RB Pitboss #1 [SPOILERS] Willem of Persia

[shadyforce]

Regoarrarr has conjured another 10+ units including plenty of cats from thin air this turn so the city of Green Township is not going to fall. Not least because Imhotep is probably going to miss his turn again. So I stayed put on the forest though we will probably get hit next turn.

My diversionary stack is heading towards the somewhat lightly guarded Fairfield though he has reinforcements within walking distance.





He has 3 units (I think 2 jumbos and a mace) in between Fairfield and GT that I forgot to screenshot. My diversionary stack consists of 4 Jumbos, 3 Cats, 1 Mace, 1 Pike, 1 HA.

[shadyforce]

Ok, Imho logged in and we chatted. Our stack will get kiled on flatland so we moved onto the hill instead. I still suspect Rego will hit our stack but Imho doesn't.

We're not going to do anything in this war because of Rego's culture makes movement too slow and Rego has enough defence.

In fact, I think I may have blundered. My core cities are underdefended. If Rego were to advance about half his stack onto the Castle, I wouldn't be able to get my units back in time and he would probably capture it. He can actually see The Castle's city tile so he might risk it. Lets hope he doesn't.

[shadyforce]

Not much happening. Rego consolidating his defence. I settled the artist in The Castle to get control over those hills back asap. Now that I've popped to third ring that should happen fairly quickly. The big stack is wandering around pointlessly but at least it's back on my road network.

Rego is not ending his turn at any point. After moving his armies earlier and then myself and Imho taking our turn and hitting end turn, he just founded a city towards the end of this turn in between Green Township and Norwood. I have no idea how turn orders or the double move rule is meant to work anymore. Pitboss 2 should really sort this out before it becomes an issue. It really is a joke.

This game has been so frustrating. The reason for the utter failure of the war is:
- Tech trading makes getting a military tech lead very very hard.
- The inherent difficulty in attacking someone in BTS.
- Rego's extra culture has made advancing very hard.
- Lastly and most importantly, the attack happened way too late. It should have been 10 turns earlier. If it was, I could have settled the culture bomb city in the ideal location, Green Township, Norwood and Fairfield's cultures would all be one ring less and thus easier to get to and Rego would not have half the defensive stack he has whereas myself and Imhotep would probably still have 3/4 of ours.

Best hope is to rely on Dsp and Kodii to race to Steel and/or Rifling so with that in mind, I may switch to a more tech oriented setup instead of churning out more units. What more can I do?

[novice]

So what's happening? Did your stack separate from Imhoteps while you were logged off?

[shadyforce]

Yes, while I was logged off, my stack moved, Imhotep's did not and Rego took the opportunity to wipe out the rest of Imhotep's units.

[novice]

Wow, that... sucks.

[shadyforce]

General Update:

As of last turn, my units are retreating and taking positions in places that can cover Indian advances and also let me march back towards India should the opportunity present itself. But moreso, I'll just keep them there to make sure Rego has to keep his armies nearby. I have to keep him honest and on his toes where possible.

My spy in Rego's land (the one that wasn't caught) has retreated back into my land (The Castle) and my newly built spy is heading towards Elkad's nearest city to check out the defence in the area. The hills near The Castle have been reclaimed under my control thanks to the settled Great Artist and that gives me an extra layer of defence in what is my aptly named pivotal defense point against both Rego and Elkad.

With my settler that was floating around, I founded my filler city "The Aqueduct". I have 3 more cities to found, one up near the rice but in a dangerous position that will stretch the area I have to defend and 2 filler cities that have a banana each on that jungle peninsula near Imhotep.

Most of my cities have now changed to infrastructure. Mostly forges everywhere to start with. I'm going to try and get my economy up and running again.

The best bet for ever doing anything to Rego involves out-teching the UTA to key military techs, be they Cannons, Rifles, Airships, etc. I also have so much grass that needs to be cottaged so that civic that doubles the growth of cottages (can't remember which, Emancipation?) will possubly come in very useful in this game where it wouldn't really in a normal single player game.

There is some talk going on about shuffling the alliances with Rego. I'm sure he's posting our emails on that matter. My opinion? Rego is as usual trying to get peace with me as I am probably somewhat of a thorn in his side in terms of him winning the game. Maybe there is some genuine intention behind it but I'm not so sure there is and tbh I doubt he will ever agree to the minimum requirements for me to actually switch to his ally, which in a nutshell is an immediate and devastating dual invasion of Elkad. Any re-shuffle of the alliances that does not involve one of me, Rego or Elkad getting eliminated is no good to me because on the next re-shuffle, I'm going to be the one to get victimised (because it makes sense) so if I'm to abandon any existing allies, that threat has to be removed as a pre-requisite.

In other news, I've got Education off Kodii and Optics off dsplaisted. Daniel will have gunpowder soon as well, but UTA will have Nationalism for drafting next turn as well I think.

[Cyneheard]

Emancipation doubles cottage growth, and requires Democracy, which needs Constitution and Printing Press. If your goal is to rush to Steel or Rifling, Constitution and Democracy are two very expensive techs to add to that process (What about going for Cavalry? On a huge map like this, speed is critical to avoid the "obsolete before the army arrives" problem.). Then again, someone in NUTA would love to get the Statue.

[shadyforce]

I had a nightmare last night that I didn't have enough defenders in The Castle and Rego sneaked in and razed it with a bunch of Knights. In reality, because my culture has reclaimed those hills it's pretty safe from a strike, fast or otherwise.

I have a mini-stack protecting a worker who is mining the jungle on hill between The Castle and Green Township. I suspect that Rego is assembling units to hit the stack once the jungle is complete. I have to figure out how to handle this. I can keep the cats on the tile behind the hill but I don't know whether I should thin out or add units to my stack on the turn in question. I'm also bringing over another worker or two to speed up the mine/chop to maybe catch Rego early, if I choose to do so, though that risks giving him more workers to capture and delete.

There is a seperate opportunity for me to hit a worker stack south of Fairfield. Rego has a Jumbo, an axe, a spear and a fast worker on a hill. There is a neutral tile that is roaded and can be used to attack his mini-stack. If I send a cat to weaken the Jumbo to make sure that my maces have odds on the stack, I can hit it with a few maces and maybe send a cheap unit like an axe to kill the last and delete the worker.

In other news, in the far north east, Rego moved 2 Knights to trap Justin Specting who was parked on a coastal forest looking out over the bay for any Indian Galleys. There was nowhere safe to run to but I positioned him such that I had a Jumbo in position to kill the Knight afterwards, and that's how it went down. Rego has decided not to kill the weakened Jumbo with his other Knight (which itself would have been killed as well.)

My borders are reasonably covered though if Rego threw everything together at one point, I might be in a bit of trouble. I estimate my total defensive forces to be about 10 cats, 8 Jumbos, 4 Maces, 3 Horse Archers, 3 Pikes and a Longbow and a Crossbow. It's a bit light for sure. But I have some partially built units in buiild queues around the empire and I have lots of roads in key places so I think I'm ok defensively.

In domestic news, I have a whole bunch of long overdue Forges in production. My production cities are running out of hills to work so I'm going to have to start whipping or cottaging grass. I am giving thought to farming grass at my production cities instead and abusing the whip. I'll have another look next turn.

In alliance news, Daniel has finished Gunpowder and is on Nationalism I think. Kodii is delaying Liberalism until Elkad has a few more beakers wasted in it (I have research visibility on him and he has 6 turns left). We'll have to just take chemistry from Lib and tech our way to Rifling, Steel and maybe Military Tradition. I think Kodii is putting beakers into Printing Press.

In the UTA, Rego is on Printing Press (~8 turns left), Elkad is on Liberalism (6 turns left) and Broker is on Gunpowder, not sure how far away he is. We believe The Lins and Sunrise tp be providing funds. It seems a little strange that 5 civs can support 3 researchers whereas 6 civs can only support 2.

There is also an amusing game of cat and mouse in the channel to my south. Every few turns Elkad seems to have a few caravels and galleys causing trouble and a few turns later Daniel has chased them away. Rinse and repeat. At present, Daniel has a few Caravels in Albuquerque healing after presuably sinking a few red ships.

Oh and one other thing, I'm roading and chopping the forests that are in my culture towards Elkad to open the way for an attack if I so choose. It doesn't look like Rego will allow me to attack Elkad without himself taking the opportunity to attack me so I can't spend too much units to any atttack against him. Though I am sending a spy over to see what he has hiding behind his city. I will also need to bear in mind how many of Rego's units can get to his city in time (I think it's called Sicca or something?) and will need to have enough home to keep Rego at bay.

End of transmission.

[Cyneheard]

One of your civs is Too Big To Research (or Fail), and two had very weak early games (wrong map for Zulu or Rome. Then again, there hasn't been a right map for Zulu on RB yet. Sorry Mortius.)