TheHumanHydra Falls Behind [Spoilers]

[Old Harry]

Forward me the save to have a look?

Also save cash for a spear upgrade, put a couple of warriors on the forest, get some hammers into another warrior in the cap, get all your workers over here to get that copper hooked and MAKE HIM PAY!

He's set himself back a bit attacking you, so your job is to make sure he doesn't win because of it. Also the pressure is off you for the perfect micro etc to get a win, now you just do your best and have fun since he screwed your chances...

[TheHumanHydra]

*Regrettably, your regular host TheHumanHydra has been struck by an errant chariot while walking to another city; it is reported that his spirit was crushed in the accident and that he is now in hospital, urgently awaiting a transplant. It is not yet known whether it will be possible to lay charges on the driver of the chariot, who fled the scene while hurling javelins at police. The officers, who were armed only with the traditional bobby-stick and arrived on the scene on foot, were forced to take cover while the perpetrator escaped. Constable Wei Wang commented on the accident: 'The incident that occurred at 10:25 last night was, unfortunately, completely avoidable. We ask all chariot-drivers to respect the flow of traffic and to please stay on the rutted road and off the pedestrian dirt track. This incident also quickly became a deplorable instance of javelin-violence. In Hydria, we pride ourselves on our javelin-free society, which we believe creates a culture of safety and mutual respect. Please, if you see anyone carrying an unauthorized javelin, or fashioning what appears to be a javelin (and they are not a known tent-pole maker), do not approach them, but report it to your local barracks immediately. If everyone takes these simple steps, together we can reduce and eliminate javelin-violence in our society. Help us end javelin-violence today.'

*Breaking update: Our correspondent has just reported by runner that the perpetrator in last night's incident may have been a foreigner, from the kingdom of Dazia to the north. One witness said the charioteer in fact appeared to be royalty. The people of Dazia are known for their fascination with pointed objects such as obelisks, nails, stakes (which they often plant in their neighbours' yards to try and illegally alter the property lines), and the ubiquitous javelin. Join us in the market square tonight for a special report on illicit javelin-smuggling and violence imported across the border (which, the Surveyors' and Astrologers' Guild notes, appears to have recently been altered by unauthorized boundary-stakes of unknown origin).*

~~~

Okay, that was therapeutic. Now I don't have the energy to write the ranty stuff I was going to (and no, there will be no special report on dazed tonight). And yes, before anyone comments, moving the worker to the hill as planned was a mistake, I guess. I spent ages yesterday agonizing over whether to move my settler to the plains hill next to the gold (my planned next city-site), to try and steal it from dazed, and restore my dotmap, but decided it was unsafe (fortunate, I guess, 'cause then I would've lost a settler, not a worker). At that point I guess I stopped thinking and just executed the rest of my plan. I remember feeling concerned about wolves attacking from 2N of the pigs-hill, which is why I left the warrior there, but didn't really consider a war chariot attacking from 1NE of dazed's new plant, even though I had with regard to my settler earlier.

I'm just frustrated that one, relatively minor mistake (of unit positioning) costs me the whole game.

Here's the current situation:




Harry, thanks for the comments; I'm not sure which forest you meant with regard to the warriors, so I moved one of them toward the capital, to be safe, and the other toward High Point, which may need military police if it doesn't whip, etc.

I let the (now a sad two) workers finish their chops, into a worker in Tall Poppy, 'cause goodness knows I now need more of them, even more than before, and the already-under-construction settler in Greener Grass. Before anyone panics at this lack of military preparation, Tall Poppy can easily two-turn warriors without breaking a sweat, or one-turn them while delaying growth, Greener Grass had one hammer into a warrior from before, which it can complete this coming turn with a perfect nine hammers from overflow and new production (this was planned), and High Point has two hammers into a warrior from that one turn before I had Pottery, so it can whip without penalty if necessary - though I'd rather hold off and double-whip a spear into another spear off of them the turn after I've hooked copper. Two turns till copper's hooked - assuming dazed doesn't interfere. Whither then? Who knows. I'm sending the settlers to settle the spots 3E and 3S of Greener Grass, unless my dedlurkers have any other thoughts. Worker labour's going to be very tight. Here's the area in question; btw I found Ichabod the other turn - thankfully he's not as close as dazed is. Also his capital is size 7 (!).




Graphs - as you can see from this one, this turn of events is particularly disappointing because this game actually appeared to be going rather well for me:




Dazed's power is actually less than mine - I couldn't see this graph when I made my choices last turn, but I am surprised after the fact that dazed even has a war chariot. It is sad that he could so thoroughly trash another player's game with just that one unit.




Btw, Harry, in response to your post - I don't think he really has 'set himself back' to do this - it's one, twenty-hammer unit, eminently useful for merely barb/settlement defence, and with it he managed to gain a 40-hammer unit, a worker which will speed his snowball, while depriving his nearest neighbour of the same and trashing his micro. He's invested 20 hammers - which he still has and which are valuable - to gain 40 and deprive me of 50 (including the warrior), a 70- to 90-hammer swing, depending how you look at it, with extreme 'intangible' consequences for his opponent as well. Yeah, I'm behind the eight-ball here.

Demos - my crop yield would have been 44 this turn, with higher values only a couple turns away. *Sigh* I could have done so well this game - not won, not with Commodore and Pindicator around (though their apparent skirmishing would have helped), but at least made a good show of it - with your help, Fintourist and Old Harry.

[TheHumanHydra]

Re: the random exchange in the tech thread - Pindicator's remark, "GG Gawdzak," initially confused me as Gawdzak is the mapmaker (and I am quite enjoying his map, if not my neighbour), not a player - so much so that I looked around the site to see if they were playing any other games together to which it might have been intended to apply. My second guess was that a (Commodorian?) unit named Gawdzak had died, which given the skirmishing evident between Commodore and Pindicator I consider likely.

On a semi-related note, if anyone is wondering what Commodore's thread title (and naming scheme? I don't remember his cap's name) is about, and he didn't bother to explain it (so maybe this is mostly for my dedlurkers), it's a reference to Thomas the Tank Engine. I looked it up.

Also sorry to the lurkers if my reporting has been spotty or difficult to follow; I've been posting when I have the energy/feel like it instead of making a concerted effort to be coherent, and I know I've been reporting less than the other players (save dazed). I can't promise that will change, especially given recent events, but if there's anything anyone is unclear about, please don't hesitate to ask me.

[spacetyrantxenu]

No worries about your reporting, Dazed is on the way to the hall of shame for his recent reporting efforts here and in PB18. And I say that as someone who is also operating a ghost town of a thread in 18. IIRC from the 18 tech thread he only started a thread in that game because he had a question for the lurkers. So I guess unless something similar happens in this game you'll definitely be off the hook for the worst thread here.

[TheHumanHydra]

Thanks xenu.

Technical question: If I connect copper this turn, will the warrior complete as a spear at end-of-turn?




[Edit: Never mind; I found the answer (yes).]

Something interesting: dazed offered me peace, which I accepted. While in the trade screen, I noticed he only has two cities other than his capital, the same as I do - ie. he founded his third city t37, to my t30, and when I would have settled my fourth city had he not interfered. No comment for now; we'll see how this plays out ...

[TheHumanHydra]

What happened to THH in this game?

The short answer is I went on tilt.

I looked up the definition of that word in gamer circles the other day. Based on RB, I had always understand it to mean getting angry then behaving in a foolishly aggressive manner in-game. The definition I read framed it as becoming overconfident and not taking into account that something could derail one's plans. Well, I did both.

This game started really well for me and I am actually still really proud of my opening. In past I've kind of coasted through the opening, never simming, because I find it much less interesting than when the game is in a more developed state. I've never really enjoyed micro or simming. This time, though, I got my game on, and simmed a fair bit. Old Harry helped me with the sims, and Fintourist pointed out some excellent city locations that would have escaped my notice otherwise (particularly my double-food second city, which Ichabod has remarked was better than his capital).

Hey, I'm off to a good start - I'm actually simming a little!

Wahay! Your batteries must be fully re-charged!

This was good news, because I had become really, really angry and disappointed toward the end of PBEM 46, which is why I stayed away from Civ for a year, with the exception of some abortive duels and dedlurking, before joining this game.

In fact, things were going so well that I actually developed a crop yield lead for a number of turns before my demise began. Here is the relevant graph:

It's missing Ichabod, but you can see from his thread that I was leading even him for a while:

Those graphs also show how my crop yield remained high even after I had begun intensively whipping and trashing my economy to fight dazed. I found this a great irony while playing, but in retrospect it shows how foolish my aggressive course of action was.

An establishing shot of my empire at its peak:




All was going well. I was planning on settling my fourth and fifth cities in short order, I continued to plan well ahead in sims, and the sims showed a rapidly burgeoning crop yield:

Shot from my last sim:




Then:

Frack.

My settlement plans and dazed's came into conflict. You can see how dazed's projected site invalidated one of my own. That in itself wasn't a disaster, though it did mess up my micro. The site for the settler headed for that location would have to be reevaluated. I made the decision, though, to continue with the settlement intended to precede it northwest of there, and with the worker micro designed to accompany it:




This turned out to be a huge mistake:




My worker was captured, and my new city-plant threatened. Along with the other city-site being invalidated, this was altogether a huge disaster. To make matters worse, dazed's new city provided a huge, highly-defensible salient into my projected settlement area, with direct access to my capital and both my strategic resources, which were both just north of it. Even if dazed didn't choose to capitalize on this right away (which he very well could, with war chariots to my warriors), my core was completely indefensible, whether I continued with what remained of my settlement plan or directed all settlement away from dazed. I chose to fight.

You can see how I had gone on tilt according to the second definition, not taking into account that anything could derail my well-thought-out micro plan. Some remarked in the lurker thread that it was a mistake for dazed to give me peace at this point, for I had no military besides warriors at this point and my copper wasn't even connected yet. I remarked at the time that the worst-case scenario was that dazed pressed on toward my capital with his war chariot, preventing me from connecting my copper and probably wresting control of the city from the hands of my warriors. He didn't. However, at this point I fell into the first definition of 'tilt', and became so angry that it clouded my judgement. To be fair, Old Harry agreed with me that dazed's play had wrecked my game and that my only recourse was to eliminate his projecting city, but from the moment dazed offered me peace (immediately), this was not playing to my best chance to win the game. Dazed had war chariots, a salient, and defensible terrain. I didn't.

I recovered from my rage relatively swiftly, and spent the ten turns of peace whipping chariots and some spears to fight dazed (I actually simmed this, too!). Chariots might seem an odd choice, but I guessed that dazed wouldn't expect them against his war chariots and wouldn't build spears to counter, while I calculated that if I founded my northwest city as planned -




- I would be able to mass chariots out of his line-of-sight and be able to hit his offending city out of the fog before he could respond (this involved a lot of simming of the behaviour of tile culture and precisely when different parties were allowed to declare war after a peace treaty). My plans were further shrouded by the fact that dazed roaded the tile I needed roaded (the pigs hill) himself. However, I couldn't disguise my power spike, and dazed was building up, too. Cheekily, I even settled my last previously-planned location in his face:




It was do-or-die in terms of this next phase of combat. I don't know that we'll ever know whether dazed would have built up militarily independent of me and forced me to derail my game to an equal extent, but as it actually transpired I certainly forced a conflict that was weighted against me and, due to the massive early-game investment, tanking me economy, going all-in on the city-sites, etc., would decisively determine my fate in the game. In retrospect, I believe I should have taken my crop yield lead, whipped spears, certainly, though not chariots, adopted a defensive stance, and settled in the other direction. Perhaps dazed would have attacked anyway and I would have had to try my hand at holding him off, but perhaps he would have left me in peace for the time being and allowed me to grow my empire. If he had, and I had, I believe I would have overcome him, for his settlement lagged far behind mine (his city that caused me such grief was his third, including his capital, settled at the same time as I would have my fourth, and in actuality my fourth and fifth cities were settled a scant few turns after). If I had been allowed to continue on the same course (and had actually endeavoured to), I would have greatly outnumbered him in terms of numbers of cities, and thus military capacity, and eventually financial capacity. I could have overcome the setbacks he imposed on me, assuming he didn't impose more, but instead I chose the path of retribution.

That's basically it in terms of why I failed in this game. I think I have (hopefully) absorbed the lessons far more quickly than after PBEM 46, where my decision-making, in terms of overreacting and choosing an ultimately destructive, do-or-die military course, followed a similar pattern. Perhaps they will actually stick this time! The next post will concern how the military situation unfolded - obviously to my disadvantage, though I fought as hard as I could. More mistakes were made, for similar reasons, though they are in the end tangential to my greatest mistake in this game, which was, when granted the choice, abandoning watchful peace for wrathful war.

Cheers,

THH

[Fintourist]

Good analysis THH. I'm not saying you did, but falling in love with a well-thought (micro) plan and not adjusting it when needed or overreacting when someone ruins it is a very very common mistake. I wonder if there is anyone who haven't made that one.

On the positive I think your early game was indeed miles better than in PBEM 45 or 46, which means that if you keep up the level or even better, improve further, you will constantly give yourself chances to succeed and win games (also in a vet field like this)

[TheHumanHydra]

Thanks, Fintourist.

[Old Harry]

To be fair, Old Harry agreed with me that dazed's play had wrecked my game and that my only recourse was to eliminate his projecting city, but from the moment dazed offered me peace (immediately), this was not playing to my best chance to win the game.

Hmmm, I maaaay have let my lurker lust for blood cloud my judgement here . Sorry!

[TheHumanHydra]

No problem; I appreciated your help all the same.