[spoilers]Chumchu gives Huitzilopochtli his due

[chumchu]

Small update:

The barbarian incursion continues. First an archer and three warriors. Now a couple of spears arriving where our fifth city was supposed to be.

SD has also beefed up defenses so no surprise attack has been possible but I have shored up my defenses. Plan now is to plant my fifth city and then build a stack of HA. Horseback riding will arrive in 4 turns, until then I am building archers/spears and axes for defense.

[chumchu]

SD is in third to last place at the moment despite my failure to defend and I'm a slight bit behind him but not last at least =).

"Hannibal of Egypt: Superdeath
A combo I was thinking of myself. A defensive cautious player with an aggressive combo. Trying to make himself have to be aggressive maybe? Would be good neighbor to have after spears are up. Prediction: will try and attack someone early but hesitate and be turned back by spears."

My prediction turned out very good in the general sense except for the spear part where I failed by 1 crucial turn. I still do no get why he did not choke me to death afterwards, it would have saved him much hassle.

I have dealt with the barbarian invasion and building out to 6 cites to get more happiness. Then I am out of good spots, just tundra left with 1 deer and 1 whale not close to one another.

I have a 10 turn peace with SD and something like 10 beakers left on HBR. Have trade with pindicator as well and have gotten gems vs. gold with him. Together with the silver and furs from city 6 that is an decent happy cap. The plan now is to start whipping out an army of horses. It would have been nice to have the altars up by now but alas.

[Thoth]

Bit of good news for you: Sacraficial Altars reduce existing whip anger duration as well as new whip and draft anger duration.

[Charriu]

It amazes me that I still learn bits and pieces of this old game that I didn't know. Thanks Thoth.

[chumchu]

Some pictures as we approach turn 100. I'm solidly in 7th place but SD is not doing so great either.

Overview of small Aztec lands:



Graphs and Demos










The eastern wastes from whence come the barbarians:

[chumchu]

Declared war on SD with a stack of 10 HA to see if I could get back my rice copper city. His defenses there was too much, 7 units among which were 2 spears. Going to try for the old barb city instead. It has 4 defenders at the moment and I can attack it next turn with 10 units so it might work unless he reinforces. Hi units from Rice/copper can not get there in 1 turn though.

[Old Harry]

Got any more units on the way?

[chumchu]

The core cities have been whipping HA afap but they are only 4 out of 6 cities. The odds of us winning this conflict are bad but they are not going to get better with time:

- SD have 2 cities more than us and I am out of viable cities to expand to. It basically tundra far away with single deer resource. Those will be settled after CoL and currency but not before.There is a decent city location near Sunshrine that has a grassland forest deer and some forests but that one is not defensible until after I reconquer Sunshrine.
- He was 4 turns from currency when I started my build-up and I was nowhere near. Thankfully his response to my build-up has delayed that by a bit.
- I have HBR over him which gives a slight edge over WC:s.
- His power is about 20% above mine.

The only other neighbor is Gav but his power is 100% above mine, he has praetorians, and he has played very friendly towards us.

If I can take 1 or 2 cities from SD I have a reasonable chance of holding on in the long term. Without them, building eco is just more loot for SD after he gets construction.

I can win this if I can lure SD into making a mistake. I can probably take a city at a high cost by forking.

[chumchu]

It worked, sort of. I baited him to attack out of Sunshrine and critically he lost a spear. I then took the city with my horseman stack with the help of a GG. Losses were heavy, about 50/50 but that is okay when taking a city. Now I have 10 units in the theater (6 of them damaged) and 4 more produced next turn vs. his 7 full health units. I have also whipped 5 of my 6 cities and sent him a peace offer. 2 of those whips are actually for granaries but he does not know that =).

I'm trying to indicate to him that he might take back Sunshrine but I will kill those 7 units with my counterattack and that the reconquest of Sunshrine is what I want from this war.

[Hollybombay]

Any updates for the lurkers?