I got busy and the story thing never happened, oh well. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, some people say. So why post an update now? To whine about the RNG, of course!
That's a hell of a thing....Oxy moved his spear onto the tile adjacent to the city as I was still playing my turn (as in, the spear wasn't visible before I attacked and lost with my axe at 96% odds, but right after my warrior captured the city, then he moved into visibility). I'm not complaining so much about losing a 96% roll, it happens. But for that loss to be compounded by Oxy walking up a spear next to the city he otherwise couldn't have threatened at just the wrong moment..bad luck. If I had a fully healthy warrior and any kind of damaged axe he's basically no threat to the city. He could have attacked, killed the warrior if it was top defender, and then probably had has spear killed by the healing axe if the warrior had done any work at all while dying. So doubtless he'd have left the city alone in that scenario, predicated on my not losing a really bad barb roll. Now? Who knows. It's a pretty straightforward attack, he won't get better odds at a cheap city kill. If he takes it, he takes it, but he'll do himself no favors in the bargain. I'm known for flying off the handle and this would be as good a reason to tilt as any other.
I guess another separate question is why Oxy built a spear at this stage of the game at all -- maybe I'm missing something, it wouldn't be the first time. But my thinking goes that spears require copper, as do axes, but Oxy doesn't get axes, he gets phalanxes, which get +100% against chariots, which would be all anyone could threaten him with at this stage of the game, so spears are just worse than building phalanxes right now for the same cost. For the same hammer cost he could have built his UU and covered all his bases until someone sent HAs into the fray, at which point spears are useful counters and phalanx are not. The copper requirement means that phalanxes are available to build at BW, not at Hunting, so the earlier Hunting means nothing (except that I just figured it out and it's for the same reason I have a spear, it was surely a warrior autoupgraded in the build queue when he teched Hunting). OK, closing that topic, moving on.
Empire report, not much to say at this stage of the game. The German Empire is four cities for now, maybe next turn down to three cities depending upon Oxy's desire to activate my grudge mode, but in any case I'll be up another city in two turns' time as I settle another city on my border with Plako. Speaking of Plako...he's been a bit grabby with the land in the west and I'm not pleased with it. He got greedy with a city placement in my direction and invalidated a whole row of border cities I wanted to settle. I'm sure that was the point, to grab land for himself and deny it to me, and yeah good play. There isn't a lot I can do about it right now. For having one of the highest power ratings of anyone for most of the game (until this turn) I don't have units to spare in an attack right now, growing is more important. Then there's the bit where Plako got a really nice random event and all of his archers get a free combat I promotion. That just makes attacking him even less appetizing. So I'll try to keep things peaceful on that border and fill out my own territory for now. The land is good, may as well try to settle it before I go off the rails later.
Oxy is my other neighbor and he's among the leaders. He was quick to four cities, as you might expect with CRE/IMP, and he's settled at least two of his expansions my direction. The only other player I've met is TBS, and he was across the channel north of my capital so I don't think he's on the same landmass as plako, Oxy, and me. So, not really meeting many people I've been wondering if this landmass is just the three of us (three creative civs all packed together, so much for having a cultural advantage on my neighbors). And if it is just the three of us it's horrible luck that I'm in between them. I already know I'm in the middle-ish region of the map, unless Commodore did fun things with his jungle distribution. So I can be in the middle of the middle I guess.
At this point I'm rambling, I don't have much of a plan other than to keep throwing out settlers as fast as I can, trying to claim my share of this area before greedy plako and IMP Oxy get it all. And when the land runs out figure out who to throw a bunch of horse archers or whatever kind of units at. This game isn't ending in victory for me with plako as a neighbor, nevermind Oxy, so it'll be clobbering time before it's all said and done. So will I want to take on the guy famous for almost always finishing near the top (plako), or the guy who helped crush a field of unequal competition (PB14) and build the Hundred Horse Stack (PB11 Oxy)? Maybe I can rush Engineering and build a Hundred Pike Stack and throw them at Oxy for fun. Probably not, but I don't think I'll be in any position to take advantage of kannons whenever I get that far down the tech tree, if the game goes that long.
I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere out in the fog with this many players and with as wide a skill differential as there is (for example, plako vs. me) whether the game will be more or less decided in the midgame. Someone will be fed an unholy stack of knigs and will be completely (shockingly) unprepared for it and will die with a whimper. Whoever is the proud owner of all the knigs will then send them after someone else and begin a nice snowball. I imagine that will happen a couple of times in various parts of the map, wherever the skill differential between savvy vet and gun shy buildery player intersect. Those will be the competitors to win, the rest will be waiting to die or playing for other goals. I'm not too worked up about it, I know which camp I'm in. But given my previous games I think it's reasonable to believe I can play on for a long time and take a top half finish in this game. I don't necessarily think I'm better than half the players in this field (probably am not) but I do know that the Sitting Bull AI build mentality that I often employ does keep you from dying too early (that is, build lots and lots of obsolete units. Collateral killers!). Of course I'm guaranteed to die later when sufficiently strong collateral units will overwhelm my entirely overmatched force, but that's a long way off. I can enjoy logging in and moving my pieces around for a long time yet.
OK so this turned into kind of a long post without being very descriptive about what's actually happening in the game right now, so I guess in that way it's perfect. It's the same as everything I haven't been posting here the last few months since the game started. If anyone wants to see anything in particular or has questions ask away. I guess as long as I'm admitting that the story thing isn't happening I may be able to bring myself to report a bit better. But I've been busier lately, I picked up a contract job that's requiring a whole lot of driving every day so my forum time is way down. Anyway, I'll try to report a bit better than I've done up to now. This game is interesting in my local area, it's probably interesting elsewhere too. If anyone lurking is trying to follow everything I guess I should do my part to help.
Here's the current map:
I'll have granaries finished in the capital next turn and the corn/sugar city in two turns. Settler on the way to the C4 site, settles in two turns, work boat en route from the capital in two turns (30/30 WB build after the granary, which is why I'm working the bare silks tile instead of a cottage in the capital this turn). If Oxy doesn't kill my newly captured barbarian city I'll send workers up there to connect a road and get the ivory improved. I need a work boat for that city, too, but I'll probably chop it up there. I'll be building some more military and settlers from the copper/pigs city, and whipping whatever and working cottages at corn/sugar. After settling the border city for crabs/fish in the west (marked C4 in the image) the next one should probably seal the corner in the SE of the picture near Oxy, but Oxy or plako either one could change the plan by then. And I need to connect my horses soon, too, so that would be a city between corn/sugar and the newly captured barbarian city. IMP is a great trait here, I'd have rather had that than CHA again.
Demographics:
It doesn't look stellar, looked better last turn before I whipped off a cottage and lost an axe. If anyone wants to see my previous F9 screens I take them every turn out of habit, not that I'm doing any C&D work with them. Just take the URL from the demographics (or map) shot above and replace the turn number from that link with whatever turn number you want to see. So if you wanted to see my F9 screen for T50, you'd use this address:
And the map from that turn would be:
I have files available for Txx-F9.jpg and Txx-Map.jpg for almost every turn since the beginning of the game if anyone is at all curious about all the stuff I didn't report. Anyway, if you guys want to see anything else or have any questions let me know.
That's a hell of a thing....Oxy moved his spear onto the tile adjacent to the city as I was still playing my turn (as in, the spear wasn't visible before I attacked and lost with my axe at 96% odds, but right after my warrior captured the city, then he moved into visibility). I'm not complaining so much about losing a 96% roll, it happens. But for that loss to be compounded by Oxy walking up a spear next to the city he otherwise couldn't have threatened at just the wrong moment..bad luck. If I had a fully healthy warrior and any kind of damaged axe he's basically no threat to the city. He could have attacked, killed the warrior if it was top defender, and then probably had has spear killed by the healing axe if the warrior had done any work at all while dying. So doubtless he'd have left the city alone in that scenario, predicated on my not losing a really bad barb roll. Now? Who knows. It's a pretty straightforward attack, he won't get better odds at a cheap city kill. If he takes it, he takes it, but he'll do himself no favors in the bargain. I'm known for flying off the handle and this would be as good a reason to tilt as any other.
I guess another separate question is why Oxy built a spear at this stage of the game at all -- maybe I'm missing something, it wouldn't be the first time. But my thinking goes that spears require copper, as do axes, but Oxy doesn't get axes, he gets phalanxes, which get +100% against chariots, which would be all anyone could threaten him with at this stage of the game, so spears are just worse than building phalanxes right now for the same cost. For the same hammer cost he could have built his UU and covered all his bases until someone sent HAs into the fray, at which point spears are useful counters and phalanx are not. The copper requirement means that phalanxes are available to build at BW, not at Hunting, so the earlier Hunting means nothing (except that I just figured it out and it's for the same reason I have a spear, it was surely a warrior autoupgraded in the build queue when he teched Hunting). OK, closing that topic, moving on.
Empire report, not much to say at this stage of the game. The German Empire is four cities for now, maybe next turn down to three cities depending upon Oxy's desire to activate my grudge mode, but in any case I'll be up another city in two turns' time as I settle another city on my border with Plako. Speaking of Plako...he's been a bit grabby with the land in the west and I'm not pleased with it. He got greedy with a city placement in my direction and invalidated a whole row of border cities I wanted to settle. I'm sure that was the point, to grab land for himself and deny it to me, and yeah good play. There isn't a lot I can do about it right now. For having one of the highest power ratings of anyone for most of the game (until this turn) I don't have units to spare in an attack right now, growing is more important. Then there's the bit where Plako got a really nice random event and all of his archers get a free combat I promotion. That just makes attacking him even less appetizing. So I'll try to keep things peaceful on that border and fill out my own territory for now. The land is good, may as well try to settle it before I go off the rails later.
Oxy is my other neighbor and he's among the leaders. He was quick to four cities, as you might expect with CRE/IMP, and he's settled at least two of his expansions my direction. The only other player I've met is TBS, and he was across the channel north of my capital so I don't think he's on the same landmass as plako, Oxy, and me. So, not really meeting many people I've been wondering if this landmass is just the three of us (three creative civs all packed together, so much for having a cultural advantage on my neighbors). And if it is just the three of us it's horrible luck that I'm in between them. I already know I'm in the middle-ish region of the map, unless Commodore did fun things with his jungle distribution. So I can be in the middle of the middle I guess.
At this point I'm rambling, I don't have much of a plan other than to keep throwing out settlers as fast as I can, trying to claim my share of this area before greedy plako and IMP Oxy get it all. And when the land runs out figure out who to throw a bunch of horse archers or whatever kind of units at. This game isn't ending in victory for me with plako as a neighbor, nevermind Oxy, so it'll be clobbering time before it's all said and done. So will I want to take on the guy famous for almost always finishing near the top (plako), or the guy who helped crush a field of unequal competition (PB14) and build the Hundred Horse Stack (PB11 Oxy)? Maybe I can rush Engineering and build a Hundred Pike Stack and throw them at Oxy for fun. Probably not, but I don't think I'll be in any position to take advantage of kannons whenever I get that far down the tech tree, if the game goes that long.
I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere out in the fog with this many players and with as wide a skill differential as there is (for example, plako vs. me) whether the game will be more or less decided in the midgame. Someone will be fed an unholy stack of knigs and will be completely (shockingly) unprepared for it and will die with a whimper. Whoever is the proud owner of all the knigs will then send them after someone else and begin a nice snowball. I imagine that will happen a couple of times in various parts of the map, wherever the skill differential between savvy vet and gun shy buildery player intersect. Those will be the competitors to win, the rest will be waiting to die or playing for other goals. I'm not too worked up about it, I know which camp I'm in. But given my previous games I think it's reasonable to believe I can play on for a long time and take a top half finish in this game. I don't necessarily think I'm better than half the players in this field (probably am not) but I do know that the Sitting Bull AI build mentality that I often employ does keep you from dying too early (that is, build lots and lots of obsolete units. Collateral killers!). Of course I'm guaranteed to die later when sufficiently strong collateral units will overwhelm my entirely overmatched force, but that's a long way off. I can enjoy logging in and moving my pieces around for a long time yet.
OK so this turned into kind of a long post without being very descriptive about what's actually happening in the game right now, so I guess in that way it's perfect. It's the same as everything I haven't been posting here the last few months since the game started. If anyone wants to see anything in particular or has questions ask away. I guess as long as I'm admitting that the story thing isn't happening I may be able to bring myself to report a bit better. But I've been busier lately, I picked up a contract job that's requiring a whole lot of driving every day so my forum time is way down. Anyway, I'll try to report a bit better than I've done up to now. This game is interesting in my local area, it's probably interesting elsewhere too. If anyone lurking is trying to follow everything I guess I should do my part to help.
Here's the current map:
I'll have granaries finished in the capital next turn and the corn/sugar city in two turns. Settler on the way to the C4 site, settles in two turns, work boat en route from the capital in two turns (30/30 WB build after the granary, which is why I'm working the bare silks tile instead of a cottage in the capital this turn). If Oxy doesn't kill my newly captured barbarian city I'll send workers up there to connect a road and get the ivory improved. I need a work boat for that city, too, but I'll probably chop it up there. I'll be building some more military and settlers from the copper/pigs city, and whipping whatever and working cottages at corn/sugar. After settling the border city for crabs/fish in the west (marked C4 in the image) the next one should probably seal the corner in the SE of the picture near Oxy, but Oxy or plako either one could change the plan by then. And I need to connect my horses soon, too, so that would be a city between corn/sugar and the newly captured barbarian city. IMP is a great trait here, I'd have rather had that than CHA again.
Demographics:
It doesn't look stellar, looked better last turn before I whipped off a cottage and lost an axe. If anyone wants to see my previous F9 screens I take them every turn out of habit, not that I'm doing any C&D work with them. Just take the URL from the demographics (or map) shot above and replace the turn number from that link with whatever turn number you want to see. So if you wanted to see my F9 screen for T50, you'd use this address:
Code:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44346970/RB/PB18/T50-F9.JPGAnd the map from that turn would be:
Code:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44346970/RB/PB18/T50-Map.JPGI have files available for Txx-F9.jpg and Txx-Map.jpg for almost every turn since the beginning of the game if anyone is at all curious about all the stuff I didn't report. Anyway, if you guys want to see anything else or have any questions let me know.
Played: Pitboss 18 - Kublai Khan of Germany Somalia | Pitboss 11 - De Gaulle of Byzantium | Pitboss 8 - Churchill of Portugal | PB7 - Mao of Native America | PBEM29 Greens - Mao of Babylon
