Brick by Brick (Spoiler Alert!)

[NobleHelium]

Well you should read my games with Gaspar. The actual reporting is generally not for the teammate but for the lurkers. We play the turns together and have Civ open at the same time (except for the early turns which don't need any discussion besides scouting once you've agreed to an opening). You can see some of the chat logs from those games, but we don't post most of them. I probably have on the order of hundreds of thousands of lines of chat on record.

[TheHumanHydra]

What the crap is this? Old Harry attacked my stack on the hill and lost a bunch of units. What?

Oh, and I find it funny how Bigger posts in Old Harry's thread after every battle.

Edit: Never mind, I lost a bunch too. 7 riflemen, 6 grenadiers, 3 horse archers, 1 catapult killed (1045 hammers) to 2 cavalry, 14 riflemen, 2 musketmen lost (1288 hammers). Still, why attack me on the hill? Was he afraid of a pile of reinforcements showing up next turn?

[TheHumanHydra]

Guys, this is crazy, but I think I'm going to attack Old Harry's stack. Sacrifice my army to take out his ... sort-of. I'll still have the dozen units from the south, and my cavalry from the north - they can escape into my territory this turn. It's either that or retreat onto the flat ground, take my 50-50 battles, probably lose everything since he has more units. This way I can do collateral and probably get a better kill-ratio. And it's what I'd have to do anyway if he attacked my territory - but I actually have the units to do it with now. If it goes well, the massive depletion in his ranks coupled with my small surviving army (the southern stuff and the cavs) should make me safe for a while, which is all I can ask for now. I'm going to sleep on it, but I may be marching down into his lines tomorrow (just like real life, eh? Issue the orders at night, let the soldiers sleep a few hours, arise to combat the next day). It'll be my first real grand attack - in all my wars, I've always been the one who's stack has been attacked. The largest attacks I've mounted were the eight-knight strike against Serdoa's spears in Korhal and the battle for de_nuke - but that one only took three cats; it wasn't an all-out assault like this would be. This will be one heck of a battle.

Oh, and news from the south. This was the situation at the start of the turn (you can compare to the same shot from last turn on the previous page):




Why are there not a half-a-dozen units in Lancaster? Seriously, what? I am so confused. Anyway, still terrible odds with both cavalry and riflemen. So I though, you know what? My unit with the best chance of survival is a cavalry, by virtue of its retreat chance. Huh. Why not maximize it? So I promoted a cavalry to Flanking II for a 69% withdrawal chance and attacked. I think his rifleman had City Garrison II; it was a really strong defender (1% combat odds). Took him down to 2.2 health! 3.3 left on the cav. Debated doing the same with a second (of three) cavalry, but wanted to save them to hold off grenadiers or something. I sent in my one Combat I rifleman at 24% odds against his second, unpromoted rifleman. Got really lucky; he won! 4.8 health left, and four or five more XP. Then I cleaned up: 99% odds rifle vs. archer (10.4 health left), 99.9% rifle vs. damaged rifle, full health afterwards. I can't believe it - I actually just took Lancaster. This is the best city-site on the map, home to Aquanauts, Tarsonis, and de_ ... whatever.




Oh, that's satisfying. Makes up for the loss of Ollantaytambo and whatever that other city was called put together. Let's take a look:




This was a well-developed city, and still has all its key buildings. Tempting ... but no, I razed it. We are now 16 cities to my 13, with several more on the way. Azza's at eight, Serdoa seven.

Then there's this, from the start of the turn:




Still first in! Hear that new soundtrack, readers? That, my friends, is the sound of hope.

"And before that steam drill shall beat me down, I'll die with my hammer in my hands."

[TheHumanHydra]

Post-spam! Either that or I hit his stack with several of the cats to force his units' health low enough that I think I'll win most of the battles and try and make off with everything else. Decisions, decisions. How about you guys post in the lurker thread what you think I should do, and we'll see if I make the right choice tomorrow!

[TheHumanHydra]

"My centre is giving way, my right is retreating: situation excellent - I attack."

~ Ferdinand Foch, the Marne, 1914

Pushed from the gates of Barnet back to Forlorn Hill by successive Indian hammer-blows, on 21 June 1648 the Incan Army of the North, battered but not broken, turned and counterattacked its oppressors. The Incan yellowjackets, bloodied and weary after days of unremitting fighting and weeks of marching, nevertheless advanced down the bare slopes of the hill in parade-square order, following the barrage of their artillery, and put black-stained teeth to cartridge and trembling finger to trigger to shatter the fresh formations facing them in volley after volley. These were no professional soldiers: they were the Incan people in arms, some fighting out of patriotic elan, others, conscripts, out of fear of the whip and the steel of the enemy. Time and again the cry rang out, scarce heard over the musket-fire: "Fix bayonets! Charge!" A rush of adrenaline, a surge of running steps, minee balls in the hundreds buzzing past the ears, and the impact of pointed steel on wool-clothed chest. The sweating yellow line reforms, fresh formations loom, they too are put to death - until the sun sets, and the enemy cannot be found by the flashes of his muskets, for he has none left: every man, save the peasants in their quaking levies with their pikes, is dead. The Incans feel their way to camp by the slope of the land. They walk not on grass, but on bodies.

~~~~~

I suicided nine of 18 catapults, then attacked with my damaged riflemen at ~85-90+% odds, killing grenadiers and riflemen, till his healthiest pikes defended, which I hit with a couple more catapults (they retreated) so my maces could get at his heaviest-damaged gunpowder units. I killed a few pikes with remaining riflemen and a couple cavalry, sadly losing one of the latter with good odds at the end. He was left with what you see below:




That's 9 catapults, 3 riflemen, 1 maceman, 1 cavalry lost (642 hammers) to destroy 9 grenadiers, 9 riflemen, 1 crossbowman, 4 pikemen (1460 hammers)*. Now, his pikes on that tile plus his assorted grenadiers lying around should be able to mostly destroy my stack on that hill, hopefully at some cost. Alternatively, they can hit the rest of my army, retreating, but they would hopefully be unsuccessful:







And the south, for good measure:




(Again, that tile, though flat ground, covers my injured units and lets me advance to either of two tiles to threaten his city rather than letting him block me on the one possible tile if I had moved to the hill.)

So why did I do it?

Well, I figured if I let his army be and just covered my retreat with catapult collateral, I'd have to attack it at some point anyway when he entered my land. Might as well do it now when many of his units are injured, he has almost no catapults to worry about (or soak up collateral), many of his units are still unupgraded pikes, he hasn't had time to add a dozen more units to his stack, etc. This way I get to escape (hopefully) with at least some units, including all-important siege units, while he has to build/whip up to do anything, including feel safe. I don't know, I feel safer with a few units and no enemy stack than many units and a huge enemy stack on the map. This will only last so long, of course. As it stands, I am forcing him to damage his economy with whips, which is good, but if he whips/drafts really heavily and attacks, I will be forced to do irreparable damage to my economy with drafts. After ending turn, war-weariness in all my cities skyrocketed, as I knew it would. This is still not a good situation, and it was a questionable decision; I still don't know if I was right or wrong. But then there's that final reason ... it was fun. Very fun.

Anyway, I offered Old Harry the following (had to give some incentive ...). Might save my army; that'd be a big win. Probably won't. Worth a shot:




I also offered peace to Azza and Serdoa, not that they'll take it.

To conclude, let's look at the usual suspects ...










I learned something new after ending turn: war-weariness appears to be capped at a city's population. That's right, most of my cities have as much war-weariness as they do population points. Plus, you know, stacked draft unhappiness, up to four times. I'll probably have to start running the cultural slider next turn. But, in spite of this - we're still kickin'.

Let me know if you have any questions, comments, congratulations, or berations.

* Plus 2 riflemen, 1 archer at Lancaster for 1606 hammers total this turn (no losses for me in the south).

Edit: by the way, Old Harry apparently lost 307 000 soldiers this turn, to my 106 000. That's not counting our losses on his two preceding turns. Those are dizzying real-life figures, fyi.

[Commodore]

Heh, so I forgot this wasn't Always War, actually. Good update! What's the plan now Stan?

[TheHumanHydra]

Thank you! Yeah, this game pretty much devolved into Always War a while ago. Future plans: I really don't know. Theoretically, I'm using the remnants of my armies to defend my territory as I settle up to parity with Old Harry, let my draft unhappiness cool off, regrow my cities, and tech up to infantry. Realistically, Old Harry has so much population and so much mfg he can turn into units (he's about to land Nationalism), war-weariness and draft unhappiness are so crushing (like I said, I just hit a ceiling on the former I'm not even sure very many people knew existed), and the tech-time to Assembly Line so long I will probably be overwhelmed sometime in the next dozen turns. I really need thirty turns of peace right now, and thirty turns is a long, long time.

My mistakes were:

1. Not maintaining a steady pace of horizontal expansion
2. Drafting too heavily when the units weren't needed
3. Underestimating Old Harry's rate of recovery

I should have kept the first city I took from Azza (which I'm planning on resettling on the exact same spot) and settled the cities I'm founding now much earlier: maintained rough city-parity with Old Harry. I should not have drafted nearly so many rifles, and left my cities in competitive state. These preconditions in place, I should not have attacked Old Harry, and instead bided my time, relying on a research pace that was actually improving instead of stagnant, allowing Old Harry to catch up. But I had no understanding of how quick Old Harry's tech rate was when I made the opposite decisions, or how quickly it was improving. I thought Rifling was basically end-game, that my hordes of riflemen would be able to sweep over his muskets and medieval units. Hence why his sudden discovery of Military Science gave me such a heart attack.

I laid out my best- and worst-case scenarios above; realistically, my plans must depend on Old Harry's. If he decides on a period of peace, I may have a chance to fulfill my plans, although I'm probably still toast long-term. If he decides to continue the war but not go into crazy-mode, it'll be a long grinding decline for me. If he goes into crazy-mode (drafting/whipping with abandon like I have), I'll be done in short order; I can't keep up with that - my empire's spent militarily. The price of destroying two empires and prosecuting major war against a third in the course of 47 turns. Old Harry's victory was won by my knights and maces.

Sorry to sound so depressive! I'm actually not. As I've been saying, I've been having a lot more fun now that I've given up on winning (but not given up on trying to win). And you never know: many of the twists and turns of the game have been utterly incomprehensible to me; perhaps the Wheel of Fortune will turn my way once again. At the very least, I can promise you lurkers more blood on the horizon before the end.

Thank you all for reading; I am astounded by the number of views this thread gets every turn. I shall endeavour to make it worth your while!

[TheHumanHydra]

And you never know: many of the twists and turns of the game have been utterly incomprehensible to me; perhaps the Wheel of Fortune will turn my way once again.

It's a start.

[TheHumanHydra]

I was about to say, I don't know why my and Old Harry's threads keep getting scores of views when neither of us have posted anything for several days ... when he posts. I wonder what about (he doesn't have the save ...).

So, I'm sorry to the lurkers for keeping the save several days again. I figured, Old Harry's on holiday and can't really play much, so why not? No, I didn't take advantage of this to do any intricate planning; rather, I used it to cool off after the emotional whirlwind that was that war. And to play Skyrim. I just got all the DLC; Dawnguard is really cool.

For a random historical tidbit, that war was fought in the same timeframe as the devastating 30 Years' War in Europe. Ended exactly the right turn, 1650 (1648). Feels appropriate, fated. Anyway, I have all the pics for a full state-of-the-empire for this turn; I want to do a before-and-after of this crucial 10-turn peace in the eye of the storm. I need to use this peace to try and get ahead of Old Harry, and well on the way to Assembly Line. I wasn't quite ready for this challenge a few days ago coming off of the huge emotional release that was that last battle and consequent peace. I am now; we'll see how it goes. But first, I must go play in a concert. And then maybe discover some more vampiric secrets. And then post my turn-report.

[NobleHelium]

Yeah, I don't think they were teching to Assembly Line right after the Thirty Years' War.