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

[Whosit]

Turn 108 Update

The leaders of Whositania (all glory to Whositania!) hear rumors that mightier civilizations are doing Great things.

The next set of screens is just to keep account of the tactical situation:

It looks like Cheater Hater is reinforcing Kamigawa, which is convenient timing for him. It's unlikely that anyone has leaked something to him, but it shouldn't matter.... I checked the diplo screen and I can't get Open Borders with him, so I don't think he has Spies (OB and Spies are both on Alphabet in the mod, I believe). I'm still #1 in soldiers, so that's.... something. I always seem to end up with a big army and a poor economy and then I am eventually conquered by someone who teched up and has more advanced units later.

Anyway, let him bring everything to Kamigawa. I figure I'm better off if I get to throw my catapults at the whole lot of his army.

Finally, some misc images:

I got myself a new city (renamed it to Chill Lakes in the hopes that it might confuse anyone who isn't Krill). It will be out of revolt just in time for Currency, so it should pay for itself (I have been literally on a 1C line between 3 and 4 turns, and I've sacrificed production in a few cities to stay on the 3 turn side of Currency). Cheater Hater has a city that grabbed my fish! I'll get them eventually, but that's a bit of a pain. Maybe I'll get a lucky religion spread, and I can put a Library there, perhaps. Finally, my army. I'll be adding 1 Catapult, 1 Axeman, 1 Chariot, and 1 Spearman to this force. That should be enough to capture Kamigawa in 2 turns as long as I don't get bad RNG luck.

[Whosit]

I've been having some new thoughts on what to do with the forces up in Angle Bay. I think the available forces will be 4 Axe, 3 Spear, 2 Chariot, 2 Catapult.

If I scout with the Chariot from Angle Bay, I believe that I can withdraw it to my own territory if need be (I'll have to cover it with an Axe/Spear, probably). Scouting with the Chariot on Overlook Hill means committing that Chariot, and I don't want to sacrifice any units if I don't have to. Anyway, that little force is almost certainly too small to take a walled city, especially with all the units shuffling around up there. Though I was originally planning that force to be a distraction, if Zendikar is too tough to crack (there's always the slim chance he's got nearly nothing in the city), I think it might be better to hold those forces in reserve, and link up with my main force once Kamigawa is captured. +2 Catapults, +2-3 Axemen and a Spear would definitely bolster the attack on Theros considering my projected losses. Zendikar is the least strategically important target, anyway.

I'm also hoping that Theros and Kamigawa are Cheater Hater's best production cities and that losing them will have a significant impact on his ability to produce soldiers. Sure, he's got the whip, but he can't use it forever.

Finally, I'm pretty sure that I can get Plano stagnated at size 7 making 20 hpt. That's 2 turn Axe/Spears, or 3 turn Catapults. Or, more like, 3/2 turn catapults. This city has been SO slow to get started, and the 2-pop whip I did last turn didn't help, but once it grows to its proper size, it will make a large contribution to the war effort. Oh, and I've remembered that there are many forests left to chop, so I'm diverting Workers to the area to help get some more troops built quickly. I think chopping out some additional Catapults would be the most helpful, as I think Catapults will be the limiting factor in my advances.

Still crossing fingers that my overall strategy is sound, that I can make the correct tactical choices, and that luck is on my side.

[Whosit]

Finally, let's go over my advantages and weakness again.

As before, I believe that my primary advantage going into this war, tactically, is my Aggressive trait. Where the Zulu can get Combat I, I can get Shock. I have Barracks in every city, so every unit I produce, even those whipped from the smallest city, will have a promotion available. Cheater Hater has more barracks now than he did in the first fight, but I know he doesn't have barracks in every single city. I'm pretty sure that most of the axes I'm going to face will get a promotion, but he's still got a lot of units running around without an XP.

I retained nearly all of my units from the previous engagement, and they've all got several promotions from it. This is also a slight weakness, as those promotions are set in stone now, but on the whole it's an advantage I'd think. And lastly, I should be getting a Great General soon. Probably. I'll have to double check my GG points next time I log in, but I wouldn't be surprised if I got one following the battle of Kamigawa. I'm still not sure what's best to do with a GG in an MP game, but I think that in this situation, a Medic 3 unit will be what I want. I'm going to take losses and a lot of damage slogging through the Zulu defenses, so the fast I can heal and regroup, the less time CH has to reinforce his defenses.

I'll probably attach it to a Chariot for the typical Medic 3 "super" medic, but if I had an Axe with enough XP, I wonder if I could get the Woodsman 3/Medic 3 combo. Hmm... that's 6 promotions required. Let's see, that's 2/5/10/17/26/37 XP required. Ha ha, no way. I think the Jaguar is the only unit that can reasonably get that combo, and even with a GG it would have had to win several fights. I'll just put it on a chariot. The other thought I had was to split the XP between several catapults to be able to get City Raider 2's or maybe a few Accuracy promotions, but I think that's probably less important.

So, weaknesses. My overall economy and production base is weaker than Cheater Hater's. He's had his cities longer, and I think he's been whipping less than me. Plus, he's got defender's advantage. The cities that I want to take are on hills, and it wouldn't be too hard for him to add walls, and he can certainly whip out extra units and stuff them full of more defenders.

Of course, his weakness and my advantage is that my army is currently larger. If I fail to capture or raze cities, he'll win the war of attrition, but if I trade units favorably and capture a couple key cities, the war of attrition will swing in my favor. It's really going to come down to the battle at Kamigawa. If I wipe out all of his defenders while taking minimal losses, that will represent a huge blow to his standing forces. If the RNG fails me, it could fatally stall my advance. Even after weighing these advantages and disadvantages, that's what it comes down to.

Oh. Once Currency is in, I'm going to put Markets up in Willow Lake and Overland Park. I could definitely use the commerce boost, but each Market is also going to be worth +2 Happy (Ivory, Furs), and seeing as how those are my main (only) commerce cities, being able to work more cottages is significant. I'm still pretty bummed that I let Krill/Novice snipe that location to the east of Willow Lake. I wanted that Triumvirate of commerce cities, plus that really should have been in my sphere of influence. I just completely botched my expansion.

[Whosit]

Turn 109 Update:

(I know this game is huge, but I hope that by the time I'm knocked out, there will be some talk about me in the Lurker Thread. I just hope that any critique of my play is polite. I'm not pretending to be a Civ Mastermind here.)

Let's see, where to start? Cheater Hater whipped 5 pop points, all from the cities visible. 1-pop in Zendikar, 2-pop each in Theros and Kamigawa. Could be units, but the 2-pops could also be walls. We'll see next turn. In either case, Kamigawa is getting rightly packed with stuff. Visible units below:

This also shows that I should be getting cultural control of Angle Bay's 1st ring, so that's going to be a bit of a relief. It's looking increasingly likely, however, that CH is going to be able to match my number of Axemen in Kamigawa, and he'll have other defensive units on top of that. I hope that I have enough catapults to make the difference.

Finally, power and demos:

I forgot to check GG points, but I'm going back in game to check that and something else.

[Whosit]

Alright, so toward my Great General, I have 16/30 points. I'm pretty sure I can acquire the remaining points during the battle of Kamigawa. I also performed some really low-grade "C&D."

My power is 277K. My units represent 206K of my power, or about 75%.

I used a ruler to determine CH's power proportional to mine based on the graph. I got about 70%.

Over the last couple of turns, I've had vision on about 77K worth of units from CH, all in the Zendikar-Theros-Kamigawa region.

If Cheater Hater's unit power ratio is about equal to mine (a bit of an assumption), he would have 140-150K soldier points worth of units.

Other factors into power are Population, certain tech, and certain buildings. I probably have more Barracks than he has, but he probably has more population than me.

Anyway, I think it's somewhat reasonable to say that the forces that will oppose me in Kamigawa might represent about half of his total combat strength. I'm bringing about 110K to bear, which is about half of my power. He has defender's advantage and good terrain, I have catapults.

So, the long and short of it: Assuming my estimates are anywhere near accurate, a major victory at Kamigawa would see Cheater Hater lose between a third and a half of his active military forces, and I would retain the majority of mine. That's the ideal situation.

As long as I trade at least evenly on units and power, though, I shouldn't have to fear a big counter attack, either, but an even trade is a bad (and perhaps unlikely) scenario. I will admit that I'm looking at things a bit optimistically going into this, but honestly I'm committed to this so I might as well be optimistic. It's not like I've stopped building units in most of my developed cities, so I am planning to reinforce my push.

Oh, and the forces I could detached from Angle Bay would be about 60K worth of units (5 Axe, 3 Spear, 2 Chariot, 2 Catapults). That's almost as much Soldier Points as he's got in the whole 3-City area. Of course, Spears and Chariots don't represent very strong offensive power in the current situation, but nothing's perfect.

I'm anxiously waiting for Turn 111 where I'll see just what he's got waiting for me in Zendikar, and then I'll make the decision to attack there, or reinforce the push at Kamigawa.

It's hard for me not to ramble. Half of this is me reassuring myself. I'd like to do some more combat sims, but there's not much point until I'm ready to engage and know what I'm up against. The big question now is if CH whipped Axemen or Walls in Kami/Theros. I suppose he could have whipped something else, but I don't know what or why (it's possible he's acquired Metal Casting and 2-popped his cheap Forges there. He's Industrious and those are his best production towns, so it'd be reasonable. I just have no idea if that's what he teched recently. Forges would be nice for me because they wouldn't pay off before I attacked).

CAN AN ATTACKING CIVILIZATION CAPTURE BUILDINGS THEY DO NOT YET HAVE THE TECH FOR?

[Whosit]

OK, despite what I said, I went ahead and made a sim based on my worst case scenario, and this is what I put myself against:

Estimated Forces:
9 Axemen (5 promos)
3 Archers (CG1)
2 Impi (C1, W2)
2 Chariot (C1)
Walls
+1 Fresh Archer (CG1)
Total: 17 units and +1 Archer per turn

My Forces
8 Catapults
9 Axemen (C2S x4, 3XP x5)
2 Spears (C2)
2 Chariot (C1S, F)
Total: 21 units (13 fighting units)

Not very good odds for me, and I think it's safe to assume he can reinforce Kamigawa with at least one unit each turn. Basically, in all the scenarios, I got wiped out. I did the best when I spent 2 whole turns bombarding so as to allow all my catapults to attack on the same turn (instead of only using some of them). The first round of actual combat I actually did quite well. But on the second round, the addition of a fresh archer meant that all my badly damaged units had terrible odds, and that's where things fell apart.

However, I think I still have a chance.

Reinforcing from Angle Bay is just no longer an option, it's required. I think adding 4 Axemen and 2 Catapults (plus a spear or two, for whatever that's worth) should give me the extra striking power I need to tilt the battle in my favor.

Very quick pic edit, so not as clear as I'd like, but.... (also looks like I made some mistakes, oops). Assuming all forces move out on Turn 111.

Main force will move adjacent to Kamigawa on Turn 112.

Reinforcements can move adjacent to Kamigawa Turn 114.

The timing is good if Kamigawa has a wall. Less good if it doesn't, but I'll worry about that later. It also gives me some flex to decide if I should hit with the main force ASAP, or wait for reinforcements to pull up.

IF there's a wall, the main force will take 2 turns to fully bombard the defenses away, anyway, then both groups can attack turn 115. I know there's weakness to using 2 stacks, but I think if I make sure that the small stack has the better odds in engagements, it should turn out OK.

I hope.

Also, I think it's sadly reasonable to assume he could have at least 9 Axes there by the time I attack. He could pull 2 from Theros, and can build/whip more as well (he already has 5 in Kamigawa).

[Whosit]

So I just took a moment to test out the "worst case scenario" with the addition of 4 Axes, 2 Catapults, and 2 Spears. With those extra units, I win. I'll probably lose 7-8 of my 10 Catapults, which is kind of a huge bummer, but their sacrifice means that all of my other units attack at 85%+ odds. I'd have just enough units to wipe out the garrison (assuming I lose no non-catapult battles), but depending on the tactical situation, I might wait a turn to capture if I think CH could counter-attack the city if I only capture with 1 or 2 units.

I will still need to scout Zendikar with a Chariot so I know what kind of defense Angle Bay needs. Cheater Hater still has half his army somewhere, but if I'm lucky, most of it is spread out in garrisons in his other cities.

[NobleHelium]

CAN AN ATTACKING CIVILIZATION CAPTURE BUILDINGS THEY DO NOT YET HAVE THE TECH FOR?

Yes.

[Whosit]

CAN AN ATTACKING CIVILIZATION CAPTURE BUILDINGS THEY DO NOT YET HAVE THE TECH FOR?

Yes.

Neat.

Too bad the game's down, because I wanna see what CH whipped!

I also wish I had +20 Catapults, geez. So expensive, so disposable, much dismay.

[Whosit]

Turn just rolled, and I logged in to see what got whipped.... and FUUUUUUUUCK!!! Worst possible scenario: 2 Catapults! I had no idea he had researched Construction because apparently, despite all of the roads he's got along rivers, none of the god-damned things line up in such a way to display a bridge! Also, Kamigawa and Theros both grew back to size 5, so he can 2-pop whip a couple more catapults each in another turn.

I'm.... still going to line things up like I'll invade, but now I'm not sure what I should do. The reinforcement stack becomes much more vulnerable with those catapults running around.

Rgh. I the attack path I had gave me some element of surprise, and also defends one of my more vulnerable cities by virtue of my army being in the way. A forking maneuver wouldn't work well now, because my units would get hit with collateral anyway.

I wish I was better at this aspect of Civ MP. I think I either just have to go now, anyway, while I have the advantage of more catapults, or just wait longer to try and outgun him, but I've already whipped my empire pretty severely. I'm probably right fucked now, but there's not much else for me to do.