[Spoilers-PBEM14] Hannibal's Ottomans, Lewwyn and Luddite

[Lewwyn]

I probably would have moved one of your axes on the forest 2N1E onto the forest hill. This 1) blocks reinforcements, 2) watches your HA, if he attacks it with his spear then your axe will kill it next turn. He only has one spear so once it goes down your HAs can have a field day with his other units. If he chooses not to attack the HA and moves all his units onto the plains next to the city, that means you lose the axe for defense, but your HA can get back in time. Plus your axe would still be on the logistically important neutrally-roaded forest hill and can fortify there to block the juncture.

I have to say this would have been a brilliant maneuver. Wish I had thought of it when I was playing the turn. There is a downside though. If I moved an axe I'd have one less unit to help defend my city. That could have been disastrous. In the end though I feel confident with where the turn ended.



Now he did kill my HA. But he used a Keshik that was hiding on the pig tile in the north. I had combat 1 on that HA so the battles was a coin flip. Serdoa wins again. WTF. Now that keshik can pillage my gold next turn, attack the city, or pick off my worker.

About that worker. I needed walls in the city. I could have whipped an axe and added a unit but that does not help as much as getting walls in the city. BUT I couldn't whip walls! They are 3 pop to whip and at 5 pop it wouldn't let me whip them. Plus without a whip the walls would have taken 2-3 turns naturally. Now I could have chalked it up to bad luck and simply whipped the axe. But here I decided to chop the forest (which luckily was pre-chopped to 1 turn!) and sacrifice the worker in order to get walls. as I already had 17 hammers overflow from the last whip.

I moved an HA from Keystone into the city gave it shock. Also Whipped an HA in Esoteric and an HA in Keystone. Those will be on their way.

I'm feeling okay. I don't like Serdoa having his keshiks and I worry that it will be tough to take him out. But I don't see all my guys losing at the battle of Eureka. I'm feeling okay on defense. The loss of gold will suck as will the worker, but not losing eureka is the important part.

[Lewwyn]

Another quick note, notice my tech is at -5 gpt. part of that is the whipping, but mostly its unit cost. Right now I have 6 gold for unit cost. Thing is if he attacks, that might go down a bit.

Ram my walls Serdoa!

[Lewwyn]

I've been really stressed out with work the last few days so I haven't had much sleep, I'm irritated and today was the last straw. After what I saw in my PBEM 18 game I was pretty much rampaging. I opened the save today and saw Sandover had war decced and moved a War Chariot into my lands next to Serdoa. So I wrote an in game message to everyone:

Time to go out in a blaze of glory! Screw it.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves, Let's go back 2 turns.

[luddite]

wtf? sandover declared war?

[Lewwyn]

This turn was the beginning of the really bad news. I knew it was coming and I couldn't do much to stop it.



You see here Serdoa has moved his main stack South of Eureka. He's cut the road and Eureka can only build Archers now. Also his injured Keshik has pillaged the gold and I'm killed that keshik with my two spears. Also I lost that worker to an archer which I killed with an axe and moved back into the city. At this point I was praying he didn't go further south because I can defend but I can ATTACK his shock axes, not with the dang spear in the way.

The turn after that I find he's moved south. Here's a picture of how I plan to defend my capital:



You can see if he moves off the road then he'll get in the way of the HA coming to the capital. Also the workers can't go up that way to help repair roads. But I don't see why he would do that when he can't KNOW that HA is there. It's a tile away behind a hill in the fog. By the end of the following turn I calculate I'll have 10 units in the capital and my workers can get my mains stack onto roads to catch up with his stack while I continue to build more units. I'll survive. But I'm tired at this point and I know I won't be able to catch Scooter. So I cave and send Serdoa a msg:

Well, at this point I know you can't conquer me, but I can't do shit about your shock axes right now, and they'll just run around tearing shit up until I finish construction. If I'd had a few more turns before you came in I would have been able to handle you, but AGG is just too much too soon.

At this point, Scooter is running away with the game. Sandover and Gaspar are fooling around doing something or other and not doing much to stop him. Really it's pissing me off that scooter is getting such a free pass and is allowed to settle with abandon. If we continue, I have no chance to catch up and neither do you. I promise you won't be able to break me, but at this point I don't think I can break you either.

So I'm willing to either go ahead and play this out till the end. Or I'm willing to call a peace. I'll NAP with you for 100 turns or whatever. I'll cede the land north of Eureka (But if you settle to take the rice from Eureka deals off.)

I understand if you'd like to go ahead and try to crush me for my impertinence, but it's not a winning strategy at this point. If you think there's still time for you to recover, settle and catch up then consider this offer. If you think its already over you and your best option is to keep coming at me. That's fine too. I don't really mind either way, I don't think I have a chance to catch up to the others without your core lands and all I see in the future is us stalemating.

Lewwyn

He responds:

Hi Lewwyn,

well, I agree with you, I can't conquer you. And you can't conquer me. You are also right that scooter is running away with the game, but honestly, if he does not fuck up, we won't be able to catch him - ever. I have counted the possible city sites left for me - I can make it to 8 cities. scooter has already 7 and I am sure more to settle. I guess it is pretty similar for you, with maybe 3-4 sites left? Anyway, for me this game is - in regards to winning - over. That's partly for our war, but partly because I simply fucked the start up (again...). Settling that second city was pretty weedy and to tell you the funny truth: It was your warrior who is responsible for it. You had him in that area when I moved my settler and I really wanted to settle him, so I moved around in a way that your warrior could not kill him (didn't want to risk a warrior against warrior battle). And then I had lost already turns and thought I'd better settle him there instead of wandering for even more time... uh, yeah, bad decision I guess.

So anyway, I have really thought for some time about this but I think I'd rather like to play it out with you, learn some more about ancient warfare and in the end probably get crushed. But that sounds more like fun then staying in this game and trying to build up for the next 3 months only to get crushed by either you, Sandover or scooter whenever one of you feel like it.

However, Lewwyn I think you played a really strong game and if scooter hadn't bought himself out of this war by having me concede all my lands to the east to him you probably would lead by now. Basically he got by working as a mercenary for you more then he would have got as an attacker.

Kind regards,
Serdoa

I respond again:

Yeah I agree. I'll admit I really underestimated AGG. That has really been the worst of it, you getting shock axes so easily.

So I forced the 2nd city? Very funny because that city, which honestly I thought was pretty weedy myself initiated my settler up to Mt. Nebo. Your second city was so far from your capital and it looked hugely aggressive to me. It left only room for one city between us and I didn't really want you to be knocking on my 2nd cities border. It also didn't get your copper so it made me more confident I could defend my aggression as well. The geography and scouting forced me to settle north as I had jungle on both sides and hadn't scouted my horses. We also had like zero diplo while this was going on.

To be honest, one reason I was willing to go to peace with you was Sandover has settled up on my Western border taking the pigs next to my horses thinking that I was busy with you. Thus if I ended the war with you I'd swing my army directly at Sandover within a few turns.

Scooter also secured a long NAP and land from Sandover by threatening him. Crazy. Can't believe Sandover just let him go.

Thanks for the compliment on the start. If I had a do over I think I would have tried to have more diplomatic relations with you. We could have avoided this war and kept Scooter in check. But seeing as neither of us sent diplo either way with each turn we silently ran towards each other like ships in the night, lol.

I will oblige you in our war to the death. Should be fun anyway.

Lewwyn

So. Civility. We accept that the game is over.

My next update will explain the foreshadowing in the first post. But now I have to go teach again. So tired.

[Lewwyn]

As promised. When I opened the save today I saw Sandover had declared and moved a WC in. Serdoa had moved SE to block my HA even though he shouldn't have known it was there in the fog. Also his chariot killed my warrior that was west of Keystone, which he couldn't have seen if he moved his stack SE. Its fishy. He was able to do everything right to screw me.

I was fresh off my rage over in PBEM 18. Hungry and irritable. So I messaged the everyone in the game and prepared to suicide into Serdoa's stack. This was the result:



Well that was a surprise. The spear died on the first attack and as soon as that happened I felt better. I sent the other HAs in and they all came out alive. At this point I was less suicidal. So I stopped there. Amazing how winning a few battles makes you feel better. I was really ready to throw in the towel there. BTW I attacked with the HAs unpromoted and they got 2 promotions after their battles to heal up. So each on in the cap is around 5 health 1 below 2 above.

Here's the battlefield:



Next turn my workers repair the road, and that stack can attack Serdoa. I wonder if he'll throw everything at my cap.

[Lewwyn]

Serdoa wants me to chase him. He's moved to a forest out of the way. But I'm not going to do that:



When I opened the turn and saw him there, I felt a bit of relief, but also annoyance. Now what. Do I build infrastructure or more units. In the end I decided I had to keep building units. I see no other way out of this game then to kill someone.

Note I say someone because Sandover's pissing me off. I had a chat with him today:

Lewwyn: so
you still want war?
Sandover: don't really care tbh
just wanted visibility on your capital
I'll accept peace if you want to make the offer
Lewwyn: How long is you NAP with Scooter?
Sandover: it's like
can't attack each other with ancient units
Lewwyn: oh jesus
Sandover: until machinery or feudalism is researched
then all is fair game
Lewwyn: You know that Serdoa ceded all the land west of his horses to Scooter?
between that and your NAP he has nothing to fear
Sandover: I know
wasn't anything I could do about it though
scooter was smart enough to call me out on not having a strategic resource early on
moving the settler moved me away from horses
Lewwyn: XD
Serdoa moved north into his backfill area at the start
and to compensate made a far aggressive city plan
seems the inital settler moves are really killing us
Sandover: scooter certainly gained a lot from it
Lewwyn: well
I'll do peace with you
I'd like to have a bit of a NAP too
10 turns are mandatory but I'd like a further 10 turns as well
I know you probably don't want to war with me anyway
you still have room to expand peacefully
Pretty much the only thing I have in this game is a grudge match with Serdoa
And I'd like that uninterrupted
Sandover: I can understand that
honestly though
I'm kinda eye-balling that city site north of Enoch near the mountain ridge
Lewwyn: ...
Sandover: thinking I need to steal that from you if I am to stand a chance against scooter
Lewwyn: you go there and I will come after you
Sandover: I figured as much
Lewwyn: You already took the pigs from my horse site
and I'm still pretty pissed about that
Sandover: fully understandable
and I expected as much
anyway
I haven't decided whether it's worthwhile or not to fight with you over that northern spot
Lewwyn: the spot thats in first ring of my capital
yeah
Sandover: but I'd like to refrain from signing a NAP in case I decide it's worth a shot
Lewwyn: you shouldn't fight me for that
I don't think I can sig peace with you then
sign
Sandover: ok
war weariness isn't going to hurt me so we can just sit at war status for the time being then
your power graph is kinda scary though!
Lewwyn: then why do you want to try poaching my land
its only going to get worse
Sandover: cause right now scooter has us all beat
it's worth gambling to have a shot at bringing him down I reckon
Lewwyn: I'd rather stomp you and destroy and chance I have at winning then let you settle any closer to me
any chance
just FYI
Sandover: of course you would
question is whether you can do it or not
Lewwyn: We'll see won't we
Sandover:
well as I said
still don't know whether I actually want to go down that road
probably not as I don't trust Serdoa to keep you busy enough
I saw his stack at your capital but I think you got things under control?
Lewwyn: yes
he's moved away from my capital and told me to chase him
which is stupid
Sandover: yeah
TT tried to chase me in PBEM3
that move lost him his civ
Lewwyn: anyway I've settled back and I'm building more units
I've got very little tech but Serdoa's units are still in my culture draining his gold
Sandover: I guess you can keep your city spot
Serdoa need to be winning else I can't really take it
sounds like he's not
Lewwyn: he was close before I killed 4 units with HAs and healed them with promotions
Sandover: yeah that fight at keystone looked rather tight
anyway if you want to offer a flat peace I'll take it
not taking a nap since I want to have the option in case you screw something up
gotta go now
Lewwyn: ok

So I'm pretty pissed. He wants to settle next to my capital? I'm considering ignoring Serdoa now. I think I might be better served tearing Sandover up.

[NobleHelium]

Calm down. You can't go after Sandover yet with that roaming stack in your countryside. I like the chat actually, Sandover seemed quite honest about it. I don't necessarily believe that he won't go after the spot, but I liked how he talked about what his options are.

[Lewwyn]

Calm down. You can't go after Sandover yet with that roaming stack in your countryside. I like the chat actually, Sandover seemed quite honest about it. I don't necessarily believe that he won't go after the spot, but I liked how he talked about what his options are.

Well I wasn't going after him this second. I want to get my cats first.

Thing is Sandover is a better target for four reasons.

-His city is closer to me than Serdoa's.
-He has less power.
-He's not AGG.
-He doesn't have Keshiks.

Given that, I think I will have an easier time taking the city that Sandover has placed on my border. I can also then take my time with Serdoa and settle cities (ie: Mt Nebo) toward him. Its not like I'm going to start throwing units at either of them.

Hyperbole is a writer's best friend.

[novice]

Great reports, Lewwyn!

Guess I'll have to check out the PBEM18 threads.