Cheater Hater's PBEM58 Thread (with a surprise post lead!)

[Cheater Hater]

T90 Report:
T90, 500 AD, the time in PBEM 58 where Cheater Hater broke down and just said...**** it.


Yes, I had to give up both border cities for peace--I was going to lose both of them, and eastway had the mounted stack in position to fork Caldisla and Norende, and I just didn't want to deal with this war anymore--and besides, in a lot of ways, I value my current military (one of my few strengths/ways to have fun at the moment) more than I do those two cities--my deficit even decreased when I lost them (though obviously my research decreased as well). I guess I should survey the remains of my empire--at least it means I need fewer screenshots to do so


My north is going well--there's still a lot of growth to be done and tiles to improve, but until then I can keep whipping everything to make my production not total crap. Also, I think this is the first time I've actually shown the new city of Mythril Mines in the thread, and it's almost size 2


Poor Miasma Woods
This is now the core of my empire, especially the Bureaucracy-fueled capital. You'll notice I lost a happiness resource at Miasma Woods, though thankfully my second dyes is still in my culture for at least a turn or two more (remember, I'm trading dyes to AT for ivory). Still, Norende won't be unhappy for long, since I'll 3-pop whip it next turn, which not only will get rid of the unhappy, it gives me two happy from the gems and silver. Florem's going okay as well.

The question now is, what do I do next? A certain graph will tell me:


Yeah, I'm somehow third in power due to all my emergency whips. Honestly, the most annoying thing about giving away Hartschild in the peace deal is that I don't have a convenient path to B4ndit now. Everything else being equal, the best person to attack would be AT, but not only does he have more power than I do, he also has Machinery and has started building Cho-Ko-Nus. Nothing's stopping me from attacking B4ndit still, but I don't think I could hold any cities--especially considering B4ndit would be the logical next target for eastway to try to devour, considering he's even weaker than I was. As such, Twinkletoes becomes the logical target, but he's far away too--you may have noticed that I'm researching Alphabet, that's both to open up the possible Philosophy slingshot (for a surprise Liberalism rush possibly?), and well as for the intel purposes--how close is Twinkletoes to Feudalism and/or Machinery? How about B4ndit? How much are eastway and AT lapping the field?

[Cheater Hater]

*sigh* Hooray, my military gets to rot
Everyone has Machinery (yes, even B4ndit), and Twinkletoes has Feudalism as well. Somehow Twinkletoes is first in production as well, even though he spent some of that time building the Great Wall. At this point the best move might be to try to raze as many cities as I can, go out in a blaze of glory, then dump the remains on someone else

[Cheater Hater]

Okay, I'm confused now--Twinkletoes has passed me in power, but doesn't have that many units in the border cities (a vulture in Pentos, an archer in The Vale, and a mace, chariot and spear in Casterly Rock--aka the city that's easiest to attack). In addition, Twinkletoes finished the Great Library last turn, in addition to the Great Wall last turn--I haven't noticed that much whipping (notably Twinkletoes is first in score still, though part of that is the wonders I'm sure), though admitted I haven't done detailed city analysis since I don't care enough. I guess Twinkletoes must be gearing up to attack somebody--hopefully it's not me, and I can jump in to surprise Twinkletoes and carve some territory for myself

I do intend to actually do a full report this turn, but the PB18 report and PB20 sandboxing are coming first (though with the early turn I might end up merging the two).

[Cheater Hater]

Note the word "intend" in the last sentence--though PB18 and PB20 did come first
I did get the new turn and play it before I run out the door, but I still will eventually have some sort of report--things are still going okay, except that Twinkletoes is still pumping out power--there's another mace in Casterly Rock, but it seems like a lot of the defenses (aka the first longbow I've seen) are focused on Twinkletoe's west at least. I'm getting a scout to the southern cities to check their defenses, but it seems like a Twinkletoes attack might just be successful enough to be one last jolt of fun before I'm completely obsolete.
(and yes, I hope to get a report out sometime, if just so the lurkers have a clue what's happening)

[Cheater Hater]

T94 Report:
Yes! I'm actually doing a report for once! One thing I'm noticing is that I'm taking a lot fewer pictures than I used to; I'm ignoring stuff like all the demos (since I suck in all of them) and the other civ overviews (since it's irrelevant and the C&D ship has long-since sailed)--maybe I'll do a full overview at the T100 milestone?

Anyway, domestic stuff is the most important, so we'll work on that:


Obviously, since I slacked on reporting, a lot of stuff has happened--I finished Alphabet, slowed down a bit and backfilled Horseback Riding (two turns), and am now going "full speed" towards Feudalism--I'll explain this a bit more when we get to the tech screen (thank you Alphabet!). Domestically Florem finished its Courthouse and now is working on a Forum, Norende 1-turned a Chariot between all the Praets for future Great General use (I'm 2 XP away), and Caldisla 2-pop whipped the Forum and is now overflowing into the settler for the southern horse/sheep spot.


Not that much is happening city-wise here--Grapp Keep whipped the forge then moved onto a Granary, Mythril Mines is still working on its Granary (it should whip it soon), and Starkfort finished a Praet before finishing the Barracks this coming turn. Of course, the main thing going on here is the swarm of Praets (including the stack almost off the bottom of the screen). As I've mentioned in my quick reports, the one problem with my "attack Twinkletoes" ideas has been this:


Yeah, Twinkletoe's power has been on the rise recently--of course, part of that has been that Twinkletoes is now tops in GNP, partly because he built the Great Library a couple turns ago, and partly because of this:


I'll admit, when I noticed this and went back in the game to check, I expected Twinkletoes to have popped a Golden Age (which actually happened before I made peace with eastway--how did I miss all this stuff?), not eastway to have pulled the trigger on the B4ndit attack this quickly (mainly since B4ndit's power drop hasn't shown up in the graph yet due to turn order, and eastway's drop could easily be a whip or two)--you can tell I'm not focusing as much on this game as much as I should be; blame PB18 and PB20

Back on track with the Twinkletoes offensive, I've keeping detailed track of what my scouts have been seeing recently, and you can see my pictures for T93 and T94 respectively if you're interested. The summary is that there aren't that many troops in the border cities Twinkletoes has with me (Casterly Rock being a notable exception with two maces, a chariot and a spear, all on a hill), while a lot are on the other coast (Riverrun had 3 Longbows, a mace and a spear on T93). The one complication is that while I've been scanning his empire, Twinkletoes has had a galley sitting in my territory, watching all my Praets shift around--I think he realizes that something's going on, and is shifting some troops to my border (though not that much right now). Before we get to my two options, let's go to the tech screen--the first time I've shown it in the thread in fact:


(As a reminder, the civs from top down are Twinkletoes, B4ndit, eastway, and AT--also, both Twinkletoes and B4ndit can research Engineering, as hidden by the scrollbar)
Obviously I'm behind, though it's not by that much actually--ignoring the religious wing, I'm behind the main three in Feudalism, then AT and Twinkletoes have Aesthetics (Twinkletoes hitting Literature and Music, while AT got Drama), while eastway has researched Engineering, Paper, as well as Theology. Notably, none of them have Guilds yet! That's seems like a gap I could exploit--sure eastway has Pikes, but he's occupied elsewhere (for example, Miasma Woods has only a pike in it this turn, and it's been empty for multiple turns--of course, this is because of the forced peace treaty), and no one else does--and pikes match up really poorly against Praets. So those are basically my two options: attack Twinkletoes now (in a turn or two) while his defenses are down, or wait until knights (probably with the help of a golden age--Norende finishes its great person in two turns), build a bunch of them, and attack before my Praets get too obsolete. Of course, what I really want to happen is for war to break out between Twinkletoes and AT--that will distract them and whittle down their forces, and I could actually attack either Twinkletoes or AT in that case--notably, AT doesn't seem like he's expecting it at all, unless he sees ill intent from some of the archers (and soon a spear) scouting some of the border cities.

[Cheater Hater]

T95 Report:
I guess this is a full report, though it's not that big--I only have 5 pictures, and for comparison some of my PB18 turns have had 4

Let's start with the one picture that tells a lot of what's happened this turn:


Yeah, you could have guessed that eastway would roll over B4ndit (though Peace falling has a bit of sentimental value to me ), but Twinkletoes also figured out that he probably shouldn't be letting me scout his troop positions, unfortunately cancelling his gracious silver deal along with the open borders (sending Starkfort and Norende into unhappiness). Let's see how the power stands, as Twinkletoes finishes his Golden Age:


Still a Twinkletoes spike--it looks like he may have even passed eastway due to the war grinding down troops on each side. He's also researched Engineering, giving him defenses against Knights.

Now let's take a look at domestic stuff--though the domestic situation hasn't changed, it also isn't the most important part of these pictures:




Let's start with eastway--his troops are still occupied elsewhere, and we see Miasma Woods only has the pike playing zone defense--though he did capture Bursa, so some troops are still in the area at least for the moment.

The more surprising lack of defense comes from AT--ABQ does have a Longbow, but that's the only unit. And is Granite State really being defended by only a warrior on T95? These two situations combined are making me go for the "wait for the inevitable fireworks" approach while teching and building some knights approach--though this is the same kind of situation I think cost me in the B4ndit and eastway wars; waiting for the next tech when I should attack now--I mean, I'm sure I could probably burn Dragonstone with my current stack, but at what cost?

One more graph before I go, and it's somewhat surprising:


This is interesting--eastway's tanked his GNP, partly because of his new acquisitions, and partly because he's gone to 0% research on Philosophy, but the more interesting thing is that he didn't end up researching Education--I'm pretty sure he doesn't know I have his research in that case. That means he's going to try and store Liberalism for something good--granted, he's the only one close to it at this point, but still. Then again, if he's heading up the Liberalism path, he's not going for Guilds.

Speaking of Philosophy, I finished my Great Person, and it's a scientist, as expected. The question now is what to do with it--the main two things I can think to do with it at this point are bulbing Philosophy and starting a Golden Age, and I have no clue which one is better :/

[Cheater Hater]

Another quick report today, as I'm late on playing the turn as is--I did trigger my golden age, though I'm still not higher than 4th at the moment in all the demos. I am closer to the averages at least; B4ndit is really bringing them down. When I get around to posting my pictures, you'll see my two stacks--Twinkletoes researched Guilds this turn, so I feel like I would need to strike now; please have the AT/Twinkletoes war start soon!

[Cheater Hater]

T97 Report:
Yes, there's a full report today, mainly because I'm changing course with regard of what to do with all these Praets running around, partially because of this:


Yikes! Well I'm not taking that city anytime soon
As such, I'm moving my troops south, as that's part of my best chance to get back into this game:

1. AT and Twinkletoes start fighting soon, so their armies don't notice I have a shell defense in my northern cities (though Praets and Archers is a lot better than some of the shell defenses I've been seeing )
   
2. eastway stalls in his attempt to wipe out B4ndit completely, yet --he didn't take any cities last turn (though he did take one last turn), yet they still remain at war.
   
3. I can attack and take back Hartschild and Miasma Woods (the latter of which he renamed--so evil! ) quickly, then possibly raze some more cities with whatever's left of my army. This will put me back where I was before eastway took those cities, but the problem is doing it without eastway suspecting anything--there's 3 turns left in the peace treaty, but it'll take my Praets ~6-7 turns to get to outside Miasma Woods--I'm building a ton of Praets in my southern cities to help, and having Knights for the second wave will help as well.
   

Now to the domestic picture:


Not much here--Praets are moving south, Mythril Mines is developing (and running an artist to pop borders; the main reason I switched to Caste System when I started the golden age)


So many Praets! I think all of these are heading towards Miasma Woods, and then I should sneak a Catapult or two in here. That's the one good thing about Praets in Medieval warfare--since I'm going to have Knights soon, I can more-or-less ignore maces at least in the short term--sure, maces are better, but they're also more expensive, and I'm going for quantity over quality at the moment. You can also see I founded the sheep/horses city about 50 turns too late--I should get some more workers there, and they're coming from the east--of course, the problem with that is that Ancheim's right on the front lines--though if eastway's attacking that, he's not defending his cities as much I guess :/

You can also see there's some defense in Miasma Woods now--a longbow to go along with the pike. That's still not that much, though eastway has 3 turns to reinforce it.

Now to some stats, starting with the all-important power graph:


Getting better I guess--it should get back to respectable with all the Praets coming out this golden age, and eastway will probably drop again when he tries to take another B4ndit city.


The golden age isn't pulling any miracles, but at least I'm closer to the averages--sure I'm ahead of eastway, but that's just because he turned off research (though he turned it off on Nationalism--that's scary if it represents his intentions).


eastway's really trying to sandbag Liberalism isn't he--I guess he doesn't really need Universities, and if I hadn't have gotten that brief glimpse of his research on the interturn, no one would know how close he was (not even the lurkers, as he's stopped reporting ). You can also see that Twinkletoes has Guilds now--considering I might need to turn off research after Guilds to fund upgrades and stuff (delaying Engineering by a lot), that's another reason to avoid a Twinkletoes war.

[Cheater Hater]

This is weird--I have the time to do a full T98 report, but there isn't much content for it--my troops are moving south and I produced a bunch more Praets, but not much else is happening--I took a bunch of pictures of graphs and stuff and stuck in in the folder, but the turn's really boring--the eastway/B4ndit war has even stalled out

[Cheater Hater]

T98-99 Report:
So much for the turns being too boring to report on:


Yeah, B4ndit's kinda dead now--if this was SP I'd join in for mutual military struggle bonuses
I don't know how long it'll take for B4ndit to be defeated now--this could be a detriment for my eastway campaign, since if B4ndit dies that means he can focus on me, and I won't survive long if that happens most likely.

Let's check the relative power of everyone--remember that B4ndit's current (post-this turn's eastway and AT attacks) power isn't represented on the graph, and comes from the demos instead.




You can also see that I'm doing relatively well in the stats--soldiers are close to the average (though the average is being dragged down by B4ndit), and my production's actually pretty good--after I ended turn and grew everywhere I'm actually second in production

Now to the domestic stuff, starting with the north:


This is pretty boring--the most exciting thing here is the stable in Starkfort, so I can have 2-promotion knights shortly. I also regained the clams tile in Mythril Mines, which is why the forge slowed down--it'll get a chop when I improve the second banana, and it'll work the lumbermill again when it grows, so it shouldn't take that long to finish the forge.


Not much new here either--I got a couple catapults built for the attack on Miasma Woods, but not much new otherwise.

Of course, I need to decide when I'm going to attack--right now I have 4 Praets waiting on the staging tile outside of Miasma Woods, and my stack has reached the staging tile outside of Hartschild. A Mace was added to Miasma Woods's garrison, but that's only 3 units--3 good units, but still. I wish I had a clue what was in Hartschild though--my stack should be able to knock out most anything though, even if he has knights coming soon (he turned on research, and I guess he can do some mass upgrades of all those Numidian Cavs).