[SPOILERS] yuris125 on a Pitboss77 boat

[Zed-F]

The other thing was at that point we'd been technically at peace with Yuris for a long time, and were kind of hesitant to actually take the first shot, especially if it wouldn't really be a crippling blow. While we were posturing kind of aggressively we kinda preferred if Yuris would initiate so we could avoid starting the inevitable dogpile if it wouldn't be on good terms for us.

[yuris125]

Ok it's taking me WAY longer than usual to get to threads because this game ended right over the Christmas break. So, trying to catch up now.

I know the feeling! Barely started on your thread myself, hopefully will get through it over the weekend when I'm back home

If I knew Satsuma was going to become my holy city, I would've settled it on that hill - would've been much better for food. But alas, no way to predict that

This is some foreshadowing as I came quite close to burning it a few times. It felt like my white whale the entire late stage of the game as it was valuable and on flatland and crucial tactically, so I was constantly angling for it. Was not meant to be as you pretty much always had it covered. On that one failed attack I had, my sims had me killing it around 40% of the time, but a flawless loss early in that fight swung it immediately. (Then I took one or two attacks too many out of tilt.)

I did notice a flawless win for me in the log, so had to assume the outcome was better for me than your sim suggested. Your attempted attack also made me realise just how closely I had to guard the city, because the shrine income was a huge part of my economy. Happy I didn't give you another opening

The marble city should be secured - admittedly, for now it looks like a city AI crammed into an open space it managed to find

Did you ever consider ignoring the Aesthetics-Lit-Music detour - which also probably would have avoided this Bing conflict from this city - and just going straight to Samurai? I was somewhat nervous at one point you were gonna beeline them and have them online super early, and it seemed like you had other priorities. But maybe it was too hard to actually build/transport them early. Reading a little further, it seems like this delayed you to CS, then when you would have slotted that in, you had to react to me getting Astro early. Or maybe your plan was always Astro first?

With hindsight, I would've given it more thought. I did intend to go for Astro first, and going straight for samurai would've meant accepting that I would be late to it. If I managed to make some gains, but then found myself behind on getting to Astro, that would've been too much of an opening to give to others. I probably would've had to tech Theology as well, as I needed both Vassalage and Theocracy for amphibious samurai. And for the same reason I wouldn't be able to use the big benefit of CS that is Bureaucracy. And, as you say, transporting them on 2-capacity, 3-mover (at best) ships felt like it would be a huge issue

That said, I did forget that Astro itself didn't unlock galleons, I also needed Paper. I also didn't consider how much of a pain crossbows were for samurai. So with hindsight, now that I know how small samurai window of opporutnity was, I think I had to plan to attack with them off galleys

As for the Aesthetics branch, I think the value of Parthenon / GLib / epics is just too high for an Ind leader. It's hard to put a number on it, but I doubt it slowed me down much, if at all. I also don't think the conflict with Bing cost me much - I deliberately didn't invest anything in the city apart from the initial settler and the defenders. Arguably I gave it too many defenders - but at the time I viewed Bing as a likely target, so forcing him to dedicate more units to capturing this low value city seemed beneficial, even if it ultimately meant extra losses for me

Scooter is now threatening Bizen and Hakodate (I keep playing as if I was at war with Scooter, even if technically we aren't)




Bizen is an interesting case, it's a city which has everything it needs in the first ring, and I didn't bother with culture there, assuming it would get Buddhism sooner or later. It still didn't, and now is under threat with no cultural defences. It does have a longbow, but I didn't think it was enough

Funny thing about this. I actually had that Galleon in the fog by Bizen right before this and had the ability to boat it from the fog. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think I had like 60-70% chance to raze? I was on the fence about it, and Tarkeel talked me out of taking the shot. But I've always wondered if the attack would have worked or not.

I expect it would've worked. Later on I had a galleon with some extra units behind the island, ready to reinforce whatever city needed it. But at that point I definitely wasn't ready for an attack from the fog. That said, none of these cities were particularly important, so I definitely can see the argument to not attack even if there was an opportunity to raze

[scooter]

I don't understand Scooter assembling ships west of Nagoya. Are they there just for defence? Can't figure out how they can be used offensively

In general I was attempting to block your fort paths, or at least force them to be costly. I was very aware of the preforted desert tile and needed to assume that anytime you had Galleons within 5-6 tiles of my cities, I needed to be ready for it. I could see you had lots of 5-move boats, but I was concerned a GG or two could increase them to 6 moves at any time, so that was the main concern. By the time you posted this (around when I got Physics) I had completely stopped any attempts at offense and decided to play exclusively defense.

In Silver Lake, Scooter upgraded crossbow defenders to grens




I actually thought it could have been a mistake, since upgrade ruins fortification bonus, and grens didn't seem that much better than crossbows against samurai. But the numbers didn't back me up. Guess grens fight better than crossbows when not at full health?

2x base Strength goes a long ways. I was concerned about losing the fortify bonus too actually and did test this. That said.

Anyway, the numbers showed over 80% chance of taking the city, so I went ahead

I was aware you had Galleons for this and probably had enough XP for Amphibious, and my admittedly guess-heavy test showed more like 10% chance. And I thought I was being pessimistic with my guesses! I've long wondered if I screwed something up with the test or something. But my estimates were that I would kill around 9-10 Samurai. So killing only half of that surprised me. Your promos must have been even better than I thought. Either that or I did something silly in vodka. Losing the Frigates and Airships in the city was pretty huge.

[yuris125]

I was aware you had Galleons for this and probably had enough XP for Amphibious, and my admittedly guess-heavy test showed more like 10% chance. And I thought I was being pessimistic with my guesses! I've long wondered if I screwed something up with the test or something. But my estimates were that I would kill around 9-10 Samurai. So killing only half of that surprised me. Your promos must have been even better than I thought. Either that or I did something silly in vodka. Losing the Frigates and Airships in the city was pretty huge.

Apparently I still had a Vodka tab with most of the setup for this battle intact. I didn't have anything special in terms of promos, 5 combat 3 samurai in the siege stack outside the city, and 9 samurai on boats, all combat 2, but only 6 with enough XP for another promo (amphibious)

It's hard to set up properly, with some attacks being amphibious and some not, and without full knowledge of fortification bonuses. I don't remember how exactly I set it up, but this is what I'm getting trying to recreate it now

[scooter]

with some attacks being amphibious and some not

This is probably where I messed up as getting this part correct was a little tricky. I bet I had Attackers Water checked but neglected to give your land units Amphibious to remove their penalties. Either that or this was just the wrong method of doing that and your way of simply unchecking Attackers Water was maybe better. Simming out mixed amphibious/land with unknown quantities on boats is such a nightmare. Your assumptions don't have to miss by much for your results to miss by a lot.