[SPOILERS] scooter Expands the Empire Across the Sea

[scooter]

We expect to be in OR only for about another 10 turns or so. Does there come a point where we should worry less about sending missionaries to new cities (and plan to build Castles for culture) and instead send missionaries to eastern core cities lacking Hinduism for Pacifism GPP? Or are all our GPs coming out of western core cities?

This is pretty much already happening FWIW. I am ferrying over a missionary to Black Coral over the next 2T, and next missionary build will also be in that theater. The missionaries to new cities has been focused mostly on cities that need the second ring seafood ASAP.

[scooter]

Ok one burning question from this turn. How am I just now learning of an easter egg in CtH in which "Where there's a whip, there's a way" plays? What triggers this? I assume it's random when you whip something? I was playing my turn and suddenly the song came on over top of the in-game music, and I had no idea what was going on.


I have never heard this before. I don't always play with the volume on, but I usually do. Is this well-known?





Settled city #28. Two more to go, though I have not queued settlers for either one yet. I probably will soon, but most of our settling spree is over.





Can confirm that Cairo was the big loser of the settling race, and SD/Yuris profited from it quite a bit. There's a big mass or two there in the middle that Cairo should have claimed a lot of, and instead he got almost none of it.





A wave of military builds is happening now. This is largely because I've got to get all these cities defended now as other players rapidly approach Galleons. Muskets will be a nice addition. I already have a Galleon loading up city defenders by Pale, and I'm doing the same on the other front shortly too.

[Zed-F]

I guess Cairo's losses in territory could be related to their early Stonehenge and lack of strong expansion traits. May have been decided before Cairo took over the civ, even. But I guess SD must have expanded rapidly up there to pink dot and then used PRO/CHA to defend it.

Yeah understandable that we need to get defenders in our new colonies. I think we probably want to prioritize Castles at those new colonies so we can make do with a modest number of defenders at each of them, also for culture and to defray expenses. Once we've got those defenders built in our core to be shipped to the periphery, we can squeeze in Castles in the western core before working on more offensive operations and Frigates (when available.)

[El Grillo]

I haven’t looked at the code, but I’m pretty sure the whip song plays at random, but only very infrequently. I think I’ve only heard it twice across a bunch of single player games.

[scooter]

Well I did mention awhile back that I thought it was worthwhile to load up spare units and see if any opportunities presented themselves. I have been doing this in the background for a bit. I loaded up 2 Galleons - one for each side of Superdeath, and went exploring. Unfortunately I hit a snag the other day.






I had been planning to simply boat a city from the fog. But now that my cover was blown, this turn I decided to throw down a gauntlet.





Cahokia is the Pyramids city. So I moved my Galleon up into vision in a spot that forks it + 2 other cities. Unfortunately, as soon as I did this I realized he may simply slam his two Caravels into the Galleon and would have a coin flip-ish chance of killing it with my 3 units. I noticed SD played and whipped a bunch, so I logged in to inspect the damage.





THAT is a tilter. My Galleon killed 3 Caravels while defending which is some really great luck. Unfortunately, he did manage to kill my scouting Caravel, so I no longer have vision. So we'll see what there is to see next turn. It seems almost impossible Cahokia would still be so lightly defended, but maybe Etowah or the iceplains city just south of it are still vulnerable. They were practically empty when I strolled through here a few turns ago. One was actually empty. So we'll see what we see next turn.





Meanwhile, on the other side, these cities were defended by a combined 1 unit a half dozen turns ago. If that's still the case, one will burn next turn. Fort Ancient preferably as it's the more developed city, but anything to push him back a bit is worth it.


SD offered me straight peace and I rejected. He whipped a ton. I am hoping he had to spend some $$ on upgrades. The hope here is I can 1) kill morale and 2) delay his Astro timing further at near-0 cost to myself. These were just scattered spare units I loaded up that are largely on the verge of obsoleting. They're being replaced with Muskets, Maces, and Longbows. Plus a little raze gold could speed me to Chemistry? I'm not sure if I'll score a raze or not, but it seemed like a cheap way to be annoying.


I was initially hunting his Pyramids city, as I didn't even know where it was until a few turns ago. I gotta assume it's safe, but we'll see how it all looks next turn.

[Zed-F]

That's a fortunate result alright. Hopefully there aren't other Caravels in the area that could hunt our Galleon down once it drops off some ground troops, and we can inflict some more lasting damage. I assume the second Galleon on that front is also loaded and looking for a fight.

[scooter]

Resolution to Bing/Yuris. Bing captured the city at great cost to both sides, and then they signed some sort of peace. I wonder why both sides insisted on fighting it out. But this is not what you are here for.





Just like last time, both of these cities were defended by a combined 1 unit. Unfortunately, in order to stay out of vision last turn, I could only reach one this turn. Bawaiting also is not really built up, so let's go after the bigger prize.


Sword vs Archer: 15% LOSS

Got a couple hits in which helps.






Axe vs Archer: 79% FLAWLESS LOSS


Ok that sucks. First, it kills my hopes of leaving one unit on board to kill Bawaiting the following turn. In addition, it makes the final fight loseable.






Drill 2 Xbow vs Archer: 92%





Flawless win, which admittedly was quite a bit more likely than the previous flawless loss. Burned. On to the other theater.





Due to my lost Caravel, I could not get vision on Cahokia while still leaving open the possibility of escaping. I also know the city was whipped for at least 2, possibly 3 pop, and I know SD can build Crossbows and Maces. So I decided to angle for Etowah. It was less likely to be reinforced, but also if it was too well-defended, I could keep moving towards the ice city. What I saw inside was an Archer and a Caravel, which meant just one defender plus the opportunity to kill a boat at port. So let's do this. I've got two CR1 Swords which could very well be enough on their own, plus a 3xp Crossbow to clean up.


CR1 Sword vs Archer: 15% LOSS

I did not do very much damage at all, getting just a single hit in.






Suddenly it's a little dicey, but it should be safe.


CR1 Sword vs Archer: 34% FLAWLESS LOSS


Crushing result here. I can't complain too much as I wouldn't be here without good RNG on SD's turn, but throwing in two CR1 Swords and getting a single hit out of them really sucked. I wonder in retrospect if I should have promoted the Crossbow to Drill2 and attacked with that first which would greatly increase the likelihood I get a hit or two in early which could have a large impact on later odds. However, the attack order was because the Swords are disposable, but the Crossbows still have value for me.





I decided to keep pressing. I saw no purpose in saving this Crossbow. I promoted to Cover rather than Drill2 as it seemed like it surely must be better given the Archer defender.


Drill1 Cover Crossbow vs Archer: 40%






Got it. Burned it to the ground. You may have noticed an additional prize.





Captured a couple workers. The second Galleon only had a single unit on it, but I did it anyway just in case it was useful. I should be able to load them up and return them. I may end up deleting them as I honestly have more workers than I need on this side of my empire, but I'll think about it.


I was going to delete the Crossbow that razed the city, but I realized something. Superdeath does not have Engineering, so that Crossbow is completely safe from any one-movers by land. It's unlikely he has any two-movers. So as long as he does not have units on board that Galley, the Crossbow will survive. And it's very unlikely he does because he likely thought it was going to get killed. So I'm pretty sure the Crossbow will live? The Galleon promoted to C1 and is just above 3Str right now, so it would take a couple Caravels to kill it, and considering he's lost 4 of them in the last turn, it's also unlikely he has more. So I think I can get out with all of these units.


I offered Superdeath white peace. Would be mildly surprised if he accepts, but I am OK with either path. He might accept peace as it gives him time to get some Galleons built, whereas right now he can't do anything. But it's hard to say.





Meanwhile I'm ferrying over real defenders to all my Astro holdings ASAP. Another Galleon completed from Aren, so I've got 4 of them in the area too, so I should be pretty well-covered for when he completes Astro. Next Galleon wave will include a Musket or two.





One fun side quest I've been on. I've been trying to figure out how to bring this Work Boat home for like 20 turns. It got culture trapped awhile ago, but Astronomy meant it could go in the ocean. However, Cairo's culture meant I could not get it back to Ice Island. I thought I could find an ice gap in Cairo's culture, but you can see the ice block by the Fish that prevented me. The GO-TO outlines roughly the path I took in reverse. Anyway, I was about to give up and delete when I found this goofy little ice pass right up to Superdeath's culture. Now, after all of this, there's a real chance he simply kills it. But I could theoretically escort it "home." Problem is that after all of this, I think I've netted all fish on my eastern half, so it's really only useful at Ice Island which will take too long.


So all that to say, I should probably delete it anyway and save on unit supply. But it's been a fun little adventure. Maybe I'll just use it as an ocean sentry if I can get it home.





Bing had a real drop in military. One thing that leaps out is my food exploded as a result of the settling spree. My food edge hovered around 30F for like 50T, and now it's exploded to ~100F. Food isn't too important right now, but it's a helpful reminder that the recent city settlements have a lot of potential that still isn't online yet. Others are starting to catch me on tech output, but there's some upside here still.



Finally, worth noting the razes netted me 222 gold which I think cut a turn off my Chemistry ETA.

[Zed-F]

Overall I think we can be happy with this result! Especially if SD accepts peace. He’s of course going to be upset but he might be vulnerable to morale effects, and just decide we are so far ahead there’s really not much he can do.

[scooter]

Overall I think we can be happy with this result! Especially if SD accepts peace. He’s of course going to be upset but he might be vulnerable to morale effects, and just decide we are so far ahead there’s really not much he can do.

Agreed. At the very least this sped my Chemistry tech by roughly .7 turns, which I think is going to round up and not down. And Superdeath lost 4 Caravels - which can threaten Galleons in sufficient numbers - in addition to 2 cities and a fair bit of pop spent whipping units that aren't Galleons. The population and city losses likely slow him by some fraction of 1 turn. Either it will round up to 1T, or it won't have any impact, but he'll have to cut more corners (wealth/research/specialists) to get to Astronomy.


As for morale - I think I mostly just have to convince SD and Yuris that they cannot win, and I'll get a concession. The other two are so far behind that I doubt they would stand in the way of anything. The Frigates -> MoM GA pipeline should impact that some too.

[scooter]

Superdeath took peace. Pros and cons for me.


Pros:

* Gives me time to get out a bunch of Frigates in the next 10T

* Reduces risk of a Yuris 2v1

* There's a chance this is a sign Superdeath's morale is indeed wiped out leaving me with just Yuris to, uh, discourage

* I get to bring a bunch of units home safe including 3 crossbows, all Galleons, 2 workers, and the Work Boat


Cons

* I still had a shot at killing that other city that was empty - if he had no Galleys within 2T of it, it was probably gonna die.

* This gives him 10T to scout me with Caravels risk-free and get his military in order

* Maybe also gives him 10T to organize a dogpile? Maybe?



Overall I think this is more positive than negative. Realistically, Frigates on the water will make any sort of overseas expedition downright impossible. It takes ~3-5 Caravels to kill a single Frigate depending on promotions/coast, and he now has 11 fewer build queues than me.