[Spoilers] Fintourist and Old Harry have nothing to see here

[regoarrarr]

Something a bit odd is happening - we lost graphs on Ichabod and Suttree, our espionage with Ichabod is 45/44 in our favour, but we now need 49 to see his Demos, so I don't understand what suddenly changed?

The espionage ratios are affected by the total number of EPs that your civs acquire over the course of the game. So perhaps Ichabod has put down more courthouses and/or other EP producing buildings than you?

[Old Harry]

Perhaps he ran the slider against someone for a turn? We should be able to see this turn.

Anyway from CivStats Mackoti didn't accept peace and took Omdurman. I wonder if we stand a chance of taking it back?

[Old Harry]

Turn 182

Hey! I'm wrong - Mack didn't take Om, he took peace instead! I think that might be good news, especially if we can get our banana city settled quickly... Anyway a new question: Is this a threat? I added marble into the deal and re-offered it. TBS is now kicked off our continent so I can see dtay taking our peace with Mack as an opportunity to hit us without Mack making gains at our other border. But it does free up our stacks to hit mr dtay. Should we close borders to get his sentry chariots out of our land? He's been spending EPs on us, so we don't have his graphs...


Here is a request from Mack, wanting to get his stranded navy back through our culture. He's got a privateer near our waters, so I'm going to accept in the hope that he'll leave our fishing nets alone for a while. Also this thinking from Fintourist: " that gives in practice more than 10 turns of guaranteed peace or at least a warning. Mack needs to close borders and then stage his units. Sentry chariot at ur would be awesome, normal 2-movers near eridu,uruk,plainfood,gerard is probably enough.
let's be prepared for mack attacking us in 10 turns at jamestown via sea"


Bah. Mack is ahead of us on re-settling Barcelona. We can slow his settler by a turn by pillaging roads, but we need two turns (stupid turn order, why can't we just double-move him? ) I think he'll settle X or Z, which means we could settle a filler at Y? I'm inclined to signal friendship by not pillaging, in the hope that he's had enough of fighting us, but I dunno if the message will get through?


Our other options for our settler if we don't get Barca - the crappy southern city takes the peak and workshop and both take the former BFC of Peterloo. Any thoughts?


This is Suttree's setup. My first reaction is that we need to bombard the 60% culture away from tile A1 - with walls how many cats will that take? Our 9 cats can bombard from A1 on t184 or t185 if we want to disguise where we're attacking. On t185 we could plonk
10 Muskets
8 Axes
2 Mace
3 Cuir
23 Knights
On A1. (On t184 it would be slightly fewer, but they'd arrive the next turn.)


I did a bit of simming and whatever happens it seems that Suttree will kill our stack if he piles all his cats and axes and longbows into it (EDIT: I did some more simming with the extra muskets in the stack that I hadn't taken account of before and we only lose a very small number of units even if Suttree sends all the cats, axes, longbows and spears, I'll do some more tests, but I'm liking this route a bit better now). Without the longbows I think we only lose about five knights. So perhaps sending in the stack of knights to threaten Maximin at Attack C is the best move. Suttree's cats can then:
- Stay still - allowing us to attack and flank them all away,
- Attack, followed by axes - then we withdraw and heal up and come back two turns later without opposition,
- Move to Maximin - we can move to threaten Madrid or (better) we attack Maximin (we should take it in two turns with losses of two or three knights),
- Move to Madrid - we take Maximin with losses of two or three knights

With dtay's possible aggression I think I want to war-peace him, so our Suttree plans need to remain flexible until we know what is coming from the north. I haven't ended turn as Bacchus hasn't logged in yet, so any suggestions are welcome...

You were right Rego - Ichabod must have run the espionage slider for a couple of turns.


This is what remains of his stack after razing La Boheme, surely not worth it?


Demos and Power

[Old Harry]

After a bunch more simming I think moving to A1 on t185 is our best move, this lets us be flexible in how we deal with dtay as well as giving us the best chance of taking the city, and then Suttree's other cities.

I declared on dtay and offered peace, it didn't allow me to offer the silk, but if he takes peace we should gift it to him next turn.

I pillaged roads so that Mack can't settle X next turn unless he has three workers I can't see. I hope that will make him settle Z in paranoia.


In two turns we can revolt again. I'd like Bureau. Do we keep pacifism for the GP points in Om, or do we try to 1-turn theology next turn for extra XP or go to Organised religion to actually get some universities and banks built while we have a little peace?

Finally - it looks like Mack and Pindicooter signed peace too this turn. That's a little disappointing. We don't know which of us he'll be targeting next...

[Fintourist]

Quick comments:

1. Based on your new sims: what kind of losses are we expecting if we go forward with A1?
2. I'm not too worried about dtay, but this war-peace move is probably solid. We could get our own sentries to his border if we open borders again?
3. Mack will come after us. Our border is just so huge and now that he has stalingrad-barca area he has so many options where to strike. It will be really difficult when not impossible to organize our defenses in 10 turns unless we manage to create a stack that can really wipe out a big mixed force of cannons,knights,grens,rifles(?) and also have it in the right place at the right time.. It's pity for mack (and of course also us) that he has to grind through us, he could be really far if he had had a 2nd totally powerless neighbor that he could have swallowed (couple of cities from suttree don't really count although they help).
4. Bureau sounds solid unless you value XP from Vassalage more
5. Do we realistically get a GP out of Omdu before the city burns? If yes, Paficism is fine, otherwise I like the idea of quick Theology. Maybe even Theology anyways. Am I too pessimistic when I think that banks and universities won't pay their cost back during this game..?
6. In ~10 turns when our peace runs out, I would hope that we either are in slavery/can immediately switch to slavery. I would like to be able to dry-whip a last defender in threatened cities and also not give mack any extra pop points to work with.
7. How long do you think we'll last in this game? If mack gets into conflict with someone else it might take long. If he can focus mostly on us, can we last 50 more turns? If this was a diplo game dtay+ichabod+mack could eat us in 20 turns.

[Old Harry]

1. Based on your new sims: what kind of losses are we expecting if we go forward with A1?

About six knights, four muskets. Have a sim - I think its missing the C1 on some of the axes, but pretty good otherwise. Firing cats then Axes into our stack kills 0-1 units, sending all 25 longbows in afterwards kills about ten units. There may be a better order to attack us in or he may be better off just waiting us out, but I'm pretty happy with this setup. Of course great generals will muck things up...

2. I'm not too worried about dtay, but this war-peace move is probably solid. We could get our own sentries to his border if we open borders again?

How about using outdated axes and bowmen as sentries?

3. Mack will come after us. Our border is just so huge and now that he has stalingrad-barca area he has so many options where to strike. It will be really difficult when not impossible to organize our defenses in 10 turns unless we manage to create a stack that can really wipe out a big mixed force of cannons,knights,grens,rifles(?) and also have it in the right place at the right time.. It's pity for mack (and of course also us) that he has to grind through us, he could be really far if he had had a 2nd totally powerless neighbor that he could have swallowed (couple of cities from suttree don't really count although they help).

Let's hope he picks a fight with someone else before us...

4. Bureau sounds solid unless you value XP from Vassalage more

Depends if we spend the next five turns building units or infra...

5. Do we realistically get a GP out of Omdu before the city burns? If yes, Paficism is fine, otherwise I like the idea of quick Theology. Maybe even Theology anyways. Am I too pessimistic when I think that banks and universities won't pay their cost back during this game..?

At the moment it's making 64 GPP per turn, meaning GP in 12, but switching out of Pacifism early does this:
t182 64 194
t183 64 258
t184 48 306 * Switch from Pacifism
t185 48 354
t186 48 402
t187 48 450
t188 32 482 * GA ends
t189 32 514
t190 32 546
t191 32 578
t192 32 610
t193 32 642
t194 32 674
t195 32 706
t196 32 738
t197 32 770
t198 32 802
t199 32 834
t200 32 866
t201 32 898

Whereas switching out at the end of the golden age does this:
t182 64 194
t183 64 258
t184 64 322
t185 64 386
t186 64 450
t187 64 514
t188 32 546 * GA ends
t189 32 578
t190 32 610
t191 32 642
t192 32 674
t193 32 706
t194 32 738
t195 32 770
t196 32 802
t197 32 834
t198 32 866
t199 32 898
I think I prefer the former...

6. In ~10 turns when our peace runs out, I would hope that we either are in slavery/can immediately switch to slavery. I would like to be able to dry-whip a last defender in threatened cities and also not give mack any extra pop points to work with.

That works for me - so we'll switch into something in 2t that we'll stay in for 8 turns, letting us switch to slavery when Mack attacks again.

7. How long do you think we'll last in this game? If mack gets into conflict with someone else it might take long. If he can focus mostly on us, can we last 50 more turns? If this was a diplo game dtay+ichabod+mack could eat us in 20 turns.

I think we can do 50 more turns, Mack will just have to eat us a piece at a time... In ten turns time Pindicooter should have 6-move Galleons forking all his coastal cities so he shouldn't get a chance to put all his force up against us. Hey, we might even have some decent boats by then (although he'll have ships of the line ). In fact that's a good tech question - do we just cede the sea to Mack and concentrate on land-based tech in an attempt to catch up? If we can get to Grenadiers and Cannons to go with our Cuirs I think we have a decent shot at least until he gets rifles...

[Fintourist]

1. Based on your new sims: what kind of losses are we expecting if we go forward with A1?

About six knights, four muskets. Have a sim - I think its missing the C1 on some of the axes, but pretty good otherwise. Firing cats then Axes into our stack kills 0-1 units, sending all 25 longbows in afterwards kills about ten units. There may be a better order to attack us in or he may be better off just waiting us out, but I'm pretty happy with this setup. Of course great generals will muck things up...

So this assumes that we stage at A1, suttree puts all the cats and axes into Madrid, then we bombard defenses and then he attacks out. Right?

I assume that attacking when suttree has 60 % defenses would be ugly even when we use suicide cats, but if defenses are first bombarded down and we then send cats in, we lose fewer hammers than what you simmed out earlier?

I should do the sim myself instead of bugging you..

How about using outdated axes and bowmen as sentries?

Sure!

Depends if we spend the next five turns building units or infra...

I mean, cities like A,C,H&L, could definitely benefit from commerce multipliers. Building infra is a more optimistic approach that assumes that we can hold mack back for a good time so that extra beakers become valuable. Or ever better: Mack stars warring with Pindicooter (&plako) and we get a some kind of a crazy backdoor chance into this game. At this point it would need miracle after another though. When forgetting our doomed geopolitical position, 30 turns ago only Mack&Pindicooter had thanks to their easy wars significantly better position than what we had. Despite our suttree missery, we were pretty much on the par with dtay and plako, and maybe even had some kind of a lead compared Ichabod, Commodore & Lewwyn/Bigger. Now I assume that we are still holding our ground tech-wise against some of those teams, but in big picture all those teams surely have better demos and also better chances in this game than what we have.

So what I'm saying: I'm fine with building some infra as that is the right call if we want to gamble on having some kind of future in this game, but I think it's also reasonable to accept our fate and just focus on military and keep warring until every single one of our cities has been whipped down to size 1 and captured.

Btw, nice effort reg GPP calculations.

PS. Finland-Sweden semi final hockey game in 2 hours at olympics. The whole country is watching the game and praying. I heard that >50 % of the whole population already watched the quarter final game against Russia. These matches do not tend to go too well, but.. Why can't we send some cats in first in order to improve our hockey odds..

[Old Harry]

So this assumes that we stage at A1, suttree puts all the cats and axes into Madrid, then we bombard defenses and then he attacks out. Right?

I assume that attacking when suttree has 60 % defenses would be ugly even when we use suicide cats, but if defenses are first bombarded down and we then send cats in, we lose fewer hammers than what you simmed out earlier?

Yep, the situation I see is either:
1. We bombard his walls to 15%, he attacks out with everything, we mop up easily the turn after
2. We bombard his walls to 15%, he sits tight, we bombard to 0% with two cats then attack with seven cats then attack with knights killing 15 longbows and losing 5 knights

I'm not sure what his next move is in the second scenario, Attacking out with cats against injured knights won't do much good (will they absorb hits like our cats do or are they just ignored?), we just need to have enough stuff to kill the axes and longbows if they attack out too. It may be best if he doesn't attack out just to offer peace, or to send a small force of knights to capture Maximin.

I mean, cities like A,C,H&L, could definitely benefit from commerce multipliers. Building infra is a more optimistic approach that assumes that we can hold mack back for a good time so that extra beakers become valuable. Or ever better: Mack stars warring with Pindicooter (&plako) and we get a some kind of a crazy backdoor chance into this game. At this point it would need miracle after another though. When forgetting our doomed geopolitical position, 30 turns ago only Mack&Pindicooter had thanks to their easy wars significantly better position than what we had. Despite our suttree missery, we were pretty much on the par with dtay and plako, and maybe even had some kind of a lead compared Ichabod, Commodore & Lewwyn/Bigger. Now I assume that we are still holding our ground tech-wise against some of those teams, but in big picture all those teams surely have better demos and also better chances in this game than what we have.

Dtay just showed us a cuir, but he accepted peace (more on that in a bit) so he's probably sort-of at equivalent-tech. Just with lots more land... I haven't been following the tech screen (so much other stuff to keep track of!) so I'm not sure where we stand in relation to the others, but yeah, we've been 7th in GNP for a long time now...

PS. Finland-Sweden semi final hockey game in 2 hours at olympics. The whole country is watching the game and praying. I heard that >50 % of the whole population already watched the quarter final game against Russia. These matches do not tend to go too well, but.. Why can't we send some cats in first in order to improve our hockey odds..

Dogs work better on ice. What's the history between the two countries?

[Old Harry]

Turn 183

Dtay accepts peace, he sent an empty trade window, so I'll offer open borders and silk for Marble. Ah, except that he'd sent other requests too... Dye for ivory and cow for cow. He'll probably get some confusing trade windows back - note to self - dismiss trade windows before re-offering in future.

Mack and Suttree haven't played yet, but I want to get out of second-in-turn-order hell so I'm playing ahead of them both. I don't know if we should contest re-settling Barca next turn, as that could count as a double move (Hey lurkers! If you think this would be a double move please let us know!), you can see Mack's settler and I think I've pillaged enough roads so that he has to settle site Z instead of X if he wants to settle this turn. You probably can't see that Quantril will finish a settler EOT. I don't think turn order matters much in attacking Suttree (in fact playing second is better for him as he gets to whip - it's also better for us as our medic can heal our units before our turn.) Anyway this is our attack force - I've selected our main knight stack with the 2-move mace in it and highlighted all our 1-movers. There are another three cats, three muskets and a mace that can arrive two turns late and Jamestown will produce a Cuiassier a turn as well.


Jamestown is producing three overflow extra each turn on building Cuirs, while Konig will produce four cats every five turns during the golden age. Unfortunately we haven't got many other cities as good for pumping military.


I ended turn, but one point needs addressing before the turn rolls - I've set our research to complete Theology this turn, which allows us enough gold spare to upgrade one knight to a cuir (for 50 gold). Does that sound useful?

[Old Harry]

Oh, and