I whipped 3 cities for 7 population in a Golden Age in a situation where my very survival did not depend on it. AMA.
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[SPOILERS] scooter's PB53
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Turn 85
No remarks, huh. Tough crowd. Lucky for you all that I don't lock updates behind comment-begging.  Cornflakes started shifting some of his defenses that were setup to deter me towards his border with TBS. Pretty clear he intends to capture TBS's remaining center city when peace expires. I'm not sure what exactly TBS can do about it. HA + Xbow + Catapults is a pretty tough combination to crack. I have seen War Elephants from TBS, so he does have Construction too now. Would really like TBS to be able to hold. I'm a bit busy to really put my thumb on the scale though.  The setup for next turn. Drill4 is some nasty stuff. The odds will drop because he'll pick up 5% fortify and presumably a City Garrison promo, but still. He added an Archer this past turn, but I've been surprised at how little reinforcement this city has gotten. He's done a fair amount of whipping, so surely these units are somewhere. I don't expect to capture next turn just due to sheer numbers, but I do think I'll have a favorable hammer trade.  One of his whips did apparently go into this. I'm guessing he's gonna take the 35%-ish shot on my Galley next turn and probably win. Otherwise, weird thing to use a whip on. Maybe he wants to take a run at MH370. I can't imagine that's a good idea for him? It would be annoying to me, but I can just upgrade it to a CG2 longbow, and no 2 units of his are going to be anywhere near enough for that.  First turn with Guilds. I whipped Moon Landing and JFK because it got me a pair of Knights ready for the next wave. I also whipped Area 51 because it was at a max overflow point and was working a non-ideal tile. I was also able to 1T the Knight in Flat Earth by setting it up at 49/50 and working max-hammer configs last turn and this turn. This sets me up for a wave 2 of 3 Knights, 2 CKNs, and a HA (possibly upgraded to a Knight) that can be in Pillage ready to move on T88. Hopefully by then I'll have captured, but if AT does manage to stuff too many units in next turn as I've been expecting, I'll just wait a few turns. Whipping away 7 population during a Golden Age is one of the most obvious Bad Civ Things that I've ever felt OK with. The calculus is so weird on a map with this little natural production, and it's definitely worth it if it speeds conquest. Popping the Golden Age itself is the more debatable issue, but it sped up Guilds too, so I'm also very much fine with it.
Well I don't really understand what's happening and I can't really be bothered to read the entire thread. Are you hoping to eliminate AT with this attack or just take a few key cities? Are you getting help from another player?
Civilization IV: 21 (Bismarck of Mali), 29 (Mao Zedong of Babylon), 38 (Isabella of China), 45 (Victoria of Sumeria), PB12 (Darius of Sumeria), 56 (Hammurabi of Sumeria), PB16 (Bismarck of Mali), 78 (Augustus of Byzantium), PB56 (Willem of China)
Hearthstone: ArenaDrafts Profile No longer playing Hearthstone. 
(September 1st, 2020, 16:20)NobleHelium Wrote: Well I don't really understand what's happening and I can't really be bothered to read the entire thread. Are you hoping to eliminate AT with this attack or just take a few key cities? Are you getting help from another player? A few key cities and then re-evaluate. I wanted to take the island and then the Stonehenge city (Pillage), and then settle a city between myself and Stonehenge that was impossible due to the swamped culture. I slightly suspect he might crumble fast, so if there's a route to his capital post-Pillage, I will definitely go for it. It just depends on what he's got in the fog. I just have to be measured on how hard I push in because of how tight the borders are everywhere else. Speaking of elsewhere. Quote:09/01/2020 16:28:52 85 Commodore logged out He may have just gotten Guilds too. Alternatively, he just got out of his Golden Age and had some pent-up whip demand. Let's see how high up his power goes next turn. He did just go into Vassalage and Theocracy too. Bet he contests me in AT's territory.
Re turn 82 I'll qute Samuel Johnson: "When a man is tired of complaining about the RNG, he is tired of life".
Travelling on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
Turn 86
 He added nothing but a not-yet-promoted Archer. That looks palatable. Let's give this a shot. What he lacks in defender quality he makes up for in sheer numbers. I can only afford to lose a single battle if I'm to capture/raze on this turn. I should have odds on every single battle, and about half of them will be tap-ins, so I've got a shot. Let's roll.  Drill 4 CKNs - the tactical nukes of the medieval era. Quote:Drill 4 CKN vs CG Archer 59%: lose OFF TO A GREAT START. So, my margin for error is now 0. Quote:Drill 3 CKN vs CG Archer 70%: win Alright, no disasters here. Now I'm left with a tough decision though. I have 5 hitters left and 5 enemies left. 2 of those are ~str5 HAs on land, 1 is a C1 HA amphibious, 1 is my GG Knight Amphibious, and 1 is my CG3 CKN. The CKN gets like 95% odds, but I really want to attack last with it. If I capture with my CG3 CKN, it'll likely be full health, and it allows me the chance to keep the city because it's a serious defender. However, that requires taking a swing with my GG at 88% odds, or one of my HAs at worse odds. I really don't want to lose a Morale Knight unnecessarily, but I also don't really want him to be able to cleanly reinforce a 60% defense city. Let's risk it. Quote:Amphib Morale Shock Knight vs Spear 88%: win Beautiful. All that's left is the finisher.  Quote:CG3 Drill CKN vs .4h scout 99%: win  I see no units. Of course, this has been true before. I agonized over this a bit, but ultimately I kept it. 5 pop + Stonehenge is too useful, and I think my CG3 CKN could do some serious damage on defense. If he counter-attacks and retakes, so be it, but I'm going to take the same risk again. I've got Knights and more CKNs streaming in, so I'm much better equipped this time around. Famous last words?  Here's the obligatory inside screenshot. Some follow-up in the next post because this is getting long.
So where does that leave me? Let's do a quick look around the conflict zone.
 His Galley disappeared. I have no idea what happened there. Is he settling an annoying island on that grassland hill? It's very weird. Maybe he didn't actually whip that Galley and merely moved it into Kyoto in case he wanted to take a shot at me.  I risked the life of my more wounded Horse Archer to scout the infamous Wine tile that got me last time. It's thankfully empty. This means Pillage will not be counter-attacked by 1-movers. Now, I still have the lingering fear that some HAs are going to come charging out of the fog... but I'm starting to suspect he had absolutely no units behind Pillage, so he's frantically stuffing his capital with units now. Speaking of, let's try to get a sense of his land since I'll be going in blind.  He's got 5 cities left, and here are my general guesses. I see Kyoto up at the top, and it's very lightly defended. I put a C where I'm guessing his capital is located based on where players capitals have generally been located thus far. Finally, there's the 3 spots along the bottom. Looks like one is an island, and one is along the Commodore border, and I just took a wild guess for the last one. With Commodore kicking off some serious whipping, my goal is to at minimum take the capital for myself before he can get into this too much. I'm working my scout over towards Commodore's border with AT, but overall I suspect he's going to pile on and try to vulture a couple cities. That will be annoying, but I can probably live with it. If I can get the capital, I'll have captured 4 quality cities, plus freed up land for a 5th filler, as well as claimed MH370 safely, which was always sort of awkward as long as Stonehenge existed. Finally, I can try to resettle the AT city I razed if Commodore doesn't get there first, though that's really hard to do until AT's capital is gone. Doing all that would hypothetically get me to 17 cities, which I would feel pretty good about. That's a lot of chicken counting, but I can see the pieces of a good situation falling into place. Defending all of this would be a major pain, but it's the cost of doing business. Key will be vision in enemy territory, and I think spies are legal if borders get closed.  Backing off of the chicken counting, what kind of return fire can AT muster? It really all depends on what tech that he picked up 2T ago in that big 96 point gain. His power graph sure isn't doing much, and a lot of his whips have been 1-pop which sounds like Archer spam to me. His power graph was already lower than this was restarted at, and that's before counting the units I killed this turn, while mine is climbing fast. If he's got Horse Archers, it will get awkward, but in 2 turns I should have 4 Knights in the area which will make it nearly impossible for his HAs to do anything. He definitely does not have Construction yet, so I don't have that to fear. Next turn will be pretty critical.
What of Commodore then? Did you figure out what his whips were for?
Civilization IV: 21 (Bismarck of Mali), 29 (Mao Zedong of Babylon), 38 (Isabella of China), 45 (Victoria of Sumeria), PB12 (Darius of Sumeria), 56 (Hammurabi of Sumeria), PB16 (Bismarck of Mali), 78 (Augustus of Byzantium), PB56 (Willem of China)
Hearthstone: ArenaDrafts Profile No longer playing Hearthstone.
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