[SPOILERS] scooter's PB53

[scooter]

Turn 82

In which I complain about RNG on a generally good turn!





Here’s the pre-turn situation. As I suspected, those Galleys were full of units, and he unloaded them all in Osaka. I’m generally pretty okay with this! I still get 50% odds on the top defender, and I get CKN collateral. I have 7 hitters on land to 6 defenders though, so I can only lose one. The caveat though is as I mentioned last turn, I have those two units on the Galley that could step in as well. Keep that in mind.





In we go.

Drill2 CKN vs C2 axe 50%: lose
Drill2 CKN vs Cover axe 73%: lose
Drill2 CKN vs C2 axe 90%: win
Drill CKN vs Formation spear 95%: win
Shock HA vs C1 Spear 67%: win
Shock HA vs C1 Spear 67%: win
C1 HA vs C2 axe 91%: win

Ugh. Alright. The 73/67/67 battles I should win 2/3, and I did. I lost the coin flip, and I won the 90% fights. This left one heavily wounded axe. So, it’s time to use my Galley, right? Well, how about we check on that coastal city first? I couldn’t help but notice those Galleys all magically disappeared.





JACKPOT. Both Galleys sitting here defended by a single Spear that AT didn’t bother promoting because he likely thought that Galley was empty. It took some Galley-hopping to get those units into it, and then I positioned it as if it was scouting, so hopefully that actually tricked him. Anyway, I absolutely cannot pass up the chance to burn his whole navy in port. The good news is that I can attack amphibiously with this CKN, and if I win, I can actually hit both cities on the same turn. All I have to do is…





Win this coin flip. It’s not even a true coin flip. It’s closer to 60%. After I’ve had consistently bad luck against AT so far, surely I can win this one… he said in the least subtle attempt at foreshadowing in written history. Open the spoiler to see.

Drill2 CKN vs C1 Spear 58%: lose (1.0h)

I tried not to complain much about my poor RNG in the ill-fated HA attack of days past because I earned my poor luck with some poor play. I hate when people whine when they get RNG-punished for poor decisions. This turn was annoying though especially with the recent history of poor RNG. Anyway, I still have my Horse Archer on board. I can try to raze this city or try to capture the island. Given the opportunity to burn the boats, that’s an easy decision. Surely I won’t lose at 98% odds, right? RIGHT??










Right. Wheeeew. Burned it, obviously. I saved the promotion, so I went ahead and promo-healed this Horse Archer after the attack in hopes he can survive. I imagine he’ll kill it with a Spear from the fog, but you never know. I sure hope Commodore doesn’t settle this spot. I bet he will try. Not much I can do for now though. That 162g is worth a turn of 100% science towards Guilds, so that’s a huge boost. Osaka will rather easily be captured next turn, so not all is lost there. The next question will be how soon I can take his Stonehenge city, which I badly need to kill his cultural oppression. He’s going to be able to stuff it with a bunch of units. I may need to wait a few turns until I can add a few more CKNs and maybe a couple Knights.





He’s already working on stuffing it with units, obviously.





Picked up my first Great General. I’m thinking about splitting the XP between a CKN and a HA, and attaching to the HA so I can get a free super Knight as soon as Guilds comes in. Speaking of, Golden Age next turn. I’m not super well positioned for it (no Caste for example), but things are urgent enough that I need to just fire it and take advantage of the situation now. Ignore the Forge build in Flat Earth, I’ve been toggling that here and there. I’m prebuilding a Knight there and in a couple other places while also squeezing out a few more CKNs, so builds keep getting swapped.





One rather unfortunate thing. That random warrior AT seemingly forgot about is literally preventing me from re-scouting Commodore’s core . I was tempted to attempt to walk right past it because there’s a good chance he wouldn’t even notice, but I’m not gonna risk handing him some GG points. AT definitely doesn’t know he has a warrior here, right? I think you should all place your bets in here, and we can find out together once he’s out of the game. It’s possible this is a sentry of some sort to see if Commodore has action in the other direction, but I’m skeptical of that.

[superdeath]

Turn 82

 I hate when people whine when they get RNG-punished for poor decisions. 

[scooter]

RNG hating is a big part of your brand at this point. Embrace it.

[superdeath]

I dont wanna have a brand

[Cyneheard]

I dont wanna have a brand

Your name is superdeath, the brand comes with the territory. Embrace the    !

Having a brand means you're memorable, that's a good thing.

[Hitru]

You really, really need to read our thread with OH and Fintourist in pb49 before you complain about bad rng . IIRC we lost 7 units to one spear including 98.2% attack and multiple zero hit losses.

[civac2]

Dunno about your previous turns but this one is almost perfectly going according to expectations. You are indeed slightly below expections but the difference is minor.

[scooter]

Dunno about your previous turns but this one is almost perfectly going according to expectations. You are indeed slightly below expections but the difference is minor.

Oh I know. I'd say expected units lost this turn were something 2.3, and I lost 3. Hardly anything crazy at all. It was more that the coin flip losses were particularly impactful combined with the natural human tendency to irrationally feel like you are "owed" some luck swings, when that's not how luck works at all. Mainly, this caused me to come up one unit short and more importantly lose 3 really strong units, all of which I had odds on (if only barely). These two things combined will set me back multiple turns on the possibility of taking on the Stonehenge city. I'll be fine, I just felt like the difference between losing 2 and 3 battles was pretty big, and the fact that all 3 were on CKNs rather than the more disposable Horse Archers.

You really, really need to read our thread with OH and Fintourist in pb49 before you complain about bad rng .  IIRC we lost 7 units to one spear including 98.2% attack and multiple zero hit losses.

Oh it's definitely on the todo list. I followed the last third of it, but things were well under control by then. But yeah, this turn is really small potatoes.

[scooter]

Turn 83


No units died on the interturn, and AT did a few more 1 pop whips. This included a scout in Osaka, which, fair enough.





His axe was unable to promote, so this was a rather easy fight.





I won that and then said thank you for the XP.





Not nearly as much gold sadly, but that's due to the small size. No buildings survived, but I don't know that he ever built any either. I mistakenly moved my HA on his land 1E, briefly having a mental lapse and forgetting this meant he couldn't reboard. I didn't see any units though, so it won't die to a Spear and will likely survive and safely board next turn.





This is what I'm up against next. This looks like more than it is at a very quick glance. We have a formation spear, a c1 spear, and an archer. That's it. The other stuff is literally just random trash. There's a TBS unit watching, a scout, a pair of chariots that don't benefit from the cultural defenses. My drill2 CKNs get 50% odds on the top defender (the archer which will pick up CG and fortify), but the rest should be pretty easy. The 60% cultural defenses is actually the toughest thing here, and the fact that he's going to get like 3 more turns to stuff units into here. I'm not sure whether I'll be able to get to this quickly enough. I can get 8-9 units able to attack by T86. That gives him 3 full build queue turns to get stuff into this city, and he's got the population to whip every turn. My problem will just be lack of hitters since they all have to come via sea thanks to his culture.





Fired a Golden Age and revolted into HR and Vassalage.





Golden Age demos. I micro'd some cities in an effort to finish Guilds in 2T. I think I can get my GG HA upgraded to a Knight in time to join the Stonehenge attack.





Also, this unit is pretty cool. 5-8 first strikes + collateral damage + the usual xbow bonus versus melee. Brutal against an opponent whose best units are currently axes. We'll see if HBR shows up for him soon or not.

[scooter]

Turn 84




Oddity of this map - my newly settled 3 population island city has my third highest base production of any city during a golden age. That's a new one.





Commodore now has four holy cities, all of which are visible in this screenshot. This will be my post-AT problem. That's a really tough potential cultural victory setup with all those religions + neither of your neighbors being threats to win. The good news is he's lacking the best traits for a cultural victory, but you can still absolutely do it with that setup.





Today's stitch showing the updated battlefield. I plan to drop 6 CKNs and 2 HAs next to Pillage next turn. The forward Galley will also return to Osaka to pick up my freely upgraded GG Knight, which along with another HA will be available to attack amphibiously if it turns out to be a good idea to do so. He's going to need to stuff in quite a few more units in his next 2 turns to make this defense work.


There's one big catch though. Last turn was weird from AT. Here's how the last few turns played out on PBSpy.

T81a: I declare and move in
T81b: AT does 3 1-pop whips (-23 points), picks up 31 points end of turn


T82a: I raze the one city and whittle Osaka down to one wounded unit.
T82b: AT does 2 1-pop whips (-15 points), picks up 34 points end of turn.


T83a: I capture Osaka
T83b: AT plays in 3 minutes, does not whip. Picks up 96 (!) points end of turn.


He picked up a ton of points last turn. Surely that's a tech + land points + a couple growths? The big question to me is whether it's something like Horseback Riding. Notably, he grew Pillage from size 5 -> 6. That seems like he was waiting to whip whatever thing came in end of turn. Construction maybe? That would be weird. Surely it's HBR.