I posted in retep's thread to gently prod him to get on with playing the turns. Hope that helps. If not, 
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[PB25-SPOILERS] The Lunacy of the Reign of HAK Continues
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October 2nd, 2015, 11:51
(This post was last modified: October 2nd, 2015, 11:53 by MindyMcCready.)
Donovan and Ruff have gone whip/draft crazy in the last 2Ts. Where's the party and why didn't anyone invite us? :LOL:
I'm not sure what Donovan's game plan is: piss off MC by grabbing/razing those cities and then enormously help out MC by killing off the last of Retep? Hmmmm, stronger and angrier. Very Hulk like. [EDIT: Maybe Donovan just want's the turns to go quicker! :LOL:] Ruff finally appears to be ready to do the best thing that he can to stay alive; remove MC from his landmass. I have a feeling that he won't be at all successful. MC's got protective drafts,...hopefully at least into unhappiness. MC's also probably less than 5T before Protective Rifles. He won't want to draft them, but he will of course do it to shut down Ruff's Knights. Donovan's stuck with enforced peace until T204, so we should be able to rule out any ambition on Gavagai's cities. It's a possibility that Donovan could look at us as a threat or future threat,...but there's still a bit of a buffer between us. And we're more than busy enough right now. We should be mindful that Ruff could also see us as a threat or as an opportunity on Battle Island. Investments there should be of the military type or at least rationalized with an uncertain future. But, could this be the beginning of a beautiful 3-way against MC? If Ruff and Donovan put aside their differences and present a united front, that would be enough to thwart further expansion by MC. As likely as not, Ruff will get shut down by MC,...annnnndddd we're not looking so hot over by Gavagai. Horseshoes, wishbones, clover-leafs, rabbit-feet,...etc. But no White Elephants. 
October 3rd, 2015, 11:17
(This post was last modified: October 3rd, 2015, 11:21 by HitAnyKey.)
So I totally forgot to take the screenshots of the big battle, but we killed off 5 of his Crossbows, while losing I think 6 Catapults and 2 Muskets. We then decided to sit in place to see what he does next, while turning on auto-promote so that the few units that we didn't attack with would promote on the turn roll.
Here is the easy capture of Thapsus with the Horse Archer I had on the Galleon, since he left the city empty. Nice haul: I then went around promoting lots of units, so that the auto-promote wouldn't do silly stuff....though forgot about my stack of Catapults up by Hungry.....so they all now have CR promotion on them as that's what the AI did. Blah. I should have given them all Barrage for use later. Oh well, that's why I typically don't like to use the auto-promote option. this is the first time I've ever used it actually. I then kinda totally forgot that I was last to play (as that like has never happened in this game), and was planning to spend time taking more screenshots after ending turn but before logging out (like I usually do), but since the turn rolled I didn't want to spend too much time in game. So simply quickly grabbed the demos & graphs: And then a real quick batch to show what the military looks like from the turn-roll-healing. So this shows my current stack and then what his stacks look like prior to him logging in to promote his survivors. The screenshots from last turn displayed 2T to Printing Press but after just a few changes in cities it was an easy 1T left of research. So we got that and can now research Replaceable Parts in probably 4T. We also got a Great General while Gavagai was attacking us (it spawned in Adventurous). I have sent it walking towards Sonic (our Heroic Epic city) and will likely settle him there so we can create some C1 Caravels. Especially since we just lost a bunch in fights with Commodore. He lost 4 Caravels in the SE waters to sink one of mine and my Trireme that was blockading his city. I then lost 4 up by Hungry to kill 2 of his C2 Caravels that were sitting on one of my Crabs. I consider both sets of fights a success. This coming turn I'll just need to get a bunch of cities started on building Caravels again.
Just a few more things for the lurkers:
-We knew that the battle over Utica would be a close one. I'm not 100% sure but I think that we got the better of it. Gav lost about 44 units I think (HAK could check the logs) while we lost 29 units in Gav's initial attack. The distribution of losses was also pretty good. Gav appears to have dropped from 30 knights down to 13 (better than the couple of SIMs that I ran) while we lost 16 cuirassiers. With all of those formation Knights it could have been worse. On our turn we lost a few more units than Gav did, but everything he's got has been brutalized and won't be able to contribute to any further fighting for a few turns. So overall, I don't think that Gav will be able to dislodge us and he probably won't try to build a fort since he has so few units left that get a defense bonus. It would be nice if we could heal up in that fort (not sure how that works). So overall painful,....but tentatively we accomplished some strategic objectives (Gav's 13 knight could try to make a lie of that next turn). By forcing that battle we've also sparred Tacape from attack and captured Thaspus and we're also threatening Had and Kerk with some expendable units. We're also able to move some more units out of Wendy's and Bouncy since 13 knights triple forking cities is not nearly as scary as 30 Knights triple forking. A few more turns and Tacape will be up to 45% defense due to 1 border pop + 25% chitzen Itza. I can't believe how useful Chitzen Itza has been. I think that the conventional wisdom is that it is a useless build for an expanding/aggressive civ. I think that HAK and I have been able to attack Gav at this point in part due to it. Drafted maces + Chitchen Itza and you don't have too much to worry about from even C2 Knights. We're almost certain to need to reinforce before capturing Utica, so that's unfortunately. We'll have a better idea if we can keep up with MC long-term after we get replaceable parts and after we see what Donovan and Ruff are up to. Our GNP looks surprisingly good post golden age.  So MC's window to use canons + rifles + galleons might be short enough for us to survive. Now we just have to prevent MC from getting involved in GavagaiLand and we should be able to regain our city count advantage.
October 3rd, 2015, 21:11
(This post was last modified: October 4th, 2015, 09:29 by HitAnyKey.)
Ok, here goes....it's late, I'm tired, so this will mostly be just massive screenshot spam....
First up, Gavagai hit us with just a single Knight...getting a great hit, killing both a Catapult and Musket and wounding a bunch of stuff...and following that are the images showing all the military in that area right now. Here's another shot of the most current demos after the latest battles: For those curious, and for any counting of losses...here's the full log of the battles of Gav vs us and then us vs Gav: And here's the current build queue: I haven't moved any of the units in Tacape or Thapsus yet and have not moved either of the invading stacks yet. All other activities for this turn have been completed. We're also being hit HARD with war weariness now, so that's why I have all those Temple & Jail builds going. Over by Popeyes I had a lovely 27% success in sinking one of Commodore's C1 Caravels with one of my unpromoted ones. His big stack is coming back south to my waters near Hungry, so he'll soon be blocking those seafood tiles again. And as seen in one of the screenshots above, he's starting to ferry across to Dragon Judge some Cannons. So gotta make sure I'm prepared for those. Sending the Galleons & more Caravels up to try to stop the ferry system. And my wounded Caravels from the earlier battle will be healed in 2T and can then also go back north. EDIT: I did just upgrade the C1 Horse Archer I had in Thapsus, so that'll give us one more Cuir that can be used starting next turn. I had also upgraded the other two HAs I had in Tacape last turn, which is where there are a handful there able to be moved forward. So the only Horse Archer I have left now is the Sentry HA which will not get upgraded since his only purpose (for now) is as a scout if ever needed.
October 4th, 2015, 09:26
(This post was last modified: October 4th, 2015, 10:17 by HitAnyKey.)
Mindy, if you actually check in at some point today and type stuff up in response to the things I listed out in the googledoc, post here to let me know there is stuff there for me to read. I'll see this notification and maybe be able to check the googledoc from the hotel tonight, but I won't know there is anything to check unless you either post here or PM me.
I will have about an hour (maybe) between wedding and reception where I'll be checking into the hotel. So might have a bit at that time (sometime between 2:45pm & 3:45pm) where I can check in if you've typed up any stuff. That is, assuming you are around at all today. Heh.
Hi HAK,
I typed up a bunch of stuff in the GD,... Short(er) version: -Retreat our wounded stack towards Chipolte. -Reinforce the wounded stack with 3LK + 4 maces leaving 2 muskets + 2 maces in Chipolte. -Make sure that we pop the border of Chipolte this turn. You may or may not have to run an extra artist to do so. -I'd advise to leave the units in Tacape and Thaspus. We need all of those units there until we can get cultural control of those cities. -Turn auto-promote off if you haven't done so already. -Stop building temples. Unless we land those key wonders they're not very valuable buildings. Cities bordering MC are definately good candiates for temples since the +6 culture will force him to run artists. You could even build a monastery in those cities,.. -OMG,...stop building a temple in our HE city. HE always builds military. -We're 3T out from MC's rifles. We need to get back onto miltiary (not everything,...but more balanced). Lower power than MC + vunlerable units in GavagaiLand + MC's wrapping up Retep and can concentrate power in our direction,...anyway you'd need the mother of all arguments to convince me that we shouldn't be drafting since it's the only way that we can make up for the hammer advantage that MC has over us. -Caravels may be obsolete by the time they see any action. -I agree with having the mini-stack proceed towards Had. If we can get onto the sheep we can threatend to move to Kerk and cut off 1-mover access to Kerk by sitting 1S of Kerk. 2-movers can protect but get no defense bonus. |
