T48 C&D:
Not much other than number crunching this week, so let's number crunch!
It's nice to be able to look at my GNP without cringing--thank you Academy
eastway gained 28 points--that could be land points, but I actually think it's 4 pop points--Annu, Britho, and Dale all grew, and it's conceivable Elgarest grew this turn as well.
Twinkletoes gained 6 points, an ancient tech--I need to do more pidgeonhole on his ancient techs soon
AT lost 7 points, so he net lost a pop point--but since Ozy grew this turn, it's a 2-pop whip. Double checking last turn's scouting, it was a 2-pop whip in Felina for the settler. I'll be able to calculate AT's exact pop numbers when I finish my SPLT rankings now that I can see most of his cities, which helps a lot
Now to soldier points: 27k total increase, 12k Max increase, no Min change--this all but confirms eastway isn't the Min anymore, but we can figure that out when I reconcile the SPLT in the next post. The main thing this tells us is that both of B4ndit's cities made an Axe or Horse Archer, so that's at least one more unit headed my way. In fact, I'll pull up that part of the analysis (since it's complete) and see if I can get an idea of how many troops I would need: B4ndit: 84k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+IW+HR+Archery+3 Warriors+1 Axe+2 HA+3 Axe/HA+1 Chariot+Barracks/Archer+10 pop)
Right now we can see 1 Warrior, 2 HA, 1 Axe, and the Chariot. Assuming B4ndit built an Archer and not a Barracks, that leaves 6 units we haven't seen: 2 Warriors probably doing city defense, an Archer and Axe playing zone defense and/or eventually going to the third city, and the two units he just produced. That's not that much, especially considering the Praets I have incoming--and since he's been producing these units so fast without whipping, he's presumably nearly out of forests, while I've still got plenty to use at Caldisla (to say nothing of the many forests still at Norende or Starkfort) at full strength.
Now to do some major number crunching and finish my SPLT catchup in the next post.
SPLT Catchup Part 2:
Here we go again, although the main thing we have to work on this time is soldier points, as opposed to land points in the last post. However, we still have to finish AT's land points to complete his score calculation, as well as integrate T48 in the rankings:
Looking at the new scouting information from AT (and doing some killer fog-gazing), I can tell that the Say My Name has no overlap with Ozy's fat cross (so it has 4 land tiles, as expected), and that Ozy's third ring has 15 new land tiles (the 16th being an overlap with Say My Name, so AT has an additional pop point and ancient tech from what we calculated. As for T48, there's no land points there, so I can trust those increases.
One problem though: I went through the marginal increases and ended up with AT having 11 pop, but we can already see 11 pop and can't see Full Measure--let's do a full score check and see what's happening:
322-(39*2.5)-(2*16)-(15*6)-(2*12)=78 -> 11 pop and an extra point
Yeah, something's wrong--not only is there only the 11 pop, there's an extra phantom point than the one I found on T44. This has to be an ancient tech replaced with a pop point, so I'm going to make the executive decision here to manually fix that in the SPLT. Actually, when looking at the C&D more closely for soldier points AT's T44 increase was 45 points, not 44, which means that that is where the missing pop point came from!
Okay, so the PLT part of the SPLT is done, minus some exact techs we'll hopefully find out through pidgeonhole and/or soldier point analysis. As such, I've moved them out from under the spoiler tag, and now we're moving on to (non-B4ndit) soldier point analysis:
Okay, since there's so much going on with soldier points I need to go incrementally--I'm not going to be posting each turn's power graph, but I will be referencing them, and here's the one for T48 just to give you something pretty to look at (and because I didn't post it with the C&D for some reason:
So, let's start with T42, with the correction of Twinkletoes's T40, as well as using actual pop numbers as opposed to the milestones so I can keep track of those marginally: 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+12 pop) B4ndit: 68k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+IW/HR+Archery+3 Warriors+3 Axes+2 Spear/Chariot+9 pop) Twinkletoes: 40k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+AH+Warrior+2 Axes+Spear/Chariot+9 pop)
T43: 13k Total increase, 3k Max decrease, constant Min, B4ndit to 10 pop, Twinkletoes classical tech, AT to 11 pop, B4ndit lost a chariot
Max is sorted as said before, which leaves 16k left. Twinkletoes' graph still points to a 4k increase (from Metal Casting) and eastway hasn't changed. That means AT has an 12k increase, either 3 Spear/Chariot or 2 Axes (or something like Axe+Chariot+Warrior)--I'll assume the latter until I get better proof/am contradicted, but the number is the most important part here. AT: 53k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+AH+MC+Sailing+2 Warriors+2 Axes+2 Spears/Chariots+11 pop) eastway: 40k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+Hunting+Sailing+Warrior+2 Axes+12 pop) B4ndit: 65k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+IW/HR+Archery+3 Warriors+3 Axes/HA+Chariot+10 pop) Twinkletoes: 44k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+AH+MC+Warrior+2 Axes+Spear/Chariot+9 pop)
T44: 15k Total increase, 6k Max increase, 5k Min increase, AT up to 12 pop, eastway down to 10 pop, Twinkletoes up to 11 pop
Max is the easy HA from B4ndit, but eastway doesn't have to be the min--we know Twinkletoes is at least 45k with the pop increase and eastway easily gets to 45k with an axe, but after including AT's pop increase there's 2k left. The problem is the power graph:
It looks like B4ndit's power graph is off somehow, since unless AT somehow squeaked into Max somehow we know B4ndit built an axe this turn, and that increase shown on the graph doesn't look like 6k (compare it to my Bronze Working research back in the beginning for instance)--however, there is method to this madness! Remember, B4ndit's last turn graph number still includes the chariot I killed on T43, so the graph only nets 2k--and considering the last increase was 1k, the small increase makes sense, so the graph is right and this digression is pointless
Going back to the missing 2k, it has to be Twinkletoes, since eastway and Twinkletoes are not tied, and looking at the graph it looks like a 2k difference works AT: 54k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+AH+MC+Sailing+2 Warriors+4 Spears/Chariots+12 pop) eastway: 45k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+Hunting+Sailing+Warrior+3 Axes+10 pop) B4ndit: 71k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+IW/HR+Archery+3 Warriors+4 Axes/HA+Chariot+10 pop) Twinkletoes: 47k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+AH+MC+2 Warriors+2 Axes+Spear/Chariot+11 pop)
T45: 8k Total increase, 3k Max decrease, Min increase by 6k, AT up to 13 pop, Twinkletoes ancient tech, eastway up to 11 pop, eastway ancient tech, B4ndit lost Axe
B4ndit's is still weird--his 3k decrease comes from losing the axe and building either an archer or barracks, and you know how much I hate the 3k increases. With that 3k decrease, there's a 11k net increase of soldier points, and the graph tells a lot here:
Twinkletoes is still 1k greater than eastway, which means eastway gained 6k and Twinkletoes gained 5k. While eastway is an easy axe, Twinkletoes has to be a warrior plus either an archer or a barracks--I don't have him getting Archery at any point, but it's certainly possible--I'll say it's a barracks for now, but if I see more 3k increases I'll change it, even if I don't know exactly when it happened. AT: 54k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+AH+MC+Sailing+2 Warriors+4 Spears/Chariots+13 pop) eastway: 51k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+Hunting+Sailing+Warrior+4 Axes+11 pop) B4ndit: 68k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+IW/HR+Archery+3 Warriors+3 Axes/HA+Chariot+Archer/Barracks+10 pop) Twinkletoes: 52k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+AH+MC+3 Warriors+2 Axes+Spear/Chariot+Barracks+11 pop)
T46: 21k Total increase, 6k Max increase, 1k Min increase, AT classical tech, AT up to 14 pop, eastway up to 13 pop, Twinkletoes ancient tech, Twinkletoes up to 12 pop, B4ndit up to 11 pop
Max and Min are simple (B4ndit Axe, eastway 12 pop), 2k more comes from AT and Twinkletoe pop increases, and then AT gains 10k from IW/HR, which leaves 2k left. I didn't paste this graph yet, so here it is, and it's interesting:
Something in the original group clearly isn't right--eastway isn't the min anymore, and he gained a lot more than the 3k allotted for him. Looks like something's wrong in my assumptions, and my guess is that AT actually didn't research Iron Working or Horseback Riding--he instead researched Mathematics for a 6k boost, leaving eastway 6k for an Axe. I could probably confirm that by checking my recent GNP for known tech bonus, but a quick check showed weird stuff happening, and I don't care that much--it could be a non-soldier classical tech and an axe, but the total soldier count is what matters most
However, there's another problem: there's no one at the min now--it should be Twinkletoes, but he should have gained 1k from pop. Is the 28 land points not 6 land tiles+ancient tech+pop point? I guess it's 6 land tiles+classical tech, and then Twinkletoes has the phantom point everyone else has (other than me somehow). That tech would have to be a non-soldier tech though--Monarchy maybe? That also means there's another 1k left to distribute--something serious is wrong here, and I'm not figuring it out right now AT: 61k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+AH+MC+Sailing+Math+2 Warriors+4 Spears/Chariots+14 pop) eastway: 58k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+Hunting+Sailing+Warrior+5 Axes+13 pop) B4ndit: 74k (Mining+BW+Wheel+AH+IW/HR+Archery+3 Warriors+4 Axes/HA+Chariot+Archer/Barracks+10 pop) Twinkletoes: 52k (Mining+BW+Wheel+Hunting+AH+MC+3 Warriors+2 Axes+Spear/Chariot+Barracks+11 pop)
We're closer, but there's still a lot left to do--the non-B4ndit soldier points are still incomplete (though I think through T45 in the above results is correct), but the PLT for everyone (except possibly Twinkletoes) should be correct--this is annoying, even though I like math
Missing Points:
AT: 0 (start+1 phantom point from land on T43)
B4ndit: 0 (start+1 phantom point from land on T44)
Cheater Hater: -1 (start)
Twinkletoes: -1 (start)
eastway: 0 (start+1 phantom point from land on T44)
Well, it doesn't appear RB is coming back up anytime soon, so I'm back to Notepad (after waiting over 12 hours from playing the turn no less...) T49 Report:
Let's see how things are going with the war first:
Well, there's the two units B4ndit just produced
All three of B4ndit's other units are still sitting on that plains hill--although we can see that No mercy has moved and killed the axe I was using to defend--I think I overestimated the defense the forest gave/assumed the fortify bonus would go up more quickly/thought he wouldn't take a 70% chance after he lost the axe on a ~65% chance. However, that wasn't only combat that happened this turn--that warrior needs to die
Excuse the poor photo, I didn't take a normal overview of the south this turn after the attack apparently
Yeah, I took the risk and attacked the warrior with the axe--this is a big risk since I now only have the two archers and two warriors in Harena Desert for defense, but I think the archers still have good odds against B4ndit's horse archers (city defense+culture bonus+fortify bonus adds up to over 100%), and next turn I will 1-pop whip an archer to defend against B4ndit's 3rd horse archer getting in range--I wouldn't lose the city if all the Horse Archers attack, but it certainly wouldn't be good
(combat results in the spoiler, as always)
Before I leave the war front, I do have some diplo news--but this time I'm the one initiating it!
Yes, I'm offering straight peace--normally this would make no sense since he's still offering peace for Harena every couple turns, but this requires some context on the domestic front:
One thing you might not have noticed in the last couple turns is that B4ndit's scout has been poking around by the capital. I haven't been worrying about it since it can't attack (and it better not be able to take workers, or I've obviously made a major misplay ), but the one thing it will do is see my first Praetorian coming off the supply line--I'm hoping that (along with the additional chops) scares him into taking straight peace before my counter-attack shows up--it's a long shot, but clearly B4ndit likes doing the same diplo offer every other turn, so I can take a shot at straight peace once
Going on to normal domestic matters, not much spectacular is going on--obviously the Praet will complete, but so will the Axe in Norende. Unfortunately Norende will grow into (natural) unhappiness, but I have a worker roading the gems so the unhappiness will only last one turn, and besides that, I think I'll (2-pop) whip a Praet in Norende in 2 turns to take advantage of all that food and the granary--not sure what I'll do next in there since there's not much left to build in there--maybe just slow-build a Praet? I think the next settler will come out of there soon, but I need to be able to afford it first--maybe I'll slow-build an archer that will mark out my next city--speaking of my next city, here's my scout move (both before and after, since there's important info in the pre-move shot):
The major news here is that AT's settler is heading north, which means that I should be clear to settle the rice city in the near-future--hopefully AT won't object to a relatively aggressive plan.
C&D is coming next--although I just checked, and RB is back up! Granted, if you're reading this, RB is up, but regardless...
T49 C&D:
Hopefully this shouldn't take too long--unlike the last post I'm writing this in real time, which means I want to get this done before the next turn shows up--thankfully the turn has been coming late in the last couple days because of Twinkletoes's internet issues, so I should get it done in time, although I don't think I'll get non-B4ndit power rankings done in the meantime, especially with the issues I found. Anyway, you didn't show up to hear me complain about number crunching, you came to see me do number crunching!
My GNP went down a lot more than I expected when I switched to Currency--granted, there are a lot of factors surrounding that (swapping a scientist to plains forest in Norende, swapping the fish to the iron in Starkfort, going down to 50% science for less Academy/Library boost), but it does point to a known tech bonus boost and Twinkletoes knowing Math as a consequence. Thankfully the Best GNP went down to compensate
eastway lost 22 points--that's not even a round number for 3 pop losses (unless he lost the phantom point as well), so something's definitely going on. However, it could be not that bad--we see that eastway whipped 3 visible population (1 in Annu, 2 in Dale), and if he whipped Elgarest as well, the math works if he gained an ancient tech
Twinkletoes gained 8 points--unless I find more land points upon closer inspection, I'm going with 1 pop point (in Castle Rock), along with gaining the phantom point each of the other civs have.
AT gained 7 points, a net pop point, but it comes from growths in Full Measure and Say My Name combined with a 1-pop whip in Ozy
B4ndit gained 6 points, an ancient tech
Before we get to solider points, I'm going to check Twinkletoe's numbers, and I'm not seeing anything--Twinkletoes had only 3 cities on T32 when I met him, and I doubt a culture expansion happened in either city without a Twinkletoes getting a religion, and the expansion would have to be 3 tiles (6 tiles with a 1-pop net decrease) only. It's certainly possible (imagine a city with water to the north, the capital to the east), but there's one more problem with that. King's Landing actually grew this turn as well, meaning there's at least a one-pop whip somewhere. If we go with the 6 land tiles idea, that means there's 3 pop worth of whips out there, and since Twinkletoes's population is currently spread so thin that seems unlikely (Twinkletoes would go down to 14 pop total, and since we can see 7 of them between the 2 cities, there's 7 pop between 5 cities). I'm going with growth+phantom point until I see otherwise :/
Anyway, to soldier points: Total down 4k, Max down 2k, Min constant
Here's the graph for this turn--remember the graph took its snapshot before B4ndit killed my axe and I killed his warrior:
The total being down for the turn, even after considering B4ndit losing his warrior is interesting. It actually makes sense with eastway whipping away 4 pop. However, there's one problem, just like with before: Twinkletoes's power has not changed. This is the proof I needed--if Twinkletoes did grow this turn, that means he would have 16 pop (assuming everything else is correct, which I highly doubt), which means he would have gained 1k power. Right now I'm going to say he did the land points+whip plan, but I have no clue--I need to figure out what's going on with Twinkletoes in the previous "no power change" part, and as such all of Twinkletoes is going under the "I have no clue" italics. The rest should be fine, except that I don't have power rankings for people other than B4ndit:
Missing Points:
AT: 0 (start+1 phantom point from land on T43)
B4ndit: 0 (start+1 phantom point from land on T44)
Cheater Hater: -1 (start) Twinkletoes: -1 (start)
eastway: 0 (start+1 phantom point from land on T44)
T50 Report:
I'm a little down on my spirits today--don't worry, I don't plan on quitting again. Part of it's that I'm slowly realizing Harena Desert is doomed:
Yeah, that's five attackers (4 HA and an Axe) to my five defenders (3 Archers (20/15/0 fortify), 2 Warriors (25/5 fortify))--I probably screwed up big time moving out my axe
Still, I shouldn't lose the city this turn--I have odds on the first two battles, but ignoring some massive RNG luck on my side (or B4ndit not wanting to attack this turn), it will probably fall on T51. Afterwards, I need to figure out what I'm doing next, and a lot of that will depend on whether B4ndit decides to keep or raze the city (will it even give him the option to raze? He founded it but I think I've held the city longer than him actually)--if he razes I accept flat peace and try to resettle Lontano Villa and protect the Harena Desert spot, but if he keeps it I might just keep going and counter-attack with Praets, depending on how many losses B4ndit takes while taking the city--hopefully it's not a million withdrawals.
But wait--isn't something missing from that picture? Where's Castle Rock? Apparently I need to keep better track of world events:
Yeah, eastway declared on Twinkletoes back on T47--more complications for my C&D efforts!
Here's how Twinkletoes is sitting after Castle Rock was razed:
So Twinkletoes has only lost Castle Rock so far--still, it's good to see the two leaders in cities fighting at least--hopefully this doesn't mean that AT can just grow unhampered, or maybe I have a juicier target for my Praets
Anyway, onto domestic matters:
As I assumed, the chariot pillaged my horses this turn--I don't think it matters that much, since I wasn't planning on sending chariots down to Harena Desert anyway. I'm wondering where the chariot will go though--if it heads east that means I'll have to move my worker and stop roading my gems--in that case I'll probably move it east to start chopping to get more Praets out of Norende quickly, only finishing roading the gems when the chariot's out of my hair.
I don't know what I'm going to do with the C&D--B4ndit's power is the only real thing I can calculate at this point, and that's boring (B4ndit built another Axe/HA), so I might wait until I decide I want to tackle the Twinkletoes mess (or I somehow get visibility on Twinkletoes) to do C&D--or I might just get bored and do it in a couple hours :/
Seriously, not only did he beat both my top defenders where I actually had odds, he did the first one nearly flawlessly?
I'll be honest, this one was a hard one to write--there was, and still is rage. This is why I should have never joined any games, and am better when I'm just a good ded-lurker--I care too damn much. I mean, even with the expectation that I have little to no chance of winning PB18 I'm considering dropping out just for the good of that game, so I don't ruin it when I explode like I'm doing here--I offered straight peace which B4ndit should take (especially since he knows I have Praets and he suicided his Chariot into my Praet for some reason), but if he doesn't and somehow takes my workers (they're on the hill SE currently, with the axe guarding them), I know I will quit out of complete anger and emotion, even though my rational side knows I shouldn't.
Anyway, I'm moving forward assuming B4ndit accepts peace, because lord knows people being rational has gotten me this far:
I'm resettling the Lontano Villa spot ASAP (though with a new name, now that I have more to choose from), and as such I'm redirecting the chop to the settler, then I'll 2-pop whip it (assuming I can't, you know my whip timing estimations are really bad). I'm defending it with both the axe and the Praet, and the Praet I just whipped out of Norende is going down there as well. I'm taking back Harena Desert soon, though I don't know if it'll be right at 10 turns thinking about it more--the one good thing about my current position is that my tech rate improved a lot losing Harena Desert (the site paid for itself barely, but it meant I had a lot less of Caldisla's commerce going through the Academy), and between the Academy and Currency I should be in a good position to research through Masonry->Construction and come with a Praets+Cats attack. If we look at B4ndit's units we know he didn't build any new units this turn, and at some point he's going to have to stop building units and focus a bit on building his economy. Of course, the actually correct move may be to ignore vengeance and attack someone else, probably AT--I'm not doing actual C&D until I know it's worth it (aka B4ndit signs peace), but other than B4ndit's constant increases, the soldier count has remained relatively flat in the last couple turns. Some of that was from the eastway/Twinkletoes war I'm sure (which ended this turn btw, likely as straight peace since neither lost any cities), but it still has some meaning.
(March 10th, 2014, 17:38)Ceiliazul Wrote: what was the order of the attacks on b4ndit's turn?
HA vs Archer (the first log above)
Chariot vs Praet (still no clue why he did this )
HA vs Archer (the second log above)
HA vs Archer (65.5%, very close, only 5 HP left on the HA)
HA vs Warrior (95.3%, not close)
Axe vs Warrior (99.3%, I actually got 3 hits in)
P.S: RB performing like crap isn't doing much to better my mood
Edit: And as soon as I post that, it starts working okay again--they're watching!
Hey Cheater Hater, I need your input. Take a deep breath.
It seems that B4ndit was under the impression that reloading and trying different attack orders to get desirably combat results was acceptable. So when trying to capture your city, he attacked first with a HA, and it won. Then he attacked with another HA, and it lost. And maybe he attacked with a third HA and it lost too. So then he decided to reload and try something else: He attacked first with the winning HA, then made a weird suicide attack with his chariot near your capital. Then he continued attacking your city and this time everything worked out.
As I'm sure you might agree, these tactics are not acceptable, but B4ndit genuinely seems to have been unaware of this. Certainly, attacking the very same player with a chariot in the middle of his combat sequence is a stupidly obvious way to get caught if you know you're doing something wrong. And, he said he did not figure out you could influence combat results in this way until that turn; indeed, remember his very significant axe attack against your city earlier which lost and gave your axe a promotion?
B4ndit seems a bit mortified to me and wants a resolution that you are OK with. So, getting back to the beginning, I need your input. How do you feel about the situation?
The resolution I am thinking would work would be to rewind to the turn he attacked your city, and make him do the attacks on your city in the sensible order, which means he doesn't get to capture it that turn for sure. Then also make him suicide his chariot anyway. I think this does a good job of preserving the integrity of the game, and punishes B4ndit a little bit over if he'd played it straight the first time. But it's very important that you are OK with what's decided.
