Gavagai comes back to his roots

[Gavagai]

Wait, I have taken another look at the first screenshot and realized something. Donovan's only approach to my jungle stack is through the tile 2N from his stack and this tile is not roaded. Now, he captured 2 workers from me, so I assumed that he can road it any time he wants. But - I can now only see one worker in the area. No idea where another one has gone. It is very possible that analysis of this position was entirely futile

[Gavagai]

Donovan is running circles around Kyros. I have set up a thin cordon along the defensive terrain in front of it in the hopes of baiting him into attacking it with Longbows so that they will not be used to cover his main stack. I have 3 Swords and a Chariot on my EI to reinforce. Not ideal units in that situation but better than nothing.
Donovan also has a Sword in Adventure (not seen on the screenshot). However, he moved his second catapult somewhere out of sight. The only logical place for it to go it towards my southern city (no movements on that front since my last report). But this is weird. Has he given up on Kyros? Why? He obviously does not have enough units here but his main army should be somewhere close or I do not understand this war.



Observe that all the sea tiles are not lighthoused. It means that Donovan's capital is 1SE 1S from the plains hill and a naval approach to it is blocked by landmass. Not good. I will have to land my stack and he will have an additional turn to whip/upgrade/reinforce (2 turns if he has Optics). Well, this is why I have brought siege units.

[Gavagai]

Donovan's capital. He conveniently placed a fort just where I unloaded my units. Note the lack of cottages (the tile 1N from the capital is not improved at all), he is very reliant on his Colossus for research. It's OK, but what he was going to do after Astro?
He has something like 102 gold and Archer -> LB upgrade costs 95. So, he has just barely enough money to upgrade this CG3 archer. On top of that, he can dry-whip another LB. And also he can have units in this galley. The battle will be bloody.



He also attacked in the south. Traded Longbow for Longbow to get to this hill. I attacked out.



Killed this damned catapult, an HA and the W3 Axe. Lost a Chariot, a Sword, and an Axe. A worthwhile exchange, I think.



One of the weirdest CITY_ATTACK parties I've ever seen. But it should be enough, I have only a chariot and an Axe in the city. I am trying to evacuate workers.

[Gavagai]

A question to lurkers. Does anyone know what would happen if walls get built in a city which culture defenses are bombarded to zero? What kind of defensive bonus will the city get?

[Old Harry]

I'm fairly sure you get nothing until the culture defences gradually recover.

[Gavagai]

I'm fairly sure you get nothing until the culture defences gradually recover.

Thanks!

[Gavagai]

Donovan's capital at the start of the turn. LOL at anti-siege promo on the Sword.



The situation after I played. I bombarded with the first Treb because I was afraid that top LB will survive unharmed with such a huge defensive bonus. After that I was really lucky with dice rolls, only lost a Treb and two Swords. Next turn I will need to decide, whether I want to press south towards Packman or pick up some units from here to relieve the pressure on the southern front.



This second option is a consideration because the situation in the south is very bad. I made a mistake last turn. I could have attacked his Sword with Longbow at 30% odds but declined to take it and move the Longbow inside the city instead. I should have attacked. With CR3 Krill's Swords break the conventional wisdom that LBs should not attack out of the cities - unpromoted LBs, at least. When the Sword attacked, it actually had better chances and won easily. After that he attacked with his CR2 Axe into a wounded Crossbow and won at 30% odds. And that was really bad because now his Axe should be able to take CR3 and attack again. This turn he will be able to attack with 4 good units into my 3 good units and all battles will be around 50% or slightly in his favor. Very dicey battle, I can lose the city. Next turn I will bring a Longbow and an HA here but if he has reinforcements of his own and is really lucky with his previous attack, it may not be enough.



This is happening in the south. He had a C1 chariot in this stack but did not attack with it, even though he had favourable odds. I attacked out with my Axe and killed it. I also have a chariot in the city but I am going to move it away now.



Power. Naufrgar is not building units. It looks like he is going to make yet another mistake by failing to attack BGN.

[Gavagai]

Some general observations.

1) This game demonstrates why Krill's latest modifications to naval combat is a step in the right direction. On this map bulbing towards Astro is literally the only right way to play. Everyone who did not do that is fucked. Cairo is an exception due to geopolitical luck only. But he also is in an awkward position because he will now have to take Astro from Liberalism. But if you do that, why didn't you bulb Astro instead of Education in the first place? He is going to sit with three expensive techs (Paper, Edu, Lib) which will be doing nothing for him.

2) BGN got wrecked by founding Buddhism. It made his possible bulbpath towards Astro very awkward.

3) Donovan's start looks even worse than mine. Now after I can see it, I get that there was a method in his madness and he had an actual coherent long-term strategy. The idea, as I understand it, was to trade early expansion and economic development for a powerful classical army which would conquer someone's developed core. I believe it could have worked but on three conditions.

1. He should have been the only island civ and everyone else should have been on a massive Pangea. Otherwise he is wrecked by everyone getting Astro early.

2. He should have pushed out 20 turns earlier, otherwise civs which have expended conventionally are simply too powerful. Don't know if it was even possible. I suspect his execution was imperfect building both Stonegendge and the Oracle seems like too much.

3. He should have a conviniently placed juicy target.

Conditions 1 and 3 was not present, so this plan was doomed from T0. But I have a great repect to him for trying something unorthodox. This is why playing on random maps is good - people are pushed outside their comfort zone and try out new things.

[Gavagai]

While doing complicated logistics made a misclick, moved a galley before I put a crossbow on it. Now this crossbow cannot get to Kyros is time. Cannot even ask for a reload because I had combat this turn which went bad for me. Will uninstall civ, GG everyone

[Gavagai]

By the way, Donovan managed to swarm a C1 EI with 2 triremes and Galleys. Would never think that it is even possible but, apparently, spears killing tanks is meta once again.