[SPOILERS] Charriu and Zalson are fighting the honorable post count war!

[Zalson]

Well that and you can use the whip to make it not as useful while magissa survives.

[Charriu]

T169:

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Of course the big news of this turn is RFS' departure. RFS if you read this I will post what I think went wrong and try to summarize my thinking about you and why I did go to war. I also have to say that I find the message "Golden Void has been captured by Unlucky Orphans" somewhat funny.



I also have to take back my statements about Superdeath from last turn. He did indeed accept my offer. Apologies for that. And while we are at the topic of deals. Magic returned my sugar pig deal and I accepted.



Apparently Elkad moved his forces away from Wing Raptor. What is he doing? Is he giving up on me? Does he want to try his luck at Superdeath?

I moved part of my armyNext turn I will recapture Wing Raptor.



Elkad is not the only one doing strange moves. Maybe Shallow does want to try to take Wing Raptor first. Why else is he moving around my capitol?



Shallow is coming for Magissa. I could try to defend it against his 2 units on the galley, but honestly this is the only city I don't want to defend. Playing on with Magissa only would be so terrible. With my capitol I at least get something to do. So please excuse my bad behaviour of basically gifting this city to Shallow.



This is my current garrison in Exdeath.





I split my army and move one part in position to take back Wing Raptor. Should Elkad move his army back to defend it I will just capture and raze it next turn. I should be able to do that, because the city is leaving revolution. Should Elkad leave my territory I'm tempted to offer him peace so that I can concentrate on Shallow.

The other part of my western army returned to Liquid Flame. I expect a bigger army from Shallow there after he took out RFS.

[Charriu]

So this is my Summary for RFS:

Let's start with your Combo of Exp/Fin with Mongolia. I suppose that somebody else took the civ you wanted and you had to fallback to Mongolia. Mongolia is a great civ, but your traits did not synergize in any way with it. Fin is also a very weak trait in this version of RtR. I'm curious to see what your initial intention with Exp/Fin was, but don't tell me. I will know it when the game is over.
You where the first player I've met and when your warrior showed up on my border I was in a bit of struggle, because he was just at the location of my second city. Even before you settled Lighthouse I found this city very attractive and wanted it for my own. I noticed that you settled your second city even later then I settled mine and I was already late. In the next turns I noticed that you were falling back even more, so I started planning on attacking you from a pretty early point in the game.
Next time we met where on the three-way settler race between you, me and Coeurva. I think by that time you were 2 cities behind everybody else. Even if you had one that race you would not have been able to defend this city, as is was to far every from your other cities. As you know Coeurva won that race. By the time I was ready to attack you Elkad dropped stonehenge right at my border with him, so I attacked him instead of you. In hindsight this was a mistake. Nonetheless I soon attacked you and from that point on you had no chance of coming back.

I don't want to be so hard on you so here's a list of things that were good or great:

• Lighthouse was a great city placement, just don't call it Lighthouse the next time it gives away to much information.  
  
• Your third city by the stone was also a solid production city.
  
• You defended Lighthouse as best as possible.
  
• Early in the game your harassment with your warrior near my border was good even if you didn't intend to do that.
  

So what did wrong. Without knowing your microplan I think there are 4 main issues:

1. Your trait/civ combo wasn't a good one.
   
2. You grew your capitol to 5 before starting your first settler. This delayed your second city significantly.
   
3. You did not settle new cities fast enough. I think that happened because you were to focussed on growing your cities pop first.
   

To be honest I admired you that you for starting playing in MP even though you just started playing Civ 4 this year. That takes some balls. Don't feel to bad about yourself. It's perfectly normal to lose early in your first MP game, hell even in your second and I must know it. You will see that your game will improve a lot in your second game.

[Charriu]

T170:

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Elkad attacked and killed one of my CKN. Nooooooooooo And apparently Shallow started pillaging around former Siren.



No Shallow that's the wrong direction. Or did you forget to load units onto your galley?



Shallow moved his knight stack forward towards Wing Raptor. But he moved his cat stack into Proxim?????, don't know the city name.



I was lazy. This is Elkad's western stack N of Wing Raptor. He moved it back to his territory, but why?



And here is Elkad's western stack west of "Oasis". Mh maybe he wants to merge his armies. I also forget to take a screenshot of it, but I took back Wing Raptor:

Axeman C1 Shock     vs      Praetorian C2 Shock 4.1 HP = 96.6 WIN (4.2 HP left)

I did not get the chance to raze it and I think I now understand why: Because I still hold the mayority of culture in the city. I moved my stack into Wing Raptor as it now has 60% defense again. Taking back Wing Raptor also spread my culture towards Oasis again. For a short moment I was thinking about moving my hole stack there to attack Oasis, but then I remembered that Elkad has Engineering and can't reinforce the city fast.



And here is Shallow's western stack. I'm not afraid for Liquid Flame right now.

[Charriu]

T171:

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And all of a sudden Shallow offered peace. I declined.



So Shallow's stacks are moving northward. Does he want to attack Superdeath? Mh. I opted to send him a peace offer in return mainly because his army consists of knights and I don't have especially good units against those. Elkad on the other hand...



... has mostly melee units (praetorians) and is just know working on guilds. With my macemen I'm now in a better position. So I moved most of my units in position so that I can start a counterattack on him.

[Charriu]

Graphs and Cities:

Last turn I forgot those. Shame on me.  

Graphs:



Elkad has moved up to top player. That's mainly because he aquired 3 cities from me, while the other two gained less.











Cities:



Shallow left most of my villages unharmed.

[Charriu]

T172:

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Well all of Shallow's knights have left my vision after he accepted peace.



With only one enemy left it should be easier to handle the war. Elkad moved a spy in position, so now he knows that my units have left Liquid Flame. I've boarded my galley with a highly promoted spearman and maceman. Hopefully I can kill that spy next turn.



I moved my units in strike position. Elkad must see this and even if not he has some sentry units that will allow him to see this. I'm trying to force his hand here. It's possible that he moves back to Liquid Flame, but I should be able to reinforce it.

[RFS-81]

Hi!

Thanks for your comments. I agree that waiting too long to settle was a huge mistake.

How exactly is the name Lighthouse giving away info? Someone sees it on the trade screen and knows I have a coastal city with lots of water? I mean, that I would want a lighthouse in such a city at some point is pretty obvious, isn't it? I liked to find names in my naming scheme that fit the city location. Probably best not to do that. On that note, do you think Rocky Paths gave away info?

I'd wish you good luck, but at this point I guess all I can say is make them pay for it!

[Charriu]

Hi!

Thanks for your comments. I agree that waiting too long to settle was a huge mistake.

How exactly is the name Lighthouse giving away info? Someone sees it on the trade screen and knows I have a coastal city with lots of water? I mean, that I would want a lighthouse in such a city at some point is pretty obvious, isn't it? I liked to find names in my naming scheme that fit the city location. Probably best not to do that. On that note, do you think Rocky Paths gave away info?

I'd wish you good luck, but at this point I guess all I can say is make them pay for it!

I find that naming scheme attractive, but I think in MP the less information you give to the other players the better. Lighthouse told everybody that this city is on the coast and has many water tiles and/or lakes. Rocky Paths could be a city with stone/marble, a production heavy city or a city with many hills and/or mountains.

Thanks for the well wishes, but at this point I'm only waiting for the others to concede to me.

[Charriu]

T173:

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I did a big mistake this turn. But back to the beginning first. Elkad moved all of his units out of view and left only 3 longbowmen and 1 archer in Oasis. I felt the need to bombard it with my 4 trebuchet down to 18% and then attack:

CKN cg1 drill 1 cover     vs      longbowman guerilla 1 = 1.9 Loss (Collateral to all others)
CKN cg1 drill 1 cover     vs      longbowman guerilla 1 = 5.1 Loss (Collateral to all others)
CKN cg1 drill 1 cover     vs      longbowman = 25 Loss (Collateral to all others)
Maceman cover c1 shock       vs      archer cg1 = 99.7 Win (Unharmed)
Swordsman c1 cr2     vs     longbowman guerilla 1 = 99.6 Win (0.9 HP)
CKN cg1 drill 3     vs     longbowman guerilla 1 = 99.5 Win (Unharmed and promotion)
axeman c1     vs     longbowman = 97.9 Win = 3.9

Oasis conquered and razed, 19 gold pillaged.

After that I noticed that Elkad has moved his stack just 1NW of Oasis. I totally forgot that he has 11 cats in that stack. It was a trap from the very beginning and Oasis was the bait. I moved my stack out of reach but I will propably lose the fighting units and the trebuchets. Well I don't think I will be attacking any more cities in the future anyway. At least I razed Oasis. Looking at the lost hammers:

Elkad: 150 (longbows) + 25 (archer) + 100 (settler) = 275 hammers
Me: 180 (CKN) = 180 hammers + losing units in the upcoming fight 320 (trebuchet) + 60 (CKN) + 40 (swordsman) + 35 (axeman) + 70 = 705 hammers

I was very stupid to do that.  

But I had a tiny victory elsewhere:



You remember that there was a sentry horse archer near Liquid Flame and that I bordered my galley last turn:

spearman c2 Formation     vs     horse archer flank sentry = 88 Win (0.2 HP)

I've put a maceman there to protect my highly promoted spearman. I wonder if Elkad had expected this.

After the fiasco at Oasis I offered Elkad peace. Hopefully he accepts it, but I highly doubt it. Now that I'm only fighting Elkad at our border I took the chance to switch to bureaucracy.