[SPOILERS] PB7: Winning The Hard Way - Mao Plays Craps

[spacetyrantxenu]

Thanks for the heads up, AutomatedTeller. It's good to know we can send another soldier to the front without worrying if he lives or dies!

From the public diplo thread, I asked Plako if he was interested in joining us in the Panzer Smackdown.

Not really. With you capturing cities, the frontline is even further away than before. If you think it would make sense for me to join, I would really need to see what is going on. Would you let my Chariot to go through to check things out?

On the other hand maybe collecting your winnings and running would be better way to proceed?

Commodore, what is your opinion? I guess we do need to define the scope of this war to determine how much help is necessary. On the one hand, if we want to try to cripple them, if that's even possible, we would likely need additional help to do it. With that said, the logistics of Plako helping with the invasion would be tricky. He'd need a minimum of one galley to accomplish anything. The best path he could take would be to build a galley, ferry units over two at a time, and build a stack in an unexpected location to the south of the Stone/Frantic front, and then hit Frantic without somehow alerting MackSeven to the plan. Here I guess is the curse of open diplo, we can't really discuss coordination or the plan would go awry. All I can think of is that we allow him to scout through with a chariot and hope he draws his own conclusion there, as the land route would be impossible to use to send an army with -- I don't think we'd consider allowing him to send a stack through the passes near Mohegan. I think we can allow a chariot, though, at least before we settle the ghetto commerce city. What do you think? My opinion is that it would be worth it for him to send a unit to check things out. If it turns out he doesn't want to help or can't viably do so, all we've given up is some scouting information through our territory to him. As long as we keep a spear escorting his chariot through our territory and move workers out of the way, I don't think he'd have an accident while passing through.

So to summarize, two questions:

1. What is the scope of our planned engagement vs. team Hunter-Gatherer? To fight until one of us stops fighting back (mutual death struggle) or is there a line to gain at which we stop advancing and hold what we've taken? If it is the latter, I assume it would include taking Mind's Desire and either taking or burning Frantic Search.

2. What is the utility of Plako's involvement, to us? There is land that would be useful to him, so his involvement would have some incentive. The coastal area south of Frantic Search may not be enough to whet his appetite but it's worth offering. If we offered that territory (or some other amount of land to equal his effort and expenditure), should we post the offer in the public diplo thread or just hope he kind of understands once his chariot is down here (although the situation could be far different by then). I have a feeling some sort of direct communication in the public thread would be necessary, though, which may ruin the surprise for MackSeven. In any case, we have to measure how much power Plako could reasonably be expected to bring to the engagement prior to making promises. It would have to be an effort in-->results out sort of deal we make with him.

[novice]

I believe that you can build Heroic Epic if youi have EVER had a level 4 unit, not just if you have one at the time of building.

I'm not so sure. I definitely would test this in worldbuilder before acting on it.

Spacetyrantxenu - what was the objective of the war in the first place? Has it been reached?

[spacetyrantxenu]

My original war plan was to take as much of the supposedly "good" land Azza had as possible, relegating Mackoti and Seven to their supposedly "bad" land. Given the lack of successful exploration in the area, it's hard to know how much of that goal we've accomplished so far. I think Mind's Desire may be Azza's old capital but I don't remember right off hand, or am not sure if I ever had a map of it when it was still in Azza's possession (I don't think so). If we can grab another player's former capital location, that would at least be a nice city site to take. If the borders nearby look defensible that would be a good place to stop and consolidate. You could argue that what we've done so far would be a good place to hole up and await a counter assault, but I'd rather do something about Mind's Desire and get the pressure off of Blackfoot before ending the war effort.

[AutomatedTeller]

I would definitely test that - I believe I'm correct, but I don't know it, for sure.

[Commodore]

Commodore, what is your opinion? I guess we do need to define the scope of this war to determine how much help is necessary. On the one hand, if we want to try to cripple them, if that's even possible, we would likely need additional help to do it. With that said, the logistics of Plako helping with the invasion would be tricky. He'd need a minimum of one galley to accomplish anything. The best path he could take would be to build a galley, ferry units over two at a time, and build a stack in an unexpected location to the south of the Stone/Frantic front, and then hit Frantic without somehow alerting MackSeven to the plan. Here I guess is the curse of open diplo, we can't really discuss coordination or the plan would go awry. All I can think of is that we allow him to scout through with a chariot and hope he draws his own conclusion there, as the land route would be impossible to use to send an army with -- I don't think we'd consider allowing him to send a stack through the passes near Mohegan. I think we can allow a chariot, though, at least before we settle the ghetto commerce city. What do you think? My opinion is that it would be worth it for him to send a unit to check things out. If it turns out he doesn't want to help or can't viably do so, all we've given up is some scouting information through our territory to him. As long as we keep a spear escorting his chariot through our territory and move workers out of the way, I don't think he'd have an accident while passing through.

The chariot scouting is fine. Plako is an upright fellow, get him to promise not to take shots at cities or workers and he won't unless we somehow make him feel betrayed or threatened. He's Dutch, coastal cities are potentially very very valuable if he makes it to the long-term game. Giving him a secure northern front might do a lot to make Steam Power look achievable, too.

1. What is the scope of our planned engagement vs. team Hunter-Gatherer? To fight until one of us stops fighting back (mutual death struggle) or is there a line to gain at which we stop advancing and hold what we've taken? If it is the latter, I assume it would include taking Mind's Desire and either taking or burning Frantic Search.

Well, when I came in the momentum was already geared towards this assault. I'm getting increasingly frustrated, you'll need to watch me...I tend to move in interlocking support flocks, but given the job disparity here, we should basically assume 2-move spears and axes, 4-move chariots, all promoted blitz. This turns the "mutual support" bit into "penny packets that get eaten in detail". Still, we have a couple more SoDs in us, or we could wait for catapults. I conserved everything this turn, moving that chariot you saw checking odds north out of range of SMack attacks.

We'd love to be able to kill SMack. Unfortunately, double-moves mean the usual long-distance fork I'd propose, of their capital (going by roads, oddly NE rather than E) and Azzastan, would be pointless. No point in getting whiny about it, but they control the clock 100% here. So, yeah, the more realistic objective of taking Mind's Desire and the coastal region might be more realistic. They've got the 'mids, though, so no matter what they're going to be getting an econoboost over us.

2. What is the utility of Plako's involvement, to us? There is land that would be useful to him, so his involvement would have some incentive. The coastal area south of Frantic Search may not be enough to whet his appetite but it's worth offering. If we offered that territory (or some other amount of land to equal his effort and expenditure), should we post the offer in the public diplo thread or just hope he kind of understands once his chariot is down here (although the situation could be far different by then). I have a feeling some sort of direct communication in the public thread would be necessary, though, which may ruin the surprise for MackSeven. In any case, we have to measure how much power Plako could reasonably be expected to bring to the engagement prior to making promises. It would have to be an effort in-->results out sort of deal we make with him.

I'd be prepared to concede the plains coast to plako for one or two cities, up to and including Frantic if he could take it. I'm sure SMack's Imp empire has quite a lot more coast down there, no reason why we can't offer a N/S split if Plako wants to go all-in on a war to the death. That is a fork we could manage.

Pity it seems like SMack are in a corner, would be nice if they had someone to the east of them, but I haven't seen any chatter to that effect.

[spacetyrantxenu]

You're right about their positioning, I haven't seen anyone but Azza and then MackSeven come from the east. It is almost a certainty that there is no one else over there, which makes it all the more desirable to kill them completely and take all the land for our own. If that were possible. It's a shame to have to pine away for turn timer splits. I'm fairly certain there's no one else there, though, because we haven't met very many people at all and my early watching of the espionage screen indicated that when we met, MackSeven had only met Azza, so there's more flimsy evidence to support the theory. I wish we could explore the area to find out. Maybe a pair of triremes?

Back to the realm of reality and not whining about the impossible, I think we can set a realistic goal to (somehow) capture these two cities and then try to weather the storm while we develop like a normal civ. We do have all that questionable land between us and LP, and if nothing else we can work coasts and lighthouses and a few hill mines on all that land. There isn't much over there that is spectacular but it's better than leaving it all unsettled forever and risking someone else (LP) ends up taking it, all while we continue to bludgeon ourselves against the walls and troops of the Hunter-Gatherers. As much fun as it is to continually drag them into the mud with us, our economy is in the shitter from all this war and we need a break from it to grow. The trouble with that is I'm worried that if we ease up on the pressure, we'll give up the initiative to the team that controls the clock and then we will have a problem on our hands. For as much trouble as they've given us so far, the score is still 2-0 in our favor and we have troops in their land, not the other way around. Then again, we're Native America and they're Germany. If we don't settle this conflict, eventually they'll settle it for us.

So, what to do? I'll send out a public diplomatic message for Plako inviting him to see what all the fuss is about in Hunter-Gatherer land, and proposing an ongoing alliance to see the territory properly partitioned.

[Commodore]

Insomnia is no fun, but my pain is Native America's gain, as I was still up when the turn rolled. It's still a bit dicy this turn, but at least we're not a coinflip away from potentially losing Blackfeet. The stack seen here is honestly probably just covering the workers to get the farm back online, but they're in danger range of both of our cities.



The next big choice is going to be Construction vs. Currency. Our smoking economy needs Currency like a bad fix, but I'm reasonably sure we'll see HAs before too long out of Germany, and the oozing sore that is the Mind's Desire front needs resolution before anything approaching security can be felt. I microed things a bit to get in Maths this turn, sorry for the loss of cows-work.



In general the time has come to look for more places where 2-pop whipping makes sense. Seneca here needs that riverside cottage to grow on as it continuously 4-2 whips. Next objective is probably to chop/whip a worker/archer/settler for the pigs to the west. No point in letting HAK/LP claim the coast, and a cheap granary/totem pole/walls set will make the city a good contriubitor by the time catapults are going to get whipped.



West of Poarch Creek needs another filler deer/quarry/mine helper, but first we should shake loose an archer and workers to head towards Foxwoods. Deer/cow to grow, and stagnate quickly working those three 1/0/5 riverside furs.



Cross fingers, lads, the counterstroke will be fairly soon.

[T-hawk]

I believe that you can build Heroic Epic if youi have EVER had a level 4 unit, not just if you have one at the time of building.

Correct. This was a change in one of the expansions or patches; originally you had to have the level 4 unit at the time of building.

[kalin]

Correct. This was a change in one of the expansions or patches; originally you had to have the level 4 unit at the time of building.

One thing I remember is that it's not enough to have the experience, but must take the promotions as well. Very frustrating, when you save the promotions for later only to have your HE unit killed unexpectedly

Kalin

[waterbat]

oh thanks for that kalin! that must have happened to me the last time I played BtS - I couldnt figure out why i couldnt build the HE - KNOWING that I had a 10xp unit at one time.