[PB59 Amicalola] The Vespertine Hour(s)

[klops]

gratz for the kill
nice to archieve some goals

[Amicalola]

T225 - War!
Mighty Vespertine Dictatorship Republic continues Invasions Glorious Crusade against Innocent Neighbours Evil Yellow Civilizations.




I positioned the ships last turn, so we were able to capture quite a few cities, islands and the east coast. 



Here's the final map: 


We captured Danvers, Gloucester, Beach Bluff, Beverly, and Annisquam. They weren't defended by many modern units, and I won a 19% roll, so we only lost 3 units (a marine, tank, and infantry). But the tradeoff is that we also didn't kill much. Tarkeel can draft but he can't whip, which makes this a pretty interesting war. 

I had the option to take Dunwich with Belisarius, but I decided not to. It would be recaptured, and wouldn't have made the advance any faster, so I'd just be throwing him away for nothing.  



I have three main stacks advancing. The first is the one with Belisarius, and there are also 5 tanks 1E of their position. Behind them, the 1-movers reinforce:



Then, 9 tanks threaten Essex from the east, as well. 



The goal is to hit Tarkeel with an overwhelming force that he cannot resist, since he can't whip. I keep saying it, but speed is everything here. It's a huge shame I didn't get the canal fort up in time, but at least everything else looks pretty good.  

And thanks for the kind words, guys. They're appreciated. Let's see how many more kills I can get before the end.

[CFCJesterFool]

Looks like you can be the first to 100 cities. Green always means Go if you catch my drift.

[Hitru]

Lurking your evil dystopic empire with great interest

[Amicalola]

T226 - Innsmouth
Got some interesting diplo from Miguelito:


Looks like he's on board!  Although he wants to accelerate the timeline from what I want. Not sure if he's overestimating or I'm underestimating Piccadilly, to be honest. This timeline he suggests is problematic, because I can't fight Cairo and attack Piccadilly in the next 15 turns. But I returned it because I need his help no matter when we hit Piccadilly. We can play it by ear, a little. 

Charriu also offered to cancel deals, so I guess the blockade requests were worth it. Don't care at all about these resources, so very pleased with this outcome. 



Tarkeel and Superdeath continue to fight each other. There must be some pretty bad blood there (well, Superdeath also somewhat confirmed that  ). 



I'll also highlight the capture of Kingsport for a couple of reasons. First of all because it's the capital. Second of all, because the combat mechanics of Civ4 are pretty wonky sometimes. At 21% defenses, a tank had 36% odds. Then at 12% defenses, we had 63% odds - a huge jump! But then at 2% defenses, our odds only increased to 68%. What a weird system.


Very nice haul of buildings here. If it ever comes out of resistance, that is.


But the important action this turn was in the inner sea, and Innsmouth. 


This:

It's a huge shame I didn't get the canal fort up in time, but at least everything else looks pretty good.  

May have been slightly misleading. The canal wasn't up in time to attack last turn, but it was completed thanks to 8 workers, and we slipped 4 loaded transports into the bay. This turn, they strike! 


Goodbye Fleet.   We also took Falcon Point, Tarkeel's inner sea island. Very sadly, Tarkeel moved his destroyers out of Innsmouth (visible in pictures), but that was still very satisfying. And a relief - last turn, the transports were in range of Tarkeel's two destroyers, but out of vision. If he'd gone wandering, they would have been toast! 

Sadly, two of them are still toast now. I (very stupidly) did not send destroyers this direction, because I wasn't expecting Tarkeel's destroyers a couple of turns ago. Really dumb by me. Hopefully he sinks the empty ones.  

This turn's overview:


We took Innsmouth, Falcon Point, Dunwich, Essex, Kingsport and Salem. Tarkeel asked privately for me to keep the city names, so I won't rename the cities from his core. 

Finally, I wanted to say thanks for the comments this thread has been getting recently, it's nice to know people are reading.  I am definitely aiming to be first to 100 cities!

[Cyneheard]

Second of all, because the combat mechanics of Civ4 are pretty wonky sometimes. At 21% defenses, a tank had 36% odds. Then at 12% defenses, we had 63% odds - a huge jump! But then at 2% defenses, our odds only increased to 68%. What a weird system.

Yeah, that behavior is normal at 100% HP on both sides - whoever has the edge needs 5 hits to kill vs the one slightly behind needs 6. This makes tactics more impactful at parity, which I actually like - small decisions can matter a lot more. It's a byproduct of the fact that damage-per-hit has no RNG in it.

[Sullla]

I think we should be the ones thanking you for continuing to provide detailing reporting in the thread. It's exceedingly rare to reach warfare with tanks and planes in a MP game between humans and this thread continues to be a great read.

[Amicalola]

Interesting about the combat mechanics. That makes sense, that the big swing is when the hits:kill ratio swaps. I've never thought about it too deeply before, but there's probably a lot of room for optimising combats with that. The tank vs. infantry/MG naval combats hover around that 30-60% ratio quite often. 

Thanks Sullla, it's great to hear that. Bombers are actually going to unlock next turn, which I'm excited for. And hopefully it won't be too long until the nukes start flying!  


Here is a bonus tidbit about my core city management by this point of the game. My cities are frequently getting enough food to grow two sizes in 1 turn, but the game does not allow that (these are not small cities either; Stonemilker is Size 13!). So when it happens and I have decent overflow, I have been building workers/settlers and growing regardless.


On a related note, I'm gradually converting all the farms in the empire into workshops. But it's taking ages since we have so many cities at this point. That's what most of these new workers are doing, but I should have planned ahead a little bit better for it. Better late than never, though! 

Meanwhile in Superdeath's territory, Cereal Mills makes granaries redundant. Corporations are really weird, but to be honest I'm loving how differently this plays to a normal game.

[El Grillo]

I’m pretty sure corps were not balanced around having 50+ input resources like this. And I see your dystopian conditions are continuing to worsen as small farms are increasingly replaced by the friendly neighborhood agri-corp. Might as well start paving over extraneous pastures too at some point… just don’t ask why a horse workshop produces an extra hammer :D

[Amicalola]

T227
The good news is that Tarkeel hit my bait galleons instead of my transports. The galleons had nothing on them!


I captured the final 4 cities on Tarkeel's section of the continent, with a few lost tanks. No interesting battles there. 

And with that, Tarkeel's core is eviscerated in 3 turns. 


Crazy to think that it's only been 11 turns since we even declared war on Superdeath, and 8 turns since we unlocked tanks. Even crazier to think that it's probably all much too slow anyway. 




This is a pretty big problem. Fighting those two on top of Piccadilly was definitely not part of the plan.

I suppose the worst case is we're still just playing for fun - there are worse positions to be in. Back to our usual programming tomorrow, with plans for the next invasion.