Dtay's Little Red Book

[dtay]

Pind's armies march




Strand is falling, and that will open roads to the Hindu Holy City. I don't think it'll manage to hold. The consequences of the earlier error. It would be recoverable (probably) if I could ship even 1/3 of the troops on the mainland over, but Finharry makes that impossible.

My hope is I will at least be able to retake the holy city in the near-ish future. When the peace treaty with Cyneheard runs out Pind will presumably have to keep some troops over there, limiting reinforcements. And the current army I possess is enough to beat Pind's, I just need to be able to get it over. So I need either peace or a naval stalemate with Finharry.

On that note:



Frigates ahoy!

Finharry easily has a better navy than I, but it is spread out north to south and mine is all up here. I can cede the CH-coast for now if I can at least hold the eastern side of the Pind/Me/Finharry bay.

But...



This is bad for many many reasons. 1) Naval tech supremacy back to finharry. 2) Gren's beat my rifles, 3) commandos. I like none of those things.

Other tech-rival is BGN, who appears to be going to rifling.



Demos reveal roughly where I think my place is right now, 2nd or 3rd



My main current advantage is the extant beaker lead I have. Even after spending ~5k gold upgrading over the last few turns I'm still slightly ahead of Finharry (rough guess, I didn't actually count) and meaningfully ahead of everyone else. That advantage is evaporating as the war continues though.

My read on finharry is once the "easy pickings" are over they should be amenable to peace, which will hopefully let me get back on track. They're looking to bring me back-to-the-pack so to speak, not get embroiled in an ongoing war leaving BGN (or krovice) to win. In fact, Pind retaking the holy city might convince them to withdraw, since they have somewhat opposite motivations of a normal opponent. They aren't looking to kill me, only ensure I'm kept in check, and they obviously prefer someone else be the one to spend the resources to do so.

[dtay]

Kraft's History of New England Civilization
Chapter 6: The Turning of the Tides
-------------------------------------------------
Historians remember the 12th century as the point where history turned. The New England Monarchy, so assure of its power and its mission to liberate the world, grew blind to the danger that grew around it. The post-reunion empire was in many sense magnificent, a site of technological marvel unmatched anywhere else in the world, a state in command of massive armies, and a nation ruling broad swathes of territory. Given these advantage, no single adversary could hope to match New England. But this led its leaders into folly, into a classic example of imperial overreach that brought the entire imperial project screeching to a halt. Where one foe would fail, two could try. And where two could try, three could succeed. And while the Disaster at Comfort right as the century turned is the more well known date to our modern audience, it is my contention that the bell didn't truly toll defeat until the latter half of the century, when the roaring Babylonian cannons entered the war.
-------------------------------------------------

So... yeah Krovice declared and this is not going to be pretty.

Here's where they moved in:



I think it's pretty obvious what their plan is. Willow lake will be taken by the stack adjacent to it. Krovice will additionally use that great artist they showed earlier to pop borders and let the cannons down south hit praerie village (or they would, if I had put a stack in it. Who knows if they bother now. I'm basiclaly in response going to let that happen and focus on trying to pop krovice's stack with so lightening catapults and then what is hopefully a large number of rifles and cavs.

On the note of large numbers, looks like I'm not making it to Communism in the near future (probably is about 10t out if I beeline right now, too long. Note that that means sans the Finharry/Krovice conflict I would be about 5t out given the money i've been pouring into it). I'm actually not revolting this turn, b/c it currently takes 2t and I am likely to lose enough cities on the interturn to reduce the revolt time to 1. And then... we draft.



Ending arrangement on the Krovice front EDIT: Moved cat stack 1W, to avoid knights if Krovice takes Praerie, then culture bombs Praerie.



On the Pind front he retook the Hindu Holy City as expected, but hte great artist will force him to sit through revolt which is nice.



I decided to side-swipe the stack since I was getting high odds shots at knights. I also made the miscalculation of thinking I'd be able to retreat 1 space farther than I can, bleh. But still not a horrid hammer exchange over here.



Finharry's fleet is in a slow retreat from the oncoming frigates, at least until he merges with more frigate reinforcements



I've adopted the meagre anti-commando measures I can afford. High-priority cities within 6 tiles of the coast now have at least 2 units in them, 1 of which must be a cav or rifle. Can't spare more troops than that against the spectre of commandos, but somehow I doubt Finharry forgot this:



The south. Least interesting area right now.



Demos

[Gazglum]

Courage Dtay! And props for such great reporting at a tense moment. And if the sad loss of the cavalry in your Pindicator invasion showed anything, it's that there is always the possibility of an invader making a misstep and opening up the possibility of a counterattack.

Noob question - how do you know that revolt time is likely to drop to 1 if you lose cities? How does the game calculate that?

[agent427]

Thank you for still reporting and keeping your spirits up in this darkest hour, dtay

[Mardoc]

Every good story needs a few setbacks. At least you've got a significant tech advantage to lean on!

[dtay]

Noob question - how do you know that revolt time is likely to drop to 1 if you lose cities? How does the game calculate that?

Formula is: [([(1* + CivicsChanged** + [Cities × MapFactor / 100]) × SpeedFactor / 100]) × StartingEraFactor / 100]

the short version assuming huge game, normal speed, and ancient start:
(1 + Civics + (Cities × 6 ) / 100) × 0.5

So to have 1t revolts for 1 civic you need

33.3 > Cities


MapFactor is from iNumCitiesAnarchyPercent in CIV4WorldInfo.xml.
11 Duel
10 Tiny
9 Small
8 Standard
7 Large
6 Huge

SpeedFactor is iAnarchyPercent in CIV4GameSpeedInfo.xml.
67 Quick
100 Normal
150 Epic
200 Marathon (yes another factor that favors Marathon for HOF type score play)

StartingEraFactor is iAnarchyPercent in CIV4EraInfos.xml
50 Ancient
50 Classical
40 Medieval
40 Renaissance
34 Industrial
34 Future
34 Modern

source: T-hawk on civfanatics

Thank you for still reporting and keeping your spirits up in this darkest hour, dtay

The darkest hour is just before the dawn!

Actual truth: I think this is the end of my winning chances unless something similar happens to BGN/Finharry as is happening to me now. Even if I fend off actually losing vaste swathes of territory this has evaporated by beaker lead, leaving me with the 2nd/3rd most land/pop/CY and unlike the other two large nations I have a competitive land neighbor (presuming here OH and BGN aren't neighbors, don't seem to be given who each has conquered). Frankly I think I will manage to fend this off in an existential sense, defender's advantage and drafted rifles should give me that, but getting the additional land I need to win doesn't look to be in the cards.

Not going to stop trying but I think chances are slim at best. I offered peace to Pind and Finharry in hopes Pind is happy with his holy city and Finharry is lazy and wants to leave me to fight Krovice.

[dtay]

Weirdly not a lot to report this turn. Krovice did this:




He burnt his great artist like I thought (you can tell by the borders, and also the percentages in various places).

I set up my troops like a vice, reasonably stacks of cavs and cats to the north and south. We'll see how it all stacks up depending on how krovice moves. if everything holds I'll get a cat stack in range of willow lake and start thinking about retaking or something, but then only if I can kill troops doing so.

Revolted to nationhood. I expect the first thing I'll be doing is drafting every city on Pind's continent, and then probably every city on Pind's continent again. And then possibly again. 15 rifles (ok not 15, not every city has enough pop for 3 drafts) should hopefully stop me from getting booted.

I will salt my own fields to keep them from my enemies

[dtay]

I will salt my own fields to keep them from my enemies

The prospect of this has me grinning and I'm PLAYING, tell me lurkers,

[Rowain]

We are

[MindyMcCready]

Definately. All this war is like a Christmas present.

Sorry that you're on the receiving end,...but somebody has to be. You've earned much acclaim for your sportsmanship on the lurker thread by the way.