[PB59 Amicalola] The Vespertine Hour(s)

[RefSteel]

It could actually be quite a fun war, in a vacuum.

I hope it also turns out to be quite fun even in the complex environment of this game - whether changing circumstances end up pulling you out of the "morale death spiral" as I think has happened at least once in this game before, or whether you fall short of winning and end up as "merely" one of the last-and-most relevant civs in this 25-player game!

By the way, here's a question: if my opponent stations 2+ fighters in a city, is there anything I can do about that? Like is there any way to neutralise enemy fighters? Or are my bombers basically useless in that area?

I believe the way the game is designed around air combat is basically that you can provide "fighter cover" for your bombers by sending your own fighters on airstrike missions (or tile-bombing missions if those are allowed in this game/mod; note that recon never triggers interception) within range of enemy fighters that were set to Intercept.  My understanding is that it works more or less like this:

Their fighters have the same chance to intercept your fighter as they would to intercept a bomber you sent in - which if I remember correctly is 100% for a full-health fighter. If it is intercepted, your fighter may get shot down, or their interceptor might, or both might survive; either way, one or both will take damage.  A damaged fighter is proportionately less likely to intercept anything, including your future bombers (and your bomber might even manage to shoot it down if it's hurt badly enough but intercepts it anyway; it gets a chance to do so based on its health) and of course once you've shot down a fighter, it can't intercept anything anymore.  Then once your fighters have done enough damage to enemy interceptors, you can send in the bombers with reduced chance of being intercepted, reduced chance of being shot down or heavily damaged even if they are, and with a better chance of damaging any interceptor that catches them as well.

In practice, the "defending" interceptors have an advantage here though:  Send in four fighter-airstrikers against four fighter-interceptors, and on average you'll kill two and damage a third while lose two of your own and suffer damage on a third, all things being equal (I think...).  But even one healthy enemy fighter on intercept is a problem for your bombers, so you need more attack fighters than they have defending interceptors if you want to clear out their air defense, and that's not counting the bombers you need to give the whole exercise real value.  Then even once the healthy interceptors are gone, the damaged ones will try to defend, but do so inconsistently.  If they're down to 50% intercept chances, you either have to send in more than twice as many healthy attack fighters as they have injured interceptors to actually wipe out the defending fighters (while also doing some chip damage to the top defenders of whatever land stack you're attacking) or just accept the 50% chance that each of your bombers will do nothing (apart from perhaps damaging an interceptor slightly and likely getting destroyed or seriously damaged themselves).

One small advantage the airstriker does have: If the enemy has multiple stacks in range of their interceptors, you don't have to send your bombers at the same stack your bombers will eventually target; the interceptors don't know what's important to defend and what isn't, so they try equally hard to defend everything they can reach.

[Amicalola]

I hope it also turns out to be quite fun even in the complex environment of this game - whether changing circumstances end up pulling you out of the "morale death spiral" as I think has happened at least once in this game before, or whether you fall short of winning and end up as "merely" one of the last-and-most relevant civs in this 25-player game!

You know, that's a good point. I guess sometimes I need to take a step back and have some perspective.

I believe the way the game is designed around air combat is basically that you can provide "fighter cover" for your bombers by sending your own fighters on airstrike missions (or tile-bombing missions if those are allowed in this game/mod; note that recon never triggers interception) within range of enemy fighters that were set to Intercept.  My understanding is that it works more or less like this:

Their fighters have the same chance to intercept your fighter as they would to intercept a bomber you sent in - which if I remember correctly is 100% for a full-health fighter.  If it is intercepted, your fighter may get shot down, or their interceptor might, or both might survive; either way, one or both will take damage.  A damaged fighter is proportionately less likely to intercept anything, including your future bombers (and your bomber might even manage to shoot it down if it's hurt badly enough but intercepts it anyway; it gets a chance to do so based on its health) and of course once you've shot down a fighter, it can't intercept anything anymore.  Then once your fighters have done enough damage to enemy interceptors, you can send in the bombers with reduced chance of being intercepted, reduced chance of being shot down or heavily damaged even if they are, and with a better chance of damaging any interceptor that catches them as well.

In practice, the "defending" interceptors have an advantage here though:  Send in four fighter-airstrikers against four fighter-interceptors, and on average you'll kill two and damage a third while lose two of your own and suffer damage on a third, all things being equal (I think...).  But even one healthy enemy fighter on intercept is a problem for your bombers, so you need more attack fighters than they have defending interceptors if you want to clear out their air defense, and that's not counting the bombers you need to give the whole exercise real value.  Then even once the healthy interceptors are gone, the damaged ones will try to defend, but do so inconsistently.  If they're down to 50% intercept chances, you either have to send in more than twice as many healthy attack fighters as they have injured interceptors to actually wipe out the defending fighters (while also doing some chip damage to the top defenders of whatever land stack you're attacking) or just accept the 50% chance that each of your bombers will do nothing (apart from perhaps damaging an interceptor slightly and likely getting destroyed or seriously damaged themselves).

One small advantage the airstriker does have:  If the enemy has multiple stacks in range of their interceptors, you don't have to send your bombers at the same stack your bombers will eventually target; the interceptors don't know what's important to defend and what isn't, so they try equally hard to defend everything they can reach.

That's an awesome explanation, thanks! It makes perfect sense from a flavour perspective too. I figured there must be something I can do, even if inefficient, I just had no idea what. That is pretty inefficient though, it sounds to me like bombers go from 'hilariously overpowered' against non-Flight enemies to 'ok' against Flight ones, which is maybe reasonable historically. I definitely don't need to keep building this many though, and need to start building more fighters. I don't have any carriers in the Lazteuq/Charriu theatre, which was silly. It will be a while before any can arrive too - oops. Also, so far you win the official Best Lurker of 2022 Award.

[Amicalola]

T237 Part One - The War So Far
So, the Western Front. There's a lot of enemy stacks now, as Lazteuq's units have spent the last few turns clumping into threatening stacks.







The meagre holdings I have so far are in the north, where Lazteuq has cut off all road access. 


One can immediately note the biggest mistake of this war so far: I haven't got any worker transports!    I was spoiled by the wars on the middle Continent, where I had such a big advantage I didn't need workers to begin with. Which makes it a really good call by Laz to cut off road access here, with his cannons threatening the city:


He was really gambling on my lack of workers, but it pays off massively. I'm guessing we'll need to evacuate barbar8, unless I can figure out some miracle. 

I was initially thinking Barbar8 would be ok, because Lazteuq doesn't actually have any hitters. But that's wrong: Charriu also joins the fray (and sunk one of my few destroyers )


So far he's advancing into territory that I haven't really attacked beyond some razes, but he'll arrive into at Barbar8 in 1 turn with combat railroads.  

Things get worse. What exactly is this, Miguelito?


Yeah, that looks to me like Mig is planning to defend Lazteuq as well (he's also stationing bombers in the further cities). Apparently people don't want me as a neighbour, for some reason. So currently I'm leaning towards declaring war on Mig this turn, just to get it out of the way. I'll offer him peace immediately, and hopefully the temptation of those sweet sweet Mining Inc. resources will draw him over the line (losing Cereal trades would hurt me too, but I have a bit of an excess, which Mining Inc. cannot. So I think it's worse for him). I suppose there is the tiny chance he's moving to assist me, but then I feel like I'd have gotten some diplo about it. 

Speaking of which, Miguelito also sent this, and I have no idea what it means. 




To be honest, I'm not sure I can hold any territory on Lazteuq's continent, at least until more transports arrive (how have I gotten so few here so far???). I need to get a first strike on all those stacks somehow, and there's just so many units on the opposing side. So I'd love a peaceful solution to whatever Miguelito is doing, and I wonder if the solution is in this diplo puzzle. The fish/wine trade surely refers to the inner sea islands (on which continent though?). But the banana+ deal is a puzzle I haven't been able to solve at all; is it about Piccadilly, or Lazteuq? Is it a division of cities, or an attack plan? I have no idea!

I'm going to clean up my place for a while and think about it. Boy do I wish lurkers could give in-game advice.

Edit: I think I have, at least, figured out the Banana+ trade offers. I'm 95% sure they're Piccadilly related. Not what I was hoping for, although it makes me more inclined to war-peace Miguelito.

[Amicalola]

T237 Part Two - Desperate Measures
Sound...


...the retreat.  

As usual, walking gives clarity. A war with Lazteuq and Charriu is simply a losing proposition, let alone if Miguelito joins in. So something needs to change, and fast. Last turn, Lazteuq offered me 75gpt for peace. I declined. This turn, I offer him white peace. Then, I get worried he won't even accept that. So I swallow my pride, and offer this:


Humiliating? Yes. 
Expensive? God yes. 
Ridiculous overkill? Quite possibly. 
It also gives Lazteuq the chance to tech up to Railroad and Combustion, which makes any future invasion significantly more difficult. But it's better to pay 2000 gold than be stuck in a quagmire for the rest of the game; this reminds me a lot of my Naufragar payment ages ago (I miss my old rivals ), which arguably saved my whole game despite hurting a tonne in the moment. Keeping troops on the ground would have just been sunk cost fallacy in action. If Lazteuq takes the peace, it lets me focus either on Charriu, or send all my troops Eastwards and content myself with the middle-islands. 

I next send Miguelito fish/fish, to signify that I don't want war, and that I hope he doesn't either. Then, as a stick to that carrot, I cancel one Mining Inc. deal as a warning.  I will note something optimistic here: his MFG dropped by 200(!), from 6000->5800. Now obviously my food will drop substantially too, if/when he cancels his deals, but I have the potential to do a lot of damage to Mig economically. I noticed that Civac has also spread Mining Inc. around (hence last turn's offer, presumably), so I engage in a little wealth redistribution.



I left most of Lazteuq's undefended cities alone, as a sign of good intentions that I'm hoping he recognises. The only exception was the isle of Sardis, which I want to use as a scouting base against Miguelito and Charriu.


I also bombed and took out a few more ironclads, since I want him as weak as possible at sea if he declines. 



Honestly, if Lazteuq takes the peace, there's a decent chance that I leave him alone for the rest of the game and just go East. Charriu, on the other hand, is dead to me.
If the game looks totally lost, maybe I can even tempt Lazteuq into killing Charriu with me before the end. At worst, he could be a decent buffer state. Who knows, maybe this is a rocky start to a beautiful friendship? I'm allowed to dream.

[El Grillo]

Lategame AI diplo with huge empires, corporations, and defensive pacts sure is something else, isn’t it!

[Amicalola]

T238 Quickie
I'm writing (and playing) this on a laptop, with a 1-bar hotspot. So I don't even have the bandwidth, let alone the time, for a proper report this turn (I hope to be home by the next). But for now...


I think we're at the point now that any additional hammers Mig gets from me will be used against me, rather than Piccadilly. Also, his units in Lazteuq's lands are pretty clearly there to defend regardless, so I thought I might as well get the first strike in. Lazteuq meanwhile did not take the peace bribe, so going further West is probably out. For now, at least.

Mig's MFG went down to 4600, not as bad as I was hoping, but significant damage. Civac received some more Mining resources, although not all. I offered Mig peace, but I doubt he takes it, since he seems set on helping Lazteuq. I hope I'm wrong.

Ichabod also declared war on Piccadilly, which is promising. I have an idea brewing for this part of the map, also. I'm not sure if it's appallingly stupid or maniacally brilliant, but I suspect it's on one of those two extremes. More on that soon.

[superdeath]

its nice seeing big WAR message next to most remaining players lol

[Amicalola]

its nice seeing big WAR message next to most remaining players lol

Nice for the lurkers, maybe.

[Ginger()]

Have you considered turning on the culture slider maybe 10% for a turn or two? It could pop borders in the new cities probably from trade routes alone. What’s your current tech situation relative the field? Also earlier you said that if you wanted domination you needed to eat the Ottomans, how go preparations on that front?

[Amicalola]

Have you considered turning on the culture slider maybe 10% for a turn or two? It could pop borders in the new cities probably from trade routes alone. What’s your current tech situation relative the field? Also earlier you said that if you wanted domination you needed to eat the Ottomans, how go preparations on that front?

Those are great questions, thank you! I'll answer them properly, with pictures, on the coming turn. I've been meaning to do a sort of 'macro overview' anyway, because there are some Big Decisions to make this turn depending on what Miguelito's done. So that will include answers to these.