[pb46 spoilers] Hitru lurks again

[Elkad]

Only partially.  I had hopes of some amphibious crossbow action.  Or commando xbows upgraded to Grens. But I'm always late to knights, so I hoped that OP LB would encourage whoever got their first would pick someone else.
Which you did...  Not that it mattered, you were just too big/advanced by the time you turned on me, plus I missed the xbow change, so I could have been turning out catapults for several turns, instead of researching most of machinery and then doubling back for construction and having neither.

Regarding the last battle.  Drill and collateral reduction are great for the cannon.  Then the knights ignore the 7 first strikes and the promotions don't help at all.  Obviously Lucifer needed more generals, so I could take drill4, cg3 and g2 all together.  And maybe the combat1 archer event.

I'd like to see knights only ignore 2 first strikes and then eat the rest (with immunity coming with Flanking2 if you want to promote that way).  Besides helping LB, it would also help Samurai and a couple other units.  Not even sure that is possible (other than taking away their immunity and giving them a couple first strikes of their own, which changes the balance vs pikes and eles).

[superdeath]

how many settled GG's did that take plus vassalage/theo?

[Elkad]

for what? commandos?
26xp for standard, 20 for charismatic. (Combat4, commando)
barracks 3, stable 2, vassal 2, theo 2, colosseum 1(?), westpoint 4=14. 6 generals. Pentagon drops it a bit more
I had totempole&SoZ on top of that, and 3 generals in my SoZ city (but no stable for archers). I actually needed a colosseum to hit 20, I missed that (it didn't matter until I settled the 3rd general, which was late-ish, but I could have got another promo on 10-15 more units)

If you put westpoint and Maoi in the same city (which means no HE), it's probably even easier for boats, since you have lighthouse, harbor, etc. But it's less useful. Nice for cleaning up a stack of wounded stuff, but you can't zip 10 tiles inland on someone else's railroad and burn their inland capital which has had one warrior in it for 5500 years.

And since you can't pillage your own roads, the only defense is to be VERY careful where you put roads for the entire game. And especially rails. Plus weird stuff like standing extra workers on key rail intersections. Wastes the commando's attack and he can't take a city. (Old workers also defend against paratroopers nicely. Pave your land in them, the para needs a clear square to land in.)

[superdeath]

For whatever commando city OH and team have cooked up. Im curious to see one in action

[darrelljs]

What is your city count up to?

Darrell

[BaII]

Hey OH I'm actually quite surprised you still remember my old games! Really nice of you to say that I've improved over my years of hiatus from civ 4. Hopefully it only goes up from here.

[Old Harry]

Turn 190

Hey OH I'm actually quite surprised you still remember my old games! Really nice of you to say that I've improved over my years of hiatus from civ 4. Hopefully it only goes up from here.

I don't remember any detail that far back, just that things didn't go well. This game you'd developed a nice empire, but bordering a vet like Pindi is always tough. I thought you were a goner, but then getting Engineering let you take back most of what Pindi had grabbed. It looked like drafted maces and frigates did for you in the end? Or did you overstretch on the recaptures?

Anyway now that you and Elkad have gone Pindi and ourselves were looking at each other a bit twitchy. So last turn we sent him a diplo message: he declares war on Gav, Com, GKC, AT + fish and we declare war on Rusten + fish. He replied with a fish-fish deal this turn, so that's nice!

For whatever commando city OH and team have cooked up. Im curious to see one in action

Here you go. 27XP cuir highlighted. Once we have state property the city will make 39 base hammers *2.5 = 97 hammers without starving. It's probably the best Heroic Epic city I've had - in PB18 we pumped enough commando cavalry to eviscerate Pindicator, but that HE didn't make this many hammers. We decided not to get Rifling for a little while because Cuirs are cheaper and we're hoping to be facing archers, warriors and spears on our inland raiding. We'll know more in a couple of turns.

What is your city count up to?

70. Which is TOO MANY. Here's what they're building. Hitru promised he'd figure out how many Rusten has, so we can compare, but I think he's been busy...


Last turn Rusten moved into Dark Savant's territory with a nice little stack. He must have been able to see the 52 catapults DS had lined up SW of Dar es Salaam to hit it though, right?


This is how it ended up.


Demos and power. We're roughly equal with Rusten on food, but he's got more land tiles in his empire and his monk wonders are doing wonders for his MFG. He got a slight uptick in his culture production recently, which I'd guess is a cathedral or the Hermitage. So if we don't do something about him he's probably on for that culture win.

[darrelljs]

70. Which is TOO MANY. Here's what they're building. Hitru promised he'd figure out how many Rusten has, so we can compare, but I think he's been busy...

The very reason I asked .

I can only imagine how difficult managing this sized empire with such skill is, but if its any consolation its a tremendously fun game to lurk...

Darrell

[Old Harry]

Turn 190

Once we have state property the city will make 39 base hammers *2.5 = 97 hammers without starving.

Actually 39*2.6 = 101 hammers. I forgot the 10% for state property. Here's a question: if we get another great general do we build a military academy in T for 39*3.1=120 hammers, or do we settle for another 2XP and drop Vassalage or Theocracy?

And it turns out Rusten's initial attack last turn was a feint to get Dark Savant to waste his cats on outdated units. A stack of infantry and knights swept in to clean up DS's 1-movers (although one stack of about six knights then got cleaned up themselves ). Whether DS can heal and hit again with enough strength to kill many of the highlighted units is going to be interesting. We're dying to get involved in the fighting, but don't quite have all the units we need yet. And the further from us that Rusten's army and navy is, the more success we're likely to have.


Demos and power. Shark fin next turn?

[BaII]

Turn 190

Hey OH I'm actually quite surprised you still remember my old games! Really nice of you to say that I've improved over my years of hiatus from civ 4. Hopefully it only goes up from here.

I don't remember any detail that far back, just that things didn't go well. This game you'd developed a nice empire, but bordering a vet like Pindi is always tough. I thought you were a goner, but then getting Engineering let you take back most of what Pindi had grabbed. It looked like drafted maces and frigates did for you in the end? Or did you overstretch on the recaptures?

Bit of both honestly. I was too stubborn to retreat because I really wanted to take back some cities. Ended up over staying and making a mistake but was able to salvage some of my stack. The draft + Frigates makes my death inevitable but I could have prolonged my life a bit longer. Just more lessons to be learned.

Good luck with the game though! Must be a really tough one with so many city but I'm looking forward to the upcoming turns.