RB Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Speaker and Sullla

[Speaker]

Sullla, I'll be out of town until lateish tonight. Probably 8:00 est or so. We'll probably need to pause it to stay within the first 12:00 of the turn.

[Sullla]

Took care of the Pause.

WilliamLP, I completely disagree with your argument. Now I know we've sort of gone in circles on this subject many times before, and many of the lurkers definitely agree with your point. But seriously, a fantastic and necessary idea? Really? If that was the case, then why is it that nearly all of the teams which tried the monster attack on us have since been eliminated from the game? Just looking briefly at the individual teams:

* Jowy: made an all-in gamble and lost it. High risk-high reward move, with nothing to fall back on if it fails. It wasn't a terrible decision, but I would hardly say it was a great call either.

* Dantski: wrecked his economy so badly from building all those Ancient age axemen (and walking them around in our territory paying maintenance costs for 20 turns) that he never recovered the rest of the game.

* Whosit: was so busy building Praetorians nonstop, plus galleys to sail them around, that he forgot to build any kind of economy. Honestly, Whosit should have DOMINATED this game, with a dead neighbor on one side and a crippled Korea on the other side. Wanking around on the other side of the world with a dozen Praetorians was emphatically not what he should have been doing. You'll never convince me otherwise.

* Kathlete: their attack on Byzantium was well played, and yielded great results. But then they should have stopped and consolidated those gains. No, they did not have anything to gain from attacking us! Kathlete would not be gaining any cities, or gold, or anything that strengthened their team. All they would be doing was hurting us, and that's not good enough. Maybe in the lategame (Industrial or Modern era) if the game is down to one or two rivals, but in the Ancient/Classical age, with 9 other teams in competition? Not a good move.

Remember, Kathlete was playing as Willem (Cre/Fin), one of the game's best techers. They had great land. They had tons of empty space to expand into after taking out Byzantium. They should have been dominant in tech! But they weren't, because they wasted so many resources on military production. Don't try to tell me that the Kathlete attack against us didn't cost them anything either. They had to pay unit supply costs for nearly a dozen units in enemy territory, then they had to rebuild their entire military after we killed all those units. If Kathlete just keeps all those units at home for defense, they could have gone pure economy and would have been much further along in tech.

* Nakor: contributed virtually nothing to the attack, did the least fighting of anyone, and wound up in the best shape of these teams overall. Not a coincidence...

Speaker wrote this before, and it's worth repeating: you want short, decisive wars in this game. Long, drawn out slugfests are very bad and should be avoided in nearly all situations. Although it might feel like we've been at war a lot in this game, we've really spent little time on the genuine offensive in enemy territory. Look at these examples:

- The first attack on us was unplanned, and we spent the first 20 turns defending in our territory (where you don't pay supply costs and the defender has many advantages). When we actually went on the offensive at the end of this war, it lasted all of two turns: we outmaneuvered Jowy, and forced him to the peace table. Net gain of three cities.

- Then our second war with Jowy lasted what, all of three turns? With basically zero losses for our side. Net gain of five cities.

- You just saw our conflict with Kathlete. We had very small losses, and took out one of the largest civs in the game in basically ten turns.

That's how you want to fight your conflicts. You also need to pay attention to the technological era; some periods are much more effective for offensive warfare than others. Some times that are good for warring:

+ Immediately after connecting bronze/horses (axe or chariot rush)
+ Construction tech: right after getting catapults (especially if you can combine with ivory for elephants)
+ Civil Service/Guilds: if you can hit with maces or knights before the enemy has Feudalism/longbows
+ Nationalism: draft muskets/rifles when the other guy lacks Nationhood civic, nearly impossible to counter
+ Industrialism/Flight: hit with tanks and planes before the other player has them
+ Ditto for modern armor before the other guy has mechs

Bad periods for offensive warfare:

- When the other guy also has axes/horses (axe vs. axe is a slaughter for both sides). Very tough to take 40% defense cities without cats.
- After Feudalism appears. Longbows are very dominant until the Renaissance period.
- When the other guy also has Nationalism tech (drafted musket/rifle against their peers is another slaughter for both sides)
- Railroad/Assembly Line: when machine guns and infantry are the best units. Need tanks to advance forward.
- Artillery: will wreck incoming stacks with ease. Need air power and tanks to advance.

Hmmm, see how some of these eras line up with the wars that took place in this game? That's why I'm somewhat uncomfortable with this war, because it goes against a number of good tactics. Still, no rules are infallible, and in these circumstances (all our other rivals technologically backwards and not much of a threat) it's probably the right decision. Just bear in mind that Korea has made some strides in catching up to us in tech, and slaze's overall Food count isn't that far behind us. slaze has a lot of cities and a lot of population. If this were a Tech Trading game, he'd be very dangerous (since Nakor would feed him with thousands of beakers of free tech). So really, even now it's not as simple as "whatever is bad for Nakor is good for us." Other teams can catch up to us if we get locked into that logic.

Anyway, I've probably posted too much on this subject. I'll just go with the empirical evidence that the "brilliant strategy" of the enemy coalition resulted in most of them crashing their economies and getting eliminated once they fell behind in tech. Argue what you will, they're dead and we're still alive and kicking, so.... :neenernee

[Jowy]

You were dominating the game though, the others would never have gained a tech lead like you described. If they followed those guidelines, no-one would attack you, but you would attack them once you gain the edge. Doesn't sound much better for the underdogs. I think the idea was a good one, but the execution was bad: only myself, Dantski and Whosit built proper armies and out of us three only mine saw battle. It was far from a proper 5vs1 dogpile. If it was a succesful attack, then we would atleast cripple you. Makes perfect sense for the further away teams to help out, they both cripple the runaway team and tie it and the neighbours in a war while they tech away.

Anyways you'll get to read all about it after the game

[Dr. Nomadic]

I think they planned on the attack succeeding the whole time, and had nothing to fall back on. Fighting off 2 or 3 enemies at once is manageable, but 5 at once seems impossible. Problem is that you were basically only fighting against 2 opponents instead of the 5 like the enemy coalition planned (Dantski withdrew, Nakor only brough like 6 units, and Whosit arrived late). I'd really have to wonder how this would go if Dantski didn't pull out of the war. As a matter of fact, why did he do so in the first place? I think withdrawing from the war had a bigger negative impact on his civ than actually going to war was.

Same with Kathlete, he could've just rebuilt his economy after fighting you as well, but he decided to go to war again. Both sides crippled their economies doing lots of whipping.

So really only Whosit lost much (well, a lot) from actually going to war with you, although if I were in his position I would honestly do what he did. I mean, which team would I want to fight, the guys who just lost a core city and look like they're done for anyways, or the guys who just got an academy in 1000BC and are expanding quickly? Alone I'd definetely choose the former, but when you're joining 4 others in the latter goal it's hard to argue.

So, Sullla, which teams do you think fared worse than the Templars?

[Sullla]

Let's not rewrite history here. Dantski signed peace with us because we had just discovered Construction tech and we were about to kill all of his units with minimal losses. We were going to hit his stack with 4 catapults, and then every battle would have been 85% or greater in our favor. We didn't "luck out" with regards to Dantski or anything like that - he signed peace to save his army from utter destruction. (Dantski came asking for peace with us, not vice versa, remember.)

The point about other teams not contributing fully also demonstrated the problem of a five-team alliance: the ones who do the least are the ones who reap the most benefits. Nakor did virtually nothing and he wound up in the best situation out of anyone, letting everyone else do the fighting for him. There's very little incentive to contribute to some sort of nebulous "greater good" when only one team can win in the end.

Not sure I agree with your other point about teching either, Jowy. If Kathlete doesn't fiddle around with our team, maybe they research to Gunpowder tech 20 turns sooner and actually defeat slaze instead of getting locked into stalemate. Maybe they have Astronomy and Nationalism and can make our invasion a living hell instead of rolling over and dying. Maybe if more teams had played like Nakor, we'd actually have 3 or 4 opponents contemporary in tech, instead of picking off backwards empires with ease. I still say focus on developing yourself first, worry about what other teams are doing second.

Anyway, you took your best shot at us and failed. It's a major reason why I doubt Speaker and I will play any more of these games, since there seems to be a consensus that "playing the game well" is only going to result in a huge gangup alliance being formed against said team. Lots of fun, that.

On to the current turn:



Speaker cashed in our Great Merchant in Seoul at the start of this turn for a cool 1700 gold. Even better than I expected! Now we can use that money to speed ahead to Communism tech, as well as upgrade the last of our cuirassiers to cavalry. (This picture was taken at the end of last turn, after we had unloaded the Merchant, but of course you can't carry out a Trade Mission with no movement points remaining.)



On the Walata front, our units are healing up this turn. Speaker moved up one of our spotter archers for vision into Gao, which has the garrison highlighted above. Honestly, I think this is a misplay on Holy Rome's part: this city is completely indefensible because of the cultural borders. We just need to heal for 2 turns, and then our units will crush everyone inside with very small losses. I talked to Dantski in-game, and he confirmed that he's building mostly catapults. He'll have 8 or 9 ready by Turn 226. Dantski hits with his catapults, then we send in our cavalry and rifles, and everything in the city dies. The rifles are easily replaceable, but those cannons are not. Really hope they're foolish enough to leave the cannons and cavalry inside the city!

We also pulled back a couple of very injured units towards our territory. Once Gao falls, we're going to try and station most of our units within our own borders to avoid paying the unit supply costs. Probably keep some rifles and cavalry down there with Dantski for emergency protection, just in case.



Here's the "screw you" part of the war. Our frigates have free run of the inner sea for the moment, and Speaker's using that to coastal blockade a gazillion tiles. It's tough to see the faint purple outline, so I've drawn in the blockade range in white. Poor Stardock and especially Land's End are so screwed... We're also tearing up the fishing nets as we go, making for a slow recovery even if Nakor would be able to clear out these ships.

Now building frigates first is definitely the way to go here. We have 3 of them currently, and I'd like to have 5-6 to be honest. But if we can establish clear naval superiority here, then the next step is to build galleons and start threatening invasion. A galleon stack 2 tiles south of Land's End can simultaneously threaten Land's End, Carse, Stardock, and Port Natal (under the interface). It's impossible to defend that many cities, which is why gaining naval superiority is so critical. We do NOT want to let Nakor gain control of the inner sea. Then he can flip the situation around and threaten multiple cities of ours in turn. (He'll have Astronomy pretty soon, so the fun times won't last much longer. We're thinking about going for Military Science and Ships of the Line after Communism to counter.)



Here's the situation on the outer islands, where we have not moved our units yet. Holy Rome is moving down some triremes and caravels, which make things a little bit more interesting. Of course we have three frigates which will be in range here shortly, for some naval smashing power.

I have a pretty clear idea of how to play this thing, which Speaker and I will go over tonight. We can land all 9 of our units without fear of getting our galleons sunk, and be in position to capture both Margrave's Port and Jonril next turn.



Finally, take a look at Fort Sumter, one of the best of our Ottoman cities. Great food surplus (+8 ), excellent production from the forge and the plains iron tile (plus more hills later to grow onto), and some highly developed cottages for strong commerce. Then check out that maintenance cost: 18 gold per turn!!! And increasing higher and higher as the city grows. At size 15, the costs would probably be approaching 30gpt. The answer, however, is not whipping courthouses as you might expect, but swapping into State Property civic, where the city will cost a flat 6 gpt. Distance from palace costs say bye bye.

By my rough guess, State Property will currently save us 215 gpt in reduced costs. And give us extra food on every workshop (we have many). And give us a flat +10% production across the board. And reopen international trade routes with plako, Dantski, and slaze. Hallelujah, that tech can't come soon enough! 6 more turns.

One diplo message of interest:

Dear killer Angels,

Thank you for keeping us informed. What is your current estimate concerning HRE's power? We could either start spamming military immediately, head to Steel and then convert to all military or try to do something for our declining economy.

Since Trebs/Hwacha's won't do well against rifles I'm somewhat tempted to get steel before doing anything. Please let me know what you think.

Best regards,
plako

And my response back:

Dear plako and Broker,

Thanks for staying in touch with us so closely. Here's our current best guess on Nakor's military:

Total Power Rating = 1636k soldier points

We know the following:
Population = ~100k soldier points
Technology = 118k soldier points
City Improvements = ~65k soldier points

So he has to have about 1350k points from military units. The key units are:

Rifles = 14k each
Cavalry = 15k each
Cannons = 12k each

From what we've seen, Nakor is heavy on rifles (drafted) and cannons. He has a few cavs, but not very many. His armies used to attack Dantski were almost entirely rifles, cannons, and outdated junk from earlier in the game. Together we've killed quite a lot of units, probably in the 400-500k range, but of course Holy Rome keeps building more.

As a rough guess, I would say that Holy Rome probably has about 50 rifles (spread out across all of their territory), 15-20 cannons, and 5-10 cavalry. That adds up to about 1000k soldier points, and the rest comes from older units left over. We have current visibility on about 25 rifles, 10 cannons, and 5 cavs on the Dantski front lines. There are also a fair amount of units on the center island, and we're forcing Nakor to whip/draft units to defend his island cities. I have no idea what's over by you, but I can't imagine that it's too much, given how we're hitting Nakor on virtually every other front of his empire.

Whether to go for Steel is really up to you. Cannons are great units, no doubt, but we don't have them yet and are doing pretty well with catapults. It's really a judgment call, and you guys probably know what's best for your civ better than we do.

Good luck, and stay in touch!
Sullla
The Killer Angels

Hope that wasn't giving away too much info... but I think they have a right to know what they're getting into before commiting to an attack.

[WilliamLP]

First off, in case there's any misunderstanding, I have an incredible amount of respect for you and Speaker for delivering this tour de force of demonstrated Civ mastery to us! And I also have a lot of gratitude for the countless hours and incredible attention you have put in to giving us amazing writing and screenshots. And thanks for communicating your detailed thoughts, through all of the emotional highs and lows. I have gotten a great deal of enjoyment from reading this thread over the last few months. So I will avoid trying to antagonize you guys very much.

The last thing I'll say is that I'll really stand by my claim that if you were viewing this game from afar, without emotional attachment, from the lens of cold game theory and what-if tree analysis, you would see things differently. And I'll make my best case.

I don't think there is any reasonable argument against any of the following:

- Right before the 5v1 hit, your team was not just in a dominant position, but one so decisive (go back and look at your GNP graphs) that combined with having arguably the best traits for economic growth and a prospect of a near term tech advantage (catapults, longbows, etc.) victory was a near certainty without military action.

- The attack was supposed to work. It was also supposed to be (in my estimation) precisely the quick and decisive strike you describe. In judging whether it was in the attackers best interests you have to compare their chance of winning assuming that what they thought would happen would happen.

- In questioning the timing, it needs to be pointed out that attacking right before you got catapults (which inevitably would be well before any other team) was the essential piece of the equation.

- What happened was a near worst-case for the attack. Despite this, decide who you would rather take the reins of: Kathlete before the attack or Kathlete after (who with Whosit was either #1 or #2 in land and power)? Assume there is a masterful player controlling India. Then decide if you'd rather take the rains of HRE before or after the attack. I don't think there's any reasonable case that they came out worse for it, judging on the situation right after the events took place. What happened later (your crushing attack on Jowy, the wars with Slaze, etc.) is a different matter. Again this is based on the premise that without the attack your tech and development lead was so phenomenal that almost any non-zero chance of winning the game would be an improvement.

If Kathlete doesn't fiddle around with our team, maybe they research to Gunpowder tech 20 turns sooner and actually defeat slaze instead of getting locked into stalemate. Maybe they have Astronomy and Nationalism and can make our invasion a living hell instead of rolling over and dying.

With the benefit of objectivity, I think you underestimate yourselves! Without interference, you might have tanks by now.

Conceded:

- Whosit's running the Praetorians across the world was at least questionable. Especially with hindsight he should have finished off Korea, but then nobody predicted Korea could come back the way they did. The best case I can see is the diplomatic one: showing he would literally run to the ends of the world to help his allies helped him gain friendships.

- The dynamics of playing to win do inevitably lead to the conclusion that it's a good idea to attack the winning team, especially if the players are the strongest, which doesn't make things much fun or fair for that team all the time.

So in conclusion I really have a hard time seeing why you can't accept that there is at least _a reasonable case_ that the attack was a good idea based on the interest of having a chance to win the game, at least for Nakor and Athlete. And I'll avoid bugging you guys about this any more and sit back and watch your play in amazement!

[Sullla]

Oh no offense taken, William. We're just going to have to disagree on this one, is all.

[T-hawk]

By my rough guess, State Property will currently save us 215 gpt in reduced costs.

This doesn't need a rough guess. Just look at the F2 screen and mouse over the city maintenance number to see your exact distance costs. (Ok, you still have to multiply by inflation yourself.)

[spacemanmf]

So what's your big attack stack looking like now? What promotions are you using? How many catapults do you have left?

[Sullla]

Well I actually already did that calculation T-Hawk (State Property currently saves us 217gpt), but I don't know what effect losing Mercantlism will have on us, which is why I went with the "rough guess" phrasing.

Our force in Dantski's land looks basically the same as before, since only two units died. Just subtract out of the 10 catapults. Also we don't really have one giant stack of units anywhere - there are some healing in Dantski territory, more of them guarding our own borders, another stack over on the center island, etc. We have about a half-dozen catapults hanging around our southern border, with more being built on the front lines. As for promotions, most units are going down the Combat line and taking Pinch. We have a couple of promotions saved in case we want to have some anti-cav Formation units too, should we need them.



The last real action for the turn took place on the outer islands; we landed 8 units next to Margrave's Port and captured Jonril with a rifle vs. axe matchup (attacking directly off the boat). That was a 99.6% battle, which unfortunately took our rifle all the way down to 3/14 health, blah. Should have won with little damage at those odds...

Now we wait and see what Holy Rome does. Should have great odds to capture the city and take down some of those ships next turn.

Finally, in other news I'm leaving on vacation early Saturday morning, driving up to visit Maine and the Atlantic provinces of Canada for a week. I'll have my laptop with me, but obviously access to this game will be pretty limited. Speaker is more than capable of holding down the fort while I'm gone. Bug him and make sure he posts some pictures of what's going on.