10-12-2004 14:46									#91
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quote: Originally posted by Trip Yes, it's quite a bit different though now. This kind of thing will definitely not be possible, I can assure you of that.

And perhaps you say too much, even here in these closed confines. No one knows how it will end, yes?

	10-12-2004 14:51									#92
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And finally from me, simply bows to DeepO, Aeson, CH, vmxa, vulture, Krill, alva, OPD, Vel, Arrian and everyone else who actually took part in this taking apart. Oh, and Theseus of course.

Wow. That's all that I can say.

PS, has anyone kicked on the door of the old German? I'm sure he would enjoy reading these two threads.

Last edited by notyoueither on 10-12-2004 at 15:07

	10-12-2004 15:05									#93
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I just read through, thanks for summoning me. You guys are awesome, in the full sense of this word. Take my sincere applause for the good show, my deep respect for your decisive success and my best wishes for the time to come.

	10-12-2004 15:06									#94
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Speaking of old goats, and as one , and ghosts, where is Nathan?

	10-12-2004 15:37									#95
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Whatever happens now, even if ND jump in and destroy us in the next two turns, we've achieved what we set out to do in our near-thousand-year policy with GAUL. Militarily we dared hope that we might knock out their FP and a few more cities in the south. We did not expect to take Legopolis the turn after landing

EDIT - (submitted post too early!)

To be honest, this game has not just been about trying to win, but playing and learning - setting goals - Quests even - and working towards them. Pumping up pop and building the science wonders for the tech edge, planning the ToE and then Hoover, maintaining the tech alliance with GoW, learning that we needed to sell cheap to ND for GAUL to work, defining our window of opportunity and jumping through it. As vmxa said, the game reads like a captivating book, and to be part of that story is well, basically why we play Civ in the first place. GS's colourful role in that story is something we can take pride in.

DeepO's work since he took over has been mind-blowing beyond description - a mix of energy, creativity, hard graft and leadership that is frankly inspirational. Some lucky employer will have this guys talent at their disposal soon and good for them I don't know how we can replace him as turn-player when he takes his well-earned bow, but we can always hope that Nathan is ready for another go ...

Aeson, thank-you for rejoining and giving DeepO the Military Maestro he craved, and the quality of support he deserved. Try as we did, us mortals weren't up to it As DeepO said, to glimpse into your mid is a priviledge, and to play alongside you is an honour.

Thanks to everyone else who has made these turns the most buzzing in the teams history - and a special word for the long-term activity of vmxa - strat forum hero, a man you always want on your team, stout GS regular and great companion. Sleepy, you're another guy it was great to have around, especially during the lonely years, I hope your busy working life is turning out well

Arrian, Theseus - I'm so sorry you missed it, but I hope you've envoyed reading this far. The Thesean Gambit will pass into legend, and Arrian's economic work on the MM and wonder-planning during the Great Ramp-Up must never be forgotten.

NYE, I'm glad you enjoyed the show. I miss reading your posts.

And Nathan, did you see what that small blue thing you built went and DID?

Last edited by Cort Haus on 10-12-2004 at 16:30

	10-12-2004 16:01									#96
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Excellent work all round , especially the mammoth effort by DeepO. That must have been exhausting.

BTW Is there any danger that we've blocked GoW from all the roads they need to get to Legopolis? I've only glanced at the final map, but it seems to me that we have units (tanks or MI) on all the paths they need to get from a city at their landing site (or adjacent to it) to get into the corridor, unless they take Dye Fields or Jackson first (both of which are defended, aren't they?)

	10-12-2004 16:10									#97
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btw, I've done a bit of looking at the map. It is true that we have done a bad thing to Lego. They will feel it deeply. However, they remain about the same size as we are. GoW MUST finish the job, or all has been for naught but assuring the destruction of our army and the ascendancy of ND.

	10-12-2004 16:39									#98
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Yep, ND is the New Lego. That was unavoidable though, NYE, - they have been coiling their potential since they took Bob. Lego had to be stopped, and the only way to keep Lego backward in tech was to sell cheap to ND.

Even if GoW can't get to the empty cities Lego are ruined - they've lost their happiness wonders and their FP. We weren't banking on either destroying Lego or holding their land, the aim was to weaken them.

The Grand Alliance To Undermine Lego (GAUL) nears its end. Worrying About ND (WAND) will be the next policy

	10-12-2004 16:48									#99
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Very British of you.

	10-12-2004 17:01									#100
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Bad news everbody:

I've just run the combat calculations for GoW vs Fort Stanwix. I've assumed that all defending infantry are fortified, as are any cavalry, and any un-promoted tanks (although some of them might be unfortified too). With the forces currently on land, and assuming 11 defensive bombardments, GoW look to have a 0.3% chance of taking the city; most likely result is 8 defenders remaining (presumably injured cav and 1-2 hp inf and tanks). GoW need to get some more combat potential over there.

I'm going to add in GoW bombers, since they won't have anything better to do this turn, and can hopefully reach Stanwix. Any idea how many bombers they have access to?

	10-12-2004 17:07									#101
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Ah, they had 15 bombing runs in their last battle report. For now I'll assume they haven't added any more that can be used this turn.

	10-12-2004 17:11									#102
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I forgot to put the defenders in a city as well. That means that only 1/3 of arty / bomber shots are aimed at troops, and 2/3 are immediately ineffective (vs pop or improvement, neither of which does anything vs Stanwix). So after I add in bombers, and then factor in the reduced bombard effectiveness, I fear it's going to come out worse than the 0.3% mentioned previously.

Of course, now I think about it, I decided to leave out the infantry in the attack, thinking they'd probably have enough troops anyway. Obviously not the case, so I need to put the GoW infantry in as well.

In short, the previous number has no relevance to reality whatsoever.

	10-12-2004 17:15									#103
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So all we know is, it ain't over. I suspected as much since I didn't hear no over weight female tuning up.

	10-12-2004 17:22									#104
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Lego's forces aren't fortified though.

	10-12-2004 17:24									#105
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New improved version, with all infantry, bombers, etc. factored in: 23.3% chance to take the city. Not good, and they can't chain any more units in to help until Stanwix is destroyed.

It's worth bearing in mind that the combat calculator doesn't do anything fancy in terms of chosing which attackers to attack when. It is possible that they might have better odds than that by intelligent use of their units.

	10-12-2004 17:26									#106
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Are we sure that the infantry aren't fortified? That would make a huge difference. But I see now reason not to fortify them; they didn't attack, and have only had to move on RRs, so they should be able to fortify quite happily, shouldn't they?

	10-12-2004 17:33									#107
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Hmm, yeah, you're probably right.

	10-12-2004 17:41									#108
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DOH! Have we considered the possibility of using propoganda to flip Stanwix to us, or since it's too late now, GoW doing the same to flip it to them? Or does propoganda work the same as culture flipping, and there are far too many units in the city to have a chance?

And do defensive bombards fire against 1 hp attackers when there is no lethal bombard? GoW might be able to use up some of those defensive bombards where they have no chance of doing any damage, although that might be giving easy promotions to defenders which would do more harm than good. 1 hp attackers vs elite defenders?

	10-12-2004 17:49									#109
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Does propaganda work against a democracy? Is Lego a democracy?

	10-12-2004 17:50									#110
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I have never used it.

	10-12-2004 17:56									#111
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quote: Originally posted by Aeson Let MZ have some fun figuring out exactly which path to take.

Agree... but perhaps we might want to mention that it seems to us that all empty cities can be captured. That way, it still leaves fun for him, while we can be sure the outcome is like expected.

Oh, I do want to mention 2 things:
- that for our fleet to be safe, we would like to have Jackson destroyed, even if Dye fields might sound like a juicier target
- and that we should meet to split the spoils of this war, but that we expect them to destroy everything, not risking Lego taking revenge by retaking cities.

I can see GoW thinking to keep e.g. Legopolis, with its two important wonders. That would not be possible if it wasn't for us...

DeepO

	10-12-2004 18:02									#112
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quote: Originally posted by notyoueither quote: You should really come up with a name for the Quanto strike which allowed this... it's far more important than Toledo 2 ever could be, and that's a name that's already immortal... I would humbly submit 'the Thesean Gambit'. After Bob, it is the least he deserves for proposing the idea of merchant raiders.

My apologies, but IMO that's a bit too much honor for T in this specific attack. Sure, he said it last turn, but that didn't influence my thoughts on this (last turn it wasn't possible as we didn't have the arts, and it is very specifically the combination of land based arts and the empty transports which did it). The moment Aeson mentioned the arts, it was clear that we could use the transports for a blockade. The Abilene one would have been easy, btw, without any risk.

So far, I still prefer the "operation watergrogged". Let's not attach anyone's name to it, many people have given their ideas, and influenced how we came to this moment.

DeepO

	10-12-2004 18:08									#113
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quote: Originally posted by notyoueither Bingo! We learned during the 1st ISDG that manipulating the build ques alters the RNG under certain circumstances. Wonders specifically do it every time. Other things might as well. We discovered this because I would change city production to a wonder as something was finished during the beginning sequence, so that I could easily see which cities needed to be reset to the instructions of the MoI. One turn with combat vs barbs nobody could reproduce what I did, because I wasn't telling anyone about the 'que marking' that I was doing, because it wasn't part of the 'official moves' and shouldn't have mattered. It turns out it did matter. We looked into it, et voila.

Actually, this is a bit of a problem. As we don't have such clear MoI orders beforehand, it is needed to cycle through the queue a couple of times, to see what needs to be build, and what needs to be changed. This was so far too much of our strategy, and one of the reasons we can do unexpected things, we can't give this up. I can't post how many times I changed what either, already the overhead of playing this safe is very substantial.

Would it be an idea to go through the build queues, post what's going on, and after that reload, and do it as clean as possible? At least that should make sure we can reproduce our results exactly. I'm more then a bit embarrassed with this situation...

DeepO

	10-12-2004 18:14									#114
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quote: Originally posted by vulture BTW Is there any danger that we've blocked GoW from all the roads they need to get to Legopolis? I've only glanced at the final map, but it seems to me that we have units (tanks or MI) on all the paths they need to get from a city at their landing site (or adjacent to it) to get into the corridor, unless they take Dye Fields or Jackson first (both of which are defended, aren't they?)

Huh... I certainly hope not. I thought that once they got Legopolis, and rebuilt Stanwix, they are free to roam the land.

I'm going to check, this would be a terrible mistake to make!

DeepO

	10-12-2004 18:15									#115
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Phieuw... vulture, Legopolis 6 is open to them. They have to put Stanwix at the exact same spot as it use to be, but other then that there is no problem. They could even shift it a tile or so, as long as Legopolis 6 stays accessible.

DeepO

	10-12-2004 18:18									#116
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quote: Originally posted by Cort Haus Even if GoW can't get to the empty cities Lego are ruined - they've lost their happiness wonders and their FP. We weren't banking on either destroying Lego or holding their land, the aim was to weaken them.

Biggest problem I see is that GoW might not be able to chain its cavs. But even then, they could do some serious damage with settlers and tanks.

DeepO

	10-12-2004 18:23									#117
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DeepO, do you still think GoW can break through Fort Whatsit? Vulture calcs suggest only 23% chance.

	10-12-2004 18:27									#118
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quote: Originally posted by vulture Are we sure that the infantry aren't fortified? That would make a huge difference. But I see now reason not to fortify them; they didn't attack, and have only had to move on RRs, so they should be able to fortify quite happily, shouldn't they?

vulture, while you're at it: look at the results of our tank attacks to be sure. 6 out of 16 destroyed, with 11 defensive bombardments hitting... that doesn't sound like those infs were fortified to me. It would make them have a defense of 25 against our tanks of 16. 15 sounds a lot more convincing

Sure, they might forted for display purposes, but not for the actual computation of their defense value. And after all, they moved, even if it was over a RR.

Other things:
GoW has 20 bombers, and 26 arts. If arts hit, they can strike twice... it looks to me that nearly all of their surviving inf should be down to 2 hp, or less. A 4/4 marine wins from a 2/4 inf in a city, unfortified, over half of the time... and GoW has double the amount of marines as Lego has infs left.

Infs are perfect attackers, especially to damaged units.

and the order in which you do things might change the outcome considerably.

Nah, have a little faith GoW has to break through

DeepO

	10-12-2004 18:37									#119
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Is Stanwix on a hill or something? I'd assumed they were on a plain, which in a size 1 town, fortified gives 13.5 defence for infantry.

Only (on average) 9 arty and 7 bombers will attack actual units. Arty have 2 rof, so they can do 2 hp damage, but it's not guaranteed - each hp is lost independently IIRC (bombers have 3 rof, so if they get lucky they can do even more damage). The combined artillery / bombers will score 17 or so hp damage on average (very roughly calculation in my head); approx 9 from arty and 8 from bombers.

So there are going to be quite a few 3/4 infs left, and we are going to be dealing with 3/4 marines attack a fair fraction of the time once the 11 defensive bombardments are taken into account.

It's probably not as bad as 23% if they play it sensibly, but I'd be surprised if they were favourties to break through, however much we need them to.

	10-12-2004 18:40									#120
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quote: Originally posted by notyoueither Does propaganda work against a democracy? Is Lego a democracy?

no it doesn't. But Lego is a republic

I had the odds yesterday... I'll check it out. But I don't think GoW has a spy, so this is a bit wasted as a discussion. I wish you had given this idea earlier, vulture, as it certainly is a very promising one!

DeepO