All praise to the RNG.
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[SPOILER] PB37: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most aggressive of them all?
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Picture of theatre with Ventessel. Unchanged since last turn, except positioning of 1 spear and 2 quechua on the grass hill. I will lose 1 hammer to overflow mechanics, but next turn I will have the option of regrowing to size 7 by using the cow for 15 hammers, and then working both hills and the copper if it's still expected to be in my position on T65 for another copper unit. If not, I can still make a chariot, or even just dump the hammers into a terrace. OK, this is where I have to consider options. I do not believe I will build the chariot next turn, but can go full bore on Oracle. I will one pop whip the chariot at size 6 and dump the overflow hammers (plus those already invested) into Oracle on the following turn. Avoid growth on T64, grow @4 eot65 with 8 food overflow and 13 saved, grow @5 eot66 with 14 food saved and 1 food overflow minimum. Whip the chariot T69. Pray about barbs (but I have a unit in the city, the north is covered, and I have a quechua to the south that is swinging around to protect that angle). Oracle is sometime in the early T70s (31 hammers next turn, 40 more from chops on T67, T73, copper hooked T67, cow T68 so on T68 have 12hpt, make further 22 hammers to T67). Need to consider closer to the time if the micro needs tweaking. Can whip the spear next turn and drop to size 1, grow@2 eot65 or hold off on that whip and change production back to the worker after growing to size 3. Flexibility has a cost, but a necessary evil in this case. Rival worst demos are probably Ventessel. I make more hammers from AF than he does his entire empire, but 69K pop points are size 4 and size 3 cities.GN is down the toilet, he can't even afford to move his stack into my territory. Crop yield is the main indicator he is gassed. 7 pop needs 14 food to feed itself, so he has 2 food surplus over both cities. He can't whip any more! Kill this stack and I can invade him with impunity. I fucking hate losing 90% battles. Ventessel moved up all his chariots to the desert hill so I hit him with both spears and both axes. One axe died at 90.1% odds, chariot is at 0.2 health but will heal minimum 1 promotion, possibly 2 if it had XP unused (because Ventessel did not promote any chariots last turn). Basically this was the order of battle. 3/2XP spear attacks C1/shock chariot@98%, goes to 1.8 strength. Odds of this result of worse 20%. Heals back to 3.4, promoted to C2/Formation 0/2XP spear attacks chariot@99.1%, goes to 3.0, gains 1 XP (would have been 2XP if chariot was promoted C1) 3/4XP C2 axe attacks chariot@90.1%, axe dies, chariot@0.2 health. Y&*(^&^ FFS. 3/4XP C2 axe attacks chariot@90.1%, 2.6health, now 5/4XP. In all honesty, I feel screwed over. This was the wrong tactical move and I feel very unlucky to lose a 90% battle, and have other units get banged up a bit more than they should have done. The second spear and axe were dead on expected outcome, but first spear got wrecked. Due to the health of the units, I think I now need to retreat from the copper, whereas if I'd have kept the axe, then I would have only 3 chariots to deal with. That 2 unit swing is probably going to cost me a couple of pillaged tiles including the copper. Bah. If I build an axe this turn, then I can have two axes on the copper and two spears against 4 chariots, 2 axes and a spear. It's just not enough. That means I have to build a chariot and that's junk, it's spending 30 hammers for a 50/50 shot at an enemy chariot. And to cap it all off (picture not taken before scout move in fit of rage: Ghuzz is size 2 and I can't stop Gavagai taking it. if he captures and keeps it then I'm going to be considering options for warfare because it makes it nigh impossible to safely hold the south from him and push into Ventessel simply due to unit numbers required.
Gotta be honest and say that it is eating me up inside a little bit. I know I've gotten better at managing that, but in this instance Ventessel has made tons of strategic and tactical mistakes and he isn't punished for them. It's just aggravating that even if I play perfectly, and make no mistake I don't think I am, I can't do anything to change the fact that 90% odds should pretty much always be taken because I won't get better odds on defence, and then I lose.
AF has 2Q and 1 spear, it can't fall and I whipped another spear in WP, plus that axe from AF. Basically those 3 dead chariots means I'm much less concerned about the stack splitting and running behind AF, I should be able to kill it quickly if the stack splits again.
July 3rd, 2017, 10:41
(This post was last modified: July 3rd, 2017, 10:42 by Nekira Sudacne.)
It most definately sucks
 However, over time that's also the kind of result that i've found you have to simply plan around from the begining. the problem with trying to calculate the exact odds and number of troops you need is that 90% is not 100%. after all, think of it another way: each side has roughly 10 units, so even if all your battles were 90%, statistically you will lose one anyway, and one or two other fights will see you taking more damage than they should, while one odd one might win without a scratch. So looked at another way, this result is not exactly unexpected either. as for Vent being punished: Vent already whipped his hopes of winning the game into the ground before he showed up to the battlefield. He's not in this to win, the only punishment you can inflict on this stage is to be the one who takes him down. I upgraded a quechua. I umm'ed and arr'ed over it, but I think I should do it. That extra hitting unit should Ventessel move forward is a unit that hits the weakest of his units at the end of the battle, it's not a shock troop that I'm likely to lose. And if Ventessel tries to run around AF then I'll have 5 spears to hit the 4 chariots and still cover AF so it's the final piece to the puzzle of defense. Now you lurkers can have fun figuring out how Ventessel plans to harm me, and what the counter moves are to his moves. I expect him to move onto the copper but can you see the other options, and why they won't work? Might want to look at the world map from here to check stack moves over the next 3-4 turns. Note Ventessel has no view beyond AF so does not know how to plan those moves, but I can plan the counter move to defend with. Note I'm now #2 in power due to the billion spears. Finish a chariot eot in AF and grow 2 pop for a 5K increase which should push me to #1. Can't do anything about the crop yield issue though. (July 3rd, 2017, 10:41)Nekira Sudacne Wrote: It most definately sucks The odds of losing spears was so low, let's just call it odd 1 for winning. That means odds of losing atleast one axe was 1x1x0.9x0.9=0.81, so let's say that there was a one in five chance of losing any unit. That's still unlucky. In terms of considering variance of outcomes of battles, best to consider median outcome is the expected health left. Cyneheard calculator shows this which is why it's awesome. In this case, the expected outcome is to lose 48hp on an axe like in the second attack and then have one promotion to use to heal. In no battle did my units perform better than expecteded. They all took more damage, or the amount expected. So whichever way I look at it, past turn was unlucky. If I had the level of luck Ventessel had, one spear would have lost no up, one axe would have lost no up and the other two would have been about the same. Just waiting for next turn now. I hope he moves forward and I'm not as unlucky as last turn. If I am I'll probably break something.
I really don't see what he thinks he can accomplish here. Best he can do (other than retreat) is pillage you a bit and hope you take higher than expected casualties killing his stack on flat ground.
Might want another worker or two once his stack is dead. Unless he does the smart thing and retreats. But the worker roading suggests an undue level of optimism on Ventessel's part so I think he'll keep coming. What are you planning to do with the incoming GG?
fnord
Well, lost an axe but killed axe and two chariots and have that 9XP unit. Full report unlikely due to time constraints but sufficed to say I mispromoted a unit due to feline interference that screwed things a bit. Ventessel split stack and moved everything to the copper except two chariots which he moved to the river silver.
If he does not retreat now I will change my opinion of the attack from negligent to attempted king making. He tried but he has 4 units left of the starting attack and whilst he can pillage a few tiles more it would cost him those 4 units to do so. That's not a good trade, because I'm 3xp from a GG and denying me that would be important, adding that to AF means some nice CR2 units to attack him with in 20 turns. |
