[no players] Lurker Thread

[SevenSpirits]

I disagree kjn. Luddite is clearly carrying the bulk of the army. And most dogpiles will work if one is willing to have 90% of the costs while only getting 50-% of the spoils.

Or in this case 0%.

[kjn]

I disagree kjn. Luddite is clearly carrying the bulk of the army. And most dogpiles will work if one is willing to have 90% of the costs while only getting 50-% of the spoils.

Correct. But their moves are still reasonably coordinated, and even if Mackoti uses several of his knights to defend his coast, he still has enough numbers with Luddite that they cannot be all redlined by the cannons and destroyed.

Ie, those 20-25% forces from Mackoti of the total changes the odds considerably.

[Serdoa]

Yeah true, but I feel that misses my point. Of course mackotis troops help. And of course they coordinate "well" as mackoti simply had to move out. But in all the dogpiles I was involved, the issue was seldom the moving together (though that is a problem, especially when people who do not think it through tell others what they have to do) but how many troops would be brought. For example, in a normal talking game, I am sure people would have tried to coordinate the efforts in brining NoSpace down. But no one would EVER have considered bringing 65 units while the other dogpiler brings... 12. The one who brings 65 units is just changing the one who is running away - if the dogpile works. Thats why the most of the time don't work, because people don't try to do everything to bring the no.1 down but instead try to be the winner AFTER they have defeated the no.1, taking it as a given that that will happen.

Lets look at it realistically: What happens after NoSpace is brought down? Luddites forces are pretty beaten up, if existing at all. mackoti on the other hand kept most of his forces at home and will be able - now that the threat of NoSpace is gone - to invade Luddites homelands. And take NoSpaces territory as well. And thats the issue I have with this whole move. Luddite is simply changing NoSpace with mackoti as the runaway. That would never happen when the dogpile would really be about stopping the no.1 and about to even out the game.

[darrelljs]

Don't take this thing wrong way SS, but I think its good for the community if you guys finally lose one of these things .

while the other dogpiler brings... 12.

.

Darrell

[Serdoa]

totally different case in PBEM25 (and no, I won't explain the difference, go read my thread - and leave a comment - for that) :neenernee

[darrelljs]

I was referring to ffh2 .

Darrell

[SevenSpirits]

Cannons are nice but we just don't have nearly enough actual units to finish the job. I think they'll have enough survivors to wipe out almost all our units, and still have a bunch of units left alive themselves, that can then go capture a few critical cities.

OK, this statement was obviously wrong. Spaceman got enough extra cannons/pikes/muskets in that the maces had 80% odds on the remainder instead of the sub-50% odds they'd have gotten 2 turns ago, which makes a huge difference. Collateral is funny like that. Nicely done by him. Only mistake (other than potentially not defending the southern island vs Luddicator's galleon) was not leaving workers in range of the combat zone last turn and building a fort to defend his wounded stack.

Now I think Mackoti's odds of victory have fallen back below 50%. But those Ships of the Line are going to be really irritating, and his GNP is just a tiny bit better than ours.

Edit: Btw, in regards to this being a well-coordinated dogpile, Mackoti told me he would much rather have waited a few turns for ship of the line support, forcing us to defend all our coastal cities. But if he didn't follow Luddicator in they would just have been slaughtered.

[SevenSpirits]

What a bloody game.

[SevenSpirits]

I guess since I'm out yet can still see the saves as well as hear from Mackoti, I might as well provide a bit of commentary as penance.

First, Mackoti kind of demolished NoSpace's navy last turn; it was simply a bad idea to leave them exposed there. 3 Frigates died to SoLs immediately which left Mackoti's Frigates/Privateers with a great enough numbers advantage that they cleaned up and even killed a couple Galleons. NoSpace should have retreated and should also be getting some Privateers to combat the SoLs and not just building 100% Frigates.

Second, if NoSpace move into Mack's territory this turn as they were planning, I honestly don't know what will happen. Lots of bloodshed I think. Mackoti's planning to hit with a ton of cats followed by a ton of Grenadiers and Knights which should pretty much all be getting odds on the stack. Furthermore Mackoti can then pick up his wounded units with Galleons and retreat. My impression is he'll end up sacrificing Pharsalos in exchange for being able to do a big number on NoSpace's army. However I could be way, way off in either direction especially since I'm not sure how many forces Mackoti decided to bring in, in the end. I'm not bothering to try to count the units up, it's just too ridiculous. It's also possible NoSpace will decline to advance. This may be a wise move.

If they do advance, they will incur massive, I mean massive troop costs and would be best off minimizing gold production and striking, by the way.

[Serdoa]

Do I understand it right that Pindicator/Luddite have gifted a stack of Knights to mackoti just so he can defend against NoSpace? Is it me or is someone else also not getting that move?