[SPOILERS] Nakor and Jester..Second time's a charm :)

[CFCJesterFool]

Slowcheetah countered with an offer that doesn't help us so I declined. I'd assume that he knew we were at war with Gavagai (easy enough to deduce by looking at various information screens plus cities changing hands) so we wouldn't want to give up a happy resource. Worth a try though (and we have gold back online now anyway...but for how long?)


We have exactly 2 more whips (metal units) before the peace treaty expires. Good thing micro skill does translate well to MP. Except for the granary, every build in the queue is a 1-pop whip (so we can chain whip if necessary).


I should be able to hold off on the WC whip until the city grows to sz 3 and if I can wait until there is at least 10 OF, the archer will complete the turn after the whip. Need to really be efficient here since happiness is such a problem. Also, once the war resumes (and we lose the cottage and gold mine) we are going to have a hard time keeping positive gold per turn.


Perfect timing on the chops since we can 1t both the axe and spear. After the chops, the workers will get the sheep pastured so The Rock can be set to growth. Probably chop the other inner ring forest after the pasture and then improve the stone. I think we should be okay to risk getting the granary after the metal units complete (with the forest chop we could 1 pop whip it).


Don't think I'll whip here. The axe should complete before Gavagai could pillage the copper. Although the spear would be useful, I just don't think whipping our capitol now makes sense. Redemption is on a hill so a spear to defend the axe from chariots isn't strictly necessary. Chariots do tend to get lucky attacking archers on flat land so that is why our other cities do need a spear. WCs aren't terrible defenders vs opposing chariots (and we would have access to horses much longer than copper) and we really want a lot of archers defending our capitol anyway for the bonuses (70%).


The demos make me sad.

@ Nakor : Any comments on my reply to whether we should try a Zulu escape? (Another reason to not whip Redemption...it is the only city that could whip galleys.)

[Nakor]

The Zulu escape was more a joke, I think, but it might be an option if the demo's show that others really lack military.
I agree that we'll have to fight it out.
Do you see a way we can get our cities back at all?

[CFCJesterFool]

The Zulu escape was more a joke, I think, but it might be an option if the demo's show that others really lack military.
I agree that we'll have to fight it out.
Do you see a way we can get our cities back at all?

Right now, Gavagai only has two axes in the former city of Wall St. He does have spears but right now it appears like he is sending them to Waterdeep. We can hit Wall St. from within Moria using WCs so unless he puts a spear there after declaring, we can at least snipe the city back. Probably wouldn't be able to hold it without making ourselves vulnerable elsewhere but trading 1 WC for 2 axes (or maybe none if we could escape the following turn) does serve a purpose. We might even be able to sneak an archer into the city to at least make Gavagai waste forces to take it back.

I don't think we can get enough troops to take his stack out but then again, he really doesn't have enough troops to split his forces either. I would assume he would try and assault our northern cities since he would reason they are less well defended but that would actually give us more time to build units. So there are still possibilities to do damage (maybe even turn the tide if he makes a meaningful mistake) but it really depends on the positioning of his troops when he re-declares. Let's cross our fingers for good fortune.

Btw, we would want to position our forces next turn if we want to try and pressure Gavagai after he declares. I haven't decided if that is worth doing yet (main drawback is showing our hand) but maybe a feint towards Waterdeep (so that he leaves only the axes in Wall St.) might be useful. The only problem (with non WC units) is we would lose fortification bonus on any units we send. If you have the free time, probably a good idea to look over the live save. A fresh pair of eyes can only help.

Almost forgot. We also need to keep in mind Gavagai probably has more units hidden from our view (judging by the demos). Quite possible he is building up a secondary stack and keeping it hidden. Hopefully our hidden stack (units in the build queue) will be enough to offset whatever he has held back.

[Nakor]

Took a look in game.
Seems like you're doing the best we can do.
To bad there is so much whip anger.
Gavagai is moving more units forward, so I think we should hope to hit a stack on flat land when he declares.
So I think keeping our stack of WC hidden for now is a better option.
We need to eliminate units before being able to attack.

[CFCJesterFool]

Took a look in game.
Seems like you're doing the best we can do.
To bad there is so much whip anger.
Gavagai is moving more units forward, so I think we should hope to hit a stack on flat land when he declares.
So I think keeping our stack of WC hidden for now is a better option.
We need to eliminate units before being able to attack.

Just played the latest turn. Nothing worth posting pictures over but I did notice Gavagai is 1-turning Archery. He has a pretty good tech rate (it took us around 4-5 turns to research Archery). He also moved another chariot into Wall St. Looking over the save again, it just seems like we don't have enough units to attack with, so I agree with your conclusions entirely. We're still in damage control mode unfortunately.

On a positive note, it looks like settling the Rock turned out to be a pretty good move. We'll end up getting an axe and a spear out of the city before the war restarts (accounting for half of our troop production). We could also probably chop out several WCs before Gavagai could threaten the city. Without the production from The Rock, we'd be almost dead in the water as far as producing units. We also ended up keeping the trade route for the horses and silver which is pretty crucial (while allowing Rohan to get out some metal units). Gavagai would have left his chariot there to pillage the roads over and over again if we had not founded the city.

On a side note, I'll probably be all gloom and doom once we're back at war. At least for now, I'm trying to keep a positive mind set.

[suttree]

[CFCJesterFool]

We are adding in another 14K soldier points EOT. Decided to put the OF from the spear whip into the granary for Rohan (gives us more options which I'll explain later in the post). We still have the 1 pop whip of a WC and an archer still on the queue. If possible, I'd like to put at least one chop into the granary for The Rock. All five of our workers are here so we can chop/or improve tiles quickly depending on what Gavagai does in his half of the turn. I decided to run 2 scientists in Redemption since I think we want to at least try and research Sailing plus a 2 pop whip (of an archer, the axe will finish with 0 OF) is really much better for us happiness wise than a 1 pop whip.


Not sure anymore (btw, always love when players post these kind of screenshots, my turn to return the favor ) whether Gavagai plans on re-declaring right away. It's still possible he has mass whips completing in his half of the turn but the forces that we can see really aren't enough to war efficiently. It's not like before where his chariots were eating our axes for lunch. The fact he researched Archery (and really hasn't added much military) leads me to believe he is going to tech up (Construction would be the smart play) and just defend his gains while doing so before finishing us off later with a tech edge.

If I am right in how I am reading the situation then we desperately need to get research going again. Sailing becomes a must so we can settle an island to boost our income plus higher pop is needed to support the huge military we have. Also, building the Mids would be beneficial as well once we hook up stone (possibility we could be building it for Gavagai but we need to tech somehow and getting cottages going will take time). Although vulnerable, might even be worth settling the filler city out east to claim the fish and corn once we can stabilize our economy. If I am wrong then let the bloodletting begin. The demos...


Can't believe we are sixth in land. Seems like some of our opponents didn't have good land to expand to (or have a lot of water tiles). Probably not possible to salvage this game. If we get a short term break (i.e. Gavagai doesn't re-declare for another 10-20 turns) then we have a small chance to get out of the cellar of the demos screen. Finding some more good islands to settle will help (besides the clam spot which we definitely want to settle). I guess we'll find out our future next turn.

[CFCJesterFool]

The race to Construction begins...


Gavagai is mainly building spears as far as I can tell. The fact he is researching Masonry slowly (1 turning Archery says it all) means he is running scientists (to bulb Math no doubt while saving gold). He already got a GProphet so his GScientist will be due in ~10-15t (although not sure exactly when he started the process). I am assuming he will turn research back on the moment he bulbs Math.

We are not burning gold to research Sailing (like the picture shows) but I did want to see how long we needed for Construction ourselves (12t). We do need Sailing though (so still putting Scientist beakers into it). The plan is hammers, commerce and keep running scientists. Also, we have stone hooked up next turn FWIW.

The Rock needs the granary first then we'll give the Mids a shot unless our power situation looks unfavorable. Failgold in our situation would be a godsend (quicker Construction). We need to keep up on unit production so Moria is set to a hammer configuration and still building units. Redemption is going to try and finish the spear in the queue and will be set up for max hammers/commerce next turn (while still running scientists) since it will be at happy cap. I might also risk another axe out of Redemption, otherwise archers will be built instead. Rohan needs to finish its granary before going back into unit production mode.

I am going to hold off on whips and try and maximize population. If a city can grow (i.e. won't add unhappy citizens which would cost us maintenance) then I'll grow it, otherwise max hammers and commerce.

TL;DR Gavagai didn't re-declare war.

[Nakor]

As long as we're at peace, Granaries are the way to go, I think.
Let's leave the whip for now, we have a lot of unhappiness.

If you think going for Mids is an option, feel free to do so. I do think we could use those forests for Catapults, though.
If you read things correctly, we can get to Construction way before Gavagai, so let's do that!
Get some Cats and try to take our cities back....

[CFCJesterFool]

As long as we're at peace, Granaries are the way to go, I think.
Let's leave the whip for now, we have a lot of unhappiness.

If you think going for Mids is an option, feel free to do so. I do think we could use those forests for Catapults, though.
If you read things correctly, we can get to Construction way before Gavagai, so let's do that!
Get some Cats and try to take our cities back....

Yeah, better to save the forests for military units. I hope we can get to Construction first. In 2t, Rohan will be able to work the silver and I'll probably switch research to Construction at that time.