[PB79] MirOh No, what am I doing?

[Miro]

[vid]

Good luck! I don't hate it some damage does need done to him. Being on a hill does help and he may not have known you were coming. You know what would be really helpful here? A combat settler!!!   (if you have one anyways, then ignore this)

The message was worth it and I'll die on that hill! Speaking of dying on a hill... jk, I'm safe.

T201:

4 Theaters of War Overview:

• NW (xist): My invasion stack is untouched, I can hit Arretium, my spy found xist's stack, his navy turned around (?!)
  
• SW (xist): <quiet>
  
• NE (coldrain): <quiet> main stack hasn't moved
  
• SE (coldrain): Hot pickup! 6 Galleons picked up 15 units from TTR and are aiming for my coast.
  

So the attack on xist may have come as a surprise and coldrain might be a secret genius?

Hear me out - T196 coldrain takes Smash Up, sends his army inland, and leaves xist's Explorer open for attack.
I send a Chariot to kill xist's Explorer. Xist has no vision from T197 - T200 when his 2nd Explorer reaches Smash Up and sees coldrain's army idling.
xist assumes coldrain is pushing. xist assumes I have to deal with coldrain's army, but coldrain's army turns around.
I send Peace Offers, coldrain declines so xist still thinks we're fighting (it's a stretch, but maybe!)
xist plays greedy while my army masses in range of Arretium.
And BOOM! Just when xist sees what's up and wants 10 safe turns to build Factories, I'm at his door.

Spy found his stack before I hit Arretium this turn:

I suffered zero losses against Arretium ~luckyyy~



I invaded with 62 units (and a GG + Worker). Xist has 52 visible units (including Siga Knights) in his army and finishes Rifling next turn, so Infantry draft is on the table. He also finished ~7 units this turn after whips/drafts. My army is falling back, that seems like enough damage for now.
Turning to Coldrain's side, he picked up from Ticket to Ride with 5 Galleons and added a 6th, now aiming at my southern coast! I was worried about this a few turns ago and wanted to stop reinforcing TTR so much in case it happened. Luckily, I have 1T to react and was storing a few units nearby, now moved to Mysterium.



After reviewing SS's of his army at TTR, I know his Galleons are holding:

• 6 Cannons
  
• 6 Riflemen
  
• 1 Knight
  
• 2 Grenadiers
  
• 3 new units
  

Smash Up area has no movement, his stack is still tucked in the mountains and xist can see it:


Questions:
(Q1): Is there a way to see someone's war weariness against me? And/or mine against them? Coldrain has had 40-60 units (including navy) at TTR for a long time and his 50-unit Smash Up army spent ~2T on my land.

(Q2): How are Great Generals usually used in MP? I've seen xist sit around with GGs for a long time and my 1st GG as a super medic seems way weaker than it is in SP. We have Military Science so why aren't people building Academies!

[El Grillo]

You should be able to see war weariness in the F4 screen by selecting your leader and hovering theirs.

A super-medic is indeed less strong than in SP but still has its uses, other common uses are surprise extra movement (especially with boats, or later commandos), or settling en masse for AGG or CHM commando pumps.

[greenline]

(Q2): How are Great Generals usually used in MP? I've seen xist sit around with GGs for a long time and my 1st GG as a super medic seems way weaker than it is in SP. We have Military Science so why aren't people building Academies!

The extra 25 or 50% production from the GG building rarely matters, especially when Heroic Epic cities tend to have a lot of overflow from building units anyway. Super medics are an okay use for one, but super medics only marginally speed up healing for conquest purposes and have a bad habit of dying in stack wipes. GG promoted super units using Commando, Morale, or both have pulled off game winning plays, typically razing a key city with high economic potential or a lot of wonders. Alternatively, for players with AGG, CHA, or IMP, a commando factory is a possible game winning move.

[Mjmd]

A) You could try offering peace to Xist now. I doubt you'll be able to do much more and then you can turn on Coldrain. I doubt he takes, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
B) If you had an old chariot in the stack I would have razed the ruins and railroad.
C) To note cannons cannot attack off of boats. I forgot this early on in my pitboss career and I know one of my other greens also forgot so just mentioning.

Q2) all the ways. Super medic, spread out exp, moral and commando shananigans, settling to try to get a commando pump or just settling to get a few extra key promos. I've used the academy option once, but I rarely go military science (it was needed this game but isn't every game). To note you can just setup a 2nd ish HE city istead of combining in same city. Same with ironworks. After my first game with both Ironworks and HE I figured out it was better to split them up. Here are my uses from my most recent game PB75

I think I had 7 ggs. 1 super medic. 1 spread out exp to help me hold vs SD, 3 settled (HE, ironworks, and 1 in Gav capital which also had one prior settled for 10exp ships). 2 for commandos.

I actually think I may have done 2 spread out and hold. I was stuck without an exp boosting civic so I spread the 20exp out over 10 units to get all of them to two promos specifically focusing on the few cannons I had. Also it upgraded some random axe to a rifle and a cat to a cannon Also, the reason I settled 2/3 was just to pump two promo units while getting to be in delicious org. And then ya 3 promo ships were pretty attractive. That game also featured 3 commando factories by other players and a truly absurd number of commandos, but the only cammando used was one of mine I used a full gg on. Commandos can be defended against to some extent even once nukes are in play by just placing units along railroads and not spamming railroads everywhere.

[Miro]

You should be able to see war weariness in the F4 screen by selecting your leader and hovering theirs.

A super-medic is indeed less strong than in SP but still has its uses, other common uses are surprise extra movement (especially with boats, or later commandos), or settling en masse for AGG or CHM commando pumps.

Ahh dang, I didn't understand war weariness. I thought it was accrued based on having units in another cultural border for too long. xist only has 18 weariness, coldrain has 0.
I saw the mod lowers it a lot, but I still thought one of them would have like 100+ based on losses/duration 

Speedy boats and commando factories sound scary af! Ok, nice

(Q2): How are Great Generals usually used in MP? I've seen xist sit around with GGs for a long time and my 1st GG as a super medic seems way weaker than it is in SP. We have Military Science so why aren't people building Academies!

The extra 25 or 50% production from the GG building rarely matters, especially when Heroic Epic cities tend to have a lot of overflow from building units anyway. Super medics are an okay use for one, but super medics only marginally speed up healing for conquest purposes and have a bad habit of dying in stack wipes. GG promoted super units using Commando, Morale, or both have pulled off game winning plays, typically razing a key city with high economic potential or a lot of wonders. Alternatively, for players with AGG, CHA, or IMP, a commando factory is a possible game winning move.

Yeah I was thinking of Academies in other cities for high production in multiple cities, but now I see why AGG/CHA/IMP could be really cool traits!

A) You could try offering peace to Xist now. I doubt you'll be able to do much more and then you can turn on Coldrain. I doubt he takes, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
B) If you had an old chariot in the stack I would have razed the ruins and railroad.
C) To note cannons cannot attack off of boats. I forgot this early on in my pitboss career and I know one of my other greens also forgot so just mentioning.

Q2) all the ways. Super medic, spread out exp, moral and commando shananigans, settling to try to get a commando pump or just settling to get a few extra key promos. I've used the academy option once, but I rarely go military science (it was needed this game but isn't every game). To note you can just setup a 2nd ish HE city istead of combining in same city. Same with ironworks. After my first game with both Ironworks and HE I figured out it was better to split them up. Here are my uses from my most recent game PB75

I think I had 7 ggs. 1 super medic. 1 spread out exp to help me hold vs SD, 3 settled (HE, ironworks, and 1 in Gav capital which also had one prior settled for 10exp ships). 2 for commandos.

I actually think I may have done 2 spread out and hold. I was stuck without an exp boosting civic so I spread the 20exp out over 10 units to get all of them to two promos specifically focusing on the few cannons I had. Also it upgraded some random axe to a rifle and a cat to a cannon Also, the reason I settled 2/3 was just to pump two promo units while getting to be in delicious org. And then ya 3 promo ships were pretty attractive. That game also featured 3 commando factories by other players and a truly absurd number of commandos, but the only cammando used was one of mine I used a full gg on. Commandos can be defended against to some extent even once nukes are in play by just placing units along railroads and not spamming railroads everywhere.

xist offered peace and this time I accepted! I used a Knight to raze the ruins and railroad (it wasn't in xist's cultural border). I don't know what benefit you get for razing ruins, though, or if there's a benefit to settling on ruins.

I'll bet I've had dozens of games where I learned the hard way that Cannons can't attack from boats, but I've forgotten afterwards every time. So that's good to know!

[Miro]

T202:

xist offered a peace treaty and this time I accepted peace! We're safe from xist until T212.
Razing xist's city triggered coldrain's main army to start marching inland again.
Coldrain's 18-unit transport landed at my southern coast. His Galleons picked up the remaining units on the TTR island and his strong (empty) navy is pushing in on my coast.



I have enough time for my entire army to get across before coldrain can hit a city with his main force.

His 18-unit army at Mysterium is ready to fight, but I'm worried he'll retreat it next turn and I don't have roads over there to help chase. So I'm attacking it this turn!

I can piecemeal enough units in the area to fight it (vodka snip in image). +1 Rifle Draft is in range if I need it.



And I wiped it! I lost 7 Cannons, 4 Cho-ko-nu, 1 Rifleman. I'm tapering drafts/whips and building some non-military units now.
That looks like a 1,050 production loss for me and an 1,880 loss for coldrain.

My navy is falling back, but in a few turns my entire navy will be in the area to help. I might keep some on the west coast, I did see a small coldrain navy over there earlier.

Also I'll finish corps next turn, planning to found Mining Inc. in Blood on Clock - my big GP city which just finished Oxford.

[Mjmd]

Nice and nice.

The CORRECT thing to do is probably to offer Coldrain peace if he gives you your city back and hope he finally realizes Xist is ahead. However, stack whipping is fun and railways are pretty good at moving troops fast. But ya he has tons of island cities Xist can take easily, so probably better to let him live IF he gives the city back.

You don't want to put corp HQ in Blood and Cloak. With national epic and oxford it already has max of two national wonders. You want to put corp HQ in wall street city, so whatever your next best commerce city is.

[Miro]

Yeah, I was thinking about that. I want to stack wipe, take back Smash Up, and potentially take 2 more cities in the south - but then I just make coldrain my enemy.

[Mjmd]

Well did you get peace and the city back?

Also, quick addendum, the best commerce city not near the western border / coast for wall street / HQ.

[Miro]

Well did you get peace and the city back?

Also, quick addendum, the best commerce city not near the western border / coast for wall street / HQ.

I offered peace this turn, Coldrain marched further inward last turn (can't take a city even with his ~10 knights). So either he accepts the offer to give Smash Up for peace or I have 70+ units in the area to fight his ~58 stack if he approaches a city this turn.

Mining Inc HQ was founded in Blood on Clock (middle China), I'll aim to add Wall Street after a few Mining Inc execs are out.