[PB37 SPOILER] Coeurva, Bacchus -- Cyrus of Carthage

[Coeurva]

Thinking about our mid-term plans some more.

After AH, our tech path is going to be either of these (with accompanying rough development plans for "the south", which means Vermin + Lifeblood, assisted by Rhapsody):

a) Sailing -> Alpha -> Currency. ("Mass chariots now, infra from ~T80")
b) Archery -> Horseback Riding. ("Infra + spears + 1-2 chariots now; mass horchers from ~T80")

There's a case to be made for b). Unless CML techs HBR himself in roughly the same time-span (in which case he'll lack Writing until ~T80, since he didn't have AH on T58 -- or made a huge mistake whipping an axe rather than a chariot, but that's unlikely), he can field no counter to 4XP CHM Numidian Cavalry at all; even spears get less-than-50% odds on the attack vs. C1 + Shock NumCav. The trouble is that this path could lead us into an economic rabbit hole, and we'll have to figure out a different location for X8, since galleys will not be available. (Probably the "a" site on the southern coast from earlier, west or east.)

I do think we can outproduce CML's possible output on horse archers, though. He simply won't have as many build queues, and whatever he plants over the next 20t might not be able to compete with our southern cities, even when assisted by Cahokia + Utica (Stonehenge city). Even if he builds horchers everywhere, he might achieve unit parity for a while, but he'll fall behind on his economy.

Problem is that we're not playing a duel with CML. Savant might attack at any point; or other players might just get more from peaceful expansion than we can obtain from wrestling with CML.

In any case, we might be able to see CML's research some 15t down the road. If it's HBR, we'll change the south to build lots of spears and use the saved gold for economic techs. If it's economic techs, I think we might be well-served to try the opposite.

if we go with plan a), we can probably reach Currency before T100. HBR time would most likely come afterwards. Are massed horse archers still useful on ~T125? (EDIT: Probably very yes, judging by PB27)

Whatever we do, CML probably won't give us peace until we can actually threaten him again. I'm not sure how we can best achieve that, but I'm quite sure that we have to do it soon -- using the north as our economic base -- or he'll just try to chip away at us and force us into weirdly indecisive builds in the south. He's suffered a set-back, but he's still playing, and the map kind of gives him cornered-animal syndrome by default.

Final note: I think we should be retreating Ari (sentry warrior) from the Savant border, because there's currently a tile in the fog (4 of lake) onto which Savant could trickle units and strike at Ignis within 2t (chariots) or 3t (axes), and I prefer watching over that tile to peeking inside Harmondale now and then (still 1 warrior). Once Ignis pops borders (T73), we'll have permanent vision on that tile.

Perhaps Savant will also see this as a declaration of peaceful intent. There's a worker en route towards the corn, which Sorpigal will soon claim with culture; he's unescorted; we're not taking this one under any circumstances, that would be foolish politically; but we'll stay next to the corn naturally while retreating Ari, so we'll gauge Savant's reaction along the way. If he doesn't cover the worker, he'll see us striding right past the "opportunity".

[Coeurva]

It seems that Savant sees fit to keep a turn-split with us. I've only noticed just now, but at least since T60, his team logs in both before and after us, but doesn't finish the turn before we do. Hm.

I logged in to take a look (keeping my hands off everything else). He... seems to be moving a C1 spearman into Sorpigal via his road; no declaration or anything. Alright. Maybe he thought we were forcing him into a split with our own movement, and wanted to allow us to move the warrior first? Nonetheless, I'll be wary.

I like that spear; it signals a defensive approach towards us. (Savant doesn't seem to have that many units yet, either.) He should know that we have mostly axes running around (although our 12,000 spike could also be 3 chariots, I guess), so the spear would see little use in taking Ignis, when he could have produced a chariot or axe instead. It also doesn't counter anything we have, but he seems to be cautious about a chariot attack from us. Reasonable caution on his part; but of course, that's not what we're interested in at all.

I thought about sending a PM to Savant asking whether there's an established turn-split, but thought better of it. We'll know next turn, anyway, and there's no reason for us to bother each other with what's essentially diplomacy.

Now that I've said all this, he'll obviously double-move us on T62 with a spear rush and two chariots from the fog.

EDIT: By the way, I keep saying I want to report less and then write 1000 words anyway, because otherwise I'd know it to be incomplete, and I couldn't leave it incomplete. Screw that noise, really.

[Bacchus]

When we already have the largest numbers of cities, and commerce problems, aiming at expansion via conqest seems at best questionable. Military is a way out when there is no other way out, or when you have a major advantage, which is not yet the case vis-a-vis CML. Good to try and make a case for b) though, just so that you are comfortable that you are not blinkered (should be a Shakespearean word here, I'm sure he's got something awesome for it, too bad I'm a Philistine).

I'm not sure what you want to get out of CML in terms of "peace". Peace is not enforced, except at the end of the war, CML will always be a threat and will always force us to keep a garrison. The garrison should be big enough to avoid being forced into "indecisive builds", but probably no bigger. If you need to actually burn something down there, that's more of a problem, but what would that be?

[Coeurva]

I see your point, but I'm assuming that any mixed stack of mostly axes + chariots that CML produces (and what else will he do now?) might be difficult to dislodge even if it moves slowly, can't be reinforced, and can't take any cities from reasonably-mixed axes + spears (mostly axes).

Controlling that southern chokepoint in the "neutral lands" gives us a large advantage. In particular, there's a grass forest hill, on which we currently have an axe (3.6/5), that blocks off the entire approach towards Lifeblood. Fortifying some axes/spears on that tile means that CML cannot use this passage without disproportionate losses (so the garrisoned force could deal with the rest), while threatening any possible city that he could found in our direction.

Regarding your question: That would be resettled Cincinnati; CML roading the forest even before chopping it clearly means that he'll send something our way, either a settler or units, most likely both. By virtue of its position alone, Cinc takes pressure off his capital. -- If we can build sufficient forces to prevent the resettlement of that city -- or to raze the city again, or to force him to tie up units inside while denying food -- we'll also be keeping his capital under threat, as our twin cities can outproduce it; and every such turn makes him lose in the long run.

Basically, the rationale is that if we need to invest into units for defense, we might as well make those units defend aggressively. Well, I do mean it; that grass forest hill is actually more defensible than a city on flatland. The only problem is unit maintenance outside of our culture.

We won't build a dozen chariots (maybe) but let's still build about 3-4 of those by T80, simply because they have "no counter" because building spears also makes CML lose, as long as they don't actually engage the chariots.

Besides that, we'll add roughly 2 spears and 3-4 axes (even when not whipping, size4 Vermin will 4-turn them anyway) to those axes we already have. Of course, I reserve my right to double down on these numbers if CML spikes, and change them depending on what he's going to show.

Plan a) it is now, though.

One reason for peace with CML might be that if we both keep reinforcing our army, but dtay doesn't, CML might see his best chance in attacking dtay. Probably being a bit too hopeful here, though.

[Bacchus]

Oh yeah, if we can push to keep that region unsettled, that would be good. In fairness, I don't see why he would risk sending a new settler there, knowing how hot that area it is.

[Coeurva]

T62.

Domestic news: we connected rice at Lifeblood. The city grows to 29/24f, which is ideal, because adding the plains silver as its third tile (mine finishes T64, thanks to the seized worker) makes its surplus +7, so it hits size4 on T66. Other than that, nothing much is happening within the realm.



The tile named "Post" is the grass forest hill I've been writing essays about, as an important post for aggressive defense. I've also rerouted both axes near the capital towards Shag Vermin. That means we'll only have one axe inside Ignis (plus Ari the warrior) for a while, but with all these forest chops we should be able to manage an emergency there. Besides, we will now have a 4XP axe (promoted to C1 for healing to kill the 3rd barb warrior; second promo can be saved until necessary, though), and I doubt CML has barracks anywhere, so at least one unit of ours can actually get good odds attacking any of his.

CML's other axe that we've spotted on T59 is marching straight towards us. It's not all that menacing; our axe (3.6 str => 72 HP) will heal on the interturn (by which amount, actually?), gains 5% from fortifying, and 75% from terrain defense. I think his axe gets something like 10% odds here. He can add two warriors to his attack, but even then I'm not sure he can wrestle the hill from us this turn.

We might need to retreat onto the Homogenic tile (it's a joke) if his second axe joins in, though -- inconvenient, since we lose pressure onto the ruins hill, but at least that's still a good defensive position, and he'll tie up his axes outside a city. Unless he founds Post. In which case...

...but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Savant has double-whipped something (settler?) in his capital.

News from beyond the known world: I think Ventessel and Krill are locked in a turn-split; in any case, Ventessel is whipping quite heavily. I keep confusing him with JR4 and think he's the guy with Buddhism; no idea why.

We're still #2 in soldiers, at 59,000; CY is 62 (#2), MFG 27 (#2), GNP now 36 (#4), etc. -- nothing much has changed... except that #1 soldiers now has 77,000 power. Think that might be Krill; from your theory, he borders Ventessel. Kind of hope it's not Krill, though. -- In the graphs, CML is actually starting to fall behind both us and Savant quite noticeably. We have a smaller lead over Savant in Crop Yield; maybe 10 fpt?

Soon, we'll need to start watching out for naval attacks from Savant on our north-western cities; there's currently nothing inside Sicil or Whitehall. I think Sicil can cover unit production just fine, though.

[Coeurva]

I'm quite sure our score will continue to look rather bad in comparison, by the way, because we're whipping two workers on T63 and then the settler on T64 (whip off the plains cow; we're effectively trading 3t of working 0/6/1 against 1t of working 0/30/0, while even gaining some food (+5 surplus); unhappiness shouldn't be a problem).

dtay's score has jumped to 128, apparently having founded two cities simultaneously on T61. Flattering, but I'm thinking that he'll use knowledge of our war against CML to expand peacefully on a demilitarized border. In that case, indeed, screw CivStats right in the ear. In any case, that indicates he's not nearly as behind as we had thought.

I'm starting to doubt the importance of score in the early game, particularly since it decreases when you whip, as though the pop simply vanished rather than being converted into resources. If it counted total pop acquired over the course of the game, it would be much less misleading.

Savant is almost definitely observing a turn-split with someone (didn't end turn again). I'm still thinking it's us, but then he played before us on the last turn. Maybe it's due to Ari still being near his worker; maybe it's due to chariots on that blasted plains tile. (See p.23, first post, for a good overview of the land between Harmondale and Ignis. The plains can be reached within 2t from Harmondale, and chariots could strike at Ignis within 2t by moving 13 -- with only that one turn of warning.) We can get Ari into Ignis before he can strike due to turn order, and I think we could also get a spear via whip + chop, but it would be somewhat disrupting. In any case, we'll see that tile via Ari's movement on the current turn (can't do that before CML has played, though).

[Bacchus]

Well, in the early game pop should be being converted into cities and improvements, I.e. more pop. But you are right that score is a pretty lousy metric of success, it's at best one indicator to look at.

[Coeurva]

T63. Seems that CML wants to keep this game entertaining:


(Cropped because I'm not waiting half an hour for Imgur to upload a screenshot. Vermin is 888 of our warrior, for orientation. Lifeblood is 8888 of the axe, I think.)

He has four axes and two warriors in the area, heading towards us. This is probably his entire army, barring minimal garrisons. Indeed, he might even be running the goddamn espionage slider, because his EP ratio with us is 127/144, and I think it was 122/140 on the last turn.

I can't say if we're actually witnessing full tilt and he'd rather gift cities to dtay at this point than stop building units against us (I'm expecting chariots to show up in the wake of this axe wave; we already have hammers invested in spears for potential counter-whipping, due to putting 1t into warriors earlier), or whether he's assuming rationally that he might capture our cities by overwhelming force, if not by surprise (we did the opposite). In any case, we're going to have four axes in the area before any of his arrive. You know how I said we'll outproduce him with our southern cities? Well, time to put that to the test, show him what we've got, and all that... ...Or he'll show us!

In turn, I remember your plan: let him come at us. He'll find it very hard to dislodge our axe on Post (and would lose time moving towards it), so that guy stays in place until the situation changes. If he takes down two axes and dies, we've gotten everything we need out of him; if CML ignores him, he has to take the longer road along the southern coast.

I'm also retreating our warrior to bait his axes into following him towards Vermin, where we might already have a chariot by the time he arrives. Depends on where horses will show up. If not, we'll at least have a few axes, one of them with C1 + Shock.

Rhapsody will build the next settler instead (6t). Vermin grows, then whips barracks (for more tiles, for cultural defense, and to build units with odds on CML's). The scout boat at Lifeblood will have to be postponed in favour of military.

If he actually wants to escalate this to total war, I'm absolutely open to considering HBR + Archery as the next techs once again (HBR first for whipping stables). Even if he manages to turtle up against Shock-promoted Num Cav, he'll have no units to hit the stack with before Construction; any sizable force should be able to pillage his land. They're almost like 2-moving RtR war elephants.

I wonder if he has AH by now... Probably going to be his next tech otherwise. He might be at 0% research right now, I'm not sure -- Rival Best GNP dropped to 60 40.

Savant shows a ridiculous spike in MFG (looks like ~12 hpt); on par with ours now. His CY (a category where we pulled a similar trick on him, but not as impressively) is a notch below ours, but he also has fewer cities. CML's MFG has also gone up, while his CY is going further down.

(psst, dtay, this is your chance to take henge and two cities for yourself... wonder if he has visibility here?)

EDIT: Ere I forget, Savant does not have anything on that plains tile I was fretting about. So probably no chariot strike at Ignis for the next few turns.

But he's keeping a turn split, no question about it, with us going first. I have no idea what he's planning, but Sicil will produce a spear for Ignis, starting right now. Savant might not have entirely peaceful intentions. I'm starting to feel your hate for CivStats; he didn't need to move a single unit towards us all game -- or make contact with CML at all -- to know that we're occupied on the other side of our empire, and potentially plot to exploit it. The saving grace of balance is that dtay should know this as well...

[Bacchus]

Ermmm... okay? And there is no spear to go along with these? I wonder if our tech path was transparent enough to show lack of horses till now, but still, he knows we can research AH very quickly.

Maybe he just really wants to plant that city and keep it. Kinda good for him, but you are right that's potentially it's even better for Dtay.

EDIT: Don't forget that hammers invested in units start decaying after some point (15 turns?).