[Spoilers] Pindicator's Nice Thread

[Charriu]

Oh yes that could be the reason. I will keep my mouth shut in the tech thread about that. Thanks though for informing me.

[pindicator]

090

Starting to get a sense of Magic Science's lands




Obviously a good amount of land, and obviously I'm jealous of the double gold and the island. My scout has pushed through to his east where I have come to Ginger, and what looks like Superdeath's Sumeria peeking out in the fog. Also note just how much Magic Science has been able to spread out his cities compared to how close together I have had to squeeze mine in.

Finally, the free Judaism spread is going to cause me to lose first-ring borders at Inspector Gadget for a short time. However, that city is on a plan to get a library whipped out as soon as possible. Chop goes into the granary on t93, and then we 2-pop whip the library on t102. I should lose first ring borders t99 but hopefully get them back when I pop borders myself. Sadly we're both going to be fighting over these borders for a while, and worse: this will make both my coastal cities forkable by any future galley attack from Magic Science from an ocean tile which I will not be able to strike at until Optics.




Whipped 3 cities for horse archers last turn, and this turn we whipped the capital and MLP. Both cities now have stacked whip anger. I'm hoping no more whips will be needed so I don't have to double up on whip anger in too many places. With cities at the happy cap it is a challenge to 1) make sure all the best tiles are being worked, 2) make sure that we don't grow into unhappiness, and 3) to get all our builds in on time. Mentally it's been very challenging to keep track of which tiles go to which city in my planning, so there have been more errors than usual in this regard. To demonstrate how interconnected the overlap gets, I've color coded which tiles are being worked by which city above.

There is a barb axe that has invaded from the east. My 4xp axe is on the forested tile to its south, hoping to pick up 5xp and be able to advance in the war with a fresh Shock promotion. However, if the axe skips attacking my unit and goes to the Deer next turn then I will need to risk an 80% attack with one of my horse archers.

[pindicator]

091

Short update since I did get a front row seat on the war (but my screenshot didn't take).

Surprisingly it was Magic Science who was waiting for Ginger and Naufrager to play. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised; he did just build 8 chariots. And from what I can see / what PBSpy shows he only lost a size 1 city. Plenty of that going on in this game. Anyway, my scout steered away from the war and got contact with Superdeath. Asked him for OB so I could continue on. I'm going to turn my galley back around, I think and let the scout map stuff out. At this point I have contact with everyone except naufrager.




With all my whips done in previous turns now cities are set up to finish horse archers by overflow. The capital did put a chop into finishing its HA, but that is the only tree I'm going to put into this effort. The horse archer from Thundercats will be a turn behind, but will be able to catch up if I have to wait for the axes to join in the attack.

The barbarian axe did attack and lose to my 4xp axeman. He'll be able to heal up in time with the promotions, so I now also have a shock axe in my stack.

Lastly, someone finished Math this turn. I don't turn on the science for a few more turns, but right now I'm thinking Math > Calendar is the way I want to go. Hopefully aided with some capture gold.

[pindicator]

093

Everything is set for next turn




Gavagai of course is not blind to my power increases




It's unfortunate that I will be taking the first half of the timer, but sadly necessary to keep the game moving. (I guess I could try to be a dick about taking the second half, but no...) Commodore is already in a split with Gavagai and so I'll be joining Comm on the first half. I'm hoping to see no more than 2 Praetorians inside Rome when I move up next turn, because he is certainly going to be whipping a unit there. That is why we have 1 horse archer with the slow-movers: before declaring war I'm going to move 2 up to spy out Rome. If I like what I see then I declare war and move eveything in.

If I do not, then we need to swiftly pivot to Commodore. I'll use the horse archers to burn Marem, plant a city on the hill I had outlined many turns ago, and then aim to capture the barbarian city. I don't think I want to push farther to Commodore's capital, but depending on what he has in the area it may be too good to pass up.

[pindicator]

094

Gavagai whipped Rome last turn and I have to admit, my heart sank a bit. Still, I moved my horse archer up and spied what he had defending. I was very pleased at what I saw:




Still, I have to wonder what Gavagai whipped last turn. Rome was whipped for 2 pop and then likely grew back to 5, but the Praetorian there has 10% fortify so he did not whip a unit. I can see models for the palace and granary but I don't see any other building. A library might have made sense, as he just finished Writing a few turns back. EDIT: He could have whipped a unit and then switched builds but that seems a very unlikely scenario.

Lurker question: if someone is using way points in multiplayer, do those units move on the turn roll?

In any case, this is better than I was expecting. The fact that he whipped last turn means he can't whip anything of substance this turn - and the fact that he is size 5 and not size 6 means he can't dry whip a spear. He might be able to upgrade that warrior, and there might be a unit in range but I have to like my chances for just taking the city next turn with horse archers.

Other civ notes: Magic Science landed a scout on my shores this turn. A little irked at myself for missing the galley, but I'm already bringing my galley back and I'll be sure to have it in position to keep him from boating Thundercats. Thundercats is also going to need more than just the warrior MP it currently has.

A second civ researched Mathematics. I originally planned on turning on the slider this turn to join the party, but war is expensive yo.

[Qgqqqqq]

Please don't rely on this: I believe waypoints only execute when you are partway through your turn. So in MP they wouldn't be triggered by turn roll (unless, perhaps, every unit you had was way pointed, but I suspect not even then).

[Charriu]

I remember that I set waypoints for all my units and they did move after the turn roll, when I wasn't logged in.

[pindicator]

095

Unfortunately it wasn't all going to be so easy: I got into the game this turn to find 2 more Praetorians in Rome.

I was so optimistic last turn because against 2 Praetorians and 1 warrior I had a good chance of success. However, against 3 praetorians I knew my odds dropped rapidly. To be thorough, I did some sims and the results were not encouraging: attacking this turn with my 3 9 Horse Archers only had a 30% chance of success in 20 trials. And there were too many instances where the first couple of attackers scored no damage against the defending Praetorian - this would spell doom on the attempt.

However, if I could move up my troops I found that my odds were considerably better for next turn.

For Gavagai's half of the turn we have to expect him to whip a Praetorian in Rome. So there will be at least 4 praetorians in the city next turn. With 4 praetorians and 1 warrior defending against all my army I rolled 100% success rate in 10 trials. The axes do a fantastic job of softening up the defending praetorians and then the horse archers clean up. My worst run had me losing 5 horse archers but on average it was more like 2.

If he can also move up another Praetorian into Rome then the battle gets a lot closer but should still be doable. I scored a 75% success rate in 20 trials, but 3 of the trials I marked as success end in me lacking the forces to hold Rome and so needing to burn it.

So I did what Horse Archers do best: I moved up and tried to create some tactics:




Antium was whipped last turn, so that Praetorian must be newly made. Similarly another Gav city was whipped last turn, one I don't have vision on. I expect to see Rome whipped and a 4th Praetorian show in Rome, but I should be putting more pressure than he can account for here: I don't see how he gets enough units moved around to defend both Antium and Rome. And if he tries to attack the horse archers then those are units not defending in any city.

[Cornflakes]

Nice thread, nice tactics ... hopefully nice dice rolls good luck!

[pindicator]

096

The dice rolls were not nice




Gavagai had attacked with 2 chariots and annoying they had both done really well. His first attacked our horse archer and lost, but brought the HA all the way down to 14hp. The second one then withdrew against our Skirmisher, leaving us at 40hp and more annoying leaving us with another unit in Rome to kill.

Now there are two options for Rome. The first is to press forward with the assault. I succeeded 90% of the sims, although some were borderline and I needed to raze Rome. The second option is to burn Antium and then use the HA to pillage the road as I retreat. I have no chance of gaining anything in this war, but I keep my army intact. However, I think Rome's culture is what is preventing me from settling further west than Antium's; plus Rome will remove the horse. I suppose if things start to go very badly I can switch, but I decide to go for Rome.

I wish I knew where his Iron was...

Sending in the axes first against the 4 Praetorians.

C1 Shock Axe vs Praetorian (4.44%) - Loss, no damage
CR Axe vs Praetorian (1.3%) - Loss, Praet to 44hp
Axe vs Praetorian (1.07%) - Loss, No Damage

Suddenly we're trending towards the worst case scenarios from my sims. It was very rare to do no damage with 2 opening attacks, and now even if the remaining 2 axes did well I would still need to push through a full strength Praetorian with just my horse archer. It was still possible to take Rome, perhaps even likely, but we were trending towards a loss and at best a victory where I would have no healthy units to hold Rome with.

So I cut my losses here. Rome's RNG was too strong, I would have to come back. My wounded Horse Archer with the remaining axes would pillage the road and retreat and my remaining axes and skirmishers would slink back home. I'm going to have to whip another round up for attacks and this time I won't have the benefit of surprise; I'll have to come axe heavy. Or wait until catapults.

Damn it!

At least Antium was still soft.

Horse Archer vs Praetorian (0.5% / 19.9%) - LOSS, 87HP
C1 Horse Archer vs 87HP Praetorian (3.01% / 19.4%) - LOSS, 59HP
C1 Horse Archer vs 59HP Praetorian (39.6% / 12.08%) - Withdraw, 29HP left on Praet
Horse Archer vs Warrior (87.83% / 2.43%) - WIN
C1 Horse Archer vs 29HP Praetorian (97.01% / 0.6%) - WIN




Well, I'm not happy. I got 79 gold out of it and burned a city at the cost of 2 horse archers and 3 axes. I suppose that's a win, but I wanted more. I really wanted to capture. I pillaged his sheep and a cottage with my horse archers for some more scraps.




It's hard to think of what I do now. I could whip another round of axes now and then have 14 axes and 8 horse archers ready to come back in 10 turns. Or I could try to settle and move up on the area that I've opened up. Which admittedly would send me more towards the northern tundra. But I do need to put some new cities down, and unlike my backup plan from before I can't really afford to hit Commodore and push towards Rome.

Ideally I want a city right between the Sheep and Copper, but I don't see how I can defend something there right now. Perhaps Gavagai is going to be weakened heavily enough by this loss that I can now?

This turn does hurt though because I could have really secured a position to challenge naufrager for the lead had it gone well. And perhaps I could have ground out a win by the skin of my teeth had I continued to throw units in. But I like keeping my army intact and I think I made the right call with the information I had. It still hurts that I got such a beneficial setup only for the RNG to sour on me.

Demos: