PB37 Map and Lurker Thread [SPOILERS]

[darrelljs]

It was funny...this is definitely too early to call but I would guess Krill wins if it finishes.

Darrell

[Mardoc]

The second part of any war with DZ/Ventessel is dealing with Joey. To be entirely honest, I think that when I take Ventessels capital, Joey will simply clear out the stuff north, and that's just not enough. So I need to build enough to then take a land war straight to Joey.

WTF?  Sure, killing China may not be enough profit to push you to game-winning status.  But why the heck does that naturally lead to 'the second part of any war with DZ' is 'land war with Joey'?  Just because GJ might get some of the spoils that you wanted for yourself?  Wouldn't it make more sense to pick your second war target based on a totally separate calculation, rather than 'the second part'?

Seems to me that the only advantage of hitting GJ right after DZ is that GJ *might* maybe have his army in recently conquered cultureless territory where mobility is even and City Raider Swords are extra-effective.  If GJ doesn't act exactly as Krill predicts, then Krill's getting into a quagmire with very little upside.

Also, this appears to be a reason why Krill is going to keep procrastinating on killing DZ, delaying turning those cities into contributors to his empire and maybe giving DZ a chance to make himself prickly.

[OT4E]

I fully agree with Krill. He cant capture anything reasonable from China without dealing with GJ. The situation turned so that GJ had surrounded venthessel with culture, so all Krill can do is probably take his cap. But I believe GJ can just wait with catapults behind and rape Krill's stack despite of promotions.

What he doesnt take in account is that GJ can make his own cultural bomb using UB.

[OT4E]

3 wars were declared at the same turn:
- Krill to Cuerva
- Gavagai to JR4
- Dtay to Dark Savant

Very entertaiing.

[OT4E]

I like Cuervas way of thinking for both trying to perform risky campaign against Krill and how it was cancelled under the pressure of changing circumstances.

[darrelljs]

Yeah, that was a really nice post, very disciplined play. Thanks for pointing it out.

Darrell

[Mardoc]

You know, maybe it's a move to not build units just because they will shortly become obsolete ... ?

Ah, so that's why someone at the top of the demos is 6th in power (out of 7 non-zombie civs) and pretty much all his neighbors have either taken or are plotting to take one/a few of his cities.

Dark Savant, when you join us here (which will be soon if you don't change that approach), I strongly suggest you run some worldbuilder tests.  Try, say, 20 galleys attacking 10 caravels, 10 axes + 10 catapults attacking 10 longbows (or crossbows), and a few other 1-era-behind scenarios with numbers vs. tech.  I think you'll find that not only does numbers usually win, but numbers often also means fewer hammers lost.  Lots of wounded units who aren't immediately valuable, but you own the battlefield and can therefore heal.

There's a reason the standard response to any war other than an obvious skirmish (take one city and immediately offer peace) is to swap all cities to military builds and start whipping...there may be an exception here or there, but usually having a lot of units is the best investment once you're already at war.  And because numbers are so important, having a few extra units is not such a waste as you'd initially think.

[Mardoc]

You know, one reason I tried to expand hard and push hard on economy was because it works in all kinds of SP strategy games.

Even AIs will inevitably declare war on you in this situation, but I've always taken that as a sign of saying "okay, you should start building military now", and you would typically have time to do it.

I thought I'd have time to react -- but I didn't, and it's far too late for that!  I've hit the point of irreversible exponential decay.

Mmm, humans are different in more than just speed.  Humans only declare wars for a purpose, usually to take land.  Basically nobody will declare on you because you're ahead - they'll declare because they see an opportunity.  There is sometimes an exception for last-ditch wars by #2 against #1, once they conclude that #1 can conquer people faster than they can, but those wars usually fail.

Yeah, I figure I should be able to do much better.

I mean, there's hearing that MP war is brutal, and actually having it slam you in the face.  

I may be able to stave off total defeat for longer than I thought.  I don't understand why people are making peace with me when I think it's clear there's a feeding frenzy on.  (Okay, people are busy eating Yuri too.)

So, the related facts here:  
a) MP warfare generally is whole army vs. unprepared target.  Whole army vs whole army is a waste, you burn hammers to no good end.  You abort if it looks like this will happen.  Therefore, those attacking you generally have their entire mobile force at your border.
b) You are even in tech, have a strong core with Slavery enabled.  Generally defense is favored in civ, due to logistics and tile bonuses.  You were unprepared, but you can change that now, at which point whoever's still fighting will be in that whole-army vs. whole-army situation.
c) All your neighbors...have other neighbors.  Who know that a) and b) are true, and probably have a little list of border cities they wouldn't mind acquiring.  Especially from someone who just gained some land and will be scarier if they're allowed to consolidate it.

For some examples:

Unfortunately for us, Savant isn't close to out of the fight yet, despite having lost seven cities in the last 15t (one to dtay, two to Joey, one to JR4, three to us). We may have a lot of power, but half of it is tied up in garrisons (Zodiac Spire and the north-western island chain), and he's back in Slavery.

....

trouble is that Joey (or JR4) can attack us at any time and we need to add some defenses against him as well; the garrisons of Foals and Eyrie might not cut it anymore.

For the crime of the nickle-and-dime, I took Portsmith and Castle Kalindra from Dark Savant. Wasn't too lucky with rolls though: lost 2 swords at 75%ish odds, one at 90% odds, and then had to sacrifice 3 triremes to kill 3 of DS's. Also, he razed a fishing boats, bleh! But, I successfully achieved my objectives, and really, what's the point of units if you're not gonna use them? Better to take cities and trade triremes than let him cruise his 3-movers around my territory.

After taking CK and wiping his navy, I offered white peace so that he could avoid a dogpile. But, of course, he refused it... only to re-offer it when JR and Couer jumped in on him a few turns later, heh.

....

Still though, whatever Mongolia and Carthage end up taking, I'm happy to have what I wanted and then cleanly extract myself from the mess.

I'm curious about whether Dark Savant will accept peace.  If he doesn't, I think we still have offensive options ... if we don't have to play defense more urgently:

- Gav can declare war on us this turn (T139) if he wants to, I believe.  

...

- GermanJoey appears to be roading [EDIT: maybe not; see below] the tile N of State of Zijin in the T138 screenshot.  This is a highly aggressive move.  

...

Relatedly, Oghul Qaimish needs a longbow - and preferably more than one.

It`s almost like I regret having offered peace last turn. Still, Dark Savant is in Slavery now, and taking more cities requires more units.

d)  You're not dead yet, and if you ever switch focus from being strong long-term to whipping your civ into the ground for revenge...you're likely to get extremely effective revenge on someone.  It's amazing the army you can build from a dying civ, if you're willing to stack up 10 or 15 unhappiness per city.  That kind of army can force the aggressor to either lose battles or whip their own civ heavily.  They're probably ahead of you by that point, so they only have to accept 5-8 unhappiness per city to match your army...still pretty crippling
e)  If you *do* collapse, there's nothing at all that says the person who did the work is the one who gets the rewards.  In fact, it's quite likely that someone who piles on later gets more profit for less cost.

d) + e) combined mean that no one wants to go to total war with you just yet.  There's an extremely high risk of putting you in a position where they have to invest a lot of hammers to make some marginal gains, and just when they start to make progress, a third party might swoop in and get the bulk of the spoils.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Great post, Mardoc.

[Mardoc]

Great post, Mardoc.

I really wanted to post that in Dark Savant's thread, but it was probably spoilerish even before I went looking for examples of his attackers' reasoning. Hopefully he finds it useful whenever he joins us here, though. He's got all the pieces required to be a strong MP player except for MP experience and perspective. I definitely want to see him try another game with the lessons learned from this one.