[NO PLAYERS] PBEM 7 Map Making & Lurkers

[oledavy]

The naval battle is probably going to come down to who gets the engage honestly, which if he plays it right, should be CMF. From personal experience, you would be surprised how much frigates (especially those buffed with GA's), can do to next gen ships. I don't have a good sense of the numbers though, so all things being equal, I call it for Sullla. But, CMF should be able to win with a slight numerical advantage and first strike. 

The land battle I don't have enough data, probably Sullla and Singaboy. 

I don't think they'll make progress fast enough to be unassailable by the time Archduke comes for them though.

[Old Harry]

Did someone discover that fleets are bugged at mobilization? If so cmf might feel a little less confident in a couple of turns.

Oh, and has anyone done the combat math vs Genoa that he hasn't? I don't understand the system myself so I've no idea if he'll succeed. There's a good chance that the waters outside the city will be packed with boats he needs to chew through, so he could get a bunch of kills instead of burning the city...

I'm assuming that with such fast moving boats cmf will win at sea, initially, but long-term it depends how much he can destroy before Sullla can upgrade.

[Shimomo]

It's interesting CMF thinks he will be able to attack Genova as soon as the war starts. Sullla has a decent number of ships in the canal, and unless Sullla just leaves them in there b/t now and the start of the war, it could be a bit hairy.

Really looking forward to seeing how the attack on Nan Madol plays out. True, CMF's culture output will be crippled. But if Sullla can't get in and out quickly, depending on CMF's numbers in the area, Sullla's strike force could be in a dangerous position. If CMF can eliminate Sullla's strike force there as well as the one currently hiding in the canal, Sullla will be hard-pressed to get any ships into play, and CMF would have free rein to blast away at opposing ground forces. Also...

One idea I wish CMF would bring back is the attack on Lisbon, which he briefly flirted with a long time ago. Sullla doesn't seem to have vision of the waters off Firenze's coast, so CMF could sneak through and do massive economic damage to both Sullla and Singaboy by razing Lisbon. It would go along with CMF's stated goal of "hurt Sullla as much as possible".

--

also, this is unrelated and in the past, but I think it's worth mentioning that when Archduke made the decision to ally with Sullla/Singaboy, the way Emperor K had been playing had not given Archduke a lot of psychological support re: their chances vs Sullla/Singaboy. 1), Emperor K's economy seemed to really drag the whole game. (Maybe this was unavoidable, I don't know.) 2), when the global situation was most fraught, Emperor K seemed to just defer to Archduke on everything without offering a lot of analysis or ideas. 3), when he did offer his opinion, he wholeheartedly supported attacking Woden. I'm not trying to hate on Emperor K here, just noting psychologically Archduke feeling like he had to do the majority of the heavy lifting may have factored into his unwillingness to take on Singaboy and Sullla while waiting for Woden and CMF. (Note both of them constantly calling Sulla and Singaboy "team vet/vet", which iirc Archduke started.) So when CMF and people in this thread were putting the responsibility for the situation all on Archduke, I think some of it needs to be passed toward Emperor K.

--

And about frigates vs battleships: I didn't look too carefully what happened in PBEM4, but iirc a group of 4 or so of Woden's battleships were caught out of position by a horde of oledavy's frigates and annihilated. I can imagine Sullla making small tactical blunders, but I feel like he's careful enough not to lose 4 battleships at once? or are CMF's frigates simply going to be too fast for Sullla to ever have a good tactical position? I feel like the extra range on the battleships will make a difference if Sullla keeps his ships massed.

[Old Harry]

I haven't read the starts of their threads but I'd be interested to know which vet has supported and taught their team mate best? Obviously Singaboy comes last on this metric.

[Ituralde]

I think CMFs only chance beside outright razing Genova is to bottle up Sulllas ships there, but although Sullla hasn't mentioned it before I think he is well aware that he needs to clear the canal quickly. Maybe the clever play from CMF would have been to block movement around Genova while their DOF is still active?

[masterjason]

I haven't read the starts of their threads but I'd be interested to know which vet has supported and taught their team mate best? Obviously Singaboy comes last on this metric.

I don’t know about that, he spent the first 2/3 of the game feeding gold and luxuries to a very needy teammate who couldn’t stop spending it. 

[Shimomo]

I haven't read the starts of their threads but I'd be interested to know which vet has supported and taught their team mate best? Obviously Singaboy comes last on this metric.

My genuine answer goes to Cornflakes!

I think CMFs only chance beside outright razing Genova is to bottle up Sulllas ships there, but although Sullla hasn't mentioned it before I think he is well aware that he needs to clear the canal quickly. Maybe the clever play from CMF would have been to block movement around Genova while their DOF is still active?

Interesting. It would take two lines of ships, correct? CMF has the numbers. But he'd lose his first strike, and he can't afford that.

[Ituralde]

Interesting. It would take two lines of ships, correct? CMF has the numbers. But he'd lose his first strike, and he can't afford that.

The way I understood it CMF will have first strike anyway, because of the way the DOF gets resolved.
But those things can get confusing very fast, so I also understand that CMF is not planning around it and instead relies on his superior movement.

[Old Harry]

Interesting. It would take two lines of ships, correct? CMF has the numbers. But he'd lose his first strike, and he can't afford that.

The way I understood it CMF will have first strike anyway, because of the way the DOF gets resolved.
But those things can get confusing very fast, so I also understand that CMF is not planning around it and instead relies on his superior movement.

Sullla seems to think he'll have the first turn when war can be declared due to turn order. If he's right it means being earlier in turn order not only wins ties on settling and wonders, but also gives you first strike in most wars. That seems like terrible design, so it can't possibly be true.

[T-hawk]

That seems like terrible design, so it can't possibly be true.

The behavior probably wasn't designed at all, either way.  It's just an artifact that falls out of how the code is sequenced.  Lots of things in Civ and many games have always been like that.

The turns-remaining counter has to decrement sometime.  Game programmers have tons of things to do.  They don't spend time analyzing the multiplayer balance implications of whether that should happen at the global turn roll, or the start of turn of the first player involved in the deal, or the player who offered the deal, or the player who accepted the deal, or the first teammate to play in that turn, or whatever.  A programmer just puts the instruction wherever it seems to make sense at the time, and whatever behavior happens is what happens.