[SPOILERS] joey and scooter's thread: FUN THINGS ONLY

[Ceiliazul]

Yuri and AT are a media blackout warzone, can you summarize what youve seen over there? How has the war gone, generally, and were there any big surprises along the way? Are praets still viable?

[GermanJoey]

Generally, AT has been slowly but surely eating Yuri. I've only had my worker spy crew lurking around for the last dozenish turns or so, but overall I think he's taken 5 cities... not 100% sure though, since AT renames conquered cities. (how distasteful)




AT briefly held Utrecht at one point, but Yuri reconquered that.

The climactic battle this turn was at Utrecht, and it seems that Yuri held! He's even still got his GG super defender left alive. I had unfortunately already moved my workers this turn, so I can't peak on AT's stack for you right now, but I bet my bottom dollar that Yuri reinforces the city, as he's got 3 fresh muskets and a maceman in range.




As for the viability of Praets? Hell yes. Like, look at my and Bacchus/Gawdzak's stacks here:







I've got just two swords left now; one 23 xp C2 CR3, one 5xp C1 CR2. The 5xp sword is a better city attacker here than any of those quad promo Knights or Jans, and the sword only costs half as many hammers as either of them! And remember that Praets would be even better than this. IMHO, RtR swordsmen are only balanced in so much as a critical, commonly beelined medieval economic tech obsoletes the player from building them. IIRC, AT has a GG attached to one of his Praets, although I can't remember the promos he had on it. (he had CR3 for sure though. Maybe C2 CR3 + Leadership?)

[GermanJoey]

T193.

I decided not to go for finishing off Persia just yet... I think I had just enough troops, but I'd be trusting my fate to win 20 out of 25 80-90% battles, which is just too close for me. I'll wait until I can be more confident with the result.

Instead... I decided to take this!







And here I was starting to forget that captured cities could come with buildings intact.

Sorry, Yuris, but you're pretty much dead and its now or never for me to grab a bit of your territory. Three Knights on a Galleon, one of which was loaded last turn just in case such a situation presented itself, captured the empty city of Maastricht. A Pikeman also took out a Knight of his sitting in my borders after sniping a horcher-scout of AT's. I've got another galleon filled with quad-promo Jans able to reinforce next turn... Yuri could choose to try taking his former capital back with the remnant of his half-dead troops at Utrecht, but it would be iffy and he'd lose any opportunity to make AT pay any further. AT and Yuri's armies looked like this before I declared:




Yuri's would pit 3 healthy C1 CG2 muskets, 2 mostly healthy macemen, and 5 more half-dead units against a C3 Knight and 2 C2 Pinch Knights. I've got 3 C3 Pinch Jans ready to reinforce on another galleon net turn, at which point I'll hope to use the Knights to take another empty, unpronouncable dutch city, a 3-food tundraball to the northeast that will also open up room for another filler. (settler ready, ofc) At any rate, AT can 100% take Utretcht next turn with his stack of 38 units, but the question is how much will he pay for it? That C2 CG3 Formation Musket will be near full health next turn, and probably able to take down a few hitters by itself even after being bombarded to 50% hp.

If Yuri doesn't go after me, that just leaves AT for me to deal with. On one hand, I'm able to secure this front fairly handily with troops from my Persia stack via Galleons if I need to... but that will slow Gawdzak's death by even more. Right now, that's OK I guess... keeping that stack over there only costs 30gpt, and a few jails has gotten WW under control, but the main issue is that Persian culture is suppressing the growth of a few other cities. I suppose I might also like to draft some Infantry, and I'll need to eliminate Persia if I want to do it over there. I'll have to watch closely to try to get a read on how pissed AT is that I'm taking some of his hard-won land. He is, like, a whole era behind in tech, and is thus no long-term worry like TBS. That said... He did just get MT this turn, meaning he'll have a slightly military quality advantage for the next 10 turns or so... he'd need to commit 100% to have any chance at all though, and that doesn't seem likely. He still has a pretty good shot at finishing in the top 10 of this thing.

Well, that's that... now for something completely different.




plako just got Rifling this turn, so methinks that he'll have about, uh, lets see here - *haphazardly slaps at a calculator* - it turns out he'll have exactly a billion cavalry next turn. I'm sure Xenu is giggling with glee as well... Anyways, CH's destruction would be very welcome news - if plako and Xenu wipe CH out, then that gives me a pretty good opportunity to nail HAK at low cost, as I wouldn't have to worry about 4th ring Greek culture crushing my new holdings. My channel-fillers would also claim a huge amount of land on that continent as well as complete control of the channel. Great!

[GermanJoey]

T194.

A really annoying turn. First of all, Gawdzak's borders expanded to 4th ring, meaning that I'm highly culture-crushed over there, with Persian culture ruining like 5 of my current or soon-to-be cities.

Also, this happened... GODDAMIT pitboss, what the fuck!!! I double-checked this even! This might force me to delay my GA by a turn, ugh.




There's been some big happenings lately:




1.) Finharry got the SoL... extremely important IMHO, more on this later.
2.) TBS switched into Pacifism... very important, more on this later.
3.) Plako got a chance to buy an academy for 100 gold, pretty nice for him.
4.) BGN got a really great random event:

Code:

**********************
*CRISIS IN THE SENATE*
**********************

--==Scenario==--

"The eldest senator of the leading opposition party has been disgraced by
scandal. The entire senate has been thrown into chaos."

--==Mechanics==--

Chance of Event in Game = 55%
Required                = Represenation Civic
                          Nationalism, Printing Press, Education,
                          Gunpowder Tech

--==Options==--

"Let the senators fight amongst themselves. When both sides are weakened,
step in and assert presidential authority."

"Support the ruling party in impeaching numerous members of the scandalised
party, destroying all effective opposition to the ruling party."

"Rely on judical authority to enforce the letter of the constitution."

--==Results==--

Option 1 - "Let the senators fight amongst themselves. When both sides are
            weakened, step in and assert presidential authority."

Cost   : None
Result : Barracks Yields +2 Espionage Commerce

Option 2 - "Support the ruling party in impeaching numeroud members of the
            scandalised party, destroying all effective opposition to the
            ruling party."

Cost   : None
Result : 400 Gold

Option 3 - "Rely on judical authority to enforce the letter of the
            constitution."

Cost   : None
Result : +1 Happiness to All Cities

--==Appears in Events==--

"Scandal has thrown the [Civ Adjective] senate into chaos. A constitutional
crisis has emerged. Yet this also opens the door to political reforms."

Obviously, Option 1 is the killer here. BGN has like 80 cities or something (like hell am I actually counting them), and you typically put a barracks in almost every city at this stage of the game, so... that could potentially be like, 160 ep per turn? for free? yeesh. That will certainly nullify the Aztecs' current EP advantage and then some... maybe force them to start spamming IAs and Jails?

Yuri did not try to take his city back and AT finished off Utretcht, so I think I'll get another next turn, plus have the space to plant a filler. I'm waiting for 3 more Galleons full of units before I try to finish off Gawdzak... I should be ready in 4 turns.

[GermanJoey]

T195.

So, when I first logged in, I checked the event log and I saw I did, indeed, have coal. And, of course, it had to be here:




I was really annoyed when I first saw this but then I zoomed out and........... it looks like Commodore forgot to balance modern-era resources TBS doesn't have ANY coal, despite having 3 empires worth of land, nor do Bacchus, Yuri, HAK, or AT. (that said, I can't see 100% of HAK and AT, just most). CH has one, just to the NE of Abed, and BGN has one in former Nakor-land, but nowhere else that I can see. So, I'm really happy with my coal town now...

My GA will indeed be delayed by 1 turn, so I took off all the extra specialists in my Moai. I will fire it T201 now, with most levees and AL complete. A small upside is that Finharry got AL this turn, perhaps boosted by an ancient ruins event they got a few turns ago that I hadn't thought much of at the time, so I now get a 1.08 KTB. I hope that they don't prize that free GG from Facism as much as I do... then again, these are the guys who started wardeccing random people in PB22 just to farm XP for Commandos. I'm sure they have the same goal as I.

In other news, I took two cities off Yuri this turn, keeping this one:



(MY FIRST COURTHOUSE!!!)

but razing this one, to develop a cleaner border with AT:




I also planted my little filler city.

It'll be interesting how things develop with AT... I have tons of forces in the area, but I still want to finish off Persia T198, meaning those forces won't really be available until T200 or so. He's still got a stack of about 40 damaged troops sitting around Utrecht, so he has an opportunity to force me out... but only if he's willing to face down my Infantry in 10 turns.

[GermanJoey]

[GermanJoey]

T198.

...

gawdzak got to whip once last time T197. i lost 5 battles at 90%+ odds out of 34.




i seriously feel like rage-quitting this game right now

[Ceiliazul]

unbelievable. Never give up.

Why is it important that TBS is in pacifism?

[GermanJoey]

well, its just stupid. gawdzak is not a player, he's a spoiled, temporary sub, and thus should not be taking advantage of spoiler knowledge or playing in 100% spite mode. He can read my thread (I noticed he switched from musket spam to longbow spam after I made a post explaining why protective longbows were more hammer-efficient defenders than muskets), play my neighbor's turn (TBS has about a dozen scouting units sprinkled through my territory), read TBS's thread, read the lurker thread, etc. In that context, I shouldn't have to deal with this to-the-last man bullshit while other players are allowed to conquer AIs, it makes this game feel stupid and pointless. I gather up 55 units to attack, plus ships, suicide 20 cats, kill 30 units, and yet I'm going to a.) probably lose the 5% roll next turn at Gordium, have it revolt and flip back to him, AND, b.) have to suicide another 4 or 5 units to finish off a CG3 G2 C2 Pinch Great General longbow next turn. Fuck! fffffffffffffuckkkkkkkkkk!!!! I had been looking forward to this all week.

TBS in pacifism is important because.... well, its probably just for his 4-man GA. I keep going back and forth on whether he's going for a Cultural Victory or not, but there's as many signs pointing away from it as there are pointing to it. I'd write up more details here, I've been tracking a lot of indicators quite closely, but I'm still too salty, lol...

[GermanJoey]

T199.

Back to full health, CG3 G2 C1.




I got extraordinarily luckily with my first attack, a full-health C2 Pinch Jan, which did 4 hits! I was able to finish it at 87% odds with my next attack to get my super-sword up to 26 XP, sweet!!!




and wow, a former Persian city with buildings in them, what is this sorcery ?!???




Good fucking riddance.

Shortly after this, the server died and I nearly threw my laptop out the window, but I guess it was just an ISP hiccup.

I'll take some screenshots to explain the TBS situation when I log back in later to finish my turn.