[Spoilers] Grotsnot massively inflates his own View count

[Grotsnot]

Hey, glad I'm not just casting these into the void Also lurkers, but they don't get to comment and modulate my insane mood swings whenever the game takes a turn

No idea what Greece is up to. I'm quite surprised by the change of direction. Maybe they decided waiting for a GG would be past the Hoplite's era of relevance? Or just pre-filling a GG in case of attack? Rome also started running Strategos so maybe they just don't like Hannibal and are waiting for Rome to overtake so they can get the next one without losing GGPs on a Pass? Or most likely something I haven't thought of! The (verrrry minor) downside to not getting horribly mauled is a greater delay until I can read their thread

Current suspicion is that Arabia came from the southeast by way of Amsterdam. So south of Rome, east of Greece. Not sure how they rate north/south compared to Greece. Could be south for a hexagon shape for the start locations, or roughly due east for some sort of weird rectangle/parallelogram. Not sure how Creationist this map is, if it is I'd expect another sea rotationally-mirrored down in the far southeast.

If the baddies do go after Arabia instead that'll suck for marcopolo. I'll feel bad for my fellow newbie but better ye than me, comrade I'm at least expecting to draw the heat from the Romans!

(Getting a premonition of the end of game review [possibly even the current lurker thread]: "Grotsnot is too much of a goddamn carebear to survive cutthroat RB Civ")

Sorry for yet another delay on the overall report. The task keeps getting bigger the more I put it off >_< Spent a chunk of time today catching up more data on my Cloak&Dagger spreadsheet. You know you have a problem when you're considering looking into OCR options...

[Grotsnot]

If tHeY cOmE sUrGiNg OuT oF tHe FoG tHiS tUrN i'Ll Be iN tRoUbLe BuT cAuTiOuSlY oPtImIsTiC tHaT 1-2 tUrNs DeLaY iS aLl i NeEd.

I for one blame this asshole:




If I hadn't had the founding delayed 2 turns things would be in much better shape  

And to pile on the bad news I miscalculated the walls and won't have them until turn 53. Had one more tech than I thought when I planted the Encampment. Probably also due to the stupid delay

Fuck you, Rome.

[Grotsnot]

Correction: T52 walls may still be doable if the chop values increased in line with the Encampment enough to compensate. But that doesn't help me much when Rome can get two Legions hitting StG on T50

[Banzailizard]

(Getting a premonition of the end of game review [possibly even the current lurker thread]: "Grotsnot is too much of a goddamn carebear to survive cutthroat RB Civ")

To be fair, starting off next to Rome is tough.  As far as I can tell there are 2 options, 1. upgrade slingers into archers 2. buy the woods south of the mountain and chop out a wall in St Gloriana.  Unless it will culturally expand soon anyways.  I do not think he can surround it unless he gets all the way around the back so that is good. I think that the river gives +10 as well so anything attacking across it will be fighting a 25 strength city.  (I cannot seem to find this info right now and do not  have a time for a detailed search so please double check). The commercial district and the horse tile will be especially important to control.

Oh! Also you are Japan.  Do not forget that +5 combat bonus for being on a coastal tile!  It does not sound like much but your swords on a coastal tile will be stronger than legions by 1 CS. Not sure if that lake in the north counts as coastal.

[Grotsnot]

Unfortunately I cannot hold the Commercial Hub pin. The river bonus is only +5. Combined with Divine Wind a Slinger (my only units close enough) would defend at 15 vs a Legion's 46 - +4 from Oligarchy and +2-4 from a flanking buddy or two. The STR differential is enough to instagib my unit, even without the Roman Slinger around to throw a rock at it.

So one way or another they can have a Legion directly east of StG on T49 and able to slug me on T50. I need to check whether the river stops the northern Legion from attacking on T49 like a forest would, since they'll have 1 move left after moving NE of the city. They might just hit my Spearman scrambling down to defend the city since I'll be moving it to the Horse tile next turn. Unless Zone of Control doesn't block moving into a city on the 2nd move... then could maybe stall or punch their Slinger if it sits on my encampment. More things to sim! (or if a friendly lurker wants to save us some time... ) Also on that list is whether I could tell if any of these Roman units have promotions or not. 

I'm skeptical Divine Wind applies to cities - the strict wording is Land Units (it also does not apply to Lakes, adjacent-to-Coast tiles only). I'll have a Spearman in the city but I doubt he'll grant the bonus to the CC. Assuming I can get Walls on T52 after all, StG still has to eat FOUR Legion slugs. With the Spear and the Encampment it has STR27 vs the southern Legion and STR32 vs the northern one across the river.
 
Projection only listing average values since the ranges multiply too fast to manage.
T50:
46 vs 27 -> StG takes 64 damage, Legion takes 14
46 vs 25 (-7 from damage, +5 from river) -> StG takes 69, Legion takes 12
T51:
StG heals 20, to wind up at 113 damage taken
44 vs 15 -> StG takes 96 and dies; Legion takes a measly 9 damage.
2nd Legion not even needed.
And this is without even factoring in the Roman Slinger.


Ah, but what if, for some silly reason, damage doesn't degrade city strength? And we stack on a few more utterly unrealistic assumptions, too?
T50:
46 vs 27 -> StG takes 64, Legion takes 14
46 vs 32 -> StG takes 53, Legion takes 17
T51:
StG heals 20, 97 damage taken
Warrior suicides into north Legion: 18 vs 44 -> does 10 damage and dies
Spearman attacks south Legion because we're imagining happy fairly land where the CC still gets the full 25 STR even when the garrison is damaged: 30 vs 54 -> does 11 damage and takes 78.
43 vs 27 -> StG takes 57, Legion takes 16
43 vs 32 -> StG takes 47 and dies, Legion takes 19


(ﾉಥ益ಥ)ﾉ ┻━┻

[Banzailizard]

I am 99% sure the river will block the legion from attacking next turn. Think about it this way, if it won, the legion would need to occupy the city which it could not do if it did not have sufficient movement points. Basically would indeed assume you have 1 turn before anything hits the city for damage.

I agree it looks bad either way.

[Grotsnot]

Ok, I was hoping that was the case. Means 4 hits is still the number to beat. I wonder if I can throw any of my Slingers under the bus such that they only get 3... Might be too late already

Edit: Yeah, damn, I could have sent my Slinger to the Rice and maybe bought enough time to get walls up. Damn. This is what happens when I take morning turns

[Grotsnot]

I think next turn, assuming they have not officially DoWed yet, I'm going to demand Mars under the "let's taunt them: maybe they'll become so cross that they make a mistake" doctrine. Since a Roman mistake is all that will save me at this point. Fuck their uncanny timing.

[Grotsnot]

Ok, ran a sim. Cities do get degraded STR from damage, but -1 for every 20 instead of 10. Which makes sense as CC's have 2x the health bar.

So new projection:

Projection only listing average values since the ranges multiply too fast to manage.
T50:
46 vs 27 -> StG takes 64 damage, Legion takes 14
46 vs 28 (-4 from damage, +5 from river) -> StG takes 62, Legion takes 15
T51:
StG heals 20; 106 damage taken
44 vs 21 -> StG takes 75; Legion takes 12.
44 vs 23 -> StG takes 69; Legion takes 13

Total of 250 taken. Ugh.

So if I had thrown my Slinger under the bus onto the rice I would have saved the city. Or, more likely, delayed its doom since Walls aren't magic, though I expect them to help A LOT. God dammit.

[Banzailizard]

If you really do not think you can hold the city you might need to move to a triage strategy.  Throwing units away would not help the situation nor help you reclaim land.  If you can counterstrike with swords and archers maybe it would work.  You have the shorter supply lines here.   Also maybe think about getting walls up in your capital soon.  This was a well done rush though.

Can you draw a map of where you plan to put your units and where you think they will be?