[PB25-SPOILERS] The Lunacy of the Reign of HAK Continues

[MindyMcCready]

Hey HAK,

One thing that I noticed while trying out some SP while the game was down; ICTR does stack with the peace bonus at least in BTS.

So +100% ICTR +150% sustained peace. So landing Alphabet would be a huge boost for us if we could get trade routes with Elkad. Donnovan is also different landmss to us? Same for GJ, but I don't see sustained peace there. To get the full benefit (Donnovan), we'll need to get scouting towards Donnovan as soon as we can get a passage way via OB.

As far as the need for more modern military,...if MC looks elsewhere I think that we can postpone that. Swords + cats + WE are strong enough on the offense. Good enough to take Borsche's 3 cities or even Grimce's 2 easy southern cities. Alphabet would be a good way to increase our econ while keeping up in military.

[HitAnyKey]

Yay! New turn:

The only real big piece of news that I forgot to take a screenshot of....GJ landed the MoM. At least it wasn't Commodore, but it's still a dangerous person to have it.

[HitAnyKey]

Hey HAK,

One thing that I noticed while trying out some SP while the game was down; ICTR does stack with the peace bonus at least in BTS.

So +100% ICTR +150% sustained peace. So landing Alphabet would be a huge boost for us if we could get trade routes with Elkad. Donnovan is also different landmss to us? Same for GJ, but I don't see sustained peace there. To get the full benefit (Donnovan), we'll need to get scouting towards Donnovan as soon as we can get a passage way via OB.

As far as the need for more modern military,...if MC looks elsewhere I think that we can postpone that. Swords + cats + WE are strong enough on the offense. Good enough to take Borsche's 3 cities or even Grimce's 2 easy southern cities. Alphabet would be a good way to increase our econ while keeping up in military.

I think I'll plan to get Alphabet after we get IW. Then see if Elkad will accept OP. I haven't even met Donovan yet, so I need OB with Elkad in order to send a galley/chariot through to meet him.

[HitAnyKey]

So I saw on Civstats that Borsche took a city back from Gavagai so I logged in to check.
It was Dunkin Donuts which was the city by GJ that Gavagai took on the first turn of the war:



So he's not getting fully steamrolled....which I guess is both good and bad.
Here's the new Demos



Showing that Gavagai was already no longer the top Power (since that number didn't change). The Avg went down from 303,500 to 301,750.

[MindyMcCready]

Showing that Gavagai was already no longer the top Power (since that number didn't change). The Avg went down from 303,500 to 301,750.

i think that I can confirm that. A pixels-based estimate of Power as of T116:
Retep = 324K
MC = 409K
Grimace = 243K
Borsche = 269K
GJ = 282K

That 409K estimate of MC (vs demos of 404K, closeish) put him at the top place post Gavagai battle. Part of the inaccuracy was due to the lack of 2 turns in a row. Any other inaccuracy, who knows. :LOL:

So that places MC's T116, 404K army at
Knights-10, Spears-5, HA-7, Archer-8, Axe-7, Chariot-2, Warrior-4

And with the MC assuming top power for T117 for 446K he added another 4 knights + an archer.
Knights-14, Spears-5, HA-7, Archer-8, Axe-7, Chariot-2, Warrior-4
-That included no whips apparantly? So that's a pretty big jump and I'm not sure our choke could stand up to 14 Knights + 7HA even without him bringing cats to the party.

Ok,...I'm a little concerned. Did we just lose tech visibility on MC? Is he spending on us, or did his tech flip?

If he's spending on us,...well I think that that's going to call for a big bunch of whips. WEs + Cats + more spears in the choke. He's over 150k higher than us which we can't let happen.

Some pre-thinking about a war with MC:
As it stands right now, if he moves cats + Knights up towards us we'll probably have to abandon our choke and then hope to hit with cats + WE if he moves forward.
-LBs or CB on those hills will be expensive to dislodge. If we can't move his protective LBs with collateral then that city will be a death trap for us.
-2 grassland flats in every direction south of Hungry.
-We'd want to hit him with cats + WE before he gets to the hill NW of Sleepy.
-Combat settler can be used to re-assert cultural control.
-SAVE GOLD (post IW). Spending on military tech might be the difference between dying a living. I want Alphabet too, but we might need LBs or CBs or UU ASAP.

----------------------------------------------
Another Fix. I overestimated Retep's power last time. I think that I was playing around with Cats or HA or Cats and HA. His T116 power is revised down 10K based on the new graphs but also I included 20K of power that was a pure miscount.

So RETEP on T116:
Spears-12, HA-10, Archer-8, Axe-7, Chariot-2, Warrior-4
-So Retep's 2 downward revisions + MC's upward revision means that Retep isn't the slam dunk on defense that I earlier estimated.

[HitAnyKey]

So, first piece of news....our Iron is already mined:


Also shown in this screenshot is Borshe's city that originally had both an Axe and a Spear in it....now only has an Axe. He probably sent his spear back across the water to help defend against Gavagai.

Now for the Demos and Graphs:

As you can see in the first one (which is Score).....RETEP DECLARED ON COMMODORE!!! last turn. So he acted first to start the war, rather than wait for Commodore to attack him. No idea what he might have actually done. Kinda wish I had a spy up there.



This one shows what I currently have as the defenses in Hungry. Commodore can't see this though. Do you think I should move a WE or two onto one of the hills he can see so that he knows I at least have them there? And then the following turn move them back into the city?



Here are the current build queues.




Regarding the EPs and losing research visibility on Commodore. I think he's just been putting in a relatively standard 2EPs or something like that into me. Maybe trying to just keep me from having research visibility on him. We had been both putting EPs into each other pretty much the entire time. The turn I lost visibility I changed my spending a bit thinking I might still keep the visibility, but I was wrong.
But with these Rathauses coming online, he won't be able to keep up. I don't remember how many EPs he had in me last turn, but I'll make sure I check it next turn to see how many per turn he is putting into me. In either case, I should get visibility back next turn.
Current EP ratios (them/us) are as follows:
Commodore: 84/145 (need 147 to see research)
Grimace: 145/178 (need 183 to see research)
Borsche: 49/46 (need 109 to see research)
GJ: 42/43 (need 104 to see research)
retep: 2/30 (I got his graphs and neither of us have put another point in each other since)
Gavagai: 0/2 (I just started putting into him)
Elkad: 96/2 (I would assume he has research visibility on me...so he'll see I'm starting Alphabet--or at least using it as a placeholder)

My plan is to get research visibility on Commodore again, then get Grimace's research again while getting Gavagai's graphs. Then I guess work on getting GJ's or Borsche's research.

[MindyMcCready]

As you can see in the first one (which is Score).....RETEP DECLARED ON COMMODORE!!! last turn. So he acted first to start the war, rather than wait for Commodore to attack him. No idea what he might have actually done. Kinda wish I had a spy up there.

Haven't read the rest but I was going to push you very hard to DOW MC this turn.

Essentially, forcing MC to reveal his intentions before he's 100% ready to attack is a huge advantage. I would say that MC would be ready to launch a war in 5T. He won't want to wait because every turn that he waits is a turn closer that everyone gets to Feudalism (or UU for us). So MC is going to feel pressure to attack sooner rather than later.

So let's see what MC does with Retep. If he makes peace, we'll we're now up to 50% chance instead of 33% of drawing the short straw. We're now 150K behind in power with a widening gap. I don't think that we can let that happen. Those cats and WEs probably need to be whipped out soon or now.

I'm going to go back and read the rest of what you've posted. If MC makes peace with Retep then we should DOW next turn and make him choose now or 10T later. This would align nicely with us getting IW online and hitting the still stressed Borsche.

I would encourage you to send a peaceful sign to Borsche. The combination of peace sign + us DOW MC might encourage Borsche to send everything to his mainland making our job easier. We really want to make sure that he doesn't try to make an exodus to our lands.

An exodus has dropped as a risk I guess. That drop in average power is now explained by Gavagai having taken significant losses in addition to Borsche while MC takes top power. So hopefully that's closer to a stalemate than first estimated as indicated by the city recapture.

[MindyMcCready]

We've still got the first ring on Coming of Age!?!?!

What's MC got in that city? And what's our culture on that tile? Best defense is an archer? No LBs?

That city is a threat to our Sheep as well as our lake tiles. If MC hits Grimace and plants a city close by we'll eventually lose all the food that makes Hungry a great city.

C1 Sword vs CG2/D1 FF Archer: 24.8%
CR1 Sword vs CG2/D1 FF Archer: 24.71%

A sword with C1 gains 0.6. A sword with CR1 reduces the archer by 3*0.2 = 0.6
A sword with CR1 reduces a LB by 6*0.2 = 1.2.

1 splash of collateral on an archer = 14HP
1 splash of collaeral on a LB = 10HP

C1 Sword vs Archer 86HP = 56.3%
C1 Sword vs CG2/D1 Archer 72HP = 76%

I'm working on the power graphs now.

[HitAnyKey]

We've still got the first ring on Coming of Age!?!?!

What's MC got in that city? And what's our culture on that tile? Best defense is an archer? No LBs?

That city is a threat to our Sheep as well as our lake tiles. If MC hits Grimace and plants a city close by we'll eventually lose all the food that makes Hungry a great city.

I'll log in later (after retep to see if there is peace this turn) to check the culture, but if I remember correctly he simply has 4 Archers (maybe 5) in that city. Don't remember the promos on them, so will have to check that as well. It's too bad we don't already have Engineering. Then we could 1-turn the city from Hungry without him seeing us staging units on the hill. As it is right now, we'd have to put our attacking stack on the hill 1N of Hungry which he would see the turn before we hit it if we chose to do so.
He does also have Walls in that city, so make sure you are taking that into account. And if he sees us about to attack, and he has the gold to do so, he'll upgrade those Archers to LBs.

[HitAnyKey]

I would encourage you to send a peaceful sign to Borsche. The combination of peace sign + us DOW MC might encourage Borsche to send everything to his mainland making our job easier. We really want to make sure that he doesn't try to make an exodus to our lands.

Quick note on this. We do still have the longstanding Sheep for Sheep (or something like that) trade still going with Borsche that we did long ago. Are you suggesting I add to this with another similar trade? Could also cancel this trade and activate another one, just as a reminder since he's likely forgotten about the one we currently have going.