TBS finds Superdeath's title Ominous

[Donovan Zoi]

Hi TBS, thanks for the offer and my apologies for the radio silence. I’ve been pretty adamant about cleaning up some early messes on my own but am still enjoying the game immensely.

I would like to ask if you’d be able to run the turns from this Wednesday through Sunday, as I will be on vacation. I owe you several reports anyway, so either way I intend to catch you up when I get back from my current outing this Sunday. Thanks again!

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, no problem, I can fill in.

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 173

My apologies, as it's been awhile since my last report.  Most of the time since T156 has been spent dealing with Commodore and his relentless output of ships.  In fact, he wore me down from 29 to 24 cities since my takeover began.  Hhowever, I was able to fight back and China is now in the 30 city club with two others.

Here' are the city count leaders, to the extent of my intel:

Miguelito - 46 (!) cities
civac - 34
DZ/ (for TBS) - 30
Mr Cairo (for mackoti)  - 26
Picadilly - 26
Laztueq - 21

But let's bring things up to date...

Commodore.  
We'll call this first section: "My Civ, My Beautiful Civ! "

Loyang and Gungzhou

The bad news first: not long after my last report, Commodore was able to burn two of our OG cities -- Loyang and Guangzhou.  In Loyang, I only defended with a Catapult while embarking 3 ships from there to retake Albatwitch, despite available units in Shaghai AND the road movement from Engineering.   Comm was able to raze the city by sea with a Chariot from his Nav I Galley (total loss of 8 units plus a whipped Pikeman).  Then next turn, he then took out Guangzhou 1-tile inland with a Morale Knight that I promptly killed. But I can't say that TBS didn't warn me on how crafty he could be. 

I haven't built back either city yet, because I haven't felt completely safe to do so.  But soon.

Baoding

He also managed to win one more naval battle against me while fighting to a draw in another on the way down to Baoding.  Once he took that city, he did have to keep it to heal the ships I damaged trying to sink a Galley carrying a Musketeer. Luckily it was enough for him retreat that Galley back to Albatwitch, but that first battle did leave 4 of his Caravels at 0.4 or less - kind of proving that it was worth the risk IMO.

I had one failed mission where I landed a Knight and a C3 Horcher against his Praet and Axeman, as I only had one Galley at my disposal. The odds were against me and I ended up cashing in both units for the Praet.

Finally, with Roman Caravels blocking my port in Shandong and its waiting Galley, I was able to do this from a new fort I built west of Beijing, courtesy of an Amphibious Knight:




Finally, a decent win in this theatre, burning 6 ships in the process!  I am guessing that this was the sloppy play that Commodore was lamenting in the tech thread, but that has been the only evidence I have found of it. I thought my building of the Beijing fort stood out plain as day and am extremely surprised I was able to get away with this. After quick dispatch of the remaining ships, I was able to breathe on the west coast for the first time but it was short-lived of course.


Falling Behind in Tech

I knew there would be a bit of trouble back around T164 when I was 3 turns to Gunpowder and saw the first Roman Musket.  I then surmised that Comm would also beat me to Astro, where CtH allows the Privateer with Gunpowder.  And sure enough, he has been spamming them at a vigorous rate over the last few turns.  I've chosen to ignore/ work around them where possible and up my land game instead, bringing everything I have through the landbridge east of Shanghai while also staging a landing on the north side of his mainland.

I still don't have Astro, and am trying to find a way to counter a build-up in the once-secured Inner sea that has pretty much brought us back to naval parity there.  I have 12 Caravels and he has 5 Privateers and 4 Caravels.  

I'll tell you more about how I fought back to 30 cities in the next post.

[Donovan Zoi]

Hey TBS, thanks but it looks like I will be able to play the turn this weekend. Feel free to take a look after SD plays if you want, but I think I know how I’m gonna play things.

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, I saw the last turn took a while and figured you might make it. I might log in anyway to look around though, won't touch anything.

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 186

Hey all, I thought I'd give an update on how things stand now.  I've pretty much been engaged in war the whole time, and am mostly chipping away at Commodore.  Mistakes have definitely been made along the way, but I do have him down to 9 cities after all this time.  After this turn though, I *think* we may be at a breaking point.  Let's review my biggest concerns player by player.

Commodore

...has pretty much been taking up all of my bandwidth.  About 15 turns back, I fully invested in taking his wedge of the continent and lost many awesome units (including 3 GGs) trying to take Wendigo.  After trading the city back and forth twice (I lost many injured units trying to keep it), I chose to burn it to get rid of the 40% culture.  Had I decided to do that from the start, it would have probably spared me about 15 units.  Oh well.

Rather than go over everything that has happened, I'll just drop us into the present here.  I think one of the reasons I don't post much is that I want to tell the whole story and then that becomes impossible after missing a few turns of reporting.




Last turn I was able to take Dogman, one of the biggest producers of Caravels/Privateers that have forced me to devote more to naval builds than I would have otherwise.  For the last 10 turns, I have been ignoring the sea and have been trying to force the land game.  If Comm was going to continue to keep building ships, then I figured it best to try and take him by land.

One of my biggest mistakes until now was ignoring Maceman builds, since Commodore can build the nearly equal Praets (I don't have many melee units) at 40% of the cost.  And these Praets have been extremely brutal to my Knights, as I had probably lost about 10 Knight v. Praet battles to the RNG at 80-90%.  This was extremely aggravating, as you may imagine.

This turn, I finally had some RNG "luck" (most of my battles were still 70% or better) and wiped out 11 units that were advancing to retake Dogman.  I had razed a hill mine and road that you see above, but Comm insisted on moving a Musket and 6 Praets to that hill anyway and with Workers in tow.  I lost 2 Macemen to Praets but was able to clean up with the many Knights I had nearby, as well as eliminate a stack of 3 that were trailing two tiles behind.  Oh, and the Praet that burned my landbridge city.

Now, I look to Snallygaster, which is only defended by a Longbow.  I'll likely need to heal for a turn or two, but may have enough to send a slightly injured stack to take it sooner.  My goal is to start eliminating feeder cities now, while slowly advancing on on his capital Sasquatch.  Commodore had left that city down to 3 defenders for this last attack, so I am hoping I'll be able to overwhelm it soon.  Once I remove the capital culture, the remaining cities should fall quickly.




Here's the big picture in this region, but I took the screenshot after moving a sentry Explorer out of harms way from viewing Snallygaster across the lake.  A lot going on in this shot as well (from west to east)

--Commodore took his 5 Privateer/1 Galleon stack to burn my undefended landbridge city, but this gave me an opportunity to force him to fight his way out by moving 7 Caravels out of Grassman to block his easy passage out.  I know I'll lose many of these, but have whipped about 6 other Caravels to do more damage to the injured stack if he bites.  I re-devoted myself to my low odds sea game after Commodore put a blockade on both Beijing and Chengdu last turn (which were each thankfully freed up again this turn).

--I have 4-5 units in both Jersey Devil and Orang-Pendek, but have been hesitant to advance them on Sasquatch just yet because Commodore finally discovered Engineering.  In doing so, I don't want to leave those cities vulnerable to Knights, although Rome hasn't built them in awhile but now would be a good to for Comm to whip some in a last-ditch effort to cause me further inconvenience.

-Grassman and Opogogo are mildly defended but enough to withstand an amphibious attack.  I have been moving my ships back and forth between the two depending on which had better defenses, although the Caravel stack has come out to play now.  I am mostly concerned about my 3 NavI Galleys that I hope to upgrade to Galleons soon.

-There's an Iron plot that Rome will lose with Snallygaster, and I'll have to check if that is the last one.  If so, it would stop Commodores's ability to produce his cheap Praets.




In the South Sea, Commodore landed 3 units on Horse Island, where I had 3 units already, and I was able to respond by bringing two Muskets from the mainland.  I have more Caravel builds here, and am planning on escorting 3 other NavI Galleys with units to hit Jackalope via Champ.

Awhile back, I chose to equip all island cities with Walls/Castles and some good defensive units since I am severely left wanting in naval tech.  So I am not really worried on losing any cities here.  I am just glad that I won't have to face these 3 in Sasquatch or beyond.




I didn't grab a really good picture, but I am also closing in on 3 Privateers/1 Galleon that look to be advancing in either Baoding or Shendong on the west coast near Beijing.  I should be able to hold out here as well, and am closing in with recent Caravel builds to hopefully trap this fleet and win 8-4.

Whew. Okay more later, and hopefully not 3 months from now.

[Donovan Zoi]

Turn 186

Superdeath

Inca and China have pretty much been in a cold war since our last major battle.  Once I eliminated that major stack, SD responded by shoring up Stone City with 15+ Longbows pretty quickly.  There are times I wish I would have pressed on and went for his shrine city, but my dealings with Commodore made it pretty tough for me to do so.

Around T181, things were about to break wide open as SD advanced on Incense City with about 38 units (12 WE, 5 Longbows and 19 Catapults etc).  I moved all but 3 Muskets out of here (I still had a few C3-4 WEs here) and let him take the city while I began whipping Pikemen.  Once I was able to remove any Longbows from the stack, my plan was to have enough Pikes to stand up to the WE's and any Knights that would come my way (Inca had recently discovered Guilds).

But then on T184, I received a peace offering.  This was just after the teleporting incident that was discussed in the tech thread, which had kind of put me on high alert under the then-current circumstances.  I knew I had a good shot if I stayed at war, but I also knew that any units in this region could serve uses elsewhere.  Perhaps SD saw the same cascade as before was possible and hoped to buy some time until Gunpowder.  Since I have been living in the moment for most of my tenure with China anyway, I accepted the peace offering for the short term benefits.

Now I have 8 more turns to do what I can with Commodore while also trying to build up some kind of domestic agenda.  We are seriously behind in tech against the leaders and I am putting it all on a long-delayed Golden Age to catch up. I don't really see any way to beat out Miguelito but am not about to give on things just yet, especially when I have 9 more cities to conquer from Commodore and about 8 more city plants that can be made.

Tarkeel

Tarkeel's Egypt looks to be the new source of Superdeath's aggression (or defense?), as they are still at war after the teleporting incident (this didn't factor into my acceptance for peace with SD because I didn't follow up on their relationship at the time.  Tarkeel has been scaling in tech in a big way after a recent GA and now has access to both Riflemen and Cavalry as of this turn.  So I am really not sure of SD's motives here. 

From my side, I need to watch out that I don't become the recipient of advanced Egyptian forces, especially during the time I'd be vulnerable to loss of culture in Roman cities near the Egyptian border.  It's to the point that I may need to scorch the earth around the city of Goatman to remove all roads so I can control his advance.

Tarkeel does not have Astro yet but can easily get it shortly.  Because of this, I may end up regretting favoring Knight upgrades over tech but will soon be able to scout both of Tarkeel's bays if I am able to eliminate Commodore's Inner Sea ships.  Astro has become a priority for me again but I still have to build up enough gold to tech it.  I am -697gpt at 100% science, so I am going to see what I can do with 70-80% with Wealth/Research builds now that I have produced enough Caravels to begin removing Comm from the sea.

On the Civics front, Tarkeel only has Nationalism to rush units but that can change at any time.

Lazteuq

Persia is on the next continent over so any conquest will be a chore for either of us.  Lazteuq recently took GKC out of the game, as the latter was occupied with fighting Ramk to extinction. And since GKC was pretty poorly defended because of this, Lazteuq was able to mow through him much more quickly that I have done with Commodore.  And now he is freed up for whatever he wants next, which is hopefully not us.  But once again, I have my two islands castled up with some decent defenses.

Persia also has Astro and Chemistry on me which is troubling, but is currently in Serfdom so he is thankfully not whipping the heck out of ships so far.  I did see a Galleon being built on one of his nearby islands so am not taking anything lightly here. I decided to move about 10 units from the Incan front to the original Chinese wedge just in case.  Once again, I will need to favor land over sea until I can get my shit together here, but once I do you can count on me whipping a couple waves of Privateers for starters (pretty much everywhere).  I'm committed to continued conquest or aggressive defensive while moving along the low branch of the tech tree.  Basically Astro > Paper > Chem > (Steel > Military Science).  There's a discussion to be had on the last two as to which would be better, but am leaning towards Steel at this point for Cannons and Drydocks.  But there is something to be said for Grenadiers, SoLs and Commando as well. I guess it would depend on who steps up against me at that time, or is the most vulnerable.

[Donovan Zoi]

Question for the lurkers and mods:

This has been happening to me for the last 10 turns or so, losing me untold amounts of gold.




Commodore beat me to Astronomy and has since been plaguing me with Privateers, which is fine. But he has recently been setting blockades each turn and they don't seem to be working the way I would expect.  This example for Chengdu is a glaring example because he hasn't even blocked this city fully from the sea.

From Civilopedia:




Two questions:
--why are there no domestic trade routes still available when blockades are meant to hinder overseas trade?
--how is a blockade even in place when the city is still accessible via coast, and to Tarkeel's civ, for example?

And I guess a third question:
Commodore has been getting 3 gold per Privateer when at war when it says that feature is available during peacetime.  I don't really care too much about this one since I can see how this would be available during wartime as well.

Shame on me for not mentioning this earlier but the most recent anomaly in Chengdu has really set me off a bit (my gpt dropped by about 150 since Commodore plays after me. I lost another 200 or so when he was able to block my Bureau capital and other cities that turn.  Other than that, I have not been documenting the losses but they are pretty significant since I have 4 trade routes in almost all coastal cities.)  I obviously would have put more emphasis on Astro if I realized blockades would be this damaging, as I certainly would have discovered it by now to stop this nonsense if I knew it worked this way.

Thanks for taking a look.

[Thoth]

Not 100% certain, but it appears that the city tile is within the area covered by the blockade and that cuts off the trade routes in the city.

Blockade mechanics have always been shit in Civ 4 unfortunately.

[Old Harry]

It's probably worth asking charriu if this is the way he intended the blockade change to work.