[SPOILERS] Small Wunders and Izzy of Inca: The fat lady sings

[WilliamLP]

Basically:

Knights moved out of Retep's lands. I offered peace to Retep, who apparently is content to let the turn roll without playing? Retep, please, I actually do want you to log in this once. I'm hoping for the teleport.

I didn't declare on Ichabod, because of the 1 in 100 chance that he doesn't know we know, and under-commits.

I thought of one troll trick to attempt. What happens if he bombards down defenses, and then over the turn we finish a castle?! I think we might actually get another +50% culture doing that! That might buy us another turn.

All mature cities are switched to military. Anything within two moves of Boheme gets a pike, otherwise a knight. If this attack is happening, we'll do RBMod nerfed multi-pop whips I guess.

We'll see what happens. One scenario is he moves, then bombards, then needs to bombard again (because of the new castle), and then we just vacate and let him have the city while the full stack arrives. If he plods towards the next city, then we can consolidate our full forces in time.

[WilliamLP]

So, this is an awkward turn where me playing "late" held things up.

Retep doesn't even want to play the turn, apparently. He thinks we can just take Suit Up... oh if only!

Here's my dilemma: If we know Retep isn't going to play, we can move some of our 1-movers away from Suit Up right now, before the current turn ends. But if he is going to play, and doesn't want peace, a split stack is a terrible idea.

I guess I try PMing Retep, saying we're offering peace? I think he'll clue in to the fact that he's much better off just keeping war, but it at least gives a chance for him to accept, I guess.

[MindyMcCready]

So, this is an awkward turn where me playing "late" held things up.

Retep doesn't even want to play the turn, apparently. He thinks we can just take Suit Up... oh if only!

Here's my dilemma: If we know Retep isn't going to play, we can move some of our 1-movers away from Suit Up right now, before the current turn ends. But if he is going to play, and doesn't want peace, a split stack is a terrible idea.

I guess I try PMing Retep, saying we're offering peace? I think he'll clue in to the fact that he's much better off just keeping war, but it at least gives a chance for him to accept, I guess.

Ok, I'm going to post my other post which is still work in progress.

[MindyMcCready]

Basically:

Knights moved out of Retep's lands. I offered peace to Retep, who apparently is content to let the turn roll without playing? Retep, please, I actually do want you to log in this once. I'm hoping for the teleport.

:LOL: :LOL: :LOL: That's hilarious. He's probably hoping that he'll be dead when he next login in. Surprise!

I didn't declare on Ichabod, because of the 1 in 100 chance that he doesn't know we know, and under-commits.

Hmmm, interesting. So we've given up trying to deter him we're going to try to win a battle then?

Not sure if I agree or disagree. Given that we're still a little out of position still, I'd probably say deterring is the better course but it's debatable. And interesting.

I thought of one troll trick to attempt. What happens if he bombards down defenses, and then over the turn we finish a castle?! I think we might actually get another +50% culture doing that! That might buy us another turn.

I'm +90% sure that it doesn't work that way. The defensive builds like walls and castle multiply from the current. So if he's put our culture/walls down to 0% then the castle will just multiply times that.

I'd still take the castle if we can whip it. Can't say that I've built a whole lot of castles in SP, but I think that it would put us up to 100% defense and then reduce the cats ability to strip defenses down to 4%. So his 15 cats could reduce 60%, or down to 40% at a guess. Then he'd have to either attack at 40% or spend another turn stripping defenses. Well worth it if it can get another 6-8 whipped defenders in there.

All mature cities are switched to military. Anything within two moves of Boheme gets a pike, otherwise a knight. If this attack is happening, we'll do RBMod nerfed multi-pop whips I guess.

Well,.....we have all of those spears that can be upgraded. I'd think that all cities within Boheme getting LB/Knights while spears get upgraded would be a stiffer defense.

In fact, all cities within 2T of Boheme building cats while spears --> pikes and other cities build Knights would be our best bet.

As they say about money,....you can't take it with you.

We'll see what happens. One scenario is he moves, then bombards, then needs to bombard again (because of the new castle), and then we just vacate and let him have the city while the full stack arrives. If he plods towards the next city, then we can consolidate our full forces in time.

Right. And we'll want cats to do that.

So if we're switching policy from deterrance to victory in battle then we should probably tweak stuff a bit. Staying at (cold) war with Retep and Commodore would help to bait him.

More of a focus on cats will also be needed. The whole need/value of cats depends on the critical mass. Now that we've decided to pull out of Retep's lands, another 5 cats would probably give us that critical mass that we need.

Other things: just want a confirm that we still have eyes out East. No nasty surprises please.

[MindyMcCready]

So, this is an awkward turn where me playing "late" held things up.

Retep doesn't even want to play the turn, apparently. He thinks we can just take Suit Up... oh if only!

Here's my dilemma: If we know Retep isn't going to play, we can move some of our 1-movers away from Suit Up right now, before the current turn ends. But if he is going to play, and doesn't want peace, a split stack is a terrible idea.

I guess I try PMing Retep, saying we're offering peace? I think he'll clue in to the fact that he's much better off just keeping war, but it at least gives a chance for him to accept, I guess.

What do you mean 'some' of our 1-movers. Yes, splitting that stack isn't a great idea depending on the composition. You could get away with it to some degree due to LBs on hills/forests.

Remember his composition - mostly spears and archers: 12 spears + 10 archers + 5 axes + 6 HA and that accounts for virtually all of his power. Its a lot of units to attack into, but they'd get mowed down attacking LB and axes on hills. So 11 units that can actually hit and then stuff that would mostly just die.

[Rowain]

I guess I try PMing Retep, saying we're offering peace?

I think you should not do this. AI-diplo means AI-diplo.

[Ceiliazul]

agree with rowain.

[WilliamLP]

:LOL: :LOL: :LOL: That's hilarious. He's probably hoping that he'll be dead when he next login in. Surprise!

Yes, there are elements of weird comedy here!

Also Harry / Fintourist took an extremely long time to play. But what they're reacting to is probably that Mackoti took a city from Suttree right in their neighborhood.

How funny would it be though if Ichabod declared on us, was about to take a city, and then offered peace because Harry was going to attack his other side?

Hmmm, interesting. So we've given up trying to deter him we're going to try to win a battle then?

Not sure if I agree or disagree. Given that we're still a little out of position still, I'd probably say deterring is the better course but it's debatable. And interesting.

I don't know if I agree or disagree either. I feel like there's no way we could deter him in a situation where he could win otherwise. I think he's a rational guy with more Civ experience than me who I have to assume is obsessively analyzing the what-ifs as much as we are! So trying to imply that if he fights us we're in it for mutual destruction, well that's kind of redundant I think!

I think it's clear he knows we know he's planning to attack.

I couldn't play it last night, because I needed to wait for William

I think he would have been more careful about how he said that if he thought there was a small chance that an attack would be unexpected.

The one thing he doesn't know is that we've decided to abort vs Retep and turn back. He also may not know we have Engineering and 3 move roads - his C&D would have to be pretty on the ball to surmise that without tech visibility and without Paper. So maybe we're giving him a chance to make a mistake and under-commit, i.e. bring enough to win decisively vs what we'd have if we kept attacking Retep, but not enough to win against that, plus 15-20 knights.

I think that chance of him underestimating what we're packing is our only way to win a battle. If he knows we can devote our full attention he'll either attack if he can win or stay home like he's been doing for the last 50 turns. Frankly I think he's a better Civ player than me right now, so I don't expect him to make a strategic mistake unless he has an information disadvantage.

I'm +90% sure that it doesn't work that way. The defensive builds like walls and castle multiply from the current. So if he's put our culture/walls down to 0% then the castle will just multiply times that.

I'd still take the castle if we can whip it. Can't say that I've built a whole lot of castles in SP, but I think that it would put us up to 100% defense and then reduce the cats ability to strip defenses down to 4%. So his 15 cats could reduce 60%, or down to 40% at a guess. Then he'd have to either attack at 40% or spend another turn stripping defenses. Well worth it if it can get another 6-8 whipped defenders in there.

I tested in WB and you're right again. It's not obvious from the building descriptions. Walls give +50% defense and castles also give +50%, but once it's 0% the castle doesn't increase the defenses.

Important to note is that castles are nerfed in RBMod. In BTS walls give -50% bombard rate, and castles give another -25% so cats work at 1/4 strength. But the -25% is taken away. I'm not sure if Ichabod can bombard 100% to 0% in one turn or not, with enough accuracy promotions. He is running the combat experience civics so surely has 2 promo cats available.

It's probably moot anyway since he has two moves before we could have a castle up. It's my mistake for not starting one as soon as we had Engineering.

As they say about money,....you can't take it with you.

True! But I'm far more pessimistic about Ichabod's ability to profit from a war with us than you are. I don't think he's going to be able to make permanent gains at all. He'll probably be able to capture or raze La Boheme, but after that he's in the quagmire of our culture where we have all the tactical advantages. The game isn't going to be over if we spend gold only on techs.

So I still seriously hate unit upgrades, in 95% of situations, including this one. The difference between a spear and pike is simply not worth anywhere near 95 gold in a large fight if everything is taking collateral anyway. The only time I think upgrades are ever worth it are either for the few that are cost effective (like Knights to Cuirs) or to swing a very small scale battle with just a few units involved, like what Commodore did.

Right. And we'll want cats to do that.

Absolutely.

Other things: just want a confirm that we still have eyes out East. No nasty surprises please.

Yeah, we're still watching.

What do you mean 'some' of our 1-movers. Yes, splitting that stack isn't a great idea depending on the composition. You could get away with it to some degree due to LBs on hills/forests.

You can see which have moves left in the screenshot a couple of pages back. Most relevant is the 5 (I think) cats that can't move and need to be protected. If you want to recommend which units should move I think we've got time before Ichabod can log in...

[WilliamLP]

I guess I try PMing Retep, saying we're offering peace?

I think you should not do this. AI-diplo means AI-diplo.

Too late then, sorry. I think it's very debatable in this case. PMing for an administration issue seems fine here, like talking about a turn split or needing a pause or when a turn can be played. This feels more like a timing and administration issue to me than diplo.

FWIW I sent:

Hi, since you might not log in to PB13 this turn, I offered a peace treaty in the game. If you're interested in responding and need an unpause I should be around to do it, otherwise of course letting the turn roll maintains the state of war.

Sorry about delaying the turn yesterday. -W

I'm not giving any information not available by logging into the game, which proper manners say he should do anyway, if only to end turn.

I even say, if he's not willing to log in and play his turn it's time to find a sub.

[WilliamLP]

Anyway, Ichabod has announced his intent for war in the tech thread. He didn't say us, but duh. So unfortunately I think I need to show manners and not log in and tweak things after we've ended our turn.

Though, starting the castle in Boheme is just a mistake which will cost us a unit that could be whipped instead. Boheme is going to fall I'm pretty sure, again unless he's seriously undercommitting. The exact tactics of such will be decided at a later date. And in that light it probably doesn't matter if we move the partial stack or wait for the full stack to move inside Retep's borders, because we wouldn't attack until all those cats are together anyway.