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Cheater Hater · May 1st, 2015, 19:05

Details on my misclick--I saw that johns built up his stack and is probably going to declare on me next turn--as such, I moved a bunch of my units into Magdeburg. I also started to do some upgrades, and I wanted to upgrade a couple chariots as well--unfortunately they were all grouped together and I upgraded nearly all of them (instead of just a couple) and wiped out all my savings frown

I certainly hope I get the reload (since I have a bunch of Axes I want to upgrade next turn), but I could work with it--it means I won't get the massive overflow out of Music, and I won't be able to do all those upgrade, and I won't make it to MT in time though.

Cheater Hater · May 1st, 2015, 23:07

No misclick this time! No time for the report right now, but since I think I'll be waiting a bit to play the turn (and yes, that means what you think it means--but not for certain yet) I'll get it out tomorrow. Until then, military pictures are here and domestic pictures are here.

Cheater Hater · May 2nd, 2015, 21:33

Well, it looks like that big report isn't going to happen, but I'm going to throw something together at least. All the pictures are in the folders in the last post, but here's the most important one:
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Yeah, that was almost certainly taking out Magdeburg on the following turn. As such, I reinforced it a bunch:
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That should hold--I've been assuming it would be very poor form to "double-move" and upgrade all the Axes, so right now the plan is to declare next turn with all the main units (Rifles/Knights/Cats), while leaving the rest of the units in Magdeburg and upgrading all (or most) of the Axes. We'll see what johns does with all those units, as well as how fast I can flip those tiles (the three on the diagonal next to Magdeburg are flipping this turn, and the others should follow). If anyone else has any questions, let me know.

spacetyrantxenu · May 3rd, 2015, 06:01

I see two catapults in your stack. Where are the rest? Don't forget that cats can't be flanked when inside forts/cities. Even in horribly culturally exposed cities like that one. wink

Cheater Hater · May 3rd, 2015, 10:46

(May 3rd, 2015, 06:01)spacetyrantxenu Wrote: I see two catapults in your stack. Where are the rest? Don't forget that cats can't be flanked when inside forts/cities. Even in horribly culturally exposed cities like that one.

I left them up near Adrien for too long--a stack of ~12 Cats will show up in 1-2 turns.

Cheater Hater · May 4th, 2015, 20:35

Well, I forgot to post T193 last turn, but now it's time for T194, both military and domestic folders. Still no wars, but I think T195 is the turn--I gain control of the plains hill, and that gives me a lot of movement flexibility:
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The majority of that is my stack (pretty much everything but the leftover Axes and Spears, though I'm not sure how much else I want to keep in Magdeburg), though I'm also adding some Knights still in Vienna (complete details in the folder as always). Here's johns's main stack:
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So if we compare the main stacks only (for simplicity), I have:
10 Rifles
12 Knights
8 Chariots
22 Cats
And johns has:
24 Knights
25 Cats
2 Maces
2 Pikes

We're almost exactly even on raw unit count, it's just that I have Rifles while johns has more Knights and Cats. What I need to do is actually run some sims on what happens if I just move the stack in and he attacks it, but that's a lot of effort. I also need to figure out where I want to put my stack if I do decide to declare next turn--my default has been the grassland Town right next to johns stack since it gives me options (either moving NW onto the hill and attacking Badman's River on T197 or possibly using my 2-movers to hit The Ugly on T196 if the sims like that option) and limits the positions johns can counter-attack from (does johns get the river-crossing penalty if he attacks from the hill next to Badman's River onto the grassland Town? I don't think so). At what point do I need to just start attacking? I get Military Tradition at EoT and can save up for even more upgrades, but johns gets Gunpowder in two turns and can start doing upgrades of his own.

Cheater Hater

Really? Whosit decided to declare on me? Did I offend him or something by offering open borders? He obviously took Brandenburg, and now I have no clue what I do next--I'm not supposed to just continue the attack on johns, am I? I can't completely abandon the border either, since johns still has his doom stack threatening Magdeburg (and since it's primarily 2-movers I have to keep units in Vienna as well--that's a much more important city to keep obviously). And of course Whosit strikes right after I've invested most of my gold getting to Military Tradition and upgrading units for the johns war. I need some help BGN!

Edit: It wasn't Brandenburg, it's Mainz, and I'm completely dead--I really don't want to become the stereotype of rage, but just look at this! There was no way I was going to do this without Whosit's cooperation, and now I'm going to lose all my eastern cities best case. I hope you enjoy handing Elum the game Whosit--I give up.

Edit2: Seriously, tell me why I shouldn't declare on johns anyway, declare on Adrien too, try to burn as much as I can, and just cede my entire empire to Whosit? It means Whosit would actually have a chance against Elum (assuming he doesn't just burn everything to the ground--he presumably knows he can't keep anything once my army gets here if I play anywhere close to rationally), and certainly seems better than just waiting six months for Elum to win once he takes half of Whosit's cities, leverages his monstrous production advantage (seriously, look at the graph, and as far as I know he's not in a Golden Age). In addition, it means you can finally blacklist me from playing in games here, since I clearly don't enjoy it at all--you would just need to find someone to dump my barb-infested already lost position in PB26 to.

Since this game is over for me, tell me how the heck I was supposed to win it, if we assume Whosit and ipecac are never going to be smart enough to actually bring Elum down a peg (because of the prisoner's dilemma inherent in AI Diplo no one ever agrees with me on, even though it's clearly there). Sure, I could turtle, shove 10 Rifles in every city, and waste 10 turns of research to get city visibility on Whosit, but while I'm doing that, Elum is going to build 100 Rifles, use them to tear through ipecac when he's skirmishing with Adrien ineffectually for the 10th time, overtake the slight research lead I got with my Golden Ages when he builds his Observatories and/or gets another Golden Age, and win because snowballs who aren't completely awful diplomatically and/or are neighbors with people who don't care about winning can never be stopped in AI Diplo. I can't attack either Whosit or johns (or Adrien for that matter) since the other would join instantly and wipe out my flank (since we've seen with johns that I needed basically every unit in my stack to match john's stack). Alternatively, you can tell me in excruciating detail just how much I ruined the perfect start BGN handed me on a silver platter.

Boldly Going Nowhere · May 5th, 2015, 21:02

Don't go crazy. You can't do anything about the irrational play of others, just do the best you can. If you had an axe and a warrior as your eastern defense I'd have probably felt obligated to do essentially what Whosit is doing. Whip what defenders you can and do your best to reel that stack in.

It appears that Worm and Nurmberg are toast no matter what you do if you don't have a spare pile of units nearby. I'm assuming you don't since you pulled everything toward Johns. You want to do two things now. First, you want to try to bleed your opponent wherever you can. The rifle on F4 needs to go back to Nuremburg. It is going to die if you do this, but you may kill 3 or more knights if you are lucky. On average, I'd guess you'll kill at least two. But you have to start bleeding the stack some time, so start now, the odds (and hammer ratio) are greatly in your favor here. Second, you want to get together a countering stack that will be formidable enough to either wipe his stack or force it to retreat before you can wipe it. The axe in Worms isn't going to stop anything, so move it into Nuremburg. Whip Florence's rifle (obviously) and switch every city that isn't building a unit to a rifle. Rifles murder knights, especially on defense, and even more so when the invader can't eliminate culture.

Is there an enforced peace treaty between Whosit and Elum? If so, how long will it last? I don't think you can expect any help from that quarter, though, as Whosit is doing exactly what Elum would want him to do. It's a tough break but you play the hand you're dealt and just do the best you can.

According to what you posted last turn, Carib had 12 units in its garrison. What kind of units do you have available? Can you collateral the knight stack?

If I get some time tonight I'll log in and see what options you may have. Think of the bright side. This could have happened after you declared on johns. Incidentally, that looks like it would have been a very bloody affair for you with him having so many cats in his stack. He could have done you great harm, especially to your precious rifles.

Boldly Going Nowhere

My first thought is "Man, this game loads fast!" lol

Ok, you're also at war with johns.

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Of all things, he attempted a naval assault at Regensberg, which failed spectacularly (and predictably). His combat odds with knights with the amphibious malus vs. rifles were .5%, 1.7%, 6.3%, 6.3%, and 7.2%. Not exactly a recipe for success.

Magdeburg should not be your line of defense. I'd leave enough units in there to make johns think twice about attacking, but if he wants that city it's his and you can't stop it. No need to waste your stack, and the city isn't that great anyway. Vienna is a much safer line of defense and you MUST hold there. But johns has not advanced on this vector. I think you can siphon off units from this stack to partially deal with Whosit. The rest will have to come form somewhere else. Just leave enough defenders in Magdeburg that johns has to use some catapults if he wants to take the city. His attack stack is almost entirely knights so you can leave LKs and a handful of rifles.

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Whosit's goal should be the eastern part of your empire, the seven cities including Nuremburg, Worms, Carib, Florence, Lubeck, Pisa, and Brandenberg. Move all of your workers and immediately make some workshops to see if you can finish a unit build or two. But with you being in Caste it is going to be an uphill fight to get the units that you need to wipe the invading stack fast enough to prevent you from being crippled.

I meant to check but got rushed and forgot to, but do you have Nationhood? Can you swap into nationalism? You have a third GP due in 4t (can this be 3t with micro adjustment/food deficit?). You can swap civics in 2t, so you can perhaps fire a GA and swap into slavery for instant units, in addition to drafting. This may save several cities if this is an option. If this is possible, swap now for one turn of production on two units (if you will be able to complete both builds before Whosit's stack would kill your city), then if/when you can get into slavery you can whip on consecutive turns without the penalty for not having hammers into the build. But this looks to be emergency defense, so you may just need to whip turn 1 no matter what to save the city. Let's see if you can get into slavery and/or nationhood.

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You bled him decently here. It would have been more but I'm guessing the units weren't all promoted. Use your promos!

I see TONS of units without promotions! This is not good!! You can get away with this against the AI, or when you are in total control of the tempo of the conflict. This is not the case here, and with these tightly contested borders it was never certain to be the case. You should be using at least some of your promotions on city garrison.

While I'm logged in: I'm not sure why you want to keep growing this city.

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Convert two of the farms to workshops and get some hammers out. I think what you were going for here is culture buildings to secure a good border. That's ok. But the university is a very expensive investment for you, and this is not a good commerce city. You already have Oxford built, so you don't need so many universities hammers tied up in these builds could have probably been more useful to you elsewhere. Florence is another good example of this. You have lots of farms, not cottages, so the beaker multipliers are not a good investment.

Micro suggestions: For now, forget growth. If you have to choose between 3f and working a workshop, take the workshop. You aren't in slavery so you'll need to upgrade units with cash or build with hammers, which are precious few in this empire.

Cheater Hater

Well, I finally decided to play my turn--thanks again for putting up with all my melodrama BGN; I don't know where this ranks on the scale of my meltdowns (it doesn't feel nearly as bad as my other three, since it wasn't directly attacking Whosit more than "you know Elum is going to win now", which even BGN agrees with me on, but even in this one I'm passive-aggressively threatening to quit and/or ruin the game), but I feel like I've rebounded better from this one, mainly since I forgot how many troops I could stuff in Nuremburg before Whosit attacks it, and that I could rush my third GA. I've split my T195 pictures into three groups: the Whosit front, the johns front, and general domestic stuff. I also chatted with BGN during the majority of the turn--it's mostly just troop movement and setting up my civic swap in 2 turns, but near the end we talk a bit about what I should have done (waited on the johns war until I had a navy to stretch him thin, defend every border in the meantime):

Not much else has happened this turn--hopefully I can hold at Nuremburg, or at least massacre his stack in the process. I still have no idea what johns is trying to accomplish though--he was able to see into Regensburg from his border, right? I just need to somehow hold Vienna; hopefully I'll be able to do some upgrades and hold it. If there are any other questions, just let me know smile

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