AT loves it when a plan comes together!! [Spoilers]

[MindyMcCready]

A nitpick on some recent discussion, though:

Oh well, with whatever minimal little influence Jowy has left on this game he's going to determine that TT gets the cities not us. After all we deserve it because we killed his stack,...in our territory. Its a little like the PB7 game where Seven was pisssed with Xenu. He complained that Xenu was defending only against Seven,....but I don't think that Xenu was offered peace,...

Well, it's a bit like PB7 in that Jowy is being attacked by two neighbors at the same time. That's about as far as the similarity goes, I think. Specifics below, feel free to skip the spoiler if PB7 flashbacks give you nausea, as they do to me, and also because this is a minor thread hijack. Keep up the good reporting and, of course, the bloodletting!

Hey, don't get me wrong. I agreed with you. As an omnipotent lurker, I thought that the criticism was unfair because you had to pick a front to most heavily defend. That's just natural with stack warfare. That's why I said that 'Seven was pissed' with you; I didn't say that you didn't defend correctly. So I wasn't knocking you in any way. Another difference in that game was that there was diplo. So (no offense) both you and Seven were rubbing each other the wrong way and so the grudge was born.

No diplo in this game and we've never planted a city in anyway aggressive, defensive really, so its a little hard to understand why Jowy would be antagonistic enough against us to CHOOSE to lose a city when he could have just signed peace with us and kept Rannoch.

There's some possibility that Jowy's not trolling us so I'm going to try to have more patience. Maybe TT showed up with a superstack and he had no choice, but with TT's lower power and 3 units we have no evidence of that right now and it probably still means that he should have signed peace with us.

Really it's only the longshot that Jowy's trying to save himself by having TT and us come to blows. And boy I'm tempted on that front. So if that's his angle; kudos Jowy.

And I don't really mean to knock Seven either; because I largely feel the same way he did however unwarranted in either of our cases.

[AutomatedTeller]

so, ethical question I am sure I know the answer to:

IF we reload, is it considered kosher for me to change my moves? I learned nothing moving - the only thing is that I looked at tech after moving, instead of before.

Now, if the situation was that CF had declared war on me, then I would feel completely justified in moving back, cause that's really different

[MindyMcCready]

I did run some sims -one included extra LB after I took the defenses down. In basically every sim, we ripped him apart pretty well. Now, that's before I understand his promos and those could make a difference. In any case, we won't take the city the first turn, but we might take it the 2nd. or, of course, everything could die a horrible death, of course.

Anyway - it was enough for me to think that we have a chance to take eden prime.

Wow, I'm surprised. Was that before the 3 LBs that he has in there now or after?

[AutomatedTeller]

that was with 4 lB's in there, but after we reduced his defense to 0, which will take awhile.

The difference between Eden Prime and LA Law was:

Why is it that we can rip apart eden prime and he really couldnt' take LA Law?

1) We had CG III and CG II LB - he has CG I.
2) We were on a hill
3) We had walls so it was harder to reduce
4) Our secondary defenders were Maces, crossbows and pikes - his are axes and elephants
5) He could have ripped apart LA Law had he chosen to. He chose not to - that decision cost him.

Quite possibly, like my decision to keep going may cost us.


and - if Jowy just wants us and TT to fight - why not just offer peace for my going to war with TT???

[MindyMcCready]

so, ethical question I am sure I know the answer to:

IF we reload, is it considered kosher for me to change my moves? I learned nothing moving - the only thing is that I looked at tech after moving, instead of before.

Now, if the situation was that CF had declared war on me, then I would feel completely justified in moving back, cause that's really different

OMG, 3 turns? What the heck could warrant that?

Personally I would do things differently. I'm not sure whether your sim was before or after those 3 LB, but I still surprised at your sim results and I'm very concerned about our prospects of retaining Horizon if this battle goes badly.

I would have made a strong case for TT to play after us. I just really think that we played 1st; Jowy played second so TT should have played third. No one has indicated why that shouldn't be the case AFAIK. It might also make sense that we play 1st; TT plays second and Jowy plays 3rd to keep it 50-50 on the timer split. Sure, these splits benefit us but why should TT get to choose when that choice cost us a city? Our plan and timing to fork the 2 cities and run up W2 maces has been there for a long time before TT got invovled in the war. So again, why did TT get to make that choice in a war that we were already involved in?

Its also hard to believe that Jowy, who just went up another notch on the troll likelihood metre (sorry, I'm trying to be patient but he's pushing my buttons ) is not going to take advantage of the situation. Minor, minor thing but do we imagine that Jowy's workers are still going to be in that forest?

I'd like to be ethical and all that, but geez 3 turns is a lot. And we're relying on the same ethical standards being followed by everyone; our main 'opponent' being one of them.

If we're replaying the turns I think that we replay them and not necessarily identically. That should be an understood requirement for the reload. It that too unfair? But jeez, 3 turns is huge. And gawd, I'm not looking forward to reliving those same troll offers that Jowy keeps putting forward.

Personally, its a heck of a lot easier to not feel like I'm deliberately inflicting bodily wounds on myself by not allowing the reload. My belief that we're going to be in the same position 3T after the reload is rather limited.

[AutomatedTeller]

no, not three turns. 3 war MOVES. Basically, it gets reloaded to just before Jowy's last turn. I don't really understand how that affects anything for cornflakes

[MindyMcCready]

that was with 4 lB's in there, but after we reduced his defense to 0, which will take awhile.

The difference between Eden Prime and LA Law was:

Why is it that we can rip apart eden prime and he really couldnt' take LA Law?

1) We had CG III and CG II LB - he has CG I.
2) We were on a hill
3) We had walls so it was harder to reduce
4) Our secondary defenders were Maces, crossbows and pikes - his are axes and elephants
5) He could have ripped apart LA Law had he chosen to. He chose not to - that decision cost him.

Quite possibly, like my decision to keep going may cost us.


and - if Jowy just wants us and TT to fight - why not just offer peace for my going to war with TT???

Dude, I don't think that we can take this city. We HAVE to assume that people are going to feed Jowy all of the tech/gold he needs to catch up. He got to Feudalism way ahead of your estimate and even ahead of my conservative guesstimate. We have to assume that he can 3-move on roads. We have to assume that he's got more units either on route or hiding in bait. This is the most razor edge of margins that you're taking us into. And he hasn't even really whipped Eden Prime yet which means that he's not worried. <-- That should concern you.

We need to get back to keep the city we got. We need to wait for more catapults and 5 galleys and execute the only plan that involves enough surprise and speed to have a solid chance at success. Jowy's trolling us but if we're outside of his territory he might, just might (who knows?) defend his cities against TT.

I mean, no guts no glory and all, but we're going in with even numbers at best and only 3 catapults. Worse, we've got quite a few cities back on infrastructure including our front line city of BJ. So we're not replacing our numbers sufficiently to deter Cornflakes.

Having Azza down to 1 or 2 cities with a hundread units means,..... Cornflakes say 'screw this', I'll wait to outtech him and out produce him easily and go around planting cities and taking other opportunities. That stack is just not worth the fight.

Maybe we take Eden Prime. We're still going to take losses, we're hugely exposed to counter attack, we've let TT have his foot hold onto this chunk of land and CF is looking at us.

[MindyMcCready]

no, not three turns. 3 war MOVES. Basically, it gets reloaded to just before Jowy's last turn. I don't really understand how that affects anything for cornflakes

Oh whew! That's better. Takes away all those tough ethical questions. And I don't have to relive Jowy's persuasive 'offers'.

Basically, he's flipping us the bird and saying you get nothing because TT gets everything. Hardy-har-har.

Basically we need to pay him for him to fight TT. But on top of appearing to make no sense, it also makes no sense. If we accept that TT's going to get the cities we're ahead by keeping our money anyway.

I'm sorry, its very hard to not see this as city gifting for spite. Paying him to fight TT is pretty much paying him to not gift cities to TT.

[AutomatedTeller]

TT was the one who traded us engineering. I don't know if he traded it around or if someone else got it. I guess I should pay attention to that.

If TT is the only one who researched engineering - well, Jowy isn't getting it anytime soon.

Jowy has no counterattack force - everything is in eden prime. If we take it, he collapses. is it worth the risk? I dunno.

[MindyMcCready]

TT was the one who traded us engineering. I don't know if he traded it around or if someone else got it. I guess I should pay attention to that.

If TT is the only one who researched engineering - well, Jowy isn't getting it anytime soon.

Jowy has no counterattack force - everything is in eden prime. If we take it, he collapses. is it worth the risk? I dunno.

Fine, its probably worth the risk since we're here already. But you need to stop being tempted by builder mode until the results of this battle are in and we're replenished our ranks. Alot of your cities are on infrastructure, some of it is military infrastructure to be sure, but we're missing replacement boots on the ground. Maybe you're just not posting it, but I see no pics of reinforcements coming in. Before that was ok, because we were making a 5 galley push into Citadel. We're down to a 2-galley push and I'm still not seeing reinforcements (whether they are there or not).

And stop talking about universities and the 1400H that will cost while Jowy's still trolling us. I mean, you can build universities fine. But you can't walk into Jowy's land with even numbers, have half our cities on infrastructure and be talking about universities and OR without giving me heart flutters.

Pick a lane dude. Its either war or not war. Invasion or not invasion. It's all about critical mass and focus. You are, to a lesser degree, making the same mistake that Jowy did in switching to builder mode while having your army in foreign territory. I was trying to be soft about this BUT THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE DOING.