Brick by Brick (Spoiler Alert!)

[BaII]

kk sry if I'm confusing, but I thought that war weariness stacked with each other. As in if I were to declare war on X player, and the war weariness would carry over to Y player even if you made peace with X player. Although I believe the War Weariness u have accumulated with X player will disappear after you kill him completely. Also sorry about my terrible English. It's a second language to me.

[novice]

kk sry if I'm confusing, but I thought that war weariness stacked with each other. As in if I were to declare war on X player, and the war weariness would carry over to Y player even if you made peace with X player. Although I believe the War Weariness u have accumulated with X player will disappear after you kill him completely. Also sorry about my terrible English. It's a second language to me.

Your english is fine, we understand what you mean. It's just that what you describe is not how it works, according to NobleHelium at least, and I think NobleHelium is right. When you make peace you don't get unhappy anymore from the war weariness earned against that player. But if you resume war again later with the same player you will typically have some lingering war weariness that kicks back in.

[TheHumanHydra]

A lot of war weariness wore off, so I didn't need to make peace with Serdoa yet. Got the Music artist at eot; Golden Age next turn I think.

[TheHumanHydra]

Kicked off the Golden Age, switched to Nationalism and Free Religion, started drafting. I might go for Economics after Gunpowder after all; I'll be producing another Great Scientist (probably) around the time I'd get it, which means I could start another Golden Age. Just to confirm: Golden Ages stack, not overlap, right? You don't lose turns if you start more than one at once?

Azza's researching Guilds. About time someone else picked it up!

Pictures coming tomorrow!

[NobleHelium]

Yeah you get the normal number of turns added on to the current duration.

[TheHumanHydra]

Thanks, that's what I thought, but given what I thought with healing wasn't the case, I thought I should double-check!

[TheHumanHydra]

Turn 122:

Demos at start of turn, before Golden Age:







Builds:




The north:




The south:




Before ...

[TheHumanHydra]

Turn 123:

... after:













The front:




Got Gunpowder and the Great Library at end of turn. The latter will give me a Great Person in three turns, the same amount of time to research Economics for another Great Person and Golden Age. Another Great Person, the one I was originally counting on, should come out of Hydranauts a few turns later, and the Taj Mahal will hopefully finish about the same time as Economics for a third Golden Age. Meanwhile, I've been building catapults and drafting macemen; that'll obviously switch to musketmen presently.

In case anyone didn't know from Old Harry's thread, Azza's stack consists of 5 macemen, 2 keshiks, 1 pikeman, 7 axemen, 26 catapults, 10 spearmen, and 1 archer. Old Harry has 6 macemen, 4 crossbowmen, 3 pikemen, 6 axemen, 1 catapult, 1 spearman, and 1 archer in his capital and 2 macemen, 1 crossbowman, 3 horse archers, 3 axemen, 11 catapults, 3 spearmen, and his Great General medic scout a tile behind. I think Old Harry stands a good chance of destroying Azza's stack if he picks his battles wisely. That would be excellent for me; hopefully I would shortly be able to go on the offensive against the latter to exploit the situation. I have decided to dub my previously-detailed plan Operation Cromwell; my New Model Army is massing.

[TheHumanHydra]

I guess I actually played this turn 24 hours ago now:

I got my second wonder of the game:




Bizarre it was left for so long. There are several other wonders I could try and snag, but my plan calls for military builds. The Parthenon would be nice (yep, still there too), though the Shwedagon Paya is useless for me and the Statue of Zeus banned. If I were in total builder mode I would try for the University of Sankore and spread my religions more. I would also be building additional universities, and markets, grocers, and banks, but alas, this game calls for war. Oh, if anyone was curious as to the tech situation, Azza's finished Guilds and is now onto a two-turn Education. I'm onto Economics. Old Harry has Engineering, 'cause I've seen his pikes, while poor Serdoa must've recently finished Feudalism, because he whipped three longbowmen while my knights were healing:




I attacked with my knights, losing an unlucky five (statistically it should have been two; the RNG did not favour me), and destroying one longbowman, three spearmen, and seven horse archers, leaving what you see here. My Great General dueled one of his to victory. On his turn Serdoa killed a knight and two catapults that were poorly placed, and another knight down by his other two mainland cities that ran into unexpectedly heavy resistance, taking a horse archer with him. Interestingly, earlier in the war Serdoa never took shots at solitary knights like those two; now I guess he figures he has nothing to lose. Anyway, I lost 186 hammers on his turn to 33, and 300 on my turn to 333, though by all rights it should have been more like 120 to 422. This brings us to:

THH - 32 knights, 7 crossbowmen, 1 longbowman, 3 axemen, 2 catapults, 2 spearmen, 2 quechuas (2545 hammers total)
Serdoa - 39 horse archers, 1 longbowman, 17 catapults, 5 axemen, 1 chariot, 16 spearman, 2 archers, 1 warrior, 1 scout (2391 hammers total), cities of Thessalonica, Zz'gash, Nicaea, Char, Constantinople, Korhal

I am beginning to question taking this city - I realized its wide cultural spread is preventing Azza from settling another couple cities - good cities - down here, and it's obviously costing me in knights when I'm trying to effect a military buildup. I am probably going to propose peace this coming turn, in exchange for gold (er, Serdoa's, not mine). Who knows if he'll take it?

[TheHumanHydra]

This is a report in two parts. The first part I had wanted to write yesterday but didn't have time. I'll put it first since it was first in my thought processes and since, imageless, it should bump us onto a new page without cluttering this one with more images. The second part contains a proper turn report and full state-of-the-empire, though perhaps not many thoughts since you basically know all my plans (if anyone is unclear on any point, though, feel free to ask).

Pitboss 8 spoiler:

But there is always the possibility that I drag out the war, even though I can't win. See PBEM46.

I really wanted to respond to this, but didn't think Serdoa's spoiler thread was the right place. I've actually wanted to do a debrief on this war for a while now, but didn't think it made sense to do so while the war was still going on. This, however, seems to provide a fitting opportunity.

I don't believe Serdoa has succeeded in dragging out this war. In fact, he may have hastened his own demise.

Serdoa has fought well, annihilating my primary stack and making it costly to take his last few cities. But he has made what I think are three cardinal errors which helped my cause.

First, in the early, "dueling-armies" stage of the war, he consistently retreated too soon, hastening the advance of my armies. At Thessalonica, Zz'gash, and Char, he retreated his whole army the turn my knights came within striking distance, but not the rest of my forces. This allowed me to charge ahead with a single knight, take the city, and advance the rest of my forces over newly decultured roads, doubling their movement (unfortunately I was not able to take advantage of this at Zz'gash because I had previously moved my forces onto an unroaded hill).

While the principal was sound - trading space for time - this policy failed to maximize the time gained, and in fact accelerated the advance of my forces. Given the size of his army, my knights could not hope to take any of these cities in one turn without the support of the rest of my stack. Serdoa must have been afraid I would attack my knights alone, destroying a good portion of his forces without loss, and advance the rest of my army as a defensive base. But this would have required me to advance my infantry onto open ground next to his stack with all my best units damaged from fighting, a risky proposition I didn't intend to take. Thus while Serdoa's actions in the first phase of the war were understandable and even wise, preserving his army, they quickened, not slowed, the pace of operations and the onset of the crisis of the war.




Second, in the crisis phase of principal combat, Serdoa's attritional attacks brought about the timely destruction of his army and end of his effective resistance. His attack immediately I had taken Char was puzzling, as my forces were just as vulnerable (on open ground) just prior to seizing said valuable objective (they were behind a river, but this did not matter for his catapults whose primary purpose was collateral damage, nor for his horse archers, who could circumvent the obstacle, nor for his spearmen, because he didn't attack with them anyway - and if he had not been so quick to retreat, next turn my forces would have crossed the river). I suppose he felt he needed the handful of extra units he was able to attack with in the event - but if he had calculated so carefully, shouldn't he have realized the odds didn't favour him from an attritional perspective that first engagement?

Serdoa's next attack was equally puzzling. The turn I felt sure my stack would be destroyed due to my misunderstanding of the healing rules, he retreated, presumably to heal and amass a few more units. This allowed my army to heal, promote, and move onto defensive terrain (though I may have advanced too aggressively here). He attacked the following turn - that is, before his units had been able to spend a turn in place to heal! This increased my odds dramatically for our second engagement: though he did have sufficient forces to all-but-destroy my stack, this allowed me to maintain the attritional balance, which could only favour the power that had not lost half its cities.




Destroying my primary stack before it could unite with the secondary forces which had razed Nicaea was absolutely the correct move, but the precise timing of the attacks allowed Serdoa's capital to be destroyed unnecessarily early and, more importantly, resulted in the rapid attritional depletion of his army which neutered it as a fighting force. Henceforth, Serdoa would be unable to threaten my remaining forces and was reduced to defending his cities against whatever attacks I chose to make with whatever forces I chose to amass. The course of the remaining part of the war was entirely in my hands.

Serdoa's third error was not tactical but industrial-strategic, and will probably be my most controversial critique. Prior to my attack, Serdoa had created an army of horse archers to make good his losses against Old Harry and mount an attack against Azza. After I declared war, he persisted in training horse archers (supplemented by catapults) when spearmen would have been far more effective in both cost-efficiency and absolute terms against my knights, my principal striking force. This was presumably so they could both reach the front faster and attack more effectively against my army as a whole. This had profound tactical consequences. It meant Serdoa couldn't or at least didn't feel comfortable defending any of his cities, resulting in the hasty retreats which were the subject of my first criticism and the unqualified destruction of his cities wherever I was strong enough to advance - irregardless of my utter and senseless lack of siege units. It obligated Serdoa to attack to have any chance of damaging my forces, which as we have seen could only result in attritional parity which was strategically disastrous.

If Serdoa realized he couldn't win and determined to slow me down as much as possible, the correct course would have been to stock his cities with those units that would be most difficult and cost-inefficient for me to overcome, necessitating me to hold off, bring up reinforcements, and attack his cities with slow-moving siege units: all giving him time. This is what he has done in the final phase of the war (out of necessity, since his horses were cut off). You saw what it cost me last turn, and shall see what it persuaded me to do below.

Let us consider this final, "mopping-up" phase of the war. After a long pause to heal and bring up reinforcements following the capture of Korhal (necessary no matter what Serdoa did), I advanced on Tarsonis, garrisoned with the remnants of Serdoa's stack and new longbow units. Serdoa conducted his defence expertly, whipping the best defenders available, taking the opportunity to destroy my dangerous siege units, foolishly exposed, and managing the use of collateral damage to keep my units too weak to attack his best defenders for as many turns as possible (he suicided one catapult this turn, leaving three to use on subsequent turns). These are the tactics and force structure of an effective delaying action. Nevertheless, my initial attack was far more costly than it should have been, and I should have been able to capture this city much sooner. As it stands, the difficulty of assailing this objective, combined with increasing doubts as to its worth and international events, has persuaded me to withdraw my forces and offer peace to Serdoa:







I doubt he'll take it; he has nothing much to lose by prolonging a state of war. Best-case he accepts it, next-best he offers a blank peace which I can accept on my turn, next-worst he makes me offer the peace on my turn, costing me a turn of war-weariness, worst-case he doesn't agree to peace at all just to spite me!

But back to the war. One could say Serdoa achieved the best delaying action of all at the end of the war: that which renders it too costly to continue at all, this through the (forced) adoption of new tactics and unit types. However (this is what I was going to write about yesterday), my response also indicates Serdoa does not have the power to drag out the war in a real sense. With his army neutralized as an offensive force, Serdoa was only able to hole up in his city and defend. Combat only persisted because I wanted it to. I was free to press the attack, attack a different target, or abandon the effort at any time. In the event, I chose to cancel the offensive. Serdoa had no power to mire my forces in combat at any time since the destruction of both our stacks. Sorry if this sounds pedantic; I almost didn't include it, but since it was the original reason I was writing, I thought I should include it.

What, then, has been the balance sheet of this, my first large-scale war in a Realms Beyond Civilization game? I succeeded in attacking with surprise and technological advantage and destroying the better part of an opponent's empire, I think it is safe to say eliminating him from contention. Serdoa, the defender, succeeded in destroying my main army despite its advanced nature and staving off the total destruction of his empire. Assuming no more combat takes place, the total losses have been:

THH - 32 knights, 7 crossbowmen, 1 longbowman, 3 axemen, 2 catapults, 2 spearmen, 2 quechuas (2545 hammers total)
Serdoa - 39 horse archers, 1 longbowman, 18 catapults, 5 axemen, 1 chariot, 16 spearman, 2 archers, 1 warrior, 1 scout (2424 hammers total), cities of Thessalonica, Zz'gash, Nicaea, Char, Constantinople, Korhal (6 cities total)

That's a 121-hammer difference, this with the bad luck I suffered in our first and last engagements and the foolish waste of those two 1.0-health knights against Serdoa's warrior at Korhal, which alone accounts for the disparity. I also received 603 city-capture gold plus the better part of 100 plunder gold, which paid for the better part of Liberalism with obvious snowballing effects. I may yet receive 410 peace gold, but probably not.

Overall, while I am disappointed I wasn't able to preserve my main stack, I am satisfied with the results of this war. It achieved its primary objective, which was the elimination of another player from contention (the most skilled player in this game at that, thank goodness!). It also succeeded in its tactical conception, which (I don't know if I ever articulated it) was to fight a fast-moving "blitzkrieg" war that would overcome the enemy before he could develop a firm defence (the kind envisioned in my third point above). The strategic outflanking maneuver of sending forces via Nicaea also seems to have been successful, though it was not part of the original plan. This was accomplished with numerical inferiority countered by technological superiority and in the absence of artillery, which is the principal element of Civilization (and real) warfare.

Serdoa, my knights salute you and your horsemen! Well and chivalrously fought! We have accorded your captured troops the full honours of war:


Salute of Honor by Mort Kunstler


The Battle of Bosworth by Graham Turner