Cavaleiros Embassy & Intelligence

[cav scout]

Got this from Slaze:

We have no spies. For a while our EP gave us visibility on their buddhist city, zue cha. I saw a roaming woodsman II axe about 2-3 turns ago but it seemed to be heading above zue cha, possibly through the jungle around to chai. We don't have the hammers for spies for our attack force. Every turn is spent building units. We'll have to completely rely on you.

They built Taj this turn. They read 3 turns on Chem but may still bulb it, leaving them dreadfully close to Military Science.

There was also the longbow on a grassland, 1NW of TKY that you gave us a screenshot of. Is he alone?

I gave him an intel update.

 

[cav scout]

Got this back from Slaze:

Spoiler :

Thanks for the shots. We're gonna especially need them for the turn we sit on the plains hill 2SW of TKY to see if they do anything sneaky.

Current rates are +254 at 0%
and 660 at 100%
Maintenance is -304.

Techwise we're probably going into stock-up mode too for the short term. Communism is something we're interested in although that's a good ways out (~22 turns by ourselves without factoring GA). That and Physics are two techs i'm looking at because of the free GP; I really want to minimize Sancta's GA capabilities. Steam Power is something to consider (short term) as is Military Tradition (I wonder how MS is doing on Music).

Alot of it has to with where Sancta goes; it would sure be nice to beat them to Combustion to kill their ability to utilize their UB. Dutch UB + GAs = death. But if we go Combustion and they go Assembly line that wouldn't be too good either.

But that's getting ahead of ourselves. For now, maybe Military Tradition, Steam Power. Although we're tempted to go off on our own to Communism. The Scientific Method path yields alot of good stuff. Air power at Physics, Biology would do wonders for our production.

We'll be on gold for the next half dozen turns no matter what but this is what we're thinking.

 

[cav scout]

CAV just gifted us 230 gold but then Slaze started thinking that he might need a few more rifles and sent me this.

Any chance you could lend us some money? Next turn is the last chance for us to upgrade whereas you have a few turns more. We only have 2 rifles able to defend the stack although the muskets are favorable so long as they are on the hills. If they switch next turn we could face as many as 8 green rifles (although that would mean zero is empty) and that could be problematic for our knights to take the city. The musket upgrade is 110 so 110 would be good, 220 better 330 great and so on. Any amount you give us we'll pay back asap at ~250/turn.

I will gift him 330 if no one objects.

 

[donsig]

No objections here.

 

[damnrunner]

I say gift it.

 

[damnrunner]

If Cav just got hammered they may be considering suing for peace with Sancta and hope to win the war another day. This would not be such a bad option for Cav (it would maintain the status quo which has them in the lead) but would be horrible for us.

 

[cav scout]

I haven't heard back from Slaze.... perhaps we should reassure them somehow.

 

[cav scout]

Well the war is back on. Got this from Slaze:

Well that was a long-ass pause. I'm not sure if I even remember exactly where we are at right now. Is there any strategy coordination we need to do going forward against SANCTA?

So this was what the pause was all about. i still don't believe it but that's just me

Spoiler :

our unit v their unit, our strength v their strength, their odds, our result

rifle v cat, 24.5 v 5, 0.0%, win, although they get 2 hits before our 3, we're at 80/100
rifle v cat, 19.6 v 5, 0.1%, win
rifle v rifle, 22.4 v 15.4, 10.9%, lose
pike v knight, 13.37 v 10, 21.7%, lose
pike v knight, 13.37 v 11, 26.6%, lose
knight v rifle, 10.23 v 14, 79.5%, lose
WE v knight, 12.51 v 12, 47.5%, lose
pike v knight, 12.05 v 11, 44.6%, lose
knight v spear, 5.5 v 4.4, 24.7%, lose
WE v HA, 11.42 v 6, 5.0%, withdrawl (30% rate)
knight v knight, 11.16 v 11, 49.3%, lose
knight v knight, 10.32 v 12, 71.2%, lose
knight v knight, 10.23 v 10, 48.8% lose
WE v axe, 4.03 v 5, 85.2%, lose

They were able to pillage the road we had so could only counter-attack with 4 guerilla II troops, which won, gratefully, taking out their 4 highest strength units left.

Btw, looks like TKY drafts get a promotion. That means settled GG.

Here's what things look like now.

Spoiler :

We only have 15 units able to attack cities. They, although some are badly damaged and thus useless, have 16 currently (the rifle on the hill in our shot is an ele and a HA too as well as 6?? units in TKY - lb, axe, spear, HA, ele, rifle?). We could also see as many as 5 more rifles drafted by the time we can attack (which is a joke cause they'll attack us first - our stack's looking pretty thin right now anyway. I think we need your help.

Also, while i logged in mid-sancta-turn 3 weeks ago I saw them showing Military Tradition in 3 turns. Now of course it reads chem in 9. But if that holds up we'll be seeing those things soon enough. I've also noticed a considerable drop in their GNP (1288 to 788 in a turn) which could mean they're stocking up to upgrade medival/ancient junk to rifles but is probably just the same lie it's always been - they'll switch their gnp on their turn when they need to. But either way i see it in their best interest to stock up gold to upgarde at the cost of delaying MT and expect that's what they'll do.

So we may need you to do something like kill zero/scotland with a knight and then move the stack to the grassland tile 1N of where it is now. And then head diagonal straight for TKY to attack from accross the river. We may need you to attack first, maybe even exhaust your whole stack (or some of it) on tky before we even get there. We're already a turn behind due to the pillaged road.

Take all that as you wish, ultimately it's your choice to do what you will. But with our stack damaged as it is and them with those old troops to upgrade, we can handle maybe 3-4 fresh rifles and then they begin to pick off our cannon. We need your help.

We can take the city together, but it looks to come at heavy losses. And then we'll have to hole up for their calvary onslaught, although it looks like their down to only 8 mounted, and with no money

 

[mikotian]

holy sh!t those are unbelievable odds...
The chances of Sancta winning ALL those low odd battles are infinitesimally small. This is ridiculous.

So I guess the UN investigation didn't find any shenanigans from Sancta?

 

[mikotian]

Honestly, if I had to bet, I'd say Sancta somehow is gaming the system but we have no idea how. One or two lucky battles is fine. But lucky ALL THE TIME?

Can someone go and get all our old combat logs. What is the % of time Sancta won battles with odds of less than 30%; and how frequently do they win battles of odds 40%-60%? I'd bet that their success rate is off the charts statistically... it's not proof but it's certainly suspicious

 

[damnrunner]

So TKY is a super city. It can draft vet units every turn and has pretty good production. We really need to take it.

The outcomes of that battle suck, but I think Sancta might have jumped the gun. They should have waited until getting Mil Trad and then attacked after upgrading those knights. It is great that Sancta lost a few knights in the Cav counter attack. Also the ones they have left are fairly badly wounded and will take a few turns to heal. we need to run #s on that but I think we can be at TKY before they heal. Also Sancta used up their 2 catapults and we don't see evidence that they have any more in the area.

We should tell Cav that our intel (from talking to Sancta) indicating that they will have Mil Trad in 2 turns.

 

[donsig]

It would be interesting to go back over the old combat logs but who has the time? We will see if SANCTA's luck continues now that they are being watched more closely. In any event I think all involved here and on Team Cav now see the destruction of SANCTA as priority number one. I wonder if we could pull Saturn away from SANCTA. It's too bad our team is not as active as it once was.

 

[damnrunner]

The only interesting (new data) logs would be the info from their fights with barbarians. We already looked over and debated their success against us. naval battle - killing our 2 stacks near Zero. We determined it was low odds, but entirely possible. But doing the math to determine how lucky they were is a bit tricky.

I assume the moderators looked at all info available as part of their investigation. We will see if Sancta's luck holds.

 

[cav scout]

Latest exchange with Slaze:

Spoiler :

http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/8484/civ4screenshot0010.jpg

Razed Zero and on the way to TKY. Our stack consists of 14 redcoats, 8 cannons, 3 knight, 3 pikes, 1 elephant and 2 workers.

Dragon tears is undefended and there doesn't seem to be any reinforcements visible. Along with the 5 units inside TKY there is one rifle (0 xp) on the hill 1E (same tile as our spy).

If Sancta was smart they would abandon TKY and try to set up a defense at Dragon Tears, upgrading all their mounted units to cavalry. If we are lucky though we can make TKY a Stalingrad and kill all their units. I would hate for all those wounded promoted units to escape to heal/upgrade.

How should we go about capturing the city?

(I will send another update after santca plays their turn).

14 redcoats huh?, that's more than I thought. We're (or more so, you) are in pretty good shape.

Ultimately we should see their next move before we make final decisions, but it looks like if we only look at drafting, the most you'll be up against is 6 rifles with a 7th drafted from DT on the hill. Certainly both of those cities are producing rifles, although for DT's rifle to make it it would have to finish next turn (so that could be 2 more but probably 1. If they upgrade all full strength troops to rifles (4 more) that would make 11, with a good handfull of healing knights etc.
8 cannon could deal alot of damage to such a stack although you would lose all but 1-3. They could have more numbers than you so it would take a second turn to take the city, but our stack would make it there by then anyway.

But I think you're right, this situation is far too unlikely. They can't afford to lose their army and TKY. The other options are to circle around towards us, or fall back to DT. And doubt they'll head towards us, despite Porta Nina being weakly defended (musket + longbow, rifle next turn). They'll need to keep their army together. Numbers matter when they practice their RNG maximizing save and test attacks.

And they're broke. The one thing they can't fake is money (despite their 500 point GNP drop from last turn - it won't show up in next turns graphs cause it's not true). They're rushing towards MT and that's their play. It's just too late for TKY.

One question I have is can you use a spy to take out their defenses? You would have to have it end on TKY next turn. If you do this could you send it 2W of where it is to peak out from the hill before ending it on TKY? I'm curious whether they are building roads to strike us or if the wounded mounted units head to Chai to heal. I saw an idle worker 2 turns ago (probably roading) 1SE of chai and with enough roads/workers they could strike us from the distance of Chai/pig.

 

[damnrunner]

"If we are lucky though we can make TKY a Stalingrad and kill all their units."

Lets hope not - if I recall Stalingrad ended up working out the other way around.

 

[donsig]

I guess the Stalingrad analogy depends on persepctive, but I see damnrunner's point - SANCTA is defending the city (the Russians) and we're attack it (the Germans). Anyway, it's a good sign that we have more redcoats than Team Cav expected. It seems they continued to underestimate us. Let's hope SANCTA does the same.

 

[cav scout]

Yeah my analogy was more on hitler's stupid no retreat order that led to the destruction of the German 6th army. If Sancta puts all their wounded units into the city to try to hold out that would be great. We have enough combat power to destroy anything there. But I can only see them doing this as long as they think we are just positioning to backstab CAV. So keeping up the illusion that we are switching sides would be good. But its going to be difficult now because of all the recent RNG drama and memphus quitting.

 

[cav scout]

Latest exchange with Slaze:

So it looks like they are evacuating their wounded units back to Dragon Tears. They will try to delay us at TKY long enough to build up their main defense at DT. They are going to want to upgrade all their mounted and melee units.

In TKY:

Spoiler :

1E of TKY:

Spoiler :

In Dragon Tears:

Spoiler :

1N of Dragon Tears: 2 workers

We could move our stack NW to avoid having to attack TKY across the river. But I think it would be best for us to go north, reduce the defenses with our cannons and let you do the heavy lifting to take the city. We then move on and take Dragon Tears before they can do too many upgrades while you consolidate/reorganize and then go after Chai and Zue Cha. If we spend too much time at TKY then DT will be a much tougher nut to crack.

Thanks. We're one tile closer, as planned. Musket and knight behind it to catch up. Found a cat nearby as well.

Spoiler :

We'll can only see if they get MT next turn (this would mean we'd be attacking freshly upgraded cavs if they choose to use them to defend TKY. The research I saw mid turn from them would have them get it next turn and they're playing with their graphs (demo numbers look different to graph ratios) so I'm pretty certain they'll get it next. Shouldn't be a problem with taking TKY at all though.

Good luck and keep it coming

 

[damnrunner]

We need to coordinate with cav about how many units they can move up with our stack. We also need to to some game testing to see what sort of numbers we need to survive a Sancta attack. Sancta will have one final chance to kill us and we need to be prepared for it.

 

[cav scout]

CAV wants us to gift them TKY for two turns so they can upgrade some units and heal. What do you guys think?