[Spoilers] Dtay's first PB: When you play a game of CIV, you win or you die

[dtay]

Ok, Bombarding with 7, attacking with 17 (catapults).

Reckoning time... hope this works....

I mean if it doesn't its still probably the best unit trade available at the moment, but I could have unit traded anywhere, and didn't need to launch the deep capital strike.

fingers crossed...

[dtay]

Ahahahaha success:







Here's TBS's knight stack (post being attacked by 3 curs)



And then I put reinforcements down on open ground:



Frankly these dudes are super vulnerable. But every knight attacking them is a knight that can't hit the super stack, and I just need people in theatre to secure the capital. The super stack surviving for 1 turn is key since it'll let everyone promote (like literally, I think I earned 20 promotions or something).

He COULD go around to bagabond, but he has to waste 2 knights fighting through the 2 remaining curs, then has to beat the garrison, then has to fortify it to survive the north stack standing by to the... north. That last one is impossible. Taking bagabond just gives me high-odds shots at his knight stack, which is a deal I'll take any day.

[Ceiliazul]

59gpt with immediate +75% modifier from buildings! hold on tight!

[dtay]

TBS is online right now, but my check in earlier during his-doing-his-turn showed he moved the knight stack around to take the capital and then threw it at my super stack, inflicting about 12 casualties. He also took out the injured curs

I think this was a mistake on his part. If I were him I would have retreated the knight stack after taking some high-odds shots on my injured curs. He now has ~10, mostly injured knights sitting in Jetboy, next to ~* (memory here) catapults and about 20 muskets. Preserving that knight stack was I think more important to TBS than any city, and Ibelieve I'll be able to kill it on the next turn.

I also forgot in the last report, I spawned a Great Artist in Riole (wanted a scientist). I think I'm going to culture bomb Bagabond. It won't take that many tiles, butit should hopefully reclaim the necessary corner tile so I can setup a strike on Popinjay next turn. It'll also give bagabon 60% culture defenses, whcih is nice since its my sort of forward base of operations.

[dtay]

59gpt with immediate +75% modifier from buildings! hold on tight!

Yeah that shrine is ridiculous. It won't be nearly enough to make me a contender, but I think will solidly place me in tier-2 status, ahead of Ichabod and OH.

[dtay]

Jetboy has fallen for true




It has been 3000 years. You were trusted to lead the Hindus—but you were deceived, as our powers of the dark side have blinded you. You assumed no force could challenge you...and now...finally...we have returned.

The name of this next city is also ringing nostalgic bells. Oh people of (New) Tachyon, it's been so long.



So as you can see, I pretty much have military dominance of the mainland now. TBS's forces onland consist of 2 pikes, 3 longbows in Popinjay, 1 mace and 1 longboy west of Jetboy, 1 longbow in Sleeper, and I believe 2 more longbows and 1 more pike in the southern regions. Now I need to quickly mop up the invasion so he can't whip this population into units.

His troops are mostly stranded on this island. I believe he has 1 galley in the area:



The artist is not in Bagabond you'll notice, but instead if just north of Jetboy. I was going to use it in bagabond, but then after taking Jetboy I realized he has basically no remaining military to threaten Bagabond anyway, so I don't need the area control of cultural defenses. Jetboy on the other hand could use the 60% defense v naval assaults, and reducing the revolt time would be sweet cause I want that 100 gold per turn. Does anyone know the math behind how much a GA reduces revolts? Is it always all of it?

In other news OH has gunpowder



I should check if he has nationalism as well on next log in.

[dtay]

War weariness is hitting me pretty bad right now. About half my cities are +1/+2 unhappy. Ok that fact that I've been stacking draft-unhappy might have something to do with that as well...

Nevertheless, happiness problems. That every city has been drafted does mean all will improve by +3 happiness in some time period less than 10 turns, but I'd like to get my citizens back to work in the meantime. Time to go happy-resource shopping...

[dtay]

No real reason for the timing of this, but I thought I'd do a tier list of "how I view the world".

TIER 1: It's Their World
These are the people I think can win the game. You probably know who they are...

Mackoti
Huge overland empire. Teching up a storm. FRIGATES!
Mack's been in the lead or close to it ever since he took out mostly_harmless. His utterly preposterous capital fuels an insane GNP. I believe he's fielding cannons at the moment, and I'm somewhat afraid of him ripping through OH and becoming my new neighbor in the near future. I don't think he actually has the highest power rating, but he almost assuredly has the deadliest land army.

Pind/Scooter
Viking overlords of the seas. Massive island empire. Teching up a storm.

The only real competition. Their empire stretches in a band across the central continent to an absurd chain of islands on both sides. I suspect they'll have a tri-continental empire by the time this is done.

I'm not actively afraid of them, because I think our interests align. I've been trying to get them interested in dealing with TBS's island holdings for me, but they don't seem to be biting. This new war with Mack might be why. Nevertheless, I don't think they'll attack me unless I leave something egregiously open, because I'm their mack-counterweight should OH fall.

TIER 2: The Jealous and the Fearful
I don't think tier 2 nations can win the game. We (oops, gave away where I think I am) can beat up on lower tiers. We can probably make attacks by the tier 1 nations on us unfruitful. We'll probably survive pretty intact to the end of the game. But bridging the tech and land gap with the top 2 looks impossible.

plako
The first among equals. If anyone can join tier 1 its him, but I'm skeptical. He's just too late to the expansion game and doesn't have the technology. The snowball is rolling for the other 2.

Nevertheless, once he's digested Dalphir properly he'll be a force to be reckoned with. Far stronger than anyone else on the central continent, I think he'll be left alone by the two powers until the end of time (concession or space), and perhaps slowly expand up north to central-continent proper.

Maybe he'll try to attack Mack across the sea, but Mack is way ahead in naval tech.

dtay
The grey lord of the north. Things are looking up in the TBS conflict. I should manage to take all TBS's continental holdings in the next 4 turns. That, and the SHRINE OF AWESOMENESS, will give me the base needed to avoid falling down the rankings. I could never hope to launch an offensive action against the two powers (or plako). The logistics would be impossible, the 2 powers have far superior navies, and I would never be able to keep anything. If I end up in a war with them, it'll be because Mackoti is on my doorstep.

Commodore
He wasn't doing great earlier in the game, but he's managed a slow but steady island expansion, and has the 2nd best capital in the world. (Comparison not done rigorously, maybe its the best?). He now appears to be teching shockingly well. He's right next to one of the two powers though, so might become a snack...

I could plausibly declare war on him. Not in the near future, but if I think I could boat him come galleons or something, it could happen. This is in no sense a clearly formed "plan", just a vague notion that in 20 turns an opportunity might be there. Or it might not.

He's also been amusingly involved in a war with WilliamLP. He appears to be losing right now, btu I can't imagine he loses in the end if he keeps at it.

Tier 3: The King Makers
These guys are substantially weaker in some sense than the tier 2 nations, and it would be utterly implausible that they win the game. But they're not backwards. They're not digestable. They're often next to contenders, and could swing the game one way or the other.

Ichabod
I don't know how his score is so low given how large his empire is. Bad teching I guess. His empire is really large though, and he has an obvious target for even further expansion (WilliamLP). The conquering of SlowC gave him lots of land to work with, and he had a good starting position to... start.

I could end up at war with him. If he gets in another fight with WilliamLP while I'm not fighting TBS, I might reclaim West City. I could take in in a heartbeat right now, I just think the geopolitical consequences outweigh the benefits. Don't want to mess up the TBS war and have to divert troops to counter some spiteful naval invasion.

OH
They could be higher, but they've been forced into painful conflicts. A nice large desert keeps us apart, so our border has been demilitarized all game. Their other border... not so much. They've been in on and off wars with Mack and suttree. Wars that have forced much whipping and now I presume drafting. they'll be the obvious victims of Mack's cannons.

I could def backstab and take stuff from them in 10 turns if they're embroiled in a war with Mack, but... then I'd be next to mack. I don't want to be next to mack.

Bigger
I would have put him a tier lower if I did this not long ago. But the conquering of Azza has given him new life. Not much else to say, he seems to have been peaceable with Scooter so far, but he could end up being eaten by the viking hordes.

Less detail for the remaining nations

Tier 4: The Weaklings
WilliamLP
Bacchus

These two powers managed to somehow NOT KILL RETEP for thousands of years. I don't think retep ever got CONSTRUCTION. WHAT WAS HAPPENING?!?!?

They're left being small and easily attacked. WilliamLP might have been forced into this by outside forces, given he's been at war with Retep, Ichabod, and Commodore on and off for forever. but Bacchus seems to have less excuse for letting Retep live.

I predict Bacchus dies to Plako, or even scooter, as soon as one of them finds themselves without other distractions. WilliamLP will probably be able to put up a better fight. He's got knights, and longbows, and lots of them (enough to hold off Ichabod). Can he continue? Will someone come across the seas? Who knows. But his influence is, in my opinion, limited to "how well can he defend himself", and won't be an active player.

Tier 5: The Dying
TBS
You don't deserve this TBS. You would have been 1-2 tiers higher 10 turns ago. But now I have you're about to be exiled from your, left adrift on the islands. But here you are, dying.

Azza
Dying to bigger. Not sure how long it'll take, don't have much detailed info. Has knights.

Tier 6: The Lost
What seperates this from Tier 5? These guys don't have tech. Tier 5 is once decent nations that have simply been beaten down by someone stronger. These nations were never strong, so never got the tech (knights). (Amusingly, I also lack knights... but have curs).

suttree
Not sure how he's survived. I guess playing OH and Mack off each other? Small country, will probably die by cannonfire if Mack finds the time. He's "lost".

Dhalphir
Plako's about to finish what he started thousands of years ago.

Tier 7: The Dead
retep
mostly_harmless
SlowC
Nakor

RIP

[SevenSpirits]

Nice! Can't go wrong with that kind of update, nor the war news.

Question about the war: Did TBS have significant catapults? Did anything happen with them? (Or, were you ever needing to worry about them as you advanced?) Sorry if you said and I didn't pay close enough attention.

[dtay]

He had them piecemeal. I've probably killed about 15 total TBS catapults over the course of the war, which would have been a lot nastier massed than dealing with 3-6 at a time.

I believe the idea (on TBS's end) was that he'd hit my super-stack with all living catapults (about 12 at the time) the turn I ended up attacking Jetboy, then finish up with knights and maces and longbows. Except... I attacked Jetboy. Which meant caught 5 cats defending.

Most of these were slaved out as I advanced, and were coalescing around Jetboy as I approached. So there was never a prior-existing TBS catapult stack I was trying to avoid.

Note: In retrospect I think I shouldn't have marched on jetboy. It only worked because of some tactical mistakes on TBS's part. I should have hit Popinjay or Modular man with the full army, which would allow easier reinforcement of the main stack with the following musket stacks.