[SPOILERS PB71]Krill: By the numbers, when the walls fell (on everyone else)

[Krill]

If Pin is really going for Thoth then probably SD? Bing will probably live until the end of the game simply because no one can invade him except me. Yuri can only be attacked by SD and Thoth and neither may be in a position to invade Yuri so it would have to be SD.

[greenline]

How bad do you think your economy / tech rate was hurt by the invasions?

[Krill]

Short answer: a lot but not as much as you'd think. I got taken pretty close to the brink but just stayed on side.

None of the cities are growing into unhappiness, even Rhubarb is still right on the line.

I needed to build the army I have now, simply because I'm in the middle. The only units I lost was in wiping the first Samurai stack, I lost nothing to Bing or Commodore. That was a loss of 8 catapults, 3 HA and a GG. If you'd offered me this outcome on T100 I'd have snapped your hand off, 550 hammers? Which is mostly double whips? Not that bad.

What has hurt was a dry triple whip at Apple, which has cost me a good 50 food and a knock on effect at Pear due to the shared flood plain (Pear would be in better shape as Apple would need less food to get to the happy cap and grow cottages). I'm probably down a library at Plum, a market at Pomegranate, which delays future builds but isn't that huge. I'm probably back half a classical era tech? The turns using EP to get tech visibility I would have done regardless.

Its probably delayed me getting to Guilds by 10 turns? Just an estimate.

But if those invasions hadn't happened, and everyone was still building up, I would also have to be building up an even larger army to fend off multiple attacks. But Pindi is broke and Commodore and Thoth don't have HBR, so larger armies would also wreck their tech. So I'd probably be the one player left able to build catapults and hence I'd be in with a chance, but it would be brutal. It was better for me that Pindi attacked at a point Com had minimal forces than if both were at full power.

[Krill]

So, this happened:




What are the odds that superdeath is going to try and declare on me, walk through my land and then attack Commodore?

On my part, I will prepare to wipe whatever units he puts next to Cherry, and if he threatens me with a Keshik stack I might just stack wipe him regardless, but there comes a point where I have to acknowledge the legitimacy SD has, of wanting to exact vengeance for a city raze. OTOH, SD killed two of my scouts, on separate unrelated occasions, so if I get a good shot at wiping out his army I have a reason to take it, and then take his two remaining core cities.

The peace between SD and Thoth suggests that both of them want a quiet front to focus on the new problems at hand, so...I'll watch and wait.

Oh, and I got the Great Engineer. Time to bulb Machinery, and Xbows and war elephants laugh at everything except samurai. Iron hooked T128, sooner if I want it.

[Krill]

So I found a way that this game might end quite quickly. If superdeath does move almost all of his forces to attack Commodore then I will be in position to plant Lemon and block any retreat. If superdeath and Commodore damage each other then commodore can't put any pressure on me. And that allows me to take superdeaths remaining to court cities. Yuri retakes its capital and then pin and Thoth get to fight it out and I can probably win from that position with no more warfare.

This looks like a relatively boring end game and I am not saying it will definitely happen but it looks like a possibility.

[Krill]

No pictures this turn but I missed that Pindi took Thoths front city until I moved a scout, should get good vision next turn as I try and extricate the scout. I'm most interested in checking how many jnits Pindi has committed.

I double checked that the GE will bulb 1090 beakers of Machinery, I will wait a few turns for a bit more pop (7 pop points estimated for 14 beakers) but probably pull the trigger on the bulb but not finish the tech. Considering going for CoL for a religion as Bing completed ToA, it's a three turn tech but I need a bit more gold to get there. Could get it T129 but might go via Polytheism and Priesthood for the better multiplier (I need Poly anyway for Literature). Could conceal tech via completing Priesthood and Sailing at 100% and rolling over the beakers so there is no exposure.

Superdeath is rolling forward. I'm keeping my eyes open but it's not fantastic. He has a sentry so I will keep my cats behind the city where he can see them but they do not threaten his stack if he does not move adjacent to Cherry. That's the best he can hope for but I do not want to rebuild an army until I've fixed the economy, need until T130.

Commodore can see everything SD is doing so I don't think SD can achieve much except passing people off.

[Krill]

Er.

Thoth, my man? You're probably dead. Construction was needed before Calendar.

And scooter, when you asked what would have happened if Pindi attacked Thoth. I've changed my mind. Thoth would have been a smear on the floor if Pindi attacked 15 turns ago, and he would have had no way to defend then. As it is, Thoth could have gotten the techs needed to defend the current attack, but didn't and now we watch him pay the price. Pictures to come later.

[Krill]

No report in this post but I will probably add a few screenshots later. As a preview:




I do not know how to deal with 20 Samurai (that I can see with further scout movements) that does not involve around 15 catapults and 20 plus HA, or 20 Xbows. A CKN stack would do it, but otherwise? Thoth can't flank the trebs so he can't rely on culture defense. I can't see how Thoth actually defends this, and if superdeath does head into Commodore there is nothing pinning any of Pindicators troops down. Thoth might actually be the first person to die in this game.

[scooter]

And scooter, when you asked what would have happened if Pindi attacked Thoth. I've changed my mind. Thoth would have been a smear on the floor if Pindi attacked 15 turns ago, and he would have had no way to defend then. As it is, Thoth could have gotten the techs needed to defend the current attack, but didn't and now we watch him pay the price. Pictures to come later.

I asked at the time because it sure seemed that way to me, but in this case I wasn't sure that I actually had better info than in-game players.

[Krill]

And scooter, when you asked what would have happened if Pindi attacked Thoth. I've changed my mind. Thoth would have been a smear on the floor if Pindi attacked 15 turns ago, and he would have had no way to defend then. As it is, Thoth could have gotten the techs needed to defend the current attack, but didn't and now we watch him pay the price. Pictures to come later.

I asked at the time because it sure seemed that way to me, but in this case I wasn't sure that I actually had better info than in-game players.

It's so hard, isn't it, to get the tone and voice of a post just right. Don't want to come across as a know it all, or a jerk; don't want to be hyperbolic, nor blase.

And it's hard to see the wood for the trees sometimes. Even if a player, stuck in the minutiae of not getting eaten alive, manages to raise their head to look around, the player is still basing an understanding off their in depth knowledge of what their civ has and can do, of the graphs and demographics, of the scouting patterns and order of actions of their visible neighbours. This is not comparable to those lurkers who can only peer through the screenshots posted by all the players, but can't get as good a look at the whole picture. The difference between peering through the window of an estate agents at housing adverts and actually doing a property viewing.

All that said, I answered your question after I played T110 and repulsed his first attack. Since then I got tech visibility on Thoth, and using that I could see that he did not have HBR (finished it a few turns ago) and just started Construction. So I didn't know what units he had; if I had known on T110 that he lacked HBR and Construction I might have been a bit more vitriolic in my view that the attack on Sumeria was a good choice.

As it is, I think I would rather be in this position, where on T125 I have nine cities, happiness is in hand, I've got MC, Construction, Currency, a GE to bulb Machinery due to finishing HG, and I'm 1K from top power with Pindi only just starting the conquest of Thoth, than if Pindi had attacked Thoth in the first instance and would be finishing up the attack right about now and I'd be up 12 units but still not be able to effectively fight another player because Pindi would then come and flank me to hell.