[LURKERS] PB27 Map & Lurking: Walking in a :weed: wonderland

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I was all ready to give you a good report, with a new troop picture and all that, but you're getting a lazy report because DZ has decided to kingmake and attack me instead of actually trying to defend against taotao

I hope this isnt true, it wouldnt make sense given donovan's other struggles. If it is, the attacking force should easily be handled by CH's nearby stack at this point anyway...

Holy Rego Triple!

I see three workers. Looks like a clear chop to me. Rather than wallow in self-pity and doubt, instead bring up some workers of your own and put your axes to work by building a quick road to attack those units with your two axes and a new chariot? Easy peasy presto! Three cheap workers and you get to attack your enemy's units on flat terrain instead of through city culture. Looks like an opportunity to me.

[Aurorarcher]

Edit: Really, not responding to a neighbor's growing power happens constantly in these games- sometimes the target just isn't paying attention, but often I think it's because if the aggressor does attack someone else then you'll be in a much better position if you continued to invest in development rather than meeting a threat that didn't materialize.

Yup, this makes a lot of sense. Obviously having an army at the wrong time, when you don't actually need it, is bad because of upkeep expenses, and it also slows down your empire development like you pointed out.

I guess it was a lot of Commodore relaying on his reputation, but that seems like a noob play to me in this case.

[GermanJoey]

I was all ready to give you a good report, with a new troop picture and all that, but you're getting a lazy report because DZ has decided to kingmake and attack me instead of actually trying to defend against taotao

I hope this isnt true, it wouldnt make sense given donovan's other struggles. If it is, the attacking force should easily be handled by CH's nearby stack at this point anyway...

Holy Rego Triple!

I see three workers. Looks like a clear chop to me. Rather than wallow in self-pity and doubt, instead bring up some workers of your own and put your axes to work by building a quick road to attack those units with your two axes and a new chariot? Easy peasy presto! Three cheap workers and you get to attack your enemy's units on flat terrain instead of through city culture. Looks like an opportunity to me.

Well, CH wouldn't be CH if he wasn't CH... he's literally planning to invade the guy in 2 turns and yet now he's whining about his "Prisoner's Dilemma" bullshit again? And he's what, 15/22 in power? Gimmie a break!

[GermanJoey]

According to civstats, Donovan did take that CH city...

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I guess I'll go ahead and eat my crow then. Panic = prescient? Still, if you're going to war then prepare for all possibilities!

[Ceiliazul]

You see that Crop yield? When I was down almost 60?

I want to make it 100 over second place by T120.

Dang Krill, thats some single-player level sprawl you got going there... And it's going to work too unless Gavagai/hak get it in gear FAST. No way HAK can leave these cities intact and live to see the end of the game.

If elkad piled on Krill's war instead of REM's, it may have had more significant impact. Such is the power of neighbor luck.

[spacetyrantxenu]

CH is in a bad mood so I'll stay out of his thread right now with this, but for later.... He declared war on me in PB18, not the other way around. If he wanted the harassment to stop all he had to do was kill me. If you're planning to attack someone you should be prepared to be counter attacked. If you're not, you're probably not really ready to attack.

Relevant to this game, I understand the desire to keep military spending down but when your neighbor set includes known killers like Mackoti (and I'll use his name instead of taotao here since T was an unknown coming into this game) you can't really be caught off guard when it comes to having a ready military force. When Mack's power spiked that was the time to begin war preparation. Even if CH couldn't have anticipated that a DZ partition was imminent he had to consider the possibility and get ready for ready it. When neighbors or near neighbors have a big standing army you kind of have to do the same, or face the consequences (Commodore!). In CH's case the result is getting called to the carpet by a dying DZ for whatever reason and not being able to grab land instead. Now he's going to border Mack/taotao anyway, but holding fewer of DZ's cities in the process. I expect he'll wish he had more production (cities) available pretty soon; most players don't have a high success rate surviving as Mack's new neighbor, so good luck!

[Mardoc]

Yeah, you're right, Xenu. That said, maybe I just haven't been paying attention, but these deaths are coming as a surprise to me. General received wisdom around here is that Knights or later is the time to attack, because you need a tech lead or a massive production advantage to conquer and that's the first time you can meaningfully have a tech lead. It's hard to realize that's only true in combination with "and your targets keep up in a general way with Power and manage their army intelligently". Commodore losing to HA is a bit of a wake up call for me - I had previously thought that whips and logistics could stop any pre-medieval attack.

If I were in CH's shoes, I'd have expected Mack to get bogged down after taking half of DZ and give me lots of opportunities later on. I'd apparently have been wrong about that...

[The Black Sword]

Despite Mack having trademarked the term 'Knigs', his conquests in PB13, PB20 and here have all come in an earlier era.

"and your targets keep up in a general way with Power and manage their army intelligently"

This is the main criteria for a good attack in any era, including Knights IMO. I think the difference is that there are less good economic things to do as the game goes on. If you build up a big army in the classical era and your invasion doesn't pay off then that's a massive setback. It's not quite so bad if that happens in the medieval era. Though I also think that with RtR and ToW tech costs anyone who hasn't gained extra land by Knights at the latest won't be able to keep up. The techs afterwards just aren't worth it without a big empire.

[Ceiliazul]

Yeah, you're right, Xenu. That said, maybe I just haven't been paying attention, but these deaths are coming as a surprise to me.

Credit to the mapmakers, who designed the map with this in mind. Even got a compliment from Krill!

T106 Turn report

This turn I started thinking more about the game as a whole, rather than just what I was doing. I think that this game is probably one of the bloodiest in PB history. Lots of battles.