[PB59] Charriu welcomes all the townfolk

[Lewwyn]

Bye the way I never gave you feedback about the map, Lewwyn, did I? I can prepare something if you are interested.

Sure! That'd be swell

[Charriu]

T144:

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I finally got the one tile on my fur island back, which also gave me vision on Lazteuq's city. His cities are surprisingly underdefended with just one or two units. I'm drawing up war plans to take advantage of that. I also finished construction and now have only 4 turns till guilds. In preparation of that I started working on some horse archers to be converted to knights with the tech.

Oh and I also noticed that TBS switched into serfdom during his golden age. Interestingly not on the start of the golden age. Maybe he didn't have monarchy?

[Charriu]

T144 continued:

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Totally forgot that I made a screenshot for this turn. Do you think my neigbors will notice the spike in GNP?

Also notice that drop in Prod and Food by Lazteuq. Seems like he went full steam into specialists. I'm suspecting he is running some annoying artists on our border which is all the more reason to go to war.

[Charriu]

Map Feedback:

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So let's talk about the map. I prepared a stitched screenshot of our continent. Luckily everything is mirrored and therefore everything I say about our continent applies to the others as well.




Before I say anything controversial about the map I want to say that I enjoy playing on it. I was not in the mood for a tight rush heavy map and it delivered in that regard. That's mainly due to the distant between capitols and most importantly due to the jungled isthmuses. The only minor downside with this is that the map feels constructed and the area of influence is clearly defined for every player as well as areas of conflict. For this time this is ok for me, but I would like to play a map with less clearly defined player areas next. Overall I don't have a big problem with that fact about the map because it lead to a longer development phase for players.

I think it's important to mention how it feels to play this map. It's like every group of 5 players is playing a PB of their own with some loose connection between those PBs. I think you will understand later what I mean by this. I also would say that players will first attempt to capture their whole continent before attempting any naval landings on other continents (islands of course are a different story).
If you look at the 5 player areas one would say that they are totally or near totally balanced between them. This is true if you take resources, tile distribution and access to islands for example. Everybody has the same resources like for example gold and gems. By the way the fact that we are missing silver makes me think that there are astronomy islands with silver in the fog of war. This and other things are one of the up/downside of a mirrored map like for example that I knew a lot about Lazteuq's territory even though I never explored it. Looking more closely though I see that there are in fact some meaningfull differences between the 5 player areas. Let's start with the shape of they areas. My player area is a dream with a centrally located capitol (look for the only sugar resource to know where the capitol is) and therefore core cities that can reach all the border areas easily for unit production. The quality of the shape decreased in the following order I would say: Mjmd->Lazteuq->GKC->Ramk. Ramk has the worst shape because his capitol is shifted significantly north. This in turn increases maintenance cost when he starts settling towards Mjmd. It also meant he had less time to develop a border region in that direction. The upside of this of course is that Mjmd is not able to reach Ramk's core that fast, which made defending this area a bit easier.

Another difference is access to the other continents and therefore trading partners. Mjmd, Lazteuq and to a lesser degree GKC are in a better position compared to the other two. Reason is that these players can easily deny the other two trade by declaring war. As long as you haven't explored the whol x-access-wrap you could nothing to prevent this, especially if you are at war with both of your neighbors like Ramk was and is. Another reason why this is a stronger position is that war between players is less likely, because taking care of your own continent is more important for security. This is also true for Ramk and me even though we are on the same continent. With just galleys it is just to hard to establish a bridge head on a different continent or on the other side of ones own. While we are talking about travelling by sea another small difference is the distribution of lakes. Here I and to a lesser degree Mjmd are the only players to be able to hide navies in the inner sea.


Getting back to the mainland we see more differences on the isthmuses. Everybody isthmus has a stronger and a weaker side. The stronger side being the one with banana and more hills. Now everybody has at least one of those versions in a regular pattern, but the important difference here is the distribution of mountains, which allow for more visibility. Take the border between me and Lazteuq. Thanks to the mountain I have constant vision on his border city even through the jungles. He on the other hand has no vision of my border city because the jungle prevents this. I realized this almost to late, when I started removing the jungle and in order to station unseen knights in my border city I stopped removing the jungle. If we make the round we see that I have another mountain on the Mjmd border, while he has none. Mjmd and Ramk have both one as well as Ramk and GKC. GKC is in the same advantage as me vs Lazteuq. Now it's also important how you can settle those border cities and here I think GKC and I have the best border positions towards Lazteuq.

One last thing I wanted to talk about is the lategame, when naval landings across continents are realistic and play mostly devolves into a 5 player PB on a huge map. Here the map clearly gives an advantage to going for a culture victoy. Reason for that is the only the players on the neighboring continents are in a good position to challenge such a victory. The other two have such a big distance towards the culture player that making an earnest attempt of preventing the culture victory really hard especially if all the culture cities are inland.

With all this in mind I want to briefly talk about the state of the game on the other continents. First

Civac, AT, Miguelito, Donovan, Elkad: On this continent we have two superpowers (civac and Miguelito) keeping them selves in check so far. The fate of Elkad will decide this continent and which of those two will take the continent.
Cornflakes, Ichabod, Frozen, Picadilly, Jowy: Picadilly is on a stronger position thanks to conquering Jowy. Still nothing is decided yet. I would especially keep a watch on Cornflakes, who makes an earnest attempt at a culture victory so far.
Joshy, TBS, Commodore, Superdeath, Tarkeel: Since TBS conquere Joshy his other two neighbors Superdeath and Commodore keep him in check. Who would have thought that those two have to ally against a common enemy.
Mr. Cairo, mackoti, Amicalola, naufragar, pindicator: pindicator isn't eliminated yet, but he more or less is with just one city. (Yes that is knowledge that can only have because I played for him, but please show me how I benefit by that). This continent is very interesting because it is divided between 3 equally strong players.

My guess for this game at this state is that the winner will either be civac or Miguelito, who have the strongest positon as of yet. Especially civac, because if he conquers the continent he has an easy position to prevent the culture attempt by Cornflakes.

[Charriu]

T145:

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Lazteuq has 3 workers on our jungled border now. I fear he might have finished Engineering and will move an army out of the shadow directly 1N of Freeja. I'm now stronger then him in power, but will this stop him from any serious attacks? Actually I'm more or less equal or below him in land power. That's because I suppose I have more ships then him and maybe some more barracks too. We'll see what the next turn brings.

[Charriu]

T145:

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I open up the turn to see once again an open border deal from Ramk. Ok buddy what did you do this time, he?





Our trickster Ramk (aka Loki) once again did it. With the closed borders he teleported close enough to unload. And as I discovered with my chariot there, Mjmd doesn't seem to have anything to reinforce that city. I really don't want to be Ramk's enemy. It must be very demoralizing for Mjmd to fight him and that's why I don't fear any conflict from that side of the empire. At the same time I have to admit that I never imagined that open borders can be so destructive. How many teleports from my territory were that in this game already? 5?

Meanwhile on the other side Lazteuq did not go to war and even played a double turn. He did remove the jungle as expected and moved in some units to protected his workers. You should have done that last turn already, when there were none. I do hope that those units will go away but I doubt it as I see a spearman with formation in the border city.

[Charriu]

T147:

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Ramk did not take the city. Meanwhile on the other side.




Lazteuq's recent culture push with artist and caste system gets really annoying. I'm contemplating to start the war next turn because of that. Lazteuq also started another golden age and switched into serfdom and vassalage. I bet the other 3 are just eager for me to stop Lazteuq from getting too far ahead. I switched into slavery this turn and whipped the horse archers in order to get them upgraded to knights next turn. Question for the lurkers: When I have a horse archer at 90/50 and it upgrades to a knight on the interturn. Will the knight also finish on the interturn or will the knight sit at 90/90?

[El Grillo]

I would expect the Knight to finish, and that's what a sim showed to be the case.

   
   

[Charriu]

Great thanks.

[Charriu]

T148:

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Turn started with a 44 GPT from Miguelito for my 400 gold deal. I took it and now I'm thinking about renaming my civ to "The Iron Bank". Feels good to be investing in two competing powers on a different continent.




After that turn I got another offer from Miguelito. I was so tempted to accept it only to see what will happen since after accepting the first deal I did not have the 300 gold at hand, but in the end I did not because of this uncertainty. Does anybody know what happens in this scenario? If not I will probably test this just to know for the future.

Mjmd also send me another fish for fish deal, which is good to know and I send the same back.

Lazteuq did not reinforce any of his border towns. So what else is new on that side. Well Lazteuq did discover Alphabet. Interesting. Well thanks to that I now know what techs he has.



and what his military consists of:



Good to know that he does not have Engineering. This will be important later. The bad part is that he is ca. 5 techs ahead of me and 2200 beakers ahead of me. I also worry that he might go for Astronomy next and since we recently had the discussion about circumnavigation I decided to go for Compass and Optics next just to be sure I can secure my waterline.

Despite all this information I decided to go to war this turn. This is not a war to conquer Lazteuq completely maybe not even take any important cities. This is mainly to stop Lazteuq in his track, slow him down and correct the border since his culture push. Also remember that he is in a golden age and switched civics at last turn just like me. So he won't be able to switch again. Hopefully his golden age turns out worse thanks to my attack.

The war so far is separated into 3 fronts. I started with the northern front:





His wine island still only had an axeman and a spearman. I had 4 crossbowmen on my galleys in the lake behind Snowdin town and went on the attack.

Charriu's Crossbowman C1 Shock (6.60) vs Lazteuq's Axeman (6.50) Combat Odds: 69.4% = LOSS
Charriu's Crossbowman C1 Shock (6.60) vs Lazteuq's Spearman (5.20) Combat Odds: 81.0% = LOSS  
Charriu's Crossbowman C1 (6.60) vs Lazteuq's Spearman (3.47) Combat Odds: 98.7% = WIN
Charriu's Crossbowman C1 (6.00) vs Lazteuq'sAxeman (1.55) Combat Odds: 100.0% = WIN

Well that started great so far. Not only that but Lazteuq also spawned a great general in Bottlenose. Great thanks game. At least I got 34 gold out of it. I razed the city because I may not be able to hold it in a culture war or against anything that is on the single galley 2N of the city. The important thing is that I cut Lazteuq's only access to wine, which might make some of his cities unhappy. Next up the land front:




There were an axeman and a spearman as well as a worker on the marked tile. This was the fight:

Charriu's Crossbowman C1 Shock (6.60) vs Lazteuq's Axeman C1 Shock (3.84) Combat Odds: 97.9% = WIN
Charriu's Axeman (5.00) vs Lazteuq's Spearman C2 (4.20) Combat Odds: 72.6% = WIN  

That worked out a lot better. The axeman was hurt so badly that I deleted it as well as the worker. Reason for that is that I fear Lazteuq might retaliate out of the fog and so far I did not have enough units on this front to march on Humpback. But next turn many more knights will be in range as well as 2 catapults then I will advance. So the only reason for attack here was to pick up some units while they are on lower defense tiles. I also made sure that Lazteuq can't see my knights or at least I hope I did. Good thing is that he does not have Engineering, so the only units that can move into my territory are knights and my phalanxes are well equipped to counter them. Lastly the southern front:




No fighting yet, because I only moved my armada into range. The big puzzle for Lazteuq next turn is how to divide his forces to defend every spot I can attack. As you can see I also invested into 1 turn of espionage against Lazteuq. I think this will serve me quite well in the upcoming war and the future since I doubt he will fall quickly.

Lastly I wanted to say that this is the first time I was able to use my combat.log, which was definitely helpful in writing the report. better yet if it would include the promotions of the units.