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

[Cheater Hater]

Well, that's over I guess--AT declared, he'll take Florem, my eastway attack's already a mess, no need to continue

Edit: After a minute of a clearer head, I'm realizing I probably shouldn't quit--at least not until I try a bit. As far as I can tell (admittedly only looking at the save for a couple minutes, barely getting a sense of what's going on, eastway offered me peace for 150 gold--obviously I thought there'd be no reason to take it, but if I do take the deal, that means my stack will teleport back to my territory and allow me to save Florem I assume--I'm not sure I want to reopen the save tonight, but I think I have to :/

[Cheater Hater]

I am playing the turn right now, but there's still a long way to go--I've taken eastway's peace (since I obviously had to), and I got a ton of pictures of the combat logs--I put them here, and while I haven't looked at them too closely, it doesn't seem like eastway got too lucky--the notable exception being he attacks his pike into a full-health C1 Praet and wins somehow. However, I didn't notice any occasions where I got lucky at all either--all his knights retreated or won, and I think the only real wins I got were against his suicide cats, and a couple early 25% Praet vs Mace wins. I don't know what the RNG has against me this game, but I think I need to keep it contained and stop it from infecting PB18 and PB20

[Cheater Hater]

T108 Report:
What a turn--I'm surprised I actually played it within 24 hours. Let's start with a surprising diplo offer--and a surprising result from it:


So eastway's offering peace for a relatively miniscule amount. Why would I take it? But wait, what's that in the corner? AT declared on me? What's worth more: 150 gold or Florem? I'd rather keep Florem if possible
The trick here is that AT almost certainly declared because my stack was stuck on all of those hills, and couldn't get back to Florem in time. Amazingly, eastway's peace offer teleported my stack back into my border, which means I can get my remaining Praets back into Florem! Let's see what I'm up against, at least in the first wave:


Including the Cho-Ko-Nus, that's a lot of collateral damage, but not much else--unless he has a bunch of knights in the fog (I saw he had a couple, but not that many), Florem will hold this turn, simply due to lack of units on AT's part. Next turn I'll have a bunch of Knights to reinforce the city (which doesn't do that much for defense, but it's still more units he has to chew through at the very least, and they match up decently against Cho-Ko-Nus), and 3 turns from now my western stack will make it there and likely end most of AT's possible gains (or try to regain Florem). I also have my first Great General to play with--I'm not sure what I should do with it, but that will depend on what AT does next turn. In an effort to not put a million pictures in one post (and not having to name a million pictures/make my dropbox messy), I gathered all my combat log pictures here and my troop positions here--ask in the thread if you have any questions.

Other than the war, not that much is happening--here's my domestic pictures:




The main thing I'm worried about is that AT would attack my northern cities--I have some units there at least, and I can't see that many units in that area--hopefully Twinkletoes decides to attack and make my recklessness not for naught--please?

Of course, with this warring, I'm falling behind in all the other aspects--notably, all three contenders have Education now (eastway will research Liberalism next turn if he wants it though). The demos also tell the bad tale:


So right now I'm down 200k soldier points on AT--AT could swallow me (though I'm not going without somewhat of a fight), but I don't think he could afford to--again, Twinkletoes is still leading on tech (he just got Banking, and as such is on track for the Economics Great Merchant) and eastway has more land I think, while AT leads on population. It's weird being in this position, being still somewhat relevant as kingmaker in this three-horse race. Someone do something and try to gain an advantage please!

[Cheater Hater]

And now AT took Florem because he had a million horse archers in the fog. **** it, I'm retiring to AI in the morning

[Commodore]

And now AT took Florem because he had a million horse archers in the fog. **** it, I'm retiring to AI in the morning

Krill and others have enjoying playing defense in this sort of position. Apply for a sub in CivGeneral.

[Cheater Hater]

And now AT took Florem because he had a million horse archers in the fog. **** it, I'm retiring to AI in the morning

Krill and others have enjoying playing defense in this sort of position. Apply for a sub in CivGeneral.

Is that really what I should do? Let's assume for the moment that I am completely out of it--my only advantage was that I had a huge stack of Praets, and the combination of eastway and AT completely wiped out the eastern stack. Right now AT is offering me straight peace for some reason--yes I have the western stack and can probably stop him from taking Norende with what I can currently see, but he's leading in power for a reason--I think he only lost something like one Cat in the attack--and could swallow me with ease. Should I really upset the balance of this game by giving it to a sub (who has much more skill than me basically by default, especially considering the kind of people who would take this hopeless position) who would sign peace with AT, have 10 turns of peace with my main rivals to fix my defensive position, and actually make some headway?

As I've said, this is a competitive three-horse race at the moment, and anything could happen. B4ndit and I have become the bottom-tier in both position and skill level, and even though I've made an attempt to be relevant, that illusion has almost certainly disappeared. I have no idea how B4ndit is doing (though he's stopped reporting, even though he was in a "team" with Catwalk), but I think I've finally lost any urge to play this game. I'm going to wait until tomorrow to look at the save again, but even though I've been wanting to quit since about T40, I feel like this broke the camel's back--my last hope is for the powers to fight each other, but I've been waiting for that for about 20 turns and it hasn't happened (even though I feel like I would have more power than eastway/Twinkletoes in units, at least at the start of my kamikaze).

Still, if I do decide to quit, what is fairest to the three front-runners? Retiring me to AI? Replacing me with someone actually good at this game? Just removing me from the map, with or without turning it into water?

[Commodore]

Well, fairest is staying in it, naturally. But I doubt retiring to AI is the best option. Some of the greener sort might enjoy learning from the situation, actually.

[Cheater Hater]

Well, fairest is staying in it, naturally. But I doubt retiring to AI is the best option. Some of the greener sort might enjoy learning from the situation, actually.

I doubt it is either, but I don't know what I should be doing. Is it really fair if I just, say, automated all my workers and just hit enter every turn after deciding techs and builds, spending less than five minutes every turn?

What do you mean by "the greener sort"? Me, my possible replacement, or the other players in the game?

For that matter, how bad is it that I'm holding the turn hostage while I figure this out? My internal reasoning is that AT has a peace deal waiting for me, and that's a pivotal choice in the game, and if I do decide I need to be replaced, I'd want my replacement to make that choice.

Anyway, I'm going to look at the save for the first time in 24 hours, but I don't think I'm going to play it quite yet unless I get very inspired by something :/

[NobleHelium]

He is saying that there are other newbies who may be interested in playing from your position.

[Cheater Hater]

Yes, I finally decided to play on, at least in the short term. No reports, but a summary of what I did:

• I signed peace--obviously I'm not going to play on with the war going, unless I go after B4ndit for fun or something (something I'm seriously considering actually)
  
• I started two settlers--one is headed for the western deer spot I mentioned before, and the second for the plains hill between Norende and Caldisla--I'll show it if I ever decide to post another picture
  
• I'm just turning back on tech and proceeding normally--I get Paper in 2 turns