Interesting times 
And thanks for those screenshots 
And thanks for those screenshots
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[Spoiler] RB Pitboss #2 - Shaka of Rome
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Battlefield notes:
It appears that slaze has indeed retreated to Cuzco. My Praetorians remain ever watchful. The nearby city of Bestine, seemingly safe from attack, will finish a Praetorian next turn. I will send him out to help guard Tiwanku. I still need to rename it, perhaps when it is out of revolt. I will call it "Bespin," unless the Rebels already took that. I cannot remember. Plako seems to have removed 3 Hwachas and 3 Axemen from his stack. I suspect, but cannot confirm, that he has put them on 3 Galleys. I should see them coming, though. He has sent Triremes out just where I expected to see them. He'll pillage my seafood resources, but I don't need them for food, fortunately. 2 Turns to Metal Casting. Heroic Epic done next turn. I'll try to get some Triremes, but I don't really have a production port on the outer sea, so that's a bit of a problem. I really wish that I had been able to spare 2 Praetorians for the Galley that was out wandering. New Uluundi had 1 Longbowman guarding it. I suppose I could have attacked from the sea . . . dammit. I'll have to check the odds on that just to satisfy my curiosity. If I had promoted my Praetorian Cover, it would have negated the penalty, so strength of 8.8. The Longbowman would have had an effective 9 strength from it's 25% natural bonus, 20% city defenses, and 5% fortification, so it would have been a coin-flip fight. I landed the Praet, so slaze can whip another LB and promote the one he has, so I can't take/burn the city. Damn, I should have gambled on it. I really need to stop moving first and thinking later. I guess I can try pillaging a bit. Domestically, everything is pretty good, considering. Bah. I wish I had attacked from the sea. Nothing much lost if the Praet died, but a huge coup if I had burned the city (since I could not have held it with 1 Praetorian!).  Athlete got Stone somehow, so I asked to borrow it. Putting Walls in Imperial Center, Byss, and maybe even Tiwanaku/Bespin would be helpful.
Quick tactical update, since slaze played while I was still awake. He did some more whipping. The Praet I dropped was killed, but he took a Longbwman down with him. In terms of pure hammers, I won out, slightly, but I don't think that it was a terribly good trade. The LB had poor odds, but still knocked the PR to half health, and an Axe finished it off.
Of course, I would have attacked with the Axeman first, since it is cheaper than a Longbowman, and therefore easier to replace. Another sign of slaze's sub-par tactics, or a sign that he is thinking on a completely different level than me? Lurkers: You decide! :neenernee I kind of hope that he whips himself to death, but his territory is much more fertile than mine, so he can probably recover pretty quickly. The only good point is that this suggests that his production base isn't strong enough to hard-build units, but that's probably not the case. My war with plako is basically a race to see whether I can finish Metal Casting, tech Machinery, and grab Archery before he researches Machinery. At least, that is my belief. With Civil Service already, going for Macemen seems like the next logical step. All I can do is stock up on catapults and hope to delay him until I can get crossbowmen. At that point, I should be relatively safe. Whosit Wrote:I really wish that I had been able to spare 2 Praetorians for the Galley that was out wandering. New Uluundi had 1 Longbowman guarding it. I suppose I could have attacked from the sea . . . dammit. I'll have to check the odds on that just to satisfy my curiosity. Just so you know: Attacking across a river gives a 25% bonus to the defender, attacking from the sea gives a 50% bonus to the defender. And yes, slaze appears to be blazed  if he attacked out of a city with an LB rather than an Axe. Not just the cheaper-to-replace, but the whole better-odds-anyway thing. Not to mention that the LB would have better odds on defense if the Axe lost. Oh well, better for you! 
Ah, 50% bonus? Well, I feel better now, I guess. Though, I have been unsure of one thing: Is the crossing a bonus applied to the defender, or a penalty applied to the attacker? I've thought that it was the latter, but I've never really done it enough to be sure.
I have not, of course, had a chance to log in, and I won't for awhile, but plako played his turn and I didn't lose any score, so I probably haven't lost any cities. I kind of realized belatedly that if he had his troops on Galleys, he could strike Ryloth from the sea. Even with what I now know is a 50% penalty, he still would have outnumbered me 3-to-1, and he could have taken it. Of course, it would be costly, so I guess not a wise move, anyway. I don't think that I mentioned it, but I'm borrowing Stone from the Rebels so I can put up walls in Imperial Center and Byss, and maybe elsewhere, too. Maybe Bespin, if I get a chance.
All modifiers except Combat promotions apply to the defender.
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy...lained.php
Except that it's wrong. The article presents the attacker's situational modifiers as subtracting linearly from the defender's modifiers. This is not true. The simplest counterexample is a City Raider 3 trebuchet with +175% city attack. Any unit defending against that with less than +75% modifiers would see its strength set to zero or negative, which does not happen in-game.
I intend to fully understand this soon (just in time for Civ 5!  ) and do a writeup, but won't get to it for a week or two.
Huh?
Quote:If the overall value is negative, the defender’s modified strength is found by taking the original defender’s strength divided by (1-overall_value). That's not linear, and cannot result in zero or negative strength. Doesn't necessarily mean it's correct, but your argument for it being incorrect is itself incorrect. I also believe it's been compared against the code.
Ok, I'm going to use a hypothetical unit that has 10 base strength, because I like round numbers.
According to Beamup's post, if the overall modifiers are -10% for the defender, then the defender gets: 10/(1.1) = 9.09 str -20%: 10/1.2 = 8.33 str -25%: 10/1.25 = 8 str -50%: 10/1.5 = 6.67 str -100%: 10/2 = 5 str So, it's approximately linear for very small values of negative modifiers, but definitely not for large negative values. This negative system definitely works against trebs, particularly those CRIII Spanish ones. Even a fortified CG II LB defending on a hill city (no culture, so post-bombardment) only gets 25+45+50+25= +145%.
I have never read the formula Beamup quotes, but it seems incorrect on the face. That formula implies it is better to have the defender reduced to 40% of the original value rather than -100%, and that seems illogical.
What I always believed would happen is that the defender can never be reduced below 50% of original strength (hence why Trebs don't kill Rifles, but do kill LBs consistently), where original strength is defined as the strength you start this particular battle with. That matches my experience, but I've never read the code to verify what is actually happening. |
