Brick by Brick (Spoiler Alert!)

[TheHumanHydra]

It does take a very long time to load your screenshots. Europeans tend to have bandwidth-capped or metered connections. I don't, but I'm not paying attention to your thread much because the screenshots have been taking an increasingly longer amount of time to load. Nobody really cares how long it takes you to upload the screenshots, people care about how long it takes to download them.

Ok, thank you; I was not aware of this issue before and as I said will attempt to correct it. I don't know why they'd be taking an increasing amount of time to load (I don't think I'm uploading more of them), but I'll work on it when I have time.

Mechanics question: if I Artist-bomb a just-captured city, am I guaranteed to get first-ring borders there? If not, is there a less arcane way of figuring out whether I will than determining the hidden "cultural value" of each individual tile? Barring that, are there any practical examples of this in games on this site (or elsewhere, I guess ...) I could guesstimate off of? Mmm, maybe I could set up a sim ...

Your subsequent questions make it obvious that you've looked this up and thus you should know what the answer to the first question is.

Of course I looked it up; in my experience, when you ask a question on the internet without making some effort to find the answer first, you get yelled at. But the CivFanatics article I found was filled with said "arcane" information that made my brain hurt without answering my question directly, and no other webpages seemed relevant. Hence my questions. Also, why the snark?

[NobleHelium]

I'm a snarky person.

Anyway, if you know that it depends on the tile culture then there's your answer, it depends on the tile culture. Why would you be guaranteed of first ring borders?

[TheHumanHydra]

Perhaps the amount of tile culture it gives you in the first ring is always enough to flip it to you? I don't know, that's why I'm asking questions. Is there a more helpful reader who could provide some assistance, or shall I sim it on my own?

[Commodore]

Unfortunately it's not easily determined; the GA bomb will net you 2.7k-ish culture (forget the exact Quick number, but it's enough for fifth ring). If the culture in a given tile in that area has more than 2.7k Other culture, it remains Other. Absent you tracking current culture totals you're putting on that tile and figuring what they are, it's a bit of a die-roll.

[NobleHelium]

The amount of tile culture generated is not the same as the amount of city culture generated. As you read, the tile culture is broken into chunks and then applied in order. I don't remember the exact numbers, and it depends on your existing city culture value before the bomb, but it's obvious that there is no guarantee of anything because tile culture is an unbounded value.

[TheHumanHydra]

Thank-you, Commodore, that at least gives me a place to start.

Edit @ NobleHelium: Yes, I did read that. Obviously this will require simming, though I'll probably refrain now that it's obvious I won't get to a point where it's relevant. In case it wasn't obvious, the idea was to bomb Altrincham the turn I took it (in theory), giving me first-ring borders there so my two-movers could hit all of Preston, Crewe, Darlington, and Matlock that same turn. The same could alternately be done at Kettering and Exeter. Ah well. [/edit]

Speaking of simming, I just did some now that I know what Old Harry's army actually looks like. He has 35 rifles, 32 cannon, 23 grens, 20 cavs, 15 pikes, 13 cats, and miscellaneous trash visible to me throughout his empire, most of them obviously concentrating on my stack. As a reminder, I have 51 infantry, 19 cavs, 5 rifles, 15 cannon, 2 muskets, 4 maces, 8 cats, and 2 trebss therein. That's 138 units for him, discounting trash, to 106 for me. The total strength of his units is 1605. The total strength of my stack is 1653 - almost identical. Sims indicate the result of the confrontation will be similar to that of the last war at best - and obviously worse for me the longer he waits. As such, assuming Old Harry behaves rationally, he will destroy my stack before it can make much progress and will win the game.

On an amusing note, most of his cavalry is in a position to enter my territory next turn; if it does so, it is actually impossible for me to prevent it from raising at least Hydranauts and Wild West. Deprived of his cavalry, I suppose it would be possible for me to take Barnet, leading to a situation where we both rampage through at least part of each other's cores. I have no idea if this is his intention or not.

Anyway, it appears I've lost the game, folks. I suppose I'll play it out to the best of my ability, but there's not much I can do from here save advance and take the blows until I can no more. Ah well. (Though this does make me question what it is one is supposed to do to win an offensive war in this game - not even tech advantage is enough?)

Oh, furthermore, Azza's time to Astronomy dropped to four turns, halving the time till he can boat me, and Old Harry switched to Physics (which he may even be able to bulb), indicating a run at Artillery for ... artillery in the near future. The decline and fall of the Hydran Empire has begun.

The one positive note is that Old Harry's troop movements follow the pattern I projected in my map to the T - go me, I guess ...

I'll play the turn later; for now, I've got to do some RL stuff.

[TheHumanHydra]

Actually, drafting and whipping might give me enough units to hold those northern cities if he did decide to come after them, depending on his movements. If so, that would actually be good, because it would deprive him of those units. It's more likely they're staging to hit my main stack in a tile he believes is out of my line-of-sight, though, of course.

... Sorry, pictures will come to make all this clearer when I actually play the turn. I can't guarantee they'll be in a new file format yet, though. Only so much time in a day ... and I should really be doing something else right now ...

[Commodore]

Confused...no chance to just take border city(s) and keep economy-drag-racing? Factories are a major boost.

[TheHumanHydra]

Maybe. I may be able to take his northern border cities (Lancaster, Halifax, Kettering, Exeter if I'm really lucky), and perhaps his island, like I said in my plans. If I can achieve a favourable exchange-ratio in the main confrontation, like I did in the last war, so that he's gassed despite victory, I may be able to force those "low-resources" situations I talked about in my plans everywhere with infantry freshly drafted - though he can produce units much faster than me conventionally due to Police State - and grind him down regardless of initial defeat. Or that might be wishful thinking. But like I've said before, I don't think I can beat him in the long run economically. We're essentially on even footing right now technologically, albeit with different techs. He has State Property and will be first to the Kremlin if he wants it; it'll take me a while to get to Communism. The build-times on factories - plus the accompanying coal plants - are enormous - I don't know how everyone else has the mfg. goods they do with the same terrain - and I need my cities building cannon right now. Tech times are also enormous; I can spike well, but Old Harry's steady tech-rate is much faster, and I have no more Golden Ages to push me ahead. Best case scenario, I can still beat him, but it will be a slogging match, it will demand luck and for him to make mistakes and me not to, and it cannot be other than through war.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I know more than a couple of you look at this game and think "he's got this; defend on your (mil.) tech advantage and tech upward" - but I'm not you; you could do that, but I scarcely know what I'm doing in these games! (And I'm about to lose that one advantage ...). The only reason I'm in the position I'm in now is because Serdoa, the best player in the game, crippled himself and Old Harry in an early war, while Azza put himself behind with a succession of costly wars from the start through to the Renaissance. My performance hasn't been that good (comparing to other, similar games); it's just that I was the only one able to perform for a while. Given the chance - even in spite of repeated defensive wars - Old Harry was able to rebuild himself from scratch and rise to equal the leader, while my margin of advantage has only narrowed. The contrast in skill is obvious.

I really, truly am sorry to have been so negative through a lot of this thread, and now; I know it must be a drag to read especially when you can no doubt see a clear path to victory from my position that I seem unwilling to follow, but I just - don't believe in myself that strongly; I don't have the skills you do, readers, or the morale. I don't have much gas left in my own personal tank. Anyway, very sorry again; I hope I don't tire you with my persistent self-doubt; at least I still play to the best of my ability within the field of vision I possess. Maybe next time, if I do decide to play again, I should ask one of you to dedlurk me and keep me on track, even though I do think I work best alone. Anyway, and sorry I don't have a turn to report on; I didn't end up having time what with all the thought that obviously had to go into it - I did get to play a wicked game of Mafia with my friends tonight though - I rethemed it to vampires and turned all the lights off, and made the dead villagers join the vampires when they were bitten. The players were honestly freaked out. Bwahahahaha.

Cheers,

THH

[TheHumanHydra]

Not much to report for turn 176. I won the first battle of the war, ironclad vs. trireme at 99.9% odds: flawless victory. If only they all could be so ...