Pacal of the Indians: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Fast Worker

[oledavy]

By which Dave means now 2S of Macau.

Lesson learned - Do not update at 3am when you're only half awake.

Without further ado,

[SIZE="3"]Operation Armageddon - Turn 185[/SIZE]

First off, to set the mood:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdXXK_rWrhc

Seriously though, these last several weeks have felt like I was replaying Mass Effect 3 - scraping together everything possible to assault the enemy stronghold. At any rate, all fleets are accounted for and ready:



I personally favored moving onto the horse tile, to give us more maneuvering options as we approached Beijing. Shoot did not want to risk leaving our army on the flat land for a turn in face of all Team #2's collateral. By the tile I logged in, he had already moved the Indian army, so the die was cast.

On Shoot's suggestion, we detailed one machine gun to the horse tile to cover the workers from being captured and deleted. If Lewwyn really wants to kill that machine gun, he can; however, we'd be fine with him expending the units to do that.

So, just to recap the strength of our invasion force:

41 Rifles
29 Musketeers
10 Muskets
44 Cannon
5 Catapults
22 Machine Guns
9 Knights
1 Horse Archer
2 Maces
2 Praetorians
5 Pikes
6 Longbows
1 Supermedic Explorer

[SIZE="3"]177 Units Total [/SIZE]

Break-down by type:

49 Collateral Hitters
22 Machine Guns
105 Hitters

Our invasion force ended up being one unit weaker than I projected. I forgot to discount the longbow we would need to leave on guard in Marlo. This change is accounted for above.

Lewwyn's forces we've seen are already are quite substantial, as of t185, he has a confirmed:

8 Jannisaries
32 Musketmen
8 Macemen
10 Pikes
23 Cho-Ko-Nus
30 Catapults
1 Archer

112 Units Total

I feel sure there's around 100 more units running around in the fog or en route to the city. What is especially concerning is all the CKNs. If he has enough of them, there is real potential he could shred our stack, MGs or not.

t185 also represented a major hit to our GNP, check out these unit maintenance and supply costs:

Indian Military Expenses



Roman MIlitary Expenses



That army is costing us somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 gpt to maintain, or about 40% of WK's GNP Needless to say, this is not sustainable. Our tech rate over the upcoming turns is going to be vastly diminished. Increased expenses were once reason I revolted France out of Bureaucracy and into Nationhood this turn (will expound further in my turn report for France). It cost me around 100bpt in research potential, but saves us about 50gpt to keep me fully funded. As long as this army is active and in enemy territory, Team #1 will be slowly gaining on us in research. We need to make this as quick as possible.

@Shoot, I took a screen of all the culture signs before deleting them and taking the above screenshot, in case we need to reference any of them.

[Kylearan]

As long as this army is active and in enemy territory, Team #1 will be slowly gaining on us in research. We need to make this as quick as possible.

As quick as possible for financial reasons only, of course!

Thanks for all the detailed reporting! Makes this game really fun to lurk.

(One of the rarer moment where this lovely smiley is really appropriate!)

[WarriorKnight]

I personally favored moving onto the horse tile, to give us more maneuvering options as we approached Beijing. Shoot did not want to risk leaving our army on the flat land for a turn in face of all Team #2's collateral. By the tile I logged in, he had already moved the Indian army, so the die was cast.

I agree with dave on this. We'll eventually be on a flatland tile when we're 1t away from Beijing, so the defensive bonuses from the hills/forest won't actually help us that much since Leewyn can wait. Oh well, too late now.

[WarriorKnight]

Quickly logged in to see what Leewyn did (I'll end turn later):



Practically abandoned the city, aside from a couple of units to prevent the musketeers walking into the city and removing the culture. No attacks AFAICT.

Guess we keep moving up, with a possible decision this/next turn if we want to do something about Macau.

[Shoot the Moon]

We wound up having a discussion in gchat today. I figured you lurkers might like to see some of it, so anyway here it is. It's kind of long (sorry, don't have time to edit it further than the formating I did) but some quick highlights are debating whether to prepare and attack on Macau or Milkshake next, whether to promote our rifles, micro stuff regarding workshops vs. bio farms, C&D work on Team 1, and most importantly, realizing that CKNs do maximum 60% collateral while catapults do only 50%. That means that even after all of their cats go in, all of our rifles/pikes/muskets will still take collateral hits!

[b]Shoot the Moon:[/b] had a couple decisions I wanted to discuss
first I think it might be smart to promote at least some of the rifles
Warrior Knight: could be a good idea, to what though?
Shoot the Moon: I'm not confident enough that the MGs alone can defend the stack with the number of CKNs they have
Warrior Knight: oh, hi dave
Shoot the Moon: I'd probably do a couple to pinch
(yeah, this is a group chat)
maybe one to hill defense
the rest combat line
Dave: I wouldn't bother, he won't hit us until we're on the flat land south of Beijing
if he hits us at all
he's in no hurry I think
Warrior Knight: i wouldnt bother with gurellia
Shoot the Moon: fair enough
Warrior Knight: probably not pinch either, MG's have +50% against gunpowder
Shoot the Moon: in hindsight should have promoted at least one MG to shock though
Warrior Knight: why? they dont have much melee
Shoot the Moon: maces do better than muskets against MGs lol
maces are literally their best unit against them currently
Warrior Knight: true, but they have far more muskets/jannies then maces
Shoot the Moon: yeah
anyhow I'm thinking definitely promote the rifles that have 2 promos one for now
and then depending on what it looks like when we move to the flatland do the other?
Warrior Knight: i dunno, all those cats wont touch the MG's at all but will put a serious hurt on all non cannon/MG's
and then CKN collateral if they arent maxed out
Dave: save the promotions for now, we'll address it again when we get outside Beijing
Shoot the Moon: yeah, but cat collateral can only know a rifle down to strength 7 anyway
*knock
Warrior Knight: really? isnt it 75%?
Shoot the Moon: nope 50
Warrior Knight: and CKN 60% or something?
Shoot the Moon: CKN is 60
which is actually incredibly good news for us
omg that is absolutely amazing
Dave: nice
Warrior Knight: well, max damage for MG is 11 or something
Shoot the Moon: even if they go in with all their cats, our rifles/pikes/other junk will still take CKN collateral rolls
Warrior Knight: and we've also got cannons which can take CKN collateral thats immune to cat collateral
Shoot the Moon: oh man that's good news
ok I think we should likely be able to defend with just MGs then I'd say
Warrior Knight: just depends on collateral i guess
Shoot the Moon: or at least certainly while we're on hills
Warrior Knight: well be on flatland when they attack
or at least they should attack when were on flatland outside beijing
Shoot the Moon: dave look in game
want to post a picture in thread for WK of their stack running away?
Warrior Knight: seen their stack then?
Dave: got it
Shoot the Moon: NW-NW-W of MAcau
yeah moved my sentry knight before the rest of the stack
it's just the stuff from Macau though
Warrior Knight: btw, what do we do with macau?
Shoot the Moon: hmm I could sacrifice my other sentry knight to see what's in Beijing now though...
Dave: don't bother
Warrior Knight: nothing if they leave their current garrison?
Shoot the Moon: I've got two sentry knights as it stands
Dave: we'll know soon enough
don't waste any unit
Warrior Knight: agree with dave on beijing
Shoot the Moon: fair enough
but yeah Macau
Dave: WK, check your thread
Warrior Knight: wish we could take macau, but were on a timer here
ok
Dave: if he empties it and it would only take a unit or two to get it, let's do it
otherwise, all in for Beijing
Warrior Knight: yeah, id agree with that
Shoot the Moon: yeah
if he had left the CKNs in the city I would have done it as well
Warrior Knight: hmmm, good to know i guess, doesnt really matter for us that he retreats
Shoot the Moon: essentially either a stack below 5 or a stack above 20 I would hit it I think
Warrior Knight: only matters in 5t when we reach beijing
Shoot the Moon: actually I think it was the correct play for him
Warrior Knight: me too
Shoot the Moon: enough units I can't easily take the city, but not so much collateral comes into play heavily
essentially how I'm defending Omar currently
one thing I was thinking though instead of using our units right now to stage for Milkshake
what about using the next 20 or so units for a followup attack on Macau
Dave: that was the plan I outlines
stage follow-up stacks to assault macau
Shoot the Moon: after hitting Macau, those units could easily get back over to the milkshake staging with all the culture gone
Dave: and guangzhou
Warrior Knight: well, i dont think i can build 2ndry stacks for other cities and build most of the units for milkshake
if anything, our megastack should head for milkshake next
Shoot the Moon: I'm just saying stuff you build now stage at marlo
essnetially the first stuff off the lines attack Macau
once Macau's culture is gone, that would allow very quick transport both of that stack and of Beijing stack over to Omar for milkshake
Dave: I concur
Shoot the Moon: without the culture obviously I'd just move a bunch of workers into it to RR up quickly
Warrior Knight: macau isnt anywhere near milkshake
Dave: it's a little too early to start staging forces for Milkshake
that's more of a long-term plan
short term, take down china
Warrior Knight: isnt it short term, stop team 2 from culture?
long term, take down china?
Shoot the Moon: razing beijing buys us time though
Warrior Knight: not a lot
Dave: should buy us quite a bit I think
Shoot the Moon: and also by getting rid of macau it allows the remanents of our huge 170 unit stack to go for milkshake
Dave: btw, WK, can you login or are you bouncing off me?
Shoot the Moon: we're not going to get a milkshake size stack ready that quickly
Warrior Knight: leewyn of india's capital looks like a pretty good backup city in case we capture beijing
im bouncing off you dave
Dave: okay, let me micro my cities really quickly and then logout
Warrior Knight: alright, ill send my units over for macau
Shoot the Moon: yeah and really it's just two turns back over the Milkshake staging anyway if we totally change our minds
I just expect that next turn or the turn after those units in Macau are moving to beijing
and it won't take all that much to get macau at that point
Warrior Knight: what we really need are 2 movers or a naval staging unless leewyn abandons macau completely
then again, thats certainly a possibility
Shoot the Moon: yeah
Dave: okay, go ahead and login now
Warrior Knight: k
Shoot the Moon: airships are banned right?
Dave: yep
otherwise I would be spamming them
and physics would have been a much more attractive tech
btw, did you both have uranium?
Shoot the Moon: yup
already hooked up
Dave: nice
Shoot the Moon: nice 4 gold boost
Warrior Knight: ive got a city on top of mine
btw, do you think we're racing team 1 for cristo?
Dave: no
Warrior Knight: i sure hope not, but since we lost physics and paying lots of unit supply
Dave: going for industrialism
Shoot the Moon: hopefully
oh, also, just noticed a speaker rifle totally in Team 2's territory
3S of Yangzhou lol
Warrior Knight: think thats the rifle pillaging the plantation
whos decided to get greddy
Shoot the Moon: WK why are you farming wallace?
Warrior Knight: need food
to work all those hills
Shoot the Moon: and working coast over 3f lake?
Warrior Knight: havent looked at the micro this turn yet
Shoot the Moon: yeah, but farming those gives less hammers
two grass farms=1 plains hill mine
5 hammers with a RR
Warrior Knight: what about when we get bio?
Shoot the Moon: whereas 2 grass workshops is 6 hammers, 8 in caste
ah that might flip it
Warrior Knight: yeah, workshops > everything right now
since we have all the modifiers, wish we didnt need to beeline radio this early
Shoot the Moon: yeah
rather unorthodox
Warrior Knight: cristo = awesome, but it shouldve been banned
Dave: I agree
Shoot the Moon: completely agree
much too powerful
Dave: in the team setting yes
I think perhaps Kremlin should be banned as well
Warrior Knight: eh, more of a postgame discussion i think
dave, ill finish up quickly so you can finish
Shoot the Moon: lovely bts just crashed
Dave: too many programs running
don't rush if you need more time
I'll be up for about another half hour yet
Warrior Knight: wow, 2 pop IMP Kremlin settlers whips are awesome
Shoot the Moon: I'm jealous
Warrior Knight: never thought id have 30 overflow just after a turn
Shoot the Moon: oh if your settler making I could use one btw
Warrior Knight: what r u talking about? you get all of china? i probably wont get anything more until the game is over
Shoot the Moon: although now rush (workers currently a bit too busy catching up with stuff I put off to war RR)
I'm just saying if you are making settlers (with IMP bonus) I have a spot I could use one to settle
Warrior Knight: i get 4 every 6 turns, these'll probably all go to dave but ill give you 1 of the next lot
Dave: yeah, Shoot is going to need them too
also, Shoot, we're going to need more FWs at some point soon
current workforce is not going to cut it to integrate Lewwyn's lands
Shoot the Moon: yeah I know
I was more concerned with making sure I get Lewwyn's land first though
Dave: I know
just my job to nag
Shoot the Moon:
speaker, while your in game could you take a look at the power graph for a second?
*WK
Dave: lol
Shoot the Moon: and look at speaker's graph
had speaker on my mind since that was the graph in question
think that decrease is actually from him attacking, or from gifting to sulla?
Warrior Knight: speakers decrease is so small, id guess its capturing lewwyn's border city
Shoot the Moon: that decrease is what, about half the size of when you destroyed his stack though?
Warrior Knight: btw, sulla GNP is rising again, but thats no surprise
Shoot the Moon: yeah
Warrior Knight: hmmm, lets take a 2nd look
Dave: my coastal blockade came off, so he's getting to work those 2/0/3 tiles again and get ic trs
Warrior Knight: cant even remember when i killed his stack
he didnt lose a lot, only a small amount of knight and cuirs
the 2 GG's arent shown on the graph
Shoot the Moon: hmm maybe my memory just has him losing more units than he did
Warrior Knight: sullas rise is probably destroyer upgrading
Dave: probably
know he upgraded 3
probably upgraded that 4th ironclad too
going to see if I still bounce off you
yep
weird
Warrior Knight: its my fault, nothing to do with you
anyway, im done so illl log out
Shoot the Moon: man this whole unit supply thing kills my research
down to 60%, ouch!
Dave: I know
200 gpt
Warrior Knight: thats why im starting to dislike GA's in pitboss
you get used to the high yields and then suddendly they're gone
and our megastack isnt helping either
Shoot the Moon: lol still have a higher GNP than speaker though
849 is good for third place...
Warrior Knight: with sullas GNP? he might be beating all 3 of us
Shoot the Moon: yeah
depending on what tech they have selected might be inflated though
Dave: we'll pull through
we have to do this
no real choice
Warrior Knight: maybe communism?
since we have it
Shoot the Moon: yeah that's my thinking
his GNP jumped like 200 from last turn
Dave: nah, going electricity I think
they want tanks as soon as possible
Shoot the Moon: that's a scary thought
Warrior Knight: they dont have SP yet though
Dave: otherwise no real good reason to go physics next
Warrior Knight: the GS?
Dave: well, other than CR
not worth it by itself
vs. US or SP
Warrior Knight: they did grab econs for the GM a while back
Dave: that was part of the path to AL
Shoot the Moon: well trade routes from that too
Warrior Knight: that was long before AL
probably before rifling

[WarriorKnight]

...and most importantly, realizing that CKNs do maximum 60% collateral while catapults do only 50%. That means that even after all of their cats go in, all of our rifles/pikes/muskets will still take collateral hits!

Wait, what? That's awesome. Guess I wasn't paying attention when you said that.

Actually, maybe not. I ran a WB test myself with cats and CKN's against tanks (no they aren't MG's, but against those units it doesn't matter and I needed something that got hit by cats). My cats couldn't do any more then bring the tanks to 21 health, which is 25%, and CKN's could only bring that down to 18 or so which is 35%, nowhere near the 50% and 60% caps. I'm guessing the answer is barrage promotions, getting all 3 gives a 100% collateral boost to cats which I assume let's them reach the 50% cap. I expect most of Leewyn's cats will be barrage 2 which gives them a cap of 37.5%. CKN's don't get barrage promotions, but from the looks of it they can't do much more then 30% anyway, maybe the 60% can never be reached? I dunno, perhaps further WBing is in order.

What does this mean? Well barrage 2 cats may be enough to prevent the CKN's from targeting our hitters with collateral (but Leewyn only has 30 cats I doubt he can cause max cat collateral on our 100+ hitters with that). On the plus side though, all our MG's have Drill2 which gives +20% collateral resistance (and our GG has +60% collateral resistance), so assuming CKN's collateral cap at 30% the worst amount of damage from collateral will take us down to 13 health or so, which is certainly a decent amount of health (dunno if it's enough against all that Leewyn has though).

Anyway, I've done some guesswork and assumptions in here, let me know if I've made a mistake with one of those.

[Shoot the Moon]

Does barrage increase the collateral cap or just the amount done? I thought it was just the later. I would WB test it myself but it's after 2am right now so it'll have to wait til the morning.

[WarriorKnight]

Further testing reveals that barrage doesn't increase the cap, which is strange (where does the collateral limit come from then?, cats and CKN's only do half as much collateral as the civilopedia says). Good news for us though as CKN's will need to hit our MG's through all the rest of our units.

In summary, their cats can barely scratch our MG's, and even though CKN's can collateral our MG's, worst case they leave us with 13 health, and target our main stack too. Good thing Team 2 won't have many Cuirs, otherwise we could be in some trouble. As it stands though, MG's have a bonus against all those muskets which makes their best counter a mace. I don't see them getting many units if any past our MG's to the rest of our stack, and of course they don't stand a chance when we switch to offense with all our cannons.

[Cyneheard]

Further testing reveals that barrage doesn't increase the cap, which is strange (where does the collateral limit come from then?, cats and CKN's only do half as much collateral as the civilopedia says). Good news for us though as CKN's will need to hit our MG's through all the rest of our units.

In summary, their cats can barely scratch our MG's, and even though CKN's can collateral our MG's, worst case they leave us with 13 health, and target our main stack too. Good thing Team 2 won't have many Cuirs, otherwise we could be in some trouble. As it stands though, MG's have a bonus against all those muskets which makes their best counter a mace. I don't see them getting many units if any past our MG's to the rest of our stack, and of course they don't stand a chance when we switch to offense with all our cannons.

Collateral cap is a separate XML field from the percentage cap. Damage done also has an XML value, and I believe this is what is modified by Barrage.

[Shoot the Moon]

Yeah, I just ran a similar test in WB. Cats can only bring rifles down to 9.7/14 health through collateral, and CKNs do no more than that. What exactly does the 50% or 60% cap mean then?

Not that I'm exactly complaining. 9.7 strength is still better than anything they can field (well, except curs, but they only just researched that so we won't be seeing a ton of those). And that's not even accounting for MGs being godly at defense.