PBEM8 - regoarrarr takes over for Meatbalz

[regoarrarr]

I always get nervous when Shoot updates his thread. Like it's going to be something like

"Just dropped off 20 knights to regoarrarr" :-/

[novice]

I always get nervous when Shoot updates his thread. Like it's going to be something like

"Just dropped off 20 knights to regoarrarr" :-/

How many knights can you handle?

[regoarrarr]

How many knights can you handle?

Well now you're just MESSING with me!!!

I guess it kind of depends on when and where they show up. I have my main "anti-Shoot" stack (consisting mostly of cats and pikes) hanging out between Cumin and Saffron. As I mentioned in my last update, I ran 0% science as well which will finance I believe 2-3 holkan->pike upgrades if necessary.

I also have put 3 hammers into a pike at Cumin, so I can double whip it if needed.

So if it's a "dagger" stack with say 10-15 knights by themselves (similar to the 13 HA stack that razed Cumin #1), I think I might be okay. I'd have 6 pikes behind 20% walls on a hill, plus assorted other units. I'd have cats available to hit out if needed.

If it's more of a "hammer" stack, with say 20-30 units of assorted types, I do have several cats available to hit out, as I say, but I'm low on high strength units that could clear out a bunch of knights and maces, even catted down. I think that would be more difficult.

The worst time would be in say 3-4 turns, when I've moved the bulk of my existing forces down south as part of Operation Lot. In fact, depending on the rate of culture ownership of "the" tile, I may delay the Operation a few turns until I can get a more credible and beefed-up "anti-Shoot" stack.

I was also thinking last night that there may be some sort of Ackbarian / ad-hocian () "It's a Trap!" stack hanging out behind his city where I can't see them. The last thing I want is for me to take the city, then find there's 10 cats and 15 other units hanging back one tile further. His power is higher than mine, and he doesn't have much in the way of cities or buildings so it's gotta be mostly units, and they've got to be somewhere....

[regoarrarr]

So continuing on the Operation Lot sit-rep
Sit-rep of forces available as of the current turn [strike]T120[/strike] T121

Already in-theater (defined as in Cardamom besides 1 CG archer which will remain behind). Note that I am going to keep some of these guys closer to StM for another turn or two just in case):
* 3 archers (1 G2, 1 G1, 1 no promo)
* 1 chariot (C1 medic)
* 2 xbow (C2 formation, 3xp)
* 1 longbow (5xp)
* 3 cats (2 5xp, 1 CR1)
* 2 workers
* 2 maces (1 C1, 1 3XP)

On the way:
* 2 xbow (1 5xp, 1 3xp)
* 1 knight
* 1 mace and 1 crossbow from the Serdoa island

In-production:
* Knight in Cinnamon (whipped this turn - T121, born T122, arrives T124)
* Xbow in Cardamom (due T122)
* Mace in Paprika (due T123)
* Knight in Pepper (due 123)
* Knight in Saffron (whip it T122)

Queued up:
* Knight in Paprika (due 124)

So as that stands, that gives total forces of:
* 5 knights
* 4 maces
* 6 xbows
* 5 cats
* 1 longbow
* 1 chariot
* 3 archers
* 2 workers

I've had some problems with force and hammer estimating (mostly because I'm a doofus), but I think this should be accurate.

[regoarrarr]

So a few other notes - like I mentioned earlier, I am a bit worried about an Ackbarian trap move, but, unless WK kills my galley (a definite possibility)



I should be just in time to defog some of the southern ad hoc tiles. Slightly off screen is a size 12 coastal WK city guarded by a sole archer. Man if I had loaded this galley up that would be some good times!

Here's the tech screen - I'm going to run some numbers and see if I'm still losing beakers (probably). Back on Turn 112, I was down 3250 to StM and 3663 to WK



Shoot the Moon (Sury - on top) is up:
* Alpha (261)
* Meditation (69)
* Literature (174)
* Banking (609)
* Paper (522)
* Printing Press (1393)
* Education (1567)

That's a total of 4595 beakers I'm not surprised really, but it's sobering to see a deficit that isn't getting better any time soon

To WarriorKnight
* Alpha (261)
* Meditation (69)
* Literature (174)
* Banking (609)
* Paper (522)
* Printing Press (1393)
* Education (1567)
* Music (522)
* Liberalism (1219)
* Nationalism (1567)

I'm up Monotheism (104), Theology (435) and Drama (261), which gives a net of 7103 beakers Granted some of that is the free 1567 beakers he got but man I didn't realize the pace was getting THAT bad. At this point I don't even know what the friggin point of continuing is....

[regoarrarr]

Upon loading the game, the horns of war sounded..... but it was just Shoot the Moon sinking that exploring galley of mine with a trireme. Seems like kind of a foolish move for him so far away from his own lands. Wouldn't he have felt foolish had that galley had 2 maces in it about to raze a WarriorKnight (his main competitor's) city! Oh well - I'll be able to scout some of the "hiding" places he might have a mini stack hiding behind his frontline city, but I don't think I'll be able to see them all. Hopefully that doesn't burn me too badly.

So continuing on the Operation Lot sit-rep
Sit-rep of forces available as of the current turn [strike]T120[/strike] [strike]T121[/strike] T122

Already in-theater (defined as in Cardamom besides 1 CG archer which will remain behind). Note that I am going to keep some of these guys closer to StM for another turn or two just in case):
* 3 archers (1 G2, 1 G1, 1 no promo)
* 1 chariot (C1 medic)
* 3 xbow (C2 formation, 2 3xp)
* 1 longbow (5xp)
* 5 cats (4 5xp, 1 CR1)
* 2 workers
* 2 maces (1 C1, 1 3XP)

On the way:
* 1 xbow (1 5xp)
* 2 knights
* 1 mace and 1 crossbow from the Serdoa island (had to use my workers to road a desert hill where they landed to get them here on time!)

In-production:
* Xbow in Cardamom (due T123)
* Mace in Paprika (due T123)
* Knight in Pepper (due 123)
* Knight in Saffron (whipped this turn - T122)

Queued up:
* Knight in Paprika (due 124)

So as that stands, that gives total forces of:
* 5 knights
* 4 maces
* 6 xbows
* 5 cats
* 1 longbow
* 1 chariot
* 3 archers
* 2 workers

Ok - good to see that I seem to have "settled" on an overall troop composition - I'm not sure what in the heck I was doing the past few turns where the numbers kept changing every time I figgered em .

"The" tile is down to 51% - 2 turns to go. It's going to be tight! Though oddly enough, after I ended turn it was back up to 52%. Maybe some sort of mechanic with PBEM games where "my" culture is applied to the tile after the end of my turn, and same for ad hoc? I just need 2 turns people! As I discussed with darrell yesterday, with the peak tile right next to it, it went down to 49% Mayan and I still had control of it for one turn, and then the NEXT turn after it flipped to ad hoc. So I think I'm going to be okay, but I'm sure glad that I moved D-Day up 1 turn.

[darrelljs]

Can you post an updated picture of your other front. I know you said your cities can't be forked but I'd like to look at it just to verify. Zoom out to cover as much of his lands as you can see please .

Darrell

[regoarrarr]

Okay - here's an overall shot of all my lands. At least the mainland cities.



Legend:
* Yellow Circle - that's "the" tile that we have been talking about - you can see ad hoc's city at the very bottom of the screen.
* Blue Circles - These are tiles that can be hit from the fog by 2 movers (keep in mind he's India so has FWs)
* Red Circles - These are tiles that can be hit from the fog by 1 movers (no, really, LOTS of FWs that he's stolen from me )
* Cyan Square - where my cat stack is currently. I also have some units inside Cumin and some "hanging out" between Cumin and Pepper

One note on the city square of Cumin - it currently can be hit by 2 movers via the desert hill 2NE, but not from the fog. At least as far as I can tell, any "staging" tile that would allow 2 movers to hit Cumin that way I have visibility on. Also, Cumin will pop 3rd ring borders in 2 turns which will put the desert tile (N-N-NE of the city square) in my borders, which will limit the majority of the tiles he can hit deep in my interior.

[regoarrarr]

So the very first thing I do when I get the save is I look for the red "The enemy has been spotted near <city>" messages. The very NEXT thing I do is open up Ctrl-tab for the event log and look for red messages.

So my heart jumped a bit this morning



Oh no!!! Where is Nicomedia?!?!!?

...

...

<deep breathing>

...

<hyperventilating>

...

Oh wait, Nicomedia is not a spice or seasoning!

Zooming out a bit revealed the following



Okay it looks like Shoot the Moon may have been otherwise occupied with his troops. I haven't gotten a chance to really investigate the save so I don't know any details of how many units he might have taken. Obviously I can only see the "death blow" knight but the city was on a hill, and it had a longbow, musket and an axe, so it's not like it was just one rogue knight.

[regoarrarr]

Okay so now that I have some more time available to check out the save, let's do a bit more of an update.

First of all - "the" tile is still at 51% Mayan, so it stands to reason that I'll still have cultural control of it next turn when Operation Lot kicks off. Also the garrison in the city is still the same, so we're looking like a "go"!

Let's do some analysis on the power graph.

Last turn, Max (shoot) Power was 697K and Average Power was 504K
This turn, Max (shoot) Power is 708K and Average Power is 507.5K

Errr... that wasn't what I expected. I'd have expected both of those to go down. Unless Serdoa did something crazy like remove his garrison, which I doubt. It's certainly possible that he just built more units than he lost...

But in any case, let's do a Operation Lot sit-rep
Sit-rep of forces available as of the current turn [strike]T120[/strike] [strike]T121[/strike] [strike]T122[/strike] T123

Already in-theater:



So I will leave 1 archer behind, and I did not include pictures of the 2 Guerilla archers that are on the border hill tiles.

One thing I did have to do was offload my xbow and mace from Serdoa's island on to this desert hill. I did that because I didn't want to put those units on to the spice tile that he can see, but only just now realized that he can also see that desert hill



But that meant I needed to road so that they could move and make the gold tile this turn (T123) to be able to attack next turn, while my workers next turn will move on the yellow path and road "the" "crucial" "tile".

The only forces not already on staging are 2 knights (1 from Pepper born this turn that will make it by one turn, and the 1 that Paprika will finish next turn)

So total forces going into the breach next turn

* 5 knights (all 5XP)
* 5 cats (4 5XP, 1 CR1)
* 3 archers (1 G2, 1 G1, 1 no promo)
* 1 chariot (C1 medic)
* 1 longbow (5xp)
* 4 maces (1 5xp, 1 3xp, 1 C1, 1 slightly injured C1 shock)
* 6 xbows (2 5xp, 2 3xp, 1 C1, 1 C2 Formation)
* 2 workers

In other news, my frontline city of Cumin will pop its 3rd ring at the end of turn, which a) puts it at 40% defense and b) eliminates some (but unfortunately not all) of the 2-mover weakness I have in my interior