[PB75 Mjmd] Call to Power

[Mjmd]

You know I honestly didn't know that. I usually don't use Vodka for anything past like 6 total units. I honestly just wanted a % for the report hehe. I built it in world builder, saved, and tested a few times. 4 spears without fortify do indeed hold this without the chariot most times. This is my normal means of testing. Give the opposite side a bit of an advantage to account for bad luck and run some tests.

I'm at the point where I'm debating if I should have done things differently, but still think my course was correct. PB54 has been building a gran after last spear whip, but I believe it could have had a wall not in time, but soon. Obviously not whipping it down to 1 would have been nice but if he had come at me with 5 war chariots (which was my est at the time) I would have needed that and the now useless chariot. Shrug. I built an axe over for Greenline border but it almost certainly should be have been a spear. Although I did use it to clear a warrior from remaining PB54 forest so he doesn't have vision, so not totally useless although obviously its 1 less unit in the city. All the tiny things I'm thinking of as I'm waiting on turn roll.

[Mjmd]

T84

2 HA and 7 WC  showed up SW of PB54 and Gav declared. Vodka gives him 10% of razing. If he does his stack is dead, which seems like a good trade. Now we wait.

And sometimes you get SHIT odds.

He sent in a war chariot to soften up fortified spear. 1% odds, HE WITHDREW, and hit the spear down to 30/100.
His horse archer then won a 21.9%
I then won the next two but he got 50 ish damage on both.
He then of course didn't lose any of his high odds fights 70 & 80 & 90% ish %.

So ya he beat 4 spears (and a chariot), losing 2 war chariots. WTF. Is that a 1% outcome?

His auto promote was flawless combat I.

With my way to injured from fighting a warrior axe I attempted to win a low odds 29% fight. Failed but got it down to 25/100. I had two spears still floating because I was pretty sure he was actually going to pivot down. It made more sense. His reinforcements could catch up Cleaned up with spear down to 87/100.

Sent in a spear at 90%, won but down to 36.

Fuck it, I should have let PB66 go and just holed up in PB54, but how was I to know Gav was that lucky. If I'm fair to myself I probably should have had 1 of the 2 floating spears in PB54. Even that would have been enough.

[Mjmd]

This is why you don't use vodka. Actual odds were 26% in order he went. Ya should have had 1 more spear and just resigned to losing PB66. I was trying to do it all and I got SUPER punished. You know wanted cities up for GA and in good shape for it.

[pindicator]

I was trying to do it all and I got SUPER punished.

This sounds very relatable.

[Amicalola]

I don't think you necessarily made the wrong play, even at 26%. Sometimes you make the correct move and just get punished anyway.

[Mjmd]

T86

PB59 YoHoBottleOfRum - former island Ramk city that I had been stupid not waiting a turn to try to capture and got punished by luck.



So I played Magic the Gathering at a competitive level for years. In magic terms I was playing to win. Here is how I was thinking of it. There were 4 scenarios in approximate order of likelihood:
1) He attacks PB54 and it goes as odds and tests say it should - perfect.
2) He pivots down to PB66 and brings up reinforcements - due to floating spears I probably get odds on this fight too due to hill although this one is even more likely a bad combat can swing.
3) He attacks PB54 and razes but it cost him 6-7 units to do so and I can clean up 2 of them. Not great, but not an emergency.

All 3 of those I can live with. I would prefer the most likely #1, however there is a 4th option.

4) He gets the say 5% luck at PB54 and easily wins. UUHHHHHHH. So the problem is he attack RIGHT before my capital starts churning out spears. IE I had NOTHING coming up the road. If he has enough leftover units he can just go raze my copper city. There isn't anything there to stop him. He doesn't know that though.

My best highest finish per number of people in magic was 2nd in a 200 ish person tournament. I hadn't even planned on going, but it was in Milwaukee, so near, and some guys from local shop poked me into going. I remember only two matches from that tournament. I lost in the finals to a janky brew of a deck. Then there was a match I was dead. Didn't matter what he drew that turn. He had the following.

In play on his side.



In play on my side on defense (I had some ground creatures not relevant to this story other than that they could kill him the next turn).



In his graveyard.



IE. He sacks the land to bring back the dragon and it the protection from white lets it fly through my defender. I was at 4 health. I was dead. Just stone dead. I sat there confident and looked at him. He conceded. I've done lots of other bluffs but for some reason this is one of the few I remember in detail. If you even call it a bluff. I just didn't concede or show worry. No glancing at graveyard or his lands.

I don't know if Gavs plan was to stay at war or not, but I demanded all his cities and peace. Then sent him straight peace signalling a take peace or I will perma war you. I was bluffing. I would have had to produce chariots to fight and try to complete my settler and settle on very crappy 2nd copper sometime down the road.

I don't know what his plan was after seeing that, but my higher health spearmen I had sent out went on a TEAR. You know all that bad luck I had, well this guy got two flawless victories on WCs in a row, then killed a horse archer. edit: he did kill both spearmen obviously.

Anyways he sent me peace back and I accepted. Now for the record I could have kept at war and killed 2 war chariots; he had left 3 in range and moved rest of his units back. I could have then reoffered peace, but that wasn't my intent with my diplo message so kept to my intent.

So ya TONS of damage done. I dry whipped two spears last turn, because you know I thought it might be the last turn I was able to build them for a bit. Because I thought I might just be dead I spent 80 of my precious horded gold on a spear upgrade. My workers are now in much less useful locations. I may have just wasted a worker turn this turn because I didn't have a clear plan for both workers near PB66. Obviously I lost a city. HOWEVER, its ok. Again, because I was abusing mainly the western side other than the dry whips most of my plans are still in place. I may delay the GA. I'm right on track to be 3rd or 4th as normal!

Edit: I did send Gav crab for crab afterwards to show him no hard feelings. I'm assuming this was a you look ahead and stole my Oracle war.

[Mjmd]

A meme to celebrate

[Mjmd]

I give you guys a meme and nothing!

I realized we haven't had Sean Dagher yet, so here we go. He rambles a bit, but its one of those posts.
PB59 city I meant to be Moai and I think it was a for a bit.




I had a request for city plans and a request to rename. so here we go. I NEVER do all individual screenshots even for only 6 cities, so just going in A random order. I'll give directions in relation to capital. I did still put pitboss number after the capital name.



Overall plan is prepare for GA.
- Call to Power - I'm not actually going to finish Great Wall. Just building for fail gold. If after GA I get a prophet and its still hanging out there I may finish. I have TOA also here, but I may still do some spears next. I did spot some Egypt HAs moving west. Finally getting around to cottaging. There are some random turns of cottaging forgot to note. Obviously I need some more cities pre GA so one of them will come from here to resettle PB54 probably 1 tile south of its former location.
- Mandalay 70 - SE horse city - I've never been a big chop fail gold guy. Feels meh. that being said when your given the hard mode start you do what you have to do. And I NEED gold for teching during GA and getting to monarchy. I have a 39/100 settler to 3 pop whip. Working on a 14/15 scout. Already almost completed barracks. You can see where this is going. Will be at least one two pop whip as well. Maybe a one pop whip. This plan was hurt by emergency dry whipping a spear, but will still be fine. Rep will fix some of the unhappiness.
- Drunken Sailor 63 - southern crab sheep city - building workboat for future crab horse city.
- Lemmings 51 - eastern city - turn I got peace with Gav I forgot to turn on sailing tech so its a turn delayed starting Moai. I haven't done math if I'll get any GAs turns with it finished, but might impact when I start / might just accept it will help finish.
- Eliza Lee 62 - Am I going monarchy for serfdom to make this city worthwhile? Well that and its a lot cheaper than shooting for currency. But obviously between rep happiness and serfdom this city can look pretty good. 5 serfdom farms, will prob keep capital wheat for a bit and work 2 capital plains cottages. Last turn  I actually realized I shouldn't be going for silver city. Because that worker needs to start building all of these improvements. Again there are a lot of random farm turns along the road I forgot to note.
- John Paul Jones 66 - Getting a chop into a settler for crab horse city. I have not done timing on it. Work boat will be early, but I haven't fully explored down there, so can double check. Will work 3 plains river cottages.
- so resettle PB54, settle SW crab horse city. and then instead of the silver city the settler out of Mandalay 70 will be going to sheep spot. Its a much faster developing city thanks to all its forests and with chop project not as big of a deal to road to. JPJ 66 workers can do sheep. Last cottage city so makes sense to get it settled before max 4 pop silver city.

[pindicator]

A meme to celebrate

But why does he hate the city life?

[Tarkeel]

I had a request for city plans and a request to rename. so here we go. I NEVER do all individual screenshots even for only 6 cities, so just going in A random order. I'll give directions in relation to capital. I did still put pitboss number after the capital name.

Pro-tip: The FoV slider in the upper right corner is awesome, play around with it a bit. Personally I tend to start out at the default 42, and slight increase it as the territory grows stronger, and most of the play it's set to 62-ish.