A Challenger Appears!

[Ceiliazul]

he IS taking very long for his turns...

Hammertime! Invoke the kuro/Cull rule: kill the slow ones first!

[Tankra]

I apologize to any lurkers confused by my flip-flopping on the issue of rushing, but I do believe that the final conclusion will be that there will be a rush. I've decided to payout the full balance on my blood-debt to Commodore early on.

"Cry "havoc!", and let slip the dogs of war!"

At the very least, if this fails, at least I won't have any regrets for what might have been.

Speaking of failing, does anyone have access to a good combat odds calculator? I'd be interested in knowing exactly what my odds are. You know, in the interest of deciding how large I need to make my sacrifice to the Gods of the RNG.

[CFCJesterFool]

Haven't tried it myself but...http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=148354

[Mardoc]

Sareln has made a combat calculator, as well:
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthrea...calculator

[Tankra]

Well that's interesting. Seems like TheStick decided to attack me after all, with a Warrior that got to my borders recently. I can 2-turn build a Warrior in my city, so I'll be OK, but I'm just slightly perplexed. He must know I have access to Dog Soldiers and am in essentially the best position to make short work of his Warrior whenever; that guy won't be pillaging my lands for long. Or maybe he's going to try to rush my capital with his single Warrior and hope for an unlikely victory against my defender? That would be a weird course of action, but is the only thing I can see him gaining from the attack.

I would post a screenshot, but he sent me over his own save, I assume from having played it twice (I've had that happen in my other PBEM, and that was the reason for it). So... that's mildly irritating as well.

Well, all I can say is that if he manages to destroy my capital, I'll be disappointed but have very few regrets.

[Tankra]

Thanks Mardoc (and Sareln). According to the calculator, his Warrior has a 4% chance of winning if he attacks my capital with a 0% fortification Warrior defending it, confirming my hypothesis that it's foolish.

I really don't understand the play here. This only marginally makes sense if it were 100% sure that I was going to Dog rush him. Even then, he would have been better off using the Warrior as a sentry to exactly when my troops would come.

Like I said, I have no screenshot, but it's impossible for him to either get to my Worker or my improved Farm before I pop out a Dog Soldier and quickly dispatch him.

Such madness!

[Ceiliazul]

I would post a screenshot, but he sent me over his own save, I assume from having played it twice (I've had that happen in my other PBEM, and that was the reason for it). So... that's mildly irritating as well.

Could just be that he selected the wrong file. It happens.

I agree you're in a fine position to deal with the warrior... can you get a chop in to finish a dog?

[Tankra]

So, as we all know, on t15 the stick declared war on me by moving his warrior into my territory. This is the same turn in which I got BW, and I had moved my Worker the turn before in a position to begin chopping. However, the place I chose for chopping wasn't safe anymore, as illustrated by this t15 screen:



My Worker would complete the chop on t17, but because TheStick acts before me on t18, he would have time to move onto my Worker and destroy him. The chop would however yield a Dog Soldier on eot17, so I could have theoretically moved my Warrior from my capital to the plains/hill on t17 while letting my Dog defend the capital. This, however, would give him a 25% chance of defeating my Warrior on the now bare hill and capturing my Worker. Needless to say, I wasn't comfortable giving him such good odds of killing my first Worker. It didn't seem like a wise choice. So, I decided to move my Worker to the forest 2S of the plains/hill, where he would be safe to chop without any threat of Warriors. I'll only get 10h instead of 13h from the chop there, but the security is well worth it. The new plan is that my chopping will finish on t18, giving me a Dog Soldier on eot18.

Given that my Worker has moved down, the logical thing for TheStick to do is to try and pillage my farm, which he will be able to do on t19. Seeing that my Dog Soldier can only act on t19 (and once again he acts before me), it seems I'll be forced to take the 50% odds Warrior vs. Warrior battle on my Wheat farm. If I lose, he gets to rob me of more Worker turns than he's already done. But at least with this plan there's no chance of losing my Worker.

If only I had anticipated his attack by even 1 turn, there wouldn't be any potential problems. My mistake here is that I didn't properly think about how quickly I could react to a harassment by him. I relied too much on the knowledge of the 2-turn Warrior and the imminent building of a Dog Soldier. Let's hope this mistake doesn't cost me too dearly.

P.S.: My screen is in JPG format now. No idea what that changes, but there you go :D

[flugauto]

Thanks. JPG is 100500 times smaller and now it doesn't take 2 centuries to load.

PS. I see Elephants, Deer, Sheep but no Dogs. Bad luck.

[Ceiliazul]

So, as we all know, on t15 the stick declared war on me by moving his warrior into my territory.

Good job on the rebound, don't sweat the 3rd ring chop, you were going to chop it eventually anyhow. The bigger bummer is delaying your growth... with that wheat online you're missing out every turn you don't work it. If your 50/50 warrior shot wins, I recommend you grow to size2 before going max hammers on the dogs.

Nicely played by thestick, if his instinct said dogs were coming, better to get in your face. ...on the other hand, if dogs weren't coming, they definitely are now!