[spoilers] wetbandit prioritizes civ4 over more profitable endeavors, again

[wetbandit]

That's the best illustration of stack size I've seen. Although somewhat boastful.

Objects in screenshot may be smaller than they appear.  

[wetbandit]

 

No big stack battle, but Ammo-Sexuals (coincidentally the Christian Holy City) was abandoned and I razed it:



Superdeath was in fact pivoting his navy around, but blundered and left his transports and escorts exposed to a naval attack from Florida.  He didn't see how Florida could have forted a grassland to canal his navy over. 





Superdeath had 29 transports, so only lost 3 of them.  They are obviously more important (presuming that they are loaded!) than the escorts, of which only 2 DDs survived. 

My navy happened to be in position to do something.




The end result gives me the strongest navy on this ocean.  It also put me nearly at power parity.



Please note losing gold at 100% gold on T353.  ACHIEVEMENT GET

Superdeath I think should just land his guys next to vanillaisis.  Florida doesn't have enough troops to deal with a 3 pronged attack (spoilers!).  HOPEFULLY, superdeath brought collateral and can reduce defenses and siege onto a stack.

I say 3 pronged because Aztec moved in in force.  Florida also abandoned his northern border city.



You will note Natty ISIS has no one in it and that's because there are NO transport ships within range of it.  No clue why Aztec has no modern navy.

Florida's forces are deployed to try and defend everywhere.  I don't think that's reasonably possible.  I can't see his cities, so I only know that Yokel Haram, Y'all Qaeda and Vanilla Isis are the top 3 cities.  I presume some others may be close as they've had multiple cities at 80% for some time. 




I only see 2 GAs.  I presume he is trying for more, but I have no idea how close they are. 







Even with 3GAs, I don't know if they can pull it off at the rate we are moving.  It's definitely going to be close.

Florida has token forces in Yokel Haram.  He has serious defenses in his capital and VanillaIsis.  VanillaIsis has all of his marines and machine guns, plus infantry.  Y'allqaeda has his mobile forces, tanks, cav, and arty.  Rail obviously lets them reposition with impunity, but they are forced to respect all 3 forces.

I really hope superdeath just lands his guys.  Florida can't move his big hitters to destroy them for fear that I or Aztec can blitz one of his other cities.  Losing his army in the water would probably...sink us.

[wetbandit]

Slowly walking to the capital.



Tanks can attack next turn.  That's not going to happen unless something weird happens.  Superdeath positioned his navy to be able to land and/or boat the city.  I bombarded defenses down there and in the other coastal just in case.

I don't think Florida can risk attacking out for fear of emptying his capital.  He can certainly hit my stack if I go adjacent to his city, which I will be forced to do, but I can occupy a hill and get bonuses for my MGs/Inf.  

In other news:



This is bad.  It's really bad for two reasons:

1. The obvious.  Aztec's army, instead of walking overland, may not get into position to threaten a culture city before it goes legendary.  Moreover, by walking this way, it can only threaten YokelHaram, which will presumably go legendary after this turn.  It will take about 4 turns to walk overland to it.  So Florida may win and Aztec's army won't factor in one bit.

2.  Even if my army and superdeath's army are able to raze a legendary city or otherwise prevent a Florida CV, Aztec's army, will theoretically be undamaged or little damaged.  It will be closer to my borders and DZ's borders.  DZ will have an army, I won't, and Florida won't.  They could just turn around and clean up Florida, wipe me out, or perhaps even DZ.  That would put them in good position in a postwar world with an army and one tech from bombers, which they could ride to domination.  They've been so passive this game that I can't predict what they're going to do, but if that was their thinking, that's ruthless.  In any event, I'd prefer that the large armies are more distant from my lands rather than closer to them.  This is not that.  

Of course, I don't think their backing out will allow us to prevent a CV as Florida can effectively mass defenses in their capital.

DZ still seems to have his forces arrayed against Aztec, but he doesn't need to move much into my land to effectively wreck me.  I am really selling out to stop the CV, which seems fun from a gameplay perspective, but DZ may have a chance to really vault forward here.  He revolted into CS/SP and that indicates to me he has no intention of sitting around.  I just hope he doesn't decide to blow me up after all this build up.

[wetbandit]

Yokel went legendary.  VanillaIsis went from 43307 to 44024 (+713), YallQaeda went from 40663 to 41599 (+936).  That's impressive.  With his 2 GAs, he's basically there in Yallqaeda.  He makes another GA, he's there in 2 turns in VanillaIsis, assuming it's born there.  It would be interesting to know if/where he has a likely GA to be born.



Here is the lay of the land.



I moved in and razed athens.  I have yet to move my big stack towards Yallqaeda.

It's been a weird day personally and that's influencing my view of the game.  I can't help but observe, notwithstanding superdeath's naval forays, that I'm the only one with any real skin in the game right now to do something about this culture victory.  superdeath is counting on my stack to do something before he lands his stack.  That makes no sense to me, I guess he's trying to fork VanillaIsis.

I honestly don't think my stack can survive one big direct hit.  There are ~82 tanks, 53 MGs, 23 infantry, 80 Arty, 10 ATs.  Even standing on a hill tile confers bonuses to less than half the stack.  Florida has 87 Inf, ~38 tanks, ~60 Cav, ~15 Marines, and ~40 Arty.  Plus some assorted trash.  The arty is going to wreck my hitters and then the 80 Arty and 53 MGs bear the brunt.   And then I get crippling WW.

I think I am the clear loser in any scenario, either because Florida's CV succeeds or my stack gets wiped and everyone else has an army.  Essentially for doing all of the work, I'm going to guarantee myself a loss.  I think Aztec are the clear winners in this scenario as they can take as much land as they want.

I am particularly resentful that Aztec would end up a winner in this scenario since they've been so damn passive.  It's very irksome.  I'm going to finish the turn later and probably begrudingly move my forces adjacent to Yallqaeda to get slaughtered, and then slowly die over the next 40 turns if we stop the CV.  None of this sounds appealing at all.

[wetbandit]

Playing through the turn now and I am having wildly disparate amounts of units affected by collateral damage.  No one will ever mistake me for being a code monkey, but I don't understand this. I am having some artillery attacks that deal collateral damage to 0 units.  Sometimes 5-7 units.  This seems wildly wrong.

[wetbandit]

And now it's on the order of 0-3 per attack. I don't understand.

[Commodore]

This is expected with a stack that full of collateral-immune MGs and Arty.

[Fintourist]

Yeah, the luck factor here is whether the game randoms immune vs. non-immune units as targets. So at the beginning the % of non-immune units determines the expected amount of hits. Once some units start reaching the max amount of collateral damage, expected hits start decreasing. (assuming my memory serves me right)

[wetbandit]

This is expected with a stack that full of collateral-immune MGs and Arty.

Even if Arty and MGs remain legal targets of collateral, as they seem to be if this is occurring, they comprise about 1/3 of his stack.  There aren't many collateral immune units below the max damage threshold.  Perhaps my arty isn't surviving enough rounds to engage up to its target maximum?

It seems then that this was all a fait accompli as there's basically no damage being done.

[Fintourist]

Perhaps my arty isn't surviving enough rounds to engage up to its target maximum?

This should not be the case. If you attack with catapults against a stack of modern armors, the cat will constantly get 6 collateral hits despite dying in 3-4 rounds.