[SPOILERS]PB46: (In Search of) Fine Foreign Dining, by Hannibal of England

[TBW]

The password "hug" isn't working to log in. Haven't caught up on the rest of the thread yet.

[TBW]

If someone wants to play T0 tonight, as I will not be able to play until 1200 GMT Friday, this is what needs to be done:

1) Set the password to "Hug". 2) Screenshot F8. 3) Screenshot before moving. 4) post the two screenshots the here and 5) log out without ending turn.

TBS said don't trust anything outside BFC, so let us all be paranoid. I would be grateful to any lurker that wants to speed the game up.

Turns out passwords are case sensitive and I discovered this by ctrl-fing "password" through every page of the thread until I found this post.

[TBW]

• I fear the barbs more than TBW.
  

When you accidentally get the right answer on a multiple choice test.

[TBW]

Turn 139 - war declaration on OH/Hitru
Unfortunately unless TBW is going to whip longbows in every city there isn't much I can do, and it looks like he isn't even bothering to do that. I expect Antium to fall T139, but the question for me then becomes: does he chase Arpinum and Setia and Stricum, and give me an opportunity to slow him down with cheap longbows floated over on galleys?

It's just that power differential and TBW not whipping that might fuck everything.

I think you overestimated how quickly I got to Feudalism, I couldn't even start building longbows until T138. The ones I did whip out in the cities that could have gotten to Rome before the knights got there were easily killed along the way.

Turn 139 - Turn 140 interlude

But why not defend the capital, a size 9 city?

I'm struggling to come up with a rational answer, but that could be that I'm working off incomplete information, but there is one reason: TBW could be trying to throw his game from where I'm standing, it's either that or incompetence and I'm not sure which is worse...

None of this fits how TBW is playing though. Elkad, and currently OH/Hitru, are pissing in his cheerios. Trying to survive in one city doesn't fit either because all his units are being mown down and aren't being moved to that defensive city. I'd actually understand that idea though, and I'd agree that if that was the strategy it'd be perfectly valid. But again: he isn't whipping units, he isn't moving units to a defensive city, so I don't see how this could be his plan.

Elkad packed Footfall with CG3 archers and had walls built before I could have built enough praetorians to storm it, even C1/CR1 praetorians had poor odds. I might have kamikaze whipped out another 6-8 and knocked out that city, but I couldn't invade faster than he could transport more CG3 archers in with an unknown number of 3 move galleys from his SoZ/Heroic Epic city right next to it.

Specifically, he couldn't have lost Rome last turn unless OH got extremely lucky, like one time in 10,000. And he could have whipped the city for a longbow, and then there would have been 3 longbows, and he would have held the city long enough to get another 2 units out, minimum. Then you consider how many more whips that would have enabled in his other cities? He would have greater military resources available at every point of the game onwards if he stood in the city. If he was trying to throw the game, he wouldn't whip his cities, and he wouldn't defend them so he died quicker. Which he is doing. If he were incompetent, he would play in a manner that gives him suboptimal output and chance of victory. Which he is doing.

I have to be honest and say that I don't think TBW is being malicious and throwing the defense. I just think he is incompetent, it's just hard to see the difference from my position because the moves are the same.

I'm not the kind of player that would intentionally throw a game or rage out, I flat out just got stomped on like a dog by a neighbor who vastly out-teched me. I guess if sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, sufficiently poor gameplay is indistinguishable from throwing it. I figured you were trying to figure out if I was committing game suicide or just a drunk fuckup in the Badgame thread. I don't hold you basically calling me a barely functional retard in this thread against you because I can understand how someone would reach that conclusion based on how this game went. Also, I don't drink at all.

[TBW]

So here's my read on things:




I have a neighbor to the north who has vastly more military than me and from being Rome, I know he's got a sizable number of knights. He has access to Roman canal cities that he can use to bring galleys south and attack my northern cities, and he'll have a road connection to use to get there even faster. I have a mechanical peace treaty with OH that's going to last for 5 turns, but after that I have to assume I'm his primary target since I'm right behind him on the score list.



My military consists solely of garrison units and I have no force projection ability. My ships are spread out exploring for the circumnavigation bonus. I have crossbows coming out in some cities and my Heroic Epic is finishing this turn in a city I can use to pump out war elephants. I can take Circei and put a sentry in it for vision, as well as pillaging the roads to buy extra time against what's currently 6 knights + a few other units. I have a scientist available that's clearly being held for a GA, so I can get into Slavery if I absolutely have to. The most critical tech I can get to defend myself is Engineering, for pikes + castles + road movement to move defenders across my very large empire and stop the knight threat from the north, so that's my goal right now. I don't think I can worry too much about Rusten launching a naval invasion right now. I'll re-read the very detailed micro posts leading up to this turn to make sure I work things out right.

[Juri]

I'll re-read the very detailed micro posts leading up to this turn to make sure I work things out right.

Krill has been setting up for an Astro bulb for a fair while I think. The details will be in here somewhere.

[TBW]

nauf made the moves I would have made, longbow whips + packing everything into Ravenna plus a longbow whip in Circei. I was hoping to grab Circei this turn with a single longbow but it didn't happen. Every turn he survives adds another turn to the countdown timer for a mass knight invasion, so that's good. He appears to be bringing the other two praetorians back to stack in Ravenna too, which is probably the best play with OH's trireme(s) having naval supremacy.


He won't last indefinitely though, it's just a matter of time before that firewall gets broken. I'm going to bring a galley up and try to evacuate the two longbows up there.

HR, Vassalage, Merc and Theocracy are no brainers IMO. Owlthorpe can spread religion itself with a single monastery, so OR is just expensive for limited immediate benefit. The tech path through to Theology is a little less stressed now I already have Aesthetics, but I'm probably forced into an immediate GA and revolt after Banking, and wealth builds to make up any deficit in output: T1 Calendar>T2 Compass> T3 CoL> T5 Optics>Bulb Astro+Engineering>T7 Theology.

Guilds -> Banking -> launch 1 person GA -> this tech path seems to be the path he had in mind. I would need to generate another scientist (easy, one's set to come out in 11 turns -> 5.5 turns in a GA) and an engineer (I don't have any cities with GE points saved up so I would have to generate one from 0->300 with just 1 engineer specialist). I'd need 3 turns of 100% research without a GA to power through Engineering or Guilds, then 2 turns to get through Banking. I'm going to save up one more turn of gold and then decide between Engineering or Guilds next, depending on what happens with OH in the north.

On the diplomacy front:
Rusten sent me a spices for wine trade, which I accepted. I don't know if he was trying to squeeze that from Krill before or not, but since Krill was planning on using a fish for fish trade to try to hold off boat aggression, it seems like a good idea to me.
Dark Savant sent me a trade of some kind that I managed to forget (fish for fish or something), and also separately asked me to declare on Superdeath. I have no force projection capability whatsoever right now and I'm going to need an army on my north anyway so I turned that down. I'm not sure what the best way to communicate "I'd love to, but I have other concerns at the moment" is with AI diplo.

[TBW]

If GermanJoey or any of the other lurkers want to chime in with anything I might be overlooking, I'd definitely appreciate the pointers. I've never taken over a big civ deep into a game before so I'm trying to not double embarrass myself here.

[TBW]

T142:

OH messaged me and said it was fine if I double moved him, and there aren't going to be any tactical concerns for the next few turns anyway. We still have a mechanical peace treaty until T145. I checked the techs window this turn and OH has Paper now, which lets me see that he's got Guilds, Code of Laws, Theology, Compass, and Optics ahead of me (plus Paper, obviously). He doesn't have Construction(!), Civil Service, Calendar, or Aesthetics, so it seems to me that his game-long plan was to rush for Guilds, whip out a big army of knights, and then catch up on things like Heroic/National Epic after he crushed one of his neighbors. Obviously it worked on my Rome, but I wonder if it would have worked as well if I'd had enough spare hammers to build just 2-3 triremes to defend my coast while I was trying to squeeze garrison units out of my crappy dirt kingdom.


I could snipe these workers off of Rome this turn, but if I did, I wouldn't be able to bring them back home and I would almost certainly lose the chariot to a longbow counterattack. Also, naufragar chopping that forest doesn't put Southease in any worse of a defensive position for me when OH's knights finally break through, and it might get him another longbow out. I might technically be at war with him, but I don't think it's in my interest to press him or split his defenses right now. Speaking of those knights:



I want to evacuate my two CG2 longbows with a galley. The earliest OH can potentially take Ravenna and have a canal to attack that galley is T143 (assuming he moves up at least 2 more knights this turn, then gets 10 successful kills that turn. With a CG2 longbow in the city that seems moderately unlikely but not impossible). I'm settled on powering through Engineering to get 3 move roads and pikes available, since OH hasn't been showing any kind of army outside of knights, two swords, and a couple random trebuchets. My play is to pump out war elephants and crossbows/catapults right now, get pikes ready where he can possibly attack me soon, and build a few triremes on both coasts. Knowing that he has Optics and therefore access to caravels does mean triremes have limited effectiveness now. My Moai city is also in an area that's totally irrelevant for building emergency triremes that might need to be used in the next 4-5 turns even if I finish circumnavigation soon.

[TBW]

T143:
I decided it was time to launch my 1 person GA. I need Slavery to have a chance of building an army that can handle 15 knights, and I need pikemen to tilt the defensive balance in my favor. To that end, after launching it I was able to run a couple research builds in southern cities that aren't relevant to any OH invasion to bring Engineering research down to 1 turn, and prebuilding 20 hammers into spears in Scarrow Hill, Southease, and Wetheral means I can 1 pop whip 3 pikes out next turn. Since I'll be able to see galleys approaching Hand of Tind, I'm opting to put one turn of hammers into walls there and then building a pike; I can ferry over defensive units and unload them into the city on the same turn OH lands there if he makes that move, and if I build up defenders near Wetheral I can also counter a landing there at the same time. It's still going to be difficult to stop as many knights as he has with an empire that's as spread out as Krill's that was apparently aiming for a space victory, but I won't get empire wiped by the stack he has right now. Who knows, maybe revolting into Slavery and a power spike will convince him not to invade at all?

+ 2 galleys
Looks like the end of Ravenna comes T144. nauf-rome might kill a couple of the knights, especially if he gets walls up next turn, but that'll pretty well wrap that up. The two galleys are both 4 movers, so my assumption is that OH is getting ready to load up and hit Hand of Tind as soon as the treaty expires. Krill didn't put any cities directly along his northern coast, so it'll be difficult for me to build a navy to defend up here. I can get one trireme out of Westminster that might get up there in time to defend against galleys, and I have the option of whipping one out of Hand of Tind. I opted to pillage the road and mine with my longbows this turn. With the galleys and OH's move advantage, I wouldn't be able to safely bring a galley up to evacuate those longbows at this point. The best I can do is pillage the road to slow down land reinforcements a little and take Guerrilla 2 on the other longbow. I hate losing them, but better to lose 2 longbows than 2 longbows + a galley.


Shit!! No!!! It came out of the fog and nailed me. If we had diplo in this game nauf-Holy Rome could have warned me there was a barb galley lurking there. Oh well. I've still got other ships and scouts on the hunt for circumnavigation.

With my current beaker levels, at 100% research slider it will take me 2 turns to knock out Guilds + 2 turns to knock out Banking. As long as I finish Banking within the next 7 turns I'll be good to go there, and I'll get another scientist out during this GA as well. Wormelow Tump finishes National Epic in 3 turns and I can work on a non-scientist GP from there, plus I've got a lot of GS points in another city to work with. I don't have a plan as detailed as what Krill was going for but I think Guilds -> Banking -> Compass -> Optics -> Code of Laws will be the best play for me. Knights, stock exchanges + Mercantilism, caravels to defend against triremes and galleys, and the courthouses I'm sorely lacking. I would also like Theology for Theocracy but I don't know that I'll have the beakers to fit that in during this GA. We'll see what it looks like 7 turns from now.