[PB72 SPOILERS] Aetryn learns humility

[xist10]

Prudence was in a weird status where I couldn't really tolerate that city - even though I could live with it after I couldn't just burn it - but where I think my city in the same place is a bigger affront. Prudence was in the border area, but it was an aggressive placement. Still on "your" half of the border area, but (thanks to SH denied "my" part of the borderarea.
Prudence 1 tile north an it would be still in my map half, but this would be an acceptable bordercity. Maybe a smaller share of the river than I would get.

So I didnt think you has chosen boudica of Rome to be peaceful. I also thought map pretty much guarenteed conflict. Prudence was also only non capital site with a river aetryn had.......

Also the axe push and then settling on the border were aggressive. That is how anyone would see that. Dont plant a city on a border unless you are positive of friendly intent.

Thanks for demonstrating my "problem" with Prudence.
Ravenna was in my territory. 7 tiles north of my capital, 9 tiles from the map border, 13 and 20 for you, I think. But since you placed Prudence so aggressively, you see it as pressuring when I tried to take my share of the river. I should have 1/2 defenders more, but I was 2 turns away from taking the first ring ?

Rome was the only good choice from my civs, I think.
And to quote SD:

If going for Rome, having AGG for the cheaper unit expenses + the big boost in having access to shock praets ect make it a much more enticing choice imo. Id go Boudica, and dont rush anyone with praets, but keep them as a "dont screw with me" and just out expand others.

I didn't plan to rush someone. And I remain at my thinking, praets aren't that good to rush someone (or in an early, offensive war).
Praets aren't that bad as UU, their shelflife is amazing - It was viable to attack infantry (with catapults), but against axemen in cities without catapults ?

Are you defining map half as distance from map edge or distance from capital? From map edge you're clearly right, but from capital it was actually one tile closer to my capital than yours. My understanding is that people generally count from capital position, since we can't generally see map geometry easily (I had no idea until MUCH much later that your capital was up against the south edge of the map, and was a lot more sympathetic toward your position when I realized that). And then blame the mapmaker if the capitals are distributed unfairly.  

I assume you meant that I can't expect to settle border cities and leave them defenseless.

Yes, capital distance is the normal point - even then 10 to 11 is not peaceful. It's not overly aggressive, but this means no "even" border.
The uneven starting positions are another problem.
And yes, I forgot the not.


14 whips and a founding ?

[Mjmd]

You still settled 2 cities nearby. But you are correct Prudence was not overly aggressive, but it wasn't NOT aggressive. And that mainly comes down to the dry rice. Just like picking Boudica of Rome means certain things, picking Imp Mali means you should try to settle for dry rice and 2 more river tiles at the border. I noted this at the time, but just giving in to your agg Rome neighbor the map has set up so you are primary neighbor usually doesn't work out long term. Picking that combo means you HAVE to attack someone. It isn't guaranteed to be Aetryn, but map meant it was more likely than not. So should Aetryn give up a good city spot in the hopes that Boudica of Rome stays peaceful? Of course not. That isn't what this game is. There was a reason I was pushing for the actual aggressive spot. Now I think Aetryn chose correctly and it was also a spot you could have done other things. I however don't blame you for trying to attack it, but I also think it was correct for Aetryn to settle.

As far as civ leader choices you had China and Arabia (recently won a game), but that being said Rome was still a good pick. I do agree the Boudica pick was wrong. Its not like Boudica can't do an economy game and go late mind. I think its more economic than agg/cre, but it does lean towards an earlier attack if possible.

[Mjmd]

Oh the whips were mainly marines I believe and I think Aetryn founded the desert hill pig city.

[aetryn]

Prudence was in a weird status where I couldn't really tolerate that city - even though I could live with it after I couldn't just burn it - but where I think my city in the same place is a bigger affront. Prudence was in the border area, but it was an aggressive placement. Still on "your" half of the border area, but (thanks to SH denied "my" part of the borderarea.
Prudence 1 tile north an it would be still in my map half, but this would be an acceptable bordercity. Maybe a smaller share of the river than I would get.

So I didnt think you has chosen boudica of Rome to be peaceful. I also thought map pretty much guarenteed conflict. Prudence was also only non capital site with a river aetryn had.......

Also the axe push and then settling on the border were aggressive. That is how anyone would see that. Dont plant a city on a border unless you are positive of friendly intent.

Thanks for demonstrating my "problem" with Prudence.
Ravenna was in my territory. 7 tiles north of my capital, 9 tiles from the map border, 13 and 20 for you, I think. But since you placed Prudence so aggressively, you see it as pressuring when I tried to take my share of the river. I should have 1/2 defenders more, but I was 2 turns away from taking the first ring ?

Rome was the only good choice from my civs, I think.
And to quote SD:

If going for Rome, having AGG for the cheaper unit expenses + the big boost in having access to shock praets ect make it a much more enticing choice imo. Id go Boudica, and dont rush anyone with praets, but keep them as a "dont screw with me" and just out expand others.

I didn't plan to rush someone. And I remain at my thinking, praets aren't that good to rush someone (or in an early, offensive war).
Praets aren't that bad as UU, their shelflife is amazing - It was viable to attack infantry (with catapults), but against axemen in cities without catapults ?

Are you defining map half as distance from map edge or distance from capital? From map edge you're clearly right, but from capital it was actually one tile closer to my capital than yours. My understanding is that people generally count from capital position, since we can't generally see map geometry easily (I had no idea until MUCH much later that your capital was up against the south edge of the map, and was a lot more sympathetic toward your position when I realized that). And then blame the mapmaker if the capitals are distributed unfairly.  

I assume you meant that I can't expect to settle border cities and leave them defenseless.

Yes, capital distance is the normal point - even then 10 to 11 is not peaceful. It's not overly aggressive, but this means no "even" border.
The uneven starting positions are another problem.
And yes, I forgot the not.


14 whips and a founding ?

Honestly, I wasn't that bothered with Ravenna. It was more of a target of opportunity when I was irritated at the flank and felt like I needed to do something more than just parry what I perceived as aggression than something I felt like I had to get rid of and was planning to do. It's possible this game turns out very differently if I hadn't spotted those axes and thought they were flanking forces.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I was too busy during the summer to check the civ reports threads, so I just found this! I haven't read any other threads, so I'm all good - going to get caught up and be a (completely useless as I still don't really have spare time and also am bad at Civ 4) dedlurker. :D

[aetryn]

I was too busy during the summer to check the civ reports threads, so I just found this! I haven't read any other threads, so I'm all good - going to get caught up and be a (completely useless as I still don't really have spare time and also am bad at Civ 4) dedlurker. :D

Hello CMF! I've always loved your threads, so welcome aboard. I had a really, really bad mistake at one point that caused me to go dark on reporting for a few weeks, but I'm trying to be a bit better about it now.

Here's a quick summary:
This game has been varying shades of standoff for pretty much the entire game. After some initial border skirmishes with Xist, we largely settled down to a peaceful relationship, but then Greenline as Byzantium hit his Cataphract timing window and built a ton of them. He suggested war with Xist, and I didn't really want to say no in case he changed his mind and suggested war with me to Xist instead! Then we both danced around trying to take territory without losing units, which went... well, not very effectively. Greenline ended up taking 3 cities and I burnt 2 border cities. At this phase of the game Greenline was really pretty dominant, with a strong research rate and a monstrous Cataphract army. I stayed in the war for Morale purposes but kind of took my eye off the ball, then I literally took my eye off the ball by failing to properly play a turn, and lost a core city to a Roman strike. After a week or two of despair, I put myself back together and went chasing Mining Inc (lots of production), only to lose it by 1 turn. But I ended up with the alternate production corp that also produces tons of border pops, which has actually been fantastically useful fixing border issues and solidifying new conquest.  Meanwhile Bing went crazy on military production and started making noise for me to help him attack Greenline.  I mostly signalled "I won't stab you but I'm not ready for a war", then he went to war and demanded I join immediately, peacing out for a single city when I didn't join.

So at this point we had Greenline, with a strong military and economy, but a bit vulnerable to Bing, me, with a fairly weak military and strong economy, and Bing with the reverse (and Xist, but Xist was crippled by the earlier war and was stuck in the Iron age). There's always been this tension of wanting to hurt the leader (or beat up Xist) but not wanting to weaken ourselves and thus not committing enough to really do anything. But now that changed. Probably emboldened by the 10 turns of enforced peace with Bing and me NOT backstabbing him, Greenline sent his stack to kill Xist's holy city, which was a pain in the rear for both of us due to its ridiculous borders. He took it, but pretty much lost his ENTIRE cataphract stack on the counterattack and couldn't hold the city.  This opened the door for Bing to jump back in as soon as his peace treaty was up, and this time I was more ready to help. I came in a few turns after the war started, sniping a key positional city on the first turn with 2-movers. After that Greenline abandoned all his conquests of Xist to fall back into his core and defend that, while I advanced on some of Greenline's colonies elsewhere. 

In the next phase of the war, Xist attacked and took back the territory Greenline took from him, but left his stack in a very bad position, and I killed about 2/3 of it and weakened the rest of it. This, plus me running into a major roadblock in the colony invasion I was doing, and the very slow progress Bing was making against Greenline not leaving me any openings, made me decide to just take Xist out and get rid of one front. I've just managed this, and am now in a goodish position? I think? I'm momentarily very vulnerable to Bing's culture in the new lands I took, and Bing is figuring out that I'm the main threat left in the game. So the dance continues, as we all navigate this delicate balance between powers.

Where I'm at now:
I'm ahead in tech, but the economy is going down a bit as I spread corps and integrate new territory. It's hard to say because I have so much culture (borders) production, but I think my tech rate is ahead of Bing (and I have several key techs he doesn't have yet). I've built Kremlin, which allows better conversion of population to production. I have a production corp and am 1-2 turns away from a food corp. Between artificial food and production for corps, I can found cities that basically don't even need to work tiles and just exist to get whipped for units. My military is still weaker than Bing, but Bing isn't moving aggressively toward me and in another 10 turns my cultural weakness in Roman lands will pass and I'll continue to close the military gap. I think if I can survive the short term and not making any more entirely boneheaded mistakes, I could potentially still win this. But Bing is doing mysterious things with his research (saving money, spending lots on Espionage) and I can't help but think he has some kind of plan I haven't seen yet.

I'll take some better screenshots next turn since I've been REALLY light on that for a while.

[Mjmd]

This is not a full turn report, IE I want Aetryn to do one too!

Its a meh song, but we are at that stage for cities so works.


So first financial screenshot to show off mints. 



45gpt at breakeven (ish) when all other competitors are getting nothing is ok by me.

Next power is rising thanks to marines and whipping.



Vague plan eventually if can get open borders with Greenline would be to retake Diamond Age, give it back to Greenline, and then use its culture to raze Creation



If just have to build up for a slow push have I mentioned Aetryn could settle 15!!!! more cities. 



Now mind if Greenline gives open borders I wouldn't settle hardly any of these. Just full speed to tanks and whip out bunch of tanks. If Greenline doesn't give open borders not a bad time to throw down a mess of cities and just stay peaceful for a second.

[aetryn]

T241: Cereal Madness

I reached Biology, and founded Cereal Mills with the Merchant I've been saving for that purpose. It will take a bit to get it spread but this should solve the growth problem at these itty bitty cities. Like the one I founded this turn.
I pulled some forces back from Julian in the Northeast, since Greenline has mostly Machine Guns that can't attack and probably would be happy to have moderate term peace with me so he can take back some of his cities. I'm waiting a couple turns to reposition, grind out a few more Marines, and free up the forces on the southern border (guarding from a stab from Bing) before I try the Open Borders stab Diamond Age plan. Bing's economy continues to tank. Killing Creation or even just giving it back to Greenline probably ends Bing forever as a tech threat, since he can't unspread Mining Inc and he won't have the HQ anymore. Greenline though is still ahead of Bing in tech, but probably has lost enough power and momentum that he's not coming back either. I suppose we'll see.

Here's the situation on the border and the power of Creative Construction. Last turn it looked like this:



This turn it looks like this:



Next turn Rome expands to 4th ring and starts pushing on the tiles near it even harder. 3-4 turns from now I control this entire isthmus, and next turn I'm stealing one of those gold tiles I've coveted ever since the second Roman War kicked off and I got a stack murdered. Also, note Bing building railroads for me! How kind of him! That said, there's probably some danger of a boat strike here at Rome, so I'll have to keep a few units there, but I should be able to pull everything else back north to use wherever I want. Or even here, if that's where I need them.

MJMD just shared a very wide empire shot, but here's a more detailed look with some cleaned up names, as I had been getting really lazy on my theme.
Core and the Eastern Wastes, now 75% less wasted:



The Lakes District, plus the edge of my colony grabbing war with Greenline:



The West, including the "Green River" that has most of Greenline's remaining cities:



The wartorn south, finally under unified Malian rule:



I have one stack making its way back from Julian in the east. I have a good sized force gathering near Diligence and Prudence, where they will be dispatched to whatever front I decided to fight on next (or if Bing attacks, whatever front HE decides to fight on next). Once the isthmus is secured (and maybe I have some tanks built), I'll see what I want to do with them.

[Mjmd]

I theorized at the time that creative construction might at least as good for Aetryn as Mining Inc, but even so I've been pleasantly surprised.

Mind you racing for mining inc was still key because Greenline blew merchant. Not sure if that merchant was destined for 3rd GA or Cereal mills, but glad either way.

[aetryn]

T243: War & Peace

I'm still at peace, but it's unclear how much longer as Bing and I prepare for the inevitable war that is coming.

First off, I spotted this from my Airship recon flybys.



Those units are damaged, and that's quite a long anarchy timer for a size 1 city, plus there are 3 transports in Republic across the channel. I think Bing lost this city a couple turns ago and took it back. This suggests he can't evacuate this area of troops without leaving an opening for Greenline to take back some of his cities. Now, Bing has piles and piles of Machine Guns to defend these cities, but... that's not all bad, it means he doesn't have the equivalent number of Infantry that can actually attack. I built 0 Machine Guns, and at times I felt like I missed out on collateral-immune defenders, but on the other hand all my forces can be used flexibly. And I'm pretty sure the days of Machine Gun relevance are somewhat numbered with tanks 5 turns away and bombers only another 10-12 beyond that.

Also spotted by our brave airships (okay, not really, Bing has nothing that can intercept them):




That's 24 infantry, 13 rifles, 14 cannons, and assorted other junk. In Velitrae, it's capable of striking toward WeHaveToGoOut, Courage, and Loyalty, but can't strike at Honor or Rome because it's too far away from them.

My defense stacks are here:



The pictured stack west of Diligence is 19 Marines, 4 Infantry, and 12 Cannons. The stack east of Diligence is reinforcements from the colony war campaign against Greenline and consists of 2 Infantry, 12 Rifles, and 17 Cannons. All in all, a bit lighter on Infantry than I want, but in another turn or two the "Romehonor" Isthmus will be safe for me to pull some Infantry out of Honor to join this flexible stack. From the square west of Diligence, this stack can reach WeHaveToGoOut, Courage, Loyalty, and Honor in one turn, but can't quite reach Rome. As Bing adjusts his stack positioning to hit other cities, including Rome, I can also adjust my stack's positioning. Once the "Romehonor" Isthmus is fully claimed by me, I can position this defensive stack in WeHaveToGoOut and cover all the frontier, and also threaten some Bing ciites, but that's not realistic yet as it would leave Honor far too vulnerable at this point.

My relevant military forces:



In domestic news, I spread Cereal Mills to my 3 of my 5 big production cities, which can now help build execs to spread it further. I'm probably going to spread Cereal Mills to new cities that are not on the cultural border first, let them whip up to Courthouse, then put in Creative Construction after the courthouses are up, as I'm falling below 60% break-even research and I'd like to contain expenses while still getting cities up and running. I'm also designating cities in tiers - first-class cities have decent commerce (or in some cases production) tiles to work and will only whip when it won't cost me a good tile OR when the whip timer is entirely up. Second class cities have a few good tiles I want them to work, and will be whipped frequently but not over the happy cap. Third class cities really only exist to be whipped and I don't care if the entire city population is unhappy, we're whipping whenever we can make a whip work.

Also, Bing spread Cereal Mills this turn, which tells me he was only one turn behind me to Biology(!). He's still down Physics, Electricity, and Industrialism though, and he ate up about 2/3 of his gold reserve going full burn to Biology, so I think I still have both a real tech lead and at least a minor tech rate advantage, with maybe the possibility for that to increase as I get Courthouses up in all of my new / recently captured cities. Two courthouses finish next turn, saving me about 25 gold a turn.