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

[HitAnyKey]

Next order of business....



WAR! What is it good for....


....ENTERTAINING THE LURKERS!!!



Move in 3 units. First the HA as planned to take the Worker 1S of the city and to get a view to the west. Nothing was visible, so moved the Chariot to kill the Scout. Saw only an Archer in his southern city. So moved my Archer to take the other Worker. So I have 3 "vulnerable" units, but his moving out to try to kill any of them would lower his city defense capabilities. And I wouldn't expect him to have anything available to kill more than one of these units at most.




And then finally above we have the full layout of his lands. During his turn, Borsche whipped 5 cities. I can only assume that 3 of those whips were the cities on my landmass. Next turn the bulk of the army moves to the hill for taking In-N-Out. Might consider moving a couple of the units to one of the hills closer to Arbys so they can start heading down there to take it. It'll depend on which units appeared in the cities from the whippings.

[HitAnyKey]

From earlier today, here's the update.
Demos & graphs:

Then the big news of the turns. Comm did indeed capture Motley Crue last turn, earning him a GG. He then captured Warrant this turn.
Also of note, GJ declared war on Elkad this turn.


In this image you can also see the two units Borsche has in Sonic. He also whipped a WE in In-N-Out. Arbys still only has the Archer.

Rather annoyingly, both GJ & Elkad have opened their borders to Commodore. I got another request from GJ for Open Borders.
I'm not sure how much extra benefit I would get from him anyway. For now I'm going to continue doing nothing.



Then here's a shot showing the placements of all the units of Commdore's I was able to see with my chariot. While I was logged in he actually logged in again and moved a few of these, so they aren't exactly current but I wasn't going to go through the trouble of making new notes in the screenshot. Plus some of the ones the chariot could see in the screenshot, I could no longer see. So not entirely sure where he moved them. But it at least gives us a few numbers.



And this last shot I just took to show how much gold he has right now. All this city capture gold has made it so he is now able to get Engineering in a mere 4 turns. He's still saving gold for this turn, but as you can see in one of the screenshots I apparently caught him while he was adjusting his slider to see how many turns it would take to finish it.



Anyway, looking forward to next turn...hoping that Borsche didn't decide to attack out and kill any of my units, but if so hopefully I can just easily kill whatever he used. He really only had 2 options....attacking my lone Archer on the hill with the WE from Sonic or attacking my stack with the WE from In-N-Out. His WE from Sonic could easily kill the Archer, but would hopefully leave it wounded enough for me to then easily kill it. The WE from In-N-Out....well, that could possibly kill either my Axe or a Sword in that stack. Not sure which it would target. Guess I'll find out tomorrow.

[HitAnyKey]

Just logged in to pause it for retep. Got to see what Borsche did:


I'm not sure what I was thinking...apparently I wasn't thinking....as I had apparently moved one of my Swords to the hill 1N of my Chariot (where the Worker was that I had captured from him the turn prior with my Archer). Borsche ended up moving his Axe out of In-N-Out to kill it and then disband the worker. Oops.
And sometime turning his turn he got a GG which just had to appear in Sonic. So he moved his WE out of In-N-Out and made it a super elephant.
So next turn I'll be able to take the city without a fight, and move the rest of the stack 1SW to then choose which city I go after. He'll likely use his WE GG to kill something in my stack. But after that, I should be able to finish him off.

In case you care, here are the Demo's after everyone but retep has played:

Anyway, need to stop making stupid mistakes.

[HitAnyKey]

Very interesting times afoot....


See all those Horchers from retep? Looks like in addition to razing Grimace's cities to get gold, he's also be pillaging improvements. So much so to the point that while I was logged in and watched Commodore capture Winger, shortly afterwards I watched him move some of the units that are visible in this screenshot to pillage improvements and roads around Motley Crue (now Dragon Soldier). Basically, he's pillaging stuff before retep can do so. He's going to have to rebuild all those improvements, so at least that's one more good thing for me. And hopefully angering Commodore to such a degree that he won't attack me when the peace treaty ends, and instead gears up against retep.

And it's a Bloody BLOODY world out there....


As you can see, last turn Gavagai took another city from Borsche. This turn Comm took Winger and I took In-N-Out (simply moved in an Archer & Axeman to take the empty city).
Also since then, GJ has taken a city from Elkad this turn. I'll find out next turn which city it was.
Borsche whipped two cities for his turn. I'm going to assume at one of them was to whip out another unit in Sonic. And he might have even been able to whip one in Arbys. Don't know what he's done with his GG WE. Will find that out tomorrow. I'm hoping he just moved it into one of his cities, but I'm going to assume that he attacked (and probably killed) something of mine. Hopefully wounding that elephant enough such that I can kill it next turn.

Here are the Demos and Graphs after both myself and Commodore were finished:

I'm sending a Galley up the Straights of Grimace, which will be picking up the Chariot to ferry over to meet Donovan. I'm tired of not knowing him and what his relations with everyone else are.
Oh, and after I took the screenshot above I moved my Chariot 1SE. And what did it see...but 4 Galleys & 1 Trireme for Grimace two tiles east of that. Is he going to pull a Xenu PB18 move of being a pirate? The only people he can really target with that is retep or Gavagai.
I know he won't come after me. After all, I just sold him my extra Copper. Last turn I sent it to him, asking for 20 gold. So he can at least build Spears.
He'll lose his last mainland city next turn, since it has only 2 Archers in it and I saw Commodore sending a few Knights down towards it. Then he'll just be left with the two cities he settled over on Gavagai's continent.

[MindyMcCready]

Welcome to the Hall of Shame Grimace. I hereby dub thee Grimace The Unready.

Not sure if you noticed but Elkad did 7 whips last turn and another 2 this turn. So it doesn't look like he'll be following Grimace's ridiculous example.

Also, your city grab doesn't appear prominently in CivStats and could go unnoticed.

Interesting stuff otherwise.

You are going to have to tighten up your attack when facing a greater opponent. On top of the axe you lost, that archer is just waiting to get killed. It's a decent defender while sitting in a hilled city,...but outside of a hilled city it's an easy lunch for a sword or HA, let alone the WE. While the Borsche initiative isn't in doubt, there's no need to take losses which could force a delay on hitting GJ or tempting MC.

Something to think about:
1. To whatever degree possible, I would like to convey to Borsche that he can keep his units alive if he abandons the remaining 2 cities. Borsche will have the obvious advantage of extra units while we could speed up our timeline for hitting GJ or defending vs MC.

2. Long story short, it doesn't seem like MC would hit us right now. CB + hostile Retep,...I don't think that MC could generate enough units to punch through our choke AND get into our core AND protect his new acquisitions from the fight-ready Retep. So that should continue to give us some opportunities despite Grimace The Unready's shameful lack of defense.

[HitAnyKey]

Something to think about:
1. To whatever degree possible, I would like to convey to Borsche that he can keep his units alive if he abandons the remaining 2 cities. Borsche will have the obvious advantage of extra units while we could speed up our timeline for hitting GJ or defending vs MC.

Can anyone out there validate my understanding regarding this rule in the signup thread:

[*] City trades: real trades only (open to discussion)

Does this mean that I can offer Peace to Borsche if he gives me the two cities? I doubt he would go for it, but he might if he wants to continue focusing on Gavagai.

Not sure how else to convey to him that we'd let his units live. Though maybe just sending that request (even if he's not allowed to accept it) would be the proper sign that we'd let his units retreat if he pulled them out of the cities. Though getting some XP (and GG points) for our WE's would also be a nice thing.

[HitAnyKey]

Also, your city grab doesn't appear prominently in CivStats and could go unnoticed.

You are going to have to tighten up your attack when facing a greater opponent. On top of the axe you lost, that archer is just waiting to get killed. It's a decent defender while sitting in a hilled city,...but outside of a hilled city it's an easy lunch for a sword or HA, let alone the WE. While the Borsche initiative isn't in doubt, there's no need to take losses which could force a delay on hitting GJ or tempting MC.

1. To whatever degree possible, I would like to convey to Borsche that he can keep his units alive if he abandons the remaining 2 cities. Borsche will have the obvious advantage of extra units while we could speed up our timeline for hitting GJ or defending vs MC.

Now for responses to some of your other parts of the post. Commodore was logged in while I was taking that city. So he certainly saw that I took the city from Borsche. And he's really the only one that I would have cared to hide it from.

That Archer you see in the image on the hill 1E of his GG WE....that's where my full stack is. So it's not just a lone Archer. The things he might get tempted by are the Sword 1S of In-N-Out that I left behind protecting the worker there. But that would be only a bit above even odds for him. My sword being on the hill cancels out his shock promotion. Both units have Combat I. So it's just the extra 10% from the Combat II, and the difference between Str 7 vs Str 6 between the two units. So if the RNG likes him, he could kill that sword and then disband the worker. But if he does, that should make it easy for one of my WEs to kill it. That would leave him with very minimal left to defend the two cities.

As for GJ, are you thinking I should try to raze that city as soon as I'm done with Borsche, or shore up my defenses on both sides of my empire first? I'm a little concerned with trying to go after that city right away, especially since it now has a Catapult, WE, Axe, & 3 Archers.

[MindyMcCready]

Though getting some XP (and GG points) for our WE's would also be a nice thing.

If he "accepts" that agreement,...we'll get our XP and GG from GJ.

I think just sending the message should get him thinking. That GG is probably worth something to him. His units will probably be teleported to his mainland unless he's got OB with GJ.

[HitAnyKey]

If he "accepts" that agreement,...we'll get our XP and GG from GJ.

I think just sending the message should get him thinking. That GG is probably worth something to him. His units will probably be teleported to his mainland unless he's got OB with GJ.

It will be a moot point if he decided to use it to attack and kill one of my units this this turn. So as soon as Gavagai plays his turn in the next couple hours, that's when we'll know whether to even bother offering it.
Actually, I'll offer it even if I do end up killing the WE.

[MindyMcCready]

As for GJ, are you thinking I should try to raze that city as soon as I'm done with Borsche, or shore up my defenses on both sides of my empire first? I'm a little concerned with trying to go after that city right away, especially since it now has a Catapult, WE, Axe, & 3 Archers.

I would say hit GJ right away when possible. Possible will be determined by what happens down MC's way. That replanted city is a monster city and a huge enabler for a Borsche invasion so its of very high value. If we can get a CB or two into our island city (or upgrade archers) we won't necessarily lose our island city. Regardless, its worth it.

If we're still sitting there with a stack of 18 units (1/3 catapults) GJ won't be able to defend it. His cat would probably only do 4 splashes of damage so that's a paper tiger unless he has a lot more of them. Likewise for HA attacking into WEs,...not likely to do enough damage attacking into the stack. We should bring a spear or two for the WE. IF GJ can't attack into us,...well he also can't defend his city since it would only take 1T to strip defenses and the following turn his defenders would be collateralled into pulp.

He's committted to war with Elkad now and he'll also be limited by navy as to what he can reinforce. So it's ours for the taking if we aren't in a hot war with MC,...and I don't think that we will be.

In the event that we do get into a tussle with MC,..those CBs present a bit of a problem for our spear-heavy defense in our northern choke. We'll need to get either some archers in there or some CBs in short order:

Choke point defense, full fort/no fort:
C1+D1 CB vs CG1 Archer: 21.5%/26%
C1+D1 CB vs C1 WE: 34.2%/34.2%
C1+D1 CB vs C1 Sword: 13.8%/31.2%
C1+D1 CB vs CG1 CB: 0.9%/3.1%
C2 Knight vs CG1 CG: 32%/63.9%
C2 Knight vs C1 Sword: 34.8%/67%

So the takeaway is that CBs don't help us against the Knights but will shut down attacking CBs convincingly. A full fortify sword is still our best multi-purpose unit and will be the main attacker for any Borsche/Gavagai initiative. Our more expensive UU would be stack protection for the most part but could easily attack depending on the army composition. This is doubly true If either Borsche or Gavagai get LBs or CBs.

So we should keep on building swords since that will help reduce our timeline for Borsche Phase II. They also have the best power/hammer ratio if deterring MC through graphs is the objective and can defend/counter-attack decently when necessary. It looks like we're going to have an adequate number of cats if all goes well.