Astronaut without sin confounds press, invites trio to control civilization

[spacemanmf]

Nice work. This is cracking action, and it's not even got going properly.

[SevenSpirits]

Don't get me wrong, Mackoti can do some real damage here. If he forks Gany and Callisto with 12 knights this turn we have a good chance of losing Callisto. (We only have 12 maces plus assorted chaff to defend the two of them next turn.) I'd be surprised if we don't lose a city in this war, one way or another. I think we'll be prepared enough to not lose two though. Either way it's exciting. Lurkers should be quite happy about this game.

[novice]

Yeah, this is really exciting.
Veritable Cuban Missile Crisis.

Mackoti can still offer a reasonable peace treaty in the eleventh hour. Next turn we'll adopt slavery and start whipping, which will probably be the end of the diplomatic option, as both sides will have invested too much in the war effort.

Thumbs up for that naval battle!

[novice]

I ran 5 artists to pop its borders (should have started on this earlier, oh well) to 40% cultural defense

I estimate that Dione will reclaim that forest tile possibly by eot98, definitely by eot99, if we keep the artists hired until we're out of food. That's probably too late to matter. It seems more useful to draft a mace and whip a catapult there, and let the cultural war proceed at its natural pace (in which we'll reclaim the forest tile in 9 turns unless Pharsalos pops its borders first.)

EDIT: I also estimate that Pharsalos will pop borders to fourth ring in 10 turns.

[novice]

We have vision on 7 greek cities, and all of them have about 30 hammers in the box. So a new round of knight whips coming up next turn, most likely.

[novice]

Save is in. A lot of action!

The good news:


The bad news:


Mackoti tried to retaliate on our galleon stack but lost four caravels to no avail. Mackoti also attacked Dione and razed it, losing two knights. He's covered survivors with a mace and a crossbow, and has a full-health shock knight, so it looks like a counterattack on our part could be expensive.

Moreover, Luddicator declared war on Fierce. Fierce got two great generals this turn and lost no cities. As far as I can tell Fierce got the two generals prior to Luddicator's DoW.

I can't play until tonight.

[novice]

A little C&D, or procrastination as it's also called.

Mackoti saved 209 gold and discovered no techs.
Sian discovered Meditation, on his way to Philo and Liberalism, and saved 142 gold.
Luddicator discovered Polytheism, on their way to Literature, and saved 235 gold.
Yuri saved 169 gold and discovered no techs.
Fierce lost 5 gold and discovered no techs.

Mackoti's power increased by 25k and his score decreased by 20 (5 pop points). He lost 2 knights and 4 caravels on his turn, that's 2x10 + 4x3 = 32k.

So Mackoti produced new units worth 32k + 25k + 3k (power loss from lost population) = 60k = 6 knights. So he has at least 16 knights now (12 + 6 - 2).

Of the 7 cities we have visibility on, 4 of the mainland cities were whipped (Sparta was 3-whipped). Athens was not whipped, judging by top 5 cities. So it looks like Mackoti is whipping his mainland cities now, but letting the island cities recuperate since he has no navy anyway. The espionage screen confirms that Argos, Knossos and Eretria still have hammers in the box, whereas the whipped cities naturally don't.

[novice]

And got it.

[spacemanmf]

Sooo, you're nine-and-oh on the caravel killing? That's a nice run.

And you lost 4 maces and a city in killing those couple of knights? Superior strengtha and shock promotion more than countering across the river on a hill, eh.

[SevenSpirits]

Sooo, you're nine-and-oh on the caravel killing? That's a nice run.

And you lost 4 maces and a city in killing those couple of knights? Superior strengtha and shock promotion more than countering across the river on a hill, eh.

The knights had ~21-27% odds vs the maces. Two of the initial four won. Then the fifth won at ~50% and the 6th had an easy win. It "should" have cost him at least another knight.

4 maces for 2 knights is actualy not a bad trade for us since the maces are draftees and knights are 2-3 pop whips, but it's worse than expected. Anyway it's OK, and the naval luck makes up for it and then some.