Dave's Not Throwing Away His Shot

[Dp101]

Congratz!

[Zero_1627]

You made peace with Archduke?... Or managed a successful counterattack?...

[oledavy]

Turn 73 - The End of the War

And just as suddenly as it began, it ended. 



Drama and Poetry in, and Archduke out. He realized the situation around Lafayette was unwinnable, dispersed his forces, and offered white peace. 



This was an extremely tough choice. To better show the factors that went into making my ultimate decision, I'll show the configuration of his horsemen, and the military screen. 



Sun Tzu disappeared, and his forces on foot withdrew to Buenos Aires. However, all of his mounted units moved towards Hong Kong. This was basically the equivalent of flipping the table. 

If I remained at war with him, I could probably take Buenos Aires with my existing forces. However, it would be no guarantee considering how much he has invested in military. Moreover, these three horsemen stand a not insignificant chance of being able to take Hong Kong before I can move enough forces into the area to drive them away, based purely on the farms around the city.  That's three opportunities for them to completely heal, and, since the city is on the flat land, attack immedietly afterwards. Any damage on put on them this turn as they head north, for example, would be immaterial. 

And yes, I would retake it immedietly, but it would kill pop, and otherwise interrupt my development. I'm not even guaranteed killing the horsemen, as they might retreat into the northern tundra, and survive to keep pressuring me from the north/discover and threaten Carthage. 

Another factor in my decision was the finishing of Drama and Poetry this turn, basically leaving me in the situation of needing to decide whether my future was militaristic or economic immedietly. 

Finally, I came to the conclusion that if I kept up the war against Archduke, and took Buenos Aires from him, I would corner him, and leave him with no hope of winning. He would have no motivation to make peace with me, and would drag me down in an interminable conflict while Singaboy and Woden continue to tech away. With all this in mind, I decided to take his offer of white peace. 



Not before getting in a final couple archer hits.   That archer east of Lafayette got to 45 XP!

But no, after that, I made peace and brought the 32 turn conflict (t42-t73) to a conclusion. It was a great war! I'm going to write up a lot more analysis of it later, but for now, let's finish the turn report. 

One thing you probably noticed in the above screenshots is that Alhambram made contact with me. 



Note that Archduke did not sign a DOF with him. That leaves him as a military option for Archduke. 



He has four cities (each with a Lavra), and notably a ton of gold. He can produce a really strong military in an instant provided he has iron/encampment. However, his military score is weakest in the game at the moment....I don't think Alhambram is going to be the one to stop Woden from running away with things over there. Is he going for a religious victory?   If he is, that will be interesting to watch to be sure. 

No though, Woden continues to stand head and shoulders above the rest of us: 



Somebody needs to do something about that...

At this point, him and Singaboy are my biggest threats to winning the game. Archduke poses a military threat for now, but is probably screwed long-term due to his inability to take more territory during the war. 

Alright, time for a Government Swap



That instantly solved most of my amenities issues, and getting Urban Planning back up was super nice. I'm a little worried about Archduke finding and attacking Carthage, but I will become their suzerain in 8 turns (thanks Charismatic Leader!), so if he's at war with them at this point I can force him to peace out. Whether or not he moves in their direction will be a major factor in where my military goes next turn, more on that in a minute. 

No though, as you can tell, the immediate priority for me is expansion, followed by building up my gold reserve. Gold is almost more valuable to me than hammers at the moment. I will need a lot in the turns to come for upgrading, among other things. Feudalism and Apprenticeship are queued up, and I have builders going to land the Inspiration and Eureka for both. 

Here is what my cities looked like at the end of the turn: 



Alright, so first off, expansion is an obvious priority. This also has the advantage of easing population pressure on some of my cities and ensuring less food goes to waste. I don't think I'm getting the Inspiration for Civil Service this game though...

I have six city location I want to settle sooner rather than later, but I'm only going for three in this round of expansion. I probably will not go for the southern wine city for quite some time, as I really don't want to settle anything on this round that needs to be defended. To that end, I'm producing 2 settlers from Hamilton, who will each settle one of the northern locations along the Hudson River, and 1 settler from Hong Kong, who will settle the final location on the Mulligan River. I should be at seven cities by t90. More importantly, they will all be safe backlines, who will not need to be defended from a renewed war with my neighbors. At that point, once I have the military to protect them, I will consider the locations to my south, west, and northeast. 

The second priority is getting out a bunch of 5 charge builders to improve my lands. Sadly, I could not do the slick Agoge trick this game, as I simply need the cogs right now for settlers. Still, getting out 3-4 workers will be a major boon to my economy. 

The third priority in the coming turns is hitting the Inspiration for Medieval Faires, and in the process getting up my trading network to grow my new cities and take care of my gold situation. So, I have 1 trade route innately, and will have 1 from Schuyler's encampment in 8 turns. Schuyler is prioritizing finishing it's encampment for a third, and after 2 settlers -> campus repair, Hamilton will be landing a fourth. This will additionally make Hamilton and Schuyler 2/2/2 and 1/2/2 trade route locations, perfect for growing a new city. 

The commercial hubs will additionally give me 5 gold in adjacency bonuses to help my gold situation, give me slots for 2 markets for the future Eureka/Inspiration, and possibly allow me to compete with Singaboy for the first very solid GM. 

I will be getting out my GS reasonably soon - I have not forgotten. However, this actually works out very nicely. By filling out as many Eurekas and Inspirations as I can before hand, I can ensure he only procs ones that are useful to me (like getting 2 galleys, building an aqueduct, building an armory, etc). This is not even to mention the Eureka for Education. While I still would have preferred Hypatia, I think I'm still going to be able to leverage him into a few hundred science. Finishing him off takes a backseat to expansion, however. I will likely not have to run Inspiration, and instead will just repair the Campus and let him finish naturally. 

After this round of expansion and economic growth, the priority will be securing myself militarily. I will be upgrading/building a medieval military, grabbing Limes and the +30% encampment production civic, and will be fortifying Lafayette, Schuyler, and Hamilton, laying down encampments to slow an enemy's advance through my territory and provide overlapping fields of fire. These four interlocking priorities will take about 30-40 turns to complete. The big tension is whether I can achieve my economic aims before another war breaks out over here. I need to stand on better economic footing to survive a future 2v1, but to that end, I need to neglect military for a little bit. I'll be keeping a close eye on both Archduke and Singaboy and attempting to resolve any conflicts diplomatically until my position is completely secure. 

This all brings us to the biggest question I faced last night: 

What do I do with my Horsemen?

Since they upgrade into Cavalry, they will not be terribly useful in any medieval conflict, yet cost me gold in the interim. Me and Singaboy's peace treaty is up on t79 - so we can resume our conflict at that point if either of us so desire. If that possibility is likely, I need to keep them around. By the same token, if Archduke comes back on t84, I will need them to be ready for him. 

However, there are some tantatlizing possibilities if I don't need them around. 

Basically, my choices are thus: 

1. Keep them around to defend my lands. 
- The simplest and safest option. Singaboy is likely to try and take Hattusa at some point relatively soon (the main reason I don't want a DoF with him). He alternatively might try to mount an all out attack on Hamilton. It's more likely he puts it off for a little while, until get gets to knights/crossbowmen. He realistically wants to prioritize expansion and getting Hansas out at the moment, so while I don't believe we'll avoid conflict long-term, I believe we're unlikely to war before t100 - not unless he decides to go after Hattusa. By the same token, while I could launch an all out assault on Seoul, I think building infrastructure and expanding benefits me a lot more right now. In a three player situation, one player attacking another inevitably invites a dogpile - one I wouldn't be ready for so soon. All our militaries are about equal sized, so we all have strong incentive to keep the peace. 

This brings us to Archduke. I'm going to try and DoF him this next turn to feel out his intent. If he doesn't accept, I probably keep troops around home. However, I expect he's going to be looking for an expansion prospect while his horsemen are still strong, so to that end, I wouldn't be surprised if he wants to take them and his GG west to attack Alhambram/Woden or take a city-state. He might be just as relieved at getting a DoF as I am. I want to take Buenos Aires, but like things in the east, don't want to do it until I have enough strength to take on both my neighbors. 

2. Attack Hattusa
 - Briefly considered it. They do have a campus. However, I just shoot myself in the foot to the tune of 4 science per turn, and possibly leave myself open to an attack from Singaboy. Additionally, the city is impossible to defend without having Seoul. Finally, it's still my only source of iron. Better as a vassal for now

3. Attack Preslav
 - I thought about sending a mounted expedition all the way around the north to take the city, size 7, a real prize, and only strength 12! However, it's building walls at the moment, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that they would have a swordsman in the ~12 turns it takes my mounted units to get there. With this in mind, I would need a battering ram and a couple other units. However, that really slows the timeline for an attack. Finally, it's coastal, so I need a tech or unit I don't have or want to really besiege it. Just a little too distant to seriously consider. And once again, it runs into the issue of being somewhat indefensible against Singaboy.

4. Attack Woden
 - I don't know where he is exactly, except somewhere to my west. However, this feels like the perfect use of my horsemen. Their fast movement means I can actually get to him in a decent time frame. Moreover, even if he sniffs out the attack, I will have scouted out the area to my west - which I have really been wanting to do for quite some time at this point. I can't send all 4 and be safe, but I can probably send 3 horsemen. Even if he finds them coming, it forces him to divert resources to military - which I consider a win. Anything that gets him out of wonderland. I may not be able to raze a city - but I can almost certainly pillage him. Pillaging his improvements, with Raid equipped could potentially gain me a ton of prizes, and help pay for the 3 gpt these horsemen are eating up. 

Since it would take so long to mount such an expedition, I started moving three horseman west on this turn. If I change my mind, and just decide to keep them at home, I will have plenty of time to turn them around. I think I will try to DoF Archduke for the next 30 turns (that is right, correct?), keep a wary eye towards Singaboy, and send 3 horseman to the far west to attack Woden. There's little chance he will expect it, and in the long run, it should put me in a better position to win while making use of units that will be completely obsolete in about 30 turns. We'll see what happens.

[Mardoc]

I will try to DoF Archduke for the next 30 turns (that is right, correct?),

I think you've shown that it's not possible to be 100% sure what the game is going to do, even about things that appear to be unambiguous, like which units count for Hoplite adjacency.

[yuris125]

Hi Dave, I'm trying to catch up to your thread, but at least half of Photobucket images are not loading (none on this forum page), and when I try to view them on Photobucket itself, it show a pop-up with horrible music, and never actually loads the pic, which is not exactly what I want at work. If you can use a different image hosting, it would be appreciated

[oledavy]

The Great War - Thoughts and Analysis

I imagine some lurker with a complete picture is writing up something similar in the lurker thread, but I'm going to take a moment to discuss things from my perspective. 

For Reference: 

t43-t55: The Skirmish Era
t56 - t62: The Main Conflict
t62 - t73: The Stalemate Era/Conclusion

Losses (Not Inlcluding by/to City-States)

Dave
 - 1 Horseman
 - 2 Archers
 - 2 Warriors
 - 1 Trader

Singaboy
 - 1 Swordsman
 - 1 Archer

Archduke
 - 1 Horseman
 - 1 Archer
 - 1 Scout

Gains

Dave
 - 50 Gold (Pillaging)
 - 25 Faith (Pillaging)
 - 25 Science (Pillaging)
 - 50 Culture (Thermopylae)

Singaboy
 - Seoul (3 Pop, 2 Improvements, 1 Campus)
 - 1 Builder (??? Charges)

Archduke
 - Buenos Aires (5 Pop?, 5 Improvements)
 - 1 Builder (??? Charges)
 - 50 Gold (Pillaging)
 - Pillaging Gold from TR

I'm not going to dwell too much on the conflict to the east. Singaboy is the definite winner of the Great War, simply by cheaply achieving his aims and then getting out. While I had to buy a tile and put a chop into a soon to be useless Hoplite, he went on to get his first Commercial hub finished and lay down Hansas. I really wish I had had one more horseman available during our conflict. That could have swung the war on the turn I made my charge to relieve Seoul and the world would look dramatically different. Unfortunately, there was only so much I could do while fighting Archduke as well, and I couldn't spare more than a couple units while not losing any cities of my own. 

The loss of Seoul is a major blow, not just for the 4 science per turn and future suzerain bonus Eurekas. It was to be my buffer state against Singaboy. Now, the Germans are on my doorstep. I will never be able to truly rest easy this game, at least while it's under his control. I will need to be vigilant in defending my capital. For now though, there's nothing I can do. No though, Singaboy undoubtedly won the war, accomplishing all his likely war aims (pillaging my campus, slowing me down, taking Seoul).

With that said, let's turn to the war in the west. Going back to our war aims, I'm going to call it a draw at best, although I would give slight odds to myself. I failed to keep Seoul out of enemy hands, and I failed to capture Buenos Aires. However, I didn't lose anything. Archduke slowed me down, and expanded by taking Buenos Aires. However, the city will be very hard to defend against me long-term, due to the position of Fort Lee. I can sit a catapult in there and whittle down the city with ease. Moreover, for the amount that he invested in early military, he needed to take at least one of my cities to make good on his investment and stay competitive in this game. He did not, and I continue to control Death Valley with the city of Schuyler. While he's not out of the game, his prospects are significantly dimmed. Thankfully for me, he still has a chance though, which means I have a chance to do something this game other than fight him. 

My chances at winning this game are significantly less than they were a mere 20 turns ago. My unstoppable start has been whittled down by a highly effective dogpile. However, I survived, intact, and my tech and culture, although not as dominant as they were before, are still very competitive. I will be a force to be reckoned with for quite some time, and am still a contender to win the game, although I've gone from 1st/2nd place to 2nd/3rd. That's still respectable enough to turn this game into a win. I come away from the war, battered, bruised, but still in a strong position. It's disappointing that I pulled the short stick this time in terms of neighbors, but we all can't be Woden 

In all seriousness though, my farming open was sure to invite attack, especially considering one of my neighbors went for an early GG. With that in mind, I consider survival with my empire generally intact to be a major win - event if my lead has been considerably diminished. Hopefully, this has also dispelled the aura of GG's from PBEM1 a bit. They're tough, but not unbeatable. 

So, with the general analysis of the outcome out of the way, let's get into why the war between Archduke turned out the way it did. 


Why The Great War Ended in a Draw

I don't feel terribly comfortable making pronouncements on the outcome of this conflict, and generally I think Archduke and I played our war extremely well. We both made errors, but they were all relatively minor and seemed to cancel each other out. With this in mind, I will point out some of the factors that led to the outcome from my point of view. If Archduke made errors, from my perspective, they were all of the broad strategic type.

The Pillaging of the Seoul-Hamilton TR

I want to thank Archduke for this, with the benefit of hindsight. If he hadn't done this, I don't think I would have been ready for his invasion. While I had made broad plans to forestall the threat he posed, my swordsman plan was ultimately unrealistic, and took way too long. I somehow didn't anticipate the possibility of him speeding up the ETA of the GG. If he had not attacked me, I might have floated on sticking to my original, suboptimal plan - content in the possibility that I might not even be the target of a rush. His attack on my trade route, while it stung, removed any doubt in my mind, and moved me from builder mode to being laser-focused on preparing myself for invasion. Without this attack, I never would have scrapped my swordsman plan, and subbed in the horseman plan. The swordsman plan was based on a t65-t70 attack, which would have left me hopelessly vulnerable and lost me Schuyler. Instead, I constantly tried to find ways to bring down the timeline for getting a stronger military out, and got my first horseman out on t56 - just in time for the main part of the conflict. Without Archduke's attack, I never would have been ready, and likely would have been overrun. 

I hesitate to call this a mistake, because it led to a mentality shift that Archduke couldn't have necessarily foreseen. Nevertheless, I consider this the most important event in the war that was to follow. 

The Timing of the Attack

Without seeing everyone else's start in detail, I think I have one of the better starts in the game, but not without notable weaknesses. For example, I don't have a dynamite first expand site like Singaboy had with Kiliminjaro (Which also had iron). The biggest issue with my start, however, was that as opposed to Singaboy and Archduke - who both had horses at their capital - I had none. Nor did I have any iron within a lightyear of my start that could be mined early. This meant that barring a big play from me, my classical military would be very lacking compared to Singaboy/Archduke. Of course, Archduke had no way of knowing this - only that he had horse at his capital. My problem was compounded by my early campus versus an encampment. This might have been an intractable problem, and it wasn't until t56 that I had two horse resource and horsemen, and even then at great risk and after much planning. If Archduke had attacked me with a horseman or two during the skirmish era, before he got his GG, he might have been able to just steamroll Schuyler. I know I was terrified of the possibility constantly during that period. I don't know what his tech pace was like, so I can't say for sure he had the opportunity, but a push to Schuyler in the t45-t55 range might have ended the war before it ever got truly started. 

Scouting

Archduke didn't scout north early, this is clear from the fact that I met Buenos Aires first. This had a number of important effects. Number one, he didn't know I was at war with Hong Kong, and had all my military up there, during the best window for him to attack. He didn't know how close I was, that there was room for only one city between us, or that I settled the Schuyler location. He didn't know I had no horse close to my capital or in another direction, and was unaware of my vulnerability. I believe if he had known any of these things, the war would have gone very differently - most notably if he had known about my war with Hong Kong while it was happening. I believe he made logical choices for what he knew at each point, but he lacked some critical information due to his early scouting, and his ignorance gave me an advantage. 

Singaboy's Exit

Finally, I don't know if Archduke coordinated with Singaboy or not, but Singaboy's early exit from the war guranteed the final assault of Lafayette would fail, that I would be able to move additional forces to the region in time to stop the attack. If Singaboy had remained at war for me for just a few more turns, pinned just a couple units in the east to defend Hamilton, I would have been forces to give up Lafayette. Singaboy was probably motivated primarily by a desire to get Hattusa's science back - making my decision to suzerain it perhaps the most consequential of the war. Granted, without the concurrent barb invasion, I might have chosen to stay at war with Singaboy and not felt as under threat around Hamilton. However, no matter how you slice it, my peace with Singaboy - while it hurts me a lot long-term - gave me the security necessary to begin shfting forces to protect Lafayette to win the final battle of the war. 


That's all I can think of at the moment. 

I'll say, though I felt like pulling my hair out in frustration at a couple points, this was a very fun war to fight, and matching wits with Singaboy and Archduke was exhilarating. It was really satisfying to engage in such a hard-fought and close conflict with my neighbors, one that ultimately didn't end in anyone's complete elimination unlike what a similar war in Civ4 might have looked like. I enjoyed this style of war a lot more, and look forward to more to come. For now though, it's time to enjoy the fruits of victory, and get back to building a strong civilization.

[oledavy]

Hi Dave, I'm trying to catch up to your thread, but at least half of Photobucket images are not loading (none on this forum page), and when I try to view them on Photobucket itself, it show a pop-up with horrible music, and never actually loads the pic, which is not exactly what I want at work. If you can use a different image hosting, it would be appreciated

Hey! Glad you're reading along, and sorry Photobucket is not working for you. Do you have another image hosting site you would suggest? I don't really like how Imgur scales the pictures, but wouldn't be opposed if it makes it easier to read along for people. Photobucket keeps acting buggy on me anyway. 

I will try to DoF Archduke for the next 30 turns (that is right, correct?), 

I think you've shown that it's not possible to be 100% sure what the game is going to do, even about things that appear to be unambiguous, like which units count for Hoplite adjacency.

Yeah....Good point.

Let me list everything that was misleadingly labeled/buggy, that I noticed during the war. 

 - Hoplites alternately getting the Oligarchy bonus against archer attacks (Bug)
 - Hoplites getting the Hoplite bonus for being adjacent to any unit (Bug)
 - Archduke being able to make peace with Hattusa (Bug)
 - Horseman ZoC not working on Singaboy's sword near Seoul (Bug/Feature?)
 - Bastions not working of cities without walls (Misleading)

I feel like there were a couple more, but that's all I can think of for now.

[yuris125]

Hey! Glad you're reading along, and sorry Photobucket is not working for you. Do you have another image hosting site you would suggest? I don't really like how Imgur scales the pictures, but wouldn't be opposed if it makes it easier to read along for people. Photobucket keeps acting buggy on me anyway. 

I just use Dropbox and RB's screenshot tag for resizing tbh but I can say that Imgur-hosted images show up just fine for me

Here's to hoping Photobucket recovers and I can read about your war tonight!

[oledavy]

Turn 74

Time to get back to work



Does anyone know how I will know if he signs it back or not? I can see other player's icons to see if he's signed with them, but not my own. 

Still, there's a good chance he just wants to build for now. He finished repairing the granary in Buenos Aires, and started a granary and a monument in Mykenes. 



Alhambram's faith is pretty impressive, despite my trepidation about going Lavra's early. 



Hopefully it works out for him. 

My lands at the end of the turn: 



One of the luxuries of peacetime is that I have no idea what to do with some of my units 

So, I arrived at this: 

3 horsemen are continuing to move west to attack Woden. 
1 Swordsman, 2 Archers are staying around as sentries (I need a sentry near Singaboy near the campus). 
1 Archer, 1 Horseman, 1 Heavy Chariot and 1 Hoplite are moving north to clear out barbs/scout the peninsula.

I additionally have a half-finished archer and swordsman (plus a battering ram) all in production in the event of an emergency. I forgot to mention it, but I laid down a couple of Acropolises in Lafayette and Hong Kong to lock in the cost last turn 

Otherwise, things continue apace. I plantationed the wines this turn, solving my amenities issue in Hong Kong and giving me a +1 bonus in Lafayette. 

Hard to believe that just 3 turns ago I believed I might be on the brink of being put out of the running.

[Azoth]

Let me list everything that was misleadingly labeled/buggy, that I noticed during the war. 

 - Hoplites alternately getting the Oligarchy bonus against archer attacks (Bug)
 - Hoplites getting the Hoplite bonus for being adjacent to any unit (Bug)
 - Archduke being able to make peace with Hattusa (Bug)
 - Horseman ZoC not working on Singaboy's sword near Seoul (Bug/Feature?)
 - Bastions not working of cities without walls (Misleading)

I feel like there were a couple more, but that's all I can think of for now.

As a global lurker on a mechanics question, I think I can say that ZoC is working as intended. The way it works is that once a unit enters a ZoC, it can attack any adjacent unit, not necessarily the one exerting ZoC. So the Horseman ZoC worked fine, it's just that the Sword could still attack the adjacent Archer.
I can't speak for the rest, but I think Sulla mentioned that Bastions wasn't working as expected in his PBEM 1 thread?

Anyway, it's been a pleasure reading along. Keep it up!