[Spoilers] Bacchus debuts on RB showing unmatched vision and slick dice-rolling

[Bacchus]

Commodore built the Gardens, and Collosus I think was built by mostly_harmless of Sumeria, who is sort of hanging around the bottom of the board, and might have made the same gamble that I did. I only see a tile of his culture from Plako's explorations, but it looks like he is a bit isolated and maybe on islands. In any case, good for him. For recompense -- we have gold and gems, so forges are nice in any case. Next order of business — probably Numidian Cavalry army.

[Bacchus]

Scooter popped circumnav (4-move galleys, yay) and we traded maps. I'm not really sure what to say, it's pretty insane. Fintourist has double silver in his capital, I hope to hell these are in-game pops, for all the difference it makes. Generally, the continent nextdoor, peopled by Dtay, Suttree, Fintourist, Mostly_harmless and Yurimack is ridiculously endowed with land. M_H, who built the Colossus, has around half of his cities inland, so I have little idea of what his plan was.

Plako, Ichabod, Lewwyn and Scoopin all look like good candidates to win this, albeit FIntourist has so much expansion space that I wouldn't be surprised if he did. Mostly, it will be down to politics -- Scoopin and Lewwyn as well as Plako and Ichabod are paired quite snugly to skirmish with each other. Dtay, who is the only one remaining in the fog for me, is a bit of an unknown on all fronts. He also appears to have awesome expansion space.

Otherwise, I'm a bit too demoralized for an update. Plus, not much to update -- I'm falling behind on GNP due to lack of Currency and no Colossus to make up for it, but I'm higher than average on CY. Retep is fighting William, I have to neighbour issue, so expansion is the topic of the day.

[Bacchus]

Fun just never ends:



At the sign there are 2 workers, a settler, a spear and an axe. Why? Because fuck you, that's why. Evidently, Dhalpir is going to try and settle 1NE of that sign, which might for some purposes be considered a fine position but here is the all-important context:



Now, Dhalpir knows I have a sentry in the area, so what exactly is he thinking my reaction willl be? He has no way to support a military effort all the way up here, and I'm just up building military. I will hit this city with five axes covered by a spear about 8-10 turns after it's founded. IF he was going to settle like this, he should have at least brought overwhelming numbers -- but of course he can't, as he needs the troops on plako's border. I also can't let this go as it will spoil my own dotmap quite a lot, I have a crucial commerce city there that I need to settle. In fact, I've just completed the settler for it, but he won't be able to get there in time by 1 turn.

Oh well, something to do at least.

[DMOC]

Wow, that settling stack is pretty close to your capital. Good luck on your future plans.

[Bacchus]

Yeah, and that's another reason why I can't allow settlement there, I would have no strategic depth to protect my core. I really, really don't get why Dhalpir thinks this is a good idea, or what exactly he imagines will come of it. Seriously, we have a fairly remote, spacious and undercontested area of the world here, there is absolutely no reason to press for conflict over this border — the ability to demilitarize a front is a significant and rare enough advantage in AI Diplo that pissing it away for a remote jungle-covered city defies belief.

[Bacchus]

So, William redeployed his forces a llil bit:



Looks like Dhalpir's annoyingly brazen plant will go unpunished. I can get four axes and two spears in the city if I whip down C of Conscience for 3 and a penalty for 0 hammers invested (the city has pre-built a spear, but stupidly no axe). That's still not really enough to hold it efficiently, so I will probably retreat and then take this army on in the field with slightly less painful whips.


The question is whether to take advantage of the fact he is briinging just a single spear and spam some chariots. Risky, he might well have a second one and then I will need 5 chariots just to clear the spears. So we'll probably stay with good old axes. Thanks for the outdated ancient-era arms race, neighbour!

[Bacchus]

Thankfully, I'lll have a 40% culture bonus in C of Conscience by the time he gets to it.

[Hashoosh]

If I was William, I'd hide a stack of chariots 1 tile E of the city, and then move them into the forest.

A road 1 tile S of the city would accomplish this nicely.

How many defenders can you get up there in 2T?

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Er, Hashoosh are you ded-lurking Bacchus?

[Ceiliazul]

Er, Hashoosh are you ded-lurking Bacchus?

He is definitely spoiled. Hashoosh, please report to the lurker thread.