[Spoilers] What, no fireballs?! Team FFH: we're not in Erebus anymore

[Ichabod]

I really love your reporting

Ditto Looking forward to the next installment.

Really enjoyed your posts so far. Now, back to your regularly scheduled 2:

Thanks, guys. I'll try to do the second part today, but I'm not sure if I took good screenshots of the last turns. Sometimes I forget I'm not playing a PBEM.

Yes the reports are really nice.

One minor spelling correction, and one sinful suggestion.

It's "precedes" not "preceeds".

And Onanism for the sin.

Thanks, Brian. The sin is very nice, next city will be "Onanism".

[Ichabod]

[SIZE="4"]Turn Report: The End of the fourth Punic War - part 2[/SIZE]


Here's a map to help everyone understand where the war stood at the beggining of this update:

[SIZE="1"]Disclaimer: I actually don't know the name of the Roman city that Sunrise captured south of Nero, Julius is just a guess.[/SIZE]

It was clear to me that even if I moved my troops without waiting for them to heal, Sunrise would get to Nero and the Great Lighthouse first. Let's take a look at the battlefield again.

So that battle had to be won with either diplomacy or deception, not bruce force.


1. Giving Diplomacy a try:

So, I went into the diplomacy thread and made a small comment to start negotiations:

Hey, Sunrise, I kindly ask to leave the city of Nero to me. You can get whatever is south of it (I think there's another city there). After I've done the heavy lifting, this opportunitic attack is unnaceptable.

I used big words because I'm a man with a big army. The answer came quickly, but also pretty lengthy.

@Ichabod - I think that's a tough compromise. South of Nero is exactly one city with exactly zero resources.

You're right I'm making an opportunistic attack...if by that you mean something I've talked about in my thread for 50t and something that made it attractive for me to sign a NAP with my northern neighbor. Remember, the one that was for said neighbor to "plant some cities." You'll also remember I said nothing publicly when you showed me your stack - had I wanted to I could have given several turns notice about where you were going and made things a lot tougher on your army and probably easier on mine.

That said, I know there is a "might makes right" component. My army was plenty large enough to take what I hoped to conquer, but yours is larger still and you moved in before I did. I'm not going to try to stop or punish you for taking cities you can get to first.

If I'm able to though I'm going to take Nero. If there's any sort of permitted compensation I can pay I'll consider it. Otherwise though I view your actions since signing our NAP as clever but legal and my actions as...(less) clever but (just as) legal. Unfortunately we both just decided it was time to move on the same opportunistic target.

So I guess that means you get to decide where that leaves us. If you want to backstab me because you consider me taking Nero as NAP-breaking...well I'm sure you'll make plako very happy. I've played a pitboss game before though where I've traded away a chance at winning in exchange for having fun. This time I'm not willing to do that, and so asking me to turn my army around and let yours take over is just too much.

Why do I have to border the lawyers? Look at this, talking about deals, legality, compromises... I just want the damn GLH, I don't care about law and morals!! (Actually I'm a lawyer too, but I'm not very enthusiastic about it )

Here I made one of the big mistakes of this war. I was actually in a pretty good position for trying to force a deal, even if Sunrise had the advantage of speed. But I didn't realize it. The problem for Sunrise is that I could attack his army after he capured Nero, finishing his wounded units. So he'd lose a lot of hammers and possibly other cities. He was probably very afraid to see that happening, that would certainly explain why he behaved the way he did next.

My own thoughts at the time were to avoid a war at all costs with Sunrise (I still think that'd be bad, because we both have the empire to whip like crazy and lose everything because of it) and try to find a way to get the GLH city. If I had insisted in the diplomacy way, I might have succeeded. But the Evil (not so) Genius in me decided to speak louder. So I made a cunning plan...


2. Deception: Funner is not Better...

So, what was my evil plan all about? It was actually pretty simple.

1. Settle a city near Nero.
2. Culture bomb that city.
3. Culturally steal the GLH.
4.

To make that happen, we needed the following things.


a. Get a Great Artist

No problem, I was farming a great person anyway to use for a Golden Age and gain other Great People. I was going to make one of them an artist and voilá! So, it was time to starve!

b. Get a city near Nero


My best plan was to raze the city of Augustus and settle it 1NE, changing the distance from 4 to 3 squares (the minimum possible) between the cities. Let's take a look (sorry, that was the best picture I had):

c. Convince Sunrise to not build any culture in the city for some time


This was the tricky part. In order to maximize my chances to convert the city culturally, I needed Sunrise not to build any culture there before my Culture Bomb. No religion spread, no cultural buildings, etc. And I also wanted him not to stuff all his army at the city to avoid the revolts. But how would I do that? Well, I divised a strategy...

First, I'd act like I was very annoyed with the situation:

Sunrise, I'm going to think a bit about this and its better if I do it with a coller mind. I'll get to you later...

Then, I'd propose an obviously very bad deal for Sunrise:

Ok, Sunrise, I thought a bit about it and here's what I can offer you.

You may take Nero, but you have to raze it and resettle it 1S. I'll take Augustus and will resettle it 1SE. This way, we can split the good land between ourselves.

Besides that, we sign a longer NAP and we start treating (even after the NAP ends) the ex-Roman lands as a sort of demilitarized zone, where we won't attack one another initially (say, if you conquer all my other cities, you can attack there, but not before). This way we can focus our defenses where they matter the most.

I think this is a very fair deal for both of us.

Razing Nero was a crazy thought. It held the GLH, man, that's very powerful. Besides, the city was on very good terrain, good size... It was a very nice city. No way Sunrise would want to do it.

What I wanted here was to see Sunrise saying that that deal would be impossible. Than, I could made the offer I actually wanted as a counteroffer. I was going to say that the city of Nero would own my new city due to the GLH culture (I would keep my stupid act going in the diplo thread about not knowing squat about mechanics like "captured wonders don't give culture"), so that was the reason the city had to be razed. So, when Sunrise corrected me about the culture mechanic, I'd offer him not to build any culture in Nero while my city had no culture too as a solution, opening the path for the culture bomb.

The NAP and the demilitarization zone was just icing on the cake, making it impossible for him to stuff the city with his army and freeing my army to go eastwards.

So, what happened?

Ichabod,

I appreciate you trying to find a compromise. My issue with your offer though is that we differ in the value we assign to a new city near Nero. Had Nero been a meh city lightly defended I'd have no objection to the new proposal, but if I conquer and raze the city next turn I'll lose hundreds of hammers to do so, due to the powerful garrison, with only a new city to show for it (and I have to build the settler ).

I really feel Nero is mine if I take it first...we never diplomatically discussed any military issues until you spotted my stack However if you want to swap the terms of the deal you proposed, with Mali razing the city and us both replanting I'd view that as fair.

I was very happy after this message. Sunrise bit the bait, I just had to reel him in.

My problem with the city of Nero standing is that it's going to culturally destroy my newly founded city (between the GLH and it being way more developed). You'd end up with all of Rome's territory and I'd just be left with nothing.

But I'm not going to lose half my army to take it for you. I'm not questioning the legality of your moves, but it doesn't please me at all... Razing the city would at least help me not care that much.

After this message, I was sure I'd wake up in the next day with an answer by Sunrise explaining how captured wonders don't give culture, that he could wait to build cultural buildings and that all culture producing buildings get razed upon capture... You know, basic stuff...

Little did I know that I'd wake up to see this:

I saw that and, doubting my eyes, ran to the Diplo thread to find this:

Ok Ichabod, you got your wish, Nero is razed.

I guess we should discuss implementing the other components of your compromise. In the meantime your army (and random skirmisher) should probably head northwest.

The heck, man?! Why did you do that for? You went crazy?! Commodore soon objected:

Plus, captured wonders give no culture.

Sad if true. I actually asked a few people about this and was told they thought they still gave culture. Guess I should have simmed it. Still, it wasn't THAT big of a loss. Aside from the cost of a (IMP) settler and the juicy (though nerfed via AW) wonder the city only had two buildings.

I really didn't see this coming. Sunrise didn't know about the capture wonder mechanic... To be true, I wasn't annoyed or anything at this, it was just funny. Besides, I have a good plan for the spare GArtist that i'm still going to generate...

I think the best summary of all this action was made by Mackoti, in the diplo thread:

Ouch man, did you just razed the best city in game...Phu hu.

Shit happens...

The conclusion of the war and my thoughts on it will come in part 3 of the war update.

[Bigger]

Yes the reports are really nice.

One minor spelling correction, and one sinful suggestion.

It's "precedes" not "preceeds".

And Onanism for the sin.

.... nerd. :neenernee

what is onanism?

[Gaspar]

what is onanism?

Onanism

[Bigger]

thanks Gaspar

[DaveV]

While Gaspar's link may identify the popular usage of the term, here's the real story. See the last sentence.

[Rowain]

Indeed the popular usage is as usual wrong.

The sin is that he denied his brother the rightfull heir and did killl his brothers line on purpose.

[Ichabod]

[SIZE="4"]Turn Report: The End of the fourth Punic War - part 3 and final thoughts[/SIZE]

So, after some discussion about the meaning of Onanism, we are back with our usual reports. :neenernee

After I signed the deal with Sunrise, there was nothing much to do except take (and raze) Augustus. I made two mistakes while doing this. First, I forgot to take pictures to show you the battles. Second, I managed to miss a turn, delaying the capture of the city by one turn.

Anyway, I lost one CR2 catapult to take the city. Than I attacked with two maces and a sword to kill the garrison (2 LBs and a catapult). The result:

Yeah, since I'm going to raze it, why not let a good amount of infrastructure intact? This minor complaint aside, here's what the former Roman lands looked like:

With the Roman war over (I don't think going for the Roman island cities is worth the cost), what's my final take on the war? What have I done right/wrong?


1. The good:

1. I think I managed to get a good army in a decent amount of time. I used the whip right and my military city too.

2. I think my tactics were nice. The naval attack worked, same with the land attack. If it wasn't for Sunrise's intervention, my planned troop movement would have worked fine, I think.

3. My usage of spies and intel reports was good. I had all the information I needed about Roman troop posiotining.

2. The bad:

1. I've built way more troops than needed. Seriously, I could have gone with just 2/3 of the catapults and 1/2 my other troops. Not only I would have saved on upkeep, I'd have went in faster, before Rome got maces and maybe before Sunrise could intervene.

2. The timing of the war. Medieval war sucks. Yeah, I was init for the fun, but in a strategic look, the war gave me nothing of much use, except for horses. If I had made a better balance in troop composition, maybe this wouldn't have been such a big problem. But with the way I handled things, now I'm way behind my opponents.

If I had build more workers (which I lack) and grown my cities, whipping for infra instead of troops, my economy would be very good now, I think. But, oh, well, I didn't want to leave a FFA AW game without having a fight. And you know what they say about big armies... Leaving them idle is a mistake... So one of my neighboors better prepare himself.

3. Razing Ceasar. I had to waste a settler to found it again and I need to wait for it to grow. This is hindsight, because on the heat of the moment, razing seemed to be the safest option. Now I see that Rome would hardly attack the city again... Dumb me...


Overall, this war probably didn't mean anything regarding the outcome of this game. I'd be beaten by Parkin with or without war. I just don't have the land (nor the civ skill) to compete with him. But I liked it, it made my focus on the game return and it was nice to have an objective to look forward to. It remembered me yet again that creating objectives for yourself is the right way of playing civ. If you start to just go by in the motions, you'll suffer.

Keep planning!


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By the way, I recently resettled the former Roman lands. Say hello to Onanism and Tristitia (Yeah, it's the first latin name I used, but I really liked the sound of it, so there you go):

Onanism:

Tristitia:

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Next update will show a bit of empire management and will talk about my future plans (that include a Golden Age!).

[Bigger]

tristitia seems like a stretch :O
(I mean the name, not the city)

[Ichabod]

tristitia seems like a stretch :O
(I mean the name, not the city)

The problem is that I'm running out of sins... Why are the people in this world so good?