[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[antisocialmunky]

The cannon rolls are really off, you'd expect way more retreats and some wins even at those odds. I'm not sure how much simming would have helped if the RnG is that against you. The non-collateral rolls were much better but I don't think they really made up for losing all those cannons.

[suttree]

Usually prefer to be silly/motivational but

20x7=140 vs 131

You didn't need to sim to expect that 20 cannons were only enough to strip ~10-20hp off the top rifles.

[NobleHelium]

I can't imagine how long it would take to set up a sim for this battle...

Nobody has a right to complain about setting up sims when I set up multiple sims including using the debug console while streaming for the ISDG.

The cannon rolls are really off, you'd expect way more retreats and some wins even at those odds. I'm not sure how much simming would have helped if the RnG is that against you. The non-collateral rolls were much better but I don't think they really made up for losing all those cannons.

Retreats are wins for siege.

[Ceiliazul]

Usually prefer to be silly/motivational but

20x7=140 vs 131

You didn't need to sim to expect that 20 cannons were only enough to strip ~10-20hp off the top rifles.

Wow, that's pretty tactless at the moment. Maybe tell us in the lurker thread what you'd have done instead?

[antisocialmunky]

The cannon rolls are really off, you'd expect way more retreats and some wins even at those odds. I'm not sure how much simming would have helped if the RnG is that against you. The non-collateral rolls were much better but I don't think they really made up for losing all those cannons.

Retreats are wins for siege.

Can you eleaborate? Aren't retreat rolls even for siege conducted after the siege would have died? Maybe I'm missing something.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Siege can't kill, only die or retreat. If they didn't die they retreated, and that's a win.

I thought it was something like you get the retreat roll instead of taking the last round of damage that would have killed you, but I could be wrong.

[BaII]

Pretty sure you get a retreat by getting the enemy down to a certain hp level and then u get a retreat.

[antisocialmunky]

I think I've figured it out, they changed siege in BTS so it can't kill so win% = retreat for them. In that case the cannon results are just slightly below average.

[NobleHelium]

Siege units retreat when they are due to do damage to the opposing unit that takes that unit below the siege unit's damage cap. So if it takes 5 hits to get the enemy to damage cap, the siege unit needs to roll 6 hits to retreat and thus survive.

[scooter]

Guess I should do a little update. Lewwyn reacted as expected, burning the city and keeping his stack on that hill. If he marches on Trailblazers, there's probably very little I could do about it. I've scraped together everything I've got, but if he picks one target and goes at it, I can't stop him. If he tries to get greedy and split up (hitting, say, Gators and Trailblazers both) - then I've got options. I'm going to assume he's going to beeline Trailblazers here, and then I'm done. The only positive I have is that Assembly Line is done end of turn. I still have to grab Rifling real quick to enable infantry, and that's gonna be 2T. That means in theory 3-4T from now I could have some infantry. That's kinda what I mean about him potentially beelining Trailblazers - that's his chance to get there before infantry.

In terms of winning the game, my chances are pretty much gone assuming he plays this smartly. Weirdly, I'm more relieved than disappointed, because I don't feel the pressure to try hard, which I just didn't have time for anymore. No I didn't sim with him having that many units, and it's because I don't have the time/interest to do so (side note: I really like suttree's eyeball-it test for collateral, and it seems so obvious now in retrospect). Same reason I've been teetering on the edge of quitting this game for awhile, because I was afraid my lack of time would cause something like this. Now that it's happened, I can just approach the rest of this as a duel with Lewwyn, and that's a lot less stressful actually. No I'm not going to run from the game and dump this train wreck I made on some poor sub, but this means I can relax a bit and just play this one out, which is kinda nice.

One potential snag is that Commodore would actually be wise to pile on right now, and he might just do so. Not because his military is impressive (I have an airship scouting him every turn - he's got less Rifles total than Lewwyn has in that one stack), but because I've emptied out what joke of a garrison my northern cities had left in order to defend from Lewwyn, and if Commodore piled on I couldn't exactly fight back. I bet Mackoti is really regretting signing peace with me right about now given how much I've emptied out my western islands . All I can really do is hope the goodwill I've built up with Commodore (gifting him incense all game, leaving him alone when we could have ruined his game, etc) will matter long enough for me to fight off Lewwyn.

I did get a second great general in Lewwyn's counter-attack. I burned the one in an attempt to kill off Lewwyn units, but I'll have to see if I can do something fun with this one. The commando play is still on the table again since Lewwyn isn't really defending against it any better than he was previously, but more likely I'll end up using them on defensive units to make burning Trailblazers more costly.