[SPOILERS] Churchill of Portugal: Gallipoli Part II

[spacetyrantxenu]

I should have said bastardly, my apologies. But when have I ever been reasonable? Brick surely knows I have an irrational track record. Well, maybe not -- I can't blame anyone if they skipped PB7.

It looks like his next city north is on the tile 4N of the city I want to burn. Looks like there is a road all the way there, only one road tile in neutral territory. If I walk my stack around burn city toward next city sure, possibly I will catch him with all his defenses cut off from the next city. But it would also cut off my defenses from all of my cities, unless I hold back a portion of the attack force. And we usually know that if you don't go all in you won't succeed since the defenders have the advantage. Then there is the bit that he can produce more units while I walk toward his next city, while I'll have no way to get more units to the fight.

I wish I had his graphs so I could figure out how much of his total force I can see. Maybe he just sent forward the garrison from the next city and it's empty. If I had two move units this would be much easier, but a slow moving stack just takes too long to get anywhere when he has interior lines of reinforcement.

Anyway. I guess I have a turn to play. Meh. Let's go waste some hammers.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T86 - At login I have another peace offer from Brick. Just. Stop. It. I guess he saw my axe leave his territory and thought it was over. Well, we haven't spent our hammers yet. I'm afraid I'm going to accidentally click on one of these peace offers.

In another diplomatic offer I expect to see declined I offered Nakor my source of rice for his horses. If this weren't AI diplo I'd just beg a favor, but I can't do that. Nakor has not met Brick so he doesn't know I'm at war, but he does know I'm a neighbor, maybe he'll want to gain favor by helping me out. But I don't blame him if he declines the offer, for all he knows I'll build units to attack him with, using his own resource.

So with a (small) bit of planning it looks like I should have 9 units or so available to move forward on T90. That's 8 turns after I declared war, that seems like a low output. But I only have 4 cities and one of them was brand new at the start of the process. Brick has the Sian Build Queue Advantage over me here (see PBEM44 for more details) so he can whip more units more quickly than I can. I hope I bring enough units to get the front city. I'm going to obsess over this until whatever turn I attack the city. Why did I sign up for this game again? I knew better....

I don't play fantasy football because the two times I did I obsessed over the details and wasted so much time watching games (scouting ) that I didn't care about. By the end of the season I actually hated football and wanted it to go away. So playing the game ruined something that I otherwise loved to watch. (It's irrelevant that I won the league both times I played. I still hated it). I remember during part of PB7 feeling the same way, but that was a completely different level of bullshit than this game. So maybe the problem is my personality and being too competitive. I should stick to being competitive at games I'm good at and just play civ. Any ideas how to just play the turn and not fret so much over how to succeed/win? I mean...I'm obviously not going to win anyway because that's usually a function of skill.

COMPUTER: END PROGRAM

Thoughts back on track...if Nakor somehow comes through with the horse trade I'll swap to chariot builds and have them catch up to the slow movers through my territory and can maybe add a few more units. I doubt that comes to pass, though. In any case, I should be able to attack on T93. Go go go go go zerg rush!

Um, screenshot time?

Still 3 units in the target city.



I wasted a few worker turns moving them all onto the grass hill. I lament the loss but I don't have a lot else useful to do inside my territory up here. I could have moved one worker to three jungled tiles, had them all build a road, and then get together to work and not waste turns, but I want that hill tile ready sooner to squeeze out a few more hammers. Have I done a vast micro plan to test if this is optimal? No, but it feels right enough to not think about it any further.




City builds:



Power chart - hooray spike! Hey Serdoa, whachya doin'?



Demographics:

Yeah, this is decidedly not shiny anymore.

I'm logged in and waiting for Bigger to end his turn. I just want to have a look, doubt I'll move anything, even if I do it won't be anything Brick can reach.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T87 - Another peace offer when I logged in. Exit.

Brick will probably complete an archer in Back Forty next turn. EP panel hammer tracking shows he moved from 17 to 22 invested hammers this turn, and with archers costing 25 I expect that's what I'll see. That will be the last unit he can build in the city before I attack, so unless he moves in more units from somewhere else that will be all. He can't whip the city until T93 when it should grow to size 2 (settled on T82, has worked a 2F tile every turn since, so the food box will be at 20/22 on T92 when I'm adjacent to the city, will grow to size 2 on the turn I attack the city and so that whip, if he does one, won't matter unless I can't take the city on the turn I attack).



It will be interesting to see what happens if I take the city on the turn it grows to size 2. That will give me the option to keep it. On one hand a settler saved is a settler saved, but I think keeping it would be more provocative in the long term, as it will share 3 border tiles with Brick's next city to the north. I think I'd rather burn and plant Black Fish where I originally planned to. That will set an obvious border with no overlapping tiles and hopefully we can coexist peacefully after the war.

Two cities are on fire now and you can add Two Fish to the list next turn. The axe finishing in Two Fish will be its last contribution to the attack force. The settler has to resume next turn (T88) so it can finish T89, move through T90-T92 and settle on T93 when Brick's city burns. That is four turns later than originally scheduled. Which puts my next city after that even further behind.

Overview:




Production - yes we are an unhappy lot:



Demographics:

Up to #4 in power, sword and axe due next turn. #3 next turn?

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Still tops in geo-pop.

Can't be too mad at a guy who apparently named his civ for microbrews, can you? He's imperial, so throwing down cheap cities and getting a GG out of the ensuing war is part of the playbook. I just hope it doesn't cost you too much. Any reply from Nakor about your requested trade? I'm guessing he just hit cancel. Thanks for the report. Try not to obsess too much. We'll set up a gamespy with shortish turns one day soon and I'll show you the meaning of non-obsessive play. And a beating.

Good luck. 5T until the big turn? Thank god it isn't the CFC demogame, that would end up being almost a month to fret.

[Ceiliazul]

5T until the big turn? Thank god it isn't the CFC demogame, that would end up being almost a month to fret.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Can't be too mad at a guy who apparently named his civ for microbrews, can you?

I'm not mad at him, I don't think I was ever really mad, mostly frustrated about having to whip out an army when it was time to keep farming in peace. And why put a microbrewery there when I could instead put a fish from One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish there? It's a stunning lack of vision -- the people obviously want their fish more than micro-brewed (and delicious) beer, right?

No?

[spacetyrantxenu]

Hmm, weird, I thought I posted this but didn't see my thread show as updated in the main PB8 forum. Either I forgot to hit post after I previewed this or you guys may see this same post again later today. If so...sorry!

T88 - I knew from Civstats that something interesting had happened this turn. Apparently it was a significant fight as two great generals arose out of foreign combat. My guess is that one is for Azza, the other for Lewwyn/Bigger/Waterbat because:



Then there was also the bit in the tech thread to give away at least one side of the conflict. I think those guys have been at war for a long time. I vaguely recall mentioning it before in this thread but I can't be arsed to go looking for it to be sure. Anyway, congrats to Azza on the capture, I think he had maybe lost a city before? I wonder if he got it back? (Or I could be making this whole thing up. This is where guys with spreadsheets have a definitive advantage in record keeping).

As expected Brick completed another archer in Back Forty this turn:



As I estimated last turn this should be the last unit he can build in the city in time. I expect him to reinforce from elsewhere but hopefully not many more units will be sent this way. I'm not certain but I think Brick is putting all 4 EPs against me, trying to get graphs. I'm up to 28 EPs against him and it shows mission costs are 102% cost for me, so he is a bit ahead. I think he'll get my graphs right before I attack, and it's going to look something like this:



Then there's this:



This seems to happen in every game I play. I build Too Much Military (and then don't have enough because I keep losing units -- that last part is yet to be determined in this game). I haven't run any sims so I don't know odds of taking his city with this force but it has to work out or I've wasted a lot of hammers here. Well, let me rephrase that...I've already wasted a lot of hammers here, let's hope I at least get what I want out of all this. Now if Brick happens to be the #1 in power, well there isn't much I can do about that, but with Azza and Lewwyn & co. out in the fog bashing each other in, maybe it's one of them. Here's hoping.

Blue Fish was set to grow to size 3 at end of turn so I whipped it back down to size 1, it will regrow back to size 2 onto the only two improved tiles it has access to at the moment (netted fish and a grassland farm). The whip was an archer, the overflow will give me another archer next turn. No barracks here but I'm PRO so this will be part of Black Fish's garrison.

I whipped Red Fish (again!), so a spear there next turn followed by another 1T archer from overflow. I did my few worker moves, no tiles improvements completed this turn so no need to talk about that. I was checking over my cities and it was good that I did, I forgot that I had to swap tiles between One Fish and Two Fish this turn in order to get the settler out on time. I would have been angry next turn to find I had left the settler one hammer short.

End of turn local map:



City builds:



By the way, I haven't tested to be sure (don't have time) but I'm pretty sure that Brick can't see my units standing on the tile marked T91, can someone confirm this? Or if anyone in general can't, Boldly if you have time to set that up and check I'd appreciate it. I think the two bare hills on the tiles between my T91 tile and Brick's culture obscure the view from his culture but I'd like to be sure. I plan to park my stack on that tile on T91 and move along the road to the T92 tile, to give him one turn less visibility of my stack. At this point I assume he has something hidden in the fog that I can't see (why not assume that?) so he may be planning to surprise me, too, but if I can at least buy a small advantage here I might as well. Thanks.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Best I can come up with is that your units on that tile are ok.



The tile 1W of your sign is visible, my guess is because it can be seen over the coast from the city's first ring culture.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Looks good to me, too, thanks for checking. I would be visible on this tile if one of his border tiles was a peak but otherwise the hills block his view.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T89 - Another turn, another peace offer. In an amusing twist Brick has renamed the target city to Terrapin http://terrapinbeer.com/, which is a microbrewery based out of Georgia. The rest of his cities are named for Alabama brews, so that's a nice touch. But great, now I have to burn down the brewery of a beer I like -- This won't be a popular move back home. Exit diplo screen.

In the north I've lost visibility on Brick's city because he whacked my warrior with an axe. The warrior got in two meaningless hits, losing the fight 2-5. The combat odds were 99.5% for Brick so hopefully that's enough to only net him 1 XP (strength ratio greater than 2:1 also, probably more relevant I've learned). Of course I plan to kill that axe so I guess it doesn't matter that much anyway. The axe will be back to full strength by the turn I attack unless Brick wanders it around the map the whole time.

Red Fish is not revolting this turn, so that's a small bonus. I must have burned off one of the whip unhappy faces -- checking the city that's what it is, I only have 30 turns of whip anger remaining I checked my other cities for whip anger totals:

One Fish	14 turns
Two Fish	16 turns
Red Fish	30 turns
Blue Fish	9 turns

City screens:

One Fish


Two Fish


Red Fish


Blue Fish

End of turn map:

Demographics: