[Spoilers] - dtay in pb27

[dtay]

Fireworks - declared on Ichabod

4 cities taken (3 razed) on the first turn


Galleons got these two from the back



Took this before the borders popped



Hit this with a knight, forking more cities for next turn



Lined up to take these two next turn



And continue to the rest of the core



I think this is a low expected value, but high upside play. Which is the sort of thing you need when you're in 3rd/4th but fading.

I am near certain to substantially injure Ichabod.

The question is whether I can actually gain things and/or not get equally hurt by a giant Ichabod knight stack. Right now all of his core, and even former Molach-land, are essentially undefended. He has what must be a giant stack of knights down fighting Adrien. My hopes is that stack is not easily extracted, but in any case I have 2-3 turns to burn as much as I can and take a few key cities I think I can defend. The goal here is to grab stuff in the far north / close to my borders in the first hit, raze the next layer / whatever I can get to, essentially rendering Ichabod a defunct civilization with a large stack of knights. Then in the second wave leverage nationhood (Golden age in 8 turns) and my superior production (I'm meaninfully better at mfg than him now, and it's gonna get worse as his core falls) to take the rest.

That can go wrong in tons of ways, but I don't think I was ever going to see an opportunity like this again (Ichabod is SERIOUSLY undefended atm). But if the above plan stalls, I for some reason doubt doubt Ichabod will be excessively willing to take an interim white peace...

[BRickAstley]

[dtay]

Blood for the blood god...

Additional note - so the turn order is really weird. I wanted to go before ichabod this turn, but I realized despite him ending turn after me last turn we actually had overlapping turns with multiple logins. So I waited until after him here to avoid the risk of a double move, but now we have a 3-way turn split.

Bleh.

Should be fine with 48 hour turns, but unideal.

[dtay]

Well, Ichabod taking a while to play, but don't really blame him. Def just derailed what was an outside shot to win. (Or the somewhat late turn is a coincidence).

I think an Ichabod morale collapse (should it exist) is a net positive. I don't think there's really any way he can sacrifice his own interest to hurt me, because his own interest already is basically "hurt me as much as possible so I go away" at this point. There isn't really a second opponent he can decline to defend against, since Adrien will presumably still be too busy with Barteq to push advantage. So the outside shot of some sloppy/lazy play means it would probably be neutral to good.

Then again, the fact that "is own interest already is basically hurt me as much as possible so I go away" is not the best diplomatic starting point for me...

[dtay]

Took the two Core front cities, and razed the two in former Molach-land

The blitz on the core. I should raze/take 2 more cities up here next turn



Its cut off a bit tot he north, but should raze/take 2 more cities here



The lay of the land



I hope this is all of Ichabod's army, but I doubt it, there must be more in the fog in the north to explain his power level (this only visible after turn roll when I got city visibility)

[dtay]

Worth noting, I got lucky on the fights this turn. I won two 30% fights against longbowmen up in the core, and somewhat more than my fair share of fights where I had odds. Given how this blitz is playing out, that luck might be worth a whole layer of cities.

This game has been pretty good to me in combat odds. Nothing insanely unlikely, but just very consistently giving me my 75th-80th percentile best result (beginning of AT war was similar).

[spacetyrantxenu]

It's better to be lucky and good.

[dtay]

Don't see em



Don't see em



Don't see em



Ahh here they are



30 knights. And 10 more down south. Joy. I'm really just going to have to burn everything and resettle aren't I.

Hit more cities, burning all 4. Ichabod's divided empire:



I really hope Adrien kills off the 10 before they escape, it'll be way easier on the both of us rather than fighting them when they can move 6 spaces. I sent him a message (iron+horse+10gold) trying to ask him to, but who knows how he'll interpret that. (Possibilities: "Alliance for 10 turns", "Please give me 10 knights", "I'm attacking in Borsche in 10 turns"). The perils and amusements of ai diplomacy.

Combination of burnt Ichabod cities and all the colonizing, I'm getting a whole lot more use out of Imp than normal lol

[dtay]

High overview shot (notice the new city on the isthmus between the Ichabod's territories)



THat's the basic plan from here on out. As long as I'm not very unlucky over the next three turns, Ichabod's knights shouldn't be able to do anything too damaging, and by then production + drafting means a slowly building avalanche of units he can't overwhelm. Slowly building out new border cities that are inefficient for him to take + using two movers to switch between which territory I threaten is the name of the rest of this war, at least until the final push where I probably have to make a giant stack and let it get hit by 30 knights before siege-ing down presumably the capital.

His knight stack is sitting here btw:

[dtay]

Now that I'm back reporting for the moment - any particular questions / thoughts people want out of me?