Spiritual Industries by Mackoti

[Qgqqqqq]

Sounds interesting!
Do you rate your position ahead or behind thestick?
Do you intend to press on vs. nakor or wait for advanced troops/abando the war?
Are you attacking thestlick?
I would't tell from your post.

[SevenSpirits]

Do you rate your position ahead or behind thestick?

[NobleHelium]

Interesting. How did you realize that he's Carthage in the end? Check the setup posts?

[SevenSpirits]

Interesting. How did you realize that he's Carthage in the end? Check the setup posts?

Yup.

Here are some pictures I have lying around. Pretty self-explanatory I guess?






Real report on the way. Any requests?

[Commodore]

So did you also check around for odeons and get weird-ed out by the Ziggurats?

[SevenSpirits]

No, I was dedlurking here early and even had input into leader and civ picking. So that just seemed like the way it was.

[SevenSpirits]

Part 1 of: t119-121 - The war with thestick

(Some but not all of these screenshots were taken today from old saves.)

As mentioned, I decided to research military tradition. This was finished t115, and some cuirassiers were finished that turn. I decided to give these new units up through t118 to reach the staging point, which was 2t of travel time from the eastern cities and 1 from some closer ones. So I had 2-3 turns in which to build units. I additionally scavenged all the knights I could from the Nakor invasion (leaving enough to capture Krondor in 1t), and upgraded I think 9 of them to cuirassiers on t118 - all those that had a spare fraction of a movement point.

t119 was the first turn after my golden age, and also my first turn after thestick's golden age was over. In other words, I gave him the opportunity to not switch into was civics right before I attacked him. Unfortunately, when I opened the t119 save, I saw he had switched to both nationhood and theocracy, in addition to staying in slavery. But the good news was that he didn't 1t Rifling, and in fact was still listed as having 2t left on it! So here we go:



As you can see from my signs, thestick had the plurality (if not the majority) of his standing army stationed in Hi'iaka. My plan was to cut this army off from the rest of his cities and move my cuirassier stack deep into his territory, to threaten his capital and then fork his two northern cities.

Here are the graphs from that turn, where you can see how much of a farmer's gambit thestick has been running (though keep in mind that this isn't counting power that thestick gained on his most recent turn, which was his first turn of nationhood). This is a major reason why he needed to be attacked.



One turn later, the situation is thus. thestick still lacks Rifling which is great news. Notably, he moved most of the garrison of Charon towards his capital to reinforce, leaving just 2 axes and a spear behind. I don't blame him, but I think it means Charon is going to fall very easily. I've set up 6 cuirassiers to be able to attack it next turn from the fog, with the help of a roading worker. (Roads are just 1t due to Hagia Sofia.)



Turn after that, t121. He finally has Rifling and he's reinforced his capital more than necessary. I mostly expected this, and the next plan is to move 2N, threatening both Nix and Charon, neither of which can be reinforced by the units in his capital. Of course, now that Charon was mostly emptied, it will probably fall already anyway. But I suppose that means the cuirassiers will be able to either attack Nix or defend Charon, which is also useful given how many troops he's gained.



After moving a sentry up:



Nix has Rifle + warrior, and Charon has just the 3 ancient units and a new Rifleman (plus two workers and a galley).

Meanwhile, I do have some units besieging the city on the border, Hi'iaka, but it's been an afterthought, and is being attacked by the units that were too late or too slow to participate in the main invasion.

So what happens next?

[SevenSpirits]

part 2 - battle of Charon

In which I think I may have been a lucksack, slightly. (In terms of combat outcomes, though probably not in terms of strategic outcomes.)

Wait, what is that at the end?! This city has the Colossus! But it isn't visible on the map... weird...

But yeah, this changed things. After a much poorer showing by my troops attacking Hi'iaka, thestick got this offer:



My reasoning is thus:

1) I was hoping to get 2-3 cities from this war. I only got 2 (and didn't raze a third), but the whole invisible Colossus which I now own quite makes up for that.
2) Due to the aforementioned Colossus capture, which btw is in a flatland city adjacent to stick's culture and has 9 revolt turns to work through, 10t of enforced peace may actually be pretty nice.
3) Stick's army in his capital may not be able to reinforce his other cities, but it's dangerously close to being able to engage my cuirassier force in the open field. If I continue the war, he may feel the need to do this.
4) My first-wave attack on Hi'iaka was understaffed and also got some bad combat rolls. I think I would capture it, but it could be very bloody.
5) It's the perfect time since I have a clear and unstoppable threat against an important city of his (which has Moai Statues in it), but probably only have one turn in which the threat is active before I have to execute on it and cause some quite negative-sum results for us as a whole.

In fact a limited war like this, where I grabbed just Hi'iaka and inflicted some pain upon him over just a few turns of war before making peace, was how I envisioned it in the first place. I wanted to throw a wrench into his economy and force some military builds, plus grab a border city or two before he gets Rifles out, before turning around and finishing off Nakor with my army. So, I think this deal is a bit in his favor, but I am happy with it. He's clearly behind me at this point.

Now remember when I mentioned I had some good combat luck at Charon that was probably bad luck strategically? Well, potentially, if I hadn't conquered Charon, I could have asked for both Charon and Hi'iaka for peace, as Charon wasn't exactly reinforceable either. In fact, I would have done this in the first place if the colossus graphic hadn't bugged out and decided not to show itself in this game. Then I wouldn't have to sit through 9 revolt turns in Charon while the peace treaty runs out. And I'd probably be able to get cultural control of my first ring (which there is no hope of now, because Charon's original tile culture is still there). I don't know for sure if thestick would have accepted this offer, but I think he would have.

Oh yeah, stick accepted the offer I gave him. So we are currently at peace, while I try to wail on Nakor a bit more, tech up to Rifling myself, and...

Question for lurkers, what do you think the plan is for the coming turns? (Given I'm already several turns past this, don't worry about affecting my decision.) What do you think I am focusing on now (other than reaching Rifling, which is a couple turns out even with my bad tech rate), and what are my short-term goals?

[NobleHelium]

Well it's hard to say because I don't remember / know much of what happened before you took over. But you might aim for a Golden Age to swap into Nationhood to draft some rifles before the peace treaty is up. But I don't know how feasible getting a GA in time would be. Or you might even already be in Nationhood, I have no clue.

[NobleHelium]

Oh wait, you're Spritual. LOL. Shows how much I've remembered from this game.