[PB25-SPOILERS] The Lunacy of the Reign of HAK Continues

[HitAnyKey]

Just to start things off this morning while I wake up reviewing the turn and doing the non-important moves...
Donovan attack retep and took his northern city from their island area:



And Gavagai moved the Numids back into Five Guys, but left the bulk of the rest of the stack currently between the two cities. Obviously to give him options depending on what I do.


I suppose we still move ahead with the plan of putting our stack on that hill NE of Five Guys. He will then have a few options:
1. He'll move everything into Five Guys and wait for me to bash my head against it.
2. He'll move some of the stuff into FG and slam me with his catapults to weaken me before my attack. But that likely wouldn't make sense since I'd have the turn roll to heal and probably a few promotions to make before I attack.
3. He'll move around to my north and try to force me to retreat or lose my back lines.
4. He'll retreat and give up the city.

I might be missing something, but those are the only likely options. I'd assume he'll move everything into the city and wait for me. But you never know.

[HitAnyKey]

Here are the beginnings of the big picture overview....
First the full set of demos & graphs:

Next up is military details based on what I can see.
First my own:

Here is Tas. Most of his attacking land forces are up in former Elkad land, so that's why I'm missing a lot in that area of things:

Next up is Commodore. I can pretty much see everything of his. Maybe a few knights and such that haven't made it back from the Elkad fog, and there might be a few units in some of the fogged tiles between cities. But this should account for just about all of it:

Lastly, here is Gavagai. I no longer have visibility around a handful of his cities, so it's quite possible he has some stuff in the fog in that area. I'm hopeful that it is minimal and just stragglers of units that are slowly making their way to the front. He also has a stack of about 4-5 Triremes that are moving east along his southern coast, which I have been trying to chase with my stack of 5 Caravels down there. I'm hoping to catch up to them before they reach my channel that I'm using to ferry units across with my galleys. Otherwise that will put a delay on that process, but at least I'm mostly done there.

More to come when I log back in a bit later to finish the turn. I'll try to grab some land overlay screenshots, but much of that hasn't changed. Wonder if I should try to get a map trade with Tas and/or Donovan and/or retep. Would be nice to see what those land areas look like now after the recent city conquests. And since my land basically hasn't changed, I wouldn't be sharing much new.

[HitAnyKey]

Forgot to post this earlier this afternoon when I played the turn, but here is the build queue:

When I was logged in at that time I had taken this screenshot...

to show that Commodore was starting to build lots of Galleys, which I would assume he would complete if he had to get Astronomy to fight off Tas.

However just now when I logged in to pause for Gavagai, discovered that we have a problem...

They agreed to a peace deal with Commodore giving two cities to Tas. This is bad news for us, since now Commodore can fully concentrate on me. All those Galley builds are no longer queued up. Instead he's building Trebuchets, Catapults, and Muskets almost everywhere. He has a couple buildings he's finishing and a couple Research builds, but other than that it's basically all military for cracking through my choke points.

So if we don't crack through Gavagai quickly....I think Commodore will be slamming into us within the next 10T or less while he has this peace with Tas.

[MindyMcCready]

My first instinct is that this is a defensive reaction by MC. He's got 1,000K soldiers points relative to your 1474K. But once you strip out 300K for buildings, tech and pop,...well your 1174K is almost 70% higher than his remaining 700K. So he's probably reacting to our build up.

Still, there's nothing defensive about trebs,...definately a sign of aggression. If he Libs for Cuirassiers that'll be a red flag for sure. The aggression won't necessarily be directed at us. Regardless, of its direction we need to keep drafting to do what we can to thwart his intentions.

Still,...MC's giving away cities. Why would you do that unless you felt vulnerable? I'm just having trouble seeing that as a sign that he's going to come crashing through our door. Yeah, just look at that power graph. Gav and Tasunke are the same power. Who's shoes would you rather be in.

That little city trade has put Tas up to 17 cities. That's not far from MC's count or ours. This might stroke the flames between us. Hopefully, he honours the land trade deal that we made. The defense of Alexandra and future Thebes just got a lot more dicey. If MC decides to harass us on Battle Island, I don't see peace lasting between Tasunke and MC. Tasunke will not likely appreciate MC's units on that island.


The good news is that we've probably drafted most or all of the units that we need for the Gavagai front. It's mostly just a matter of transporting them. All of our new (and soon improved) drafts can probably head to the MC front. If you want to post the units on both our side and MC's I can help to assess if they're adequate.

[HitAnyKey]

Well, looks like we properly frustrated Gavagai enough that he couldn't finish his turn last night. And he's actually been putting a post or two in his thread recently, which he basically never does. I remember looking at his PB22 thread after that game, and the only posts he had in the beginning were bitching about me and tossing around insults. I'll have to remember not to read his thread after this game, since I'm sure he's doing it again and I don't care to read that sort of bullshit.
Anyway, his need for waiting to play his turn is actually good for me. I've been spending too much of my mornings in chat and planning mode, such that I end up not wanting to do much work in the afternoon. I actually get to spend this morning trying to earn some money by doing some actual work.

My guess is that he needs to spend time SIMing out attacking into the stack I put on that hill. Hopefully I put enough stuff into it to survive, and I'm also kind of hoping that he does not advance towards McDs as I'd like to be able to keep the stack there. If he advances, not a huge loss as I'll just move them all back into the city after the road is completed. Just means I would have to delete the 2 Workers that built the road. I almost hope he rages out on me and just attacks the stack, and with any luck he loses more than me (or at least most of those highly promoted units). I have all these Knights that will soon be coming. And having most of his highly promoted units dead (even if it costs me most of my current stack) would be a good help.

[MindyMcCready]

Well, looks like we properly frustrated Gavagai enough that he couldn't finish his turn last night. And he's actually been putting a post or two in his thread recently, which he basically never does. I remember looking at his PB22 thread after that game, and the only posts he had in the beginning were bitching about me and tossing around insults. I'll have to remember not to read his thread after this game, since I'm sure he's doing it again and I don't care to read that sort of bullshit.

Well let's not prejudge. I'll read it for you and tell you if it's safe. :LOL:

Anyway, his need for waiting to play his turn is actually good for me. I've been spending too much of my mornings in chat and planning mode, such that I end up not wanting to do much work in the afternoon.

Well if you'd stop arguing about drafting every turn we'd both save some time. When we tech Drama and build the Globe Theatre you'll feel the pain a lot less.

My guess is that he needs to spend time SIMing out attacking into the stack I put on that hill. Hopefully I put enough stuff into it to survive.

I thought that we put everything onto that hill except an anti-horse force in McD? If that's the case, he can't touch that stack.

and I'm also kind of hoping that he does not advance towards McDs as I'd like to be able to keep the stack there. If he advances, not a huge loss as I'll just move them all back into the city after the road is completed. Just means I would have to delete the 2 Workers that built the road.

I'm not sure what the culture defense of McD look like now (25% on T170). But with our new set of 9 LBs on hills we should be able to split the stack (carefully) and do no worse than even. All LB into the city and most of the maces on the other hill and we will probably be fine.

As an aside, I did a SIM last night basically to figure out if we could triple-fork his cities. We can safely advance on flat lands to the triple-fork location (2N1W of Five Guys for lurkers) but it's an empty threat if we can't survive after sending our HA away.

Scenario: Gav 80 units attack HAK's 69 units on grasslands
(I added 6 more maces than what we had T170, 14 HA went to kill something).
SIM Result #1: We were a little worse off than even. Not by too much.
SIM Result #2: We got thumped losing 40 units while Gav lost 20.

So the jury's still out on that one. I didn't have time for a tie breaker to figure out where the luck was at.

IMPORTANT: My attack order as Gav was cats first, then WEs to break the LK, then some CBs to finish off the anti-horse, then send in the NC. "HAK" took terrible losses in SIM #2 however, none of the catapults died from flanking even if all 12 NC were successful. By the end Gav's CBs were killing our cats but again, none of them died to flanking.

I almost hope he rages out on me and just attacks the stack, and with any luck he loses more than me (or at least most of those highly promoted units).

Well if he's raging in the thread, he'll probably be more calculating in-game.

I have all these Knights that will soon be coming. And having most of his highly promoted units dead (even if it costs me most of my current stack) would be a good help.

I'm still requesting that you post a state of defenses along the MC border. I'm basing the following comments on a old state of affairs.

If we have to choose units for each front:
-Knights over by MC's way since they'll be able to cover both choke points simultaneously. Also, if we want to redeply to GavagiaLand, they can do so quickly.
-Maces over to MC's way since they're adequate defenders while on hill + fort + culture.
-Muskets over to GavagaiLand since they will target Gav's CBs. Muskets are probably a bigger game changer than Knights are given our stack compositions and techs. Also, Gav's upcoming LBs will thwart this advantage if we can't produce more muskets than he makes LBs.
-New cats over to the MC front to replace our redeployed ones.
-Trebs. When I re-ran the SIM an unpromoted Treb had 68% odds against a CG2, D1 CBs. That's compared to 9% for an unpromoted cat. Gav's new LBs will stand up better than the CBs but as the first defenders the LBs will be wreaked allowing muskets to target CBs.

If we launch our main assault on T177 and have to slow march we'll be at Carthage on T190 at the earliest. So we'll definately have time to build some trebs that can catch up to the stack. Maybe put Burning Spears on Trebs when it's finished its Rathus? Or some other high hammer city.

[HitAnyKey]

Regarding the stack I moved and what I left in McDs.....I've already forgotten exactly what I moved and what I left behind. I know for awhile I kept staring at the screen trying to decide how much should be left behind and how much should be moved. Now that I've thought about it a bit more, I think I remember moving most everything, so we should hopefully be good regarding his chances of attacking that stack. For awhile I still had a good number of Maces remaining in McDs, but I think now I may have only left a couple in there. I know I moved the two anti-Catapult WEs with the stack, and may have left behind 2 WEs in the city. But still might have moved those as well. I do know I kept in the city at least 2-3 more units than Numids in his stack (and those are the only ones that could reach the city this turn). And most of what I left behind were LKs. So he'd be crazy to try to attack the city with his Numids. I think I left about 6-7 LKs in the city.
So basically everything else is in with the hill stack.

When the turn finally rolls and Commodore plays his turn, I'll spend some time to figure out exactly where his forces are and what his composition is. I didn't get a chance to do that yesterday.

[MindyMcCready]

I was interested in an update to this:

And here we have the whole world for getting the city counts....


This one shows the entirety of Tasunke (13), Donovan (11), & Elkad (6)


This one gives you Commodore (21) & retep (11)


This one gives you Gavagai (14).

Compared to my 23 cities.

[HitAnyKey]

Finishing up lunch and then I will likely log in to check out the Gavagai front. For you lurkers, just wanted to let you know that I've already ok'd it with Commodore via PMs that I can log in before him this turn just to look at that front. I won't analyze his side of the world until after he plays his turn this evening. Main reason for this is so that I can discuss with Mindy a bit before we basically lose contact for the weekend like usual.

[HitAnyKey]

As discussed in the chat here's what things look like on the Gavagai front:

Basically the decision is whether we try sending all the HAs to take Five Guys from those two Pikemen. And if we do, whether we move the entire stack to try to hit his since it should be able to move to the hill 1N of FG and then hit the stack from there. With stuff from McDs hitting the stack across the river with the penalty.