Brick by Brick (Spoiler Alert!)

[TheHumanHydra]

[This is not a turn-report.]

I finally had the opportunity to do some combat-simming today. The sims suggest strongly that Old Harry's present army, if upgraded to grenadiers and augmented by more of the same, would be unable to damage my proposed stack substantially and would be annihilated. The high-health cavalry and riflemen would absorb the catapult collateral, the cavalry would keep the grenadiers off the riflemen, accepting losses, then either the cavalry or the riflemen could counterattack to destroy Old Harry's heavily-damaged grenadiers and leave him without a stack. The sim was 20 Barrage I catapults and 20 grenadiers (he has about 13 upgradeable macemen right now and 18 or 19 catapults) attacking 20 cavalry, 25 riflemen, 10 macemen, and 10 catapults, all unpromoted, on flat ground, then on a hill. I have all those units right now, plus a few more siege, and can draft more rifles; I just need to upgrade the knights to cavalry.

Old Harry just researched Education instead of starting on Steel, suggesting he's pursuing economic techs and/or the rifling line. If he feels temporarily secure having researched the appropriate counter to my core unit, he may become distracted by building universities. I will watch his power graph carefully. If he builds only a small or even a moderate number of grenadiers, I may be well-advised to reverse my prior decision and attack with all my units as soon as they can be in position. I think I will go to 0% science this turn (have I done that before in this game? I'm not sure) and start saving gold for knight upgrades if necessary, or simply to spend on Steam Power if not. I will presumably be able to take cs_italy this turn or next; then my field army can begin the march back. So: the watchword for the next several turns will be "flexibility" - I will act so as to be able to either tech or attack as Old Harry's preparations dictate.

See, I've been wondering if, even if I don't think I can overrun Old Harry in this era, a limited attack, advancing while Old Harry's stack is too weak to engage, then withdrawing as it starts to become strong enough, could do enough damage (forcing him to whip/draft, skip out of Caste/Pacifism for a while, spend gold on upgrades, and razing a city or two) to set back his tech progress and give me a wider margin to tech and build up infantry for the final attack. It would also serve to actually make use of the two-dozen rifles I drafted to such internal angst and didn't have to use against Azza.

Well, time and turns will tell.

[TheHumanHydra]

[This is a turn-report.]

I took cs_italy at the cost of three maces, destroying the garrison of one rifle, one mace, two catapults (which didn't attack out, surprisingly - that would have cost me another turn or two before attacking Old Harry to heal, and maybe to take the city), and one archer.

I did indeed drop down to 0% science. This is what my cities are producing:




These are Old Harry's and my economies both at 0% (as far as I can tell). Pretty even in raw GNP, though all his specialists help his research along even with no spending (see his Banking counter in the lower-right):




And here is my newest acquisition (actually, my first all game) along with my victorious army returning home:




Azza and Old Harry made peace this turn. I forgot to propose the same.

With Banking, Old Harry's going for either Economics or Replaceable Parts - Rifling, almost certainly the latter.

Oh, the tally:

THH - 883 hammers lost total
Azza - 2122 hammers lost total, plus cities of de_cbble, de_nuke, de_dust2, cs_havana, cs_italy

I'll do a detailed tally with the precise units some other time.

Azza's down to five cities, less than Serdoa (they're basically the same cities too - note how the two wars went basically the same way: main attack in their east razing up to the capital, followed by opportunistic attack in their northwest to take those cities).

[TheHumanHydra]

Well, that was unexpectedly violent. Old Harry did one of those nifty sudden-canal things and razed Ollantaytambo as well as Huamanga by land in the south. Two turns before I reinforced them in the ramp-up to possible war mode ...

Huamanga was my newest and least-developed city; it didn't even have a forge or courthouse yet, so it's not a big loss (just slightly more painful than cs_havana for Azza). Ollantaytambo was more developed; it was that sort-of crappy city in the south on the lake, but it had matured well.

My last paragraph in my "not-turn report" post from yesterday is ironic, because it appears Old Harry had the same thought.

Unfortunately, this places me at a substantial disadvantage in terms of number of cities, and did cost me in GNP. Worse, from the demographics screen, Old Harry's army is apparently approaching numerical parity with mine, though it appears he may have built a fair number of knights, which should be fairly useless against my rifles. My concern is, again, by the time my army can reach his capital (6 turns exactly including this one), he will have been able to whip a substantial number of grenadiers. As my sims demonstrated, my army can survive attack from a large number of them, but maybe not as many as he can whip: we'll see; hopefully I'll be able to find time to run some more sims.

Now, Old Harry did propose flat peace this turn, which I turned down so I could look at the situation. I need to make a decision, the same one I have been struggling with for the past week and trying not to commit to: war now or war later, with infantry. If I think I can defeat him now, I will go into total-war mode, drafting all my cities as often as possible irregardless of happiness, and doing nothing build military builds. This will case my tech rate to plummet as I suffer increasing amounts of unhappiness. I will not settle the two new cities I was planning. If I decide instead I can tech to infantry fast enough, I will tech the ten turns' enforced peace, settle those cities (actually - I might settle them and resettle the lost cities too), finish up my civilian happiness builds, not draft, reinforce my defences a bit, and finally resume military builds in preparation to defend for the last several turns after peace expires before I get Assembly Line, then draft 'dem infantry.

I am not confident in either plan as of this moment, so I'm going to take my time with the save. I'm not going to stress myself out by trying to come to a decision quickly; that'll just cause another collapse like last week (seriously, this is not a good real-life time for me to be this emotionally involved with a game).

Is Old Harry going to win this game? Maybe. He shouldn't, but he might. I think I've learned two important macro-strategy lessons from this game:

1) Don't let someone else develop in peace to the point where they can challenge you while you do the hard pounding that leads to victory: it might be their victory if you're not careful. "Share the burden" of securing the victory if the victory's to be won by the sword.

(I spent my triple-Golden Age killing Serdoa and Azza, then my top two competitors, while Old Harry spent that time and his Golden Ages teching up to meet me. Now Old Harry might just slip my hard-won victory out from under me.)

2) Kick 'em while they're down. That's right, even though Old Harry was of no consequence back when I was fighting Serdoa and the former was wallowing in Classical techs (or whatever, that was just for effect), if I had hit him while he was down, he wouldn't have been able to get back up to fight me. Or something. I don't know, I just don't get how someone who was effectively eliminated from the game can come back and contend for the victory. Isn't this supposed to be a snowball game? What happened to my snowball? I think some of it melted while I was rolling over Serdoa and Azza with it. But I couldn't not attack them ... it was 100% the right thing to do at the time. With hindsight, I should have hit Old Harry with my riflemen five turns ago - but where's the wisdom in launching an invasion on two opponents at once?

On the bright side, I had always had this dark, secret ambition to at some point in this game be at war with every other player, conduct a desperate defence of my cities, break everyone's armies, and finally stand atop their smoldering cities to the awe of every lurker. Looks like now's my chance ... but I'm not sure I have the skill to pull it off. Old Harry's clearly a better player than me; he just had the misfortune of being placed next to Serdoa with his zerg-rush strategy this game, I didn't. I would categorize my military performance in this game as being nothing more than competent, while Old Harry's has been excellent. I am afraid I will decide to march into Old Harry's land, and my stack will be annihilated. But if I play it safe, he may out-tech me, and then there will be no recovery.

There seems to be a certain sense of righteous inevitability about Old Harry winning the game: the ever-persecuted underdog overcoming adversity to overthrow at the last the tyrant (me) who has crushed the lands beneath his iron fist, and with them - seemingly - all hope. See, of all the stories man has ever made, that's the one that speaks most deeply to me. I know it appeals to the lurkers, too, and to Old Harry: he's said as much elsewhere. See, I know everyone is cheering for me to lose. Nothing wrong with that, but I wish it weren't so. For both me and Old Harry, this is our induction into multiplayer civ: our first complete game. We both want so desperately to win, to perform to impress the lurker community. That's why he won't give up, why he fights so hard, and why I just wish he would, that the game would end in victory. I had hoped, based on the course of the game (at the start I had no hopes), that I would win, and be congratulated, and that Old Harry's incredible performance would win him equal accolades: I would have been the first to acknowledge he would have won if our positions had been reversed, and I would not have done nearly so well. As it stands, he might win - all the more glory, well-deserved - and I would become known as the one who let victory slip out of his fingers and to one who had been destroyed. Bah, I shouldn't care about reputation; I should efface my ego, and enjoy the show of which I'm a part. I don't even know why I'm rambling about this; I hope you all stopped reading it. I've just been in weird philosophical mood of late, in real-life too; I'm figuring out where to go in life, who I am, and for reasons I can't explain and don't think you'd care about, winning this game became important to me. Well, there you go; a little bit of player psychology you probably knew already, and fodder for Commodore's two-trait characterization of me in the next game we play in together (I look forward to seeing what it was for PB10). If I play in another - I might retire after this (finishing my existing games of course!), win or lose. Way too much of an emotional drain when you actually have a chance of winning.

I'm sort-of inclined to give you a fiery speech about fighting to the end and willing the victory, but that's not how Civ-games are won: they're won by solid micro, macro-strategy, long-term development, and tactical decisions - and I'm not sure I have the skill for all that. Thankfully, they're not lost by poor morale either, unless you let it cloud your judgement. You'll be seeing my best play from me these next few days or weeks till the game's done, unless real-life intervenes. Win or lose, though, Old Harry's comeback leaves me profoundly shaken as to my actual skill at Civ. After this, yeah, I think I'm done. There's no spark of grand potential here to prove. Look across the way for that.



Sorry, again, I really hope you didn't read all that. It was mostly just for me to vent, lament, so I don't get all frustrated. Thanks for sticking with this thread despite all the crap like that.

[TheHumanHydra]

You know what, how anxious are you lurkers to actually see this played out to a conclusion? I'm almost tempted to offer Old Harry a draw, even though I think it's still 75% likely I'd win from this point. I kind of just want to know what the conclusion would be (by being able to see inside Old Harry's civ) without having to go through the emotional strain of playing it out. I'm spending way too much time worrying about this game when there are other really pressing matters in my life I should be dealing with. Like this job I hate but can't give up without figuring out what else I'm going to do with my life. Or the fact I've never dated and am going to die alone.

I've discovered I don't have the steel - the emotional stability - to be the general I've dreamed about since childhood. There, my dreams have successfully been crushed; now I should just go home and cut my losses.

[NobleHelium]

You can reload the save in a PBEM to accept deals after looking around if you want. No moving units and such of course.

[TheHumanHydra]

Really? I thought you were obligated to re-propose.

[BRickAstley]

I read that whole thing, I enjoy reading inner monologues made public. I also think you've played a stellar game, and have sorta been rooting for you the whole time, so you're not alone in wanting you to win

As regards to proposing a draw, that's up to you, I don't think it's my position to offer that. And I also hope you stay around and play more here, you've proven yourself a good player and I look forward to reading more of your plays.

[NobleHelium]

Really? I thought you were obligated to re-propose.

Yeah, PBEM is played under different standards than Pitboss.

[TheHumanHydra]

Thank you, BRick, for the encouragement, and Noble, for the clarification.

[TheHumanHydra]

So, I had another huge post written up a couple days ago, but decided not to post it because I wasn't sure how well it reflected on me. Anyway, I'm going to war (well, we're already at war, but you know what I mean). This isn't an entirely rational decision (though I do think it's the right one); I kinda just want to reach a decision in this game as quickly as possible. I was just about ready to walk away from this game those couple days ago, though after quitting my job, handing over my other games to others, and not playing this one for several days, I'm feeling a bit better. As for the fate of my stack, well, Old Harry will probably overwhelm it with grenadiers; I may or may not get the chance to raze Barnet. If all goes well, I may cut him up as bad as I did Serdoa and Azza, though I doubt it, or at least set him back more than he's done to me. If all goes poorly, my stack will be destroyed without having accomplished much, and I'll probably offer him a draw. Of course, this game is utterly unpredictable; this post will probably be irrelevant inside a week. Anyway, here are some screenshots. I'm actually no longer entirely sure what I've made clear in my recent posts and what I haven't; if there's anything in particular you guys would like to see or hear to understand what's going on better, please let me know. Oh, and don't forget to place bets on the outcome of the war in the lurker thread!