[SPOILERS] - PBEM26 Lurker thread

[SevenSpirits]

Well the lack of retreats here is not surprising since you can't retreat when attacking from a boat. But it seems reasonable if risky (less than 50% success) for Commodore to have attacked here.

[mackoti]

Man i start to hate civ after seeing this odds.Perhaps Numidians and Vulture have some bonus we dont know about, perhaps i should tryed with my praets in pbwm 23 with this kind of rezults for sure plako had no chanse.

[plako]

Man i start to hate civ after seeing this odds.Perhaps Numidians and Vulture have some bonus we dont know about, perhaps i should tryed with my praets in pbwm 23 with this kind of rezults for sure plako had no chanse.

I take it you mean PBEM25, but I think I had enough there to say that it wouldn't have been as close as this.

[mackoti]

Just joking man i dont like playing dices, and i would have 33% odds not 4% 2% so more likely to loose

[oledavy]

I'm amazed at how well Commodore and Gaspar have done in this war

Maybe a little too well?

Looking things over, I don't think they have sufficient force to completely destroy Sian without embroiling themselves in war that lasts ~20 turns. To that end, it would make sense to seek a peace settlement now. However, I feel like they've done enough damage such that Sian no longer has a decent shot of winning this game - and has nothing to lose from going all out military and trying to drag them down with him.

Of course the real winner from all this is Rego Sniping Sian's territory and REXing like mad.

Pindicator seems set on marching against Yuri, which will leave no one left to oppose Rego becoming a juggernaut with all that territory. How different this game might be if Pin hadn't made that ill-advised alliance with Rego earlier on.

[timski]

Gaspadore are now fully equipped for war: General, promotions, hammers, not completely redundant tech, favorable diplomacy, and that all important Mask of Invincibility. Strategically, I don't think they have much choice: Pedro and Da Lagoon would be hard to retain if peace were signed now (due to culture and remoteness respectively). Meanwhile the Pyramids are likely the only way that Gaspadore are going to get themselves into a winning position - and the longer they delay taking them, the less benefit they can get from early Representation.

[Ceiliazul]

even more stupid luck ...

win 34.2% (Shermans Lagoon, Numid vs Archer)
win 63.5% (Pedro, Numid vs Spearman)
win 82% (Pedro, Numid vs Axe)
win 24.8% (shermans Lagoon, axe versus archer)
lose 24.8% (Shermans Lagoon, axe versus archer)
win 99.8% (Shermans Lagoon, axe versus heavily damaged archer)

Is it bad form to attack CityA -> CityB -> CityA? Or is Sian just blowing off steam?

[mackoti]

Well you could ask, why they didnt finished atacking one city and after moving to another.., at least i would ask my self why, knowing now that results can be manipulate by"autamating a worker'.
I dont think Commodore and Gaspare done any shenaigings, for me a win when cheating has no value so i better loose than do that so i think they are thinking the same, why to play agame then?

[timski]

I think the only logic behind Gaspadore's split attack is psychological: The first Numid attack is at lowish odds (and roughly even of retreating), which succeeds, which then gives Gaspadore the confidence they need to finish attacking the city later, after completing the favourable odds attacks over at Pedro. If they had lost the first Numid, I'd wager the attacks on Shermans Lagoon would have ceased, but they would have still won the Pedro attacks, so wouldn't have felt bad about the turn. Such psychology will make no sense to Sian, who simply does not have the (over-) confidence of Gaspadore.

While Sian is having a bad day, the latest battles are by no means extreme. The only "stupid luck" I saw was a single 24.8% Axe vs Archer.

Bottom line here is that this map is not favourable to the early defender as most maps are:

1. It's very hard for Sian to predict where Gaspadore will strike (early enough to reinforce a city), because sea-based transport networks give no advantage to the defender (and in this case the circumnavigation bonus means the net advantage is with the attacker). On land-heavy maps the defender normally uses roads to move twice as fast as the attacker.

2. The map is production gimped, and the absolute number of units that one can stack and/or rush is far lower than on a regular land map. To a greater extent, this is a "come as you are" war, where early luck (in the opening battles) snowballs to a much greater degree.

Sian has the perfect storm, of (I suspect) under-estimating both the quirks of the map, and the over-confidence of their attacker.

[Ceiliazul]

While Sian is having a bad day, the latest battles are by no means extreme. The only "stupid luck" I saw was a single 24.8% Axe vs Archer.

With the sacking of Sian's "Calvin and Hobbes" in another perfect victory... I'm curious what Gaspadore's statistical run is.

If I had the time, I'd multiply all their odds times the number of ways to survive 15 out of 17 (or however many battles they've had) The chance has to be astronomically small...

And yet, in the macro sense, I don't know that they are improving their situation. They've gone from failgold economy to the never-lose-a-battle pillage economy... when their luck runs out, their economy will go down the hole.

And the Rego wheel keeps turning. He has to be happy to see the 2 lowest score competitors (one of them his neighbor) duking it out.