[Mjmd #51 No Players] Mjmd Rambles - a civ story

[AutomatedTeller]

yikes. Yeah, that's a serious stack.

I agree to pull back - I'm not sure I'd put a hwacha in there, though. I think you might be better off holding off on your hwacha until you have a bunch, and then hitting his stack with that and killing praets with whatever you have left over. 1 cat doesn't hurt a stack like that - 5 hurts it a lot.

[Mjmd]

Pull back immediately or pull back only if he bombards? I will keep all the Hwachas out I think for the moment. Axes are more easily replaceable.

You may have noticed that without the golden age the capital is getting in on the action as well, a true sign that the game is over.

[AutomatedTeller]

I don't have a good sense for how many units you have.

what I think you need is a place where you can hit his stack with a bunch of catapults and then a lot of units, hopefully as many units as are in the stack, or close.

There aren't really any good choices in defending the city - stuffing it full of units means that he'll kill them and lose some units. Might delay him, btu units you lose there won't be able to kill units later after you hit it with collateral.

[Mjmd]

This is basically going to be my epilogue:
AutomatedTeller I am releasing you from your dedlurking duties. Thanks for putting up with me. I did some stupid things, but you helped keep me from doing some other stupid things so I thank you. I probably won't post a ton after this. I know SD does a good job reporting. I have a lot of respect for Miguelto in PB49 atm, he has kept a good pace of posting even though he is almost dead.

I have enough to kill a 3rd of his force maybe. he is keeping is mega stack split atm. Actually better for me to try to do some damage. Plan is to consolidate at capital / behind it. Build one last round of units for that defense. Once that round is done I am starting an evacuation down into the ice and islands. Whip out a few settlers, whip / chop out a galley now out of GoldenEye (if Vanrober axe goes away) and then produce as many Triremes as I can before cities fall. I will NOT declare peace with SD EVER. If your going to be a dick and do a bunch of fake peace deals, your going to suffer war wariness and occupation unhappy for as long as I can manage. Kind of nice I'm playing in PB52 as otherwise would be chore, although maybe not.

Speaking of stupid things....
Mistakes:
1) Trying to do it all - I don't think that going for music artist was wrong. I think I had two valid lines. HOWEVER, I tried doing them both. If I was going to go for the golden age via the free great artist from music I should have gone straight there. However, I went for code of laws first to go to bureaucracy. Then everyone started doing their own golden age thing and I think I thought I HAD to get a golden age to transition into bureaucracy. I should have just bit that bullet and followed the plan I had already started down. Instead I veered into another plan. EITHER plan, just should have picked one and stuck with it. I think I should have just gone straight for bureaucracy in either case but certainly once I had already put the effort into going code of laws first. Also, obviously I shouldn't have teched it after Ramk got, but that was just that I missed . That was the turn SD did the open borders for gold trade, so I was very distracted beginning of that turn.
2) Minor but important, needed to prioritize a few more production cities. There is no reason CivCalltoPower has a library (atm)..... I also should have made Pharaoh a production city instead of a mixed city. It could have become a mixed city later once some cottages grew, but I should have started it as a production city and improved the 2 hills with mines before building cottages and again not built a library. Could have started showing power build up a little sooner and maybe that would have dissuaded. 2-3 extra Hyachas would be nice right now. I mean the reason of course is I was desperately trying to stay competitive with the big boys for research. However, I think this was a very reasonable small change and a handful of beakers wouldn't have made or broken anything.
3) Speaking of Pharaoh. I read the signs that Plemo was probably going for Hanging Gardens and then I settled Age of Empires anyways. Settling Pharaoh as 6th city would have been much better as it is just a better city, but also that Space invaders could keep the grassland sheep longer. Hanging Gardens was probably just a bad play anyways. I mean 10 cities with it is fine, but my timeline was a bit slow probably. I should have done more research on normal timing. But even still I didn't have the worker force for shopping the wonder out and supporting that many new cities (I ended up doing 3 settlers 1 worker).
4) Posting a lot when I was going to rush SD. Got too excited, will be interesting to read and see if he settled on the copper because of it.

Now do I consider moving my capital a mistake. I was the ONLY person to do so. If I had known aggressive Rome was my neighbor, maybe not. If I had known it would force me to settle a really crappy copper..... Speaking of still unsure why both of Superdeaths copper spots are really good. That was the real cost of course of moving was having to settle Leap Frog instead of Pharaoh as my 2nd. I didn't know this turn 0 of course. Now mind IF I had decided not to rush SD I could have settled Oregon Trail as my 2nd and Leap Frog as my 3rd, which would have been way better. Except of course I was next to aggressive Rome. I had assumed he would hit me long before Hwachas, and there really isn't a defense against shock prats. So don't regret going for the rush, only regret posting about rushing so much.
Back to the question of was it a mistake? I mean this is it after a 2 pop whip, doesn't look like a mistake to me..... Just slow and then a slow 2nd city into some more slow. 
Almost asked for a reload to take a picture of capital before I whipped it, but not worth it.

Questions comments let me know.

[Kaiser]

Thank you for the reporting and good luck with your other game. It will be interersting to see if you manage your iceball plan to annoy superdeath, so please report a little about that

[AutomatedTeller]

It's been fun.

One thing to think about - I get being mad at Superdeath - you would hardly be the first one at RB - see any game where SD and Commodore are both playing. Drawing out a long war with him has 2 effects:

1) You have to keep playing a hopeless position
2) This game is in an eternal turn split.

Now that I think about it, your island cities will likely end up taken by one of the other civs.

It's not that you can't do what you are thinking of doing, but for the price of a settler, you can make 2 hwacha.

Just something to think about.

[Mjmd]

I mean I'm only really upset because he was such a bastard about it making and then IMMEDIATELY breaking so many "peace" deals.
1) Very hopeless, but again I'm still playing pitboss 52, so not that much of a burden
2) At least I'm in the 1st half of the turn split not the second. SD being 1st in PB52 turnsplit is going to be painful on that games turnpace. Both GKC and Lazteuq are also in 2nd half so have to wait on them too (assuming Lazteuq is jumping in on Gira soon). Also, probably will be more wars soon. Plemo just got knights. El Grillo is getting machinery. SD might actually hit a really sweet timing here and after rolling through me can roll through Vanrober.

Anyways, I can make a couple more units and kill a couple prats for short term pain, or try to wage a naval war over a long term. Will probably be too slow, but I think that is a better shot at doing more damage to SD long term. Shrug. My only chance is if Lazteuq jumped in on my side, and that isn't looking likely.

[AutomatedTeller]

Yeah, those were kind of dickish.

Your game is your game - I think lurkers would enjoy updates every so often about how "Operation Give SD Unending War Weariness" is going

One thing I'd suggest (you may be doing more of it in PB52, I don't really know) is post more detail - not every turn, but at regular intervals (10, 15, 20 turns) post a shot of all your cities. Post what units are in your border cities - I don't know, but I hope I would have caught that you were vulnerable to chariots by not having a spear. Power graphs are always good.

You don't HAVE to post, of course. And it's a pain in the butt sometimes. But it's probably the best way to get feedback and learn from the rest of the community.

[Mjmd]

As stated there was a spear covering, but it moved to temporarily cover Pharaoh and he caught me when it was out of position. Again I just didn't have much of anything. Losing all those axes hurt though...... I was short on actual hitters this turn. Also, again I was just slow, slow, followed by stupid, followed by slow (a good enough game summary).

My screenshot button isn't working for some reason, but I'm sure SD will be complaining. He moved his main stack next to my capital. I got a lot of hwacha withdraws (got a lot of 40% odds withdraws) and won I think 3 30-40% battle odds in a row at the top (karma is a @*#&$). Killed 8 units and lost 5. Sadly had two more axes that could have hit if he had waited 1 turn; sigh. Means capital lives for now. Everything else is collapsing though. Just goes to show if I hadn't been soooooo slow how this could have gone.

My evacuation plan is going poorly. Never got a settler of of sim city which will probably fall this turn or next. Will get 1 out of Age of Empires. However the double silver iceball city I want might have 3 barb archers on a hill blocking the site. I'll see if there is food down there or if I have to settle to share horse cities clam. If there is food down there tempted to use great general and turn an axe into a supper city raider cover attacking axe so I can take it. I think capital is safe for now and doubt I can protect anything else great general or no.

BTW Plemo launched his second golden age and is up guilds and banking on El Grillo. Laztueq launched invasion on Gira as predicted (sadly that was my only hope was a backstab) same turn Gira and GKC made peace.

[Mjmd]

He didn't retreat. Joined the general with the two fresh axes. Took a whole bunch of 48%-51% odds fights to try to punish him for it. I did not get 50% odds. Lost 6 to kill 3........ Great general lived, but not what I needed.