[spoilers] Commodore's RNG Report

[Commodore]

Welcome to civ 4: capitalism simulator extraordinaire.

The person with the biggest stack wins. Why did you think I stopped developing RtR?

Well, you know, this turn sucked, but I'm okay with it fundamentally. This is a strategy game, not a tactics game. Logistics mattering most should be how this plays. This game is actually a phenomenal example of how the real meat of the game matters:
-I got the worst starting position in the game, but I was able to scout out alternate expansion routes in time to claim them fast, I was able to buy off Ginger with my entire economy when he came knocking, and despite everything I clawed my way into, if not a top slot, at least contention. It's been a ton of fun. Conversely I wouldn't have been over the barrel early if I hadn't been farms gambiting.
-Ginger had an amazing gameplan to get Protective Crossbows at an insanely early date, and then he somewhat squanders his advantage by not gutting out killing me with the superior crossbowmen, but he also managed his early economy snowball remarkably well with his eight cities having more population than everyone else(!) on even twice as many cities. I think he should have ended his GA in slavery to make an unstoppable 20+ knight doom stack but the fact that he's in such a strong position despite the tiny size is really good. That's also strategy. 
So in the end, I'm happy with Civ4 as a TBS and I still think it's the best in the series. The dice rolls only mattered because our series of strategic decisions put us in this current position.

[Krill]

I don't actually disagree with anything you wrote. So much of the game works.

I think the area where we might disagree is that if civ 6 had a pit boss mode it would actually be the better base game to be modded.

[Commodore]

Fair enough, I'm not a Civ6 expert. Civ4 is definitely prettier though.

The chariot, as I expected, is his stack medic, could have definitely been worse, he does have resources that could have been put towards a medic 3 which is the real terror. Still, with eight catapults the jam definitely break through, I am really glad to see no further catapults because those will take forever against the castle. 


Anything for time. I left four strong longbows for defense, he will find them tricky to overpower with just those nights and the horse archer so I am thoroughly certain he'll have to either split his stack after capture or just slow down and roll in to the town. He has already played so I know he took the city and kept it, if I can retain the capital's culture that is going to be a major mistake but I understand how sunk costs go. I was able to have a little fun and sacrificed a galley to shred his caravelle and galley that were lower down there, I will lose those two but hopefully it will delay him even further if he's not going to bring up a lot more. Caravels are surprisingly fragile, I have begun whipping galleys which are sufficient usually to trade at a two for one which is all you can ask for in naval combat anyway.


I am not going completely nuts with the whipping because I do have a fairly tight setup for the engineering tech to finish. I have asked for a loan from Ami but I can do it with wealth builds if I need to. I'm very tight set up here.


Say goodbye to a few of those longbows, four of them again but I think that for longbows is an acceptable trade for time and I will have another catapult mass ready and just a few more turns, the good news about his incredibly tall set up is that he is biased towards a few very good units so I don't think he's going to be chunking up a lot of fillers, although of course the nights are going to be nasty.

[Commodore]

Well, that was unexpected but delightful. Ginger opted to use up half his meagre catapult supply to take Kevin. And he's advancing without healing, so that's also very interesting.


I'm not impressed with his knight supply. The nightmare is 4 knights per turn getting added to the stack, but his logistics and lack of slavery means no sign of any fresh knights yet. Meanwhile, I'm amassing a hilariously high percentage of my remaining military in Connor. How he moves is very interesting, but the good news is that the nightmare scenario I was expecting, 5+ caravels in the NE sea, has yet to manifest. My empire is over the ocean, bruh, that's where all the goodies are coming from.

[Commodore]

As expected, he sprawled out but not enough to strike until the four catapults en-route make it. Going to have to let him slam Angus, sadly he can take the isthmus but if he's sloppy then I can get him. Ginger's been cautious thus far, but he's going to go in at some point.

[Commodore]

This is uh...rather complex situation.

Plus side, this is going to be a lot simpler in a turn and a half.

[Commodore]

He went in. HE WENT IN. HE WENT IN...


Long story short, I wiped his stack.

[Mjmd]

Do you think you will be able to push him fully back?

[Krill]

I demand the long story long!

[Commodore]

I demand the long story long!

'kay. The beginning was pretty uncomplicated, he didn't know I had two workers and two extra catapults in those galleys, so he made the gamble he did to burn three more cats on the longbows of Angus. I slammed seven catapults into him and that made my war elephants have about 50/50 odds.

Part 1: Heads more than Tails


I scraped more wins than losses barely, and as a result I was able to Great General four more horse archers and a spear (free upgraded to pike). This let me flank away those two remaining cats...

Then it got so low that even my archers were able to win more often than lose. This stripped away certain protectors, and...

Part 2: Slaughter the wounded



There was only one depressing thing, a certain Superhero Knight. He won when I hit him with 40% odds, then 66% odds, then 86% odds, then 90% odds. Finally, he was so wrecked that my last hitter, a warrior, got 96% odds. I got greedy, added a GG to the warrior for the XP (other stuff too duh) later giving me an auto-upgrade after winning...

Part 3: Sour Taste to End it