Brick by Brick (Spoiler Alert!)

[TheHumanHydra]

Apparently me losing cities was important enough for even Azza to post - that can't be a good sign. I suspect he'll draft some riflemen and see what mischief he can cause. If I'm lucky, he'll watch for de_inferno to become vulnerable (when Old Harry moves the garrison away to defend against me) and try and retake his old cities there, since they're really good (double gold) and closest to his current holdings. Or he may want revenge against me ...

[TheHumanHydra]

OH MY GOSH - Old Harry just adopted Mercantilism, which means - correct me if I'm wrong - even though he's Spiritual he can't switch civics again for five turns: no Slavery for him till 70 units are on his capital. He just deprived himself of the better part of the advantages of the defender (rapid unit production) during the critical phase of my approach march in plain sight (because his culture extends so far). Either he is supremely confident in his present army, augmented by conventional production, or I will have for the third time caught my enemy by surprise, despite the fact he just attacked me!

For reference, Old Harry is in Representation/Bureaucracy/Caste System/Mercantilism/Pacifism, just researched Banking, after Education, has 531 gold in his treasury after a turn of 100% spending - half the amount required to upgrade all his macemen to grenadiers; I'm fairly certain he hasn't done so already - and proposed peace with no conditions after an opportunistic shot last turn. All indicators point to an intended phase of peaceful development. With luck, he's accordingly been building universities and not grenadiers the last couple turns, though I do not count on that. I may have the preconditions for success here.

This is the point - I've experienced it repeatedly - where adrenaline starts flooding your system even though it can't do anything useful - somehow your body senses combat approaching even though it's not real. Your limbs feel weak and begin trembling, you become agitated, and you eat ice cream and post to wear it off before playing. You wonder if you're crazy or if everyone else feels the same way before launching an attack in multiplayer Civ.

My gosh, this is exciting. Will I have the battle I simmed? If he can't whip till I'm on him, and doesn't realize I'm coming, that just became that much more likely.

[TheHumanHydra]

I finally timed myself for one of these turns - 2.5 hours, probably more like two if I take out the breaks. I will attack t150. I'll show you my armies in a turn or two; this turn-report is for my cities, something you haven't seen in a long while. I wanted to show you how badly I've been abusing them to fight all these wars, especially this coming. Note the happiness/unhappiness totals especially. I triple-whipped three cities this turn for cavalry. Of course I resumed drafting three turns ago and am gleefully stacking draft unhappiness in my cities closest to the future front. Finally, lol @Hydranauts.




























Edit: oh, all those whips and gold spent with no tech progress should alert Old Harry I'm coming. Only question is if he realizes how soon. I'll see from his gold spending if/when he upgrades - that'll be the sign he believes attack is imminent.

[TheHumanHydra]

Out of curiousity, what's the largest single stack that's ever been raised on RB? If it's in a current game obviously don't mention it for spoilers. I know mine won't compare; I'm just interested to know.

[NobleHelium]

There were stacks on the order of 200 units in PBEM 8, and probably 4v too.

[TheHumanHydra]

Cool; I'll have to check that out. Maybe I've already read it and just don't remember.

Edit: ah, yes, that one. I was thinking about it today, actually; the great cavalry victory.

[TheHumanHydra]

Just one screenshot this turn, to keep you in suspense ...




... and it's not of the front!

I'm really proud of the city and troop (!) micro I've done the past several turns to get the maximum number of units possible into Old Harry's territory the first few turns of war. Unfortunately, it's all rather fiddly so tedious to show. Now I need to make the choice whether to keep going all-out on military in an effort to win this now or start on civilian builds (including settlers) and prepare for the long haul. The second is more realistic: my experience with Serdoa suggests my stack will be destroyed at some point; the only question is how much damage it manages to do before then. Realistically, it might not be enough to knock him out of contention - but perhaps enough that I can place myself on equal or better long-term footing (right now the long-term situation is looking dire).

Old Harry should know for sure this turn an attack is imminent: it was necessary to reveal a small portion of my advancing forces to him this turn, and I refused another (very strange) peace offer - this in addition to my rather large power spike and population drop last turn. He will finish Rifling this turn; presumably he will allocate enough gold to upgrade all his macemen after that and tech Nationalism in time to switch to Nationhood/Slavery in three turns. Then we get to see 16 cities (de_inferno's not out of resistance) transform themselves into an instant army. That's like 20 units a turn if he whips savagely - you can see why I'm not optimistic about getting that far.

Next turn, if nothing intervenes, you get to see my army, almost certainly at its all-game height. Then it's war turns, and we get to see whether I can do enough damage to pull off the win (short-term or long-term) or whether Old Harry's brilliantly-staged recovery and my rampant warring have truly handed him the game in a bag.

[TheHumanHydra]

Old Harry has ... chosen unwisely!*










After end-of-turn:




Note the last number in the list.

In other news:




* (Actually, it's probably me that's going to lose the war; I just wanted to say that.)

[thestick]

About time for some music?
http://youtu.be/5n7qfRNzS3s?t=3m24s

[NobleHelium]

I think Ride of the Valkyries makes for great war music.