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

[NobleHelium]

[*] 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.

Excuse me? Do you expect your opponents to quit too in a similar position? Perhaps every game should be played to turn 44 then.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Cause nobody will ever play with you again if you quit the second somebody kicks down your sand castle? I mean, cmon! You even instigated this conflict, you really have no foot to stand on here. You probably ruined B4ndit's chances of winning when you took his second city; how would you have reacted if he had immediately quit?

[SevenSpirits]

It's understandable that you're feeling disheartened and hopeless right now. Civ can be a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. You should stick it out for sure, though. Setbacks happen, in Civ and in real life, and they can be overcome. Things won't seem so terrible once you've had a few days to put them in perspective. Here are some reasons you should not quit:

First, it's not going to take a year. Maybe a couple of months.

Second, you dealt B4ndit a significantly worse setback than you're suffering now, and he didn't give up and seems to be coming back into it. You can too.

Third, this is a newbie game. Literally anything can happen. You can definitely still win.

Fourth, the situation is a bit less bad than you think. Remember, units can only attack one thing per turn.

Fifth, being in tough spots like this is the best way to learn.

[Ceiliazul]

so convince me why I should continue.

It sucks to be on the losing end so soon, but it is definitely not over. Winning looks as impossible for you now as it did for B4ndit last week... don't give up! Seriously, in a tight game like this, being stunted often means others will leave you alone until at least the age of maces. Archery is a very good idea, and stem the bleeding.

If you feel you can't win, I recommend developing shorter term goals. Get back to 4 cities by turn 60?

At the very least, keep playing for a least another 10 turns. Two good reasons:
1) prove you don't have a glass jaw. Important for meta reasons.
2) let the emotions cool so you can make decisions with a clear head.

Edit: crosspost with Seven, who is more generous with tactical ideas than I...

[Cheater Hater]

I'll be honest, this situation happening is why I didn't want to join a game for the longest time--I overreact to things like this, and then the logical side of me says there's no reason to continue. I probably won't quit this turn (if for no other reason than I can still get lucky and somehow keep Lontano Villa at least, or B4ndit can make a mistake and try to take Harena Desert this turn, giving me time to move my axe into Lontano Villa), but I don't know what will happen afterward.

I think a lot of this situation comes from my disappointment with how I played last turn--I didn't see the chariot doing anything except attacking Harena Desert this turn, and even if he did try to attack Lontano Villa I assumed the axe on a hill meant he wouldn't get much better than 50-50 attacking. Even with all that I should have researched Archery, which would have meant I could whip a warrior this turn and still be able to get the archer in time for the second axe--I still might lose in that case (since 2 axes still would beat a archer I think, though the culture defenses could give me better odds), but at least I have a better chance.

Now to reply to all the (helpful) lurker replies I've gotten:

Oxy: With regard to ruining B4ndit's chance to win with the initial attack, I strongly disagree. By taking Edirne I only cost B4ndit a settler, and I even offered him that city back for peace (and was expecting to at least fight for it sooner rather than later). B4ndit is costing me two settlers, multiple military units, and multiple worker turns (if not the workers themselves).

SevenSpirits: I know things aren't quite as bad as I portrayed them, I still don't see myself not losing both cities unless B4ndit either messes up, mainly because I can't both whip the warrior and 1T Archery--if I could do that I probably wouldn't have even contemplated quitting to be honest, since I think I could almost certainly could hold on to Harena Desert in that case. I guess that it's a newbie game does make it more likely though--B4ndit being careless is the only reason I'm in the situation in the first place

Celiazul: I let my emotions get the better of me in most situations unfortunately. Though if I'm going to set goals like that they probably should be a bit harder--I'll have my 4th city by T55 at the latest most likely

Again, thanks for all the encouragement--I'm going to play the turn now, and expect a report later. I don't know how large a report I'll do; we'll see how in the mode I am for C&D after resigning myself to losing multiple cities

[Ceiliazul]

did you note seven's tactical advice?

[Cheater Hater]

T44 Report
Before we get to the turn, I want to thank all the lurkers again for supporting me--now that I have a clear head, I understand the situation a lot more. Let's start with the war effort:


Clearly, I'm going for the Archery plan, but there's one thing I missed during my initial emotion-filled analysis: I can 2-pop whip the archer in Harena Desert! When I was playing around with stuff my first time opening the save, I didn't think I could, since I thought I had to work the gold in order to 1T Archery, but it turns out I can still work the wheat, which allows me dry-whip the archer for 2 pop! Granted, I still can lose the city if B4ndit decides to backtrack with his chariot and attack as well (which would mean I almost certainly lose Harena Desert: the axe is 2.8 with Combat 1, I don't know how well that and the warrior will defend against the axe and the chariot--I know damage is difficult, if not impossible to worldbuilder in, I don't know which order B4ndit would have the axe/chariot attack in, and I don't know which order they would defend in), but that means I should be able to get enough forces into Lontano Villa to hold the city for a while, if not the whole time--and then I'll have Praets soon to retake cities.

Moving on to happier news, we have a lot of scouting!
We'll start with the scouting by the actual scout:


Hi AT! That's probably where I'll head next, since I did sign open borders with him--it'll let me get rid of some question marks in my SPLT report

Now to the axe scouting out my new city:


Really, I get a banana too in my fat cross! Awesome! And yes, that new 3 food lake is also a fish--SevenSpirits must really like seafood in lakes

Now to my capital--technically this counts as scouting since my warrior is scouting to the east, even if it didn't reveal anything new this turn


As you can see, working the second scientist in Norende is causing it to starve, thanks to that stupid unhappy citizen. I should only be working that scientist for one turn (putting it back when I lose the whip anger), but it wouldn't lose a pop even if I worked the scientist the whole time--if I didn't need the axe I'd consider just letting it starve until the whip anger expired--though if I work the pigs instead of the wheat I would still get the axe in a reasonable time, so maybe that is the plan--sorry citizens of Norende! (considering Norende disappeared into a chasm at the beginning of Bravely Default, killing all but the main character, they've been through worse )

As for the workers not currently fleeing for their lives, I should get the iron reasonably soon--the jungle will be gone next turn, then I think the mine will finish in 2 turns (4 worker turns) after that, then with the road taking one more turn, I should be able to start a Praet before T50
As for the settler, I unfortunately couldn't 2-pop whip it yet; I should be able to do so next turn, leaving me a decent amount of overflow to build a military unit of some sort--not sure if it should be an axe, spear, or archer yet though

C&D is coming, though as I said I don't know how thorough it will be.

[Cheater Hater]

Quick taking the crosspost into account before C&D:
Yeah Celiazul, I think I get what Seven's saying in too few words (use a worker to block the one path into Lontano Villa), but I think the worker's more valuable than the city at this point (especially since the city will auto-raze, and I can't get any more units to defend it at this point)--although I now realize I could attack out of the city to kill the chariot if B4ndit wasn't smart enough to move the chariot back, but I've already sent the save along--at least I should be able to save Harena Desert or Lontano Villa without having to rely on RNG (remember, I still have about a 25% chance of killing the chariot if it attacks Lontano Villa, to say nothing of the miniscule chances of winning I have at Harena Desert)

[SevenSpirits]

Nice. Good luck with the combats!

[Cheater Hater]

T44 C&D:
Not much pithy commentary today, just the numbers:

• AT gained 45 points--remember when I said I wasn't going to do the details today! This is part of it--it's clearly land points (along with possibly a pop or two), but I'm not in the mood to calculate them today (partially because I don't understand when the land points come into play, and because I didn't calculate how many land tiles AT's second city had). He does have a new city named Full Measure, so that points probably part of it, but I'll calculate it later--or never and just drop the score calculations
  
• eastway gained 34 points--same thing, and the land point influence is even bigger since eastway 2-pop whipped Annuminas and didn't gain any pop points.
  
• B4ndit gained 39 points--okay, something's going wrong here, since B4ndit clearly doesn't have his second city to gain the land points from--the only other source of points I can see other than tech, land, and pop is Maoi (since no one researched any world wonders), but not only would that not make sense, that would leave B4ndit with a less-than-round 23 points. What's causing the points to go up so much that I'm missing--actually, thinking about it, it could be the 3rd ring of the capitals, since that would have happened around 20 turns ago from people (accounting for anarchy delaying it a turn), although it doesn't explain all the oddities--then again, I did say I wasn't going to worry about this stuff now
  
• Twinkletoes gained 14 points--finally something I can explain! 2 pop points, one in King's Landing and one in another city.
  

Now to what has to be much easier than the score this turn: soldier points! 15k total increase, 6k increase in the max, 5k increase in the min. The max has to be B4ndit building yet another axe (how is he doing this without noticeably whipping? Is he just chopping every forest?), and the min is eastway building an axe while losing 1k to the two pop whip. That leaves 4k left, which the power graph can help with:



That increase for B4ndit seems a bit low--or it's just that the graph has gotten too high to accurately tell power increases at first glance, since it does look bigger than the 1k from yesterday. Anyway, we see that Twinkletoes did get a small increase, but I can't really tell what's going on right now--if we say the last Twinkletoes increase was 4k, this one certainly can't be 4k and B4ndit's increase can't be 6k--I have a feeling I need to redo everything in the last C&D update to make everything make sense, but the good thing about C&D is that since I have the data, I can figure it out whenever I want to.