Secrets of the Deep: Northstar (Lanun) vs. Mardoc (Svartalfar)

[Northstar1989]

One fatal mistake, and everything falls apart...

I've forfeited this duel now- but I just thought I'd let you guys know why I lost it...



Basically, I forgot that Mardoc's Scout had a free promotion available. All my calculations of defensive probabilities were based on the promotions he had at the beginning of last turn- or I would have realized all he had to do was take the Shock promotion, and crossing the River would have been no problem- which is *precisely* what Mardoc did...



Actually, my mistake came far earlier than that- I failed to fully realize the imminent danger a Scout with Sinister and Shock promotions would pose to my very survival (which is ironic, because I was playing the Svartalfar in another concurrent duel against Bob, and didn't miss that possibility there...) My only real chance at victory was to have produced a bunch more Warriors instead of working on a Granary...


Then, the unthinkable happened- not only did I lose both my Workers and a Warrior to Mardoc's Scout (which was disastrous- but with my large Demographics lead might not have ensured immediate defeat- it would still have been a long slow ride downhill from there...) I also lost on my coutnerattack, at 73% odds!



Since I carried out the counterattack on my turn, I can't accuse Mardoc of cheating or anything like that (and besides, 1 in 4 odds of losing is perfectly probable- unlike, say, the 1 in 990 odds of getting an Insanity swap to traits as bad as I did, not to mention how early it occurred in the game...) I just got unlucky (the odds of the first Warrior losing, and then the counterattack failing, were still less than 1 in 5...)

And as a result, I now had a Scout that had survive TWO fights since acquiring Shock (one of them at unfavorable odds!) sitting just north of my capital, with no way to catch him before he escaped the reach of my remaining Warrior to heal up... This was essentially ensured immediate defeat- even if Mardoc didn't arrive with more Scouts soon to back in up, that Scout would have had EXCELLENT odds of taking out my capital (no better than a Warrior with +70% on base 3 STR, vs. a Scout with at least +80% vs melee units on base 3 STR...) And, much more likely, that Scout could have just choked me capital (killing any Workers who dared to venture outside my city-walls) until Warriors could have arrived to finish the job of conquest...

In short, there was NOTHING I could do to avert defeat at that point... So I conceded.


Regards,
Northstar

[Aurorarcher]

You could've produced warrior in 1t in your capital. I'm pretty sure you can get 16 hammers per turn if you wanted to.

[Northstar1989]

You could've produced warrior in 1t in your capital. I'm pretty sure you can get 16 hammers per turn if you wanted to.

Wouldn't have stopped the inevitable choke.

Mardoc said one very, very accurate thing over on his lurker thread (which I've checked out now that I conceded). I was stuck too much in a single-player builder mindset. That's not to say that he was right about a lot of other stuff (he was completely wrong and arrogant about my economic choices, for instance- he was arrogantly predicting he would hit size 9 before me- when the record shoss much the opposite...) But I should have been building Warriors, not a Granary- I got too much lured into a false sense of safety by no sighting of Mardoc...


Regards,
Northstar

[Aurorarcher]

Yeah, Granaries are almost always not worth it in this games. Well, early on for sure they aren't. The hammer cost is just too high for them when you should be pumping out warriors/workers/settlers.

[Qgqqqqq]

Having checked, I don't think he could - max 15h, and he might have starved, too.

Still, after that he would've been able to build up a considerable force, so you'd probably survive a long time. But yeah, you'd lose long run.

I'd explain why the granary build was stupid anyway, but I've given up at this point.