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

[Cheater Hater]

Early turn today, so I'm now two turns behind--at least there isn't that much I need to cover in pictures from T82, since I was in anarchy that turn--I'll just have a picture covering the peace stuff, and that'll probably be it

Now to T83--no time for the report right now, so a preview:

• No change on the eastway front, other than I keep moving troops towards the border
  
• I can drop the slider to 60% and still 2T Metal Casting--still a deficit though
  
• B4ndit has only 3 Axes in Peace right now, and his power's 27k less than mine after my EOT
  Of course, no progress can come on that front until I finish the eastway war, and that doesn't seem like it'll happen anytime soon
  

[Cheater Hater]

*sigh* Good news and bad news--the good news is that I just got another turn done, but the bad news is that I'm now 3 reports behind
Again, I'm still taking all the screenshots I normally would, and I still plan on doing a full report for T82-T83 before I get to T84, but I'll get the T84 preview just in case we get our 3 turn day like I hope:

• Still no sign of eastway making peace with me--he did move his first Numidian Cav into Isengard, but I added 3 more Praets to my stack (one of which is C1). I did offer him paying me 40 gold for peace, mainly since I don't want to fight a bloody battle over Isengard, and because there's a much more juicy target...
  
• Peace still has only 3 axes, and I'm going to have nearly 10 Praets in the area soon--though we know B4ndit has a bunch of Horse Archers floating around. The main thing I have to consider is my eastern stuff--Bursa has only an axe and a spear, but I'm worried my relatively weak east defenses (a Praet and Archer in both Florem and Miasma Woods, with a couple Catapults floating in the area).
  
• Whipped the settler in Starkfort, Banana city will be settled T86 with Starkfort's spear defending it (a Praet passing by will take up Starkfort)--I want another Praet in the area, and it'll probably come out of Starkfort, partially from whip overflow.
  
• I'm first in land area somehow
  

[Cheater Hater]

Time to start playing catch-up--T82 and T83 won't be that large of reports and are coming first, then hopefully I can get T84 out before the turn somehow comes back again
T82 Report:
Not that much happened domestically this turn since I revolted to Bureaucracy, but the biggest news was foreign:


Yeah, most of World vs eastway ended, and eastway gave up a city to AT and Twinkletoes for peace (Kortirion to At, Pyke to Twinkletoes)--no peace offer to me though. I offered peace to him if he pays me 50 gold, but he doesn't accept--I'm worried eastway gave up the two relatively meaningless cities (as well as losing Dale to AT, one of his main cities) to focus all his attention on me

T83 Report:
Now time to actually report on domestic stuff--I'm sure Dropbox doesn't like me uploading two sets of nearly-identical pictures


Not much here--worker and settler being built, library crawling along (though I'll get some chops into that soon), workers starting a route.


Not much going on here, other than the chariots disappearing out of sight--Isengard still has 3 Axes and an Archer, while my stack has 3 Praets, a Cat and a C2 Axe.


Not much special here--the Courthouse saves me over 5 GPT, the Barracks was whipped last turn but only completes this turn, and the archer completes to guard against the newly-unoccupied AT--but notice anything different in Florem? Yes, I finally got religion spread! Of course, it's not going to do much there (I would say it would possibly give me the eastern pigs, but I only have about 15% in that tile, and it's going down), but it gives me the option to build a Monastery and start spreading it--of course I'm going to build the Forge and Courthouse first, but if I don't end up needing military, it's certainly an option--or Hinduism or Buddhism could finally start spreading to me

I would do demo-type stuff now, but I'd rather save that for the T84 post (assuming I post it before T85--I need a break to do some other stuff, but hopefully I'll get T84 done soon ).

[Cheater Hater]

T84 Report:
Not much preamble, so let's get to the pictures:


I whipped the settler as expected, giving me lots of overflow into military--it'll settle the city on the banana T86, and I don't think it'll be that expensive. I also need to figure out how I'm going to set it up--I think I need to chop a monument so it can get the crabs quickly, but I need to figure out what tiles I'm working before then. I also need to figure out what I'm doing with that city--most of its food is shared by other cities that need it at the moment--I guess Starkfort could afford to lose its fish for a couple turns, but it also needs to regrow a bunch (though not as much by the time I actually get the city settled).


As you can see, eastway has Numidian Cavalry now, which basically means he has 2-move Axes that are also strong against Catapults. This is one of the reasons I did this:


I still don't know why eastway still won't take peace with me--he should want to go back to teching in peace, with MoM and Great Lighthouse. Honestly, what he should do is keep fighting AT, but that won't happen for a while due to enforced peace--AT's used this opportunity to switch into Representation (along with Bureaucracy--apparently everyone else got to Civil Service around the same time :/ ) and presumably start teching up a storm. This is where the human aspects start to come into play--my best chance of winning probably coming from fighting with the leaders (eastway and AT) and slowing them down, but my best chance of short-term success (as well as vindication) would be taking Peace from B4ndit--it's even cracked the top five cities, and B4ndit still only has 3 axes in it.


There's some interesting stuff here--Norende is now going to pump military almost exclusively at least for the short term (unless I actually get peace, then I'll probably detour to a forge), and then I have courthouses showing up in the far-east. Granted, the courthouse in Florem is temporary--I'll build the forge there first, then I'll finish the courthouse.

I was planning on doing a bunch of overview stuff in this post (since there's been some changes in the overall landscape since eastway made peace with AT/Twinkletoes, and I've been doing a lot of scouting), but I'm not in that much of a mood for reporting right now--the pictures are in the Dropbox if you're interested, and depending on when I get the new turn (probably not tonight), I'll post the overview of this turn or the next when I feel up to it :/

[Cheater Hater]

Well, I didn't get to the overview, but I am posting the turn report right after I completed the turn at least
T85 Report:
No eastway reply to start the turn, but we did have another piece of diplo:


This is a really weird move to quantify at first, and I actually thought of declining it since it would be helping the leader (assuming AT was about to hook up another ivory), but then I realized I actually had two cities growing into unhappiness next turn so I did accept it. Actually, thinking about it now, he might just be trying to prop me up so I continue fighting with eastway while AT's in enforced peace. That plan would be good, except that I have no idea how to wage war


Obviously, with Metal Casting coming in I'm building a bunch of forges--probably too many actually. I'm also moving towards the banana city--but I still don't know if I should settle banana or not. The blue circle taunted me to settled 1E of the banana--that does mean I get the northern banana, but unless there's something in the fog I don't like that spot--but I don't like the banana spot either
Which spot is better? Or do I just save the settler, moving it either to the western deer city or the filler horses city? I don't know


Another forge! And if the courthouse wasn't so close to completing I would build a forge there too
I'm not sure what I should be doing with Norende right now--it can either be pushing out as many Praets as possible (using a lot of whips) or trying to push out another Great Person (it's 10 turns away with 2 scientists, or I could speed it up to 7 turns if I work a spy as well). Right now I'm building a Praet while working the two scientists, and it's continuing to grow. Honestly, I need to get a mine or two built on the plains hills, but I don't really have the workers to spare right now--I also am building a mine at Caldisla so I can have some chance of getting the Forge and Forum built in a reasonable timeframe.

You can also see I uncovered a couple more of B4ndit's cities--and each has a single unit defending them
*sigh* And yet I must resist, since I'm still in my war with eastway...


Okay, I admit it--I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing in this war. I want to move my stack 1SE, but I know as soon as I do 5 Numidian Cavs are going to pop out of the fog and decimate it with no losses, because that's how the RNG hates me in this war. In addition, I feel like if I move my stack south (like I did last time, in an effort to take the gold hill or circle around to Eglarest), those same Cavs are going to take Hartschild (though it's fortified with archers, which are a decent match against the 5 strength Cavs). Seriously, what should I be doing here? I don't know if you guys can say anything without spoiling stuff, but I'm clueless here, and honestly my decisions here are probably going to impact whether eastway or AT is in the lead as we move into the Renaissance. I can either sit on this hill forever, move towards Isengard, circle around towards Eglarest, or try to get straight peace and attack B4ndit. I know what I want to do (attack B4ndit, since I'll almost certainly win Peace, along with Bursa and/or Konya--though admittedly I might burn those since I don't think I can hold them with my relatively small forces in the east), but I feel like that might relegate me to fighting with Twinkletoes for third, while staying in the eastway war might provoke AT and Twinkletoes to rejoin with Maces (and Cho-Ko-Nus for AT--especially since they aren't weak to the Cavs).

Again, the overview is being postponed, but there's some interesting stuff there--for example I finally found Edirne (B4ndit's third city), and it's the same distance from Istanbul as Peace is from Caldisla

[Cheater Hater]

T86 Report:


Not much here--the main thing is that I'm abandoning settling on the banana and moving my city 1E. While the fog doesn't help that, the main reason I can do so comes from the worker that's chopping right now--that chop will go to the workboat, then I'll be able to move and improve the banana right away, which means I'll get two quick food sources without having to steal it from another city. I also whipped the Forge in Starkfort, since it's still not working many meaningful tiles.


Lots of specialists here--I'm working the spy in Norende and two scientists in Miasma Woods, both mainly because I need to slow down their growth until the Sugar gets hooked up (and roaded--that's an extra turn, but there still shouldn't be any unhappiness). And B4ndit doesn't have many more units--an Axe showed up in B4ndit's G, and Istanbul has only an Archer, with a Spear sitting outside. I really should do a power analysis to figure out where all of B4ndit's power is--Edirne has 3 units (2 Axes and a Spear I think, I need to check), but I haven't seen any of his Horse Archers except for the one in G, and we know he has a ton of those.


I hate war--not much else is new. No new units in either Isengard or Peace, and I have 2 more Praets heading onto the hill next turn. That will bring me to 10 units--I'm about ready to just say **** it, move the 10 units towards the gold hill (not sure which path yet), and see what happens :/

(if I don't mention the overview will they forget about it?)

[Old Harry]

It'd help a bit if you turn resource bubbles on - I have no idea where this banana is!

Also I have a clever solution to your hatred of war, but I may be too late. Wanna hear it?

[Cheater Hater]

Yeah, I keep forgetting to turn the resource bubbles on, since it's off every single time I load the save. There's two bananas near the new city: one that my spear is currently standing on (that was the one I was going to settle on top of), and there's one to the north by AT's border (that is in the new city's fat cross now, but wouldn't be if I settled on the first banana).

All hints/helpfulness are welcome here
I don't know how it could be too late though, unless it's "don't go to war with B4ndit back on T30" or "don't leave 3 workers exposed"--maybe you're saying don't expose the stack?

Still, seeing some participation is good--the lurker thread's been deserted for a couple weeks, I haven't seen much in my thread since the last RNG mess, and I haven't noticed lurkers posting in the other threads either--and that's with the world warring against eastway and bringing him back down to earth a bit (notice how he's even 3rd in score now, only ahead of the cellar-dwellers).

[Old Harry]

Hey, you can't be exciting all the time... lurkers are fickle.

The clever solution is something to do with the approx 900 peace offers you've turned down so far...

[Cheater Hater]

To be fair, I haven't been turning down peace offers much lately--the last offer I think I turned down was straight peace right when eastway took down my stack, but then he's been turning down all my peace offers recently--I've been offering similar deals to what he offered me before (back when he wanted me off his back after first stealing the workers), with the exception that I can't offer peace for his GPT (since he keeps running deficits to tech), so I offer for straight gold instead. Is the right answer supposed to be offering straight peace, just so I can quit fighting war I can't win, and letting eastway tech in peace? Of course, it's looking like "right" is relative based on player skill and war fatigue :/