[SPOILERS] swance bitten, twice shy

[ljubljana]

turn 153

let's try the full sim again with what we currently have, actually recordings outcomes this time, going in barrage cats -> cr cats -> units from highest to lowest odds, no cute attack order tricks or anything

1. win, 1 attacker left
2. win, 0 attackers left
3. loss, 6 defenders left
4. win, 7 attackers left
5. loss, 6 defenders left
6. loss, 13 defenders left
7. loss, 2 defenders left
8. loss, 2 defenders left
9. loss, 1 defender left
10. win, 1 attacker left
11. loss, 4 defenders left
12. win, 5 attackers left
13. loss, 1 defender left
14. loss, 11 defenders left
15. win, 1 attacker left

so we certainly COULD win, and some of these losses do actually constitute wins as our 30 survivors should be able to mop up 2 defenders, even if they get super-promoted via a great general. and the odds are slightly (and not sure by how much-ly) better than this due to inconsistent fortify bonuses among the defenders. but it looks like the modal outcome is very close to the line between win and loss, and depends heavily on winning at least a decent chunk of a series of 50/50-ish battles between longbow and pikeman in the middle stretch to allow the horse archers to break the pike core. we WOULD be favored in such battles if the pikes were all the way collateral-ed down but they aren't because (i think) of the marginal archers and warriors

going in now just doesn't seem like a good idea..... maybe if the need to reallocate troops to the east were more obviously urgent but with things as they are i just don't think i can justify taking such a game-determinative gamble....

so instead of attacking the city i guess i'm just dropping off another silly little longbow and loading cat number 11 onto a boat...



well, we definitely can't attack now as GT spent most of their gold upgrading a 12th pike and crossbow.... wait, what? how? well.... superdeath is sending them iron..... a fine strategic move for which i can't blame SD, but how is that possible? i thought their trade connections were cut off..... the only roads leading out of the capital go through naufragar territory, with whom they are still at war, and we had ships physically blocking the city's only coastal tile....

you will note the harbor is also blockaded by the trireme - this is true, but actually it might not have been last turn as i moved the trireme and then re-applied blockade during the turn. i thought this wouldn't make a difference because i thought physically occupying all coast tiles next to the city was enough to cut trade, but maybe it inexplicably isn't....?

but then there is another problem with that theory, which is that all the coastal connections between aksum and foreign cities also run through either zulu or america controlled coast tiles...?

sigh. i honestly have no idea what the mechanical problem could be, and this is a super dishearteningly impactful development ((



as you can see, catapults 11-13 are out and 14 + 15 are about to be next turn.... and i have connived a way to get a 16th in abi should we need it (PLEASE let us not need it). if even that turns out to not be sufficient then um gg i guess



there is an axe at ichiyamamoto trying to pillage our silver (the one that survived a 75% chariot attack undamaged a while back) so i even have to retreat a couple chariots to lalibela in order to deal with it. on account of the fact that, uh, ALL our cities are undefended at this point  i'm just assuming nauf isn't going to stab us, because if they do in the next 5 turns they could literally walk through our GT conquests one at a time and take us right out of the game.

ugh god damn it you guys.... IM SAD

[Jabah]

I think SD (not being at war with Nauf) can send iron through 'neutral' territory.
You probably need to physically cut all roads (and no idea if enough because of sea connection) ?

[ljubljana]

I think SD (not being at war with Nauf) can send iron through 'neutral' territory.
You probably need to physically cut all roads (and no idea if enough because of sea connection) ?

i thought i did though....



every road out of aksum goes through american territory....

or wait, you don't mean to say that GT and superdeath still have a trade connection, through NAUF's territory, because SD and nauf are not at war, even though GT and nauf are? if so that is some serious WTF behavior on the part of the game......

[ljubljana]

are you serious this CAN'T be for real

dude i ran more sims and the margins are tight EVEN WITH 16 catapults.... the marginal 5 pikes or crossbows (pikes being much worse than crossbows, which they hopefully will not figure out) could EASILY cost us the city

[williams482]

Better pillage those roads. Definitely don't hesitate to use (and expose) single chariots to do so, any unit that attacks out to kill a pillager is a blessing provided you can kill it with something else and then cover that unit on the next turn.

Regarding coastal blockades, are they actually legal? I know they've been banned in prior games, because in vanilla they are comically broken. Did they get toned down in the mod?

[Commodore]

Coastal blockades only block trade in CtH and are thus legal.

[ljubljana]

sigh... i dont know if we CAN safely pillage the roads.... the tiles W and NW of aksum look like spots where we won't be able to kill and cover a unit that kills are pillagers, they can trade w the covering units without leaving the capital and on flatground i think the trades will be good for them....

also unsure if it's even worse for us for them to make a 60 hammer crossbow or two 30 hammer archers.... the collateral absorb from the archers is significant and they still are not 100% fights for our attacking impis and chariots and such

and in most of my sims, every unit we lose (even a chariot) represents a 0.5 health xbow we cant clean up and will then promote and heal back up to full with gt's inevitable great general super healer they will get if the battle lasts two turns

[ljubljana]

bluhh. i think we need to think about slavery again..... if we can squeeze through to gunpowder that's obviously preferable but idk, i estimate it's abouttt 7 turns away unless we can get loans. so i will ask for loans lol

ginger is closing the milpower gap REALLY rapidly and drey is whipping fairly hard thselves i think. our border garrisons can buy time vs knights and janissaries but cuirs? i think the 20 cuirs ginger will have in 10 turns can blast through without taking time to bombard...

ugh man i'm tilting again, i can feel it

[aetryn]

You can always just back off Aksum and signal to Nauf to take it. This is the downsides sometimes of asking for more money - Civ 4 moves too fast to spend a bunch of turns negotiating. If you wanted to be relieved of needing to take Aksum, should have just accepted Nauf's offer instead of trying to bargain on the price. I doubt you'd get any money for it now but you might be able to get him to take it for free.

[williams482]

I see two roads you need to cut, both on second ring hills: 1W-1SW of the city, then 2SW. 2W is trivial to take out with the longbow you already have there, and it looks like you should be able to unload a longbow from a boat onto one of the forests adjacent to the other road, and pillage the following turn. If they want to attack a longbow on a forest then great, go wild.

We don't care if archers or xbows are more painful to wade through, the thing we need to prevent is pikes.

I continue to believe that swapping to slavery is self defeating until we can actually build the unit (muskets) we want to make up the core of our army for the foreseeable future. If Ginger is planning on doing what you fear they are, executes perfectly, and gets some favorable combat rolls to boot, then fine, we lose some important border cities and our game is probably fucked. If they don't do that and we crush our own economy to whip out two dozen longbows, our game is probably still fucked, just in a less immediately visible way.

EVEN IF GINGER DOES HIT US, we're going to be much more able to absorb the loss of some border cities and stage a counterattack if the units we're whipping are muskets instead of longbows. Remember that losing a few cities would be bad and unpleasant but far from the end of the world. You've got a good setup to defend in depth, cause as much friction as you can to Ginger's army, and rely on Dreylin to come crashing in on the other side to force Ginger to make choices about where his units are going.

Bottom line: you cannot know what Ginger is going to do. You made a number of economic choices bent towards getting triple promoted muskets in play at this era of the game. The value of those units has not changed; they're still going to be very useful when available. You're really bloody close to actually getting them. Nothing is or was without risk here. And again, you cannot know what Ginger is actually going to do.