[SPOILER] And now for something completely different: DaveV is Hannah

[haphazard1]

Not quite as fortunate this time on the trait swap. Your luck overall has been pretty good, though.

Not sure on the pirate/drown defense question. What were the promotions on the units? Do you have any idea what promotions the attacker had?

[DaveV]

You're right: I have enough information to figure this out. And, since there's no turn to play...

His galley was 3.5/5 after my turn, would heal 20% in a city, and took a combat I promotion, so I make that about 4.7/5, or about 93 HP. Here's my stack, after promo-healing the pirate to combat I:



Here's Cyneheard's spreadsheet for the pirate:



And for the drown:



Conclusion: the defender is chosen based on line 13, Actual Strength, rather than line 18, Chance of Winning. Now that I do this exercise, I think I remember reaching this conclusion before. I also remember that one of the patches made injured units weaker, so maybe the code that chooses a defender was never updated.

[haphazard1]

Seems like a reasonable explanation. The pirate technically had better odds to win a given round (just barely), and that may be what is checked to determine the defender.

[DaveV]

Well, that was a long and grueling turn. I have a lot of screenshots to assemble; here's a tease of the start and end of turn demographics:

[haphazard1]

Hmmm, quite a change in the rival power stat, both highest and average. Also a sizable drop in rival best land area. I am thinking lots of fighting, and at least a couple cities changing hands.

[DaveV]

The theme for this turn was "Not bringing enough stuff." I had set up for two (potentially three) city attacks, and still had to deal with the Aurorarcher mess. Speaking of which:



His strategy was all about the fort canals. He spread out his galleys pretty nicely, and had them screened by a lot of units.

I had been setting up for an attack on Mr. Cairo, and this was the turn it happened:



It looks like I have six hitters against six units, but one of the Cultists just hopped on board this turn and used all his movement, so I'm one short.

On the superjm front, the city that turned out to be his capital has a garrison that's much better than expected:



In the good news column, his city of Balderham wasn't as well defended:



If only there were a way for me to swing a few key combats my way, and maybe clear out a bunch of heavily wounded defenders. Oh, wait...



I had been planning to save my world spell until after blight hit, since it's best used against already-weakened units. But what's a world spell for, if not to turn things around at a crucial juncture?

After softening up the targets with a bunch of Tsunamis, the city combats turned out to be pretty easy:

Only one centaur to kill in Naggarond:



Waltzing into an empty Golden Leane:



Since Balderham was not next to water, my spells had no effect. But, after a sacrificial drown, I killed the defender:



On the Aurorarcher front, I think I messed up. I probably should have sacrificed both my drowns to kill the galleys. I killed the combat 3 guy, but left the combat 1 boat that will promote to combat 2 and have ~42% odds against my galley (which has two warriors on board). At least I razed Witt easily.



Observant readers will note that the Armageddon Counter has hit 30, which means Blight. If I remember correctly, it won't hit until after the turn rolls, so after superjm's turn. This means a round of healing for everyone but me before units are damaged (and potentially killed) by Blight.

[DaveV]

Another turn came speeding back; it's hard to keep up with reporting for this game.

As predicted, blight happened:



But apparently at the beginning of everyone's turn. I see lots of damaged units belonging to other people.

I really should have killed that galley when I had the chance:



9% chance of Great Merchant who keeps me from throwing 3-man golden age. I figured out that I got the merchant points from the governor auto-assigning them when the city was whipped and re-grew.



The little circles are from all the Blight damage.

I razed superjm's new capital of Froihk. My galley had no movement after dropping off its two reinforcing cultists, and had to eat three tsunamis.



superjm is down to three cities, and Belerien doesn't look like it will survive next turn:



Reinforcements arrive for the Aurorarcher front:



I let the warriors heal from their Blight damage.

Conquest definitely seems to be the answer to Blight. I have a bunch of cities that should be starving, but aren't.

[DaveV]

Another turn arrived late (for me) last night, and I played sloppily without taking screenshots. Here's an after-the-fact reconstruction. I found the three giants Mr. Cairo gained from the Pact of the Nilhorn. Apparently someone on the forums called them the "Three Stooges", which led to them being named Larry, Moe, and Curly.



I'm pillaging his food resources, to keep the blight starvation going.

I razed Belerien, which had a brand-new trireme in it.



The standoff at Riemann continues, but reinforcements are on the way.



Aurorarcher is still building galleys.



superjm attacked my galley instead of a cultist, which is good for me. It looks like one of his last two cities is inland. I tried to capture Mr. Cairo's settlement for a canal to let me bring in some ground units, but it auto-razed  .



Now the warriors will have to walk. I hope that bear I tagged isn't still wandering around.

I finished iron working, which means +1 strength for my chariots and drowns, and I can build boarding parties and frigates. Unfortunately, boarding parties are not draftable; I don't understand why.

The great person turned out to be a sage, and I fired off the 3-man golden age. It's not optimal timing when my cities are starving, but I think we're in the end game here.

[DaveV]

I couldn't finish off superjm - he had two warriors in Timberling, and I could only kill one. Meanwhile, the aforementioned bear is indeed standing on the path to Stormgul, and I messed up and fired off my cultist's tsunami prematurely. Rather than take a 69% attack, I'll wait another turn.



Aurorarcher fights on: he sank another one of my galleys and now has a ridiculously promoted (combat 3) galley of his own. My drown tried to run away from the incoming galley, and moved next to a bear. He should survive, but will most likely take some damage.



Aurorarcher abandoned Pascal, and I razed it. His galley ran to the south, and I was able to finish it off with a cultist.



The standoff at Riemann continues, although most of my reinforcements arrived. I'll probably attack next turn if I can get decent tsunami damage.

[DaveV]

I moved in to attack Reimann, and killed Lucian, along with four other units. I lost one drown on a ~10% softening-up attack against Lucian.



I also killed five units in Kwythellar. He still has a bunch of guys there, but his production can't keep up with that rate of attrition.



You can also see me setting up to attack Stormgul; I'm still at least two turns from eliminating superjm.

At Hamilton, I decided to move back to a spot where he can't attack my pirates, and wait for reinforcements.