Cheater Hater, Ruler of the Modbreakers

[Cheater Hater]

Well, this is very interesting--and kinda worrisome. Whosit has a lot more troops in the area than I thought--he basically matches me in number (though in two different stacks), but he predictably has more Axes and fewer mounted units (since I assume he doesn't have HR yet). I'm staying in the forest for now, joining with the backup stack (which means we have about the same number of cats), and I'm planning to move next turn (and hoping something crazy happens, like Whosit deciding to blow his cats while I'm in the forest ).

I'll do a full report later, but I need to decompress a bit from the turn, organize all my pictures (I also checked in on the north, and there are a lot fewer troops than I expected), and do a power count on Whosit to see how many troops are left.

[Cheater Hater]

T117 Report:
Let's start in the east--and it doesn't look good


Wow, that's a lot of units:
9 Cats
10 Axes (5 C2 Shock, 5 C1)
2 Spears (1 C2, 1 C1)
2 Archers (1 C1)
1 Chariot (Flanking 1)
The important part here is that it appears he doesn't have HR yet--that means my WE's and HA's don't have a counter other than spears (and even those aren't going to do that much better than 50/50 on C1 Elephants). Let's see how my forces stand after my backups move in:


3 WE (2 C1)
2 HA
8 Cats (4 pending promote)
5 Axes (2 pending promote)
2 Impis (1 C1, 1 Woodsman 2)
3 Chariots (1 C1)
In addition I have the backup stack of a WE, Axe, and Cat, but I'm not quite sure what I'll do with it. Comparing just the units in Whosit's territory, we have basically the same number of units (I have 23, he has 24) and basically the same number of Cats (8 vs 9) but he has better-promoted units and city defenses while I have stronger (and more) mounted units as well as the forest. I don't know what I'm supposed to do here--is it better to wait in defensive terrain until you have a sizable unit advantage, or do you want to strike first with your Cats and collateral your opponent before they can react? The problem is that if I move to the hill, I'm losing 25% of my defensive bonus, which is why I decided to hold back for a turn. We'll see what Whosit does when I play next turn--he could put all his troops in Plano, attack and (try to) kill my stack, have 5-10 more troops show up from the north, or something else could happen I'm not thinking of.

Next, let's check my scouting:






Not that much interesting stuff, except for the other side of Whosit. Hopefully this makes him divert some troops from my borders.

Next a look at domestic stuff:




Three whips today: the galley in Rath, the HA in Ravnica, and the Cat in Zendikar. You can also see that my Impi is closer to Whosit's borders--I had him check Whosit's defenses at Angle Bay. Unfortunately, it appears I missed that picture, and since I'm a day removed from playing the turn I don't remember exactly what he had in there--I think it was something like 3 Archers, 2-3 Axes, and 2 Spears. I think I want to move towards Angle Bay in two turns (T119), when I'll have the following units:
3 WE
3 HA
1 Cat
2 Axes
(1 Impi--if he doesn't kill it)
That's not an overwhelming force like I have in the west, and I really don't like having only the single Cat in that stack--in fact, it really makes me consider delaying the attack--but I should have numbers, especially considering that I have more Cats in the queue. I have the choice of either staying 1S of Angle Bay while I bombard or moving to the hill 1E--what I do will depend on how many troops Whosit has in Angle Bay--in fact, depending on what my Galley sees, I could bypass Angle Bay entirely with my HA's and try to raze something in Whosit's back lines.

I don't know if I'll do demos this turn--I'm third in power but the rest of my stats suck, and I really want to do a power check on Whosit to see how many more troops he has remaining--his main two stacks have 123k power, he has 9k in archers in South Plano and Bell Preston, he has 30k in techs at least, a couple Barracks and Walls, and the troops in Angle Bay total ~20-25k--that still leaves a bunch of power remaining.

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention is that Whosit doesn't appear to be whipping much if any through this war--in fact he actually gained score this turn, indicating he founded another city. His raw production's still in the toilet (along with mine); how is he managing to still increase his power somewhat?

[Cheater Hater]

T118 has been played, not much has changed--Whosit's moved all his troops into Plano, and only a single Cat has shown up for reinforcements. I decided not to move in yet, but I think I should move in next turn--I'm still scared of actually moving in, especially since Whosit has all those Cats. Still, I don't think I can (literally) afford to keep my troops on standby for so long--I'm 2nd in power now, only behind (presumably) Whosit. I feel like my one advantage is that I have so many possible means of attack--the main stack against Plano, the southern Galley that can threaten South Plano, the northern Galley that phantom-threatens Bell Preston, the northern stack that can attack both Angle Bay and Nowhere (the rice city Whosit founded last turn)--but this is a hard position

Full report is coming soon--I actually got all the pictures this time, and since I don't have to make any composite pictures maybe I can make it in a reasonable time

[Cheater Hater]

T118 Report:




Not much has changed on Whosit's front--he put his troops into Plano, has a single Cat as reinforcements, and his northern front isn't far off from what I said. I think my northern troops are moving on T120--that allows me to add a couple expendable archers to the fray, as well as some more Cats. As I mentioned in my preview, I think I have to move in my eastern troops next turn--start bombarding, hopefully not get the stack decimated. I also think I'll land at South Plano next turn as well--but I'm not sure if those units are better-served with the main stack or trying to split Whosit's forces




Not much here--my only whip was in Lorwyn. Next turn I have a bunch of whips coming--Mercadia, Muraganda, Rath, Shandalar, and maybe Ravnica and Theros. We'll see how the rest of my stuff goes :/

We also made contact with MYKI--I think that's new:

MYKI: De Gaulle/Korea (Ind/Cha)
Ind/Cha seems unexciting--Charismatic means larger cities, which means more Forge bonus? Korea seems fine--the tech change is a big bonus, and both the Hwacha and Seowon are noticeable upgrades to stuff everyone builds.

So fewer cities, but more score--I didn't check the foreign or top city screens in detail, so that could be part of it.




Number 2! That would be awesome--except that I'm almost certainly facing number 1
Whosit finally did some whips--we'll see how that affects his power next turn :/

[Cheater Hater]

T119 Preview:
This turn was very weird--I finally did some sims of what the combat would look like, and it doesn't look that good for me--I wasn't getting decisive wins, even though I wasn't simming Whosit's fortification bonus--apparently opposing Cats don't take collateral damage? As such, I'm holding my stack back and focusing on Angle Bay and South Plano.

I normally don't put pictures in the preview (since the whole reason I do previews is so I don't have to worry about pictures yet ), but these represent a massive paradime shift in how we're looking at this war:




Yes, we've finally passed Whosit (and had done so last turn), but Krill/novice have passed both of us! Krill/novice haven't declared on anyone yet (at least anyone we know), but I'd expect they'd be aiming for dtay. You also can see the huge difference between me and the rival best--the 344k last turn must have been Krill/novice, but I have no clue who slipped ahead of us--Whosit did whip last turn, but I didn't notice any new units (other than a Spear in Angle Bay) that could give him ~50k--Krill/novice could have gained ~45k, and Whosit's whips could have put him slightly above us. We'll see what happens next turn, and when I do the actual report we can see the full picture.

[Cheater Hater]

T120 Preview/Mini-Report:
Hopefully I actually get a report written for this turn--I did get the pictures for T119 edited and in the folder if you're interested, but there isn't much special other than the power reversal and troops landing at South Plano. Here's a birds-eye at all the situations (since I landed more troops at South Plano and moved in at Angle Bay):
Whosit East: No changes (the Cat joined the city, no reinforcements coming)
Me East: Some troops have moved away from my main stack, both for cost considerations and moving them onto Galleys (more info in the pictures)
Whosit SE: 1 Archer, 1 Chariot, 1 Spear (Chariot/Spear added)
Me SE: 1 WE, 1 Axe, 1 Chariot, 1 Archer (Chariot/Archer added)
North:


The situation's a lot better here than in the east, especially since there's another HA in Zendikar that can come join the stack either on the hill or heading towards Nowhere (the rice city). The more interesting thing is that the power situation continues to shock and amaze:





So that means last turn (and presumably this turn) the top 4 teams in power overall were/are dtay, Krill/novice, me, and Whosit. How the heck did this happen? Let's go through this step by step:

• Whosit decides to over-build military for whatever reason (trying to use Aggressive, scared because there's less land per person, encouraged by taking Tarkir/Mirrodin from me and wanting to sustain that advantage, just not being the best player--the reason doesn't matter)
  
• Being trapped by water and Whosit on all sides, I decided I need to get a tech advantage (Construction/HR) and build enough military to be competitive with Whosit, and I quickly become competitive in power
  
• Krill/novice completes the Horse Whisperer quest, get a bunch of HA's, feel they need to leverage it (and their stables) somehow, and continue building military.
  
• dtay sees Krill/novice's and my sudden power increases, along with Whosit's continued dominance, and decides to use his insane GNP/production to quickly move from a strong power position to dominance. (or he just got a good unit--Cats, HAs/WE, heck even Maces--and decided to move all in on that)
  

No matter how it happened, I have to deal with it now--was there any way to avoid this after Whosit over-built his military? The right move couldn't have been to invade FinHarry, could it have been? In that case, Whosit still comes and wipes out a couple cities (either during the buildup since I had to waste more hammers on Galleys, or after my declaration when a bunch of my good troops are on the west coast waiting for Galleys) and FinHarry has enough production to recover and either stop me from retaking more than a couple coastal cities or quickly retake any cities I do take (since I can't reinforce them quickly enough with just a couple Galleys).

As a result of dtay and Krill/novice's sudden power increases, I offered my first peace deal to Whosit:


I doubt he'll accept it at first (since Angle Bay hasn't been threatened at all up until this turn, unless you count my scouting Impi), but this will start the conversation at least--Whosit's now the low civ on the power totem pole of the main 4 I've seen (ignoring Ruff and plako, since I'm not sure where they are), and since he doesn't have the research power to get anywhere (he just researched a classical tech this turn, and it probably cost him most of his gold to do it) and he touches all three of us, that makes him the obvious target to get devoured.

Anyway, that's all the important stuff--I've got a bunch of pictures in the dropbox folder (basically everything except the eastern military stuff), including domestic stuff--I've moved to a bunch of non-military stuff in a bunch of cities (whipping an Ikhanda in Lorwyn, continuing Ravnica's Library, 1-turning a Forge in Kamigawa), but I can easily change my path.

[Gawdzak]

A reminder that city trading/gifting is banned this game.

[Cheater Hater]

This is part of a peace deal--I thought that was still allowed?

[Cheater Hater]

T121 Report Part 1: Military
Yes, I actually have a full report this time! Even though the last report was mostly a full report. Honestly part of my renewed enthusiasm has to do with that wreck known as PB20 being basically over--I'm really tempted to rant in here (mainly since HAK won't be able to read it for a while--even if I quit and went to the lurker thread he'd be able to read it in about a week--though HAK's not doing the best here either :/ ), but I won't at least for the time being, if only because there's exciting stuff happening--we actually have combat for the first time since I killed that chariot at the start of the war. So where was it?


Two Cats suicided? And that's all? And where? Where has the most interesting answer--it was actually against my northern stack, presumably across the river!


As you can see, the two Cats didn't do that much damage, probably because they had to attack across the river. You can also see that Whosit has reinforced Angle Bay a bunch, though I still have more units. I'm worried moving to the hill might have been a mistake though--I'm trading the 50% river-crossing bonus for a 25% hill defense, and that defense isn't counted for my mounted units. I don't see any imminent reinforcements at least--assuming my stack isn't wiped out this turn I should be free to bombard and heal my units.

Also, we got our first glimpse of Nowhere thanks to my Galley--few troops as expected, but it did build/whip Walls, meaning it'll be a pain to clean up.

Next, let's check the eastern theatre, by Plano:




Interesting--Whosit's moved a bunch of troops away from Plano--are they heading to defend South Plano? Or is either dtay or Krill/novice making moves to Whosit's east? I haven't seen any war declarations yet, but it's certainly a possibility. Overall, Whosit's moved 3 Axes and 3 Cats out of Plano--they can't reach South Plano this turn, or maybe even next turn, so I have no clue. I moved a couple units back into the main stack, and am thinking about moving next to Plano next turn--I need to sim that to see.

Finally, let's check the southern theatre by South Plano--the fewest changes have taken place here, but they're the most interesting by far:


As you can see, not much has changed around South Plano--Whosit hasn't added any units, I added another two units with the Galley, I loaded a WE and Cat in the Galley. So why is it interesting?

You'll notice I added another caption to the picture--Krill/novice is poking around with a chariot.
I'll repeat that: Krill/novice have a Galley with a CHARIOT near my undefended Rath!
Obviously, if Krill/novice's chariot moves back into the Galley (disappears from that little island) and the Galley comes within range of Rath, I have to defend it--the question is with what? Would a chariot attacking from a ship get odds on the Cat? Or do I have to divert the WE from the Galley to Rath for a pretty solid defense (at least of Rath; the rest of my coast becomes threatened in that case). I need to sim to see if the units from the Galley make a difference in the defense--or Whosit might add three more units and/or Walls to South Plano and this becomes moot

I'd go on, but it's late here and I need to get to bed sometime--I'll post domestic and C&D tomorrow (though the pictures are in the Dropbox if you're impatient ).

[Cheater Hater]

T121 Report Part 2: Domestic/Demos
Since my reports have been sparse lately, I haven't done much domestic posting recently--this changes now!




Granted, not much is happening--my workers are running out of things to do, and my cities are starting to lean towards domestic builds. This turn is also unique because it's the first turn I haven't whipped anything in a while. Granted, this is a one-turn reprieve--I'm whipping the Forge in Rath next turn, and in two turns I'm whipping Mercadia's Forge and Cats in both Pyrulea and Zendikar--but combined with the domestic builds (as much as Forges are a domestic build ) I'm certainly winding down my military production slightly. Ideally Krill/novice don't start poking near my border with that Galley/Chariot and I can take South Plano next turn (or I don't need the Galley units to take South Plano--that seems unlikely though, even if Whosit doesn't add new units, though I do need to sim the attack), and that should turn the tide in the war in my favor somewhat.

Now to demos!


All my non-power rankings are still crap--again, I'm assuming once I gain a city or two (South Plano, then either Plano or Angle Bay+Nowhere), stop whipping, and get more buildings out, my GNP and Production will become respectable. Of course, I need to actually gain those cities first


Whosit's power is moving up--but this graph doesn't take into account the 2 Cats Whosit suicided presumably. No clue what dtay and Krill/novice are planning though--I still hope it's war against Whosit, but I'm expecting that Krill/novice are going against Ruff/person to their east and dtay was just defensive/caused by a tech (IW?)




The two graphs I don't want to look at, though my production isn't quite as bad as it looks--I still have a ton of whips going on, and my production starts each turn around 20th (I think it was 22nd this turn) before I reassign tiles to cottages from mines and/or perform whips, and once my forges finish and my whip schedule slows down (and it already has started to--Kamigawa can 2-turn Cats naturally and thus doesn't need to whip, Theros hasn't whipped in a while and might have its last whip for a while be its Forge) I should recover. My GNP is horrible however