[SPOILERS]Novice, Spacemanmf and Athlete4life10 are HUYANA CAPAC OF CHINA

[spacemanmf]

I have the save open, but we have plenty of time given that ad hoc is away so I will wait and we can chat through it for full optimisation!

[spacemanmf]

OK, played and sent. My reinstall of Windows and Civ has rendered screenshots inactive (it says Screenshot Failed each time), so no piccies for now, but I saved before ending turn so I can replicate them later.

Anyway, news of the turn:

Ruff switched to Police State, Theocracy, Nationhood and, er, Caste System. He also explained that he declared on TT due to an untrustworthy galley nearby.

TT and ad hoc are facing off at Regal with what seem like small, backward armies these days... =)

Back home, we took out a Krill trireme with a caravel, covering with another. That gave us the 2XP needed to get us a Great General - beautiful.

We advanced 6 caravals and 2 galleys down south to try to control the seas there.

We settled two cities in the north - SE of the sheep and 2E of the corn. This showed that Krill has settled on or 1W of the iron, depending on whether he's had a border pop or not. At the end of next turn we should take cultural control of the intervening peak, which will give us great visibility.

Our capital started on the Sistine under novice's instructions.

We saved more cash, able to do Chemistry in 2 turns at a whim. But we are contemplating upgrading our mounted units to Cavalries and striking on a revolted Britannia.

[spacemanmf]

Reserved for T170 gallery.

Right then, here is the situation in the north. Our plan is to blockade Krill's iron ASAP. We have an injured rifle, musket, mace and spear in Re-raise - the forests will shield any mounted assault for now, although we want to chop them in time. Cuir & cav in Raise (for now, they will advance once replaced by a defensive unit). 5 workers on the sheep tile (pastured and part-roaded in 1 turn). 2 rifles advancing (one just off screen to the right). Then two caravels, one injured (as pictured), plus two galleys further along; and Krill has a galley and trireme.



Here is the Britannia defence. There is a musket on the spy tile, two knights covering two workers, another muskets, and of course the mighty HA army plus a couple of chariots.



News of the turn. Ruff took ad hoc's capital, which was undefended (bah).



The potential naval battle in the south - one caravel can take a look to see if there are (m)any more triremes over there.



We bring you details of the big battle of the game at the moment, so you don't have to. In the green corner, we have ad hoc, sadly devoid of longbows.



In the yellow corner, it's quite hard to tell exactly what TT has, but at least 6 maces, 4 HAs, 4 longbows, 12 cats, 5 axes, 1 impi. Looks like ad hoc has chucked in a catapult attack already.



Some advisor info:

Our military.





Demographics. Ruff's are improved by his golden age, and we are at max tax.



Power graph.



F1 screen(s).

[spacemanmf]

Right, I've been checking out some combat odds using Sareln's combat spreadsheet.

I can more or less replicate the odds in-game (close enough anyway).

Cavalry vs Longbow

Unpromoted Cav vs Longbow with +210%* defence bonus gives 21% win / 24% withdraw (55% loss)

25% fortification + 25% hill bonus + 25% extra hill bonus + 25% city defence bonus + 50% Guerilla II + 60% culture

That's the current situation in-game. Krill has yet to promoted the muskets, and they won't have a full fortification bonus yet, so they are not showing up as defenders.

If we promoted the Cavs to Combat II then the odds are: 30%/21%/49%

However, if we then reduce the cultural defence to 0%, this becomes: 66%/10%/24%

(Against CG2, it would be 67%/10%/23%)

Not bad but not great.

Cavalry vs Muskets

If we face Guerilla II muskets (so 100% bonus without culture), though, we get odds like this: 50%/15%/35%

If it's the 95% bonus from CG2 then it changes to: 64%/11%/25%

In there at the moment, he has 4 muskets, with 2 more en route, 13 longbows and 2 spears, as well as 3 weak units, so 24 in total.

In summary, we would need A LOT of cavalry to take the city. I'd guess something like 35-40. In total, we currently have 27 strong mounted units - 8 Knights, 15 Cuirassiers and 4 Cavalry, but two of those are on the northern continent.

It will be 5-10 turns before we have another 15 Cavalry.

That said, we don't have to take the city, we could just clear off the strong units, then cover the injured horses with Rifles, but we're still accumulating those (16 at the moment, but a few up north).

And we would be on flatland with 40 mounted units and 20-odd catapults waiting to attack us.

Tech plan & home defence

So, I'm in favour of burning through Chemistry (2t) and Liberalism (1-2t), picking up Steel, and landing on the hill tile as we have planned, after upgrading some Catapults to Cannons. In order to speed our attack, we could still carry out a revolt so we don't spend any time knocking down the defences.

The only difficulty with this plan is that we need to keep Speed Limit suitably well defended against 40+ mounted units, including some Knights.

Rambling on some more, based on the multi-attacked calculator, it would take about 4 Flanking II Knights to take down each Rifle in Speed Limit. Ditto for HAs vs Muskets. And about 6-7 HAs to take down a Rifle.

[spacemanmf]

I ignored the Flanking promotions in the above because I thought it would mean fewer kills, despite probably leaving us with fewer losses.

However, because Cavalry already start with a 30% withdraw chance, they get up to a 75% chance, so it's worth a look.

So, FII Cav vs GII Longbow: 43%/42%/14%
and FII Cav vs GII Musket: 27%/55%/18%

[novice]

Cannons it is.

[spacemanmf]

Cannons it is.

Some much needed brevity. =)

[novice]

Got it.

[novice]

Cannons it is.

Or maybe not. Ad Hoc lost 4 cities this turn, but who cares about that. Here are two interesting screenshots from ending turn 171:



Our spies are in position to revolt Britannia, and we have located Krill's main stacks. And we got our second great artist from Pocket Bullets this turn. That opens up the possibility of an attack plan so crazy we might just have to do it for the laugh. Next turn we stage our one-movers in Speed Limit and our mounted units a tile behind. We run some more EPs on Krill and upgrade some mounted units. The turn after we drop a double culture bomb in Speed Limit and gain control of the tile 1NE of Britannia. Our spy drops the defenses to zero, and our one-movers take the city. Then our cavalry storms in and obliterates Krill's HA stack. He'll still have his catapults, but they can't kill anything on their own.



Also, we've built culture in ReRaise and can see that Uruk is founded on the iron hill and is defended by two guerilla II longbows. Krill has also shipped over a CGIII mobility Musketman led by his great general. Our caravel sunk his return ride, though.

[spacemanmf]

Our spies are in position to revolt Britannia, and we have located Krill's main stacks. And we got our second great artist from Pocket Bullets this turn. That opens up the possibility of an attack plan so crazy we might just have to do it for the laugh. Next turn we stage our one-movers in Speed Limit and our mounted units a tile behind. We run some more EPs on Krill and upgrade some mounted units. The turn after we drop a double culture bomb in Speed Limit and gain control of the tile 1NE of Britannia. Our spy drops the defenses to zero, and our one-movers take the city. Then our cavalry storms in and obliterates Krill's HA stack. He'll still have his catapults, but they can't kill anything on their own.

We've just been discussing this - all very exciting if it comes off. We'll need to shell a fair few catapults in suicide attacks before we move our gunpowder units in. We might then have 35-40 units attacking 25-30 in Britannia, and maybe 25 mounted trying for Krill's mounted stack (40 units and counting).

Hence novice suggested putting some rifles 1SW of Speed Limit to help take out the mounted units. Because otherwise he sends in 20-odd cats, then the mounted units, and he takes the city back. That would cost him a fair bit, though, so maybe he would hold off. Who knows what else he has up his sleeve.