[SPOILERS] Will: Thread title to be decided

[WilliamLP]

It looks like we may have an armageddon battle in Pusan, if Elkad goes for it. He bombarded my walls down to 10%. I'm in the middle of a move in real life and definitely don't have the whole afternoon it would take to analyze this, so I basically just stuffed units in there. Including 10-ish cats to soak collateral. If he wants to go for it... and sac 10 hwachas, let's see what happens. I like my chances with CG2 Drill longbows as top defenders. Obviously OH is laughing here and smelling blood.

I took a dumb attack with a knight against his C5 GG spear and won at 33%-ish odds. I thought I'd have better odds vs what was below it, but nope. The theme of this game is dumb single unit attacks and stupid pyrrhic victories, haha. Elkad has a fort on his staging tile which keeps me from having good odds on anything.

I had a bit of wildcard in that Elkad may not have known I have engineering and 3 road movement this turn. But he'll know now since I whipped and upgraded 2 pikes.

Sorry for lacklustre reporting, but I just can't make Civ more of a priority in my life right now than something I log in and play pretty quick. OH has an immortal journalist in sight so maybe you're getting better reporting from that angle.

[WilliamLP]

Well, Elkad made quite a mistake throwing units at me with no reward. But then, he's pretty down and out in this game already. I've been there, haha. It's easy to fall into the thinking that the odds must be about to turn if you can just take out one more top defender. I think he's given me enough that I can make a run for Seoul. Next turn I'll bombard and heal a bit, then try to attack.

I'm amazed there's still undeveloped jungle to the south of him. I'm building a couple of settlers just in case I get to use them.

Of course I'm considering that OH may attack me, either with knights or maybe galleons position to hit my coastal cities. I'm going to try and get some LBs in them in time, but there isn't much time left - war can be declared in two turns. I think an attack like that is vs me may be their best chance to win the game though, and they are far better players than me spending hours per day on this!

[superdeath]

Any pics of the toku land?

[WilliamLP]

You got it!

NE of Seoul is my motley group of wounded stuff. Elkad is going to stuff it with macemen but I have cats there and some shock knights that will join next turn.

My empire is dominated by cottage spam as you can see. I'm starting to get lapped by OH in hammers which is concerning.

You can see my work boat has had a hell of a voyage! I really appreciate the grand scale of this game, with its mysterious wars showing up as great generals in the log.

Conspicuously absent from my units are, of course, samurai.

I'm getting Literature now that I have 10xp units for HE. I don't regret going straight for Guilds + Engineering, because knights and the extra road movement are what's giving me the opportunity to expand south right now.

I'm far behind where I should be on great people, having only spawned a scientist for an academy in my capital. I need to get NE and fix that, though it would have been preferable to do that 30 turns ago.

Longer term prospects, if I can capture Seoul and OH doesn't have a brilliant, precise and crushing counterattack two turns from now, it will open things up a lot. And Pusan will transform from completely stifled to a commerce powerhouse with a second academy.

From here, I think I need to get to rifling in time to not die to cavs, or even cuirs.

In the end I'm not going to be able to match the team of civ masters next to me, spending hours per turn. But I'm pleased to be enough of a thorn in their side (almost literally) that they aren't quite in Mack / TBS tier in this game despite comparable skill level.

My knowledge is still a few years behind the metagame here on this site! For my next PB game here I'm going to need some intensive study of how the very best navigate things.

[WilliamLP]

I don't have time for a proper report, sorry. OH declared to offer peace and during this I defended a trireme attack with a scouting galley. They have to be pretty annoyed with a couple of my dice rolls in this game haha.

I took Seoul with a few suicide cats, and my knights still free. I had enough to think about attacking what OH had in Wongsan that he just took. But even if I could barely win it wouldn't have been cost effective in the long run given a counterattack. It was a very complex turn with free road movement between captured cities, and, I could have spent more hours on it.

I'm forking Nampo and Pyangyang to hopefully get them from Elkad next turn.

In the long run, I'm on a clock with OH's growing lead. I'm not sure if they're over the conqueror's plateau yet but their massive city count should be overwhelming eventually, with such a long border to defend. I might be able to handle Cuirs but it's pretty doubtful when Rifles, Cavs and Cannon show up.

[WilliamLP]

A pretty horrible leak in my gameplay (of the ones I know of) is that I still haven't microed my cities properly for RtR improvements, particularly buffs to mills and workshops. I should have more hammers than I do, and also more city differentiation and a few specced out entirely to maximize production. And I have no excuse for not spawning a second GP yet, really needed to have at least a second scientist on a slow burn right after the first one spawned.

Anyway, I have Literature now so can build HE and NE to try and correct some of this. Though it may be too late in the game to make a difference.

[WilliamLP]

Well, OH took the peace offer, and it turns out I was really foolish to offer it! I'll be darned if they didn't weasel some units around the rear side to take Namp'o. I didn't think he was actually in range. Outplayed yet again! I guess I'm the practice dummy in their master class, heh.

I should have pictures but I don't want to spend the 10 minutes it takes to log into this game again. I took Pyongyang and have 8 knights in position to capture Inchon next turn, unless OH manages to sneak that one out from under me too! Elkad will have one city remaining which I suspect is on the silver island to the SE.

If I were a little closer to OH, he'd need to worry about defensive liability with forkable cities. But with 10 free turns (doh!) he'll be able to get a ton of knights since he has about triple the hammers that I do.

I think all I can do to try and last a while longer is use this period to try and trade marble for stone somewhere and build castles in every border city. Maybe even the coast too...

[WilliamLP]

I took Elkad's final mainland city. He still has a single island city which shouldn't be a problem to remove eventually.

OH is flooding the "neutral" lands with knights to grab all the pillage gold he can. But I thought we were friends?  It's a teachable moment to me, showing how bad a play giving him peace in this situation was. I will try to return the favor as much as I can. I'll miss the vicinity of Yonsan though since it pops in between turns. Yet more nooby play by me not to be on top of this last turn.

I'm trying to get a settler to the "c" site - baffled why Elkad couldn't find time for a settlement there. OH might beat me because dudes plan everything 10 turns in advance. I will try to cut off his road path there as best I can, and I can also isolate Nanp'o, maybe make it not worth saving for him in the short run.

They're on the way to Chemistry, and privateers and frigates are going to f me over. I chose compass but thinking now, caravels are probably so pointless I'm going to have to concede the water completely, in favour of gunpowder.

I plan on spamming castles all along the border and coast.

I'm actually looking forward to whatever tricks OH throws at me because, learning will be all the value this game can bring to me from here.

[superdeath]

how is mighty japan doing?

[WilliamLP]

I think I'm counting the turns where my actions have some sort of relevance in this game! I hit the critical end of the peace treaty with OH.

I knew this might happen, those galleons are very deliberately placed to fork Name Me and No Name Yet. Name Me is my National Epic city, just online, so losing it is going to hurt a lot. (I need a GA badly.) I only have a single crossbow there. I'm dumb for not having a couple more units in there, and should have whipped the musket last turn at least.

I was able to take a former Elkad city from them. I got bad dice rolls though.

Lost flawless with a C2 knight vs C2 knight at 50%, then lost another C2 knight before removing it.

I suspect his knight stack is 1SE of IK+ (great retro game by the way!)

I'll just have to wait and see how many cities I lose during his turn half.

Plotting out all the strategy and tactics that could be done here, turn by turn, is far too much work for the reward it would bring me at this point. And with such an experienced team spending so much time on the game, I need to expect to be out-played with the investment I'm putting in.