[SPOILERS] The Rise and Fall of Whositania (all glory to Whositania!)

[Whosit]

10 turns, if I can manage it. I suspect it will actually take a bit longer, as I don't want to start whipping my cities for a few turns longer.

[Whosit]

Turn 100 Sorta Summary Spectacular

Really, just a quick update since I haven't done much the last few turns.

Krill is going to drop a city where I had hoped to one day expand, but really, am I surprised? Not at all....
He also built himself a powerful Wonder:

Look how many people have more cities than me (hint: It's everyone, even Cheater Hater, god damn).

The sheer amount of more cities that Krill and dtay have than me is staggering. It makes me wonder if they had more room to expand, or if I am really just that bad. I know that if I had expanded more quickly, I'd have thus won myself more room to put down more cities, but still..... I will never be in a position to take territory from them, even if I am able to conquer CH (who could very well repel my next attack).

A revolt to Judaism to get some more happy, plus other misc. images:

Well, I've survived 100 turns, but I'm pretty much dead last place, which makes me rather sad.

[Ceiliazul]

Arent the lurkers in last place??

Its usually a combination of factors that let someone expand like wildfire. You're making egg salad out of cracked eggs in this game thanks to being at the center of your region, keep doing what you can!

[Whosit]

Yeah, I am envious of those who do not have neighbors on all sides. Apparently Ruff is on our continent somewhere... maybe? I guess his scout could have gotten here by boat.

Teching sailing was such a waste of time. I haven't built a single trading post or galley yet. I am not sure why I teched it so early except that I'm the Vikings. I feel I should have done something with it, though. I want to put some boats in the water, but I'm still pretty much going to be in "all kill" mode against CH until one of us is dead.

[Rowain]

Well, I've survived 100 turns, but I'm pretty much dead last place, which makes me rather sad.

Judging by the Demos you are around 24-26 which is better than dead last . And you are Nr1 on Soldiers so yourself to a better rank

[Whosit]

I'm dead last compared to everyone around me in practical terms. I certainly hope I steal myself some more cities, but Cheater Hater has managed to settle even more! I just settled a new city, but he's still 2 ahead of me, so I think he's settled 3 since the war ended. Geeez. His power is creeping up steadily as well, but I still have the advantage.

War prep: I think I can get 5-6 catapults in a timely manner to strike, though it's turn 103 now, I probably won't be in position for another 10 turns or so. The other trick will be getting troops in position to strike without being spotted by the Zulu sentry, but I think I can do that. I'm still planning to strike from Plano, but I'm not sure if that's the best choice. CH can concentrate his forces in one city to defend, but maybe that would be good for me? That way I can send all of my siege at more of his units at once.

Another big news: Met Aztecs and got Open Borders, so that tripled my income. Cheater Hate has open borders as well, though, and I think he already has currency, so his income is certainly much greater than mine now, too. Oh well. At least I can tech currency in 8 turns instead of, like, 20. So that's a huge improvement!

Lastly, I'm trying to figure out how much to whip. I think one of my personal weaknesses is an unwillingness to really whip. On the one hand, these wars NEED to go well for me to have a shot at staying in this game, but on the other, whipping all my cities to the ground will hurt my long-term strength. If I don't whip and lose, I'm really dead. If I whip and win, will I grab enough land to make up for it? I'm trying to make some smart whips for the catapults, but that whip unhappiness adds up pretty quickly.

I might do a couple whips out of Prairie Village, though. I grew it to 6 on those cottages, but since it's meant to be a production city, I could do a couple whips and stagnate at size 4 again for a while. Decisions, decisions....

[Whosit]

Alright, I have a definite date for War Phase 2: Turn 111. Can strike Kamigawa on Turn 113.

Forces will be mainly the army from last time, plus a unit or two. I haven't finalized all my deployments, but I think it will be 6-8 Axemen, 2 Spearmen, and a couple of Chariots. However, by the time I attack, I believe I should have added 8 Catapults to the main striking force, which should be enough to make it quite potent at this point in the game.

I am considering having a second, much smaller, strike launch from Angle Bay. If I do so, that will be just a couple Axes, a couple Spears, a couple Catapults, and a Chariot or two. This force would take forever to capture Cheater Hater's walled city, but it would force Cheater Hater to keep forces holed up in his northern city, and it wouldn't be cheap for him to kill without catapults of his own. The weakness here, though, is that if this force was destroyed, I'd have nothing to defend Angle Bay and the cities beyond that.

I've decided to be more liberal with the whip, but not yet to the point where I'm going to whip all my cities to the ground. In fact, after the next catapult from Willow Lake, I'm going to get a much needed Library there. Perhaps.... honestly, I should have had a Library lined up to be finishing about now as I'm going to turn research on for Currency in a turn or two. Hm. Maybe no Library yet.

Anyway, some pics. These are from 103, a couple turns ago.

This turn:

I think this is a just a DoW to pass through territory. It's probably what the "war" with Krill was previously. It'd be nice if someone else tried to chew on Cheater Hater a little, though.

Deployment plans. The "safe?" tile is actually not, but Prairie Village is popping borders next turn. Very good, because considering the position of CH's Impi, if he cut that road, my attack would be delayed. The bare plains hill, M3, will need a road, but that's the launching pad. It should not be visible to CH so long as he doesn't get a border pop in Kamigawa. Then I will strike!

If Kamigawa lacks a wall, I'll use a couple catapults to bombard and attack with the rest. If it does have a wall, I will probably spend a full turn on bombardment. I think I can afford such a turn. As it will take me 2 turns to move in, if he reinforces his units can get there in time, but won't have time to fortify. He can get a whip or two out, but so far the garrisons haven't been buffed. I'm not sure where he's putting his troops.

I have a chariot keeping an eye on those two cities, and when I declare war, it will move 2NW to see what's in his northern city before I commit to an attack in that direction. Prairie Village will end up under defended, but its high production and extra pop for a whip should see it safe from any attack.

Finally, goals: Capture Kamigawa, Theros, and Zendikar. Kamigawa and Theros so far have garrisons of 2 Axes, Spears, and Archers each, though CH has been producing extra archers the last few turns. I'm expecting 8-12 units in Kamigawa when I attack. (I'll have to do a recount of my main strike force to make sure I've got enough troops to handle that.) If it's on the higher side, it means he reinforced from Theros, so hopefully I'll have an easier time taking that city once I punch through Kamigawa. Regarding Zendikar, I don't think I could take it until I capture Theros and can send surviving units to reinforce a push from Angle Bay.

Now, is this realistic? I'm pretty confident I can take at least Kamigawa, and I think I could take Theros after that. Zendikar may be beyond my immediate reach, especially if it gets reinforced. I'm worried about counter attacks, but as long as I am able to conserve the bulk of my armies again, I should be OK.

[Whosit]

QUESTION FOR LURKERS if you can answer this one.

For attacking entrenched cities, is it better to put City Raider or Barrage on Catapults? I figure CR gives the Cats a better shot at dealing some damage to the top defender, but I'm not sure.

On that note, taking Kamigawa will probably use up at least half my catapults. Best case scenario, I probably can't take more than those 3 cities without stopping to regroup and replenish.

However, planning to get HBR after Currency so I can field some Aggressive "boosted" Horse Archers (boosted because in the mod Stables are 1/2 cost for Agg). I'll have to check diplo screen to see if CH has a second copper or Iron source, but if I AM able to deny metal by taking Theros, HAs would be very nice to have.

[Whosit]

Well, let's have a brief update.

This is what CH has at the moment. I keep an eye on his power graph, which is still a good deal lower than mine, but I don't have an exact figure. I was hoping I could cross reference with some of my old demos, but I didn't have any screen shot from far enough back. However, this is about 60K of soldier points, and I think my power is just somewhere north of 200K. Cheater Hater's power looks between 66% and 75% of my power. I think it's reasonable for me to believe that the forces in these two cities represent a good chunk of his active military forces (I'm not sure how much of his power is tied up in tech and population).

I ran a couple of sims based on what I'm bringing to the fight and what he might be able to respond with. I nearly doubled the number of soldiers he had on the defense (4 Archers, 1 Impi, 7 Axemen). All Archers had CG1, nothing else had promotions, although I'm sure that several of those Axemen have promotions available. The best he can do is Combat 1, but that can add up. Anyway, he had 12 units. I'll do more sims when I'm ready to attack, but my expectation is that I'll lose half my catapults (4), and maybe 1-2 units, but if the RNG is in my favor, I shouldn't lose any soldiers. However, I probably cannot capture the city in one go, but I should be able to clean up the remaining units on the 2nd turn, or just walk into the city if it's abandoned.

I might want to promote a spare unit to Medic 1 so my troops can heal up faster and keep marching, and I may have to find a way to replenish my Catapults, but I'll probably have to make due with what I've got.

To the north, my little strike force should be 4 Axemen, 3 Spearmen, 2 Chariots, 2 Catapults. That should be enough to force Cheater Hater to keep 4+ units in his city up there, for whatever that's worth.

Forces moving out, and I'll be adding a new city to my empire next turn, finally. Then CH will have only a single city more than me.

Too bad most of my other neighbors have DOUBLE my city count. It's still kind of disheartening to be this far behind and knowing I'm an out-of-the-running player who's main impact on the game will be how long I can resist being absorbed by a larger neighbor. Maybe I can capture enough Zulu cities to become stronger.

I'm not really sure if that diversion to the north is going to be worth it. It will cost a lot to pay for those unit supplies, but I will use that scout Chariot to see what the opposition looks like. I can always pull my forces back, but if I'm lucky, I'll actually have enough units to capture the city. We shall see, we shall see....

I expect this is going to be a bloodier phase of the war, but if I can remove CH's access to Copper, well... honestly, someone will probably just supply him with metal to keep him in the fight.

[Whosit]

I feel like I've played objectively bad (but I guess it can't be helped when I'm in a game with many of the best RB players, and with several of them my neighbors), but I feel like my play is definitely better than the mess that was PBEM 55. I also feel that my fight vs. Cheater Hater, in isolation, is going in my favor. Given enough time, I think I'll win the war of attrition. As long as I keep taking/razing cities with every DoW, I'll have advantage going forward.

I just have to hope that I pull off some good wins. Who knows when Cheater Hater is going to get Construction? He doesn't have it yet (at least that's a tech that changes the world map when it's researched), but once he gets catapults of his own things are going to get much harder for me. I find it such a pain that catapults are so expensive, but are also so disposable, although I know they save hammers in the long run. It'd just be nice if there was a way to preserve them more, because I can't afford to keep rebuilding all my catapults between city captures.