[SPOILERS] Cornflakes and Q Eat 'Em for Breakfast!

[Lord Parkin]

I meant PB4 - didn't you go on a raze spree at the end?

I actually only razed one city in PB4 (and only captured six). It would have been significantly more if the game had continued of course, but we only ever played 2 turns into the final war. I would have had to raze any mainland coastal cities belonging to Plako/Locke at least for the immediate future since I couldn't hold them against a counterattack, but most of those cities were fairly well defended and I probably wouldn't have bothered attacking unless units moved out. It suited me perfectly fine to have enemy stacks stuck defending numerous forked locations anyway, as it freed up the rest of my army from having to defend at home. In all likelihood after taking control of the islands I would have refocussed the attack on one civ (very likely Luddite) whose mainland cities I'd actually be able to hold, and expanded from there. A captured city is much more useful than a razed city after all, as long as you can hold it.

But yeah, only one razed city in the portion of the game we played, so if you got to a total of 2 you'd be beating me there.

[Cornflakes]

Current turn: T202 ... not my finest hour. I still have much to learn.




I don't know whether Krill remembers that I have Circumnavigation. Anyway, O.C has a single C2 LB with 5% fortify and 40% culture defending. I have 2 grenadiers on the ship. Before promoting I get 23%, after promoting to C2 I get 43%.




not even one hit. Bonehead that I am I send in the 2nd grenadier, and lose. The 2nd time around I realized that grenadiers could take Cover for the extra bonus vs archers. Maybe things would have gone different in the first combat, because with C1/Cover I got 57%. Too late now

Moving on ...




Krill abandoned Quincy except for a whipped LB. His city to the west is 4th ring and Quincy is actually within that 4th ring, meaning he would have permanent cultural control over the adjacent Rice tile NW. Bigger is not capturing that city any time soon.

I send in a C2 grenadier at 95% odds (it was at 9/10 XP and I wanted the extra promo) ... and LOSE again at this city without getting a single hit




Not much to say here. Just bad luck. I mean, losing 7 consecutive rolls on a 95% attack? After losing the 1st grenadier I again notice another mistake ... the city has 16% culture defense remaining and I have cannon on that hill to bombard. Why can't I think of these things before losing the combat?

I send in the knight next at 96% so that after winning () i can retreat back to the hill.




Success! Burned. I'm going to replant on that hill there with the City (Iron) sign. City isn't planted for iron specifically because it won't come under my control for a long time. I'll likely get Iron from AT's south though.

Now in the south, since Krill moved everything up NW to face Bigger I think I can take the opportunity to raze one/both of his southern cities. What I should have done here after losing the first amphibious attack is land the 2nd grenadier since I'm now bringing knights up against it anyway. Live and learn.




Krill left a Guerrilla 3 LB on the hill here. I promoted a 10XP Grenadier to G3 myself and attempted to storm the hill (82@ survival odds) and lost again doing just one single hit of damage So far the dice are decidedly against me this turn. But I follow up with a C2 Grenadier at 87% and win flawlessly so there's something.




I move the sentry up for a better view. Not much left in range in the south. I really wish I'd done this BEFORE attacking O.C. amphibiously. I should have just landed those guys rather than suiciding them. Lesson learned: If I'm going to gain more vision (even if it requires combat) do it first.




Keep rolling those dice! I take a 73% shot at that cannon because I don't want to get my knights hit with the collateral after advancing. Win!




Final troop placement. I made another error After planning the grenadier placements to protect my knights from the few units AT has in the area I ended up placing my western knights in range. I was planning to put them on the red square and then changed my mind for some reason. This was not a misclick though, just another error. Probably won't make a difference because I get 96% vs. muskets, but still

[Qgqqqqq]

Why did the G3 grenadier hit the hill? If its to have a strong garrison unit there Id hit it with another unit and then move him in (all hindsight OC).
In general, does if look like he's abandoning the south?

[Cornflakes]

Looks like he's abandoning south. Looks like he wants to hit Bigger's stacks. Bigger is stopped dead now. Krill abandoned one more city (which couldn't be saved in any case) but I predict that Bigger won't make any more progress until we advance.

I promoted to G3 because the of the 25% attack bonus and 20% withdraw.

We have to carry this war to the bitter end. Can't allow an angry hornets nest to continue growing there in the corner. I'll say more of my plans as I have time over the weekend.

[Cornflakes]

Here's a stitch of the whole map in the spoiler ***WARNING, HUGE PICTURE***

The next spoiler is the same picture copied twice side-by-side so I can get a better view across the map wrap. ***WARNING, THIS PICTURE IS TWICE AS HUGE***

I took 25 screenshots without the interface using ALT+F so that all gridlines were vertical. It took me about 15 minutes to make this stitch ... most of that time was downloading and installing "Microsoft Research Image Composite Editor" which I selected from a list on Wikipedia mostly because it was free. It took me two tries, each about a minute to process. The first tried defaulting to "rotating motion" mode. That didn't work, so I just tried "planar motion 1" which gave me the above image. Much easier than trying this in Paint

I'll be using the stitch in metaplanning for my future global domination (my target victory condition). Who made this map anyway? I really like it so far.

[Lord Parkin]

That's really cool. I'll have to remember that method next time I'm reporting on a game - full map stitches are neat.

Ouch, sorry about your bad luck with combat. Happens from time to time...

[Cornflakes]

That's really cool. I'll have to remember that method next time I'm reporting on a game - full map stitches are neat.

Ouch, sorry about your bad luck with combat. Happens from time to time...

Here is a link to Microsoft Image Composite Editor that I used. I tried it on the torroidal RBDemogame map and it worked on my 2nd try. 1st try I did with minimal overlap and got a funky-shaped output that had everything there, but folded out into and odd shape rather than a nice readable rectangle. The 2nd time I fed it about 70 screenshots with heavy overlap and it successfully pieced it together.

Yeah, the poor rolls rather compounded the poor tactical play. I lost 4 grenadiers to kill 2 LB But then cleaned up a Cannon and Crossbow without loss. Not a good hammer-wise.

I checked status after Bigger played, and contrary to my expectations Bigger actually razed another of Krill's cities ...




This city was heavily defended so I didn't expect Bigger to attack since he didn't have siege. It must have cost him a lot (I hope). This means I actually could have kept that rice city rather that razing it.




I already have a settler in production at Paradigm which will complete in 2 turns and found on the hill tile. Bigger has a worker roading in the jungle, so I need to claim this land ASAP. This is a very defensible location now that AT's massive cultural control is removed. That hill also lengthens a city/lake canal from the east.

Bigger has REALLY helped here. Without his attack from the backdoor I'd have had a hard fight against the whole of AT's empire. Now it's completely shattered and the production capacity is drastically reduced. I think I'll end up gaining the larger portion of the spoils as well. Thanks Bigger!

[Cornflakes]

With Drydocks I can build 3-promo ships at my HE. With circumnav that's 7-move Galleons and C3 Frigates on every ship without using a GG for XP sprinkling! The real purpose of the map stitch was to examine the possibilities of canal chains. I think my biggest asset is this huge naval mobility. Even in enemy territory I can use water tiles to dash 7 tiles. I'll draw up some ideas for attack routes on the megamap.

[Cornflakes]

Lots of bloodshed from Bigger. I to a demos screenshot early when I played the turn, and another when I logged in to unpause for Krill, and a 3rd when I checked the status after Krill played.

Rival best power decreased from 1339k > 1275k (Biggers attack) > 1165k (Krill's counter attack) ... 13% loss of power. I know that Bigger has been rival best for a while, but do not know whether he dropped below 2metra or Commodore. I'm assuming not.

Power loss is equivalent to 17.4 knights or 19.3 musketeers. Probably some combination. Bigger also drafted his quota of 4 musketeers (which increased his power mid turn), so add another 36k to the dead.




Demographics after Krill played. Demographics reflect the loss of Azzaland, but I'm going to capture/found at least 6 cities in the next 10 turns. This will help the crop yield and hurt the GNP. But MASH comes out of resistance in 2 more turns, adding another shrine. I need to find a good city to pump missionaries. New cities need both Confucius and Buddha. Old cities need Buddha.

[Cornflakes]

Combat odds swung in our favor this turn ... beginning with:




37% knight vs. Musket WIN! +4 XP for another promotion




Inside I discover the Great Library. I was planning to keep this city anyway, but this is a added bonus. Granted it's not worth nearly as much at this stage of the game, but still it feels like an extra feather in the cap. I wonder if that this was AT's National Epic city? I'm not an expert at checking buildings and never looked for it. I don't even know if AT has his NE up and running.

Also notice the settled GArtist. This is and odd location I think. Why settle him in a backlines city bordering ice? Why not put him up in SWAT along the border with me. I'm guessing this was an event that provided a free settled GArtist.




I win a 79% battle vs. the trireme. I also win a 98% Knight vs. Musket battle flawlessly, earning the 26XP promotion. It's currently C3/Pinch ... if only I'd chosen C4 I'd have another Commando knight!




Here are the locations of Krill's stack and my stack.Now that AT's culture is down I have a really strong position defensively. I've move up to that hill, and I have the full 3-move range which Krill can enter without getting hit first ... same is true for Krill. I can't get within 3 tiles of his stack without getting struck first.




That yellow box is where I killed the musket flawlessly. See unit distribution on the picture in the east. Next turn I'm going to capture O.C. I'll use the grenadiers first because I want to preserve the knights (see next picture). O.C just whipped a Grenadier, and only has 1 pop available for dry whip. I'll likely lose 1 grenadier to the Krill's grenadier since he'll be able to promote to CG1/2? After that I hope to kill both units with my remaining 2 grenadiers. If Krill I need one more unit I'll use the slightly wounded knight.

My galley is carrying over units for FBI. Next turn I'm going to land those two on the forest, then move the galley 1N to pick up another 2 units. The following turn I'll capture with the landed units, then unload the new units from the ship inside the city.




This is the plan for the knights in the west. I'll capture O.C first to remove the culture and then more knights along the GREEN path to collect on the GREEN box. I have 4 workers in the area for 2 turns, giving me 8 worker turns to construct roads. Tundra need 3 and grassland 2. My goal with the roading is to stay out of AT's sight. He has completely emptied "BJ and the Bear" to bring as much force into the Bigger front. Next turn I'll road the GREED box tile with 3 workers and 1SW with the remaining worker. The following turn I'll finish the 2nd tundra road with 2 workers and build the grassland road with 2 workers. This will allow me to move knight from the GREEN box along the blue path and land 2 tiles from BJ.

I have a maximum of full strength 5 Pinch knights with various C2/3/4 kickers plus 2 wounded C3/pinch knights around 8/10 STR. I also upgraded my Sentry HA to a knight for another attacker. Krill has the ability to whip a unit, draft a unit, and ferry over 2 units with his 5-move GG Galley!!. I could potentially be facing 1 musket and 3 grenadiers. I now have 8 knights so I think I'll be safe. It's worth suiciding 4 knights to take out this city because by the time I march an army with cannon up Krill will be able to build/draft/ferry over quite a stack. Plus once I capture it won't be producing any more units.

If all goes well I'l have another 4 of AT's cities in my possession in the next 5 turns or so.