[spoilers] wetbandit prioritizes civ4 over more profitable endeavors, again

[wetbandit]

It's been frustrating to have this Cornflakes war and attempted dogpile go so poorly.  In fact, I think this war declaration and miscalculation therefrom has cost me my chance of winning the game.  I haven't really lost many units at all, but I've lost time and the opportunity cost of comparative military advantage.  I had expected both Aztec and superdeath to jump in and split up cornflakes (and his wheat, which only he and Florida have).  I expected to do the lion share of the lifting.  Aztec did, superdeath didn't, and then Aztec bugged out after cornflakes suicided a bunch of knights against infantry in an oddly similar to Last Samurai kinda way. 

superdeath compounded the problem by building rails for cornflakes, which severely complicated my unit movements as to avoid having backline cities taken.  I still can't believe he did this, and this is probably one of those minor things which a player doesn't really think about while they are doing it.  It was incredibly anti-wetbandit for no good reason imo.  This delay, and my participation in this delay as DZ looked poised to move in on me on both sides of my empire, allowed cornflakes to build up a stack of about 60 infantry, which is no joke when it can't be hit first.

I blame superdeath in particular for this.  he's built no army and is consolidating his land for...being in 2nd place when Florida hits CV?  We really needed to clear up cornflakes land to remove a significant wildcard as he was liable to build a stack and attack me or superdeath while we were focusing on Florida.  Once cornflakes was gone, we could focus on Florida.  Instead, I have a player who would clearly want revenge on me on my backlines.

Everyone has been on the passive side in this game, but I was hoping to lead a coalition of the willing against Florida and cornflakes.  That didn't work out.  I certainly feel like I've borne the brunt of some irrational attacks in this game and it pains me to endure what I perceive to be irrational passivity working against me.  A big caveat for the attack DZ made on Florida, though, you the real MVP DZ.

I get tanks in 6-7 turns, depending on the KTB kicking in after Aztec get it.  They're still sitting on GP for a golden age.  No clue what they are waiting for, a GA to build tanks?  Why not get to tanks faster (and allow me to get tanks faster).

The bigger problem is, aside from DZ, no one else has really built a modern army to go fight Florida.  And that's the biggest problem of them all, Florida is not that far away from CV.  He has 2 artists, last I checked, but hasn't run the culture slider at all, really.  That's going to change in 5 turns when he gets Industrialism.  And then everyone will notice that we are fucked.




Conservatively, Florida should be able to do 500/cpt with slider help in his 2nd and 3rd culture cities.  He may be able to do more with all the religions he has.  That would give him 52 turns until CV.  They have 2 artists, which shaves off 8 turns, and I'm assuming he's trying to generate more artists.  They are also top power and will get tanks at least 2 turns before me.

I would really like to use the army I've built up against a game leader, but I'm also teetering towards concession to Florida.  We are about to get tanks and, I guess, we'll see how that works.  If we get at least a 3v1 on Florida, maybe we have a shot, but I have no faith in superdeath to contribute as he is significantly behind military tech wise.

Let's see how it goes when tanks come online, but we need to declare on Florida like right now, and I'm going to be hurting for health because I won't have any of cornflakes wheat.

[wetbandit]

DZ wiped out my stack in Hamburger. I guess I did miscount tiles from where his main stack was, but it was centrally positioned and 10 tiles away.

It had a considerable number of machine guns, arty, and cav. Of course, they were sitting ducks to massed artillery, but I was banking on some help from DZ against MC and not to, you know, blow up my army.

This all helps Cairo, he has a stack of navy which looks poised to hit my northern coast. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone else piles on me now.

I'm ready to concede to Cairo.

This has been a frustrating game.

[wetbandit]

DZ blew up some part of Aztec's army and he has got to be #1 on the shit list for everyone who isn't Florida.

I took a city from cornflakes and will land a few tanks to wipe his last city.

In a vacuum, I appreciate what I interpret DZ's motivation for doing this as, "hey assholes, I'm the only one who actually attacked Florida and you did nothing!"  So he flipped to cairo and is in it for maximum carnage and pain.  It's frustrating as all hell, but certainly his right and he is improving his position in the game.  There's no guarantee he won't turn around and fight Florida, but I'm not sure he would leave his new land unguarded.  I certainly hope he would fight florida.

What is the most frustrating for me with this is the inactivity by Aztec and superdeath to pile on cornflakes with me.  We pile on cornflakes, I don't have my stacks in stupid positions and can put pressure on DZ.  That was the next play.  Instead, we now have this situation where we definitely have to attack/defend against 2 hostile civs to prevent a CV.

[Cornflakes]

Everyone has been on the passive side in this game, but I was hoping to lead a coalition of the willing against Florida and cornflakes.  That didn't work out.  I certainly feel like I've borne the brunt of some irrational attacks in this game and it pains me to endure what I perceive to be irrational passivity working against me.

I lamented the passivity multiple times as well. That's what led me to call off my attack way back when. The original dogpile I engineered against you, triggered by the Elkad war, lasted all of a few turns until I was left on my own ... I probably could have pressed on and maybe eliminated you due to my huge MFG, but bearing the entire cost of invasion torpedoed my long-term chances (do you have any screenshots of the GNP graphs around that time? ). So I decided to pull back and see if you would be able to recover. I could easily have razed your northern cities, which I captured primarily to clear culture and create a distraction to cover the retreat of my main stack. Seriously, check the GNP graph. By the time I completed my retreat I was at or near negative GNP 

FWIW I've been rooting for you silently since that point, and I still can't believe how relevant you have remained after that dogpile! Even shortly afterwards your economy was solid and rivaling the leaders. What would you attribute your strong economy to, both early pre-dogpile and now? Cottage focus? Traits? Great Lighthouse?

[wetbandit]

Everyone has been on the passive side in this game, but I was hoping to lead a coalition of the willing against Florida and cornflakes.  That didn't work out.  I certainly feel like I've borne the brunt of some irrational attacks in this game and it pains me to endure what I perceive to be irrational passivity working against me.

I lamented the passivity multiple times as well. That's what led me to call off my attack way back when. The original dogpile I engineered against you, triggered by the Elkad war, lasted all of a few turns until I was left on my own ... I probably could have pressed on and maybe eliminated you due to my huge MFG, but bearing the entire cost of invasion torpedoed my long-term chances (do you have any screenshots of the GNP graphs around that time? ). So I decided to pull back and see if you would be able to recover. I could easily have razed your northern cities, which I captured primarily to clear culture and create a distraction to cover the retreat of my main stack. Seriously, check the GNP graph. By the time I completed my retreat I was at or near negative GNP 

FWIW I've been rooting for you silently since that point, and I still can't believe how relevant you have remained after that dogpile! Even shortly afterwards your economy was solid and rivaling the leaders. What would you attribute your strong economy to, both early pre-dogpile and now? Cottage focus? Traits? Great Lighthouse?

Thanks for this Cornflakes.  I haven't had much time or inclination to report in the last few months, but these are good thoughts. 

I was confused at why everyone stopped.  I suppose there was some fear of having a stack get obliterated in absence of culture, but my guess is everyone waited for Aztec to jump in and hit my south.  Initially, I miscalculated that you would press forward on me since you had absorbed so much of Elkad that your economy was in the tank, but there you were and I only had enough army to fight one person.  I think I had about as much success in my knight attacks for which I could have hoped.  Then everyone else jumped in and I was in trouble.  I really have no business being in this game in light of being reduced to 4 cities, but here we are.

Thanks for playing out the string.  I lamented a few times that I wished I could walk over with cannons when you didn't have rifles, but I think even DZ would have declared on me.

[wetbandit]

In other news, I declared on Florida.  I didn't move in, but I secured all my health sources from other folks and it's that time anyway.  I have about 7300000 power to their 8400000, thanks to CASH upgrades on catapults.   Aztec got flight and...I don't see fighters doing anything so I hope they researched a big chunk of radio also.  Bombers will own everyone.

I'm really writing to say that I don't understand what superdeath is doing.  He and Florida are having semi-huge naval battles on both coasts.  It seems he made have made landings also, but I don't know what he thought he would have accomplished.  I can't imagine that he could possibly land enough people to survive an attack.  He has made several trade offers that seem to indicate that he wants me to move in.  Well, this is one of those things where he who gets his stack wiped also loses, even if the survivors, Aztec and superdeath or me then clean up.

All along, I always thought that superdeath would have the threat of boating Florida's cities while moving in a sizeable land stack.  The land stack is in his interest as it could be repurposed against future opponents.  I don't see a superdeath landstack anywhere, so where are his dudes?  Even if they are all on boats, why!?

As far as I can tell, I don't think Florida hasn't turned on the culture slider.  Why?  Do they just not have much GNP to do so?  Going for style?

I think we can stop Florida is Donovan decides to also jump in.  The problem is he who jumps in first is assured to lose because they will get stack-wiped and therefore not win.

[wetbandit]

Moved everyone in.  Blood (mostly mine) for the blood god and all that.



Disappointing that I never picked up MilSci as Cairo has 1 infantry in Talibanjos, which is covered by the unit spam.  I have a GG sitting around who could have made 3 commando tanks.  Misplay #134098134.


82 tanks, 80 arty, 20 inf, 9 anti tank and ~50 MGs.  Moved onto flatland this turn.  I think they are all superdead if Florida attacks in force, but then he loses a lot and surely takes a lot of hp damage.  Not sure if Cairo will attack if I move slow, but I don't have a chance to win this game if I lose my stack.  He may have enough time to delay, or, strangely, time to attack me and heal on account of this:




All of superdeath's transports are 1SW of Paris (?) the size 17 city.  Is this...a ragequit?  I get that superdeath may be frustrated at lack of activity, but come on, why now after everyone declared?  At least keep your boats in range of making a landing if you're not going to directly threaten to boat the city.  I think that's the best thing you can do in this situation since you can't collateral off of boats.  Does superdeath know you can't collateral off of boats?  Same thing on the west coast, make some landings on a hill and force Florida to split forces everywhere.

If you're actually upset with anything I've did, I'll point superdeath right back to helping cornflakes back in my war against him.  I was all-in on the SuperBandit Syndicate (wetdeath washout?) at that point. 

I don't understand how superdeath wasn't able to transform his huge MFG lead into something more of a threat.  What happened?

Also Aztec hasn't moved in, I hope all of those nice shiny tanks and planes get to do something.

In other news, I'm fully expecting to get ganked by DZ at some point. 

I'll take pictures of the carnage when it happens.

[wetbandit]

I realized my huge stack of units (humblebrag) covered their actual location.  They are 1S of Ammo-Sexuals, and that city is 1SE of the peak in the picture.

Will I wake up with a stack tomorrow?

[wetbandit]

And thinking about this more, maybe superdeath is pivoting to be able to quasi-fork Florida's capital and VanillaIsis.  That may be worthwhile, but I think it would take him 3 turns to set that up if he moves out of naval range.

It would also work better if Aztec had built their navy in the water that Florida had cities.  My scouts spotted about 9 transports and a battleship around Aztec's capital because, I guess, boating DZ helps when Florida is about to win CV.

[Old Harry]

That's the best illustration of stack size I've seen. Although somewhat boastful.