SPOILERS-Tatan's PBEM10 Thread

[Tatan]

Glad you're on board with the war, Adlain. Looks like it will be an interesting one.

Now...



CHARGE!

Here goes my first war against a human.

Tatan,

you will notice that I have declared war on you. I still hope that it won't be necessary to fight, but I can simply not wait any longer and have you rally troops in the meantime. My proposal still stands and I add that your 2 workers will be given back if it is accepted.

Kind regards,
Serdoa

Wait, what workers? Oh, right, THOSE workers, the ones I left out in the fricking open . Irritating decision by Serdoa here. Smart, but irritating.

But, it can't be that bad, right? It's just his island colony attacking me, right?



WELL F*** ME.

Spear whipped in Ehlritan from scratch, I can overflow into another and complete it in one turn. My worker The Glorious Chairman Mao starts on his Long March to Aren.

My defenses [and yes, I have deviated from any sort of naming theme]:



...
Well, at least I have enough warm bodies to survive for at least one turn...

The Pequod [shortly renamed "You'll never take me alive!"] does some suicide scouting:



Okay, so at least Serdoa doesn't have any more forces in the area. Hopefully, his large army here means he is short on defenses in the Mainland.

I decide to reroute some of my main assault force:



[for those too lazy to figure it out, that's two cats, an ax, and a spear]


And now, for the main theatre of war.



I don't see any counter-assault forces yet...



Well, then. LET'S ROLL DAWGZ.



A small, pitiful attack force. Hopefully they will manage to raze at least two cities.

And thus ends the first turn of the war. Is it going well? HELL NO; I'm already getting my ass handed to me [whatever that expression means]. But this is expected. I am Napoleon, and I shall march on, to glorious, magnificent victory/defeat!

----------------------------
Oh, and Temple of Artemis was built by Arabia. Whoop-de-do.


Thanks for the clarification, T-Hawk/Krill. That's what I thought, but it always helps to double-check with someone who knows what they're talking about. I suppose I could have checked myself, but laziness called.


Of course, I wrote this update earlier today, and in the meantime diplomacy stopped by for a chat. Mo4r 2 pholoe!

[Tatan]

I love spoiler tags!

Diplo with Cyneheard:

Just got the save and saw that stack on the deer tile. Not sure what he's thinking, being 6th in power and attack you at 1st.

I don't see any sign of a navy of his, but that one workboat isn't going to do much. He's closed borders with me. Show Serdoa that he's been a little reckless.

Oh, and a Great Engineer has been born in Carthage. We'll see what happens over the next couple of turns.

As you may have detected from my rising power graphs, I was going to attack him; he sniffed it out and asked me, we negotiated potential peace, negotiations failed, and we are fighting. He claims to have both longbows and cats, but I have seen neither so far.

I must admit, I did not expect such a full-blown assault on the island between us; but it is doomed to failure because of spear-whips. Hopefully, this means his home turf is vulnerable.

I don't know about "showing Serdoa he is reckless", seeing as I'm usually pretty reckless myself.


I'm actually expecting an engineer myself relatively soon.

-Tatan

Since we were under a NAP for quite some time, I figured you were almost certainly going to attack him (why rush tons of units 15t before our NAP runs out?). Your graph SPIKED, it had been near mine, and now it's like 50k ahead. Enjoy tearing him a new one. Show him that Wonderspamming is not the route to victory.

Well, his GNP has been a little ridiculous for some time. Considering that I'm almost in Feud (You'll see me revolt to Vassalage fairly shortly), and have had a crappy GNP (I think at 100% research I'm at best 3rd place), I wouldn't disbelieve him. Although he's probably sacrificed a lot of growth by running Rep Scientists, and that will hurt him.

Yeah, his power is the lowest or close enough, and considering that I count 35k in that stack (don't forget the HA on the stone) (I'm surprised none of his HA are Shock. Combat II only? Really?).

The Engineer will rush the AP the turn after next (need a state religion first).

Yeah, I forgot to mention that due to a lack of improved tiles I've been running an engineer in Pale for a while; GE due in like ~12 turns. I have no idea what I'll use him for. Rest is mainly idle chit-chat.


Diplo with Meatbalz:

Well... interesting times indeed. Not sure quite what's going through our friendly neighbor's mind right now. I guess you weren't kidding when you said he guessed your plans, huh. From the power numbers it seems like he's going on a suicide mission though...

TGL scary - it's useful for sure, but compared to CH's food & pop lead combined with HG & whatever wonder he rushes using the HG GE, or Serdoa's full house, I'm not sure it really stands out. Anyway, you + AH have done great not going after wonders. The game seems balanced right now, although CH is still the front-runner.

I wonder what you mean though when you say CH and I are arch-nemeses??? I know I've been concerned about him, but hadn't realized it was going into "nemesis" territory. I might be reading a bit too much into it, but should I infer CH has acted as if I'm his arch-nemesis?

Anyway, nice work securing a NAP until T95 - that should give you a few turns' worth of warning once you start renegotiating at T85 or whatever.

I'm not sure how much use I can be to you against Serdoa but if you can suggest anything, I'm open to listening.

MB

Oh, so I guess I misread you about the "arch-nemesis" thing. It's just that you and Cyneheard seem to be the top two, and in every email in recent memory you've said something about how concerned you were about his lead. CH has never actually mentioned any specific concern about you, though. Mea culpa.

In regards to Serdoa, the main assistance you could provide ATM is not trading him iron. It would obviously make conquest a lot more difficult. I suppose it would also help if you launched some sort of joint assault as well, but I would NEVER presume to ask for THAT.

On an overall-game status note, I'm also pretty happy at the relative balance of the players. From what I've seen the map has been pretty balanced land-wise, with the major exception being the horrible metal distribution. But otherwise, I'm having fun; long live Civ 4.

-Tatan

I wouldn't normally ask for help, but 1) if Serdoa goes into Total War mode, I want to have another target for him to aim at, and 2) hopefully this will insure that Meatbalz does not trade Serdoa iron. Seriously, a stack of axes would shred my field army right now.


Speaking of which...
Diplo with Serdoa

Sorry that this message is out of date, but as you have surely realized I declined your offer.

Nice job on the earlier worker-capture, by the way. I have no idea what I was smoking there.

-Tatan

Well, I guess this war was inevitable anyway, wasn't it?

And for the worker capture: I guess you simply did not think that I would be the one attacking.

Btw: Good work with the galleys out of sight - shows that my bad scouting finally does hurt. You probably will win this war, so if you want to put down some terms for surrender, let me hear them. If not, make it quick at least - it hurts seeing my wonderful builder-world going down in flames :/

Kind regards,
Serdoa

I... wha... but...

Um, so I'm winning? Right? Sorry, but I can't cope with that. Serdoa's tossing in the towel already? I guess he WAS bluffing.

OR... he's trying to lure me into a false sense of security! I mean, I can't possibly have defeated him with a stack of six units, right?! Srsly, my mind is boggled.

It was in fact pretty much inevitable once I secured iron and you didn't... You kinda just got screwed by the resource distribution.

I'm actually almost sorry to do this, because you were playing a really interesting game up until now [with what, like 8 wonders?]. Qin was my first choice as well, for that reason.

I'll try to make it quick; but of course, it would go a lot quicker if you "accidentally" gifted me all of your cities.

-Tatan

So, in essence: maybe this war isn't going so bad after all! I still need way more troops, though. Not to mention a NAP extension with Cyneheard.

[Tatan]

So, that's the way it is. Should I attack? Well, the way I see it, Serdoa's forces won't be in the open much longer if he sees me bringing up catupults.

Cat rolls in, dies. Two spears roll in, kill a horse archer and the archer. The odds are horrible for my chariots, so I don't go in any further. 33 hammers for 49; I'd say that's a good deal, especially due to the exp my spears got.


Defenses in Novgorod:



Okay, that is slightly more than it was last turn. I do some sims:

His units left|My units left
1|4
2|3
1|4
3|2
1|4
4|1 [!]
0|5 [!!!]
1|4
1|4
1|4

Average this, and I get 1.7|3.5. Hm. So is it worth taking this risk? Gah, that's hard to determine. I have about a 60% chance of having an overall good result [1|4], a 10% chance of failing miserably, and a 10% chance of taking the city. Well, the way I see it, waiting will insure that I don't take the city, because of a little something called the whip.

So what the hell, fortune favors the bold.

Cat dies to an archer at 25% odds
Sword kills a HA at 65% odds
Sword kill a HA at 65% odds
Spear dies to an archer at 60% odds
Spear kills a warrior at 85% odds
Sword dies to a HA at 50% odds

Not what I was hoping for. 2|3 is not good enough, there is no way I am taking that city.

Looks like I'll have to withdraw, unless Serdoa does something really stupid. But he appears to be pretty clever; notice how he tried to distract me with a worker, which would have destroyed my chances of taking the city if I had gone for it.

And notice my trireme, the H.S.S. Guardian? He has sailed off to make use of a certain broken feature called "Coastal Blockade".


Incidental thing:



...is it just me, or does that chariot look like it has just moved NW? Meaning Cyneheard is using it to scout Monopoly each turn? Meaning he is violating our OB agreement?
I'm not sure enough to call him on it, but it looks awfully suspicious.

One final thing: a Great Scientist and 2 [!] Great Engineers were born, one of which is Cyneheard's.

[novice]

Cat dies to an archer at 25% odds
Sword kills a HA at 65% odds
Sword kill a HA at 65% odds
Spear dies to an archer at 60% odds
Spear kills a warrior at 85% odds
Sword dies to a HA at 50% odds

Too bad.

I'm curious, did you run a sim where the Catapult bombarded instead of attacking? I would expect that attacking with the catapult is best, but I've never run the numbers.

[Tatan]

All my sims had the catapults suicide the city; I don't think there is any way bombard could have helped more, since it would have meant the loss of 8% in defense bonus for Serdoa, while collateral damage meant the loss of ~20% of all his units' strength. Looking back on it, what got me killed was that the catapult failed to deal enough collateral to the Horse Archers, who were the real problem due to their shock promos.

I promoted the cat to Collateral 1 in all my sims, I don't know how City Raider 1 might have changed things.

[Adlain]

I would have played the diplo differently (i.e. act alittle more innocent and try to look less like the aggressor as Serdoa, foolishly imho, decleared war we really could have milked it.)

But hey, whats done is done.

Onto the attack - RNG wasnt too kind to us, but at 60% you takes what you get, if they had been more 70-75% i would be spitting feathers. Whats left of our Army and what has Serdoa got visable??

as for Cyneheard, Meh personaly i see no issue with what he is doing, Sure its against the letter of the NAP, but he is not scouting within our lands (i.e. camping out overnight inside our boarders) so it isnt a big problem imho and not somthing i wouldnt expect from a more experianced play like him.

[Tatan]

Looks like Serdoa saw the light and is trying to retreat. No dice.

Spear kills Horse Archer at 89%.
Spear kills Horse Archer at 98%.
Ax kills Chariot at 89%.
Chariot kills Chariot at 75%.

Well, that almost makes up for the disastrous Novgorod offensive.



Yakutsk is hopefully mine, barring a massive troop ferrying from the mainland.

Charles Martel [GG] was born in Mott, where I merge him as a specialist.


And now, news which you have undoubtedly picked up on if you read my post in the Public Players Thread:



As if my offensive wasn't screwed up enough, Serdoa acquires iron. From who, you ask?



FROM MY WORST ENEMY, OF COURSE!

I'm a LOT more pissed at Meatbalz about this than I am Serdoa. I get it, Meatbalz doesn't want me becoming super-big on his flank; but couldn't he solve that by attacking Serdoa himself? Blah, whatever; I guess my attack on the home island was doomed to failure anyway as soon as I rerouted 1/3 of the forces to Ehrlitan. But this is just insulting. I'll have to be careful of a counter-attack now; I think the best option is to take Yakutsk and then try and make peace with Serdoa, hopefully allowing me to attack with Maces later on.

Well, at least my roaming Trireme can still cause a bit of trouble:



Also notice in that picture that Cyneheard converted to Hinduism; I was hoping the AP religion would be Buddhism because then I could actually have a say, but whatever. Hindu is only present in Darujhistan right now; let's keep it that way.


@Adlain: Maybe I should have acted more innocent. I didn't even think about something like that. I just don't have the brain for Machiavellian conniving it seems.

And as for Cyneheard, no it's not a big issue, but it just bugged me. I don't exactly want him to see the garrison protecting my iron right now.

EDIT: Oh, almost missed your question about the forces we have right now. Serdoa's forces left around Yakutsk are minimal, although I expect him to be bringing axes soon, which my Trireme is going to try to prevent. On the mainland, he has quite a few Horse Archers [well promoted, too; he must have at least one stable up] crawling around, with a bunch of whipped axes sure to follow. My own forces are a mix of spears, cats, and a few other units; I will be adding many more axes and cats soon I hope, to prevent counter-attacks. I need more Triremes, too. Sorry that this is really vague, but I'm trying to rush this report so that I can go to bed!

[Tatan]

Correspondence with Serdoa

Well, to be honest, if only we two would play, I would call you the winner now (so, basically, gift you all my cities). But there are 4 more players and I think it would be unfair to them to simply gift you my cities, without you losing at least some troops (well, at least I hope you lose some...)

And hey, I do not have that many wonders. SH was probably a misplay, not really needed. Then I have Pyramids (obviously) and the Great Library, Parthenon, the shrine for my religion and the NE. Thats it. Cyneheard really told some wrong stuff to other people there...

Oh, btw, I have played the turn and regained some confidence. In 2-3 turns, you know why. Maybe we talk then again if this war does really get us anywhere.

Kind regards,
Serdoa

I wouldn't necessarily say you've lost yet, seeing as my sneak attack failed miserably. I didn't really expect you to give up, but hey, it was worth a shot.

I think I see why you've regained confidence already. I guess I miscalculated how close your relationship with Meatbalz was. Good diplo on your part.

-Tatan

Typical back-and-forth banter.


Correspondence with Cyneheard

Axes appeared overnight in Serdoa's turf, I looked at the trading screen, and sure enough Meatbalz is giving away an iron to him. I'm not going to be making any progress on Serdoa's home island any time soon. Oh well.

-Tatan

Well, that sucks.

I think I should be congratulating you on getting the first Great General? Power graph suggests that he took the bigger hit this turn.

The AP has been completed, and it is Hindu. Sorry, Serdoa didn't want to match TT's offer.

APs not that big a deal to me, I didn't even realize Serdoa and Twinkletoes were bidding for position.

GG was born because I demolished Serdoa's stack attacking Ehrlitan. I think he lost a total of three horse archers, an archer, and two chariots, while I lost one catapult.

-Tatan

Nice work. Just HA and chariots are such spear meat it's not even funny. You may notice I've got some actual metal units now! *Happy dance*

Well, I decided to grab it, and let them bid for it before I did so (if they didn't offer anything, I'd go for something else). Serdoa thought it was crazy (maybe he forgot that it also came with me choosing one religion or the other???).

And is that your GE I saw?

I would be super-excited if that was my GE you saw, because I'm not expecting mine for at least 10 turns!

Yeah, my spears could pretty much just attack with impunity. Of course, with Serdoa whipping axes that is going to change, but I haven't seen any cats *yet*, so I'm not that threatened.

-Tatan

Decent chance Serdoa got the GE, then, with his mixed-odds Crazy Amount Of GPP Pool at the capital. 2 GE, 3 GP (Henge + Shrine), and 8GSci from those wonders, and at 150% with Parthenon. If I were him, I'd probably settle it for the hammers and 6 beakers. Especially with no real wonders available right now (MoM's about it, and frankly I don't see how that wonder pays for a Great Person because you could get 6t of Golden Age naturally from the GE).

Not much interesting here, except that apparently Twinkletoes bid for Cyneheard to choose Hindu over Buddhism.


Correspondence with The Great Arabian Demon-Thief [who happens to call himself Meatbalz]

So that's the way it's going to be.

The Dutch Empire accepts your effective declaration of war. Perhaps one day I shall be able to repay you in turn.

-Tatan

Read: Drop dead.

[Adlain]

Well... interesting times indeed. Not sure quite what's going through our friendly neighbor's mind right now. I guess you weren't kidding when you said he guessed your plans, huh. From the power numbers it seems like he's going on a suicide mission though...

TGL scary - it's useful for sure, but compared to CH's food & pop lead combined with HG & whatever wonder he rushes using the HG GE, or Serdoa's full house, I'm not sure it really stands out. Anyway, you + AH have done great not going after wonders. The game seems balanced right now, although CH is still the front-runner.

I wonder what you mean though when you say CH and I are arch-nemeses??? I know I've been concerned about him, but hadn't realized it was going into "nemesis" territory. I might be reading a bit too much into it, but should I infer CH has acted as if I'm his arch-nemesis?

Anyway, nice work securing a NAP until T95 - that should give you a few turns' worth of warning once you start renegotiating at T85 or whatever.

I'm not sure how much use I can be to you against Serdoa but if you can suggest anything, I'm open to listening.

MB

Oh, so I guess I misread you about the "arch-nemesis" thing. It's just that you and Cyneheard seem to be the top two, and in every email in recent memory you've said something about how concerned you were about his lead. CH has never actually mentioned any specific concern about you, though. Mea culpa.

In regards to Serdoa, the main assistance you could provide ATM is not trading him iron. It would obviously make conquest a lot more difficult. I suppose it would also help if you launched some sort of joint assault as well, but I would NEVER presume to ask for THAT.

On an overall-game status note, I'm also pretty happy at the relative balance of the players. From what I've seen the map has been pretty balanced land-wise, with the major exception being the horrible metal distribution. But otherwise, I'm having fun; long live Civ 4.

-Tatan

Well that Diplo went well . Before i sound like a broken Record, i am [SIZE="4"]not[/SIZE] saying it was poor diplo on your part but it is now obvious he was mining us for infomation and got exactly what he wanted (the Iron Referance) and TBH i would also have been tempted to mention it like you did to try and engineer a way to keep it off the table for Serdoa but ahwell.

Also as a side note, your Post in the Public Thread............... I agree withthe sentaiment, but you have reveiled to all your current Dealing with other people (or lack thereof) which i think could have been better shown by just Choping out the Corner with Meatbalz Pic and Mouseover and posting that instead. Maybe im paranoid, but i worry that showing our lack of agreements shows weakness on our part and paints a bit of a target on our rear end.

Good Job on the attack however, much better numbers, I feel we need to make a decision NOW though. Do we;

1. Cut our losses and sue for peace (axes are a game changer for us)
   
2. Whip like buggery at home and try to press on with a fresh army of Axes and Catapults ontop of our current army
   
3. Take the 1 City from OUR ISLAND then sue for peace
   

Obviosly all this peace talk is without a long NAP, we want to finish this later, but tbh im unsure as to the correct course of action. a part of me (rather large part admitidly) want us to horse whip our citys and go for the juggular. we have, i feel, Burned our bridges with serdoa and will never catch him off guard like we did this time again (although not as off guard as we had planed - damn Demographs) But i also have this nagging feeling we should back out while we can. We have gained somthing from this war, a GG. You have settled him which is good so this war has not been fruitless for us and we have yet to crash our economy doing so. we can back out now with little to no consiquence on our part (short of putting Serdoa and guard against us for now).

So yea, Decisions Decisions.

[Tatan]

Important stuff is happening, important stuff which I am too sleepy to post here at the moment [I refuse to do some hack job! 5 page posts only!].