uSuthu!: A Chevalier Story

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Zululand's surrender is accepted! The Nubio-Zerg swarm moves on to ravage Persia and begins assimiliating the conquered territory. I could have dragged out the conquest perhaps 15 more turns, but why bother? This way, I accelerate the end. In the meantime, Zululand swaps over to the economic builds I would have loved to have made 30 turns ago. I'll sandbox this game while I wait to see if everyone else surrenders as well. I'm locked into 30 turn's peace - thrawn threw in a DoF on top of the peace treaty, which I take to mean no further hostile intentions prior to the end of the game. 

I accept, and shoot back an offer of open borders, both to evacuate a few survivors from my forces and to see if I can push through to contact Russia. I might also research to Shipbuilding to see if I can at least eat Kandy.

[marcopolothefraud]

Be careful, too much Kandy will rot your teeth.

What do you think was the "point of no return" in this game? When was the last moment when thrawn could have been stopped?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Well, let's do our 5 whys:

Why did thrawn beat us?

Because he had a shitton of units and took all our cities. Nothing I could have done differently - building horsemen 10 turns sooner instead of settlers wouldn't have done much, in the end. I would have had maybe 4 more than I did, giving me 6. I could have thrown a better haymaker at Hitch, but he would have replaced 'em and swarmed me anyway.

Why did he have a shitton of units?

Because he could use his massive production desert cities to churn out infinite archers to murder us. (It was the archers that were the killer - I had about the same amount of horses, but I couldn't get close through the storm of arrowfire. Against 3 Nubian cities, no problem. Against 8? As productive as they were? No chance). Nothing I could do to stop that, I think.

Why did he have productive desert cities?

Because he took those with his initial archers, and had work ethic spread. Could he have been stopped taking the initial cities?

Yes, but not by me. I tried with my starting military of 5 warriors and 4 archers - and I was a few turns too slow. Fifteen turns later, he ahd secured all 5 and when Ioan attacked Archduke, eh would keep 'em. I'd say Ioan attacking Persia and DOFing Nubia was the point at which the runaway became impossible to stop.

Could he have been stopped from gaining work ethic?

I don't know if Russia deliberately spread his religion, but no, nothing I at least could do about that. 

Why did he take those cities, and not anyoen else?

Because he found them just in time, and got there just ahead of me, when I still had no units to fight Nubian archers with. I could defend myself, and would have, but couldn't operate away from my walls. So, the game was lost when thrawn got the center, with the desert, and no one tried to stop him other than me getting massacred. A legion or immortal rush could be brought off by turn 70 and hit the cities before thrawn really got going, but both northern powers instead buildered away ahead of me with fancy campuses. 

Note also, that thrawn had to take the cities BEFORE I did - as i certainly planned to do - but AFTER he got a pantheon (to take desert folklore). It was an absurd stroke of luck - too early and he might have taken a different pantheon, no super holy sites. Too late and I would have had walls and archers at Kumasi, in much better terrain for me to fight in. 

But Ioan and Archduke and ljubljana didn't know about the desert core. Only thrawn and I did - so the game was lost on scouting. Basically, thrawn was stronger than me in the Classical age, and his other opponents scouted too poorly and too limitedly to know that he needed to be stopped. So he really only had to beat me with his ancient units, which he did, and that was that.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Well, now I know how thrawn got Work Ethic so fast - his third city was settled practically WITHIN Russia's borders! Jesus. 

I wonder how this game would have gone with a more standard map? Could thrawn have built enough cities on his own to still overwhelm me with pitatis, or would my own analysis - that he couldn't build enough, fast enough, to overcome horsemen led by a GG-  have held true? 

Ah, well, no harm done, Kaiser. You live and learn - I made the exact same mistake with the PBEM11 map, which is why I so quickly spotted what you'd done here. If it hadn't been Nubia, you bet your ass I would have been trying my best to do exactly what thrawn did. I'm not sure, once he sniffed out the center and sent his entire army there, that there was anything I could have done differently to stop it. Built horses sooner? Sure, but I had to gamble that I could get those cities out or I just would have lost later, anyway. Extra horses would have delayed things for perhaps five, ten turns, but I'd've been swamped anyway. Archduke's army was wiped out trying to retake Cardiff, and Ioan and ljub weren't thinking about offensive action at all, so same result. 

Basically, Nubia overran the equivalent of an entire civilization's worth of cities in the center, which had to provoke either an immediate dogpile or the game was over. Only Archduke and I recognized that, however, and so the game was over. GG thrawn. I still marvel at the Desert Folklore -> foreign Work Ethic play. Stroke of brilliance, that.