Cyneheard's PBEM10 Thread

[Cyneheard]

Diplomacy's going to have to be dealt with another day, there's just too much to deal with there. Here are some screenshots from the various turns:

T111:



7 Serdoan Knights, and a catapult, sitting there, just waiting for me to plop my army on that tile...Serdoa then moved that stack 1W and cleaned my Crossbow/Catapult stack out. Crossbows versus knights? UGLY.

I sent my knight and a chariot to try and hit Canasta, which had just 1 CGI Archer and a chariot, to try and burn the city. Mis-promoted the knight (CII/Shock, instead of CIII, thinking "stack defense" when I promoted him, not "BURN THE CITY"), and promptly lost the 90% battle with him. The chariot died against his chariot, as I was moving too quickly and forgot the river would hurt me there. .



Up north, Tatan dropped off 3 East Indiamen worth of troops, which was more than enough to prevent any funny business. However, I'm not all that worried about that stack hitting Cold County, the Amphibious penalty or two turns of movement across land gives me plenty of time to cover myself, and some warning to boot.

[Cyneheard]

T112:

So, after losing my entire stack for...uh...ONE kill (yeah, it was that bad), I've got a problem:



Nothing too scary there, but I can't do anything to that stack, so I don't.



4 more knights show up, including a Medic III. Joy.

At least this was a success:
4 triremes vs. Caravel + 2 Galleys. I lose 1 trireme, sink all three of their ships. And triremes suck against East Indiamen, so now's the time to have them die well. At least Galleys retain some value in this new era.

[Cyneheard]

T113:

So, in between turns, not much happened:

Lost 2 triremes, one for a galley, one to an East Indiaman. That latter one was 8XP, so going to be Combat III, but such is life. Net: 3 triremes for a caravel and 3 galleys. Considering that I'm using Str 2 units when a Str 6 East Indiaman is around, I'll call that a smashing success. And maybe there were troops on those galleys?!?!?! Probably not. Nor am I really sure how I could tell that, it won't show up on the Demogs screen because Serdoa's making 2 galleys worth of troops every turn anyway.

However, the unintentional delay gave me added time to think about things. Things I decided to do:
1) Start passing the plate around, looking to get some gold. Asked Mackoti for 50g sent this turn, offering to repay 75g on T119. We'll see if that goes through or not. Not sure, but it would make my life a little easier. I'll post the offer to Ad Hoc and TT (TT's would be paid out of cancelling the 13gpt he's currently sending me)
2) Pull some knights out of Cold County, based on the discussion above: I get some warning time, and will use it well.

How I'm doing that:
Well, I'm going to take a little advantage of the daisy chain. Specifically, that a Galleon with 4 move can move out 2 tiles, pick up troops, and then move back two tiles: No land units are EVER going to spend a turn at sea during this war. All ships will either unload while in a port (which can be done on 0 troop movement), or after the troops spend a turn on the ship that sits in a port, I may have to unload them directly from the ship. 3-move galleys don't have that problem, but 2-movers do.



The unit icons are from Cold County. The mouse-over stack is from Cornwall (ignore the Whip Cold County sign: I'm not going to whip that, I'm going to save the pop for whipping a CASTLE on T116: Get Engineer EOT114 (assuming the gold works out), start the Castle on T115, and whip T116 for 2 pop. That'll make the archery troops a lot tougher to crack, at least.

So, I've got 2 Galleons fully loaded, with enough move to get them to Cornwall. That's easy, and gets me 6 9XP knights that can on their next turn unload in Calimari, and smash into the Serdoa/Tatan forces. Oh, and with 3 promos, I can give them Formation (although against the Pikes I'll want Combat III or Combat II/Shock. While Combat II/Shock is better against pikes, Combat III is less likely to then pick up the Knights. If the pikes fortify, then they'll take precedence over 100hp Combat II Knights.

For the Galleys, well, they're moving to the locations shown (Can't Catch Me is FI/NavI) there's a Galleon sitting there in Cornwall, which can move 2NE, pick up that Knight, and then pick up the 2 knights in Can't Catch Me. Next turn, after spending a night in port in Cornwall, I can move all of these troops to Calimari, unload them, and spend 3 moves getting them to Covenant, using the 4th to hit that stack.

The next post will detail how I'm going to not get crushed on my turn in Covenant, or how to make it very expensive for Serdoa and Tatan if they go for it this turn.

[Cyneheard]

Enemy troops:



Fortunately, Serdoa goes first. I count NO BLUE, so no promotions in hand:
11 Serdoa knights, at various damages and promotions
3 Tatan Macemen (CI/Shock, CI, 0)
1 Tatan LB
2 Tatan Pikemen
1 Chariot, damaged to 84/100HP
6 Catapults, various levels of damage, but few promotions.

So, that's 18 units that can conceivably get kills this turn, and 6 catapults. If the 6 catapults went first, this plan would become unworkable: They'd bomb/suicide onto my men, and the 18 units would simply clean up.
However, as long as I still have 8 men breathing on Tatan's turn, I'm fine. And the 9 knights can sally forth and wipe out whatever's left of the stack, flanking away the catapults and removing the biggest danger: those knights. Hitting 7 knights and 2 pikes will be glorious. I can only get 12 units into the city.

They are (after EOT):
2 CGII LB. One at 25% Fort, one at 5% Fort.
1 damaged Combat I/Shock LB, who should heal to about 87hp, I believe.
1 CGII XBow, 5% Fort.
1 4XP Catapult, who's going to keep his promotions in hand. Drill II doesn't do me any good if anything real can hit it (i.e., not a catapult), and I'm going to want Barrage II next turn to hit his stack. But in the off chance that I'm damaged in the interturn, I'll take promotion on T114.
6 Spears. 4 Combat II (one of which is damaged slightly, to ~92hp), and 2 Combat I. All but the damaged one (no Fort) and a Combat II spear (5% fort) are at 25% Fort.
1 CGI Archer. Upgrading him would be nice, but I lack the funds to do that and finish Engineering in time.

For Serdoa to get 4 kills, he'd have to first knock off my 2 CG II full health LB, who get odds on defense. Given the damage taken by his stack, and his lack of current intel (i.e., he will have no idea that I've pulled most of my knights out of Cold County), I don't see him wanting to do that. Especially with all of the spears I've got sitting there: Behind walls, and fully fortified, a Combat II spear gets odds on anything less than a full health Combat II or Combat I/Shock knight. Serdoa only has two of those, and he'd have to suicide damaged knights into my LB to knock them down to health, then use the Combat II or Combat I/Shock Knights to knock off two spears, and then what does he do? He'd need two more kills, and he's likely got 2 dead knights, 2 damaged ones, and the 7 (including a GG Medic!) that can attack aren't going to get odds for quite a few kills. So, I don't think Serdoa's going to attack on his turn. He's going to heal up, and let that Medic III Knight do the trick.

Tatan, well, Tatan has some options: Either bomb the defenses with the catapults, assuming that he'll hit next turn, or charge in after suiciding the catapults on my troops. I hope he bombards, but can handle him suiciding and then getting some kills in. However, I think I've got good enough defenses to dispatch the suicide catapults with ease.

There is ONE possibility that would be trouble, but it would be clearly breaking the game in so many ways:
Serdoa could gift Tatan his knights on his turn, and Tatan would have full movement to use them against me. If that happens, I'm quitting immediately because that's getting those troops to move twice on the same turn which should be illegal, but PBEM has that hole in it. If Serdoa's troops were in Tatan's borders right now, that would be one thing. Tatan just got HBR in the past few turns, so he doesn't have mounteds to come in out of the fog that I should be worried about. And, again, I've got a pile of spears in Covenant. HA don't worry me.

[Cyneheard]

My e-mail sent jointly to Ad Hoc and TT:

I'm asking both of you simultaneously for this, because if I can't both of you to sign on, the plans have to change.

Gold gifts in a PBEM are complicated. If nothing fancy is done, any gold you earn by hitting "End Turn" on T113 can be asked by me on my T114, sent by you to me on your T114, and then I can use it on my T115. So keep that in mind: it takes a turn and a half for gold to go from one player to another.

Ok, here's the amount of gold that I'm trying to get for the next few turns:
The current turn is T113. I go first in the turn.
Your reserves:
Ad Hoc: 62g, gaining 65gpt, which is obviously well below 100% gold.
Twinkletoes: 24g, gaining 0gpt.

After this turn, I should have next to no gold in the bank. Ideally, I'm looking for:
All 86g you two have being offered by you on T113, and accepted by me on T114. This should allow me to finish off Engineering that turn, although requires building some wealth unless one of you two wants to do something fancy under 1) below.
As many multiples of 71g possible sent to me on T115, so offered by you on T114. Likely looking for up to 213g.

1) There is a trick to lending more gold than one has before ending turn, that I learned in PB3. On Ad Hoc's T113, he can offer me (separately, because that's how it works), his entire treasury (62g), and 30gpt. On T114, I then accept both of those offers, and then propose a 30gpt gift to Ad Hoc. This means that, while teching, on my T114, I've got 30g in foreign income coming in to keep me afloat. On Ad Hoc's T114, he accepts that 30gpt, and the 2 gold gifts will cancel each other out for the remaining 10t that we'd run them. I think you'd have to have 30g in the bank after hitting "End Turn" on T113, but that's likely a moot point if I'm also borrowing some funds on your T114.
2) Interest is obviously negotiable; I can't offer any repayments before T119/T120 or so, except for cancelling my 13gpt deal with TT.
3) Twinkletoes: It makes things very complicated if I cancel the gpt deal before my T115. So the canceled GPT would run from T115 to whatever point in the future is reasonable for the funds sent.

Honestly, the goodwill for this, and the value in keeping me steady against Serdoa and Tatan, are probably more important than any interest paid, but obviously I'm not going to be a cheapskate and refuse to pay interest for the huge value of getting Engineering in as soon as possible.

Cyneheard

At least 1) lets me pull some trickery if Mackoti doesn't come through with my "50g now, I pay you 75g on T119" proposal, which saves me from running a lot of wealth next turn. The gpt offer to "float" extra gold ahead of time merely shortcuts some of the delays inherent in direct gold gifting, which is a 1t delay in a Pitboss, and a 1 1/2 turn delay in a PBEM.

[Cyneheard]

So, ad hoc's sending me the 62g he has on hand, and he's working on getting some knights together:

It looks like the two galleons, will be 2 south of your moai city at the end of Turn 114 (2 turns) there are 6 knights all unpromoted and all with 5xp ( i think, as i'm doing this from memory at work).

i'll shuttle another 4 over to our joint island in the next couple of turns just in case and from there will move them towards you.

i'm pretty sure either Tatan or Serdoa will catch on so i wouldn't be surprised if i'm drawn into the war soon. the only good thing is i'm furthest away and the world isn't round (i guess you knew that lol)

i'll send my gold over when i next get the turn and switch to 100% gold so i can lend you some more the next turn. the 30gpt figure you quoted is that what you want or did you just use that to illustrate the point.

Ad Hoc

Awesome, although the knights are actually going to be to slow to make much of a difference. Especially since the turn he gifts them to me, I'm not going to do anything that turn with them: gifting units needs a 1t delay, but the game isn't designed for that. I did warn him that his Caravel that he's got hanging out in the ocean is likely dead, I assume he was already expecting that. I owe him something, not sure what.

And Twinkletoes is sending me a pile of gold:

Hey.

I've sent you an offer for a payment of 150 gold per turn. You can use it for up to 3 turns, then I will need some gold for myself!

I hope that is ok.

TT

I respond:

Wow, that was more than I expected.

I think what I'll do is take the 150 this turn, and decide how much to return on T114 through gpt, and then on T115 return the remainder, and on T115 cancel the 13gpt to start repaying that way.

Um...wow, wasn't expecting that much cash. So, the goal is to start T115 with as much gold in the bank as possible. I don't want to borrow 500gp between TT and Ad Hoc, I only want about 300, if that. At least this lending can be paid over the long run.

[Cyneheard]

So, I've borrowed:
300g from TT
200g from Ad Hoc

Forgot to take a screenie of the Green island. Summary:
Tatan suicided a catapult for little benefit, and used the other three to bomb my defenses down. The rest of the stack, including 14 knights and 4 Tatan troops (mace, LB, Chariot, Archer) moved 1NW, where the knights are forking Covenant and Calimari. I flew a pile of troops in, and upgraded a pike there, and 2 pikes in Calimari. Pikes and LB should be perfectly capable of butchering those knights if he gets greedy.

Combats this turn:


Had my Combat III knight that was undamaged last turn pick off a Serdoa knight, which was good. Knocked out those 3 catapults that were left by themselves, only needed 2 combats to flank 'em, but one of the knights was at 12/13 XP, for a free promotion to Combat III/Formation, I think.

Lost one galleon to drop an East Indiaman (good trade), and lost another Galleon at 90% odds against a Combat II Trireme. That's FOUR 90% odds battles that I've lost. There haven't been close to 40 of those combats. Maybe 10? If that, between 90 and 95% odds? I'm a little behind on decent-odds fights (51-89%), but not too bad. Those 90%ers are just frustrating to lose, however.



Tatan's pulled a LOT of troops out of here. Thought I'd moused over the 6-unit stack he's got (XBow, LB, Mace, Pike, Catapult, Archer). I've got 2 new Crossbows that I could send in, which combined with everyone else (4 knights, 1 Numid, 6 Catapults, 3 LB that I'd rather not use, but will) might let me burn that Iron city...it'll be bloody, but with Engineering in, it's one move from Cold County to Monopoly. Nice work on your culture, Tatan.

[Cyneheard]

T116


If the 3 East Indiamen sitting in the middle of the ocean are loaded, then I may lose Capricious, and I should have tried to sink them by throwing my entire navy at them. However, that's not all that valuable a city, and that seemed too brazen an act by Tatan, so I didn't think trading my fleet for his smaller one made much sense.

It seemed far more likely that that navy was there to prevent reinforcements from crossing the ocean. Well, he forgot that I have 4XP Charismatic ships, so a 5-move Galleon dropped off 3 Shock XBows, 2 of whom had moves left being loaded last turn, and I knocked off a mace and 2 pikes from that 12-unit stack (a Combat II/Shock Knight also got a Pike kill at 64%), which is now 5 pikes and 4 spears.



Sank a Galley in the south, to get a Galleon to 8XP. That army's now 1E of Covenant, and somewhat reinforced (25 units, including more melee and 2 catapults). Tatan has Guilds now, but he's not close to getting many Knights out. And without Stables, they'll be one-promo, and therefore not all that scary.

I get Gunpowder end of T117, and can then start getting some Muskets, which should be nice. I'll have Crabby spit out some 9XP Muskets. I'm sure Formation Muskets will be great to have against Serdoa's army: they'll still target the Combat II Knights, but will be 10.8 vs. ~9.5.

Oh, and Ad Hoc drops off his 6 knights in Calimari this turn, and gifts them to me. They'll have to sit there on T117, because otherwise I'd be double-moving Serdoa.

[Cyneheard]

Prediction of Tatan's T116:
He pillages the iron with a spear, loads the other units onto the EIs, and runs away.

Of course, Ad Hoc has a spare iron, so I should be fine.

[Cyneheard]

And TT says that 2 GGs were born by the time he got the turn.

That's going to be bloody.