Cyneheard's PBEM10 Thread

[Cyneheard]

My cities, T110:



Getting some infrastructure down, since it's clear that I don't need more of an army right now. My real GNP output jumped a good 10% (+20bpt, +4gpt) at the end of this turn from completing everything that I did above this turn.

With Alphabet in, I grabbed this screenie:



In order:
Serdoa:
Has on me:
COL, Civil Service, Aesthetics, Literature, Drama, Music, Paper, Philosophy (oh, hey, Taoism's here).
I have on him:
Theology, Astronomy, Alphabet.
Not surprising given his GNP over the long run. Of course, I'm going to knock out a bunch of those techs in short order, while picking up a pile of sack gold. He's probably about 1000-1500 beakers ahead of me, but nothing too fatal, not with my economy being held back by 20-some turns of war prep. He'll probably get Lib, I don't see how I can possibly steal that from him with all the holes in my tech tree. But he probably can't get anything much better than Nationalism, me or Mackoti are close enough there.

Twinkletoes:
Has on me: Civil Service (through Feud, clearly)
I have on him:
Alphabet, Theology, Guilds, Astronomy

I'd say that's a tech edge on my end.

Ad Hoc:
The missing tech on the Can Research line is Gunpowder (same for Boudica)
Has on me:
COL, Civil Service
I have on him:
Theology, Alphabet, Astronomy

Well, he's close on Astronomy, so we're fairly even in tech.

Mackoti:
Has on me:
CS, Aesthetics, Lit, Paper, Engineering
I have on him:
Priesthood (?!?!?!? Pre-req bonus pays that back on Monarchy), Alphabet, Astronomy

Fascinating; hopefully the embargo will slow him down a ways.

Tatan:
Has on me:
COL, CS, Engineering
I have on him:
Meditation, Horseback Riding, Guilds, Alphabet.

Something's missing here.

OH CRAP.

Tatan has Astronomy. Well, this is going to be interesting after all...but then again, I'll have security by land. Maybe he'll want to sue for peace, hard to say.

And it looks like I'm going to need to crank out a LOT of Galleons starting next turn.

[Cyneheard]

Well, this could have gone better:

Let's see, Tatan dropped off 3 East Indias of mostly pikes in Monopoly.


I lost my knight at 91% odds against an archer to try and burn down Canasta on the cheap. And then forgot about river crossing and wasted a chariot; he had an archer + chariot in the city. Oh, and that spawned a GG for Tatan.

Even better: I promoted first, thinking that I'd be DEFENDING a stack with the knight against Tatan's troops in A&A, instead of trying to burn down a city that had a Chariot and an archer. So I took Shock instead of Combat III, which cost me the kill.




Final decision:
Stack 5 units (2 Catapults, 2XBows, 1 Sword) to hit Canasta, force Tatan to consider using his East Indiamen to pick up some troops to hold it or abandoning A&A, and the rest to go after A&A. The Crossbows are safe from being attacked, with Shock and a River against a non-mounted player.



I'll put up pictures later, I'm screwing up, and need to step away for a bit to clear my head. I've mis-executed this turn in a few ways (minor, like forgetting that Caravels can go through closed borders, so I didn't get a Caravel to safety because I wasted some moves).

[luddite]

Why are you attacking monopoly with all mounted and zero seige? Since you've got culture right next to it, you don't really need the speed of mounted there.

[Cyneheard]

Two reasons:
1) Because by the time I got that last bit of culture (T105? T106?), it was too late to move troops over in time for a T111 strike without risking my forces in the Canasta/A&A theater
2) I thought this would have kept my intentions as a surprise. Clearly, that failed.

It'll take some time to get everything together there, since I can't pull too many troops out of the south, even if/when I do sack Canasta and A&A. Naval superiority is going to be a real problem.

[Cyneheard]

Well, Serdoa decided to backstab me and declared war on me, so he's been keeping up a phony war w/ Tatan to do this. I'm still a little angry at how this all went down, so I've not posted my correspondence with...uh...everybody...since then. With my thoughts on the various parties and whatnot.

However, I do have one ace up my sleeve:
Soon, I should be able to call for an AP resolution.

Serdoa is a Member of the AP.
I'm a Full Member, and the Sitting Resident.
Therefore, I can vote for a forced peace between me and him...and TT agrees to vote yes, in which case I'm good to go.

Of course, that will only make him madder. But at least then I can try to talk Tatan down from this. The war won't help him, and I don't think Serdoa trusts ANYONE enough to gift his army to Tatan. Especially all of 5t after being at war with him.

[Cyneheard]

Ok, update's going to have to wait until Friday, although I've played the turn tonight.

This isn't all that good: I lost my entire crossbow/catapult stack thanks to Serdoa's machinations to flip it from 7 knights working with me to ~7 knights popping my XBows and flanking my catapults away. Which meant that Tatan could just clean up, and he did.

I forgot who didn't have Hinduism, that was Serdoa, so I'm asking for peace against Tatan via the AP. TT will still vote for it, so I expect Tatan to end up having to defy it. Not a perfect solution, I'll see if I can convince him that this is probably his best shot at keeping Serdoa from being the one who really benefits.

And since he's still technically at war with Tatan, it is a little weird.

Mechanics question: If Serdoa signs a peace deal with Tatan, and his troops on the island shared between me and Tatan, will his troops get ported into my lands, or into Serdoa's lands? If it's my lands, then that's real bad, since I won't have a chance of wiping out those knights before it gets real ugly.

I suspect I'll lose 1 or 2 of those shared-island cities, I don't see how I can get enough troops there in 2t to deal with that knight stack with Tatan's support right there as well.



And I'm looking for a replacement. This game is taking too much of my time and psychic energy that I need to step away soon. I think the war's manageable if those shared-island cities are considered expendable, and if that's the worst of it, then there's still a chance of being relevant in this game. It'll take time, and you'll be in a bit of a hole. But with trustable allies in the west, there's room for getting somewhere, and Mackoti may be pliable? Especially if there's a new face at the helm?
I think Serdoa can be handled eventually.

I'm not going to post publicly at this time, that would force the game to be paused, and I don't think that's a good thing to do. And I'll be around during the transition and some time afterwards (I'm not giving up PBEM4 or RBMod, those are far more manageable time- and energy-wise). You won't be left hanging not knowing what's going on (either to a dedicated lurker, if I have any, or if you can find someone to recruit through RB or elsewhere).

[luddite]

Can I make a suggesion? (no spoilers) I haven't followed your game very closely, but it doesn't seem like you're in too deep of a hole. I know the war went badly, and that sucks. I've often had the same feeling after losing a bunch of troops in a war- like I just want to give up on that game. But I think if you step back a bit, and take a little break, you'll see that you can still continue on with the game. Even if you lose those cities on the shared island, it shouldn't matter too much.

[Cyneheard]

The wanting to leave isn't the depth of the hole I'm in, which is manageable..

It's that I truly don't have the time to be spending on this game, and the war makes that commitment a lot higher.

[Cyneheard]

And I broke another deadline again. I said I'd update retroactively on Friday, and I didn't.

There's a chance I'll have enough time tonight or tomorrow, but no guarantees.

However, a question:
Is it possible to do both:
1) Load troops onto a transport while in port
2) Amphibiously assault a target

on the same turn?

If the answer is no, which I'm 99% sure that it is, then I can (more-or-less safely) pull 2 Galleons worth of knights out of Cold County where they'd be 1t away from either front: that's the only 1t move I can think of which I won't have some warning about. I can see enough Tatan troops that he can't pull 4 or 5 East Indiamen worth of troops out of sight without me noticing (and enough would be left behind to handle 12 troops). Will post screenshots as part of the update when that happens.

[Krill]

No, it's not possible.