SPOILERS-Tatan's PBEM10 Thread

[Tatan]

Technology


State: Mediocre. I have a lot of back-filling to do. My plans post-Astro are a bit in flux, but I'll outline a preliminary plan later.


Financial Advisor


I have no idea what these numbers mean, but it's food for the lurkers.


Civics


You know what would be great? If I could use the GP to pop a Golden Age to bounce into Vassalage and Theocracy for triple-promo units built in cities with a Barracks. Oh, that's right, I don't have those techs because my GNP is horrible. Shucks.


Military Advisor


The entirety of my forces. Which is really bad, because the vast majority are obsolete units; it says a lot when your most common unit is Spearmen in the late Medievel/early Renaissance Era. My military is so paper that when I build Recycling Centers they will be instantaneously transformed into pencils.


Religious Advisor


I'll just say this: think of how much better this screen would look if I had gotten like 4 missionaries.


Corporate Advisor


I post this picture only because I am struggling to understand why I snapped and uploaded it in the first place.


Espionage Advisor


I lack Demographics visibility on only TT and Ad Hoc. I have 48 EPs on Ad Hoc vs. his 40 on me, but I still don't have visibility due to that mysterious "128% EP cost"; anyone know what affects those percentages? Oh, and also, this picture is already outdated because next turn all EPs were fired at Serdoa.


Statistics Info Screen


This shows the extent of my infrastructure, for those interested. And yes, I don't have a single Courthouse. This isn't as bad as it sounds, because none of the maintenance costs in any individual city are very large, but I still need to get working on some. As soon as I don't get destroyed. Also, notice the total playing time of 71 hours and 3 minutes!


Top 5 Cities/Wonders Screen

Apparently my cities suck, despite being in a few cases several sizes bigger than these cities. Bah-humbog. Also, notice the lack of wonders built recently; Serdoa really has been plotting some warfare.


Victory Screen


Not much to say here. Why did I post this? (answer: leading scientists are still in disagreement)


Demographics


GNP: And this is after working every coast and scientist available. Not too good, but at least it is improving. Kinda. Rival Best is batshit insane, though.
Production: As I said, I'm working commerce right now, so this isn't as bad as it looks. The disparity between myself and Rival Best in small, and I always have slaving.
Food: Awwww yeah. To bad this is all going down the drain come the whip-fest.
Soldiers: And keep in mind that the soldiers I have are mostly obsolete.
Land Area: Not really anything I can do about this right now considering all unoccupied land that is currently accessible is taken.
Population: While I appear to be absolutely crushing everyone here, almost twice as much as the Rival Best, keep in mind this is because the game counts each city size to be worth exponentially more population. Food is a more accurate indicator of the way things are.
Approval Rate: As I said, most core cities are beginning to rub up against the happiness cap.
Life Expectancy: Not a very important category, and regardless everyone is running close together. I'm on the weak side simply due to bigger city sizes.
Exports-Imports: I have no idea what the difference is between positive and negative numbers are, but I'm pretty sure it's not good if the Rival Best [a.k.a. Mackoti] is at 145.


Graphs
GNP


Wait, it's Serdoa with the highest GNP?! That makes me feel better, that means a large portion of it is just culture. [RIGHT?!]

Production


You know, looking at these now, that giant spike in Serdoa's graphs should really have tipped me off. I'm going to have to start checking the graphs more frequently from now on. On a related note, Cyneheard's production is spiking as well...

Food


The only thing I really have going for me right now. I must leverage it wisely [ha-ha-ha, I think we all know how sucessful that's going to be].

Power


I think the calm is coming to a close.

Culture


lololololololololol

Espionage


The only important aspect here is that no one has built any EP-producing buildings yet, i.e. courthouses.

[Tatan]

Alright, time to distract everyone from my own mistakes by harshly judging everyone else!

In a rough [emphasis on rough] ascending order of the overall position in the game:

Serdoa
Cities: 8
Economy: Poor; Serdoa was really hurt both by the fact that he stunted his development on wonders and by the fact that he only has 8 cities
Military: Medium; Serdoa has the smallest army, but a lot of it seems to consist of knights
Threat to me: Medium or Very High; in a one-on-one I think I can push Serdoa back or at the very least fight to a stalemate, but if Cyneheard joins the war it will be very difficult to find enough troops to continue to oppose Serdoa effectively
Evaluation: Serdoa didn't fare too well in the early game, damaged by a foolhardy strategy [if I do say so myself], my opportunistic aggression, and his bad resource luck. Now he seems to have lost heart in the game, and chosen to go out with a bang against one of the main contributors to his crippling: me.

Twinkletoes
Cities: 10
Economy: Unknown, but I doubt it is exemplary; after all, he was forced into a desperate war with Ad Hoc
Military: Medium; his power rating is fairly high, but his army is most likely a defensive and slightly dated one
Threat to me: Almost non-existant
Evaluation: Twinkletoes appears to have played a solid game in terms of pure gameplay, but his opportunistic attack on Meatbalz early on and his war with Ad Hoc leaves him vulnerable on both flanks with a lagging economy.

Ad Hoc
Cities: 11
Economy: Unknown, but I can't believe that an unsuccessful attack on Twinkletoes could have been good for it
Military: Mediocre; apparently he largely exhausted his forces against TT, and I suspect he has been focussing on economy since
Threat to me: Low, kinda; I don't think he would attack me directly, but he seems to be close allies with Cyneheard, who could
Evaluation: Ad Hoc seems to have gambled [and lost] a lot on the attack on TT, and I think he is still trying to recover. Not much else to say.

Cyneheard
Cities: 13
Economy: Strong; not much else to say about it
Military: Solid; it's hard to tell exactly the extent of his forces, but I have reason to expect that he will be fielding knights, or a technologically equivelant unit
Threat to me: High as Lucy in the sky; his feet-shuffling with regards to a NAP is extremely suspect, his high power is unlikely to be heading at Ad Hoc, and he certainly knows that I would crumple in a two-front war.
Evaluation: Cyneheard the hardest to evaluate, because he is expert in the devious art of befriending someone without committing to anything. However, he has shown formidible civ-skills thus far, and stands as the clear number two leader in the game; what's more, he almost certainly knows that in order to compete with Mackoti's empire Cyneheard will need a lot more land, which is going to come from one of two places: Ad Hoc, or me. For previously outlined reasons and the fact that my economy is better than Ad Hoc's AND the fact that I am going to be getting a formidible UU soon, I believe my lands will be Cyneheard's chief target.

Mackoti
Cities: 14
Economy: Superb; Arabia has been expanding and building up for the entire game, except for the skirmish with TT, and the Great Lighthouse is doing him a huge amount of good []
Military: Strong; Arabia has a large power rating, the obvious advantages of being Agg/Chm, and most likely Camel Archers
Threat to me: Medium; it depends on how much Mackoti supports Serdoa
Evaluation: Everyone knew the GL would grant some outrageous bonuses, and yet no one was willing to forsake trade benefits received by everyone else, which led to Meatbalz expanding rapidly without really slowing his teching. Twinkletoes and maybe Serdoa could have opposed Meatbalz, but both came under attack by neighbors [whoops]. Now Mackoti has probably most formitable force of anyone, one weak neighbor who is indebted to him, and another weak neighbor who is geopolitically isolated. All Mackoti must do is attack Twinkletoes, and absorb him, and I believe he will be in a winning position, or at least a position where if no one interferes he would win. His long-term rival is clearly Cyneheard, but neither are in a position to directly hinder the other currently.

And, for comparison, here is my self-evaluation:
Tatan
Cities: 12
Economy: Mediocre; my GNP is poor, and although my Pop is fantastic I have yet to show that I can leverage that advantage
Military: Weak; I have a lot of soldiers, but they are almost all obsolete units; what's more, the only state-of-the-art units I can build are maces, xbows, and cats, none of which are able to counter knights effectively
Threat to everyone else: Low, unless I can convince Cyneheard not to attack me, in which case I might be able to counter-invade Serdoa
Evaluation: My game is not been really horrible in any one point, but overall I have done quite a lot of things just poorly in general. The weakest point has probably been diplomacy, in which I shown myself generally just not very good at, and my peace treaty with Serdoa was, in retrospect, the single worst decision in the entirety of my game [no definite date for missionaries, a vague outline for gold gifting, and worst of all, NO NAP]. My city management and my tile micro have both been less than inspiring. And the attack on Serdoa was also flawed, although I didn't screw it up as much as I could have, and as much as I screwed up the peace treaty. Frankly, I'm mystified that I've even still been in the running for this long; I guess it was due mostly to the misfortunes of Ad Hoc and Twinkletoes, and the botched early game of Serdoa. Regardless, I'm not in the running anymore. I'm doubtful I can even survive if Cyneheard attacks me, let alone have a chance of winning, and even if he maintains peace it is pretty clear that I am going to have to exterminate Serdoa completely in order for him to leave me alone.

[Tatan]

Of course, Serdoa made a lot of this obsolete now. Actually, almost all of it. So screw it, I'll post revised plans after the war-report.

---

So, any questions about the Report?

Anyone need more pictures?

[Mist]

I have no idea what the difference is between positive and negative numbers are, but I'm pretty sure it's not good if the Rival Best [a.k.a. Mackoti] is at 145.

Imports-Exports are a difference between commerce you get from trade with others and commerce they get from trading with you. Being in negative numbers means your trading partners get a much better deal from your mutual trade and you're subsidizing them to the tune of 57 commerce a turn ( did I see you say you lag in GNP? ).

If you're ok to live with this keep going. If not consider mercantilism or closing borders with people you don't like

Very nice update btw. Gives an excellent... picture of things

[Tatan]

Imports-Exports are a difference between commerce you get from trade with others and commerce they get from trading with you. Being in negative numbers means your trading partners get a much better deal from your mutual trade and you're subsidizing them to the tune of 57 commerce a turn ( did I see you say you lag in GNP? ).

Err... whoops? I did not think other people would be able to get that much more trade route commerce from me. Frick. Of course, the problem now is, who do I cancel trade with? I don't want to make anyone mad, considering I already don't really have any friends. Maybe this would be a good time to summarize my Diplomatic deals w/ everybody.

Ad Hoc
-Open borders

Twinkletoes
-Open borders

Serdoa
-Importing Can of Whoop-ass and exporting corpses and rubble

Mackoti
-Open borders
-NAP up through Turn 137

Cyneheard
-Open borders
-NAP up through Turn 110


It's also worth mentioning that if Serdoa HAD honored the peace treaty I would have had to sign OB with him as well.

So these five, whose trade routes aren't worth helping them? And whose opinions potentially won't matter in 10 turns, hmmm.... Gee, I wonder. Cyneheard has not responded since my email, so I will prolly wait until I get the turn [for all I know right now he could have simply not checked his email yet to play the turn], and then I will send him a pokey email, which if he does not respond to/responds vaguely to, it's embargo time.

But then again... one could make the case that I shouldn't because this would tip him off that I know his warful intentions, AND if he genuinely did want to wait until Turn 105 to see how things shook out, he might actually consider attacking me. So, in summary: I have no idea what I'm doing. Time to wing it!


Also

Very nice update btw. Gives an excellent... picture of things

[SevenSpirits]

Don't put too much stock in that imports-exports number.

Even if you cancelled deals with them, their trade routes wouldn't disappear. They might be replaced by equally profitable routes to other players' cities, or by only slightly less profitable internal routes.

[Tatan]

Don't put too much stock in that imports-exports number.

Even if you cancelled deals with them, their trade routes wouldn't disappear. They might be replaced by equally profitable routes to other players' cities, or by only slightly less profitable internal routes.

Even so, my trade routes are probably worth more to other players due to my cities' sizes. Still, you have a point.

[Tatan]

It’s worth mentioning that Thucydides choose his subject appropriately:




I opened the turn, and indeed, a deadly ambush was in store for me:



ATTACK OF THE ICEBERGS! Run, little caravel, run!

…Oh, also:



“Oh, dandy, the Buddhist missionaries from Russia are here! Let us ride out to greet them. Wow, there sure are a lot! I see they have replaced their traditional garb with a metal robe of some kind. Wait a second, why would they be carrying swords, I thought Buddhists were non-violen-“
-Last words of the Governor of Aren

Aren is doomed, there is no way I can hold it. I might have had a slim chance of delaying Serdoa for a turn, and then doing an amphibious attack with mace reinforcements, but it would have been risky and destroyed my entire army in the area if it failed. So I whipped out a mace for Aren, loaded the two spears in the city into a nearby galley to escape, and then moved my archer and sword out over land [could have moved the worker, too, but I had already deleted it out of reflex]. All nearby maces and catapults in nearby galleys were also moved into position, along with all the spare troops by Ehrlitan. Here is the current situation:



Here is the extremely poor tactical plan. After Serdoa takes [and, unless he is an idiot, razes] Aren, he can either wait to around to cover the other knights and potentially any other knights dropping off, or he can charge in with the remainder towards Ehrlitan. I would have to sim a bit to verify, but I might be able to counter-attack and destroy or at least maul the stack if Serdoa advances. Probably not, though, in which case I will have to continue desperately shipping units in. Since spears are the best anti-cavalry unit I have available currently, my best unit I can field will actually be maces, who have the same effective strength against knights [Spear: 4 base+100%=8, Mace: 8 base=8] but have better strength increase from promotions. The problem is that my best unit versus his best unit is 8 vs. 10 strength. Need to fix that. The hopeful thing is, since Serdoa’s power is significantly lower I am pretty sure that these knights are all or almost all of Serdoa’s offensive force right now, meaning that if I can kill them I will have a few turns of breathing room until Serdoa comes knocking with the next wave.

[Tatan]

So, it might be worth looking into my Overall Game-plan at this point.

My immediate priority techs [in no real order]:
-Astro [4 turns left], for naval supremacy
-Engineering, for pikes
-Feudalism, for longbows and Vassalage
-Theology, for Theocracy [not 100% sure about this one]
-Guilds, for knights [fight fire with fire!]
-Nationalism, for Nationalism [go figure]

I’m unsure exactly what to do and when; it depends a lot on what Cyneheard chooses to do. Astro and Engineering are the two clear most important techs [not sure whether or not to switch to Engineering straight away or not]. After that, I’m leaning towards using the 98% odds Great Engineer I’m going to get in order to pop a Golden Age, roll through Feudalism and Feudalism, and revolt sans Anarchy. Of course, I must weigh this with simply popping a Golden Age now for the critical extra production. Uncertainty.


My broad military strategy depends, again, on the actions of Cyneheard. If I could somehow acquire a NAP with him:
-Play stimulation/response defense with Serdoa, focusing on the defense of Ehrlitan.
-Upon the elimination of his invaders and discovering Astro, I can suppress or eliminate his galley-based navy and prevent further forces from landing, for the most part.
-At this point Serdoa will be effectively confined to producing land units, which will make holding land very difficult; thus, I will probably adopt the Sirian Doctrine and simply raze all his coastal cities on a particular island, and resettle it later.

I do not plan to make peace until he is eliminated, because crippling him and making peace will only leave me with a bitter enemy whose sole goal will be to kill me [actually, it already kinda is]. Also, I have shown myself totally inept at making peace treaties.

However, if war with Cyneheard seems imminent:
-I should try to wipe out Serdoa’s attackers as quickly as possible, and then simply keep enough forces there to keep Serdoa at bay.
-Meanwhile, my forces will stockpile in A&A and Monopoly.
-Upon the assault, Cottage County will be quickly lost; but with naval superiority I will attempt to hold the line there.
-As soon as possible a strike force will raze Cyneard’s iron city to the ground. Ad Hoc will probably trade iron to him anyway, but it will at least irritate Cyneheard.

I might try and obtain a peace treaty if it looks like I cannot hold both fronts, but I doubt Cyneheard would agree to one; my land is critical if he wants to match Mackoti.

This will not be a sustainable strategy by the time Cyneheard gets to galleons [which could be pretty soon, if he prioritizes it like I did], because my EIs won’t be unable to stop a fast enough moving navy from landing troops. If I can make it to drafting, I might be able to convince Cyneheard to call off the assault simply by making it too painful for him.


My game-winning strategy, folks.

[spacemanmf]

I dunno, with a 40% defence bonus plus any fortification bonus, would those spears not have been getting good odds against the knights?