Gaspar & Noble make their triumphant? return; mostly just get asked about "The List"

[Charriu]

OK, I just checked in singleplayer in 1.4.5 and I can build theatres but not hippodromes as Byzantium.  Is that what you observe?

Yes, exactly. I propose whenever you want to build one of hippodrome or colosseum, we will attempt to update the mod.

[Brian Shanahan]

So from the non horse racing posts, I'm getting that Super Death is getting a nice christmas present.

You're so kind.

[Gaspar]

OK, I just checked in singleplayer in 1.4.5 and I can build theatres but not hippodromes as Byzantium.  Is that what you observe?

Oh, what a pity , you play Biz for the horse race.

You do play them for a horse race, though the horse races I had in mind involved had guys in plate mail as jockeys and a lot more burning and pillaging.

[mackoti]

Slow turns ?

[Gaspar]

Turns have slowed a bit due to the holiday but nothing terrible.  We have played t110-t113 since the last report.  I'll give a little report here, not a ton to say that hasn't been said already, tbh.

As its Christmas, I'll just put this here:



Its Christmas-time, in Wraeclast...

(Surprisingly, nobody has made a good Christmas PoE meme video.  Disappointing.)

Anyway, we've mostly transitioned from 'Make the most of our GA mode' to 'We have enough on our hands' mode.  We are definitely attacking someone soon.  Who that someone is has yet to be decided.  The big thing is that SD has been whipping himself silly, we presume on CKNs (we have seen one so far.)  Even with our buildup (we're in the barracks/stables/catapults stage) he's managed to stay ahead of us in power.  We just teched Machinery @EOT112, so we just started Guilds this turn.  As such, we're still a fair few turns away from ready to rumble.  So we offered SD another war/peace this turn, to get a sense of whether that buildup is meant to be offensive or defensive.  Here's a look at the current state of the SD border.



In the south, the other candidate for the gift of Cataphracts, Serdoa really isn't up to much.  Solaris Temple actually just popped 4th ring so his whole border is just getting hammered by our culture. 



Nothing really says what we're up to better than this:



And of course, because the GA ends next turn, let's get one final shot of this:





We did get our second GP of the GA in The Ascent this turn, another Great Scientist.  It was about 56% odds, the rest split something like 25% artist and 19% engineer.  We were happy with anything other than the artist.

Anyway, that's about it.  Sorry so terse but there's really not much to say.  We're just prepping for Phractmageddon.  If there's anything anyone would like to see, let me know.

[novice]

Cringemas in Hollis? Merry christmas.

[Gaspar]

t114, in three images...

[Old Harry]

So, did you accept?

[Gaspar]

So, did you accept?

<insert Jennifer Lawrence meme here>

I mean, we considered it, in the same way you consider anything. But there are basically 3 possible outcomes here:

1. He sends his stack in, it dies, we counter attack and then finish the job with Cataphracts when they come online.
2. He scouts, decides against sending his stack in, he has a whole lot of CKNs and maybe he waits for the inevitable Cataphract invasion, maybe he decides to send his stack in a different direction.
3. He sends his stack in, he takes a city or two, we push back, get caught in a bloody battle, get dragged back to the pack and Lewwyn wins in a laugher.


So two of those outcomes are okay for us, the third obviously is very bad. I don't think he was ready to attack us now - I think we just forced his hand with the war/peace. I suspect he was intending to come at us after teching Engineering. So I'd guess there are more units to follow. Still, he basically has a very short window here where the attack could succeed before we've marshalled enough defense to at least fight him to a stalemate. Now, there is a very real chance that he beats us to the counter-punch and we lose Lioneye's Watch or Broken Bridge. But the thing is, we're already not winning. If we give SD 1000g, maybe we keep those cities 100%, but we also ensure he has Engineering before we can attack with Cataphracts AND we lose like 5t of tech. While it would be a harsh blow to lose cities, unless the cities we're talking about are Twilight Strand, Solaris Temple or Oriath, the damage to our tech rate isn't as severe as that 2000g swing. SD has already made it quite apparent he's chosen us as his enemy, despite the fact that we were never anything other than friendly to him before he attacked us and the guy running away with the game is on his other border.

Of course, that's the point, isn't it? SD never considers that he could win the game, so he doesn't care about those sorts of things. Even if he totally caught us with our pants down and we died, it would only be a matter of time until Lewwyn or Rusten gobbled him up from the other side. So why not see if he can make a CKN attack work?

Anyway, I suspect we will survive but with our nose bloodied a fair bit. I would up Lewwyn's chance of winning to something like 70% now. And I would lower SDs chances of surviving to a theoretical t175 update to about 1%.

Also, if Serdoa were to pile on, we could possibly defend against that as well but then I up Lewwyn's chances to 85% and the other 15% is Rusten.

[Gaspar]

Sorry about the lack of war reporting, it hasn't been a case of wanting to keep things quiet nor of waning interest in the game or anything. I've just been working a lot. And war turns take forever when you're playing with Noble. So ultimately, if I'm spending somewhere between 2 and 5 hours per turn and working a billion stressful hours, you're just not getting reports. /shrug

I'm on vacation for a bit after tomorrow though, so I'll probably update more thoroughly then. Nonetheless, I figure I owe a brief update.

We are currently playing t118 and Noble has gone afk (one of the reasons our turns take forever is that we both afk all the time.) At this state, here's some facts:

• We have killed 13 Cho-Ko-Nus, 2 Axemen, 1 Spearman and a Chariot.
  
• We have lost 5 Catapults, 2 Archers, 2 Horse Archers, a Chariot and a Worker.
  
• We have not lost any cities nor can we lose any cities next turn.
  
• We are unlikely to (but not certain not to) lose any cities.
  
• We finish Guilds at EOT.
  
• There will be some Cataphracts in the field next turn, but not nearly as many as if SD had not attacked.
  
• We have earned 2 GGs and are about 1/3 of the way to a 3rd. The first is now a super medic and the second hasn't been decided yet.
  
• SD has earned 1 GG and we don't know if he's used it yet but he moved it towards the front.
  
• Nobody else has piled on. Serdoa has made some mildly suspicious moves but we're mostly assuming he's aiming elsewhere because 1. Noble mostly always assumes the best case when it comes to Serdoa and 2. Its obvious we're near Guilds and it seems pretty silly to attack the guy who has a unit without peer on the battlefield right when said units hit the battlefield.
  
• I'm not looking to concede or anything, but our chances of winning are definitely down from this attack, even if we have largely avoided defeat from it. Lewwyn is the biggest beneficiary and Rusten is the second biggest. So, there's that.
  

That what I've got for you. No pictures because lazy and tired. Feel free to ask any questions you may have.