RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Lord Parkin]

Oh, I should mention we also got our first Great General this turn, and achieved our XP threshold to start on the Heroic Epic (due in 3 turns).

[Ellimist]

Next there was the bizarre matter of Crossing II. Nakor left that city with two - presumably fully loaded - Galleons inside, and only 1 Axeman defending. I'm really not sure what he was thinking. One of his most powerful cities - Moai, no less - and he just leaves it wide open for us? Only thing I can guess is that he didn't realise units inside ships don't defend cities. (They don't, for anyone wondering.)

Perhaps he didn't anticipate Rego giving you the first half of the turn timer.

[Lord Parkin]

Perhaps he didn't anticipate Rego giving you the first half of the turn timer.

Rego did not give me the first half of the timer. Mackoti was already playing in the first half, and Luddite in the second half. I'm obviously on Mackoti's side - gifting half a dozen resources and sharing military plans. And Luddite is clearly on Nakor and Plako's side and about to attack me himself, so it wouldn't have made sense for them to take the first half anyway. Not to mention I'd been making all my movements at the start of the turn for a long time preceding T199 (and taking screenshots to prove it), because I figured there should be a turn order while we were effectively all at war anyway. Just in case someone broke their NAP, or whatever.

For the record though, I've been considering what might have happened if I'd taken the second half of the turn timer in this war. I actually think it might have worked out better than taking the first half. Certainly I would have ended up with a lot more XP and 1-2 bonus Great Generals.

On T199, if I'd played second, I would have use ships to block access to every city in range of the stack (which I would have seen in advance if they'd played first). This would have made it impossible for them to attack directly into a city, and instead they'd have to unload their troops on the beach to attack me. 24 Galleons means 72 troops, which is really nothing at this point in the game. Even if they'd all been unloaded onto the same tile, on a hill next to one of my cities, they would have been dead on the next turn. Their stack could have been twice that size with 150 units landing and it wouldn't have made a difference.

Please don't make the mistake of assuming that I somehow would have been one-upped if I hadn't gone first - which, as I've mentioned above, I was already entitled to. Nakor/Plako never stood a chance with this naval invasion either way.

[Lord Parkin]

Currently the turn split is:

(0-18)
Lord Parkin
Mackoti
Rego
Moogle
Locke

(18-36)
Plako
Nakor
Luddite
Adlain

If I were to declare on Locke at some point, I would move units relevant to him at the very start of the turn before (and screenshot them for proof), then declare war at the very start of the next turn - correct? Then the turn split would be:

(0-12)
Lord Parkin

(0-18)
Mackoti
Rego

(0-24)
Moogle

(12-24)
Locke

(18-36)
Plako
Nakor
Luddite

(24-36)
Adlain

Correct? Just checking in advance in case it happens at some point.

Of course, after Adlain is gone it would simplify considerably:

(0-18)
Lord Parkin
Mackoti
Rego

(18-36)
Plako
Nakor
Luddite
Locke

(Moogle would not be at war.) That's all correct, right?

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Rego did not give me the first half of the timer. Mackoti was already playing in the first half, and Luddite in the second half.

Actually Rego did give them the first half of the timer. Cold wars are completely irrelevant to timer splits. Also, Luddite didn't declare on you, so his war with Mackoti was irrelevant, as was Locke's with Adlain. But those wars could've eventually led to a complicated 3-way turn timer or something.

Honestly, considering Nakor and plako were the obvious aggressors here and you would've preferred no war, if they had made a stink, I would've split the turn timer 3 ways, into Rego; Nakor/Plako; LP. It isn't like Nakor had any interest in being at war with Rego. But they were nice guys and didn't create a stink, which saved me the headache of having to do what I had planned to do for about 50 turns (come up with whatever complicated 36 hour split was most fair to all involved).

You played by far the best game and thoroughly deserved to win, but I found T200 to be pretty unfair to your opponents. Maybe they couldn't have raized anything or done any damage anyway, but if I was them and planned for 50 plus turns for war and had my ability to attack taken away at the last instant due to a rules technicality, I'd have been a lot more aggressive in advocating on my behalf than they were.

That said, as the game admin, I am glad it happened the way it happened. I was expecting a total clusterhump and tons of angry arguing. As it broke, things saved me a lot of headache.

What I've learned is that I will never play Pitboss. Too much animosity. Too much rules lawyering.

[Lord Parkin]

Actually for the past 10-20 turns I've been thoroughly looking forward to this war. I'm far more the aggressor than anyone else, as evidenced by the multiple city captures/razings already (and many more to come). And I don't see how Plako/Nakor initiating the animosity between us many turns back automatically entitles them to play first when the time for war eventually comes around.

I realise there's a tendency to want to side with the underdog - but even in a vacuum, just because this happened to be a last-ditch shot from the little guy doesn't entitle them to play first any more than the big guy. In fact, arguing for a convoluted timer specifically to allow Nakor/Plako to play first would debatably have been showing favouritism. Besides, as I've already mentioned, them landing their troops would arguably have been even more beneficial to me than them being destroyed at sea (~150 extra XP and 2 extra Generals).

Anyway, this is all hypothetical and not really going anywhere. All I'm probably doing by replying is aggravating you, which makes no sense. Perhaps sometime after the end of this game, if anyone can be bothered, we can replay a few turns from T199 onwards with me going second just to prove my point that it would have made no difference (and might even have helped me more than going first). I'd be up for that if anyone else is.

For all its flaws, Pitboss is a truly great experience. I hope one-off events like this don't put you off it for good. You do realise that there's the option of sequential turns pitboss too, right? (It's considerably slower than simultaneous turns, but faster than PBEM when everyone's around.)

Regarding my main question in the above post - can you let me know if I am correct with my assumptions regarding a declaration on Locke, if that happens at some point?

[Lord Parkin]

Nakor sent in 2 Scouts to block us from working 2 border tiles at the end of last turn, obviously out of spite. Oh well, 4 XP and 2 new promotions for us... quite a good trade-off really. A strange move though, considering he deleted the 6 remaining Galleons in his fleet - presumably to deny us XP - and yet handed us almost as much XP from the Scouts. Ah well.

Our Destroyer sailing west found the city of Dashboard Light to be defended by only 2 units, so we bombarded the defences down and quickly cleaned up there with a couple of Riflemen. One 67% win, then:



And Dashboard Light was ours. An extra 164 gold for the treasury too, not bad. I decided to keep the city, and later renamed it to Aurata.



Meanwhile, I discovered that Nakor's Horse city down south had only 3 weak units inside... as well as another 2 Galleons. This really puzzled me - did Nakor not learn from his mistake last turn? Ships left inside weakly defended cities are automatically mincemeat, that should be obvious by now.

Anyway, I bombarded down the defences and invaded. A little luck with two 68% wins, then:



And the city was ours. I figured we couldn't hold it, and it would be useless even if we did, so I razed it. Not before scooping up another 148 gold though. In combination with the gold from the other city, that's pretty much another turn of 100% research funded.



Total kill:loss ratio this turn was at least 9:0 (more if the Galleons were loaded). Estimated running total for the war is now 129:0.

Stay tuned for the next update. I'll try my best to do one per turn during these interesting initial war turns, as long as I have time.

[Gazzahk]

LP

How many cities have you taken / kept / destroyed? Can you give us an empire wide screen shot??

Thanks

[Lord Parkin]

Three cities taken so far; two kept, one razed. Those numbers will be increasing over the next few turns.

Will grab more screenshots from the empire next time I get a chance.

[SevenSpirits]

Thanks for the updates! We want empire shots too.