[PB57] Pindicator searches for his mascot

[pindicator]

Oregon State University. We had some really good teams in the late 70s / early 80s. Hall of Fame NBA players Gary Payton & A.C. Green played for the school. But shortly after I was born the coach retired and the school had a series of awful coaching hires. (Jay John was the coach when I went to school there and by god those were awful teams. Not just awful, but boring to watch.) The knock on the current coach was that he was hired just to recruit his kid (played on a couple NBA teams this year but I think he didn't make the cut) but now that his kid is gone they seem like they're a better team. Defense is tenacious and they have a number of good shooters. People have been talking about how we've just been hot from 3, but its our defense that has been winning us games of late.

That said, our next opponent is Loyola Marymount, a team that was woefully under-seeded by the committee. I would be shocked if we upset them.

[pindicator]

073

Old Harry offered me horse for horse and I accepted.  Which was really irrelevant because there's no trade history log in this game.  Irrelevant because my next move was this:




I sure hope we're both on the same page.  Next turn I offer him peace, because I want him to see it on his t75, which will be after TBS' t75.  I suppose there's a risk he logs in before his t75...

[NobleHelium]

Actually there is a trade history in the game. The trade cancellation will be in the event log.

[pindicator]

074

Oh, it does! You know, I specifically looked there and must have just missed the line. Or it didn't populate until I ended turn?

In any case, I think OH understands the war is a ruse. Thankfully one I won't need to keep up for long.




Next turn the fun begins.

EDIT: I don't think that Bowman can see my stack, thanks to the jungle and hill tiles. But I know there's a risk TBS declares and scouts him in anyway. Nothing to be done about that.

EDIT #2: It also annoys me to no end that OH and TBS have to log in after my turn all the time. What's it going to change guys? You can't play your turn any sooner.

[Zed-F]

More time to think, discuss, and plan, I suppose.

[pindicator]

075

Cornflakes is wondering when I'm going to get around to doing something.




He's probably right; I should have declared a few turns earlier and ignored the barb city. So I just hit accept on his deal and then I was at war with a 2nd person.

Moved everything in.




Is it enough? I feel pretty good that this is the majority of his defense. But next turn that will be a tough defense to crack, indeed.

[pindicator]

076, Tribute Interlude

I opened the turn to this offer from TBS:




Yeah, I have no idea where that city is. It probably is the one to the south of House? The one that he raced me to and beat by a couple turns? But it also could be a one-tile island somewhere.

Still, 1 city is not what I am looking for. I'm looking for more than that. And I'm looking to also hurt TBS. He's been able to just tech and wonder away, much like the late Lord Parkin back in the early pitboss games. Point is, continuing to leave TBS alone will assuredly mean a long-term loss. So even if it was House he was offering me, i think I have to push in and see what happens.

And if I die then kudos to TBS; I would only have myself to blame for messing up on techs and wasting time on the barb city.

Also, where else would I send those horchers? Oh man, I should have tried to shake down Gavagai before going after TBS Oh well, I guess I'm not ruthless enough yet.

[pindicator]

076

The RNG sucked. It wasn't egregiously bad. We aren't talking Old Harry losing to a single spear over and over and over again kind of bad. I didn't have any losses where I didn't at least scratch a unit. But overall, the luck was bad. I probably lost 2-3 more units than I should have.

We did not accept his free city of Jackie Chan, and went for the Gems at House instead.




He whipped walls, upgraded the warrior to a spear, and that was about all that changed from the previous turn. I had feared that we might have to face off against 10+ units; instead it was just the 7 we saw last turn. The spears could be formidable, but the odds on them were not insane. In fact, a Shock horcher had 80% odds to get a spear to 55hp or less. Flanking 2 horchers had 78% odds to get a spear to 58hp, and then had almost 50% odds to survive in addition. So I went with the odds, and sent in flanking 2 horchers to try and save units.

Code:

F2 Horse Archer vs Spear (1% / 49.5%) - Withdraw, Spear to 86hp
F2 Horse Archer vs C1 Spear (1% / 49.5%) - Loss, Spear  to 58hp
C1 Shock Horse Archer vs 86hp Spear  (19.4% / 16.1%) - Loss, Spear to 22hp
F2 Horse Archer vs Axe (3.8% / 48.1%) - Loss, Axe to 10hp

Now I'm starting to feel like the dice are against me. But all the metal units are red-lined and it's down to the 4 bowmen. Of the bowmen I could have gone with C2 for 30% odds to win, or F2 for 20% odds and 40% withdraw. The odds to survive was 45% for C2 and 60% for F2 so it seemed like an easy choice.

Code:

F2 Horse Archer vs Bowman (20.5% / 39.8%) - Loss, Bowman  to 32hp
F2 Horse Archer vs Bowman (20.5% / 39.8%) - Loss, Bowman to 32hp
F2 Horse Archer vs Bowman (20.5% / 39.8%) - Withdraw, Bowman to 8hp
C1 Horse Archer vs Bowman (29.2% / 14.2%) - Loss, Bowman to 28hp

How unlucky is this! But now we have odds on everything and surely we will win out from here?

Code:

C1 Shock Horse Archer vs 58hp Spear (68.6% / 6.3%) - Loss, Spear to 17hp

Code:

Horse Archer vs 24hp C1 spear (98.7% / 0.3%) - Win.  At least I know it's possible now.
Horse Archer vs 32hp Bowman (99.6% / 0.1%) - Win
Horse Archer vs 32hp Bowman (99.6% / 0.1%) - Win
91hp C2 Horse Archer vs 32hp Bowman (99.7% / 0.1%) - Win
83hp C2 Horse Archer vs 22hp Spear (98.9% / 0.2%) - Win
C1 Horse Archer vs 28hp Bowman (99.9% / 0.1%) - Win
C1 Horse Archer vs 10hp Axe (99.9% / 0.1%) - Win

Please feel free to check my math, but by my count I should have had at least 1 more win and 2 more withdraws. We ended up losing 7 to kill 7 but also ended up with several severely wounded with withdraws and hard victories.




Assessing how we go forward, I probably am going to lose several more horse archers going after Jackie Chan. And if I push farther in I will make TBS need to whip more, but I will also likely stall out sooner rather than later. At first I thought I wanted to raze Jackie Chan and try to fit 2 cities in the area - but now I see that is impossible. TBS planting House where he did means there is only room for one city to the south. And so I decided it was better to try and save my army for future use rather than push farther in.

I offered peace for Jackie Chan:




Not sure if he takes it, but if he was willing to part with it last turn then I think he should still be willing to now. I think this makes sense for me because I can turn around and hit either Gavagai or Old Harry next. Or I could just tech up and save these as a defense force / down payment on a medieval army stack. I fear that if I push farther north I'm not going to know what is there and I'm likely to lose most of my units for minimal gain.

[pindicator]

I think I like Cornflakes. He's declared on TBS now, and also offered me one of his golds for my fur. I took him up on the trade.

Also, TBS did not take my deal. I wonder if he'll suggest it again now with two people at war with him?

[mackoti]

You should ask jowy  how is done, he won directly a 3 % batle and ended up loosing  one numid to atack i think 4 spear  fully fortified, on C1 chariot at 40 % defence and crossing river...

I think your RNG wasnt good or bad i think  1-2 retreat maybe more but in rest is on the line with what i am use it when use HA(and i realy use those)