So the bad news. SlowC is definately attacking me. He has a roughly ~50% chance of succeeding, with the odds increasing if he's willing to send more waves. This feels like the inverse of the TBS situation earlier - 50/50 chance of punishing an aggressive settle, only now I'm the guy overreaching. Ugh. If only I'd waited just a BIT longer. I think I have to consider WC a mistake, at least before settling with substantial force.
At the beginning of the turn:
When I logged back in (don't know what happened with the black bar stuff)
Sooo, what to do about this. I'll have two chariots stacked in the city by the time he can attack. He has ~70% odds attacking out of the ship with each one, giving him ~49% chance of victory. If he lands first, he has better odds (~81% for 2 victories), but I'll finish the spear in WC (ugh, 1 turn too late, ugh), meaning SlowC will have to ALSO attack with additional troops from the galley (ax/keshik).
Those odds are somewhat more complicated, keshik v spear (victory), then keshik v spear again if I'm somewhat lucky (not THAT lucky) with the battle results, which could be anywhere from 50-90% odds against me, if he loses that he can't take it that turn, if we wins its still somewhat up for grabs, if the first battle injures the spear a LOT he probably takes the city, bleh bleh more math.
End result - city is very much up in the air. Frankly, so is Milos potentially... I reinforce it (ax/spear arrive) in 5t, and the ax sitting on the right of the screen can cover it as well.
I think I have to conclude this was too aggressive city placement. I should have let the chariots scout before deciding on a spot (or change the spot afterwards) and settled milos before WC, got milos up to decent size so it can whip and produce defenders, then take the WC spot with a larger settling force. Misplay on my part. I was thinking this wasn't THAT aggressive given the spot is actually equidistant from our capitals (and more diagonal from his), AND across the sea, but I didn't think about at the time that it was stealing all of SlowC's food, which probably prompted the aggression.
Mistakes, but I'll try to hold the city. Honestly whats lost here isn't really the city itself (which hasn't grown to be useful yet), or the 100hammers from the settler (not that big of deal at this point, but somewhat), what's lost here is whether I have that island long term. I'm running out of useful spots to settle, and I need to be larger than my opponents cause my land isn't good enough to sustain a tall civ. Here are teh spots available - none that promising:
Aggressive against OH, lacking in food, lots of desert/peaks
The good spot requires a border pop to do anything, i'll settle this after I have caste and pop borders with an artist:
Same border pop problem as above, also aggressive v SlowC
A note on that: I'm not complaining about my land per se, it has advantages and disadvantages. It started out pretty fast, and sustains cities perfectly fine while the happy cap is ~6. The problem is after 6 I start running out of grassland, so my growth plummets. So the land is good out the gate, but I don't think a winning allotment in the long term absent aggressive settling or just aggressive... aggression.
Ok, that was a long essay. On to the rest of the turn... well there isn't a ton of "rest of the turn". I'm about to complete the National Epic for another paper-tiger score boost (proof that civ4 score is stupid: I'm on top)
Growing over here, and EC just pumping those 1t military units (2t worker after this since I'll have built up enough overflow)
TBS is actually recovering pretty nicely. Part of that is by design (avoid turning him into a cornered animal with nothign left to do but attack me), but I don't want him to be too strong... still planning to eat him one day
He's not doing that poorly in city count. Must be settling his (very nice) island, is Nakor not fighting him for that?
At the beginning of the turn:
When I logged back in (don't know what happened with the black bar stuff)
Sooo, what to do about this. I'll have two chariots stacked in the city by the time he can attack. He has ~70% odds attacking out of the ship with each one, giving him ~49% chance of victory. If he lands first, he has better odds (~81% for 2 victories), but I'll finish the spear in WC (ugh, 1 turn too late, ugh), meaning SlowC will have to ALSO attack with additional troops from the galley (ax/keshik).
Those odds are somewhat more complicated, keshik v spear (victory), then keshik v spear again if I'm somewhat lucky (not THAT lucky) with the battle results, which could be anywhere from 50-90% odds against me, if he loses that he can't take it that turn, if we wins its still somewhat up for grabs, if the first battle injures the spear a LOT he probably takes the city, bleh bleh more math.
End result - city is very much up in the air. Frankly, so is Milos potentially... I reinforce it (ax/spear arrive) in 5t, and the ax sitting on the right of the screen can cover it as well.
I think I have to conclude this was too aggressive city placement. I should have let the chariots scout before deciding on a spot (or change the spot afterwards) and settled milos before WC, got milos up to decent size so it can whip and produce defenders, then take the WC spot with a larger settling force. Misplay on my part. I was thinking this wasn't THAT aggressive given the spot is actually equidistant from our capitals (and more diagonal from his), AND across the sea, but I didn't think about at the time that it was stealing all of SlowC's food, which probably prompted the aggression.
Mistakes, but I'll try to hold the city. Honestly whats lost here isn't really the city itself (which hasn't grown to be useful yet), or the 100hammers from the settler (not that big of deal at this point, but somewhat), what's lost here is whether I have that island long term. I'm running out of useful spots to settle, and I need to be larger than my opponents cause my land isn't good enough to sustain a tall civ. Here are teh spots available - none that promising:
Aggressive against OH, lacking in food, lots of desert/peaks
The good spot requires a border pop to do anything, i'll settle this after I have caste and pop borders with an artist:
Same border pop problem as above, also aggressive v SlowC
A note on that: I'm not complaining about my land per se, it has advantages and disadvantages. It started out pretty fast, and sustains cities perfectly fine while the happy cap is ~6. The problem is after 6 I start running out of grassland, so my growth plummets. So the land is good out the gate, but I don't think a winning allotment in the long term absent aggressive settling or just aggressive... aggression.
Ok, that was a long essay. On to the rest of the turn... well there isn't a ton of "rest of the turn". I'm about to complete the National Epic for another paper-tiger score boost (proof that civ4 score is stupid: I'm on top)
Growing over here, and EC just pumping those 1t military units (2t worker after this since I'll have built up enough overflow)
TBS is actually recovering pretty nicely. Part of that is by design (avoid turning him into a cornered animal with nothign left to do but attack me), but I don't want him to be too strong... still planning to eat him one day
He's not doing that poorly in city count. Must be settling his (very nice) island, is Nakor not fighting him for that?
Fear cuts deeper than swords.
