[SPOILERS] A new Thread [SPOILERS]

[Mardoc]

Why did you move onto the tile 1SE of Circci instead of the tile 1NE of it?

Two reasons.

1. I didn't think of it.

2. It wouldn't have accomplished my main goal, anyway. Remember - that goal is to kill his army. That means I have to both be vulnerable enough that he thinks he's got a shot of beating me, and strong enough to actually win. North of Circei, half his cavalry wouldn't be able to reach me, and only four cannons. And it's a 50% defense tile. He wouldn't take that fight, I'm 95% sure.

I also need to threaten something he cares about. Circei, size 7 border city? He'd have just let me raze it. Which is nice and all - but then it's three more turns before I threaten anything that might make him stand and fight. Three turns where he can reinforce and shift the odds against me. He's in slavery now, three turns is enough for at least one unit/city, if not two. So realistically I'd have had to back off after killing Circei. As it is, I'm only one turn from threatening Cumae, and this is the only turn I'm guaranteed to spend on flatland. So he can't afford to delay.

Now, if I'd seen that possibility a few turns back? I might have gone for it. Smaller gain, but also smaller investment required, that's the sort of thing you do when your army is smaller. But at this point, I think I have enough army with enough tech lead to win outright even without good terrain. [/GeneralCuster]

Edit: TL;DR. I'm greedy. Want more than just Circei

[Mardoc]

This is weird. Furungy hit me with his 11 cannon...and then stopped. Why spend the cannon if you're not intending to follow through? It can't have been that hard to figure out about what my stack would look like afterward.


Also, Cumae shrunk drastically. I don't know how you can whip more than half the population away from a city in a turn, but I'm thinking it's a definite raze target now. Instead of probable raze target.



I'm...debating what makes sense from here. Do I follow the original plan, raze Circei, leave the stack in place to heal and reinforce? Head onto the hills? I didn't expect to have this many living units this turn!

It's always a good turn when your opponent loses stuff and you don't, so I can't complain there! Just...I'm disoriented and need a bit to think.

[Mardoc]

Holy cow, notice something else missing from Cumae? It doesn't have any of its northern towns anymore! Nor the corn farm or copper mine. It appears merely showing up will wreck a city Furungy apparently believes in scorched earth. Well, even the bare land is a bit of a profit, I guess. And more importantly - we may have been aggressive, but he started it
nevermind the plans to hit him in five turns, that he could probably figure out from watching my troop movements

I went for the brutal approach. Razed Circei - lost one cannon, killed four rifles and an explorer; may lose the rifle who took the final hit. Otherwise, stayed put to heal my stack, sent in a few reinforcements. Next turn I'll start marching again to go raze some more Roman stuff. Just gotta decide if I'm pressing for Rome or taking the conservative option of the southern peninsula.

Also had my airships attack every unit they could reach in the open. That included six Cavalry, which ought to make him even more reluctant to counterattack - that and the new machine guns and infantry that railed in.

So, that's fifteen units down for him, 1 for me. He can replace them, but probably not at that rate. Especially now that he's missing a city and a half .

Probably should be conservative for the moment and just take out the peninsula. Still not very far from Combustion, after all! And it appears that capturing Rome intact will not be an option. It *is* tempting to see if I can make him burn down a size 22 capital, though

And...I stuck a settler in a queue. It looks like we'll be able to start replanting the razed cities and maybe some of the Roman lands. Every other city is still 100% military, but we can let a smidgen of long term thinking creep in now.

[Qgqqqqq]

Also, Cumae shrunk drastically. I don't know how you can whip more than half the population away from a city in a turn, but I'm thinking it's a definite raze target now. Instead of probable raze target.

Simple - you have to whip multiple times, which means multiple units (all units must be of different type, obviously). You still can't finish more then one unit per turn, so this is generally considered spite-whipping, but he may be able to finish a unit a turn for a while.

[spacetyrantxenu]

He could whip the second unit on the second turn, the third unit on the third turn, etc, if that's what he wanted the whips for. Between the multiple whips and self pillaging it's obviously either spite or hard core resource denial. I'm not a fan of it anymore, though I've never burned that much population or pillaged my own cottages.

The most recent similar incident like this one that I can remember in terms of how much self pillaging took place was pb13 with Bacchus. I wonder if it's just how conquest was done in their community before? We have people who both despise and accept the self pillaging actions so it isn't like we have a community consensus either. If players don't want to deal with it maybe that's something to bring up in the setup phase of future games. I'd prefer to not see it, myself, especially not to the extent Furungy is taking it to here, but as it isn't banned or universally recognized as foul play it will have to stand here.

As a lurker, though, if he wants to burn things then by all means help him out. Burn everything, raze every city, kill every unit. Give him not total war but total annihilation. Death to everything and everyone. Then, bring in not settlers, but salt....

[Mardoc]

It would bug me if I thought I had a chance of catching Zanth IFF I had Rome's land.

On the other hand, I'm not too upset that the Cavalry were busy razing stuff instead of flanking away my cannons. Gives me a chance to heal, to bring in reinforcements, spread out his cavalry in the open where I could hit them with airships at least. After I moved last turn, Commodore pointed out how bad Flanking could have been for my cannon stack. Much as wanted a size 20 city with lots of towns, I also didn't want to lose 30 cannon.

I also don't mind losing the temptation to split my stack and try to hold conquests. There's a very good chance that an intact Cumae would have turned into a monkey trap for me:



And it hurts his tech rate preemptively, which is particularly important when I'm leaning on a tech lead. I have to believe Cumae was at least 10% of his tech rate.

So all in all, at least for now, I have to conclude that he probably took the action that hurts me the least out of his options. I can easily imagine a scenario where this turn he hit my stack, wiping away 5 infantry and all my cannons, then I capture Cumae with losses (60% defense, no cannons), then decide to just hold it. And in that scenario, I stop there, with my stack on the edge of Roman culture, ripe for a counterattack. Is that a win for me?

I may feel differently in 10 turns after chasing him across a barren Rome - but that mostly just means I need to improve my mobility so I can kill the cavalry that tries

Oh, one more thing. I'm in State Property, and it won't be that long before I hop back into Caste. I've got a bunch of workers who are mostly doing busywork. Slapping down a bunch of workshops, and perhaps running Wealth builds, is a perfectly reasonable way to make the land pay. As good as towns? Probably not. But it's not as great a loss as it may seem.

[Old Harry]

Oh, one more thing. I'm in State Property, and it won't be that long before I hop back into Caste. I've got a bunch of workers who are mostly doing busywork. Slapping down a bunch of workshops, and perhaps running Wealth builds, is a perfectly reasonable way to make the land pay. As good as towns? Probably not. But it's not as great a loss as it may seem.

Totally agree with this, while I'm not a fan of spite-whipping or self-pillaging (obviously unless it's windmilling resources xenu) it seems like you have plenty of options still. (And who ever said war isn't hell?)

Loving the attitude and the reporting Mardoc. Give him what he deserves!

[spacetyrantxenu]

What's windmilling resources about? Could have been something I did in a previous life for all I know.

[Old Harry]

Perhaps you weren't paying too much attention in PB11

[spacetyrantxenu]

Perhaps you weren't paying too much attention in PB11

See, that was totally BGN's post. I probably wouldn't have even left a windmill. I guess I have more of a problem destroying developed cottages than iron/copper/resources. Even if it's effectively the same thing.