[Spoilers] I have enough games already. Oh look, a PBEM !

[Miguelito]

OK, so it's official?

Well we definitely weren't winning, but it was just such an exciting moment for the game to be called right now

So this was a very fun game to lurk, and the turns I got to play got really exciting, who would've thought? Congrats for making the only real conquest of another player in this game
I've read the lurker thread, people saying we should have pressed on Grimace... While I am intrigued how this would have worked out, I'm still sceptical .... The terrain was very hilly, so we had no unit which would've got odds on the vultures... HAs didn't really look promising under that circumstances, longbows would just be good at defense (and actually it took quite a while to get the first couple running after the oracle build)... And Grimace really got a lot of those vultures out...

I'd also be interested in lurkers' opinion if feudalism was the right oracle goal, having also machinery and (with a little more risk) civil service on the table. I think it did speed up knights quite nicely, which worked out very well for us.

Sian attacking us instead of piling on Grimace... Well it worked out nicely for him, but maybe just because retep stayed passive at that moment?

So Adrien as always I enjoyed working with you: lol:
I think you did a really well executed knight rush there, also well organised defense from Grimace committing enough but not too much (although it did set us behind enough to lose us the south to Sian, which probably was what lost us the game).
I wasn't really present during the second half of the game, but I hope my uninformedly thrown in comments were some help or at least motivated you to keep up the nice reporting
As a hopefully constructive critique, I suspect (but am not sure because haven't been looking at the saves) that you undervalue the defensive potential of catapults. And dude, those banks .... (No actually I think going for rep was a valid decision, though I still think banks would've been superior)

GG! And have you really ended up playing in just two games now?

[Dreylin]

OK, so it's official?

Well we definitely weren't winning, but it was just such an exciting moment for the game to be called right now

So this was a very fun game to lurk, and the turns I got to play got really exciting, who would've thought? Congrats for making the only real conquest of another player in this game
I've read the lurker thread, people saying we should have pressed on Grimace... While I am intrigued how this would have worked out, I'm still sceptical .... The terrain was very hilly, so we had no unit which would've got odds on the vultures... HAs didn't really look promising under that circumstances, longbows would just be good at defense (and actually it took quite a while to get the first couple running after the oracle build)... And Grimace really got a lot of those vultures out...

I'd also be interested in lurkers' opinion if feudalism was the right oracle goal, having also machinery and (with a little more risk) civil service on the table. I think it did speed up knights quite nicely, which worked out very well for us.

I had to check whether you were already at war with Grimace at the time you popped the Oracle (OH, yes), but if you'd taken Machinery instead that would have opened up Crossbows to counter his Vulture-rush. And in Hilly country, there's always GII...

[Miguelito]

OK, so it's official?

Well we definitely weren't winning, but it was just such an exciting moment for the game to be called right now

So this was a very fun game to lurk, and the turns I got to play got really exciting, who would've thought? Congrats for making the only real conquest of another player in this game
I've read the lurker thread, people saying we should have pressed on Grimace... While I am intrigued how this would have worked out, I'm still sceptical .... The terrain was very hilly, so we had no unit which would've got odds on the vultures... HAs didn't really look promising under that circumstances, longbows would just be good at defense (and actually it took quite a while to get the first couple running after the oracle build)... And Grimace really got a lot of those vultures out...

I'd also be interested in lurkers' opinion if feudalism was the right oracle goal, having also machinery and (with a little more risk) civil service on the table. I think it did speed up knights quite nicely, which worked out very well for us.

I had to check whether you were already at war with Grimace at the time you popped the Oracle (OH, yes), but if you'd taken Machinery instead that would have opened up Crossbows to counter his Vulture-rush. And in Hilly country, there's always GII...

We did consider that, but it's not that easy actually, as CB's also would have required archery plus IW plus hiking the iron (if inside borders). So I think at least five turns more, by which time he already has at least 6 vultures at our city. And dies a crossbow actually beat a vulture on a forested hill, or even a bare one, cost effectively?

[AdrienIer]

Summary of the game (if Sian Retep and Grimace don't want to read the whole thing), and a few thoughts as well.

We picked Greece for the starting techs first, but also for cheap odeons (they became pretty handy in the mid game, they are a +2happy building after all). The phalanxe allows you to survive a little longer without at least as many spears as axes, and that was essential to us in the end. Grimace had no counter to our UU, his own UU being inferior to it, and we could concentrate on phalanxes without building a more diverse group that could have fallen more easily to vultures. So essentially not a bad choice. Willem was pretty good, fin/colossus coasts are really great in 2.0.7.6 and I really like loose dotmaps so cre was useful there.

The beginning was ok, and then during my time in the US the most important decision of the game happened. You can see the situation on page 17, Grimace's city closed the area to us and it wasn't defended so I made the final call to raze it. If we hadn't had a settler beat by a few turns to that spot (that was therefore ready to settle right away after the raze), if Grimace had settled 1S, if his vulture had been a turn quicker on the spot, none of this would have happened. As expected Grimace went into revenge mode, and blocked our expansion for some time. I think that if we had made peace a bit sooner we could have gotten to the Nimzowitch site before Sian, then expanded into the peninsula that Grimace eventually settled (at least the eastern sites) and from there snowballed Retep-style. Maybe the Anjar site too ? IDK but it would have been a possibility. With those 3 or 4 cities we'd have been almost as big as Sian, but with fin instead of agg as our main trait. So instead we turtled and teched to knights, attacked Grimace with knights when Sian attacked us (still not sure why, in the end this move literally made him lost the game because we, like Grimace to us, held a grudge). Thankfully he proposed peace (taking 2 cities overall) just as Retep attacked, so Retep's attack didn't work.

I managed to take important cities from Grimace, but Sian once again pissed me off by sniping a major one from under my nose, using the 10t peace treaty to make sure I could't take it back. That's the moment I realized that several wonders including the MoM and TGL were not yet taken, and that even if Retep had a headstart on Lib I could go directly for nationalism and GE the taj mahal. I think that worked really well, nationalism is amazing, I got 2 back to back MoM GA that put me back into the race. Teching constitution allowed me to be the demo leader, which was actually very bad. I had refused a 10t peace treaty from Retep (which was a mistake in retrospect) and looking so strong while having too small of an army was not a good combo. I eventually realized that Sian was passing Retep thanks to his new cities, so changed my plan and offered Retep an alliance offer against Sian. He said yes but eventually backstabbed me. Which was annoying, but not worse than what Sian had done before.

I had to give away most of former Grimaceland to Sian to make peace, in order to not die and defend myself against Retep. Thankfully he only took Pappus (and the colossus ) and I survived with my core intact. After some time, it was clear that this was going to be a race between Sian and Retep, and I wanted Retep to win so I exchanged Pappus for my help in their war. I thought that if Retep got stuck on his side and I could take Grimaceland rapidly I still had a chance but it was probably not true. So in the end GG Retep !

Overall Grimace's game was screwed mid July, sorry about that.
Retep played pretty well except for the two attacks on me which didn't go very well and both forced me to hand over lots of cities to Sian.
Sian played a good game, but was a bit of a dick (talking about ingame actions of course) which made you lose the game.
I made many mistakes, but I don't think Miguelito and I did so badly in the end.

[AdrienIer]

OK, so it's official?

Well we definitely weren't winning, but it was just such an exciting moment for the game to be called right now

So this was a very fun game to lurk, and the turns I got to play got really exciting, who would've thought? Congrats for making the only real conquest of another player in this game
I've read the lurker thread, people saying we should have pressed on Grimace... While I am intrigued how this would have worked out, I'm still sceptical .... The terrain was very hilly, so we had no unit which would've got odds on the vultures... HAs didn't really look promising under that circumstances, longbows would just be good at defense (and actually it took quite a while to get the first couple running after the oracle build)... And Grimace really got a lot of those vultures out...

I'd also be interested in lurkers' opinion if feudalism was the right oracle goal, having also machinery and (with a little more risk) civil service on the table. I think it did speed up knights quite nicely, which worked out very well for us.

Sian attacking us instead of piling on Grimace... Well it worked out nicely for him, but maybe just because retep stayed passive at that moment?

So Adrien as always I enjoyed working with you: lol:
I think you did a really well executed knight rush there, also well organised defense from Grimace committing enough but not too much (although it did set us behind enough to lose us the south to Sian, which probably was what lost us the game).
I wasn't really present during the second half of the game, but I hope my uninformedly thrown in comments were some help or at least motivated you to keep up the nice reporting
As a hopefully constructive critique, I suspect (but am not sure because haven't been looking at the saves) that you undervalue the defensive potential of catapults. And dude, those banks .... (No actually I think going for rep was a valid decision, though I still think banks would've been superior)

GG! And have you really ended up playing in just two games now?

Yes attacking vultures with HAs is not very cost effective. It's the main advantage of vultures over axes really, they get better odds on non melee. Lurker input on our oracle choice would be great yes. As I said in the summary Sian's attacks on us worked because Retep piled in and it was a choice between dying rapidly or giving Sian some cities for peace. Else Retep would have snowballed in peace and he'd have won this months ago.

It was fun working with you ! Too bad you couldn't participate more these pas few months, but you were still helpful !

I am only playing in 2 games, one of which has been reduced to waiting for our death for months. But I have a busier schedule generally so it's not so bad.

[Sian]

The main reason why I attacked you doing your second war with Grimace was that i was concerned that if you just ate him up without opposition, you would be to strong to stop later on. Furthermore you managed to settle the bordercity with me a mere 2 turns before i would have had gotten my settler there, and your first long war with grimace led me into overreaching with my cities into the southern link between you and grimace.

And later on where you attacked me i lacked the coolness, and was concerned about overextending to complete the annexation of you instead of merely grabbing a few Grimace cities ... really should at the very least have forced my way into getting your initial battle point with Grimace as well, as to get a clearer and shorter border, linking up the old Grimace lands and the southern link.
And it wasn't helped by the fact that if you hadn't attacked me for another 3-5 turns (so i could have had gotten to Curassiers, was shuffling around my army to stay out of sight from the axe that retep had in my lands which i was disinclined to kick out as that would have telegraphed my intent) i would have had attacked Retep while he still didn't have Engineering (IIRC), hoping to make a reasonable dent in him

Also, the lack of you expanding in any way towards Retep was quite a bet in the larger scheme of things, you should at least have been able to settle Anjar and Aden without much challange

[AdrienIer]

Wouldn't you have prospered by just sharing Grimaceland with me ?

About Anjar we'd have settled it if the Grimace war hadn't stopped our expansion.

[Grimace]

Well, to be honest the only thing that would have caused me to take peace would have been giving up the city, so there really wasn't a way you were going to get it until about the time we did sign a peace treaty.

As far as that city goes, from my point of view, that strip of land was the border between our two areas of influence -- I left you room for a city in the north so you could control my side of it, but in such a way that you couldn't settle more cities on my side. I figured you'd take that as it seemed the natural thing to me. Instead, you razed my city and settled another in a spot that was going to seriously pressure my expansion, so yeah, I went to war. At that point I knew the game was lost to me unless I managed to win a war with you, so as far as I was concerned I had nothing to lose. But, as I'm sure you've now read in my thread, I figured if I was going to lose I might as well take you with me.

Yes, a better player than me might have been able to recover and still do well, but I'm mediocre at best, so if my expansion is screwed that early my long-term prospects are toast. Congrats on managing to do as well as you did and still hold me off.

[AdrienIer]

I agree that once we had razed your city you were in a very dire situation. My main issue was that settling north of where we eventually settled meant a much slower city with jungled resources. While you could have settled 1S of where you did and kept most of the benefits. But perhaps you hadn't scouted those areas ?

[Miguelito]

My point is still that
- you saw our settler
- you saw at least one phalanx
- you had scouted the northern area and knew that your plant invalidated any good city site for us
- still you decided to plant that city, while 1S would have been perfectly fine, and on top of it you protected it with just one warrior, knowing we would easily be able to raze

At least it made for an entertaining war . I certainly got anchors when all those vultures kept trickling in . My biggest fear was that you would just march through the woods towards Thales and maybe even the capital, while we couldn't attack against defensive terrain and our forces were behind at the front city.
Did you consider that option or was it unviable for some reason?