

[Cheater Hater]

I don't think Darrell doesn't care about the game; he just might not be as good as plako/as familiar with Troll's position--although while we're here, can we see what Trolls did? (if not through line of sight, through M3 or Pirates)
And if we can be objective about it, do either of you have opinions on Q's suggestion of a reload? The main problem is that I assume Trolls did combat on their turn, which is hard to duplicate :/

[Old Harry]

I had a quick email exchange with HAK and TheStick about a potential reload.

4 Nov (2 days ago)

Darrell's message about the miss-click intrigued me, he's got 4 cav, a rifle and 9 cannons on the ruins of Deerslayer and 28 rifles on the tile 1 west. Here's your chance for another great general HAK!

(I wonder if we should suggest a reload, but that would involve replaying combat, so I think he probably just has to eat it...)

4 Nov (2 days ago)

I think if he cared enough for a reoload, he would have asked for it. Or asked for the attacker to nicely not take advantage of it. Or something like that.
So...I'll just take advantage of it just for the fun of it when I get home tonight. At this point in time, IMHO, the only point of this game is for some fun crazy combat before we decide to call and end to it. Though if the Trolls get destroyed, that does open up the game for future conflict amongst the rest of us. Though I think you'd probably then be declared the winner, since you're the only one to have expanded to those other continents. :P

4 Nov (2 days ago)

True. Fun time then!

If you can clear out that stack and his GG medic there might be an option for you to roll over the rest of their land with a bit of support from Gillette (I think when we started planning this I said you could have any mainland cities that either of us take and you want to keep - that offer still stands if you want). Let me know which direction you're thinking of going and we can work out how to make sure you take those cities...

If everything went perfectly from here on we'd end up with you owning nearly half of the mainland (although you might need to share some gains with TheStick), Gillette with a sixth of the mainland (if we don't resettle the cities that got razed) and all of Smoothfoundland. Then we either eat the other two teams or cancel our NAP and go for the war to end all wars! Of course with machine guns appearing from next turn onwards this is all a pipe-dream isn't it?

4 Nov (2 days ago)

I don't remember the name of it, but the city I was going to go for next (which if I recall is also one that would be a decent keeper based on position) is the on straight south of my stack and east of PigPen.
I'll see how things go tonight. It could be all moot if I muck up my attack and/or he then comes up with some way to slaughter my stack afterwards.

4 Nov (2 days ago)

Mai Tai? I think I might be able to take that and gift it to you if the Troll army is now totally screwed - allowing you to head deeper into the core. If I get a couple of workers in the area the stack in Halberd could be on their doorstep in one turn. Of course the stack in Halberd is nothing special itself, so that might just be big talk.

Good luck with the slaughter!

I think Trolls have sort-of ragequit, except that since everyone else carried on while it looked inevitable that they'd win they can't really quit without looking like dicks. Darrell took ten minutes to play the turn so it's inevitable that he'll miss-click. The rest of us can carry on playing and eat them or just call the game now. If I was writing up the game in the spreadsheet it would go something like this:

"The best team lost. M3 crippled Pirates early, then Trolls got the Pyramids, mopped up every mid-game first-to bonus and wonder, survived a botched invasion from Gillette (t140) and TEAM (t148) and ate half of TEAM. Meanwhile Gillette took advantage of Viking naval superiority to colonise the continent of Smoothfoundland, locking everyone else out, but crashing their economy and limping to State Property.

Trolls teched to rifles, cannons and cavalry and would have taken bloody revenge on Gillette t200 if not for M3 loaning 17 rifles and Gillette's naval superiority keeping about ten units pinned in most of Trolls' coastal cities. Trolls could only burn four border cities and couldn't take the capital. Meanwhile Gillette took five coastal cities from Trolls and then on t210 and 213 M3 and Pirates entered the war (ostensibly for "some fun before the game is all over" but really because they secretly wanted Gillette to win ). Trolls stopped trying at this point and the game was called."

Hopefully called in our favour. What do you think of the re-load?