[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Old Harry]

Turn 235

TBS is building a load of wealth and research to get Industrialism this turn. He's 27 gold from his research rate getting bumped though - in Valeth that's equivalent to 9 hammers, so if we can get rid of three mines...


Then perhaps his slider will drop down?


We've now got 35 Destroyers in place and will advance again next turn...

Demos and power

BTW - the trick against TBS worked - one more turn without Battleships

[Qgqqqqq]

If that works...wow. Just...wow.

[Ceiliazul]

If that works...wow. Just...wow.

I think it was Commodore who said "civ wars are a battle for morale"... and that's how you win that battle... ouch.

[Old Harry]

Turn 236

With plastics due eot we could build 3 Gorges next turn. On the mainland 1 city will and 2 cities could benefit, on the north continent 4 city will benefit. 1750 hammers for 600 hammers doesn't seem like a good deal to me, so I guess we'll leave it for someone else to grab. Losing fur next turn won't make any cities unhappy, but we'll have six cities with no happy cap. That's good, right?

A couple of side notes
- Global warming has hit three of our tiles so far .
- I offered coal to a couple of folks and will position units and workers so that we can pillage our coal mines the turn before we get computers to let Zucchini overflow ~90 hammers from a Tank into the Internet, then re-hooking the coal should get us 315 hammers on T1 of the build. I still don't understand how TBS got such great overflow, perhaps some simming is in order.

In more exciting blood-related news the fleet moved into position to fork the original three cities again. TBS/Yuri can hit it with 39 Destroyers next turn. I'm hoping that the coastal defence bonus will tip the balance in our direction and we'll have enough power to protect our carriers and transports . Arcanclave has the smallest garrison right now. We'll be able to hit it with three Bombers and 12 Fighters, although TBS/Yuri has 16 Fighters himself now, so we need to leave a lot of planes on intercept duty.


If we can take Arcanclave next turn then our 15 Commando Cav and 1 Commando Inf can hit a selection of cities:
- Frontline (4 cav) - required culture city
- Howling Badland (1 cav) - empty city which is close to spawning a Great Scientist
- Tzentech (4 cav) - not much value
- Serpent Ford (1 Inf, 3 cav) - large production city, medium value
- Urithiru (1 Inf, 4 Cav) - medium production city, needed to take Valeth
- Valeth (5-6 cav) - Ironworks and Eiffel Tower, high value, high cost
I think we'll want to take Frontline, then hit Urithiru and Valath and if we have a cav to spare hit Howling Badland, but open to suggestions...


Demos and power

[Fintourist]

With plastics due eot we could build 3 Gorges next turn. On the mainland 1 city will and 2 cities could benefit, on the north continent 4 city will benefit. 1750 hammers for 600 hammers doesn't seem like a good deal to me, so I guess we'll leave it for someone else to grab. Losing fur next turn won't make any cities unhappy, but we'll have six cities with no happy cap. That's good, right?

Yeah, as speculated in the chat, prooobably not really worth it as we have already invested in coal plants.

- I offered coal to a couple of folks and will position units and workers so that we can pillage our coal mines the turn before we get computers to let Zucchini overflow ~90 hammers from a Tank into the Internet, then re-hooking the coal should get us 315 hammers on T1 of the build. I still don't understand how TBS got such great overflow, perhaps some simming is in order.

Actually I don't think TBS did anything too clever with the coal, the thing is that you and I have simply misunderstood the rules about the maximum overflow. It's simply a case of absorbing (or misunderstanding) things in this forum and never really checking the mechanics yourself. This article explains the rule somewhat. Ie, when you have a bunch of multipliers or high base production: The maximum overflow you get isn't simply "Cost of the build / your hammer multiplier", which has been at least my understanding.
---> I doubt that the coal trick makes sense (it could in a veeeeery specific situation) and we should just test quickly that things work if we put e.g. 400 hammers in Zucchini into a tank or something.

In more exciting blood-related news...

I keep repeating it, let's always respect TBS's navy and not lose an army. We can handle a delay or a temporary retreat, but a total disaster in the battlefield might lead to a situation where we simply don't have enough stuff for stopping the culture attempt even if we go all-in. That being said, I'm happy to have the fork in place again. How many bombers do we have in range of Khar or Lashing? This time we have more capable hitters and planes in place, but there are also more defenders & bunkers available.

Interesting to see whether yuris can handle the situation. I would assume he won't give freebies as he is spending multiple hours per turn as was TBS. In any case, let's see if there is an opening for a decent hammer exchange somewhere.

UPDATE: Yuris just played, and actually there are big news!

1.



He attacked out, that's not a terrible call but I guess the fight went according to expectations with us killing 23 destroyers and yuris killing 17. I did not study the combat log so this is simply based on my previous simulation experiences. (We got gifted couple of planes kills as well)

2. Yuris left Arcanclave vulnerable (units are highlighted in the screenshot) and Frontline still has only 4 defenders. Assuming no misclick from OH we are going to raze TBS's #3 culture city this turn.

---> Unless it's obvious, this is a huge thing, which might change the game situation completely. We still need to analyze the situation, but based on my observations TBS does not really have a back-up culture city (IIRC Valath has one cathedral in place) so this will be a major slowdown for his culture attempt. Of course, Frontline was always the weakest culture city, which was going to rely on artist bombs and TBS might be able to brute force another third culture city somewhere else, but this is of course slower than it would have been with Frontline.
I owe OH an updated analysis reg when we will be ready with our spaceship, but this might be the attack that swings the race into our favor despite the extremely high tech costs and lack of aluminium. If we could raze Weldyn or Elensafar instead of Frontline it would be a sure thing, but this might also be enough ---> I'm not saying it's certain yet, but we could be heading home with our troops and switch into economy + turtle mode..

One thing of course has to be said here: No offense to yuris, modern warfare is really a complex and messy thing and I truly appreciate the subbing effort and spending ~1.5 hours with the turn... But I really doubt TBS would have given us the same opening.. We chatted with OH couple of days ago and we were partly hoping that nothing major would happen while TBS is away, but of course we can't just stop trying to do our best and if we get a chance we take it.
If razing Frontline indeed is enough, it will always remain a question mark whether TBS himself could have been able to defend his cities for the next ~30 turns under the increasing pressure. I of course claim that we should have been able to crack his defenses, but in this era there is definitely room for mistakes. Oh well, one further "if", which we can speculate after the game.



Potential interested lurkers,
sorry that our thread discussion has become a bit less active. OH has an enormous load on him as a turn-player and I spend my limited civ time checking our situation in the game and/or spamming our gchat discussion. Already before the above described news I was going to promise some kind of a short macro update, but once we are done with the turn we definitely owe you one. The game is far from over, but the pressure of making aggressive plays possibly shifts to other players.


OH,
as already discussed briefly, the 2 big things to decide are:
- How do we actually organize our commando attacks (removing culture with 9-mover destroyers and planes, air strikes, amphis, other cities that we want to raze?)
- Where are we going to leave our wounded destroyers, transports & carriers? There are smaller, but relevant destroyer stacks of Krill and BGN around + TBS will get a chance to promote some of his victorious ships before it's our turn again. (heal destroyers in place? get stuff into dtay city? Try to cover everything with a stack SW of Arcan? - I'm leaning towards hiding in a dtay city, but if there is something better it would be awesome of course) We will probably lose the galleons that transfer our commando units, the actual commando units, transports + units that we use for amphi attack. 5-7 ships & 12-20 units in total. I guess this is what they are meant for at least.

[Commodore]

[...] The game is far from over, [...]

Hola, just warning in advance, we might need a pause tomorrow. Apologies for a possible delay, we try to take the turn as soon as we can!

C'mon man! Some of us are really looking forward to PB27.

[TheHumanHydra]

This is exciting. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to be around for the combat, as I now actually have a job again.

@Commodore: I think OH and FT will be just as relieved when the game's over. Perhaps you could convince their opponents to concede? *


*Not a serious suggestion; I don't want to be accused of attempted diplo.

[Fintourist]

[...] The game is far from over, [...]

- If I were BGN I would consider backstabbing us once we have razed Frontline
- Space race is sloooow with RtR tech cost inreases + huge map (+ no aluminium), I don't dare to count TBS out just yet
- Maybe someone still has energy for a major dogpile?

Hola, just warning in advance, we might need a pause tomorrow. Apologies for a possible delay, we try to take the turn as soon as we can!

C'mon man! Some of us are really looking forward to PB27.

Just to clarify, I'm overall working way too long days for modern era turns and OH has some RL program today. Despite its importance this turn isn't thaat much more complicated than the previous ones, modern warfare dancing continues.. But yeah, we don't want to rush it and play carelessly either. As THH wrote, at this point it will be a relief (especially for OH) if we can catch a break with this turn and stop war activities at least for a while. --> we don't want to screw this..

PB27.... At this point it's still something that I would not have courage to mention to my worse half (or OH to his..)

[Old Harry]

Turn 237

Again it's late, so see what you can make of this:

Arcanclave

Four Destroyers reduce the defences to 0%


- Fighter vs Destroyer - Shot down by another fighter! (did 50% damage to the other fighter)
- Fighter attacking Luna - shoots down the defending fighter (50% damage)
- Fighter vs Lashing - shot down by a fighter from Khar (50% damage)
- Fighter vs Lashing - shot down a defender from Khar (50% damage)
- Fighter vs Destroyer s of Arcan... Shot down a defender, 50% damage
- Fighter vs Destroyer s of Arcan... Shot down by a defender, 50% damage to the defender
- Fighter vs Destroyer s of Arcan... Shot down a defender, 25% damage
- Fighter vs Destroyer s of Arcan... 17% damage to the Destroyer!

Oaky, Fighter vs Arcanclave...
- Fighter vs MG - 9% damage
- Fighter vs Inf - Shot down the last plane (25% damage)
- Bomber vs C2 Inf - 10% damage, 5 collatoral
They're down to 19.2/20...
- Bomber vs C2 Inf - 10% damage, 5 collatoralllll
Down to 18.4 now
- Bomber vs Injured C2 Inf - Intercepted by the MG -10%

- Fighter vs C2 Inf.... 8% damage
- Fighter vs green Inf.... 7% damage!

- CR3 C1 Tank vs injured C2 Inf 75%... WIN! (3 hits)


- C2 Inf vs injured MG 27%... WINN!!!! (3 hits)
- C2 Pinch Inf vs injured C2 Inf 47%... WIN (2 hits)
- C2 Pinch Inf vs injured C2 Inf 49%... LOSS (down to 2.4/20)
- C2 Pinch Inf vs injured Inf 52%... WIN (3 hits)

Marines are only getting 33%, but its a Jumping point for Infantry!

- C2 Pinch Inf vs injured Inf 65%.. LOSS (down to 7.2/20)
- C2 Pinch Inf vs injured Inf 70%.. LOSS (2 hits)
- C2 Pinch Inf vs injured Inf 72%... WIN (3 hits)
- C4 Tank (I know I should have saved the promos to heal with) vs 10.4/20 Inf 98%... WIN (1 hit) 26XP!
- Tank vs injured Inf 99%... WIN (2 hits) 11XP
- Amphi Cav vs injured Inf 99%... WIN! (1 hit)


179 gold and kept the city

Frontline


- C4 Commando cav vs C2 Cuir 89%...


WIN!
- C4 Commando cav vsSpear 95%... WIN! (4 hits!)
- C4 Commando cav vsdog soldier 99%... WIN (2 hits)
- C4 Commando cav vsdog soldier 99%... WIN (1 hit)
290 gold... BURNT!



Howling Badland captured - 154 gold, burnt! The commando still has some moves and the choices are capture a worker, suicide against a city or attack a commando Infantry that's just wandering around...


- C4 Commando cav vs C4 commando Inf 21%...

Ha! Withdrew without scratching him! At least that's two more XP... The heros were all deleted to deny TBS/yuri XP and this is how we left things:


TBS/yuri's next best city is Fallenstar Lake. He's got 8 Great Artists in production or ready now, so if he can get the city to 18000 culture he's still in with a shout. More worrying would be building culture at Valeth (the Ironworks city) but we'll have to see.


Demos and Power

[spacetyrantxenu]

Old Harry is the hammer. Culture cities are nails.