[Spoilers] Boldly Going...on a Bender and Pissing Off Xenu

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I've never seen that glitch before, btw.

I have! It just happened to me in PB8 this morning . Boldly - if you're globally lurking that game, pop into my thread there and check it out. If not - basically the same thing happened. We haven't been able to figure it out yet. The odd part is goto commands do not execute until all your other units have orders, so that's not just a simple goto command. NobleHelium's current theory in my case (and probably yours by the looks of it) is I bumped the "auto explore" button or hotkey, which possibly behaves differently (executes earlier) than goto commands. Given that your archer is set up to beeline the fog, that seems like a pretty likely theory. Why it wouldn't go for the closer fog in Commodore's land I'm not exactly sure, but the auto-explore algorithm is probably a little more complex than just "walk towards closest fog."

Thanks for the info. After reading that, I tabbed back to the game and played around with unmoved units and the auto explore option. My mobility/medic HA moved in a circle six spaces and ended up 1E of his previous position. Other units crisscrossed paths doing similar things. Weird. Even in a SP game I don't recall exploring units moving before you can cancel the mission, though I may be mistaken.

I'm casually ded-lurking Xenu, so I'll stay out of your thread, but if you make some concrete discovery, I'd be interested in the outcome.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

After holding the save most of the day, I played the turn, remembering to cancel the exploring mission that my two archers were apparently on , and did some thinking. I've done most of what I can improving my land with my workers, and I need to know what's happened to Sian's stack of kitchen appliances. Surplus of worker, deficit of information, what to do but suicide scout a worker? I picked the worker whose name I hate the most, and:





I'm very glad I did. I'm very unhappy about what I found. I had a small hope that Sian was going after Slow since my defense in CC is so awesome, but it's not to be. He's out for blood. I doubt I can replace my lost units to sufficiently deal with this stack, and the two archers that wandered a turn back to CC aren't going to help any. The only good news that I can think of is that this stack appears to be fortified, although I could be wrong, so maybe Sian is waiting for more units to join the stack before moving in. Even so, I don't have a good production base over here or surplus population to whip in an emergency. In addition to this, it is only a matter of time before Slow moves on me in the north. And, Commodore may be plotting a quick strike on Dr. No in the very immediate future. He has a chariot to scratch down a unit and a galley in the adjacent island city with an axe ready to do some work. Since he controls the seas, he has no need to fear a counterattack, so he can throw all units at me with no fear of reprisal. I certainly can't afford to spend hammers on triremes now.

Looking pretty dire right now. I'm about to get carved up like Slow was 20 turns ago. I guess I better whip down my beautiful capital.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

This game situation would make a cup of coffee nervous. I'm about to get whacked a good one soon, but the hammer hasn't fallen yet. First, I'll get the easy reporting out of the way. Commodore killed my trireme. I was a bit reckless in leaving it out of the city without anything close to numerical parity, but I thought that Com may let me get away with going to pillage Sian's nets since I wasn't approaching one of his cities. Nope. Can't say I blame him, but at least the hammer exchange was ok. I killed a WB and a trireme. Fair enough. Here's the real problem for me, though:



In evaluating Commodore's options last turn I did not consider that he could reach the stone island and load up the spear/axe combo to support the invasion. Well, hell. Even if I had considered it, I doubt I would have pulled anything out of MB to support the defenders. I just don't want to lose the MoM, so MB gets defender priority. Slow continues to move units toward this front, so I can't do much else but pack MB and hope Dr. No can hold. I'm just short of units and the wolves are howling in the yard. With now 5 attackers, Commodore will certainly raze my city next turn, I just hope the RNG is kind and makes him bleed some first. I could have stuffed my medic HA in as a third defender, but I'd rather lose the city than my Supermedic. I'm going to need him at Megatron and/or Monty Burns very soon. The result of some simming:

Dr. No: 20% culture, flat grassland culture 8/50, river crossing

Archer1: city 1, fortify 25%
Archer2: city 1, fortify 15%

Com:

Axe1: combat 2, melee - ~22% to win
Axe2: no promos
Chariot: combat 1

Initially I ran sims that indicated Com wouldn't win unless he had lots of luck with his chariot. Then I realized that the damned galley was loaded for amphibious support and lost hope, then ran more sims. In most sims he won't even need his spear to mop up. Most likely outcome is that he'll lose the chariot and two axes. I would attack with the chariot, moving across the river to avoid the penalty, scratch top defender (die), attack with the unpromoted axe for a scratch (die), then see what the options are from there. Probably he can get odds with his promoted axe (win) and mop up duty with the amphibious axe (win), but the last two will be close, depending on how the rolls go in the scratch attacks.

If I put my HA medic in Dr. No, it becomes top defender vs. the chariot only when crossing the river. After the fully fortified archer is either killed or damaged, HA medic is top defender. 21.3% odds on combat 2 axe. Best case attack vs. the HA would be 21.3%. I do not know if I want to risk that to save this little city, at the expense of my medic.

So, now that I'm well and truly hosed, let's build more military!



I have good overflow in several of these locations, so more units next turn too. Cities before EoT:

DH:

This will only have time to get next to Megatron if Sian moves in next turn. I hope I get one more turn of delay. Mounted units next.

CC:

I can 1T a second HA next turn at the expense of a couple of cottages. Not efficient, but necessary. Or, I could 3pop dry whip, totally not doing that just yet.

M:

I whipped here for overflow next turn. I'll 1T another xbow next turn, after that either a 1T archer or a cat if Sian hasn't moved in yet.
S:

A very painful whip in this food-starved city. Overflow will get me either an axe next turn or a HA in 2, so probably that. I can't wait for the xbow.

MB:

After MB grows to 5 next turn and takes over the PH from the razed Dr. No, it can 1t archers forever. TT defense may be better than building cats. I'll have to see how Slow plays this.

Dr. Doomed, formerly Dr. No:

I'll never finish a build, so I can at least wring a few nickels for the coffers. Bah. Damn, now that I think of it, I could have run a turn at 100% research to lessen the gold that Com will get for capturing this city. But, then I wouldn't have money at the last second for an emergency upgrade if it would save a city. I'm clearly over-thinking this at this point.

Demos have taken a hit:



And, the wideshot:


I think Sian is coming next turn. Until now he has not shown units on the border that weren't ostensibly covering workers roading/chopping and doing normal looking civ development. He was in a rush to get that catapult into position, so the only conclusion is that it has to be necessary to be with the invasion stack on the next turn. Best guess is that he moved the main stack 1W and will move that stack NW/N to the mined hill. That would make the catapult move NW/W to join the stack. Then he'll keep cover on the hill until he's at Megatron's gates, and Armageddon begins. This is going to get a little bumpy.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Dr. No is no more. More news at 11 when I get the save.



That city sucked anyway.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T100

We made it to T100. I'm afraid that's all the good news there is. We lost Dr. No (Doomed) as expected, but it didn't cost nearly as much blood as it could have. Com did a lot of damage with the initial chariot attack and won the second fight, killing an archer at 16%. Damn. The spear was then able to clean up flawlessly in a 98% amphibious assault, so I can't even clean up the attackers now. The RNG really hates me in this game.

Looking around F4, I don't see any of the other teams having war weariness on each other. The only WW I can see is 21 with Sian. I'm not 100% if that's his level or mine, but I'm guessing that it is his since he's lost units in my territory and I've razed two of his cities. I doubt he has any unhappiness from this though, but I don't know the formula for WW at all.

Anyway, Sian moved his stack in this turn, so I'm busy throwing as many defenders towards Megatron as I can. Unfortunately, the two archers that somehow went on auto-explore and moved back toward CC a couple of turns ago will now only be able to be adjacent to Megatron when Sian attacks rather than in the city with a slight defensive bonus (5%). I hope this is not decisive because that would feel really bad. Here's how it looks at Megatron before I ended turn:



This is scary. Oh well, I'll pack as many units in as I can and try to hold on. Win or lose here, the upshot of this attack is, I'm afraid, that Commodore wins the game. He is establishing very firm control of the inland sea, and that's the key to him winning the game. But, Sian can't win unless he subdues me, so he'll carry on. I guess that leaves Slow as Com's natural adversary, that's how the geography dictates things, but I'm not sure he's up to that at this point. The good thing is that he has CKNs in the field now, but I'm a closer target at Monty Burns, and I have the MoM which would be great for his PHI trait, so I'm sure he's coming for me too. If so, GG Com I'm afraid. He's built a few courthouses and is probably on his way to CS. His capital is no joke now, so a bureau cap will help him tremendously. But, I think he gets there 10-15 turns faster than anyone else because of all this brawling. That's not going to help us keep pace with him.

Ok, anyway, back to the turn. Here's what we built before EoT:


I suppose I could have cropped that. I wish I had Theocracy instead of OR right about now. Next turn, more of the same, forget the settler in CC, that will swap to a unit:


Since it's T100, I'm going to have some massive screen dumps in this post. Ready, Set, Dump!

Cities:

DH:


CC:


M:

Here I need to either 1 pop whip the archer or just naturally complete production, but I'll starve. Whipping looks better, because I'd just starve again for production the following turn if I starve now.

S:

I'm not crazy about relying on chariots at this point, but it's all I can get into the city before Sian attacks. Just like the Qs that I'm stuffing in there, this will absorb some collateral from Sian's cats, and can still do damage to axes.

MB:

I'll 1T archers until Slow moves his units somewhere else, I guess. If he comes for me, he'll have to hack through lots of archers on a hill with walls and 60% cultural bonus. If I can't win that hammer exchange, I can't play civ.

F2-8

Ignore that I can swap into Bureaucracy. I probably had the mouse hovering there. I clearly can't swap into the Big B.




Slow is in HR and not Representation. I'm....not sure why. I would have assumed that he'd want to get the bonus on specialists paired with his PHI trait. If he wanted HR, he could have more easily teched Monarchy, I would think.

F9

You can see that building this army and constantly defending is taking a serious toll on my position in the game. That and the constant fighting with Commodore on the lake. Every naval unit I've built is at the bottom of the inland sea, as well as 4 pillaged work boats. Com has definitely had the best of our exchanges so far, and I don't see a way to change that going forward with him having now 3 productive cities on the lake to my 1 that is focused on not getting destroyed by Sian. Not looking good at all.

[Old Harry]

Hey Boldly, I had a similar start-of-turn problem in PBEM46 recently in that a worker put a turn into an unwanted farm before any of the other units moved and I couldn't get that turn back. I reloaded that save a few times and couldn't persuade it not to execute, so I just put it down to my fat fingers accidentally pressing irrigate the turn before, but maybe there are more sinister forces at work?

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Hey Boldly, I had a similar start-of-turn problem in PBEM46 recently in that a worker put a turn into an unwanted farm before any of the other units moved and I couldn't get that turn back. I reloaded that save a few times and couldn't persuade it not to execute, so I just put it down to my fat fingers accidentally pressing irrigate the turn before, but maybe there are more sinister forces at work?

Workers won't complete pre-ordered moves until all workers have a task assigned, so that shouldn't be it. Scooter suggested that it was on auto-explore, and that's the best I can come up with. Usually I take my screenshots after EoT, the turn prior to this error I may have taken some before ending turn, so it's hard to say what exactly caused it, but impossible to rule out that I may have misclicked. In the future, I may just cancel orders for all units (alt + backspace?) before ending turn to avoid that. I know that cancels for workers, not sure about other units. As it stands, I could really use those two archers inside of Megatron this turn. We'll see how it shakes out.

[Qgqqqqq]

Dr. No is no more. More news at 11 when I get the save.



That city sucked anyway.

Filled with pent up anger and rage?
Why not join TEAM for the...
.
.
.
Oh wait you did

/propoganda miminster

How do you evaluate your position this game?
Do you think your back and forth with Commodore is worth it?
Do you think you can beat the force?
Good luck!

[spacetyrantxenu]

I can handle these questions:

How do you evaluate your position this game?
Fading fast

Do you think your back and forth with Commodore is worth it?
It was worth it until the RNG killed any chance at staying even in the naval arms race

Do you think you can beat the force?
No one can beat the force, not even those using the Dark Side. But if you mean can we repel both Sian and Slowcheetah at the same time on opposite ends of the map....I doubt it.

Good luck!
Thanks.


This interview is OVER! (Thanks for the interest).

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I can handle these questions:

How do you evaluate your position this game?
Fading fast

Do you think your back and forth with Commodore is worth it?
It was worth it until the RNG killed any chance at staying even in the naval arms race

Do you think you can beat the force?
No one can beat the force, not even those using the Dark Side. But if you mean can we repel both Sian and Slowcheetah at the same time on opposite ends of the map....I doubt it.

Good luck!
Thanks.


This interview is OVER! (Thanks for the interest).

Pretty much, this. Fading fast is a great summation of my feeling on this game right now. But, you set yourself up as a tall poppy, someone's bound to kneecap you. I just wish Sian would beat on someone else for a while, he's not going to win the way he's playing this either, and Slow, while capable of whipping out a bunch of CKNs, isn't going to conquer anyone with them because he can't churn them out fast enough. Which leaves Commodore, currently last in power, who now has all his pieces (just wait for the IND marble/stone fueled failgold cascade of wonders) lined up to be a juggernaut in 20 turns, quietly waiting in the weeds. He's been able to tech in peace, building courthouses and who knows what else. Who ever heard of such things?? But not units because no one bothers him. I'm not sure if anyone has been into his lands since my choking Quecha around turn 8-15, except the chariot that I used to pillage his horse that promptly got whacked. Anyway, he'll get to knights before we know what's up, having just finished probably the third round of madness with Sian, and he'll come at me from my south, raze Swiper (barely breaking a sweat), and go for the kill shot on Dark Heart, where my four defending Qs will undoubtedly stop his advance cold. Probably at the same time Slow will throw one last Hail Mary at me, then expire from the effort, taking me with him. Sian will plant a couple terrible cities on whatever cultural backwater he can find, build no infrastructure, and churn out ancient age units to give Commodore infinite promotions, before dying too.

Megatron will never be a good, viable city. I can't break Commodore's choke on the water to get my food up, which is needed to get my production up, and he has firm control now. I need a second front on him to make progress here, which would mean either Sian or Slow have to make Com make some choices in production. I don't see it happening. I've been perceived as the game's leader most of the game, if not actually leading (impossible). It will take seeing me 500 points behind on the scoreboard to convince Sian I'm not the threat to win the game, but even so, he'll keep coming for me because my cultural control of the map is strangling him.

Damn you, Catwalk. If I could look forward to 'Phracting just one of these teams, I'd be a little hopeful.