[Spoilers] Pindicator's Nice Thread

[Mjmd]

I remember someone telling me to skirmisher rush once! I maybe should have listened too........

Whenever Cornflakes and I were discussing it in the lurker thread. Your first big push I believe. You sent the army and then stopped building units behind it.

The other one that was a little more of a bloody call would have been to raze Gavs capital sacrificing more HA instead of going to raze the northern city. I think this might have been an easier call if you had had more units coming in behind. And you might have even been able to keep it with incoming reinforcements. But even without the reinforcements I think it might have been correct to sacrifice more units then to raze a better key city so you didn't have to build more units later.

[Commodore]

If it worked, it worked. Rare indeed to fight an ancient-era war that takes over a hundred turns to resolve but still win a game. So...looks like it was a right call to chase two rabbits here.

[pindicator]

I didn't really have a big push before the horse archer push, unless you're counting the first invasion when I thought I was catching him right before he had hooked up metal and then he got Praetorians whipped just in time.  Then I offered peace and used the enforced peace to time out horseback riding and get my horse archer force whipped together.

For the horse archer push (where I had simmed extensively and won the battle for Rome in something like 85% of the sims), you had me curious what I was actually building.  I know I posted that I wanted to build more infrastructure, but looking back at my micro planning I didn't really switch much away.  It looks like everywhere did stay on unit production for some time after this screenshot:




And here are city builds for the turns after:

Turn	RB	DtG	TC	RR	MLP	Smurfs	IG
90	horse archer
91			horse archer		horse archer
92		horse archer
93				horse archer
94							granary
95
96	library		horse archer
97					horse archer
98
99		axe		spear	skirmisher
100	settler	horse archer	settler (101)	axe		library (103)	library (102)

So I blame myself here for not accurately reporting what I was doing after writing the bit about infrastructure.  The capital was really the only city that switched off of unit production as Smurfs and Inspector Gadget were both very new and still getting up to speed - also both of those cities were my first 2 great people so I don't think I regret building libraries there at all.  Should have had some more empire-wide shots or f1 pictures to show better what was going on, though.

As for razing Rome vs Antium, I do remember debating that a bit.  I went with keeping my army intact instead of getting to a scenario where I could possibly have razed Rome but lost all my units and then been open to a counter attack from his praetorians.  Instead I got to take those same horse archers and conquer Zhou (Ninja Turtles) and still maintain control of the battlefield.

[Magic Science]

The Gavagai war was the highlight of the thread. The 2 2 vs. 1s were what the game was all about for a while, I thought, so it is good to have the fullest possible picture about the other one now.
I figured Gavagai must have been choked early to account for him being so small from so early, so when Commodore's thread revealed he didn't do it I thought it must have been you. Wrong. I guess Gavagai just chose a strategy that meant being small early on his own, and then got semi-choked and then razed before it could work? .
I was surprised how much you considered attacking Commodore after the 2 vs. 1 had begun and before it was over. I know I fought Naufragar but that was only after the Celts were beaten down and too weak. Gavagai had a massive, threatening stack of Praetorians and you were still thinking of attacking Commodore, like when you took Zhou Ninja Turtles. I doubted that a 1 vs. 1 against either of them would work.
The "defensibility" element of your western dotmap was something I didn't consider during the game, but interesting now.
It all worked out in the end for you, and not simply or easily, so nicely done.

Nice to see your side of our on-and-off back-and-forth trade deals. Giving Ivory when you had no Ivory or Iron Working was an oversight. But I think that towards the end you lost track of it and I got the better of it for a while. A You-Wheat Me-Corn deal that lasted after you got Corn at Former Nice. A You-Silver Me-Ivory deal that lasted after you got Ivory at Former Mediolanum. Until I Stopped Trading With Pindicator.

Thank you for mentioning that Superdeath got Music first and the Great Artist! Funny story, I deduced it was him at the time, but then after he had been eliminated and you and Naufragar started going to Music, Superdeath's KTB for it was gone and I had forgotten my old deduction, so I was briefly worried about Naufragar getting a Great Artist and using it to terrible effect. Silly me.

I did not consider that you might upgrade the naval units in the big lake ("Lake Maximum") by Muppet Babies. That would have taken me by surprise. But it could have been very interesting when retreat was cut off by the capture of that city / the northern city, which seemed certain.
And it is nice to see my guesses about your army in The Valley of the Shadow of Superdeath as of the dogpile turn was about correct. Though I hadn't thought about units being placed by Mediolanum, though it makes perfect sense. Had a disposition in my head of "core" and "TVOTSOS" as the places with stacks.


And about "not feeling like a win." Well, by process of elimination, we started with 8, 4 died and 1 quit and being 1 of the 3 is already close to the crown. And balancing military production and tactics with economy in the Gavagai war was quite a feat. Economy overall was great for a civ in a cold weird corner of a barren weird map.
But yeah, it is a shame to miss out on the outcome of the final dogpile and whatever catharsis it would have brought.

Good thread, good game, and see you in the next one. .