RB PBEM #1 - Pericles (SPOILERS!)

[sooooo]

I plan to look at the cities a bit more in 1 turn when I get biology. For a look at thebes, there's one here. The differences are: no great library any more, 1 extra settled scientist, a grocer, a forge, an odeon and 1 size bigger, working a new grass hill cottage.

[sooooo]

OK, here are my cities, in founding order:



Am farming the plains next to the oasis.





Farming through the plains forest and will then farm the plains north of the city.



A great "junk" city! Has built a few cavalry and is now working on a courthouse.





I am finally building the national epic . I have a chop here too. Still have 3 preserves to finish. Not bad for a size-1 city!

[novice]

Did you rush the national park with an engineer, or did you chop it from forests outside the BFC?

[regoarrarr]

He rushed it with an engineer

[athlete4life10]

Hey Soooo,

Finally got up to date on your thread. Now only Ruff's to go!

First off congrats to you for doing such a remarkable job with the terrain you were given. It appears your reputation is very much deserved. As I said in my initial sign up post and multiple times over in my thread, I'm very inexperienced in civ let alone MP civ so with that in mind I just wanted to comment on a couple things.

Firstly my moving my catapults onto the wrong tile. I did move them on the correct tile the first time I played that turn, however when I played the 2nd time it wasn't b/c I changed my mind they ended up on the wrong tile, but a mis-click due to playing too quickly. I had forgotten to move a couple CA's up to the front that attacked Dreylin the next turn which was the reason for the re-play.

My mistake in not attacking Dreylin sooner was magnified by the fact that MH made peace immediately after. My reaction was very similar to yours However my communication with MH was very poor through it all to begin with which is as much my fault as it is his. Anyways, my declaration came late for several reasons. I had an NAP with Dreylin and was loathe to break it, but I did also consider jumping ship and switching sides which in the end even though I didn't hurt my team just as much as if I would have. And then there really was the fact that there was no way my civ was ready for any type of fight at all. The only reason I lasted as long as I did was through slaving and drafting away to nothing. I do also regret not finishing rifling sooner but alas what is past is past.

I do believe @ the start of the war was the only time I really didn't focus on what was right for the team though (which was the most important time to do so) so I'm not quite sure why you felt I didn't have the team's best interests ahead of my own atleast to start with. I was pretty agreeable as to where I was asked to tech and shared everything I could (though it was less then what you did, chalk that up to your greater skill).

Anyways, I wanted to wish you the best of luck and I'll be eagerly lurking here to see amazing come from behind victory!

[sooooo]

I declared war on Ruff!

I saw that he had a stack of 14 unpromoted riflemen on a hill near death valley, on my borders.

I don't know if it is bait or it it was a mistake, but I couldn't let this window pass and declared on him.

I think with his machine gunners he could walk his stack up to corinth and I'd have a very hard time dealing with it. Best to kill off 14 riflemen with some cannon and my outdated troops before he does so, while the rifles are unprotected.

Here's how the battle went down. All of the enemy troops are riflemen, so I'll just list what I attacked with. W=win, L=lose, w/d=withdraw

Cannon 7% w/d
Cannon 7.5% L
Cannon 7.5% L
Cannon 7.5% L
Cannon 7.5% L
Cannon 7.5% L
Cannon 53% w/d
Cannon 53% L
Rifle 70% W
Rifle 70% W
Musket 46% W
Cannon 93% w/d
Musket 79% W
Mace 62% W
Mace 62% L
Musket 79% W
Musket 79% W
Musket 79% L
Knight 66% W
Knight 96% W
Mace 97% L
Knight 99% W
Knight 99% W
Longbow 94% W
Cuirassier 100% W
Horse Archer 100% W
Delete two workers.

That's a pretty good set of results, especially those muskets in the middle.

On the downside, the stack that just attacked the rifles is going to get mullered next turn by Ruff's cavalry. However, I take solace from the fact that apart from the cannon, I only attacked with 2 troops (the 2 rifles) that aren't outdated. I can't afford to upgrade everyone so I think it was an OK use of obsolete troops. And who knows? Maybe Ruff will lose a few men on the counterattack. It is at least crossing a river.

We both got GGs. Here's my troops that survived and are going to get bashed by Ruff:



The troops in corinth are also shown at the bottom. I went ahead and upgraded 4 of the catapults to cannon. I have some draftees ariving too to reinforce the city, together with some more cannon and cavalry.

Ruff's counterattack is going to hurt, and possibly even beat me, but I still think it was the correct decision to kill those 14 riflemen.

[Cyneheard]

Well played.

6 cannons + 2 maces lost for 14 rifle kills:

The tile W of your stack isn't across a river, so I expect that's where anything in DV or 1E of DV will be attacking from.

Assuming he's using post-musket units for his attack, you'll probably only get 4-7 more kills with that stack.
And you'd lose a total of 9 cannon, 2 rifles, 1 cuir, 4 knights, 4 muskets, 3 mace, 1 longbow, and the 1HA that took the workers. In terms of hammers or power, it's about even if that's the number of counterattack kills you get. But you used obsolete units, so I'd say you came out ahead.

EDIT: Deleting the badly-wounded units might've been the way to go. At least the 1.8str mace, 3.1str knight, and a few others that were red-lined. It's not something that I'd have thought of, but Ruff's right, the weakest units are only free XP. Still, go sooooo go!

[darrelljs]

Nicely played sooooo...very nicely played.

Darrell

[sooooo]

OK, so Ruff has landed a big forge outside Corinth.



I can't kill that stack. Plus he probably has his cavalry in Death Valley or nearby and can hit the city with them too. I checked it out quickly in the worldbuilder and nothing can get past those drill 2 machine gunners on the hill. Even more annoyingly, my combined cavalry and curassiers cannot flank away all 17 cannon. I can get them all down to very low health, but that's pointless because he got a GG next turn and can probably heal them up very quickly.

So, seeing as my aim in this war is to be as annoying as possible, I decided that I needed not to suicide my troops into the machine gunners. Yet at the same time I couldn't let his cavalry flank away all of my cannon and have his rifles fight against my mounted units.

I decided to leave 12 CG rifles in the city and 2 unpromoted ones. All of the other troops are evacuated to 2NE of the city. That way he'll (a) have to use a spy to lower the defences, (b) lose some cannon and attacking troops and © will probably have to raze the city rather than keep it. There's a chance I can counterattack his wounded troops next turn if he decides to keep the city.

Hopefully he'll lose half of his cannons, which should reduce the number to a point where they'll all die when I flank them with my mounted troops.

But Corinth will be lost.

I cheekily hired an artist in Phocea and built culture there to get the border pop in the interturn to hinder ruff's movement.

[darrelljs]

But Corinth will be lost.

Have you decided yet where to stand your ground?

Darrell