[SPOILERS] Rusten prepares to face the music

[Hollybombay]

Any updates for the blood gods?

[Rusten]

In the process of installing BTS on my main computer. Will make the barrier for posting easier to cross as I'll have access to everythng all the time including images.

Soon.

[Rusten]

Not how I wanted to pick up the reporting again, but the current turn warrants a post.

The game is over.

(Not really, but yeah really.)

Lost 8 of my 9 catapults attacking superdeath's city due to bad RnG.
Thought it would be worth attacking with his city being on flatland but not with suxh poor combat. My follow up units won most of their battles, but without enough siege I can't attack a 2nd time.
Started off this war losing the important 70% battle which would've razed a city immediately and followed by this. Not cool.

I'll make a post on the overall strategy and thinking for the past and coming turns tomorrow or the day after. As for now, I will go sulk.

[Rusten]

That said I've made some questionable plays. But it's only when you add misfortune on top that it gets really bad. I've not had much time to spend on the game recently.
Some trumps remain, but in general the game is squandered.
Anyway, more on that later.

[Rusten]

I think I'll be able to start reporting regularly again from this weekend. So a quick recap for now to get you up to date and I will continue from the present later.

All my timings got messed up by mackoti coming out of nowhere with a stack taking out Aretas. The plan was to eliminate Aretas while still building up a larger force to take on a secondary target (superdeath was singled out). Instead I not only lost a city, but ended up with idle turns. I didn't have much time to spend on the game at the time, and then it's easy to become unfocused. In an alternate universe maybe Aretas would not inexplicably put hundreds of EP on me and nothing on others and things would be very different. I'm still wondering what his reasoning was for this. He didn't even have graphs on mackoti, but 200+ EP on me. Had I known just how weak he was I would've definitely attacked sooner and maybe even take HBR from Oracle instead of Aesthetics.

After suing for peace with mackoti I got an opportunity to raze a superdeath city at ~70% chance of victory (+1 worker IIRC), but I lost the battle. In hindsight perhaps I should not have attempted it even at such good odds, but it's hard to tell. Anyway, what ensued was a situation where superdeath made a bunch of walls and spear+archers. I understimated to the extent he would play to "not lose" -- he even immediately launched a GA. In the long term he has nothing to do with these walls and archers+spears -- they serve no offensive purpose. In the short term it held me back, but for the long term it's still a hopeless situation (he had so few cities). This shows now that TBS has seemingly joined in. That said I'm not sure what he could've done differently, his empire was just too small to do anything. A bunch of losing scenarios. I simply expected more resignation than resistance.

One of the reasons I felt forced into taking the attacking gamble is land layout. I'm sandwiched between TBS and mackoti, both of which are amongst the most capable players and also having good starts. I needed space to get more cities. Up to now I've still been hovering around 4-6 in land area, but my city count is very low. I am currently getting some settlers to backfill, but I needed to get rid of superdeath culture for some of them to be profitable. Superdeath's 2 bordercities by me both have ~5 food sources in the BFC. I'll get my hands on them soon (and split to other cities).

The big question now is TBS' army composition. As for me I am about 12 turns away from 12xp crossbows being churned out from my HE city (if I get one more GG). TBS' power spike is very big so I'm not ruling out him immediately DoW on me after superdeath. Getting to those xbows could be very important.

Pros:
-good economy with profitable shrine. Can keep up with bigger empires (but not in production).
-HE city (in a few turns) with settled GGs.
Cons:
-neighbours (TBS+mackoti)
-few cities for the time being.

Basically I exaggerated a bit when I said the game was over, but I could've been in a much better situation with either:
-more time to play (better decisions and a long term plan)
-better luck

I've been playing most of the last 30 turns in the middle of the night before going to bed. I'm sure other PB players can relate to the struggles with that. It results in little focus and 1-ply moves.

[Zed-F]

In hindsight perhaps I should not have attempted it even at such good odds, but it's hard to tell.

Usually the prevailing wisdom around here is you don’t want to go to war until you are ready to do something pretty decisive, as it makes it harder for rivals to guess who your target is and how to position defenses. Taking one city doesn’t typically count unless you are planning to stop there.

[Rusten]

^Agree with that, but if I had been able to raze the city I would have space for 3 cities of my own sharing the multiple resources. I would not necessarily have to pursue it further.

[Zed-F]

At the time, it certainly seemed like you were planning to consume a neighbor in the not-too-distant future. If you took one city from Superdeath and alerted him, then stopped for additional buildup, what would have been the next step? Annoy another target and invite a dogpile? Continue basically with building up to hit Superdeath as you wound up doing? You might say you could stop after one city, but that just leaves a still viable angry neighbor on your doorstep, potentially looking for payback. Would that really have made you that much more competitive in the long run?

Taking one city and stopping really only works when both sides can be reasonably confident the fight won’t turn existential.

[Rusten]

But if the angry neighbour in question only has ~6 cities and poor graphs then it doesn't matter as much. There's a limit to the damage he can do.

It's not an ideal scenario, but you have to annoy someone at some point.

[Zed-F]

*shrug* Even if he doesn’t counter attack, the damage he can do if you alert him too early is the damage he did do — make further expansion in his direction much less profitable than it otherwise might have been. Drawn out fights are expensive fights.